Posts by Hilary Stace
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Went a protest for Clean Politics at parliament today. A full time mother (her description) called Millinda who hadn't been involved in politics before read Dirty Politics and was inspired to act. Called this protest and there were about 100 people there. Lots of people had their say about why they were there at the microphone. Millinda said she organised it because she wants children and young people to have good role models in politics and a clean political system. Another woman there was part of the Actionstation protest that is planning a full page ad in the NZ Herald.
This grass roots democracy stuff just what will counter the Dirty Politics narrative.
A lot has happened in the last 4 weeks!
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Paul Rowe,
Hearing about is different to actually hearing the message. When you believe something - such as that a celebrity politician you like has integrity and cares about you - it is really challenging to be confronted with evidence that that might not be true. The transition to a new belief system can be long and painful.
As I have probably mentioned upthread there are parallels with the Unfortunate experiment article in 1986 and the subsequent Cartwright inquiry 1988. It took several more years to make policy changes to implement ethics processes and patients right legislation and 25 years later the original evidence can still be challenged and get a lot of public support. But who would now go back to an era before the Health and Disabilty Commissioner, a code of patients rights, public ethics committee processes etc?
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Speaker: Vote for Water, in reply to Jake Starrow,
I agree - it's about engagement and active democracy. Let's have more of it.
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Speaker: Vote for Water, in reply to Andrew C,
43% of lakes are pristine and they are the ones in the conservation estate - the 44% are mostly lowland see http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/lake-water-quality-in-nz-2010/lake-water-quality-in-nz-2010.pdf for details
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Angela Hart,
You can see the numbers when you scroll down to the Active Discussions section on the home page of Publicaddress.
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I'm concerned about what we do now for the sake of us all and future generations.
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Four weeks today since the launch of Dirty Politics. Remember that no one knew what it was going to be about this time on the 13th August. This thread alone is almost up to 100,000 views, one cabinet minister is gone, while numerous commentators have claimed it is only a beltway issue and is now over.
It will probably take a bit longer for many of the population to ‘hear’ the message of just how dirty was the two pronged policy of attack politics run out of the PM’s office. Attack through blogs and friends in the media those who are a challenge, while leaving the man at the top untouched.
This sort of unethical politics is just not the NZ way. Its aim to make people cynical about politics and therefore turn off altogether- thereby allowing the ruling party to keep power via a relatively small percentage of those eligible to vote – is something we can all fight back against.
We all need to encourage all our family members, colleagues and friends to talk about the issues and vote. Even if the conversations are uncomfortable.
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There is a public meeting to hear Nicky Hager at the Hannah Playhouse tonight Wed at 6 pm. Has an admission charge. Formerly known a Downstage. I see Jim Bolger and Jim Anderton are speaking in this series next week.
This probably sounds a bit new agey but when listening to Nicky Hager speak (simply and without notes or powerpoint) it feels like you are listening to one of those rare wise and ethical people that countries really should treasure.
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Speaker: Vote for Water, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Many of these problems are called ‘wicked’ policy problems. There is no simple linear problem – intervention – solution model. People don’t even agree on what the problem is. These are messy issues and require a lot of discussion, collaboration and trial and error before things start improving. The environment is a really good example. Democracy is really important because public engagement is a way for everyone to get involved and get some practical ideas from the grassroots as it were.
The National Party is really good at simplistic slogans for these complex problems (we are seeing examples of this at the moment) which usually involve throwing some money at a small part of the problem in the hope that the public will be distracted from the complexity of the issues. While locking the public out of the real decision making process such as with ECan, or controlling the ‘evidence’ such as with Ruataniwha.
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Speaker: Vote for Water, in reply to Bart Janssen,
You mean you don't vote on emotion?
This new website Ours has a good comparison of party policies on a range of issues including the environment ours.co.nz http://www.ours.co.nz/cheatsheet/