Posts by Lucy Telfar Barnard
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Steve Barnes,
That depends more on the time of day rather than time of the month in my experience.
I'm waiting for some more pithy response to occur to me, but for the moment all I can come up with is:
Don't be a dick.
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Well, I still think that "she was having monthly sick problems" is at least as valid an interpretation of "the moon in Dunedin was in the wrong phase" as "she was having a passing attack of lunacy". If that's not what Jones meant, then once again he's shown that he's got no idea of what women might find offensive, or why.
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OnPoint: The Gift that Keeps on Making…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
In the old days, in the UK at least, the level of a security clearance was a secret from the person holding that clearance.
But if you know you're only cleared to Top Secret Barfbutt, and by accident something that's Top Secret Crudclap comes across your desk, how are you meant to know not to read it?
Once upon a time such accidents might have been easier to avoid, but the intelligence industry is sufficiently huge these days that such accidents must be inevitable. -
OK, had more of a think about this, and the next problem I see is when legislation is going to be introduced which is contrary to the interests of a group who are powerful, wealthy and morally bankrupt.
Let's take as an example the introduction of plain packaging for tobacco.
This is something our parliament could, and should, introduce. It might get past the Jury system, but it also might not. If there were any possible way tobacco companies could lean on the Juries enough to get majority opposition in each age group, I'm sure they would. Bribes? No problem. Misleading pseudo-science? Over 80 years experience! Blackmail, threats of physical violence, pins in wax dolls? I'm sure there's someone in big tobacco who knows whether these work, and how best to apply them if they do.
I like to hope altruism would triumph, but 14 people is not many to have to buy off when your coffers are large.
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From a “representation” point of view, my only concern would be that you might want to make the Senior Jury a little younger – either 60 or 65+ – because otherwise, until inequalities in life expectancies even out, it’s unlikely to adequately reflect the total population’s percentages of Maori, Pacific Peoples, or men.
Otherwise, I’d love to see it given a whirl!
ETA: Also agree with t'other Lucy's previous comment about absence of mothers of young children, though the Junior Jury could include young mothers, particularly if the Jury was well set up with optimal childcare.
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Hard News: Political Idol, or whatever…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
You mean… work together? Across party lines?
Even if the parties can't or won't do this, I was thinking more that whichever company was wanting to sign the contract should go to the opposition and say "hey, here's what we're trying to thrash out with the Government, could you live with that?"
For example, back when Gregory Fortuin was appointed Race Relations Commissioner, he made a point of going to the (then National) opposition and saying basically "The [Labour} Government have offered me this job, but would you have any objections to my appointment".
If something similar were done when entering into a contract with the government, there'd be greater confidence that the deal would be less likely to be undone with a change in government. The onus is as much on the other party as on the Government to ensure there's cross-party support - possibly more, since they're the ones who'll lose out if the next Government renegs. -
Hard News: Political Idol, or whatever…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I think that people should be able to work with governments on time frames longer than three years.
Perhaps if there’s a financial reason for an arrangement to last longer than 3 years, it would make sense to come to an agreement llikely to have cross-party support?
If you know you wouldn’t get your contract if the opposition were in power instead, but you sign up anyway, and a subsequent government reneges, then haven’t you only got yourself to blame? Wasn't it really a business gamble that lost?
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
A question though - can the Leader actually change policy all on his or her own? Isn't this more a case of saying what sort of policies they favour, rather than "if I'm Leader, the policy will be X" - because I'd expect the rest of the party to have some say in what the policies should be too, not just the Leader?
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Shane also addresses the "geldings" comment again from about 27 minutes on. I had hoped he might have meant it in relation to his own behaviour - if he had been talking about it as peoples' response to his blue movie watching, I could just about have lived with it. But apparently not. He did mean to use it in the context of the female-only electorate debate, and goes on to say "to suggest that it's misogynist, or anti-women, I understand where some of these university graduates are coming from, but that's not the broad response I've had up and down the country".
Clearly not using "broad" in the sense it had in 1990s flatmate ads then...
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Oh, and just listening to Nine to Noon's earlier interview with Robertson and Jones, I hear him saying (about 12 minutes in) that he did intend to refer to Grover Cleveland. But he also says something like he didn't explain at the time because "in politics, explaining is losing". I don't really think that's good enough either.