Posts by izogi

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  • Hard News: Metiria’s Problem, in reply to Rob Stowell,

    I think they need about 7% to get both Chloe Swarbrick

    I’d heard about Auckland’s local election, but it wasn’t really until Backbenches on Wednesday that I saw Chlöe Swarbrick speaking for the first time. I was impressed with just how informed and assertive she was with the issues she was confronted with. Not every candidate nor MP can pull that off.

    It’s probably easy for someone who looks for excuses to write her off as as young wannabe who came third in Auckland because of the electoral system, but if she can have an opportunity of getting into Parliament it’d be awesome, imho. She comes across as a genuine future leader.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: Metiria’s Problem, in reply to simon g,

    Ignoring the party lists is an endemic failure in our election coverage

    It’s mostly trivia but yesterday I bothered to google position #75 on the National Party list, Graham Collins. The top result was this Herald article from late last year, where his accusation of physical assault against Michael Wood (whom he accused of manhandling Parmjeet Parmar’s husband) was categorically disproved by video evidence of the event, as well as showing that Wood had been provoked.

    I get that #75 will almost certainly never be elected, even from National, but assuming the Herald’s account is accurate, how does a destructive liar like this even get onto that party’s list?

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: Metiria’s Problem,

    The Stuff article above doesn’t really refer to undecided voters (its numbers add to 99%), but TVNZ’s article says it’s gone from 20% to 13%. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/1-news-colmar-brunton-poll-greens-plummet-below-five-per-cent-jacinda-effect-keeps-labour-climbing

    I’d wondered if maybe some former Green respondents had just not wanted to commit to saying Green, but I’m not sure that’s a favourable number for them either. It’d very hard to know why people answer as they do from poll to poll, though. I suppose a Green optimist could hope there’s been a surge from undecided to Labour at the same time as a smaller surge from Green to undecided.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: Metiria’s Problem,

    So what else might happen? The potential for a close election and a change of government causes an unusually high turnout? Do the non-voters of recent elections mobilise, and if so how do they vote?

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: Metiria’s Problem,

    The latest Colmar-Brunton poll doesn’t look nice for the Greens. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/95896855/green-party-out-of-parliament-labour-surges-in-new-poll

    It’s could be a temporary dip or a margin of error thing, but whenever I see something like this, I wonder if the whole 5% thing in a poll must cause people to reconsider if they want to risk voting for a party that mightn’t make it over.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: The new establishment,

    Also, anyone with a reasonable lawyer on NZ legislation, and Barnaby Joyce’s basic family history, could confirm as much info as DIA were ever going to provide.

    The main important thing DIA might add is if Joyce had registered renunciation of his citizenship, but it was never going to because apparently everyone was merely asking hypothetical questions about imaginary people.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Rich of Observationz,

    Yeah. Or they could have just read NZ law with some legal expertise, clarified Joyce’s family history, even used the online tool, then asked Joyce in the Australian parliament to confirm in light of the evidence that he definitely wasn’t a citizen. I don’t even see why asking DIA should be necessary, unless you wanted to rule out the possibility that he’d renounced it.

    I’m not meaning to suggest that Chris Hipkins should have been getting involved. I expect he probably had an idiot moment without thinking. Nevertheless, he’s not governing the country right now. I’m am questioning how the government’s handled this with respect to how it (a) seemingly took political sides in Australia by notifying the Australian Deputy PM that he was probably about to be ambushed by his media and opposition, and (b.. possibly) not approaching Chris Hipkins to query if he understood the implications of what he appeared to be involved in… instead apparently doing the opposite of highlighting his involvement to Barnaby Joyce.

    You’d think avoiding an international diplomatic incident would be preferable over advancing petty politics, but I’m starting to wonder if it could be interesting to see the communications between Brownlee’s office and MFAT around how to handle the knowledge that Barnaby Joyce was a New Zealand Citizen. If you’re going to actively tell him that he’s a citizen at the same time as suggesting that the NZ Labour Party might have been collaborating with his Australian opposition, it must have been a fairly obvious possibility that Joyce and his friends might go unpredictably crazy in media against NZ Labour in the Australian Parliament… conveniently a few weeks before a New Zealand election.

    Or maybe I’m grasping at straws and dreaming up a conspiracy without cause. It’d be easy to claim it’s highly sensitive information so I doubt we’d ever get to see those communications and advice, even if OIA’d.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: The new establishment,

    … an international mess that’s tangled up NZ, and its election, in Australian politics, instead of just a domestic Australian mess.

    (Sorry. I don’t know what happened to the end of my previous comment.)

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Rich of Observationz,

    Same here and I agree with you about the dumbness of this constitution clause for Australia, but it remains their problem to deal with and fix.

    Even though citizenships are public info, and so is the law which defines them for that matter, my concern’s really more about why MFAT, and presumably Gerry Brownlee, apparently deemed it appropriate to trigger an international diplomatic incident, by actively informing Barnaby Joyce of his citizenship when he hadn’t asked for that information, instead of leaving the whole thing to play out in Australian domestic politics.

    Did Dunne or Brownlee even consider approaching Hipkins to find out if he understood the implications of what he was asking? (I’m unsure if they’re able to do this or not.)

    I can’t see a scenario where nearly all of Australia’s existing problems wouldn’t have occurred anyway, but when MFAT told Joyce, and also pre-emptively told him other stuff about who was asking the questions, it seems to have simply resulted in

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

  • Hard News: The new establishment,

    Thanks to Russell posting a link on Twitter I see Politik has given a lengthier sequence of events between DIA and MFAT and Ministers, but I still can’t see a clear explanation of why MFAT decided it should tell Joyce about his citizenship at all.

    http://politik.co.nz/en/content/politics/1168/

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts

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