Posts by George Darroch
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Even our current mayor was a Green councillor, but AFAIK is an “independent” mayor and any Green Party adoption process (or lack of) is shrouded in mystery.
Wade-Brown is a member of the Greens, but ran on an independent ticket. She hasn’t hidden the membership and is quite open about it, but the positioning is more than symbolic – she doesn’t consider herself beholden to the party, and considers herself a mayor for all Wellingtonians. There’s no firewall, but she does her own thing. People can be their own judge, but I think a similar precedent is found every time someone with a religious affiliation runs for public office. Rarely do they run as politically affiliated Christian (etc) candidates, but rarely do they hide their faith.
This raises another arcane question – I’m pretty sure cross-party miscegenation is forbidden, but could one be a member of a political party and run as an independent in the general election?
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Oh for goodness sake. The panel is there for light entertainment. Holding it to any kind of standard is pointless - it has never existed in any other realm.
what's the frigging point of it?
I ask myself the same question every time I change the station. Mind you, when Morning Report puts Hooton and Pagani on, I wondered if I'm being trolled.
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I heard a snippet of one of the BDO organisers on bFM this morning. She seemed to indicate that they, as promoters and a business have a thing for not booking acts that are down the homophobic, sexist, or racist road. They want to be inclusive and comfortable. At the same time, titillation, controversy, or other such generators of outrage they're entirely okay with. There's a line and a balance to perform. Once they realised Odd Future were more than they wanted, they dropped them.
It's entirely possible the person being interviewed was insincere, but she didn't sound it. Perhaps I'm naive. Of course, the Beenie Man community* backlash probably informs their position, and that's something I'm happy with. Your views may differ.
*Their community, the pool of punters and people who frequent the BDO.
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I read fleetingly that Joyce is canning loans for over-55 tertiary students. Haven’t seen detail yet. Media probably won’t cover it unless someone throws a tea party (or a lamington).
Oh FFS. This is serious, and this is awful. It speaks a profound ignorance of knowledge production, the nature of universities, the role of non-young-people in society, and of NZ's demographics now and in the future. Cutting off appendages is a terrible way to lose weight.
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I knew that, but only because IRD makes you affirm the value of your overseas study for interest writeoffs. Thus, I had to pay NZQA $165 to investigate that my masters degree at one of Australia's top two universities was at least equivalent to a NZ undergraduate degree. I think I had a 9, but I was above the 7 cut-off, which is what mattered in this exercise.
ETA: New Zealanders are considered Australian Commonwealth residents for postgraduate study purposes, and thus receive a full fees scholarship for any research degree. This is hardly known, and thus underutilised. You won't get a student allowance though, you'll need other financial arrangements, scholarships or to self-fund.
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Tyler's response. I suspect he's upset, since he said he was looking forward to it. Tough.
Meanwhile, I'm late to this debate. I would post a video of his to make the point, but since I really don't like the idea of triggering a rape victim, I certainly won't.
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Meanwhile, there was an actual news story. The Greens announced a Kiwisaver package with significant implications for savers and savings. But that would have been just a tiny bit complex. Instead, we mostly got Gower trying to create a news story by tripping up Delahunty, who responded in good humour.
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I'm about 99% sure the Greens (the party I'm a member of) oppose it categorically rather than conditionally - there is simply too much to fix, and too much they've publicly opposed in very strong terms (Pharmac being merely one).
However, I haven't seen a public statement giving that assurance yet. I'll update if I get one.
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In light of all this, maybe TVNZ and SKY HQ could be the next Occupy Auckland targets? I
They made for an excellent rabble down at Backbenchers last night. Plenty of others bringing noise (at times a little too much). It was a fun night, even if Roche did sound like she'd swallowed helium.
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Congratulations Damian.