Point of Order Protest at Supreme Court and Parliament calls for Transparency in New Zealand Courts and public affairs:

The inaugural Point of Order Protest was held on 13 June 2013, beginning outside the Supreme Court in Wellington and progressing to Parliament. 

Protestors led by publisher Vince Siemer of Kiwisfirst  united in Wellington today in solidarity with Transparency NZ, NZ Justice Forum, the NZ Private Prosecution Service, and a number of other individuals and representatives of various organisations concerned with human rights abuses, injustice in the Courts, etc, and demanded accountability, fair access to justice, transparent Courts, transparency regarding public affairs, and governance by the people and for the people, with fair elections and access to fair justice for all - rather than only the well off.  The Courthouse itself cost over $80,000,000 of taxpayer's money to build, it replaces New Zealanders' access to the Privy Council, which cost us nothing.

While Transparency International's NZ chapter is well 'incentivised' to come up with their "reports" which spread the propaganda that there is no corruption in New Zealand - or indeed the wider Pacific - the evidence tells another story - the National Business Review reports there is an alarming amount of bribery in New Zealand.  Vince Siemer and Kate Raue are only two of the many people who have been corruptly bullied by taxpayer funded Courts, Judges, lawyers, amicus curiae, Court appointed 'forensic staff', psychologists and psychiatricts and other purveyors of quackery who quaff at the great trough that is our ironically named 'justice' system, a system which is totally dysfunctional and prejudiced and biased in favour of the wealthy, including recent widely criticised changes to the legislation resulting in extremely restrictive access to legal aid.  Others protesting included Maria Van Der Meel of The City is Ours - protesting in particular to the manner in which the Council are dealing with issues regarding the bus lanes in Wellington and in particular Manners Mall - several people have been killed or seriously injured now, including Venessa Green, who was struck and killed by a bus in Willis St recently, as well as representatives of the Wellington Private Prosecution Service, and several independent journalists.

The processes for complaints through the established agencies are widely recognised as being inefficient because of incompetent and corrupt 'investigators', often ex Police officers, who've 'perfed' out of the force rather than face disciplinary action, such as Jon Moss and his mates at the REAA.  The Ombudsmen's Office, the IPCA, the Privacy Commissioner and Health and Disability Commissioner are all dysfunctional, incompetent, and often corrupt, which has led to a situation where there is a massive backlog of complaints and the only option for the victims is the Courts, which is what led to the overload of the legal aid applications and the changes to curtail access to legal aid.

Thanks to Simon Powers' widely criticised changes to the legal aid system, people no longer have access to lawyers unless they've got lots of money, these changes were slammed in a recent decision from the Court of Appeal, Criminal Bar Association v Attorney General.  The irony is, that the Criminal Bar Association represents the lawyers whose money tree was being pruned, rather than the public interest, and lawyers are still refusing to take clients unless the clients have the means to pay huge legal bills.  The same thing is happening in Europe where lawyers are protesting similar changes.  The decision of the Criminal Bar Association v Attorney General contains the words 

"But the issue is not what is desirable as a matter of sound public administration, but what is lawful."

Vince Siemer was party to this little exchange in the Auckland High Court on 17 June 2008:

Judge Lester Chisholm:  "Mr Siemer, if we find that you have broken the law will you change your ways?  

Mr Siemer:  "What law have I broken?" 

Judge Chisholm:   "That is for us to decide." 

Mr Siemer:  "What law is it said that I've broken?" 

Judge Chisholm:   "Mr Siemer, I'm not going to get into a debate with you." 

Mr Siemer:   "Of course not."

Here's another:

"Mr Siemer:  Is this proceeding being recorded as I requested?
Judge Rhys Harrison:  Why do you want it recorded?
Mr Siemer:  Is this not a 'Court of record'?
Judge Harrison:  'Court of record' was a phrase coined many, many centuries ago, before recording devices came into existence, so it has nothing to do with 'accurate record of proceedings'.  So, no, there is no need to record, thank you."

The Point of Order Protest serendipitously ambushed Judge Rhys Harrison on Molesworth St as he was scurrying off to do his dastardly business, and followed him up the street addressing him with the loud hailer for a few moments, which was particularly appropriate.

Recent decisions to ignore the decision of Criminal Bar Association and ignore Peter Dunne's lack of a mandate make a mockery of our 'democracy'.

Access to the Courts is further obstructed by a general unwillingness to release information according to the Official Information Act, Privacy Act, Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and a propensity instead to try and withhold and conceal as much information as possible and deliberately and unlawfully obstruct and hinder the provision of information routinely, thus clogging up the Office of the Ombudsmen with a landslide of complaints and resulting in a totally unacceptable delay of over a year for even looking at complaints let alone 'investigating' them - and complaints are all too often referred to the very people complained about to investigate anyway, such as the IPCA who routinely refer complaints back to the very police (or their colleagues) instead of any truly independent or robust investigation with any integrity we are routinely fobbed of with what often amounts to an orchestrated litany of lies.

In one case a woman had to ask a Judge for a Court Order just to obtain Disclosure from the local Police - in order to find out what it was she was actually charged with, over a year after the charge was laid - whereupon the Police had to admit that the charge never should have been laid in the first place - as the prosecutor knew all along!

Police are lying in order to unlawfully take DNA from innocent people which is extremely worrying given the evidence of the campaign of corrupt bullying and malicious and vexatious litigation which sadistic local officers indulge it - enough!  We pay taxes for fair and honest governance - not this travesty of justice we are currently enduring.

There's been a disgraceful whitewash regarding the Pike River mine explosions which killed twenty nine men, a whitewash of the GCSB spying, a whitewash of the Urewera fiasco, an unprecedented landslide of legislation curtailing human rights and access to justice and the Point of Order Protests will continue to act to change this taxpayer funded incompetence and blatant corruption.

Transparency NZ spokesperson Katherine Raue launched a stinging address at Parliament regarding the fact that twenty nine men still lie dead somewhere inside the Pike Rive mine while we've witnessed the systemic corporate failure or not only Pike River Coal but Solid Energy - Don Elder retained on the big salary and a "commission of inquiry" that didn't even have the power to compel witnesses to appear and conveniently minimised the role and liability of the Department of Labour and the government in the deaths of the twenty nine men, and a Court process that has ignored and intimidated and let down the families of those men on top of everything else they've had to endure - from the unspeakable shock of first finding out that there'd been an explosion while their men were in the mine, throughout the fiasco of a response, the second explosion, the hounding of journalists who didn't check their facts anyway, throughout all the days and weeks and months and years - over two and a half years - of birthdays and wedding anniversaries, children growing up without their dads and wives who, like many other New Zealanders, just won't put up with the fact that this government enabled the Department of Labour with resources (taxpayers money) and our paid public servants - and systems of governance - have failed so totally and utterly as was exposed at the inquiry (transcripts of the evidence are available to read, scroll down at this link) - although what was exposed was only the tip of the iceberg anyway.  Kate also gave parliament (and half of Thorndon) a piece of her mind regarding the incompetence and corruption of the NZ Police, particularly those in the Wairarapa and Wellington regions, and the complete dysfunction and obvious corruption of the IPCA and the fact that the so called 'investigation' into the fact that Sgt Mark McHattie threw hundreds of child abuse files in the rubbish bin and deliberately lied about it - saying "hand on my heart they've been resolved" when he knew perfectly well he'd thrown them in the bin.  The so called investigation has been going on for nearly seven years and nothing's changed - the 'inquiry' has just been a big gravy train for all involved, rewarding the perpetrators - conducted by the perpetrators and their mates and funded by the gullible taxpayers who believe everything the media tells them while the NBR report that there is an alarming amount of bribery in New Zealand at the same time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds Transparency International NZ to tell us there's no corruption in New Zealand or the Pacific region.  Yeah, right.

The investigation's been going on since at least 2007, and nobody involved in investigating the matter has even bothered to interview McHattie, and he and the other ringleader, Area Commander John Johnston have both been actually PROMOTED instead of charged with perverting the course of justice and imprisoned - while we've got over twice the national rate of suicide REGULARLY - it's not rocket science to see the link there, when the message we're giving people is "Talk to someone" and then the "someone" they talk to throws their files in the bin and gives his sicko mates their names and addresses etc, while they sit on their backsides sending each other emails about websites they shouldn't be worrying about anyway - the Courts have repeatedly found the publisher of the website innocent of their corrupt accusations and the NZ Police should be getting on with investigating child abuse and other violent crime instead of sending each other emails saying "Something needs to be looked at regarding Kate Raue's blog and the statements she's making on it about our staff."   Something needs looking at regarding why New Zealanders are being spied on in record numbers and unlawfully, and being stripped of our rights, while our taxes are used to fund a private army that rallies en masse to crack down on protests and pickets while they throw child abuse files in the rubbish bin.

The first Point of Order Protest outside the Supreme Court, with Kiwisfirst editor Vince Siemer, and protestors from  Transparency NZ , the NZ Private Prosecution Service, Wellington City is Ours and a number of other campaigners for justice and transparent governance.

Police out in force at a protest outside McDonalds in  March 2013

Police acting in force to protect corporate interests in return for cheap burgers, in contempt of regulations.

(Police bosses, including the Minister, initially lied, claiming that Police didn't receive any incentive or discount from McDonalds, until it was revealed that they in fact did receive a discount at McDonalds, in total contradiction of police regulations.)  Our police force has becoming a private army for corporate and political interests, and our Courts are acting increasingly in a manner which is not in the public interest and not in the interests of justice.

And now the government is forcing through even MORE legislation making it illegal to strike.