Who’s disrespecting whom?

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 pm, November 18th, 2010 - 38 comments
Categories: activism, by-election, democratic participation, john key - Tags: ,

Mana locals rallied loudly against Key and Parata today. Key says “we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect”. Nah. McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful. Key could’ve shown respect by taking time to defend his record: wages down, no jobs, rising crime, service cuts. He didn’t. No respect.

Update(IB): To be fair it didn’t work out very well for him the last time he talked to a worker in Porirua:

38 comments on “Who’s disrespecting whom? ”

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  1. Carol 1
    18 November 2010 at 7:47 pm

    And then there was the tired old “rent-a-mob” dismissal! As though people who are anti-Key and anti-GST couldn’t be there, like,, because, maybe they are strongly motivated and believe in their protest?!

    • Zetetic 1.1
      18 November 2010 at 7:50 pm

      perfectly natural for people to band together into political movements. Obviously people who strongly oppose lower wages, higher unemployment and higher crime are going to support Left wing candidates and be anti-Key.

      Doesn’t make their views invalid. Not like they’re puppets and Goff is whispering in their ear telling them what to say. Goffice would hate this kind of thing anyway. be scared of blowback.

  2. J. Andels 2
    18 November 2010 at 7:51 pm

    I love the news. Stuff reported this and claimed “One woman said she lived in a garage and invited Mr Key to visit her in Cannon’s Creek” was there, while the ODT reported that “Another woman, Caroline Harvey, said she was a qualified social worker but had no job and was living in a caravan in Cannons Creek.”
    The difference is pretty telling and shows which one is a tad less biased.
    The Stuff article and the DomPost article are exactly the same, written by the same person. You can open both in a tab each and flick between them with almost no change. But there are two things in the articles that are different, the title and a key (no pun intended) paragraph.
    “A heavy security presence surrounded Mr Key. ” on the Stuff site versus “A security presence surrounded Mr Key.” on the Dompost site.
    Subtle things make all the difference.

    • Fisiani 2.1
      18 November 2010 at 8:26 pm

      John Key 1 Rent a Mob 0
      Mana locals bullshit….
      IrishBill a mana local? pull the other one
      Dunedin leftards local ? its got bells on it.
      Right now Hekia Parata is getting tremendous applause at Pukerua Bay School.
      Kris is bumbling again about fresh fruit and veggies.

  3. just saying 3
    18 November 2010 at 8:25 pm

    If NZLP gets to have a leadership role in NZ through the coming crises, I think history will show they have grass-roots left movements like Matt’s to thank. Slavering over National voters, regardless of what the focus groups say, is a guaranteed fail.

    Finally the left has a voice that doesn’t passively accept the agenda set by the right, and it has real power. The ‘aspirational’ crap is being challenged, and people are starting to listen, and talk about it. Shame is starting to give way to anger, inertia to energy.

    I can only hope Labour ‘gets with the programme’.

  4. dave 4
    18 November 2010 at 9:07 pm

    Some of the people who rallied loudly against Key were not Mana locals. Who’s kidding whom?

    • Zetetic 4.1
      18 November 2010 at 9:13 pm

      oh noes! not locals? you mean like key and parata?

      stop crying and deal with the issues like a man

  5. tc 5
    18 November 2010 at 10:03 pm

    Hey but credit where it’s due……Sideshow john doing what we pay him to do….smile, wave, have photo taken….job done.

  6. Bazar 6
    18 November 2010 at 10:12 pm

    “Nah. McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful. Key could’ve shown respect by taking time to defend his record: wages down, no jobs, rising crime, service cuts. He didn’t. No respect.”

    I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word respect.
    Or are you advocating that our PM’s should drop what they are doing, just to cater to people who shout the loudest?

    The very idea that you demand the PM to take the time out of his schedule, just to try and educate a group that wouldn’t be willing to listen is unbelivable.

    Capcha: Ridiculous
    Sums this artical up nicely.

    • Zetetic 6.1
      18 November 2010 at 10:46 pm

      I think that if you’re the PM and in you’re in Mana supposedly to talk about what your government is doing for the people of Mana you shouldn’t have a cry and run away when some people come to you with problems. They would soon stop yelling if Key talked with them respectfully like McCarten did.

      But he doesn’t because he’s an elitist.

      ‘Time out of his schedule’?

      He was at the mall to meet people. These were people. Could have had a meaningful discussion with them rather than the usual ‘I love you John’/’oh, thank you, me too’

      • Bazar 6.1.1
        19 November 2010 at 12:36 am

        “I think that if you’re the PM and in you’re in Mana supposedly to talk about what your government is doing for the people of Mana you shouldn’t have a cry and run away when some people come to you with problems”

        I compelatly agree.

        Which is why i have a hard time supporting a croud that isn’t even local, coming from as far as dunedin to push their national dissent in what is a local election, covering local issues.

        As for talking to the croud, they didn’t come to have an open discussion. I believe they came to raise a ruckus and try their best to make national look bad.

        Take for example “McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful”.
        McCarten gave him open dialog, and did that actually achieve anything. He was still bad mouthing him at the end of the clip. I can only assume he never changed his stance.

        And that was over local issues.
        And you want our PM to deal with 10 of them, outsiders, who’s biggest complaints have nothing to do with the mana election?

        The smartest thing Key could of done is to ignore them. Nothing good would of happened doing so.

        Theres a saying to describe that:
        “Never argue with an idiot, they only drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experiance”.

    • Mac1 6.2
      18 November 2010 at 10:48 pm

      Bazar. the converse is also unbelievable? People taking time out of their schedules to educate Key?

      This topic reminds me of the ACT bus in the time of Prebble with the big loudspeakers attached and a sign saying, “ACT. Listening to You”.

  7. ianmac 7
    18 November 2010 at 10:52 pm

    Political meetings used to be noisy rombunctious affairs where opposing forces hurled insults at each other. Not now sadly. All terribly polite and a few shouting make headlines. The last election hall meeting that I went to was packed in the front by the faithful and only patsy questions were allowed.
    Fancy Key needing a “heavy security presence.” Perhaps he has grandeur visions of himself being just like Obama. Remember Election night?

  8. M 8
    18 November 2010 at 11:19 pm

    Yes I do, his arms held aloft in the Tricky Dicky salute – ‘I’m not a crook, I’m not a crook.’

    Had a picture of JK by my desk with this caption underneath the day after the election.

    Sure he may respect the protestors’ rights but repays them with the 90-day rogering, no state housing, no jobs and increased GST – heckuva job Johnny!

  9. Jeremy Harris 9
    19 November 2010 at 12:20 am

    It looked really bad on the news, that Unite lady was disgraceful…

    When the cop walked up to her and she said, “are you harassing me becuase I’m Maori?”, you could hear the next door neighbours cringing…

    • Colonial Viper 9.1
      19 November 2010 at 12:28 am

      Since the likelihood of two people in exactly the same circumstances being charged with a crime or ending up doing prison time varies with skin colour, its probably a fair question, no?

      • Jim Nald 9.1.1
        19 November 2010 at 12:37 am

        most unfortunately, with the justice and police system
        it’s very often

        not fair if you’re black
        and
        even less often
        not black if you’re fair

    • Jeremy Harris 9.2
      19 November 2010 at 12:44 am

      The fact that she sounded aggressive, appeared to be moving back and forth quickly and was yelling in a mall probably had a lot more to do with the cop moving towards her…

      I would have done the same thing in the situation no matter who it was…

  10. Irascible 10
    19 November 2010 at 12:23 am

    Congratulations to those who braved the horde of security men who surround Key at every opportunity as he seeks to isolate himself from the real NZ. As he is the member for Hawaii rather than the member for his postal address in Helensville I can see why he got upset when confronted by those his government of rorters wish to approach him and question him.
    From Key himself, salesmant to Warner Bros, to Hide, English, Heatley, Lee, Brownlee and now the biggest rort of all, Wong, he has done nothing but represent a corrupt and inept government which he is “perfectly relaxed about” until forced to acknowledge the truth.
    NZ must keep this sort of robust campagning up each & every time Key allows himself to re-enter NZ reality.

  11. Francisco Hernandez 11
    19 November 2010 at 5:50 am

    People from Dunedin were there because its in our interests to make sure that Hekia didnt win. For several reasons:
    1. She’ll be a puppet of a lying PM who raised GST when he said he wouldn’t – among other things.

    2. A vote for Hekia is a vote for Conway Powell.

    • Craig Glen Eden 11.1
      19 November 2010 at 7:59 am

      So from all this I get that John Key thinks he deserves respect. I have always been taught respect has to be earned, which is fair enough I think. So referring to voters as muppet’s probably is not respectful, sooner or latter the muppet’s get to vote.So people who hide behind the media or in radio stations who disrespect others can probably expect to run into some very unhappy muppet’s .

      Harden up Mr Key your life I suspect is about to change the muppets are back.

    • Colonial Viper 11.2
      19 November 2010 at 8:42 am

      Go Francisco!!! Good on you guys.

    • gingercrush 11.3
      19 November 2010 at 1:14 pm

      I’m confused. It was my understanding that if Hekia Parata does win that National does not get an additional MP. I ask that because I said the same thing in regards to Mt. Albert and Melissa Lee if she won National would get an additional MP and both Graeme Edgler and David Farrar said that wasn’t the case.

      Yet the political editor on National Radio said that would happen.

  12. dave 12
    19 November 2010 at 7:43 am

    .. only if Hekia Parata wins and doesn’t resign before taking up her seat..

  13. ianmac 13
    19 November 2010 at 10:31 am

    The video in your update Zetetic is priceless. That man deserves a place at the top table. Hard to hear the Key reply but he was outgunned in terms of fact and clarity.
    “You are for increasing the minimum wage but you voted against it! You just contradicted your self!……… So what are the issues? That’s what we are here for!”
    Brilliant.

  14. David 14
    19 November 2010 at 4:14 pm

    On the topic of showing disrespect, I found Key’s off-hand dismissal of the concerns of teachers very disrespectful:
    “Why aren’t you at school?” the Prime Minister asked a group of teenagers. “Because of the teachers’ strike,” they replied.

    “We’ll get them back to work soon,” he quipped.

    We’ll get them back to work soon?? Well I guess it could mean the government is going to accept the teachers’ claims. Or they could just do what they did with the hobbit. A nice dose of extraordinary urgency and they could make it a criminal offence for teachers to strike.

    Of course, expecting the Prime Minister to speak with respect about teachers is too much to ask.

    • Carol 14.1
      19 November 2010 at 4:24 pm

      they could make it a criminal offence for teachers to strike.

      Well, that’s pretty much what Thatcher did when I was teaching in the UK, and the NUT were carrying out ongoing industrial action quite successfully – work to rule, day strikes, rallies etc. The NUT could have gone on indefinitely with that action, but the Tories passed a law taking away the right for teachers to carry out collective bargaining.

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