The Minto myth (updated)

Poneke explains why John Minto was one of the heroes of his formative years, and why he is no longer.

A good read, and topical, since Minto has made news for refusing to accept the South African award of the Order of Companions of Oliver Tambo, reserved for “eminent foreign nationals and other foreign dignitaries for friendship shown to South Africa.”

Yet was the award even offered?  As Liberty Scott has spotted, Reuters says he was never offered the award in the first place.  A statement from the office of the President of South Africa states:

  The Presidency has noted publication of an open letter addressed to President Thabo Mbeki written by Mr. John Minto of New Zealand.
   In the letter, Mr. Minto claims, amongst other things, to have been nominated for the prestigious Order of the Companions of OR Tambo.In this regard, the Presidency wishes to place it on record that Mr. Minto has not, as a matter of fact, been nominated as a candidate for any of our national orders.

Minto is no hero.  He's a destructive fool and a liar.

UPDATE: From Liberty Scott:

Minto has now been reported in the Dominion Post as saying "South African sports minister Reverend Makhenkesi (Arnold) Stofile told him at his home last year he had been nominated for the award." Oh so no letter John? No written evidence? Funny that. Given this is a man who once said the death of the Kahui twins was "society's" fault, it's no surprise that he has his own portable reality generator. I guess a journalist will now interview the South African sports minister ... his contact details are here.

The Great Minto Lawn Squat

Since John Minto doesn't appreciate the property rights he's blessed with, The Whig suggests we go squat on 'his' lawn in Ethel St, Balmoral in order that he might begin to understand the blessings of secure property rights he seems so eager to spurn.  Seems fair enough to me. After all, it's only a stone's thrown from the streets in which he and his goons used to block traffic in 1981.

"Remember, it's not John's lawn, it's the people's lawn!" says The Whig, At least it is according to John.  Let's give him an enlightening educational experience about the usefulness of the secure property rights he's so eager to disparage.

Sign up for the experience at The Whig's weblog.

The "long march through the culture," and the need to attack Trevor

Several blogs including The Hive, Quest for Security and Poneke have been all a-giggle about old Trevor Loudon and his predilection, they say, for seeing "communist fronts" everywhere, even in places as unlikely as the NZ-China Friendship Society.

Taking on established bloggers is par for the course for newer blogs like these bidding for attention, but the Hive and Poneke have enough integrity not to get their facts wrong  when they start a blog war, and they're good enough not to have to resort to blog wars to attract readers.  It's sad that they think they have to.

Gigglers like the 'Quest' bloggers are just useful idiots who know no better, but Hive and Poneke are intelligent enough, I would have thought, to know that the use of front organisations has been a pre-eminent strategy by communists for at least the last ninety years in injecting the foul bacillus of communism into the culture, and to know that if that wasn't the case it wouldn't be necessary to have people like Trevor eager to lift up the rocks of these front organisations to see what's crawling around behind the shiny public faces.

The "long march through the culture" that communism has enjoyed over the last ninety years, despite its bloody history over all of those years, was largely the result of 1)the 'moral disarmament' caused by the suffusion of religious morality and its extolling of sacrifice as a moral virtue -- a political blank cheque the communists have been ready, willing and better placed than the religionists to pick up -- and 2)the strategic thinking of (first) Leon Trotsky, and thence of one Antonio Gramsci, the co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, a talented theoretician who, as Lindsay Perigo explains,

put a distinctively modern, relativist stamp on traditional, dogmatist Marxism. He is Marx laced with Machiavelli (a Gramsci pin-up). Marx had implied the existence of truths independent of human perception; Gramsci cleansed Marx of any taint of objectivity and proclaimed that truth was entirely "pragmatic," "praxis"-driven, determined by the interests of the revolution. Marx had preached the historical inevitability of the triumph of socialism, independent of man's will; Gramsci taught that only the wilful, conscious but clandestine subversion of capitalist culture at every level—a "long march through the culture" as he put it—could effect revolution. He was frustrated that the proletariat had not only failed to rise up against capitalism but had seemingly grown enamoured of it! This infernal reactionary ourage he attributed to the bourgeoisie's "cultural hegemony," their domination of churches, schools, the media, the unions, the arts, etc. The bourgeoisie therefore had to be beaten at their own game, their institutions infiltrated by intellectual moles ... and, by a long, silent, subtle process, brought down.

The moles' agenda was not to be "revolution" explicitly, but something unexceptionable on its face, couched in weasel words with which we're all too familiar: "consensus," "mandate," "justice," "pluralism," "community," "democracy," "global [insert marshmallow noun here]," and so on. (Note the names of two of the groups associated with New Zealand's recent "terrorist camp" raids: “Global Peace and Justice Auckland,” spearheaded by communist John Minto, and “Peace Action Wellington”!)

Ever wondered why the church is riddled with atheist priests?
Think Gramsci!
Where "Liberation Theology" (Marxism set to Catholicism) came from?
Think Gramsci!
Why our schools and universities place social consensus above genuine learning and deal in the currency of Marxism disguised as mush?
Think Gramsci!
Why our newspapers and TV networks, now full of graduates from the schools and universities, do the same?
Think Gramsci!
Why "corporates" are universally despised as evil, even by the corporates themselves?
Think Gramsci!
Why the United States, the last semi-repository of bourgeois values, is "The Great Satan" to Muslim and non-Muslim alike all over the globe?
Think Gramsci!
Where the editor of Salient gets this sort of stuff from, "rebutting" my column on Global Warming:
"Go about your business now, keep consuming. The mindless corporations are protecting your interests— believe it—only lefty politicians subvert real science. Rest assured, greed is a good thing."

[For all of these manifestations of nonsense], Think Gramsci! Via Chomsky in this last instance—but remember where Chomsky got it from!

Other contemporary luminaries influenced by Gramsci include the pomowanker Foucault; and unsurprisingly, and, chillingly, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who just couldn't wait to bring his troops home from Iraq. Brown the weasel-worder, who has forbidden public servants to use the words "Muslim" and "terrorist" next to each other!

There's no question that the Left has taken its "long march through the culture" with devastating success. We are assailed by their bromides at every turn, and the Right has been mortally corrupted by them (as well as its own contradictions). Their "long march," with Gramsci at the helm, has dragged the world to the abyss of totalitarian Hell.

Thank goodness then for the likes of Trevor Loudon, who are happy to keep track of the "long march," however surreptitious the marchers, and for the likes of Lindsay Perigo, who unlike so many others knows that it's going to be a long haul back from the pomowankers and the nihilists, and via a very different path.

"We lovers of reason and freedom have to do a Gramsci of our own," says Perigo, but in favour of reason and freedom and capitalism.  This is a long march on which our culture is in desperate need. 

Who's with us?

Minto vs history (updated)

In a recent Herald opinion piece former NZ Prime Minister Mike Moore made a statement obvious enough to any student of history not blinded by flawed ideology: "Without secure property rights poverty will endure."

John Minto is blinded by flawed ideology.  Point number one of Marx's Communist Manifesto calls for the abolition of private property.  Leon Trotsky pointed out with some glee that where there is no private ownership, individuals can be easily bent to the will of the state under threat of starvation or worse.  John Minto still lives in the shadows cast by these two gentlemen, leading him to place before Herald readers this morning the outrageous lie that "property rights often mean little, if anything, to people in poverty."

It's hard to know here to start with this claim.  He begins by lying about poverty in the US, carries on to ignore the history of property rights and the wholesale destruction of poverty whenever property rights were protected, and concludes with his outrageous lie intended to gull careless readers into accepting his own malodorous world view.

The fact is that property rights protect our lives and the fruits of our labours -- they allow us to pan long range.  As Hernando de Soto points out (de Soto being one of the folk singled out of Minto's barbs), when property rights are insecure, residents of poor shanty towns build their furniture before their walls or roofs.  That's rational behaviour when time horizons are short. As property rights become more secure and their time horizons become longer, however, people can build their walls, their roofs, and then plant crops and trade and make plans that take months or even years to come to fruition.  This is what it means to create wealth - wealth being the opposite of poverty, as some of you might recall.

If Mr Minto is blind to those basic facts, there's no need for you to be.

The fact is, the material values we each produce keep us alive, and allow us to flourish.  Only ghosts can survive without this property; human beings cannot.  Secure property rights allow us to project our values into longer and longer time horizons; the more secure, the further our horizons.  They allow us to bring to bear the unmatchable power of our minds to the pursuit and creation of wealth and human flourishing.

Unlike other animals, human beings cannot survive as we come into the world; in order to stay alive and to flourish we each need to produce and to keep the fruits of our production.

Tom Bethell’s landmark book The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages traces successes and disasters of history consequent upon the respective recognition or denial of property through the ages: Ireland’s potato famine, the desertification of the Sahara and the near-disasters of U.S. colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth can all be traced to lack of respect for property.  The glorious triumph of the Industrial Revolution is the greatest vindication.

In Bethell's book (every home should have a copy), he identifies four crucial blessings of property that, he says,

cannot easily be recognised in a society that lacks the secure, decentralised, private ownership of goods. These are: liberty, justice, peace, and prosperity. The argument of [his] book [and of history] is that private property is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for these highly desirable social outcomes.

Property rights give us a Turangawaewae, a firm place to stand deserving of legal protection.  Their identification and recognition was an enormous advance in intellectual history, and the practical result of their application across both history and geography has been the destruction of poverty.

It is only the poverty of stale Marxism that could blind a man to something so obvious.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: More posts on Property Rights.

UPDATE 1: Liberty Scott points out "there is a country that echoes Minto’s vision of virtually no property rights, and the sort of true democracy I was talking about – its capital is Pyongyang. Global Peace and Justice is the euphemism for Global Revolution and Socialism."

UPDATE 2: Owen McShane and Paul Walker weigh in against Minto with superbly swinging blows.

Command and control education okay, says Minto

The Urewera 17 transcripts and John Minto's close association with all the protagonists was enough to show that the motives of his Global Peace and Justice mob were the reverse of those suggested by the name.  It was certainly neither peace nor justice that the snipers' rifles and molotov cocktails were intended to produce.  Minto's other interest, of course, is the Quality Public Education Forum, and like GPJ, it's another mis-named front.  As his rebuke to Tim Shadbolt over the issue of educational innovation demonstrates, it's neither quality nor education that interests him.  It's control.

Southland Institute of Technology (SIT) has used the government's tertiary 'voucher scheme' to deliver innovative education systems country-wide, says SIT's mayoral champion Tim Shadbolt, in courses that compete with other providers in both content and delivery.  But the government's new command-and-control tertiary scheme, which has seen him announce a year-long campaign of opposition, will kill SIT's innovative approach, he says, and kill off the opportunity of education for many youngsters who relish the teaching tools used in SIT's classrooms.  "There are kids in South Auckland who will miss out [if the courses are dropped]," says Shadbolt, pointing out for example that SIT's courses that use TV and computers as teaching tools had been successful with those who had difficulty in traditional classrooms. "A lot of street kids find paperwork off-putting. They're more comfortable with computers and TV and are prepared to have a go."

But this is competition and innovation delivering quality education.  That's not what Minto is for.  Minto literally wants to "erase 'entrepreneurialism' from the curriculum."  Showing his true colours, Minto insists Shadbolt and SIT should sit still, stop innovating, and do just as the education commissars tell them to, which means to butt out of competing and possibly showing up other educational providers.  Competition in education, under which SIT and its students have flourished, creates a "pointless and wasteful turf war" according to Minto, adding nothing to education "but the false notion of choice based on glossy brochures."  Such is Minto's notion of competition.  Organisations competing for your favour create a "pointless and wasteful turf war" and "a false notion of choice based on glossy brochures."  He would prefer the system more familiar to Soviet housewives, it seems: the empty shelves and substandard produce of a commissar controlled collective.

It would be a "tragedy for all young New Zealanders," says Minto, "if Mayor Shadbolt's campaign to undermine the new [command and control] funding mechanism is successful."  In fact, it would be an even greater tragedy if Minto were accepted as a genuine supporter of quality education.  Like peace and justice, it's of little interest to him except as a front for his real interest: Marxism.

UPDATE: By the way, if you're wondering why the the names of two of the groups associated with New Zealand's recent "terrorist camp" raids sound so benign ("Global Peace and Justice Auckland," spearheaded by communist John Minto and "Peace Action Wellington" by sniper rifle trainee Valerie Morse), then as Lindsay Perigo suggests, "Think Gramsci."

Fifty years ago at school ...

Situation:  Johnny and Mark get into a fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.
2007 - Police called, armed offenders team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it. School inundated for weeks with Victim Support counsellors.

Situation:  Jeffrey won't sit still in class, and frequently disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good caning by Headmaster. Returns to class, sits still.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money because Jeffrey has a disability.

Situation:  Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car, and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normally, goes to uni, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse.  Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang.  Psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison.  Billy's Mum has affair with psychologist.

Situation:  Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with teacher.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Situation:  Sione fails high school English.
1957 - Sione gets extra tuition, passes English, goes to Uni.
2007 - Sione's cause is taken up by counsellors.  Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.  Class action lawsuit filed by John Minto against Ministry and Sione's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Sione given NZQA unit papers anyway for effort and hurt feelings, and ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Situation:  Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model aeroplane paint bottle, and blows up an ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - Local police & noise control called. Johnny charged with  domestic terrorism, parents investigated, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Situation:  Johnny falls while running during morning tea and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary.  Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in prison while Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

EPILOGUE:

** In 1957 the novel Atlas Shrugged was published.  It became a best-seller, was found in a Library of Congress survey to be the second most influential book in America after The Bible, and was recently described by The New York Times as "One of the most influential business books ever written." 

** In 2007 the best-seller was a recommendation from Oprah's book club about the author's "year-long search for spiritual meaning."

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Read more about this book...

Don't send stupidity to college

Very pleased to hear that Auckland University is taking what's been reported to be the unusual step of applying entrance standards to the people wishing to enter their hallowed portals to study arts, education, science, theology and first-year law. It's not exactly applying a standard of excellence to run the rule over entrants before they rock up and start filling your lecture halls, but it might at least be the beginning of a move towards one.

I'm sure many people were surprised to hear that few practical standards have been applied up to now in selecting entrants for these courses -- that "open entry" is considered the norm. I'm sure however that many people won't have been surprised to hear the bleating that has accompanied this announcement.

"We are shutting the door on the potential students and achievers of the future," said Auckland University Student Association education vice-president David Do, for example, demonstrating in a stroke why entrance criteria need to be raised to exclude those like Mr Do without even the brains they were born with: It is obviously beyond the wit of Mr Do to realise that those who fail to achieve the bare minimum necessary to enter a university are unlikely to be sort of material from which potential students and achievers of the future are made -- not at least in an academic environment -- or to notice that graduates with theology degrees are hardly likely to be setting the world on fire in any case (this is perhaps one course where entrance standards could be set so high as to exclude all entrants. But I digress.)

And John Minto illustrates PJ O'Rourke's point that earnestness is just stupidity sent to college, demonstrating in one short self-contradictory press statement that entrance standards excluding the stupid should have been applied more rigorously in Minto's day: the whole country and Minto himself would surely have been better off if the man had become a panel beater.

Libertarianz Education Spokesman Phil Howison summarises the position perfectly:

"The sad fact is that with lower standards and a general 'dumbing down' of academia, degrees are worth much less than they used to. Higher entrance standards will benefit all Auckland University students, by improving the reputation of the institution," Mr. Howison pointed out. "The role of the NCEA should also be mentioned. It is this assessment system which often leaves tertiary institutions and employers befuddled when attempting to assess a candidate's ability."

I look forward to this more rational admissions policy taking hold in other groves of academe throughout the country.

UPDATE: Oops. Looks like the mandarins at Auckland University are already running scared at being tarred as, gulp, "elitists"! Deputy Vice-Chancellor for the Braindead Professor Dalziel this morning rejected the suggestion that the proposal could "risk a slide to elitism" -- an unfortunate metaphor, really, since it would be the only slide in Christendom with a trajectory pointing upwards. In any case, the Braindead Vice-Chancellor confirmed that "special entry schemes" for the braindead, the retarded and those with IQs approaching those of Mr Minto's and Mr Do's already run in courses with restricted entry and "it was envisaged similar arrangements would be used."

So there you go. Standards schmandards, says Uni. If you really want standards, then perhaps panel beating school would be better.

"Very disturbing" evidence online

KiwiBlog and MikeE both report that the "New Zealand Civil Liberties Union" home page has a download of the surveillance evidence filed in the Manukau District Court to obtain the search warrants on the so called 'Urewera 17.' There is no link given, but I understand Google can do amazing things.

As Mike says, this is definitely NOT "what you'd hear in any gun club," despite John Minto describing it that way after hearing it all in court. It is this stuff about which Minto said everyone in the public gallery was laughing -- "everyone" included the likes of Jane Kelsey, Nandor Tanczos and the editors of Socialist Worker's 'Unity' magazine, ie., the ones whose "friends" were "kidnapped by state terrorists."

The litmus test for "social justice"

The activities of the Urewera 16 are becoming clearer, giving all advocate of "social justice" to declare their commitment to renouncing force.

Presented with the opportunity to nail their colours to the mast and issue a ringing condemnation of violence -- to come out against taking up arms against "the white man"; against a wish that "bullets start going through people"; against any suggestion of "a bombing campaign that blew up Waihopai spy base, power dams, gas facilities, TV stations and radios" and a terror campaign so sudden and so brutal "they'll think it's al Qaeda" -- what do the advocates for global peace and social justice do instead?

 What do so called advocates of peace, equality, non-violence and non-racism do in the face of excerpts from transcripts of police surveillance showing those acting in the name of those aspirations prepared to carry out actions markedly less pacifist than their supposed aims? 

The reaction from the fellow travellers is instructive.

 Do they condemn? Do they hell.

 They turn their heads away instead and whine about everything from our "racist" police force (who arrested three Maori out of seventeen who were charged) to "heavy handed" treatment of some suspects, to the publication of these oh so revealing transcripts -- but they have refused to condemn what's revealed in those transcripts.

That in itself is enormously revealing. Make no mistake, this is a litmus moment: a time when people who support the stated ends of those arrested can and should make make it clear that they are revolted by their chosen and now-stated means. But for the most part they aren't doing that, are they.

 Even 'Bomber' Bradbury has invited them to, saying repeatedly:

"NO PEACE ACTIVIST - NO SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVIST HAS ANY RIGHT TO PICK UP A GUN IN NZ! And the second you do pick up a gun - you are no longer a member of a social justice movement." 

Would that others in that camp said the same. But they aren't, and we're entitled to make a judgement about what that means.

 Instead of condemning the aspirations for blood lust, Keith Locke for example has come out against ... The Dominion. Given the Greens already called those arrested “Maori, peace and environmental activists,” with whom the Greens presumably see some common cause, it would appear there is prima facie evidence here that, for the Greens (or at least for Keith Locke), being a peace activist gives one carte blanche to cheer about murder. It wouldn't be the first time, would it.

And fellow traveller of many of those arrested Nandor Tanczos said a year ago that he had "spoken to people" who see a future of "permanent civil unrest and eventually when the demographics change enough, for outright war" and it "frightens the hell" out of him. Where is he now that when what frightened him is more public? Like Trevor Loudon, I'd like to think his silence indicates he's telling the police all he knows, no matter how minor it may seem. But I don't for moment think that's what the silence of this "mainstream environmentalist" indicates, do you?

Meanwhile Iti's lawyer Annette Sykes, the woman who twelve years ago called for the burning of forests and the blowing up of dams, and who "clapped and cheered" when 3000 people were murdered in destruction of the World Trade Center, is heading to the UN to seek "justice" for the people "terrorised" by the police carrying out search warrants, but not before condemning ... that's right, the publication of transcripts showing her client(s) for what they are.

And John Minto, co-organiser with many of those arrested of a ragbag of radical groups, found time to condemn as "despicable" ... what do you think? ... the media. Ne mention of how despicable it is to arm and train and plan for murder.

And Jamie Lockett's lawyer is equally outraged that the public might read for themselves the true nature of his client is joined by fellow lawyer Moana Jackson who is "appalled" -- appalled! -- at ... no, not at the revelations of violent hatred and blood lust but "the lack of journalistic responsibility" shown in telling the public what his client(s) are really like, and particularly that "Fairfax printed selective items from a huge volume of evidence." I doubt whether we should take that to mean that all the evidence should be made public.

And then there's dear old Peter Williams, QC, who's made a healthy living over the years from defending scum in court (and campaigning for a more comfortable stay in prison for the scum when they go down), who used the word "cowardly" yesterday when commenting on the transcripts. No, not the aspirations stated therein to "to kill Pakeha to get trainees used to killing" or "to assassinate the prime minister, the new one, next year's one." No, that wasn't what stated this officer of the court calls cowardly -- what he condemns as cowardly is the publication of these statements. That tells you as much about Mr Williams as you'd ever care to know.

And we're entitled to draw conclusions too from the likes of blogger Idiot Savant, who like Keith Locke condemns the publishing, condemning the aspirations of violence only elliptically with his comment on Jamie Lockett, and from TV3's John Campbell, who (as Lindsay Perigo identifies), "dismiss its significance because of the small number of people involved." Crikey, even Jordan Carter can find it within himself to express a little momentary distaste. But not I/S.

There's really only one of the usual suspects so far who emerges from this litmus test with a better colour. The Maori Party early on nailed their colours to those accused being angels, and Pita Sharples disgraced himself by quickly pulling out the race card and waving it in the face of the evidence, but he has at least said "Make no mistake - we are absolutely and categorically horrified by the threatening language we have read in the paper today."

Signs of hope, perhaps? It is at least an indication to some of these other fellow travellers the sort of response they now need to take, or to be judged accordingly.

For my own part, let me repeat what I've already said here:

There is a vast gulf between genuine civil disobedience and the "direct action" supported by so called peace activists and anarchists and anti-colonialists, and I for one find it instructive that defenders of the arrested seventeen wish to conflate the two. There is an unstated assumption that because the state so often uses force in promoting its values, that this somehow legitimises ragtag envy-ridden whiners using force to promote values. It doesn't. Two evils don't whitewash the fallacy. Ayn Rand makes the point as clear as it can be:

One does not and cannot "negotiate" with brutality, nor give it the benefit of the doubt. The moral absolute should be: if and when, in any dispute, one side initiates the use of physical force, that side is wrong—and no consideration or discussion of the issues is necessary or appropriate.

Clear enough for you?

Lindsay Perigo drives the point home:

The greatest good to come from the terror raids may not be the stopping of the terrorists in their tracks, excellent and noble though that certainly be, but the exposure of their vile apologists for what they are.

[Thanks to Liberty Scott and Trevor Loudon, whose well-researched posts were invaluable in writing this one. Any errors of course are mine.]

UPDATE 1: The young idiots at Socialist Worker, whose "friends" was who were arrested, continue the theme. These erstwhile advocates of the rule of law condemn the "contempt for the judicial process" shown in exposing the extent of their friends' vileness, while carefully avoiding any judgement of what their friends were up to. If you think it's because they think you're stupid, then you'd be right.

UPDATE 2: Kudos for once to Shane Jones, who told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking:

I rather suspect that a lot of the characters mixed up in this rubbish up in Tuhoe and various other parts are using the cloak of Maoriness to disguise and obscure criminality and soon as the cops round the buggers up and treat them as criminals the better.

"Very disturbing activities" in the Dom

Your job for today is to read and digest the Dominion's publication of the transcripts of police surveillance that were used to obtain search warrants when police suspected terrorist plots were under way.

Feel free to comment as you're reading.

UPDATE 1: Short summary (partly pinched from Liberty Scott) of bugged conversations:

• Threat to blow up John Key
  
• Calls to kill police and evict non-Maori farmers;
• Talk of using a sniper's rifle to assassinate US President Bush;
• Making nail bombs and napalm;
• How to throw Molotov cocktails;
• Live ammunition training in ambush and withdrawal;
• Interrogation training using loaded firearms pointed at trainees' heads;
  
• Blowing up power stations, gas plants, Telecom, petrol stations and the Waihopai Spy Station;
• "Kill Pakehas" for practice;
• Wanting to emulate the IRA's terror campaign;
• Using the "Al Qaeda manual" on terror tactics, and wanting to emulate Al Qaeda's horror.

UPDATE 2: Here's some talking points for you:

• This is not the full evidence, simply short and selective summaries of the 156-page affidavit used to obtain search warrants in the Manukau District Court. Should the Dom have published these few excerpts? Should they have published more? Or placed the whole document on their website?
  

And, based on these few transcripts:

• Were the police justified in their surveillance? In the level of force used in raids? Did they act too soon? Or two days too late?
• Any evidence here to justify charges of police racism?
  
• To what extent were these conversations just idle threats and throwaway remarks? How seriously should the police take "idle threats" when they're backed up with training, materiel and people motivated enough to carry them out?
• Is it obvious enough now why the defendants, their lawyers and the Minto Mob did all they can to keep all the evidence suppressed?
  
• "Peace" activists? If these were your "friends," would you be defending them?
  
• "I have nothing to hide," said Tame Iti on returning home. Really?
  
• How seriously should we take John Minto, Jane Kelsey, Nandor Tanczos et al who sat in court listening to these conversations being read out, and still insisted that there was nothing to answer for?
• How seriously should we take journalists who sat in court listening to these conversations being read out, and who still treated Tame Iti as a hero, and the rest of the rabble with kid gloves?

I'm inclined to agree with Scott's conclusion, that there's a few people who need to front up:

Go on, it's time for Keith Locke to express his view, as a self proclaimed peace campaigner now that evidence is out. It is time for the Maori Party to decide what it believes in - do you oppose political violence? Do you oppose murder? Do you oppose mass vandalism to destroy the economy? Do you oppose violent evictions of farmers from their private property? Or is your support for peace about as skin deep as your support for freedom? At least Maia inadvertently may be quite true in her post, as a friend of the fascist left.

Oh, and when you see the hikoi supporting those who support terrorism, you might tell them what you think of them. Methinks those on the hikoi might go home and reflect on who their friends are.

UPDATE 3: Lindsay Perigo praises the Dom for growing a pair:

"The Dominion Post's decision to take the 'publish and be damned' approach I yesterday urged on TV3 toward the evidence on which the police anti-terror raids were based is vindicated by the evidence thus revealed," says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo. "So are the raids themselves. And TV3 are exposed yet again as the abject fellow-travellers of those whom I have so rightly been calling the 'wannabe terrorists.'

Read the whole press release here.

"Very disturbing..."

The leak to TV3 of the transcripts of police surveillance of the 'Urewera 16' highlights again the problem of discussing a serious issue without the central facts of the matter, and of who exactly has been fighting to keep the facts from public view.

It also invites speculation about what motives might be for keeping the facts hidden.

Several commenters at Tumeke! have touched on this, on something that Minto's loose coalition of anti-colonial, anti-globalisation, anti-industry and anti-life protestors seem to have overlooked -- or it seems at least that they'd sure like it be overlooked -- and it's this: Despite repeated bleating about 'hidden trials' and 'suppressed evidence' and 'secret court hearings' and the like from these protestors and their Minto and Locke and Indymedia mouthpieces (it's worth noting that two-thirds of the editors of Indymedia are one-eighth of the 'Urewera 16') it's not the police or the prosecutors who want to keep everything under wraps, it's the defendants themselves.

Let's not forget that it was not the Crown prosecutors but the defendants' own lawyers who did their level best to ensure that the media couldn't report the evidence as it appeared in the just-completed bail hearings (The Crown itself took "the unprecedented stance of supporting the media's right to photograph and cover the entire hearing, with lawyer Ross Burns saying it had come under criticism for holding some earlier hearings in private. Because of 'the real and genuine interest' in the charges, it wanted all future hearings to be held in open." [Timaru Herald, 1 Nov])

And take note that it was the defendants' own lawyers who helped to stop TV3 using the leaked surveillance transcripts in their Friday night broadcast ("Lawyers for the accused discovered after '3 News' went to air that the files had been leaked. They contacted TV3 and threatened to seek an injunction" [Dominion])

And it was the protestors themselves who packed the courtroom for the bail hearings in what seemed to me a clear attempt to ensure that the public would find it difficult to ever hear just what was going down.

One commenter at Tumeke! argues,

if the allegations against [the defendants] are just a load of rubbish like the activists and their lawyers claim then why on earth are they so scared and trying so hard to suppress the intercepted messages?

Surely the public once they see all the Police evidence will see that it is just a load of rubbish won't they?

They claim they are completely innocent and that the Police raids were unjustified, so why not let the evidence the raids were based on out into the public domain so the public can see for themselves how unjustified the raids were?

Now, I don't for a moment join in the demand that the defendants must agree to wave their dirtier laundry around in public, but if they're going to claim the moral high ground in pretending that all was peaceful and nothing at all disturbing was going down, then they can't really have it both ways, can they.

"Branded as..." ?

According to the commentariat this morning the police should be harshly condemned for "branding" the "Urewera Sixteen" as terrorists. All sorts of commentators have declared that the police have "branded" them as terrorists, for which they now deserve compensation.

MAORI PARTY MP TE URUROA FLAVELL said the Ruatoki community had been traumatised by the raids, and "had been stuck with the terrorist label..."

LAWYER MOANA JACKSON: "The label of terrorist has`been bandied about..."

JOHN MINTO: ""They have been branded terrorists by the police and that's been bandied right across New Zealand through the media and that's absolutely unconscionable."

TUHOE ELDER PAKI NIKORA "We still can't understand why this brand of terrorism has been placed on him ... and is branded on us as an iwi."

PROTESTORS OUTSIDE THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE LAST WEEKEND: "Helen Clark." "Terrorist!" [Repeat ad nauseum]

Trouble is, this is a group of people who've been interviewing each other. It wasn't the police who "branded" these people -- no policeman has called anyone a terrorist, and I would challenge anyone to find one who has -- the only "branding" of the type of which these commentators have accused the police has been by the commentators themselves in their noisy insistence over the last few weeks that they've been so labelled:

NIKORA (17 Oct): ""We are being branded as terrorists."

FLAVELL (Oct 26): "I s'pose the main fear is that they're seen to be and will always be remembered as the Tuhoe the terrorists..."

LAWYER MOANA JACKSON (26 Oct): "Maori must not buy into the police tactic of branding their people as terrorists..."

MAORI ACTIVIST MIKE SMITH (25 Oct): "“If there was any terrorism in Tuhoe it was state sponsored..."

SIGNS HELD BY PROTESTORS OUTSIDE COURTS AROUND THE COUNTRY: "Terrorists - yeah right."

SCOOP PROFILES (13 October): "Scoop.co.nz is continuing to profile each of the so-called terrorists..."

The question is, "so called" by whom?

What "police tactic" to "brand" people as terrorists?

If there was any branding done, it was a rush by the defendants' supporters to wrap themselves in the word and take a strong leap for the branding iron.

Protestors in particular were quick to object to the "label" of terrorism being used against those arrested, and very noisy in their own use of the word last weekend outside the Labour Party conference, but the fact is that the "label" was used mostly by them and their fellow travellers and the commentariat, NOT by the police.

Right from the very first day, for example, when the raids were carried out on October 15, Police Commissioner Howard Broad explained very carefully that the search warrants they actioned were issued

under the Summary Proceedings Act to search for evidence of the committing of offences against the Arms Act and possibly the Terrorism Suppression Act.

Police will be gathering and assessing all available evidence before making a decision as to the nature of the charges to be laid under the TSA.

We're aware that this is the first time that the Terrorism Suppression Act has been considered in terms of an operation. We are, therefore, proceeding with full care in talking to people and assessing information before we can determine whether there is sufficient evidence to seek the consent of the Attorney General through the Solicitor General to charge anyone under that Act. [video here of press conference Oct 15]

That was the only time the word was used by the Police Commissioner, and only (necessarily) in the context of those search warrants. As he explained this morning on Radio NZ [audio here], the word "terrorism" was only used by him in explaining the basis for the searches, and only every by the police force in that context. The fact is that no "branding" at all was done by police, either as a tactic, or a policy, or even by mistake. No "labels" were so applied. The police, as Broad said, were proceeding with full care in talking to people and assessing information before determining whether or not sufficient evidence existed to charge anyone under the Terrorism Suppression Act. They were entitled to some patience from the rest of us in doing that.

It was not the police who were hyperventilating -- it was the commentariat.

Perhaps instead of drop-of-the-hat hysteria commentators and politicians could instead learn to breathe through their nose on occasions, to wait for the evidence before judging, and maybe just adopt the level of maturity their age and positions and supposed acumen might lead us to expect they'd exhibit.

Justice seen to be done

It's unfortunate that our courts seem to have forgotten the crucial principle that underpins their work: that justice must not only be done must must be seen to be done. When justice is kept under wraps, all sorts of nonsense appears in the vacuum.

In the case of the 'Urewera 16' we're naturally all as hungry as hell to find out if what we've heard only by rumour and innuendo has any element of truth, or if any of the criticism is justified. It all comes down to the evidence. Sadly however in allowing defendants' lawyers to have names, facts and evidence suppressed, the courts have ensured the vacuum will be exploited by the defenders of violence -- and if anyone can exploit a vacuum the likes of John Minto and Annette Sykes and Keith Locke can -- and all sorts of fatuous nonsense has been able to take root, some of the most fatuous being from the defendants' lawyers themselves. The weekend's Minto mob outside Labour's conference ("Helen Clark." "Terrorist." Repeat x 24) and the hand-wringing opportunism of Peter Williams QC are simply the most recent examples of the sort of sick nonsense that's proliferating in the vacuum where everyone's trying to claim the high ground in the benefit-of-the-doubt stakes.

It's clear enough from my own visits to the court last week just why the defendants want several years' worth of surveillance evidence to be kept from public view since almost every line is damning. So why do the courts consider us so immature that we can't handle hearing the evidence for ourselves in media repors, instead of hearing only the nonsense that its absence has generated?

UPDATE: He doesn't cover the suppression of evidence by the courts, but Graeme Edgeler tells you everything you need to know about bail, which is what last week's hearings were about.

Peaceful protest?

Three words strike me as characterising so many of the reactions to Monday's arrest of anti-colonial, anti-industry, anti-globalisation and so-called peace protesters under firearms legislation: humbug, denial, and misinformation.

• People in Ruatoki are bleating that the police were unnecessarily harsh on Monday, and (worse apparently) gave them "no warning" about the raids and the arrests.
  
  Are these people stupid? They've been prepared for years to countenance the organised thuggery and the exclusion of visitors and the training camps and the "Tuhoe Nation" crap carried out and espoused by Iti and his idiot comrades in their name -- and they've done nothing at all about it. If you're carrying out a raid then you don't warn supporters or friends of those being raided; that really would be stupid. These people aren't stupid enough not to know that - they think we are. To complain they weren't warned is just humbug, and it evades that far more basic issue of what they're prepared to allow in their own community and in their own name. If they're prepared to countenance violence in the name of the "Tuhoe Nation" or whatever other idiocy Iti's comrades dream up, then they deserve everything they get.
  

• Protest groups have been issuing "messages of support" to those arrested and organising protests against the arrests, meaning we've been obliged to witness the spectacle of "peace activists" apparently in denial about the firearms that have been confiscated and the bombs and the weapon training that's been undertaken down outside Ruatoki. We've seen them make accusations of "police brutality," and admissions that no one at all has been brutalised. And we watched the likes of Francis Mountier from the Save Happy Valley Coalition get all evasive when a tame TV journalist asked her to repudiate violence and to deny all knowledge of what's been alleged about these training camps. Evasion and denial.

• We've seen talk of terrorism appear in the press. The protest groups have been quick to object to the "label" of terrorism being used against those arrested, but so far the fact is that the "label" has been used mostly in the denial of it. But the anti-terrorism Act, raised as a bogey by the likes of protestors and commentators associated with the protestors, has not been used against any of the idiots so far arrested. Police Commissioner Howard Broad explained very carefully that the search warrants were issued under the Firearms Act, and charges so far have only been laid under the Firearms Act. Sure, the searches themselves were carried out with the intention of obtaining evidence under the anti-terrorism Act, but protestors need to get their heads around the fact that charges have only been laid so far under the Firearms Act. Their heroes were in possession of weapons that their views would say they shouldn't be.
  
  And like everyone else I look forward to seeing if charges are justified under the anti-terrorism Act.
  

• Two of those who've raised the conspiratorial bogey that the arrests were carried out to provide backing for the forthcoming amendment to the anti-terrorism Act are John Minto and David Small, both of whom have been used by media outlets as so-called independent commentators on the whole affair. Both are in denial about the nature of the charges so far -- that these seventeen people had the means and were undertaking the training whereby to carry out something pretty nasty -- but the media who have invited them on as commentators are either in denial themselves, or else they think we're stupid. The fact is, as Trevor Loudon points out, both Minto and Small are associated with the groups from whom those arrested have been drawn. Minto is an organiser of the ironically named Global Peace and Justice, and umbrella group for at least one of those arrested; and Small is a (former?) Maoist with links to several of the "anti-everything" groups from whom protest has come. [See for example 'Socialist Academic Profile: David Small,' and 'John Minto, Communist Columnist,' and 'Who is Radical Youth?' ]
  
  That these two are presented as "independent commentators" tells you something about the independence of our media, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
  

Let me make two final reflections, one on the nature of protest, and other on the nature of force. The right to peaceful protest is important, and in a free society that right is protected. While that right is being threatened by the Electoral Finance Bill, it is not under threat either from these arrests, or from the amendments to the anti-terrorism Act. I'd like to invite those who suggest they do to turn their metaphorical guns on the real means by which protest will be squelched for one third of our lives: the Electoral Finance Bill. Opposition to that Bill is a litmus test for genuine opposition to the banning of peaceful protest.

Now to reflect on force. The right to exercise retaliatory force in one's defence is paramount -- if one's right to life is to mean anything under law, then the right to retaliate against force initiated against us or our loved ones must be protected. That said, a primary leitmotif of a civilised society is that retaliatory force is brought under objective control. That job is the job of the police and the law courts, who -- when they're acting properly -- are acting in our name to protect peaceful individuals from those who would initiate force against us. As several recent events have shown us, Our police force is imperfect, but they're the only police force we have. With the arrests this week and what we've heard on the suspects' charge sheets in court, our trust so far in what's left of our legal system is justified. Let's hope we see justice done, and thugs removed from having the opportunity to do us harm.

Not so peaceful pacifists

The arrest of seventeen anti-colonial, anti-industrial and anti-globalisation activists around the country on firearms offences leaves most of us in the dark about what the hell is going on, reliant on reports from the courts about the firearms charges under which the seventeen are being held, and on what is already known about the people arrested and those like Annette Sykes who are defending them - who if you'll remember "jumped for joy" when Al Qaeda's hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Centre killing 3,000 people.

Media bans on court reports don't help with the first, and name suppression doesn't help us with the second, so we're left to speculate with the thin gruel of information left to us, and the commonality of those arrested.

We do know that the people arrested are not friends of freedom. We do know that "military style training camps" are alleged in Tame Iti's neighbourhood. Sykes calls these "Wananga" on "Maori sovereignty," and Iti's partner insisted they were "bush camps" held "to help develop the identities of young people"-- "bush camps" and wananga that apparently involved a bomb being detonated.

We know that Auckland "peace" activists were raided for a Sig assault rifle, a BB rifle with a laser sight and a machete; that Wellington peace" activists were raided on similar grounds; that Tame Iti was raided and found in possession of firearms, napalm and molotov cocktails; that one man was arrested in Palmerston North; one woman in Hamilton; that Christchurch environmental activists were targeted, (but not raided as the police had no search warrant); and that these search warrants have been issued and weapons seized after a year-long investigation of "a core group of about 20 people but with 40 more potentially involved," with a view to laying charges under anti-terrorism laws. Notes Scoop:

With one exception each charge laid in Wellington alleges that a relatively large group of people – a number of other people have been arrested in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty & Palmerston North – were “unlawfully in possession of a firearm except for some lawful purpose” in Rotorua on each of six occasions.Charge sheets filed in Wellington alleges offending occurred on:
16th-19th November 2006 (with a semi-automatic rifle)
10th to 14th January 2007 (a rifle)
26th to 29th April 2007 (firearm)
21st to 25th June 2007 (rifle)
16th to 19th August 2007 (shotgun & rifle)
13th to 16th September 2007 (Molotov cocktails & military semi-auto rifle)

Names mentioned so far as being either arrested or targeted include Tame Iti, "peace" activist Sam Buchanan, Radical Youth organiser and Students for Justice in Palestine head Omar Hamed, Save Happy Valley Coalition organiser Francis Mountier, and Jamie Lockett, and members of organisations like Radical Youth (which explains why John Minto was out and about last night defending those arrested) , the Wildcat Anarchist Collective, and A Space Inside (aka Necropolis) . Blogger Trevor Loudon, who likes to keep an eye on those with indelicate designs on the country has run profiles on all of these characters in recent months, which he's already re-posting. Keep an eye out.

Reaction to the arrests so far has been mixed, with most people waiting for information before commenting. However, Indymedia is already running comments like this:

This is a vicious, violent cowards attack and demands a measured response. I propose that monies be raised in cyberspace and anyplace in order to predict when exactly the police minister and PM will be permanently retired... Fuck the democratic-socialist scum that always turn to fascism - we will bury you. You want the fucking dark ages back you better be careful what youse wish for.

And Martin "I'm a fat poseur" Bradbury insists he has inside information that "when it comes out what they were planning Middle NZ is going to go fucking nuts" -- which could mean whatever you want it to mean, really -- the Maori Party claim this is a move against Maori

Meanwhile, Lindsay Perigo offers this observation:

The arrest of members of pseudo-Mordi Sovereignty cells, green groups and "peace" activists for their participation in terrorist training camps in isolated areas of New Zealand's Bay of Plenty should surprise no one, says SOLO (Sense of Life) Principal Lindsay Perigo. "Especially when Annette 'I jumped for joy after 9/11' Sykes comes out in their defence. We've long known these types had the destruction of western freedoms in their sights. "The police are to be congratulated on doing their job for once, instead of persecuting marijuana smokers and those who defend themselves from murderous crims.

With so little information so far, it's impossible to judge whether actions so far are justified, but we do know already from their past histories that the people arrested are not friends of freedom, and from the weapons seized that "peace" activists shouldn't always be taken at their word. I would hope that if the charges are justified that justice will be allowed to be done and that we can see it being done -- and that we won't see a gutless backdown and the release of people full of hate with new grievances to nurse.

UPDATE 1: Media reaction around the world is less pacific than the apologetics of local media.

• Explosion prompted terrorism raids - 'Sydney Morning Herald'
• Arms cache discovered in secret Maori ‘terror camps’ - London 'Times'
• New Zealand police arrest 17 in terror raids - 'Guardian'
• New Zealand activists held after terror raid - 'Telegraph'
• New Zealand in first terror raid - Al Jazeerah
• NZ police hold 14 in terror raids - BBC
• Armed New Zealand police conduct weapons seizures, arrests in raids - 'International Herald Tribune'
• NZ police arrest 17 in terror raids - Press TV, Iran
• NZ activist among 14 in 'terror ring' - Melbourne 'Age'
  
• Maori targeted in anti-terrorist raids - 'Sydney Morning Herald'

UPDATE 2: NZ HERALD:

It is understood the people under investigation had been attending military-style training camps in the Ureweras for months. Police are believed to have suspected that some of the instructors at the remote camps had Army or police backgrounds and were experienced in handling weapons.Police investigations indicate some members of the Tuhoe tribe, who point out their ancestors never signed the Treaty of Waitangi, have been involved...

Sources have suggested the training camps were intended to prepare a terrorist group that planned assassinations for causes such as declaring the Tuhoe region in the Bay of Plenty an autonomous state.Two other sources told the Herald they had attended military-style guerrilla training in the Ureweras.

UPDATE 3: Lockett has been released on bail. "Judge Josephine Bouchier said that on the evidence before her at the moment, Lockett could not be considered to pose such a significant danger to the public that he should be in custody." Summarising, says Stuff:

The Crown said police had intercepted communications in which statements like the following had been uttered:

"I'm training up to be a vicious, dangerous commando"; #para

"White men are going to die in this country"; #para

"I'm at war. I'm declaring war on this country very soon". #para It described Lockett as someone who was an active participant in a group that had the potential to make a violent impact on New Zealand society.

Nope. Nothing in statements like that and the possession of weaponry with which to do it to indicate he'd be a danger to the public.

UPDATE 4: From Russell Brown:

This is the Trade Me feedback page for one of the men arrested, who traded as hunt4life. He bought a hell of a lot of stuff -- ammunition, combat gear, at least one semi-automatic rifle (of a type that could plausibly used for hunting) -- and sold very little. Whatever else might be discovered about hunt4life, his Trade Me rep was first-class.

I didn't see cyber-hori's feedback, but Scoop's photograph of the search warrant for the Wellington house suggests a similar haul.

Would these people really do what is alleged? I don't know, but this blog, which seems connected to some of those arrested, seems to countenance armed resistance in theory. On Indymedia, one looney (who also wanted to come to the New Year "freedom fighters" gathering that seems of interest to the police) is calling for an end to peaceful protest and to "rise and strike down those who have inflicted their pain into the Name of Freedom."

UPDATE 5: A commenter asks me, " shouldn't there be a libertarian right-to-bear-arms defence in this case?" And is answered by another intelligent commenter:

In itself, I don't see a problem with having firearms training.

The important factor is the intention: training with firearms for sport or personal reasons - ok. Training with firearms for committing crimes - not ok.

Judging by the number of firearms charges, it's likely that the use of firearms hasn't exactly been legit. Then again, "except for some lawful purpose" is dubious - self defence isn't even considered a lawful purpose in NZ.

So there's the point in a nutshell: Training with firearms to commit crimes is not okay, and anyone doing so should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The problem is that self-defence isn't properly recognised in NZ law, and we've learned that those who administer NZ law can't exactly be taken on trust. In other words, we won't know for sure whether "a libertarian right-to-bear-arms defence" exists until or unless the full case is presented before a court.

UPDATE 6: Says Lance Davey at SOLO:

Whatever Tame Iti and his ilk were planning and training for was not peaceful protest. The nature of the groups involved—communist, eco-terrorist, brown supremacist, Islamo-fascist—and the reported weapons seizures puts paid to any idea of lawful protest. Groups such as those are fighting for one freedom only, the freedom to oppress others at the point of a gun. These self-described “freedom fighters” are fighters of freedom, not for it. They are enemies of individual liberty. But the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. This is still Nanny State that we are dealing with here, and she is still, for the most part, an evil old bitch.

He points out that because "the state has arrested the 'bad guys' does not instantly make them the 'good guys'."

We must not lose our heads, and we must not allow agenda-driven MPs to manipulate the masses into supporting anti-freedom legislation.New Zealand First MP Ron Mark [for example] has already raised the idea of abolishing the right to freedom of association. More calls for more state oppression of individual liberty will follow. People should not allow fear to cloud their judgment.

NZ the way Jordan Carter wants it.

Labour hack Jordan Carter imagines and blogs an alternative history that would have resulted if the Labour Party and the Alliance re-united in 1994. (You can see it here.)

"Imagine," he imagines, breathing hard all the while, that this "more left-wing Labour Party" had taken power in 1999, but with "a wider activist base and a more radical policy and caucus, and aided by the Greens as a coalition partner." His imagination, such as it is, has served up some frankly febrile predictions about what life would be like in New Zealand in 2007 under such a collectivist's wet dream.

To help our erstwhile alternative historian (who seems to have overlooked a few things), I have added the necessary touch of realism to Master Carter's wet dream. Here is how this place would really look if the nightmare situation he describes had truly taken place:

• Health spending would be sitting around 9-10% of GDP and, with the consequent inflation in the Government health system, surgery numbers are down, waiting lists have soared, and small medical supplies companies are listing on the stock exchange at the rate of twice a week. Radiologists are still on strike.
  
• The 1991 benefit cuts would have been reversed, and beneficiary numbers increased from 270,000 to over 400,000. Shareholders in Sky City and Restaurant Brands/KFC buy condos on the Gold Coast. Meanwhile the three poor saps left to pick up the tab for this welfare explosion have just bought the last remaining flights out to Australia. There are no lights still burning to turn out: Kyoto has put paid to the power stations.
  
• The industrial relations system would have been re-collectivised, days lost to strikes would have gone through the roof, and no ferries would have crossed Cook Strait since Xmas 2005. No killing has been done at any meatworks since the General Strike of 2003, and meat has been changing hands at $100 per kilo in some inner suburbs of Helengrad.
  
• Tertiary, early childhood, vocational education and training have been made "free" at point of use, private schools and early childhood centres have been nationalised, and Jane Kelsey, Susan St John and John Minto are writing the curriculum. NCEA has been scrapped for being "too challenging" for students. No one can read, or write, or do sums (but they're all very good at some stick games), and teachers wear kevlar stab-proof vests to schools, which they pay for themselves out of their meagre salaries.
  
• Nation-wide investment in public transport has have been far higher over the past decade, and flowers and trees now grow on NZ's (very) few motorway systems. Auckland's buses are still empty. There is no work to travel to, no rush hour to negotiate, and Queen St is being dug up again. Car imports have been banned, and the average age of cars is twenty years and rising. Petrol taxes are now set at $3 per litre to help pay for public transport and the MPs' Superannuation Fund. Mike Ward is the Minister for Transport.
  
• New Zealand would have focused economic policy on local production, not acceded any further into the WTO system, and reinstuted protectionism on local industry. Sue Bradford is the Minister for Trade. Import licensing has been reintroduced (making the holders of these licenses fabulously wealthy), and families in Porirua no longer able to buy cheap imported bedding, clothing and appliances are now making underwear out of their curtains and boiling up rocks to make soup. There is no internet because nobody can afford the locally-assembled computers, and (since they've all been assembled at the Sheltered Workshops) they don't work anyway.
  
• New Zealand's distribution of income would be moving solidly in a more egalitarian direction, with no one earning over $20,000pa except for civil servants and MPs. Everyone else has been made equally poor, and everyone is equally miserable. Blam Blam Blam reissues "There is No Depression in New Zealand" in a limited edition, with free packets of soma for the first 1,000 buyers.
• Public spending would be at around 42-44% of GDP, around $17bn a year higher than it is today. Interest rates are at 20% and climbing, but still no-one is buying the dollar...
  
• The country has been renamed the People's Republic of Aotearoa, the Treaty relationship has been put into a modern, bicultural context, and Co-Prime Minister Turia (head of the new Upper House, called the Council of United National Tribes) has just "negotiated" a co-management deal with Fonterra whereby tribal leaders will receive each year's dairy payout to redistribute as they see fit. Farmers are shooting and burying their sheep and cattle.
  
• Immigration is no longer a problem, and the only flights now are outbound. Without a political platform, Winston Peters retires from politics and buys a corner dairy.
  

"No!" to waterfront stadium

Blogging this afternoon's public meeting co-hosted by Keith Locke and Rodney Hide to oppose Mallard's waterfront stadium: the meeting ended with a unanimous vote against the proposal.

It's not often I go to a 300-strong public meeting on a political hot potato and don't heckle -- or don't need to. It's even less often that I would be found applauding (loudly) Keith Locke, Rodney Hide, John Minto, several Auckland City Councillors and the architect of Wellington's Te Papa (in fact, I can assure you it's never happened before).

Today, however, was that day.

On the simple issue of saying "No" to Trevor Mallard's Auckland waterfront stadium, there was no need to heckle and every reason to applaud since at this afternoon 's meeting to oppose the stadium, all spoke in opposition to the waterfront stadum, and all made perfect sense -- and over the course of a two-hour meeting, they were joined by several other speakers who also made perfect sense across a surprising similarity of themes: the lack of information, and the lying about the information given; a government intent on railroading this thing through; the outright inability for a project like this to fit that site; the enormous cost both for the stadium and for the moving of the port facilities; Here's a brief summary of what the main speakers said, who where:

• Keith Locke: The decision-making in evidence here is an affront to democracy; the proposal undermines what has been happening to open up the waterfront; there is no evidence for it invigorating the CBD as claimed; it will be a huge economic cost; there is no specific design here, just a sketch on a piece of paper. Right on all five.
• Dianne Brand, from the Auckland Architecture School, and member of Dick Hubbard's 'Urban Design Panel': Theatre and stadium design, she says, is commercially all about bums on seats. Architecturally, this stadium as designed is "all bum, from all directions." It is "disproportionately large" for that site -- and evidence offered later in the meeting is that the few drawings released distort the scale to hide the real size; and in an effort to make the thing fit, it has over the last week been given "the tutu treatment": a man-made beach to the north, in the middle of the commercial shipping lanes (as one wag said later, something only a Wellington architect would propose), and a "commercially unviable western park." It doesn't fit. At all.
• Architect Pete Bossley: Bossley, responsible for Te Papa, told the meeting he and others have repeatedly asked to see the reports on urban design issues for the stadium. "We've asked. They haven't been done." No examination has been done on issues of wind, scale, transport. The stadium is out of all proportion for the site (and he would know). It buries the finger wharves that could eventually be usedThe architectural effect of the stadium needs to be considered when empty, with all the lights off, just as it will be for ninety-five percent of the time, not as the pretty pictures show it bathed in a halo of light.
• Lynette Wells (hotel industry): pointed out the iniquity of the proposed method of funding, that is, the bed tax and the airport tax. There is "alarm" within her industry at what this would do to tourism; tax and ratepayers should be alarmed at the price, and the potential for other councils to levy similar taxes in their areas if this is approved; the hotel industry is "vehemently opposed" to both.
• Cathy Casey (Auckland City Councillor): Councillors, who are expected to make a decision on this with two weeks, "have been treated like mushrooms -- kept in the dark and fed with shit." The Herald this morning is "lying," she said, when they reported "Councillors in shock stadium u-turn " on the waterfront stadium. "There has been no such U-turn. [Herald journalist] Janet Savage made that up." A Press Council complaint is being prepared. Casey later supplied a list of the councillors and where they stand (see below). Five against the bedpan, eight for, and eight 'floating' councillors.
  
• Christine Caughey (Auckland City Councillor): The stadium is an affront to the process being worked through by Auckland City to open up the waterfront. Submissions have repeatedly shown, for example, that people want viewshafts opened up to the Hauraki Gulf islands. Councillors have been "ambushed by the Minister." They have asked for a firm design ... there is none. For evidence on costings ... there is none. For evidence of urban design analysis, or transport studies, or economic impact reports ... there are none.
  
• Robyn Hughes (ARC councillor): The ARC owns the port, not the government. She does not want "a giant used condom" down there. Speaking to me before the meeting, Hughes confirmed to me that the proposal presently on the table for moving the port is to extend Bledisloe Wharf into the harbour by another 65m (that's half a rugby field).
• Tessa Duder (author and historian): Duder talked of quotes she had found describing the site of Auckland, and compared them to what is proposed. [I remember architect Claude Megson, for example, talking about the Auckland as one thin strip of land hung suspended between the sparkling waters of two harbours, and anchored by two sets of hills to east and west.] The imagery of what has been proposed "is seen from flattering angles, is doctored and dishonest," (on that, see below). "That gently glowing, translucent, floating white cloud will certainly be a 10 to 12-storey wall along much of Quay St - a monstrous, cancerous protrusion into the harbour." With what is proposed for the edge of those sparkling waters, she would no longer look forward to taking her guests and grandchildren up Mt Eden and North Head since she couldn't explain to them how such a monstrosity could have been built; "I will have difficulty holding back my tears."
• Waterfront resident Susan Grimsdale: Received assurances from council when buying her apartment that there was an 18m height limit for ports area -- stadium sketch is said to be 37m (about twelve stories). BUT: the presentation pictures (see right) are a lie. The light standard to the right of the stadium in the picture to the right is 30m high, but the stadium is shown lower. "This is pure deception" [something, as we know, that is not unfamiliar to Mallard]. "Think Big" in a different guise. [Check back later for a properly-scaled sketch of the stadium based on released information.]
  
• John Minto [yes, that John Minto]: "Trevor Mallard accuses Auckland of "a lack of vision." But when you see Trevor Mallard, so you see "vision"?" When NZ won the 2011 World Cup, it was based on spending $45m for temporary stands to increase the capacity of Eden Park. As a resident, Minto is all in favour of that proposal. And as he pointed out, Mallard has told schools they need to run cake stalls to fund any extras at their schools. "Why doesn't the Eden Park Trust Board start baking cakes to raise their $45m?" [Why not, indeed?]
• Steve [?] Bagley (Auckland Rugby Union): ARU will lose $20m over the World Cup. Waterfront Stadium estimates are "dishonest," he says. Eden Park is costed on $9,000 per seat, which is consistent with the costs of the last eleven stadiums to be built in this part of the world. Waterfront Stadium costed at just $6,000 per seat, plus the plattform and piling, plus the cost of removing the port operations [including extending Bledisloe Wharf by 65m]. Think one billion. At least.
• David Thornton (No More Rates): Three questions still not answered, but we can all guesstimate for ourselves what the answers will be: How much will it cost? At least one billion. Who pays? Us. Who will own it, and who will pay the operating losses? Er ...
• Bill Hodge (constitutional law specialist): Four main legal issues with the ramming through of the waterfront stadium with enabling legislation that are going to cause "immense damage to our constitutional fabric." 1. The common law issues of tort, nuisance etc. that are to be overridden without consultation. 2. The overriding, without consultation, of statutory controls on nuisance, eg, the RMA. 3. The overriding, without consultation, of commercial legislation, such as the Local Government Act, the Port Companies Act and the Public Finance Act. 4. The overriding, without consultation, of Treaty of Waitangi issues. The Government's answer for all four sets of issues is clear: Enabling legislation in the same form as the Thing Big legislation of 1982 for the Clyde Dam that overrides the Local Government Act, the Resource Management Act, the Public Finance Act, the Port Companies Act and others. And therein lies a lesson for any politicians voting in favour of the 2006 version: they should remember what happened to Social Credit, who decided to vote for Muldoon's Thing Big legislation, and were deservedly buried by the voters.
• Rodney Hide (ACT leader): From discussion with Mallard, Mallard has confirmed that for the waterfront stadium to go ahead: 1. he needs a majority from both the Auckland Regional Council and the Auckland City Council (so get those letters, emails and phone calls out to those councillors); 2. he needs the National Party to agree on the Bed Tax, on Enabling Legislation, and on a Kafka-esque Consent Authority to rubber stamp a consent that overrides all the legislative protections outlined by Bill Hodge (so get those emails, letters and phone calls out to all the National MPs, and tell them you don't want a billion dollars of your money wasted on a Monument to Mallard).

SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Auckland City Council will meet Thursday night to vote on their decision. Auckland Regional Council will meet Friday. Lobbying of National Party MPs will be undertaken all week (look out for deals being done this week). You have just one week to sway the argument.

A PUBLIC PROTEST is organised for AOTEA SQUARE Thursday lunchtime, 12:30pm, in advance of the Auckland City Council vote. Get on down there.

Cathey Casey issued a list of the eight "floating" Auckland City councillors who need to hear from you: Leila Boyle cr.boyle@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Bill Christian cr.christian@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Glenda Fryer cr.fryer@aucklandcity.govt.nz, John Hinchcliffe cr.hinchcliff@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Toni Miller cr.millar@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Penny Sefuiva cr.sefuiva@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Faye Storer cr.storer@aucklandcity.govt.nz, Bruce Hucker cr.hucker@aucklandcity.govt.nz.

Here are the addresses for the Auckland Regional Councillors who need to hear from you: dianne.glenn@arc.govt.nz; christine.rose@arc.govt.nz;
sandra.coney@arc.govt.nz; hoadley.consultants@xtra.co.nz; mbarnett@chamber.co.nz; david@khh.co.nz; bill.burrill@arc.govt.nz; robyn.hughes@arc.govt.nz; craig.little@arc.govt.nz; joelc@kiwilink.co.nz.

Auckland's mayors: Bob.Harvey@waitakere.govt.nz; George.Wood@northshorecity.govt.nz;
contactus@manukau.govt.nz; mayor@aucklandcity.govt.nz.

Auckland's MPs, and those who are (or should be) taking an interest: tmallard@ministers.govt.nz; mcullen@ministers.govt.nz;
pm@ministers.govt.nz; judith.tizard@parliament.govt.nz; don.brash@national.org.nz;
murray.mccully@national.org.nz; jonathan.coleman@parliament.govt.nz; john.key@parliament.govt.nz; wayne.mapp@parliament.govt.nz; clem.simich@parliament.govt.nz;
peter.dunne@parliament.govt.nz; wpeters@ministers.govt.nz; ; jeanette.fitzsimons@parliament.govt.nz; pita.sharples@parliament.govt.nz.

And you can contact all the National Party MPs here to discourage them NOT to support either enabling legislation to override existing law, or the imposition of any new taxes: www.national.org.nz. (And, if you're keen, download contact details for all 121 MPs here [pdf].) Tell them you'll remember both at the next election.

Get on to it!

UPDATE: Herald has a report of the meeting, and their own story on how Auckland's councillors will be voting. They claim six councillors are floating, as against Cathy Casey's eight: "Two of those yet to decide - Citizens and Ratepayers Now councillors Doug Armstrong and Toni Millar - indicated last night they would support a waterfront stadium if the Government agreed to build it further east, on Bledisloe Wharf." But as Armstrong wasn't on Casey's list of "floaters" (she had him backing Hubbard) and Bledisloe has already been rejected (as Brian Rudman reports) ... They also have Christian and Storer as Eden Park supporters, and Glenda Fryer as a yes, whereas Casey has all three as "floaters."

It's going to be tight.
RELATED: Stadium, Politics-NZ, Auckland