Posts by Pete George
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to bmk,
Unfortunately for Cunliffe and Labour I hear this impression of him quite a bit, and my wife's reaction to seeing a clip of him from the Henry show was similar, on his dress and his 'smarminess'.
"One button undone is casual, two buttons relaxed, three Hasselhoff".
I've heard he comes across well in private but his public impressions are often poor - especially with women.
"Mps are on a 2 week recess" - from Parliament, not from the rest of their jobs. Leader of the Opposition is more than a full time job.
Cunliffe has to look genuine in any media appearance (and avoid dressing inappropriately) if he wants the even more full time job of PM. 'Smarmy' and 'fake' are growing negatives that will be hard to shake off.
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Cunliffe said "When a totara falls in the forest another totara grows to take it's place".
How rooted is the Labour totara?
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According to McCully the job was created and then Jones was identified as the top prospect for it. Jones says it was purely his' decision to leave Labour, that he didn't want to be an MP any more.
The Pacific ambassador role is still open and Jones is not confirmed or signed up yet.
Is he a suitable candidate, and should he be offered the role?
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to The Ruminator,
How do you know for a fact?
Stuff on Dotcom 28 March: "He repeated his claim that it would be represented in Parliament, whether or not it achieved the 5 per cent MMP threshold for list seats, because a sitting electorate MP would join."
Vikram Kumar on The Nation, 29 March: "Yup, and part of that is going to be answered. As Kim has said there is discussions going on with a sitting electorate MP"
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It’s worth sharing this comment from Geoff Noller (from another blog post):
I think that the current raft of problems we’re facing with synthetics are primarily a clear cut case of the prohibition chickens coming home to roost.
An NZ report in 1973 (the ‘Blake-Palmer’ report) warned that continuing the ban on natural or ‘raw’ cannabis (the Law Commission’s [2011] term) would likely result in a black market – which at that time was barely in existence – and increased use. It proposed education, along with accepting that a generational shift towards drugs other than alcohol might be occurring.
Fast forward 40 years and…gee, maybe someone should have listened.
The Psychotic Substances Act represents a further attempt to engage with this issue and is actually a major shift in NZ’s approach to recreational drug taking. Unfortunately, those responsible for it didn’t appreciate the need for education around drug taking that follows from unlocking the lolly jar, so long kept behind the counter.
As a result we’ve seen possibly thousands of NZ’ers, many of them young and inexperienced, accessing a class of drugs about which they know nothing, far too frequently and heavily.
What that boils down to is that with access to whatever substances, also comes the responsibility of appropriate use. This is something we all have to own.
For those interested in synthetics and an assessment of their current impact in NZ, along with comparators, have a look at a recent report here:
http://www.thestartrust.org/images/pdf/Synthetic%20cannab%20harms%20NZ%20final%20draft-3.pdf
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"Getting Peter Dunne to admit that cannabis should be legal (which he voted against in 2006) rather than the synthetic-mimics he has enabled..."
I agree that it could be difficult getting him to agree with cannabis becoming legal but it's unfair to lay the blame on him for enabling synthetic-mimics. Didn't they enable themselves by working around the drug laws at the time? And from what I've heard Dunne's preference is for all synthetics to be banned - although there's a bit of a contradiction there because he seems to accept that complete bans don't work.
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Here's the MP responses on cannabis as shown on Campbell Live last Thursday:
Transcript: http://yournz.org/2014/04/21/mps-on-cannabis/
Video: http://www.3news.co.nz/MPs-and-marijuana--politicians-views-on-decriminalising-pot/tabid/817/articleID/340548/Default.aspx -
It's looking like MPs are not in a mood to address this any more than they have, and unfortunately while the intent of the Psychoactive Substances Act has merit it ignores the cannabis elephant in the House.
Patrick Gower asked a number of MPs last week "Would you vote to decriminalise cannabis?"
No – 5
Probably not – 1
Yes – 2
Consider it or possible – 2
Wouldn’t say – 3That's not the best question to be asking at this stage. The SST editorial says "Sooner or later, we need a national debate on drug use and abuse" - it is becoming urgent. Politicians and parties need to understand that hoping the Act is sufficient and it will all turn out ok it carries huge risks and there are signs it could all turn to custard unless they address the whole issue and not just the synthetic half.
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Does Soper really not know that these things have been “sold in communities” for the past decade and this this legislation sharply curtails the ability for that to happen?
And does she know that it had strong cross-party support (including Labour) and only John Banks voted against it in the final vote?
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A TOUGHLOVE media release on dealing with teens and legal highs: