Posts by Matthew Littlewood
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So, they have the right to dissent, except on issues relating to Maori, and health, and education, and prisons, and so on. They're not just in the tent, they're in the sleeping bag.
Yeah, it makes a bit of a mockery of the term "outside cabinent" when they're getting some of the key portfolios- I mean, how can you possibly be outside cabinent with Corrections and Education, Health and Social Development? The very idea is unprecedented.
I'm not saying it couldn't work, but potentially this is fraught with contradiction.
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I am a Braunias fan. He is not always on form, and he can descend into self-parody, and I find some of his posturing and tics annoying. But unlike 90% of other writers in New Zealand periodicals, he knows about timing, pace and tone, and actually seems to care about his language. For example, that chap who has the back page column in the Herald's weekend supplement would like to sound like Braunias, but can't pull it off.
I'd agree with all of this too (if I didn't make it clear enough in the post a few ones above). I think there's a real stylistic identity to his work, and not in the sense of a writer with a huge ego who whittles blustering nonsense, but in the sense that his best work builds on what he's done before. Partly it's down to some of his more quioxtic obsessions- e.g. birdwatching, tearooms, mangroves, etc- but also there's, for want of a better word, a sense of generosity in his best work.
He wants to invite the reader into his world. It's why I think these days his better pieces are the ones where he's been asked to stretch out more, most notably in the How to Watch a Bird book, or some of his more longform interviews. He understands the importance of a good narrative in column writing too, which isn't something I could say for many.
Joanne Black, in particular, is dreadful- her world is so self-centered and negative, and she often struggles to follow an idea accross a whole back page. There's little in the way of life- and no, I don't count reciting the problems with your house or your daughters as necessarily "life" if you can't bring anything original to it.
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The highest praise went to The Otago Daily Times for it's Election Special Pullout and to, believe it or not, Steve Braunias' article "John Key, Mr Opportunity"
That Braunias piece was one of the best things he had written in ages, possibly because it maintained its tone the whole way through and managed to stay on the right side of satirical without being too meanspirited.
But since he's left the Listener, I wonder whether his heart's in it in the same way. Those interviews he did last year were excellent, even if, at times, Braunias was much the subject of them as the actual person he was supposedly covering, but I always enjoyed his longer features, as he was best when he was stretching out and had something to hang his writing on. The "backpage" column he does on the back page of the Sunday pull-out are hit-and-miss.
I noticed he did a small project for North & South with Jane Ussher over the last few issues. It would be nice if he did more things like that. However, in saying that, I notice he has a writing credit for both Eating Media Lunch and the Unauthorised History of New Zealand- does anyone actually know the extent of his involvement in either?
Back to the subject of Keynesian economics, I must say that I'm a big fan of Paul Krugman's writing for the New York Times. It clear, concise, gets to the point, but doesn't "dumb" down the details. Mind you, I guess it hopes that my own politics are relatively close to his. I'd be interested to know whether there's any collected anthologies of his work that is worth picking up.
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I don't mean to harsh the general amity, but that's his frigging job -- you stand for an electorate, you should bloody know what that entails if you win. Constituency clinics and going to various events are not some optional extra you "find time for", it's your damn job.
Of course it is, Craig. I know that, I'm not that naive! :) Maybe I didn't word that correctly, but I was always pretty impressed (from a distance) at the sheer level of duties he managed to juggle, and the knowledge, application and courtesy he brought to him. Yes it was his frigging job, but he was one of the key links in the Labour Party's time in Govt over the last nine years. He was a machine.
Apologies if the original comment sounded glib, but it is early in the morning.
Also, as far as constituency duties are concerned, perhaps it's time to pay tribute to all the electorate agents -- who, regardless of party, do a damn fine job and don't get anywhere near the credit they deserve. It's the nature of the beast that very few people drop in just to say life is fine. When living in Palmerston North, I was helping a friend who had some seriously bad shit going on in her life. Never saw Steve Maharey, but the woman in his office was the very model of sensitivity and managed to offer practical advice that really helped. Bitch rocked and rolled.
Yeah, very, very true. And I'm sure that one anecdote was merely representative of dozens of people, incidents she had to deal with on any given week.
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I remember once when he took over the portfolios of another minister who had been stood down, and I was talking to him at a party a few days later. His biggest complaint was that his diary had just been mashed together with another minister's diary. He was at that time I think running 7 or 8 portfolios, a couple of them major ones. He's also a major party strategist and has played a big role in the past 9 years.
Speaking as someone who often struggles with more than one duty at any one time, I was amazed at how Hodgson managed to juggle all those ministerial roles and still find time for electorate duties. And the few times I had to deal with him he seemed friendly and personable. And he's clearly been one of the "go-to" guys within the party.
You do wonder how exhausted he must be though, has he mentioned anything about sticking it out over the next three years?
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I'd just like to say in Pete Hodgson's defence (seeing as it is Say Something Nice Day) that my colleague has regularly let him loose on a room full of our students, to talk to them about the health system. He did this as Minister of Health, and then last year as the former minister/our electorate MP. I sat in on the session each year, and found him very easy to chat with before and after the talk. It was very much a Q & A section, and he seemed amiable, funny, knowledgeable and tolerant of people critical of the government's position.
Oh yeah. And one thing I've been really impressed with was, given his sheer mountain of duties, how (relatively) approachable he was. You used to see him around Uni campus all the time, and he was good to student media, too. Okay, part of this was to keep his face out there, but to give him his due, he didn't shirk those duties.
I also remember him giving a really great speech at a Science Awards I attended at School which endeared him to me, partly because he got the tone absolutely right for the audience.
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Out of curiosity, what was the percentage that Labour won in the party vote in the Maori seats? I remember it being in the high 60s for one of them.
@RB: yeah, Turia hasn't exactly been temperate either. Not a good look from either side, really.
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Re. "wickedly intelligent" Goff - in a late-80s Listener column Denis Welch described a conversation where Goff used words to the effect of "Well Denis, you and I have both been through University."
To which Welch noted: He's wrong. I haven't.However 'wicked' Goff's intelligence may be, it still appears to be tainted by a touch of smug complacency.
Ha!
It is going to be interesting to see whether he can either overcome that or keep that in check. It's a liability and a turn-off. I'm reminded of something that Gordon Campbell wrote in one of his recent columns.:Someday, a PHD awaits some bright political science student who can trace the road to Helengrad, and the systematic erosion of Helen Clark’s public standing and popularity. With hindsight, going with the Greens and Maori Party after the 2005 election could have rejuvenated her administration, but the problems probably went deeper than that. At her zenith, Clark enjoyed wide, even global, respect for her intelligence, managerial skills, compassionate pragmatism and command of detail – but her performance was only rarely suffused with spontaneous warmth, or sparked genuine affection from the public. Therefore, by the time the pragmatism had curdled into a static sense of superiority – and Clark and Cullen could be the Bobbsey Twins of We-Know-Best - there was nothing left in the tank of public good will. (my emphasis)
One wonders whether Goff's also inherited this less appealing trait as well. Certainly it appears that way. As Craig said, whatever happens over the next three years will happen. It's no use reviewing the menu before you've started eating it yet. Goff may well be right in the long term- but he can't start crowing until the moment (if and when) it happens. It was pretty tactless in all respects.
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His first foray as leader was wickedly dumb, he'd better improve and quickly.
Indeed, hence the rest of my comment about there being "question marks" around him! He seems to evoke a sense of entitlement at the moment, never a good look for a newly chosen leader of a party that's just been ousted out of Government.
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<qote>There isn't a lot that ACT and the MP have in common.
<q/uote>Don't you think that's kind of the point? To use a dreadful cliché, I think both ACT and the MP know that there's as much risk in being the tail that tries to wag the dog, as being perceived (fairly or not) as neutered lapdogs.
Oh yes, of course. It's just going to be interesting how it works, is all. And they all know that if they play sensibly for three years, then they'll all reap further rewards.
Mind you, I remember thinking at the end of 2007 that it WP had been (for himself) surprisingly well-behaved as a cabinent minister, and thought there was a possibility of him not having a total meltdown like he did every other time he's seen the baubles so I've never been great with predictions...;)