Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to Nick Russell,
A lot of people seem to regard referendums as an imposition or even an insult.
Sign me up with those people -- because last time I looked, a few weeks ago we held a free, fair and credible general election to elect a legislature to legislate.
So, yeah, I thought non-binding poorly-framed opinion polls were bullshit when it came to the flag or when our freshly minted Deputy Prime Minister wanted marriage equality ratified by a plebiscite. (Which is working so damn well for our Anzac cousins, ay?)
If this Government actually believes it is time for drug law reform then they should sit the fuck down, thrash out legislation and put it on the order paper with a full debate at every stage and a robust select committee process with an extended public submission period and public hearings.
Otherwise, I think it's perfectly fair to start asking the Prime Minister why "Let's do this" changed so quickly to "Let's outsource this."
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Why don't we all cut the bullshit and just say the major block on any Teal Coalition is that the other grand coalition would be the grassroots of both parties uniting to burn the motherfucker down?
Credit to Jesse Mulligan for keeping a straight face. The audience couldn't.
Really, I thought they were giggling at Bolger not having Mulligan trying to coalition-splain his arse.
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Hard News: Media Take: The selling of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Which was clearly a decision, and maybe inevitable. She was money.
Sure, but it still feels like there was two campaigns going on -- and if Little had been rolled a month or two eariler, the joins might not have been quite so obvious.
but he was terrible in debates and poor in media in general during the campaign.[...] Being a deputy leader in a campaign is a different skillset.
Indeed, and even being a deputy leader in Parliament and on the campaign trail aren't quite the same things. Davis has done plenty of good work on Corrections policy, but he was also the point man for throwing shit at enemies within and without. Which is fine as far as it goes, but (to take one example) he and Paula Bennett used to do this panel thing on the AM Show. Often, it was just embarrassing (and a tad creepy) watching him be incredibly condescending to Bennett as she laughed iin his face.
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Speaker: The Government lost the election, in reply to Bart Janssen,
To be slightly fair to the MSM Labour and National refuse to share the stage with the "minor parties".
Pardon my French, but so fucking what? I still think debates are moronic media kabuki - and throwing more actors on the stage doesn't make the show any more tolerable. But I'd suggest the media grow a spine because putting an empty chair/podium/paddling pool full of leeches on the stage is a legitimate option. Just as (I hope) no responsible and ethical media outlet would let any political party dictate any other editorial decision.
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But it took too long to produce this video of Michael Cullen talking about Labour's record in government and there was a sense that the creative vitality with which Labour began its campaign had not sustained.
And seriously, it was the only Labour campaign video that wasn't wall to wall "Jacindamania". I think that mattered, because while I know Labour was no more going to pour resources into North Shore than National did in Mangere I still wouldn't recognise Romy Udanga if I ran into him on the street. The only face out there around here was Ardern's.
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Legal Beagle: Election 2017: the Special…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
My friend who lives in an area with a National MP says you can see the MP's secretary if you make an appointment but it is impossible to see the MP himself.
Can we just be gracious enough to say there are a lot of constituency MPs on all sides who take their jobs very seriously (and have the constituency clinic hours to prove it) and others... not so much.
And if you're a halfway competent consistency MP, you should have OOP staff who can handle a lot of routine but still important inquiries on their own behalf. It's not really my story to tell here, but I've seen what bloody legends they can be - and IMSHO opinion, they never get the credit they deserve, even if they never ask for it.
That said, I think you're right there's a certain incumbency factor in play. My acquaintance in Christchurch is hardly a statistically credible sample, but I know people who party voted National but their local (Labour) MP has been around forever and isn't a totally useless oxygen thief. Makes sense to me.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to simon g,
I don't think the Financial Times is controlled by the NZ-LabourBot, but never mind.
No - it isn't. It's owned by the Japanese Nikkei Group, for connoisseurs of media irony. Read into that what you will.
And to be honest, I think it's perfectly legitimate to ask if there would be the conspiratorial hysterics over this if Jian Yang was a white immigrant and had taught at, say, Sandhurst or West Point. (Two military-linked institutions where you don't need to be a party member and high-ranking intelligence officer to hold a post.)
I don't think so, and if that makes me "cynical" well I wish New Zealand, and its media, didn't have such a long and shabby history of Yellow Peril Journalism.
Agree there. Certainly no fault on the part of the individual. What is unusual is that given the National Party had full knowledge of this background, that it did not exclude the individual from standing as a Member of Parliament. If they made that judgement, then that's just plain weird and unusual.
No, it isn't Katherine. What's weird here is that you apparently think it's OK to exclude someone from public service because you suspect they're a spy by association -- no hard evidence let alone a conviction required. If Bill Sutch was still alive, I'm sure he'd have some thoughts on that.
And I'm sorry, you can't say "no fault on the part of the individual" when you're attacking his integrity and saying he is unfit to be an MP in the first place. I've noticed the media is trying to spin this off into an allegation that Yang made a false declaration on his citizenship application. This is an incredibly serious charge, and I"m still waiting to see any receipts as opposed to a lot of nudge-nudge wink-wink innuendo.
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and frankly, the market for major media companies ain't that healthy right now.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the irrefutable economic argument against putting TVNZ on the block if you're not a purist Randroid who thinks the government has no business being in the media game at all. It might be hyperbole to say putting TVNZ on the block wouldn't cover the redundancy bill, but not by that much.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to BenWilson,
Sure, but National has also had nine years of actually running the tax policy with all the resources of government at their disposal. It's not really the same thing at all.
I take your point as far as it goes, and it's a fair one, but I'm not sure it really goes far enough. Yes, I know being in Opposition is not the same as being in Government - to be Captain Obvious for a moment. Incumbents have a record to stand (or fall on), but opposition parties aren't exactly locked in a basement broom closet with a calculator and a box of paper clips. They are well-resourced, both in and out-of Parliament (with taxpayers picking up a non-trivial chunk of the tab), so yeah... I expect everyone to develop, articulate and defend the policy. I expect the media to not just talk about "speaking truth to power" (and those who aspire to it) but get shit done.
And. look, I'm not forgetting that the only poll that matters here is a secret ballot. If I walk into the polling place and decide to vote for whoever has the nicest bum? Well, nobody can stop me -- and they shouldn't be able to. I certainly don't want to get into condescending fap about "low information voters", but that doesn't mean I don't think pols and the media still need to lift their game about providing it.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to Russell Brown,
It’s in every debate, every interview. The Herald on Sunday covered it in two opinion columns and an editorial on Sunday.
Yeah, and every single time Ardern gets a pass on some variation of "I don't want to constrain the Tax Working Group". They're not going to be handed specific terms of reference? (And I sure have enough respect for Ardern and Grant Robinson that I don't believe for a second they don't know exactly what they will be.) We don't have any rights to have some idea of what they'll be before we vote?
I suspect we're going to have to agree to disagree on this, but it's not just National that has nine years to come up with a lot better than "Oh, trust us and we'll show you the details at some point after the election." And to give the media credit where due, English and Joyce are getting eye-rolled when they try it on. Hard. Relentlessly. Day after day. As they bloody should.