Posts by Keir Leslie
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God that might have been the worse decision ever made in the CCC area - imagine if no amalgamation, no Bob Parker, no underfunded rural area to maintain, no Tony Maryatt! If only if only.
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If the Old Course - literally the most iconic course in the world & next to the most exclusive golf club in the world - can get by without fences and with a public right of way lying across, I reckon Chamberlain Park can.
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You can walk across the Old Course at St Andrews if you want to get to the beach...
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Hard News: Incomplete, inaccurate and misleading, in reply to nzlemming,
It's so cheeky it's not funny. Also poses real questions about how other people are meant to know what you are at any given time: Ministerial staff can presumably talk to civil servants and ask them to do things, but Leader's Office staff presumably can't, any more than Labour Leader's Office staff can. (If you're going to engage in the kind of hairsplitting sophistry going on here.)
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In fact paras 130-150 cover the Ministerial/Parl Serv issue. In brief: they worked for both, and moved between the two depending on their specific role at the particular time they acted.
I think this is (a) dodgy as hell in terms of evading retrospective accountability (i.e I don't think you can just put your PS hat on to dodge the law) and also (b) really bad practice that should be stopped in future.
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Hard News: Incomplete, inaccurate and misleading, in reply to nzlemming,
I don't think that's right - Key and National will have staff who are employed by Parliamentary Services - the National Party Research Unit, for instance, is Parliamentary Services. Only staff who are employed by Ministers as Ministers are part of the Executive, and the claim is that Ede was employed to do parliamentary work not executive work.
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Strictly speaking, the Leader's Office isn't private, it's legislative. If Ede works for Parliamentary Services, he's employed by Parliament not by the National Party.
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I think it's a bit odd that Broadcasting went to Curran and not Faafoi.. Both are competent and onto it, and I think both have good plans for public broadcasting.
The issue remains funding and the intersection with broader cultural issues. It's better that these portfolios stay with people who are actually competent and on top of the issues, especially given that quite a few of the "unranked" MPs will likely shuffle upwards as more senior MPs move on this term.
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Well, she seems to have attracted a solid block of support from Maori caucus members, and she's a senior figure in Tainui and the Kingitanga. Unlike her predecessor in Maori Development, Shane Jones,, she's neither caused any scandals nor turned out to be a closet Tory. So, you know, doing pretty well. Don't know if I'd have put her at #4 personally, but it's not a bad decision either.
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Gio is only to accurate. (As I say, Mahuta is well above replacement value.)
And it’s a bit shitty to apply predominantly white, male standards of politics as a way of attacking a Maori woman who is taking on a portfolio that’s about connecting and supporting Maori development. I don’t really care if she’s an effective operator in the House – although she is competent – her job, like most MPs, is elsewhere.