Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Brent Jackson,
If you would like to dispell that impression, you could try agreeing that Laila Harre was not impugning the Electroral Commission, but was actually questioning whether Judith Collins was fit to be the Minister overseeing it.
I don't. So, I can "dispel the impression" that I'm a liar by saying something I don't actually believe? M'kay...
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
This is not the same thing and I’m equally tired of you pretending it is.
Pretending? FFS, Mark, I’m done with this until you get a grip on the difference between disagreeing with someone conclusions (which you’re perfectly entitled to do) and calling them a bad faith liar. Again. Despite being asked, repeatedly, to cut it out. If I found that at all useful I’d go sperlunking in the Kiwibog sewer, though to be perfectly fair you’re nowhere near that bad. Nobody here is.
As to the false equivalency charge, I stand by that. You segued from John Key’s trainwreck to Harre’s nowhere-near-trainwreck as “not the only cringe inducing interview” and never bothered to differentiate.
Oh, come on. This is getting silly – I didn’t think either interview was terribly good and if you want to read anything else into that Tweet it’s all on you. Again, to be fair it’s not like I’ve never gone off on anyone on Twitter half-cocked then proceeded to efficiently shoot off all my toes – it’s an occupational hazard when you’ve got a lot of bite-sized gobbets whizzing by so fast it’s really easy to miss a LOT of context or misread tone. (Someone come up with a sarcasm font, stat!) I don’t expect anyone to read my entire feed before responding to a Tweet, but it’s really nice not to be presumed to be a lying bad faith partisan hack.
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Right. After our exchange on Twitter I sat down and listened to it again, as, while I had thought it wasn’t a great interview, I hadn’t picked up what was so incensing you.
And that’s fine – but I just rapidly got rather tired of being accused of “false equivalence” trolling. Because I really don’t see how saying that interview was lousy (IMHO and YMMV, of course) was drawing an equivalence with Key’s, which I’m very happy to characterize as an slimy, evasive train wreck. And, yeah, I don’t like anyone accusing our electoral agencies of partisan bias – never have. And I’m not giving LH a pass because she just did it more passive-aggressively than most. Why bring the Electoral Commission into an attack on Judith Collins at all? What dog was being whistled for there, and was there any basis in fact for it?
Take your rosette off and really look at what these people are doing to your party, and to the country. And stop reading what you want to hear into what politicians are actually saying.
You know, I could respond in kind and suggest you take your own advice and decide whether Harre accusing an inconvenient but perfectly legitimate question of “amplyfing Cameron Slater’s agenda” is any more desirable than Key dismissing critics of… well, being Nicky Hager's useful idiots.
As I’ve also said on Twitter, you can’t go preaching transparency and accountability for thee, but not for me. Nor do I think just saying “I don’t know” (which Harre eventually did about KDC’s alleged texts) is ipso facto dishonest or weak. Politically inconvenient, yes. But I don’t care – she was asked to respond to a perfectly legitimate question, and she tried pulling a Key. Not good enough, and here’s why.
Based on current polling, Internet Mana will return 2-3 MPs to the next Parliament and they could well be essential for any Labour-led Government whether anyone else likes it or not. If you’re happy for them to hand wave off any criticism or tough questioning from the media as the work of Cameron Slater finger-puppets, and passive-aggressively impugn the integrity of civil servants who can’t respond, well be careful what you wish for.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
As Minister, she has oversight over their work and budget. Lower voter turnout favours the right. So… if she’s a bad egg, how much focus and budget is she going to put into, say, encouraging voter turnout? How well is she going to resource the department that works to get people to enroll/chases them if they don’t?
No Minister of Justice, not even the Demoness Judith Collins, determines the "focus" of the Electoral Commission -- which is an independent crown entity NOT part of the Ministry of Justice. That's laid out on in the Electoral Act, 1993 as amended by the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2010.
And nobody has their budget set by ministerial fiat. If Ms. Harre is an MP after the election, I look forward to her being a strong advocate for increased resources to the Electoral Commission so they can even better do the job they already do with the utmost integrity and political independence.
As I said up thread, Judith Collins can take whatever slings and arrows come her way. But I think all politicians might want to think really hard about bringing electoral agencies into campaign argy-bargy in any way, shape or form.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Michael Meyers,
I have no idea if they have enough money to do their job or not but Harre was not questioning the integrity and independence of the agencies, just the independence of their budgets. This is a big difference.
And that’s an entirely worthy sentiment, but she didn’t actually say any of that on Morning Report – and it was a underwhelming interview that only looked good by comparison with the preceding Key trainwreck. Judith Collins is a grown-up who can take whatever slings and arrows come her way, but I don’t see why the Electoral Commission had to be brought into it in any way, shape or form.
IMO, Harre was damn lucky Susie Ferguson didn’t ask the obvious follow up: “So, are you claiming Collins is politically interfering in the work of the Electoral Commission?” And she's actually going to have to learn to answer uncomfortable but legitimate questions without dismissing them as "dirty politics" and "amplifying Cameron Slater's agenda."
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Laila Harre’s observation that Judith Collins was Minister for the Electoral Commission was thrillingly chilling.
No it really wasn't, Lucy. Know I'm on a hiding to nothing, but it might be a good idea if Laila Harre took a deep breath before passive-aggressively impugning the integrity and political independence of electoral agencies.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Steve Parks,
- “Particularly since she emphasised the word ‘allegedly’ umpteens of times.”
I took that as making a self-aware kind of joke about the whole having to say “allegedly” thing.
I’m really going to regret asking this, but what’s wrong about qualifying claims like Rodney Hide sent sexually explicit texts to a young woman?
I don’t want to get in the way of a good right wing media conspiracy theory, but it seems Hager frequently (and legally, perfectly sensibly) qualified a lot of claims in the book more heavily than they’ve been reported. I’ll defer to PASers with more legal expertise, but I have my doubts “I’m just quoting Whaleoil!” is a particularly strong defense for defamation.
But what’s new – or surprising – about that? As I’ve been banging on about for years, some alleged editors really need a refresher course on the non-trivial difference between an allegation, a criminal charge, and a conviction in a court of law following due process; let alone that no media outlet is a judicial body. I’ve given up on trying to convince the media that correlation (if it even exists) does not imply causation.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Perhaps we should all accept that this is how it really is in the internet age…NOTHING can be considered ‘private’, ‘confidential’ or ‘secret’ once you click ‘send’.
So we should all perhaps HTFU and move on.
Well, Rosemary, I’m sure Cameron Slater (and Hager’s source, who Hager’s hinted is going to release material he wouldn’t touch) would agree with that. If that’s the company people want to keep, that’s their call.
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Thanks, Kracklite. +1 whole infinity.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Coming from the National right being personally responsible for your own actions is a big part of the ethos, Slater had better get with the program and stop tryin to blame others for hos own mistakes
What? I'm sorry, Paul, but can we just stipulate that death threats just aren't acceptable and leave it there? Of course it's as absurd as it is distasteful to try holding anyone but the perpetrators responsible, but Slater deserves that baseline courtesy as much as Hager.