Open mike 27/06/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 27th, 2013 - 122 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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

Step right up to the mike…

122 comments on “Open mike 27/06/2013 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    27 June 2013 at 6:29 am

    More details come out on Obama’s plan of attack to address climate change.

    Obama’s climate plan will limit emissions from plants and trucks

    “We see a real opportunity to cut carbon pollution,” said one of the White House officials. “And I think one of the most important and relevant points is that today we already set limits for arsenic, mercury and lead, but we let power plants release as much carbon pollution as they want.”

    Scientific American

    Political leaders from around the world give their reaction.

    From the European Union:

    After a number of important speeches from President Obama and Secretary Kerry, Europe has been eagerly waiting for the US to set out concrete steps. So this plan is a most welcomed step forward and, if implemented, it can put the US on a path towards a low carbon future.

    Connie Hedegaard EU Climate Action Commissioner

    “I very much welcome President Obama’s renewed push to tackle global climate change,”…..
    “The plans set out are positive steps that will create further momentum for international climate action.”…..
    (this will) “help give the world confidence that it’s possible to win this fight, if we fight it together”.

    José Manuel Barroso President of the European commission

    From the United Nations:

    It remains vital that the United States as the world’s largest developed economy is seen to be leading serious action to deal with climate change, both at home and abroad….

    …..”This US climate action plan must also be leveraged into fresh, high-level political consensus among countries that will smooth the way for faster progress in the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations.”

    Christiana Figueres UNFCCC Executive Secretary

    From Britain:

    “President Obama is right when he says tackling climate change is a moral obligation and also right when he says cutting carbon pollution will help spark business innovation and create jobs. I welcome his Climate Action Plan. It’s a decisive step by the world’s second largest emitter and demonstrates the growing global momentum toward tackling the threat of dangerous climate change. The UK will work closely with the US on energy efficiency and low carbon technologies, and on securing ambitious global action on climate finance and emission reduction. We will also keep up the pressure elsewhere, including in Europe. The EU should adopt a 50% emissions reduction target by 2030 in order to help secure a global deal in 2015.”

    Edward Davey UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

    From the Pacific Islands:

    “US President Obama’s announcement represents a positive step on climate change and we hope it translates into even more constructive engagement at the international climate negotiations, particularly when it comes to dramatically reducing greenhouse gases in the next few years, which is essential to keep the seas from washing over some of the world’s lowest lying island nations.

    “However, we are painfully aware that coastal erosion, ocean acidification, degraded reefs and fisheries, droughts, floods, and relentless storms represent the new normal for many vulnerable communities. Therefore, any adequate response to climate change must also address permanent losses and damages stemming from the crisis.”
    Ambassador Marlene Moses Permanent Representative to the United Nations for Nauru and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States

    From the New Zealand Green Party:

    “We need to be supporting international action on climate change not obstructing it.

    “New Zealand is not doing its fair share.

    “The National Government is stuck in the past examining the scientific consensus, to quote President Obama, ‘we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society’.

    “While Obama is stepping up action, National is stepping up pollution….

    Under National, New Zealand’s net emissions have hit a record high and are continuing to grow.

    “Last weekend’s storm, and this summer’s drought are a preview of the legacy we will leave for our children if we do not act now.

    “We can make a difference, we can prepare, we can work internationally for binding targets, we can reduce emissions at home; but we need to start now,”

    Kennedy Graham Green Party Spokesperson for Climate Change

    To date their has been no response to Obama’s speech from either Labour or National. And I think neither can we expect one.

    Time for David Cunliffe to fill the gap perhaps? If Labour keep up its silence… Might we see ia press statement from Cunliffe to make up for the missing leadership sadly lacking in his own party?

    • Jenny 1.1
      27 June 2013 at 6:52 am

      I also notice that so far there has been no post on Obama’s speech from anyone at The Standard

      Why is this?

      Does nobody have any opinion on Obama’s speech?

      Or could it be, that The Standard authors (consciously, or unconsciously), don’t want to acknowledge or bring attention to the uncomfortable fact that National and Labour’s policies are generally in alignment on further increasing CO2 emissions through more and riskier oil drilling and coal mining etc?

      [lprent:

      Firstly – What speech? I heard a brief mention on it on the car radio on my late return home last night. Looking at the timestamp on the news story and allowing for date lines, it would have been when? late in the day yesterday? We aren’t a news service, nor are we journalists and we tend to work hard on things other than this blog.

      Secondly – Authors write on what they wish to and when they want to – as is stated clearly in the about and the policy.

      Thirdly – I see that there was a post scheduled for this morning at the time you wrote that comment. I’d guess that it was written late last night. It gives Anthony’s opinion (which is what we are here to express) on the speech. Changes in policy direction usually take time to digest because the detail is important – not the headline.

      Fourthly – You are banned for a week for again trying to tell us what we should be writing – read the policy. ]

      • Jenny 1.1.1
        27 June 2013 at 7:09 am

        “The National Government is stuck in the past examining the scientific consensus, to quote President Obama, ‘we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society’.

        Kennedy Graham Green Party Spokesperson for Climate Change

        What Graham has said for the Nacts, could, painfully, be just as easily be said of Labour.

        • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1
          27 June 2013 at 10:50 am

          And a month ago you were calling the greens climate change deniers and sellouts.

      • rosy 1.1.2
        27 June 2013 at 7:13 am

        “Does nobody have any opinion on Obama’s speech?”

        I can’t even bear to listen to the man at the moment. He has no credibility left at all, imo. How can you trust that what he says in a speech is what he really means after Guantanamo not being ended, drones in Pakistan, NSA spying, Bradley Manning incarceration conditions etc, etc? Not to mention people living in tent cities and the nation having to subsidise Walmart pay with food stamps.

        All I’d expect from this speech is that he’s trying to change the topic, not that he might mean what he says. So no, I don’t have an opinion on the speech, but I have a very negative opinion about why he might be making in right now, and I can’t believe he means a word of it.

        • Morrissey 1.1.2.1
          27 June 2013 at 7:22 am

          And Jenny is aware, I take it, that Obama is advocating a massive reinvestment in NUCLEAR power. That’s how committed to conservation the man is.

          It’s like being lectured on victims’ rights by Garth McVicar. Some people have simply no credibility at all.

          • muzza 1.1.2.1.1
            27 June 2013 at 8:41 am

            Thats right Mozza, Jenny et al have not done their homework into the General Electric (GE) backing of Obama, and what this means to that company’s NUCLEAR power plant production revenue streams, and control of the *energy market*!

            Its why we are in this mess, because people like Jenny, have NFI, what they are contributing to!

          • Te Reo Putake 1.1.2.1.2
            27 June 2013 at 10:58 am

            Whats the link between nuclear power and conservation, Moz?

      • Jane 1.1.3
        27 June 2013 at 7:14 am

        I wonder if the Obama’s ephinany on US emissions has anything todo with the discovery of massive quantities of shale gas via large scale fracking. Is converting their coal burning to gas burning much better?

        • rosy 1.1.3.1
          27 June 2013 at 7:32 am

          That too – I forgot about the fracking in the credibility stakes.

          Biggest shale gas boom since whenever, isn’t it? Apparently it’s better than oil for climate change emissions, even more important is the shift from coal to gas. Although apparently the U.S. is displacing, rather than reducing, it’s emissions through coal exports.

      • muzza 1.1.4
        27 June 2013 at 8:38 am

        Obama, like many of the names who have quoted above, Jenny, Barosso et al, is a criminal, who does exactly what he is told, by those who put him in power!

        What part of that, do you NOT get!

      • gsays 1.1.5
        27 June 2013 at 9:11 am

        kia ora jenny, 2 things strike me about the whole obama thing;

        firstly i think your enthusiasm for it is more about the position he holds talking about what he is talking about.
        secondly and more importantly you seem to be desiring equal leadership, concerning climate change, to be shown in this country.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EaCr1aRits
        in response to the first; the first minute of this clipsays it very succintly (if darkly).

        secondly; dont look to wellington for leadership, it starts and ends with yourself

  2. Morrissey 2
    27 June 2013 at 6:34 am

    Luvvies on the Loose
    No. 1: Ginette McDonald

    GINETTE McDONALD: He came up to me and said, “Ginette McDonald, do you know who I am? My name is Paul Scott Holmes and I am a great broadcaster!”

    JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha! Did he say that, Paul Holmes? ….[Long pause to indicate mourning]…. Peter Sinclair was cerebral. He wrote some very insightful columns.

    GINETTE McDONALD: How smart he was and how vulnerable! What a sacrifice it is to be a public figure!

    MORA: We could riff on THAT for the next ten minutes!

    ….Several minutes later….

    MORA: Mahhh-vellous! I’ll never forget your interview with Sir Elton John! He ADORED you!

    ….Later….

    GINETTE McDONALD: I think the young are completely mahhhh-vellous!

    —-Eight Months to Mars, Afternoons with Jim Mora, Radio NZ National, Monday 11 February 2013

  3. Just do It 3
    27 June 2013 at 6:53 am

    This does not have to be hard.

    This poll is a concern and the flatness of the past polls is a concern. Between now and the spring the Caucus need to reform itself dramatically. It is possible.
    As Toby Manhire suggested in the Herald last week “..the promotion of an MP who had served his time would project strength, evidence of the leader’s vaunted experience in conciliation..”
    I’d add to that the early retirement of Goff, King and Mallard coupled with the appointment of new managers in Shearer’s office who are NOT selected by Grant Robertson. Shearer has to stop what he is currently doing. It is not working. He needs to create a new team.

    Cunliffe seems to be more focused than ever on his portfolio. He continues to show that he can engage with business people and issues as well as with the workers, consumers and the disenfranchised. His recent contributions to debates in Parliament show he is more centered than ever. Cunliffe looks like a guy who has learned from whatever was done to him last year. He has demonstrated that he can swallow a rat, and get on with folk in the beltway as well a burbs.

    Shearer has the choice: to continue as is or to make a change.

    Go on Shearer, make the necessary changes, now, refresh and position yourself to get our score out of the low 30s and into the 40s.
    Your last chance.

  4. Morrissey 4
    27 June 2013 at 7:29 am

    Don’t confuse Obama with Gandhi: Norman Finkelstein

    At UBC on January 21, 2009, the day after Obama’s inauguration, Norman Finkelstein gave a short speech about his research into the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi. He claims there is no comparison between Gandhi, who gave up his life to a cause he believed in, and Barack Obama, who is merely a clever politician coasting on a wave of change that he didn’t work to create.

  5. vto 5
    27 June 2013 at 8:10 am

    So today in Christchurch we will hear how Brownlee will lump a giant great dull convention centre right onto two of the very best blocks of CBD Christchurch so that all manner of private business can do private business. Brownlee will require the ratepayers to pay for these private businesses.

    Why don’t private businesses pay for their private business? I thought Brownlee and his ilk believed in user-pays and the free market and not corporate handouts or picking winners? Why do they force elderly ratepayers to pay for them?

    Secondly, a lumpen great convention centre is completely the wrong thing to place in that location. White elephant city here we come…..

    i despair.

    and so do countless others – witness the decaying hole of the donut city.

    Christchurch central city rebuild is failing. I hope I am proved wrong.

    • One Anonymous Knucklehead 5.1
      27 June 2013 at 8:49 am

      When the work is complete, and Christchurch looks like the National Party, and violence and crime flourish, will it be too late to tear their monuments to greed and corruption down? Of course not!

      • vto 5.1.1
        27 June 2013 at 8:58 am

        Well that’s kind of what is hoped for – that given the time it will take to bring these giant monuments to fruition and given that time and tide and new and different governments and councils will come and go and shoulder and shove and pull and push these projects all around and they will get variously dumped and amended and shrunken and expanded as the will of the peoples dictate.

        That is the hope.

        But when all you have is hope you have nothing (sorry JK (kirwan that is)…)

    • Draco T Bastard 5.2
      27 June 2013 at 11:04 am

      I thought Brownlee and his ilk believed in user-pays and the free market and not corporate handouts or picking winners?

      What they believe in is user pays for the poor and government handouts from taxing the poor to themselves and their rich mates.

      Christchurch central city rebuild is failing.

      Yep, it’s what happens when dictators take over.

    • Jokerman 5.3
      27 June 2013 at 1:41 pm

      Covered Sports Stadium, Indoor Sports Stadium, Convention Centre; a monumental Tory.
      (Crown- 2.9B Council- 1.9B; Game, set, match).

      • vto 5.3.1
        27 June 2013 at 1:57 pm

        what? * cough splutter choke croak ….*

        next government and council please

        overturn coming

        • vto 5.3.1.1
          27 June 2013 at 2:41 pm

          Apparently Lancaster Park, I mean Jade Stadium, oh I mean AMI Stadium, whatever the f… its current corporate tag is…. is not even bloody broken. It is apparently structurally sound and the only problem is that from one end of the field to the other the stadium drops 200mm.

          That’s about 8 inches. About $45million to repair so the rumour goes. Why not leave it at that? And don’t tell visiting teams as we will then get the downhill advantage….

          Really, sheesh, where is the thinking?

          … thinking thinking thinking ….

  6. vto 6
    27 June 2013 at 8:11 am

    And Brownlee better steer well fucking clear of tossing a covered stadium into the mix. That will seriously bring down the house.

  7. mickysavage 7
    27 June 2013 at 10:04 am

    Isn’t politics a funny thing sometimes …

    Following is a recent speech by David Cunliffe where he praises Todd McClay, compliments David Bennett and agrees with Matthew Hooton …

    I kid you not!

    The video is here.

    • BM 7.1
      27 June 2013 at 10:18 am

      He certainly is a lot more fluent than Dave.
      David Cunliffe should be and is ready to be the Leader of Labour, I didn’t really think so last year but he’s certainly developed a bit more humility and lost the arrogance and pompousness.
      I guess having your colleagues lining up to kick you in the nads does that, tends to make you reassess your approach and how you do things.

    • karol 7.2
      27 June 2013 at 10:42 am

      Well, it’s a bit of a back-handed compliment to David Bennett, for knowing all the loopholes that needed to be ended, having specialised in fiddling farm accounts in the past.

      • Colonial Viper 7.2.1
        27 June 2013 at 11:05 am

        I’m afraid that for a Tory its actually a 100% sincere compliment, nothing backhanded about it.

  8. Draco T Bastard 8
    27 June 2013 at 10:52 am

    You know what, Auckland’s support for the CRL is proof that we’d get better governance from referendum than we get from representatives.

  9. Penny Bright 9
    27 June 2013 at 11:06 am

    The latest David Bain revelations………….

    (Just posted this comment on the Radio Live facebook page).

    “Seen this Sean Plunket?

    I would have put this on your facebook page directly – but you seem to have ‘blocked’ me?

    (Don’t you believe in ‘freedom of expression’ Sean? 🙂

    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/twelve-reasons-worry-about-bain-case-lf-134942 ”

    ______________________________________________________________________________

    I have not studied this David Bain case – but the thing that has always been the BIG question to me – is MOTIVE?

    What MOTIVE did David Bain have to murder all these members of his family?

    A bad day on the paper run?

    DUH?

    Penny Bright

    • geoff 9.1
      27 June 2013 at 11:41 am

      Clearly David is a criminal mastermind…..according to the police.

      Disregarding the new evidence, the crown story is just daft:

      22 yr old David gets up, shoots 4 of his family in the house and then pops out to do the paper run as an alibi. Gets back home just in time to hide behind the curtains and snuff the old man. Then he just has to leave a wee note on the computer to implicate dad and then finally ring the police and turn on the water works.

      Sounds like something from Agatha Christie.

      • scotty 9.1.1
        27 June 2013 at 12:15 pm

        Or as you suggest ,
        An elderly man gets up , puts on his sons’ clothes and glasses, shoots 4 of his family. takes off his sons clothes, puts the bloodied clothes in the washing machine,
        Changes his clothes, goes into the front room, logs on the family computer, types a note obsolving the son ,whos clothes hes just worn ,while murdering his family.
        Shoots himself ,the guns’ mag falling out of the gun and landing on its edge beside Robin Bains’ ‘hand.

        Robins. body found with no blood on him ,except his own.

        David, who is found with his siblings blood on him. cant remember how he knows his family his dead, or why he waited 20 mins to ring an ambulance.

        Sounds like something a defence lawyer would come up with.
        It wouldn’t wash as an Agatha Christie novel.

      • McFlock 9.1.2
        27 June 2013 at 12:18 pm

        Alternatively, dad wants to shoot his entire family except for one son. Equally bizarre.

        Fortunately, we don’t have trial by TV or blogosphere.

        Meanwhile, a relative of mine has to avoid watching the news for the next few days because every time pundits spout opinions (based solely on TV reports or the internet, which compete for the award for disseminating the most utter BS) or cheer their particular team, it reminds her how much she misses her friend, even after all this time.

        • weka 9.1.2.1
          27 June 2013 at 8:28 pm

          “Alternatively, dad wants to shoot his entire family except for one son. Equally bizarre.”

          Why? Surely not any more bizzare than shooting one or all?

          • McFlock 9.1.2.1.1
            27 June 2013 at 11:49 pm

            “equally”.

            Some folk try Agatha Christie whodunnits, others just don’t bother with hiding a murder-suicide. Arguing that one or the other could not be done because it sounds “just daft” in the cold light of day in my opinion shows a marked under-estimation of (to quote WSBurroughs) “just how far human kicks can go”.

      • Jokerman 9.1.3
        27 June 2013 at 1:43 pm

        a shooter is likely to have powder residue on his hands, regularly; shooting birds for example.

    • BLiP 9.2
      27 June 2013 at 8:24 pm

      ‘

      I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?

      Don’t get me wrong, I believe this whole thing has been yet another ongoing, ochestrated miscarriage of justice perpetrated by, if not corrupt, then bumbling police officers aided and abetted by officious bureacrats and their babmboozled and indifferent politicians. Milton Weir . Kevin Anderson, Phill Goff, Crusher Collins, Peter Doone, Peter Robinson, Jim Doyle, Kim Jones, N C Jaine, B P Duncan . . . “when honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose?”

      • weka 9.2.1
        27 June 2013 at 8:34 pm

        I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?

        I would have thought that the body would have all sorts of overrides to normal biological functions when one was about to commit mass murder.

      • RJLC 9.2.2
        27 June 2013 at 11:38 pm

        The full bladder, therefore victim, argument has no evidential weight.

        This always supposes improbability Robin slept and committed crime soon after rising without emptying his bladder.

        What evidence is there that Robin may not have had a sleepless night contemplating shooting his family or woke well before the shooting. In such scenarios he could easily have started with a partially full bladder and accumulated further urine during the activity of shooting his family.

    • weka 9.3
      27 June 2013 at 8:36 pm

      “The latest David Bain revelations………….

      I have not studied this David Bain case – but the thing that has always been the BIG question to me – is MOTIVE?

      What MOTIVE did David Bain have to murder all these members of his family?”

      The link you posted Penny goes to the review of the case that is damning of the police. We will never know who killed the Bain family, because the police didn’t do their job properly. What was the motive for that?

      • muzza 9.3.1
        28 June 2013 at 8:33 am

        We will never know who killed the Bain family, because the police didn’t do their job properly. What was the motive for that

        An excellent question, Weka!

        Dunedin, moreso than many NZ cities, has a very dark history, one which includes police, politicians etc, being tied to organized, and underaged crime, and various other sadistic goings on.
        Rather like it being, the Adelaide of NZ, if you will!

        http://www.critic.co.nz/features/article/631/dunedins-dark-past

        There has been a massive cover up, it always was, with the reasons most likely becoming, *future conspiracy theories*.

  10. Chris 10
    27 June 2013 at 1:15 pm

    Just saw this gif on facebook:

    http://i.imgur.com/Auv6MSi.gif

  11. Rogue Trooper 11
    27 June 2013 at 1:51 pm

    so, they want to intercept Skype? 1/3 of all internet traffic. Good luck with that Amy and co.
    (You better you better you bet).
    Seven Sharp characterize Assange as an “albino weasel”. Really?
    DHB’s fail to meet safety stds (Health Quality and Safety Board).Only a 1/4 to a 1/3 of all DHB’s “doing enough” to prevent falls, infection etc.
    RB seriously considering restrictions on low-deposit loans, first-home buyers not exempt. “Something has to be done to prevent damage (wreckage) to the financial system.”

    Is David Shearer merely a ‘great-souled-man’?

  12. Molly 12
    27 June 2013 at 1:56 pm

    New Horizon Poll out today on how Aucklanders view the government, titled Government suffers poor performance ratings on Auckland issues.

    Also worth a read is the follow up commentary:
    What happened to Government supporters in the performance rating poll?

    Guessing they knew this was the case when they swallowed the dead rat before them, and made noises about supporting the CRL.

  13. Rosetinted 13
    27 June 2013 at 2:32 pm

    This morning around the time on Morning Report about 7.45am that radionz reads out the headlines of the main papers I thought I heard that the Waikato Times had an item on spending by the NZ Forces likely to go into drones etc. I haven’t been able to track this down. Did anybody else hear the full mention, very short, or have seen it in a newspaper? I would like to look at it, hear it further.

    • muzza 14.1
      27 June 2013 at 3:01 pm

      How would we ever, actually know!

      We can’t, and have to draw our own conclusions!

    • ianmac 14.2
      27 June 2013 at 5:55 pm

      In my day Joe, we believed everything that authorities told us. (Almost.) Now we should doubt everything that authorities tell us. Skills learnt to predict the bad guy in a stirring”whodunnit” will nowadays be focussed on real authority figures selling real misinformation. My brain hurts.

  15. Tim 15
    27 June 2013 at 2:56 pm

    Message to Christine Rankin …
    A Doz size 7 eggs are on special at New World for $3.99.
    That’s great aye Krussy?
    That means the kuds can live on weetbix and milk for breakfast (at 57cents?); noodles for lunch; and egg and toast for dinner for the next week.

  16. captain hook 16
    27 June 2013 at 3:16 pm

    they wouldn’t live on that mate.
    it sounds like a recipe for enteric dysfunction.
    i.e. diaorhea.

    • Tim 16.1
      27 June 2013 at 7:00 pm

      Well I know mine couldn’t possibly have, but as you know Krussy Rankin seems to know better.
      (i.e. basing her experiences of a couple of decades ago transposed on today’s reality).
      They’d probably have to be raw eggs as well, given the lack of electricity.

  17. Pascal's bookie 17
    27 June 2013 at 4:12 pm

    So little birdies on the twittery grapevine saying things about how that there Auckland Council voted 10-7 that they weren’t interested in some deal involving no skycity and some pokies and a convention centre so that’s a thing.

  18. Rosetinted 18
    27 June 2013 at 4:21 pm

    The comments list seems to becoming overwhelmed with some material from Gaza GPJA.. And Karol’s one on Women receiving awards also extra long, the wording of headings if too long is hard to read.

  19. gobsmacked 19
    27 June 2013 at 6:42 pm

    So the back-stabbing has begun.

    Remember last year? When ABC were using Garner and Gower to dump on Cunliffe … all off the record, whispering in the dark, using the TV3 twins to push their self-serving agenda.

    It’s on again. But this time Shearer is the target. Remember there are no real Shearer supporters, they were Parker supporters a couple of weeks before the leadership ballot in 2011, they just wanted a front man, and Shearer got the nod.

    Turns out he’s not up to the job (who could have guessed, eh?) so they’re leaking into Gower’s ear (eww) and tonight on TV3 they got him to do their work – it’s their usual method. And the next idiot who says “Non-story! MSM!” try and think for a moment … who’s feeding him? And why?

    Shearer will be dumped by the people who put him there. Next up, Robertson.

    • karol 19.1
      27 June 2013 at 6:45 pm

      Yes. But don’t they need to put it to a full membership vote? They may try to go for someone like Andrew Little, or Jacinda Ardern. They are short on options.

      • Colonial Viper 19.1.1
        27 June 2013 at 7:07 pm

        But don’t they need to put it to a full membership vote?

        Ahhh, yes they do. TRP, you asked me why I was still a member?

    • McFlock 19.2
      27 June 2013 at 6:59 pm

      But I thought Gower was supposed to have pretty much made everything up last time to make headlines? But this time he’s being fed?

      Or maybe last time “ABC” fed gower the idea of a Cunliffe coup in order to discredit cunliffe, (who didn’t need discrediting if he wasn’t planning a challenge), and this time they’re feeding gower the idea of a caucus challenge because, well, whatever.

      Or maybe gower realises his paycheck rests on taking unwary comments and blowing them out of proportion. Where’s the benefit in flagging a challenge months down the road? There is none.

      • Colonial Viper 19.2.1
        27 June 2013 at 7:06 pm

        But I thought Gower was supposed to have pretty much made everything up last time to make headlines? But this time he’s being fed?

        lolz Gower was being fed BS then, he’s being fed BS now, and thanks for repeating the BS McFlock.

        • McFlock 19.2.1.1
          27 June 2013 at 8:56 pm

          Got that.
          The reports gower was making last year about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months were complete falsehoods spread by confidential sources. The reports gower is making right now about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months are complete truths spread by confidential sources.

      • gobsmacked 19.2.2
        27 June 2013 at 7:10 pm

        “Unwary comments”?

        Did you see the story? Long, detailed quotes. Not somebody caught off guard, but somebody planting.

        I said (and you ignored) Garner because it was his blog that started it all last year. A blog that was brought about by senior Labour MPs attacking Cunliffe – anonymously, of course.

        Same MO.

        • McFlock 19.2.2.1
          27 June 2013 at 7:55 pm

          Funny thing about anonymous attackers. You never know what was the actual quote and what is the intermediary’s little bit of editorialising. Sometimes they’re 100% accurate, sometimes it’s all just an invention by the intermediary, usually it’s somewhere in between. The point is, you can never know.

          • Pascal's bookie 19.2.2.1.1
            27 June 2013 at 9:36 pm

            Nah Quotes are quotes. If a journo misrepresents an off the record quote they’ll never get another one.

            • McFlock 19.2.2.1.1.1
              27 June 2013 at 10:20 pm

              If s/he said the complete opposite, you’d be right. But if the reporter is the only one with recordings or notes of the meeting, there’s a lot of room for misinterpretation that wouldn’t ruin come to light.
              And if a journo does burn a source who is expendable, what could the anonymous source do?

              • Pascal's bookie …
                27 June 2013 at 10:30 pm

                An mp who has pretty much promised you two months worth of storyline is by definition, not burnable.

                Paddy will be, quite rightly, wanting to follow this story up at some point.

                • McFlock …
                  27 June 2013 at 10:39 pm

                  unless he got something slightly less clear cut, but he now has the lens through which everything can be interpreted and the mp is therefore no longer needed.

                  I mean, the difference is whether they had lunch for an hour and gower drew together disparate lines and placed less emphasis on qualifications and equivocations, or had a 2 minute chat in the john where the mp wasn’t interrupted at all and spoke straight into the recorder.

                  • Pascal's bookie …
                    28 June 2013 at 5:14 am

                    No, the difference is the quote marks. And it doesn’t matter if Gower is ignoring all the kumbayah stuff they may have said. They also said this stuff, to Gower, (and Dannat TVNZ). It’s deliberate that they said this stuff, it’s something they chose to do, to get a story like this.

                    • McFlock …
                      28 June 2013 at 1:16 pm

                      I’ve been “quoted” in the paper once or twice – different hats back in the day. Just in the local pages, nothing earth shattering. Quotation marks seemed to be largely similar to the role of the target in the Texas Sharpshooter analogy.

                      And that’s without the interview style “would you say something roughly along the lines of xxxxxx?” “yes”.

        • Boadicea 19.2.2.2
          27 June 2013 at 10:56 pm

          http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/370/articleID/303006/Default.aspx

          What is the problem with someone saying that Shearer has to either demonstrate that he can get his performance right or step aside?
          What is the problem with telling the media?
          The Membership and the public would like to know that the Party leaders are taking the continual poll paralysis seriously.
          The sooner the Leadship issue is opened to a proper debate the better.

          Btw, McFlock is a Grant Robertson tool.

          • McFlock 19.2.2.2.1
            27 June 2013 at 11:17 pm

            Btw, McFlock is a Grant Robertson tool.

            But according to the “Shearer’s a patsy” theory, doesn’t that mean that I’d be undermining shearer at this time so Robertson can take the leadership?

            But of course your justification for that delusion is even more tenuous than CV’s guess: it consists solely of amateur-hour content pattern analysis. Even a political news editor would regard that as a bit thin.

            By the way, your content analysis is as mistaken as your trend analysis.

      • Jim Nald 19.2.3
        27 June 2013 at 7:10 pm

        There has been one Labour MP who has been providing information to Gower. This goes back a long way ….. Gower himself has mentioned in passing the name of that MP when I was with a small group of people a few years ago.

        Shearer should have a word with his deputy.

        http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/370/articleID/303006/Default.aspx

        • weka 19.2.3.1
          27 June 2013 at 7:48 pm

          text version

          Labour leader David Shearer has been put on two months’ notice by his own MPs – if the poll ratings don’t improve, his leadership will be challenged.

          A Labour MP told 3 News today that Mr Shearer had until spring – two months away – to pick up his and Labour’s performance.

          The MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The caucus is just really flat. It’s not panic or anxiety just yet, but a couple more bad polls and it will be. David’s got a couple more months. A change in leadership cannot be ruled out before the end of the year.

          “Spring time is when people will get really nervous, just over a year out from the election. We don’t want to get into the “Goff-zone”, where it’s too late to change the leader, but you’ve got someone in there the public just don’t want -the phone is just off the hook.”

          It is rare for Labour MPs to speak so openly of leadership concerns.

          The MP who spoke to 3 News is not a loyal supporter of leadership rival David Cunliffe. That makes the comments more significant as it shows there are broader concerns in the caucus about Mr Shearer’s performance.

          Meanwhile Mr Shearer was on the by-election battlefield of Ikaroa-Rawhiti with Meka Whaitiri, Labour’s candidate for the seat.

          There he vowed to be the Labour leader come the next general election.
          3 News

          Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/1607/articleID/303006/Default.aspx#ixzz2XOu4ZQaZ

      • geoff 19.2.4
        27 June 2013 at 7:22 pm

        Flock off McFuck, you know full well that most people thought Trevor Mallard was leaking to Gower during the conference.

        • Colonial Viper 19.2.4.1
          27 June 2013 at 7:34 pm

          Please excuse him. McFlock is an old Dunedin and Otago uni friend of Grant Robertson.

          • McFlock 19.2.4.1.1
            27 June 2013 at 7:46 pm

            That’s the sort of thing that should be called “doing a gower”, CV

            • Colonial Viper 19.2.4.1.1.1
              27 June 2013 at 8:06 pm

              Loyalty is a value underestimated these days, and it’s great that you are loyal to your friends. Good on ya mate.

              • McFlock …
                27 June 2013 at 8:52 pm

                let’s refresh everyone on the basis you have for saying that Robertson and I are “old friends”. I said:

                The only relationship I have with Robertson is that he was present of the students’ association at about the same time I started uni.

                From that you draw a long bow from “uni at roughly the same time”, through “actually spoke to each other at the time” all the way to “are friends” [present tense = “are friends now”]. And spout on as if it’s fact.

                I think we can call that “a gower”.

        • McFlock 19.2.4.2
          27 June 2013 at 7:52 pm

          this would be the brilliant tactic of creating rumours of a cunliffe challenge because mallard didn’t want cunliffe to be leader, even though cunliffe was extremely loyal and in no way going to challenge.

          No challenge = no need to purposefully create rumours.

          But if there was a challenge, gower didn’t need mallard to make anything up.

          • Anne 19.2.4.2.1
            27 June 2013 at 8:01 pm

            The MP who spoke to 3 News is not a loyal supporter of leadership rival David Cunliffe. That makes the comments more significant as it shows there are broader concerns in the caucus about Mr Shearer’s performance.

            That suggests to me the MP was a member of the broader caucus and not notably aligned at any point to either the Shearer or the Cunliffe camp.

            • karol 19.2.4.2.1.1
              27 June 2013 at 8:07 pm

              But it doesn’t rule the informant out from being a Robertson/Parker supporter.

              • Anne …
                27 June 2013 at 8:24 pm

                That’s why I said at any point. The Robertson/Parker acolytes joined with the Shearer-ites once the deals were done. One faction leader got deputy and the other finance. I’m inclined to think this was someone who kept in the background during the leadership battle and its aftermath.

              • handle …
                27 June 2013 at 8:44 pm

                One fond of saying “a couple more”.

            • Colonial Viper 19.2.4.2.1.2
              27 June 2013 at 8:09 pm

              Great, more Labour MPs spilling their guts to news reporters. Also, I’m pretty sure that apart from a very few MPs, there is no actual “Shearer camp”.

              EDIT ffs, this Labour caucus instability is Hooten’s wet dream planned well over a year ago, coming true. I’m just amazed though that none of us on The Standard spotted the plan before.

              • gobsmacked …
                27 June 2013 at 8:18 pm

                It’s a classic “Thursday story”.

                The leader is (usually) not in Parliament on Thursday – today he was campaigning in Ikaroa-Rawhiti. So it’s safe to talk to the gallery, cat’s away, mice play …

                In unrelated news, Trevor Mallard *was* in Parliament today.

    • Saarbo 19.3
      27 June 2013 at 9:49 pm

      I can’t believe someone from Caucus chose to leak this to Gower instead of working within caucus to bring a resolution to the Leadership problem. Unbelievable, I don’t think we can blame Hooten for this, I’m afraid that Labour is seriously fucked if a senior member of caucus has gone to the media with this.

      Who ever it is is putting their ambitions ahead of the Party’s (Its per emptive, Shearer is gone!)…they need to be outed. Clearly it is the same person who set up Cunliffe in November. This person is poisonous, Labour will never succeed with this person within its ranks IMO.

      • weka 19.3.1
        27 June 2013 at 10:16 pm

        Hmmm, I thought the whole point was that Shearer was put in to prevent Cunliffe, and he would then later be rolled to get who the ABCs really want. At least that’s what the Standardistas were talking about last year.

        Sorry Saarbo, but it’s a given that too many Labour MPs put their own careers ahead of the good of the party.

        btw, Labour MPs playing bullshit internal politics and Hooton having his hand in things are not mutually exclusive.

  21. Pascal's bookie 21
    27 June 2013 at 9:59 pm

    This labour party Gower thing.

    Y’all know I’m neither a LP member nor list voter, so take this as whatever.

    But this stuff hurts your party. From now till ‘spring’ Gower has been given an explicit narrative. All political stories will now be in the frame of “What does this mean for Shearer’s position as leader’.

    You might think “So, what’s new?” and fair enough, but this has made it official. It’s a Labour party framing, the media don;t need to speculate that caucus is looking, they can state it all as fact.

    So LP members should be writing letters and making calls to your mps, and letting them know that this anonymous sniping should stop, and that whoever is doing it should launch a challenge and get this ball rolling. You’ve got your new process, it will take time, but it needs to be put to bed, and that can only happen one way or the other through a vote. Untill the party wide vote happens, this story will run, and Labour will not look like a govt in waiting. That vote needs to happen as soon as possible.

    Fuck spring.

  22. chris73 22
    27 June 2013 at 10:03 pm

    So when will Labour give up on winning this election and concentrate on 2017?

    “Three more years!, three more years!”

  23. Colonial Viper 23
    27 June 2013 at 10:09 pm

    Have the bloody NATs been taking lessons from the UK tories? Conservative Government has just announced a massive £100B infrastructure and social housing build plan…but none of it starts for at least 4 years.

    This is more bullshit “things will get better in the future” BAU messaging.

  24. Brett Dale 24
    27 June 2013 at 10:35 pm

    So if Labour falls below 30% will people here finally admit, “hey we’re in trouble here” or will you be like bob dole who thought because his cousin friend in tempe was going to vote for him, hes still in with a chance.

    • weka 24.1
      27 June 2013 at 10:45 pm

      I think you are right Brett. No-one on ts has ever speculated before now that Labour might be in trouble.

      • Brett Dale 24.1.1
        27 June 2013 at 11:00 pm

        weka:

        every time there is a poll here, it doesnt matter what it shows, everybody jumps
        up and down and acts like its a victory for labour.

        • chris73 24.1.1.1
          27 June 2013 at 11:12 pm

          The only poll that counts is on election day unless that poll shows an increase for Labour in which case its an indicator of Labours resurgence

        • Colonial Viper 24.1.1.2
          27 June 2013 at 11:17 pm

          every time there is a poll here, it doesnt matter what it shows, everybody jumps
          up and down and acts like its a victory for labour.

          Brett Dale. Please attempt to pay more attention to what people actually say here, next time.

        • lprent 24.1.1.3
          28 June 2013 at 8:39 am

          Every 2 or 3 fortnightly Morgan polls I have a look at the trends. Basically I am ignoring jitter.

          I essentially ignore the other polls as they happen so infrequently for each poll as to be useless because of their infrequencies and that they only seem to make and effort to get an accurate population sample close to the election – which is why they always have dramatic shifts then.

          As far as I can see, most people here do the same. Reading the right blogs is amusing. Many if not most seem to largely ignore Morgan despite its sampling rate and despite the fact that it seldom shifts much leading into an election and is usually the most accurate. Instead they concentrate on the infrequent polls with piss poor track records.

          I guess they are either credulous fools with little understanding of statistics, or they are credulous fools with delusions that the “big lie” technique keeps working.

    • McFlock 24.2
      27 June 2013 at 10:46 pm

      in the roy morgan, I probably would. Especially if it was coupled with a noticable reversal in the trend (as opposed to a single 8-point drop from 37%).

      • Colonial Viper 24.2.1
        27 June 2013 at 11:20 pm

        You can relax McFlock. The true mean of support for Labour sits on or very close to 32%. It’s very unlikely that it will fall under 30%, except perhaps momentarily.

        • McFlock 24.2.1.1
          27 June 2013 at 11:43 pm

          I get the impression that you pray it does dip below 30%, otherwise all the helpul advice for Labour you’ve offered here is just useless horseshit you’ve been spouting since feb 2012.

  25. Tamati 25
    28 June 2013 at 12:07 am

    Pretty amazing that iPredict hinted this last week.

    https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=contract_detail&contract=SHR.DEPART.2013

    Either someone is manipulating iPredict to push their point, or there really has been backroom talk over the last few weeks and the leak is just it eventuating.

    Interesting times!

  26. xtasy 26
    28 June 2013 at 1:31 am

    El Pueblo Unido Jamas sera vencido!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhpSwSBbdxM

    Viva el Chile, viva el mundo, viva Novo Zelanda, viva!!!

  27. xtasy 27
    28 June 2013 at 1:35 am

    Libertad por Chile Y el mondo, especial por latin america!!!