Posts by Keir Leslie
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Also worth saying that this is pretty good timing, I think. Labour leadership will dominate media till conference, and then it’s basically the run into the election campaign. (Allowing that the leadership contest stays positive etc.) It’s like Obama/Hillary, the contest will likely end up positive for the contestants + party.
[ETA: Tom, mate, Labour's been talking a lot about housing. Been a bit of a theme, actually.)
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Tom: Yes because you can’t be a gay man and do that. Obviously.
(Also you know that’s basically the Pagani line you’re taking there?)
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When is Labour going to get over treating ethnic and social groups as voting blocs?
Er, Labour kinda picked a lesbian for Manurewa that time, dunno if you guys have heard of her? Tom’s views are not those of the party.
Also, Caucus won't game this. And Roberston/Ardern is the leadership team of my heart.
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I have to say, I don't particularly support us having a GCSB or SIS or our Echelon participation. However, be that as it may, there's a huge amount that can be done absent abolition to improve those two institutions.
Also, it's not really fair to say Labour's always the party of the status quo on these issues. Nuclear free NZ, anyone?
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Speaker: Naked Inside the Off-Ramp, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yes, you are right.
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Pete George, is, of course, a pompous old windbag with no clue.
If there’s a credible independent inquiry into the security services, the spectacle of the National Party lining up to vote it down will be so damaging and ludicrous that of course they won’t (and if they do, well, that’s fine by me). Likewise, the Greens would love to get some serious reform here, and they won’t waste that chance — it’s the only one they’ll get for the next twenty years.
ETA: Also, while I doubt there'll be a recommendation to abolish the security services, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a serious look at the form they take.
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I dunno, I remember the '76 boycott (and i wasn't even alive for it!) Apart from anything else, it set the stage for the more infamous '80 & '84 boycotts.
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Hard News: The Real Threat, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Yeah, Sir Geoffrey would have (and Cabinet would have overruled him.) But I just don't think that the Parliamentary Service is the same kind of thing as the public service, and I just don't think that the OIA (as it stands) is a good oversight mechanism.
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Eh, isn't it rather that one lesson of the Vance affair is that Parliamentary Service isn't OIA-able for this precise reason?
(That the business of Parliament requires a degree of confidentiality that doesn't sit well with the presumption of openness in the OIA.)
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Steve, Rich has in fact answered those questions: he clearly does want to reduce the number of independents in local body politics, seeing them (correctly, in my view) as (a) broadly deceptive and (b) corrosive to good governance, voter choice, and accountable government. It's a pretty clear stance.