I disagree, though, when he says Cunliffe is capable of forging a new political, economic and social consensus. I think he had three years to do that as Labour finance spokesman and failed to make any impact. Some might say he didn’t have support but Ruth Richardson managed to completely transform National as opposition finance spokesperson between 1987 and 1990 and that was against the wishes of the party hierarchy. I also don’t really think Cunliffe is genuinely as left as he tells activists. I think that’s just to give them a bit of a thrill.
Thanks for your considered and helpful views Matthew.
I am sure they are motivated by the best of intentions and the desire to make the next Government more left wing and sensitive to the environmental issues that we face, particularly in relation to climate change.
EDIT
I am also interested in your response to this passage in Trotter’s post:
“Hence the near unanimous hatred directed at Cunliffe by the mouthpieces of the neoliberal establishment. Fran O’Sullivan, Jane Clifton and Matthew Hooton have gone to extraordinary lengths to besmirch Cunliffe’s character and ridicule his ideas. In a pincer movement with Shearer’s caucus allies they have attempted to cast the Member for New Lynn as a sly, egomaniacal (if ultimately inept) Cassius, plotting constantly to bring down Labour’s sensible Caesar.”
Not sure what “extraordinary lengths” I have gone to. I have always thought he is a nice enough fellow. It’s the people at MFAT and in Labour who I know who have worked with him to seem to hate him for his pomposity and laziness – but I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits.
I know who have worked with him to seem to hate him for his pomposity and laziness – but I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits.
Christ – disingenuous or what? “I’m not going to say bad things about him, but wait – I’m going to pass on nasty gossip about him from other people”.
If Hooton were in Parliament, he’d set all-new records for getting thrown out of the House for constant “I personally wouldn’t call the Member a Nazi because it’s unparliamentary, but …” shenanigans.
TIM!!!! (@ Karol and the womderfuly like=moded) /…….I thought you said you wern’t gunna comment nemor…….
True. It’s just that stating the bleeid ng obvious is SO hard – worse than giving up smoking.
When is it that Spin Doctores like Hooten and others are not actually as clever as most would have you believe -I’ll wager most think the guy is actually irrelevant and the past participle of te spent brigade (“going fprward”).
The real problem is a defunct MSM. ………being challenged daily
Oh so you don’t think that, ‘not knowing Cunliffe well enough to observe these traits’ while at the same time claiming that that you ‘think’ that Cunliffe is not as ‘left’ as what He tells activists isn’t besmirching Cunliffe’s character,
It’s just a series of unfounded pieces of Bullshit dredged up from the mind of someone that when the high priests of Torydom were dishing out the silver spoons shoved your one a long way into the wrong orifice where it’s obviously still lodged…
Seriously tho’, his associations with neonazis and racists is something far less funny and something that needs exposure to sunlight.
I personally don’t think that Hooton is a neo-nazi… I just see that he’s a completely amoral money-grubber who has no qualms about shilling for work amongst them until the media spotlight shows just how evil they are and how that’s not a “good look” for Effluvium.
Hooten says he doesn’t know him (Cunliffe) well enough to have personally observed these traits (pomposity and laziness).
Well I have observed totally different traits in Cunliffe, and I do not believe he is what the MSM and others are making him out to be – lazy, traitorous, unlikeable etc etc etc.
As an example :
We had an extraordinary public meeting in Whangarei during the last (2011) election campaign.
We held it in a school hall in the middle of a Decile 1, low income, state housing area with a population predominantly Maori., and had a large audience.
Cunliffe gave a clear and convincing presentation on economics – world economics, NZ trade , and what could be done to fix our tattered economy. He didn’t “talk down” to his audience, he put in a few jokes every so often, he answered questions with facts/figures in such a way that everyone understood him.
The feedback after that public meeting was – no-one had ever told them these details in such an easy to understand manner before, could he come again, and what a great informative evening it had been for them all.
You cannot tell me that a man who is able to deliver such a presentation to such an audience and get such a response is either pompous or lazy. He would have had to work hard to put such a presentation together. He would have had to change the presentation to suit that particular audience. He was friendly, affable, and articulate.
Maybe, but there is that disturbing rant he had at the Otara market during the last election campaign that’s on YouTube. Will have put some middle ground voters off and being on the web in will never go away.
I looked for it but now can’t find it. However, I have seen it and it is nothing to be disturbed about. I think the claim at the time was “it will not appeal to the middle class.” I took it to mean that wing of the middle class who are presently on the gravy train and do not want to see the flow of gravy disrupted.
To be fair it was neither disturbing or really kicking the right wing’s ass. He just ran through Labour’s slogans and normal accusations that were repeated all the time through the election. It was passionate and reasonably good but nothing too special – Whaleoil etc picked it up and ran with it because he put on a polynesian accent and that basically makes him the ku klux klan. Here is the link:
It was one of those whale-oil type “scandals” where only the most twisted right-wing hacks can work out what’s scandalous about it.
To anyone else it was just a video of David campaigning. Oh the horror. It’s also not at the Otara market, that’s just right-wing shorthand for brown people in Auckland.
If you think that that is a ‘faux Polynesian’ accent then your obviously not as intelligent as what you think you are,(but then we all know that except you),
What Cunliffe is doing there is slowing down His speech and over-emphasizing some words in an effort to give as much understanding as possible to what was obviously an audience of mixed race where presumably many would have English as a second language,
If you want ‘faux Polynesia’ check out Seone’s Wedding or any of the other stuff done by that particular crew for TV,
That particular tape of Cunliffe makes your radio voice of ‘large plum in the mouth as you talk down to the peasants’ sound like the rantings of an old English Lord inescapably addicted to Heroin pontificating on the sins of the hired help when all the time your nothing but a over-paid leach at the trough paid to goose the ego’s of the major suckers of the States teat by telling them that every thing they do is just fine…
LOLZ, the turd i was addressing the comment at doesn’t seem to think so, really needs His sense of humor updated as well as a few of His other personal traits like His propensity to talk s**t….
He uses a faux Polynesian accent ‘cos he’s talking to brown people
What a racist thing to assume Matthew, you should be ashamed of yourself…
As bad12 has pointed out, Cunliffe was speaking to a crowd of people that may have had English as their second language, he was using a loudspeaker, and the crowd were dispersed so the talking was slowed down.
Its a racist observation Matthew…hang your head in shame
And you Matty screech just a bit in a distinctly effete way when someone’s got ya.
Cathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon repeatedly has to chide you for the entitled wee schoolboy you are with your overtalking and cat-fighty style. Never heard it myself but that’s…
Yes. It is so important, when one is talking to the fuzzy wuzzies to talk in language they understand. Come down to their level, and such. One must refer to “da rich fullas” rather than “the rich” otherwise they will simply not understand what one is saying. And if they do not understand what one is saying one will not be able to protect them.
Bolger used to ape accents all the time. I sort of thought it was a subconsciously empathetic thing.
Although I couldn’t stand Bolger as PM, he was surprisingly egalitarian in some ways. Just not smart enough to realise his government policies were trashing the poor.
I’m not sure that anyone else can descend to that level. Interpreting and understanding “Ook” is a hell of a lot easier than expressing a simple sentence in it. It is a “subtle” language you have mastered and it has been quite apparent for some time that you don’t understand English.
(my apologies to Pratchett – but that one just begged for it :twisted:)
I’m reminded of a WWII doco that I had to switch off because it was so overwrought about Hitler’s evilness (yes, the man was evil, but I think we don’t need that repeated every thirty seconds).
One of their arguments was (read it in a conspiracy-theory American accent): “He would change the way he spoke to appeal to different audiences!!!!!”
If you’re criticising Cunliffe for using “fellas” in one context when he may well say “folks” or “people” or “wankers” in another, I sure hope you speak to your dear old granny at morning tea the way you talk to your mates at the pub after a few. Because otherwise you’d be terrible hypocrites, and also linguistic freaks.
Gormless,(obviously), it’s fella not fulla, your the only one round here thats fulla and i will leave you with the easy task of inserting what comes after the fulla…
Gormless, are you objecting to Cunliffe using the word, or how he said it? I couldn’t detect any obvious accent other than a Noo Zeelund one. And why object to fella/fulla? Why not object to his using the words Maori words like tamariki etc? You’re grasping at some pretty insubstantial straws if you think the use of one word, however it is said, means anything.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
I hope you’re joking, Cunliffe like all our current crop of politicians is a pretty hopeless orator, the most recent good orator in NZ politics was David Lange in my opinion.
Revealing of what? You and Matthew Hooton are grasping at straws here, as was Whale oil in the first place. I draw your attention to a comment made earlier this week by Max Moss, who is on Cunliffe’s LEC. This is a person who actually knows Cunliffe, and certainly runs counter to the claims of pomposity and laziness, as well as the suggestion of inauthenticity.
One thing I do know about Cunliffe is that you can actually chat with him as a regular man in a room, without the vulgar sense of his “working the room” or trying to “win them over.”
And when he had the ‘chat’ on the Herald as did other politicians. I found that he was the easiest to understand, because he does not over explain things, he keeps it simple.
It disturbs me that anyone not in the WhaleSpew Army could be disturbed by Cunliffe’s Otara speech. He’s on top of a vehicle with a megaphone and speaks clearly and slowly in his own voice. If you want to hear a fake accent, just listen to Key being a regla blok prendin to be prumster of Noozillid.
hmm, don’t think Mr Key is pretending….he just can’t speak very well….lacks ability to enunciate…just thought I’d mention that….I agree with your comment apart from that….
Well done Olsen except you miss the times when Key dumps the bloke impersonation in favour of the dude persona……to wit his use of the word “munted” when he gets on some rubbish guffawing laughter every 6 seconds radio show.
How’s that for sham ? Trying to paint himself up as an out there dude tradey or something.
Bloody embarrassing. Cringey stuff. And for you Oleo…..must you scrape the bottom of your own barrel so ?
Goodness Jane – (and Hooten et al) that wasn’t a “disturbing rant” Cunliffe gave at the Otara market (I’ve just watched/listened to it on U-Tube Sat 12 Jan). That was a basic street corner speech which is typical of any election campaign. And I didn’t hear Cunliffe say “da rich fullas” as a putdown of bro language. I heard him say “the rich fellas” which is typical NZ (Pakeha) talk. You guys are imagining or making up things about Cunliffe without any foundation whatsoever.
MH – I would say that your first comment above comes as close as possible to uninformed “character assassination”. Oh, yes, indeed, you sure do go to “extraordinary lengths” to revile him, and then have the gall to confess “I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits” (of your imagination). There are few more condescending “put-downs” than to describe Cunliffe as “a nice enough fellow” (with the implied BUT). Exactly how many people at MFAT and in Labour do you actually know – or who would want to know you? Name the people who “seem” (N.B.) to hate him (what kind of people indulge in any kind of “hatred”?)
Please take care to check facts against delusions.
Do you really, think that is, for instance what ‘impact’ has David Parker had as Labour Finance spokesperson,
I think that if a person of your ilk supports David Shearer as the Labour Party leader then the members of Labour are right in having a really close look at just where His sentiments lie in the left/right paradigm of politics,
I doubt whether you have actually even met a genuine ‘member of the left’ so as to give you the perspective to judge who genuinely holds left-wing views,
I think you should crawl back into the dark spaces of the smelly, slime encrusted sewers which is your normal habitat and desist from provoking the likes of me to amounts of anger that at the least are bad for my health…
I’m always interested what people think is a “genuine member” of the left or right, as one who is generally accused of being a RWNJ on this site could you enlighten me.
Here, this might help, STFU, F off over to the Sewer where you will be aquainted with the definition of any number of Right Wing Nut Jobs,
Read the pages of the Standard and you will be aquainted with the wide ranging views of ‘genuine lefty’s plus the views of the odd Right Wing Nut Job, even a 5 year old could spot the difference…
hs, do you really not understand that Matthyawn isn’t a genuine lefty, and that everything he says or writes is paid for, and that he’s just here to disrupt and sow confusion?
In case you hadn’t noticed there’s some fairly diverse views among the mix at this site, although sometimes it does resemble a rather vitriolic echo chamber when the locals choose to attack someone.
For example the site sysop is a lefty voter with a self proclaimed ‘right’ lean in economics, then you have the likes of DTB who would suggest that most ‘lefties’ on this site are rampantly to the ‘right’.
Hence my request for you to define your view of ‘left’ and ‘right’.
For example the site sysop is a lefty voter with a self proclaimed ‘right’ lean in economics, then you have the likes of DTB who would suggest that most ‘lefties’ on this site are rampantly to the ‘right’.
Actually, I don’t. I happen to think that most of those on the left here are actually on the left I just happen to think that the Labour Party is on the right.
lolz hs, I’m sure you know that Hoots is a paid lobbyist and spin merchant. I’m sure you know that when he’s paid to appear in the media and talk politics he’s also being paid by his clients to do so in their interests. I find it inconceivable that you think he switches off the machine just for the standard.
I certainly don’t believe there were as many PR hacks in councils and government twenty or even ten years ago – it’s like HR departments they seen to have proliferated during the last couple of decades and are overflowing with weasels.
Things seem to have got along OK before they all came along……. grumpy old man rant over and out !
And that’s probably true, hs … but do you really think Matthew either
(a) completely believes everything he says when being paid for it, which is why he says exactly the same stuff when commenting in a personal capacity or
(b) isn’t smart enough to protect his paid-for “unbiased pundit” brand by continuing to say the same shit he’s paid for out-of-hours?
Jaysus Matthew, for someone who makes a living out of political commentary you are woefully poorly informed. You are a shocking dunderhead. Go to the corner.
The dogs on the street knew that Cunliffe was censored throughout the Goff era. He did all the work and had to leave the speeches for Phil Goff to try to build his leader ratings. The same shite continued under Shearer.
for someone who makes a living out of political commentary you are woefully poorly informed
No, Hooton doesn’t make his living from commentary – that just helps his media profile. He’s a professional spin doctor and lobbyist – a free-market Goebbels if you like. You can be sure that his company, “Effluvium” or whatever it’s called is not woefully poorly informed. You can be sure that it – and he – is very well paid. Hooton doesn’t shit without someone being sent an invoice.
Actually, he called it “Excelsium”, which is something someone who lives in his mum’s basement would call his avatar in World of Warcraft. “He’s Excelsium, and he’s a fifth-level mage and he… he, he has a magical sword, and he shoots acid from his fingers! He’s, like TOTALLY AWESOME!”
Hooton is really just a frustrated teenager at heart.
He can’t be much of a politician if he can be “censored” for four years. There were plenty in the National hierarchy trying to “censor” Richardson but she found ways around that. That’s how you achieve political, economic and social change. Change agents let alone revolutionaries don’t wait for permission from the existing order.
Interested in your response Matthew to Trotter’s claim that you are attempting to besmirch Cunliffe and this represents an unholy alliance between the mouthpieces of the neoliberal establishment and ABC.
Has the pay-check from RadioNZ National dried up over the summer break and you are now bored so have to drag your pompous ‘silver spoon’ banality into the Standard,
The ‘smooch-fest’ between you and Williams on that piece of pathetic puffery makes you sound like you have something hard lodged within the rear of your anatomy and are in dire need of an urgent flushing,
Your support of Shearer as Labour leader on it’s own should be enough for the caucus to trigger the Party wide vote on the issue of leadership…
So is trying to set the tone of the ‘ts’s’ discussion around a piece that was already linked to yesterday by diong a 7:21 am link to it. (ie top of the open mike).
I could be wrong Mathew. But I don’t recall you instigating discussion on topics here before. Don’t you normally just respond with a view to obscufate and derail? I think you do.
But not this time. Which could be an indication of how much ‘nonsense’ it is to suggest you and your ilk are desperate to elevate Shearer and (by extension) an ongoing neo-liberal trajectory.
‘Shearer is a good guy. Labour’s sleepwalking plan is a fine plan. Cunliffe is dead in the water. Cunliffe is allegedly incompetant and lazy and arrogant – Cunliffe isn’t liked’ – and I (Mathew Hooten) am more than happy to keep on referencing those allegations and opinions in one way or another ie, to besmirch without actually besmirching in a direct fashion.
Oh. Apart from the wee nuggets, like in your above comments, where you directly suggest that Cunliffe is a crap politician.
And, of course, mustn’t forget the obvious fact that Rhinoviper points out (again) – this time around at 1.3.1. on this thread.
“That’s how you achieve political, economic and social change.”
As opposed to donations in plain brown envelopes, swipe cards to parliament, policy for cash, and dodgy in-house agenda driven focus/polling groups like we have now.
Care to declare/deny any emails, texts, call logs or meetings?
“Change agents let alone revolutionaries don’t wait for permission from the existing order.”
I’m suspecting you know as much about change agents and revolutionaries as you do about David Cunliffe.
When real change comes, and it will, if you’re not on the first plane out with the other smug rich pricks, I’m sure they’ll be a spot up against the proverbial wall for your efforts.
Some politicians being “censored” indicates that they are, in fact, doing a bloody good job! You are (even now!) an admirer of Richardson? Enough said!
Hooton, you give Richardson as an example of being ‘censorsed’ the truth being more like
some nats thought her policies were detrimental to the health and wellbeing of those
it would affect,(although it would be a first in the right thinking of the people) indeed
her policies caused difficulties for a huge number of people,
when you remove $50pw off beneficiaries of course stress will follow,it shows
that Shipley/Richardson women could not give a continental about peoples lives and as it turns out they didn’t,but Shipley/Richardson could claim tens of thousands a year in perks and tax payer paid benefits, spot the difference.
While i am at it Shipley and Richardson left a $20 billion debt, is that good financial
management of tax payer dollars ?
Incidently,a peice of good journalism would be to find out what ex politicians are
still recieving tax payer funded air travel and remuneration, i understand it continues
to get paid until the leave this mortal coil.
This while beneficiaries are being targeted by your idol Shearer re: painter on the roof
Shearer’s credentials for the leadership of Labour are lacking and wanting.
The defence of Shearer by the right of politics and media raises questions about
his true allegiance, please, tell us more about ‘that’ barbie.
Cunliffe has been ‘censored’ by the Right clique inside caucus, even though he
won 9 out of the 10 meetings in a membership vote for the leadership, his shackles
are still on tightly and he cannot be seen to be doing anything unless the ‘clique’ give
him permission.
A manager in ChCh was bemoaning the quality of staff available, she wanted government to do something about people like the lady who took a break and never came back.
Now objectively, not something you’ll find in a third market (one on the edge of the world). Surely a manager is expected to know her customers and her employees, and that if an employee walk off the job she should have some idea why. Like Shearer, why doesn’t he know why the roofer was up there while on sicky?
Aging population, and better pay conditions in OZ mean there are fewer young people entering the work market and those that are around want to be skilled up so they can fly the ditch (only way they will own their own home). Scarcity means managers like her have to offer more, have to be aware of her employees needs, to get skills and move on to better jobs. Instead we have this blame culture from the rich, that somehow its the poor who created the economic malaise, the young who have the expertise to run the country, the sick who shouldn’t be fixing their damn roof since their TB stopped them working.
I think what passes as informed debate on TV and radio is bunkum, neoliberal talking points selected to keep wages down, keep bonuses up and power to change the econmic out of the hands of those who would change it (to serve the needs of the people).
Nice little distraction by Hooten there. However, I’m still trying to figure out why Richardson ignoring the party she belonged to, and setting her own agenda, is considered a good thing. Of all the attempts at misdirection in this thread by Hooten, that’s the one that stands out for me. It’s the idea that an individual can go against the party’s wishes and take in a different direction, and that that is not only acceptable but desirable. That idea isn’t about Cunliffe, it’s about Shearer.
The New Zealand Labour Party must find a way to achieve reform and renewal through it’s members and affiliates. Only then will we have a strong Labour victory in 2014 that will enable the execution major changes: changes that will take the country on a new path to health and prosperity.
A year ago the launch of the Constitutional Review was greeted enthusiastically by the members. Members, branches, LECs, Sector groups and NZ Councillors all worked hard to get a number of significant proposals to the Conference.
The Conference was memorable for two reasons:
-the delegates passionately debated the key items and the balance of power shifted to the membership and affiliates…….on paper.
-a potentially great Conference and subsequent passionate injection of positive activity was distorted by the damaging play to marginalise Cunliffe.
We need to find the positives from the Conference and get past the destructive cr*p formulated by a few Machiavellians in the Caucus.
My view of the constitutional changes is that if the Membership want the Parliamentary Labour MP’s to adhere to Labour Party policy,(especially while in Government), it is the membership at the annual Labour Party Conference who should vote whether or not to ‘trigger’ a Party wide vote on the issue,
Further to that it is my view that the Party wide vote should also elect the Cabinet in Labour lead Governments…
There has been a lot of discussion about the wider member leader vote, the 40% + 1 threshold and how it might be triggered in February. If it does get triggered, how every it happens what is the process then? Is there a set timeline? A postal ballot will take time to setup, candidates will need time to decide if they want to stand, time for campaigning, the voting process may take a few weeks. What is the best case for it to be complete? I’d say at the minimum six weeks, most likely it will drag on for 12+ weeks.
Who leads the party while all this is going on? Their is a reasonable chance it could all get toxic, DS, DC openly combatitive, caucus split, Patrick Gower asking everybody and anybody who’s side they are on every single night and earnestly analyzing every phrase, utterance or look. The Greens trying to stay out of it but getting more involved, Winston taking shots, backbenchers leaking and National sitting quietly and watching with glee.
When it’s over and the winner announced then what? Will the vanquished need to resign? If DC wins will it have got so bad that Mallard, King and Hipkins all go? If DC loses how many may go? Byelections towards the end of the year? It could dominate all year!
All looks very scary but then the alternative is DS stays.
“Mallard, King and Hipkins all go” They should have gone last election. But no there they sit, actively fucking up the Labour party for their own ends. Fucking Parasites. The sooner they go the better for all, and they can take some of the other dead wood and dinosaurs with them! And as for Gower how can he report if he’s just told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, every time he asks a question??
“Mallard, King and Hipkins all go” They should have gone last election. But no there they sit, actively fucking up the Labour party for their own ends. Fucking Parasites. The sooner they go the better for all, and they can take some of the other dead wood and dinosaurs with them! And as for Gower how can he report if he’s just told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, every time he asks a question??
Damn Internal server error 500 rears it’s ugly head again.
If I had to place a bet, it would be on that both Morgan and Jones are considerably more *informed/trained* and cogent of affairs than you could ever wish/pretend to be!
They’re both right wing commentators, muzza, so your support for them is curious (or is it?). Morgan has the moral highground on the gun question though and has gone up in my estimation just for having the guts to take on the NRA and its apologists.
Well, the former Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan may be the voice of reason in his American show, Chris, but his work history and personal morals strongly suggest a right wing orientation. And Rupert Murdoch isn’t known for picking Spartists to run his newspapers!
Point being if your old boss is rupert, the political affiliation is sort of a given.
Happy for mr morgan to enlighten us all with his road to Damascus conversion from murdoch’s mouthpiece to voice of the people’s heavy hitter.
If you read support for either of them in my response, you were very much mistaken. No need to have watched to know how it would have played out, with each character living up to their *expectation*, which is required to embed mind-sets.
It’s theatre, they are both pawns/tools in a game which seeks to control the perceptions/minds, via controlling a fake, *debate*!
Indeed. One is reminded of the Romans who lost the plot because they kept their wine in lead-lined containers, or a similar lead-related decline caused by drinking rice wine from bronze vessles in the late Chinese Shang dynasty.
Let us not get waylaid by the MMS talking heads like Trotter and Hooton.
Framing stories as battles between X and Y makes good press and TV sound bites.
The changes required to get ths country out of the trough of inequality and underperformance is not about two personalities.
As Laboutites we must focus on engaging with our family, friends, neighbours, communities, businesses and organisations to understand their needs and aspirations and to drive bottom up policy using our new Constitution.
Focus on the real stuff, not the side-shows.
The Trotter story is a matter for Shearer to sort.
I find it amazing that you are all still flailing around and shadow boxing about the leadership.
The battle is lost, the Feb vote is a formality. The caucus beat you. Move on.
Cunliffe got pwned. Quite unfairly probably but it will not make a blind bit of difference to the outcome. Shearer is your leader. You will not change that before the next election.
Barnsley, Hooton n the media are trying to make it a personality thing .
This Trotter story is bad for all the Labour Party.
True, members were beaten by the Caucus in November. Until the leadership has achieved legitimacy through endorsement from the members and affiliates there will be turmoil in the party.
The issue is between the members and the leadership. If the February endorsement is a “formality” then many members n affiliates will loose interest in the party.
Who will do the work for the Local Election layer this year?
“Europeans, take note: The U.S. government has granted itself authority to secretly snoop on you.
That’s according to a new report produced for the European Parliament, which has warned that a U.S. spy law renewed late last year authorizes “purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data” if it is stored using U.S. cloud services like those provided by Google, Microsoft and Facebook.”
This is something all of us should be very mindful of, when using US based service providers and cloud servers, and any traffic between the US and other countries falls into the same category as the article in “future tense” (from 08 Jan. 2013) should make clear.
There are always certain risks to consider, and this is just one of them.
while I think of it; see Sue Kedgley’s analysis of the ongoing rent of Transmission Gully to the taxpayer, pulling clay uphill and all that motor-scraping
Is to distract from the real issue: giving Labour Party members a democratic say come February, confirming the Leader.
Is to suggest that the Labour Leadership is a position which does not need or want democratic confirmation by the membership in 2013.
Is to try and turn this into an irrelevant Cunliffe versus Shearer cage fight, instead of the true crux: bringing democracy to the Labour Party, as the membership clearly intended at Conference in Nov 2012.
Is the LP membership’s participation in choosing a leader more important than the memberships ability to influence the policy decisions of the caucus? How much say does the membership now have in the latter?
Well it’s what he’s paid to do, and does it well. The smug trolling designed to undermine and distract and the cherry picking rather than responding when requested so he can keep on his message
It’s like a modern version of Muldoon in some ways and boy haven’t the NACT made that look like the good old days the way they’ve sent the economy and living standards off down the hill with wilful negligence.
They said the next revolution would be on TV, what they didn’t say was it will start on the internet.
I’ve entered a song on the audience website, to win NZonAir funding, to record the single and make a video.
I’ve chosen the protest song The faeces of the species, as a direct challenge to key’s constituency chairman who complained about the Inside child poverty documentary aired in the 2011 election campaign, and now has his feet firmly under the table.
Way to go Sir, kids with third world diseases on their beautiful little faces, and you complain about unfair electioneering. Fuck off.
Don’t care if you like the song (I do, I love it) or not, but a vote a day for the next couple of weeks and it’s win/win.
I need the publicity to kick off my campaign, and a video on tv, or a refusal by NZonAir to follow through for political reasons would sort of do the trick.
Please, bookmark the song page and vote as many times until it gets a top ten placing and thus eligible for the prize.
Email to friends/colleagues, tell them it’s for food for kids and maximum embarrassment for the pm.
I’m staying anonymous, not going to make a penny from it personally, and well up for the front line fight.
Use the system to beat the system with a mouse click.
lprent
She did – somewhere above 1 1 1 3
Rosy – “Bolger used to ape accents all the time. I sort of thought it was a subconsciously empathetic thing.”
And she mentioned ‘subconcious’ too which I am sure I didn’t read?
RNZ
-Law Society litigate a closer relationship with Lifeline; the demands of being a lawyer are greater than they have ever been
-longer hours
-demanding clients
-technological speed cracking the whip
now,
Down to Business
-NZ TWI the highest in FIVE years, around 75.9
-Japanese are about to begin printing rice paper money in a “fashion not seen before”
-Cloudy forecast for mortgage interest rates in the latter half of this year and expected to be much higher over the coming 3-4 years-Shamubeel Eaqub, NZIER (I like that man)
-Rural Exodus-property values dropping (has occurred already in central and southern HB)
-Nov Trade Deficit widened, 4th consecutive month in a row
-NZ $ 84.70 US; 85 coming
yet,
the NZX 50 Index is at a new FIVE year high; business as usual.
sorry about the random graffiti (servers’ fault message)
did you know that Zephaniah was familiar with court circles and current political issues?
He announced to Judah God’s coming judgement, an immediate sign was the Scythian (fierce horse mounted peoples’) incursion into Canaan (from Southern Russia) in the 7th C BC.
main theme, coming day of the Lord, God’s punishment of the nations including apostate Judah, with the pronouncement of Doom ending on a positive note with His merciful restoration.
Baal was a common name for the chief male god amongst peoples, also
-master and owner of a house
-landowner
-owner of cattle
-son of “grain”
-storm god Hadad
Baal cult included, addiction, animal sacrifices, ritualistic meals, licentious dances. Human fertility was sacred and the High places had chambers for sacred prostitution;
I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble (formidable obstacles), when I cut off man from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.
(Zephaniah speaks of fire)
I will stretch out my hand against Judah, I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagans and the idolatrous priests-those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who swear by the Lord and also by Molech (sometimes involved in child sacrifice).
On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will go up from the Fish Gate (merchants who had grown rich through corrupt business practices would be destroyed.
At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent. Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will build houses but not live in them; they will plant vineyards but not drink the wine.
(remember how the distributor / oil pump drive used to round off on the old V6?
I had an old 1963 Ford Falcon 170 Super pursuit, and it had a bad habit of screwing them off inside the oil pump, so that if you didn’t have a long thin magnetic screwdriver, it was the sump off, then the oil pump removal to get it out. I got to be quite an expert at the removal of those bloody things on the side of the road and i kept a spare in the glove box at all times.
The World Economic Forum, hardly a hot bed of anti-capitalism, is warning that climate change, income inequality, and fiscal instability are THE issues which must be addressed IMMEDIATELY (at Davos).
Between the lines the WEF is saying we are in a global economic meltdown. Captain Mumblefuck and ABC are in denial even as capitalists elsewhere are waking up and frightened.
What the Captain Mumblefuck neo-liberals fail to see is that if we don’t get a moderate reformer like Cunliffe (comparable to FDR and Mickey Savage in the 1930’s), we are going to get a Hitler or Stalin.
One way of forcing meaning onto suffering, thereby making it more bearable, is to rename it sacrifice and believe it integral to the divine economy. We confront the the fears that threats to life arouse in us by claiming that destruction for our own, submitting to it or performing acts of violence ourself. It is not religious belief that makes us violent, violence turns us to the intense motifs of sacrifice that are particularly expressed in religion. Considering, however, the broader context of anthropogenic violence in Encyclopedia of Wars-Charles Philips and Alan Axelrod- found of 1,800 violent conflicts throughout history, only 23 of them were religious.
“There isn’t much precedent in Islamic tradition for suicide terrorism. Modern suicide terrorism became a political force with the atheistic anarchist movement that began at the end of the 19th century”-Atran (see also If You’re Not Religious Is Nothing Sacred?)
“Fictive Kinship”-living as if related-is served well by a belief in a (monotheistic) deity. Sacred values have an important functional hold over us.
Quite a passionate discussion above. Much will depend I guess on Mr Shearer’s big speech on 27 January that Chris Hipkins is hosting. The word is it will have another big policy announcement.
Thank you Matthew for the update from Party Central.
This is at the Young Labour hosted Summer School. It is in Trevor’s electorate rather than Chris Hipkin’s, I suspect.
Where: Brookfield Scout Camp, 562 Moores Valley Road, Wainuiomata
(only 40mins from Khandallah)
When: Friday 25 January – Sunday 27 January
You can contact Young Labour at summerschool@younglabour.org.nz. Find out more and register now at younglabour.org.nz/summer-school.
All paid up members are welcome. It will be a great time for all the Labour Party membership to build on the good work started at the November Conference.
Book your Air NZ flights now if you are from the regions. Auckland -Wellington return under $200.
Clare Curran will buy drinks for anyone who says they read The Standard regularly.
Matthew we have heard this “next big speech” talk for more than a year now, and the guy remains as opaque as he ever was. It is as if party central is taking its cues from North Korea.
Yeah, showing up there smooching the Rogernomes will be a better look than fishing for clients among the Neo-Nazis and racists at the Marlborough Sounds Symposia who inspired Anders Brevik, won’t it, Hoots?
Just an addendum, but I think that there’s a very interesting post that could be written on Matthew Hooton’s very dirty clients if someone could do the digging…
No doubt there are some aspects he wants hidden very deeply indeed.
Looking at all the above I am guessing that this will be keys GO TO place when he wants to feel good and confident about his chances of winning next election. I can see where he is gettin g his material from to stir up the Shearer/Cunliffe divide. Does’t even have to try,it’s all there ready and waiting.
John Key has stated that overriding the Commission is needed to protect Chorus’s profit margins and its ability to deliver broadband and the UltraFast Broadband rollout. It would seem Chorus’s profit margins have been hamstringing the development of NZ’s internet to a larger extent than already thought.
Insiders from Chorus subsidiary contractors have informed the Pirate Party that there has been massive issues with the UltraFast Broadband rollout with Chorus underpaying regional contracted businesses allowing them not enough time to complete jobs and payments being based on minimal possible time to complete jobs. Technicians are having issues and some regional contractors are finding the UFB contract is not the golden goose it once seemed.
Gee, why am I not surprised? Perhaps it’s because NAct set up the whole lot as a wealth siphon that takes taxpayer money and gives it to their rich mates.
The simple reality is that if we hadn’t sold off Telecom and went for competition we’d be a hell of a lot better off (~$17b worth), we’d already have FttH to most of the countries population and telecommunications would be a hell of a lot cheaper than they are.
If Chorus’s profits drop so does its share price which will allow an overseas buyer into the market in purchasing Chorus for a knock down price – then you will see what it costs to repair phone lines – payable in Yuan.
This country needs a climate change Churchill not a climate change Chamberlain.
Te Reo Putake claims that there will be a unanimous caucus vote in support of David Shearer in February, which will prevent the membership from having their say.
For this to happen even David Cunliffe would have to vote for David Shearer.
Even if he is the only one to do so, Cunliffe should vote against him.
Mcflock,
I just wanted to let you know that I tried out a few of the tobacco leaves that have been hanging under the house for about 8 and a half months, and it tastes just like a slightly harsher version of Camel. The reason I mention it is because you were saying that the tobacco variety I used was too bland. And it is if not cured for long enough. I may have to take it all down now. I’d hate to imagine how harsh it will be if I leave it for the entire 12 months.
*disclaimer: tobacco is very unhealthy, and it goes without saying (but I will to salve my conscience) that you’d be better off quitting, and you may well have done so.
Interesting. I might take up growing it again.
The real fun I had was progressively destroying my crop trying different methods in a fruitless search for ideal pipe tobacco (in place of being too uncoordinated to roll a decent cigar :)). Sort of like organic alchemy.
I would suggest taking it down and blending with this year’s crop, but I fear you have followed too much of my horticulture speculation already
i do a mix, well cured leaves that i grow are pretty much cigar material in terms of taste,but if you mix in the smaller leaves which seem to have less of the active ingredients in them and/or some of the half cured leaves you get a blend thats slightly harsh but still a nice smoke,
i am hard out at the moment pulling plants that have basically done their dash and cutting bigger leaves, in my main garden fertilized for the rest of the year on my kitchen scraps i am getting some great 750cm-800cm leaves…
I have one plant in my garden which is about 17 months old. I harvested the big leaves last year, but left a few plants in the vege garden expecting them to die. But it was a very mild winter. I pulled the rest out in spring, but thought I’d leave one to deter insects.
It’s thriving, and now I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be easier (if it would work) to keep the plants for as long as possible – keep cutting the flowers off, and reharvest the leaves every autumn.
I know that tobacco is usually grown as an annual. Have you ever kept them going and kept on harvesting? Easier than sowing seed every year. I find that the plants grow very slowly in the first few months. It would be good to be able to speed th process up a bit.
JS, yeah they will grow all yeah round even in a harsh Wellington winter, but, the babies don’t like the cold and are best planted in the first week in November,
I havn’t tried growing any as a multi year crop, just had a seed get away and germinate, but, the literature i have read says that the second time round the foliage gets smaller than the 8 sets of big leaves to be expected for the first crop,
I grew 20 in the first year and that wasn’t enough for a years supply, 40 the next year and still not enough, 60 last year and run out in October, LOLZ insanity took over this year and i have grown a s**t-load,
I start my seeds under lights in August/ September, separate them at about a inch high and use the lights on them untill they start blocking the light from one another and then put them on the windowsills untill it’s warm enough to plant them out, (November),
So this years from planting to pulling the ones that are starting to yellow,(they have used all the food in the soil),and flower,(really only need a couple of plants for seeds),is a pretty fast 10 weeks, and, i think that the clever plants have subtracted the weeks they spent on the window sills as part of the life-span cos while this years are far more productive and better quality they haven’t grown as tall as last years,
A really clever ‘tool’ for hanging them is to straighten out paper clips leaving the hook in one end and a V in the other, i’ve got my garden shed strung with strings across the roof inside and it can take a couple of hundred pairs of leaves at a time, the strings i set about 10cm, 4 inches apart, i am getting good smokable leaves after 3 weeks but not all of them dry out and brown up at the same time so there’s a constant sorting going on which isn’t hard work but is time consuming,(oh my kingdom for a sky-line),
Another tip is to use thick paper sacks to store the cut leaves in, i use paper rubbish sacks cut in half and staple the bottom of the half that needs it, paper sacks keep the leaves from becoming too unstable and if you need to dry the cut stuff the hot water cupboard or the windowsills on a sunny day are good,
If you want to dry cured leaves fast, in a paper bag on the dash board of a car in the sun works like an oven and you have to keep an eye on them coz the moisture gets sucked out of them real quick,
LOLZ if you crispy critter them like i did to a bag full of slightly wet but cured leaf the other day they can be fixed by tossing in half a dozen wet leaves overnight, it’s amazing to see leaves so dry that they could turn to dust overnight become soft and able to be handled again…
Wow.
Thanks for all this advice.
I have mine hanging in a similar fashion, using the green wire gardening twine hooked through the thick stem into spaced loops in the wire across the shed.
Do you have any tips for speeding up the looping/hooking/hanging process? Takes forever!
Still with tobacco at $35 for 30 grams, it’s worth the effort.
Ummm, are you pairing the leaves together, the advice is to pair the leaves with the center stems facing each other,
If you have bunches of leaves on one wire it might slow down the drying, i am lucky to have cleaned up what is quite a big area i have under the house,it’s about 4 times the area of a shed and i have that rigged with the same set up as the shed to be able to hook my pairs of leaves on,
LOLZ, the disgusting wet muddy s**t i dug out of there is actually my main garden in a raised bed made from shipping pallets which both the Ware Whare and Bunning’s give away here,(for fire-wood snigger), i systematically work my way up and down the garden over the 9 months i am not growing anything feeding it the kitchen scraps, ash from the ashtray, and bits of paper like shopping receipts and rolly paper packets,
Theres no effort in digging the garden that way as once a week i just dig a spade wide trench across it, dump in the scraps,add a small bucket of compost and hey presto utter crap soil is pumping my plants so hard out that everytime i look at it i have a bit of a giggle,
But i digress, back to hanging leaves, when my shed is full, i first run my pairs of leaves through the basement area which isn’t quite warm enough to cure them but allows them to get to that stage where they fold in on themselves,
While that happens i am checking in the shed for leaves that are near cured and moving them closest to the door, as i move them closer to the door and as space becomes available i rotate the rest of the leaves around the shed,
It’s something i do about twice a week, i don’t know how your shed sits in relation to the Sun,mine has a warm side facing the sun, so when the leaves come out from the basement they go into the shed on the un-sunny side,(the roof of the shed gets full sun), and i then rotate them round the shed as i take the cured stuff out,
Most of my cured stuff is still wet but brown when i take it out of the shed as it sucks in moisture from the less cured leaves that are constantly arriving in the shed, thats why i use the paper bag method of giving the leaves a final dry,
To use the paper bag method i first strip out the center stem,(they get buried with the kitchen scraps), i then give the leaves a first cut by squeezing a bunch in one hand and cutting them as thin as possible with the scissors,
It’s easy then to put a paper bag of cut but still damp stuff in the hot water cupboard, on a window sill in the sun, (with the curtains closed works best),or if some real heat is necessary, on the dash board of the car in a sunny spot, (gotta check them every half hour if you use the paper bag of cut stuff on the cars dashboard method tho, it doesn’t take em long to crispy critter,
LOLZ, only 30 grams, my addiction is atrocious, i have been smoking 2, 50 gram packets for the past 40 odd years,
The legal aspects as i understand them are that it is ILLEGAL to either sell or give what you have grown away, and, my reading of the law says that you can grow enough to provide YOU with 15KG of cut and smokable leaves in any year…
The legal aspects as i understand them are that it is ILLEGAL to either sell or give what you have grown away, and, my reading of the law says that you can grow enough to provide YOU with 15KG of cut and smokable leaves in any year…
Ahh didn’t know that. Nevertheless, unless they get the mainstream economy more inclusive, people will do what people will do to survive.
Aha, as the anti-smoking fanatics have all agreed, to make a smoke-free New Zealand via the current means would have a packet of tobacco costing 100 bucks by the time those fools have finished it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion that a black market will become established,
I can tell you now that tobacco as a bush crop has a greater range of growing areas than dope as tobacco doesn’t need a full sun enviroment to grow leaves, where-as dope does to grow heads,
From what i have been told the stuff,(tobacco), can be found growing wild all over the far North…
What gave me the idea (which percolated as the price went steadily up) was the old man’s neighbour dug up his entire back quarter-acre section and grew tobacco, in South Auckland, about ten years ago. Must have been a heavy smoker:-D
It broke down cultural barriers between neighbours, as my father was a keen gardener at the time, and was fascinated by watching the wholesale cropping of a back yard. I asked my father if it was legal to grow, and he said it was legal to grow – illegal to sell.
I take a bit of comfort at the extent of your habit. Sometimes I feel guilty about smoking about 30 grams a week!
Btw, I hang each leaf from a separate “hook” on a separate loop. One of the reasons it takes so damn long.
You’ve given me lots of new ideas to experiment with.
Thank you and bon apetit – or whatever the smoking equivalent is:-)
God don’t ever let anyone including yourself ‘guilt trip’ you over smoking, it’s an addiction and you were hooked after the first pack,
I am not so sure that hanging them separately would slow down the drying process, in theory it should speed it up, maybe my having a ‘mass’ of leaves in the shed at one time traps the heat of the Sun, does your shed get all day sun on at least it’s roof???,
I have found that leaving the door of the shed closed most of the time speeds the process a little bit and even when i leave the door open it’s only by 50 odd mm’s,
LOLZ, i have taken over a dead and weed infested piece of the HousingNZ estate and have a series of raised garden boxes down there as well, HousingNZ are planning on building on it at some stage but untill then i have done what all good colonizing white boys do and simply moved in on the basis of ‘they are not using it’, now where have i heard that before LOLZ,
Taking the cost out of the addiction leaves me with the money to provide a good diet across the whole range of foods where growing a vege garden would have left me with the cost of the addiction and little better off…
Let’s face it – vegetable growing is a hobby which barely covers costs and in a bad season – not even that.
There is an untended reserve over the fence. I’ve been working on the soil which is horrendusly alkaline due to decades of home fire ash being chucked over….
Advanced manufacturing: How to make a nuclear submarine
Not that I am advocating that NZ does this, obviously. But this conveys how much knowledge and expertise is required to successfully do “high tech, high value” manufacturing. Bringing NZ to this point is a generational project, and our short term political outlook can’t achieve it.
Yep, seen it a while back and loved it… agree that we shouldn’t be/couldn’t be doing that, but it serves to show how much an industry is tied up with a town.
These are real people, learning real skills in real trades and if that industry is shut down because some bean-counter decides to outsource it, then those people see their futures end and the community dies.
So when we hear that a paper mill is shutting down a line, then look at this and see how an industry supports the real aspirations (not Key’s “ashperayshums”) and livelihoods of a community.
All of Key’s and Shearer’s talk of “outsourcing” as a road to economy? Look at the real costs of “economy”.
Watch this documentary, and if you’re uncomfortable thinking about warships, then think about towns dependent on paper mills, meat works and refrigerator manufacturers.
You got to hand it to the Brits, you can see how they managed to keep an Empire going for so long, and how – amazingly – they have kept going with some pride even after the end of their Empire. Not every post-Imperial power can boast such a feat.
Cameron is a nasty bit of work. His economic policies were even more destructive than John Keys, and those big riots were not accident; rather the result of his brutal austerity measures. The UK govt steals from the poor to give to the rich, kind of the reverse of Robin Hood.
He is no friend of New Zealanders, his government introduced immigration measures that put an end to decades of OE’s.
Australia is in a race against time. Cyber adversaries are exploiting vulnerabilities faster than we can identify and patch them. Both national security and economic considerations demand policy action. According to IBM’s Data Breach Report, ...
The ever brilliant Kate Nicholls has kindly agreed to allow me to re-publish her substack offering some under-examined backdrop to Trump’s tariff madness. The essay is not meant to be a full scholarly article but instead an insight into the thinking (if that is the correct word) behind the current ...
In the Pacific, the rush among partner countries to be seen as the first to assist after disasters has become heated as part of ongoing geopolitical contest. As partners compete for strategic influence in the ...
The StrategistBy Miranda Booth, Henrietta McNeill and Genevieve Quirk
We’ve seen this morning the latest step up in the Trump-initiated trade war, with the additional 50 per cent tariffs imposed on imports from China. If the tariff madness persists – but in fact even if were wound back in some places (eg some of the particularly absurd tariffs on ...
Weak as I am, no tears for youWeak as I am, no tears for youDeep as I am, I'm no one's foolWeak as I amSongwriters: Deborah Ann Dyer / Richard Keith Lewis / Martin Ivor Kent / Robert Arnold FranceMorena. This morning, I couldn’t settle on a single topic. Too ...
Australian policy makers are vastly underestimating how climate change will disrupt national security and regional stability across the Indo-Pacific. A new ASPI report assesses the ways climate impacts could threaten Indonesia’s economic and security interests ...
So here we are in London again because we’re now at the do-it-while-you-still-can stage of life. More warm wide-armed hugs, more long talks and long walks and drinks in lovely old pubs with our lovely daughter.And meanwhile the world is once more in one of its assume-the-brace-position stages.We turned on ...
Hi,Back in September of 2023, I got pitched an interview:David -Thanks for the quick response to the DM! Means the world. Re-stating some of the DM below for your team’s reference -I run a business called Animal Capital - we are a venture capital fund advised by Noah Beck, Paris ...
I didn’t want to write about this – but, alas, the 2020s have forced my hand. I am going to talk about the Trump Tariffs… and in the process probably irritate nearly everyone. You see, alone on the Internet, I am one of those people who think we need a ...
Maybe people are only just beginning to notice the close alignment of Russia and China. It’s discussed as a sudden new phenomenon in world affairs, but in fact it’s not new at all. The two ...
The High Court has just ruled that the government has been violating one of the oldest Treaty settlements, the Sealord deal: The High Court has found the Crown has breached one of New Zealand's oldest Treaty Settlements by appropriating Māori fishing quota without compensation. It relates to the 1992 ...
Darwin’s proposed Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct is set to be the heart of a new integrated infrastructure network in the Northern Territory, larger and better than what currently exists in northern Australia. However, the ...
Local body elections are in October, and so like a lot of people, I received the usual pre-election enrolment confirmation from the Orange Man in the post. And I was horrified to see that it included the following: Why horrified? After all, surely using email, rather ...
Australia needs to deliver its commitment under the Seoul Declaration to create an Australian AI safety, or security, institute. Australia is the only signatory to the declaration that has yet to meet its commitments. Given ...
Ko kōpū ka rere i te paeMe ko Hine RuhiTīaho mai tō arohaMe ko Hine RuhiDa da da ba du da da ba du da da da ba du da da da da da daDa da da ba du da da ba du da da da ba du da da ...
Army, Navy and AirForce personnel in ceremonial dress: an ongoing staffing exodus means we may get more ships, drones and planes but not have enough ‘boots on the ground’ to use them. Photo: Lynn GrievesonLong stories short in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning:PM Christopher Luxon says the Government can ...
If you’re a qualified individual looking to join the Australian Army, prepare for a world of frustration over the next 12 to 18 months. While thorough vetting is essential, the inefficiency of the Australian Defence ...
I’ve inserted a tidbit and rumours section1. Colonoscopy wait times increase, procedures drop under NationalWait times for urgent, non-urgent and surveillance colonoscopies all progressively worsened last year. Health NZ data shows the total number of publicly-funded colonoscopies dropped by more than 7 percent.Health NZ chief medical officer Helen Stokes-Lampard blamed ...
Three billion dollars has been wiped off the value of New Zealand’s share market as the rout of global financial markets caught up with the local market. A Sāmoan national has been sentenced for migrant exploitation and corruption following a five-year investigation that highlights the serious consequences of immigration fraud ...
This is a guest post by Darren Davis. It originally appeared on his excellent blog, Adventures in Transitland, which we encourage you to check out. It is shared by kind permission. Rail Network Investment Plan quietly dropped While much media attention focused on the 31st March 2025 announcement that the replacement Cook ...
Amendments to Indonesia’s military law risk undermining civilian supremacy and the country’s defence capabilities. Passed by the House of Representatives on 20 March, the main changes include raising the retirement age and allowing military officers ...
The StrategistBy Alfin Febrian Basundoro and Jascha Ramba Santoso
So New Zealand is about to spend $12 billion on our defence forces over the next four years – with $9 million of it being new money that is not being spent on pressing needs here at home. Somehow this lavish spend-up on Defence is “affordable,” says PM Christopher Luxon, ...
Donald Trump’s philosophy about the United States’ place in the world is historically selfish and will impoverish his country’s spirit. While he claimed last week to be ‘liberating’ Americans from the exploiters and freeloaders who’ve ...
China’s crackdown on cyber-scam centres on the Thailand-Myanmar border may cause a shift away from Mandarin, towards English-speaking victims. Scammers also used the 28 March earthquake to scam international victims. Australia, with its proven capabilities ...
At the 2005 election campaign, the National Party colluded with a weirdo cult, the Exclusive Brethren, to run a secret hate campaign against the Greens. It was the first really big example of the rich using dark money to interfere in our democracy. And unfortunately, it seems that they're trying ...
Many of you will know that in collaboration with the University of Queensland we created and ran the massive open online course (MOOC) "Denial101x - Making sense of climate science denial" on the edX platform. Within nine years - between April 2015 and February 2024 - we offered 15 runs ...
How will the US assault on trade affect geopolitical relations within Asia? Will nations turn to China and seek protection by trading with each other? The happy snaps a week ago of the trade ministers ...
I mentioned this on Friday - but thought it deserved some emphasis.Auckland Waitematā District Commander Superintendent Naila Hassan has responded to Countering Hate Speech Aotearoa, saying police have cleared Brian Tamaki of all incitement charges relating to the Te Atatu library rainbow event assault.Hassan writes:..There is currently insufficient evidence to ...
With the report of the recent intelligence review by Heather Smith and Richard Maude finally released, critics could look on and wonder: why all the fuss? After all, while the list of recommendations is substantial, ...
Well, I don't know if I'm readyTo be the man I have to beI'll take a breath, I'll take her by my sideWe stand in awe, we've created lifeWith arms wide open under the sunlightWelcome to this place, I'll show you everythingSongwriters: Scott A. Stapp / Mark T. Tremonti.Today is ...
Staff at Kāinga Ora are expecting details of another round of job cuts, with the Green Party claiming more than 500 jobs are set to go. The New Zealand Defence Force has made it easier for people to apply for a job in a bid to get more boots on ...
Australia’s agriculture sector and food system have prospered under a global rules-based system influenced by Western liberal values. But the assumptions, policy approaches and economic frameworks that have traditionally supported Australia’s food security are no ...
Following Trump’s tariff announcement, US stock values fell by the most ever in value terms (US$6.6 trillion). Photo: Getty ImagesLong story shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning:Donald Trump just detonated a neutron bomb under the globalised economy, but this time the Fed isn’t cutting interest rates to rescue ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 30, 2025 thru Sat, April 5, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. The formatting is a ...
This is a longer read.Summary:Trump’s tariffs are reckless, disastrous and hurt the poorest countries deeply. It will stoke inflation, and may cause another recession. Funds/investments around the world have tanked.Trump’s actions emulate the anti-economic logic of another right wing libertarian politician - Liz Truss. She had her political career cut ...
We are all suckers for hope.He’s just being provocative, people will say, he wouldn’t really go that far. They wouldn’t really go that far.Germany in the 1920s and 30s was one of the world’s most educated, culturally sophisticated, and scientifically advanced societies.It had a strong democratic constitution with extensive civil ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Mars warming? Mars’ climate varies due to completely different reasons than Earth’s, and available data indicates no temperature trends comparable to Earth’s ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
I was interested in David Seymour's public presentation of the Justice Select Committee's report after the submissions to the Treaty Principles Bill.I noted the arguments he presented and fact checked him. I welcome corrections and additions to what I have written but want to keep the responses concise.The Treaty of ...
Well, he runs around with every racist in townHe spent all our money playing his pointless gameHe put us out; it was awful how he triedTables turn, and now his turn to cryWith apologies to writers Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack.Eight per cent, asshole, that’s all you got.Smiling?Let me re-phrase…Eight ...
In short this morning in our political economy:The S&P 500 fell another 5.6% this morning after China retaliated with tariffs of 34% on all US imports, and the Fed warned of stagflation without rate cut relief.Delays for heart surgeries and scans are costing lives, specialists have told Stuff’s Nicholas Jones.Meanwhile, ...
When the US Navy’s Great White Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1908, it was an unmistakeable signal of imperial might, a flexing of America’s newfound naval muscle. More than a century later, the Chinese ...
While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another attempt.To help answer the question, I am going to use the economic lens of the Coase Theorem, set out ...
2027 may still not be the year of war it’s been prophesised as, but we only have two years left to prepare. Regardless, any war this decade in the Indo-Pacific will be fought with the ...
Australia must do more to empower communities of colour in its response to climate change. In late February, the Multicultural Leadership Initiative hosted its Our Common Future summits in Sydney and Melbourne. These summits focused ...
Questions 1. In his godawful decree, what tariff rate was imposed by Trump upon the EU?a. 10% same as New Zealandb. 20%, along with a sneer about themc. 40%, along with an outright lie about France d. 69% except for the town Melania comes from2. The justice select committee has ...
Yesterday the Trump regime in America began a global trade war, imposing punitive tariffs in an effort to extort political and economic concessions from other countries and US companies and constituencies. Trump's tariffs will make kiwis nearly a billion dollars poorer every year, but Luxon has decided to do nothing ...
Here’s 7 updates from this morning’s news:90% of submissions opposed the TPBNZ’s EV market tanked by Coalition policies, down ~70% year on yearTrump showFossil fuel money driving conservative policiesSimeon Brown won’t say that abortion is healthcarePhil Goff stands by comments and makes a case for speaking upBrian Tamaki cleared of ...
It’s the 9 month mark for Mountain Tūī !Thanks to you all, the publication now has over 3200 subscribers, 30 recommendations from Substack writers, and averages over 120,000 views a month. A very small number in the scheme of things, but enough for me to feel satisfied.I’m been proud of ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on National's racist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, and recommended by majority that it not proceed. So hopefully it will now rapidly go to second reading and be voted down. As for submissions, it turns out that around 380,000 people submitted on ...
We need to treat disinformation as we deal with insurgencies, preventing the spreaders of lies from entrenching themselves in the host population through capture of infrastructure—in this case, the social media outlets. Combining targeted action ...
After copping criticism for not releasing the report for nearly eight months, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released the Independent Intelligence Review on 28 March. It makes for a heck of a read. The review makes ...
After copping criticism for not releasing the report for nearly eight months, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released the Independent Intelligence Review on 28 March. It makes for a heck of a read. The review makes ...
In short this morning in our political economy:Donald Trump has shocked the global economy and markets with the biggest tariffs since the Smoot Hawley Act of 1930, which worsened the Great Depression.Global stocks slumped 4-5% overnight and key US bond yields briefly fell below 4% as investors fear a recession ...
Hi,I’ve been imagining a scenario where I am walking along the pavement in the United States. It’s dusk, I am off to get a dirty burrito from my favourite place, and I see three men in hoodies approaching.Anther two men appear from around a corner, and this whole thing feels ...
Since the announcement in September 2021 that Australia intended to acquire nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with Britain and the United States, the plan has received significant media attention, scepticism and criticism. There are four major ...
On a very wet Friday, we hope you have somewhere nice and warm and dry to sit and catch up on our roundup of some of this week’s top stories in transport and urbanism. The header image shows Northcote Intermediate Students strolling across the Te Ara Awataha Greenway Bridge in ...
On a very wet Friday, we hope you have somewhere nice and warm and dry to sit and catch up on our roundup of some of this week’s top stories in transport and urbanism. The header image shows Northcote Intermediate Students strolling across the Te Ara Awataha Greenway Bridge in ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and Elaine Monaghan on the week in geopolitics and climate, including Donald Trump’s tariff shock yesterday; and,Labour’s Disarmament and Associate ...
I'm gonna try real goodSwear that I'm gonna try from now on and for the rest of my lifeI'm gonna power on, I'm gonna enjoy the highsAnd the lows will come and goAnd may your dreamsAnd may your dreamsAnd may your dreams never dieSongwriters: Ben Reed.These are Stranger Days than ...
With the execution of global reciprocal tariffs, US President Donald Trump has issued his ‘declaration of economic independence for America’. The immediate direct effect on the Australian economy will likely be small, with more risk ...
The StrategistBy Jacqueline Gibson, Nerida King and Ned Talbot
AUKUS governments began 25 years ago trying to draw in a greater range of possible defence suppliers beyond the traditional big contractors. It is an important objective, and some progress has been made, but governments ...
I approach fresh Trump news reluctantly. It never holds the remotest promise of pleasure. I had the very, very least of expectations for his Rumble in the Jungle, his Thriller in Manila, his Liberation Day.God May 1945 is becoming the bitterest of jokes isn’t it?Whatever. Liberation Day he declared it ...
Beyond trade and tariff turmoil, Donald Trump pushes at the three core elements of Australia’s international policy: the US alliance, the region and multilateralism. What Kevin Rudd called the ‘three fundamental pillars’ are the heart ...
So, having broken its promise to the nation, and dumped 85% of submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill in the trash, National's stooges on the Justice Committee have decided to end their "consideration" of the bill, and report back a full month early: Labour says the Justice Select Committee ...
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review offers a mature and sophisticated understanding of workforce challenges facing Australia’s National Intelligence Community (NIC). It provides a thoughtful roadmap for modernising that workforce and enhancing cross-agency and cross-sector collaboration. ...
OPINION AND ANALYSIS:Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier’s comments singling out Health NZ for “acting contrary to the law” couldn’t be clearer. If you find my work of value, do consider subscribing and/or supporting me. Thank you.Health NZ has been acting a law unto itself. That includes putting its management under extraordinary ...
Southeast Asia’s three most populous countries are tightening their security relationships, evidently in response to China’s aggression in the South China Sea. This is most obvious in increased cooperation between the coast guards of the ...
In the late 1970s Australian sport underwent institutional innovation propelling it to new heights. Today, Australia must urgently adapt to a contested and confronting strategic environment. Contributing to this, a new ASPI research project will ...
In short this morning in our political economy:The Nelson Hospital waiting list crisis just gets worse, including compelling interviews with an over-worked surgeon who is leaving, and a patient who discovered after 19 months of waiting for a referral that her bowel and ovaries were fused together with scar tissue ...
Plainly, the claims being tossed around in the media last year that the new terminal envisaged by Auckland International Airport was a gold-plated “Taj Mahal” extravagance were false. With one notable exception, the Commerce Commission’s comprehensive investigation has ended up endorsing every other aspect of the airport’s building programme (and ...
Today, the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill has passed its third and final reading, but there is one more stage before it becomes law. The Governor-General must give their ‘Royal assent’ for any bill to become legally enforceable. This means that, even if a bill gets voted ...
Abortion care at Whakatāne Hospital has been quietly shelved, with patients told they will likely have to travel more than an hour to Tauranga to get the treatment they need. ...
Thousands of New Zealanders’ submissions are missing from the official parliamentary record because the National-dominated Justice Select Committee has rushed work on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...
Today’s announcement of 10 percent tariffs for New Zealand goods entering the United States is disappointing for exporters and consumers alike, with the long-lasting impact on prices and inflation still unknown. ...
The National Government’s choices have contributed to a slow-down in the building sector, as thousands of people have lost their jobs in construction. ...
Willie Apiata’s decision to hand over his Victoria Cross to the Minister for Veterans is a powerful and selfless act, made on behalf of all those who have served our country. ...
The Privileges Committee has denied fundamental rights to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, breaching their own standing orders, breaching principles of natural justice, and highlighting systemic prejudice and discrimination within our parliamentary processes. The three MPs were summoned to the privileges committee following their performance of a haka ...
April 1 used to be a day when workers could count on a pay rise with stronger support for those doing it tough, but that’s not the case under this Government. ...
Winston Peters is shopping for smaller ferries after Nicola Willis torpedoed the original deal, which would have delivered new rail enabled ferries next year. ...
The Government should work with other countries to press the Myanmar military regime to stop its bombing campaign especially while the country recovers from the devastating earthquake. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to scrap proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, after attending a petition calling for the Government to ‘Put tamariki at the heart of decisions about ECE’. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill today that will remove the power of MPs conscience votes and ensure mandatory national referendums are held before any conscience issues are passed into law. “We are giving democracy and power back to the people”, says New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters. ...
Welcome to members of the diplomatic corp, fellow members of parliament, the fourth estate, foreign affairs experts, trade tragics, ladies and gentlemen. ...
In recent weeks, disturbing instances of state-sanctioned violence against Māori have shed light on the systemic racism permeating our institutions. An 11-year-old autistic Māori child was forcibly medicated at the Henry Bennett Centre, a 15-year-old had his jaw broken by police in Napier, kaumātua Dean Wickliffe went on a hunger ...
Confidence in the job market has continued to drop to its lowest level in five years as more New Zealanders feel uncertain about finding work, keeping their jobs, and getting decent pay, according to the latest Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index. ...
The Greens are calling on the Government to follow through on their vague promises of environmental protection in their Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. ...
“Make New Zealand First Again” Ladies and gentlemen, First of all, thank you for being here today. We know your lives are busy and you are working harder and longer than you ever have, and there are many calls on your time, so thank you for the chance to speak ...
Hundreds more Palestinians have died in recent days as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues and humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, is blocked. ...
National is looking to cut hundreds of jobs at New Zealand’s Defence Force, while at the same time it talks up plans to increase focus and spending in Defence. ...
The Government’s new planning legislation to replace the Resource Management Act will make it easier to get things done while protecting the environment, say Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop and Under-Secretary Simon Court. “The RMA is broken and everyone knows it. It makes it too hard to build ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay has today launched a public consultation on New Zealand and India’s negotiations of a formal comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. “Negotiations are getting underway, and the Public’s views will better inform us in the early parts of this important negotiation,” Mr McClay says. We are ...
More than 900 thousand superannuitants and almost five thousand veterans are among the New Zealanders set to receive a significant financial boost from next week, an uplift Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says will help support them through cost-of-living challenges. “I am pleased to confirm that from 1 ...
Progressing a holistic strategy to unlock the potential of New Zealand’s geothermal resources, possibly in applications beyond energy generation, is at the centre of discussions with mana whenua at a hui in Rotorua today, Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is in the early stages ...
New annual data has exposed the staggering cost of delays previously hidden in the building consent system, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I directed Building Consent Authorities to begin providing quarterly data last year to improve transparency, following repeated complaints from tradespeople waiting far longer than the statutory ...
Tara Ward has the sartorial night of her life at the south’s most prestigious fashion event. I know nothing about fashion. I work from home, which means my office attire usually involves a dressing gown and track pants. When I dare to leave the house, I am a confused butterfly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Technology Sydney Chinese-Australian voters were pivotal to Labor’s win in the 2022 election, with the swing against the Liberals in several key marginal seats almost twice that of other seats. Many traditionally ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joel Anderson, Associate Professor in LGBTIQA+ Psychology, La Trobe University Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock From The Bachelor to Married at First Sight, reality TV sells us the idea that one perfect partner will complete us. The formula is familiar: find “the one,” lock ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: Kimberly Andrews, author of new picture book Giraffe the Gardener.The book I wish I’d writtenThe Skull is Jon Klassen’s wonderfully noir adaptation of a traditional Tyrolean ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mathew Doidge, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury Getty Images It’s unlikely many New Zealanders paid close attention to Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ statement late last year that “New Zealand and Germany are committed to ...
Woop woop, that’s the sound of the last week in parliament for a month.Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus.The last-week-of-school jitters tend to manifest as making ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Stone, Credit Union SA Chair of Economics, University of South Australia Shutterstock The past week has seen the United States single-handedly rewrite the underlying paradigm for global trade. And while it is fair to say that the methods are extreme, ...
For one day a year, Christchurch pools open for pooches to take the plunge. All week I was hyping up Maggie, our rescue terrier cross, for the big day with her best friend. Ready for the pool party Maggie? With Peachy? Ready to see Peachy? At the pool party? Her ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has urged Kiwis to be "resilient" in the face of the global economic turmoil brought on by hard-hitting US trade tariffs this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Tran, Academic Tutor at Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology Since Iron Man hit the big screen in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has made more than US$30 billion, from films to series, to merchandise and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Cull, Associate professor, Western Sydney University Secure and affordable housing is a fundamental human right for all Australians. Therefore, it is unsurprising the election campaign is being played out against a backdrop of heightened voter anxiety about rental stress and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Wardle, Professor of Public Health, Southern Cross University Rui Dias/Pexels Private health insurers may soon be able to offer rebates for seven complementary therapies previously prohibited. This includes some movement therapies – Pilates, yoga, tai chi and Alexander technique, ...
With the former Labour leader ‘80%’ certain to throw his hat in the ring for the capital’s top job, Tory Whanau’s life just got a lot harder, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.A political heavyweight returns? ...
“We will hold banners, toiere (sing) waiata, and chant to draw attention to the far right ideology of the Tesla CEO and to encourage potential Tesla customers away from a product with fascist ties," says PAFC spokesperson Michelle Ducat. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Winston Peters turns a venerable 80 on April 11, but he showed no sign of retiring as New Zealand’s archetypal populist during his recent ...
A scary look inside the inboxes of two recent politicians. Damon has worked as a social media content creator for the Green Party and helps create content for Wellington mayor Tory Whanau. This piece is written in his own capacity as a private citizen. Opinions do not represent the Wellington ...
In a selection of anonymous quotes, a group of female parliamentarians from across the political spectrum give an insight into what they deal with. A study published today has called for urgent action in response to harassment of female MPs in New Zealand. The researchers from the department of psychological ...
A recent High Court ruling has raised alarm bells about the long-term integrity of Treaty settlements – and concern over how a little-known clause in the Fisheries Act could cost iwi millions. In 1992, the Crown and Māori reached what was meant to be a “full and final” settlement over ...
Comment: When the US launched fresh airstrikes on Yemen last month, it signalled the continuation of a strategy that has failed for more than 20 years to weaken the Houthi rebels. While bombing Houthi assets in Yemen will reduce the group’s ability to attack ships in the Red Sea, such ...
Three Te Pāti Māori MPs have two weeks to end their deadlock with the Privileges Committee over their refusal to front up at a hearing into their haka last November, or they’ll face serious consquences.They can’t be sacked or imprisoned – The Privileges Committee tried to imprison someone once but ...
Analysis: Researching my book The Science of the Māori Lunar Calendar has deepened my appreciation of Mātauranga Māori and its importance to the lives of New Zealanders past and present. Not long ago, Māori knowledge was largely disregarded by the scientific community and treated as little more than myth and ...
The bus heading south from Cork airport left twenty minutes before my plane arrived, on time, from London. The next one was not due for another two hours. From all the stereotypes I had inherited, this seemed very Irish. As did the moniker “Emerald Isle”. Flying in, the June landscape ...
Temepara Bailey and Leana de Bruin can read each other’s minds. They can glance across the netball court and communicate with a simple nod. They finish each other’s sentences.Their relationship has built over 25 years to ‘best mate’ status, and it’s about to take on a new dimension as they ...
Consumers just aren’t feeling it. It’s been clear enough in the anecdote. But, over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen an unsettling sputtering in a broadening suite of retail spending indicators as well.It started with a sharp and unexpected drop in Westpac’s consumer confidence index for the March quarter. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaitlyn DeGhetto, Associate Professor of Management, University of Dayton To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The election’s first debate, on Sky News on Tuesday night, was disappointingly dull. Viewers who’d been following the campaign would have learned little. There was minimal spontaneity. Among the 100 undecided voters in the room, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Node Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, Flinders University A coral ‘rope’ nursery in the MaldivesLuca Saponari/University of Milan, CC BY-ND Coral ...
Interesting piece by Chris Trotter at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/behind-mask-whos-backing-david-shearer.html?m=1
I disagree, though, when he says Cunliffe is capable of forging a new political, economic and social consensus. I think he had three years to do that as Labour finance spokesman and failed to make any impact. Some might say he didn’t have support but Ruth Richardson managed to completely transform National as opposition finance spokesperson between 1987 and 1990 and that was against the wishes of the party hierarchy. I also don’t really think Cunliffe is genuinely as left as he tells activists. I think that’s just to give them a bit of a thrill.
Thanks for your considered and helpful views Matthew.
I am sure they are motivated by the best of intentions and the desire to make the next Government more left wing and sensitive to the environmental issues that we face, particularly in relation to climate change.
EDIT
I am also interested in your response to this passage in Trotter’s post:
“Hence the near unanimous hatred directed at Cunliffe by the mouthpieces of the neoliberal establishment. Fran O’Sullivan, Jane Clifton and Matthew Hooton have gone to extraordinary lengths to besmirch Cunliffe’s character and ridicule his ideas. In a pincer movement with Shearer’s caucus allies they have attempted to cast the Member for New Lynn as a sly, egomaniacal (if ultimately inept) Cassius, plotting constantly to bring down Labour’s sensible Caesar.”
Not sure what “extraordinary lengths” I have gone to. I have always thought he is a nice enough fellow. It’s the people at MFAT and in Labour who I know who have worked with him to seem to hate him for his pomposity and laziness – but I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits.
So are you saying that you went to some lengths to besmirch Cunliffe’s character but they were not extraordinary lengths?
No, I’m saying I haven’t besmirched his character at all.
I know who have worked with him to seem to hate him for his pomposity and laziness – but I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits.
Christ – disingenuous or what? “I’m not going to say bad things about him, but wait – I’m going to pass on nasty gossip about him from other people”.
Could you be just a bit less obvious?
It’s obvious what’s got Hooten miffed at David Cunliffe, it’s in the ‘words i don’t know him well enough’,
Obviously Cunliffe treats Hooten as He should be treated, like LEPERS where treated prior to enlightened medical treatments…
Hey Hoots…despite what you have written, Trotter’s piece wasn’t about Cunliffe. It was about Shearer. Stop prancing around the point.
Hey Matty. Explaining is losing.
If Hooton were in Parliament, he’d set all-new records for getting thrown out of the House for constant “I personally wouldn’t call the Member a Nazi because it’s unparliamentary, but …” shenanigans.
Pointless Rhino. Shit. Hill. Pushing.
I hope I’m still around when little piggies start squeeling. (Who MOI?????, M-O-I????)
So just so I can understand things Matthew you have said today:
“I think he had three years to do that as Labour finance spokesman and failed to make any impact.”
“I also don’t really think Cunliffe is genuinely as left as he tells activists. I think that’s just to give them a bit of a thrill.”
“It’s the people at MFAT and in Labour who I know who have worked with him to seem to hate him for his pomposity and laziness ”
“He can’t be much of a politician if he can be “censored” for four years”
AND
“I’m saying I haven’t besmirched his character at all.”
Please reconcile these statements.
All just statements of fact
So you repeating gossip leaked to you by ABC is a statement of fact?
I fear Matthew that you are reinforcing Trotter’s statement about you by your comments.
Is this intended?
Or is this a sly double play where you besmirch Cunliffe and Shearer at the same time?
And if ya don’t believe me – listen to Rinnie Ryan! She’ll set you str8
Hahaha, I guess it makes sense that you don’t remember anything you say on radiolive or nine to noon.
If you did, you’d never walk into a studio again.
Hootens got Keys disease. It’s the memory that goes first, and the bullshit just runs down their chins!
TIM!!!! (@ Karol and the womderfuly like=moded) /…….I thought you said you wern’t gunna comment nemor…….
True. It’s just that stating the bleeid ng obvious is SO hard – worse than giving up smoking.
When is it that Spin Doctores like Hooten and others are not actually as clever as most would have you believe -I’ll wager most think the guy is actually irrelevant and the past participle of te spent brigade (“going fprward”).
The real problem is a defunct MSM. ………being challenged daily
Oh so you don’t think that, ‘not knowing Cunliffe well enough to observe these traits’ while at the same time claiming that that you ‘think’ that Cunliffe is not as ‘left’ as what He tells activists isn’t besmirching Cunliffe’s character,
It’s just a series of unfounded pieces of Bullshit dredged up from the mind of someone that when the high priests of Torydom were dishing out the silver spoons shoved your one a long way into the wrong orifice where it’s obviously still lodged…
Jesus Hooten Can you even lie straight in bed???
Nah, he’s so twisted, he needs two assistants to help him screw his pants on in the morning.
Eeeew.
>:)
Seriously tho’, his associations with neonazis and racists is something far less funny and something that needs exposure to sunlight.
I personally don’t think that Hooton is a neo-nazi… I just see that he’s a completely amoral money-grubber who has no qualms about shilling for work amongst them until the media spotlight shows just how evil they are and how that’s not a “good look” for Effluvium.
Hooten says he doesn’t know him (Cunliffe) well enough to have personally observed these traits (pomposity and laziness).
Well I have observed totally different traits in Cunliffe, and I do not believe he is what the MSM and others are making him out to be – lazy, traitorous, unlikeable etc etc etc.
As an example :
We had an extraordinary public meeting in Whangarei during the last (2011) election campaign.
We held it in a school hall in the middle of a Decile 1, low income, state housing area with a population predominantly Maori., and had a large audience.
Cunliffe gave a clear and convincing presentation on economics – world economics, NZ trade , and what could be done to fix our tattered economy. He didn’t “talk down” to his audience, he put in a few jokes every so often, he answered questions with facts/figures in such a way that everyone understood him.
The feedback after that public meeting was – no-one had ever told them these details in such an easy to understand manner before, could he come again, and what a great informative evening it had been for them all.
You cannot tell me that a man who is able to deliver such a presentation to such an audience and get such a response is either pompous or lazy. He would have had to work hard to put such a presentation together. He would have had to change the presentation to suit that particular audience. He was friendly, affable, and articulate.
Maybe, but there is that disturbing rant he had at the Otara market during the last election campaign that’s on YouTube. Will have put some middle ground voters off and being on the web in will never go away.
Could you provide a link to this disturbing rant please???…
It was a film of Cunliffe kicking the Right Wing’s ass. So yeah, they’d be disturbed haha
I looked for it but now can’t find it. However, I have seen it and it is nothing to be disturbed about. I think the claim at the time was “it will not appeal to the middle class.” I took it to mean that wing of the middle class who are presently on the gravy train and do not want to see the flow of gravy disrupted.
LOLZ, perhaps i should send the above commenter a tape of some of the ‘discussion’ that goes on in this house,
She would then fully ‘appreciate’ what a ‘disturbing rant’ really sounds like…
To be fair it was neither disturbing or really kicking the right wing’s ass. He just ran through Labour’s slogans and normal accusations that were repeated all the time through the election. It was passionate and reasonably good but nothing too special – Whaleoil etc picked it up and ran with it because he put on a polynesian accent and that basically makes him the ku klux klan. Here is the link:
Taa much…
It was one of those whale-oil type “scandals” where only the most twisted right-wing hacks can work out what’s scandalous about it.
To anyone else it was just a video of David campaigning. Oh the horror. It’s also not at the Otara market, that’s just right-wing shorthand for brown people in Auckland.
It’s here: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=qvenqcfX1j8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DqvenqcfX1j8&gl=GB
He uses a faux Polynesian accent ‘cos he’s talking to brown people
You use a faux political commentator accent, so what’s your point, here?
If you think that that is a ‘faux Polynesian’ accent then your obviously not as intelligent as what you think you are,(but then we all know that except you),
What Cunliffe is doing there is slowing down His speech and over-emphasizing some words in an effort to give as much understanding as possible to what was obviously an audience of mixed race where presumably many would have English as a second language,
If you want ‘faux Polynesia’ check out Seone’s Wedding or any of the other stuff done by that particular crew for TV,
That particular tape of Cunliffe makes your radio voice of ‘large plum in the mouth as you talk down to the peasants’ sound like the rantings of an old English Lord inescapably addicted to Heroin pontificating on the sins of the hired help when all the time your nothing but a over-paid leach at the trough paid to goose the ego’s of the major suckers of the States teat by telling them that every thing they do is just fine…
thats funny bad
LOLZ, the turd i was addressing the comment at doesn’t seem to think so, really needs His sense of humor updated as well as a few of His other personal traits like His propensity to talk s**t….
,(but then we all know that except you),
“Thick and full of himself” as even his own clients say according to The Hollow Men
I wonder how it feels to have the people whose club he aspires to join snigger at him…
I would rather listen to Cunliffe’s truths, than Hootons LIES!
He uses a faux Polynesian accent ‘cos he’s talking to brown people
What a racist thing to assume Matthew, you should be ashamed of yourself…
As bad12 has pointed out, Cunliffe was speaking to a crowd of people that may have had English as their second language, he was using a loudspeaker, and the crowd were dispersed so the talking was slowed down.
Its a racist observation Matthew…hang your head in shame
Come on Matthew, DC is adaptable.
As are you when you want $ off the pinkos to hawk their silly ideas.
That a good one, sounds like your alluding to Hooten having been paid by the anti-Cunliffe crew to spread some rumor and innuendo…
Kate please tell us details …
???
Capitalists lesson no 1: a dollar is worth a dollar no matter where it comes from.
Cunliffe went to Pukenui School in Te Kuiti, bro he’s probably been putting on a pakeha accent and the maori accent comes pretty naturally!
Matthew, what a wanky thing to bring up, sort yourself out!
And you Matty screech just a bit in a distinctly effete way when someone’s got ya.
Cathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon repeatedly has to chide you for the entitled wee schoolboy you are with your overtalking and cat-fighty style. Never heard it myself but that’s…
…What…I’m…Told…By…The…Connected…People…I…Know…Smirk…Smirk.
15 sec search on google will do it every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvenqcfX1j8
Not sure what is disturbing about it – pretty standard political rhetoric.
It is the faux maori accent, and I would call it revealing, rather than disturbing.
lolz. That sneaky left wing bastard, trying to pass as polynesian.
I think it’s revealing too, but not of Cunliffe.
Yes. It is so important, when one is talking to the fuzzy wuzzies to talk in language they understand. Come down to their level, and such. One must refer to “da rich fullas” rather than “the rich” otherwise they will simply not understand what one is saying. And if they do not understand what one is saying one will not be able to protect them.
Bolger used to ape accents all the time. I sort of thought it was a subconsciously empathetic thing.
Although I couldn’t stand Bolger as PM, he was surprisingly egalitarian in some ways. Just not smart enough to realise his government policies were trashing the poor.
Ole, the conclusions you jump to are exactly what I meant by “revealing”.
OK. I am thick, I get it. I wonder what accent Cunliffe would employ when talking to me.
I’m not sure that anyone else can descend to that level. Interpreting and understanding “Ook” is a hell of a lot easier than expressing a simple sentence in it. It is a “subtle” language you have mastered and it has been quite apparent for some time that you don’t understand English.
(my apologies to Pratchett – but that one just begged for it :twisted:)
no accent, just very small words.
I’m reminded of a WWII doco that I had to switch off because it was so overwrought about Hitler’s evilness (yes, the man was evil, but I think we don’t need that repeated every thirty seconds).
One of their arguments was (read it in a conspiracy-theory American accent): “He would change the way he spoke to appeal to different audiences!!!!!”
If you’re criticising Cunliffe for using “fellas” in one context when he may well say “folks” or “people” or “wankers” in another, I sure hope you speak to your dear old granny at morning tea the way you talk to your mates at the pub after a few. Because otherwise you’d be terrible hypocrites, and also linguistic freaks.
lol QoT.
What Maori or Polynesian accent? He uses some Maori words, is that what you mean?
Like “fulla”?
Gormless,(obviously), it’s fella not fulla, your the only one round here thats fulla and i will leave you with the easy task of inserting what comes after the fulla…
Gormless, are you objecting to Cunliffe using the word, or how he said it? I couldn’t detect any obvious accent other than a Noo Zeelund one. And why object to fella/fulla? Why not object to his using the words Maori words like tamariki etc? You’re grasping at some pretty insubstantial straws if you think the use of one word, however it is said, means anything.
I am not objecting to anything. He is putting on an accent to appeal to his audience. It says something about how he views them. That is all.
Yeah it was brilliant off the cuff oratory work. Did you mistake Cunliffe for someone of Pasifika origin?
“brilliant off the cuff oratory work”
I hope you’re joking, Cunliffe like all our current crop of politicians is a pretty hopeless orator, the most recent good orator in NZ politics was David Lange in my opinion.
Revealing of what? You and Matthew Hooton are grasping at straws here, as was Whale oil in the first place. I draw your attention to a comment made earlier this week by Max Moss, who is on Cunliffe’s LEC. This is a person who actually knows Cunliffe, and certainly runs counter to the claims of pomposity and laziness, as well as the suggestion of inauthenticity.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-07012013/#comment-570340
One thing I do know about Cunliffe is that you can actually chat with him as a regular man in a room, without the vulgar sense of his “working the room” or trying to “win them over.”
And when he had the ‘chat’ on the Herald as did other politicians. I found that he was the easiest to understand, because he does not over explain things, he keeps it simple.
It disturbs me that anyone not in the WhaleSpew Army could be disturbed by Cunliffe’s Otara speech. He’s on top of a vehicle with a megaphone and speaks clearly and slowly in his own voice. If you want to hear a fake accent, just listen to Key being a regla blok prendin to be prumster of Noozillid.
@ Murray Olsen
hmm, don’t think Mr Key is pretending….he just can’t speak very well….lacks ability to enunciate…just thought I’d mention that….I agree with your comment apart from that….
Well done Olsen except you miss the times when Key dumps the bloke impersonation in favour of the dude persona……to wit his use of the word “munted” when he gets on some rubbish guffawing laughter every 6 seconds radio show.
How’s that for sham ? Trying to paint himself up as an out there dude tradey or something.
Bloody embarrassing. Cringey stuff. And for you Oleo…..must you scrape the bottom of your own barrel so ?
Goodness Jane – (and Hooten et al) that wasn’t a “disturbing rant” Cunliffe gave at the Otara market (I’ve just watched/listened to it on U-Tube Sat 12 Jan). That was a basic street corner speech which is typical of any election campaign. And I didn’t hear Cunliffe say “da rich fullas” as a putdown of bro language. I heard him say “the rich fellas” which is typical NZ (Pakeha) talk. You guys are imagining or making up things about Cunliffe without any foundation whatsoever.
MH – I would say that your first comment above comes as close as possible to uninformed “character assassination”. Oh, yes, indeed, you sure do go to “extraordinary lengths” to revile him, and then have the gall to confess “I don’t know him well enough to have personally observed these traits” (of your imagination). There are few more condescending “put-downs” than to describe Cunliffe as “a nice enough fellow” (with the implied BUT). Exactly how many people at MFAT and in Labour do you actually know – or who would want to know you? Name the people who “seem” (N.B.) to hate him (what kind of people indulge in any kind of “hatred”?)
Please take care to check facts against delusions.
Do you really, think that is, for instance what ‘impact’ has David Parker had as Labour Finance spokesperson,
I think that if a person of your ilk supports David Shearer as the Labour Party leader then the members of Labour are right in having a really close look at just where His sentiments lie in the left/right paradigm of politics,
I doubt whether you have actually even met a genuine ‘member of the left’ so as to give you the perspective to judge who genuinely holds left-wing views,
I think you should crawl back into the dark spaces of the smelly, slime encrusted sewers which is your normal habitat and desist from provoking the likes of me to amounts of anger that at the least are bad for my health…
I’m always interested what people think is a “genuine member” of the left or right, as one who is generally accused of being a RWNJ on this site could you enlighten me.
F off over to the sewer, there is that enough ‘enlightenment’ for you…
Very enlightening.
Here, this might help, STFU, F off over to the Sewer where you will be aquainted with the definition of any number of Right Wing Nut Jobs,
Read the pages of the Standard and you will be aquainted with the wide ranging views of ‘genuine lefty’s plus the views of the odd Right Wing Nut Job, even a 5 year old could spot the difference…
Even more enlightening.
hs, do you really not understand that Matthyawn isn’t a genuine lefty, and that everything he says or writes is paid for, and that he’s just here to disrupt and sow confusion?
Felix
1. Yes I do know that
2. I doubt that very much
3. There’s no doubt he enjoys coming here for a bit of sport.
I’d still like a genuine reply to my question to Mr bad12
Try the answer at 8.47am, that genuine enough for you…
No just another mindless rant.
In case you hadn’t noticed there’s some fairly diverse views among the mix at this site, although sometimes it does resemble a rather vitriolic echo chamber when the locals choose to attack someone.
For example the site sysop is a lefty voter with a self proclaimed ‘right’ lean in economics, then you have the likes of DTB who would suggest that most ‘lefties’ on this site are rampantly to the ‘right’.
Hence my request for you to define your view of ‘left’ and ‘right’.
Actually, I don’t. I happen to think that most of those on the left here are actually on the left I just happen to think that the Labour Party is on the right.
lolz hs, I’m sure you know that Hoots is a paid lobbyist and spin merchant. I’m sure you know that when he’s paid to appear in the media and talk politics he’s also being paid by his clients to do so in their interests. I find it inconceivable that you think he switches off the machine just for the standard.
I find it inconceivable that anyone would be paid to post or comment at this site.
I find it inconceivable that anyone would be paid to impart PR spin, but they say the world is a mysterious place.
Indeed, but apparently government and councils are full of them funded by the tax and ratepayer ?
until they make their bones enough to go work for National party HQ.
It’s the only form of publicly-funded education that national actually support.
I certainly don’t believe there were as many PR hacks in councils and government twenty or even ten years ago – it’s like HR departments they seen to have proliferated during the last couple of decades and are overflowing with weasels.
Things seem to have got along OK before they all came along……. grumpy old man rant over and out !
And that’s probably true, hs … but do you really think Matthew either
(a) completely believes everything he says when being paid for it, which is why he says exactly the same stuff when commenting in a personal capacity or
(b) isn’t smart enough to protect his paid-for “unbiased pundit” brand by continuing to say the same shit he’s paid for out-of-hours?
“Astroturfing”
Trouble is, he’s shit at it. I get the impression that he does it just to show his equally ignorant clients that he’s delivering value for money.
Jaysus Matthew, for someone who makes a living out of political commentary you are woefully poorly informed. You are a shocking dunderhead. Go to the corner.
The dogs on the street knew that Cunliffe was censored throughout the Goff era. He did all the work and had to leave the speeches for Phil Goff to try to build his leader ratings. The same shite continued under Shearer.
for someone who makes a living out of political commentary you are woefully poorly informed
No, Hooton doesn’t make his living from commentary – that just helps his media profile. He’s a professional spin doctor and lobbyist – a free-market Goebbels if you like. You can be sure that his company, “Effluvium” or whatever it’s called is not woefully poorly informed. You can be sure that it – and he – is very well paid. Hooton doesn’t shit without someone being sent an invoice.
“Effluvium” Or Effluent? Oh well it’s all shit to me.
Actually, he called it “Excelsium”, which is something someone who lives in his mum’s basement would call his avatar in World of Warcraft. “He’s Excelsium, and he’s a fifth-level mage and he… he, he has a magical sword, and he shoots acid from his fingers! He’s, like TOTALLY AWESOME!”
Hooton is really just a frustrated teenager at heart.
He can’t be much of a politician if he can be “censored” for four years. There were plenty in the National hierarchy trying to “censor” Richardson but she found ways around that. That’s how you achieve political, economic and social change. Change agents let alone revolutionaries don’t wait for permission from the existing order.
Interested in your response Matthew to Trotter’s claim that you are attempting to besmirch Cunliffe and this represents an unholy alliance between the mouthpieces of the neoliberal establishment and ABC.
I think that’s nonsense
Has the pay-check from RadioNZ National dried up over the summer break and you are now bored so have to drag your pompous ‘silver spoon’ banality into the Standard,
The ‘smooch-fest’ between you and Williams on that piece of pathetic puffery makes you sound like you have something hard lodged within the rear of your anatomy and are in dire need of an urgent flushing,
Your support of Shearer as Labour leader on it’s own should be enough for the caucus to trigger the Party wide vote on the issue of leadership…
So is trying to set the tone of the ‘ts’s’ discussion around a piece that was already linked to yesterday by diong a 7:21 am link to it. (ie top of the open mike).
I could be wrong Mathew. But I don’t recall you instigating discussion on topics here before. Don’t you normally just respond with a view to obscufate and derail? I think you do.
But not this time. Which could be an indication of how much ‘nonsense’ it is to suggest you and your ilk are desperate to elevate Shearer and (by extension) an ongoing neo-liberal trajectory.
‘Shearer is a good guy. Labour’s sleepwalking plan is a fine plan. Cunliffe is dead in the water. Cunliffe is allegedly incompetant and lazy and arrogant – Cunliffe isn’t liked’ – and I (Mathew Hooten) am more than happy to keep on referencing those allegations and opinions in one way or another ie, to besmirch without actually besmirching in a direct fashion.
Oh. Apart from the wee nuggets, like in your above comments, where you directly suggest that Cunliffe is a crap politician.
And, of course, mustn’t forget the obvious fact that Rhinoviper points out (again) – this time around at 1.3.1. on this thread.
“That’s how you achieve political, economic and social change.”
As opposed to donations in plain brown envelopes, swipe cards to parliament, policy for cash, and dodgy in-house agenda driven focus/polling groups like we have now.
Care to declare/deny any emails, texts, call logs or meetings?
“Change agents let alone revolutionaries don’t wait for permission from the existing order.”
I’m suspecting you know as much about change agents and revolutionaries as you do about David Cunliffe.
When real change comes, and it will, if you’re not on the first plane out with the other smug rich pricks, I’m sure they’ll be a spot up against the proverbial wall for your efforts.
LOLZ, well said….
Some politicians being “censored” indicates that they are, in fact, doing a bloody good job! You are (even now!) an admirer of Richardson? Enough said!
Hooton, you give Richardson as an example of being ‘censorsed’ the truth being more like
some nats thought her policies were detrimental to the health and wellbeing of those
it would affect,(although it would be a first in the right thinking of the people) indeed
her policies caused difficulties for a huge number of people,
when you remove $50pw off beneficiaries of course stress will follow,it shows
that Shipley/Richardson women could not give a continental about peoples lives and as it turns out they didn’t,but Shipley/Richardson could claim tens of thousands a year in perks and tax payer paid benefits, spot the difference.
While i am at it Shipley and Richardson left a $20 billion debt, is that good financial
management of tax payer dollars ?
Incidently,a peice of good journalism would be to find out what ex politicians are
still recieving tax payer funded air travel and remuneration, i understand it continues
to get paid until the leave this mortal coil.
This while beneficiaries are being targeted by your idol Shearer re: painter on the roof
Shearer’s credentials for the leadership of Labour are lacking and wanting.
The defence of Shearer by the right of politics and media raises questions about
his true allegiance, please, tell us more about ‘that’ barbie.
Cunliffe has been ‘censored’ by the Right clique inside caucus, even though he
won 9 out of the 10 meetings in a membership vote for the leadership, his shackles
are still on tightly and he cannot be seen to be doing anything unless the ‘clique’ give
him permission.
A manager in ChCh was bemoaning the quality of staff available, she wanted government to do something about people like the lady who took a break and never came back.
Now objectively, not something you’ll find in a third market (one on the edge of the world). Surely a manager is expected to know her customers and her employees, and that if an employee walk off the job she should have some idea why. Like Shearer, why doesn’t he know why the roofer was up there while on sicky?
Aging population, and better pay conditions in OZ mean there are fewer young people entering the work market and those that are around want to be skilled up so they can fly the ditch (only way they will own their own home). Scarcity means managers like her have to offer more, have to be aware of her employees needs, to get skills and move on to better jobs. Instead we have this blame culture from the rich, that somehow its the poor who created the economic malaise, the young who have the expertise to run the country, the sick who shouldn’t be fixing their damn roof since their TB stopped them working.
I think what passes as informed debate on TV and radio is bunkum, neoliberal talking points selected to keep wages down, keep bonuses up and power to change the econmic out of the hands of those who would change it (to serve the needs of the people).
Thanks Matthew. I subscribe to Murray Ball’s quote.
Nice little distraction by Hooten there. However, I’m still trying to figure out why Richardson ignoring the party she belonged to, and setting her own agenda, is considered a good thing. Of all the attempts at misdirection in this thread by Hooten, that’s the one that stands out for me. It’s the idea that an individual can go against the party’s wishes and take in a different direction, and that that is not only acceptable but desirable. That idea isn’t about Cunliffe, it’s about Shearer.
Well said, Weka
The New Zealand Labour Party must find a way to achieve reform and renewal through it’s members and affiliates. Only then will we have a strong Labour victory in 2014 that will enable the execution major changes: changes that will take the country on a new path to health and prosperity.
A year ago the launch of the Constitutional Review was greeted enthusiastically by the members. Members, branches, LECs, Sector groups and NZ Councillors all worked hard to get a number of significant proposals to the Conference.
The Conference was memorable for two reasons:
-the delegates passionately debated the key items and the balance of power shifted to the membership and affiliates…….on paper.
-a potentially great Conference and subsequent passionate injection of positive activity was distorted by the damaging play to marginalise Cunliffe.
We need to find the positives from the Conference and get past the destructive cr*p formulated by a few Machiavellians in the Caucus.
My view of the constitutional changes is that if the Membership want the Parliamentary Labour MP’s to adhere to Labour Party policy,(especially while in Government), it is the membership at the annual Labour Party Conference who should vote whether or not to ‘trigger’ a Party wide vote on the issue,
Further to that it is my view that the Party wide vote should also elect the Cabinet in Labour lead Governments…
+1
+1
Interesting: Monbiot on violent crime and lead poisoning.
intriguing.
Normally I take such reports with a grain of salt, but then so does Monbiot. And it certainly seems to be the gist of the evidence.
There has been a lot of discussion about the wider member leader vote, the 40% + 1 threshold and how it might be triggered in February. If it does get triggered, how every it happens what is the process then? Is there a set timeline? A postal ballot will take time to setup, candidates will need time to decide if they want to stand, time for campaigning, the voting process may take a few weeks. What is the best case for it to be complete? I’d say at the minimum six weeks, most likely it will drag on for 12+ weeks.
Who leads the party while all this is going on? Their is a reasonable chance it could all get toxic, DS, DC openly combatitive, caucus split, Patrick Gower asking everybody and anybody who’s side they are on every single night and earnestly analyzing every phrase, utterance or look. The Greens trying to stay out of it but getting more involved, Winston taking shots, backbenchers leaking and National sitting quietly and watching with glee.
When it’s over and the winner announced then what? Will the vanquished need to resign? If DC wins will it have got so bad that Mallard, King and Hipkins all go? If DC loses how many may go? Byelections towards the end of the year? It could dominate all year!
All looks very scary but then the alternative is DS stays.
So many doubts Jane! Have some faith in the uncertainty of democracy!
The only alternative is the certainty and comfort of AUTOCRACY and we wouldn’t want that now, would we. Would we?
+ 1
“Mallard, King and Hipkins all go” They should have gone last election. But no there they sit, actively fucking up the Labour party for their own ends. Fucking Parasites. The sooner they go the better for all, and they can take some of the other dead wood and dinosaurs with them! And as for Gower how can he report if he’s just told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, every time he asks a question??
“Mallard, King and Hipkins all go” They should have gone last election. But no there they sit, actively fucking up the Labour party for their own ends. Fucking Parasites. The sooner they go the better for all, and they can take some of the other dead wood and dinosaurs with them! And as for Gower how can he report if he’s just told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, every time he asks a question??
Damn Internal server error 500 rears it’s ugly head again.
Never underestimate the stupidity of an american radio talk show host. If Alex Jones was slightly smarter, he could be a moron.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2013/jan/08/alex-jones-pro-gun-tirade-piers-morgan-video
If I had to place a bet, it would be on that both Morgan and Jones are considerably more *informed/trained* and cogent of affairs than you could ever wish/pretend to be!
Keep spinning bro, and watch out for actors!
Have you watched it? The dude’s a fucking idiot.
They’re both right wing commentators, muzza, so your support for them is curious (or is it?). Morgan has the moral highground on the gun question though and has gone up in my estimation just for having the guts to take on the NRA and its apologists.
I don’t think Piers Morgan comes across as right wing – no idea how he votes or anything, but he has always seemed fairly centrist when interviewing.
News of the world editor, appointed by murdoch.
Say’s all I need to know about the bloke.
Well, the former Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan may be the voice of reason in his American show, Chris, but his work history and personal morals strongly suggest a right wing orientation. And Rupert Murdoch isn’t known for picking Spartists to run his newspapers!
edit: Snap, A1len.
I’ll have to remember next time my political affiliation is determined by old boss.
Point being if your old boss is rupert, the political affiliation is sort of a given.
Happy for mr morgan to enlighten us all with his road to Damascus conversion from murdoch’s mouthpiece to voice of the people’s heavy hitter.
Just dial 0000, piers.
If you read support for either of them in my response, you were very much mistaken. No need to have watched to know how it would have played out, with each character living up to their *expectation*, which is required to embed mind-sets.
It’s theatre, they are both pawns/tools in a game which seeks to control the perceptions/minds, via controlling a fake, *debate*!
The Allen – correct observation!
Fascinating study on the link between leaded petrol and the high crime rates of the 1990’s
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Indeed. One is reminded of the Romans who lost the plot because they kept their wine in lead-lined containers, or a similar lead-related decline caused by drinking rice wine from bronze vessles in the late Chinese Shang dynasty.
Although running out of rich lands to conquer and make vassal states feeding wealth to keep the imperial centre running didn’t help.
hey, did “lee.adama” get me e-mail?
Let us not get waylaid by the MMS talking heads like Trotter and Hooton.
Framing stories as battles between X and Y makes good press and TV sound bites.
The changes required to get ths country out of the trough of inequality and underperformance is not about two personalities.
As Laboutites we must focus on engaging with our family, friends, neighbours, communities, businesses and organisations to understand their needs and aspirations and to drive bottom up policy using our new Constitution.
Focus on the real stuff, not the side-shows.
The Trotter story is a matter for Shearer to sort.
Good point. No derails by talking heads.
I find it amazing that you are all still flailing around and shadow boxing about the leadership.
The battle is lost, the Feb vote is a formality. The caucus beat you. Move on.
Cunliffe got pwned. Quite unfairly probably but it will not make a blind bit of difference to the outcome. Shearer is your leader. You will not change that before the next election.
Barnsley, Hooton n the media are trying to make it a personality thing .
This Trotter story is bad for all the Labour Party.
True, members were beaten by the Caucus in November. Until the leadership has achieved legitimacy through endorsement from the members and affiliates there will be turmoil in the party.
The issue is between the members and the leadership. If the February endorsement is a “formality” then many members n affiliates will loose interest in the party.
Who will do the work for the Local Election layer this year?
“Europeans, take note: The U.S. government has granted itself authority to secretly snoop on you.
That’s according to a new report produced for the European Parliament, which has warned that a U.S. spy law renewed late last year authorizes “purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data” if it is stored using U.S. cloud services like those provided by Google, Microsoft and Facebook.”
See the following link and story for details:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/08/fisa_renewal_report_suggests_spy_law_allows_mass_surveillance_of_european.html
This is something all of us should be very mindful of, when using US based service providers and cloud servers, and any traffic between the US and other countries falls into the same category as the article in “future tense” (from 08 Jan. 2013) should make clear.
There are always certain risks to consider, and this is just one of them.
while I think of it; see Sue Kedgley’s analysis of the ongoing rent of Transmission Gully to the taxpayer, pulling clay uphill and all that motor-scraping
Heads up Standardistas: Hooten’s Methodology
Is to distract from the real issue: giving Labour Party members a democratic say come February, confirming the Leader.
Is to suggest that the Labour Leadership is a position which does not need or want democratic confirmation by the membership in 2013.
Is to try and turn this into an irrelevant Cunliffe versus Shearer cage fight, instead of the true crux: bringing democracy to the Labour Party, as the membership clearly intended at Conference in Nov 2012.
Is the LP membership’s participation in choosing a leader more important than the memberships ability to influence the policy decisions of the caucus? How much say does the membership now have in the latter?
Yeah, I’m hoping someone will do a post soon on how Labour works internally, with a focus on what options the membership has for action.
Well it’s what he’s paid to do, and does it well. The smug trolling designed to undermine and distract and the cherry picking rather than responding when requested so he can keep on his message
It’s like a modern version of Muldoon in some ways and boy haven’t the NACT made that look like the good old days the way they’ve sent the economy and living standards off down the hill with wilful negligence.
Heads up Standardistas: The Al1en’s Methodology
They said the next revolution would be on TV, what they didn’t say was it will start on the internet.
I’ve entered a song on the audience website, to win NZonAir funding, to record the single and make a video.
I’ve chosen the protest song The faeces of the species, as a direct challenge to key’s constituency chairman who complained about the Inside child poverty documentary aired in the 2011 election campaign, and now has his feet firmly under the table.
Way to go Sir, kids with third world diseases on their beautiful little faces, and you complain about unfair electioneering. Fuck off.
Don’t care if you like the song (I do, I love it) or not, but a vote a day for the next couple of weeks and it’s win/win.
I need the publicity to kick off my campaign, and a video on tv, or a refusal by NZonAir to follow through for political reasons would sort of do the trick.
Please, bookmark the song page and vote as many times until it gets a top ten placing and thus eligible for the prize.
Email to friends/colleagues, tell them it’s for food for kids and maximum embarrassment for the pm.
I’m staying anonymous, not going to make a penny from it personally, and well up for the front line fight.
Use the system to beat the system with a mouse click.
http://www.theaudience.co.nz/the-al1en/the-faeces-of-the-species-1/
Viva revolution.
Can you put it up somewhere where you don’t have to use a flash player, as all I get is silence.
It, and other songs are up at https://soundcloud.com/theal1en
But for the vote to count, it has to be http://www.theaudience.co.nz/the-al1en/the-faeces-of-the-species-1/
So far I have two votes, and one was from me.
A mouse click from a bunch of us and it’s getting noticed.
Game on. If you want to play, just join in.
TA
The subsconcious is amazing – Rosy mentions ape and lprent’s synapses go to the hairy Librarian at Ankh-Moorpork. What a tangled web our brains are.
She did?
lprent
She did – somewhere above 1 1 1 3
Rosy – “Bolger used to ape accents all the time. I sort of thought it was a subconsciously empathetic thing.”
And she mentioned ‘subconcious’ too which I am sure I didn’t read?
RNZ
-Law Society litigate a closer relationship with Lifeline; the demands of being a lawyer are greater than they have ever been
-longer hours
-demanding clients
-technological speed cracking the whip
now,
Down to Business
-NZ TWI the highest in FIVE years, around 75.9
-Japanese are about to begin printing rice paper money in a “fashion not seen before”
-Cloudy forecast for mortgage interest rates in the latter half of this year and expected to be much higher over the coming 3-4 years-Shamubeel Eaqub, NZIER (I like that man)
-Rural Exodus-property values dropping (has occurred already in central and southern HB)
-Nov Trade Deficit widened, 4th consecutive month in a row
-NZ $ 84.70 US; 85 coming
yet,
the NZX 50 Index is at a new FIVE year high; business as usual.
Ching Ching
oi
test
test (server intermission )
sorry about the random graffiti (servers’ fault message)
did you know that Zephaniah was familiar with court circles and current political issues?
He announced to Judah God’s coming judgement, an immediate sign was the Scythian (fierce horse mounted peoples’) incursion into Canaan (from Southern Russia) in the 7th C BC.
main theme, coming day of the Lord, God’s punishment of the nations including apostate Judah, with the pronouncement of Doom ending on a positive note with His merciful restoration.
Baal was a common name for the chief male god amongst peoples, also
-master and owner of a house
-landowner
-owner of cattle
-son of “grain”
-storm god Hadad
Baal cult included, addiction, animal sacrifices, ritualistic meals, licentious dances. Human fertility was sacred and the High places had chambers for sacred prostitution;
I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble (formidable obstacles), when I cut off man from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.
(Zephaniah speaks of fire)
I will stretch out my hand against Judah, I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagans and the idolatrous priests-those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who swear by the Lord and also by Molech (sometimes involved in child sacrifice).
On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will go up from the Fish Gate (merchants who had grown rich through corrupt business practices would be destroyed.
At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent. Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will build houses but not live in them; they will plant vineyards but not drink the wine.
(remember how the distributor / oil pump drive used to round off on the old V6?
I had an old 1963 Ford Falcon 170 Super pursuit, and it had a bad habit of screwing them off inside the oil pump, so that if you didn’t have a long thin magnetic screwdriver, it was the sump off, then the oil pump removal to get it out. I got to be quite an expert at the removal of those bloody things on the side of the road and i kept a spare in the glove box at all times.
Nice bit of history there mate. Good to remind people that yes, there was much culture and civilisation way before the Romans.
What did the Romans ever do for us?
OK the aqueduct,,,,,,,
The World Economic Forum, hardly a hot bed of anti-capitalism, is warning that climate change, income inequality, and fiscal instability are THE issues which must be addressed IMMEDIATELY (at Davos).
Between the lines the WEF is saying we are in a global economic meltdown. Captain Mumblefuck and ABC are in denial even as capitalists elsewhere are waking up and frightened.
What the Captain Mumblefuck neo-liberals fail to see is that if we don’t get a moderate reformer like Cunliffe (comparable to FDR and Mickey Savage in the 1930’s), we are going to get a Hitler or Stalin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/08/climate-change-debt-inequality-threat-financial-stability
Excellent Link; not looking so “foolish” on the Left now, are we.
One way of forcing meaning onto suffering, thereby making it more bearable, is to rename it sacrifice and believe it integral to the divine economy. We confront the the fears that threats to life arouse in us by claiming that destruction for our own, submitting to it or performing acts of violence ourself. It is not religious belief that makes us violent, violence turns us to the intense motifs of sacrifice that are particularly expressed in religion. Considering, however, the broader context of anthropogenic violence in Encyclopedia of Wars-Charles Philips and Alan Axelrod- found of 1,800 violent conflicts throughout history, only 23 of them were religious.
“There isn’t much precedent in Islamic tradition for suicide terrorism. Modern suicide terrorism became a political force with the atheistic anarchist movement that began at the end of the 19th century”-Atran (see also If You’re Not Religious Is Nothing Sacred?)
“Fictive Kinship”-living as if related-is served well by a belief in a (monotheistic) deity. Sacred values have an important functional hold over us.
Quite a passionate discussion above. Much will depend I guess on Mr Shearer’s big speech on 27 January that Chris Hipkins is hosting. The word is it will have another big policy announcement.
Thank you Matthew for the update from Party Central.
This is at the Young Labour hosted Summer School. It is in Trevor’s electorate rather than Chris Hipkin’s, I suspect.
Where: Brookfield Scout Camp, 562 Moores Valley Road, Wainuiomata
(only 40mins from Khandallah)
When: Friday 25 January – Sunday 27 January
You can contact Young Labour at summerschool@younglabour.org.nz. Find out more and register now at younglabour.org.nz/summer-school.
All paid up members are welcome. It will be a great time for all the Labour Party membership to build on the good work started at the November Conference.
Book your Air NZ flights now if you are from the regions. Auckland -Wellington return under $200.
Clare Curran will buy drinks for anyone who says they read The Standard regularly.
Matthew we have heard this “next big speech” talk for more than a year now, and the guy remains as opaque as he ever was. It is as if party central is taking its cues from North Korea.
Yeah, showing up there smooching the Rogernomes will be a better look than fishing for clients among the Neo-Nazis and racists at the Marlborough Sounds Symposia who inspired Anders Brevik, won’t it, Hoots?
Just an addendum, but I think that there’s a very interesting post that could be written on Matthew Hooton’s very dirty clients if someone could do the digging…
No doubt there are some aspects he wants hidden very deeply indeed.
Looking at all the above I am guessing that this will be keys GO TO place when he wants to feel good and confident about his chances of winning next election. I can see where he is gettin g his material from to stir up the Shearer/Cunliffe divide. Does’t even have to try,it’s all there ready and waiting.
The material comes from the ABCs.
NZ’s Incumbent Politicians Hell-bent on Encumbrance
Gee, why am I not surprised? Perhaps it’s because NAct set up the whole lot as a wealth siphon that takes taxpayer money and gives it to their rich mates.
The simple reality is that if we hadn’t sold off Telecom and went for competition we’d be a hell of a lot better off (~$17b worth), we’d already have FttH to most of the countries population and telecommunications would be a hell of a lot cheaper than they are.
If Chorus’s profits drop so does its share price which will allow an overseas buyer into the market in purchasing Chorus for a knock down price – then you will see what it costs to repair phone lines – payable in Yuan.
This country needs a climate change Churchill not a climate change Chamberlain.
Te Reo Putake claims that there will be a unanimous caucus vote in support of David Shearer in February, which will prevent the membership from having their say.
For this to happen even David Cunliffe would have to vote for David Shearer.
Even if he is the only one to do so, Cunliffe should vote against him.
If he does, he will eventually triumph.
The Market and Mother Nature
http://www.dailycamera.com/opinion-columnists/ci_22349392
from Scientific American
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/01/10/what-will-it-take-to-solve-climate-change/
Out of Africa
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/tobacco-farms-drive-major-deforestation-in-tanzania
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43417&Cr=deforestation&Cr1=#.UPDVvPIp2mQ
Smoke Those Trees (no filters)
Plus the fact I seem to piss my money away.
Mcflock,
I just wanted to let you know that I tried out a few of the tobacco leaves that have been hanging under the house for about 8 and a half months, and it tastes just like a slightly harsher version of Camel. The reason I mention it is because you were saying that the tobacco variety I used was too bland. And it is if not cured for long enough. I may have to take it all down now. I’d hate to imagine how harsh it will be if I leave it for the entire 12 months.
*disclaimer: tobacco is very unhealthy, and it goes without saying (but I will to salve my conscience) that you’d be better off quitting, and you may well have done so.
I did quit – gardening
Interesting. I might take up growing it again.
The real fun I had was progressively destroying my crop trying different methods in a fruitless search for ideal pipe tobacco (in place of being too uncoordinated to roll a decent cigar :)). Sort of like organic alchemy.
I would suggest taking it down and blending with this year’s crop, but I fear you have followed too much of my horticulture speculation already
Good idea!
i do a mix, well cured leaves that i grow are pretty much cigar material in terms of taste,but if you mix in the smaller leaves which seem to have less of the active ingredients in them and/or some of the half cured leaves you get a blend thats slightly harsh but still a nice smoke,
i am hard out at the moment pulling plants that have basically done their dash and cutting bigger leaves, in my main garden fertilized for the rest of the year on my kitchen scraps i am getting some great 750cm-800cm leaves…
Hi Bad12,
I have one plant in my garden which is about 17 months old. I harvested the big leaves last year, but left a few plants in the vege garden expecting them to die. But it was a very mild winter. I pulled the rest out in spring, but thought I’d leave one to deter insects.
It’s thriving, and now I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be easier (if it would work) to keep the plants for as long as possible – keep cutting the flowers off, and reharvest the leaves every autumn.
I know that tobacco is usually grown as an annual. Have you ever kept them going and kept on harvesting? Easier than sowing seed every year. I find that the plants grow very slowly in the first few months. It would be good to be able to speed th process up a bit.
JS, yeah they will grow all yeah round even in a harsh Wellington winter, but, the babies don’t like the cold and are best planted in the first week in November,
I havn’t tried growing any as a multi year crop, just had a seed get away and germinate, but, the literature i have read says that the second time round the foliage gets smaller than the 8 sets of big leaves to be expected for the first crop,
I grew 20 in the first year and that wasn’t enough for a years supply, 40 the next year and still not enough, 60 last year and run out in October, LOLZ insanity took over this year and i have grown a s**t-load,
I start my seeds under lights in August/ September, separate them at about a inch high and use the lights on them untill they start blocking the light from one another and then put them on the windowsills untill it’s warm enough to plant them out, (November),
So this years from planting to pulling the ones that are starting to yellow,(they have used all the food in the soil),and flower,(really only need a couple of plants for seeds),is a pretty fast 10 weeks, and, i think that the clever plants have subtracted the weeks they spent on the window sills as part of the life-span cos while this years are far more productive and better quality they haven’t grown as tall as last years,
A really clever ‘tool’ for hanging them is to straighten out paper clips leaving the hook in one end and a V in the other, i’ve got my garden shed strung with strings across the roof inside and it can take a couple of hundred pairs of leaves at a time, the strings i set about 10cm, 4 inches apart, i am getting good smokable leaves after 3 weeks but not all of them dry out and brown up at the same time so there’s a constant sorting going on which isn’t hard work but is time consuming,(oh my kingdom for a sky-line),
Another tip is to use thick paper sacks to store the cut leaves in, i use paper rubbish sacks cut in half and staple the bottom of the half that needs it, paper sacks keep the leaves from becoming too unstable and if you need to dry the cut stuff the hot water cupboard or the windowsills on a sunny day are good,
If you want to dry cured leaves fast, in a paper bag on the dash board of a car in the sun works like an oven and you have to keep an eye on them coz the moisture gets sucked out of them real quick,
LOLZ if you crispy critter them like i did to a bag full of slightly wet but cured leaf the other day they can be fixed by tossing in half a dozen wet leaves overnight, it’s amazing to see leaves so dry that they could turn to dust overnight become soft and able to be handled again…
Wow.
Thanks for all this advice.
I have mine hanging in a similar fashion, using the green wire gardening twine hooked through the thick stem into spaced loops in the wire across the shed.
Do you have any tips for speeding up the looping/hooking/hanging process? Takes forever!
Still with tobacco at $35 for 30 grams, it’s worth the effort.
Get a good mate to help you with it for a portion of the end result haha
By the way, tobacco makes an excellent complementary community currency, bypassing the mainstream banker controlled economy.
My mates disapprove
Ummm, are you pairing the leaves together, the advice is to pair the leaves with the center stems facing each other,
If you have bunches of leaves on one wire it might slow down the drying, i am lucky to have cleaned up what is quite a big area i have under the house,it’s about 4 times the area of a shed and i have that rigged with the same set up as the shed to be able to hook my pairs of leaves on,
LOLZ, the disgusting wet muddy s**t i dug out of there is actually my main garden in a raised bed made from shipping pallets which both the Ware Whare and Bunning’s give away here,(for fire-wood snigger), i systematically work my way up and down the garden over the 9 months i am not growing anything feeding it the kitchen scraps, ash from the ashtray, and bits of paper like shopping receipts and rolly paper packets,
Theres no effort in digging the garden that way as once a week i just dig a spade wide trench across it, dump in the scraps,add a small bucket of compost and hey presto utter crap soil is pumping my plants so hard out that everytime i look at it i have a bit of a giggle,
But i digress, back to hanging leaves, when my shed is full, i first run my pairs of leaves through the basement area which isn’t quite warm enough to cure them but allows them to get to that stage where they fold in on themselves,
While that happens i am checking in the shed for leaves that are near cured and moving them closest to the door, as i move them closer to the door and as space becomes available i rotate the rest of the leaves around the shed,
It’s something i do about twice a week, i don’t know how your shed sits in relation to the Sun,mine has a warm side facing the sun, so when the leaves come out from the basement they go into the shed on the un-sunny side,(the roof of the shed gets full sun), and i then rotate them round the shed as i take the cured stuff out,
Most of my cured stuff is still wet but brown when i take it out of the shed as it sucks in moisture from the less cured leaves that are constantly arriving in the shed, thats why i use the paper bag method of giving the leaves a final dry,
To use the paper bag method i first strip out the center stem,(they get buried with the kitchen scraps), i then give the leaves a first cut by squeezing a bunch in one hand and cutting them as thin as possible with the scissors,
It’s easy then to put a paper bag of cut but still damp stuff in the hot water cupboard, on a window sill in the sun, (with the curtains closed works best),or if some real heat is necessary, on the dash board of the car in a sunny spot, (gotta check them every half hour if you use the paper bag of cut stuff on the cars dashboard method tho, it doesn’t take em long to crispy critter,
LOLZ, only 30 grams, my addiction is atrocious, i have been smoking 2, 50 gram packets for the past 40 odd years,
The legal aspects as i understand them are that it is ILLEGAL to either sell or give what you have grown away, and, my reading of the law says that you can grow enough to provide YOU with 15KG of cut and smokable leaves in any year…
Ahh didn’t know that. Nevertheless, unless they get the mainstream economy more inclusive, people will do what people will do to survive.
Aha, as the anti-smoking fanatics have all agreed, to make a smoke-free New Zealand via the current means would have a packet of tobacco costing 100 bucks by the time those fools have finished it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion that a black market will become established,
I can tell you now that tobacco as a bush crop has a greater range of growing areas than dope as tobacco doesn’t need a full sun enviroment to grow leaves, where-as dope does to grow heads,
From what i have been told the stuff,(tobacco), can be found growing wild all over the far North…
Lol.
What gave me the idea (which percolated as the price went steadily up) was the old man’s neighbour dug up his entire back quarter-acre section and grew tobacco, in South Auckland, about ten years ago. Must have been a heavy smoker:-D
It broke down cultural barriers between neighbours, as my father was a keen gardener at the time, and was fascinated by watching the wholesale cropping of a back yard. I asked my father if it was legal to grow, and he said it was legal to grow – illegal to sell.
I take a bit of comfort at the extent of your habit. Sometimes I feel guilty about smoking about 30 grams a week!
Btw, I hang each leaf from a separate “hook” on a separate loop. One of the reasons it takes so damn long.
You’ve given me lots of new ideas to experiment with.
Thank you and bon apetit – or whatever the smoking equivalent is:-)
God don’t ever let anyone including yourself ‘guilt trip’ you over smoking, it’s an addiction and you were hooked after the first pack,
I am not so sure that hanging them separately would slow down the drying process, in theory it should speed it up, maybe my having a ‘mass’ of leaves in the shed at one time traps the heat of the Sun, does your shed get all day sun on at least it’s roof???,
I have found that leaving the door of the shed closed most of the time speeds the process a little bit and even when i leave the door open it’s only by 50 odd mm’s,
LOLZ, i have taken over a dead and weed infested piece of the HousingNZ estate and have a series of raised garden boxes down there as well, HousingNZ are planning on building on it at some stage but untill then i have done what all good colonizing white boys do and simply moved in on the basis of ‘they are not using it’, now where have i heard that before LOLZ,
Taking the cost out of the addiction leaves me with the money to provide a good diet across the whole range of foods where growing a vege garden would have left me with the cost of the addiction and little better off…
Let’s face it – vegetable growing is a hobby which barely covers costs and in a bad season – not even that.
There is an untended reserve over the fence. I’ve been working on the soil which is horrendusly alkaline due to decades of home fire ash being chucked over….
Those looking for a milder smoke should favour the lower leaves on the plant.
Advanced manufacturing: How to make a nuclear submarine
Not that I am advocating that NZ does this, obviously. But this conveys how much knowledge and expertise is required to successfully do “high tech, high value” manufacturing. Bringing NZ to this point is a generational project, and our short term political outlook can’t achieve it.
Yep, seen it a while back and loved it… agree that we shouldn’t be/couldn’t be doing that, but it serves to show how much an industry is tied up with a town.
These are real people, learning real skills in real trades and if that industry is shut down because some bean-counter decides to outsource it, then those people see their futures end and the community dies.
So when we hear that a paper mill is shutting down a line, then look at this and see how an industry supports the real aspirations (not Key’s “ashperayshums”) and livelihoods of a community.
All of Key’s and Shearer’s talk of “outsourcing” as a road to economy? Look at the real costs of “economy”.
Watch this documentary, and if you’re uncomfortable thinking about warships, then think about towns dependent on paper mills, meat works and refrigerator manufacturers.
You got to hand it to the Brits, you can see how they managed to keep an Empire going for so long, and how – amazingly – they have kept going with some pride even after the end of their Empire. Not every post-Imperial power can boast such a feat.
Cameron is a nasty bit of work. His economic policies were even more destructive than John Keys, and those big riots were not accident; rather the result of his brutal austerity measures. The UK govt steals from the poor to give to the rich, kind of the reverse of Robin Hood.
He is no friend of New Zealanders, his government introduced immigration measures that put an end to decades of OE’s.