Open mike 18/10/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 18th, 2011 - 91 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

91 comments on “Open mike 18/10/2011 ”

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  2. Jenny 2
    18 October 2011 at 6:28 am

    What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

    We may be about to find out.

    A high-powered group of global oil and gas exploration companies, including Chevron and the Chinese national oil company, have converged on Wellington today for a targeted push to encourage new interest in the country’s under-explored frontier basins……

    Facilitating discussion to “test drive” the NZPAM’s new competitive bid round process for awarding exploration rights is global oil industry strategic consultant Duncan Clarke, of Global Pacific & Partners, who also assisted in selecting attendees.

    “From the New Zealand point of view, they are very open,” he told BusinessDesk. “They’re asking ‘what do we have to do to get you here?'”

    To answer Duncan Clarke’s question:

    We have to be prepared to prostrate ourselves before the oil giants.

    We have to be prepared to kill.

    We have to be prepared to sacrifice the environment.

    We have to be prepared to curtail civil liberties.

    We have to be prepared to impoverish the majority of the population so that a tiny minority of the local elite, can become the super rich sheiks of the South Pacific.

    Look to Nigeria, look to Saudi Arabia, look to Bahrain, look to Iraq.

    I would like to take this opportunity to tell Duncan Clarke and his clients, that New Zealand is the country that stopped the mighty US Navy in it’s tracks, and beware.

    NZ Herald

  3. Pete George 3
    18 October 2011 at 8:11 am

    The mayor has given his approval, for a while. Ocupation Octagon continues.

    The occupation has made a has made a bold statement, but what is it, how long will it stay and what does it really hope to achieve?

    It’s a knarly day here in Dunedin, not great camping weather.

    • Kevin Welsh 3.1
      18 October 2011 at 8:31 am

      You do realise Pete that running a campaign to be elected as a representative in Dunedin requires more than just printing a few flyers and putting up some billboards?

      Why dont you get yourself down there and see what it’s all about and then you can enlighten us all with a post and your opinion instead of those four lines of nothing.

      • idlegus 3.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 8:34 am

        i just went passed the campers in the octagon, its an utterly miserable day, wet, wind, freezing, & yep, they are all still there, they look comfortable & firm, im really proud of them.

      • Pete George 3.1.2
        18 October 2011 at 8:41 am

        I haven’t printed flyers and I haven’t put up any billboards yet. I’ll do a bit of that but I’m not running a traditional campaign. Expect some surprises.

        I am getting myself down there, I have planned a visit at 5.15 today.

        • Lanthanide 3.1.2.1
          18 October 2011 at 10:04 am

          “I’ll do a bit of that but I’m not running a traditional campaign.”

          Remember he’s not voting for himself or UF.

          • Pete George 3.1.2.1.1
            18 October 2011 at 10:15 am

            🙂 It’s non-traditional to string stupid comments like that along.

            • Lanthanide 3.1.2.1.1.1
              18 October 2011 at 10:47 am

              Actually it’s just a pretty salient example of your unwillingness to actually commit to anything concrete.

              • McFlock …
                18 October 2011 at 12:02 pm

                “Commitment” is traditional. You’ve heard of an open relationship? Pete has the world’s first open candidacy, where not even he knows whether he will vote for himself.

              • Pete George …
                18 October 2011 at 1:25 pm

                I’d say I’ve committed myself to a lot more than most here. I choose what I’ll comment on here – whatever I say I usually get attacked anyway so I select what suits me.

                • Pete George …
                  18 October 2011 at 1:32 pm

                  McFlock, I’ve always chosen on election day how to vote, and I don’t see why I should change that.

                  But you’d have to be very thick, or have a motive for promoting bullshit, not to figure it out.

                  I wonder who Paul Goldsmith and his electorate team will vote for.

                  • The Voice of Reason …
                    18 October 2011 at 2:02 pm

                    “I’ve always chosen on election day how to vote, and I don’t see why I should change that.”
                     
                    So you don’t consider being the UF candidate sufficient reason to make up your mind before polling day? No wonder you can’t discuss policy;you can’t even commit to the party you represent!
                     
                    I’m so looking forward to your hoardings, can I suggest something honest like this:
                     
                    Hi, I’m Pete George and I’d like you to vote for United Future, because someone has to and I can’t be arsed.
                     
                    Or:
                     
                    Pete George, Don’t Vote for Me, Vote for Meh.
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     

                  • mik e …
                    18 October 2011 at 3:53 pm

                    PG will be to busy talking sweet nothings on our blog site to run a campaign

                • McFlock …
                  18 October 2011 at 1:37 pm

                  You get criticised because your “commitment” usually revolves around a structure of “I strongly support the principle of X, but the [completely opposite] principle of Y needs to be taken into account, as well as the [completely irrelevent] principle of Z. We really need to discuss this more to try and find a common ground and realise that they are all shades of grey. Don’t hate me because I dare to unflinchingly defend the value of vague promises of compromise!”
                    
                  Don’t get me wrong, such banalities might be good for a priest or a therapist, but the fact is that you chose to be a politician. Say WTF you are going to DO. This postmodern brand-is-all shite doesn’t play so well when times are tough, as the nats are beginning to find out, I suspect.
                   

                • McFlock …
                  18 October 2011 at 1:42 pm

                  Case in point:
                  ” I’ve always chosen on election day how to vote, and I don’t see why I should change that.
                  But you’d have to be very thick, or have a motive for promoting bullshit, not to figure it out.”
                   
                  So on the one hand your mind is completely open and you haven’t yet made a decision – on the other hand it’s pretty obvious who you’ll vote for. Why not just dare to take a stand and say yes, come election time, you’ll actually vote for [shock, horror] yourself? And then take that new-found courage to your party so it can declare some policy specifics?

          • Mac1 3.1.2.1.2
            18 October 2011 at 1:01 pm

            Sounds a bit like Groucho Marx. “Dear voter, I don’t want your vote because anyone who votes for me is too stupid for me to want to vote for me, myself included. Have a cigar instead.”

  4. Hammer 4
    18 October 2011 at 8:27 am

    Trev – Your Sport Policy looks like another failure to think matters through.

    Per the NZ Herald  – Manoj Daji [Chief Executive – College Sport Auckland] gives a real-world view of your policy.  He lists many reasons why it won’t work in the Super City of about 100,000 secondary students.

    “With the sport spread across the week we are battling for venues and facilities.  Having all sport on a given afternoon would not only cause major transportation issues for schools but also place extra pressure on limited facilities and reduce the ability to draw on community volunteers for coaching and officiating, whom we are are reliant on”

    Looks like another one of your half-baked ideas.
     

  5. mickysavage 5
    18 October 2011 at 8:58 am

    Well how is this for news.  Key admits that the underclass is growing under his watch.  And I thought he was going to fix the problem.
     
    And at the same time that the underclass is growing the Herald reports that “the Government has slashed the number of food grants to needy families by 20 per cent, driving record numbers to seek food parcels from charities instead.”
     
    The cause is said to be the change in policy to make people complete budgeting activities and show they have taken steps to increase their income or reduce their costs, before they can get more than two food grants a year.  Obviously as far as the Government is concerned grinding policy is caused by a lack of budgeting skills not this Government’s actions.

    • Pete George 5.1
      18 October 2011 at 9:06 am

      I think budgeting advice and encouragement and incentives to improve ones situation are good – it’s easy to get in a poverty rut and to live inefficiently.

      I don’t think benefits should be handed out indefinitely without question.

      • mickysavage 5.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 9:22 am

        So Petey boy is poverty the poor’s fault?  Or has Key failed?

        • Pete George 5.1.1.1
          18 October 2011 at 9:33 am

          You’re being far to simplistic. It’s not an either or situation, it’s far more complex.

          If Labour form a coalition after the election and we still have poverty in 2014 will they have failed?

          Some poor people are responsible for their own poverty. Some are victims of circumstance. And most likely there’s a combination of both plus other factors.

          Poverty is not due to Key failure. Government policies will have affected poverty levels, the extended economic downturn will have had a much greater effect, and previous government policies will also have had an effect.

          So Greggy boy, there’s no simple political point scoring. If Labour’s third term had ended with zero poverty and a healthy economy, and then finances and food plummeted you might have a case. But it wasn’t like that so you don’t.

          • mickysavage 5.1.1.1.1
            18 October 2011 at 9:56 am

            Pete serious question.
             
            Are you trying to destroy this thread?
             
            You see I recall clearly Key campaigning about the underclass and I thought then it was a glib PR job and that he would do nothing about it.
             
            Then this morning it is not only confirmed but there is the added insult of a chance in policy to make things worse for the underclass, not better.
             
            And I feel real anger about it.
             
            But you show no anger either that you have been lied to or that the poor are getting hammered more.  You seem to go away, construct a few words that you think represents a “middle point” and then post them.
             
            And you keep on accusing me of “political point scoring” without irony when every comment you make is laiden with it.  And you refuse to be drawn on anything specific.
             
            So Pete baby what makes you angry?  And what will you do to improve things?
             
            BTW I am not sure why you refer to the third Labour Government and presume this is a display of ignorance.  For your information there were about 20,000 unemployed at the time.  The economy was in poor shape but only because of the first oil crisis that Labour had nothing to do with.

            • Pete George 5.1.1.1.1.1
              18 October 2011 at 10:10 am

              I don’t try and destroy threads, that’s a weird question. I contribute something different, if you don’t agree it doesn’t mean the thread has come to an end.

              Your anger seems to be politically motivated. I don’t have that. I didn’t get angry at Labour (like many people did), and I don’t get angry about National.

              Anger doesn’t help. Instead of getting angry I try to do something about things.

              • Morrissey …
                18 October 2011 at 10:45 am

                I don’t try and destroy threads…

                I have read your substandard contributions to this forum for a long time, and your contributions are almost always cynical and frivolous. You make a point of trying to make light of serious topics, much in the fashion of another right wing zealot, Paul Holmes on his risible Q&A programme.

                I contribute something different

                See above. That’s all you contribute.

                Instead of getting angry I try to do something about things.

                Arrant nonsense.

              • The Voice of Reason …
                18 October 2011 at 10:46 am

                I’d have to agree you contribute something different, Pete. A complete lack of policy and no commitment to either yourself or your party must be a first in NZ politics for an aspiring candidate.
                 
                But all you do here is ask meaningless, distracting questions and at the end of the day, you are going to vote National anyway. My suspicion is that you post here because it’s the only political site that takes you even a little bit seriously. For a person ‘representing’ a party with one tenth of the Green’s support and one thirtieth of Labour’s, you do very well on the Standard. It’s just a shame that you get so much engagement here, but you still have nothing to say.

                • Lanthanide …
                  18 October 2011 at 10:49 am

                  I think he’s probably not persuading anyone to vote UF, though. I guess we can thank him for that.

                • Deadly_NZ …
                  18 October 2011 at 12:37 pm

                  Should do what I do Ignore him totally don’t reply to any of his inane drivel. Because as we all know he strives to be the best he can be in UF, and that position being the chief comb holder!

              • Colonial Viper …
                18 October 2011 at 11:11 am

                Anger doesn’t help. Instead of getting angry I try to do something about things.

                Anger does help mate.

                It focusses and energises.

                Its also what TPTB are most afraid of. People shaking of their complacency and becoming angry at what is happening to them.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                18 October 2011 at 1:26 pm

                I contribute something different…

                No you don’t, you contribute nothing at all. All you ever say is that we need to have a discussion about it but won’t actually join the discussion.

      • freedom 5.1.2
        18 October 2011 at 9:31 am

        look at it another way Pete G

        I think social conscience advice and encouragement and incentives to improve everyone’s situation are good – it’s easy to get in a greed rut and to live elitely.

        I don’t think bail-outs should be handed out indefinitely without question.

        • Pete George 5.1.2.1
          18 October 2011 at 9:49 am

          it’s easy to get in a greed rut and to live elitely.

          And not just the rich and the poor.

          It’s easy to get stuck in a consumerist rut and waste a lot of money. But if they stopped spending money on inneccesaries it would stuf the economy and people would lose jobs.

          Our world is far from simple.

          • freedom 5.1.2.1.1
            18 October 2011 at 11:35 am

            oh i get it now, In order to sustain an openly corrupt system we must ignore the actual day to day realities that the system presents us and mindlessly continue to sacrifice the future of our species, not to mention our planet. Nice one Pete.

            Are you mind-buggeringly ignorant of the modern world or is it more that you possess a myopic view of the causality processes that lead to the social, fiscal and environmental poverty that you are so willing to lay at the feet of the poor ?

      • millsy 5.1.3
        18 October 2011 at 10:38 am

        Budgeting is all well and good, but at the end of the day, you cannot get blood out of a stone.

        Tell me, are you comfortable with a level of homelessness and poverty in this country?

        • Pete George 5.1.3.1
          18 October 2011 at 10:44 am

          No.

          And I’m also not comfortable with Labour’s lack of readiness to do anything worthwhile about it.

          • millsy 5.1.3.1.1
            18 October 2011 at 10:47 am

            What would you do Squirrel-boy?

            Cut benefits
            Sell State Houses
            Slash minimum wages
            privatise health?

            Because that is pretty much all the things that you have suggested.

            People like you try to deny it, but the poverty has embedded itself in this country due to the 1991 budget and the Employment Contracts Act. In essence, they took money off workers and poor people, and destoryed the social wage.

            • Pete George 5.1.3.1.1.1
              18 October 2011 at 10:53 am

              I haven’t suggested any of those things.

              My aim is to work at a community level to find solutions. It works bettter from the bottom up rather than Wellington down. One size fits all doesn’t work well, a local solutions to local problems is much better.

              I was talking to a health related organisation last week, they are currently 62% government funded. They’d like more, but only up to a maximum of about 80% – they feel if they were fully funded they would be “owned” and would lose a lot of their flexibility and ability to innovate.

              • millsy …
                18 October 2011 at 10:57 am

                Trouble is, your beloved community health organisation wants the right to turn people away with only 80% funding. Our public health system has an obligation to treat people regardless of income. It can only do that with the top down one size fits all model you despise.

                Your party will destory this universal health care system that is a taonga in this country.

                • Pete George …
                  18 October 2011 at 11:09 am

                  Nonsense. They fundraise the rest to enable them to maintain some independence – and they don’t turn people away.

                  Community common sense can be far more effective than party political power.

                  • freedom …
                    18 October 2011 at 12:07 pm

                    news flash for PeteG

                    You can actually fund any community organisation at 100% and still give them full freedom to function autonomously as suits their function within their community.

                    It all comes down to how you approach what a government actually does.
                    It is about fair and equitable sharing of resources. It is about respect.
                    It is about honesty. It is also about a long ago idea called trust.

                    These ideas may be foreign to you and your ilk as history only presents a ravenous hunger that has, for millenia, stripped the hearty flesh of humanity from the bones of our society. Replacing it with the tumours and festering sores that have evolved into the modern Industrial Military Corpocracy. And every single one of us are nothing but share-stock antibiotics for the beasts that own it all. If you want to believe otherwise Pete then you are choosing to ignore reality and are only discussing ideology. A practise that allows distraction to be deemed acheivemnet and never really contributes to the impetus required to construct real change.

                    For thousands of years the words of the common person has been an irritant that owners have had to silence. Your very apologies for their practises brand you an accomplise in their ongoing war against humanity.

                    • Pete George …
                      18 October 2011 at 12:17 pm

                      I’m not apologising for anyone, I’m not sure why you keep blaming me for some illdefined malady.

                      Now you have done Idealism 101 why don’t you try Reality 101.

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    18 October 2011 at 3:49 pm

                    They fundraise the rest to enable them to maintain some independence…

                    In other words, they waste time and money to get the money that they need. They could be fully government funded and still maintain independence so that’s just an excuse. Sure, they’d be accountable for that money but, then, they should be any way.

                  • mik e …
                    18 October 2011 at 5:29 pm

                    PG I raise funds for community organizations and its very hard raise any sort of money the sums required to fund a health system are humongous you idiot for instance $35million just to upgrade the A&E at Dunedin hospital I’d like to see you and your clowns even get to 1% funding. Unfettered Fairyland dreaming your just an idiot with nothing better to do than talk drivel no research based economics behind any of your diatribe .Free loading on the standard just like your boss free loading on the govt of the day!

              • freedom …
                18 October 2011 at 11:46 am

                No Pete, you arrest the crooks first. You control the potentiality of ongoing attacks. That is still the best and most direct way to help the victim. If a victim of a violent crime is secure in the knowledge that the attacker is behind bars they generally feel a bit more capable of facing the world and making the effort of rebuilding their life. But you will refuse to see the analogy. I pity the Occupy people that have to communicate with you during your very precisely scheduled visit. The only ray of sunshine that may break through your clouds of ignorance is the fact if the right person recognises you for what you are, your views will be demanded and put on record.

                • Pete George …
                  18 October 2011 at 12:05 pm

                  The “them bad, us good” religious type fervour is not going to work.

                  David Brooks (New York Times columnist), wrote last week, “It’s not about declaring war on some nefarious elite. It’s about changing behaviour from top to bottom.”

                  It’s worth pondering that.

                  • freedom …
                    18 October 2011 at 12:52 pm

                    ponder this PeteG

                  • Morrissey …
                    18 October 2011 at 10:33 pm

                    I see where Pete George gets that cast-iron smugness and complacency from—he not only reads the smooth but ridiculous cant of that smug and complacent zealot David Brooks, but he apparently takes him seriously!!!.

                    Those who have read Brooks will realize he is an American version of the notorious English poseur Nick Cohen or our own David Farrar, i.e., a shallow ideologue who writes well, but who is essentially anti-democratic, and not prepared to engage in debate seriously or respectfully. It’s a reflection on Pete George’s character and his moral seriousness (or lack thereof) that he quotes Brooks with evident approval.

                    Note how he solemnly insists that Brooks’s flim-flam is “worth pondering”.

                    MEMO PETE GEORGE:

                    We know you’re busy on that campaign trail, holding the leader’s comb, and so you won’t have time to do a lot of reading. So when you do find a spare hour or so, why don’t you pick up a BOOK by a serious writer (i.e., not by Nick Cohen or David Brooks or P.J. O’Rourke or Ian Wishart) but by a serious and intelligent thinker. Please. You owe it to yourself, as well as the denizens of this forum. It’s never too late to start.

              • mik e …
                18 October 2011 at 5:21 pm

                PG what utter bullshit just more boring political rhetoric from a johny come lately

          • mik e 5.1.3.1.2
            18 October 2011 at 5:17 pm

            PG it was united futures undermining of the greens that caused labour to cut a lot of climate change and environmental problems.The result is that UF have only .3% support but with the way you Rant on PG with your superiority complex you would think that you have something like 51% support you’ve probably been excluded from Kiwiblog because your blogs are so boring and contrived

      • mik e 5.1.4
        18 October 2011 at 3:57 pm

        We should start we the coalition borrowing and hoping aye a little Parental Guidance required before you leave home I predict an Unemployed Future for feather weight politicly naive idiot

  6. randal 6
    18 October 2011 at 10:00 am

    I think pete wants to see hungry angry people prowling the streets and the police and the army hunting them down and killing them because they dont have a licence to live.

    • Tiger Mountain 6.1
      18 October 2011 at 10:22 am

      Pete will deny it, but randal’s grim futurist scenario is where it all ends when you have deserving and undeserving poor, high unemployement and people under pressure from all directions backed up by a surveillence state to ‘clampdown’ on resistance and fightbacks.

      I know several farmers that would shoot ‘hungry angry people’ approaching their land rather than feed them. Societal breakdown is always closer than we think.

      • uke 6.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 11:28 am

        The British counter-intelligence agency MI5 has a saying: “Society is only ever four meals away from anarchy”.

  7. freedom 7
    18 October 2011 at 11:25 am

    For Pete G
    and others who refuse to see the trees because they are too busy clear cutting the forest.

    One of these videos exposes the manipulative intent of the system you so tirelessly defend
    the other is simply the reality of your greed is legal so let it happen ideology

    they are both good TV, but one of them would never get near a TV broadcast

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pql2ETgegR4&feature=related

    • Pete George 7.1
      18 October 2011 at 11:32 am

      I’m not tirelessly defending any system, I’m working to initiate change.

      Soon I will be an activist politician, or failing that a political activist.

      • freedom 7.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 12:50 pm

        so with no policy no party and no commitment to anything but an irritating whine against poor people how exactly are you promoting change?

        I may well be an idealist but i am not alone. I am one of the thousands and thousands of New Zealanders with practical game-changing ideas who have put in the effort to present real alternatives to complex problems. I did it as recently as last week.

        You may recall the PM with his ‘put up or shut up’ call regarding plans for the Rena Oil. Unlike most people i did not write a couple of hundred words on the fact the PM said it, i just went to work and sent him an actual idea. I even went as far as to state I had no political motive in my sending it to him, which is true in this case. It was and is about the Oil and finding a real solution. I have no knowledge if he ever saw my idea, who knows. I sent it to every resource i could think of. From Governemnt sites to Party pages, even here and on FB.

        The PM though said, on Monday’s Breakfast show, that despite his request for input, not a single person had come up with any ideas despite lots of talk about there being immediate solutions. I call bullshit and I say the same to you. Your platitudes of progressive action are weak kneed stammerings of someone at risk of losing a bar bet.

  8. toad 8
    18 October 2011 at 11:38 am

    Those pesky predictions:

    Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured.

    …

    • Puddleglum 8.1
      18 October 2011 at 12:58 pm

      Looks like the ABs will miss out on the RWC again – oh, well.

      Edit: I know, that prediction was last year (hopefully).

    • Deadly_NZ 8.2
      18 October 2011 at 1:32 pm

      Elect???? don’t they mean Elite?? Well maybe it means the rich Elect will be raptured ie: taken off somewhere else(or like every other rapture in modern history usually means mass suicide.) And the annhilation?? well it would not be so bad if the present monetary system crashes.

  9. joe90 9
    18 October 2011 at 11:57 am

    The Iranian assassination caper, a complete success.

    Summary: The bottom line from the Iranian assassination caper = it’s already worked, further demonizing Iran’s image in the mind of the American public — maintaining support for the permanent war establishment of massive military/intel/homeland security spending and the slow erosion of our liberties. Of course it succeeded. Conducting information operations against America is the core competency of our defense apparatus.

  10. thejackal 10
    18 October 2011 at 12:09 pm

    John Key to Donate Fortune

    Yesterday, the Prime Minister John Key announced that he was going to donate $50 million towards New Zealand’s growing debt crisis. Key said he’d decided to gift his fortune because of the help he had received from New Zealand as a child in the form of a state house, and it was “jush fair to gift sumtin back.”

    • Tiger Mountain 10.1
      18 October 2011 at 3:03 pm

      Heh, why stop there, his ‘bach’ could be gifted to local Hawaiians whose stolen land it is sitting on.

    • mik e 10.2
      18 October 2011 at 8:18 pm

      Today PLONKEY opened a wineries tour!
      amd SLICKEY checked out some penguins!
      Double DIP becomes Triple DIP

  11. Ianupnorth 11
    18 October 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Are there no depths the elite will plummet to in order to advantage their offspring?
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10759864
    <blockquote>
    A woman has admitted making calls claiming to be a sexual health worker in a bid to damage the reputation of a girl who was a rival to her daughter’s bid to study at two elite colleges.
    The Queenstown 53-year-old appeared visibly shaken when she appeared on two charges in the Queenstown District Court yesterday.
    Sergeant Ian Collin said the defendant applied to St Hilda’s Collegiate School and Columba College, both in Dunedin, in May for her daughter to be accepted next year.</blockquote>

  12. BLiP 12
    18 October 2011 at 3:25 pm

    Contrast and compare:

    * – [John Key] said the Government had also done the best it could , in difficult times, to insulate people from the recession.

    * – The Government has slashed the number of food grants to needy families by 20 per cent, driving record numbers to seek food parcels from charities instead.

    Suffer little children for King John The Clueless of Charmalot has decreed that his beloved underclass shall grow and be hungry so the rich may have their tax cuts.

    • BLiP 12.1
      18 October 2011 at 5:29 pm

      DOH! Missed Mr Savage’s earlier reference to this. Just couldn’t believe it when I read those stories one after the other. Hat tip New Zealand Fox News Herald for accident juxtaposition.

      (NOTE TO SELF: Just because the trolls are being fed doesn’t mean you can ignore the leading comment.)

  13. thejackal 13
    18 October 2011 at 4:12 pm

    National’s Election Hoarding’s 5

    Back in July this year it was revealed that National creates jobs for their mates and pays them three times the going rate. When attempting to side step the issue, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee started telling lies…

  14. Deadly_NZ 14
    18 October 2011 at 4:49 pm

    Oh damn Double Dipton could become a Triple Dipton. And this aint no lottery.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5808378/Fears-of-third-NZ-credit-downgrade

    • Lanthanide 14.1
      18 October 2011 at 4:57 pm

      “”They are caught up in the same kind of mood as the other rating agencies where they ‘re putting any country with debt under the microscope. I see in the last few days they’ve just warned France or Italy or somebody,” he said.”

      Seems like he’s suggesting it’s just teenage angst, or they got up on the wrong side of bed, or perhaps even PMS.

      It also sounds like he doesn’t care any more. Hardly becoming the finance minister, I don’t think. At budget 2009 they were acting like the ratings agencies were their best mates and now they don’t want to know them or give them the time of day.

      • BLiP 14.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 5:37 pm

        . . . “I see in the last few days they’ve just warned France or Italy or somebody,” he said . . .

        France is in the softening up phase up for a review of its Aaa rating, while Italy has had its rating macheted down three notches to A2. WTF is Blinglish saying here?

        • William Joyce 14.1.1.1
          18 October 2011 at 7:55 pm

          He’s a bit unsure of his facts and doesn’t want to embarrass himself. He got the information from Key who read it in any email.

      • Draco T Bastard 14.1.2
        18 October 2011 at 6:07 pm

        It also sounds like he doesn’t care any more.

        Any more? He never cared at all. His sole job was to increase NZ’s borrowing so that him and his rich mates had a nice safe place to put their money collecting interest.

  15. McFlock 15
    18 October 2011 at 4:50 pm

    Nice column by Colin James in the ODT today. Talking about the delay in the government signing up to the bunker fuel damages convention:

    “After Audit Office criticism of the Treasury’s costly mishandling of the guarantee to South Canterbury Finance, this failure of fiduciary duty to taxpayers looks bad. But even if Joyce had got a bill drafted the lax management of Parliament’s business would probably have left it low on the agenda like many other important bills.
    Again, it is not a syndrome. But it does suggest the cabinet needs tighter management than Key’s devolved style. Which is more important: removing compulsory student unionism or doubling the fees for dodgy Greek shipping companies? “

    • Lanthanide 15.1
      18 October 2011 at 4:59 pm

      “Again, it is not a syndrome. But it does suggest the cabinet needs tighter management than Key’s devolved style. Which is more important: removing compulsory student unionism or doubling the fees for dodgy Greek shipping companies?”

      To be fair, it did take them a very very long time to get the SVM bill passed.

    • William Joyce 15.2
      18 October 2011 at 5:12 pm

      “…the cabinet needs tighter management than Key’s devolved style.”
       
      What employer would tolerate an employee ignoring their work so they could swan around the world chasing photo-op?
       

  16. mik e 16
    18 October 2011 at 5:18 pm

    The Business Round Table

  17. joe90 17
    18 October 2011 at 5:19 pm

    Quantum Levitation?. Yup.

  18. William Joyce 18
    18 October 2011 at 5:20 pm

    So much has happened that gives lie to the governments claim of being fiscally responsible:
    A $2 billion dollar tax cut that wasn’t fiscally neutral
    A $2 billion dollar cock-up with South Canterbury
    $10 million marine insurance bungle.
    $75, 000 to send McCully to Vannuatu
     
    Can anyone add examples of fiscal mismanagement that are costing public servants jobs and government services to be cut?

    • BLiP 18.1
      18 October 2011 at 5:56 pm

      The fiscal malfeasance being overseen by this John Key led National Ltd™ government is systemic, and it starts at the top of the bureaucratic jungle gym.

      Brian Gaynor highlighted a serious macro-level issue which is throwing out all the government’s accounts and resulting in a belt-tightening cascade of reduced services as actual income falls so far below estimated income. By the time reality hits the chook house at Number 1 The Terrace, the government has gone ahead promising all sorts of wonderfulness only to find it has to scurry about last-minute with cap in hand while ordering government departments, again, to get the razors out. No chance for long-term strategic management when there’s an unexpected cash shortage every three months.

      Treasury, “our leading government department” is responsible for this and is also in the shit for the way it has managed the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme. Classic National Ltd™ – put economists in charge of running a country because, really, society is just like a business, don’t you see?

      • Draco T Bastard 18.1.1
        18 October 2011 at 6:13 pm

        Classic National Ltd™ – put economists in charge of running a country because, really, society is just like a business, don’t you see?

        And it doesn’t help that the “economists” wouldn’t know an economy if they tripped over one.

  19. freedom 19
    18 October 2011 at 5:22 pm

    seeing as the Government and their supporters have pulled out the ‘global crisis is all because of household debt’ mantra, here is a picture saving us all a thousand words

    ( those with a keen eye will notice some of our PM’s handiwork amongst the detritus)

    • just saying 19.1
      18 October 2011 at 6:48 pm

      It’ll be in the archives somewhere, but someone posted that this is exactly what Key did tell a kid who asked what caused the financial crisis. Words to the effect of: ‘Your parents bought things they couldn’t afford’. Our glorious media didn’t find this suitably interesting to question him about – that it was all our fault according to Key.

  20. aj 20
    18 October 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Slowly sinking in . . . . . . the consequences of theory slowly being undermined by the real world.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-hansen-clarke/congress-is-obsessed-with_b_912494.html

  21. William Joyce 21
    18 October 2011 at 6:51 pm

    Labour announces it’s employment policies today.
    National try to deflect attention away from Labour with a Kiwisaver announcement that is vague, has no specifics, is not going to be detailed until after the election, and will only happen if they balance the books (fat chance of that happening!).
    The political equivalent of vapourware.
     
    And what did tv3 do tonight? They ran first up with the National’s sweet FA announcement.
    I guess that’s what a $43 million soft loan gets ya.

    • sweetd 21.1
      18 October 2011 at 6:54 pm

      William, National is the govt, and most punters expect them to be returned in a few weeks, hence this is most likely to beecome law. Labour on the other hand is quickly becoming a fringe party, struggling to get over 30% if the latest roy morgan is to be believed.

  22. John 22
    18 October 2011 at 7:05 pm

    sweetD you have no political knowledge, National polled 23% only 10 years ago. Labour are doing fine in the left vote, National need to deliver to the swingers and they don’t have any ideas apart from smiles and waves, it all comes apart in the end. New Zealand will extend it’s socialist economy considerably in your lifetime in accordance with the swing back from private commercial incompetence.

  23. big bruv 23
    18 October 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Gotta love that Roy Morgan aye.

    59.5%

    • Tiger Mountain 23.1
      18 October 2011 at 8:02 pm

      Well no whimpy BB, actually, ya gotta pay attention to the November 26 poll, you know, where people get the big black marker pen out in the little cardboard booth.

    • The Voice of Reason 23.2
      18 October 2011 at 9:48 pm

      September 26 – October 9, 2011. That’s the polling period, Bludge. A couple of weeks into the RWC through to a comfortable win over Argentina in the quarters. And before we knew Key’s Government had just helped coat the beaches of the BOP in oil. I hear the rugby finishes soon, btw.

  24. Someone Else 24
    18 October 2011 at 8:47 pm

    I wonder what the Nats think amounts to corruption? Did anyone else notice that May Wang – a businesswoman with links to Jenny Shipley – is charged with corruption in Hong Kong? She was the lady who fronted the Chinese bid to buy the Crafar farms. Check out these links:

    – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10759961
    – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10662262

    All I say is thank God for the Overseas Investment Commission! I wonder how she conducted her affairs around the Nats. What meetings did she have with the likes of Pansy Wong and Co?