The NZ Herald spends 3 weeks ignoring Northland with stories of XFactor, The Bachelor and Top Gear, then when a poll comes out it simply can’t ignore, it employs its puppet political editor Trevett to minimise the issue.
Well spotted Felix – I think you are right. Not only that, I think the line between wanting to govern and wanting to represent may well be the most important in a democracy. Key’s regime has relied on people mistaking one for the other. Winny has put pressure on that idea. That is one of the things that makes the by-election more exciting than most.
I find it funny the way there’s this narrative floating in the air – “Labour never talks to its allies on the left! Labour should act in a more united way!” – but in this case, the fact is that *Winston* should have talked to Labour earlier if he wanted a clear field.
Yep and as has also been repeated here and elsewhere an overly aggressive support by Labour for Winston may drive swinging right voters back to the nats.
Tell them to put their schlongs away then. Stop swinging and sit tight and concentrate on the place where the cross-hairs find the best model for the real future that extends to 2050 and beyond. Then fire at the other lot.
I think that is a key point – imo he didn’t particularly want or need a clear field. The clear field would have been advantageous to labour as the largest opposition party because it would have mitigated any ambiguity regarding who to vote for. But I’m not sure how low the labour vote has to go up there before someone goes – whoops.
I never understood why Grant never took on the welfare portfolio. He’s passionate, he’s at his best when fighting for the underdog, and he could change hearts and minds if he threw his all at it.
It’s a incredibly tough position – it would require him to bring his A+ game. As the Tory scum constantly engage in – hate the benny game. Just a thought.
Welfare/social development has become one of those weirdly gendered portfolios, which is pretty much the only reason I can come up with for Anne Tolley getting it after Bennett.
I’d assumed that it was National, in particular, wanting to leverage the view that women, in general, are caring. Therefore, any ‘tough on beneficiaries’ policies could be disguised as ‘tough love’.
But your comment also suggested to me that it might be the prominence of ‘solo Mums’ in the rhetoric about ‘welfare’ and ‘welfare dependency’ that is behind this ‘gendering’ of the role.
‘Welfare’, I’d hazard, today more readily conjures up DPB recipients rather than the unemployed in many people’s minds.
Further, when it comes to the unemployed, unemployment rate fluctuations make the counter to ‘tough on beneficiaries’ approaches easier to articulate: that is, what is needed is jobs rather than tougher benefit measures.
By contrast, numbers on the DPB are less easily explained by changes in the economy (though they are still related, indirectly, through general social dislocation leading to pressure on relationships, abuse, etc.).
Therefore having a woman front getting tough primarily on other women becomes a tactic to avoid charges of sexism in welfare policies.
There’s also the fact that much welfare ‘toughness’ is aimed at ‘youth’. Once again, a woman fronting such policies can be blurred by the connoted notion of ‘motherly care’.
+1 to all that, and especially your last paragraph: can you imagine the things Bennett has said in the past coming out of Steven Joyce’s mouth, or Simon Bridges’? It would read far less for-your-own-good “benevolently”.
What has he even done in finance? Is there something recent he’s done that is making you say this? Or is it the lack of anything that is making you say this?
Just that when he’s in the house challenging English and Joyce it doesn’t seem like he’s thinking on his feet. It seems like he has his lines rehearsed, like he’s been cramming for a test, and isn’t that comfortable going off-script.
Having seen him operating far more naturally, comfortably and skillfully in other areas I can’t help thinking that the finance portfolio is a waste of his abilities.
Education with the promise of Foreign Affairs if Labour gets in next time, I reckon.
That’s because isn’t Finance like the No. 2 spot? Anything which looks to him like a demotion could be problematic so would probably have to be done softly-softly. He’s been clambering up the Parliamentary ladder since arriving in the Beehive Bubble back in 1999. Since obtaining the Wellington Central seat from his old boss in 2008, he’s spoken for State Services, Arts, Culture and Heritage, Foreign Affairs, Tertiary Education, Health. and, I think, Employment,
But, yeah, Blinglish is just laughing at him. Not a good look.
Don’t be too regretful. Grant and his allies in caucus, who have helped taken Labour to this point over the last few years, would have sidled up with the establishment powers even closer and faster.
“That’s because isn’t Finance like the No. 2 spot? Anything which looks to him like a demotion could be problematic so would probably have to be done softly-softly.”
Yeah there is that perception and it’s an unhelpful one. It’s not like it’s step up the pay scale.
Really the most important job is the one you’re best at. I’m sure if Grant was asked where he thinks he’s got the most to offer, he wouldn’t say finance.
Quite a few of us were ‘done over’ when we called for Labour to withdraw their candidate in the early days. Millsy may have been the first to express as much. Dare I be a mingy brat and say… we told you so.
I do believe you did exactly that Millsy .. I remember quickly replying to you with a Go Winston message and specially I recall because it was against the general grain of what was happening ! Well spotted Millsy !!
Anyone willing to say that they were responsible for claiming that Labour and the Greens were sure to win the last General Election?
I seem to remember lots of predictions of very high percentages for Labour and the Greens.
“Anyone willing to say that they were responsible for claiming that Labour and the Greens were sure to win the last General Election?
I seem to remember lots of predictions of very high percentages for Labour and the Greens”
Yes, I was one of them. And I was wrong and way off. Shit happens!
This is what I had, in August, guessed/estimated/predicted the election result would be:
Congratulations for telling about it.
Personally I think that I am never wrong.
I only remember the things I get right.
Thus I have no memory at all of ever having got something wrong.
Like most people I guess.
He said there had been many cases of sexual violence where the offender hid “behind a cloak of secrecy imposed on the basis that secrecy protects the victim”.
“In cases where the victim wants exposure of the crime and not secrecy, the sub-judice rule, name suppression and the legal cone of silence will be removed.
“In addition to this measure, we will also introduce a sex offender register, so parents and families can know if one of these offenders is in their community or in their neighbourhood,” Peters said.
That’s got to be worth a few votes in Mike Sabin’s old electorate.
No. Saw him in Kaikohe lunchtime today. In the bus, no actually, inside the Chinese eating place opposite where the bus was parked…….outside the RSA. My ‘Means-To-An-End-MMP-Democracy” buzz was well satisfied by this consummately professional character who appeared to be in fine fettle !
“All bullshit !” some might say…….Well maybe but at least I’m not being required to totally misconfigure my respect settings as in the case of ThePonceKey. At least you can meet Winston without Joyce and Osborne crowding down on you recommending you genuflect !
Anyway, it’s not inapposite that a guy with whakapapa in the North going back 300 hundred years might represent Northland. Or are we gonna be stubbornly ‘pure’ and have MMP a cry for “More Mendacity Please” ?
The ever vaunted ‘Invincibility’ starts to crumble the second Winston gets elected !
Winston figured out a perfect way to point out the hypocrisy of National’s ‘law and order’ ‘personal responsibility’ tropes. And given how charged the subject area is, it could be called “fucked up”, it could also be called politically courageous because from the UK example we know what happens when you let “prominent” people get away with this kind of criminal behaviour unchecked.
+100 CR…good points…I do not believe pedophiles should have name suppression…and yes “politically courageous”
(it always puzzles me the antipathy some people have for Winston in impugning the worst motives to him….he has always come in for a lot of covert racism imo…and of course the Nacts loath him)
I think Winston is suggesting no name suppression for felon or victims when the victims do not wish it. Would be very good, but also allows victims of incestuous pedophilia to be protected if they or the one healthy parent want it for them. Excellent I think, meaning no more name suppression because of ‘being famous’ or ‘prominent’.
I think it comes back to what Felix said at comment 2.3:
National’s is all about wanting to govern… Winston’s is all about wanting to represent.
There is a clear interest in this issue in Northland voters. With some seeing the continued name suppression of Prominent New Zealanders’ accused of child sex offending as being due to political interference rather than a concern for the victims’ wellbeing.
Contariwise, from MS’ March 20th post:
One of the legacies of Mike Sabin’s time in Parliament has resurfaced. He claimed to be responsible for the development of a private member’s bill where the right to silence would be compromised if the complainant was charged with certain offences against children. If the bill is passed an adverse inference can be drawn if the defendant exercised the right to silence.
The difference between the two approaches seems clear to me in this instance. National being focused on removing citizens’ right to a fair trial, NZF on consulting with the victims of crime during court decisions regarding their privacy.
RE Grant Elliot and the cricket. Yes amazing play from Grant E, holding his nerve, hitting the winning six.
Just as good if not better is the man he has been shown to be.
1. Compassion and empathy for the losing team. “It could have been me sitting on that field crying”. His automatic response to go to the guy lying on the field (you can’t rehearse that).
2. His comments about why he got into cricket “it wasn’t the wickets or the runs, but it was the team comradery. I want to be remembered as a good team member not for how many runs I scored”
3. Watching cartoons the next morning with his four year old and wheeling his young baby around in a pram to help get him to sleep, day after major cricketing triumph.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD MODEL FOR OUR YOUNG MEN AND FOR ALL OF US. Its about empathy, compassion, working as part of a team and looking after our children. Go Grant Elliot. A true hero.
ps I have used quotation marks, but haven’t quoted him verbatim.
I said the very same thing yesterday – Grant Elliot is the very best we have imported in a long long time!! Great cricketer but an even greater person – one for kids to emulate and be proud of!!
Mai Chen shines a bit more light on the St Bedes boys. Not as straight forward as it seemed:
“The rowing case does not change the ability of schools to discipline their students for misbehaviour as long as the school follows due process and ensures that the particular punishment proposed was not disproportionate.
In this case, the judge found that the school had not carefully considered all of the individual circumstances for each of the boys….
The court said that “it is at least seriously arguable that to make the decision based on the emailed report of a head coach who was not present when the incident took place, without interviewing the boys in question or the other participants, and without gathering information on the consequences of the decision to assess whether it was proportionate to the alleged misbehaviour was unfair and in breach of natural justice” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11422882
Does the fact that the two young men involved were on a good behaviour bond from antics at the previous Maadi Cup alter how a decision is made and the outcome?
As for the consequences of the action. First, it was serious enough that a similar incident breaching airport security got a rocket for a senior cabinet minister, and secondly to have not punished a second breach of rules with the consequences having been already spelled out, would really handicap a school’s internal discipline and also in the the end disadvantage the boys concerned.
Further consequences are to the school. St Bede’s does not need further publicity of this kind. I am an old boy of the College. It was not then bagged in the opinion columns as a school for the elite or for the rich. I went to school with the sons of North Canterbury farmers and Lyttelton watersiders both.
Now it is seen as a school of privilege emasculated by litigious parents producing spoilt and narcissistic brats.
I knew a few St Bede’s rowers. They trained fabulously hard and were successful. I never heard of any misbehaviour from those guys. I wonder what they would think of these two?
The uninitiated out there might like to see what is involved in drawing up a RAM for an excursion these days – all because of these sorts of parents. And then despite their elected Board of Trustees approving them, the parents still leap up and down if their little one gets injured.
Yep saw that comment. Who’d be a teacher/school wanting to arrange or participate in inter-school events these days. Since Picot (and sadly Lange’s reforms) the profession has been well and truly screwed.
These boys broke the law. The school responded quickly. I think Mai Chen is writing from a legal point of view, which of course is her job, but it doesn’t make it right or a helpful stance.
From a parenting point of view, what these boys have learnt is that they can do something quite serious ( a criminal offence) when they are already on a warning from previous behaviour. That those who are responsible for the boys, (the school, its a school trip) can be over riden by using money and a good lawyer. This is a very poor outcome indeed.
I am not sure why a school should have to follow due process under such circumstances. They only have to make sure that they don’t break the law themselves e.g use corporal punishment.
The parents should have told there kids they would have to wear the punishment.
Compare the result of a school banning the inclusion of a pupil of sporting merit in an important school away game, because that pupil’s parents couldn’t afford the expensive blazer that was part of the prescribed team uniform, to the golden boys dealt with above. Now is there natural justice in the difference of opportunity to get their chance between these two cases?
You are right about the privilege of the few greyshark.. (It is estimated that the injunction would have cost $20,000.) The apparent escape of the two young men must be a very poor life-lesson for them.
The young men must be held accountable. Absolutely.
The crime is not in dispute by anyone.
The poor process is what is at stake here. If a student is caught with say drugs at school he is still entitled to a process before sentence is carried out. The more serious the crime the more important the process must be.
I guess in this case had the school been a bit more careful with the process the courts would not be involved. (eg:Maybe the teacher in charge should have spoken to the boys concerned?)
Do you have an example of a case where someone was banned for not having a blazer, or is this just a hypothetical you have made up?
If so what was the school and what was the final result?
Please note as JMG states, “… this post is about attitudes toward science…”
Scientists have by and large treated the collapse in scientific ethics as an internal matter. That’s a lethal mistake, because the view that matters here is the view from outside. What looks to insiders like a manageable problem that will sort itself out in time, looks from outside the laboratory and the faculty lounge like institutionalized corruption on the part of a self-proclaimed elite whose members cover for each other and are accountable to no one. It doesn’t matter, by the way, how inaccurate that view is in specific cases, how many honest men and women are laboring at lab benches, or how overwhelming the pressure to monetize research that’s brought to bear on scientists by university administrations and corporate sponsors: none of that finds its way into the view from outside, and in the long run, the view from outside is the one that counts.
…That is to say, I don’t agree with the anti-vaxxers, the climate denialists, the creationists, or their equivalents, but I think I understand why they’ve rejected the authority of science, and it’s not because they’re ignorant cretins, much as though the proponents and propagandists of science would like to claim that. It’s because they’ve seen far too much of the view from outside.
Give me science over lies, fraud and ignorance any day of the week. At least when people try fraudulent science, science has a tendency towards outing that in the long run.
Also, I recommend Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan for y’all on here. It’s an exemplary laying out of the benefits and importance of science, the dangers of magical thinking and pseudoscience, how to detect bollocks, and the consequences of neglecting scientific education of the general public. It also discusses the importance of science communication.
A book that similarly underlines the important of communicating science to the public, how fraud in science and pretend science fields alike operate, and how the media can improve on reporting and be more responsible in this area in general is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
“Give me science over lies, fraud and ignorance any day of the week.”
That’s nice, but it misses the points. One is that people outside of the science culture have good reason to not let science’s authority rule. Good reason.
The other is that science perpetuates degrees of lying, fraud and ignorance all the time, and this is part of the good reason why people don’t trust it. This doesn’t mean that science is inherently corrupt, it means that it’s sufficiently corrupt to have lost its authority. When scienceheads like yourself accept that, we can do something about it. As long as you are in denial about it, it’s not going to change.
The main thing with science is to foster a culture against authority. You are right that the public shouldn’t be considering scientists as authority figures, just as they shouldn’t anyone else, really. All scientists should be doing is seeking evidence, evaluating it, and proposing policy/solutions/decisions to come out of that, in a transparent manner for public/official debate and examination.
The problem comes when any of those things get violated – something is decided without evidence, the evidence is incorrectly obtained or presented to the public, evidence is evaluated with bias, information is concealed from public, official and scientist scrutiny. Any time someone just gets more favour because they’re ‘the expert’ there’s the potential for objectivity to be lost. A culture of objectivity needs to be fostered.
Of course, that works against human nature, and we see that everywhere outside of science as well. Science at least does have a tendency to revisit things, and out old lies – the whole aim of the scientific method after all is to prove things through evidence, to re-examine conclusions, to question authoritarian proclamations. Science needs to do that better. But at least the core fundamentals are there in its methodology, which simply isn’t true in other fields.
Homeopathy, for instance, is a field where people make up bollocks that sounds sciencey, ignore that actual science has proven that homeopathy cannot work, people hide evidence from public scrutiny, and refuses to acknowledge mountains of evidence that show it does not work. That’s no way to do things. When the same occurs in a scientific field, there will be scientists who will vigorously criticise the flimsy science. That should be encouraged further, and transparency of information should be encouraged further, as scientists can’t exactly criticise, say, a drug company with dubious studies supporting the use of a drug if those studies are not open for criticism.
When the light of such criticism is not available and so decision makers and the public cannot make appropriate decisions, then the public is being dealt a great disservice and this erodes public confidence in science and decision makers.
That is no argument in favour of pseudoscientific bollocks though. What would be the point in doing science properly if we do not hold everything else up to the same standard? That is why I will always critique fraudulent practises, be they within accepted medicine, or outside.
Homeopathy, for instance, is a field where people make up bollocks that sounds sciencey, ignore that actual science has proven that homeopathy cannot work, people hide evidence from public scrutiny, and refuses to acknowledge mountains of evidence that show it does not work. That’s no way to do things.
Oh fuck off. The intelligent well educated stupidity and prejudice you spilt here under the self-proclaimed banner of “objectivity” is amazing. For starters I’ve never met a homeopath who tried to make what they do or how it works “sound sciencey”. And I’ve never met a user of homeopathics suggest that they were taking them because they were impressed by how “sciencey” homeopathy is. That is entirely your projection.
Cluebat: the status of science and technology in the modern world is so mediocre now, being characterised as “sciencey” or “scientific” is as much a liability as it is an asset.
Now back to the basics of why people do often choose homeopathy. Its quite often because they have found that medical interventions fuck their bodies up or don’t work for them or best of all, fuck their bodies up AND don’t work for them, and so they go to something else which does a better job. Maybe the homeopathy is only a better placebo, but at least its not destroying their health further.
They’re following in the footsteps of their ancestors who were persecuted and illegally imprisoned. Descendants of south Taranaki iwi Ngāruahine were in Dunedin today to visit sites of significance – including caves where scores of their ancestors were incarcerated.
Very powerful and emotional and sheds light on our past and the way to the future.
and imo THIS should be top of the news – this work is happening every day around this country and it is ignored for the most part. Imagine if citizens understood this – my how this country would improve.
I only heard of people gathering there by accident – someone on the bus had seen them in passing. They remarked (and I agree), that the council could have at least closed the road for the duration so that people didn’t have traffic driving through the middle of them. (It’s not a vital road – the next turn on the left constitutes only the most minor of inconveniences.)
Also. Rongo Rock was more or less obscured by vegetation until a couple of years ago. I don’t know who tidied the area up. And yeah…that wall around the harbour is being conveniently buried under asphalt by the on-going road widening project.
I was there on a previous trip by Te Atiawa, I think, and it was deeply emotional and moving. The links between Ngai Tahu and Taranaki hapu was cemented forever in those holes in the rocks. Ka maumahara tonu.
PS Marty, how do you get the macrons to work here?
Kia ora Hateatea
Well I do the macrons in a very luddite way – cut and paste from Māori dictionary http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/ I have in the past created a word file of words to cut and paste from too. 🙂
Of the respondents with more than 5,000 employees, 47% have experienced a domestic corruption incident in the last five years. This compares to 20% reported by respondents with less than 5,000 employees
The top five types of incidents account for 69% instances and are:
i. Undisclosed conflict of interest (16%)
ii. Supplier kickbacks (15%)
iii. Personal favours (14%)
iv. Inappropriate gifts/hospitality (13%)
v. Providing confidential organisational
information to a third party (11%).
This is serious. It is a case of inadequate enforcement by the government. Further, by playing favourites in their lackluster dealings with the private sector, this government has helped to create this environment and, indeed may well have behaved corruptly itself.
One thing that seems we need is a review and update of corruption laws in NZ and a good educational push as to what corruption is and what people can and should do about it when they find it.
National proves their lack of a real plan by once again chasing the horse that bolted. A Government with a plan would have likely included these new measures in the recent changes to employment legislation. Changes which were strongly objected to by many groups, and which highlighted the very scenarios these measures are meant to curtail.
I wonder how much of this new policy was only written in the last week?
The investment chapter of the TPPA has been leaked at Wikileaks. Among the revelations are details of a planned creation of a secret, unaccountable court and the granting of vast, internationally applicable legal powers to corporations.
John Key is flying directly from Japan to Dargaville. Because of the long almost sleepless journey, he has decided that soon after coming down to Earth, he will lie some more and feel quite relaxed after that.
He says Osborne is an underdog. So, soon after embarking, he will announce another, a ‘little bit’ longer bridge, to surpass the S.Franscisco golden one and connect Broadwood to Tuatapere. Both Key and parrot say that Northland deserves it.
But that is not all. There is more! The most exciting news titbit is that Key is bringing along, for moral support, Park Geun-hye Hangul:박근혜 as well as 内閣総理大臣, Naikaku-sōri-daijin.
Rumour has it that Elizabeth 2 is also considering making a quick lightening visit to Kawakawaka at the end of the day over the weekend. At this stage that is likely to be on either Saturday or Sunday.
A new bill to remove name suppression from paedophiles when the victims want their attacker named, is to be introduced to Parliament by NZ First.
Leader Winston Peters, who is in Northland campaigning as for the by-election in which he is a candidate, announced the new policy today.
He said there had been many cases of sexual violence where the offender hid “behind a cloak of secrecy imposed on the basis that secrecy protects the victim”.
“In cases where the victim wants exposure of the crime and not secrecy, the sub-judice rule, name suppression and the legal cone of silence will be removed.
“In addition to this measure, we will also introduce a sex offender register, so parents and families can know if one of these offenders is in their community or in their neighbourhood,” Peters said.
99.9% vote winner right there (hell I’d even consider voting for him on the basis of that)
I have one problem with this proposal, and it isn’t publicising the names of paedophiles.
The crime is, by definition, child molestation. The victims are the children, NOT, primarily their parents. How can a child, say aged 6, possibly give an informed request that their molester should be named? That is the reason that the name suppression that the name suppression is given and I don’t see how they can possibly understand the situation enough to ask for the lifting of name suppression if it leads to them being identified.
I was once a juror in such a case. I found it quite sickening. It was held in a closed court. The public were not admitted and only the judge, jury, defendant and the lawyers were allowed throughout the trial. I was most grateful that we were, at the end, excused from Jury service for five years.
There was no possible way that the child concerned could possibly be old enough to understand what it meant to ask that the defendant should be identified.
Separately, I despise sexo registers – it’s one thing to police-check workers in a position of trust, but registers end up with someone thinking that the “John Smith” who moved in down the road is “John Smithe” the pedo in the other end of the country, and John Smith has his life torn apart or ended by malicious gossip or drunken mob justice.
Rocky start on the streets for John Key’s on his tour of Northland today!
One woman he stopped to speak to told Key “No use talking to me I’ve already voted”, before giving him an earful about the region being neglected. She told Key she had given her vote to NZ First leader Winston Peters.
At a local haunt of Mark Osborne’s campaign team, Blah Blah Blah Cafe & Bar, Key got a warm welcome from diners and had a quick lesson in making coffee.
We really need to stop killing our workers. What’s an insult on top is that the dead seem to be usually amongst our lowest paid but hardest-working people.
Supposedly it’s the investors that are taking all the risk but it’s the people at the bottom who actually lose everything while the investors get bailed out by government.
Yep. Worst case for the investors is that they lose everything except what’s in the family trust or spouse’s name, declare bankruptcy and start again.
To reference Clint Eastwood, it’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away everything he’s got, and everything he’s ever gonna have.
Not to mention their families.
But we desperately need to change the flag, first… /sarc
hi mcflock, i read in the paper that a 31 yr old tau henare (no relation to the mp) was massively injured in 2012 when a log rolled on him.
the company (harvest pro, a subsidiary of kiwi forrestry international) was prosecuted by mbie and ordered to pay $40,000 reparation to mr henare in may 2014.
the company appealed the decision and lost in oct 2014.
now the wriggly bastards are claiming the company is in financial trouble.
two things: when the state awards reparation, howabout the state pays the reparation then claims the money from the company.
second, put one of these executives in jail.
corporate manslaughter.
5 years.
then we may see more than just lip service being paid to worker safety.
Is it time for Willow Jean Prime to now concede defeat and tell her supporters to vote for Winston?
She is polling at around a mere 10%, however that 10% could end up becoming the deciding factor. Especially with Key heading to Northland to rally and bolster support.
Therefore, not only could this potentially rob Peters of the win, but also result in leaving egg on Labours face.
Surely Prime and the Party don’t want to be remembered as the ones that allowed National to slip in?
No, that would be an immediate as well as a long term strategic mistake. It will incense ex Nat voters to come rushing in to vote for Osborne. The tactics that Labour, Little and Willow Jean Prime have adopted here is the correct one and is much superior. The voters will have got the message by now.
The people who may now still vote WJP will be those who will vote for Labour under any circumstances and the ex Nat/ACT/Cons/FNZ voters that do not wish to vote Winston or the Nats this time around, but do not also wish to not take part in the by-election.
I agree entirely with this assessment. Little has done the best he can to get the message across (and it seems to have worked). But those rusted-on Labour voters who have supported the party through thick and thin should be able to go vote for the Labour candidate with their heads held high.
The thing is that if you start regarding voters as your candidate’s winged monkeys to unthinkingly do your bidding no matter what, the voters tend to kick back (as the nats have just found out).
Peters is well in front. Prime has lost almost all her vote. The nats are foreshadowing a defeat – even fisi doesn’t think osbourne will win. Prime issuing dictats to labour voters will only serve as a foil for the nats to claim persecution and maybe claw even more votes back. Prime endorsing peters is about as useful as ACT endorsing osbourne – comic relief that distracts from the campaign.
Recommending Peters is not robbing voters of their right to decide, thus isn’t regarding voters as “candidate’s winged monkeys”.
But Prime doing so (recommending Peters) would have an impact on that 10%.
The Nats have already claimed persecution and played the victim card, thus it makes no difference.
The election result isn’t a foregone conclusion, begging the question, does Prime and Labour really want to take that risk and potentially allow National to slip in?
Are the benefits of Prime continuing the fight worth the potential risk?
Surely Prime and the Party don’t want to be remembered as the ones that allowed National to slip in? The time to act is quickly running out.
as do I.
Voters are already free to select whomever they want, it’s not like a candidate releases them from oathes of fealty. Instructing them as if they are servants can only piss voters off.
The Chairman: Prime should simply organise fifty Labour volunteers to help Winston out over the next few days. That’s the best assistance she can give him at this point.
National’s low polling and Key’s final push will help rally National support regardless, thus Prime now conceding could potentially counter that.
It’s already largely perceived Labour support Winston, thus your assertion has failed to eventuate .
Moreover, Prime’s core supporters (around 10% of the vote) are still supporting her, which of course could end up becoming the deciding factor robbing Peters of the win.
It’s largely agreed the best thing for Northland from Primes current perspective is to keep National out. Continuing the fight won’t achieve that, but it may allow National to slip in.
Is the benefits of Prime continuing the fight really worth the risk?
“Is the benefits of Prime continuing the fight really worth the risk?”
Yes. She isn’t ‘fighting’ as you put it. She has said what her ‘realistic’ chances of winning here are at this by-election. She is coming a distant third. She knows that and so does everyone.
It is UP TO the voters themselves to figure out what is best for them and for Northland now. It is NOT for her or for Labour to explicitly tell people to vote for Winston or someone else. It would be both arrogant and stupid.
If some people (Lab or Nats etc) still wish to vote for her, at least they have her name for them to cast their vote to.
If this makes Winston lose, so be it! It is not HER fault!
By still running and not turning away votes she is still in this fight.
But as you rightly put it, only to come in at third place. What’s the point of that?
It’s not unknown for people to concede defeat and recommend their supporters support another candidate.
And in this case it would be the wise thing to do. The risk out weights the benefits.
Her name will remain on the ballot regardless, thus voters will still have that choice.
Conceding and recommending Peters is her decision, thus she will be held accountable. Especially so if the decision results in it all going pear shaped.
Labour is going to look a right Arse! If NZF is rejuvenated into a 10%+ party from this and then they go with national in 2017 time may prove that labour should of gone all out .
The only real winner if Winston wins is NZF .
I realize labour had no chance ( although it would’ve been interesting if Winny hadn’t of stood) but it’s possible that labour might have been better off in the long run if the Nats get in .
I hope I’m wrong and Winston rides into town and kills the tpp and force the nats into behaving better.
Hope fully today’s wiki leaks might ad some pressure
I could never vote for or support a party that let’s corporates sue a country for doing right buy it’s citizen’s
Peters knows he will be on a two year trial, ensuring he’ll have to perform if he wants to retain the seat going forward.
In the meantime, Labour are going to have to learn how to form better relationships or massively increase their support, because the way they are polling they will never win in 2017 without partners .
Not so sure you can call them her “core supporters” or “die hard Labour supporters” or (ScottGN’s) “rusted-on Labour voters”. Haven’t got time to go into the rationale at the moment, but I get the distinct impression that most of Prime’s 10% are Green voters. Looks to me like the overwhelming majority of Labour supporters have already strategically decided on Winston.
Back in the early March poll, 2014 Green voters already comprised almost as much of Prime’s 16% support as 2014 Labour voters. Half of the Labour constituency at that point had already decided to go Winston (well before Little’s nudge nudge wink wink). Since then, the weight of evidence suggests the swing to Peters over recent weeks has come disproportionately from Labour voters- leaving the Greens as Prime’s core support base.
Interesting swordfish. You’re basically saying though, that Green voters won’t vote tactically too. They’ve shifted to Prime in the absence of a green candidate and refuse to move to Winston even though it looks a good bet that he’ll win the seat.
Yep. I think there’s a stubborn sector of the Green vote (a large minority) that won’t go Winston.
My comment was based entirely on the last two TV3 Reid Research Polls of Northland.
Just in the last two hours, of course, Colmar Brunton have released their latest – with the overall results very close to TV3’s. Colmar Brunton suggests:
(1) Prime is on 9%
(2) 28% of Labour supporters are still intending to vote Prime and that
(3) 20% of Northlanders intend to Party-Vote Labour at the next General Election…
…So…28% of 20% = 5.6
…So…5.6 is 62% of 9%…
…Which means, according to this latest Colmar Brunton, the majority of Prime’s supporters (62%) are, indeed, Labour people. So Colmar Brunton’s results would suggest my assertion above is wrong.
But I’m pretty sure the latest TV3 results will suggest otherwise (they haven’t released any breakdowns yet so we’ll have to wait to be sure). Given that 2014 Green voters were almost neck-and-neck with 2014 Labour voters in terms of Prime’s support-base back in the early March Poll, and the evidence that Labour voters have swung heavily to Peters over the last month, you’d have to assume that, in the latest TV3 Poll, Greens make up the lions share of Prime’s diminished support.
@swordfish…well sorry still don’t believe Greens would be voting Prime and Labour when it is dead dog vote…and by default a vote in support of the Nacts…(no matter what your stats say)
…goes counter to all the Greens i know…who are pretty savvy…and not anti Winnie and NZF…in fact vote sometimes Winnie and sometimes Green and sometimes Mana/Int..
Labour core voters tend to vote conservatively and tribally Labour…no matter what ie they dont think MMP and vote strategically
I see in the Northland Advocate Facebook that people are saying that they are being intimidated and harassed by phone calls that appear to be coming from national asking have they voted. One elderly man stated that he had already voted for Winston and was abused. Another said that she had one on her property stirring up her dogs until she told him to *go away* Apparently the *young turds* manning the phones supervised by Nikki Kaye. Key will do anything it takes to win this by election and imo it has nothing to do with making Northland a better and more prosperous place but everything to do with his inability to countenance losing. Nothing to do with NZ at all! We are not battling National Party but key’s huge pathological ego. If he loses this, that is his place in History gone. In six years he has APPARENTLY not set a foot wrong! Thank you nz herald for being so enabling. Oh and also thank you for the damage you have done to decent REAL kiwis and their lives in your diligent enslavement to president key. True kiwis you are not!
..they also ignored what is a major story in their soft coverage..
..sky..and mediaworks..u cd hardly slide a playing card between them in their soft-coverage of key/this govt they both owe so much to/are so in bed with…
I recorded TVNZ & TV3 and have just watched the coverage. No sense that Key faced protestors or any hostility in either bulletin. Yet it was clear that he did from the Checkpoint report. It seems TV news are still pretending everybody loves Key.
So you believe that Checkpoint is right and TV1 and TV3 must be wrong?
Why not the other way round? Would that go against the preconceptions you have?
Yeah, right. Radio NZ is the untarnished, unbiased source of all truth.
hi alwyn, rnz was not the recipent of a $32+M loan from the state so it could pay its broadcast fee.
nor was minister of everything, joyce, a former director of rnz.
maybe this helps.
“nor was minister of everything, joyce, a former director of rnz.”
What is that supposed to mean. Are you trying to say that he was a former director of TV1? Are you trying to say he was a former director of TV3?
Wrong on both counts.
The ” $32+M loan from the state” is also a furphy. The rules were changed to make firms pay for the entire life of a license at the beginning of the term, instead of year by year. All broadcasters were allowed to pay it off over time at a higher fee.
Canwest, with which Joyce was NOT associated, took advantage of the option. It was available to all firms.
It’s amazing the bullshit Key comes out with. He stood there in Dargaville today saying “no we’re not desperate I always intended to come come back in the final days etc” Except he’s supposed to be in Tokyo right now concluding a State Visit no less.
I’m looking forward (in a naughty way) to watching labour hq cheering and yaying when winston wins – what a weird race and contest this has been. Worth it labour? I spose we’ll see won’t we.
Pumping tens of thousands of litres of whatever they use into the ground probably is “ultrahazardous”.
On Tuesday, Maryland legislators passed legislation that would place strong limits on the extraction of natural gas in the state.
The Maryland House of Delegates passed a three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — in the Western part of the state, while the Maryland Senate approved a bill that would impose strict financial liabilities on fracking companies and would declare fracking an “ultrahazardous and abnormally dangerous activity.” The bills must pass through the other chambers before heading to the desk of Republican Governor Larry Hogan for approval.
—
Meanwhile, the Senate approved some of the strongest liability standards for drilling in the country. The bill, which passed 29-14, would require fracking companies to carry a $10 million insurance policy for six years after each drilling operation, and would hold companies financially liable for any health or environmental problems associated with drilling.
So, “Raynor Asher” has bowed to political pressure? If the reason for the continued suppression is based solely on “protection for the victims” then someone influential should demand an explanation for his rationale. As far as I can tell, the victims never sought to have the suppression order continue. It was the alleged perpetrator who did so.
In this case, the suppression order is likely to have to be removed at some point so why not get it over and done with?
A clever and showy man, he has used his cleverness to solidify alliances in many areas but is still – or perhaps as a result of these alliances – considered my many to be a malleable patsy by those who put him on the bench. Justice Asher is a political animal with less regard for the rule of law than social relationships.
How very convenient for the Key govt. he oversaw the appeal decision eh?
Edit: and fits in quite nicely with my… the NZ Justice system sucks.
You did note that he was appointed to the High Court in 2005.
Now who was the Government then and what were they hoping to get out of him?
I wonder what the Government of the day was thinking about?
And since 2008 he has been pleasing National. He exceeded himself today. A certain type of political animal has loyalty to those in power, whoever they are.
The corruption runs deep, doesn’t it ? To deceive a whole country in three elections ? Shame on them all. No-one’s children are safe in this maelstrom.
It actually makes me wonder if the alleged activities were not confined to only one member of the party. They could be more like the English Tories than I’d thought.
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Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
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Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
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 The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
The NZ Herald spends 3 weeks ignoring Northland with stories of XFactor, The Bachelor and Top Gear, then when a poll comes out it simply can’t ignore, it employs its puppet political editor Trevett to minimise the issue.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11422947
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11423073
Sleazy rag for the corporate elite.
the two lessons labour must take away from this northland bye-election are:
1)..how to work with other progressive-parties to vote tactically to defeat the right..
2)..and that they should be starting now –
..to work up a how-to-save/help-the-provinces plan…
..(and not just aspirational-bullshit/words..)
..’cos – as northland shows – safe tory seats can be up for grabs..
Great to have you back phil
+ Phil I have missed you darling lol.
1)..how to work with other progressive-parties or any other old mountebank that comes along to vote tactically to defeat the right..
.
a ‘mountebank’ you can ‘bank’ on..?
.r u here representing the bitter-right..?..there..adrian..?
(chrs paul..)
No not at all – if I was in Northland I’d vote for him too, but It would make me feel like Annabel Chong.
obscure – but i think i get it..
good to see you back Phil 🙂
@ rawshark..chrs..
..have you tired already of the interminable vaccine/rape-apologist ‘chat’..?
lol…i have !!!…boring
have assiduously and diligently stayed out of it .. some minds are not for changing .. and that probably includes mine !
@pu
You offering us a puff of your stuff?
Adrian @ 2.2.1.1 –
Google Googled Annabel Chong
Now I know the ‘beat’ you’re on !
Voted Winnie yesterday……………..
My bloody ‘schlong’ won’t go away !
Democracy is highly recommended !
LOLZ!
Hi phil,
Another lesson I’ve been thinking about is the difference between National’s messaging and Winston’s messaging.
National’s is all about wanting to govern. If you don’t vote for us, we might not be quite so much in charge any more.
Winston’s is all about wanting to represent. They’re not listening to you, they’ll listen to me.
I realise that the circumstances don’t translate exactly to a general election, but I think there’s a lesson for everyone in those underlying themes.
Well spotted Felix – I think you are right. Not only that, I think the line between wanting to govern and wanting to represent may well be the most important in a democracy. Key’s regime has relied on people mistaking one for the other. Winny has put pressure on that idea. That is one of the things that makes the by-election more exciting than most.
+1
National are authoritarian and thus for them being in government is telling people what to do.
Lesson number one.
At the risk of repeating myself …
http://thestandard.org.nz/peters-for-northland/#comment-990796
I find it funny the way there’s this narrative floating in the air – “Labour never talks to its allies on the left! Labour should act in a more united way!” – but in this case, the fact is that *Winston* should have talked to Labour earlier if he wanted a clear field.
Yep and as has also been repeated here and elsewhere an overly aggressive support by Labour for Winston may drive swinging right voters back to the nats.
Tell them to put their schlongs away then. Stop swinging and sit tight and concentrate on the place where the cross-hairs find the best model for the real future that extends to 2050 and beyond. Then fire at the other lot.
It’s not just something Labour needs to do. It’s something every party who wants to change the government needs to do.
For example as I noted the other day Labour and The Greens have been doubling up questions in the house which is a terrible waste.
“if he wanted a clear field”
I think that is a key point – imo he didn’t particularly want or need a clear field. The clear field would have been advantageous to labour as the largest opposition party because it would have mitigated any ambiguity regarding who to vote for. But I’m not sure how low the labour vote has to go up there before someone goes – whoops.
+100 p u…i missed your incisive commentary
Serious question:
What is the best role for Grant Robertson in the shadow cabinet / actual cabinet?
He’s a very talented guy and he seems to be working hard in finance, but I don’t think it’s his thing. There must be a portfolio that’s a better fit.
Tertiary Education.
Yep or maybe foreign affairs.
Yeah I could see him in Tertiary for sure
I never understood why Grant never took on the welfare portfolio. He’s passionate, he’s at his best when fighting for the underdog, and he could change hearts and minds if he threw his all at it.
It’s a incredibly tough position – it would require him to bring his A+ game. As the Tory scum constantly engage in – hate the benny game. Just a thought.
Welfare/social development has become one of those weirdly gendered portfolios, which is pretty much the only reason I can come up with for Anne Tolley getting it after Bennett.
That’s an interesting observation Stephanie.
I’d assumed that it was National, in particular, wanting to leverage the view that women, in general, are caring. Therefore, any ‘tough on beneficiaries’ policies could be disguised as ‘tough love’.
But your comment also suggested to me that it might be the prominence of ‘solo Mums’ in the rhetoric about ‘welfare’ and ‘welfare dependency’ that is behind this ‘gendering’ of the role.
‘Welfare’, I’d hazard, today more readily conjures up DPB recipients rather than the unemployed in many people’s minds.
Further, when it comes to the unemployed, unemployment rate fluctuations make the counter to ‘tough on beneficiaries’ approaches easier to articulate: that is, what is needed is jobs rather than tougher benefit measures.
By contrast, numbers on the DPB are less easily explained by changes in the economy (though they are still related, indirectly, through general social dislocation leading to pressure on relationships, abuse, etc.).
Therefore having a woman front getting tough primarily on other women becomes a tactic to avoid charges of sexism in welfare policies.
There’s also the fact that much welfare ‘toughness’ is aimed at ‘youth’. Once again, a woman fronting such policies can be blurred by the connoted notion of ‘motherly care’.
+1 to all that, and especially your last paragraph: can you imagine the things Bennett has said in the past coming out of Steven Joyce’s mouth, or Simon Bridges’? It would read far less for-your-own-good “benevolently”.
Odd, ant it. Patriarchy will do strange things to people.
Sport? He might be just the guy to save rugby from its terminal decline.
Personally, I’m in favour of rugby’s terminal decline.
I think they should commercialise the whole enterprise even more, raise ticket prices further and bump up the price of venue beer another $2.
The thing killing rugby is there’s to much bloody rugby and there’s no full on tours playing mid week games against the provinces .
He’s an analytical thinker. He did a great job unraveling the various strands of the GCSB saga last year.
What has he even done in finance? Is there something recent he’s done that is making you say this? Or is it the lack of anything that is making you say this?
Just that when he’s in the house challenging English and Joyce it doesn’t seem like he’s thinking on his feet. It seems like he has his lines rehearsed, like he’s been cramming for a test, and isn’t that comfortable going off-script.
Having seen him operating far more naturally, comfortably and skillfully in other areas I can’t help thinking that the finance portfolio is a waste of his abilities.
get him working on a comprehensive plan to regenerate the provinces..
..devolving central-govt to those provinces wd b a good place to start..
..a plan that will be ready to present to the electorate in ’17…
..and i repeat – not just words/aspirational-bullshit..
..and if they need buildings in those provincial towns – for this to happen..
..a universal basic income wd free up all of those work and income palaces..for such a much more useful purpose..
.eh..?
‘
Education with the promise of Foreign Affairs if Labour gets in next time, I reckon.
That’s because isn’t Finance like the No. 2 spot? Anything which looks to him like a demotion could be problematic so would probably have to be done softly-softly. He’s been clambering up the Parliamentary ladder since arriving in the Beehive Bubble back in 1999. Since obtaining the Wellington Central seat from his old boss in 2008, he’s spoken for State Services, Arts, Culture and Heritage, Foreign Affairs, Tertiary Education, Health. and, I think, Employment,
But, yeah, Blinglish is just laughing at him. Not a good look.
i hear that robertson is a ‘brain’..and possibly more left than many wd imagine..
(both good qualities..)
..but in all the time i have been doing commentaries on q-time –
..i have rarely – if ever – seen him gain any traction – against anyone…
..in any portfolio-role..
..and this was the main reason i discounted him for the leadership..
yes …Grant the Robertson is becoming more and more attractive as we run down the list
…i for one regret voting for Little…turned out to be more Little Labour…no coalition cooperation and no shakeup of Spies
Don’t be too regretful. Grant and his allies in caucus, who have helped taken Labour to this point over the last few years, would have sidled up with the establishment powers even closer and faster.
+100 CR….Yes you are so correct!!!…thanks for reminding me….and I was/is a Cunliffe and Nanaia Mahuta Labour supporter first and foremost
“That’s because isn’t Finance like the No. 2 spot? Anything which looks to him like a demotion could be problematic so would probably have to be done softly-softly.”
Yeah there is that perception and it’s an unhelpful one. It’s not like it’s step up the pay scale.
Really the most important job is the one you’re best at. I’m sure if Grant was asked where he thinks he’s got the most to offer, he wouldn’t say finance.
What’s with all the pop up ads. They’re everywhere and a fucking nuisance.
google adblock plus and set yrself free !!!
@north Here’s the address for Adblock for Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom?hl=en
well done BG .. sorry, I didn’t have time to find the link earlier …
Thanks.
Sounds like you’ve got some malware on your system.
I hope everyone remembers that I was the first one either on the blogs or the media to call Winston standing for Northland.
what date was that..?
..so i can check my whoar-archives..
..’cos i called him both standing – and winning – and the reasons why – pretty early on..
dates and links provided by midnight tonight. happy to proved wrong tho.
instead of a pissing-contest..
..shall we call it a dead-heat..?
You probably both are higher achievers than the well-known Russian engineer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k58smQpKxx8
30th January, millsy. You do seem to be the first, at least on the first post about the Northland by-election.
http://thestandard.org.nz/the-northland-by-election/#comment-959991
Quite a few of us were ‘done over’ when we called for Labour to withdraw their candidate in the early days. Millsy may have been the first to express as much. Dare I be a mingy brat and say… we told you so.
LOL! The Standard Hive Mind eventually falls into line 😈
+100 Anne
an interesting thread that one – for a variety of reasons..
..and yes – i think millsy called peters running first..
..but i will claim this one
“….there is a huge pool of people who might vote..if there is a chance of throwing the tories out..”
..that seems to have come to pass..
..also interesting to read for the comments from weka and rodgers..
..heh..!
I do believe you did exactly that Millsy .. I remember quickly replying to you with a Go Winston message and specially I recall because it was against the general grain of what was happening ! Well spotted Millsy !!
What a lot of enthusiasts claiming part of the glory.
No doubt they are all followers of the comment most often attributed to JFK.
“Victory has a thousand followers, defeat is an orphan”.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnfkenn110295.html
Anyone willing to say that they were responsible for claiming that Labour and the Greens were sure to win the last General Election?
I seem to remember lots of predictions of very high percentages for Labour and the Greens.
“Anyone willing to say that they were responsible for claiming that Labour and the Greens were sure to win the last General Election?
I seem to remember lots of predictions of very high percentages for Labour and the Greens”
Yes, I was one of them. And I was wrong and way off. Shit happens!
This is what I had, in August, guessed/estimated/predicted the election result would be:
http://thestandard.org.nz/leading-voices-tv-debates/#comment-863295
Congratulations for telling about it.
Personally I think that I am never wrong.
I only remember the things I get right.
Thus I have no memory at all of ever having got something wrong.
Like most people I guess.
Pretty smooth move from Winston yesterday, announcing a bill to remove name suppression from pedophiles.
That’s got to be worth a few votes in Mike Sabin’s old electorate.
I wonder if he will turn up to Parliament today?
I suspect he would only want to be there when Key is. Unless he’s got something special he wants to say, of course…
Don’t think so. Winnie has been announcing his daily schedule days in advance on Facebook and Twitter.
Today he has a full schedule up Nprth.
https://www.facebook.com/winstonpeters/photos/a.192328297459972.57555.155656867793782/1086963464663113/?type=1
@ m.s..
probably not – thursday q-time is for the second-stringers – from all parties..
..(except of course – the/that dweeb from act..)
No. Saw him in Kaikohe lunchtime today. In the bus, no actually, inside the Chinese eating place opposite where the bus was parked…….outside the RSA. My ‘Means-To-An-End-MMP-Democracy” buzz was well satisfied by this consummately professional character who appeared to be in fine fettle !
“All bullshit !” some might say…….Well maybe but at least I’m not being required to totally misconfigure my respect settings as in the case of ThePonceKey. At least you can meet Winston without Joyce and Osborne crowding down on you recommending you genuflect !
Anyway, it’s not inapposite that a guy with whakapapa in the North going back 300 hundred years might represent Northland. Or are we gonna be stubbornly ‘pure’ and have MMP a cry for “More Mendacity Please” ?
The ever vaunted ‘Invincibility’ starts to crumble the second Winston gets elected !
I heard Sabin resigned to “spend more time with his family”
Spend more time with his lawyer, more like.
Do you think ‘his family’ is delighted with that?
Smooth is one word for it. Opportunistic is another.
Not mutually exclusive…
true. I haven’t looked at the bill to see its worth, but people using sexual abuse of children for political gain is fucked up. Popular though.
Winston figured out a perfect way to point out the hypocrisy of National’s ‘law and order’ ‘personal responsibility’ tropes. And given how charged the subject area is, it could be called “fucked up”, it could also be called politically courageous because from the UK example we know what happens when you let “prominent” people get away with this kind of criminal behaviour unchecked.
+100 CR…good points…I do not believe pedophiles should have name suppression…and yes “politically courageous”
(it always puzzles me the antipathy some people have for Winston in impugning the worst motives to him….he has always come in for a lot of covert racism imo…and of course the Nacts loath him)
I think Winston is suggesting no name suppression for felon or victims when the victims do not wish it. Would be very good, but also allows victims of incestuous pedophilia to be protected if they or the one healthy parent want it for them. Excellent I think, meaning no more name suppression because of ‘being famous’ or ‘prominent’.
To be clear weka, when I said it was a smooth move I meant he found a way to talk about [r0b:del] without talking about [r0b:del].
I’m not commenting on the value of the bill, and as neither of us have seen it I presume you aren’t either.
That’s pretty much what I thought you were saying and doing.
weka
I think it comes back to what Felix said at comment 2.3:
There is a clear interest in this issue in Northland voters. With some seeing the continued name suppression of Prominent New Zealanders’ accused of child sex offending as being due to political interference rather than a concern for the victims’ wellbeing.
Contariwise, from MS’ March 20th post:
http://thestandard.org.nz/national-wants-to-take-away-our-right-to-silence/
The difference between the two approaches seems clear to me in this instance. National being focused on removing citizens’ right to a fair trial, NZF on consulting with the victims of crime during court decisions regarding their privacy.
there was great applause when Winston spoke about it in the main street of Russell …
Anyone else having trouble editing their comments? I’ve lost my permissions for the past few days.
edit, but only some of them it seems. Maybe the ranty ones with 😈
edit edit, Lynn this is one I couldn’t edit http://thestandard.org.nz/peters-for-northland/#comment-991059
RE Grant Elliot and the cricket. Yes amazing play from Grant E, holding his nerve, hitting the winning six.
Just as good if not better is the man he has been shown to be.
1. Compassion and empathy for the losing team. “It could have been me sitting on that field crying”. His automatic response to go to the guy lying on the field (you can’t rehearse that).
2. His comments about why he got into cricket “it wasn’t the wickets or the runs, but it was the team comradery. I want to be remembered as a good team member not for how many runs I scored”
3. Watching cartoons the next morning with his four year old and wheeling his young baby around in a pram to help get him to sleep, day after major cricketing triumph.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD MODEL FOR OUR YOUNG MEN AND FOR ALL OF US. Its about empathy, compassion, working as part of a team and looking after our children. Go Grant Elliot. A true hero.
ps I have used quotation marks, but haven’t quoted him verbatim.
Bet all those Elliot nay sayers are being very quiet now but good on Jonation Millmow for admiting to being wrong about Elliots selection
I said the very same thing yesterday – Grant Elliot is the very best we have imported in a long long time!! Great cricketer but an even greater person – one for kids to emulate and be proud of!!
Mai Chen shines a bit more light on the St Bedes boys. Not as straight forward as it seemed:
“The rowing case does not change the ability of schools to discipline their students for misbehaviour as long as the school follows due process and ensures that the particular punishment proposed was not disproportionate.
In this case, the judge found that the school had not carefully considered all of the individual circumstances for each of the boys….
The court said that “it is at least seriously arguable that to make the decision based on the emailed report of a head coach who was not present when the incident took place, without interviewing the boys in question or the other participants, and without gathering information on the consequences of the decision to assess whether it was proportionate to the alleged misbehaviour was unfair and in breach of natural justice”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11422882
Does the fact that the two young men involved were on a good behaviour bond from antics at the previous Maadi Cup alter how a decision is made and the outcome?
As for the consequences of the action. First, it was serious enough that a similar incident breaching airport security got a rocket for a senior cabinet minister, and secondly to have not punished a second breach of rules with the consequences having been already spelled out, would really handicap a school’s internal discipline and also in the the end disadvantage the boys concerned.
Further consequences are to the school. St Bede’s does not need further publicity of this kind. I am an old boy of the College. It was not then bagged in the opinion columns as a school for the elite or for the rich. I went to school with the sons of North Canterbury farmers and Lyttelton watersiders both.
Now it is seen as a school of privilege emasculated by litigious parents producing spoilt and narcissistic brats.
I knew a few St Bede’s rowers. They trained fabulously hard and were successful. I never heard of any misbehaviour from those guys. I wonder what they would think of these two?
The uninitiated out there might like to see what is involved in drawing up a RAM for an excursion these days – all because of these sorts of parents. And then despite their elected Board of Trustees approving them, the parents still leap up and down if their little one gets injured.
Yep saw that comment. Who’d be a teacher/school wanting to arrange or participate in inter-school events these days. Since Picot (and sadly Lange’s reforms) the profession has been well and truly screwed.
I am sorry Ianmac. I beg to differ on this.
These boys broke the law. The school responded quickly. I think Mai Chen is writing from a legal point of view, which of course is her job, but it doesn’t make it right or a helpful stance.
From a parenting point of view, what these boys have learnt is that they can do something quite serious ( a criminal offence) when they are already on a warning from previous behaviour. That those who are responsible for the boys, (the school, its a school trip) can be over riden by using money and a good lawyer. This is a very poor outcome indeed.
I am not sure why a school should have to follow due process under such circumstances. They only have to make sure that they don’t break the law themselves e.g use corporal punishment.
The parents should have told there kids they would have to wear the punishment.
I
Compare the result of a school banning the inclusion of a pupil of sporting merit in an important school away game, because that pupil’s parents couldn’t afford the expensive blazer that was part of the prescribed team uniform, to the golden boys dealt with above. Now is there natural justice in the difference of opportunity to get their chance between these two cases?
You are right about the privilege of the few greyshark.. (It is estimated that the injunction would have cost $20,000.) The apparent escape of the two young men must be a very poor life-lesson for them.
The young men must be held accountable. Absolutely.
The crime is not in dispute by anyone.
The poor process is what is at stake here. If a student is caught with say drugs at school he is still entitled to a process before sentence is carried out. The more serious the crime the more important the process must be.
I guess in this case had the school been a bit more careful with the process the courts would not be involved. (eg:Maybe the teacher in charge should have spoken to the boys concerned?)
Do you have an example of a case where someone was banned for not having a blazer, or is this just a hypothetical you have made up?
If so what was the school and what was the final result?
Please note as JMG states, “… this post is about attitudes toward science…”
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/the-view-from-outside_18.html
It is a very thoughtful and interesting post not least because of some of the ‘discussions’ held here.
JMG is always good, but on the matter of the failure and decline of science in modern society, he is spot on.
Give me science over lies, fraud and ignorance any day of the week. At least when people try fraudulent science, science has a tendency towards outing that in the long run.
Also, I recommend Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan for y’all on here. It’s an exemplary laying out of the benefits and importance of science, the dangers of magical thinking and pseudoscience, how to detect bollocks, and the consequences of neglecting scientific education of the general public. It also discusses the importance of science communication.
A book that similarly underlines the important of communicating science to the public, how fraud in science and pretend science fields alike operate, and how the media can improve on reporting and be more responsible in this area in general is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
“Give me science over lies, fraud and ignorance any day of the week.”
That’s nice, but it misses the points. One is that people outside of the science culture have good reason to not let science’s authority rule. Good reason.
The other is that science perpetuates degrees of lying, fraud and ignorance all the time, and this is part of the good reason why people don’t trust it. This doesn’t mean that science is inherently corrupt, it means that it’s sufficiently corrupt to have lost its authority. When scienceheads like yourself accept that, we can do something about it. As long as you are in denial about it, it’s not going to change.
The main thing with science is to foster a culture against authority. You are right that the public shouldn’t be considering scientists as authority figures, just as they shouldn’t anyone else, really. All scientists should be doing is seeking evidence, evaluating it, and proposing policy/solutions/decisions to come out of that, in a transparent manner for public/official debate and examination.
The problem comes when any of those things get violated – something is decided without evidence, the evidence is incorrectly obtained or presented to the public, evidence is evaluated with bias, information is concealed from public, official and scientist scrutiny. Any time someone just gets more favour because they’re ‘the expert’ there’s the potential for objectivity to be lost. A culture of objectivity needs to be fostered.
Of course, that works against human nature, and we see that everywhere outside of science as well. Science at least does have a tendency to revisit things, and out old lies – the whole aim of the scientific method after all is to prove things through evidence, to re-examine conclusions, to question authoritarian proclamations. Science needs to do that better. But at least the core fundamentals are there in its methodology, which simply isn’t true in other fields.
Homeopathy, for instance, is a field where people make up bollocks that sounds sciencey, ignore that actual science has proven that homeopathy cannot work, people hide evidence from public scrutiny, and refuses to acknowledge mountains of evidence that show it does not work. That’s no way to do things. When the same occurs in a scientific field, there will be scientists who will vigorously criticise the flimsy science. That should be encouraged further, and transparency of information should be encouraged further, as scientists can’t exactly criticise, say, a drug company with dubious studies supporting the use of a drug if those studies are not open for criticism.
When the light of such criticism is not available and so decision makers and the public cannot make appropriate decisions, then the public is being dealt a great disservice and this erodes public confidence in science and decision makers.
That is no argument in favour of pseudoscientific bollocks though. What would be the point in doing science properly if we do not hold everything else up to the same standard? That is why I will always critique fraudulent practises, be they within accepted medicine, or outside.
Oh fuck off. The intelligent well educated stupidity and prejudice you spilt here under the self-proclaimed banner of “objectivity” is amazing. For starters I’ve never met a homeopath who tried to make what they do or how it works “sound sciencey”. And I’ve never met a user of homeopathics suggest that they were taking them because they were impressed by how “sciencey” homeopathy is. That is entirely your projection.
Cluebat: the status of science and technology in the modern world is so mediocre now, being characterised as “sciencey” or “scientific” is as much a liability as it is an asset.
Now back to the basics of why people do often choose homeopathy. Its quite often because they have found that medical interventions fuck their bodies up or don’t work for them or best of all, fuck their bodies up AND don’t work for them, and so they go to something else which does a better job. Maybe the homeopathy is only a better placebo, but at least its not destroying their health further.
…and I’m speaking as someone who doesn’t even use homeopathy and would be very unlikely to in the foreseeable future…
Short history lesson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh7JLHQKk6k
Very powerful and emotional and sheds light on our past and the way to the future.
and imo THIS should be top of the news – this work is happening every day around this country and it is ignored for the most part. Imagine if citizens understood this – my how this country would improve.
I only heard of people gathering there by accident – someone on the bus had seen them in passing. They remarked (and I agree), that the council could have at least closed the road for the duration so that people didn’t have traffic driving through the middle of them. (It’s not a vital road – the next turn on the left constitutes only the most minor of inconveniences.)
Also. Rongo Rock was more or less obscured by vegetation until a couple of years ago. I don’t know who tidied the area up. And yeah…that wall around the harbour is being conveniently buried under asphalt by the on-going road widening project.
I was there on a previous trip by Te Atiawa, I think, and it was deeply emotional and moving. The links between Ngai Tahu and Taranaki hapu was cemented forever in those holes in the rocks. Ka maumahara tonu.
PS Marty, how do you get the macrons to work here?
Kia ora Hateatea
Well I do the macrons in a very luddite way – cut and paste from Māori dictionary http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/ I have in the past created a word file of words to cut and paste from too. 🙂
Kia ora mo tena. I need to go visit Te Taura Whiri and update my macronisor I think. My old one doesn’t work anymore 🙁
usually a lot of people put up more competent ways of doing it – maybe put a post up early tomorrow in open mike
Te Kupu Maori site has instructions. I don’t know how to do them on a ph yet!
Bribery and corruption a growing threat in NZ
Deloitte’s full report is here.
This is serious. It is a case of inadequate enforcement by the government. Further, by playing favourites in their lackluster dealings with the private sector, this government has helped to create this environment and, indeed may well have behaved corruptly itself.
One thing that seems we need is a review and update of corruption laws in NZ and a good educational push as to what corruption is and what people can and should do about it when they find it.
hi ovid, while not exactly the same, i think this is related to blips post on keys lies.
by this i mean the slipping standard of; langauge, the increased spending on spin doctors by government departments, the secret lobbying of mps…
it is off putting and teaches our youth that this behaviour is ok.
Further to the ongoing discussion on exploitation of workers…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/67511752/employers-who-exploit-workers-to-face-tougher-sanctions
National proves their lack of a real plan by once again chasing the horse that bolted. A Government with a plan would have likely included these new measures in the recent changes to employment legislation. Changes which were strongly objected to by many groups, and which highlighted the very scenarios these measures are meant to curtail.
I wonder how much of this new policy was only written in the last week?
US has voted to send non lethal aid (night vision equipment, humvees, etc) to Ukraine.
Check out what NATO is seeking to defend in Ukraine, and why (if there is a reason) the US is provoking war against Russia:
http://www.brotherjohnf.com/archives/381397
‘
The investment chapter of the TPPA has been leaked at Wikileaks. Among the revelations are details of a planned creation of a secret, unaccountable court and the granting of vast, internationally applicable legal powers to corporations.
Download leaked chapter in PDF format here —> https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/WikiLeaks-TPP-Investment-Chapter.pdf
See post just up.
‘
Nice work by The Standard – again.
Broking News:
John Key is flying directly from Japan to Dargaville. Because of the long almost sleepless journey, he has decided that soon after coming down to Earth, he will lie some more and feel quite relaxed after that.
He says Osborne is an underdog. So, soon after embarking, he will announce another, a ‘little bit’ longer bridge, to surpass the S.Franscisco golden one and connect Broadwood to Tuatapere. Both Key and parrot say that Northland deserves it.
But that is not all. There is more! The most exciting news titbit is that Key is bringing along, for moral support, Park Geun-hye Hangul:박근혜 as well as 内閣総理大臣, Naikaku-sōri-daijin.
Rumour has it that Elizabeth 2 is also considering making a quick lightening visit to Kawakawaka at the end of the day over the weekend. At this stage that is likely to be on either Saturday or Sunday.
Stephanie, well written piece on the hand mirror really needs to read by everyone here.
Wonderful analysis Stephanie, I really enjoyed it.
a link ?? thx adam
Oh my I forgot as I just use the feeds bar on the side and thought everyone did. Sorry. http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/ The top story.
ta !
Hes good is Winston:
A new bill to remove name suppression from paedophiles when the victims want their attacker named, is to be introduced to Parliament by NZ First.
Leader Winston Peters, who is in Northland campaigning as for the by-election in which he is a candidate, announced the new policy today.
He said there had been many cases of sexual violence where the offender hid “behind a cloak of secrecy imposed on the basis that secrecy protects the victim”.
“In cases where the victim wants exposure of the crime and not secrecy, the sub-judice rule, name suppression and the legal cone of silence will be removed.
“In addition to this measure, we will also introduce a sex offender register, so parents and families can know if one of these offenders is in their community or in their neighbourhood,” Peters said.
99.9% vote winner right there (hell I’d even consider voting for him on the basis of that)
The man has his finger on the pulse of the nation, that’s for sure.
I’d still prefer Labour over WinstonFirst anyday of the week but credit where its due and hes in his element
I have one problem with this proposal, and it isn’t publicising the names of paedophiles.
The crime is, by definition, child molestation. The victims are the children, NOT, primarily their parents. How can a child, say aged 6, possibly give an informed request that their molester should be named? That is the reason that the name suppression that the name suppression is given and I don’t see how they can possibly understand the situation enough to ask for the lifting of name suppression if it leads to them being identified.
I was once a juror in such a case. I found it quite sickening. It was held in a closed court. The public were not admitted and only the judge, jury, defendant and the lawyers were allowed throughout the trial. I was most grateful that we were, at the end, excused from Jury service for five years.
There was no possible way that the child concerned could possibly be old enough to understand what it meant to ask that the defendant should be identified.
good point.
Separately, I despise sexo registers – it’s one thing to police-check workers in a position of trust, but registers end up with someone thinking that the “John Smith” who moved in down the road is “John Smithe” the pedo in the other end of the country, and John Smith has his life torn apart or ended by malicious gossip or drunken mob justice.
Rocky start on the streets for John Key’s on his tour of Northland today!
One woman he stopped to speak to told Key “No use talking to me I’ve already voted”, before giving him an earful about the region being neglected. She told Key she had given her vote to NZ First leader Winston Peters.
At a local haunt of Mark Osborne’s campaign team, Blah Blah Blah Cafe & Bar, Key got a warm welcome from diners and had a quick lesson in making coffee.
Key took many selfies.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67510289/northland-byelection-rocky-start-for-john-keys-tour
RadioNZ went so far as to say people on the street in Dargaville were saying to Key “Go Winston” or “Vote Winston”.
I love the name of the cafe – perfectly suited for the tories.
blah, blah, blah – then have a wet lunch…
Granny reported that Penny Bright was in Dargaville holding up a poster about Mike Sabin when FJK visited. Good one, Penny.
onya, Penny ! Very Bright !
Another forestry worker killed on the job.
We really need to stop killing our workers. What’s an insult on top is that the dead seem to be usually amongst our lowest paid but hardest-working people.
Supposedly it’s the investors that are taking all the risk but it’s the people at the bottom who actually lose everything while the investors get bailed out by government.
Yep. Worst case for the investors is that they lose everything except what’s in the family trust or spouse’s name, declare bankruptcy and start again.
To reference Clint Eastwood, it’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away everything he’s got, and everything he’s ever gonna have.
Not to mention their families.
But we desperately need to change the flag, first… /sarc
hi mcflock, i read in the paper that a 31 yr old tau henare (no relation to the mp) was massively injured in 2012 when a log rolled on him.
the company (harvest pro, a subsidiary of kiwi forrestry international) was prosecuted by mbie and ordered to pay $40,000 reparation to mr henare in may 2014.
the company appealed the decision and lost in oct 2014.
now the wriggly bastards are claiming the company is in financial trouble.
two things: when the state awards reparation, howabout the state pays the reparation then claims the money from the company.
second, put one of these executives in jail.
corporate manslaughter.
5 years.
then we may see more than just lip service being paid to worker safety.
I agree with both of those ideas.
u.s. court has ruled that kim dotcom will lose all of his seized assets..
..he has tweeted this:..
“..Kim Dotcom ?@KimDotcom 2h2 hours ago
US Judge who ordered Megaupload to die WITHOUT TRIAL just ruled I’m disentitled & dispossessed WITHOUT TRIAL.
The US Govt gets all my assets..”
that is vile and corrupt. so sad for him.
+100
Is it time for Willow Jean Prime to now concede defeat and tell her supporters to vote for Winston?
She is polling at around a mere 10%, however that 10% could end up becoming the deciding factor. Especially with Key heading to Northland to rally and bolster support.
Therefore, not only could this potentially rob Peters of the win, but also result in leaving egg on Labours face.
Surely Prime and the Party don’t want to be remembered as the ones that allowed National to slip in?
Thoughts?
+100…time for her to urge her vote to Peters
No, that would be an immediate as well as a long term strategic mistake. It will incense ex Nat voters to come rushing in to vote for Osborne. The tactics that Labour, Little and Willow Jean Prime have adopted here is the correct one and is much superior. The voters will have got the message by now.
The people who may now still vote WJP will be those who will vote for Labour under any circumstances and the ex Nat/ACT/Cons/FNZ voters that do not wish to vote Winston or the Nats this time around, but do not also wish to not take part in the by-election.
I agree.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I agree entirely with this assessment. Little has done the best he can to get the message across (and it seems to have worked). But those rusted-on Labour voters who have supported the party through thick and thin should be able to go vote for the Labour candidate with their heads held high.
@ ScottGN
And achieve what exactly? Potentially allow National to slip in?
I don’t think there are too many die hard Labour supporters that would want to achieve that.
The thing is that if you start regarding voters as your candidate’s winged monkeys to unthinkingly do your bidding no matter what, the voters tend to kick back (as the nats have just found out).
Peters is well in front. Prime has lost almost all her vote. The nats are foreshadowing a defeat – even fisi doesn’t think osbourne will win. Prime issuing dictats to labour voters will only serve as a foil for the nats to claim persecution and maybe claw even more votes back. Prime endorsing peters is about as useful as ACT endorsing osbourne – comic relief that distracts from the campaign.
@ McFlock
Recommending Peters is not robbing voters of their right to decide, thus isn’t regarding voters as “candidate’s winged monkeys”.
But Prime doing so (recommending Peters) would have an impact on that 10%.
The Nats have already claimed persecution and played the victim card, thus it makes no difference.
The election result isn’t a foregone conclusion, begging the question, does Prime and Labour really want to take that risk and potentially allow National to slip in?
Are the benefits of Prime continuing the fight worth the potential risk?
Surely Prime and the Party don’t want to be remembered as the ones that allowed National to slip in? The time to act is quickly running out.
For a start, what McFlock said.
Ad also this: Little and Prime have both been pretty clear in their messaging.
Anyone who has heard that message and still intends to vote Labour, well there probably isn’t much you could say to convince them otherwise.
And anyone who hasn’t heard that message yet, with 2 days to go, what makes you think they’ll hear it now?
@ felix
Better late than never, but I agree it should have been done some time ago.
A public statement advocating Peters would make national news, relieving her core supporters from their loyalties, freeing them to select Peters.
I disagree entirely.
as do I.
Voters are already free to select whomever they want, it’s not like a candidate releases them from oathes of fealty. Instructing them as if they are servants can only piss voters off.
@ felix
It’s generally expected for one to put forward your reason why you disagree.
@ McFlock
I was talking about a public statement freeing her core and loyal supporters of their loyalties.
Recommending Winston is not telling or instructing them what to do. But it would encourage some.
The Chairman: Prime should simply organise fifty Labour volunteers to help Winston out over the next few days. That’s the best assistance she can give him at this point.
@ CR
Yeah, why not?
Action speaks louder than words.
They’re not bound, so how can they be freed?
@The Chairman,
I did, you just didn’t fucking read it.
McFlock pretty much covers it.
@ Clemgeopin
National’s low polling and Key’s final push will help rally National support regardless, thus Prime now conceding could potentially counter that.
It’s already largely perceived Labour support Winston, thus your assertion has failed to eventuate .
Moreover, Prime’s core supporters (around 10% of the vote) are still supporting her, which of course could end up becoming the deciding factor robbing Peters of the win.
It’s largely agreed the best thing for Northland from Primes current perspective is to keep National out. Continuing the fight won’t achieve that, but it may allow National to slip in.
Is the benefits of Prime continuing the fight really worth the risk?
“Is the benefits of Prime continuing the fight really worth the risk?”
Yes. She isn’t ‘fighting’ as you put it. She has said what her ‘realistic’ chances of winning here are at this by-election. She is coming a distant third. She knows that and so does everyone.
It is UP TO the voters themselves to figure out what is best for them and for Northland now. It is NOT for her or for Labour to explicitly tell people to vote for Winston or someone else. It would be both arrogant and stupid.
If some people (Lab or Nats etc) still wish to vote for her, at least they have her name for them to cast their vote to.
If this makes Winston lose, so be it! It is not HER fault!
@ Clemgeopin
By still running and not turning away votes she is still in this fight.
But as you rightly put it, only to come in at third place. What’s the point of that?
It’s not unknown for people to concede defeat and recommend their supporters support another candidate.
And in this case it would be the wise thing to do. The risk out weights the benefits.
Her name will remain on the ballot regardless, thus voters will still have that choice.
Conceding and recommending Peters is her decision, thus she will be held accountable. Especially so if the decision results in it all going pear shaped.
Labour is going to look a right Arse! If NZF is rejuvenated into a 10%+ party from this and then they go with national in 2017 time may prove that labour should of gone all out .
The only real winner if Winston wins is NZF .
@ b waghorn
Labour initially went all out, got nowhere, hence changed their position.
Winston was always the only one that could potentially be the winner.
Labour never really had a chance.
I realize labour had no chance ( although it would’ve been interesting if Winny hadn’t of stood) but it’s possible that labour might have been better off in the long run if the Nats get in .
I hope I’m wrong and Winston rides into town and kills the tpp and force the nats into behaving better.
Labour is NOT going to kill the TPPA if National signs NZ up to it.
Hope fully today’s wiki leaks might ad some pressure
I could never vote for or support a party that let’s corporates sue a country for doing right buy it’s citizen’s
I’ll be the apostrophe killing Nazi today, if you’ll excuse me kind sir
lets corporates sue (no contracted word after “it” like “it is” etc.)
its citizens (no possessive apostrophe required)
(I used to get this wrong for years…)
😉
@ b waghorn
Peters knows he will be on a two year trial, ensuring he’ll have to perform if he wants to retain the seat going forward.
In the meantime, Labour are going to have to learn how to form better relationships or massively increase their support, because the way they are polling they will never win in 2017 without partners .
And it’s even more than that: LAB + GR *cannot* form the next government, even together, without another party.
Not so sure you can call them her “core supporters” or “die hard Labour supporters” or (ScottGN’s) “rusted-on Labour voters”. Haven’t got time to go into the rationale at the moment, but I get the distinct impression that most of Prime’s 10% are Green voters. Looks to me like the overwhelming majority of Labour supporters have already strategically decided on Winston.
Back in the early March poll, 2014 Green voters already comprised almost as much of Prime’s 16% support as 2014 Labour voters. Half of the Labour constituency at that point had already decided to go Winston (well before Little’s nudge nudge wink wink). Since then, the weight of evidence suggests the swing to Peters over recent weeks has come disproportionately from Labour voters- leaving the Greens as Prime’s core support base.
@ Swordfish
That’s speculation. And it would be flawed to think all those supporting her are Greens. There will be the loyal ones.
Therefore, an announcement advocating Winston would have some impact. Moreover, will help her and the Party to save face if National slip in.
+100 The Chairman….doubt very much whether Green voters would be so stupid as to support Prime or Labour especially as they have no show of winning
…Greens generally understand MMP and vote tactically…
the only people who will be supporting Prime will be Labour voters
…also NZF voters and Green voters are often interchangeable in their voting habits and work well together
In the earlier (March 5) TV3 Reid Research Poll, 43% of Greens said they would vote Prime, 34% said Peters.
Compare that to Labour voters – 35% Prime / 48% Peters.
It appears that close to 70% of Labour voters are now strategically voting Winnie.
Interesting swordfish. You’re basically saying though, that Green voters won’t vote tactically too. They’ve shifted to Prime in the absence of a green candidate and refuse to move to Winston even though it looks a good bet that he’ll win the seat.
Yep. I think there’s a stubborn sector of the Green vote (a large minority) that won’t go Winston.
My comment was based entirely on the last two TV3 Reid Research Polls of Northland.
Just in the last two hours, of course, Colmar Brunton have released their latest – with the overall results very close to TV3’s. Colmar Brunton suggests:
(1) Prime is on 9%
(2) 28% of Labour supporters are still intending to vote Prime and that
(3) 20% of Northlanders intend to Party-Vote Labour at the next General Election…
…So…28% of 20% = 5.6
…So…5.6 is 62% of 9%…
…Which means, according to this latest Colmar Brunton, the majority of Prime’s supporters (62%) are, indeed, Labour people. So Colmar Brunton’s results would suggest my assertion above is wrong.
But I’m pretty sure the latest TV3 results will suggest otherwise (they haven’t released any breakdowns yet so we’ll have to wait to be sure). Given that 2014 Green voters were almost neck-and-neck with 2014 Labour voters in terms of Prime’s support-base back in the early March Poll, and the evidence that Labour voters have swung heavily to Peters over the last month, you’d have to assume that, in the latest TV3 Poll, Greens make up the lions share of Prime’s diminished support.
Here’s an interesting finding from the latest Colmar Brunton:
When asked whether National’s Bridge / Broadband promises would effect their vote…
75% No, will make no difference
20% Yes, Less Likely to vote National
4% Yes, More Likely to vote National.
lol
@swordfish…well sorry still don’t believe Greens would be voting Prime and Labour when it is dead dog vote…and by default a vote in support of the Nacts…(no matter what your stats say)
…goes counter to all the Greens i know…who are pretty savvy…and not anti Winnie and NZF…in fact vote sometimes Winnie and sometimes Green and sometimes Mana/Int..
Labour core voters tend to vote conservatively and tribally Labour…no matter what ie they dont think MMP and vote strategically
I see in the Northland Advocate Facebook that people are saying that they are being intimidated and harassed by phone calls that appear to be coming from national asking have they voted. One elderly man stated that he had already voted for Winston and was abused. Another said that she had one on her property stirring up her dogs until she told him to *go away* Apparently the *young turds* manning the phones supervised by Nikki Kaye. Key will do anything it takes to win this by election and imo it has nothing to do with making Northland a better and more prosperous place but everything to do with his inability to countenance losing. Nothing to do with NZ at all! We are not battling National Party but key’s huge pathological ego. If he loses this, that is his place in History gone. In six years he has APPARENTLY not set a foot wrong! Thank you nz herald for being so enabling. Oh and also thank you for the damage you have done to decent REAL kiwis and their lives in your diligent enslavement to president key. True kiwis you are not!
all other media reporting how key was widely heckled today in daggers..
..but sky owned prime news..?..yeah nah eh..?
These days Prime is supplied its news from Mediaworks (TV3).
yes..i know..
..but they do know what their masters want..
..and ‘mediaworks’..?..
..they also ignored what is a major story in their soft coverage..
..sky..and mediaworks..u cd hardly slide a playing card between them in their soft-coverage of key/this govt they both owe so much to/are so in bed with…
I recorded TVNZ & TV3 and have just watched the coverage. No sense that Key faced protestors or any hostility in either bulletin. Yet it was clear that he did from the Checkpoint report. It seems TV news are still pretending everybody loves Key.
So you believe that Checkpoint is right and TV1 and TV3 must be wrong?
Why not the other way round? Would that go against the preconceptions you have?
Yeah, right. Radio NZ is the untarnished, unbiased source of all truth.
hi alwyn, rnz was not the recipent of a $32+M loan from the state so it could pay its broadcast fee.
nor was minister of everything, joyce, a former director of rnz.
maybe this helps.
I doesn’t help very much at all really.
“nor was minister of everything, joyce, a former director of rnz.”
What is that supposed to mean. Are you trying to say that he was a former director of TV1? Are you trying to say he was a former director of TV3?
Wrong on both counts.
The ” $32+M loan from the state” is also a furphy. The rules were changed to make firms pay for the entire life of a license at the beginning of the term, instead of year by year. All broadcasters were allowed to pay it off over time at a higher fee.
Canwest, with which Joyce was NOT associated, took advantage of the option. It was available to all firms.
he was a former managing director of mediaworks radioworks division, and was critisized for showing a conflict of interest when approving the loan.
i am picking you are aware of this being the intelligent person you appear to be.
we all view things as we choose to.
It’s amazing the bullshit Key comes out with. He stood there in Dargaville today saying “no we’re not desperate I always intended to come come back in the final days etc” Except he’s supposed to be in Tokyo right now concluding a State Visit no less.
I’m looking forward (in a naughty way) to watching labour hq cheering and yaying when winston wins – what a weird race and contest this has been. Worth it labour? I spose we’ll see won’t we.
Pumping tens of thousands of litres of whatever they use into the ground probably is “ultrahazardous”.
On Tuesday, Maryland legislators passed legislation that would place strong limits on the extraction of natural gas in the state.
The Maryland House of Delegates passed a three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — in the Western part of the state, while the Maryland Senate approved a bill that would impose strict financial liabilities on fracking companies and would declare fracking an “ultrahazardous and abnormally dangerous activity.” The bills must pass through the other chambers before heading to the desk of Republican Governor Larry Hogan for approval.
—
Meanwhile, the Senate approved some of the strongest liability standards for drilling in the country. The bill, which passed 29-14, would require fracking companies to carry a $10 million insurance policy for six years after each drilling operation, and would hold companies financially liable for any health or environmental problems associated with drilling.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/25/3638686/maryland-fracking-yes-no-maybe/
How soon before we see Supreme Court Justice Sir Raynor Asher, Order of New Zealand?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/67521088/name-suppression-continues-for-prominent-nzer
So, “Raynor Asher” has bowed to political pressure? If the reason for the continued suppression is based solely on “protection for the victims” then someone influential should demand an explanation for his rationale. As far as I can tell, the victims never sought to have the suppression order continue. It was the alleged perpetrator who did so.
In this case, the suppression order is likely to have to be removed at some point so why not get it over and done with?
The NZ Justice System sucks!!!
This is very interesting:
http://www.kiwisfirst.com/judge-file-index/high-court-justice-raynor-asher/
Oh interesting indeed. From your link:
How very convenient for the Key govt. he oversaw the appeal decision eh?
Edit: and fits in quite nicely with my… the NZ Justice system sucks.
From the link Murray provided.
“Weak and indecisive on difficult issues (and some less than difficult).”
Yeah, sounds like he could have been hand picked. I wonder what the Key points were that guided his decision.
You did note that he was appointed to the High Court in 2005.
Now who was the Government then and what were they hoping to get out of him?
I wonder what the Government of the day was thinking about?
And since 2008 he has been pleasing National. He exceeded himself today. A certain type of political animal has loyalty to those in power, whoever they are.
I wonder what the Key points were that guided his decision.
A Key byelection in Northland no doubt.
thanks v. much for that murray – i have put it up on whoar..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/judge-who-continued-name-suppression-for-the-prominent-nzer-is-rankedrated/
You’re welcome. And welcome back with your improved writing style 🙂
The corruption runs deep, doesn’t it ? To deceive a whole country in three elections ? Shame on them all. No-one’s children are safe in this maelstrom.
that is intended as a reply to murray and anne .. but it moved about somehow !! it is not about Len Brown.
It could be apply to Len Brown 🙂
no, not really in this thread. I think children would not be unsafe with him.
My fault rawshark-yeshe @ 30.1
I forgot to hit reply when responding to Murray Rawshark @ 28.1.1 so deleted and re-posted. Always forgetting… 🙁
It actually makes me wonder if the alleged activities were not confined to only one member of the party. They could be more like the English Tories than I’d thought.
What the prat Hoskins thinks.
Wonder how much POrts of Auckland pay him.
He sounds mad.
He talks to himself.
“Len, as we have discussed in these columns before, is a fantasist.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11423079
Apologies if someone else has posted this but just found on Stuff
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/67521088/name-suppression-continues-for-prominent-nzer