Letters to the Editor: elections, paywave and FBI
The life of a university student used to be so simple.
You turned up (almost) every day and if the lecturer got diverted into some fascinating expose, it did not matter, you always had the textbook.
Then lectures got more formalised with powerpoints, handouts, etc and the textbook disappeared.
And now it appears the lecturer may disappear. Old school values
I am disgusted with certain Dunedin city councillors who continue to exploit their positions as elected representatives by complaining to the media about our current mayor.
While Jules Radich has not been a popular mayor he is still the current elected leader of our city and as such should be respected.
What type of example is this continuing tirade to younger generations?
Councillors who use the media to try and destroy others need to take a good look at themselves. Their actions say more about them than the person they are targeting.
It's time to return to old school values and decency. This is why
You wonder at why people don't put their names forward for public office, and then reiterate a story that has been well and truly thrashed about Barry Williams.
May I put it in record that over his over 25 years on the community board he has helped start the singles dance, been a stalwart of the rugby club — including organising a wonderful centenary with Peter FitzSimons and being made a life member — organised a rugby sevens event that bought people from afar during the World Cup, welcomed many to the district, been a very generous supporter of every raffle and fundraiser, reached out to help people quietly.
One poor decision does not a man make. You should do better to reflect the reality and why Barry has continued to receive support from the Middlemarch community. A full field
After reading the article ( ODT 5.8.25) pertaining to the fact of there are 16 — yes 16 — candidates for the Dunedin mayoralty I have some questions and views on this.
On one hand some people would quantify this by saying that this is democracy. Unfortunately I do not buy into this, as I would suggest most normal people would not either.
For me there are only two reasons for this: (a) that somewhere behind the scenes is an orchestration attempting to split votes or (b) some candidates have an ego that apparently requires this public exposure.
Another factor I definitely have an opinion on is candidates that stand and do not reside in the particular city and I refer specifically to Mr Clark standing for the Invercargill area. It is also my belief that candidates for mayor should have served at the very least one term as a councillor.
I guess it indicates overall how difficult it can be to interest people of the right calibre to put their hand up for a host of things as in clubs, councils and God forbid even MPs. Paywave changes a swipe at careful budgeters
Surprise surprise.
A cafe owner has said that if paywave charges are banned the cost will have to be passed on to customers via prices.
As soon as this policy was announced I expected that.
So people like me who budget their spending carefully and avoid paying any extra charges will be paying more.
So will all the paywave users who don't care if it costs a little more for the sake of saving a few seconds at the till.
Thanks very much Mr Luxon. No confidence
Reading about the discussions between councillors in today's ODT (29.7.25), I wish the ballot papers would include an option that used to be on the list for the Otago University Student Association. "I have no confidence in any of these candidates". Perhaps it is time to add that option to the local body election lists? Obvious query on FBI missed
The recent exposure and disturbing, farcical aftermath of the otherwise secret visit of the Trump political ally head of the FBI reveals a major failure of the media in this country.
When pressed on Kash Patel's highly significant and explicit statement of the principal mission of the new FBI secret police base in New Zealand as "countering China in the Pacific", the hapless Judith Collins deflected it by saying that she had no control over what the FBI head said.
In a major failure by the journalist, it was left at that when the obvious follow up was "No Minister. That's not good enough. The FBI have announced a completely different purpose for the office than what the government has said it is for. Do you know what you have signed up for? " Putting America first
Re Robert Patman's comments concerning the establishment of an FBI office in New Zealand. His opinion is that it might be seen as an intrusion by the United States and that the US does not share our world view and doesn't believe in international rules-based law.
He uses as an example the supposed territorial claims against Canada, against Greenland and the US imposition of tariffs on the goods of trading partners.
Trump has never had designs on annexing Canada and he made the comments to show his displeasure at the behaviour of Canada's then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. As for Greenland, the local population have shown an interest in the idea following decades of disinterest in their welfare from the Denmark government.
For decades, the US had a military presence in Greenland, and I am sure if given the chance the population would like to be the 51st State of the Union.
The US has every right to impose tariffs as it sees fit: Trump is doing what a good leader should do, look after the interests of his own people first.
A powerful and respectful US is the only thing that will save this world from future conflagrations.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
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NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
William Webster, first to lead FBI and CIA, dies at 101
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked then-Attorney General Griffin B. Bell to begin looking for a new FBI director. 'The bureau had been taking some rough blows,' Bell later told the New York Times, 'and we were looking for somebody who was absolutely above reproach.' At the time, the FBI was reeling from disclosures that agents had participated in break-ins, illegally opened the mail of people under surveillance and spied on civil rights leaders. As Carter's nominee for director, Webster told the Senate during confirmation hearings that the FBI 'is not above the law' and should not 'wage war on private citizens to discredit them'. Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post journalist and the author of books on law enforcement and intelligence, said in an interview that Webster was 'the perfect person' to head the FBI and CIA. 'Both agencies in the past had abused their power,' Kessler said. 'He restored their credibility and gave the people assurance that these agencies were really operating in the public interest.' He added that Webster oversaw a transformative period at the FBI and credited him with turning 'the bureau into a much more proactive force'. As FBI director during the late 1970s and early 1980, Webster oversaw an undercover corruption investigation known as Abscam that ensnared several members of Congress. During the operation, an undercover agent posed as an Arab sheikh and the owner of Abdul Enterprises, hence the name of the operation. The disguised agents held meetings with senators and House members at a Playboy Club in New Jersey and aboard a yacht off the Florida coast. Using hidden cameras and microphones, federal authorities recorded politicians accepting US$400,000 (about $420,000 at 1980 exchange rates) in bribes from the fake Arab sheikh in exchange for political favours. One senator and five congressmen were eventually convicted of crimes including bribery. In the early 1980s, Webster also oversaw the formation of the bureau's elite counter-terrorism force known as the Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). Envisioned as a domestic Special Operations unit, the HRT was modelled after the Army's top-secret Delta Force – with one key difference. During a tour of Delta facilities at Fort Bragg in the early 1980s, Webster observed the commandos conducting a simulated raid on a group of terrorists. Webster, impressed with the results, saw merit in the tactics used by Delta operators and inquired about what kind of equipment they carried on missions. He was told they employed only the latest technology, including night-vision goggles. 'I don't see any handcuffs,' Webster replied. An Army Major General then explained that his soldiers didn't end missions by reading terrorism suspects their Miranda rights. 'It's not my job to arrest people,' the general said. Under Webster's guidance, HRT members were trained first as law enforcement officers and secondly as elite sharpshooters. Since its inception in 1983, the HRT has taken part in rescue operations around the country and saved countless lives. Webster's success at the FBI was noticed in the Reagan White House during the late 1980s, when the administration was struggling with the fallout from Iran-Contra. The illegal secret operation involved selling weapons to Iran and diverting the profits to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras. Investigations by Congress and a special prosecutor implicated the CIA and suggested the involvement of William J. Casey, the agency's director. Casey resigned from office in February 1987 after a malignant tumour was diagnosed in his brain. He died three months later. Seeking a replacement known for probity, Reagan tapped Webster to clean up the CIA. Webster swiftly fired two employees connected to Iran-Contra, demoted another and issued reprimands to four others, according to Kessler's 1992 book, Inside the CIA. In addition, Webster established policies that provided more oversight of clandestine operations. He hired more lawyers to review the legality of missions and gave more powers to the CIA's inspector general. Thomas Twetten, a veteran CIA officer who served in high-ranking positions, said in an interview that Webster was considered an unlikely candidate to lead the agency. He had spent little time overseas and was unfamiliar with practices used in the collection of intelligence. 'He was not a foreign-affairs expert. That was not at all his strong point,' said Twetten, who later served as a CIA deputy director. 'He came from a law-and-order background as a judge.' Twetten said Webster excelled as a manager at the CIA. To compensate for his lack of foreign affairs experience, Webster tapped Richard J. Kerr, a respected intelligence analyst, to serve as his deputy. He also persuaded a covert officer to come out of retirement to lead the agency's cloak-and-dagger branch. That officer, Dick Stolz, proved to be one of Webster's best hires, Twetten said. Stolz was a revered figure in the intelligence community, and bringing him back to the CIA added stability to a deeply shaken agency. 'You have to give him a lot of credit,' Twetten said. 'He did fine because he let everybody play to their strengths.' Webster was responsible for establishing specialised counterintelligence and counternarcotics centres, units that tracked spies and drug rings in countries around the world. He also sought to patch up a long-standing rivalry between the FBI and CIA. In particular, he improved co-ordination between the agencies on counterintelligence, and he helped establish a programme – run jointly by the CIA and FBI in Washington – to recruit Russians to spy on their own Government. In the end, Webster was credited with presiding over a period of relative quiet at the agency. 'He was criticised for not being a strategic thinker, but that's not why he was selected,' Vincent Cannistraro, a former high-ranking CIA counterterrorism official, told the Post in 1991. 'He was selected to calm troubled waters.' Webster was known as a man to be taken seriously. But on occasion, he displayed a lighter side. For instance, as the 14th director of central intelligence, he signed some of his correspondence – with winking double-0 James Bond flair – as '00-14'. William Hedgcock Webster was born in St Louis on March 6, 1924, and grew up in suburban Webster Groves, Missouri. His father owned small businesses and his mother was a homemaker. After serving as a Navy officer during World War II, Webster graduated in 1947 from Amherst College in Massachusetts, and he received a law degree in 1949 from Washington University in St Louis. He was recalled to Navy duty during the Korean War. He worked in private practice in St Louis, representing major corporate clients such as Mobil Oil, and served briefly in the early 1960s as US attorney in eastern Missouri. In 1970, President Nixon appointed Webster to a judgeship on the US District Court for Eastern Missouri. In 1973, Nixon appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in St Louis. In one notable case on the appeals court, Webster ruled that the University of Missouri could not deny funding or facilities to a gay rights organisation on campus, citing the First Amendment's protection of free assembly. The university appealed Webster's ruling and petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear the case. The Supreme Court declined. Webster was lean and patrician in appearance and ascetic in his tastes. A Christian Scientist, Webster largely abstained from alcohol. His chief indulgence was tennis, and his partners over the years included President George H.W. Bush, Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and actor Zsa Zsa Gabor. After leaving the CIA in 1991, Webster continued to be called on to handle sensitive matters. He chaired the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which advised the secretary of homeland security about terrorism threats. He also chaired a Justice Department commission that investigated the 2009 Fort Hood shootings, in which an Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Hasan, was eventually convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than two dozen. The commission suggested that the FBI review its policies to clarify the chain of command for counterterrorism operations. In 1950, Webster married the former Drusilla Lane. She died in 1984 after refusing medical treatment for cancer, citing her Christian Science beliefs. Webster married the former Lynda Clugston in 1990. In addition to his wife, survivors include three children from his first marriage, Drusilla Patterson, William H. Webster jnr, and Katherine Roessle; seven grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. Webster made a flurry of news in February 2019, when his role in a reverse sting operation was publicised. He and his wife became targets of a Jamaica-based phone scammer who became increasingly threatening and did not realise he was dealing with the former director of the FBI and the CIA. Working with law enforcement, Webster captured the man on tape trying to extort money and helped ensure he received a long prison term.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Merit seen in NCEA replacement
Wakatipu High principal Oded Nathan. PHOTO: ODT FILES Wakatipu High's principal welcomes aspects of what the government's aiming to achieve by scrapping NCEA qualifications, but doesn't believe the present system was broken. Education Minister Erica Stanford this week announced it's replacing NCEA, from 2028, with a Level 1 foundation test in literacy and numeracy and, in years 12 and 13, with the New Zealand Certificate of Education and NZ Advanced Certificate of Education, respectively, from 2029 and 2030. "I think the current NCEA system does serve our students well with their aspirations andpathways," Oded Nathan says. He's still boning up on all the details, "but the changes seem to align pretty well with what we're currently doing". A feature of NCEA has been more internal assessment than external assessment, to the extent many students don't even sit external exams. "We like the increased focus on external examinations — that's something we've been doing at the school — while also having an element of internal assessment." Nathan says they already focus on younger students' literacy and numeracy. Next year they'll also pilot for year 10s the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, then into year 11s in 2027, "just to make sure there's an element of a qualification and that rigour at that junior year". He accepts NCEA is "a complex system to understand, there's a lot of nuance to it, it offers that flexibility". But under the new system there'll again be marks from 0 to 100 and grades from A to E. "I appreciate this should be easier for parents and employers to help them understand," Nathan says. The government's put its changes out for consultation till September 1.
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- NZ Herald
How US tariff hikes could reshape NZ's economic landscape
The suggested reasons have ranged from NZ running a trade surplus with the US (albeit a small one), and our GST rate of 15%. It also has been suggested that our political ties with the US aren't as strong as some others (the FBI opening an office in Wellington may have been too little too late), while we also have a nuclear-free policy. Ultimately, not having a bilateral free trade agreement (while Australia does) may also be a factor. The epilogue to last Friday's announcement is now likely to see some lobbying by our officials (and those of other countries) to get a better deal. This will, though, as we have seen with other agreed deals, have to include something on the other side, as there are no free lunches in Trump's trade offensive. So what happens if NZ is stuck with 15%? Before last week, we were all seemingly comfortable with our lot – a 10% tariff. We export around $9 billion of goods to the US, and duties of around $900 million would be material, but manageable. We are now faced with duties of $1.4b. Some commentators have suggested that this is still 'digestible' in the context of our $400b economy, but the reality is the tariffs will affect an important segment of exporters which have been among our brightest stars recently. Despite challenges, NZ's open economy and potential rate cuts may offer some economic relief. Photo / 123rf With much of the NZ economy stagnant, our agricultural exporters have been flourishing, and not least of which has been the dairy sector amid strong global demand. Fonterra has acknowledged that tariffs will impact sales of dairy ingredients and products in the US, which is its largest single market, accounting for 10-20% of Fonterra's sales. We sell $1 billion a year of dairy product to the US, and that is too much to divert elsewhere. The question then becomes whether Americans will be prepared to pay more for our dairy products, or will the industry have to eat the tariffs? A saving grace is that many of our global export competitors are based in Europe, which is faced with a similar tariff rate. The playing field is not so level for our red meat industry, for which the US is our largest market, with exports of over $2b. Our farmers have benefited from shrinking US herd inventory, strong demand and high prices. Beef & Lamb NZ estimates that tariffs will cost the industry an extra $300m a year. And while competitors in Brazil (at 50%) are facing much higher tariffs than our meat farmers, those in Australia, Argentina, and Uruguay are only having to deal with duties of 10%. This could well put Kiwi meat farmers (which have been used to minimal tariffs), including the likes of Silver Fern Farms and Alliance Group, at a clear competitive disadvantage, with knock-on impacts to margins and/or demand (already down 14% since April). Then there is the wine industry, set to be facing over $100m worth of extra tariffs. The US is our biggest market, with annual wine exports of around $750m. Price points for American consumers have been very sensitive, and $1 or so of duties on a bottle of sav (90% of export volumes) could make all the difference between consumers choosing our wines or something cheaper – either homegrown or from the likes of Australia, Chile or Argentina, for instance, which are dealing with lower tariff rates. A host of other industries are facing similar headwinds, including primary sector machinery (+$600m per year in sales) and seafood (+$300m per year), along with pharmaceuticals. Several other industries, including machinery, seafood, and pharmaceuticals, are also facing significant tariff-related challenges. Photo / Getty Images On that note, our largest listed company, Fisher & Paykel, derives around a quarter of its global revenue from the US and does not have a lot of pricing power with its products. However, it appears that the company is relatively insulated in that the majority of its US sales are supplied from Mexico, which is exempt under the USMCA agreement. That said, this agreement is up for review in 2026. All in all, there are a host of implications from last week's tariff announcement, and none should be treated lightly. Many of our industries that have been outperforming, particularly dairy and meat, will now be faced with competitive headwinds. They will have to decide whether to try to divert their products elsewhere or possibly absorb the effect on their margins, with consequent potential impacts to profitability, employment and investment intentions. This will have knock-on effects on our broader economy. The headwinds will trickle down to affect underlying economic growth, investment, confidence, and employment when we least need it. The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) was already predicting that increased global tariffs were likely to slow global economic growth, and we now have a direct hit on our economy, just as it's crawling out of recession. Estimates were for our economy to grow around 2% next year. That is now looking like a tougher ask. There is the added complication that China, our biggest customer, has yet to ink a trade deal with the US. There are some positive takeaways, though, and it could be worse. Even in the light of last week's announcement, we still have an open economy with free trade with three-quarters of the world, covering products that are regarded as very high quality and are in strong demand. Some traditionally US exports may be diverted elsewhere. There will be a clear economic impact, but one that should compel our own central bank to cut rates when officials meet next month. This would provide support for positivity for domestic borrowers, local businesses and consumers. This is against a backdrop where our inflation rate has already fallen, and the scope exists for Trump's tariffs to put additional pressure on prices in NZ as products destined for the US are shipped here at lower prices. From an equity market perspective, our biggest company stands fairly insulated, as are many of our other big blue chips. Overall, global equity market confidence has also remained strong, despite the macroeconomic uncertainties of recent months, some of which have been resolved (the US has agreed trade deals with Britain, Japan, Europe, and several Asian countries, including South Korea). The equity markets have had a lot thrown at them in the past months, but have been resilient – the world's biggest stock market, the S&P500, is trading around record highs. Ultimately, stock markets are forward-looking and are sending positive messages, as are corporates with the earnings season in the US and Europe under way. For a world that has seen plenty of crises in recent years, are we just possibly looking at another shock that will play out better than feared?
