Posts by Kyle Matthews
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John Banks can be got rid of the same way Rodney Hide was removed – by an internal coup within Act forcing his resignation. Then an by-election will be held with National standing on the sidelines again meaning the Act candidate wins.
That's not the case. Hide was removed by a caucus vote removing him as leader of the caucus. The party then followed up by adjusting his status to 'not needed' when it came time to select candidates.
Given that Banks is only MP in his caucus he's probably a bit safer, hopefully the electorate will take care of him in 2014 if this scandal doesn't.
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My understanding is that there is a sinking lid of total NZ pokies. So if Sky City gets 500 more that means 500 fewer for the rest of NZ and consequently 500 fewer returns to the Department of Internal Affairs to distribute (ie 37% of 500 pokie machines’ profit). Also there will be 500 fewer pokie machines for Pub Charity and the other trusts to get income from to disburse to community groups (my understanding is that each pokie machine makes a return to the govt and to a pokie trust).
I don't think that's correct Hilary. There's a sinking lid in Auckland, but these additional 500 are being put on top of that. So there will be the same number of pub charity etc pokies, but more in the sky city charity collection pot.
It may be that having more pokies means less money (and therefore less grants) going through Pub Charity machines of course, which will lower the total amount available since Sky City distributes almost nothing (how do we have that rule?!?).
I'm involved with a sport for which gambling charities is lifeblood. It's unfortunate, but the alternative is to charge our families $100 more a year.
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My impression of the Watson case, like that of Ellis, is that the justice system stubbornly refuses to accept the possibility of a miscarriage of justice. Maryanne Garry, pyschology lecturer and one of the founders of the Innocence Project here, made a comment some years back arguing that in the US it was widely understood and recognised that wrongful convictions happened, but that wasn't the case here (maybe by the wider public but not by those with the power to correct miscarriages).
She also appeared on TV (I think it was Holmes) at the time of the trial and defended the position that witnesses such as the water taxi driver can be wrong, even if they are confident in their statement and you'd expect their knowledge and expertise to rule out such a thing. Human memory and how its created is a complex thing.
I wouldn’t go that far, but really I think the media needs to have a good hard look at itself over day after day of not-particularly-useful “no arrest yet in Kahui case” coverage. I know Police officers who were peripherally involved in that case, and really think a good chunk of the public (and media) need to be reminded that cop shows/forensic procedural on television are NOT DOCUMENTARIES. Of course, you’re damned for “not getting results” fast enough for the Six O’Clock News, but if you don’t get a conviction off a weak case then you get it from the other end.
I've just been watching a Danish drama called Forbrydelsen (The Killing or The Crime - I've seen it translated both ways). Great drama - series 1 is 20 hours of TV to solve one murder, twisting and turning as the cops alternate between incisive investigation and screwup. The Wire quality, though you have to focus as its all in subtitles. A fairer representation of the mixed ability of the police and their attempts to solve these crimes than your nicely boxed NCIS, Law and Order etc.
There's been an American version done too, but reviews are much less flattering.
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Lyttleton locals, the eastern...
Playing this Sunday night in Dunedin with Lindon Puffin. Possibly their first post-earthquake visit, also their first since they did the post-quake fundraiser and their new double album. Fantastic live band.
The song above isn't one of their good ones. This is better:
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A certain vocal part of my family wants me to move to Dunedin
One of our city councillors in particular is making a dick of himself along those lines.
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It took me about seven years to be able to stomach the smell of gin after a particularly ill-planned bout of teenage revelry.
Southern Comfort. Which is apparently a bad idea to drink, let alone to excess. Haven't been able to look at a bottle since 1993.
We're up to Wellington... Waikawa Beach on the 28th for 6 days. 7 kids under 7, 7 adults and a teenager.
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Not so long ago, Roger Douglas was left, now he's considered right. Richard Nixon was right, although he'd be considered left today. Libertarians are far right, whereas anarchists are far left. Stalin's Communist Party was far left, but Hitler's National Socialist Party was far right.
That's not a failure of the left-right axis, though it does have failures. That's just perspective from a position on it, and recognition that it and the people on it change.
On the other hand, Holly Walker is an impressive new MP because she did politics at Otago and Oxford (that well known bastion of hard nosed reality), worked in student media, and was a parliamentary researcher before parachuting into parliament as an MP with no real world experience and for a party that over 90% of New Zealanders adjudge to be worried about issues marginal to their day to day life.
I hate how university, student media, parliamentary work aren't 'real world' for starters. They're the real world for several hundred thousand people. There's no political party that represents NZ properly.
Also, unsurprising, parliament attracts political people. That feels better to me than businessmen standing in Tauranga who do nothing and then quit because parliament isn't the real world. No shit it ain't.
“We’re the party of freedom, equality and fair play” is saying something they have to reckon with.
But it's meaningless. Every party could say they're about that. It's a bumper sticker, not the basis for identifying your politics.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Steve Parks,
Yeah, 1 and 4 sorry.
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Damn pre-Xmas rush keeping me off PAS for two weeks. Catching up:
it worked for Obama, the first Northern president since Kennedy
I'm not sure we could count Reagan and Nixon - both from California, as Southern, in terms of the political divide, Presidents.
Not that odd that the Herald & Stuff are talking up Shearer when you consider how right-wing they are, which outgoing right-wingers are backing Shearer, and those newspapers’ desire for continued Tory rule.
Grant however isn't from the right wing of the Labour party.
I doubt any of us have lived through times that will be as turbulent as what we’re staring down the barrel of right now.
Except for those of us that have lived through the 4th Labour govt. And who actually knows what the next 3+ years turn out to be - it might not be as bad as the 1990 - 1999 National govt.
It’s all been done in the exact reverse order to what it should be. It’s lost the initiative entirely.
I think it's more chicken and egg than cart and horse. You could make that argument about the greens - because they're much more grass roots owned, leadership should in some way reflect the direction of the membership and their policy.
In Labour, it's more leadership based and that person certainly has a lot of control over the direction of the party. So I can see why they didn't want to mire themselves down in three months of "what's our new direction" focus groups and caucuses, before putting that template onto a new leader... only for that new leader to look at the camel that was before him and throw it out as unworkable as far as they were concerned.
That’s MMP, it’s made of coalitions. In the UK they don’t have the same system. I know it’s hard to get your head around after all these years, but get used to it, it’s here to stay.
I really don't get the... I dunno what it is... idea? that this grand coalition of the almost left came oh so close to working. Greens, Mana, labour, NZ First and Maori Party? It's just not political reality in this decade. Numbers 1 & 3 are going to struggle to work together, and 2 & 5 ain't going to work together this term at least.
I suspect you'd have seen the Greens prop up the national government before that coalition lasted three weeks. The election wasn't close, it wasn't even close to close. You need at least a 5% swing to make a left wing coalition possible.
I’m just suggesting he could have known about it.
Don't you think that if Hooten had known that the Labour party had already arranged the post-loss leader switcharoo, that the National Party would have been trumpeting it from the rooftops?
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The nature of the blog with different people contributing seems to require 'bring a plate'.