So Key is ‘surprised’ that David Shearer, the local member for Eden Park, accepted tickets to a local game, and doesn’t feel beholden to corporate interests? He can accept hospitality and still criticise a company is somehow shocking? I think this tells us more about John, than it surprises the rest of us about David…
Net benefit of hosting the Rugby World Cup $280m over 7 weeks ($780m tourist spending minus $500m investment and operating losses). Cost of an 8cm welding crack in the Maui pipeline: $350m after 2 days. Guess it pays to mind the small stuff. Least it didn’t happen during the Cup when Auckland was chocka with tourists.
John Key’s try-hard failed handshake at the RWC has gone viral. What looked like a minor footnote to the affair came out last night, when it was reported that YouTube had taken down the clip at the request of the IRB. But today the IRB denied it.
The All Blacks have won and the cup has come back.
Congratulations to the ABs and everyone who supports them.
We Won!
Now for the final – ABs vs France 9:00 pm at Eden Park – may the best team win.
[whew … that was close … imagine the national wailing and gnashing of teeth if the French had had a successful penalty kick in that last attack. Well done the ABs. Eddie]
A very thoughtful piece from Simon Collins in today’s Herald: “Deep divisions over $1000 for a Rugby World Cup game as poverty grows”.
Here we are again. This time its ABs vs Wallabies 9:00 pm at Eden Park. May the best team win (but it better not be Wallabies!).
The ABs play Argentina tonight, 8:30 pm at Eden Park.
Looks like the RWC isn’t going to be the economic stimulus that we hoped. We’re stuck in the doldrums, and (just like in England) the government’s austerity programme is exactly the wrong response.
Very, very funny. Where the fuck is Webb Ellis? hat tip: Trevor Mallard at Red Alert
A video clip from Parliament yesterday. Goff calmly and systematically rips Key and the government apart on Friday’s RWC fiasco. Armstrong calls it Goff’s “best speech in a long time”.
Duncan Garner has demolished the government’s disgraceful excuse-making over its woeful lack of preparation for the World Cup. “I was there. It was scary. It was a disgrace. There were few police. There were no barriers. It was NOT family friendly. It was a tragedy waiting to happen.And that’s just Party Central. That’s the bit the Government was responsible for. Don’t forget that.”
Keen to shift the blame for the RWC opening fracas Murray McCully has used reserve powers under his very own CERA-like powers to seize control of the whole Auckland waterfront. John Key wants it run like Party Central, which he says “worked absolutely perfectly”. Yeah, tell that to the waka paddlers who were assaulted by a drunken mob there.
According to his interview in the SST, John Key seems to think the job of Prime Minister is essentially taking emotional decisions in relation to high-level questions and leaving the rest to the underlings. But what happens when ministers are getting it wrong and Key isn’t monitoring them? The evidence is mounting that the government got it badly wrong on RWC transport.
The SMH reports: a New Zealand government minister “was yelling out, ‘f—ing cheats’ and other offensive remarks” at the Wallabies during the Australia v Italy game. Hmm. The game was at North Harbour. Who is a local MP, a minister, and has a record of bad behaviour in corporate boxes?
McCully is Minister for the RWC. He claimed the government had done “their best” and assured Auckland that the transport systems were ready to go. He was wrong in every respect. In the aftermath of the fiasco McCully now needs to front up and get three things right…
The RWC public transport fiasco was not a good look for our biggest city, and not a great advertisement to the world.
Lots of countries have daft old laws still on the books. Not many countries drag out these relics and start applying them again.
Many other countries have cleared beggars from the streets in advance of big international sporting events. Such a thing would never be needed in New Zealand though. Would it?
I don’t think that anyone who has been paying attention to events in Christchurch could seriously have expected the city to host a major sporting event like the RWC within a few short months. So why is John Key the last person left in the country who is denying the obvious?
Comments by former All Black and Rugby World Cup “Ambassador” Andy Haden that alledge the Canterbury Crusaders have a limit on the number of “darkies” […]
Congratulations John on your latest speech. We especially like the line “Let me be clear: there is no room for separatism in New […]
