The Smiths: Getting it Right

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, September 24th, 2010 - 11 comments
Categories: Environment, farming, Parliament - Tags: , ,

Lockwood Smith has been doing a great job in parliament of late.  He can be bullied by National MPs, particularly Gerry Brownlee, but he sets off in the right direction.  Making Ministers answers questions.  Brilliant.  Allowed John Key to make a right fool of himself when he discovered he had to give his opinion on Rodney’s reliability.  Suddenly found he had to back Hide’s judgement when even Hide didn’t back Hide’s judgement…

Another Smith, Nick, has been more mixed: I obviously wasn’t a fan of his decision to speed up the economic nonsense that is roading Transmission Gully.

But if he follows through on his Water report, I’ll be most impressed.

The Land and Water Forum has produced a report that is likely to lead to much tougher standards and higher quality water in our rivers and lakes.  It’s unclear if it will reach David Parker & Labour’s goal of “water clean enough to swim in”, but it looks to be advocating a massive improvement from that which dirty dairying is resulting in currently.

Federated Farmers, despite being involved in the report, are already backing away from it, saying they awaited farmers’ reactions.  Hopefully Nick Smith will be able to stand up to them and keep the recommendations.  He currently hasn’t committed to anything specific, but seemed pleased with the report as a whole.

So this is just a little encouragement – stick with it Nick.

11 comments on “The Smiths: Getting it Right ”

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  1. Anne 1
    24 September 2010 at 10:20 am

    Watched the Key sequence – Wednesday was it? Brownlee was at his bullying worst, but Lockwood never gave in to him. My respect for L Smith has soared in recent times. Lets hope he keeps it up.

  2. BLiP 2
    24 September 2010 at 10:37 am

    Lockie is still inconsistent and a bit of pompous arse but, yeah, Question Time is a lot better these days with him making Ministers actually having to answer most questions. Trouble is, the Opposition really isn’t up to much. Phil Goff called Richard Worth the Prime Minister in one question yesterday, silly old Hodgson stuffed up what should have been a public skewering of Hide with silly questions, plus there’s a bunch of stuff going on that should be brought up, IMO.

    As for Nick Smith . . . well . . . so far so good in this instance, s’pose, but, as with any National Ltd™ wally, proof’s in the pudding.

  3. felix 3
    24 September 2010 at 11:22 am

    Yeah Lockie is doing a good job most of the time.

    I’ve noted before that he’s the firm but fair schoolmaster until he has to deal with the PM whereupon he crumbles and becomes the lovestruck schoolgirl, weak at the knees.

    (and as if one tortured metaphor wasn’t enough…)

    Even when he does make him answer, Lockie usually catches the fastballs and curveballs that are thrown at the Key and gently passes them to him, underarm.

    He pretty much did this again the other day, but he threw it to Key a bit harder than usual.

    • Jum 3.1
      25 September 2010 at 5:25 pm

      Thank goodness someone noticed what Lockwood Smith does with Key. The farce of refusing to say he believed or didn’t believe that Hide had good judgment, that was passed over til the next day while L/Smith thunk about it was just a cop out.

      Still, the fact Key had his bullyboys fighting his battles (what a weakling) means Key knew he had erred badly in saying Hide had good judgment, but had no believable defence. He will be held to account for that next year in every blog and in every media. Lovin it.

  4. Gosman 4
    24 September 2010 at 11:38 am

    Wow!

    If my memory serves me correct, not so long ago some people on this blog were calling him one of the worst Speakers of all time (Which I believe should be reserved solely for Margaret Wilson).

    BTW did anybody on the left castigate Wilson during her time in the Speakers chair?

    • felix 4.1
      24 September 2010 at 3:52 pm

      Your memory is faulty. Care to prove me wrong with some examples?

    • Jum 4.2
      25 September 2010 at 5:38 pm

      Gosman – you forget what Japanese verbal sumo wrestlers the rightwing fascists were behaving like. That term of Wilson will be remembered for the degradation of politics by NAct, not of Wilson.

      Now, when you have one of your own pondscum leading you of course you behave better. That’s why parliament is slightly better. Your authoritarian bully boys were a disgrace and I call into serious question your comments when you so conveniently forget their screaming and yelling in Parliament. Disgusting and infantile behaviour from the extreme right (inside and outside of Parliament judging by the nasty little secrets coming out about your heroes). I remember reading Hansard and could not believe that NAct grown men could behave so badly.

      But it’s typical of the right to rewrite history (lie).

      captcha: typical

  5. Lazy Susan 5
    24 September 2010 at 11:45 am

    Just a few months ago people on this blog were calling him one of the worst Speakers of all time

    Which just goes to show that if you up your game people on this blog will reward you accordingly.

    Look forward to seeing some improvement Gos.

    • Bored 5.1
      24 September 2010 at 11:53 am

      Suze, dont ask too much, in Huxleys terms we are not talking about a “Epsilon-minus semi-moron”, they at least were useful idiots.

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