I was asked on the weekend to comment for this story in the Sunday Star Times, ‘IS NZ Ready For A Gay Prime Minister?’ My comments were not used, as from the start I had issues with the way the question was being framed. For me, the first question should be ‘Is our media ready for a gay Prime Minister?’. Time and time again our media outlets show themselves to be third rate in their depiction of gay people and handling of complaints about the foul muck they allow to be said on air.
I was on-air hosting ‘Good Morning’ after Paul Henry dropped his little pearler about gay people being ‘unnatural’. I could not believe he was allowed to drop that clanger, I complained, but TVNZ did nothing about his comments.
Mediaworks happily allow the 1920’s views of gay people to be forwarded on their Morning radio show on ‘The Edge’. The ‘that song was so gay it gave me AIDS’ text happily pushes the ‘gay people give you diseases’ school of thought, but Media works seemingly had little qualms about the idea.
Last Friday on ‘7 Days’ a group of white, middle aged comics dropped some ‘gay ass’ jokes that would have made the 1960’s proud. I am hardly surprised these men were using such crap material, but was that the 2 gay panelists said nothing about the tired gags.
And just today Willie Jackson and John Tamihere interviewed Grant Robertson, seemingly with no idea he has a partner and they are raising children together, after confronting him with the ‘news’ that people did not trust him because he is not a ‘family man’. FFS, do some research and show your guests some respect ya amateurs.
So, for me the media need to sort their appalling depiction of gay people out, that would be a good start.
But for me, the real question should have been ‘Can Grant Robertson defeat National at the next election’? Because national need to go and it needs to happen at the next election. And, for me, the answer is a huge and loud NO. Robertson has zero warmth, an innate ability not to connect with people, and has zero chance of leading Labour to victory next year. The casting of Shearer as leader was a massive mistake, and Robertson will always be connected with his awful leadership, as he was the one who pushed for it, even though he undermined him constantly throughout his ‘reign of disasters’. Robertson was campaign strategist in 2008 and campaign spokesperson in 2011 – both disasters.
It has nothing to do with Robertson being gay. He just has zero appeal, and Cunliffe is the obvious choice to lead. I have adored his mind since I found this peace last year demolishing neo-liberal economics.
This quote is delicious……..
Neo-Liberalism is based on the idea that it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Neo-Liberalism is based on the idea that greed is good, that we’re all locked in an economic life-and-death-struggle with each other. Neo-Liberalism says that compassion is for suckers. Neo-Liberalism says that if the world is going to the dogs, it might as well be the top dogs. Indeed, to borrow from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, not only is greed good, “it’s legal.”
When the British Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was asked about the effects that her Neo-liberal policies would have on society, she replied:
“There is no such thing as society… There are individual men and women.”
The amazing thing about the Neo-Liberals is their wilful blindness to how badly their ideas have failed. Not just once, but repeatedly. Neo-Liberal policies directly caused two of the largest financial crashes in history. Did they apologise? No way. Like some mad doctor, when the first dose of medicine didn’t work, they wanted to double the dose.
And so, the Neo-Liberal bandwagon rolls on. Right here in New Zealand, the National Party is still trotting out the same discredited economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
And if anyone says Cunliffe is for the homophobes this proves it is not true.
I want THIS man leading the country, and I also believe we NEED him leading the country after the election next year. Anyone with any sense wants him to lead Labour.
And when the Herald becomes a cheerleader for Robertson, be scared.
Hi Steve
You might be getting me mixed up with Andrew Geddis in the part above where you suggest that I should have disclosed that I once flatted with Grant Robertson. I never have.
Cheers
Bryce
done x
Hi again Steve
You’ve now corrected the column above to remove that stuff about me flatting with Grant Robertson, and therefore being compromised etc, but now it just doesn’t make sense! More reworking might be required…
Cheers
Bryce
mmmm seems clear to me, robertson cannot beat key nor lead labour to an election victory, which is what NZ needs. and if the herald supports robertson, RUN
NZ would elect a gay man as Prime Minister tomorrow. Grant Robertson is not yet that gay man, although he probably will be in a few years’ time.
Completely agree. It has little to nothing to do with the fact that Grant Robinson is gay, more the fact that his chances of defeating Key at the next election are slim.
If the media were actually doing their job, they would be picking up on who has the best chance of winning the next election, not picking at small points like sexual orientation. They’re also picking on a supposed ‘self-obsessed’ nature of David Cunliffe and the incident with Shane Jones which happened several years ago and was reported to death back then.
Besides a select few places, there really hasn’t been anything about how well they would actually be at leading the Labour Party to victory in 2014, which is the whole point of this leadership contest in the first place. Heck, there hasn’t even been a lot about where the candidates stand in terms of social and economic policy either.
I can only hope that the who get to decide can put aside these pointless issues when casting their votes. Unfortunately, this will almost certainly not be the case, come the 2014 General Election…
To those moronic few , it partly is the fact that Grant Robertson is Gay . I saw people on TV saying ” Aw , he’s a Gay ? Aww , nah . I woodunt vote for the Gay . It’s against God . ” What must they think of Straight , married men who get their penises stuck in vacuum cleaners ? Or those same poor bastards who get rushed to hospital with all manner of things stuck up their bums ? Or the Straight weirdy men who go to Dungeons and get smacked , whacked , whipped , chained up , chained down , peed on , pooed on , chocked , tormented , teased , tweaked , twisted and tortured generally ? Then they go off and be in their day jobs as politicians , cops , lawyers and/ or judges who pass sentences on shop lifting single parents ? What would their Gay hating God think of them apples ?
What can you do with those God bothering Anti-Gay people ? You overpower them with intelligent votes then park them up with their interpretations of ‘ God ‘ in a corner somewhere then ignore them so long as they shut up and keep out of the way . You know , the opposite of goony , greedy Brian Tamaki .
As for the rest of us … well Grant Robertson is a lively enough kind of guy but he’s not a Cunliffe kind of guy and it’s a Cunliffe kind of guy we need I’m afraid .
Please stop airing your private fantasies on a public forum. 😉
We have to remember that Saddy Gower has an interest free loan to work off. Maybe if we all pitch in and fill his pockets then he’ll remember why he gets up in the morning.
I have a fiver
I agree with what you say, Steve. What about the question, “Is Grant Robertson ready to be PM?” Not yet, not by next year I wouldn’t think.
The question for me is “Has Aotearoa had enough of neoliberal Prime Ministers?” My answer is yes. This is why I don’t want a Labour leader whose most significant action on NZ Power was to assure business that Labour had no plans to intervene further in the market.
As for Shane Jones – what a useless joke that man is. Connecting with the smoko room? Dunno who he thinks he’s fooling.
It has to be Cunliffe. We need Labour, Greens, and Mana in power and challenging the status quo, and this will not happen without Cunliffe. Then we need to keep building, fighting, struggling, arguing, breathing, loving, eating, and educating outside parliament. We must never again see our unions and other organisations weakened to such an extent that a shonky auctioneer can sell everything off to the closest mate and we don’t have the power to stop him.
So we need Cunliffe, but more importantly we need our own organisations reinvigorated and strengthened. It’s up to us.
Great Article and totally agree!
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