Open mike 03/08/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 3rd, 2014 - 208 comments
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openmikeOpen mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

208 comments on “Open mike 03/08/2014 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    3 August 2014 at 7:08 am

    ‘

    Labour and National Party activists and politicians must have a much higher tolerance level for genocide than most people.

    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02082014/#comment-859197

    National is not responsible for what is happening in Gaza. Demanding they do something is not going to achieve anything.

    And expelling the Israeli diplomat? How would we then express our disgust at the innocent murder of women and children the next time it happens?

    mickysavage

    Most people would reject the murder of innocent women and children on the first instance.

    Come on Greg you can be better than this.

    Stand up to the extreme Right pressure in your own party.

    Do what ever it takes. Demand in the strongest terms possible (either privately or publicly), that your party leader David Cunliffe make a statement promising to cut diplomatic relations with Israel.

    • mickysavage 1.1
      3 August 2014 at 7:52 am

      Gee Jenny I was expressing a personal view, not succumbing to right wing pressure.

      My personal view is that diplomatic channels if at all possible should be left open. So I disagree with calls to send the Israeli ambassador home. And I do reject the murder of innocent women and children. Have a read of what I have written on the subject if you want proof.

      • Jenny 1.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 8:25 am

        My personal view is that diplomatic channels if at all possible should be left open. So I disagree with calls to send the Israeli ambassador home.

        mickysavage

        Greg if you are of a certain age you will understand that you are using the same morally indefensible and bankrupt excuse used by the NZRFU and the Muldoon administration for keeping ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

        And I do reject the murder of innocent women and children. Have a read of what I have written on the subject if you want proof.

        mickysavage

        Greg you can keep up your liberal handwringing as long as you like, but by refusing to take a stand to match, your expressions of condemnation and concern at the massacre of innocents are hollow.

        • Jenny 1.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 8:34 am

          Come on Greg I expected better of you than this.

        • mickysavage 1.1.1.2
          3 August 2014 at 8:52 am

          Weird. Having an internationalist perspective and wanting to preserve diplomatic relations is somehow support for Israel.

          • Te Reo Putake 1.1.1.2.1
            3 August 2014 at 9:08 am

            Ah, Jenny. Wallowing in the blood of the innocent dead to in order to make a sectarian and irrelevant attack on Labour. Quality stuff.

            • The Al1en 1.1.1.2.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 9:55 am

              Yes, climate change must be yesterdays news.
              More mileage in dead children than dead polar bears.

              • Te Reo Putake …
                3 August 2014 at 10:14 am

                Lordy, imagine if a polar bear washed up on the beach at Gaza … Jenny Jackpot! Labour to blame, obviously.

              • Jenny …
                3 August 2014 at 10:25 am

                Climate change is not yesterday’s news, the same lack of leadership from the Labour Party we are seeing around that issue we see around the genocide in Gaza.

                If Labour activists really started fighting for what they believe and convinced their leaders to come out swinging with policies sharply contrasted to National’s then we might see Labour’s electoral fortunes turn around.

                As it is, how can there really be an electoral contest between Labour and National when both Labour and National agree on deep sea oil, fracking and new coal mines, and in foreign affairs on how to deal with Israel. The strongest thing the two parties disagree on most strongly in the eyes of the electorate is raising the age of Superannuation entitlement. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.

                • The Al1en …
                  3 August 2014 at 10:36 am

                  Your disingenuity does much damage to your position, which increasingly looks petty, spiteful and coordinated, leaving you very much isolated, inhabiting the fringes of debate.

                  Good luck with that.

              • Murray Olsen …
                3 August 2014 at 9:23 pm

                TRP and Alien – Jenny is saying something eminently sensible here. I agree with her. I don’t know what you two are trying to say, because all you’ve done is attack her.

                Diplomacy doesn’t work with the Zionists. Latin American countries have taken the lead and are cutting off diplomatic relations. We should be with them, not with countries that do all they can to support Zionist aggression.

                • The Al1en …
                  4 August 2014 at 8:03 am

                  Not just a case of shoot the messenger, there are plenty of reasons why Labour should not come out calling for the expulsion of diplomats or the closing of the idf embassy.
                  One, it’s a big call to make, and the run up to a general election, without the benefit of departmental briefings etc.. is not the place to make ad-hoc/snap policy decisions, especially by the current opposition.
                  Second, there are other avenues open, such as calling the embassy boss in for a please explain, and to officially pass on the dissatisfaction of the NZ public over the idf operations and occupation of Palestine before reaching the expulsion stage, without which, would expose the Labour leadership to accusations of being unfit to govern.

                  I support the closing of the Israel embassy and telling them to only come back when they’ve negotiated a two state agreement, but after winning the election first and following due procedure after informed advice.

          • Jenny 1.1.1.2.2
            3 August 2014 at 9:47 am

            “Evil will prevail when good men do nothing”

            • McFlock 1.1.1.2.2.1
              3 August 2014 at 7:06 pm

              A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.

              The same dude who is popularly attributed to your quote.

          • Tom Jackson 1.1.1.2.3
            3 August 2014 at 10:29 am

            Diplomacy doesn’t work with animals.

            I’ve seen enough pictures of burned babies in my Twitter feed.

          • Jenny 1.1.1.2.4
            3 August 2014 at 10:40 am

            Weird. Having an internationalist perspective and wanting to preserve diplomatic relations is somehow a bad thing. (Nevill Chamberlaine’s ghost scratches his head in puzzlement that his critics could ever think such things as he eternally walks from the plane.)

            Robert Muldoon’s ghost from 1981 creases his cheek and chuckles

      • Frank Macskasy 1.1.2
        3 August 2014 at 8:26 pm

        Mickeysavage, with all due respect to you, and for your p.o.v. on this issue – I beg to disagree.

        Israel will not “listen” to international pressure until the are made to feel international pressure by increasing isolation.

        When the Ambassador is sent home – then Israel will feel that pressure.

        When we stop trading with them – then Israel will feel that pressure.

        When we cease sporting contacts with them – then Israel will begin to understand.

        That is how the white regime in Souith Africa was made to “listen” to international pressure. Apartheid was finally destroyed when it was no longer tenable for the South African government of the day to preserve it.

        Any message we send to Israel can be done through the U.N.

        • mickysavage 1.1.2.1
          3 August 2014 at 8:38 pm

          Thanks Frank. I will cogitate on the issue. At Uni I studied Advanced International Law and I agreed with the model that diplomatic channels should be kept open if at all possible.

          I am more than happy if we stop trading and sporting contacts with Israel.

    • Chooky 1.2
      3 August 2014 at 11:04 am

      The World is Starting to Turn Against Israel! I srael must be called to account for crimes against humanity!

      From Robert Fisk , the Independent

      ‘Dress the Gaza situation up all you like, but the truth hurts -The world is starting to turn against Israel’

      “There was a time when our politicians and media had one principal fear when covering Middle East wars: that no one should ever call them anti-Semitic.
      So corrosive, so vicious was this charge against any honest critic of Israel that merely to bleat the word “disproportionate” – as in any normal wartime exchange rate of Arab-to-Israeli deaths – was to provoke charges of Nazism by Israel’s would-be supporters. Sympathy for Palestinians would earn the sobriquet “pro-Palestinian”, which, of course, means “pro-terrorist”.

      Or so it was until the latest bloodbath in Gaza, which is being so graphically covered by journalists that our masters and our media are suffering a new experience: not fear of being called anti-Semitic, but fear of their own television viewers and readers – ordinary folk so outraged by the war crimes committed against the women and children of Gaza that they are demanding to know why, even now, television moguls and politicians are refusing to treat their own people like moral, decent, intelligent human beings…..

      http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/dress-the-gaza-situation-up-all-you-like-but-the-truth-hurts-9641240.html

      • Tom Jackson 1.2.1
        3 August 2014 at 12:48 pm

        I don’t think that’s going to happen.

        People supposed that the open nature of the internet would increase accountability, but all it does is clarify the ability of the powerful to act with impunity. A harsh lesson.

      • swordfish 1.2.2
        3 August 2014 at 1:21 pm

        Yep, Chooky, although (in response to the excellent Robert Fisk) I’d say public opinion throughout the world has been slowly changing since Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and, much more rapidly, since its carpet-bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and, above all, its previous massacre of around 1400 Gazans in late 2008 / early 2009 (as with the current orgy of mass murder, the vast majority were civilians, with a sizeable minority of children – although, you probably know that already).

        A poll was conducted in New Zealand around the time of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, asking respondents who they basically sympathised with. From memory, 25% said Israel, 23% said the Palestinians, almost all of the remaining 52% chose the Unsure because I don’t have enough knowledge option, albeit with tiny minorities choosing either Both or Neither. So, bearing in mind the margin of error, roughly half unsure, a quarter sympathetic to Israel and a quarter sympathetic to the Palestinians. And that division of opinion was very similar to that in Britain, Australia and a few other countries (especially Japan, where the figures were, if I remember rightly, almost exactly the same).

        I’d be surprised if that hasn’t changed significantly since 2006. All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.

        Having said that, there’s always existed a politically astute minority in western countries who have managed to cut through the barrage of Israeli propaganda over the decades. I’ve just been listening to George Galloway talk about the way he became active in the mid-70s and almost suggesting he was unique in this. But, despite a broad sympathy for Israel in Labour Party circles throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s (both in NZ, UK, Oz), there were always people within the Labour Party like my mother who saw things pretty clearly from early on. She became strongly sympathetic to the Palestinians as a teenager in Wellington in 1948 after reading reports of the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli War in The Evening Post, The Dominion and, above all, the Wellington version of The Standard, the Labour-aligned Southern Cross newspaper (published during the post-war period, through to the early 50s).

        She said you didn’t have to read much between the lines to see Israel was carrying out a brutal ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinian population, complete with a whole series of massacres of civilian men, women and children. Same old Israeli mindset, never changes. Zionism, at least since the 30s, has always been about the proud, gun-toting Israeli Jew, using violence to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure Greater Israel.

        • Chooky 1.2.2.1
          3 August 2014 at 2:05 pm

          thanks for that swordfish…your Mother must have been very enlightened for her times in 1948!

          …i only wised up when I first went to university in my teens and mixed with some socialist types ( lol) and read a book called ‘Is Israel a Colonial Settler State?’….up until then I was indoctrinated by the fiction best seller ‘Exodus’ and was very pro Israel, like many others then and today, because of the horrors of the WWII holocaust

          ..this is why i am so pro Internet freedom and free access for all …because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ( both the best and the worst)….if you search for it and inquire with an open and fair mind…you can see all sides of the story and make up your own mind…It has to be a win /win for world justice and peace in the long term.

          • srylands 1.2.2.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 4:08 pm

            “because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ”

            That is right. But you still need an education to make use of that information. What you did with the “information” you cam across on vaccination was abhorent. You simply cannot be trusted to come to the right conclusions on anything. Your vaccination rantings make you a fundamentally untrustworthy person.

          • Tom Jackson 1.2.2.1.2
            3 August 2014 at 5:08 pm

            you can see all sides of the story and make up your own mind…It has to be a win /win for world justice and peace in the long term.

            What goes for you goes for the hordes of climate change deniers and World Islamic conspiracists.

            There are more of them than there are of us.

          • Anne 1.2.2.1.3
            3 August 2014 at 9:05 pm

            You mentioned the holocaust Chooky. It has crossed my mind of recent times that the N—is were actually afraid of the “Jews”. That was the real reason for the “ethnic cleansing” in ‘Nasti’ Germany.

            And when you look at what is happening today there is a correlation between 1930s Germany and Israel of today. Two cuckoos from the same nest so to speak.

            • Populuxe1 1.2.2.1.3.1
              4 August 2014 at 2:21 am

              Oh do kindly keep your antisemitism to yourself. The Jews of Germany were mostly all assimilated and consider themselves German. And don’t conflate Israel’s far right with “all Jews” – that just makes you a bigot.

              • felix …
                4 August 2014 at 4:11 am

                What antisemitism? Be specific please. Your sense of vibe from the written word has been shown many times to be unreliable.

                “And don’t conflate Israel’s far right with “all Jews” – that just makes you a bigot.”

                Um Pop, Anne’s comment is right there. We can all see she didn’t say anything like “all Jews”.

                Making up quotes – that just makes you a liar.

              • Anne …
                4 August 2014 at 10:20 am

                Me anti-semitic? It’s the N–is who called them “Jews” not me. I happen to have a number of Jewish relatives in England with whom I lived with for a few years. I have probably had a darn sight more to do with Jewish people than you have.

                To help you with your comprehension:

                I don’t blame most ordinary Israelis for the actions of their government.
                I have never blamed ordinary Russians for the actions of their successive governments.
                Nor do I blame ordinary Americans for the actions of their government.
                And so it goes on… savvy?

        • Grumpy 1.2.2.2
          3 August 2014 at 4:57 pm

          Robert Fisk?? FFS and you ripped into me for linking to Breitbart?

        • Tom Jackson 1.2.2.3
          3 August 2014 at 5:05 pm

          I’d be surprised if that hasn’t changed significantly since 2006. All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.

          And yet Israel manages to violate human rights with ever more impunity. All your talk matters not a bit, since both sides of the US congress have been bought, and that’s all that is needed to prevent Israel ever being held to account.

          Palestine is simply not an issue that looms large in the minds of voters.

  2. Tiger Mountain 2
    3 August 2014 at 8:29 am

    Q&A TVNZ this morning;
    FIRST Union Secretary Robert Reid on the panel with (might pay to eat after the show) David Farrar, Claire Robinson–and David Shearer on the Israel/Palestine situation.

    • Jenny 2.1
      3 August 2014 at 9:35 am

      In my opinion on Q&A David Shearer came close to calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy, but is not quite there.

      When asked directly whether he would recommend closing the Israeli embassy Shearer said that there is movement toward that around the world.

      David Shearer also confirmed that what New Zealand does is influential. In his words we are “The mouse that roared”

      This is where influential leading Labour Party activists like Greg Presland could tilt the balance. Instead Greg channels Murray McCully’s statements about the need to keep the communication channels open. Followed by a lot of moralistic handwringing in the exactly same vein as mickysavage

      The moral danger for Greg and other conservative political activists is that the centrist political swamp they are wading through will see them left stranded with the McCullys and Keys on the wrong side of history.

      • Tautoko Viper 2.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 11:58 am

        Labour Party activists are working their butts off at present. Many (including me) will have attended protests supporting Palestine and sent emails to the Israeli Embassy. I am sure that I am not the only one who has wept in sadness and disgust at the inhumanity shown by Israel. Lashing out at others will not remove that pain.

        • Colonial Viper 2.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 2:04 pm

          A bunch of us will make sure that this issue is covered in Labour’s policy platform going forward i.e. that it is the Labour Party position that the Palestinian people have the right to a sovereign state including democratic and economic self determination without military interference or assault, sanction or blockade, which is exactly the same right that Israel has.

          • Jenny 2.1.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 2:57 pm

            All very “aspirational” CV. But will you and other Labour Party activists be calling for a Labour led government to close the Israeli embassy?

            • srylands 2.1.1.1.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 4:24 pm

              Really? Are you suggesting that New Zealand break off diplomatic relations with the only democracy in the middle east? It is not going to happen. The crazed hate filled mug of Minto will strike zero resonance with New Zealanders. Just look at his face.

              http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11296381

              Why are you focussing all this angst on Israel? You could turn your attention to a host of countries that threaten liberty:

              Russia
              Egypt
              Burma
              Central African Republic

              Just for starters. Go protest against them. Leave the beacon of secular democracy alone.

              • Daveosaurus …
                3 August 2014 at 5:25 pm

                Quoth Shitlands: “the only democracy in the middle east“.

                You have already been told that such a statement is a falsehood. That you persist in repeating this falsehood shows you up as nothing but a liar.

                • McFlock …
                  3 August 2014 at 7:43 pm

                  not the first time he’s been demonstrated as a liar, won’t be the last.

                • Populuxe1 …
                  4 August 2014 at 2:23 am

                  Um, Lebanon is a secular liberal democracy – if Israel is your yardstick anyway. And I’m protesting Russia like billy-o, shithead.

              • joe90 …
                3 August 2014 at 6:09 pm

                Leave the beacon of secular democracy alone.

                Neither secular,

                In deference to religious Jews, no public bus services run in Israel on the traditional day of rest, except in Arab areas; aircraft operated by El Al, the state airline, remain grounded. Because Jews are not allowed to eat anything leavened or fermented at Passover, in memory of the exodus from Egypt, foods containing grain – even beer or muesli – have to be cleared from the supermarket shelves every spring. Instead of white and brown bread, they sell matzo – an unleavened cracker.

                http://www.spiegel.de/international/religion-and-secularism-in-israel-unholy-conflict-in-the-holy-land-a-469996.html

                or, if the RWNJ’s have their way, democratic.

                Their proposal defines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, where the Jewish people have the exclusive right to national self-determination.

                http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.588478

              • Instauration …
                3 August 2014 at 9:48 pm

                Srylands
                In terms of threatening liberty – you forgot (most likely omitted);
                Saudi Arabia
                Qatar
                Ukraine
                Georgia
                and the United States of America.
                The Israeli “collateral quotient” equates 4 MH17’s – and counting..

              • Murray Olsen …
                3 August 2014 at 9:49 pm

                Go and do your own protesting against whoever you like, SSlands, but don’t demand that we do it for you. Get over your stupid sense of entitlement.

                As for Israel being a beacon of secular democracy – what a load of shit. It’s a corrupt mafia state these days, with special laws for non-Jews, and lucrative property deals for Bibi’s mates. Mind you, I suspect you think democracy means helping the rich get even richer.

        • Jenny 2.1.1.2
          3 August 2014 at 2:44 pm

          Labour Party activists are working their butts off at present. Many (including me) will have attended protests supporting Palestine and sent emails to the Israeli Embassy.

          Tautoko Viper

          Good on you TV. It shouldn’t take much more of a push to get the Labour Party leadership to come out on the side of the Palestinians and call for the closure of the Israeli embassy. Already Labour’s potential coalition partners the Greens and Mana have made this call. Ask yourself TV, what would a Kirk or even a Lange do? In 1984 on the Labour Party coming to power the South African embassy didn’t wait around to be asked to leave, but shut up shop and fled the country. TV what you don’t want is your party to be on the wrong side of history this time.

          Yesterday I went to the rally in support of the Palestinians at QEII Square at the bottom of Queen Street, Auckland. I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party banners and flags. But never saw one Labour Party one. Both Mana and Green Party have sent official spokespeople to speak in support of the Palestinians.

          On the 16th of August the organisers have called for an even bigger rally and march starting from Aotea Square. Will Labour be there? All political parties have been invited to send official representatives and spokespersons. Labour is the biggest Left Party, TV if Labour Party activists and supporters were as sincere as you claim they could rally far greater numbers than the Green and Mana Parties combined, and make this rally the success it should be. Will we see David Shearer take the speakers platform? Or will it be another no-show?

          • Clemgeopin 2.1.1.2.1
            3 August 2014 at 5:37 pm

            I hope you are doing all this protest etc for genuine altruistic honest reasons and not just to get some political capital for the coming elections. Your dissing of Labour and demanding that they should do this and that just as the Greens and Mana are doing makes me suspicious of your motives.

  3. Tiger Mountain 3
    3 August 2014 at 8:50 am

    Jenny’s regular corrosive style misses the target by singling out mickysavage who has actually made a number of supportive and obviously sincere statements against the Gaza massacre here on The Standard.

    Labour as a Party at top level certainly needs to step out of the ‘safe zone’ of underplaying the asymmetrical nature of the Israeli occupation. Sending the ambassador home is a symbolic move but one I support, and putting pressure on the US rather than cheerleading like Key and McCully.

    The most important two practical things Kiwis can do is support Kia Ora Gaza with donations for medical aid and become informed and start hitting Israeli business and enablers in the bank account via BDS (Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions). Notice how quick the brief halt to international flights into Tel Aviv got the corporates squealing.

    • Jenny 3.1
      3 August 2014 at 10:12 am

      Jenny’s regular corrosive style misses the target by singling out mickysavage who has actually made a number of supportive and obviously sincere statements against the Gaza massacre here on The Standard.

      Tiger Mountain

      Yet the party he supports has been missing in action. At the protest in Queen Street yesterday I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party flags but not any of the Labour Party. And both Mana and the Green Party have sent official spokespersons to address these rallies and speaking in support of Palestinians.

      Yet Labour is the biggest and most influential party on the Left and could if they were sincere rally many more people to these rallies than either Mana or the Greens.

      This tells me that there is a serious default in leadership being shown by influential Labour Party activists like Greg and others like him.

      If they were really sincere then they should have the courage of their convictions and be calling for their party leaders to promise to close the embassy. You almost sense that David Shearer wants to make that call and knows that this is necessary if you are serious in opposing the massacre in Gaza, but that he is not getting the support he needs from his party. Leaders must lead but they can’t do that in a vacuum. And with Greg Presland and presumably others opposing this call he won’t.

      • mickysavage 3.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 10:39 am

        FFS Jenny your corrosive style of commenting is really unhelpful. I was door knocking and getting people on the roll yesterday. I have been on protests in the past and I have followed the issue for years.

        Here is something I wrote in 2009. Here is something I wrote in 2010 after attending a protest. Here is something I wrote recently.

        Disagreeing with you on one particular action point does not make me a conservative sellout.

        • Jenny 3.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 3:29 pm

          Disagreeing with you on one particular action point does not make me a conservative sellout.

          mickysavage

          First of all Greg I haven’t accused you of being a conservative sellout, don’t put words in my mouth that I never said.

          But it is not just one action point, the trouble Greg, is this is all part of a very worrying pattern.

          The same as climate change, you can write dozens of articles on climate and inches of type about how dreadful it is, but when it comes to the crunch, refuse to advocate doing anything about it, and go all silent.

          I think the key words in your statement above are “action point” it is ACTION that the modern Labour Party seems to have some allergic reaction to.

          For goodness sake Greg, Norman Kirk wasn’t satisfied to just rail on about how awful French nuclear testing at Muruoa atoll was, (he could have done), he did something about it, he sent a gruddy great warship there to protest against it.

          Greg your party will have a chance to redeem itself on the 16th of August in Auckland’s Aotea Square.

          Will the Labour Party rally their members to turn up?

          Will the Labour Party take up their invited place on the official speakers platform?

          Will Labour join Mana and the Greens in calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy?

          I know you won’t answer Greg, but the whole country will get to see your answer on the day.

          [lprent: You appear to be harassing and haranguing one of my authors again because they don’t think exactly the same as you do. I really don’t have time for it at present. I’m trying to move the server.

          Banned 7 weeks. ]

          • mickysavage 3.1.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 6:28 pm

            Ta. She was getting rather tiresome …

            • lprent 3.1.1.1.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 7:47 pm

              So I gather.

              The server is now at its new (ie cheaper) home. It was going to be the backup server, but when I tested the UFB and looked at the costs, it turned out to be better here and to make the AWS system the backup.

  4. Weepus beard 4
    3 August 2014 at 10:07 am

    Frightening to see many right wingers yesterday and today calling for discussion on when genocide is permissible. This is in relation to Gaza.

    A real step backwards in my view.

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    3 August 2014 at 10:14 am

    Are you ready for the next monumental government fuckup in IT?

    Fortune magazine quotes Jim Johnson of the Standish Group saying 90 percent of ERP projects are either late or over budget. He says: “Your chances of coming in on time and on budget are statistically zero“

    SAP has an interesting track record including being successfully sued by Waste Management for fraud after selling the company a US$100 million ERP system described as a complete and utter failure.

    So, on the surface, it appears government is willing to entrust the backbone of our economy to a company and industry with a track record of spectacular failure.

    When are we going to accept that it’s just to risky and expensive to have private contractors doing the government’s IT work?

    • sattlerj 5.1
      3 August 2014 at 11:06 am

      What is the solution then? Bill Bennett clearly didn’t offer one. Just scaremongering.

      The main IRD tax system, called FIRST, is many decades old, and from what I’ve seen difficult to maintain – the code is COBOL and finding experts in that area gets more difficult each year – and law changes are difficult to implement, see Kiwisaver and Student Loans. Support by third parties might stop.

      So at some point the system has to be replaced.

      Some areas within IRD are already off the main tax system, for example the Kiwisaver administration, which interestingly runs on SAP. Did you read anywhere, that this project was over budget, over time or didn’t meet the expectation of the client/IRD?
      There are thousands of SAP projects around the world and – of course – the failures get a lot more press than the successes (even if you work within the industry).

      As far as I know, the only other software option for the FIRST replacement is Oracle. The project to move student loans within IRD to Oracle was, after spending significant amount and efforts, cancelled.

      Over the years I’ve been involved in many projects like this one. The success/failure simply depends on (high level):
      Quality, expertise of the System Implementer (SI),
      Business input (here not only IRD, but also the government for example by simplifying the framework, like tax laws)

      Over the years both points might have gone a bit “downhill”, because of (supposedly) cheaper off-shore models, like customer-specific development in India, and larger scopes and complexities, like more sophisticated products, more customer channels etc.

      • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 12:10 pm

        What is the solution then?

        A government IT department tasked with supplying all government departments with their IT needs. This would have a number of advantages:

        1. Build up of institutional knowledge which will produce better software (Addresses your Quality, expertise of the System Implementer)
        2. Better integration across the whole of government (Better for statistical purposes and sharing of data when needed)
        3. Software would be developed over time removing the problems brought about by the sudden upgrade process that we have now
        4. It would be cheaper (No profit to cover and keeping a few people fully employed will cut costs associated with the sudden upgrade process as well as removing the added costs of proprietary software)
        5. Removal from the constraints of proprietary software (government shouldn’t be limited by the software it uses because of IP ownership)
        • infused 5.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 12:45 pm

          Everything you’ve said would make no difference. See below. It’s not the issue.

          • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 2:18 pm

            Everything you say there reinforces what I said. A continual small iterative process would remove the major failures and the government, as a whole, is large enough to support a dedicated IT department.

    • infused 5.2
      3 August 2014 at 12:44 pm

      Why speak about something you have no actual experience in?

      The reason these projects fail, and the police system is a good example, is because the ‘customer’ requires changes after the project has started.

      If you had some clue, you’d know this is what happened with the police system. Every time this happens, the bug/issue rate soars.

      Projects should be agreed upon and delivered, then changes made.

      The police project were making changes every single month, hence the massive delay with nothing working.

      From what I’ve seen, I’d say this is happening in most govt projects.

      • Colonial Viper 5.2.1
        3 August 2014 at 2:13 pm

        What you say is true. But that’s the nature of big long projects. The answer is – don’t have big long projects. They are too complex and requirements will always change if a project is dragging out 4, 5, 6 years long. Governments change, Ministerial heads change, of course there will be requirements changes.

        Simplifying our tax system down would also be very beneficial.

        • Lanthanide 5.2.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 2:29 pm

          The specific answer is to use a development methodology that de-risks big long projects.

          Big problems require big complicated solutions by their very nature. Big complicated solutions take a long time to write.

          Agile methodologies de-risk long projects by (effectively) breaking them up into many many many small projects. That way if one small project fails, you find out about it early and have a chance to determine why it failed and what needs to be done differently to ensure that future projects don’t fail.

          • Colonial Viper 5.2.1.1.1
            4 August 2014 at 1:16 am

            now that’s talking sense. (Wouldn’t hurt to have a whole lot of the capabilities in house either as opposed to knocking on Accenture’s door every time etc…)

          • McFlock 5.2.1.1.2
            4 August 2014 at 1:39 am

            it also helps to have IT project managers rather than working parties on the govt side, and ministers who read the fine print before signing go-live authorisation. And the ministers should know that “mission critical” is important.

  7. North 7
    3 August 2014 at 10:31 am

    How dishonest, or at best unartful, can Q + A become ?

    Shearer interviewed on Gaza. That was his billing. Gaza.

    The Panel – Robinson, Farrar, Reid.

    Reid addresses Shearer’s Gaza comments.

    Farrar disagrees. Not sure with whom or about what precisely.

    Robinson barely acknowledges Gaza. What ? Supposedly she’s there to offer response to Shearer’s comments, on Gaza. The headline under which Q + A billed him.

    But no. She and Farrar committedly engage one another in lively depiction of Shearer as leadership aspirant. So quickly and so thoroughly that you’d think it was planned. Wood chirps in merrily – about Shearer as leadership aspirant.

    This perfectly reflects (1) the bankruptcy of Q + A as but a Sunday morning shill show for National Party status-quoism, and (2) the never spoken springboard of western media editorial that Palestinians matter less. The murder figures ? Profess horror and move on. Robinson of course is worse. She doesn’t even profess horror.

    Reid’s identification of Robinson as “spin-woman”. Spot on !

    Reid is one of the few authentic political commentators in NZ. The Robinsons and the Millers, Wood et al are pure frippery. Delivered with (mock) solemnity as to suggest authority. Except for Wood whose number is the perpetually affixed condescending smile, tending to smirk.

    • CAnker the pig fucker 7.1
      3 August 2014 at 10:54 am

      Glad I didn’t watch Q and A North……………..have given up on it.

      I will encourage you to sign the above petition if you haven’t. We need to take every opportunity to tell it like it is about the MSM!

      Disgusting that they spun Shearer on Gaza into leadership (non) issue.

    • phillip ure 7.2
      3 August 2014 at 11:12 am

      it was so so boring..

      ..parkyn is perhaps the most wooden interviewer around..

      ..(which perhaps helps form my view he should be fronting a handyman-show..)

      ..and one who always seems to be playing catch-up..to be not quite up to speed..

      ..to not have much of a grasp of nuance/big-picture stuff..

      ..(seriously..!..wood and hand-tools are his true calling..)

      ..and speaking of ‘wood’..parkyn and the compere together..talking..is hard to watch/teeth-grinding television..

      ..i/you actually feel embarrassed for them..

      ..but all in all..if you could put q&a into a pill..

      ..you wd solve the nations insomnia problems..

      ..(and it most certainly is not addictive..)

      ..tho’ i did like it when reid called wood a ‘poverty-denier’..

      • Ergo Robertina 7.2.1
        3 August 2014 at 11:34 am

        +1
        I had anticipated the pundits having to create a new narrative about Labour’s polling, but they skirted that; Robinson even resorted to the old ‘polls bounce around’ defence.

      • phillip ure 7.2.2
        3 August 2014 at 11:48 am

        i think we should all make an effort to weave ‘poverty-denier’ into the lexicon..

        .it crystalises some wordy verbiage/arguments..

        ..into two words..

        ..arguably one word..if wed with/by the hyphen..

        ..and lets’s use the hypen more..people..!..it is such an expressive piece of punctuation..

        ..and hardly anyone uses it enough..

        ..you can also use it as a form of methadone..

        ..as you wean yrslf from the (ever-wretched/cringing) comma..

    • Clemgeopin 7.3
      3 August 2014 at 12:12 pm

      Q and A, particularly when they have half -wit, biased, pro-Right wing, pro-National, anti-Labour, anti-Cunliffe commentators like Clair Robinson, turns into a time wasting unfair gossip session rather than a genuine balanced political programme. Reid HAD to pull the other two twits in line for their uncalled for anti Cunliffe comments and he did! Reid is good. Farrar is ok and tolerable. But Robinson is a completely biased irritating idiot.

    • Paul 7.4
      3 August 2014 at 12:25 pm

      I think Wood and Christie are the most useless political journalists in NZ.
      Clearly got there because they won’t ask difficult questions.

      • Clemgeopin 7.4.1
        3 August 2014 at 1:03 pm

        The basic problem is that these buggers are paid huge salaries and begin to love National and the right wing agenda for their own selfish reasons.

    • newsense 7.5
      3 August 2014 at 11:24 pm

      Claire Robinson. eck.

      Haven’t been able to watch all the way through it yet. But this rehash of Labour leadership in the election campaign- following on from Mallard’s fucking “David Cunliffe is the Labour leader. David Cunliffe is the Labour leader.”

      Cunliffe hasn’t been able to unite all the caucus groups yet, but if it comes out that Grant Robertson isn’t doing all he can to stomp on this in the run up to the election, well, I guess my disappointment in him allowing Shearer to become leader the first time will only be amplified enormously.

      in reply to Clem : Farrar is good at what he does, and not a twit unless it seems very very necessary. As for the rest…eck.

      Well, when one side is dominating…

      Or am I being completely sucked into a National play to make what is an enormous strength for Labour- a moral foreign policy with an experienced minister- about the leadership?

      • newsense 7.5.1
        3 August 2014 at 11:46 pm

        Got as far as Reid- love it!

        “Spin-woman and poll man” I would love someone to make this cartoon and run it regularly on this site, with Robert Reid as the ‘Stan Lee’ creator of.

  8. Morrissey 8
    3 August 2014 at 10:33 am

    Flag-burning is an outrage, scream the extreme right.
    Burning children, bombing hospitals? Not a problem.
    Mediawatch, Radio NZ National, Sunday 3 August 2014

    If you have a taste for the moronic, the insane and the disturbing, then you may well be familiar with the public utterances of one Dennis Prager. This fellow is a deranged lunatic who has achieved a cult status in the United States simply because he is so stupid. In appearance and style, he is like one of the bizarre occasional eccentrics in The Simpsons, or perhaps one of the deluded characters dreamed up and perfected by Steve Coogan or Ricky Gervais. In fact, Prager is so unintentionally hilarious that he might even have been dreamed up by Peter Cook himself. Dennis Prager is to public discourse as Binyamin Netanyahu is to statesmanship, and Lance Armstrong is to sportsmanship: he is a mockery, an insult, a vexation, a screaming nutjob who reads nothing and knows nothing. He is, in other words, the American version of errrrr, ummmmm, Leighton Ummmm, errrrrrr, uuuummmmm, Smith.

    So who better to learnedly discuss the massacre in Gaza? Dennis Prager was the guest of NewstalkZB’s drivetime shockjock Larry “Lackwit” Williams last Monday 28th July. He was in vintage form. “Looking at things from my perspective, which I think is the position of moral clarity,” he explained to the head-nodding Lackwit, all of the conflict in the world comes down to “West versus non-west, weak versus strong, white versus non-white.” Prager raved on for a long time in this erudite manner. Not once was the stream of lunacy challenged by Lackwit Williams.

    In fact, throughout the week, Lackwit Williams treated his listeners to his own views on the conflict. They were, as you might expect, pretty much identical to Dennis Prager’s, except that Williams is not as absolutely depraved as Prager; he did acknowledge that Israel had committed atrocities. Not that that little quibble was going to derail his prepared speech….

    LARRY WILLIAMS: The bombing of Gaza is just appalling…. but while it is unforgivable, it is also unforgivable that Hamas uses human shields.

    That’s a lie, of course, straight from the Israeli government’s propagandists. It has been refuted time and again, including by the comprehensive U.N. inquiry into the 2008-9 massacre in Gaza. Not that Larry Lackwit Williams, or Cameron Slater, or any of the other “friends of Israel” that infest the media would care about that.

    On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”

    Of course, seeing that she hadn’t taken any notice of the suffering of Gaza’s people before last week, it hardly comes as a surprise to find that she has not taken any notice of the shameful quality of “reporting” of the massacre by the likes of CNN, ITV and the British state broadcaster. Asked what she had to say about TV3 reporter Mike McRoberts’ deservedly praised performance in Gaza, she hesitated for a while, in order to make it clear she was thinking deeply about what she was about to say. Then she spoke. “He has done a pretty good job,” she said, carefully. “But I’m not sure I would have sent him, when the media organizations TV3 is lined up with would have handled it thoroughly anyway.”

    So there we are: this is the standard of media commentary we are served up day after day, week after week. Unhinged lunatics from the farthest fringes of the right wing in the United States, Larry “Lackwit” Williams and his silly ignorant guests on The Cauldron, and a media “expert” (Janet Wilson) who obviously has not watched any of the media she is paid to comment on.

    Of course, to the extremists, there was only one issue during the protest marches against the Israeli aggression in Gaza. It wasn’t the bombing of schools and hospitals and the killing of men, women and children. They applaud all that. What exercised these moral leaders was the outrageous sight of an Israeli flag being burned. I sent the following email to Wallace Chapman…..

    It’s not “unfathomable” that the right focuses on flag-burning

    Dear Wallace,

    On Mediawatch this morning, Colin Peacock claimed that the obsession of the extreme right with flag-burning is “unfathomable”. Actually, it’s perfectly logical. It’s a chance for the likes of Cameron Slater, Larry Williams and Paul Henry to distract from the issue, which is the burning of people, schools and hospitals in Gaza.

    As Laila Harre showed when she silenced Paul Henry’s objections by insisting that he focus on the issue of the protests—the ongoing death and destruction being inflicted on the citizens of Gaza—the extreme right has no coherent answer when it is presented with the facts.

    Yours sincerely,

    Morrissey Breen
    Northcote Point

    • Tigger 8.1
      3 August 2014 at 4:39 pm

      “On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”

      Ghastly is right! Speak for yourself, Jan, not ‘us’. Unless by ‘us ‘ you mean vapid, shrill righties, in which case go ahead.

      • Saarbo 8.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 5:41 pm

        +1

      • Anne 8.1.2
        3 August 2014 at 7:18 pm

        A little story about the wife, Janet Wilson and hubby, Bill Ralston.

        Once upon a time (maybe 10 or 12 years ago now) there was a dairy in the locality where I live. It was just and ordinary dairy (or so I thought) and one quiet Sunday afternoon I was sitting nearby in my car when I saw the above loving couple having what appeared to be a very earnest discussion or domestic dispute outside the dairy in question. Eventually the problem (whatever it was) was solved and loving wife disappeared inside the dairy. Hubby wandered self-consciously off in the opposite direction and I was left wondering what it was all about because their demeanour appeared cagey -almost clandestine. Several months later the dairy in question was raided by the police for illegal party drugs. The penny dropped.

        • Morrissey 8.1.2.1
          3 August 2014 at 8:18 pm

          Thanks for that very revealing insight, Anne. That marriage has been a tormented one for a long time….
          http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-22032013/#comment-607420

        • Ergo Robertina 8.1.2.2
          3 August 2014 at 11:14 pm

          Anne, this type of distasteful slur belongs on whaleoil.

          • Clemgeopin 8.1.2.2.1
            4 August 2014 at 1:08 am

            I agree. Anne, not cool nor fair!

          • Anne 8.1.2.2.2
            4 August 2014 at 10:07 am

            @Ergo Robertina
            Distasteful slur? – rubbish! It was an interesting and humorous aside about two well known people prompted by their names being mentioned by Tigger @ 8.1. Are you inferring I made it up? I don’t do lies like the “piece of smelly blubber” you refer to.

            And thanks North and Chooky below. Good to have some reasoned commenters around at times like this. Perhaps the others had a heavy weekend. 🙂

        • Populuxe1 8.1.2.3
          4 August 2014 at 2:28 am

          WTF is wrong with you, woman?! Antisemitism and now sleeze? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the far right?

          • North 8.1.2.3.1
            4 August 2014 at 7:58 am

            Popsickle……keep your sick “anti-semite” intimidation to yourself. Sad old tory masquerading as a progressive you.

        • Chooky 8.1.2.4
          4 August 2014 at 8:57 am

          +100 Anne…we need to have realism brought to some television icons ..

  9. bad12 9
    3 August 2014 at 11:08 am

    Probably been mentioned befor, BUT, on my drive back from this mornings veg market among the nests of election billboards i got this message, ”Vote Positive”,

    Ok, i will look for the positive party on my ballot papers in September, because at 40K which was the speed i was driving at that’s the message i got from the billboard along with a splash of color which might or might not have been a picture of ‘happy families’,

    Obviously, because i know it is, i can identify the ‘vote positive’ billboard as a Labour one because of ‘prior knowledge’, my point being, that those armed with NO prior knowledge wont have a clue considering the ‘cluster’ of messages that are on offer at the two nests of billboards i have so far seen in this electorate,

    Are Labour shy or something??? what’s wrong with Big Red BillBoards that Yell in Big White Letters, VOTE LABOUR,

    To be noticed in a crowd you have to be bold and loud…

  10. Kaye 10
    3 August 2014 at 11:36 am

    Three weeks ago I emailed via the Labour Party website to ask about their welfare policy, do they have one and when will it be released. I was informed the next day my email would be forwarded to Sue Moroney (Welfare spokesperson) “for her consideration”. I love that, apparently a straightforward, simple question needs to be “considered”. I have had no reply from ANYONE.

    I would love to be generous and say that the email genuinely got lost, but it wasn’t. Labour has a welfare policy all right and that’s to totally avoid the subject. That’s been obvious for years, continuing the cuts of the 1990s, their deafening silence in “opposition” to the last 6 years of NACT cruelty, and more recently their refusal to engage in the subject when questioned in the media or blogs, here included (DCs question time for example).

    Labour are in total agreement with National over welfare (read:benefit) policy and their attitude towards those of us who have no choice but to be dependent on it. The only difference is that National don’t pretend to hid their distain and we know exactly. where we stand with them.

    Long term beneficiaries realised many years ago that Labour are no longer our friend and we changed our votes accordingly. Now it’s up to us to inform others we know on benefits, or who’s jobs aren’t safe and might be having to run the WINZ gauntlet in the near future, that while we need a Left Government to vote Greens or Mana. Labour don’t want our vote, they’ve done everything short of actually saying it our loud, and if we can get more Green/IMP MPs in Government at least we might stand a chance of stopping our situation getting worse.

    • Clemgeopin 10.1
      3 August 2014 at 12:50 pm

      Labour IS a very caring but also a very responsible party.

      Labour do have a well thought out financially and socially manageable fair and reasonable welfare policy for beneficiaries, for families, for students, for super annuitants, for children, for mothers, for the poor, for the sick, for the homeless, for the unemployed etc. There aren’t unlimited funds to give unlimited rock-star assistance that you and I may desire. No responsible party can do that. For you to say that the Labour party is akin to the National party in its welfare policies is a lie.

      Remember that it is a balancing act that needs public support too to be in a position to form a government to make the necessary changes. What use of having utopian wishes without the majority public votes and without being fair to the workers and everyone else in society too?

      I think your plug for the greens and Mana is obvious, but completely unfair in your blatant attempt to diss the Labour party in this context.

      P.S :
      Just go to the Labour party website (google is your friend, even if you are a Labour foe) and READ their policies before firing off time wasting emails around or posting unjust comments here.

      • Anne 10.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 1:01 pm

        Have you contacted them before Kaye? Maybe they know you are not a friend. As Clem says, you can go to the website and find out anything you want for yourself. Why should Labour – who are in campaign mode and have been for some time now – waste precious time on someone who is too lazy to find out for him/herself.

        • weka 10.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 2:30 pm

          According to the Labour website, this is a list of all the announced policies. Perhaps you could find the welfare policy for us Anne, because I can’t see it.

          I think DC said at the last Q and A that Labour would announce welfare policy soon. That was a month or so ago.

          • blue leopard 10.1.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 4:48 pm

            Hi Weka – I’ve noticed your absence – Welcome back! 🙂

            I have also searched for the Labour party’s welfare policy and it doesn’t appear to be there (apart from the Best Start policy). The Greens and Mana are quite clear on their welfare policies. I haven’t looked up the Internet Party’s policy yet.

            One thing I am glad of is that so far unemployed people have not been used as a political football. Long may that last.

            I very much appreciated Mr Cunliffe’s comments on the Q&A:

            But what I can tell you is that the systematic victimisation and demonisation of beneficiaries we’ve seen under National has absolutely no place in Labour’s values or a Labour Government.

            This is a heartening signal – yet, yes, it isn’t policy – which as Weka conveyed Mr Cunliffe wrote on the same Q&A session: “I’m not going to announce our welfare policy here.”

            • weka 10.1.1.1.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 8:41 pm

              Thanks bl 🙂

              I don’t think Labour and National treat beneficiaries the same, although I can understand why Kaye feels like they do. However, Labour have an appalling history of welfare policy and implementation and despite some of the good things they have done that Anne refers to, they still suck for a supposedly left wing party. The only way that you can say that Labour have good welfare policy is by comparing them to NACT.

              I too hope that Cunliffe’s Labour will pull something out of the hat before the election. I won’t be surprised if that something is fairly mediocre and designed to not give the impression that Labour are soft on bludgers. It also greatly concerns me that Labour’s welfare focus is so hugely on job creation to the point where they seem incapable of talking about people who don’t/can’t/shouldn’t work in paid employment. I will be very interested to see what they do with the shit being done to solo parents currently. Will Labour reinstate the right to stay at home and raise your kids, or will they continue with policy that says that solo parents need to be punished and bullied into work?

              As far as I can tell DC believes that the solutions are in job creation. I’ve yet to see anything definitive about who should be expected to work.

              And there has been nothing from Labour to make up for Shearer’s painter on the roof fiasco.

              • Murray Olsen …
                3 August 2014 at 10:08 pm

                +1 Weka. I can’t understand why anyone dependent on welfare assistance would vote Labour.

              • blue leopard …
                4 August 2014 at 12:02 am

                I agree with mostly all of what you say here.

                Labour are actually doing what I thought they should do – keeping very low key re welfare. I can see, however, that leaves those on welfare worried that they are going to be ‘just as bad as National’ and not reverse draconian approaches National have introduced. It is a bit frustrating because I can just imagine what shite Labour are going to get if they release anything of substance re welfare – and if they don’t they will get shite from potential supporters.

                It seems like a terribly no win situation they are in.

                Personally, I would prefer that they keep fairly low key on welfare -[ yet I can see there is a problem with trust for many. ] I would rather Labour went low key and got in and lost some of the welfare vote to Mana than come out fighting and get completely obliterated by the predictable vitriol that would set in from National and our uncaring Media and end up not getting in at all.

                I realise this is a pretty sadly, fearful and conservative approach. 🙁

                It could be that a strong message could be sent out to New Zealanders that welfare improvement is much needed (as it is) and a shift in peoples’ attitudes occurred however I would assume this would have been better started way earlier and Cunliffe hasn’t been leader long enough to have taken that approach. 🙁

                • weka …
                  4 August 2014 at 12:18 am

                  At what point then should Labour actually reform welfare in a good way?

                  Labour won’t be as bad as National. I’ve argued pretty strongly on ts in the past that it does a big disservice to characterise Labour in this way, because it hides the reality that Labour hide behind their welfare lite reform that fiddles a bit and makes some things better but doesn’t change anything substantial (the hard core call this National stab us in the front, Labour stab us in the back). Based on previous Labour govts, what I expect is that a few of the harsher things Bennett has done will be rescinded, but many things will just have the hard edges sanded off them but essentially left in place. The culture within WINZ will swing back towards being human towards beneficiaries, but such change takes time and will never reach all staff and all offices. And they won’t make up for the shit entrenched in policy and legislation. I can’t see Labour doing much about the extreme institutional dysfunctionality of WINZ unless there is a distinct shift left. No-one will want to touch that.

                  • blue leopard …
                    4 August 2014 at 12:38 am

                    Perhaps it needs to come from an organised ‘people pressure’? That way Labour can’t be ‘blamed’. It can be ‘sold’ as Labour being responsive to public pressure?

                    If Labour are going to make changes they need to address attitudes first. I think Cunliffe is doing well in that respect. If he keeps pushing the line that all people need to have a share in our country’s wealth and of fairness and also values and if his government actively creates jobs, then people have to start seeing that those on welfare are actually more victims of the system than ‘bludgers’. I really don’t think that is the case in most peoples’ minds yet, although I am open to arguments on that matter!

                    For people on invalids these concerns I have shouldn’t be such an issue – changes should be made straight away. I also think that treating those in relationships differently than single people needs to go straight away – this should actually save money on the ridiculous investigations that must go on all over this country. It could also be sold as ‘keeping families together’ because I feel quite certain that welfare for couples must split rather a lot up.

                • Clemgeopin …
                  4 August 2014 at 1:15 am

                  +1

        • blue leopard 10.1.1.2
          3 August 2014 at 4:56 pm

          @ Anne

          That is a bit rough. They should have at least told Kaye they hadn’t released it yet. Kaye is showing interest and democratic responsibility in contacting Labour to find out what they are offering. If we all did that, then our democracy would be achieving more sound results!

          @ Kaye
          Good one for your efforts Kaye! 🙂

          Hope Labour’s poor response/non-response doesn’t put you off completely – I wrote to them asking about their stance on broadcasting a few weeks ago and got an extremely quick reply – surprisingly so. They only told me that there was a policy release in the pipeline – no details, which is what they should have done for you too – hopefully they will…eventually. Good communication is very important. 🙂

          • Anne 10.1.1.2.1
            3 August 2014 at 5:40 pm

            @ Anne

            That is a bit rough.

            Can’t agree with you there blue leopard.

            Have a read of Kaye @10. He/she was being provocative, judgmental and in the case of the following quote from the same post :

            Labour are in total agreement with National over welfare (read:benefit) policy and their attitude towards those of us who have no choice but to be dependent on it. The only difference is that National don’t pretend to hide their disdain and we know exactly where we stand with them.

            totally wrong.

            The facts are far more likely to be… they are saving the Welfare policy package in order for it to have maximum impact, and to reduce the ability of National and the MSM being able to distort, misrepresent and generally pillory the policy as well as the beneficiaries themselves.

            We’ve seen more than enough of the deplorable discrediting tactics coming from the Tories and the MSM in recent times without having the very people Labour wants to help ensuring they succeed.

            Btw, I was a beneficiary in the 1990s – the Christine Rankin era – and I know all about the bullying, humiliation and thuggery that took place at the time. And Helen Clark’s Labour government took immediate steps to remove Rankin and overturn the culture of bullying etc. that prevailed.

            • blue leopard 10.1.1.2.1.1
              4 August 2014 at 12:12 am

              @ Anne,

              Yes, I have commented in other threads I, too, have been on welfare when the government has changed. There is a noticeable difference between the two parties – one is much more likely to get off welfare under Labour because there is more assistance to help you do that – generally more helpful and less hostile under Labour.

              [There is such a difference I have to admit to having a few moments of feeling sorry for WINZ staff with the latest round of draconian changes! They are encouraged to establish a rapport with you and then suddenly they have to change their entire attitude and leave you stranded when National do their shite. It can’t be very good working conditions at WINZ. Not easy to just quit either – considering the dreadful levels of unemployment – that they know all about!]

              I, therefore, also get annoyed when people say Labour and National are ‘just the same’. [Not saying there is not room for improvement re Labour!] However, Labour should be organised and communicative with people writing in to find things out about their policies. If only to say ‘we haven’t released the policy yet’. It makes a big difference if one gets quick and friendly response.

      • Kaye 10.1.2
        3 August 2014 at 1:27 pm

        @clemgeopin
        I have been to their website. I looked, and I’ve been looking regularly for months. If there’s something there I can’t find it. If it is there can you please link it for me? If they have a policy then there’s a lot of us who would like to study it so we can make an informed vote. Why is it so hard to even get an answer from them about their policy??

        btw,a welfare policy isn’t just about money, it’s about how people are treated by the system and the community as a whole. I’d like to know if a Labour govt would reverse the general cruelty that anyone unfortunate enough needing WINZ assistance now has to deal with, for example. You know, consider us as human beings. The fact that they’ve been incredibly quiet about this is telling. Get my point? I’m happy to stand corrected of course. Believe it or not I’ve been looking for reasons to vote Labour, I used to. I’m not a member of Greens/Mana and until this year I’ve never remotely engaged in anything political and never thought I’d ever be posting on blog sites but this is something I feel very strongly about so I’m putting it out there.

        And I’m not the only person with these views who’s commented on the Standard in the last few months.

        • Lanthanide 10.1.2.1
          3 August 2014 at 2:34 pm

          Took me 1 minute to find this page:
          https://www.labour.org.nz/policy

          Searching for the word “welfare” gives no results. However the very top of the page says this:

          We will continue to announce policies through until the general election on 20 September 2014.

          So you’ll just have to wait.

          Labour are obviously not going to tell random people that email them the date on which they are going to announce particular policies, because that would allow their political opponents to arrange how they are going to respond, by example by releasing their equivalent policies on the same day, or the day before, to ensure they get total media coverage.

        • Jenny Kirk 10.1.2.2
          3 August 2014 at 4:38 pm

          Labour’s policies will be based on its Policy Platform – which is on the official NZLP website.

          If you just google NZ Labour Party Policy Platform, you should be able to get to it easily.
          The Policy Platform has a series of Values which Labour will base its various policies on.

          Start at page 25 and go on from there. Here is an example :

          5.12 Chance and misfortune mean that some people struggle even in ‘the good times’. Security, mutual responsibility, and fairness demand that those adversely affected should not depend on charity and the stigma that carries, or be subject to humiliation or meaningless ‘make work’ to survive.

          This indicates to me that Labour does care about how people are treated by the beaurocratic system set up under National, and intend to do something about it.

          The Policy Platform goes on to say –

          As a matter of principle and sound social and economic investment, Labour is committed to banishing child poverty in New Zealand. The solutions are not simple, and the goal cannot be achieved immediately. We will co-ordinate and monitor its approach across all of government and policy……..

          • phillip ure 10.1.2.2.1
            3 August 2014 at 5:53 pm

            “..The solutions are not simple, and the goal cannot be achieved immediately..”

            ..yes you can…it’s called a universal basic income..

            ..paid for by a financial transaction tax on the banksters/capital gains tax/land tax/whatever….

            ..and some serious clawing back of the inequality-gulf delivered to us by 30 yrs of neo-liberalism..

            ..these are the same incrementalist promises that were made before the clark govt got elected..

            ..then we had nine yrs of boom-times..

            ..and an ignoring/breaking of those promises..

            ..what makes now any different..?

            ..aspirational-waffle is just that…

            ..history has shown/proven it means nothing..

            • bad12 10.1.2.2.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 7:20 pm

              Yep, its also called a comprehensive food in schools program and an equally comprehensive rebuild of the States Housing stocks so that the lowest income working families, those who are the last to be hired and the first to be fired, are all housed at 25% of their household income,

              There is a point of measurable poverty judged in dollar terms, everyone who lives at that measurable point should be eligible to be paying no more than 25% of their income as rent,

              That’s what i am voting for…

        • CAnker the pig fucker 10.1.2.3
          3 August 2014 at 4:42 pm

          HI Kaye,

          I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.

          I don’t think they have released their welfare policy yet. If it’s not on their website then this is likely the case.

          The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.

          • phillip ure 10.1.2.3.1
            3 August 2014 at 6:17 pm

            “..The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week…”

            and that is very good..

            ..and we need more solid/concrete poverty-busting policies like that…

            ..for all those aside from newborns..

            ..who are living in the miseries that are poverty…

          • weka 10.1.2.3.2
            3 August 2014 at 8:53 pm

            “I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.”

            They were doing some work via the website. As a beneficiary there is no way that I would have answered their survey. It was unsafe, asking people to give details about negative experiences and identifying details with absolutely no information about how that would be used, or how the safety of those beneficiaries would be safeguarded. Made me trust Labour even less than I did before when it comes to WINZ issues. What do you think happens to beneficiaries who make complaints about WINZ who happen to reside in areas that have WINZ offices with vindictive and petty staff? Remember what happened to the two Nelson women on the DPB who spoke out about National removing the training incentive allowance? Paula Bennett dragged them through the media, including revealing confidential information from their files, and then told the Privacy Commissioner to get stuffed when they ruled against her breaching the privacy rights of those two women.

            This is why I and others want to know what Labour intend to do, not just some nice sounding values stuff.

            “The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.”

            That’s not welfare policy, that’s social security. What’s at issue here is how beneficiaries, ie clients of WINZ, are treated and supported.

        • Clemgeopin 10.1.2.4
          3 August 2014 at 5:11 pm

          @Kaye:

          Kaye, I have no idea why they did not reply to you. They should have. I am guessing that perhaps they get thousands of emails and letters daily from supporters, enemies, press, other parties, MPs, campaign workers, campaign personnel, etc etc with suggestions, queries, criticisms etc etc that they are simply unable to respond due to lack of time, personnel and resources. Perhaps they only answer very urgent/essential messages. I do know that for a major political party, the Labour party barely has enough funds and donations to manage a general election, unlike some other parties. Added to that, there seems to be a strong MSM unfair crusade dissing tide against it and its leader. That is why I get irritated when posters supporting other progressive minor parties too try to diss it. Sorry for being short in my reply if you were not one of those.

          At least they replied to you saying they have sent your query to Sue Moroney, their welfare spokesperson. By the way, I have NOTHING to do with the party itself, except it is the party I like and will most certainly be voting for it.

          Do post here when you find out what their ‘welfare’ policies are.

          Also, can you state clearly what exactly you want to see in a welfare policy? I am curious to know.

          Cheers!

        • Clemgeopin 10.1.2.5
          3 August 2014 at 7:58 pm

          Some info that might help you before you get the actual welfare policy which is yet to be released it seems:

          [1] Labour values:
          http://campaign.labour.org.nz/

          [2]Labour policies:
          http://campaign.labour.org.nz/policies

          [3] Already ANNOUNCED policies:
          https://www.labour.org.nz/policy

          • weka 10.1.2.5.1
            3 August 2014 at 8:22 pm

            Will Labour restore benefits to the inflation adjusted levels of pre-1990 benefit cuts?

            Will Labour remove the institionalised prejudice inherent in its Working for Families policy?

            Will Labour reintroduce a hardship grant that allows beneficiaries under significant financial duress to get adequate assistance?

            What specifically will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing meme that has been allowed to arise both within govt and within NZ society? (that Labour has participated in in the past btw)

            What will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing culture within WINZ?

            What will Labour do to turn WINZ into a functional bureaucracy as opposed to the dog’s breakfast it has become in the past 25yrs? (including under Labour’s watch in that past)?

            Which of National’s draconian welfare Acts and policies will Labour repeal or significantly ammend in its first term?

            You can understand why some beneficiaries aren’t holding their breath about change under a Labour govt.

    • srylands 11.1
      3 August 2014 at 4:29 pm

      You use the same search techniques here as those applied to your wisdom on vaccinations.

      Gaza could have developed the gas with Israel cooperation if Hamas had not taken power. There were plans well developed with Israel’s cooperation. But why would Israel boost the resoucres of Hamas? If Gaza residents nominate rational representatives who support Israel’s right to exist and give up on the terror, they will get their gas.

      • Chooky 11.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 4:48 pm

        Hamas was the democratic choice of the Palestinians ..or dont you believe in democracy for the Palestinians?

        ….would you like the Israelis to dictate to the Palestinians on their own land and take over Gaza?

        …and take over their oil and gas rights as well?

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006

        I am sure Hitler used a similar rationale for those naughty people who opposed him

        • Chooky 11.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 6:42 pm

          ..the French did not lie down and take it from Hitler…there was resistance …so why should the Palestinians take it from the Israelis?…..really the West has to support the Palestinians otherwise they are acquiescing to a new Fascist Nazi force in the world

          • srylands 11.1.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 6:54 pm

            Because in 1939 the French were the good guys and in 2014 Hamas are the bad guys? Had you considered that difference just for a start? Or are you still addled from the influence of the anti-vaccine nutters?

            • bad12 11.1.1.1.1.1
              3 August 2014 at 7:12 pm

              A geo-politics lesson from SSLands, i laughed out loud, did you read it off of the back of a big mac’s napkin,

              With all the ever changing world of good guys/badguys, ie: al Quaeda now part of the ISIS alliance fighting in Syria, how ever do you keep up…

              • felix …
                3 August 2014 at 7:42 pm

                It’s easy, bad12. Whoever the U.S. supports at a given moment are the good guys at that moment.

                No further analysis required.

            • Morrissey 11.1.1.1.1.2
              3 August 2014 at 8:14 pm

              Because in 1939 the French were the good guys and in 2014 Hamas are the bad guys?

              During World War II, people like you called the French Resistance the bad guys.

              I’d recommend you to read a few books, but I don’t think you’re either serious enough or bright enough.

  12. Sanctuary 12
    3 August 2014 at 12:18 pm

    An interesting article in the Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/03/why-do-we-still-honour-free-market-intellectuals-northern-rock

    with a line that I thought ought to be pondered by Trevor, Phil and Annette….

    “…even years on and rightwing intellectuals still cannot accept that their certainties no longer make sense. Like old men at a bar, they block out the present and relive the moment when they were young and filled with audacious vigour…”

    • greywarbler 12.1
      3 August 2014 at 4:34 pm

      @Sanctuary
      Singing – Those were the days my friend
      We thought they’d never end
      We’d sing and dance for ever and a day…..

      Now they are filled with audacious vinegar. It preserves specimens well.

  13. Te Reo Putake 13
    3 August 2014 at 12:41 pm

    New Poll Shock! Labour up to 36%, National plummet to record low of 2%. IMP/Greens to form next Government?

    http://insightnz.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/the-voice-of-a-nation-insiders-2014-poll/

    • ianmac 13.1
      3 August 2014 at 1:02 pm

      That would wipe out all the Nat MPs except…. except for …. poor old John. How sad.

      • Te Reo Putake 13.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 1:44 pm

        These kind of polls are good for a laugh, but all I’d take from is it that Nat supporters haven’t seen the email telling them to get onto it and vote ASAP. That and there are 6 Colonservative folk who were voting when they should have been in church. Colin knows your names, people. He Sees All.

    • phillip ure 13.2
      3 August 2014 at 6:07 pm

      i see united future got one vote..

      ..that’d be dunne…

  14. felix 14
    3 August 2014 at 1:28 pm

    Weird bit of mail today. Blue card with a picture of John Key strangling a kiwi while a bunch of dickheads stand around laughing.

    • blue leopard 14.1
      3 August 2014 at 5:05 pm

      … almost as though they are advertising themselves honestly….very strange indeed….

  15. Ffloyd 15
    3 August 2014 at 3:31 pm

    Key seems to have gone quiet lately. Wonder what’s coming??

    • CAnker the pig fucker 15.1
      3 August 2014 at 4:49 pm

      Agree Ffloyd @ 15………I was commenting on this today………..English answering on his behalf in the final session of Parliament for the year and what a truly disgraceful performance it was dodging and fudging questions on child poverty……….

      Then Joyce coming in. National’s strategy seems to be talk loud and over others, dick around about statistics and then say we are doing that already. Laugh at opponent in an attempt to ridicule and discredit them……………..

      I have thought for some weeks Key looks tired and ???? possibly unwell? Could we see his resignation soon? If it is just after the election, it would demonstrate just how much National hold the NZ public in.

    • Clemgeopin 15.2
      3 August 2014 at 5:22 pm

      Learning more of his spin lines and trying to improve his brain fades and golf strokes.. And oh, perhaps the recent secret visitor, the FBI big guy, may have given him some urgent home work to do.

    • Hami Shearlie 15.3
      3 August 2014 at 5:49 pm

      We’ve noticed that too Ffloyd! Not on tv news for DAYS, so very unusual! Not in Parliament for the last day either – something is definitly UP!

    • locus 15.4
      3 August 2014 at 7:04 pm

      Maybe he’s sick? or in rehab?

    • locus 15.5
      3 August 2014 at 8:02 pm

      Other thoughts about where key may be

      At the crosby textor finishing school

      Or

      Dotcom really does have something and he’s done a runner 😉

  16. bad12 16
    3 August 2014 at 3:36 pm

    A Reminder, The InternetMana Roadshow is in Wellington tomorrow night from 6 o’clock,

    Mac’s event center is the venue and that’s located down the bottom of Taranaki Street,(right down near the wharf),

    Be there….

  17. greywarbler 17
    3 August 2014 at 4:36 pm

    I don’t see information on google about where Internet Mana are going in their six week meeting schedule which started mid July.

  18. Morrissey 18
    3 August 2014 at 4:39 pm

    Cuckoo study – please report sightings

    Michael Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow at Massey University, is interested in finding out more about the arrival dates of our two species of migratory cuckoos: the Long-tailed Cuckoo and Shining Cuckoo. If you hear or see one of these birds, please help by reporting it using one of the Google forms:
    Long-tailed Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/ClBMWZ
    Shining Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/CDjbuh

    I am pleased to report that I have spotted a cuckoo, in a locality renowned for its tolerance of cuckoos….
    http://www.3news.co.nz/Christine-Rankin-to-stand-in-Epsom/tabid/1607/articleID/355263/Default.aspx

  19. Saarbo 19
    3 August 2014 at 5:55 pm

    Prime News just had an article extracted from TV1’s Q&A where David Shearer didn’t rule out challenging for the leadership..it really makes me wonder about these guys and whether they have any political extinct at all. The fact that he answered that particular question in that way would disqualify him straight away in my humble opinion.

    • phillip ure 19.1
      3 August 2014 at 6:22 pm

      -he didn’t rule out challenging again until after the election..

      ..and that that piece of selective/message-pushing/gotcha! bullshit was chosen from that whole interview..(which was an ok outing for shearer..)

      ..is just the latest example of the most woeful examples/attempts of/at ‘journalism’ that are such a feature of prime news..

      ..a total ‘rag’ of a news channel…

      • bad12 19.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 7:04 pm

        i didn’t see Shearer ‘not rule out anything’, words to the effect that the only thing on His mind was the election i think was the gist of it,

        Just more blind media manipulation/spin trying to twist the mind of the gullible,

        Don’t buy into it…

    • greywarbler 19.2
      4 August 2014 at 2:05 pm

      @ Sarrbo 5.55
      Political “extinct” or instinct? While wondering which it occurred to me that this is clever satire. Are they ex or in? Is politics itself? And does anyone in Lab-our care, or is it all ‘our’ scientific experiment on the mumblers to see how much bullshit we can swallow?

  20. srylands 20
    3 August 2014 at 6:50 pm

    I am astounded that all commentators at The Standard are silent on the great Jonah Lomu urging his admirers to vote National.

    https://twitter.com/JONAHTALILOMU/status/495059431894155265

    • bad12 20.1
      3 August 2014 at 6:59 pm

      🙄 The resident under-bridge dweller pushes its luck, 🙄 🙄 🙄 …

    • Psycho Milt 20.2
      3 August 2014 at 7:05 pm

      Why would they comment on it? He can endorse whomever he likes. In any case, Lomu’s a wealthy man – of course he’s backing National. For the wealthy, it’s either National or ACT, and ACT is a basket case.

    • joe90 20.3
      3 August 2014 at 7:19 pm

      Another successful purchase.
      /

    • CC 20.4
      3 August 2014 at 7:25 pm

      Who is Jonah Lomu???

    • Clemgeopin 20.5
      3 August 2014 at 7:37 pm

      As a famous sports figure liked by the country Lomu should have better sense than supporting any political party and its leader, especially a crooked one like National party and its dodgy leader, Key!

      Lomu has now come across as a right wing political pawn and a politically naive fool!

    • lprent 20.6
      3 August 2014 at 7:38 pm

      Some context would probably help.

      League player? Actor? Radio announcer? Married to someone with plastic surgery?

      Please advise how shallow your hero worship is?

      I haven’t bothered watching or following sport, most TV, or many aspects of popular culture for the last 20 years. The vacuous mindset and allusions that you display are usually not worth following.. But hey, we must feel charitable for those afflicted with such addictions.

      • Clemgeopin 20.6.1
        3 August 2014 at 8:05 pm

        “The vacuous mindset and allusions that you display are usually not worth following.”

        Were you replying to me?

        If so, what are you referring to?

        • lprent 20.6.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 9:50 pm

          srylands. I vaguely remember that Lomu was some kind of league player? Maybe rugby?

          Anyway, for me it is a state of who frigging cares.

          • Murray Olsen 20.6.1.1.1
            3 August 2014 at 10:35 pm

            He played rugby union and was supposed to win the world cup in South Africa, but the South Africans poisoned our rugby heroes (at least that’s what the coach claimed) and South Africa won. He then got kidney disease and had to stop playing.

            I have no idea why anyone should give his political preferences any time at all.

          • Clemgeopin 20.6.1.1.2
            4 August 2014 at 1:22 am

            He sure was a player too! Now Key is wooing him instead!

      • greywarbler 20.6.2
        4 August 2014 at 2:08 pm

        @ lprent 7.38
        I said to mickeysavage yesterday how it would be good to start off comments in the manner I have in this one, because you can nail who and what is being replied to. Nuff said.

    • felix 20.7
      3 August 2014 at 7:39 pm

      And tell me Rylands, how did Jonah’s followers respond to that tweet?

    • BLiP 20.8
      3 August 2014 at 8:29 pm

      ‘

      Meh! Just a rinse’n’repeat CrosbyTextor gimmick from last election when it was Michael Jones. At least this time Jonah’s followers have put a flea in his ear.

    • tricledrown 20.9
      3 August 2014 at 9:51 pm

      Sorrylands a millionaire and serial philanderer who has damaged his health eating burgers with high salt trans fats refined carbohydrates bludging on the health system what role model for the right personal resposibilty and all.
      He should be encouraging people to vote ACT.
      Then he could go round to Dirty old Don,s place for tea discuss old flames philandering techniques and share a corned beef and frozen pea dinners!

    • Murray Olsen 20.10
      3 August 2014 at 11:09 pm

      Not the first All Black to be a Tory. One even became a NAct MP, but we shouldn’t talk about him. Doesn’t surprise me at all. At the All Black level it’s all corporate and they suck off the government tit. He’s just thinking them for all the corporate welfare.

  21. Weepus beard 21
    3 August 2014 at 7:15 pm

    Lomu is a sometimes official/sometimes unofficial rep of the NZRU. We’ve seen the stake in the ground from the NZRU, it’s on the cover of the Rugby News.

    • karol 21.1
      3 August 2014 at 7:59 pm

      Yep. And I’m officially off rugby. The sport of those who support the elites. And it damages bodies.

      • Weepus beard 21.1.1
        3 August 2014 at 8:41 pm

        Me too. I am a rugby fan and have been since my dad used to wake me up in the middle of the night in the ’70s to watch All Black test matches in Europe.

        The two incidents, Rugby News cover, and Lomu’s bought and paid for endorsement have really shaken me.

        Thing is, at junior level it is not about elites at all, it’s about every kid, decile 1 to 10, no matter what the background. This is our patch, and why rugby should be totally left alone by politicians.

        It hasn’t been.

        • karol 21.1.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 8:47 pm

          Oh, I grew up in a rugby family, but, (as far as I can guess) my parents voted National.

          I used to like going to watch club rugby, and to the main match at Eden Park on Saturdays when i was growing up. But as a teenager, I went off it for years – for political reasons (mainly feminist ones – socially conservative and patriarchal values dominated rugby circles). But after ’81, I gradually got back to watching it….. off it again now.

        • lprent 21.1.1.2
          3 August 2014 at 9:43 pm

          I played cricket, rugby, and league when I was a kid. My interest waned when I stopped playing. I never watched them on TV. After all we had Eden park down the road and it didn’t cost much to go and watch a game.

          After I moved cities, joined the army, started working as a barman, and did university (all at the same time), my interest completely died. There were more important and interesting things to do. And that was before I got seriously into programming.

        • Instauration 21.1.1.3
          3 August 2014 at 10:15 pm

          It is quite prudent to avoid following and advocating representative sports.
          Most often it is about people impeding other people from achieving their goals (or Try’s).

          • Clemgeopin 21.1.1.3.1
            4 August 2014 at 1:33 am

            These days the sports persons are earning MILLIONS of dollars in fees and sponsoring, as well as sports has become corrupt and very suspect with match fixing and entwined with corporate crooks and tie wearing gangs from the gambling dens.

            Every time I look at a game on TV now, I wonder how many millions have passed hands and if the results are genuine ones or just make-believe genuine looking stunts for gullible arm chair screaming suckers around the world including me!

    • tricledrown 21.2
      3 August 2014 at 10:07 pm

      a rugger bugger

  22. Tautoko Viper 22
    3 August 2014 at 7:19 pm

    Shanghai Pengxin, the controversial Chinese buyer of the massive Lochinver Station, was recently given conservation land by the Government, including parts of the Rakaia riverbed.

    Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Govt-gave-Shanghai-Pengxin-conservation-land/tabid/1607/articleID/355268/Default.aspx#ixzz39JLdw9y7

    • Rosie 22.1
      3 August 2014 at 8:18 pm

      Yes, saw that on the News Tautoko Viper. What the hell is all that about?

      Why is the government giving conservation land away? What arrangements do they have in place with Shanghai Pengxin?

      And that precious and sensitive land and river bed land belongs to all of us, did they not think to ask us first?

    • BLiP 22.2
      3 August 2014 at 8:59 pm

      ‘

      Disgusting. Look what else is coming down the pipeline from National Ltd™’s “Sale Of The Century”

      -2,132 hectares (Coroglen Forest – Coromandel District);
      -326 hectares (Endean Forest – Rotorua District);
      -434 hectares (Kanuka Forest – Gisborne District);
      -438 hectares (Taharoa Forest – Waikato District);
      -966 hectares (Kopu Forest – Coromandel District);
      -1,195 hectares (Patetonga Forest – Waikato District);
      -402 hectares (Putawa Forest – Waikato District);
      -744 hectares (Raglan Forest – Waikato District);
      -7,243 hectares (Rototuna Forest – Kaipara District); and
      -245 hectares (Waipuna Forest – Wairarapa District).
      Consideration CONFIDENTIAL
      Applicant China National Forest Products Trading Corporation & China National Forest Products Industry Corporation
      Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (100%)

      http://www.linz.govt.nz/overseas-investment/decisions

      • Rosie 22.2.1
        3 August 2014 at 9:56 pm

        Disgusting……………. and bewildering…………..There’s more

        From the linz link:

        http://www.linz.govt.nz/overseas-investment/decisions/decision-summaries/201320055

        “Decision
        Consent granted
        Section 12(b) Overseas Investment Act 2005
        Decision date 1 April 2014
        Investment
        An overseas investment in sensitive land, being the Applicant’s acquisition of rights or interests in up to 100% of the shares of China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited which owns or controls a freehold interest in approximately:
        4.5112 hectares of land at Chatham Hill, Gulf Harbour; and
        10.9114 hectares of land at Matua Road, Huapai.
        Consideration $55,520,300
        Applicant
        China Merchants Properties Development Limited
        Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (100.0%)
        Vendor China Merchant Holdings (Pacific) Limited
        Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (82.44%)
        Various overseas persons (17.56%)
        Background
        The transaction reflects an intragroup transfer, which results in an increase in China Merchant Group Limited’s ultimate control of the target China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited from 82.44% to 100%. The rationale is to transfer the target’s property development activities from the Vendor (whose core business is developing toll roads) to the Applicant whose core business aligns with those activities.

        The overseas investment transaction has satisfied the criteria in section 16 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005. The ‘benefit to New Zealand’ criterion was satisfied by particular reference to the following factors:

        Overseas Investment Regulations 2005
        28(c) – Affect image, trade or international relations
        28(e) – Previous investments
        28(f) – Advance significant Government policy or strategy”

        Tolls roads brought to you by the Chinese Government! Criterion 28 (f) “Advance significant government policy or strategy indeed!” Stephen Joyce you are everywhere.

        The forest sell off was too much WTF to start with and it’s getting late so will park this until tomorrow. Seems 12 hectares of conservation handed over to Shanghai Pengxin is the tip of the iceberg

        • BLiP 22.2.1.1
          3 August 2014 at 10:33 pm

          ‘

          Don’t you just love that 28(f) catch all? Thing is, the National Ltd™ government’s policy and strategy to sell off everything has never been made clear to the New Zealand public. Its starting to become more and more apparent though but, alas, too late.

        • Chooky 22.2.1.2
          4 August 2014 at 9:03 am

          +100 Blip and Rosie

          …lets hope this becomes a BIG Election issue( Winnie was on the case this morning) ….Chinese corporate buy up of New Zealand land….China could buy New Zealand up millions of times over

          ….John Keys NACT govt is selling New Zealand and New Zealanders OUT!

          • Rosie 22.2.1.2.1
            4 August 2014 at 9:10 am

            My thought exactly Chooky (see below)

            You know, once, a long time ago Rhinocrates expressed his shock and surprise at something appalling in the Nat Govt’s long list of “shocking and appalling things we do to NZ”.

            He expressed his surprise by saying “Well! my flabbers are well and truly gasted!” I’ll never forget that great line and this is one of those times where that line can be brought into use, again.

            PS: Good links you provided yesterday re Jewish peace rallies held in NY and Tel Aviv in support of Palestine. No time to reply as I only got to Open Mike later in the evening. Onya Chooky.

      • tricledrown 22.2.2
        3 August 2014 at 10:18 pm

        I wonder if ministerial funds were used Judith Collins Jenny Shipley most likely involved.
        This is the sort of corruption we read about happening in China every day.
        Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are more than likely involved.
        with all these extravagant expenses National MP are running up at the taxpayers expense!
        Brain Fade Keys PROMISE of more accountability seems to be fading like his memory!

        • Rosie 22.2.2.1
          4 August 2014 at 9:03 am

          BLiP and tricledrown.

          Is it too late? It’s too late to stop the applications that have been approved but is it too late to halt further “investments” that are not in the public’s interest?

          Could the very deep well of darkness be exposed to the light of day by researchers for the opposition parties, pronto, before the election?

          Agree Steven Joyce (especially roads and other infrastructure) and Nick Smith (forests)will more than likely be involved. They are agents of team knock off the lot. This could be a scandal of Collins’ proportions.

          Are we “Little China” or are we “Little America”? Make your mind up Key.

  24. Te Reo Putake 24
    3 August 2014 at 8:17 pm

    Well, if it’s true that Donna Awatere Huata is advising Internet Mana, then all I can say is Go Kelvin!

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/food-wine/news/article.cfm?c_id=206&objectid=11302811

    • Murray Olsen 24.1
      3 August 2014 at 11:31 pm

      That article actually says “It’s notable that one former MP, convicted fraudster Donna Awatere Huata, is back on the fringes of the Internet-Mana alliance.” It doesn’t mention “advising” at all, so I doubt your good faith in making your comment.

      Given who the author is, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the mighty Whalespew army had seen Awatere in Rotorua, and everyone knows Annette Sykes is from there!!

  26. Crunchtime 26
    4 August 2014 at 3:38 pm

    I continue to be disappointed with Labour. Now the dismaying news that they plan to “replace Careers New Zealand with a new agency to oversee a national careers strategy”.

    “Funding for the Agency would be $17 million over four years…”

    What the actual hell.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503581&objectid=11303469

    Funding for Careers New Zealand right now is $15 million PER YEAR. That’s $60 million over the last four years. Funding for the agency has been flat for nearly 6 years thanks to our idiotic National govt, which has resulted in a steadily reducing reach and staffing level as inflation cuts into their ability to perform.

    Careers NZ ALREADY HAS a national careers strategy. What they need is MORE funding, resources and assistance to achieve it.

    Instead, they talk of replacing a perfectly good agency, squandering resources and effort, and replacing it with a body with a quarter of the funding!

    Has Labour gone mad??

    Very disappointed.

  27. aerobubble 27
    4 August 2014 at 4:06 pm

    Warsaw ghetto Mark II.