Posts by Michael Meyers
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It's interesting to read your synopsis of Dr Quigley's thoughts on medical marijuana.
It feels to me that many people see marijuana as a panacea that big pharma are keeping from the little guy and that it will fix all ills. This is surely not that case, although I'm sure there are some areas (such as pain) where it will be useful.
My thoughts on medical marijuana are also clouded by the issue in the United States where it seems to work as de facto legalisation as long as you've got a "medical card".
It seems like many people would like medical marijuana to be a gateway to across-the-board legalisation. I see that as poor policy and both should be legalised on their own merits.
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I feel like you're being a little unfair to Duncan Garner with your opening paragraph. He's only talking about the NZ context so any mention of Iceland's PM is irrelevant. To me, his article seems like a reasonably fair synopsis of the situation so far, especially since it's aimed at a mainstream audience.
Everything else about this situation is pretty awful though: John Key completely discrediting Nicky Hager and, by association, ICIJ. Yuck. John Key's personal non-lawyer looking more dodgy by the day. Ew! Nothing to see here. Move along!
Unfortunately, I think we all knew there would be nothing really high-profile for NZ here, otherwise it would've come out a few weeks ago. I'm not surprised that a Panamanian law firm hasn't exposed any kiwis though.
But that doesn't mean that there won't be problems found in the next major leak, or the one after that. These high profile massive leaks are getting more common, it seems to me.
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One thing that has concerned me greatly about the result of the referendum is the very low voter turnout in the Maori electorates.
I'm aware that Maori turnout is often low but, in this case there seems to be a step down from the general electorates to the Maori electorates.
In the 2013 asset sales referendum, turnout in the 7 Maori electorate (and 3 other electorates of Manurewa, Mangere and Manukau East) ranged from 29.9% up to 34.4%. Then next lowest electorate was Botany at 36.9%. I'm not from Auckland so don't really know much about those three other electorates, other than their location. I'm just generalising based on the numbers.
Shocking to me is that these same 10 electorates ranged from 23.8% to 29.93% in the flag referendum. All these were below 30% turnout. The next highest turnout was the new electorate of Kelston on 37.4% and Mt Roskill on 40.3%
This is a full 7.5% jump in turnout to Kelston and 10.4% to Mt Roskill. Or looked at another way, 25% higher turnout in Kelson vs Te Tai Tonga, 35% higher in Mt Roskill. It's even worse when you compare it with Tamaki Makaurau (60% and 72%).
Almost all electorates had a higher turnout in the flag referendum than in the asset sales referendum. 16 electorates were lower, and 54 were higher. All 10 of the electorates that I mentioned here (the 7 Maori electorates along with Manurewa, Mangere and Manukau East) were lower.
I'm not Maori and don't have a close friendship with any Maori people but this concerns me greatly.
Does anyone have any insight into this?
If Maori aren't engaged in this referendum process for whatever reason (not enough Maori-inspred options, desire to keep the current flag, general apathy, etc), then in my mind this is yet more evidence of this process has failed.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to simon g,
Yes, I know that's what Bart was doing but I'm wondering how well being completely ineffective as a leader plays to Key's audience.
He's got no concessions at all from Turnbull and has to smile while saying how great Australia's policy is. Seems weak and ineffective to me although it hard to look at this through the eyes of a Key supporter.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Bart Janssen,
"I kind of agree with that stand up guy John Key - we don't want those nasty criminals to come back to NZ"
This might play better if Key were actually standing up for something. He's rolling over on Kiwis being deported. He's rolling over on poor treatment of kiwis in these concentration camps. And to top it all off, he's got Malcolm Turnbull's back with the UN.
Unfortunately he's not standing up for kiwis. He might as well be an Australian MP based on his performance this week.
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to James W,
I'm actually completely fine with Hosking not being a journalist, and everyone being aware of that
I hadn't realised until recently that NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB were tied in together through NZME. I sort of assumed that Hosking was getting his gig with the Herald because they thought he was good at his job, rather than just a 2-for-1 deal.
I tried reading his column today. It doesn't even make sense, nor is it readable.
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Speaker: Saying what we actually mean on…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Mr. Meyers, your reaction to my earlier post, your vitriol, has indicated to me the true nature of the “Step Up” campaign.
I have nothing to do with the Step Up, so please don't let my comment reflect badly on the organisers of the Step It Up conference.
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Speaker: Saying what we actually mean on…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
The $175 is a bit of a barrier…
Best to let the better heeled get on with addressing inequality…
This comment makes me so angry. I guess it’s best to do nothing because someone has organised a conference and have the audacity to charge money? It does actually cost money to put on a conference, you know. Or maybe they should offer scholarships to attend. Oh wait, they are.
No point doing anything about anything ever, really.
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Can we call them "nominally" Chinese, rather than ethnically Chinese? I see little evidence that this data is accurate in terms of actual ethnicity.
This seems as bad to me as the people complaining that they can't buy a house because too many "Chinese-looking" people are winning auctions. But it doesn't matter to the casual observer whether the "Chinese-looking" buying has been living here for five weeks or all their life.
This is the sort of crap that I'd expect to see from Winston and not the Labour Party. It also just reeks of bamboozling the reader with statistics and it doesn't matter whether they make any sense or not.
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I feel like TV3 is a little hamstrung by the inertia of the viewing public. It's now more than 25 years since they started broadcasting and the ratings for their evening news show are still much lower than for TV1, even though I consider 3 News to be a much better product.
I expect there are many people out there who have always watched TV1 and always will. Even if they were to put a trained monkey up on screen. Campbell Live would always suffer from that since low ratings for the news will lead to low rating for Campbell Live.
In my opinion, they have tried a lot of things over the years but they have always only been a minor player compared to TVNZ.
But now, on to Campbell Live....
Overall, I'm a little concerned about the future of the current affairs group within TV3, going forward. The Paul Henry experiment sees to have been a disaster ratings-wise. I'm surprised that he keeps showing up on screen. For that to be given the green light and Campbell Live to be canned really makes me wonder if anyone within TV3 knows what they are doing.
I also wonder about the morale within TV3. What are the other reporters thinking? John Campbell is an institution within TV3 and he is obviously going to be missed by many (as shown by Hilary Barry tearing up live when announcing the demise of the show the other week).
To me, this tweet is rather cutting, showing a picture of John Campbell pasted over the Batchelor's face. Current affairs or reality TV? https://twitter.com/conorwhittentv/status/604094006629257216
The talent that TV3 has developed as part of Campbell Live doesn't just appear overnight. They are trained and moulded over years. Along with John Campbell, how many others are going to just walk away from TV3 in the next few months?