Labour’s Betrayal Continues

Written By: - Date published: 6:35 am, February 18th, 2015 - 440 comments
Categories: Andrew Little, david shearer, democratic participation, greens, john key, labour, Metiria Turei, national, Parliament, phil goff, Spying - Tags: , ,

At a time when oversight of New Zealand’s spy agencies is needed more than ever,  Labour’s betrayal of New Zealanders continues unabated.

Just before Christmas, Labour participated in a travesty of Parliamentary process to ensure the passing of legislation which gave New Zealand’s security intelligence agencies the right to “spy at will” on any or all New Zealanders without even the need to first obtain a warrant to do so. This time, Labour Leader Andrew Little has gone so far as to  apparently break the law  with reference to Section 7(1)(d) of the Intelligence And Security Committee Act 1996. That section  appears to oblige the Leader of the Opposition to consult “with the leader of each party that is not in Government or in coalition with a Government party” in recommending members of the parliamentary committee, the ISC, which oversees the functioning and future of New Zealand’s spy agencies. Rather than consulting with the Greens and New Zealand First, Andrew Little instead left it up to the media to inform those parties that they had not been consulted and that no member from either party would be a member of the ISC.

This is a break from tradition, an insult, and a continuation of Labour’s contempt for democracy.

The result of Andrew Little’s “Captain’s Call” is that the only MPs which get to have a say on New Zealand’s spy agencies are from those same parties which have overseen – and excused – the  abuse of power by the spy agencies. Not only that, those same parties are gearing up for a wide review of the spy agencies, a review which John Key has intimated is likely to deliver even more pervasive powers to the agencies. The message Andrew Little’s collaboration with the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key sends is that there is no intention by any of the responsible elected representatives to take even the slightest heed of any submission any New Zealander may make in the review of the security intelligence services unless that submission meets the needs of both political parties and the agencies themselves.

Andrew Little added insults to the injury by writing off previous ISC member and Co-Leader of the Greens, Russel Norman, on the flimsy excuse that Norman is stepping down from the Co-Leader position. Then, just to rub salt into the wound, Little went on to further state that Greens Co-Leader Metiria Turei lacked the “skills, understanding and experience” to even be considered, let alone consulted. Needless to say, Andrew Little’s new BFF, John Key, is cheering-on this nasty abuse from the Labour Leader. As well as “totally supporting” Andrew Little’s betrayal of New Zealanders, John Key also kinda gave the game away when he said “[a] range of opposition voices from the minor parties could railroad the [review of the spy agencies] process. I don’t think the committee was terribly constructive over the last few years, I think it was used less as a way of constructing the right outcomes for legislation, and more as a sort of political battleground”

As  Pablo over at KiwiPolitico points out . . .

 . . . In other words, Russell Norman took his membership on the ISC seriously and did not just follow along and play ball when it came to expanding state powers of search and surveillance under the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012 and GCSB Act of 2014.

That is a very big concern. Mr. Key believes that the “right” outcomes (which have had the effect of expanding state espionage powers while limiting its accountability or the institutional checks imposed on it) need to be produced by the ISC when it comes to the legal framework governing the intelligence community. Those who would oppose such outcomes are not suitable for membership, a view with which Andrew Little seems to agree.

This is so profoundly an undemocratic view on how intelligence oversight should work that I am at a loss for words to  explain how it could come from the mouth of a Prime Minister in a liberal democracy and be tacitly seconded by the Leader of the Opposition–unless they have genuine contempt for democracy. That is a trait that W. Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard shared as well, but what does that say about the state of New Zealand democracy? . . .

. . . it says lots actually, but nothing good.

It would be interesting to know how details of Andrew Little’s nominations for the ISC came into the public domain right now. At a time when the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key is facing rare unified criticism for its backroom-SkyCity deal and uncomfortable information concerning John Key’s deep personal support for Mike Sabin is filtering into public consciousness, it just seems a little too cute. So too does the timing of news that Andrew Little has been  ducking-and-diving for months seemingly in an attempt to avoid paying a bill for services rendered by a small-business in Andrew Little’s campaign for Leadership of the Labour Party. The Beehive Press Gallery chooks have just had a new handful of grains to go pecking after while larger matters of greater concern to the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key are left behind.

Still, politically speaking, Andrew Little’s move to shit over the Greens may provide some sort of short term pay off. By removing the only political party to seriously question the functioning of New Zealand’s security intelligence agencies, he distances Labour from political thought which the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key has been able to frame as coming from the “extreme left”. No more inconvenient questions about sustainability or human rights or New Zealand’s sovereignty to clutter the process or confuse the masses.

Rather, Labour appears to have abandoned both its founding principles and, ironically, to have deserted the application of any real “intelligence”. Instead, Labour has joined the Brash “mainstream” to take part in the all-consuming but ultimately futile game of continuously chasing MSM polls by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Its a slippery slope. Studious observers can see already that contempt for New Zealanders and cynicism is dripping from both Labour and the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key in equal measure. To keep up in the perpetual polls, the game of “Beehive Idol” will require more betrayal because it becomes far too risky to attempt anything new or anything which might startle the judges. Come 2017, when that contemptuous and cynical betrayal is even more apparent, why would the “lowest common denominator” Labour is apparently trying to reach bother voting for Andrew Little over John Key when the choice essentially comes down to choosing Pepsi or Coke? Might as well go for what you’re used to or, if it is a choice of either Pepsi or Coke, why bother voting at all? This won’t stop any adherents of the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key from voting, of course. With this in mind, what ever gains Labour makes for putting the boot into the Greens and, yet again, betraying New Zealanders, will be short term.

It might well be in Labour’s best interests to cut the crap now and go into coalition with the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key. It would be the honest thing to do and might even temper some of the back-logged neo-liberal excesses still to be rolled out. At least then New Zealander will know where the boundaries lie and who actually is working to oppose the implementation of the wider neo-liberal ideology. Recent leaders of the Labour Party – Andrew Little, Phil Goff and David Shearer – certainly aren’t.

Meanwhile, the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key’s Spy Czar, Christopher Finlayson, has appointed one of his underlings, Deputy Solicitor-General Una Jagose, as Acting Head of the GCSB. Don’t know much about Una but lets hope her concern for the rights of corporate tax payers is reflected in a similar concern for the rights of all New Zealanders. Seems doubtful, though. Her primary function at Crown Law lately has been mitigating any legal risk the government may put itself at. What a handy skill set to have in her new position. With the ISC and GCSB now firmly in his pocket, John Key can be ensured that whatever legal risk there is in spying on New Zealanders can be completely eliminated from any new legislation his “Five Eyes Club” has planned for us.

440 comments on “Labour’s Betrayal Continues ”

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  1. phillip ure 1
    18 February 2015 at 7:05 am

    i actually have some concerns about the influence of matt mccarten on the labour party..

    ..mainly because he still holds that deep post-alliance break-up hatred of the greens…

    ..and is this ignoring by labour part of that..?

    ..is mccarten ‘relaxed’ about the greens being excluded..?

    ..i’m picking that yes..yes he is relaxed about the greens being excluded..

    ..’cos..he doesn’t like them..

    ..’cos they broke up the alliance..

    • phillip ure 1.1
      18 February 2015 at 7:51 am

      in an ideal world you’d think/hope mccarten wd be using his position in labour to try and bring the two parties closer together..

      ..but i fear these historical antipathies are dictating just the opposite to mccarten..

      ..i hope i am wrong/incorrect..but i don’t think i am..

    • Brigid 1.2
      18 February 2015 at 9:05 am

      Garbage!! The greens didn’t break up the Alliance. Jim Anderton did.

      • phillip ure 1.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:20 am

        without reliving/litigating that again..

        ..yes..anderton was a powerfreak arsewipe..

        ..but the greens formally moved to leave the alliance..

        ..the likes of nandor tanczos were heavily involved in that..

        ..and anyway..the likes of mccarten have long hated the greens..for those reasons..

        ..which is the point/problem..surely..?

    • Ad 1.3
      18 February 2015 at 10:12 am

      Matt has the most important skill in politics: he can count.

      • phillip ure 1.3.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:14 am

        meaning what exactly..?

        • Ad 1.3.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:22 am

          Meaning: whether forming a new government or passing legislation, Labour simply cannot do it without the Greens, and others.
          McCarten knows that and works on it every day.

      • DoublePlusGood 1.3.2
        18 February 2015 at 12:14 pm

        Well, he didn’t count that getting Hone Harawira in in Te Tai Tokerau would’ve meant +2 seats for the left and so made it difficult for National to form a government, so I really don’t rate his counting skills.

        • lprent 1.3.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 1:28 pm

          Your maths is a bit flawed. Kelvin Davis did win the seat for Labour after all.

          It would have meant at best +1 seats for the left assuming that IMP got over about 1.2% (they staggered over at 1.42%).

          It would have made no difference for the left as National had 4 MPs in supporting parties in addition to their 59 MPs. Even if you imagine that Labour, the Greens, the Maori party would work in coalition with Hone and Mana (I can’t see it myself), or that United Future could, I think that it would have been a disaster.

          Internet Mana and Mana are rather toxic politically especially to other minor parties in such a broad based coalition. They haven’t shown any signs of being able to be anything apart from a small opposition group who attacks other parties and people of the left.

          • DoublePlusGood 1.3.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 2:09 pm

            Yeah, I guess +1 for the left, to get +2 it would require something weird to happen with the calculation of list seats.

            Mana though wouldn’t be the political party I’d think of when considering toxicity towards other parties. Your last sentence sounds heaps like the Labour party, alas.

            • lprent 1.3.2.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 2:43 pm

              Nope it sounds like a sysop who has been attacked by a arsehole Mana troll masquerading as one of their spokespeople. Having a well known supporter like Bomber act like a dildo on P doesn’t help either when attacking Labour, the Greens, and my site by inventing strange distortions of reality.

              It just reinforces a more general perception that the average Mana supporter appears to be a fuckwit with delusions of a grandeur who is more concerned with inflating their ego than doing any real work.

              I really don’t like lazy idiots blaming everyone except their lack of a work ethic and having toerags like that attack me makes me appreciate why many in the Labour and Green parties view Mana as being toxic.

              I’m having fun reflecting my irritation at present. I am sure that there are effective mana supporters. But they let arseholes speak for them so I guess they get tarred with the same brush.

              • marty mars …
                18 February 2015 at 3:26 pm

                I am a Mana member and I think, like all political parties and movements, there are plenty of dicks that get into roles where they don’t represent well – just like labour has/does. Mana kaupapa isn’t toxic it is part of the cure imo.

          • gsays 1.3.2.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 8:10 pm

            hi lprent
            ‘They haven’t shown any signs of being able to be anything apart from a small opposition group who attacks other parties and people of the left.’

            every day this sentyence sounds more and more like labour.
            for that reason i dont hold much hope for coordinated cooperation in the up coming by election.

    • Murray Rawshark 1.4
      18 February 2015 at 10:37 am

      I suspect you’re right. McCarten is just another bloody bureaucrat as far as I can see. There’s no evidence that he’s done anything great in his job with Labour.

  2. tc 2
    18 February 2015 at 7:17 am

    These are not the change agents you are looking for , great post Blip.

    Greens will be the winner if little keeps this up as the only party seen as seeking real soverignty and sustainability. They get my vote anyway after Labour showed its inability to do deals and win power back.

    I am prepared to give some slack as a tactical move to de power the narrative key has the msm enforcing but time will tell on that one.

    • phillip ure 2.1
      18 February 2015 at 7:52 am

      “..great post Blip..”

      yeah..i’ve linked to it…

    • just saying 2.2
      18 February 2015 at 8:10 am

      There are no winners here. The whole left loses.

      And yes, great post, Blip.

      But what to do about it?

      • saveNZ 2.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:31 am

        +1 Totally agree. No winners here – except National – no wonder our very own Cashier Key is ‘totally supporting’ Little’s decision.

        I am so angry with Labour. You want to support them, but the are so Fucked Up!

        The Greens should have been on the committee. God I despair, why do Labour have to fuck everything up??? If they actually want to get into government they need to collaborate with the Greens or even NZ First – obviously they should be working closely with both.

        But no, just gets Shearer. Another wasted opportunity to show they are not NationalLite. Totally agree, you are choosing between Coke and Pepsi. So generally you go with what is already in the fridge if they are both the same.

        Winston and Meteria should kick up blue murder over the legality of it.

        If Labour vote to keep the surveillance going, they are going to lose the election as it is such a big issue, it will split the left vote.

        I could not vote Labour if they vote for the surveillance bill again.

        The surveillance issue was the one that has got middle NZ up in arms. In spite of only giving a very short period of time for submissions apparently their was a record response from the public.

        Like with the Nuclear issue, Labour could be gone by lunchtime like Brash with this one. It is a fundamental human right and national identity to have a passport and not been surveilled without court approval and real evidence to support it.

        I have been trying to support Labour, but if they fuck this one up again, they won’t even be getting my electorate vote, next time.

        labour labour the small stuff and stuff up on the big ‘moral ethical sovereignty human rights issues’. But they don’t even understand it, or realise the public actually does notice this, their supporters certainly do, and that is why their votes are declining.

        Ordinary people are being turned off politics and don’t want to be a member of a political party, let alone donate, this type of ideological betrayal is why.
        –

        • Colonial Rawshark 2.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:43 am

          Labour seems intent on fucking up their next coalition government before it even starts. Way for Labour to demonstrate to the electorate that they can work together productively and respectfully with the Greens.

          Maybe Labour thinks it’s going to be able to govern alone come to 2017? Maybe being back to 40% in the polls has gone to their heads. LOL

          • Tracey 2.2.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 4:49 pm

            and then they do something silly like not settle a simple (apparently) account which Joyce blew up into mammoth proportions (when compared with, say, skycity) and Gower loved the opportunity to make Little look, little last night.

        • disturbed 2.2.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 1:15 pm

          1000% saveNZ

          Labour must take a stand on NSA activities and here is the latest example, the experts are actually suggesting NSA is tied to this super cyber criminal attack.
          What can the NSA now do to NZ if we don’t march to their beat?

          http://rt.com/news/232795-kaspersky-hackers-banks-security/

          The Russian cyber-security company Kaspersky Lab was invited to look into the matter, after an ATM in the Ukrainian capital Kiev started giving out cash randomly without anyone inserting a card or touching any buttons in late 2013.

          The attackers did not look to exploit weaknesses in the company’s software. Instead, they took screenshots of computers at 20-second intervals and were able to learn the victims’ internal procedures. They were then able to copy these and impersonate the victim in order to process fraudulent transactions.

          Anton Shingarev, Chief of Staff at Kaspersky Lab, said the complex nature of the malware used was unprecedented and it was “the most highly sophisticated criminal attack we have ever seen.”

          He added that the cyber-criminals used methods that were used by governments in the past, while each attack took approximately two months and around 10 criminals were working on a daily basis on it.

          Kaspersky Lab said that most of the victims were located in Russia, the US, Germany, China and Ukraine. The hacking group targeted 30 banks. One customer lost in the region of $7.3 million because of ATM fraud, while another had $10 million stolen due to hackers entering the person’s online banking page.

          The money would then be sent to accounts set up mainly in the US and China.

          “They managed to get access to the whole banking system. They managed to remotely control ATM’s and they managed to transfer money from one account to another. Due to the extreme level of complexity, banks did not realize they were coming under attack,” Shingarev told RT.

          Worryingly, the criminals were able to bypass advanced control and fraud detection systems, which the financial industry has been reliant on for years for internet security. The hackers went down another route to avoid these security systems by using industry-wide funds transfers (the SWIFT network), which would allow them to update the balances of those holding an account in the bank.

          For example, the hackers could alter the data for an account that held $1,000 and add extra funds to make the balance $10,000. The criminals would then withdraw $9,000 bringing the balance back to $1,000. As the customer lost no money, he or she would be none the wiser and not raise any alarm.

          The attackers were also not too greedy deliberately limiting the amount stolen from each victim to $10 million. This was to ensure that red flags were not raised and law enforcement agencies did not carry out a thorough investigation.

          Geographical distribution of targets according to C2 data (image by Kaspersky Lab)
          Geographical distribution of targets according to C2 data (image by Kaspersky Lab)

          Kaspersky Lab says that little is known about the criminals, as they have now been detected and the IT security firm cannot reveal any details on them. They did mention that the criminals had been working for around two years and they did leave traces which Kaspersky Lab is now studying.

          “It’s like an arms race. Security companies develop better protection and criminals develop better malware to bypass it,” Shingarev added.

          The Carbanak malware used by the cyber-criminals proved to be very successful in helping the attackers steal around $1 billion. Kaspersky Lab is worried about the increasing sophistication of attacks.

          “Despite increased awareness of cybercrime within the financial services sector, it appears that spear phishing attacks and the old exploits (for which patches have been disseminated) remain effective against larger companies. Attackers always use this minimal effort approach in order to bypass a victim ́s defences,” a press release from the company stated.

          • saveNZ 2.2.1.2.1
            18 February 2015 at 3:29 pm

            Totally agree. And what is going to happen when instead of money, criminals start hacking government missiles and nukes.

            Our government can’t do a deal with SkyShitty without getting egg on their face, their computers are being hacked and they want us to ‘trust them’. Look at the DotCom fiasco, with 70 armed defenders, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Most of the Government are like Keystone Kops around here. Anyone could pull wool over their eyes.

            I feel for the poor people being bombed in the middle East by a few people making decisions in the West, but soon someone is going to start hacking into these high tech weapons and then things are going to go horribly wrong and it will probably be in the West.

            The writing is on the wall, and someone needs to step back and de escalate the risky situations, start dialogue and not be producing all these weapons but decommissioning them.

      • Sacha 2.2.2
        18 February 2015 at 9:36 am

        We do all lose, just like the last 6 years. Only Labour can pull their socks up and start acting like a competent political party. Stuff all the rest of us can do about their ingrained muppetry. At least there has been a wee break until this kerfuffle.

        • Colonial Rawshark 2.2.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:45 am

          Well a few of us within Labour intend to do a lot more than “stuff all” about this ongoing muppetry from the red team.

          • fisiani 2.2.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:00 am

            Andrew Little wants to be Prime Minister. Not just the leader of the Opposition. So what if he abandons principle in favour of pragmatism. That’s what gets you power. If you want him to be PM then expect a lot more like this in the next three years.

            • Yoza 2.2.2.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 11:21 am

              So what your saying is politicians don’t need to worry about principles, they should be seeking power for power’s sake.
              At least your honest, perhaps we should do away with the current democracy façade and replace it with an annual X-factor style contest.

              • fisiani …
                18 February 2015 at 1:53 pm

                Are you saying that you would rather not have power if it meant being true to principles? Are you saying that principles trump pragmatism. If so then Andrew Little the pragmatist should not be the leader.

                • McFlock …
                  18 February 2015 at 1:59 pm

                  Just because you’re a moral vacuum it doesn’t mean that everyone else is.

                  But thanks for pointing out why the left will always fight on the back foot against tories: you fuckers would sell your own mother for another three years in power. You’ve already condemned your kids and their descendants.

                • Yoza …
                  18 February 2015 at 4:16 pm

                  It’s not about me having power or any party I am affiliated with gaining office through the electoral system, its more about having an opposition who can take the government and the deep state to task over the exercise of illegitimate forms of authority. Andrew Little and his proxy, David Shearer, seem more than happy to play along with the idea that the activities of the state secret security apparatus are beyond reproach.
                  Paul Buchanan’s excellent essay over at Kiwipolitico sums up the obvious ramifications of Little’s decision (hope I’m not breaking any conventions by posting such a large chunk of his piece, but it is an important observation):

                  The Greens have expressed their disgust at being excluded and have, righty in my opinion, pointed out that they are the only past members of the ISC that have taken a critical look at the way intelligence is obtained, analysed and used in New Zealand. But that appears to be exactly why they were excluded. According to John Key, Labour’s decision was “the right call” and he “totally supports it.” More tellingly, Mr. Key said the following: “A range of opposition voices from the minor parties could railroad the process. I don’t think the committee was terribly constructive over the last few years, I think it was used less as a way of constructing the right outcomes for legislation, and more as a sort of political battleground” (my emphasis added).

                  In other words, Russell Norman took his membership on the ISC seriously and did not just follow along and play ball when it came to expanding state powers of search and surveillance under the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012 and GCSB Act of 2014.

                  That is a very big concern. Mr. Key believes that the “right” outcomes (which have had the effect of expanding state espionage powers while limiting its accountability or the institutional checks imposed on it) need to be produced by the ISC when it comes to the legal framework governing the intelligence community. Those who would oppose such outcomes are not suitable for membership, a view with which Andrew Little seems to agree.

                  This is so profoundly an undemocratic view on how intelligence oversight should work that I am at a loss for words to explain how it could come from the mouth of a Prime Minister in a liberal democracy and be tacitly seconded by the Leader of the Opposition–unless they have genuine contempt for democracy.

                  Little has committed Labour to being the accomplice of a secret police operation that makes the East German Stasi look like rank amateurs. Little’s appointment of Shearer and his exclusion of the Greens eliminated the vaguest hint of oversight and turned this committee into a ‘rubber-stamping operation’, this isn’t ‘pragmatism’ as you suggest it is more, as the title of this thread points out, outright betrayal.

              • yabby …
                18 February 2015 at 2:00 pm

                Yoza, I can’t speak for fisiani, but it looks to me he or she wasn’t saying ‘power for power’s sake’, but rather suggesting Little may be choosing pragmatism in order to get into an electoral position to be able to effect change. One can have as many principles as they like – they can stand for them and die for them, however law changes and delivered outcomes are dependent on first winning a majority.

                • Tracey …
                  18 February 2015 at 4:52 pm

                  He, fisi, seemed to be saying that to get power you do whatever it takes, then you make your changes.

                  That is a form of electoral deceit at the least, not taking into account other moralities it foresakes, but it doesn’t matter if you use the power for “good”… never actually defining what “good” means helps too

            • thatguynz 2.2.2.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 11:57 am

              You spineless facile piece of shit. Your comment right there quite aptly highlights why you support the incumbent government and also why that isn’t a good thing. Power over principle – says it all.

              • disturbed …
                18 February 2015 at 1:20 pm

                Fisiani does have a common threat of principal, he or she is a product of cunning Key club greediness.

                Andrew has humanity and compassion but the Key Martians don’t.

              • yabby …
                18 February 2015 at 6:26 pm

                thatguynz – tell me how people ever get to change a system within a democracy if it’s not in the electoral box. No point having political principles if you’ll die never having achieved anything. There’s a halfway house where you moderate, compromise, concede and everyone is happy especially the middle who then vote for you.
                Andy may well be just the bloke, like Clark a born and bred Nat, a Progressive convert if you like he knows the enemy very well. I’d trust him to know how to chart through Middle NZ waters.

                • thatguynz …
                  19 February 2015 at 10:32 am

                  Or you stand by principle and actually live and breathe the values of the people you purport to represent – in this case something that Labour hasn’t done for a very long time.

                  I’m sorry but I don’t buy the narrative of capturing centrist votes. Not that I particularly like the “left/right continuum” but you will be well aware “centre” has moved significantly right over the past 3 decades. The task (which I concede takes a lot of work) is to be clear on what they stand for, be consistent and sing it far and wide. Do a good enough job of it and the rest will take care of itself – including “middle NZ”..

  3. travellerev 3
    18 February 2015 at 7:41 am

    I don’t know why anybody is still surprised at this. There is no real democracy in NZ or any other Western country for that matter any more. The left/right paradigm is a scam to make us believe we still have a choice. If the powers that be want to get rid of you they use the MSM to vilify you and simply write you out of the script.

    Next Labour will support the TPPA and it’s game over for the “little people”.

    • Jones 3.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:57 am

      I have thought for many years now that Labour and National in their current forms are natural coalition partners. And they already are, to an extent, by pole dancing around centrist politics within the left/right paradigm, keeping the people’s attention occupied through an owned MSM, while at the same time passing/supporting policy that appeals to the oligarchs (mostly foreign to NZ) and their corporations.

      The actions that BLiP cites as betrayal seem to me to be making Andrew LIttle more electable. The gloss has been coming off John Key for a while now, and his reputation is being shored up by the MSM… until a suitable replacement can be found. Provided Andrew Little toes the line with the policies and legislation that matter to the oligarchs, he’s in with a chance.

      Great post BLiP!

    • Sans Cle 3.2
      18 February 2015 at 12:29 pm

      @ travellerev: I don’t know if there every was ‘real democracy’ anywhere…. ever.
      I think we have been led to believe that it does exist, or has at one point existed.
      Switzerland come close to democracy in terms of people’s input, citizens referendum, local government and governance……but again, that is a select group, excluding migrants, children of people born in Switzerland.

      At times we are led to believe that we have democracy, and whatever supposed freedoms that entails. Yes, it is depressing, as ‘democracy’ is mainly an illusion or a concept with contested meanings, and we are left to find whatever freedom we can elicit from within the rules of the family, society, city or country we live in.

      • disturbed 3.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 1:23 pm

        Best we instead use freedom and liberty as that is as defining as the old term we used to embellish which was Egalitarianism which was actually our version of Democracy.

  4. veutoviper 4
    18 February 2015 at 7:54 am

    It would be interesting to know how details of Andrew Little’s nominations for the ISC came into the public domain right now.

    It came into the public domain as a result of discussion on Twitter on Feb 15 as to whether the members of the ISC had been nominated/appointed. Don’t have time right now to research actual participants but from memory, they included Idiot/Savant, Andrea Vance and others.

    This resulted in I/S asking Little directly, with this response on Twitter from Little

    https://twitter.com/AndrewLittleMP/status/567131364122562561

    Twitter was hot on the subject yesterday – I/S, Vance and many other feeds. This continued last night. I/S twitter feed provides some of this. https://twitter.com/norightturnnz

    • BLiP 4.1
      18 February 2015 at 8:04 am

      ‘

      Thanks, veutoviper. I haven’t yet succumbed to Twitter but, obviously, may have to if the Leader of the Labour Party is going to be using it make such announcements. Still, lesson learned: while tempting, initial suspicion of John Key’s Dirty Politics Machine being at work should be tempered with the idea that Labour is quite capable of shooting itself in the foot.

      • Colonial Rawshark 4.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:47 am

        in both feet, at the same time, especially whenever it looks like they are just getting up and running.

      • veutoviper 4.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 9:55 am

        I have resisted actually joining and participating in Twitter; but you can read many people’s Twitter feeds without doing so.

        Increasingly, Twitter has become a source of news before it hits the main media and also provides an insight into what is behind the actual published news, and the personal views, leanings etc of the people tweeting – eg journalists, politicians, commentators etc. For example, there are a number of journos who I have actually come to respect for their intelligence, views, integrity via their Twitter feeds in a way that I did not get from what actually appeared in the public media under their byline.

        Fine, you feel a bit like a voyeur when things get a little too personal in terms of what people let out about themselves and their lives; but I tend to skip over these. I also rationalise on the basis that they know that their tweets are open to public scrutiny etc. They always have the option to limit access to their Twitter accounts to approved followers only.

      • veutoviper 4.1.3
        18 February 2015 at 10:50 am

        A couple of other updates, BLiP. (Sorry if someone has already posted these. I have been out for a couple of hours and haven’t had time to read all comments here.)

        1. The DomPost has a hardhitting, to the point Editorial this morning on the toothless ISC which is well worth reading.
        http://t.co/Iqe6QSBT97

        2. First item on the provisional Order Paper for today is ….. Membership of the ISC (See page 2)

        http://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/00HOHOrderPaper_20150218/8d8bac3bf9341faff3ea8c76374a56a1eefbabb3

        3. Peter Dunne has tweeted “FWIW no-one has consulted me under 7(1)(c) or (d)”
        Worth reading the conversation under this tweet

        https://twitter.com/PeterDunneMP/status/567788798605598721

        Today is going to be an interesting one in the House!

        • Tracey 4.1.3.1
          18 February 2015 at 4:53 pm

          re 3.

          Is Dunne still alive? he seems to only speak up over matters that he feels slight him personally…

  5. rhinocrates 5
    18 February 2015 at 7:58 am

    Pure speculation here, but could it be an attempt to keep Mumblefuck happy that misfired? He’s known for his public tantrums if his dick isn’t regularly sucked.

      • rhinocrates 5.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 8:44 am

        Ever since the Amazing Psychic Doctor Dave thought that he could assess eligibility for a sickness benefit from the power of his stuttering brainwaves alone, I’ve been less than enamoured of him.

        That said, there’s a maxim by an old American congressman, Tip O’Neill, that all politics is ultimately internal. The thin-skinned and thick-headed in the caucus haven’t gone away and Little has to keep them in line.

        • Colonial Rawshark 5.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:04 am

          yeah keep an eye out for Shearer, he’s a pro-global-security-services-establishment creep.

          • Jones 5.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:10 am

            I suspect he was a advocated into politics by the same people that encouraged John Key. With a background as airbrushed as John Key’s, he was to be the left-wing alternative who ensure the “right” policies continued. To many the UN is a more socially acceptable construct to the military/industrial complex… but in effect, they are two-sides of the same big-business coin.

            • Colonial Rawshark 5.1.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 10:14 am

              This is my feeling too, esp since his way into Labour was smoothed in by none other than Phil Goff.

            • Naturesong 5.1.1.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 10:15 am

              I’m guessing Goff and co saw the success National had with Key and decided to recruit shearer as their own ring in.

              How’s that working out for everyone Phil (Goff)?

          • millsy 5.1.1.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 10:31 am

            He is on record as calling for greater use of mercenaries (or private military contractors for the PC amongst us) in peacekeeping operations.

          • phillip ure 5.1.1.1.3
            18 February 2015 at 10:51 am

            “..he’s a pro-global-security-services-establishment creep…”

            ..aye..!..

            ..he is their man..not ours..

            (‘go back home..dave..we’ll get phil goof to get you into parliament..’..)

          • Once was Tim 5.1.1.1.4
            18 February 2015 at 1:11 pm

            one that’s not averse to one or two mercenaries ‘doing the good work’ if that the easiest option to achieve “a goal ……(going forward), as a matter of fek, ekshully”
            This Labour Party idea of a ‘left’ really is all fucked up. It’s at odds with its founding principles. I see people on here going on about “why doesn’t someone form a new party” (of ‘the left’) since trad Labour isn’t representing them. NO NO NO NO! Wrong fucking question. The question SHOULD be why don’t we take OUR party back from careerist, highjacking, self-serving arseholes who have an agenda that serves their own interests FIRST, and then considers the ‘plebs’ (if it isn’t too much of an inconvenience).
            Fuck ’em, and fuck the air they breathe!
            IF and when Labour disolves – which inevitably it will if current trends continue – it’ll be the fault of the usurpers NOT the fault of an electorate vote. Prior to the last election-I thought Labour might not survive till 2017 – thus far NOTHING convinces me its on target for anything other than irrelevance – ESPECIALLY with Little’s latest GIGANTIC fuckup.
            I’m not sure our ‘elected representatives’ who continue to betray quite realise all that – actually I AM sure!!!! they don’t.
            Wooden wanna be in their shoes when it all comes time to pay the piper.
            Still – so be it. If I’m still around I won’t forget to piss on their graves.

            BTW – excellent post @ BLiP

          • disturbed 5.1.1.1.5
            18 February 2015 at 1:26 pm

            1000% Rawshark, he (Shearer) is a paper tiger too.

        • alwyn 5.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 12:43 pm

          “The phrase, “All politics is local” is a common phrase in U.S. politics. The former Speaker of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill is most closely associated with this phrase, which encapsulates the principle that a politician’s success is directly tied to the person’s ability to understand and influence the issues of their constituents. Politicians must appeal to the simple, mundane and everyday concerns of those who elect them into office. Those personal issues, rather than big and intangible ideas, are often what voters care most about, according to this principle”.

          The phrase was, as the extract above from Wikipedia shows, “all politics is LOCAL” not “all politics is INTERNAL”.

          You appear to be suggesting that Little’s only constituents are the members of his caucus, not the people of New Zealand. Is this really what you think his beliefs are?

          • rhinocrates 5.1.1.2.1
            18 February 2015 at 5:24 pm

            Thanks for the clarification. Rather I was using an axiom that is necessarily a simplification to point out that while it’s pissed off the Greens, Little’s promotion of Shearer must have had some compelling internal political motive to make it worth the trouble that it has caused. Little’s not stupid, so what makes this bad decision a “less worse” one? My supposition is that it’s need to manage and appease those elements of the party right that could return to disruptive infighting and temper tantrums or outright sabotage again.

            • alwyn 5.1.1.2.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 6:22 pm

              I see what you are on about but I really didn’t want to have Tip tarred with this view that one could ignore the people who you represent.
              He was, or at least would have been if I could have voted, my representative in Congress when I was studying in Boston, as the Congressman for the Massachusetts eighth district. He came from the era when politicians co-operated. He and Reagan, although from completely different sides of politics could work in the interests of the US when Reagan was President and O’Neill was Speaker.
              He was a good bloke as far as I could see. (In spite of being a lifelong politician).

              • rhinocrates …
                18 February 2015 at 6:49 pm

                Agreed – I’m old enough to remember Tip and US politics before partisan gridlock (do we blame Gingrich for ushering in that era?).

                He had a reputation as an esteemed and reasonable statesman.

                I always interpreted (my misquote) of Tip’s maxim as a wise observation that when someone appears to do something strange or irrational, look for what they have to gain from their point of view. Now I’m pretty sure I got this one right – Robert McNamara said that he’d learned from the Vietnam War to empathise with one’s enemy – find out what they want and how they intend to get it. That’s in the doco, The Fog of War if you fancy a good look into his mind.

                • alwyn …
                  18 February 2015 at 8:23 pm

                  Isn’t this wonderful.
                  We can basically hold different views but we can debate politely and agree on something. I wonder if it is contagious?
                  I don’t really think we can blame Newt for the situation in the US though. The problem is that politicians, ie the ones who control the State Governments, get to define the electoral boundaries in most of the States. That means there are very few marginal electorates. When you combine that with the ubiquitous Primary elections the people who end up in Congress are the ones who can appeal to a majority of their partie’s registered voters. That is a very small, and generally extreme, set of voters.
                  The Senate, and the Governors are a little closer to the centre that most of the Congressmen because at least they have state-wide electorates..
                  I hate to say it but we might be better off with people being chosen in the traditional “smoke filled rooms” than in primaries.
                  Wouldn’t you rather have Abe Lincoln, Theodore (and Franklin) Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson or Dwight Eisenhower than Clinton or George W Bush?

    • music4menz 5.2
      18 February 2015 at 2:54 pm

      I’m kind of surprised that this kind of vile, unnecessary and obscene post is permitted when others have been banned for what in my view is much lesser offences. I guess this is seen as ‘colourful’ prose and is therefore acceptable.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 5.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 3:14 pm

        Gosh! Hostility towards a politician on a political blog. Perhaps you should set up your own forum, or become a contributor at Yawns.

        If Shearer had any political nous he’d embrace his nickname by using it to comment and submit guest posts to The Standard.

        • Colonial Rawshark 5.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 3:17 pm

          You’re a cruel and unusual man.

        • rhinocrates 5.2.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 5:28 pm

          If he had any political nous, he wouldn’t have been shitting on the people he needed to vote for him. Gosh, another rude word. I’m worse than George VI.

        • weka 5.2.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 5:33 pm

          “If Shearer had any political nous he’d embrace his nickname by using it to comment and submit guest posts to The Standard.”

          actual roflnui 😀

          If this was twitter there’d be a Captain Mumblefuck parody account by now.

  6. Sanctuary 6
    18 February 2015 at 8:18 am

    I challenge anyone to listen to the patronising, sanctimonious and ill-judged Metiria Turei interview just before 8am on NatRad and then come on this forum and say the Greens deserve to be on ANY committee.

    Turei should lose her job over that performance, which would have reinforced every listeners suspicions that in power the Greens would treat any opposition like hectoring, passive aggressive school teachers dealing with a class of imbeciles.

    • weka 6.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:12 pm

      Have listened (summary below). I think the GP and/or Turei deserve to be on that committee and others.

      “Turei should lose her job over that performance, which would have reinforced every listeners suspicions that in power the Greens would treat any opposition like hectoring, passive aggressive school teachers dealing with a class of imbeciles.”

      That sentence doesn’t make sense, but I assume you mean that Turei would be the school teacher. My reading of the her tone is that she is seriously pissed at 3 things. One is the lack of consultation. Two is Little writing her off as inexperienced. Three is, the disrespect towards the GP and how that will affect the relationship. All those things are valid. What you are hearing is 20 years of exasperation with Labour who have almost continually treated the GP like the enemy. I’ve been prepared to give Labour a change because of Little, but his change is rapidly running out. I’ll be fucked if I’m going to go into the next election supportive of Labour is this is the shit they’re going to do the next three years and beyond. I expect that’s why Turei was scathing in her interview. Fair enough IMO.

      http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20167658/greens-see-red-over-labour%27s-intelligence-committee-call

      Turei explains how the law was broken, emotionally neutral.

      Explains how the GP found out through the media, scoffs a bit, and says Labour didn’t even have the courtesy to call and tell the GP what they were doing.

      Tone from here on is disdain and yes patronising (but Little deserves this IMO).

      Says she’s given Little the option of fixing the mistake he’s made (withdraw nomination, engage in proper consultation), gives him a dealine (2pm today). Not sure if the dealine is a GP one, or process one.

      Says Little is not inclined to do this at this stage, but that when you make a mistake you fix it.

      Says Little is new and perhaps didn’t understand his legal obligations, perhaps she could have helped him with that given her legal background, however he’s made a serious mistake he needs to fix otherwise he’s acting unlawfully.

      Major problem is that Nactional and Labour will be only ones overseeing spy agencies, therefore the committee will become a rubber stamp to Labour and National’s security interests, not the watchdog that it ought to be.

      Espiner puts to her that it wasn’t a mistake but an intentional snub. Turei says they need to have a long conversation with the GP, Labour have said they want a good relationship with the GP, this is a pretty dismal way of starting that. Reiterates the biggest issue is the committee being a rubber stamp.

      Espiner pushes the point. Turei says she is happy to treat this as a mistake until she understands otherwise. Says again that Little can fix his mistake.

      Little needs to respect democratic representation.

      • weka 6.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 12:16 pm

        There is another thing here, which is that there still is an issue with how women politicians are judged (it reminds me of what happens with Stephanie as moderator on ts) If that had been Norman this morning I doubt that he would have been compared to a passive agressive school teacher. Nor would the interview have been seen as invalidating him or his party from all committees. If you look at the substance of what Turei says, there’s actually nothing wrong there. So it’s all about tone.

        A tone argument is an argument used in discussions, sometimes by Concern trolls and sometimes as a Derailment, in which it is suggested that feminists would be more successful if only they expressed themselves in a more pleasant tone. This is also sometimes described as catching more flies with honey than with vinegar, a particular variant of the tone argument.

        The tone argument is a form of derailment, or a red herring, because the tone of a statement is independent of the content of the statement in question, and calling attention to it distracts from the issue at hand. Drawing attention to the tone rather than content of a statement can allow other parties to avoid engaging with sound arguments presented in that statement, thus undermining the original party’s attempt to communicate and effectively shutting them down.

        http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument

        • Tracey 6.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 4:57 pm

          This ^^^^

          Turei is more experienced in parliament than Little. She is also a Lawyer (like Little) and capable of getting up to speed quickly. Little insulted her yesterday, imo, and her speaking up strongly about it is a salutory lesson for many, who will not take it… so I guess it won’t be salutory afterall.

          • weka 6.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 5:23 pm

            Yep, we still have a long way to go.

            My other thought is how do people get experience if they don’t get to be on committees? If we were practicing democracy, then put someone competent but less experienced on alongside the experienced person. Oh wait, that would be Little, right?

            • te reo putake 6.1.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 5:34 pm

              Exactly what Little proposed, weka. The less experienced Little alongside the very experienced Shearer 😉

              • Tracey …
                18 February 2015 at 5:38 pm

                It does smack of a fear by Labour that The Greens might let slip some of what Labour was nodding to.

              • weka …
                18 February 2015 at 5:47 pm

                TRP, care to put that in the context of what he said about Turei? You think he just mangled the delivery?

                Or why not choose Norman?

                Or consult with opposition parties about who would be best?

                etc.

                • te reo putake …
                  18 February 2015 at 5:57 pm

                  Pretty simple really. I reckon Little didn’t know the detail of the process, but was told he had to appoint someone from the opposition to sit alongside himself. Norman was going, so he chose someone he knew had experience.

                  Fair enough that Turei spat the dummy, especially after finding out via the media, but if she’d just popped in and told him there was an issue, I reckon she’d have got the gig. But when she went straight to the nuclear option, that was off the table.

                  • weka …
                    18 February 2015 at 6:15 pm

                    That’s a remarkably similar line to what you run about Mana and how it was all their fault that Labour didn’t like them (and Mana should have approached Labour etc).

                    My question was really about Little belittling Turei, irrespective of whether he knew the process or not. Plus the bit about Norman.

                    • te reo putake …
                      18 February 2015 at 6:31 pm

                      What can I say? There is nothing that Little said about Turei that isn’t correct. She has no experience in this area. Not sure what you mean about Norman, but he’s made his decision to leave, so he’s not really an option.

                      I’m sure Little would have done this differently if he’d known the process better, but it’s too late now. It’ll blow over soon enough.

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 6:53 pm

                      You honestly can’t see how he could have ruled out Turei in a way that looked after the relationships better? Really?

                      Why can’t Norman take the position?

                    • te reo putake …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:00 pm

                      Yep, really. I don’t think he knew he had to do anything other than put a name up. It was Turei who went off (and I note in Parliament it was all about me me me – no mention of NZF).

                      Norman? The guy who just quit his leadership role? He ruled himself out when he quit.

                    • KJT …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:16 pm

                      Neither has Little.

                      Can’t see anything wrong with Metiria Turei’s factual comments on the stitch up of intelligence oversight between Labour and National.

                      Makes you wonder what they have to hide?

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:16 pm

                      “Norman? The guy who just quit his leadership role? He ruled himself out when he quit.”

                      How so?

                      “I don’t think he knew he had to do anything other than put a name up. It was Turei who went off (and I note in Parliament it was all about me me me – no mention of NZF).”

                      So you don’t think there was anything wrong with how he ruled out Turei. I’m not talking about him not consulting. He didn’t just put a name up, he specifically said why he didn’t choose Turei.

                      “Me, me, me”

                      So if I go look at that I won’t find Turei talking about the lack of consultation and the effect on democracy, or how it makes the ISC a rubber stamper instead of a watchdog, or how the GP has a position of the need for more democratcy and oversight etc? It’s all going to be about Turei herself not getting the job?

                  • Sacha …
                    18 February 2015 at 7:00 pm

                    Doubt it. Remember he didn’t talk with Winston either. Yet claimed to have thought of them both being unhappy if he appointed the other party.

              • Tracey …
                18 February 2015 at 5:51 pm

                how long was shearer on there? A year? What kind of experience do you need?

                • Colonial Rawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 6:15 pm

                  Shearer has had all kinds of contacts with spooks and the military industrial complex as part of his former UN life.

                  • Anne …
                    18 February 2015 at 7:38 pm

                    He has indeed and I can understand Little wanting him on the committee with him. Shearer’s knowledge and experience will be extremely helpful to Little. In Little’s shoes, I would want him there too.

                    But at the same time I think it is incumbent upon the government to recognise the fact that the Greens in particular should also have a place on this committee. They bring a perspective which is currently lacking and they speak for a significant portion of the population. Given the high level of responsibility the committee is expected to oversee, the Greens should be there…

                    • Tracey …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:48 pm

                      With respect, isn’t the Opposition simply being briefed/informed and asking questions.

                      They are not making actual decisions or telling the sppoks what they can and cannot do.

                    • Anne …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:58 pm

                      Tracey. I like to think they have some influence on the behaviour and the decision making of the spooks. After all, if they were to discover that the GCSB was supplying their off-shore mates with membership lists belonging to NZ Labour and the Greens… not only would they kick up one hell of a stink, they would let us know what was going on and the fury would be palpable – I hope.

                • Sacha …
                  18 February 2015 at 9:12 pm

                  Experience scratching your balls, it seems.

              • Colonial Rawshark …
                18 February 2015 at 6:11 pm

                Exactly what Little proposed, weka. The less experienced Little alongside the very experienced Shearer 😉

                How about the inexperienced Little with the very experienced Norman?

                • Tracey …
                  18 February 2015 at 6:13 pm

                  Dont watch tv3 news tonight… Paddy Gower is gunning for Little…

                • alwyn …
                  18 February 2015 at 6:26 pm

                  Why couldn’t we ask for the inexperienced Little and the very, very, very, etc experienced Peters?
                  Why should we have to have a Green when Winston would have been available?

                  • Tracey …
                    18 February 2015 at 7:48 pm

                    perhaps cos the Greens have 10% of the vote?

                    • alwyn …
                      18 February 2015 at 8:10 pm

                      That is correct Tracey.
                      However the party votes were
                      Labour 25.1%
                      Green 10.7%
                      NZF 8.7%
                      There really isn’t that much between 10.7 and 8.7 is there?
                      Why, when only 2 positions are available, should Little feel obligated to give one to Labour and one to the Green Party?
                      After all we could argue that since Labour got MORE than twice the Green vote they should get 2 before the Greens get any.
                      Or Little could follow the law, consult Green and NZF and then pick the two best people. He could easily argue that that is Little and Shearer or Little and Peters.

                  • Sacha …
                    18 February 2015 at 9:15 pm

                    I doubt Winston wanted it – the strict confidentiality would have left no room, for the grandstanding he prefers. Plus it’s hard work and he has always been rather lazy.

            • Sanctuary 6.1.1.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 10:03 pm

              Hahahahaha you guys are hilarious!

              1st Greenie “Can I detect sexism where no other normal person would see it?”
              2nd Greenie “By Jove, I think you are right!”
              1st Greenie: “So, having established beyond doubt this is sexism, we can sadly nod our head and be patronising.”
              2nd Greenie: “Hurrah! Safe ground at last!”

              Meanwhile, everyone is scrambling for the exit.

          • Chooky 6.1.1.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 5:41 pm

            +100 Tracey…Little has shown his true colours

        • phillip ure 6.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 5:47 pm

          @ weka..i listened to it..

          ..and thought turei presented a reasonable well-argued case..

          ..(and a special long-bow award for you..and you know what for..!..)

        • Sanctuary 6.1.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 9:59 pm

          Errrrr, is this a satirical post? The association of the Greens with school teachers is pretty common, unless you live under a rock. Honestly, you Greens live in another, very strange, place.

          • Colonial Rawshark 6.1.1.3.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:13 pm

            Even if you are correct, Labour is supposed to be for school teachers, not taking the piss out of them.

  7. Hutty 7
    18 February 2015 at 8:19 am

    Greens continuing to be Labour’s lapdogs. The Greens are fully dependent on Labour, however the feeling is not mutual.

  8. vto 8
    18 February 2015 at 8:19 am

    The pace of all these small steps is quickening. Steps that are without doubt leading to the new world order.

    Is there any stopping it? Not by Labour that is for sure

  9. Tiger Mountain 9
    18 February 2015 at 8:28 am

    If Labour helping ensure Hone’s electoral defeat in Te Tai Tokerau (by resourcing Davis in the West Auckland end) was not enough, now there is this endorsement of unaccountable state snooping, effectively a big kiss for 5 Eyes; and a knife in the ribs for any semblance of left parliamentary unity.

    Anyone considering themselves left should now admit something they may have known in their heart of hearts for a long time–repeat after me–“Labour is publicly a social democratic party that has never fully repudiated ‘Rogernomics’ and remains class collaborationist in essence and deed”.

    There, no need for false unity at all costs anymore. Support the Greens, Mana or one of the small marxist groups instead.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 9.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:19 am

      Getting the labour candidate elected is the first job of the labour party.

      The reality was Hone let it slip from his grasp. As he took it from labour previously

    • lprent 9.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:25 am

      Huh? So what you are saying is that Labour shouldn’t have supported their own candidate? Are you really that much of a fool.

      Usually the candidates do most of their own resourcing (they’re only allowed about $20k for an electorate campaign FFS). As far as I’m aware Kelvin Davis and his team of volunteers did most of their organising and fund raising themselves. About the only thing that the wider party got involved with was that they got volunteers when they asked for them from local general electorates.

      That was hardly surprising, as by the election I’d have gone out and helped to defeat Internet Mana myself if I was asked.

      Many Internet Mana people infuriated most Labour supporters because they are such arrogant arseholes with a holier than thou attitude who kept attacking Labour and their candidates rather than doing anything useful. Earlier in the campaign I’d picked that it was likely that IMP would get between 2 and 3%. By the time it came to the election I was picking they’d get 2%. They got 1.42%.

      But ignoring that, the objective of political parties is to help their own candidates. Electorate candidates are there to win electorates. Internet Mana and Hone ran a pretty useless campaign in West Auckland and that showed in the results. Voters there didn’t vote for Hone. He and his party failed their basic test – getting voters to vote for them.

      If a political party is so stupid or incompetent that they don’t make an all out effort on the things that they need to win then do they deserve to exist?

      • Tiger Mountain 9.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 11:23 am

        With MMP “Electorate candidates are there to win electorates” is not necessarily the case actually ask the Nat candidate for Epsom. Whats his name.

        Te Tai Tokerau was a ‘special case’ for cross party co-operation if you wanted a change of government, as should have been Ohariu. There was a Labour LEC under resourced for the election close to me in West Auckland. Yes IMP should have made Hone’s seat a priority above all priorities, Hone had the car smash and so did the IMP campaign around the time of the billboard change. It was of course not Labours sole effort, Winston the PM, the Greens, Dover Samuels, Kelvin Davis and ACT all weighed in.

        • weka 9.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 12:20 pm

          +1.

          I get that Labour still value electorate seats, and going for all seats, and that this is a big part of Labour tradition. But it’s not going to help us form solid left wing coaltion goverments. It is possible that Labour could keep an extra seat and thus lose an election.

          Which isn’t to say that Mana and/or IMP don’t have faults as well.

          “He and his party failed their basic test – getting voters to vote for them.”

          Harawira’s vote and the party vote both increased over that in 2011.

          • lprent 9.2.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 12:48 pm

            Yes. But the statement as far as TTT was concerned is a bit meaningless.

            The electorate vote in TTT went from 20,225 to 22,908 between the 2011 and 2014 elections. An increase of over 2500.

            Hones’s vote went from 8,121 to 8,969. That was an increase of just over 800.
            Kelvin’s vote went from 6,956 to 9,712. That was an increase of just over 2700.

            Most of that increase came from the increase in total voter turnout, mostly from the effects of the 2013 census (and people moving on and off the Maori roll) and accumulative minor changes in other candidates votes. It meant that Kelvin Davis went from being over a thousand behind Hone to being a thousand in front of Hone.

            Effectively Hone didn’t manage to convince new voters to vote for him or he lost a whole lot of his old voters and picked up new ones. But his 800 off vote lift didn’t compare to the thousands that Kelvin Davis got.

            http://electionresults.govt.nz/

            Internet Mana did manage to increase their party vote over that of Mana in 2011. But from memory that was from about 1.08% to 1.42% of the party votes. They did a lot of it with money and by denigrating and pissing off every other party on the left..

            It seems that since there election to be the *only* sign of life from Mana is attacking other sites and parties. I don’t see press releases and I don’t see updates to their website.

            We have had their dickhead spokespeople and their stupid apologists like Bomber since then carrying on attacking every other party and even other blogs for doing their job. This appears to be a deliberate policy.

            So my question is – with that track record, who needs Mana? I have moved from being ambivalent about them to thinking that we should terminate them with extreme prejudice. How are they helping the left?

            • Tiger Mountain 9.2.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 1:22 pm

              Well Bomber and Pat O’Dea hardly represent the whole of Mana anymore than the professional Rogernomes speak for all Labour members.

              Mana carries on community political activity regardless of electoral cycles and has engaged young people particularly in politics. You will see a Mana flag at just about any event these days, unlike the absence of an official Labour presence at the large Palestine mobilisations in Auckland last year.

              Not particularly a mainstream parliamentary focused group but part of the mix nonetheless and way more active on the ground than ACT or the HairDo party and certainly undeserving imo of bilious “terminate” thoughts.

              • weka …
                18 February 2015 at 1:46 pm

                I think part of the problem here is that those things are relatively invisible to the wider political scence. Whether that’s a problem for Mana itself is unclear.

              • Colonial Rawshark …
                18 February 2015 at 1:47 pm

                On the other hand, I think Labour should be at the head of the queue for termination with extreme prejudice

                😯

                Well, I never, Weka…

                😛

                • weka …
                  18 February 2015 at 3:43 pm

                  Lynn provoked me into that statement 😛

                  I’m actually pretty good with the idea of a L/GP coalition (with whoever else is around that wants a left wing govt) so it’s not like I want Labour to fail. I wish they wouldn’t fail, really.

                  It could simply be that we need to be put out of our misery. The idea of another election cycle like the last one, or two… 🙁

                  Probably the biggest danger is that Labour keep everyone’s hopes up but doesn’t deliver. Might have been better if the ABCs had won. I seem to remember a year ago thinkin that the 2014 election was make or break time. Looks like we’ve all been sucked in again.

            • weka 9.2.1.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 1:44 pm

              Lynn, “So my question is – with that track record, who needs Mana? I have moved from being ambivalent about them to thinking that we should terminate them with extreme prejudice. How are they helping the left?”

              Up until O’Dea’s behaviour here and on TDB I thought your general position on Mana was overly harsh. Now I tend to agree with you.

              On the other hand, I think Labour should be at the head of the queue for termination with extreme prejudice, because their behaviour in recent years is just as bad. They cloak it in more responsibility/competency and more mainstream manners, but they also have a lot more power to do a lot more damage.

              Labour get away with it because they’re a long established party, with a big support base and structure and because there is no viable alternative for the middle left voters. Those aren’t very good expressions of democracy. I’m not going to quite use the word bully, but I think Labour continues to exist for historical reasons and because its in a position to wield power. But they don’t deserve this power any more or less than Mana do just because they’re stronger.

              My own view is that MMP could support a shift towards truer democracy. I want Labour, GP, Mana in govt, because Labour on its own is no longer capable of governing for all the people. NZF might fit in there too (once Peters is gone). We need that diversity. The longer that Labour keeps playing the game as if it can rule the roost and pay lip service to the other parties for just as long as they serve Labour’s purpose, the further we are from everyone being represented and the longer we will be at the mercy of swing and non-voters.

              Thanks for the Mana vote analysis. I agree that Davis did well, I’m just resisting the narrative that Mana did badly votewise when they held their ground/increased a bit. Whatever their faults (and I didn’t see the degree of incompetency and bad manners that you did), they didn’t completely fail.

              • lprent …
                18 February 2015 at 3:21 pm

                On the other hand, I think Labour should be at the head of the queue for termination with extreme prejudice, because their behaviour in recent years is just as bad.

                I have agreed with that, there are posts around with me saying pretty much exactly that (especially at the end of 2012) with the proviso of “if they don’t change”. They have been starting to change but really really slowly. This site has been at the forefront of ensuring that they do change.

                But the idea that a political party should stand aside for their opponents is ludicrous. You have to earn your votes from voters. I expect some friction to arise from that.

                Once the voters have settled out their relative weights, then I expect parties to work together. In coalition. However that gets a whole lot harder to do if, like the Mana party supporters have been doing, they attack personalities and parties in the kinds of terms that Mana have been doing.

                If I was Kelvin Davis for instance sitting in caucus, I’d have some real objections to working with the kinds of people who spurred the personal attacks on him that Mana did. I know of a whole lot of Labour members out west who feel that way.

                The biggest issue I have with Mana comes down to a lack of strategy and piss poor tactics that seem to be based on being an opposition forever. They sure as hell don’t seem to want to be in a government because they don’t think about what the downstream effects of those tactics .

                • weka …
                  18 February 2015 at 3:44 pm

                  “But the idea that a political party should stand aside for their opponents is ludicrous.”

                  Or, Labour, the GP and Mana shouldn’t be opponents. There’sno strategic advantage for a potential left wing govt (as opposed to a Labour one) in winning electorate seats you don’t need. But there is a strategic disadvantage in treating coalition partners as enemies.

                  • Sacha …
                    18 February 2015 at 4:14 pm

                    “Labour, the GP and Mana shouldn’t be opponents”

                    A crucial point. First Past the Post thinking is what needs to be terminated.

                • marty mars …
                  18 February 2015 at 3:56 pm

                  “If I was Kelvin Davis for instance sitting in caucus, I’d have some real objections to working with the kinds of people who spurred the personal attacks on him that Mana did.”

                  who set up the attack site and who donated money to it?

                  Just for the record I was happy for Hone to go for his seat without deals with labour and happy that he lost when he didn’t get enough votes – that is what happens in politics and it can often make a better stronger politician when they come back.

                  Sure lack of strategy and tactics as is often the case with new parties formed from discontent – come on you know this stuff, it’s 101 shit.

            • Murray Rawshark 9.2.1.1.1.3
              18 February 2015 at 1:46 pm

              They do have this: http://www.mananews.co.nz/wp/

              Stuff is posted on it fairly regularly. As to “how are they helping the left?”, that depends very much on what you mean by the left. I do wish they’d cut links with Bradbury though. He doesn’t help at all.

              • lprent …
                18 February 2015 at 2:55 pm

                Agreed on Bomber. Most of the things that irritate me seem to derive from there.

                But I really can’t remember seeing quite such a active Maori electorate activist group as I did in West Auckland in the last election. They were absolutely determined that they were going to win. Which wasn’t the case in previous elections and there were a lot of them. I gather that Mana had pissed them off big time.

                That site is a lot better than http://mana.net.nz/ and http://mana.org.nz/ which froze at October 17th. But seems to only attract comments from right wing trolls.

                • Murray Rawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 3:16 pm

                  Unfortunately you’re right about the trolls from the far right. John Ansell loves spreading the love there. A couple of others, including myself (Ovicula) comment now and then. I’m heading up into deepest Te Tai Tokerau tomorrow, so I’ll get an idea of what’s been happening.

            • marty mars 9.2.1.1.1.4
              18 February 2015 at 3:49 pm

              terminate them with extreme prejudice means kill them

              and that is a shocking statement to me – you know that spokespeople and advocates aren’t the party or the movement yet you continue to push these lines – get over it mate. Mana will survive or not survive and it will be because of those who support it not those, like you, who obviously and vocally don’t ffs.

              • One Anonymous Bloke …
                18 February 2015 at 3:56 pm

                Yeah, I suspect it’s an analogy. That said, The Art Of War is just as good a manual for politics as it is for war or business.

                Do you think Lprent is going to literally kill poor Martyn and Pat?

                • marty mars …
                  18 February 2015 at 3:58 pm

                  I don’t give a fuck about martyn or pat and I know it is an analogy but thanks

                  • weka …
                    18 February 2015 at 4:11 pm

                    I thought it was a shocking statement too until I realised I’ve been in conversations on ts in the past where we’ve talked about Labour in similar terms. I hope I get some tolerance back this year.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:16 pm

                      Just so long as you don’t go beige.

                    • McFlock …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:27 pm

                      I hope there’s no outbreak of a zombie beige virus, like in the movie “28 Beige Later”…

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:21 pm

                      @ OAB, I’ll terminate myself with extreme prejudice before that happens.

                      @McFlock, haven’t seen that one, but we already have The Lord of the Beiges. One Beige Hole to rule them all.

                  • Colonial Rawshark …
                    18 February 2015 at 4:13 pm

                    Well on re-reading it, Lprent’s statement is either about finishing off the Mana Party as a political entity, or killing every single person associated with it.

                    I think he meant the former, but I suppose it could be construed to be the latter.

                    • marty mars …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:28 pm

                      yeah well I never thought he was going to go rogue on it and climb a clocktower looking through the sights for Mana members.

                    • Chooky …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:41 pm

                      thus far we have heard on this site that the Greens are toxic and Mana is toxic

                      ….well let me be the first to say Labour is toxic

                      …i have never said this before…but Labour is toxic to the dreams and hopes and expectations of New Zealanders…it is toxic to a cooperative Left coalition

                      ….as far as i am concerned Little’s snubbing of the Greens , women and NZF ….and appointment of Shearer to make decisions on what was a core issue of the 2014 Election…the illegitimate spying on New Zealanders …is the last straw

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:16 pm

                      Well on re-reading it, Lprent’s statement is either about finishing off the Mana Party as a political entity, or killing every single person associated with it.

                      I think he meant the former, but I suppose it could be construed to be the latter.

                      I took marty’s shock to be about the former. The former is shocking on its own, esp coming from someone in Lynn’s position (me, I’m a nobody with an opinion on the internet).

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:38 pm

                      Lprent is a player? Oh! The humanity!

                    • lprent …
                      18 February 2015 at 6:43 pm

                      …me, I’m a nobody with an opinion on the internet)…

                      Ah. So am I.

                      I think that I have pointed out at various times that I don’t hold positions in organisations. I was a member of the NZLP for many decades, mostly so I could attend conference. Now I am not.

                      Back in about 1991 I was accidentally elected as chair of the Sandringham branch of the NZLP. The following year I managed to reduce it to become secretary. The year after that I was free.

                      I attended the Mt Albert LEC some of time, and been a voting delegate to conference a few times for branches or the LEC. That was usually after I said I would be going and they wanted a voting body. I often attended campaign meetings to tell people how we should run election campaigns – but I didn’t need a position for that.

                      The next official position was being a trustee for The Standard trust in 2010. That was because we needed a body with a legal name.

                      However I am quite opinionated and pretty skilled in a wide number of areas and people often listen to those opinions. The net just makes that wider.

                      The former is shocking on its own,

                      Gee and how many times have I heard Mana party members and supporters saying that the Labour party must die?

                      Did the dickheads saying that ever think about how that sounded to Labour party members and supporters?

                      There are mental pathologies for people who can’t figure out how other people feel. But I would just lump this under the hypocrite label. But I think that the best answer was the one that the Labour activists chose in Te Tai Tokerau. They got rid of the canting fools from Mana who attacked them and their candidate.

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 7:38 pm

                      “Ah. So am I.”

                      yes and no. I don’t have a problem with you expressing your opinion. But when I first read it, I thought holy shit. You have a degree of power and influence that most of us here don’t. For one you are a key player in the standard operations, including with the positions of moderator and author. Two, you seem to have little problem with going hard out at people you think deserve it, eg by writing a post. I’ve not seen you misuse your moderating position, so that’s not an issue. Your occassional pillorying posts always seem well targeted, but I would consider you someone who is not a good enemy to have.

                      You also have a political background (less unusual on ts). Plus your skillbase. All that makes you pretty formidable, with the main checks and balances visible from this side being your own personal world view and ethics.

                      It was just an immediate reaction, the shock. I’m not thinking you would be doing anything in particular, but you are someone with power who knows how to use it.

                      As for Mana, well I’ve not seen the behaviours you describe so I can’t comment on them. Plus I’m a GP member and we just want everyone to play fair, or if they can’t do that at least act civilly most of the time (that’s a comment about Mana and Labour as much as anything).

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    18 February 2015 at 4:14 pm

                    If Mana is toxic it’s mostly to its constituency. In that case, who wouldn’t want them dead, figuratively speaking? Change the brand blah blah etc…

                    • marty mars …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:22 pm

                      If Mana is toxic it will die – it doesn’t need a hand from anyone and members will do the job.

                      and I’m open to it dying if that is what is meant to happen – I supported The Maori Party and they died – birth, growth, decay, death is natural and sometimes the cycle is quick and sometimes extended.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      18 February 2015 at 4:52 pm

                      There’s nothing wrong with holding its members to account when they attack the Left. It’s up to them if they want to go along with Martyn’s bourgeois rhetoric.

                    • marty mars …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:22 pm

                      thank you for your opinion

                    • weka …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:31 pm

                      It’s tricky. How do small parties grow, esp in such a toxic environment? This is part of why I don’t support doing away with coattailing, or dropping the threshhold to only 4%. I want to see fledgling parties have a chance (plus I’d rather see ACT visible in parliament than have them hidden within the National Party).

                      Also thinking that Lynn’s idea of you build a party over time by doing the hard yards is a pretty privilged idea. If you’re constituency is poor or brown or both, then that’s so much harder.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      18 February 2015 at 5:33 pm

                      Privileged, or simply an acknowledgment of Realpolitik?

                      Edit re: ACT: ‘one person one dollar one vote’ isn’t just a way to smash them (only figuratively, sadly), it’s a perfect expression of the values they pay lip service to 😈

        • Tracey 9.2.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 4:59 pm

          Yup. Epsom actually has about 4 MPs in parliament, kind of reflects how our society works today, and for whom…

      • Sanctuary 9.2.2
        18 February 2015 at 10:09 pm

        “…Many Internet Mana people infuriated most Labour supporters because they are such arrogant arseholes with a holier than thou attitude who kept attacking Labour and their candidates rather than doing anything useful…”

        You can add the Greens to that as well by the look of it. The problem is a lot of Mana/Green types subscribe to a somewhat garbled Marxism, which holds that by cooperating with capitalism Labour is simply delaying the long anticipated dawning of a new consciousness and the eco-revolution.

    • disturbed 9.3
      18 February 2015 at 1:28 pm

      1000% Tiger mountain.

  10. adam 10
    18 February 2015 at 8:36 am

    Labour the party are the weight tired around the left wings neck, choking the life out of any real moves towards liberty, equality, and fraternity.

    • Sanctuary 10.1
      18 February 2015 at 8:42 am

      Get a grip. Do you really see evidence for a Podemos or a Syriza here? Those parties are born of 50% unemployment and 30% economic contractions, and even then they are operating within the existing democratic systems. Like it or not, NZ is now more or less completely decoupled from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region has not suffered anything like the economic disaster Europe and the USA went through. The soil for revolution is infertile to put it kindly in NZ.

      • Colonial Rawshark 10.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:02 am

        don’t be too smug. The “decoupling” you mention only works for as long as the government – whoever it is – keeps pouring $200M of foreign debt money into our economy. Without that, NZ would enter a severe recession within 1-2 months.

        • Jones 10.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:21 am

          This Government hasn’t borrowed $90+ billion (and rising) over the last 6-7 years for nothing. It has enabled them to appear politically centrist by supporting the welfare state, all the while moving money through the government books to its big business mates. They would not have been able to do this if the previous Labour Government hadn’t paid down the debt. By the time you add the private debt (mostly mortgages) owed to foreign banks, NZ isn’t looking that economically sound. Our economy is a sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors show presided over by a double act, Bill and John.

          • Colonial Rawshark 10.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:53 am

            Precisely. And let us remember that the 5th LAB govt’s economic miracle was largely predicated on a massively expanding private sector debt burden which Cullen cleverly used to swap for paying down the public debt.

          • disturbed 10.1.1.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 1:36 pm

            Jones,
            It was reported in evidence that the latest Treasury figures and historical 2008 figures that when Key took over from Clark there was NO CURRENT CROWN DEBT.
            The forecast was that the Crown debt would rise to 13 Billion by 2013 because of the Global recession.

            When Key took over he has now raised this borrowing from 13 Billion to another 60 billion by December 2014.

            Your 90 Billion may be about right, even though he has sold during this time most of our assets, so we have really been well and truly duped have we not.

            • Colonial Rawshark 10.1.1.1.2.1
              18 February 2015 at 1:50 pm

              There was no net CROWN DEBT because Cullen enjoyed a situation where NZ private sector and household debt was climbing through the roof 1999-2008. For instance

              http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/key_graphs/household_debt/

              All Cullen did was tax in money provided by increased private sector debt and use that to pay off Crown debt. In other words, it was a debt swap – lower public debt for higher private debt.

              NZ did not come out ahead at all.

              • Murray Rawshark …
                18 February 2015 at 3:19 pm

                I think Cullen deliberately used higher prices from SOEs to be able to keep taxes down as well. Of course, this would have contributed to private debt. His policies are only a short term remedy at best.

                • Colonial Rawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 4:18 pm

                  Yes, another way of viewing things like high power prices is that it is another kind of hard to avoid tax on the household, either by the private sector or quasi-private sector. Regardless, it eats into any household surplus meaning less savings and more debt.

      • adam 10.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 10:46 am

        Wow, Sanctuary – you really had your feathers ruffled. Bad day?

        The French revolution did happen. I’m just saying the party which represents itself as a left wing alternative to national, is not. At this point you have to wonder if it would have even embraced the Glorious revolution? A socialist one, yea dreaming mate, yea dreaming.

        These days labour are well and truly of/and for liberal economic theory/orthodoxy. They are at best a bunch of ideologues who can’t think beyond their own pay check, and the golden perk retirement package.

        This is Labour – sell out to working people since 1984. They are no alternative – they are a bloody disgrace.

      • Sanctuary 10.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 11:20 am

        I don’t disagree with any of you, if the economic chickens come home to roost THEN Labour will have choice, and if it fails that test it will THEN be finished as a mainstream party and it will be replaced (not by the Greens BTW). In the meantime, the real political option would be for someone to form something like an NZ version of Militant Tendency as a faction within the party, because right now we only have to one electable brand.

        The point is, all this millennialist end-of-times rending of cloth by Green supporters because Labour stiffed them on an appointment to the intelligence oversight committee says more about them than anything else.

  11. Sanctuary 11
    18 February 2015 at 8:37 am

    “… Support the Greens, Mana or one of the small marxist groups instead…”

    Where I guess you can maintain the purity of your message by being completely irrelevant forever?

    • Philip Ferguson 11.1
      18 February 2015 at 8:49 am

      But the Labour Party is completely irrelevant to fundamental social change.

      For anyone who puts the interests of workers first, the LP is part of the other side not our side.

      What we need is a new political movement – of the workers, by the workers, for the workers. Labour is totally irrelevant to that.

      Here’s why: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/the-truth-about-labour-a-bosses-party/

      • Colonial Rawshark 11.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 8:57 am

        your focus on workers leaves out hundreds of thousands of struggling Kiwis who are not employed.

        • Tiger Mountain 11.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:14 am

          picky, picky Colonial
          –how about workers and other exploited and oppressed groups paid and unpaid?

          Or workers and their natural allies. It is about an individuals relationship to class power and the means of production. This is multi faceted these days with fewer industrial concentrations of hundreds in one plant; there are dependent contractors, SMEs, self employed, temps, contractors, freelancers, home workers, precariat, unpaid workers, maybe workers (zero hours), etc plus some that actually have regular hours and collective employment agreements

        • Murray Rawshark 11.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 10:53 am

          Not necessarily, CR. If he’d said “of the working, for the working, by the working” it would have. And, like Labour, it would have excluded anyone painting their own roof.

        • disturbed 11.1.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 1:39 pm

          And those on zero hours the hideous name given workers when they have no work.

          • Tracey 11.1.1.3.1
            18 February 2015 at 5:02 pm

            and let’s not let zero hour contracts make casual contracts seem ok… cos that is where I see the focus on zero hours going…

            • KJT 11.1.1.3.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 7:30 pm

              Most casual contracts are just as bad as zero hours. The real reason behind the POAL action.

              It means employers have a work force on call, but the workers cannot have a life.

              Unpredictable working hours and wages mean the employer has shifted the cost, of having workers on standby, to the workers.
              Just as they have managed to shift the cost of training, and bringing up the future workforce, away from them selves, to PAYE payers and the workers.

              • Tracey …
                18 February 2015 at 7:42 pm

                I agree

                Those I know on casual contracts live on the edge as much as zero hour contractors. Dont know from day to day if they will be required the next day.

    • dave brown 11.2
      18 February 2015 at 9:07 am

      Sanctuary you only have to look to Europe at the moment to see what happens when the old Social Democratic parties are widely seen as completely betraying their historic constituencies.

      They become “completely irrelevant forever” and new coalitions to the left emerge.

      As the ongoing crisis of capitalism worsens and Labour proves incapable of reconciling NZ working people to their fate as wage slaves of finance capital, Labour will lose its left wing and a new coalition on the left will form along the lines of Syriza or Podemos.

      This will prove that the mass of workers who are turned off Social Democracy will at last have removed the historic Labour leg iron and won the fight to create a new political party that allows them to express their class interests to get rid of capitalism and build a democratic socialist society.

      http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2014/12/labour-party-split-re-activated.html

      • Jones 11.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:52 am

        That’s it in a nutshell. It’s simply is not that bad in NZ… yet. Through this Government’s borrowing, NZ is being nicely positioned for the banks so that when they come to collect, the pressure will go on NZ to sell more assets, introduce austerity, or whatever is touted as needing to be done by the IMF, Reserve Bank, etc. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be this Government’s problem to deal with.

  12. Colonial Rawshark 12
    18 February 2015 at 8:56 am

    The firmware of all major brands of hard drives have been compromised by the NSA (likely with the co-operation of companies like Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung and Toshiba), meaning that you can never effectively wipe their compromised code from your computer.

    So it is not just Andrew Little’s decision which is anti-democratic, it is everything on the mass surveillance road that Labour is partnering with National to take us down.

    • Lanthanide 12.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:06 am

      Source please.

        • Lanthanide 12.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:18 am

          ““During our research, we’ve only identified a few victims who were targeted by this,” Kaspersky’s report said. “This indicates that it is probably only kept for the most valuable victims or for some very unusual circumstances.””

          Joe Blow doesn’t have much to worry about. It’s also unclear from the article what the firmware actually does, apart from make a few hidden sectors. Probably the only useful thing it could do would be store encryption keys, should the hard drive be encrypted, so that the keys could then be extracted from that sector and the whole drive de-crypted.

          • One Anonymous Bloke 12.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 9:22 am

            Joe Blow doesn’t have much to worry about…

            So, it’s only going to be used against people who are significant in some way. Nothing to worry about at all 🙄

            • Colonial Rawshark 12.1.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 9:25 am

              It seems even tech savvy people like Lanth can be relaxed about having malware and spyware pre-installed on all their – and our – computers.

              • Lanthanide …
                18 February 2015 at 9:57 am

                I’m quite confident I’ll never have this particular malware installed on any computer I own.

                Also, nothing in that article says it is pre-installed.

                • Colonial Rawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 10:12 am

                  So you’re quite confident that you’ll never become politically active or politically dissenting to any noteworthy degree?

                  That’s great, but perhaps you could spare a thought for the people who organise The Standard, and some of the rest of us too.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    18 February 2015 at 10:18 am

                    If you think the organisers of The Standard are “the most valuable victims” then you’ve got a weird view of the world.

                    • Colonial Rawshark …
                      18 February 2015 at 10:22 am

                      I get it Lanth, you’re pretty relaxed about this issue, you’ve convinced yourself that you’ll never be a target yourself.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      18 February 2015 at 10:42 am

                      No, i’m just looking at it rationally.

                      The biggest contributor to what makes these very powerful and impossible-to-beat malware powerful in the first place is that they are only used against very specific targets, so as to keep them secret.

                      As soon as they’re out in the wild infecting every John and Jane, the cats out of the bag and techniques to detect and remove them will be created.

                    • Colonial Rawshark …
                      18 February 2015 at 10:48 am

                      Yes I agree that these specific tools are near the top of the surveillance toolbox hierarchy and would be used very sparingly, as opposed to the bulk internet based collection programmes ‘Upstream’, ‘Prism’, etc. which are used on everyone all the time.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      18 February 2015 at 11:08 am

                      Agreed. But we’re not talking about those in this discussion. Or at least, I’m not.

    • saveNZ 12.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:44 am

      You are right. That is why IT people are the new whistle blowers. It used to be union members and artists that were targeted. Now it is IT and investigative journalists, who understand what is going on technology wise, and the journalists that report it.

  13. Sanctuary 13
    18 February 2015 at 9:03 am

    “…What we need is a new political movement…”

    People keep saying that, but no one appears to be actually interested in making the effort to do it. And don’t say it’s all to hard. That just means you are to lazy. You know, I read about how the Dutch got their cycle ways. It began in 1973, when the pressure group “Stop de Kindermoord” (“Stop the Child Murder”) started. I heard an interview with one of the ladies who started this pressure group. She said it began with two people in a small office above a suburban shop.

    Two people in a small office above a suburban shop. Now, 2015, the Dutch have the best cycle network in the world. From 450 children a year killed in 1973 to 14 last year. They got the cycle network because the “Stop de Kindermoord” movement built a grassroots organisation that over forty years has created first the political will then a political consensus around cycling whilst bringing the people along with them.

    If you want a new political movement, go get a small office above a shop in Otahuhu. Otherwise, it’s all just jaw jaw.

    • saveNZ 13.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:55 am

      I’m with you. Also I think there is a change in NZ. People are angry, it is not reported in the MSM. Ordinary people supported Catton’s opinion about our government.

      There is a butterfly effect happening in NZ, if Labour had any sense of survival they would capitalise on it, instead they go for the easy option and ‘what they think’ people want to hear.

      Sorry the new buzz word theses days in corporate land, is leader’s with integrity and creativity. Their have been praised glimmers of that in Little, but unfortunately with a ‘bigger’ issue he has to go with the status quo and thus look like a poorer version of Key. That makes people very angry as Little is so unpredictable.

      One minute challenging National and the next minute on ‘big’ issues supporting him. It is very polarising to the public. He looks flaky.

      If you want to look at the similarities to sexism look at Key and Little comment:

      Greens Co-Leader Metiria Turei lacked the “skills, understanding and experience” to even be considered, let alone consulted.

      Key on Catton:

      “She has no particular great insights into politics, she is a fictional writer. I have great respect for her as a fictional writer [sic].”

      Fucked Fucked Fucked.

      Women vote Labour. Don’t put Women down. Metiria is both a more experienced party leader than Little and I think used to be a barrister. What a condescending comment from some sort of sexist (possibly racist) bias that is unacceptable in a Labour leader.

      Looks like what Abbot would say, and we all know where he is heading…

      • te reo putake 13.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:03 am

        Little was right about Turei’s “skills, understanding and experience” . She has none. Norman was the Greens rep on the committee, not Turei. You’re assuming that Little meant her overall skills, understanding and experience when clearly it was in the context of that committee.

        • Colonial Rawshark 13.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:08 am

          Yeah like a relatively new MP like Little has any fucking skills and experience in the intelligence and surveillance arena himself to judge Turei with.

          Here it’s just Labour playing a dumb game of pot calling the kettle black.

          • te reo putake 13.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:15 am

            Yeah, it’s not like Little was a former union leader, subject to surveillance himself. But, anyway, if you were right, all the more reason to go with Shearer, who does have that experience.

            Just to clarify my position, I do think this was a shocker. Little obviously did not read the legislation and appears to have just understood that it was his right to appoint whoever he wanted. A pretty awful error and I imagine he’s going to be in full damage repair mode with the Greens today.

            • Colonial Rawshark 13.1.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 10:20 am

              Going with security establishment insiders like Shearer is a serious mistake unless you wish to go with the security establishment. That is Labour today.

              The point is that Little has zero security or surveillance experience himself. He may have been a target, perhaps. But we do know the Greens definitely have been.

              Little has no expertise or experience upon which to label Turei lacking in expertise or experience. That is simply hypocritical pot calling the kettle black.

            • Tracey 13.1.1.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 5:09 pm

              Yea Turei wont have been subject to surveillance as a Green party lawyer…

              Sometimes you bemuse me.

              NO one could ever be on the committee the first time if your (and Little’s ) logic is applied.

          • saveNZ 13.1.1.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 10:36 am

            I say Russell and Shearer on the committee, Little is the dead wood. Or even better Winston and Russell. If there really is a conflict with timeline and Russell then Metiria and Shearer. If Little wants to be on the fence cos he is worried about votes, he should keep out of it anyway.

            But I am absolutely sure that 60 percent of Kiwis are against the bill, and a much higher percentage of Labour voters again, thus making Labour look bad yet again outside of public opinion.

            • ankerawshark 13.1.1.1.2.1
              18 February 2015 at 1:40 pm

              Yes but if Labour win the next election Little will need to be very experienced as it is usual for the PM to be Minister for the SIS and make calls on security issues. So it is important he gets up to speed.

              Sorry guys, it may not be Labours best moment so far, but he made a call, he made a mistake perhaps, but the reality is if we want to change the govt (I do) even for a govt is a little bit better than National, a lot of us are going to have to get behind Labour. I am willing to do that.

              • Tracey …
                18 February 2015 at 5:11 pm

                ” it is usual for the PM to be Minister for the SIS and make calls on security issues. “… that convention was smashed when the current PM just wasn’t up to it or interested. Shocking from a PM, but the media seem happy enough

                • Colonial Rawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 5:20 pm

                  I’m pretty sure Key remains a central player in the revamped and restructured NZ security and surveillance apparatus.

                • ankerawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 6:02 pm

                  Hi Tracey,

                  Yes Key broke the convention, which as you say is shocking. Little needs to be on that committee, ESPECIALLy if he knows very litte about the area because if we have a change of Govt in 2017 the reality is that he will more than likely be the PM

        • One Anonymous Bloke 13.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 10:09 am

          It’s a good thing the media reported it with those nuances fully explained. 🙄

          • te reo putake 13.1.1.2.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:18 am

            I expect bugger all from the media, but I do have an absolute faith that readers of the Standard have excellent critical faculties 😉

            • adam 13.1.1.2.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 11:21 am

              Sometimes te reo putake you come across as a apologist for the labour party. Are you in reality a supporter on liberal economic theory? Would you have been comfortable within the republican party when Ike was President? Your comments of late, seem to point in that direction.

        • weka 13.1.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 12:25 pm

          Little was right about Turei’s “skills, understanding and experience” . She has none. Norman was the Greens rep on the committee, not Turei. You’re assuming that Little meant her overall skills, understanding and experience when clearly it was in the context of that committee.

          Citation needed for the GP saying they wanted Turei on the committee. They may well have, but I’d just like to see that officially. Why not Norman? What would have happened if Little has consulted?

          Also, what skills and understanding does Turei lack?

        • Tracey 13.1.1.4
          18 February 2015 at 5:08 pm

          little has no experience on it so he should have disqualified himslf

          • Stephanie Rodgers 13.1.1.4.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:01 pm

            Well, he literally can’t, because the legislation dictates that the Leader of the Opposition sits on the committee.

            • Tracey 13.1.1.4.1.1
              19 February 2015 at 9:05 am

              what is the definition of Leader of the Opposition? I assume (but don’t know) that it is the leader of the party, not in Government, with the largest number of seats?

        • KJT 13.1.1.5
          18 February 2015 at 7:34 pm

          The problem is that Metiria will not be understanding of unjustified surveillance and unlawful collection of data.

      • Murray Rawshark 13.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 11:00 am

        +1saveNZ
        I can’t help thinking that Little didn’t want Metiria on the panel because she would ask questions he didn’t want asked. He wants questions like “Couldn’t this part of surveillance activity be privatised?” and he’s nominated the moran who will ask them.

        The way he spoke about Metiria also comes across as pretty sexist. He just wants to help Key run Newzildcorp.

    • Atiawa 13.2
      18 February 2015 at 3:17 pm

      Yeah right. A new political movement is required. For whom?

      The average Joe Blow is still trying to figure out how to get to heaven without needing to die.

  14. Ovid 14
    18 February 2015 at 9:04 am

    Under that section, the Leader of the Opposition’s nominee needs the agreement of the Prime Minister to be on the committee. So it’s not a case of the Greens having a seat on the committee as of right. Secondly, “consultation” is a pretty vague term. Little could have performed it with a courtesy call to the party leaders.

    This is a process issue, not an outcome issue.

    • Colonial Rawshark 14.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:06 am

      Is there any evidence that process was followed. Is there any reason, political or otherwise, to snub the Greens through the media.

    • saveNZ 14.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:39 am

      That makes it worse. Little unnecessarily has started a unneeded attack on the left and Greens from Labour which he didn’t need to do, cos National would never have supported the Greens anyway on the committee.

      Did Labour not learn anything from the election?

    • Murray Rawshark 14.3
      18 February 2015 at 11:17 am

      Then let Key veto Metiria. He cops the flak for it and Labour stands on the side of all that is pure and wholesome for a change. It’s an idiocy issue. It’s a class instinct issue. It’s a Labour incompetence issue. It’s a “which side are you on?” issue.

    • McFlock 14.4
      18 February 2015 at 12:01 pm

      He could have made the courtesy call, but the Greens and Peters reckon he didn’t.

      I see two main possibilities:
      1: that the turnover in leaders has resulted in a lack of institutional and procedural knowledge in the opposition leader’s office (including the leader);

      2: that maybe it was a rule that has been more honoured in the breach than the observance, and the Greens have cottoned on to this and are basically demanding their due recognition.

      In the case of 2, well played by the Greens. Whoever found the rule deserve a beer. The more decisions they can be seen to be part of, the more they can argue “third major party” status next election.

      In the case of 1, 2 years of stability will iron out these errors in good time for the election. Much as the tories will try to drive division between the opposition parties, the fact is that labour and the greens need to work together to be in government. I’ll be interested to see what Little does to resolve this situation.

    • weka 14.5
      18 February 2015 at 12:26 pm

      “So it’s not a case of the Greens having a seat on the committee as of right”

      Have the GP said they think they have a right? I’m hearing them say they want to be consulted. And that they think they should be on the committee, not that they have a right.

  15. Observer (Tokoroa) 15
    18 February 2015 at 9:25 am

    This Blog is basically for the Greens – isn’t it? Perhaps it should be called the Green Rant.

    The Greens continue to dress themselves in sanctity cloth and halos. Day after Day.
    Yet Norman was not necessarily against the idea of being a National fag … was he Blip?

    And who knows where the loyalty of NZ First really lies? Great man that he truly is, Winston is not necessarily Left or Green – or in between.

    Your spiteful hatred of Andrew Little is not warranted. The Green Party does not change the policy of any Government anywhere. Come back to reality Blip.

    • Colonial Rawshark 15.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:34 am

      Your spiteful hatred of Andrew Little is not warranted. The Green Party does not change the policy of any Government anywhere. Come back to reality Blip.

      Please address the issue instead of diverting to bullshit. The problem – which you deliberately avoided – is Labour’s “principled stance” supporting the drive for ever increasing state mass surveillance to continue, including undemocratically sidelining other parties in Parliament.

    • Naturesong 15.2
      18 February 2015 at 9:53 am

      When someone points out to you that you’ve fucked up, it’s not necessarily because they hate you.
      Might even be the opposite…

      This is one of the cultural norms I really get sick of in NZ;
      That criticism is assumed to be personally motivated or is by design negative. I suspect it’s largely due to the insecurity of the person asserting the criticism is personally motivated. Or people just projecting.
      But it may point to the larger issue of NZ culture generally being too juvenile for intelligent conversation.

      It’s pretty clear that Little has shown that he views the Greens as a party without “skills, understanding and experience.”

      Quite apart from showing the electorate that Labour is unwilling to work constructively with the Greens (so no possibility of a centre left coalition), he also publicly insulted Metiria.

      If I didn’t want Labour to succeed, I’d be cheering Mr Little on.
      But I do want Labour to succeed. Playing bash the hippy will not, and does not progress Labours position in the electorate, it just makes them look like wankers.

      • exStatic 15.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 11:27 am

        If Labour need the Greens, they will have them on their terms. Greens have nowhere to go except Labour. What Labour is doing is maximising their own vote by trying to claw back the middle ground who have gone over to National.

        • Naturesong 15.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 12:00 pm

          “If Labour need the Greens”.

          Labour needs the Greens more that the Greens need Labour.

          Remember, when National MP’s are dining at SkyCity, and Labour are in SkyCity’s corporate box, the Greens are at the beach picking up rubbish, they are out advocating for their constituents, and punching way above their weight in hold this government to account – intelligence and work ethic.

          This middle ground stuff is rubbish by the way.
          If people wanted a centre party, they would have voted Labour.

        • Tracey 15.2.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 5:17 pm

          ACT have had quite the influence, can’t imagine they could “live” with anyone but National…

    • Tracey 15.3
      18 February 2015 at 5:15 pm

      You are not very Observant

  16. Clemgeopin 16
    18 February 2015 at 9:51 am

    The points made about Labour in this article are quite ironic considering that it was the GREENS, and not Labour, that had indicated just before the last election that they were quite happy to WORK WITH NATIONAL post election!

    And another point: The GREENS actually want to disband the intelligence agency altogether. So, with that kind of an extremist mindset displayed by the Greens, who can not even get ONE single person get elected in any electorate seat in the country, I think Andrew Little made the correct decision not to offer a position on the committee to the Greens, as he does not HAVE to anyway!

    • Naturesong 16.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:59 am

      The Greens position has always been that they will work with all parties to progress the Green Party policies.

      That they are able to work constructively with National on issue where they agree, and fight hard to oppose those National policies which are an anathema show that that are adults.

      They are for and against policies, not people or parties.

      • fisiani 16.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:33 am

        Correct. That is why National are currently working hard to find areas of agreement with the Greens. There are in fact quite a few. Now that the Marxist Norman is standing down they know that they can work with the pragmatic Hague. There is even talk of offering the Greens a role in the government for the first time ever. A Green Minister 2017-2020 and the Greens supporting National on C and S but free to vote against on other issues. That would allow the Greens to no longer be reliant on the performance of the Labour Party and give the National Party a strong majority.

        • Naturesong 16.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 11:47 am

          This would be the party he described as the “devilbeast”?

          Who refuse to engage constructively with the Greens, and whos party contains cabinet members who try to bully Metiria in and out of the house.

          Who are happy to take credit for Green policies, while never acknowledging where the policy came from.

          Who refuse to engage in a Memorandum of Understanding to work of common policy objectives.

          That National Party?

          As for “marxist” Norman, do you mean he’s an economist?
          Or a socialist, in which case, show the me him advocating Nationalisation of the means of production in NZ, or fuck off.

          There is no way the Green Party membership (remember the Green party is democratic, and seeks consensus) will agree to a C & S with the current fiscal priorities this govt follows.

          And what the fuck is with all the “pragmatic” Hague, and “marxist” Norman shit.
          I made up my own mind about their character and work ethic a long time ago.

        • Tracey 16.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 5:18 pm

          could you list “the quite a few”

          TIA

        • tricledrown 16.1.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 7:30 pm

          Fisianil You mean the destruction of the RMA
          Low Minimum wage.
          Sending troops to Iraq.
          Public transport spending.
          Mining.
          Charter schools.etc,etc,etc.
          National would have to ditch ACT.
          Farmers would desert National for Labour fishy!
          Like every other post fisi you haven’t put a lot of thought into what you says.
          Just say and walk away.
          Flame throwing but it blows back destroying your argument.

    • Colonial Rawshark 16.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:00 am

      Explain why it was necessary or smart to snub the Greens through the media, then.

      • ankerawshark 16.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 1:48 pm

        This is a genuine question Captain RS. Didn’t the issue first come to light because the Greens said Andrew Little was being unlawful???? Please excuse me if I got this wrong. But if I am right I think it would have been more appropriate to chat with AL about this first behind the scenes. It was quite a provocative thing to say imo (even if true). It doesn’t help strengthen the public perception of a unified left.

        Labour want and need to get as many votes as possible. As a member of the party, I expect them to do this. And I also expect them, especially a NEW leader to make mistakes.

        • Colonial Rawshark 16.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 2:23 pm

          When it came to the public arena, belittling Turei wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Especially when Little himself has ZERO intelligence and national security credentials. It was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

          • te reo putake 16.2.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 2:34 pm

            Not quite zero, CV. Little has been entitled to attend the ISC since becoming Labour leader and he has received the usual security briefs since that time.

            • Colonial Rawshark 16.2.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 2:36 pm

              Ahh I stand corrected then, Little has had 4 or so months of being told what the security services want him to hear.

            • Tracey 16.2.1.1.1.2
              18 February 2015 at 5:24 pm

              how much did he have before he first went on there?

          • ankerawshark 16.2.1.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 6:06 pm

            Yes and see my comment at 16.2.1. The first I heard of this situation was Turei, calling Labour’s behaviour “unlawful”. My point is even if this is true this is provocative. I think it would have been better if she discussed it with him behind closed doors. It may not have changed the outcome, but her comments publically don’t allow him to back down either.

            He is newer in the role that she is too.

            • phillip ure 16.2.1.1.2.1
              18 February 2015 at 6:40 pm

              turei found out thru the media what little had done..

              ..he didn’t even have the basic courtesy to inform the greens..

              ..b4 telling the media..

              ..is that mccarten..again..?..

              • te reo putake …
                18 February 2015 at 6:45 pm

                No. McCarten was unaware of the decision, apparently. Like NZF and the Greens, he found out from the media. Which goes to suggest cock up, rather than deliberate snub.

                • marty mars …
                  18 February 2015 at 9:18 pm

                  doesn’t the cock up scenario scare you? how, with all the support, advice and expertise can a cock up, which may even be illegal, occur? who is running the show?

                • Clemgeopin …
                  18 February 2015 at 9:44 pm

                  I suspect it was dirty politics from National Key/Joyce people leaking to their favourite mole/enabler in the media in order to cause trouble between the opposition parties quickly, before Little had time to consult/inform or make/change the final decision.

                  Nevertheless, I think Little took the correct decision in this case for the reasons he has stated and also because being at 25% vote over Greens 10%, 2 from Labour would be fair.

                  Perhaps Key should change the rules to include leaders from all political parties in proportion of party votes that are over 5% with 1 member for every 20%.

                  So,
                  Nats (47.04%) =3
                  Labour (25.13%)=2
                  Greens (10.7%)=0
                  NZF (8.66%)=0

                  Oh, whoops!

    • Murray Rawshark 16.3
      18 February 2015 at 11:05 am

      The Greens actually oppose the NAct plan for Aotearoa more by “working with them” than Labour do by being opposition.

      As far as wanting to disband intelligence agencies altogether, great! Why the hell should we pay for American surveillance? A party wanting to disband them is far more likely to keep them in line than a party happy to expand their unnecessary powers.

    • weka 16.4
      18 February 2015 at 12:28 pm

      The points made about Labour in this article are quite ironic considering that it was the GREENS, and not Labour, that had indicated just before the last election that they were quite happy to WORK WITH NATIONAL post election!

      CLem, I seem to remember you were corrected on that particular lie many times pre-election. Do we really have to correct you again?

      The GP had no intention of supporting a National govt. It’s all there in their AGM remits from the past few years.

      • phillip ure 16.4.1
        19 February 2015 at 6:07 am

        tho’ that perception was out there..

        ..those puzzled by the greens’ drop in support..

        ..should look at normans’ saying he wd work with national..

        ..and that his favourite mp is bill english..(!)..

        ..i’m pretty sure that would have scared a few waverers off..

        ..if that was the total cause of that 5% drop from polling to election result..?

        ..is debatable..

        ..but i’m pretty sure the greens being ‘relaxed’ about offences against their core-mission..

        ..namely mining and oil-drilling..

        ..i’m sure that didn’t help..

        • Sacha 16.4.1.1
          19 February 2015 at 6:59 am

          “the greens being ‘relaxed’ about offences against their core-mission..
          ..namely mining and oil-drilling..”

          where?

          • phillip ure 16.4.1.1.1
            19 February 2015 at 7:06 am

            norman said this before the election..

            ..he said that as a green minister in a labour-led govt..

            ..that he/the greens would not oppose the planned mining/drilling..

            ..(did you miss that..?..)

            ..i consider it to be one of the major factors in that drop in support from polling to the voting..)

            suggested campaign-slogan for greens ’17..

            ..’leave it in the ground..!’..

            • Clemgeopin 16.4.1.1.1.1
              19 February 2015 at 9:10 am

              The thing is all these Green ‘positions’, including the Greens wanting major portfolios in the cabinet—Deputy PM, Finance, Even TWO Dep PMs, etc—scared the horses all around! Even if they did want those, was it appropriate and even wise to announce such demands/ambitions/positioning before the election and before the post election coalition talks? You will NEVER get the wise Winston ever making such a demand for the baubles of office before the election. He isn’t a fool.

              The ‘master’ political stroke of a statement saying ‘we will be cool working with the noble Nats after the election’ was made one week, yes, just ONE WEEK before the actual election boosting the RW and confusing the left voters had the effect of a premature ejaculation, a little sad bit! Same as when the profoundly enigmatic statement was made that they were an admiring fan of the DDD, the Dipton Double Dipper!

              Simply shows the inexperience, confused minds and naivety of the often extremist positioning party which sometimes shows the IQ of a moong bean.

              • Sacha …
                19 February 2015 at 10:16 am

                “The ‘master’ political stroke of a statement saying ‘we will be cool working with the noble Nats after the election’ was made one week, yes, just ONE WEEK before the actual election”

                Yes, a bad move. Their own post-election polling finds a big chunk of voters ‘strategically’ choosing Labour instead.

                • Clemgeopin …
                  19 February 2015 at 9:33 pm

                  Yes, the Greens need to do a lot of thinking and change strategy.

                  When they are mainly competing against Labour, cannibalising their votes and scaring Nats and other parties’ vote away from Labour, they can not at the same time expect Labour to cowtow and to prop them up !

                  I think the Greens should:

                  (a) Stick to sensible, pragmatic, doable environmental issues. 6% vote is guaranteed.
                  (b) Move to the centre, like NZF, on social/economic issues. Another 3% to 5% bonus votes.
                  (c) State clearly which of the Labour’s and National’s policies they will endorse if in coalition. 2% to 4% extra votes.
                  (d) Seriously cultivate just one or two electorates for possible electorate wins.
                  (e) Do not stand candidates anywhere else.
                  (f) Do not expect more than one or two cabinet posts or minor cabinet posts for the first time in Government. Definitely forget about becoming the Deputy PM.

                  Based on the above strategy, possible total party votes about 13% to 15%.

                  Forget the delusions of grandeur of being a major party, of being a major left wing party or becoming a major RW party or even a major party. Won’t happen for a very long time, not in the near future anyway, if at all.

                  That is my free and friendly advice to the Green. Yep, free!

            • Sacha 16.4.1.1.1.2
              19 February 2015 at 10:07 am

              Got any links for that claim, Phil? Never heard anything like it. Greens’ position on mining has not changed. Reality of a negotiated coalition will change some outcomes, but that’s not the same statement.

              • phillip ure …
                19 February 2015 at 10:25 am

                tv interviews with norman..pre-election..

                ..where he was specifically asked that..

                ..and..um..!..this is hardly ‘news’..

                ..it is/was a fact..

                ..greens wanted to be ministers..

                ..labour said they wd not budge on mining/drilling..

                ..how else was it going to happen..?

                ..without the greens ignoring those two pillars of their own..?

    • DoublePlusGood 16.5
      18 February 2015 at 1:22 pm

      ” can not even get ONE single person get elected in any electorate seat in the country”
      NEWSFLASH: we’ve had an MMP electoral system for a long time now. It rewards support across a country instead of having it concentrated in an arbitrary geographic area.

      • lprent 16.5.1
        18 February 2015 at 3:37 pm

        News flash. MMP operates with a threshold. You have to get over 5% across the whole country. Internet Mana got 1.42% in 2014 with a whole lot of raves and money. But it got 1.08% in 2011 with actual policy and hard work.

        Political parties have to win votes. That is their primary function. The more votes they get, the more say they have in the future direction of the country.

        Manas *total* party vote across the whole country in 2014 was 34,094. This is less than the number of votes cast in my electorate of Mt Albert.

        It is also well down on the 49,154 vote for the Christian Heritage party in 1999, and barely above the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in the same election of 22,687. I point that out because I feared to look up their performance against the McGillycuddy serious party or Bill and Ben.

        Internet Mana are in the fool’s fringe area of political expression. They have to convince a *LOT* more people to vote for them before they could look at getting over 5%. However their tactics and strategy seem to be more orientated to pissing off potential supporters.

        Whereas the Greens have been figuring out how to get people to vote for them. They passed 5% a long time ago, and even got my vote this last election.

        • DoublePlusGood 16.5.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 5:20 pm

          Uh, I was criticising Clem’s derision of the Greens not getting an electorate seat by pointing out that this is MMP not FPP.
          I’m well aware that Mana managed 1.42%. In a properly proportional system, they’d have gotten 2 seats in parliament, but alas, we have this ridiculous threshold system, so they’re out in the cold.
          I don’t understand the aggro and derision toward Mana given that their policies constitute a valid alternative direction for the country and we’ve had 30 years of a direction that clearly hasn’t worked. However, I can certainly get behind the idea noted further up the thread that Bomber being a giant tool harms their cause.

    • KJT 16.6
      18 February 2015 at 7:38 pm

      Bullshit. We have already had this conversation.

  17. marty mars 17
    18 February 2015 at 9:54 am

    Tough but good post B – at least the Greens know the truth now – sadly the insult that little has given them won’t be easily fixed imo.

    This is what labour wanted – a lantern-jawed leader hewed from the past who will do what needs to be done to get the benches back – you got it labour and it is a double-edged sword that you will feel when he decides YOU and your particular passionate issue are not up to the line. Some of us haven’t forgotten the Foreshore and Seabed or the Terror raids and the ethos that spawned them.

    I’ve always thought the Grand Coalition was a goer for the two middle parties – I hope they do it so the left can get on and fight them and their fawning, acquiescent agenda.

    • Murray Rawshark 17.1
      18 February 2015 at 11:07 am

      +1 marty. The sooner they form the Grand Coalition formally, the better. Stop the pretense.

    • phillip ure 17.2
      18 February 2015 at 6:51 pm

      “..I’ve always thought the Grand Coalition was a goer for the two middle parties – I hope they do it so the left can get on and fight them and their fawning, acquiescent agenda…”

      + 1..

      when at university i examined the possibility of a ‘grand-coalition’ between labour and national..

      ..and my conclusion was not ‘if?’..but ‘when?’..

      ..and that that wd likely see the birth of a new left party/grouping..

      ..and of course the rightwing/neo-lib labour-rogernomes commenting here have always hated mana/harawira..

      ..kinda funny how ‘last-straws’ are being called..

      ..to justify what is really the usual invective from them on/against mana/harawira..

      ..it’s maybe a tad fiercer today..but that is all..

      ..situation normal..

      ..they would likely prefer a grand coalition with their neo-lib brothers and sisters in the tories..

      ..than be part of a real ‘progressive’-government..

      ..these are the same people who supported/fought for the labour election ’14 policies to contain s.f.a. for the poorest/those doing it hardest..

      ..they walk past the homeless in the streets – with ease..

    • KJT 17.3
      18 February 2015 at 7:42 pm

      Unfortunately to win votes parties need funding. The funding is only there if they toe the line.

      Little is probably being schooled in that fact as we speak.

      Our “Democracy” has been well and truly sold, to the highest bidder.

  18. Observer (Tokoroa) 18
    18 February 2015 at 9:56 am

    @ Colonial Rawshark

    Spying on individuals is not liked by anyone. It is however needed when populations are in danger of being bombed to oblivion by militant maniacs.

    Which you well know.

    I believe that Andrew Little has not endorsed sending NZ Troops to complex ethnic war zones …

    But overall, I am surprised you want to see the destruction of Andrew Little. You should answer the points I raised in my response to Blip.

    I do not for a moment really think that you see no or ineffective surveillance as a valid option Rawshark. But perhaps you?

    • Colonial Rawshark 18.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:05 am

      Then you clearly do not understand the surveillance business. And you do not understand democracy.

      Andrew Little has once again demonstrated that Labour considers the Greens too inexperienced and inept to be considered for critical functions of government. This reinforces the message to the electorate that Labour thinks it holds all the cards, and thinks that it can govern alone without any true coalition partners in government. This also reflects Labour’s ongoing lack of understanding of how to operate in an MMP, not FPP, environment.

      Spying on individuals is not liked by anyone. It is however needed when populations are in danger of being bombed to oblivion by militant maniacs.

      Seriously? If you don’t understand that this is about mass surveillance of everyone all the time, and you don’t understand that is an impairment against all our security and the state’s declared anti-terrorism goals, then you don’t actually get what this is about: the establishment of all the components of a totalitarian state aimed at ordinary citizens, not aimed against terrorists.

      This kind of untargeted mass surveillance system can only pick up a boston bomber or Charlie Hebdo AFTER the fact. Its real purpose is to oppress targets disliked by the state and who can be pre-identified. Like opposition politicians, judges, unfriendly business people, political activists, protest leaders, etc.

      • ghostwhowalksnz 18.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:23 am

        Its the Greens who dont understand MMP.

        For gods sake they are running electorate candidates here there and everywhere, which bleeds off party votes. Too stupid .

        • Colonial Rawshark 18.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:25 am

          Then Labour and the Greens need to sit down together and work out a strategy well ahead of the next election.

          Doesn’t look like its happening though, eh.

        • weka 18.1.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 12:31 pm

          For gods sake they are running electorate candidates here there and everywhere, which bleeds off party votes. Too stupid .

          So says the person with the obvious anti-Green agenda. The reason the GP stand in electorates is because it gives them higher visibility, and that increases their party vote. They know this from experience (and I would guess from research).

          I think their long term goal is to get electorate seats.

          So not stupid, but clever in fact. They also didn’t stand anyone in TTT. Smart, far smarter than Labour.

        • Tracey 18.1.1.3
          18 February 2015 at 5:27 pm

          The publicity they get from having electorate candidates translates to party votes. They get to attend local debates, etc.

          The Greens are not stupid as you imply, they focus on the party vote but use the mechanics of publicity afforded the electorate battle to raise profile.

          • phillip ure 18.1.1.3.1
            18 February 2015 at 6:57 pm

            @ tracey..

            “.. the mechanics of publicity afforded the electorate battle to raise profile…”

            that is a total shibboleth..

            ..the only people at the public meetings are the hangers-on/family of the candidates..

            ..and the best ‘profiling’ they can hope for is some small piece in some suburban-rag..

            ..like i said..yr claim/that beilief..

            ..is a total shibboleth..

            ..and certainly no justification .for splitting the vote..

            ..and thus handing victory to the tories..

            ..just keep on doing the same thing..

            ..and hope against hope for a different outcome..

            ..eh..?..

      • swordfish 18.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 10:34 am

        “And thinks that it can govern alone…”

        Yep. Labour will need both NZ First and the Greens if it’s to have any chance in 2017. Any notion they may be currently entertaining that they won’t need the Greens……….or that marginalising the Greens or cannibalising their vote is some sort of winning strategy…….is utterly delusional.

        • Colonial Rawshark 18.1.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:37 am

          your last point is what I am particularly worrying about.

          • phillip ure 18.1.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 7:07 pm

            and you have to come back to the question..

            ..what is the role of matt mccarten in this pissing on the greens..by little/labour..?

            ..is he not littles’ main strategy-adviser..?

            ..and does he not have an historical antipathy/hatred of the greens..?

            ..and is this colouring his actions/advice to little/labour..?

            ..(ya gotta look for the ‘why?’..

            ..and at the moment it’s that..

            ..or that little is just a total tool of the spooks/the right/the tories..

            ..doing their bloody bidding..

            ..which is it..?

            ..which is the ‘why?’..)

            • phillip ure 18.1.2.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 7:20 pm

              i also find it quite fucken hilarious of the rightwing labour people here criticising manas’ lack of strategic-nous..

              ..(which i wd agree they have a case..)

              ..but for rightwing-labour..who won the election campaign policy-battles..(nothing for the poor..)

              ..(so that assured a no turnout from them..)

              ..and who refused an offer from the greens way before the election..

              ..to work together (so as not to cannibalise the left vote.).

              ..and who then did all they could to kill their other ally on the left..

              ..and who then ultimately lost the election for the left..thru their shit-result..

              ..for them to criticise the ‘lack of strategic-nous’ within mana..

              ..is beyond self-delusional..

              ..and deserving of a special ‘greenhouse-stoner-award’..

              ..(see what i did there..?..)

              ..and here’s the double-funny story..

              ..their strategic-plan for the future..

              ..is to do the same thing all over again..

              ..but to shed the ‘leftie’-policies they had in ’14..

              ..you couldn’t fucken make this stuff up..

      • saveNZ 18.1.3
        18 February 2015 at 11:33 am

        +1 Colonial R.
        The bill is redundant for terrorists apart from making them more desperate to get attention outside of dialogue and into violence.

        It is about state control and with the TPP will be used against people for control into Global Totalitarianism.

        I just don’t think Little and Labour understand the ‘big picture’. They still think NZ main goals on surveillance are about Muslims on Facebook and the TPP selling more milk powder. Beneath that, how the rules can be used outside of this, they just don’t care or bother to look at the scenarios or public opinion.

        It is the

        ‘I know best’ approach.

        Even though they don’t know anything and have no critical thinking to boot.

        The fact their IT was hacked shows how little National and Labour know or even understand about technology, and are the least competent people to actually understand how the new surveillance rules will be used.

        • Colonial Rawshark 18.1.3.1
          18 February 2015 at 11:50 am

          The irony is that all this enhanced surveillance is going to be turned against Labour first up. It’s like the Labour upper ups don’t understand Hager’s “Dirty Politics” at all.

        • Chooky 18.1.3.2
          18 February 2015 at 1:29 pm

          I think they understand alright ….but they are NOT real Labour

          ….time for a new Green Left Coalition Party

          …excluding the Labour Party… but not excluding former Labour voters and members…., many of whom are seriously thinking about other parties on the left anyway or have already gone to the Greens or Mana/Int or Winston NZF

          ….i dont think Little realises how soft the Labour Party vote actually is

          • phillip ure 18.1.3.2.1
            18 February 2015 at 7:35 pm

            “..i dont think Little realises how soft the Labour Party vote actually is..”

            + 1..

            ..he really needs to pull his head out of whatever orifice he has it wedged in..

            ..and look at what is happening to parties of his tired/careworn ideological-persuasion in more than a few countries over in europe..

            ..they are being swept away..

            …’labour’-like parties that have long abandoned their core/base..

            ..sold out to neo-liberalism..

            ..and have played tweedle-dum to the tories’ tweedle-dee..

            ..with both enacting pretty much the same poor-bashing/enrich-the-rich policies..

            ..does any of that sound familiar..?

            ..what the fuck makes him/labour/his advisers think they are/will be immune to these waves of political-change..

            ..they are the fucken political-past..

            ..and if they don’t wake-up/get their shit together..

            ..they face the same fate as their european compatriots..

            ..as in..’goodnight irene’..

          • Clemgeopin 18.1.3.2.2
            18 February 2015 at 10:22 pm

            ” ….time for a new Green Left Coalition Party…
            excluding the Labour Party…”

            Ok, like?…
            Greens+Mana+Cannibas party? [GREEN MAN CAN]

            Sure, why not!

            • lprent 18.1.3.2.2.1
              19 February 2015 at 7:54 am

              Total potential vote is about what? 6-7%. That is what the Greens had when they had most of the parts of that mix after decades working at it.

              FFS: Politics in NZ is about getting voters. You don’t get them here with being perceived as being extremists. You get them with incremental and gradual change policies.

              • Clemgeopin …
                19 February 2015 at 9:26 am

                I know that, you know that, the wise/experienced pragmatic politicians know that…..but the very sincere, lovely but naive leaders like Jesus and the Greens do not…..Just hope and not much candy.

              • phillip ure …
                19 February 2015 at 9:31 am

                @ lprent..

                “..Total potential vote is about what? 6-7%..”

                um..!..no..

                for indications of total potential vote can i suggest you look to europe..

                ..where real progressive/change parties are sweeping/about to swwep archaic neo-liberal models like yr labour party ..

                ..’into the dustbin of history’..eh..?

                ..and totally unjustified..

                ..detritus never thinks/realises it’s heading for the rubbish-bin..

                ..political detritus is no different..

                ..the hubris within the labour party is very strong..

                ..never mind it is totally unjustified..

                • lprent …
                  19 February 2015 at 12:50 pm

                  In countries that have very high unemployment. And the right nutter parties wityh strange viewss of history elsewhere like UKIP. We are in the elsewhere part with conservatives at nearly 3 times the vote of mana.

                  Realistic examples please

                  • phillip ure …
                    19 February 2015 at 3:48 pm

                    @ lprent..

                    ok..i will give you the ‘realistic-example’ of here..

                    ..with a little glimpse into the future..

                    ..not too far..!..just to 2017..

                    ..now..following the explosion of support for similar parties to the austerity-unpacking one in greece..

                    ..and their electoral-successes..

                    ..and both labour and the tories being kicked out of scotland in the elections there..

                    ..the mood for real change will be strong here..

                    ..and if labour do as they promise..and shed the ‘leftie’-policies..(i know..!..i know..!..)..that they had in election ’14..

                    ..and continue their veering to the neo-liberal right..

                    ..and if the greens don’t respectfuly disengage from this neoliberal-labour..and renounce drilling/minng..and continue to cleave to these losers..

                    ..then we will see a new political party arise..

                    ..and the choice is really there for the greens..

                    ..this is their watershed-moment…

                    ..they can step up and ride this wave of change..

                    ..or they..like labour..cd well be swept away…

                    ..and a heads-up! for the greens..

                    ..’leave it in the ground!’ is becoming more and more mainstream-thinking..by the day..

                    ..and just that fact/new-reality should be grounds for divorce from labour..

    • Murray Rawshark 18.2
      18 February 2015 at 1:55 pm

      “Spying on individuals is not liked by anyone. It is however needed when populations are in danger of being bombed to oblivion by militant maniacs.”

      Were we about to be put on O’Bomber’s drone list? I’m not aware of anyone else who would bomb us into oblivion, and if we are about to go on the list, our squirrels will be helping Washington select targets.

  19. Iron Sky 19
    18 February 2015 at 10:21 am

    Andrew Little and Co…..

    Please Keep this in Mind:

    Citizenfour Movie quote from Edward Snowden:

    “If a dictator ever took over, the NSA could enable it to impose a total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back. That capability could at any time be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.

    “I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

    • Colonial Rawshark 19.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:24 am

      Exactly – they are building the capability and machinery for a turn key totalitarian state. And all we will have left are their sincere assurances that they will never switch the apparatus on.

    • millsy 19.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:38 am

      IMO we were probably too quick in popping that chardonnay when the Berlin Well fell.

      Today, in the so called ‘free world’ every thing we say or do is constantly being scrutinized by those in economic or political power. And it can and will be used against us.

      • Colonial Rawshark 19.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:44 am

        Bill Binney, who was in charge of major NSA programmes directed against the East German Stasi, the Soviet NKVD, etc. has said that the USA has adopted all the same approaches of those secret police forces to extract compliance from people.

        Just as the USA adopted many Nazi experts and expertise at the end of WWII.

  20. Bill 20
    18 February 2015 at 10:28 am

    That saves me from penning the ‘John Gets His Man’ (Shearer) post I’d been considering. Thankyou.

    When Labour (a-hem) ‘won’ their compromises and voted for the GCSB (?) changes recently, my understanding is that Goff and Shearer were Labour’s voice on the committee. Good to see Goff has been sidelined. But Shearer has always struck me as very much an establishment figure and so the last type of person you want on these types of committees. I guess he might be ‘keeping an eye’ on Andrew and ensuring he’s steered in the ‘correct’ direction?

    Anyway. When it comes to surveillance, I guess there are two basic approaches. Either you limit it and seek to make those doing it accountable, or you have an approach that ‘understands’ there is a certain order and that the only truth relevant to that order is that it’s protected.

    • weka 20.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:33 pm

      I may have missed this in the conversation above, but is Shearer being given the committee position one of the trade offs to the ABCs/Rogernomes?

  21. Chooky 21
    18 February 2015 at 10:36 am

    Great Post Blip!…..I consider Little’s and the Labour Party’s treatment and dismissing of Metitia Turei as SEXIST and Chauvinist

    ….( old boy arrogance)….viz ” Greens Co-Leader Metiria Turei lacked the “skills, understanding and experience” to even be considered, let alone consulted”

    . ..In actual fact Metiria Turei, a lawyer, is far more competent and she has been in parliament far longer than Shearer (who was an operational disgrace and was shipped into the Labour party) …

    Quite apart from this …the dismissing without consultation of Russel Norman who held the Left oppositon together on this issue last year in parliament …and who is an expert on security issues …(as is Winston Peters)..is an insult

    This Labour Party is now seriously compromised…almost seems to be a bought Party

    • Colonial Rawshark 21.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:41 am

      Great Post Blip!…..I consider Little’s and the Labour Party’s treatment and dismissing of Metitia Turei as SEXIST and Chauvinist

      Not to mention politically clumsy in an MMP environment where Labour has to convince NZers that they and the Greens are ready and willing to work together for the good of the country.

    • marty mars 21.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:48 am

      + 1 Chooky

      The make up of the committee is unrepresentative of our society in the extreme.

    • exStatic 21.3
      18 February 2015 at 11:22 am

      If you don’t like Labour, the answer is simple – don’t vote for them. Given your comments here, I doubt that you do anyway.

      • Colonial Rawshark 21.3.1
        18 February 2015 at 11:37 am

        Nah that’s nowhere near placing enough pressure and pushback on Labour for their bad behaviour.

      • Chooky 21.3.2
        18 February 2015 at 11:54 am

        @ exStatic …since you ask….i dont vote for them (but my parents and wider family have been loyal and have roots in the Labour Party since it was begun in New Zealand) …but i am a nominal member ….i live in hope that the Labour Party will become what it once was before Roger Douglas and its corruption…..Helen Clark briefly kept the Labour Party afloat….but on this issue it is behaving like a body floating on the water

        …neither Shearer nor Little are longtime Labour people with Labour roots ( Little comes from a Nat family background ….and Shearer is deeply sus imo and was shipped in relatively recently)

        …the question now is whether Labour is worth considering as a viable coalition partner on the Left?…seems like Little does not want to be in coalition

      • DoublePlusGood 21.3.3
        18 February 2015 at 1:29 pm

        I’d just like them to stop kneecapping parties that I vote for like Greens and Mana. It stops left-wing governments winning elections.

        • exStatic 21.3.3.1
          18 February 2015 at 2:23 pm

          How can you vote Green AND Mana? If you want to influence things, join Labour.

          • DoublePlusGood 21.3.3.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 5:11 pm

            I can vote in more than one election in my lifetime. I would only consider Labour if they were actually a party that espoused in the principles on which they were founded. As they do not, I vote Green or Mana, depending on candidate quality in the potentially electable positions.

          • Tracey 21.3.3.1.2
            18 February 2015 at 5:30 pm

            yes, that is what ACT supporters think too… they just vote national… oh except in Epsom and they get pretty decent leverage off one seat.

            Labour does not have the Right to be government when Nats aren’t by right. That thinking is sinking them.

    • Alpha z 21.4
      18 February 2015 at 5:11 pm

      (In actual fact Metiria Turei is far more competent’~~chooky)

      but at one time she was in McGillicuddy serious Party before green party.

      • Tracey 21.4.1
        18 February 2015 at 5:30 pm

        Banks was in national
        Prebble in Labour
        Douglas in labour

      • Chooky 21.4.2
        18 February 2015 at 5:36 pm

        @ Alpha z …re Metiria and the ‘McGillicuddy Serious Party’ ….well that is just what she thought of politics at the time….before she met and married the Greens

        ….many humorous people are actually seriously intelligent and skeptical ( if not cynical) of political parties underneath their humour ….why do you think Labour is down to 30%.

        • Alpha z 21.4.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 8:25 pm

          why do you think green party is at 10%?

          • Chooky 21.4.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 9:07 pm

            @ Alpha male ….difference is Labour is going down and the the Greens are going up …..the Green Party is young and frisky and feminist and growing upwards percentge-wise

            ( the Greens don’t need the corrupt Nacts or compromised Labour and their old MC male bulls are doing everything to make the Greens stumble…they are either jealous or hate it anyway)

            …Labour is old and going downwards ….degenerating….and degenerate….down , down, downhill percentage-wise

            QED

  22. millsy 22
    18 February 2015 at 10:43 am

    Time for the Greens to go it alone I think.

    Labour are just going to shit on them and the only way forward is for them to cut all ties and actively seek to supplant then as the main party of opposition.

    The question is: How badly do they want it.

    • Chooky 22.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:04 pm

      +100…on present form….”cut all ties and actively seek to supplant then as the main party of opposition”.

      • KJT 22.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 7:50 pm

        I think that is now the only viable strategy in the long term.

        Labour has now shown they are as useless as “tits on a bull”.

    • Chooky 22.2
      18 February 2015 at 12:40 pm

      “Time for the Greens to go it alone I think”….Yes but even better what about a …

      ‘GREEN COALITION LEFT PARTY’

      …a new truly progressive Party on the Left that incorporates the Mana Party , the Internet Party and Labour Party voters who are true genuine New Zealand Labour Party people ( not the faux Nacts we have now)….NZF might want to be part of this coalition as well

    • phillip ure 22.3
      18 February 2015 at 7:53 pm

      “..Time for the Greens to go it alone I think.

      Labour are just going to shit on them and the only way forward is for them to cut all ties and actively seek to supplant then as the main party of opposition…”

      + 1..

      ..history/change wd seem to be on their side to do this now..

      ..they need to shed all the comprimises to labour they have made over the years..

      ..(norman was eloquently holding english to account over his ignoring of the (growing ever stronger by the day) international-mood/calls to leave fossil-fuels in the ground..

      ..but my memory isn’t that fucked that i don’t remember the greens being ‘relaxed’ about drilling/mining in election ’14..

      ..they should view that as a nadir..(esp given what norman was saying today..

      ..and return to their roots..(as it were..)

      ..(see what i did there..?..)

      ..the greens..if they are smart..will take the hints from little/labour..

      ..and will seize the moment..

      ..and will go thru all their policy..

      ..and shed/ramp up all that is not truly ‘green’.

      ..and catch that wave of green-change approaching..

      ..and give the people what they want..

      ..hell..if they did that..i’d consider voting for them again..

      ..and really..i can’t see labour becoming anything palatable between now and ’17..

  23. Paul 23
    18 February 2015 at 11:13 am

    Tweedledee and Tweedledum parties.
    We need Syriza or Podomos or the SNP.

    A real alternative to the neoliberal nightmare….

  24. Murray Rawshark 24
    18 February 2015 at 11:14 am

    Thanks for the post, Blip. It really needed saying. What Little has just done is just one more step along the road to a coalition for National Unity, comprising Labour and everything further right. Labour would rather work with their vile creation ACT than with Greens or Mana. Little is doing what I expected of him, and posted about during the Labour Idol competition.

  25. exStatic 25
    18 February 2015 at 11:19 am

    Labour are the ONLY opposition party to have even a remote prospect of becoming the Government. They have realised that a close association with the Greens is toxic and want to give the electorate the impression that they are more “middle of the road” and sensitive to the concerns of the “centre”, until now only represented by National.
    Little is bringing Labour back to it’s roots as a mainstream party which it needs to do to survive. The Extreme left, as witnessed on these pages, can revert to an increasingly strident Greens or Mana. Labour, untainted by the hard left association will continue to rise in the polls.

    • Colonial Rawshark 25.1
      18 February 2015 at 11:39 am

      Labour is supporting the mass surveillance security state and participating in anti-democratic behaviour itself to do so. Why should such a party which is against the people, be supported to win in Parliament?

      On how on earth can you be shortsighted enough to support this democracy undermining behaviour?

    • Chooky 25.2
      18 February 2015 at 1:21 pm

      well we know where you stand now…re ” a close association with the Greens is toxic”…you are either a Nact or a new faux careerist ‘Labour’ import with another agenda

      The Greens were actually coming up with better Labour and social welfare policies than the compromised Labour Party

      • exStatic 25.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 2:21 pm

        But with absolutely no hope of getting them implemented. If you want change much better to support Labour, they might not give you all you want but have a much higher chance of success.

        • Colonial Rawshark 25.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 3:21 pm

          Politicians can make some pragmatic compromises during difficult negotiations – that is what parliamentary politics is about after all – but we’re here as citizens to make sure that they don’t disrespect democratic ideals while doing so.

    • Tracey 25.3
      18 February 2015 at 5:31 pm

      Good luck getting the 26% increase in vote they will need

    • Clemgeopin 25.4
      18 February 2015 at 7:58 pm

      @exStatic :

      Well said. I tend to agree with most of what you have said.

      In effect there are only three truly independent parties in New Zealand:
      Labour, NZ First and ACT.

      Not the present National party because it’s philosophy and main agenda are a version of ACT’s philosophy and agenda. But for political expediency, it has copied most of the excellent caring social policies of the last Labour government of Clark and Cullen. So, the current Natonal party is a PR spin driven pseudo political party in power working for the wealthy and the corporates and is not a truly independent honest party because it has cunningly plagiarised/copied from the Labour party and the ACT party.

      The Green party has similarly copied the social policies of the Labour party and in doing so, has confused the voters, has cannibalised the Labour vote and pushed people towards the Nats, while still trying to be Labour’s lackeys/parasites in many ways. It would do them, as well as Labour/left, so much better electorally if the Greens simply concentrate on the important environmental issues. In that case, they could expect votes from both the green left and the green right. So, in the present set of policies, I do not consider the Greens to be truly independent.

      That is my view. I am sure many here will not agree and that is fine.

  26. Sceptical 26
    18 February 2015 at 11:28 am

    I had some dealings a few years ago with the “small business” in question. I was also reluctant to pay its bill as the work supplied was unusable in the context it had been commissioned for and the invoice was excessive. I ended up paying it – as clearly Andrew Little should have; when commissioning work from freelancers you haven’t worked with before you have to wear the risk it doesn’t work out – but I think the small business in question here is not straightforward.

    [r0b: Please pick one handle and stick with it, every new one you go to moderation again.]

  27. Sacha 27
    18 February 2015 at 11:40 am

    This move has also affected Labour’s relationship with NZ First. And for what gain?

    Labour has consistently shown a lack of discipline and political management. That’s not down to whoever is their leader.

  28. Reality 28
    18 February 2015 at 11:42 am

    The mind boggles at the childish tantrums here. Some rational adult behaviour please. Andrew Little must steer a middle road – only a very small minority hold extreme left or right views.

    • Tiger Mountain 28.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:03 pm

      surrender on key issues for democracy–extension of the surveillance state and security service oversight hardly constitutes “middle of the road” imo

      • Jones 28.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 12:48 pm

        It’s the “road to electability” and there’s nothing middle about it.

        • KJT 28.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 7:55 pm

          Removing democracy and ensuring that Labour is little different from National is “middle of the road”?

          We used to go to war against people who treated their citizens with contempt.

          Now we have become them.

    • Colonial Rawshark 28.2
      18 February 2015 at 12:18 pm

      “childish tantrums”

      the fact you are so blasé about the security and surveillance state tells me that you do not understand its undemocratic and totalitarian nature in the least.

    • Tracey 28.3
      18 February 2015 at 5:33 pm

      By rational and adult, do you mean think like you do?

  29. SPC 29
    18 February 2015 at 12:24 pm

    It’s fairly obvious the strategy is to marginalise the Greens and diminish them.

    Where Greens decline to 5% so Labour can more easily form coalition governments with a centrist partner without them.

    However this may well lead to Greens reacting by selecting a leader who will move Greens to the centre to play either side of the fence – and thus end their challenge to Labour on the left and with it the development of policy which Labour later adopts.

    Thus Labour will become a shadow left wing party alternating with National within neo-liberal settings (this sort of Labour will say me to on TPP) and Greens operate as a smaller more narrowly focused party. Just as the mainstream media would like.

    And that Green Party will have no more natural affinity with Labour before National as a coalition partner than the Maori Party does.

    • Sable 29.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:42 pm

      Even if Labour had won this election they would have said yes to the TPP. They have sold out to the US economic imperialists just as National have done. The current secret squirrel stoogery is symptomatic of this.

      The “enhanced” publicly paid for spy mechanism will be used to police and punish anyone breaking the economic chains imposed in areas such as copyright, by the TPPA.

      I don’t vote for traitors. Lets hope next election more of us feel the same way.

    • KJT 29.2
      18 February 2015 at 8:00 pm

      This will end with the rest of us seeing both National and Labour as they truly are.

      Corporate stooges selling us out. Shills for the providers of their retirement funds.

      Either the Greens, or a new left party, with the true “middle of the road” policies that Labour stood for once, or, a revolution!

  30. SPC 30
    18 February 2015 at 12:32 pm

    Labour and Alliance won in 1999 by being able to display unity, the current performance from Labour is the exact opposite. It’s akin to what Brash did in 2005, unite the right under the National banner to re-build the National vote.

    But it means another loss in 2017, and by 2020 Greens will either be in total competition to be the opposition party or be the centrist party the right would prefer them to be to keep Labour out of power.

  31. Sable 31
    18 February 2015 at 12:36 pm

    As I left leaning voter I’d say Labour are history. Their support is in disarray and their response is to undermine a seemingly natural alliance partner, the Greens, no doubt in the twisted belief they can “win back” support by appearing to tow the mainstream Key-ist line.

    If there is any hope for the left its in emerging parties and maybe established favourites like the Greens and NZ First. Peters and the Greens seem to have their constituents interests at heart. More than can be said about Labour or is that National? Its so hard to tell the difference these days.

    • Chooky 31.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:47 pm

      +100….time for a new Green powerful Coalition Party on the Left that does NOT include Labour

      …a multicultural Party that believes in New Zealand for New Zealanders and looking after the weakest in our society …and our special precious environment

  32. Observer (Tokoroa) 32
    18 February 2015 at 12:43 pm

    @ The Greens

    So many of you have got on the rave here, An astonishing litany of Stupidity.

    From now on all National, Labour or NZ First has to do in the future – is to quote you one after the other. You want little security and next to no Surveillance! For crying out loud.

    Blip can list the faults of Mr Key. It is about time he listed the faults of himself and his party.

    God help our little country if any of you lot got any real power.

  33. The Chairman 33
    18 February 2015 at 12:44 pm

    When are the Unions going to pull their support for this National like party?

    • Sable 33.1
      18 February 2015 at 12:53 pm

      The unions are more or less finished in New Zealand. We have on of the most deregulated labour markets in the world. You can thank Labour and National for that.

      • te reo putake 33.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 1:30 pm

        That’ll come as a surprise to the 370000 union members in NZ, Sable. Unions remain the largest democratic organisations in NZ and continue to do fantastic work for their members and other workers who benefit by extension.

        • KJT 33.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 8:04 pm

          Almost powerless due to the effective removal of the freedom to withdraw their labour, and the many people who would be sacked if they even mentioned collective action.

          Not to mention all those on “contracts” and those too likely to be replaced with $3 an hour immigrants if they challenge employers in any way.

  34. Stuart Munro 34
    18 February 2015 at 12:55 pm

    It may have been an oversight – but where you have Shearer or Goff you get supercilious bullshit. The test for Little is whether he’s big enough to correct the mistake. It’s not looking promising at the moment, but he may not want to invest in the pre-paid losing seats that go with fighting a war of attrition with one’s obligate coalition partner.

  35. McGrath 35
    18 February 2015 at 1:05 pm

    I see it as Labour playing Power Politics. Labour holds the whip hand in the relationship with the Greens, after all where can the Greens go? They won’t run to National, therefore they will always be with Labour regardless of any abuse received.

    Also is it wise to have the Greens involved in National Security anyway? They hitched their wagons to Edward Snowden/KDC during the election. Not really the kind of friends you want when National Security is involved.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 35.1
      18 February 2015 at 1:25 pm

      Yes, because illegal mass surveillance has made us all so much safer 🙄

      • Colonial Rawshark 35.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 2:17 pm

        Even legalised mass surveillance is next to useless for their stated aims of anti-terrorism. It buries their analysts and investigators in terabytes of irrelevant data. When you are looking for a terrorist needle in a haystack the last thing you want to be doing is randomly adding extra haystacks.

        Also remember every secret police state in the making goes to great extents to make “legal” the abuses upon the citizenry that they engage in, or are planning to engage in.

      • Tracey 35.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 5:35 pm

        Some people who went to a coffee shop in Sydney recently will agree…

        • One Anonymous Bloke 35.1.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 5:51 pm

          That’d be good, eh: if trauma fostered clarity.

          • Tracey 35.1.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 5:53 pm

            I am sure it has focused those in the coffee shop about how little surveillance helped them… everyone else however… probably think it proves we just dont surveill enough…

    • weka 35.2
      18 February 2015 at 3:48 pm

      “I see it as Labour playing Power Politics. Labour holds the whip hand in the relationship with the Greens, after all where can the Greens go? They won’t run to National, therefore they will always be with Labour regardless of any abuse received.”

      aka ‘we’d rather stay in opposition than govern in partnership’. Hardly a winning strategy for supposed left wingers.

  36. The Murphey 36
    18 February 2015 at 1:32 pm

    The system is rapidly exposing itself and will exponentially deteriorate whilst seeking to cover up

    Expect the cannibalism to spread along with the downgrading of New Zealand society as many more people are cast onto the scrap heap

    Elements of the human species operating openly as anti humanists are now implementing the frameworks they believe will protect them

    The LP are part of ‘the family’

    • McFlock 36.1
      18 February 2015 at 1:49 pm

      we need some “context” to evaluate your pretentious bollocks /sarc

    • Chooky 36.2
      18 February 2015 at 2:27 pm

      +100 ….thanks Murphey…agree entirely…especially “The LP are part of ‘the family’” ( ‘family’ as in something not pleasant…the John Key Nact family and their overseas loyalties before NZers’ interests )

      ….now is the time for a new Opposition ‘Green Left Coalition Party’ …. incorporating all New Zealanders on the environmental Left

      • The Murphey 36.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 3:25 pm

        Chooky as you can see from a number of commentators on this site there are barriers to get past and constraints to work with

        Even a helicopter scan of local and international events should sound alarm bells in even moderate sceptics but this is not where we are currently at

        Why as a species we are not sufficiently aware is a multi faceted discussion which is best summed up by ‘ everything is a psyop‘

        Broad aspects of every industry and human construct are being used as weapons against planet earth and its inhabitants in some cases using such deceptive techniques that the majority have little idea the danger we exist in and actively fight to maintain that which is killing them

        People are conditioned to fight and compete against eachother for life sustaining necessities of shelter food water air clothing and even human company is a commodity to be pushed

        It is genuine evil what has been created and is now literally in full view yet still there are those who wish to argue semantics or ridicule those who point out what is abundantly clear

        That many still believe the current system can be changed is one of the biggest barriers to remove

        It is rotten and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up

        • One Anonymous Bloke 36.2.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 3:27 pm

          Why use your senses when you can apply all these fancy lenses?

        • Chooky 36.2.1.2
          18 February 2015 at 4:16 pm

          @ The Murphey …agreed…”needs to be rebuilt from the ground up”…there needs to be a new Opposition

          ….a ‘Green Left Coalition Party’

          …Labour Party is a waste of space and time…it is so compromised.

  37. r 37
    18 February 2015 at 1:34 pm

    Blips list on Key is comprised of Keys Lies ……….

    Being a compulsive liar is definitely one of keys faults but far from the only one.

  38. Dont worry. Be happy 38
    18 February 2015 at 2:39 pm

    So no one in the Green Party had the skills or experience eh Andrew Little? How come you then picked the guy who scuttled up the back stairs with Key during the last assault on our freedoms to do a little deal? Some “experience” you’re looking for…..as for “skills” were you asleep during Shearer’s time at the helm? And, last question, when will the Labour Party you lead go into coalition with National?

  39. Chooky 39
    18 February 2015 at 2:54 pm

    Bradbury on Shearer and Little and the Labour Party….time to sever links

    “If David Shearer was the answer, what on earth was the question?’

    “So Labour have slapped the Greens in the face by cutting them out of the Intelligence review and by disrespecting Metiria”….

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/02/18/if-david-shearer-was-the-answer-what-on-earth-was-the-question/

    ( time for a new Green Left Opposition Coalition Party)

  40. AUDNZD 40
    18 February 2015 at 4:29 pm

    Labour is doing well by keeping its distance from the communist Green Party. Good on Andrew Little.

    • Colonial Rawshark 40.1
      18 February 2015 at 4:41 pm

      In what way do you claim the Greens are “communist”? I doubt you even understand the concept, given your error-ridden statement.

    • KJT 40.2
      18 February 2015 at 8:36 pm

      A party of mostly small businesspeople and professionals, who decide policy by democratic consensus is “Communist”? LOL.

      • Colonial Viper 40.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:12 pm

        Apparently only a board of directors is the only valid way of making decisions for every one else.

  41. weka 41
    18 February 2015 at 5:52 pm

    The penny just dropped. I finally understand now why some people don’t vote on the left who would otherwise. Reading Stephanie’s post about National instructing the police to charge charities for police checks, she puts this at the end,

    “Labour is organising with charitable organisations to oppose this petty penny-pinching. You can add your signature to Labour’s petition here.”

    My instinctive response was, yeah, nah, why bother, it’s just Labour. Which is daft, because the petition is a good thing. But coming from this thread where Little has dropped the ball majorly in a number of areas (aka betrayal), there is this disconnect in my brain that makes me think I can’t associate myself with anything Labour today. I can see now how some people might end up feeling like that permanently.

    🙁

    • lprent 41.1
      18 February 2015 at 6:29 pm

      That is the problem with political parties is that they never reflect how any one person thinks things should be done. The best thing about political parties is exactly the same.

      What I have done is to pick the one that I think does the least amount of harm and the people within it who do the same (sometimes I even find some who I think might do some good), and then I supported them. I am always sure that ‘screwups’ will be done by politicians for what ever reasons they feel are important, but I tend to look at the balance of how they operate and how their parties operate.

      These days, I’ve mostly been concentrating on providing a forum where people can help figure out the same balances.

      It sounds to me that you feel the same way about Labour as I am feeling about Mana’s many many screwups over the last year. If that party thinks that their people are the future of the left, then it is time to start voting against it.

      There are many people inside (and outside) Labour who are trying and succeeding in changing it. I can’t see actions from Mana or their supporters that they even realise that they have a really severe problem.

      • adam 41.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 7:32 pm

        But, as of today and all to often with the labour party – they seem to disrespect their own by the actions they preform. It looks as if the parliamentary wing, just don’t give a damn.

        This continued, game playing from labour to prove what ever it is they think they need to prove – is tiresome.

        Mana is probably dead – or in need of a whole lot of reflection on the disaster it wrought last election. I’d even go as far as to suggest a new leader and a compromise with the Maori party is fundamental – if it wants to survive.

        But, you have been around Lynn – you know the members have tried to drag parliamentary labour away from the loony tinpot economics it embraced in 1984. The New Labour experiment, the renewal with young labour. Nope not a damn shred of difference. Tinkering around the edges did Helen – but the core economic orthodoxy stayed in place. And what happened when a nasty, vindictive, ideologically rigid national government got into power? Well Stephanie’s post sums them up really.

        I get upset – when food banks are empty. Houses are empty and jobs are empty. Because idiots in parliamentary labour are to busy scoring points, or playing silly school yard games. Than dealing with real issues which affect peoples lives each and every day. That’s why I say, and have said and will continue to say. The Labour party is the weight which ties working people down in this country.

      • marty mars 41.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 7:55 pm

        Mana screwups didn’t lose the election but labours did. Mana is new – less than 48 months old, labour is 1188 months old – the constituency is different, the kaupapa is different.

        The Mana Movement does actually realise that there are problems and now, no longer in parliament, is focusing on grassroots activism and rebuilding – exactly as you’d expect from a fledgling party.

        The future of the left? The top echelon of Mana has the goods in terms of integrity, honesty and belief. A focus on helping those that need it is a good focus but not considered highly in our society for some reason.

        • Chooky 41.1.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 8:19 pm

          +100 marty mars…the Greens are Mana’s natural coalition partners….this is the real Green Left and the future of New Zealand

          ….forget about Labour

          …if Mana/Int and the Greens and NZF could form a lose working coalition i would seriously consider joining and working for them…i have a lot of respect for the people in Mana/Int and the leaders of Mana/Int…i voted Green /Mana/Int last election

        • lprent 41.1.2.2
          19 February 2015 at 8:41 am

          The Mana Movement does actually realise that there are problems and now, no longer in parliament, is focusing on grassroots activism and rebuilding – exactly as you’d expect from a fledgling party.

          I’d suggest that they concentrate on controlling the loudmouths who seem to spend a lot of time mouthing off about other activists and parties.

          I spent a considerable amount of effort inside Labour after 1993 quietly helping the Greens in various ways. It was obvious that eventually Labour and the Greens were likely to need to get into coalition together in the long term.

          I didn’t help New Labour because their more vocal activists were often arseholes and spent more time attacking Labour than working for their party. It was the tactic of the lazy. I didn’t think they were a viable long term because of it, and that is what proved to be the case.

          Over the long term, behaviour matters a lot in politics. Other activists from other polities and causes are looking at you and deciding if they will assist, ignore or hinder. Over the last year or so, Mana went from my ambivalence to my distaste purely because they were always trying to do things the easy way and crapping on everyone else around them.

          I don’t rate their survival chances as being high.

    • Marksman33 41.2
      18 February 2015 at 9:31 pm

      +100, thats exactly how I am feeling today.

    • ankerawshark 41.3
      18 February 2015 at 9:52 pm

      Weka, I will urge you to read my comments below.

      I find it hard to believe that Little would have deliberately not followed the law. Think about it. As I said below he could have easily have phoned Peters and Tuerei and asked them what they thought and then gone ahead and appointed DS anyway. I think it was most likely a mistake on his part. BUT little can’t be seen to apologize (think David Cunliffe). So he just has to deal with it.

      Not sure what areas you think Little has betrayed you, or the Greens or the people of NZ???? Would be interested to hear. But if it is re this committee, if I was Little and I didn’t know much about security I would know that I needed to be on this committee just in case I did become PM (which of course he is aiming to be). It makes sense that he would want someone from his own team on this committee to collaborate with and draw on their expertise (DS probably does have some). He isn’t obliged to ensure Greens are represented on this committee.

      And one of my very unpopular beliefs, in terms of other points of view on this website is the Greens only got 11% of the vote. They have had a turn on this committee. If the opposition only gets 2 representatives, then from a democratic point of view it is perfectly fair Labour gets two people this time.
      ps I am not 100% sure that the opposition only gets two people so correct me if I am wrong.

  42. ankerawshark 42
    18 February 2015 at 8:03 pm

    Maybe, just maybe Mr Little as a new leader was not aware he had to consult with the other opposition parties about this committee. He’s new. He might not know. Whose job would it be to inform him? He doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who would act in an unlawful way deliberately.

    He likely wanted one of his Labour colleagues to be with him on the committee so he could collaborate with them. Whatever I think of him DS he was the likely one from AL’s team.

    This has now blown up with Turei calling in unlawful.

    Blip wrote this article (fair enough even if I think the headline is a little strong) and now Martyn Bradbury can hardly accuse the Standard of being a Labour Party rag.

    Paddy Gower according to Tracey has had a field day about Little. And the Left is the loser.

    Great all those involved.

    • Sacha 42.1
      18 February 2015 at 8:27 pm

      “He might not know. Whose job would it be to inform him? ”

      Labour’s back office has long been their problem. Running a political party is hard but it’s
      not rocket surgery. Hire some competent people ffs.

      • mickysavage 42.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 8:33 pm

        I have a better understanding than many of the back office. There are some (mostly) terrific people there. The output reflects mainly caucus dynamics. Individual staffers are not responsible for this.

        • Sacha 42.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:19 pm

          How are caucus stopping staff doing their jobs properly? Who do they report to?

          • mickysavage 42.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 9:22 pm

            It is above my pay grade (which for the conspiracy theorists out there is $0) but there are good people working there who fulfil their instructions. I am against blaming workers for managerial decisions.

            • ankerawshark 42.1.1.1.1.1
              18 February 2015 at 9:38 pm

              Mikey, just to be clear in my comment, I didn’t mean to imply workers were to blame. Things in a busy office get overlooked. Also I would ask what were the instructions from John Key about forming this committee? Or whoever the committee chairperson is. Whoever is leading this committee surely has some responsibility that due process is being followed.

              • mickysavage …
                18 February 2015 at 9:48 pm

                You didn’t.

                I agree in a perfect world these sorts of things should not happen.

                In terms of relative importance and thinking of recent issues we have serious suggestions of corruption (SkyCity) and implications that the electorate was not informed of various developments and Key appointed someone to an important position that he was not suited to (Sabin).

                As a counter we have an unpaid bill and a snafu with a committee appointment.

                The unpaid bill I can understand. I pay my bills regularly now thanks to high quality staff but over Christmas and with the invoice being bounced around the prospects of a delay for many are pretty high.

                And Little is really busy. This particular story is a non issue.

                • ankerawshark …
                  18 February 2015 at 9:56 pm

                  Thanks Micky. Agree with all your comments.

                  One aspect that no one seems to have picked up on the lack of professionalism of the PR guy handing the information about the unpaid invoice to the Nats!!!!!

                  I understand how frustrating it is when people don’t pay on time as I run my own business. But I wouldn’t dream of publicly exposing someone for this. And I am not even in PR.

      • ankerawshark 42.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 9:31 pm

        I don’t know why this happened. I find it hard to believe that Andrew Little would have known he was legally obliged to consult with the other opposition parties before he chose opposition representatives for this committee and then not done it. Just think about it. He’s a smart guy. He’s a lawyer. If he knew it was the law he would not have flaunted it. It would have been easy enough to call Turei and Peters and say “o.k. what are your thoughts about this committee?? Thanks for your input” and then go ahead and appoint Shearer.

        Of course Little is now in the position where he CANNOT apologize for a thing. He saw as we all did what happened to Cunliffe when he did that.

        I am sorry, but another way of looking at this as the Greens represent 11% of the vote. It seems like the opposition are only allowed 2 people on this committee, so this time around it wasn’t a Green. They had a shot. Labour did get over double what the Greens got. I know this point of view won’t be popular on this blogsite.

        • Colonial Rawshark 42.1.2.1
          18 February 2015 at 10:04 pm

          A few things

          1) Little may not have known the legislation around the appointments requiring consultation – but Shearer definitely would have, and both Little and Shearer would definitely have talked about whether or not to have the Greens onboard.

          2) A decision was made thereafter by Little not to have a Green Party MP onboard.

          3) That decision was made without bothering to talk to the Greens first and co-ordinate the press reaction..

          • ankerawshark 42.1.2.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:29 pm

            Yes Colonial Rawshark, they are all valid points.

            I am not saying things couldn’t have been done better. I am really not. But the headline of this piece is “Labour’s betrayal”. IMO a bit emotive.

            You say DS would have known and you would be in a better position to know than me. That would mean that he didn’t tell Little; or Little didn’t follow the law and that I just don’t buy that. He’s smart and he’s a lawyer. As I said, very easy for Little to phone “consult” and then do what he wants.
            2. Yes Little decided not to have a Green. He only gets a say on himself and one other. He chose DS. You may not agree with that, but he’s entitled to do that. It makes sense to me that he would chose someone in his own party particularly when security is not an area he is familiar with. And of course he has to get familiar, cause he may be PM one day.

            3. Goes both ways. He didn’t consult with the Greens, but when they found out they weren’t on the committee, they didn’t contact him and discuss it with him and put the case that they would like to be considered in future. IMO and I know others will disagree, this wasn’t great from Turei. She then accused him of being “unlawful” which while true is very unhelpful and looks like the Greens retaliating for not being on the committee. They are 11% of te vote. Opposition parties in parliament are what??? 42%. They have had a turn.

  43. Observer (Tokoroa) 43
    18 February 2015 at 9:12 pm

    @ lprent

    The work you do for this blog is extensive. Thanks for that.

    However, the blog turns out to be a screeching coven of repetitive green party radicals, with very little common sense. Just read the foul mouth remarks handed out by the green commentators above.

    New Zealanders would laugh at them if they saw – endless greens saying get rid of security. Get rid of Surveillance. What a senseless gang they are!
    It is a derivative, footloose party of no tradition and therefore no fixed allegiance or even much common sense.

    In that context Lprent, to advertise this blog as related to the great Labour Party of old and of now – is a cheap and bogus travesty. Tell the Greens they belong elsehwere.

    [lprent: Read the about. We advertise ourselves as being part of the labour movement which was about improving the conditions of workers and their families, including such things as the living conditions, poor hygiene and housing, slag heaps and toxic fumes. The green movement in a large part grew out of that care for the working and home environment and it is still heavily tied to the labour movement because of their concern for everyone.

    I’m far more likely to ban you for a considerable period of time if I ever see you implying that this site is part of the Labour party. Read the policy. ]

    • Colonial Viper 43.1
      18 February 2015 at 9:18 pm

      You dont speak for any “New Zealanders” other than your sad self mate. Mass surveillance is a totalitarian threat to democracy. If you cant see that youre either thick, or part of the problem.

      • Chooky 43.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 9:28 pm

        +100 CV….this was a core Election issue!

        ….and I just think of the hours of quality, people gave here ….eg Blue Leopard ( no longer around) karol ( no longer around) johanns ( no longer around)….and their reasoned, well- researched arguments against the illegitimate spying bills John Key was bringing in to spy on New Zealanders

        ….and it has not made a blind bit of f..king difference to this Labour Party….not only this….they shit on their natural coalition partners and insult women coalition MPs who have far greater experience than they do …

        …and on this site the Greens and Mana are being called “toxic” !?

        • marty mars 43.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 9:41 pm

          + 1 yep not a single bit of difference – I’m fucking proud to be toxic, i’m fucking reclaiming toxic!!!

          • Chooky 43.1.1.1.1
            18 February 2015 at 10:00 pm

            lol… marty mars…well it is making me feel toxic …

          • lprent 43.1.1.1.2
            19 February 2015 at 7:58 am

            Good. I like people I can call toxic without their feelings getting hurt. After all it has been applied to this site and me enough by various people inside Labour. All it did was make the Labour activists amongst us work harder.

            The Labour activists helped to win the votes that make toxic the new reality inside Labour through a new voting system and two new leaders elected under it.

            Mana got 1.42% and an extensive period of blaming everyone apart from themselves, and self-indulgent hysteria when others on the left described them as toxic. Can you see the difference?

            • phillip ure 43.1.1.1.2.1
              19 February 2015 at 8:16 am

              a rightwing/reactionary/spooks-arse-kissing/tpp-signing/drilling/mining/fuck-the-poor! labour party pre-election..

              ..a rightwing/reactionary/spooks-arse-kissing/tpp-signing/drilling/mining/fuck the poor! labour party post-election..

              ..”Can you see the difference?..”

            • marty mars 43.1.1.1.2.2
              19 February 2015 at 8:26 am

              I can see the difference but can you?

              littlelabour still has issues, still has residue and MP’s from the yearswedon’ttalkaboutmuch, still has low support – the labour activists need to dust off their shit and carry on with the job.

              Mana activists are not represented by the two that have fucked you off. This “an extensive period of blaming everyone apart from themselves, and self-indulgent hysteria” means what? Yesterdays reaction on a post about littlelabours fuckup? Further back?

              Mana supporters are used to abuse – from the right and the middle and the left – we just get on with the job of trying to make a difference – which fucks our opponents off more than anything 🙂

              • Chooky …
                19 February 2015 at 12:50 pm

                +100 marty mars

                …Mana/Int and the Greens and their leaders are pure quality with the interests of heart New Zealanders at heart

                …they are multi- cultural feminist parties …NOT ‘old boys’ self -serving networks for financial and ego and power gain ie corrupt

                …this is why Mana/Int and the Greens come in for so much abuse from the right wing media journalists like David Cohen and Slater and Plunkett….sycophants for the right wing , foreign interests and the aforesaid severely morally compromised Labour and Nactional.

                Look very closely that those who abuse or try to knee-cap the Greens and Mana/Int….look into their hearts….what do you find?..

      • Marksman33 43.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 9:33 pm

        I’m picking thick.

    • saveNZ 43.2
      18 February 2015 at 9:48 pm

      Thanks for your views Observer, hope Crosby Textor have you on a zero hour contract.

      That attitude is why Labour is losing so many votes. What was it Labour 25% and Greens 11%? Greens are catching up so maybe Labour should actually look at their polices and see why they are catching up.

      Internet Mana got more votes than the Act party, the Maori party and the United Future Party. Likewise the conservatives got nearly half the votes of NZ First.

      It is pretty clear that the minor parties are ‘catching up’ in NZ as people seek alternatives to National and Labour. The NatLAB arrogance and lack of respect for the people of this country is going to catch up with them by next election.

      Now is not the time for Little to beLittling other leaders who he should be seeking alliances with.

      • ropata:rorschach 43.2.1
        18 February 2015 at 10:14 pm

        Bring Back Cunliffe! Remember his comments at the Mt Albert meeting in 2013:

        Sometimes you have issues where you feel your ancestors fluttering around the ceiling, and the Labour party has a proud tradition of taking on evil and iniquitous legislation, whether it’s apartheid, or nuclear weapons, or other things of that nature.

        Our leader has committed to a thorough review of this legislation.

        And based upon what we have heard tonight, I personally and I’m sure my caucus colleagues, would be of the view that this legislation must not, will not and cannot stand.

        • Chooky 43.2.1.1
          19 February 2015 at 12:07 am

          …thanks for reminding us of that statement from Cunliffe….those words come back to haunt Labour now

          ….and Cunliffe was the reason many joined the Labour Party again…they are soft voters and will leave if given a positive Green Coalition Left alternative

  44. Observer (Tokoroa) 44
    18 February 2015 at 10:17 pm

    @ SaveNZ

    It is good that some minor parties are making ground in New Zealand.

    But it is unlikely that a party trying to get rid of Security and Surveillance is going to get much notice taken of itself. The Greens have stood still for quite a long time. Not really gaining.

    If you kept your efforts onto the value of trees and clean water – you might get better results. They are important issues.

    Wish you well/

    • Colonial Rawshark 44.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:19 pm

      What are you, trying different dumb lines out trying to find something which sticks? What stinker behaviour.

  45. Sanctuary 45
    18 February 2015 at 10:21 pm

    The guts of Little’s decision is this: 90% of those who vote find the Green party toxic. By slapping the Greens down in public, he appeals to the 90% of voters who don’t vote or like the Greens. Little’s decision also created a reaction in Green supporters that is little short of hysterical; For Labour that is all the better. The more the Greens whinge, the more voters hear Labour is not going to let any Green tail wag any Labour dog.

    All we’ve established here is his strategy has worked.

    • marty mars 45.1
      18 February 2015 at 10:43 pm

      The labour dog is in the pound for biting innocent people – perhaps it’s owners should be held responsible eh.

    • Colonial Rawshark 45.2
      18 February 2015 at 10:45 pm

      I’m amazed you think the reaction at The Standard is representative of the wider electorate. In fact, since I know that you do not think that, you’re now simply stirring.

      (BTW only about 10% of voters think the Greens are toxic – and most of them are right wingers).

      • Sacha 45.2.1
        19 February 2015 at 6:55 am

        Yes, math’s was never Tom’s strong suit. Just because 90% of people do not vote for a party does not mean they hate it. Only a black/white dimwit would seriously believe that.

      • lprent 45.2.2
        19 February 2015 at 7:51 am

        Yeah. The Greens have been part of the mainstream of politics since the mid-00s. They are managing to retain their voters of old while picking up younger ones. Their biggest problem is that their ‘poll’ voters just aren’t that reliable when going to actually vote.

    • saveNZ 45.3
      18 February 2015 at 10:48 pm

      What strategy???

      Labour has 25%, Greens 11% and NZ First 9%.

      These are Labour potential partners apart from the on again, off again Bromance with National.

      Little will need to form an alliance with both Green and NZ First to form a government and then they all grow their vote from National to make it through to form a government. How can Little do that with attacking his only potential partners?

      My fear is that Labour are so stupid they think they can go back to the Helen Clark days where Labour was not riddled with flakey narcissistic out of control idiots who have damaged the brand of Labour with their toxic behaviour and personal attacks on their partners.

      The most toxic party to the left is Labour. If Labour just said they would repeal all Nationals stupid laws over the past 7 years they would get in, but nope, they support National but just a bit more watered down. Hmm who else supports National and is haemorrhaging votes, Act and Maori.

      Since Winston got fucked over by Nact he has surged in popularity. Being far from National, is working for gaining votes.

      If Labour can’t work that out, then then Green and NZ First should maybe have a dialogue.

      • Chooky 45.3.1
        18 February 2015 at 11:37 pm

        savenz +100…” then Green and NZ First should maybe have a dialogue”….and Mana/Int…in fact anyone who was in those parties before the last election ….and there are a lot of grassroots soft Labour that would probably be inspired to jump ship as well….

    • SPC 45.4
      19 February 2015 at 1:01 am

      What utter self destructive stupidity.

      It is not just unity within a party, but the plausibility of its coalition option in government that elects an opposition into office.

      Labour and Greens did not work together in 2014, and we know how well that worked out.

      Labour and Alliance were only able to work together in 1999, their earlier failure cost them the 1993 and 1996 elections.

      And no strategy, such as being seen to fail to get along with the Greens to ingratiate Labour with the anti-environment and left hating centre, is in a vacuum. It would have to be backed up with removing from the Labour platform its “left wing” policies. Labour would merely move into the centre while losing support on the left. Thus still be dependent on “Greens” for governance.

      As for the reaction of the Greens …, they have a number of options for going it alone. One really sticks it to Labour and on two separate fronts. And from that Labour would never recover.

      • lprent 45.4.1
        19 February 2015 at 7:31 am

        Labour and Greens did not work together in 2014, and we know how well that worked out.

        It would have made a difference (at best) of one seat Ōhāriu. And that only if you make some heroic and totally unrealistic assumptions about other party behaviour. And that wouldn’t have affected the outcome.

        Lets assume that the Greens didn’t stand there and that all of Tane Woodley (GP)’s 2,764 votes went to Virginia Anderson (LAB) 12,859 (a heroic assumption – less than half would have at best IMO). That would have defeated Peter Dunne (UFNZ)’s 13,569.

        But if such a deal had been stitched up, what would have happened to those Brett Hudson (NAT) votes of 6,120. The Nats, even the stubborn ones, would have been pissed off with such a deal and moved votes to the candidate that the Nats were quietly urging for anyway. Or the Nat voters currently voting for Peter Dunne would have poured back to National.

        The only way to take the seat is in a non-deal basis as Ginny nearly did, and in all likelihood it would have reverted to National next election.

        Any Labour-Green deal would have made no difference in Epsom.

        Nor in Waiariki. There was a possibility there that a Lab-Mana deal could have worked, however if you compare it against the 2011 results it is quite clear that the toxic Mana effect was quite active. Mana was static, Labour increased a moderate amount, and the Maori party increased a lot. In all probability many Labour voters in that electorate would have either not voted or they would have voted for Flavell. Never under-estimate the vote against factors in voting behaviours.

        Of course under MMP party vote would have largely evened out the balance anyway from electorate votes.

        Pre-coalition deals at the party level may have an effect. We simply don’t know.

        The alternate argument to your thesis on 1993, 1996, and 1999 is that having Shipley roll Bolger in the 1997-1999 parliament was probably sufficient to make National look like a divided party and that was enough to dump them from peoples minds as being a potential lead party. That Labour was coherent through the same period with no late stage visible friction meant that they were. The various turmoils inside Labour from 1990-1996 made it look like a bad bet for voters to put into government.

        Certainly my experience in 1999 was that the centre voters were more concerned about National’s turmoil and the disintegration of NZ First than they favoured a hookup between Labour and the Alliance.

        Voters seldom vote for things, they vote against politicians and parties who they think will cause too much damage. They judge a lot of that by looking at if they think the lead parties can run themselves and a coalition. This was how National managed to scrape through this last election.

        The internal turmoil from the Labour caucus coup in voting the neophyte Shearer in caused far too much public friction. It was (to put it mildly) damn stupid to do that on a party that really wasn’t in the mood for a leader without a track record who was widely perceived to lean strongly to the right faction. If he’d had the political skills to manage it, then it’d have been less of a problem. But he didn’t know the party at all.

        • SPC 45.4.1.1
          19 February 2015 at 12:48 pm

          What a long winded apology.

          The separation of Labour and Alliance was itself disunity on the left and could be seen as nothing but that until they got their act together, and that was not until 1999.

          The fact is, and you in no way make any argument to the contrary, is that the failure of Labour and Greens to look like a coalition government in waiting diminished their collective party vote in 2014.

          As you do note an agreed platform may help. With many policies in common this would not have been difficult (and be based around first term implementation). It would certainly diminish the uncertainty factor that may deter some voters in the centre from coming on board.

  46. Observer (Tokoroa) 46
    18 February 2015 at 11:11 pm

    @ Sanctuary

    Do you really think Blip and Metiria Turei for instance, will understand the excellent light you have shone on the Green Party and its position in the real world?

    Does she cultivate the rabble nonsense expressed by her foul mouthed political friends and colleagues?

    Does she want to wrench Security and Surveillance from the NZ Public? Following the lead from her silly supporters on this Blog today?

    Turei will end in a tangle unless she gets her feet on the ground and quickly. Hysteria and Highhorse – does not achieve much ….other than ridicule. As you say Sanctuary.

    • Colonial Rawshark 46.1
      18 February 2015 at 11:40 pm

      Please, your shit is not only getting weaker, but its stench of insincerity reeks all the way up to the heavens.

  47. Picard101 47
    21 February 2015 at 11:34 am

    The greens need to grow up politically. You think given how long they have been in parliament they would have by now. Guess not.

    Labour did the right thing. They might need the Greens, or NZF or both after the next election, so cannot play favourites. This is one of the reasons many in labour are concerned about a formal agreement with the Greens, the temper tantrums. They need to either be better in tune with the fact Labour might not need just them, or forever be out of government.

    • Colonial Rawshark 47.1
      21 February 2015 at 11:47 am

      Please explain – why Andrew Little could not have picked up the phone and talked to the Greens instead of leaving them to find out his decision to cut them out of the process via the news media.

      Your innuendo about the Greens needing to “grow up” and throwing “temper tantrums” trivialises the problem and avoids the issue of Labour being unable (or unwilling) to cultivate working relationships with their necessary coalition partners, from the perspective of the general public.

      • Picard101 47.1.1
        21 February 2015 at 11:56 am

        I will grant you he should have told them. However he still did the right thing. And there will be many general public labour supporters who will not be upset at this.

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