The story with Kim Dotcom just gets weirder and weirder. Today, the Security Intelligence Service has admitted that while investigating Dotcom on behalf of the NZ Immigration Service, they were advised that the US FBI wanted to conduct a joint investigation with the NZ Police into Dotcom's activities.

The director of the Security Intelligence Service, Warren Tucker, said that this didn't raise any security concerns as far as the NZSIS was concerned so they advised Immigration that they didn't have any issues with Dotcom's application for residency.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) - a business contract between eleven Asian and Pacific-rim countries, including the United States and NZ - is currently being negotiated. The next round of negotiations is taking place in Auckland from 3-12 December at Sky City, and a call for a national day of direct action to shut down the negotiations has been issued.

Because the negotiations are being conducted in secret, what we know about the TPPA comes from leaked documents and detective work. Qhat we know so far is that if the negotiations are completed it will become much harder for the New Zealand government to look after our environment, promote health, protect workers and consumers, and promote the public interest. Parts of the TPPA provisions include the ability of overseas companies to sue the New Zealand government for millions in damages in secretive offshore tribunals, claiming that new laws and regulations (for example, a ban on fracking, smoking control laws, or a cap on electricity prices) have seriously undermined the value of their investments; and medicines will become more expensive as big pharmaceutical companies gain more influence over PHARMAC, and restrictions are placed on generic medicines. These are just two of the many aspects of the TPPA which will have profound effects on the lives of ordinary people in NZ.

This government is committed to further entrenching the underclass in New Zealand through benefit cuts, work testing and housing cuts coupled with the building of new prisons. Changes to the legal aid system will contribute to the severe hardship many people are already facing. 

The proposed changes have been slightly scaled back, and the government likes to say that they are ‘moderate’. They are not moderate: they represent the continued erosion of the fundamental right to legal representation. Anyone who has faced prosecution by the state knows full well the resources available to the state. An individual who is defending themselves against criminal charges is already facing a serious uphill battle given the ‘long arm of the law’.

Criminal legal aid is the highest spending area and is steadily increasing, yet only a small proportion of claims are granted for people facing less than six months’ prison.

"Monday, the 15th of October, marks five years since the Police paramilitary invasion of Tuhoe. The police smashed their way into dozens of homes across the country and shut down the Ruatoki Valley in the Bay of Plenty, searching every car going to and from Ruatoki, entering a school bus with armed police, strip-searching children and barricading them in rooms for hours without food, water or family guardians while they searched houses and arrested political activists. Five years on, neither the Independent Police Conduct Authority nor the Human Rights Commission has released their report into the police's behaviour. For those of us affected by these raids and arrests, we will never forget what happened on that day" says Valerie Morse. [1]

A new book on the little-known movement that was early New Zealand anarchism is set to hit the shelves in April 2013.

'Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism & Early New Zealand Anarchism' is an insightful account of anarchism in New Zealand during the turbulent years of the early 20th century—a time of wildcat strikes, industrial warfare and a radical working class counter-culture. Interweaving an array of archival sources with a biographical/transnational approach, author Jared Davidson pieces together the life of Philip Josephs; a Latvian-born Jewish tailor, anti-militarist and founder of the Wellington Freedom Group. Anarchists like Josephs not only existed in the ‘Workingman’s Paradise’ that was New Zealand, but were a lively part of its labour movement and the class struggle that swept through the country, imparting uncredited influence and ideas.

The tropical rainforests of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo are one of the world's biodiversity centres. One hectare of forest in Borneo harbours more tree species than the whole of Europe. For centuries, Sarawak's indigenous communities have sustainably used the Borneo forest and its river systems for farming, fishing and hunting.

The current Sarawak government under its extremely corrupt Chief Minster, Abdul Taib Mahmud, is planning to build twelve hydroelectric dams, which would displace tens of thousands of people and flood large tracts of tropical rainforest. The dams would mainly benefit a handful of companies linked to the Taib family, which controls Sarawak's construction sector and holds a state-wide cement monopoly.

On 26th of September, 200 Penan and Kenyah women, men and children put up a blockade on the access road to the 944 MW Murum dam in the interior of Sarawak and the blockade is still in place.

Links: www.stop-corruption-dams.org | Secret Malaysian resettlement plan for dam-affected natives exposed | Survival International | Petition

A protest inside and outside of the Capital and Coast District Health board this morning is demanding the reinstatement of funding for Newtown Union Health.

The government claims that it is not running an austerity budget, but the reality is that funding cuts to local services like Newtown Union Health and others across the country mean that there is a significant reduction in the services being offered.

Spokeswoman for United Community Action Network (UCAN) Debby Leyland said that 'the cuts were happening across the board and the vulnerable were going to once again fall through the cracks.'  The CCDHB is afraid of further protests and has denied the ability of UCAN to speak at the start of their board meeting usually reserved for the public.

October 13: Decentralised occupations nationwide!

Wednesday, 10 October 2012, 10:01 am
Press Release: Occupy New Zealand

Decentralised occupations nationwide!

Occupy New Zealand is pleased to announce their participation in the GlobalNOISE solidarity day of action against austerity alongside over 200 cities worldwide, on October 13, 2012.

GlobalNOISE utilises the "pots and pans" methodology behind the successful 2010 Icelandic revolution, and more recently, the Canadian student movements, to draw attention to the serious issues facing us today, and the urgent need for profound societal change.

This year’s principal sponsor of New Zealand’s annual weapons conference is Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers. The Defence Industry Association Conference, as it is known, is due to be held on 16 & 17 October in Wellington at the Amora Hotel on Wakefield Street. It is a must-attend event for both local and international war profiteers. Read the programme here.