Latest news with #Pledge
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Hobson's Pledge use of Rotorua kuia's image: Whānau consider legal options
He would not name the advertising agency. Hobson's Pledge came under fire after billboards around New Zealand, including in Rotorua, Hamilton, Whangārei and Christchurch, showed a photograph of grandmother Ellen Tamati with her moko kauae with the words alongside her image, 'My mana doesn't need a mandate, vote no to Māori wards'. The image was taken by travel photographer Rafael Ben Ari at the Waitangi Day celebrations in 2025 and, among others, was licensed to stock image websites iStock by Getty and Shutterstock. They were labelled for 'editorial use only'. Tamati said she completely disagreed with the billboard's message and never gave permission for her photo to be used in a political way, a breach of the websites' conditions. The photographer could not be contacted. Tamati, aged in her 70s, is distraught after what her whānau say were actions that trampled on her mana. Hobson's Pledge said in a statement that it immediately removed the billboards when it discovered Tamati was upset. The statement said it would reach out privately to Tamati to ensure she was okay. Tamati's granddaughter, Anahera Parata, said yesterday that her grandmother had not received an apology. Brash told the Rotorua Daily Post earlier that afternoon that Hobson's Pledge had not yet personally apologised to Tamati. 'I'm not sure we know how to contact her ... New Zealand's a big country.' When the Rotorua Daily Post said it found Tamati's whānau members online within minutes of looking, Brash said: 'We will work harder then'. Brash contacted the Rotorua Daily Post later yesterday afternoon to say a team member had contacted someone they thought was a relativewho told them 'in more dramatic words' to 'get lost'. 'It's about tīkanga' Parata said her grandmother was isolating herself. 'She's not doing too great ... She wants it all to go away.' Parata said the whānau engaged a lawyer to look at their options. 'My nan, she just wants it to be gone. She is not one to want for money, never has been, it is about tīkanga and what they [have] done is wrong.' She said the whānau had not heard from Hobson's Pledge and were not sure yet how they were going to respond. 'We have told her to turn her phone off and rest.' A legal view Lawyer Tania Waikato, who has published research on Māori intellectual property issues, said in her opinion the stock image websites were clear that the photo was for 'editorial use only' and could not be used in the manner they were. Waikato said 'serious questions' should be raised around Hobson's Pledge's assertions it had done nothing wrong. Lawyer Tania Waikato says "serious questions" should be raised. Photo / File She said both websites stated 'editorial use only' content referred to images and videos that did not have a 'model or property release on file'. She said this meant they could not be used for commercial, promotional, or advertising purposes without permission, particularly from a person in the photo. She said those types of images often portrayed real-world people, places, events and things and were intended to be used only in connection with events that were newsworthy or of general interest. 'This photo of Whaea Ellen was taken at Waitangi in 2025, which is the context and event that it might have been used for – stories about Waitangi Day." She said users of these websites have an option to purchase a further licence that could potentially allow them to use 'editorial use only' photos for commercial uses (such as billboard advertising), but Hobson's Pledge did not appear to have provided any documentary proof that this type of licence was obtained. In any event, Waikato said, both websites were clear that such photos could not be used in a defamatory way, or specifically in the Shutterstock licence 'in a political context, such as the promotion, advertisement or endorsement of any party, candidate, or elected official, or in connection with any political policy or viewpoint'. 'All of these points raise serious questions as to whether Hobson's Pledge did in fact secure all rights to use the photo as they have claimed they did and warrant further investigation.' A Hobson's Pledge newsletter sent on Thursday afternoon and attributed to Brash said the group would be getting new billboard designs completed in the next couple of days and hoped to have them back up next week. Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.
NZ Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
Pointless foreshore debate a distraction from economic crisis
At the same time, our second biggest export market has just imposed 15% tariffs on our products – higher than on our direct competitors – and its rival for global hegemony is extending its influence and projecting its military power into our region and even our realm. Yet despite all this – or perhaps because of it – some within the coalition Government and fringe groups aligned to them think it's a good idea to have another argument about race. Maybe that's not surprising. With the working and middle classes crying out for an explanation for why things are so bad and the country's prospects so bleak, some within the old political and business establishments dare not admit it is because of poor policy and commercial decisions they themselves contributed to over recent decades. As in other nations facing seemingly irretrievable decline, it's much better to point to a minority and blame them. 'It's not your fault, or mine, that you're doing it tough,' this old elite tells those who are struggling. 'We're all just victims of the 'grievance economy' where Māori keep taking what is rightfully yours.' The worst thing is that it works, at least with perhaps 20% of voters. That rump, which polls suggest consists mainly of white baby-boomer men, is particularly important electorally to NZ First and Act, who fight over them. You may think that the biggest issues in this year's local government elections are out-of-control rates and councils' cumbersome and incompetent application of the Resource Management Act. But, according to Hobson's Pledge, 'the most important fight of 2025' is around Māori wards. 'Across the country,' it says in an apocalyptic fund-raising email, 'local councils have become the frontline in a slow, stealthy assault on democracy. Behind closed doors, race-based policies are being pushed through. Co-governance is being installed without consent. And representation is being carved up based not on merit or votes, but on ancestry.' Hobson's Pledge says it will 'go big with this campaign', including 'billboards, signage, social media, and engaging with new voices'. The campaign's integrity is already under question, after it was revealed that Hobson's Pledge used, without her permission, a photograph of an elderly Māori woman in a billboard implying she opposes Māori wards. Rotorua kuia Ellen Tamati is devastated after discovering her image is being used by a political lobby group that's pushing to abolish Māori wards. Photo / Aukaha News In fact, she supports them. She never agreed for anyone to use her image commercially, and the agency which sold it anyway was clear it could not be used in advertising. Hobson's Pledge has since asked the billboard company to remove the advertisement and said it would contact the woman to ensure she was okay and let her know her image was publicly available as a stock image. Hobson's Pledge has form with this sort of thing, setting up a 'We Belong Aotearoa' campaign before the last election, falsely suggesting a grassroots movement by immigrants concerned about co-governance. Next time, Hobson's Pledge ought to use one of its own supporters – of which it claims to have many – in its advertisements. It might also give greater attention to telling the truth, after its advertising about the foreshore and seabed in the New Zealand Herald was found by the Advertising Standards Board to be materially misleading. Hobson's Pledge will continue to do its thing, and its antics are probably best seen as another small price to pay for the benefits of free speech. More worrying is internal coalition politics pushing Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith to proceed with new foreshore and seabed legislation. This is certain to arouse all the passions of the Clark Government's 2003 and 2004 fiasco that the Key Government resolved so successfully in its first term by passing then-Attorney General Christopher Finlayson's Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011. The Luxon Government – or at least a powerful faction within it – seems to want a repeat of Act's failed Treaty Principles Bill, with all the associated division and distraction from the real economic crises. There might have been a case for the bill Goldsmith is fronting had the Supreme Court upheld a recent novel interpretation of Finlayson's legislation by the Court of Appeal. But the Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeal, making the proposed bill seem redundant. We must now choose whether Finlayson or Goldsmith is likely to be the better jurist. Finlayson says the Supreme Court left things as Parliament intended back in 2011 and that Goldsmith's bill would compromise existing Māori rights. Goldsmith says the Supreme Court made it too easy for Māori to have their rights recognised by the courts and that the bill is needed to return things to the status quo the Key Government established. Since the whole foreshore and seabed controversy emerged in 2003, it has been based on what Finlayson calls a 'lie': concerns about public access to beaches. Hobson's Pledge now goes so far as to claim there's a risk of 'kissing our entire coastline goodbye'. Yet beach access was never an issue, even when the Court of Appeal made its original 2003 ruling that kicked off the controversy. It certainly isn't an issue under the 2011 law or the Supreme Court's decisions. The rights that an iwi can have recognised over bits of the foreshore and seabed are highly limited, and nothing like ordinary property rights. Underlying all this is another lie: that there is something activist, radical or woke about the courts acknowledging Māori customary law. Yet in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, North America and New Zealand, the British Empire and its common law always acknowledged that customary law continued after colonisation, unless it was specifically repealed. The truly radical or activist judges have been those who historically tried to deny this. It can be annoying when other people's legal rights are upheld, like farmers being able to stop hikers from walking across their property. But that is no reason to deny such rights. To the contrary, it is an essential democratic principle that the specific legal rights of individuals and other minorities are upheld, whatever the majority may think. It's wrong to keep changing the law on the foreshore and seabed or anything else when it looks like the courts may uphold some specific legal rights that someone else might find annoying. If they can do it to an iwi, they can do it to you. And, with all New Zealand's economic and social crises, ask yourself whose interests are served by trying to turn your attention to race.
Fox News
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
JONATHAN TURLEY: Democrats pulled the greatest political con job ever on Americans. It's finally unraveling
This week, Washington was rocked by new releases in the declassification of material related to the origins of the Russian investigation. The material shows further evidence of a secret plan by the Clinton campaign to use the FBI and media to spread a false claim that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. With this material, the public is finally seeing how officials and reporters set into motion what may be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in American politics. There never was a Russian collusion conspiracy. This is the emerging story of the real Russian conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative that succeeded in devouring much of the first term of the Trump administration. What is emerging in these documents is a political illusion carefully constructed by government officials and a willing media. The brilliance of the trick was getting reporters to buy into the illusion; to own it like members of an audience called to the stage by an illusionist. The effort closely followed the three steps of the classic magic trick: The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige. The trick began with the pledge, the stage where the public is set up by showing ordinary events with the suggestion that it is about to transform into something extraordinary. The key is to make something seem real that is actually not. The Clinton campaign delivered the pledge by secretly funding the Steele dossier, using Fusion GPS and a former British spy named Christopher Steele, to create a salacious account of Trump being an agent of Russia. It was Elias who was the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign when it funded the infamous Steele dossier and pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was indicted but acquitted in a criminal trial.) During the campaign, a few reporters asked about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement in the Steele Dossier. After the election, journalists discovered that the payments for the Steele dossier were hidden as "legal fees" among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie under Elias. When New York Times reporter Ken Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias "pushed back vigorously, saying 'You (or your sources) are wrong.'" Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, "Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year." Later, John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, appeared before Congress for questioning on the Steele dossier. Podesta emphatically denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress. The FEC ultimately sanctioned the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee over the handling of the funding of the dossier through his prior firm. The next step is the turn when the ordinary becomes something extraordinary. This required the involvement of the government. The Clinton team worked behind the scenes to feed the dossier to the FBI. It would be the criminal investigation that would transform the ordinary accounts, like Carter Page speaking in Moscow, into an elaborate Russian plot. Even though the FBI was warned early on that Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian asset, the Clinton team found eager officials in the Obama administration to assist in the illusion. The newly disclosed evidence shows how the turn was made. In July 2016, Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton's "plan" to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as "a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server." The original Russia investigation — funded by Clinton's campaign — was launched days after this briefing. Months later, it would be Brennan who overruled his own CIA analysts in his ordering of a second last-minute assessment at the end of the Obama administration in support of the Russian allegations. It would help make the turn with the all-consuming Russian investigation that would follow. Career analysts were not buying the turn. They objected that the reliance on the Steele dossier "ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment." One CIA analyst told investigators that "[Brennan] refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier's main flaws, [Brennan] responded, 'Yes, but doesn't it ring true?'" That is the key to the turn; it needs only to be enough to fool the audience. The final stage is called the Prestige, where the magician faces the toughest part of the trick. As explained in the 2006 movie "The Prestige," the viewer is "looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because, of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled." However, "making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back." The difference is that this trick was designed to derail Trump and it worked. In the end, however, the Special Counsel and Inspector General both rejected the Russian collusion claims. The public then reelected Trump. Now, the prestige may be revealed by the CIA. Reports indicate that the CIA is about to declassify material showing that foreign sources were also in on the trick. The information reportedly indicates that foreign sources were aware of the move to create a Russian collusion scandal and expected that the FBI would play a role in the plan. That was before the bureau launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe. One source said the foreign intelligence predicted the move "with alarming specificity." The most recently declassified material shows that the Russian actors in 2016 hacked emails from the Open Society Foundations, formerly known as the Soros Foundation. The emails show an even wider circle of activists and allies who were aware of the Clinton conspiracy. Leonard Bernardo, who was the regional director for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations, explained that "during the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated…from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications." Bernardo added, "Julie (Clinton Campaign Advisor) says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later, the FBI will put more oil into the fire." The media (including the Washington Post and New York Times, which won Pulitzer prizes for reporting on the debunked claims) are apoplectic in dismissing these disclosures. The last thing they will do is report on how they helped sell a political hoax. The problem is that they never said it was a trick. They said it was the truth. That is why CIA Director John Ratcliff's big reveals have this town on the edge of its seat. It appears that everyone was in on the trick: the U.S. government, the media, even foreign governments. The only chumps were the American people. Now they are about to see how it was done.
Straits Times
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Forum: Participate fully in collective celebration of nation's birthday at NDP
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox We thank Mr David Lim Yeow Chuan for his support of the National Day Parade (NDP), and for taking the time to share his observations ( Parade-goers should show greater appreciation for NDP , July 2). Together from start to finish, the segments of each NDP weave together the story of Singapore's journey and our shared aspirations as a nation. In this year's celebration of Singapore's 60th year of independence, NDP 2025 will unfold across an expanded canvas of celebration encompassing both the Padang and the surrounding Bay area. Each NDP features various interactive segments where audience members become active contributors to the experience. These engaging moments build towards the nationwide Majulah Moment, where all Singaporeans, whether at the parade or elsewhere, are invited to recite our Pledge and sing our National Anthem together. The NDP is the result of the dedication of many volunteer participants and performers, whose stories of commitment and contribution have been shared with Singaporeans through various media platforms. They remind us of the collective spirit that makes this celebration possible. We encourage all ticket-holders – whether for the NDP or its preview and National Education shows – to arrive early, enjoy the event in its entirety, and participate fully in every segment. Beyond enjoying the experience and affirming the participants' effort, they will find deeper meaning in being part of this collective celebration of our nation's birthday and renewal of our commitment to Singapore. Majulah Singapura. Chong Shi Hao (Colonel) Chairman NDP 2025 Executive Committee
Straits Times
01-07-2025
- General
- Straits Times
Forum: Parade-goers should show greater appreciation for NDP
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox I was heartened to see Singaporeans immersed in celebration as I attended this year's National Day Parade (NDP) rehearsal. However, I also observed a disheartening trend. I noticed some attendees leaving the venue right before the parade finale had concluded. Some simply collected the fun packs and left. It was not a pretty sight to see pockets of empty seats at the spectator stand. The lack of appreciation for attending such a highly sought-after event is disappointing. Many are eager to attend but unable to secure tickets due to high demand. Those among us who are lucky to obtain tickets should be mindful of the effort that goes into putting the parade together and appreciative of the chance to witness the event. The NDP finale holds special meaning with fireworks, sing-along and recitation of the Pledge as a country. If one is unable or not keen to attend the parade in full, one should consider giving up the ticket to someone who wants to. I hope the organisers can consider ways to encourage fuller participation, such as reinforcing the significance of staying for the entire parade. Organisers should also consider ways to discourage parade-goers from collecting fun packs without participating in the NDP. David Lim Yeow Chuan
