Posts by Kerry Weston
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Perhaps people realise perfectly well that truckies "paying their share" actually means the general populace paying more for everything via increased prices.
Exactly. I am trying, obviously not very well, to tease out how and why "the public" reacted, or perhaps didn't react overtly in the form of annoyance with the truckers. The truckers had their own agenda, but the public acceptance of it was something else - using it as an opportunity to vent? You could say, then, that the truckers' message was subverted.
There is no middle of the road outlet to articulate opinion - most people don't call talkback radio or write to the Herald or post online. But the public do use the high profile outlets they have available to express discontent. The fact that appears "irrational" is because there is no other frame to use. Only high profile, headline grabbers are reported. How is that any more irrational than the incongruence between values and policies espoused by Parties and their actions?
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The Truckathon: Popular support because they expressed our disenchantment without us having to even leave the house or workplace. It doesn't mean everyone thinks trucks shouldn't pay their fair whack. it was the blind, bossy push to impose another tax right when everyone's feeling the pinch that ticked everyone off.
The Bradford Bill seemed like a hasty "must do something" response to the Kahui killings and all the other horrors that outraged the nation. Yet no-one's been convicted for the twins' historical abuse, let alone murder. Feels alot like everybody gets clobbered, while the real baddies just carry on regardless. That's what really gets on the national wick.
Speaking of National, i don't think they'll romp home at all. They won't necessarily get the disenchanted vote. We really don't know what anyone stands for anymore. The Greens should have totally owned the debate about energy and climate change, but that's not what voters associate them with now. National, with all their dilly dallying, stand for not much other than the suspicion that we might as well bend over now. As for Labour, i never liked W4F, tax cuts then would have worked much better. They couldn't just cough up with the money, they had to make political capital out of it and paint themselves as family-friendly. Funny, though, Cullen's surplus strategy looks rather sound in present circumstances.
Hilarious that the coldest part of the country is making the most power savings! They breed 'em tuff down there. -
Makes me wonder what they're paying the spin merchants for - it's certainly not for good advice about timing. Like the whole smacking thing - it's a hiding to nowhere that should have tripped the Danger, Will Robinson! warning lights immediately.
If RUC haven't gone up for so many years, one has to ask why not? Maybe in a couple of months, petrol tax will magically go down....ha! I live in hope.
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What on earth makes anyone think that kids and teens who play games & chat to their mates via computer, are going to visit the sparc site??
Hello?? This is more spin-cycle thinking - we'll do something that looks like we're addressing the issue - instead of spending 5 mill on real stuff like sports equipment and subsidising the absurdly high fees some clubs charge for kids to play sport. Then there's uniforms & boots & transport....
Considering not many urbanites have big back yards these days and it's way too dangerous to play tennis on the road or skate round the block like we used to, some better organisation needs to happen.
30 minutes compulsory activity every day at school - hacky sack would do.
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Labour did pull a swifty when WFF came in - they cut the base benefit rate of the DPB, which used to be $20 a week more than UB etc - I guess that was our reward for being stay at home parents gone. That little fact was largely missed by analysts at the time. Neither can DPBers get the $60 a week in work payment, which is why the Child Poverty Action Group have taken the government to court - a sad irony for a Labour govt, I feel.
Quite obviously, they want mums out working - free childcare etc. But what is always missed is the real life effects. Number one - some kids don't like and won't go to daycare. Alot of kids get sick and often - if you have two or more, double the sick leave you need to take. Number two - school holidays use up well over three months a year. Oh right, hiff the kids into daycare. Number three - why did you have children, again? To spend time with them, love and care for them yourself? Number four - many single parents don't have support networks of family & friends to fall back on. They're all too busy or have buggered off to Aussie.The message to the single parent is - get remarried quick, so you can have the required two incomes to live on. Grow a thick skin so you can't hear all the derogatory abuse thrown at you from all quarters.
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He's told me on many an occassion that he and his colleagues are still dealing with the legacy of the benefit cuts in 1991 and market rentals later in National's last term. That legacy is particularly evident in young men and women who were pre-schoolers in the 90s.
Indeed. And this is exactly why i find bureaucracy unresponsive. In Manawatu/Wanganui there are pitifully few resources - by which I mean real, live humans doing practical, constructive things to support, help, change for the better - for children and youth. There is no youth mentoring at all - the chairperson of the national Youth Mentoring Trust cannot find any either. Yet, there are 35,000 kids who've slipped through the cracks nationally and are alienated from education, some 1800 of whom are here. While a pilot programme has begun to reintegrate these kids, it's a very late & cobbled-together response - it's not a new problem.
It's the blaming families I can't stand - for the inevitable consequences of a highly-pressured, too fast, time-poor, lose your footing on the ladder & you're stuffed society we have.
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There is still no real reason to give any particular party your vote - it's becoming a decision-on-balance of who has the more reasons not to be there.
Indeed. So what policy areas - bold moves - would make you sit up and take notice?
For me: a complete revamp of education, it is not delivering in so many ways.
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Mrrreeeoooww!!
Poor old puddy tat got his paw snapped in a rat trap...
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"Kathleen Kennedy's eyeballs actually exploded when her plane hit the ground," my mother had told me.
Someone pass the mop....!!
You know I've only ever got on a plane twice in my life? I was hoping for a third trip, sometime in the not too distant, but kathleen kennedy's eyeballs might be my undoing.
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Craig said:
Why the hell should any politicians ever tell you a damn thing when every word, every action is going to be parsed to a degree nobody could ever stand? Any mistake is going to be put down to malice or incompetence. And God forbid you ever change your mind or admit you're wrong because that's a sign of weakness.
Exactly! They've all been chased up a blind alley, like cheap starlets by the papparazzi.
And that's why some gutsy politician needs to break free of it - Key has actually said on occasion (words to the effect) that he wants to respond to situations as he gets to know all the ins and outs and then make a considered, concrete statement. Fair enough. I don't see policy as being the art of exactment, that is then rigidly adhered to, no matter what. A smart operator changes his mind as new info or circumstances arise - of course he does. That's why he needs to carry the people with him, so we won't think 'ffs, shafted again' when he says/does something a bit different.
Cullen could easily do this.