Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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As far as I'm aware it's Nicki Kaye vs Judith Tizard vs whoever's-replacing-Nandor....
Just wondered if there was any kind of analysis/discussion on this level, or if it's all national party vote.Denise Roche is the Greens candidate for Auckland Central. She's also on the Auckland City Council, representing the Hauraki Gulf ward.
We're running a Party Vote campaign. We stand in electorates because that's the most effective way of engaging with voters during an election campaign, not because we think we can win the electorate.
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Really? In the unlikely event Helen Clark ever takes my advice, it's either STFU about National's "secret agenda" and present one of your own NOW, or at least get your story straight. Either John Key is Ruth Richardson in man-drag and therefore to be avoided at all costs, or... well, you in man-drag. Pick a line and stick to it.
Um, unless the secret agenda involves:
1. Deny that you would modify policy X, even though you voted against it and you disagree with it in principle.
2. Lull the electorate into a false sense of "more of the same"
3. Which enables you to win the election
4. (__After a few months in office__) Now that you've taken a closer look at things, you really can't allow policy X to keep damaging New Zealand's economy/social fabric/whatever and you really need to make these minor modifications...
5. Repeat for each dead rat you swallow. -
I’ve got nothing against Nandor, and I agree parliament does need idealists.
But I’ve never seen him being called hard-working before.
I'm reliably informed that the Green MPs are a hardworking bunch, with the exception of Ian Ewen-Street. I understand that during the 2002 - 2005 term, the two parties putting in the hard yards were Green and Act, often being the only ones still working late at night at parliament.
Getting back to the Public-Private Partnership issue, here are a couple of Monbiot pieces on nightmare outcomes in the UK. Monbiot's basic argument is that, without rigorous contractual oversight, private-sector partners can and will take public entities for the proverbial ride.
And of course, rigorous contractual oversight is impossible due to the strictures of sensitive/confidential/privileged information. The problem with PPPs is that it is absolutely in the interest of the private partner to load all the risk onto the government, and obscure the arrangement behind confidentiality. By the time the public find out what the arrangements, it will be likely that the project has failed.
Michelle Boag on RNZ's Panel this afternoon, of course, presented PPPs as a way to outsource the risk to the private sector. Why don't I believe her ?
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But that's not, I don't think, the point Craig. It's his conversion that's bizarre; from hard-out lefty to hard-out righty. It's been so rapid, he's even been unable to align what he does 9 - 5 to fit with his new found faith. He must be in such turmoil!
I think it's inaccurate to describe the Greens as "hard-out lefty", single-dimension left/right paradigm isn't a great fit for Green politics, you really need to include the liberal/authoritarian dimensions as well.
There are plenty of liberal aspects to our policies, so there will be some overlap with the liberal aspects of Acts policies too. Ergo, Shawn may have found sufficient overlap to consider moving to Act as being a non-extreme progression.
What I find fascinating is that he managed to get to number 10 on the list in such a short time. Is Act short of candidates or something ?
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For this to work you need articulate readers, which he has - but I suspect I/S's readers are also of a pretty high caliber. He could try it - it might work.
I/S did enable comments for quite a while, but found that some posters were voicing bile that would be more at home over at Whaleoil or Kiwiblog. So he stopped it. Can't say I blame him.
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Oh, with the Tan ACT conversion, I've talked to him and can assure readers here that his sentiments are sincere. He genuinely believes that ACT will protect workers rights, the environment, ethical foreign policy, and reduce crime.
I've known Shawn since I met him at a Green AGM four years ago. He's always appeared very earnest, and I've no reason to doubt his earnestness now. An idea I heard applied to Prebble's transmogrification from left to right was "Strong beliefs, loosely held" may well apply in this case.
What strikes me is is how you can attend at Green Party AGM in June, and then contrive to number 10 on the Act party list a little over 10 weeks later. Fascinating.
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If this is a first-time event for most of the participants, would that make it n00bs on bikes ?
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I took my daughter to the Santa Parade a few years back, and was appalled at what a crass advertising gimmick it had become. We haven't been back. I definitely with Craig on this one.
I don't see BoB as being much different, albeit with adult themes. Instead of giving endless oxygen to Crow's parade, how about the hapless ACC doing something useful like getting him to move it to, say 8pm, when all the families that "need protecting" are nowhere near Queen Street ?
I'm certain with will be some women who work near Queen Street who won't be able to avoid the parade and will feel uncomfortable with it, so it seems changing it to a night parade is a good idea. It also means non-CBD workers can get along if they want.
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I work in an open plan office. It's cool, you don't have to get out of your seat to talk to someone. This is especially useful now that the Testing team have moved over here with us developers.
The boss is currently talking about adding partitions to the mix. He's got the message that we don't think they are productive, and reckons they will be the low kind that you can still see over.
Then again, he's just shelled out on a 70" LCD, PS3 and some leather sofas, so maybe the budget has gone on something way more useful. I haven't tried GT IV yet, it just doesn't seem right in an office environment.
As for noise levels, I simply crank up the Sennheisers...
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The problem with "marketing to the base" is that there might be some real-world implications once this policy is rolled out.
For example on Morning Report, when asked whether they were going to need more frontline staff, Judith Collins blithely talked about there being "quite a lot of fat" in WINZ, implying that they would somehow transmogrify their current staffing configuration to have more frontline staff at no cost.
And the organisations that will be required to provide the increase in mandated budgeting advice are asking where the funding will come from to pay for the increased output.