Posts by Emma Hart
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Merepeka Raukawa-Tait?
Donna Awatere-Huata!
This is a fun game, but it scares me that someone might be taking notes.
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Barnett was a lighning rod for social bigots, as evidenced by the unspeakably vile comments on his short-lived blog.
Working as his blog proof-reader was certainly an... interesting job. One that required large applications of medicinal alcohol to disinfect the inside of my brain.
Barnett was a great guy, hard-working and personable. We (Chch's chardonnay socialists) miss him. I don't know what nobbled his career but I'd struggle to believe it was incompetance.
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But I do think there has been a real-world gap between the parties on inclusiveness, which is where the conversation started.
Oh, I don't think they're the same. But I do think that a lot of the time we see an over-simplified picture of the Left that doesn't include, say, the Labour voters of South Auckland or the West Coast or Sydenham, the socially-conservative Left. Hence my taking issue with Gio's comment, which is where I came in.
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Sure. And the supposedly arch-conservative Wairarapa electorate voted in Georgina Beyer.
I have a friend who was living in Wairarapa at the time (and still is) - one of those trendy-lefty Auckland-working commuters. She'd raised the question with a much older local acquaintance, about how he could vote for Beyer when he was apparently so conservative. His reply was that he'd 'known George since he was a boy', and he was okay, a good person, and that was more important than how she dressed or who she had sex with - or apparently which policies he supported.
Politics is a funny thing, and people vote for all kinds of weird irrational reasons. Doesn't pay to get obsessive about it.
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emma, ashraf abstained on the prostitution reform, he voted in favour of civil unions. just for the record.
Duh. Sorry. That'll learn me for not checking.
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I'd be surprised if the numbers were substantially different in the electorate they represent
I'd be very surprised if the National-Labour numbers weren't slightly skewed by the obstacle of 'crossing the floor' - a pressure which is present even on a conscience vote. Labour had an abstention too - Ashraf Choudhary. I remember because I emailed him and thanked him for doing so. Sound weird? I felt it was the right thing to do.
My earliest encounters with Craig were of someone who was repeatedly lambasted for Voting National While Gay, as if someone's sexual orientation should entirely determine their political opinions, and not, say, your views on economics. It's reductive and insulting and oddly never happens to straight people. It shouldn't happen to anyone, regardless of their political orientation.
I dunno, maybe it's because Craig and I have both been inside parties and realised that, hey, sometimes you can fight really hard and still lose, and people are going to assume that you support all your party's policies, which is just never going to happen in a world where we don't all have our very own individual political parties. But a lot of the time I find it easier to identify with where he's coming from than I do the more hectoring Left.
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Certainly not, but shall we ask somebody to poll attitudes towards homosexuality by party affiliation? I'm not sure you'd be overjoyed with the result.
Gio, after over twenty years of various levels of association with various permutations of "the left" I think the result would surprise you as well. The Net Left is NOT representative of the Left as a whole - there's a Chris Trotter for every Public Address and it gets worse from there. Come down, I'll treat you to a night at the Richmond Working Men's Club (though I can't promise Alan Bollard will put in an appearance).
The only party I would expect to come out of such a poll well is the party I support mostly on the basis of their 'social legislation' votes, and I believe the only party that voted entirely for civil unions: the Greens. They also managed to be perfectly clear about the fact that they DO support full gay marriage.
So do I, and I have absolutely no interest in alienating any "Tories" who believe the same.
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There's honest and honourable people (including Russell, DPF and Idiot/Savant), who'd argue that marriage equality is going to happen, and I shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I hope they're right, and I'm wrong. But I've just heard too many people heave a sigh of relief that "gay marriage" is off the political agenda for good to be complacent.
This is pre-empting my this-week's column, you know.
The Daily Show was brilliant on Dan Choi. Where I'm inarticulately furious, he... well, has a team of writers, but it was brilliant anyway.
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I don't need to tell you that whatever opposition to civil unions there was and still is belongs firmly on your political side
Curse my even-handedness, but I have to say this isn't entirely true. There are plenty of people on an older Christian working-class Left who are opposed to civil unions. And legalised prostitution, and the "smacking ban", and young people in general...
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Laziest Screenwriting Hack: Oh, crap, how the hell do we intersect character A with storyline B? Ooh, I know, how about "A is chased by a ravening monster all the way to B?"
Watching that chase scene, thinking 'man this is unnecessary'. Not just one ravening monster, mind, but two in quick succession. It was like they were nearly finished and then somebody found another truck full of money parked out back that needed to be blown on some completely gratuitous CGI.