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National MPs and ministers have been busy this year with more botch-ups, scandals, an attempted smear campaign, and spinning bullshit to cover their arses with multiple policy failures in health, education, the environment, child poverty, etc, etc, etc…
The fact that National still appears to be riding high in political polls speaks more for a population heavily sedated by trivia and superficial “news” reporting, and for mind-numbingly inane mass-entertainment – rather than any actual success.
Some of the more mind-blowing comments that have recently been made by National ministers have flown below the radar.
Amy Adams
Our so-called “Environment” Minister, Amy Adams, recently dismissed Dr Mike Joy’s criticisms of National’s new water standards.
But Dr Mike Joy, an environmental ecologist at Massey university, says the new standards are a “backwards step for fresh water”.
“You could just drive a truck through it,” he told TVNZ’s Breakfast programme.
“There’s so many gaps, so many things we’ve been measuring up until now that they’ve dropped.”
The changes put limits on the amount of toxins and bacteria that can be present in water, which the Government says will require some communities and farms to improve their waste-disposal systems.
But the weakening of other limits were essentially a “licence to pollute,” Joy said, and would allow for a big increase in the amount of pollution in rivers.
“We’ve got a decline going on,” he said.
“Rivers are getting worse, lakes are getting worse. This should be something that puts the brakes on, but instead it’s an opening-up. It’s like lifting the speed limit from 50kmh to 500kmh – that’s the kind of level of change around nitrate pollution.”
Joy said more than 90 per cent of rivers in lowland areas – those coming from urban areas and farms – were already too dangerous to swim in.
To which Adams responded;
Ms Adams also corrected the Green Party’s and Dr Joy’s comparison of nitrogen levels in New Zealand’s lakes and rivers to those in the Yangtzee River.
“Although the Yangtze River indeed has serious pollution issues, nitrogen is not the core pollutant there.
In fact, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the primary issue for the Yangtze River is industrial and sewage waste and the management of sediments, rather than nitrogen.”
What the World Wide Fund for Nature (which Adams mis-quoted) really stated was;
“The major pollutants in the Yangtze mainstem are suspended substances, oxidizing organic and inorganic compounds, and ammonia nitrogen. This has severely reduced drinking water quality and contributed to dramatic eutrophication.”
And from the Science Daily;
“For the first time, a team including foreign scientists was authorized by the Chinese government to study water quality on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River…
[…]
For example, nitrogen concentrations have approximately doubled over the past 20 years. In Shanghai, concentrations of dissolved nitrogen were twice as high as at the Three Gorges Dam, reflecting the increasing use of mineral fertilizers in agriculture…
[…]
However, where the river enters the East China Sea, the huge pollutant loads are expected to have devastating effects: each day, 1500 tonnes of nitrogen is discharged, causing eutrophication and growth of blue-green algae in the coastal waters…
[…]
In the Yangtze, concentrations of nitrogen, metals and organic compounds are increasing, as shown by comparisons with earlier measurements in the literature.“
As usual with right-wingers, it pays to check their “facts”. They’re usually bullshit. (As well as batshit crazy.)
Dr Mike Joy – 1
Amy Adams – 0
Paula Bennett
Bennett seems not to know where she stands on the problem of New Zealand’s hidden rape culture.
On 10 July, on TV3’s Third Degree, Bennett accepted the reality of our rape culture;
“And you can see it in the language that is used by some people. You can certainly see it in pretty much a pub or a nightclub in New Zealand on most weekends to be quite frank. So we have a lot of education to do there, I think.”
Two days later, she changed her mind, this time on TV3’s The Nation;
“I wouldn’t say that we’ve got a rape culture or a sexual violence culture in New Zealand…
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I think what we do in New Zealand is we report more [sexual violence] than any other country. So actually some of those that are being reported are incidences that haven’t even led to violence.”
On 10 July, on Third Degree, Bennett accepted that her government had failed Tania Billingsley;
“Could things have been handled differently? We’re the first ones that have said yes it should have been. But for her I feel incredibly sad that the incident has happened in the beginning. And that’s where most of her hurt and anger is.”
Again, after two days, Bennett’s views seemed to have changed, as this exchange on The Nation showed;
Lisa Owen: “Ok, so how do you think that your male colleagues handled the alleged assault on Tania Billingsley and the departure of the Malaysian diplomat? Did they lose sight of the victim? Did they trivialise that?”
Paula Bennett: “Well look I’m not prepared to go into what has happened in that case. But my short answer to that would be no.”
Paula Bennett (2.0)
On TV’s The Nation, Lisa Owen took Paula Bennett to task on our growing endemic rate of child poverty. Owen pointed out to Bennett;
“…people like Jonathan Boston say that eradicating poverty is a political choice. Is it just that you’re not making a big enough political choice? A billion dollars, an extra billion dollars a year he said will make an enormous dent in this.”
Because, as we all know, “throwing money” at the poorest in our society apparently doesn’t work to pull children out of poverty.
But “throwing money” at corporations such as Rio Tinto, Warner Bros, Charter Schools, et al, to “create jobs” or give “choice for better education” to parents, does work.
Or “throwing money” at people by way of tax cuts works to “stimulate the economy“.
Strangely, “throwing money” at welfare beneficiaries – by way of a Training Incentive Allowance – helped former solo-mother, Paula Bennett, obtain a free tertiary education and she is currently (until 20 September) a highly-remunerated Minister of the Crown.
So why is “throwing money” by way of corporate welfare; tax-cuts; Charter school subsidies, etc, a ‘good‘ thing – but “throwing money” at poverty to eliminate this scourge from 21st century New Zealand – is a ‘bad‘ thing?!
National ministers have yet to answer this question.
God knows we “throw enough money” at them with their generous salaries.
Simon Bridges
This was one of National’s election platforms in 2011;
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“Staying strong on crime“.
Except when National decides that a particular law is “inconvenient”. Then it will instruct it’s ministeries not to prosecute offenders. As Minister Simon Bridges recently instructed the Labour Inspectorate;
Radio New Zealand has obtained documents under the Official Information Act which show the Labour Inspectorate has moved away from the proactive approach to enforcement and has redistributed its efforts to crack down on illegial migrant workers.
Traditionally labour inspectors have been out on the streets at Easter, catching out shop owners who open illegally, but will now wait for members of the public to complain about shops being open and will follow those up with warning letters.
Special briefing notes from the Labour Inspectorate General Manager George Mason to the minister show the inspectorate has questioned the effectiveness of the shop trading act, which allows for a $1,000 penalty for breaches of the law.
In many cases the judicial system was reluctant to impose the maximum fine, Mr Mason told the minister.
He said in recent years not many complaints from the public were received and this year not a single shop was prosecuted for opening at Easter.
[…]
But Simon Bridges said shops can still be prosecuted and will be if the Inspectorate felt it was necessary.
The law will be upheld – if the Inspectorate felt it was necessary?!
When a government will not uphold the law because it conflicts with their own ideological stance – then why have laws at all?
And can the rest of us pick and choose which laws are convenient to uphold, and which we can break?
It appears so…
Mr Bridges is showing us the way.
Murray McCully
After the debacle of the Malaysian diplomat, accused of burglary and attempted rape, and the question over why Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully failed to keep track over events in his own ministry, an inquiry was launched on 11 July.
“A thorough and transparent inquiry is important, as those managing diplomatic immunity issues for the Government need to enjoy the full, unfettered confidence of the New Zealand public.”
Although one wonders just how “ thorough and transparent” any inquiry will be when,
- The terms of reference do not include Murray McCully’s actions. This effectively gives the minister an ‘escape clause’ from the fiasco.
- John Key has already pre-determined who the guilty party is, within the Ministry, when he stated on 4 July; “If that person doesn’t have clarity about that position then they need to think very strongly about whether they’re in the right job.”
- Rob Hosking from the National Business Review suggested that the Inquiry will “not likely to be [completed] before the September 20 election”. How ‘convenient’.
Hekia Parata
On 8 June 2012, as National’s planned to increase class-room sizes blew up in their faces with a combined teacher-parent revolt, I wrote;
Parata’s Plan to cut teaching staff and increase classroom sizes was dressed up as “improving teaching quality and professional leadership” – which was exposed as patent bollocks when she stated,
“The changes to teacher:student funding ratios were to have saved the Government around $174 million over four years, of which $60 million was going to be invested in improving teaching quality and professional leadership.”
Sacking Parata for policies that every other Minister has been implementing seems pointless. Especially when National’s essential policy of cutting expenditure and services would remain unchanged.
That is the real crux of the matter; an ongoing programme of reduction in social services because of two tax cuts we could ill afford, and which National was irresponsible in making.
Two years later: On 7 July, Radio NZ’s Morning Report co-presenter, Susie Ferguson, spoke to National’s accident-prone Hekia Parata and put it to her that Labour’s plans to reduce class-room sizes by 2018 were proving very popular with parents. Ferguson pointed out that Labour’s policy was in direct opposition with Parata’s humiliating failure to increase class-room sizes.
At 3.05 into the interview, Parata replied,
“And at the time we were in a different fiscal environment and we were focusing right then on how did we find the money to invest in quality. And now we’re in a better fiscal environment, we can do both,both more teachers and more quality...”
Which is confirmation, if any was needed, that National’s plans to reduce teacher numbers and increase class-room sizes was nothing more than an outrageous cost-cutting exercise. Happily, it failed as New Zealanders stood up, en masse, and told National,
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New Zealanders were not prepared to sacrifice their children’s learning and future on the alter to National’s cost-cutting. If Key and his cronies were foolish enough to cut taxes as part of their 2008 election bribes, it was most certainly not going to be paid for by the children of the middle classes.
So far, #Teamkey seems to be going ‘swimmingly’ well.
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References
Fairfax media: Water rule changes seen as ‘licence to pollute’
World Wildlife Fund: Threat of Pollution in the Yangtze
Science Daily: First-ever Precise Data On Yangtze Water Quality
TV3: Minister agrees with diplomat’s alleged victim
TV3: The Nation Interview – Paula Bennett (transcript)
NBR: Bennett cutting a benefit that helped her – Labour
NZ Herald: PM defends $30m payout to Rio Tinto
Scoop media: Warner Brothers Hobbit Deal a $67 Milllion Farce
NZ Herald: Editorial – Charter schools will give poorer parents choice
Beehive.govt.nz: Government delivers April 1 tax cuts, SME changes
Radio NZ: Govt defends trading law enforcement
Dominion Post: Malaysian diplomat case inquiry head named
NZ Herald: Diplomat case: Court file released
TV3: Ministerial inquiry launched into diplomat case
Interest.co.nz: Key suggests mid-level MFAT diplomat “considers career options”
NBR: McCully announces inquiry into MFAT’s handling of Malaysian diplomat allegations
Scoop media: Teacher funding ratios to remain the same
Radio NZ: Listen Hekia Parata on Morning Report
Radio NZ: Labour pledges to reduce class sizes
Previous related blogposts
Why Hekia Parata should not be sacked
Hypocrisy – thy name be National
Hon. Paula Bennett, Minister of Hypocrisy
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes
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= fs =
Again another well thought and intelligent articles Frank. How National continued to poll high despite its proven record of dishonesty and its contempt of most of the electorate is staggering. Off course a compliant media that seems to have decided that objective political reporting is passé and with most hard working Kiwis too busy struggling to make ends meet and keep their families together to have the time to assess the political messages and are reliant on the media sound bites which are invariably biased and lack balance for their political news.
When Television employs people like Hoskings and Henry who are unashamedly voice pieces for Key and his government, on Radio; Hoskings, Williams, Plunkett, Smith are almost hysterical for their support for the government and their loathing of the Left. The Print media also make no secret of their love affair of Key and make no attempt for balanced political reporting.
Democracy as we know it is almost dead and buried we are rapidly heading for an Oligarchy.
The poles could be just another lie , I got an insight into that from Key ,, when he was explaining if they worded the question on Colin Craig a bit different , we would get a different answer , so they are wording the questions to have the desired outcome , they are rigged , leading questions, ?, I agree Plunket is desperately trying to grab the positive feeling for National , and our economy is all of a sudden Positive , I have complained to BSA NZ and they refused to accept my complaint , Key has the media under his control , I can’t complain to the minister , I can’t complain to the BSA , so we have been silenced , apart from sites like this , and facebook , I used to ring Radio Live , but have been told , not today Rex , if they don’t want the nats to be attacked.
@Rex – something stands out glaringly in your post. NZ’s present similarities to fascism, something which is becoming more and more obvious here, where only one particular perspective is accepted by mainstream media. That being the suspect and extremely corrupt perspective of John Key and National!
Then we now have facts being altered to suit the government, with police statistics being only one example of this point.
Almost a case of deja-vu, from mid 20 century Europe, where viewpoints other than those compatible with the Nazi administration, were (eventually violently) oppressed.
I fear we could be running almost parallel to this very brutal and aggressive time in history. The comparisons are there to see.
Actually, it could be – just need the new government to change the terms of reference to include the actions of the minister 😈
The only way I can make this government make any kind of sense, is that they’re actually an Administration of Occupation.
We’re occupied – by some foreign force, that isn’t showing it’s face… but which gotten this bunch of puppets to preside over the wealth-extraction of the country.
Like other occupying administrations, they appoint very low-calibre individuals to posts that matter, and that we care about – education, environment, justice etc – worthless, corrupt people… and whether or not they do the job they pretend to do with any level of sincerity is irrelevant – they’re simply low-calibre people. Incompetent.
There are two major axis to this – the other is the media. This is also a media of occupation – concentrating on crime, sports and celebrity gossip – flooding the airwaves before any election with “polls”, in which the occupying party is shown to be “popular”. Conformity to social norms is one of the most powerful motivators known to humanity… so when TV3/TVNZ makes 10ft tall, primary-coloured infographics of the poll results, so blatant, and dumbed-down a 3 year old could understand them… this isn’t an accident. This is advertising.
All four are so right, thank god there are some other sane folk like you all around still to remind me my fear are not imagined.
Frank you are a gift, and should be all script writers for the opposition parties.
We have little time for making an impact and therefore hope you are right that the polls are a crock.
I sat and heard Winston talking about these dangers with Key moving the election date forward so he could attend the trade conference, you know the one that he is busting his neck to get signed up to so the global elite (his mates can rule over us after we kick him out of the country come September.
He would sell his mother for a buck if he could get away with it.
Remember he said if the country goes negative he will pack up and leave? John go and pack your bags as you are a liar, so many things you said have turned out to be all lies.
One simple case for example was when you came to east coast Wairoa to open a new wing to the small hospital 24th August 2012, when asked about repairing our two sections of rail washout that stopped our rail service, you said “We as government have some responsibility here, and we don’t want road to be the only option”
Guess what he immediately went back to Wellington and arranged to take the money set aside for repairing the rail washouts, $4m) and arranged to spend it on four small passing opportunities and closed the rail service.
John, that is why few today in HB/Gisborne will ever trust you
again at your word, as this was the last straw and a kick in the guts of a proud people that are already suffering from being the lowest regional economy in NZ.
Winston has pledged to get the rail fixed as a priority when he becomes part of a next coalition Government, and by the looks of todays turnout at the public meeting many are now waking up to Nationals bullshit finally.
And let’s not forget Nathan Guy’s flippant reaction to animal cruelty in the pork industry. He wants us to believe that cracking down on the industry would put us at risk of importing product from other countries engaged in cruelty, yet he ignores the flipside that our own export markets expect our product to be cruelty free.
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