Posts by Alfie
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Ladies and gentlemen… please excuse the diversion but in the spirit of Friday posts, I commend to you one Philomena Cunk, an extremely funny woman. There are five embedded videos on this Guardian page and they’re all worth watching.
Enjoy!
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Toby Manhire competently sums up Key’s “petulant-sneer” attitude when confronted with questions on the Panama Papers in parliament this week. He has a great quote from Winston Peters who said Key appeared "like a boy who’s had a widdle behind the couch and he’s denying it to mum”.
Exactly. Key has been acting guiltier by the day as the revelations unfold, suggesting that he may personally have something to hide. After all, you don’t employ a specialist offshore tax lawyer (or non-lawyer) when you don’t have offshore “interests. Do you? Manhire concludes.
The most damaging part of the Panama Papers storm for the Prime Minister is starting to become his own response to it.
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Polity: Is being a tax haven worth it?, in reply to simon g,
John Key kicked out of Parliament by David Carter.
Here's the parliamentary coverage -- Key ejected around 5:45 -- not much to see in the leadup apart from Key being his usual odious self.
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As the oily one sets out to paint himself as the victim, Nicky Hager’s lawyer Felix Geiringer sets out the seven reasons why Slater didn’t qualify for diversion. You'll need to scroll down the page or here's a summary at the Standard.
And Alistair Thompson asks, Was Judith Collins briefed?
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Legal Beagle: Cameron Slater: computer hacker?, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Geddis at his bestest!
Decidedly delicious. ;-)
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I just watched Bernard Hickey on Checkpoint who suggests the 3% figure is pretty sketchy and probably under-reports the reality. His logic...
* For a start, 10% of the data is irrelevant because those transactions were exempt because they were "grandfathered" -- commenced before the October 1st start date.
* 35% of the buyers of homes said they were foreign students or had temporary work visas. However LINZ said that they may New Zealanders who misinterpreted the survey question, so they weren't added to the 3% figure. That skews the results hugely.
Hickey reckons the actual number is somewhere between 3% and 48%.
Quite a wide range.
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Hard News: Forgetting what we didn't know, in reply to Russell Brown,
Good column by the Herald's Matt Nippert on getting access to the data today:
And another from Alex van Wel, RNZ's digital news editor on the spirit of cooperation between normally competing media.
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Name suppression has just been lifted to reveal that Slater Junior was charged last December with hiring Ben Rachinger to hack The Standard site.
Slater faced a single charge of trying to procure a hacker to access the computer system of The Standard's website "with dishonest intent and without claim of right in order to obtain property and/or a benefit, namely computer files, or information from computer files".
While Slater usually campaigns against name suppression for others, he made an exception this time and claimed that publication of his own name would cause him "severe hardship". He also alleged there was an "orchestrated campaign" against him by Rachinger and the media. Paranoia, much.
Slater effectively admitted the offence and was offered diversion if he undertook counselling and community work. He completed his diversion by May 6th, Police dropped the charge and no conviction was entered. Slater asked for his name supression to be permanent. The judge said 'no'.
Rachinger was also charged with taking $1000 from Slater by deception. What's that saying about honour amongst thieves?
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Polity: Is being a tax haven worth it?, in reply to Joe Wylie,
The phrase “personality cult” may be a little strong Joe. While Dunne has certainly modified his position over the last four years, he’s currently the only member of the government support team actively criticising our tax haven status.
Incidentally, does anyone know where the Maori Party stands on this issue? I haven’t been able to track down a single statement from them.
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Colin Peacock from RNZ's Mediawatch looks at the implications of a Fairfax/APN merger and what the subsequent lack of competition, including a possible paywall on any combined site, could mean for users.