Written By: - Date published: 8:10 pm, November 4th, 2008 - 97 comments
Categories: bill english, election 2008, iraq, john key, youtube -
Tags: election 08, english, obama, tapes
More from 3News tonight on the secret recordings taken at the Naitonal Party conference in August. This time it’s Bill English expressing concern over Barack Obama’s “moralistic” stance to international relations:
I’m a bit worried about this whole Obama and Europe thing, just because there’s a limited effectiveness in being moralistic about international relations… and the US you can argue over do it – Bush should have put a different window dressing on it but there still needs to be someone willing to pull the trigger.
Rather than address the substance of his own deputy’s comments Key is outrageously spinning this as “another dirty trick from Labour”. English won’t front either, using the same line as Key.
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So can I take that as a denial IP? His post seems very detailed with a good explanation of this kiezer geezer (sorry for the pun) and his links through clinton, rob, psa, labour, the standard et al
Danny, I wouldn’t say it’s a call of ‘no fair’, more a bored response from frustrated supporters. Watching their dreams evaporate and having to suppress natural instinct to achieve in the face of political correctness can eat the soul out from anyone.
You’re right about Clark enduring some pretty tough stuff in her time. Perhaps that’s why she is behaving similar to you view of the supporters of the right and the label of lame and ironic can be evenly spread across the political spectrum.
Let’s be honest, the National leaders of the past have been weak and HC has been able to wipe the floor with them. It has probably taken its toll and she’s not up to par anymore. I’ve never been in the same job for 9 years, but can only imagine that after 9 years not only in the same job, but as PM would be pretty draining.
I think that HC is up against a great opponent in JK. If this were 2002 or 2005 it would be a great campaign indeed and would probably be a classic. As it is, HC and Labour are making mistakes and appearing negative. JK and National are trying to distance themselves from it all and if that means dismissal and avoidance of WP, so be it. Seems a pretty relevant reactive strategy to me.
Now let’s see if anyone can decipher whether or not I actually made a point in that…
bb: I don’t know – I’ve met Clinton exactly twice. Both times by a accident of position – we were in the same city.
But as far I can see there is no evidence linking either to the taping. Nor is there is any crime in taping your own conversations from my understanding of the law. So what exactly is he waffling about?
In my note, I made an observation that Whale is a known liar from what he has said about the funding of this blog site. He repeated that same lie in the post you’re referring to, which annoyed me immensely. I have provided the only funds that have been spent on this site.
I’ve noticed that all of his other ‘stories’ to be of a similar standard. So my presumption is that he is likely to be lying about all of his ‘proof’ on these latest ‘stories’ as well. Basically he has no facts, just a set of speculations about associations. That seems to be his standard mode of operation. Say someone is ‘guilty’ of something without any proof, and then smear as far as possible by association.
From what I saw of my brief scan of his posts, his general thesis seems to be that because Clinton knows someone, he is guilty. I did a note on another comment, that on that basis, I’d have to argue that DPF is a liar because he is associated (the blogbus or that group that was fighting the EFA) with a known liar. This is a patently ridiculous proposition (at least I hope so). But it follows from the same logic that Whale was using, probably with more justification because I know Whale has lied about this site on funding.
Hell half of the people he mentions I know or have met. By his definition of proof he’d probably claim that I was the secret taper.
Face it – to believe Whale on anything requires the credulity of a child. So BB…. Do you believe the puerile git?
Iprent – I have to admit to reading that article on whale and it being the first and only article I have read on that blog. I too found that it was jumping to some major conclusions and there was no substance.
In saying that, this is only the third or forth article I have read on this blog. The first was the post regarding how National broke the rules when declaring a $20,000 donation. I do recall that the rules applied in the article were for election donations, however the actual donation was a party donation and the declaration was legitimate. My comment at the time “Section 24 doesn’t apply to this contribution, section 24 is for ‘Election Campaigns’. The relevant sections are 54 & 57 under ‘Disclosure of Party Donations’. This is a party donation, hence the title ‘Returns of party donations exceeding $20,000′.” The thread still exists as fact and I doubt people read far enough down for my comments to clarify the contents of the article as incorrect.
So in my experience both of the blogs (whale & standard) have been inaccurate and need to be read with a view of holding the content at arms length. Whilst I won’t go as far as to call both The Standard and Whale Oil authors as liars, I think it’s fair to say that each has a perspective that influences heavily their topics and loose application of selective facts into the interpretation on to their blogs.
Please don’t interpret this as a direct insult. The authors on this blog have their point of view and are allowed to express them. I find it interesting reading and would like to thank the Standard’s authors for the few articles I have read.
Strathen: Generally I’d say that you’re correct. You should hold all blog posts and comments at arms length with a view for accuracy. What they say is generally opinion or interpretation of facts. Sometimes those facts, opinions and interpretations are incorrect. On most blogs, including here, will frequently update or amend a post if they find what they are saying is incorrect. Often we will let the comments point out the inaccuracies. That is why the posts aren’t taken down, because we’d lose the comments on the posts.
In this case, I was saying that I know that WhaleOil is a persistent liar about one specific fact; his assertion that the funding of this site comes from the NZLP. He repeated the same assertion today in a post which annoyed me immensely. So I’m proclaiming that he is deliberately lying.
He has been saying this lie since early this year. He is incorrect and has been told so many times. His only ‘evidence’ is that for a period of about 3 weeks in Janurary, the site was hosted on a service that had been donated to the NZLP. That was something I wasn’t aware of at the time I moved the site there. Control of the service had been passed to a tech activist. It was just part of an assist between leftie techs because the site was falling over on my systems. The NZLP didn’t pay for that space. I didn’t pay for that space. The donor did.
After 3 weeks, I moved the site to a hosted server that I paid for and have continued to pay for it ever since. The only funds that have been paid for this site have come from me, and for 3 weeks from some ISP.
My comment wasn’t that blogs are accurate. It was that WhaleOil has been deliberately and knowingly lying about this sites funding for over 9 months. It is something that is trivial for me to prove if I ever needed to do so.
I then offered the opinion that if he has persisted in lying about this for over 9 months, then people reading his opinions should know his propensity to knowingly and deliberately lie.
Jeez – so he’s only the second most powerful person in National’s caucus. I guess that makes it alright then
No, just that those who are calling others idiots should be more than usually scrupulous on pretty basic matters of fact. And believe you me, Mr. Sod, I’ve had a few egg facials on that score that could have been avoided by hitting ‘preview’ instead of ‘post’.
You mentioned on Public Address that you don’t normally look at this blog.
I’ve removed both The Standard and Kiwiblog from my RSS feed, and will only pop over very occasionally or when someone says “you’ve got to see this”. And you know something, I can enjoy both when the signal-to-noise radio is right. Partisan hackery followed by hysterical poo-flinging from both sides? Not so much.
What I would like to know is do you support private prisons and private sector involvement in accident compensation
Yes and yes, but with the pretty serious qualification that any such thing would have to be closely monitored with stringent penalties for non-compliance or not meeting performance targets. I know that’s not a very popular view in these parts (and sure as shit NOT what National is proposing, or would be likely to be able to impliment), so you should be thankful I’m not National’s own Heather Simpson.
Craig,
Are you saying National don’t intend to privatise prisons?
I fear, Craig, that if Key manages to cobble together a government, cheerleaders for National like you are going to be very disillusioned, very fast.
Felix – if privatising prisons makes them into better “correctional institutes” and saves money or is cost neutral they’d be mad not to at least look at it.
Conversely if it makes them into worse correctional institutes and doesn’t save money or just costs the same they’d be mad to do it.
I would have thought there would be successes and failures overseas they could look to before going down this track or not.
Or you could look at NZ’s own experience with private prisons of course, under the last National govt. which was an experience totally consistent with that of other countries.
Remember that Private Prisons™ are still entirely funded by our tax dollars, but there’s a company scooping profits out too.
To make profits possible, costs must be cut – can you guess which ones? Staff numbers are cut and wages are cut.
And in no way does that make the prisons any better.
But actually I was just wondering if Craig had meant that the Nats weren’t planning to do this again or if I’d read him wrong. I thought they had a policy for this.
Hi HS, you stated:
“if privatising prisons makes them into better “correctional institutes’ and saves money or is cost neutral they’d be mad not to at least look at it … I would have thought there would be successes and failures overseas they could look to …”
I agree. The problem, however, is that certain members of the National Party are ideologically blinded to the nasty little social suprises that privatisation often brings with it. These “social-nasties” and indirect effects and costs on society are incredibly hard to quantify, unlike the financial costs. So your measure of “effectiveness” depends largely on your world view.
I can state with absolute confidence that the private prison system in the US is an abject failure. To back this up I can then point to prisoner abuse stats; the presence of lobby groups interested in policy that increases crime rates; the presence of lobby groups that support increased sentencing for collateral advantage (which include prison workers’ unions); a lack of rehabilitation; increased social exclusion; increased stigmatism for even minor offenders; the existence of extremely high crime rates when contrasted with ours, this is, of course, a correlation that does not prove causation but which is part of a much larger social package that can be shown to increase crime; I could on and on and on …
The problem is that to some, these things I note above that concern me and that I feel affect the very fabric of my society, are of little value to “others”. So your measure of success and failure collapses.
These “others”, incidentally, presently want to appear to the public to share my social values when they couldn’t be more different. They are liars. And that is the reason you will not see the National Party engage anyone on privatised prisons.
Maybe here’s some context. Note: This is a complete guess.
For example, the UN goes in but is so hamstrung by how they’re allowed to operate that thousands get murdered. Rwanda, Kosovo are examples that spring to mind. They (Europe and UN) were too fucking scared to allow the troops to pull the trigger.
Iraq. Obviously. Not afraid to pull the trigger but too stupid to know when not to.
Perhaps Bill English was trying to make the point that a good middle ground where innocents are protected (Rwanda) yet pulling the trigger doesn’t do more harm than good (Iraq).
I don’t follow this closely but I thought the Auckland Remand Prison was generally regarded as the best run prison in NZ under its’ private manager? Anyone have direct knowledge?
Personally I am a bit reactionary on prisons – just find the optimal point on the trade off curve between cost and not making the majority of criminals who go in worse than when they went in, better if you can (access to literacy and numeracy programs would be the biggest, most cost effective improvement).
No matter what side of the argument you are on, it is pretty clear our prison system is terrible for all stakeholders (wider law abiding society, staff, and the inmates) – if the current system demonstrably worked, the argument against privately managed prisons would be a lot more clear cut.
gomango – it was apparently cheaper than other prisons – but remand prisons always are. No serious rehab, education or escape attempts to deal with. I would imagine National would equate ‘best run’ with ‘cheapest’ though…
“No matter what side of the argument you are on, it is pretty clear our prison system is terrible for all stakeholders”
How so? Escapes are at a very low level, rates of prisioners in work is increasing, and reoffending isn’t increasing at all…
On a tangent: “wackenhut”? That’s like privatising ACC to a company called “cripplebroke”.
I have some knowledge as I visited there when it was privately run.
I also visited the disgusting, old, decrepid version next door run by the State.
The private prison was outstanding. It was clean, run well, and the prisoners were happy.
I never, in two years, heard of one assault or complaint. It was a resounding success. End of story.
Nick – how could you tell the prisoners were happy? Did you talk to them and ask? Were they not slitting their wrists; therefore, they’re over the moon? Or – and much more likely scenario – you just assumed they were happy, the same way you assume that because you didn’t hear of any assaults that none happened.
Yep Nick, if I understand correctly, you’re comparing Auckland Central Remand Prison, a very new and modern facility (built with public funding, of course, so the private management can’t take credit for that) to Mount Eden, c.1917 (foundations 1856).
So remand (short stay, high turnover, few escapes and little trouble) vs a proper medium security prison.
No story in the first place.
Danny
This ideological blinding that you allude to occurs on both sides – the reality is sometimes private is best sometimes public is best. That has as much to do with who’s running the facilities themselves and than whether it’s private or public pretty much exactly the same situation in the debate about public and private healthcare.
I can’t see why people can’t accept that both can work extremely given the right structure and incentives.
Nick,
That’s the end of the story?
Here’s an interesting interesting interview with Bevan Hanlon, president of the Corrections Association of NZ (union for corrections staff).
It addresses the issue of public vs private prisons, prison work schemes and more. Well worth a listen.
Oh, it’s not the end of the story btw
How do I know the prisoners were happy?
Because I talked to them and I sat in the muster room during visting hours. It was a much more pleasant experience than the shithole next door.
Nick. It was just a more modern facility than the shithole next door. Bring private was not the reason it was a better facility. It’s still a better facility now it’s publicly run
Not to mention they were prisoners pre-sentencing, vs those sentenced and serving in a run-down meduim security prison, as i mentioned…
Nick- I, like you, have visited both prisons and while i felt less like throwing up in the remand prison I can’t say that i saw any difference in mood amongst the prisoners of the remand prison and those in Mt Eden. To be honest I found both sets of prisoners to be incredibly depressed. How do i know? Well, i talked to the prisoner i was visiting who told me about an attempted suicide, a fight, and a guy who broke his fists after smashing them against the walls for too long. I also talked to family members of some prisoners who – understandably – were upset and worried about their family members in such a depressing place. It was almost exactly the same story at Mt Eden when i visited him 3 months later. Maybe these happy go lucky prisoners you talk about were “happy” because they didn’t get raped or stabbed that morning but to say they were ‘happy” because they were staying in a more modern place – whether or not it’s a private or state run – is just absurd. You show me one prisoner happy because of some tastefully painted walls and i’ll show you a hundred that aren’t.
This tape was a total non-event. I’d seriously question the judgement of the person that thought this was worth keeping back. This was fairly mild private criticism of Obama and I doubt he’ll ever hear of it.
I suspect that not a single floating voter will be running away from National for this tape.
To try and be fair to English can anyone seriously suggest that Labour / other politicians haven’t said far worse things about Bush than this. Matt Robson’s (although he’s inconsequential) comments about McCain were far worse.
HS
“the reality is sometimes private is best sometimes public is best”
That’s a generalisation. I agree that some services are best provided by the private sector, however, prisons do not fit into that category. If you share the social values that I do, then corrections must be run by the state, with the argument surrounding how exactly the state carries out that obligation.
Iprent
Seems Whale are unreasonably holding on to an accidental result. I applaud you for all your efforts with this blog and hope you keep up the good work! That’s from a rightie for this election too. Hence my opinion that this blog sensationalises rather dramatically and misses key (excuse pun) points of debate and a reasonable perspective when dealing with issues.
Craig I said “a person who wants to be the PM……”
Sorry you didn’t cleverly detect an error.
Watch this`space.