Is the definition of stupidity David Shearer going on-air complaining about Labour’s lack of unity and then in the next sentence stabbing David Cunliffe in the back. All of the Labour MP’s currently going on-air to have a stab at David Cunliffe are clearly showing that they are the “insiders” who have been undermining Labour and are the main cause for the 24.7%.
There are other factors for the 24.7%, but when I have spoken to people they always talk about the infighting that goes on in labour as the main reason that they wouldn’t vote Labour. As soon as I heard Nash, Cosgrove and Shearer on air yesterday, I knew, as Winston would say: “Labour are gone”… idiots putting their own ambitions in front of the Party. For the sake of Labour shut the f%$# up.
Agreed. And the loudest should reflect on their own personal performance. If they want a review we should start with why their electorate campaign for the party vote was so bad. A comparison of results makes for fascinating reading …
Time for a new party folks ? this one was hijacked decades back and is no longer capable of representing middle/lower nz.
It’s not possible to purge the shearers, mallards etc so can anyone see it working with them ? Described as too comfortable and not to bothered about the strugglers was how one party figure depicted them to me, sounds about right.
Helen held it together but that was awhile ago now and its easier in power than in opposition. Jones being able to be bought off by the Nats pretty much summed it for me, zero loyalty, maximum troughing and nasty as into the bargain.
Re time for a new party, I wondered the same thing this morning. In fact, this year’s election result is not significantly different from Goff’s. Division is still the undermining factor. The Goff/Shearer team seems to have the blessing of the political/media elite, while Cunliffe largely retains the support of the unions and the membership.
Each morning I listen to Susie Ferguson carrying on about Cunliffe like a high school queen bee attacking some boy for wearing his slippers to the school ball.
Cunliffe can’t effectively stand up to this sort of thing, as Winston does, without his caucus firmly behind him. At the same time, the right-leaning ambitions of the opposing team draw scorn and contempt from the cheap seats, while their beloved tradies go over to Winston and the luvvies to the Greens. If things continue in this way, as they have since Clark left, it will ultimately mean the death of Labour.
Shearer is calling for an independent review. Here’s an independent review: constantly backstabbing the party leader to the media makes the populace not like your party.
Pre-election DC often looked like someone who was preparing for the next beating. As bad as the MSM has been I don’t think they did that to him alone. Well done Labour caucus, leadership coup by PTSD.
I think Cunliffe did remarkably well under the circumstances, but that sense that something was wrong was palpable yet never explained. No wonder so many people don’t trust Labour.
I had the same feeling. But it would fragment the left further. We need an integrating party, to get anywhere. Also Labour are not going to disappear…..but if they don’t get it together…..there will be no opposition.
The labour MPs should learn to debate issues in private in their caucus and not air their differences/views in public or secretly through journalists/bloggers.
After this election, in my opinion, the only people in Labour that should have spoken in public are Cunliffe and Parker and may be Coatsworth. The rest them should have shown better restraint or at least shown unity and loyalty in their utterances.
Yep, been saying that for years. Labour is a centre-right party and probably closer to radical right compared to where we were in the 1970s and a right-wing party is bad for the country.
and another 100% agreement about Shearer ( friend of National and Hooton)
…naked ambition…limited ability…ruthless to opposition ….didnt he get rid of Leanne Dalziel and Charles Chauvel while he was leader?
…both Dalziel and Chauvel were future potential leaders of the Labour Party
….really David Cunliffe did not stand a chance with Shearer behind his back ( imo Cunliffe should stay and fight it out if he has the support of the rank and file Labour Party members…change in the Labour Party has got to come from the bottom up)
…there were huge mistakes in Labour’s election strategy that can not be sheeted back to Cunliffe…but to the whole Party apparatus
And Shearer never had a chance with Cunliffe behind his back.
Maybe the issue are actually bigger than these two men, and the next Labour leader needs to be a fresh face.
Labour got up to 34% (according to Phil Ure) when Cunliffe lurched to the left, and got 25% when they pulled back to the right.
Maybe theres a lesson there, but they also need to factor in that by abandoning the centre, they will be forever hoping that Winston will choose them for Government. Thats a risky strategy for any party to adhere to in my view.
Cunliffe should resign for good of party and nation.
Labour needs to face the question of its leadership, nothing more. If Mr Cunliffe is going to appeal over the heads of his caucus to the membership and affiliated unions who elected him last year, he must imagine he can continue to lead a team that has little confidence in him. This will do Labour no good, as surely its members and unions now see.
It is in the nation’s interest that the party finds a new leader quickly.
Or, if Cunliffe is supported by the party as a whole then how about those disruptive caucus members do their job properly.
I thought Cunliffe did brilliant in the debates. He came across as caring, he made leaps and bounds in dispelling the media painted perception of him with actions and showing just how much he cared about NZ. Given proper media coverage he would have won. That’s the crux of the issue. the only way a Labour leader would get the thumbs up from the likes of O’Sullivan and Armstrong and everyone else in the media except Cambell is if he was a National MP leading Labour.
You know it, you know the press are against Labour, so who will they be even handed too, no one. That’s why you need a man like Cunliffe, he’ll get the bad press for awhile but has the oration skills and brain to dispel them and make the media look stupid. Just like he was doing in the debates.
I for one like Cunliffe a lot. I also liked Shearer, but did not like him when I saw how hopeless he was on media duties or in parliaments debates.
leave Cunliffe there just band behind him and unify and start dispelling the perceptions painted by bad media personalities.
The fight back starts by uniting and dispelling the Labour tainted image. only then will we get the common voter to consider the tick seriously. Until then they won’t even look at labour.
Agree with you Richard, but ideally Labour need to analyse the root cause of Labours’ weakness. Leadership is one of the factors, but there are many factors for Labour struggling including the following:
– Labour funding/campaign revenue
-implementing tough policies such as CGT, Irrigation tax, increasing age of super
-centralised campaign/marketing strategy
-constant infighting and leaks to the media (Lack of internal discipline)
-DC apologising to womens refuge
-Insider attacking Cunliffe for taking 3 days off in school holidays
-Labours marketing strategy versus Nationals marketing strategy
-Is the electorate ready for a change?
-Labour brand weakness
-Dotcom and the affect he had on Labours campaign
-Dirty Politics – did it help or hinder
-Could Labour have presented its suite of policies better?
The point I am trying to make is that Labour need to analyse the root cause of the problem, the infighting that is already happening is in my view the biggest reason Labours brand has gone down the toilet.
+++ And Labour are being played like little docile puppets! Dancing to their tune. Public display of power hungry, naked ambition, disloyalty and chaos.
Someone needs to reign them in.
+1
I used to keep bikes and cars for years, spending more and more on maintaining what had turned into heaps of shit. I belatedly learned that it’s better to get rid of the absolute rubbish and get something else to do the same job. For a long time I thought we had to keep Labour, but I’ve had enough. The Rogernomics cancer has been terminal.
20% vote from lunions is not what got Cunliffe the leadership, it’s mathematically impossible. The Herald is peddling the ABC lines again. Why don’t they jkust simplify their article to
“”wa. wa.wa. I want to be more like National. wa wa wa.” said David Shearer and his pals today
Totally agree Sarbo!! Shearer deserves a huge chunk of blame – he took the leadership with no experience and wasted so much time stumbling and bumbling around – If David Cunliffe had been elected leader straight after Goff, the election result might have looked very different – 11 months is not long enough for a leader to cement themselves into the job and for the public to know them – Helen Clark was leader for a much longer period before becoming Prime Minister and look how that turned out!! NO-ONE else in the party could have performed in those debates better than David Cunliffe – its a pity that certain MP’s only did enough to regain their own seats and didn’t bother campaigning for the party vote – self interest reigns supreme among many in the Caucus! As for Nash, he’s a bit cheeky saying he may go for the leadership when he’s only just got into Parliament – trading on the name of his adopted Grandfather a bit too much I think – and imagine the field day Cameron Slater would have with Nash’s private life!!!! Nash does not strike me as a measured type of man which could get him into all sorts of trouble. Robertson may debate well but he will never have appeal with the public, he’s gay and he just doesn’t look like a Prime Minister should – unfortunately people really ARE that shallow, so looks are important! If David Cunliffe doesn’t stay leader of the Party, then watch all the new members they have gained melt away like snow in spring!
We’re in real danger of doing for Labour what the Tea Party does for the Republican Party: selecting ideologically “pure” candidates that are either unappealing to the wider electorate or are abrasive to a significant portion of the caucus. I voted for Cunliffe. I like him and I like his principles, but I was also very impressed with Grant Robertson and would have been okay with “settling” for him (Jones was out of the question).
Someone is going to have to blink here. I know it feels really good to stick it to the right wing in caucus, but they’re not the enemy. National is. The perfect is the enemy of the good and you can little by being in opposition. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of losing.
For better or worse the Labour caucus is now selected for the next three years. It is chock full of yesterday’s men and women.
The first thing the leader must do is unite this group behind him or herself and the common cause of displacing John Key in 2017.
For me that is the top of the job description for leader of the Labour party.
I am not sure who that person is. But I am fairly certain that person’s name does not begin with David.
Neither Shearer nor Cunliffe have the requisite support of the caucus to effectively carry out the job. Without that support they cannot do the job. Therefore neither should be leader.
My problem with John Key’s Silver Fern is that it looks too much like the ISIS flag from a distance, exposing NZ troops in Syria to being targeted by allied air power.
Saarbo, well bloody said. Do they not engage brain before shooting themselves in ass. No one wanted goff he’d never get in, frankly he has a worse public image than Cunliffe. Shearers background gave him a good standing but he cannot talk. pointless, part of the job requirements are the ability to get ones point across. These two are causing too much infighting the president of Labour need to tell them to can it for awhile. If you have an issue with someone how about growing a pair and talking about it like an adult with the person concerned, or is it more of a case of them blinded by the hint they may be able to get the leadership baubbles back. it’s pathetic. frankly the country would laugh at labour if they threw the truck in reverse in a traffic jam.
Today I joined the labour party, yep on the cheap side at $10 PM but heck I’m on a low wage. I figure every dollar counts though, have to do something I figured I can’t sit here bleating on like a cry baby if I don’t get active. So I am a labour member, well until I get approved officially.
I consider myself pretty fair handed not a rabid commie or right wing neo liberal. I just go for common sense. Good policy is good policy no matter who comes up with it if it improves things. lets hope my 1% can help Labour if even a little.
and because three more years of this lots going to hurt us all big time the way the economy is tanking.
Waikato University’s production line of mediocrity;
They’re right at home on Jim Mora’s light chat show The Panel, Monday 22 September 2014
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Duncan Webb
Waikato University has long been the refuge of some of the most bizarre right wing nutjobs in the nation. If you care to visit the notorious “Political Science” [sic] department, you’ll meet the unbelievably nasty professors Dov Bing, an implacable Israeli hardliner who every few years emerges from academic obscurity to write a bloodthirsty Op-Ed piece in the Waikato Times, and Ron Smith, who on Jim Mora’s show once spoke, in a tone of high seriousness, of the “virtue” of New Zealand governments falling in line with U.S. foreign policy. Needless to say, Smith’s party politics are as deranged as his lectures; he ran for ACT in the Hamilton East electorate this year. Over in the English department, dear old Norman Simms occasionally contributes to the public discourse, backing up his friend Prof. Bing by frothing and snarling and tirelessly reiterating the line that critics of Israel are “anti-Semitic”. Up the hill, in Earth Sciences, you’ll meet the bewhiskered Professor Willem De Lange, a global warming denier who foolishly, in 2008, appeared on a risible Prime TV “debate” on the same side as NewstalkZB’s resident loon Leighton Smith; to compound the impression of haplessness, De Lange let Smith do nearly all the talking. But probably the most dismal of all the dismal departments at Waikato is the Management School, which achieved notoriety in 1998 by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate on the ridiculous advertising poseur Kevin Roberts.
Sadly, anyone who listened to Jim Mora’s light chat show The Panel today (Monday) will be all too aware that Waikato’s lamentable production line of mediocrity shows no sign of slowing down. Right now I am listening to one Jacqueline Rowarth, a Waikato University professor—allegedly—of Agricultural Science, asserting that there is no such thing as poverty in New Zealand. It is, apparently, all in the minds of the poor. Except that, according to Prof. Rowarth, the poor don’t exist. Those reports in the media of kids without shoes? Rubbish, according to Jacqueline Rowarth—all the alleged shoelessness is simply kids who just don’t want to wear shoes.
Stephen Franks—like Prof. Ron Smith, an ACT supporter—is warmly supportive of this carefully researched thesis, but Duncan Webb is less impressed. Webb has a go at arguing with Prof. Rowarth and Franks, but Jim Mora cuts him off because time is up.
Earlier in the programme, Franks launched into one of his typically bizarre rants, asserting that Frank Bainimarama is actually a democrat, and has been one all along. According to Franks, only the Great Council of Chiefs was ever opposed to the Fijian dictator. That’s not true of course: the staunchest opposition to the Bainimarama dictatorship has been by the trade unions in Fiji. This has evidently failed to register with Franks. To his credit, Duncan Webb contested what Franks said. Franks also engaged in a lengthy condemnation of the New Zealand government for its failure to support Bainimarama’s coup, which was apparently a coup for democracy. To support his case, he invoked another great hero of democracy, Henry Kissinger*, who claimed that morality had no place in foreign policy.
I flicked the glib, laughing host of this joke of a show the following supportive e-mail….
Morality has no place in foreign policy
Dear Jim,
We support Stephen Franks’s assertion that morality has no place in foreign policy.
Yours sincerely,
Adolf Hitler
Benito Mussolini
Emperor Hirohito
V.I. Lenin
Lev Trotsky
“Uncle Joe” Stalin
Pol Pot
General Franco
Henry Kissinger
(and the disturbing thought that here was a future panel-candidate..she says all the ‘right’ things..)..her semi-orgasmic gasps of agreement as franks laid out his vile-prescriptons for the children of the poor…painted her in exactly the colour she should be..unadulterated far-right..
..and she is a professor..(!)..she gets to teach/preach this shit to gullible students..?..
..whoar..!..)
..and moras’ nodding-along to those (as always) putrid-excretions from the mind of franks was particularly puke-inducing..
..and of course..as noted..never challenged at all by mora..
Prof Rowarth also mixed up the average and median. She said poverty is supposed to be 80% of the median income – and then said that meant it was around $50k. No, it is actually around $20k – which she could probably not even imagine supporting a family on. And then she said that the lack of shoes is just a life style choice for kids!
On the Electoral Commission election results page they have a demographic breakdown of each electorate. For example in Palmerston North 55% live on less than $30k and only about 3% over $100, 000. So as a professor formerly at Massey she is up there with the tiny elite – no wonder she has no idea. Pity they give her airtime as an expert on anything but farming.
Full time work on Minimum wage equals around $29,600pa, are you saying more than half of peple in Palmerston North are on full time minimum wage, part time work or benefit? That is an apalling stat if true!
What was Iain Lees-Galloway’s plan for the region to increase employment opportunities during the election?
“she gets to teach/preach this shit to gullible students..?..”
And that is the problem, until the Friedman and the Chicago School religion is purged from all universities this Noe-Liberal failed crap will go on unabated.
i have worked out what the real metaphor is in that eminem-rip-off rowing skiff ad…
..it actually represents how each party has got to grips with mmp..
..national has nailed it..
..and the progressives/labour/grns etc..
..haven’t got a fucken clue..
..they are the ones in the dinghy..
..all rowing in opposite directions..
..and against each other..
..and labour can angst and leader-fret all they like..
..but until lab/grns progressives learn not to cannabilse/fight each other to the death national will just continue skiffing past them..
..there have been two post-election statements/claims that have particularly ground my gears..
..one was the crocodile tears from cunnliffe on ‘the bad result for the left’..after his successful knee-capping of harawira/internet-mana..(for all the obvious reasons..)
..and the other was from metiria turei..
..with her (to me) smug-claim that the greens couldn’t have done any more to avert that crushing defeat for the left/progressives..
..a look at the result in ohariu-belmont puts the lie to that..
..and the greens have gifted dunne his 11th term in parliamant..(on a mandate for him/his party half the size of that of the aotearoa legalise cannabis party..(!)..)
..because dunne won with a majority of 900+…
..yet the green candidate in that seat..got 2,4000+ votes…
..so had the greens clearly asked their supporters to vote strategically in ohariu-belmont..
..dunne would have been out the door..
..and this disasterous (for the progressives) pattern is repeated up and down the country..
(auckland central…had the greens not competed for the electorate..labour would have won that seat..as just one other example of many..)
..and until labour and the greens work out enough how to not cannabilise each other..
(issuing clear/explaining reasons for.. how-to-vote cards to their supporters..would be one obvious solution..and of course agreeing not to stand competing-candidates in some strategic seats will have to be worked out…)
..until then..labour can shuffle leaders all they like..
..and turei can make that false claim again and again that ‘the greens could do nothing more’..
..but the progressives will just continue to get out-rowed by national/the right..
..this is the solution to the problems facing the left/progressives…
..not fretting over a new leader for labour..
..but sitting down together and actually working out/planning how to win an election..
You did a great job hacking lumps off red/green throughout the campaign, and now, in defeat, you have all the answers to all their woes. Sincere? A big belly laugh at that.
As for lack of nous, I disagree. I managed to suss you out soon enough.
No and labour/national/nzfirts and the maori party did not join together to kill it off.
See here is the problem, and the denial going on – Labour got into bed with national to kill off mana.
Let me repeat that so you understand. Labour got into bed with national to kill mana off.
And you’re going to sit there with a straight face and tell me mana killed itself. Wow another out of touch labour supporter. This is why the working people in this country hate you and why they won’t vote.
Mana did kill itself. Their delusional idiotic behaviour left other parties no choice, but to either sit uncomfortably on the sidelines, or at the close to distance themselves, otherwise the public would make their own decision. Davis had to fight for his life. Labour didn’t owe Mana anything, but it did owe the electorate clarity in saying they would not deal with IMP. Hone is a victim of his own stupidity, and thank heavens we don’t have to listen to that tosser Laila Harre anymore. If hone had stayed away from Dotcom he would still be an MP.
So it’s ok for labour to work with national now Once was Pete? What idiotic behaviour? Your right labour owes nobody nothing, because they are dead. It’s going to hurt, it’s going to take some time, but the beast is dead.
All I see is a party of egoists, slashing and burning all who oppose them. Oh wait they already sold out working people. They just followed that up and destroying any voice working stiffs had, by joining with the enemy. Well done labour, what a wonderful strategy.
David Shearer is calling for a forensic analysis of the election result. I agree. For a start we could do a seat by seat analysis of what happened to the party vote. Here are the worst performing seats and the figure represents the drop in percentage points of party vote:
Mt Roskill -8.21%
Hutt South -7.86%
Mt Albert -7.12%
Here is New Lynn’s result:
New Lynn -1.52%
Of course there will be a multitude of causes and reasons and boundary changes were reasonably significant for each of these seats. But let’s have the debate. The party should have had it in 2011.
Until Nationals vote disintegrates there’s not a lot the left can do.
Thinking about it, for MMP to really be effective the National vote needs to be around 30-35% and has to work and compromise with other parties instead of the other parties just making up the numbers to govern.
In that sort of scenario the possibility of National and labour working together would be quite high.
Currently with John Key at the helm the chances of nationals vote collapsing or a left leaning government gaining power are practically nil.
“..when cunnliffe didn’t deliver on those transformational-policies/promises..is when the labour vote started its’ slow collapse…”
What ‘left’ promises didn’t DC follow through with that collapsed the vote?
“had lab/grns not cannabilised each other.”
I’m missing your text that slams mana voters in Rotorua for not electorate voting Labour to keep Flavell and another out of parliament. Do you have a link?
National have 1 trump up their sleeve to protect from their voter base collapsing, when Peters retires who do you think will pick up the majority of NZ1’s support? Do you think it will be a party that promotes increasing the retirement age, The Greens or any other party that lies on the left of the political spectrum ?
Nice stats there Micky. Goff, Shearer, Mallard should take a look at themselves. Though I would point out that Goff nearly won in 2011.
Cunliffe should stay as leader and should sack/ease out Cosgrove and anyone else who refused to push Labour in their electorate campaigns. He needs to be seen to take control and any bloodletting should be now and then get unified for the following 2 years.
And please can we have party vote labour written as PARTY VOTE LABOUR on the hoardings next time.
Much though I like Hone and Laila it will complicate things less for Labour next time now Mana has gone. Maybe Laila should replace Cosgrove?
To have a fair comparison leaders of a party attract a greater % of support in their electorate than “just anybody” so to compare DC’s loss of party vote when he was just anyone to now being “The One” is a bit IMO playing with numbers, unless you compare his vote with other 1st time leaders in an losing campaign. Say bill English in 2002 as comparing like with like ?
Dunedin South, that Former Red Stronghold which lost the party vote to National by a few hundred votes in 2011, lost it again this time around by 2,300 votes.
Unfortunately Labour (mainly) & Green politicians ego’s got in the way of common sense. I put out a strategy to these idiots but their over inflated ego’s got the better of them. Met & spoke with Cunliffe’s PR men and realised they were amateurs pretty quickly, this was a big disappointment. Rolled out our strategy locally to great effect which was very successful, backed up back by the National snake oil team congratulated us on an effective play.
I would say that one of the reasons is that the anxious classes are now moving outwards from city centres, ( having captured them in the last few decades, particularly in Auckland) because they can’t afford the prices. These suburbs are becoming gentrified.
It seems to me that the right and the corporate is in the ascendency well and truly.
Like it is in the US and most western nations. There is nothing to halt it – the poor / left don’t vote and the right wing vested interests are simply too powerful.
The caucus is the problem not the solution. That some in there don’t see that IS THE PROBLEM.
Boo Fucking Hoo they had to work for someone they dont like, well suck it up princesses, we all have had to work for bosses we didnt like, we either leave or we contribute tot he common goal. At least that is how fgrown ups do it.
The soultion for the ABC’s is right in front of their eyes
United Future
New Zealand First
ACT
National
Go join them and I never thought I would say this but I wonder who Cosgrove and others gave their party votes to?
It seems to me that all the fuckwits that voted for Key now think that by merely voting for Key they have disproved Hagar and Greenwald and Snowden. It is proof of their fuckwittery … if we all say “nyah nyah nyah” at once then we must be right …
Yeah, Richard Prebble tried that one in his “Letter”.
TVNZ, TV3 and state radio called this election wrong. The credibility of our news services has taken a huge hit. Night after night TV and radio told us John Key was a liar. First “Dirty politics” and then claims of mass surveillance were given not just top billing but saturation coverage. The news blogs are going to be the big winners.
It astounds me (not) that Fed Farmers are still in denial about the environment and its place in the world…
William Rolleston this morning claiming that the looming reforms of the RMA are a good thing …. all these reforms will do is allow more pieces of the environment to be taken from the environment and placed onto people’s dinner plates, thereby simply diminishing the environment ….. the dinner plate that is already loaded with roast lamb and gravy, mash potato and rosemary, peas beans piled high, all washed down with a very good sauvignon ….
brainless and greedy
I see the future and it is barren – like the Canterbury Plains are now
the farmers don’t care as essentially they don’t sell to NZ. They sell overseas…so why not pollute here? As long as they have theirs who gives a fuck about those that have nothing?
again, if people complain, tell them to write a letter to the editor and contact their National Party goons.
Eventually – hopefully not too late – global customers will tell NZ farmers that they will farm to acceptable practices of animal ethics, traceability, purity, and sustainability.
Eventually – hopefully not too late – Fonterra will realise that deliberately making itself vulnerable to the bulk commodity cycle with low added value will kill the business and the New Zealand economy with it. How’s that bet on bulk commodities going now Mr Spiering?
Mr Spiering and Mr Rolleston should have a bit of a sit down.
I think part of the problem with their thinking is that they keep telling themselves that they are the best farmers in the world …. sheesh, really? I don’t believe that for one millisecond….
for a start, what makes the best farmers in the world? This lot have been going for around 140 years or so and look at what they’ve done to the land. I understand the Dutch punch out around 5 times the productivity from a smaller area and don’t use nitrates – maybe they are the best. There are farmers all across the globe who have been at it for centuries – maybe they are better, at least they are proven.
Really. What defines the “best farmers in the world”
They need to stop believing their own bullshit as it is their/our downfall.
We must beware of William Rolleston. He is Monsanto’s chief weapon in NZ for introducing GMOs.
Without doubt, he is to Monsanto what Ede was to Key.
And if TPPA is signed, we will be gone the way of every other country and end up flooding our precious food crops with glyphosate and now, 2,4 D — yes, the main ingredient of Agent Orange is now approved in USA for use on crops as glyphosate has failed, rendering millions of acres of farmland completely unuseable and abandoned forever to superweeds up to 8 ft tall. ( Can only imagine the future spread of those seeds by wind and what little bird life remains.)
Do we want this in Aotearoa ? Last chance now to fight it off and prevent the TPPA.
And in terms of improving product and adding value, the cheapest marketing ploy ever is to remain firmly against GMOs and label all our product as such. It actually matters to millions of consumers. And wow, it actually increases prices overseas!
But Wily Willy Rolleston will ensure this truth is never told. This scares me.
1. Doesn’t pollute the water ways
2. Uses sustainable practices
3. Doesn’t use up finite resources
4. Ensures that their local community is fed first and foremost
5. Doesn’t use GMOs
They are not the only ones who are subsidised.
Working For Families (WFF), although laudable, is also a means of subsidising small to medium businesses (SMEs) in terms of their wage bill. The businesses do not pay a fair price for labour (clearly, as the households getting minimum wage are eligible for WFF). I think if small businesses cannot get a business model in which their costs are structured properly, and covered by earnings, then they should not be in business.
The government through WFF is subsidising bad business (if the business truly cannot pay workers), or else subsidising the profits that these business owners make.
This is another reason for middle NZ to move to/stay with/ or move toward National. Increasing minimum wages to a level that would affect them (despite their being effectively subsidised through WFF) was unpalatable for many SMEs.
by the way, I am not against WFF by any means….but I think we need better analysis of the distributional aspects of it – who actually benefits from it besides the deserving working families?
Dirty politics was about abuse of power.
By defination the powerless cannot indulge in it.
Thank you for saying it. It’s been enraging me for weeks – the accusation and the ignorance. And it really pissed me off that none of our “representatives” saw fit to point it out when it most needed to be said.
remember – it is not acceptable to point out the actual nature of the establishment structures of power (of which they are an intrinsic part of); but it is acceptable to criticise some of the worst, most egregious, intolerable aspects of it.
I think the lesson learned for the left this election is Labour are not to be trusted. No matter what rhetoric come out of their collective mouths – they are a bunch of self serving , backstabbing, idiots. When labour opened the door to neo-liberalism, and exposed capitalism in all it’s fury to working people, was the day they died.
We just didn’t get what a bunch of self absorbed egomaniacs were left in the party. We just didn’t get how gutless they were or how much they could justify to themselves doing bad things to people. We just didn’t get how big their ego’s really were.
Once Nash and Co had wrapped the party away from its socialist roots, the next generation would walk it down to the end of the garden and shot it in the back of the head. This is the husk sitting around a table, who are no more than a bunch of sniveling servants of the 1%.
The elites must roar with laughter each time one of the labour apostles try to move this once great party back to socialism. They have their pet commentators, hacks, and stoge munchers all set to destroy any chance of that.
But, please keep talking reform, keep dreaming of a left victory, keep repeating the same mistakes. Who cares, it’s only people’s lives and well being were talking about. Nothing important like who should lead the labour party.
Hey LPrent,
Can I request that you ask Giovani Tiso to post his latest blog on the Standard?
I’m not sure about the Standard rules in regard to this kind of request.
Meantime, here’s the link. It’s well-worth reading imo:
Yes, I support that notion. It’s an excellent post.
Buried in it is a link to a stunning and sober situation appraisal from the editor of the International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa, bringing some clear analysis couched in the language of class struggle. It’s a delight to read. The link is
The election was rigged hands down, a stolen election by Key, GCSB and America. Key is not the prime minister and we need to march in the streets and take our country back!!
Throughout the campaign I hoped that National’s meme that the ” Labour Party was not fit to govern because it has become too factionalised and lacked unity” was just a media beat up but sadly it sounds as if they were on the button.
If I had just arrived in New Zealand from a couple of months on a desert island and read/listened to the news, I would have wondered why the Labour party bothered to waste the voters’ time entering the race.
I have to say that this is probably not the time or place to criticise a party that is hurt and bleeding – I wish them well in their deliberations. I would suggest that they seek council from the likes of Bryan Gould on how they manage this, because clearly, whoever is running the back office needs to be strong, measured and wise.
For starters though, Shearer, Goff, and the Whale-oil-confidant-Mallard need to take some deep breaths.
“NZ is a poorly unionised and low wage economy with a growing gap between top and bottom earners. Many low paid workers do not even earn subsistence level wages. The state, in effect, subsidises employers through benefits. The balance of power in NZ lies with the employer and this government will further entrench that position over the next term.
60% of those who voted, chose right wing parties; National was very successful in claiming the media’s hallowed centre ground.
But all parties failed to bridge the gap to the 1 in 3 Kiwis who did not vote.
Labour’s failure was NOT that it didn’t win the comfortable centre but that it continued to fail to connect with the 1 in 3 Kiwis who see no point in voting. Moves back to the centre to slug it out with National will leave those people disconnected and, as the social divide widens, vulnerable to extremist politics.”
Well said Whero, that is absolutely one of the crucial missing foundation stones of our society. How can we have a robust and healthy society when the base layer is shot to shit?
I call again for a general strike by all those on less than the living wage … lets see who actually provides the most value to our lives ….
We could have this strike one week and then a strike by the 1% a week later, and run a comparison ….
“In the Invercargill incident, two Molotov cocktails, containing what appeared to be kerosene, were found burning in Dee St near the National Party office about 1am on Sunday, Sergeant Ian Martin, of Invercargill, said. ”
“In the Invercargill incident, two Molotov cocktails, containing what appeared to be kerosene, were found burning in Dee St near the National Party office about 1am on Sunday, Sergeant Ian Martin, of Invercargill, said. ”
Key has always repeated that Ede no longer worked for him, but worked only for the National Party and not in Parliament.
But Key says this to TVNZ yesterday – so why on earth did Ede need to resign with Key’s Chief of Staff ??
“John Key says Mr Ede advised his chief of staff on Friday that he wouldn’t be coming back to work in Parliament or for the National Party.”
and also this explanation:
“Mr Key said it wasn’t unusual that Mr Ede’s resignation on Friday was effective immediately because staffs’ contracts end over the election and decisions have to be made about whether or not they will return once campaigns have ended and before the new Parliament resumes.”
Clearly another lie for Blip’s list.
By Key’s own words, Ede has been employed by Key ( and his office) this whole time. Lying bastard of a leader we have.
Labour’s candidate vote was higher than the party vote in most electorates.
If everyone of these voters also gave labour the party vote, what would have been the electoral outcome?
I suggest that the Green Party vote would have dropped – many would have voted electorate Labour/ party Green. No overall change in the Left block total percentages.
Labour’s candidate vote was higher than the party vote in most electorates.
If everyone of these voters also gave labour the party vote, what would have been the electoral outcome?
Mt Albert: candidate vote was 8,913 higher than Labour party vote
Wellington Central: candidate vote was 8,751 higher than Labour party vote
Rimutaka: candidate vote was 6,702 higher than Labour party vote
Mt Roskill: candidate vote was 6,082 higher than Labour party vote
Hutt South: candidate vote was 5,486 higher than Labour party vote
Dunedin South: candidate vote was 5,404 higher than Labour party vote
Total differential of 41,338
That’s at least 2 more MPs and more than 1/3 of the way to a Labour victory sitting in 6 electorates right there.
Thank you for doing the sums.
And nationwide…..therein lies the problem.
These voters like the candidate, who are the face of the party and represent to the electorate the party values and policy.
But they reject the party itself, which agrees on those values and policies.
I know many posters here have laid out their ideas and theories but it still looks like irrational voting behaviour to me, and the reasons for that will be multi-faceted.
I know, I’m a simpleton. I vote on policy, and the party with the best policies for the future gets my vote and always will. If I don’t like the candidate for that particular party I won’t vote for him/her. There are always other electorate voting options.
but it still looks like irrational voting behaviour to me
This is the KEY
The intellectual academic pol-sci Left cannot get that a plurality of people are not
rational actors’.
A low information public will make their decisions based on emotion, tribal affiliation, brand image, cultural values and other ‘irrational’ factors.
The Left are way way behind in considering this stuff because the activists and pollies on the Left are too socially and culturally disconnected from most Kiwis.
Some parties simply aim to appeal to attitudes that are out there in the public (appeal to public opinion)
others attempt to shift public opinion.
There are pitfalls to simply appealing to popular attitudes – a perfect example is in one of Adam Curtis’s documentaries (I think it was Century of the Self), where the British Labour Party started basing their policies on focus groups and ringing people through out the country.
What ended up happening is the very policies that were formulated on the most popular opinion ended up being contradicted by popular opinion gleaned a few years later. From memory, the example was that people didn’t think [something like] the national railways should be invested in, and then years later the public opinion was that the railway should not have been allowed to degenerate and should have been invested in earlier. (sorry this is from memory, I think it was railways.)
Am I talking about the same approach (appealing to attitudes) that you were meaning, or have I erred in what you meant by your comment?
I’m certainly not talking about politics by focus grouping. I’m talking about understanding that people want a Labour Party which sticks to its guns and advocates for its values, principles and its constituents. Which is exactly what National does all day every day.
The one extra dimension that Labour has to get right, because of its inability to rely on the MSM, is deep community networks which can reach out to the 1.1M non voters out there. At the moment, Labour has sweet F.A. infrastructure which can reach out to those people.
I certainly agree re sticking to one’s guns being something that appeals to people.
I am unclear about this part:
‘and advocates for its values, principles and its constituents. Which is exactly what National does all day every day.
What is the ‘its’ referring to? The parties values?
I thought Labour advocated their policies and values very well this year.
There is a known phenomenon occurring in the Western world – the mix that makes up society has become far more complex than it once was. You talk about the left being ‘out of touch’ with ‘most Kiwis’ but I am unsure whether there is an homogenous group out there that all have similar values. It may be that Labour were trying to appeal to too many, & thereby ended up appealing to very few.
Also, have you considered that NZ might be becoming pretty rightwing, and that is why Labour are struggling? I would have thought the message was very very clear from Labour this time, and that was inclusiveness. It got rejected and ‘each to their own’ was favoured.
I believe the corporate owned media is a big issue in this shift of attitudes and agree the left need to counter this somehow. That may actually be the biggest issue the left faces.
I continue to view some of the issue for the left is that the leftwing approach is more thoughtful, and this makes it hard to present the approach in short sound-bites – I really think Cunliffe did pretty well with this aspect this year. I did spot times where verbosity was present where it didn’t need to be though too.
@ colonial viper
We haven’t been taught critical thinking at school that is the trouble.
We know things happen, but we don’t know why.
We were so impractical at government level that we allowed public television to fall from government hands into a private model. That had been our chance to display factual stuff to the whole country and partially plug the information gap. Now info is a flash of words on a screen the size of a matchbox or perhaps no words just music.
Sadly I think you are correct.
This is a completely unexpected consquence of past labour governments – and the party at large – making what appeared and probably were correct and moral decisions at the time. Whether the consequences should have been unexpected or not, we don’t know. There are not too many far-sighted and visionary people in politics with the ablilty to divine 5-10-15yrs ahead.
However the ability to ADAPT QUICKLY is so important. Values do not have to change, but being able to change the presentation of your values is vitally important to that floating voter who, perhaps cruelly, I call ‘irrational’
The Left are way way behind in considering this stuff because the activists and pollies on the Left are too socially and culturally disconnected from most Kiwis.
I’d say that it’s impossible for rational people to understand irrational people and that there’s no way to bridge the gap.
My Mum is turning 80 soon. Here is her anecdote from Saturday – Shopping at New World – the young woman on the checkout said she didn’t know who to vote for. My mum suggested she vote for the party who would raise the minimum wage……who is that she said?
No one knows what to do anymore.
It’s socially embarassing to admit supporting Labour in the provincial city I live in.
When Cunliffe shaved his beard I thought it was a bad sign.
Labour no longer fits culturally (or socially) in wider NZ society. I find that it is socially awkward to admit that you are a Labour Party supporter in most circles – neither Green leaning nor Blue leaning associates nor the largely apolitical ones (which together make up about 3/4 of NZ adults) know what the hell you or your party are doing.
lol…Labour needed a simple message to sell ..1.) 2) 3) 4) 5)… that showed it cared about wider NZ society
…..( not pages of detail on tax… and threats to up the age for workers super ….and put a capital gains tax on your retirement nest egg property and meager business profits )
How many votes did “Fully Costed Policies” give Labour? Or the Greens for that matter. Sweet fuck all. National didn’t cost two tenths of no policies, and waltzed by.
Nactional did dirty tricks and told outright lies (eg “better teaching”.. the opposite of what they are doing)….but they sold dreams …and they won
On the front page of the Christchurch Press the day before the Election was a shiney blue and white advertising sticker . It read:
5 REASONS TO PARTY VOTE NATIONAL
1 Stable Government
2 Strong Economy
3 150,000 New Jobs
4 Better healthcare & Teaching
5 No New Taxes
[Tick Box ] PARTY VOTE NATIONAL
FEAR and Nightmares was also SOLD to the voters : – Below this National Party advertisement – Half the front page of the Press was titled: ‘Terror plot: Beheading was planned’
and a threatening quarter page picture of an innocent sitting down in their socks and either a short skirt or long shorts and a t-shirt ….and confronted by an armed man in battle gear and a full balaclava head mask and goggles … presumably the innocent civilian who had his/her face blotted was waiting to be beheaded …(included in the graphic was a map of the Australian coast and Brisbane and Sydney)
( nice one Christchurch Press…and great Election timing whoever was responsible )
Key corrupter Ede’s resignation should be a major news story but is buried away by the editor as a small note at the bottom of page 5 in the Christchurch Press.
The fight continues.
.
Did anyone reference Fran O’Sullivan’s column yesterday because it is quite good:
“Where’s the plan?
This is the question for John Key who during the election debates repeatedly promised the country was “on the cusp of something special” – but couldn’t say what it was……
Where’s the thinking for instance that will get us on to a path where 4 per cent growth is the new normal?
….Air New Zealand’s Christopher Luxon makes the point that Auckland has a long-term plan but the Government doesn’t…. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11328976
Does AirNZ Christopher Luxon have a long term plan to provide affordable plane travel and air freight for the provinces? In Nelson we would like to know, and when it will be implemented? Otherwise he can go back to Unilever where he came from and we will get someone who can grow the internal NZ system profitably, with an eye to the future when fuel might be tight. Have new designs for planes giving more gliding impetus and less fuel come out yet Mr Luxon. Is that the government’s long term plan you are wishing for?
In many frames of reference the failings may be true,but the left came close.The greens were expecting a higher percentage of the vote but it never happened they had a extremely and unfairly viewed CGT policy they should have been left to sit with that policy solely while labour deleted theirs or placed it into there second term it may well have been the foundation from which the fruits of social change were going to spring from, the greens may well have asked for the inclusion of CGT if asked to form a government. Increases and more bad medicine in the short term was not required BY NATIONAL VOTERS a tax cut resonates mildly ,far easier to introduce a CGT into a booming market . The left, one wonders did they have a coordinated strategy or were they unfairly denied ,people were hurting but status quo seemed better sitting and hoping the arrow of time would lead upwards. Hindsight is a great thing and many things are entangled..DC will make a good pm just caught in the midst of timing, intentions are honorable .
“The truth about our ‘rockstar economy’
by Brian Easton
A softening of the housing market, falling dairy prices and potential weakening of the Chinese economy do not bode well for New Zealand…………”
Bodes badly over the next year or so. Brian also says,” There were knowing smiles among economists when earlier this year John Key set the election date a couple of months early. He told us it was because there were various international gatherings that the prime minister had to attend. But it also seemed possible that economy growth would be weakening at the end of 2014. The main forecasts – the ones reported – did not show it, but the downside of a weaker economy was more likely than the expansionary upside. Better, a political strategist would advise, to go early…..” http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-truth-about-our-rockstar-economy
Well. What will our clever PM do about all this?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to explaining market crashes. Six times in the past 50 years US equities dropped more than 30 per cent in 12 months. After most of them investors looked back at glaring warning signs and were baffled that they missed them. If the S&P 500 were to plunge from 2,000 to 1,400 in the next year, what screaming sell signals would future generations gaze at in the history books and wonder at our ability to ignore the obvious?
The entire global economy is about to crash again and this time NZ will be going with it into depression.
My jumbled thoughts:
It is time to dispense with the tiptoeing, pc, inoffensive, worried about what they will say, weak, mild mannered, appeasement based policies and posturing.
The only time Cunliffe got my attention was when he called out key using ACT as a means to introduce hardline right-wing policy, truth for once without sugar coating it.
It is time to face facts, there is a power elite working in the shadows infiltrating all parties and media, putting in place actors who will do their bidding.
It is not a struggle between the left and right, national vs labour, it is power vs the people,
If labour wants to get back to it’s roots and support the people they need to purge the party of those that serve the elite, then ensure the people that vote national are shown that national have been infiltrated by traitors who have betrayed their trust.
Support whistleblowers and investigations into corruption, get behind “MOT” and stand for something, you want the million missing votes, do the above and represent the people, drag across national voters that have been betrayed or misled, and work with other parties,
Don’t attack the National party, attack the traitors that have infiltrated both parties,
Selling out our sovereignty, our assets and burdening us with debt is treason,
Quick idea regarding CGT, with motor vehicles you’re not considered a trader until you sell more than 7 cars per year? do the same with CGT, set the tax not on a second property but the 3rd or 4th, that way you target the speculators without killing the dreams of the working class kiwi.
In a New York Times op-ed published September 18 titled “Errors and Emissions,” economist-columnist Paul Krugman took a swipe at my organization, Post Carbon Institute, lumping us together with the Koch brothers as purveyors of “climate despair.” No, the Koch brothers are not in despair about the climate; apparently our shared error is that we say fighting climate change and growing the economy are incompatible. And, according to Krugman, a new report from the New Climate Economy Project (NCEP) and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the falling cost of renewable energy means this is happily not the case.
But in our view Krugman himself is guilty of five critical errors, and three equally serious omissions. First the errors:
Angry Cunliffe is angry, I’m guessing its like being savaged by a neutered little puppy dog but maybe its just that he can’t face where the real anger should be directed towards
Now, the good news. Professor Steve Keen accurately predicted there would be a major financial crisis before the 2008 crash. He explains why the economic ‘recovery’ will be short-lived.
I personally think it is a mistake to personalise this. Things undoubtedly could have been done better but the verdict is in and the rest is up to the internal processes of the political parties making up the governing and opposition coalitions.
I’ve tried to read The Economist but the shear bloody stupidity and illogical assumptions prove that it’s as well connected to reality as National and other RWNJs and thus should be ignored.
A liberal magazine with a liberal ideology judging how a economy is run from a liberal perspective. How very original of you Gosman. Want to bring up something else which is of a same ideology to say how good it’s ideology is, verse another ideology.
Gosmans stupidest argument ever – I will wait for the tears to dry.
They’re just angry because the young women aren’t as desperate as they used to be, and don’t have to subject themselves to all sorts of garbage just to get food.
Oh joy shout the RW troles. The election is over playtime again. How we missed TS.
Back to wiping off the drivel and contentious nonsense that mists my computer screen.
I seem to be able to turn out sufficient drivel myself that I didn’t really notice a gap they would fill. However fair’s fair, it looks like another period of brick wall banging and fun for all for ….more years?
The forthcoming review of the RMA to increase ‘flexibilty’ is the tip of an iceberg that will see a wholesale assault on the environment in favour of economic goals. Part of the unstated agenda about to be rolled out. Expect to see a high-level resignation from the Department if Conservation in the near future.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 40
I am currently banned, so no-one may get to see this. I have done nine months so, on the off-chance that whoever moderates this thinks that that is long enough for my crimes, I thought I would try my luck.
Of course, the moderators’ tolerance for offering opportunities for redemption may be tested by what I have to say next. I am not completely hopeful, as there is a well-documented strong authoritarian streak in left wing circles.
You lefties are going to have to come to grips with being wrong about everything. Viz:
1. John Key is evil. He isn’t. And the more you go on about it, the more you allow yourselves to be painted as deranged.
2. The polls are wrong/rigged. They aren’t. The Labour Party is really that unpopular.
3. The media is biased. No it isn’t. And this talk I hear in some circles that the “problem” should be fixed by limiting the opportunities for those who do not endorse the “progressive” line should be limited is a bit creepy and, once again, makes those people look deranged.
4. Labour has to reject “neo-liberalism” in order to get elected. I am going to ignore for the moment that the way “neo-liberalism” is defined by people that use the term is “acceptance of basic reality”. Labour cannot become government by taking votes off the Greens and Mana. They have to take votes off National. Nor can they win by trying to appeal to people who can’t be arsed voting. Just about everyone who comments here is far left. If Labour does what they want, they will never be elected. Leave those 3,000 people to vote for John Minto and try to convince everyone else you are responsible enough to govern.
5. The constitutional arrangements for electing your leader are just super. No. They aren’t. It means your caucus is left trying to work for someone that, if they do not find repulsive, they think is a numpty.
6. David Cunliffe “won” the debates. No. He didn’t. What you all thought was a brilliant orator, 50% of New Zealanders thought was a smarmy self-important git, pretending he was something he wasn’t.
7. The pubic are wrong. They are never wrong. This is closely aligned to “people are waking up”. No. They aren’t. Key is more popular going into his third term than his second. At this rate, everyone will be voting for him in 2024.
I accept that Labour always starts behind the eight ball. This is because New Zealanders do not readily warm to left wing ideas. They vote Labour when National is in disarray and, generally, when they have no other real option. Clearly, that is not now.
In anticipation: you’re welcome.
Ps. Don’t listen to Bryan Gould.
[lprent: I think you were on the list that got removed from auto-spam on the 21st. You were in good company. Jenny and a few other people were there as well. The next lot is on the 26th. ]
Great-a party that gets 0.7% of the vote and one seat provides us with the new Associate Minister of Education. Watch for more charter schools and bulk funding and vouchers to rear their ugly head. Things that have nothing to do with educating children and everything to do with privatisation and “getting stuck in to those pesky teacher unions”.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 41.1
Yeah a party whose education policies I disagree with got elected. It’s not going to stop me fighting them every step of the way in defence of the children I teach.
Bollix, people knew that if National got in Charter schools would be coming and you know what? More people want National in then last time so I’m going to go ahead and say just do what your told, you work for the government you implement what your employer wants
I’m sorry but as a teacher when I see anything that has little or no educational value for the children I teach and in fact may be detrimental to their learning then I will argue against it and I believe in a democracy I have the right to do that.
That’s not actually democratic as was shown by the referendum for selling assets. 70% of the people didn’t want it but the <government went and sold them anyway against the peoples will.
In a democracy, the people’s will should rule and not the desires of elected servants.
Maybe not but National said prior to the election what they’d do and then did it and then got re-elected with 48% of the vote so I’m comfortable with it
You may not like the fact that National was returned to power or the fact that more people voted for National then they did in 2011 but that doesn’t change that they are facts
A party or two with not enough votes to have a seat in parliament is now part of government while other parties which got more votes didn’t even get in parliament.
Basically, what happened is that the RWNJs proved that our system isn’t democratic.
Essentially I’m commenting on the notion thats quite well-known that the left arn’t really keen on democracy especially when the results don’t go their way, a notion you and others like you are reinforcing
Democracy is for ancient Greeks for myself however I prefer STV as a voting option but if the threshold was lowered to 3% I wouldn’t be at all bothered
Have I missed it here tonight, but on Campbell Live they had finally received the OIAs that they been seeking for months which show that the Pike River Tunnel was safe to enter from nearly a year ago. At least 5 OIA had been refused. What! Lied to. OIAs witheld – again! Key and others lied to everyone re access.
Anyone concerned?
Pike River is an analogy for what has been, and not, happening in NZ. When we erect a memorial statue we should put on the plinth our sorrow at the failure of the NZ government to take responsible steps from whoa to go about everything.
We applaud death defying feats by amateurs. But when the police were afraid to go down the mine, the miners were prevented from doing anything to recover their people. They should have had the right to do a short reconnoitre when they considered it safe after the first explosion. They would have taken the risk to have satisfied themselves that they had done everything they could. They should have been able to inspect and make their own judgement as to feasibility. But suddenly safety was paramount, where it had not been for the trapped miners. That was too late in the piece and very hypocritical.
I am listening to one of these web lectures. The financial problems we see are all because of private debt, not government debt. In the USA two generations ago the level of private debt was 55% of GDP and now it is about 115%. In Europe I think Portugal the rate is over 255%. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvRcQ5Tm6Kw
The Next Economic Disaster – Why it’s coming and how to avoid it – Richard Vague
The real story behind the GFC is the multiplied leverage and debt in the shadow banking system*, and although I have not watched that video, I am pretty sure that that is not included in the numbers that you quoted.
*This is the vast financial system which is not regulated by banking laws and regulations (which the banks themselves helped build to get around banking laws and regulations).
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Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sonia R. Grover, Clinical Professor of Gynaecology, The University of Melbourne Polina Zimmerman/Pexels Menstruation, or a period, is the bleeding that occurs about monthly in healthy people born with a uterus, from puberty to menopause. This happens when the endometrium, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ella Barclay, Senior Lecturer, School of Art and Design, Australian National University Despite the perceived outrage at Khaled Sabsabi’s depiction of Hassan Nasrallah in his 2007 work You, Australian art has long made subjects of outlaws and questionable figures. And it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia “It’s an old song”, Hermes (Christine Anu) sings at the opening of Hadestown, but “we’re gonna sing it again and again”. Based on a ...
An additional $13 million will be invested in tourism infrastructure, including upgrading huts and resolving the backlog in Milford Sound concessions. ...
The reality is that we have no obligation to tolerate the intolerant. They are using violence to shut down and silence others. The result of tolerating intolerant views is the loss of everyone’s freedom of speech except for the one who most effectively ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Davis, Associate Professor in Conservation, Edith Cowan University Adwo/Shutterstock Humans have been poisoning rodents for centuries. But fast-breeding rats and mice have evolved resistance to earlier poisons. In response, manufacturers have produced second generation anticoagulant rodenticides such as bromadiolone, widely ...
Alex Casey unearths Simon Court’s full sales pitch for how menstrual cups could end poverty. On Friday last week, Act MP Simon Court was accused of “mansplaining” during a parliamentary committee hearing about benefit sanctions. After submitter Rachel Dibble shared her concerns about period poverty and the impact that sanctions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato It’s an unfortunate fact that bad people sometimes want guns. And while laws are designed to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, the determined criminal can be highly resourceful. There are three main ...
Asia Pacific Report Two independent Jewish Voices groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have written an open letter to the government condemning the Zionist “colonisation” project leading to genocide and criticising the role of the NZ Jewish Council for its “unelected” and “uncritical support” for Israel. The groups, Alternative Jewish Voices ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Newspoll, conducted February 10–14 from a sample of 1,244, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, unchanged from the previous Newspoll, ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you enjoy whip-smart satire: The White Lotus (Neon, February 17) HBO’s award-winning The White Lotus is back for what critics are calling “an absolutely exquisite third ...
NZPF called for a slowdown of the curriculum change, asking for one subject at a time, so that teachers and principals could be fully trained and feel confident and competent to implement the changes, New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) President ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University Indonesia’s TVOne launched an AI news presenter in 2023.T.J. Thomson Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at lightning speed in the past couple of years, creating disruption in ...
Many of the young vapers interviewed by a team of public health researchers said they felt unable to resist the pro-vaping environment that surrounded them. New Zealand’s smokefree law was hailed around the world for creating a smokefree generation that would have lifelong protection from smoking’s harms. The smokefree ...
Analysis: While most Wellingtonians enjoyed a rare but unbeatable sunny day on Saturday, some New Zealand diplomats will have been briefly shocked by a screenshot making the rounds on social media showing US President Donald Trump calling us a “third world country”.The image, it appears, was a fake – certainly a ...
ActionStation Director, Kassie Hartendorp says that the Treaty Principles Bill has galvanised the biggest movement in support of Te Tiriti in modern history. ...
While it is in the interests of Wellington ratepayers to sell off this subsidy for the rich, it is unfortunate that it has come to this point. The council should have never spent a penny on this programme, and the $3.4 million spent is a flagrant abuse ...
A search for the person behind a social media account ridiculing Māori.Last week, while scrolling Facebook, I came across a post shared to the New Zealand Centre for Political Research group. The post began, “From Matua Kahurangi on X”, before pasting his critique of iwi leadership – particularly Ngāpuhi ...
On the heels of The White Lotus season three, Tara Ward travels to Koh Samui, Thailand, to live her best life as a five-star wannabe. I’ve never been one for luxury travel. Despite religiously watching TV shows like Luxury Escapes: World’s Best Holidays and harbouring grand dreams of one day ...
The Treaty Principles Bill submission hearings continue at Parliament today with a range of submitters expected including councils, iwi, community organisations and individuals. ...
It’s become of one of Christchurch’s most famous landmarks online, but why? Alex Casey steps through the portal of the brutalist Timezone. Ask anyone what Christchurch’s most iconic building is and you might expect to hear some of the dusty old classics like the Cathedral, or the Town Hall, or ...
New Zealand’s alignment with the White House is further underscored by its refusal to oppose Trump’s sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is a serious blow to the soft power of the United States and disastrous for many poor countries ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Hoek, Professor in Public Health, University of Otago Shutterstock/Aliaksandr Barouski New Zealand’s smokefree law was hailed around the world for creating a smokefree generation that would have lifelong protection from smoking’s harms. The smokefree generation would have ended sales of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By George Disney, Research Fellow, Social Epidemiology, The University of Melbourne Edwin Tan/Getty Images When the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was established in 2013, one of its driving aims was to make disability services and support systems fairer. However, our new ...
The resignation of the director general of health is the latest departure in what Labour is calling a ‘purge’ of health leadership. Another day, another health resignation It’s a dangerous time to be a top health executive. On Friday, Dr Diana Sarfati announced her resignation as director general of health ...
Labour and the Greens say the government should focus spending on tourism infrastructure like tracks, toilets and protection of nature instead of more advertising. ...
Hundreds of people called the former prime minister vile and dehumanising things online. Internet safety agencies did nothing - then called in the lawyers. ...
Hundreds of people called the former prime minister vile and dehumanising things online. Internet safety agencies did nothing - then called in the lawyers. ...
After a morning spent calf marking, Flock Hill Station manager Richard Hill headed up Bridge Hill – about 100km from Christchurch on the way to the West Coast – to check on a fire near the station’s boundary.It was December 5 last year, and the Craigieburn area had experienced three ...
It can’t be much of a surprise that a relatively inexperienced Act MP, handed the workplace relations portfolio, doesn’t want to entertain the country’s biggest union in her office.But it still astonishes the head of that union, the CTU’s president, Richard Wagstaff.After all, he’s met regularly with ministers of all ...
Is the definition of stupidity David Shearer going on-air complaining about Labour’s lack of unity and then in the next sentence stabbing David Cunliffe in the back. All of the Labour MP’s currently going on-air to have a stab at David Cunliffe are clearly showing that they are the “insiders” who have been undermining Labour and are the main cause for the 24.7%.
There are other factors for the 24.7%, but when I have spoken to people they always talk about the infighting that goes on in labour as the main reason that they wouldn’t vote Labour. As soon as I heard Nash, Cosgrove and Shearer on air yesterday, I knew, as Winston would say: “Labour are gone”… idiots putting their own ambitions in front of the Party. For the sake of Labour shut the f%$# up.
Agreed. And the loudest should reflect on their own personal performance. If they want a review we should start with why their electorate campaign for the party vote was so bad. A comparison of results makes for fascinating reading …
Time for a new party folks ? this one was hijacked decades back and is no longer capable of representing middle/lower nz.
It’s not possible to purge the shearers, mallards etc so can anyone see it working with them ? Described as too comfortable and not to bothered about the strugglers was how one party figure depicted them to me, sounds about right.
Helen held it together but that was awhile ago now and its easier in power than in opposition. Jones being able to be bought off by the Nats pretty much summed it for me, zero loyalty, maximum troughing and nasty as into the bargain.
These are not the pollys you are looking for.
+100 tc
Re time for a new party, I wondered the same thing this morning. In fact, this year’s election result is not significantly different from Goff’s. Division is still the undermining factor. The Goff/Shearer team seems to have the blessing of the political/media elite, while Cunliffe largely retains the support of the unions and the membership.
Each morning I listen to Susie Ferguson carrying on about Cunliffe like a high school queen bee attacking some boy for wearing his slippers to the school ball.
Cunliffe can’t effectively stand up to this sort of thing, as Winston does, without his caucus firmly behind him. At the same time, the right-leaning ambitions of the opposing team draw scorn and contempt from the cheap seats, while their beloved tradies go over to Winston and the luvvies to the Greens. If things continue in this way, as they have since Clark left, it will ultimately mean the death of Labour.
Shearer is calling for an independent review. Here’s an independent review: constantly backstabbing the party leader to the media makes the populace not like your party.
+1
Pre-election DC often looked like someone who was preparing for the next beating. As bad as the MSM has been I don’t think they did that to him alone. Well done Labour caucus, leadership coup by PTSD.
I think Cunliffe did remarkably well under the circumstances, but that sense that something was wrong was palpable yet never explained. No wonder so many people don’t trust Labour.
I love your analogy of Susie Ferguson as the high school queen bee
if you close yr eyes when she speaks..
..she does sound a bit like a bee…
I had the same feeling. But it would fragment the left further. We need an integrating party, to get anywhere. Also Labour are not going to disappear…..but if they don’t get it together…..there will be no opposition.
The Greens will remain a strong opposition party. I expect Mana and IP (or similar) to regroup in the medium term too.
The labour MPs should learn to debate issues in private in their caucus and not air their differences/views in public or secretly through journalists/bloggers.
After this election, in my opinion, the only people in Labour that should have spoken in public are Cunliffe and Parker and may be Coatsworth. The rest them should have shown better restraint or at least shown unity and loyalty in their utterances.
Yep, been saying that for years. Labour is a centre-right party and probably closer to radical right compared to where we were in the 1970s and a right-wing party is bad for the country.
May I suggest Mana, Internet or Greens?
Is not The Greens or Internet/Mana good enough for you? Oh wait, I just mean The Greens.
This aging lefty agrees totally. The history of new parties isn’t that great so far, but these are certainly not the pollies I’m looking for.
shearer is either so thick he doesn’t realise what he is doing is why the vote went the way it did or like other abc members he just does not care.
This confirms the disunity theme Nats ran with as pretty accurate, nice work Dave.
and another 100% agreement about Shearer ( friend of National and Hooton)
…naked ambition…limited ability…ruthless to opposition ….didnt he get rid of Leanne Dalziel and Charles Chauvel while he was leader?
…both Dalziel and Chauvel were future potential leaders of the Labour Party
….really David Cunliffe did not stand a chance with Shearer behind his back ( imo Cunliffe should stay and fight it out if he has the support of the rank and file Labour Party members…change in the Labour Party has got to come from the bottom up)
…there were huge mistakes in Labour’s election strategy that can not be sheeted back to Cunliffe…but to the whole Party apparatus
+1 Chooky. Well said.
Great work in Ohariu Rosie. It’s a shame the Greens and Labour couldn’t work together there…
Agree ++
And Shearer never had a chance with Cunliffe behind his back.
Maybe the issue are actually bigger than these two men, and the next Labour leader needs to be a fresh face.
Labour got up to 34% (according to Phil Ure) when Cunliffe lurched to the left, and got 25% when they pulled back to the right.
Maybe theres a lesson there, but they also need to factor in that by abandoning the centre, they will be forever hoping that Winston will choose them for Government. Thats a risky strategy for any party to adhere to in my view.
chooky 100+
Editorial: Labour needs a new leader, nothing more
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11329493
Or, if Cunliffe is supported by the party as a whole then how about those disruptive caucus members do their job properly.
I hear your opinion, tangled up but disagree.
I thought Cunliffe did brilliant in the debates. He came across as caring, he made leaps and bounds in dispelling the media painted perception of him with actions and showing just how much he cared about NZ. Given proper media coverage he would have won. That’s the crux of the issue. the only way a Labour leader would get the thumbs up from the likes of O’Sullivan and Armstrong and everyone else in the media except Cambell is if he was a National MP leading Labour.
You know it, you know the press are against Labour, so who will they be even handed too, no one. That’s why you need a man like Cunliffe, he’ll get the bad press for awhile but has the oration skills and brain to dispel them and make the media look stupid. Just like he was doing in the debates.
I for one like Cunliffe a lot. I also liked Shearer, but did not like him when I saw how hopeless he was on media duties or in parliaments debates.
leave Cunliffe there just band behind him and unify and start dispelling the perceptions painted by bad media personalities.
The fight back starts by uniting and dispelling the Labour tainted image. only then will we get the common voter to consider the tick seriously. Until then they won’t even look at labour.
Whoops I edited in my opinion of the article at the last minute. I agree with you.
Agree with you Richard, but ideally Labour need to analyse the root cause of Labours’ weakness. Leadership is one of the factors, but there are many factors for Labour struggling including the following:
– Labour funding/campaign revenue
-implementing tough policies such as CGT, Irrigation tax, increasing age of super
-centralised campaign/marketing strategy
-constant infighting and leaks to the media (Lack of internal discipline)
-DC apologising to womens refuge
-Insider attacking Cunliffe for taking 3 days off in school holidays
-Labours marketing strategy versus Nationals marketing strategy
-Is the electorate ready for a change?
-Labour brand weakness
-Dotcom and the affect he had on Labours campaign
-Dirty Politics – did it help or hinder
-Could Labour have presented its suite of policies better?
The point I am trying to make is that Labour need to analyse the root cause of the problem, the infighting that is already happening is in my view the biggest reason Labours brand has gone down the toilet.
Useful agenda for a caucus meeting there
@ saarbo..
..and to say/ask themselves..
..’what were we saying when we ranked at the mid-thirties in the polls..?”
..if they don’t do that..and then act on/follow that signal..
..there is no hope for them
and a +1 to you too Richard
And that’s not going to happen – not while Labour still has the backstabbers in there. Best option is to dump Labour.
the right is making a power-move on labour…
..backed up by the usual-suspects..
..(the herald editorial being just one of them..written by roughan..?..d’yareckon…it reads like him..)
+++ And Labour are being played like little docile puppets! Dancing to their tune. Public display of power hungry, naked ambition, disloyalty and chaos.
Someone needs to reign them in.
NZ doesn’t need a particular party so just let them go their own way and take Labour to the grave with them. There are other, better parties.
+1
I used to keep bikes and cars for years, spending more and more on maintaining what had turned into heaps of shit. I belatedly learned that it’s better to get rid of the absolute rubbish and get something else to do the same job. For a long time I thought we had to keep Labour, but I’ve had enough. The Rogernomics cancer has been terminal.
20% vote from lunions is not what got Cunliffe the leadership, it’s mathematically impossible. The Herald is peddling the ABC lines again. Why don’t they jkust simplify their article to
“”wa. wa.wa. I want to be more like National. wa wa wa.” said David Shearer and his pals today
I saw that and my Tweets back were not that nice. Fucking hacks!
Totally agree Sarbo!! Shearer deserves a huge chunk of blame – he took the leadership with no experience and wasted so much time stumbling and bumbling around – If David Cunliffe had been elected leader straight after Goff, the election result might have looked very different – 11 months is not long enough for a leader to cement themselves into the job and for the public to know them – Helen Clark was leader for a much longer period before becoming Prime Minister and look how that turned out!! NO-ONE else in the party could have performed in those debates better than David Cunliffe – its a pity that certain MP’s only did enough to regain their own seats and didn’t bother campaigning for the party vote – self interest reigns supreme among many in the Caucus! As for Nash, he’s a bit cheeky saying he may go for the leadership when he’s only just got into Parliament – trading on the name of his adopted Grandfather a bit too much I think – and imagine the field day Cameron Slater would have with Nash’s private life!!!! Nash does not strike me as a measured type of man which could get him into all sorts of trouble. Robertson may debate well but he will never have appeal with the public, he’s gay and he just doesn’t look like a Prime Minister should – unfortunately people really ARE that shallow, so looks are important! If David Cunliffe doesn’t stay leader of the Party, then watch all the new members they have gained melt away like snow in spring!
Hami Shearlie +100
Hami Shearlie- agree!
“If David Cunliffe doesn’t stay leader of the Party, then watch all the new members they have gained melt away like snow in spring!”
I’m not a new member but I’ll be joining them if Cunliffe doesn’t stay as leader.
I see that as a major right-wing personality trait and a major failing. Don’t give a fuck what peoples grandfathers did, what are they doing?
They could always try to persuade DC to go with them.
We’re in real danger of doing for Labour what the Tea Party does for the Republican Party: selecting ideologically “pure” candidates that are either unappealing to the wider electorate or are abrasive to a significant portion of the caucus. I voted for Cunliffe. I like him and I like his principles, but I was also very impressed with Grant Robertson and would have been okay with “settling” for him (Jones was out of the question).
Someone is going to have to blink here. I know it feels really good to stick it to the right wing in caucus, but they’re not the enemy. National is. The perfect is the enemy of the good and you can little by being in opposition. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of losing.
Well said
The problem is that the Rogernomes in caucus aren’t tired of losing. If they were, they’d shut their leaking mouths.
For better or worse the Labour caucus is now selected for the next three years. It is chock full of yesterday’s men and women.
The first thing the leader must do is unite this group behind him or herself and the common cause of displacing John Key in 2017.
For me that is the top of the job description for leader of the Labour party.
I am not sure who that person is. But I am fairly certain that person’s name does not begin with David.
Neither Shearer nor Cunliffe have the requisite support of the caucus to effectively carry out the job. Without that support they cannot do the job. Therefore neither should be leader.
“The first thing the leader must do is unite this group behind him or herself”
You seem to be discounting the possiblity that this might not be possible.
It isn’t possible. If it was it would have happened years ago.
“idiots putting their own ambitions in front of the Party”
Unfortunately DC appears to be more guilty of this than anyone.
Where to from here then? Major culling and new blood required. Mallard hanging on to Hutt South has put the regeneration back another two terms.
My problem with John Key’s Silver Fern is that it looks too much like the ISIS flag from a distance, exposing NZ troops in Syria to being targeted by allied air power.
@ raa..
..heh..!
Or whatever war zone Key will send nz troops to help out his good mates America.
.. which leads to the question – are there any All Black fans among ISIS ?
.. or Monty Python aficionados ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11114677/Islamic-State-You-are-not-even-safe-in-your-bedrooms.html
Saarbo, well bloody said. Do they not engage brain before shooting themselves in ass. No one wanted goff he’d never get in, frankly he has a worse public image than Cunliffe. Shearers background gave him a good standing but he cannot talk. pointless, part of the job requirements are the ability to get ones point across. These two are causing too much infighting the president of Labour need to tell them to can it for awhile. If you have an issue with someone how about growing a pair and talking about it like an adult with the person concerned, or is it more of a case of them blinded by the hint they may be able to get the leadership baubbles back. it’s pathetic. frankly the country would laugh at labour if they threw the truck in reverse in a traffic jam.
Today I joined the labour party, yep on the cheap side at $10 PM but heck I’m on a low wage. I figure every dollar counts though, have to do something I figured I can’t sit here bleating on like a cry baby if I don’t get active. So I am a labour member, well until I get approved officially.
I consider myself pretty fair handed not a rabid commie or right wing neo liberal. I just go for common sense. Good policy is good policy no matter who comes up with it if it improves things. lets hope my 1% can help Labour if even a little.
and because three more years of this lots going to hurt us all big time the way the economy is tanking.
good on you Richard.
I am a Labour member and thinking of resigning, much because of what Lynn said in this article. You are encouraging me to stay.
Waikato University’s production line of mediocrity;
They’re right at home on Jim Mora’s light chat show
The Panel, Monday 22 September 2014
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Duncan Webb
Waikato University has long been the refuge of some of the most bizarre right wing nutjobs in the nation. If you care to visit the notorious “Political Science” [sic] department, you’ll meet the unbelievably nasty professors Dov Bing, an implacable Israeli hardliner who every few years emerges from academic obscurity to write a bloodthirsty Op-Ed piece in the Waikato Times, and Ron Smith, who on Jim Mora’s show once spoke, in a tone of high seriousness, of the “virtue” of New Zealand governments falling in line with U.S. foreign policy. Needless to say, Smith’s party politics are as deranged as his lectures; he ran for ACT in the Hamilton East electorate this year. Over in the English department, dear old Norman Simms occasionally contributes to the public discourse, backing up his friend Prof. Bing by frothing and snarling and tirelessly reiterating the line that critics of Israel are “anti-Semitic”. Up the hill, in Earth Sciences, you’ll meet the bewhiskered Professor Willem De Lange, a global warming denier who foolishly, in 2008, appeared on a risible Prime TV “debate” on the same side as NewstalkZB’s resident loon Leighton Smith; to compound the impression of haplessness, De Lange let Smith do nearly all the talking. But probably the most dismal of all the dismal departments at Waikato is the Management School, which achieved notoriety in 1998 by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate on the ridiculous advertising poseur Kevin Roberts.
Sadly, anyone who listened to Jim Mora’s light chat show The Panel today (Monday) will be all too aware that Waikato’s lamentable production line of mediocrity shows no sign of slowing down. Right now I am listening to one Jacqueline Rowarth, a Waikato University professor—allegedly—of Agricultural Science, asserting that there is no such thing as poverty in New Zealand. It is, apparently, all in the minds of the poor. Except that, according to Prof. Rowarth, the poor don’t exist. Those reports in the media of kids without shoes? Rubbish, according to Jacqueline Rowarth—all the alleged shoelessness is simply kids who just don’t want to wear shoes.
Stephen Franks—like Prof. Ron Smith, an ACT supporter—is warmly supportive of this carefully researched thesis, but Duncan Webb is less impressed. Webb has a go at arguing with Prof. Rowarth and Franks, but Jim Mora cuts him off because time is up.
Earlier in the programme, Franks launched into one of his typically bizarre rants, asserting that Frank Bainimarama is actually a democrat, and has been one all along. According to Franks, only the Great Council of Chiefs was ever opposed to the Fijian dictator. That’s not true of course: the staunchest opposition to the Bainimarama dictatorship has been by the trade unions in Fiji. This has evidently failed to register with Franks. To his credit, Duncan Webb contested what Franks said. Franks also engaged in a lengthy condemnation of the New Zealand government for its failure to support Bainimarama’s coup, which was apparently a coup for democracy. To support his case, he invoked another great hero of democracy, Henry Kissinger*, who claimed that morality had no place in foreign policy.
I flicked the glib, laughing host of this joke of a show the following supportive e-mail….
Morality has no place in foreign policy
Dear Jim,
We support Stephen Franks’s assertion that morality has no place in foreign policy.
Yours sincerely,
Adolf Hitler
Benito Mussolini
Emperor Hirohito
V.I. Lenin
Lev Trotsky
“Uncle Joe” Stalin
Pol Pot
General Franco
Henry Kissinger
* Yes, that was a joke.
@ morrissey..
..good spotting..!
i listened to that rowarth with jaw agape..
(and the disturbing thought that here was a future panel-candidate..she says all the ‘right’ things..)..her semi-orgasmic gasps of agreement as franks laid out his vile-prescriptons for the children of the poor…painted her in exactly the colour she should be..unadulterated far-right..
..and she is a professor..(!)..she gets to teach/preach this shit to gullible students..?..
..whoar..!..)
..and moras’ nodding-along to those (as always) putrid-excretions from the mind of franks was particularly puke-inducing..
..and of course..as noted..never challenged at all by mora..
Prof Rowarth also mixed up the average and median. She said poverty is supposed to be 80% of the median income – and then said that meant it was around $50k. No, it is actually around $20k – which she could probably not even imagine supporting a family on. And then she said that the lack of shoes is just a life style choice for kids!
On the Electoral Commission election results page they have a demographic breakdown of each electorate. For example in Palmerston North 55% live on less than $30k and only about 3% over $100, 000. So as a professor formerly at Massey she is up there with the tiny elite – no wonder she has no idea. Pity they give her airtime as an expert on anything but farming.
Full time work on Minimum wage equals around $29,600pa, are you saying more than half of peple in Palmerston North are on full time minimum wage, part time work or benefit? That is an apalling stat if true!
What was Iain Lees-Galloway’s plan for the region to increase employment opportunities during the election?
“she gets to teach/preach this shit to gullible students..?..”
And that is the problem, until the Friedman and the Chicago School religion is purged from all universities this Noe-Liberal failed crap will go on unabated.
+111
i have worked out what the real metaphor is in that eminem-rip-off rowing skiff ad…
..it actually represents how each party has got to grips with mmp..
..national has nailed it..
..and the progressives/labour/grns etc..
..haven’t got a fucken clue..
..they are the ones in the dinghy..
..all rowing in opposite directions..
..and against each other..
..and labour can angst and leader-fret all they like..
..but until lab/grns progressives learn not to cannabilse/fight each other to the death national will just continue skiffing past them..
..there have been two post-election statements/claims that have particularly ground my gears..
..one was the crocodile tears from cunnliffe on ‘the bad result for the left’..after his successful knee-capping of harawira/internet-mana..(for all the obvious reasons..)
..and the other was from metiria turei..
..with her (to me) smug-claim that the greens couldn’t have done any more to avert that crushing defeat for the left/progressives..
..a look at the result in ohariu-belmont puts the lie to that..
..and the greens have gifted dunne his 11th term in parliamant..(on a mandate for him/his party half the size of that of the aotearoa legalise cannabis party..(!)..)
..because dunne won with a majority of 900+…
..yet the green candidate in that seat..got 2,4000+ votes…
..so had the greens clearly asked their supporters to vote strategically in ohariu-belmont..
..dunne would have been out the door..
..and this disasterous (for the progressives) pattern is repeated up and down the country..
(auckland central…had the greens not competed for the electorate..labour would have won that seat..as just one other example of many..)
..and until labour and the greens work out enough how to not cannabilise each other..
(issuing clear/explaining reasons for.. how-to-vote cards to their supporters..would be one obvious solution..and of course agreeing not to stand competing-candidates in some strategic seats will have to be worked out…)
..until then..labour can shuffle leaders all they like..
..and turei can make that false claim again and again that ‘the greens could do nothing more’..
..but the progressives will just continue to get out-rowed by national/the right..
..this is the solution to the problems facing the left/progressives…
..not fretting over a new leader for labour..
..but sitting down together and actually working out/planning how to win an election..
..until they do that…nothing will change..
Labour and the greens lost the election… You can stop now, objective achieved.
yr own words paint you as the fucken unthinking-idiot you are..
..you..who was so eager to kill-off harawira/int-mana..
..you obviously have the political-nous/iq of..i dunno..
..a piece of old vinyl..?
(and no..i am not starting a conversation with you..)
You did a great job hacking lumps off red/green throughout the campaign, and now, in defeat, you have all the answers to all their woes. Sincere? A big belly laugh at that.
As for lack of nous, I disagree. I managed to suss you out soon enough.
Internet Mana killed themselves.
Hurry up with your grief cycle pal; denial is the graceless phase.
Once you’ve fininshed, after all that corrupted idiocy of Dotcom and Harre has been swept aside, we have a government t defeat.
yes..the int/mana defeat was in part suicide..
..but the other part was cunnliffe/labour seeming unable to comprehend the basics of mmp..
It wasn’t even assisted suicide. Mana was a bit careless on a windy road, but Labour/MP/WinstonFirst/NAct cut the brake lines.
No and labour/national/nzfirts and the maori party did not join together to kill it off.
See here is the problem, and the denial going on – Labour got into bed with national to kill off mana.
Let me repeat that so you understand. Labour got into bed with national to kill mana off.
And you’re going to sit there with a straight face and tell me mana killed itself. Wow another out of touch labour supporter. This is why the working people in this country hate you and why they won’t vote.
Mana did kill itself. Their delusional idiotic behaviour left other parties no choice, but to either sit uncomfortably on the sidelines, or at the close to distance themselves, otherwise the public would make their own decision. Davis had to fight for his life. Labour didn’t owe Mana anything, but it did owe the electorate clarity in saying they would not deal with IMP. Hone is a victim of his own stupidity, and thank heavens we don’t have to listen to that tosser Laila Harre anymore. If hone had stayed away from Dotcom he would still be an MP.
So it’s ok for labour to work with national now Once was Pete? What idiotic behaviour? Your right labour owes nobody nothing, because they are dead. It’s going to hurt, it’s going to take some time, but the beast is dead.
All I see is a party of egoists, slashing and burning all who oppose them. Oh wait they already sold out working people. They just followed that up and destroying any voice working stiffs had, by joining with the enemy. Well done labour, what a wonderful strategy.
“..Hurry up with your grief cycle pal..”
fuck off with yr ‘grief cycle’..faux-analysis/pop-psychology….
..i have a 16 yr old dog who is dying..
..as far as ‘grief’ goes..
..the election result is nothing beside that..
You have lost any remaining credibility and should close your computer permanently.
Be useful and hang out with your dog.
That is just plain nasty.
So sorry to hear about your dog Phil. My thoughts are with you.
thanks..
David Shearer is calling for a forensic analysis of the election result. I agree. For a start we could do a seat by seat analysis of what happened to the party vote. Here are the worst performing seats and the figure represents the drop in percentage points of party vote:
Mt Roskill -8.21%
Hutt South -7.86%
Mt Albert -7.12%
Here is New Lynn’s result:
New Lynn -1.52%
Of course there will be a multitude of causes and reasons and boundary changes were reasonably significant for each of these seats. But let’s have the debate. The party should have had it in 2011.
@ m.s..
..as i noted above..
..what you/labour need to do..
..is to examine the labour/grn results in each seat..
..and then do a ‘what if?’-exercise…
..and if you do that..the reasons for yr defeat will become clear..
..and how to turn that around into victory..will become obvious..
..and this needs to be started to be worked on as soon as possible..
..so that you will walk into the next election with a clearly heralded/worked-out plan…
..if you don’t do this..
..labour/the grns will just continue with this disasterous pattern of cannibal-behaviour/election-defeat..
Until Nationals vote disintegrates there’s not a lot the left can do.
Thinking about it, for MMP to really be effective the National vote needs to be around 30-35% and has to work and compromise with other parties instead of the other parties just making up the numbers to govern.
In that sort of scenario the possibility of National and labour working together would be quite high.
Currently with John Key at the helm the chances of nationals vote collapsing or a left leaning government gaining power are practically nil.
@ bm..
..that’s a matter of policy..
..the other fact for labour to remember..is that they peaked in the polls when cunnliffe was most ‘left’..35%-37%..
..do the math..!
..labour 35%..grns 10%..+ nz firs = change of govt..
..when cunnliffe didn’t deliver on those transformational-policies/promises..is when the labour vote started its’ slow collapse…
..so..had lab/grns not cannabilised each other..
..and had cunnliffe delivered on those poverty-busting promises..
..the election result wd have been very different..
“..when cunnliffe didn’t deliver on those transformational-policies/promises..is when the labour vote started its’ slow collapse…”
What ‘left’ promises didn’t DC follow through with that collapsed the vote?
“had lab/grns not cannabilised each other.”
I’m missing your text that slams mana voters in Rotorua for not electorate voting Labour to keep Flavell and another out of parliament. Do you have a link?
National have 1 trump up their sleeve to protect from their voter base collapsing, when Peters retires who do you think will pick up the majority of NZ1’s support? Do you think it will be a party that promotes increasing the retirement age, The Greens or any other party that lies on the left of the political spectrum ?
I reckon once Winston goes, Ron Marks will take over and align the party with National.
But yes I see what you’re saying, the conservatives will pick up most of NZ First vote
You may even find the Conservatives amalgamating with NZ First, they are chasing the same voter demographic.
Nice stats there Micky. Goff, Shearer, Mallard should take a look at themselves. Though I would point out that Goff nearly won in 2011.
Cunliffe should stay as leader and should sack/ease out Cosgrove and anyone else who refused to push Labour in their electorate campaigns. He needs to be seen to take control and any bloodletting should be now and then get unified for the following 2 years.
And please can we have party vote labour written as PARTY VOTE LABOUR on the hoardings next time.
Much though I like Hone and Laila it will complicate things less for Labour next time now Mana has gone. Maybe Laila should replace Cosgrove?
Yep – Whatever genius came up with Vote Positive as opposed to Vote Labour should give himself an uppercut.
To have a fair comparison leaders of a party attract a greater % of support in their electorate than “just anybody” so to compare DC’s loss of party vote when he was just anyone to now being “The One” is a bit IMO playing with numbers, unless you compare his vote with other 1st time leaders in an losing campaign. Say bill English in 2002 as comparing like with like ?
Now who are the Labour MPs for Mt Roskill, Hutt South, and Mt Albert again?
I forget.
Were a couple of them on radio this morning?
Help me out here.
Dunedin South, that Former Red Stronghold which lost the party vote to National by a few hundred votes in 2011, lost it again this time around by 2,300 votes.
And Labour came third in the party vote in Wellington Central – Robertson’s seat if I recall rightly!
Definitely time for a forensic analysis.
Unfortunately Labour (mainly) & Green politicians ego’s got in the way of common sense. I put out a strategy to these idiots but their over inflated ego’s got the better of them. Met & spoke with Cunliffe’s PR men and realised they were amateurs pretty quickly, this was a big disappointment. Rolled out our strategy locally to great effect which was very successful, backed up back by the National snake oil team congratulated us on an effective play.
You can get results by booth and then add/subtract the ones inside/outside the 2011 boundaries and get a pretty accurate measure of the changes.
Nobody on the left has yet said who the mysterious person is who would do a better job of leading Labour than Cunnliffe.
Is that being saved up to be part of the “forensic analysis” too?
I would say that one of the reasons is that the anxious classes are now moving outwards from city centres, ( having captured them in the last few decades, particularly in Auckland) because they can’t afford the prices. These suburbs are becoming gentrified.
How did you calculate that without the Special votes?
New Lynn 2011 Labour party vote = 12,462
New Lynn 2014 Labour party vote = 10,160
That’s a drop of 2,302 or 18.5%. There was however 15% less total votes cast (33,980 to 28,897), which brings it into perspective.
The figure measures the change in the proportion of the party vote.
Don’t forget the electorate boundary changes that were brought in covering West Auckland. Kelston went up by 100% party vote – for all parties.
It seems to me that the right and the corporate is in the ascendency well and truly.
Like it is in the US and most western nations. There is nothing to halt it – the poor / left don’t vote and the right wing vested interests are simply too powerful.
We have just witnessed it here.
+100% vto, sadly.
Obviously we’re past the denial stage and onto the anger stage.
The Labour Party needs to at least change its name. Labouring labour labouring under the weight of labour – its all too downwards.
“Labour Unchained”?
“Labour Unplugged”?
“Neonatal Labour”?
“Postnatal Labour”?
“Hard Labour”?
“Post Labour”?
“Proto Labour”?
“The Socialist Party?”
“Hot Girls and Free Beer”?
“Free Democratic New People’s United Revival”?
“The Robertson and Ardern Society of Friends”?
Plus a new flag.
First to the best appropriate anthem wins.
lolz.
ABC.
xox
Cheers Morrissey
It’s a comedy show, and not a very good one. I’ve tried to tell Mora to get better writers…
Labour supporters, we are in for an almighty fight.
If caucus make this fight about the leadership alone, the left are in trouble long term.
This has to be about the performance and future direction of the Labour Party as a whole.
This will be one hell of a lead up to Christmas. Keep up the fight for the good.
+1
The caucus is the problem not the solution. That some in there don’t see that IS THE PROBLEM.
Boo Fucking Hoo they had to work for someone they dont like, well suck it up princesses, we all have had to work for bosses we didnt like, we either leave or we contribute tot he common goal. At least that is how fgrown ups do it.
The soultion for the ABC’s is right in front of their eyes
United Future
New Zealand First
ACT
National
Go join them and I never thought I would say this but I wonder who Cosgrove and others gave their party votes to?
It seems to me that all the fuckwits that voted for Key now think that by merely voting for Key they have disproved Hagar and Greenwald and Snowden. It is proof of their fuckwittery … if we all say “nyah nyah nyah” at once then we must be right …
Yup, they made the nasty monster go away… by closing their eyes.
Yeah, Richard Prebble tried that one in his “Letter”.
http://www.act.org.nz/posts/the-letter-22-september-2014
Yep, been getting that delusion thrown at me on Twitter.
It astounds me (not) that Fed Farmers are still in denial about the environment and its place in the world…
William Rolleston this morning claiming that the looming reforms of the RMA are a good thing …. all these reforms will do is allow more pieces of the environment to be taken from the environment and placed onto people’s dinner plates, thereby simply diminishing the environment ….. the dinner plate that is already loaded with roast lamb and gravy, mash potato and rosemary, peas beans piled high, all washed down with a very good sauvignon ….
brainless and greedy
I see the future and it is barren – like the Canterbury Plains are now
subsidized by those that only eat grits.
the farmers don’t care as essentially they don’t sell to NZ. They sell overseas…so why not pollute here? As long as they have theirs who gives a fuck about those that have nothing?
again, if people complain, tell them to write a letter to the editor and contact their National Party goons.
+11111
Eventually – hopefully not too late – global customers will tell NZ farmers that they will farm to acceptable practices of animal ethics, traceability, purity, and sustainability.
Eventually – hopefully not too late – Fonterra will realise that deliberately making itself vulnerable to the bulk commodity cycle with low added value will kill the business and the New Zealand economy with it. How’s that bet on bulk commodities going now Mr Spiering?
Mr Spiering and Mr Rolleston should have a bit of a sit down.
I think part of the problem with their thinking is that they keep telling themselves that they are the best farmers in the world …. sheesh, really? I don’t believe that for one millisecond….
for a start, what makes the best farmers in the world? This lot have been going for around 140 years or so and look at what they’ve done to the land. I understand the Dutch punch out around 5 times the productivity from a smaller area and don’t use nitrates – maybe they are the best. There are farmers all across the globe who have been at it for centuries – maybe they are better, at least they are proven.
Really. What defines the “best farmers in the world”
They need to stop believing their own bullshit as it is their/our downfall.
We must beware of William Rolleston. He is Monsanto’s chief weapon in NZ for introducing GMOs.
Without doubt, he is to Monsanto what Ede was to Key.
And if TPPA is signed, we will be gone the way of every other country and end up flooding our precious food crops with glyphosate and now, 2,4 D — yes, the main ingredient of Agent Orange is now approved in USA for use on crops as glyphosate has failed, rendering millions of acres of farmland completely unuseable and abandoned forever to superweeds up to 8 ft tall. ( Can only imagine the future spread of those seeds by wind and what little bird life remains.)
Do we want this in Aotearoa ? Last chance now to fight it off and prevent the TPPA.
And in terms of improving product and adding value, the cheapest marketing ploy ever is to remain firmly against GMOs and label all our product as such. It actually matters to millions of consumers. And wow, it actually increases prices overseas!
But Wily Willy Rolleston will ensure this truth is never told. This scares me.
Truth is the enemy of the psychopaths.
@ vto..
..+ 1..
Good question. I think we should define it:
1. Doesn’t pollute the water ways
2. Uses sustainable practices
3. Doesn’t use up finite resources
4. Ensures that their local community is fed first and foremost
5. Doesn’t use GMOs
Add more.
They are not the only ones who are subsidised.
Working For Families (WFF), although laudable, is also a means of subsidising small to medium businesses (SMEs) in terms of their wage bill. The businesses do not pay a fair price for labour (clearly, as the households getting minimum wage are eligible for WFF). I think if small businesses cannot get a business model in which their costs are structured properly, and covered by earnings, then they should not be in business.
The government through WFF is subsidising bad business (if the business truly cannot pay workers), or else subsidising the profits that these business owners make.
This is another reason for middle NZ to move to/stay with/ or move toward National. Increasing minimum wages to a level that would affect them (despite their being effectively subsidised through WFF) was unpalatable for many SMEs.
by the way, I am not against WFF by any means….but I think we need better analysis of the distributional aspects of it – who actually benefits from it besides the deserving working families?
john oliver has reported on the new zild election..
..it’s very funny..
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/us-show-mocks-nz-over-accent-and-nationals-eminem-stoush/
I love John Oliver – that was good.
@Morrissey thanks for the analysis. Mora’s Panel is puke and sounds like Waikato University faculty is too.
On another note, someone threw a brick through a window at Nationals Michael Woods office last night.
The ODT labelled it “dirty politics”. Another source of information misses the point/looks dumb/follows the meme.
Dirty politics was about abuse of power.
By defination the powerless cannot indulge in it.
Dirty politics was about abuse of power.
By defination the powerless cannot indulge in it.
Thank you for saying it. It’s been enraging me for weeks – the accusation and the ignorance. And it really pissed me off that none of our “representatives” saw fit to point it out when it most needed to be said.
remember – it is not acceptable to point out the actual nature of the establishment structures of power (of which they are an intrinsic part of); but it is acceptable to criticise some of the worst, most egregious, intolerable aspects of it.
I think the lesson learned for the left this election is Labour are not to be trusted. No matter what rhetoric come out of their collective mouths – they are a bunch of self serving , backstabbing, idiots. When labour opened the door to neo-liberalism, and exposed capitalism in all it’s fury to working people, was the day they died.
We just didn’t get what a bunch of self absorbed egomaniacs were left in the party. We just didn’t get how gutless they were or how much they could justify to themselves doing bad things to people. We just didn’t get how big their ego’s really were.
Once Nash and Co had wrapped the party away from its socialist roots, the next generation would walk it down to the end of the garden and shot it in the back of the head. This is the husk sitting around a table, who are no more than a bunch of sniveling servants of the 1%.
The elites must roar with laughter each time one of the labour apostles try to move this once great party back to socialism. They have their pet commentators, hacks, and stoge munchers all set to destroy any chance of that.
But, please keep talking reform, keep dreaming of a left victory, keep repeating the same mistakes. Who cares, it’s only people’s lives and well being were talking about. Nothing important like who should lead the labour party.
Weekend at Bernie’s.
The labour party, there c.v?
Hey LPrent,
Can I request that you ask Giovani Tiso to post his latest blog on the Standard?
I’m not sure about the Standard rules in regard to this kind of request.
Meantime, here’s the link. It’s well-worth reading imo:
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/the-rebuild.html
Yes, I support that notion. It’s an excellent post.
Buried in it is a link to a stunning and sober situation appraisal from the editor of the International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa, bringing some clear analysis couched in the language of class struggle. It’s a delight to read. The link is
http://iso.org.nz/2014/09/22/lessons-to-learn-from-bitter-defeat/
The election was rigged hands down, a stolen election by Key, GCSB and America. Key is not the prime minister and we need to march in the streets and take our country back!!
Suggest you go and read the latest post at No right Turn. What a stupid, stupid comment.
Throughout the campaign I hoped that National’s meme that the ” Labour Party was not fit to govern because it has become too factionalised and lacked unity” was just a media beat up but sadly it sounds as if they were on the button.
If I had just arrived in New Zealand from a couple of months on a desert island and read/listened to the news, I would have wondered why the Labour party bothered to waste the voters’ time entering the race.
I have to say that this is probably not the time or place to criticise a party that is hurt and bleeding – I wish them well in their deliberations. I would suggest that they seek council from the likes of Bryan Gould on how they manage this, because clearly, whoever is running the back office needs to be strong, measured and wise.
For starters though, Shearer, Goff, and the Whale-oil-confidant-Mallard need to take some deep breaths.
Email to Morning Report: Last para read out:
“NZ is a poorly unionised and low wage economy with a growing gap between top and bottom earners. Many low paid workers do not even earn subsistence level wages. The state, in effect, subsidises employers through benefits. The balance of power in NZ lies with the employer and this government will further entrench that position over the next term.
60% of those who voted, chose right wing parties; National was very successful in claiming the media’s hallowed centre ground.
But all parties failed to bridge the gap to the 1 in 3 Kiwis who did not vote.
Labour’s failure was NOT that it didn’t win the comfortable centre but that it continued to fail to connect with the 1 in 3 Kiwis who see no point in voting. Moves back to the centre to slug it out with National will leave those people disconnected and, as the social divide widens, vulnerable to extremist politics.”
Well said Whero, that is absolutely one of the crucial missing foundation stones of our society. How can we have a robust and healthy society when the base layer is shot to shit?
I call again for a general strike by all those on less than the living wage … lets see who actually provides the most value to our lives ….
We could have this strike one week and then a strike by the 1% a week later, and run a comparison ….
Nat. Michael Woodhouse had a brick through his office window post election.
His office is deliciously located in a building called “Upstart House”….
“In the Invercargill incident, two Molotov cocktails, containing what appeared to be kerosene, were found burning in Dee St near the National Party office about 1am on Sunday, Sergeant Ian Martin, of Invercargill, said. ”
Yikes !
“In the Invercargill incident, two Molotov cocktails, containing what appeared to be kerosene, were found burning in Dee St near the National Party office about 1am on Sunday, Sergeant Ian Martin, of Invercargill, said. ”
Crikey !
Something wrong with this picture ?
Key has always repeated that Ede no longer worked for him, but worked only for the National Party and not in Parliament.
But Key says this to TVNZ yesterday – so why on earth did Ede need to resign with Key’s Chief of Staff ??
“John Key says Mr Ede advised his chief of staff on Friday that he wouldn’t be coming back to work in Parliament or for the National Party.”
and also this explanation:
“Mr Key said it wasn’t unusual that Mr Ede’s resignation on Friday was effective immediately because staffs’ contracts end over the election and decisions have to be made about whether or not they will return once campaigns have ended and before the new Parliament resumes.”
Clearly another lie for Blip’s list.
By Key’s own words, Ede has been employed by Key ( and his office) this whole time. Lying bastard of a leader we have.
http://tvnz.co.nz/vote-2014-news/john-key-i-didn-t-force-dirty-politics-staffer-6088654
…yet another one to add to Blip’s comprehensive list of “John Key’s being-economical-with-the-truth moments”.
Labour’s candidate vote was higher than the party vote in most electorates.
If everyone of these voters also gave labour the party vote, what would have been the electoral outcome?
Also: come back Blip, we will need you.
I suggest that the Green Party vote would have dropped – many would have voted electorate Labour/ party Green. No overall change in the Left block total percentages.
Mt Albert: candidate vote was 8,913 higher than Labour party vote
Wellington Central: candidate vote was 8,751 higher than Labour party vote
Rimutaka: candidate vote was 6,702 higher than Labour party vote
Mt Roskill: candidate vote was 6,082 higher than Labour party vote
Hutt South: candidate vote was 5,486 higher than Labour party vote
Dunedin South: candidate vote was 5,404 higher than Labour party vote
Total differential of 41,338
That’s at least 2 more MPs and more than 1/3 of the way to a Labour victory sitting in 6 electorates right there.
Thank you for doing the sums.
And nationwide…..therein lies the problem.
These voters like the candidate, who are the face of the party and represent to the electorate the party values and policy.
But they reject the party itself, which agrees on those values and policies.
I know many posters here have laid out their ideas and theories but it still looks like irrational voting behaviour to me, and the reasons for that will be multi-faceted.
I know, I’m a simpleton. I vote on policy, and the party with the best policies for the future gets my vote and always will. If I don’t like the candidate for that particular party I won’t vote for him/her. There are always other electorate voting options.
This is the KEY
The intellectual academic pol-sci Left cannot get that a plurality of people are not
rational actors’.
A low information public will make their decisions based on emotion, tribal affiliation, brand image, cultural values and other ‘irrational’ factors.
The Left are way way behind in considering this stuff because the activists and pollies on the Left are too socially and culturally disconnected from most Kiwis.
Some parties simply aim to appeal to attitudes that are out there in the public (appeal to public opinion)
others attempt to shift public opinion.
There are pitfalls to simply appealing to popular attitudes – a perfect example is in one of Adam Curtis’s documentaries (I think it was Century of the Self), where the British Labour Party started basing their policies on focus groups and ringing people through out the country.
What ended up happening is the very policies that were formulated on the most popular opinion ended up being contradicted by popular opinion gleaned a few years later. From memory, the example was that people didn’t think [something like] the national railways should be invested in, and then years later the public opinion was that the railway should not have been allowed to degenerate and should have been invested in earlier. (sorry this is from memory, I think it was railways.)
Am I talking about the same approach (appealing to attitudes) that you were meaning, or have I erred in what you meant by your comment?
I’m certainly not talking about politics by focus grouping. I’m talking about understanding that people want a Labour Party which sticks to its guns and advocates for its values, principles and its constituents. Which is exactly what National does all day every day.
The one extra dimension that Labour has to get right, because of its inability to rely on the MSM, is deep community networks which can reach out to the 1.1M non voters out there. At the moment, Labour has sweet F.A. infrastructure which can reach out to those people.
I certainly agree re sticking to one’s guns being something that appeals to people.
I am unclear about this part:
‘and advocates for its values, principles and its constituents. Which is exactly what National does all day every day.
What is the ‘its’ referring to? The parties values?
I thought Labour advocated their policies and values very well this year.
There is a known phenomenon occurring in the Western world – the mix that makes up society has become far more complex than it once was. You talk about the left being ‘out of touch’ with ‘most Kiwis’ but I am unsure whether there is an homogenous group out there that all have similar values. It may be that Labour were trying to appeal to too many, & thereby ended up appealing to very few.
Also, have you considered that NZ might be becoming pretty rightwing, and that is why Labour are struggling? I would have thought the message was very very clear from Labour this time, and that was inclusiveness. It got rejected and ‘each to their own’ was favoured.
I believe the corporate owned media is a big issue in this shift of attitudes and agree the left need to counter this somehow. That may actually be the biggest issue the left faces.
I continue to view some of the issue for the left is that the leftwing approach is more thoughtful, and this makes it hard to present the approach in short sound-bites – I really think Cunliffe did pretty well with this aspect this year. I did spot times where verbosity was present where it didn’t need to be though too.
+++
@ colonial viper
We haven’t been taught critical thinking at school that is the trouble.
We know things happen, but we don’t know why.
We were so impractical at government level that we allowed public television to fall from government hands into a private model. That had been our chance to display factual stuff to the whole country and partially plug the information gap. Now info is a flash of words on a screen the size of a matchbox or perhaps no words just music.
Successive Labour governments have conditioned the ground against future Labour governments. Sounds absurd, but it is utterly true.
Sadly I think you are correct.
This is a completely unexpected consquence of past labour governments – and the party at large – making what appeared and probably were correct and moral decisions at the time. Whether the consequences should have been unexpected or not, we don’t know. There are not too many far-sighted and visionary people in politics with the ablilty to divine 5-10-15yrs ahead.
However the ability to ADAPT QUICKLY is so important. Values do not have to change, but being able to change the presentation of your values is vitally important to that floating voter who, perhaps cruelly, I call ‘irrational’
I’d say that it’s impossible for rational people to understand irrational people and that there’s no way to bridge the gap.
Some random thoughts…
My Mum is turning 80 soon. Here is her anecdote from Saturday – Shopping at New World – the young woman on the checkout said she didn’t know who to vote for. My mum suggested she vote for the party who would raise the minimum wage……who is that she said?
No one knows what to do anymore.
It’s socially embarassing to admit supporting Labour in the provincial city I live in.
When Cunliffe shaved his beard I thought it was a bad sign.
Labour no longer fits culturally (or socially) in wider NZ society. I find that it is socially awkward to admit that you are a Labour Party supporter in most circles – neither Green leaning nor Blue leaning associates nor the largely apolitical ones (which together make up about 3/4 of NZ adults) know what the hell you or your party are doing.
lol…Labour needed a simple message to sell ..1.) 2) 3) 4) 5)… that showed it cared about wider NZ society
…..( not pages of detail on tax… and threats to up the age for workers super ….and put a capital gains tax on your retirement nest egg property and meager business profits )
How many votes did “Fully Costed Policies” give Labour? Or the Greens for that matter. Sweet fuck all. National didn’t cost two tenths of no policies, and waltzed by.
+100 …agreed !….National sold DREAMS
Nactional did dirty tricks and told outright lies (eg “better teaching”.. the opposite of what they are doing)….but they sold dreams …and they won
On the front page of the Christchurch Press the day before the Election was a shiney blue and white advertising sticker . It read:
5 REASONS TO PARTY VOTE NATIONAL
1 Stable Government
2 Strong Economy
3 150,000 New Jobs
4 Better healthcare & Teaching
5 No New Taxes
[Tick Box ] PARTY VOTE NATIONAL
FEAR and Nightmares was also SOLD to the voters : – Below this National Party advertisement – Half the front page of the Press was titled: ‘Terror plot: Beheading was planned’
and a threatening quarter page picture of an innocent sitting down in their socks and either a short skirt or long shorts and a t-shirt ….and confronted by an armed man in battle gear and a full balaclava head mask and goggles … presumably the innocent civilian who had his/her face blotted was waiting to be beheaded …(included in the graphic was a map of the Australian coast and Brisbane and Sydney)
( nice one Christchurch Press…and great Election timing whoever was responsible )
@ syd..
..”..When Cunliffe shaved his beard I thought it was a bad sign…”
aye..!..it’s way past time we were led again by a man with a full-beard..
..it’s been far too long..
Key corrupter Ede’s resignation should be a major news story but is buried away by the editor as a small note at the bottom of page 5 in the Christchurch Press.
The fight continues.
.
100% Rodel .. see my post #21 for the big lie about it ..
Did anyone reference Fran O’Sullivan’s column yesterday because it is quite good:
“Where’s the plan?
This is the question for John Key who during the election debates repeatedly promised the country was “on the cusp of something special” – but couldn’t say what it was……
Where’s the thinking for instance that will get us on to a path where 4 per cent growth is the new normal?
….Air New Zealand’s Christopher Luxon makes the point that Auckland has a long-term plan but the Government doesn’t….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11328976
Of course this government has a plan. The fact that we don’t know about it is both unsurprising, and worrying.
@ ian mac..
..key just has to find that ‘cusp’..
..so he can show it to us…
maybe another big earthquake somewhere can fix it for them ? sigh …
where would Key would have been without the last one to pad his books ??
Does AirNZ Christopher Luxon have a long term plan to provide affordable plane travel and air freight for the provinces? In Nelson we would like to know, and when it will be implemented? Otherwise he can go back to Unilever where he came from and we will get someone who can grow the internal NZ system profitably, with an eye to the future when fuel might be tight. Have new designs for planes giving more gliding impetus and less fuel come out yet Mr Luxon. Is that the government’s long term plan you are wishing for?
In many frames of reference the failings may be true,but the left came close.The greens were expecting a higher percentage of the vote but it never happened they had a extremely and unfairly viewed CGT policy they should have been left to sit with that policy solely while labour deleted theirs or placed it into there second term it may well have been the foundation from which the fruits of social change were going to spring from, the greens may well have asked for the inclusion of CGT if asked to form a government. Increases and more bad medicine in the short term was not required BY NATIONAL VOTERS a tax cut resonates mildly ,far easier to introduce a CGT into a booming market . The left, one wonders did they have a coordinated strategy or were they unfairly denied ,people were hurting but status quo seemed better sitting and hoping the arrow of time would lead upwards. Hindsight is a great thing and many things are entangled..DC will make a good pm just caught in the midst of timing, intentions are honorable .
“The truth about our ‘rockstar economy’
by Brian Easton
A softening of the housing market, falling dairy prices and potential weakening of the Chinese economy do not bode well for New Zealand…………”
Bodes badly over the next year or so. Brian also says,” There were knowing smiles among economists when earlier this year John Key set the election date a couple of months early. He told us it was because there were various international gatherings that the prime minister had to attend. But it also seemed possible that economy growth would be weakening at the end of 2014. The main forecasts – the ones reported – did not show it, but the downside of a weaker economy was more likely than the expansionary upside. Better, a political strategist would advise, to go early…..”
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-truth-about-our-rockstar-economy
Well. What will our clever PM do about all this?
He doesn’t give a fuck. The rich won’t suffer, only the poor.
Oh, and try this:
The entire global economy is about to crash again and this time NZ will be going with it into depression.
I agree with 90% of the above posts.
My jumbled thoughts:
It is time to dispense with the tiptoeing, pc, inoffensive, worried about what they will say, weak, mild mannered, appeasement based policies and posturing.
The only time Cunliffe got my attention was when he called out key using ACT as a means to introduce hardline right-wing policy, truth for once without sugar coating it.
It is time to face facts, there is a power elite working in the shadows infiltrating all parties and media, putting in place actors who will do their bidding.
It is not a struggle between the left and right, national vs labour, it is power vs the people,
If labour wants to get back to it’s roots and support the people they need to purge the party of those that serve the elite, then ensure the people that vote national are shown that national have been infiltrated by traitors who have betrayed their trust.
Support whistleblowers and investigations into corruption, get behind “MOT” and stand for something, you want the million missing votes, do the above and represent the people, drag across national voters that have been betrayed or misled, and work with other parties,
Don’t attack the National party, attack the traitors that have infiltrated both parties,
Selling out our sovereignty, our assets and burdening us with debt is treason,
+100…well said!
+1111
Quick idea regarding CGT, with motor vehicles you’re not considered a trader until you sell more than 7 cars per year? do the same with CGT, set the tax not on a second property but the 3rd or 4th, that way you target the speculators without killing the dreams of the working class kiwi.
Yep, tax and regulate the crap out of the extreme end of the behaviour you want to desist.
Paul Krugman’s Errors and Omissions
Posted Sep 21, 2014 by Richard Heinberg
http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/2362632-paul-krugman-s-errors-and-omissions
In a New York Times op-ed published September 18 titled “Errors and Emissions,” economist-columnist Paul Krugman took a swipe at my organization, Post Carbon Institute, lumping us together with the Koch brothers as purveyors of “climate despair.” No, the Koch brothers are not in despair about the climate; apparently our shared error is that we say fighting climate change and growing the economy are incompatible. And, according to Krugman, a new report from the New Climate Economy Project (NCEP) and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the falling cost of renewable energy means this is happily not the case.
But in our view Krugman himself is guilty of five critical errors, and three equally serious omissions. First the errors:
… snip …
I’m sure this must have been posted before – but just in case!
TPP. Wikileaks bombshell
Not seen it before but sadly it confirms those leaks. What next?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10531025/Angry-Cunliffe-tells-MPs-to-stay-shtum
Angry Cunliffe is angry, I’m guessing its like being savaged by a neutered little puppy dog but maybe its just that he can’t face where the real anger should be directed towards
Now, the good news. Professor Steve Keen accurately predicted there would be a major financial crisis before the 2008 crash. He explains why the economic ‘recovery’ will be short-lived.
http://www.everyinvestor.co.uk/analysis/2014/05/20/professor-steve-keen-warns-coming-financial-crisis-8104/
I personally think it is a mistake to personalise this. Things undoubtedly could have been done better but the verdict is in and the rest is up to the internal processes of the political parties making up the governing and opposition coalitions.
What’s the world’s worst managed economy at the moment?
And to preclude the hilarious obvious rejoinder from some of you, it isn’t New Zealand according to The Economist.
No it is apparently Venezuela. A country where the main State run petroleum company is struggling for cash despite high prices for Oil.
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21618782-probably-worlds-worst-managed-economy-oil-and-coconut-water
Hi, Gos. Rubbing it in, are we ?
Not entirely, although I am enjoying pointing out that I basically predicted/warned about this outcome all the way back in 2012.
Well obviously the answer is they’re not left enough
I’ve tried to read The Economist but the shear bloody stupidity and illogical assumptions prove that it’s as well connected to reality as National and other RWNJs and thus should be ignored.
A liberal magazine with a liberal ideology judging how a economy is run from a liberal perspective. How very original of you Gosman. Want to bring up something else which is of a same ideology to say how good it’s ideology is, verse another ideology.
Gosmans stupidest argument ever – I will wait for the tears to dry.
If you dispute any of the facts presented in that article then show how they are incorrect.
They’re just angry because the young women aren’t as desperate as they used to be, and don’t have to subject themselves to all sorts of garbage just to get food.
Oh joy shout the RW troles. The election is over playtime again. How we missed TS.
Back to wiping off the drivel and contentious nonsense that mists my computer screen.
I seem to be able to turn out sufficient drivel myself that I didn’t really notice a gap they would fill. However fair’s fair, it looks like another period of brick wall banging and fun for all for ….more years?
ew..!..brian edwards wants nash to lead labour..
..just..ew!..
..and edwards is all pro-mass-surveillance..(!)
..he has turned into such a rightwing ratbag..that edwards..
..him and his constant property-porn blatherings..
The forthcoming review of the RMA to increase ‘flexibilty’ is the tip of an iceberg that will see a wholesale assault on the environment in favour of economic goals. Part of the unstated agenda about to be rolled out. Expect to see a high-level resignation from the Department if Conservation in the near future.
Hello.
I am currently banned, so no-one may get to see this. I have done nine months so, on the off-chance that whoever moderates this thinks that that is long enough for my crimes, I thought I would try my luck.
Of course, the moderators’ tolerance for offering opportunities for redemption may be tested by what I have to say next. I am not completely hopeful, as there is a well-documented strong authoritarian streak in left wing circles.
You lefties are going to have to come to grips with being wrong about everything. Viz:
1. John Key is evil. He isn’t. And the more you go on about it, the more you allow yourselves to be painted as deranged.
2. The polls are wrong/rigged. They aren’t. The Labour Party is really that unpopular.
3. The media is biased. No it isn’t. And this talk I hear in some circles that the “problem” should be fixed by limiting the opportunities for those who do not endorse the “progressive” line should be limited is a bit creepy and, once again, makes those people look deranged.
4. Labour has to reject “neo-liberalism” in order to get elected. I am going to ignore for the moment that the way “neo-liberalism” is defined by people that use the term is “acceptance of basic reality”. Labour cannot become government by taking votes off the Greens and Mana. They have to take votes off National. Nor can they win by trying to appeal to people who can’t be arsed voting. Just about everyone who comments here is far left. If Labour does what they want, they will never be elected. Leave those 3,000 people to vote for John Minto and try to convince everyone else you are responsible enough to govern.
5. The constitutional arrangements for electing your leader are just super. No. They aren’t. It means your caucus is left trying to work for someone that, if they do not find repulsive, they think is a numpty.
6. David Cunliffe “won” the debates. No. He didn’t. What you all thought was a brilliant orator, 50% of New Zealanders thought was a smarmy self-important git, pretending he was something he wasn’t.
7. The pubic are wrong. They are never wrong. This is closely aligned to “people are waking up”. No. They aren’t. Key is more popular going into his third term than his second. At this rate, everyone will be voting for him in 2024.
I accept that Labour always starts behind the eight ball. This is because New Zealanders do not readily warm to left wing ideas. They vote Labour when National is in disarray and, generally, when they have no other real option. Clearly, that is not now.
In anticipation: you’re welcome.
Ps. Don’t listen to Bryan Gould.
[lprent: I think you were on the list that got removed from auto-spam on the 21st. You were in good company. Jenny and a few other people were there as well. The next lot is on the 26th. ]
Don’t hold back, tell us what you really think 🙂
Great-a party that gets 0.7% of the vote and one seat provides us with the new Associate Minister of Education. Watch for more charter schools and bulk funding and vouchers to rear their ugly head. Things that have nothing to do with educating children and everything to do with privatisation and “getting stuck in to those pesky teacher unions”.
Hey, Tony. Big believer in democracy there, I see. Good for you. Remind me what happened in that election we just had.
Yeah a party whose education policies I disagree with got elected. It’s not going to stop me fighting them every step of the way in defence of the children I teach.
Well make sure you teach the kids what it means to live in a democracy then
You mean the democracy where the experts in the field are not listened to and ideologies are enforced with little or no research.
I mean where the majority of the people decide the government and then the government implements the policies they said they were going to implement
Policies like Charter Schools that were never mentioned before the last election yet were implemented after.
Bollix, people knew that if National got in Charter schools would be coming and you know what? More people want National in then last time so I’m going to go ahead and say just do what your told, you work for the government you implement what your employer wants
I’m sorry but as a teacher when I see anything that has little or no educational value for the children I teach and in fact may be detrimental to their learning then I will argue against it and I believe in a democracy I have the right to do that.
Argue against it all you like but you still have to implement it
You’ve got a National government till at least 2020
You do what you’re told, otherwise leave or be forced to leave.
Hi BM,
I thought it was the left who were meant to be authoritarian.
We’re just filling in till labour gets in again.
Labour lite and all that guff, instead of been skinned alive with a blunt stone, we’ll just beat you with rubber hoses.
That’s not actually democratic as was shown by the referendum for selling assets. 70% of the people didn’t want it but the <government went and sold them anyway against the peoples will.
In a democracy, the people’s will should rule and not the desires of elected servants.
Maybe not but National said prior to the election what they’d do and then did it and then got re-elected with 48% of the vote so I’m comfortable with it
Yes, it’s amazing how comfortable RWNJs are with the anti-democratic actions of their leaders.
Don’t like the government then produce a credible alternative
Hi chris73,
A simple question – is voting a reliable way of determining the truth?
Its a pretty good way of electing a government
That wasn’t actually my question, chris73.
Want to try again?
Ok then no its not
Agreed.
So we can stop talking about the election result when questions of fact and reality are being discussed.
You may not like the fact that National was returned to power or the fact that more people voted for National then they did in 2011 but that doesn’t change that they are facts
A party or two with not enough votes to have a seat in parliament is now part of government while other parties which got more votes didn’t even get in parliament.
Basically, what happened is that the RWNJs proved that our system isn’t democratic.
Just because National has adapted to MMP better then the left is no reason to think the system is undemocratic
Did you pass by what I said because you’re stupid or are you just engaging in the usual RWNJ pastime of distraction?
Essentially I’m commenting on the notion thats quite well-known that the left arn’t really keen on democracy especially when the results don’t go their way, a notion you and others like you are reinforcing
Speaking for myself, I’m very keen on democracy – radically so.
That’s why I’d like our MMP system to be made more democratic.
How much democracy do you favour, chris73?
Democracy is for ancient Greeks for myself however I prefer STV as a voting option but if the threshold was lowered to 3% I wouldn’t be at all bothered
Have I missed it here tonight, but on Campbell Live they had finally received the OIAs that they been seeking for months which show that the Pike River Tunnel was safe to enter from nearly a year ago. At least 5 OIA had been refused. What! Lied to. OIAs witheld – again! Key and others lied to everyone re access.
Anyone concerned?
Haven’t you heard ianmac, there’s been an election.
Apparently the result means that truth and reality don’t matter anymore. e.g., – Key doesn’t lie, apparently, because the election shows he doesn’t.
We have it on the highest authority – right wing commenters on this blog.
Don’t worry you’ll get your turn in 2020
I think I can say this much about my identity – I didn’t stand for parliament.
It’s the truth that concerns me, chris73.
We don’t want a turn at bullshitting the public. We don’t want a turn at what you lot do.
Pike River is an analogy for what has been, and not, happening in NZ. When we erect a memorial statue we should put on the plinth our sorrow at the failure of the NZ government to take responsible steps from whoa to go about everything.
We applaud death defying feats by amateurs. But when the police were afraid to go down the mine, the miners were prevented from doing anything to recover their people. They should have had the right to do a short reconnoitre when they considered it safe after the first explosion. They would have taken the risk to have satisfied themselves that they had done everything they could. They should have been able to inspect and make their own judgement as to feasibility. But suddenly safety was paramount, where it had not been for the trapped miners. That was too late in the piece and very hypocritical.
Help! I need to know where I can purchase a bumper sticker:
“Don’t blame me,
I never voted National!”
I think I’ll need one, or similar.
Seems little has changed really, except the boot was on the other foot but arguments much the same – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2002/news/article.cfm?c_id=774&objectid=2050667
I am listening to one of these web lectures. The financial problems we see are all because of private debt, not government debt. In the USA two generations ago the level of private debt was 55% of GDP and now it is about 115%. In Europe I think Portugal the rate is over 255%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvRcQ5Tm6Kw
The Next Economic Disaster – Why it’s coming and how to avoid it – Richard Vague
The real story behind the GFC is the multiplied leverage and debt in the shadow banking system*, and although I have not watched that video, I am pretty sure that that is not included in the numbers that you quoted.
*This is the vast financial system which is not regulated by banking laws and regulations (which the banks themselves helped build to get around banking laws and regulations).
cripes- 15 different applicants for leader?
gotta be the last time I vote for this rabble
a couple of weeks out from the 2017 election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
@ Newsense
lolz x2!
@ newsense
Brilliant
While you are sparking at high rev do you know any Yes Ministers clips that would fill the Bill?