Pretty much. Not sure around the rules calling yourself an accountant tho, I think you might not be able to if you have zero authority. Certainly doctors can’t. As an accountant, I feel I should know this

Chartered Accountant I assume?

People doing the accountants as an internal function can probably call themselves Accountant or Chief Accountant.

Lawyer is a protected title.

I have lived and worked in the Hurunui district for most of my life, I grew up in Cheviot. I also have dealt with farmers on a day to day basis in my work, and have been on hundreds of farms during that time. The fact is farmers do not know how to farm this dry area properly. When you allow your stock to chew grass to the dirt you're always going to have issues. When you spray out large swathes of matagouri and other scrub, you're going to lose your top soil. There is one particular farmer who seems to spend 12 hours a day bulldozing his entire farm in to the Hurunui river. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't run your business and make a profit then let someone else take over who can. We don't prop up any other business community nearly as much as we do farming.

You are posting it as fact that the law is in place. So are National MPs - this posting of lies is just endemic.

I'm not very happy with Ardern's statement on the Syrian strikes, when no case has been presented to justify the strikes apart from 'trust us' and no resolution enabling the strikes has emerged from the UNSC. We have had it conclusively demonstrated to us that we can't trust them.

Would imagine she is on egg shells after the hash she made with the spy thing.

Out of her depth again

The UNSC won't issue a resolution on Syria... Russia will just veto any move and neuter it.

So what? We know we can't trust the members of the SC. How many times do we need it demonstrated conclusively? I don't like the way she rolled over for them.

edit...'them' in this case is those breaching the UN Charter - UK, US, France.

Well I'd have preferred she just told them to get fucked, but I didn't think she made too bad a hash of it.

On one hand, you want a resolution from the UNSC, then on the other hand you're suggesting you can't trust the UNSC.

It's an interesting proposition you're making.

Did she "get some guts"?

I want to stay within the bounds of the UN Charter. A UNSC resolution is required for use of force in most situations. If you want to abandon the UN Charter, for all its flaws, good luck to you. If you want to trust what the UK or the US says about events in the ME, you'll need more than luck.

edit...Oh, I should have been more clear and made it clear it was the permanent members of the UNSC to which I was referring.

Ah, I see she's visiting Macron to talk 'free trade'. That explains that.

I don't see any problems raised in your diatribe that would not be fixed by a good irrigation system.
You come across as just another self appointed expert on an industry that you have no experience in.
And you're barking mad if you think that no other business is propped up like farming.

I'd love to believe in the UN as a world authority but I think events of the last 10-15 years would suggest it's becoming a toothless irrelevance. As you allude in your post about Macron, there's a wider game at stake and while i haven't seen or heard whatever it was Ardern said, saying we're 'ok' with things is slightly better than 'standing right behind / beside our allies'...

and then there's the sticky issue of Syria itself aside from semantics and principles. 'Something should have been done' long ago in Syria. The posturing from the US and Russia is alarming of course, who knows how far this could go although I suspect it'll be no more than continental strutting and chest puffery but the worrying dark horse is China sitting there quietly expanding its influence and looking to capitalise on any power vacuum.

And Key would have said ?

That may be the case. Until we leave the UN we should uphold the charter and expect the other signatories to uphold it as well.

If there was a gold medal for irrelevant whataboutery you'd have just streaked home by a lap or two.

Ardern will have had no option but to swallow several dead rats in terms of the Middle East, US / UK relations, defence and security policy, and so on. She's solid urban leftie and will personally be of the opinion that NZ has absolutely no business with troops in Iraq, or supporting one side or other in Syria, or keeping quiet when the IDF shoots dozens of civilians. But, she'll have had the Ministry of Defence, the spooks, MFAT, etc. explain to her that the effect of her doing what she thinks is the right thing is totally unthinkable. She said the bare minimum acceptable to the interests she needs to appease.

Pretty much my take. Not sure how this shows she is out of her depth though.

The green are predictably up in arms. They’re starting to annoy me a bit (context, they got my vote).

I'm wallowing in nostalgia for the days of a 'moral foreign policy'. Ardern and New Zealand will receive no return on following other countries' adventures, apart perhaps from the military being allowed to play with others' toys. We've had that demonstrated enough times, Shirley? That being the case she might as well tell them to fuck off with their Middle East tar babies.

Won't ever happen because our grand policies include:

- to be reliant on the US etc. for defence
- reliant on Five Eyes for intelligence
- to want FTAs with Europe, the UK, and the US
- to use the US as a political balance as China expands its interests in the Pacific

The Greens can afford to pontificate and look superior but if they were that bothered they'd make it a C&S issue. I'll bet my arse they don't.

Should she GET SOME GUTS

There is no such thing as a moral foreign policy only a pragmatic one. That doesn't mean you can't make moral choices. Just that if you do they tend to align with economic and strategic ones.

We should only talk tough if we can back it up. We can't so we should just shut up and let the big kids fight it out.

She's done exactly what Key did, just dressed it up better. Which of course is a bit of a theme for her government.

No, Key sent in ground troops secretly.

oh.. so he was out of his depth too?

Exactly. Get our troops out of their mission creep in Iraq and leave the mess to those who fucked it up originally. Reliant on the US for defence against whom? The US will act in its own interest. This has repeatedly been shown to be the case in regard to NZ. Fair enough, that's its interests. They're not ours.

Ardern is not addressing the mission creep. Yet.

Nope, none of the "too" stuff - Ardern almost got it spot on. I would have preferred if she had said nothing.

And Ardern's kept them there.

If you think for a second that the Ardern government has confronted the military and intelligence communities, has instructed them to give away their default mode of half-truths and obfuscation, and we're now being told the full truth about what they're really doing, then I'm afraid you're dreaming.

The policy points you make may well be true but I can't see how not expelling Russian diplomats, pointing out the breach of the UN charter in the Syrian raids and bringing troops back from mission creep will alter any of that.

We won't be given economic advantage for being a poodle. We've dealt with the EU enough to know about that. I bet we give more than we get in five eyes, I'm sure the analysis of the data we get back is restricted. Too, the ANZUS breach determined we don't rely on the US for defence.

Because it annoys people we want things from? Ardern's in France right now trying to get them to shift more to the German position on agriculture trade. It doesn't help if five days earlier you've called them out for illegally attacking another country.

NZ still being in five eyes is quite astonishing given the country was suspended from ANZUS back in the 1980s.

Shows that an independent foreign policy doesn't exactly cut all the benefits of "being in the club". The US obviously still finds NZ useful despite not toeing the party line at every step of the way.

They will not give us charity because we say nice things about them. We know that. Likewise they won't act against their interests because we point out they commit crimes against peace. I can't understand why you think they will.

ANZUS was the biggest con ever. It bound the parties to 'consult', yet was used as a lever to make that weak cunt Holyoake commit troops to Vietnam. Looks like we still haven't learnt our lesson.

I've always wondered if we're really told everything.

In fact, it turns out it didn't even bind the parties to consult. Nuke ship visits were not mentioned in it, yet were determined to be cause enough to unbind the parties' requirement to 'consult'. Sooner or later we'll learn our lesson more fully.

Of course we are.

Article X is my favourite.
ANZUS Treaty
Article X

This Treaty shall remain in force indefinitely. Any Party may cease to be a member of the Council established by Article VII one year after notice has been given to the Government of Australia, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of such notice.

http://australianpolitics.com/1951/09/01/anzus-treaty-text.html