Posts by Hebe
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to stephen clover,
Or, you know, he’s not who he purports to be.
Yep.
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to jeremy botham,
Christchurch should sell our assets to please people who live in a city where sewer covers are welded down because the system is so poorly maintained that without doing so you would have effluent geysers in the streets?
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to Barnaby Bennett,
Every word. Where can I buy the book?
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Matthew Poole,
no other recourse, as the CM has no legal standing as grounds to bring a suit (AFAIK. Graeme? Andrew?)
Yeah I thought CM was convention, but a pretty heavy duty one. Even Muldoon followed the convention -- just -- post-election in 1984.
If that convention is all we've got to protect this country, we need a Constitution.
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The Cabinet Manual -- the Book of Rules for how to govern -- says that the Leader of the Opposition must be consulted on all signficant decisions the govt makes within the official election period. Sir Geoffrey Palmer said on Morning Report on Tuesday that the consultation should include terms of reference.
He also gave compelling reasons why it should be a Royal Commission of Inquiry - 3 members.
Where has that gone? Who is going to hold Key to account for breaking the Cabinet Manual rules?
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Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to tussock,
“When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance”
Yep that. And the stress face. I was going to peg it as cognitive dissonance but have not got any more than a sketchy understanding of the term so thought I could be wrong.
Your explanation chimes exactly with what I see: a good person I love dearly but who cannot process such a challenge to her beliefs. And she is having so many of her assumptions and certainties challenged by the health system, insurers, family, that I can completely understand the shutdown.
I am seeing that snap! closing of the face elsewhere.
Whereas I'm interested in the daily unfolding, and I admit the events are reinforcing my cynicism about old spin-and-grin, so it is easier to process. (The first read of the book was hard: depressing and upsetting.)
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Thank you Gerard for your words, your stories, your films and your rare ability to find the best of us all in the worst of times. Arohanui
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I revisited the feeling of New Zealand society during the Springbok tour yesterday.
A family member – educated and socially liberal – and I were comparing notes about our quake insurance “stuff” when we strayed into politics and the chance of a government change and whether it would help our individual situations. Somehow I casually mentioned Nicky Hager.
The 1981 Tour face appeared immediately. Closed, slightly disapproving, and very much “I’m not going to get into THAT man’s nonsense thank you”.
I stopped short, surprised by the blanking, because most people around me accept Dirty Politics as having large amounts of truth, even if the details are not totally clear and proven.
I also saw that cut-off reaction en masse at the Christchurch leaders’ debate.
Is it all too big, too complex for people to understand? Do they refuse to believe that level of systemic and sustained wrongdoing could exist in New Zealand? Do they not care? Do they despise Hager so much that they cannot hear or see what he is saying? Have they swallowed the spin so fully that our democracy is under threat? What don’t they get?
Thanks Russell for writing this: you perfectly capture my appalled shock at all of it.
Is this what our country has come to?
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I revisited the feeling of New Zealand society during the Springbok tour yesterday.
A family member -- educated and socially liberal -- and I were comparing notes about our quake insurance "stuff" when we strayed into politics and the chance of a government change and whether it would help our individual situations. Somehow I casually mentioned Nicky Hager.
The 1981 Tour face appeared immediately. Closed, slightly disapproving, and very much "I'm not going to get into THAT man's nonsense thank you".
I stopped short, surprised by the blanking, because most people around me accept Dirty Politics as having large amounts of truth, even if the details are not totally clear and proven.
I also saw that cut-off reaction en masse at the Christchurch leaders' debate.
Is it all too big, too complex for people to understand? Do they refuse to believe that level of systematic and sustained wrongdoing could exist in New Zealand? Do they not care? Do they despise Hager so much that they cannot hear or see what he is saying? Have they swallowed the spin so fully that our democracy is under threat? What don't they get?
Thanks Russell for writing this: you perfectly capture my appalled shock at all of it. Is THIS what our country has come to? -
Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Trevor Nicholls,
PM’s Pinot has been around for a few years, so I don’t think that’s been much of a secret. But the blind trust is evidently only blind in one eye.
You are right: didn't look at the date: 101 not achieved. As you were.