MEDIA ADVISORY: Annette Sykes to launch campaign for Waiariki
Annette Sykes, MANA candidate for Waiariki
Monday 28 July 2014
At midday tomorrow, Annette Sykes will officially launch her campaign to win the Waiariki electorate seat for MANA in the upcoming general election.
“A key goal for MANA this election is to mobilise our people to vote, especially rangatahi, and win Waiariki. To help with this we’ve got Maisey Rika, Cliff Curtis, and our MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu, all lending their support for the launch and the wider campaign” said Ms Sykes.
“MANA is committed to changing the government and here in Waiariki we’re fully geared up for the task. We’ve already got our billboards up and from next week we’ll be knocking on every voter’s door in the electorate asking them for their support” said Ms Sykes.
“Creating new jobs, and ensuring existing jobs – including those in forestry – are safe and paid at least a living wage are a top priority for MANA, and I’ll be talking more about this at the launch” concluded Ms Sykes.
When: 6:00-8:00pm, Tuesday 29 July (PUBLIC MEETING)
Where: Distinction Hotel, Rotorua
House DJ: Hone Djporoufessor Ngata
Guest performance by Maisey Rika and appearances by Cliff Curtis and MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu.
All media welcome.
ENDS
For further information please contact Te Ringahuia Hata, (021) 236-0931.
much like “cunliffe only aims to get 40%” thing where rnz claimed they were paraphrasing even though cunliffe pointed out that guyon was attempting to put words in his mouth
The Herald have announced two new columnists for the election period Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the supposed left. The trouble with this choice is that if you averaged out where they are on the political spectrum you would get someone in the same space as John Key.
I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left” under Cunliffe for what she obviously presumes will be a substantial Electoral Defeat and calls for the Restoration of the Party’s ABC Grandees to their rightful place on the Labour throne.
“The party made David Cunliffe leader for his strategy of shoring up the base with a more militant tone. He’s delivered on that strategy but it hasn’t worked……It’s too late to ditch some of the rhetoric that made people doubt whether you would put them ahead of sectarian interests……” http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-does-labour-do-now
Conveniently overlooking, of course, the fact that back in the days when Cunliffe really was pushing core Labour values, the Party’s support conspicuously soared to 37% (reaching a monthly average of 35% for 3 of the last 4 months of 2013, something Shearer managed to do in just one of the 20 months in which he was leader).****
What’s more, it’s clear that for Josie, “people” = equal those employed who are currently supporting National. In contrast, Benies, the Undecided and the Missing Million presumably = equal “non-people” who deserve little if any electoral consideration.
****(Important to remember this, incidently, whenever Jane Clifton, Matthew Hooton or various Tory Tr*lls turn up to tell us Labour were on the way up under Shearer and if only the Party had stuck with him…I’ll be posting about this on sub-zero in the very near future)
“..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..”
It was radical in the context of the electorate. It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the good or just.
..that the undoing of the demonising of the poorest by clark etc. was too hard a task…?
..that ‘the electorate’ wd rather our shameful levels of poverty/inequality should continue..?
..as i said..herein/therein labours’ problems are crystalised..
..and lest i be accused of more ‘hate-campaigns’..i will note that it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..
..when they do…
..so..strategically..i shd support labour not having poverty-busting policies..(yet again..)..
..but i don’t..
..to me it just symbolises how lost in neo-lib-land labour still are…
… you scoff at 1%, sneer at the support to date for a new grouping and a new vision for the future and then have the puffery to go all ‘credible parties of the left’ onit. Vote for whoever you want but why not let the rest of us do that too eh? Don’t be a spiteful arsehole. As for what phil is saying – it is his view and that is that – there is an argument that he is putting forward – I’m not sure I 100% agree with it but it is a valid line imo.
Get to 10 or 15% and I’ll believe you’re on to something.
Until then you’re just a party with a voter base less than the conservatives, using PU as an example, telling everyone else what to do and think, without any public backing or support.
I don’t care if you or phil don’t agree or like it, but it’s still good to talk.
I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc, so doubt very much you’ll be piping this admiral onto your battleship, but if you ‘trailblazers’ are still a nothing party like craigs in years to come, I’ll give a sympathetic awww bless just for you. 🙂
“Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.”
It was more figuratively speaking based on both being nothing much to see here parties in the big scheme of things, but thanks for that anyway.
Election night will tell all for real.
Good you are finally being truthful allen when you say, “I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically, out of spite, you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them – sad bastard that you are – but truthful at last, you at least have that lol
“when you say I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them”
I’ve never stopped anyone wanting to vote for HH or kdc doing so, but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.
“sad bastard that you are”
What’s the matter? Don’t you mip blokes like choice?
“but truthful at last, you at least have that lol”
And always have and always will be, unlike your party benefactor. :halo:
Without who, and let’s be realistic and honest, hone and mana would be just a winston with a much smaller voter base and much less charisma and pull.
Actor Cliff Curtis has become the latest celebrity to publicly declare support for the Mana Movement.
Curtis, the star of films including The Dark Horse and Once Were Warriors, joins former Warrior player and TV personality Wairangi Koopu and hip-hop star King Kapisi in Mana’s celebrity stable.
Curtis will attend the campaign launch of Mana’s Annette Sykes in Waiariki tomorrow, the party said.
wiki definition of sad bastard – “but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.”
Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us – thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness – we are saved at last!!!
Are you sure it’s not just politics in election time? Or are you projecting for a reason?
“Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us”
Ah, to counter, there’s the link to the right wing. Come on Marty, you know better than that by now 🙄 But just in case, more working class/left wing than your multi millionaire man, or I’d bet your very own HH.
Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.
Like I wrote, disingenuous.
“thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness
You’re most welcome, even if not a little insincere and begrudging.
“we are saved at last!!!”
Can’t do much about that one yet, but watch this space, man. 🙂
Last one for a while – got to do some homeschooling with my son…
“Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.”
Are you sure about that? If the reason for the view is based upon the same rationale, and the purpose of espousing that view is the same, then we are in the, looks like, sounds like, situation methinks – no matter how much it hurts your ‘right-on’ ego to admit.
But I’m really glad you’re a Green voter – good for you! See that is being nice by offering praise rather than just moaning and shitting on anothers view and opinion – see the difference to “And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.”
“It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.”
Quite right, it was never going to bring the voting masses flocking, it didn’t even bring out the 100,000 disaffected voters who stayed at home in 2011, so dead dodo of a turd policy.
That doesn’t mean the poorest and most vulnerable couldn’t and shouldn’t have been given an economic boost to raise them out of poverty, but to frame a workers package over non workers was just silliness. Thank fuck those days are over.
Very sweet of you to acknowledge non-working (because they don’t have job-holding, wage earning Mum and Dad)……’give them a boost by all means’ sort of shit.
You remind me of the lounge-fucks whose morals get a twinge the occasional night at 6.00 pm over Gaza.
Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?
So agreeing that non workers should get the same economic boost as wff recipients I’m a lounge-fuck moralist?
As a non working family man, I say shove it up your arse you misunderstanding, misreading, misrepresenting numb nut.
“Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?”
Ahh, a mip fuckwit 🙄 Explains it all.
“Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.”
You going to share that criticism with others with a similar view? Or just take out your mip loaded vendetta on me?
Shit, some of you people are touched in the head with your gang mentality. 🙄
I wish it was possible for people to get over the word “working” in WFF. I know it was implemented to boost the income of people with children who have a paying job but there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work. Would be great to see something that has the aim of Working For ALL Families..
“there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work.”
I agree, but I wish people would stop linking it to the working for families policy which is intended to boost the income of working families, as any connection with non workers sends the same dodo policy message of 2011.
I recommend assistance called working for children.
Quickly thinking about it, under present benefits, I’d have the dole paid as is, with a tax free working for children payment kicking in to increase the family take home to the same minimum take home level used in wff, which I believe is around $26k pa.
I’d keep wff as it’s a help to low income earners under the median wage, but I would heavily reduce the eligibility of wff above a lower income cutoff threshold to help pay for some of wfc.
Edit:
I’d also have a package for invalid beneficiaries too. Wfi
“But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.”
If you are having a ubi like some here want, I don’t think it matters what name it’s called.
In context of selling a working family tax credit for the unemployed or sick to the populace, wff isn’t the vehicle.
End result is the children and reduction of poverty, so if the final dollar level is the same, the name change negates any discrimination yet becomes instantly more palatable to ma and pa voter.
That’s a separate issue that needs addressing for sure but a policy that claims to work for families but only applies to people with both children and a job, is discriminatory.
What’s with you wanting something you’re not eligible for. Are you jealous?
Adult non child bearers or parents of children over 18 don’t get wff or wfc.
They can of course supplement their benefit with work or special assistance based on need.
Which is why it’s a crack arse crack head policy that won’t ever fly with mum and dad voters.
Frame it for the children and invalids and it’s caring, considered policy.
They would have been more honest to calling it “Subsidising Employers so Their Families Have More.” I shake my head when I see Labour bringing in yet another subsidy for employers or landlords.
Lanth, semantics semantics semantics, the Working for Families package was designed with the ‘deliberate’ view that benefit reliant children would be shut out,
The policy did not ‘have to’ be designed in such a fashion, it could have been designed for all children who’s parent(s) earned up to X amount of dollars,
Labour had that choice, it chose in my opinion the wrong options, including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy while at the same time cutting the rate of tax for business simply told me, and, 1000s of others like me, that Labour no longer valued or wanted my vote,
That said, in the year 2014, they wont be getting either of them…
Believe me, Puddleglum, I honestly hadn’t seen your TDB comment or, indeed, Michael Woods’ guest post until I clicked on your link just now. I only read TDB on an occasional basis, averaging about once every fortnight or so and, even then, I usually only have time to quickly skim a handful of posts. So I probably miss close to three-quarters of the various posts and associated comment threads.
We obviously had precisely the same visceral reaction to Pagani’s Pundit post. I certainly muttered a few sarcastic words (and, just possibly, the odd four-letter expletive) when I read the sheer audacity of her argument.(mind you, one of those four-letter expletives was: Spin, Spin, Spin !!!).
As I said we not only have the same interests but think along very similar lines (not only on Left politics, Opinion Poll analysis, but even extending to a fondness for Chomsky and Finkelstein on Israel/Palestine).
I should also add that we’ve even been carrying out similar/parallel research on political opinion in Christchurch. Last year, anticipating a close Chch East By-Election, I went through all the Candidate-Vote and Party-Vote results for all of the Christchurch seats for the last 3 Elections, compared them with the swing in the Country as a whole and then did something similar for both Enrollment and Turnout.
In the process, discovering (as I’d suspected) that both Farrar, John Armstrong and one or two others in the MSM had got things hopelessly wrong. I also managed to get my hands on some of that polling data carried out specifically in Christchurch earlier last year, as well as the census figures detailing the massive population movements in both Chch East and Central (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Port Hills, if I remember rightly). Indeed, the original motivation for setting up a blog was to use all of this research on Chch to counter any Farrar/Slater/MSM spin on what I anticipated would be this knife-edge By-Election result. And, of course, Labour won handsomely – and so the Blog’s inauguration got postponed until this year. So, the thing is, the parallels go way beyond the Undecideds.
It will be goldilocks approach for anything Key does, one will say he is doing too much, the other will say not enough and the conclusion readers will expect to each is that Key is being just right.
Even partisan Nat voters I chat to are appalled at the bias being shown by granny rnz and tv.
TVNZ are so far up themselves they dont see the danger in appointing a moderator who happily admits his bias.
A public broadcaster is sadly needed to be built by dismantling TVNZ which is simply a joke now.
Anyone catch that “hilarious” new show called the late breakfast with wells, hart etc…..I rest my case.
It looks as if they are preparing for a gloat-fest, doesn’t it. “Ah well, if only they had stayed with Shearer…” “But look at Key, his uncanny political instincts, etc, etc…” “The people have spoken, and sadly for Cunliffe…” It is up to us to get our vote out and deprive them of their fun.
The only dubious connection she has for Labour is that some years ago she stood as a candidate for Labour! Her so called ‘expert’ analysis and comments are so superficial, weak and actually biased and unsympathetic towards Labour and Cunliffe! The political bosses NZH seem too thick and perhaps too biased themselves not to to see this! If they have a genuinely right wing commentator, Cactus Kate, there, surely, they should get a genuinely left wing commentator for balance.
One thing is clear to me. Going into this election, Cunliffe and Labour are stacked against a pretty hostile and unfair media in front of them.
All the more reason to stop deliberately fucking up, then. Perhaps they are aware of some economic hot potato Labour don’t want to be left holding.
Seriously, how difficult is it? National’s pants are showing. Why frighten the voters? Get in power first and then bring about change. Where are the billboards?
My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.
This can only mean that the Israeli army and airforce are planing to demolish large areas of the city.
“My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.”
Yip, her “contacts in Gaza” just got a phone call telling them to evacuate, so during the rush to get out of their house, they thought “we should call up our good mate Jenny in NZ, the one with the persuasive media profile who will best be able to spread the message of what is happening right at the minute to the world at large”.
“I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?”
I’m more interested in knowing wher the National government is. Key is uniquely qualified as a world leader to call on Netanyahu to end the imprisonment and massacre of Palestinians but I’ve yet to read anything that says he has used any influence he may have. This contrasts strongly with his censure of Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
@ Te Reeo Putake and Lanthanide
What’s your point in sniggering at Jenny’s comment? Anger distress anxiety – that sort of response is understandable to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But sniggering no.
So what do your responses register from your standpoint that has meaning?
Those of us who can remember the ghettoising of the Jews in WWII would think that this smacks of the same process. Herd all the civilians into certain districts and demolish or confiscate their property. Dark irony indeed!
So whilst nick smith bullies fish and game about being political I noticed a Nat election billboard on DHB property, bet thats not considered political in the eyes of certain senior hospital officials recently appointed against official advice.
Sh1 mickey, I maybe wrong but I thought the waikato hospital owned all the way down to sh1 from their recently added A&E and other developments. Looked odd in passing.
oh great not thinking of joining the fool of a Labour campaign person who took a photo of bent Bankie chatting on his mobile phone while driving a car. But wait there is more, that clown apparently went to the cop shop to file a complaint in person.
That just smacks of pity little drama’s, I mean Banks has been dealt to and is history. Who gives a fuck about Banks anymore?
Come on mate let’s just work at lifting the vote and forget about the small stuff.
Slippery the Prime Minister is quoted in Grannies online version this morning as describing Smith’s threats against Fish and Game as ”silly” and ”unproductive”,
In other words the PM gives Smith a ”pull your head in notice”…
Quite some time ago there was a discussion on TS about the idea of Kelvin Davies standing aside in Te Tai Tokerau to allow Hone Harawira to win the seat. It was an idea I was cheer leading for.
Some time later LPrent cited an author (sorry can’t remember who, it was ages ago)who looked at how successful democracies function. Among three key points was a country’s ability to run a fair and honest contest between candidates. Contest being the key word.
Transferring that concept of contest into the NZ MMP environment puts a bit of stain on the idea of doing deals – and some may go so far as to say it undermines the voters right to make an educated choice as the sense of contest has diminished, ie they don’t get the full picture, rather their preferred party tells them who to vote for.
Labour haven’t done any deals.
National have. The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)
that will be scant consolation if that is the fulcrum around which a centre-left defeat swings..eh..?
..that refusal by labour to accomodate..where it is called for..
..(i don’t think it will be..as i see internet/mana doing much better than the experts/pundits are predicting..)
..but it does show up the logic-shortfalls currently bedeviling labour..
(and their ridiculous claims to win all the maori seats..makes them look as deluded/’barking’ as does flavell..when he makes that same farcical-claim for his sunset-party..)
..where really it is in their hands to both guarantee a stronger centre-left bloc..
..and to see off act/dunne..
..but because of their deeply-flawed first past the post thinking..
..they seemingly wd rather purposefully enhance their chances of defeat…
I also see IMP doing surprisingly well. They can stand on their own feet and contest their seats far and square, without any help from Labour – stepping aside. Good luck to them too. I want to see a healthy amount of IMP MP’s IN Government
Rather than hindering their chances phil, I think they come out looking better off. I heard some where on TS, feedback from the Epsom electorate suggesting the voters were tiring of being told what to do and treated like puppets.
Having another deal pushed on them might be too much. Might there might be a backlash and former ACT voters all vote Goldsmith in protest?
I don’t think the deal is going to go down well here in Ohariu. I will have me ear to the ground in coming weeks……………
It is going to happen sooner or later. Better for it to be done sooner, with plenty of notice and a very gradual increase, rather than later in a hurry.
Labour is proposing lifting the age by 2 years between 2020 and 2033. National, in 1992, increased the age by 1 year immediately and 4 years between 1993 and 2001.
If Labour’s proposal doesn’t get adopted soon, we’ll be looking at a similar rerun of National’s.
TRP – lol – onya mate – tenacious, dedicated, focused – the qualities of all good supporters – good luck for labour – the left need them there – “get your motor(s) running, head out on the highway…Fire all of your guns at once, And explode into space…”
Yep, I’m a true nature’s child, Marty! Thanks for the comment, made my morning.
And, to the others, the short version is that Labour electorate MP’s work hard to help their constituents, Nat MP’s don’t. As we know from the Cunliffe letter issue, electorate MP’s deal with thousands of requests. Labour MP’s actually give a shit about the battlers in their area and can and do make a difference. It’s not glamourous, it’s not often newsworthy, but it does give the poor and downtrodden some hope.
To give an example, if you were a Waitakere beneficiary needing help, do ya reckon Paula Benefit would lift a finger to assist you? The answer’s obvious, and the fact that she is an electorate MP is entirely down to left voters not using their electorate vote effectively.
Pretty good there BG – I agree that the Party vote is where it is at – please correct me if I’m wrong but unless you are on the Māori Roll you can’t ‘candidate vote’ Hone in Te Tai Tokerau. But you can give the Party Vote where ever you wish, I think. I wonder if someone can confirm – if a Party doesn’t have a candidate in a Māori Electorate, you can still give them a Party vote? Does every Party standing in the election give access to their Party vote or do they have to have a candidate? Probably only applicable to Māori seats but would be good to know – for academic purposes only of course 🙂
Correct, except if by some remote chance that in Epsom and ECB it is the Labour candidate that is actually leading (and not the Nat or ACT or the Cons candidate)! Not impossible, Huh?
Keep an eye out at Clutha Southland, ex English’s very occasional stomping ground.
I suspect National-ACT are playing a cunning and tricky game here,
National has put up a young unknown, an ex tobacco business peddler, Todd Barclay 23 as their lack lustre candidate, while ACT has put a well known Southland farmer and former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson as their candidate!
I think they are playing the Epsom game here quietly under the radar hoping that not many will notice! What do you think?
I’m a little bit frowny brow about the Don Nicholson scenario.
Folks from the Southland area, give us your thoughts and the word on the street or paddock gate. Better the devil you know? A well known Fed Farmer ex Prez Vs. the corporate fag trade kid. Would they not be inclined towards Nicholson as a known and one of their own?
Won’t the ACT line of Grr grumble, scrap the RMA, burn the rule book, freedom to pollute the waterways! go down well with the farming set?
(No disrespect intended to the farmers that are working very hard to take care of the environment and their animals. You are a growing number but it needs to be each and every farmer that takes this approach)
as the former Labour candidate, I can assure all that Don Nicholson will get no more votes this time around than last time around i.e. fuck all.
Also, the National Party could instruct their blue supporters in the electorate to vote ACT, but they’ll all still vote blue. Just the way it is. Southern principles vs Epsom expediency, you see.
By all accounts Kelvin davis is a good, intelligent man who’ll do a good job representing his electorate, he knows Labours numbers are in the toilet and that theres a good chance he might not get in on the list if he loses so whats in it for him to stand aside?
If Labour wanted him to stand aside they should have given him a more certain place on the list, like National did with Goldsmith
From memory I worked out Davis gets in on the list if Labour gets about 28.5%. IMO Labour voters are safe voting for Hone in the knowledge that they will probably get Davis too.
It does depend to a certain extent on electorate results.
Lolz @ ”Flyover finally over, sky about to fall in” the headline accompanying an opinion piece looking at the decision by the independent commissioners to can the proposed ‘white elephant’ the Basin Reserve flyover in today’s DomPost,
The evil little child in me was hoping that this piece of roading insanity would get the nod as from my look at the proposal it would have created gridlock for all of the traffic in the lower eastern sector of actual city traffic,
Only the supremely stupid would attempt to design a roading network by speeding traffic flows toward a major choke point,(the Mt Vic Tunnel), a) with the now defunct proposal of the Basin flyover, and b), with work about to begin on drilling the second Terrace Tunnel,
Perhaps such design is deliberate where the inevitable clusterf**k results in an enraged public demanding yet another ‘fix’ thus keeping the planners on the gravy train,
The only logical means of increasing the flow of traffic across the network is to in fact double lane the piece of road on the eastern side of the Mt Vic tunnel and then drill another tunnel through Mt Vic itself,
Of course, all that being said, the ‘planners’ could probably achieve most of their aims at far less cost by building a system where Park’n’Ride from public transport hubs becomes a viable option for all the outlying Wellington City suburbs…
I always wondered why the bus tunnel wasn’t widened to divert Hataitai/Evans Bay traffic away from the main flow. Ok, there’d be an increase in traffic up one street in Mt Vic, but surely it would help?
Yeah true TRP, i doubt the bus tunnel needs have anything ‘done to it, at rush hour, the only time the network becomes ‘stuck’, the bus tunnel could be simply utilized by having an unimpeded flow of traffic through it Eastward in the afternoon and Westward in the morning,
(as kids we used to risk life and limb by roaring through that particular tunnel in our Mk1 Zephyrs and PA Vauxhaulls as our personal shortcut),
i can tho see any attempt to convince people on both sides of that particular structure,(the bus tunnel), that their quiet streets should suddenly become a major part of the roading network getting petty ‘hot’,
A budget option for the removal of a significant part of the traffic flow that now passes the Basin Reserve it would surely be tho…
You went through in a car? What a softy! I used to wait for a bus to enter then cycle frantically behind it hoping to get out the other side before the next bus turned up. Good times!
Riii-iight, you must have been out to really impress the opposite with your choice of ride TRP, if you will excuse any unintended sexism, a real ‘babe magnet’ your bike must have been,
Soft i doubt, on occasion our ride through that tunnel was more to do with desperate needs, one particular jaunt being one of my many convictions, i can tell you that the bus tunnel was favored as the means of transport/distribution for the contents of a Toops truck in the early hours of one Wellington morning…
Don’t know why you doubt me about the alcoves though, they’re spaced along the walls at even intervals. The trick is to count your paces. You start counting again every time you pass one so you always know how many steps forward to the next one or back to the last one.
They’re only about a foot deep and be a bit tricky to see when you’re running toward the lights of an oncoming bus.
Alien’s knitting needle strikes wickedly and i laughs, its too late in the piece for me to inquire at whom such wickedness is directed, as i do not plan on spending the next 3 hours trading handy hints on how best to darn socks at this particular time of night…
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up at 3 in the morning, half an hour before we went to bed, get down on hands and knees at city end of Mt Vic Road Tunnel, lick pavement clean with our tongues, then crawl bare-kneed all way through to t’other side of tunnel while singing hallelujah chorus. And if we beat all odds and made it to t’other side before being slammed by two Big Reds coming from opposite directions then Our father would belt hell out of us wi’ shovel and dance on our graves whilst whistling old Tex Morton ballads, if we were lucky!!!
Me too, I think that the good burghers of Hataitai might not like the extra traffic. I often thought that the basin problem would go away if the two tunnels were made part of a one way system each way.
That’s the way I feel about the Waterview Connection in west Auckland. The hold up is getting onto the motorway in peak times. Improving the connection to the motorway, will just rearrange the way motorists queue to get onto the motorway.
And the all too predictable partisanship from the Dom Post. Front Page headlines shouting DISASTER !!! for two consecutive days. With former Labour MP/Mayor-turned-ACT-zealot, (Wellington Regional Council Chairwoman) Fran Wilde, given enormous space by the editor to bullshit away……
The sky is falling, the sky is falling, Laughable, the frigging Wellington Regional Council is growing proof to that old adage about Lefties jerking to the Right as they grow older…
Norman Finkelstein on the Method in Israel’s Madness…see both videos (Gaza: Is there method in the Madness July 28 and Gaza: Ceasefire or Surrender ? July 27) here… http://normanfinkelstein.com/
“In Berlin, police had to step in to protect an Israeli tourist couple at the weekend after protestors turned on them when they spotted the man’s yarmulke. Demonstrators reportedly charged towards the couple shouting “Jew! We’ll get you!..
…In Paris, hundreds of protestors have attacked synagogues, smashed the windows of Jewish shops and cafes, and set several alight, including a kosher grocery store which reportedly burned to the ground…
…There have been reports of protestors in Germany chanting “Jews to the gas chambers”, and police in Berlin have banned protestors from using another popular slogan: “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone..
Police have opened an investigation into the imam of a Berlin mosque after he allegedly called on Muslims to murder Jews in a sermon. “.
Don’t know what you do about human desperation and anger when it is en masse….
Perhaps, if more synagogues and Jewish congregations were seen to be publicly against what is going on, the focus would remain where it belongs – with the Israeli government and the IDF.
More interesting Finkelstein has approvingly posted an article that basiclly sums up what I think needs to happen:
“The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region.
That is the only approach that can solve the problem of Gaza.
That is the only approach that will eliminate the threat to Israel continually issuing from Gaza.
That is the only approach that will extricate the non-belligerent Palestinians from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques who led them astray for decades.
That is the only approach that will preclude a need for Israel to “rule over another people.””
Actually my bad, I missed Finkelstein’s sarcasm in the title – it was kind of obscure and the article posted without comment.
You may call it “ethnic cleansing” but neither of these two groups want to live with each other – way to much blood under the bridge, way to much fear about what they might try to do to each other in the future.
It’s not about Finkelstein; it’s about your support for the most right wing of Israeli ethnic cleansing positions, saying that it sums up “what you think”.
To Colonial Viper above ( the reply link is missing in your post again ) –
The Jews need their own country after what happened to them, you can not deny that.
Unfortunately it ended up on the Palestinians when probably it should have been part of Germany that got handed over. Definitely not going to happen now.
So better to bite the bullet than continue this never ending conflict.
Your Muslim mates burning Israeli flags on NZ streets or attacking Jews on European streets is no answer.
Oh I don’t care about any of your cover up after-story.
I just noted that complete destruction of the Palestinian state, transportation of all indigenous people away from their homes en masse (protip: you should do it by rail cars, they’re very efficient), and a complete takeover of all Palestinian lands by Israel “basiclly sums up what [you] think needs to happen”
Hilarious stuff !!! You don’t understand Finkelstein’s sense of humour too well, do you ?
Now let’s see, an internationally respected scholar and human rights activist who has given most of his adult life to fighting for the basic rights guaranteed to Palestinians by International Law (first and foremost by brilliantly demolishing the on-going stream of Israeli propaganda through systematic forensic analysis of the factual/diplomatic record) “APPROVINGLY” posts a rant by a deeply racist Far Right Israeli Zionist, IDF Officer and one-time ministerial advisor to the right-wing former terrorist and Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, does he ?????
I think not, me old luv. Norman Finkelstein regularly posts some of the loonier Israeli propaganda so readers can see the nutters they’re dealing with. Why do you think he added the sarcastic “(While we’re on the subject of dismantling)” to Sherman’s rant ? I would suggest it was a reference to dismantling Sherman’s Right-Wing Zionist Think-Tank (with the amusingly ‘academic’ and bona fide-sounding name) – The Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
What Israel is doing is not entirely defensible, but it is understandable.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been on the receiving end of endless vicious beatings culminating in the attempt to exterminate them entirely in Europe, the Jews wouldn’t have needed their own country.
The reasoning is pretty simple – the ultra right wing militarist/ultra religious settler 10% of the population is dictating the direction of the entire nation. Wag the dog. It is leading to insanity amongst the Israeli power elite and it is undermining Israel as a free and democratic Jewish state.
I see the British government is going to make those on the unemployment benefit prove they have applied for 40 jobs every month and work around 25 hours a week. A totally impractical rule that is going to make the unemployed ‘s lives even more hellish.
Mind you, I believe there’s more than a touch of that here in NZ. Those applying for the unemployment benefit, for instance, are required to prove conclusively to WINZ that they have been steadily applying for jobs over previous weeks. And then, it seems, they have to jump through a whole series of other hoops before they get even a sniff of the benefit.
WINZ pretty much demands that you apply for 5 jobs a day. They don’t seem to realise that if there were 5 jobs a day for everyone to apply for there wouldn’t be any unemployment. And then they’ll kick you off the benefit if you upset them even when you have been applying for 5 jobs a day.
“A former principal and her husband who scammed $30,000 from a decile one school have abandoned their appeal after a judge told them they may be jailed.
Colleen Margaret Gray, 66, and Bruce Kenneth Gray, 65, siphoned the money from Mayfield Primary School in Otara, using it on overseas trips and lavish meals between 2005 and 2007.”
Any idea what are these “dark rumours that Pablo is talking about?
“One thing is certain. If dark rumours are correct, the government has some unpleasant surprises for the IP in the weeks leading to the election. If that happens, it may take more than Glenn Greenwald and his revelations about John Key and the GCSB to redeem the IP in the eyes of the voting public. I would hope that both Dotcom and his IP candidates are acutely aware of what could be in store for them should the rumours prove true, and plan accordingly.”
Blubber Boy Whalespew reckons he has something to release that will destroy both Dotcom and Hone. I doubt if there’s anything to it. His Whalespew army will probably get all overexcited and double their masturbatory frequency, but that’ll be it. The fool thought he was going to get rid of Len Brown, and as far as I can see, he’s lucky he didn’t end up sharing a cell with Wewege. Then the morans who read his crap could make their sick Bubba jokes about him.
Nothing sloppy in my writing. I simply stated the fact that there are well-known rumours about some damning unpleasantness the government may or may not have on Dotcom, and that whatever it is will be revealed in the lead up to election day. Others have already alluded to this, to the point of speculating that it could be part of a disinformation or smear campaign against Dotcom. Whatever the case, such revelations could serve as a trump on anything Dotcom plans to reveal about Key, the GCSB etc., and could terminally hurt by association the image of the IP and its candidates.
It’s odd that National are going to that amount of trouble if they think Dotcom has absolutely nothing on Key and that the IP will be an irrelevance in the election being so ‘far left’ and ‘radical’ that New Zealanders will pay no notice.
I thought Key’s strategy was to ignore Dotcom?
It’s either petty personal vengeance on Key’s part or an attempt to spike guns (which suggests they think the guns need to be spiked).
Interesting that rumours are being seeded at this stage – by whom? Has anyone asked Key directly about what he knows and why it’s not being released now?
And isn’t it vital that ‘we’ know now if it’s vital ‘we’ know just before the election? (I think that was the argument used against the 15 September timing for Dotcom’s ‘bomb’, wasn’t it?)
Matters of democratic process, misuse of intelligence capabilities, and gaming of nationwide elections are big fucking deals. I don’t think Pablo’s style is that of yanking our chain just for the hell of it.
KDC’s given Key plenty of warning. And Key is head of the SIS and well connected with a whole lot of machinery beyond the SIS. Do you really think he’s sailing into Dotcom’s trap without a plan of his own.
No, I don’t. What is very concerning to me is what you pointed out. John Key is not above using the SIS, GCSB, the Police and the judicial system to gather information against his political opponents. He has referred to the GCSB as “my agency” previously, and I suspect he considers it his own Private Eye firm to use for whatever he sees fit in his own view of New Zealand’s security.
I have heard the rumours but am loathe to repeat them because I have no first hand way of ascertaining their veracity. The rumours have two parts: 1) the unpleasantness; 2) the government’s knowledge and intention to use it should it be deemed necessary. CV’s second paragraph pretty much captures the gist.
TBH my concern in this regard is not so much Dotcom but IP candidates, a couple of who I know personally, being tarred by association. The idea, if I read the rumour mill correctly, is also twofold: first, to discredit the IP by revealing the unpleasantness, thereby demonstrating that those who jumped on the Dotcom bandwagon were venal opportunists or naive fools who either did not check or choose to ignore Dotcom’s purportedly darker baggage (and are thereby unfit to hold political office); and second, to neutralise any Snowden furnished revelations about the GCSB’s role in Echelon and/or John Ky’s prior knowledge of the US plan to capture Dotcom. Since some of the IP candidates are people of integrity who would be valuable contributors to NZ’s political life now or in the future, I would hate to see them be destroyed by National’s hard nosed machinations (in the event the scenario plays out as described).
However, the way things are shaping up National should not have to use this trump card, so if it does it will be done out of spite rather than as a political manoeuvre.
I have heard the content of the rumours but prefer not to repeat them since I am unable to independently ascertain their veracity. But the thrust is twofold: 1) the unpleasantness involving Dotcom; 2) the government’s knowledge of and intent to use it if deemed necessary. CV basically has the gist down in his second paragraph.
National’s intent is also twofold. The first is to discredit by association the IP and its candidates. They will be shown to be venal opportunists or naive fools who choose to jump on the Dotcom bandwagon ignorant or in spite of his darker baggage, thereby making them collectively unsuitable for public office. Secondly, revelations of an unpleasant sort regarding Dotcom will counter any Snowden derived exposure of GCSB activities in Echelon or Key’s knowledge of the US intent to capture Dotcom in NZ. The reasoning is that the Dotcom revelations will have a more visceral impact on the public, which is already pretty much “over” the spying controversies. It remains to be seen if any of these assumptions prove true in the event the scenario plays out as described.
However, because I know two IP candidates personally and find them to be people of integrity who can contribute positively to NZ political life now and in the future, I do not want to see their reputations besmirched by National’s hard ball machinations. The irony is that as things are presently shaping up, National’s resort to this tactic will be done out of mean spirited spite rather than perceived political necessity.
How is National and its bloggers gathering this information? Do you believe, as I do, that government spy agencies are being used to unearth this darker baggage, as you call it? If so, it could bring spying controversies back on the table for the New Zealand public.
Kiwis generally like fair play – or at least we used to.
Some of the supposedly dark information may have come from US authorities, not necessarily from the NSA or one of the local spy agencies. Think of who pushed for the raid. Wherever it may have come from, there is no doubt that, at least up until the Kitteridge report on the GCSB and her subsequent appointment as director of the SIS, NZ spy agencies did traffic in personal information for political purposes, and that under Key this information was passed to National-linked hatchet bloggers. You can make your own conclusions about such practices and how they impact on organisational professionalism within the intelligence community.
The question remains as to whether they continue to do so in spite of the pledges of reform (something called for in a recent State Services Commission report in the wake of the GCSB scandal). Absent effective independent oversight authority, we may never know the answer.
PS: Sorry for the double post above. The first one disappeared after posting so I re-wrote it more or less along the same lines. The wording is a bit different but the thrust is the same. No sooner had I written the second version than the first one popped up on the thread, and I have no means of deleting it. Oh well.
But able to promote voting, and herself, for being involved in the campaign.
I know she was at a rich kid school, spotted by a fellow rich kids record company dad, so what’s the real deal Yella? Pro royal or pro pauper?
I have to say I admire that 1d lad for not removing his pro Palestinian tweet.
Bully? Oh ffs Mars, that’s lame, it’s a perfectly valid comment to ask of the decile 10 school kid who got famous when her royal song was co-written, bearing in mind the lyrics to that tune and the gist of the song.
I half expect a photo with JK, but she can always come out and say how she really relates to the meaning behind her breakthrough hit and show support for the underdogs in society, just like the 1D kid has.
Billy Bragg she aint, but who knows.
You accused me the other night of being a one trick pony. Now just because you got upset about what I wrote about kdc and hh you’re on one. 🙄
For the record (no pun), when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away… And you already know who I’m voting for – The depressed and hungry people of NZ.
You are full of shit allen – just a nobody with envy of others because imo you don’t really like yourself very much – it’s okay I can understand why you’d feel that way 🙂
And the last time you tried to ‘bully’ lorde I said the same thing so your anti IMP opinions today are no big thing other than I can’t really let your ‘views’ stand without some corrections – hope you don’t mind 🙂
Totally unnecessary first paragraph.
I’ve established it isn’t bullying by clearly laying out the points.
And a bit of a wah wah second effort verse to finish.
Yep, you got some up you alright, but no fear, it’s all fair in love and war.
You’ve no right to the high ground, so get down from your perch 😉
But if you want to side with a rich kid and go gaga, I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean look how hone ran and dribbled after kim’s moolah 😆
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a dim fellow indeed.
Besmirch, hark at you. And moral ground, no, not mine to hold, just like you.
If the consensus is widespread that I’m a bully for asking the Royals hitmaker to come forward and reveal who she’d vote for while promoting herself and the youth vote, given her wedge and various commercial contracts, and is followed by bold text of doom, I’ll walk away and never return.
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a very, very, very dim fellow indeed.
To be clear, if you have the numbers, get the big boss to bold type me for it and I’ll walk.
Otherwise cork your faux outrage and agree to clear off yourself for pulling the bullying attack line.
No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines.
You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned if you think it will improve your chances, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, big ups to that 1 direction dude. Kudos bruv for not letting your handlers or your bank balance or your projected earnings get in the way of doing the right thing.
signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original – lol – “say hello to my little friend…”
“signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original”
Erm, you are the snide, calling me a bully, hence “No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines”.
Obviously I can’t call you a thicko now, not that I would, but chuckling an irony laugh for posterity. 😆
Anyhow, off to download lorde’s co-written album now :snort:
You know I’m feeling generous especially after standing room only in Rotorua for the roadshow so I’m not going to reply to you again (after this one). Stop picking on Lorde, especially when she is trying to get young people to vote – it shows your petty, foolish side and is most unbecoming.
Translated that means I got fuck all and everyone knows it, except pu and felix, who also bear long time grudges, making you the limping three legged lame attack donkey from hell. 😆
Oh allen what a weak little man you are – you have shown your true colours – picking on a seventeen year old because you are jealous of their success and then prattling on making demands, confirming your dimness – lol – stick to trying to bully and besmirch a successful young women who is getting young people to vote but even then I’m sure Lorde would dispatch you like mowing a weed if she could be bothered with a envious thicko like you.
You have nothing but the backing of a couple of village idiots.
You don’t have to agree with me about Yella, hell, she might even surprise and vote mip, but it still doesn’t mean the question is bullying or besmirching.
You’re just tossing off slinging shit in the hope it sticks.
I thank the 1d guy for having the nads to be political and stick to the correct side of right. I wish you had the fortitude to do the same.
Lorde was working to get young people to vote even though she can’t – you are a sad dim thicko if you can’t see the value in that – but oh know it’s all about how she is successful and how you’ll donate 100% of your money when you are – lol do you realise what a loser argument you have there?
I’ve never said there isn’t value in her getting first timers out to vote, so strike one for the sad thicko barb.
I would like to know who she’d vote for this election, if she could, as I wonder if the money and fame had eroded the (false?) image of urban battler from Royals, or if she’d stay true to the message she sold the kids. No biggie, but a valid question nonetheless. I like credible heroes and heroines.
The rest is just you getting arsey over mip, like you get arsey over race, like you get arsey when disagreed with, like you get arsey when confronted with differing opinion. I don’t need to flag you for it, it’s historically obvious.
I’d still donate any money I made from my music, as I have publicly stated before. Loser argument or not, I’m guessing it’s an eye of the beholder thing, or most likely for you, a green eyed beholder thing, which is all good, I’m arrogant enough to take it as a compliment 😉
You’re chucking my insults at you back at me again fool.
btw – it’s a fucken song mate and the lyrics are words for the song not a manifesto for a life – bloody hell are you completely clueless and up yourself?
You know what marty, I suspect a few expected more from you, but your line and angle of attack have been pretty shonky all through this exchange.
As for fucken song and not a manifesto etc… She made a mint, well half a mint, off it, and kids bought into it big time apparently, so again, the interest in whether she’d be a sell out and vote nat or be with the poor kids and be a lefty remains valid, especially in context of the 1 direction tweet from a young man willing to do/say the right thing.
Everything else is your sideshow and distraction because you got your arse in your hands over me. You know it’s true ’cause you got the form.
pathetic allen – bully tactics never work laddie especially when tinged with envy and spite – the exchange is here for people to read I have no worries at all about that but I wouldn’t say the same if I was you…
You’re out to ‘win’ and fair play to you, but it shouldn’t be at whatever cost. Slinging around terms like bully and bullying young women, just to get that net ‘victory’ is still lame as that three legged donkey, especially when it’s clear it’s not about the girl at all, but your vanity and agenda.
I too am content with the dialogue, and as always, rest easy on my laurels.
Female parts, how very misogynist of you.
But seeing I couldn’t give a crap, go for it puddycat. It’s still the end as far as that particular statement goes.
The end of any statement is the end of that particular statement.
Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.
ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.
“ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.”
Clearly not, because she has class and can elucidate.
“You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
Nobody is faceless with their own web page.
It’s not unverifiable pledge because it’s in the public domain and has been since my first post here.
It’s not undefined, because I’ve stated it’s money.
It’s an unspecified time until that time arrives.
I am a man of my word. The End.
But feel free to try and prove me wrong by getting me signed, buy my songs and see if I stay true to my pledge or not. 😉
I answered every point you made and it’s hilarious. How so?
I made that same pledge to the site admin here, in an email before I even started posting, in the hope someone would help me set up a trust to do just that.
My fault a lack of talent got in the way of a good idea, but if that email was on record and presented, you’d look like a sack of shite.
Like I said, I’m a man of my word. Any money I make from music would be given away, 100% or I’d be damned.
Now get to fu8k, unless you go to LP and ask if the email still exists.
Hilarious that you think you answered anything.
Hilarious that you think it would matter if you had.
Hilarious that you’re still going on about it.
Hilarious that you ever started.
Hilarious that you’re so upset over others’ successes.
Hilarious that you pretend you’re above such silliness.
Hilarious the chasm between what you say
and what you present.
“Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
I’ve answered and you’re circle jerking your way around it.
If you believe I’m not a man of my word, like I claim, and it’s all rather hilarious, go hunt for my first post, try around December 2012 just before xmas. I made a request for help in setting up a charitable trust.
Better still, seek confirmation of the email I sent via this sites contact button. If it exists, I don’t mind it’s publication, bad English and all.
It’s only unverifiable if you don’t go and seek out the information I’ve presented you with.
It’s only faceless pseudonym if you don’t know how to use a whois site.
“Must be true then”
Of course, just like I’ve been saying, I’m a man of my word.
I’ve even had a phone conversation with a trusted contributor from this very place about my plans.
You have all the info you need to verify, but I’m picking, by form, you’d rather wank yourself stupid in denial rather than get proved wrong, which is of course fine by me.
It’s unverifiable because you haven’t specified anything. You’ll donate all your money when you’re famous? Is that what you said? ffs man how the hell is that ever going to be measured, quantified, qualified or verified?
Meanwhile, a 17 year old girl stands up and does some good in the world and you try to knock her down.
“Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.”
How many The Al1ens do you think there are? I think a best seller would be a bit of a clue, a sort of give away don’t you think? True in all likelihood to not happen, but ‘if’ it did, I’d would be true to my public stated pledges.
“Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.”
I’ve not scorned her. I have questioned who the decile 10 schooled kid with wedge would vote for, which isn’t really the same thing at all.
But getting first time voters in the polling booths is admirable and I’ve no issue with that, why would I? It is commendable aim on behalf of all those involved.
If it’s so obvious and so easy then go ahead and define precisely what constitutes you being “famous” so we know when to check up on you and your charitable status.
If you can’t define it, then you haven’t pledged anything.
Are you for real, catflap? I wrote hours ago if I make any money from my music. If you see The Al1en cds in the shops, or on itunes or even on my own site, then I reckon that’s somewhat conclusive as ‘famous’ or making money.
I wouldn’t ever sign a deal unless all my share of the royalties were paid in (or for) perpetuity into a charitable trust, because, fucking funny enough, I’m a man of my word.
Could you imagine the scandal if some fuckwit from a blog, with a grudge, out to settle scores exposed me as a fraud 🙄 😆
“checklist:….likes winston peters….is jealous of lordes’ success…..is homophobic….’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?”
0/4 And I have to say, with the permission of the guvnor, you’re half as dim as I thought you were.
“no balls snidey back door merchants”
“You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned”
Go on, try really hard and make that link 🙄 😆
(A clue, it’s not about where your brainbox is).
If he’s in government with the greens and labour he’ll do a good job as foreign minister, just like last time.
Winston ruling out mip takes some pressure of DC. Maybe they’ve been chatting, which like the decision to exclude kdc and his puppets, is a good thing with a view of forming a stable government post election.
I’m not discouraged.
Laila Harre could be the glorious Giant killer! Could very well be the Boudicia and Joan of Arc of NZ politics. She could make unforgettable history and a long lasting legend! Never say never. Nothing is impossible!
I am interested to hear your thoughts on Winston’s stand today when he said that he will not work with either of the what he termed, ‘racist’ parties, Mana and Maori Parties.
What do you think is his strategy here?
I am thinking that there may actually be not a single Maori Party MP after this election anyway, while there will most certainly be Internet-Mana MPs! So, Winston is probably more likely to marry Key/National rather than support Labour and the progressives. Isn’t that the more likely scenario, unless he stays outside with C and S which is not his style though!
+1
A neolib cadre in the 90s who as a senior government member pushed for the break up of ECNZ, removed tariffs destroying car assembly, and helped punish the poor.
He now profits from bemoaning the state of the world, and no-one hardly questions it!
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” Marcus Tullius Cicero.
I most certainly do not agree with your assessment of Winston. He is NOT that sort of a person at all. You can not demean him so unfairly for some of the policies you oppose that he has supported in his career. He has shown he is a very concerned caring patriot in many ways, including walking out of the National party for their Neo liberal capitalist policies/support of big business/corrupt practices/asset sales etc. While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election. But that is his prerogative and political strategy. That does not make him evil. People are free to decide and vote accordingly.
The quote you wrote is of course such a great quote and so true. Does not apply to Winston though.
While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
Nothing that the 5th Labour government did was revolutionary. Most of it didn’t go against the ingrained neo-liberal paradigm that’s tearing our country apart.
The WFF, Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Saver, Paid parental leave, Rise in minimum wage, Early childhood funding, Increases in health care, Free doc visits for kids, Dental clinics in schools, Employment relations act etc etc were Neo-liberal and not social/economic revolutionary bold programmes?
They were reasonable initiatives to take the edge off of Ruth Richardson neoliberalism.
WFF – a tax cut for the working class and comfortable middle class. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Kiwi Bank – which Anderton made Labour do. NZ has had a Post Office bank for decades. (Nor revolutionary or bold).
Rise in minimum wage. Standard social democratic thing to do. (Not revolutionary or bold).
ERA. Rolled back some of the capitalist excesses of the ECA. But gave workers next to no assistance in organising or striking. No mention of penal rates for overtime. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Yep, for once i can agree with you Phillip, my longer comment on this hit moderation, but, Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% isn’t to hard to imagine, and if either Annette or Hone win their seats,(i expect both to), then it can be done with InternetMana accruing 4%,
Labour/Green doing any % higher than attributed above simply makes it that much easier…
Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% would make Winston and NZFirst null and void, while Winston is ‘talkin tough’ about both the Maori Party,(which i do not expect to gain any seats anyway), and, InternetMana i think that NZFirst may be in a far weaker position than Winstons ravings would indicate,
Obviously the latest from Winston is a nod toward Slippery the Prime Minister for kicking the electoral legs out from under Colon and the Conservatives and will be seen by many as an indication of an inclination toward National, (myself included in the latter group),
Winston’s problem here is that with some Big Bucks Colon the Conservative is likely to attract an even bigger buzzy bee into His bonnet fighting all that much harder for the loose frilly bits of lace hanging from the pretty coat of National and thus may send both down in a ball of electoral fire with neither party quite being able to attain the magic 5%,
Winston’s other problem, there were at the 2011 contest one hell of a lot of people that had one thought in mind as Phill Goff first fumbled and then stumbled during that campaign, that thought?, ”no way were National getting to Govern alone”, and despite having to hold firmly their nasal protuberances For NZFirst they voted,
That vote, who can ever really know its size, simply will not be ticking the NZFirst box on the ballot papers in 2014,
Labour 33%, Greens 12%, InternetMana 5%, its doable and it might be time to retire Winston from the game…
Lolz, i was wondering why this particular comment hit ‘moderation’, its the ‘A’ in gmail i got my fat little fingers to mangle into the wrong position…
Yesterday Nine to Noon covered the digital devices in classrooms issue with American computer scientist Kentaro Toyama.
Key point is that digital devices amplify the school environment’s existing culture: high functioning schools do even better; in schools with behavioural/learning issues the devices are a distraction.
The assumption that tech devices will somehow close the gaps between high and low decile schools is wrong.
‘NICK SMITH’S crude intimidation of the Fish and Game Council points to the bleakest of environmental futures should National be re-elected on 20 September.’–Chris Trotter.
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — This narrow strip of land that used to be called “the Gaza Strip,” already one of the more densely populated places on earth, is growing dramatically smaller. The Israeli military, relentlessly and methodically, is driving people out of the three-kilometer (1.8 mile) buffer zone it says it needs to protect against Hamas rockets and tunnels. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the buffer zone eats up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory.
No joke. This is a big thing. Must be money in it.
Disgusting that the jews have to kill children and imprison them and their parents though. I guess maybe, , , is it revenge? Is that what Israel is doing? Is it simple revenge?
From places frequented the Israelis have a pretty poor reputation so perhaps this is just their natural setting.
Inspirational program from Nigel Latta. No doubt Key will condemn it which would indicate that it is powerful and refutes the Government position.
The Unequal Society. With facts and figures.
The Rich get Richer while the Poor get beaten.
Must watch before Key conspires to have it banned!
TV1 9:30pm.
@ ianmac 10.22
Naturally the much touted freedom for the public to watch tv on demand has to have a catch, a barrier which I have to climb over. A block sign comes up and when I click on it I have a window with brightcove.com and various settings. It is harder to get government to give you anything in a straightforward and simple way than it is for a rich man to ride a camel through the eye of a needle and get to heaven. Or something. I probably am confused.
Will flag down my computer-literate white knight. (Not being racist – it’s just a saying! I would find a brown black red or yellow one just as useful as a spotty pink one. Though perhaps I would not welcome a blue-green one.)
a few ppl on facebook are saying they just turned 18 & then received a letter from national pimping for their vote. they are curious as to how they would have gotten that information, because both ppl didnt think they put it anywhere (knowingly) public. weird?
“Our recents studies show you have just turned 18 which means you can vote.
Here are 3 Reasons why we reckon we are better than the rest,
1. We spend our money wisley in your community.
2. We believe Christchurch depends on us.
3. Most of all, as a whole New Zealand are going to need National in the next three years to boost the income and just become a better place to live.
WE BELEIVE YOU SHOULD VOTE NATIONAL
#ForABetterNZ.
5 film companies want to sequester (I think that’s the word) all of Dotcom’s assets to hold for three years. Usually can be done in a criminal prosecution but this is at a civil
stage. The guns are out.
Coasters Turn Out In Droves: It’s precisely the widening gulf between those with actual experience of things like guns, chainsaws and drilling machines, and those who regulate their use, that accounts for the angry crowd at Greymouth’s Messenger Park on Sunday, 17 November 2019. In the rarefied atmosphere where decisions ...
There are perennial arguments about the circumstances of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and in particular whether more than one shooter is required by the evidence (such as the Zapruder film). Those who know little about physics frequently claim that the sharp backwards motion of JFK’s head as ...
Apparently, some people enjoy washing their cars. Each to his or her own, I suppose. I mean, some people like duck shooting, some people follow Coronation Street, and some people’s idea of a good day out is to sit on a grass bank at Seddon Park and watch cricket all ...
Last week we learned that New Zealand First had apparently tried to enrich itself from public office, with a dodgy forestry company linked to a number of NZ First figures sticking its hand out repeatedly for government money. Today in Question Time Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had his ...
Finally, governments seem slowly to be beginning to act on climate change. But its not enough. While they're publicly signing up to targets, they're planning to destroy the world by continuing fossil fuel extraction:The world’s nations are on track to produce more than twice as much coal, oil and gas ...
Stuff has begun interviewing NZ First's secret donors, and it turns out that its as bad as we expected. They start with racing industry figure Garry Chittick, who is predictably grumpy about NZ First's coalition choices. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the list of pork NZ First has effectively given its ...
Stag At Bay: Twelve years ago, Winston Peters was still robust enough to come back from the political crucifixion which his political and media enemies had prepared for him. In his seventies now, the chances of a second resurrection are slim. We should, therefore, prepare for the last gasp of ...
Satellites pass over NZ all the time (literally). Here I focus on the 187 Planet Labs ‘Dove’ Earth-imaging satellites, and I show that one can determine in advance where they will be, enabling scientists on the ground to correlate their environmental and other data collection with opportunities to get imaging ...
The Council of Disobedient Women has learned that the Prefect of Aro Valley has been promoted to a new role with the blessing of the Pope of Wellington. Softy Jejune Parson has been appointed Mother Superior of Woke Wellington for the work she has been doing calling out heretics, ...
On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...
In Question Time today the Prime Minister was naturally facing questions about Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his dubious party financing arrangements, which seem to violate electoral finance law. Her response was to pretend that it was nothing to do with her, and that she is not responsible for ...
A prisoner stripped of their name, imprisoned for a secret crime after a secret trial, with all details legally suppressed for secret reasons. A story by Kafka or Dumas? China? No, its just the latest stage of Australian tyranny:An Australian citizen was prosecuted, convicted, and jailed in the ACT last ...
Stuff has more details on what New Zealand First's slush-fund has been funding, with much of the spending directly benefiting the party. Which makes it look a lot like hidden donations, rather than the completely-innocent-giant-pile-of-cash Winston is trying to portray it as. The Electoral Commission is now investigating, but Simon ...
I've joked before about how hosting international summits effectively turns part of your country into a police state for the duration. Well, New Zealand is hosting APEC in 2021, with events throughout the year in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. And the government has put up a bill to give itself ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzI saw an article claiming that “king tides” will increase in ...
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...
Didn't See It Coming: NZ Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly's latest column merits serious scrutiny because such a clear example of anti-democratic thinking is encountered only rarely on the pages of the daily press. Which is not to say that the elitism which lies at the heart of such social disparagement ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...
A lot has happened since the UN’s report on 1.5ºC was released in October 2018. New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Bill has passed, and enshrines the 1.5ºC goal in law. The UK and France have also legally strengthened their targets to Net Zero 2050. The School Strike For Climate and Extinction ...
Next year is an election year, and Labour needs money to fund its campaign. So naturally, they're selling access:Labour is charging wealthy business figures $1500-a-head to lunch with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at its annual conference later this month. [...] On the weekend beginning November 29th, around 800 delegates will ...
Yesterday the government announced its changes to tenancy laws, including an end to no-cause evictions, limits on rent increases, and anonyminity for tenants who defend their rights against bad landlords (sadly necessary because landlords are scum who maintain blacklists of "uppity" tenants). They're all good moves, and have resulted in ...
In 2003 New Zealand sent a Provincial Reconstruction Team to Afghanistan to support America's doomed war there. While there, they conducted regular weapons practice on local firing ranges, littering the landscape with unexploded ammunition. These ranges weren't secure - they're on land used by locals for animal herding - so ...
Green MP Gareth Hughes has announced he will retire at the election. Its understandable - he's been there ten years, and wants to actually see his children grow up rather than miss it while drowning in the toxic parliamentary sewer. But his departure is also a huge loss for the ...
Words and images by Jacqui GibsonGone are Auckland Museum’s days of doing science using a museum-centric academic approach, after Māori land rights holders Ngāti Kuri gave the museum an ultimatum.Tom Trnski holding a fossilised whale tooth from the Far North.Aussie-born Head of Natural Sciences at Auckland Museum ...
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First SightNew Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...
Westminster voting intention:CON: 44% (+3)LAB: 28% (-1)LDEM: 14% (-1)BREX: 6% (-)via @OpiniumResearch, surveyed this weekChgs. w/ 08 Nov— Britain Elects (@britainelects) 16 November 2019 This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left ...
Some readers may remember that I mentioned last year that I was applying for NZ citizenship. I filled out the paperwork and had my original citizenship interview in February. Everything went well until they discovered that, because I had spent five months in the US in 2017, I had not ...
by Deirdre O’Neill It is becoming quite acceptable for certain sections of the left to declare that people like me – women who are ‘gender critical’ – should not be allowed in leftist or anarchist spaces. Leaving aside the arrogance and implicit authoritarianism of this claim, its lack of critical ...
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...
NZ First seems to be nakedly trying to enrich itself from public office:A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. An RNZ investigation has found Brian Henry, lawyer for Winston ...
Behrouz Boochani is an award winning author and journalist. He is also a refugee, who for the past six years has been detained in Australia's offshore gulag on Manus Island, and in Papua New Guinea. But last night, with the cooperation of the WORD Christchurch festival and Amnesty International, he ...
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...
Protective Zone: Reading the rules and guidelines released by Massey University, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its governing body considers the whole concept of free speech a disruptive threat to the orderly imparting of orthodox academic knowledge.IN TRUE ORWELLIAN fashion, Massey University has announced its commitment to ...
Brian Oliver, University of Technology SydneyNew South Wales and Queensland are in the grip of a devastating bushfire emergency, which has tragically resulted in the loss of homes and lives. But the smoke produced can affect many more people not immediately impacted by the fires – even people many ...
Farmers held a hate-march on Parliament today, complete with MAGA hats, gun-nut signs, and gendered insults. While supposedly about a grab-bag of issues - including, weirdly, mental health - it was clear that the protest was about one thing, and one thing only: climate change. And specifically, forestry "destroying" rural ...
Sally Wasef, Griffith University and David Lambert, Griffith UniversityThese days, not many Aussies consider the ibis a particularly admirable creature. But these birds, now colloquially referred to as “bin chickens” due to their notorious scavenging antics, have a grandiose and important place in history – ancient Egyptian history, to ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that ...
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Forestry The Government will further strengthen New Zealand’s wood processing sector as part of our focus on ‘value over volume’ in our forestry industry, Forestry Minister Shane Jones says. Minister Jones will today meet with forestry representatives in Northland to signal new measures to help the ...
New Zealand First are celebrating the announcement of an investment of $3.5 million into five new trapping devices. These are a range of bait and trap devices, all designed to be left unattended for long periods of time. NZ First conservation spokesperson Jenny Marcroft says that this latest development will ...
Clayton Mitchell, Spokesperson for Consumer Affairs The ‘wheel clamping’ Bill that will cap clamper fees to $100 passed its third readinginParliament today. New Zealand First welcomes The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill to combat predatory wheel clamping behaviour in what is currently a largely unregulated business. Cowboy clampers are: gouging ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its first reading in Parliament. “Today’s progress takes serious action on the mental health and addiction crisis the country is facing,” says New Zealand First Health Spokesperson Jenny Marcroft. “The re-establishment ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries Today the Government announced the delivery of the promise to protect New Zealand interests by applying a new National Interest Test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. This further strengthening of the Overseas Investment Act will ...
The Coalition Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high-risk assets to overseas buyers. Under current Overseas Investment Act (OIA) rules, assets such as ports and airports, telecommunications infrastructure, electricity and ...
Rt Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Allegations raised this morning by Stuff Limited / Fairfax concern a party matter but I am confident that New Zealand First has operated within electoral laws, now and for the last 27 years. Declarable donations were declared to the Electoral Commission. Our ...
The chairman of the Upper North Island Supply Chain Strategy (UNISCS) working group, Wayne Brown, has hit back at critics of his group’s recommendations to relocate the Ports of Auckland cargo operations to Whangarei’s deepwater port of Northport. The working group's recommendation to close Auckland waterfront to all but cruise ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
Stewart Island/Rakiura has been granted $3.16 million from the Provincial Growth Fund to help build two wind turbines, putting the island on a path to sustainable electricity generation, Environment Minister David Parker announced today. “Stewart Island is our third largest island, after the North and South Islands, and it is ...
A major new report on the global economy shows New Zealand is in good shape amid increased global headwinds. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has just released its latest Economic Outlook. It shows the OECD group of economies is forecast to grow between 1.6% and 1.7% across ...
The Coalition commitment to add 1800 new Police officers to frontline policing has been achieved with the graduation of 59 constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters say today’s graduation means 1825 new Police have been deployed all ...
Ensuring APEC work gets input from diverse New Zealand business and trade interests is behind three new appointments to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Rachel Taulelei, Malcolm Johns and Toni Moyes have been appointed to represent New Zealand on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ...
Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa. Thank you for having me to speak today. To start, I’d like to acknowledge Sharron Lloyd, the General Manager of the Trans–Tasman Business Circle, the partners for this event Westpac’s David McLean, and Derek McCormack from AUT, and, of course ...
A four-month investigation by former Environment Court judge Professor Peter Skelton found that Otago’s freshwater planning system is not fit for purpose to manage the region’s rivers, lakes and aquifers and that the Council has inadequate rules for the taking of water and the discharge of nutrients. “Existing planning provisions ...
Introduction Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to speak to an LGNZ meeting since the local elections, and I’m delighted to see the fresh faces of newly elected mayors. To returning mayors here today, as well as chief ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters departs New Zealand today to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Nagoya at the invitation of this year’s G20 President, Japan. “This is the first time New Zealand will attend a G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and we are deeply honoured that it is at ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of diplomat Carl Reaich as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the European Union. “The Ambassador to the EU is one of the most important and senior roles in New Zealand’s foreign service, advocating for New Zealand’s interests with the EU institutions,” Mr ...
Innovation and technology are behind five new tools to give nature a helping hand by helping eliminate predators, funded through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “The new tools will be trialled in ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the first reading of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 2021 (APEC 2021) Bill in Parliament today. The temporary bill supports New Zealand’s security preparations for hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 2021. “APEC is the leading economic and trade forum ...
The Government is making progress on improving the wellbeing of the one million New Zealanders under the age of 18,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on World Children’s Day. The Government has today recommitted to the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history – the United Nation’s Convention on ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter has released a new report celebrating the contribution of Māori women in business across Aotearoa New Zealand. “Māori women are leaders in our communities, they employ many people and support our economy and our communities,” Julie Anne Genter said. The report, Ngā wāhine kaipakihi: ...
Four parcels of land have been bought in Omokoroa, in the Western Bay of Plenty District, for an education facility that will accommodate both a primary and secondary school on a campus-like facility, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Two parcels were acquired from private land owners and two were ...
1 million New Zealanders warmed by the Winter Energy Payment 36,000 families bank the Best Start Payment in first year 6,000 more families received the Family Tax Credit, 220,600 in total They receive an increase too – from an average of $117 to $157 a week for Inland Revenue clients, ...
New rules to clamp down on overzealous wheel clamping and extortionate fees charged in order to release a vehicle have passed their final stage in Parliament today. The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill has now passed its third reading. “These changes mean $100 will be the maximum wheel clamping ...
An independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is a step closer after it unanimously passed its first vote in Parliament today. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill lays the groundwork for establishing the Commission as a fully independent crown entity – delivering on a key recommendation of He Ara ...
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to screen travellers for border and immigration risks off-shore before they travel to New Zealand. It was launched in August and became mandatory on 1 October 2019. More than 500,000 NZeTAs have been issued since ...
A proposed national plan of action to reduce the number of seabirds caught in fisheries is being circulated for public feedback. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage say New Zealand is a global centre of seabird diversity with about 145 species in our waters. It has more ...
The Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. Associate Finance Minister David Parker said under current Overseas Investment Act rules, assets such as ports and ...
The Government is building special housing to accommodate one of Aotearoa’s greatest taonga- our kaumātua, says the Minister for Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. Speaking at a National Kaumātua Service Providers Conference in Rotorua today, the Minister reinforced the importance kaumātua play in maintaining and passing on mātauranga Māori, knowledge, ...
Eleven men from a pilot forestry training programme for prisoners in Northland now have full time jobs or job offers upon release, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis and Forestry Minister Shane Jones announced today. The ‘release to work’ programme was a collaboration between Te Uru Rākau and the Department of Corrections, ...
Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins today introduced into Parliament a Bill that will make it easier for the public service to tackle the biggest challenges facing Governments. The Bill represents the most significant change in the public service in 30 years. The State Sector Act 1988 will be repealed ...
The families of more than 416,000 students will be better off next year as their schools have signed up to the Government’s donations scheme, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. The scheme will see almost $62.5 million in additional Government funding go to schools nationwide next year. “I’m really pleased ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced further support as the Government of Samoa responds to a serious measles outbreak. “New Zealand will deploy a further 18 vaccination nurses, bringing the total to 30 working in Samoa over the next four weeks,” Mr Peters said. “A New Zealand Medical Assistance ...
Fa’atalofa atu, malo e lelei, Kia ora koutou katoa Thank you to the Child Poverty Action Group for asking me to be here today to provide an update on some of the things that have been happening across my the social development portfolio. Can I firstly acknowledge the vast ...
***Please check against delivery*** Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be with you this morning to open this year’s New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Conference and AGM. Firstly, thank you Dr Alan Jackson, NZTR Chair for your introduction. And let us acknowledge also: The NZTR Board; Dean McKenzie, Chair ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...
A marine conservation milestone - the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve - is being celebrated today at a community event in Tairāwhiti/East Coast attended by the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “The creation of this marine reserve in November 1999 was a game ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
Are ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s coalition beginning to live in a dreamworld of their own, distant from the one where ordinary New Zealanders live? In Parliament, in answer to patsy questions from their own backbenchers, they congratulate themselves on their extraordinary ( as it seems to them) achievements. They appear ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini discusses the Westpac scandal with Michelle Grattan. They then delve into the government’s recent changes to the robo-debt program, and Scott Morrison’s announcement that the government will be ...
What, for example, is a pitchfork wrapped in tinsel doing over there, leaning up by an umbrella? Toby Manhire writes a speculative article.A tumultuous week for Winston Peters and his New Zealand First Party has seen story after story raise troubling questions around donations. He’s not happy about it.What do ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Senior Lecturer in Personal Development, Health & Physical Education / Course Director of Postgraduate Studies in Education, Charles Sturt University In a study published in The Lancet today, we find out how 1.6 million adolescent school students from across 146 ...
The Otago Fish and Game Council supports Environment Minister David Parker’s decision, especially his directive that Mining Rights won't be extended beyond the 2021 deadline provided in the RMA. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Marriott, Professor of Taxation, Victoria University of Wellington A Court of Appeal decision in New Zealand set a precedent last month, allowing offenders to argue their drug addiction should be considered a mitigating factor. Methamphetamine dealers who can prove their personal ...
It was not a great week for NZ First - stuff that Prince Andrew would describe as conduct unbecoming of a political party, but which is very much becoming of NZ First. James Elliott gets slush fund, secretive and coterie all in one sentence about Winston Peters. ...
Just notifying that you have prohibited firearms or parts is not meeting your legal obligations, say Police who urge firearms owners to hand in their items now. ...
A new poem by Belfast-based poet J. Taylor Bell.the other day i witnessed a man seize with epilepsy in the produce sectionthen the bottom fell out of the plastic bag on the long diaspora between self-checkout and the deserts of the kitchen counter i felt like napoleon the morning after ...
We wonder if we were supposed top be gobsmacked, consternated or otherwise thunderstruck by the headline we encountered at the top of page 16 in our Dominion-Post today. “Fracas in Parliament,” it bellowed in a truncated version of the headline that can be found on the same report at Stuff. The ...
From academia to activism to media, Asian women are often ridiculed, overlooked and dismissed. Helen Yeung talks to Asian New Zealand women about the everyday racism they face – and how they’re fighting back.Last year, I was at the launch of an academic journal which included my essay on East ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is putting $3.16 million towards building two wind turbines on Rakiura / Stewart Island, where electricity is at present produced by diesel generators. ...
The enduring crisis of child poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand must be addressed with greater energy by government, the country’s professional body for social workers said today. ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Anthony Albanese puts a “productivity project” at the centre of his economic agenda in the second of his “vision statements”, which seeks to further distance him from the Shorten era. “Productivity is the key to ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Matt Shand (Stuff): ‘I am the dark shadow of NZ First’ – what ...
Credit Union Baywide, trading as NZCU Baywide, New Zealand’s largest customer owned credit union, has acquired Co-op Money NZ, the supplier of core banking services and support infrastructure to some of the country’s credit union sector. ...
New Zealand leaves Australia for dust on internet speeds and our children are practically born using fibre, but major challenges lie ahead, writes Rohan MacMahon.Congratulations, New Zealand: three quarters of you now have ultra fast broadband (UFB).This week Chorus hosted an event at Parliament to mark the completion of Phase ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito Tofae Su'a William Sio is advising Samoan families planning on going back to the islands for Christmas to take precautions against measles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Helene Nolan, Postdoctoral research fellow, Western Sydney University Why does wood crackle in a fire? – Rocco, age 6 (nearly 7!) Hi Rocco, that’s a great question. I love sitting in front of a fire, listening to it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ihsan Yilmaz, Research Professor and Chair in Islamic Studies and Intercultural Dialogue, Deakin University The political influence of the far-right, along with a more salient national security agenda, has spurred a growing anti-Muslim sentiment and deep social division in Australia. In fact, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Martyr, Lecturer, Pharmacology, Women’s Health, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia You might remember how Gwyneth Paltrow’s health and well-being website Goop was selling “medical” products with no proven measurable health benefits. Decluttering expert Marie Kondo may be going ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Newman, Associate Professor, University of Newcastle Many parents and educators agree children need to take risks. In one US study, 82% of the 1,400 parents surveyed agreed the benefits of tree-climbing outweighed the potential risk of injury. Parents cited benefits including ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Lawson, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University In the year since the Australian government created the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), its bond aggregator, AHBA, has raised funds for affordable housing providers, allowing them to refinance ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naomi Soderstrom, Professor of Accounting and Deputy Head of Department, University of Melbourne Sydney is currently blanketed by smoke haze from severe bushfires that have burned through New South Wales. Air pollution levels on Thursday reached hazardous levels for the second time ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Australia’s system of childcare support is pretty good. It ensures high-quality care is provided to a large number of children, it is targeted through income-based subsidies, and it is attentive to the needs of disadvantaged children ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Mary Ann Evans took the pseudonym “George Eliot” because she wanted to be taken seriously as a writer. Other female authors – Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen, for example – had ...
Shane Jones downplays NZ First Foundation scandal by slamming 'despicable' media; and Green MP lambasts bill allowing overseas agents to carry otherwise-illegal guns in NZ. ...
New Zealand First has upped the ante in the saga over its mysterious foundation, with party leader Winston Peters' long-time lawyer Brian Henry threatening to sue National for $30 million. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Focus shifts to lawyer in NZ First Foundation scandal, Canterbury hail smashes crops, and tobacco companies cynically raise prices under tax cover.
Around this time last year, a party leader had just brazened out a week of scandal, much of ...
A report from the NZ Disability Support Network has laid bare a funding crisis impacting every level of the sector. Here, Rachel Lodewyk, of Gisborne, says the health system is failing but parent-led trusts are offering solutions in desperate times. ...
With emissions still rising, climate geo-engineering requires debate. But political researchers fear people are falling into the same left/right tribalism that's long plagued climate politics. ...
Our kinship with plants is etched out in the mythology on which our societies are founded, and in the web of life it is a scientific fact that we are indeed close kin to the plant kingdom. So why do we not live like we are, asks Matt Hall.There are ...
There’s been outrage since it was revealed that up to one in five final year medical students at the University of Otago falsified their overseas placements by spending portions of that time travelling instead. But GP registrar and former Otago medical student Toby Hills finds himself empathising deeply with his ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison’s government is heading to the end of 2019 amid a debate about its economic judgement and with a number of substantial policy moves started but not completed. Morrison this week delivered to an ...
Newsroom's major investigations into Oranga Tamariki and a Fijian resort development have won us the award for best current affairs programme at the NZ TV awards. ...
The government is facing criticism that it is not doing enough, fast enough to raise people out of poverty. But Minister Carmel Sepuloni says her ministry are working as quickly as possible. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne A new United Nations report shows the world’s major fossil fuel producing countries, including Australia, plan to dig up far more coal, oil and gas than can be burned if the world ...
New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters with Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.New Zealand is officially one of the least corrupt countries in the world. But it could be argued that our political system is still biased in favour of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne The possibilities presented by hydrogen are the subject of excited discussion across the world – and across Australia’s political divide, notoriously at war over energy policy. Read more: Hydrogen ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.We’re still buzzing after the rip-roaring success of the Corny Christmas party this week and we won’t even let a rogue earwig in the studio dampen our spirits. There’s a lot of exciting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.Review: Linear, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney The value of Australian First Peoples’ scientific ...
Sam Brooks reviews the latest generation of the Pokémon games which finally hits the big-ish screen.“I love Pokémon but I wish I could play it on my TV.”I’ve been playing Pokémon for 20 years and that’s been the main thing I’ve heard from my fellow Pokémon friends/fans. The games have been engrossing, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Stuart Robert this month announced a number of “practical changes” to the scheme. Acknowledging the NDIS is not consistently living up to expectations, he said these improvements will put ...
The trustee of the New Zealand First Foundation and Winston Peters' personal lawyer has threatened a $30 million lawsuit against a National MP, in the latest twist of the donations scandal. ...
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a regional economic forum based in the Asia-Pacific Region. New Zealand will host APEC 2021 in November 2021, with related events running for a year from December 2020 until November 2021. ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Dr Brian Ward of soft-tissue repair company Aroa.Dr Paul Callaghan, who inspired Callaghan ...
Emerging political leaders from 15 Pacific countries and territories will be in New Zealand next week to meet with one and other, and their New Zealand counterparts, to discuss major challenges and opportunities in the Pacific. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Billingsley, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW The small number of Australians being held in prison camps in northern Syria has been an ongoing, albeit low-level, challenge for the Australian government. There are believed to be eight Australian fighters for ...
Louise Mensch is set to hit New Zealand airwaves this evening. Who is this conspiracy theorist and what could she possibly be saying to Lisa Owen?Who is Louise Mensch?She’s a former Tory MP, founder of the Rupert Murdoch-funded “no safe spaces” website Heat Street, a romance novelist, and a conspiracy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis McNevin, Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Technology Sydney Designer baby, anyone? A New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, might be able to help you. Genomic Prediction claims to be able to use DNA testing to predict disease risk in an ...
Marion McLeod revels in the return of Olive Kitteridge, the compassionate curmudgeon who won Elizabeth Strout a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the year of the sequel: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Toy Story 4, Rambo 5 … Do movies ever make it to double figures? Books and miniseries certainly do. Genre ...
National is questioning those in charge of the Provincial Growth Fund after it was revealed a NZ First-linked forestry company made an application to the fund, headed by NZ First MP Shane Jones. ...
James Borrowdale spent the last cricket season examining Neil Wagner and his unique approach to bowling. Today, in the first test of the Black Caps’ summer, Wagner returns.Neil Wagner has a wicket. He freezes mid-pitch, fists clenched at his side, knees slightly bent, a roar on his lips. His brows ...
A record volume of resales of units in its retirement villages has boosted Ryman's first half profit with the second half expected to be stronger than the first, the company says. ...
The main problem with HIV today is stigma – and it is almost entirely based on outdated information and fear, says Mark Fisher of HIV+ support organisation Body Positive ahead of the World AIDS Day Festival which opens in Auckland tomorrow.A person living with HIV on effective treatment cannot pass ...
The Department of Conservation (DOC) is hoping floating platforms will help to keep the chicks of a central Christchurch colony of critically endangered tarāpuka/black-billed gulls from drowning this breeding season. ...
The Foundation Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR) is a newly formed NZ-based independent Muslim human rights advocacy organisation. One of the key projects of FAIR is to provide a Report Islamophobia ( http://report.islamophobia. ) portal where ...
Open mike 29/07/2014 
Open mike is your post.
Coasters Turn Out In Droves: It’s precisely the widening gulf between those with actual experience of things like guns, chainsaws and drilling machines, and those who regulate their use, that accounts for the angry crowd at Greymouth’s Messenger Park on Sunday, 17 November 2019. In the rarefied atmosphere where decisions ...8 hours ago
There are perennial arguments about the circumstances of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and in particular whether more than one shooter is required by the evidence (such as the Zapruder film). Those who know little about physics frequently claim that the sharp backwards motion of JFK’s head as ...13 hours ago
Last week we learned that New Zealand First had apparently tried to enrich itself from public office, with a dodgy forestry company linked to a number of NZ First figures sticking its hand out repeatedly for government money. Today in Question Time Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had his ...22 hours ago
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On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...2 days ago
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...2 days ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...3 days ago
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There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...6 days ago
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...6 days ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...1 week ago
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MEDIA ADVISORY: Annette Sykes to launch campaign for Waiariki
Annette Sykes, MANA candidate for Waiariki
Monday 28 July 2014
At midday tomorrow, Annette Sykes will officially launch her campaign to win the Waiariki electorate seat for MANA in the upcoming general election.
“A key goal for MANA this election is to mobilise our people to vote, especially rangatahi, and win Waiariki. To help with this we’ve got Maisey Rika, Cliff Curtis, and our MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu, all lending their support for the launch and the wider campaign” said Ms Sykes.
“MANA is committed to changing the government and here in Waiariki we’re fully geared up for the task. We’ve already got our billboards up and from next week we’ll be knocking on every voter’s door in the electorate asking them for their support” said Ms Sykes.
“Creating new jobs, and ensuring existing jobs – including those in forestry – are safe and paid at least a living wage are a top priority for MANA, and I’ll be talking more about this at the launch” concluded Ms Sykes.
When: 12 noon, Tuesday 29 July (POHIRI)
Where: Apumoana Marae, Tarawera Road, Rotorua
When: 6:00-8:00pm, Tuesday 29 July (PUBLIC MEETING)
Where: Distinction Hotel, Rotorua
House DJ: Hone Djporoufessor Ngata
Guest performance by Maisey Rika and appearances by Cliff Curtis and MANA Youth Ambassador, Wairangi Koopu.
All media welcome.
ENDS
For further information please contact Te Ringahuia Hata, (021) 236-0931.
Oops the above just arrived in my inbox now. Just noticed the date. Can anyone give a report of this event?
Don’t you actually read before you post, Jenny?
The media advisory is dated Mon, 28 July BUT the actual events are today, Tues, 29 July.
Espiner’s interviews Cunliffe on Morning Report
Another miserable effort by the state broadcaster.
Not one question about policy, just polls.
I had to laugh at Cunliffe’s comment that he preferred Rush Limbaugh to Mike Hosking to run the leader’s debate but Limbaugh was unavailable!
that is exactly how labour should play this – make the point, but have a laugh
+100 Framu
😀
Seemed like a perfectly fine interview to me.
Politics is about more than just policy.
About more than just polls as well.
it depends on how the follow up is framed for me
much like “cunliffe only aims to get 40%” thing where rnz claimed they were paraphrasing even though cunliffe pointed out that guyon was attempting to put words in his mouth
this interview had the same hallmarks
But he wouldn’t answer the question about tactical voting of Labour supporters in Epsom. Dodge, dodge and dodge.
Lanthanide is right, politics is more than just policy.
The Herald have announced two new columnists for the election period Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the supposed left. The trouble with this choice is that if you averaged out where they are on the political spectrum you would get someone in the same space as John Key.
What a surprise …
The one thing Josie is excellent at is managing her media career.
whacka thump whacka thump … sound of flat tyre approaching
many regular Standard posters and commenters could do a way more useful job
I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left” under Cunliffe for what she obviously presumes will be a substantial Electoral Defeat and calls for the Restoration of the Party’s ABC Grandees to their rightful place on the Labour throne.
“The party made David Cunliffe leader for his strategy of shoring up the base with a more militant tone. He’s delivered on that strategy but it hasn’t worked……It’s too late to ditch some of the rhetoric that made people doubt whether you would put them ahead of sectarian interests……”
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-does-labour-do-now
Conveniently overlooking, of course, the fact that back in the days when Cunliffe really was pushing core Labour values, the Party’s support conspicuously soared to 37% (reaching a monthly average of 35% for 3 of the last 4 months of 2013, something Shearer managed to do in just one of the 20 months in which he was leader).****
What’s more, it’s clear that for Josie, “people” = equal those employed who are currently supporting National. In contrast, Benies, the Undecided and the Missing Million presumably = equal “non-people” who deserve little if any electoral consideration.
****(Important to remember this, incidently, whenever Jane Clifton, Matthew Hooton or various Tory Tr*lls turn up to tell us Labour were on the way up under Shearer and if only the Party had stuck with him…I’ll be posting about this on sub-zero in the very near future)
“..I see she’s already beginning to construct a post-Election narrative that blames Labour’s putative “swing to the Left”..”
pagani did that last time..
..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..
..and to fast-track that change into place…by 2021….(only ten yrs/3 elections after that election..)
..if ya didn’t laff..you’d fucken weep….
“..she blamed labours’ defeat on that ‘radical’-policy..of including the families of the poor in working for families..”
It was radical in the context of the electorate. It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the good or just.
isn’t labour just a ‘scared’ party..?
..and you..lanth…u agree with pagani..?
..that the undoing of the demonising of the poorest by clark etc. was too hard a task…?
..that ‘the electorate’ wd rather our shameful levels of poverty/inequality should continue..?
..as i said..herein/therein labours’ problems are crystalised..
..and lest i be accused of more ‘hate-campaigns’..i will note that it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..
..when they do…
..so..strategically..i shd support labour not having poverty-busting policies..(yet again..)..
..but i don’t..
..to me it just symbolises how lost in neo-lib-land labour still are…
“the demonising of the poorest by clark ”
Citation needed.
“it benefits internet/mana for labour to not have any real poverty-busting policies..”
And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.
… you scoff at 1%, sneer at the support to date for a new grouping and a new vision for the future and then have the puffery to go all ‘credible parties of the left’ onit. Vote for whoever you want but why not let the rest of us do that too eh? Don’t be a spiteful arsehole. As for what phil is saying – it is his view and that is that – there is an argument that he is putting forward – I’m not sure I 100% agree with it but it is a valid line imo.
Get to 10 or 15% and I’ll believe you’re on to something.
Until then you’re just a party with a voter base less than the conservatives, using PU as an example, telling everyone else what to do and think, without any public backing or support.
I don’t care if you or phil don’t agree or like it, but it’s still good to talk.
Kia ora. 😉
Good to know you’re a follower not a trailblazer – we’ll welcome you onboard once the hard work has been done.
Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.
2014 – Average Support
First Quarter
IMP 0.6% Cons 1.9%
Second Quarter
IMP 1.6% Cons 1.4%
Most Recent Polls (June/July)
IMP 2.0% Cons 1.5%
Best called a 2% party these days.
I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc, so doubt very much you’ll be piping this admiral onto your battleship, but if you ‘trailblazers’ are still a nothing party like craigs in years to come, I’ll give a sympathetic awww bless just for you. 🙂
“Voter base less than the conservatives ? Not any more.”
It was more figuratively speaking based on both being nothing much to see here parties in the big scheme of things, but thanks for that anyway.
Election night will tell all for real.
Good you are finally being truthful allen when you say, “I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically, out of spite, you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them – sad bastard that you are – but truthful at last, you at least have that lol
“Good you are finally being truthful allen”
With respect, I always am.
“when you say I won’t ever vote for HH or have anything to do with kdc” so basically you’ll just try to disrupt those that do want to vote for them”
I’ve never stopped anyone wanting to vote for HH or kdc doing so, but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.
“sad bastard that you are”
What’s the matter? Don’t you mip blokes like choice?
“but truthful at last, you at least have that lol”
And always have and always will be, unlike your party benefactor. :halo:
Without who, and let’s be realistic and honest, hone and mana would be just a winston with a much smaller voter base and much less charisma and pull.
Yay – another trailblazer
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10320814/Cliff-Curtis-supports-Mana
“Yay – another trailblazer”
lulz
wiki definition of sad bastard – “but I do feel obliged, especially in election year, to tell them there are better, less criminal, less self serving, less misogynistic, less divisive politicians and parties on the left who offer much better homes for potential votes.”
Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us – thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness – we are saved at last!!!
“wiki definition of sad bastard”
Are you sure it’s not just politics in election time? Or are you projecting for a reason?
“Fuck no one would have known if it wasn’t for you (and all the right-wing spinners) telling us”
Ah, to counter, there’s the link to the right wing. Come on Marty, you know better than that by now 🙄 But just in case, more working class/left wing than your multi millionaire man, or I’d bet your very own HH.
Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.
Like I wrote, disingenuous.
“thanks and praise be to you, rejoice, rejoice, allen has given his wisdom and his utter truthfulnessness
You’re most welcome, even if not a little insincere and begrudging.
“we are saved at last!!!”
Can’t do much about that one yet, but watch this space, man. 🙂
Last one for a while – got to do some homeschooling with my son…
“Just because a right winger comes up with the correct answer once in a while, doesn’t mean all those who hold the same view are of a similar political ilk.”
Are you sure about that? If the reason for the view is based upon the same rationale, and the purpose of espousing that view is the same, then we are in the, looks like, sounds like, situation methinks – no matter how much it hurts your ‘right-on’ ego to admit.
But I’m really glad you’re a Green voter – good for you! See that is being nice by offering praise rather than just moaning and shitting on anothers view and opinion – see the difference to “And your 1% party is booming because of it, neck and neck with the credible parties of the left they are.”
A very good interview on National Radio now,after ten slot.
“It was also completely tone-deaf to the messaging of what extending “Working for Families” to families who don’t work would sound like to the electorate at large.”
Quite right, it was never going to bring the voting masses flocking, it didn’t even bring out the 100,000 disaffected voters who stayed at home in 2011, so dead dodo of a turd policy.
That doesn’t mean the poorest and most vulnerable couldn’t and shouldn’t have been given an economic boost to raise them out of poverty, but to frame a workers package over non workers was just silliness. Thank fuck those days are over.
Very sweet of you to acknowledge non-working (because they don’t have job-holding, wage earning Mum and Dad)……’give them a boost by all means’ sort of shit.
You remind me of the lounge-fucks whose morals get a twinge the occasional night at 6.00 pm over Gaza.
Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?
So agreeing that non workers should get the same economic boost as wff recipients I’m a lounge-fuck moralist?
As a non working family man, I say shove it up your arse you misunderstanding, misreading, misrepresenting numb nut.
“Live with your bitterness over Hone Harawira, punkarse. Who cares ?”
Ahh, a mip fuckwit 🙄 Explains it all.
“Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.”
You going to share that criticism with others with a similar view? Or just take out your mip loaded vendetta on me?
Shit, some of you people are touched in the head with your gang mentality. 🙄
I wish it was possible for people to get over the word “working” in WFF. I know it was implemented to boost the income of people with children who have a paying job but there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work. Would be great to see something that has the aim of Working For ALL Families..
“there’s a serious need for extra resources for single parents who are unable to work.”
I agree, but I wish people would stop linking it to the working for families policy which is intended to boost the income of working families, as any connection with non workers sends the same dodo policy message of 2011.
I recommend assistance called working for children.
“I recommend assistance called working for children.”
+1
I’d support scrapping WFF and implementing WFC.
Quickly thinking about it, under present benefits, I’d have the dole paid as is, with a tax free working for children payment kicking in to increase the family take home to the same minimum take home level used in wff, which I believe is around $26k pa.
I’d keep wff as it’s a help to low income earners under the median wage, but I would heavily reduce the eligibility of wff above a lower income cutoff threshold to help pay for some of wfc.
Edit:
I’d also have a package for invalid beneficiaries too. Wfi
But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.
“But if those low income earners with children received WFC instead of WFF there would be no need for the discriminatory WFF.”
If you are having a ubi like some here want, I don’t think it matters what name it’s called.
In context of selling a working family tax credit for the unemployed or sick to the populace, wff isn’t the vehicle.
End result is the children and reduction of poverty, so if the final dollar level is the same, the name change negates any discrimination yet becomes instantly more palatable to ma and pa voter.
and of course..the adult non-childbearing poor are invisible..
..just don’t exist…
..no need to even mention them..
That’s a separate issue that needs addressing for sure but a policy that claims to work for families but only applies to people with both children and a job, is discriminatory.
What’s with you wanting something you’re not eligible for. Are you jealous?
Adult non child bearers or parents of children over 18 don’t get wff or wfc.
They can of course supplement their benefit with work or special assistance based on need.
Which is the utter crazyiness of it – Labour was proposing extending the scheme, but not changing the name in any way shape or form. Stupid.
Which is why it’s a crack arse crack head policy that won’t ever fly with mum and dad voters.
Frame it for the children and invalids and it’s caring, considered policy.
Both yourself Al1en and Lanth are spot on. “Working for Families for non-workers” was always going to be an obvious piss take from the Right Wing.
Hey mate, if you know anyone still alive from the neck up in the org, pass it on with my compliments.
They would have been more honest to calling it “Subsidising Employers so Their Families Have More.” I shake my head when I see Labour bringing in yet another subsidy for employers or landlords.
Lanth, semantics semantics semantics, the Working for Families package was designed with the ‘deliberate’ view that benefit reliant children would be shut out,
The policy did not ‘have to’ be designed in such a fashion, it could have been designed for all children who’s parent(s) earned up to X amount of dollars,
Labour had that choice, it chose in my opinion the wrong options, including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy while at the same time cutting the rate of tax for business simply told me, and, 1000s of others like me, that Labour no longer valued or wanted my vote,
That said, in the year 2014, they wont be getting either of them…
“including those with incomes far up into the comfortable middle class in the WFF policy”
A major flaw in my opinion. The cutoff threshold should have been/should be much lower.
Phillip, your contributions are getting easier to read. Thank you.
Hi swordfish,
We must be dopplegangers.
I made almost an identical point over at The Daily Blog.
Ha ! – SNAP !
Believe me, Puddleglum, I honestly hadn’t seen your TDB comment or, indeed, Michael Woods’ guest post until I clicked on your link just now. I only read TDB on an occasional basis, averaging about once every fortnight or so and, even then, I usually only have time to quickly skim a handful of posts. So I probably miss close to three-quarters of the various posts and associated comment threads.
We obviously had precisely the same visceral reaction to Pagani’s Pundit post. I certainly muttered a few sarcastic words (and, just possibly, the odd four-letter expletive) when I read the sheer audacity of her argument.(mind you, one of those four-letter expletives was: Spin, Spin, Spin !!!).
As I said we not only have the same interests but think along very similar lines (not only on Left politics, Opinion Poll analysis, but even extending to a fondness for Chomsky and Finkelstein on Israel/Palestine).
I should also add that we’ve even been carrying out similar/parallel research on political opinion in Christchurch. Last year, anticipating a close Chch East By-Election, I went through all the Candidate-Vote and Party-Vote results for all of the Christchurch seats for the last 3 Elections, compared them with the swing in the Country as a whole and then did something similar for both Enrollment and Turnout.
In the process, discovering (as I’d suspected) that both Farrar, John Armstrong and one or two others in the MSM had got things hopelessly wrong. I also managed to get my hands on some of that polling data carried out specifically in Christchurch earlier last year, as well as the census figures detailing the massive population movements in both Chch East and Central (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Port Hills, if I remember rightly). Indeed, the original motivation for setting up a blog was to use all of this research on Chch to counter any Farrar/Slater/MSM spin on what I anticipated would be this knife-edge By-Election result. And, of course, Labour won handsomely – and so the Blog’s inauguration got postponed until this year. So, the thing is, the parallels go way beyond the Undecideds.
Start of third para should read: As I said in response to your latest impressive post on The Political Scientist…
And that self-interest would be the only thing she’s “excellent” at – she is NOT Labour!
cactus kate and pagani..?
..the media just took yet another further lurch towards the right…
..so we have the far-right musings of ck..(pasteurise/export orphans/the poor..?..sell nz to china..?..)
..and the hard-arse neo-lib from pagani…(‘we have no real poverty..!..let’s just do nothing about that..’)
..joy..!..joy..!..
..in fact..you could narrow labours’ current problems/policy-deficits down to the fact..
..that so many in the labour caucus..are side-by-side with pagani..in their (still!) neo-lib pimping..
..labour won’t really change until they are all fucked off…
That’s great news. Those two love bashing the Labour party but they’re both hopeless at it. Who are they going to get from the left for balance?
oh wait, what?
It will be goldilocks approach for anything Key does, one will say he is doing too much, the other will say not enough and the conclusion readers will expect to each is that Key is being just right.
That’s very optimistic of you, expecting Pagani to criticise anything Key does.
Usually she criticises Labour for not being more like him.
“Usually she criticises Labour for not being more like him.”
What, criticising Labour for consistently fucking up election campaigns?
Sometimes, yep. Among many other things.
Even partisan Nat voters I chat to are appalled at the bias being shown by granny rnz and tv.
TVNZ are so far up themselves they dont see the danger in appointing a moderator who happily admits his bias.
A public broadcaster is sadly needed to be built by dismantling TVNZ which is simply a joke now.
Anyone catch that “hilarious” new show called the late breakfast with wells, hart etc…..I rest my case.
i blame hart…the other two have been funny..in the past..
..hart never has..
..he seems to have built a career from walking around in his underpants..
..nothing more..
(and the show itself feels (surprisingly!) like that show havoc/wells did on mtv..way back in the mid-nineties..
..except that one was funny..had its’ moments…)
It looks as if they are preparing for a gloat-fest, doesn’t it. “Ah well, if only they had stayed with Shearer…” “But look at Key, his uncanny political instincts, etc, etc…” “The people have spoken, and sadly for Cunliffe…” It is up to us to get our vote out and deprive them of their fun.
That would be Cactus Kate on the right and Josie Pagani on the other right.
The only dubious connection she has for Labour is that some years ago she stood as a candidate for Labour! Her so called ‘expert’ analysis and comments are so superficial, weak and actually biased and unsympathetic towards Labour and Cunliffe! The political bosses NZH seem too thick and perhaps too biased themselves not to to see this! If they have a genuinely right wing commentator, Cactus Kate, there, surely, they should get a genuinely left wing commentator for balance.
One thing is clear to me. Going into this election, Cunliffe and Labour are stacked against a pretty hostile and unfair media in front of them.
All the more reason to stop deliberately fucking up, then. Perhaps they are aware of some economic hot potato Labour don’t want to be left holding.
Seriously, how difficult is it? National’s pants are showing. Why frighten the voters? Get in power first and then bring about change. Where are the billboards?
Two more useless, thickhead columnists for the Herald. Be still my beating heart.
truth is I have never rated anything that pagani banana has uttered… at all….. dim …. 2c
This is happening now
My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.
This can only mean that the Israeli army and airforce are planing to demolish large areas of the city.
This is already happening
PHOTOS
Before: https://www.facebook.com/JamalDajani2/photos/a.10150141015580444.403579.166587400443/10154432358055444/?type=1&theater
After:
This has happened before:
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto_testimonies/liquidation.asp
“And then you were transferred to the assembly square” 5:05 minutes
“My contacts in Gaza tell me that everyone who has a phone has just been phoned with a message from the IDF for everyone to leave their houses and to congregate in the city centre.”
Yeah, right.
Yip, her “contacts in Gaza” just got a phone call telling them to evacuate, so during the rush to get out of their house, they thought “we should call up our good mate Jenny in NZ, the one with the persuasive media profile who will best be able to spread the message of what is happening right at the minute to the world at large”.
‘
Shoot the messenger
Ignore the message.
Both Mana and the Greens have sent official representatives to speak at the rallies against the modern holocaust being carried out in Gaza.
I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?
Yep, and rumours from the jewish sector here are that this current stoush is intended to go far and long and deal with “the problem” for good.
not said lightly
“Never again” is what the Israelis once said, from the bottom of their hearts.
What fucking hearts ? Nazis.
“[multilevel headdesk]”: Dildo Dagguns Snr.
Benjamin Franklin
Queen Victoria
“I would like to ask you, Lanthanide and Te Reo Putake where was Labour?”
I’m more interested in knowing wher the National government is. Key is uniquely qualified as a world leader to call on Netanyahu to end the imprisonment and massacre of Palestinians but I’ve yet to read anything that says he has used any influence he may have. This contrasts strongly with his censure of Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
@ Te Reeo Putake and Lanthanide
What’s your point in sniggering at Jenny’s comment? Anger distress anxiety – that sort of response is understandable to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But sniggering no.
So what do your responses register from your standpoint that has meaning?
It looks like they prefer having a go at Jenny to contributing anything substantial.
the ghost of Edward Said speaks…and watches over the Palestinians and the Israelis
Edward Said in search of his homeland of birth, Palestine
More on the Palestinian, Edward Said, friend of Daniel Barenboin the great Israeli musician, and their message for PEACE
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/24/israelis-palestinians-losers-conflict-suffering-rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/sep/26/guardianobituaries.highereducation
Those of us who can remember the ghettoising of the Jews in WWII would think that this smacks of the same process. Herd all the civilians into certain districts and demolish or confiscate their property. Dark irony indeed!
So whilst nick smith bullies fish and game about being political I noticed a Nat election billboard on DHB property, bet thats not considered political in the eyes of certain senior hospital officials recently appointed against official advice.
Where abouts TC?
Sh1 mickey, I maybe wrong but I thought the waikato hospital owned all the way down to sh1 from their recently added A&E and other developments. Looked odd in passing.
Take a photo of it!
Usually there’s a bit of council land on the edge of every SH iirc
oh great not thinking of joining the fool of a Labour campaign person who took a photo of bent Bankie chatting on his mobile phone while driving a car. But wait there is more, that clown apparently went to the cop shop to file a complaint in person.
That just smacks of pity little drama’s, I mean Banks has been dealt to and is history. Who gives a fuck about Banks anymore?
Come on mate let’s just work at lifting the vote and forget about the small stuff.
banks has not been sentenced yet..
..it ain’t over ’till that’s over…(this friday..)
Slippery the Prime Minister is quoted in Grannies online version this morning as describing Smith’s threats against Fish and Game as ”silly” and ”unproductive”,
In other words the PM gives Smith a ”pull your head in notice”…
That hindsight thing.
Quite some time ago there was a discussion on TS about the idea of Kelvin Davies standing aside in Te Tai Tokerau to allow Hone Harawira to win the seat. It was an idea I was cheer leading for.
Some time later LPrent cited an author (sorry can’t remember who, it was ages ago)who looked at how successful democracies function. Among three key points was a country’s ability to run a fair and honest contest between candidates. Contest being the key word.
Transferring that concept of contest into the NZ MMP environment puts a bit of stain on the idea of doing deals – and some may go so far as to say it undermines the voters right to make an educated choice as the sense of contest has diminished, ie they don’t get the full picture, rather their preferred party tells them who to vote for.
Labour haven’t done any deals.
National have. The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)
So, now, who looks desperate and manipulative?
that will be scant consolation if that is the fulcrum around which a centre-left defeat swings..eh..?
..that refusal by labour to accomodate..where it is called for..
..(i don’t think it will be..as i see internet/mana doing much better than the experts/pundits are predicting..)
..but it does show up the logic-shortfalls currently bedeviling labour..
(and their ridiculous claims to win all the maori seats..makes them look as deluded/’barking’ as does flavell..when he makes that same farcical-claim for his sunset-party..)
..where really it is in their hands to both guarantee a stronger centre-left bloc..
..and to see off act/dunne..
..but because of their deeply-flawed first past the post thinking..
..they seemingly wd rather purposefully enhance their chances of defeat…
..beyond fucken stoopid..to my mind…
I also see IMP doing surprisingly well. They can stand on their own feet and contest their seats far and square, without any help from Labour – stepping aside. Good luck to them too. I want to see a healthy amount of IMP MP’s IN Government
Rather than hindering their chances phil, I think they come out looking better off. I heard some where on TS, feedback from the Epsom electorate suggesting the voters were tiring of being told what to do and treated like puppets.
Having another deal pushed on them might be too much. Might there might be a backlash and former ACT voters all vote Goldsmith in protest?
I don’t think the deal is going to go down well here in Ohariu. I will have me ear to the ground in coming weeks……………
Off out now. Back in a few hours.
Want to get rid of Key? The left’s simple guide to tactical voting:
Green Party Supporters-Party Vote Green
Labour Party Supporters-Party Vote Labour
Internet-Mana Supporters-Party Vote Internet-Mana
Te Tai Tokerau Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote Mana-Hone Harawira
Epsom Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote National-Paul Goldsmith
East Coast Bays Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote National-Murray McCully
Ohariu Constituency
Green, Labour and Internet-Mana supporters Candidate Vote Labour-Virginia Andersen
You missed a bit:
All other electorate seats, Vote Labour.
TPR, Why???…
TRP: Labour’s proposed policy, similar to ACT’s, to push up the retirement age is the elephant between the ballot box and me.
It is going to happen sooner or later. Better for it to be done sooner, with plenty of notice and a very gradual increase, rather than later in a hurry.
Labour is proposing lifting the age by 2 years between 2020 and 2033. National, in 1992, increased the age by 1 year immediately and 4 years between 1993 and 2001.
If Labour’s proposal doesn’t get adopted soon, we’ll be looking at a similar rerun of National’s.
Why does it make sense to force worker to stay in an excess labour pool even longer, when there aren’t enough jobs to go around?
Why not just fund the future shortfall by putting more into the Cullen fund now?
TRP – lol – onya mate – tenacious, dedicated, focused – the qualities of all good supporters – good luck for labour – the left need them there – “get your motor(s) running, head out on the highway…Fire all of your guns at once, And explode into space…”
Yep, I’m a true nature’s child, Marty! Thanks for the comment, made my morning.
And, to the others, the short version is that Labour electorate MP’s work hard to help their constituents, Nat MP’s don’t. As we know from the Cunliffe letter issue, electorate MP’s deal with thousands of requests. Labour MP’s actually give a shit about the battlers in their area and can and do make a difference. It’s not glamourous, it’s not often newsworthy, but it does give the poor and downtrodden some hope.
To give an example, if you were a Waitakere beneficiary needing help, do ya reckon Paula Benefit would lift a finger to assist you? The answer’s obvious, and the fact that she is an electorate MP is entirely down to left voters not using their electorate vote effectively.
Pretty good there BG – I agree that the Party vote is where it is at – please correct me if I’m wrong but unless you are on the Māori Roll you can’t ‘candidate vote’ Hone in Te Tai Tokerau. But you can give the Party Vote where ever you wish, I think. I wonder if someone can confirm – if a Party doesn’t have a candidate in a Māori Electorate, you can still give them a Party vote? Does every Party standing in the election give access to their Party vote or do they have to have a candidate? Probably only applicable to Māori seats but would be good to know – for academic purposes only of course 🙂
Hell yeah ! All parties standing at this Election are listed under the Party Vote section of the ballot paper in each and every seat.
Thanks for that confirmation, much appreciated.
I thought the party listed for the party vote will be IMP, and not Mana separately.
Yes it will be for IMP. Or at least it better be, because if its not, they’re screwed.
Correct, except if by some remote chance that in Epsom and ECB it is the Labour candidate that is actually leading (and not the Nat or ACT or the Cons candidate)! Not impossible, Huh?
Keep an eye out at Clutha Southland, ex English’s very occasional stomping ground.
I suspect National-ACT are playing a cunning and tricky game here,
National has put up a young unknown, an ex tobacco business peddler, Todd Barclay 23 as their lack lustre candidate, while ACT has put a well known Southland farmer and former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson as their candidate!
I think they are playing the Epsom game here quietly under the radar hoping that not many will notice! What do you think?
I’m a little bit frowny brow about the Don Nicholson scenario.
Folks from the Southland area, give us your thoughts and the word on the street or paddock gate. Better the devil you know? A well known Fed Farmer ex Prez Vs. the corporate fag trade kid. Would they not be inclined towards Nicholson as a known and one of their own?
Won’t the ACT line of Grr grumble, scrap the RMA, burn the rule book, freedom to pollute the waterways! go down well with the farming set?
(No disrespect intended to the farmers that are working very hard to take care of the environment and their animals. You are a growing number but it needs to be each and every farmer that takes this approach)
as the former Labour candidate, I can assure all that Don Nicholson will get no more votes this time around than last time around i.e. fuck all.
Also, the National Party could instruct their blue supporters in the electorate to vote ACT, but they’ll all still vote blue. Just the way it is. Southern principles vs Epsom expediency, you see.
Thanks for the insiders view CV – thats very good to know. Very helpful.
By all accounts Kelvin davis is a good, intelligent man who’ll do a good job representing his electorate, he knows Labours numbers are in the toilet and that theres a good chance he might not get in on the list if he loses so whats in it for him to stand aside?
If Labour wanted him to stand aside they should have given him a more certain place on the list, like National did with Goldsmith
From memory I worked out Davis gets in on the list if Labour gets about 28.5%. IMO Labour voters are safe voting for Hone in the knowledge that they will probably get Davis too.
It does depend to a certain extent on electorate results.
Its quite a bet to make really: Labour gets at least 28.5% (depending on electorate votes) or campaign for the seat yourself
Especiallyly when its your (potential) job on the line
“The bag o’ flour in Epsom and the hairdo in Ohariu. (Got to come up with another name for Dunne as that lush mane is no longer)’
How about the ‘Ohariu Dunny’?
He does get “the dunney” a bit around here. I tend to think of him as ol dunney boy, or The Dunner – roo.
Hopefully it will all be over for him after 20th September and he can further known as “Dunne and Dusted”.
Reminds me of Kunstler on John Kerry..”a haircut looking for a brain”.
What about the name “Hair-Don’t” for the Ohairyooh seat?
Lolz @ ”Flyover finally over, sky about to fall in” the headline accompanying an opinion piece looking at the decision by the independent commissioners to can the proposed ‘white elephant’ the Basin Reserve flyover in today’s DomPost,
The evil little child in me was hoping that this piece of roading insanity would get the nod as from my look at the proposal it would have created gridlock for all of the traffic in the lower eastern sector of actual city traffic,
Only the supremely stupid would attempt to design a roading network by speeding traffic flows toward a major choke point,(the Mt Vic Tunnel), a) with the now defunct proposal of the Basin flyover, and b), with work about to begin on drilling the second Terrace Tunnel,
Perhaps such design is deliberate where the inevitable clusterf**k results in an enraged public demanding yet another ‘fix’ thus keeping the planners on the gravy train,
The only logical means of increasing the flow of traffic across the network is to in fact double lane the piece of road on the eastern side of the Mt Vic tunnel and then drill another tunnel through Mt Vic itself,
Of course, all that being said, the ‘planners’ could probably achieve most of their aims at far less cost by building a system where Park’n’Ride from public transport hubs becomes a viable option for all the outlying Wellington City suburbs…
I always wondered why the bus tunnel wasn’t widened to divert Hataitai/Evans Bay traffic away from the main flow. Ok, there’d be an increase in traffic up one street in Mt Vic, but surely it would help?
Yeah true TRP, i doubt the bus tunnel needs have anything ‘done to it, at rush hour, the only time the network becomes ‘stuck’, the bus tunnel could be simply utilized by having an unimpeded flow of traffic through it Eastward in the afternoon and Westward in the morning,
(as kids we used to risk life and limb by roaring through that particular tunnel in our Mk1 Zephyrs and PA Vauxhaulls as our personal shortcut),
i can tho see any attempt to convince people on both sides of that particular structure,(the bus tunnel), that their quiet streets should suddenly become a major part of the roading network getting petty ‘hot’,
A budget option for the removal of a significant part of the traffic flow that now passes the Basin Reserve it would surely be tho…
You went through in a car? What a softy! I used to wait for a bus to enter then cycle frantically behind it hoping to get out the other side before the next bus turned up. Good times!
Riii-iight, you must have been out to really impress the opposite with your choice of ride TRP, if you will excuse any unintended sexism, a real ‘babe magnet’ your bike must have been,
Soft i doubt, on occasion our ride through that tunnel was more to do with desperate needs, one particular jaunt being one of my many convictions, i can tell you that the bus tunnel was favored as the means of transport/distribution for the contents of a Toops truck in the early hours of one Wellington morning…
lolz no need to rush.
On foot through the tunnel one only needs to duck into any of the alcoves built into the walls as the bus flies past.
Riii-iiight Felix, try telling that to these two,
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0902/S00237.htm
Notice the Ad, InternetMana by the way, the aim world domination, the plan unfolds,
This one was too busy looking good to see either the bus or ‘an alcove’ coming,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/article-cfm?c_d&objectid
Kids definitely shouldn’t try this at home…
Meant to be a reply to TRP.
Don’t know why you doubt me about the alcoves though, they’re spaced along the walls at even intervals. The trick is to count your paces. You start counting again every time you pass one so you always know how many steps forward to the next one or back to the last one.
They’re only about a foot deep and be a bit tricky to see when you’re running toward the lights of an oncoming bus.
Felix, personal replies to specific commenters are better denoted with the use of the commenters username to avoid confusion,
Secondly, point to where in my comment ”i doubt you about the alcoves”…
Not in the mood for your bullshit tonight. Suck it.
Felix, it is glaringly obvious is it not that i made no reference to any ”doubt about alcoves”
Your latest little spurt of invective is simply Pointless Abuse, brainless at that, to be expected of course considering your commenting history,
You lack style, grace, and intelligence, you should find a child’s website to practice your commentary within,
Here at the Standard you are way way out of your depth…
One stick short of a faggot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(unit)
Alien’s knitting needle strikes wickedly and i laughs, its too late in the piece for me to inquire at whom such wickedness is directed, as i do not plan on spending the next 3 hours trading handy hints on how best to darn socks at this particular time of night…
Not you me old mucker, not you. 😉
And I even included a wiki link to head off any crack head crack pot theories I was being homophobic.
Late, yes it is, but 108 for 3 is keeping me awake until luncheon.
“..You went through in a car? What a softy!..”
you should try it on a skateboard…
Heh! I feel a four Yorkshiremen sketch coming on …
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up at 3 in the morning, half an hour before we went to bed, get down on hands and knees at city end of Mt Vic Road Tunnel, lick pavement clean with our tongues, then crawl bare-kneed all way through to t’other side of tunnel while singing hallelujah chorus. And if we beat all odds and made it to t’other side before being slammed by two Big Reds coming from opposite directions then Our father would belt hell out of us wi’ shovel and dance on our graves whilst whistling old Tex Morton ballads, if we were lucky!!!
u think u had it tuff..?..
.whoar..!
swordfish and phillip u
Good action and a great finish. Where’s your next gig?
Me too, I think that the good burghers of Hataitai might not like the extra traffic. I often thought that the basin problem would go away if the two tunnels were made part of a one way system each way.
That’s the way I feel about the Waterview Connection in west Auckland. The hold up is getting onto the motorway in peak times. Improving the connection to the motorway, will just rearrange the way motorists queue to get onto the motorway.
And the all too predictable partisanship from the Dom Post. Front Page headlines shouting DISASTER !!! for two consecutive days. With former Labour MP/Mayor-turned-ACT-zealot, (Wellington Regional Council Chairwoman) Fran Wilde, given enormous space by the editor to bullshit away……
The sky is falling, the sky is falling, Laughable, the frigging Wellington Regional Council is growing proof to that old adage about Lefties jerking to the Right as they grow older…
Norman Finkelstein on the Method in Israel’s Madness…see both videos (Gaza: Is there method in the Madness July 28 and Gaza: Ceasefire or Surrender ? July 27) here… http://normanfinkelstein.com/
To bring some balance to the issue:
“In Berlin, police had to step in to protect an Israeli tourist couple at the weekend after protestors turned on them when they spotted the man’s yarmulke. Demonstrators reportedly charged towards the couple shouting “Jew! We’ll get you!..
…In Paris, hundreds of protestors have attacked synagogues, smashed the windows of Jewish shops and cafes, and set several alight, including a kosher grocery store which reportedly burned to the ground…
…There have been reports of protestors in Germany chanting “Jews to the gas chambers”, and police in Berlin have banned protestors from using another popular slogan: “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone..
Police have opened an investigation into the imam of a Berlin mosque after he allegedly called on Muslims to murder Jews in a sermon. “.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10983472/EU-politicians-speak-out-after-wave-of-anti-Semitic-attacks.html
Also there is a hashtag #HitlerDidNothingWrong trending big time in the Middle East
.
Some of these will likely be false flag JDL ops.
Not defensible – but understandable.
Don’t know what you do about human desperation and anger when it is en masse….
Perhaps, if more synagogues and Jewish congregations were seen to be publicly against what is going on, the focus would remain where it belongs – with the Israeli government and the IDF.
@ Molly and Tom Jackson…Spot on !!!
Meanwhile, here’s a good rebuttal of current Israeli apologetics on Gaza (often using Israeli and US sources to make the point)…http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/fact-v-fiction-on-the-gaza-massacre/
More interesting Finkelstein has approvingly posted an article that basiclly sums up what I think needs to happen:
“The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region.
That is the only approach that can solve the problem of Gaza.
That is the only approach that will eliminate the threat to Israel continually issuing from Gaza.
That is the only approach that will extricate the non-belligerent Palestinians from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques who led them astray for decades.
That is the only approach that will preclude a need for Israel to “rule over another people.””
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/the-only-durable-solution-requires-dismantling-gaza-humanitarian-relocation-of-the-non-belligerent-arab-population-and-extension-of-israeli-sovereignty-over-the-region-while-were-on-the-sub/
Ah yes, the solution you endorse is 100% ethnic cleansing by the colonisers, why am I not surprised.
Finkelstein seems to approve and he isnt exactly a rabid right wing supporter of Israel is he?
I was talking about you – not about Finkelstein.
Actually my bad, I missed Finkelstein’s sarcasm in the title – it was kind of obscure and the article posted without comment.
You may call it “ethnic cleansing” but neither of these two groups want to live with each other – way to much blood under the bridge, way to much fear about what they might try to do to each other in the future.
It’s not about Finkelstein; it’s about your support for the most right wing of Israeli ethnic cleansing positions, saying that it sums up “what you think”.
To Colonial Viper above ( the reply link is missing in your post again ) –
The Jews need their own country after what happened to them, you can not deny that.
Unfortunately it ended up on the Palestinians when probably it should have been part of Germany that got handed over. Definitely not going to happen now.
So better to bite the bullet than continue this never ending conflict.
Your Muslim mates burning Israeli flags on NZ streets or attacking Jews on European streets is no answer.
Oh I don’t care about any of your cover up after-story.
I just noted that complete destruction of the Palestinian state, transportation of all indigenous people away from their homes en masse (protip: you should do it by rail cars, they’re very efficient), and a complete takeover of all Palestinian lands by Israel “basiclly sums up what [you] think needs to happen”
You said it yourself at 8.1.2.1.1
“…Finkelstein has approvingly…”
Hilarious stuff !!! You don’t understand Finkelstein’s sense of humour too well, do you ?
Now let’s see, an internationally respected scholar and human rights activist who has given most of his adult life to fighting for the basic rights guaranteed to Palestinians by International Law (first and foremost by brilliantly demolishing the on-going stream of Israeli propaganda through systematic forensic analysis of the factual/diplomatic record) “APPROVINGLY” posts a rant by a deeply racist Far Right Israeli Zionist, IDF Officer and one-time ministerial advisor to the right-wing former terrorist and Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, does he ?????
I think not, me old luv. Norman Finkelstein regularly posts some of the loonier Israeli propaganda so readers can see the nutters they’re dealing with. Why do you think he added the sarcastic “(While we’re on the subject of dismantling)” to Sherman’s rant ? I would suggest it was a reference to dismantling Sherman’s Right-Wing Zionist Think-Tank (with the amusingly ‘academic’ and bona fide-sounding name) – The Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
You are right, my mistake, however Finkelstein does make some of his titles obscure and posts the article without comment in this case.
Why should the Palestinians be driven out of their land for a bunch of greedy, authoritarian psychopaths?
What Israel is doing is not entirely defensible, but it is understandable.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been on the receiving end of endless vicious beatings culminating in the attempt to exterminate them entirely in Europe, the Jews wouldn’t have needed their own country.
No. It’s not interchangeable.
What Israel is doing is understandable, but indefensible.
They might have an excuse, but it is not a good one.
The reasoning is pretty simple – the ultra right wing militarist/ultra religious settler 10% of the population is dictating the direction of the entire nation. Wag the dog. It is leading to insanity amongst the Israeli power elite and it is undermining Israel as a free and democratic Jewish state.
You logic is exactly the same, you have interchanged it.
I see the British government is going to make those on the unemployment benefit prove they have applied for 40 jobs every month and work around 25 hours a week. A totally impractical rule that is going to make the unemployed ‘s lives even more hellish.
Mind you, I believe there’s more than a touch of that here in NZ. Those applying for the unemployment benefit, for instance, are required to prove conclusively to WINZ that they have been steadily applying for jobs over previous weeks. And then, it seems, they have to jump through a whole series of other hoops before they get even a sniff of the benefit.
WINZ pretty much demands that you apply for 5 jobs a day. They don’t seem to realise that if there were 5 jobs a day for everyone to apply for there wouldn’t be any unemployment. And then they’ll kick you off the benefit if you upset them even when you have been applying for 5 jobs a day.
Last week, the number of jobs available in Hamilton via the winz site was 9, this week it’s 12
That will give cause for Bennett to wax lyrical about a big % increase in vacancies 🙂
9 of the 12 were the same as the previous week, but no doubt she would try.
I’ll wax her lyrical! 😉
I’ll bet you’ll need plenty of wax and a strong constitution.
Awww yeah, now you’re talking!!
You’d be better off with an orbital sander.
You poor deprived thing, choose personality over buxom superficialities..
john oliver ‘does’ nukes…
http://www.alternet.org/video/video-john-olivers-hilarious-and-terrifying-rant-about-americas-inept-nuclear-arms-policy
The Labour Party has a new blogsite for the campaign.
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/blog
(perhaps others have already shared a link?)
New to me. Thanks blue.
I spit on these two
“A former principal and her husband who scammed $30,000 from a decile one school have abandoned their appeal after a judge told them they may be jailed.
Colleen Margaret Gray, 66, and Bruce Kenneth Gray, 65, siphoned the money from Mayfield Primary School in Otara, using it on overseas trips and lavish meals between 2005 and 2007.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11300755
The herald calls them ‘scammers’ – to me that term does not convey how low they are with what they did.
“The increased funding given to lower decile schools is to provide additional resources to support their students’ learning needs.”
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/Parents/AllAges/EducationInNZ/SchoolsInNewZealand/SchoolDecileRatings.aspx
They took the money/resources from the children that need it the most and spent it on themselves.
Why aren’t they in jail? A beneficiary who defrauded the government of that amount would be.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28522450
So now we can definitively say the racist Clarkson.
Will TV3 commit to having him as an election night pundit to join the racist Paul Henry?
Clarkson racist….duh!
Any idea what are these “dark rumours that Pablo is talking about?
“One thing is certain. If dark rumours are correct, the government has some unpleasant surprises for the IP in the weeks leading to the election. If that happens, it may take more than Glenn Greenwald and his revelations about John Key and the GCSB to redeem the IP in the eyes of the voting public. I would hope that both Dotcom and his IP candidates are acutely aware of what could be in store for them should the rumours prove true, and plan accordingly.”
Full post here, http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2014/07/eye-candy-window-dressing-and-deep-pockets/
Not sure what his point is there but he appears to be qualifying certainty, which isn’t the way to do it. Just sloppy.
Blubber Boy Whalespew reckons he has something to release that will destroy both Dotcom and Hone. I doubt if there’s anything to it. His Whalespew army will probably get all overexcited and double their masturbatory frequency, but that’ll be it. The fool thought he was going to get rid of Len Brown, and as far as I can see, he’s lucky he didn’t end up sharing a cell with Wewege. Then the morans who read his crap could make their sick Bubba jokes about him.
Beard:
Nothing sloppy in my writing. I simply stated the fact that there are well-known rumours about some damning unpleasantness the government may or may not have on Dotcom, and that whatever it is will be revealed in the lead up to election day. Others have already alluded to this, to the point of speculating that it could be part of a disinformation or smear campaign against Dotcom. Whatever the case, such revelations could serve as a trump on anything Dotcom plans to reveal about Key, the GCSB etc., and could terminally hurt by association the image of the IP and its candidates.
did he ‘do’ 9/11…?
It’s odd that National are going to that amount of trouble if they think Dotcom has absolutely nothing on Key and that the IP will be an irrelevance in the election being so ‘far left’ and ‘radical’ that New Zealanders will pay no notice.
I thought Key’s strategy was to ignore Dotcom?
It’s either petty personal vengeance on Key’s part or an attempt to spike guns (which suggests they think the guns need to be spiked).
Interesting that rumours are being seeded at this stage – by whom? Has anyone asked Key directly about what he knows and why it’s not being released now?
And isn’t it vital that ‘we’ know now if it’s vital ‘we’ know just before the election? (I think that was the argument used against the 15 September timing for Dotcom’s ‘bomb’, wasn’t it?)
Sorry, Pablo. Didn’t know you posted here.
Are you saying you’re certain the government may or may not have damning unpleasantness on Dotcom?
Good to know.
Matters of democratic process, misuse of intelligence capabilities, and gaming of nationwide elections are big fucking deals. I don’t think Pablo’s style is that of yanking our chain just for the hell of it.
KDC’s given Key plenty of warning. And Key is head of the SIS and well connected with a whole lot of machinery beyond the SIS. Do you really think he’s sailing into Dotcom’s trap without a plan of his own.
No, I don’t. What is very concerning to me is what you pointed out. John Key is not above using the SIS, GCSB, the Police and the judicial system to gather information against his political opponents. He has referred to the GCSB as “my agency” previously, and I suspect he considers it his own Private Eye firm to use for whatever he sees fit in his own view of New Zealand’s security.
Beard:
I have heard the rumours but am loathe to repeat them because I have no first hand way of ascertaining their veracity. The rumours have two parts: 1) the unpleasantness; 2) the government’s knowledge and intention to use it should it be deemed necessary. CV’s second paragraph pretty much captures the gist.
TBH my concern in this regard is not so much Dotcom but IP candidates, a couple of who I know personally, being tarred by association. The idea, if I read the rumour mill correctly, is also twofold: first, to discredit the IP by revealing the unpleasantness, thereby demonstrating that those who jumped on the Dotcom bandwagon were venal opportunists or naive fools who either did not check or choose to ignore Dotcom’s purportedly darker baggage (and are thereby unfit to hold political office); and second, to neutralise any Snowden furnished revelations about the GCSB’s role in Echelon and/or John Ky’s prior knowledge of the US plan to capture Dotcom. Since some of the IP candidates are people of integrity who would be valuable contributors to NZ’s political life now or in the future, I would hate to see them be destroyed by National’s hard nosed machinations (in the event the scenario plays out as described).
However, the way things are shaping up National should not have to use this trump card, so if it does it will be done out of spite rather than as a political manoeuvre.
I have heard the content of the rumours but prefer not to repeat them since I am unable to independently ascertain their veracity. But the thrust is twofold: 1) the unpleasantness involving Dotcom; 2) the government’s knowledge of and intent to use it if deemed necessary. CV basically has the gist down in his second paragraph.
National’s intent is also twofold. The first is to discredit by association the IP and its candidates. They will be shown to be venal opportunists or naive fools who choose to jump on the Dotcom bandwagon ignorant or in spite of his darker baggage, thereby making them collectively unsuitable for public office. Secondly, revelations of an unpleasant sort regarding Dotcom will counter any Snowden derived exposure of GCSB activities in Echelon or Key’s knowledge of the US intent to capture Dotcom in NZ. The reasoning is that the Dotcom revelations will have a more visceral impact on the public, which is already pretty much “over” the spying controversies. It remains to be seen if any of these assumptions prove true in the event the scenario plays out as described.
However, because I know two IP candidates personally and find them to be people of integrity who can contribute positively to NZ political life now and in the future, I do not want to see their reputations besmirched by National’s hard ball machinations. The irony is that as things are presently shaping up, National’s resort to this tactic will be done out of mean spirited spite rather than perceived political necessity.
How is National and its bloggers gathering this information? Do you believe, as I do, that government spy agencies are being used to unearth this darker baggage, as you call it? If so, it could bring spying controversies back on the table for the New Zealand public.
Kiwis generally like fair play – or at least we used to.
Some of the supposedly dark information may have come from US authorities, not necessarily from the NSA or one of the local spy agencies. Think of who pushed for the raid. Wherever it may have come from, there is no doubt that, at least up until the Kitteridge report on the GCSB and her subsequent appointment as director of the SIS, NZ spy agencies did traffic in personal information for political purposes, and that under Key this information was passed to National-linked hatchet bloggers. You can make your own conclusions about such practices and how they impact on organisational professionalism within the intelligence community.
The question remains as to whether they continue to do so in spite of the pledges of reform (something called for in a recent State Services Commission report in the wake of the GCSB scandal). Absent effective independent oversight authority, we may never know the answer.
PS: Sorry for the double post above. The first one disappeared after posting so I re-wrote it more or less along the same lines. The wording is a bit different but the thrust is the same. No sooner had I written the second version than the first one popped up on the thread, and I have no means of deleting it. Oh well.
No worries. Sometimes I need to be told things twice 🙂
Oh dear Pablo. Slater has quoted you, and not in a good way. It’s an endorsement.
That sucks.
Check out the fake Colin Craig website before he gets it taken down.
http://www.colincraig.co.nz/
lol cheers Karen good for a laugh 🙂
lol – “A rep for Colin Craig tells NBR ONLINE the Conservative Party leader has no association with new website ColinCraig.co.nz.”
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/colin-craig-disavows-colincraigconz-ck-159947
that big head coming up from the bottom is very funny
One Direction star gets death threats for pro-Palestinian tweet
http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news/one-direction-star-gets-death-threats-pro-palestinian-tweet-6040596
Get out and vote, Lorde urges youth
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10322334/Get-out-and-vote-Lorde-urges-youth
Come on Yella, tell the kids who to vote for.
Lorde can’t even vote herself, time to drop the voting age to 16.
But able to promote voting, and herself, for being involved in the campaign.
I know she was at a rich kid school, spotted by a fellow rich kids record company dad, so what’s the real deal Yella? Pro royal or pro pauper?
I have to say I admire that 1d lad for not removing his pro Palestinian tweet.
my god you are disgusting allen – why don’t you just leave her alone you bully
Bully? Oh ffs Mars, that’s lame, it’s a perfectly valid comment to ask of the decile 10 school kid who got famous when her royal song was co-written, bearing in mind the lyrics to that tune and the gist of the song.
I half expect a photo with JK, but she can always come out and say how she really relates to the meaning behind her breakthrough hit and show support for the underdogs in society, just like the 1D kid has.
Billy Bragg she aint, but who knows.
You accused me the other night of being a one trick pony. Now just because you got upset about what I wrote about kdc and hh you’re on one. 🙄
For the record (no pun), when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away… And you already know who I’m voting for – The depressed and hungry people of NZ.
You are full of shit allen – just a nobody with envy of others because imo you don’t really like yourself very much – it’s okay I can understand why you’d feel that way 🙂
And the last time you tried to ‘bully’ lorde I said the same thing so your anti IMP opinions today are no big thing other than I can’t really let your ‘views’ stand without some corrections – hope you don’t mind 🙂
Totally unnecessary first paragraph.
I’ve established it isn’t bullying by clearly laying out the points.
And a bit of a wah wah second effort verse to finish.
Yep, you got some up you alright, but no fear, it’s all fair in love and war.
You’ve no right to the high ground, so get down from your perch 😉
But if you want to side with a rich kid and go gaga, I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean look how hone ran and dribbled after kim’s moolah 😆
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a dim fellow indeed.
Besmirch, hark at you. And moral ground, no, not mine to hold, just like you.
If the consensus is widespread that I’m a bully for asking the Royals hitmaker to come forward and reveal who she’d vote for while promoting herself and the youth vote, given her wedge and various commercial contracts, and is followed by bold text of doom, I’ll walk away and never return.
If it isn’t, you pledge to do the same. 😉
You try and besmirch a seventeen year old young woman when she is trying to get young people to vote and think you have the moral high ground – lol you are a very, very, very dim fellow indeed.
You already said that, to which I countered.
To be clear, if you have the numbers, get the big boss to bold type me for it and I’ll walk.
Otherwise cork your faux outrage and agree to clear off yourself for pulling the bullying attack line.
What you got Mars?
lol guess what spot – you can’t bully me like you try to bully others – try to keep up sunshine
So you’ve nothing, including no balls. 😀
No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines.
You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned if you think it will improve your chances, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, big ups to that 1 direction dude. Kudos bruv for not letting your handlers or your bank balance or your projected earnings get in the way of doing the right thing.
signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original – lol – “say hello to my little friend…”
“signs of a thicko – insulting someone with the same insults recently used against them by the same person, and pretending they are original”
Erm, you are the snide, calling me a bully, hence “No worries, you just keep sniding your bully insults from the sidelines”.
Obviously I can’t call you a thicko now, not that I would, but chuckling an irony laugh for posterity. 😆
Anyhow, off to download lorde’s co-written album now :snort:
You know I’m feeling generous especially after standing room only in Rotorua for the roadshow so I’m not going to reply to you again (after this one). Stop picking on Lorde, especially when she is trying to get young people to vote – it shows your petty, foolish side and is most unbecoming.
I love how you use “co-written” as a term of disparagement, as if working with others is a sign of weakness.
“You know I’m feeling generous”
Translated that means I got fuck all and everyone knows it, except pu and felix, who also bear long time grudges, making you the limping three legged lame attack donkey from hell. 😆
Goneski, comrades.
I don’t begrudge you a damn thing. I just find it amusing to watch you tie yourself in knots over things and people you know nothing about.
Oh allen what a weak little man you are – you have shown your true colours – picking on a seventeen year old because you are jealous of their success and then prattling on making demands, confirming your dimness – lol – stick to trying to bully and besmirch a successful young women who is getting young people to vote but even then I’m sure Lorde would dispatch you like mowing a weed if she could be bothered with a envious thicko like you.
You have nothing but the backing of a couple of village idiots.
You don’t have to agree with me about Yella, hell, she might even surprise and vote mip, but it still doesn’t mean the question is bullying or besmirching.
You’re just tossing off slinging shit in the hope it sticks.
I thank the 1d guy for having the nads to be political and stick to the correct side of right. I wish you had the fortitude to do the same.
Lorde was working to get young people to vote even though she can’t – you are a sad dim thicko if you can’t see the value in that – but oh know it’s all about how she is successful and how you’ll donate 100% of your money when you are – lol do you realise what a loser argument you have there?
I pledge to donate ALL of my giraffes to a zoo of Lorde’s choosing.
Let’s see her match that.
I’ve never said there isn’t value in her getting first timers out to vote, so strike one for the sad thicko barb.
I would like to know who she’d vote for this election, if she could, as I wonder if the money and fame had eroded the (false?) image of urban battler from Royals, or if she’d stay true to the message she sold the kids. No biggie, but a valid question nonetheless. I like credible heroes and heroines.
The rest is just you getting arsey over mip, like you get arsey over race, like you get arsey when disagreed with, like you get arsey when confronted with differing opinion. I don’t need to flag you for it, it’s historically obvious.
I’d still donate any money I made from my music, as I have publicly stated before. Loser argument or not, I’m guessing it’s an eye of the beholder thing, or most likely for you, a green eyed beholder thing, which is all good, I’m arrogant enough to take it as a compliment 😉
You’re chucking my insults at you back at me again fool.
btw – it’s a fucken song mate and the lyrics are words for the song not a manifesto for a life – bloody hell are you completely clueless and up yourself?
You know what marty, I suspect a few expected more from you, but your line and angle of attack have been pretty shonky all through this exchange.
As for fucken song and not a manifesto etc… She made a mint, well half a mint, off it, and kids bought into it big time apparently, so again, the interest in whether she’d be a sell out and vote nat or be with the poor kids and be a lefty remains valid, especially in context of the 1 direction tweet from a young man willing to do/say the right thing.
Everything else is your sideshow and distraction because you got your arse in your hands over me. You know it’s true ’cause you got the form.
pathetic allen – bully tactics never work laddie especially when tinged with envy and spite – the exchange is here for people to read I have no worries at all about that but I wouldn’t say the same if I was you…
You’re out to ‘win’ and fair play to you, but it shouldn’t be at whatever cost. Slinging around terms like bully and bullying young women, just to get that net ‘victory’ is still lame as that three legged donkey, especially when it’s clear it’s not about the girl at all, but your vanity and agenda.
I too am content with the dialogue, and as always, rest easy on my laurels.
“..when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away..”
..that’s really funny…!
..and if we all had fucken horses..nobody’d be walking…..
..got any more like that..?
..definitely ‘dim’..and deluded…
..heh..!
Talking of no balls snidey back door merchants 😆
I’ve nothing now, but if I had, I’m on record and I’m a man of my word. The end.
Nah, that’s not the end. I haven’t even called you a twattish hack with no heart yet.
Female parts, how very misogynist of you.
But seeing I couldn’t give a crap, go for it puddycat. It’s still the end as far as that particular statement goes.
Evidently not.
And men have hearts too you dullard.
“I’ve nothing now, but if I had, I’m on record and I’m a man of my word. The end.”
Yep, it really is the last word on it.
“And men have hearts too you dullard.”
You lucky QOT aint here to slap you down, you sly old misogynist, you.
The end of any statement is the end of that particular statement.
Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.
ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.
“ps QoT and I are the same person. Everyone knows that.”
Clearly not, because she has class and can elucidate.
“You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
Nobody is faceless with their own web page.
It’s not unverifiable pledge because it’s in the public domain and has been since my first post here.
It’s not undefined, because I’ve stated it’s money.
It’s an unspecified time until that time arrives.
I am a man of my word. The End.
But feel free to try and prove me wrong by getting me signed, buy my songs and see if I stay true to my pledge or not. 😉
Hilarious.
I answered every point you made and it’s hilarious. How so?
I made that same pledge to the site admin here, in an email before I even started posting, in the hope someone would help me set up a trust to do just that.
My fault a lack of talent got in the way of a good idea, but if that email was on record and presented, you’d look like a sack of shite.
Like I said, I’m a man of my word. Any money I make from music would be given away, 100% or I’d be damned.
Now get to fu8k, unless you go to LP and ask if the email still exists.
Hilarious that you think you answered anything.
Hilarious that you think it would matter if you had.
Hilarious that you’re still going on about it.
Hilarious that you ever started.
Hilarious that you’re so upset over others’ successes.
Hilarious that you pretend you’re above such silliness.
Hilarious the chasm between what you say
and what you present.
“Yours though is open ended. You’ve used a faceless pseudonym to made an unverifiable pledge to give away some undefined thing at some unspecified time.”
I’ve answered and you’re circle jerking your way around it.
If you believe I’m not a man of my word, like I claim, and it’s all rather hilarious, go hunt for my first post, try around December 2012 just before xmas. I made a request for help in setting up a charitable trust.
Better still, seek confirmation of the email I sent via this sites contact button. If it exists, I don’t mind it’s publication, bad English and all.
Nothing open ended about my word.
Faceless pseudonym makes same unverifiable pledge twice.
Must be true then 🙄
It’s only unverifiable if you don’t go and seek out the information I’ve presented you with.
It’s only faceless pseudonym if you don’t know how to use a whois site.
“Must be true then”
Of course, just like I’ve been saying, I’m a man of my word.
I’ve even had a phone conversation with a trusted contributor from this very place about my plans.
You have all the info you need to verify, but I’m picking, by form, you’d rather wank yourself stupid in denial rather than get proved wrong, which is of course fine by me.
It’s unverifiable because you haven’t specified anything. You’ll donate all your money when you’re famous? Is that what you said? ffs man how the hell is that ever going to be measured, quantified, qualified or verified?
Meanwhile, a 17 year old girl stands up and does some good in the world and you try to knock her down.
What a sad little man you are.
See, you’re circle jerking marty’s bit now and getting away from finding those posts and getting hold of that email.
True to forum type form, which is a bit sad.
Everything can be verified, even if it’s just an ‘if I ever’.
That you won’t is all good.
Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.
It’s utterly meaningless.
Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.
“Oh ffs, you said “when I’m famous I’m giving all my money away”
What does that mean? You haven’t defined or specified anything that would let anyone know whether you’ve become “famous” or not.”
How many The Al1ens do you think there are? I think a best seller would be a bit of a clue, a sort of give away don’t you think? True in all likelihood to not happen, but ‘if’ it did, I’d would be true to my public stated pledges.
“Meanwhile, the young girl you heap scorn on is trying to make positive change in her society.”
I’ve not scorned her. I have questioned who the decile 10 schooled kid with wedge would vote for, which isn’t really the same thing at all.
But getting first time voters in the polling booths is admirable and I’ve no issue with that, why would I? It is commendable aim on behalf of all those involved.
So define it then.
If it’s so obvious and so easy then go ahead and define precisely what constitutes you being “famous” so we know when to check up on you and your charitable status.
If you can’t define it, then you haven’t pledged anything.
Are you for real, catflap? I wrote hours ago if I make any money from my music. If you see The Al1en cds in the shops, or on itunes or even on my own site, then I reckon that’s somewhat conclusive as ‘famous’ or making money.
I wouldn’t ever sign a deal unless all my share of the royalties were paid in (or for) perpetuity into a charitable trust, because, fucking funny enough, I’m a man of my word.
Could you imagine the scandal if some fuckwit from a blog, with a grudge, out to settle scores exposed me as a fraud 🙄 😆
It’s difficult to take anything you say seriously when according to your last comment, releasing music on your own website means you’re famous.
So I won’t.
checklist:..
..likes winston peters..
..is jealous of lordes’ success…
..is homophobic..
..’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?
don’t forget the “crotchless panties” line – so classy that one
And I bet they’re still twisted right up your moral outrage 😀
“checklist:….likes winston peters….is jealous of lordes’ success…..is homophobic….’back door merchant’ a favourite ‘insult’ of yrs..?”
0/4 And I have to say, with the permission of the guvnor, you’re half as dim as I thought you were.
“no balls snidey back door merchants”
“You can’t say I didn’t give you a fair crack at a full frontal shot. I suppose you can always wait until I’ve got my back turned”
Go on, try really hard and make that link 🙄 😆
(A clue, it’s not about where your brainbox is).
“In the 2011 election 42 per cent of 18-24 year-olds did not vote – compared with just 5.2 per cent of those over 65.”
Good on Lorde for helping to get the youth out voting – who they vote for is irrelevant imo.
Hmmm why did he mention The Māori Party? Peters fires first overture to the gnats? I hope winstonfirst fails miserably.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10324092/Peters-No-deal-with-Maori-Mana
Trust winston? I don’t think so and I hope labour aren’t thick enough to.
If he’s in government with the greens and labour he’ll do a good job as foreign minister, just like last time.
Winston ruling out mip takes some pressure of DC. Maybe they’ve been chatting, which like the decision to exclude kdc and his puppets, is a good thing with a view of forming a stable government post election.
I’m not discouraged.
problem is that IMP is going to bolt home with a solid handful of MPs.
Well if that’s the case, there isn’t a problem and mars is getting his crotchless panties in a twist for nothing.
I wonder if Labours loss in support because they won’t rule out working with IMP is greater than the 3 seats IMP ‘may’ bring in??
And Mana isn’t a race based party.
Exactly correct!!!
harre is standing in keys’ seat..
..cool..!
Is it legal for people that are not in Key’s electorate to register there to cast a vote there?
no..it’s not ‘legal’..
Laila Harre could be the glorious Giant killer! Could very well be the Boudicia and Joan of Arc of NZ politics. She could make unforgettable history and a long lasting legend! Never say never. Nothing is impossible!
See in advance the modern Boudicea’s triumphant victory against Key and the Nats here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Queen_Boudica_by_John_Opie.jpg
I am interested to hear your thoughts on Winston’s stand today when he said that he will not work with either of the what he termed, ‘racist’ parties, Mana and Maori Parties.
What do you think is his strategy here?
I am thinking that there may actually be not a single Maori Party MP after this election anyway, while there will most certainly be Internet-Mana MPs! So, Winston is probably more likely to marry Key/National rather than support Labour and the progressives. Isn’t that the more likely scenario, unless he stays outside with C and S which is not his style though!
i think peters will go with national..
..(key will offer him whatever it takes..)
..and it amazes me how many on the left have the short-term memories of fucken goldfish..
..and are somehow confident peters will go with labour…(!)
..trust peters..?..yeah right..!
..a vote for peters..is likely a vote for key…
..lab/grns/int-mana are the only safe votes for the left…
+1
A neolib cadre in the 90s who as a senior government member pushed for the break up of ECNZ, removed tariffs destroying car assembly, and helped punish the poor.
He now profits from bemoaning the state of the world, and no-one hardly questions it!
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” Marcus Tullius Cicero.
that is quite a tidy summary of peters/his career…
I most certainly do not agree with your assessment of Winston. He is NOT that sort of a person at all. You can not demean him so unfairly for some of the policies you oppose that he has supported in his career. He has shown he is a very concerned caring patriot in many ways, including walking out of the National party for their Neo liberal capitalist policies/support of big business/corrupt practices/asset sales etc. While in coalition with Labour, he supported ALL the revolutionary social and economic policies and programmes of Helen and Cullen.
It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election. But that is his prerogative and political strategy. That does not make him evil. People are free to decide and vote accordingly.
The quote you wrote is of course such a great quote and so true. Does not apply to Winston though.
i laughed and then i laughed a lot more @ ”revolutionary social and economic programs of Helen and Cullen”
( i can hear a violin concerto in the background as a voice-over explains how child poverty and homelessness was non-existent during this golden era)…
Nothing that the 5th Labour government did was revolutionary. Most of it didn’t go against the ingrained neo-liberal paradigm that’s tearing our country apart.
The WFF, Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Saver, Paid parental leave, Rise in minimum wage, Early childhood funding, Increases in health care, Free doc visits for kids, Dental clinics in schools, Employment relations act etc etc were Neo-liberal and not social/economic revolutionary bold programmes?
They were reasonable initiatives to take the edge off of Ruth Richardson neoliberalism.
WFF – a tax cut for the working class and comfortable middle class. (Not revolutionary or bold).
Kiwi Bank – which Anderton made Labour do. NZ has had a Post Office bank for decades. (Nor revolutionary or bold).
Rise in minimum wage. Standard social democratic thing to do. (Not revolutionary or bold).
ERA. Rolled back some of the capitalist excesses of the ECA. But gave workers next to no assistance in organising or striking. No mention of penal rates for overtime. (Not revolutionary or bold).
etc
clem said..
..”..It is true that now no one knows for sure if he will support Nats or Labour after the election…”
..and therein lies the reason why a vote for peters is not a safe vote for any left/progressive/anyone wanting key gone….
..why their only choices can be lab/grn/int-mana..
..(and boredom-alert!..i intend to hammer this message right up to election day…)
..imagine how sick in yr guts you wd feel..
..if you voted for peters..
..and then he decided that key was offering him the best deal…
..so you had essentially voted key back into office..
..think about it..!
Yes, it would be sickening if Winston went to kiss Key’s asp.
Good description of Key and National.
Yep, for once i can agree with you Phillip, my longer comment on this hit moderation, but, Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% isn’t to hard to imagine, and if either Annette or Hone win their seats,(i expect both to), then it can be done with InternetMana accruing 4%,
Labour/Green doing any % higher than attributed above simply makes it that much easier…
Labour 33%, Green 12%, Internet Mana 5% would make Winston and NZFirst null and void, while Winston is ‘talkin tough’ about both the Maori Party,(which i do not expect to gain any seats anyway), and, InternetMana i think that NZFirst may be in a far weaker position than Winstons ravings would indicate,
Obviously the latest from Winston is a nod toward Slippery the Prime Minister for kicking the electoral legs out from under Colon and the Conservatives and will be seen by many as an indication of an inclination toward National, (myself included in the latter group),
Winston’s problem here is that with some Big Bucks Colon the Conservative is likely to attract an even bigger buzzy bee into His bonnet fighting all that much harder for the loose frilly bits of lace hanging from the pretty coat of National and thus may send both down in a ball of electoral fire with neither party quite being able to attain the magic 5%,
Winston’s other problem, there were at the 2011 contest one hell of a lot of people that had one thought in mind as Phill Goff first fumbled and then stumbled during that campaign, that thought?, ”no way were National getting to Govern alone”, and despite having to hold firmly their nasal protuberances For NZFirst they voted,
That vote, who can ever really know its size, simply will not be ticking the NZFirst box on the ballot papers in 2014,
Labour 33%, Greens 12%, InternetMana 5%, its doable and it might be time to retire Winston from the game…
Lolz, i was wondering why this particular comment hit ‘moderation’, its the ‘A’ in gmail i got my fat little fingers to mangle into the wrong position…
Just off facebook – “Hundreds in Rotorua listening to the Internet Mana Roadshow!! Wow HUNDREDS!”
These meetings are awesome!!!!!
the rise of internet-mana is the story of this election…
Yes, it sure will be! No doubt.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20143331/the-limitations-of-technology-in-the-classroom-digital-devices-and-deeper-learning
Yesterday Nine to Noon covered the digital devices in classrooms issue with American computer scientist Kentaro Toyama.
Key point is that digital devices amplify the school environment’s existing culture: high functioning schools do even better; in schools with behavioural/learning issues the devices are a distraction.
The assumption that tech devices will somehow close the gaps between high and low decile schools is wrong.
‘NICK SMITH’S crude intimidation of the Fish and Game Council points to the bleakest of environmental futures should National be re-elected on 20 September.’–Chris Trotter.
Read that again. What a great quote!
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/07/28/something-fishy-about-nick-smiths-game/?fb_action_ids=4383100032844&fb_action_types=og.likes#sthash.gX0dgAc3.dpuf
Fuck.
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — This narrow strip of land that used to be called “the Gaza Strip,” already one of the more densely populated places on earth, is growing dramatically smaller. The Israeli military, relentlessly and methodically, is driving people out of the three-kilometer (1.8 mile) buffer zone it says it needs to protect against Hamas rockets and tunnels. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the buffer zone eats up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/as-israel-enforces-its-buffer-zone-gaza-shrinks-by-40-per-cent.html
Well it does accord with the rumours been heard around these parts.
No joke. This is a big thing. Must be money in it.
Disgusting that the jews have to kill children and imprison them and their parents though. I guess maybe, , , is it revenge? Is that what Israel is doing? Is it simple revenge?
From places frequented the Israelis have a pretty poor reputation so perhaps this is just their natural setting.
Where is god in all of this?
nowhere
godless
Inspirational program from Nigel Latta. No doubt Key will condemn it which would indicate that it is powerful and refutes the Government position.
The Unequal Society. With facts and figures.
The Rich get Richer while the Poor get beaten.
Must watch before Key conspires to have it banned!
TV1 9:30pm.
@ ianmac 10.22
Naturally the much touted freedom for the public to watch tv on demand has to have a catch, a barrier which I have to climb over. A block sign comes up and when I click on it I have a window with brightcove.com and various settings. It is harder to get government to give you anything in a straightforward and simple way than it is for a rich man to ride a camel through the eye of a needle and get to heaven. Or something. I probably am confused.
Will flag down my computer-literate white knight. (Not being racist – it’s just a saying! I would find a brown black red or yellow one just as useful as a spotty pink one. Though perhaps I would not welcome a blue-green one.)
nigel latta has earned some brownie-points..
.,his doco on inequality is worth a look…
a few ppl on facebook are saying they just turned 18 & then received a letter from national pimping for their vote. they are curious as to how they would have gotten that information, because both ppl didnt think they put it anywhere (knowingly) public. weird?
“Our recents studies show you have just turned 18 which means you can vote.
Here are 3 Reasons why we reckon we are better than the rest,
1. We spend our money wisley in your community.
2. We believe Christchurch depends on us.
3. Most of all, as a whole New Zealand are going to need National in the next three years to boost the income and just become a better place to live.
WE BELEIVE YOU SHOULD VOTE NATIONAL
#ForABetterNZ.
Sounds like bullshit to me. National might be dodgy but they’re not illiterate.
5 film companies want to sequester (I think that’s the word) all of Dotcom’s assets to hold for three years. Usually can be done in a criminal prosecution but this is at a civil
stage. The guns are out.