Open mike 29/09/2014

Written By: - Date published: 6:47 am, September 29th, 2014 - 287 comments
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287 comments on “Open mike 29/09/2014 ”

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  1. Barfly 1
    29 September 2014 at 7:53 am

    Please edit…it’s 29/09/2014

    • phillip ure 1.2
      29 September 2014 at 10:43 am

      up very early for a barfly..there..barfly..

      ..or was it an all-niter..?

      ..how’s the hangover..?

      • Ronnie Chow 1.2.1
        29 September 2014 at 9:14 pm

        I have just watched Cunliffe on Campbell tonight and must say I have very serious concerns for his mental state. His belief system borders on pathological as he has zero insight into his own contribution to Labour’s loss, talks patronisingly about his caucus colleagues ie “If Grant Robertson loses I will appoint him as my deputy,” and blames everyone else for his failure. I only had a year to sort the party out and six months of that we were campaigning (to paraphrase) but leave it to me and I will drag the party into the 21st Century and win in 2017.
        There was no acknowledgement at all that he had a role to play in the defeat and obviously sees himself as above this dysfunction. While I abhor diagnosis on the basis of a media interview I do think we have a narcissistic personality disorder in a man with no insight, remorse or faith in anything or anyone other than himself.
        I suspect we’ll see him deteriorate as time goes on and he has to face the fact that caucus hate him and he’ll never make progress either for himself or for the party.
        What a tragedy.

        • phillip ure 1.2.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 9:26 pm

          “..we have a narcissistic personality disorder in a man with no insight, remorse or faith in anything or anyone other than himself..”

          ..isn’t that a pre-requisite for becoming a professional politician..?

          ..that would be the rule..rather than the exception..

        • Mark 1.2.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 10:05 pm

          Ronnie, How many years have you been working in mental health. As a fellow mental health professional of a year or three, I struggle bigtime with your analysis. Please enlighten me what symptoms led you to your conclusions because nothing you said in your post makes much sense from a diagnosis prospective.

    • travellerev 2.1
      29 September 2014 at 8:28 am

      Bugger, you beat me to it. Day 9 into his new regime and John Key is waiting for the US edict that will get us into the war he’s been so keen to send Kiwi soldiers into. I said it would be between 1 day and 14 days before he would take us to war. Funnily enough he could not be reached for comments.

      For those of you who want to learn a bit more about why this is a really bad idea, here is my two cents and a handful of links to get you up and running with what we are going to do there.

      And yes, I know we won’t be bombing shit because thank God the NZ airforce doesn’t have a combat arm anymore but that can be remedied by looting us some more and buying a couple of jets.

      In the mean time we will have SAS and other prime examples of Kiwi manhood running around the place making sure that the countries who do have jets can hit some prime SYRIAN targets!

    • travellerev 2.2
      29 September 2014 at 8:48 am

      I don’t think he will wait until October. He will push as hard as he can to get us in. If we fight this there will be a nice little false flag bit of scaremongering. Like a raid on the Somali mosque in Hamilton. Right slap-bang in the middle of redneck country to get the blood boiling. Mark my words!

    • yeshe 2.3
      29 September 2014 at 9:22 am

      Technically, I would have thought he was still only a caretaker govt till all the warrants are signed and couldn’t make such an abrupt change in our foreign policy ?

      What have I missed or is this just just more dictatorship evidence ?

      • travellerev 2.3.1
        29 September 2014 at 9:32 am

        This is correct but nothing a little false flag fear mongering wouldn’t solve. A raid on a mosque as I suggested earlier would have the Kiwi’s baying for blood overnight!

        That’s how they did it in Australia, After they announced they were going to help the US with jets and just before they voted for an all out spying law.

        Cameron announced that people with dangerous ideologies such as 9/11 and 7/7 truthers where just as dangerous as ISIS in his speech before the UN.

        They are covering all the angles to be able to shut down dissent.

        • Te Reo Putake 2.3.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 12:39 pm

          “Cameron announced that people with dangerous ideologies such as 9/11 and 7/7 truthers where just as dangerous as ISIS in his speech before the UN. ”

          Er, no, he didn’t.

          http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/david-camerons-speech-to-the-un-general-assembly-british-pm-warns-world-leaders-of-isiss-murderous-plans-to-expand-its-borders-and-pledges-to-take-action-9754380.html

          • travellerev 2.3.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:01 pm

            “Their warped world view could be used as a reason for violence. We know them. The lies about how 9/11 was done by Jews, blah blah blah. We have to fight these ideologies at the bases of terrorism everywhere.

            Yes TRP. Yes, He did equate 9/11 truth with Terrorism as non violent extremism. For those of you wanting to hear the speech here is the link and he talks about nonviolent extremism such as 9/11 truth activism as a dangerous ideology justifying Muslim violence at around 4.5 minutes into the speech.

              • travellerev …
                29 September 2014 at 1:10 pm

                I suggest you give my link a shot. That has his whole speech. Not just a 1 minute clip yídjit. Why don’t you scroll to 4.5 minutes and give it your best shot.

                • travellerev …
                  29 September 2014 at 1:13 pm

                  Oh sorry, I found something about denial the other day. I realized that you actually believe things you don’t like away.

                  • Pascals bookie …
                    29 September 2014 at 1:23 pm

                    The very worst way to try and stop Key from deploying the SAS to the Islamic State would be start banging on about trutherism.

                    • Gosman …
                      29 September 2014 at 1:26 pm

                      Yes, please let travellerev bang on about September the 11th in relation to this topic.

                    • Pascals bookie …
                      29 September 2014 at 1:28 pm

                      Why? Are you keen on dead SAS to no good effect?

                    • travellerev …
                      29 September 2014 at 2:24 pm

                      Um, I am only pointing out that Cameron wants to fight terrorism and the underlying rationale everywhere.

                      He says that 9/11 “lies” about Jews having done it and the Muslims being picked on by the West as a result is dangerous and should be defeated as well as the terrorist groups he suggest are the result of these dangerous ideologies.

                      Well he’s got his job cut out in that case because about 80% of 2 billion Muslims as well as 80% of Germans, Italians and about 20 Million Russians and the government of Malaysia to point out a few of the many have embraced science and not a badly told Conspiracy theory.

                      The state can only hold on to the lie until they can protect their population from the consequences from that lie after that it comes down to brutal repression.

                      Spying, making people who speak about issues concerning the big lie part of the great big enemy. It’s all been done before and it will happen again. This is just the beginning.

                      I am not the one trying to talk John Key out of going to war because of the lies around 9/11. He is after all part of the problem.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      29 September 2014 at 2:30 pm

                      I don’t think Truthers are dangerous, just callous, cretinous and careless with facts. Thirteen years and counting. No evidence.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:13 pm

                      “No evidence”

                      ??? the entire scene (i.e. Manhattan) was contaminated by nano-thermite residues, and there are plenty of video and witness reports of MOLTEN STEEL at the building site – which could not have been melted by kerosene fuel fires.

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    29 September 2014 at 1:32 pm

                    Speaking of the truth, TRP’s link has the full text of Cameron’s speech, and your links are broken.

                    Islamist extremism believes in using the most brutal forms of terrorism to force people to accept a warped world view and to live in a quasi medieval state.

                    To defeat Isil – and organisations like it – we must defeat this ideology in all its forms.

                    As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by preachers who claim not to encourage violence, but whose world view can be used as a justification for it.

                    The peddling of lies: that 9/11 was a Jewish plot and the 7/7 London attacks were staged.

                    The idea that Muslims are persecuted all over the world as a deliberate act of Western policy.

                    The concept of an inevitable clash of civilisations.

                    We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism we need to deal with all forms of extremism – not just violent extremism.

                    Just because Trav is excitable doesn’t give David Cameron clean hands. What exactly does “we need to deal with all forms of extremism – not just violent extremism” mean, in practice?

                    • travellerev …
                      29 September 2014 at 3:06 pm

                      For those of you interested in learning about the evidence with regards too 9/11 here is a great video made of the Toronto hearings

                      You can call me whatever you like. I support the many, many families who lost loved ones and who want a new and independent investigation. I also support the NY High rise safety initiative.

                      I support those people who want justice for the hundred of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans and now Libyans and Syrians who died in the wars started in the aftermath of 9/11. And the two billion Muslims being maligned as a result of those events. And that makes me a dangerous extremist in the eyes of Cameron who thinks that those ideas are dangerous ideologies supporting and promoting Terrorism around the globe.

                      As Goebbels said:
                      “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

                      It seems Cameron and Obama’s Science Czar Cass Sunstein have taken a leaf out of Goebbels propaganda book

        • travellerev 2.3.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 4:34 pm

          And! BOOM! John Key won’t rule out SAS against ISIS

          • Paul 2.3.1.2.1
            29 September 2014 at 4:37 pm

            Wonder if some of NZ’s sleepy hobbits realised they’d voting for this?

            • travellerev 2.3.1.2.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 4:48 pm

              I don’t think the NZ hobbits are all there. They voted Kneejerk (which in other countries is merely a strange dance) manipulated by the MSM and will wake up as tenants in what they thought was their own country once the dust clears up

      • travellerev 2.3.2
        29 September 2014 at 10:48 am

        David Shearer in NY pandering the same warmongering crap calling for humanitarian aid just like John Key just in case you think Labour as it now stands is any different

    • Gosman 2.4
      29 September 2014 at 10:45 am

      Unfortunately for you lot at the moment John Key could quite easily do this with no major political fallout. Not that I think he will but the voters have given him a mandate to govern for the next three years and there isn’t much you can do about it.

      • travellerev 2.4.1
        29 September 2014 at 10:51 am

        1.1 million didn’t vote with a pencil. They voted with their feet. Hardly a mandate for John Key. But I’m sure he’ll do what he wants no matter what the Kiwi population wants.

        Oh, is it that time of the day already. Aren’t you a bit late in the office for your daily shilling round?

        • Gosman 2.4.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 11:29 am

          I believe it was an orange felt pen.

        • Puckish Rogue 2.4.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 11:38 am

          It doesn’t matter how many didn’t vote it matters how many did and thats something the left need to get thier heads around, it was an absolute shellacking by National

          • adam 2.4.1.2.1
            29 September 2014 at 2:11 pm

            Do we or do you? The right keep ignoring the non-voters at their peril – but go right ahead PR and gossey, keep gloating. All were reminding you is a great proportion of our society think the whole political edifice is corrupt and won’t do a damn thing for them.

            But if you think this makes you fit to govern with a special special mandate, go right ahead – personally I hope you do – because well… I’m not going to tell you. You need to think through, what that sequence of events will produce.

            • Puckish Rogue 2.4.1.2.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 3:47 pm

              Seriously? Right now it doesn’t matter how many didn’t vote because (and this will blow your mind) National won the election, yes its true National won and are in charge and are deciding who has what role and how the country is going to be run for the next three years

              You seem to think that the million voters who didn’t vote are all left voters and that someday soon they’ll all rise up at once and vote the left back in

              Maybe they will maybe they won’t but what we do know is National is in charge now and one of the reasons for that is that the public don’t think the left can govern

              And yes National has a mandate, National got more votes then they got last election, National could govern alone if they choose to which is unheard of in MMP but the real problem for the left is that National is centarist so all the woes the left are saying simply won’t come to pass

              and thats because John Key is smarter then anyone on the left, hes very good at neutralizing issues

              • adam …
                29 September 2014 at 4:02 pm

                I asked you to think PR-spin. Think, not spout a MSM line – but feel free. And your assumptions are why I keep telling you RWNJ to keep the victrola up – shout it from the roof tops. Please – keep it up you won, the left lost. Please keep it up more, and more.

                You won an election BFW (big f*&king whoopie) , really, BFW to all that – not my politics, not how I want our society to be better. Keep on going there PR spin – just keep crowing to make yourself feel better – keep crowing.

              • swordfish …
                29 September 2014 at 4:07 pm

                “National got more votes than they got last election”

                If you’re talking proportion of the vote then we won’t know that until the Specials are in. If these break the same way they did in 2011 then the Nats should end up on roughly the same percentage they got last time.

              • travellerev …
                29 September 2014 at 4:22 pm

                No Puckish Rogue,

                They are angry non-voters. They are the people who feel that no matter who they vote for, nobody will do a damn thing for them and the more you loot them and push them to the margins the more angry they are going to get and people with nothing left to lose, at some stage, lose it.

                It starts with a sad, disturbed guy in Ashburton shooting women who try to help people with absolutely nothing to help them with to the great unwashed with Pitchforks, feathers and tar.

                Not something I would wish on anyone because invariably a lot of people get killed in horrible ways. Ask the tens of thousands of servants of the Ancien Regime in France who where killed by all those disenfranchised non voting peasants driven to starvation by their warmongering, looting elite. The elite died quick by the Guillotine but their servants, especially the tax collectors, died horrible torturous deaths at the hands of the hordes.

                • Melb …
                  29 September 2014 at 11:27 pm

                  “They are the people who feel that no matter who they vote for, nobody will do a damn thing for them”

                  Why didn’t they turn out in their hundreds of thousands and vote for Internet Mana?

              • mike …
                29 September 2014 at 10:26 pm

                Puckish Rogue,

                exactly!

            • Gosman 2.4.1.2.1.2
              29 September 2014 at 4:51 pm

              You actually don’t know what a great proportion of our society think in relation to the whole political edifice. All we know is that they don’t vote. They may well not vote because they are comfortable the whole thing will still chug along without their input and don’t want to get involved. This view is as valid as yours at this point in time I would suggest.

              • Paul …
                29 September 2014 at 4:56 pm

                Did you read Dirty Politics?

                In it, a key strategy was to get people not to vote. And obviously this was people who might, if energised, vote to remove a right wing government.
                A Low turnout meant a victory for the haves against the have nots.

                • Gosman …
                  29 September 2014 at 5:05 pm

                  Is that going to be the left’s response to everything this term – ‘Did you not read Dirty Politics?!?’.

                  I don’t believe there was anything in that book that specifically stated the right was trying to get people not to vote. If there was, where were people like Cunliffe then highlighting this fact?

                  • Paul …
                    29 September 2014 at 5:11 pm

                    If you had read it, you would know that fact.
                    But you are either pretending you haven’t or diverting.
                    But as you are just paid to come on this website to spread mischief, rather be part of a discussion to create a fairer, more democratic and more visionary society, then it’s inevitable discussion will just be nitpicking, splitting hairs and semantics.
                    Sad to see someone just acting as a puppet for the wealthy.

              • travellerev …
                29 September 2014 at 4:59 pm

                Some 700.000 enrolled voters who didn’t vote? Neh!

              • adam …
                29 September 2014 at 5:20 pm

                Gossy, yes I do think some who didn’t vote are happy with plodding on. But, I get to work with a great many non-voters and the anger they are showing is unpalatable. I think Key did a good thing trying to stop a lot of crowing about the election – actually, I think it is the most sensible thing he has ever done.

                I think you are confusing what apathy is – I know I did for years – much of apathy is frustration and alienation – not an active desire/choice to not participate and avoid being a part of society. That has consequences, what they will be will depend if the current government can perform in it’s traditional role and represent all of society – or and this is much more likely – they will cave to self interest and cupidity.

                Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t think a labour led government would be any better. They may do it slower, but they would still sell out the underclasses and middle classes, like they have the working people in this country.

      • politikiwi 2.4.2
        29 September 2014 at 12:22 pm

        “…there isn’t much you can do about it.”

        Is that what you’d be saying if the left had won the election? “Well, they won so I guess there’s nothing more we can do.”

        Also, winning an election does not justify every possible action by those elected. Did National campaign on joining America’s wars? I didn’t hear anything about it. (And don’t give me “that’s because the left hijacked the election with dirty politics” – there would have been no dirty politics if it wasn’t for the fact National engaged in them.)

        Elections are a mandate for implementing the policies on which a party campaigned. National were very clever and didn’t release much policy (“the plan is to continue with the plan” etc…), so they don’t really have a mandate for much at all in my view, and certainly not for sending our troops to fight in yet another pointless war.

        (I’m cynical enough to wonder whether the Nats would send troops to the Middle East in order to increase the possibility of terrorism in NZ, as having terrorist attacks here would give them an excuse for more draconian anti-dissent laws.)

  3. Ad 3
    29 September 2014 at 8:43 am

    We need an opposition to form please.

    • Tiger Mountain 3.1
      29 September 2014 at 8:59 am

      Well that comes down to the much maligned hard left Ad. No one else gives one or is going to try and save what little remains of this countries international reputation.

      Group think for Key along with media efforts have submerged National’s dirtiest not so secret passion for too long–NZ is the yank’s (aka US imperialism’s) deputy deputy dog after Australia in the Pacific region.

      • Ad 3.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 9:25 am

        It comes down to the Green Party, NZFirst, and Labour showing they can cooperate both in within the new parliamentary term, and outside it. This is currently the lowest ebb for parliamentary opposition that I can remember.

        • phillip ure 3.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 10:03 am

          i thought the greens and nz first were lining up for (the inevitably self-muzzling) new ‘memorandums-of-understanding’ with national..?

          ..(i just heard norman justifying such a move..)

          how to emasculate your opponents:..

          ..step one:..sign them up for a ‘memorandum-of-understanding’..

          ..this all just strengthens one of the few pieces of opinion from edwards-the-younger i agree with..

          ..that the natural home for the greens is the centre..

          ..and that labour should move to return to its’ roots..

          ..with policies focusing on the welfare of all..

          ..go ‘left’..if you will..

          ..shed that rotting neo-lib/fuck-the-poor! carcass it has still clinging to it..

          ..like a rotting abcess..

          • greywarbler 3.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:30 pm

            @ phillip 10.03
            Could you give two or three lines in tandem without stops, on memorandum of understanding? I don’t understand about it. But I don’t like the sound of it. How can you sign up to something, cross your heart, if the others don’t have a heart and are likely to cross you somehow!

            • phillip ure 3.1.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 1:38 pm

              you wd be best to ask a green/the greens that question..

              ..i just know it worked a treat for clark..

              ..as a tool to keep the greens quiet..

              ..then of course key played that same card..

              ..but the greens didn’t have one last term..

              ..hence they started acting like a real opposition party..

              ..it wd seem key has learnt from that mistake..

              ..so he will throw them a few crumbs/insulation-squabs..

              ..and they will keep pretty much schtum…

              ..as they did before..

              • greywarbler …
                29 September 2014 at 1:45 pm

                @ phillip
                Thanks for your thoughts. Don’t like the direction. May as well sign up with the devil.
                Johnny played with the devil. The Greens should take care playing with him.
                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDm_ZHyYTrg

                • red blooded …
                  29 September 2014 at 1:56 pm

                  Hey, let’s remember that the Greens have had a memorandum before with the Nats, about housing insulation. This didn’t stop them being an active and effective opposition – it just meant that they managed to actually get one policy (sort of) implemented. They didn’t have to give them confidence and supply, or anything like that. Yes, the Nats got some positive press, but so did the Greens, and I (and many others) got to live in a a healthier, more comfortable home.

                  • greywarbler …
                    29 September 2014 at 3:20 pm

                    @ red blooded
                    Yes I shouldn’t panic. I can’t think that Russel and Metiria would go the support Nat road. It would hurt their credibility big time.

                  • phillip ure …
                    29 September 2014 at 4:40 pm

                    aahh..!.’housing-insulation’..

                    ..that orphan with so so many parents..

                    ..is there anyone/any party who has not tried to claim to be the sperm-donor for the housing-insulation policy..

                    ,,and yes..it did stifle the greens..

                    ..i wrote/moaned about it at the time…

                    ..it is only in the last term the greens have acted as an opposition party should..(and with some success..)

                    ..the term in which coincidentally – they had no memorandum..

                    ..you do the math..

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 12:37 pm

          Meanwhile, Labour are proving that they can’t cooperate with themselves never mind anyone else.

        • JanMeyer 3.1.1.3
          29 September 2014 at 1:33 pm

          National 22% 2002 under Bill English. They did the hard yards to work out why it wasn’t working for them. Labour should focus its energies on the same and then elect a leader, not the other way around.

          • blue leopard 3.1.1.3.1
            29 September 2014 at 3:06 pm

            It is too late for that (assessing the problem first).

            Had they left choosing the leader to a later time, this would only have left more media frenzy about Labour’s instability, for longer.

            Additionally, having the leadership contest now, allows those in caucus to adjust, over the summer break, to the idea of whoever is chosen and start afresh in the new year.

            Ideally what you suggest does sound the most sensible plan, but taking into account the conditions, surrounding the media and current behaviour by Labour MPs – having certainty around who is the leader, is probably the least damaging way forward.

            All that those making the decision as to who is to be leader have to do, is assess whether the candidate is flexible enough to take the findings of the election failure assessment (being conducted by Labour) into account. So far that choice is either Robertson or Cunliffe. From an outside perspective, both of these two are capable of adapting their stance to whatever is learned from the election failure assessment.

          • emergency mike 3.1.1.3.2
            29 September 2014 at 3:19 pm

            “They did the hard yards to work out why it wasn’t working for them.”

            And they came up with John Key, Don Brash, Crosby-Textor, Ede, Slater, and Farrar. Admittedly that has worked ‘for them’ quite well so far, but do you have any suggestions that don’t involve being lying, evil, ruthless, manipulative, controlling, backstabbing, bullying, smearing, bastards? Thanks.

          • karol 3.1.1.3.3
            29 September 2014 at 6:44 pm

            The Nats came back with Crosby Textor, the politics of deception and dirty politics.

            Edit: whoops. Someone already said that.

  4. Nothing left 4
    29 September 2014 at 9:08 am

    Labour have so far learnt nothing from the defeat they deserved.
    3months to elect a new/old leader
    Same old contenders
    Think the policies were winners
    King, Goff, Mallard, Cunliffe still there

    Can’t they see a party made up of rainbow unionists who don’t connect with NZ and can’t connect with each other will never get more than 25%.
    Labour is gone if they can’t get this next few weeks right and we deserve and expect a strong opposition who may just turn out to be NZ first or greens.

    • Enough is Enough 4.1
      29 September 2014 at 10:10 am

      Thanks for your concern.

      Labour will be sure to take it into consideration. I think they should have a day where RWNJs can come in and tell them what they should be doing.

      sarc.

      • ma rohemo 4.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 11:37 am

        RWNJs will probably want all the Natz pollies there too.

        FJK is now telling Labour how he would have done it. And the journos have shown that they need someone to tell them what to think.

    • phillip ure 4.2
      29 September 2014 at 10:16 am

      bit confused there..?..nothing left..?

      ..king/goff/mallard are not ‘rainbow-unionists’..eh..?

      ..they are the complete opposite..

      ..they are the reactionar/rightwing/rogernomes still in labour..

      ..and if you want to know why goff is still hanging in there..

      ..he wants to complete the selling out of our sovereignty that is the t.p.p..

      ..didyaknow that goff was the one who first invited america to join/(takeover?) the t.p.p-negotiations..

      ..he opened our door to the americans….and said:..’come on down..!..sovereignty for sale..!..

      ..going cheap..!..)

  5. travellerev 5
    29 September 2014 at 9:09 am

    Wow, the smearing of Kim Dotcom goes on. if you can stomach it here is that little creep David Farrar using his blog to hammer in some more nails to the coffer. Yuk!

    • phillip ure 5.1
      29 September 2014 at 9:15 am

      that rightwing hack o’sullivan has also pitched in..

      ..in that corporate-media rag the herald..

      ..doing her own dotcom hate-piece..

      ..i couldn’t be fucked unpacking it..

      ..it would take too long..

      ..and the concerted anti-cunnliffe hate-campaign continues apace..

      ..the right are terrified at the idea of a progressive labour..

      ..(the abc’ers sent where they belong..)

      ..and being led by cunnliffe..

      ..all of which just strengthens the case for cunnliffe..

      ..for anyone with even half a brain..

      ..they want robertson..

      (or shearer..he’d do again for them..i won’t even mention outlier-labour-rightwingers like nash..slaters’ buddy..)

      ..because they know that both robertson and shearer..

      ..wd be a walkover for key/national/the right in 2017..

      ..it’s as simple as that..

      ..and for labour it is simple too..

      ..with cunnliffe..(and progressive policies..)..they stand a good chance of winning..

      ..with robertson/shearer trying to claw some of the centre-right back from national..

      ..as their only hope for victory..

      ..as in..’no hope’..

      ..(i wouldn’t even bother unfurling the banners..

      ..if they choose robertson..)

      ..they are guaranteed defeat in 2017..

        • Clemgeopin 5.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 10:07 am

          I can’t believe that the voters of NZ have chosen National and Key again in spite of all the serious issues exposed. I can understand a minority being fooled all the time. But not half the country! Obviously, propaganda from the National party, Key’s public persona, the RW commentators and MSM have all played their part. The voters don’t even care that we have a massive debt of over 70 Billion dollars built up in just six years by this great assets selling government which claims a rock star economy with a growing income gap between the wealthy and the poor.

          We have a crooked government, a low calibre biased media and generally politically apathetic population. A sad combination.

          • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:16 pm

            But not half the country!

            Half the country weren’t fooled – only half the people who voted.

            The voters don’t even care that we have a massive debt of over 70 Billion dollars built up in just six years by this great assets selling government which claims a rock star economy with a growing income gap between the wealthy and the poor.

            It’s the massive debt that produced the ‘rockstar’ economy and if they start hitting a surplus the economy will go back into recession which will cause this government to implement even more austerity for the many while they bail out the rich. This advanced phase of austerity for the many will put NZ straight into depression.

            • blue leopard 5.1.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 1:36 pm

              Let’s face it, it is half of the politically motivated people in New Zealand, though 🙁

              • red blooded …
                29 September 2014 at 2:02 pm

                Yes – I don’t think we can claim that those who didn’t vote were somehow more politically savvy than those who did. And don’t give me the, “None of them is worth voting for” line. The decisions these people make affect all of our lives; if we don’t think they are up to it, we can get politically active and try to shift their thinking or have someone new elected. Not voting is a cop out.

                • blue leopard …
                  29 September 2014 at 2:29 pm

                  +1 You won’t be getting any of those lines out of me, although I suspect you have been having discussions with non-voters, because I have heard those lines from them too 🙁

                • Mark …
                  29 September 2014 at 4:56 pm

                  Like fuck it is. I didn’t vote and it is due entirely to the Labour Party. I will never forgive the Labour Party for 1984 and the chaos and mayhem they caused for the people who supported them. 30 years on and some of those traitorous bastards are still involved and I’m meant to vote for them. If I vote for a left leaning party other than Labour I end up in a defacto relationship with Labour. The only time I will vote in the next few elections is to try to stop Labour if that becomes necessary. As is apparent, I hate Labour and that aren’t going to change anytime soon.

                  • Paul …
                    29 September 2014 at 5:02 pm

                    If your line is to be believed, then you’d be looking for parties that offer a socialist alternative. The Green Party and Mana both had policies which would have benefited the haves and have nots .
                    Not voting has allowed neoliberalism to continue its advance under Key.
                    Sounds like you’re biting your nose to spite your face.

                    • phillip ure …
                      29 September 2014 at 5:16 pm

                      @ paul..re mark..

                      ..understandable tho’..

                      ..to look at the same faces who have sold-out/warmongered and waged war on the poor..

                      ..under whom poverty has grown to the horror it is..(and with no end in sight..)

                      ..those faces who fucked the country over for the last thirty years..saying to you ‘trust me!’..

                      ..could well bring on projectile-vomiting in the listener..at the very idea of voting for them..

                      ..they all need to fuck off..

                      ..to have any idea of selling any renewal in labour..

                      ,,to have their review..

                      ..and then to go into 2017..

                      ..with all those neo-lib retreads going ‘yoo-hoo..!..me/us again..!..’..

                      ..will guarantee they have been wasting their (review) time..

                      ..(is it love of troughing..or good old fashioned hubris..

                      ..that makes them think they should still be there..?..

                      ..them and the ultimate-trougher/sell-out..dunne..

                      ..all cut from the same cloth..

                    • Mark …
                      29 September 2014 at 11:24 pm

                      No the only hope for the left is for Labour to split into little pieces. Until then you vote for the left and you get those right wing fuckwits like Mallard, Cosgrove, Goff ect ect ect thrown in for free. No fucking way am I voting left while that vote would empower those scumbags in the Labour Party.

                  • blue leopard …
                    29 September 2014 at 5:06 pm

                    @ Mark,
                    I am sure the right wing would be very thankful to you.

                    If you vote for right-wing parties you send a message that you want right-wing policies.

                    Similar goes for not voting.

                    How are politicians expected to know what your non-vote means?

                    Better off voting further left, Mark, really you are. Otherwise your message is completely lost.

                    What is wrong with voting Greens, Mana or the Internet party? They will tend to encourage a more left-wing approach and discourage more right-wing ones.

                    • Mark …
                      29 September 2014 at 11:28 pm

                      You around in 1984. When those arseholes in Labour went rogue and buried hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders dreams and aspirations. Nothing Key has done has even got close to what Labour did in the 80s. Lessor of two evils in my book

                    • blue leopard …
                      30 September 2014 at 12:22 am

                      @ Mark,

                      By that logic, you shouldn’t vote for National because they sent New Zealanders into the Vietnam War.

                      I guess the fact that National have extended those neo-liberal policies and Ruth Richardson’s benefit cuts skipped your attention, not to mention an entire voting system change in response to that particular Labour party of 30 years ago. No, let me guess, you voted to keep FPP, or abstained from voting that year?

                      I guess, due to your unusually selective logic, that you have supported National throughout all of these aberrations -including all those propaganda adverts on TV demonizing all those unemployed people that the neoliberalist approach they were following actually created.

                      I guess, also, you missed the significance of Cunliffe’s efforts to ‘reeducate’ New Zealanders into thinking collectively (a mindset that neoliberalism abhors and has attacked in the past 30 years – rather successfully, I might add)?

                      Thanks a bunch, Mark. Do thank all those friends of yours, who share your logic, for me too. I just love finding out how many people willfully shoot themselves and many others in the foot simply to hold onto a grudge they should have gotten over and moved on from years ago. Just brilliant.

                    • Mark …
                      30 September 2014 at 10:04 am

                      You and your fellow travelers wonder why you are where you are. I could just use your post above as reason enough. You have absolutely no understanding of the chaos caused by the 1984/90 Labour Party. They completely uprooted hundreds of thousands of peoples lives in pursuit of an economic theory. People died as a result. I buried two close friends who just couldn’t cope. I know of others. And I am meant to move on and forget. A lot of the arseholes that caused all that grief are still there in the Labour Party. I believed in the left from an early age.Just under twenty years ago I stood for the Alliance as a candidate in the first MMP election thinking that would make a difference. That campaign opened my eyes to what a corrupt and unethical bunch of arseholes the flagbearers for the left were. So yes I will vote for Key if neccessary to keep those arseholes out. I dislike Key intensely but I hate a lot of the high profile Labour Party MPs with a passion. You think I am on my own. I could put you in touch with scores of ex Labour Party activists and trade unionists from the 70s, 80s and 90s who hate the Labour Party with as much passion as I do. Some people on this site think the Labour Party can reconnect with the missing voters. Only if you want volunteers for the firing squad.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      30 September 2014 at 10:29 am

                      They completely uprooted hundreds of thousands of peoples lives in pursuit of an economic theory. People died as a result.

                      And you’re perpetuating that by not voting.

                    • blue leopard …
                      30 September 2014 at 1:14 pm

                      @Mark,

                      You didn’t answer any of the questions or points that I made.

                      “You and your fellow travelers wonder why you are where you are. I could just use your post above as reason enough”

                      This is extremely condescending. I was directly affected by the policies that Labour of the 80s put in.

                      How exactly does my comment explain how we continue to have a large majority of right-wing supported when we need left-wing policies to rectify the situation? I would consider the approach in your comments explains that better than mine.

                      I really do find your comments interesting, because it is helpful to hear how directly those neo-liberal policies affected others and it is eye-opening to find out that there are lefty people voting right in order to get us going more left.

                      I just don’t ‘get’ how you and your friends think that voting for a party that extends and strengthens neo-liberal policies is going to help loosen neo-liberalism’s hold on New Zealand – unless you are aiming at a revolution.

                      Are you aware that the more we are bombarded with neoliberal memes, the less likely we are to have any overturning of the system, because neoliberalism affects the very way people think and make decisions? Ethics becomes ‘what makes the most profit’ and arguments become increasingly difficult to win because the very foundation of how people value things and thinks has been shifted.

                      You don’t appear to realise that people are actually suffering now, like you and your friends did back in the ’80s, by people not voting or, even worse, supporting right-wing parties.

                      Voting further left helps to mitigate the seriously destructive negative affects of neoliberalism – not least in the way people think. One of the extremely helpful things of parties further left, is that they encourage compassionate thinking with a wider perspective than ‘what is in it for me’ – these are ways of thinking that neoliberalism clearly discourages. And successfully so, I might add.

                    • Mark …
                      30 September 2014 at 4:49 pm

                      Voting left changes nothing when your main left wing party is full of right wingers. When the whole thrust of Labour’s economic policy could have been written by Freidman.
                      MMP means every vote for the left counts towards a Labour led government so never again
                      Growing up I never understood my fathers hatred of the Japanese after the second world war, his complete inability to move on.
                      That is until the Labour Party shafted the workers in the mid eighties and I understood completely.
                      There are some things in life that you just can’t forgive or forget
                      The Labour Party stopped being a party of the left 30 years ago and the only pleasure to those of us who were betrayed back then is to see its death by a thousand leaks and cuts now.
                      Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of arseholes.

                  • travellerev …
                    30 September 2014 at 10:45 am

                    What I worry about is not what happened 30 years ago but the fact that to this day no Labour party caucus member has spoken on issues that should really be addressed and they will be just as treacherous again.
                    Here are two of those points:

                    Money creation and the fact that we are continuing to support a fraudulent financial system printing fiat currencies and charging us interest thereby transferring real world wealth to a small group of money monopolists.
                    this current system has loaded our books up with over $ 112 Billion in Derivatives in a system that is exposed trillions of dollars (That we know off) and will inevitably collapse under the weight of these fraudulent financial instruments

                    They have never given any inclination as to what they would do with the TPPA and indications are they would do a deal with National to bring it in. The TPPA is a deal to allow corporations to take over and will spell the end of NZ’s democracy exposing us to absolute corporate hell.

                    Either Labour is led by ignoramuses or they are willfully cooperating with National to bring this about. Neither of which makes them an attractive party to vote for.

      • phillip ure 5.1.2
        29 September 2014 at 9:39 am

        and if you want to go near ‘ironies’..

        ..had labour gone into the election with policies enacted the rhetoric cunnliffe was using when labour were at 35%-37%..

        ..(that also saw a surge in party membership etc..)

        ..cunnliffe would now be the prime minister..

        ..35% + 10% + peters..= gummint..

        ..but he didn’t..and that is because the policy-process was controlled/dictated by the abc’ers..

        ..those abc’ers sent him out with an empty policy-satchel..

        ..with absolutely nothing to motivate that missing million voters back to the voting booth..

        ..(plus there was that ill-thought-out/toxic-to-many raising the pension age idea..)

        ..this was no progressive/poverty-busting policy-agenda..

        ..this did not come within a fucken bulls roar of that 35% rhetoric..

        ..but a cunnliffe..with a real progressive/poverty-busting/seachange bunch of policies..?

        …well then you cd unfurl the banners..

        ..eh..?

        (hint:..how to pay for this.?..think financial transaction tax..eh..?..

        ..as a first base..

        ..remember that treasury figures showed that an f.t.t. on inter-bank/financial-institutions wd raise enough revenue to do away with that regressive g.s.t. tax..if we chose to use it for this purpose..

        ..hence..it is essential an f.t.t.. be top of the how-to-pay-for side of the ledger..

        ..and really..!..face it..!..if you couldn’t sell a small tax on the banksters..to the voting-public..

        ..you couldn’t peddle smack to a jonesing-junkie..

        • phillip ure 5.1.2.1
          29 September 2014 at 9:55 am

          moderation..?..no ‘t’-word used ..

        • Draco T Bastard 5.1.2.2
          29 September 2014 at 1:22 pm

          The government doesn’t have any difficulty paying for anything – all it needs to do is print and spend the money into the economy and then tax it back out. As long as that money goes directly to utilising NZs resources it won’t be inflationary and will make NZ better off.

          • phillip ure 5.1.2.2.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:26 pm

            so all that is lacking is political will..

            • Draco T Bastard 5.1.2.2.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 2:50 pm

              Political will to turf out the BS that the government printing money creates inflation. It doesn’t – the private banks creating money does as they direct it into the less risky, non-productive areas of the economy such as housing which both pushes house prices up and creates a shortage of housing.

      • Vaughan Little 5.1.3
        29 September 2014 at 6:26 pm

        The right rely on a strongman, but that’s not our culture. Labour is a movement. If our leadership helps grow that movement, it doesn’t matter how any leader would stack up against a National leader in an election time debate.

        Sure debates can shift undecideds. So can a lot of other stuff. It’s unhealthy to go along with presidential politics.

        • Chris 5.1.3.1
          30 September 2014 at 10:53 am

          Agreed, but at the moment we have a labour movement headed by a party that tries to entice votes with right-wing policies, and which has a leader its caucus works to actively undermine. Labour must be about convincing the population that inclusive policies that support full participation of all citizens is best for everyone, and have a leader that unites the party to achieve that. The current Labour Party has neither of these things and there is absolutely no sign of this changing in the near future. The Robertson/Nash right-wing bloc will see to that, whether or not Cunliffe returns as leader, and if Cunliffe does return it’ll be three more years of internal warring. You couldn’t get a more fantastic scenario if you made it up.

    • infused 5.2
      29 September 2014 at 11:53 pm

      Good. He’s a fucking idiot.

  6. weka 6
    29 September 2014 at 9:23 am

    Gower gets the best ironic start to the week award.

    Patrick Gower ‏@patrickgowernz 1 hr
    Chris Hipkins facts show how “Beltway” ABC/Team Grant is. Plotting comes first, NZ voters last.

    hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa

  7. amirite 7
    29 September 2014 at 9:25 am

    John Key and the media are resolutely hellbent on seeing Cunliffe thrown onto political oblivion, and it certainly isn’t out of concern and care for Labour.

    The exception is this editorial in the Press today
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/editorials/10555156/Cunliffe-should-get-fair-chance

    • Rodel 7.1
      29 September 2014 at 9:01 pm

      amarite-Yea Couldn’t believe this coming from the Press.Support for Cunliffe? Wot? is Tracey Johnboy Watkins and the real editor on holiday?
      I’m still suspicious though.

  8. Steve Walu 8
    29 September 2014 at 9:40 am

    Unbridled self ambition from Cunliffe is going to consign Labour to Opposition for the next 9 years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out and it looks like the unions and membership are starting to get that message.

    • GregJ 8.1
      29 September 2014 at 10:31 am

      From memory you were a Shearer supporter (and I’m assuming a member of the Party?).

      Whom do you favour this time? Robertson or are you hoping for some one else? Would you prefer a proper leadership race or an uncontested election where the caucus effectively decides as no one else runs?

    • phillip ure 8.2
      29 September 2014 at 10:32 am

      wah..!..wah..!

      ..special simplistic-thinking-award for this one..eh..?

      ..’it’s his ambition can’t stand..!..’

      .(let me mop yr fevered-brow..eh..?..)

    • ianmac 8.3
      29 September 2014 at 12:35 pm

      A good leader is one who is totally confident in his ability and willing to take the hard knocks. David has the ambition and should be applauded. Would we want some gentle soul who has to be urged to take office, or someone as ruthless as Key who as a sign of his naked ambition will brook no opposition in spite of his “aw shucks” persona. Helen was also a very ambitious woman and very sure of her place.
      We need someone who has ambition and toughness to

    • Draco T Bastard 8.4
      29 September 2014 at 1:31 pm

      Wow, the RWNJ concern tr0lls are out in force. Must be terrified that Cunliffe will get back as Labour leader and will consign the ABCs, National’s greatest weapon against Labour, to the backbenches and oblivion.

      • red blooded 8.4.1
        29 September 2014 at 2:11 pm

        You’re kidding, right? All the way up till the election, people on this site were claiming that the NACTs were “terrified” and that Cunliffe had them on the run. And now, with less than 25% of the vote, you still cling to that delusion? We all have to take stock and be prepared to challenge our own established views. That includes the people constantly derided on this site as ABCers, but it also includes you and me.

    • Hami Shearlie 8.5
      29 September 2014 at 11:29 pm

      So that’s why so many TS comtributors are joining the party right now, to vote Cunliffe out – Funny I can’t think of any who have said they’re joining up to vote for Grant Robertson. Mind you I may have forgotten, Grant is a very forgettable person.

  9. greywarbler 9
    29 September 2014 at 9:50 am

    On radio with Kathryn and doctor – a little girl who had had 5 anaphylactic episodes as a result of bee allergy wasn’t given densensitisation treatment and died as a result of another similar reaction.

    Allergic responses have gone up five times in a decade? e.&oe. Little has been done by the health ministry to manage. There is a clinic in Auckland and nothing else similar in the country. Some people can go most of their lifetime before being properly diagnosed and treated. Australia has 2 or 3 times more immunologists than us, France 20x.
    NZ is more allergenic than any other country. 1 in 4 nz have allergy, children 1 in 10 have food allergies, 1 in 3 have excema.

    A DHB is obstructive to giving sensible treatment. He didn’t say which.
    Sufferers are trying to self-treat, going to chemists, DHBs shouldn’t turn their back on this problem, it’s hard for them to expand their services.

    NZ is the dust mite queen of the world. (I remember years ago in Switzerland they would hang their duvets out of the window to air them in the sun. I brought home a cane carpet beater that still is strong as it was in the 1970s.)
    9.25
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon

    • greywarbler 9.1
      29 September 2014 at 11:21 am

      It would be great if there could be some discussion of my piece on the important health issue above instead of stupid responses to stupid Pukish Rogue who only comes here because the drop-in centre isn’t open yet.

      Get with it you so called political thinkers and commentators. Keep to the relevant and don’t fill the screen with your trivial replies (unless they are very funny and satirical which shows some real brain activity.)

      • Ergo Robertina 9.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 2:47 pm

        Well OK then. The Nine to Noon show piece this morning was great, as it highlighted the lack of service provision for allergies and utter lack of a plan to deal with the huge increase in prevalence.
        First, I have to go on a tangent re possible causes of the increase in allergies (which was not the focus of the interview) because of a fascinating new book I am reading called Missing Microbes, which suggests a role for the depletion of ancient microbes.
        This is mostly due to the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, but also the rise of Caesarian sections.
        The author Martin Blaser is director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University.
        Interestingly he does not have much time for the hygiene hypothesis, but has researched the gradual elimination of some ancient microbes which may protect against what he terms modern plagues: Allergies, obesity, diabetes type 1, autism, asthma. He also thinks their depletion has played a role in us getting taller. He wants more targeted use of antibiotics, but it’s the same story of the sclerotic incapacity of the medical profession to change their practice, or even just look at the problem. This is despite the fact there is now a strong body of evidence to back his theories.
        Part of the difficulty (for doctors as well as lay people) is in understanding that some of the microbes that have been depleted cause serious disease, as well as having a protective role against other things.
        Back to the Ryan interview, immunologist Dr Andy Baker was blunt on the lack of service provision, saying both the public and private sector are essentially turning their backs on it. One immunologist in Christchurch serves the whole South Island population. NZ has far fewer immunologists per capita than comparable countries, but has a higher allergy rate.
        Dr Baker told the story of a Palmerston North man who finally got up to Auckland for de-sensitisation treatment. It was successful, and the man asked why no-one had told him about this treatment option before.
        In my own experience in another area of medicine I have found GPs and even specialists to be ignorant of treatment options that exist in larger centres. Obviously this is where the Internet is useful, but it demonstrates how siloed the medical profession is. If their medical training or CPD has not covered a particular treatment option they dispense inadequate or incorrect advice.

        • greywarbler 9.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 4:55 pm

          @ Ergo Robertina
          It was informative wasn’t it. A worthwhile report. And lots of theories. But desensitisation does work. It is heart rending to lose a child particularly to this condition. And it is frightening for anyone other than parents to care for such a child for fear of forgetting or not being aware enough of problems. And having the offsetting medication with you all the time because its onset is so quick.

          The idea of targets by the neo lib thinking managers where efficiencies must be pumped out, is likely to have resulted in an attempt to better the numbers of hip replacements done, and the densensitisation approach left waiting. Similar to what has happened with another problem area, where people need specialist help, extreme obesity. It would be interesting if somehow they are connected.

          One of the biggest problems about antibiotics would be their prophylactic use for keeping crowded animals healthy wouldn’t it. That use has been going on since the 1950s. It not only tends to nip sickness in the bud, but means that more growth goes into meat.

          • Ergo Robertina 9.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 6:28 pm

            Yes, the target system is especially problematic for an emerging area of need.

            Re antibiotics, this para in Missing Microbes (p 184) puts it in perspective:
            ”Although it may seem that I am blaming antibiotics and other modern medical practices for everything, including the kitchen sink, in fact I am only pointing to the diseases that have risen quite dramatically in the late twentieth century, the period in which these practices have been deployed.
            ”And indeed they all might have separate causes – and likely do – but there may be a single factor providing the fuel for each, tipping many people from a clinically silent stage into overt illness. It is like the loss of a reserve when the bank account of defences is so depleted that with any new expense the account now is overdrawn. I believe that factor is the change in the composition of our microbiome, our resident organisms, just at the time when children are developing.”

            It is refreshing to read this from a mainstream medical doctor and researcher who is able to follow the red thread and connect various factors into a broad view, which he has had the resources and status to prove with conventional research.

            • greywarbler 9.1.1.1.1.1
              30 September 2014 at 11:11 am

              @ Ergo Robertina
              There is a theory that the immune system goes into overdrive in the syndrome that is called ME or Chronic fatigue syndrome. It may be wishful thinking that maybe the microbiome research could apply here too.

              It was not recognised for a long time, until there were some large outbreaks of it recorded from the 1930’s after which there was sufficient evidence to identify the group of ailments into a syndrome. Dr Snow noticed what became ‘Tapanui flu ‘in 1984.

              I wish that the conditions that bring this on could be identified. It would be good because ME-affected people have a hard time both from the welfare side and medical people who make good incomes from denying it as a real illness response. Indeed the thinking about it is continuous, the Wikipedia page was last updated in August 2014.

  10. Puckish Rogue 10
    29 September 2014 at 10:17 am

    As much as I like seeing the left in a complete shambles (and I really do) I think theres a couple of things the left could do that would help themselves big time

    1. The loonies who think there should be a recount of the votes because “it doesn’t seem right” are just reinforcing the notion that the left are well loonie so maybe stop doing loonie things for a while

    2. Labour MPs (T. Mallard and C. Curran in particular) need to pull their heads and stop talking, at least for a little while anyway

    However good luck with the review I genuinely do hope its honest and fair and that its listened to and not just ignored

    • phillip ure 10.1
      29 September 2014 at 10:29 am

      careful what you wish for..p/r..

      ..’cos a labour party with real progressive policies..

      ..one that has (finally!) walked out of the long shadow of roger douglas/nomics..

      ..and lead by cunnliffe..

      ..will kick some tory arse in 2017..

      ..is that really what you want..?

      • Puckish Rogue 10.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 10:47 am

        A strong Labour party, yes I do. Whats best for NZ is not a strong National and weak Labour and not strong Labour and weak National but rather when National and Labour are strong

        The more people that get interested in politics, that get up to speed the better overall it is for NZ

        • GregJ 10.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 10:58 am

          Why couldn’t the strong voice on the left be the Greens? Especially if Labour can’t get its act together?

          • Puckish Rogue 10.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 11:14 am

            From my comment below:

            whats best for NZ is National being center-right and Labour being center-left that way no matter whos in charge we won’t have the extreme changes thats happened in the past ie Rogernomics and the mother of all budgets

            • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 11:30 am

              You’re quite correct: they both need to be rolled back completely.

              • Puckish Rogue …
                29 September 2014 at 11:47 am

                I’m not sure you can roll back things completely unless you really want to buy back Telecom (sorry spark) completely

                I’m sure theres better things to spend money on but aside from that i think its fair to say that center-right or center-left is whats best for NZ

                • One Anonymous Bloke …
                  29 September 2014 at 11:59 am

                  …as demonstrated by water quality and infectious disease rates. No, wait…

                  • Puckish Rogue …
                    29 September 2014 at 12:08 pm

                    And if Labour were a viable center-lrft option then they’d probably get enough votes with the Greens to get in but alas Labour would rather take votes off the Greens then take votes of national

            • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1.1.1.2
              29 September 2014 at 1:52 pm

              What’s best for NZ, and the world at large, is that politics returns to reality from it’s present extreme right-wing, feudal and delusional position.

          • Ovid 10.1.1.1.2
            29 September 2014 at 11:47 am

            Because the party objectives outlined in Section 3 of the Green Constitution (pdf) are primarily focused around resource conservation and the finite nature of material growth, The principles outlined in Section 2 of the Labour Constitution (pdf) are more focused on social justice, human rights and workers’ rights.

            Both discuss the just distribution of wealth and resources, so there is some compatibility there, but Labour articulates the core principles of the left in terms of social justice to a much greater extent than the Greens do.

        • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 1:47 pm

          Ah, PR shows the RWNJ desire to return to a two party state with both parties singing from the same failed hymn book.

          • Puckish Rogue 10.1.1.2.1
            29 September 2014 at 2:12 pm

            Which is funny because Labour, at the moment, is doing its best to make NZ a one party state

            • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1.2.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 2:44 pm

              No, that would be National. It is interesting to note that you’ve chosen, probably with the help of Crosby Textor, to use the same framing as Dr Wayne Hope.

    • GregJ 10.2
      29 September 2014 at 10:33 am

      Why do you care? Surely you got what you wanted in the Election as you appear to be a National Supporter? What is the fascination The Standard holds for you?

      • Puckish Rogue 10.2.1
        29 September 2014 at 10:50 am

        Yep National won and thats good but now its onto different matters, the next three years are quite important for NZs future ref: Labour and their (hopefully) return to the center as IMHO whats best for NZ is National being center-right and Labour being center-left that way no matter whos in charge we won’t have the extreme changes thats happened in the past ie Rogernomics and the mother of all budgets

        • framu 10.2.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 12:13 pm

          considering the the people and policies of the nats are pretty much the same since richardson you should be calling for national to actually move to the center pretty soon

          i mean actually – not in a PR way

          • Puckish Rogue 10.2.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 12:20 pm

            Bollix, minimum wage goes up every year under National for a starter

            • Draco T Bastard 10.2.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 1:59 pm

              The whole idea of the minimum wage is to ensure that people are paid enough from work to actually live. The present minimum wage doesn’t do this and so it needs to be raised and National refusing to do that. They are refusing to do so on specious ideological grounds.

    • infused 10.3
      30 September 2014 at 12:13 am

      You can’t help em. It’s better just watching the shitfest play out.

  11. just saying 11
    29 September 2014 at 10:51 am

    http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/dark-age-america-senility-of-elites.html

    Always brilliant, the latest Archdruid’s report is particularly timely. It’s difficult to choose a suitable teaser, so I’ll try these two paragraphs:

    ……I don’t happen to know much about the changing patterns of leadership in baboon troops, but among human beings, there’s a predictable shift over time in the way that individuals gain access to the elite. When institutions are new and relatively fragile, it’s fairly easy for a gifted and ambitious outsider to bluff and bully his way into the elite. As any given institution becomes older and more firmly settled in its role, that possibility fades. What happens instead in a mature institution is that the existing members of the elite group select, from the pool of available candidates, those individuals who will be allowed to advance into the elite. The church ladies just mentioned are a good example of this process in action; if any of my readers are doctoral candidates in sociology looking for a dissertation topic, I encourage them to consider joining a local church, and tracking the way the elderly women who run most of its social functions groom their own replacements and exclude those they consider unfit for that role…..

    …..The illusion of invincibility is far and away the most important asset a mature ruling elite has, because it discourages deliberate attempts at regime change from within. Everyone in the society, in the elite or outside it, assumes that the existing order is so firmly bolted into place that only the most apocalyptic events would be able to shake its grip. In such a context, most activists either beg for scraps from the tables of the rich or content themselves with futile gestures of hostility at a system they don’t seriously expect to be able to harm, while the members of the elite go their genial way, stumbling from one preventable disaster to another, convinced of the inevitability of their positions, and blissfully unconcerned with the possibility—which normally becomes a reality sooner or later—that their own actions might be sawing away at the old and brittle branch on which they’re seated….

  12. Paul 12
    29 September 2014 at 10:54 am

    The Herald continue their love fest with their favoured right wing faction in the Labour Party ,as they give Kelvin Davis top billing in a favourable report.
    Their political bias is not hard to see through.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11333231

    • phillip ure 12.1
      29 September 2014 at 5:30 pm

      there was also a puff-piece in one of them yesterday..on nash..

      ..and all it revealed was just how deeply rightwing nash and his supporters are..

      ..he is a cited buddy of slater..

      ..and even his bloody fire-engine was bought for him by a rightwinger..(!)..

      ..at the very bottom of this exercise in hagiography by this hack..

      ..it is noted it was ‘serendipidous’ that mcvicar also stood..

      ..no..that is the fact/reality of that election result..

      ..garth mcvicar split off 4,500 votes from the national candidate..

      ..had mcvicar not stood/done that..nash would have been defeated..

      ..the other fact-proving aspect of this is that nash got no more votes in ’14 than he did in ’11

      ..when he was defeated..

      ..and that split won’t happen in ’17..

      ..so nash will be a one-term mp for napier..

      ..and if he tries to tell you any different..

      ..he is just spouting utter bullshit/spin..

      .to me..at the moment..

      ..nash is almost the synthesis of all that is wrong with labour..

      ..and that this delusional clown thinks he could/should lead labour..

      ..should render him to forever a figure of fun..

      • Paul 12.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 5:42 pm

        Yes I think this is the article mentioned.
        Nash and Davis are clearly flavour of the month for the lame stream.
        Wonder why?
        Neoliberalism wins if the Labour Party is just a duplicate of the National Party.
        They have been since 1984 and the right are determined any attempt by Labour’s rank and file to reform the party will be squashed.
        Hence the vicious assault on Cunliffe.

        http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10553595/Stuart-Nash-its-all-about-bloody-hard-work

        • Murray Olsen 12.1.1.1
          30 September 2014 at 12:18 am

          In fact, Labour was the first to make this huge lurch to the right. Neoliberalism’s win was then making NActional a duplicate of Labour. If that hadn’t happened, Winnie would probably still be the member for Tauranga.

      • phillip ure 12.1.2
        29 September 2014 at 6:19 pm

        oh..!..i forgot..

        ..nash also held his fundraiser for the napier contest..

        ..by having a fundraiser at that bastion of traditional labour values..

        ..the northern club..(!)

        ..he is so cartoonish in his being owned by the right..

        ..you almost expect to find out he is a sock-puppet of montgomery burns…

  13. Vaughan Little 13
    29 September 2014 at 11:04 am

    today audrey young has an article titled “grant robertson: judge me on my policies”. doesn’t mention a single policy.

    • lprent 13.1
      29 September 2014 at 11:10 am

      I noticed that as well. Hardly surprising. It was why I wasn’t interested in him last time. I had, and still have, the impression that he rarely leaves Wellington enough to find them.

  14. Morrissey 14
    29 September 2014 at 11:07 am

    Tau Henare? David Farrar? Deborah Mahuta Coyle?
    We shouldn’t accept such dismal political commentary in this country.

    Q+A, Television One, Sunday 28 September 2014
    Susan Wood, Deborah Mahuta Coyle, Bryce Edwards, David Farrar, Robert Reid (First Trade Union)

    More than a decade ago, Susan Wood made herself into a national laughing-stock when she flirted live on television with the sleazy Irish-American dancer/impresario Michael Flatley. She was filling in for Paul Holmes on that occasion; Hawkes Bay’s finest was off work, busy trying to salvage his disastrous first marriage. Since then, Wood has cemented herself into a cosy little niche, again taking over a spot first filled by Holmes. On Q+A, however, there is less opportunity to embarrass herself by flirting with slimeballs. Instead, she embarrasses herself by singing the praises of second-rate Herald hacks….

    SUSAN WOOD: John Armstrong [1], the great John Armstrong, who I rate VERY highly—he’s a genius—he says that Labour is still trying to sell cloth caps. What do you make of that?

    ROBERT REID: That’s an easy throwaway line. The media still treat what is happening as a circus instead of treating it seriously.

    [As Reid speaks, Deborah Mahuta Coyle for some reason frowns dyspeptically.]

    BRYCE EDWARDS: I think Grant Robertson’s first challenge is to be non-beltway.

    DAVID FARRAR: Labour needs a president who can get into the boardrooms. Someone like Selwyn Pellett.

    SUSAN WOOD: We asked several people what they made of the Labour Party’s current situation….

    The screen is filled with some well talking heads, interviewed earlier in the week. The first of them is especially inane…

    “SIR” BOB HARVEY: Red should go. Labour needs to have a new name. I’m SERIOUS about that. I’ve thought a LOT about it. Red needs to go.

    Other (mostly more serious) talking heads include Ganesh Nana, Fran O’Sullivan, Michael Barnett, Stacey Morrison and Wallace Chapman.

    Fed up with this—actually I was angry especially at the mealy-mouthed Bryce Edwards and the lightweight Deborah Mahuta Coyle [2]—I flicked over to TV3 for the replay of Saturday’s edition of The Nation. Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower were analyzing the woes of the Labour Party with Mike Williams and ….(wait for it)…. Tau Henare. Now, I am generally unimpressed by Williams, but I acknowledge he has a deep knowledge of politics and he knows more about the Labour Party than practically anyone. Tau Henare, on the other hand, is a vacuous chancer, a thug who adds no value to any discussion. In an utterly undistinguished parliamentary career, Henare came to public attention only twice—first, when Trevor Mallard thumped him, and second when he brutally mocked a parliamentary cleaner who was appearing before a parliamentary committee.

    Tau Henare is the epitome of uselessness, in other words. Yet he is now regularly being used as a commentator on Television One, TV3 and Māori Television. That fact, along with the even more outrageous use of David Farrar as a commentator, raises serious questions about the state of broadcasting in this country.

    The frivolous attitude to politics shows no sign of stopping. The fault is no doubt mostly on the part of the producers, but the journalists themselves are also culpable. The six o’clock News on TV3 was still focusing on the Labour Party leadership contest. Reporter Adam Hollingsworth delivered his report from a gym, standing in front of a boxing ring. Why on earth would he choose that venue for a political story? It soon became clear, as he summed up: “But whoever wins, he will have to step into the ring with the champ—John Key.”

    [1] http://thestandard.org.nz/hamstrung/#comment-835858

    [2] Mahuta Coyle is the new Josie Pagani, minus the eloquence.

    • phillip ure 14.1
      29 September 2014 at 11:40 am

      i find the most fascinating thing about henare..

      ..is that he is basically incoherent..

      ..he seems to blue-tack cliches/simplistic clusters of words together..

      ..and to try to present that as the workings of his mind..

      ..once again..if henare was the answer..

      ..w.t.f. was the question..?

      • phillip ure 14.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 11:55 am

        and of course..he is the king of the non-sequiter…

        ..that henare..

        ..he often leaves the listener in/with nothing more than a gobsmacked-silence..

        ..and with certainly nothing to hang a/any reply off..

        ..tho’ it’ll be fun watching the media-trouts dealing with this aspect of their working day..

        ..all they’ll be left to do..after the latest example of what passes for thinking in his fevered mind..

        ..is to cut for a break..

        ..and that’s something we could all do with..

        ..a ‘break’ from henare..

        ..he is like goff/king/mallard etc..

        ..been around/in our faces for far too fucken long..

        ..but i’m picking his commenters’ role won’t be a long-lasting one..

        ..all should tire pretty quickly..

      • cricko 14.1.2
        29 September 2014 at 11:56 am

        This is a good one.

        Here we have the illiterate calling out the incoherent.

        One of your best posts phillip.

        • phillip ure 14.1.2.1
          29 September 2014 at 12:14 pm

          you are obviously quite the wordsmith there..crick…

          ..do you even know the meaning of the word illiterate..?

          ..your use of it there wd seem to indicate you are kinda ‘illiterate’..eh..?

          ..(sorry to be the one to break it to you..)

          • cricko 14.1.2.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:36 pm

            ‘Wordsmith’ yep i’ll accept that moniker, thanks phillip.

            Yes, I do know the meaning of the word illiterate.

            FYI my Collins defines it as, ‘2. violating accepted standards in reading and
            writing, Writing an illiterate scrawl.’
            That description seems to fit in your case.

            You often have thoughtfull contributions, if you were able to present them
            in a coherent (get it phillip, coherent.) manner more people could understand
            what you were trying to say.

            • The Al1en 14.1.2.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 5:39 pm

              “more people could understand what you were trying to say.”

              They’re better off not knowing.

              • cricko …
                29 September 2014 at 6:18 pm

                Of course you are correct The Al!en,

                My last paragraph above was an attempt to let the poor bloke down a
                little easier.

                Apparently he was unaware that he is illiterate.
                Actually, illiterate and incoherent.

                Must be a devastating blow to discover that after all the effort he puts in on this blogsite most people can’t make out much of what he is trying to say.

      • Ben Adam 14.1.3
        29 September 2014 at 3:50 pm

        “i find the most fascinating thing about henare..
        ..is that he is basically incoherent..
        ..he seems to blue-tack cliches/simplistic clusters of words together..
        ..and to try to present that as the workings of his mind..”

        Every time I look at him or hear him, I feel that I am looking at or hearing an idiot.

        • phillip ure 14.1.3.1
          29 September 2014 at 6:31 pm

          g.b. shaw also had the likes of henare defined..

          .“He knows nothing – he thinks he knows everything –

          – that clearly points to a political career..”

  15. greywarbler 15
    29 September 2014 at 11:14 am

    How about this for a disgraceful action from government. The National Council of Women, as good a body of people as you could imagine, being hounded for unreasonable taxes by the tax department. And demonstrating the punitive denial by government of the right for charities to advocate for people and other matters and criticise government for wrong behaviour. Especially if the charity is funded by government, then they should kowtow and be bloody grateful for anything they get from the lords and ladies running the country, in their own interests!

    Radio nz this morning. Link to them on allergy piece above.
    09:05 The charity taking on the IRD in the High Court
    The National Council of Women is taking Inland Revenue to the High Court, over income tax arrears it says are wrongfully being pursued. The case goes back to 2010 by the then Charities Commission which removed the charitable status of dozens of organisations – including the National Council of Women – if their main purpose was political advocacy. Eventually the Council won back its charitable status, but in the intervening period, the Inland Revenue department claimed it was liable to pay income tax of ten thousand dollars. The National Council of Women’s lawyer, Sue Barker, says the claim is neither fair, nor appropriate, and it is now appealing to the High Court to clear the matter up.

    About the Charities Act 2005. This was brought in by the Labour Government and handled by Judith Tizard in 2004.
    http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislation/bills/00DBHOH_BILL5971_1/charities-bill

    Denise Roche Green MP was major in keeping the advocacy matter alive. (It is my feeling that many of the National Council of Women are conservative, from what I have seen of them, are older, and I feel likely to be National Party supporters. So they aren’t as effective a lobby group, being community minded, as money-first laissez faire businesses are.)
    https://home.greens.org.nz/bills/charities-charities-advocates-amendment-bill

  16. gingercrush 16
    29 September 2014 at 11:39 am

    lol this blog has the same comments that were made in 2008 (six years ago). Only John Key turned out not to be the easy beat (lightweight) disinterested in being Prime Minister for being a long time, as was stated here at that time.

    The maths is pretty simple. Labour needs to be a 30+% party and to do that by taking votes off National and not the Greens.

    • phillip ure 16.1
      29 September 2014 at 11:44 am

      @ ginge..

      ..nah..!..that is the tried and true path to failure..

      ..the key to de-keying is still to have policies that will bring back the marginalised non-voters..

      ..cunnliffe promised this..

      ..but the policies presented by labour said different..

    • greywarbler 16.2
      29 September 2014 at 12:13 pm

      @ gingercrush
      It is a different thing from looking at Mt Aorangi and thinking what a good view you would get from the top, and actually getting there. But nice of you to tell us how easy it should be.

    • adam 16.3
      29 September 2014 at 2:25 pm

      It might work GC, but nah, middle NZ are a bunch of self absorbed wankers. They love themselves and hate everyone else.

  18. cogito 18
    29 September 2014 at 11:55 am

    So Paula Himmler Bennett is on the move. So who will her final solution skills be applied to next?

    • Puckish Rogue 18.1
      29 September 2014 at 11:59 am

      Well thats just sad

      • cogito 18.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 12:03 pm

        My bet is that she’ll be moved to ACC where she will be able to engage in gaslighting.

        • Puckish Rogue 18.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 12:12 pm

          I was meaning your references to himmler and the final solution, thats just plain sad

          • cogito 18.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 2:05 pm

            Sad?

            What’s sad is that she’s still there and moving up the food chain thanks to the inaction or mindlessness of too many kiwis.

            • Puckish Rogue 18.1.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 2:31 pm

              Whats sad is you equating the final solution to the some announcements Bennet made which when, in comparison to previous governments inlcuding Labour arn’t all that bad

              I mean sure if Bennet ever advocates the extermination of an entire race then I’ll agree that yes the final solution is a term that can be used otherwise it shows a complete lack of empathy and perspective

          • adam 18.1.1.1.2
            29 September 2014 at 2:31 pm

            Funny how the right can use any old shit they want to describe anyone on the left – but bugger me if the left does it – It’s like boo hoo cry – cry – cry. That’s not fair. Winge, winge, winge – You lot, are a bunch soft cock wets. With PR you head limp.

            • Puckish Rogue 18.1.1.1.2.1
              29 September 2014 at 2:36 pm

              You wonder why the lefts got its arse kicked at the election well thats one of the reasons, the left make up any kind of shit they want and try to tie it to whatever it is they don’t like about the right and think its a-ok

              That idiot was equating Paula Bennets somewhat minor tinkering around welfare which is still one of the most generous in the world with a policy that set out to exterminate a race of people

              and you don’t see a problem, says it all really

              • cogito …
                29 September 2014 at 2:44 pm

                @PR

                “that idiot” remembers what was written above a certain establishment. And that was “arbeit macht frei” – the exact same delusion that Bennett believes in while victimising thousands. Reality check.

                • Puckish Rogue …
                  29 September 2014 at 3:23 pm

                  So you know what the final solution was all about then, well done. Then you know why it was such a stupid comment.

              • adam …
                29 September 2014 at 2:57 pm

                No what I see is you being a sensitive wee poppet. No really, you’re being lame.

                Look at you, a welfare system which does not help people off it, is not the most generous in the world – actually that statement is a lie and you’re a Herr Goebbels for trying to twist the conversation away. You a PR stunt, just one sentence away from spin.

                Stop crying over spilt milk and stop trying to tell the left how it should operate.

                And anyway to most people Himmler was the head of the SS. It was the Nazi state which drove the extermination of the Gypsies, Seventh Day adventists, Gays, Lesbians, Mormons, and Leftists. But, no lets reduce that to one or two individuals – again PR, lame, just lame.

                • Puckish Rogue …
                  29 September 2014 at 3:28 pm

                  You and people who spout crap like you are the reason that the left tanked big time. The left rely on emotion and hyperbole but the general voting public arn’t buying it, you lot think equating National to Nazis is clever, it really isn’t and it just drives more voters to National

                  Three more years is looking like six so keep up the good work

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    29 September 2014 at 3:37 pm

                    😆

                    Which explains why the National Party actually ran a smear against KDC accusing him of being, wait for it, a Nazi.

                    Go on dickhead, run your mouth some more.

                    • Puckish Rogue …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:00 pm

                      Lesse the guy has nazi memorobillia (excuse the spelling), has a nazi flag, has a signed copy of mein kampf and in interviews has alluded to things Hitler did

                      Yeah its not a big jump to suggest he has a certain affinity with nazis, also who in the National party said he was a nazi?

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:09 pm

                      Oh, that was some trash they employ to smear people; haven’t you heard about it?

                    • Puckish Rogue …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:15 pm

                      So not the National party then, good to know

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:20 pm

                      What their mouthpiece says is attributable to them.

                  • adam …
                    29 September 2014 at 3:53 pm

                    This false pathos from you PR-spin is getting old.

                    • Puckish Rogue …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:02 pm

                      There are some things I’m fine with and some things I’m not and Godwinning is one of them

                    • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:03 pm

                      Paula Himmler Bennett

                      Good grief.

                      Here is one of the left’s many problems. This National government is the most moderate I can remember. Given that they have kept WFF and a variety of other things introduced by the last Labour government, they are more left wing than the government we had in 1999-2002.

                      You may not have noticed, but trying to pretend we are living in a junta is just not resonating with the public. As a result, you look like a bunch of cry babies.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:13 pm

                      The National Party employs a hateful gobshite to smear their opponents with Nazi insinuations, but if someone says anything similar on a left wing blog it’s the living end.

                      Raise the double standard.

                  • adam …
                    29 September 2014 at 4:03 pm

                    PR -spin. You believe your own lies – belly laugh of the day.

                    • Puckish Rogue …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:13 pm

                      I think Labour having a leadership battle before the review of the election campaign comes out is even funnier but each to their own I supoose

                    • adam …
                      29 September 2014 at 4:15 pm

                      Not what I said oh Gormless one. I said, if you on the right do the name calling it’s all cool – if we do, it’s a P.C hate crime and you go on a big whinge about – actually – you just proved my point – crybaby whine boy.

                      And anyway we are walking slowly into a corporatocracy – which I don’t know what form that will take – so forgive us if past actions by the right wing mean death camps, and throwing people out of helicopters. Please forgive us looking into history.

                      Plus we really don’t need false pathos and concern from VRWNJ’s. We still live under untethered capitalism, and that by any reasonable definition, is not left wing.

                  • adam …
                    29 September 2014 at 4:28 pm

                    “There are some things I’m fine with and some things I’m not and Godwinning is one of them”

                    PR – spin – this is getting to be a move to shut down debate.

                    I thought and excuse me if I’m wrong – but Godwinning is call something or somebody a fascist on a blog or message board repeatedly in a flaming manner to win an argument.

                    Name calling is name calling like me calling you PR-SPIN. Or Paula Benefit, or Paula Himmler Bennett – it’s just name calling.

                    And what are we supposed to say – OH wait here is politically correct version for the sensitive wee poppets on the right wing.

                    “Paula who may or may not act in a totalitarian fashion and throw people to the wolves because it’s politically expedient to do so Bennett”

                    PC enough for you PR -spin.

              • Murray Olsen …
                30 September 2014 at 12:43 am

                Would that be why you guys never invite us to move en masse to North Korea?

                Pull the other one, PR. Both sides do it, unlike Dirty Politics.

        • greywarbler 18.1.1.2
          29 September 2014 at 12:16 pm

          @ cogito
          Don’t spell it out for us. Let the truth set us free when we can’t do anything to help ourselves. That’s what will happen. The man, in another country, cemented in his great career by building autobahns (snap NZ). Then went on to bigger, more sweeping projects. What next for us?

          • cogito 18.1.1.2.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:13 pm

            @greywarbler

            Didn’t he also change the flag to something that matched his ideology?

            • greywarbler 18.1.1.2.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 1:24 pm

              @ cogito
              Yek!@ I suppose that is one of the next crowd confusing projects on the Liebe Leiter agenda.

              • phillip ure …
                29 September 2014 at 4:54 pm

                the best flag-observation i have heard/seen was on here (i think..)

                ..where it was pointed out that the silver fern is un-nervingly close to the isis flag..

                ..and so we could see our troops being bombed/strafed by the notoriously trigger-happy americans..

                ..were we to adopt this silver fern..

                • greywarbler …
                  29 September 2014 at 4:58 pm

                  @ phillip
                  It would have to be a gold fern then. Obviously. Because yek thinks so.

                  I like Hundertwasser’s green koru in the middle of a red white and black flag so incorporating the powerful meaningful colours used by Maori.

                • adam …
                  29 September 2014 at 5:01 pm

                  Thanks Phillip – the ..i thought more, an ayn rand who had eaten all the pies.. was a good giggle.

                  Sheesh you’d have thought with a crushing victory they keep harping on about, the right would have lightened up – but they seem to be as precious as ever.

                • greywarbler …
                  29 September 2014 at 10:29 pm

                  phillip
                  The silver fern looks like a white feather symbol for those who just want to get away from it all, to a desert island possibly. So it could be handy for conflicts overseas. Put the fern flag up and hope they stop firing at you.

                  • phillip ure …
                    29 September 2014 at 10:33 pm

                    i think it looks like a piece of a rugby jersey cut out and run up a flagpole..

                    • greywarbler …
                      29 September 2014 at 11:00 pm

                      Well good advertising for the all blacks – NZ winning combo. Multi purpose an intriguing flag and PR for the country. And with a great brand like that you can cut it up to sell the pieces, perhaps large enough to be wrapped round an unemployed man. And then sell the package as a christmas cracker.

                      From silly sausage’s 101 ways to desecrate your flag and drive rwnjs crazy.

    • cricko 18.2
      29 September 2014 at 12:11 pm

      you are a class act cogito.

      you bring a unique style that lifts the whole site.

    • gingercrush 18.3
      29 September 2014 at 2:35 pm

      Another MP you lot were calling lightweight six years ago. Not so lightweight anymore is she.

      • thatguynz 18.3.1
        29 September 2014 at 3:31 pm

        I’m pretty sure no-one here has called Ms Bennett lightweight.

        • Puckish Rogue 18.3.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 3:37 pm

          When she started no one on the left took her seriously

          • swordfish 18.3.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 4:31 pm

            Ah, no, if I remember rightly – it was her own colleagues and government officials who had a good deal of trouble taking her seriously. Largely because she was so damn lazy. Couldn’t be bothered reading any of the important paperwork. Led, among other things, to an in-depth Listener story on the issue, if memory serves me right. Considered one of the laziest Cabinet Ministers in recent history (and, as you can imagine, she was up against some pretty stiff competition, there).

            There’s certainly no doubt she’s a nasty piece of work. Not to mention a complete fucking hypocrite.

    • Ffloyd 18.4
      29 September 2014 at 5:52 pm

      Heard key mention finance on the radio. Apparently she wants to try something new!! She has * lots of skills* apparently. Don’t know why but I keep thinking her name is Monica.

  19. ma rohemo 19
    29 September 2014 at 12:05 pm

    I have a question about the TPPA.

    Will it give the right for corporations to challenge country or individuals that cause actions leading to loss of profits? I have heard this mentioned. It is difficult to know the truth because the details are so secretive.

    A major concern of mine is that the nuclear power industry could put the squeeze on NZ and argue that the nuclear ban is restrictive policy that prevents them from undertaking their normal business.

  20. Puckish Rogue 20
    29 September 2014 at 12:23 pm

    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/09/labour_1938_-_2014.html

    A helpful graph from Kiwiblog tracking Labours election results from 1938

    • lurgee 20.1
      29 September 2014 at 12:45 pm

      He didn’t start his Y axis at zero, and he cherry picked a high point to create the result he wanted. Typical climate change denier data-mongery.

      • Puckish Rogue 20.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 12:51 pm

        Thats why I added the National bit but what it does show is both parties on a downwards trend

  21. Te Reo Putake 21
    29 September 2014 at 12:33 pm

    If any non LP members commenters or readers here are concerned about the party’s leadership, and want to move from talk to action, then you have two days to join up. Only financial members as at Oct 1st will get a vote.

    https://www.labourparty.org.nz/join

  23. phillip ure 23
    29 September 2014 at 12:47 pm

    is there a bigger piece of crap around than the radio new zealand website..?

    ..i just gave up..

    ..it must have been designed by a committee..

    ..as just one example..

    ..one of its’ top shows is nine-to-noon..

    ..you go to the front page..and scroll down..

    ..you will see lots..but nowhere will you see nine-to-noon..

    ..brain-fucken-dead…

    • Te Reo Putake 23.1
      29 September 2014 at 1:00 pm

      Hmmm, while I acknowledge your wistful self analysis in the last line, Phil, I think you’ll find two places on the Radio NZ front page that will end your interweb struggle. One is the National Radio button (centre top) and the second is the search box (right hand top).

      • phillip ure 23.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 1:17 pm

        the national radio button takes you to some fucken audio-player you have to sign up to/for..(that has me heading for the exit..)

        ..so my case stands..

        ..and no..the search-button doesn’t answer..

        ..to a basic web-design fail…

        ..if so..why design at all..?

        ..just have a big fucken search-box/button..eh..?

        ..why pay all those fucken designers..?

        • Te Reo Putake 23.1.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 1:29 pm

          I don’t think your inability to use the interwebs is RNZ’s problem, Phil! The ‘national radio’ button takes you to the page with information about national radio programmes, including Nine to Noon. Amazing, eh!

          • phillip ure 23.1.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 1:50 pm

            i stand corrected..

            ..it is indeed a stellar/exemplary example of website design..

            ..(tho..have you ever heard announcers try to direct listeners to audio of their show..?

            ..whoar..!

            ..usually an arcane ‘just go!..and then ‘just go!’..and then click on..and then go to..

            ..but as you say..clearly brilliant design..!

            ..and so easy to operate/navigate….so everyone says.,

            ..eh..?

            • greywarbler 23.1.1.1.1.1
              29 September 2014 at 3:45 pm

              @ phil
              I have been searching RadioNZ for information about a piece I heard last week using various keywords but can’t raise it. I can’t remember whose program it was on.
              The search engine doesn’t seem very active for recent broadcasts. A keyword should pick up lots from current and near current. But let’s look on the good side, it does work and people are committed to making it work, and Radionz have a limited budget that they aren’t likely to mispend. Not like Novopay. And no-one has sold Radionz down the river for $? as was the canny Otago District Health Board.

              Hospitals may have executives who have interests in private companies and some of whom, further, come from a murky mindset of distaste for public service and integrity, and consider government a four letter word. Yes folks, they have people who can’t spell or count letters or money reliably.

              In August 2000, Michael Andrew Swann (born 1962) and Kerry Gray Harford (born 1960) presented the first of what would total 198 invoices, for information technology (IT) services, to the Otago District Health Board.
              IT services that were never actually provided.
              Instead, over the next six years, prior to Swann’s dismissal in October 2006, the pair defrauded the District Health Board out of $16.9 million.
              (Andrew Kelly is the author and he has written Anatomy of Fraud – Study of Fraud cases in NZ)
              http://abkaye.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/chapter-2-false-invoice-fraud-michael.html

              The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was “very pleased” when on March 12 2009 the two perpetrators of the largest fraud ever carried out by a state employee against a New Zealand government institution – the vulnerable Otago District Hospital Board (ODH) – were sentenced in the Dunedin High Court to lengthy prison terms. Both had been convicted by jury trial on 5 December 2008 of criminal intent to defraud the ODHB of $16.9 million using false documents.
              The SFO described the $15.2 million fraud committed by the primary offender, former bankrupt Michael Andrew Swann, -you can look that up yourself.
              http://www.spcs.org.nz/michael-swann-checketts-mckay-fraud-and-otago-dhbs-missing-6-million-report/

          • Draco T Bastard 23.1.1.1.2
            29 September 2014 at 2:37 pm

            I’m with phil on this and it applies to most websites in NZ. They’re terribly designed and difficult to use.

  24. phillip ure 24
    29 September 2014 at 1:13 pm

    the super-injunctions are lifted/over..

    ..slater has withdrawn his case..

    ..the media can now use their troves of ‘dirty politics’ goodies..

    …i did say key wd have the shortest new-gummint-honeymoon period on record..

    ..it’s now officially over..

    ..let the games begin..!

    • Tiger Mountain 24.1
      29 September 2014 at 1:45 pm

      to the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump!

      time for cult of Key ‘group think’ to be disrupted again, he has not been stifling the post election triumphalism without reason

    • Puckish Rogue 24.2
      29 September 2014 at 2:21 pm

      Yeah thats not going to happen, the voting public simply don’t care for dirty politics or whaleoil or anything like that

      But hey who says the left never flog a dead horse so by all means have at it

      • Tiger Mountain 24.2.1
        29 September 2014 at 3:30 pm

        Took two years to nail Nixon’s arse to the wall, this election should in no way let dirty tricks Nats off free either.

        • Puckish Rogue 24.2.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 3:40 pm

          wishing, hoping and waiting is not a good strategy, the left have been waiting six years for the people of NZ to see the real John Key

          They’ve seen the real John Key and voted for him overwhelmingly so maybe the Labour could try something different this time

          • swordfish 24.2.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 4:45 pm

            “The people of New Zealand” voted for Key overwhelmingly ???????

            Nah. Nationals’ Party-Vote represents around a third of all New Zealanders eligible to vote.

            In fact, even if you were to focus only on those who got out and voted, 48% (probably more like 47.5% after Specials) is a very long way from “overwhelming”.

            Go easy on the intellectual sleight of hand there, Pucks. I know you’re like a highly excited puppy-dog, but how about aiming for at least a modicum of gravitas ?

    • Murray Olsen 24.3
      30 September 2014 at 1:03 am

      I have never seen anything about this super injunction anywhere except here, and mainly in your posts. Is there an original source for it?

      I think the process of rooting out corruption in government and keeping it out is going to need a long campaign. Key may well try to use the manufactured threat of terrorism to divert attention from it, or even hide it via anti-publication laws like the Aussies are bringing in. At least the Greens will do their best to oppose these attacks on our way of life.

      • phillip ure 24.3.1
        30 September 2014 at 6:21 am

        @ m.o..

        ..you wait and see..

        ..this silence on these matters has been because of ‘super’-injunctions by slater..

        ..they have now been withdrawn..

        ..and as for an ‘official-source’..?

        .it was a mumbled aside from one of the recipients of that data..

        (and..i don’t just make shit up..eh..?..)

        • Murray Olsen 24.3.1.1
          30 September 2014 at 9:23 pm

          Don’t be paranoid. There’s a difference between getting stuff wrong and making it up.

  25. joe90 25
    29 September 2014 at 1:56 pm

    WTF ???.

    Political observers said the position had not been used since the 1990s, and meant Seymour would not be subject to questions in the House. It appears he would not be subject to the Official Information Act.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10557450/Rare-Government-role-for-ACT-MP

    • Draco T Bastard 25.1
      29 September 2014 at 2:41 pm

      Yep, more unaccountability and corruption from National. NRT has it right:

      In other words, its a model for total unaccountability. Which raises serious questions about what the National government is trying to hide.

      So, what do National want to hide? We can be assured of one thing about it – it’s not good for NZ but will be great for US corporations.

    • greywarbler 25.2
      29 September 2014 at 3:51 pm

      @ joe90
      A role for Seymour that’s rare? He’ll be lucky if he gets away lightly seared, more certainly he will be well done. a shrunken gnarled and knotted piece of meat. After the full treatment at the political barbecue.

    • yeshe 25.3
      29 September 2014 at 9:53 pm

      smell of the trough too strong for baby Seymour to resist .. hypocrites all …

      from your Stuff link above …

      “Jamie Whyte remains leader outside parliament for the time being, Seymour said.

      “We’ll see. It’s obviously an unconventional arrangement but if we can find a way to include and make him a better politician we certainly will.”

      Seymour said he would take the tax-payer funded leaders’ budget because it was within Parliamentary Service rules.

      “Well, that’s how the rules are. Will I be campaigning to change them? Ah, no,” he said.”

      Oink, oink, oink, oink. with apologies to pigs everywhere.

      • yeshe 25.3.1
        29 September 2014 at 10:08 pm

        And even more oink oink oink …. what an effing rort with only 14,501 votes nationwide. We are an international laughing stock.

        http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/david-seymours-parliamentary-perks-top-500000-2014092918

        • phillip ure 25.3.1.1
          29 September 2014 at 10:51 pm

          but dunne is the ultimate useless-bastard trougher..

          ..he got under 5,000 votes for his party..

          ..and will trough-up $572,000..

          ..(and i hope he is grateful..

          ..and sends a thank you note to the green party..

          ..for getting their candidate to split the vote..

          ..and thus gifting dunne his trough..)

          • phillip ure 25.3.1.1.1
            29 September 2014 at 11:04 pm

            to be honest..that fact kinda makes me feel ill..

            ..how the greens did that…again..

            ..w.t.f. are they thinking…?

            ..are they thinking at all..?

            ..turei said the greens ‘could do nothing more’ than they could have done..

            ..them gifting dunne his seat makes a lie of that..

            ..i wd love to see/hear a ‘please-explain..!’ on that one..

            ..from some green..sometime..

  26. Penny Bright 26
    29 September 2014 at 2:16 pm

    WHEN THE PEOPLE LEAD – THE POLITICIANS WILL FOLLOW!

    TOMORROW! JOIN THE HIKOI TO STOP DEEP SEA OIL!

    TUESDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2014 – 12 NOON OUTSIDE BRITOMART AUCKLAND!

    Who’s coming?

    The Waiho Papa Moana Hikoi to Stop Deep Sea Oil is coming all the way down from the Far North to tell the national petroleum industry conference in Auckland that they oppose deep sea oil drilling off the coast of Northland and Aotearoa. More info on the hikoi here:

    https://www.facebook.com/events/589243067864324/

    Join us to boost the numbers and support them with the final leg of their hikoi up Queen Street to the Summit at Skycity. Meet opposite Britomart at midday on Tuesday 30 Sept.

    The Norwegian oil giant Statoil, the same company who is threatening to drill for deep sea oil off the coast of Northland (and the Arctic) are partly funding this conference. Together we will tell Statoil and the oil industry that we want clean energy not dirty deep sea oil.

    The Waiho Papa Moana hikoi is made up of Northlanders who are standing up to protect the ocean and coast for current and future generations. They are joined by people from the East Cape (Te Whanau-a-Apanui) and Kaikoura (Ngati Kuri ki Kaikoura) who are also under threat from deep sea oil drilling. Let’s make sure they know that Aucklanders support their kaupapa.
    ________________________________________________________________________________

    Forwarded in the public interest by Penny Bright

  27. greywarbler 27
    29 September 2014 at 2:41 pm

    Good ideas from young people. Implement NOW!
    Radionz Thur 25/9 Nine to Noon

    09:25 Sixteen-year-old student on how to encourage youth to vote
    Sixteen-year-old high school student, Louise McNally of Strathallan ACG College in Karaka has won the Association former Members of Parliament’s national essay competition. She had to answer the question: How would you increase young people’s understanding and participation in our democratic process?

    Louise McNally argues that students in all schools should elect classroom leaders to stimulate interest in the political process, and engagement in democracy.

    When I went to school we had the chance to do this. But once Rogernomics came in, that sort of citizen building was out. It was all hands to turning everything into gold. And as the ancient Greeks noted – You can’t eat gold. and if you can’t find any, you don’t even have anything to trade with.

    We are in the sad state of being between Midas, wanting to turn everything into gold, and Tantalus, ever able to see the goal of food, or gold, money, a good, happy life…. but never reach it and hold it.

    Those Greeks have something that is both ancient and modern to teach us right now. Neither of their mythical beings serves us. Let’s look to the future and help the children get the skills to do what we have failed at.

  28. cogito 28
    29 September 2014 at 3:12 pm

    “New ACT MP David Seymour has been given the job of undersecretary for education and regulatory reform, but it’s highly likely he could become a minister by the end of the Parliamentary term”.

    Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/politics/acts-seymour–highly-likely-to-become-minister-2014092913#ixzz3EfOU3Hly

    And he hasn’t even found the gents toilets yet.

  29. greywarbler 29
    29 September 2014 at 3:18 pm

    @ cogito
    Never mind he now has the key to the executive toilets. Where he can sit on the toilet (a la Dave Buchanan, did you see his satire on the net) and plan how to screw up education further. A suitable place for the tapeworms that ACT are.

  30. Bill Drees 30
    29 September 2014 at 3:48 pm

    Labour in Scotland is dying. Does anybody care?

    The Labour Party in Scotland “is on a life support machine”. The “careerists” who have focused their efforts on climbing the well worn ladder to high office in Westminster were dealt a shock by the Scottish Independence Referendum, says Kevin McKenna in The Observer/Guardian.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/27/labour-in-scotland-dying-does-anyone-care

    Two examples of the language in this article:

    “Gordon Brown was wheeled out at the last to entreat the comrades to win one more for the Gipper while displaying a love for the NHS largely invisible during his 13 years at Downing Street. They saw through him, too, and left Labour’s King Lear to reflect that his greatest political achievement was to play a cameo role in keeping David Cameron’s career alive.

    “Margaret Curran [MP,Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland] was the first to wake up to the nightmare when she declared that Labour must reach out to its heartlands. There is no satellite navigation system sophisticated enough to guide them to these long-forgotten places.”

    [Curran is the MP for Glasgow East which voted against Labour’s platform in the referendum,]

    Labour everywhere has to be wary of the emergence of careerists: those whose only life experiences have been inside the parliamentary backrooms.

    Labour’s six contenders for the last leadership bout were all Oxbridge graduates: as rarefied a group as Cameron’s Eton school buddies.

    We need to be permanently on guard.

    • adam 30.1
      29 September 2014 at 4:40 pm

      Thanks Bill Drees – I’ve been saying pretty much that about our traitorous labour party since election night. Well maybe not calling them careerist, more like right wing nut jobs inside labour.

  31. Paul 31
    29 September 2014 at 4:09 pm

    Our proud independent foreign policy era is rapidly disappearing under JK’s stewardship.
    Sad.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11333569

    To the million people who voted for National, hope you’re proud of the country NZ is becoming.

  32. Paul 32
    29 September 2014 at 4:14 pm

    ‘Auckland landlords planning rent hikes’
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11333462

    Out of control house prices in Auckland…who pays?
    And who benefits?

    The neoliberal model continues to make the poor pay for the increasing wealth of the rich.

    To the million people who voted for National, hope you’re proud of the country NZ is becoming.

  33. Morrissey 33
    29 September 2014 at 4:32 pm

    The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a fake terror threat to justify bombing Syria
    by GLENN GREENWALD and MURTAZA HUSSAIN
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/

    As the Obama administration prepared to bomb Syria without Congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the “homeland.” A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

    The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group.” After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat – too radical even for Al Qaeda! – administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.

    The unveiling of this new group was performed in a September 13 article by Associated Press. who cited unnamed U.S. officials to warn of this new shadowy, worse-than-ISIS terror group….

    Read more….
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/

  34. joe90 34
    29 September 2014 at 5:28 pm

    This.

    Alex MedinaVerified account ‏@mrmedina

    Hands up don’t shoot is being used by tens of thousands as a form of protest in Hong Kong. Powerful. pic.twitter.com/on2DY5FrQH

    https://twitter.com/mrmedina/status/516345893139001346

    http://pzfeed.com/dozens-injured-including-police-officers-as-police-and-protesters-clash-in-hong-kong/

  35. logie97 35
    29 September 2014 at 5:30 pm

    So the Reserve Bank has been getting involved in the exchange rate

    “The Reserve Bank intervened to push the New Zealand dollar lower last month, selling NZ$521 million …”
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11333355

    … Where are the hoots of derision from the right wingers – compared with the noise when it was tried under the previous administration (2007)?

  36. Paul 36
    29 September 2014 at 5:47 pm

    I see Key is now a member of the Labour Party.
    Notice this was on Breakfast TV.
    I’m guessing that Key worshiper Rawden Christie conducted the interview.
    Actually interview is the wrong word.
    ‘Audience’ would be more accurate.

    Today, Key said Cunliffe’s announcement was not a move he’d make.
    “[I’d] probably not put my name forward again, but that’s entirely a matter for him.
    “Not that he performed badly on the campaign trail, I’m not arguing that.”
    The problem was Labour’s system for electing new leaders, which could see the caucus lumped with an unpopular figure, Key said on Breakfast.
    “Under our system, it’s the caucus that determines whether you’re the leader.
    “They have a different system, their affiliates vote and the unions and party membership vote, but I really don’t agree with that.
    “I think if you can’t carry your caucus, it’s very difficult to be an effective leader and it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have the support of his caucus,” Key said.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10556282/Cunliffe-wrong-to-contest-leadership-Key

    • Draco T Bastard 36.1
      29 September 2014 at 8:29 pm

      And the opposition, including Labour, needs to be jumping on that pointing out just ow un-democratic Key and National are.

  37. Scott1 37
    29 September 2014 at 6:13 pm

    I see Robertson is campaigning on the delusional platform by suggesting that if he was the leader labour would have won.. because he was going to…. err…

    wish a little harder than Cunliffe did?

  38. Paul 38
    29 September 2014 at 6:31 pm

    Some obscene statistics hidden beneath a NZ Herald headline pandering to the wealth of Graeme Hart.
    I could have thought of a lot more pertinent headlines than the one the Herald decided to post on top of these disturbing facts.

    “The number of people in the world with nine or more zeros to their name is now 2325, up 7.1 per cent in the past 12 months, according to this year’s “billionaire census”.
    The total riches held by this ultra-wealthy group grew by 11.9 per cent in the year to US$7.3 trillion ($9.3 trillion) – that’s nearly equivalent to the combined GDP of Germany and the United Kingdom.”

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11333177

  39. Draco T Bastard 39
    29 September 2014 at 6:40 pm

    This is what neo-liberalism has done to the economy and why the majority of people can no longer make ends meet:

    Fast-forward to the 1990s and early 2000s expansions, and a new pattern emerged, with the huge majority of income gains going to the top 10 percent, leaving pocket change for everybody else. From 2001 to 2007, 98 percent of income gains accrued to the top 10 percent of earners, Ms. Tcherneva found, basing her analysis on data from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the academics who have made a speciality in documenting the rise of income inequality around the world. (As a point of reference, an American needed a 2011 adjusted gross income of $120,136 to be in the top 10 percent of earners that year, according to I.R.S. data.)

    Which is why we need to drop it and to have our politicians stop catering only for the wealthy as they have been doing for the last thirty years.

    • Paul 39.1
      29 September 2014 at 6:59 pm

      Hence the rise in the militarisation of the police, the advent of the surveillance state and increasingly Draconian laws to control the populace.

  40. Paul 40
    29 September 2014 at 6:44 pm

    The Herald running a story intended to incite hostility against those in state housing.
    Wonder what the government has in store for state housing this term? If this story is anything to go by, it’s now good news for Housing New Zealand’s tenants.

    Just look at the prejudices the article is appealing to ….

    “A woman, who was kicked out of a $1 million state house after offering to buy it, is fighting a $40,000 bill after allegations she was living there with an undisclosed partner.”

    This will give talkhate radio ( ZB now aligned to the Herald) an opportunity to further rile up people on the subject. Just wait for Leighton Smith, Mike Hosking, Sean Plunkett and the rest of the wealthy middle aged men to leap onto this one.

    We are being incited by the corrupt MSM to become an increasingly mean spirited country. Let’s blame the poor for all our country’s problems.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11333619

    This book by Owen Jones – the Demonisation of the working class explains the phenomena from a British angle. The same stuff is happening here.

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/08/chavs-demonization-owen-jones-review

    • Draco T Bastard 40.1
      29 September 2014 at 8:26 pm

      This book by Owen Jones – the Demonisation of the working class explains the phenomena from a British angle. The same stuff is happening here.

      Yep, and yet what we should be doing is blaming the rich. They will be our downfall as they have been the downfall of every previous civilisation and empire.

  41. Ovid 41
    29 September 2014 at 8:24 pm

    John Oliver continues to do excellent work, this time looking at the US drone programme.

    And kudos to him for foregoing the obvious, tired “Game of Drones” pun.

  42. phillip ure 42
    29 September 2014 at 8:34 pm

    at the end of the day..

    ..someone should tell cunnliffe to stop saying..

    ..’at the end of the day’…

    • blue leopard 42.1
      29 September 2014 at 8:38 pm

      At the end of the day…I am inclined to agree with you on that one, Phillip

      • phillip ure 42.1.1
        29 September 2014 at 11:10 pm

        and here we are..at the end of the day..

        ..and cunnliffe on the henry show..

        ..said..’at the end of the day’..

        ..(i was steeling myself..but it still hit like a bucket of cold water..)

        ..but aside from that..it was a good outing for him..

        ..and the takeaway fact is that cunnliffe admitted to shedding a tear or two..

        ..at/after his defeat..

        ..and cunliffe could do worse than look at this show to see how much better he comes across when he is less stiff/controlled..

        …even his facial muscles seemed more relaxed…

  43. Not a PS Staffer 43
    29 September 2014 at 8:41 pm

    https://www.facebook.com/cunliffeforleader

    Fo those of you who would like to show your support for our leader give him a “like”!

  44. risildowgtn 44
    29 September 2014 at 9:48 pm

    Facebook tonight has returned the John Key has Let Down New Zealand group to its members and Admins

    Message from the admins to the tory wingnuts in here

    The Admins would like to say thanks to all the right wing wankers on here that accused us of threats against their beloved shit dont stink leader >fuck you . You were all so wrong o and to all those ex admins who also posted in here re we had removed the group ourselves. DO the same 🙂

    Admins also asked me to convey kudos to those who stuck up for us on here and on the web. Esp LPrent who runs this excellent site. Thank you for alerting NZ to what happened to us.

    Cheers people and onwards we go

  45. weka 45
    29 September 2014 at 10:28 pm

    Anyone got a link to an explanation about what’s happening in Hong Kong (that’s easy to read and understand)?

  46. boldsirbrian 46
    30 September 2014 at 1:00 am

    Cathy Odgers has been quiet lately. I wonder where her friend Jason Ede is?
    If either Cathy or Jason are reading this could you please let us know your side of the story of the Government leaks to Cameron Slater?

  47. Morrissey 47
    10 October 2014 at 4:34 pm

    “I don’t doubt her sincereness.”
    Has The Panel reached its nadir today?
    Radio NZ National, Friday 10 October 2014
    Jim Mora, Tau Henare, Bernard Hickey, Julie Moffett

    Move over Garth George—you’re not the most useless guest ever. Since he first appeared in parliament as Winston Peters’ No. 2 man, Tau Henare has never looked like anything other than a vacuous chancer, a thug who adds no value to any discussion. In an utterly undistinguished parliamentary career, Henare came to public attention only twice—first, when Trevor Mallard thumped him, and second when he brutally mocked a parliamentary cleaner who was appearing before a parliamentary committee.

    Tau Henare is the epitome of uselessness, in other words. Yet he is now regularly being used as a commentator on Television One, TV3 and Māori Television. And today he made his debut on Jim Mora’s light chat show. He is, I suppose, just right for it. He has little of interest to say, not only because he clearly reads nothing, but also because he spends his time polishing up his cheeky Westie act. His Twitter handle is “West Side Tory”. He obviously thinks that’s quite clever.

    Sadly, the other guest today is Bernard Hickey, who so far has gone out of his way to agree with everything Henare has said.

    JIM MORA: So what else is going on in the world?
    JULIE MOFFETT: A beach in Hawaii was going to be renamed in honor of President Obama, but there is apparently a great deal of public opposition to this happening.
    JIM MORA: He’s had—you’ve got to feel sorry for what’s happened to Obama in the Middle East, don’t you.
    TAU HENARE: Yeah, he came on the scene at the wrong time. He’s a great speaker.
    JIM MORA: Great speaker!

    4:27 p.m.: Hilariously, he has just pronounced on Penny Bright’s refusal to pay her rates. “I don’t doubt her sincereness,” he intoned, speaking very slowly to underline how deeply he was thinking.

    4:34 p.m.: Mora turned down Penny Bright’s voice as she was speaking, because (so he claimed) she did not have evidence to back up some claims she was making about the Auckland Council. “I’ve just turned you down,” he said. Bernard Hickey snorted approvingly.

    We should “feel sorry for what’s happened to Obama in the Middle East”?

    Dear Jim, 

    You said that we “have to feel sorry for what’s happened to Obama in the Middle East.” I think most fair-minded people would feel sorry for what Obama has done in the Middle East. He has rhetorically encouraged, diplomatically supported and armed the bloody Al Qaeda/ISIS insurrection in Syria, and he was quick to support the brutal overthrow of the elected government of Egypt and support the bloodthirsty Sisi regime. The people of Gaza and the Occupied West Bank are sorry about what he has allowed Israel to do to them.

    Yet, in spite of all this, you claim “we” should feel sorry for what’s happened “to Obama”.

    You’re lucky you have Tau Henare sitting next to you in the studio. Anyone a bit quicker on the uptake would have taken you to task.

    Yours sincerely,

    Morrissey Breen
    Northcote Point

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  • Anzac Commemorative Address – NZ National Service, Chunuk Bair
    Distinguished guests -   It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders.   Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 hours ago

  • Anzac Commemorative Address – Dawn Service, Gallipoli, Türkiye
    Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia.   Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    11 hours ago

  • PM announces changes to portfolios
    Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • New catch limits for unique fishery areas
    Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Minister welcomes hydrogen milestone
    Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Urgent changes to system through first RMA Amendment Bill
    The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Overseas decommissioning models considered
    Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Release of North Island Severe Weather Event Inquiry
    Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Justice Minister to attend Human Rights Council
    Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order.  “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Patterson reopens world’s largest wool scouring facility
    Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Speech to the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective Summit, 18 April 2024
    Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing  At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin    Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho    Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today.    I am delighted ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Government to introduce revised Three Strikes law
    The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • New diplomatic appointments
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions.   “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says.    “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Humanitarian support for Ethiopia and Somalia
    New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today.   “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Arts Minister congratulates Mataaho Collective
    Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale.  “It is good ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Supporting better financial outcomes for Kiwis
    The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Trade relationship with China remains strong
    “China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says.   Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • PM’s South East Asia mission does the business
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago

  • $41m to support clean energy in South East Asia
    New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago

  • Minister releases Fast-track stakeholder list
    The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago

  • Judicial appointments announced
    Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Education Minister heads to major teaching summit in Singapore
    Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa.  The summit is co-hosted ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Value of stopbank project proven during cyclone
    A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Anzac commemorations, Türkiye relationship focus of visit
    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul.    “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Minister to Europe for OECD meeting, Anzac Day
    Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

  • Comprehensive Partnership the goal for NZ and the Philippines
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Government commits $20m to Westport flood protection
    The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Taupō takes pole position
    The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Cost of living support for low-income homeowners
    Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners.  “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Government backing mussel spat project
    The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Government focused on getting people into work
    Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Clean energy key driver to reducing emissions
    The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forward
    The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Government consults on extending coastal permits for ports
    RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Inflation coming down, but more work to do
    Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • School attendance restored as a priority in health advice
    Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Unnecessary bureaucracy cut in oceans sector
    Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Patterson promoting NZ’s wool sector at International Congress
    Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector.    "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Removing red tape to help early learners thrive
    The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

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