I see the conservative press are telling us that it’s time to stop talking about dirty politics because we should be talking about policy and nobody really cares anyway. We peons should be grateful for such sage advice.
I still think National will win the election, which will leave us in the strange position of having an openly corrupt government by public consent.
That is the thought that horrifies me, especially since such consent would come from a little over half of the voting population. Given the deepening inequality in this country, it would effectively be a vote for the powerful to dominate the powerless, and for constitutional safeguards to be treated as PR measures, and nothing more.
Interesting, but it’s odd that there’s little emphasis on journalistic ethics. You would think that adhering to the four basic principles, or at least attempting to, would be required for someone to be classed as a journalist.
Slater hasn’t minimised harm, acted independently or been accountable. Not only has he not been these things, he has actively worked against such standards – the Len Brown case alone is enough to damn him.
I honestly would not be surprised if none of this matters to our tedious, tory judiciary.
The thought is just horrifying, and our best chance is, as Chooky says, to urge all those who would vote left to vote. I don’t think that upper middle class NZ fully appreciates the need for democratic safeguards. National’s TV ad all but dog-whistles to this indifference, featuring white, triumphalist rowers proudly defeating the enemy within. Such hubris encourages the idea that safeguards are for losers, and that winners are unnecessarily hampered by them. We desperately need a strong showing from the left in this election, for democracy’s sake.
@ Tom Jackson(1.1.1.1.1) ….Disagree!…It was very close last time when many Labour people did not vote . ( people were still angry with Phil Goff being leader and leading the charge against asset sales when he once supported them under Labour/Roger Douglas…it was too much to swallow)
This time people will vote! Cunliffe is a good and compassionate leader for Labour. He is well able to stand up against Key!
( There are many ‘undecided’ who do not want to declare to the pollsters…I myself refuse to talk to pollsters …there are others who lie…and others who will not disclose ( the ‘undecideds’)…after all we live in a surveillance society under John Key’s NACT…people are paranoid)
Bugger the POLLSTERS! ( they are too often wrong as Jim Bolger found out!)
We have to FOCUS on winning!!!… and calling the media to ACCOUNT
……we want the TRUTH! This election must be about HONESTY and NOT SPIN!….
….we must FIGHT for this Labour /Left coalition WIN!.
The guy is, like most of these right wing morons, an economic illiterate. Actual economics is much more reasonable and cautious than these clowns think.
What a shame you didn’t have the testicles to use that slogan/anti labour smear and front it to DC when he was on here answering questions.
Shame you bottled it and went, dear mr Cunliffe instead.
You’re worse than the right wing nuggets that come on here. Shame on you.
That won’t be easy. Key is punching at shadows – he can’t see his enemy and he doesn’t know what might come next.
But he has to get on with it. Key’s line this week that the ‘‘cowardly hacker has stolen your election’’ is a good start, but National needs much more than that. Key has looked unsure on television all week – he’s looked unconvincing. The nice guy has gone.
So, for Key, it all starts tomorrow with the official National campaign launch. He needs a big-bang policy to get people talking.
These National fanbois in the MSM really seem to have NFI just how much damage that National have done to our democracy and need to be removed to prevent further damage. To them it’s all about winning – no matter the cost to our society.
Both! Considering that journalists have dirt on each other and play all that stupid ‘what plays in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ game. I’d be bloody surprised if he didn’t.
Fisher seemed almost self-muzzled on The Nation this morning, as a commentator. Either he is protecting what HOS will publish tomorrow from the person with the docs who is not whaledump, or he is scared. Was very odd to me.
Steven Joyce is continuing has black op’s dirty politics regimen even though his leader has said the opposition can’t win on policy and that’s why they continue the dirty political attacks on John Key, Ha Ha,
On Whaleoil 20th the attack from Joyce was made against Labour candidate and grandson of Sir Walter Nash, the highly successful Stuart Nash.
On Whaleoil Cameron Slater openly rejects any issue of dirt is being placed against Stuart Nash, with a statement ” he is a good guy” which shows that Joyce is behind much of this dirty Politics campaign all along.
National contuse their dirty politics and says they are not! Lies, Lies, Lies.
by Cameron Slater on August 20, 2014 at 9:30am
Steven Joyce has made allegations that Whaleoil is going to release information about Stuart Nash. Joyce says it is to balance things up. This should be called out for what it is.
It is an out and out lie.
Steven Joyce is a disgrace for suggesting this because he has lied to protect his own interests.
Nash wrote two articles for the Truth and I talk to him occasionally like I do with many on the left. I know nothing at all about Stuart Nash doing anything other than he is a bloody good politician who scares National. Nash is winning a National seat because he is a far better politician that Steven Joyce ever will be, and Joyce is having a sook because he will never be as popular as Nash.
Steven Joyce should be far more worried about people like Bill English trying to claim the moral high ground when everyone knows what lengths he, Boag and McCully have gone to in political battles over the years. That coming out would be truly damaging.
Given the last time I spoke to Steven Joyce was several years ago when I sledged him out about Twitter at a National party conference in Auckland it is highly unlikely he’d know what I was up to.
Doodlehead
was that on ZB with Hosking ? I thought he said Whaleblog(or whatever it’s called) was going to release it
Ed for clarity
Soleman
That was my understanding as well
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/ Keeping Stock
Yep; that was what was said. Whaledump would be releasing something about Nash to show how balanced the hackers are; as if…
Mark
Ouch!
Rem
Whaledump I heard
kiwibattler
Yes – I think Cam has jumped the gun on this (unless someone can find a link showing Joyce mentioning it is whaleoil).
Ross15
You are both right. I heard the interview and they were talking about whaledump and Joyce said he expected there to be continued releases up until the election. He said he’d heard today there would be a “balance up” with a release concerning Stuart Nash.
I think Cam needs to do a retraction on what he has said above about Joyce.
izhoui
Nah. Game playing.
Fat Sally
Nash is a good bloke. He will win Napier comfortably. Well ahead in the polls.
THE APE
thats what i thought to – well according to ZB anyway
Goldie
But I thought that Cam Slater was a puppet of the evil Tories? And according to Nicky Hagar, Cam Slater is a tool of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?
And here he is publicly bagging Steven Joyce…
tjb
And so it goes on, every day until Sept 19 we are going to have this junk news drip fed
so_ruggef
Jumped the gun Cam, zb reporting whale dump to release info. But when you say you have nothing on Nash didnt you used to call him a serial rooter back in the day?
Sir Brucey
Isnt Joyce also one of those scum list MPs? Why doesnt he test his popularity and support in an electorate battle !!!
LesleyNZ
Not in my book. Steven Joyce and Bill English are OK with me.
Snoop
Easy to just pull this post … 🙂
Stuff like this makes me hate Dot.Com even more …
Becos his “WhaleDump-Dump” is now getting confused with the real Whale …
Bruce from taihape
Get your facts right Slater. Paranoia setting in?
Coffee Connoisseur
“Get your facts right Slater. Paranoia setting in?”
Collins backside is all burnt and Joyce cannot contain his glee.
Key looks really ill, I bet he can’t wait till he and Bronie are lying back sipping pina colada in Hawaii and dirty politics is just a memory.
We will remember these liars and soothsayers at voting time
Stephen Price (Media Law Journal) has some great commentary around Dirty Politics. They are a bit long but it would be great to see them broken into parts and made feature posts here on TS.
Now look here, the only reasons that justify baying for a politician’s resignation is if they don’t know their Shakespeare, or they are accused of buying a bottle of wine that they didn’t actually buy, or they are named “David Cunliffe”.
Our NGO placed our IOA at the office of the Prime Minister two days ago for a confirmation list of all the last four years of emails we sent the Prime Minister( all 54) of them. (No response for replies and assistance were ever received from the P.M.)
Of course we don’t expect our IOA to be received back before a week or two perhaps, (ha ha)
Thinking back maybe we should also send the request also now to Judith Collins to see if we get them quicker eh?
The press secretary of Cabinet minister Gerry Brownlee has admitted posting anonymously to the Whale Oil blog as the impact of Dirty Politics continues to hit the election campaign.
Nick Bryant was named in Dirty Politics as the person who had used the pseudonym “Former Hack” to post anonymous comments encouraging blogger Cameron Slater’s campaign against a public servant which resulted in death threats.
The Herald was able to confirm the use of Mr Bryant’s ministerial computer through details obtained from an individual other than the hacker who also accessed information from Whale Oil during the Denial of Service attack.
[…]
Mr Hager’s book links Mr Bryant to another anonymous name – but the Herald has found the email account linked to messages from the person is actually registered in the name of yet another ministerial staff member.
“…Nicky Wagner, who was already facing a real struggle holding her Christchurch Central seat for National. She may as well not even bother campaigning now that citizens of the earthquake-stricken city know they rate as “scum” in the mind of Slater. She will not be the only one cursing Slater. Christchurch was National’s success story in 2011. National’s strong party vote in the city was a tribute to John Key’s unique ability to draw votes from across the political spectrum.
But Christchurch is gone. It would be rich irony if the city became National’s graveyard in 2014.”
Christchurch has gone, and so has Dunedin after Cunliffe’s fine policy announcements yesterday, raptuously received on yesterday’s front page of the ODT
There were two articles about the Labour policies for Dunedin in the ODT yesterday, the frontpage was indeed very enthusiastic, while the “election 2014” one consisted mainly of Woodhouse/ Joyce quotes.
Woodhouse, being the Private Health Industry’s representative in Parliament, was particularly dismissive of the plan to upgrade Dunedin Hospital:
Dunedin list MP and former chief executive of Dunedin’s Mercy Hospital Michael Woodhouse, was also scathing of Labour’s promise to fast-track the Dunedin Hospital rebuild, calling it ”irresponsible”… ”If there was any neglect it was by the [last] Labour government[“]… ”I’ve run hospitals. I know how hard it is to master-plan for a new facility and I don’t believe it’s appropriate for anyone … to make bold but irresponsible claims about timing.”
The staffer’s must have been coached by someone though.
Maybe Ede, & Lusk?
Maybe some others too, inside MSM.
Who were actually steering the dirty politics black op’s and spin doctoring?
Joyce at the helm like Key no doubt, but cleverly keeping themselves detached as to not be connected, but all coming out now.
They always looked so smug we instinctively knew they were up to something but had no proof.
Thank you Nicky Hager Nat’s on longer have the protective secrecy any more, while they are now flying blind into a Kim.com storm cloud, with an on going investigation up their arse opps!
I’m just going to make an association. If any of you are familiar with the Jeff Gannon stuff from GWBs days you will recognise the tactics and strategy here. This is a corporate designed strategy to defeat democracy.
That is too much grist for my mind mill – I can quite feel my cogs and spindles seizing up as I read. It would take one more familiar with international moneylaundering techniques than myself, to follow all the slippery twists and turns. Difficult to argue with the conclusion though:
Anyhow, there must, of course, be some reasonably innocent explanation for these very unfortunate recurring Odgers associations with major international white collar crime, other than that Odgers is a crook. Coming up with something else that’s plausible stumps me, I must admit. For instance, Odgers doesn’t appear to be an idiot; not, at any rate, in the formal sense of having a very low IQ. Whatever the explanation is, it will have to be something more complicated than that.
So, worst case: Odgers is a crook, directly involved in Russian mafia moneylaundering, a $1Billion US Ponzi scheme, and the largest pension fraud in Australian history. If that’s how it is, then Key, via Whale Oil, looks a little too close to her.
Best case: Odgers is a monumentally oblivious idiot, with an astonishing knack for working with, or for, large-scale fraudsters, again and again.
Hmmm, Slater seems to have decided to declare war on the media and is trying to blackmail, browbeat and bully them with sinister threats of blackmail.
What an idiot. Making personal enemies with people who can ask Key questions about Slater from here until September 20th is really, really dumb. Key must now be be furious at how close he personally and his party generally has allowed itself to come to Slater, who is out of control. Slater seems to think he represents some kind of new order in the media, and he and his Brownshirts can use the tactics of street thugs to subvert and supplant the traditional media. Paul Buchanan is right – Slater and his band of thugs represent a existential threat to democracy. Slater and his thugs don’t want contingent consent in a democratic structure – they want to humiliate, delegitimise and smash all opposition to their point of view. Simply, he has to be stopped at all costs.
There is also now a clear schism within the media itself. The hard right broadcasters like Plunkett, Hoskings, Henry etc etc have clearly cast in their lot with Slater and abandoned any pretense of being journalists. They should be sen for what they are – hard-right propagandists who despise democracy and would welcome a one party state of the right..
Yeah #DirtyPolitics has literally driven some of these guys over the edge, Plunkett trying to incoherently accuse Paddy Gower of something (no-one has really figured it out yet…) over the phone was just cringe-worthy.
…. and if things go wrong at this election, he’s gone anyway – or even if things are so tight we have a Natzi government unable to do anything because the margins are so thin. (I actually didn;t think this gubbamint was going to last this long – it’s been sailing along with Blind Faith)
Collins is inherently retributive – a nouveau riche, self-entitled, very ugly, holier-than-thou person. She won’t be able to resist. I heard this morning (The Nation I think – with the sage Peddy Gear) that the beneficiary of all this will be Pulla Bent. Let’s hope so, because a competent Cunliffe or even a jack-Russell should be able to put that beast down without too much trouble.
It gets worse, Naked Capitalism is right on to Ian Taylor, family patriarch Geoff Taylor, accusing them and their shelf companies of quite a lot of things;
“Other investors include Hugh Green Investments and dairy entrepreneur Geoff Taylor. Taylor is a director, along with Ian Holland, Simon Perry and Peter Schuyt.”
And check out the fact that NZ legislation to fix this issue in NZ with shell companies and the problems that they cause is taking a while…
well, I must be a left wing conspiracy theorist — I noticed Vanuatu figured so much around Taylor story link you posted and I couldn’t help but jump to conclusions tho I have no idea what they are as yet !!
I am new to this site, but an observation, there is a propensity for many of the contributors to use extreme hyperbole and blame the government, the MSM or any body else for everything There is also a gross use of the “collective we”. Not everybody is unhappy, a great majority of kiwis left or right are just getting on with life, celebrating their good fortune ( not necessarily material) and facing up to the challenges that come their way . Here however many, (not all ) seem to use this site as a medium for their unchallengeable ideology, spew hate or seek to externalise their own failures or jealousy and further seek comfort in this by rationalising that every one else thinks the same and if not god help them. This is not all bad though,such sites be it whaleoiil, the standard, daily blog are entertaining while also acting as a pressure valve for the more extremes in our society, as does democracy I guess, so keep on keeping on
If you are an honest and mildly intelligent discussant, you will learn to be discerning in who you engage with, who are worth the time. So focus your judgement.
If you had read the site policy, you will note that people who make sweeping statements about this site tend to get scorched out. Moderation here isn’t like Kiwiblog or Whaleoil as you will soon discover.
You will also get to recognize that the commenters are diverse, at least as diverse as those within Labour, and more. Don’t presume any specific politic. Learn the spectrum of those you want to deal with.
And finally, no one is going to waste time with the drivel you ended with. Stand up, sharpen up, package your facts, and bring your best stuff every day. This is a sport to be played well.
If you want to play the concern tr*ll – or whatever the neutral-observer-with-objective-critique equivalent is – , then it might have been an idea to employ a different pseudonym. Rather gives the game away.
Sorry about being reactive but, John Keys office said this today.
Fewer Kiwis leaving for Australia, more coming home.
In the year to July, fewer people left for Australia than any time since 1995 – and more Kiwis are voting with their feet and coming home.
So when the Australian economy and political society turns to shit, National will take credit for it. Wow, what will this guy take credit for next? Higher temperatures mean NZ can grow more tropical crops – A national party initiative?
And the media has a go at Cunliffe for taking 3 days off, where a quick look at Key’s schedule over the past 12 months would have probably shown 3 months off.
Fair points, I would argue site is left however agree it is not purely labour
I also hear your point on the sport aspect of site, that’s why site is so entertaining
Would argue however that views are well argued, little synthesis goes on, even the more scholarly of contributors simply start with a conclusion, then reference articles that support their line of thought or ideology
No different on the right, my point is poles would indicate many people don’t think this way, hence views on these type of sites tend to be more extreme and satisfy the needs of contributors, provide entertainment but little else
Dont get worked up over pseudronym, could easily be blue delusion
@Rich 12.36
The Delusion comment talks about finding entertainment on these sites and talks about poles. I’m so shallow I immediately thought of pole dancing. 😉 I am so glad this person dropped in to put us right in our place.
By the way I like your face construction, I am going to add it to my group of home-made ones. :>)
Yes Big relief to casual workers with multijobs.
Casualisation of the workforce is big with National’s unemployment figures.
During Labour’s government NZ had the lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD, lower even than South Korea.
What is it now under English & co.?
They’ll need to careful otherwise a lot of people will arrange a primary job that pays sod all and a very lucrative untaxed secondary job. Either that or they are raising unrealistic expectations for some.
Agreed. Axing secondary tax is the first Labour policy I really like. The way it works is a really good initiative to not try different things. They should look at the obscene Key tax on paperboys (paperkids?) as well.
I heard this quote on This Way Up, obviously Churchill, and thought that its warning sounded very appropriate for now. I have taken out some wording to make it more generally applicable. It was given I think on 18 June 1940.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the [human world and its environment] last for a [further] thousand years, [all people] will still say, This was their finest hour.
The speech was delivered to the Commons at 3:49 pm,[6] and lasted 36 minutes. Churchill – as was his habit – made revisions to his 23-page typescript right up to and during the speech. The final passage of his typescript was laid out in blank verse format, which Churchill scholars consider reflective of the influence of Old Testament psalms on his oratory style.
A long speech, so people with a short attention span would have difficulty grasping the precepts. Perhaps we with our short span might have difficulty meeting the challenges Britain did, the first being finding the time and concentration to think about it all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_was_their_finest_hour
edited
Those Lusk – Slater emails are a little bit interesting – reveals the minds of the men. Parts are almost homo-erotic in their shared effusive enjoyment of guns and money, pushing one or the other on the other. Not that homo’s shouldn’t be homos or effusive, it’s the kind of faux developmental homo you might find in male relationships of an adolescent kind. Kids with guns, might be accurate. I gotta be honest, I don’t know any males like those two. Is it common for guys of that age to be talking like that to each other, and if it isn’t, is it just the political industry that attracts that type? I don’t suppose anyone will confirm. It’d be like asking how often one masturbates. I just though I’d ask in case anyone asks me to a political rally and when politely refusing I can say I have to stay home and wash my hair and not seem odd to them.
Also the glaringly flippin obvious:
Covert operations 101 rule 1#
When discussing evil plans, don’t put it in writing and definitely don’t use electronic medium to send messages. If you can’t manage that, don’t reply to replies of email discussion, start new mail for each reply, so fragmenting the paper trail.
Even John Key knows that rule. To get that rule wrong shows that a person would have to be under the spell of their own hype and when that happens it doesn’t even matter if you spell it out, they can’t comprehend it.
I am absolutely amazed at their incompetence. They left a trail a dog with a skunk sitting on its nose could follow. I can’t believe their arrogance. They are nasty, incompetent, well resourced amateurs. This is what will save us from them in the end.
A key factor that causes disadvantage to the opposition parties is that the economy is “good” in terms of the numbers we hear in the media.
So why is it good? Because Christchurch had an earth quake and so National got to do the rather dodgy accounting of writing off some assets, then borrowing some money, and building them back again – then taxing the increased activity and then calling the result a GDP increase and a surplus.
As long as National keeps control of that narrative it is still in a strong position.
If one of the other parties was to really take them to task on it (exactly how that would be done would depend on the party) things could start to look different.
I have heard little bits of this sort of argument (around debt going up) but they don’t seem to be framed quite right.
The good news is I think that the guys actually made this point in the whaledump, so one could highlight that.
Quick question and please excuse me for yet to come up-to-date:
Are the Leaders’ Debates taking place and, if so, when?
If Prime Minister John Key doesn’t want to turn up, please organise for an article to be sent from the Prime Minister’s Office so that David Cunliffe can debate with the said item.
Remember that the huge gap in the funding of EQC happened because the Government with held the money.
Result 1:EQC have had to drastically reduce settlement of claims.
Result 2: Government can hide the debt so that there appears to be a surplus to crow about. Bill gets away with the fraud. MSM does not touch the issue.
Yes yeshe. That where I had my info from though I think it had been raised at Question Time. I think that it should have raised a storm but at the moment some little book is being discussed blotting out such concerns.
it will come ianmac, I am sure of it. So much in process I think … and many more are watching because of the ‘little book’. John Campbell won’t drop it, we can be certain of that much at least.
Stephen Franks continues to run amok on The Panel Radio NZ National, Friday 22 August 2014
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Bernard Hickey, Julie Moffett
Long-time sufferers of the light, not so bright, chat show The Panel will be all too aware of its grim line-up of commentators from the far right. It’s a long list, and extremely depressing to anyone who cares about the quality of our public broadcasting. Those commentators include: Nevil “Breivik” Gibson, Jordan Williams, Chris Wikaira, Barry Corbett, Michael Bassett, Neil Miller, John Bishop, Jock Anderson, John Barnett, and the superficially jolly but deeply nasty Whale Oil lackey David Farrar. They rarely contribute anything insightful or witty; the exceptions are John Bishop, who can string together an intelligent argument occasionally, and Jock Anderson, who has a disarming bonhomie and sharp sense of humor. The rest of them, though, make for a grim and often gruesome listening experience. Jordan Williams is allowed free rein to push his cynical “Taxpayers Union” stunts whenever he is on, and—this is still possibly the single most absurd moment in the history of the program—Michael Bassett croaked with Stygian malice that Nicky Hager was a Holocaust-denier, with not a word of demur uttered by host Jim Mora, producer Susan Baldacci or anyone else in the studio.
Today, once again, another on this seemingly endless roster of extreme right wing ideologues was allowed the run of the Radio NZ studios for an hour or more. Yes, the great legal scholar and moral philosopher and Sensible Sentencing Trust supporter Stephen Franks was on again, and he did not disappoint. Indeed, he delivered several of his trademark deranged, wandery lectures and topped it off with a blackly humorous paean to the destruction Vietnam—one of the most hilarious, monstrously hypocritical moral homilies I have ever heard, anywhere, and made all the more hilarious by his contention that the Vietnamese think the Americans weren’t hard enough on them.
Only at the end of the program did anyone—Bernard Hickey, actually—do anything to counter the phenomenal amount of bilge Franks was spouting.
Franks’s dismal performance began during the pre-show, when host Jim Mora read a letter from a listener expressing concern about how the loss of confidence and trust in politicians is leading to a loss of trust in public institutions in general….
JIM MORA: Do you think honestly—I know this is a Panelly type situation and we’re getting serious before 4 o’clock—but do you think there is something in this? BERNARD HICKEY: I’m a little bit skeptical. People say they don’t respect politicians, but in my experience they do respect them whenever they meet them face to face. STEPHEN FRANKS: This is the result of a long stream of very cynical books. It’s very rare to see a politician portrayed as noble. This cynicism seeps into public attitudes. I think most politicians have good motives and there is very little corruption in New Zealand. ….[He continues pretentiously and inanely for a while longer. For a short time after he is finished, there is an uneasy silence….]
Both Jim Mora and Bernard Hickey were too polite to give voice to what must have immediately occurred to them, i.e., that most non-National Party politicians do indeed have good motives and are not corrupt—with the glaring exception of David (“Grave Robber”) Garrett, Rodney (“The Perk-Taker”) Hide and John (“I donnnnnn’t remember”) Banks, i.e., politicians who made up the grotesque ACT party shambles that Franks represented in parliament.
But Mora and Hickey said nothing, and Franks got away with another few minutes of pompous drivel, unchallenged.
After the 4 o’clock news, on The Panel proper, Mora apologetically announced that he was going to talk about Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics again. Mora’s attitude was interesting; I have no doubt that Franks had said something unpleasant and admonitory to him off air about that, which led to Mora’s clear nervousness in broaching the subject….
JIM MORA: Stephen, um, to what extent do you think the landscape is changing? STEPHEN FRANKS: I have genuinely tried to avoid reading it. I defended the News of the World phone hacks, but there’s a good reason why much of this is illegal, and I want to see the law enforced…. [He continues on with a confused, rambling Jamie Whyte-style free-ranging rumination.]
In his “Soapbox” segment, Franks spoke about some university students he recently met, and expressed his grave concern about their failure to see the merits of America’s destruction of Vietnam. (No, you did not read that wrongly; Franks really IS that deranged)…..
STEPHEN FRANKS: I’d rather hoped that they might rebel against the ghastly consensus that war can only be spoken about in hushed tones as if it’s all terribly shameful, and there’s a defeatism and a pacifism in our intelligentsia that means our commemorations usually talk about war as failure on all sides. …[Here he pauses to underline that he is thinking seriously]…But, uh, I think we’re in a world where we might need some of the martial values. We look at a man who was beheaded by a culture that sees sacrifice of innocence as just a routine tactic. Ahhhhmmm, if you were a Kurd, or a Yaziri, or a Christian in Iran, or a North Korean, or in the last century a Czech or a Pole or an Ethiopian or anyone who’s been invaded and dominated, ahhhhmmm, you might think that you need to celebrate courage and self-sacrifice and the virtues, ahhhhhmmmm….
BERNARD HICKEY: But there’s a cynicism about that now because the initial response was to jump in in a martial way. It seemed to make it a lot worse.
STEPHEN FRANKS:[irate tone] Well, I don’t think that that’s established at all. I mean, one of the things that was interesting in this debate was that the young people all universally condemned the Vietnam War, but I doubt that ANY of them have talked to any of the Vietnamese refugees who have settled here, in fact it sticks in my head that, at the height of the Vietnam War there were 400,000 or 350,000 refugees overseas out of Vietnam, two years later there were FOUR MILLION that had fled, a million probably or no one knows how many PERISHED, and if you spend a bit of time in Vietnam and probe enough because they don’t want to talk about the war, you’ll find plenty of people who will say the only thing wrong about the Vietnam War was that the wrong side was allowed to win. So you know, I think there’s a cultural overlay in New Zealand that just doesn’t WANT to examine the possibility that we’ve had a hundred years reaction to a ghastly First World War like All Quiet on the Western Front, and we don’t celebrate the virtues of Just War.
MORA: Putting the Vietnam War aside, because, well, we probably don’t have time to talk about it although you’ve raised an interesting point, ahhh, doesn’t increased attendances in recent years at Anzac Day services suggest that we still do appreciate valor, actually?
STEPHEN FRANKS: Uh, I think it does. I think ordinary people don’t have that kind of syrupy, maudlin regret. I think they ARE wanting to honor some the things that humans have traditionally honored, like courage and self-sacrifice.
MORA: All right. Stephen Franks, thank you. Bernard Hickey on the Panel, a quarter to five. Miley Cyrus’s forthcoming show in Auckland: pornography and the promotion of substance abuse dressed up as pop music, says Family First. We’ll ask Dita Di Boni about that, but first of all, your opinions please. Does it bother you, the subject matter?
STEPHEN FRANKS: It seems tawdry to me and I applaud Bob McCroskery for having the courage to be unfashionable and say parents ought to be a bit disgusted.
BERNARD HICKEY: I’m deeply uncomfortable with it. It just seems like something from another planet.
MORA: More and more youngsters don’t have the moral framework to condemn it, they don’t have the religion which used to condemn it. So is this a kind of moral degradation or not?
(Jim Mora, remember, is a man who chuckles at the plight of political dissidents.)
DITA DI BONI: Well, a lot of people sheet it home to Madonna. But there’s really no comparison. It’s a completely different ball game. She wasn’t marketed to children and she expressed female sexuality to women, which Miley Cyrus says she is doing, but that’s nonsense. She is a product of a marketing system, of an industry, whereas Madonna really tried to make her own way but, I don’t know about you guys, but every straight man I’ve ever talked to does not find Madonna sexy. She’s scary, because it’s a different idea of sexuality. Miley Cyrus is very cynically marketed to very young girls, it’s a nonsense message….
STEPHEN FRANKS:[speaking very quietly, to convey deep moral seriousness] It’s a very strange thing to have reached this stage. It was so easy to scoff at the slippery slope and ummmm, and the anti-Patricia Bartlett position was just universal.
DITA DI BONI: Yes.
STEPHEN FRANKS: But it IS very difficult for a society to cope with this kind of attack on values. Of course this is exactly the dilemma that isn’t a dilemma for Islamic countries…..[continues pompously for another minute or so]
Just before the end of the program, Jim Mora brought up the subject of Labour’s plan to revive the Dunedin Railway Workshops. The Ayn Rand worshipper’s response was one of instant, dogmatic dismissal: Government has no business investing in any industry, he growled. Bernard Hickey, for once, stirred himself to respond to Franks’s nonsense instead of just ignoring him and hoping he’d stop….
BERNARD HICKEY: Yet we’ve got $400 million to spend on irrigation problems. STEPHEN FRANKS:[snorting] Railway is a sunset industry. BERNARD HICKEY: Oooooh, I’m not so sure about that….
Sadly, the music swelled up and saved Franks from an on-air keelhauling. Maybe next time the comparatively sensible guest, whoever it is, will act sooner….
I sent the ever jovial Mein Host of the program the following email….
Why did you not challenge Stephen Franks’ brutal and ignorant raving?
Dear Jim,
During his confused and highly selective broadside against “cultures that sacrifice innocence”, Stephen Franks forgot to mention the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. Maybe he was too busy skiing to take note of the latest onslaught—or does he support their daily oppression and killing?
I am sure many listeners were also flabbergasted and disgusted by his equally ignorant comments about the “wrong side being allowed to win in Vietnam”.
you left that student army guy off yr rightie-list..and boag..and ‘neo-liberalism?..y’know yr soaking in it!’ edwards-the-elder..and the guy who lost his his legs on the mountain..
..and mccormick is lurching right at some kinda warp-speed…
..and there are some new ones..
..the other day a hideous rightwing pr-trout smarmed her way thru her first appearance.
..she was ghastly in the extreme…
..i find increasingly i choose to take the dogs to the park..
..rather than endure the likes of franks/the above..
..and you are right..mora never challenges him/them..
..no matter what hysterical rightwing drivel/outright/easily-disproved lies/propaganda they may spout/spew out..
you left that student army guy off yr rightie-list..and boag..and ‘neo-liberalism?..y’know yr soaking in it!’
Thanks, Phillip. I would have put them on that list if I’d remembered. I did it off the top of my head. There are several more of them as well.
edwards-the-elder..and the guy who lost his his legs on the mountain..
Brian Edwards and Mark Inglis are conservative, but I don’t think they are as blindly ideological or as brutal as extremists like Franks, Bassett, Williams and Farrar.
..and mccormick is lurching right at some kinda warp-speed…
He is, but he’s a right wing Labour supporter more than he is a hard right nutcase like Stephen Franks. In fact, whenever the producers have been careless enough to pair McCormick with one of those cranks, McCormick has forcefully contested his (or her) narrative—much to the consternation of the dithering host.
If this corrupt and frightening government gets back in because Kelvin Davis knocks Hone Harawira out of the race I, for one, will never forgive the Labour Party. Never. Anyone else feel like this?
Very much, but I don’t think it’s likely. We need Mana in parliament, and we need Greens, both because of their policies and the fact that they will pull Labour to the left. We need Labour because of their numbers and not a lot else. I’ll never forget 1984, which has culminated in the crooked rubbish that tries to pass itself off as governance today.
Actually Morrissey your ignorance re Vietnam is incredible. You’ve obviously never been there. Any number of private conversations with the locals will convince anyone with an open mind that the wrong side won. But why let your blind ideological animus be contradicted by real people. Much more comfortable to cling to your stupid leftie groupthink.
Really Monty? I have been there. The locals have forgiven the carnage that the US has caused to their country but they are still in their own unique way in control of their country.
Really Micky you should be ashamed of yourself -talk about a useful idiot. The way their country is controlled isn’t unique -it’s called a communist dictatorship you dick. Can you think of any more examples? Get back to me if you can’t.
Hallo All, it has been a while, and I took a break, while my mate kept posting a few bits here now and then.
I admit I deserved a break, which Lprent defined correctly as a “ban”, to sort my mind and soul out a bit, as I got a bit worked up, more than I should have, on Israel, Palestine and the rest of the drama that still goes on.
But I have been keeping onto things, and one topic is DR BRATT, there will be more on Dr Bratt, a Bratt Attack of sorts, coming soon, that questionable MSD and WINZ Principal Health Advisor they use, to kick sick, injured and disabled off benefits and to urge them into whatever work there may be.
We are short shifted, shafted, that is us with serious illness, disability and injury, and they add to insult, most the parties, I am ANGRY.
So I will not blow my top, just hope that lprent will not throw me out too soon again, and I will work on some comments soon, that will inform more about the shit that goes on in welfare, which is rather “warfare”. What many do not realise is, that Paula Bennett is afraid of the election result and her job, so she has instructed her departments to keep calm, not make too harsh decisions, and to keep most lulled into indifference or a false sense of security. Should the Nats get a third term, get a warm jumper, all on benefits, you will get the worst that has happened in this country since Ruthanasia (look that up on Wiki, please).
Apologies, but these are the “fighters” that I respect and will die for, they are the soul of revolution and ground breaking change. You will hate me for past comments and over the top reactions. I apologise, but forget not the purpose of us being here, also the reason of revolution. Who still stands for that cause?
I stand for that and more, so take your choice and stand please, we will continue to fight on:
Excuse me, please, I post this for the future of the people that CARE, that actually understand history and that is for Europe, UK and South America and also South Africa. We all need to learn and improve, we can all work together and be one, and so, learn and understand, please, this is not a message of division and hatred, it is an attempt to reconnect and be ONE:
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
I see the conservative press are telling us that it’s time to stop talking about dirty politics because we should be talking about policy and nobody really cares anyway. We peons should be grateful for such sage advice.
yep..!..they are all lined up..and singing from the same songsheet..
this line from armstrong was particularly gag-inducing..
“..A clear majority of committed voters still seem to prefer Key’s and Bill English’s brand of moderate and largely painless conservatism…”
‘moderate and largely painless’..eh..?
..of course the stats/facts on pollution/poverty etc/et al make a total lie of armstrongs’ ‘moderate and largely painless’ claim/bullshit.
..i guess that’s one way of looking at how 30 yrs of national/labour neo-lib has driven us as far up shit creek as we currently are…
..to ask/advocate for even more of the same..
With input from Key’s no 1 fan John Roughan.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503581&objectid=11312940
Democracy under attack!!! The sky is falling!!!!! Oh noes, people are seeing behind the curtain!
They must have decided that yesterday was getting too dangerous, with Key caught out on video contradicting himself.
I see that Duncan Garner recovered from his fit of pique at being targeted by Slater and once more has his nose firmly clamped between Key’s buttocks.
I still think National will win the election, which will leave us in the strange position of having an openly corrupt government by public consent.
I still think National will win the election, which will leave us in the strange position of having an openly corrupt government by public consent.
That is the thought that horrifies me, especially since such consent would come from a little over half of the voting population. Given the deepening inequality in this country, it would effectively be a vote for the powerful to dominate the powerless, and for constitutional safeguards to be treated as PR measures, and nothing more.
In that case withdraw civic co-operation.
And just think how brazen people like Slater will be if that happens. They will think they are untouchable.
Well, they will be. By legal means, at least.
The nadir will be the courts declaring him a journalist after all this.
have you read this Tom ? fine analysis and questioning if new materials can be placed before the Court in current proceedings … by Steven Price
http://www.medialawjournal.co.nz/
Interesting, but it’s odd that there’s little emphasis on journalistic ethics. You would think that adhering to the four basic principles, or at least attempting to, would be required for someone to be classed as a journalist.
Slater hasn’t minimised harm, acted independently or been accountable. Not only has he not been these things, he has actively worked against such standards – the Len Brown case alone is enough to damn him.
I honestly would not be surprised if none of this matters to our tedious, tory judiciary.
If National wins you will see them release all the information they have on the Left. Not just the bits that has been leaked so far.
Over the past week they have come to see that they are not untouchable.
I suspect this is the beginning of the end for this bunch of criminals (for that is what they are).
What price WhaleOil now? Who is going to go anywhere near him now?
If TricKey and co get in then the Megalomania will run rampant, and they will literally sell our country out from under us to their mates.
The thought is just horrifying, and our best chance is, as Chooky says, to urge all those who would vote left to vote. I don’t think that upper middle class NZ fully appreciates the need for democratic safeguards. National’s TV ad all but dog-whistles to this indifference, featuring white, triumphalist rowers proudly defeating the enemy within. Such hubris encourages the idea that safeguards are for losers, and that winners are unnecessarily hampered by them. We desperately need a strong showing from the left in this election, for democracy’s sake.
@ Tom Jackson(1.1.1.1.1) ….Disagree!…It was very close last time when many Labour people did not vote . ( people were still angry with Phil Goff being leader and leading the charge against asset sales when he once supported them under Labour/Roger Douglas…it was too much to swallow)
This time people will vote! Cunliffe is a good and compassionate leader for Labour. He is well able to stand up against Key!
( There are many ‘undecided’ who do not want to declare to the pollsters…I myself refuse to talk to pollsters …there are others who lie…and others who will not disclose ( the ‘undecideds’)…after all we live in a surveillance society under John Key’s NACT…people are paranoid)
Bugger the POLLSTERS! ( they are too often wrong as Jim Bolger found out!)
We have to FOCUS on winning!!!… and calling the media to ACCOUNT
……we want the TRUTH! This election must be about HONESTY and NOT SPIN!….
….we must FIGHT for this Labour /Left coalition WIN!.
“we must FIGHT for this Labour /Left coalition WIN!.”
Yes Chooky, not fight and smear against it like some are intent on doing until polling day. +1.5
roughan is particularly happy/clappy about the outcomes from that national/labour rightwing/neo-lib/fuck-the-poor! ‘consensus’ of the last 30 yrs..
..culminating in the current asset-stripping bunch of bastards..
“..New Zealand has enjoyed a healthy economic consensus for 30 years..”
..’healthy’ for roughan and his ilk…
..’sick’ for so many others/the environment..
The guy is, like most of these right wing morons, an economic illiterate. Actual economics is much more reasonable and cautious than these clowns think.
Remember Roughan was such a poor journalist that his biography of Key mentioned nothing at all about the links with Slater.
That’s an excellent and well-made point, Paul.
+111
it wasn’t actually a ‘biography’ of key that roughan did..
…’biography’ claims a realistic look..warts/critical and all..
..what roughan did on key..was an exercise in hagiography..
..at least he is consistent..
Some should take Hagers book and Keys book to a meeting of Keys and ask him to autograph them both.
Pardon me.
Roughan’s hagiography of Key.
I’m sure Roughan is already working on an updated edition detailing all the new revelations about John Key’s life as our PM.
“that national/labour rightwing/neo-lib/fuck-the-poor! ‘consensus’”
“yrs of national/labour neo-lib”
What a shame you didn’t have the testicles to use that slogan/anti labour smear and front it to DC when he was on here answering questions.
Shame you bottled it and went, dear mr Cunliffe instead.
You’re worse than the right wing nuggets that come on here. Shame on you.
+100…have to agree The Allen
On the christmas card list you are 😉
lol…It will be a MERRY CHRISTMAS!….. under a Cunliffe Labour/ Left coalition !
Merry Christmas in advance!
Red and Green are, funny enough, the traditional colours of xmas.
yes lol …bring on the champagne ! …a toast to Cunliffe ( better go and do some work)
Cheers, I’ll settle on a bottle of raspberry scrumpy, which coincidentally, to the horror of some self absorbed ‘pundits’, is also red. 🙂
Enjoy the work, or enjoy your skive – Your call.
factcheck 4 u..chooky..
..when cunnliffe appeared on here it was made clear to all by the moderator..that such-worded questions would not pass muster..
..and as it was..a politely-worded question on poverty…was not answered by cunnliffe..
..tho’ he answered the four before it..and the one following..
..so..really..you and that idiot can just take yr fake-argument..
..and blow it out yr butts…eh..?
..every neo-lib-consensus word i said is true/accurate/historical-fact…
..and that you and the idiot are in agreement..going on both yr past analytical-records here..
..signifies very little..eh..?
All I got was wah, wah.
And factcheck lol. Like pete’s retarded hate child.
Do better.
Oh, you should try Garner’s BS:
These National fanbois in the MSM really seem to have NFI just how much damage that National have done to our democracy and need to be removed to prevent further damage. To them it’s all about winning – no matter the cost to our society.
You’ve got to wonder if Slater and his crew have stuff on some journalists.
Or is it simply that the media is owned by large foreign corporates?
Both?
Both! Considering that journalists have dirt on each other and play all that stupid ‘what plays in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ game. I’d be bloody surprised if he didn’t.
“So, for Key, it all starts tomorrow with the official National campaign launch. He needs a big-bang policy to get people talking.”
His and Collins resignations Now that would get the country talking. Asking who of the toxic’s that are left would be the next ‘Dear Leader’?
the horror sub-plot running, according to Gower on The Nation this morning, is the emergence of Paula Bennett as next leader …
Well, she does come across now as one of the less pugnacious and authoritarian National MPs, even if that’s not saying much.
I was waiting for everyone to GUFFAW – and they DIDN’T – This world is becoming just too strange to live in!!!
Key has looked unsure on television all week – he’s looked unconvincing. The nice guy has gone.
The day of the Jekyll
The Dirty Politics IS their policy!
http://minimalistmum.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/dirty-politics-expose-is-issue.html
Herald reveals WO commentor.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&obj
ectid=11313039
And in that same article Slater threatens the reporter, David Fisher:
“Slater did not return calls. He did send an email saying: “Time for all your emails to come out Fish.”
Looks like dickheads like Slater are unable to learn.
Fisher seemed almost self-muzzled on The Nation this morning, as a commentator. Either he is protecting what HOS will publish tomorrow from the person with the docs who is not whaledump, or he is scared. Was very odd to me.
Steven Joyce is continuing has black op’s dirty politics regimen even though his leader has said the opposition can’t win on policy and that’s why they continue the dirty political attacks on John Key, Ha Ha,
On Whaleoil 20th the attack from Joyce was made against Labour candidate and grandson of Sir Walter Nash, the highly successful Stuart Nash.
On Whaleoil Cameron Slater openly rejects any issue of dirt is being placed against Stuart Nash, with a statement ” he is a good guy” which shows that Joyce is behind much of this dirty Politics campaign all along.
National contuse their dirty politics and says they are not! Lies, Lies, Lies.
by Cameron Slater on August 20, 2014 at 9:30am
Steven Joyce has made allegations that Whaleoil is going to release information about Stuart Nash. Joyce says it is to balance things up. This should be called out for what it is.
It is an out and out lie.
Steven Joyce is a disgrace for suggesting this because he has lied to protect his own interests.
Nash wrote two articles for the Truth and I talk to him occasionally like I do with many on the left. I know nothing at all about Stuart Nash doing anything other than he is a bloody good politician who scares National. Nash is winning a National seat because he is a far better politician that Steven Joyce ever will be, and Joyce is having a sook because he will never be as popular as Nash.
Steven Joyce should be far more worried about people like Bill English trying to claim the moral high ground when everyone knows what lengths he, Boag and McCully have gone to in political battles over the years. That coming out would be truly damaging.
Given the last time I spoke to Steven Joyce was several years ago when I sledged him out about Twitter at a National party conference in Auckland it is highly unlikely he’d know what I was up to.
Doodlehead
was that on ZB with Hosking ? I thought he said Whaleblog(or whatever it’s called) was going to release it
Ed for clarity
Soleman
That was my understanding as well
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/ Keeping Stock
Yep; that was what was said. Whaledump would be releasing something about Nash to show how balanced the hackers are; as if…
Mark
Ouch!
Rem
Whaledump I heard
kiwibattler
Yes – I think Cam has jumped the gun on this (unless someone can find a link showing Joyce mentioning it is whaleoil).
Ross15
You are both right. I heard the interview and they were talking about whaledump and Joyce said he expected there to be continued releases up until the election. He said he’d heard today there would be a “balance up” with a release concerning Stuart Nash.
I think Cam needs to do a retraction on what he has said above about Joyce.
izhoui
Nah. Game playing.
Fat Sally
Nash is a good bloke. He will win Napier comfortably. Well ahead in the polls.
http://www.shipmodels.co.nz/ Graeme
I thought he said Whaledump. Now we are all confused!
THE APE
thats what i thought to – well according to ZB anyway
Goldie
But I thought that Cam Slater was a puppet of the evil Tories? And according to Nicky Hagar, Cam Slater is a tool of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?
And here he is publicly bagging Steven Joyce…
tjb
And so it goes on, every day until Sept 19 we are going to have this junk news drip fed
so_ruggef
Jumped the gun Cam, zb reporting whale dump to release info. But when you say you have nothing on Nash didnt you used to call him a serial rooter back in the day?
Sir Brucey
Isnt Joyce also one of those scum list MPs? Why doesnt he test his popularity and support in an electorate battle !!!
LesleyNZ
Not in my book. Steven Joyce and Bill English are OK with me.
Snoop
Easy to just pull this post … 🙂
Stuff like this makes me hate Dot.Com even more …
Becos his “WhaleDump-Dump” is now getting confused with the real Whale …
Bruce from taihape
Get your facts right Slater. Paranoia setting in?
Coffee Connoisseur
“Get your facts right Slater. Paranoia setting in?”
you have to remember that along with the ‘dirty politics’ shitstorm going on..
..national is also wracked by internicene-warfare..
..over the current/future control of the party..
..with joyce leading one faction..and collins the other..
..(and with slater/lusk etc firmly in the collins camp..)
..and believe it or not..joyce is deemed to be ‘the moderate’ of the two..
..i dunno about that claim..to me the shadings seem remarkably similar..
..it always pays to keep this in mind when evaluating any statements from one faction about the other..(and any slater musings..)
..that there is all this really really ‘dirty politics’ on an ongoing basis..within national..
..and that any statement may well be all about that..more than anything else..
..’game of thrones’..indeed..!
..are we nearing the ‘thrones’ bloodbath-scene within national..?
Joyce sees the word profit, and nothing else.
The only relevant Slater is KELLY surfing in Tahiti https://www.facebook.com/KellySlater
Collins backside is all burnt and Joyce cannot contain his glee.
Key looks really ill, I bet he can’t wait till he and Bronie are lying back sipping pina colada in Hawaii and dirty politics is just a memory.
We will remember these liars and soothsayers at voting time
Your comment is quite hard to follow, disturbed. You don’t clearly differentiate between quotes from others and your comments.
Please read this.
From Whaledump
Cameron Slater (24/2/2011)
[On National Party delegates]
“dodgy, lying cheating cunts…firstly at the branch level, secondly at the region and thirdly with Goodfellow”
Sounds like a fair appraisal to me.
Although when Cunliffe looked around him at the list conference…
Damn and he’s supposed to be on their side. But what else would you expect from a narcissistic misanthrope?
Stephen Price (Media Law Journal) has some great commentary around Dirty Politics. They are a bit long but it would be great to see them broken into parts and made feature posts here on TS.
http://www.medialawjournal.co.nz/
Stephen Price is good value.
Further unministerial behaviour by Collins.
‘Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater got a response to an Official Information Act request from Justice Minister Judith Collins in just 37 minutes.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11313041
It’s ok. It wasn’t her, it was her office. /sarc
Now look here, the only reasons that justify baying for a politician’s resignation is if they don’t know their Shakespeare, or they are accused of buying a bottle of wine that they didn’t actually buy, or they are named “David Cunliffe”.
Pull yourself together.
Paul,
Our NGO placed our IOA at the office of the Prime Minister two days ago for a confirmation list of all the last four years of emails we sent the Prime Minister( all 54) of them. (No response for replies and assistance were ever received from the P.M.)
Of course we don’t expect our IOA to be received back before a week or two perhaps, (ha ha)
Thinking back maybe we should also send the request also now to Judith Collins to see if we get them quicker eh?
What do you reckon?
And a Brownlee staffer named as having commented on WO blog under a pseudonym:
Shesh they were all at it. I bet there are a whole lot of Nat staffers feeling very nervous right now …
Look at the encouragement coming from the top.
This might be why we haven’t much from the usual suspects in recent days. Crawled back under their rocks till the storm passes?
Replanning new attacks. For the smarter ones, their goal now is to position for 2017 not to win 2014.
and hasn’t it been lovely ! 🙂
Mickey there needs to be a good conversation with LPrent about protocols for engaging with a Labour-Green government.
The schadenfreude and hypocrisy-charges will be significant for upholding the reputation of The Standard.
“Shesh they were all at it. I bet there are a whole lot of Nat staffers feeling very nervous right now”
And if they all get the Boot Paula will be pissed, as it will screwup her ‘Unemployment is dropping” meme.
I think Armstrong in the Herald today is right:
“…Nicky Wagner, who was already facing a real struggle holding her Christchurch Central seat for National. She may as well not even bother campaigning now that citizens of the earthquake-stricken city know they rate as “scum” in the mind of Slater. She will not be the only one cursing Slater. Christchurch was National’s success story in 2011. National’s strong party vote in the city was a tribute to John Key’s unique ability to draw votes from across the political spectrum.
But Christchurch is gone. It would be rich irony if the city became National’s graveyard in 2014.”
It’s here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11313037
Christchurch has gone, and so has Dunedin after Cunliffe’s fine policy announcements yesterday, raptuously received on yesterday’s front page of the ODT
BG
There were two articles about the Labour policies for Dunedin in the ODT yesterday, the frontpage was indeed very enthusiastic, while the “election 2014” one consisted mainly of Woodhouse/ Joyce quotes.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/313305/labour-promises-reopen-hillside
Woodhouse, being the Private Health Industry’s representative in Parliament, was particularly dismissive of the plan to upgrade Dunedin Hospital:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/313352/policies-damaging-joyce-says
Napier is also gone for National and word on the street is Foss is behind in Tukituki
The expose IS the real issue…
http://minimalistmum.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/dirty-politics-expose-is-issue.html
Well said, Jessica.
I have not yet read Hager’s book, but have read the Whaledump posts to date, and your blog sums up my feelings far better than I could have.
I recommend others read your blog post.
PS – I also skimmed your other recent on your blog, and will be back to read them more thoroughly.
Oops, edited and ended up with two versions.
Edit was to PS to read
PS – I also skimmed your other recent posts on your blog, and will be back to read them more thoroughly.
Nice post, Jessica. Totally agree.
Yep Micky
The staffer’s must have been coached by someone though.
Maybe Ede, & Lusk?
Maybe some others too, inside MSM.
Who were actually steering the dirty politics black op’s and spin doctoring?
Joyce at the helm like Key no doubt, but cleverly keeping themselves detached as to not be connected, but all coming out now.
They always looked so smug we instinctively knew they were up to something but had no proof.
Thank you Nicky Hager Nat’s on longer have the protective secrecy any more, while they are now flying blind into a Kim.com storm cloud, with an on going investigation up their arse opps!
I’m just going to make an association. If any of you are familiar with the Jeff Gannon stuff from GWBs days you will recognise the tactics and strategy here. This is a corporate designed strategy to defeat democracy.
as in TPPA, just for example …
Some more grist for the mill:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/new-zealand-prime-minister-john-key-the-whale-oil-blog-and-international-organized-crime.html
That is a very disturbing read.
Excellent article, thank you.
That is too much grist for my mind mill – I can quite feel my cogs and spindles seizing up as I read. It would take one more familiar with international moneylaundering techniques than myself, to follow all the slippery twists and turns. Difficult to argue with the conclusion though:
Hmmm, Slater seems to have decided to declare war on the media and is trying to blackmail, browbeat and bully them with sinister threats of blackmail.
What an idiot. Making personal enemies with people who can ask Key questions about Slater from here until September 20th is really, really dumb. Key must now be be furious at how close he personally and his party generally has allowed itself to come to Slater, who is out of control. Slater seems to think he represents some kind of new order in the media, and he and his Brownshirts can use the tactics of street thugs to subvert and supplant the traditional media. Paul Buchanan is right – Slater and his band of thugs represent a existential threat to democracy. Slater and his thugs don’t want contingent consent in a democratic structure – they want to humiliate, delegitimise and smash all opposition to their point of view. Simply, he has to be stopped at all costs.
There is also now a clear schism within the media itself. The hard right broadcasters like Plunkett, Hoskings, Henry etc etc have clearly cast in their lot with Slater and abandoned any pretense of being journalists. They should be sen for what they are – hard-right propagandists who despise democracy and would welcome a one party state of the right..
Yeah #DirtyPolitics has literally driven some of these guys over the edge, Plunkett trying to incoherently accuse Paddy Gower of something (no-one has really figured it out yet…) over the phone was just cringe-worthy.
Anybody who has read Dirty Politics knows why John Key will not sack Judith Collins.
She knows where the bodies are buried.
Through her close friend Cameron Slater, she knows exactly how much John Key is involved in dirty politics.
If she goes, he goes.
Both of them are a spent force now; there is no coming back from this one.
…. and if things go wrong at this election, he’s gone anyway – or even if things are so tight we have a Natzi government unable to do anything because the margins are so thin. (I actually didn;t think this gubbamint was going to last this long – it’s been sailing along with Blind Faith)
Collins is inherently retributive – a nouveau riche, self-entitled, very ugly, holier-than-thou person. She won’t be able to resist. I heard this morning (The Nation I think – with the sage Peddy Gear) that the beneficiary of all this will be Pulla Bent. Let’s hope so, because a competent Cunliffe or even a jack-Russell should be able to put that beast down without too much trouble.
Check THIS out!
‘Naked Capitalism’ blog outs Cathy Odgers ‘Cactus Cate’.
‘Chop chop Cathy ……
Penny Bright
+100 thanks Penny…will check it out!
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/new-zealand-prime-minister-john-key-the-whale-oil-blog-and-international-organized-crime.html
It gets worse, Naked Capitalism is right on to Ian Taylor, family patriarch Geoff Taylor, accusing them and their shelf companies of quite a lot of things;
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?s=taylor
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/at-least-half-of-the-21500-companies-revealed-by-the-guardianicij-offshore-investigation-have-connections-with-rogue-agent-gt-group.html
Now go to NZ herald and have a look at this puff piece on the PM;
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-key-the-unauthorised-biography/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502247&objectid=10523316
“Other investors include Hugh Green Investments and dairy entrepreneur Geoff Taylor. Taylor is a director, along with Ian Holland, Simon Perry and Peter Schuyt.”
And check out the fact that NZ legislation to fix this issue in NZ with shell companies and the problems that they cause is taking a while…
This is worse than I thought.
thx rich. here be flaming dragons.
rich .. and did you see whaledump tweet today — “In Vanuatu. Don’t hold any important briefings while I’m gone.” Hmmm.
Yes I thought there might be some follow up as it’s a little vague.
well, I must be a left wing conspiracy theorist — I noticed Vanuatu figured so much around Taylor story link you posted and I couldn’t help but jump to conclusions tho I have no idea what they are as yet !!
Think I need a day away … wry sigh … 🙂
I am new to this site, but an observation, there is a propensity for many of the contributors to use extreme hyperbole and blame the government, the MSM or any body else for everything There is also a gross use of the “collective we”. Not everybody is unhappy, a great majority of kiwis left or right are just getting on with life, celebrating their good fortune ( not necessarily material) and facing up to the challenges that come their way . Here however many, (not all ) seem to use this site as a medium for their unchallengeable ideology, spew hate or seek to externalise their own failures or jealousy and further seek comfort in this by rationalising that every one else thinks the same and if not god help them. This is not all bad though,such sites be it whaleoiil, the standard, daily blog are entertaining while also acting as a pressure valve for the more extremes in our society, as does democracy I guess, so keep on keeping on
Dear Red Delusion,
If you are an honest and mildly intelligent discussant, you will learn to be discerning in who you engage with, who are worth the time. So focus your judgement.
If you had read the site policy, you will note that people who make sweeping statements about this site tend to get scorched out. Moderation here isn’t like Kiwiblog or Whaleoil as you will soon discover.
You will also get to recognize that the commenters are diverse, at least as diverse as those within Labour, and more. Don’t presume any specific politic. Learn the spectrum of those you want to deal with.
And finally, no one is going to waste time with the drivel you ended with. Stand up, sharpen up, package your facts, and bring your best stuff every day. This is a sport to be played well.
Ad
If you want to play the concern tr*ll – or whatever the neutral-observer-with-objective-critique equivalent is – , then it might have been an idea to employ a different pseudonym. Rather gives the game away.
Yeah I laughed at that too.
Redel has the same pomposity of jamiwhite- doesn’t ring true
Sorry about being reactive but, John Keys office said this today.
Fewer Kiwis leaving for Australia, more coming home.
In the year to July, fewer people left for Australia than any time since 1995 – and more Kiwis are voting with their feet and coming home.
So when the Australian economy and political society turns to shit, National will take credit for it. Wow, what will this guy take credit for next? Higher temperatures mean NZ can grow more tropical crops – A national party initiative?
National will take credit for anything if they think that they can make them look good. Anything else they’ll blame on Labour.
one of gowers’ worst efforts..to date..(nation interview of robertson/norman..)
..all about playing wedge-politics..
..and all about trying to show what a clever dick he is..
..a fail..on all levels..
Key and Cronies should be in the Dock!
Collins Slater Lusk Ede Joyce Odgers no doubt others!
Hawaii. How much time does Key spend there each year and how much time does he spend in NZ. Anybody know?
He has to spend time aboard, on holiday, else how would his Office get anything done.
True enough.
And the media has a go at Cunliffe for taking 3 days off, where a quick look at Key’s schedule over the past 12 months would have probably shown 3 months off.
Dear Ad
Fair points, I would argue site is left however agree it is not purely labour
I also hear your point on the sport aspect of site, that’s why site is so entertaining
Would argue however that views are well argued, little synthesis goes on, even the more scholarly of contributors simply start with a conclusion, then reference articles that support their line of thought or ideology
No different on the right, my point is poles would indicate many people don’t think this way, hence views on these type of sites tend to be more extreme and satisfy the needs of contributors, provide entertainment but little else
Dont get worked up over pseudronym, could easily be blue delusion
why have your brought Poland into your argument ?
Easy mistake for a person who does not have English as their first language, yeshe. ;~)
thought maybe it was a right wing thing I didn’t understand … 🙂
@Rich 12.36
The Delusion comment talks about finding entertainment on these sites and talks about poles. I’m so shallow I immediately thought of pole dancing. 😉 I am so glad this person dropped in to put us right in our place.
By the way I like your face construction, I am going to add it to my group of home-made ones. :>)
greywarbler — poll dancing is what farrar does. :>}
@ yeshe 4.39
Like
Labour to “axe secondary tax”
Well done!!!
Yes Big relief to casual workers with multijobs.
Casualisation of the workforce is big with National’s unemployment figures.
During Labour’s government NZ had the lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD, lower even than South Korea.
What is it now under English & co.?
They’ll need to careful otherwise a lot of people will arrange a primary job that pays sod all and a very lucrative untaxed secondary job. Either that or they are raising unrealistic expectations for some.
That incentive exists now. In what way is it affected by Labour’s proposal?
Agreed. Axing secondary tax is the first Labour policy I really like. The way it works is a really good initiative to not try different things. They should look at the obscene Key tax on paperboys (paperkids?) as well.
I heard this quote on This Way Up, obviously Churchill, and thought that its warning sounded very appropriate for now. I have taken out some wording to make it more generally applicable. It was given I think on 18 June 1940.
The speech was delivered to the Commons at 3:49 pm,[6] and lasted 36 minutes. Churchill – as was his habit – made revisions to his 23-page typescript right up to and during the speech. The final passage of his typescript was laid out in blank verse format, which Churchill scholars consider reflective of the influence of Old Testament psalms on his oratory style.
A long speech, so people with a short attention span would have difficulty grasping the precepts. Perhaps we with our short span might have difficulty meeting the challenges Britain did, the first being finding the time and concentration to think about it all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_was_their_finest_hour
edited
Those Lusk – Slater emails are a little bit interesting – reveals the minds of the men. Parts are almost homo-erotic in their shared effusive enjoyment of guns and money, pushing one or the other on the other. Not that homo’s shouldn’t be homos or effusive, it’s the kind of faux developmental homo you might find in male relationships of an adolescent kind. Kids with guns, might be accurate. I gotta be honest, I don’t know any males like those two. Is it common for guys of that age to be talking like that to each other, and if it isn’t, is it just the political industry that attracts that type? I don’t suppose anyone will confirm. It’d be like asking how often one masturbates. I just though I’d ask in case anyone asks me to a political rally and when politely refusing I can say I have to stay home and wash my hair and not seem odd to them.
Also the glaringly flippin obvious:
Covert operations 101 rule 1#
When discussing evil plans, don’t put it in writing and definitely don’t use electronic medium to send messages. If you can’t manage that, don’t reply to replies of email discussion, start new mail for each reply, so fragmenting the paper trail.
Even John Key knows that rule. To get that rule wrong shows that a person would have to be under the spell of their own hype and when that happens it doesn’t even matter if you spell it out, they can’t comprehend it.
I am absolutely amazed at their incompetence. They left a trail a dog with a skunk sitting on its nose could follow. I can’t believe their arrogance. They are nasty, incompetent, well resourced amateurs. This is what will save us from them in the end.
A key factor that causes disadvantage to the opposition parties is that the economy is “good” in terms of the numbers we hear in the media.
So why is it good? Because Christchurch had an earth quake and so National got to do the rather dodgy accounting of writing off some assets, then borrowing some money, and building them back again – then taxing the increased activity and then calling the result a GDP increase and a surplus.
As long as National keeps control of that narrative it is still in a strong position.
If one of the other parties was to really take them to task on it (exactly how that would be done would depend on the party) things could start to look different.
I have heard little bits of this sort of argument (around debt going up) but they don’t seem to be framed quite right.
The good news is I think that the guys actually made this point in the whaledump, so one could highlight that.
Quick question and please excuse me for yet to come up-to-date:
Are the Leaders’ Debates taking place and, if so, when?
If Prime Minister John Key doesn’t want to turn up, please organise for an article to be sent from the Prime Minister’s Office so that David Cunliffe can debate with the said item.
Remember that the huge gap in the funding of EQC happened because the Government with held the money.
Result 1:EQC have had to drastically reduce settlement of claims.
Result 2: Government can hide the debt so that there appears to be a surplus to crow about. Bill gets away with the fraud. MSM does not touch the issue.
ianmac .. it is fraud — did you see Campbell Live piece last week … xlnt visuals/graphics of accounting in question …
http://www.3news.co.nz/More-to-Govt-accounts-than-meets-the-eye/tabid/817/articleID/357540/Default.aspx
Yes yeshe. That where I had my info from though I think it had been raised at Question Time. I think that it should have raised a storm but at the moment some little book is being discussed blotting out such concerns.
it will come ianmac, I am sure of it. So much in process I think … and many more are watching because of the ‘little book’. John Campbell won’t drop it, we can be certain of that much at least.
Not sure Key can keep saying no-one is interested, Blighty seems to be.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/23/-sp-new-zealand-election-john-key-alleged-dirty-politics
Stephen Franks continues to run amok on The Panel
Radio NZ National, Friday 22 August 2014
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Bernard Hickey, Julie Moffett
Long-time sufferers of the light, not so bright, chat show The Panel will be all too aware of its grim line-up of commentators from the far right. It’s a long list, and extremely depressing to anyone who cares about the quality of our public broadcasting. Those commentators include: Nevil “Breivik” Gibson, Jordan Williams, Chris Wikaira, Barry Corbett, Michael Bassett, Neil Miller, John Bishop, Jock Anderson, John Barnett, and the superficially jolly but deeply nasty Whale Oil lackey David Farrar. They rarely contribute anything insightful or witty; the exceptions are John Bishop, who can string together an intelligent argument occasionally, and Jock Anderson, who has a disarming bonhomie and sharp sense of humor. The rest of them, though, make for a grim and often gruesome listening experience. Jordan Williams is allowed free rein to push his cynical “Taxpayers Union” stunts whenever he is on, and—this is still possibly the single most absurd moment in the history of the program—Michael Bassett croaked with Stygian malice that Nicky Hager was a Holocaust-denier, with not a word of demur uttered by host Jim Mora, producer Susan Baldacci or anyone else in the studio.
Today, once again, another on this seemingly endless roster of extreme right wing ideologues was allowed the run of the Radio NZ studios for an hour or more. Yes, the great legal scholar and moral philosopher and Sensible Sentencing Trust supporter Stephen Franks was on again, and he did not disappoint. Indeed, he delivered several of his trademark deranged, wandery lectures and topped it off with a blackly humorous paean to the destruction Vietnam—one of the most hilarious, monstrously hypocritical moral homilies I have ever heard, anywhere, and made all the more hilarious by his contention that the Vietnamese think the Americans weren’t hard enough on them.
Only at the end of the program did anyone—Bernard Hickey, actually—do anything to counter the phenomenal amount of bilge Franks was spouting.
Franks’s dismal performance began during the pre-show, when host Jim Mora read a letter from a listener expressing concern about how the loss of confidence and trust in politicians is leading to a loss of trust in public institutions in general….
JIM MORA: Do you think honestly—I know this is a Panelly type situation and we’re getting serious before 4 o’clock—but do you think there is something in this?
BERNARD HICKEY: I’m a little bit skeptical. People say they don’t respect politicians, but in my experience they do respect them whenever they meet them face to face.
STEPHEN FRANKS: This is the result of a long stream of very cynical books. It’s very rare to see a politician portrayed as noble. This cynicism seeps into public attitudes. I think most politicians have good motives and there is very little corruption in New Zealand. ….[He continues pretentiously and inanely for a while longer. For a short time after he is finished, there is an uneasy silence….]
Both Jim Mora and Bernard Hickey were too polite to give voice to what must have immediately occurred to them, i.e., that most non-National Party politicians do indeed have good motives and are not corrupt—with the glaring exception of David (“Grave Robber”) Garrett, Rodney (“The Perk-Taker”) Hide and John (“I donnnnnn’t remember”) Banks, i.e., politicians who made up the grotesque ACT party shambles that Franks represented in parliament.
But Mora and Hickey said nothing, and Franks got away with another few minutes of pompous drivel, unchallenged.
After the 4 o’clock news, on The Panel proper, Mora apologetically announced that he was going to talk about Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics again. Mora’s attitude was interesting; I have no doubt that Franks had said something unpleasant and admonitory to him off air about that, which led to Mora’s clear nervousness in broaching the subject….
JIM MORA: Stephen, um, to what extent do you think the landscape is changing?
STEPHEN FRANKS: I have genuinely tried to avoid reading it. I defended the News of the World phone hacks, but there’s a good reason why much of this is illegal, and I want to see the law enforced…. [He continues on with a confused, rambling Jamie Whyte-style free-ranging rumination.]
In his “Soapbox” segment, Franks spoke about some university students he recently met, and expressed his grave concern about their failure to see the merits of America’s destruction of Vietnam. (No, you did not read that wrongly; Franks really IS that deranged)…..
STEPHEN FRANKS: I’d rather hoped that they might rebel against the ghastly consensus that war can only be spoken about in hushed tones as if it’s all terribly shameful, and there’s a defeatism and a pacifism in our intelligentsia that means our commemorations usually talk about war as failure on all sides. …[Here he pauses to underline that he is thinking seriously]…But, uh, I think we’re in a world where we might need some of the martial values. We look at a man who was beheaded by a culture that sees sacrifice of innocence as just a routine tactic. Ahhhhmmm, if you were a Kurd, or a Yaziri, or a Christian in Iran, or a North Korean, or in the last century a Czech or a Pole or an Ethiopian or anyone who’s been invaded and dominated, ahhhhmmm, you might think that you need to celebrate courage and self-sacrifice and the virtues, ahhhhhmmmm….
BERNARD HICKEY: But there’s a cynicism about that now because the initial response was to jump in in a martial way. It seemed to make it a lot worse.
STEPHEN FRANKS: [irate tone] Well, I don’t think that that’s established at all. I mean, one of the things that was interesting in this debate was that the young people all universally condemned the Vietnam War, but I doubt that ANY of them have talked to any of the Vietnamese refugees who have settled here, in fact it sticks in my head that, at the height of the Vietnam War there were 400,000 or 350,000 refugees overseas out of Vietnam, two years later there were FOUR MILLION that had fled, a million probably or no one knows how many PERISHED, and if you spend a bit of time in Vietnam and probe enough because they don’t want to talk about the war, you’ll find plenty of people who will say the only thing wrong about the Vietnam War was that the wrong side was allowed to win. So you know, I think there’s a cultural overlay in New Zealand that just doesn’t WANT to examine the possibility that we’ve had a hundred years reaction to a ghastly First World War like All Quiet on the Western Front, and we don’t celebrate the virtues of Just War.
MORA: Putting the Vietnam War aside, because, well, we probably don’t have time to talk about it although you’ve raised an interesting point, ahhh, doesn’t increased attendances in recent years at Anzac Day services suggest that we still do appreciate valor, actually?
STEPHEN FRANKS: Uh, I think it does. I think ordinary people don’t have that kind of syrupy, maudlin regret. I think they ARE wanting to honor some the things that humans have traditionally honored, like courage and self-sacrifice.
MORA: All right. Stephen Franks, thank you. Bernard Hickey on the Panel, a quarter to five. Miley Cyrus’s forthcoming show in Auckland: pornography and the promotion of substance abuse dressed up as pop music, says Family First. We’ll ask Dita Di Boni about that, but first of all, your opinions please. Does it bother you, the subject matter?
STEPHEN FRANKS: It seems tawdry to me and I applaud Bob McCroskery for having the courage to be unfashionable and say parents ought to be a bit disgusted.
BERNARD HICKEY: I’m deeply uncomfortable with it. It just seems like something from another planet.
MORA: More and more youngsters don’t have the moral framework to condemn it, they don’t have the religion which used to condemn it. So is this a kind of moral degradation or not?
(Jim Mora, remember, is a man who chuckles at the plight of political dissidents.)
DITA DI BONI: Well, a lot of people sheet it home to Madonna. But there’s really no comparison. It’s a completely different ball game. She wasn’t marketed to children and she expressed female sexuality to women, which Miley Cyrus says she is doing, but that’s nonsense. She is a product of a marketing system, of an industry, whereas Madonna really tried to make her own way but, I don’t know about you guys, but every straight man I’ve ever talked to does not find Madonna sexy. She’s scary, because it’s a different idea of sexuality. Miley Cyrus is very cynically marketed to very young girls, it’s a nonsense message….
STEPHEN FRANKS: [speaking very quietly, to convey deep moral seriousness] It’s a very strange thing to have reached this stage. It was so easy to scoff at the slippery slope and ummmm, and the anti-Patricia Bartlett position was just universal.
DITA DI BONI: Yes.
STEPHEN FRANKS: But it IS very difficult for a society to cope with this kind of attack on values. Of course this is exactly the dilemma that isn’t a dilemma for Islamic countries…..[continues pompously for another minute or so]
Just before the end of the program, Jim Mora brought up the subject of Labour’s plan to revive the Dunedin Railway Workshops. The Ayn Rand worshipper’s response was one of instant, dogmatic dismissal: Government has no business investing in any industry, he growled. Bernard Hickey, for once, stirred himself to respond to Franks’s nonsense instead of just ignoring him and hoping he’d stop….
BERNARD HICKEY: Yet we’ve got $400 million to spend on irrigation problems.
STEPHEN FRANKS: [snorting] Railway is a sunset industry.
BERNARD HICKEY: Oooooh, I’m not so sure about that….
Sadly, the music swelled up and saved Franks from an on-air keelhauling. Maybe next time the comparatively sensible guest, whoever it is, will act sooner….
I sent the ever jovial Mein Host of the program the following email….
Why did you not challenge Stephen Franks’ brutal and ignorant raving?
Dear Jim,
During his confused and highly selective broadside against “cultures that sacrifice innocence”, Stephen Franks forgot to mention the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. Maybe he was too busy skiing to take note of the latest onslaught—or does he support their daily oppression and killing?
I am sure many listeners were also flabbergasted and disgusted by his equally ignorant comments about the “wrong side being allowed to win in Vietnam”.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
you left that student army guy off yr rightie-list..and boag..and ‘neo-liberalism?..y’know yr soaking in it!’ edwards-the-elder..and the guy who lost his his legs on the mountain..
..and mccormick is lurching right at some kinda warp-speed…
..and there are some new ones..
..the other day a hideous rightwing pr-trout smarmed her way thru her first appearance.
..she was ghastly in the extreme…
..i find increasingly i choose to take the dogs to the park..
..rather than endure the likes of franks/the above..
..and you are right..mora never challenges him/them..
..no matter what hysterical rightwing drivel/outright/easily-disproved lies/propaganda they may spout/spew out..
..mora never says boo!..
you left that student army guy off yr rightie-list..and boag..and ‘neo-liberalism?..y’know yr soaking in it!’
Thanks, Phillip. I would have put them on that list if I’d remembered. I did it off the top of my head. There are several more of them as well.
edwards-the-elder..and the guy who lost his his legs on the mountain..
Brian Edwards and Mark Inglis are conservative, but I don’t think they are as blindly ideological or as brutal as extremists like Franks, Bassett, Williams and Farrar.
..and mccormick is lurching right at some kinda warp-speed…
He is, but he’s a right wing Labour supporter more than he is a hard right nutcase like Stephen Franks. In fact, whenever the producers have been careless enough to pair McCormick with one of those cranks, McCormick has forcefully contested his (or her) narrative—much to the consternation of the dithering host.
If this corrupt and frightening government gets back in because Kelvin Davis knocks Hone Harawira out of the race I, for one, will never forgive the Labour Party. Never. Anyone else feel like this?
Very much, but I don’t think it’s likely. We need Mana in parliament, and we need Greens, both because of their policies and the fact that they will pull Labour to the left. We need Labour because of their numbers and not a lot else. I’ll never forget 1984, which has culminated in the crooked rubbish that tries to pass itself off as governance today.
Actually Morrissey your ignorance re Vietnam is incredible. You’ve obviously never been there. Any number of private conversations with the locals will convince anyone with an open mind that the wrong side won. But why let your blind ideological animus be contradicted by real people. Much more comfortable to cling to your stupid leftie groupthink.
Really Monty? I have been there. The locals have forgiven the carnage that the US has caused to their country but they are still in their own unique way in control of their country.
Something called “monty” seems a tad bewildered….
Any number of private conversations with the locals will convince anyone with an open mind that the wrong side won.
No doubt you also think the wrong side won in South Africa in 1994. And the wrong side won in the American Civil War.
How many million more Vietnamese do you think the U.S. should have slaughtered? Perhaps you don’t have a limit worked out?
….blind ideological animus…. stupid leftie groupthink…
Quick! Somebody get this inarticulate fool a spittoon!
Labour broadcast totally pantsed National’s talking head.
Really Micky you should be ashamed of yourself -talk about a useful idiot. The way their country is controlled isn’t unique -it’s called a communist dictatorship you dick. Can you think of any more examples? Get back to me if you can’t.
Hallo All, it has been a while, and I took a break, while my mate kept posting a few bits here now and then.
I admit I deserved a break, which Lprent defined correctly as a “ban”, to sort my mind and soul out a bit, as I got a bit worked up, more than I should have, on Israel, Palestine and the rest of the drama that still goes on.
But I have been keeping onto things, and one topic is DR BRATT, there will be more on Dr Bratt, a Bratt Attack of sorts, coming soon, that questionable MSD and WINZ Principal Health Advisor they use, to kick sick, injured and disabled off benefits and to urge them into whatever work there may be.
We are short shifted, shafted, that is us with serious illness, disability and injury, and they add to insult, most the parties, I am ANGRY.
So I will not blow my top, just hope that lprent will not throw me out too soon again, and I will work on some comments soon, that will inform more about the shit that goes on in welfare, which is rather “warfare”. What many do not realise is, that Paula Bennett is afraid of the election result and her job, so she has instructed her departments to keep calm, not make too harsh decisions, and to keep most lulled into indifference or a false sense of security. Should the Nats get a third term, get a warm jumper, all on benefits, you will get the worst that has happened in this country since Ruthanasia (look that up on Wiki, please).
Apologies, but these are the “fighters” that I respect and will die for, they are the soul of revolution and ground breaking change. You will hate me for past comments and over the top reactions. I apologise, but forget not the purpose of us being here, also the reason of revolution. Who still stands for that cause?
I stand for that and more, so take your choice and stand please, we will continue to fight on:
One good piece worth counting and citing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fayYhdAeYwQ
I will deliver MORE soon!
Excuse me, please, I post this for the future of the people that CARE, that actually understand history and that is for Europe, UK and South America and also South Africa. We all need to learn and improve, we can all work together and be one, and so, learn and understand, please, this is not a message of division and hatred, it is an attempt to reconnect and be ONE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWlkWPXfvXc
Much more there comes from!