Shane Jones: now pimping for Sealords

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 26 comments
Categories: labour, making shit up, parody, politicans, Satire, Shane Jones, the praiseworthy and the pitiful - Tags:

On Monday I was commenting:-

The caucus still isn’t performing anywhere near up to standard, but with the exception of Shearer himself (the house-painter stupidity) the rest of caucus haven’t screwed up in the dumbarse way that I have become almost accustomed to for the last 6 months. It makes for a nice change and must count as a record for recent times.

You can tell how good it has been getting when you see that Whaleoil wasted the last few months roasting and eating his class enemies from inside the National caucus – notably the otherwise unnotable Kate Wilkinson. My guess for his fit of cannibalism was because the alternative would be to eat his own hand trying to stop himself speaking out about the incredible series of gaffes and screwups this government has been providing news media and bloggers with.

So naturally on Wednesday we have Shane Jones objecting to this spoof of a Sealord ad by Greenpeace.

Now I saw this ad last week, and I was going to write a post on the questions it raised. But the continuing stream of stories from the GCSB/DotCom/Planet Key were of more interest and raised questions about governance that were in my view more important in the short term. So it got deferred for a more appropiate and quieter time.

But now Shane Jones is trying to shift the debate from the illegal spying of the GCSB and their dubious and lazy civilian oversight by John Key, not to mention the cozy wee inquiries into them by vested interests, so I guess we’d better follow.

After all presumably he didn’t merely blow off because his ex-employer and current political donor asked him? Presumably he got approval from the shadow cabinet and Labour caucus to make the statement since he was making a statement on areas covered by someone else’s portfolio? It must be completely obvious to all of the people involved around politics exactly why this is far far more important a topic for Labour to be pursuing right now than the continuing disintergration of the Key government.

Greenpeace state in their blog about this video

In one video they say “Sealord tuna comes from stocks where the fish numbers are healthy”. But yellowfin tuna has all but disappeared from New Zealand waters, and our own Government has been sounding the alarm internationally about declining commercial and recreational catches. What’s more, Sealord’s tuna is caught using one of the worst tuna fishing methods – a deadly combo of fish aggregating device (FAD) and giant purse seine net which catches and kills endangered sharks, turtles, juvenile tuna and lots of other ocean life, and threatens tuna stocks.

That is not a conservative approach, it is not taking sustainability seriously and it will not leave our oceans in a better condition than they are now. Many of the species caught as bycatch around FADs are in serious decline.

So Greenpeace are asserting that there is overfishing going on, that the populations of yellowfin tuna are decreasing, and that sealord are buying from sources using seine nets with the significiant bycatch issues. Certainly it isn’t hard to find support for that view from everyone from game fisherman to organisations the FAO.

But lets see how our self-appointed spokesman from Labour deals with these issues.

Their concerns are about some obscure ecosystem …

That is it. The rest of his reported statement is essentially a rant that would look good if he were the owner of Sealords, concerned mostly with the loss of short-term profits, and full of a faux concern about jobs. For if Greenpeace are right about the over fishing and the unsustainability of the fishery, then there are no long-term jobs and no long-term profits. Jones makes a big thing about Sealord being mostly owned by Maori. Who bloody cares? Not Greenpeace, not me as a consumer, in fact no-one apart from  Shane Jones raising it. What we are interested in is the fish and how they are caught.

In fact it is a rather large ecosystem that Greenpeace have been prodding about for quite some time.

Greenpeace New Zealand has fought a long battle against Sealord for obtaining tuna from fishing companies which used fish aggregation devices and purse seine nets in the Western Pacific.

Sealord said these fishermen used aggregators at limited times because the technology increased efficiency.

Now presumably the Labour caucus is disciplined, coherent and focused on the task at hand which is how to win the 2014 election. They wouldn’t allow a single backbench MP who is currently not even in the shadow cabinet to shift their focus. So why exactly have the Labour caucus decided to raise this important topic at this time?

/sarcasm off

Could someone inside Labour please tell this idiot to stop looking at his future job prospects outside of the caucus and to do his damn job without making it harder for everyone else on the left. He already has been involved in one issue this year and is currently stood down from the shadow cabinet while the Auditor General looks at the Yan immigration.

The issue that Greenpeace raised was in my view completely legitimate and Shane Jones did absolutely nothing to address anything raised in the video because he appears to not understand the issue.

Having Shane Jones prancing around making a complete fucking wanker of himself might be a good distraction for the beleagured National. But could the Labour party please please put someone up who has actually taken the time to look at the problem from beyond a balance sheet. If you cannot, then perhaps you should cede the portfolio to the Greens?

26 comments on “Shane Jones: now pimping for Sealords ”

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  1. Antonina 1
    3 October 2012 at 11:44 am

    Thanks for this – adds to the comments seen last night on the TV doco on how NZ/Sanfords/MAF – seem to agree on fishing in the Ross Sea.
    NZ fishing industry needs seriously addressing sustainability issues.

  2. toad 2
    3 October 2012 at 11:44 am

    A particularly bad look, given that Jones received a $10K donation from Sealords at the last election. Shades of JohnDotBanks.

    • lprent 2.1
      3 October 2012 at 11:59 am

      Yeah the post was getting too long already to start bringing in too much of what was already in the Herald link.

      I chose to concentrate instead on that the Labour caucus had managed to not control one of their own – yet again, and that the self-appointed spokesman for them didn’t appear to even have a opinion founded in fact on the actual issue raised.

      It is nice for greenpeace in raising awareness.

      • marty mars 2.1.1
        3 October 2012 at 2:23 pm

        Good post. I wonder if dotcom donated to jones.

        The video is great and IMO jones must have got some prodding to have a go at it – it beggars belief that he has distracted from key and his misery – I wonder why he did that – must have been a sharp stick that prodded him.

  3. prism 3
    3 October 2012 at 12:43 pm

    Shame Jones I rename you. And those loose attacks and crudeness. I thought there was more to this guy.

    Sealord have done well for many years, they don’t need to be nursed. And the stocks have been depleted. Years ago I helped one of my sons with an item on Tuna fishing and looked up the information at Nelson Polytechnic library giving graphs and tables. Stocks had declined sharply then.

    The information is available to Sealord. They can’t hide behind a seawall made of quota, the fish have to be able to breed and grow up to be caught. Having a quota doesn’t guarantee that or give them a right to continue till they’ve caught their limit if in doing so they are catching the last of the stock.

  4. NickS 4
    3 October 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Obscure ecosystem?

    Hmmn, anyone want to help me cluebat Shane Jones in person? I might not be a specialist in marine ecosystems, but by the elder things I know enough to fill his empty head with sweet, searing words of just how utterly ignorant he is 😈

  5. captain hook 5
    3 October 2012 at 2:01 pm

    hey dont sweat it LP.
    everyone pimps for sealord.
    they want free fish.

  6. BLiP 6
    3 October 2012 at 2:13 pm

    .

    Oh, Shane, get back to your “BBW Lovin’ BBC”. It was less embarrassing for you and didn’t feed into the Joyce divide-and-rule blame game on mining. I’m going to ignore this brain fart of yours on the assumption that the MSM has taken you out of context so as to provide National Ltd™ with a distraction. Strike One, dude.

    • BLiP 6.1
      3 October 2012 at 2:28 pm

      .

      Actually, make that Strike Two.

      • lprent 6.1.1
        3 October 2012 at 3:42 pm

        Actually strike 3 in terms of unwanted distractions. Credit card usage in 2010, Yan earlier this year which got a reasonable amount of traction, and then this wee outburst.

        But any politician worth anything should be aware that they need to watch their tongue around reporters. I’m afraid that the three john’s defense (key, banks, & tamihere) is simply a sign of political incontinence in my opinion.

        • David H 6.1.1.1
          3 October 2012 at 6:19 pm

          Yep it should be 3 strikes, and your out!

          • felix 6.1.1.1.1
            3 October 2012 at 7:30 pm

            Jones should’ve been out a long time ago.

            Can anyone recall him doing anything in politics? Apart from wanking himself off in parliament, metaphorically speaking.

  7. ad 7
    3 October 2012 at 3:46 pm

    With a reshuffle focussing the mind, Tamihere back on the horizon angling for Te Tai Tokerau, together with a nasty immigration report hanging over his head, Shane had to make serious play.

    If he wanted a better and more pointed frame of reference, he could go and support that Salmon aquaculture application in the Marlborough Sounds. At least that has commercial iwi Trust backing.

    That would bring to a point the fish farming and economic development vs environmental debate, for Maori, to a head.

    Jones chose the wrong target.

    And sorry to say, the wrong party. His strong commercial and boardroom experience fits within National pretty well, not Labour. Jump, Shane, jump!

  8. the sprout 8
    3 October 2012 at 4:11 pm

    Labour back to attacking its own natural allies. You have to admire the relentless stupidity, its really quite matchless. Perhaps its finally starting to dawn on labour MPs that they are set to lose a lot of votes to the greens?

    It does at least make the question of whether or not to let jones go a bit easier to answer. What a plonker.

  9. Bill 9
    3 October 2012 at 4:41 pm

    Tuna…migration….fukushima daiichi…radioactive contamination.

    And tuna being off towards the top of the foodchain and therefore concentrating radioactive particulates….are people still eating tuna? Seeing as how it would seem so…are catches being monitored in any way? Are any areas of the Pacific ‘off bounds’? And is tuna for sale in NZ being measured for radioactive contamination (including particulates)?

    If not, shouldn’t Jones and the rest of Labour be asking – “Why not?”

  10. Snadfly 10
    3 October 2012 at 5:35 pm

    Give him a video and spend him back to his room!

  11. Jenny 11
    3 October 2012 at 6:24 pm

    Before he had his sharp, very public, lesson in human failing. Shane Jones used to be Labour’s right wing attack dog.

    I had hoped that a bit of self knowledge would have given him some humility, but unfortunately no, instead it seems that he is reverting to his old ways.

    True to form he is attacking anyone to the left of him. Whereas it used to be the Maori Party when Hone Harawira was a member of it. It is now Greenpeace and by association the Green Party.

    Particularly nasty is his playing of the race card, abusing Greenpeace for attacking a “Maori” owned fishery.

    Where was Shane Jones voice when Talleys was launching a vicious attack on their mostly Maori workforce in his own electorate?

    Give it up Shane. The ascendent conservative wing of Labour are eying up John Tamihere for the roll of right wing attack dog.

  12. QoT 12
    3 October 2012 at 6:46 pm

    I humbly await the avalanche of comments and blog posts (anyone know if Stuart Nash is busy this evening?) whinging that Jones is just distracting us from the issues that really matter.

  13. Jokerman 13
    3 October 2012 at 7:41 pm

    The whole herd of SWINE ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

    -Matthew 8: 32

  14. bbfloyd 14
    3 October 2012 at 7:47 pm

    Giving the portfolio to the greens sounds like a good idea……This is their area of expertise, after all….Sustainability, and balanced ecological methods of harvesting fish, etc….

    Jones sounds like he’s trying to get the sack….. It’s probably not a bad idea to give it to him…

    Once he re-adjusts to life away from his leadership ambitions, he will no doubt succeed with whatever he chooses to do….Much more so than he did with politics…..

    • Jenny 14.1
      4 October 2012 at 4:11 am

      Good comments bb. I had posited at the time the scandal broke, that Shame Jones on being so publicly humiliated should give up all ambitions of leadership and accept the Teddy Kennedy mantle and adjust to the life of a humble advisor and gracious bridge builder.

      Unfortunately he feels he can still carry on his arrogant bully boy past patterns of behaviour.

      About time he realised. That wave has passed.

      • Jenny 14.1.1
        4 October 2012 at 4:16 am

        Good grief. Talk about a Freudian slip. I sincerely did not mean to write Shame instead of Shane.

  15. tc 15
    3 October 2012 at 10:20 pm

    Jones was a mistake they should’ve cut loose already. The show where pollies work for a day I hear he showed he simply doesn’t give a F with his demenaour.

    He had to be forced to give up his lucrative board positons from memory and after Helen went he probably felt he’s got no future, and has done nothing to show he deserves one.

    He doesn’t belong in Parliament, doesn’t pull his weight and probably pines for his iwi and corporate junkets he misses so much, as Jenny’s points out he said nada about the appalling behaviour of talleys so as not to upset his fishing mates.

  16. George D 16
    4 October 2012 at 12:51 am

    I saw Shane Jones campaigning at the Mangere Markets last year, and had never seen a man in politics look so tired. We had a short chat, and I genuinely felt sorry for him.

    I still feel sorry for him. I think he’s a good man, and would be excellent in a position where he could cut loose and use his talents.

  17. Fortran 17
    4 October 2012 at 3:00 pm

    Well played Greenpeace.
    Shows Jones for the arse he is.

  18. Michael Nolan 18
    6 October 2012 at 1:25 pm

    I emailed Jones and Shearer the moment I read it and told them how pathetic and inappropriate I thought it was. At least Jones had the balls to reply I suppose