Posts by Joe Wylie
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In his time as PM, Michael Joseph Savage actively shared intelligence with the KGB, ran a wildly unpopular program of collectivisation with the help of Soviet advisors, pushed for a trade pact with Stalin that would have undermined NZ’s sovereignty, and regularly holidayed at his Black Sea dacha. Assuming any of that was true, would it have made him an extremist lefty? Given the degree of slack extended to Key, probably not.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Andre Alessi,
National won’t overtly do anything to slag off Maori-specific policies to keep the Maori Party happy, but I doubt anyone in the party will be unhappy that Winston is taking this track.
Certainly not publically. One has only to recall Georgina Te Heuheu's stoicism when doused with a bucket of political ordure in the aftermath of Brash's Orewa speech. Given the feudal nature of establishment Maori politics, and the interest of the two major parties in keeping it that way, she really didn't have any option.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Andre Alessi,
If Winston is going after Maori, rather than refugees or Asians, he must think he’s got a better shot with National than Labour.
Maybe the patrician condescension of Labour rangatiras such as Clark and Palmer towards uppity natives is all in the past, but it still seems a grey enough area for Winnie to play sillybuggers without revealing his hand. He was a minister in the Clark government through the foreshore & seabed "wreckers and haters", and raised no objection to her very public statement that the targets of the Urewera raids that took place on her watch were guilty of serious offences.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Rich Lock,
The correct incantation...
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
That’s interesting.
That's more than I can say for your latest batch of self-absorbed muttering. With a nick like Farmer Green you sound like a refugee from Playschool. Goodbye and good luck with the cognitive disability.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
Anyone can cut down all their trees, laser -level the terrain, get a water right, install the centre-pivot irrigator, put on 4-5 cows /Ha, and pour on the Nitrogen fertiliser, ship in the PKE and the maize silage etc. etc., and create a gigantic effluent storage pond . . . and Bob’s your Uncle, right?
Even under the present ECAN regime, no, they can't. There are still obstacles, even if they happen to be a rival irrigator with whom one must negotiate. As for your dismally defeatist claim that ratepayer representation is some kind of lost cause, I'd accord rather more credibility to someone who's prepared to show the courage of their convictions by posting their conclusions under their own name.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
Are you “in politics ” Joe? The situation in Canterbury does not seem to differ in any meaningful way from that which prevails in the rest of the country i.e. a RMA Act which has yet to address agriculture in an effective way
I live in Canterbury. Until the Environment Canterbury Regional Council elected members were sacked and replaced with appointed commissioners back in 2010 I was able to vote for the Council's makeup. Now I've lost that right, and there's no firm timetable for when it might ever be restored. Despite your claim this situation is unique to Canterbury, unless you include the much smaller Rodney District Council. If having an ordinary citizen's informed concern about this kind of disenfranchisement places me "in politics" then guilty as charged. I also post here under my own name, so in case you suspect me of having some kind of hidden agenda, Google is your friend.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
Those who think that conventional , large-scale dairy farming is a guaranteed path to riches …
Aren’t you playing to a straw man audience? Thanks to the hijacking of ECAN, around half a million of those stereotypically ignorant ‘townies’ have been indefinitely disenfranchised from having any input into how Canterbury’s resources should be allocated. A number of, rather ironically, democratically-elected regional mayors appear to believe that this is a good thing. Perhaps your concerns about perceptions of dairying profitability should be directed to Shanghai Pengxin.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
What’s that about Joe? Are you talking about the foot-dragging on environmental issues?
Can you make your case without the silly "townies" stereotype? I think the readership here is a little more nuanced than that.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Farmer Green,
Come on all you townies; what is it that you think is so “high ” about your standard of living?
Farmer Green doesn’t know.With about eight percent of employees on New Zealand dairy farms originally from the Philippines, perhaps you’re addressing the ‘townies’ of Metro Manila? One thing I’ve noticed about the Filipino farm workers I’ve met here, they certainly lack your old-school squealing cocky chip on the shoulder.
