Not knowing. It's half the battle

H/T @nintendoug

McCully must resign

We all know that it's election year and politicians from all walks of life will be doing all they can to keep a lid on any scandals that might erupt during their campaigning. However once in a while a story that shouldn't have been buried in the first place breaks at the most inconvenient time for the government. 

Accused Muhammed Rizalman Bin Ismail 

I am of course talking about the mishandling of the Muhammed Rizalman Bin Ismail case by Murray McCully. As you may know, an overseas diplomat who is alleged to have committed a serious crime was allowed to leave New Zealand without prosecution. It's alleged that the Malaysian diplomat followed a 21-year-old female home, broke into her house and attempted to rape her. The accused attacker was then allowed to leave New Zealand.

If that wasn't bad enough, the traumatic experience is being made all the worse because of how badly the National led government is mishandled the situation. The victim wasn’t even properly consulted about what should or was happening concerning her attackers diplomatic immunity. In fact the failure's in this case by government officials are numerous.

Despite the seriousness charges, the accused man was allowed to return to Malaysia even though the Malaysian government offered to waive his diplomatic immunity so that he could face trial here in New Zealand. Despite that undeniable fact, the maladroit Murray McCully claimed that it was the Malaysian's who invoked diplomatic immunity. He later went back on this claim trying to say that it was all MFAT’s fault and that the government had no responsibility. In fact he laid blame on everyone but himself.

The New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister even released documents that somewhat supported his initial assertion. However the Malaysian Foreign Affairs Minister, Anifah Aman, thoroughly contradicted McCully's account of the situation and it's now clear that further negotiations between MFAT and the Malaysian counterpart were conducted. That contact resulted in New Zealand not accepting the Malaysian's offer to waive diplomatic immunity. True to form, Murray McCully has failed to release information concerning these communications. However there's no doubt that those ‘informal talks’ resulted in the National government being complicit in an accused rapist leaving the country. They clearly did this to try and cover-up any controversy that might reflect badly on their campaigning and in particular their poster boy, John Key.

In an attempt to save his own arse, Murray McCully is also claiming that he wasn't kept informed of the situation and has placed the blame entirely on the police and his department. This has resulted in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs head, John Allen, offering his resignation. However it's quite clear that he's just being used as another scapegoat to protect his superiors who would have known about every detail of this case.

When the story broke some six weeks after Muhammed Rizalman Bin Ismail returned to Malaysia, much to the governments feigned surprise, McCully should have owned up to being actively involved in the case. He should have resigned immediately! All relevant documents should have been released, not just those that tried to get the Minister in question off the hook and certainly not documents that tried to mislead the public about what had actually occurred.

That alone should ensure McCully’s resignation, not just as a Minister, but from parliament entirely. Not only did the Minister himself fail to ensure justice for the young woman was seen let alone actually done in a reasonable timeframe...a gross breach of conduct undertaken to try and protect his own political position, the Minister has also attempted to mislead the public over the serious issue of diplomatic immunity and who exactly invoked it.

In a so-called democracy like New Zealand this is an entirely unacceptable occurrence. The Prime Minister, a person who could also be involved in this scandal, should actively encourage McCully’s resignation. In any case an apology for such ineptitude and self-centred decision making should have been made to the victim before any grovelling by Murray McCully to John Key. I hate to think of the anguish their mishandling has caused the victim in all of this. 

Considering the seriousness you would expect the mainstream media to be unanimously requesting the Minister’s resignation. After all, McCully is the person responsible for MFAT's incompetence and he should accept his shortcomings with some grace. Unfortunately the media seem more relaxed about the government facilitating the escape of an alleged rapist than they did over an eleven-year-old form letter. Even the out-dated polemic John Armstrong can't bring himself to lay blame where it truly belongs, with his insipid scribbling in today's Herald claiming that the government isn't responsibility at all. When the shoe's on the other foot eh John.

Whatever way the biased media want to spin this, such scandals will be doing some serious damage to New Zealand's international reputation. Therefore Murray McCully, the Minister responsible, must resign!

Did NZ offer diplomatic immunity?

There's been a major development in the so-called sex attack case whereby a foreign diplomat was allowed to leave New Zealand without prosecution. The accused man, Muhammad Ismail, is a military official from Malaysia.

However that's not the main issue any longer, with the Malaysian Foreign Minister, Anifah Aman, claiming that it wasn't them who invoked diplomatic immunity, it was New Zealand.

Today, the Mail Online reported:

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman has confirmed that a military official at the country's diplomatic mission in New Zealand has been charged with sexual assault and that he returned home last month using diplomatic immunity.

[...]

He says Malaysia was willing to waive diplomatic immunity but decided to take up New Zealand's offer to invoke diplomatic immunity and bring him back home.

However just yesterday, Stuff was reporting:

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand formally asked that a diplomat facing sexual assault charges waive diplomatic immunity, but was rebuffed.

The diplomat has fled the country after allegedly committing a sexual assault.

If he returned to New Zealand at any time he could face prosecution for the alleged offences.

"We expect this diplomat to face consequences for his actions," Key told his regular post-Cabinet media conference this afternoon, but added that as a signatory to the Vienna Convention New Zealand had no option but to allow the man to go free.

Clearly the reports contradict each other. They show that either the Prime Minister of New Zealand is lying or the Malaysian Foreign Minister is lying?

If it turns out that a New Zealand government official offered diplomatic immunity to somebody who is accused of burglary and sexual assault, which are both serious crimes, then that official should resign. The same goes for any National MP who might have allowed this travesty to occur.

At the very least Key needs to explain the inconsistency between his and Mr Anifah Aman's accounts. Because at the moment this has all the trademarks of yet another cover-up by the National led government.

Making politics a joke

There's been a theme developing over recent years whereby government MP's, particularly those from the National party, have been treating question time as some sort of joke!

This isn't just detrimental to our democratic process because no proper answers are being provided to important questions; it also brings the House of Representatives into disrepute.

In many regards some of the behaviour can be excused, being that many National MP's are simply taking their cues from the PM. Being the ringleader John Key actively encourages others to misbehave, which might gratify his rather over-inflated ego, but it does nothing to promote good relations across the house.

Here's one particular display of contempt for the house by John Key from today's question time.

With such arrogant behaviour regularly on display doing nothing to raise public opinion of politicians, it’s little wonder that they languish at the bottom of most trusted profession lists. In 2013 a Reader's Digest survey for instance placed them at 46 out of 50, right next to sex workers. That's a rating our politicians, instead of trivializing the sanctity of parliament, should be doing all in their power to change.

However there doesn't seem to be any impetus to remedy such bad behaviour and subsequently the general public's low opinion of politicians. Couple that dysfunction with an ineffective speaker in the form of David Carter, who is unable or unwilling to ensure there's an acceptable standard of behaviour, and we have a display of baseless bravado from National MP's more suited to the kindergarten schoolyard.

Dead civilians?

H/T nintendoug

Key in denial over Afghanistan

Last night, Native Affairs had a great program on the conflict in Afghanistan and a "revenge mission" involving Afghan commandos, US troops and New Zealand SAS soldiers that reportedly killed Afghan civilians. The excellent exposé by award winning journalist Jon Stephenson was thorough and clearly showed that civilians had been wrongfully targeted.

Today, Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key has rejected claims New Zealand SAS soldiers were involved in a "revenge mission" that killed Afghan civilians.

Maori TV's Native Affairs last night aired a report that claimed New Zealand Special Air Service troops were involved in a joint operation in Afghanistan that killed six civilians, including a child, and injured 15 more.

Here's the Native Affairs program for you to decide.

Investigative reporter Jon Stephenson reported the mission was "revenge" for the death of Feilding soldier Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell.

O'Donnell, 28, was killed when his three-vehicle patrol was attacked with explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire in northeast Bamiyan Province in August, 2010.

Key this morning rejected the mission was an act of revenge.

"There were no revenge missions in Afghanistan," he said.

"What there was, was situations where our SAS were involved in effectively prosecuting insurgents that were undertaking their own sorts of actions or fights that were going on.

Prosecuting insurgents? The people killed were clearly civilians and it's not the job of the SAS to "prosecute" anybody in Afghanistan. NZDF personnel were to form a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan, or so the propaganda led us to believe.

The article continues to report on Key's excuses:

"Our people did go in in those situations and many of them were reasonably high-profile as you know. But my understanding is that after a thorough review of the CDF [Chief of the Defence Force] at the weekend, he is very confident that New Zealand Defence Force version of events is correct and Mr Stevenson once again is wrong."

Key was not immediately sure if he was briefed on that particular mission and said he would have to check with his office.

Jon Stephenson is wrong? That's a rather simplistic and pathetic response considering the evidence he's presented so far. It's also the same response Key used when Stephenson broke the story of SAS forces handing over suspects to Afghanistan authorities, including the Afghan secret police and the National Directorate of Security, organisations well known for torturing prisoners.

That report was a clear indication that New Zealand troops were breaching our international agreements that prohibit against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment...and like this more recent example of misconduct the Prime Minister will be hard pressed to make the public believe Stephenson's reports, or the man himself, lack credibility.

John Key needs to do more than just attack the reporter. What really needs to occur is an independent inquiry into New Zealand troops being involved in what by all accounts are revenge killings and war crimes in Afghanistan. Without that we should believe the information presented, because really Jon Stephenson has no reason to make these allegations up.