Hard News: Moron y Moron
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How about ... you can't defend the honour of a non-existent woman, so the PM's recent explanation holds even less water?
Yeah I guess so. Except I thought Sharon was a real person, but just not having an affair with Mallard?
Or why wasn't his response in the house... "Haha Tau. Wrong woman. I got myself a rower!" or something similar. Guess whatever was said about his marriage and his father dying recently got him rarked up.
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Are you saying he's lost all right of reply when his personal life is being (from his perspective, unfairly) smeared across the House?
In a nutshell: yes.
The logical conclusion of your perspective is that as soon as an MP smears the personal life of another MP, then the first MP has to now STFU while all and sundry have carte blanche to make any kind of salacious insinuation, including inaccurate or patently false ones.
Which, of course, has an inbuilt feedback loop whereby any MP taking advantage of the open slather has no right of reply, thereby actively increasing the propensity for further attacks on themselves.
And then there's the "silence is consent" meme, which would cloak the insinuations in a kind of pseudo-veracity.
Have you really thought this through ?
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If I got into a fight with a 13 year old male, you could bet, all other things being equal, I'd be the one the police would be coming down on for not acting my age.
Unless he was staring at your girlfriend's tits so you slapped him in the face.
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Unless he was staring at your girlfriend's tits so you slapped him in the face.
Yes well. Having lots of money to pay a good lawyer probably helps too ;)
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Er, this is the same Trevor Mallard who baited Don Brash in the House ad nauseum about Don's marital woes???
After National MPs had implied David Benson-Pope was a kiddie-fiddler?
That's the problem with starting down the path of dragging out this kind of stuff. Once you start, it's very hard to stop.
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Rogerd - exactly, the "but they started it..." game isn't going to get us very far. The country must be almost bereft of real problems and issues if our media and politicians can fixate on this crap for days.
I almost yearn for the good old days of Jackie Dean harping on about party pills, and Michael Cullen suggesting we might get tax cuts in 2010 if we're good boys and girls.
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the logical conclusion of your perspective is that as soon as an MP smears the personal life of another MP, then the first MP has to now STFU while all and sundry have carte blanche to make any kind of salacious insinuation, including inaccurate or patently false ones...
Have you really thought this through ?
Have you?
You are exactly right about the logical conclusion, but so what? Mallard has no-one to blame for the situation he finds himself in but himself. I think it's highly unlikely Henare would have said what he did, had Mallard not opened the door first. If you're going to start scoring political points off your opponent's personal lives, you better make damn sure your own house is in order afterwards.
"...in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:2
Setting the whole fisticuffs issue aside, would it not strike you as being the slightest bit hypocritical if Mallard had gone crying foul over the incident, given his form these matters?
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But isn't being a Public Address reader all about the boss's bandwidth?
Don't be calling my wife that. She prefers the title 'team leader'.
I'd respectully suggest most of us wouldn't get off quite so lightly if we got into a fistfight in the workplace.
I think that one depends to what extent it was a 'fight', how one-sided and unprovoked it was, how serious it got, how the people acted afterwards, where it happened. There's lots of variables. A bit of pushing, shoving and yelling could be something requiring only very mild discipline.
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After National MPs had implied David Benson-Pope was a kiddie-fiddler?
Oh come on, rodgerd, Mallard's been a good little attack dog - and amply praised and rewarded for being so - long before Benson-Pope or Judith Collins even entered Parliament. The one grain of sympathy I feel for the man is this: Last week he was praised as Labour's go-to shit-kicker, now Clark is in this morning's Herald talking about his undergoing "anger management and stress counselling."
I couldn't agree more - one of the best bits of advice I got in therapy was the importance of separating myself from people and situations that just weren't positive influences on my mental health, sobriety and temper. It wasn't easy - and it sure pushed me all the way out of my comfort zone - but it seems to have paid off.
Surely, Mallard's built networks over the years that could help him find a career where his 'anger' isn't encouraged and rewarded until it's politically inconvenient.
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WH,
As someone pointed out earlier, noone is suggesting that Mallard was right to hit Henare, its that most people would say that what he did was at the inappropriate/bad rather than devastatingly serious end of the spectrum. Like how noone cared that Air New Zealand was flying Aussie troops to Iraq.
Trev may be an easy target but I think its easy to lose perspective amongst the breathless and holier than thou tone taken during such discussions. For instance, comparing the weight of comment here to that on that other thread...
"I find it absolutely extraordinary that the Maori Party on the one hand is demanding police prosecute Trevor Mallard for assault and on the other is claiming people, who at the very least have illicitly used firearms, constructed molotov cocktails and trained themselves in how to use napalm, should not be charged," Clark said.
Tariana Turia and Sue Bradford are joining my personal idiot list of Maurice Williamson and Roger Kerr.
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Tariana Turia and Sue Bradford are joining my personal idiot list of Maurice Williamson and Roger Kerr.
Where did Sue Bradford come into it? I wasn't aware she'd made any statement on it.
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Surely, Mallard's built networks over the years that could help him find a career where his 'anger' isn't encouraged and rewarded until it's politically inconvenient.
You know, you might just be right. I can imagine him being the popular and effective head of a sports foundation or something.
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WH,
Where did Sue Bradford come into it? I wasn't aware she'd made any statement on it.
She hasn't to my knowledge, to be fair, I was trying to get a left/right and gender balance for my list... :) Feel free to disregard.
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She hasn't to my knowledge, to be fair, I was trying to get a left/right and gender balance for my list... :) Feel free to disregard.
Ah, an equal opportunity idiot list. How very PC, while also not.
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Trev may be an easy target but I think its easy to lose perspective amongst the breathless and holier than thou tone taken during such discussions.
Weston:
Members of my extended family killed by napalm: Nil.Members of my extended family killed by molotov cocktail: Nil.
Members of my extended family beaten to death by their husband after years of physical, psychological and sexual abuse (this was back in the day when you couldn't legally rape your wife): One.
Members of my extended family, whanau and community screwed up in ways you cannot even begin to imagine by 'boys being boys': Too bloody many.
While I'm sure it's not an implication you intended to make, I damn resent any suggestion that I'm taking a 'holier than thou' cheap partisan shot over an issue I have very personal reasons for taking extremely seriously; let alone Clark and Peters' apparent line that if you have any questions about these so-called terror-raids you're some terrorist-cuddling May-owri radical who wants to turn New Zealand into a racist hellhole. Especially when the latest Herald-Digipoll on the same page as the story you've quoted, might well suggest Labour and NZ First have good reason to engage in a little cynical politicking of their own.
I'm very comfortable with my perspective, thanks. What I'm much less comfortable with is Labour, NZFirst and the Maori Party picking this issue for their electoral bitch-slap fiesta.
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WH,
Fair enough, Craig. I think we would probably agree that violence is a real problem in our communities. I certainly would not presume to comment on your own experience.
However, I would say that not all violence is equal and that blame is contextual. Trev has not made a career enhancing move, but whatever his other faults may be, he is not a monster. I am uncomfortable discussing him in the same context as serious family abuse. I think it is unfair to Trev to make such a comparison.
Especially when the latest Herald-Digipoll on the same page as the story you've quoted, might well suggest Labour and NZ First have good reason to engage in a little cynical politicking of their own
Yep, although I think the comments made are broadly speaking in line with what one would expect from the respective parts of the political spectrum. Peters has always worked within the mainline political system, the Maori Party represents some strands of the tino-rangatiratanga movement, and Labour is trying to fix the wedge between its working class and liberal constituencies.
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And to be fair to Trevor Mallard, having done the crime, he is making a point of doing his time. Everything post-punch is a model of "owning your own shit"; facing up, apologising, and getting on with it.
And whatever elase Henare may have done - he has accepted the apology, said that's the end of it, and has made no further complaint.
Could be worse. Mind you, it has triggered a circus from the rest of us (including me!).
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And whatever elase Henare may have done - he has accepted the apology, said that's the end of it, and has made no further complaint.
Although he has pointedly refused to apologise for his own conduct ...
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let alone Clark and Peters' apparent line that if you have any questions about these so-called terror-raids you're some terrorist-cuddling May-owri radical who wants to turn New Zealand into a racist hellhole.
Sorry, I missed the report where Clark said that. In fact, she said nothing of the kind.
Especially when the latest Herald-Digipoll on the same page as the story you've quoted, might well suggest Labour and NZ First have good reason to engage in a little cynical politicking of their own.
I had to chuckle at the interview with Tariana (presumably recorded last week, before the AGM) on Mana News yesterday, in which she explained that her party only had an 1100-vote majority to overhaul to roll Parekura Horomia and claim an additional seat.
I remain of the view that that's the real reason the AGM statement accused Horomia of failing his people and called for his resignation. I don't think even they seriously believe he was in a position to reverse the police operation.
But seriously Craig: do you really believe the Maori Party's written claim that the police operation is an attack directed by the Labour government against all Maori? Don't you find that even a little bit crazy?
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But seriously Craig: do you really believe the Maori Party's written claim that the police operation is a conscious attack directed by the Labour government against all Maori? Don't you find that even a little bit crazy?
I think it's pretty far out there, and I'm not aware of any evidence of it.
And I think if it proved to be true, then we'd have our own little mini-watergate. Ruatoki-gate so to speak.
(If the media ends up using "Ruatoki-gate", I want $10 per use assuming I'm first.).
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But seriously Craig: do you really believe the Maori Party's written claim that the police operation is an attack directed by the Labour government against all Maori? Don't you find that even a little bit crazy?
No I don't - it's extremely crazy, but I don't think Clark's own comments quoted by Weston are particularly helpful, except to insert herself into the kind of partisan posturing she should have left to Peters and Sharples. And I'd previously given her a lot more credit for keeping an appropriate distance as Prime Minister.
Half the problem with this, IMO, is that when there's a lot of speculation and little in the way of publicly available evidence on the table of course conspiracy theories are going to fill the void. I just thought Clark hasn't played this with her usual dexterity, but what do I know?
I'll put it this way, Russell, after the SIS semi-gaffe whoever suggested John Key be very, very quiet has earned a big gold star on their next performance review.
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The logical conclusion of your perspective is that as soon as an MP smears the personal life of another MP, then the first MP has to now STFU while all and sundry have carte blanche to make any kind of salacious insinuation, including inaccurate or patently false ones. ... Have you really thought this through ?
Wow! Did your mother ever teach you that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Of course I've thought this through - and I still think Mallard is hipocrytical to get upset at Tau doing to him what he did to Brash. But Andy Milne (above) has stolen my thunder so I'll STFU.
Although [Henare] has pointedly refused to apologise for his own conduct ...
Heh heh. Has Mallard actually sought an apology? Of course not. That really would be the pot calling the kettle back.
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I had to chuckle at the interview with Tariana (presumably recorded last week, before the AGM) on Mana News yesterday, in which she explained that her party only had an 1100-vote majority to overhaul to roll Parekura Horomia and claim an additional seat.
I remain of the view that that's the real reason the AGM statement accused Horomia of failing his people and called for his resignation. I don't think even they seriously believe he was in a position to reverse the police operation.
D'oh... His majority was actually 1,900 and change - but it might have been cut on paper with boundary changes. And he only took Ikaroa-Rawhiti in the first place (beating Derek Fox) with a majority of 695.
Still, I don't think it was strategically a bad move on the Maori Party's part. Parekura is a perfectly amiable man - networked up the wazoo naturally - but I've heard that he's not the most effective campaigner around. If he was Nanaia Mahuta - with her family connections in Tainui - it might not matter so much. But, IMO, one thing the MSM has never quite got their heads around is that the political relationship between Labour and Maori has been rather more complex, and ambivalent, for a long time than conventional wisdom would have you believe.
If nothing else, it's going to fascinating watching how Labour and the Maori Party play it out over the next year - because they've both got some delicate, and risky, strategic decisions to make.
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I missed it, but Horomia put out quite a good press release yesterday:
Māori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia has reiterated the need for cool heads to prevail over the police raids, saying he’s disappointed with the irresponsible statements being made by some politicians.
Mr Horomia said he was annoyed the Māori Party was trying to link the raids to the government and were suggesting it was some type of government conspiracy.
“The police acted independently and we do not direct them on operational matters. It would be a dangerous state of affairs if politicians were able to tell the police who to arrest and who not to – and the Māori Party would be the first to jump up and down if that were the case.”
“I’ve repeatedly said that if the police have over-reacted, they will be held accountable to the public. But until all the evidence is presented, none of us is able to judge.”
“I’m concerned that the Māori Party is rushing to judgement. They are playing the race card and tapping into hurts from the past. Those hurts from the past are real and they have to be acknowledged. But they shouldn’t be exploited and that is what the Māori Party has done,” Mr Horomia said.
“The party’s statement that “we reject the branding of tangata whenua as terrorists” is ridiculous. No one is branding all tangata whenua as terrorists – except perhaps perversely the Māori Party, which seems determined to imprint the notion in the minds of our rangatahi.”
It was reported by precisely no one ...
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Now that wasn't half bad, though could we please retire 'race card' to the place where political cant goes to die?
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