Counting down to the New Zealand election

The elections are tomorrow, Saturday (Friday, UST). 

I will reiterate that I see the significance of this election, not in voting in a government that is going to "solve" anything - but in defeating a government that is systemically corrupt and fascist in its nature.

If the vote goes with the Tories I think we are in for very dark times politically.

Australian Liberals weigh into NZ election

AUSTRALIA'S Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane has become involved in the New Zealand election, encouraging Kiwis in Australia to help re-elect John Key's National government.

the Australian,

19 September, 2014

IN an unusual move, Mr Loughnane has launched an online campaign to encourage Australians with NZ friends living and working in Australia to vote National.

"Without the party votes of National supporters living overseas there is a real risk that Labour will cobble together a coalition government with the Greens and other minor parties," Mr Loughnane writes.

"Under the leadership of John Key and National, New Zealand is moving in the right direction."

Kiwis in Australia have until this Friday to vote.

Australian National University political scholar Professor John Wanna said it was a "strange" intervention in the NZ political process.

"The normal protocol is people don't get involved in each others' politics and policies but that's been breaking down," he told AAP.

"It's a historical convention to let other countries sort their own politics out."

However he said conservative parties were increasingly seeing themselves as part of an international network.

Prof Wanna said NZ National feared the possibility of having to form a coalition with minor parties after the election and was trying to maximise the single party vote.

More than 640,000 New Zealand citizens are in Australia, representing a large proportion of the NZ electorate.

The NZ First-Labour Party attack strategy against Internet MANA better work

The final days of the campaign are ticking down and Labour and NZ First are manoeuvring to kill off the Internet MANA Party by both backing Kelvin Davis for Te Tai Tokerau. It’s a risky gambit that they better pray to Christ works for them.

the Daily Blog,

19 September, 2014

The final days of the campaign are ticking down and Labour and NZ First are manoeuvring to kill off the Internet MANA Party by both backing Kelvin Davis for Te Tai Tokerau. It’s a risky gambit that they better pray to Christ works for them.

NZ First and Labour are already quietly plotting to screw the Greens with a Labour-NZ First Government that would limit the Greens to Ministerial positions outside Cabinet so as to reduce real Green change, that’s bad enough, but to try and slice the throat of a real Left party like internet MANA carry’s a lot of risk if it’s not successful.

As someone who helped set MANA up and supported the Internet MANA coalition so that NZ First didn’t hold progressives hostage, the resulting Labour-NZ First Government brings me little joy, but if it’s a case of Labour-NZ First or a National-Conservative Party Government I know what I would prefer. That said, to screw the Greens in the manner they are about to, on top of screwing Internet MANA? Well, let’s hope for their sake it works, because if it doesn’t and internet MANA does get into office, expect nothing less than years of attack by the Left against the Labour-NZ First Government.

Years and years and years of attack. 3 to be precise. If Labour think they can cuddle up to NZ First and walk away from the Left for a centrist political position, they have another thing coming.

Not the Six O'clock News with Laila Harré - Ep 9 - Spying 2 with Glenn Greenwald

Tonight we have Glenn Greenwald's last interview in New Zealand, where he reflects on his week

Key slams Greenwald over potential spiking of NZ's UN bid

NZ Herald,

18 September, 2014

John Key has accused US journalist Glenn Greenwald of acting against New Zealand's interests after Mr Greenwald said he would release details of New Zealand spying on its allies before a United Nations vote is taken on NZ's bid for a Security Council seat.

Mr Greenwald has claimed he will reveal details of spying by New Zealand's foreign intelligence agency, the GCSB, on some of NZ's neighbours and allies in the lead up to the final vote on the Security Council in October.

New Zealand has been campaigning for the past seven years for a two-year term on the council.

Mr Key said the Security Council bid was started by former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark who told him when she handed the job over to him that he should pursue it with vigour.

"We are a good country doing good things. This guy turns up ... he's not a passionate New Zealander.

"He's a conspiracy theorist and people will see it for what it is, " Mr Key told reporters last night.

He said he did not know if Mr Greenwald's promised revelations would cost New Zealand Security Council votes.

"It would be a tragedy if it didn't happen because of that."

He said most countries had foreign intelligence agencies of their own and he did not think any of the countries Mr Greenwald could be preparing to name would be surprised or shocked that New Zealand had spied on them.

The GCSB could get involved for a range of reasons, from a New Zealand sport team preparing to travel to a risky country where intelligence was needed or for a specific reason such as freedom fighters going overseas.

Mr Key also invoked Ms Clark's name to bolster his assurance that there had been no mass surveillance.

"The simple question for New Zealanders is who do you want to believe? Do you want to believe the independent Inspector General, the current director of the GCSB and the former one, Helen Clark and me - five passionate New Zealanders.

"Or do you want to believe a couple of guys who have been brought out here by Kim Dotcom and don't have New Zealand's best interests at heart."

He was bound by the responsibility of being Prime Minister and could not reveal everything the agencies were doing.

"There is an element of 'trust me.' I'm not doing anything different from Helen Clark other than up cyber security because the risk has become much greater.

"In the end, if it costs me a few votes I'll still rest easy on that because I know I've done the right thing for New Zealanders."

Labour leader David Cunliffe has promised to review the intelligence agencies and believed Mr Key should have revealed the proposed cyber security measure earlier.

Mr Key also stuck to his belief that the NSA was not spying on New Zealand, saying it had higher priorities to worry about. "If Barack Obama wanted to know something about New Zealand I suspect he'd just give me a ring."

Mr Greenwald is the journalist whom former NSA analyst Edward Snowden entrusted with his stolen documents detailing mass surveillance by the US foreign intelligence agency.

Mr Greenwald and Mr Snowden appeared at an event in Auckland on Monday sponsored by Mr Dotcom, the Internet Party founder who is fighting extradition to the US on Internet piracy charges, to allege the GCSB conducted unlawful mass surveillance on New Zealanders, which Mr Key vehemently denies