Island Life: A pig this good you don't eat all at once
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Should we be passing a law about Australian money in our media, given their shameful corporate media?
Indeed, Paul. Because The Herald was a shining beacon of journalistic rigour (or should that be rigour mortis?) when it was owned by the Wilsons and Hortons. (BTW, Paul, when did Tony O'Reilly and his family become Australian citizens?)
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I'm very curious about the Herald's definition of "pork", really. I'd barely consider National's fibre pledge to be pork, since it's actually spending that's of demonstrable value to the nation. I certainly don't consider funding for surgery, or emergency services, to be pork.
When I think of pork-barrel politics, I think of the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, worth nearly USD1b and of benefit to 50 people on an island. Oh, and all the local companies that get to build the damn thing. That is pork-barrel politics! -
Speaking of Bridges and Pork, there is the Skye Bridge here in Scotland. Built by a Westminster govt and it used to cost a fiver to cross, and it put the ferry at Kyle Rhea out of business.
Enter the Scottish Parliament and what did it do? it bought out the private pork company that built and operated it, and now it's free. No tolls on the Forth or Tay road bridges either, though that was precipitated by the removals of them from the Erskine bridge in Glasgow.
It seems that Scots thought a fiver to cross to Skye was grossly unfair (it was 80p elsewhere), but it was unfair for Weegie commuters to cross the Clyde for free while those on the East coast had to pay. Tricky thing pork.
Funny things: the Forth had just finished installing wizz bang fancy automatic toll booths like what the Frogs and Jerries have on the Autobahns etc. They had to tear it all out and showed their pique by dragging the process out and inconveniencing commuters no end.
Here in Dundee the workers who built the Tay Road Bridge got the pork of work in perpetuity on the toll booths. Annoying thing was they made it hereditary so it became a closed shop. So when they faced redundancy or redeployment to maintenance, outside when the Easterly wind off the Steppes is blowing freezing rain in your face, nobody gave them a bit of sympathy. Ah pork.
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Then again, the equally shabby and dishonest argument Clark is now running is that "tax cuts = 'social service' cuts"
Oh, Craig, why do you do this to me...
Ok, I'll bite. One can argue about quality of spending but to suggest that Clark is being dishonest for pointing out the absolute flaming obvious is what...idiotic, dishonest,. I dunno, words fail me.
You want tax cuts, fine, but don't expect all else to remain equal.
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Ok, I'll bite. One can argue about quality of spending but to suggest that Clark is being dishonest for pointing out the absolute flaming obvious is what...idiotic, dishonest,. I dunno, words fail me.
You want tax cuts, fine, but don't expect all else to remain equal.
So, is anyone going to ask Michael Cullen what cuts to "health, education, superannuation" (Clark's mantra over the last couple of days) are going to pay for his tax cuts? Oh, I forget... it's always different for Labour: You can cut taxes, increase government spending, cure the sick and make the lame walk with no effect whatsoever. I keep forgetting its only inflationary and will lead to swingeing "social service" cuts when the other bastard does it.
As I've said repeatedly, I don't think either National or Labour has a particularly sound purchase on the fiscally conservative high ground, but I guess it's more politically convenient to say its all the fault of a vast right wing media conspiracy on behalf of the National Socialists.
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Craig, you have neatly shifted from your original point. Clark herself seems go be asking that question.
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Craig, part of Cullen's point is that Key is pulling numbers out of his arse without having seen the Treasury books. Bandying around figures like $50/week without actually know if that can be done without requiring service cuts. We have a contracting economy and shrinking tax take, but Key's quite happy to quote numbers that aren't based on informed judgment.
So, yes, it is entirely reasonable to say that tax cuts == service cuts.
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Craig, part of Cullen's point is that Key is pulling numbers out of his arse without having seen the Treasury books.
Um, OK... So you're going to have to help me out here: If National ever changes tack on anything they're a pack of flip-floppers with a secret agenda. If I had a dollar for every time National's been derrided as 'policy lite' I'd be a wealthy man, but now Key's "pulling numbers out of his arse without having seen the Treasury books" and therefore not "based on informed judgment".
I'm not smelling pork here, but something coming out of the backside of an entirely different animal.
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Craig, can you show otherwise? Until the Budget's released, Key's not going to be shown Treasury's books. Fiscal Responsibility Act requires it after the Budget. So, at this point, Key's making guesses about what might be affordable, maybe, he doesn't actually have firm numbers.
And National do appear to be "policy lite". The Herald had precious little costing of National's "pork", because so little detail is available. How else do you describe the main competition in an election that's six months away but still hasn't released clear details on policy expenditure?
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How else do you describe the main competition in an election that's six months away but still hasn't released clear details on policy expenditure?
Prudent?
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Don,
Ok, I'll bite. One can argue about quality of spending but to suggest that Clark is being dishonest for pointing out the absolute flaming obvious is what...idiotic, dishonest,. I dunno, words fail me.
The Herald journo who drew up that table revealing a $2.5 billion gap in spending promises between National and Labour - which supports what the PM says - probably agrees.
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Isn't pork barrel politics, basically by definition what politics is all about?
I think the phrase has a lot more useful meaning when put in America or someone else, where politicians votes are much more up-for-grabs, and they still run a FPP electoral system.
So Senator X will vote for umpteen billion of military contracts as long as one of those contracts goes to Company Y who happens to employ 20,000 people in his state.
Craig, part of Cullen's point is that Key is pulling numbers out of his arse without having seen the Treasury books. Bandying around figures like $50/week without actually know if that can be done without requiring service cuts. We have a contracting economy and shrinking tax take, but Key's quite happy to quote numbers that aren't based on informed judgment.
I'm pretty 'meh' on this. Yes he is pulling numbers out of the air, but he's not releasing detailed policy, he's signalling in response to Cullen's signals about the tax cuts in the budget, where national will lie - and in particular, indicating the difference.
It might be bad policy, and it won't be something I'll vote for, but it's just political talk, they've have a more detailed policy on it in the lead-up to the election I'm sure.
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Lyndon: I was about to do my nut about that. Education is a core function of government which provides the basics of opportunity to every New Zealander. It's about as far from "pork" as you can get. Unlike, for example, National's plans to double funding to private schools (who coincidentally donate to the national party, and cater to its base of exclusionary rich snobs).
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The herald should hang its head in shame and do some real good for the pigs in this country - get Anderton or anyone with power to phase out crates.
When even America's Smithfield's farms and UK Marks and Spencers to name 2 are phasing out their pig crates, it doesn't make us look good.
Look in the eyes of the pigs on this website.
How low can the Herald go?
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The Herald? Pork?.......... I cant digest either.
All key had to say today after the Budget was that Nastional will be "better". Cheap talk, "my Mobile phone is "better" than your mobile phone", schoolyard boasting with no substance.
I just saw a typo "Nastional" but I think I'll leave it in. Whenever I have the misfortune to come across the ravings of the Right I can't think but how nasty they can be. -
The Herald should hang its head in shame and do some real good for the pigs in this country - get Anderton or anyone with power to phase out crates.
Anderton is one of the main reasons pigs are still in tiny cages - like Sutton before him, he's stood in the way of having MAF and other government agencies enforce the current animal welfare legislation, which even he acknowledges makes battery farming illegal. Instead he's called for more domestic research, waving aside extensive overseas research as if New Zealand pigs are somehow different to European pigs....
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Really, George Darroch? Quote sources for this please-
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From SAFE's website:
[the] code of welfare for layer hens was found to be in breach of the Animal Welfare Act by Parliament's Regulations Review Committee (RRC). The RRC released a 41-page report following an investigation into a joint complaint made by the Animal Rights Legal Advocacy Network, Campaign Against Factory Farming and SAFE. The RRC rejected the code and made specific recommendations to the Minster of Agriculture in order to address their concerns. The code was written by the Minister's own appointed advisory group, the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC).
The RRC was also right to condemn the inappropriate use of the clause ‘exceptional circumstances' that ultimately allowed the continued use of battery cages within the code. The RRC has recommended the code be rewritten and a phase-out of battery cages be introducedand
Since the RRC announcement, the Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton has decided to ignore the recommendations in favour of the industry. Anderton has refused to introduce a phase-out date for cages and continues to hide behind calls for more research.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Government department as 'captured' by the industry it supposedly regulates as MAF (on this and a host of other issues). I have no problem with ministries supporting industry. I have problems when the minister and the ministry actively help that industry break the law - especially when that law breaking condemns millions of animals to a life of suffering.
Animal owners who own domestic animals or livestock and treat them in the same way are prosecuted. MAF make a habit of not inspecting, and only prosecute pig and chicken farmers for egregious violations, and even then will often decline to prosecute. If you kept a cat or a dog (of less intelligence than a pig, btw) in the same conditions, I'd guarantee you'd be prosecuted in court.
This government is high and mighty about whaling, but doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to cruelty to animals. Anderton and MAF are ignore public opinion, science and the law, because it suits them and they can get away with it.
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