Posts by Gareth Ward
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I didn't realise just how tied into the "Anti-Smacking" Petition the Sake of our Children (where Rankin is CEO) people were. The conflict of interest seems massive, what with that referendum still to be held and the Families Commission presumedly at the forefront of advice out the back of it?
-
My daughter really likes Bill English. She thinks he's one of the Wiggles
Ha. I could make a "more like one of the Muppets" cracks here but I won't.
Oops.
-
This reminded me of the time I was on a flight to Wanganui sitting behind a prominent Cabinet Member who was highly supportive of the upcoming CU Act. It was the day that the Herald ran their simply absurd front-page interview with some teen beauty queen who complained that the Act "did nothing for me as a young 'normal' heterosexual" and somehow would undermine her eventual marriage.
Said Minister stepped off the plane, walked up to a (I presume) staffer and opened with "god, look at this silly bitch".
My esteem = raised. -
-
- the relationship equivalent of Coke Zero
- pull together a party that resembled a sack full of feral cats on crystal meth.Can you PLEASE write my obituary when the time comes?
-
Re the hypocrisy - I can certainly see it (it's flashing itself in rather large neon letters tbh), but for those of us who believe a Families Commission SHOULDN'T be solely about the married-for-yonks-with-missionary-conceived-2.5-children-but-ignore-the-affairs-and-occasional-violence "family" it's a bit grating to try and shame this woman for her family/marriage creations. Frankly someone that has seen their fair share of "non-standard" family arrangements could possibly expect greater support from me for that role.
Of course, that person is certainly NOT Ms Rankin given her well publicised views on family's, children, religion et al.
-
Ick. All of it, ick.
I've avoided the 'zomg, she's been married lots and someone once married to one of those marriages committed suicide" awfulness but it's obvious from this thread that all the discussion has gone that way.
Where it could quite easily have trotted down the line that Labour put out: “It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the new appointments suggest the Government has a new agenda in mind for the Families Commission and it should come clean and explain whether this is the case."
Unfortunately, most people in this country don't care about the makeup of a Govt agency like that and "the dirt" is what they'll read.Rankin's taken very specific public views on families and the like - she could well have been hoisted on that petard alone.
-
I also wonder if Lee has informed NZTA that their motorway explicitly designed to speed driving times between South Auckland and the North-West is in fact going to do specifically the opposite? That's gotta hurt the cost/benefit.
-
If I can drive past Mt Albert and come out in Switzerland or Chile then I think the benefits of this road have been grossly undersold.
-
Yup, let's get that pre-emptive outrage going.
It's not preemptive though. The format of a hand-picked Ministerial* council vetoing the decisions of democratically elected local officials and installing their own CEO into council is already established.
Exactly which "businesspeople" end up in there doesn't matter (for what it's worth I imagine they'll be highly competent people).