Cracker by Damian Christie

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Cracker: Strike Nine (and counting)

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  • Kumara Republic,

    Is there actually more to the Newmarket Biz Assoc than just Cameron Brewer?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Fair enough, and incidently I expected a sigh and response from you Craig(didn't expect RB in one of my dreams though, it was to do with Rugby all right?)

    I would never disappoint you, Miss Sofie. :) But seriously, one thing about the "new paradigm" (as our Aussie cousins put it) is that you've got to pick and choose how much crazy bullshit you take on, as opposed to the nuts and flakes you've got to deal with on a daily basis.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    It just seems to me the whole "democratic" process has developed fatal flaws along the way. It is no longer representative.

    In terms of being a reflection of the general population, since MMP it's been the most representative ever. Certainly a lot more representative than it was 100 years ago, when our members of parliament were largely independently wealthy, and all white males.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    you've got to pick and choose how much crazy bullshit you take on, as opposed to the nuts and flakes you've got to deal with on a daily basis.

    Trouble is though, SHIT STICKS no matter how you gamble. If you pick and choose russian roulette, your choice of ice cream will always be full of nuts and flakes. :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Islander,

    Um, Kyle - there were at least 4 brown gentlemen sitting also-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Islander,

    from 1868 onwards anyway-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Soo, Rodney will step down if the Act Party thinks its in the best interest. Bye Election? Nah he'd just go and sit on the naughty step with Roy and SRD could move up to the front. :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    Key has consistently refused to have Roger Douglas as a Minister. If anyone goes to the front when Hide steps down, it's Roy and Boscawen..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • simon g,

    John Key is very happy with the National-ACT relationship. It is working well, and he is delighted to have ACT Ministers in his government.

    Except Roger Douglas. Oh, and Heather Roy. And now David Garrett.

    And, maybe soon, Rodney Hide.

    But other than that, they're all fine.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    it's Roy and Boscawen..

    Yes Sacha, as I've bin sayin', hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I sometimes think Parliament forgets that.Even if, SRD would still be happy chappy. He's always been with Roy. Roy Roger, Roger Roy. But you knew that ;-)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    John Key is very happy with the National-ACT relationship. It is working well, and he is delighted to have ACT Ministers in his government.

    Except Roger Douglas. Oh, and Heather Roy. And now David Garrett.

    And, maybe soon, Rodney Hide.

    But other than that, they're all fine.

    Excellent. :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And since it's a day with a Y in it, cue the predictably vile and clueless Michael Laws column.

    FORGIVE ME, this morning, for not joining the media's gratuitous mugging of Act list MP David Garrett.

    It is not my favourite party and its economic philosophy – whatever it actually is – is not mine. But the collective bullying from the press gallery seems a much greater crime than any committed by the favourite son of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

    Given the circumstances under which Laws himself resigned from Parliament, why am I at all surprised Mme. Antoinette Beck thinks we should get over identity theft and passport fraud and move on...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    And since it's a day with a Y in it, cue the predictably vile and clueless Michael Laws column.

    I like* the part where he implies that the parents of the dead baby in the Garrett case should just get over it, because it was like AGES ago that their two year-old daughter died.



    *Well, actually, I don't like it. I'm basically revolted by it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • simon g,

    I expect they did get over it.

    Thanks to Garrett, it came back and kicked them in the guts, 20 years later.

    But I expect they got over that.

    Thanks to ACT (Hide, the board, the leaker), it's now come back yet again.

    But they'll get over it.

    Until the election campaign, when the media start ringing the family and asking "How do you feel? Have you forgiven him?", etc, etc.

    But Rodney Hide never imagined this would happen, and he's very sorry. So that's OK then.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    Failure of imagination is a pretty good summary for many of the current crop in power

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Tom Semmens,

    And since it's a day with a Y in it, cue the predictably vile and clueless Michael Laws column.

    ACT is dead, but nature abhors a vacuum, so whither the angry talkback Taliban vote go?

    If the scuttlebutt of a Peters/Laws re-launch of NZ First (already on 4-4.5% of the party vote) has any truth at all, then Mr. Law's sympathetic column could be seen as manoeuvering to hose up the "hang 'em high" ACT vote that would carry NZ First over the 5% line...

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic,

    And this is the same Mr Lhaws who wants to do a Jack Thompson in NZ. And I'm not referring to the good Jack Thompson. By the logic in the Sunday paper article, will he be calling for Rev Capill to be paroled as well?

    If Winston & Lhaws do a Le Pen/Haider/Hanson/Buchanan, that'll get them votes all right. But would NZ necessarily be better off for it?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Islander,

    DeepRed - absolutely not (in reply to your last query.)

    There is an unpleasant set of people within our country who need to have something to despise, someone to beat up on, who feel threatened by difference, and worryingly - by the rule of law.

    Unfortunately, They is Us (like 2 of my family - rather older than me & not on the Maori side, who are fervent talkback partyicipants and conspiracy believers.) Michael Lhaws? Peters? The remanants of act?
    O yes!

    Most worryingly - I estimate their numbers at 10%....

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Just thinking,

    Presuming the death of ACT, does that mean National will cover the right wing?

    If they do, will they leave the all impotent Central position?

    Or will we move to the left as a country, the death of free market policies everdent for all to see?

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • Jeremy Eade,

    Act is a party that is as artificial as its owners. It only survived 2005 and 2008 because Epsom National votes strategically.

    The Epsom National voter votes strategically because their votes carry four members that can only join National as a government.

    The Epsom National voter thinks that having Act in is preferably to having Labour in. They worry about money policy and any changes to 1980's tax reductions. They have done well out of the reduced taxes of the last thirty years.

    They are willing to stomach a major crazy rightwing party because the fear of labour is greater.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report

  • Islander,

    Not wrong, Jeremy Eade.

    Worse: they're the kind of people who will cobble up another rightwing
    anti-worker populist-in-the-worst-sense party (hay-lo Winston & Lhaws!) because rich righties cannot countenance sharing wealth-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Presuming the death of ACT, does that mean National will cover the right wing?

    If they do, will they leave the all impotent Central position?

    Or will we move to the left as a country, the death of free market policies everdent for all to see?

    Strategically, from national's point of view, there's a lot of value in having a party to the right of it for many reasons.

    Whether or not the past few months will kill ACT and prevent it from doing that... It wouldn't surprise me if there's further moves in the party to return it to its ideological base and turf out the SST types.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Craig Young,

    I'm not sure that the prehensile populist vote is all that large these days. It always had troubles within the ACT caucus, as there's always been a hardline New Right faction that was strongly antagonistic to the populist sideshow antics of Prebble, Hide, Mad Moo Newman, Stephen Franks and Garrett. I suspect that the current neutralisation of Garrett may be retaliation for the dumping of Heather Roy from that ACT faction.

    Craig Y

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 573 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    the Day of the Hyena...

    (What is it with right-wingers and an unhealthy obsession with Forsyth?
    Why do you never hear about MacLean inspired idiocy?)

    Not enough sex and gratuitous violence probably...
    and maybe too hard work:
    [re MacLean's writing] Instead, he lets little hinder the flow of events in his books, making his heroes fight against seemingly unbeatable odds and often pushing them to the limits of their physical and mental endurance. MacLean's heroes are usually calm, cynical men entirely devoted to their work and often carrying some kind of secret knowledge.
    though interestingly:
    A characteristic twist is that one of the hero's closest companions turns out to be a traitor.
    may be a little to close to the bone...

    jack-of-all trades...?

    What next, are we to learn that John Boscawen never was interested in lightly smacking children's bottoms; that its all been bravado, in-order to look sensible?

    he may be a time traveller - Webbs have early works by a John Hugh Boscawen up for auction...

    laugh like a drain...
    From Laws' Column:

    Hell, Georgina Beyer even managed to make political capital out of being a former drug addict and prostitute. In fact, New Zealand celebrity is littered with those who have transformed their notoriety into rehabilitative promise...
    But these are weird times. The media do not retract their claws until long after the blood has coagulated. In the midst of my minor mess a couple of months back...

    weird times indeed - as I recall, someone being a former drug addict and prostitute was the flame his "moth" couldn't resist that got him in to that minor mess...
    </sigh>

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic,

    @Ian D: the big difference is Beyer told the whole story about her past to begin with. And more importantly, she didn't pontificate like Garrett or the Sensibles.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

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