In this busy pre-election period it seems the SIS bunglers still have their briefcases in a twist over Bill Sutch. Why now?
An ex staff member using a Soviet snitch’s material has had another go which is no doubt annoying enough for the Sutch family. The plod concerned makes free with files while a number of citizens that applied for material held on them by the NZSIS during the brief “openess” period of Director Warren Tucker, received refusals (under the 1969 Act that protects living sources) or heavily redacted replies. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10369007/Fresh-twist-in-40-year-old-Cold-War-spy-mystery
You don’t know what I believe in. I certainly have never expressed a preference for trickledown economics (whatever that might be).
However back to Dr Sutch being a spy. Why do you not think he was a spy? He fits the description given by the KGB for a spy in NZ and he also expressed admiration for the Soviet (read Stalinist) system. Why do you find it inconceivable that he was working for them?
Why now? Partly because the papers have just been released:
The new evidence comes from papers copied by former top KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, who defected in 1992.
The papers have just been made public by Churchill College at Cambridge University in Britain. Only a few pages of the Mitrokhin records are devoted to New Zealand.
It doesn’t look to me to be hard evidence against Sutch – the word of an ex-KGB spy. Some reference to meetings, but no evidence of anything Sutch is alleged to have done against NZ’s interests.
Did you ever see Russian accounting? Soviet vessels used to keep 5 different sets of books. None the same and none true. You need slightly more evidence than an uncorroborated record.
tory fails in abstract reasoning again.
World stunned.
Gos, has it occurred to you that there’s a world of difference between a resident in a quiet backwater inflating the promise and possibilities of any contact with an individual, and that individual actually being a spy (even if the unnamed “recruit” were indeed Sutch)?
Not that you give a shit either way – just more mud created to throw around.
I wasn’t suggesting they are forgeries. I was thinking more that it is something the KGB claim – means little in relation to provide evidence of what actually went down.
..academics/intellectuals deciding the soviet way was better/the future..
..and so deciding to ‘help’ them..
That is partly why I left the door open to what actually Sutch did or said to any alleged KGB operative. Note what I actually said:
” no evidence of anything Sutch is alleged to have done against NZ’s interests.”
As I stated it is irrelevant if Sutch believed what he was doing was not harming NZ’s interest. He was working as an operative for a foreign country and seemingly passed on information to them. As such he was a spy and traitor by extension.
A double agent could easily have planted information like that just to ferment cynicism like your pathetic attempts goose!
The man is not around to defend himself.
Both the CIA and the KGB were as bad as each other who’s to say National aren’t linked to the Chinese govt’s spying agency given Stephen Joyce has signed a deal with Huawei who have caught spying in the US and the UK Aussie has banned Huawei. From their UFB for that very reason but National MP’s are easily bought of Oravida etc.
How many sitting National MP’s their partners former National MP’s and partners involved in trade deals .
Kiwirail how that going for you Gossipman!
I didn’t say anything about what Sutch believed – I was only talking about his actions and communications with the KGB.
NZ has been increasingly Americanised since early on in the 20th century. That has been part of the shift from UK empire to US empire. Americanisation has delivered us John Key, who does not work in the interests of the majority of NZers.
Wish I hadn’t posted on this now, was mainly interested in timing not revisiting the whole case.
Karol is quite likely right, no plan by Nats or SIS, just fitted in with the archive material being released. But given that state security has been to the fore recently in public debate the elephantine memories at SIS HQ could hardly have resisted tabling this info now rather than wait.
I would say too that if some people think acting against NZs interests is not the thing to do whether proven or not then the PM facilitating the NSA and FBI and US Corporates activities in NZ fits that description too.
So what was the big secret he passed on that Muldoon was a big dick head hardly a state secret!
or that Muldoon tRaded lada”s for butter.
Subsidized farmers
Universal pension’s wiping out the self funding more free market approach wow what great secrets did Sutch give-away and links to what organizations!
It is irrelevant if Key believes what he is doing is not harming NZ’s interest. He is working as an operative for a foreign country and passes on information to them. As such he is a spy and traitor by extension.
“Another crash in global asset prices could be brewing according to Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.”
“Mr Rajan’s views on financial stability hold particular weight because in 2005, when he was chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, he gave a speech in the US at the influential Jackson Hole conference of central bankers, warning that an explosion in financial innovation had made the world riskier, rather than safer.”
Did you really think that the previous crash was over? All the idiots in the MSM have been so focused on the voodoo stories of recovery globally that they have missed what is really going on (you might consider they were told to miss it by their masters):
* the money supply was eased by “quantitative easing”….aka create credit aka new debt to cover the interest on old debts and allow money to flow. Note the debt did not go away.
* the debt…now this is the real story: the private banks worldwide were bailed out by the taxpayer who had the debts effectively “transferred” to them by the banks, who were then allowed to create more money to loan to the taxpayers to pay the interest on the transferred debt, et voila (if you were a bankster) you get even richer with no risk.
You will note no banker ever got prosecuted for this crisis. It has been the greatest financial swindle ever and through support of governments worldwide that are akin to our own financial traders regime the banksters have ripped us again.
Yeah right Gooseman not oneyour conman ponzi scheming bankers faced jail or any sanction all that has happened with the bail out is the perpetrators have been rewarded while the peasants have been punished over 4 million formerly housed Americans now living under tarpaulins and those who have got jobs are working now for a pittance.
To Big to fail is how it was sold ,the international banking Cartels has never been more profitable as they have MONOPOLIZED the finacial system even more than before!
No free market just a monopolized cartel!
Even the libertarians said let them all fail goose you pathetic apologist hoe much do you get paid to put out your pathetic lies and propaganda goebals with no balls would be proud of your enthusiasm!
Aha, onto it Ennui, i havn’t read much of Marx etc but did read one obscure tract from Trotsky a while ago,(think it may have been produced as a pamphlet as ‘the thinker’s’ in those days were wont to do),
Trotsky way back in the 20’s of last century pointed out that capitalism would eventually defeat itself in a series of crisis each more severe than the other,
When the profits of capitalism are vastly overpowered by the losses incurred in the ongoing series of crisis the system will at some point completely fail seemed to be the gist of it…
..his recent twitching-marrionette/white-guy-dancing/duo-thing with garner on that (in the main) slightly-warmed-over/clip-show pap that is third degree..
..being a personal/career nadir for him..and us..
..my expectations of espiner were low..so i haven’t been disappointed..
..and like many others..i can’t be fucked listening to him/morning report any more..
I was amused at Winston’s back-footing Guyon by reminding him that he was paid by the taxpayer. So many of these guardians of “taxpayers money” are, and hate being reminded of the fact.
yes i think most people dislike Espiner ( a-licker) and Suzie ( wrong)…so they have been giving Winnie/NZF free publicity by concentrating on the trivia of a joke …and ignoring Real NZF policy which is to retain New Zealand land for New Zealanders !
Chinese land is kept for Chinese after all!
China could buy New Zealand several million times over ( their own land is filthy and environmentally trashed with overpopulation)….why do John Key and the NACTS have to be so stupid?!…one has to ask this question….there must be something in it for them?….as we have seen with Judith Collins and Chinese husband stockpiling NZ swamp kauri which Maori artists treasure for their carving and art
….these are the real questions…but you would never hear them asked on the Morons Morning Report where in reality ‘Two Wrongs Make a Right ‘
Gossipman you and National are doing the same here in New Zealand!
With your bought off right wing Media manipulating the public by only letting one side have fair say your an example of trying to suppress left wing commentary here with your continual lies like your leader
Quite right – the Chinese government genuinely strives to improve conditions for Chinese workers and to improve their trade position. Their corruption is tempered by their nationalism and serious corruption attracts capital punishment.
The Key National government is neither as clean nor as economically savvy as the Chinese government.
Ummmm…no. You have obviously not read the poster you linked to. It would be a logical fallacy if I argued that someone should disprove that the Chinese state only allows land to be leased and not sold outright as I had made the claim. However all I have done is stated that is what I believe and am quite willing for someone to show if I am wrong. Even if I was wrong it is not evidence I have lied just that I am mistaken.
“I’m still waiting for you to show where I have lied. Even if I am wrong on this subject (which I don’t believe I am) that does not mean I am lying.”–Gosman
Alright, just for you Gossie–a new category “shape shifting”
Gossipman read your business stories Blooberg business !
local govts seize shared land and sell it for 18 times what they pay for it corruption on a grand scale when it comes to Chinese business practice’s I wouldn’t be surprised if that hasn’t spilled over to those involved in New Zealand as knowing some very high powered businessmen who have set up very large businees ventures in China! it takes to long to get deals done otherwise ask Judith Collins why Orivida got its milk powder in while not one other company did!
Except there was evidence that was accepted by the court that Banks did know about the donation and had asked for it to be split. That is why he was convicted. There isn’t any evidence that I am aware that I have knowingly stated something that is not correct.
Gossipman I think if you read your weasel words it explains your definition of lying!
John Banks is history he lied through his teeth thinking because other politician had got away with more that he was above the law!
AS a former Police minister he should lot lie in court.
Banks lied on many occasions to cover his original lie.
He got what he deserved a huge fall from grace.
If he just had admitted his wrong doing none of this would have happened!
Now its John Brain Fade Keys turn to be taken down by his own lies if he had just admitted i may have or i did know about KDC then it would be a storm in a TEA CUP!
But now Brain Fade Key has painted himself into a corner being the head of the SIS and GSCB and the saying when questioned about the increased spying laws he was introducing Brain Fade Keys response was nothing to worry about their are only a few five people on the list and I know all their names !
Then their is the fact that KDC shouted NZ the Fireworks,KDC lives in BrainFade Keys electorate .
in the flashiest house yeah Key will need to have cups of tea GALORE!
Gossipman have a cup of tea and lie down and just admit your have been lying land ownership in China yeah right you are always right not even.
Remember Banks said nothing derogatory at his cup of tea another lie that Banks and Key tried to cover up!
There isn’t any evidence that I am aware that I have knowingly stated something that is not correct.
that’s what Banks thought, too.
BTW, I believe the Shania Twain “purchase” was of high country leasehold land. That pissed people off, too, when the new “owners” wanted to get rid of the public track through that land.
People had more access to the station previously, and after the sale the new owners allowed, or maybe built, a single track that people are allowed on. This is an ongoing problem, not just restricted to overseas owners, whereby traditional NZer access to land is being restricted. Much of this is to do with tourism, changes in landowners and loss of traditional values/customs, and also accidents like the beekeeper in the farm bridge that have made farmers excessively cautious.
Gossipman every post you have put up has been a lie gossipman especially in the last week I and others have proved you wrong and even defended your one and only truthful statement about the rate of Farm ownership read Rod Oram while your about it!
Gossipman chinese land ownership Wrong again!
I hope you are not getting paid unless its per lie you tell!
Gosman The banks have paid it all back + interest is more lies their customers have paid it all back as the banks got all the printed money at less than 1/2% interest in some cases the govt paid banks interest to take the loans free money!
That your Bill English and John Key borrowed and forced us tax payers to pay 6% on average when these multinational banks were paying nothing its costing you and me the taxpayer $4.5 billion a year just in interest Gosman we are paying it back!
All the bankruptcies and job losses loss home foreclosures that the Bank of America for example was given huge sums to allow loans to be renegotiated were not given to the foreclosed homes that could not be sold because no one had any money except the occupier ,was paid out in dividends to share holders such as your leader John Key!
Bank of America even foreclosed on homes it didn’t have mortgages on kicked rightful owners out of their houses because the repo agents got the addresses wrong not one or two but hundreds!
..and just sat there throwing fistsfull of shit at laila harre..and dotcom..
..sneered at the man who took down banks..as ‘that macready’…(!)
..insinuated that labours’ raising the pension age would mean that someone currently aged 64..will see their pension-age suddenly jump to 67…
(an arguably potent tactic i and others have warned labour will be facing..with this policy..a policy they have explained so poorly..
..key can chance his arm at getting away with porkies that large..
..and of course christie has his tongue so far up key..any questioning by him is too muffled to be heard..(not that he does that..questions the serial-bullshit/spin/lies key serves up to him every mon morn..
..christie just laps it up..like the eager to please puppy he is..)
..and all in all..key looked about as ‘relaxed’ as a crackhead coming down…
And anyone claiming Cunliffe’s face is not fronting the campaign (a la Goff) take a look at the size of the picture of Cunliffe’s face on the Labour campaign bus. Excellent.
At the same time on MR there was discussion of a damning report on the shortage of specialist doctors in the health service, which must be laid at the door of this government. Ryall tries to say the doctors are supporting Labour on this and makes a fool of himself. Listen here:
I am old enough to remember Muldoon’s dancing Cossacks. That was a real low in political advertising, but this new development inspired by IMP descends to depths never before seen in NZ politics. There is no place here for this sort of stunt. We do not want these sorts of orchestrated meetings here with there violent overtones, and burning of effigies is just plain distasteful. Just plain hate politics. more reminiscent of the KKK. Do you think it is a coincidence that anti- semitism has also crept into the campaign?
Harre can protest as much as she likes but IMP introduced this ‘style’ into the campaign, and as I understand the law, she won’t have any chance of getting traction on threats of legal action. Just who is running scared?
I want to vote left, but there is no chance of that with these loonies in the wings. There is no chance of Labour reclaiming the middle ground without kicking these fools to touch.
Once was Pete, who is this WE you speak of, expressions of anger such as flag burning have long been a ‘tool’ of the political discourse here and around the world,
This We you claim to represent, obviously you want an election campaign along the lines of what Granny Herald’s Granny Fran O’Sullivan called for in Her weekend column, effete, polite, boring, designed to only impress those stuffed into their shirts,
Whomever this WE is from your comment above obviously either doesn’t understand the inherent violence inflicted on people by this National Government’s policies, or, if they do, as many would, do not in fact give a shit if you will excuse the expression,
Even in your comment here, labeling a political movement as ‘Loonies’ is somewhat of a violent reaction, the best aspect of you doing so is that such ‘labeling’ makes the Green party look positively ‘straight’ and thus your abject fear of the InternetMana expressed in terms of your above comment is to be welcomed,
Quite frankly i am extremely happy with the InternetMana Party campaign so far, it would seem that those the campaign has set out to influence are responding to a certain extent, it is of course a wait and see as to if such a camapign translates into votes,
i am tho picking this election to be the final gasp for NZFirst, and, Labour 33%, Green 12% along with InternetMana 5%,
You can choose to be ‘on board’ or not, i doubt you will be missed if the answer happens to transpire to be not…
i dunno about that happy coalition Phillip, the free doctors for over 65’s policy from Labour while maybe not a deliberate attempt to push NZFirst out the back door will to a small but certain extent go a little way to doing so…
I listened to the radio interview on the weekend about option for tax reform. Sounded all quite sensible. Of course the National Party and Act know there is more than one way to redistribute wealth — you have to get a r_e_a_l_l_y big pile to get that trickle down working… https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-relaxed/906405082708477
Some are profiting from disaster by renting Christchurch residents out of existence. Kicking tenants out so they can renovate and charge more. Maserati and other luxury cars sales on the rise. Fewer people live in houses in deprived areas – probably because they have moved to living their cars, or worse, under bridges or park benches.
Sad, sad situation.
And some are earning their money in Christchurch doing the rebuilding of the city.
Possibly a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for qualified tradies to set up in business knowing that theres enough work in front of them to justify the risk of going into business.
Or for some qualified tradies to get $35 per hour swinging a paintbrush working for wages.
It is wrong to suggest that everyone making the big money in Christchurch at the moment is a rip off artist. Theres way more than 10 years work ahead of the City, so theres still time to get a building trade and join the goldrush.
Yes it does. Its an opportunity for some folk in the trades to earn better wages than they would get elsewhere. Which I thought was a goal of the labour movement…..
The $35 hr paintbrush swinger I quoted was on $18 hr before he came down here. So he made some decent money, cleared his bills and eventually went home for the lifestyle choice.
And really when you have choices – choices of where to work and what to earn, then life is pretty good.
The implication that everyone making $$ from the quake repairs are somehow ripping off little old ladies and becoming slumlords is tiresome and incorrect.
Its an opportunity for some folk in the trades to earn better wages than they would get elsewhere.
A few of my family are in the building industry and they’ve looked at going to Christchurch to help out. The reason why they haven’t is because they’d be worse off.
I walk my dog in my neighbourhood each evening. It’s a central city low income area. There used to be a man who also walked his dog who had lived in a rental – up the street a bit – for the last 13 years.
But, then he had to leave because the landlord wanted to renovate and rent out the house to short term tenants (e.g., those having their own homes repaired) who would pay (or whose insurance would pay) very high rentals. He simply couldn’t compete with that. He had to go into a much smaller, more ‘modest’ bedsit.
Quite a bit of that has been happening in my area.
By contrast, I have good friends who lived in a three bedroom house they are now renting out for $6,000 per month on short leases (no more than six weeks) and which is booked until next March (having already been tenanted continuously for almost a year). In the meantime, they have renovated and are living in a house bought from the ‘uninsured’ stock for very little, have bought another uninsured house (4 bedrooms) nearby that they hope to rent out for a similar amount to their original home.
It’s not about ‘evil people’ it’s about structural inequalities produced directly as a result of how the government is allowing the housing situation in Christchurch to ‘sort itself out’.
To those who already had, more is being given; to those who had little, even what they had has been taken away.
I wasn’t bluffing. Graham McCready was all set to help me put an injunction together, to ‘do a Colin Craig’ if I wasn’t given the same opportunity to address the voting public as was being given to candidates ‘attached’ to political parties.
I’m REALLY pleased that is no longer necessary.
Looking forward to tonight! It’s going to be FUN!
‘Her Warship’
PS: What the Fairfax reporter failed to mention was that last year, in the 2013 Auckland Mayoralty ‘race’ – I polled 4th with 11,723 votes.
The Helensville electorate sits within the Auckland Supercity (Super RIPOFF) boundaries, so I’ve been arguably working in the interests of the 99% of Helensville voters, in opposing this forced amalgamation literally since Day One.
Good result for Penny, the sniffy tone of organiser Holly Ryan had to be read to be believed.
Various ads and comments have been altered and or removed over the past few days including from the Baptist Church fb. There was no legitimate basis for not allowing Penny to attend.
Time: 6pm tonight
Venue: 21 Access Rd, off H16 just before Huapai
Come along and support the left candidates.
an invitation to a talk by David Shearer on Gaza, 1pm at the Khandallah town hall for any interested persons in that area at that time: I think I’ll head along and see what he has to say.
Somebody needs to ask Gerry Brownlee why it is that NZTA no longer seems to have enough funding for winter road maintenance. For the first time since I moved south SH 6 was closed overnight (Kingston to Lumsden) during last weeks cold snap for nothing more than ice on the road (we expect closures due to snow most winters). Apparently there is not enough money for the regular grading and gritting that is required in winter. All at the same time we’re being bribed with the Kawerau Falls Bridge project that has abysmally failed cost-benefit analysis.
OMG. That is a face palm of such ginormous proportions that one’s face would fall through ones hands and land on the keyboard, to be branded with key marks for a whole week. (Mihingarangi Forbes probably felt this way when she interviewed head Klan guy, Whyte, last week, especially when he denied any knowledge of Whanau Ora)
The absurdity and ignorance is stunning. Occasionally you hear crazy shit like this from regular boofheads, you don’t expect it from politicians, even ACT ones. (Well actually you do, sadly they are predictable like that)
Can someone please do us all a favour and accompany Whyte, Seymour and Co on a library outing and direct them to the NZ history section so they can have a wee read on The Treaty and our colonial history?
Gosman or other RWNJ annoying you? Or if your own writing doesn’t quite seem to quite hit the spot sometimes–try this easy graphic guide to 24 common logical fallacies. e.g. ‘Strawman’, True Scotsman’, ‘burden of proof’, ‘the Texas sharpshooter’, ‘composition/division’ etc. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com
See this one a lot from the RWNJs. Usually in the form of But John Key is so popular and Cunliffe isn’t with the implication that that popularity proves them right.
And this is the one that economists use as the basis for their economic hypothesis.
One question for people who live out west Auckland.
I was driving around over the weekend all over the west, and saw heaps of billboards. Indeed, it appeared at every point their were a collection of these billboards, at least two were for nation. Except were labour had put up two, then there seemed to be four for national.
So silly question? Is there a limit on election spending in a area? Because my guess, and it only a ruff guess – national has spent tens of thousands of dollars on billboards in west Auckland alone.
I haven’t stopped to actually count them, but there are visually more Nat signs than any other. In my corner of the West they’re often on private fences. Only seen one Labour sign on a private fence. Reason? My guess is working class aspiration meets a particular culture. On the other hand, someone went on a rampage last week and took out all the signs along Lincoln road on the corner near the netball courts. Good job that person – acted without prejudice or restraint.
From the Rongotai electorate, the signage i have seen is pretty much even, 3 National V 2 Labour, where there are clusters most parties seem to be represented,
2 of National’s have so far been ‘altered’ and i have seen 1 Green Party billboard up on a private property, that’s pretty much the main drag out here covered,
i do not need a billboard, a Mana tee-shirt hanging in the front window is enough to give everyone in the street the message…
Never thought I would say this, but congrats to David Cunliffe and Labour on releasing a coherent, sensible, well targeted, well thought out policy in their latest health policy. Huge upside with very little downside (cost would be mostly re-couped in lower hospitalisation rates).
It targets the vulnerable based on risk of disease rather than income, now if only they could take that thinking forward…..
Although critics tend to agree that Shylock is The Merchant of Venice’s most noteworthy figure, no consensus has been reached on whether to read him as a bloodthirsty bogeyman, a clownish Jewish stereotype, or a tragic figure whose sense of decency has been fractured by the persecution he endures. Certainly, Shylock is the play’s antagonist, and he is menacing enough to seriously imperil the happiness of Venice’s businessmen and young lovers alike. Shylock is also, however, a creation of circumstance; even in his single-minded pursuit of a pound of flesh, his frequent mentions of the cruelty he has endured at Christian hands make it hard for us to label him a natural born monster. In one of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues, for example, Shylock argues that Jews are humans and calls his quest for vengeance the product of lessons taught to him by the cruelty of Venetian citizens. On the other hand, Shylock’s coldly calculated attempt to revenge the wrongs done to him by murdering his persecutor, Antonio, prevents us from viewing him in a primarily positive light. Shakespeare gives us unmistakably human moments, but he often steers us against Shylock as well, painting him as a miserly, cruel, and prosaic figure.
Shylock is also a derogatory term used against Jewish people to insinuate they are part of some evil world financial conspiracy. If you don’t think that is what the Labour candidate for Timaru meant you are fooling yourself. I note that candidate has been silent on the subject, so he doesn’t appear to be resiling from his hateful comment.
Key has a background in finance, however, so a ‘Shylock’ reference doesn’t necessarily imply the utterer is referring to his Jewish background. Though it was unfortunate. And very typical of this blunder prone Labour party.
Thank God we’ve got Nicky Hager, who managed to accomplish more in the last 20 hours than Labour have in the last 20 months.
Many of the kinds of propaganda techniques that Goebbels explored during the 3rd Reich, have pervaded society international – various kinds of manipulation of the masses, including cords. They have been normalised.
Ever been to a rock/punk concert? Back in my day – plenty of crowd chants against the government of the day using expletives.
” The bouquets, of course, are welcome and enjoyable when they come, but the brickbats – and they can come thick and fast – can hurt. Politicians, like Shylock, bleed like anyone else. ”
slater is rabidly typing his admonishment….and farrar is close to hospitalisation, so affronted are they by whatever was said by someone unheard of.
IMO, an honest public apology and so on would be more appropriate – and rub home genuine accountability in Labour, rather than brownlee’s pretend resignation.
It’s nasty and clearly anti-Semitic mud-slinging, and Gibson should face exactly the same consequences as the kind of people who compare their opponents to Nazis and sugar daddies.
Yep, Key should be replaced immediately!….[and then prosecuted for a variety of his statements and deeds] Being an honest and fair person, I expect that Matthew Hooton will lead the charge in his umpteen media ‘expert’ commentaries.
What do I think? They should probably update their ethno-religious slurs. I’d prefer kike, to shylock, has a clear ring to it. With kike, you can shout it over the top of other people yelling about wops, dinks, chinks, muzzies, fuzzie-wuzzies, rugs, and sugar-daddy Krauts and still be heard clearly. Of course, nothing like that has happened since 1956, but we can dream.
That really doesn’t improve the situation, Anne. The whole reason “Shylock” has become a slang term for “cruel moneylender” and the like is because of the historic situation in which European moneylenders were predominantly Jewish. At its core it’s an anti-Semitic term, and it’s prejudice is only reinforced by the fact that Key is both of Jewish heritage and from a financial background.
What some of you fail to recognise is that the candidate who made the comment in the first place (and many other individuals who have made similar comments from time to time) are invariably unaware of the historical context of the word “Shylock”. Call it ignorance if you like, but more often than not they are doing so under the impression it simply refers to a dishonest money trader. Their lack of knowledge of literature and history is such, they have little to no idea of the Jewish link.
The candidate in question has apologised profusely for his error and has admitted he didn’t know the back-ground to the saying and how offensive it would be to many people.
You’re missing the point. The term has several levels of connotation and gibson is only being anti-Semitic if he intended to use it that way. If he didn’t, he’s just being stupid. Shylock isn’t quite like nigger, which comes front-loaded with its hateful meanings. Gibson could easily have been using without intending to bring in the whole history of the Jews. It might have been, as Anne said, a reference to Key’s background in finance, without Key’s Jewish parentage being on the rather shallow mind of Mr Gibson.
That might require a fair degree of ignorance about the play, but cultural imbecility isn’t that uncommon among those prone to muttering insults on face book.
I see the date on that is the 28th July. Been saving this one up for the Monday after the Labour Party election campaign launch Matthew?
On the face of it, Gibson is an arse and should be held to account. I asked the question elsewhere today about why Labour allow their MPs and candidates to do shit like this. Not for the first time I think Labour MPs/candidates need minders for their FB and twitter accounts.
Oh come now Matthew, surely you realise that by now that if anyone of the left says anything racist, sexist or homophobic (and IMP provides this in spades) it’s intellectualised around. Winston gets written off entirely for something offensive but relatively light weight.
Look around you – people lose their nana when Whyte calls Dame Susan of Squash a drunk, but when Minto makes jokes about Winston’s liver no one batters an eyelid.
Hypocrisy makes the world go round.
While I don’t intend to repeat it here, remember the ACT party member who described JohnKey in such a way that his membership was cancelled? This appears to be a problem with the far right.
Presumably you have some idea of what you, in particular, think so you could partially answer your own question.
“candidates“?
Plural?
As for me, I see the word ‘Shylock’ as similar to the term ‘sugar daddy’. Both leverage off an original meaning that is offensive.
The main difference I see in the two episodes is that one was uttered by someone who is a candidate for office. The other was uttered by someone who has been Prime Minister for six years.
And what do you think, Matthew, about a Prime Minister who uses the term ‘sugar daddy’?
I don’t know but this might help: After A.R.D. Fairburn, the poet, had re-boarded the train to Auckland after a comfort stop at Mercer, the NZR steward asked him if everything was to his satisfaction his response was,
Steve Gibson calling John Key Shylock means that he has to be delisted as the Labour candidate ASAP. Failure to do so means that Labour endorse Anti-Semitic Jew hating language.
I’m sure you also agree that the National candidate who called Laila Harre a whore and Kim Dotcom a pimp should also resign. But I appeared to have missed the comment where you said so.
I’m well aware of the sugar daddy comment, I’m looking for proof of the claim of a “National candidate who called Laila Harre a whore and Kim Dotcom a pimp”.
On a side note, it is my understanding that a “whore” does not have sex with their “pimp”
Complete rubbish! There was no reference to or insinuation that Harre was getting money for sex with Dotcom. Sugar daddy has a wider implication than sex for favours.
Lets stick with apples and apples shall we? Conflating two separate subjects has confused you. Either that, or you are being deliberately obtuse. Of course the word Shylock has something to do with Jewish people. It is one of the more racist and derogatory terms that could be used. Best not to even joke about it. best not to use it in a political campaign, and best to distance yourself from it when a colleague does use it.
Someone who has been with five different political parties isn’t necessarily a whore.
Someone who campaigns for women’s rights, but takes loads of money from someone who runs porn sites, and makes jokes about rape and killing prostitutes isn’t a whore – well perhaps she is, but not necessarily in a sexual way.
Harre’s fake outrage and offense is so transparent – she took a job being the mouthpiece for someone who makes money by trading porn and ripping people off.
Few things will push moderate voters to the right like Dotcom, except perhaps the addition of Hone (I don’t want my daughter dating a pakeha) Harawira, and John Minto
That’s some lovely partisan hyperbole you’ve got there John. I especially admire the way it reveals the depths of misogyny you’re prepared to explore for your #team.
The revelations about your #team are coming thick and fast just now. Is this the right time for you to be embracing them so overtly?
It is one of the more racist and derogatory terms that could be used. Best not to even joke about it.
oh, fucking bullshit. Enough with the faux moral outrage.
The BSA has NO decisions relating to the use of the word “shylock”, even though it’s not entirely unfamiliar to pop culture. Yes, in some contexts it can be offensive, but it’s not exactly in the territory of, say, the N-word.
heh – tories feigning liberal moral outrage suggests another extract might be appropriate:
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
What are the ‘wider implications’ Pete? Please supply any citations that suggest anything other than a sexual and financial arrangement. Take your time, I know it’s a big ask.
Took me 30 seconds to find this (Merriam-Webster):
SUGAR DADDY
a rich, older man who gives money, gifts, etc., to someone (such as a young woman) in exchange for sex, friendship, etc.
She’s on the lookout for a new sugar daddy.
— sometimes used figuratively in U.S. English
politicians getting money from their corporate sugar daddies
Sorry, but as hard as I tried, couldn’t find any evidence of ‘figurative’ usage for ‘Shylock’.
I’ve established the (obvious) point that ‘sugar daddy’ can be used figuratively. The term ‘Shylock’ is quite different – it just can’t be used (in any sense) by aspiring politicians (unless they wish to be accused of being anti semitic, or completely stupid). I think Gibson falls in to the second category for what it’s worth.
so now I’ve presented a full hollywood scene that has “shylock” used figuratively (not the only one, either), you shift the goalposts to politicians only.
“Sorry, but as hard as I tried, couldn’t find any evidence of ‘figurative’ usage for ‘Shylock’.”
I think you’ll find the first figurative use of Shylock would be a in a play called ‘The Merchant of Venice’, by William Shakespeare.
“I’ve established the (obvious) point that ‘sugar daddy’ can be used figuratively.”
You didn’t ‘establish’ that. We already knew it. There is no Chelsea style sugar involved, so the phrase is a metaphor for an exploitative sexual relationship. What you established was that if you dig deep enough in google, an unlikely alternative explanation can be found. Not that it helps the sleazy Key.
lol
that might be because the grown-up M-W dictionary has two definitions – one shakespearian and the other ” : to lend money at high rates of interest <exposé of systematic thievery…shylocking, and murder — Current Biography> ”
wiktionary has the character as etymology, and also an interesting quote from a politician:
Verb
shylock (third-person singular simple present shylocks, present participle shylocking, simple past and past participle shylocked)
(intransitive, US) To lend money at exorbitant rates of interest. [quotations ▲]
2004 December 8, Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard), page 4928,
I wanted to know whether shylocking is a legal business or not, and if it is legal, under which Act does it operate?
Weirdly, that quote isn’t from the dinkum Merriam-Webster dictionary but from something they like to call the ‘learners dictionary’. Something you want to tell us, janmeyer? And it’s well hidden in the search results, so well done on finding it just 30 seconds.
Even that alternative usage doesn’t fit the circumstances. Nah, Key meant it in the way Wikipedia calls it:
“Sugar daddy is a slang term for a man who offers to support a typically younger woman or man after establishing a relationship that is usually sexual.”
Sorry – correction to previous comment (I’m new around here): precedent for figurative usage of term sugar daddy is from ‘Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary’ and not ‘dinkum Merriam-Webster dictionary’.
I preferred you putting the boot in to IMP the other day TRP!
Be great if those screaming re the stupid, clumsy, and I agree objectionable resort to the word “Shylock” could be relied upon to express such outrage about the hundreds of dead children of Gaza. Now and in previous shooting fish in a barrel expeditions. Oh well……that’s Exceptionalism for ya.
I subscribe to the world view of Norman Finklestein – charges of anti-semitism frequently amount to moral initimidation to conceal a moral bankruptcy in the accuser. Send your outrage to Santa Claus.
The cheapness of it is immeasurably more disgraceful for the fact that it’s invoked essentially in furtherance of something as utterly trivial as John Key’s electoral fortunes.
There has been a lot of comment and some evidence that this election is shaping up to be more bitter than any other. I’m old enough to have voted in 10 elections but must admit haven’t paid too much attention to the fight before now. If any political leader stood out as truly caustic and divisive post Muldoon it’s really just Bob Jones and maybe at times, Hone Harawera. No-one can compete with Bob Jones though for his sheer disregard for fellow humankind.
The right wing hate speech merchants pick up on the bitterness and vandalism in the lead up to this election as evidence that the opposition are increasingly immoral, anti-Semitic, and lead around by the nose by a Nazi sympathiser. They do this to create easily digestible media sound bites for their community intolerant conservative friends.
However, while I think the opposition are indeed desperate I believe the fault of the break from civilised difference and debate can be laid squarely at the feet of the current Prime Minister John Key and the culture of deceit and divisiveness not seen since the 3rd and 4th National Governments.
Whether John Key has deliberately divided this country at the behest of his Australian PR company, or whether that division has arisen from the relentless series of divisional policies is still up for debate, but what is certain is the he is responsible for the mean tone and split in the country right now.
I mean this is a headline in a major web based news site in NZ. It quotes National party klingon, Clare Robinson with her delicate sensibilities and appalling research abilities, attributing the passion of this campaign to the number of parties involved.
That’s it.
That’s the view of a Massey University professor with links to the National party. Nothing to do with the culture of hate, disrespect, dismissiveness, and divisiveness that the National government has fostered under the reign of John Key?
How about for once a political marketing expert actually does some sort of academic research into the many reasons why this campaign is at flashpoint compared to the norm in this country, instead of weakly saying, “it’s because there are too many parties”.
Once was Pete. I would like to know your opinion of WhaleOils blog and if you think his demonization of the most vulnerable over the past decade is justified.
National MP’s are being quoted in the news ‘whining’ about damage to their billboards while all the other parties messages remain largely untouched,
i well remember last election as i drove through ‘the gap’ into the local electorate i came across a couple of young lads gleefully and effectively turning a National Party billboard into matchwood in broad daylight,
Being a concerned citizen i immediately leapt from the car with the intent of making a citizens arrest, ok ok i am of course bullshitting you all,
Coming across that scene last election i did the only thing possible, quietly bringing my ride to a safe stop and then indulging myself in an elongated burst of mad laughter,
The youths concerned totally oblivious to the small audience they had attracted simply finished their ‘electoral project’ and sauntered off nonchalantly up the road imitating those of us who had stopped to watch their efforts laughing fit to bust…
Your glee at criminal damage to private property shows the typical Left belief that the end always justifies the means. It does not. The orchestrated cowardly anti-democratic attacks show the impotence of the Left. You do not understand how often National get a call from people to offer their property for a hoarding when they see vandalism. It also indicates how much we are on the right track.
Offering the property around these parts Fisiani i would not think a very wise thing to do, the gusto with which the two youths i previously described took to their ‘work’ last election would tend to suggest that any part of the property such billboards were attached to would be in danger of suffering the same damage as the National Party message does around here…
Fuzzyanil hey sheepshagger So so-cold respectable upper middle class National supporters wrecking Left wing hoardings are not ready to take responsibility and are a superior type of vandal with their better education and circumstances!
Helensville ‘Lockdown’ candidate meeting packed out, sizable crowd outside basically turned away including me, Bomber Bradbury and various others. Reps there from New Lynn Labour LEC, Greens, Māori Party, IMP and various issue based signs. Some stayed on with the media cops and drivers.
Mouthy local Nats, got a few “fuck offs” in when Key entered, Laila Harre´got good reception.
Well I’ll be darned… if we aint got one of them forks in the road for ourselves in these lands.
Ever since them students lit the tinderbox last week with “Fuck John Key.. Fuck John Key … Fuck John Key…” (and my hasn’t that taken off all around the parts) all sorts of shit is flying. Imo it indicates that perhaps the silent sector of youth and disaffected have shunned their reticence, abandoned their lack of hope that change may ever come, finally found a voice to call shit, have grabbed gleefully at the chance to tell the old guard to “fuck off”
Methinks this election will be a watershed in generational change in aotearoa.
You know the thing that really worried them about that video? It wasn’t FJK, it was the call for revolution. It bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the fear centres where they know they’d be the first against the wall 😉
Nationalisation is a taboo among the political and media elite, its mere mention guaranteed to provoke near-instantaneous shrieks of “dinosaur!” and “go back to the 1970s”. Imagine the Establishment’s horror, then, when a succession of recent polls found that nearly seven out of 10 Britons wanted the renationalisation of energy, and two-thirds of the electorate wanted rail and Royal Mail back in public hands. Even Ukip voters – those notorious bastions of pinko leftiness – overwhelmingly backed the renationalisation of key utilities. While our political overlords are besotted with Milton Friedman, on many issues the public seem to be lodged somewhere between John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx.
No, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that was the same in NZ. Privatisation of our assets has left us worse off and most people realise that.
The neo-liberal experiment has failed – just like it failed in the 19th century ending in the Great Depression.
“It’s actually the classic case of economies of scale, or a natural monopoly, and the decision you’d have to make is whether it’s one firm or the state running the whole thing,” says Mazzucato. “When you chop it up, you lose the benefits of cost and efficiency from having one operator.” Many network providers spend more money on share buybacks than research and development, retarding further technological progress in the name of profit. And then there’s Vodafone, which has become one of the key targets of the anti-tax avoidance movement. It’s cheeky, really: leave the state to fund the technology your business relies on, and then do everything you can to avoid paying anything back.
And there we have an economists saying exactly what I’ve been saying for years.
No prizes for guessing who was the one candidate who broke the rules and couldn’t resist debating/dissing another party….? And after the crowd started calling out “rules, rules…” the host woke up and threatened to expel fore mentioned candidate.
In response to a question about how to end child poverty, did Key actually say, with gusto, “give all the kids jobs”….!?!
It appear to have had some positive effects. Too bad it won’t help the Iraqi government which is collapsing and martial law appears imminent in Baghdad after a coup d’etat.
Hardly suprising when you put the Shia minority in charge of the Sunni majority. The massive clusterfuck which is Iraq from, say, the Second Iraq War onward can squarely be laid at the feet of Bush and Blair. However not everything the US does is entirely self interested or a fuck up – this being a case in point. Similarly the Balkans intervention.
‘Third parties cannot broadcast at any time a programme that appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote, or not to vote, for a party or candidate.’
Stops people buying up the airwaves, but maybe it’s what caught this tune out?
Petty, gratuitous behaviour from Holly Ryan the apparent organiser of the Helensville ‘gag’ (as opposed to ‘gig’) towards Penny Bright . “Uninvited”, “shoving”, “bullying” or some such as she introduced Her Warship.
‘Onya Penny for your mature retort about rights and the exercise thereof. Very nicely you took the last word from tory control freak Holly of the Limited Universe.
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Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
New Zealand First are celebrating the announcement of an investment of $3.5 million into five new trapping devices. These are a range of bait and trap devices, all designed to be left unattended for long periods of time. NZ First conservation spokesperson Jenny Marcroft says that this latest development will ...
Clayton Mitchell, Spokesperson for Consumer Affairs The ‘wheel clamping’ Bill that will cap clamper fees to $100 passed its third readinginParliament today. New Zealand First welcomes The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill to combat predatory wheel clamping behaviour in what is currently a largely unregulated business. Cowboy clampers are: gouging ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its first reading in Parliament. “Today’s progress takes serious action on the mental health and addiction crisis the country is facing,” says New Zealand First Health Spokesperson Jenny Marcroft. “The re-establishment ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries Today the Government announced the delivery of the promise to protect New Zealand interests by applying a new National Interest Test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. This further strengthening of the Overseas Investment Act will ...
The Coalition Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high-risk assets to overseas buyers. Under current Overseas Investment Act (OIA) rules, assets such as ports and airports, telecommunications infrastructure, electricity and ...
Rt Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Allegations raised this morning by Stuff Limited / Fairfax concern a party matter but I am confident that New Zealand First has operated within electoral laws, now and for the last 27 years. Declarable donations were declared to the Electoral Commission. Our ...
The chairman of the Upper North Island Supply Chain Strategy (UNISCS) working group, Wayne Brown, has hit back at critics of his group’s recommendations to relocate the Ports of Auckland cargo operations to Whangarei’s deepwater port of Northport. The working group's recommendation to close Auckland waterfront to all but cruise ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
The Coalition commitment to add 1800 new Police officers to frontline policing has been achieved with the graduation of 59 constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters say today’s graduation means 1825 new Police have been deployed all ...
Ensuring APEC work gets input from diverse New Zealand business and trade interests is behind three new appointments to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Rachel Taulelei, Malcolm Johns and Toni Moyes have been appointed to represent New Zealand on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ...
Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa. Thank you for having me to speak today. To start, I’d like to acknowledge Sharron Lloyd, the General Manager of the Trans–Tasman Business Circle, the partners for this event Westpac’s David McLean, and Derek McCormack from AUT, and, of course ...
A four-month investigation by former Environment Court judge Professor Peter Skelton found that Otago’s freshwater planning system is not fit for purpose to manage the region’s rivers, lakes and aquifers and that the Council has inadequate rules for the taking of water and the discharge of nutrients. “Existing planning provisions ...
Introduction Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to speak to an LGNZ meeting since the local elections, and I’m delighted to see the fresh faces of newly elected mayors. To returning mayors here today, as well as chief ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters departs New Zealand today to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Nagoya at the invitation of this year’s G20 President, Japan. “This is the first time New Zealand will attend a G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and we are deeply honoured that it is at ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of diplomat Carl Reaich as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the European Union. “The Ambassador to the EU is one of the most important and senior roles in New Zealand’s foreign service, advocating for New Zealand’s interests with the EU institutions,” Mr ...
Innovation and technology are behind five new tools to give nature a helping hand by helping eliminate predators, funded through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “The new tools will be trialled in ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the first reading of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 2021 (APEC 2021) Bill in Parliament today. The temporary bill supports New Zealand’s security preparations for hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 2021. “APEC is the leading economic and trade forum ...
The Government is making progress on improving the wellbeing of the one million New Zealanders under the age of 18,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on World Children’s Day. The Government has today recommitted to the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history – the United Nation’s Convention on ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter has released a new report celebrating the contribution of Māori women in business across Aotearoa New Zealand. “Māori women are leaders in our communities, they employ many people and support our economy and our communities,” Julie Anne Genter said. The report, Ngā wāhine kaipakihi: ...
Four parcels of land have been bought in Omokoroa, in the Western Bay of Plenty District, for an education facility that will accommodate both a primary and secondary school on a campus-like facility, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Two parcels were acquired from private land owners and two were ...
1 million New Zealanders warmed by the Winter Energy Payment 36,000 families bank the Best Start Payment in first year 6,000 more families received the Family Tax Credit, 220,600 in total They receive an increase too – from an average of $117 to $157 a week for Inland Revenue clients, ...
New rules to clamp down on overzealous wheel clamping and extortionate fees charged in order to release a vehicle have passed their final stage in Parliament today. The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill has now passed its third reading. “These changes mean $100 will be the maximum wheel clamping ...
An independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is a step closer after it unanimously passed its first vote in Parliament today. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill lays the groundwork for establishing the Commission as a fully independent crown entity – delivering on a key recommendation of He Ara ...
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to screen travellers for border and immigration risks off-shore before they travel to New Zealand. It was launched in August and became mandatory on 1 October 2019. More than 500,000 NZeTAs have been issued since ...
A proposed national plan of action to reduce the number of seabirds caught in fisheries is being circulated for public feedback. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage say New Zealand is a global centre of seabird diversity with about 145 species in our waters. It has more ...
The Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. Associate Finance Minister David Parker said under current Overseas Investment Act rules, assets such as ports and ...
The Government is building special housing to accommodate one of Aotearoa’s greatest taonga- our kaumātua, says the Minister for Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. Speaking at a National Kaumātua Service Providers Conference in Rotorua today, the Minister reinforced the importance kaumātua play in maintaining and passing on mātauranga Māori, knowledge, ...
Eleven men from a pilot forestry training programme for prisoners in Northland now have full time jobs or job offers upon release, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis and Forestry Minister Shane Jones announced today. The ‘release to work’ programme was a collaboration between Te Uru Rākau and the Department of Corrections, ...
Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins today introduced into Parliament a Bill that will make it easier for the public service to tackle the biggest challenges facing Governments. The Bill represents the most significant change in the public service in 30 years. The State Sector Act 1988 will be repealed ...
The families of more than 416,000 students will be better off next year as their schools have signed up to the Government’s donations scheme, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. The scheme will see almost $62.5 million in additional Government funding go to schools nationwide next year. “I’m really pleased ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced further support as the Government of Samoa responds to a serious measles outbreak. “New Zealand will deploy a further 18 vaccination nurses, bringing the total to 30 working in Samoa over the next four weeks,” Mr Peters said. “A New Zealand Medical Assistance ...
Fa’atalofa atu, malo e lelei, Kia ora koutou katoa Thank you to the Child Poverty Action Group for asking me to be here today to provide an update on some of the things that have been happening across my the social development portfolio. Can I firstly acknowledge the vast ...
***Please check against delivery*** Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be with you this morning to open this year’s New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Conference and AGM. Firstly, thank you Dr Alan Jackson, NZTR Chair for your introduction. And let us acknowledge also: The NZTR Board; Dean McKenzie, Chair ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...
A marine conservation milestone - the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve - is being celebrated today at a community event in Tairāwhiti/East Coast attended by the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “The creation of this marine reserve in November 1999 was a game ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne A new United Nations report shows the world’s major fossil fuel producing countries, including Australia, plan to dig up far more coal, oil and gas than can be burned if the world ...
New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters with Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.New Zealand is officially one of the least corrupt countries in the world. But it could be argued that our political system is still biased in favour of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne The possibilities presented by hydrogen are the subject of excited discussion across the world – and across Australia’s political divide, notoriously at war over energy policy. Read more: Hydrogen ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.We’re still buzzing after the rip-roaring success of the Corny Christmas party this week and we won’t even let a rogue earwig in the studio dampen our spirits. There’s a lot of exciting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.Review: Linear, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney The value of Australian First Peoples’ scientific ...
Sam Brooks reviews the latest generation of the Pokémon games which finally hits the big-ish screen.“I love Pokémon but I wish I could play it on my TV.”I’ve been playing Pokémon for 20 years and that’s been the main thing I’ve heard from my fellow Pokémon friends/fans. The games have been engrossing, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Stuart Robert this month announced a number of “practical changes” to the scheme. Acknowledging the NDIS is not consistently living up to expectations, he said these improvements will put ...
The trustee of the New Zealand First Foundation and Winston Peters' personal lawyer has threatened a $30 million lawsuit against a National MP, in the latest twist of the donations scandal. ...
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a regional economic forum based in the Asia-Pacific Region. New Zealand will host APEC 2021 in November 2021, with related events running for a year from December 2020 until November 2021. ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Dr Brian Ward of soft-tissue repair company Aroa.Dr Paul Callaghan, who inspired Callaghan ...
Emerging political leaders from 15 Pacific countries and territories will be in New Zealand next week to meet with one and other, and their New Zealand counterparts, to discuss major challenges and opportunities in the Pacific. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Billingsley, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW The small number of Australians being held in prison camps in northern Syria has been an ongoing, albeit low-level, challenge for the Australian government. There are believed to be eight Australian fighters for ...
Louise Mensch is set to hit New Zealand airwaves this evening. Who is this conspiracy theorist and what could she possibly be saying to Lisa Owen?Who is Louise Mensch?She’s a former Tory MP, founder of the Rupert Murdoch-funded “no safe spaces” website Heat Street, a romance novelist, and a conspiracy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis McNevin, Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Technology Sydney Designer baby, anyone? A New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, might be able to help you. Genomic Prediction claims to be able to use DNA testing to predict disease risk in an ...
Marion McLeod revels in the return of Olive Kitteridge, the compassionate curmudgeon who won Elizabeth Strout a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the year of the sequel: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Toy Story 4, Rambo 5 … Do movies ever make it to double figures? Books and miniseries certainly do. Genre ...
National is questioning those in charge of the Provincial Growth Fund after it was revealed a NZ First-linked forestry company made an application to the fund, headed by NZ First MP Shane Jones. ...
James Borrowdale spent the last cricket season examining Neil Wagner and his unique approach to bowling. Today, in the first test of the Black Caps’ summer, Wagner returns.Neil Wagner has a wicket. He freezes mid-pitch, fists clenched at his side, knees slightly bent, a roar on his lips. His brows ...
A record volume of resales of units in its retirement villages has boosted Ryman's first half profit with the second half expected to be stronger than the first, the company says. ...
The main problem with HIV today is stigma – and it is almost entirely based on outdated information and fear, says Mark Fisher of HIV+ support organisation Body Positive ahead of the World AIDS Day Festival which opens in Auckland tomorrow.A person living with HIV on effective treatment cannot pass ...
The Department of Conservation (DOC) is hoping floating platforms will help to keep the chicks of a central Christchurch colony of critically endangered tarāpuka/black-billed gulls from drowning this breeding season. ...
The Foundation Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR) is a newly formed NZ-based independent Muslim human rights advocacy organisation. One of the key projects of FAIR is to provide a Report Islamophobia ( http://report.islamophobia. ) portal where ...
The Royal Commission held its fourth hui with the Muslim Community Reference Group in Christchurch this month as part of an ongoing discussion with Muslim communities. ...
The Spinoff presents the premiere of buzzed-about Auckland post-punk band Daffodils’ new music video ‘Boys’.Theo Spike Salmon says:I wrote ‘Boys’ two years ago, around the end of high school. We’ve revised stuff, and played around with slightly different structuring, but it’s honestly not changed much at all. When I wrote ...
A Waikato stud owner Garry Chittick reveals as a New Zealand First donor says he doesn't care how the money got to the party, as long as it was used to benefit it. ...
In the wake of Wellington City Councillors voting for a 28 per cent increase in their base salaries , the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning Iona Pannett’s decision to take a second salary. Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams ...
For nearly six years, Laura Giddey has been a permanent house sitter in Auckland. Here, she explains why she does it and how it’s changed her life for the better. It all began in December 2013. I had a friend whose husband was in the navy and was going away for ...
A Waikato stud owner revealed as a New Zealand First donor says he doesn't care how the money got there, as long as it was used to benefit the party. ...
The Point of Order Trough Monitor, programmed to alert us to ministerial handouts, nevertheless sounded the alarm when the latest Provincial Growth Fund spending was announced by a politician further down in the pecking order. Accordingly we have learned that the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has allocated $3.5 million to develop ...
Fonterra’s farmer shareholders might have been stung by pangs of envy as they looked into the next paddock, and discovered how another company in the same industry is racking up huge revenue gains from the same markets in which their co-op is competing. But A2 Milk, a company founded in ...
In the 1970s, agriculture made the largest single contribution to New Zealand’s economy, but other industries, especially services, have become more dominant in recent years, Stats NZ said today. ...
Government finance statistics (general government) gives an economic representation of New Zealand's central and local government financial activity. ...
The government should look at an unemployment insurance scheme and add new benefits to help support people who lose their jobs, the Productivity Commission suggests. ...
Today Hāpai Te Hauora’s Māori Public Health Team launches "Tobacco is Not Our whakapapa" a series of video clips which seeks to re-center whakapapa in the narrative of tobacco harm minimisation. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Matt Shand (Stuff): Who are the donors behind the NZ First Foundation? Matt ...
A leaked email from prominent share broking firm Forsyth Barr perpetuates a tediously old-fashioned idea of the way people think – and it isn’t even salvaged by wit or originality, writes business editor Maria Slade.Investment manager Forsyth Barr’s daily market commentary came with a seasonal extra on November 1. Atop ...
Newly released documents reveal Cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
More than 640 letters in parcels filled with nonrecyclable single-use plastics have been mailed to MPs in Parliament via freepost since the plastic2parliament initiative started in mid-October. Another 125 plastic-stuffed letters were directed to National ...
Agrochemical company Ravensdown is risking potentially disruptive direct action by refusing to allow port workers to register their protest at the importing of Blood Phosphate from the Western Sahara, says the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU). ...
A few days ago, Fanimals announced it would not be returning for another season. Emily Writes, and her kids, are heartbroken.On my list of things I might write about one day it simply said ‘Fanimals’ sandwiched between ‘How old is BeckBroJack?’ and ‘Is Peter Krause the most dad-like dad on television?’I ...
Family First says that the trend to extend daycare times, and its role to be virtually de facto parents, is concerning, ignores the real needs of children, and reinforces the need for more support to be given to parents with young children. “Babies are ...
Donors to NZ First’s slush fund believed they were making political donations to the party itself in accordance with the law – especially as an NZ First MP organised some of the donations. ...
When the current coalition government was formed, there was some comment that this was perhaps New Zealand First's last chance at political redemption. The party's two previous stints in government had failed to last three years. The 1996-98 coalition ...
Newly released documents reveal the cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Rowell, Associate Professor in High Energy Astrophyics, University of Adelaide The brightest fireworks in the universe are called gamma-ray bursts and are created by the death throes of certain kinds of stars. These intense blasts release as much energy in one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McPhee, Emeritus professor, University of Melbourne We live in a world of violent challenges to the status quo, from Chile and Iraq to Hong Kong, Catalonia and the Extinction Rebellion. These protests are usually presented in the media simply as expressions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Sadler, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne A career in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), or the armed forces in any country, can be rewarding, but also demanding. Challenges include the rigorous training, frequent moves, and maintaining social connections. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aniko Blanka Toth, Postdoctoral Fellow, Macquarie University As the world grapples with an extinction crisis, our large mammals are among the most endangered. These threatened species – rhinos, pandas, tigers, polar bears and the like – greatly influence their ecosystems. So what ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of Sydney In September, the Fair Work commission rejected an unfair dismissal claim by a BP worker who made a Downfall video meme about his boss. Fair Work called it “inappropriate ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dozens of electorates will have boundary changes, Zespri launches legal action over special kiwifruit, and more tumbles out of NZ First Foundation.Dozens of electorates will see their boundaries change, and a whole new electorate will be created in Auckland, if ...
Back from a freak injury, White Ferns quick bowler Lea Tahuhu continues to make the most of her "gift" as the world's fastest woman with a cricket ball ...
On a farm near Rotorua, breeding rams are having their methane-laced burps measured - so the next generation of lambs can be bred from climate-friendlier fathers. ...
NZ phone companies and the government are setting up a system that will identify scam callers within hours and, they hope, stop them in their tracks, the Spinoff can reveal.We’ve all received them. The calls from strange corners of the world at odd times of the day. After I made ...
The process to appoint Steve Hansen looks increasingly like a farce as quality candidate after quality candidate rule themselves out. Was it all preordained, asks Jamie Wall.For an awful lot of 2019, I was one of the select few that sat in a room with Steve Hansen several times a ...
News that one big publisher wants to buy the other, giving the state a Kiwishare to avoid regulatory objections, complicates a media crisis the government hasn't yet addressed. ...
Open mike 11/08/2014 
Kia orana.
Apparently, some people enjoy washing their cars. Each to his or her own, I suppose. I mean, some people like duck shooting, some people follow Coronation Street, and some people’s idea of a good day out is to sit on a grass bank at Seddon Park and watch cricket all ...3 hours ago
Last week we learned that New Zealand First had apparently tried to enrich itself from public office, with a dodgy forestry company linked to a number of NZ First figures sticking its hand out repeatedly for government money. Today in Question Time Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had his ...3 hours ago
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The Council of Disobedient Women has learned that the Prefect of Aro Valley has been promoted to a new role with the blessing of the Pope of Wellington. Softy Jejune Parson has been appointed Mother Superior of Woke Wellington for the work she has been doing calling out heretics, ...23 hours ago
On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...1 day ago
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...1 day ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...3 days ago
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First Sight New Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...4 days ago
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...5 days ago
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...5 days ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...1 week ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 2 weeks ago
New Zealand First are celebrating the announcement of an investment of $3.5 million into five new trapping devices. These are a range of bait and trap devices, all designed to be left unattended for long periods of time. NZ First conservation spokesperson Jenny Marcroft says that this latest development will ...7 hours ago
We're setting our young people up for success, investing in education around the country. ...3 days ago
The Coalition commitment to add 1800 new Police officers to frontline policing has been achieved with the graduation of 59 constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters say today’s graduation means 1825 new Police have been deployed all ...2 hours ago
After days of tricky questions about the NZ First Foundation, the PM and her deputy have earned a respite - but not for long. ...38 mins ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne A new United Nations report shows the world’s major fossil fuel producing countries, including Australia, plan to dig up far more coal, oil and gas than can be burned if the world ...50 mins ago
Former director general of health says the Government needs to prioritise digitising the healthcare system. ...1 hour ago
Sam Brooks reviews the latest generation of the Pokémon games which finally hits the big-ish screen.“I love Pokémon but I wish I could play it on my TV.”I’ve been playing Pokémon for 20 years and that’s been the main thing I’ve heard from my fellow Pokémon friends/fans. The games have been engrossing, ...2 hours ago
The trustee of the New Zealand First Foundation and Winston Peters' personal lawyer has threatened a $30 million lawsuit against a National MP, in the latest twist of the donations scandal. ...3 hours ago
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In this busy pre-election period it seems the SIS bunglers still have their briefcases in a twist over Bill Sutch. Why now?
An ex staff member using a Soviet snitch’s material has had another go which is no doubt annoying enough for the Sutch family. The plod concerned makes free with files while a number of citizens that applied for material held on them by the NZSIS during the brief “openess” period of Director Warren Tucker, received refusals (under the 1969 Act that protects living sources) or heavily redacted replies.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10369007/Fresh-twist-in-40-year-old-Cold-War-spy-mystery
It means Key is scraping the bottom of his bottom drawer.
This is the Gnats saying “I was right all along.”
Seems to me to be pretty self evident he was a Soviet spy. Why do you have an issue with this?
Yeah but you believe in trickle down economics and muffins like Bill English.
You don’t know what I believe in. I certainly have never expressed a preference for trickledown economics (whatever that might be).
However back to Dr Sutch being a spy. Why do you not think he was a spy? He fits the description given by the KGB for a spy in NZ and he also expressed admiration for the Soviet (read Stalinist) system. Why do you find it inconceivable that he was working for them?
Why now? Partly because the papers have just been released:
It doesn’t look to me to be hard evidence against Sutch – the word of an ex-KGB spy. Some reference to meetings, but no evidence of anything Sutch is alleged to have done against NZ’s interests.
The question was whether he was a spy for the Soviets. It is not if th information he may have passed on was damaging to NZ’s interest.
Did you ever see Russian accounting? Soviet vessels used to keep 5 different sets of books. None the same and none true. You need slightly more evidence than an uncorroborated record.
Why wouldn’t he be the person mentioned?
Read Our Man in Havana.
Why would I read a fiction novel by Graham Greene to understand why Sutch was not the person mentioned as being a spy in KGB archive material?
tory fails in abstract reasoning again.
World stunned.
Gos, has it occurred to you that there’s a world of difference between a resident in a quiet backwater inflating the promise and possibilities of any contact with an individual, and that individual actually being a spy (even if the unnamed “recruit” were indeed Sutch)?
Not that you give a shit either way – just more mud created to throw around.
I’m not sure why you seek to defend Sutch. The evidence seems to point towards the logical conclusion he was an active spy for the Soviet Union.
No, no it doesn’t. Among other things, for the reason stated in the comment you just replied to.
🙄
“..Why now?..”..it has long been an unanswered question..
..’– the word of an ex-KGB spy..’..he is actually a defecting archivist..and these are copies of kgb files..
..hard to think why/how they wd be forgeries..
.and it was a phenomenon of the times..
..academics/intellectuals deciding the soviet way was better/the future..
..and so deciding to ‘help’ them..
..so that ‘unanswered’-question about sutch wd now seem to have been answered..
So he was a spy/traitor as well as a supporter of a muderous regime if he is the person mentioned in the KGB archive material.
gossi..how is america not ‘a muderous regime ‘..?
I wasn’t suggesting they are forgeries. I was thinking more that it is something the KGB claim – means little in relation to provide evidence of what actually went down.
..academics/intellectuals deciding the soviet way was better/the future..
..and so deciding to ‘help’ them..
That is partly why I left the door open to what actually Sutch did or said to any alleged KGB operative. Note what I actually said:
” no evidence of anything Sutch is alleged to have done against NZ’s interests.”
oh..!..ok..
As I stated it is irrelevant if Sutch believed what he was doing was not harming NZ’s interest. He was working as an operative for a foreign country and seemingly passed on information to them. As such he was a spy and traitor by extension.
A double agent could easily have planted information like that just to ferment cynicism like your pathetic attempts goose!
The man is not around to defend himself.
Both the CIA and the KGB were as bad as each other who’s to say National aren’t linked to the Chinese govt’s spying agency given Stephen Joyce has signed a deal with Huawei who have caught spying in the US and the UK Aussie has banned Huawei. From their UFB for that very reason but National MP’s are easily bought of Oravida etc.
How many sitting National MP’s their partners former National MP’s and partners involved in trade deals .
Kiwirail how that going for you Gossipman!
Sorry, thought you were talking about John Key for a second there…
lol…could be true…but which country?
which one does key go to for
ordersbaseball games?McF-Don’t think a judge would be swayed by Goss’s repeated use of the word ‘seemingly’. Not a bad try at spin though.Probably works on some.
I didn’t say anything about what Sutch believed – I was only talking about his actions and communications with the KGB.
NZ has been increasingly Americanised since early on in the 20th century. That has been part of the shift from UK empire to US empire. Americanisation has delivered us John Key, who does not work in the interests of the majority of NZers.
Wish I hadn’t posted on this now, was mainly interested in timing not revisiting the whole case.
Karol is quite likely right, no plan by Nats or SIS, just fitted in with the archive material being released. But given that state security has been to the fore recently in public debate the elephantine memories at SIS HQ could hardly have resisted tabling this info now rather than wait.
I would say too that if some people think acting against NZs interests is not the thing to do whether proven or not then the PM facilitating the NSA and FBI and US Corporates activities in NZ fits that description too.
So what was the big secret he passed on that Muldoon was a big dick head hardly a state secret!
or that Muldoon tRaded lada”s for butter.
Subsidized farmers
Universal pension’s wiping out the self funding more free market approach wow what great secrets did Sutch give-away and links to what organizations!
If it is that important to you, grab your spade and dig him up and yell at him until you feel better about yourself.
FIFY Goosemann:
It is irrelevant if Key believes what he is doing is not harming NZ’s interest. He is working as an operative for a foreign country and passes on information to them. As such he is a spy and traitor by extension.
‘New global crash looming: bank boss’
“Another crash in global asset prices could be brewing according to Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.”
“Mr Rajan’s views on financial stability hold particular weight because in 2005, when he was chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, he gave a speech in the US at the influential Jackson Hole conference of central bankers, warning that an explosion in financial innovation had made the world riskier, rather than safer.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11306873
Did you really think that the previous crash was over? All the idiots in the MSM have been so focused on the voodoo stories of recovery globally that they have missed what is really going on (you might consider they were told to miss it by their masters):
* the money supply was eased by “quantitative easing”….aka create credit aka new debt to cover the interest on old debts and allow money to flow. Note the debt did not go away.
* the debt…now this is the real story: the private banks worldwide were bailed out by the taxpayer who had the debts effectively “transferred” to them by the banks, who were then allowed to create more money to loan to the taxpayers to pay the interest on the transferred debt, et voila (if you were a bankster) you get even richer with no risk.
You will note no banker ever got prosecuted for this crisis. It has been the greatest financial swindle ever and through support of governments worldwide that are akin to our own financial traders regime the banksters have ripped us again.
The whole thing is a ponzi scheme that will eventually fall over (consider: everything ends, eventually). Probably when peak oil bites.
Except the bailout of the banks was paid bacvk by the banks with interest.
[citation needed]
Yeah right Gooseman not oneyour conman ponzi scheming bankers faced jail or any sanction all that has happened with the bail out is the perpetrators have been rewarded while the peasants have been punished over 4 million formerly housed Americans now living under tarpaulins and those who have got jobs are working now for a pittance.
To Big to fail is how it was sold ,the international banking Cartels has never been more profitable as they have MONOPOLIZED the finacial system even more than before!
No free market just a monopolized cartel!
Even the libertarians said let them all fail goose you pathetic apologist hoe much do you get paid to put out your pathetic lies and propaganda goebals with no balls would be proud of your enthusiasm!
Aha, onto it Ennui, i havn’t read much of Marx etc but did read one obscure tract from Trotsky a while ago,(think it may have been produced as a pamphlet as ‘the thinker’s’ in those days were wont to do),
Trotsky way back in the 20’s of last century pointed out that capitalism would eventually defeat itself in a series of crisis each more severe than the other,
When the profits of capitalism are vastly overpowered by the losses incurred in the ongoing series of crisis the system will at some point completely fail seemed to be the gist of it…
Winston vs Espiner this morning on RNZ-entertaining but I think Winnie is losing his sharpness.(Espiner too)
Was Espiner ever sharp?
not in any of his previous incarnations..
..his recent twitching-marrionette/white-guy-dancing/duo-thing with garner on that (in the main) slightly-warmed-over/clip-show pap that is third degree..
..being a personal/career nadir for him..and us..
..my expectations of espiner were low..so i haven’t been disappointed..
..and like many others..i can’t be fucked listening to him/morning report any more..
I was amused at Winston’s back-footing Guyon by reminding him that he was paid by the taxpayer. So many of these guardians of “taxpayers money” are, and hate being reminded of the fact.
@ Olwyn
yes i think most people dislike Espiner ( a-licker) and Suzie ( wrong)…so they have been giving Winnie/NZF free publicity by concentrating on the trivia of a joke …and ignoring Real NZF policy which is to retain New Zealand land for New Zealanders !
Chinese land is kept for Chinese after all!
China could buy New Zealand several million times over ( their own land is filthy and environmentally trashed with overpopulation)….why do John Key and the NACTS have to be so stupid?!…one has to ask this question….there must be something in it for them?….as we have seen with Judith Collins and Chinese husband stockpiling NZ swamp kauri which Maori artists treasure for their carving and art
….these are the real questions…but you would never hear them asked on the Morons Morning Report where in reality ‘Two Wrongs Make a Right ‘
Chinese land is not kept for Chinese. It is merely not able to be sold to anyone Chinese or otherwise.
Yes, China keeps it for the security of the Chinese people rather than allowing it to be sold for the enrichment of a few psychopaths.
The security of the Chinese people that the government constantly suppresses.
I didn’t say that they were perfect but they are doing the right thing as far as Chinese land is concerned.
Call of the day! 🙂
Gossipman you and National are doing the same here in New Zealand!
With your bought off right wing Media manipulating the public by only letting one side have fair say your an example of trying to suppress left wing commentary here with your continual lies like your leader
If you think the current government is as oppressive as the Chinese government I think your perception is seriously warped.
Quite right – the Chinese government genuinely strives to improve conditions for Chinese workers and to improve their trade position. Their corruption is tempered by their nationalism and serious corruption attracts capital punishment.
The Key National government is neither as clean nor as economically savvy as the Chinese government.
Goose Bullshit goose more lies!
they will sell land to anyone who can afford a bribe you idiot!
Not unlike Nationals behaviour in office here!
Who will sell land to anyone who can pay a bribe?
Also I’m pretty sure you don’t understand what a lie actually is. As stated please provide me evidence where I have lied.
How many Chinese property billionaires are their in China
None that own the land outright that I am aware. I believe they lease it. It is the lease and associated buildings on the land that is worth billions.
I’m still waiting for you to show where I have lied. Even if I am wrong on this subject (which I don’t believe I am) that does not mean I am lying.
Bing!
–logical fallacy there Gossie; “burden of proof”
Ummmm…no. You have obviously not read the poster you linked to. It would be a logical fallacy if I argued that someone should disprove that the Chinese state only allows land to be leased and not sold outright as I had made the claim. However all I have done is stated that is what I believe and am quite willing for someone to show if I am wrong. Even if I was wrong it is not evidence I have lied just that I am mistaken.
“I’m still waiting for you to show where I have lied. Even if I am wrong on this subject (which I don’t believe I am) that does not mean I am lying.”–Gosman
Alright, just for you Gossie–a new category “shape shifting”
Gossipman read your business stories Blooberg business !
local govts seize shared land and sell it for 18 times what they pay for it corruption on a grand scale when it comes to Chinese business practice’s I wouldn’t be surprised if that hasn’t spilled over to those involved in New Zealand as knowing some very high powered businessmen who have set up very large businees ventures in China! it takes to long to get deals done otherwise ask Judith Collins why Orivida got its milk powder in while not one other company did!
only in the sense that Banks claimed he’d not knowingly signed a false return.
Except there was evidence that was accepted by the court that Banks did know about the donation and had asked for it to be split. That is why he was convicted. There isn’t any evidence that I am aware that I have knowingly stated something that is not correct.
So now you are calling the judge a liar Gossipman
No, I am not calling the judge a liar. Now where is your evidence I have lied?
Gossipman I think if you read your weasel words it explains your definition of lying!
John Banks is history he lied through his teeth thinking because other politician had got away with more that he was above the law!
AS a former Police minister he should lot lie in court.
Banks lied on many occasions to cover his original lie.
He got what he deserved a huge fall from grace.
If he just had admitted his wrong doing none of this would have happened!
Now its John Brain Fade Keys turn to be taken down by his own lies if he had just admitted i may have or i did know about KDC then it would be a storm in a TEA CUP!
But now Brain Fade Key has painted himself into a corner being the head of the SIS and GSCB and the saying when questioned about the increased spying laws he was introducing Brain Fade Keys response was nothing to worry about their are only a few five people on the list and I know all their names !
Then their is the fact that KDC shouted NZ the Fireworks,KDC lives in BrainFade Keys electorate .
in the flashiest house yeah Key will need to have cups of tea GALORE!
Gossipman have a cup of tea and lie down and just admit your have been lying land ownership in China yeah right you are always right not even.
Remember Banks said nothing derogatory at his cup of tea another lie that Banks and Key tried to cover up!
that’s what Banks thought, too.
BTW, I believe the Shania Twain “purchase” was of high country leasehold land. That pissed people off, too, when the new “owners” wanted to get rid of the public track through that land.
People had more access to the station previously, and after the sale the new owners allowed, or maybe built, a single track that people are allowed on. This is an ongoing problem, not just restricted to overseas owners, whereby traditional NZer access to land is being restricted. Much of this is to do with tourism, changes in landowners and loss of traditional values/customs, and also accidents like the beekeeper in the farm bridge that have made farmers excessively cautious.
cheers weka
I just recall front page odt maps of the walking track and suchlike – ’twas a while ago now 🙂
Gossipman every post you have put up has been a lie gossipman especially in the last week I and others have proved you wrong and even defended your one and only truthful statement about the rate of Farm ownership read Rod Oram while your about it!
Gossipman chinese land ownership Wrong again!
I hope you are not getting paid unless its per lie you tell!
Not very aware for a right wing pro business party supporter.
Poor excuse for lying
Again what lie have I supposedly told and what evidence do you have to support your view that it is a lie?
Gosman The banks have paid it all back + interest is more lies their customers have paid it all back as the banks got all the printed money at less than 1/2% interest in some cases the govt paid banks interest to take the loans free money!
That your Bill English and John Key borrowed and forced us tax payers to pay 6% on average when these multinational banks were paying nothing its costing you and me the taxpayer $4.5 billion a year just in interest Gosman we are paying it back!
All the bankruptcies and job losses loss home foreclosures that the Bank of America for example was given huge sums to allow loans to be renegotiated were not given to the foreclosed homes that could not be sold because no one had any money except the occupier ,was paid out in dividends to share holders such as your leader John Key!
Bank of America even foreclosed on homes it didn’t have mortgages on kicked rightful owners out of their houses because the repo agents got the addresses wrong not one or two but hundreds!
john key on breakfast tv on one..
..wow..!..just ‘wow!’..
..he’s really running scared..
..and just sat there throwing fistsfull of shit at laila harre..and dotcom..
..sneered at the man who took down banks..as ‘that macready’…(!)
..insinuated that labours’ raising the pension age would mean that someone currently aged 64..will see their pension-age suddenly jump to 67…
(an arguably potent tactic i and others have warned labour will be facing..with this policy..a policy they have explained so poorly..
..key can chance his arm at getting away with porkies that large..
..and of course christie has his tongue so far up key..any questioning by him is too muffled to be heard..(not that he does that..questions the serial-bullshit/spin/lies key serves up to him every mon morn..
..christie just laps it up..like the eager to please puppy he is..)
..and all in all..key looked about as ‘relaxed’ as a crackhead coming down…
Christie must be the worst journalist in NZ.
i have him and susan wood..neck and neck…
..fot that particular gong..
..the stickman in the pak ‘n save ads wd probably do a better job of interviewing key..
..he couldn’t do worse..
and christie has one final arse-kissing sign-off..
..noting/arguing that the ‘sugar-daddy’ comment from key..and the ‘two wongs’ from peters..
..’does not mean they are evil men’..
..(oh..!..the humanity of the man!…so quick to forgive..eh..?..bless him..!..)
“.the stickman in the pak ‘n save ads wd probably do a better job of interviewing key.”
thats a GREAT idea !!
I dunno. Stickman and Key have close similarities:
John Key: “Tax cuts for the rich!”
Stickman: “Is that like $1.99 week at Pak n Save?”
John Key: “Yep.”
Stickman: “That’s great news!”
I think stickman has a little more “substance” than Key possibly
Brent Edwards very positive about Labour’s launch today on MR.
He said all expenditure announced had been costed for. Contrast this with Key peevishly saying Labour are promising spending of “16 billion dollars”.
Edwards also said Cunliffe’s delivery was good and that this was what the people who voted for a change of leader last year hoped for. Worth a listen:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20145186/election-campaigns-kick-off
And anyone claiming Cunliffe’s face is not fronting the campaign (a la Goff) take a look at the size of the picture of Cunliffe’s face on the Labour campaign bus. Excellent.
At the same time on MR there was discussion of a damning report on the shortage of specialist doctors in the health service, which must be laid at the door of this government. Ryall tries to say the doctors are supporting Labour on this and makes a fool of himself. Listen here:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20145193/shortage-of-senior-specialist-doctors
Over the last month Nats have been invisible, Labour good policy and sounding like a government in waiting.
i didn’t see the speech..but i saw/heard the media scrum around cunnliffe post-launch..
..and heard an inpromptu speech he gave outside the venue..
..and cunnliffe was brimming over with all that he needed on the day..
..looking every inch the successful-candidate..
I am old enough to remember Muldoon’s dancing Cossacks. That was a real low in political advertising, but this new development inspired by IMP descends to depths never before seen in NZ politics. There is no place here for this sort of stunt. We do not want these sorts of orchestrated meetings here with there violent overtones, and burning of effigies is just plain distasteful. Just plain hate politics. more reminiscent of the KKK. Do you think it is a coincidence that anti- semitism has also crept into the campaign?
Harre can protest as much as she likes but IMP introduced this ‘style’ into the campaign, and as I understand the law, she won’t have any chance of getting traction on threats of legal action. Just who is running scared?
I want to vote left, but there is no chance of that with these loonies in the wings. There is no chance of Labour reclaiming the middle ground without kicking these fools to touch.
oh well pete..u can relax now..
..the effigy-burning was nothing to do with dotcom/internet/mana..
..just more lies from key..
..aided and abetted by that weasel rawdon christie..
Once was Pete, who is this WE you speak of, expressions of anger such as flag burning have long been a ‘tool’ of the political discourse here and around the world,
This We you claim to represent, obviously you want an election campaign along the lines of what Granny Herald’s Granny Fran O’Sullivan called for in Her weekend column, effete, polite, boring, designed to only impress those stuffed into their shirts,
Whomever this WE is from your comment above obviously either doesn’t understand the inherent violence inflicted on people by this National Government’s policies, or, if they do, as many would, do not in fact give a shit if you will excuse the expression,
Even in your comment here, labeling a political movement as ‘Loonies’ is somewhat of a violent reaction, the best aspect of you doing so is that such ‘labeling’ makes the Green party look positively ‘straight’ and thus your abject fear of the InternetMana expressed in terms of your above comment is to be welcomed,
Quite frankly i am extremely happy with the InternetMana Party campaign so far, it would seem that those the campaign has set out to influence are responding to a certain extent, it is of course a wait and see as to if such a camapign translates into votes,
i am tho picking this election to be the final gasp for NZFirst, and, Labour 33%, Green 12% along with InternetMana 5%,
You can choose to be ‘on board’ or not, i doubt you will be missed if the answer happens to transpire to be not…
and ‘two wongs don’t make a white’ is who labour are so eager to coalesce with..
..eh..?
..nothing wrong with that picture..?
He’s a prat. Just got to hope that Labour/Green/IMP can swing 49%.
i dunno about that happy coalition Phillip, the free doctors for over 65’s policy from Labour while maybe not a deliberate attempt to push NZFirst out the back door will to a small but certain extent go a little way to doing so…
I listened to the radio interview on the weekend about option for tax reform. Sounded all quite sensible. Of course the National Party and Act know there is more than one way to redistribute wealth — you have to get a r_e_a_l_l_y big pile to get that trickle down working…
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-relaxed/906405082708477
xox
“Christie a journalist” ? Is that an oxymoron, or maybe just a moron!
Some are profiting from disaster by renting Christchurch residents out of existence. Kicking tenants out so they can renovate and charge more. Maserati and other luxury cars sales on the rise. Fewer people live in houses in deprived areas – probably because they have moved to living their cars, or worse, under bridges or park benches.
Sad, sad situation.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10369161/Rise-of-wealthy-changes-Christchurch
It’s all going swimmingly Amirite; the Speaker’s brother has got a contract to build a $284 million convention centre….
And some are earning their money in Christchurch doing the rebuilding of the city.
Possibly a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for qualified tradies to set up in business knowing that theres enough work in front of them to justify the risk of going into business.
Or for some qualified tradies to get $35 per hour swinging a paintbrush working for wages.
It is wrong to suggest that everyone making the big money in Christchurch at the moment is a rip off artist. Theres way more than 10 years work ahead of the City, so theres still time to get a building trade and join the goldrush.
“join the goldrush”
pretty much sums up your attitude doesnt it …
Yes it does. Its an opportunity for some folk in the trades to earn better wages than they would get elsewhere. Which I thought was a goal of the labour movement…..
The $35 hr paintbrush swinger I quoted was on $18 hr before he came down here. So he made some decent money, cleared his bills and eventually went home for the lifestyle choice.
And really when you have choices – choices of where to work and what to earn, then life is pretty good.
The implication that everyone making $$ from the quake repairs are somehow ripping off little old ladies and becoming slumlords is tiresome and incorrect.
A few of my family are in the building industry and they’ve looked at going to Christchurch to help out. The reason why they haven’t is because they’d be worse off.
Yes, there’s money to be made alright.
I walk my dog in my neighbourhood each evening. It’s a central city low income area. There used to be a man who also walked his dog who had lived in a rental – up the street a bit – for the last 13 years.
But, then he had to leave because the landlord wanted to renovate and rent out the house to short term tenants (e.g., those having their own homes repaired) who would pay (or whose insurance would pay) very high rentals. He simply couldn’t compete with that. He had to go into a much smaller, more ‘modest’ bedsit.
Quite a bit of that has been happening in my area.
By contrast, I have good friends who lived in a three bedroom house they are now renting out for $6,000 per month on short leases (no more than six weeks) and which is booked until next March (having already been tenanted continuously for almost a year). In the meantime, they have renovated and are living in a house bought from the ‘uninsured’ stock for very little, have bought another uninsured house (4 bedrooms) nearby that they hope to rent out for a similar amount to their original home.
It’s not about ‘evil people’ it’s about structural inequalities produced directly as a result of how the government is allowing the housing situation in Christchurch to ‘sort itself out’.
To those who already had, more is being given; to those who had little, even what they had has been taken away.
“When your rights are under attack – STAND UP! FIGHT BACK! ”
Candidate allowed on stage after threat
Veteran political activist allowed to speak next to John Key and Laila Harre tonight after legal action threatened.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10369010/Legal-action-threat-gets-candidate-on-to-stage
I wasn’t bluffing. Graham McCready was all set to help me put an injunction together, to ‘do a Colin Craig’ if I wasn’t given the same opportunity to address the voting public as was being given to candidates ‘attached’ to political parties.
I’m REALLY pleased that is no longer necessary.
Looking forward to tonight! It’s going to be FUN!
‘Her Warship’
PS: What the Fairfax reporter failed to mention was that last year, in the 2013 Auckland Mayoralty ‘race’ – I polled 4th with 11,723 votes.
The Helensville electorate sits within the Auckland Supercity (Super RIPOFF) boundaries, so I’ve been arguably working in the interests of the 99% of Helensville voters, in opposing this forced amalgamation literally since Day One.
Congratulations Penny.
Good result for Penny, the sniffy tone of organiser Holly Ryan had to be read to be believed.
Various ads and comments have been altered and or removed over the past few days including from the Baptist Church fb. There was no legitimate basis for not allowing Penny to attend.
Time: 6pm tonight
Venue: 21 Access Rd, off H16 just before Huapai
Come along and support the left candidates.
is there a mana bus in ak..?..going..?
no phillip, looks like arrange own car pooling, a Mana vehicle could well be there though
Good on you Penny. Give ’em heaps, if uppity Holly Ryan lets you.
Hey, I wonder if there will be any mention of this local issue for Huapai:
Something about a chunk of Huapai land being sold for $55 mil to a Chinese Government development group whose interests include “toll roads”…………
Well done, Penny. Wish it was being live streamed so people outside Auckland like myself could watch!
From Ohariu Labour candidate, Ginny Andersen’s fb page,
https://www.facebook.com/virginia.andersen.ohariu
an invitation to a talk by David Shearer on Gaza, 1pm at the Khandallah town hall for any interested persons in that area at that time: I think I’ll head along and see what he has to say.
https://www.facebook.com/events/673980682680041/?ref=22
Somebody needs to ask Gerry Brownlee why it is that NZTA no longer seems to have enough funding for winter road maintenance. For the first time since I moved south SH 6 was closed overnight (Kingston to Lumsden) during last weeks cold snap for nothing more than ice on the road (we expect closures due to snow most winters). Apparently there is not enough money for the regular grading and gritting that is required in winter. All at the same time we’re being bribed with the Kawerau Falls Bridge project that has abysmally failed cost-benefit analysis.
Key sounds like an idiot on Epsom and whinging, arrogant, lying and bored when commenting on the election launches of NZF and Labour here:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20145180/john-key-could-make-another-epsom-gesture
Jaysus.
Seymour channelling Mandela, and the bag of flour resigns amidst concern Epsom voters are too independent.
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/election/a/-/24675345/act-compares-pakeha-struggles-to-apartheid/
OMG. That is a face palm of such ginormous proportions that one’s face would fall through ones hands and land on the keyboard, to be branded with key marks for a whole week. (Mihingarangi Forbes probably felt this way when she interviewed head Klan guy, Whyte, last week, especially when he denied any knowledge of Whanau Ora)
The absurdity and ignorance is stunning. Occasionally you hear crazy shit like this from regular boofheads, you don’t expect it from politicians, even ACT ones. (Well actually you do, sadly they are predictable like that)
Can someone please do us all a favour and accompany Whyte, Seymour and Co on a library outing and direct them to the NZ history section so they can have a wee read on The Treaty and our colonial history?
Gosman or other RWNJ annoying you? Or if your own writing doesn’t quite seem to quite hit the spot sometimes–try this easy graphic guide to 24 common logical fallacies. e.g. ‘Strawman’, True Scotsman’, ‘burden of proof’, ‘the Texas sharpshooter’, ‘composition/division’ etc.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com
See this one a lot from the RWNJs. Usually in the form of But John Key is so popular and Cunliffe isn’t with the implication that that popularity proves them right.
And this is the one that economists use as the basis for their economic hypothesis.
Dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but saw on twitter last night that invites have gone out to a Nicky Hager book launch this Wednesday.
The invite makes no mention of the title or subject, all a bit secret squirrelly really.
After the hollow men experience I am not surprised. Something to do with the US nz intelligence relations?
Yes, I saw that too, and commented at the end of yesterday’s open mike, with links.
Bryce Edward’s guess that it could be about surveillance seems like a strong possibility to me.
Open invite to the launch here.
Another tweet about it.
i do enjoy some decent investigative journalism
Been meaning to put this link up for a couple of days.
A very important question. How did the first world war end?
And a very fine read.
https://libcom.org/history/how-did-first-world-war-actually-end-paul-mason
One question for people who live out west Auckland.
I was driving around over the weekend all over the west, and saw heaps of billboards. Indeed, it appeared at every point their were a collection of these billboards, at least two were for nation. Except were labour had put up two, then there seemed to be four for national.
So silly question? Is there a limit on election spending in a area? Because my guess, and it only a ruff guess – national has spent tens of thousands of dollars on billboards in west Auckland alone.
I haven’t stopped to actually count them, but there are visually more Nat signs than any other. In my corner of the West they’re often on private fences. Only seen one Labour sign on a private fence. Reason? My guess is working class aspiration meets a particular culture. On the other hand, someone went on a rampage last week and took out all the signs along Lincoln road on the corner near the netball courts. Good job that person – acted without prejudice or restraint.
From the Rongotai electorate, the signage i have seen is pretty much even, 3 National V 2 Labour, where there are clusters most parties seem to be represented,
2 of National’s have so far been ‘altered’ and i have seen 1 Green Party billboard up on a private property, that’s pretty much the main drag out here covered,
i do not need a billboard, a Mana tee-shirt hanging in the front window is enough to give everyone in the street the message…
it forms part of their election spending cap so if they spend big there they cut back somewhere else.
Can’t say that I’ve noticed that. Must be travelling on different roads than you.
And, yes, there are limits to the advertising spend per electorate.
Never thought I would say this, but congrats to David Cunliffe and Labour on releasing a coherent, sensible, well targeted, well thought out policy in their latest health policy. Huge upside with very little downside (cost would be mostly re-couped in lower hospitalisation rates).
It targets the vulnerable based on risk of disease rather than income, now if only they could take that thinking forward…..
What do we all think about Labour Party candidates using the word “Shylock” to describe the Prime Minister?
Drum roll please….here comes the faux outrage.
There is nothing ‘faux’ about blatant racism. And there is nothing acceptable about anti semitism. Full stop!
Yes, shocking. How dare people refer to Shakespeare?
I’d say ‘Shylock’ is so commonplace and Key’s Jewish ancestry so not well known that the remark was probably carried no evil intent.
But it shows how simply a few nasty yobs behaving rudely can make everything appear tainted with wickedness.
I am waiting for you to announce that mr whyte racism is reminding you of nazi rallys in 1920 and tweeting it madly and to journalists
It’s becoming an election of (faux?) racist outrage.
Still waiting for National’s policies.
Shylock is not a term I’d used to disparage someone.
I don’t support political stirring about (alleged) Maori privilege.
Peter’s non- joke is weak an racist.
The IMP video was no more like a Nuremberg rally than many rock concerts and their videos – such things have become pretty much accepted and the norm.
Now, about National’s policies.
dont hold your breath.
Shylock
Although critics tend to agree that Shylock is The Merchant of Venice’s most noteworthy figure, no consensus has been reached on whether to read him as a bloodthirsty bogeyman, a clownish Jewish stereotype, or a tragic figure whose sense of decency has been fractured by the persecution he endures. Certainly, Shylock is the play’s antagonist, and he is menacing enough to seriously imperil the happiness of Venice’s businessmen and young lovers alike. Shylock is also, however, a creation of circumstance; even in his single-minded pursuit of a pound of flesh, his frequent mentions of the cruelty he has endured at Christian hands make it hard for us to label him a natural born monster. In one of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues, for example, Shylock argues that Jews are humans and calls his quest for vengeance the product of lessons taught to him by the cruelty of Venetian citizens. On the other hand, Shylock’s coldly calculated attempt to revenge the wrongs done to him by murdering his persecutor, Antonio, prevents us from viewing him in a primarily positive light. Shakespeare gives us unmistakably human moments, but he often steers us against Shylock as well, painting him as a miserly, cruel, and prosaic figure.
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/merchant/canalysis.html
Shylock is also a derogatory term used against Jewish people to insinuate they are part of some evil world financial conspiracy. If you don’t think that is what the Labour candidate for Timaru meant you are fooling yourself. I note that candidate has been silent on the subject, so he doesn’t appear to be resiling from his hateful comment.
Key has a background in finance, however, so a ‘Shylock’ reference doesn’t necessarily imply the utterer is referring to his Jewish background. Though it was unfortunate. And very typical of this blunder prone Labour party.
Thank God we’ve got Nicky Hager, who managed to accomplish more in the last 20 hours than Labour have in the last 20 months.
Agree about Peters and the general tone creeping into the election, but can’t agree about IMP. The norm? I don’t think so, and not in this country.
Many of the kinds of propaganda techniques that Goebbels explored during the 3rd Reich, have pervaded society international – various kinds of manipulation of the masses, including cords. They have been normalised.
Ever been to a rock/punk concert? Back in my day – plenty of crowd chants against the government of the day using expletives.
are you happier with Liar in Chief?
It’s probably more accurate at least.
who said that Matthew?
Steve Gibson, Labour’s Rangitata candidate (although presumably about to be replaced).
as someone who recently compared a imp gathering to a nazi gathering in the 20s, what do you think k?
bryan vould once wrote
” The bouquets, of course, are welcome and enjoyable when they come, but the brickbats – and they can come thick and fast – can hurt. Politicians, like Shylock, bleed like anyone else. ”
slater is rabidly typing his admonishment….and farrar is close to hospitalisation, so affronted are they by whatever was said by someone unheard of.
tactical. Look at the date of the FB post. They’ve been saving this one up. Pathetic really, and this is the worst they can come up with.
I think shyster is more accurate.
probably, but still unadvisable for a Labour party candidate to say such a thing on FB the month before a general election.
Agreed. No matter how apt the description is, it clearly departs from the Vote Positive message and I’m sure he’s being told that right now.
stand him down. it will make cunliffe look like he is standing by being positive a highlights keys nastiness and inaction
IMO, an honest public apology and so on would be more appropriate – and rub home genuine accountability in Labour, rather than brownlee’s pretend resignation.
It’s obviously racist, what a twit.
You really are a dipstick to join in on this hate crap.
i would have gone with S@*thead….
I always liked the Merchant of Venice. But not really accurate of FJK is it, as he keeps borrowing money, rather than lending it.
It’s nasty and clearly anti-Semitic mud-slinging, and Gibson should face exactly the same consequences as the kind of people who compare their opponents to Nazis and sugar daddies.
touche
Yep, Key should be replaced immediately!….[and then prosecuted for a variety of his statements and deeds] Being an honest and fair person, I expect that Matthew Hooton will lead the charge in his umpteen media ‘expert’ commentaries.
What do I think? They should probably update their ethno-religious slurs. I’d prefer kike, to shylock, has a clear ring to it. With kike, you can shout it over the top of other people yelling about wops, dinks, chinks, muzzies, fuzzie-wuzzies, rugs, and sugar-daddy Krauts and still be heard clearly. Of course, nothing like that has happened since 1956, but we can dream.
I dunno:
Some might say its an apt description of his former wheeler/dealer background.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shylock
That really doesn’t improve the situation, Anne. The whole reason “Shylock” has become a slang term for “cruel moneylender” and the like is because of the historic situation in which European moneylenders were predominantly Jewish. At its core it’s an anti-Semitic term, and it’s prejudice is only reinforced by the fact that Key is both of Jewish heritage and from a financial background.
What some of you fail to recognise is that the candidate who made the comment in the first place (and many other individuals who have made similar comments from time to time) are invariably unaware of the historical context of the word “Shylock”. Call it ignorance if you like, but more often than not they are doing so under the impression it simply refers to a dishonest money trader. Their lack of knowledge of literature and history is such, they have little to no idea of the Jewish link.
The candidate in question has apologised profusely for his error and has admitted he didn’t know the back-ground to the saying and how offensive it would be to many people.
Just give a little folks…
You’re missing the point. The term has several levels of connotation and gibson is only being anti-Semitic if he intended to use it that way. If he didn’t, he’s just being stupid. Shylock isn’t quite like nigger, which comes front-loaded with its hateful meanings. Gibson could easily have been using without intending to bring in the whole history of the Jews. It might have been, as Anne said, a reference to Key’s background in finance, without Key’s Jewish parentage being on the rather shallow mind of Mr Gibson.
That might require a fair degree of ignorance about the play, but cultural imbecility isn’t that uncommon among those prone to muttering insults on face book.
Personally, I find this comment incredibly distasteful, and quite cretinous!
Given you record of faulty logic on numerous occasions, what you ‘find’ is of no consequence to me.
how do you feel about outright lying there..pete..?
..like key on breakfast tv this morn claiming the effigy-burning vid had been posted by internet/mana..?
..and under their name..?
..every word a total lie..
..and words that are clearly ‘cretinous’…
..but how ‘distasteful’ do you find such blatant/casual lying by the prime minister..?
..there..pete..?
“Personally, I find this comment incredibly distasteful, and quite cretinous!”
Yeah, funny that, as I found Key’s throat slitting gesture in the house incredibly distasteful, and quite cretinous
Unfortunately the only link I can find is to KB
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/08/labour_party_candidate_calls_john_key_shylock.html
I see the date on that is the 28th July. Been saving this one up for the Monday after the Labour Party election campaign launch Matthew?
On the face of it, Gibson is an arse and should be held to account. I asked the question elsewhere today about why Labour allow their MPs and candidates to do shit like this. Not for the first time I think Labour MPs/candidates need minders for their FB and twitter accounts.
Following that link, what does your “Yep…” comment on twitter mean Mickey Savage?
It’s a response to the picture about Epsom and voting against the rort.
Ta
ditto
have you found matties public comparison of whytes repeated inciting of racial division to 1920s nazi germany. have googled but cant find it.
Nickey Hager and KDC got you in a spin their mad hater!
Wee Matty, i prefer the term Shyster when addressing Slippery the Prime Minister,
Shylock according to my Book of Words, refers to a heartless or demanding lender,
Whereas Shyster according to the same good book refers to a Lawyer or Politician who uses discreditable or unethical methods,
Hence the PM seems in my opinion to fit the epithets of Slippery little Shyster to a T…
Oh come now Matthew, surely you realise that by now that if anyone of the left says anything racist, sexist or homophobic (and IMP provides this in spades) it’s intellectualised around. Winston gets written off entirely for something offensive but relatively light weight.
Look around you – people lose their nana when Whyte calls Dame Susan of Squash a drunk, but when Minto makes jokes about Winston’s liver no one batters an eyelid.
Hypocrisy makes the world go round.
Too busy battering our fish Populuxe…
While I don’t intend to repeat it here, remember the ACT party member who described JohnKey in such a way that his membership was cancelled? This appears to be a problem with the far right.
“What do we all think …”
Presumably you have some idea of what you, in particular, think so you could partially answer your own question.
“candidates“?
Plural?
As for me, I see the word ‘Shylock’ as similar to the term ‘sugar daddy’. Both leverage off an original meaning that is offensive.
The main difference I see in the two episodes is that one was uttered by someone who is a candidate for office. The other was uttered by someone who has been Prime Minister for six years.
And what do you think, Matthew, about a Prime Minister who uses the term ‘sugar daddy’?
I don’t know but this might help: After A.R.D. Fairburn, the poet, had re-boarded the train to Auckland after a comfort stop at Mercer, the NZR steward asked him if everything was to his satisfaction his response was,
“This squalid tea of Mercer is not strained”
Steve Gibson calling John Key Shylock means that he has to be delisted as the Labour candidate ASAP. Failure to do so means that Labour endorse Anti-Semitic Jew hating language.
Nonsense. It’s a throw away word, like sugar daddy, apparently.
I’m sure you also agree that the National candidate who called Laila Harre a whore and Kim Dotcom a pimp should also resign. But I appeared to have missed the comment where you said so.
Please provide a link to where a National party candidate has called Laila Harre a “whore” and Dotcom a “pimp”
I believe he is referring to mr key saying lailla harre was getting dotcoms money in return for sex.
Prime Minister John Key doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with referring to Kim Dotcom as Internet Party leader Laila Harre’s “sugar daddy”.
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/John-Key-stands-by-sugar-daddy-comment/tabid/1607/articleID/355757/Default.aspx#ixzz3A3LZHl4P
I’m well aware of the sugar daddy comment, I’m looking for proof of the claim of a “National candidate who called Laila Harre a whore and Kim Dotcom a pimp”.
On a side note, it is my understanding that a “whore” does not have sex with their “pimp”
Indeed, because that would be ethically dubious given the power relationships involved /sarc
Complete rubbish! There was no reference to or insinuation that Harre was getting money for sex with Dotcom. Sugar daddy has a wider implication than sex for favours.
And the word shylock has nothing to do with Jewish people. /sarc
Lets stick with apples and apples shall we? Conflating two separate subjects has confused you. Either that, or you are being deliberately obtuse. Of course the word Shylock has something to do with Jewish people. It is one of the more racist and derogatory terms that could be used. Best not to even joke about it. best not to use it in a political campaign, and best to distance yourself from it when a colleague does use it.
By your rules the National candidate who called Laila Harre a whore has to resign, and your silence on the subject speaks volumes.
Raise the double standard.
Someone who has been with five different political parties isn’t necessarily a whore.
Someone who campaigns for women’s rights, but takes loads of money from someone who runs porn sites, and makes jokes about rape and killing prostitutes isn’t a whore – well perhaps she is, but not necessarily in a sexual way.
you’re too slow for the party in so many ways, john…
Harre’s fake outrage and offense is so transparent – she took a job being the mouthpiece for someone who makes money by trading porn and ripping people off.
Few things will push moderate voters to the right like Dotcom, except perhaps the addition of Hone (I don’t want my daughter dating a pakeha) Harawira, and John Minto
thanks for your concern, john.
That’s some lovely partisan hyperbole you’ve got there John. I especially admire the way it reveals the depths of misogyny you’re prepared to explore for your #team.
The revelations about your #team are coming thick and fast just now. Is this the right time for you to be embracing them so overtly?
oh, fucking bullshit. Enough with the faux moral outrage.
The BSA has NO decisions relating to the use of the word “shylock”, even though it’s not entirely unfamiliar to pop culture. Yes, in some contexts it can be offensive, but it’s not exactly in the territory of, say, the N-word.
heh – tories feigning liberal moral outrage suggests another extract might be appropriate:
So why did Cunliffe feel the need to talk to Gibson, and Gibson feel the need to remove the post and apologise?
I imagine it’s because he thinks it’ll stop idiots like you bleating for too long.
because name-calling isn’t “positive”.
If you think Shylock is the “one of the more racist and derogatory” things a Jew can be called, you’ve lived a very sheltered life.
When your argument rests on the finer points of bigotry you know you’re onto a winner. No, wait…
Really? Then there’s more to “Shylock” than just the racist implication.
snap karol 🙂
What are the ‘wider implications’ Pete? Please supply any citations that suggest anything other than a sexual and financial arrangement. Take your time, I know it’s a big ask.
Took me 30 seconds to find this (Merriam-Webster):
SUGAR DADDY
a rich, older man who gives money, gifts, etc., to someone (such as a young woman) in exchange for sex, friendship, etc.
She’s on the lookout for a new sugar daddy.
— sometimes used figuratively in U.S. English
politicians getting money from their corporate sugar daddies
Sorry, but as hard as I tried, couldn’t find any evidence of ‘figurative’ usage for ‘Shylock’.
Renee Russo, John Travolta, Danny Devito.
Not exactly obscure.
I’ve established the (obvious) point that ‘sugar daddy’ can be used figuratively. The term ‘Shylock’ is quite different – it just can’t be used (in any sense) by aspiring politicians (unless they wish to be accused of being anti semitic, or completely stupid). I think Gibson falls in to the second category for what it’s worth.
so now I’ve presented a full hollywood scene that has “shylock” used figuratively (not the only one, either), you shift the goalposts to politicians only.
super.
“Sorry, but as hard as I tried, couldn’t find any evidence of ‘figurative’ usage for ‘Shylock’.”
I think you’ll find the first figurative use of Shylock would be a in a play called ‘The Merchant of Venice’, by William Shakespeare.
“I’ve established the (obvious) point that ‘sugar daddy’ can be used figuratively.”
You didn’t ‘establish’ that. We already knew it. There is no Chelsea style sugar involved, so the phrase is a metaphor for an exploitative sexual relationship. What you established was that if you dig deep enough in google, an unlikely alternative explanation can be found. Not that it helps the sleazy Key.
lol
that might be because the grown-up M-W dictionary has two definitions – one shakespearian and the other ” : to lend money at high rates of interest <exposé of systematic thievery…shylocking, and murder — Current Biography> ”
wiktionary has the character as etymology, and also an interesting quote from a politician:
I guess the goalposts will move again…
Weirdly, that quote isn’t from the dinkum Merriam-Webster dictionary but from something they like to call the ‘learners dictionary’. Something you want to tell us, janmeyer? And it’s well hidden in the search results, so well done on finding it just 30 seconds.
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/sugar%20daddy
Even that alternative usage doesn’t fit the circumstances. Nah, Key meant it in the way Wikipedia calls it:
“Sugar daddy is a slang term for a man who offers to support a typically younger woman or man after establishing a relationship that is usually sexual.”
Wonder if he thinks of Bronagh in the same way?
Sorry – correction to previous comment (I’m new around here): precedent for figurative usage of term sugar daddy is from ‘Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary’ and not ‘dinkum Merriam-Webster dictionary’.
I preferred you putting the boot in to IMP the other day TRP!
Be great if those screaming re the stupid, clumsy, and I agree objectionable resort to the word “Shylock” could be relied upon to express such outrage about the hundreds of dead children of Gaza. Now and in previous shooting fish in a barrel expeditions. Oh well……that’s Exceptionalism for ya.
I subscribe to the world view of Norman Finklestein – charges of anti-semitism frequently amount to moral initimidation to conceal a moral bankruptcy in the accuser. Send your outrage to Santa Claus.
The cheapness of it is immeasurably more disgraceful for the fact that it’s invoked essentially in furtherance of something as utterly trivial as John Key’s electoral fortunes.
Fukn soul-less hypocrites !
@ pete..and what exactly are those other meanings’ for sugar daddy..?
..that you claim..?
..the only one i cd find is ‘a caramel lollipop’..
..and i don’t think key meant that..do you..?
Fishy your spin is getting desperate !
GCSB march well before formation of IMP, they seem to be telling someone called “Key” to f**k off…
Nonsense.
IMP are the only people in NZ who can’t stand that fucking prick John Key and they’re the only people who swear about it.
Damn Naz1s, protesting about spies like the traitors they are.
[lprent: I was thinking godwin. But it fitted in the context. ]
Can all readers and lurkers in Northland check their family’s vaccinations are up to date so we can quash the latest Measles outbreak.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1408/S00044/further-cases-of-measles-in-northland.htm
There has been a lot of comment and some evidence that this election is shaping up to be more bitter than any other. I’m old enough to have voted in 10 elections but must admit haven’t paid too much attention to the fight before now. If any political leader stood out as truly caustic and divisive post Muldoon it’s really just Bob Jones and maybe at times, Hone Harawera. No-one can compete with Bob Jones though for his sheer disregard for fellow humankind.
The right wing hate speech merchants pick up on the bitterness and vandalism in the lead up to this election as evidence that the opposition are increasingly immoral, anti-Semitic, and lead around by the nose by a Nazi sympathiser. They do this to create easily digestible media sound bites for their community intolerant conservative friends.
However, while I think the opposition are indeed desperate I believe the fault of the break from civilised difference and debate can be laid squarely at the feet of the current Prime Minister John Key and the culture of deceit and divisiveness not seen since the 3rd and 4th National Governments.
Whether John Key has deliberately divided this country at the behest of his Australian PR company, or whether that division has arisen from the relentless series of divisional policies is still up for debate, but what is certain is the he is responsible for the mean tone and split in the country right now.
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/24686172/election-campaign-getting-ugly/
I mean this is a headline in a major web based news site in NZ. It quotes National party klingon, Clare Robinson with her delicate sensibilities and appalling research abilities, attributing the passion of this campaign to the number of parties involved.
That’s it.
That’s the view of a Massey University professor with links to the National party. Nothing to do with the culture of hate, disrespect, dismissiveness, and divisiveness that the National government has fostered under the reign of John Key?
How about for once a political marketing expert actually does some sort of academic research into the many reasons why this campaign is at flashpoint compared to the norm in this country, instead of weakly saying, “it’s because there are too many parties”.
WB @ 25.1 1000+
Once was Pete. I would like to know your opinion of WhaleOils blog and if you think his demonization of the most vulnerable over the past decade is justified.
National MP’s are being quoted in the news ‘whining’ about damage to their billboards while all the other parties messages remain largely untouched,
i well remember last election as i drove through ‘the gap’ into the local electorate i came across a couple of young lads gleefully and effectively turning a National Party billboard into matchwood in broad daylight,
Being a concerned citizen i immediately leapt from the car with the intent of making a citizens arrest, ok ok i am of course bullshitting you all,
Coming across that scene last election i did the only thing possible, quietly bringing my ride to a safe stop and then indulging myself in an elongated burst of mad laughter,
The youths concerned totally oblivious to the small audience they had attracted simply finished their ‘electoral project’ and sauntered off nonchalantly up the road imitating those of us who had stopped to watch their efforts laughing fit to bust…
Your glee at criminal damage to private property shows the typical Left belief that the end always justifies the means. It does not. The orchestrated cowardly anti-democratic attacks show the impotence of the Left. You do not understand how often National get a call from people to offer their property for a hoarding when they see vandalism. It also indicates how much we are on the right track.
Offering the property around these parts Fisiani i would not think a very wise thing to do, the gusto with which the two youths i previously described took to their ‘work’ last election would tend to suggest that any part of the property such billboards were attached to would be in danger of suffering the same damage as the National Party message does around here…
Fuzzyanil hey sheepshagger So so-cold respectable upper middle class National supporters wrecking Left wing hoardings are not ready to take responsibility and are a superior type of vandal with their better education and circumstances!
Running them over in the Range Rover isn’t vandalism.
lolz yeah it’s pretty sad when the govt mps are complaining about how strongly they are disliked.
Lemme get this straight: Key gets called a word that apparently refers to someone who is both jewish and a banker…
…and offense is taken at the jewish bit?
Jeez it must be weird out there on the right.
lol meanwhile the tories are certain that dunnokeyo used “sugardaddy” in a hitherto unknown sense that does not involve sex for cash.
And Wall St is well known for its love of $1000/hr hookers.
Helensville ‘Lockdown’ candidate meeting packed out, sizable crowd outside basically turned away including me, Bomber Bradbury and various others. Reps there from New Lynn Labour LEC, Greens, Māori Party, IMP and various issue based signs. Some stayed on with the media cops and drivers.
Mouthy local Nats, got a few “fuck offs” in when Key entered, Laila Harre´got good reception.
I was inside. I have a post in my head, but don’t have the energy to write it tonight.
The young Maori Party candidate shone in that context.
Why was Brent Edwards removed?
He wasn’t removed – just too late to get in, I think.
Well I’ll be darned… if we aint got one of them forks in the road for ourselves in these lands.
Ever since them students lit the tinderbox last week with “Fuck John Key.. Fuck John Key … Fuck John Key…” (and my hasn’t that taken off all around the parts) all sorts of shit is flying. Imo it indicates that perhaps the silent sector of youth and disaffected have shunned their reticence, abandoned their lack of hope that change may ever come, finally found a voice to call shit, have grabbed gleefully at the chance to tell the old guard to “fuck off”
Methinks this election will be a watershed in generational change in aotearoa.
You know the thing that really worried them about that video? It wasn’t FJK, it was the call for revolution. It bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the fear centres where they know they’d be the first against the wall 😉
Mobile phone companies have failed – it’s time to nationalise them
No, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that was the same in NZ. Privatisation of our assets has left us worse off and most people realise that.
The neo-liberal experiment has failed – just like it failed in the 19th century ending in the Great Depression.
And there we have an economists saying exactly what I’ve been saying for years.
Been to Kumeu.
There’s some control freakish rightees there.
No prizes for guessing who was the one candidate who broke the rules and couldn’t resist debating/dissing another party….? And after the crowd started calling out “rules, rules…” the host woke up and threatened to expel fore mentioned candidate.
In response to a question about how to end child poverty, did Key actually say, with gusto, “give all the kids jobs”….!?!
The US airstrikes in Iraq have been effective at the surviving Yezidi refugees have made it to safety in the Kurdish territories.
It appear to have had some positive effects. Too bad it won’t help the Iraqi government which is collapsing and martial law appears imminent in Baghdad after a coup d’etat.
Hardly suprising when you put the Shia minority in charge of the Sunni majority. The massive clusterfuck which is Iraq from, say, the Second Iraq War onward can squarely be laid at the feet of Bush and Blair. However not everything the US does is entirely self interested or a fuck up – this being a case in point. Similarly the Balkans intervention.
So, you know that song about John Key that Darren Watson released last week?
Well it seems that the NZ Police have been sent to a radio station that played it and told them not to play it again.
Weird. Who be responsible for that?
How the fuck are the cops able to do that? Maurice Williamson, hello?
interesting. A source/link would be nice.
Details tomorrow, apparently…
Interesting. Link?
That is weird. Why the police and not a letter from a lawyer?
great video, I hadn’t seen that before.
Last time they waited until the last week before sending the cops around to media outlets…
Like an actual source. Not someone heard something on the grapevine and posted on FB
You don’t have to take any notice of this, Pop.
Last word, Felix?
??
From the FB link
‘Third parties cannot broadcast at any time a programme that appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote, or not to vote, for a party or candidate.’
Stops people buying up the airwaves, but maybe it’s what caught this tune out?
http://www.elections.org.nz/media-handbook/part-2-election-broadcasting
it’s being regarded as election advertising so has to be registered???
just watched it and posted to all my under 30 friends facebooks…
So…everything I have posted in the last little while has gone into auto-moderation?
[lprent: extra ‘s’? Means that someone has to let you out of moderation once before you stop getting auto moderated. ]
Uh, way too much coffee, must be seeing multiple bogies. Thanks lprent.
I thought you might be replicating 🙂
😀 that’s exactly what a few people have been worrying about down here!!!
Petty, gratuitous behaviour from Holly Ryan the apparent organiser of the Helensville ‘gag’ (as opposed to ‘gig’) towards Penny Bright . “Uninvited”, “shoving”, “bullying” or some such as she introduced Her Warship.
‘Onya Penny for your mature retort about rights and the exercise thereof. Very nicely you took the last word from tory control freak Holly of the Limited Universe.