Dave

This morning my kid asked the voice assistant to "Turn off the computers in this house".

I heard it, thought well that's a strange request but seems harmless because how is home assistant gonna turn off computers.

Me a little while later, "why is shit broken? What's happening!"

Turns out dumb me had adguard exposed to the voice assistant, it switched off all the adguard settings including the DNS rewriting that is the cornerstone of many of my self-hosted services.

I've since revoked that access.

On Wednesday, Parliament's Privileges Committee released its final report into the MPs who protested the Treaty Principles Bill with a haka in the House in November 2024.

There was surprise and shock over the recommended punishments for Te Pāti Māori MPs, which seemed both unprecedented and extreme.

In retrospect, considering this week's response from Parliament's Speaker, the advice now available from Parliament's Clerk, and Committee Chair Judith Collins' public defence of her own report, that the initial reaction was overly calm. The committee report now appears partisan, indefensible and open to attacks of racism.

On Tuesday, 20 May, Parliament's House will debate whether or not to accept the Privileges Committee Report and its recommendations for punishments, namely that Te Pāti Māori's two co-leaders be suspended from Parliament for 21 days and their junior colleague for seven days, all without salary.

Talking to RNZ's Morning Report, Collins gave her view of the actions and motivations.

"This is not about haka, this is not about tikanga. This is about MPs impeding a vote, acting in a way that could be seen as intimidating MPs trying to exercise their right to vote.

"After Te Pāti Māori had exercised their right to vote, they then stopped the ACT Party from exercising theirs."

That is not true.

ACT had already voted. Every party had voted before Te Pāti Māori did. As the smallest party in Parliament, Te Pāti Māori is always the last to be called on for their vote.

It has been that way all Parliament.

Judith Collins could not fail to be aware of that.

The vote tallies and outcome had not yet been declared by the Speaker, so the fuller voting process was incomplete, and disrupting it was disorderly behaviour; but the claim that the MPs were intimidating another party to prevent it from voting is entirely unfounded.

The answer Collins gave RNZ was either misinformation (perhaps Judith Collins mistakenly believes the MP's actions were more serious than they were) or it was disinformation (in the aftermath of the report, she might have felt it necessary to convince the country the incident was more serious than it was).

Whatever the reason for the untruth, the claim suggests that Collins has a more jaundiced view of the MPs' actions than is realistic or defensible.

Did she fundamentally misunderstand the MPs' actions during the investigation (which would cast the committee findings into doubt), or did political or other prejudice make those actions appear worse than the evidence showed?

Research has repeatedly found that in any justice system, dark-skinned defendants are treated more severely based on ethnicity.

Findings based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the sequence of events would be highly embarrassing. Findings tainted by political or other prejudice would bring both the committee and the Parliament into disrepute.

A company's plan to mine 50 million tonnes of South Taranaki seabed every year has cleared the first hurdle in the Fast-track process.

Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) executive chair Alan Eggers said he was "delighted" the company's application for its Taranaki VTM project had been accepted as complete and would now move on to the next stage of the Fast-track process.

Opponents, meanwhile, are "livid" and have vowed to continue their fight against the project.

TTR wants to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.

Eggers said the company had identified a world-class vanadium resource that could contribute $1 billion annually to the economy.

Ten thousand New Zealanders may have lost vision - sometimes permanently - due to toxoplasmosis, an infection triggered by a parasite spread by cats.

Otago University researchers estimate 40,000 people are affected by ocular toxoplasmosis - one in four seriously - but their efforts to develop new treatments are being hampered by a lack of funding.

"When there is inflammation in the retina, the vision becomes blurry, and sometimes we can see when the inflammation goes away, it leaves a scar, and the vision is never going to recover."

World-wide, up to one in three people are infected - but rates could be even higher in New Zealand: 43 percent according to one study in Waikato.

The parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, reproduces in cat guts and is spread through eggs in their faeces.

It was not just a problem for people, Russell said.

"Toxoplasmosis is a killer of some of our precious native wildlife, including birds like kiwi and kākā, and our unique Hector's and Māui dolphins. It also causes big problems for sheep farmers, leading to the loss of lambs."

A Wellington man has been arrested as part of an FBI investigation into an organised criminal group which is alleged to have stolen cryptocurrency valued at $450 million.

Detective Inspector Christiaan Barnard said 13 people faced charges, after search warrants were executed in Auckland, Wellington, and California.

The man was arrested by the Financial Crime Group in Auckland, one of several people taken into custody following the search warrants, but the only one from New Zealand.

It is alleged that between March and August 2024, the cryptocurrency was obtained by fraud, namely, by manipulating seven victims, and subsequently laundered through multiple cryptocurrency platforms.

Neha Sharma appeared to be an honest, hard-working property manager at Oranga Tamariki. Her husband ran a construction company. No-one knew about their marriage until after they'd conned the Government agency out of more than $2 million.

Roughly eight months after Christchurch-based construction company Divine Connection was added to Oranga Tamariki's list of contractors questions began to emerge about the quality of its paperwork.

The issue was flagged with Neha Sharma, the property and facilities manager at Oranga Tamariki.

Unbeknown to her colleagues, Sharma had been living a double life. To colleagues, she was a trusted government employee. She was also the wife of Divine Connection's director - a serious conflict of interest that she'd kept concealed as she approved the company's invoices, got him jobs that could have been carried out by other companies, and even carried out work for the company during office hours.

In late March 2023, the Serious Fraud Office raided the couple's property, putting an end to their hopes of an early retirement. An investigation revealed the couple had obtained more than $2 million from Oranga Tamariki.

Earlier this month, Neha Sharma was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to a series of charges including obtaining by deception, money laundering and using a forged document.

However, media were unable to report on her pleas until Friday when her husband, Amandeep Sharma, pleaded guilty to obtaining by deception and money laundering.

As part of her job application, she provided two referees who worked at the Ministry of Education. Written references were provided from what appeared to be their personal email addresses.

The references were actually forged by Neha Sharma, and the email accounts were not theirs.

In her role it was possible for Neha Sharma to contact the National Accounting Centre and get them to add a new contractor to the system.

Nema Sharma was the budget manager for the properties that Divine Connection worked for and was therefore able to authorise all the invoices.

One of the invoices included a new television that had been purchased for her own home, rather than an OT home.

Other invoices were approved and paid to Divine Connection by Sharma despite her knowing there had been a markup of more than 150 percent.

November 2, 2022 was fairly eventful.

At 8.40am, Sharma received a notification she had a meeting on Teams for the following day. The meeting would relate to concerns she had issued jobs and approved works and invoices associated with Divine Connection. There was more - they had worked out the company appeared to be registered to her home address.

An hour later Sharma sent her resignation to her manager and two others.

After leaving OT, Neha Sharma got a job as regional delivery advisor at the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) Waka Kotahi, starting on 12 December, 2022.

She again used the name of a former colleague at the Ministry of Education as a referee.

However, when she tried logging into the email address, she had used to send the reference for her job at OT she could not sign in.

She then created another email address using the man's name again. The phone number she gave for the referee was actually her husband's.

She then submitted an online reference through NZTA's system.

On 25 November, Neha Sharma received a call from NZTA. Two minutes after the call she texted her husband to say he was about to get a call, but not to answer.

On 30 March, the Serious Fraud Office came knocking on the couple's door.

At the time of the raids the couple owned three properties and three cars. They also had about $800,000 in cash in their joint bank accounts.

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

• An external review shows the firearms registry is keeping people safe, says the authority
• The ACT Party claims the review is not good enough and has invoked the "agree to disagree" clause in its coalition agreement
• The NZ Firearms Registry was established in 2023 in response to the Christchurch mosque attacks

It's the Bunnings slogan everyone's heard - a promise to beat a competitor's price on the same stocked item by 10 per cent.

But there's a catch to the hardware giant's famous price guarantee.

While Coles and Woolworths have been under intense scrutiny, Bunnings - which has a much higher profit margin than either of them - has mostly escaped attention.

In-store, a 0.9m Citeco ladder sits behind a large red sign with the same commitment: Find a competitor with the same in-stock item - 10 per cent off.

But there is no competitor that stocks the Citeco 0.9m ladder.

That's because Citeco is a Bunnings home brand. Not only is it manufactured for Bunnings, the hardware giant also owns the Citeco trademark.

It's far from the only item.

Through the trademark register and questions to Bunnings, Four Corners has found the hardware giant has more than 9000 home-brand products.

If you can find these Bunnings buckets cheaper elsewhere, Bunnings says it will beat the price.

Pornography found on the work computer of former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming is being investigated as alleged objectionable material, RNZ understands.

McSkimming resigned as the country's second most powerful cop on Monday amid a four-month investigation by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and police.

RNZ understands his resignation came after he was confronted with allegations that pornography, being investigated as alleged objectionable material, was found on his work computer.

McSkimming declined to comment on the allegations through his lawyer.

The government is "testing children to death" with the announcement of a new maths test for the youngest children, says the head of the Principals Federation.

Next week's Budget will include $4 million to develop and introduce a "maths check" for children in their first two years of schooling.

"Yes, it gives us information, but teachers will be able to tell you that they already know which children need that extra support. They don't need a test to tell them that so what is this test for, who is this test for, is what I will be asking. We've now got a phonics test for literacy in Year 1. We've now got a numeracy test in Year 2. We're testing our kids to death here."

When government's have introduced compulsory testing in primary school, overseas statistics show there have been negative unintended consequences, Pomeroy told Morning Report.

I have some quotes out of order as the article is discussing two things. Here is the second:

It also announced $56m over four years to employ the equivalent of 143 full-time maths intervention teachers to help primary school children who were struggling with the subject, and $40m over four years for small group maths tutoring for up to 34,000 children in Year 7-8 each year.

Otene said principals would welcome the funding for expert teachers, provided they targeted the children who were furthest behind in maths - those classed as "tier three" meaning they needed support from externally-sourced specialists.

"We need that intervention support. But I'm really hoping that that's not just for tier two students... we need desperately learning support for those children who are 'well below'," she said.

Otene said the funding for tutoring at intermediate schools was premature because it extended a pilot scheme that had not yet been assessed.

"I'm a bit concerned that the minister does not have evidence to support the extending of that," she said.

New Zealand's latest measles case could have nightmare consequences from a medical perspective, a leading paediatrician says.

Dr Owen Sinclair is among many medical experts with grave concerns for vulnerable groups if there is a measles outbreak in Auckland.

Health alerts have been issued after a new measles case was confirmed yesterday, with people in Auckland asked to check if they could have been exposed.

Health New Zealand said the case was linked to overseas travel in Asia, and the person with measles had been at Woolworths Kelston, on Fullers360 ferries, and at an Auckland carpark during the time they could be infectious.

More locations of interest - including a second supermarket and a West Auckland pharmacy - were confirmed late this afternoon.

"The last time we had sort of an outbreak in Auckland, it was attributed to two deaths in New Zealand, and then the measles that occurred here moved to Samoa and 83 people died over there.

"We really thought we'd got rid of it, but now it's come back due to a number of reasons," said Dr Sinclair.

Dr Sinclair said low rates of vaccination were often caused by difficulty in accessing immunisation healthcare.

New Zealand's overall vaccination rates against measles is at about 80 percent, according to Health NZ.

Earlier this month, Health Minister Simeon Brown said the government was targeting 95 percent of children being fully vaccinated by 24 months.

Dr Sinclair said at 95 percent coverage, New Zealand would effectively have herd immunity.