Posts by Russell Brown
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Meanwhile, I'd be wary about the claims that there was some miscarriage of the popular will in Shearer being selected, and that he didn't win the floor vote at the meeting.
Tane at the Standard says:
The only thing I’d add is that Norman’s line about Shearer being imposed by Labour’s central office is a flat out lie, and he knows it. I’ve long been a critic of Labour’s selection processes, but the fact is Shearer’s selection was unanimous among the six delegates on the selection panel (half head office, half local party) and he won the floor vote by a clear majority in a field of eight candidates. That’s a pretty clear mandate by any standard.
Meanwhile, Whaleoil is all over it, claiming his "Labour spies" have told him Shearer lost the floor vote (but only after he's read it in the comment at The Standard that contradicted Tane's post). My inclination is to be sceptical, and my suspicion is that there has been some trolling going on in lefty blogs.
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No Right Turn has a useful post on the dual-candidacy issue, in response to Colin Espiner's column pointing at that in the case of National, Act and the Greens, the people of Mt Albert will vote for one candidate -- and bring a completely different person into Parliament if their candidate wins.
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*cough* Well, I get rather bored with whats-her-face on Checkpoint I'm just waiting for someone to just snap and tell her, "I didn't give you the answer you want the first dozen times you screeched that incredibly stupid leading question, so why don't you fuck off?"
That would actually be quite funny.
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It also occurs to me that although he's talked of as the Leader's candidate, Phil's Leader and also the MP for Mt Roskill (at least 27 years as a Jafa) and might just have a few insights into Auckland matters that the Queenslander doesnt?
I think a better point is that Goff has demonstrated that he knows how to hold on to an electorate in Auckland. Driving through Roskill on the back way to the airport during the election campaign last year was hilarious -- he had a hoarding on nearly every corner of the main road.
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Meanwhile, it might be nice to hear a Morning Report discussion of an actual local issue in the electorate. I just got a release from a group of residents, which includes this:
Steven Joyce, the Minister of Transport has asked for a review of the tunnel option citing costs as prohibitive to building a tunnel. Despite numerous requests from Mt Albert residents, the Minister has so far refused to visit the Mt Albert/Waterview area, to listen to residents concerns about how a surface motorway would impact on their lives. Residents are concerned the Minister is being influenced by other groups while not hearing what residents have to say.
Mt Albert Community Board vice –chair Phil Chase believes the Minister is being disingenuous about the costs he has publicly stated as $2.77 billion and the reason for the review. “The Minister has included the cost of the upgrade to SH16 (North Western motorway) in the tunnel option price. This upgrade has to be done regardless of what option is chosen (tunnel or surface). The Minister needs to take the SH16 upgrade out of the cost of the tunnel figure and then compare this to the surface motorway option.”
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I wasn't at the selection meeting and am not involved with any of the parties. However, also from the Standard, a poster claiming to be from the local Labour branch reports a stitch up:
The most I can make of this is to guess that Shearer lost the floor vote at the selection meeting, but still had the central party and LEC votes, and was thus elected. Which is how the selection process works. Anyone know any more?
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Wow.
Gordon Campbell has a blazing response this morning:
So David Shearer is to be the Labour candidate in Mt Albert. The claims by Greens Co-Leader Russel Norman on Morning Report that this leaves Norman as the only progressive candidate on offer in the Mt Albert by-election were singularly depressing, as an index of how the Greens plan to fight this campaign. To reach that conclusion, Norman has willingly bought into the distortion of Shearer’s views on mercenaries in extreme Third World hot spots. He has also resurrected the bogey of the right wing leadership of the Labour Party, and claimed Shearer to be the creature of that faction and thus discredited as a ‘progressive’ candidate.
Is it hard to see anything progressive in this array of smear tactics. For one thing, Shearer has spent a good deal of his professional life in humanitarian work in the Third World, some of it while Norman was kicking back safely on Waiheke Island. Secondly, Shearer’s views on private armies have been wildly distorted. In one paper, written 12 years ago, he had been saying that in Sierra Leone the private army involved had helped to end a hideously brutal civil war. Subsequently, Shearer’s position has been that such private armies are a fait accompli that has to be regulated – which would mean that the likes of Blackwater could no longer enjoy legal immunity for their actions inside Iraq. That, I would have thought, was a progressive position that Norman himself would endorse.
There's more. Given Gordon's background, this is very strong stuff.
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OK... so the story actually seems to be Nat MP seems to be a pretty decent landlord.
Ah, but you have to read the story to find that out ...
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I don't have any coprophagous tendencies, so don't go putting any more crap in my mouth.
Along with your snipe at Shearer's "ego" I couldn't really see any other way to read it. But whatever ...
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The reality is it's been established in the media because Labour haven't been doing anything to counter it; the media can't fight Labour's battles for them.
Well, Shearer did his best to counter it on Morning Report today. It didn't seem to make much difference: RNZ led its story with last week's private-armies angle for the next few bulletins.
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