Just because you’re crass and politically stupid, Mr Bridges!

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, September 24th, 2018 - 25 comments
Categories: climate change, Economy, International, jacinda ardern, john key, national, same old national, Simon Bridges, tourism - Tags:

I’d have to say that the most dumbarse thing I have seen Simon Bridges quoted as saying was in this article about Jacinda Ardern going to the US, and getting invited on to numerous platforms to speak about the NZ position on climate change, probably on being a PM and a mother, and what it is like to be a kiwi in the worlds eye…

Mr Bridges told The AM Show what he would do if he had the international platform Ms Ardern will enjoy this week.

“I’d say it’s an outstanding country of opportunity. I think we’d probably push the tourism strongly, I think we’d push the trade strongly.”

My god – what a complete and utter commercial and political fool. And a stupid hypocrite as well bearing in mind his recent commitment to dealing with climate change issues.

Let me break this down..

With the platforms being offered Jacinda Ardern simply doesn’t have to act the fool as John Key did when he got  Tourism NZ to pay for his piss poor appearance on Letterman. That is something you do when you’re absolutely desperate for attention – like at the height of a global financial crisis with a tourist slump.

It certainly isn’t the case at present with tourism to New Zealand. Look at just the title alone of this article from early this year – “International tourist numbers up 1.2m in the last five years“.

New Zealand to my eye is again headed towards exceeding our tourism carrying capacity with issues showing up in everything from airport congestion, airport lounges (Air NZ sent me something on that last week), through to the tourist sites and their roads around the country.

At present we really don’t need commercial dimwits trying to promote more tourism volumes. We need to start working more on fixing our offerings so that we can actually provide what the advertisements promise. We don’t offer congestion and we shouldn’t provide it.

Sure I can feel Simon Bridge’s need to yap for attention headlines. While this is almost certainly a good thing for the left, it probably isn’t a good thing for New Zealand in some areas.

Trying to get the PM to do something as crass and stupid as a NZ tourism hard sell on the world stage when we’re already at tourism capacity is one of them. It is just like calling for massive increases in immigration without making sure that the housing and infrastructure can handle the influx. It is just stupid.

Sure it is a good idea that political parties get their heads together to get ideas on how to handle climate change issues for the good of the country. But their varied constituencies are wide, so this is only ever going to be a general frame work.

The details will need to be done inside their own parties – which is where all of the problems with National’s acceptance and subsequent sabotage of climate change initiatives has always come from over recent decades. But that is hard close work inside their party and among their donors. It isn’t political headline work.

And politically it is bloody silly for Simon Bridges to paint such an early target on himself inside National. It just serves to give ammunition to the noisy nutters inside his own party members and caucus who have destroyed similar political resolutions several times before.

He should probably concentrate on getting a workable consensus and acceptance about climate change inside National first then look for headlines later. Otherwise it just provides exactly the stalking horse required by the disparate disaffected to cooperate with their nutter fringe to destroy any climate change along with his leadership.

But that involves figuring out and understanding climate change policy with others inside his party. But it is pretty obvious that hasn’t happened.

Just think about this. Simon Bridges in an article that was primarily about NZ on the international stage for climate change and his own parties commitment to climate change frameworks. So he chose to use his comment on it to suggest that we should promote international tourism into NZ.

New Zealand as a remote tourism destination is a climate change issue. Every tourist coming to this country burns large quantities of carbon just to get here and back again.

Yet Simon Bridges is urging our Prime Minister going on a trip to talk about how to deal with climate change issues to promote more climate change. The crass stupidity and outright hypocrisy of that is just appalling.

I have to say that it just isn’t that good for the country to have a opposition that is quite unthinkingly bad at political reality whilst hunting for headlines. Despite the possible damage to the left, I’d have to say that perhaps the National party could do better.

Fortunately I suspect that Jacinda Ardern is considerably more competent and I suspect that we won’t see this kind of daft stupidity from her trip.

25 comments on “Just because you’re crass and politically stupid, Mr Bridges! ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Robert Guyton 1
    24 September 2018 at 12:21 pm

    Simon would be great on Letterman!

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    24 September 2018 at 12:25 pm

    “Mr Key, who is Tourism Minister, went on the prime time show to promote New Zealand as a destination while visiting the US. His appearance was organised by a public relations company, rather than being by invitation.

    Radio New Zealand reported this morning American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton was paid a $20,000-$30,000 a month retainer to promote New Zealand in the US.

    Tourism New Zealand said the company was paid up to $10,000 to lobby for Mr Key’s appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, negotiate any terms and conditions, and undertake preparations for his appearance.”

    Chump change for Simon.

  3. cleangreen 3
    24 September 2018 at 1:00 pm

    “it is a good idea that political parties get their heads together to get ideas on how to handle climate change issues for the good of the country.”

    Yes Iprent,

    Considering Jacinda’s ‘best point was made during her pre-election speech in the Auckland town hall’ was;

    “Climate change is our generations nucear moment”

    Jacinda should be making her mark at this UN meeting with the same urgent call.

    Not playing the fool games as Simon Bridges is.

    100% good article.

  4. Kat 4
    24 September 2018 at 1:04 pm

    You may “suspect” that Jacinda Ardern is considerably more competent but it is plain to see that she definitely is. Bridges is a politically incompetent amateur and he is not helping Labour, the coalition or New Zealand’s reputation one little bit with his headline grabbing idiocy.

  5. te reo putake 5
    24 September 2018 at 1:12 pm

    Pretty sure I heard Bridges summing himself up on Morning Report this morning:

    “My understanding is reasonably simple”.

  6. marty mars 6
    24 September 2018 at 1:19 pm

    Simon is useless – fact.
    Simon has a leaker – fact.
    Simon is not well liked – fact.
    Simon is silly – fact.
    Simon is leader of the National Party – fact

    • In Vino 6.1
      24 September 2018 at 2:24 pm

      Back in the 70s we did exercises with 5th formers taking School Cert English on how to discriminate between facts and opinions. I take it you weren’t in class back then, marty..

      • marty mars 6.1.1
        24 September 2018 at 2:44 pm

        Just being a bit silly. B+ maybe?

        I’m sure I could turn them all into fact facts too, if I could be bothered.

      • Incognito 6.1.2
        25 September 2018 at 8:01 am

        Back then we didn’t have the internet flooding us hourly with nonsense (AKA ‘fake news’) and we had to rely on newspapers. But we all knew that you couldn’t trust what was written in the newspapers 😉 Some people swore by Reader’s Digest because it fitted with their values & life style and place in society …

        Those were the days …

  7. gsays 7
    24 September 2018 at 2:08 pm

    Given that tourists to Aotearoa cause environmental damage, given our branding and that most of the tourists would be here to experience nature and the great outdoors, there must be an opportunity for said tourists pay someone to plant trees to offset their emissions.

    It’s a win win.
    Ties into the billion trees pledge, can occur in the regions (are you listening Mr Jones?), and something younger school leavers not in training or work can do.

    There must be a public service office dweller somewhere that can put flesh on that skeleton.

  8. alwyn 8
    24 September 2018 at 2:48 pm

    I assume that the author of this piece will be taking the Government to task for the latest little effort from the Shane Jones Slush Fund?
    If we already have too many tourists what is the Government doing in throwing $27+ million at more tourist facilities in Rotorua?
    Surely there are many better things that the money could be spent on?
    Cut the waste. Rein in Shane Jones.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12129448

    • Robert Guyton 8.1
      24 September 2018 at 2:55 pm

      Facilities for the existing tourist stream, good, promoting tourism on the world stage before the facilities are in place, Simon territory.

    • Draco T Bastard 8.2
      24 September 2018 at 3:11 pm

      Yep, I’d say that was a really stupid idea. It’s BAU which reality is proving doesn’t work.

  9. AsleepWhileWalking 9
    24 September 2018 at 4:46 pm

    The PM has a major point of difference in her own personality.

    She just has to be herself to be impressive. What a rare gem.

  10. Ross 10
    24 September 2018 at 5:29 pm

    A statesman might have said that whatever the PM does I am sure she will do NZ proud. Of course Bridges is no statesman.

  11. Tuppence Shrewsbury 11
    24 September 2018 at 6:34 pm

    The problem with constantly attacking the leader of the opposition for lacking nous is that it starts to draw attention to the lack of achievements from the government

    • Ross 11.1
      25 September 2018 at 7:56 am

      Lack of achievements? Maybe you would like to detail the previous government’s achievements in their nine years. It won’t compare favourably to what this government has achieved in one year.

      • Tuppence Shrewsbury 11.1.1
        25 September 2018 at 10:29 am

        But Ross, this is about the achievements of this government.

        It’s been a year since the last government. It’s time to move on stop blaming them for the lack of achievements.

  12. Rosemary McDonald 12
    24 September 2018 at 7:49 pm

    I am pleased to report that the most beautifulist vehicle accessible DOC camp in the Land had very successfully addressed the overcrowded-by-budget tourist problem.

    This time last year this remote camp was chocka with happy crappy campers who had to have their arms twisted by the ‘ranger’ to pay the $8 per person fee.

    $8 has been increased to $13, and the word has sure got around on their camper apps.

    We practically had the place to ourselves.

    Way to go.

    Do we really want to encourage cheapskate tourists?

  13. AB 13
    25 September 2018 at 10:08 am

    “New Zealand as a remote tourism destination is a climate change issue. Every tourist coming to this country burns large quantities of carbon just to get here and back again.”

    Finally, someone else saying it. Is there a plan for the NZ economy when mass tourism starts to decline, as it will have to? Maybe the plan is for all those South Island workers in tourism and related ‘hospo’ jobs to move on to being domestic servants for rich foreigners hiding in bunkers?
    And as for offsetting tourism carbon with tree planting – we’ll need to stop the tourism AND plant the trees, and that still won’t be enough.