Posts by Matthew Poole
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Craig, Labour aren't in government now. I said the same things when Labour were selling us out on s92, too, but Labour ain't the ones running the show. Therefore, it's what National will or won't do that matters.
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Keir, I didn't mention ethnicity. Obviously if I'm the sixth generation then a process of elimination says I'm almost certainly pakeha, but it wasn't me who said "white New Zealander".
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I'm not counting on National doing anything beyond ensuring adequate application of lubricant prior to bowing before the might of the entertainment lobby. If they were going to show leadership on this, they could've ordered our negotiators to withdraw. We have no clout on these matters, all we can do is swallow what's offered to us by the benevolent overlords running the United States of Corporations. At least if we withdraw we can determine our own path, and potentially others would be similarly encouraged. Can't have a treaty if nobody's signing.
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Or better still, blame the enormous costs and vast regulatory framework associated with the development and sale of new drugs.
Or, even better yet, blame the PR. These are the same drug companies that spend mere hundreds-of-millions on R&D, and complain how much it's costing them, as they spend billions on lobbying and marketing.
No, I don't think it's the cost of getting drugs to market that's to blame for their expense in the US. -
FFS, I know there's a lot of people out there who are never going to reach the Fifth Stage of grieving where FPP is concerned, but we're living in an MMP environment, the world has not ended, and it is just time to Get. Over. It.
Given that I wasn't old enough to vote until the second MMP election, I have no fond memories of FPP. I certainly ain't grieving for its demise.
My point was this: It took Helen years before there was a public falling-out with support parties over points of pre-notified policy or member behaviour. The Alliance issue came from response to an emergent situation, not to something agreed on as the result of calm debate. The Nat/Greens MOU was only signed in May! So in six months National has managed to alienate a partner in government on a policy matter that was formulated from debate and consideration.
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Kyle, the definition of "indigenous peoples" certainly precludes me from being one, but that doesn't mean I cannot be indigenous - after all, I originated from where I am found.
When a vocal segment of an indigenous people is calling for repatriation of all other peoples, it actually matters a whole lot as to what my origin is. Oh, sure, I know it's never going to happen, but that doesn't mean I don't care. I have useful ties to other countries only where I have relatives who are either NZ-born immigrants or their offspring. I have no ancestral ties to another country, except in the strictest academic sense. This is my home, and I know no other. It's actually a really fucking shitty feeling to know that there are people who consider that I cannot belong to the land in which I, and my parents, and my parents' parents were born. -
Refresh my memory: the dissolution of the Alliance was because of internal strife on whether or not to support a Government policy? How is that in any way comparable to not consulting the Greens on matters that were explicitly specified in an MOU? It's certainly in no way comparable to MPs from support parties doing stupid things very publicly and then having to fall on their swords, having first dragged the major party in either by their explicit words (Rodney's comments about Key) or the inflammatory nature of their utterances.
When I said "kept it seemly" I didn't mean no disagreements at all. That's impossible. This is politics. I meant no spectacular clashes between parties over the activities of members of other parties. The Alliance was a single party, so whatever happened within its structure wasn't Helen's responsibility, just like I don't hold Key responsible for how the Maori Party deals with Hone.
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by what methods a people can become some version of tangata whenua
Yeah, I'm curious about that. If we include the first immigrant in my family tree as the first generation, I'm now the sixth generation on my father's side to call NZ home, and at least fourth on my mother's. I have no other place to go, no matter what the Harawiras may desire.
At what point do we become no less legitimately the people of NZ than the Maori? After all, it's not like the Maori have a history in NZ that's measured in multiple millennia, as opposed to, say, the Australian Aborigines or native Africans. This country has no true native peoples, just varying degrees of remove from trans-oceanic immigrants.
Oh, and dubmugga, you can't pick-and-choose what you take. If you want the wheel, written records, and materials science, you get firearms, corporatism, and the criminal justice system. Them's the breaks.
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And on the subject of pollution and Government buy-in, this idea is probably doomed to failure. National don't appear to give a fig for trying to bring the reality of NZ's environmentally-conscious image into line with the fantasy, and preserving a sky-scape would require restricting development in the surrounding area. Can't be having that.
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I'm quite disgusted at how little coverage the issue between the Greens and National is getting from the MSM. So far I see one, fairly light-weight article at Granny, and absolutely nothing at Stuff or either of the major TV news sites.
National currently has issues with 3/4 of its partners, and it's been a year since they got elected. H1 and H2 managed to keep things seemly until well into the second term, despite the media waiting beneath the tightrope with bared, dripping fangs. National can't make it 13 months but all we're being treated to is lots of coverage on issues of personalities and expenses and zero on issues of policy.