Posts by linger
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Lew's entire point there is that nobody should be limiting the audience to an “either-or” choice of topics here. So, no “irony” is involved, and he wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable with a total absence of policy discussion either.
That said, I’d quite like somebody in the media to take Key up on National’s economic record once he tries to shift the topic there.“We can’t do anything about it, it’s the global economic situation.”
“So you’re saying you’re useless, then.” -
Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
only when Nact fucks over the people will there be a change.
Yes, and the change is merely that those people will be fucked?
For any other result, Labour (and others) need to start making explicit lists of what they will reverse -- and then actually do exactly that as soon as they get the chance. -
Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to linger,
Bugger. Actually, I should correct the 2006 figures slightly (to ignore the 2.01% of the total who are listed as having no language, e.g. babies) for more direct comparison with the 2001 figures. Which gives:
English = 97.83%.
Other languages in descending frequency (above 0.25% coverage):
Maori 4.18%; Samoan 2.27%; French 1.43%; Hindi 1.19%; Yue (Cantonese) 1.18%; Mandarin 1.10%; Sinitic (other Chinese) 1.01%; German 1.00%; Tongan 0.79%; Dutch 0.72%; Korean 0.72%; NZ Sign Language 0.64%; Spanish 0.58%; Japanese 0.56%; Afrikaans 0.56%; Gujarati 0.42%; Tagalog 0.33%; Panjabi 0.29%; Arabic 0.26%; Cook Is. Maori 0.26%. -
The 2006 census responses show slightly more language diversity.
English = 95.90%.
Other languages in descending frequency (above 0.25% coverage):
Maori 4.10%; Samoan 2.23%; French 1.40%; Hindi 1.16%; Yue (Cantonese) 1.15%; Mandarin 1.08%; Sinitic (other Chinese) 0.99%; German 0.98%; Tongan 0.77%; Dutch 0.70%; Korean 0.70%; NZ Sign Language 0.63%; Spanish 0.56%; Japanese 0.55%; Afrikaans 0.55%; Gujarati 0.41%; Tagalog 0.33%; Panjabi 0.28%; Arabic 0.26%; Cook Is. Maori 0.25%.(N.B. all other Germanic languages combined add only 0.03% to the English count, confirming that most such speakers also are fluent in English.)
Urdu (at 0.11%) may miss out on official support purely on basis of low frequency.
The only language on the list supported for election documentation that doesn’t seem clearly justified by special cultural connection or by frequency is Vietnamese (0.11% – lower than Khmer or Thai at 0.16% each).
N.B. The Statistics New Zealand release breaks the figures down by age, which would allow anyone really interested to calculate coverage for voting-age adults alone; but I am not going to attempt that here.
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98% of the 2001 census respondents reported fluency in (at least) English. Only 2% of the 2001 census respondents reported that they were monolingual in a language other than English. The 18 languages covered are among the most frequent of the reported languages among those monolinguals.
What I find interesting about the language list is that it systematically doesn’t include European languages (French, German, Dutch, Spanish) reported with non-negligible frequency in the 2001 census. Presumably most such speakers are also able to read English. Starks, Harlow & Bell (2005) note that in NZ, French, German and Japanese are predominantly “school” languages without sizeable local communities of use.
By contrast, Polynesian languages, and Asian languages other than Japanese, were mostly reported by (and were mostly limited to) respondents who also identified with the respective ethnic group, so represent communities that should be catered for.The 2001 census figures are, in descending order:
English 98.21%; Maori 4.60%; Samoan 2.32%; French 1.43%; Yue (Cantonese) 1.06%; German 0.97%; NZ Sign Language 0.78%; Mandarin 0.76%; Dutch 0.75%; Tongan 0.66%; Sinitic (i.e. other Chinese) 0.66%; Hindi 0.65%; Japanese 0.57%; Korean 0.46%; Spanish 0.42%; all others 4.70% total. -
Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to martinb,
Japan can’t get laws passed overnight though. It’s bicameral.
I know: but there is a provision which lets the lower house vote once again and override the upper house, which was used several times under the LDP after Koizumi.
The glacial speed and need for cautious consensus-building has more to do with the fact that both of the two largest parties are really loose coalitions of factions, distinguished more by competition for power than by any huge differences in policy direction.
The level of public disengagement also has a lot to do with the fact that politicians of the main parties behave as largely interchangeable empty suits (that’s tatamae again), and are perceived (with some justification) as being nobs divorced from reality.P.S. There is an edit function; it’s available for up to 15 minutes after you post (you’ll see it if you hold the mouse over the screen to the left of “Reply” on your own post).
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Meanwhile, from the Herald:
Despite being the one to call in the police over the teapot tapes saga, Prime Minister John Key says he has "no clue'' about their operation
There's not being good on details, and then there's abject cluelessness.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Sacha,
Oh yes; in Japan there’s a general appreciation that politics is fundamentally two-faced.
(As just one specific example of what happens when people take part in any society valuing any degree of conformity. Still, as you’d expect, it translates into fatalism and very low voter turnout – often as low as 40%.)
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
we’re exceedingly unlikely to see Jar-Jar Binks (Nat – Naboo) move a motion to vest powers in John Key to bring about the creation of the Galactic Empire
Yeah, but somehow I still don't find the argument "they may be muppets, but they're our muppets" very satisfying...
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
democrazy’s a bitch, but she’s our bitch
But as Neil's comment suggests, that's no longer true if a sizeable proportion of voters are disengaged.