Has their ever been a more racist party than the Green party???
Can you imagine if National had a billboard of a overweight unemployed Maori from south Auckland who beats up his wife, and they had the headline “Vote for Me” Party Vote Labour”
Its unbelievable how one party can hate one race so much, as I said in my previous post, if national had of done this using a blanet sterotype of a Maori, there would be outrage.
So what the Greens are suggesting is that your average National supporter is a rich old white man and I’m guessing they are suggesting that this is a bad thing.
Why you guys are trying to get votes by using hate, I would never know.
Yep, its been mocked up as a joke, and the Greens will blast it out on their web page, saying “Its only a joke, its not a ad”
Kind of like what Faux News does, all the time, when they want to blast the democrats, they tell ya something is a joke, but they keep playing it and playing it.
When satire is good its great, like the brilliant Jon Stewart, but when its bad its more cringe worthy than working for David Brent.
I agree with Brett. The left should try running a campaign that doesn’t involve smear and scare tactics. At least kiwiblog doesn’t resort to these sorts of blatant hate posts.
This blog is a joke. The bloggers here actually think they’re going to convince everyone with their left national-hating spin. But anyone with any sort of intelligence can see through it.
The posters on the standard are just further ostracising themselves from any mainstream or common-held individuals by blogging posts such as the one above. But in a way, I should actually give the standard the thanks it deserves. Because of these hate posts and the constant complaining, indidviduals are put off the left much faster than Helen and Winston could ever do themselves.
I’m left wing in many ways. But The Standard honestly gives the left a bad name by running these vile and one-sided acttacks on anyone who does not agree with them and blocking anyone who dares to disagree with the comments they made.
Any party or company that uses children in their advertising (that isnt directly related to a child’s product) I would be very wary of.
[please don’t comment when you’re stoned. a) we use question marks to end questions ‘i would like to know’ is a statement of your desires, not a question b) no-one donates any money to this blog, no-one gets any money for writing on it. SP]
*You may be sick of some old white man thinking they own the place? Which is strange since we have a high percentage of woman in power?*
Sure we have some women in some key positions. But they’ve never had the kind of power as the old white boys. Of course women have always had their own kind of power, which is probably the one you are most afraid of.
*Some of us are sick of politicians on the left telling us how to think, what to eat and drink, and what to say, and are also sick of the blame game.*
That’s fine. Get political and get out there and do something about what you want changed then. Although I can’t recall the legislation that makes me eat or think in certain ways.
If you really want to get upset about billboards go here:
Is it green social policy to feature happy children on their billboards when they form a government that is responsible for the massive increase in child abuse and infanticide statistics? Bloody airy fairy sods are nothing more than useless hypocrites!
The Labour Party would be my first and only guess Brett.
Explains the large percentage of Union and Labour staff positing day to day on here. Try some transparency and openess posters of the standard (which you readily attack National over not having) and actually show your own agenda. Or your real names might be nice. Congratulations to those who are open enough to freely admit their own personal name and stand up for their own views without having to hide behind some log-in name.
It’s still offensive Steve to those individuals who fit under that particular stereotype. What would happen if a right-winger were to do the exact same parody with a low class maori beer-drinking worker in the picture and a title that said ‘party vote labour’.
I’m sure everyone would be up in arms screaming foul about how offensive that individual was being. It’s all a matter of perception.
The Green camapign looks awesome this time 10% of the vote is looking achievable
I was on a Greeen party stall yesterday and had unbelievably good feedback and visitors.
Only two people mentioned section 59 as a concern which was a surprise.
Labour who were next door had moderate interest and visitors whilst the National guy packed up and went home about ten o clock through lack of interest.
Uhm, I’m not stoned, and heres is a question, if anyone donated money to this blog would you except it?
[how could they donate money to the blog? it has no legal personality, no bank account. SP]
[lprent: Just at present the only person who donates money to the site is me (and I’m the only person or entity that ever has). That is likely to be the way that it stays. We don’t even have advertising. If the financial demands get too high, then I’d consider it. But I think we’d be more likely to just move to cheaper servers. It means that we can do things unencumbered by the need to consult anyone – including other writers on the site. ]
of course it is stereotypical, brett, that’s how satire works. But it’s clearly overblown – it mocks National voters as not ordinary Kiwis but part of a rich elite… but at the same time we all know that actual national voters don’t usually look like Rowley Birken QC (he’s a character on the fast show – the character is an over the top and hilarious play on the old drunk upper class toff)… it’s the fact that any sane person knows i’m not really saying all national voters are old drunks that makes it funny.. it wouldn’t be funny if it were hateful but it’s clearly not.. if you don’t think it’s funny you’re more than welcome to fuck off and make your own funny billboards on your site, maybe someone will see them some day.
sarah, it’s generally not funny when the person does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.
“sarah, it’s not funny when the person (who) does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.”
No double standards on this site ……. more along quietly now – and after such a reasonable first paragraph too.
It would be quite easy to donate money to this blog, just go up to Steve, slip a 50 Dollar note in his Karl Marx book, tell him to keep up the good work and to keep bashing big bad John Key who has the audacity to have nice house, which I’m sure he didn’t earn himself through hard work.
It will be quite easy.
I don’t think Steve has figured out, if ya going write something on a blog on the internet, your going to get people who disagree with you.
[brett, pretty used to people disagreeing with me by now, thanks, many of them in a more sophisticated manner than this. Obviously, someone giving me money is different from giving The Standard money. But I would not seek any such money and if someone did want to donate to The Standard I would suggest they give the money to a different Leftwing political cause instead – I have more than enough money for my needs, The Standard doesn’t need any money, apart from price of the server space, which Lynn pays out of his own unimpoverished pocket. SP]
[lprent: Oh it isn’t that unimproverished. I have a lawsuit and building site to fund. Some dickhead in the previous national government thought it’d be a good idea to deregulate the building industry.
Some idiots in the C&R (aka local National party in drag) did so without getting good building checks done on buildings like mine. Consequently the Auckland City Council (currently C&R dominated)has been spending considerable time in the high court. Our case come up in March. For the last two years I’ve been forking out money in massive interest payments. Fortunately this happens to be the cheapest entertainment around – all I had to do was give up smoking to pay for it. ]
Im taking the south park point of view, not the lefist point of view, my main complaint is you cant say, you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another, that is bigoted and that is what this site is doing.
Brett, do you consider the Monty Python skit “upper class twit of the year” racist and sexist?
Is The Simpsons racist and sexist because Monty Burns is a white male?
Were the IWI/KIWI billboards racist?
How about the Mcain campaign calling Obama ‘presumptuous’?
What if it was ‘uppity’ instead, would that be racist?
How about Dykeocracy? Is that sexist? Or nanny state? Does that offend you?
I’m only asking because you seem to take this stuff seriously, and those examples after the Monty Burns aren’t satire so I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts.
Hey Brett, give it a rest man. The picture here wasn’t from the Green Party. It was a mock up by SP. You didn’t think it was funny, fair enough. You make a good point that SP wouldn’t dare use a picture of an obese Maori voter as typical of labour-voting, because that would be considered racist. You could have also made the point that the picture above could well have been party vote labour, with a picture of crusty old George Hawkins, Harry Duynhoven, Michael Cullen, Mark Burton, etc etc.
When it comes to crusty old white guys, there are far more in Labour’s caucus than there are in any other political party. Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got. In reality the real National Party vote billboard would have young and talented people like Nikki Kaye, Melissa Lee, Sam Lotu-Iiga, Simon Bridges, Hekia Parata, etc etc. Even John Key is a generation younger than Helen Clark.
I think the Standard is entitled to post anonymously. Call them out individually when their authors are being partisan, sure. It works much more effectively than trying to rail against the whole machine. There’s plenty of argument you can come up with on such a poor effort as this from SP. This was an attempt at humour. Some people found it funny. You didn’t. That’s life. But if you’re going to argue against it, use the arguments rather than attacking the whole site.
The captcha is “so Aldershot”. Maybe I’ve been hanging around this place too long, but this is the second time I’ve seen the word “Aldershot” in a Standard captcha. It is still only the second time I’ve ever seen the word “aldershot”. Anybody know, without resorting to a dictionary or google, what an Aldershot is?
Maybe a post-lobotomy patient should have used in the piss take instead? Not very sensitive, but much nearer the mark given the unbearable dribble emanating from those of a right wing bent in the comments above.
On the matter of the Green billboards, pretty good. Could easily have slipped into mash potato smaltz, but haven’t.
weka, sorry for being unclear. Im certainly not saying that it’s not homophobic, it most certainly is. It’s also sexist though yeah?
I sort of understood the term to be based around the idea that political, or any other sort of power, is inherently masculine.
Therefore where any women have any power they must be ‘faux women’;therefore ‘Lesbians’; therefore ‘Dykeocracy’. So both homophobic on it’s face, and sexist at heart. It’s a twofer!
Brett.
Nope, I’m comparing the stereotype in this post to Monty Burns, because it’s the same stereotype.
” you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another”
This is the heart of it, and the coronary comes when you are talking about power relationships.
Godwin alert!
It’s one thing to make Nazi jokes along the lines of Harry Enfield’s ‘Not too Camp’ jibes, or sing songs about the number of gonads various reich officials could claim possession of.
Joking about how many Jews can fit in a VW? Not so funny.
Steve Pierson said: The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them:
Nope, they won’t get it together Steve, Thay can’t even get the grammar correct.
I’d say maximise the Party vote for the Greens. That’s the best way to give the big finger to those with a far-right agenda who back National and their hidden agenda.
Given the policies, the Nats would have to be swallowing dead rats for the next 3 years to get Green support!
Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got.
Wrong again. You’re usually more accurate than this Tim.
Steve money was donated to your blog by Labour who paid for your server hosting am I not correct!!
[lprent: Wrong (as usual).
The Labour party has never paid for anything to do with this blog. A kind organization donated some server space to the NZLP. Needless to say the NZLP had absolutely no idea what to do with this. So they gave control of it to some activists to provide facilities for other left activists. When the standard was falling over due to lack of bandwidth, access to the servers was offered and accepted.
So the NZLP has never paid anything to maintain this site. The server space you’re referring to was paid for by the donor. Of course that idiot Whale is incapable of understanding subtleties like that, just as I suspect you are.
Rather than let the NZLP put up with undeserved flak from the bottom feeders around the blogs, after 3 weeks, I moved the site to my home server. Shortly thereafter put it in the linux server that it now resides in, and steadily increased my payments to keep the resource levels up.
Now I take great pleasure in terminating idiots like you who even mention the topic here. I consider that it shows a considerable level of stupidity bearing in mind the number of times I’ve explained this. I’m tired of it so I *love* making examples of people who mention it in my presence – I like helping people achieve martyrdom.
Banned for ummm 2 months to contemplate . E-mail me after the election to get removed from the blacklist. I’m putting you there because you do not ban yourself, and put too many messages into the moderation queue.]
It wasn’t an airbrushed photo of him trying to look twenty years younger? Just like Miss Clark does every election. [lprent: You’re looking to me like a troll. Lift your Standard or leave. So far I haven’t seen anything useful in any of your comments. ]
Rob. Before I joined the collective, the Standard was hosted on server space that Labour had been donated and passed on to us for a total of 7 days.
The Standard had outgrown our previous server, the Labour offer was accepted, perhaps unwisely, but they decided The Standard needed bigger space to grow into than Labour had given anyway and moved on to our current server, which Lynn pays for. There was no money from Labour for the cost of the server at any point.
Yup, there was 7 days on a server, server space worth approximately bugger all a year (what’s 7/365ths of bugger all?)
[lprent: The NZLP didn’t even pay for that space for 21 days. It was a donation to them. So as usual he is dead wrong – and now banned.]
Just seen this – disgusting and hypocritical. You just love to take the piss out of white middle class older men don’t you.
No doubt somebody above has already suggested doing the fat-arsed lazy dole-bludger, probably maori or islander in south auckland, who has a cuzzy in the courts or jail. Stereotypes ay SP? gotta love ’em. And my god how you seem to love stereotypes – well only certain ones. of course. otherwise it is racist. isn’t it.
the biggest letdown of the current state of the left
I love that old guy from the fast show…fantastic. His entire response to life was that ‘…I was drunk at the time.’ Gosh if the tories were half as appealing, Id be half inclined to vote for them!
Lets not forget the IWI – KIWI billboards. The above is hardly aimed at creating the same social division that the Nats attempted to do in 2005. Whether something is racist surely depends on who is telling the story. Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.
you have a point in the first couple of sentences. and that is precisely what I was getting at – it gets applied in reverse and the blinkers go on. its just that the abuse aimed at men, white men, white middle class men today grates heavily. call me a new-age menimist.
anyway, you said above “Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.”
If you think then, alexandra, that NZ today is that bad then you may have a point in calling them tired and impliedly useless. But if, like me, you consider NZ society to be a society that is almost certainly one of the fairest and wealthiest that has ever existed, one of the easiest ever in which to get a roof over your head and food in you belly, one of the easiest in which to break out of your ‘caste’, one of the easiest to get educated, get a job, do nothing, do whatever your heart desires, then you had better start thanking those “tired men” because according to so much of the left today those “tired men” have been responsible for creating the society we have today.
Sure there is always room for improvement. But they are responsible, as even you seem to acknowledge in your own post, and so should not only be critically evaluated for their shortcomings but also thanked for the great things this society has achieved.
(and of course the NZ women and things the labour movt has wrought, but this is specifically about the so-called “tired men”. they actually aint that bad, and look at what they have achieved.)
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
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It really needs a fat CEO. Or a polluting farmer. Or Roger Douglas.
ah, roger douglas would be good.. but i just love the expression on his face.
Has their ever been a more racist party than the Green party???
Can you imagine if National had a billboard of a overweight unemployed Maori from south Auckland who beats up his wife, and they had the headline “Vote for Me” Party Vote Labour”
The hypocritical nature of the left is repulsive.
Still Labour supporters will lap it up.
What HAVE they been smoking this time? Doubtless a bad batch of dak. My advice is to stay off the hydroponic.
Its unbelievable how one party can hate one race so much, as I said in my previous post, if national had of done this using a blanet sterotype of a Maori, there would be outrage.
So what the Greens are suggesting is that your average National supporter is a rich old white man and I’m guessing they are suggesting that this is a bad thing.
Why you guys are trying to get votes by using hate, I would never know.
Brett I can’t tell if you’re being serious but you do know that this image has been mocked up as a joke, right? It’s not a real advertisement.
Yep, its been mocked up as a joke, and the Greens will blast it out on their web page, saying “Its only a joke, its not a ad”
Kind of like what Faux News does, all the time, when they want to blast the democrats, they tell ya something is a joke, but they keep playing it and playing it.
When satire is good its great, like the brilliant Jon Stewart, but when its bad its more cringe worthy than working for David Brent.
Here’s the Green billboards
http://www.greens.org.nz/election08
Can you please tell me which one you think is racist??
Some of us are sick of the rich old white men thinking they own the place. That’s not hate.
How did you get my photograph you unsavoury sods? The last green thing we had on the estate hung from a tree.
*Yep, its been mocked up as a joke, and the Greens will blast it out on their web page, saying “Its only a joke, its not a ad’*
But it has nothing to do with the Greens. This blog is The Standard, which although well leftie isn’t part of any political party.
How about a picture of Mr. Burns.
You may be sick of some old white man thinking they own the place? Which is strange since we have a high percentage of woman in power?
Some of us are sick of politicians on the left telling us how to think, what to eat and drink, and what to say, and are also sick of the blame game.
I agree with Brett. The left should try running a campaign that doesn’t involve smear and scare tactics. At least kiwiblog doesn’t resort to these sorts of blatant hate posts.
This blog is a joke. The bloggers here actually think they’re going to convince everyone with their left national-hating spin. But anyone with any sort of intelligence can see through it.
The posters on the standard are just further ostracising themselves from any mainstream or common-held individuals by blogging posts such as the one above. But in a way, I should actually give the standard the thanks it deserves. Because of these hate posts and the constant complaining, indidviduals are put off the left much faster than Helen and Winston could ever do themselves.
I’m left wing in many ways. But The Standard honestly gives the left a bad name by running these vile and one-sided acttacks on anyone who does not agree with them and blocking anyone who dares to disagree with the comments they made.
Thank god for free speech.
I like to know who donates to this blog?
The greens billboards are very manipulative.
Any party or company that uses children in their advertising (that isnt directly related to a child’s product) I would be very wary of.
[please don’t comment when you’re stoned. a) we use question marks to end questions ‘i would like to know’ is a statement of your desires, not a question b) no-one donates any money to this blog, no-one gets any money for writing on it. SP]
*You may be sick of some old white man thinking they own the place? Which is strange since we have a high percentage of woman in power?*
Sure we have some women in some key positions. But they’ve never had the kind of power as the old white boys. Of course women have always had their own kind of power, which is probably the one you are most afraid of.
*Some of us are sick of politicians on the left telling us how to think, what to eat and drink, and what to say, and are also sick of the blame game.*
That’s fine. Get political and get out there and do something about what you want changed then. Although I can’t recall the legislation that makes me eat or think in certain ways.
If you really want to get upset about billboards go here:
http://national.h.ac.nz/
Is it green social policy to feature happy children on their billboards when they form a government that is responsible for the massive increase in child abuse and infanticide statistics? Bloody airy fairy sods are nothing more than useless hypocrites!
The Labour Party would be my first and only guess Brett.
Explains the large percentage of Union and Labour staff positing day to day on here. Try some transparency and openess posters of the standard (which you readily attack National over not having) and actually show your own agenda. Or your real names might be nice. Congratulations to those who are open enough to freely admit their own personal name and stand up for their own views without having to hide behind some log-in name.
It seems that site, has been hijacked by Labour supporters, or I’m guessing its a Labour site.
brett. what the hell are you talking about?
clearly my picture is a humourous (not hateful) play on the stereotypical old conservative base of National – it’s his class, not his race.
It’s still offensive Steve to those individuals who fit under that particular stereotype. What would happen if a right-winger were to do the exact same parody with a low class maori beer-drinking worker in the picture and a title that said ‘party vote labour’.
I’m sure everyone would be up in arms screaming foul about how offensive that individual was being. It’s all a matter of perception.
That picture had nothing to do about the guy’s class, you picked an old WHITE rich guy.
It was stereotypical.
Leave the humor to people who are funny.
Satire offends all sorts of people, that’s part of its job. It’s not like it’s an actual billboard. Remember this:
http://www.national.org.nz/PreviewEcard.aspx?ECard=IwiKiwi
*same parody with a low class maori beer-drinking worker in the picture and a title that said ‘party vote labour’*
And what would be the point of that billboard parody?
The Green camapign looks awesome this time 10% of the vote is looking achievable
I was on a Greeen party stall yesterday and had unbelievably good feedback and visitors.
Only two people mentioned section 59 as a concern which was a surprise.
Labour who were next door had moderate interest and visitors whilst the National guy packed up and went home about ten o clock through lack of interest.
Uhm, I’m not stoned, and heres is a question, if anyone donated money to this blog would you except it?
[how could they donate money to the blog? it has no legal personality, no bank account. SP]
[lprent: Just at present the only person who donates money to the site is me (and I’m the only person or entity that ever has). That is likely to be the way that it stays. We don’t even have advertising. If the financial demands get too high, then I’d consider it. But I think we’d be more likely to just move to cheaper servers. It means that we can do things unencumbered by the need to consult anyone – including other writers on the site. ]
Now, none of you elitists are allowed to point that out.
Brett – I think that’s supposed to be accept. You’re in a delerium seek medical attention. Now.
elitest here – but how are we supposed to know what he means?
of course it is stereotypical, brett, that’s how satire works. But it’s clearly overblown – it mocks National voters as not ordinary Kiwis but part of a rich elite… but at the same time we all know that actual national voters don’t usually look like Rowley Birken QC (he’s a character on the fast show – the character is an over the top and hilarious play on the old drunk upper class toff)… it’s the fact that any sane person knows i’m not really saying all national voters are old drunks that makes it funny.. it wouldn’t be funny if it were hateful but it’s clearly not.. if you don’t think it’s funny you’re more than welcome to fuck off and make your own funny billboards on your site, maybe someone will see them some day.
sarah, it’s generally not funny when the person does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.
Typical response I would expect from someone from the left.
Steve: Who are you to say whats funny and whats your not? Thats a bit pretentious isnt it?
[you’re saying what’s funny and what’s not too – your view is just opposite to mine.. but i assume it’s only me that’s being pretentious. SP]
Typical or stereotypical, Brett?
edit: What are you doing here Brett apart from saying what’s funny and what’s not?
“sarah, it’s not funny when the person (who) does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.”
No double standards on this site ……. more along quietly now – and after such a reasonable first paragraph too.
It would be quite easy to donate money to this blog, just go up to Steve, slip a 50 Dollar note in his Karl Marx book, tell him to keep up the good work and to keep bashing big bad John Key who has the audacity to have nice house, which I’m sure he didn’t earn himself through hard work.
It will be quite easy.
I don’t think Steve has figured out, if ya going write something on a blog on the internet, your going to get people who disagree with you.
[brett, pretty used to people disagreeing with me by now, thanks, many of them in a more sophisticated manner than this. Obviously, someone giving me money is different from giving The Standard money. But I would not seek any such money and if someone did want to donate to The Standard I would suggest they give the money to a different Leftwing political cause instead – I have more than enough money for my needs, The Standard doesn’t need any money, apart from price of the server space, which Lynn pays out of his own unimpoverished pocket. SP]
[lprent: Oh it isn’t that unimproverished. I have a lawsuit and building site to fund. Some dickhead in the previous national government thought it’d be a good idea to deregulate the building industry.
Some idiots in the C&R (aka local National party in drag) did so without getting good building checks done on buildings like mine. Consequently the Auckland City Council (currently C&R dominated)has been spending considerable time in the high court. Our case come up in March. For the last two years I’ve been forking out money in massive interest payments. Fortunately this happens to be the cheapest entertainment around – all I had to do was give up smoking to pay for it. ]
Felix:
Im taking the south park point of view, not the lefist point of view, my main complaint is you cant say, you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another, that is bigoted and that is what this site is doing.
And if you spend all day drinking and typing inane things on other people’s blogs?
Brett Dale:
I lol’d. You are doing an excellent job at satire there yourself. You are a hilarious parody of your stereotypical RWNJ.
Brett please put those thoughts into a sentence so they may be addressed.
Brett, do you consider the Monty Python skit “upper class twit of the year” racist and sexist?
Is The Simpsons racist and sexist because Monty Burns is a white male?
Were the IWI/KIWI billboards racist?
How about the Mcain campaign calling Obama ‘presumptuous’?
What if it was ‘uppity’ instead, would that be racist?
How about Dykeocracy? Is that sexist? Or nanny state? Does that offend you?
I’m only asking because you seem to take this stuff seriously, and those examples after the Monty Burns aren’t satire so I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts.
It’s not so much that people disagree with you Brett, it’s that no-one can follow what you are on about.
weka: it’s about getting on the piss and letting it all out as far as I can follow.
*How about Dykeocracy? Is that sexist? *
That’d be homophobic or heterosexist 😉
Weka, true enough, if the targets of that jibe were always lesbian eh.
Excellent!!!!
Surly your not comparing the great Monty Burns of the simpsons to thestandard?
The Simpsons is funny because it has a go at everybody, at all sterotypes, not just one.
PB, ae some people seem to think that calling a het woman a dyke is the worst thing you can say. Still seems pretty homophobic to me.
Hey Brett, give it a rest man. The picture here wasn’t from the Green Party. It was a mock up by SP. You didn’t think it was funny, fair enough. You make a good point that SP wouldn’t dare use a picture of an obese Maori voter as typical of labour-voting, because that would be considered racist. You could have also made the point that the picture above could well have been party vote labour, with a picture of crusty old George Hawkins, Harry Duynhoven, Michael Cullen, Mark Burton, etc etc.
When it comes to crusty old white guys, there are far more in Labour’s caucus than there are in any other political party. Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got. In reality the real National Party vote billboard would have young and talented people like Nikki Kaye, Melissa Lee, Sam Lotu-Iiga, Simon Bridges, Hekia Parata, etc etc. Even John Key is a generation younger than Helen Clark.
I think the Standard is entitled to post anonymously. Call them out individually when their authors are being partisan, sure. It works much more effectively than trying to rail against the whole machine. There’s plenty of argument you can come up with on such a poor effort as this from SP. This was an attempt at humour. Some people found it funny. You didn’t. That’s life. But if you’re going to argue against it, use the arguments rather than attacking the whole site.
The captcha is “so Aldershot”. Maybe I’ve been hanging around this place too long, but this is the second time I’ve seen the word “Aldershot” in a Standard captcha. It is still only the second time I’ve ever seen the word “aldershot”. Anybody know, without resorting to a dictionary or google, what an Aldershot is?
Aldershot is town in UK with an large British Army camp
Brett is a member of the PC police.
Maybe a post-lobotomy patient should have used in the piss take instead? Not very sensitive, but much nearer the mark given the unbearable dribble emanating from those of a right wing bent in the comments above.
On the matter of the Green billboards, pretty good. Could easily have slipped into mash potato smaltz, but haven’t.
weka, sorry for being unclear. Im certainly not saying that it’s not homophobic, it most certainly is. It’s also sexist though yeah?
I sort of understood the term to be based around the idea that political, or any other sort of power, is inherently masculine.
Therefore where any women have any power they must be ‘faux women’;therefore ‘Lesbians’; therefore ‘Dykeocracy’. So both homophobic on it’s face, and sexist at heart. It’s a twofer!
Brett.
Nope, I’m comparing the stereotype in this post to Monty Burns, because it’s the same stereotype.
How about those IWI/KIWI billboards?
How about a picture of Mr. Burns.
Now that’s a good idea – but better for last election, not this one.
Looking at National’s energy, environment, and climate change policies, what about the Huntly power station, or a giant open-cast coal mine?
(Captcha = abrogated bases. They belonged to us, but we’re giving them away…)
Personally I thought those billboards were not that amusing, I guess some people who like low brow humor thought they were funny.
I thought the reaction to them was the funniest thing about them.
Well done oob, I’ve learned something new without having to google it. That’s pretty rare nowadays.
I didn’t think they were funny either. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that they were meant to be . I do think they were effective though.
There’s got to be a worser way:
http://i36.tinypic.com/ngoapg.jpg
(the bad grammar intentional, in line with other right-wing billboards)
” you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another”
This is the heart of it, and the coronary comes when you are talking about power relationships.
Godwin alert!
It’s one thing to make Nazi jokes along the lines of Harry Enfield’s ‘Not too Camp’ jibes, or sing songs about the number of gonads various reich officials could claim possession of.
Joking about how many Jews can fit in a VW? Not so funny.
Hey, PB, just watched upper class twit of the year – thanks for that, I like a laugh of a Sunday afternoon.
“How about a picture of Mr. Burns.”
I take a better photo than Brendon does and I own a nuclear power plant.
Last election the local nats billboard actually DID have a picture of Mr Burns plastered over it.
Happen anywhere else?
Chris – was it Peter, Brendon or Monty Burns?
Steve Pierson said: The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them:
Nope, they won’t get it together Steve, Thay can’t even get the grammar correct.
I’d say maximise the Party vote for the Greens. That’s the best way to give the big finger to those with a far-right agenda who back National and their hidden agenda.
Given the policies, the Nats would have to be swallowing dead rats for the next 3 years to get Green support!
When it comes to crusty old white guys, there are far more in Labour’s caucus than there are in any other political party.
Ahh, wrong.
Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got.
Wrong again. You’re usually more accurate than this Tim.
Steve money was donated to your blog by Labour who paid for your server hosting am I not correct!!
[lprent: Wrong (as usual).
The Labour party has never paid for anything to do with this blog. A kind organization donated some server space to the NZLP. Needless to say the NZLP had absolutely no idea what to do with this. So they gave control of it to some activists to provide facilities for other left activists. When the standard was falling over due to lack of bandwidth, access to the servers was offered and accepted.
So the NZLP has never paid anything to maintain this site. The server space you’re referring to was paid for by the donor. Of course that idiot Whale is incapable of understanding subtleties like that, just as I suspect you are.
Rather than let the NZLP put up with undeserved flak from the bottom feeders around the blogs, after 3 weeks, I moved the site to my home server. Shortly thereafter put it in the linux server that it now resides in, and steadily increased my payments to keep the resource levels up.
Now I take great pleasure in terminating idiots like you who even mention the topic here. I consider that it shows a considerable level of stupidity bearing in mind the number of times I’ve explained this. I’m tired of it so I *love* making examples of people who mention it in my presence – I like helping people achieve martyrdom.
Banned for ummm 2 months to contemplate . E-mail me after the election to get removed from the blacklist. I’m putting you there because you do not ban yourself, and put too many messages into the moderation queue.]
Monty burns. Definitely.
I think I have a photo somewhere.
It wasn’t an airbrushed photo of him trying to look twenty years younger? Just like Miss Clark does every election.
[lprent: You’re looking to me like a troll. Lift your Standard or leave. So far I haven’t seen anything useful in any of your comments. ]
Rob,
Even I know you’re not correct.
This has been canvassed (and recanvassed) so many times that the facts have passed into our collective mind (except, apparently, yours).
“At least kiwiblog doesn?t resort to these sorts of blatant hate posts.”
Bahahahahahahahaha
Rob. Before I joined the collective, the Standard was hosted on server space that Labour had been donated and passed on to us for a total of 7 days.
The Standard had outgrown our previous server, the Labour offer was accepted, perhaps unwisely, but they decided The Standard needed bigger space to grow into than Labour had given anyway and moved on to our current server, which Lynn pays for. There was no money from Labour for the cost of the server at any point.
Yup, there was 7 days on a server, server space worth approximately bugger all a year (what’s 7/365ths of bugger all?)
[lprent: The NZLP didn’t even pay for that space for 21 days. It was a donation to them. So as usual he is dead wrong – and now banned.]
Christopher Nimmo:
I remember one between Hamilton and Raglan with Burns pasted over Brash. The resemblance was striking.
Thought The Standard’s readers might also like this one.
Pretty weak, actually, I thought the Greens were above gutter politics.
Does anyone here really think that is going to happen under a centre right Government?
Brett Dale: Are you getting the sense that you protest too much, yet?
L
Surely it should read
Does anyone here really think that there is going to be a centre right Government?
Just seen this – disgusting and hypocritical. You just love to take the piss out of white middle class older men don’t you.
No doubt somebody above has already suggested doing the fat-arsed lazy dole-bludger, probably maori or islander in south auckland, who has a cuzzy in the courts or jail. Stereotypes ay SP? gotta love ’em. And my god how you seem to love stereotypes – well only certain ones. of course. otherwise it is racist. isn’t it.
the biggest letdown of the current state of the left
I love that old guy from the fast show…fantastic. His entire response to life was that ‘…I was drunk at the time.’ Gosh if the tories were half as appealing, Id be half inclined to vote for them!
oh alexandra, just a joke was it?. ha ha ha. sounds familiar.
Lets not forget the IWI – KIWI billboards. The above is hardly aimed at creating the same social division that the Nats attempted to do in 2005. Whether something is racist surely depends on who is telling the story. Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.
you have a point in the first couple of sentences. and that is precisely what I was getting at – it gets applied in reverse and the blinkers go on. its just that the abuse aimed at men, white men, white middle class men today grates heavily. call me a new-age menimist.
anyway, you said above “Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.”
If you think then, alexandra, that NZ today is that bad then you may have a point in calling them tired and impliedly useless. But if, like me, you consider NZ society to be a society that is almost certainly one of the fairest and wealthiest that has ever existed, one of the easiest ever in which to get a roof over your head and food in you belly, one of the easiest in which to break out of your ‘caste’, one of the easiest to get educated, get a job, do nothing, do whatever your heart desires, then you had better start thanking those “tired men” because according to so much of the left today those “tired men” have been responsible for creating the society we have today.
Sure there is always room for improvement. But they are responsible, as even you seem to acknowledge in your own post, and so should not only be critically evaluated for their shortcomings but also thanked for the great things this society has achieved.
(and of course the NZ women and things the labour movt has wrought, but this is specifically about the so-called “tired men”. they actually aint that bad, and look at what they have achieved.)