Ummm – beyond hating on Patrick Gower – isn’t the issue of Andrew Little’s late payment something else completely?

18
4

Andrew-Little

Ummm – beyond hating on Patrick Gower – isn’t the issue of Andrew Little’s late payment something else completely?

The way Paddy has spun the story, it’s a means of painting Little as a hypocrite for not paying a worker when Little stands for workers all the time, but that’s not really what the issue should actually be. I’m no apologist for Paddy, but hating on him for doing the story seems ill targeted, the issue surely is that Andrew Little was taking political strategic advice from a right wing columnist writing for the NBR,  the most right wing Newspaper in NZ. David Cohen, who has also written for the  Christian Science Monitor and the Jerusalem Report, is an extremely odd choice as political advisor to the Labour Party.

When you look at the direction Little is taking Labour as leader, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise though. Labour need to win the middle and while doing so could cost them the Left, that doesn’t seem to be much of a concern for Labour.  Seeing the manner in which Labour worked with NZ First, Maori Party and John Key to oust Hone from Te Tai Tokerau, the activist Left seems to be a threat to Labour that they intend to kill off rather than work with.

We may well get a change of Government in 2017, but it doesn’t look likely that it will be a changed Government.

18 COMMENTS

  1. Be happy we live in such a weird place as New Zealand. The Prime Minister lies all the time and no-one cares. People think it’s not important.

    The leader of an opposition political party does something (or doesn’t do something) and the matter of non-payment of someone who did work for him is so important and serious that it is one of the lead stories on tv. Ahead of or instead of a story from the same day that the Ministry of Education secretary told Parliament’s Education and Science committee that the teachers’ pay fiasco had cost $45 million to fix. What?

    • A certain “Prominent New Zealander ” appears for a disputed facts hearing in an un-named court that we must not speak of the very next day !!! Quick look over there !

  2. Patrick, not Paddy, (way too buddy like), Gower, is on about the same professional level as a British Tabloid gutter snipe photographer.ie scum
    He’s certainly no journalist , barely a reporter and has zero ability in finding and researching anything remotely resembling proper news.
    His ego outweighs his ability by about a factor of 10.
    We’ve seen him spend 2 weeks on Goff dyeing his hair.
    Key does it …….nothing!
    Two weeks on Shearer’s bank account in America.
    Key lies about Trans Rail shares and the fact he has shown no increase in personal wealth in the last 7 years, being stuck on 50 million……nothing!
    Two weeks solid on David Cunliffe forgetting an 11 year form letter and a fictitious donation story about the Labour Party.
    Key lies about National Security , withholding information to influence an election, and a plethora of other issues.
    Gower….nothing!
    The guy’s yet another part of the right wing moron mafia along side ‘King of the Dweebs’ , David Farrar, and ‘Psychopaths Incorporated’, Crosby Textor.
    It was good to see Little get stuck into the ‘puffed up little shit’, (to quote Pam Corkery), on the news tonight.
    He needs to be taken to task every single time he obfuscates or misconstrues a message or deliberately misleads the public .
    This crap and his pathetic opinions have got to stop!!!!
    What is even more galling, is if ‘The Market’ had been allowed to run its course and the taxpayer hadn’t been forced to ‘bail out’ a private enterprise ,(ie Mediaworks) to the tune of $43 million, we would have been rid of Gower, Henry, and Plunket .
    What a better place N.Z could’ve been!

    • I actually saw all this coming, once the media “honeymoon” would be over for Little. We will perhaps have the same repeat of what happened before, the gradual discrediting, undermining, smearing and chopping down of the new Labour leader, inevitably by the MSM. Gower is just one of the more nasty ones, others will follow to do the dirty job! Labour still have not learned their lesson from how the media worked on destroying all their chances, and then set out to determine the election, by misinforming and influencing the public, who are too gullible to ask many questions, still thinking the MSM can generally be relied on.

  3. 2017 will quite possibly be bringing a new Labour led government, but as Martyn writes, I am increasingly convinced, it will be a very mildly “lukewarm” government, a “gentle wash Nat like government”, continuing from John Key on slightly more “moderate” neoliberal terms.

    Yes, if Little and Labour succeed in marginalising the Greens, and also keeping NZ First at bay, and if no other new progressive party should form to take over from Labour as the true “left of centre” opposition, then we will have a “Little Labour” with a tinge of “blue”, to “appeal” to the now “Nat conformed” middle class of Niu Zilliland.

    I can already hear and see the signals for this, when in the House the challenge is out, to lower ACC levies, to make this and that more affordable, to put more money into people’s pockets, and to bring in more “fairness”, so that young middle class workers and self employed can buy more affordable homes, on credit of course, in a system that will not be all that different.

    NO talk about welfare, NO talk about social justice, NOT MUCH talk about the environment, only LITTLE talk about climate change, and rather more “gotcha” politics, than real policies that may make a difference. Student loans will be here to stay, same as elective surgery targets, and maybe get used to National Standards to remain in place, and also to drilling and digging for resources, perhaps even in deep sea areas, as JOBS are the priority, also for the self employed, who compete with each other, for the pieces of the pie.

    And get used to “social housing” as “state houses” will be sold, and NOT bought back, same as the stakes in energy companies the Nats sold.

    I can see it happen, not very encouraging all this.

  4. And an interesting point about this “non payment” issue, is msm reporting it as a story of great importance, when in fact media should be chasing up Key, questioning him about his involvement re the time frame when he first became aware of the Mike Sabin alleged offences! That would be good investigative journalism, as well as msm doing its job as working as the proxy of the people! Might expose criminal offences having occurred!

  5. Objectively, Gower’s piece on Little, once I’d stopped chuckling at Little’s lack of self control, was disgraceful. The smirking commentary at the end about Little’s honeymoon being over was particularly disgusting. Much as I’m not a Little fan, Gower is a nasty piece of work.

    • Well maybe what we need is for the “journalists” to start digging dirt on each other. Once they get a taste of being publicly chastised for trifling matters, they may not be so hasty to continue the practice.

      • Agreed, but the likelihood is that they each have plenty of dirt on each other, so I’m picking it won’t happen.

    • “The media” (i.e. mainstream media) have long lost the sense of duty to inform, to inform about facts and impartially, to report in a professional, objective and fair manner.

      The media players, whether reporters, moderators, worst of all “talk back hosts” and “media personalities”, have become hunters, shooters, dirt diggers and grave diggers, looking for “newsy” stuff that can make a big, fat headline, and get high ratings, to appeal to advertisers, who pay them a living.

      No more investigative journalism, and I say this while I see Campbell Live dropping in standards also, all out to get attention, with background sounds and music, like in movies, to set the tone, to generate excitement, fear, sorrow or screaming joy, not to appeal to common sense and intellect.

      I have given up watching most, and on Freeview most watched is now Al Jazeera, while here and there also a bit biased, and of course a corporate, but at least of a standard a bit like the BBC, that TVNZ dumped as night filling program, as it was too costly.

      Shame on the MSM in NZ, shame on them, as Gower is just one result of the degeneration, there are others, wait until Paul Henry will hit the air, with breakfast radio and TV combined!

      Already now the only somewhat informative radio there is is Radio NZ National for morning programs, as Radio Live has become a chit chat show, only interspersed with bits of short and easy “news”.

      And ZB is no-go area, same as the many music stations, rather filling the air with silly jokes and talk, than with anything sensible listening to.

      RIP media!

  6. “The media” (i.e. mainstream media) have long lost the sense of duty to inform, to inform about facts and impartially, to report in a professional, objective and fair manner” Couldnt agree more

Comments are closed.