2008 November

Commentators Miss the Mark

As with any tragedy, it seems the usual media commentators almost have pieces pre-written to whip up their usual brand of hysteria. And no different is the tragedy of Nia Glassie, a recent case of terrible child abuse.

Here’s a recap:

Garth George blames New Zealands horrific child abuse record on abortion. Then he seems to get confused, takes some medicine and switches tack to blame kiwi bloke acting out his frustration, for he has been emasculated by the feminist movement. Riiiiight.

Michael Laws seems to hop off his “PC gone mad” and nanny state bandwagon and instead seems to briefly understand what those shrieked buzzwords actually stand for, going to the extent of saying “At such times you can appreciate the sensibilities that drove Sue Bradford to intrude on family life.” before he suddenly reverts back to form and begins to advocate the death penalty.

Deborah Coddington takes it a step further, recommending that the state abduct children at birth from the people deemed not fit to parent. This is a big step from an ex-ACT MP, but she appears to miss the mark.

Danyl from the Dim Post hits the nail on the head:

Well thank god we’ve gotten rid of that horrible nanny state Labour party and the government can get on with the real work of confiscating people’s children off them at birth.

He goes on to assert that Laws et al. dreaming up these policies is all well and good, until someone decides it should apply to them as well (Sue Bradford, anyone?) and then we’ll barely be able to breathe but drown in the moral outrage.

I look forward to reading Bob Jones’ opinion piece on it, but hopefully he’s crawled back under his rock now his crusade against Labour and the Greens has suspended as they’re relegated to opposition.

Two Steps To the Right, One Step Back

So we’ve had a few weeks under a National-lead government so far. Parliament hasn’t sat yet, but if you watch closely you can see the changes already.

I will happily admit that the way John Key assembled his government struck me as decisive and honest, which we hadn’t seen a lot of from National recently. I especially applaud his movements to incorporate the Maori Party into his government, handing out some very important portfolios such as Maori Affairs and assorted associate roles.

This would have been absolutely unthinkable even three years ago, even seemingly to Labour after Helen’s “last cab off the rank” comment. I believe it goes to show that one of Labour’s highest achievements from their 9 years in power is how they have forced the National party to change into something that is palatable to the general population.

However, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. In forming the government John Key has had to make some dangerous concessions to the small red devil on his shoulder that is ACT.

National want to take the ETS back to Select Comittee, and ACT wants the Select Committee’s terms of reference to include a complete review of the basic science behind anthropomorphic climate change. Science which, even the President-elect of the USA believes is “beyond dispute” as he takes steps to sign the USA to Kyoto and implement their own Emissions Trading Scheme.

In this light, it makes New Zealand’s rhetoric and slack efforts even more hypocritical considering our clean, green image. Something John Key, as Minister of Tourisim, might want to take a note of before he disassembles and delays our sole response to climate change (and paying our $2bn Kyoto liability which would otherwise be picked up by the taxpayer) even further.

It’s this position that he’s taken that makes his little tantrum about the UK’s environment-inspired long haul flight tax seem even more ironic. If we were fighting from a position of strong action on climate change, it could be validly argued to have the tax waived for NZ flights as we do our own bit to control our carbon footprint and combat climate change. The same premise we’re going to have to rely on when we try and sell our exports once food miles are taken into account.

But instead he directly attacks the UK’s government spouting “significant concern”, fear of a “contagion effect” and letting them know that their tax policy is “not necessarily rational”. I’m sure that’s just what they want to hear from a trumped up little pipsqueak that was only sworn in a few weeks ago. Especially after pulling such tricks as spending the last year blaming the Labour-lead government for our current economic woes then giving a speech at APEC proclaiming that it’s the fault of his money-trading mates that, well, might have gotten a bit greedy.

So Key needs to ramp himself down from campaign mode, stop attacking things that threaten him and, most importantly, he needs to not be a Rodney.

Winston Cleared, But Too Late?

Winston Peters and NZFirst have been cleared of any wrong doing by the Police.

However, it might be too late to save his skin – the damage may have already been done.

On the other hand, to survive the blitz from the media and the 10 post a day habit from Kiwiblog and still come out just shy of the 5% threshold… There might be some life in the old bastard yet. Although I have no time for NZ Firsts endless immigrant bashing and social conservatism, Mr. Key could have made the blunder of the election by ruling him out before investigations were finished.

If posed with a choice between NZ First and the Greens (who will not work with each other at all, either), I believe Labour would pick the Greens who have grown up a lot and are especially important in these times we face.

So, in all likelyhood he’s probably out on his well-pampered, bauble-draped arse, but Winston is a wildcard and while I wouldn’t miss him one bit, he represents those who give him their vote.

Brown Trousers Time Over At The ‘Bog

KiwiBog set into damage control this morning on the eve of a new secret tape being released.

This one, apparently, fingers Bill English professing that National would pursue their hard-right agenda, their Labour Plus strategy being a “Trojan Horse” and John Key’s days being numbered as leader – because of a growing faction of MPs dissatisfied about the concessions their party has made to come close to power.

Whether it’s true or not, we’ll see, but the Kiwiblog comments are strangely calm with a lot of crossed fingers not typing.