Hard News: The Honours
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So last decade.
Except it's not really until 1/1/2011 is it..
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This takes me back exactly ten years. If it wasn't for the discussion back then about whether the year 2000 was the actual beginning of the new millennium* I think the Internet might have just fizzed out.
*It wasn't. -
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The honours list is always political as the office is part of the PM's department and the list has to be approved by Cabinet. This might indicate why Margaret Wilson and Michael Cullen weren't on it, even though retired speakers and senior cabinet ministers traditionally get something.
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This takes me back exactly ten years. If it wasn't for the discussion back then about whether the year 2000 was the actual beginning of the new millennium* I think the Internet might have just fizzed out.
*It wasn't.That's so last century ;-)
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a very good deal are driven by the private passion of a CEO, or key players on the board, or an influential sponsorship manager who weighs approaches and decides which are worthwhile, will assist local/national interest perspectives and have am upbeat rub-off factor for the company and its people.
If you look across the entire NZ spectrum - State energy company sponsoring Opera, NZ Herald owner the Auck Phil
fuck opera and the auck phil, fuck the am cup and pro sports sponsorship altogether. isn't it all about the rub off factor...just a big ego wank for the cracka ass knobs to get a corporate box ?
business by law should have a percentage of socially responsible donations made available from profits but then again, i reckon executive salaries should be capped at less than 250k a year, performance bonuses should be abolished and one day a month all execs should swap jobs with some lowly employee for a day:)
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Thanks very much for last night
Ae, it were lovely. Good people all round. I love how the sky-lanterns we saw from the first party were released aloft from the second. And the moon.
The original has been a massive hit
Soaring, beautiful. Which local anthems do you reckon do that?
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just a big ego wank for the cracka ass knobs
quite
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business by law should have a percentage of socially responsible donations made available from profits but then again
There is such a law. They are legally obliged to pay tax. The voluntary donation is one where the business gets to decide what is socially responsible, rather than the government of the day, of which happens to involve compromise.
Just as an aside, The CEO of Mitsubishi New Zealand, once gave me a Christmas ham. He treated me as of equal worth. Thats the sort of person I can look up to.
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All humans are equally human.
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I love living in the middle ages.I think everyone should be knighted next year.
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<tugs forelock>
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.I think everyone should be knighted next year.
be knighted or beknighted?
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I thought it was great when Sir Tristram got one.
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I love living in the middle ages.I think everyone should be knighted next year.
But if everyone is knighted, where will they get their men-at-arms to fulfill their feudal obligations?
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The honours list is always political as the office is part of the PM's department and the list has to be approved by Cabinet. This might indicate why Margaret Wilson and Michael Cullen weren't on it, even though retired speakers and senior cabinet ministers traditionally get something.
Speakers do traditionally get something. However, I don't believe tradition dictates they ought to get something every year.
Perhaps Margaret Wilson received a DCNZM a year ago. And then declined the option of changing it to a DNZM (with the accompanying Damehood) last August.
You know ... just maybe.
And maybe National was being so political about it all that the only people they wanted to give the Order of New Zealand to were Roger Douglas acolytes like Helen Clark...
You're right. It's appalling that National have so politicised appointments to our honours lists =)
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I thought it was great when Sir Tristram got one
rofflenui
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The honours list is always political as the office is part of the PM's department and the list has to be approved by Cabinet. This might indicate why Margaret Wilson and Michael Cullen weren't on it, even though retired speakers and senior cabinet ministers traditionally get something.
Margaret Wilson did "get something" -- along with Steve Maharey -- in last year's New Year honours list. I know the current government is evil incarnate as far as you're concerned, Hillary, but if the whole thing really is that partisan then I've got to say they're fucking up big time.
Perhaps you'd also like to share with us what "services to the National Party" were rendered by Helen Clark? They must have been slightly more extensive than losing the 2008 general election to be worth the ONZ.
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3410,
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Perhaps you'd also like to share with us what "services to the National Party" were rendered by Helen Clark?
You are hereby banned from further use of fallacious argument. ;)
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Fran responds, with reflections on her dealings over the years with the latest crop, with Doug Myers and Helen Clark as examples that have polarised discussion.
What is it in the national psyche that some Kiwis cannot celebrate, if only for a couple of days each year, the achievements of outstanding New Zealanders?
And apparently Myers may believe in society after all:
"I got a CBE years ago and I remember going down and thinking what was wonderful about it was the numbers of people from small country towns who'd done public service for a very long time and been recognised and came down to Wellington and had their families with them.
I thought it's a very binding social function."
But wait, here's our part in undermining what is right and good:
The mainstream media also serve a binding function by not using the honours list as an easy opportunity to reprise all the controversies, skeletons-in-cupboards, and, black-spots that usually accompany lives that are led in the public domain. Instead, we dwell on the high spots.
Out in the blogosphere it is a different matter. Right-wing blogs are apoplectic over Clark's honour. Some lefties are out-raged that Myers has been elevated.
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Out in the blogosphere it is a different matter. Right-wing blogs are apoplectic over Clark's honour. Some lefties are out-raged that Myers has been elevated.
So this is a lefty blog? I'm outta here. It's only 'polarising' because it makes people question what we hold as 'honourable' in this here society, which surely is a good thing.
The fact remains that if at a very basic level you compare the two mentioned above, one is the first female Prime Minister in New Zealand and the first to lead a Labour party into three terms, while the other ran a successful billion dollar corporation that profited from people's propensity to drink large quantities of alcohol.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when these are given similar standing in this country of ours, but we can be, IMhO, a bit disappointed.
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You are hereby banned from further use of fallacious argument. ;)
3410: Fair enough. But if you're seriously going to argue that the honours process is fatally tainted by partisanship, I'd love to see some evidence. I know John Key is Satan incarnate to plenty (and not all on the left either), but really...
But hey, if folks want to keep taking cheap shots and scoring own goals, what else is teh interwebz for?
So this is a lefty blog?
No, but the usual suspects over at Kiwibog are living all the way down to expectations. And, no -- I'm not providing a link, because some of the chatter is seriously vile, and I'm not going to dignify it with linky love.
The fact remains that if at a very basic level you compare the two mentioned above, one is the first female Prime Minister in New Zealand and the first to lead a Labour party into three terms, while the other ran a successful billion dollar corporation that profited from people's propensity to drink large quantities of alcohol.
And Helen Clark lead a government that was quite happy to profiteer off addicts to the tune of billions of dollars in excise tax on tobacco and alcohol, so I'm wondering if that moral high horse is about ready for the knackers yard.
And dare I say this, but there are those among us who don't think a three-term Labour government is anything to celebrate -- let alone reward with New Zealand's highest honour. But fuck it, good on Helen anyway.
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Instead, we dwell on the high spots.
It would be pretty rad if they could also dwell on the low spots. You know, showing all sides of the issue and whatnot.
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I'm not providing a link, because some of the chatter is seriously vile, and I'm not going to dignify it with linky love.
Thanks for the heads up. Plenty going on here to keep my attention away from it.
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I see that being a more polite commentator is not one of Craig's New Year resolutions.
We live in a pretty benign democracy and most politicians are reasonable people. That doesn't stop me noting inequity, hypocrisy, oppression and abuses of power in our political systems.
By the way Craig, did you ever find out whether there will be toilets on the new electric Waikanae trains, or is that money now going into a couple of inches of concrete expressway?
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I thought that was politer
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