Posts by izogi
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I don’t want to distract too much from the discussion, but while we’re on the topic of people being mis-characterised to create a biased impression (intentionally or not), it’d be nice if our own media could spend more time primarily referring to these guys as “people” instead of, y’know, “mongrel mob members”.
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Despite feeling mad about what’s happening, Rob, I really don’t share your enthusiasm. Maybe you see media and associates and people who hang out on blogs and Twitter continuing to talk about the PM’s weaknesses. Maybe Peter Dunne’s published something on detainees. But the main thing I see when I browse comment threads on Stuff and the Herald is people screaming that stupid criminals located overseas, who don’t want to be New Zealanders anyway, shouldn’t be lobbied for by the NZ government. Total confusion seems to reign about who wants detainees to go in which direction by helping them or not helping them. Stuff’s main headline as I write this isn’t about detainees, it’s about Michelle Boag being “disgusted at the actions of female MPs", bizarrely for being the ones responsible for detracting attention from detainees. This whole episode is a massive excersise in confusion and distraction.
Your claim that the PM will have to explain contradictory and illogical comments won’t hold. He doesn’t have to, or at best he just has to string together some words which are equally illogical. For whatever reason, his voters don’t care about that stuff if he goes long enough without addressing it, especially if they don’t see much of an alternative for a government.
The PM has shown again and again that stuff like this runs off him, and people still like him. Media hounded him over Dirty Politics and more than a few pundits declared National was doomed. Yet he talked through it, and audiences turned on media, and National bounced back in the election more strongly than ever.
I can’t explain exactly how he does it, but this is one of his great strengths. I think that by constantly making issues about the Prime Minister in a personal sense, instead of about the whole government, it’s playing straight into the government’s own strategy of directing the opposition’s rage and arguments against a specific individual who isn’t really affected by it.
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As insulted as I am at the Prime Minister's behaviour this week, I have also found myself agreeing with Peter Dunne's latest comments (alt: Herald coverage).
As Rob's pointed out in his original post, Key threw a dead cat into the room to distract from being criticised on a real and important issue. In that capacity it's worked beatifully, even with people who see it as a dead cat. Everyone's bickering about whether the PM's a hero or a disgusting turd, and there's much less talk about detainees.
As Danyl's also noted this morning, when the conversation's made more about John Key than about issues, Key will nearly always win, even if the complaints are fully justified. It's no wonder the government uses that advantage.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Kumara Republic,
The Governor-General? The Ombudsman (when she’s not too overloaded)?
It's really a question for someone with the right legal expertise for something authoritative, but as far as I can tell this is ruled by sections 12 and 13 of the Constitution Act 1986.
And as I read those two sections, it seems to be that:
* The House elects a speaker immediately upon its first sitting, and immediately on the first meeting after any vacancy.
* The Speaker gets to continue in their job unless they "vacate office" or unless Parliament dissolves or expires.Have I understood this correctly?
Section 13 in particular seems to strongly suggest that the Speaker can't be dumped by others, if I understand its tone, meaning that maybe they have to resign or die. Or are there other ways they could "vacate their office"?
Other than that, dissolve parliament, have a new election and elect a new speaker? If parliament could be convinced to agree to replacement and he didn't want to resign, some kind of informal golden handshake style enticement is probably more likely.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Steve Withers,
But the thing that confounds me is the possibility that maybe 47% of Kiwis are just as unethical and arrogant as Key and his party. Really? I hope not.
I'm also confounded by some people who constantly apologise and outright mock or insult anyone who disagrees with their chosen ideology (as is rife in Stuff and Herald comment threads for example---you're not with me so you must be "ONE OF THEM"), but I don't think all those 47% of voters are like that based on various friends and family of mine who claim to have voted National for whatever reason. People decide what to vote for on any number of issues, but it doesn't necessarily mean they like everything about what they're voting for. Even with the Dirty Politics stain, maybe partly because of it, the opposition still wasn't exactly doing a fantastic job of showing it could provide a good alternative.
I think a wider issue is possibly that many people are afraid (or unmotivated) to demand quality and integrity from those they do vote for, as if they somehow think that to do so is an implied endorsement of what they might dislike even more.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Kumara Republic,
What are we waiting for?
A forced acknowledgement of the error, buried at the end of a bulletin many months from now after everything's moved on!
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to lynne walker,
no one should be detained on Christmas Island in such horrible conditions. ITS SO FAR FROM anywhere, there is no way of getting direct consulate support. Australia should not be allowed to treat people like this
This is what's bothering me most about the latest exchange.
The resulting conversation, including from Labour and the Maori Party, is already falling into the narrative set by the PM.
We (meaning the media and commentators generally) are not talking about whether it's okay for the foreign state of Australia to subject New Zealand citizens, or anyone, to inhumane treatment without due process, without fair representation, without monitoring, and without any clear relation to whatever punishments a court process might have imposed on those people in the past (if any).
We're instead talking about whether the disgustingly cruel situation above is somehow magically acceptable if those people had previously been convicted and punished for certain offences. To top it off we're also talking about just how many New Zealanders on Christmas Island were previously punished for those offences, implying there's a possibility that the Christmas Island treatment could be somehow acceptable because of it.
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Speaker: The real balance sheet, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
I don’t want to denigrate Jess McAllen’s work which I’m not familiar with, and I also enjoyed that article, but I’m not sure if it’s specifically a great example of investigative journalism. It looks more as if she’s read several books with a common theme (possibly just one book?) and is reporting on the content.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to George Darroch,
people want their pools and libraries (both around $10m plus operation)
On that, I never appreciated how well served New Zealand is with public libaries, at least in cities, until I shifted to Melbourne for a few years. There at least, public libraries are disjointed between a swathe of municipalities. Very few if any of them provide the same type of venue experience as the more significant central libraries in NZ's cities, where anyone can just go to laze around and read or be quiet. Wellington's the network I'm most familiar with here, but IMHO even New Plymouth's library beats Melbourne's hidden away central public library on Flinders Lane.
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I doubt this has any direct links to the original DP story, but seems vaguely related given the tobacco threads of it.
Yesterday I noticed that the author of this book, or someone claiming to be him, has for some reason jumped into a localised NZ-based Stuff comment thread (who knows why!) to argue against smoking bans and basically say that smoking's not unhealthy. Or something like that.
Has anyone heard of this chap and has he had a presence in New Zealand before?