Posts by izogi
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Russell Brown,
But the terms of reference of that inquiry – bizarrely – exclude Odgers, Slater and Graham, so there would seem to be less of an impediment there.
How does the jurisdiction work where Cathy Odgers is concerned, given that she (as I understand) spends much of her live in Hong Kong, and presumably carried out many of the alleged actions from there? Is that likely to complicate any investigations?
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to BenWilson,
People would be encouraged in any electorate with an Old Labour candidate to split their vote between Old Labour and Labour. Then they could actually benefit from strongly contesting both votes.
If it actually worked, do you think the two groups would ever agree on who’d get to supply the Prime Minister? :)
It’s not exactly something that’d go down well with me for the same reason I dislike coat-tailing and intentional overhang (which this is) and everything else that actively seeks to skew proportional representation. MMP’s much better than FPP ever was, imho, but it’s still not perfect and (unfortunately) still relies on good will from participants to achieve the outcomes which make it better. All this tactic would do beyond short term is reduce the public’s trust in the electoral system to produce a fair and representative outcome.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Russell Brown,
Labour was also at pains to be fiscally orthodox going into the election. They really weren’t proposing a spending spree.
It's a real shame they weren't able to communicate this.
I spent the election period with the inlaws and extended family on that side, which happens to be a farming family. On several occasions I was treated to a barrage of Nat vs Lab cliches during the in-house political discussions, not least of which was how National are good economic managers compared with Labour always being about spend spend spend, throwing money away on bludgers. Dirty politics is too complex to care about, what-the-hell-is-whale-oil?, plus all politicians are and have always been dirty anyway. Worrying about spying stuff is silly because we're not doing anything wrong. etc. When my partner briefly hinted she'd already advance-voted against Peter Dunne in Ohariu, it was met with an exclamation that it was a bad thing to do because he was "on our team".
I chose to enjoy my time there rather than have a falling out with the inlaws. They're wonderful people, very generous in person, and I think they already respect that I don't always agree, and arguing wouldn't have achieved anything.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Slater et al have no ‘moral’ position on anything.
Also keeping in mind that this is a guy who proudly stated, on the record, as being the person whose role in politics is “smashing your face into the ground”.
As long as he remains an outlet for his political links, he’s going to retain the attention he has.
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OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Why is Espiner asking Russel Norman about what the Labour Party is doing?
what a fecking waste of time …Nothing’s changed, apparently.
This morning I switched on TVNZ only to see the PM’s extended commentry on what the Labour Party should be doing about its leadership, repeated from an earlier interview as their priority news item, and Fairfax is happy to repeat. A few minutes ago I heard Kathryn Ryan advising they’d later have Hooten on to speak about the Labour Party’s leadership.
I didn’t hear Espiner’s thing, but from elsewhere at least Norman seems to have the sense to point out that the Labour Party’s business really isn’t his own and it’d be silly for him to comment.
Asking these politicians about their own policies and parties is apparently too hard, or maybe someone’s afraid that JK wouldn’t show up if he thought he was going to be challenged.
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OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to tussock,
Hi @tussock. Yes I've no argument about the unprecedented way in which this government has stomped on all the precedents and process. I've complained about that in other recent PA threads and it also needs to be addressed, but as well as this I think outright ignoring of the law should be absolutely unacceptable. If there's no effective way to stop that from happening, the whole population of New Zealand loses.
I've found other governments depressing, but I guess I just find this one disgusting by comparison with how it runs things, ignores all the processes and precedents which have been put there for good reason, and which until now were normally treated seriously by those to whom they applied. :( In the 1980s we were apparently "not ready" for a binding constitution. It'd be nice to do something about that, even if it's just to give proper teeth to the Bill of Rights.
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OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
A Government that hasn’t given a toss before. We’ll see, I hope you are the correct one here.
I'm not sure what I'd be correct about, but I'm concerned.
I've no doubt we'll be getting more land placed under higher protection, simply because that's the most useful thing to do with most Stewardship Land, it should have been done from the start, and it won't be controversial. It'll also be largely budget neutral except for the overheads to get it done, because most of this land is already being managed according to the value DOC's known that it has for the last 27 years---it just hasn't had the legal protection to go with it. I've also no doubt that the government will point to all this higher protection it's applying, and claim brownie points for caring, even if most land being protected is land that would never have been controversial beforehand.
The devil will be in the detail of what's left out, and the detail will probably be strongly influenced by the government of the day and whichever commercial lobbyists have been out on the golf courses.
At least, under the circumstances, Nick Smith is a million times better as a Conservation Minister than Kate Wilkinson ever was. I don't always agree with his decisions or his party, but he actually takes an interest instead of simply seeing it as his duty to automatically rubber stamp everything Joyce and Bridges tell him to. He's obviously had low points in his career, but in the current Cabinet (or what it's likely to be) I see him as one of the better ones.
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OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
If they start by changing the classification of National parks
Something to keep an eye on on this topic, all three major parties (Nat, Lab, Green) agreed before the election that there’s a strong need to classify NZ’s stewardship land, and they’ve all had an intent to give the process a kick after the election, especially after the PCE produced a report about the problem last year. That’s basically 30% of the Conservation Estate administered by DOC, or about 10% of NZ, which doesn’t currently have a clear status besides basic protection and being managed fairly generically.
In conservation terms it’s often very valuable land (or not) and was meant to be classified since 1987, but DOC’s never had the resources or inclination to get around to determining and formalising its status. Classifying it properly is a good thing in principle, because most recently the ambiguous status on Stewardship Land has been at the centre of a bunch of controversies, in part caused by even the applicants for conservation land use not being clear on how significant the values are on land which they’re interested in using.
Anyway, this term and after there will probably be recurring announcements about new blocks of public land being more strongly protected. Some will go into more National Parks, more Conservation Parks, or more Reserves, which is always going to reflect warm and fluffy karma back to the government of the day. The critical detail will be in the fine print of what’s allowed under that “protection”, and in the exceptional cases of what continues to not be protected beyond the basic level which it is now. I wrote more about it over here.
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Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
perhaps we should be engaging people instead of functionally making them criminals for being disengaged from politics and the political process.
Yes please.
Requiring compulsory voting on the grounds that about 30% of the eligible population didn’t vote (including those not enrolled) is telling 30% of the populace that they’re doing something so wrong that it should be illegal. And that number’s high enough that it doesn’t seem right to me. I’d rather spend more effort identifying why so many people are choosing not to exercise their right to have a say in who governs them, and then if possible and reasonable try to adjust things so they’re more incentivised to get engaged on their own terms.
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Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Lisa Black,
I think I’d rather see civics education in schools, though preferably not of the kind that leads to saluting the flag and singing the national anthem of a morning.
In principle I agree, but what does the modern concept of civics education entail?
I remember that in 4th form social studies (mid-1990s) we did lots on current events including current political events and what was happening, but not much beyond that. I did vote, but still didn’t have a genuine interest in politics beyond voting McGillicuddy Serious and spoiling my voting paper on the grounds that “they’re all idiots” until I was probably in at least my mid 20s. I’m trying to think what type of education might have gotten me seriously interested in taking notice of politics and voting for the country’s future before that, and I’m genuinely not sure.