What will be the response of political leaders around the world, and our leaders here, to Obama’s speech?
Will John Key issue a statement in response?
Unlikely
How about David Shearer?
Also unlikely
What about the Greens?
Will the Green Party issue a statement calling on the other two to give a response and make a stand?
Will Obama’s speech be just like a pebble dropped into the ocean, unremarked in this country and around the world?
In the face of this existential threat like no other ever faced by humanity, will business as usual be the unspoken commitment that we will receive from our leaders?
What will be the response of political leaders around the world, and our leaders here, to Obama’s speech?
MEMO JENNY:
Barack Obama is not taken seriously by anyone. He did nothing at all during his first term except spout rhetoric (that impressed Jim Mora at least) but he was too timid or too compromised or too indolent to actually DO anything, whether it was about conservation, or justice in the middle east, or anything at all. Now, barely six months into his second term, this ineffectual and empty poseur is already a lame duck.
Why are you urging people to flog this dead horse?
Not sure exactly what you were expecting Obama to achieve when he was saddled with an incredibly partisan and frankly insane republican majority in the house.
Also he did get the health reforms through – a shadow of what they needed to be, but an achievement none-the-less.
On May 9 2012 in an ABC interview Obama said “…I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” This reverberated around the world. The gay marriage movement in this country had been bubbling along gaining litle traction until then, Obama’s comments made a huge impact here – Bob McCroskie launched his anti-gay marriage a month later, and the entire thing was done and dusted here within eleven months of Obama’s comments. Since then I think eight or so countries have legalised gay marriage and it has become a major issue again in many others.
So it is total hogwash no one takes seriously the US President in general or Obama in particular. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he isn’t important. People take him seriously all over the world, even his corrupt congress does – it just spends it time opposing him, that is all.
What ever you think of President Obama, muzza, and Morrissey, (and from your comments, it doesn’t sound like much). President Obama has made a statement strongly supporting doing something about climate change and encouraging others around the world to rise to the challenge also.
Muzza/Morrissey I think you are both missing the point I was making. (and I suspect deliberately)
Will Obama’s challenge be ignored by our political leaders here?
Will they, (and I mean any of them) even acknowledge Obama’s speech?
Will any of them, and I mean any of them, come out in support of Obama and suggest that we need to go even go further?
Or are they still determined to continue on as if they can afford to ignore this issue?
And lastly, muzza and Morrissey, is your attack on Obama’s credibility just an excuse to provide political cover for those parties here who wish to do nothing?
Voter support for Labour and its leader, David Shearer, has slumped in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey. Audrey Young in the Hersld today.
The party has lost 5.5 percentage points since March, and Mr Shearer is down 6.1 points as preferred Prime Minister.
National’s support has barely moved and it is still polling high at 48.8 per cent of decided voters.
Prime Minister John Key is preferred Prime Minister for 65.2 per cent, up 2.6 points on his last rating.
If the poll were translated to votes, National would not be able to govern alone.
Either National or Labour would be able to form a government.
But Labour would need four other parties, and National would have more options including being able to form a government with only New Zealand First support, only Maori Party support, or support from Act and United Future.
Mr Shearer has been Labour leader for a little over 18 months, after beating former finance spokesman David Cunliffe in a contest involving the party membership.
Today’s poll could put added pressure on Mr Shearer’s leadership, which has been attracting stronger criticism lately from the remnants of Mr Cunliffe’s support on the left than from the right.
Mr Key has taken to taunting Mr Shearer in Parliament about being under the control of deputy leader Grant Robertson.
But more voters see Mr Cunliffe as a successor should Mr Shearer no longer be in contention.
Asked who would be best to replace Mr Shearer if he left politics, 31.8 per cent supported Mr Cunliffe and 16.7 per cent Mr Robertson.
The dark horse is Andrew Little, a first-term list MP and former national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, who had 13.5 per cent support as a possible replacement.
Eleven per cent wanted someone else and 27 per cent did not know or refused to say.
Among Labour supporters, 37.7 per cent supported Mr Cunliffe if Mr Shearer weren’t there, 19 per cent Mr Robertson and 14 per cent Mr Little.
Labour’s party vote support appears to have gone to New Zealand First and the Greens.
New Zealand First’s support rose above the 5 per cent threshold, and support for Winston Peters as preferred Prime Minister is up from 4 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
Party vote figures in the poll are: National 48.8 (up 0.3), Labour 30.9 (down 5.5), Greens 10.5 (up 1.5), NZ First 5.1 (up 2.6), Maori Party 1.8 (up 0.7), Mana 0.5 (no change), United Future 0.3 (up 0.3) and Act 0.2 (up 0.1). The Conservatives gained 2.65 per cent of the vote at the last election but no MPs polled 1.5 (up 0.2).
Support for Mr Shearer rose in March to 18.5 per cent when National was mired in issues such as the failure of the Novopay pay system for teachers, the Solid Energy crisis and the partial sale of Mighty River Power.
Since the last poll, the Government has lost list MP Aaron Gilmore and passed its Budget, but a lot of the political focus since then has been on United Future leader Peter Dunne.
Mr Dunne resigned as a minister as the chief suspect in the leak of a confidential report.
Party vote results and preferred Prime Minister results are of decided voters only.
On the party vote questions, 11.9 per cent of poll respondents were undecided.
NZ First ratings edge up
The biggest movements in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey are among older voters. And it appears New Zealand First has had a boost at the expense of Labour.
Overall, Labour has fallen from 36.5 per cent in the March poll to 30.9 per cent in the June poll published today. NZ First has risen from 2.5 per cent in March to 5.1 per cent now, based on the poll of 750 respondents.
Labour has gone from having a high level of support among the 65 and over voters in March – 40.5 per cent compared to its overall party vote of 36.1 per cent – to just 28.2 per cent.
Among the younger age group, 18 to 39, the Green Party has disproportionate support, but that is evident in most polls.
Last time 54.8 per cent of men supported National and 42.4 per cent of women, compared to 48.5 per cent overall. This time 49.9 per cent of men and 47.7 per cent of women supported National, which has 48.8 per cent overall.
As preferred Prime Minister, David Shearer is supported by 12.4 per cent overall but by 15.2 per cent of women and 9.6 per cent of men. In March he had 18.5 per cent and even support from men and women.
John Key is on 65.2 per cent and has almost even support of men and women.
Herald-Digipoll
Party vote
• National – 48.8% (up 0.3)
• Labour – 30.9% (down 5.5)
Preferred PM
• John Key – 65.2% (up 2.6)
• David Shearer – 12.4% (down 6.1)
Maybe Shearer should listen to President Obama and pull his head out of the Sand over climate change. Shearer needs to heed Obama’s call for other nations to play their part, and publicly announce that an incoming Labour administration will stop all new coal projects, and all other extreme hydrocarbon extraction plans like fracking and deep sea oil.
As for the Nacts. They need to be strongly condemned in every forum, for being as Obama says only concerned for the concerns of special interests.
Maybe then Shearer might be recognised as a leader.
Until then, Shearer and the party he leads will remain unrecognised unknown, and in the public mind sullenly silent and negative.
If this doesn’t spell out clearly to Shearer supporters that we have a serious problem then nothing will. (Well maybe a bad result in Ikaroa Rawhiti will compound).
Changes need to be made, perhaps some more deadwood need to be sent packing at the same time as Shearer loses his Leadership. It is not too late. There is NO WAY Shearer has what it takes to roll Key in 2014 (Currently there is a huge VOID in leadership in Labour), Shearer supporters need to swallow their pride and give Cunliffe a chance.
To work this needs to be driven by Shearer and Robertson factions…..if they have the maturity and foresight to do this then Labour has a chance of winning in 2014, otherwise roll on 2017, 3 more years of New Zealand moving towards the extreme Right.
For the long term health of the Labour party, National needs to win the next election.
That way Mallard , King, Goff and the rest of the bludging relics can be given the boot and replaced with fresh faces.
Shearer winning the next election would be the end of Labour.
yes but this National party is hopeless, if it wasn’t for Chch, the economy would have tanked.
I agree that some of the deadwood needs to be cleaned out, but unlike some on TS I actually quite like Labour’s Policies, the problem is the Leadership…its non existent and it has a complete inability to sell itself.
THIS IS FAR AND AWAY LABOURS BIGGEST ISSUE AND IT NEEDS TO BE SORTED.
Sadly Mallard has no where to go so will go no where, if he had any honor he would have quit after managing Labours worst election result in recent history. He cuts a sad old grumpy figure from the second row, grasping at past glories and taking up space that should be filled with newer blood. A more accurate example of ‘deadwood’ is hard to find.
I agree that Labour winning 2014 is more likely to do the party harm than help them, at least under Shearer’s leadership (and the team that put him there).
But the left will keep on trucking, even if Labour falls behind.
The problem with labour is a lot more than just Shearer,
No direction. stuck in the dark ages. Borrow and spend policies. Playing second fiddle to the Greens. In bed with the unions.
Some of those you might think are OK (like the union bit) – but you forget that people outside of your core voters dont like them – and dont want NZ run by a party with its stings pulled by unions.
Upshot – The general man in the street dosnt like Labour or what it seems to stand for these days.
And this is reflected in the polls. Its not just the man in front (even the best salesman has trouble shifting a fundamentally broken product)
I know that you will disagree. That’s OK – keep relying on – its a rouge, biased because only calling land lines, if you look at the trends … blagh blagh blagh. you all know better – Im a tit as I dont agree with you etc. You know the usual excuses you come up with on other threads.
Labour is a conflicted party, still wounded by neo liberalism. Even a return to Norm Kirk style policies would make the LP look like revolutionaries. Green and Mana are the future for the parliamentary left unless the LP has a few retirements v.soon.
Social democracy is enough of a dead end ideology anyway without the bumbling equivocation of David Shearer.
Yes we all know you find unionism heretical James. On a par with the witches of Salem blah blah blah.
Beats me how any rational person can endorse lawful free association in service of shared common interest in all other areas of our nation’s existence, yet carp on like a psychotic Alf Garnett when the same is engaged by workers in their shared common interest.
It is you who lives in the dark ages James and whine as you might, it will take more than an obsessive union-hater to take us back there. Yes, we know the World is flat. And if it’s not it bloody well should be !
You can’t see or hear your irrelevant ranting James. Everyone else (emabarrassed for you) can. Grow up !
New Plymouth is lost to Labor. Cuddling up to Greens in energy land while parachuting Andrew “do a runner” Little as candidate for last election both bad mistakes and will not be forgotten.
The Labour Party did not benefit from attending your Auckland BBQs in the past. Cheap sausages and good champagne should not be mixed.
It is time for Labour to close ranks againt those who want Key to continue in power, e.g. Hooton, Armstrong and Sullivan.
LEC’s and Branches and Union meetings are the place for discusion on the party’s direction.
Come on Hooton, do you honestly expect that people believe your tripe that your band of merry men and women did their utmost to support Shearer for the good of the Labour party?
Jesus wept. If you expect people to swallow that one I’ve got an igloo to sell you next to your Dear Leader’s house in Hawaii..
Well given that a week ago he was insisting that he never had anything to do with Shearer, I think it’s safe to say no; he doesn’t “honestly” expect anything.
Being either invisible or just slinging shit impresses no one.
Shearer isn’t a prime ministers arsehole, it’s about time he realizes that and steps down.
You keep believing that.
The only time I see Shearer on TV is when he’s all worked up and telling every one what a crappy job John Key and National are doing.
Needs too be a lot more positive, you’ll never win being a divisive moaning wanker.
I think Slinging Shit has been the only strategy that Labour have had since Key got in. Following on from these stirling results it has got them nowhere.
However the sun will rise tomorrow and that will be followed by yet another TS post outlining Key as a failure and a liar. So much for the idea that repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result is a sure fire sign of ……oh wait…..
Labour has no idea why its poll performance has been so mediocre. Until it does, playing another round of musical chairs with the leadership is pointless. New captain same sinking ship? Thatll be the second half of Hootens dream come true. Clue – NZ Power should have been just the start, and backing the Greens on some economic and monetary alternatives.
Stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged in society for godssakes, not try and find a “balance”.
Just to pull a name out of the hat, anyone spotted Maryan Street lately? You know, opposing the gutting of the RMA, mining, and the attacks on Auckland by her opposite in government Nick Smith? No, didn’t think so. She is quite useless, and clearly lazy to boot. Still, she is an ex-NZLP bureaucrat and a lesbian woman so that makes her a paid up member of the self-absorbed Labour Wellington political class, which makes her utter uselessness all right I suppose.
If you are beltway senior labour right-wing MP you earn a fat six figure salary to work just as hard as you feel like, you are broadly in agreement with 90% of the governments agenda and 30% in the polls guarantees you and the rest of your faction in control of the parliamentary wing a job for life.
Working hard, and selecting a winning and articulate leadership that gets you over over 40% in the polls just means they newly independent and feisty members might send a whole bunch of n00bs to parliament who will challenge your factions superiority.
Noooooooo to that! It might an opposition MPs office, but it IS an office.
So – crisis? What crisis you talkin’ bout, Willis?
Still, she is an ex-NZLP bureaucrat and a lesbian woman so that makes her a paid up member of the self-absorbed Labour Wellington political class, which makes her utter uselessness all right I suppose.,/i>
What’s sexuality got do to with it?
In contrast, if a heterosexual is performing badly, why is their sexuality rarely mentioned?
it is a symbol of why the NZ public lost faith in the labour government: captured by (sexual) identity politics and nanny-ish interventions, they failed to address social inequality nor restrain the excesses of finance companies
No, the *NZ public* were tired of Labour’s (perceived) weird policies, being scolded by Sue Bradford, and Michael Cullen hoarding record govt revenues for a rainy day.
I agree that we forgot how bad National are at governing, but we also have never seen such an efficient marketing apparatus as the one around Key’s natty team, nor have we seen a PM of such charisma since David Lange
Yep Ropata you are on the money. The big issue with the finance industry debacle is that no matter how many people just laugh it off, it has caused massive pain and taken a huge lump of private capital and wealth out of middle NZ. This is exactly the type of capital that we need to be invested in NZ businesses to allow them to grow and employ more.
Christ! – you and I have a very different definition of ‘charisma’. Never mind though – I suspect it’s me that’s out of tune with muddle Nu Zull.
I wonder how krismetic they think John Key is now though – if they weigh up all the lying and bs.
So Labour are still going to carry the millstones that are Shearer, Robertson, and Mallard into the next election. How many points does it take to drop before they have a clean out? 10? 20?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Shearer has had his chance. Someone else needs to take the leadership. I was originally Team Cunliffe, and he’s still my preferred choice, but I’d accept Robertson, Little, even Goff at this stage.
Basically, yes. Although I think Cunliffe should probably be somewhere on the front bench instead of backbench Siberia.
However my fear is that Shearer says no change not because that’s what he wants, but because the entire senior team is truly compassless and has no idea what to do differently. Maybe give them another 6 months?
PS its a real easy formula for Labour to win, stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged and the struggling. And ditch some of the more onerous neo liberal and monetary constraints this nation is subservient to.
What you are really suggesting is that all Herald polls are shit and no-one should take the slightest notice of such rubbish,
The right in desperation at the true nature of National’s vote, in my opinion 42-43.5%, are now flogging NZFirst simply because no matter how thick they are they now realize they have no other option left to gain a third term in 2014…
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
You have an opinion of the level of National’s support? Why didn’t you say so before? We can stop all this bothersome polling every three months and just ask bad12 what his or her opinion of the support of each party is. Actually, when you think about it, why bother with elections.
Wevvilybiscuit
Fancy you as opinionated as you are, castigating bad12 for that. I presume you don’t mean that we should step down in favour of bad12 as dictator. Though the opinions offered sound sound. Perhaps you haven’t any points to argue so are merely doing more of the s..t throwing that is the last resort of those facing being disproved.
lprent
When I submitted my last comment above I got the rolling ball showing that it was being processed and then I got the connection cut – service closed message on the site page. So I pressed back arrow and got back onto TS page, went to Home and updated page and found that my comment had gone through. This was a bit confusing though.
Also I notice a few duplicate comments going through. Usually if I mistakenly press twice I get a message advising that so don’t get that.
Nonsense. The fact that a couple of vague nods to social responsibility looks so “left” (to you and John Key) just shows how deeply stuck in the right wing status quo they are.
Also, voters don’t hate Labour. We’re just not interested in Labour because they offer nothing different, especially to those who most need something different.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2.7.1.2.1.1
Well actually I didn’t say they aren’t “left enough”, I said they aren’t offering anything different. And I don’t think your idea of of “left” has much to do with my idea of “different”.
But seeing as you went there, Hone’s majority is more than 1000 votes. Over Labour.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
I don’t see why, North. Lots of people here seem to think Labour are so electorally unpopular because they are not left enough. But the parties to the left of them are even less popular, so that can’t be right.
Parties to the left of Labour are not unpopular with their growing constituency base GF; conflation methinks you display for one so ‘perceptive’. There is a grassroots movement underfoot, oh, that’s Right, you have not been following the increased surveillance debate…/
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Well, of course they are not unpopular with the people who support them, but that’s a bit of a shit argument. Kyle Chapman’s political movement is popular with the people who support it as well. Folk dancing is popular with the people who support that, as well. Doesn’t mean it is popular in the populace as a whole.
According to the Digipoll, Colin Craig’s bunch of fuck heads enjoy three times the level of support of the Mana Party.
Why anyone would give an iota of credence to a political poll conducted by or on behalf of the HERALD is beyond me,
There is only one remote possibility of Slippery the PM gaining a third term for this National Government and that is with the support of Winston’s NZFirst,
The wider press have for the past 5 years attempted to sway the electorate by ‘deliberately’ talking down the true % NZFirst enjoyed from the electorate, i used at the 2011 election a specific gambling/poll to correctly judge NZFirst’s support by simply monitoring the % over the months leading up to that election that that particular gambling/poll discounted the NZFirst % back down under the 5% every time that party attained the 5% over a number of months,
THEY are messing with your minds via their polls and i would suggest any left leaning voter who voted for Winston in 2011 seriously think about voting for another party…
its a real easy formula for Labour to win, stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged and the struggling. And ditch some of the more onerous neo liberal and monetary constraints this nation is subservient to.
or, you could be wrong and it puts them further down in the polls.
”We’re going to be doing exactly what we are doing now,” Shearer said when asked what difference the poll would make….
This shows his appalling lack of Leadership and disregard for the people that Labour represents, what he should have said is” …this is a worry, New Zealand has never had greater inequality and clearly we are not connecting with the people who need us. We will be doing everything we can do to change this.”
He’s useless, for the sake of the Left he has to let go of the Labour Leadership.
Hear that ducky, kingy, goffy and all you other has beens to comfy in the trough whilst ignoring the wishes of the rank and file.
It’s the sound of inevitability…….the train wreck is coming unless you hand over the controls and sit back quietly whilst the new blood wrests the agenda back and gets the disaffected third back in the polling booths.
Coal is going to be discouraged and many thermal plants shut down. Fracking and nuclear power encouraged. XL tar sands pipeline still a possibility if GHG effects are not “significant”.
See also….
No. 22 Mike Bush: “Bruce Hutton had integrity beyond reproach.”
No. 21 Tim Groser: “I think the relationship is genuinely in outstanding form.”
No. 20 John Key: “But if the question is do we use the United States or one of our other partners to circumvent New Zealand law then the answer is categorically no.”
No. 19 Matthew Hooton: “It is ridiculous to say that unions deliver higher wages! They DON’T!”
No. 18 Ant Strachan: “The All Blacks won the RWC 2011 because of outstanding defence!”
No. 17 Stephen Franks: “Peter has been such a level-headed, safe pair of hands.”
No. 16 Phil Kafcaloudes: “Tony Abbott…hasn’t made any mistakes over the past eighteen months.”
No. 15 Donald Rumsfeld: “I did not lie… Colin Powell did not lie.”
No. 14 Colin Powell: “a post-9/11 nexus between Iraq and terrorist organizations…connections are now emerging…”
No.13 Barack Obama: “Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.” http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27052013/#comment-638881
No. 12 U.K. Ministry of Defence: “Protecting the Afghan civilian population is one of ISAF and the UK’s top priorities.”
No. 11 Brendan O’Connor: “Australia’s approach to refugees is compassionate and generous.”
No. 10 Boris Johnson: “Londoners have… the best police in the world to look after us and keep us safe.”
No. 9 NewstalkZB PR dept: “News you NEED! Fast, fair, accurate!”
No. 8 Simon Bridges: “I don’t mean to duck the question….”
No. 7 Nigel Morrison: “Quite frankly, they’ve been VERY tough.”
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15052013/#comment-633295
No. 6 NZ Herald PR dept: “Congratulations—you’re reading New Zealand’s best newspaper.”
No. 5 Rawdon Christie: “…a FORMIDABLE replacement, it seems, is Claudette Hauiti.” http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13052013/#comment-632594
No. 4 Willie and J.T.: “The X-Factor. Nah, nah, there’s some GREAT talent there!”
No. 3 John Key: “Yeah we hold MPs to a higher standard.”
No. 2 Colin Craig: “Oh, I have a GREAT sense of humour.”
No. 1 Barack Obama: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the great champions of freedom and liberty.”
Funny but I dont see Ms Klarks name in the top 3 where she should be for (in any order you like) I believe Winston, I didnt notice we were speeding, I painted that.
She’s DavidC’s bogeyperson. The one who makes him wake up hot and wimpering in the night and Mummy runs and guides his little thumby into his frightened little mouthy. And one day he’ll grow up to be a fuckwit ! Poor thing. Always lagging a good 5 years behind everyone else. Though for such a littley he’s very knowledgable re The World’s Greatest Art Heists and the Kaikohe Demolition Derby.
felix.. maybe you slept thru it…
Ms Klark ruled over Hulungrad … 9 years marred by overspending and election bribes in a bumper time when something should have been left in the public purse..instead we got “I have spent the lot” and a broken trainset.
Funny but I dont see Ms Klarks name in the top 3 where she should be for (in any order you like) I believe Winston, I didnt notice we were speeding, I painted that.
She might well end up on the list, but not for the minor speeding thing or the Paintergate beat-up. It’s a measure of just how lacking in seriousness you are that those two trivialities are all you can think of to denigrate her.
Yes brazil 2014 will be an interesting media event, how many will venture from the sanctuary of the FIFA endorsed hospitality to see the real Brazil and how some new stadiums are in cities with no professional football club.
Watched the 2ecobars recently (excellent ESPN documentary)….no surprise that the head of FIFA is a brazilian with a rainforest full of skeletons.
I’m sure you are right that the media contingent will not venture out of the air conditioned suites, except for maybe a spot of police escorted danger tourism to a favela to show how daring they are. However, Brazil in 2014 is still a relatively understandable location. Qatar 2022, on the other hand …
btw, FIFA’s head is the odious Sepp Blatter, who is Swiss. You might have been thinking of the jackboot loving Joao Havelange, his predecessor. I think he still holds the somewhat ironic title of ‘honorary’ president, though.
Constitution Conversation –
Has there been one on The Standard that I have missed? There is still time – through to 31 July. One month and we should be able to come up with some cogent comments.
Yes its a good result for NZ but my main worry is that National won’t get a 4th term (although with Labour being such a shambles you can’t rule anything out) which means NZ will miss out on Collins running the country, building on the great work of John Key
John Key has stopped the runaway tanker and righted it and soon it’ll be Collins firmly putting the tanker into full steam ahead…if NZ is lucky, if NZ is unlucky the Greens will cobble together a coilition in 2017 and all the good work done by National will be wasted
I don’t give a shit about the mythical “left” just as I don’t give a shit about the equally mythical “right”. What I do care about is the country that I am leaving my children and if you think that National (or Labour for that matter) are improving the long term prognosis for this country then quite frankly – you’re deluded..
You denounce the collective approach to everything – and then you embrace the collective approach when it some to your own affiars. e.g. Fonterra, Foodstuffs, pretty much every single coprorate.
Why is that? Why do you say one thing and do another?
The real issue with the Herald poll is that it shows Cunliffe twice as popular with voters (both Labour and overall) as Robertson, or anyone else.
It doesn’t matter to ABC how badly Labour are doing. If the price of victory is the guy they hate, then they would prefer a defeat. We can brainstorm “solutions” or “improvements” for Labour all day, all year, but the simple, inescapable fact is … as voters, our priorities are fundamentally opposed to theirs.
We want a change of government, therefore a change in party. They want no change in party – regardless of cost to us. That’s all.
“It doesn’t matter to ABC how badly Labour are doing.”
Maybe now it does.
I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes in the Labour caucus. I can only hope and pray they have come to their senses. The Shearer experiment needs to be abandoned ASAP.
Desperation= The Herald giving the architect of ‘the gambling harm minimization bill’ column inches to explain His position vis a vis the complete and utter gutting of that piece of legislation by it’s coalition partner Slippery’s National Government,
The Maori Party’s Te Ururoa Flavell needn’t have bothered, explaining the intricacies of being the ‘Lapdog’ of the National Government in such eloquent terms still leaves the Maori Party and Te Ururoa Flavell occupying the seat as ‘Lapdog’ no matter how many or how few the weasel words are that attempt to provide a justification,
Flavell should face the facts, National went behind His back getting Tariana and Pita to accept the gutting of His harm minimization bill and Flavell had to swallow the dead rat once the changes agreed to by His leaders were made,
The ‘harm minimization legislation is in fact a metaphor for the actual gains that the Maori Party have made for their voters and Maori in general after two terms as National’s coalition partner,
Nothing is the consensus among Maori, while the Maori Party gained it’s ‘slush fund’ in Whanau Ora, Maori who use tobacco products paid for this with increased taxes,
There is no Mana in the Maori Party and Flavell must now know that He is ‘Owned’ by National MP’s only too happy to laugh in His face even doing so on National TV,
Te Ururoa should now negotiate with Hone Harawira to bring His electorate into the Mana Party as being the ‘leader’ of nothing after the 2014 election will leave Him with none whatsoever,
New Zealand Post has told staff it intends to close its Waikato, Wellington, Dunedin and heartland mail processing centres at a cost of 500 jobs.
The plan will result in 130 job losses in Waikato, 160 in Wellington, 75 in Dunedin and 125 in heartland and satellite sites.
New Zealand Post has indicated there is potential for 250 new full time equivalent roles in its Auckland, Manawatu and Christchurch mail centres, but predicts fewer than 5% of people affected by the cuts will relocate.
EPMU postal industry organiser Joe Gallagher says the announcement is devastating news for workers and their communities.
“There are a lot of people deeply fearful for their futures today. This is not a good time to find yourself on the dole queue and in the current environment it’s going to be very hard to get another job with secure hours and good rates of pay.
“We’re going to work with New Zealand Post to ensure everyone who loses their job receives their full redundancy entitlements and assistance finding new employment, but the reality is that won’t be enough.
“The Government really needs to step up to the plate here by making jobs its number one priority. People need to have some decent alternatives when they find themselves out of work and at the moment the jobs just aren’t there.”
Mr Gallagher says the union will continue to challenge cuts to New Zealand Post’s services, which also include a proposal to reduce postal delivery to three days a week and replace post offices with kiosks.
“We recognise New Zealand Post faces considerable commercial pressures and that some degree of change is inevitable, but we’re not convinced service cuts on this scale are justified.
“There are some serious questions about the figures these proposals are based on and we’ll be taking this up with the company and with the Government.”
Mr Gallagher says the union will continue to challenge cuts to New Zealand Post’s services, which also include a proposal to reduce postal delivery to three days a week and replace post offices with kiosks.
So the union thinks the tax payer should subsidize NZ post, why?
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise dairy farmers?
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise the NZX?
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise businesses who make money by capital gain?
maybe because the taxpayers subsidised Steven Joyce’s ex-company Mediaworks?
Not at all. There is a difference between the state forgoing a tax (Warners) and using taxes taken to subsidise a failing business (NZ Post).
I hardly ever use post to my home any more – the effect of dropping a few days deliveries has no negative effect on me. A negative effect on the postie? No doubt at all but using that argument there should be deliveries 4 times a day and twice on the weekends (at time and a half). We don’t have lamppost lighting men or night soil men any more either and I am afraid that the postie is going the same way. The model is not viable in this day and age and keeping it as a public good (which I agree with) can only go so far.
Yes, dead right there’s a difference. Warners is a foreign company with no links to NZ other than via the liar Jackson’s wallet who got a whopping wedge of payola for no logical reason at all and NZ Post is a profitable NZ owned company that interacts with most kiwis most days and provides a service that will still be needed for generations to come in some form or other.
Are you arguing that NZ would have been better off if the Hobbit was made elsewhere? Sorry don’t answer that as it is not the point I was trying to make.
Are you suggesting that NZ Post should be subsidised just because it interacts with most people people most days? Like the night soil men? Should we still have them? Should we ban milk sales in supermarkets to protect the milk deliveries?
It was never going to be made elsewhere. It was always going to be made here. However, what little substance there was to the vague threat was enough to get Key reaching for the cheque book.
NZ Post is not being subsidised. It’s profitable (didn’t I already write this?)
Where did the union say it wanted a subsidy? It’s simply said it’s challenging the figures and that the scale of cuts isn’t justified by the decline of mail volume. FFS, you people need to learn to read.
Holy crap that is bad news. Why bother with a nation state if you just sack everyone? Last person with a proper job please turn out the lights. The natz still want to keep the spooks, coppers and Army on tho.
When Labour greens mana Maori Winston first do finally cobble together a coalition ( sit down and watch the fun) it will be an interesting side show to watch the government of the damned hold themselves to the same standard they have demanded from National the prior 12 or 15 years.
I think the left are missing the point completely. NZ will not stand for the policies that Labour and the greens promote. These policies have very much frightened the horses. But I am received that Shearer is not going to change a thing ( how could he – that would take some doing against the factionalised Labour Party.)
Easy. LP+Greens+NZF in any combination of Government coalition or just confidence and supply. And do bear in mind that this is the Herald, not exactly the paragon of accuracy. Every percentage point Labour get above Granny’s figure is a nail in Key’s coffin.
As I’ve said before, the only poll that even comes close to being accurate is the Roy Morgan. The function of the others is to convince Labour supporters not to vote.
Heres your problem, Russell Norman siad he wont be in any coalition with nzfirst.
Then you have the fact that the greens always poll higher than they get. You have national and the maori party, thats all they need. a party with cant become government.
Her’s your problem, you are full of s**t, give us a link to anywhere Russel Norman has said he will not enter a coalition Government that NZFirst are part of…
TRP of course Labour will be able to form a govt with 30.9%. Which position will Labour give to the Greens? Deputy PM + Economic Development or Finance?
Big day over the ditch. Two independents, Oakshott and Windsor, have just announced their retirements at the next election. Neither will support a Rudd led Government for the rest of the term if Gillard loses to him tomorrow, so, if she does get rolled, expect a vote of no confidence from the Liberals immediately and an election in a month.
New Zealand’s waste policies are stuck in the 19th Century as ever-rising levels of rubbish are dumped to landfill instead of a system fit for the 21st Century of more and better recycling and possibly waste incineration, a leading environmental law expert says.
This is so true. Absolutely nothing should be going to landfills as it should all be recycled and if it can’t be recycled then it shouldn’t be on the market.
QT 25.6
Q.6. Parker- according to the ANZ analysis, the domestic-centric balance of growth is not sustainable.
Q.8. “more (oversight) with less resources will be rquired to police migrant exploitation”-Darien Fenton.
Q.10. Amy Adams (felt unwell just watching her) – “not a good idea for local councils to be regulating GMO’s under their plans” (Northland and Auckland councils putting in protections; Adams swooping in to over-ride). NAct have a GMO-promoting agenda (productivity gains in sight).
moving Right along…, 1000’s of the elderly are being scammed out of millions per year; fear and embarrassment preventing declaration of foolishness. “Names” of the gullible are placed on “suckers lists”; no understanding, what did they learn through the course of their lives?
Regional Council admits the vulnerability of Wellington to Nature, you don’t say, well, blow me away with a feather!.
“NZ Land Transport are fueling the housing crisis” Surprise surprise!
NZ is ranked worst out of 33 OECD countries for the earning potential of University graduates, realising a mere 18% premium above secondary school leavers.
NZ Post used to be a respected operation, which has been run into the ground. with or without digital mail, its been slide created by inept/corrupt management, directors!
Nope, it’s obvious that snail mail is on the way out. Industry, on the other hand, should be increasing with NZ producing more and more from our own resources.
Good Labour policy would protect a few hundred jobs a year using millions of tax payers dollars. Think of being able to go into an election saying unemployment is low…. Very popular thing to do and well worth bankrupting the country for the popularity of the red team…
Perhaps we could learn from how government protected the railways from road transport competition. Make it illegal for eMail to get to the destination faster than snail mail. That little “protectionist” law kept about 15,000 employees in safe jobs in the railways… Protecting a dysfunctional pit for tax payers dollars because it was a state owned monopoly….
A few hundred jobs for a few million tax payers dollars is cheap as chips.
Yes … The wagon wheel business could still be making beautifully crafted wooden wheels for horse drawn carts keeping those jobs alive and keeping the ‘Waggon wheel makers’ union happy. Imagine the fun we could have building them breaking them down for a few million each year protecting those jobs that were going to be lost 60 years ago….
And burt comes back with the old but Labour did it too whinge. Yes burt, they’ve both been doing it and it’s something that’s been done for centuries. Capitalism isn’t the massive engine of progress that you and others seem to think – it runs on government subsidies. Without them it’d crash and burn.
BTW, burt, this government increased the subsidies specifically for The Hobbit.
Moscow doesn’t just have a public train system- it has a public escalator system!
How do you keep them running?
“People,” Likhachev says. His division has a staff of 3,000. It has workers posted at every station during operating hours. It has a 20-member emergency rapid response team. It also has its own factory churning out spare parts, “so we don’t have to rely on suppliers.”
This is not to say that all escalators work all the time, because they don’t. But let’s be clear about one thing: “We do not have escalators out of order,” Likhachev says. “We close some for repair.”
…and today’s programme has been brought to you by the letter ‘A’, and the number ’11’
(Oscar is definitely not a prince in waiting).
“Alienation: A psychological or social evil, characterised by one or another type of harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation, which sunders things which belong together. people are alienated from the political process when they feel separated from it and powerless in relation to it; this is alienation because in a democratic society you belong in the political process, and as a citizen it ought to belong to you.
Reflection on your beliefs, values or social order can also alienate you from them. It can undermine your attachment to them, cause you to feel separated from them, no longer identified with them, yet without furnishing anything to take their place; they are yours ‘faute de mieux’, but no longer truly yours: they are yours, but you are alienated from them.
Marx derived the terms ‘Entdusserung’ and ‘Entfremdung’ from Hegel, who used them to portray the ‘unhappy consciousness’ of the Roman world and the Christian Middle Ages.
Marx used essentially the same notion to portray the situation of modern individuals- especially modern wage labourers- who are deprived of a fulfilling mode of life because their life-activity as socially productive agents is devoid of any sense of communal action or satisfaction and gives them no ownership over their own lives or their products. In modern society, individuals are alienated in so far as their common essence, the actual cooperative activity which naturally unites them, is powerless in their lives, which are subject to an inhuman power- created by them, but separating and dominating them instead of being subject to their united will.
This is the power of the ‘market’, which is ‘free’ only in the sense that it is beyond the control of it’s human creators, enslaving them by separating them from one another, from their activity, and from it’s products.
The verbs ‘entaussern’ and ‘entfremden’ are reflexive, and in both Hegel and Marx alienation is always fundamentally ‘self’-alienation.Fundamentally, to be alienated is to be separated from one’s own essence or nature; it is to be forced to lead a life in which that nature has no opportunity to be fulfilled or actualized.
Your life objectively actualizes your nature, especially (for both Marx and Hegel) your life with others as a social being on the basis of a determinate course of historical development.
Their view that alienation, so conceived, can nevertheless have historical consequences, and even be a lever for social change, clearly invokes some sort of realism about the human good: it makes a difference, psychologically and socially, whether people actualize their nature, and when they do not, this fact explains waht they think, feel and do, and it can play a decisive role in historical change.
More laughing and sneering at dissidents
Inanity rules, as usual, on The Panel
Radio NZ National, Wednesday 26 June 2013
Jim Mora, Dita De Boni, Chris Wikaira
JIM MORA: All right, it’s Susan Baldacci with what the woooooorld’s talking about! What have you got for us today?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Someone who’s name is on the lips of virtually EVERYBODY is Edward Snowden.
DITA DE BONI: Oh yes? He he he he he!
MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yeeeeeessss, well this guy is the new JETSET TRAVELLER!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Well, people have been asking how the heck he DOES it!
DITA DE BONI: Yes! I’ve been asking that!
MORA: He’s like a ghost!
DITA DE BONI: Apparently he didn’t even need a passport to get into Russia!
SUSAN BALDACCI: No, well that’s just it, you see. You only need a passport if the country you are entering DEMANDS one. That’s how so many refugees manage to get into countries after they have destroyed their documents.
DITA DE BONI: What is the advantage for Ecuador in taking this guy?
MORA: Arrrgghh, they’re just thumbing their nose at the world.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yeah. Otherwise why would they take Julian Assange?
DITA DE BONI: Exactly.
MORA: They’re staking out a position in South America.
DITA DE BONI: Exactly!
MORA: Okay, moving on. You’ve got something about Stephen Fry?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yes, he has written about how extremely depressed he gets sometimes.
MORA: He always seems, to me, to live a gilded life. He’s erudite, he’s witty, he’s clever, he’s just so admired.
DITA DE BONI:[slowly, to indicate great seriousness] I think he struggles with being gay.
SUSAN BALDACCI: I think he’s a tortured soul.
DITA DE BONI: When he came out, it wasn’t so cool you know? It wasn’t so hip, you know?
….[Awkward silence]….
MORA: Mmmmmkayyy… Okay, Susan Baldacci, what else have you got?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Well, there’s a new survey has found the best places for a tertiary education. They are, number one: CANADA.
MORA: Canada! Hmmmmm.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Number two is ISRAEL.
MORA: Israel, yes.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Japan was third.
MORA: Japan was third?
SUSAN BALDACCI:[clearly irritated] Y-y-y-y-yes. The United States was fourth. And fifth was… NEW ZEALAND! Sixth was South Korea, seventh the U.K., eighth was Australia, and Ireland was next.
….[Stunned silence for several seconds]…..
DITA DE BONI: I am really shocked by that. New Zealand at number FIVE?!!??!?!?
now, that is very funny Morrissey, but wait, a song hearkens… Oh my word, what does it mean
won’t you please read my signs, be a Gypsy.
Love To All On The Left.
Morrissey. We are so fortunate that we do not have to listen to Newstalkzb, Radio Live, the National Programme from dawn to dusk. We have you. (transcripts and all). Keep up the good work, especially the ever growing listings of liars and deceivers. However, I hope you were able to appreciate that there was fog, drizzle, and occasional sunshine over Auckland today.
I hate to have to keep repeating this, but Moz’s efforts are not transcripts. They are his half remembered impressions of what was said. Other than the names, most of what he claims above bears little resemblance to what was actually said, or the tone in which it was said.
I hate to have to keep repeating this, but Moz’s efforts are not transcripts.
I did not haul out the old BASF tape and insert it into the tape-recorder, no. And no, that was not a sexual metaphor.
They are his half remembered impressions of what was said.
Anyone who listened to that horrible fifteen minutes of inanity yesterday knows that what I wrote is way, way more than “half remembered.”
Other than the names, most of what he claims above bears little resemblance to what was actually said, or the tone in which it was said.
I challenge anyone to dispute seriously that the characters in my little horror script are not simulacra of the principals involved in yesterday’s Panel pre-show segment. Any listener who persevered with listening to them will attest that Dita De Boni really was that shallow, that Susan Baldacci really was that disgusting, and that Jim Mora really was, as always, that special mix of avuncular, cowardly, frivolous, insincere and superficial.
Keep up the good work, especially the ever growing listings of liars and deceivers.
Sadly, Liars of Our Time is a series which seems to have no prospect of ending any time soon. Watch out also for: Dum Quote of the Week, Hall of Hogwash, Humbug Corner, Luvvies on the Loose, The Ouch! File, The Subservience Index, Weasel Watch, Wimp Walloping and Yeah Right.
However, I hope you were able to appreciate that there was fog, drizzle, and occasional sunshine over Auckland today.
That transcript—or, as our friend Te Reo Putake reminds us, that “impression”—was done quickly, by hand, then typed up in a fever. That was the only time I listened to the radio all afternoon. Similarly, I don’t watch much TV, although it might seem like it sometimes.
The state’s right to increase its powers of surveillance and Key’s old chestnut assurance that “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. In an odd way, the Texas legislature has just sent a warning to us all. What is legal today, might not be should a radical change of government take place in the future. A government that could trawl through the googol bytes of data on files and establish that an individual or group were doing things that are suddenly subversive or anti-state in the new administration’s views.
3rd Degree tonight must surely settle the question. Robin did it.
The evidence was there from day one and nobody – not the lawyers, not the police, not Karam, not the firearms experts, not anyone who looked at the photos ever noticed it. By the time Robin’s body reached the pathologist the evidence was probably gone, brushed off, but those magazine loading marks on his thumb and forefinger in the crime scene photos are unmistakable.
Yeah, nah. It’s interesting, but is it provable evidence? We don’t make legal decisions based on TV shows, thankfully. Bear in mind that the show was based around the premise that it proves Robin Bain did it. I’d wait for the responses from the coppers and prosecution before making a judgement. And, if it was David, he could conceivably pressed the magazine to his dead Dad’s fingers about the same time he typed the computer message.
Having said all that, it does beggar belief that his body wasn’t checked more thoroughly.
Yep, true, it’s not conclusive, but it’s the piece of the puzzle I was looking for. I always thought David did it. It’s close enough to the smoking gun for me. It virtually is the smoking gun. It’s never even been raised before. As you say, the next few days and comments from police etc will be interesting.
David could have conceivably done that, but if he had, wouldn’t he have attempted to draw attention to the marks in the 2 pics? They were both widely used in the trials. Will be an interesting few weeks ahead.
That’s along the lines I’m thinking. If he was clever enough to go to that degree of detail to frame his dad, surely he’d have been clever enough to have found a way to nudge his defence team into noticing the marks. They’d be so critically important to the defence case.
Another thought: how come David didn’t spot the marks? He must have stared at those photos for years and he would have seen the same marks on his own hand every time he used the gun.
That’s the thing, TRP. It suggests he’s innocent. The residue stripes happen to anyone loading a magazine after the gun’s been fired, and that one misfires a lot and needed reloading even at the murder scene, but it’s just powder and it rubs off almost straight away just doing anything – people may not even pay it any attention. He just may have never thought of it. If he’d framed his dad he’d have thought of it.
According to the doco, the photos weren’t blown up. The Waikato man who discovered the marks noticed them after the pictures were enlarged considerably.
Yeah. The guy is a businessman and took an interest before the last trial. He was looking at the pics enlarged on his computer screen I think he said. And he used to shoot as a lad on a farm. That’s how he made the connection. The compensation case just got very interesting again.
Be interesting to hear James (was it) McNeish’s response. He was pretty public and on occasion near shrewish in his condemnation of David Bain.
NZ Femme above – yeah, David Bain could have done that number. I mean no one can prove he didn’t but it’s as unlikely as the nonsense someone in the Crown or the police were mouthing off – he or his lawyer or somebody deliberately ballsed things up for the joy of being convicted a murderer, then winning a retrial or an appeal or something ???
Sounds very much Simon Bridges ex-Crown prosecutor to me, viz. bloody ridiculous.
Right. Like you and Arfamo, it makes no sense at all to me either.
“I’m going to spend the next 13 years rotting in jail, sitting on evidence I handily whipped up earlier that could get me off, entirely for shits and giggles.”
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Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
It may have been a short week but there’s been no shortage of things that caught our attention. Here is some of the most interesting. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt took a look at public transport ridership in 2024 On Thursday Connor asked some questions ...
The East Is Red: Journalists and commentators are referring to the sudden and disruptive arrival of DeepSeek as a second “Sputnik moment”. (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world’s first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, ...
Hi,Back on inauguration day we launched a ridiculous RFK Jr. “brain worms” tee on the Webworm store, and I told you I’d be throwing my profits over to Mutual Aid LA and Rainbow Youth New Zealand. Just to show I am not full of shit, here are the receipts. I ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump over Gaza and Ukraine.Health expert and author David Galler ...
In an uncompromising paper Treasury has basically told the Government that its plan for a third medical school at Waikato University is a waste of money. Furthermore, the country cannot afford it. That advice was released this week by the Treasury under the Official Information Act. And it comes as ...
Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest David Patman and ...
I don't like to spend all my time complaining about our government, so let me complain about the media first.Senior journalistic Herald person Thomas Coughlan reported that Treasury replied yeah nah, wrong bro to Luxon's claim that our benighted little country has been in recession for three years.His excitement rose ...
Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: ...
With The Stroke Of A Pen:Populism, especially right-wing populism, invests all the power of an electoral/parliamentary majority in a single political leader because it no longer trusts the bona fides of the sprawling political class among whom power is traditionally dispersed. Populism eschews traditional politics, because, among populists, traditional politics ...
I’ve spent the last week writing a fairly substantial review of a recent book (“Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race”) by a couple of Australian academic economists on Australia’s pandemic policies and experiences. For all its limitations, there isn’t anything similar in New Zealand. ...
Mr Mojo Rising: Economic growth is possible, Christopher Luxon reassures us, but only under a government that is willing to get out of the way and let those with drive and ambition get on with it.ABOUT TWELVE KILOMETRES from the farm on the North Otago coast where I grew up stands ...
You're nearly a good laughAlmost a jokerWith your head down in the pig binSaying, 'Keep on digging.'Pig stain on your fat chinWhat do you hope to findDown in the pig mine?You're nearly a laughYou're nearly a laughBut you're really a crySongwriter: Roger Waters.NZ First - Kiwi Battlers.Say what you like ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Climate denial is dead. Renewable energy denial is here. As “alternative facts” become the norm, it’s worth looking at what actual facts tell us about how renewable energy sources like solar and wind are lowering the price of electricity. As ...
SIR GEOFFREY PALMER is worried about democracy. In his Newsroom website post of 27 January 2025 he asserts that “the future of democracy across the world now seems to be in question.” Following a year of important electoral contests across the world, culminating in Donald Trump’s emphatic recapture of the ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Officially, they’re called ‘memecoins,’ but Kōura Wealth founder Rupert Carlyon says the crypto world has another name for them: ‘shitcoins’.In digital finance, that phrase is used for tokens that have no true value – in essence, a money-grab.A few days before his inauguration, US President Donald Trump launched his own ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. Guy Williams has made a whole show off the joke that he is a “volunteer” journalist. So getting publicly owned by David Seymour while trying to act as a journalist is a good and timely reminder not to underestimate the nuance and ...
Many of Sāmoa’s beloved dishes are the result of cultural collaboration, writes Madeleine Chapman. All photos by Jin FelletIf you ever find yourself at a barbecue in a Sāmoan home, there’s 99% chance that sapasui (chop suey) will be on the table. For the past century, sapasui has ...
The funnyman takes us through his life in television, including Jono and Ben mayhem, live Telethon flubs, and funnelling all those experiences into his new comedy Vince. There’s an inciting incident in Three’s new comedy Vince where morning television presenter Vince Walters (Jono Pryor) is visiting sick kids in hospital ...
People often claim they just want Waitangi Day to be a celebration. At Waitangi, away from the headlined political acrimony and the marae ātea, celebrating is what most people are doing. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous ...
Is there anything more fashionable than a Māori get together? One of the best things about Northland is that nobody cares what they look like — probably because they’re all naturally more stylish than the rest of us, famously. Māori from the Far North, especially. In 27 degree heat, wearing ...
I’ve been in love with him since last July, but it’s only now in this tepid hotel room that I find myself wondering why. The first thing he does when we arrive is smoke a cone in the bathroom – he emerges, hacking up a lung, fists thrust into his ...
MONDAY“Name,” barked a representative of the lower orders.I regarded him with a look of stern disapproval, and told him from up high, “May I remind you that I have name suppression. I shall also thank you to ask with more respect as befits a former president of the Act Party, ...
Books of Mana: 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira has just been released by Otago University Press. In this essay, Books are Taonga, Jeanette Wikaira explores her personal relationship to books and their value.For me, books are taonga. The knowledge ...
Get to know Tara, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Tara’s human for their support! Dog name: Tara Age: Two Breed: Mostly Border Collie and a little bit Catahoula Leopard dog If dog ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Gail Duncan, Chairperson of the St Peter’s on Willis Social Justice Group, one of the organisations invited to submit on the Bill, says the Government’s actions are unprecedented. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amani Kasherwa, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University An ad falsely depicting independent candidate Alex Dyson as a Greens member.ABC News/Supplied The highly pertinent case of a little-known independent candidate in the Victorian seat of Wannon has exposed a gaping ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland Nik/Unsplash You might have heard that eating too many eggs will cause high cholesterol levels, leading to poor health. Researchers have examined the science behind this myth again, and ...
Everything you missed from the third day of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard four hours of oral submission. Read our recaps of day one of the hearings here, and day two here. Parliament was quiet on Friday for the third day of hearings on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University Tijana Simic/Shutterstock The news last week that three people in Sydney were hospitalised with botulism after receiving botox injections has raised questions about the regulation of the cosmetic injectables industry. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jens Blotevogel, Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader for Remediation Technologies, CSIRO Mino Surkala, Shutterstock Lithium-ion batteries are part of everyday life. They power small rechargeable devices such as mobile phones and laptops. They enable electric vehicles. And larger versions store ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edith Jennifer Hill, Associate Lecturer, Learning & Teaching Innovation, Flinders University Netflix Netflix’s new limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar, tells the story of the elaborate cancer con orchestrated by Australian blogger Annabelle (Belle) Gibson. The first episode opens with Gibson’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University Greece’s government has just declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini, as earthquakes shake the island multiple times a day and sometimes only minutes apart. The “earthquake swarm” is also affecting other ...
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 Western Australian state election will be held on March 8. A Newspoll, conducted January 29 to February 4 from a sample ...
She’s back behind the wheel, and this time, she wants to find out what it is that makes us tick. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. After a prolific career on stage and screen, 83-year-old Miriam Margolyes is on the road again. ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel. Real Poet Every word earned its place and so did he, so should you. Real poet lives in the capital but writes himself into the Mackenzie country golden hour, man of the paper land, he neglects to mention his pollen ...
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 Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail (Wai Ako Press, $25) No better time to get ...
The committee has published this list to inform the public about its work, and to give clarity to submitters who have contacted the committee asking if they will be invited to make an oral submission. ...
Alex Casey and Gabi Lardies dissect their Laneway 2025 experience. Gabi Lardies: Hi Alex :))))))) Congratulations on not getting sunburnt. Everyone I talked to at Laneway yesterday was braving the sun for one thing. Charli XCX. How was your brat experience?Alex Casey: We will talk about the rest of ...
The US President's suggestion, which sparked enormous debate globally, has been labelled as a threat, not a proposal, by the Federation of Islamic Associations. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine McCarthy, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Interior of Auckland South Men’s Prison.Getty Images Prisons are not colourful places. Typically, they are grey or some variation of a monochrome colour scheme. But increasingly, ...
FICTION1Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)Interesting to note that the author of the biggest-selling New Zealand novel in Waitangi Week is Māori (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, and Ngāti Kahungunu).2 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David ...
Remembering the renowned New Zealand writer, who died on February 5, 2025. The Stopover When the trout rise like compassion It is worth watching when the hinds come down from the hills with a new message it will be as well to listen. – Brian Turner Poet, environmentalist, sportsman, journalist, ...
Survivors can choose to have former High Court judge Paul Davison assess their individual claims to tailor payments to their personal circumstances. ...
Are we too modest when it comes to celebrating our putrid plant life?She’s beauty. She’s grace. She smells like a decaying corpse and lurks in the backrooms of Auckland Zoo, wallowing tragically in a bucket. In recent weeks an Australian corpse plant named Putricia has captured the noses and ...
Politicians from the coalition government received a frosty reception at Waitangi this year, but Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says the pōwhiri that received so much attention was just one part of many events throughout the week. ...
Live stream to Obama’s speech on climate change.
http://live.reuters.com/Event/politics
“Every country has to play its part”.
“it will require all of us….
“Those of us in positions of responsibility will have to less concerned with the worries of special interests…..
“Those of us in positions of responsibility will have to less concerned with the worries of special interests…..”
Jenny, you do realize who spoke those words, don’t you? I presume you are posting this up as satire.
What will be the response of political leaders around the world, and our leaders here, to Obama’s speech?
Will John Key issue a statement in response?
Unlikely
How about David Shearer?
Also unlikely
What about the Greens?
Will the Green Party issue a statement calling on the other two to give a response and make a stand?
Will Obama’s speech be just like a pebble dropped into the ocean, unremarked in this country and around the world?
In the face of this existential threat like no other ever faced by humanity, will business as usual be the unspoken commitment that we will receive from our leaders?
What will be the response of political leaders around the world, and our leaders here, to Obama’s speech?
MEMO JENNY:
Barack Obama is not taken seriously by anyone. He did nothing at all during his first term except spout rhetoric (that impressed Jim Mora at least) but he was too timid or too compromised or too indolent to actually DO anything, whether it was about conservation, or justice in the middle east, or anything at all. Now, barely six months into his second term, this ineffectual and empty poseur is already a lame duck.
Why are you urging people to flog this dead horse?
Yours mixed metaphorically,
Morrissey
Not sure exactly what you were expecting Obama to achieve when he was saddled with an incredibly partisan and frankly insane republican majority in the house.
Also he did get the health reforms through – a shadow of what they needed to be, but an achievement none-the-less.
No one gets to be pressie without being in the belly of the US imperialist beast.
On May 9 2012 in an ABC interview Obama said “…I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” This reverberated around the world. The gay marriage movement in this country had been bubbling along gaining litle traction until then, Obama’s comments made a huge impact here – Bob McCroskie launched his anti-gay marriage a month later, and the entire thing was done and dusted here within eleven months of Obama’s comments. Since then I think eight or so countries have legalised gay marriage and it has become a major issue again in many others.
So it is total hogwash no one takes seriously the US President in general or Obama in particular. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he isn’t important. People take him seriously all over the world, even his corrupt congress does – it just spends it time opposing him, that is all.
Jenny, you realise that Obama is controlled by various industry, right!
Such as the oil/gas industry, the nuclear industry, you get that eh!
Yes or No?
I’m pretty sure it’s actually the NBA, Moz.
Not that long ago you would have been ridiculing people for suggesting that the NSA was spying on everyone..
Food for thought?
Get out of my head!
🙂
What ever you think of President Obama, muzza, and Morrissey, (and from your comments, it doesn’t sound like much). President Obama has made a statement strongly supporting doing something about climate change and encouraging others around the world to rise to the challenge also.
Muzza/Morrissey I think you are both missing the point I was making. (and I suspect deliberately)
Will Obama’s challenge be ignored by our political leaders here?
Will they, (and I mean any of them) even acknowledge Obama’s speech?
Will any of them, and I mean any of them, come out in support of Obama and suggest that we need to go even go further?
Or are they still determined to continue on as if they can afford to ignore this issue?
And lastly, muzza and Morrissey, is your attack on Obama’s credibility just an excuse to provide political cover for those parties here who wish to do nothing?
Voter support for Labour and its leader, David Shearer, has slumped in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey. Audrey Young in the Hersld today.
The party has lost 5.5 percentage points since March, and Mr Shearer is down 6.1 points as preferred Prime Minister.
National’s support has barely moved and it is still polling high at 48.8 per cent of decided voters.
Prime Minister John Key is preferred Prime Minister for 65.2 per cent, up 2.6 points on his last rating.
If the poll were translated to votes, National would not be able to govern alone.
Either National or Labour would be able to form a government.
But Labour would need four other parties, and National would have more options including being able to form a government with only New Zealand First support, only Maori Party support, or support from Act and United Future.
Mr Shearer has been Labour leader for a little over 18 months, after beating former finance spokesman David Cunliffe in a contest involving the party membership.
Today’s poll could put added pressure on Mr Shearer’s leadership, which has been attracting stronger criticism lately from the remnants of Mr Cunliffe’s support on the left than from the right.
Mr Key has taken to taunting Mr Shearer in Parliament about being under the control of deputy leader Grant Robertson.
But more voters see Mr Cunliffe as a successor should Mr Shearer no longer be in contention.
Asked who would be best to replace Mr Shearer if he left politics, 31.8 per cent supported Mr Cunliffe and 16.7 per cent Mr Robertson.
The dark horse is Andrew Little, a first-term list MP and former national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, who had 13.5 per cent support as a possible replacement.
Eleven per cent wanted someone else and 27 per cent did not know or refused to say.
Among Labour supporters, 37.7 per cent supported Mr Cunliffe if Mr Shearer weren’t there, 19 per cent Mr Robertson and 14 per cent Mr Little.
Labour’s party vote support appears to have gone to New Zealand First and the Greens.
New Zealand First’s support rose above the 5 per cent threshold, and support for Winston Peters as preferred Prime Minister is up from 4 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
Party vote figures in the poll are: National 48.8 (up 0.3), Labour 30.9 (down 5.5), Greens 10.5 (up 1.5), NZ First 5.1 (up 2.6), Maori Party 1.8 (up 0.7), Mana 0.5 (no change), United Future 0.3 (up 0.3) and Act 0.2 (up 0.1). The Conservatives gained 2.65 per cent of the vote at the last election but no MPs polled 1.5 (up 0.2).
Support for Mr Shearer rose in March to 18.5 per cent when National was mired in issues such as the failure of the Novopay pay system for teachers, the Solid Energy crisis and the partial sale of Mighty River Power.
Since the last poll, the Government has lost list MP Aaron Gilmore and passed its Budget, but a lot of the political focus since then has been on United Future leader Peter Dunne.
Mr Dunne resigned as a minister as the chief suspect in the leak of a confidential report.
Party vote results and preferred Prime Minister results are of decided voters only.
On the party vote questions, 11.9 per cent of poll respondents were undecided.
NZ First ratings edge up
The biggest movements in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey are among older voters. And it appears New Zealand First has had a boost at the expense of Labour.
Overall, Labour has fallen from 36.5 per cent in the March poll to 30.9 per cent in the June poll published today. NZ First has risen from 2.5 per cent in March to 5.1 per cent now, based on the poll of 750 respondents.
Labour has gone from having a high level of support among the 65 and over voters in March – 40.5 per cent compared to its overall party vote of 36.1 per cent – to just 28.2 per cent.
Among the younger age group, 18 to 39, the Green Party has disproportionate support, but that is evident in most polls.
Last time 54.8 per cent of men supported National and 42.4 per cent of women, compared to 48.5 per cent overall. This time 49.9 per cent of men and 47.7 per cent of women supported National, which has 48.8 per cent overall.
As preferred Prime Minister, David Shearer is supported by 12.4 per cent overall but by 15.2 per cent of women and 9.6 per cent of men. In March he had 18.5 per cent and even support from men and women.
John Key is on 65.2 per cent and has almost even support of men and women.
Herald-Digipoll
Party vote
• National – 48.8% (up 0.3)
• Labour – 30.9% (down 5.5)
Preferred PM
• John Key – 65.2% (up 2.6)
• David Shearer – 12.4% (down 6.1)
Maybe Shearer should listen to President Obama and pull his head out of the Sand over climate change. Shearer needs to heed Obama’s call for other nations to play their part, and publicly announce that an incoming Labour administration will stop all new coal projects, and all other extreme hydrocarbon extraction plans like fracking and deep sea oil.
As for the Nacts. They need to be strongly condemned in every forum, for being as Obama says only concerned for the concerns of special interests.
Maybe then Shearer might be recognised as a leader.
Until then, Shearer and the party he leads will remain unrecognised unknown, and in the public mind sullenly silent and negative.
If this doesn’t spell out clearly to Shearer supporters that we have a serious problem then nothing will. (Well maybe a bad result in Ikaroa Rawhiti will compound).
Changes need to be made, perhaps some more deadwood need to be sent packing at the same time as Shearer loses his Leadership. It is not too late. There is NO WAY Shearer has what it takes to roll Key in 2014 (Currently there is a huge VOID in leadership in Labour), Shearer supporters need to swallow their pride and give Cunliffe a chance.
To work this needs to be driven by Shearer and Robertson factions…..if they have the maturity and foresight to do this then Labour has a chance of winning in 2014, otherwise roll on 2017, 3 more years of New Zealand moving towards the extreme Right.
For the long term health of the Labour party, National needs to win the next election.
That way Mallard , King, Goff and the rest of the bludging relics can be given the boot and replaced with fresh faces.
Shearer winning the next election would be the end of Labour.
yes but this National party is hopeless, if it wasn’t for Chch, the economy would have tanked.
I agree that some of the deadwood needs to be cleaned out, but unlike some on TS I actually quite like Labour’s Policies, the problem is the Leadership…its non existent and it has a complete inability to sell itself.
THIS IS FAR AND AWAY LABOURS BIGGEST ISSUE AND IT NEEDS TO BE SORTED.
Totally agree with all you say, Saarbo!!
Sadly Mallard has no where to go so will go no where, if he had any honor he would have quit after managing Labours worst election result in recent history. He cuts a sad old grumpy figure from the second row, grasping at past glories and taking up space that should be filled with newer blood. A more accurate example of ‘deadwood’ is hard to find.
Jane – Mallard will hang on in there – he wants to be Speaker, doncha know ! and he thinks Shearer is the way to get there. More fool him !
Mallard – “Honour”? – it’s not about him , but what’s best for New Zealanders.
It’s thoroughly depressing that the main opposition party plays personality politics while the country goes down the gurgler, and democracy with it.
And that goes for the rest of Team Shearer-Robertson.
I agree that Labour winning 2014 is more likely to do the party harm than help them, at least under Shearer’s leadership (and the team that put him there).
But the left will keep on trucking, even if Labour falls behind.
The problem with labour is a lot more than just Shearer,
No direction. stuck in the dark ages. Borrow and spend policies. Playing second fiddle to the Greens. In bed with the unions.
Some of those you might think are OK (like the union bit) – but you forget that people outside of your core voters dont like them – and dont want NZ run by a party with its stings pulled by unions.
Upshot – The general man in the street dosnt like Labour or what it seems to stand for these days.
And this is reflected in the polls. Its not just the man in front (even the best salesman has trouble shifting a fundamentally broken product)
I know that you will disagree. That’s OK – keep relying on – its a rouge, biased because only calling land lines, if you look at the trends … blagh blagh blagh. you all know better – Im a tit as I dont agree with you etc. You know the usual excuses you come up with on other threads.
Labour is a conflicted party, still wounded by neo liberalism. Even a return to Norm Kirk style policies would make the LP look like revolutionaries. Green and Mana are the future for the parliamentary left unless the LP has a few retirements v.soon.
Social democracy is enough of a dead end ideology anyway without the bumbling equivocation of David Shearer.
“Labour is a conflicted party, still wounded by neo liberalism”
“Labour is a conflicted party, its power-holders still deeply wedded to neo liberalism”
fify.
best comment of yours I’ve read James (ruse).
Yes we all know you find unionism heretical James. On a par with the witches of Salem blah blah blah.
Beats me how any rational person can endorse lawful free association in service of shared common interest in all other areas of our nation’s existence, yet carp on like a psychotic Alf Garnett when the same is engaged by workers in their shared common interest.
It is you who lives in the dark ages James and whine as you might, it will take more than an obsessive union-hater to take us back there. Yes, we know the World is flat. And if it’s not it bloody well should be !
You can’t see or hear your irrelevant ranting James. Everyone else (emabarrassed for you) can. Grow up !
Goodbye West Coast and New Plymouth.
New Plymouth is lost to Labor. Cuddling up to Greens in energy land while parachuting Andrew “do a runner” Little as candidate for last election both bad mistakes and will not be forgotten.
ha ha, like when the west coast disappeared when the native logging was stopped in its tracks gosman?
history man, learn your history
Funny how their comments expose their fears, eh?
Feck.
If the drums arn’t beating for a leadership spill then there is no life left in the Labour caucus.
I think I might have another media BBQ on the first sunny weekend. David Cunliffe invited again. He should show up this time.
The Labour Party did not benefit from attending your Auckland BBQs in the past. Cheap sausages and good champagne should not be mixed.
It is time for Labour to close ranks againt those who want Key to continue in power, e.g. Hooton, Armstrong and Sullivan.
LEC’s and Branches and Union meetings are the place for discusion on the party’s direction.
People make quite different decisions when they are sober Matthew, alcohol impairs judgement.
Drunk media chose Shearer….
Best if everyone stays off the piss this time.
None of Hooton’s mates can handle their drink anyway. Bunch of lightweights.
Certainly Shearer seemed to be most coherent and articulate that day …
Come on Hooton, do you honestly expect that people believe your tripe that your band of merry men and women did their utmost to support Shearer for the good of the Labour party?
Jesus wept. If you expect people to swallow that one I’ve got an igloo to sell you next to your Dear Leader’s house in Hawaii..
Well given that a week ago he was insisting that he never had anything to do with Shearer, I think it’s safe to say no; he doesn’t “honestly” expect anything.
Ho…..Matthew Hooton for PM !
Indispensable to our national psyche is the shouty wee paid for oracle with the reptilian smirk.
still dining out Matthew?
heh, hoots has developed a semblance of humour
Being either invisible or just slinging shit impresses no one.
Shearer isn’t a prime ministers arsehole, it’s about time he realizes that and steps down.
Slinging shit has worked well for Key, so far though. If anything, Shearer is not indulging in slinging shit often enough.
You keep believing that.
The only time I see Shearer on TV is when he’s all worked up and telling every one what a crappy job John Key and National are doing.
Needs too be a lot more positive, you’ll never win being a divisive moaning wanker.
Agree. Shearer never seems able to come out with a strong, decisive statement – and that is his major failing.
Comments are always framed around what National is doing, and calls for public inquiries….
He needs to go.
Agree. Shearer never seems able to come out with a strong, decisive statement – and that is his major failing.
Comments are always framed around what National is doing, and calls for public inquiries….
He needs to go.
“Needs too be a lot more positive, you’ll never win being a divisive moaning wanker.” seems to work just dandy for key
The media are paid to tell Key’s side of the argument…
I think Slinging Shit has been the only strategy that Labour have had since Key got in. Following on from these stirling results it has got them nowhere.
However the sun will rise tomorrow and that will be followed by yet another TS post outlining Key as a failure and a liar. So much for the idea that repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result is a sure fire sign of ……oh wait…..
BM, you wrote “just slinging shit impresses no one.”
Then you said, “isn’t a prime ministers arsehole.”
Your first statement is absolutely on the money.
Dead right BM. That particular arsehole is spoken for. Slavishly liked by the licks of you.
Labour has no idea why its poll performance has been so mediocre. Until it does, playing another round of musical chairs with the leadership is pointless. New captain same sinking ship? Thatll be the second half of Hootens dream come true. Clue – NZ Power should have been just the start, and backing the Greens on some economic and monetary alternatives.
Stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged in society for godssakes, not try and find a “balance”.
Just to pull a name out of the hat, anyone spotted Maryan Street lately? You know, opposing the gutting of the RMA, mining, and the attacks on Auckland by her opposite in government Nick Smith? No, didn’t think so. She is quite useless, and clearly lazy to boot. Still, she is an ex-NZLP bureaucrat and a lesbian woman so that makes her a paid up member of the self-absorbed Labour Wellington political class, which makes her utter uselessness all right I suppose.
If you are beltway senior labour right-wing MP you earn a fat six figure salary to work just as hard as you feel like, you are broadly in agreement with 90% of the governments agenda and 30% in the polls guarantees you and the rest of your faction in control of the parliamentary wing a job for life.
Working hard, and selecting a winning and articulate leadership that gets you over over 40% in the polls just means they newly independent and feisty members might send a whole bunch of n00bs to parliament who will challenge your factions superiority.
Noooooooo to that! It might an opposition MPs office, but it IS an office.
So – crisis? What crisis you talkin’ bout, Willis?
Still, she is an ex-NZLP bureaucrat and a lesbian woman so that makes her a paid up member of the self-absorbed Labour Wellington political class, which makes her utter uselessness all right I suppose.,/i>
What’s sexuality got do to with it?
In contrast, if a heterosexual is performing badly, why is their sexuality rarely mentioned?
it is a symbol of why the NZ public lost faith in the labour government: captured by (sexual) identity politics and nanny-ish interventions, they failed to address social inequality nor restrain the excesses of finance companies
interesting ropata
like, three issues, most of which were private members’ bills, were the reason Labour were too busy to “restrain the excesses of finance companies”?
Nope.
Labour were tired and the people forgot how bad National were at running a country.
No, the *NZ public* were tired of Labour’s (perceived) weird policies, being scolded by Sue Bradford, and Michael Cullen hoarding record govt revenues for a rainy day.
I agree that we forgot how bad National are at governing, but we also have never seen such an efficient marketing apparatus as the one around Key’s natty team, nor have we seen a PM of such charisma since David Lange
Yep Ropata you are on the money. The big issue with the finance industry debacle is that no matter how many people just laugh it off, it has caused massive pain and taken a huge lump of private capital and wealth out of middle NZ. This is exactly the type of capital that we need to be invested in NZ businesses to allow them to grow and employ more.
Christ! – you and I have a very different definition of ‘charisma’. Never mind though – I suspect it’s me that’s out of tune with muddle Nu Zull.
I wonder how krismetic they think John Key is now though – if they weigh up all the lying and bs.
furthermore, commentary in the street has been how the Greens would not have a bar of Sue’s failure to fall in line, or vice versa.
😉
“it is a symbol of why the NZ public lost faith in the labour government: captured by (sexual) identity politics”
All politics are identity politics. Some of us are just more honest about it.
It’s called careerist politicians.
I’d like to know what her sexuality has to do with anything as well. What about that useless heterosexual man, Trevor Mallard?
So Labour are still going to carry the millstones that are Shearer, Robertson, and Mallard into the next election. How many points does it take to drop before they have a clean out? 10? 20?
Who cares?
Labour are bygones.
– Stuff
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Shearer has had his chance. Someone else needs to take the leadership. I was originally Team Cunliffe, and he’s still my preferred choice, but I’d accept Robertson, Little, even Goff at this stage.
David Shearer will never be Prime Minister.
Basically, yes. Although I think Cunliffe should probably be somewhere on the front bench instead of backbench Siberia.
However my fear is that Shearer says no change not because that’s what he wants, but because the entire senior team is truly compassless and has no idea what to do differently. Maybe give them another 6 months?
PS its a real easy formula for Labour to win, stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged and the struggling. And ditch some of the more onerous neo liberal and monetary constraints this nation is subservient to.
CV +1 particularly like your summation.
I suspect that this is not a drop at all but that the last Herald poll, which had Labour rising, was rogue.
The bad news for Labour is that this would mean that they have made no headway at all.
What you are really suggesting is that all Herald polls are shit and no-one should take the slightest notice of such rubbish,
The right in desperation at the true nature of National’s vote, in my opinion 42-43.5%, are now flogging NZFirst simply because no matter how thick they are they now realize they have no other option left to gain a third term in 2014…
You have an opinion of the level of National’s support? Why didn’t you say so before? We can stop all this bothersome polling every three months and just ask bad12 what his or her opinion of the support of each party is. Actually, when you think about it, why bother with elections.
Wevvilybiscuit
Fancy you as opinionated as you are, castigating bad12 for that. I presume you don’t mean that we should step down in favour of bad12 as dictator. Though the opinions offered sound sound. Perhaps you haven’t any points to argue so are merely doing more of the s..t throwing that is the last resort of those facing being disproved.
lprent
When I submitted my last comment above I got the rolling ball showing that it was being processed and then I got the connection cut – service closed message on the site page. So I pressed back arrow and got back onto TS page, went to Home and updated page and found that my comment had gone through. This was a bit confusing though.
Also I notice a few duplicate comments going through. Usually if I mistakenly press twice I get a message advising that so don’t get that.
Yawn….
I am not sure your recipe is a good one, CV. After all, Labour is lefter now than they have been since 1975 and the voters demonstrably hate it.
Nonsense. The fact that a couple of vague nods to social responsibility looks so “left” (to you and John Key) just shows how deeply stuck in the right wing status quo they are.
Also, voters don’t hate Labour. We’re just not interested in Labour because they offer nothing different, especially to those who most need something different.
Well, if the voters are not responding to Labour because they are not left enough, why are Mana not enjoying that support?
Well actually I didn’t say they aren’t “left enough”, I said they aren’t offering anything different. And I don’t think your idea of of “left” has much to do with my idea of “different”.
But seeing as you went there, Hone’s majority is more than 1000 votes. Over Labour.
…in one electorate.
Correct. The one he campaigned in.
…in one electorate.
That makes two, counting the one you mentioned above…
So, is your position that the Mana Party is more electorally popular than the Labour party?
certainly ‘more popular’ up Gizzy and Wairoa ways, listening to the kumara vine.
So, remind me, do votes cast outside Gizzy and Wairoa count in a general election?
only concentrating on one byelection at a time my friend.
Introducing Mana into this argument is ridiculous Gormless and you know it.
I don’t see why, North. Lots of people here seem to think Labour are so electorally unpopular because they are not left enough. But the parties to the left of them are even less popular, so that can’t be right.
Parties to the left of Labour are not unpopular with their growing constituency base GF; conflation methinks you display for one so ‘perceptive’. There is a grassroots movement underfoot, oh, that’s Right, you have not been following the increased surveillance debate…/
Well, of course they are not unpopular with the people who support them, but that’s a bit of a shit argument. Kyle Chapman’s political movement is popular with the people who support it as well. Folk dancing is popular with the people who support that, as well. Doesn’t mean it is popular in the populace as a whole.
According to the Digipoll, Colin Craig’s bunch of fuck heads enjoy three times the level of support of the Mana Party.
Crikey you’re right Gormy! Kyle Chapman’s Onanist Party has far fewer members than Labour!
This is conclusive proof that voters are staying away from Labour because they’re further to the right than they’ve ever been before.
etc etc.
I know you understand that this is not the point I was making Felix. Why are you pretending to be dumb?
It’s exactly the same point. I just compared them to a right wing party instead of a left wing one.
The idiocy of the comparison is identical, and for the same reason.
Why anyone would give an iota of credence to a political poll conducted by or on behalf of the HERALD is beyond me,
There is only one remote possibility of Slippery the PM gaining a third term for this National Government and that is with the support of Winston’s NZFirst,
The wider press have for the past 5 years attempted to sway the electorate by ‘deliberately’ talking down the true % NZFirst enjoyed from the electorate, i used at the 2011 election a specific gambling/poll to correctly judge NZFirst’s support by simply monitoring the % over the months leading up to that election that that particular gambling/poll discounted the NZFirst % back down under the 5% every time that party attained the 5% over a number of months,
THEY are messing with your minds via their polls and i would suggest any left leaning voter who voted for Winston in 2011 seriously think about voting for another party…
its a real easy formula for Labour to win, stand unashamedly for the disadvantaged and the struggling. And ditch some of the more onerous neo liberal and monetary constraints this nation is subservient to.
or, you could be wrong and it puts them further down in the polls.
“…. but because the entire senior team is truly compassless ,,,,”
I’m afraid it’s worse than that CV – they aren’t even a ‘team’
And don’t rely on the corporate media to give you a fair hearing.
Bypass them.
”We’re going to be doing exactly what we are doing now,” Shearer said when asked what difference the poll would make….
This shows his appalling lack of Leadership and disregard for the people that Labour represents, what he should have said is” …this is a worry, New Zealand has never had greater inequality and clearly we are not connecting with the people who need us. We will be doing everything we can do to change this.”
He’s useless, for the sake of the Left he has to let go of the Labour Leadership.
Hear that ducky, kingy, goffy and all you other has beens to comfy in the trough whilst ignoring the wishes of the rank and file.
It’s the sound of inevitability…….the train wreck is coming unless you hand over the controls and sit back quietly whilst the new blood wrests the agenda back and gets the disaffected third back in the polling booths.
Labours best option.
When they are wiped out at the next election the best result New Zealand is a coalition deal with NATIONAL.
Labours best option.
When they are wiped out at the next election the best result New Zealand is a coalition deal with NATIONAL.
Live stream to Obama’s speech on climate change.
http://live.reuters.com/Event/politics
“We are charged with looking after more than the arc of our political careers……
“But this is not just a job for politicians…..
“Make your voices heard…..
Coal is going to be discouraged and many thermal plants shut down. Fracking and nuclear power encouraged. XL tar sands pipeline still a possibility if GHG effects are not “significant”.
LIARS OF OUR TIME
No. 23: Jay Carney
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. was expecting the Russians “to look at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/edward-snowden-ecuador_n_3493911.html
See also….
No. 22 Mike Bush: “Bruce Hutton had integrity beyond reproach.”
No. 21 Tim Groser: “I think the relationship is genuinely in outstanding form.”
No. 20 John Key: “But if the question is do we use the United States or one of our other partners to circumvent New Zealand law then the answer is categorically no.”
No. 19 Matthew Hooton: “It is ridiculous to say that unions deliver higher wages! They DON’T!”
No. 18 Ant Strachan: “The All Blacks won the RWC 2011 because of outstanding defence!”
No. 17 Stephen Franks: “Peter has been such a level-headed, safe pair of hands.”
No. 16 Phil Kafcaloudes: “Tony Abbott…hasn’t made any mistakes over the past eighteen months.”
No. 15 Donald Rumsfeld: “I did not lie… Colin Powell did not lie.”
No. 14 Colin Powell: “a post-9/11 nexus between Iraq and terrorist organizations…connections are now emerging…”
No.13 Barack Obama: “Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.”
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27052013/#comment-638881
No. 12 U.K. Ministry of Defence: “Protecting the Afghan civilian population is one of ISAF and the UK’s top priorities.”
No. 11 Brendan O’Connor: “Australia’s approach to refugees is compassionate and generous.”
No. 10 Boris Johnson: “Londoners have… the best police in the world to look after us and keep us safe.”
No. 9 NewstalkZB PR dept: “News you NEED! Fast, fair, accurate!”
No. 8 Simon Bridges: “I don’t mean to duck the question….”
No. 7 Nigel Morrison: “Quite frankly, they’ve been VERY tough.”
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15052013/#comment-633295
No. 6 NZ Herald PR dept: “Congratulations—you’re reading New Zealand’s best newspaper.”
No. 5 Rawdon Christie: “…a FORMIDABLE replacement, it seems, is Claudette Hauiti.” http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13052013/#comment-632594
No. 4 Willie and J.T.: “The X-Factor. Nah, nah, there’s some GREAT talent there!”
No. 3 John Key: “Yeah we hold MPs to a higher standard.”
No. 2 Colin Craig: “Oh, I have a GREAT sense of humour.”
No. 1 Barack Obama: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the great champions of freedom and liberty.”
Funny but I dont see Ms Klarks name in the top 3 where she should be for (in any order you like) I believe Winston, I didnt notice we were speeding, I painted that.
Who the feck is “Ms Klark” and what did she say she painted?
She’s DavidC’s bogeyperson. The one who makes him wake up hot and wimpering in the night and Mummy runs and guides his little thumby into his frightened little mouthy. And one day he’ll grow up to be a fuckwit ! Poor thing. Always lagging a good 5 years behind everyone else. Though for such a littley he’s very knowledgable re The World’s Greatest Art Heists and the Kaikohe Demolition Derby.
Yeah North, She is everything that Shearer is not!
felix.. maybe you slept thru it…
Ms Klark ruled over Hulungrad … 9 years marred by overspending and election bribes in a bumper time when something should have been left in the public purse..instead we got “I have spent the lot” and a broken trainset.
Ah, so you can’t spell or count. And you make up lies about people.
Funny but I dont see Ms Klarks name in the top 3 where she should be for (in any order you like) I believe Winston, I didnt notice we were speeding, I painted that.
She might well end up on the list, but not for the minor speeding thing or the Paintergate beat-up. It’s a measure of just how lacking in seriousness you are that those two trivialities are all you can think of to denigrate her.
Real footy updates:
Romario (now a socialist politician) on the World Cup’s negative effects: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/23/brazil-world-cup-deepen-problems-fifa
Half a century ago, Liverpool Football Club played ‘socialist’ football. Now they’re just another blot on the landscape: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/24/liverpool-houses-landlord
Yes brazil 2014 will be an interesting media event, how many will venture from the sanctuary of the FIFA endorsed hospitality to see the real Brazil and how some new stadiums are in cities with no professional football club.
Watched the 2ecobars recently (excellent ESPN documentary)….no surprise that the head of FIFA is a brazilian with a rainforest full of skeletons.
That is indeed a fine doco, TC.
Major sporting events, leave the host nations with huge debts, so why was Brazil awared the World Cup, and the Olympics, in an unprecedented move?
South Africa: The myths and realities of the FIFA soccer World Cup
http://links.org.au/node/1744
I’m sure you are right that the media contingent will not venture out of the air conditioned suites, except for maybe a spot of police escorted danger tourism to a favela to show how daring they are. However, Brazil in 2014 is still a relatively understandable location. Qatar 2022, on the other hand …
btw, FIFA’s head is the odious Sepp Blatter, who is Swiss. You might have been thinking of the jackboot loving Joao Havelange, his predecessor. I think he still holds the somewhat ironic title of ‘honorary’ president, though.
Constitution Conversation –
Has there been one on The Standard that I have missed? There is still time – through to 31 July. One month and we should be able to come up with some cogent comments.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1306/S00227/submission-deadline-for-constitution-conversation-extended.htm
and
http://www.ourconstitution.org.nz/
and
http://www.ourconstitution.org.nz/New-Zealands-Constitution
Preferred PM
• John Key – 65.2% (up 2.6)
• David Shearer – 12.4% (down 6.1)
For every voter preferring Shearer, there are 5.25 voters who prefer Key.
Four and a half more years of Nats, by which time Judith Collins will be dictator.
Who said, “God is merciful.”
Yes its a good result for NZ but my main worry is that National won’t get a 4th term (although with Labour being such a shambles you can’t rule anything out) which means NZ will miss out on Collins running the country, building on the great work of John Key
John Key has stopped the runaway tanker and righted it and soon it’ll be Collins firmly putting the tanker into full steam ahead…if NZ is lucky, if NZ is unlucky the Greens will cobble together a coilition in 2017 and all the good work done by National will be wasted
Is that why more people have left for Australia during Key’s term than any other government ever?
and also why kiwis are now starting to return
nonsense.
[citation needed]
(There isn’t one: this idiot is dribbling as usual. See table 1 in the link.)
You should have kept your mouth shut and left everyone thinking you were an idiot rather than opening it and proving it.
Don’t worry petal, the left might get a look in around 2017 🙂
I don’t give a shit about the mythical “left” just as I don’t give a shit about the equally mythical “right”. What I do care about is the country that I am leaving my children and if you think that National (or Labour for that matter) are improving the long term prognosis for this country then quite frankly – you’re deluded..
You fullas don’t make any sense.
You denounce the collective approach to everything – and then you embrace the collective approach when it some to your own affiars. e.g. Fonterra, Foodstuffs, pretty much every single coprorate.
Why is that? Why do you say one thing and do another?
Because they’re sociopathic hypocrites?
Winston Smith
Have you always been a greenie?
yes winston,
key is fucking awesome and the sun shines out his sphincter whenever he craps on NZ
like when he increases gst and cuts taxes to the wealthy
and when he flogs off a power company to his rich mates
or when he gives tax breaks to hollywood and casinos but craps on worker rights
what a great guy
“we would love to see wages drop“
The rain falls on both the just, and the unjust.
The real issue with the Herald poll is that it shows Cunliffe twice as popular with voters (both Labour and overall) as Robertson, or anyone else.
It doesn’t matter to ABC how badly Labour are doing. If the price of victory is the guy they hate, then they would prefer a defeat. We can brainstorm “solutions” or “improvements” for Labour all day, all year, but the simple, inescapable fact is … as voters, our priorities are fundamentally opposed to theirs.
We want a change of government, therefore a change in party. They want no change in party – regardless of cost to us. That’s all.
We want a change of government, therefore a change in party. They want no change in party – regardless of cost to us. That’s all.
Exactly. Time for Robertson to call Cunliffe, and decide on what’s best for the country.
“It doesn’t matter to ABC how badly Labour are doing.”
Maybe now it does.
I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes in the Labour caucus. I can only hope and pray they have come to their senses. The Shearer experiment needs to be abandoned ASAP.
It needed to be abandoned a year ago.
Just like the Goff experiment needed to be abandoned a year before it was too late.
Gee, if only we’d all been warning them back then…
Don’t worry about it, Labour can be Nationals junior partner and they’ll have a sniff of power 🙂
You know, those smiley’s don’t lend your comments any relevance.
Desperation= The Herald giving the architect of ‘the gambling harm minimization bill’ column inches to explain His position vis a vis the complete and utter gutting of that piece of legislation by it’s coalition partner Slippery’s National Government,
The Maori Party’s Te Ururoa Flavell needn’t have bothered, explaining the intricacies of being the ‘Lapdog’ of the National Government in such eloquent terms still leaves the Maori Party and Te Ururoa Flavell occupying the seat as ‘Lapdog’ no matter how many or how few the weasel words are that attempt to provide a justification,
Flavell should face the facts, National went behind His back getting Tariana and Pita to accept the gutting of His harm minimization bill and Flavell had to swallow the dead rat once the changes agreed to by His leaders were made,
The ‘harm minimization legislation is in fact a metaphor for the actual gains that the Maori Party have made for their voters and Maori in general after two terms as National’s coalition partner,
Nothing is the consensus among Maori, while the Maori Party gained it’s ‘slush fund’ in Whanau Ora, Maori who use tobacco products paid for this with increased taxes,
There is no Mana in the Maori Party and Flavell must now know that He is ‘Owned’ by National MP’s only too happy to laugh in His face even doing so on National TV,
Te Ururoa should now negotiate with Hone Harawira to bring His electorate into the Mana Party as being the ‘leader’ of nothing after the 2014 election will leave Him with none whatsoever,
Mana that is….
Whenever Shearer is on the telly there is a bearded fulla right behind him. Who is this masked man?
He’s Shearer’s five o’clock shadow distractor.
lol
Brighter Future update:
June 26, 2013
Media Release
NZ Post cuts 500 mail processing jobs
New Zealand Post has told staff it intends to close its Waikato, Wellington, Dunedin and heartland mail processing centres at a cost of 500 jobs.
The plan will result in 130 job losses in Waikato, 160 in Wellington, 75 in Dunedin and 125 in heartland and satellite sites.
New Zealand Post has indicated there is potential for 250 new full time equivalent roles in its Auckland, Manawatu and Christchurch mail centres, but predicts fewer than 5% of people affected by the cuts will relocate.
EPMU postal industry organiser Joe Gallagher says the announcement is devastating news for workers and their communities.
“There are a lot of people deeply fearful for their futures today. This is not a good time to find yourself on the dole queue and in the current environment it’s going to be very hard to get another job with secure hours and good rates of pay.
“We’re going to work with New Zealand Post to ensure everyone who loses their job receives their full redundancy entitlements and assistance finding new employment, but the reality is that won’t be enough.
“The Government really needs to step up to the plate here by making jobs its number one priority. People need to have some decent alternatives when they find themselves out of work and at the moment the jobs just aren’t there.”
Mr Gallagher says the union will continue to challenge cuts to New Zealand Post’s services, which also include a proposal to reduce postal delivery to three days a week and replace post offices with kiosks.
“We recognise New Zealand Post faces considerable commercial pressures and that some degree of change is inevitable, but we’re not convinced service cuts on this scale are justified.
“There are some serious questions about the figures these proposals are based on and we’ll be taking this up with the company and with the Government.”
So the union thinks the tax payer should subsidize NZ post, why?
Dunno.
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise dairy farmers?
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise the NZX?
Maybe because the taxpayers subsidise businesses who make money by capital gain?
maybe because the taxpayers subsidised Steven Joyce’s ex-company Mediaworks?
Why do they do this BM?
No business should be subsidized by the tax payer.
Hobbit hater.
Not at all. There is a difference between the state forgoing a tax (Warners) and using taxes taken to subsidise a failing business (NZ Post).
I hardly ever use post to my home any more – the effect of dropping a few days deliveries has no negative effect on me. A negative effect on the postie? No doubt at all but using that argument there should be deliveries 4 times a day and twice on the weekends (at time and a half). We don’t have lamppost lighting men or night soil men any more either and I am afraid that the postie is going the same way. The model is not viable in this day and age and keeping it as a public good (which I agree with) can only go so far.
Yes, dead right there’s a difference. Warners is a foreign company with no links to NZ other than via the liar Jackson’s wallet who got a whopping wedge of payola for no logical reason at all and NZ Post is a profitable NZ owned company that interacts with most kiwis most days and provides a service that will still be needed for generations to come in some form or other.
Are you arguing that NZ would have been better off if the Hobbit was made elsewhere? Sorry don’t answer that as it is not the point I was trying to make.
Are you suggesting that NZ Post should be subsidised just because it interacts with most people people most days? Like the night soil men? Should we still have them? Should we ban milk sales in supermarkets to protect the milk deliveries?
It was never going to be made elsewhere. It was always going to be made here. However, what little substance there was to the vague threat was enough to get Key reaching for the cheque book.
NZ Post is not being subsidised. It’s profitable (didn’t I already write this?)
Should post be a business?
IMO, it should be a state service as it once was that way we don’t get the dead weight loss of profit adding to our taxes.
The taxpayer owns NZ Post, BM.
But it’s losing money and dying.
Cuts need to be made so it can survive, fighting these changes causes more harm than good.
Kill the village to save it.
Where did the union say it wanted a subsidy? It’s simply said it’s challenging the figures and that the scale of cuts isn’t justified by the decline of mail volume. FFS, you people need to learn to read.
Holy crap that is bad news. Why bother with a nation state if you just sack everyone? Last person with a proper job please turn out the lights. The natz still want to keep the spooks, coppers and Army on tho.
30.9% spin away, guys.
“If the poll were translated to votes, National would not be able to govern alone.
Either National or Labour would be able to form a government.”
Day One through to Day 900 Tory attack: this cobbled together Labour minority government has no mandate to govern.
Well to be fair Labour do say that National has no mandate on well anything really…
When Labour greens mana Maori Winston first do finally cobble together a coalition ( sit down and watch the fun) it will be an interesting side show to watch the government of the damned hold themselves to the same standard they have demanded from National the prior 12 or 15 years.
I think the left are missing the point completely. NZ will not stand for the policies that Labour and the greens promote. These policies have very much frightened the horses. But I am received that Shearer is not going to change a thing ( how could he – that would take some doing against the factionalised Labour Party.)
NZ will not stand for the policies that Labour and the greens promote.
So why does Key keep pinching them?
Good point gs (a 1000+ bored out with aYoshimura kit; takes it to 1145,or there-abouts).
“When Labour greens mana Maori Winston first do finally cobble together a coalition ( sit down and watch the fun)”
Will it be anything like the fun of watching the cobbled-together National/Act/UnitedFuture/MaoriParty coalition fall apart in disgrace?
‘cos that’s been kinda cool.
Yeah try forming a government when you have 30.9 percentage.
Easy. LP+Greens+NZF in any combination of Government coalition or just confidence and supply. And do bear in mind that this is the Herald, not exactly the paragon of accuracy. Every percentage point Labour get above Granny’s figure is a nail in Key’s coffin.
As I’ve said before, the only poll that even comes close to being accurate is the Roy Morgan. The function of the others is to convince Labour supporters not to vote.
Heres your problem, Russell Norman siad he wont be in any coalition with nzfirst.
Then you have the fact that the greens always poll higher than they get. You have national and the maori party, thats all they need. a party with cant become government.
Her’s your problem, you are full of s**t, give us a link to anywhere Russel Norman has said he will not enter a coalition Government that NZFirst are part of…
TRP of course Labour will be able to form a govt with 30.9%. Which position will Labour give to the Greens? Deputy PM + Economic Development or Finance?
Nah, everyone will be so stoked to prop up the glorious leadership of Shearer that they won’t want anything in return but the radiated brilliance.
Yep going with that, felix. Serenity Now!
My mind is boggling. It’s never actually ever boggled before.
“Yeah try forming a government when you have 30.9 percentage.”
Brett, I know this is going to be lost on you, but can you explain how National is going to form a government with less than 50% and no partners?
Big day over the ditch. Two independents, Oakshott and Windsor, have just announced their retirements at the next election. Neither will support a Rudd led Government for the rest of the term if Gillard loses to him tomorrow, so, if she does get rolled, expect a vote of no confidence from the Liberals immediately and an election in a month.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-pulse-live/politics-live-june-26-2013-20130626-2ovyx.html
Today’s wonderful poll resuls for Labour and Mr Shearer. Yes, yes, yes.
New Zealand waste policies stuck in the past
This is so true. Absolutely nothing should be going to landfills as it should all be recycled and if it can’t be recycled then it shouldn’t be on the market.
NZ…stuck in the past. FIFY
Well, yes.
QT 25.6
Q.6. Parker- according to the ANZ analysis, the domestic-centric balance of growth is not sustainable.
Q.8. “more (oversight) with less resources will be rquired to police migrant exploitation”-Darien Fenton.
Q.10. Amy Adams (felt unwell just watching her) – “not a good idea for local councils to be regulating GMO’s under their plans” (Northland and Auckland councils putting in protections; Adams swooping in to over-ride). NAct have a GMO-promoting agenda (productivity gains in sight).
moving Right along…, 1000’s of the elderly are being scammed out of millions per year; fear and embarrassment preventing declaration of foolishness. “Names” of the gullible are placed on “suckers lists”; no understanding, what did they learn through the course of their lives?
Regional Council admits the vulnerability of Wellington to Nature, you don’t say, well, blow me away with a feather!.
“NZ Land Transport are fueling the housing crisis” Surprise surprise!
NZ is ranked worst out of 33 OECD countries for the earning potential of University graduates, realising a mere 18% premium above secondary school leavers.
Cruel is the strife of brothers- Aristotle.
Your Decision
And once you take out student loan repayments out of each paypacket, I bet the number worsens for young grads even more.
Dr Cullen has managed to do for NZ post what he did for NZ
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8843355/NZ-Post-shuts-mail-processing-centres
Or it could just be commercial operations declining due to more and more use of electronic messaging.
NZ Post used to be a respected operation, which has been run into the ground. with or without digital mail, its been slide created by inept/corrupt management, directors!
Yep, just imagine what he would have done to the horse buggy whip and whalebone corset industries if he’d been put in charge of them!
Well, shouldn’t we be having an inquiry into the decline of the mail business and make recommendations to arrest it?
Nope, it’s obvious that snail mail is on the way out. Industry, on the other hand, should be increasing with NZ producing more and more from our own resources.
Good Labour policy would protect a few hundred jobs a year using millions of tax payers dollars. Think of being able to go into an election saying unemployment is low…. Very popular thing to do and well worth bankrupting the country for the popularity of the red team…
A few hundred jobs for a few million tax payers dollars is cheap as chips.
It could be illegal to send more than 8 emails per day. That’d fix it.
very funny. Best not to send e-mails, and choose broadcast instead.You’d be surprised the ‘replies’ one gets. 😀
Perhaps we could learn from how government protected the railways from road transport competition. Make it illegal for eMail to get to the destination faster than snail mail. That little “protectionist” law kept about 15,000 employees in safe jobs in the railways… Protecting a dysfunctional pit for tax payers dollars because it was a state owned monopoly….
CV
Yes … The wagon wheel business could still be making beautifully crafted wooden wheels for horse drawn carts keeping those jobs alive and keeping the ‘Waggon wheel makers’ union happy. Imagine the fun we could have building them breaking them down for a few million each year protecting those jobs that were going to be lost 60 years ago….
Waggon wheels come in handy, when push come to shove.
Actually, that seems to be National Party policy.
The subsidies for LOTR were apparently bigger than for the Hobbit – guess they got Dear Leader a photo opp with PJ – so it was worth it.
Shit, that must be confusing for you mate.
And burt comes back with the old but Labour did it too whinge. Yes burt, they’ve both been doing it and it’s something that’s been done for centuries. Capitalism isn’t the massive engine of progress that you and others seem to think – it runs on government subsidies. Without them it’d crash and burn.
BTW, burt, this government increased the subsidies specifically for The Hobbit.
…and how Burt just lervs a man in a whalebone corset!
Anyone seen the latest Stuff poll? Says it all really – and sizable response too
Wrong leader, wrong direction
2028 votes, 58.2%
Wrong leader, right direction
497 votes, 14.3%
Right leader, right direction
379 votes, 10.9%
Too hindered by infighting
579 votes, 16.6%
Total 3483 votes
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8842669/Shearer-fends-off-poll-slump
Meaningless drivel, how many of the wrong leader wrong direction voters in this poll were supporters of other party’s…
I voted right leader, right direction because I want him to stay as leader
Moscow doesn’t just have a public train system- it has a public escalator system!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121406132.html
“movin on up” 😉
…and today’s programme has been brought to you by the letter ‘A’, and the number ’11’
(Oscar is definitely not a prince in waiting).
“Alienation: A psychological or social evil, characterised by one or another type of harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation, which sunders things which belong together. people are alienated from the political process when they feel separated from it and powerless in relation to it; this is alienation because in a democratic society you belong in the political process, and as a citizen it ought to belong to you.
Reflection on your beliefs, values or social order can also alienate you from them. It can undermine your attachment to them, cause you to feel separated from them, no longer identified with them, yet without furnishing anything to take their place; they are yours ‘faute de mieux’, but no longer truly yours: they are yours, but you are alienated from them.
Marx derived the terms ‘Entdusserung’ and ‘Entfremdung’ from Hegel, who used them to portray the ‘unhappy consciousness’ of the Roman world and the Christian Middle Ages.
Marx used essentially the same notion to portray the situation of modern individuals- especially modern wage labourers- who are deprived of a fulfilling mode of life because their life-activity as socially productive agents is devoid of any sense of communal action or satisfaction and gives them no ownership over their own lives or their products. In modern society, individuals are alienated in so far as their common essence, the actual cooperative activity which naturally unites them, is powerless in their lives, which are subject to an inhuman power- created by them, but separating and dominating them instead of being subject to their united will.
This is the power of the ‘market’, which is ‘free’ only in the sense that it is beyond the control of it’s human creators, enslaving them by separating them from one another, from their activity, and from it’s products.
The verbs ‘entaussern’ and ‘entfremden’ are reflexive, and in both Hegel and Marx alienation is always fundamentally ‘self’-alienation.Fundamentally, to be alienated is to be separated from one’s own essence or nature; it is to be forced to lead a life in which that nature has no opportunity to be fulfilled or actualized.
Your life objectively actualizes your nature, especially (for both Marx and Hegel) your life with others as a social being on the basis of a determinate course of historical development.
Their view that alienation, so conceived, can nevertheless have historical consequences, and even be a lever for social change, clearly invokes some sort of realism about the human good: it makes a difference, psychologically and socially, whether people actualize their nature, and when they do not, this fact explains waht they think, feel and do, and it can play a decisive role in historical change.
Althusser to follow.
“Gather round ma’s knee
To read this weeks letter
I wonder what will be
I hope the news is better
The men die here like flies ma”
Rachel’s Coming Home
Hollywood, and Sky, watch slingshot closely
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10893125
ha, ha, mud, (or a stone) in your eye.
More laughing and sneering at dissidents
Inanity rules, as usual, on The Panel
Radio NZ National, Wednesday 26 June 2013
Jim Mora, Dita De Boni, Chris Wikaira
JIM MORA: All right, it’s Susan Baldacci with what the woooooorld’s talking about! What have you got for us today?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Someone who’s name is on the lips of virtually EVERYBODY is Edward Snowden.
DITA DE BONI: Oh yes? He he he he he!
MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yeeeeeessss, well this guy is the new JETSET TRAVELLER!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Well, people have been asking how the heck he DOES it!
DITA DE BONI: Yes! I’ve been asking that!
MORA: He’s like a ghost!
DITA DE BONI: Apparently he didn’t even need a passport to get into Russia!
SUSAN BALDACCI: No, well that’s just it, you see. You only need a passport if the country you are entering DEMANDS one. That’s how so many refugees manage to get into countries after they have destroyed their documents.
DITA DE BONI: What is the advantage for Ecuador in taking this guy?
MORA: Arrrgghh, they’re just thumbing their nose at the world.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yeah. Otherwise why would they take Julian Assange?
DITA DE BONI: Exactly.
MORA: They’re staking out a position in South America.
DITA DE BONI: Exactly!
MORA: Okay, moving on. You’ve got something about Stephen Fry?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yes, he has written about how extremely depressed he gets sometimes.
MORA: He always seems, to me, to live a gilded life. He’s erudite, he’s witty, he’s clever, he’s just so admired.
DITA DE BONI: [slowly, to indicate great seriousness] I think he struggles with being gay.
SUSAN BALDACCI: I think he’s a tortured soul.
DITA DE BONI: When he came out, it wasn’t so cool you know? It wasn’t so hip, you know?
….[Awkward silence]….
MORA: Mmmmmkayyy… Okay, Susan Baldacci, what else have you got?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Well, there’s a new survey has found the best places for a tertiary education. They are, number one: CANADA.
MORA: Canada! Hmmmmm.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Number two is ISRAEL.
MORA: Israel, yes.
SUSAN BALDACCI: Japan was third.
MORA: Japan was third?
SUSAN BALDACCI: [clearly irritated] Y-y-y-y-yes. The United States was fourth. And fifth was… NEW ZEALAND! Sixth was South Korea, seventh the U.K., eighth was Australia, and Ireland was next.
….[Stunned silence for several seconds]…..
DITA DE BONI: I am really shocked by that. New Zealand at number FIVE?!!??!?!?
MORA: The Australians are annoyed, aren’t they….
et cetera, et cetera, ad absurdum, ad nauseam….
now, that is very funny Morrissey, but wait, a song hearkens…
Oh my word, what does it mean
won’t you please read my signs, be a Gypsy.
Love To All On The Left.
Morrissey. We are so fortunate that we do not have to listen to Newstalkzb, Radio Live, the National Programme from dawn to dusk. We have you. (transcripts and all). Keep up the good work, especially the ever growing listings of liars and deceivers. However, I hope you were able to appreciate that there was fog, drizzle, and occasional sunshine over Auckland today.
I hate to have to keep repeating this, but Moz’s efforts are not transcripts. They are his half remembered impressions of what was said. Other than the names, most of what he claims above bears little resemblance to what was actually said, or the tone in which it was said.
VOR: clearly irritated!
I hate to have to keep repeating this, but Moz’s efforts are not transcripts.
I did not haul out the old BASF tape and insert it into the tape-recorder, no. And no, that was not a sexual metaphor.
They are his half remembered impressions of what was said.
Anyone who listened to that horrible fifteen minutes of inanity yesterday knows that what I wrote is way, way more than “half remembered.”
Other than the names, most of what he claims above bears little resemblance to what was actually said, or the tone in which it was said.
I challenge anyone to dispute seriously that the characters in my little horror script are not simulacra of the principals involved in yesterday’s Panel pre-show segment. Any listener who persevered with listening to them will attest that Dita De Boni really was that shallow, that Susan Baldacci really was that disgusting, and that Jim Mora really was, as always, that special mix of avuncular, cowardly, frivolous, insincere and superficial.
Keep up the good work, especially the ever growing listings of liars and deceivers.
Sadly, Liars of Our Time is a series which seems to have no prospect of ending any time soon. Watch out also for: Dum Quote of the Week, Hall of Hogwash, Humbug Corner, Luvvies on the Loose, The Ouch! File, The Subservience Index, Weasel Watch, Wimp Walloping and Yeah Right.
However, I hope you were able to appreciate that there was fog, drizzle, and occasional sunshine over Auckland today.
That transcript—or, as our friend Te Reo Putake reminds us, that “impression”—was done quickly, by hand, then typed up in a fever. That was the only time I listened to the radio all afternoon. Similarly, I don’t watch much TV, although it might seem like it sometimes.
The state’s right to increase its powers of surveillance and Key’s old chestnut assurance that “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. In an odd way, the Texas legislature has just sent a warning to us all. What is legal today, might not be should a radical change of government take place in the future. A government that could trawl through the googol bytes of data on files and establish that an individual or group were doing things that are suddenly subversive or anti-state in the new administration’s views.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/wendy-davis-abortion-filibuster-chaos
Looks like Rudd has taken the Labor leadership. Should probably have been sooner rather than later. Any lessons, NZ Labour Party, huh?
Ballot Results:
Rudd 57.
Gillard 45.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/labor-leadership-spill-gillard-rudd-live
57 to 45. Bill Shorten announced just before the ballot he was going with Rudd; that would have been the clincher.
Lesson for NZ? Lets see if Rudd wins the federal election first, eh!
BAIN CASE
3rd Degree tonight must surely settle the question. Robin did it.
The evidence was there from day one and nobody – not the lawyers, not the police, not Karam, not the firearms experts, not anyone who looked at the photos ever noticed it. By the time Robin’s body reached the pathologist the evidence was probably gone, brushed off, but those magazine loading marks on his thumb and forefinger in the crime scene photos are unmistakable.
Pay David the compensation.
Yeah, nah. It’s interesting, but is it provable evidence? We don’t make legal decisions based on TV shows, thankfully. Bear in mind that the show was based around the premise that it proves Robin Bain did it. I’d wait for the responses from the coppers and prosecution before making a judgement. And, if it was David, he could conceivably pressed the magazine to his dead Dad’s fingers about the same time he typed the computer message.
Having said all that, it does beggar belief that his body wasn’t checked more thoroughly.
Yep, true, it’s not conclusive, but it’s the piece of the puzzle I was looking for. I always thought David did it. It’s close enough to the smoking gun for me. It virtually is the smoking gun. It’s never even been raised before. As you say, the next few days and comments from police etc will be interesting.
David could have conceivably done that, but if he had, wouldn’t he have attempted to draw attention to the marks in the 2 pics? They were both widely used in the trials. Will be an interesting few weeks ahead.
That’s along the lines I’m thinking. If he was clever enough to go to that degree of detail to frame his dad, surely he’d have been clever enough to have found a way to nudge his defence team into noticing the marks. They’d be so critically important to the defence case.
Another thought: how come David didn’t spot the marks? He must have stared at those photos for years and he would have seen the same marks on his own hand every time he used the gun.
That’s the thing, TRP. It suggests he’s innocent. The residue stripes happen to anyone loading a magazine after the gun’s been fired, and that one misfires a lot and needed reloading even at the murder scene, but it’s just powder and it rubs off almost straight away just doing anything – people may not even pay it any attention. He just may have never thought of it. If he’d framed his dad he’d have thought of it.
According to the doco, the photos weren’t blown up. The Waikato man who discovered the marks noticed them after the pictures were enlarged considerably.
Yeah. The guy is a businessman and took an interest before the last trial. He was looking at the pics enlarged on his computer screen I think he said. And he used to shoot as a lad on a farm. That’s how he made the connection. The compensation case just got very interesting again.
Be interesting to hear James (was it) McNeish’s response. He was pretty public and on occasion near shrewish in his condemnation of David Bain.
NZ Femme above – yeah, David Bain could have done that number. I mean no one can prove he didn’t but it’s as unlikely as the nonsense someone in the Crown or the police were mouthing off – he or his lawyer or somebody deliberately ballsed things up for the joy of being convicted a murderer, then winning a retrial or an appeal or something ???
Sounds very much Simon Bridges ex-Crown prosecutor to me, viz. bloody ridiculous.
Right. Like you and Arfamo, it makes no sense at all to me either.
“I’m going to spend the next 13 years rotting in jail, sitting on evidence I handily whipped up earlier that could get me off, entirely for shits and giggles.”
Yeah, Nah.
+1000% thank you.