Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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As far as I can tell Broad never uttered the word "terrorist", and in his initial statements he was at pains to say that the public should not jump to conclusions.
Sure, but he must have said 'terrorism' in his first briefing, which isn't terribly different. Even if it was just, 'yes the warrants did list the Terrorism Suppression Act' or "we must be careful to avoid jumping to conclusions, we'll look at the evidence and there may not be enough to charge some or even all of those arrested under the Terrorism Suppression Act'.
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David Cuachi:
[sorry for the delay]According to section 13(2), you participate in a terrorist group if you do anything 'to enhance the ability of any entity (being an entity of the kind referred to in subsection (1)(a) or (b)) to carry out, or to participate in the carrying out of, 1 or more terrorist acts', which I would imagine includes training to do these things.
True, but as I expect you anticipate, this misses a couple of potential problems:
1. You can only enhance the ability of a terrorist entity if it is already a terrorist entity. Even if you're helping it towards committing a terrorist act, if your help is before it becomes a terrorist entity, then you haven't committed the offence.
2. There potentially also has to be a level of specificity to the terrorist acts you're helping to prepare it to carry out. If all they're training toward is to get ready to commit some terrorist act in the future, but which hasn't actually been decided on, then maybe that isn't enough. Basically, it's the difference between training to be a better shot, knowing that someone might ask you to shoot a particular target at some point in the future, and training to be a better shot so you can shoot Anne Onymous according to some plan (though you may not have to know the plan or even the target).
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the EFB does not impose donation disclosure on political parties.
No, it just doesn't make them tougher than they currently are, or fix the holes you could drive a truck through; and the spending limits bit still applies.
The EFB bans any arguments countering those of known liars
Again, no it doesn't. It limits them; it requires that people spending more than $5000 to register in advance; it stops them being made anonymously. The only ban it imposes is on political parties issuing press releases.
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Prosecuting for treason on that basis would be like prosecuting a kid for attempted murder for attacking his brother with a blunt pencil.
Ah yes, but you see, I watched West Wing episode 2-16 Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail last night".
**Donna**: It was people pushing paper around fifty years ago. Why does it matter?
Sam: It was high treason, and it mattered a great deal! This country is an idea, and one that's lit the world for two centuries and treason against that idea is not just a crime against the living! This ground holds the graves of people who died for it, who gave what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. Of fidelity. You understand the last full measure of devotion to... Treason against them is...... and am still tingling :-)
I'm not saying there was enough evidence to convict anyone of treason. Or even enough to charge anyone with it, but it's something I'd have advised to cops to consider looking at, in the same way they looked at terrorism.
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Broad never seemed that keen on looking at this thru the cloudy lens of 'terrorism'
And with all the talk of declaring war on New Zealand, I'd head back to treason:
Crimes Act, section 73
Every one owing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
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(b) Levies war against New Zealand; or
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(f) Conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.You still have the same problem of whether there's any evidence whatever they were doing got far enough, but I suspect evidence of a joint agreement to wage war on New Zealand doesn't need to be quite as target-specific as that around a joint agreement to kill someone.
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I really hope the DomPost has fairly represented a 100 page + document, and not cherry picked the really scary shit.
Well, obviously they've cherry-picked. The concern is whether they deliberately left out any ameliorating evidence.
And a bigger concern is whether the 100 page + document left out anything pertinent.
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why didn't any paper do this with the police rape trials?
Well, that would have been illegal. You may have noticed this line right at the beginning of the DomPost editorial:
We believe we are acting within the law.
There were suppression orders in the police rape trials, I suspect the DomPost will have been bloody careful to avoid breaking any suppression here.
The police rape trials were also either actually happening or just about to (when we got interested, anyway), the trials here are probably a year away - unlikely, therefore, to bring contempt of court into play. Finally, a previous conviction is a hell of a lot more prejudicial (and irrevocably so) than this is - especially without names.
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Trying to vilify anyone who supports public funding as trying to hijack the machinery of the state, and anyone who supports more private funding as trying to buy elections really doesn't help.
The nature of political debate in general is unfortunate.
I've caught a bit of Parliament now that it's being streamed, and come to the conclusion that whilst I'd like to think I could be a pretty good legislator, I'd probably be a pretty average MP.
Both sides - all sides - have valid arguments on the EFB, but few people seem to be making them.
The argument in favour of the regulation of third party electoral speech is basically two-fold:
1. If we impose spending limits and donation disclosure on political parties, then we shouldn't allow people to subvert those rules by spending as a third party. Basically, what's the point of limiting spending by parties to $2.4m if someone can spend another $2.4m as a third party, effectively doubling the limit, and totally missing the fairness.
2. Free speech. This sound odds, it's something the Labour defenders of the bill occasionally get close to, between screeching the words "Exclusive Brethren" and "rort", when they talk about overwhelming the voices of ordinary people - though I think that that's an unfortunate gloss to place on this argument.
It's essentially an argument around disenfranchisement and disengagement. If lots of really rich people or organisations spend a lot of money advocating their views, the argument is that those unable to come close in ad-buying power will just disengage from the political process. They can't afford to get their message "out there" and just won't bother, thinking politics is a rich man's game. Kinda like yachting.
Thinking their voice doesn't matter, or can't be heard - over the din of louder, better-financed voices - the already dispossessed will disengage, stop caring, stop voting. Democracy will suffer.
Of course, the opposition free speech argument can be pretty compelling:
The law is complex, and it's scary. Break some of the laws and you could end up in prison. People with little money, but a desire to have their say, will be discouraged from having their say. Even those who couldn't come close to the spending limit will step back, unsure, hesitant. They know there are now rules, but couldn't find them if they wanted to. Even if they find the law, they'll never understand it, and even if they do, they'll never be sure.
They can't afford a lawyer to explain it, or check what they're doing; and scared, they won't say anything - they'll stop protesting and disengage, not because the law makes it illegal, but because the mere existence of regulation of political speech has a chilling effect - political campaigning isn't for those with money, it's for those with lawyers.
This is where the statement:
For all its flaws, this bill – and the debate surrounding it – is about the role of money in elections, not free speech.
runs into problems. We'll ignore that the EFB bans political party press releases, and look at it from a purer perspective. Those who oppose regulation - any regulation - of third party speech can quite reasonably say that it's mere existence discourages political speech. They can say, yes, we recognise that big money in politics is a concern, but we are not willing to adopt a cure if it means that anyone spending more than $5000 in an election has to get advance permission from the State.
Ignore all the "is this covered?", "does the bill go too far?" stuff, it is perfectly reasonable for someone - even the Herald - to reach the conclusion that any system that requires anyone to register with the government before speaking is objectionable.
Those advocating regulation of third party speech can lay claim to pure motives and protecting democracy from the influence of big money, but the entirely reasonable conclusion of an entirely reasonable argument can lead their opponents to claim that "democracy is under attack". I'm not certain the Herald has made the feats of logic to necessarily reach that conclusion (they've certainly arrayed enough evidence to show problems, potentially insurmountable in the next two weeks) but I'm pretty sure those attacking them fro their stance haven't grappled with this either.
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For those interested, the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill passed its third and final reading a few minutes back. There were 13 votes opposed. Taito Philip Field was the surprise extra vote.
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the Herald has quoted the Human Rights Commission's scathing submission on the bill, and reported that the commission has called for the bill to be scrapped altogether. It's not actually true.
Don't tell the HRC that, paragraph 10.2 of their submission seems to put across their view with some clarity:
A human rights approach to democratic government requires genuine participation. Genuine participation, in turn, requires an informed electorate. By limiting freedom of expression and creating a complex regulatory framework in the way it does, the Electoral Finance Bill unduly limits the rights of all New Zealanders to participate in the electoral process. The Commission therefore considers that the Bill is inherently flawed and should be withdrawn.
Russell again:
The HRC wants to keep many of the features that the Herald despises, including the extended regulatory period.
And back to the HRC:
Currently the Electoral Act 1993 limits the regulation period during the run up to an election to 3 months. The Commission does not accept that extending the period to almost a year is justified.... Consideration should be given to retaining the present regulatory period.
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The Commission suggests at the very least that:
the present regulatory period is retained.[My emphasis throughout]
[RB says: D'oh! I misread part of the HRC's own summary as referring to the period presently regulated in the bill, as opposed to the existing legislation -- I've fixed it now.]