Orwellian and Kafkaesque - Dark Times in New Zealand

And then they came for Rodney Hide?

Martyn Bradbury

The Daily Blog,

19 July, 2015

I’m no fan of Rodney Hide. The mans politics are a vicious mix of right wing scumbaggery and base appeal bullshit, but no one, not even Rodney Hide deserves to be treated like this…

Secrets and spies in God’s Own

You will no doubt be as surprised as I was to learn that a junior civil servant is able to scoop up more information about you and me, in secret, without a warrant, than the director of the Security Intelligence Service can.

Well, that's if the New Zealand Government is to be believed.

You will recall a couple of months back I reported my horror at discovering it appeared I was under covert investigation. I have since found out more — but not much.

It started with Hamilton-based Deputy Official Assignee Annemarie Foidl issuing what are called Section 165 notices to my friends and colleagues.

Foidl demanded that they appear before a private investigator to answer questions or face arrest.

They complied. In such fashion Foidl scooped up information about me, my movements, my activities, my family and more.

Foidl's boss, Mandy McDonald, will neither confirm nor deny the gathering of information.

She says I am not under investigation. I now know her real target is a friend of mine.

Quite how Foidl jumps from collecting information about his business affairs to gathering deeply personal information about me and my family I don't know.

I have complained repeatedly in detail to McDonald, who says there's no evidence her staff have operated "contrary to law, unreasonably, unjustly or oppressively".

I wrote to Minister Paul Goldsmith. He says there's nothing he can do and suggested I get legal advice.

I would have thought he would be anxious to ensure his department, when snooping on private citizens, is doing so lawfully. Instead he told me to get a lawyer.

He has left it up to me to prove their snooping unlawful — not for them to prove it's lawful.

The interesting thing for me is how upsetting it has proved to be. I have nothing to hide. I am well used to being in the public spotlight. It was once part of my life to have others talk about me in less than flattering terms.

I would have thought it no big deal to have a state agency do similar.

But I have found it extremely disturbing to have friends and colleagues compelled to appear under threat of arrest and answer questions about me and my family put to them by a private investigator under contract to the Government.

Oh, and to have those friends and colleagues warned not to tell me what they were asked.

It's extremely invasive and sinister. It's what we expect of totalitarian regimes, not free and democratic societies such as ours.

I have complained to the Ombudsman, who is investigating and I am hitting the law books to understand my options.

It simply can't be that Foidl, whose job it is to administer bankrupts, has more power to snoop on people than the director of the SIS, whose job it is to chase terrorists.

…the degree in which Rodney and his whanau have been threatened into providing information without any legal protections is Orwellian AND Kafkaesque. Allowing the State to have wide ranging unchallenged powers and then sub contracting those powers out to private organisations that have zero judicial oversight is a manifest contradiction to everything a liberal democracy built upon the rule of law judges itself upon.

When I launched the fight back against the mass surveillance powers Key rammed through Parliament, I argued this wasn’t a Right wing or Left wing issue – NO Government should have these types of totalitarian powers.

Rodney Hide, say what you will about him (and I think I’ve said everything you can about him) is no slouch. If he can be bullied and threatened like this, what do you think they can do to people with no public profile at all?

There has over the last 7 years been a creeping darkness at the heart of power in this country. Things that we fought and died in wars against have quietly shadowed the corridors of power and become the norm.

We are becoming the land of the long dark cloud.

Why am I under investigation?

The state apparently has me under covert investigation.

Political corruption and coverup in New Zealand

Sexual assault? Pedophilia? Corruption. The rot is very deep in this country extending to the judiciary, the guarantor of democratic safeguards in this country.

This confirms much of what I have suspected to be the case.

Sabin sexual assault case – the shroud of political corruption and coverup moves to New Zealand’s High Court

Lauda Finem,

22 April, 2015

By the looks of it the Mike Sabin sexual assault case took yet another turn two days ago when it was transferred from an undisclosed District Court to New Zealand’s High Court. The location of the new Court has also been concealed from the public. This sudden move occurred the day Sabin’s name suppression orders were due to expire. We have yet to find out the identity of the jurist responsible but given the case was on appeal then one could be forgiven for suspecting the order came from New Zealand’s court of appeal.

The entire world is now watching as New Zealand’s National party government attempts to bury its absolutely filthy laundry.

LF readers will most likely be aware of the latest allegations to engulf Kiwi Prime Minister John Key this morning, it’s therefore little wonder that John Key was of a mind to aid the police and ex cop Mike Sabin hide these serious пallegations.

John Key: Pony-tail pulling ‘just horsing around’

Neither Fairfax or APNZ New Zealand ran stories advising of this latest development, which is of course not a good look for the country’s so-called “fourth estate”. One radio station ran a very small piece, albeit extremely well hidden from public view:

Source:

Whilst the article obviously does not name the accused it is however clearly the New Zealand National party’s Mike Sabin. Unless there are two “prominent New Zealander’s” up on exactly the same charges there is little doubt. The manner in which this case is being concealed is also completely indicative, reeking of the same National party coverup that John Key and his highly paid ex-journo political spin-doctors have run since late last year.

Fellow Australian journo Derryn Hinch pretty much spelt it out in four small paragraphs:

A Kiwi Conspiracy

…..The sitting member for Northland, Mike Sabin, was selected to recontest the seat in September even though there was an ongoing police investigation into his private life.

He now faces twelve charges of indecent assault involving two alleged victims. You now know this, but the electors in Northland didn’t back in September. And still don’t.

Mr. Sabin is an ex-policeman who got elected on law and order issues. In fact he was chairman of the Law and Order Select  Committee. Prime Minister Key let him continue to head that committee – and presumably question police officers – two days after Key was reportedly told of the police investigation.

‘prominent New Zealander’

Sabin appeared in court in February and had his name suppressed.  In news reports over there he is referred to euphemistically as a ‘prominent New Zealander’. The way the former All Black sex offender Graham Thorne is always protected………

Source: http://www.humanheadline.com.au/hinch-says/a-kiwi-conspiracy

In fact the New Zealand National party, their wonder boy PM John Key and his bent spin-doctors have become little more than an international laughing stock, the butt of quite a few bad taste jokes, “the Emperors new cloths”, but now that John Keys own “horsing around” and little girls“pony tail” fetish has been exposed the jokes can only get worse.

The criminal charges against Sabin are simple enough, although it would seem that the wheelers and dealers, including the New Zealand police, have had little luck in bullying the two plaintiffs into retracting the allegations and their statements – those allegations being that Mike Sabin variously touched their breasts, buttocks, groin and thighs. Of course the alleged indecencies will have likely been far more serious but that is being saved for the trial, if one is ever actually held.

The charges faced by the man, who elected trial by jury, can now be revealed.

He is facing 12 charges of indecent assault against two people including two representative charges.

The charges, which include allegations of touching the complainants on the breast, buttocks, groin and thigh, are punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Make no mistake, what is occurring is extremely dangerous, its serious corruption, there is absolutely no other word for it. National party Prime Minister John Key withheld this information from the New Zealand public knowing full well that if he had not done so then the National party would have lost at least one seat in last Novembers general election, that being Sabin’s Northland electorate.

The stench of such allegations, indecent (sexual) assault, however may well have turned voters in electorates all over the country against the National party. Prime Minister John Key knew full well that child sexual abuse is extremely dangerous territory and its not just politically volatile – In New Zealand things can turn physical very quickly once the Banjo players have been identified.

Retiring High Court Justice John McGrath

There’s another very disturbing factor in what has now morphed into another serious judicial fiasco and the pattern of corrupt political behavior around it – the role that the country’s judiciary appear to have performed in this case is seriously questionable; begging the question, is the New Zealand judiciary now at the beckon-call of the country’s seriously small political elite?

Just thirteen days ago retiring Supreme Court judge Sir John McGrath spoke of his concerns for the rule of Law in New Zealand. – That the National party government had been playing with the statutes to such an extent and in particular the governments proposed removal of democratic safeguards, that he held very real fears for the rule of law.

McGrath’s concerns never made a half serious newspaper column, nor did any of the country’s editors pick up on his warning. Instead the best that could be done was a flippant piece penned by Mr jocular himself, Jock Anderson, in his weekly column “Case Load” for the New Zealand Herald:

Dumping rule of law worries retiring judge

9:30 AM Friday Apr 10, 2015

A statutory provision affirming New Zealand’s commitment to the rule of law will soon disappear from the statute book – and retiring Supreme Court judge Sir John McGrath (70)doesn’t like it.

In his recent retirement speech, Sir John – a former solicitor general – expressed concern at the removal of a provision on the rule of law from legislation governing the Supreme Court.

Sir John said though the Constitution Act 1986 provided for Parliament to be the supreme law-making power of the nation, there was no equivalent provision stating the role of the judicial branch “or indeed the underlying concept of the judicial function which is to uphold the rule of law”.

He said the gap was filled to some extent by the establishment of the Supreme Court in 2003. The establishing legislation stipulated that nothing in it “affects New Zealand’s continuing commitment to the rule of law and sovereignty of Parliament”.

But he said the statutory provision would be repealed if the Judicature Modernisation Bill, which recently had its second reading, is enacted in its present form.

“If that happens, in the new statute providing for senior courts, we will no longer have this meaningful statutory recognition of both the judicial and legislative roles,” Sir John said.

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11429540

If the Sabin abuse case is anything to go by it would seem that at least one of those “rule of law”fears may have already started to manifest – the current New Zealand government believing itself to be above the law.

 McGrath’s full speech can be read here.