Monday 29 October 2012

The continuing coup in New Zealand

State of the Environment report stopped


The Government is stopping the five-yearly State of the Environment report.
Put together by the Ministry of the Environment, the report is the largest stock-take of trends relating to land, water, air, plants and animals.

The next report was expected in December, but the Government has decided instead to look at the basic data for each area.

Environment Minister Amy Adams said the ministry is continually tracing environmental performance using 22 core indicators and the change is to ensure new information is released as it comes to hand.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright said that is not good enough, because the data is not compiled, analysed, or compared.
Dr Wright also said she was unaware the report was being scrapped.

Green MP Eugenie Sage said the Government is just trying to keep New Zealanders in the dark about environmental problems.



Personal files sent to wrong people by IRD


The Inland Revenue Department sent the personal information of 6300 people to the wrong person in the past year.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said most of those affected will never know because the breach was not considered serious enough to contact them

But in the most serious cases, 638 people had details like their addresses and tax numbers released, making them vulnerable to identity fraud.

Mr Dunne said the affected people have been contacted and the problems were due to human error.



Youth suicide rate high in north


Youth suicide rates in the far north have exceeded the region's road toll for the first time.

Te Rarawa signed a Treaty settlement package in Kaitaia on Sunday worth about $70 million.

Haami Piripi said a priority for new iwi social programmes that will flow from the settlement is to halt the numbers of young people killing themselves.

But he said it is extremely difficult to know how to tackle the suicide rate without giving the issue a profile among young people that might worsen the problem.



Dotcom posed no security risk - SIS


The Security Intelligence Service has confirmed its investigation into Kim Dotcom found he posed no security risk to New Zealand.

In response to an Official Information Act request, the SIS says it was asked to investigate the internet entrepreneur, by Immigration New Zealand in 2010.

Mr Dotcom is fighting extradition to the United States to face charges of internet piracy and fraud, and the Government Communications Security Bureau has admitted it illegally monitored him.

The SIS says it was not involved in that surveillance.

However, it did pass on a request in October 2010 from the FBI to the police about conducting a joint investigation into Mr Dotcom's activities.

About two weeks later, the SIS told Immigration it had no security concerns about Kim Dotcom.



New competitive funding process for foundation level courses

Funding cuts are forcing Polytechs to cut foundation courses that would help young people into employment




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