Justice you thought it was safe to go back in the courtroom

Justice is an interesting concept. The first three definitions my dictionary offers are: just conduct; fairness; and the exercise of authority in the maintenance of right.

The first of these definitions requires further resort to the dictionary wherein we find the first definition of just to be acting or done in accordance of what is morally right or fair. So essentially what we have is an agreement among those first three definitions that justice is about what is morally right and fair. That doesn’t seem to match up terribly well with some of the examples of our so-called Justice system in New Zealand. Nor does it have much of an existence in any other aspects of our lives where you might expect to encounter ‘the exercise of authority in the maintenance of right’ or people ‘acting in accordance with what is morally right or fair’.

One reason might be the fact that if you base your concept of justice upon morality you are always going to have a problem when there are so many individualised definitions of that particular concept. Perhaps three better opening definitions for this hard to pin down concept might be:, the exercise of authority in the maintenance of the right (wing): the exercise of authority in the hands of the privileged few who can afford a high-priced lawyer; or acting in accordance with what matches most closely the policy objectives of the Government of the day.

I have been trying hard to understand where this Government stands in relation to the concept of justice. It talks the talk when it suits it or when it makes for a good photo op or PR headline, but when it comes to actually exercising that power or authority it would seem it works on its own set of secret rules that nobody else can fathom.

Individual MPs trample on the rights of their constituents on a regular basis as did Paula Bumfat when she deliberately leaked private details of a woman who had the temerity to complain about her treatment by WINZ.  Then we have that dufus Horon the Moron who seems to think he can stay in parliament as an independent MP when the only people who ‘elected’ him were his own party caucus who have now unelected him. We won’t even go there about what led to his expulsion other than to say if the stories are true it is another example of an MP not acting in accordance of what is morally right.

The Kim Dotcom case is another well publicised example of Government agencies acting in a way that defies the three definitions of justice I mentioned at the start of this. They should just own up. The matter is very simple. He is a New Zealand resident and as such cannot be spied on by the GCSB. He was and therefore they are in the wrong. He had a high profile and had been in the news not long beforehand so there was absolutely no reason why they would not have known he was a Kiwi albeit one with an accent. And it is inconceivable they wouldn’t have known the law in that regard (mind you they are just glorified dumb coppers with sunglasses and shiny suits – so who knows).

But the case that really has my bile mobile is the David Bain compensation issue. If this isn’t one of the greatest injustices ever perpetrated by an unholy coalition of the NZ Police and the NZ Government upon one of its citizens, then I don’t know what is. I realise this is hyperbole and I will now probably bombarded with a thousand other cases more worthy of this honour(?) but I am sure you get my point that this is one I feel very strongly about.

I wasn’t sure at the outset about David’s guilt or innocence as initially I didn’t take much of the case on board. I realised at the time of his conviction that some of the ‘evidence’ was questionable and I felt that he was convicted more on a ‘he must have done it because who else could have/” basis than any solid evidential grounds. At the very start I expressed concern that this might be another miscarriage of justice like the Arthur Allan Thomas case, but I could never have dreamed it would turn out to be such an ongoing Circus of Horrors where the injustices keep on occurring.

The Minister in charge of The Exercise of Authority in the Maintenance of Right (Little Bo-Tox) has trumped even herself this week with her eminently ‘fair and just’ decision to criticise the independent report by Justice Ian Binnie into whether or not David Bain should receive compensation from the Crown for his 13 years in prison.

What makes Bo’s criticism so vile is the fact that she will not release the document so we can all be the judges of whether her assessment is fair and just. But worst of all she won’t even let David Bain see it until she has had the chance to roll in a couple of her own tame lawyers to tear it to bits and discredit it so comprehensively that the question of compo for Davo will sink into a deep pit where she can bury it forever. (Tui ad tagline anyone?)

What makes this stupid woman so stupid is that she actually believes her own PR and hyperbole and she believes we will as well. She is right about a part of that; many of the sheeple of Godzone will believe her bollox. However many others will not; Justice Binnie won’t for one and Joe Karam certainly won’t. A guy who has devoted as much of his life to this case as Karam has is definitely not going to slip away into the shadows of the night. He will come out with guns blazing.

I will make a prediction now. David Bain will get compo despite Bo Tox’s manoeuvres. All this stupid bint is doing is adding to our costs as a nation both in terms of the amount of cash all of this is going to end up costing us and also in terms of our reputation as a place free from corruption and where justice actually exists in accordance with the three dictionary definitions I listed at the start of this blog.

So far this lot has cost us all the time keeping David in jail for 13 years; all the costs of Crown opposing his appeals along the way and the major expenses leading up to and including the appeal to the Privy Council all of which I gather has cost us well in excess of $3M and then we have just forked out the better part of half a million for the report from Ian Binnie and now Little Bo Tox wants to enrich even more of her lawyer mates at our expense before ultimately we will be enforced to pay David out at least a million bucks.

So what does justice really mean in New Zealand given this scenario? Well it means that justice is when the wrong guy gets sent to prison for 13 years, then spends several more years trying to appeal his unsafe conviction and several more years battling for compensation, while the nation foots a bill for what will probably be the thick end of $5-$6M and those responsible for all this expense – the incompetent/crooked cops, various gold-digging lawyers and the Munter of Just-Is walk away scot free.

I must contact the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary and get them to add that definition and put in brackets (NZ).

Say what?

This week: the great questions of the day are explored; none are satisfactorily answered and life mimics life.

Well there have been a few head-scratching moments over the last few weeks and pretty soon some of us will have dug down to the grey matter – those of us with any left that is.

The fall-out from the Dotcom saga, the fall-out from the Banks fiasco, the fall-out from Jianqi’s ill-timed visit to Hollywood and the fall-out from the Shane Jones/Bill Liu matter and the fall-out from the Quade Cooper brain explosion are making those with any hair left nervously clutch their scalps.

I have often heard it said the Chinese have a proverb that goes, “May we live in interesting times”. I’ve often heard this quoted and misquoted but have never been 100 percent sure it was a Chinese proverb. However my most recent research suggests there could be a Chinese connection and it would seem it was both a proverb and a curse, which makes sense when you think of the wording.  It has certainly been repeated often enough – some of its more famous users have been Bobby Kennedy, Hunter S Thompson and Harry Kim from Star Trek. Actually that would be a good trivia question (what do these three have in common?).

So what does this rather obtuse phrase actually mean? Well I’m buggered if I know what it was supposed to mean when it was first uttered/invented/discovered and it seems silly to even try to discover what such an ambiguous adage could mean.

NEXT!

Another question that has been on everybody’s minds just lately (yes, people were tearing their hair about the Chinese proverb/curse); is, have ANZ Bank dropped the ‘National’ from their name to avoid being associated with the Government’s fall in the polls? Or is it that they didn’t want any Green horning in on their blue hues and diluting their brand? And given their new logo are they now the bank for the ‘paw folks’ or do they just want their customers to sit up and beg?

And from banking to something that rhymes with that – planking - what on earth did you think I was going to say? Wash your mouth out. Has there ever been a sillier five minute wonder than planking? I doubt it. A totally pointless act that appeared to be some kind of desperate attempt by the terminally talentless to achieve some sort of....well I’m stuffed if I know what they achieved apart from silly old Peter Dung of course who managed to himself look more dorky than usual when he ‘took up the challenge’ on Back Benches.  

But the conundrum that has puzzled Kiwis for a number of years now and frustrated the hell out of those concerned with our failing health profile and our rapidly expanding obesity stats is why is milk so expensive and coke so cheap?

It has never been that hard to figure out why coke is so cheap. It is produced in such enormous volumes there are obviously some huge economies of scale involved in the manufacturing stage. Then it contains so much addictive sugar and caffeine that they know they will also be guaranteed bulk repeat sales.

But why is milk which is produced also in huge volumes and from home grown ingredients is on average around twice the price of Coca Cola? In theory it contains no added ingredients, so the only costs involved are those associated with looking after the cows that produce it, extracting it from them and pasteurising it.

I see from Fonterrier’s latest report shows they have cutting back the forecast payout to the farmers again. Notice how the price at the shop never goes down when that happens? Of course the Fonterriermen will tell you that price is affected by the export prices. And that is another thing; Stuff carried out a survey last year and found that hardly anybody else in the world pays as much for their milk as we do in New Zealand. This is even crazier when you consider the stuff is produced so close to the back doors of most of us – so there aren’t many freight costs involved either.

But Fonterrier’s latest report actually carried the real reason why our milk is so expensive if anyone cared to read it. It is all down to the costs of staffing and how many times do you hear employers whinge about those costs? But at Fonterrier this is not about the ordinary folks that do the ordinary jobs that make Fonterrier its money like most similar whines. This is about the costs of one or two (particularly one) members of staff who are paid well beyond anything they are even remotely worth. It would seem $5.1 million dollar salary that former CEO Andrew Ferrier got in his last year with them wasn’t enough to support the poor wee chap and thus the Fonterriers gave him a little something to help him get by. Nothing major you understand; just a spare $8.2M they had lying around.

I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I could just about go along with whichever disgusting capitalist swine that approved that being made to walk the plank. $8.2 fucking million! That is disgusting especially when he has already been paid $5.1M for his final year and gawd knows how many millions for each of the other seven years he was in that job. This kind of obscene generosity is simply rubbing the noses of everyone in New Zealand who is struggling to make ends meet right in the soiled nappies of the 1%.

Now I don’t think I am over-reacting in the slightest here because I have done some number crunching here and I it is no exaggeration to say that 99% of us will never earn as much as that bonus in our entire working lives, never mind all the millions he got in salary over that 8 year gig. I have no problem with skilled people being paid a salary that is commensurate with their skill levels and even a bit more. But this is I have worked out that even if you had a working life of 40 years and averaged $200,000 per annum for that entire time, you would still wind up $100,000 short of that bonus.

Is this that brighter future where tossers like Ferrier have their snouts firmly wedged in a platinum trough while working families struggle to afford a one litre the very product he is earning so much from? 

Dotting the coms and crossing the fingers

The FBI might want Kim Dotcom to be perceived as some kind of ‘Bête Noir’ but the New Zealand Police with no small measure of help from Government have made an absolute circus of his arrest and everything that has followed. The effect has been to elevate Dotcom to the level of a man who has been misunderstood and had his rights trampled on by jackbooted fascists.

Whether this is an accurate picture of the man still remains to be seen, but it is kind of hard to side with those who claim to be the good guys when you learn what has gone down here.

Dotcom is claiming police raid was an instance of ‘excessive police action’.  He has said that when police arrived they were not in police uniform and he had no way of knowing they were police. He says he bolted into his panic room when he saw a bunch of heavily armed men arriving on his property and I think I would have done the same if I had a panic room to dive into. He says once he became aware they were police he decided to sit tight rather than surprise them and risk being shot. Once again this is pretty sensible behaviour.

Dotcom further alleges that when police reached the panic room they punched him in the face, kicked him while he was on the ground and stomped on his hand.

But the entire raid appears to have been a gigantic over-reaction at the least and could well result in successful court proceedings by Dotcom against the New Zealand Police. You have to ask yourself whether it was really necessary to helicopter in a battalion of Police armed with pistols and automatic weapons to arrest three businessmen. It is very lucky this episode didn’t turn nasty because Dotcom’s bodyguards had weapons. While this is not a desirable state of affairs, I am sure many of New Zealand’s mega-wealthy citizens are also protected by armed men. If Dotcom’s guys had not realised soon enough they were facing Police there could have been a fire fight and then the coppers would really have had some explaining to do.

As it is there is already a judicial review under way regarding the legality of the warrant used in the raid and now we discover the NZ Police have handed over to the FBI material they seized in the raid which they had assured Dotcom’s lawyer they had not done and would not do without giving notice. What makes this worse is that among that material is footage from Dotcom’s security cameras which would bear out (or otherwise) his claims about the way the raid was conducted. Now those files are in the hands of the FBI, what is the bet they are ‘lost’ or ‘found to be unusable’ or tampered with?

I know Jianqi wants to become the United States’ bestest buddy’ so I shouldn’t really be too surprised that when the FBI snaps their fingers he races out and fetches their paper and sits panting at their feet and wagging his tail. But the American’s must be pissing themselves with laughter at the lengths this moron will go to prostituting our sovereignty and denying the usual expected protection to one of our own citizens. After all, Kim Dotcom might have been born in Germany and he might have spent a lot of time living all over the world but he does hold New Zealand citizenship and that should count for something. Can anyone imagine the United States rolling over like that and denying the rights of one of their citizens to appease a perceived ally? (Did I really ask that question?) Talk about allowing an FBI Sledgehammer (trust me I know what I’m doing) a crack at a nut, albeit an intriguing nut.

I have to admit I rather like Kim Dotcom and as this case unfolds I find myself liking him even more. He has a great sense of humour as evidenced by his “John Banks’ song and as a musician friend of mine recently said, for a bloke whose supposed to be a copyright pariah, he seems to have a good deal of support among the musical community. It is interesting to see how all the pollies who were only too happy to lap up his hospitality have all suffered severe memory loss and tried to distance themselves as far away from him as possible at a time when he needs support. But then they are politicians so this sort of fair-weather friendship is part of their culture.

But aside from the fact I like Dotcom and think he deserves a fairer suck of the sav than he has had so far; what concerns me most of all here are the actions of the Attorney-General’s office and the NZ Police. You might have expected the Police to be a little more cautious after the fiasco that was Tuhoegate; but they seem to have been pretty hyped up and clomping all over the show in their big size 13 boots. The Attorney-General’s office might have to spend some considerable time attempting to extract their much more stylish shoes from their big mouths. They’d better hope they’ve dotted all their coms and crossed all their fingers. This whole circus might be amusing were it not for two things. The first of these is you and I will ultimately pay for all of this when Dotcom sues, and that will be regardless of whether he does so successfully or not. Either way we will be throwing loads of dosh at legal fees. The second point is that once again we are being made to look like international Noddies by our Government. Thanks Jianqi and co! Oh, and lest we forget; thanks to all the pillocks that voted for this barrel of monkeys.  

Forgotten mammaries or how to make a tit of yourself

It would seem they have been putting something in the water at the Beehive because an awful lot of the b’s are having trouble with their tiny insectivore memory banks.

Banks’ blanks

We are currently all watching with increasing alarm the ridiculous spectacle of Banksia who it would seem is unable to recall flying in a flash private helicopter to a multi-million dollar home on the North Shore of Auckland where he dined with a man so large he darks out the sun. Banksia’s recall is also compromised whenever he is asked where all his election funds came from or whether he paid full price for his holiday accommodation. It would appear he also has forgotten the rest of us have not just arrived on a cabbage boat (whatever the fuck one of those is).

When it comes to a question of what Jianqi should do about Banksia, then politics aside it is obvious this man won’t remember what he has just voted for in the chamber ten minutes afterwards. This calls into question his ability to remember what he is being paid $217,000p.a. to do

Key blanks

As for Jianqi it is obvious he is also experiencing the first stages of memory loss. It is clear there are big blanks in his recall. For example he doesn’t seem to recall how he told Hell-On-Wheels that she should stand Whinny down when he was being investigated over alleged electoral expense issues. “That’s what a good Prime Minister would do – that’s what I would do” he lisped. So if he believed that he is then by his own definition either not a good Prime Minister, unless of course he is a liar or has simply forgotten.

Jianqi also seems to have forgotten he didn’t actually win the election with an earth-shattering majority. In fact he seems to have forgotten he didn’t win it with any sort of complete majority. While it is true he got more seats and more votes than any other single party, in both instances that still only amounted to less than half of the votes cast.

Finally little Jianqi seems to have forgotten he is no longer a Lone Ranger currency trader who can zoom here and there at someone else’s expense and cut deals of his own.

Brown outs

Another who seems to be having trouble with his short-term memory is Gezza Brown Eye. We already suspected Gez’s stomach had no memory and now we find the problem is not confined to that. Gezza has had a lot of trouble over the last year remembering to move his big foot from his mouth before trying to say something clever. So far he has referred to Bob Parkup as a clown (which is accurate though Gez himself only needs the funny shoes and the wig to be a much better candidate for that epithet.

Gez’s clodhoppers were still wedged in his gob a few months later when he decided to regale us all with his up-to date knowledge of life in Finland. Unfortunately it would seem Gezza’s knowledge of Finland was written on the back of a postage stamp in crayon and did not include the warning “remove hoof before you make a goof”. Consequently he became the very large butt of some very good Finnish humour.

That last gaffe should have Finnished (I couldn’t resist that) him off, but Ol Brown Eye still had blank to fire. About ten days ago he was asked about some comments from Christchurch City Councillor Yani Johansson but was unable to say much except that he didn’t know who Mr Johansson was. Given Gez was liaising with said Council and has been regularly since the shaky city shook itself to the ground, you might think he would remember this dude. Maybe the Scandinavian name confused him and he thought it was another fin trying to make a mockery of him.

No benefit of hindsight

Another NewCon who appears to be having trouble with memory is Benefit Minister Paula Bumfat. As a former solo mother who had to bring up kids and get herself an education you might think she would remember very well what a hard row to hoe that is.

However it is abundantly clear to this observer that Ms Bumfat has almost no recollection of those days. If it were not so, then why would she seem to think the rules should be changed for the latest batch of solos ensuring none of them get the opportunities she did at our expense. Nobody who could remember bringing up a child alone while trying to get a career under way could ever  see the logic in reducing student allowances for those who need the assistance of those benefits in order to become a self-supporting and worthwhile member of society.

Lest we forget

Another and possibly even more costly event involving memory also came to my attention this week. It has been revealed that Crown lawyers and others were aware when they authorised police to seize assets belonging to Kim Dotcom their paperwork was flawed and the seizures were illegal. This was discovered at the time and even Solicitor-General David Collins knew of it, yet they all chose to ignore this fact and go ahead anyway.

So what did this have to do with memory? Simply this; Justice Potter has already pointed out to KD that he has the right to sue over the Crown’s actions. Given he probably has more money than the NZ Government they must have forgotten you don’t piss off big wealthy men who can sue your arse on a scale you have only ever seen in your nightmares

Collapsing banks

It’s a slippery slope when you sup with the devil. The road to hell is paved with good donations. Pride comes before a rockfall. You are judged by the company you are funded by. Don’t air your dirty dealings in public.

How many more mixed metaphors can you think of to describe the shambles that is the current Coalition Government?

The SS National Disgrace has sprung more than a couple of leaks in her hull since that farce we called an election. But what is worse is that closer inspection shows the timbers are rotten to the core.

The election was built on a massive collection of lies, half-truths, deceptions and gagging orders so it should come as no surprise when those who were ‘robbed’ by it uncover more dirty deeds on an almost daily basis. You can’t steal an election using all sorts of dirty tricks and not expect payback.

Who can forget the hissy fit Banksia and Jianqi got into when their carefully staged PR exercise got out of their control?  Police were dragged away from important policing to harass a freelance photographer and apply subtle pressure to the media in general over an inadvertent recording of a discussion in public between two public figures. The court wrapped everything up tightly until. after the election and the police issued a heavy warning in support of the two little gnomes, despite the fact most of this was legally dubious at best and downright inaccurate at worst.

Let’s not forget the figures none of us were allowed to see that would have either justified (yeah right) or disproved the logic being Jianqi’s planned asset sales. ‘Trust me”, little Jianqi seems to be saying. But why would you? He’s been caught out that many times in the last 12 months; you might think the Teflon must be getting at least a bit tarnished.

I never thought I’d say it, but Whinny has been a very valuable member of this current Parliament. He has not given the National Disgrace so much as a centimetre of wriggle room. He has called for Banksia to be stood down until all his alleged sins of omission and commission have been dealt with. He points out that Jianqi insisted Helen Cluck do the same with him when he was a Minister and there was a matter of some donations to NZ First that were alleged to be outside the rules. At that time Key had said that was what he would do if he had a Minister in that position. Interesting how quickly things can change when the boot is in another mouth, eh?  

Jianqi says Banksia has told him directly he has done no wrong and that’s good enough for him. That might be all very well in certain circumstances but when there is evidence to suggest Banksia has had an amazing case of amnesia over so much stuff, you’d think the PM might be a tad more cautious.

However arrogance is a style Jianqi has always carried off well. He somehow manages to adopt a ‘what me?’ face and an ability to act incredibly disingenuously and give the impression he is an innocent in a strange world instead of the puppet-master he really is.

As Whinny so cleverly quipped, “Mr Key has certain principles, if you don't like them than he's got others.”

The Banksia/Dotcom/SkyCity affair is increasingly looking like the loaded gun that will have Jianqi’s eye out. It is clear Banksia has been economical with the truth over his dealings with the large, apparently genial and definitely memorable Kim Dotcom. As Whinny said, it is rather hard to forget the megasized boss of Megaupload and it would appear Banksia might have the first stages of dementia if he can’t remember meeting the man mountain at least four times over the last 18 months or so, especially when at least two of those meeting lasted for over two hours. Even Banksia’s old mate Mofo Williamson this week confirmed Banksia had approached him seeking approvals for Herr Dotcom with the OIO.

Of course Dotcom is not the only very animated skeleton in Banksia’s electoral piggy closet; there is the matter of SkyCity who very generously gave $15,000 each to Banksia and Lemon Brown, though only the Lemon seemed to remember it....or declare it.

The Oppos need work together and keep digging around Banksia as I believe they will find a lot more skeletons. If he goes down it will be a significant rockfall for the coalition who will then have a zero vote majority unless they can fool the Maori Party, which given its current leadership shouldn’t be too hard. But being able to buy the occasional vote on the occasional issue would not be a sustainable situation for them and the good old Vote of No Confidence could probably be rolled out quite successfully at that stage.

I would suggest the best place to start is to closely scrutinise all his electoral donations both for Mayor and for Parliament. According to Granny Herald his electoral return (for the mayoralty) contained 45 other allegedly anonymous donations and five of those were for $25,000. Given Banksia's reluctance to own up to the two Dotcom cheques and the SkyCity one, who knows who else might have their finger up his bum working him? People like Jianqi like to tell us everything is about transparency but from where most of us are sitting it would appear there is a lot of gunk on the windshield of our ship of state.

I reckon a couple more good shots across the bow could sink this tub. Action stations!

Crystal balls and other delicate bits

I had a comment recently that I ought to try writing a blog about something positive. It’s a tempting thought and God knows I’ve scanned the news sites looking for some really good local positivity. The fact is; although there are some good things going on they don’t offer the same amount of scope for being lampooned  (unless I pick on our local media) or making a valid ethical or political point.

So I decided instead this week to make a positive prediction.

I predict that 2012 will be a very good year for lawyers in New Zealand. Now you might think that a pretty lame prediction considering that by income standards at least, most years are good for lawyers in NZ. But I mean it will be a good year for them because of the number of interesting legal conundrums that will arise, for the most part from the actions of our Government.

It has already opened in fine style with the Electoral Commission finding that the ‘Boogie down with Jianqi’ radio show was in fact an election programme. It would seem the EC possess the ‘nads to stand up to the Government, unlike the BSA, or Justice Winkelmann, or the Ombudsman. Now let’s see if our Police Commissioner is a real man or too scared about his promotion prospects to prosecute.

What makes this one even more interesting is the fact that at present it is Mediaworks that is in the gun and not Jianqi. Surely by taking part he would be responsible as well – in fact the main culprit. Mediaworks (who by some strange coincidence had a Government guarantee of around $45M given to them last year) were simply accessories before during and after the offence. The Prime Muncher was responsible for putting himself on there.

Consider this; If Joe Bloggs asked his neighbour to borrow his truck so he could go and do a ram raid on his local liquor store, then it would be Joe who would have the book thrown at him while his neighbour would be prosecuted for the lesser crime of knowingly providing him with the means to commit the raid. I can’t see why the Radio Jianqi affair should be any different. However I’ve no doubt a bunch of very highly paid counsel will be arguing that out soon.

Speaker and general oddball Backward Smith has bumbled out early with a politically motivated ruling that could also lead to legal action, although I sense there could be a reprieve for him if the PSC disagree with his ruling.

I am reminded of a similarly stupid lapse of judgement by the same Gaylen look-alike a few years ago when he explained that Asians were ideally suited for fruit picking because of their tiny wee hands. It’s a miracle he didn’t wind up with a large Chinese basketballer’s mitt around his scrawny little throat to remind him that people of all races come in all shapes and sizes.

Of course the PSC might agree with Lockwood that it is fine to discriminate against deaf people but not those in wheelchairs or those who want Maori translation. Hopefully they will write that down as I just did to see how ridiculous it is and allow the Greens to get their Mojo working. If not I see tears before bedtime for ol’ Backwards and shouts of glee from some highly paid lawyers.

The legal profession has already done very well out of the Tuhoe raids case and will no doubt continue to do so for some time yet. I really don’t know what was going on in Tuhoe country at the time, but clearly something was. Whether it was illegal or not might be another matter. Unfortunately when somebody as high profile as Tame Iti is involved the issues often become clouded as other agenda from him and his opponents come into play.

It is clear, however that the Police exceeded their powers, which is, let’s face it, not that unusual for them. What makes this a bit different though is their insistence that the ends justified the means. This is what the US Government calls accepting a bit of collateral damage and what Adolph Hitler called the path to the final solution (or something similar). If Government and Police want the law to be respected they need to apply it in an ethical and fair manner. The minute you start cutting corners and skipping over people’s rights you are on a slippery slope. It’s a bit like opening that box of chocolates you know you shouldn’t eat, just to have one, or maybe two, or three won’t really hurt, will they......?

There is one more case that will keep a lot of lawyers very busy and very well rewarded, and that is the Megaupload (of bollox). This is another case that has a very dodgy feel to it.

I don’t know a great deal about Kim DotCom (such a silly name), but from what I can see, his case is going to open quite a few cans of worms and I doubt they’ll all be able to put back into the cans afterwards. The FBI seems to think he’s a cross between Al Capone, Timothy McVeagh and Charlie Manson. Charges include money-laundering (what do you use; I use Earthwise ultra concentrate); racketeering (so he’s a bit noisy) and copyright fraud – but here is where the lawyers will really get busy.

Owners of copyright are entitled to full protection against theft of their works, but the Feds are trying to make him and his company liable for the actions of third parties over which they will have limited control. It is a bit like trying to make a record store owner liable for the actions of somebody who buys a CD from their store and takes it home and makes a load of copies which he then sells to others. The store owner can’t possibly know the guy is going to do this and is engaged in a perfectly legitimate and honourable trade selling CDs in the first place. I can’t see how the Megaupload thing differs in that respect. However I’ve no doubt a coach load of lawyers will make enough money out of arguing it to put a deposit down on a small Greek island. I hear they might be going for quite reasonable prices soon along with quite a lot of other European real estate. But the lawyers will need to act fast to beat the bankers to it.     

Weak tea and even weaker characters

Times are tough and we are all going to have to pull in our belts this year. Or so the saying goes from our shiny new government.

Why we would need to do this when we are confronted with a ‘brighter future’ I can’t understand; unless that ‘brighter future’ was simply a colourful pigment of Jianqi’s imagination.

I couldn’t help noticing how the Prime Munter leapt onto the front foot this week to try and damp down the fires of expectation.  The Government is still on track to get back into surplus by 2014/5 he told a no doubt credulous audience at Waitakere in his ‘State of the Nation’ speech (and what a state it is in, eh?). But added that the European debt crisis could stuff that up for him, and finished off on a positive (read: rehearsed) note by saying, “But outside that scenario, we remain firmly committed to our target for surplus in 2014 - 15." Which is another way of saying their policy is still the same even if their intentions are not. It is important in politics to distinguish between ‘policies’- (the stuff you tell people you want/intend to do) and ‘intentions’ – (what is really going on).

I heard the teapot tape today and it is a sadly disappointing item, to be frank. There were no really big hairy skeletons leaping from the closet, but it is clear those who claimed to have heard it earlier obviously did. It contains some less than charitable comments about poor old Dong Rash and writes of the NZ First supporters, but aside from that there is nothing particularly damning. It also shows the two Johns in a pretty cocky mood, but then we already knew what jumped up little farts both are, anyway. It makes you wonder what sort of a long game Jianqi is playing by making such a fuss and involving the cops. My guess is that he was embarrassed not so much by what was on the tape as he was for being such a dufus as to not notice it earlier.

Still this incident will pale into insignificance when Parliament really gets started. We haven’t heard the last of the Kim.com saga yet. Some awkward questions will have to be answered about how somebody who passes the residency ‘character’ test doesn’t pass the same test for buying a home. Methinks some ‘second thoughts’ are involved here. The Coalman probably (actually certainly) stuffed up granting him residence in the first place and then Mo Fo Williamson pulled the rug out when he wanted a home. Well why not, eh? They already had his $10M. I notice Judge David McNaughton – the nitwit that let Akshay Anand Chand out on bail resulting in him killing the woman he was charged with abducting – has shown wiser counsel in assessing the likelihood of Mr .com (why didn’t he choose.de given he is German?) fleeing. His lawyer, Paul Davison showed how naive he was by saying his client’s assets were frozen and therefore he was not a flight risk. Wake up, Paully; people this rich ALWAYS have other funds available to them. Having said all of that; something about this case makes me very uneasy. We seem awfully keen to please the Americans over this and I smell a large political rat somewhere in this pile of shit. Has Mr Domain name upset some big money players (apart from Hollywood that is)? I suspect he has and this is more to do with that fact than any alleged illegal file sharing or ‘racketeering’. But I could be wrong.  

Of course the next fly in Jianqi’s Vix is likely to be the sale of the Crafar Farms. In the light of the hoo-hah over Kim.com this has become an even more hot potato for the Government. A decision from the OIO is due any day now. Some unkind commentators have suggested it is being timed for when the PM is out of the country. Settle down. Little Johnny is not a pussy and always knows how to man up. Look how he dealt with the media over the teacup saga. He wasn’t running away he was just very busy as Prime Monitors are, saving us from our wasteful ways and greedy excesses. Well you can’t waste what you don’t have, can you? And we ‘one percenters’ can only dream of wasting stuff these days.