Shades of “the emperor with no clothes” from John Key……….Parata is a top communicator and hugely talented apparently. Nothing of the fiasco in the Ministry of Education has much to do with her apparently.
Oh, please bring back Tolley!! All is forgiven! She did the will of Key as obligingly as Parata, but Parata is even more effectively putting across his anti-education wishes!
No thank you, Off Your Trolley(Tolley) was the one that wiped out a long tradition in NZ by cutting the night classes. A start off point for many a successful business.
Just because there is one incompetent it does not fair well to replace it with an equal incompetent.
The answer is, get rid of Smile and Wave Shonkey and all his pack of incompetent prats
Did someone just avail the Slippery one of the latest results from National’s internal polling???, (snigger), now there’s a read to put anyone off their dinner…
Unfortunately i cannot help but remember yesterdays news from Social Development Minister Paula Benefit,
Paula has managed to give 12,000 the kick off of various benefits while in the news this morning the Council of Trade Unions has quoted the unemployment benefit figures as remaining the same,
While i KNOW that a number of those ‘moved off benefits’ are now reliant on the charity of various Inner City Ministries for their daily bread having no income whatsoever, i cannot in all honesty raise 1 iota of sympathy for the Slippery little Shyster we have as Prime Minister choking on His Pasta which in all likelihood was paid for by the tax-payer…
Melatonin pills are sold over the counter as a treatment for jet lag in North America, one possible side effect is dizzy-spells and in some cases fainting, Key just returned from Hawaii, so I would probably guess it is related to that with nothing more sinister going on.
I concur. Nevertheless the National Party backers and electoral organisation will be running through lists of alternative names while he is away in their minds, perhaps on paper, not online.
Key has reprised his starring role as the salesman who brought in the deals at Merrill for this government. Love him or hate him, he has been the public face of this administration with memorable lines such as “Beckham is as thick as batshit”.
Without him we are left with English, Brownlee, Joyce, Collins, Ryall, Parata, Bennett, Carter, McCully ..
Not very good. Hopefully just a one off. Might be the record heat we are having, and him all trussed up in a suit in a stuffy restaurant — by ‘stuffy’ I mean really hot/humid with bugger all ventilation.The Antarctic chill will be a welcome change for him.
The restaurant manager says it wasn’t stuffy, and that she had commented earlier in the evening that Key looked tired, unwell and was sweating noticeably.
The Antarctic NZ spokesperson put it down to jet lag, and also said Key looked exhausted.
Key obviously passed the “Work Capacity Test” by three doctors (truly “independent” ones I trust), so surely sick and disabled WINZ beneficiaries better “toughen up” and pass the future UK designed – and Dr Bratt (MSD) approved – “work ability tests” as well with pride, and sign up as “jobseekers” ready for work the day after.
The PM is “leading” by example, yet again, I presume.
One of the few reason I read the stuff website in the morning is for any sign that something terrible has befallen the Nat Govt. Maybe the country awakes of its collective coma overnight and says “ENOUGH Key must go!”. Nat calls a snap election and then get booted out. Its my fantasy and I’m sticking with it.
However after reading that article this am I did feel slightly guilty for wishing disaster upon Key in general and a bit sorry for JK having a fainting turn. Like Pete says below, it’s scary experience, and you wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. He has been having some difficulty coping for some time now. I also wonder in all seriousness that as well as the long work hours the strain of your personality not being a good fit for the job : ie, he’s a taker, not a giver, (and certainly not a leader) and that doesn’t fit with the requirements of being of service to a nation, is a source of constant stress to him.
Yes, oh horror, this happening to the adorable PM, just before leaving for Antarctica, that is of course of “national concern”.
With all respect, I do not wish John Key any harm, and I trust it may just be “chronic fatigue syndrome” or the likes, but do hundreds or even more of other people not “faint” somehow every day???
I am sure, it will be at the top of the MSM TV news tonight.
Never mind any debate about unemployment figures, welfare slashing, the state of the economy, Parata’s bungles and what else is happening.
Thank goodness he was able to get attention instantly from so many specialists in such a short time. I hope they were all male specialists. How many ORDINARY people had to wait while his little faint was attended to?
I imagine coming back from holiday to a high profile high stress job that everyone knows you don’t want to do anymore would knock you for six. And stress kills.
For his and his family’s sake, hopefully he was just ‘tired and emotional’ and nothing more serious. For the country’s sake he should sort his shit out and decide whether he’s up for this gig anymore.
Despite generally being a fan of UK TV comedy, there is some TV coming out of the US that is worth watching. One of these is Portlandia, a show about the city of Portland, Oregon. The show consists of sometimes related skits and reoccurring characters which examines our social norms, and critiques our ideologies, morals and ethics.
The first clip on the latest show was called one party at a time which considered the challenges and problems associated with contemporary protest movements.
The ‘protest’ begins with a vague discussion of the problem, and the participants don’t really know what they are protesting against.
The protest repeatedly descends into a self obsessed party where the original concern gets lost and individualism takes over.
Firstly they attempt to redefine the protest as more political, then more simple, then finally based on hippy ideals…but they all fail. Challenges to the protest include sexualisation, short attention span, glitter and glamour, and image over substance.
The end of the clip shows how easy it is for those in power to end the protest, and silence the protesters.
This 2 min clip is funny, but it is also depressing….its a powerful critique of protests today, but also shows how protest has been rendered ineffective against the seduction of hyper-capitalism.
This Portlandia clip reminds me of Zizek’s call to do less activism and more thinking. Less doie, more Hui. Unfocused resistance can often end up making our current situation seem the best option.
It seems to me that a broad left wing discourse* is just getting started again, after years in the wilderness. A few small groups suvived, and there have always been friends talking amongst themselves, but getting alternative world views heard, far and wide, to counter the TINA which has stifled dissent for so long, must be a big priority. One of the biggest barriers seems to be concern for how we are perceived – as if it is necessary to win others over with the first hearings. Most people take a lot longer to change their minds – points of view tend to evolve. But repeated exposure is the key. Something the marketing/focus-group, approach to politics has completely failed to grasp, if indeed their proponents actually care about anything beyond winning and market share.
But I don’t think we can just defer action while we sort out our thinking. Things are not static and there must be some responsibility to act as the jack boot of the elites comes down on more faces more often, and the environment is used and abused.
*When did I start routinely using terms like “discourse” and “meme”? Certainly not before I started spending time here. I really hope the particular language we use doesn’t create barriers, like some kind of exclsuive club..
But I don’t think we can just defer action while we sort out our thinking. Things are not static and there must be some responsibility to act as the jack boot of the elites comes down on more faces more often, and the environment is used and abused.
True…there has to be a balance. The Gap Filler project in Christchurch is an example of a grassroots movement that is focused on action, and appears to encourage not thinking too much.
Its interesting that you refer to things not being ‘static’ as one of the representatives from Gap Filler Ryan Reynolds suggests here that we should embrace the temporary…after all, what is permanent these days?
However, in saying that, Gap Filler’s call for action sits upon their already well defined ideology which requires action now, and is suitable to the socio-political environment of Christchurch.
Hi Fatty. We’re forever on the look out for funny and smart viewing. Sure as hell you can’t get it on NZ TV.
Came across Portlandia awhile ago and downloaded it. We’ve been enjoying it for several reasons. One aspect that struck me was the way the show demonstrated some of the pompousness, hypocrisy, exclusivity and naivety that you can come across within some movements. These attributes can really kill an otherwise useful and energetic movement. It’s one of the main reasons I stay on the outside of activism these days. I can’t be bothered dealing with the ego’s.
On an entertainment note the show is just plain funny. Those two main actors are good at playing a real variety of characters. Kyle McLaughlin (sp?) plays a good role as Mayor of the town too.
Yeah, the Mayor off Portlandia is very funny.
A few other comedies that I enjoy and make me think:
Louie (US comedian Louis CK struggling through life) Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry David, ex Seinfeld creator getting pissed off at life) Nathan Barley (Chris Morris / Charlie Brooker also pissed off at dickheads) Snuff Box (weird shit) Veep (the US version of ‘the thick of it’…not as good as the US version, but still written by Armando Iannucci) The Armando Iannucci Shows (prob my favourite TV show ever, from the creator of ‘the thicl of it’) Time Trumpet (more Armando Innucci) Black Mirror (Charlie Brooker drama/thriller/comedy – amazing. New Ep. soon!..that link is episode 1 of 3 in first season) A Touch of Cloth (Charlie Brooker, very dry comedy, piss take of UK police dramas) Them From That Thing (skit show, Charlie Brooker is one of the writers, only 2 episodes)
Some of these are quite old and can be hard to find, some are on youtube
Hey Fatty thanks heaps for those links. I just had a quick peek at the Armando Iannucci shows and I did actually laugh out loud. Am looking forward to watching all the others.(I like the sound of a touch of cloth). Thanks for doing all the leg work!
Have seen all the Nathan Barleys. Liked that. Was interesting to see thingie Barrett who played Howard Moon in the Mighty Boosh, play a character in Nathan Barley.
One thing we’ve got planned to watch is the box set of This is England ’86. It’s drama, certainly not comedy. The first movie This is England was set in Thatchers Britain in the early 80’s. Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ. We got This is England ’88 out on DVD without realising there was a four part series set in ’86. The ’88 movie was very real and gritty and really woke you up. When you see movies like that it reminds how insipid most movies are. Anyway, you might have seen it already and I’m waffling on like this is Weekend Social, not Open Mike.
Big ups for the links.
no worries…and thanks for info about This is England ’86. I’ve been meaning to watch the movie, but didn’t realise there was a TV show too, I’ll check it out
Is the Maori Party headed for the scrap heap of minor Government support Party’s in the Parliament, the news item on OneNews last night,(if anywhere near the truth), would have current co-Leader Sharples proclaiming ‘hell no He won’t go’ as far as relinquishing His leadership position is concerned, (Pita might be hanging in there sweating on ‘the knighthood),
While OneNews didn’t interview Flavell, they quoted ‘a rumor’ that Flavell has indicated He may not stand for the Maori Party again unless He is given a Leadership position after the departure of Tariana Turia,
It’s AGM time for the Maori Party and an elegant solution would be to simply drop the requirement to have both a male and female Leader of the Party in the Parliament, (which would be quite an intelligent option considering there is no guarantee that the Party will have a female MP in the Parliament after the 2014 election),
It’s all a bit of a ‘snigger’ really as it’s looking ever more likely that the Maori Party won’t have any MP’s after the next election, i doubt that after 6 years of National Auckland Maori are going to vote for someone who has sat there as a Government Minister and paid ‘lip service’ to those who put Him into the Parliament while the National Government has taken to their very means of existence with a Patu,
Flavell holding His seat is the Maori Party’s best chance of survival but Annette Sykes this far out from 2014 is 50/50 to take it off of Him this time being aided with Flavell having been tarred for the past 6 years by the same brush wielded by Tariana and Pita…
The advert placed on the Australian Seek website in late December calls for “expressions of interest” for 80 construction carpenters for a “major construction project in New Zealand to commence in early 2013”.
Placed by Perth recruiting company TR7, it seeks carpenters with formwork and roofing experience. It says they will be employed on a fly-in, fly-out basis from West Australia, working three weeks then a week off.
If the project goes ahead….
So what big projects in Auckland are in a planning phase at the moment?
Possible answer= i believe the figure for construction workers having left New Zealand for Australia since this National Government took office is in the realm of 27,000,
Perhaps ‘Seek’ has been given the task of trying to lure some of them back again…
Key’s fainting could be attributed to High Blood Pressure or his Heart,that’s right he
hasn’t got one,(only for the top 1-2%), he certainly hasn’t got one for those kicked
off welfare for various reasons,kicked out of stable HNZ houses to allow the top
1-2% to further increase their portfolio’s,he certainly doesn’t care for the children
in NZ that are facing starvation every day, He certainly doesn’t care for the sick
and disabled,insisting they can find work,there is no excuses accepted,go forth
and find a job,or else you will have to beg,steal or borrow, he could not give a
damn.
Perhaps the god’s are sending him a message, ‘you eat well on behalf of all of
those women,men and children, who in one way or another feed you, take that,
you poor excuse for a human being’
Gareth Morgan explains why the Antarctic is important to Key, and why Key is ken to reinforce NZ’s rights there:
Certainly his visit matters a lot more than the mindless platitudes of green groups. It is great that he has gone down there….
But the main reason for going is that Antarctica is vital to our national security, climate and much of our unique wildlife. And there are many issues facing the region, including climate change and the race for resources, not just fish and whales but possibly a renewed interest in the minerals locked under Antarctica’s ice cap.
I don’t go with Morgan’s lip service to climate change and environment, while slamming “greenies” and his talking up of Key’s approach.
Yes Maui, thought of something similar. In the meantime Key waxes lyrical about the beautiful unspoilt continent while in his mind he’s thinking oil, minerals, digging, drilling…
Remember in the 90’s when Morgan was the evil lisping right wing economist of the nation? And now he’s like NZ’s version of Joseph Stiglitz. He’s having a go (not sure why) at ‘the greenies’ now, but maybe given another 20 years he’ll catch up a bit further. In the meantime he’s got a soccer team to run into the ground…
I’m surprised that Key did not realise that a life-style involving Honolulu-Auckland-Wellington-Scott Base-[SouthPole ?]-Wellington commuting would not involve potential health consequences such as deep vein thrombosis or jet lag, impairing prime ministerial judgment.
But is it jet lag ? It seems to be a very politically convenient explanation.
I am sure it can easily appear homophobic on a quick shallow reading. But a closer such reading will reveal that the opinion is about a place in the world for a group who want to do their own thing on their own. It is a view that is positive to that group, not negative to any other group. Subtle but real. By way of comparison, people who advocate for some separate institution for, say, just women are not automatically man-haters are they? Or are they? Many say they are, but those people are also shallow readers.
Bullshite. That is not evidence of “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people” and I have explained that. You are ignoring that explanation and that points to a deficiency in your approach to this mini-thread.
Just because one group wants to play in their own sandpit away from the other kiddies it does not mean they have “an extreme and irrational aversion” to those other kiddies.
What is so hard to understand about that simple proposition?
Your postion is akin to a Kiwiblog type ranter who claims those who want, as per previous example, to set-up some institution for women are man-haters.
Just because one group wants to play in their own sandpit away from the other kiddies it does not mean they have “an extreme and irrational aversion” to those other kiddies.
“away from the other kiddies” = “aversion“.
No logical reason for their desire = “irrational“.
We’re not talking about just not inviting someone to play poker of an evening. Marriage is a legal construct that, most of the time when it is applied, you personally have no idea about it. Two people in a car? No idea if they’re married. Both wearing wedding rings? Are they married to each other, or just LOTR geeks? But it can make legal procedures in extremis a whole lot easier.
Denying people legal recognition and rights (even if you personally might never know whether someone you encounter has used those rights) for no reason other than an irrational aversion is pretty “extreme“.
“away from the other kiddies” = “aversion“.
No logical reason for their desire = “irrational“.
McFlock, seriously? That does not equate to aversion. Did you wonder perhaps that outside of that short period of time playing in the sandpit they all might enjoy playing together and be friends? There is an abundance of shallow short thinking going on.
Or maybe when a couple of friends of mine go and have a catch up without me that means they have an aversion to me. That is just plain dumb.
And as for irrational, ffs. People right across humanity like keeping similar company. People of like kinds congregate. Be it religious, sporting, racial, financial, cultural, genderal. People enjoy hanging out with their own types. It is not irrational, it is exactly human behaviour.
Definitely averse to sharing the sandpit. The example isn’t “oo, happy to play without you there”. The situation is “we do not want you in the sandpit with us. If you try and play even in part of the sandpit we aren’t using, we will stop you”.
That’s not even “separate but equal”.
“like” is “irrational”. Not rational. No logical basis. By your definition of “irrational”, no hatred, loathing, aversion or fear will be “irrational”, because humans across the world have them. So beating someone to death because you thought they walked like a gay man is not “irrational”, because people across the world attack and kill those who are different.
Edit: so muzz, what’s an acceptable number of homophobes in a forum, according to you?
“They” (you and the other bigots) want to do “things” (get married) “on their own” (alone together, or something), and this is not affected by anything that anyone else (including gay people) want to do, in any way whatsoever, except that perhaps I might be driving past, and yell “fuck you, you homophobic assholes” just as you were about to kiss the other bigot, which might put a damper on proceedings.
But I can’t see what gay people wanting to get married has to do with this sad spectacle.
vto: why should a tiny minority (of bigots) get to dictate to the rest of us, and force us to accept their (your) definition of marriage?
So what if you are offended (or outraged, or undermined, or saddened, or driven to insanity) by gay marriage? Gay marriage is not the pain in your mind: your sad prejudice is.
vto, you don’t get to decide whether the label of bigot sticks to you:
“Off topic” – the topic is your hateful homophobia, and what a tiny minority you belong to, and the contempt which accrues as a result. I’m neither poking nor prodding, I’m just rubbing your nose in it.
If Pops inference was along those lines, then perhaps he might validate that his original comment was aimed at VTO, otherwise its a throw away remark, which can be as arbitrary, as substituting in, *too many […….] on this site*!
In which case, one McFlock could be seen as too many eh!
We covered this earlier: “So what if you are offended (or outraged, or undermined, or saddened, or driven to insanity) by gay marriage?”
What a hypocrite you are to whine about rudeness while maintaining your ill-mannered prejudice, and insistence that your minority opinion be treated with anything other than contempt.
Yes rude. Why don’t you re-read the thread. The accusation was homophobia. No evidence has been provided to fit the definition (but feel free to point which of the posts above has done this, if you can) and prove the kiwiblog type knee-jerk over reaction of both you and Pop.
The rudeness is the personal. You have called me sad, hateful, ill-mannered, contemptful, bigoted and in addition you continue to call me homophobic without substance, and prejudiced. It is all ther in black and white.
Nothing you have posted has established anything except that typical left wing arrogance and ignorance that anything that does not accord with your world view is somehow extreme and hateful. This drives people away from the left in exactly the same manner as right wing extremism drives people away from them.
You make baseless accusations that you cannot back-up. You are weak.
You are clearly incapable of understanding how your desire to interfere in other people’s relationships constitutes homophobia, but don’t worry: no-one else will have any trouble working it out.
You cannot point to which of the posts above of yours or anyone elses has shown how the view expressed fits the definition of homophobia. You have failed. You should apologise for your mindless knee-jerk accusation.
Ever heard of that saying about a hole and digging?
Imo gay people who want to tie a knot in it should get their own institution and leave those straight people alone ffs instead of gate-crashing someone else’s party.
The institution of marriage doesn’t belong to you. To use your stupid metaphor, it isn’t your party, and gay people are invited. So fuck off, bigot.
Political journalists and commenters are interested in a number of more or less petty things, it seems, but have evidently LITTLE or NO interested in people on welfare facing the most radical and draconian reforms in at least a generation here in NZ.
So I was having to learn once again, when reading Bryce Edward’s “political roundup” today, for the summer period now nearing the end when Parliament slowly returns to business late this month.
It is astonishing that debate about drones, about a PM fainting, about personality politics, apart from admittedly some important issues, but otherwise lots of side-show matters, dominate the tabloids, the online media, the newsmedia in general here in NZ.
NO mention of the most substantial welfare reforms at all. That tells me, I belong to a group of people that have no right to exist, as whatever I and others face is NOT relevant at all.
Mabe bring in a system now to do away with us – for good, so we do not “stain” the social and political environment with our blemished, useless, “bludger-like” existence?
Xtasy you hit on an interesting train of thought here…
The strategy appears to be long and , to convince an entire nation, that there is no more important issues/messages than what the MSM chose to convey, creating an environment of perceived safety, actual complacency, and total apathy! It looks like the strategy has been well bedded in NZ, and elsewhere.
Also, while convincing the, *entire nation* (those wasting energy following MSM), that there is no threat to them, while at the same time exposing the threat (to those such as yourself), by simply ignoring the issues which the *threats* consists of. Additionally the disenfranchising of huge numbers of people that *switch off* from MSM and politics altogether, but simultaneously keeping just enough people engaged with the dros served up, to maintain some, *order*
There’s an ever growing number of *groups*, which are, effectively deemed irrelevant, and there is an ever growing number of *groups*, who are yet to realise that they were deemed *irrelevant* years back also. Many are busy putting the boot into beneficiaries, and other vulnerable groups, as they can’t see the threat to *their group*, and thus act out accordingly!
Strategically, one has to *admire* the *techniques*, but equally, when as blatant as the tactics employed have been, one has to accept that a turn around in NZ, is unlikely to eventuate!
But what is being presented to us as the supposed “reality”, perceived “security”, and as the “convention of the presence”, that will inevitably get “boring” to the majority, so there may be hope that they stumble across any such not noticed “groups” and “re-discover” that there is another world around them out there. They may then actually take an interest and start opening their mind.
I admit though, it is a slim chance of that happening. Meeting homeless, beggars, scruffily clothed and neglected poor will possibly in most cases have the opposite effect. People will appreciate their own security, in the best case make a little donation to a welfare agency, but then move on back home to their safe suburban home.
In reality it is not so much media communication of a sense of “security”, it is a communication of well-selected “threats” that are presented to the wider public and media consumer, this being CRIME.
Look at the APN and Fairfax websites, look at the TV news, listen to radio (even increasingly also National Radio). Crime, accidents, disaster news, that is always at the beginning and top of the news in most news presentations now. So the public are conditioned to be extra sensitive to crime and disaster, which again feeds feelings for a need of “security”, which again misleads most to support the status quo system, as any change will be associated with insecurity and risks.
That is also, what keeps this present government pretty safely in place.
Pop, your attitude that anyone who has a view on gay-straight issues that is opposed to your own is homophobic is the attitude to be expected from the right, just switched around like looking in a mirror. See my last reply to oth.
It is intersting to look back a few years on how David Shearer and Phil Goff were perceived by the right before David became Leader.
The link above to David Farrar’s research in April ’09, six months after Phil took over from Helen is quite chilling.
“Phil Goff has been shifting Labour more towards the centre, with the departure of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. He is attacking National for not sticking with tax cuts, he let Clayton Cosgrove attack over Maori prison units and he is refusing to back Maori seats on the Auckland Council. Plus Labour are backing most of the RMA changes and voted to repeal the EFA.
But the extent to which Goff wants to pull Labour away from the left astonishes even me. As we all know, David Shearer is his hand picked candidate for Mt Albert – his former school friend and Ministerial advisor.”
……..and these quotes are from David Farrar!
“Now I agree with Shearer, but I can imagine it is going to be very uncomfortable for Labour when he is an MP. Everytime Goff or King gets up to accuse the Government of having a privatisation agenda, the Nats will laugh and remind them that they have an MP who supports privatising the army. And when you consider Labour’s entire strategy is to basically label everything National does is as privatisation, well Naional can’t wait until Shearer is an MP. Hell, they are probably tempted to endorse him themselves.” http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/04/privatising_protection.html
As we all know, David Shearer is his hand picked candidate for Mt Albert – his former school friend…
‘School friend’ was a MSM created myth. They went to the same high school but at different times. They didn’t know each other until years later. My understanding at the time is that it was Phil Twyford (who was a close friend forged at a time both were linked to the UN) who persuaded Shearer to return to NZ and stand for Mt. Albert. That is not to say Goff didn’t fully support the nomination, but these things are never quite as simple as has been suggested.
It’ true, Goff was at the Right end of the Labour Party but, to be fair to him, he did shift further to the Left during the 2011 campaign. But it was too late! Everything was “too late” and God knows how many members (including me) tried to tell them. This is where the BIG DISCONNECT first came in to the picture – at least in recent times.
Can’t wait for the party to spin that one away. What happened to trends and momentum and other such bullshit?
I asked on red alert for predictions of where Shearer’s Labour should be sitting in the polls if they are to mount a successful challenge in 2014
No one answered.
I’m guessing it’s something to do with the top table being held to account if they are way off, like I suspect they will be in 2015
Of course they all deserve a rest but … I mean God I’d had enough “resting” with my in-laws after week 1!
January is the time to seize back and hold the political agenda for the year ahead.
Journalists are begging for stories. Especially stories about the year ahead. Predictions.
So far Labour have put Shearer up to comment just once, so we now have to endure a further week of stories about the Antarctic for God’s sake.
Shearer has made a massive strategic mistake.Nothing against Chippie being night-watchiman per se, but it really needed that apparent impending game-changer speech to be this week or last, not in late January.
Last week someone with some nous and the capability to do good political stunts needed to to blow the housing story out of the water. Like set fire to a derelict state house and call the cameras and then help put it out talking about housing stock, or live a week with a homeless family, or promise to hand over this years’ salary to a housing trust and then go help them build a house in a weekend, or hijack the Hobsonville ferry opening coming up with a pointed speech to camera, or go to a house auction with a couple and pay their house deposit to the bank out of their own MPs pocket or indeed out of an LEC’s and do it with cameras rolling, God it’s not hard to think of something beyond sending another press release out. Paul Holmes was a master of the stunt, as was Bob Harvey in his prime. Sigh.
With Aucklands Unitary Plan hearings, and the Christchurch rebuilt accelerating, this is the year for housing as a gamechanger, and Labour has the policy to do it.
After all the best way to predict the future, is to make it happen. Instead these polls.
So we’ll end up next election about 50-50 as a bunch. I should just relax. Sigh. Relax.
the standard definition of stupidity being to do the same thing over and over again, expecting something different to happen. whatever Labour have been doing since 2009, this January it was time to do something different. Shearer is not culpable for the era prior to him, of course, but he is responsible for the results now. He had a fallow January field for media and is so far reaping the rewards of doing the same thing over and over again.
The dude gained 4% over the previous year’s january dip, reversing 4 years of steady decline at that point. In his first year as leader.
31.5% sucks, but it’s better than 27.5%.
Now, there’s many a slip ‘twixt dress and drawers, and I’m still looking to see some 35% threshold breakers, but performance-wise it’s not a major tragedy unless key calls a chardonnay-snap election.
So when do you hope to see those 35% threshold breakers?
And using those figures and logic, Shearer is less popular than Goff in his first months as leader. Not really a win, aye.
Maybe I should ask when do you expect Shearer to hit 33% ?
Actually I think I wrote something about one or two RM polls 35% by feb leadership vote waiting before beginning to think it looks like Labour’s back in the doldrums. Shearer personally? probably not until next year. opposition bias and all. Haven’t really looked at party vs leader stats though.
Today, Labour =31.5%.
2 months ago November 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
7 months ago June 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
12 months ago Feb 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
19 months ago July 2011, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
22 months ago April 2011, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
There’s definitely consistency here for Labour, not so sure that it’s an upward trending one though.
Just demonstrating natural variability about a mean, McFlock. A student t-test will show that to you. Nothing unfair there. If you want me to give you more data points sitting right on top of 31.5% I can, but they are sitting there for you to see.
The point being that you don’t know whether there is actual improvement. Especially given 2011 Labour was going down, so to stay in approximately (for a given value of approximate) the same place labour actually needs to have improved in the last 12 months.
It’s called “regaining lost ground”. And shearer didn’t lose the ground.
The average of the 24 Roy Morgan polls since Jan 2012 is 46% for National and 31% for Labour.
No F@c&ing change. Shearer has to fire Mallard immediately. The strategy is F@c&ed!
We are not winning this way.
We are loosing this way.
Does Shearer not see that he is surrounded by the same twits who lost in 2011?
Please change something. This is the most painful disaster to watch.
Key’s idiot crew screw up everything and we can’t take a single percentage point off them!’
Change
Change
Change
You may like to know that on the Concert program pm 24 January there is a program of American protest song ,Trade Union songs and old socialist songs . Should be worth a listen .
I’ve always thought it more a video medium, but you’re right, I should.
I just bought some half decent studio headphones today and half deaf as I am, I can hear again.
Not looking forward to rectifying all those tracks when all I want to do is write, but if I win lotto tomorrow I’ll not hire the guy that did kim.com’s records to do it for me.
You may like to know that on the Concert program 7. pm 24 January there is a program of American protest song ,Trade Union songs and old socialist songs . Should be worth a listen .
Excellent. We spend some lots of time in a part of the country where these things are still regularly sung and strummed. It’s like stepping back in time. Reaching back to feel the times. Tis quite something. Woody Guthrie and the like. Mining songs. Old ones.
Well old smile and wave is back. Already the photos are appearing in the press. Nothing escapes this man He got into the act regarding the accident involving the Bethlehem School.
However surely the most outrageous photo is the one on page 3 of to-day’s Herald . What a buffoon what has Aotearoa done to deserve this clown. .
I think RNZ is the only public service broadcaster we now have. I like the Charter, and think RNZ does fulfil a lot of it, but not as much as I would like.
Charter –
(1) The functions of the public radio company shall be to provide innovative, comprehensive, and independent broadcasting services of a high standard and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, to provide –
(a) Programmes which contribute toward intellectual, scientific, cultural, spiritual, and ethical development, promote informed debate, and stimulate critical thought; and
(b) A range of New Zealand programmes, including information, special interest, and entertainment programmes, and programmes which reflect New Zealand’s cultural diversity, including Maori language and culture; and
(c) Programmes which provide for varied interests and a full range of age groups within the community, including information, educational, special interest, and entertainment programmes; and …
f) Comprehensive, independent, impartial, and balanced national news services and current affairs, including items with a regional perspective; and…
(g) Comprehensive, independent, impartial, and balanced ….
It isn’t always as critical and in-depth as I would like these days. Impartiality is an impossibility to achieve, but a PBS should aim for a diversity of perspectives, but also to follow the evidence. RNZ could do better on that IMO, and also more to cater to the interests of younger listeners.
I don’t see the point in such tactics. If it’s an issue of interest, people continuing discussing a topic long after other topics have been added below, on Open Mike.
I don’t believe it’s anything of the sort AV. PP has been around The Standard for a few years now and he (‘he’ note) is an elderly Labour supporter (had his 80th last year from memory) who nearly always posts on subjects he’s interested in regardless of whether they are under discussion or not. He is a Londoner (I think) from way back and has stayed true to the Labour cause all his life. Don’t always agree with him, but he’s an honest, retired working man and I doubt he would know what you’re talking about.
Geez. Sydney’s hottest day on record (by a fraction of a degree over a 1939 temp). I sympathise. I almost passed out one day at work, in western Sydney once – no air conditioning, had to sit down for a while. Temperatures getting into the 40s are getting beyond what I can take. And feeling like I was about to pass out is no fun either.
New Zealand needs a decent left wing radio station, especially since Radio NZ became radio National, and since state tv was taken over totally by neo liberals. Is the standard and left blogs the only truly free and honest media left in New Zealand?
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
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In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
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Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
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Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
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Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
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Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
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The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
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Shades of “the emperor with no clothes” from John Key……….Parata is a top communicator and hugely talented apparently. Nothing of the fiasco in the Ministry of Education has much to do with her apparently.
What ???
Nobody else wanted the job.
I thought the master communicator tag was bizarre.
Anne Tolley must be thinking fuck for that for a laugh.
Oh, please bring back Tolley!! All is forgiven! She did the will of Key as obligingly as Parata, but Parata is even more effectively putting across his anti-education wishes!
No thank you, Off Your Trolley(Tolley) was the one that wiped out a long tradition in NZ by cutting the night classes. A start off point for many a successful business.
Just because there is one incompetent it does not fair well to replace it with an equal incompetent.
The answer is, get rid of Smile and Wave Shonkey and all his pack of incompetent prats
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8194265/Key-faints-ahead-of-Antarctic-trip
Key faints ahead of Antarctic trip
Prime Minister John Key fainted and collapsed while out for dinner last night.
He was at dinner at the Italian restaurant Tutto Bene in Merivale, Christchurch.
He was taken to Christchurch hospital in a police car and assessed by three specialists. He was there for two and half hours before being released.
Key is in Christchurch to fly to Antarctica and has been cleared to leave this morning.
Doctors do not know what caused him to faint.
I hope it’s not serious. I mean, I don’t like him but I don’t wish him ill. I’ve fainted on several occasions and it is quite a scary experience.
I will probably get spanked if i revealed my true feelings on hearing news that Slippery took a little ‘turn’ last night,
Get well soon Slippery, we haven’t finished with your education yet…
Did someone just avail the Slippery one of the latest results from National’s internal polling???, (snigger), now there’s a read to put anyone off their dinner…
Fainting is a freaky experience for anyone, and fortunately it sounds like Key is in good health.
According to Hilary Barry on Twitter,
Bomber tweeted:
Unfortunately i cannot help but remember yesterdays news from Social Development Minister Paula Benefit,
Paula has managed to give 12,000 the kick off of various benefits while in the news this morning the Council of Trade Unions has quoted the unemployment benefit figures as remaining the same,
While i KNOW that a number of those ‘moved off benefits’ are now reliant on the charity of various Inner City Ministries for their daily bread having no income whatsoever, i cannot in all honesty raise 1 iota of sympathy for the Slippery little Shyster we have as Prime Minister choking on His Pasta which in all likelihood was paid for by the tax-payer…
Did he have to wait in line with all the other punters with less than life-threatening problems who have been triaged?
the ones who might have to wait 2.5 hours before they get let through the doors and put on a bed?
Triage is for plebs.
I’d happily accept 2 years of inpatient observation. The health of the great man should be our foremost concern.
Apparently someone remarked that the Pole was way south of 20….
Apparently jetlag
BUT hawaii is only 1 hr different
Flights themselves are draining experiences. I felt fucked after coming back from Samoa and that is only an 1 hour difference
He should get a bigger private jet. Apparently the G550 has nice beds.
Or the yanks are replacing Airforce One – might get a deal on the old one.
If you travel as much as our leader, you should do so in comfort.
Melatonin pills are sold over the counter as a treatment for jet lag in North America, one possible side effect is dizzy-spells and in some cases fainting, Key just returned from Hawaii, so I would probably guess it is related to that with nothing more sinister going on.
+1 Pete. Well said.
I concur. Nevertheless the National Party backers and electoral organisation will be running through lists of alternative names while he is away in their minds, perhaps on paper, not online.
Key has reprised his starring role as the salesman who brought in the deals at Merrill for this government. Love him or hate him, he has been the public face of this administration with memorable lines such as “Beckham is as thick as batshit”.
Without him we are left with English, Brownlee, Joyce, Collins, Ryall, Parata, Bennett, Carter, McCully ..
Is anyone still awake ?
Maurice Willianson as the head of the English faction???…
Maybe he forgot to breathe.
The transition from ‘Planet Key’ to little old Noo Zealand could be said to have encountered an atmospheric anomaly…
Not very good. Hopefully just a one off. Might be the record heat we are having, and him all trussed up in a suit in a stuffy restaurant — by ‘stuffy’ I mean really hot/humid with bugger all ventilation.The Antarctic chill will be a welcome change for him.
The restaurant manager says it wasn’t stuffy, and that she had commented earlier in the evening that Key looked tired, unwell and was sweating noticeably.
The Antarctic NZ spokesperson put it down to jet lag, and also said Key looked exhausted.
Key obviously passed the “Work Capacity Test” by three doctors (truly “independent” ones I trust), so surely sick and disabled WINZ beneficiaries better “toughen up” and pass the future UK designed – and Dr Bratt (MSD) approved – “work ability tests” as well with pride, and sign up as “jobseekers” ready for work the day after.
The PM is “leading” by example, yet again, I presume.
Key is unwell, that much is obvious, its written all over his face.
Akshully my parner commented the other night that key was looking puffy faced and unwell when he saw him on tv.
Restaurant probably didn’t stock his wine.
Probably just got told by those who manage His investment portfolio that He is down another 5 million…
he fell over last year as well, after playing golf with tim groser, so maybe not a 1 off?
One of the few reason I read the stuff website in the morning is for any sign that something terrible has befallen the Nat Govt. Maybe the country awakes of its collective coma overnight and says “ENOUGH Key must go!”. Nat calls a snap election and then get booted out. Its my fantasy and I’m sticking with it.
However after reading that article this am I did feel slightly guilty for wishing disaster upon Key in general and a bit sorry for JK having a fainting turn. Like Pete says below, it’s scary experience, and you wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. He has been having some difficulty coping for some time now. I also wonder in all seriousness that as well as the long work hours the strain of your personality not being a good fit for the job : ie, he’s a taker, not a giver, (and certainly not a leader) and that doesn’t fit with the requirements of being of service to a nation, is a source of constant stress to him.
Dv:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10859905
Yes, oh horror, this happening to the adorable PM, just before leaving for Antarctica, that is of course of “national concern”.
With all respect, I do not wish John Key any harm, and I trust it may just be “chronic fatigue syndrome” or the likes, but do hundreds or even more of other people not “faint” somehow every day???
I am sure, it will be at the top of the MSM TV news tonight.
Never mind any debate about unemployment figures, welfare slashing, the state of the economy, Parata’s bungles and what else is happening.
Give him a drug test…last time it was a broken arm, now this. Some people are a burden on our health system
Thank goodness he was able to get attention instantly from so many specialists in such a short time. I hope they were all male specialists. How many ORDINARY people had to wait while his little faint was attended to?
I imagine coming back from holiday to a high profile high stress job that everyone knows you don’t want to do anymore would knock you for six. And stress kills.
For his and his family’s sake, hopefully he was just ‘tired and emotional’ and nothing more serious. For the country’s sake he should sort his shit out and decide whether he’s up for this gig anymore.
Despite generally being a fan of UK TV comedy, there is some TV coming out of the US that is worth watching. One of these is Portlandia, a show about the city of Portland, Oregon. The show consists of sometimes related skits and reoccurring characters which examines our social norms, and critiques our ideologies, morals and ethics.
The first clip on the latest show was called one party at a time which considered the challenges and problems associated with contemporary protest movements.
The ‘protest’ begins with a vague discussion of the problem, and the participants don’t really know what they are protesting against.
The protest repeatedly descends into a self obsessed party where the original concern gets lost and individualism takes over.
Firstly they attempt to redefine the protest as more political, then more simple, then finally based on hippy ideals…but they all fail. Challenges to the protest include sexualisation, short attention span, glitter and glamour, and image over substance.
The end of the clip shows how easy it is for those in power to end the protest, and silence the protesters.
This 2 min clip is funny, but it is also depressing….its a powerful critique of protests today, but also shows how protest has been rendered ineffective against the seduction of hyper-capitalism.
This Portlandia clip reminds me of Zizek’s call to do less activism and more thinking. Less doie, more Hui. Unfocused resistance can often end up making our current situation seem the best option.
Interesting.
It seems to me that a broad left wing discourse* is just getting started again, after years in the wilderness. A few small groups suvived, and there have always been friends talking amongst themselves, but getting alternative world views heard, far and wide, to counter the TINA which has stifled dissent for so long, must be a big priority. One of the biggest barriers seems to be concern for how we are perceived – as if it is necessary to win others over with the first hearings. Most people take a lot longer to change their minds – points of view tend to evolve. But repeated exposure is the key. Something the marketing/focus-group, approach to politics has completely failed to grasp, if indeed their proponents actually care about anything beyond winning and market share.
But I don’t think we can just defer action while we sort out our thinking. Things are not static and there must be some responsibility to act as the jack boot of the elites comes down on more faces more often, and the environment is used and abused.
*When did I start routinely using terms like “discourse” and “meme”? Certainly not before I started spending time here. I really hope the particular language we use doesn’t create barriers, like some kind of exclsuive club..
But I don’t think we can just defer action while we sort out our thinking. Things are not static and there must be some responsibility to act as the jack boot of the elites comes down on more faces more often, and the environment is used and abused.
True…there has to be a balance. The Gap Filler project in Christchurch is an example of a grassroots movement that is focused on action, and appears to encourage not thinking too much.
Its interesting that you refer to things not being ‘static’ as one of the representatives from Gap Filler Ryan Reynolds suggests here that we should embrace the temporary…after all, what is permanent these days?
However, in saying that, Gap Filler’s call for action sits upon their already well defined ideology which requires action now, and is suitable to the socio-political environment of Christchurch.
Hi Fatty. We’re forever on the look out for funny and smart viewing. Sure as hell you can’t get it on NZ TV.
Came across Portlandia awhile ago and downloaded it. We’ve been enjoying it for several reasons. One aspect that struck me was the way the show demonstrated some of the pompousness, hypocrisy, exclusivity and naivety that you can come across within some movements. These attributes can really kill an otherwise useful and energetic movement. It’s one of the main reasons I stay on the outside of activism these days. I can’t be bothered dealing with the ego’s.
On an entertainment note the show is just plain funny. Those two main actors are good at playing a real variety of characters. Kyle McLaughlin (sp?) plays a good role as Mayor of the town too.
Yeah, the Mayor off Portlandia is very funny.
A few other comedies that I enjoy and make me think:
Louie (US comedian Louis CK struggling through life)
Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry David, ex Seinfeld creator getting pissed off at life)
Nathan Barley (Chris Morris / Charlie Brooker also pissed off at dickheads)
Snuff Box (weird shit)
Veep (the US version of ‘the thick of it’…not as good as the US version, but still written by Armando Iannucci)
The Armando Iannucci Shows (prob my favourite TV show ever, from the creator of ‘the thicl of it’)
Time Trumpet (more Armando Innucci)
Black Mirror (Charlie Brooker drama/thriller/comedy – amazing. New Ep. soon!..that link is episode 1 of 3 in first season)
A Touch of Cloth (Charlie Brooker, very dry comedy, piss take of UK police dramas)
Them From That Thing (skit show, Charlie Brooker is one of the writers, only 2 episodes)
Some of these are quite old and can be hard to find, some are on youtube
Hey Fatty thanks heaps for those links. I just had a quick peek at the Armando Iannucci shows and I did actually laugh out loud. Am looking forward to watching all the others.(I like the sound of a touch of cloth). Thanks for doing all the leg work!
Have seen all the Nathan Barleys. Liked that. Was interesting to see thingie Barrett who played Howard Moon in the Mighty Boosh, play a character in Nathan Barley.
One thing we’ve got planned to watch is the box set of This is England ’86. It’s drama, certainly not comedy. The first movie This is England was set in Thatchers Britain in the early 80’s. Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ. We got This is England ’88 out on DVD without realising there was a four part series set in ’86. The ’88 movie was very real and gritty and really woke you up. When you see movies like that it reminds how insipid most movies are. Anyway, you might have seen it already and I’m waffling on like this is Weekend Social, not Open Mike.
Big ups for the links.
no worries…and thanks for info about This is England ’86. I’ve been meaning to watch the movie, but didn’t realise there was a TV show too, I’ll check it out
Is the Maori Party headed for the scrap heap of minor Government support Party’s in the Parliament, the news item on OneNews last night,(if anywhere near the truth), would have current co-Leader Sharples proclaiming ‘hell no He won’t go’ as far as relinquishing His leadership position is concerned, (Pita might be hanging in there sweating on ‘the knighthood),
While OneNews didn’t interview Flavell, they quoted ‘a rumor’ that Flavell has indicated He may not stand for the Maori Party again unless He is given a Leadership position after the departure of Tariana Turia,
It’s AGM time for the Maori Party and an elegant solution would be to simply drop the requirement to have both a male and female Leader of the Party in the Parliament, (which would be quite an intelligent option considering there is no guarantee that the Party will have a female MP in the Parliament after the 2014 election),
It’s all a bit of a ‘snigger’ really as it’s looking ever more likely that the Maori Party won’t have any MP’s after the next election, i doubt that after 6 years of National Auckland Maori are going to vote for someone who has sat there as a Government Minister and paid ‘lip service’ to those who put Him into the Parliament while the National Government has taken to their very means of existence with a Patu,
Flavell holding His seat is the Maori Party’s best chance of survival but Annette Sykes this far out from 2014 is 50/50 to take it off of Him this time being aided with Flavell having been tarred for the past 6 years by the same brush wielded by Tariana and Pita…
I’m very interested to know what building project in Auckland requires the hiring of Australian builders.
If the project goes ahead….
So what big projects in Auckland are in a planning phase at the moment?
Sky City?
Yeah, that was my first thought – the convention centre with 900-odd construction jobs for New Zealanders.
But because I don’t live in Auckland I thought there might be something else on the go that I’ve not heard of…. maybe…
Hope so – but wrong builder
What’s more why hire Australian builders who are higher paid no doubt in Oz and why would they want to come here?
Possible answer= i believe the figure for construction workers having left New Zealand for Australia since this National Government took office is in the realm of 27,000,
Perhaps ‘Seek’ has been given the task of trying to lure some of them back again…
Key’s fainting could be attributed to High Blood Pressure or his Heart,that’s right he
hasn’t got one,(only for the top 1-2%), he certainly hasn’t got one for those kicked
off welfare for various reasons,kicked out of stable HNZ houses to allow the top
1-2% to further increase their portfolio’s,he certainly doesn’t care for the children
in NZ that are facing starvation every day, He certainly doesn’t care for the sick
and disabled,insisting they can find work,there is no excuses accepted,go forth
and find a job,or else you will have to beg,steal or borrow, he could not give a
damn.
Perhaps the god’s are sending him a message, ‘you eat well on behalf of all of
those women,men and children, who in one way or another feed you, take that,
you poor excuse for a human being’
Gareth Morgan explains why the Antarctic is important to Key, and why Key is ken to reinforce NZ’s rights there:
I don’t go with Morgan’s lip service to climate change and environment, while slamming “greenies” and his talking up of Key’s approach.
Vital to our national security? That’s an interesting inclusion as to why the Antarctica is vital to NZ.
I smell wee rat? Just a little one.
The ‘wee rat’ could be access to oil and mineral resources as global warming proceeds.
It is entirely predictable that a former Merrill trader and a self-employed economist would be interested in potential developments.
The rest of us will probably be fighting the encroaching seas ..
Yes Maui, thought of something similar. In the meantime Key waxes lyrical about the beautiful unspoilt continent while in his mind he’s thinking oil, minerals, digging, drilling…
Remember in the 90’s when Morgan was the evil lisping right wing economist of the nation? And now he’s like NZ’s version of Joseph Stiglitz. He’s having a go (not sure why) at ‘the greenies’ now, but maybe given another 20 years he’ll catch up a bit further. In the meantime he’s got a soccer team to run into the ground…
I’m surprised that Key did not realise that a life-style involving Honolulu-Auckland-Wellington-Scott Base-[SouthPole ?]-Wellington commuting would not involve potential health consequences such as deep vein thrombosis or jet lag, impairing prime ministerial judgment.
But is it jet lag ? It seems to be a very politically convenient explanation.
There are way too many homophobes on this site, left and right.
“in society”.
Such as? Evidence?
Forgot your own little diatribe about marriage and separate institutions already?
Here, let me help:
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17012013/#comment-574935
There is no evidence of homophobia there but feel free to try pointing some out. Particulars and details lest your waning credibility drain further.
You might try offering a cogent excuse why you don’t want straight and gay people sharing the same institution of marriage for starters.
The reasons for a view along those broad lines have already been outlined.
Now, back to your accusation that I am homophobic. Provide some detailed particulars and evidence or shut the fuck up. Bigot.
vto: Imo gay people who want to tie a knot in it should get their own institution and leave those straight people alone Open Mike 17/01/2013
Gay marriage does nothing to straight people, so there is nothing to “leave alone”. Your “reason” doesn’t stack up.
Oh, and it sure as hell looks like homophobia to me 🙂
I am sure it can easily appear homophobic on a quick shallow reading. But a closer such reading will reveal that the opinion is about a place in the world for a group who want to do their own thing on their own. It is a view that is positive to that group, not negative to any other group. Subtle but real. By way of comparison, people who advocate for some separate institution for, say, just women are not automatically man-haters are they? Or are they? Many say they are, but those people are also shallow readers.
Try substituting “Maori” or “women” for “gay” and then try again.
I thought you said you knew the meaning of relevance.
edit: still waiting for your particular and detailed evidence
“…a group who want to do their own thing on their own…”
Yes, gay people who want to get married, for example, without interfering homophobes ruining their special day.
Or did you mean some other group? If so, please provide a citation so I can be sure they really exist.
Do we really need to regurgitate the entire marriage issue again? That’s not what this min-thread is about.
This is about Pop’s accusation. An accusation without evidence. There is still no evidence.
Yes, there is: your statements are evidence of your homophobia, which is the subject of this mini-thread
Now, who are this “group who want to do things on their own”? You mean yourself and some other bigots, yes?
Bullshite. That is not evidence of “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people” and I have explained that. You are ignoring that explanation and that points to a deficiency in your approach to this mini-thread.
Just because one group wants to play in their own sandpit away from the other kiddies it does not mean they have “an extreme and irrational aversion” to those other kiddies.
What is so hard to understand about that simple proposition?
Your postion is akin to a Kiwiblog type ranter who claims those who want, as per previous example, to set-up some institution for women are man-haters.
“away from the other kiddies” = “aversion“.
No logical reason for their desire = “irrational“.
We’re not talking about just not inviting someone to play poker of an evening. Marriage is a legal construct that, most of the time when it is applied, you personally have no idea about it. Two people in a car? No idea if they’re married. Both wearing wedding rings? Are they married to each other, or just LOTR geeks? But it can make legal procedures in extremis a whole lot easier.
Denying people legal recognition and rights (even if you personally might never know whether someone you encounter has used those rights) for no reason other than an irrational aversion is pretty “extreme“.
“away from the other kiddies” = “aversion“.
No logical reason for their desire = “irrational“.
McFlock, seriously? That does not equate to aversion. Did you wonder perhaps that outside of that short period of time playing in the sandpit they all might enjoy playing together and be friends? There is an abundance of shallow short thinking going on.
Or maybe when a couple of friends of mine go and have a catch up without me that means they have an aversion to me. That is just plain dumb.
And as for irrational, ffs. People right across humanity like keeping similar company. People of like kinds congregate. Be it religious, sporting, racial, financial, cultural, genderal. People enjoy hanging out with their own types. It is not irrational, it is exactly human behaviour.
Fail on both counts.
vto, please don’t “fail” to answer the question: who, specifically, in this context, are the “people who want to do things on their own”?
Off topic as previously explained. Where is the evidence of an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people?
What happened to, *way too many*… Which was the accusation from Pop!
Go on then Pop, get cracking!
Definitely averse to sharing the sandpit. The example isn’t “oo, happy to play without you there”. The situation is “we do not want you in the sandpit with us. If you try and play even in part of the sandpit we aren’t using, we will stop you”.
That’s not even “separate but equal”.
“like” is “irrational”. Not rational. No logical basis. By your definition of “irrational”, no hatred, loathing, aversion or fear will be “irrational”, because humans across the world have them. So beating someone to death because you thought they walked like a gay man is not “irrational”, because people across the world attack and kill those who are different.
Edit: so muzz, what’s an acceptable number of homophobes in a forum, according to you?
“They” (you and the other bigots) want to do “things” (get married) “on their own” (alone together, or something), and this is not affected by anything that anyone else (including gay people) want to do, in any way whatsoever, except that perhaps I might be driving past, and yell “fuck you, you homophobic assholes” just as you were about to kiss the other bigot, which might put a damper on proceedings.
But I can’t see what gay people wanting to get married has to do with this sad spectacle.
Kids who want to play together on their own have an extreme and irrational aversion to all other kids.
Where is the evidence of an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people?
The evidence is that you want to interfere in their (homosexuals) right to marry, for no reason other than your membership of a tiny minority group.
McFlock – Pop made the accusation of, *too many*, let’s hear him back it up!
Stop diverting !
You are trying very hard OTH, I’ll give you that. But you are still failing. Doesn’t meet the definition.
And fwiw they can have all the rights in the world. The other group just want their own space. Doesnt equate to …(insert definition again).
And I look forward to applying your approach and reasoning to this issue to other issues in the future.
vto: why should a tiny minority (of bigots) get to dictate to the rest of us, and force us to accept their (your) definition of marriage?
So what if you are offended (or outraged, or undermined, or saddened, or driven to insanity) by gay marriage? Gay marriage is not the pain in your mind: your sad prejudice is.
Keep trying to poke and prod one tane huna but I aint biting at your off-topic accusations and personal attacks.
The accusation of homophobia has demonstrably failed to be established and now I’m off.
Later
vto, you don’t get to decide whether the label of bigot sticks to you:
“Off topic” – the topic is your hateful homophobia, and what a tiny minority you belong to, and the contempt which accrues as a result. I’m neither poking nor prodding, I’m just rubbing your nose in it.
only if you insist that marriage is exactly like a sand pit.
Bye!
Oh, and muzz, for there not to be “far too many”, there needs to be a “too many”. Do you think that number exists in relation to homophobes?
If Pops inference was along those lines, then perhaps he might validate that his original comment was aimed at VTO, otherwise its a throw away remark, which can be as arbitrary, as substituting in, *too many […….] on this site*!
In which case, one McFlock could be seen as too many eh!
“could be”?
But yes. And because “far too many” is a relative and subjective (not absolute or nominal) term, who is any of us to say pop it wrong?
BTW, what’s the purpose and scope of your current research project here? I just like to know when I’m being “experimented” on.
We’re all being *experimented* on McFlock, in various ways, which can be considered both purpose, and scope!
Really? Normally some manner of ethical approval and indeed sanity is required to experiment on people.
OTH, that is pathetic. And rude. You have really let yourself down.
vto: “rude”
We covered this earlier: “So what if you are offended (or outraged, or undermined, or saddened, or driven to insanity) by gay marriage?”
What a hypocrite you are to whine about rudeness while maintaining your ill-mannered prejudice, and insistence that your minority opinion be treated with anything other than contempt.
Yes rude. Why don’t you re-read the thread. The accusation was homophobia. No evidence has been provided to fit the definition (but feel free to point which of the posts above has done this, if you can) and prove the kiwiblog type knee-jerk over reaction of both you and Pop.
The rudeness is the personal. You have called me sad, hateful, ill-mannered, contemptful, bigoted and in addition you continue to call me homophobic without substance, and prejudiced. It is all ther in black and white.
Nothing you have posted has established anything except that typical left wing arrogance and ignorance that anything that does not accord with your world view is somehow extreme and hateful. This drives people away from the left in exactly the same manner as right wing extremism drives people away from them.
You make baseless accusations that you cannot back-up. You are weak.
You are clearly incapable of understanding how your desire to interfere in other people’s relationships constitutes homophobia, but don’t worry: no-one else will have any trouble working it out.
You are now becoming boring and repetitive.
You cannot point to which of the posts above of yours or anyone elses has shown how the view expressed fits the definition of homophobia. You have failed. You should apologise for your mindless knee-jerk accusation.
Ever heard of that saying about a hole and digging?
Imo gay people who want to tie a knot in it should get their own institution and leave those straight people alone ffs instead of gate-crashing someone else’s party.
The institution of marriage doesn’t belong to you. To use your stupid metaphor, it isn’t your party, and gay people are invited. So fuck off, bigot.
wooooooooo – first knee-jerk mindless extremism and now anger. You have now successfully completed the entire route to failuredom.
Sad.
Yeah whatever. Got a certificate that says you own the institution of marriage? Didn’t think so.
And of course the likes of Kiwi_Prometheus. And have we already forgotten the shenanigans surrounding Q— C—-gate?
Nope again. See 10.2.1.1 above.
Can’t speak for others like kiwi-prometheus
Political journalists and commenters are interested in a number of more or less petty things, it seems, but have evidently LITTLE or NO interested in people on welfare facing the most radical and draconian reforms in at least a generation here in NZ.
So I was having to learn once again, when reading Bryce Edward’s “political roundup” today, for the summer period now nearing the end when Parliament slowly returns to business late this month.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10859967
It is astonishing that debate about drones, about a PM fainting, about personality politics, apart from admittedly some important issues, but otherwise lots of side-show matters, dominate the tabloids, the online media, the newsmedia in general here in NZ.
NO mention of the most substantial welfare reforms at all. That tells me, I belong to a group of people that have no right to exist, as whatever I and others face is NOT relevant at all.
Mabe bring in a system now to do away with us – for good, so we do not “stain” the social and political environment with our blemished, useless, “bludger-like” existence?
Xtasy you hit on an interesting train of thought here…
The strategy appears to be long and , to convince an entire nation, that there is no more important issues/messages than what the MSM chose to convey, creating an environment of perceived safety, actual complacency, and total apathy! It looks like the strategy has been well bedded in NZ, and elsewhere.
Also, while convincing the, *entire nation* (those wasting energy following MSM), that there is no threat to them, while at the same time exposing the threat (to those such as yourself), by simply ignoring the issues which the *threats* consists of. Additionally the disenfranchising of huge numbers of people that *switch off* from MSM and politics altogether, but simultaneously keeping just enough people engaged with the dros served up, to maintain some, *order*
There’s an ever growing number of *groups*, which are, effectively deemed irrelevant, and there is an ever growing number of *groups*, who are yet to realise that they were deemed *irrelevant* years back also. Many are busy putting the boot into beneficiaries, and other vulnerable groups, as they can’t see the threat to *their group*, and thus act out accordingly!
Strategically, one has to *admire* the *techniques*, but equally, when as blatant as the tactics employed have been, one has to accept that a turn around in NZ, is unlikely to eventuate!
muzza –
Yes, depressing that is.
But what is being presented to us as the supposed “reality”, perceived “security”, and as the “convention of the presence”, that will inevitably get “boring” to the majority, so there may be hope that they stumble across any such not noticed “groups” and “re-discover” that there is another world around them out there. They may then actually take an interest and start opening their mind.
I admit though, it is a slim chance of that happening. Meeting homeless, beggars, scruffily clothed and neglected poor will possibly in most cases have the opposite effect. People will appreciate their own security, in the best case make a little donation to a welfare agency, but then move on back home to their safe suburban home.
In reality it is not so much media communication of a sense of “security”, it is a communication of well-selected “threats” that are presented to the wider public and media consumer, this being CRIME.
Look at the APN and Fairfax websites, look at the TV news, listen to radio (even increasingly also National Radio). Crime, accidents, disaster news, that is always at the beginning and top of the news in most news presentations now. So the public are conditioned to be extra sensitive to crime and disaster, which again feeds feelings for a need of “security”, which again misleads most to support the status quo system, as any change will be associated with insecurity and risks.
That is also, what keeps this present government pretty safely in place.
It’s the sort of attitude I expect from the right, but theoretically one would hope that the left was a tad more progressive.
Pop, your attitude that anyone who has a view on gay-straight issues that is opposed to your own is homophobic is the attitude to be expected from the right, just switched around like looking in a mirror. See my last reply to oth.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/04/david_shearer_on_mercenaries.html
It is intersting to look back a few years on how David Shearer and Phil Goff were perceived by the right before David became Leader.
The link above to David Farrar’s research in April ’09, six months after Phil took over from Helen is quite chilling.
“Phil Goff has been shifting Labour more towards the centre, with the departure of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. He is attacking National for not sticking with tax cuts, he let Clayton Cosgrove attack over Maori prison units and he is refusing to back Maori seats on the Auckland Council. Plus Labour are backing most of the RMA changes and voted to repeal the EFA.
But the extent to which Goff wants to pull Labour away from the left astonishes even me. As we all know, David Shearer is his hand picked candidate for Mt Albert – his former school friend and Ministerial advisor.”
……..and these quotes are from David Farrar!
“Now I agree with Shearer, but I can imagine it is going to be very uncomfortable for Labour when he is an MP. Everytime Goff or King gets up to accuse the Government of having a privatisation agenda, the Nats will laugh and remind them that they have an MP who supports privatising the army. And when you consider Labour’s entire strategy is to basically label everything National does is as privatisation, well Naional can’t wait until Shearer is an MP. Hell, they are probably tempted to endorse him themselves.”
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/04/privatising_protection.html
As we all know, David Shearer is his hand picked candidate for Mt Albert – his former school friend…
‘School friend’ was a MSM created myth. They went to the same high school but at different times. They didn’t know each other until years later. My understanding at the time is that it was Phil Twyford (who was a close friend forged at a time both were linked to the UN) who persuaded Shearer to return to NZ and stand for Mt. Albert. That is not to say Goff didn’t fully support the nomination, but these things are never quite as simple as has been suggested.
It’ true, Goff was at the Right end of the Labour Party but, to be fair to him, he did shift further to the Left during the 2011 campaign. But it was too late! Everything was “too late” and God knows how many members (including me) tried to tell them. This is where the BIG DISCONNECT first came in to the picture – at least in recent times.
Or was it a Farrar created myth? Doesn’t really matter – they live in each others’ pockets.
Another Roy Morgan. 4% higher than the same period last year…. [hunkers down] 😉
Shit.
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2013/4856/
National back up a little bit, Labour back down to 31.5%
Can’t wait for the party to spin that one away. What happened to trends and momentum and other such bullshit?
I asked on red alert for predictions of where Shearer’s Labour should be sitting in the polls if they are to mount a successful challenge in 2014
No one answered.
I’m guessing it’s something to do with the top table being held to account if they are way off, like I suspect they will be in 2015
Of course they all deserve a rest but … I mean God I’d had enough “resting” with my in-laws after week 1!
January is the time to seize back and hold the political agenda for the year ahead.
Journalists are begging for stories. Especially stories about the year ahead. Predictions.
So far Labour have put Shearer up to comment just once, so we now have to endure a further week of stories about the Antarctic for God’s sake.
Shearer has made a massive strategic mistake.Nothing against Chippie being night-watchiman per se, but it really needed that apparent impending game-changer speech to be this week or last, not in late January.
Last week someone with some nous and the capability to do good political stunts needed to to blow the housing story out of the water. Like set fire to a derelict state house and call the cameras and then help put it out talking about housing stock, or live a week with a homeless family, or promise to hand over this years’ salary to a housing trust and then go help them build a house in a weekend, or hijack the Hobsonville ferry opening coming up with a pointed speech to camera, or go to a house auction with a couple and pay their house deposit to the bank out of their own MPs pocket or indeed out of an LEC’s and do it with cameras rolling, God it’s not hard to think of something beyond sending another press release out. Paul Holmes was a master of the stunt, as was Bob Harvey in his prime. Sigh.
With Aucklands Unitary Plan hearings, and the Christchurch rebuilt accelerating, this is the year for housing as a gamechanger, and Labour has the policy to do it.
After all the best way to predict the future, is to make it happen. Instead these polls.
So we’ll end up next election about 50-50 as a bunch. I should just relax. Sigh. Relax.
jan 2013: 31.5%
jan 2012: 27.5
jan 2011: 29
jan 2010: 30
jan 2009: 33
When did Shearer start again?
January usually drops for opposition, mostly because (IMO) the government gets junkets to antarctica while opposition mps: not so much.
the standard definition of stupidity being to do the same thing over and over again, expecting something different to happen. whatever Labour have been doing since 2009, this January it was time to do something different. Shearer is not culpable for the era prior to him, of course, but he is responsible for the results now. He had a fallow January field for media and is so far reaping the rewards of doing the same thing over and over again.
The dude gained 4% over the previous year’s january dip, reversing 4 years of steady decline at that point. In his first year as leader.
31.5% sucks, but it’s better than 27.5%.
Now, there’s many a slip ‘twixt dress and drawers, and I’m still looking to see some 35% threshold breakers, but performance-wise it’s not a major tragedy unless key calls a chardonnay-snap election.
So when do you hope to see those 35% threshold breakers?
And using those figures and logic, Shearer is less popular than Goff in his first months as leader. Not really a win, aye.
Maybe I should ask when do you expect Shearer to hit 33% ?
Actually I think I wrote something about one or two RM polls 35% by feb leadership vote waiting before beginning to think it looks like Labour’s back in the doldrums. Shearer personally? probably not until next year. opposition bias and all. Haven’t really looked at party vs leader stats though.
Today, Labour =31.5%.
2 months ago November 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
7 months ago June 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
12 months ago Feb 2012, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
19 months ago July 2011, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
22 months ago April 2011, Labour = 31.5% (+/- 0.5%)
There’s definitely consistency here for Labour, not so sure that it’s an upward trending one though.
interesting sample intervals there: 2, 5, 5,7,3…
Nice methodology for cherry picking, not so much for looking at trends.
Just demonstrating natural variability about a mean, McFlock. A student t-test will show that to you. Nothing unfair there. If you want me to give you more data points sitting right on top of 31.5% I can, but they are sitting there for you to see.
The point being that you don’t know whether there is actual improvement. Especially given 2011 Labour was going down, so to stay in approximately (for a given value of approximate) the same place labour actually needs to have improved in the last 12 months.
It’s called “regaining lost ground”. And shearer didn’t lose the ground.
Hehe an optimist would notice that.
A pessimist, or is that a realist, would look at Labour at 31.5% and say “what the … “
The average of the 24 Roy Morgan polls since Jan 2012 is 46% for National and 31% for Labour.
No F@c&ing change. Shearer has to fire Mallard immediately. The strategy is F@c&ed!
We are not winning this way.
We are loosing this way.
Does Shearer not see that he is surrounded by the same twits who lost in 2011?
Please change something. This is the most painful disaster to watch.
Key’s idiot crew screw up everything and we can’t take a single percentage point off them!’
Change
Change
Change
+1
Meh, not a bad poll if the goal is to hang on by the skin of your teeth. If the goal is to win an election though, nothing to write home about.
You may like to know that on the Concert program pm 24 January there is a program of American protest song ,Trade Union songs and old socialist songs . Should be worth a listen .
Will probably get more listeners than mine did 😉
You should put your song on youtube….
I’ve always thought it more a video medium, but you’re right, I should.
I just bought some half decent studio headphones today and half deaf as I am, I can hear again.
Not looking forward to rectifying all those tracks when all I want to do is write, but if I win lotto tomorrow I’ll not hire the guy that did kim.com’s records to do it for me.
People put audio only stuff up on it all the time, including myself.
I’ll give it a go, ta.
You may like to know that on the Concert program 7. pm 24 January there is a program of American protest song ,Trade Union songs and old socialist songs . Should be worth a listen .
Excellent. We spend some lots of time in a part of the country where these things are still regularly sung and strummed. It’s like stepping back in time. Reaching back to feel the times. Tis quite something. Woody Guthrie and the like. Mining songs. Old ones.
Meanwhile this is a bit of a funny version of one of me fave’s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPQVvQfblzY
The most famous – and haunting – of them all?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N43Cm6ra0hY
Well old smile and wave is back. Already the photos are appearing in the press. Nothing escapes this man He got into the act regarding the accident involving the Bethlehem School.
However surely the most outrageous photo is the one on page 3 of to-day’s Herald . What a buffoon what has Aotearoa done to deserve this clown. .
RNZ Press Release, just up – process started to search for a new CEO. Richard Griffin takes the opportunity to talk up RNZ’s success. There’s also a link to RNZ’s page on the CEO role. And that page links to the RNZ Charter.
I think RNZ is the only public service broadcaster we now have. I like the Charter, and think RNZ does fulfil a lot of it, but not as much as I would like.
It isn’t always as critical and in-depth as I would like these days. Impartiality is an impossibility to achieve, but a PBS should aim for a diversity of perspectives, but also to follow the evidence. RNZ could do better on that IMO, and also more to cater to the interests of younger listeners.
Karol
The Pink Postman is only trying to draw debate awsy from the setback in the polls.
Watch the pattern.
It repeats itself.
She/he works around the same hours as TRP….
I don’t see the point in such tactics. If it’s an issue of interest, people continuing discussing a topic long after other topics have been added below, on Open Mike.
I don’t believe it’s anything of the sort AV. PP has been around The Standard for a few years now and he (‘he’ note) is an elderly Labour supporter (had his 80th last year from memory) who nearly always posts on subjects he’s interested in regardless of whether they are under discussion or not. He is a Londoner (I think) from way back and has stayed true to the Labour cause all his life. Don’t always agree with him, but he’s an honest, retired working man and I doubt he would know what you’re talking about.
Sorry for being a grump, Karol and Anne.
And sorry Pink Postmam for my comment.
There is no excuse for my behaviour. It will not happen again.
Fair enough AV. 🙂
(h) Under no circumstances should Matthew Hooton be allowed air-time
Geez. Sydney’s hottest day on record (by a fraction of a degree over a 1939 temp). I sympathise. I almost passed out one day at work, in western Sydney once – no air conditioning, had to sit down for a while. Temperatures getting into the 40s are getting beyond what I can take. And feeling like I was about to pass out is no fun either.
“Mr Smuggles” was GCSB FBI Kim dotcom link ?
http://youtu.be/gKAexsaeBZI
New Zealand needs a decent left wing radio station, especially since Radio NZ became radio National, and since state tv was taken over totally by neo liberals. Is the standard and left blogs the only truly free and honest media left in New Zealand?
Apparently Radio NZ is left-leaning, so there you go.
Yeah left leaning. That’ll be why Matthew Hooton is their goto political-economy guy…
Help Blue eye, help, otherwise I can’t help you.