Another week, another u-turn by the Prime Minister. Key cares about keeping power, that makes his actual values a mushy pragmatism which are open to being swayed whenever the voters throw their toys out of the cot.
To Generation Y and X, design is as important as rugby is to Baby Boomers and the crap 4 versions of the flag which all seemed to have been silver fern logos for Key’s benefit were always going to generate howls of derision on social media.
Key’s sudden tone deafness on these populist issues (this stupid flag nonsense and being late to the refugee issue) keep the media filled with white noise that doesn’t focus on the TPPA. If Red Peak and a slow response to the suffering of refugees fleeing countries Key is helping bomb wasn’t enough to fill headlines, the PM may have had to have made a guest appearance on MasterChef or the Block to keep the TPPA out of the headlines.
The flag debate is a distraction, it’s lovely that the design critics of NZ will get their way to have their Red Peak added, but I still don’t care. There are far bigger issues demanding attention. Red Peak is a solution to a problem no one wanted in the first place.
Key has made a mess and put the ball in Labour’s court.
Does anyone else get the feeling that by the end of the week whatever happens will be Labour’s fault and Key will be victim?
It’s hard to tell if Key is a genius or Labour are idiots. Maybe I should start watching rugby and stop caring about politics and suffering
definitely don’t watch rugby…I am on a boycott…after the All Black’s servile posing with jonkey and adherence to his choice of flag…wont be betting on them or watching them
personally i am voting for the existing flag…it has more meaning for me than Red Peak which can mean anything you want including the TPPA , Communist China, and Australia and global warming…and which only looks good because of its skillful sky and people backdrop and relentless promotion …by whom?
Lets face it the changing of the flag is a RED HERRING ( a stinking fish)
The existing flag stands for integrity ( unlike jonkey)
The existing flag has served us well . It has historical and cultural meanings for both Maori and Pakeha… the founding Tangata Whenua foundation peoples of New Zealand …
The existing flag stands for the protective NZ Treaty of Waitangi origins of New Zealand which many native peoples around the world are envious of .
The existing flag also has meaning for the RSA and sacrifice heroes of the World Wars and New Zealand youth…who want the old caring New Zealand
imo…riding uncertain times and seas New Zealand throws away our existing flag and cultural history at our peril
I have to say this was a clever move by Key. As to whether labour is stupid, their response will answer that.
Clever my arse, Farrars polling is telling Key that the only way there is going to be a flag change is if he rigs the vote.
This bullshit is a last ditch effort to smear some of the shit on his political foes that will backfire on him!
Is Shonkey taking the mickey?
Perhaps he to (pony tail fetish) is another sick puppy?
Is he doing this just to get his jollies by watching us squirm over a freeking flag issue when the country is falling apart?????
Andrew Little should have said “Don’t drag me into this. You created this mess, you can sort it out.”
Well said Fern.
Red Peak = distraction.
2000 years ago it was bread and circuses aka the Romans.
Nothing changes.
Idiots still somehow seem to get into power to spread their lunacy amongst the unassuming populace.
Thank goodness for Jeremy Corbyn. A light amongst the dark lunacy currently prevailing in the neo liberal west.
Do not despair our forgetful leader has now got a “Panda Promotion” to divert the woolly brains. GRRRRRRR.
Key will not be pleased with some of the peasants disliking his choices for us – we were supposed to get into line over this as always. Red Flag is the best option against the three ferns and koro. I don’t mind the koru as an option but not black and white – so dull and depressing. Sure, a black/white flag will stand out but not necessarily for the right reasons. The Red Flag option is needed as essentially two of the options are identical bar one colour block. Not good enough Key. I think Andrew Little’s proposal to have the current flag as an option is valid too.
“I think Andrew Little’s proposal to have the current flag as an option is valid too.”
That would be too straightforward and honest for a manipulative man like Key. I don’t think he understands the meaning of honesty or democracy.
When listening to the morning radio, and also turning on the breakfast TV this morning, there was of course the reporting on the leadership challenge in Australia leading the reporting, but soon after we had Red Peak as an “important” issue to “resolve”.
FFS, that is the level we have sunk to, to spend days or weeks on whether some flag is good, should be part of a referendum, or whether we keep the one we have.
Maybe some have forgotten, there is the biggest refugee exodus since WW2 in process in the Mid East and Europe, there is no solution and no serious proposals to address climate change, there are social issues to resolve, the government is about to sell thousands of state homes to overseas buyers, some will work with “developers” wanting to sell on to cash rich private “investors”.
A major meat processing collective is about to be sold to a Hong Kong company (half of shares), the housing crisis in Auckland continues, albeit a bit slower in progress, and there are kids still without shoes or food that go to school each day, at least in some places in NZ.
And here we spend all this attention on some “topic” bored middle class office workers and their peers are pre-occupied with (besides of how the All Blacks are acclimatising in the UK).
What a state of affairs, dumber by the day, a lost society, in large quarters, I fear.
I found this interesting,
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2015/09/what-is-really-behind-the-refugee-crisis-in-europe.html
Here’s another view Kate, by Tony Cartalucci
http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/13/social-engineering-101-how-to-make-a-refugee-crisis/
Seems to me that it’s only the Asian News outlets and Journalists like Pepe Escobar, Michel Chossudovsky and Tony Cartalucci that are still free enough to tell us what’s really going on.
The Western MSM is only fit for gossip and trivia, with only occasional very muted and carefully emasculated “tip toeing around the edges” articles by people like Fisk in the Independent. It seems they are all frightened of legal action, by the people who want to hide the truth
“…the PM may have had to have made a guest appearance on MasterChef or the Block to keep the TPPA out of the headlines.”
He was on Paul Henry yesterday, expressing congrats to Lydia Ko in France, with a childish smile. He does not miss an opportunity, when he sees one, our grandiose Shining Leader Kim John Key.
Erm….that’s Jong Kee ….Jong Kee….
You know the one…the hair pulling weirdo that humiliates New Zealand after gaining a seat on the UN,….
That guy.
What about ‘Brown Peak’, a pile of turd before a back-drop of a sinking sun below a black sky, centred with a fern leaf – off which the bits of leaves are dropping down like faded morsels.
That better describes the present situation this country is in politically and socially.
Either that or a picture of a salivating wild boar stampeding through the Koru’s and trampling it all underfoot….
And behind that a huge pile of reeking pig shit that created that shit stained mountain.
I had thought “Silver Peak” which would just be Peter Dunne’s hair, with the tip curled back like a fern frond.
Red Peak’s a red loss. Flag it. Flag it all.
Arguing over the colour of the handerkerchief we haul up the halliard while people die and planets too, is a bit like Thelma and Louise trying to get the satnav in their car working in the final scene.
It’s totally irrelevant.
We all know it is irrelevant because it occupies so much of the mainstream media!
yes and how do we know the Red Flag is not a Crosby Textor default set up to mop up the Left vote for flag change ?
…when all else fails
ie Jonkey is heading to go down humiliated and defeated by his $26 million dash to be the chosen one to change New Zealand’s flag
( any flag change for jonkey is better than NO change)
Spoil & foil. Spoil & foil.
Red Peak – with the change of one panel from black to blue it is the flag/motif of an American engineering company ( refer item on Stuff). Why NZ should adopt such a flag is beyond belief.
I should add that I visited the Commonwealh graves in Ypres (Belgium) to visit my uncles grave and observed all NZ headstones were marked with a fern and this was more than 100 years ago – I have also visited other Commonwealth in France and Italy and guess what all are marked with a fern.
Based on visits to Commonwealth war cemeteries, together with our sports teams – why on gods earth would one remove the fern and replace it with an American Engineering Firm’s motive.
maybe the American engineering company is part of the secret TPPA American lobby?
…and this is part of their secret plans and clever tricks to con the ‘stupid’ hobbits down under and get them to take on the takeover enemies’ flag?…and then they will all have a good laugh
…the plot thickens
I would be appalled for my uncle who died in WW1 if he was subject to a flag change without the fern. My uncle who was killed in 1915 has a ferrn on his headstone at the Commonweath Grave near Ypres, no time have I have seen mention of our existing flag or any reference to the existing flag on headstones. – the Red Peak ( the motif of an engineering company in America) is an absolute disgrace
It could also be said, with some legitamacy, that New Zealanders who went into battle (and others who were in support roles such as doctors, nurses, etc) went to war under our current New Zealand flag…
ScarletMod I posted a post approx 20 minutes or more ago – can you have a dig around your misdirected posts. Pretty sure what I sent was not going to put me on the blackmail list. Many thanks Grant
[Grant, I refer you to my earlier post here;
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/09/15/hosking-on-corbyn-a-point-by-point-rebuttal/#comment-303460 – ScarletMod]
W00t! Now I have 5 flags I’m not going to vote for. Well done New Zealand.
And to think our Flag Panel were paid $640 per day to come up with four flags no-one wants, and now they add a fifth flag that said panel didn’t think was good enough but some people apparently did…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11413938
Even though the much vaunted Red Peak was ranked amongst the LEAST popular of the original shortlist of 40 options at just 0.7% first preference and 2.6% as part of a top 4. The whole Red Peak campaign is a total embarrassment where once again a tiny but very vocal minority manage to get something done that just about no-one actually gives a shit about. Shame tthese folks don’t get as motivated to action about stuff that actually matters.
http://umr.co.nz/sites/umr/files/umr_flag_referendum_full_edition_-_aug_2015.pdf
This has gone well beyond an expensive joke. It’s actually depressing.
“Look, over there” TPPA
Please, can we stop arguing about a bit of cloth and focus on what really matters, the bloody TPPA!!!
Yes it is depressing – time for another TPPA march, just to focus the media attention back for a minute.
Spoil and foil the flag – spoil and foil the TPPA.
@ Martyn Bradbury: “I still don’t care. There are far bigger issues demanding attention.”
Hear hear!
@ Nitrium: “Even though the much vaunted Red Peak was ranked amongst the LEAST popular of the original shortlist of 40 options at just 0.7% first preference and 2.6% as part of a top 4. The whole Red Peak campaign is a total embarrassment where once again a tiny but very vocal minority manage to get something done that just about no-one actually gives a shit about. Shame tthese folks don’t get as motivated to action about stuff that actually matters”
Oh I couldn’t agree more: really, folks, just stop playing this ridiculous game foisted on us by Dear Leader. Don’t think you’re sticking it to him by proposing this additional design: you’re not. Ignore the flag debate altogether, until we can vote for the current flag. And I’m only planning to do this because I understand the government will use the results of the vote – no matter how small the turnout – to decide on a change or not.
If he wants to know what we think, he should ask us first if we do want a change, instead of the other way about.
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