While I know many on here aren’t sad to see Shane go, I think he’s a lost voice for Labour – and we’ll need others to step up into his place. I also think we might be a little less visceral and personal in our attacks on politicians if we were a little quicker to realise they are human.
Also: Shane Jones Media Watch
Shane Jones’ retirement has made some say that it is evidence that Labour is becoming less relevant to the working class. Josie Pagani says that the party should be concentrating more on jobs, better pay, and on celebrating opportunities for all of us to do better in life. She should read the party’s policy platform before she makes this criticism because it talks about nothing but job creation, better pay and improving our quality of life.
Local Bodies provides this interesting comparison on John Key compared to some of the more ethical leaders of our past. Suffice it to say that the ever forgetful John Key doesn’t measure up to past standards. He is really only distinguished the his sustained level of pathetic mediocrity.
If you are going to demand that everyone else be a team player within Labour, accommodating in the caucus views they do not agree with, you can’t then turn around and refuse to be a team player in a Labour-led government with another party whose views you may not agree with. Either everyone is a team player, or nobody is. Shane Jones included.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
No Right Turn is critical of the implementation aspects of the Greens’ internet bill of rights. Looking at his points about its flaws, it does appear that it has few real teeth. “…if you want to outlaw ISPS shaping customer traffic for anti-competitive reasons” … “then amend the Telecommunications Act to outlaw it. It wouldn’t sound as great as an “internet bill of rights”, but it would do the job better, and with more certainty of the outcome. Trying to use a general law to do it, without checking the underlying policy details, doesn’t just risk failure – it also comes across as lazy.”
Another angle to the Shane Jones resignation: “Mr Jones said he would leave Parliament next month after he was shoulder tapped by Foreign Minister Murray McCully for a new role as a roving economic ambassador across the Pacific.”
This is of course a total violation of public service values, and an unlawful exercise of Ministerial power.
Labour has swung positively behind the change from Jones to Kelvin Davis. In his interview on TV3’s First Line this morning, Davis was confident, down-to-earth, & energetic. Hone Harawira & Davis are strong candidates for Te Tai Tokerau and those struggling on low incomes. Both would be assets for a Labour-led government.
Yesterday Rob Salmond commented on Labour’s two likeliest options for coalition partners after the 2014 election, and had some interesting things to say […]
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Breaking. Just on One News – Shane Jones will not be standing in the elections for Labour or any other party. More as it comes to hand. NZ Herald – Jones to leave politics at the end of next month. Stuff – Kelvin Davis next on list. Davis – a very good replacement.
I think the pundits misjudge Peters. I think he wants a major, polity-based legacy in the 2014-2017 term, as well as baubles. Only the left can offer this. With the left, Peters can be The Man who Saved the Power Companies. National cannot compete with that. Which gives everyone on the left, including the Greens, some leverage. So count me out of the consensus that Winston in Cabinet means no Greens in Cabinet. I see a feasible three-way deal on the horizon.
Another day and another hole in Judith Collins’ description of events surrounding the dinner that she had with senior Oravida figures and a Chinese Official who may or may not have been able to sort out importation problems for Oravida, a company who her husband is a Director of and who has made large donations to the National Party.
A NZer in Britain and a Briton in NZ – 2 CEOs complaining they get paid too much. And science shows the US is ruled by a bunch of oligs.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
You know the rules
Greed used to be regarded as a major sin. Now it is often seen as either trivial, or, in Gordon Gekko’s words, “Greed is good”. Greed has become a religion, focused on the sacred “economy” and its “market” of (allegedly) “invisible hands”. Greed fuels inequality and undermines democracy. Democracy needs a more critical public sphere and media.
The Government is completely indifferent to the killing of innocent children and New Zealand citizens because it is part of the war against terrorism. But the extra judicial killing of innocent adults and children is by definition a terrorist act.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
On Al Jazeera NewsHour this morning, there were two reports on environmental issues in different parts of the planet: stories of the tension between pursuit of economic “growth” and the destruction of the environment. In both countries, there are attempts to develop renewables, without changing the whole system.
Another week and another report suggesting that New Zealand’s housing market is heading towards a potential crisis. The Government’s primary response is to blame Labour. The Greens and Labour have a collection of policies which would improve matters significantly. But the politics are difficult because who would want to threaten the value of the family home?
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Kiwi in America over at Kiwiblog has offered some no doubt heart felt advice to Labour on what it should be doing. But the advice appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the Party’s history and a wish that the Party becomes more like ACT. Why do right wingers think they can tell Labour what to do and is their advice sound?
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…
This site gets rather a lot of comments. Every time a comment is made the page it is on has to be regenerated, which limits the amount of static caching that can be done. So on a dynamic site like this one we require rather a lot of raw processing power to generate dynamically pages that keep changing all of the day. These days we do it in the cloud, buying hours on servers as we require then. It saves us money and allows us to handle the story breaking peaks. Looks like we’re ready for election year.
The highs and lows and the good and bad of what was a fascinating week in Politics.
This is very good stuff. Having a tax break for R&D work has always been a no-brainer, and it is great to see it reconfirmed. Adding an accelerated depreciation scheme for new plant is a helpful addition. And partnering with more local firms for more locally-sourced government procurement makes perfect sense, too. Another no brainer for parties – like Labour – that actually care about local employment.
Judith can’t believe she has to explain this all again
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
The new electorate boundaries are out.
Some noticeable changes around Port Hills, but mainly only tinkering from the previous proposals.
That’s how much National gave away today, by setting the price too low on Genesis. They were scared that they couldn’t attract enough […]
No Right Turn points out here about a select committee filtering out submissions because they were not in an official NZ language. This seems needlessly shitty – not to mention undemocratic. Parliament is supposed to represent all New Zealanders, not just those who write their submissions in one of our official languages.
The text of a speech delivered this morning by David Cunliffe outlining Labour’s manufacturing policy. Update – includes a short video.
We now have a Ministry of Education that is under the beck and call of the Minister, and where political ideology determines policy, and shortly we will have a new Teachers Council that will be governed only by political appointees. Under a National led Government, teachers will lose any professional independence and become classroom technicians that have to support politically prescribed programmes and data collection. Anyone want a career in teaching?
Genesis Energy’s shares have been sold at a price well below their value. And despite considerable demand from local mum and dad investors one in four of the shares has been sold to overseas institutions.
