An apology unlikely to pull the sting

4 Comments »

• Cactus Kate says:

  28 September 2012 at 3:21 am

  As stated elsewhere I would be more impressed if Key apologised for giving this chump residence in the first place.

  With his rap sheet (listed on Kiwiblog) there is no way anywhere else in the world would have accepted him in the first instance.
  Well except HK on payment of $ which if you do some research is notable for spying on its own citizens. But they do it more competently.

  Forgetting the incompetence of NZ authorities in actually getting caught spying on a guy merely to prove where he is (ask his neighbours as he seemed prominent enough when home) I ask why hasn’t the political left investigated the abuses by the SFO and IRD of their powers in the past decade as they do request for this man?

  And in the midst of the fawning no journalist has asked how much NZ company tax Megaupload paid in the first instance (I suspect none as NZ has a 4 year exemption for new immigrants if they structure their affairs in a certain way). In HK we do not tax on non-HK source income so I suspect he blocked HK IP’s from accessing Megauploads site not for IP reasons but to avoid HK taxes as well.

  Nothing wrong with this but I wish every New Zealander would get in behind people like this in my industry who wished to jurisdiction-shop to get better tax results! That’s all.

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    28 September 2012 at 10:37 am

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts Cathy. I bow to your greater professional knowledge of immigration and taxation rorts. (Don’t be bashful about linking to your post ‘elsewhere‘.)

    I hadn’t read David Farrar’s post (link) in which, it seems to me, he alternates between darkly smearing Kim Dotcom with what you call a ‘rap-sheet’ and white-washing the (best-case:) incompetence of minions in the NZ state security apparatus all the while dispensing his typical apologia for the National government.*

    Funny that David describes Mr Dotcom as a ‘fantasist’ (seemingly unaware of the irony of citing IAN WISHART in support!) then in the next breath soft-pedals ‘NZ law enforcement agencies’ and their ‘culture’ as ‘shall we say too overly enthusiastic, and not cautious enough’ … I loved David’s self-awareness too: (“We all want to be James Bond to some degree”). I agree with this:

    “The overall impression I have of NZ law enforcement agencies is they were desperately keen to impress the boys from the US. To have the FBI and likes over here saying this guy is wanted for hundreds of millions of dollars of charges, and this case will be globally massive seemed to have got people into a mindset that we have to make sure we don’t disappoint Uncle Sam by just sending in Constable Smith to interview Dotcom.”

    Immigration is a fraught area containing inconsistencies, corruption, deceit and counterintuitive decisions. It seems pretty clear NZ residency is a commodity for sale. But we’re not alone in that, are we?

    I remember chatting to a cabbie in Singapore and it transpired he’d just returned from a visit to his daughter in Canada, having just attained his ‘PR’ (permanent residence) there. Of course, my next question was: ‘So why aren’t you in Canada? How come you’re here in Singapore driving a cab?’ In response, he talked about having set up his Canadian residency as a bolt hole … but he could make more money in SNG … and it didn’t suit him yada yada.

    Where I live in Howick we have a sizable Chinese ex-pat community (‘Chowick’ was our suburb’s nickname when I moved here in the mid 1990s). I remember former National MP Grahame Thorne talking to me in Meadowlands about ‘the slopes around here’ and my genuinely not understanding what/who he was talking about until the penny dropped. #unimpressed

    In my experience that community, like any, has its share of good and bad eggs. People are people. I love the entrepreneurial flair of some I meet like my friend Paul Young who organises concerts in Auckland for HK teenybopper pop stars. I’ve learned from observing his approach and talking with him about my own businesses. There’s a bustling world that most Kiwis don’t even see.

    re Your question “why hasn’t the political left investigated the abuses by the SFO and IRD of their powers in the past decade as they do request for this man?” What? Do you realistically expect that? (Are you thinking of Mark Hotchin, BTW? Or Chch Dave Henderson?)

    God knows there have been plenty of immigration scandals throughout the last decade with Bill Liu only the latest.

    – P

    * Update: to be clear: I don’t blame John Key for this balls-up. It’s the police that called in GCSB, as you say, for trivial matters. And Bill English’s lack of a heads-up for Mr Key was not a factor. The damage was done by then. Good work on Dotcom’s lawyers’ part. Kudos.

• Craig says:

  3 October 2012 at 8:09 pm

  Wait for it…..
  When there’s smoke there is fire with Key stating he knew about GCSB later than he actually did.
  Come on Peter start another non sequitur posting.

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    3 October 2012 at 9:08 pm

    I guess you’re talking about this?:

    

    Key forced to admit misinformation
    http://www.3news.co.nz/Key-forced-to-admit-misinformation/tabid/370/articleID/271357/Default.aspx