Every cloud
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- Date published:
8:06 am, February 13th, 2008 - 14 comments
Categories: activism -
Tags: activism
The latest in a long line of failed protests on the Electoral Finance Act has ended badly with Steven Franks taking legal action against 3M, the maker of Packfast packing tape.
The Dominion Post reports today that:
“Aspiring Wellington Central MP Stephen Franks was one of six demonstrators protesting against the Electoral Finance Act who were thrown out of Parliament’s public galleries yesterday… Mr Franks was accompanied by his wife, Catharine, and John Bescowan at the demonstration… Their mouths were covered with packing tape.”
Problems arose when it came time for the brave protesters to remove the tape. Reports suggest that the adhesive backing had reacted with excess saliva in such a way that it has permanently adhered.
We did a quick poll in Cuba mall this morning to see how electors in Wellington Central felt and it’d be fair to say that reaction was overwhelmingly positive.
We know that Stephen can be, well frankly, a bit of a dick so we asked Catharine whether she thought the up-side to this sticky situation might be increased marital harmony.
She seemed reluctant to say too much, merely adding “Mmmmvphh, phofffmjjj”. A translator tells us that what she appeared to be saying was “yes, and this should help save on lipstick too”.
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Good Stuff! The last vestiges of vague respect I had for Franks ended when he made the outrageous claim at an FSC march that Rod Donald would be ashamed of the greens support for EFB – while knowing full well that the FSC is funded by Peter Shitcliffe – the same man who ran a smear campaign on MMP and Rod personally in the 90’s. Franks is scum.
So they got kicked out of the public gallery AND banned from Parliament, for ….wait for it…..saying nothing!
Helen must be even more of a coward than I thought.
Beware the silent masses!
all_your_base
The protest made it to the top of the political news on page 2 of todays dom, the biggest picture on the page. That’s hardly a failure….
Keep spinning Labour good – National bad !
Base: Brilliant
Burt: You shouldn’t be drinking this early in the morning.
Isn’t the partisan takes on news items interesting
I was disappointed that they were not on Page 1
There were not enough FSC marches for me
And there are not enough ktb billboards throughout the country
And the KTB website they couldn’t have designed it to be less effective if they tried
I consider the whole campaign not only a failure but bloody amusing
Thanks guys keep it coming
Do you want to buy a brick?
I mean this is truly frightening stuff!
First Labour took away your right to have free speech.
Now they take away your right to have no speech!
Whats next?
Seamonkey – wouldn’t want to let the facts get in the way of your opinions, but Labour doesn’t actually set the rules for conduct in the public gallery, not does it set the rules around banning protestors from parliament (I suspect he was simply banned for 24 hours which is the normal way these things work). Better you just go back to shouting ‘Communists!’.
Seamonkey. The Franks were removed from the Gallery for breaching Parliament’s long-standing rule that members of the public can’t make protests fromthe Gallery. They were prefectly within their rights to do so elsewhere, but they knew they would be kicked out of the Gallery and did so only to get attention.
Thank you Steve.
For all odds it was a PR stunt to highlight that it was the first sitting day at Parliament under the EFA.
Quite justified then.
Albeit quite ridiculous though, when they weren’t even shouting or waving any placards about. 😉
And yes BS, I had notice the ban was for 24 hours (just like the EFB protestors in Wellington last year).
Interesting to note that they had to have a silent protest – as every decent bastard knows, free speech isn’t banned so the muppets had to find another way to pretend it was about free speech, not paid advertising.
I doubt someone of Franks’ calibre will see the irony though. 😉
Political strategy for dummies:
You want to see a law repealed. A party is committed to repealing that law. That party is ahead in the polls. They have achieved this by keeping the right wing quiet, appearing “moderate”, appealing to the centre ground. Polling tells you what issues the voters are interested in – and it’s not the Electoral Finance Act.
What do you do?
a) Get as much publicity as possible for the right-wing fringe that 99% of New Zealanders don’t vote for
b) Not
E-mail your answers to John Boscawen or David Farrar at HelpingHelen.com …
all_your_base should have also put that post in humor. Definitely a good piss-take.
As Steve Pierson says, there is a long standing rule that only sitting MP’s are allowed to make fools of themselves in the house. Looks like Steve Franks was just trying to queue jump.
Finally a post where TDS is not that last poster when I arrive. Hurrah!
They are true Kiwis – and they have the support of the majority of the population.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Ha.