Karma on the beach

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 28 comments
Categories: dpf, foreshore and seabed, Maori Issues, national, racism - Tags: , ,

A new lobby group, the “Costal Coalition”, crawled out from under a rock today. Above is their first billboard, one of several planned for a Wellington and Auckland based campaign. The billboard itself is the work of one John Ansell, of Iwi/Kiwi infamy. I’m with The Greens on this one:

Beach campaign ‘disgraceful scaremongering’

… Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said the billboards were divisive, dishonest and not helpful for resolving the foreshore and seabed issue.

“John Ansell’s bill boards are designed to scare instead of educate,” Turei said. “This attempt to re-run the divisive and dishonest campaign from 2005 is sad. New Zealanders have moved on. “Scaremongering like this is disgraceful. It inflames and creates division between communities as well as utterly distorting the truth.”

It is understood the Coastal Coalition group behind the billboards includes many ACT Party members and even some disgruntled National Party supporters. Ansell said the campaign was a response to “John Key very sneakily trying to hand the coast over to iwi in exchange for Maori Party votes”. ….

The Coastal Coalition is going to do nothing but damage to our country and we’d be better off without them. That said, however, I will also confess to a certain amount of guilty pleasure at watching National attacked by a hysterical right wing lobby group. Given their history they have no grounds at all to complain. Do they.

Oh and DPF? That applies to you too, tenfold. Doesn’t it.

fsc-auckland.JPG

28 comments on “Karma on the beach ”

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  1. axeman 1
    18 August 2010 at 2:22 pm

    According to John Ansell “The Dom [today]story makes it sound as though the campaign is a right-wing one. I assure you it’s much broader than that.

    It includes many of the urban liberal females for whom Mr Key is currently running the country.

    Many lefties like Jim Anderton and Comrade Chris Trotsky (sorry, Trotter) have come out strongly in favour of Crown ownership.

    The Coastal Coalition spokesman Dr Hugh Barr told me he’s centre-left.”

    • Lew 1.1
      18 August 2010 at 2:46 pm

      Rednecks is as rednecks does. The right doesn’t have a monopoly on racist idiocy. Iwi/Kiwi 2010 is essentially the same campaign as in 2005, tugging on the same vile strings. I don’t care who calls themselves ‘lefties’ or ‘progressives’ or ‘liberals’: by definition, supporting this sort of thing is regressive and illiberal.

      L

      • PK 1.1.1
        19 August 2010 at 11:30 am

        ***Rednecks is as rednecks does.***

        Lew, you support ethnic advocacy by the Maori Party don’t you? Why shouldn’t other groups advocate their own interests? In this case they are simply wanting it put in Crown ownership.

        • Lew 1.1.1.1
          19 August 2010 at 12:14 pm

          I have no quarrel with folks who want to vest the F&S in Crown ownership. I disagree with them and generally think their historical and legal reasoning is broken, but they’re entitled to their views. Where I get off the boat is when they use or endorse Ansell’s sort of techniques to propagandise their claims. By doing so they exclude themselves from civilised liberal society. The right can have ’em, and welcome.

          L

    • NickS 1.2
      18 August 2010 at 3:02 pm

      Except it’s still racism wrapped in identity politics, and lets face it, there’s still people on the left who are racists, along with those who continue to fail to understand that the Crown has yet to fulfil it’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. There’s also the moronic fact it makes the left look monolithic, and treats support from some on the left as a tact stamp of approval for it. When anyone who’s at least semi-interested in politics should know that factions and disagreements are the fucking norm.

      So back to the sewer with ye.

    • QoT 1.3
      19 August 2010 at 7:55 am

      many of the urban liberal females

      Oh, John Ansell’s a Ferengi. Suddenly everything makes a lot more sense.

      • Pascal's bookie 1.3.1
        19 August 2010 at 8:16 am

        If you like that, you’ll lurve this, (dragged out from the undignified geometry of a dpf thread):

        How Heather Roy could expect to remain a Deputy when she produces this document which suggests a total breakdown of the relationship with hHide. I think it would be best if Heather left Parliament. The next MP (a 55 year old woman lawyer from Dunedin) looks very good and would help re-bond women into the Act party.

  2. Bunji 2
    18 August 2010 at 2:31 pm

    Mmm, warm glow of schadenfreude fighting worry about disaster in (National’s) making.

    And Dr Mapp’s going to have a hard time explaining how his fears of customary title were suddenly assuaged. I hope he works out a good line, because National are going to have to use it. Lots.

    • Rosy 2.1
      18 August 2010 at 7:48 pm

      I so know I shouldn’t laugh because it’s a really serious issue. But yeah a ‘warm glow of schadenfreude’

  3. tc 3
    18 August 2010 at 2:41 pm

    National reap what they sow …….that redneck bark at the moon vote over F&S/EFA/S59 etc all whipped up by campaign 08 (as it nearly worked on similar lines in 05) expects these issues resolved in their favour.

    Plays into Peters hand nicely as the rednecks thought Sideshow would deliver so should be a dodddle for Winnie to fool them into voting for him….shudder.

  4. ghostwhowalksnz 4
    18 August 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Is Ansell behind the Banks billboards :
    The Wishbone/Backbone ones?
    Sounds like his style.

    I could suggest for Brown :
    Standing tall / Elevator shoes

  5. r0b 5
    18 August 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Kiwiblog has a thread on this. Already there are calls for DPF to condemn the billboards. Rock and a hard place for him really, how can he condemn these when he condoned Iwi/Kiwi, and then ran his own even worse…

  6. Lew 6
    18 August 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Better title, r0b: ‘Karma’s a beach’ 😉

    (Saying it in an Australian accent helps)

    L

  7. Sanctuary 7
    18 August 2010 at 4:11 pm

    With ACT splitting into the Judean Popular People’s Front of three people and the Popular Front of Judea with two people, it is hardly surprising that the remaining person left would run a Campaign for a Free Galilee.

  8. Policy Parrot 8
    18 August 2010 at 4:15 pm

    A photo of the word “irony” written in the sand is on its way to Murray McCully’s office.

    • mcflock 8.1
      18 August 2010 at 4:42 pm

      oh crap – that counts as a “stocktake”. If Brownlee sees it he’ll sell all the beaches to steel companies!

  9. Puddleglum 9
    18 August 2010 at 7:55 pm

    Is that the actual billboard?

    If it is it’s got as many symbols and allusions as a pre-Raph painting. ‘Reading the text’ we have Key’s courting of the Maori Party (the cloak – more about the marital consummation below), his token offer of the symbol of flying the tino rangitiratanga backfiring on him and the beehive dissolving in the surf with its own (dwarfed) NZ flag atop.

    Then there’s Key’s non-Duchenne ‘smile’ (i.e., the one that doesn’t use the eye muscles – the kind of deliberate smile you can’t trust) and, of course, the ‘wave’ – this time performed by the flag in his hand as it waves in the sea breeze.

    Add shifting sands and the borrowing of ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’, mimicking the call for a marriage that shouldn’t happen and you have, intentionally or unintentionally, a masterpiece in discursive inferences and innuendo. (Oh, and then there’s the hard ‘K’ alliteration of the ‘Coastal Coalition’ moniker and web address acting as a kind of solid ‘foundation’ under the crumbling beehive, valiantly supporting what Key is undermining by ‘building it on sand’. Oh, and the ‘Coalition’ echoing back the National-MP Coalition. Oh, and the white background. It’s the picture that keeps on giving…).

    More seriously, is NZ trapped in this kind of groundhog day?

  10. George.com 10
    18 August 2010 at 7:59 pm

    Chickens and Roosts. National cynically used race based politics to create a base (2005) to get into power (2008). They are now reaping what they sow. The FS&SB does need to be (fairly and equitably) put to bed as an issue. I have no time for Ansell et al. Karma does have a habit to coming round when you least want it to. National created this mess for themselves, National can suffer as a result. They have to sort t out.

    • PK 10.1
      19 August 2010 at 11:33 am

      ***National cynically used race based politics to create a base (2005) ***

      So you’re not a fan of the Maori Party then?

  11. Jimmy 11
    19 August 2010 at 9:08 am

    I read your piece and donated $250 to the CC Campaign.

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