Monthly Archives: September 2017
Maori Party: Locking more criminals up won’t solve anything. Whaleoil: Oh yes it will
by Cameron Slater on September 21, 2017 at 1:00pm
A group of Māori and Pacific community leaders and service providers met in Panmure on Wednesday, 13th September, 2017. At this fono they agreed that something radical had to be done to overhaul our Justice system in Aotearoa. A system that incarcerates Māori at alarmingly higher rates compared to others. Over 60% of the prison population are Polynesians. Yet Māori only make up around 15% and Pacific 7% of the general population. He believes that the Justice system is broken and unfairly targets Māori and Pacific.
Manase believes he has a proven model that aligns with the social investment approach that could change the system. Manase says, “It’s very clear that neither National nor Labour know what they are doing in this area. They have no new ideas on how to solve it. Both think building more prisons and running more programmes in the prisons is the answer. This is not the answer.
The answer lies in tackling the issue along the entire continuum. That is from prevention through to rehabilitation, with a focus on restorative justice and via full community wrap-around services that are fully funded. This is the key to solving the issue. The Government spends around $120,000 on each of its more than 10,000 prisoners. That’s around $1.2 billion or more a year. Money that could be better spent to prevent criminal activity, address the drivers of crime (i.e. poverty) and overhaul an unjust and unfair Justice system.
During his time at the Ministry of Health leading the Pacific disability programme from 2002 to 2007, Manase was the architect of the Lu’i Ola interagency plan. A programme involving 12 different Government Agencies, DHBs and local government. The mechanics behind Lu’i Ola and particularly the Access Project in Mangere, helped to influence the development of the Whānau Ora programme. Manase believes a similar approach could be used together with One Pacific’s TaTupu approach and Whānau Ora to tackle this complex issue across the whole community.
I find the logic rather simple to follow. You tell people that if they do this, then they will end up in prison. When they do this, you send them to prison. That solves everything.
I’m OK with the idea of other people wanting to analyse how to stop people from doing this in the first place. I’m also happy with people wanting to work on making sure they don’t do this again once out.
But what I can not abide is this idea that we don’t lock people up because “it’s not working”. it’s working very well! The more people that do this that are locked up, the better.
It’s not rocket surgery: Just don’t do this.
End of discussion. The rest of it are just troughers looking for money to snort out of the taxpayers’ pockets. Not saying their intent is wrong, or their hearts are black and cynical, but allowing people to do this and not locking them up simply isn’t an answer.
Labour have not left enough cash for cost pressures
’ve been sent a spreadsheet that was put together by a senior former Treasury official in consultation with a group of other senior former Treasury officials. It shows that Labourhave not left enough money in their fiscal plan to cover inflation.
Inflation pushes up wages and the costs of goods and services. This benefits the Government’s accounts on the tax revenue side (the more you earn the more tax the Government collects) but it also increases their costs.
Now Budget documents such as the PREFU take account of inflation for tax revenue but they do not allocate inflation costs for expenditure. Instead you have the “operating allowance” which is to cover those inflationary costs, as well as new policies.
Labour have allocated almost all of the operating allowance to their new policies and have covered inflationary costs in health and education. But they have not got enough money to cover inflationary costs in the rest of Government.
So to be clear it is not a hole in the sense that Labour has made a mathematical error. But Labour have left basically no money in their budget for inflation (or population growth), yet their tax revenue is based on them. Quite simply they will not be able to keep within their fiscal plan unless you believe they will massively slash spending in some undefined areas (or not give any public servants outside Health and Education a payrise for three years).
This is a summary prepared by the former senior Treasury officials. It is not a hole, but it is a shortfall. They have no capacity to fund any impact of wage and cost inflation and this is just over $10 billion.
They have left themselves $7.5 billion (cumulative) for new policies for the next three years. Even if they didn’t announce a single new policy in their entire term of Government, they’s still have a shortfall because of cost pressures on existing programmes.
For those who are good with numbers, I’ve attached the spreadsheet below that I was sent. It is detailed and comprehensive. Again the spreadsheet was put together by a senior former Treasury official in consultation with a group of other senior former Treasury officials.
Excel – Labour’s budget – the cost escalation problem
So for Labour’s fiscal plan to be credible you have to believe that they will either announce no new policies in their first term of Government (if elected) or that there will be no pay rises for any public servants (outside health and education) and that there will be no increase in the costs of good and services the Government purchases.
I look forward to Labour explaining to the unions how it is not going to have any wage rises in the public sector (outside Health and Education) for three years!
How to tell if your Mac is infected
How to tell if your Mac is infected
Posted: September 19, 2017 by Wendy Zamora
There are a lot of reasons Mac users don’t sweat getting infected. One: They’ve got a built-in anti-malware system called XProtect that does a decent job of catching known malware. Two: Macs are not plagued by a high number of attacks. (Most cybercriminals are focused on infecting PCs.) And three: There’s just not a lot of Mac malware out there.
But that’s changing, and fast: Mac malware has increased by 230 percent in the last year alone. Most Mac users don’t know this, and assume their Mac is fine. For those folks we have one word: adware.
Your Mac is infected…with adware
Adware is software that’s designed to display advertisements, usually within a web browser. Most people don’t willingly download programs whose sole purpose is to bombard you with ads, so adware has to sneak its way onto your Mac. It either disguises itself as legitimate or piggybacks on another program in order to be installed.
Once in your system, adware changes the way your browser behaves by injecting ads into web pages, causing pop-up windows or tabs to open, and changing your homepage or search engine—all in the name of funneling advertising dollars away from companies who pay for online ads and into their own accounts.
Your Mac is infected…and not protected
Sounds pretty shady, right? So why doesn’t the Mac anti-malware program catch these guys? Typically, the makers of adware are hiding in plain sight, operating as actual corporations who claim to sell software on the level. They get away with it because their adware is often hidden in the fine print of a long installation agreement that most people skip over. Is it technically legal? Yes. You accepted the terms of the installment so they can spam you all they want. But is it right? So far, Apple hasn’t stepped in to crack down on it. But if you ask us, the answer is an emphatic “no.”
In addition to adware, other potentially unwanted programs, such as so-called “legitimate” keyloggers, scammy “cleaning” apps, and faux antivirus programs that don’t actually detect anything are skirting the Mac protections in place. (Because XProtect doesn’t detect and block adware or potentially unwanted programs—only malware that it has seen before.) So if a new form of malware makes its way onto your computer before Apple has a chance to learn about it and write code to protect against it, then you’re out of luck.
So if you ask us, it’s time to start taking a closer look at your Mac. Is it acting the way your sturdy, reliable Mac has always behaved? Or is it exhibiting classic signs of guilt? If something seems a little off, you just might have a problem. Let’s take a look at the telltale signs that your Mac is infected.
Signs of adware
Advertisements are displayed in places they shouldn’t be, literally popping up everywhere. Your web browser’s homepage has been mysteriously changed without your permission. Web pages that you typically visit are not displaying properly, and when you click on a website link, you get redirected to an entirely different site. In fact, even your search engine has been replaced with a different one. If your web browser, search engine, or websites are acting in funky, unpleasant ways, you’ve likely got yourself an adware infection.
Signs of PUPs
Maybe you downloaded a new program to monitor your family’s behavior online. All of a sudden, new icons are appearing on your desktop for software you don’t remember installing. New toolbars, extensions, or plugins are added to your browser. A pop-up appears telling you your Mac may be infected, and you need to install the latest antivirus immediately to get rid of it. Frightened, you do so, and now your computer has turned the corner from automatically installing apps to slowing to a crawl. What’s going on? These are PUPs, and your Mac’s anti-malware system is not going to get rid of them.
Signs of malware
Mac malware making its way onto your system is, right now, relatively rare. But if it does, you may look out for similar behavior as an infected Windows operating system: your computer’s processing power seems diminished, software programs are sluggish, your browser redirects or is unresponsive, or your ole-reliable starts crashing regularly.
In some cases, you may not be aware of an infection at all. While your computer hums along, info stealers operate quietly in the background, stealing your data for an attack on your bank accounts or identity.
And in the worst case scenario, your Mac can even be infected with ransomware. In March 2016, the first Mac ransomware was spotted, and it was downloaded by thousands of users before Apple had a chance to shut it down. A ransomware attack would be quite obvious to Mac users. Files would be encrypted and cybercriminals would deliver a ransom demand (usually via pop-up) in order to return your data.
Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you? If so, there are a few steps you can take to remedy the infection. First, back up your files. Next, download a (legitimate) anti-malware program such as Malwarebytes for Mac that’s designed to search and destroy adware, PUPs, and any new forms of malware lurking on the scene. Run a scan and, if there are any nasties hiding away in your pristine Mac OS, it’ll bag, tag, and dump them for you. Then you can finally get your Mac back.
Labour illegally campaigning at Early Voting Booths
by Cameron Slater on September 19, 2017 at 8:00am
We all know the story. Labour doesn’t care much about the law, and the Electoral Commission doesn’t have much energy to enforce it.
These photos were taken within 10 meters of a voting booth on the campus of Toi Ohomoi, Rotorua.
It is prohibited in New Zealand to campaign within 10 meters of a voting booth.
Under Section “197A Interfering with or influencing advance voters” of the Electoral Act 1993:
A person must not—
(a) hold or take part in a demonstration or procession having direct or indirect reference to the poll; or
(b) make a statement that contains a direct or indirect reference to the poll by means of a loudspeaker, public address apparatus, cinematograph, or television apparatus; or
(c) exhibit, publish, distribute, or broadcast—(i) a statement advising or intended or likely to influence an elector as to the candidate or party for whom the elector should or should not vote; or
(ii) a statement advising or intended or likely to influence an elector to abstain from voting; or
(iii) a party name, emblem, slogan, or logo; or
(iv) any ribbons, streamers, rosettes, or items of a similar nature in party colours.
This applies to the buffer zone around the polling booth.
buffer zone means the area within 10 metres of any entrance, or any smaller buffer zone specified by the Electoral Commission for a particular advance voting place
People have said they felt intimidated and feel this is highly inappropriate. We live in a democracy, and for democracy to function we must respect the process by which we elect our officials. This base lack of respect for basic electoral etiquette (and the law) is a sad reflection on Tamati Coffey, Labour candidate for Waiariki, and anyone else involved. We have these laws for a reason, and it is noticeable that one party in particular continues to flout them. It just isn’t on.
But will the Electoral Commission act on this? Don’t hold your breath.
Location of voting booth and campaign (marked with star):
She’s a pretty communist, no not Helen, Jacinda
by Cameron Slater on September 19, 2017 at 9:00am
There is an uproar that even has the old hag Helen Clark with her tits in a tangle…all over this sign.
This was Helen Clark’s tweet:
This kind of silly attack on @jacindaardern takes me back years. Let’s hope most #Kiwis have moved on from misogyny & #climatechangedenial: https://twitter.com/publicaddress/status/909580944570384385 …
Helen Clark
But, how is that misogyny?
I’m sure no one ever accused Helen Clark of being pretty…being a communist, however…well that much is evident.
She is a communist (only commies call everyone comrade), and some say she is pretty. That is a statement of fact.
Even Jacinda says she is a pretty communist, and even wonders if it is a compliment.
We got sick of hearing Helen Clark nine years ago, why can’t she learn to STFU.
In any case it is pretty clear Jacinda thinks it is a compliment to call her a “pretty communist”.
-NewstalkZB, Twitter
Her Facebook page doesn’t match the news article’s narrative
by SB on September 19, 2017 at 10:00am
I am not going to make this a crybaby of the week post because the topic of the news article, solo mum Kellie Edmonds has chosen to work full-time to support her five children. That is to be admired not criticised and I am also well aware of how journalists will use a person’s story in order to try to make a political point. She also is quoted as saying that she isn’t looking for help, or a handout.
When you allow a journalist to put the personal details of your life into the media you risk being put under the spotlight of public scrutiny. Whaleoil readers after watching the video and reading the article checked Kellie Edmond’s Facebook page and some were not impressed with what they found.
screenshot-Whaleoil
It appears from the publicly available photos that Kellie had a holiday in America last year and is currently on holiday in Europe right now.
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Kellie Edmonds is a solo mum who works full-time, and battles to put food on the table and pay her bills each week.
Kellie Edmonds learnt a while ago the best way to make food last a week was to lock it in the boot of her car.
She’s on a tight budget and can’t afford to have her kids raiding the cupboards for an extra slice of bread; she needs it to make their school lunches.
A solo mother of five, she sometimes goes without meals herself to make sure her children have enough to eat.
“I get quite panicked if the boys eat extra food when they get home,” she says, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea one afternoon after picking them up from school. “It drives me nuts, especially when you’re on a low income.”
[…] Edmonds never thought her life would end up like this. She used to mostly be a stay-at-home mum, until a divorce five years ago drove her back into the workforce.
Now the 38-year-old juggles holding down a full-time job with looking after five kids. Her eldest daughter lives in a sleepout in the backyard with her own partner and child.
She works at a logistics company for $23 an hour on a temp contract without annual leave or sick pay, so whenever she has an unexpected day off there’s less money for food.
“I feel so drained by the time I get home that I just don’t want to do anything. But you know, you’ve got to come home and cook tea for the family,” she says.
Edmonds budgets around $100 a week for food, although “there have been weeks when there was only $50”.
“Sometimes we have noodles,” she says. “That’s on the nights when I’m absolutely shattered. Sometimes it’s eggs on toast, or macaroni cheese is quite cheap to make. It’s just learning how to cook on a budget.”
Even breakfast cereals are tightly controlled[…]
“I just feel sick that most of the time I can’t even buy them a $7 box of nutri-grains,” she says.
Edmonds pays $530 a week to rent a house in Manurewa, in the heart of South Auckland. People here are mostly brown, and mostly poor.
Four out of five locals survive on an income of less than $50,000, and more than 90 per cent of those living in the electorate have nothing more than a high school education.
House prices have doubled in the last decade; for many, home ownership is an impossible dream.
Edmonds says she isn’t looking for help, or a handout. But sometimes she has to fight back her tears until the kids are in bed.
“Some days I get quite down,” she says. “When they’re not awake, I’ll ring mum and have a cry. She always brings life into it again, and I feel hope.”
Family support is crucial. Without her mother, Edmonds says, she’d be “screwed” – another family living in a car perhaps, or forced to fully rely on what she feels is inadequate support from New Zealand’s social welfare system.
Edmonds says her mum helps a lot
“Mum just paid for a trip to the dentist, which I don’t like,” she says. “I like to handle myself. I’m 38, for God’s sake!
Her mother clearly is a very generous and supportive person.
“She always tells me that one day she’ll be old and I’ll have to look after her, but I don’t like it. I’m very proud.”
Her mother has paid for an overseas holiday with Kellie and her sister.
Judging by the photos on Kellie’s Facebook page her generous Mum has paid for not one but two overseas holidays.
Edmonds says being poor is a humiliating experience, and staff at Work and Income “make you feel like low scum”[…]
Edmonds says if she’d known she would end up divorced, she wouldn’t have had kids. “It’s a lot harder.”
But she doesn’t think it’s fair for people to say the poor shouldn’t have children if they can’t afford them.
“I don’t agree with that,” she says. “There’s always a way. Although maybe you shouldn’t have as many!”
Looking back, Edmonds wishes she’d had more options as a teenager. She dropped out of school early because she didn’t understand the lessons, and recognises the impact that’s had on her career options.
“I learn by hands on, and I just wish they had a way to teach kids like me,” she says.
She’s keen to see New Zealand elect a Māori prime minister for the first time.
“Personally, I think it would benefit my culture, and my country,” she says. “But then again, it depends on the person.”
She hasn’t voted before, but would consider supporting any party that lowered her tax bill so she could put more food on the table […]
An interesting article in the Guardian about Jacinda Ardern’s anxiety
by Cameron Slater on September 19, 2017 at 9:30am
There have long been rumours running around about Jacinda Ardern’s ability to lead…mainly due to her anxiety and exhaustion.
Indeed during various leadership battles Annette King, Sue Moroney and Damian O’Connor have been heard to make such utterances.
So it was with some interest that I saw a supposedly soft piece in a left wing news site mention the unmentionable.
Empathy and approachability are Ardern’s stock-in-trade and they are on full display as she campaigns along the working-class west coast of the South Island, encouraging juvenile offenders to pursue their plan A and laughing with locals at the Blackball Hilton pub, where everyone wants to buy her a whisky. Her famous smile dropped as she spoke with the bereaved families of the Pike River miners. But it was back the next day for a rally of 400 in Greymouth.
It is an impressive performance from a politician who said for years that she was not interested in leading the Labour party, let alone the country. She has given multiple reasons, including a desire to have a family; a concern that her anxiety would preclude her from the top job, the condition having “ballooned” during her time as deputy; and a wariness about the demands of the job, something she observed working for the then prime minister, Helen Clark, in 2005.
and;
Ardern has frequently spoken of her anxiety. As recently as June, she said she was not cut out to be Labour leader: “When you’re a bit of an anxious person, and you constantly worry about things, there comes a point where certain jobs are just really bad for you.”
So how is she managing now? “I am a thinker and I do muse over things a lot and am constantly assessing whether I am doing enough, or what I should be doing more of to make sure I am not letting anyone down,” Ardern tells the Guardian. She has stopped reading media coverage of herself, she says.
“I set quite high expectations. So do a lot of people. For what I do, is the experience that I have [of anxiety] normal? Probably. Probably.
That raises a lot of questions from me, and as a sufferer of extreme depression I can understand her anxiety.
However, this is important. If she has got anxiety problems then that is a concern…for her own health. I know what it feels like and I experienced over 6 weeks of intense pressure at the last election and months of more afterwards. It was not pleasant.
My understanding is that her anxiety has led to hospitalisation and I know of several MPs across the house who remember sending her messages of support the last time it occurred. It may have been something else that caused her hospitalisation but I think it warrants her clearing that up for us before the election. She could easily do that by releasing her medical records…and challenging other leaders to do the same.
The point remains though, that her anxiety issues were sufficiently severe for her to raise that herself several times over the years. These sorts of things do not magically disappear, I should know. In times of high stress, it is easy to succumb again.
I hope she is doing the right thing here, not just for the country, but also and more importantly for herself.
-The Guardian
Jacinda Ardern like you’ve never seen her before
by Cameron Slater on September 18, 2017 at 7:30am
When Jacinda Ardern was interviewed by Larry Williams she was asked about a video that was already online, which was her closing address to the 2009 International Union of Socialist Youth Festival in Hungary.
Her answer was that she wasn’t sure precisely when it was and thought it was 2008.
She should have been more clear on that, it was 2009 and she was the President of IUSY. You’d think she would remember that.
The media went after John Key because he couldn’t remember what he thought about the Springbok Tour 35 years ago. Well, Jacinda Ardern can’t remember something that happened just 8 years ago…when she was the president of the socialist youth outfit.
WOBH has obtained the video that was cleansed so you can judge for yourself whether or not this woman is suitable to lead this country.
This video was “cleansed” from Youtube some years ago, obviously part of future plans of Jacinda Ardern.
Note again her constant use of “comrade”.
This is the woman who wants to be Prime Minister.
If you vote for Labour you’ll get the Greens capital gains tax
by Cameron Slater on September 18, 2017 at 8:00am
A vote for Labour is a vote for the Greens insistence of a capital gains tax.
Labour wants one too, but they are still trying to hide that.
The Greens would want a capital gains tax introduced in the first term, if they went into coalition with Labour, leader James Shaw says.
Labour’s leader Jacinda Ardern has said its tax working group would look into a capital gains tax and if it recommended one, it would not take effect until after the 2020 election.
However, Green Party leader James Shaw told TVNZ’s Q+A that a capital gains tax would be a priority in any coalition negotiations with Labour.
“There are a couple of things that I think we would like to push them on. One is a capital gains tax excluding the family home because we do have a real sense of urgency about the housing crisis.”
But Ms Ardern said her timeline would not change.
“I’ve made my process very very clear and it’s non-negotiable. We will undertake the work that we have set out as part of our tax working group.
“We will settle on solutions but they will not take effect until the 2021 tax year – if there are any changes at all. I’m sticking with that programme.”
And New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has said a capital gains tax would be “off the table” in any coalition discussions with his party.
Jacinda Ardern can’t make any promise that her timeline wouldn’t change.
It has already changed twice.
If the Greens insist as the price for government then you will get a capital gains tax faster than a socialist can dream up new taxes.