Posts by nzlemming
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Jan, he's talking about Robyn Malcolm, not you. Unless you're more bewildered than you're letting on.
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Craig, what have I told you about bringing facts to a shitfight? It's the naughty step for you, young man.
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Hmm. Anyone looking at the end credits for LOTR can see the names of the NZ actors there, the major players (alright, Karl Urban) in larger print. I think that Voxy piece is the first I've ever heard about credits. Do they want extras to be credited? Who knows?
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I don't know Jennifer Ward-Lealand well, but she has always struck me as a decent person. I hope this doesn't rebound on her.
I don't think so, for anyone who does know her, and her statement the other night was measured and reasonable, but that won't stop the media unfortunately.
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I feel very sorry for Jennifer Ward-Lealand, who I've worked with and respect and admire as an actor and a person, and the other members of NZ Actor's Equity. I think they're very much in the role of "football" here, and I don't think they auditioned for it.
This is pretty much what I foresaw when the vote was called for to affiliate with MEAA - a friend who is a local organiser, spent the best part of an evening telling me why it was a good idea, but couldn't go much beyond "they've got more resources than we do so it will be good for us, and we'll get a foothold in the Australian market". He was trying to persuade me to sign up, knowing I was a union guy from way back, and he wanted any shows we did together to be "Equity shows". I said to him then "But what does the MEAA get out of it? Follow the money. Who benefits?"
I haven't seen a flood of NZers getting more work in Aussie and I haven't seen NZer's getting more protection here - less, in fact, if the info about failed "Pink Book" negotiations is correct.
Peronally, I think this is coming out of SAG as a matter of policy, under their "runaway productions" concept, and Mr Whipp and the MEAA have overplayed their part. Sadly, it's the NZ industry that stands to lose (which I can't see troubling the Australian or US markets a whit).
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We have lost thousands of dollars through bad policy, bad decision making and poor economic and social understanding not through minibars.
The same Ministers are creating that bad policy, making those bad decisions and lacking the understanding that is costing us billions, not thousands, now and into the future. Whether Labour or National - I think they're equally screwed. The question, Jeremy, is not about how much they spend on these dodgy bills, but that they're making the dodgy decisions to spend.
As Graeme has pointed out above, they may have actually broken the law. We, as their employers, are entitled to ask "what other laws might they have broken? " If their decision making skills are so poor in the day to day things, to their own advantage, how should we judge their decision making at grander levels?
You, yourself, have identified that the country suffers from poor decision making. Well, these are the decision makers - it starts and finishes with them.
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Ririrui et al may have been told by someone in their Ministerial office to do it a certain way, but that doesn't mean they were told by Ministerial Services. A minister's office is composed of liaison people from the particular Ministry/ies the Minister is responsible for (i.e. public servants), who are seconded to Ministerial Services specifically to work for the Minister, and political appointees that the Minister (or his/her party) chooses to employ, mainly from the private sector but sometimes not (i.e. not public servants).
It's not inconceivable that a Minister was told a procedure is acceptable by someone who did not know what the rules are, but "hey it seems logical to do it that way". That said, the buck stops with the Minister, who must sign for the card and state that they have read the rules to do so.
In other news, I find it disturbing that I agree whole-heartedly with Craig on this matter, and have consequently booked myself in for a medication rebalancing...
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Woh. End of an era, and a damn good one. I sincerely hope you pick it up again in the future. You leave a gap at PA but I'm glad you'll still be on Twitter. Catch you there!
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By the bye, I note the Herald has a few stories on the report but their headlines (until about 2 minutes ago) referred to the "Balzey Report" .
Typo or Fruedian slip?
;-)