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9:26 pm, September 3rd, 2007 - 4 comments
Categories: national -
Tags: national
The depth of National’s talent is a constant source of amusement. Jackie Blue, allegedly one of National’s slightly-brighter-than-average young things (speaking of, has anyone heard a Chris Tremain speech recently? Truly mindboggling), has decided to attack the Ministry of Women’s Affairs over the success of the Labour-led government in getting women on to boards.
As she says in her own statement, the government is on target to meet its goal of 50 percent female representation on state sector boards, but she bemoans the Ministry’s performance in helping to meet that target. Apparently the Ministry has been too assiduous in putting women’s names forward, and therefore its conversion-rate doesn’t meet Blue’s satisfaction.
It’s a statement that speaks volumes for the mind-numbing tedium of being a lowly opposition backbencher, destined to years of trawling through ministers’ responses to parliamentary questions in the hope of turning some humdrum response into a three para brief on page 6 of the Timaru Herald, or some other dreadful rag. Always remember, as John Stuart Mill once noted, not every Tory is a stupid person, but every stupid person is a Tory.
Yeah, and have you heard Kate Wilkinson on labour issues, or the Mappster on defence?
Actually, its truly startling the level of ignorance these poeple display on their portfolio areas – OK sure, spokespsople aren’t necesarily subject-matter experts when they’re appointed but they should be able to get up to speed and come up wih coherent, signifanct ideas pretty quickly. After all, they do want to be Ministers.
Maybe a kind of self-imposed ignorance is the only way to insulate one’s Tory ideological tenants from being damaged by exposure to those annoying facts.
Let’s see here.
Jill Pettis. Dover Samuels. Janet Mackey. Judith Tizard. Parekura Horomia. Mark Burton. Diane Yates. Rick Barker. David Benson-Pope. Steve Chadwick. Darien Fenton. Ann Hartley. George Hawkins. Sue Moroney. Lesley Soper. Ross Robertson.
What have ANY of them done since being in Parliament? Oh, that’s right. When the biggest story in her electorate was the horrific abuse of children, Steve Chadwick comes up with the delightfully high profile issue of making it illegal to discriminate against chardonnay-swilling socialists breast-feeding in cafes.
Jackie Blue dragged the Government over the coals over its shameful claim of offering free early childhood eductation. No wonder you’re still pissed off with her.
Yo IP – “Jonathan Coleman”, “Bob Clarkson” etc. There are some people in there who are ineffectual and there are some people who are just plain nasty and counterproductive. Your crew is very much the latter.
IP – you know we socialists would never be so un-PC as to swill chardonnay while breastfeeding – got to slavishly follow those PC medical experts’ advice on not mixing alcohol and babies after all.