Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Seems to me Norman is more than capable of 'dealing with the complexity of the issues', and therefore this was a wasted opportunity. Is it that hard to imagine a better use of his privileged access than this?
Well possibly. But are we crticising him for not having thought out his protest as well as one might hope? Is that an essential part of his job?
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Sofie, I'll say again. That might make him a good mediator, I don't see how that makes him a good leader of a major political party.
Just because things are complex, sometimes political leaders need to try and make them clear, which they can do by coming back to principles. Goff just seems to muddy everything.
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My question was more whether he had privileged access to the scene, and whether that had any bearing on the situation.
Well that's a valid question. I don't know the rules very well, but I'd be surprised if what he did breached any rules of parliament in any serious way. At this stage the speaker would look silly applying any sanction, though obviously he may not let that stop him.
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What, no gloating about the (cursed) luck of the Irish causing the French to self-destruct?
Someone needs to plot a graph of "french national team football" from a head butt four years ago to today. Is a consistent decline, ups and downs, is this as low as it has ever gone?
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I'd suggest Goff is a pragmatist of which allows him to see both sides without damming either.
This might be great if he was a mediator, but he's supposed to be the leader of a major political party.
Which requires complexity, but it seems to me that this instance requires a yes/no answer. "Is Norman entitled to be there protesting in a vocal manner?" Key at least said "no", which makes him clearly someone that I disagree with. Goff is someone who feels to me like he can't bear to come down on one side of an issue in case it offends some potential voters.
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This is important, and why the whole thing left me wondering what he hoped to achieve.
I think it's not at all important, in terms of what has arisen out of it. The right to protest should not be dependent on making perfect sense, or dealing with the complexity of the issues.
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Is it really that bad to uphold the right to protest but offer the opinion that Norman was being a bit of a dick at the time? Even if you think it's not true, and as you note, protest often needs to be annoying.
The problem (in general) I have with Goff is that he can't seem to make a clear statement of where he stands on a bunch of things. It's a bit of "on the one hand but on the other hand". Feels like he always ends up saying nothing at all.
The left (if we can generously call Labour that) needs a leader who can at some point say something clear, unequivocal so we all know that they're a party that stands for something.
This I don't get:
"We expect people to be respectful to our visitors, but we also retain the right to protest peacefully."
What Goff is saying is that he wants protesters to be over there, in the background, a few signs, and quietly respectful. He's trying to look supportive while actually not being supportive while appeasing the people who think Norman went too far, but not enough to piss off the left. How many fence posts does he need up his butt before he picks a side?
I wouldn't mind so much "Norman had the right to protest, but he was silly". What he said to me was "Norman had the right to protest, but just not to be effective."
Expecting dignity from an MP? He's new around here right?
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The bird flocks over Rome on Super Swarms is one of the most amazing things I've seen. If that didn't inspire the black smoke off Lost...
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I wouldn't be keen to see that, especially given the grovelling nature of the apology already offered.
I found the apology appalling.
The rules should be:
Anyone has the right to protest about anything.
Protests by their nature will cause minor disruption and annoyance, which is OK. Small price to pay for freedom of speech.
Major disruption which breaks the law may lead to sanctions against the protesters which is also OK.
(PMs shouldn't apologise for protests against China. They should act all innocent and say "Oh, that doesn't happen back in China? Is everyone there very happy with the government?").I've been surprised by how many people I'd have expected to be somewhat sympathetic have bluntly scorned Norman when the subject comes up in conversation.
I don't agree with that either. But I don't think that the problem here is that the police didn't flail around for a day trying to charge someone for an umbrella in the face, an elbow, and a grab and trample of a flag (or similar) who's cloistered behind diplomatic protection.
I think Norman would be getting less public scorn if the PM or other top people (Phil Goff) had shown a couple more testicles and said "I don't agree with his protest, but he was perfectly entitled to be there" or similar.
Like you say, protest is OK, or it's not OK. If Norman has crossed a line he should be sanctioned by the police or by the speaker, but I fail to see how "embarassing the VP of China" gets anywhere the hell near that line.
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There was a relevant article in the Otago University Alumni magazine, about nanotechnology, quoting Associate Professor Colin Gavaghan, Director of Otago's Centre of Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies. I'll quote some from near the end which addresses this discussion:
The problem with worst-case scenarios – be it Facebook causing delinquency or the Hadron Collider sucking us into a black hole – suggests Gavaghan, is that the mere suggestion of a catastrophic outcome is enough to capture the imagination and generate fears of risks not worth taking.
By comparison, issues around genetic selection are simple. “The technology might be new, but the questions it raises are not.
“They might be about fairness, identity, utility, autonomy, what we owe future generations. We can think of them and list them and come up with a process for working through the ethical issues and make some sort of sense of the conclusions. And we have a pretty good idea what the different outcomes will look like. But with something like nanotechnology – or some of the new neurotechnologies – there’s still so much we don’t know about the science and it’s difficult to come up with the programme of empirical studies that would help quantify the claims and concerns.”
One must also be mindful of how we position ourselves in terms of our international peers. “If our regulatory framework is not broadly in line with other countries’, our scientists and businesses will simply take their work to the most supportive environment.”
Given this, what can the law hope to achieve?
First, suggests Gavaghan, we need to decide how we want to think about the problem. “Do we want protection and control, or do we want information and the freedom to make our own decisions? Do we want to prioritise innovation or err on the side of caution? To some extent, it comes down to the political zeitgeist of New Zealand.”