Two face

Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, July 20th, 2012 - 76 comments
Categories: john key, privatisation, treaty settlements, water - Tags:

John Key really is the master of being whomever his audience wants to believe he is.

For years, he talks positively about Maori water rights and interests to Maori. But, when an opportunity comes to split the Maori and Pakeha opposition to asset sales, he’s in Pakeha ears telling them that the ‘Maaris’ are trying to claim they own the water to make some quick cash.

He told the Maori Party that he wouldn’t legislate over the top of iwi water rights and interests as determined in the coming court battles concerning the water the power companies rely upon. It seemed like a significant win for the Maori Party (I was in Idiot/Savant’s camp, not Anthony’s, until I saw the catch). But then the weasel words came out to reassure the Pakeha audience. He wouldn’t legislate over the top of ‘rights and interests’ but he would over the top of ‘ownership’.

Iwi say that what they want is recognition of rights and interests, but Key has consistently called what they are seeking ‘ownership’. And that’s the difference,anyway? You tell me where the difference is between a right to use water to the exclusion of others (and, lease that right to others) and ownership of that water. Key uses the different words for the different audiences.

It’s spineless, deceitful and opportunistic… and, by god, he’s good at it.

76 comments on “Two face ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    20 July 2012 at 8:03 am

    And he obviously sees this as an opportunity to wedge opposition to asset sales. Now the debate is no longer a clear cut opposition to the selling of our assets but more of a muddied debate about indigenous rights with a side serving of racist dog whistling.

    • Gosman 1.1
      20 July 2012 at 8:45 am

      Blame the Maori Council for providing the opportunity then.

      • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1
        20 July 2012 at 8:56 am

        Yeah. Damn uppity maoris should shut up. What wankers they are, forcing good people to be all racist.

        They need to take responsibility for other people’s racism right now. It’s an outrage I tell you.

        It’s just not good enough.

        If they didn’t stick up for themselves, the racists wouldn’t vent, and the PM wouldn’t be forced to pander to the racists.

        Poor racists.
        Poor PM.

        They are being abused. It’s basically slavery. WHY CAN”T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

        • Gosman 1.1.1.1
          20 July 2012 at 9:12 am

          The decision to tie in water rights with the Mixed ownership model of energy companies was made by the Maori council. They could have kept the two issues separate if they desired but didn’t. As mickeysavage pointed out this has allowed the Government to muddy the debate. You can hardly blame a politician for taking advantage of such a situation.

          • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1.1
            20 July 2012 at 9:16 am

            The decision to tie in water rights with the Mixed ownership model of energy companies was made by the Maori council. They could have kept the two issues separate if they desired but didn’t.

            I agree with you Gossie, the two issues are totally separate.

            The answer is simple. Key should be allowed to sell the power generators off but without any access to water or water usage rights.

            Because the two are separate things, right Gossie?

            • Gosman 1.1.1.1.1.1
              20 July 2012 at 9:22 am

              They can purchase the water rights from whoever owns it. I really don’t care if it is the Government, Maori, or Joe Blow down the street.

              • mickysavage …
                20 July 2012 at 11:29 am

                So Gossie, do you agree that Smile and Wave has been two faced with his pronouncements on this issue?

                • Gosman …
                  20 July 2012 at 11:49 am

                  No, just politically savvy. Wouldn’t you admit he has handled this better than say the last Labour Government did with the similar FSB issue?

                  • mickysavage …
                    20 July 2012 at 12:06 pm

                    Does “politically savvy” mean the same thing as making irreconcilable statements?  

                    • McFlock …
                      20 July 2012 at 12:14 pm

                      I am politically savvy.
                      You made two irreconcilable statements.
                      Key is a fucking liar.
                                
                      See how I conjugalled that last irregular noun? 🙂 

                  • gobsmacked …
                    20 July 2012 at 1:53 pm

                    It’s only “politically savvy” if you think the election is next week.

                    Instead, Key is likely to end up with …

                    – a delay to the gov’t’s flagship policy, causing major Budget problems
                    – an unhappy coalition partner, probably splitting soon (note – the Maori Party is a lot more than it’s co-leaders)
                    – a further diminished standing in the media
                    – if he doesn’t follow through and “protect our water”, more anger on the redneck right he is trying to appease

                    If you (Gosman) think this will look good for Key in three to six months, can you tell us how it will play out? Do you think the courts will dance to his tune? And if they don’t, what’s he gonna do?

            • John 1.1.1.1.1.2
              21 July 2012 at 11:35 am

              I imagine the power generators have long term resource consent to use the river water. Any dispute would be with who ever granted that consent, but the consent wouldn’t be threatened.

          • framu 1.1.1.1.2
            20 July 2012 at 9:20 am

            ” You can hardly blame a politician for taking advantage of such a situation.”

            whatever happened to personal responsibility?

            • Gosman 1.1.1.1.2.1
              20 July 2012 at 9:23 am

              From whom?

              • framu …
                20 July 2012 at 9:26 am

                the person taking advantage of the situation obviously

                • Gosman …
                  20 July 2012 at 9:30 am

                  Not really. A tailor made situation presented itself and has been taken advantage of for political effect. I expect that in most politicians.

                  • Deano …
                    20 July 2012 at 9:53 am

                    He’s taken advantage of an opportunity to foment racial discord. If you think that’s honourable, that says a lot about you.

                    • Gosman …
                      20 July 2012 at 10:23 am

                      So was Helen Clark’s led Government trying to forment racial discord as well then?

                  • framu …
                    20 July 2012 at 9:56 am

                    No gossie its really obvious, stop playing the fool.

                    expectation and responsibility arent the same thing are they

                    you might expect someone to behave a certain way – when they do they arent magically absolved of responsibility for their actions just because they did something we thought they would.

                    as PB says below “Why not? Is he not responsible for his actions?”

                    seriously – this is preschool level sh*t

                    • Dr Terry …
                      20 July 2012 at 4:33 pm

                      Gosman (above) is trying out the well worn old bit of scurrilous nonsense, that is, “two wrongs make a right”. Not all of us will fall for it.

          • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1.1.3
            20 July 2012 at 9:23 am

            “You can hardly blame a politician for taking advantage of such a situation*.”

            Why not? Is he not responsible for his actions?

            *Note in passing that I dispute your version of ‘the situation’, but that’s beside the point of whether Key or the MC is responsible for Key’s actions.

            • Gosman 1.1.1.1.3.1
              20 July 2012 at 9:36 am

              Compare this to how the previous Clark led Government responded to a similar situation.

              At the time of the Foreshore and Seabed ruling the Clark Government had a kneejerk reaction of not only stating that the Foreshore and Seabed were Government controlled and would remain so, (similar to what John Key did), but then went and created legislation to ensure that this would be the case.

              John Key on the other hand placated the right with his statement about Water rights but has now placated the Maori party to a large degree by moderating his opinion.

              Seems like a win-win as opposed to the Clark led Government’s lose-lose strategy.

              • Pascal's bookie …
                20 July 2012 at 11:16 am

                I can’t for the life of me see how your comment relates to mine, but no matter.

                First up, read this. It’s short:

                http://norightturn.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/key-weasel.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

                Second up, read this. It’s the NZHs story announcing the court finding that triggered the F&S deabte, and helpfully, (or not as the case may be), contains both the government’s and the then opposition’s knee jerk reactions:

                http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3560098

                Third up, if you’ve still got the heart for it, try this, paying attention to the date:

                http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0307/S00369.htm

                I think the govts eventual reaction was to the oppositions fear mongering rather than to the decision itself.

                For my thought on that eventual reaction, serach this site. I’d recomment putting:

                bookie “good and drunk”

                … into the search bar and checking the ‘comments’ box.

              • Dr Terry …
                20 July 2012 at 4:35 pm

                And Gosman is a “loser-loser”.

              • mike e …
                21 July 2012 at 11:05 am

                Goose once again your facts are wrong Michael Cullen minister of treaty settlements at the time,Said Maori could carry on litigating at huge cost to Maori or prove continual usage rights from 1840 and the labour govt would settle.
                Quite different from your losing strategy.
                Now all National has done has been to give back the right to take expensive litigation again back to square one.

      • xtasy 1.1.2
        20 July 2012 at 9:12 am

        It is an insult to all Maori to have a state of affairs in NZ, where not only a right wing, red-neck appealing government, led by a two faced leader named Key (…”to professional lying” may be a fitting name addition) and supported by an even worse right winker like Banks (heard his speech in Parliament yesterday?), do all to discredit and frown upon Maori.

        Also do we have a mainstream, privately owned media, that hardly mentions anything about the Waitangi Tribunal now (heard Radio Live, Radio Network’s 1ZB and the likes lately?), so that the wider public do not get properly informed at all.

        Bias, misinformation, even “hatred” are stirred up, and sadly the senior Maori Party MPs and ministers cling to being “part” of such a government.

        It is now rather acceptable to most, that new migrants with different cultural needs are welcome to build their temples, mosques and cultural centres in Auckland, while Maori get such a dispiccable treatment re their cultural and customary rights, being Tangata Whenua.

        Talk about divide and rule. Yes, that is exactly what Key and consorts are doing. It sadly works with too many, and here we seem to have one such expert in this.

      • John M 1.1.3
        21 July 2012 at 1:35 pm

        Yeah, the Maori Council held a gun to his head and told him what to say.

        • xtasy 1.1.3.1
          21 July 2012 at 9:58 pm

          If someone held a gun to my head and without reason, I would say F off!. That did not happen though, aye?

    • aerobubble 1.2
      21 July 2012 at 11:31 am

      As a taxpayer, who government owns energy companies, why would I continue to take my energy from a partially state owned company when I get the same price for energy from a fully state owned company and more dividends? Seems reasonable that a huge fiscal backlash could hit anyone who buys the state energy assets. I mean, who wants the social stigma of both getting energy from a partially owned energy company and buying into the economic argument that selling the best performing asset in the portfolio is correct investment practice (or smart given the energy limits of the world oil supply). But worse, could you live with the shame of actually owning a company that has government control??? what has neo-liberals come to, are they weak, did they not understad free market theory???

      Its like Key has pick all the stupidiest ideas and rolled them into one giant farce, he is now smoking very slowly to show how incompetent a politician and an economic savvy person he is.

  2. fnjckg 2
    20 July 2012 at 8:16 am

    Excellent graphic!

  3. xtasy 3
    20 July 2012 at 8:59 am

    Hi there —

    what else does anyone expect from John Key?

    By the way, I am missing some mention of an event on this forum, which may also lead to more exposure of more lies by Key and his government:

    I thought you guys may just like to be informed of the ‘Education Show and Tell’ event in downtown Auckland tomorrow (01 pm, 21.07.12, outside Britomart), which is published also via this link:

    http://www.facebook.com/events/233426863443947/

    Again I find NO mention of this on many forums and certainly not in the mainstream media, so apart from those who know of the Facebook page, I fear hardly anybody will be informed, hence resulting again in a feared LOW turnout.

    I thought that the Standard may have taken interest in that event and somewhere on this website have made a mention of it, so interested students, tutors, public members interested in attending, same as the so vague and ambiguous political party membership, may also be informed and can consider going there tomorrow.

    So here is a “mention” of it at least!

    • Gosman 3.1
      20 July 2012 at 9:19 am

      Not really on topic there. Perhaps you should have placed this in Open mike instead.

      • xtasy 3.1.1
        20 July 2012 at 9:24 am

        I tried the contact for emailing this, but it did not work. Get your point re Open Mike and will re=post.

    • TightyRighty 3.2
      20 July 2012 at 10:06 am

      You know why the mainstream media don’t care about your little rally? It’s not mainstream. It’s fringe loony rubbish like the claytons maori spokespeople annette sykes et al.

      • vto 3.2.1
        20 July 2012 at 10:09 am

        You’re right of course tightypantys, mainstream is tv show The Block, and cooking shows, and crime-porn like the Ewen MacDonald trial. Brain-dead sugar-hit crapploa.

        We should just stop complaining and head off to the mall.

        • xtasy 3.2.1.1
          21 July 2012 at 9:52 pm

          they got the ultimate “crime porn” from America tonight. See how they indulged into that one. As sick it was, and as it happened to hit the release of corporate US film business, why bother spending time on sickoes, please? I hate suicides, murders, certainly mass shootings, but the fact that the msm so focus on them makes me decide: Well, sorry, it is sad and bad, but there are more REAL things that need addressing, really! Why focus on the pimple rather than the cause for it?

      • xtasy 3.2.2
        20 July 2012 at 2:39 pm

        Your rubbushing of such activities won’t stop more intelligent folk to attend and also take a stand against your beloved Prime Mischief Minister, wanting to further dumb down the populace. Clearly you are trying to dismiss it as catering to the “loony fringe”.

        Truth is you are obviously worried that the conference by your favoured pack of manipulators, self serving party members, the present political “elite” that so well looks after the big business and red-neck lobbies, may get a bit “upset”, when some protesters turn up at the gate and given them their messages.

        Let us wait and see, what will happen, and how our new minister of police will “direct” her loyal servants in blue to deal with any protesters. Some of them are still quite boiled hot, under the lid, after having been beaten, pushed, shoved and draged off violently during a not so long ago budget protest.

        They are keen to meet and confront Tolley, Collins, Key, English, Joyce and those other ones!

      • mike e 3.2.3
        21 July 2012 at 11:10 am

        Tighty allmighty another racist rant Annette Sykes is better educated than your self your profession is probably the most despised in the world today if you want to talk about loony rubbish that would make you an insider and an expert.

  4. TheContrarian 4
    20 July 2012 at 8:59 am

    John Key can’t be trusted? Why does everyone sound so surprised.

    He’s a politician, none of them can be trusted. You make it sound like this is news. They are all two faced and hypocritical and will all capitulate, and engage double talk.

    Carry on.

    • Deano 4.1
      20 July 2012 at 9:01 am

      so much for ‘ambitious for new zealand’

    • higherstandard 4.2
      20 July 2012 at 9:05 am

    • Draco T Bastard 4.3
      20 July 2012 at 1:43 pm

      So we should just go on not holding them to account, allowing them to be untrustworthy while working in our name?

      • TheContrarian 4.3.1
        20 July 2012 at 3:42 pm

        Not what I am saying at all. Was just amused by what I read as surprise that a politician was two-faced. By all means hold them to account.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.3.1.1
          20 July 2012 at 3:53 pm

          I don’t think of it as surprise, I think of it more as brining it to peoples attention.

          • McFlock 4.3.1.1.1
            20 July 2012 at 4:11 pm

            I think there’s also a slight difference between “can’t be trusted” and “been caught telling insultingly-obvious pork pies”.
                   
            In most of the jobs I’ve ever had I haven’t been trusted. People followed up to make sure that I was doing the job correctly, cash and property was audited, document access logs were made so leaks could be investigated, confidentiality statements signed, record checks carried out, relatives and associates contacted to verify, training/certifications refreshed periodically rather than just trusting me to know what to do, etc etc etc.
                          
                
            But like the vast majority of people who go through those procedures, I had absolutely no issues. Key, yet again, is demonstrated to be a lowdown, lying liar from Liarton in Lower Liarland.

            • TheContrarian 4.3.1.1.1.1
              20 July 2012 at 4:49 pm

              In Lower Liarland people wear hat’s on their feet and hamburgers eat people.

              • McFlock …
                20 July 2012 at 5:01 pm

                Nah, liars just say that to sound tough. 
                 

                • TheContrarian …
                  20 July 2012 at 5:04 pm

                  Do if a liar told you the truth does that mean they are lying to themselves? 

                  • TheContrarian …
                    20 July 2012 at 5:05 pm

                    ‘Do’ should be ‘So’

                  • McFlock …
                    20 July 2012 at 5:18 pm

                    Only if they had convinced themselves that they were lying to me.
                               
                    After all, if they were being 100% truthful then they’d be lying about their nationality even if they truthfully said they were from liarland. But then they’d know that I’d then doubt the truthiness of the true things they just said, in fact I’d probably suspect the reverse, so they’d still be lying to me via the cunning ruse of honesty.
                         
                    The bastards. 

        • Puddleglum 4.3.1.2
          20 July 2012 at 4:28 pm

          Nowhere in the original post – or subsequent comments, for that matter –  was there any indication, sugggestion or even implication that Key’s behaviour was a ‘surprise’. Quite the reverse, since it claimed that this was a long-standing practice of Key’s.

          Given that the post itself lacked any indication that Eddie was surprised, exactly where did your perception of the post being an expression of ‘surprise’ come from?

          In your view, is merely the act of writing about a particular politician’s deceitful behaviour ipso facto an expression of surprise? If so, then how would it be possible to hold a particular politician to account without committing the ‘amusing’ gaffe of expressing surprise?

          Or are your comments just expressions of the auto-stimulation of your funny bone? 

    • mike e 4.4
      20 July 2012 at 7:51 pm

      Shonkey
      Merrill Lynch
      Money Launder

  5. Observer AKL 5
    20 July 2012 at 9:02 am

    Turia seems to understand what Key is saying …..

    But for the life of me I cannot see the difference between water rights and entitlement

    Perhaps Turia has the same gift for slipperiness as Key? Four faces between the same two people

    So strange …..

  6. Colonial Viper 6
    20 July 2012 at 9:03 am

    Hence the symbol used in Chinese for a government official (官) has two mouths.

  7. Observer AKL 7
    20 July 2012 at 9:11 am

    Viper

    Brilliant

    Turia and Key however, both want to screw more money out of the common man to give to their wealthy friends.

    Identical slippery Twins. That’s the black and white of it.

  8. marty mars 8
    20 July 2012 at 9:27 am

    “He told the Maori Party that he wouldn’t legislate over the top of iwi water rights and interests”

    There is no evidence for this, apart from Tariana saying ‘they’ told her that. This is the area of vulnerability for their rickety construction – opposition MP’s should focus on this issue until someone breaks.

  9. vto 9
    20 July 2012 at 10:06 am

    I still fail to see the value in all this hoohaa. The Tribunal hearing is underway and the court actions will follow shortly, all of which will hold up, stall and stuff the asset sales process and shake this roten government to its core.

    All of that has nought to do with the politics that Key and the MP are fiddling with. Doesn’t it? I mean, these actions taken by the Maori Council are completely independent of MP and Key.

  10. captain hook 10
    20 July 2012 at 10:17 am

    more gum flapping and smoke and mirrors.
    the question is who gets the biggest share allocation?

  11. starlight 11
    20 July 2012 at 10:40 am

    Of course Key cannot be trusted,his old workmates said he would sell
    his mother if he could, need and humanity dont mean anything to this character.
    The water rights issue is one that key and co would have known about but decided
    to ‘play the divide and rule card’ knowing that they could reel the maori party in any
    time they want.
    Divide and rule tactics are also seen in the current welfare changes, they are punative
    dividing and debilitating,key chooses to make an example of those that would not
    have voted for him anyway, while he and his co-horts live very well off the taxpayers,
    he is now claiming that 20hrs is full time work for those who would not have voted national.
    Bene bennett may have the portfolio but key’s paws are all over it.
    Trust has to be earned and to date key and his band of feckless seat warmers have
    done zip to install trust into the minds of nz’ers who see through his facade.

    • bad12 11.1
      20 July 2012 at 11:02 am

      Oh Slippery has known full well the concerns Maori have over ‘water rights’, the Prime Minister has been in largely secret negotiations with the Iwi Leaders Group over the very issue of ‘water rights’ for the past 4 years,

      2 faced hardly describes the Prime Ministers actions over such ‘water rights’, changing the vocabulary depending upon which interested party He is addressing at any given time,

      For each, the Maori Party, the Iwi Leaders Group, the Waitangi Tribunal, the New Zealand Maori Council, and just as importantly if not more so, the New Zealand People, the Prime Minister has on any given day exhibited a differing attitude and expressed thought on the ‘water rights’ issue,

      Given that Slippery has been negotiating behind closed doors for the past 4 years with a group of Maori who He wrote to in 2009 agreeing that Maori has ‘rights’ to water and inviting negotiations with them on the issue the man is simply far too duplicitous to be trusted by any of the party’s involved…

  12. gobsmacked 12
    20 July 2012 at 11:06 am

    This is all that needs to be said on the matter …

    http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/key-weasel.html

    Except to add – the problem with Key’s game is you end up alienating voters on all sides. Better to stand for something, and make it clear, so you may lose some, but gain others. Labour take note.

  13. marty mars 13
    20 July 2012 at 11:43 am

    Vernon Small is on to it

    The statement, issued after late-night talks on Wednesday, notes the Government’s undertaking not to legislate over the rights and interests in water, as they are negotiated with iwi and hapu.

    Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia seemed to take that as a promise not to legislate against any rights, including proprietary interests, determined by the courts in response to the Waitangi Tribunal hearing.

    But in a raft of interviews Mr Key, Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson – and even Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples – took a narrower view. They talked of a promise not to unwind “rights and interests”, many of which are already in law as part of settlements.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/7312880/PM-diplomatic-but-water-stance-stays

    How slippery does a slippery snake need to be, to be considered a very slippery snake indeed.

  14. fnjckg 14
    20 July 2012 at 2:09 pm

    metaphysics for master of prophecy
    -no-thing grand about that

    (to john from j)

  15. Fortran 15
    20 July 2012 at 2:30 pm

    I look forward to learning what percentage of the shares in MRP are taken up by:
    1.KiwiSaver providers
    and
    2.Maori (big rich tribes)

    I suspect that not a good percentage will finish up with Mums and Dads.

  16. fnjckg 16
    20 July 2012 at 3:26 pm

    “pffffft! (inhalation through mask, pass it on).

  17. marsman 17
    20 July 2012 at 4:22 pm

    There is a photo in today’s DomPost of John Key wearing gumboots. I seem to remember a photo of that other pretend Prime Minister Jenny Shipley wearing gumboots shortly (?) after which we gave her the BOOT. Is this Shonkey’s Gumboot Moment? We can but hope.

    • xtasy 17.1
      21 July 2012 at 9:55 pm

      Do they wear them on their heads, genital parts (for whatever), on top of their heads, or what? I’d be interested, really?!

  18. The Woodpecker 18
    20 July 2012 at 4:35 pm

    These are not the actions of a PM. He stinks like a corporate raider. Shamefull and disgusting

  19. Foreign Waka 19
    20 July 2012 at 5:05 pm

    Every living thing has an absolute right to water, period.
    What seems to be in discussion under disguise is the “ownership” of water. Once any group or party owns water as a resource an automatic restriction of access and an absolute power over people takes hold as water is necessity to sustain life. Now, to lay claim to such ownership or right is more revealing than any other hick hack that becomes such destruction, isn’t it. If there is in the future only access via payment (water meters?) the group that least can afford this resource will first experience hygiene and health problems. I have heard people talking about the means of “cleaning” rainwater with Jenola (!). It seems that there is already some anxiety about access.

  20. Phil 20
    20 July 2012 at 7:55 pm

    Honestly, I despair of mainstream politics.
    So a center right capitalist makes two calls;
    1. We all own the water.
    2. No one owns the water.
    When we all know, whoever is using the water for production purposes owns the use of the water (and therefore by every definition) owns the water.
    Has everyone forgotten “Ownership is nine tenths of the law”?
    And capitalism is about ever decreasing circles of ownership?
    Who gives a flying fuck who Key states owns the water, when we know that whoever owns the right to use the water for the purposes of production owns the water?
    Same as any other asset that is used in the pursuit of product for profit.

    The Maori Party have shown that the notion of pan tribalist capitalism is alive and well.
    That Maori capitalist institutions hold the power in this debate and can be trusted to follow the capitalist idea to the Nth degree.

    And Labour is doing what?
    Despair, probably ain’t strong enough to be truthful.

    • bad12 20.1
      20 July 2012 at 8:53 pm

      I am not personally in favor of Labour when they do the monk’s retreat act cloistering themselves in the vows of silence over an important issue of the day,

      Sometimes the electorate is just begging for Labour to take a lead by expressing an alternative course of action that should be taken other then that of Slippery and the crew, the more often then not silence tends to give the impression, even if that impression is false, that Labour would be behaving in Government in exactly the same manner,

      On an issue of such gravitas as ‘water rights’, ‘water ownership’ though and while the Waitangi Tribunal is sitting it is probably ‘good politics’ from the opposition to let the process run it’s course,

      My word of advice on an issue that has deep effects within Maori-dom such as the present water one is that when such issues arise Labour/Green don’t resort to closed door negotiations with some of the stakeholders,

      Where Slippery and National have got the present issue so utterly wrong is to have initiated ‘negotiations’ with only a small section of the deeply interested and involved stakeholders in the issue…

  21. captain hook 21
    21 July 2012 at 5:18 pm

    the thing is that in our unicameral system the party in power can virtually do what they like and there are no checks and balances.
    kweewee and his mates will wrap all their predations in such a large tissue of misinformation and verbiage and then take the lot as if it were their right to dispose of anything they please.

  22. xtasy 22
    21 July 2012 at 10:35 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jtFNykJ_eI

    This is the German Sarah Wagenknecht, leader of the Left Party, and a smart, outspoken politcian, trying to remind the wealthy society in Germany, that is still benefiting from the poverty and inequality in Europe.

    She speaks truth and a lot of it. Sadly no English translation. How terrible. Capitalism is digging our grave, for sure! Fuck Key, fuck the world capitalist order and put a total stop to it, seize the control of assets in NZ!