MEDIA ADVISORY: Annette Sykes to launch campaign for Waiariki
Annette Sykes, MANA candidate for Waiariki
Monday 28 July 2014
At midday tomorrow, Annette Sykes will officially launch her campaign to win the Waiariki electorate seat for MANA in the upcoming general election.
“A key goal for MANA this election is to mobilise our people to vote, especially rangatahi, and win Waiariki. To help with this we’ve got Maisey Rika, Cliff Curtis, and our MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu, all lending their support for the launch and the wider campaign” said Ms Sykes.
“MANA is committed to changing the government and here in Waiariki we’re fully geared up for the task. We’ve already got our billboards up and from next week we’ll be knocking on every voter’s door in the electorate asking them for their support” said Ms Sykes.
“Creating new jobs, and ensuring existing jobs – including those in forestry – are safe and paid at least a living wage are a top priority for MANA, and I’ll be talking more about this at the launch” concluded Ms Sykes.
When: 6:00-8:00pm, Tuesday 29 July (PUBLIC MEETING)
Where: Distinction Hotel, Rotorua
House DJ: Hone Djporoufessor Ngata
Guest performance by Maisey Rika and appearances by Cliff Curtis and MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu.
All media welcome.
ENDS
For further information please contact Te Ringahuia Hata, (021) 236-0931.
much like “cunliffe only aims to get 40%” thing where rnz claimed they were paraphrasing even though cunliffe pointed out that guyon was attempting to put words in his mouth
The Herald have announced two new columnists for the election period Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the supposed left. The trouble with this choice is that if you averaged out where they are on the political spectrum you would get someone in the same space as John Key.
I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left” under Cunliffe for what she obviously presumes will be a substantial Electoral Defeat and calls for the Restoration of the Party’s ABC Grandees to their rightful place on the Labour throne.
“The party made David Cunliffe leader for his strategy of shoring up the base with a more militant tone. He’s delivered on that strategy but it hasn’t worked……It’s too late to ditch some of the rhetoric that made people doubt whether you would put them ahead of sectarian interests……” http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-does-labour-do-now
Conveniently overlooking, of course, the fact that back in the days when Cunliffe really was pushing core Labour values, the Party’s support conspicuously soared to 37% (reaching a monthly average of 35% for 3 of the last 4 months of 2013, something Shearer managed to do in just one of the 20 months in which he was leader).****
What’s more, it’s clear that for Josie, “people” = equal those employed who are currently supporting National. In contrast, Benies, the Undecided and the Missing Million presumably = equal “non-people” who deserve little if any electoral consideration.
****(Important to remember this, incidently, whenever Jane Clifton, Matthew Hooton or various Tory Tr*lls turn up to tell us Labour were on the way up under Shearer and if only the Party had stuck with him…I’ll be posting about this on sub-zero in the very near future)
“..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..”
It was radical in the context of the electorate. It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the good or just.
..that the undoing of the demonising of the poorest by clark etc. was too hard a task…?
..that ‘the electorate’ wd rather our shameful levels of poverty/inequality should continue..?
..as i said..herein/therein labours’ problems are crystalised..
..and lest i be accused of more ‘hate-campaigns’..i will note that it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..
..when they do…
..so..strategically..i shd support labour not having poverty-busting policies..(yet again..)..
..but i don’t..
..to me it just symbolises how lost in neo-lib-land labour still are…
… you scoff at 1%, sneer at the support to date for a new grouping and a new vision for the future and then have the puffery to go all ‘credible parties of the left’ onit. Vote for whoever you want but why not let the rest of us do that too eh? Don’t be a spiteful arsehole. As for what phil is saying – it is his view and that is that – there is an argument that he is putting forward – I’m not sure I 100% agree with it but it is a valid line imo.
Get to 10 or 15% and I’ll believe you’re on to something.
Until then you’re just a party with a voter base less than the conservatives, using PU as an example, telling everyone else what to do and think, without any public backing or support.
I don’t care if you or phil don’t agree or like it, but it’s still good to talk.
I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc, so doubt very much you’ll be piping this admiral onto your battleship, but if you ‘trailblazers’ are still a nothing party like craigs in years to come, I’ll give a sympathetic awww bless just for you. 🙂
“Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.”
It was more figuratively speaking based on both being nothing much to see here parties in the big scheme of things, but thanks for that anyway.
Election night will tell all for real.
Good you are finally being truthful allen when you say, “I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically, out of spite, you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them – sad bastard that you are – but truthful at last, you at least have that lol
“when you say I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them”
I’ve never stopped anyone wanting to vote for HH or kdc doing so, but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.
“sad bastard that you are”
What’s the matter? Don’t you mip blokes like choice?
“but truthful at last, you at least have that lol”
And always have and always will be, unlike your party benefactor. :halo:
Without who, and let’s be realistic and honest, hone and mana would be just a winston with a much smaller voter base and much less charisma and pull.
Actor Cliff Curtis has become the latest celebrity to publicly declare support for the Mana Movement.
Curtis, the star of films including The Dark Horse and Once Were Warriors, joins former Warrior player and TV personality Wairangi Koopu and hip-hop star King Kapisi in Mana’s celebrity stable.
Curtis will attend the campaign launch of Mana’s Annette Sykes in Waiariki tomorrow, the party said.
wiki definition of sad bastard – “but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.”
Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us – thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness – we are saved at last!!!
Are you sure it’s not just politics in election time? Or are you projecting for a reason?
“Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us”
Ah, to counter, there’s the link to the right wing. Come on Marty, you know better than that by now 🙄 But just in case, more working class/left wing than your multi millionaire man, or I’d bet your very own HH.
Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.
Like I wrote, disingenuous.
“thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness
You’re most welcome, even if not a little insincere and begrudging.
“we are saved at last!!!”
Can’t do much about that one yet, but watch this space, man. 🙂
Last one for a while – got to do some homeschooling with my son…
“Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.”
Are you sure about that? If the reason for the view is based upon the same rationale, and the purpose of espousing that view is the same, then we are in the, looks like, sounds like, situation methinks – no matter how much it hurts your ‘right-on’ ego to admit.
But I’m really glad you’re a Green voter – good for you! See that is being nice by offering praise rather than just moaning and shitting on anothers view and opinion – see the difference to “And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.”
“It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.”
Quite right, it was never going to bring the voting masses flocking, it didn’t even bring out the 100,000 disaffected voters who stayed at home in 2011, so dead dodo of a turd policy.
That doesn’t mean the poorest and most vulnerable couldn’t and shouldn’t have been given an economic boost to raise them out of poverty, but to frame a workers package over non workers was just silliness. Thank fuck those days are over.
Very sweet of you to acknowledge non-working (because they don’t have job-holding, wage earning Mum and Dad)……’give them a boost by all means’ sort of shit.
You remind me of the lounge-fucks whose morals get a twinge the occasional night at 6.00 pm over Gaza.
Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?
So agreeing that non workers should get the same economic boost as wff recipients I’m a lounge-fuck moralist?
As a non working family man, I say shove it up your arse you misunderstanding, misreading, misrepresenting numb nut.
“Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?”
Ahh, a mip fuckwit 🙄 Explains it all.
“Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.”
You going to share that criticism with others with a similar view? Or just take out your mip loaded vendetta on me?
Shit, some of you people are touched in the head with your gang mentality. 🙄
I wish it was possible for people to get over the word “working” in WFF. I know it was implemented to boost the income of people with children who have a paying job but there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work. Would be great to see something that has the aim of Working For ALL Families..
“there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work.”
I agree, but I wish people would stop linking it to the working for families policy which is intended to boost the income of working families, as any connection with non workers sends the same dodo policy message of 2011.
I recommend assistance called working for children.
Quickly thinking about it, under present benefits, I’d have the dole paid as is, with a tax free working for children payment kicking in to increase the family take home to the same minimum take home level used in wff, which I believe is around $26k pa.
I’d keep wff as it’s a help to low income earners under the median wage, but I would heavily reduce the eligibility of wff above a lower income cutoff threshold to help pay for some of wfc.
Edit:
I’d also have a package for invalid beneficiaries too. Wfi
“But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.”
If you are having a ubi like some here want, I don’t think it matters what name it’s called.
In context of selling a working family tax credit for the unemployed or sick to the populace, wff isn’t the vehicle.
End result is the children and reduction of poverty, so if the final dollar level is the same, the name change negates any discrimination yet becomes instantly more palatable to ma and pa voter.
That’s a separate issue that needs addressing for sure but a policy that claims to work for families but only applies to people with both children and a job, is discriminatory.
What’s with you wanting something you’re not eligible for. Are you jealous?
Adult non child bearers or parents of children over 18 don’t get wff or wfc.
They can of course supplement their benefit with work or special assistance based on need.
Which is why it’s a crack arse crack head policy that won’t ever fly with mum and dad voters.
Frame it for the children and invalids and it’s caring, considered policy.
They would have been more honest to calling it “Subsidising Employers so Their Families Have More.” I shake my head when I see Labour bringing in yet another subsidy for employers or landlords.
Lanth, semantics semantics semantics, the Working for Families package was designed with the ‘deliberate’ view that benefit reliant children would be shut out,
The policy did not ‘have to’ be designed in such a fashion, it could have been designed for all children who’s parent(s) earned up to X amount of dollars,
Labour had that choice, it chose in my opinion the wrong options, including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy while at the same time cutting the rate of tax for business simply told me, and, 1000s of others like me, that Labour no longer valued or wanted my vote,
That said, in the year 2014, they wont be getting either of them…
Believe me, Puddleglum, I honestly hadn’t seen your TDB comment or, indeed, Michael Woods’ guest post until I clicked on your link just now. I only read TDB on an occasional basis, averaging about once every fortnight or so and, even then, I usually only have time to quickly skim a handful of posts. So I probably miss close to three-quarters of the various posts and associated comment threads.
We obviously had precisely the same visceral reaction to Pagani’s Pundit post. I certainly muttered a few sarcastic words (and, just possibly, the odd four-letter expletive) when I read the sheer audacity of her argument.(mind you, one of those four-letter expletives was: Spin, Spin, Spin !!!).
As I said we not only have the same interests but think along very similar lines (not only on Left politics, Opinion Poll analysis, but even extending to a fondness for Chomsky and Finkelstein on Israel/Palestine).
I should also add that we’ve even been carrying out similar/parallel research on political opinion in Christchurch. Last year, anticipating a close Chch East By-Election, I went through all the Candidate-Vote and Party-Vote results for all of the Christchurch seats for the last 3 Elections, compared them with the swing in the Country as a whole and then did something similar for both Enrollment and Turnout.
In the process, discovering (as I’d suspected) that both Farrar, John Armstrong and one or two others in the MSM had got things hopelessly wrong. I also managed to get my hands on some of that polling data carried out specifically in Christchurch earlier last year, as well as the census figures detailing the massive population movements in both Chch East and Central (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Port Hills, if I remember rightly). Indeed, the original motivation for setting up a blog was to use all of this research on Chch to counter any Farrar/Slater/MSM spin on what I anticipated would be this knife-edge By-Election result. And, of course, Labour won handsomely – and so the Blog’s inauguration got postponed until this year. So, the thing is, the parallels go way beyond the Undecideds.
It will be goldilocks approach for anything Key does, one will say he is doing too much, the other will say not enough and the conclusion readers will expect to each is that Key is being just right.
Even partisan Nat voters I chat to are appalled at the bias being shown by granny rnz and tv.
TVNZ are so far up themselves they dont see the danger in appointing a moderator who happily admits his bias.
A public broadcaster is sadly needed to be built by dismantling TVNZ which is simply a joke now.
Anyone catch that “hilarious” new show called the late breakfast with wells, hart etc…..I rest my case.
It looks as if they are preparing for a gloat-fest, doesn’t it. “Ah well, if only they had stayed with Shearer…” “But look at Key, his uncanny political instincts, etc, etc…” “The people have spoken, and sadly for Cunliffe…” It is up to us to get our vote out and deprive them of their fun.
The only dubious connection she has for Labour is that some years ago she stood as a candidate for Labour! Her so called ‘expert’ analysis and comments are so superficial, weak and actually biased and unsympathetic towards Labour and Cunliffe! The political bosses NZH seem too thick and perhaps too biased themselves not to to see this! If they have a genuinely right wing commentator, Cactus Kate, there, surely, they should get a genuinely left wing commentator for balance.
One thing is clear to me. Going into this election, Cunliffe and Labour are stacked against a pretty hostile and unfair media in front of them.
All the more reason to stop deliberately fucking up, then. Perhaps they are aware of some economic hot potato Labour don’t want to be left holding.
Seriously, how difficult is it? National’s pants are showing. Why frighten the voters? Get in power first and then bring about change. Where are the billboards?
My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.
This can only mean that the Israeli army and airforce are planing to demolish large areas of the city.
“My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.”
Yip, her “contacts in Gaza” just got a phone call telling them to evacuate, so during the rush to get out of their house, they thought “we should call up our good mate Jenny in NZ, the one with the persuasive media profile who will best be able to spread the message of what is happening right at the minute to the world at large”.
“I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?”
I’m more interested in knowing wher the National government is. Key is uniquely qualified as a world leader to call on Netanyahu to end the imprisonment and massacre of Palestinians but I’ve yet to read anything that says he has used any influence he may have. This contrasts strongly with his censure of Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
@ Te Reeo Putake and Lanthanide
What’s your point in sniggering at Jenny’s comment? Anger distress anxiety – that sort of response is understandable to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But sniggering no.
So what do your responses register from your standpoint that has meaning?
Those of us who can remember the ghettoising of the Jews in WWII would think that this smacks of the same process. Herd all the civilians into certain districts and demolish or confiscate their property. Dark irony indeed!
So whilst nick smith bullies fish and game about being political I noticed a Nat election billboard on DHB property, bet thats not considered political in the eyes of certain senior hospital officials recently appointed against official advice.
Sh1 mickey, I maybe wrong but I thought the waikato hospital owned all the way down to sh1 from their recently added A&E and other developments. Looked odd in passing.
oh great not thinking of joining the fool of a Labour campaign person who took a photo of bent Bankie chatting on his mobile phone while driving a car. But wait there is more, that clown apparently went to the cop shop to file a complaint in person.
That just smacks of pity little drama’s, I mean Banks has been dealt to and is history. Who gives a fuck about Banks anymore?
Come on mate let’s just work at lifting the vote and forget about the small stuff.
Slippery the Prime Minister is quoted in Grannies online version this morning as describing Smith’s threats against Fish and Game as ”silly” and ”unproductive”,
In other words the PM gives Smith a ”pull your head in notice”…
Quite some time ago there was a discussion on TS about the idea of Kelvin Davies standing aside in Te Tai Tokerau to allow Hone Harawira to win the seat. It was an idea I was cheer leading for.
Some time later LPrent cited an author (sorry can’t remember who, it was ages ago)who looked at how successful democracies function. Among three key points was a country’s ability to run a fair and honest contest between candidates. Contest being the key word.
Transferring that concept of contest into the NZ MMP environment puts a bit of stain on the idea of doing deals – and some may go so far as to say it undermines the voters right to make an educated choice as the sense of contest has diminished, ie they don’t get the full picture, rather their preferred party tells them who to vote for.
Labour haven’t done any deals.
National have. The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)
that will be scant consolation if that is the fulcrum around which a centre-left defeat swings..eh..?
..that refusal by labour to accomodate..where it is called for..
..(i don’t think it will be..as i see internet/mana doing much better than the experts/pundits are predicting..)
..but it does show up the logic-shortfalls currently bedeviling labour..
(and their ridiculous claims to win all the maori seats..makes them look as deluded/’barking’ as does flavell..when he makes that same farcical-claim for his sunset-party..)
..where really it is in their hands to both guarantee a stronger centre-left bloc..
..and to see off act/dunne..
..but because of their deeply-flawed first past the post thinking..
..they seemingly wd rather purposefully enhance their chances of defeat…
I also see IMP doing surprisingly well. They can stand on their own feet and contest their seats far and square, without any help from Labour – stepping aside. Good luck to them too. I want to see a healthy amount of IMP MP’s IN Government
Rather than hindering their chances phil, I think they come out looking better off. I heard some where on TS, feedback from the Epsom electorate suggesting the voters were tiring of being told what to do and treated like puppets.
Having another deal pushed on them might be too much. Might there might be a backlash and former ACT voters all vote Goldsmith in protest?
I don’t think the deal is going to go down well here in Ohariu. I will have me ear to the ground in coming weeks……………
It is going to happen sooner or later. Better for it to be done sooner, with plenty of notice and a very gradual increase, rather than later in a hurry.
Labour is proposing lifting the age by 2 years between 2020 and 2033. National, in 1992, increased the age by 1 year immediately and 4 years between 1993 and 2001.
If Labour’s proposal doesn’t get adopted soon, we’ll be looking at a similar rerun of National’s.
TRP – lol – onya mate – tenacious, dedicated, focused – the qualities of all good supporters – good luck for labour – the left need them there – “get your motor(s) running, head out on the highway…Fire all of your guns at once, And explode into space…”
Yep, I’m a true nature’s child, Marty! Thanks for the comment, made my morning.
And, to the others, the short version is that Labour electorate MP’s work hard to help their constituents, Nat MP’s don’t. As we know from the Cunliffe letter issue, electorate MP’s deal with thousands of requests. Labour MP’s actually give a shit about the battlers in their area and can and do make a difference. It’s not glamourous, it’s not often newsworthy, but it does give the poor and downtrodden some hope.
To give an example, if you were a Waitakere beneficiary needing help, do ya reckon Paula Benefit would lift a finger to assist you? The answer’s obvious, and the fact that she is an electorate MP is entirely down to left voters not using their electorate vote effectively.
Pretty good there BG – I agree that the Party vote is where it is at – please correct me if I’m wrong but unless you are on the Māori Roll you can’t ‘candidate vote’ Hone in Te Tai Tokerau. But you can give the Party Vote where ever you wish, I think. I wonder if someone can confirm – if a Party doesn’t have a candidate in a Māori Electorate, you can still give them a Party vote? Does every Party standing in the election give access to their Party vote or do they have to have a candidate? Probably only applicable to Māori seats but would be good to know – for academic purposes only of course 🙂
Correct, except if by some remote chance that in Epsom and ECB it is the Labour candidate that is actually leading (and not the Nat or ACT or the Cons candidate)! Not impossible, Huh?
Keep an eye out at Clutha Southland, ex English’s very occasional stomping ground.
I suspect National-ACT are playing a cunning and tricky game here,
National has put up a young unknown, an ex tobacco business peddler, Todd Barclay 23 as their lack lustre candidate, while ACT has put a well known Southland farmer and former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson as their candidate!
I think they are playing the Epsom game here quietly under the radar hoping that not many will notice! What do you think?
I’m a little bit frowny brow about the Don Nicholson scenario.
Folks from the Southland area, give us your thoughts and the word on the street or paddock gate. Better the devil you know? A well known Fed Farmer ex Prez Vs. the corporate fag trade kid. Would they not be inclined towards Nicholson as a known and one of their own?
Won’t the ACT line of Grr grumble, scrap the RMA, burn the rule book, freedom to pollute the waterways! go down well with the farming set?
(No disrespect intended to the farmers that are working very hard to take care of the environment and their animals. You are a growing number but it needs to be each and every farmer that takes this approach)
as the former Labour candidate, I can assure all that Don Nicholson will get no more votes this time around than last time around i.e. fuck all.
Also, the National Party could instruct their blue supporters in the electorate to vote ACT, but they’ll all still vote blue. Just the way it is. Southern principles vs Epsom expediency, you see.
By all accounts Kelvin davis is a good, intelligent man who’ll do a good job representing his electorate, he knows Labours numbers are in the toilet and that theres a good chance he might not get in on the list if he loses so whats in it for him to stand aside?
If Labour wanted him to stand aside they should have given him a more certain place on the list, like National did with Goldsmith
From memory I worked out Davis gets in on the list if Labour gets about 28.5%. IMO Labour voters are safe voting for Hone in the knowledge that they will probably get Davis too.
It does depend to a certain extent on electorate results.
Lolz @ ”Flyover finally over, sky about to fall in” the headline accompanying an opinion piece looking at the decision by the independent commissioners to can the proposed ‘white elephant’ the Basin Reserve flyover in today’s DomPost,
The evil little child in me was hoping that this piece of roading insanity would get the nod as from my look at the proposal it would have created gridlock for all of the traffic in the lower eastern sector of actual city traffic,
Only the supremely stupid would attempt to design a roading network by speeding traffic flows toward a major choke point,(the Mt Vic Tunnel), a) with the now defunct proposal of the Basin flyover, and b), with work about to begin on drilling the second Terrace Tunnel,
Perhaps such design is deliberate where the inevitable clusterf**k results in an enraged public demanding yet another ‘fix’ thus keeping the planners on the gravy train,
The only logical means of increasing the flow of traffic across the network is to in fact double lane the piece of road on the eastern side of the Mt Vic tunnel and then drill another tunnel through Mt Vic itself,
Of course, all that being said, the ‘planners’ could probably achieve most of their aims at far less cost by building a system where Park’n’Ride from public transport hubs becomes a viable option for all the outlying Wellington City suburbs…
I always wondered why the bus tunnel wasn’t widened to divert Hataitai/Evans Bay traffic away from the main flow. Ok, there’d be an increase in traffic up one street in Mt Vic, but surely it would help?
Yeah true TRP, i doubt the bus tunnel needs have anything ‘done to it, at rush hour, the only time the network becomes ‘stuck’, the bus tunnel could be simply utilized by having an unimpeded flow of traffic through it Eastward in the afternoon and Westward in the morning,
(as kids we used to risk life and limb by roaring through that particular tunnel in our Mk1 Zephyrs and PA Vauxhaulls as our personal shortcut),
i can tho see any attempt to convince people on both sides of that particular structure,(the bus tunnel), that their quiet streets should suddenly become a major part of the roading network getting petty ‘hot’,
A budget option for the removal of a significant part of the traffic flow that now passes the Basin Reserve it would surely be tho…
You went through in a car? What a softy! I used to wait for a bus to enter then cycle frantically behind it hoping to get out the other side before the next bus turned up. Good times!
Riii-iight, you must have been out to really impress the opposite with your choice of ride TRP, if you will excuse any unintended sexism, a real ‘babe magnet’ your bike must have been,
Soft i doubt, on occasion our ride through that tunnel was more to do with desperate needs, one particular jaunt being one of my many convictions, i can tell you that the bus tunnel was favored as the means of transport/distribution for the contents of a Toops truck in the early hours of one Wellington morning…
Don’t know why you doubt me about the alcoves though, they’re spaced along the walls at even intervals. The trick is to count your paces. You start counting again every time you pass one so you always know how many steps forward to the next one or back to the last one.
They’re only about a foot deep and be a bit tricky to see when you’re running toward the lights of an oncoming bus.
Alien’s knitting needle strikes wickedly and i laughs, its too late in the piece for me to inquire at whom such wickedness is directed, as i do not plan on spending the next 3 hours trading handy hints on how best to darn socks at this particular time of night…
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up at 3 in the morning, half an hour before we went to bed, get down on hands and knees at city end of Mt Vic Road Tunnel, lick pavement clean with our tongues, then crawl bare-kneed all way through to t’other side of tunnel while singing hallelujah chorus. And if we beat all odds and made it to t’other side before being slammed by two Big Reds coming from opposite directions then Our father would belt hell out of us wi’ shovel and dance on our graves whilst whistling old Tex Morton ballads, if we were lucky!!!
Me too, I think that the good burghers of Hataitai might not like the extra traffic. I often thought that the basin problem would go away if the two tunnels were made part of a one way system each way.
That’s the way I feel about the Waterview Connection in west Auckland. The hold up is getting onto the motorway in peak times. Improving the connection to the motorway, will just rearrange the way motorists queue to get onto the motorway.
And the all too predictable partisanship from the Dom Post. Front Page headlines shouting DISASTER !!! for two consecutive days. With former Labour MP/Mayor-turned-ACT-zealot, (Wellington Regional Council Chairwoman) Fran Wilde, given enormous space by the editor to bullshit away……
The sky is falling, the sky is falling, Laughable, the frigging Wellington Regional Council is growing proof to that old adage about Lefties jerking to the Right as they grow older…
Norman Finkelstein on the Method in Israel’s Madness…see both videos (Gaza: Is there method in the Madness July 28 and Gaza: Ceasefire or Surrender ? July 27) here… http://normanfinkelstein.com/
“In Berlin, police had to step in to protect an Israeli tourist couple at the weekend after protestors turned on them when they spotted the man’s yarmulke. Demonstrators reportedly charged towards the couple shouting “Jew! We’ll get you!..
…In Paris, hundreds of protestors have attacked synagogues, smashed the windows of Jewish shops and cafes, and set several alight, including a kosher grocery store which reportedly burned to the ground…
…There have been reports of protestors in Germany chanting “Jews to the gas chambers”, and police in Berlin have banned protestors from using another popular slogan: “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone..
Police have opened an investigation into the imam of a Berlin mosque after he allegedly called on Muslims to murder Jews in a sermon. “.
Don’t know what you do about human desperation and anger when it is en masse….
Perhaps, if more synagogues and Jewish congregations were seen to be publicly against what is going on, the focus would remain where it belongs – with the Israeli government and the IDF.
More interesting Finkelstein has approvingly posted an article that basiclly sums up what I think needs to happen:
“The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region.
That is the only approach that can solve the problem of Gaza.
That is the only approach that will eliminate the threat to Israel continually issuing from Gaza.
That is the only approach that will extricate the non-belligerent Palestinians from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques who led them astray for decades.
That is the only approach that will preclude a need for Israel to “rule over another people.””
Actually my bad, I missed Finkelstein’s sarcasm in the title – it was kind of obscure and the article posted without comment.
You may call it “ethnic cleansing” but neither of these two groups want to live with each other – way to much blood under the bridge, way to much fear about what they might try to do to each other in the future.
It’s not about Finkelstein; it’s about your support for the most right wing of Israeli ethnic cleansing positions, saying that it sums up “what you think”.
To Colonial Viper above ( the reply link is missing in your post again ) –
The Jews need their own country after what happened to them, you can not deny that.
Unfortunately it ended up on the Palestinians when probably it should have been part of Germany that got handed over. Definitely not going to happen now.
So better to bite the bullet than continue this never ending conflict.
Your Muslim mates burning Israeli flags on NZ streets or attacking Jews on European streets is no answer.
Oh I don’t care about any of your cover up after-story.
I just noted that complete destruction of the Palestinian state, transportation of all indigenous people away from their homes en masse (protip: you should do it by rail cars, they’re very efficient), and a complete takeover of all Palestinian lands by Israel “basiclly sums up what [you] think needs to happen”
Hilarious stuff !!! You don’t understand Finkelstein’s sense of humour too well, do you ?
Now let’s see, an internationally respected scholar and human rights activist who has given most of his adult life to fighting for the basic rights guaranteed to Palestinians by International Law (first and foremost by brilliantly demolishing the on-going stream of Israeli propaganda through systematic forensic analysis of the factual/diplomatic record) “APPROVINGLY” posts a rant by a deeply racist Far Right Israeli Zionist, IDF Officer and one-time ministerial advisor to the right-wing former terrorist and Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, does he ?????
I think not, me old luv. Norman Finkelstein regularly posts some of the loonier Israeli propaganda so readers can see the nutters they’re dealing with. Why do you think he added the sarcastic “(While we’re on the subject of dismantling)” to Sherman’s rant ? I would suggest it was a reference to dismantling Sherman’s Right-Wing Zionist Think-Tank (with the amusingly ‘academic’ and bona fide-sounding name) – The Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
What Israel is doing is not entirely defensible, but it is understandable.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been on the receiving end of endless vicious beatings culminating in the attempt to exterminate them entirely in Europe, the Jews wouldn’t have needed their own country.
The reasoning is pretty simple – the ultra right wing militarist/ultra religious settler 10% of the population is dictating the direction of the entire nation. Wag the dog. It is leading to insanity amongst the Israeli power elite and it is undermining Israel as a free and democratic Jewish state.
I see the British government is going to make those on the unemployment benefit prove they have applied for 40 jobs every month and work around 25 hours a week. A totally impractical rule that is going to make the unemployed ‘s lives even more hellish.
Mind you, I believe there’s more than a touch of that here in NZ. Those applying for the unemployment benefit, for instance, are required to prove conclusively to WINZ that they have been steadily applying for jobs over previous weeks. And then, it seems, they have to jump through a whole series of other hoops before they get even a sniff of the benefit.
WINZ pretty much demands that you apply for 5 jobs a day. They don’t seem to realise that if there were 5 jobs a day for everyone to apply for there wouldn’t be any unemployment. And then they’ll kick you off the benefit if you upset them even when you have been applying for 5 jobs a day.
“A former principal and her husband who scammed $30,000 from a decile one school have abandoned their appeal after a judge told them they may be jailed.
Colleen Margaret Gray, 66, and Bruce Kenneth Gray, 65, siphoned the money from Mayfield Primary School in Otara, using it on overseas trips and lavish meals between 2005 and 2007.”
Any idea what are these “dark rumours that Pablo is talking about?
“One thing is certain. If dark rumours are correct, the government has some unpleasant surprises for the IP in the weeks leading to the election. If that happens, it may take more than Glenn Greenwald and his revelations about John Key and the GCSB to redeem the IP in the eyes of the voting public. I would hope that both Dotcom and his IP candidates are acutely aware of what could be in store for them should the rumours prove true, and plan accordingly.”
Blubber Boy Whalespew reckons he has something to release that will destroy both Dotcom and Hone. I doubt if there’s anything to it. His Whalespew army will probably get all overexcited and double their masturbatory frequency, but that’ll be it. The fool thought he was going to get rid of Len Brown, and as far as I can see, he’s lucky he didn’t end up sharing a cell with Wewege. Then the morans who read his crap could make their sick Bubba jokes about him.
Nothing sloppy in my writing. I simply stated the fact that there are well-known rumours about some damning unpleasantness the government may or may not have on Dotcom, and that whatever it is will be revealed in the lead up to election day. Others have already alluded to this, to the point of speculating that it could be part of a disinformation or smear campaign against Dotcom. Whatever the case, such revelations could serve as a trump on anything Dotcom plans to reveal about Key, the GCSB etc., and could terminally hurt by association the image of the IP and its candidates.
It’s odd that National are going to that amount of trouble if they think Dotcom has absolutely nothing on Key and that the IP will be an irrelevance in the election being so ‘far left’ and ‘radical’ that New Zealanders will pay no notice.
I thought Key’s strategy was to ignore Dotcom?
It’s either petty personal vengeance on Key’s part or an attempt to spike guns (which suggests they think the guns need to be spiked).
Interesting that rumours are being seeded at this stage – by whom? Has anyone asked Key directly about what he knows and why it’s not being released now?
And isn’t it vital that ‘we’ know now if it’s vital ‘we’ know just before the election? (I think that was the argument used against the 15 September timing for Dotcom’s ‘bomb’, wasn’t it?)
Matters of democratic process, misuse of intelligence capabilities, and gaming of nationwide elections are big fucking deals. I don’t think Pablo’s style is that of yanking our chain just for the hell of it.
KDC’s given Key plenty of warning. And Key is head of the SIS and well connected with a whole lot of machinery beyond the SIS. Do you really think he’s sailing into Dotcom’s trap without a plan of his own.
No, I don’t. What is very concerning to me is what you pointed out. John Key is not above using the SIS, GCSB, the Police and the judicial system to gather information against his political opponents. He has referred to the GCSB as “my agency” previously, and I suspect he considers it his own Private Eye firm to use for whatever he sees fit in his own view of New Zealand’s security.
I have heard the rumours but am loathe to repeat them because I have no first hand way of ascertaining their veracity. The rumours have two parts: 1) the unpleasantness; 2) the government’s knowledge and intention to use it should it be deemed necessary. CV’s second paragraph pretty much captures the gist.
TBH my concern in this regard is not so much Dotcom but IP candidates, a couple of who I know personally, being tarred by association. The idea, if I read the rumour mill correctly, is also twofold: first, to discredit the IP by revealing the unpleasantness, thereby demonstrating that those who jumped on the Dotcom bandwagon were venal opportunists or naive fools who either did not check or choose to ignore Dotcom’s purportedly darker baggage (and are thereby unfit to hold political office); and second, to neutralise any Snowden furnished revelations about the GCSB’s role in Echelon and/or John Ky’s prior knowledge of the US plan to capture Dotcom. Since some of the IP candidates are people of integrity who would be valuable contributors to NZ’s political life now or in the future, I would hate to see them be destroyed by National’s hard nosed machinations (in the event the scenario plays out as described).
However, the way things are shaping up National should not have to use this trump card, so if it does it will be done out of spite rather than as a political manoeuvre.
I have heard the content of the rumours but prefer not to repeat them since I am unable to independently ascertain their veracity. But the thrust is twofold: 1) the unpleasantness involving Dotcom; 2) the government’s knowledge of and intent to use it if deemed necessary. CV basically has the gist down in his second paragraph.
National’s intent is also twofold. The first is to discredit by association the IP and its candidates. They will be shown to be venal opportunists or naive fools who choose to jump on the Dotcom bandwagon ignorant or in spite of his darker baggage, thereby making them collectively unsuitable for public office. Secondly, revelations of an unpleasant sort regarding Dotcom will counter any Snowden derived exposure of GCSB activities in Echelon or Key’s knowledge of the US intent to capture Dotcom in NZ. The reasoning is that the Dotcom revelations will have a more visceral impact on the public, which is already pretty much “over” the spying controversies. It remains to be seen if any of these assumptions prove true in the event the scenario plays out as described.
However, because I know two IP candidates personally and find them to be people of integrity who can contribute positively to NZ political life now and in the future, I do not want to see their reputations besmirched by National’s hard ball machinations. The irony is that as things are presently shaping up, National’s resort to this tactic will be done out of mean spirited spite rather than perceived political necessity.
How is National and its bloggers gathering this information? Do you believe, as I do, that government spy agencies are being used to unearth this darker baggage, as you call it? If so, it could bring spying controversies back on the table for the New Zealand public.
Kiwis generally like fair play – or at least we used to.
Some of the supposedly dark information may have come from US authorities, not necessarily from the NSA or one of the local spy agencies. Think of who pushed for the raid. Wherever it may have come from, there is no doubt that, at least up until the Kitteridge report on the GCSB and her subsequent appointment as director of the SIS, NZ spy agencies did traffic in personal information for political purposes, and that under Key this information was passed to National-linked hatchet bloggers. You can make your own conclusions about such practices and how they impact on organisational professionalism within the intelligence community.
The question remains as to whether they continue to do so in spite of the pledges of reform (something called for in a recent State Services Commission report in the wake of the GCSB scandal). Absent effective independent oversight authority, we may never know the answer.
PS: Sorry for the double post above. The first one disappeared after posting so I re-wrote it more or less along the same lines. The wording is a bit different but the thrust is the same. No sooner had I written the second version than the first one popped up on the thread, and I have no means of deleting it. Oh well.
But able to promote voting, and herself, for being involved in the campaign.
I know she was at a rich kid school, spotted by a fellow rich kids record company dad, so what’s the real deal Yella? Pro royal or pro pauper?
I have to say I admire that 1d lad for not removing his pro Palestinian tweet.
Bully? Oh ffs Mars, that’s lame, it’s a perfectly valid comment to ask of the decile 10 school kid who got famous when her royal song was co-written, bearing in mind the lyrics to that tune and the gist of the song.
I half expect a photo with JK, but she can always come out and say how she really relates to the meaning behind her breakthrough hit and show support for the underdogs in society, just like the 1D kid has.
Billy Bragg she aint, but who knows.
You accused me the other night of being a one trick pony. Now just because you got upset about what I wrote about kdc and hh you’re on one. 🙄
For the record (no pun), when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away… And you already know who I’m voting for – The depressed and hungry people of NZ.
You are full of shit allen – just a nobody with envy of others because imo you don’t really like yourself very much – it’s okay I can understand why you’d feel that way 🙂
And the last time you tried to ‘bully’ lorde I said the same thing so your anti IMP opinions today are no big thing other than I can’t really let your ‘views’ stand without some corrections – hope you don’t mind 🙂
Totally unnecessary first paragraph.
I’ve established it isn’t bullying by clearly laying out the points.
And a bit of a wah wah second effort verse to finish.
Yep, you got some up you alright, but no fear, it’s all fair in love and war.
You’ve no right to the high ground, so get down from your perch 😉
But if you want to side with a rich kid and go gaga, I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean look how hone ran and dribbled after kim’s moolah 😆
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a dim fellow indeed.
Besmirch, hark at you. And moral ground, no, not mine to hold, just like you.
If the consensus is widespread that I’m a bully for asking the Royals hitmaker to come forward and reveal who she’d vote for while promoting herself and the youth vote, given her wedge and various commercial contracts, and is followed by bold text of doom, I’ll walk away and never return.
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a very, very, very dim fellow indeed.
To be clear, if you have the numbers, get the big boss to bold type me for it and I’ll walk.
Otherwise cork your faux outrage and agree to clear off yourself for pulling the bullying attack line.
No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines.
You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned if you think it will improve your chances, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, big ups to that 1 direction dude. Kudos bruv for not letting your handlers or your bank balance or your projected earnings get in the way of doing the right thing.
signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original – lol – “say hello to my little friend…”
“signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original”
Erm, you are the snide, calling me a bully, hence “No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines”.
Obviously I can’t call you a thicko now, not that I would, but chuckling an irony laugh for posterity. 😆
Anyhow, off to download lorde’s co-written album now :snort:
You know I’m feeling generous especially after standing room only in Rotorua for the roadshow so I’m not going to reply to you again (after this one). Stop picking on Lorde, especially when she is trying to get young people to vote – it shows your petty, foolish side and is most unbecoming.
Translated that means I got fuck all and everyone knows it, except pu and felix, who also bear long time grudges, making you the limping three legged lame attack donkey from hell. 😆
Oh allen what a weak little man you are – you have shown your true colours – picking on a seventeen year old because you are jealous of their success and then prattling on making demands, confirming your dimness – lol – stick to trying to bully and besmirch a successful young women who is getting young people to vote but even then I’m sure Lorde would dispatch you like mowing a weed if she could be bothered with a envious thicko like you.
You have nothing but the backing of a couple of village idiots.
You don’t have to agree with me about Yella, hell, she might even surprise and vote mip, but it still doesn’t mean the question is bullying or besmirching.
You’re just tossing off slinging shit in the hope it sticks.
I thank the 1d guy for having the nads to be political and stick to the correct side of right. I wish you had the fortitude to do the same.
Lorde was working to get young people to vote even though she can’t – you are a sad dim thicko if you can’t see the value in that – but oh know it’s all about how she is successful and how you’ll donate 100% of your money when you are – lol do you realise what a loser argument you have there?
I’ve never said there isn’t value in her getting first timers out to vote, so strike one for the sad thicko barb.
I would like to know who she’d vote for this election, if she could, as I wonder if the money and fame had eroded the (false?) image of urban battler from Royals, or if she’d stay true to the message she sold the kids. No biggie, but a valid question nonetheless. I like credible heroes and heroines.
The rest is just you getting arsey over mip, like you get arsey over race, like you get arsey when disagreed with, like you get arsey when confronted with differing opinion. I don’t need to flag you for it, it’s historically obvious.
I’d still donate any money I made from my music, as I have publicly stated before. Loser argument or not, I’m guessing it’s an eye of the beholder thing, or most likely for you, a green eyed beholder thing, which is all good, I’m arrogant enough to take it as a compliment 😉
You’re chucking my insults at you back at me again fool.
btw – it’s a fucken song mate and the lyrics are words for the song not a manifesto for a life – bloody hell are you completely clueless and up yourself?
You know what marty, I suspect a few expected more from you, but your line and angle of attack have been pretty shonky all through this exchange.
As for fucken song and not a manifesto etc… She made a mint, well half a mint, off it, and kids bought into it big time apparently, so again, the interest in whether she’d be a sell out and vote nat or be with the poor kids and be a lefty remains valid, especially in context of the 1 direction tweet from a young man willing to do/say the right thing.
Everything else is your sideshow and distraction because you got your arse in your hands over me. You know it’s true ’cause you got the form.
pathetic allen – bully tactics never work laddie especially when tinged with envy and spite – the exchange is here for people to read I have no worries at all about that but I wouldn’t say the same if I was you…
You’re out to ‘win’ and fair play to you, but it shouldn’t be at whatever cost. Slinging around terms like bully and bullying young women, just to get that net ‘victory’ is still lame as that three legged donkey, especially when it’s clear it’s not about the girl at all, but your vanity and agenda.
I too am content with the dialogue, and as always, rest easy on my laurels.
Female parts, how very misogynist of you.
But seeing I couldn’t give a crap, go for it puddycat. It’s still the end as far as that particular statement goes.
The end of any statement is the end of that particular statement.
Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.
ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.
“ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.”
Clearly not, because she has class and can elucidate.
“You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
Nobody is faceless with their own web page.
It’s not unverifiable pledge because it’s in the public domain and has been since my first post here.
It’s not undefined, because I’ve stated it’s money.
It’s an unspecified time until that time arrives.
I am a man of my word. The End.
But feel free to try and prove me wrong by getting me signed, buy my songs and see if I stay true to my pledge or not. 😉
I answered every point you made and it’s hilarious. How so?
I made that same pledge to the site admin here, in an email before I even started posting, in the hope someone would help me set up a trust to do just that.
My fault a lack of talent got in the way of a good idea, but if that email was on record and presented, you’d look like a sack of shite.
Like I said, I’m a man of my word. Any money I make from music would be given away, 100% or I’d be damned.
Now get to fu8k, unless you go to LP and ask if the email still exists.
Hilarious that you think you answered anything.
Hilarious that you think it would matter if you had.
Hilarious that you’re still going on about it.
Hilarious that you ever started.
Hilarious that you’re so upset over others’ successes.
Hilarious that you pretend you’re above such silliness.
Hilarious the chasm between what you say
and what you present.
“Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
I’ve answered and you’re circle jerking your way around it.
If you believe I’m not a man of my word, like I claim, and it’s all rather hilarious, go hunt for my first post, try around December 2012 just before xmas. I made a request for help in setting up a charitable trust.
Better still, seek confirmation of the email I sent via this sites contact button. If it exists, I don’t mind it’s publication, bad English and all.
It’s only unverifiable if you don’t go and seek out the information I’ve presented you with.
It’s only faceless pseudonym if you don’t know how to use a whois site.
“Must be true then”
Of course, just like I’ve been saying, I’m a man of my word.
I’ve even had a phone conversation with a trusted contributor from this very place about my plans.
You have all the info you need to verify, but I’m picking, by form, you’d rather wank yourself stupid in denial rather than get proved wrong, which is of course fine by me.
It’s unverifiable because you haven’t specified anything. You’ll donate all your money when you’re famous? Is that what you said? ffs man how the hell is that ever going to be measured, quantified, qualified or verified?
Meanwhile, a 17 year old girl stands up and does some good in the world and you try to knock her down.
“Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.”
How many The Al1ens do you think there are? I think a best seller would be a bit of a clue, a sort of give away don’t you think? True in all likelihood to not happen, but ‘if’ it did, I’d would be true to my public stated pledges.
“Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.”
I’ve not scorned her. I have questioned who the decile 10 schooled kid with wedge would vote for, which isn’t really the same thing at all.
But getting first time voters in the polling booths is admirable and I’ve no issue with that, why would I? It is commendable aim on behalf of all those involved.
If it’s so obvious and so easy then go ahead and define precisely what constitutes you being “famous” so we know when to check up on you and your charitable status.
If you can’t define it, then you haven’t pledged anything.
Are you for real, catflap? I wrote hours ago if I make any money from my music. If you see The Al1en cds in the shops, or on itunes or even on my own site, then I reckon that’s somewhat conclusive as ‘famous’ or making money.
I wouldn’t ever sign a deal unless all my share of the royalties were paid in (or for) perpetuity into a charitable trust, because, fucking funny enough, I’m a man of my word.
Could you imagine the scandal if some fuckwit from a blog, with a grudge, out to settle scores exposed me as a fraud 🙄 😆
“checklist:….likes winston peters….is jealous of lordes’ success…..is homophobic….’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?”
0/4 And I have to say, with the permission of the guvnor, you’re half as dim as I thought you were.
“no balls snidey back door merchants”
“You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned”
Go on, try really hard and make that link 🙄 😆
(A clue, it’s not about where your brainbox is).
If he’s in government with the greens and labour he’ll do a good job as foreign minister, just like last time.
Winston ruling out mip takes some pressure of DC. Maybe they’ve been chatting, which like the decision to exclude kdc and his puppets, is a good thing with a view of forming a stable government post election.
I’m not discouraged.
Laila Harre could be the glorious Giant killer! Could very well be the Boudicia and Joan of Arc of NZ politics. She could make unforgettable history and a long lasting legend! Never say never. Nothing is impossible!
I am interested to hear your thoughts on Winston’s stand today when he said that he will not work with either of the what he termed, ‘racist’ parties, Mana and Maori Parties.
What do you think is his strategy here?
I am thinking that there may actually be not a single Maori Party MP after this election anyway, while there will most certainly be Internet-Mana MPs! So, Winston is probably more likely to marry Key/National rather than support Labour and the progressives. Isn’t that the more likely scenario, unless he stays outside with C and S which is not his style though!
+1
A neolib cadre in the 90s who as a senior government member pushed for the break up of ECNZ, removed tariffs destroying car assembly, and helped punish the poor.
He now profits from bemoaning the state of the world, and no-one hardly questions it!
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” Marcus Tullius Cicero.
I most certainly do not agree with your assessment of Winston. He is NOT that sort of a person at all. You can not demean him so unfairly for some of the policies you oppose that he has supported in his career. He has shown he is a very concerned caring patriot in many ways, including walking out of the National party for their Neo liberal capitalist policies/support of big business/corrupt practices/asset sales etc. While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election. But that is his prerogative and political strategy. That does not make him evil. People are free to decide and vote accordingly.
The quote you wrote is of course such a great quote and so true. Does not apply to Winston though.
While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
Nothing that the 5th Labour government did was revolutionary. Most of it didn’t go against the ingrained neo-liberal paradigm that’s tearing our country apart.
The WFF, Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Saver, Paid parental leave, Rise in minimum wage, Early childhood funding, Increases in health care, Free doc visits for kids, Dental clinics in schools, Employment relations act etc etc were Neo-liberal and not social/economic revolutionary bold programmes?
They were reasonable initiatives to take the edge off of Ruth Richardson neoliberalism.
WFF – a tax cut for the working class and comfortable middle class. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Kiwi Bank – which Anderton made Labour do. NZ has had a Post Office bank for decades. (Nor revolutionary or bold).
Rise in minimum wage. Standard social democratic thing to do. (Not revolutionary or bold).
ERA. Rolled back some of the capitalist excesses of the ECA. But gave workers next to no assistance in organising or striking. No mention of penal rates for overtime. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Yep, for once i can agree with you Phillip, my longer comment on this hit moderation, but, Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% isn’t to hard to imagine, and if either Annette or Hone win their seats,(i expect both to), then it can be done with InternetMana accruing 4%,
Labour/Green doing any % higher than attributed above simply makes it that much easier…
Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% would make Winston and NZFirst null and void, while Winston is ‘talkin tough’ about both the Maori Party,(which i do not expect to gain any seats anyway), and, InternetMana i think that NZFirst may be in a far weaker position than Winstons ravings would indicate,
Obviously the latest from Winston is a nod toward Slippery the Prime Minister for kicking the electoral legs out from under Colon and the Conservatives and will be seen by many as an indication of an inclination toward National, (myself included in the latter group),
Winston’s problem here is that with some Big Bucks Colon the Conservative is likely to attract an even bigger buzzy bee into His bonnet fighting all that much harder for the loose frilly bits of lace hanging from the pretty coat of National and thus may send both down in a ball of electoral fire with neither party quite being able to attain the magic 5%,
Winston’s other problem, there were at the 2011 contest one hell of a lot of people that had one thought in mind as Phill Goff first fumbled and then stumbled during that campaign, that thought?, ”no way were National getting to Govern alone”, and despite having to hold firmly their nasal protuberances For NZFirst they voted,
That vote, who can ever really know its size, simply will not be ticking the NZFirst box on the ballot papers in 2014,
Labour 33%, Greens 12%, InternetMana 5%, its doable and it might be time to retire Winston from the game…
Lolz, i was wondering why this particular comment hit ‘moderation’, its the ‘A’ in gmail i got my fat little fingers to mangle into the wrong position…
Yesterday Nine to Noon covered the digital devices in classrooms issue with American computer scientist Kentaro Toyama.
Key point is that digital devices amplify the school environment’s existing culture: high functioning schools do even better; in schools with behavioural/learning issues the devices are a distraction.
The assumption that tech devices will somehow close the gaps between high and low decile schools is wrong.
‘NICK SMITH’S crude intimidation of the Fish and Game Council points to the bleakest of environmental futures should National be re-elected on 20 September.’–Chris Trotter.
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — This narrow strip of land that used to be called “the Gaza Strip,” already one of the more densely populated places on earth, is growing dramatically smaller. The Israeli military, relentlessly and methodically, is driving people out of the three-kilometer (1.8 mile) buffer zone it says it needs to protect against Hamas rockets and tunnels. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the buffer zone eats up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory.
No joke. This is a big thing. Must be money in it.
Disgusting that the jews have to kill children and imprison them and their parents though. I guess maybe, , , is it revenge? Is that what Israel is doing? Is it simple revenge?
From places frequented the Israelis have a pretty poor reputation so perhaps this is just their natural setting.
Inspirational program from Nigel Latta. No doubt Key will condemn it which would indicate that it is powerful and refutes the Government position.
The Unequal Society. With facts and figures.
The Rich get Richer while the Poor get beaten.
Must watch before Key conspires to have it banned!
TV1 9:30pm.
@ ianmac 10.22
Naturally the much touted freedom for the public to watch tv on demand has to have a catch, a barrier which I have to climb over. A block sign comes up and when I click on it I have a window with brightcove.com and various settings. It is harder to get government to give you anything in a straightforward and simple way than it is for a rich man to ride a camel through the eye of a needle and get to heaven. Or something. I probably am confused.
Will flag down my computer-literate white knight. (Not being racist – it’s just a saying! I would find a brown black red or yellow one just as useful as a spotty pink one. Though perhaps I would not welcome a blue-green one.)
a few ppl on facebook are saying they just turned 18 & then received a letter from national pimping for their vote. they are curious as to how they would have gotten that information, because both ppl didnt think they put it anywhere (knowingly) public. weird?
“Our recents studies show you have just turned 18 which means you can vote.
Here are 3 Reasons why we reckon we are better than the rest,
1. We spend our money wisley in your community.
2. We believe Christchurch depends on us.
3. Most of all, as a whole New Zealand are going to need National in the next three years to boost the income and just become a better place to live.
WE BELEIVE YOU SHOULD VOTE NATIONAL
#ForABetterNZ.
5 film companies want to sequester (I think that’s the word) all of Dotcom’s assets to hold for three years. Usually can be done in a criminal prosecution but this is at a civil
stage. The guns are out.
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 ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from 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 public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
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:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
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. ...
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 ...
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. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
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 Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
MEDIA ADVISORY: Annette Sykes to launch campaign for Waiariki
Annette Sykes, MANA candidate for Waiariki
Monday 28 July 2014
At midday tomorrow, Annette Sykes will officially launch her campaign to win the Waiariki electorate seat for MANA in the upcoming general election.
“A key goal for MANA this election is to mobilise our people to vote, especially rangatahi, and win Waiariki. To help with this we’ve got Maisey Rika, Cliff Curtis, and our MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu, all lending their support for the launch and the wider campaign” said Ms Sykes.
“MANA is committed to changing the government and here in Waiariki we’re fully geared up for the task. We’ve already got our billboards up and from next week we’ll be knocking on every voter’s door in the electorate asking them for their support” said Ms Sykes.
“Creating new jobs, and ensuring existing jobs – including those in forestry – are safe and paid at least a living wage are a top priority for MANA, and I’ll be talking more about this at the launch” concluded Ms Sykes.
When: 12 noon, Tuesday 29 July (POHIRI)
Where: Apumoana Marae, Tarawera Road, Rotorua
When: 6:00-8:00pm, Tuesday 29 July (PUBLIC MEETING)
Where: Distinction Hotel, Rotorua
House DJ: Hone Djporoufessor Ngata
Guest performance by Maisey Rika and appearances by Cliff Curtis and MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu.
All media welcome.
ENDS
For further information please contact Te Ringahuia Hata, (021) 236-0931.
Oops the above just arrived in my inbox now. Just noticed the date. Can anyone give a report of this event?
Don’t you actually read before you post, Jenny?
The media advisory is dated Mon, 28 July BUT the actual events are today, Tues, 29 July.
Espiner’s interviews Cunliffe on Morning Report
Another miserable effort by the state broadcaster.
Not one question about policy, just polls.
I had to laugh at Cunliffe’s comment that he preferred Rush Limbaugh to Mike Hosking to run the leader’s debate but Limbaugh was unavailable!
that is exactly how labour should play this – make the point, but have a laugh
+100 Framu
😀
Seemed like a perfectly fine interview to me.
Politics is about more than just policy.
About more than just polls as well.
it depends on how the follow up is framed for me
much like “cunliffe only aims to get 40%” thing where rnz claimed they were paraphrasing even though cunliffe pointed out that guyon was attempting to put words in his mouth
this interview had the same hallmarks
But he wouldn’t answer the question about tactical voting of Labour supporters in Epsom. Dodge, dodge and dodge.
Lanthanide is right, politics is more than just policy.
The Herald have announced two new columnists for the election period Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the supposed left. The trouble with this choice is that if you averaged out where they are on the political spectrum you would get someone in the same space as John Key.
What a surprise …
The one thing Josie is excellent at is managing her media career.
whacka thump whacka thump … sound of flat tyre approaching
many regular Standard posters and commenters could do a way more useful job
I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left” under Cunliffe for what she obviously presumes will be a substantial Electoral Defeat and calls for the Restoration of the Party’s ABC Grandees to their rightful place on the Labour throne.
“The party made David Cunliffe leader for his strategy of shoring up the base with a more militant tone. He’s delivered on that strategy but it hasn’t worked……It’s too late to ditch some of the rhetoric that made people doubt whether you would put them ahead of sectarian interests……”
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-does-labour-do-now
Conveniently overlooking, of course, the fact that back in the days when Cunliffe really was pushing core Labour values, the Party’s support conspicuously soared to 37% (reaching a monthly average of 35% for 3 of the last 4 months of 2013, something Shearer managed to do in just one of the 20 months in which he was leader).****
What’s more, it’s clear that for Josie, “people” = equal those employed who are currently supporting National. In contrast, Benies, the Undecided and the Missing Million presumably = equal “non-people” who deserve little if any electoral consideration.
****(Important to remember this, incidently, whenever Jane Clifton, Matthew Hooton or various Tory Tr*lls turn up to tell us Labour were on the way up under Shearer and if only the Party had stuck with him…I’ll be posting about this on sub-zero in the very near future)
“..I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left”..”
pagani did that last time..
..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..
..and to fast-track that change into place…by 2021….(only ten yrs/3 elections after that election..)
..if ya didn’t laff..you’d fucken weep….
“..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..”
It was radical in the context of the electorate. It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the good or just.
isn’t labour just a ‘scared’ party..?
..and you..lanth…u agree with pagani..?
..that the undoing of the demonising of the poorest by clark etc. was too hard a task…?
..that ‘the electorate’ wd rather our shameful levels of poverty/inequality should continue..?
..as i said..herein/therein labours’ problems are crystalised..
..and lest i be accused of more ‘hate-campaigns’..i will note that it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..
..when they do…
..so..strategically..i shd support labour not having poverty-busting policies..(yet again..)..
..but i don’t..
..to me it just symbolises how lost in neo-lib-land labour still are…
“the demonising of the poorest by clark ”
Citation needed.
“it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..”
And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.
… you scoff at 1%, sneer at the support to date for a new grouping and a new vision for the future and then have the puffery to go all ‘credible parties of the left’ onit. Vote for whoever you want but why not let the rest of us do that too eh? Don’t be a spiteful arsehole. As for what phil is saying – it is his view and that is that – there is an argument that he is putting forward – I’m not sure I 100% agree with it but it is a valid line imo.
Get to 10 or 15% and I’ll believe you’re on to something.
Until then you’re just a party with a voter base less than the conservatives, using PU as an example, telling everyone else what to do and think, without any public backing or support.
I don’t care if you or phil don’t agree or like it, but it’s still good to talk.
Kia ora. 😉
Good to know you’re a follower not a trailblazer – we’ll welcome you onboard once the hard work has been done.
Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.
2014 – Average Support
First Quarter
IMP 0.6% Cons 1.9%
Second Quarter
IMP 1.6% Cons 1.4%
Most Recent Polls (June/July)
IMP 2.0% Cons 1.5%
Best called a 2% party these days.
I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc, so doubt very much you’ll be piping this admiral onto your battleship, but if you ‘trailblazers’ are still a nothing party like craigs in years to come, I’ll give a sympathetic awww bless just for you. 🙂
“Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.”
It was more figuratively speaking based on both being nothing much to see here parties in the big scheme of things, but thanks for that anyway.
Election night will tell all for real.
Good you are finally being truthful allen when you say, “I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically, out of spite, you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them – sad bastard that you are – but truthful at last, you at least have that lol
“Good you are finally being truthful allen”
With respect, I always am.
“when you say I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them”
I’ve never stopped anyone wanting to vote for HH or kdc doing so, but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.
“sad bastard that you are”
What’s the matter? Don’t you mip blokes like choice?
“but truthful at last, you at least have that lol”
And always have and always will be, unlike your party benefactor. :halo:
Without who, and let’s be realistic and honest, hone and mana would be just a winston with a much smaller voter base and much less charisma and pull.
Yay – another trailblazer
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10320814/Cliff-Curtis-supports-Mana
“Yay – another trailblazer”
lulz
wiki definition of sad bastard – “but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.”
Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us – thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness – we are saved at last!!!
“wiki definition of sad bastard”
Are you sure it’s not just politics in election time? Or are you projecting for a reason?
“Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us”
Ah, to counter, there’s the link to the right wing. Come on Marty, you know better than that by now 🙄 But just in case, more working class/left wing than your multi millionaire man, or I’d bet your very own HH.
Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.
Like I wrote, disingenuous.
“thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness
You’re most welcome, even if not a little insincere and begrudging.
“we are saved at last!!!”
Can’t do much about that one yet, but watch this space, man. 🙂
Last one for a while – got to do some homeschooling with my son…
“Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.”
Are you sure about that? If the reason for the view is based upon the same rationale, and the purpose of espousing that view is the same, then we are in the, looks like, sounds like, situation methinks – no matter how much it hurts your ‘right-on’ ego to admit.
But I’m really glad you’re a Green voter – good for you! See that is being nice by offering praise rather than just moaning and shitting on anothers view and opinion – see the difference to “And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.”
A very good interview on National Radio now,after ten slot.
“It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.”
Quite right, it was never going to bring the voting masses flocking, it didn’t even bring out the 100,000 disaffected voters who stayed at home in 2011, so dead dodo of a turd policy.
That doesn’t mean the poorest and most vulnerable couldn’t and shouldn’t have been given an economic boost to raise them out of poverty, but to frame a workers package over non workers was just silliness. Thank fuck those days are over.
Very sweet of you to acknowledge non-working (because they don’t have job-holding, wage earning Mum and Dad)……’give them a boost by all means’ sort of shit.
You remind me of the lounge-fucks whose morals get a twinge the occasional night at 6.00 pm over Gaza.
Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?
So agreeing that non workers should get the same economic boost as wff recipients I’m a lounge-fuck moralist?
As a non working family man, I say shove it up your arse you misunderstanding, misreading, misrepresenting numb nut.
“Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?”
Ahh, a mip fuckwit 🙄 Explains it all.
“Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.”
You going to share that criticism with others with a similar view? Or just take out your mip loaded vendetta on me?
Shit, some of you people are touched in the head with your gang mentality. 🙄
I wish it was possible for people to get over the word “working” in WFF. I know it was implemented to boost the income of people with children who have a paying job but there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work. Would be great to see something that has the aim of Working For ALL Families..
“there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work.”
I agree, but I wish people would stop linking it to the working for families policy which is intended to boost the income of working families, as any connection with non workers sends the same dodo policy message of 2011.
I recommend assistance called working for children.
“I recommend assistance called working for children.”
+1
I’d support scrapping WFF and implementing WFC.
Quickly thinking about it, under present benefits, I’d have the dole paid as is, with a tax free working for children payment kicking in to increase the family take home to the same minimum take home level used in wff, which I believe is around $26k pa.
I’d keep wff as it’s a help to low income earners under the median wage, but I would heavily reduce the eligibility of wff above a lower income cutoff threshold to help pay for some of wfc.
Edit:
I’d also have a package for invalid beneficiaries too. Wfi
But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.
“But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.”
If you are having a ubi like some here want, I don’t think it matters what name it’s called.
In context of selling a working family tax credit for the unemployed or sick to the populace, wff isn’t the vehicle.
End result is the children and reduction of poverty, so if the final dollar level is the same, the name change negates any discrimination yet becomes instantly more palatable to ma and pa voter.
and of course..the adult non-childbearing poor are invisible..
..just don’t exist…
..no need to even mention them..
That’s a separate issue that needs addressing for sure but a policy that claims to work for families but only applies to people with both children and a job, is discriminatory.
What’s with you wanting something you’re not eligible for. Are you jealous?
Adult non child bearers or parents of children over 18 don’t get wff or wfc.
They can of course supplement their benefit with work or special assistance based on need.
Which is the utter crazyiness of it – Labour was proposing extending the scheme, but not changing the name in any way shape or form. Stupid.
Which is why it’s a crack arse crack head policy that won’t ever fly with mum and dad voters.
Frame it for the children and invalids and it’s caring, considered policy.
Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.
Hey mate, if you know anyone still alive from the neck up in the org, pass it on with my compliments.
They would have been more honest to calling it “Subsidising Employers so Their Families Have More.” I shake my head when I see Labour bringing in yet another subsidy for employers or landlords.
Lanth, semantics semantics semantics, the Working for Families package was designed with the ‘deliberate’ view that benefit reliant children would be shut out,
The policy did not ‘have to’ be designed in such a fashion, it could have been designed for all children who’s parent(s) earned up to X amount of dollars,
Labour had that choice, it chose in my opinion the wrong options, including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy while at the same time cutting the rate of tax for business simply told me, and, 1000s of others like me, that Labour no longer valued or wanted my vote,
That said, in the year 2014, they wont be getting either of them…
“including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy”
A major flaw in my opinion. The cutoff threshold should have been/should be much lower.
Phillip, your contributions are getting easier to read. Thank you.
Hi swordfish,
We must be dopplegangers.
I made almost an identical point over at The Daily Blog.
Ha ! – SNAP !
Believe me, Puddleglum, I honestly hadn’t seen your TDB comment or, indeed, Michael Woods’ guest post until I clicked on your link just now. I only read TDB on an occasional basis, averaging about once every fortnight or so and, even then, I usually only have time to quickly skim a handful of posts. So I probably miss close to three-quarters of the various posts and associated comment threads.
We obviously had precisely the same visceral reaction to Pagani’s Pundit post. I certainly muttered a few sarcastic words (and, just possibly, the odd four-letter expletive) when I read the sheer audacity of her argument.(mind you, one of those four-letter expletives was: Spin, Spin, Spin !!!).
As I said we not only have the same interests but think along very similar lines (not only on Left politics, Opinion Poll analysis, but even extending to a fondness for Chomsky and Finkelstein on Israel/Palestine).
I should also add that we’ve even been carrying out similar/parallel research on political opinion in Christchurch. Last year, anticipating a close Chch East By-Election, I went through all the Candidate-Vote and Party-Vote results for all of the Christchurch seats for the last 3 Elections, compared them with the swing in the Country as a whole and then did something similar for both Enrollment and Turnout.
In the process, discovering (as I’d suspected) that both Farrar, John Armstrong and one or two others in the MSM had got things hopelessly wrong. I also managed to get my hands on some of that polling data carried out specifically in Christchurch earlier last year, as well as the census figures detailing the massive population movements in both Chch East and Central (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Port Hills, if I remember rightly). Indeed, the original motivation for setting up a blog was to use all of this research on Chch to counter any Farrar/Slater/MSM spin on what I anticipated would be this knife-edge By-Election result. And, of course, Labour won handsomely – and so the Blog’s inauguration got postponed until this year. So, the thing is, the parallels go way beyond the Undecideds.
Start of third para should read: As I said in response to your latest impressive post on The Political Scientist…
And that self-interest would be the only thing she’s “excellent” at – she is NOT Labour!
cactus kate and pagani..?
..the media just took yet another further lurch towards the right…
..so we have the far-right musings of ck..(pasteurise/export orphans/the poor..?..sell nz to china..?..)
..and the hard-arse neo-lib from pagani…(‘we have no real poverty..!..let’s just do nothing about that..’)
..joy..!..joy..!..
..in fact..you could narrow labours’ current problems/policy-deficits down to the fact..
..that so many in the labour caucus..are side-by-side with pagani..in their (still!) neo-lib pimping..
..labour won’t really change until they are all fucked off…
That’s great news. Those two love bashing the Labour party but they’re both hopeless at it. Who are they going to get from the left for balance?
oh wait, what?
It will be goldilocks approach for anything Key does, one will say he is doing too much, the other will say not enough and the conclusion readers will expect to each is that Key is being just right.
That’s very optimistic of you, expecting Pagani to criticise anything Key does.
Usually she criticises Labour for not being more like him.
“Usually she criticises Labour for not being more like him.”
What, criticising Labour for consistently fucking up election campaigns?
Sometimes, yep. Among many other things.
Even partisan Nat voters I chat to are appalled at the bias being shown by granny rnz and tv.
TVNZ are so far up themselves they dont see the danger in appointing a moderator who happily admits his bias.
A public broadcaster is sadly needed to be built by dismantling TVNZ which is simply a joke now.
Anyone catch that “hilarious” new show called the late breakfast with wells, hart etc…..I rest my case.
i blame hart…the other two have been funny..in the past..
..hart never has..
..he seems to have built a career from walking around in his underpants..
..nothing more..
(and the show itself feels (surprisingly!) like that show havoc/wells did on mtv..way back in the mid-nineties..
..except that one was funny..had its’ moments…)
It looks as if they are preparing for a gloat-fest, doesn’t it. “Ah well, if only they had stayed with Shearer…” “But look at Key, his uncanny political instincts, etc, etc…” “The people have spoken, and sadly for Cunliffe…” It is up to us to get our vote out and deprive them of their fun.
That would be Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the other right.
The only dubious connection she has for Labour is that some years ago she stood as a candidate for Labour! Her so called ‘expert’ analysis and comments are so superficial, weak and actually biased and unsympathetic towards Labour and Cunliffe! The political bosses NZH seem too thick and perhaps too biased themselves not to to see this! If they have a genuinely right wing commentator, Cactus Kate, there, surely, they should get a genuinely left wing commentator for balance.
One thing is clear to me. Going into this election, Cunliffe and Labour are stacked against a pretty hostile and unfair media in front of them.
All the more reason to stop deliberately fucking up, then. Perhaps they are aware of some economic hot potato Labour don’t want to be left holding.
Seriously, how difficult is it? National’s pants are showing. Why frighten the voters? Get in power first and then bring about change. Where are the billboards?
Two more useless, thickhead columnists for the Herald. Be still my beating heart.
truth is I have never rated anything that pagani banana has uttered… at all….. dim …. 2c
This is happening now
My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.
This can only mean that the Israeli army and airforce are planing to demolish large areas of the city.
This is already happening
PHOTOS
Before: https://www.facebook.com/JamalDajani2/photos/a.10150141015580444.403579.166587400443/10154432358055444/?type=1&theater
After:
https://www.facebook.com/JamalDajani2/photos/a.10150141015580444.403579.166587400443/10154432358085444/?type=1&theater
This has happened before:
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto_testimonies/liquidation.asp
“And then you were transferred to the assembly square” 5:05 minutes
“My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.”
Yeah, right.
Yip, her “contacts in Gaza” just got a phone call telling them to evacuate, so during the rush to get out of their house, they thought “we should call up our good mate Jenny in NZ, the one with the persuasive media profile who will best be able to spread the message of what is happening right at the minute to the world at large”.
‘
Shoot the messenger
Ignore the message.
Both Mana and the Greens have sent official representatives to speak at the rallies against the modern holocaust being carried out in Gaza.
I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?
Yep, and rumours from the jewish sector here are that this current stoush is intended to go far and long and deal with “the problem” for good.
not said lightly
“Never again” is what the Israelis once said, from the bottom of their hearts.
What fucking hearts ? Nazis.
“[multilevel headdesk]”: Dildo Dagguns Snr.
Benjamin Franklin
Queen Victoria
“I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?”
I’m more interested in knowing wher the National government is. Key is uniquely qualified as a world leader to call on Netanyahu to end the imprisonment and massacre of Palestinians but I’ve yet to read anything that says he has used any influence he may have. This contrasts strongly with his censure of Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
@ Te Reeo Putake and Lanthanide
What’s your point in sniggering at Jenny’s comment? Anger distress anxiety – that sort of response is understandable to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But sniggering no.
So what do your responses register from your standpoint that has meaning?
It looks like they prefer having a go at Jenny to contributing anything substantial.
the ghost of Edward Said speaks…and watches over the Palestinians and the Israelis
Edward Said in search of his homeland of birth, Palestine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksTgAL-e9yo
More on the Palestinian, Edward Said, friend of Daniel Barenboin the great Israeli musician, and their message for PEACE
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/24/israelis-palestinians-losers-conflict-suffering-rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/sep/26/guardianobituaries.highereducation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC8EYd_Z_g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5OaSju0qNc
Those of us who can remember the ghettoising of the Jews in WWII would think that this smacks of the same process. Herd all the civilians into certain districts and demolish or confiscate their property. Dark irony indeed!
So whilst nick smith bullies fish and game about being political I noticed a Nat election billboard on DHB property, bet thats not considered political in the eyes of certain senior hospital officials recently appointed against official advice.
Where abouts TC?
Sh1 mickey, I maybe wrong but I thought the waikato hospital owned all the way down to sh1 from their recently added A&E and other developments. Looked odd in passing.
Take a photo of it!
Usually there’s a bit of council land on the edge of every SH iirc
oh great not thinking of joining the fool of a Labour campaign person who took a photo of bent Bankie chatting on his mobile phone while driving a car. But wait there is more, that clown apparently went to the cop shop to file a complaint in person.
That just smacks of pity little drama’s, I mean Banks has been dealt to and is history. Who gives a fuck about Banks anymore?
Come on mate let’s just work at lifting the vote and forget about the small stuff.
banks has not been sentenced yet..
..it ain’t over ’till that’s over…(this friday..)
Slippery the Prime Minister is quoted in Grannies online version this morning as describing Smith’s threats against Fish and Game as ”silly” and ”unproductive”,
In other words the PM gives Smith a ”pull your head in notice”…
That hindsight thing.
Quite some time ago there was a discussion on TS about the idea of Kelvin Davies standing aside in Te Tai Tokerau to allow Hone Harawira to win the seat. It was an idea I was cheer leading for.
Some time later LPrent cited an author (sorry can’t remember who, it was ages ago)who looked at how successful democracies function. Among three key points was a country’s ability to run a fair and honest contest between candidates. Contest being the key word.
Transferring that concept of contest into the NZ MMP environment puts a bit of stain on the idea of doing deals – and some may go so far as to say it undermines the voters right to make an educated choice as the sense of contest has diminished, ie they don’t get the full picture, rather their preferred party tells them who to vote for.
Labour haven’t done any deals.
National have. The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)
So, now, who looks desperate and manipulative?
that will be scant consolation if that is the fulcrum around which a centre-left defeat swings..eh..?
..that refusal by labour to accomodate..where it is called for..
..(i don’t think it will be..as i see internet/mana doing much better than the experts/pundits are predicting..)
..but it does show up the logic-shortfalls currently bedeviling labour..
(and their ridiculous claims to win all the maori seats..makes them look as deluded/’barking’ as does flavell..when he makes that same farcical-claim for his sunset-party..)
..where really it is in their hands to both guarantee a stronger centre-left bloc..
..and to see off act/dunne..
..but because of their deeply-flawed first past the post thinking..
..they seemingly wd rather purposefully enhance their chances of defeat…
..beyond fucken stoopid..to my mind…
I also see IMP doing surprisingly well. They can stand on their own feet and contest their seats far and square, without any help from Labour – stepping aside. Good luck to them too. I want to see a healthy amount of IMP MP’s IN Government
Rather than hindering their chances phil, I think they come out looking better off. I heard some where on TS, feedback from the Epsom electorate suggesting the voters were tiring of being told what to do and treated like puppets.
Having another deal pushed on them might be too much. Might there might be a backlash and former ACT voters all vote Goldsmith in protest?
I don’t think the deal is going to go down well here in Ohariu. I will have me ear to the ground in coming weeks……………
Off out now. Back in a few hours.
Want to get rid of Key? The left’s simple guide to tactical voting:
Green Party Supporters-Party Vote Green
Labour Party Supporters-Party Vote Labour
Internet-Mana Supporters-Party Vote Internet-Mana
Te Tai Tokerau Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote Mana-Hone Harawira
Epsom Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote National-Paul Goldsmith
East Coast Bays Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote National-Murray McCully
Ohariu Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote Labour-Virginia Andersen
You missed a bit:
All other electorate seats, Vote Labour.
TPR, Why???…
TRP: Labour’s proposed policy, similar to ACT’s, to push up the retirement age is the elephant between the ballot box and me.
It is going to happen sooner or later. Better for it to be done sooner, with plenty of notice and a very gradual increase, rather than later in a hurry.
Labour is proposing lifting the age by 2 years between 2020 and 2033. National, in 1992, increased the age by 1 year immediately and 4 years between 1993 and 2001.
If Labour’s proposal doesn’t get adopted soon, we’ll be looking at a similar rerun of National’s.
Why does it make sense to force worker to stay in an excess labour pool even longer, when there aren’t enough jobs to go around?
Why not just fund the future shortfall by putting more into the Cullen fund now?
TRP – lol – onya mate – tenacious, dedicated, focused – the qualities of all good supporters – good luck for labour – the left need them there – “get your motor(s) running, head out on the highway…Fire all of your guns at once, And explode into space…”
Yep, I’m a true nature’s child, Marty! Thanks for the comment, made my morning.
And, to the others, the short version is that Labour electorate MP’s work hard to help their constituents, Nat MP’s don’t. As we know from the Cunliffe letter issue, electorate MP’s deal with thousands of requests. Labour MP’s actually give a shit about the battlers in their area and can and do make a difference. It’s not glamourous, it’s not often newsworthy, but it does give the poor and downtrodden some hope.
To give an example, if you were a Waitakere beneficiary needing help, do ya reckon Paula Benefit would lift a finger to assist you? The answer’s obvious, and the fact that she is an electorate MP is entirely down to left voters not using their electorate vote effectively.
Pretty good there BG – I agree that the Party vote is where it is at – please correct me if I’m wrong but unless you are on the Māori Roll you can’t ‘candidate vote’ Hone in Te Tai Tokerau. But you can give the Party Vote where ever you wish, I think. I wonder if someone can confirm – if a Party doesn’t have a candidate in a Māori Electorate, you can still give them a Party vote? Does every Party standing in the election give access to their Party vote or do they have to have a candidate? Probably only applicable to Māori seats but would be good to know – for academic purposes only of course 🙂
Hell yeah ! All parties standing at this Election are listed under the Party Vote section of the ballot paper in each and every seat.
Thanks for that confirmation, much appreciated.
I thought the party listed for the party vote will be IMP, and not Mana separately.
Yes it will be for IMP. Or at least it better be, because if its not, they’re screwed.
Correct, except if by some remote chance that in Epsom and ECB it is the Labour candidate that is actually leading (and not the Nat or ACT or the Cons candidate)! Not impossible, Huh?
Keep an eye out at Clutha Southland, ex English’s very occasional stomping ground.
I suspect National-ACT are playing a cunning and tricky game here,
National has put up a young unknown, an ex tobacco business peddler, Todd Barclay 23 as their lack lustre candidate, while ACT has put a well known Southland farmer and former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson as their candidate!
I think they are playing the Epsom game here quietly under the radar hoping that not many will notice! What do you think?
I’m a little bit frowny brow about the Don Nicholson scenario.
Folks from the Southland area, give us your thoughts and the word on the street or paddock gate. Better the devil you know? A well known Fed Farmer ex Prez Vs. the corporate fag trade kid. Would they not be inclined towards Nicholson as a known and one of their own?
Won’t the ACT line of Grr grumble, scrap the RMA, burn the rule book, freedom to pollute the waterways! go down well with the farming set?
(No disrespect intended to the farmers that are working very hard to take care of the environment and their animals. You are a growing number but it needs to be each and every farmer that takes this approach)
as the former Labour candidate, I can assure all that Don Nicholson will get no more votes this time around than last time around i.e. fuck all.
Also, the National Party could instruct their blue supporters in the electorate to vote ACT, but they’ll all still vote blue. Just the way it is. Southern principles vs Epsom expediency, you see.
Thanks for the insiders view CV – thats very good to know. Very helpful.
By all accounts Kelvin davis is a good, intelligent man who’ll do a good job representing his electorate, he knows Labours numbers are in the toilet and that theres a good chance he might not get in on the list if he loses so whats in it for him to stand aside?
If Labour wanted him to stand aside they should have given him a more certain place on the list, like National did with Goldsmith
From memory I worked out Davis gets in on the list if Labour gets about 28.5%. IMO Labour voters are safe voting for Hone in the knowledge that they will probably get Davis too.
It does depend to a certain extent on electorate results.
Its quite a bet to make really: Labour gets at least 28.5% (depending on electorate votes) or campaign for the seat yourself
Especiallyly when its your (potential) job on the line
“The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)’
How about the ‘Ohariu Dunny’?
He does get “the dunney” a bit around here. I tend to think of him as ol dunney boy, or The Dunner – roo.
Hopefully it will all be over for him after 20th September and he can further known as “Dunne and Dusted”.
Reminds me of Kunstler on John Kerry..”a haircut looking for a brain”.
What about the name “Hair-Don’t” for the Ohairyooh seat?
Lolz @ ”Flyover finally over, sky about to fall in” the headline accompanying an opinion piece looking at the decision by the independent commissioners to can the proposed ‘white elephant’ the Basin Reserve flyover in today’s DomPost,
The evil little child in me was hoping that this piece of roading insanity would get the nod as from my look at the proposal it would have created gridlock for all of the traffic in the lower eastern sector of actual city traffic,
Only the supremely stupid would attempt to design a roading network by speeding traffic flows toward a major choke point,(the Mt Vic Tunnel), a) with the now defunct proposal of the Basin flyover, and b), with work about to begin on drilling the second Terrace Tunnel,
Perhaps such design is deliberate where the inevitable clusterf**k results in an enraged public demanding yet another ‘fix’ thus keeping the planners on the gravy train,
The only logical means of increasing the flow of traffic across the network is to in fact double lane the piece of road on the eastern side of the Mt Vic tunnel and then drill another tunnel through Mt Vic itself,
Of course, all that being said, the ‘planners’ could probably achieve most of their aims at far less cost by building a system where Park’n’Ride from public transport hubs becomes a viable option for all the outlying Wellington City suburbs…
I always wondered why the bus tunnel wasn’t widened to divert Hataitai/Evans Bay traffic away from the main flow. Ok, there’d be an increase in traffic up one street in Mt Vic, but surely it would help?
Yeah true TRP, i doubt the bus tunnel needs have anything ‘done to it, at rush hour, the only time the network becomes ‘stuck’, the bus tunnel could be simply utilized by having an unimpeded flow of traffic through it Eastward in the afternoon and Westward in the morning,
(as kids we used to risk life and limb by roaring through that particular tunnel in our Mk1 Zephyrs and PA Vauxhaulls as our personal shortcut),
i can tho see any attempt to convince people on both sides of that particular structure,(the bus tunnel), that their quiet streets should suddenly become a major part of the roading network getting petty ‘hot’,
A budget option for the removal of a significant part of the traffic flow that now passes the Basin Reserve it would surely be tho…
You went through in a car? What a softy! I used to wait for a bus to enter then cycle frantically behind it hoping to get out the other side before the next bus turned up. Good times!
Riii-iight, you must have been out to really impress the opposite with your choice of ride TRP, if you will excuse any unintended sexism, a real ‘babe magnet’ your bike must have been,
Soft i doubt, on occasion our ride through that tunnel was more to do with desperate needs, one particular jaunt being one of my many convictions, i can tell you that the bus tunnel was favored as the means of transport/distribution for the contents of a Toops truck in the early hours of one Wellington morning…
lolz no need to rush.
On foot through the tunnel one only needs to duck into any of the alcoves built into the walls as the bus flies past.
Riii-iiight Felix, try telling that to these two,
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0902/S00237.htm
Notice the Ad, InternetMana by the way, the aim world domination, the plan unfolds,
This one was too busy looking good to see either the bus or ‘an alcove’ coming,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/article-cfm?c_d&objectid
Kids definitely shouldn’t try this at home…
Meant to be a reply to TRP.
Don’t know why you doubt me about the alcoves though, they’re spaced along the walls at even intervals. The trick is to count your paces. You start counting again every time you pass one so you always know how many steps forward to the next one or back to the last one.
They’re only about a foot deep and be a bit tricky to see when you’re running toward the lights of an oncoming bus.
Felix, personal replies to specific commenters are better denoted with the use of the commenters username to avoid confusion,
Secondly, point to where in my comment ”i doubt you about the alcoves”…
Not in the mood for your bullshit tonight. Suck it.
Felix, it is glaringly obvious is it not that i made no reference to any ”doubt about alcoves”
Your latest little spurt of invective is simply Pointless Abuse, brainless at that, to be expected of course considering your commenting history,
You lack style, grace, and intelligence, you should find a child’s website to practice your commentary within,
Here at the Standard you are way way out of your depth…
One stick short of a faggot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(unit)
Alien’s knitting needle strikes wickedly and i laughs, its too late in the piece for me to inquire at whom such wickedness is directed, as i do not plan on spending the next 3 hours trading handy hints on how best to darn socks at this particular time of night…
Not you me old mucker, not you. 😉
And I even included a wiki link to head off any crack head crack pot theories I was being homophobic.
Late, yes it is, but 108 for 3 is keeping me awake until luncheon.
“..You went through in a car? What a softy!..”
you should try it on a skateboard…
Heh! I feel a four Yorkshiremen sketch coming on …
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up at 3 in the morning, half an hour before we went to bed, get down on hands and knees at city end of Mt Vic Road Tunnel, lick pavement clean with our tongues, then crawl bare-kneed all way through to t’other side of tunnel while singing hallelujah chorus. And if we beat all odds and made it to t’other side before being slammed by two Big Reds coming from opposite directions then Our father would belt hell out of us wi’ shovel and dance on our graves whilst whistling old Tex Morton ballads, if we were lucky!!!
u think u had it tuff..?..
.whoar..!
swordfish and phillip u
Good action and a great finish. Where’s your next gig?
Me too, I think that the good burghers of Hataitai might not like the extra traffic. I often thought that the basin problem would go away if the two tunnels were made part of a one way system each way.
That’s the way I feel about the Waterview Connection in west Auckland. The hold up is getting onto the motorway in peak times. Improving the connection to the motorway, will just rearrange the way motorists queue to get onto the motorway.
And the all too predictable partisanship from the Dom Post. Front Page headlines shouting DISASTER !!! for two consecutive days. With former Labour MP/Mayor-turned-ACT-zealot, (Wellington Regional Council Chairwoman) Fran Wilde, given enormous space by the editor to bullshit away……
The sky is falling, the sky is falling, Laughable, the frigging Wellington Regional Council is growing proof to that old adage about Lefties jerking to the Right as they grow older…
Norman Finkelstein on the Method in Israel’s Madness…see both videos (Gaza: Is there method in the Madness July 28 and Gaza: Ceasefire or Surrender ? July 27) here… http://normanfinkelstein.com/
To bring some balance to the issue:
“In Berlin, police had to step in to protect an Israeli tourist couple at the weekend after protestors turned on them when they spotted the man’s yarmulke. Demonstrators reportedly charged towards the couple shouting “Jew! We’ll get you!..
…In Paris, hundreds of protestors have attacked synagogues, smashed the windows of Jewish shops and cafes, and set several alight, including a kosher grocery store which reportedly burned to the ground…
…There have been reports of protestors in Germany chanting “Jews to the gas chambers”, and police in Berlin have banned protestors from using another popular slogan: “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone..
Police have opened an investigation into the imam of a Berlin mosque after he allegedly called on Muslims to murder Jews in a sermon. “.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10983472/EU-politicians-speak-out-after-wave-of-anti-Semitic-attacks.html
Also there is a hashtag #HitlerDidNothingWrong trending big time in the Middle East
.
Some of these will likely be false flag JDL ops.
Not defensible – but understandable.
Don’t know what you do about human desperation and anger when it is en masse….
Perhaps, if more synagogues and Jewish congregations were seen to be publicly against what is going on, the focus would remain where it belongs – with the Israeli government and the IDF.
@ Molly and Tom Jackson…Spot on !!!
Meanwhile, here’s a good rebuttal of current Israeli apologetics on Gaza (often using Israeli and US sources to make the point)…http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/fact-v-fiction-on-the-gaza-massacre/
More interesting Finkelstein has approvingly posted an article that basiclly sums up what I think needs to happen:
“The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region.
That is the only approach that can solve the problem of Gaza.
That is the only approach that will eliminate the threat to Israel continually issuing from Gaza.
That is the only approach that will extricate the non-belligerent Palestinians from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques who led them astray for decades.
That is the only approach that will preclude a need for Israel to “rule over another people.””
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/the-only-durable-solution-requires-dismantling-gaza-humanitarian-relocation-of-the-non-belligerent-arab-population-and-extension-of-israeli-sovereignty-over-the-region-while-were-on-the-sub/
Ah yes, the solution you endorse is 100% ethnic cleansing by the colonisers, why am I not surprised.
Finkelstein seems to approve and he isnt exactly a rabid right wing supporter of Israel is he?
I was talking about you – not about Finkelstein.
Actually my bad, I missed Finkelstein’s sarcasm in the title – it was kind of obscure and the article posted without comment.
You may call it “ethnic cleansing” but neither of these two groups want to live with each other – way to much blood under the bridge, way to much fear about what they might try to do to each other in the future.
It’s not about Finkelstein; it’s about your support for the most right wing of Israeli ethnic cleansing positions, saying that it sums up “what you think”.
To Colonial Viper above ( the reply link is missing in your post again ) –
The Jews need their own country after what happened to them, you can not deny that.
Unfortunately it ended up on the Palestinians when probably it should have been part of Germany that got handed over. Definitely not going to happen now.
So better to bite the bullet than continue this never ending conflict.
Your Muslim mates burning Israeli flags on NZ streets or attacking Jews on European streets is no answer.
Oh I don’t care about any of your cover up after-story.
I just noted that complete destruction of the Palestinian state, transportation of all indigenous people away from their homes en masse (protip: you should do it by rail cars, they’re very efficient), and a complete takeover of all Palestinian lands by Israel “basiclly sums up what [you] think needs to happen”
You said it yourself at 8.1.2.1.1
“…Finkelstein has approvingly…”
Hilarious stuff !!! You don’t understand Finkelstein’s sense of humour too well, do you ?
Now let’s see, an internationally respected scholar and human rights activist who has given most of his adult life to fighting for the basic rights guaranteed to Palestinians by International Law (first and foremost by brilliantly demolishing the on-going stream of Israeli propaganda through systematic forensic analysis of the factual/diplomatic record) “APPROVINGLY” posts a rant by a deeply racist Far Right Israeli Zionist, IDF Officer and one-time ministerial advisor to the right-wing former terrorist and Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, does he ?????
I think not, me old luv. Norman Finkelstein regularly posts some of the loonier Israeli propaganda so readers can see the nutters they’re dealing with. Why do you think he added the sarcastic “(While we’re on the subject of dismantling)” to Sherman’s rant ? I would suggest it was a reference to dismantling Sherman’s Right-Wing Zionist Think-Tank (with the amusingly ‘academic’ and bona fide-sounding name) – The Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
You are right, my mistake, however Finkelstein does make some of his titles obscure and posts the article without comment in this case.
Why should the Palestinians be driven out of their land for a bunch of greedy, authoritarian psychopaths?
What Israel is doing is not entirely defensible, but it is understandable.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been on the receiving end of endless vicious beatings culminating in the attempt to exterminate them entirely in Europe, the Jews wouldn’t have needed their own country.
No. It’s not interchangeable.
What Israel is doing is understandable, but indefensible.
They might have an excuse, but it is not a good one.
The reasoning is pretty simple – the ultra right wing militarist/ultra religious settler 10% of the population is dictating the direction of the entire nation. Wag the dog. It is leading to insanity amongst the Israeli power elite and it is undermining Israel as a free and democratic Jewish state.
You logic is exactly the same, you have interchanged it.
I see the British government is going to make those on the unemployment benefit prove they have applied for 40 jobs every month and work around 25 hours a week. A totally impractical rule that is going to make the unemployed ‘s lives even more hellish.
Mind you, I believe there’s more than a touch of that here in NZ. Those applying for the unemployment benefit, for instance, are required to prove conclusively to WINZ that they have been steadily applying for jobs over previous weeks. And then, it seems, they have to jump through a whole series of other hoops before they get even a sniff of the benefit.
WINZ pretty much demands that you apply for 5 jobs a day. They don’t seem to realise that if there were 5 jobs a day for everyone to apply for there wouldn’t be any unemployment. And then they’ll kick you off the benefit if you upset them even when you have been applying for 5 jobs a day.
Last week, the number of jobs available in Hamilton via the winz site was 9, this week it’s 12
That will give cause for Bennett to wax lyrical about a big % increase in vacancies 🙂
9 of the 12 were the same as the previous week, but no doubt she would try.
I’ll wax her lyrical! 😉
I’ll bet you’ll need plenty of wax and a strong constitution.
Awww yeah, now you’re talking!!
You’d be better off with an orbital sander.
You poor deprived thing, choose personality over buxom superficialities..
john oliver ‘does’ nukes…
http://www.alternet.org/video/video-john-olivers-hilarious-and-terrifying-rant-about-americas-inept-nuclear-arms-policy
The Labour Party has a new blogsite for the campaign.
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/blog
(perhaps others have already shared a link?)
New to me. Thanks blue.
I spit on these two
“A former principal and her husband who scammed $30,000 from a decile one school have abandoned their appeal after a judge told them they may be jailed.
Colleen Margaret Gray, 66, and Bruce Kenneth Gray, 65, siphoned the money from Mayfield Primary School in Otara, using it on overseas trips and lavish meals between 2005 and 2007.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11300755
The herald calls them ‘scammers’ – to me that term does not convey how low they are with what they did.
“The increased funding given to lower decile schools is to provide additional resources to support their students’ learning needs.”
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/Parents/AllAges/EducationInNZ/SchoolsInNewZealand/SchoolDecileRatings.aspx
They took the money/resources from the children that need it the most and spent it on themselves.
Why aren’t they in jail? A beneficiary who defrauded the government of that amount would be.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28522450
So now we can definitively say the racist Clarkson.
Will TV3 commit to having him as an election night pundit to join the racist Paul Henry?
Clarkson racist….duh!
Any idea what are these “dark rumours that Pablo is talking about?
“One thing is certain. If dark rumours are correct, the government has some unpleasant surprises for the IP in the weeks leading to the election. If that happens, it may take more than Glenn Greenwald and his revelations about John Key and the GCSB to redeem the IP in the eyes of the voting public. I would hope that both Dotcom and his IP candidates are acutely aware of what could be in store for them should the rumours prove true, and plan accordingly.”
Full post here, http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2014/07/eye-candy-window-dressing-and-deep-pockets/
Not sure what his point is there but he appears to be qualifying certainty, which isn’t the way to do it. Just sloppy.
Blubber Boy Whalespew reckons he has something to release that will destroy both Dotcom and Hone. I doubt if there’s anything to it. His Whalespew army will probably get all overexcited and double their masturbatory frequency, but that’ll be it. The fool thought he was going to get rid of Len Brown, and as far as I can see, he’s lucky he didn’t end up sharing a cell with Wewege. Then the morans who read his crap could make their sick Bubba jokes about him.
Beard:
Nothing sloppy in my writing. I simply stated the fact that there are well-known rumours about some damning unpleasantness the government may or may not have on Dotcom, and that whatever it is will be revealed in the lead up to election day. Others have already alluded to this, to the point of speculating that it could be part of a disinformation or smear campaign against Dotcom. Whatever the case, such revelations could serve as a trump on anything Dotcom plans to reveal about Key, the GCSB etc., and could terminally hurt by association the image of the IP and its candidates.
did he ‘do’ 9/11…?
It’s odd that National are going to that amount of trouble if they think Dotcom has absolutely nothing on Key and that the IP will be an irrelevance in the election being so ‘far left’ and ‘radical’ that New Zealanders will pay no notice.
I thought Key’s strategy was to ignore Dotcom?
It’s either petty personal vengeance on Key’s part or an attempt to spike guns (which suggests they think the guns need to be spiked).
Interesting that rumours are being seeded at this stage – by whom? Has anyone asked Key directly about what he knows and why it’s not being released now?
And isn’t it vital that ‘we’ know now if it’s vital ‘we’ know just before the election? (I think that was the argument used against the 15 September timing for Dotcom’s ‘bomb’, wasn’t it?)
Sorry, Pablo. Didn’t know you posted here.
Are you saying you’re certain the government may or may not have damning unpleasantness on Dotcom?
Good to know.
Matters of democratic process, misuse of intelligence capabilities, and gaming of nationwide elections are big fucking deals. I don’t think Pablo’s style is that of yanking our chain just for the hell of it.
KDC’s given Key plenty of warning. And Key is head of the SIS and well connected with a whole lot of machinery beyond the SIS. Do you really think he’s sailing into Dotcom’s trap without a plan of his own.
No, I don’t. What is very concerning to me is what you pointed out. John Key is not above using the SIS, GCSB, the Police and the judicial system to gather information against his political opponents. He has referred to the GCSB as “my agency” previously, and I suspect he considers it his own Private Eye firm to use for whatever he sees fit in his own view of New Zealand’s security.
Beard:
I have heard the rumours but am loathe to repeat them because I have no first hand way of ascertaining their veracity. The rumours have two parts: 1) the unpleasantness; 2) the government’s knowledge and intention to use it should it be deemed necessary. CV’s second paragraph pretty much captures the gist.
TBH my concern in this regard is not so much Dotcom but IP candidates, a couple of who I know personally, being tarred by association. The idea, if I read the rumour mill correctly, is also twofold: first, to discredit the IP by revealing the unpleasantness, thereby demonstrating that those who jumped on the Dotcom bandwagon were venal opportunists or naive fools who either did not check or choose to ignore Dotcom’s purportedly darker baggage (and are thereby unfit to hold political office); and second, to neutralise any Snowden furnished revelations about the GCSB’s role in Echelon and/or John Ky’s prior knowledge of the US plan to capture Dotcom. Since some of the IP candidates are people of integrity who would be valuable contributors to NZ’s political life now or in the future, I would hate to see them be destroyed by National’s hard nosed machinations (in the event the scenario plays out as described).
However, the way things are shaping up National should not have to use this trump card, so if it does it will be done out of spite rather than as a political manoeuvre.
I have heard the content of the rumours but prefer not to repeat them since I am unable to independently ascertain their veracity. But the thrust is twofold: 1) the unpleasantness involving Dotcom; 2) the government’s knowledge of and intent to use it if deemed necessary. CV basically has the gist down in his second paragraph.
National’s intent is also twofold. The first is to discredit by association the IP and its candidates. They will be shown to be venal opportunists or naive fools who choose to jump on the Dotcom bandwagon ignorant or in spite of his darker baggage, thereby making them collectively unsuitable for public office. Secondly, revelations of an unpleasant sort regarding Dotcom will counter any Snowden derived exposure of GCSB activities in Echelon or Key’s knowledge of the US intent to capture Dotcom in NZ. The reasoning is that the Dotcom revelations will have a more visceral impact on the public, which is already pretty much “over” the spying controversies. It remains to be seen if any of these assumptions prove true in the event the scenario plays out as described.
However, because I know two IP candidates personally and find them to be people of integrity who can contribute positively to NZ political life now and in the future, I do not want to see their reputations besmirched by National’s hard ball machinations. The irony is that as things are presently shaping up, National’s resort to this tactic will be done out of mean spirited spite rather than perceived political necessity.
How is National and its bloggers gathering this information? Do you believe, as I do, that government spy agencies are being used to unearth this darker baggage, as you call it? If so, it could bring spying controversies back on the table for the New Zealand public.
Kiwis generally like fair play – or at least we used to.
Some of the supposedly dark information may have come from US authorities, not necessarily from the NSA or one of the local spy agencies. Think of who pushed for the raid. Wherever it may have come from, there is no doubt that, at least up until the Kitteridge report on the GCSB and her subsequent appointment as director of the SIS, NZ spy agencies did traffic in personal information for political purposes, and that under Key this information was passed to National-linked hatchet bloggers. You can make your own conclusions about such practices and how they impact on organisational professionalism within the intelligence community.
The question remains as to whether they continue to do so in spite of the pledges of reform (something called for in a recent State Services Commission report in the wake of the GCSB scandal). Absent effective independent oversight authority, we may never know the answer.
PS: Sorry for the double post above. The first one disappeared after posting so I re-wrote it more or less along the same lines. The wording is a bit different but the thrust is the same. No sooner had I written the second version than the first one popped up on the thread, and I have no means of deleting it. Oh well.
No worries. Sometimes I need to be told things twice 🙂
Oh dear Pablo. Slater has quoted you, and not in a good way. It’s an endorsement.
That sucks.
Check out the fake Colin Craig website before he gets it taken down.
http://www.colincraig.co.nz/
lol cheers Karen good for a laugh 🙂
lol – “A rep for Colin Craig tells NBR ONLINE the Conservative Party leader has no association with new website ColinCraig.co.nz.”
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/colin-craig-disavows-colincraigconz-ck-159947
that big head coming up from the bottom is very funny
One Direction star gets death threats for pro-Palestinian tweet
http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news/one-direction-star-gets-death-threats-pro-palestinian-tweet-6040596
Get out and vote, Lorde urges youth
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10322334/Get-out-and-vote-Lorde-urges-youth
Come on Yella, tell the kids who to vote for.
Lorde can’t even vote herself, time to drop the voting age to 16.
But able to promote voting, and herself, for being involved in the campaign.
I know she was at a rich kid school, spotted by a fellow rich kids record company dad, so what’s the real deal Yella? Pro royal or pro pauper?
I have to say I admire that 1d lad for not removing his pro Palestinian tweet.
my god you are disgusting allen – why don’t you just leave her alone you bully
Bully? Oh ffs Mars, that’s lame, it’s a perfectly valid comment to ask of the decile 10 school kid who got famous when her royal song was co-written, bearing in mind the lyrics to that tune and the gist of the song.
I half expect a photo with JK, but she can always come out and say how she really relates to the meaning behind her breakthrough hit and show support for the underdogs in society, just like the 1D kid has.
Billy Bragg she aint, but who knows.
You accused me the other night of being a one trick pony. Now just because you got upset about what I wrote about kdc and hh you’re on one. 🙄
For the record (no pun), when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away… And you already know who I’m voting for – The depressed and hungry people of NZ.
You are full of shit allen – just a nobody with envy of others because imo you don’t really like yourself very much – it’s okay I can understand why you’d feel that way 🙂
And the last time you tried to ‘bully’ lorde I said the same thing so your anti IMP opinions today are no big thing other than I can’t really let your ‘views’ stand without some corrections – hope you don’t mind 🙂
Totally unnecessary first paragraph.
I’ve established it isn’t bullying by clearly laying out the points.
And a bit of a wah wah second effort verse to finish.
Yep, you got some up you alright, but no fear, it’s all fair in love and war.
You’ve no right to the high ground, so get down from your perch 😉
But if you want to side with a rich kid and go gaga, I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean look how hone ran and dribbled after kim’s moolah 😆
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a dim fellow indeed.
Besmirch, hark at you. And moral ground, no, not mine to hold, just like you.
If the consensus is widespread that I’m a bully for asking the Royals hitmaker to come forward and reveal who she’d vote for while promoting herself and the youth vote, given her wedge and various commercial contracts, and is followed by bold text of doom, I’ll walk away and never return.
If it isn’t, you pledge to do the same. 😉
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a very, very, very dim fellow indeed.
You already said that, to which I countered.
To be clear, if you have the numbers, get the big boss to bold type me for it and I’ll walk.
Otherwise cork your faux outrage and agree to clear off yourself for pulling the bullying attack line.
What you got Mars?
lol guess what spot – you can’t bully me like you try to bully others – try to keep up sunshine
So you’ve nothing, including no balls. 😀
No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines.
You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned if you think it will improve your chances, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, big ups to that 1 direction dude. Kudos bruv for not letting your handlers or your bank balance or your projected earnings get in the way of doing the right thing.
signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original – lol – “say hello to my little friend…”
“signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original”
Erm, you are the snide, calling me a bully, hence “No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines”.
Obviously I can’t call you a thicko now, not that I would, but chuckling an irony laugh for posterity. 😆
Anyhow, off to download lorde’s co-written album now :snort:
You know I’m feeling generous especially after standing room only in Rotorua for the roadshow so I’m not going to reply to you again (after this one). Stop picking on Lorde, especially when she is trying to get young people to vote – it shows your petty, foolish side and is most unbecoming.
I love how you use “co-written” as a term of disparagement, as if working with others is a sign of weakness.
“You know I’m feeling generous”
Translated that means I got fuck all and everyone knows it, except pu and felix, who also bear long time grudges, making you the limping three legged lame attack donkey from hell. 😆
Goneski, comrades.
I don’t begrudge you a damn thing. I just find it amusing to watch you tie yourself in knots over things and people you know nothing about.
Oh allen what a weak little man you are – you have shown your true colours – picking on a seventeen year old because you are jealous of their success and then prattling on making demands, confirming your dimness – lol – stick to trying to bully and besmirch a successful young women who is getting young people to vote but even then I’m sure Lorde would dispatch you like mowing a weed if she could be bothered with a envious thicko like you.
You have nothing but the backing of a couple of village idiots.
You don’t have to agree with me about Yella, hell, she might even surprise and vote mip, but it still doesn’t mean the question is bullying or besmirching.
You’re just tossing off slinging shit in the hope it sticks.
I thank the 1d guy for having the nads to be political and stick to the correct side of right. I wish you had the fortitude to do the same.
Lorde was working to get young people to vote even though she can’t – you are a sad dim thicko if you can’t see the value in that – but oh know it’s all about how she is successful and how you’ll donate 100% of your money when you are – lol do you realise what a loser argument you have there?
I pledge to donate ALL of my giraffes to a zoo of Lorde’s choosing.
Let’s see her match that.
I’ve never said there isn’t value in her getting first timers out to vote, so strike one for the sad thicko barb.
I would like to know who she’d vote for this election, if she could, as I wonder if the money and fame had eroded the (false?) image of urban battler from Royals, or if she’d stay true to the message she sold the kids. No biggie, but a valid question nonetheless. I like credible heroes and heroines.
The rest is just you getting arsey over mip, like you get arsey over race, like you get arsey when disagreed with, like you get arsey when confronted with differing opinion. I don’t need to flag you for it, it’s historically obvious.
I’d still donate any money I made from my music, as I have publicly stated before. Loser argument or not, I’m guessing it’s an eye of the beholder thing, or most likely for you, a green eyed beholder thing, which is all good, I’m arrogant enough to take it as a compliment 😉
You’re chucking my insults at you back at me again fool.
btw – it’s a fucken song mate and the lyrics are words for the song not a manifesto for a life – bloody hell are you completely clueless and up yourself?
You know what marty, I suspect a few expected more from you, but your line and angle of attack have been pretty shonky all through this exchange.
As for fucken song and not a manifesto etc… She made a mint, well half a mint, off it, and kids bought into it big time apparently, so again, the interest in whether she’d be a sell out and vote nat or be with the poor kids and be a lefty remains valid, especially in context of the 1 direction tweet from a young man willing to do/say the right thing.
Everything else is your sideshow and distraction because you got your arse in your hands over me. You know it’s true ’cause you got the form.
pathetic allen – bully tactics never work laddie especially when tinged with envy and spite – the exchange is here for people to read I have no worries at all about that but I wouldn’t say the same if I was you…
You’re out to ‘win’ and fair play to you, but it shouldn’t be at whatever cost. Slinging around terms like bully and bullying young women, just to get that net ‘victory’ is still lame as that three legged donkey, especially when it’s clear it’s not about the girl at all, but your vanity and agenda.
I too am content with the dialogue, and as always, rest easy on my laurels.
“..when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away..”
..that’s really funny…!
..and if we all had fucken horses..nobody’d be walking…..
..got any more like that..?
..definitely ‘dim’..and deluded…
..heh..!
Talking of no balls snidey back door merchants 😆
I’ve nothing now, but if I had, I’m on record and I’m a man of my word. The end.
Nah, that’s not the end. I haven’t even called you a twattish hack with no heart yet.
Female parts, how very misogynist of you.
But seeing I couldn’t give a crap, go for it puddycat. It’s still the end as far as that particular statement goes.
Evidently not.
And men have hearts too you dullard.
“I’ve nothing now, but if I had, I’m on record and I’m a man of my word. The end.”
Yep, it really is the last word on it.
“And men have hearts too you dullard.”
You lucky QOT aint here to slap you down, you sly old misogynist, you.
The end of any statement is the end of that particular statement.
Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.
ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.
“ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.”
Clearly not, because she has class and can elucidate.
“You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
Nobody is faceless with their own web page.
It’s not unverifiable pledge because it’s in the public domain and has been since my first post here.
It’s not undefined, because I’ve stated it’s money.
It’s an unspecified time until that time arrives.
I am a man of my word. The End.
But feel free to try and prove me wrong by getting me signed, buy my songs and see if I stay true to my pledge or not. 😉
Hilarious.
I answered every point you made and it’s hilarious. How so?
I made that same pledge to the site admin here, in an email before I even started posting, in the hope someone would help me set up a trust to do just that.
My fault a lack of talent got in the way of a good idea, but if that email was on record and presented, you’d look like a sack of shite.
Like I said, I’m a man of my word. Any money I make from music would be given away, 100% or I’d be damned.
Now get to fu8k, unless you go to LP and ask if the email still exists.
Hilarious that you think you answered anything.
Hilarious that you think it would matter if you had.
Hilarious that you’re still going on about it.
Hilarious that you ever started.
Hilarious that you’re so upset over others’ successes.
Hilarious that you pretend you’re above such silliness.
Hilarious the chasm between what you say
and what you present.
“Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
I’ve answered and you’re circle jerking your way around it.
If you believe I’m not a man of my word, like I claim, and it’s all rather hilarious, go hunt for my first post, try around December 2012 just before xmas. I made a request for help in setting up a charitable trust.
Better still, seek confirmation of the email I sent via this sites contact button. If it exists, I don’t mind it’s publication, bad English and all.
Nothing open ended about my word.
Faceless pseudonym makes same unverifiable pledge twice.
Must be true then 🙄
It’s only unverifiable if you don’t go and seek out the information I’ve presented you with.
It’s only faceless pseudonym if you don’t know how to use a whois site.
“Must be true then”
Of course, just like I’ve been saying, I’m a man of my word.
I’ve even had a phone conversation with a trusted contributor from this very place about my plans.
You have all the info you need to verify, but I’m picking, by form, you’d rather wank yourself stupid in denial rather than get proved wrong, which is of course fine by me.
It’s unverifiable because you haven’t specified anything. You’ll donate all your money when you’re famous? Is that what you said? ffs man how the hell is that ever going to be measured, quantified, qualified or verified?
Meanwhile, a 17 year old girl stands up and does some good in the world and you try to knock her down.
What a sad little man you are.
See, you’re circle jerking marty’s bit now and getting away from finding those posts and getting hold of that email.
True to forum type form, which is a bit sad.
Everything can be verified, even if it’s just an ‘if I ever’.
That you won’t is all good.
Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.
It’s utterly meaningless.
Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.
“Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.”
How many The Al1ens do you think there are? I think a best seller would be a bit of a clue, a sort of give away don’t you think? True in all likelihood to not happen, but ‘if’ it did, I’d would be true to my public stated pledges.
“Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.”
I’ve not scorned her. I have questioned who the decile 10 schooled kid with wedge would vote for, which isn’t really the same thing at all.
But getting first time voters in the polling booths is admirable and I’ve no issue with that, why would I? It is commendable aim on behalf of all those involved.
So define it then.
If it’s so obvious and so easy then go ahead and define precisely what constitutes you being “famous” so we know when to check up on you and your charitable status.
If you can’t define it, then you haven’t pledged anything.
Are you for real, catflap? I wrote hours ago if I make any money from my music. If you see The Al1en cds in the shops, or on itunes or even on my own site, then I reckon that’s somewhat conclusive as ‘famous’ or making money.
I wouldn’t ever sign a deal unless all my share of the royalties were paid in (or for) perpetuity into a charitable trust, because, fucking funny enough, I’m a man of my word.
Could you imagine the scandal if some fuckwit from a blog, with a grudge, out to settle scores exposed me as a fraud 🙄 😆
It’s difficult to take anything you say seriously when according to your last comment, releasing music on your own website means you’re famous.
So I won’t.
checklist:..
..likes winston peters..
..is jealous of lordes’ success…
..is homophobic..
..’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?
don’t forget the “crotchless panties” line – so classy that one
And I bet they’re still twisted right up your moral outrage 😀
“checklist:….likes winston peters….is jealous of lordes’ success…..is homophobic….’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?”
0/4 And I have to say, with the permission of the guvnor, you’re half as dim as I thought you were.
“no balls snidey back door merchants”
“You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned”
Go on, try really hard and make that link 🙄 😆
(A clue, it’s not about where your brainbox is).
“In the 2011 election 42 per cent of 18-24 year-olds did not vote – compared with just 5.2 per cent of those over 65.”
Good on Lorde for helping to get the youth out voting – who they vote for is irrelevant imo.
Hmmm why did he mention The Māori Party? Peters fires first overture to the gnats? I hope winstonfirst fails miserably.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10324092/Peters-No-deal-with-Maori-Mana
Trust winston? I don’t think so and I hope labour aren’t thick enough to.
If he’s in government with the greens and labour he’ll do a good job as foreign minister, just like last time.
Winston ruling out mip takes some pressure of DC. Maybe they’ve been chatting, which like the decision to exclude kdc and his puppets, is a good thing with a view of forming a stable government post election.
I’m not discouraged.
problem is that IMP is going to bolt home with a solid handful of MPs.
Well if that’s the case, there isn’t a problem and mars is getting his crotchless panties in a twist for nothing.
I wonder if Labours loss in support because they won’t rule out working with IMP is greater than the 3 seats IMP ‘may’ bring in??
And Mana isn’t a race based party.
Exactly correct!!!
harre is standing in keys’ seat..
..cool..!
Is it legal for people that are not in Key’s electorate to register there to cast a vote there?
no..it’s not ‘legal’..
Laila Harre could be the glorious Giant killer! Could very well be the Boudicia and Joan of Arc of NZ politics. She could make unforgettable history and a long lasting legend! Never say never. Nothing is impossible!
See in advance the modern Boudicea’s triumphant victory against Key and the Nats here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Queen_Boudica_by_John_Opie.jpg
I am interested to hear your thoughts on Winston’s stand today when he said that he will not work with either of the what he termed, ‘racist’ parties, Mana and Maori Parties.
What do you think is his strategy here?
I am thinking that there may actually be not a single Maori Party MP after this election anyway, while there will most certainly be Internet-Mana MPs! So, Winston is probably more likely to marry Key/National rather than support Labour and the progressives. Isn’t that the more likely scenario, unless he stays outside with C and S which is not his style though!
i think peters will go with national..
..(key will offer him whatever it takes..)
..and it amazes me how many on the left have the short-term memories of fucken goldfish..
..and are somehow confident peters will go with labour…(!)
..trust peters..?..yeah right..!
..a vote for peters..is likely a vote for key…
..lab/grns/int-mana are the only safe votes for the left…
+1
A neolib cadre in the 90s who as a senior government member pushed for the break up of ECNZ, removed tariffs destroying car assembly, and helped punish the poor.
He now profits from bemoaning the state of the world, and no-one hardly questions it!
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” Marcus Tullius Cicero.
that is quite a tidy summary of peters/his career…
I most certainly do not agree with your assessment of Winston. He is NOT that sort of a person at all. You can not demean him so unfairly for some of the policies you oppose that he has supported in his career. He has shown he is a very concerned caring patriot in many ways, including walking out of the National party for their Neo liberal capitalist policies/support of big business/corrupt practices/asset sales etc. While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election. But that is his prerogative and political strategy. That does not make him evil. People are free to decide and vote accordingly.
The quote you wrote is of course such a great quote and so true. Does not apply to Winston though.
i laughed and then i laughed a lot more @ ”revolutionary social and economic programs of Helen and Cullen”
( i can hear a violin concerto in the background as a voice-over explains how child poverty and homelessness was non-existent during this golden era)…
Nothing that the 5th Labour government did was revolutionary. Most of it didn’t go against the ingrained neo-liberal paradigm that’s tearing our country apart.
The WFF, Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Saver, Paid parental leave, Rise in minimum wage, Early childhood funding, Increases in health care, Free doc visits for kids, Dental clinics in schools, Employment relations act etc etc were Neo-liberal and not social/economic revolutionary bold programmes?
They were reasonable initiatives to take the edge off of Ruth Richardson neoliberalism.
WFF – a tax cut for the working class and comfortable middle class. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Kiwi Bank – which Anderton made Labour do. NZ has had a Post Office bank for decades. (Nor revolutionary or bold).
Rise in minimum wage. Standard social democratic thing to do. (Not revolutionary or bold).
ERA. Rolled back some of the capitalist excesses of the ECA. But gave workers next to no assistance in organising or striking. No mention of penal rates for overtime. (Not revolutionary or bold).
etc
clem said..
..”..It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election…”
..and therein lies the reason why a vote for peters is not a safe vote for any left/progressive/anyone wanting key gone….
..why their only choices can be lab/grn/int-mana..
..(and boredom-alert!..i intend to hammer this message right up to election day…)
..imagine how sick in yr guts you wd feel..
..if you voted for peters..
..and then he decided that key was offering him the best deal…
..so you had essentially voted key back into office..
..think about it..!
Yes, it would be sickening if Winston went to kiss Key’s asp.
Good description of Key and National.
Yep, for once i can agree with you Phillip, my longer comment on this hit moderation, but, Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% isn’t to hard to imagine, and if either Annette or Hone win their seats,(i expect both to), then it can be done with InternetMana accruing 4%,
Labour/Green doing any % higher than attributed above simply makes it that much easier…
Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% would make Winston and NZFirst null and void, while Winston is ‘talkin tough’ about both the Maori Party,(which i do not expect to gain any seats anyway), and, InternetMana i think that NZFirst may be in a far weaker position than Winstons ravings would indicate,
Obviously the latest from Winston is a nod toward Slippery the Prime Minister for kicking the electoral legs out from under Colon and the Conservatives and will be seen by many as an indication of an inclination toward National, (myself included in the latter group),
Winston’s problem here is that with some Big Bucks Colon the Conservative is likely to attract an even bigger buzzy bee into His bonnet fighting all that much harder for the loose frilly bits of lace hanging from the pretty coat of National and thus may send both down in a ball of electoral fire with neither party quite being able to attain the magic 5%,
Winston’s other problem, there were at the 2011 contest one hell of a lot of people that had one thought in mind as Phill Goff first fumbled and then stumbled during that campaign, that thought?, ”no way were National getting to Govern alone”, and despite having to hold firmly their nasal protuberances For NZFirst they voted,
That vote, who can ever really know its size, simply will not be ticking the NZFirst box on the ballot papers in 2014,
Labour 33%, Greens 12%, InternetMana 5%, its doable and it might be time to retire Winston from the game…
Lolz, i was wondering why this particular comment hit ‘moderation’, its the ‘A’ in gmail i got my fat little fingers to mangle into the wrong position…
Just off facebook – “Hundreds in Rotorua listening to the Internet Mana Roadshow!! Wow HUNDREDS!”
These meetings are awesome!!!!!
the rise of internet-mana is the story of this election…
Yes, it sure will be! No doubt.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20143331/the-limitations-of-technology-in-the-classroom-digital-devices-and-deeper-learning
Yesterday Nine to Noon covered the digital devices in classrooms issue with American computer scientist Kentaro Toyama.
Key point is that digital devices amplify the school environment’s existing culture: high functioning schools do even better; in schools with behavioural/learning issues the devices are a distraction.
The assumption that tech devices will somehow close the gaps between high and low decile schools is wrong.
‘NICK SMITH’S crude intimidation of the Fish and Game Council points to the bleakest of environmental futures should National be re-elected on 20 September.’–Chris Trotter.
Read that again. What a great quote!
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/07/28/something-fishy-about-nick-smiths-game/?fb_action_ids=4383100032844&fb_action_types=og.likes#sthash.gX0dgAc3.dpuf
Fuck.
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — This narrow strip of land that used to be called “the Gaza Strip,” already one of the more densely populated places on earth, is growing dramatically smaller. The Israeli military, relentlessly and methodically, is driving people out of the three-kilometer (1.8 mile) buffer zone it says it needs to protect against Hamas rockets and tunnels. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the buffer zone eats up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/as-israel-enforces-its-buffer-zone-gaza-shrinks-by-40-per-cent.html
Well it does accord with the rumours been heard around these parts.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29072014/#comment-857125
No joke. This is a big thing. Must be money in it.
Disgusting that the jews have to kill children and imprison them and their parents though. I guess maybe, , , is it revenge? Is that what Israel is doing? Is it simple revenge?
From places frequented the Israelis have a pretty poor reputation so perhaps this is just their natural setting.
Where is god in all of this?
nowhere
godless
Inspirational program from Nigel Latta. No doubt Key will condemn it which would indicate that it is powerful and refutes the Government position.
The Unequal Society. With facts and figures.
The Rich get Richer while the Poor get beaten.
Must watch before Key conspires to have it banned!
TV1 9:30pm.
@ ianmac 10.22
Naturally the much touted freedom for the public to watch tv on demand has to have a catch, a barrier which I have to climb over. A block sign comes up and when I click on it I have a window with brightcove.com and various settings. It is harder to get government to give you anything in a straightforward and simple way than it is for a rich man to ride a camel through the eye of a needle and get to heaven. Or something. I probably am confused.
Will flag down my computer-literate white knight. (Not being racist – it’s just a saying! I would find a brown black red or yellow one just as useful as a spotty pink one. Though perhaps I would not welcome a blue-green one.)
nigel latta has earned some brownie-points..
.,his doco on inequality is worth a look…
a few ppl on facebook are saying they just turned 18 & then received a letter from national pimping for their vote. they are curious as to how they would have gotten that information, because both ppl didnt think they put it anywhere (knowingly) public. weird?
“Our recents studies show you have just turned 18 which means you can vote.
Here are 3 Reasons why we reckon we are better than the rest,
1. We spend our money wisley in your community.
2. We believe Christchurch depends on us.
3. Most of all, as a whole New Zealand are going to need National in the next three years to boost the income and just become a better place to live.
WE BELEIVE YOU SHOULD VOTE NATIONAL
#ForABetterNZ.
Sounds like bullshit to me. National might be dodgy but they’re not illiterate.
5 film companies want to sequester (I think that’s the word) all of Dotcom’s assets to hold for three years. Usually can be done in a criminal prosecution but this is at a civil
stage. The guns are out.