Open mike 31/01/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 31st, 2010 - 16 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

16 comments on “Open mike 31/01/2010 ”

  1. Just saw Phil Goff on Q&A. He was composed, clear and precise with his comments. He did well. May he have many more days like this.

  2. Sam 2

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3278957/Appalled-PM-acts-on-animal-cruelty

    JK the micromanager sticks his nose into yet another soft public issue. HOW SURPRISING!

    • Clarke 2.1

      If you’re a dog being beaten with a stick, you have the undivided attention of the Prime Minister. If you’re an unemployed parent being beaten with the economy, the best you get is the undisguised contempt of Paula Bennett.

  3. todd 3

    Of course Goff just called most of his caucus Tax cheats,so not sure how that will play out.Of course as labour regards most of its followers as just a bit dim,I guess they hope that the masses will get the right picture

  4. I have just about had enough of Q&A or more in particular Guyon. When will the man “Shut the F*ck Up” and let people answer. I wanted to hear what Goff had to say, but all i could hear was Guyon interrupting and trying to score points. Why not in future, don’t they just have GE interviewing himself it would be less irritating.

    • Bored 4.1

      Somebody had to say it, Guyon needs to STFU!!! Well said.

      Love him or hate him Muldoon had a good technique with jornos, he made it abundantly clear to them that they were there to ask him questions at his pleasure, and to shut up and listen. There were the innevitable clashes of ego, he usually reminded them that they were not the stars of the show. Guyon and all the other prat TV talking heads need some of this treatment desparately.

    • I quite agree John D .Last Sundays Q&A interview with Goff was a disgrace. Guyon must have been vaccinated with a gramophone needle .There is no doubt that Guyon favours the political Right and it shows . However chair Holmes is becoming increasingly weird. I have said before that surely we deserve a decent political debate programme on TV . Backbenchers is not bad but a bit lighthearted,plus the fact that a lot of viewers cannot recieve channell 7.
      However the fact remains that Phill Goff made an excellent speech and i’m begining to think that it has has more effect on voters than first thought.The fact that Key commented on the speech the same night when it was obvious to people who had been at Ferry Bank (like this writer) that her had not read the speech but had just been advised.

  5. They may not have been cheating in Oregon but the great unwashed were pissed off enough to change the tax rules anyway. Gotta love carly binding referenda.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-oregon-tax27-2010jan27,0,3341290.story

  6. todd 6

    Come on John.I thought Guyon did a pretty good job,we never just want to hear the bullshit that ALL polititions will say if they can get away with it.A good interveiwer will do his/her research before the interveiw to keep the bullshit at bay.Now I know that Goff is a smart cookie and does not really believe some of the shit he says ie high tax rate that even his caucus wont pay,its just a generic message that he expects the dimwits to believe.

  7. Draco T Bastard 7

    It’s quite enlightening reading the background material of the 2025 Taskforce. For example, from Henry Ergas Is there any evidence of evidenced-based policy? we have:

    However, as we explain in the paper, that appraisal is flawed: it confuses wholesale and retail costs and revenues, also confuses benefits and transfers, and no less important, examines the total costs and benefits of the project, rather than the incremental costs and benefits compared to the counterfactual world.

    I really would have difficulty finding a more meaningless sentence. I know what counterfactul means and I know what world means but WTF is a counterfactual world?

  8. Olwyn 8

    Clearly a world that would have existed if the 2025 tax force had been around before time began, and got to implement their policies right in time for the big bang.

  9. Pascal's bookie 9

    Now that’s an attack ad.

    We got yur negative campaigning right here

  10. ropata 10

    Tim Selwyn has gotten mediaeval on Peter Dunne. It’s got to be the best fisking/filleting of 2010… elegant, erudite, and merciless 🙂

    Coming back to the Greens, UnitedFuture is arguably the most successful small party under MMP. We have spent more time in government than any other party, and we have probably achieved more too.
    – Arguably Pluto is/is not a planet, arguably the new Supreme Court building is/is not as bad as the Beehive, but there is not much space on any spectrum of believablity for “arguably the most successful small party under MMP” is whatever vehicle Peter Dunne happens to have fashioned around himself. Dunne’s one-man band of a micro-party, hopping about as a flea on whatever mongrel animal is big enough to displace the last mongrel animal on the mat in front of the fire, will not meet any credible definition of success as a party. Having a stat like 100% of the caucus serving in the Ministry would only ever impress Jim Anderton.

    To be truly successful though, alongside our policy achievements, we now have to focus on promoting our story, to create a sense of purpose and reason for supporting us.
    – Peter Dunne’s never going to be reason enough for anyone to join whatever vehicle Peter Dunne happens to have fashioned around himself. His last plaintive remark defines the issue well enough really: there is no purpose or reason.

  11. Draco T Bastard 12

    http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2010/01/28/on-government-tolerance-of-white-collar-crime/

    This government takes a crush ñ€˜em and crate ñ€˜em approach to crime unless that is, the offender happens to be wearing a tie. In which case, judging by the Ministry of Economic Development discussion paper on business cartels released yesterday, we need to be very, very worried about the Bill of Rights implications of unreasonable search and seizure, concerns that the government plainly does not see as mattering quite as much to its blue collar citizens.

    In sum, this MED paper is one more exercise in pandering to a business culture in New Zealand prone to treating de-regulation as the cure for all our economic ills past, current and future.

    /facepalm

    There’s not really a lot to say to that. Business people have been getting off lightly for decades/centuries and nothing is about to change.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.