Well, kinda. There are plenty of reasons why life is still very, very good for the 40-something-year-old offspring of rich-listers, but this week has been rough for those of them named in the rampant speculation about who could be the pedo with name suppression. At last count I have had no fewer than four names confidently whispered to me as pretty much definitely the man who has been convicted of knowingly possessing and importing thousands of objectionable material files. The content was child sex abuse material featuring little girls including torture. Customs uncovered 11,775 objectionable files including hundreds of hours of video.
According to NBR, the man has been sentenced to two years and five months in prison and is to be added to the child sex offender register. This is all revolting, but what has sparked discussion is the fact that the man’s name, his family’s name and their high-profile company have permanent name suppression.
It has resulted in men associated with New Zealand’s richest families being publicly named as the worst kind of scumbag. In a particularly egregious example, X’s AI platform Grok named a man who the New Zealand Herald has confirmed is not the convicted creep. He quite understandably is furious and is calling on the actual perp to out himself to stop innocent men being tarnished.
It has resulted in men associated with New Zealand’s richest families being publicly named as the worst kind of scumbag. In a particularly egregious example, X’s AI platform Grok named a man who the New Zealand Herald has confirmed is not the convicted creep. He quite understandably is furious and is calling on the actual perp to out himself to stop innocent men being tarnished.
Click to view - The inconsistency of who gets name suppression has rankled the public.
Labour will repeal the gang patch ban. No they won’t. Yes they will.
The by-election campaign is well underway for the Māori electorate seat of Tāmaki Makaurau in Auckland. As is par for course, the hopefuls are being asked to rule in or out policies and positions and this can be a minefield to navigate especially for bigger parties who want to appeal to broad audiences.
Peeni Henare has caused a spot of bother for Labour by confirming that his party will repeal the gang patch ban when they get back into Government. He was under pressure after Te Pāti Māori’s candidate Oriini Kaipara enthusiastically declared her party would. Subsequently, Labour’s Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni has awkwardly but emphatically walked this promise back saying the party will not repeal the act even though they aggressively denounced it when the Government passed it.
The plot thickens however, as Henare has doubled down saying he stands by saying he'd repeal the gang patch law. However, he has made a slight adjustment to his lines claiming it as a personal opinion that differs from the position of his party.
Video also shows the former minister asserting that Labour will bring back the Māori Health Authority and defending his work as Whānua Ora Minister when he upped funding for the agnecy to $182million per year and saying “we were able to take money from Corrections, take money from Oranga Tamariki to put it into the pipeline of Whānau Ora.” He was defending it because Kaipara promised Te Pāti Māori would make that figure one billion dollars per year.
Robertson has a book to sell, but won’t go before Covid Inquiry
Last week I covered the refusal of Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins, and Ayesha Verrall to front up to publicly answer questions about their decision making through the pandemic. They lawyered up, generously funded by taxpayers, and went into hiding. Well, kinda. Grant Robertson has a book to flog so he was still on the media circuit and standing by his extraordinary overspend; a large part of which Treasury has revealed was spent on non-pandemic projects and matters.
Australia and New Zealand lag behind in re-accepting reality
In totally infuriating news a parliamentary committee over the Tasman has explicitly included men in examining the impact of stillbirths on women. What utter batshittery.
Click to view
Labour gets two member’s bill passed in one week
Camilla Belich shepherded her Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill through the House and Tracey McLellan did the same with the Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill. It is hard work to get bill passed from Oppostion and the two MPs will have had to do a fair bit of cross-party negotiating.
One bill caused some friction on the Government side of the House with both ACT and New Zealand First opposing Belich’s bill and voicing some harsh criticism of National for not doing the same. However, McLellan’s bill had the support of the entire House. She said “it is about recognising that victims of family violence should not be retraumatised by the very institution charged with protecting them."
Israeli Prime Minister condemns New Zealand
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on a British podcast about the actions of Western leaders regarding Palestine and accused them of being weak in the face of domestic activism.
Stuff reports:
Netanyahu said he thought it was “shameful” the way “western leaders in Britain, in France, in Canada, in New Zealand” have “buckled under” the pressure of pro-Palestinian protesters.
Last week, Christopher Luxon said Netanyahu had “lost the plot” drawing a response from an Israeli politician who said New Zealand’s “most deadly enemy is a possum or a cat.”
Proponents of global climate agreements warn government not to exit
Unsurprisingly, New Zealand’s environmental and foreign affairs agencies are playing Chicken Little and predicting dire fall out should New Zealand back out of destructive and pointless global agreements on climate targets which the biggest emitters already ignore.
Radio New Zealand reports that a mistakenly released document reveals Ministry For the Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) warnings:
The paper warned that if the government decided not to meet New Zealand's first target under the Paris Agreement, it could impact a "delicate" hard-won global agreement and risk "undermining confidence in the solidarity of our climate effort" and harming "a number of our priority relationships".
Media are only too willing to amplify the crisis narrative and contribute to pressuring the Government to continue policies that are endangering our energy security and driving up energy costs. Poverty and instability are less important than appearing to behave according to the demands of overseas organisations.
National works to paint a picture of economic recovery progress
I have been very hard on National and their inability to communicate and connect with New Zealanders to convey the message that they are having successes in restoring economic stability. This week they have made some improvement on this with MPs taking to social media to demonstrate what interest rates dropping means in real terms for Kiwis with mortgages.
These are significant per year savings and the exact kind of information they should be sharing with voters.
The Reserve Bank’s Chief economist Paul Conway also pointed to the improvements saying “Monetary policy is working. It is passing through. It’s affecting mortgage rates and deposit rates, and it is showing up on the real side.”
Labour hope New Zealanders don’t notice their trickery
The Opposition have had massive success in decrying the cost of butter and now they have moved on to the rising cost of mince. Labour thinks they’ve landed a killer blow by tweeting about the rising cost of mince under National. But higher meat prices don’t just mean frustration at the checkout, they also signal stronger export demand, better returns for farmers, and more money flowing into New Zealand. Every extra dollar paid for New Zealand beef exports helps to sustain jobs, boost regional economies, and bring in vital income. Labour is deliberately omitting that a strong global market for our food is good news for the country.
Click to view
Defence acquisitions announced
Judith Collins brandished a model Seahawk helicopter in the House this week, a prop to drive home her point that after decades of neglect, New Zealand is finally upgrading its defence kit.
The Government’s $2.7 billion defence upgrade is the largest single spend on military hardware in a generation. After years of running down our capabilities, New Zealand will finally replace old aircraft with new Airbus A321 jets and American-made Seahawk helicopters. The move signals a long-overdue recognition that our region is not immune to global instability, and that the days of free-riding on our allies’ defence spending are numbered.
Teacher’s Union quick to exit negotiations and threaten strikes
Teachers are once again locked in bruising pay negotiations with the Government, and the familiar script is playing out: unions demanding salary hikes, while ministers plead fiscal restraint and the need to “balance the books.” The debate was only inflamed when Public Service Minister Judith Collins inadvertently mixed up her numbers and claimed teachers with ten years’ experience earn an average of $140,000. While it is true some senior teachers earn this, it is not an average.
The Government has been quick to push back on the cries of unfairness from the Union, pointing out that teachers have already received a 14.5% pay increase over the past two years thanks to one of the largest settlements in the public sector. Ministers argue that in a tight fiscal environment, with every department jostling for more funding, it’s unrealistic for teachers to expect further big jumps on top of what’s already been delivered. They say the focus now should be on lifting classroom performance and reducing disruption for families, not returning to the picket lines.
Just give him a Nobel Peace Prize if he pulls this off
Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House this week, joined by an entourage of European leaders including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO chief Mark Rutte. The summit was pitched as a show of unity, with Ukraine pressing for ironclad U.S. security guarantees while Trump sought to be the peace broker.
In short - other stuff that happened:
- The Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee cut the OCR to 3%.
- Marama Davidson’s Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill has lost the support of New Zealand First and now looks unlikely to pass.
- Sports New Zealand continues to put up a fight about being told to back off pressuring sporting bodies to allow males to compete in female sport.
- The union representing Corrections staff claims riots and violence in prisons is continuing to rise. Minister of Corrections Mark Mitchell disputes this saying: "There is no evidence of - and Corrections confirm they haven't seen - an increase of major incidents of disruption.”
- A petition before Parliament is demanding sweeping changes to how sex offenders are dealt with. You can sign it here.
- Helen Clark is playing the old record that misogyny drove Jacinda Ardern out of politics again this week. This is despite Ardern giving many reasons for leaving, but not that.
- A vet clinic in Auckland received more than 450 applications for a receptionist job.
- Fashion Week (August 25–30) returns to Auckland to celebrate 30 years of Kiwi design.
- 18-year-old Luke Littler won the New Zealand Darts Masters.
- New Zealand’s spy agency has warned the country faces its most dangerous security climate in decades, with mounting threats of foreign interference from China, Russia, and Iran, alongside a sharp rise in homegrown extremism and lone-wolf radicalisation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admits that his country has been losing the propaganda war for some twenty-five years.
Click to view
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment