Posts by Kyle Matthews
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There is no cash.
Don't you hate it when people point out the realities of the world around you, and it makes no sense for it to be that way, and yet that's the way it is.
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(Series one of Misfits was a pleasant surprise last year, and what I've seen of series two just keeps getting better.)
Heartily recommend Misfits. In particular the Nathan Young character is fantastically written and brilliantly played. Thanks to the people on here who recommended both that and The Walking Dead which I enjoyed over the Xmas break.
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The Herald and Fairfax kept calling me to ask me to do so, but I didn’t return a single call. I knew it wasn’t me, they knew it wasn’t me, so the notion that I would give the story more air by publicly denying it was me, seemed artful at best.
That must have been an interesting editor - reporter conversation: "So Martin Devlin got arrested for disorderly conduct yesterday. I need you to ring John Campbell and get him to deny that it was him so we can rule him and every other 46 year old out in tomorrow's paper."
Real telling truth to power stuff.
I’ve said consistently that “No asset sales in our first term” was just code for “We’ll strip-mine the asset ledger in the second term”, and Key has proved that I was correct.
I'm entirely happy with Key's announcement. They've stuck to an election promise, and they've outlined next term's policy nice and early to make it an election issue. I'm not happy that they're planning to sell assets, but they're a right wing government, they do these things, at least they're being open and sticking to what they say about it.
Yes, it’s not going to be popular, is my prediction. In fact, I think it could be unpopular enough to lose National the election. This is the issue Labour should be jumping on, right now, real hard, and keep hammering it.
If only they didn't have Goff fronting the issue. Key owned him in sound bites last night. Goff must have spent so much time defending asset sales in the 80s that he doesn't know how to attack them 25 years later.
National has to get really specific about what they’re going to buy with the proceeds, offer clear evidence that all the money is earmarked for that. Inherently the idea of trading up to different assets is not bad, if only it could be believed that that is what they will actually do. 10 billion worth of new assets on the books might not look so bad, if there was genuine engagement with the public (whose money they are playing with) to show what assets and where.
From a financial point of view, it makes no sense to sell income producing assets, and buy non-income producing assets (or income-costing assets, like schools, hospitals).
There may be good social reasons for doing so, but I don't think you can claim that the government is trading up assets in any way no matter what it spends the money on.
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In the absence of a law (easily repealed under urgency!) to restrict the use of urgency, an upper house is the best option I can see for enforcing unavoidable consultation requirements.
I'm somewhat dubious. It would only have that effect if it's makeup wasn't dominated by the same party/ies that dominates the house. The US seems to get things through both when they suddenly need to invade anywhere pretty quick.
I'd much rather the ability of the government to use urgency was much more restricted. The changes to our education system that National rushed through without select committee hearings really stand out from the current term. That should not be allowed to happen.
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Except for that one part where Yoda kicked some ass. I'll give you that.)
Interestingly (I thought the prequels were average, but not the complete disaster many people thought), Yoda was the character I hated the most in the prequels. I thought they betrayed the later character by having him jump around like a spazz in the fight scenes. Felt like it was done for a laugh and novelty value rather than being realistic.
Lucas never was particularly consistent however, for someone who apparently made up the whole universe.
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and Sufjan Stevens
I'm going to have to request a ban on any further discussion of him coming to NZ, his gigs, and how fucking great he was.
My partner and I made the difficult decision, having just been up in Wellington for the family Xmas, that we wouldn't shell out the $600+tickets to go see him in a couple of weeks.
It might take me a while to get over it is all, so appreciate your support. That is all.
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I've been itching to say this all along: The social contract isn't worth the paper it's not written on.
Well indeed, it... or they, only hold as long as there is support on both sides (government and voters, or a voting bloc. Muldoon had a significant social contract with the older generation, one that served him well electorally.
I guess my point is that a number were 'broken' in the 1980s. Some with the support of the electorate, some certainly not.
They're a very different beast than your actual contract with the government via the student loan scheme however. That's using your power as parliament to just rewrite contracts.
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And, of course, the reason that there was no manifesto that year was Muldoon’s alcoholic snap election.
Labour had an election manifesto. A friend who was a member and left to go to NLP took delight at waving it at Roger Douglas when he came to talk on campus once, pointing out the bits about asset sales and whatnot.
You are right that we elect people to Parliament, not policies, but at least some of us vote for those people (and not for others) because of their policies.
Probably moreso since we took up MMP. It's our votes for parties who largely present as leaders and policies that has the major part in determining parliament's makeup and the outcome of elections.
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Is it time to move on?
Yeah fair point.
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Then we girls stood by the hearse with baskets of flowers from Mum’s garden so people could put a flower on the coffin and take a moment to say goodbye.
Everyone gets caught by some moment in this thread. I was OK up until this. That's lovely. My condolences Emma.