Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Sacha,
If Labour and the Greens can not successfully take on this madness (let alone what Brash will add to the mix) then they richly deserve to be booted out of parliament by voters.
Sounds like Jones is starting to step up, and ask some intelligent questions in the House. Auckland rail carried over a million passengers last month, which is more than 35k passengers per day compared to Shon Key's much-trumpeted 27k people/day along the Puford route.
Jones also has the mongrel streak to go for Joyce's throat, which is what's needed at this point. Parliamentary decorum be damned.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Sacha,
They had months to do so through other channels
Really? I think most people thought the Bill was being left to sleep for a while. I certainly did. And short-circuiting parts of the process removes some of those months.
Labour's been very crap at communicating, and we're all agreed on that. But they're getting a lot of flack for this particular decision because it's not the one that fits the ideals of this community, rather than because they didn't communicate a better strategy in the non-existent period for public consultation as National rammed the Bill through the remaining stages.
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Cracker: RIght On., in reply to BenWilson,
ACT could have been history if only a few thousand Labour voters in Epsom could look past traditional tribal enmity to the big MMP picture.
In 2005, yes, since Hide's majority was very much smaller than the Labour/Green candidates' votes total.
In 2008, not a chance. Rodney's majority in 2008 was, from memory, larger than the total votes cast for all other candidates. It was definitely larger than the total votes cast for everyone other than Worthless, and that number included the votes of people such as myself who did vote tactically to try and get the National candidate plus a vote for a more-palatable party.
You can't blame Epsom's Labour/Green voters for Rodney dragging in the Zombie of Parliaments Past and the Dead Baby. -
Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to BenWilson,
therefore Labour’s message should not be pitched at National, but at the people
See what I wrote about how Urgency changes the equation. Under ordinary circumstances, yes, totally agree. But this Bill did not pass under ordinary circumstances. Labour actually did speak quite effectively in the House about why termination is a bad course of action, but that was the only place that they could speak because the government didn't care for public consultation on the Bill.
Whether Labour have a clear contrary position to articulate is a different matter, but in this case they didn't have an opportunity to articulate said position in any way that would've mattered a damn.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to nzlemming,
Their way IS the highway, according to RadioNZ this morning.
Yes, and that thought did cross my mind as I was typing.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Sacha,
Mining national parks?
Not convinced that that's completely off the agenda, though. It was also 18 months ago, and the "Our way or the highway" attitude has become a lot more obvious in the intervening period.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to BenWilson,
You don’t seem to be able to accept that an Opposition with a clearly articulated dissenting alternative can be more of a moderating influence than meekly settling for tiny amendments.
If I thought the current government gave the teensiest, tiniest shit what anyone outside (or even everyone inside!) the caucus thinks, I might be more inclined to accept this proposition. But National clearly don't give a fuck for anyone's opinions unless they confirm their own biases; the same things of which Labour was being accused by the end of their last term.
It's possible that a clearly-articulated strategy from Labour could make a difference, but that only helps if you've got time on your side with which to articulate. Urgency changes the equation, because no matter how good your arguments the only people to whom you're preaching are the implacable foe seated on the benches opposite. You cannot sway the proletariat into making their views known, because there's no time.Or you don’t think Labour has a real alternative.
On this issue, I'm not sure that they do. Hell, even the Greens aren't against the bill in principle; they just object to some of the rules around what to do with infringing downloaders.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to 3410,
By taking the position that many of the posters in here apparently wish they had, and simply voted against the Bill, knowing it would pass anyway, rather than trying to moderate some of its greatest excesses.
An Opposition is meant to try and limit the government-of-the-day's power, and that's what Labour has achieved, at least in theory.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Labour could table the amendments, argue for them and decide whether the final bill deserves their support.
Which is great if the government needs Labour's votes to pass the Bill. Except that, well, it doesn't. So Labour could table amendments that would end global poverty and hunger for no cost and, for good measure, bring about world peace, make the world's greatest arguments EVAR!!!! in their support, and still have them fail to be adopted by the House because National's "principled" position is to vote down amendments posed by other parties. Whereas if they'd negotiated with National they might've got an end to poverty into the Bill, with the certainty that their combined vote with National would push it over the line even if Act took objection to the serfs being fed.
Obviously this is completely hyperbolic, but it's intended to illustrate how such an inflexible position as yours can lead to very sub-par outcomes that could be made rather less sub-par through some application of flexibility. And when the government of the day cares as little for democracy and democratic principles as does the current government, you're going to get nowhere by trying to table amendments that are for something less than guaranteed alleviation of global poverty.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to BenWilson,
Not so sure about the diminished power to achieve anything, though.
Well, as it stands, Labour are stating that they achieved concessions in both the CERA and file-sharing bills by agreeing to vote for them. In the case of CERA we don’t know what they are, but one assumes that Labour’s CHC MPs considered them worth fighting for. In the case of file-sharing, if the choice is forcing the Executive to defend account termination in the future, or having it in force immediately, I think the former is a minor win.
Those are both achievements, and neither would’ve been possible had Labour previously acted in bad faith towards National over votes on legislation. If you don’t think those are at all worthwhile achievements, so be it, but certainly on file-sharing I (and others in here) disagree with your assessment.
ETA:
It’s then on National to adopt the amendments or not, but even more on them for ramming the whole thing through in the first place.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that National give a flying fuck what anyone thinks about their abuse of urgency. They don’t. They also don’t give a fuck about passing good legislation, or they wouldn’t be abusing urgency. In that situation, I’m very torn as to whether I would rather that Labour voted against an awful law that will pass regardless or voted for a less-awful law that is only less-awful because of their intervention. Saying that they can repeal/alter when they are next in power is only helpful to those who will otherwise be fucked by the new law if Labour keep the period of damage to six months. Which, at present, is not looking terribly likely.