Completely hollow

RNZ this morning has a story about the moral void that is former Prime Minister John Key, in which he gloats about being a personal friend of Chinese tyrant Xi Jinping. Which just highlights what a smug, sociopathic arsehole Key is. In case anyone has forgotten, Xi is committing genocide in Xinjiang, while destroying any semblance of democracy in Hong Kong. Its one thing to shake hands and make nice with a genocidaire when you're Prime Minister, for the sake of peace and international relations and just not making a scene. But to keep it up and turn it into a personal relationship when its no longer a requirement of the job? To gloat about it? That takes someone completely devoid of morals or empathy, someone completely hollow. And we're well rid of him as Prime Minister.

Key lied about mass-surveillance

Surprise, surprise - it turns out that John Key lied to our faces about the mass-surveillance "speargun" project:

Sir John Key's story of how and why he canned a "mass surveillance" programme are at odds with official papers detailing development of the "Speargun" project.

The issue blew up in the final days of the 2014 election with Key claiming the programme was long-dead and had been replaced by a benign cyber-security system called Cortex.

Key always claimed the Speargun project to tap New Zealand's internet cable was stopped in March 2013.

But new documents show development of Speargun continued after the time he had said he ordered a halt - apparently because the scheme was "too broad".

Instead, they show Speargun wasn't actually stopped until after Key was told in a secret briefing that details were likely to become public because they could be in the trove of secrets taken by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Key basicly pretended that telling GCSB not to bring the business case to Cabinet for now because it needed legislative approval was the same as cancellation. It wasn't, and work continued right up until the "Moment of Truth" event. Worse, Key's chief-of-staff Wayne Eagleson deliberately hid documents the PM held from an OIA request by transferring it to GCSB. That's not hat-games, its not "pretty legal" withholding, its straight-out lying. The entire basis of the OIA regime relies on officials being honest about what they hold. If they're not going to do that, then we need to start providing strong incentives for them to do so. Incentives like jail time, as they do in Canada.

Meanwhile, new GCSB Minister Andrew Little is refusing to comment. In a situation where the previous government has been conclusively shown to have deceived us about spying, I think he owes us a little more than that.

For services to himself

It was the foreign monarch's false birthday over the weekend, complete with the traditional handing out of honours. And head of the list was former Prime Minister John Key, "for services to the state". Key of course is "immensely proud", and I suppose he would be - after all, that gong is worth a lifetime of free airline upgrades and highly-paid board positions. But what did he actually do to deserve it? Getting elected three times? Ignoring climate change and child poverty. Or possibly dragging us into a US war in Afghanistan and getting kiwi soldiers killed? Even if you're a fan of feudal titles (and I'm not), his record as Prime Minister is hardly stellar or deserving of recognition.

Its also unseemly. Given the long lead time on honours, Key may very well have awarded it (sorry, advised the foreign monarch to award it) to himself. At best, he was awarded it by his friends as part of his exit package (on top of his Parliamentary superannuation, ex-PM's annuity, and lifetime free air travel). A political stitch-up which cheapens the honours system, like all of those "coincidences" around knighthoods and high-paying National donors.

OTOH, if we want a perfect example of why we need to do away with archaic feudal bullshit, it's this. We should abolish knighthoods. If politicians want to play at feudalism, they should join the SCA.

War criminals must be punished

Tonight, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson launched Hit & Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the meaning of honour, about the SAS's "revenge" raid in Afghanistan. At the time, the NZDF said that the raid killed only "insurgents". They lied. In fact, the raid killed and injured only civilians; the insurgents they were targeting were nowhere near the area.

It gets worse. The SAS deliberately demolished civilian houses as revenge for the death of one of their comrades. That's a war crime. They refused to provide medical care to the wounded, resulting in some of them dying a slow, lingering, and completely unnecessary death. That's a war crime too. And when they finally captured one of the people they were looking for, they turned him over to the Afghans to be tortured. That's a war crime as well, not to mention straight out conspiracy to torture.

So who's responsible for these crimes? According to Hager and Stephenson's Q&A:

Most of all, people in the SAS. They gathered the intelligence, planned the raid and commanded and led the operation. The authors believe that the deaths and injuries of 21 civilians, the destruction of homes, and the beating and torture of a detainee were due in large part to their actions and inactions, and that they led the efforts to keep it quiet afterwards. Next there are officers in the defence force who were responsible for overseeing the SAS and who should have investigated more responsibly when news of civilian casualties emerged. This includes the then-chief of defence force Lieutenant-General Jerry Mateparae, who was in Afghanistan at the time, and who watched on the screens at the SAS operations room in Kabul as the operation unfolded. Then there are the political leaders. Most government decisions are made by individual ministers or by Cabinet as a whole. However in this case, as Chapter 2 describes, the prime minister John Key was briefed by phone from the SAS compound in Kabul and personally gave his approval for the raid.

Yes, John Key is a fucking war criminal. And he made one of his co-conspirators in those war crimes Governor-General.

These people need to go to jail. All of them. We should not tolerate war crimes by our defence forces, and we should not tolerate the authorisation of war crimes by our politicians. And the solution to it is to charge them, try them, and if convicted, jail them for a very long time, so that there will be some justice for the dead and so that all future soldiers and politicians will know that we will not tolerate that. Anything less - resignations, excuses - is just bullshit. We need prosecutions, and (if the evidence supports them), convictions.

And as a general comment: this is what happens when we involve ourselves in American wars. If we don't wage war, our soldiers don't commit war crimes. So don't wage war, except in immediate self-defence. Duh.

Useless

John Key is leaving Parliament the moment he is able to without causing a by-election. But don't worry - because Labour is letting him do it without affecting the government's majority:

Former Prime Minister John Key will quit Parliament on April 14 after delivering his farewell speech next week.

The timing will allow Parliament to avoid a by-election in his Helensville seat, which can be left vacant if he leaves within six months of the September 23 general election.

Meanwhile Labour's David Cunliffe has also announced he is leaving early, with a final day of April 23 [during a recess - I/S] - ensuring the relative strengths of the Government and Opposition are preserved.

I have one question: why? Why would an opposition possibly want to do this? Especially when there's important legislation like the gutting of the RMA on the table? Why would an opposition want to let the government keep its ability to legislate at will, rather than gaining the ability to advance the aims of its members via an effective veto on government legislation?

I understand that Labour can't stop Cunliffe from resigning if he wants to. But this move, echoing the old FPP practice of pairing, seems to be sacrificing a real opportunity for diddly-squat. Its a reminder that when push comes to shove, Labour is just a bit useless really - and that's not a good message to be sending in an election year.

No sunlight, no disinfectant

Newstalk ZB's Felix Marwick writes about the failure of his efforts to uncover the details of John Key's "briefings to bloggers" using the Official Information Act:

The Office of the Prime Minister has consistently refused to release any of the details I have sought. Its position, via Chief of Staff Wayne Eagleson, has been the information sought fell under the Prime Minister’s position as Leader of the National Party so the information was not subject to the Official Information Act. Mr Eagleson’s position has also been that to provide the information, in the case of interactions with blogger and party pollster David Farrar, it would require the searching of a large volume of correspondence. In a nutshell, any information the Prime Minister’s office held, it was not willing to disclose.

On this point the Ombudsmen have accepted the view of the Prime Minister’s Office with Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier’s view that the threshold for him to check the communications in question has not been met.

Matters have also been further complicated by John Key’s departure from the office of Prime Minister. The Chief Ombudsman did approach Mr English’s office last December to see if he adopted the position of his predecessor. Mr English, via his chief of staff Wayne Eagleson, backed the position of his predecessor and also made the point that given Mr Key’s departure, and that of many of his staff, he couldn’t be certain in what capacity Mr Key made the communications and whether they were official information or not.

Add to this the fact that when a Minister or official ceases office, information that they alone hold stops being official information at that point, and it becomes immediately apparent any formal attempt to use the OIA to elicit details is a lost cause.

I'd made the same request, with the same results. If you're curious about the details, the Ombudsman's most recent letter is here. The core problem with the process though is simply how long it took: the requests were filed in July 2014, and yet the Ombudsman's Office didn't bother to act on them until 1 September 2016, two years after the complaints were received. If they'd acted sooner, then it would have happened before Key resigned, he would not have been able to play the hat game (because information is official by default), and there likely would have been some form of answer. Instead, the slow action on the complain has let him get away with it.

Marwick's conclusions are clear: firstly, that the OIA is fundamentally useless for getting information which politicians don't want to give you, and that real stories are going to come from leaks. And secondly: "the most senior politician in the land probably had something to hide".

Even more spying

The SIS and GCSB's annual reports were released today. The bad news: the trend of the past few years of a relentless expansion of spying has continued. The GCSB was granted 15 new intelligence warrants allowing individualised spying in 2016, and the number in force rose to 22 - both records. As for the SIS, again the picture tells it all:


The reasons for all this spying? "Terrorism" and "Espionage" - you know, the same threats we've faced for that entire graph. But now we apparently need to spy on two or three times as many people to combat them. Yeah, right. Again, its hard to escape the conclusion that the "oversight" on these warrants is simply a rubberstamp and that the threshold for granting one has dropped significantly in the past few years. And if we want to change this, we're just going to have to get a new government.

Key's resignation and the OIA

Did you want to know something about how John Key acted as Prime Minister? Which bloggers he briefed, or which journalists he had on speed dial, for example? Sorry, you're now shit out of luck. Key is subject to the OIA as Prime Minister, and all information he holds is official by default unless he can clearly show that it is held in a private capacity. But that obligation ends the moment he leaves office. And as we've seen in the case of Judith Collins, information about his specific practice as Prime Minister effectively disappears with him.

Its particularly annoying when complaints have been made to the Ombudsman and are now being shitcanned because of this. I've had one complaint which they've sat on since March which I've just had to withdraw because there is simply no credible prospect of the PM answering it in the next week. The briefings to bloggers complaint (which I'm a part of along with various media organisations) is currently going back and forth between the Ombudsman and the PM's chief of staff - and its clear that all the latter has to do is drag their feet and the information will never emerge. Which would of course be contemptuous of the law and utter bad faith towards the Ombudsman and requesters. Sadly, I've grown to expect nothing less from this government.

Terminal

In the run-up to the Mt Roskill by-election, John Key said it was a referendum on Andrew Little's leadership, and that if Labour lost, Little would be "terminal". It looks like he was right about the referendum, but wrong about the party - just two days later, he has resigned.

Officially its for family reasons and because his heart wasn't in it for a full fourth term. Which is a great reason to resign. Too many politicians stay long past their use-by date, desperately clinging to power (or simply office) because they can't imagine what else to do with their lives (see Labour's front-bench for a perfect example of this). Recognising that its time to go, that there's more to life than yelling at one another in Parliament every day, is a good thing, and our politics would be healthier if more MPs did it.

At the same time, it massively changes the landscape for next year's election. Key's replacement will not be as popular as him, and some of the choices on offer - e.g. Judith Collins - are simply toxic. But Labour will have to work hard if they want to win. Mt Roskill shows they can do that if they want to, but too many of their senior MPs don't, and just want to wait their turn for a Ministerial salary. Hopefully the threat of the Greens eating them from the left will motivate them enough.

"A stupid idea"

That's what John Key thinks of equality around the Cabinet table:

Prime Minister John Key says the idea of promising a gender-balanced Cabinet is "stupid" because appointments are made on talent, not gender.

Speaking on The Nation on Saturday, Key dismissed the call made by Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Jackie Blue, who would like Key to follow in the footsteps of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last year unveiled a Cabinet which was half female.

[...]

But Key told Nation host Lisa Owen "it would be stupid" to promise a gender-balanced Cabinet.

And then he trotted out the usual excuse that Cabinet appointments are made on "merit". Yeah, right. I think Murray McCully, Tim Groser, and Sam Lotu-Iiga are proof of the absurdity of that idea. But even if we accept it, it just pushes the question back another level, from "why doesn't National select women as Cabinet Ministers" to "why doesn't National select women as candidates / MPs?" And I think we all know the answer to that question...

Duopoly of chickenshits

Parliament is currently holding a select committee inquiry into death with dignity. Public opinion seems to support it. But the Prime Minister has pre-emptively ruled out acting on the committee's recommendations:

There is zero chance of Government introducing legislation to legalise euthanasia even if an inquiry strongly recommends it, Prime Minister John Key says.

A select committee is part-way through a major inquiry on public attitudes to euthanasia in New Zealand, and is considering more than 20,000 public submissions and holding hearings around the country.

Key said today that regardless of the committee's conclusions and the level of public support, the Government would not propose a change.

"There is no chance of it being a Government bill," Key told reporters at Parliament this morning.

And he's quite clear about the reason: he has bigots in his caucus - bigots named Bill English and Gerry Brownlee - who he feels a need to pander to. But Key isn't alone in this chickenshittery: here's Labour's Andrew Little, displaying his usual spine of jelly:

Leader Andrew Little said the Government should "at least" allow a euthanasia bill to come before the House so a debate could take place.

However, he said a law change would not be a priority for a Labour-led Government.

He would personally support the legalisation of euthanasia if it had the same safeguards as former MP Maryan Street's proposed bill.

So,he supports it, would vote for it, but wouldn't put up a bill. Because he too has bigots he needs to pander to.

There is almost certainly a majority in Parliament this time to pass such a bill. There's definitely public support. And yet, our two major political parties just don't want to go near it, because bigots will criticise them. And they're afraid of that rather than welcoming it as a sign of what they're against. Next, no doubt, they'll offer a (non-binding, of course) "plebiscite".

And people wonder why I have such contempt for the establishment parties: because of this. Because we have a duopoly of chickenshits, who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to doing the right thing. Marriage equality, child beating, and now death with dignity. The sooner these political dinosaurs are eradicated, the better.

A rich man's bubble

Why is John Key so completely out of touch on child poverty? Maybe its because he only visits rich schools...

Prime Minister John Key has been accused of neglecting children in the poorest neighbourhoods, after he visited more than three times as many high decile schools this year, than low.

Of the 27 schools Key visited in the year to September 12, 13 of those were in the decile 8, 9 and 10 bracket, data obtained under the Official Information Act (OIA) shows.

Just four were either 1, 2 or 3 bracket. Ten fell in between.

This is a symptom of a wider problem: our Prime Minister isn't one of us, but lives in a rich man's bubble. At home, he lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in Parnell. At work, he's in a huge state-funded house. He travels everywhere in Ministerial limos, accompanied by armed security goons so he can feel important. And this seals him off utterly from the experiences of normal kiwis, the people he claims to represent. He's said himself that the only time he gets to talk to people is in the Koru Lounge - which isn't really a representative sample...

And the result of all this self-isolation is that the Prime Minister is absolutely blind to the real problems affecting our society. He never sees the beggars on our streets or the hungry kids in our schools. He never has to go on a waiting list to access housing or medical care. He never even sees the way his farmer friends are destroying our rivers, because he holidays overseas. Isn't it time we had a Prime Minister who is actually one of us?

Targets for everything but poverty II

And in a perfect illustration of the government's priorities, on the very day John Key refused to commit to a target for child poverty, his government has announced one for wild kiwi numbers:

A strategy to reverse the decline in kiwi numbers has been announced today by Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.

Kiwi numbers currently fall by 2 per cent each year, but the Government wants to turn this into a 2 per cent annual gain, to swell numbers to more than 100,000 by 2030.

Wild kiwi numbers sit just below 70,000, with the annual decline caused mainly by predation from stoats and dogs.

Wild kiwi are important. But wouldn't it be nice if John Key (net worth: over $50 million) cared about poor kids as much as he did about them?

Targets for everything but poverty

The National government loves targets. It has targets for hospital waiting times, for water quality, for renewable energy. One of its core programmes is "Better Public Services", which sets targets for crime, education, employment, and the cost of dealing with government. It even has targets for climate change and making New Zealand predator-free. It does this, because it thinks targets are a good way of focusing the government's mind on achieving important policy goals and that it is important for the public to be able to see whether the government is succeeding or failing.

So what are we to think then of John Key's refusal to set a target on child poverty?

Cut the 150,000 children living in poverty by 10 per cent by the end of next year?

It's a target the new Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft wants the Government to back but Prime Minister John Key won't put that number on it.

Key told RNZ on Monday that he wasn't "rejecting" Becroft - someone the Prime Minister says is doing a good job and was appointed for his skill set - but disputes that a number and a target can be put on child poverty.

"We're very focused on reducing that number. We don't have one agreed measure...let's accept (Becroft's) measure then my point would simply be that I can't tell you today exactly what it would take to get a five or 10 per cent reduction," Key said.

"My point is simply...it's difficult to just have one measure."

No-one is pretending that a single measure tells the whole story here. At the same time, picking a measure - such as the material deprivation index, or the number of children living in households with an after housing costs equivalised income less than 60% or 80% of the median - and working to improve it would unquestionably do a world of good. And from a government which has targets for absolutely everything else and uses them as a core policy tool, the refusal to use that tool for child poverty sends a very clear message that it is simply not a priority to them. That they just don't give a shit. That John Key does not care how many children go cold and hungry in this country. And that is simply disgusting and cowardly.

Investigating Key's dirt machine

Back in 2014, John Key admitted that his staff were "briefing the bloggers" and using them as a backchannel to plant stories in the media. A number of people (including myself) were interested in this and lodged OIA requests for the details. The PM rejected these requests by playing the "hat game": the information was held in his capacity as the leader of the National Party, not his capacity as a Minister. But now, two years after my complaint was lodged, the Ombudsman is finally investigating it, along with an earlier request from NewstalkZB:

The Chief Ombudsman will investigate the Prime Minister over his refusal to release details regarding his, and his office's contact with right-wing bloggers David Farrar and Cameron Slater.

Back in early 2014 Newstalk ZB requested records of all such contacts that had occurred over a two year period.

John Key's office declined to release details, saying to do so would require substantial research and collation and also that some communications may have been made in Mr Key's capacity as an MP and leader of the National Party.

(I'd requested communications from a specific month, precisely to avoid "substantial research and collation").

When I originally complained, I had argued that the PM had not established that the briefings were not given in an official capacity:

While the PM's office is correct that he wears multiple hats, and information held in the capacity as leader of the National party or as an MP is not "official information" under the Act, he has not established that the information is held in such a capacity. One of the key allegations of Nicky Hager's "Dirty Politics" (which given your investigation into OIA processes I'm sure you're aware of) is that bloggers were being briefed by staff employed by Ministerial Services - that is, paid by the public. If that is the case, then that would make them definitively official information. In the case of the Prime Minister personally, the status of any briefing would have to be judged from the context in which it was given e.g. whether it was given on a day normally reserved for constituency or personal business, or during his "normal" office hours as Prime Minister. It can also be judged from the content e.g. if it is regarding official information or any OIA request then it must clearly be given in the capacity as Prime Minister, because the leader of the National Party or John Key MP do not "hold" such information and do not process such requests.

In the two years since, the OIA ground has shifted. Information held by the PM is now official by default, and he has to show it is held in another capacity. Whether that is actually the case will depend on the facts, but I think there's a good chance that they won't support a private capacity in every case, and that we'll see an official view of the heart of the PM's dirt machine.

Key: Sack the people and employ another

The government is under pressure on immigration over serious concerns about its effects on house prices and wages. John Key's response? Immigration is necessary because kiwis are all lazy drug addicts:

Speaking on Morning Report today, John Key admitted that high immigration was putting strains on the country's infrastructure, but the government would continue to bring in large numbers to fill jobs.

He said this was partly because many employers could not get New Zealanders to work due to problems with drugs or work ethic.

[...]

"But go and ask the employers, and they will say some [New Zealand workers] won't pass a drug test, some of these people won't turn up for work, some of these people will claim they have health issues later on. So it's not to say there aren't great people who transition from Work and Income to work, they do, but it's equally true that they're also living in the wrong place, or they just can't muster what is required to actually work."

So, Key basicly wants to sack the people and employ another. Which is exactly the attitude you'd expect from a sociopathic international banker, but hardly likely to endear him to voters.

Because it needs repeating, I'll say it again: if New Zealand employers can't find people to do their shit jobs, the market solution is to offer more money. Bringing in migrant labour so they don't have to do that is simply a subsidy to shit employers, and one we should end.

John Key lied about the GCSB circumventing NZ law

Back in 2013, when the Snowden leaks were first released, John Key faced some very uncomfortable questions about whether the GCSB used the NSA's PRISM system to circumvent the law (nad in particular, the law against spying on New Zealanders). His response was a categorical denial:

On TV3's Firstline this morning, the PM categorically denied New Zealand uses systems like the NSA's PRISM to circumvent NZ law.

The logic is that if the US government spy agency collects traffic arriving at its borders through PRISM, then it will be hoovering up lots of txts, emails and calls from New Zealanders (it has also been alleged PRISM collects information from the servers of tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Microsoft - the companies deny this is happening, at least with their knowledge; in some cases the denials are very carefully worded). When information is exchanged between US and NZ agencies, this US-gathered information would be shared, providing a warrant-less way to spy on Kiwis).

[...]

The Prime Minister continued: "I can’t tell you how the United States gathers all of their information and what techniques they use. I simply don’t know that."

He added, "If the question is, 'Do we use the United States or one of our other partners to circumvent New Zealand law?' then the answer is categorically no we don’t."

It turns out he was lying. A major story released by The Intercept today (and teased by TVNZ last night) tells the story of how the GCSB spied on kiwi public servant Tony Fullman over his links to Fiji's pro-democracy movement. And a key part of that spying? Getting the NSA to use PRISM to grab all of his communications, so they could be passed on to the GCSB:

Between early July and early August 2012, New Zealand spies appear to have requested American assistance to obtain the emails and Facebook communications of Fullman and Ratu [ Tevita Mara], including from a “democfiji” email address used by Fullman to organize events for the campaign group, whose slogan was “thumbs up for democracy.”

The NSA’s documents contain a “priority list” that names the two men as “Fiji targets” alongside their Gmail addresses and an account number identifying Fullman’s Facebook page. The documents indicate that the NSA began intercepting messages associated with Ratu’s accounts on about the July 9, 2012 and on August 3 started spying on Fullman’s messages. The agency also obtained historic messages from the two men dating back to the beginning of May 2012.

To conduct the electronic eavesdropping, the NSA turned to one of its most controversial surveillance programs: PRISM. The agency uses PRISM to secretly obtain communications that are processed by major technology companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo, as the Washington Post and The Guardian first reported in 2013.

[...]

The classification markings on the files — “REL TO USA/NZ” — make clear that the intercepted communications were to be released to New Zealand spies. In one of the files showing Fullman’s intercepted emails and Facebook chats, the NSA explicitly noted that the intercepted material had been forwarded to its New Zealand intelligence counterpart, the GCSB.

And yet the Prime Minister was denying that was was happening just six months later, despite apparently having "personally" signed the warrant authorising the interception. I guess he just wasn't paying that much attention.

But its not just a case of political deceit about spying - it is also a crime. Because it is very clear that by receiving Fullman's information, the GCSB was intercepting it. And as that interception was not authorised by the GCSB Act (being explicitly contrary to the section 14 prohibition on intercepting the communications of New Zealanders), it is a breach of s216 of the Crimes Act.

The government clearly owes Fullman an apology and compensation for unlawfully invading his privacy. But more importantly than that, someone at the GCSB needs to go to jail. And the Prime Minister who lied to us about what they do? He needs to resign, now.

Looking for someone to blame is not a policy

New Zealand has a housing crisis. An entire generation is being locked out of the housing market by greedy speculators, the average Auckland house price is just short of a million dollars, and people are living in cars because they can't afford rent. But rather than doing the obvious - imposing a full capital gains tax, building more houses and crashing the market - National's "housing policy" seems to consist entirely of looking for someone to blame. Last week it was local government. Today, its the Reserve Bank:

Prime Minister John Key has expressed further frustration about the Reserve Bank's response to rising house prices, saying that it should not need any more time to investigate stricter rules for property investors.

Reserve Bank deputy governor Grant Spencer last night said that the bank was considering new loan-to-value ratio (LVR) restrictions, but would not introduce them before the end of the year.

Spencer also told the Government to get its own house in order, by taking another look at its immigration and tax settings.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister had urged the bank to target investors with tougher lending rules, saying it should "just get on with it".

Because obviously its the responsibility of the unelected, unaccountable Reserve Bank, rather than the elected, accountable government, to decide policy in this area.

You can see why the government wants to dump this problem on someone, anyone else: deflating the housing market is going to make a lot of people (particularly people who feel rich because they own a house, or people who have paid too much for a house in the last four years) very unhappy. But it needs to be done. This housing crisis is tearing our society apart and it needs to be resolved.

We pay John Key almost half a million dollars a year. We pay his crony-Ministers more than quarter of a million each. They don't get the big bucks for doing nothing, sitting on their hands and blaming other people - we pay them to take responsibility and solve our problems. And if they're not going to do that, they should step aside for someone who will.

"Talk to Work and Income"

The Salvation Army reports that we have a huge problem of homeless Aucklanders forced to live in cars, shipping containers and garages due to spiraling rents. Our $50 million Prime Minister's response? "Talk to Work and Income":

This morning, Mr Key told Radio New Zealand that families living out of cars should visit Work and Income. It was not acceptable that people lived in such situations, and "that's not the New Zealand that we want".

Immediate solutions might not be perfect, he said, but it would be very surprising if such a family was left in such a "dire" condition.

"People often don't understand what's available to them. My experience with Work and Income is they do their very best to support people in those situations, especially when children are involved."

To which anyone who has ever dealt with WINZ at any point in their lives will let out a bitter laugh. Because if there's one thing WINZ doesn't do, its tell people what they're entitled to, because that costs money. And successive National Ministers have made it very clear that they do not want WINZ spending money if they can avoid it, even when it is absolutely guaranteed by statute.

Its an old, dirty trick, which got started during National's original war on the poor in the 90's as a cost-saving measure. While it improved once Labour sacked Christine Rankin, it has been back with a vengeance under National. So much so that when beneficiary advocates organise to ensure that people do get support and assistance to claim all of their entitlements, the queues start at 6:30 in the morning.

But even beyond that: social housing in New Zealand has been cut so far that you can live in a van for a year (and counting) waiting to get one. So even knowing your entitlements isn't help. The problem is with the government, not people in need.

But rich people like John Key don't see any of this. WINZ is there to help people. So if people aren't getting help, it must be because they are stupid and ignorant - their own fault basicly - not because the system they oversee has responded to their demands for cost savings and crackdowns on (largely imaginary) "fraud" essentially by refusing to perform its mandate.

We should put the money launderers out of business

Radio New Zealand, One News and Nicky Hager this morning have exposed the New Zealand branch of Mossack-Fonesca's global money laundering system: a New Zealand accounting firm called "Bentleys". Their founder, Roger Thompson, spouts off all the usual excuses: "within the rules", "legitimate and normal". Bullshit. According to Hager, Bentleys' clients include:

Arms traders. Billionaires quietly shifting their profits out of impoverished countries. Business people eager to win big contracts in countries with corrupt leaders. Hard core pornographers, hiding the identity of those raking in the profits. Pharmaceutical company money invisibly moved around to buy influence. And, more than anything, huge numbers of people who appeared to be cheating their tax departments.

In short, criminals. Bentleys provides financial services to criminals, just like Al Capone's accountant. And by doing so, they directly facilitate crime and corruption, as well as robbing other countries of their tax income. In English, that's called being a co-conspirator. Andrew Little is right: we should stamp out this corrupt, criminal industry.

But according to John Key, that's "risky" and could have "unintended consequences". Really? Like what? That criminals wouldn't be able to use us to launder their money? That people in other countries would have to pay their fair share of tax? That some criminal lawyers would go out of business (and maybe stop making generous donations to the National Party)? Sorry, but I just don't see the downside. But then again, I'm not a banker worth $50 million.

And that's what this scandal really highlights: the yawning chasm in worldview between ordinary kiwis and our multimillionaire banker Prime Minister. For Key, trusts, money laundering and tax evasion are "normal", part of doing business. For the rest of us, they're utterly alien. To point out the obvious, normal people don't need to make use of the financial services industry, because we just don't have that much money. And that's the case even if you're rich and have achieved the kiwi dream of bach, boat, and BMW, owning your own home (maybe even in Auckland) and an investment property or two: you still don't need them, because you can manage that level of wealth yourself. And normal, law-abiding people don't have "personal lawyers": they do business with one on a handful of occasions throughout their life (when buying a house or writing a will, or if someone dies or gets divorced). You have to be a long, long, long way into the one percent for that sort of thing to become a natural part of your mental landscape. And the more Key defends money laundering, the wider that chasm gets.