Posts by Tom Semmens
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but it would be a bit odd ditching an orthodox policy like CGT because it was too strange and challenging for voters
Little hasn't said a CGT is too strange or challenging for voters. He said that effectively Labour lost the argument and keeping it as a policy would continue to keep it as an albatros around their neck and alienate the swing voters Labour need to get back into power. All he is doing is applying Colbert’s dictum – seeking to pluck the feathers that make the geese squawk least. Anyway, there are more ways to kill a cat than choking it with cream. Ruling out a CGT doesn't mean you've ruled out a land tax, for example. Good politics is listening to the people and and noisily dumping the CGT, whilst waiting for the Friday before Xmas to quietly announce a land tax in terms most cub reporters still at work won't understand, then never mentioning the topic again.
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Hard News: News from home ..., in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
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I am just listening to Little on Radio NZ climbing into SSC and the Ian Rennie/Roger Sutton cover-up.
After six long years, we finally have a decent opposition leader.
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It seems Russell Brown and his merry band of liberal Gen Xers want a democratic Labour party, but only as long as it is a democracy that suits them.
The Labour leadership is elected in the way it is as a direct result of the rift between the desires of the membership and unions and the caucus. It is an outcome of disunity and not the cause of it.
Robertson schemed with a faction of the party to undermine the leadership of Cunliffe and has paid the price for his disloyalty and identification with that ABC faction by there being a significant reaction to his becoming leader. A lot of people voted for ABR – anyone but Robertson. Sure, the Maori caucus voted for Mahuta but don’t be fooled, their second preferences were for Little.
Representatives of two of biggest sections of New Zealanders that still heavily vote Labour (Maori and unionised workers) therefore supported Little. Hopefully, he will now get on and talk about issues that concern those supporters.
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Hard News: News from home ..., in reply to Grant McDougall,
If you are not happy with the result, there's the door bozo.
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While I sympathise with the author, a mirror might have been handy for him. The insincerity and distrust has been earned on a two way street and much of paranoia in government and business is of the once bitten twice shy variety the fault for which can squarely be laid at the door of journalists.
We live in age of low-cost, low information yellow journalism, when comms staff are justified in suspecting journalists are not really looking for how many Kauri stumps are exported but rather sifting for a gotcha story that'll generate a headline for that afternoon's website masthead of their paper. A semantic difference in what the minister says vs what the department reveals, or a revelation that minister has allowed his ministry to get on the job and is "exposed" as "incompetent" because he or she is unaware of some aspect of their departments work will be the story - not whether or not the Kauri stump export figures tell the reporter anything interesting. That story will be later, if ever.
One of the reasons Key and government were able to ride out the Dirty Politics revelations is because the public is nowadays inured to screaming red-top scandal headlines. Where once six-inch type was reserved for declarations of war and great disasters, now it rolled out week after week because the mayor has a mistress. Having cried wolf to often and to long on nothing much, the media can no longer convince a sceptical, low information public that a real scandal is important.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Ah, whatever you say bro, just don't hit me.
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From a Whaleoil post to Claire Trevitt publishing it in the Herald took about 4-5 hours.
Why bother interviewing Hager? Looks like Dirty Politics never happened, the two tier smear strategy is back in action and lazy churnalists like Trevitt can lap it all up safe in the knowledge Cameron Slater can supply her next headline direct from the ninth floor National party comms unit.
The system was shaken, but nothing was broken.
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Are there any indications that the Green Party is having a review of its electoral performance?
Right across the West Green party support has failed to significantly break the 10% barrier.
The truth is voters much prefer traditional populist right wing parties as a protest against the political establishment over what middle class environmentalists offer.
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Because I just don’t understand how Slater warrents so much attention.
Because for a long time there he clearly had lofty contacts in the National government that verifiably went up to and included Judith Collins, the prime ministers department and John Key himself, and probably others like Anne Tolley. He was was clearly part of the governments communications policy. His “tipline” and “scoops” came from impeccable sources, and our journalists clearly worked that out even if they were to stupid to make the intellectual leap to questioning the ethics and legality of his activities.
Anyway, anyone who goes and spends a few minutes to scroll through his site now will quickly realise the tap is, at for the time being, firmly turned off. His site is just a collection of internet deitritus and bile alternating with nauseating self-pity.