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?
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