Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Sacha,
According to that MFAT briefing above, he’s *half* the board. I’d heard a third
Companies Office says a third. I'd heard he was the sole director, so there's clearly a lot of murk. The Companies Office is, however, the final word in terms of legal standing.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Paul Campbell,
why does anyone, especially a company, give $80,000 to a political party and not expect something in return?
To me that’s the real story here, the Nats are for sale
All political parties in NZ are "for sale”, though. They have to be, since we don’t do taxpayer funding of political parties. Even the Greens accept large (tens-of-thousands of dollars) donations from individuals and businesses.
Accepting donations from businesses is not confined to National. Where it starts to get a bit whiffy, though, is that these donations are cumulatively much, much larger than the norm, and they’re from a company with a party MP’s spouse on the Board. It approaches week-old-tuna-in-the-back-seat territory because the relationship is exceptionally cosy, certainly far above what even quite a large donor might expect.
Donations get you access, that’s a given. They’re not supposed to buy ministerial visits with foreign border officials at a time when there are difficulties getting products across borders. -
Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It would be pretty bad if having a relationship with someone who was related to a political activist would be considered in any way in assessing someone's suitability for the police.
It would be a warning note in a background investigation for a high-level security clearance. Wondering if the same might apply for application to the police, with constables holding, as best I can tell, an implied Secret clearance, is not unreasonable. Whether it would be an actual impediment is an entirely different matter, but asking the question doesn't mean it's the truth.
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Speaker: Why we can’t just fix secondary…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
now and not in April
It's actually July, not April. You can file from 1 April but refunds are not made until the due-date for filing tax returns has passed which is 7 July.
People get confused when told that they'll get their refund after the end of the tax year and are then told it'll be July. "But the tax year ends in March!" they wail plaintively. Actually, no, the tax year for individuals and most companies finishes in March, but the government tax year runs July-June. And it's the government that's got a tax year to finish before it'll return over-paid taxation revenue.
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I don’t think some sort of “roving ambassador” post counts. The only way they could elevate that role would be to create a special government office on some Pacific island, and even then one could argue that a “post” is the sole NZG diplomatic presence in a state, so could not be in a place where we already have one.
They could appoint him as Ambassador/HoM for New Zealand to the Pacific Islands Forum, which is a treaty-established international organisation. We do not appear to have representation there at present, and it would work perfectly in terms of the focal area of the Forum (of which NZ is a member).
Do not underestimate McCully's cunning.
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Before anyone chimes in to echo No Right Turn's suggestion that McCully appointing Jones as an ambassador is illegal, I'll point out that heads of mission/heads of post are appointed by "the Governor General", and we all know what that means.
This reeks to high heaven, and it looks worse, but from a legal/procedural standpoint it's entirely legitimate for the Minister to establish a new diplomatic role with the status of a head-of-mission/head-of-post and pluck out a sitting MP to fill said role.
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Hard News: Standing together, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
and that this isn’t your blog post on rudeness in communications
Oh, it surely is, but lawyers are paid to be nasty to people who aren't their clients. Bit of a key distinction. That woman was being rude above and beyond the call of duty to someone who was complaining about the service received from that woman's business. Someone in a position to say the service received from the business was unacceptable. People don't review the services of lawyers based on being on the receiving end of a lawyer-gram.
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Hard News: Standing together, in reply to Russell Brown,
You might care to reflect on how vile being exposed to action from a well-heeled litigant is for a journalist, especially one without an employer to protect them.
I don't particularly need you to explain to me about being on the wrong end of a massive power imbalance with legal consequences, Russell.
I'm sure some lawyers get a jolly from bullying people and hiding behind "the law" in doing so, but they still have to be instructed by a client before they take action. They don't just pick a victim at random and write a nasty letter, someone tells them to do so.
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Hard News: Standing together, in reply to Andrew Geddis,
It is, of course, not beyond the bounds of possibility that some advisors’ advice downplays the potential reputational or other harm of taking action because there’s not much money to be made out of “just ignore it – trying to do anything will only make the situation worse”
Not to mention possible hubris on the part of the advisor and/or client, in terms of the "a lawyer-gram on Chen Palmer letterhead ought to scare the pants off'm" effect. A letter from a major firm carries more weight than the same words from Grabbit and Runne of Gore.
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Hard News: Standing together, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
You ever faced the serious prospect of being financially and professionally destroyed, about a year out of journalism school, because you did you job?
And paw widdle Cwaigy was picked on by the nasty lawyers because they got his name out of a phone book? Fuck off. You pissed off the lawyers' clients (nice work, by the way, whatever it was you wrote), and that is why the lawyers' toolbox got opened.
Bitching about how nasty lawyers are makes it sound like they just randomly decide to send off a lawyer-gram for the hell of it.