Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Or you can choose not to vote.
This in itself is exercising your democratic right.
Better to think about it another way. If you don't vote, then everyone who does vote makes up parliament for you. So effectively your vote will be split 40-something % National, 30ish% Labour, 12ish%Greens, etc.
Whereas if you do vote, 100% of your vote will go for the one you think is best.
I get how people don't vote if they think all parties are the same and it doesn't matter who you vote for, I don't get how people who clearly think that some parties are worse than the other fail to show up at the ballot box.
My major concern with Labour is about their social security (“welfare”) policy, which is all about nice slogans about wanting to get rid of child poverty and narrowing the income gaps. They seem to be more concerned with middle class welfare, as that is where the votes are.
I agree. The 5th Labour government didn't attack the Richardson benefit cuts, I doubt the 6th Labour government will do much to improve the lot of beneficiaries.
I was heartened to see Greens get aggressive on child poverty over the weekend on the news. I haven't looked at the details yet, but it seemed to be a substantial commitment, and they were including beneficiaries in the pool.
It looks like a punitive approach. Have a look at the health policy. See anything even acknowledging that alcohol consumption has a correlation with domestic violence. Do you see anything in the law and order policy you quoted from, that looks at, OGM I am about to sound like a bull buggering bastard, Women who abuse children, and the fate of those children? No – Because it’s not trendy to look the the compleat picture, better to look the other way.
I haven't done any work in this area for 20 years, and even that was brief, but the connection of alcohol to violence was something that the police were very interested in pushing. Womens Refuge were (in my view) well ahead of them - they viewed alcohol as removing inhibitions in many cases, but that the violence was already there in the person.
I wouldn't regard any party policy that headlined alcohol as the primary thing to solve in relation to violence as being in the 21st century.
Actually Labour….not good enough for me.
You are very well aware of what that piece of legislation is called…
Your concern isn't with the substance of the policy, but that in writing it they haven't named the legislation that will be amended when they implement the policy?
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to SHG,
Oh yay, theft analogies.
How about if the person makes a duplicate of whatever he finds and leaves the original behind?
You mean, like what the Watergate burglars did when they took copies of documents, which eventually led to the resignation of a sitting President.
Stupid talking point...
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To demonstrate that facts are irrelevant, or perhaps that they feel safe with a great deal of hypocrisy. The whole "did she dislike National before they shat in her breakfast" question is one that's hard to answer.
It would make as much sense to make claims that the National Party led government screwed up the case and let the alleged sexual assaulter go as revenge for her being a left-wing feminist "activist". Just because people have a political point of view doesn't make their experiences and opinions invalid when they're talking about "non-political" things.
Most subsequent resignations have been over their personal actions, although Denis Marshall’s resignation over Cave Creek is a classic example of real ministerial responsibility. He didn’t build the platform, but he set the policies and budgets that led to its construction.
Well that's a version of history about it. Cave Creek was April 1995, the Commission of Enquiry Report came out later that year. Marshall resigned in May 1996 over a year after the disaster and months after the report slammed his department, claiming that he stuck around to 'fix the problems'.
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I watched all three shows of the series and wasn't sure what to think about them at the time, until I've read through this thread. I found parts of it good, but parts of it just... average. I didn't like the way time jumped forward with no indication that it had moved on. I found the story of the digger driver and their 'munted' neighbourhood and his family up north to be a good one, but overdone and badly acted. I thought it underrepresented just how frustrated the people of Christchurch are and the impacts it has had upon them.
To me the purpose of it should have been taking Christchurch people's stories and telling them to the rest of New Zealand and the world. A six part show could tell six stories - either stories of an individual, or group of people, that were largely or wholly separate. Some could be largely documentary (day of and immediate aftermath of the February quake could tell the story of rescue workers and people trapped in buildings?, the stress and psychological impacts of the whole experience), whereas the battles of people with insurance companies and CERA etc could be more drama, the community and way that people have worked together could be recreated but with actual participants representing themselves or people like them.
I hate the actors talking to camera stuff, I'm amazed that they didn't take Campbell Live Caravan type footage and have people's telling tidbits of their real story in those moments. That would reinforce that what is being put on the show was based upon real stories.
I can't imagine how anyone could take on the task of making this for the people of Christchurch to view, so I'm not sure anyone should have to try. That's a herculean task that Preston shouldn't necessarily have to take on.
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I've never thought the problem with football was the size of the nets. More that games have so few shots on goal - sometimes low single figures. If they could find a way to change the games so that there were more shots, and therefore more on net, you would get more goals and therefore less likely to end up going to penalties.
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I don’t know for certain but I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of those cases never go to court
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Of all the ways for it be handled, this seemed one of the least effective, and meant that our lasting impression of Masu was not of the terrific food, but of being strong-armed out of the joint after parting ways with our $250 per couple.
I want to belatedly dump on Scotia in Dunedin, where 9 of us spent about $700 at a birthday dinner a few weeks ago. Food was reasonable, but at the end they brought us the bill, a pen, and a calculator and told us to add up what each person was to pay and then come pay it ourselves, they wouldn't do it at the counter individually. Way to spoil your argument that you're one of Dunedin's top restaurants.
And then an argument about a discount voucher which they applied to someone's entree rather than a main, which we won after going home to get the book and showing it to them.
Cheap and cheerful in Dunedin - Cafe Nesli which does great turkish kebabs for $10 - $18. Yum. Almost as good as Paasha for half the price.
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I can understand infanticide as a horrible choice when resources are overstretched and abortion and contraception are not available. Not a choice likely to be faced in NZ.
Sadly not true: Student, 20, charged over death of baby
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Sadly I can't recommend Indian Summer in Dunedin. New owners took it over a year or so ago and we've been a bunch of times, but their service is terrible - every time we order garlic or chicken naan and every time they bring us plain. Sometimes the quality of the lamb they use isn't very good.
Except they do serve this fantastic curry which I haven't seen done this way in any other Dunedin places - Chicken Chakori. It's two curries, both chicken, a green and red one, separated by this - looks a bit like a pancake, but it's made with eggs apparently. So they do the green curry, wrap it inside this egg thing, and then add the red one to the outside. Fantastic.
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Labour made the mistake of proposing raising the age of super, but later (after all of them retire). That went down like a cup of cold sick, because far from solving the problem for future generations that the population bulge is going to cause, they simply upped the ante on future generations. Absolute dick move. It was a policy that no one could like.
I liked it, though I was arguing against of lots of fellow left-wingers at the time. And superannuation is such a political bomb, raising it overnight like it's an alcohol tax would kill your party for a generation. Makes sense to give people plenty of warning and a kiwisaver scheme so that they can design their own retirement funds and have time to do so. Way not to plan for the future.
In reality it’s you put in half, your employer puts in half (which he then takes back by paying you less than your co-workers who aren’t enrolled) and the government a bit extra.
That's shitty. Recommend changing jobs to an employer that specifically decided not to do this, if possible.
Also, as someone said, blame national for buggering up our retirement planning again. Both the changes to kiwisaver reduced the government contribution and increased the employer contribution that they're apparently taking out of your pay increase, and stopping payments to the Super Fund.