RNZ: The 9th floor – Shipley

85 comments on “RNZ: The 9th floor – Shipley ”

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1. greywarshark 1

   28 April 2017 at 11:57 am

   Get ready you middle class. You used to be the best thing since sliced bread and the money grabbers gravitate to the gravy train of the growing middle class of foreign developing nations. But will strip their own middle class down to their patched undies.

   First they came for the poor and struggling.
   Then they came for the and semi-low skilled workers.
   Then they came for the students trying to acquire the required skills.
   Then they came for the graduates looking for a job paying sufficiently
   for living and repayment of debt.
   Then they increased GST and lowered higher salary income tax.
   Then they encouraged business to help itself to assets.
   Then they encouraged foreign investment/migration and house
   purchases as foreigners’ asset sinks.
   Then they increased education costs for children’s learning.
   Then they introduced alternative schools with few standards or checks
   (but provision of cheques.)
   Then they cut back on the health budget.
   Then they refused dignified dying of choice and encouraged private
   provision of retirement homes.

   Then they start diminishing the middle class access to health care and
   other universal government services.
   And the reptilian female politician type, even deadlier than the male,
   says with forked tongue that as she is doing all right, let’s pull the plug
   on the rest of the country. There is good business for private entities
   still available catering to those who actually can afford a life.

   I don’t think there are huge numbers earning at the middle class level anyway.

   (Remember: http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/quickstats-income/personal-income.aspx
   Those receiving over $50,000 were in 2013 about 25% of NZ population. So 75% were on less total income. $40-$50,000 were at 8%, $25-$40,000 were 20%, .)

   2015 – However, CTU economist Bill Rosenberg said jobs advertised on Seek were high paying and not typical of the workforce, as illustrated by offical job figures released last week.
   “Statistics New Zealand shows the average wage annualised would be approximately $49,000 – [Seek’s data] is considerably above what the accepted general survey shows.
   “Even the average wage or salary is a bit misleading in itself because it tends to [be] biased upwards by the very high salaries that some people get.”
   According to Statistic New Zealand’s labour market statistics showed the average average ordinary time hourly earnings was $29.01 for the June quarter, up 0.8 percent on the previous quarter.
   http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/281067/average-salaries-nudge-$75k-for-some

   KFC protest:
   KFC Supervisor are also expected to train KFC cooks and to be able to do the cooks job if needed. Last year the company decided (without consulting the union) to pay cooks and extra $2.50 an hour allowance and the result is that the Supervisors, who are mostly women, end up being paid $1.80 an hour less than the cooks, who are mostly male, despite Supervisors being more qualified and having far more responsibilities.

   Restaurant Brand Workers strike
   • Gosman 1.1

     28 April 2017 at 3:22 pm

     Ummm… you are aware that she USED to be the PM. She isn’t even in politics any more.
     • North 1.1.1

       28 April 2017 at 7:50 pm

       Yeah. She was. Never elected. The prime ministerial remnant of an internecine madness to shame CV. Can’t believe a word of her. Pious. Of positive/admirable legacy she has none. She’ll come out flat in support of things we all know her innards were never with……..she’s a former PM seeking relevance in the ‘today’. And you reckon she’s no longer ‘in’ politics Gosman ? Get real Burton…….!
     • WILD KATIPO 1.1.2

       29 April 2017 at 2:03 pm

       Interesting that at the same time we were lambasting the Fijian coup we had a coup of our own occur right under our noses when Shipley rolled Bolger . From memory she waited until he was out of the country.

       She was an illegitimate Prime Minister and among some of the most viscous neo liberal perpetrators this country has ever known barring other individuals such as Ruth Richardson. That title ‘ Dame’ should be stripped from her and instead she should be among a number dragged before our courts on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit economic sabotage and grand theft of the Commons wealth.

       That’s who Jenny Shipley is and what she was ever about.
       • red-blooded 1.1.2.1

         29 April 2017 at 3:16 pm

         Jenny shipley was awful, and a terrible PM. She didn’t lead a “coup”, however – she lead a successful leadership challenge. There was no disruption to government or to our constitution (such as it is). We had elected a National government (ergh!) and we continued to be ruled by National until the election that saw us dump them in 1999. The election wasn’t delayed and normal processes were followed.

         In NZ we don’t have presidents, ewe have prime ministers. A PM isn’t directly elected in a personal endorsement by the general public, like a president; we elect a political party and they (the caucus or – in the case of the modern Labour Party and The Greens – the wider party membership) are the ones who decide who their leader is.

         While we sometimes use the word “coup” as a metaphor for a leadership challenge, we shouldn’t get carried away with silly comparisons like this. The leaders of the two coups in Fiji around that time deposed legitimately-elected governments, seized power by force, suspended the country’s constitution…etc. (BTW, you do know that there was no coup in Fiji while Shipley was PM? The ’87 coup had largely run its course and Fiji was re-admitted to the Commonwealth in ’97 – the same year Shipley became PM, and the 2000 coup occurred the year after she was dumped.)
         • WILD KATIPO 1.1.2.1.1

           29 April 2017 at 3:48 pm

           True about the NZ public doesn’t ‘ elect’ a PM , … following along with the Westminster tradition, yes. The Governor General gives the final tick of official approval if its proven the individual concerned has the numbers.

           However , a peaceful coup is still a coup. And there are countless numbers of political party’s who had the same thing happen to them yet still remained intact and in power…And I believe it was quite rich to have been criticizing the Fijians at the time and waving our fingers in self righteousness while we had a usurper such as Shipley right under our noses.

           Also , the fact Shipley timed her bid after Bolger left the country – still not ”illegal’ per se’ but definitely demonstrating the lack of scruples and her personal attributes regards her character.

           I also recall that this country had ongoing tensions over the military leaders of Fiji for most of that time and criticized them for their undemocratic assuming of power. Fiji went through several leaders over that time period and relations were more often and not frosty with them.

           A few years back there was almost a spate of what were dubbed’ waka jumpers’. Moves were made to prevent that sort of behavior because it undermined the public’s confidence in who they had voted for. Essentially this was the same sort of undermining of the public understanding of who they assumed would be leading the party they voted for.

           Shipley grossly undermined the public confidence and its perception of stability in Govt by rolling Bolger.
           • red-blooded 1.1.2.1.1.1

             29 April 2017 at 4:10 pm

             “A coup d’état (/ˌkuː deɪˈtɑː/ About this sound listen (help·info); French: [ku.de.ta]), also known simply as a coup (/kuː/), a putsch (/pʊtʃ/), or an overthrow, is the illegal and overt seizure of a state by the military or other elites within the state apparatus.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

             Shipley’s act was not illegal. She convinced the majority of her caucus that she would be a better leader than Bolger, and they elected her. She was a member of an “elite within the state apparatus”, but only because she was elected – first by the voters in her electorate and then by her fellow members of the National Party caucus.

             It wasn’t a coup when Moore replaced Palmer, and it wasn’t a coup when Shipley replaced Bolger.

             And yes, there had been ongoing tensions with the military-based (but, by then, elected) Figian government led by Rabuka and Mara. Not surprising, as they had deposed a democratically elected government, introduced a constitution that gave precedence to indigenous Fijians over others and created a climate of fear that saw thousands of Fijian Indians flee the country. Having said that, by the time Shipley took over they were being accepted as the new government and normal diplomatic ties were being resumed.

             As for the “waka-jumping” issue, my recollection is that this related to people who were elected on party lists, but then changed parties. They had no personal mandate to be in parliament and by changing parties they were altering the percentage of MPs aligned to the various parties, thereby undermining the outcome of the most recent election. Not particularly relevant to Shipley. NZ had elected a national government and continued to have one. The percentage of MPs aligned to the various parties stayed the same.
             • WILD KATIPO …

               29 April 2017 at 4:28 pm

               Some good points.

               I think we could look at Italy and even Australia as other examples of deposed leaders being rolled yet the party’s staying the same. I daresay Shipley did have the numbers, and I seem to recall some attempts were made against Muldoons position as well before that.

               But there is a world of difference between widespread and popular dislike by the citizenry and the intervention by the Governor General to either dissolve a govt or replace a PM. In this country it has been far too easy for people to usurp a leader simply because they have their own motives or agendas to push for doing so.

               This was the case with Shipley.

               Bolger was seen as more moderate and Shipley was growing increasingly frustrated with Bolgers moderate leadership. Shipley , – by contrast , – wanted to push through her hard right wing neo liberal dogma – a dogma that ultimately – was
               demonstrated that was not what the people wanted in the first place at all.

               Indeed , it was as a direct result of the huge social turmoil introduced by the 4th Labour govt that caused the swing to National in the first place. People did not want these so called ‘ reforms’ and assets sales driven by Rogernomic’s.

               And by and large – they still don’t. It is still being foisted on us under the tenuous mandate quoted simply because a govt gets voted in.

               And just because they are voted in does not give them an automatic public endorsement of all their policy’s either.

               John Keys unpopular state owned housing sales are a case in point.

               And in that , … even though we may not be able to define it currently as being an ‘ illegal ‘ usurping of power , – if it had been put to the democratic vote of the citizenry in the first place as it should have been , – chances are Bolger would have remained in power and Shipley would have been demoted.
               • WILD KATIPO …

                 29 April 2017 at 4:54 pm

                 It is also something feared by many of these subversive types pushing their agendas that run contrary to the popular opinion that they fear a certain thing called :

                 BCIR.

                 Binding Citizens Initiated Referenda.

                 What this country currently sorely lacks is an easily accessed Constitution and the regular use of Binding Citizens Initiated Referenda to ensure opportunists like Shipley cannot just simply assume power and start perversely ramming through unpopular and ideologically driven initiatives that serve the interests of only a small clique to the detriment of the majority.
                 • red-blooded …

                   29 April 2017 at 4:59 pm

                   The majority voted to repeal the “anti-smacking legislation”. Would you have wanted that to be binding?
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 5:07 pm

                     I think you will agree that constitutional issues are of a different nature altogether than pieces of legislation introduced by an MP such as the anti smacking bill by Sue Bradford.

                     The ‘ anti smacking bill’ does not directly affect our parliamentary processes in the same way that was demonstrated by Shipleys actions.
                   • KJT …

                     29 April 2017 at 8:15 pm

                     That is the stupidest argument yet against BCIR.
                     One referendum didn’t go my way so I am against them.
                     Why allow voting on anything, then.
                     Obviously “the majority cannot be trusted to be sensible”.
               • red-blooded …

                 29 April 2017 at 4:57 pm

                 Hey, let’s remember that it was Bolger who appointed Richardson and ushered in the Mother of All Budgets and the Employment Contracts Act, plus selling off state housing. He was actually pretty damn extreme and the only reason that he pulled back a bit was that he had to rely on a coalition in his second term. Plus, he’d done a lot of the big stuff by then.

                 As for your “tenuous mandate simply because a govt gets voted in” line, I guess that could be seen as reasonable when a government is voted in and then flip flops on big issues or acts on an agenda that wasn’t revealed before the election (and yes, I am thinking of the first term of the 4th Labour government, although I also know that they were confronted with a series of realities that hadn’t been revealed to them before the election and I think there was a certain amount of panic motivating some of their big decisions), however there was nothing secret or unexpected about the policies of the Bolger-Shipley government. NZers knew what they were voting for and the majority voted for the Nats and their policies. Anyone who didn’t know what that would entail hadn’t been paying attention.
                 • WILD KATIPO …

                   29 April 2017 at 5:19 pm

                   ”Bolger who appointed Richardson and ushered in the Mother of All Budgets and the Employment Contracts Act, plus selling off state housing. He was actually pretty damn extreme and the only reason that he pulled back a bit was that he had to rely on a coalition in his second term. Plus, he’d done a lot of the big stuff by then.”

                   ………………………………………………………….

                   Indeed he did appoint Richardson. And under the influence of the Business Roundtable and such other groups , … the Employment Contracts Act was drawn up.

                   As a side note , – and a very pertinent one indeed , – both Roger Douglas AND Ruth Richardson were active sitting board members of the Mont Pelerin Society at the time. The relevance of that is tremendous to come to terms with because it was from the Mont Pelerin Society that we had such influential neo liberal economist luminaries such as Milton Freidman.

                   Anyone who does not take those facts into account is certainly not paying attention even now to gain a full historical context of the extreme motivations of these people and their assault on our Keynesian based Social Democracy .

                   It must be remembered that the distaste which so many of the general public felt against Rogernomic’s led many to vote National not from a continuation of those policy’s – but in hope of slowing down or lessening them or even eradicating them.

                   To say otherwise would be to say the country wasted several millions on a pointless political exercise holding a general election when they could have saved all that waste of resources and simply retained the Labour govt and carried on with the ‘ reforms’ of Roger Douglas…
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 5:31 pm

                     Mont Pelerin Society Board Members.

                     2016-2018 Board of Directors
                     Officers of the MPS

                     President
                     Peter J. Boettke, United States

                     Vice President
                     Pedro Schwartz Giron, Spain

                     Secretary
                     Eamonn Butler, United Kingdom

                     Treasurer
                     J.R. Clark (Jeff), United States

                     Executive Committee

                     Peter J. Boettke, United States
                     Eamonn Butler, United Kingdom
                     J.R. Clark (Jeff), United States
                     Pedro Schwartz Giron, Spain

                     Directors
                     Yuko Arayama, Japan
                     Jeff Bennett, Australia
                     Gabriel Calzada, Guatemala
                     Allan Meltzer, United States
                     Nils Karlson, Sweden

                     Ruth Richardson, New Zealand <————————————————

                     John Taylor, United States
                     Margaret Tse, Brazil

                     …………………………………………………………………….

                     An excerpt from this website …

                     New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
                     http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html

                     Roger and Ruth, more in common than just finance
                     National's Ruth Richardson's New Right policies were exactly the same as Labour's Roger Douglas' New Right policies because they were policies driven by the Mont Pelerin Society. It should have been no surprise, in 1989 a Mont pelerin front group the Centre for Independent Studies organised a conference in Christchurch to review progress of deregulation and privatisation of New Zealand. The keynote speaker was Roger Douglas and he was warmly supported by Ruth Richardson: so there they were together, Labour's Roger and National's Ruth united in their New Right faith.
                     Roger Douglas was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, as was Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable. However Ruth Richardson was not, as late as 1996 in the words of Lord Harris, longtime head of the Mont Pelerin's main think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. "But Ruth Richardson isn't a member, but she used to come over here and extract ideas and so forth" This has all changed, when she was replaced as finance minister by Bill Birch, Ruth Richardson left National and joined the ACT party which had been started by Roger Douglas, She became, not only a Mont Pelerin Member, but a director of that society.
                     The ACT party is at this time, trying to convince New Zealanders to vote for them and get Roger Douglas back into Parliament, preferably as finance minister in a National/ ACT coalition government. The New Right NEVER GIVE UP!
                     Back in the 2005 New Zealand General election, the leader of the National Party was the former Reserve Bank governor, Don Brash who had been introduced to politics by Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable. Don Brash was looked on as a rather honest if naive politician but was ousted when leaked emails showed he had dealings with a group of Exclusive Brethren Millionaires who were waging a campaign against the Greens even though he denied he had. In a speech in London in 1996, Don Brash said "I was involved with Roger Douglas from the beginning of the reforms …and they were never completed. The New Right NEVER GIVE UP! Who have they chosen THIS TIME?
                     The average New Zealander can't possibly know who the next New Right puppet will be, but one thing they can be sure of, is that that person will be saying anything, offering everything to ensure they get elected and once the New Right get into power, it will be 1984 all over again.

                     No more "Left" versus "Right"
                     National's Ruth Richardson's New Right policies were exactly the same as Labour's Roger Douglas' New Right policies because they were given to them by the Business Roundtable who in turn had received them from the Mont Pelerin Society, a London based group of the very rich who have descended from the land owning nobles who had peasants farming their lands while they lived the high life, and they kept the peasants in their place by ensuring they never had the means to improve their lot. Unfortunately for them, the industrial revolution gave these peasants the chance to improve their lot, which took a huge amount of power from the ruling class. The aim of this society is to destroy the middle class (or the middle income earner) and bring back the two-class society. The Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer is no myth, it is by design and it is happening!

                     Keep the New Right out of power
                     The New Right have lost their grip on New Zealand since the Election of the fourth Labour Government in 1999, but they have never given up, why would they? They have too much to gain. Out of $15.322 billion worth of privatised former New Zealand state assets, companies connected with the Mont Pelerin Society's main New Zealand front, the Business Roundtable, bought an astounding $12.542 billion, or about 82% of the total. No wonder they are fervent believers in Mont Pelerin's "free market" which has so handsomely lined their pockets, while destroying the nation
                     The MMP voting system has made it harder for single political parties to have an overwhelming majority and this has made it harder for the New Right to implement their agenda.
                     Watch out for new moves to re-introduce 'First past the post' voting again.

                     Who Is The Mont Pelerin Society ?
                     This looting and destruction of the nation-state of New Zealand was planned and implemented by the London-based Mont Pelerin Society.

                     In 1947, Mont Pelerin founder von Hayek lamented that the war had drastically strengthened nation-states, which must be replaced, he said, with the classic, anti-state free trade "liberalism" of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain.

                     Many of those continental Europeans present, like von Hayek, carried the prefix "von" before their surnames, signifying that they came from the noble families which had governed Europe for centuries.

                     Mont Pelerin shared the same "conservative revolution" philosophy as the Nazis. It also shared some of the same personnel. For instance, Max von Thurn und Taxis was a sponsor of von Hayek and his new society. Thurn und Taxis' family had founded another society in southern Germany before World War 1, which was composed entirely of aristocrats, known as the Thule Society. Thule in turn formed a special "workers division" known as the "National Socialist German Workers Party" (NSDAP). The NSDAP, into which an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler was recruited, later became better known by the abbreviated version of its name, the "Nazis." In 1989, Max von Thurn und Taxis attended a meeting of his Mont Pelerin Society in Christchurch, New Zealand, to judge, first hand, the results of the "worlds most radical free market revolution."
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 6:37 pm

                     You have seemed to have disappeared, Red- blooded.

                     I would say that you are nothing more than an apologist for the new right.

                     Either that or are a naive useful stooge for them.

                     And that has been your motivation on this blogsite. It mildly annoys me that you have a penchant for dredging up minor points to put down others and blandly rant on about peripheral subjects yet when confronted with an historical set of facts that contradicts your right wing views you hide.

                     Don’t do that again , please . Unless you estimate you have what it takes to present a proper case against moderate nationalism and Keynesian economics and the reasons you have for opposing it.

                     In which case present your case if you can.

                     I resent your insulting implications that I am somehow some sort of closet totalitarian.
2. Enough is Enough 2

   28 April 2017 at 12:35 pm

   Interesting

   Bolger seems to have mellowed in his old age while Shipley if anything is more of rabid right wing dog than she was in 99
3. keepcalmcarryon 3

   28 April 2017 at 12:46 pm

   Horrible [r0b: deleted] is horrible.
   Nothing to see here.
   • keepcalmcarryon 3.1

     28 April 2017 at 1:11 pm

     Fair enough rob I should have said “horrible rabid right wing dog”, that being acceptable.
     No verbal abuse she gets compares to what she did to my country.
     • r0b 3.1.1

       28 April 2017 at 2:20 pm

       I’ll not disagree with you there!
4. marty mars 4

   28 April 2017 at 1:10 pm

   Another hypocrite ex PM – seems like they are all like that – do as I say not as I do. Relegated to the footnotes of history is probably generous for her.
5. gsays 5

   28 April 2017 at 1:10 pm

   Cough..mainzeal..cough
   • Tarquin 5.1

     28 April 2017 at 2:38 pm

     Exactly. You would think she would be too embarrassed to show up after that debacle. Worst prime minister of a generation.
     • Gosman 5.1.1

       28 April 2017 at 3:23 pm

       I thought that was reserved for John Key?
       • DS 5.1.1.1

         28 April 2017 at 11:00 pm

         Nah. Key’s merely mediocre, even for a Nat. Worse than Holyoake, Bolger, and Muldoon, better than Marshall, Shipley, and Holland.
         • WILD KATIPO 5.1.1.1.1

           29 April 2017 at 2:22 pm

           But Key , like Shipley ,… was still a neo liberal. Personal quality’s aside – its what all these subversives maintained as an ideological and political consensus that marks them all out as being as bad as each other.

           I am surprised these criminals are even getting serious air time complete with an almost misty haze soft camera lighting to aid them in helping to pull on peoples heartstrings to garner a sympathetic nostalgic hearing for them.

           You could apply the same sort of principles to people like Jeffrey Dalmer and manage to soften the profile for public consumption.

           These neo liberals were criminals and nothing more and this whole series of interviews smacks of someone using them to bolster a dying ideology and shore up against public sentiment and 33 years of evidence of the abject failure of neo liberalism and its exponents.

           And was and still is nothing more than an ideology designed to plunder the unearned wealth of the Commons from formerly wealthy country’s such as New Zealand.

           Therefore individuals such as Shipley and her colleagues responsible should be dragged before our courts on charges of national economic sabotage – not paraded around like some teary eyed elder states-person with anything of value to say about the nation she helped to wreck.
           • red-blooded 5.1.1.1.1.1

             29 April 2017 at 3:21 pm

             WK, we can’t make up criminal charges retrospectively and prosecute people for things that weren’t actually against the law. You and i might both disagree with the policies of Shipley and others, but we don’t get to jail people for having and acting upon different political viewpoints from us. That smacks of totalitarianism. Dial it back a bit, eh?
             • WILD KATIPO …

               29 April 2017 at 4:04 pm

               Laws change and and so too can the retrospective charging of that law.

               The fact that the policy’s enacted did not appear at first to cause anyone any direct physical harm , doesn’t mean to say harm wasn’t present as a direct result of those policy’s.

               And while it may be more difficult to prove direct correlation , we can easily point to two recent examples where people did suffer harm. One was a small toddler in a state house who died of totally preventable causes more attributable to third world conditions” , and the other was a security officer who died also because of the same damp conditions and as a result of poverty.

               It is hypocritical to criticize many of the excesses of the historical monarchy’s of Europe and their callous disregard for the population and then to turn a blind eye to modern examples which in effect are exactly the same.

               And while this didn’t happen under Shipley but under Keys govt , it was the same ideology that ultimately contributed largely that situation . As it does now with family’s sleeping in cars and many other instances of poverty . If you are quite happy to not work at outlawing facets of this ideology and more content to simply constantly bleat about it and provide no real answer on an online forum then fair enough.

               But as I said above , a definition needs to be officially drawn up and any political party’s attempting to introduce or practice that ideology outlawed. If not , at least many of the extremes of that ideology to be regulated to prevent the sort of societal harm neo liberalism has caused for the last 3 decades.
               • red-blooded …

                 29 April 2017 at 4:25 pm

                 Sorry, but this is:
                 1) Ridiculous, and
                 2) Dangerous.

                 If Trump manages to make abortion illegal again in the US, will you see it as OK for doctors who’ve performed abortions and women who’ve had abortions in the decades in which it’s been legal to be prosecuted and punished?

                 How about punishing atheists? After all, plenty of conservative Christians believe that atheism and Satanism are pretty much the same thing, and do significant damage to society. After that, who should be punished next? Muslims? Jews? Communists?

                 Are you a fan of McCarthyism, WK? Witch hunts? The Cultural Revolution? Pol Pot? Because your “let’s root out those who believe in evil and punish them for their beliefs” line sounds eerily familiar…

                 (And no, I’m not a fan of neo-liberalism, but I’m not a fan of totalitarianism either. Can you say the same thing?)
                 • WILD KATIPO …

                   29 April 2017 at 5:50 pm

                   If you persist in supporting moves that do not check the movement of people like Shipley and Douglas and their ilk , then you become an unwitting tacit supporter of totalitarianism through ignorance of totalitarianism and just how it operates.

                   Another word for that is being called an ignorant willing stooge.

                   I certainly hope you aspire to not being that and guarding the fragile democracy we have remaining…

                   Please read this before carrying on implying I am some sort of closet Totalitarian . As I have said before , I am a moderate nationalist and for good reason as well. As you shall see when you read the contents of this link.

                   New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
                   http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
                   • red-blooded …

                     29 April 2017 at 6:25 pm

                     Really? You link is from the 1990’s. It says the only opposition to the New Right are in The Alliance! Now, as it happens, I used to vote Alliance, but I realise that our political landscape has shifted quite a bit since their time. No mention of the Greens, or Mana, and frankly the ideas about Labour are decades out of date.

                     Also, please note I’m not implying that you’re a closest totalitarian because of your opposition to neo-liberalism: I’m openly stating that you’re espousing totalitarian ideas because you want to punish Thought Criminals and to make retrospective laws to lock people up for doing things that were legal and that were democratically endorsed.

                     Shipley, Douglas etc were certainly ideologues and you and I agree that they did real damage to NZ’s social fabric. They were not totalitarians, though. They may have believed that There Is No Alternative, and they certainly argued this line and tried to get us all to swallow it, but they were democratically elected and they accepted it when they were democratically replaced.

                     I’m calling time on this discussion. If you want the last word, go for it. Just remember, I’m not endorsing anything that Shipley did – I can’t stand the woman and I think her beliefs are awful. I would judge her even more harshly if she had tried to punish people who disagreed with her political philosophy or had made laws to punish people retrospectively, though. After all, if you think it’s OK for one side of the political spectrum to do this, then surely you couldn’t object if the other side were to do the same thing?
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 7:04 pm

                     Are you quite foolish ?

                     And do you not realize the Mont Pelerin Society still exists and is every bit as relevant now as it was then?

                     Do you have a mental block when confronted with obvious facts and motivations of groups- yet only when it suits your diatribe?

                     ” Thought Criminals ”

                     Interesting term you use . Again. Do you endorse Mont Pelerin thinking? Do you feel comfortable with the type of people who make that organisation up? Do you support Hyecks economic theory’s and his lackey Milton Freideman?

                     I find your term ‘ Thought Criminals ‘ interesting. Where does that stop for you?

                     Are you saying NAZISM is something we should tolerate?

                     I’m sure if you read the article provided you would see supporters of NAZISM in the Mont Pelerin Society in the link I provided. But you’re quite happy with that.

                     Aren’t you.

                     Are you quite happy in being in denial of the existence of this group , their philosophies and their ideology’s that inherently lead to servitude and dominance , both economically and socially?

                     And in that scenario justifying letting their agents spread their perniciousness to the point of subverting our democracy unchecked?

                     You are happy to do that?
                     ……………………………………………………………..

                     ”They were not totalitarians, though. ”

                     ………………………………………………………………

                     Really ?

                     Have you truly read and understood the article I provided?

                     And just because it isn’t of a modern context doesn’t mean it isn’t still 100% relevant to the motivations that led to Richardson and Douglas and Shipley doing what they did to the people of this country . Do you not understand who Hyek was and his underlying social philosophies ???

                     And that these ‘ new right ‘ stooges of the 1980’s were nothing more than the little glove puppets of a true totalitarian think tank?

                     You can call time.

                     But there is a point where deceit and guile and viscous agendas needs to be opposed.

                     And I am sure those victims of Nazism would feel the same today if they had a voice.

                     Always remember that.
                 • Anne …

                   29 April 2017 at 7:08 pm

                   @ red-blooded
                   Agree with everything you have said between 3:21pm and 6:25pm.

                   Some people need to “dial back” their acrimony.
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 7:28 pm

                     Just tell that to the victims of family’s who have had suicides as a result of the Douglas reforms… and while your at it – grab a history lesson and at least try and understand who’s been playing you like a violin for the last 3 decades and just WHY they have been doing it.

                     Your at war whether you like it or not and being soft on your enemy and apologizing for their viciousness isn’t going to put a stop to them.

                     They’ll love you for being such gullible fools.

                     Your their best ally’s that they could ever hope for.

                     Wise up.
                   • keepcalmcarryon …

                     29 April 2017 at 8:15 pm

                     Its just anger thats all.
                     Lets call it a draw and settle for revoking the Damehood.
                     Hell I’d pay to throw a few rotten veges at her in the stocks, but I doubt the Chinese would allow that to happen to their business investment.
                     We can only dream.
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 8:33 pm

                     You dont dream , … you learn up on the scum suckers who have been perverting your once great Social Democracy and you learn what it is to hate those bastards who have caused so much ongoing pain for your people and you make the conscious decision to stomp all over their fucking heads .

                     You are whether you like it or not involved in an ideological war with these ruthless bastards and the sooner you realize they don’t give a living breathing flying shit about you and your family’s and what happens to them is the moment you will start to grab some backbone and stop being such a bunch of weak kneed apologistic cowards.

                     Most of you seem to need to have spent some time among cultures who know what its been to oppose ruthless fuckers.

                     All I’ m seeing is a bunch of groaners content to fill these forums with their lame ineffectual bemoaning’s of how bad the world has gotten around them.

                     You have no fire.

                     You have no backbones.

                     You have no knowledge of history and the utilization of its principles.

                     You are weak , cynically minded easily led , cannon fodder for any manipulators who chose to use you.

                     And yet you sneer at the naivety of those who went to fight for ‘King and country’.

                     You are no better than they are.

                     Pathetic.
                   • Anne …

                     29 April 2017 at 9:06 pm

                     Are you talking to me WK @ 8:33pm?

                     Good grief. And I only said that I agree with red-blooded. 😯
                   • keepcalmcarryon …

                     29 April 2017 at 9:06 pm

                     Undoubtedly some truth in there Wild Katipo but I doubt this forum is where the revolution will start!
                     There is some humour and some political smarts here. Its not all bad.
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 9:19 pm

                     @ keepcalmcarryon

                     I like your wry humour

                     🙂

                     I had to smile at that.

                     However.

                     I believe in a militancy that is decidedly lacking in both ‘ Leftists’ and those who frequent these and other such like forums. We are a passive people and we pride ourselves on that. But it has a downside. We are easy suckers for those with corrupt and evil intent.

                     Such a fate should not befall a good people like the New Zealanders. And I would say it is a direct result of never , ever having to be exposed to the same sort of threat of war or depredation that either Europe or Asia has had to endure.

                     And because of that fact , we are easy prey to the likes of global manipulators such as Shipley , Douglas , Key and groups like the Mont Pelerin Society… thusly it would do us well to be schooled up well on just who those people are and the organisations that are planning against us.

                     3 decades of neo liberalism would , … one would think ,… at least motivate us to become vigilant.

                     And sadly , for far too may, due to the timeframe , that being 3 decades… whereby ,… whole new generations who are totally unawares of their own recent political history ,… are easily picked off by these predators ,… we have become lax and let our guard entirely down.

                     I hope to see a militancy in the coming September election.

                     Whereby people have a passion about their country and their children and their futures.

                     We owe it to the future generations.
                   • WILD KATIPO …

                     29 April 2017 at 10:06 pm

                     @ Anne

                     Redblooded is a neo liberal apologist.

                     He skirted all around the data provided and simply gave lightweight modern analogy’s to justify his position. If he had bothered to read , – and furthermore , – adsorb the material provided and see how it directly relates to the last 3 decades of NZ politics , he would have learnt something.

                     He is not interested in learning.

                     Just in bolstering up his arguments. And divulging into accusations and name calling. Water off a ducks back to me , however.

                     He has not yet been able to refute the historical evidence so far.

                     And that’s the great sticking point for the neo liberal apologist. They have no answers when the historical truth is applied .They are laid bare. Just as followers of Thatcher-ism are. And then they are made to feel foolish .

                     I have no mercy on them whatsoever.

                     For in their support of neo liberalism they have participated in the sufferings of thousands. I like to see them squirm.

                     So the call for those on the genuine Left is to cast off all pretensions. Root out all those who have a foot in both camps. Get rid of them as excess baggage.Get rid of them as those that would only seek to muddy the waters.

                     You are in an ideological war and this is no game.
             • KJT …

               29 April 2017 at 8:20 pm

               Criminal conspiracy to steal public assets was against the law back then, also.
               AND. What about “Personal responsibility”. The mantra of the right wing?
             • KJT …

               29 April 2017 at 8:22 pm

               We did that at Nuremberg.
               Remember. Everything the Stalinists, and Nazis did was legal.
               • WILD KATIPO …

                 29 April 2017 at 9:04 pm

                 And yet from Nuremberg we gained a greater sense of need for a body such as the United Nations. Unfortunately , it seems to have degenerated back into the same sort of impotence as the League of Nations did during the 1930’s during the late 1960’s and beyond because of the World Bank and IMF …

                 Again , primarily as a result of the interference of global banking and international treaties and the like which means corrupt govt’s have a standing in the U N that goes unchallenged.

                 Not so very different from the situation prior to WW1 that caused the deaths of millions barring the presence of Monarchy’s ruling Europe.
6. millsy 6

   28 April 2017 at 2:15 pm

   The biggest destroyer of living standards in the history of New Zealand.
7. roy cartland 7

   28 April 2017 at 2:31 pm

   That was the most painful of the series yet. Totally unapologetic. Completely solopsistic and self-entitled. A white farmer complaining about people getting too much welfare. But no mention of corporate welfare which she proudly championed.

   We should not allow such egotist wreckers anywhere near power.

   Ethnic, gender, sexual preference inequality is an abomination. Economic inequality is fine.
   • WILD KATIPO 7.1

     29 April 2017 at 3:07 pm

     ”We should not allow such egotist wreckers anywhere near power.”

     …………………………………………………………………..

     In a nutshell.

     I would like to see a future cross party work done on drawing up the criteria and characteristics of neo liberalism and make it an outlawed ideology – similar as Nazism is in many country’s today – to prevent these sorts of dangerous wreckers from ever being able to gain a political foothold like they did during the 1980’s and 1990’s.
     • WILD KATIPO 7.1.1

       29 April 2017 at 8:01 pm

       And here’s a wee extract from this site ;

       New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
       http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html

       The New Right Take Charge
       The Mont Pelerin Society, through MPS member Alan gibbs and through its assets in Treasury led by MPS member Roger Kerr, had cultivated during the early 1980s a group of up-and-coming young Labour politicians, particularly those around Roger Douglas in the Prince Street, Auckland branch of the Labour Party.
       Douglas and his associates represented a radical break with the working class Labour stalwarts who had built the New Zealand economy from the 1890s on, both through their own physical toil and through their political leadership. Douglas, a vitamin pill salesman, was typical of the new, “service sector”-orientated Labour Party. Like the rest of their generation then emerging to political influence the world, this crowd was hostile to reality-to the agricultural and industrial production upon which New Zealand’s living standards and egalitarian outlook had depended.
       Once in power, they set out to rip it apart.
       A key point of the free-market cabal’s programme was to devalue the New Zealand dollar, an extremely sensitive issue. Several weeks before the July, 1984 election, Douglas, Labour’s shadow finance minister, “accidentally” released a statement which signaled his intent to devalue. Since it was a near certainty that labour, aided by the New Zealand Party’s drawing votes from the Nationals, would win, speculators began to dump the New Zealand dollar, planning, post-devaluation, to cash in each dollar of foreign currency for more New Zealand dollars than previously.
       With Labour’s victory, the simmering foreign exchange crisis exploded. The Reserve Bank’s foreign Exchange holdings quickly ran dry, and Labour demanded, even before the end of the several-week transition period, that Muldoon devalue. After a brief struggle, Muldoon capitulated, and devalued by 20%.
       Speculators made tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars overnight.
       But now, in a pattern which was to repeat itself in later elections, the hard-core free-marketeers led by Douglas demanded, in order to deal with the “crisis” which they themselves had created, that Treasury’s entire Economic Management plan be implemented. This, it should be noted, was not the programme of the Labour Party, and therefore not the programme that New Zealanders had voted for, but that of the Mont Pelerin cabal, which Douglas et. al. had purposely kept from the electorate. Asked why the deceit, Labour Prime Minister David Lange told SBS TV’s dateline programme in 1987, “I guess Roger felt it was worth implementing”-acknowledging that Labours base would never have endorsed such a monstrosity.
       Under cover of “crisis,” the cabal moved with such stunning speed, that no one could stop them. As Douglas himself specified his method of ramming through extremely unpopular “reforms” in his book Unfinished business: “Do not try to advance a step at a time. Define your objectives clearly and move towards them in quantum leaps. Otherwise the interest groups will have time to mobilize and drag you down.”

       The New Right Take Charge
       The Mont Pelerin Society, through MPS member Alan gibbs and through its assets in Treasury led by MPS member Roger Kerr, had cultivated during the early 1980s a group of up-and-coming young Labour politicians, particularly those around Roger Douglas in the Prince Street, Auckland branch of the Labour Party.
       Douglas and his associates represented a radical break with the working class Labour stalwarts who had built the New Zealand economy from the 1890s on, both through their own physical toil and through their political leadership. Douglas, a vitamin pill salesman, was typical of the new, “service sector”-orientated Labour Party. Like the rest of their generation then emerging to political influence the world, this crowd was hostile to reality-to the agricultural and industrial production upon which New Zealand’s living standards and egalitarian outlook had depended.
       Once in power, they set out to rip it apart.
       A key point of the free-market cabal’s programme was to devalue the New Zealand dollar, an extremely sensitive issue. Several weeks before the July, 1984 election, Douglas, Labour’s shadow finance minister, “accidentally” released a statement which signaled his intent to devalue. Since it was a near certainty that labour, aided by the New Zealand Party’s drawing votes from the Nationals, would win, speculators began to dump the New Zealand dollar, planning, post-devaluation, to cash in each dollar of foreign currency for more New Zealand dollars than previously.
       With Labour’s victory, the simmering foreign exchange crisis exploded. The Reserve Bank’s foreign Exchange holdings quickly ran dry, and Labour demanded, even before the end of the several-week transition period, that Muldoon devalue. After a brief struggle, Muldoon capitulated, and devalued by 20%.
       Speculators made tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars overnight.
       that Treasury’s entire Economic Management plan be implemented. This, it should be noted, was not the programme of the Labour Party, and therefore not the programme that New Zealanders had voted for, but that of the Mont Pelerin cabal, which Douglas et. al. had purposely kept from the electorate. Asked why the deceit, Labour Prime Minister David Lange told SBS TV’s dateline programme in 1987, “I guess Roger felt it was worth implementing”-acknowledging that Labours base would never have endorsed such a monstrosity.
       Under cover of “crisis,” the cabal moved with such stunning speed, that no one could stop them. As Douglas himself specified his method of ramming through extremely unpopular “reforms” in his book Unfinished business: “Do not try to advance a step at a time. Define your objectives clearly and move towards them in quantum leaps. Otherwise the interest groups will have time to mobilize and drag you down.”

       ………………………………………………………..

       Do you even understand this?

       And how it has modern ramifications even today of techniques used at a much earlier time?

       Lets highlight it and walk you through it once again , shall we ? :

       ………………………………………………

       ” But now, in a pattern which was to repeat itself in later elections, the hard-core free-marketeers led by Douglas demanded, in order to deal with the “crisis” which they themselves had created, ”

       ……………………………………………..

       How many of you people are aware that that was EXACTLY what Baron Von Rothschild did during the Napoleonic wars during the battle of Waterloo?!!?

       And do you know what Rothschild did to gain his Monarchical title?

       Well , – hell’s bells ! ,… all he did was spread rumors on the British stock exchange that the the armies opposing Napoleon had lost .

       And do you know what he did then?

       All those shares in invested in Europe’s armies and all the landholdings etc plummeted- and Rothschild bought em all up. So much so , – he was given a fucking title by the English royalty .

       And why ??!!??

       Because he now could hold the English Monarchy to ransom and dictate terms of lending to that Monarchy for the support of its armies in South Africa guarding its diamond and gold mines and places like India – aka the East India Trading Company.

       Its time half you wannabe lefties got an education and stopped being so incredibly naive and got a bloody education.

       Do some bloody history lessons and stop being so bloody simplistic.
8. Mrs Brillo 8

   28 April 2017 at 2:46 pm

   She can’t opt out of subsidised health care? Now there’s a coincidence.

   Anyone who has been told the bar has now been raised and they don’t qualify even to go on a waiting list for surgery can’t opt INTO the public health system.

   However, cross their palms with silver – big, steaming heaps of silver – and the same surgeon performing the same op can magically do it next week in the private hospital system.

   I’m surprised a woman of Shipley’s acuity hasn’t heard of this wonderful wheeze.
9. AB 9

   28 April 2017 at 3:09 pm

   Shipley wants to erode the meagre assets of the NZ middle class so the wealthy (including herself) can continue to enjoy low taxes. When middle class New Zealanders use up their savings and downsize their houses to pay for medical bills and the like, that lost wealth will go into the hands of the 1% of whom Shipley is a member.

   Universality of the benefits of citizenship (e.g. free education and healthcare, a clean environment) accompanied by a properly progressive income tax is both the most efficient and most just way of sharing the wealth that is jointly created by the whole of the community.

   Listening to Shipley was a painful reminder of why she was so hated. To hear someone imbue the greed and selfishness of the rich with some higher moral purpose is puke-making. They are coming after the middle class now.
   • Sanctuary 9.1

     28 April 2017 at 8:57 pm

     “…Listening to Shipley was a painful reminder of why she was so hated. To hear someone imbue the greed and selfishness of the rich with some higher moral purpose is puke-making. They are coming after the middle class now….”

     OHHHHHHHH!!!!!! NAILED IT!!!! Just had to re-post, QFT and all that.
   • WILD KATIPO 9.2

     29 April 2017 at 2:31 pm

     Shipley was – and still is , – a despicable treacherous ideologue that was a key player in the theft of this country’s general wealth.
10. Tautoko Mangō Mata 10

    28 April 2017 at 3:34 pm

    For those with me who need some therapy after listening to JS, here is some humour about another of the same ilk.
    
    • WILD KATIPO 10.1

      29 April 2017 at 3:20 pm

      L0L !

      That guy is pure brilliance..

      ” The one thing you can say about Thatcher was her hair was always perfectly manicured ,… beautifully sculptured like Mr Whippy , which ironically , she invented ”

      Hes like John Oliver but far more aggressive and scathing.

      Hes good.

      Too bad he doesn’t do a session on Shipley.
11. Peroxide Blonde 11

    28 April 2017 at 3:36 pm

    Shipley was the worse PM (unelected) since Massey.

    Shipley is not actually philosophically right or or center or anything. Shipley puts on a face to impress the faces she meets. Then she deliberately lowers her voice to create effect.
    She is a grubby self serving waste of flesh. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggg

    I joined Labour because of Shipley.
    • marty mars 11.1

      28 April 2017 at 4:58 pm

      Shipley has the scariest voice of all of them and that’s not by chance.
      • In Vino 11.1.1

        28 April 2017 at 9:36 pm

        Agree, PB. I was PPTA Chair at a school where she came to plant a celebratory tree. We were introduced: she clicked after a while that I as a union man was not likely to agree with what she was spouting. There was this incredible moment where she became a walking cassette player. She stopped, eyes went blank, she clicked into rewind, went way back and started spouting standard National guff.
        I had nothing to say to her that would not have landed me in court.
      • WILD KATIPO 11.1.2

        29 April 2017 at 2:34 pm

        If you think the voices of viscous overbearing oafs are something to be scared of. To me its just a red rag to a bull.
    • DS 11.2

      28 April 2017 at 10:58 pm

      She was better than Sid Holland. But that’s not saying much.

      She is certainly our worst living former Prime Minister.

      (I don’t push the unelected thing on her, since our system does not elect Prime Ministers directly. She’s just as legitimately a PM as, say, Bill Rowling).
      • WILD KATIPO 11.2.1

        29 April 2017 at 2:44 pm

        ” (I don’t push the unelected thing on her, since our system does not elect Prime Ministers directly. She’s just as legitimately a PM as, say, Bill Rowling).”

        ………………………………………………………..

        Possibly.

        But the back handed way she went about it in waiting for Bolger to be out of the country like some sort viscous snake coupled with her arrogance and colossal sense of her own self importance in thinking she had every right to do as she damn well pleased and to hell with the wishes of either the NZ public or the National party caucus – DESPITE whether she believed she had the numbers or not.

        But it was poetic justice to the great gloating oaf that within a year she was hated by so many of the public and didn’t even serve more than one highly unpopular term.
12. rob 12

    28 April 2017 at 4:55 pm

    I can only remember her as a vile piece of work.
13. adam 13

    28 April 2017 at 5:32 pm

    When she was PM, I was living in WA.

    I was part of a group trying to get Independence for East Timor, so when President B. J. Habibie turned up, we went to protest. He had a hand full of security guards, and to his credit spoke to us for about 5 minutes about the up coming reforms in Indonesia. He gave the impression East Timor independence was on the table. History proved him a man of his word.

    A few week later Jenny Shipley turned up, I rocked up because family had said how bad she was, and wanted to how she would do in talking to the press on the parliamentary steps. One thing I always like about WA politics. She had dozens of security around, and huge police escort waiting. There were no protesters by the way. If I remember correctly she did not even make the news, she waffled.

    Always thought that summed her up. Paranoid, waffler, into her own privileged existence.
14. Sir David Henry 14

    28 April 2017 at 6:06 pm

    A wanna be Thatcher without any class.
    Where the “revolution” tries to go when it’s run out of steam……
15. Tautoko Mangō Mata 15

    28 April 2017 at 6:51 pm

    But Dame Jenny said the middle class has assets and they should be using those first before they put their hand in the pocket of someone else, such as the state.
    She said it was not an ideology, but social fairness.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/329667/welfare-state-'never-designed-for-the-middle-class'-shipley

    The Parliamentary Service’s 2015/16 annual report has revealed the latest figures for claims on international and domestic travel as part of a discontinued perk…….
    …..former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley and her husband Burton spent $20,908 on their travels.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/85732952/former-mps-and-spouses-spend-over-700k-on-taxpayerfunded-travel

    Since Jenny Shipley feels sick when she gets subsidised for a doctor’s visit, then she must have been feeling very poorly on her travels suffering from such a bad case of hypocrisy.
    • gsays 15.1

      29 April 2017 at 9:04 am

      Hi tmm,
      Meanwhile in the news, parents with a son with autism needing full time care, get $46 a week support. Roughly $2,400 annually.

      For shipleys travel allowance alone, this family could get $380 a week help.

      Our welfare state has become perverse and offensive.
      • WILD KATIPO 15.1.1

        29 April 2017 at 2:50 pm

        And to look on the photo of Shipley and her colleagues is to look on the very ones who created our current and past conditions of poverty.

        She needs to be dragged before the courts.
16. RedBaronCV 16

    28 April 2017 at 8:14 pm

    JIm Bolger at least had attempted to keep up with society today and the effect of the policies from his government.
    Jenny sounds like she’s talking about planet yesterday – middle class – what middle class they barely exist anymore.
    Hasn’t she read any statistics or anything since she was put on the welfare benefit for life??
17. Sanctuary 17

    28 April 2017 at 8:54 pm

    When it comes to lecturing anyone unfortunate to be within range about “leadership” Jenny Shipley has few peers. She couldn’t stop fucking talking about it back in the 1990s either.

    In my experience, the people who talk about leadership most are one who are the least qualified to actually exercise it – when Clark toasted her it was a blessed relief to shut that old Tory windbag up and have a PM who could lead, rather than just talk about it.

    Shipley is a complete sociopath. A dangerous, unreconstructed new-right fanatic whose narcissism admits no doubt. She is also a Quisling, nowadays totally owned by the Chinese who she sees as the next gravy train for self-styled elites like her.

    A truly awful person, who was never elected PM for good reason.

    Oh, and it worth remembering that that snake in the grass Asshole David Farrar was in the PMs office under Shipley, where I am sure he lapped up her brand of hard line Randian fanaticism.
    • AB 17.1

      29 April 2017 at 11:22 am

      “In my experience, the people who talk about leadership most are one who are the least qualified to actually exercise it ”
      Or to take this even further – as John Ralston Saul says – isn’t an obsession with leadership an odd concern for a supposedly democratic people to have?
      In my former life I sat through so many workshops on ‘leadership’ that I began to despise the whole concept – or at least came to believe that the language around leadership had become so debased that it was impossible to say anything meaningful about it, and the best thing we could do was just shut up about it for a decade or two. And after that it might be possible to talk about it again.
      • KJT 17.1.1

        29 April 2017 at 8:29 pm

        Thought they were supposed to be “representatives”.
        Maybe that explains why our “Democracy” went wrong.
        When politicians think of themselves as “leaders” or even worse, “managers”!
18. Nic the NZer 18

    28 April 2017 at 9:27 pm

    It appears Shipley’s entire political career is premised on an economic fallacy.

    “A variant of the false analogy is the declaration that national debt puts an unfair burden on our children, who are thereby made to pay for our extravagances. Very few economists need to be reminded that if our children or grandchildren repay some of the national debt these payments will be made to our children or grandchildren and to nobody else. Taking them altogether they will no more be impoverished by making the repayments than they will be enriched by receiving them.” (Abba Lerner 1948).
    • Nic the NZer 18.1

      28 April 2017 at 9:35 pm

      Bolger doesn’t get any slack here, he (via Richardson) probably caused a large part of the major recession following 1987 and he was completely un-apologetic and un-repentant about it. He plainly didn’t understand how to deal with a recession (which is exacerbated and prolonged, not improved, by ‘sharing the pain’).
19. keepcalmcarryon 19

    28 April 2017 at 10:37 pm

    Im still feeling a bit sick after enduring that.
    On a cheerier note, the comment section on the stuff version:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/91990768/the-9th-floor-jenny-shipley-new-zealands-first-woman-prime-minister
    will warm the cockles of your heart. The woman is despised.
    Its really not a bad thing the public are reminded of what the Nats really stand for, Especially in election year.
    Hopefully RNZ will have a reflective piece on Aaron Gilmore when they’ve finished the PM thing.
    • WILD KATIPO 19.1

      29 April 2017 at 2:56 pm

      I would like to see an interview of Jason Ede conducted by RNZ.
20. Marcus Morris 20

    28 April 2017 at 10:37 pm

    A much loved (and late) relative of mine once said that Maggie Thatcher had “the voice of a perfumed fart”. I think that could well do for Dame Jenny as well.
    • red-blooded 20.1

      29 April 2017 at 3:26 pm

      TBH, I always hated her voice too (ditto the whiney tone of Bolger). Having said that, women in leadership often get pushed to lower their voices, so that they don’t sound “girly”.
      • gnomic 20.1.1

        29 April 2017 at 11:01 pm

        La Blipley … her voice seems to me to be rather like that of the Donald. Mad ravings in a monotonic quite high pitched harangue. Wasn’t her father some sort of clergyman?

        Nothing to say but loves the sound of her own voice?

        http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/5836380/Jenny-Shipley-Leadership-is-a-life-sentence

        Yes dear, just what you would say. But what convinced you of your talent for leadership?

        From a largely flattering interview by one Rosemary McLeod …..

        ‘By now I’m remembering her ability to express herself in fluent sentences that seem to emerge fully punctuated from her lips. Once again I’m asking her to slow down, as I did when she was in politics, and once again she calmly repeats herself, word for word.

        Altogether the effect is strangely colourless – there are no frisky, facetious riffs, and no self-deprecating jokes. Maybe this effect is what’s meant by the term “statesmanlike”. Shipley tells me, in her measured language, that “I track megatrends at the global level”. I think I possibly know what this means.
    • Graeme 20.2

      29 April 2017 at 6:00 pm

      She was once referred to as “perfumed steamroller”
21. dukeofurl 21

    29 April 2017 at 10:13 am

    Usually those who talk about ‘leadership’ ( as a noun), dont have any ability in that area.
    real leaders talk about what they want to achieve and inspiring others, or listening to the public and putting their hopes into action.

    Leadership for Shipley is about her deciding what is right and everyone else following orders.
    Not at all related to Trust, Integrity, Compassion.
    • greywarshark 21.1

      29 April 2017 at 11:11 am

      Leadership when a RW talks about it, and looking behind the words to the speaker and their apparent intent, seems to mean to facilitate new ways of doing profitable business, getting more opportunities to do so, driving the country in a way that enables them specifically. I’ve heard mostly business comment and complaint about needing leadership, and I know it’s not to take us towards the Scandinavian approach to running a country.
    • greywarshark 21.2

      29 April 2017 at 11:15 am

      Leadership when a RW talks about it, and looking behind the words to the speaker and their apparent intent, seems to mean to facilitate new ways of doing profitable business, getting more opportunities to do so, driving the country in a way that enables them specifically. I’ve heard mostly business comment and complaint about needing leadership, and I know it’s not to take us towards the Scandinavian approach to running a country.

      Leadership for Shipley is about her deciding what is right and everyone else following orders.
      Not at all related to Trust, Integrity, Compassion.

      Actually Dukeofurl what you say echoes what I read recently from a journalist reporting on an interview with Margaret Thatcher.
22. BM 22

    29 April 2017 at 7:00 pm

    A terrible woman who came out of the same factory as Ruth Richardson, ideologues to the core with no regard for the people that got crushed.

    That’s one thing to be thankful about MMP, you’ll never get MPs like Shiply or Richardson again, those sort of people cannot survive in an MMP environment.
    • Nic the NZer 22.1

      29 April 2017 at 8:11 pm

      Didn’t her leadership coup happen to the first MMP government?
      • BM 22.1.1

        29 April 2017 at 8:33 pm

        First MMP election was 1996, she didn’t survive it.

        MMP doesn’t work for dictatorial FPP idealogues.
        • Nic the NZer 22.1.1.1

          29 April 2017 at 8:50 pm

          Shipley was the 36th Prime Minister of New Zealand from December 1997 to December 1999
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Shipley
23. peterlepaysan 23

    30 April 2017 at 10:42 pm

    One of the silliest things I have ever heard from Shipley (and her ilk) is that the so called “middle class” is not entitled to social welfare assistance.

    Without such assistance there would be no so called “middle class.

    All we have now is a very very very few people with a huge amount of money and a huge majority of overworked, stressed strugglers. Thank you jenny for your caring about us hoi polloi.

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