In deciding to vote for or against the TPPA, Andrew Little faces his greatest challenge.
While National do not need Labour to pass a vote, Labour won’t want to be seen as being out of step with the electorate they are trying to win, not the voters they already have.
Helen Kelly spoke yesterday of how NZ is a small country with small minds. Our deep streak of negative egalitarian anti-intellectualism detests big ideas, they are scary and frightening. We like our ideas laid back and something that can be chatted about around a BBQ.
Rugby is such a religion because kicking and running and throwing a ball is all pretty simple.
We like our conspiracies to be basic. Helen Clark didn’t have children and was passing law to stop parents from hitting their kids, Helen Clark told a driver to speed, Helen Clark was trying to tell us what light bulbs and shower heads to use, Helen Clark signed a painting she didn’t paint – those are easy to understand stupidities that barely scratch the surface of the complexities behind each of those examples.
That’s what we love in NZ – simple stuff.
Mass Surveillance was too big an idea for NZers to comprehend. The Moment of Truth clearly proved to us all that the Prime Minister had lied about mass surveillance, but we didn’t want to know because it was too big. The NSA working with the GCSB and SIS created acronym overload. We started learning things that were too big to talk about openly. The GCSB and SIS both had increases in budget by 250% and 174% within a decade and Key had reorganised the following intelligence apparatus to answer to a small clique of security goons he controls; the Organised Crime Intelligence Unit, Financial Intelligence Unit, Strategic Intelligence Unit, National Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, Identity Intelligence Unit, Threat Assessment Unit, Police Terrorism Investigation and Intelligence Group and the Special Investigation Group. Who wanted to even try and understand all of that and remain silent? Better to not ask and not know because to do so seems pretentious to even think we can think. Do we suddenly think we are high and mighty for asking questions like a stirrer, shush now and step back into line and do something useful by getting some more beers and check the sausages on the barbie.
That so few NZers can connect Kim Dotcom’s case with America’s determination to rule the internet as Julian Assange did this week rams this point home. Snowden can tell us that the Government is lying to our face and we don’t want to hear it.
The PMs Office colluded with the Secret Intelligence Service to falsely smear Phil Goff months before the 2011 election, but NZers didn’t want to know because it raised all sorts of awkward questions and we don’t do awkward questions well in this country.
Look at the fact we have one of the highest levels of climate change denial in the developed world.
Look how long it took homosexuality to legalise.
Look at how every debate about hungry children boils down to, ‘I-won’t-help-feed- hungry-kids-because-it’s-the-parents-fault-and-feeding-them-will-remove-the- responsibility-from-the-parents’ style arguments, as if teach-a-man-to-fish morality somehow excuses the kids hungry right now without glancing once at the social structure that has exacerbated that poverty.
Look at our counter productive cannabis laws that make Helen Kelly of all people a criminal.
Look at the way we totally missed what the repeal of section 59, the ‘anti-smacking law’, was all about. We removed a legal loophole that was allowing parents who were charged with assaulting their kids a way of getting away with that abuse.
Look at the hysteria over Maori rights as indigenous people and the fallacy of the ‘one law for all’ ignorance.
Now look at how the TPPA is being framed as a ‘free trade deal’ when it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a geopolitical response by America to China in the Pacific, this is ‘Forced Trade’, not free trade, but that idea is way too big for the voters Labour are trying to woo now.
Usually you could rely on the educated middle classes to lift the intellectual level of the debate. They led on creating a Treaty, universal suffrage, worker rights, welfare state, Nuclear Free, Gay rights, MMP, the anti-apathied movement, marriage equality and environmentalism. They are silent now and embedded with Key because their property valuations are making more annually than their actual jobs. They’ll agree to creationism being included in the school curriculum if it means putting off a real capital gains tax for another 3 years.
Labour is trying to woo the middle and the middle are incredibly conservative and impacted by the small mindedness that Helen Kelly referred to. The constant chip on our cultural shoulder that someone else is smarter than us creates a media more than happy to respond and play to our petty banalities rather than challenge them and that in turn creates a public debate more akin to a school yard argument between toddlers than adults discussing the important issues of the day.
Labour will make all the noises of being unhappy with the TPPA, they will get some meaningless concession that is a whitewash – (just as they did when they granted the SIS warrantless searches) – but they won’t want to spook the ultra conservative middle they are now chasing.
This would of course create fury amongst the activist base, but where the hell are they going to go? NZ First? The Greens?
Little could make a stand, he could say this stupid free deal is really just about American hegemonic control, but by mentioning the word hegemony he will have already frightened the timid minds of middle NZ.
Tough days ahead for Labour as they struggle with an educated middle class who have sold out and a rump electorate who cling to ZB conservatism with all the desperation of an insecure child seeking approval.
A good piece of writing Mr. Bradbury.
“..a geopolitical response by America to China in the Pacific”
Interesting how the yankee doodles always make us think they are ‘responding’.
Instead, they, with their dark alliances and corporate backers, are provoking reaction by covert and overt actions all around the world. Ukraine with Svoboda/Pravy Sector fascists. CIA/Guhlen in North China and the Caucuses. Syria with their ISIS Pretend pretend. Saudi Arabia..Turkey…Professional Liars of the tenth degree. Creating illusions, exacerbating by strategy of Tension (GLADIO)
then ‘responding’.
R2P. P2OG.
the ‘good guys’
TTP is attack. Not defence.
http://www.sellup.kiwi/
https://youtu.be/Fu8pIeeoZcg
Very insightful Post @ Martyn Bradbury.
You’re going to hate me for saying this because I’ve said it before ad nauseam .
This is my take on it.
Labour’s caught in a very uncomfortable position. Such is the fallout of the treachery that is roger douglas’s legacy once he hatched, like an alien species , from Labours guts.
The TPP will appeal to farmers who fit the small minded/ ignorant/ anti-intellectualism BBQ brigade . After all, every rural pub ( And I loath them all ) has a picture of a rugby player on a glossy poster beside a huge television blaring out rugby.
The TPP will benefit the sale of farm generated produce gaining access to markets. There’s no doubt about that. It won’t help farmers themselves out one little bit though because they’ll be just as raped and pillaged as they’ve always been. They’ll be controlled by debt , rendered subservient to banks and will eventually be consumed by corporate farming practises to supply fast food chains with chemical rinsed flesh for the masses.
The only thing the TPP will guarantee is that once farm product leaves the gate, that produce will be sold to a starving world to come at inflated prices as to boggle the mind. That’s the sole purpose of NZ’s involvement in the TPP. A handful of guaranteed billionaires from the captive market that empty guts’s will be. That , and perhaps as a landing strip for USA F 15’s
For Labour to make changes. Dramatic changes that’ll re route the roger douglas disease, think a type of squinty eyed herpes with a thin , hairy lip caught from the fucking without the kissing, then Labour must come clean .
Labour should talk about re nationalising our assets , ban the foreign banks from trading here and wipe out mortgage debt . They should also put forward plans to build a farmer-centric bank to allow farmers to peer to peer lend in times of hardship . Labour should also draft plans to re populate rural areas by creating tax havens for business and agricultural innovation and get people out of the literal insanity of Auckland’s hilarious and embarrassing housing swindle.
The interesting thing for me is that Labour will not, and never would, do any of the above . They wouldn’t dare. Little’s a lawyer, his next of incestuous kin is annette king, arch neo liberal and deep state jonky quisling.
The very last thing they’ll be doing is upsetting the rotting apples in the creaky cart.
The problem Labour has is that it’s as tits deep in the Great New Zealand Institutionalised Lie as any of the other dirty, lying, swindling fuckers.
What do you think of them apples?
Labour should talk about re nationalising our assets ……They should also put forward plans to build a farmer-centric bank to allow farmers to peer to peer lend in times of hardship. Labour should also draft plans to re populate rural areas by creating tax havens for business and agricultural innovation and get people out of the literal insanity of Auckland’s hilarious and embarrassing housing swindle.
I believe that with courage these are all do-able, even knowing there would be considerable resistance. I like the return to what seems to be a rural national co-op banking scenario.
And until Labour do more than just talk, until they actually commit to renationalisation of assets, they will never regain the support base they had in the early 1980s. It is, along with re-leveling the labour market, the fundimental to any push back against neoliberalism.
ban the foreign banks from trading here and wipe out mortgage debt .
i.e. chop off one of the very legs capitalism stands on. I doubt if it’s realistically possible by a single party, in government in a single nation. Not in today’s global environment. This requires a shift in international outlook and systems.
1000% Richard,
Yes Winnie has already claimed that ground and said NZ First will re-Nationalise them again so Labour must or risk sinking further in the polls.
Labour must return to it’s roots from whence it come.
@CLEANGREEN
Amen.
I wrote
” ban the foreign banks from trading here and wipe out mortgage debt . ”
I just want to add that I’m not anti-capitalism. I believe in a healthy democracy which maintains a balance between those who are inclined to build personal empires and entrap paper wealth and the needs of us all, including those aforementioned empire builders. Even those people can fall on hard times .
The problem for us NZ’ers is that our times have been too good and while we wern’t watching we’ve allowed a cadre of individuals to infect our system with a kind of financialised capitalism that only does one thing and it does it very well. It pipes money into the pockets of a tiny percentage of the population at the expense of us all. The banks play the game because the make billions and billions of dollars in those various transactions, happily profit off the ensuing misery and in fact enthusiastically peddle what we’ve all come to know as neo liberalism because it’s such a one-sided and evil little game where the inventors of the game can’t lose and us unsuspecting and unwilling players can never win.
It’s my view that these are crisis times and they call for some very serious actions immediately. Ask yourself ? Do you want to purge NZ of the Banks ? Or do you want a full scale depression followed by a terrible war?
After all , it’s happened twice before in recent times.
Who amongst us would blanch at waking up to no job to go to but realise they no longer had a mortgage either? Or sundry other debt. Would you make do ?
We did once own The Rural Bank however the Government sold it to Fletchers for a pittance who immediately on sold it to the National Bank of New Zealand aka Lloyds Bank of London.
90% of New Zealanders don’t even know the word “hegemony” exists, let alone it’s meaning…
what does it mean?
“Hegemony”? Basically it means control. If you’re social scientists writing for each other, it can be used to communicate more nuanced meanings of ‘control’, but that’s what it boils down to.
There is a old, bad habit in political debate of deploying hyper-specialized vocabulary as an overcompensation for an emotional state of insecurity about one’s pronouncements. In other words, wheeling out bigger, more obscure words when you feel uncertain about what you’re saying. It is this, more than anything else, that too often makes activists come across as scary coneheads.
George Orwell described this problem in detail in an excellent essay called ‘Politics and the English Language’ (http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/). It also gets a mention in Stephen King’s little book ‘On Writing’, and King gives glowing praise to another book called ‘Elements of Style’, by Strunk and White, which offers advice on avoiding clunky and over-complicated language. The full text can be found here:
https://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Courses/b572/public/StrunkWhite.pdf
thanks (smile)
The benefits of an arts degree. I knew it would come in handy one day. LOL.
It’s the money you hide under the hedge – sometimes called hedge funds?
thanks also
hegemony n. leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others.
-DERIVATIVES hegemonic adj.
-ORIGIN C16: from Gk hegemonia, from hegemon ‘leader’, from hegeisthai ‘to lead’.
Oxford Concise English Dictionary
thanks again !…think I have got it now
hegemony = bad dominating control by the greedy corporates and their banksters …so you have to bury your money under the hedge
@Chooky – a brilliant nutshell summation.
Let’s sign the petition to say NO to the TPPA, then we as a nation can decide what where how and to whom:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/tpp_2015_loc_nz/
Ha Ha “Bury your money under the hedge”
RT’s Max Kaiser says the whole Banking system is ready to collapse soon, so buy precious metals.
He cited that during the last depression money was worthless and anyone with gold could purchase property for pennies on the dollar, as we are nearing end of the money system as we know it is a good idea.
Precious metals are frivolous things – though as Krugman says when the yellow dog barks you know you’ve got a market collapse coming.
The oil peak is coming but coming slower as economies deflate and OPEC floods markets to punish Russia. Phosphate is probably a better bet as a finite commodity – and there is a genuine market for it here in NZ…
Yes… NZ First or the Greens…. I have already gone from long time Labour voter to the Greens…. Labour should just say No…. After all didn’t they give the 5 bottom lines….. And I believe it’s more about Corporations than geo political.
i have gone from long time Labour voter to Greens ….and from long term Green voter to NZF ( after Shaw’s collusion with jonkey nactional)…i dont trust the Greens any more
Yep, same here CHOOKY. With Shaw as leader, I’m in doubt to which way he will be taking NZ Greens. At least with Meteria and Russel, they kept the party on a consistent, even keel, so we knew the direction it was going.
I’m looking at Mana/Internet to support at the moment.
It’s funny, I remember people saying *exactly* the same thing about Russel when he took over from Rod. It was FUD then (intentionally sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to poison the ground), and it’s FUD now. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the Greens, but to claim you’re changing parties over including one more bullshit flag in a bullshit referendum could not be further from any of them.
as I recall it Russel Norman set his new leadership stake in the ground with a one man protest against a Chinese trade delegation and got heavied and pushed around by them and lost his NZ flag on the steps of Parliament…this set the Opposition pace and the flavour of his leadership to come
….what has Shaw done? …Shaw has set his stake in the ground by joining forces with John Key to defeat Labour (its Left coalition partner?)…and thereby pull John key out of a hole he had got himself into ie supporting flag change against the wishes of most New Zealand people
( wow what a popular and cunning move this was…what a statesman strategist)
Shaw thereby:
1. ) helped John Key defeat Labour ‘s stand asking for the original NZ flag to be on the first referendum ballot ( thereby saving the country millions..because it IS the preferred option of NZers …hence Shaw has run rough shod over the wishes of the majority of NZers who consider the flag referendum to be a waste of money)
2. ) ensured Red Peak… a second hand vacuous ubiquitous corporate design and American company supported logo, used by a British surveillance company ….be on the first referendum
3.) Shaw supported John Key in stating Red Peak was his favourite flag design for New Zealand to replace the existing NZ flag …one which the majority of New Zealanders support
( as well this Green Party under Shaw’s leadership has been slack on opposing John Key s and Treasury plans for downgrading and selling off NZ KiwiRail…in fact the Greens havent done much at all as far as I can see … NZ First has been far more proactive …so I will vote accordingly…as will other former Green supporters)
Agree with Chooky analysis although am prepared to give Shaw a bit more leeway incase he has a master plan, but who would you vote for instead?
Not voting would be even worse in my opinion.
Also always really liked Russell because he was a active protestor not a verbal protester in the safety of parliament. There was smearing against him too, another good one gone.
I actually think that somewhere between NZ First and the Greens is the voting centre and that would be the voting bulls eye.
Labour still too right of NZ First.
actually Norman got roughed up holding his NZ Tibetan flag
http://www.3news.co.nz/general/greens-say-norman-assaulted-by-chinese-security-2010061812#axzz3oIpsTZLU
https://blog.greens.org.nz/2010/06/18/chinese-delegation-refuses-to-talk/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3825646/MPs-Tibet-protest-flag-removed
Same here chooky, Greens stopped listening to us so NZ First is an active peoples party I have clearly found.
Stop press;
12th October – Monday; – Hillary Clinton has announced she now rejects the TPPA and will not support it until she sees changes that meet her high standards set to protect America’s people firstly.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/72811676/hillary-clinton-doesnt-support-transpacific-partnership-deal
Andrew Little also on todays news also stated a similar statement on rejection of TPPA until he sees changes that meet his high standards also?
Do these people all speak to each other?
If so, – why don’t they have a chat with Helen Clark and get her to do a u-turn too???
Ahhhh… that’s already been covered on this blog – Helen Clark was being misrepresented.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/10/03/breaking-helen-clark-misrepresented-on-tppa-why-groser-is-now-sucking-up-to-labour/
Ahhh… that’s already been covered on this Bog. Helen Clark was being misrepresented
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/10/03/breaking-helen-clark-misrepresented-on-tppa-why-groser-is-now-sucking-up-to-labour/
+100 CLEANGREEN…you should stand for NZF in Gisborne on the ticket of re-establishing the rail link for Gisborne and NZ KiwiRail in general
…this is a NZF platform
I am hoping we will have a NZ First candidate for Gisborne as Winston/Denis O’Rouke are a incredible team for us here on rail.
As for me. I am to old at 71 to be in Parliament and to radical also, being a kiwi English/irish blood 4th Generation NZder, but I will fight all my days to boot out National Here as they are killing Gisborne.
Labour NZ First is the way forward we see with maybe some smaller party with support.
Everyone here is Labour NZ first so we want to see them out fighting against this tyrannical Nactional bunch 9f crooks, and keep the old paper ballot type manual counting to avoid yet another rigged election next time around.
+100 CLEANGREEN
…and imo 71 is NOT too old!…you are as old as you feel and your health allows
…Winston must be that age almost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Peters
…we need more wise radical New Zealanders in Parliament with gravitas and NZ history of generations of NZers
If you’re a Green Party member then you’ll know that the leadership simply cannot change the direction of the party.
Party policy is determined in a democratic manner by the membership. Not the leaders. Their job is to represent the wishes of the membership and follow policy determined by the membership.
Quite different from Labour and National.
And a big reason why I’m a Green Party member and very proud of it.
Destroying opposition parties helps the incumbent to keep his seat, even if no one trusts him they think hes the only one who can run a country, National did a good job of ruining Labour, Greens and Internet/Mana and unless Andrew Little decides who’s side he’s on Labour is lost for ever.
Totally agree Martyn, try being a contemporary artist in a country where the art movement has regressed a 100 years.
As to our social and political situation here, it is now becoming a contest of big ideas vs big money and we all know which one the majority of New Zealanders prefer. Where are the original creators like Ninja and Yo-Landi?
Chris Trotter “UPDATE: Securing “Buy-In” For The TPP: The Deep State Takes Over”
What have we seen? Hooton and Young in short order.
Audrey Young:
Bomber (above):
Spot the difference? Me neither.
Chris Trotter warned us of the game plan and now we’re getting sucked right in. The actors and their hangers on in the Dirty Politics cabal must be pissing themselves.
As for the rest of the article about the simple mindedness of our fellows, I agree, but perhaps that should have been in a different post. And, maybe TDB is the place where we start to create and proliferate those simpler messages that the congregation understands even though it’s fun being in the choir.
I will vote for Labour if it says, like NZF, ‘NO” to the TPP ….and will promise to take NZ out of the TPP once it gets into government with the help of a Left coalition…anything less is another betrayal
Yes – this is Labour’s chance to put a few pegs in the ground and say “Sorry Tim, that dead rat is way too fucking big for us – you’re gonna have to eat it all by yourself.”
I don’t see it yet, but Little has the stones for it if he can brush aside the silly ‘centrist’ advisers.
Problem is, that the paid trolls would just send these simplified messages back to National party HQ and they would become Nat Party policy before the ink dried on the monitor.
Labour have to admit they spawned the neoliberal gobshite of Douglas, Prebble et al. They have to ‘mea culpa’, which they have never done.
Then, they need to get behind closed doors and have a UNITED front including the so-called ‘famous five’ and come up with a strategy to re-engage with the poor and lower middle classes.
There’s a deep-seated dis-ease with Labour who used to stand up and advocate on behalf of those being screwed, chewed and spat out by Zero-Hours contracts, 0.5 to 1% pay rises (if any), employer-weighted contracts and union attacks, SOE redundancies.
Start looking at NZ’s record debt accrued under the master banker and his minions, rising at around $200 per second under National http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/newzealand.
I don’t care if it’s Labour that delivers the messages or not. The thing is to wrest away from the government and their allies the framing, the soundbites and the conversation.
If you’re catchy the media can’t ignore you forever – the stories provide the eyeballs to the ads.
@ CB – yes it is ALL ONE BIG LIE, and I have had enough of being lied too. New Zealand needs to grow a ‘ Jeremy Corbyn’ – who just tells it like it is…actually, if I remember, Hone was doing just that and the media killed him off.
Just need that balance to tip slightly in another direction, before its all to late.
Thanks @ Kim Dandy .
Yes, NZ’s entire socio economic system is based on an old swindle that just keeps giving. Or taking, as in our case.
There are some however who argue that it’s the same the world over. Well, to them I would say I don’t care about the rest of the world in that regard. That saying that it’s the same the world over is as if to somehow justify our compliance to authority figures who steal our stuff and things. That’s called a logical fallacy.
Surely , it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore some extremely basic facts about our economy, our society and the direction we’re not heading in.
Our country.
The size of the UK.
But with only 4.3 million people.
Hugely rich in vital resources with enviably skilled work force who built 1 St. world living standards which have been systematically disassembled and are now lost to us.
A renown liar and cheat is still our prime minister.
His support network operates on the premise that ‘ They’ watch our every move.
The good people of NZ must act. We must remove the rats from the kitchen and regain steerage of our country or it will be lost to us.
Since we now know what the problem is, we must organise a change in our parliament with the help of our military and police force. Lines of communication must be established to enable that and we must be very careful that we don’t alienate those established systems , historically put in place for our protection by us ,. And remember , those law enforcement systems must , by law , protect the status quo and it’s up to us, the people, to change that status quo to more suit our freedoms , our livelihoods and our mental and physical health. The small group of con artists who control our parliament and by proxy our lives must go.
I would suggest Labour ( Yeah right ) go out there and get that all important farmer money on-side then starve National out . If Labour do not do that. Not only will you then know that Labour is just National Lite ( And not that fucking lite either. ) but you will also know that nothing will change for the better.
Whew ! Ranting’s bloody hard on the fingers.
Harden up. I love your rants. In the last one I read the rats were in the bilge…. now they are in the kitchen. Shit.
I have heard the main difference between National (strong booing) and Labour (more booing, but with less enthusiasm) is that whereas National would amputate your whole leg, Labour will only cut your knees off. I don’t know who I am more disturbed by; a shameless, dishonest, manipulative government motivated by greed, or a weak, divided and ineffective Labour party who don’t know what they stand for any more.
There is a Corbyn sized leadership vacancy.
SOOO True – very well said. Along with non thinking goes a might ANTI-intellectualism – try going for a job where you are better qualified than the person interviewing you. This country is so small minded that it would rather lose its sovereignty than lose an All Black game.
I try not to blame NZers ( like Hager) …I blame political leadership ( or rather non Labour political leadership to give an alternative view) …and I blame a corrupted msm…and bloggers with a direct line to corrupt politicians who use them to mainline and brainwash with lowest common denominator ‘journalism’ smearing tactics…you know who I mean?
great post Martyn, thankyou.
Could Labour try a Corbyn, and actually take the risk of saying what they think, as opposed to try and second guess what “muddle nuziland” might think on election day, seems to be working for Corbyn, leading, as opposed to being lead by sheep?
They had a left-winger in Cunliffe and knee-capped him. The ‘famous five’, part of the “lashings of bacon for Johnny” brigade need to cross the floor and put their neoliberal allegiances where they belong, on the right and far right of NZ politics.
The Trojan Friedman Horsemen of Douglas and Prebble infiltrated Labour in the 80’s to rid NZ of Muldoon. Time to root the remainders out, apologise for letting that right-wing parasitic trash destroy Labour’s traditional voting base and the egalitarian paradise we had and get back to the left.
A Kiwi Corbyn couldn’t exist here, we had one, but the Labour neolibs hung him out to dry. Why wasn’t that part of their psot-election review? I certainly gave my submission on that aspect but heard nothing back.
@ WINNIE -Hone Harawira was (possibly still is) our Corbyn/Sanders. But look what happened to him! Like Cunliffe, his politics and potential obviously put the frighteners up NatzKEY!
TTT needs to look very hard at the candidate they have there in Hone and ignore the BS which comes from the other parties, attempting to put him down. The TTT vote could well make or break the future of NZ.
We need the likes of Hone serving in Parliament.
totally agree Mary …and we almost had Annette Sykes, Laila Hare, John Minto in as well with Hone…makes your heart bleed
A great team there Chooky, which could have well changed the course of NZ politics, had dirty politics not been played by NatzKEY, Labour and NZ First at the last election, swaying the TTT vote.
NZ First and Labour didn’t sway the TTT vote, it wouldn’t have mattered what they said.
Ask Northern Maori, they will tell you what swayed the TTT vote. It was Hone looking like he needed a white man to win. If Mana had of stood independent, Hone would have romped home and retained that seat.
Spot on Mary & Chooky,
Winston is right, we need a true alternative to “business as usual”.
Winston is our only true left of centre party left here so we need another voice to add to real left opposition to Neo-liberal doctrine, as one is not survivable against the mammoth “Johnnie brigade Knee cappers” attack dogs & MSM that took Left winger Cunliffe apart as they did Socialist Muldoon.
Agree wholeheartedly Mary.
But again we see good people with social conscience leave parliament like Hone Harawira, Jim Anderton, Steve Maharey and Russel Norman.
The creme de la creme, leave and all we are left with is the sludge de la sludge.
Thanks Martyn. Well put.
I take it before the TPPA is put to the vote – for/against in Parliament, ALL political parties will have been given an opportunity to read the document and be well informed about the contents beforehand, prior to it being ratified (or not)?
What will be interesting here is seeing which opposition MPs cross the floor to vote with NatzKEY. I have a few suspects in mind!
Now where is the Maori Party’s position on this? Stand by its people and decline the TPPA? Or commit another act of treason by keeping sweet with NatzKEY, betraying Maori?
we do all know there is a gmo-clause..don’t we..?
..we will have to open the country up to genetically modified organisms..
..is there no end to the perfidy/treachery of key/groser..?
..and how about those who are unrelentingly pimping it..?..the ‘experts’..?
..who know about as much about the actual detail of this ‘deal’ as i do..
..and so therefore that relentless-pimping is just ideology-driven orifice-plucking on their part…
..how can it not be..?
The GMO implications haven’t had much airplay – just the way Monsanto prefers it.
GE-free NZ is the one shot NZ has of differentiating itself and becoming a high-value food exporter. That doesn’t fit the big business agenda.
What to do? Get your local council to adopt a GE-free resolution asap.
Not just GMOs but lousy CFAO sourced BSE infected beef. Mind, with mad cows like the Oravida milk maid running amok I’m not sure who’ll notice. Except our Asian trade partners of course, they’re not completely stupid. See how our beef does in the US when we’re locked out of Japan, China, and Korea.
Why the big discussions about Labour? Would have thought pressure would be on National as Key’s dirty sell out hasn’t been ratified yet. All the other TPP countries are taking their agreements through their parliaments to be put to the vote, even the USA, so why is New Zealand under the key National government by passing that process? Why is National’s executive signing it off? Are we officially in a dictatorship now? We should be attacking National, not Labour and the opposition, who like us, do not have a say under the National government’s regime.
We’ll said, tear your own side apart while letting the others off the hook. Brilliant.
Yes we are in a dictatorship, but it is spun and glamorized so well with flags, pandas and All Blacks that most of the sleepy hobbits still think we live in a democracy.
GOOD NEWS ! ! Hillary and many others in Congress and elsewhere in the U.S. have just recently come out against the TPPA. It appears that it may not get past congress and if so, it is dead ! ! !
If only we had more gutsy politicians here with strong spines and good ethics.
Going by the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) chapter leaked by Wikileaks, things have the potential to get rather annoying.
There is lots of talk in there about expediting the recognition and/or granting of patents. Making the information about systems available online. Pharma has a part in there about the recognition of molecules and basing protection based on that. Some exceptions for health risks are there, AIDS/HIV is mentioned by name, as is malaria and a few other diseases, but there is also talk of WTO compliance and notifications for any exemptions being granted, so that’s not really saying much good for generics.
Reading between the lines, the whole thing gives the feeling that we’ll get localities where it’ll be easier to get certain patents, with those then getting fast tracked through the granting process in other nations. The speeding up of the process, as is demanded for getting both the initial and subsequent granting, with potential liabilities for losses from dragging feet, evokes a feeling of standards slipping, because patent offices are already kind of backlogged.
Depending on how it’s interpreted, the criminalization of knowingly infringing of IPR, even when it can just be reasonably assumed that what you’re doing is not legal, could mean that just downloading something will be added to where you’re liable, instead of just the making available part.
If you want to really be loose with the infringement definition, and lean on the part where it’s not explicitly named as an exemption ala fair use, then any and all fan works also can fall under this. Still seems to depend on the rights holder bringing a case though, but the part about the penalties was rather vague, just talking about lost profits, accepting presented values, and using local laws to set damages as applicable. Incentives could make this lean either way.
Strictly speaking, none of that is as such new. Being non-profit still is sort of there as a defense, but it’s not explicitly mentioned, so remains flimsy. What is new, is that persons (both individuals and corporations falling under that word for this) from other nations are to be granted at least equivalent rights under local laws.
Oh, yes, copyright has universally been extended to life + 70 years. Automatic granting, after at most 30 days, in other nations even if they don’t see a release, if I read that part correctly. So no more unclear legality for things not released for a different market or where there is no distributor.
We could call those last two things the deathknell for fansubbing and similar endeavors. Japan (and Korea, I suppose) is going to be utterly annoying there, I imagine.
The talk about trademarks, manufacturing, seizing of goods and similar things, brings to mind counterfeiting as well, in various forms. So people can crack down on things that have unauthorized uses of trademarked logos and whatnot. (Yeah, anti-China rather fits there.)
The wording in most parts also is open enough that it should mean that 3D printing also can get neatly curtailed. Well, from a legal point of view. Enforcement on the end-user is, as always, a bit of an impossibility there. (Won’t save you from getting slapped for it if it gets discovered as part of another effort, of course.)
I probably missed a number of things, but this is legalese, and I don’t want the headache of going over this looking for more details. I might also just have interpreted some parts the wrong way, since I’m not a lawer, if so, I welcome any corrections and offer my apologies for any errors. Going by a couple of the notes, this also isn’t the absolute final text, no matter what wikileaks claims. So we’ll still have to wait on the absolute full details.
Overall, not a fan, but, to be honest, I’m not seeing much so far that would have parliament actually say no, or be much of a change from existing NZ laws. The parts where there are potential changes kind of feed into the mindsets that produced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA,U.S. 2011), so I’m dubious about them actually finding those objectionable. I wouldn’t put it beyond NZ officials to use that all-times favorite tactic of deflecting unpopular aspects on others; the treaty demands this, so we regretfully have to implement it. So sad, too bad. /sarcasm
Grrrrrr, that is why I sometimes think to myself, I am in the wrong place here, because NZers “like simple stuff”.
Good grief, yes I see the problem. The world is not a simple and easy place these days, and you do not prepare for the future by basing your daily activities on credit card fed consumerism, a six pack and Sky TV offering the most recent rugby game, besides of “the Block” showing simple minds how to do up homes and play the housing market.
If that was the recipe for success, we should all be millionaires by now, selling the country bit by bit.
I despair, I despair daily, come on, shake them up, let their brains get struck by lightning, there surely must be some remnant of reactivated grey tissue available in the average Kiwi’s matter between the ears, to get what is really going on.
Labour are all over the place, I consider them the utter failure, it no longer matters who is leader, they simply are trying to cover their backsides on all angles, and pretend they are different to this government.
It is really time to give them the heave ho and start a totally new party, based on true Labour principles, as they once were proudly stood up for. Go perhaps ‘Advance NZ’, or a party under a similar progressive name, as we need a radical change, right now.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/72904296/Andrew-Little-Bigger-gains-for-dairy-in-India-and-Indonesia-than-TPPA
A good blog Martyn.
I totally agree.
I see Philip Ure mentions Genetically Modified Organisms….I recall somewhere that there was mention of that as well….
Green Party?….there’s a reason straight off to oppose the TTPA …
Now in the Herald today – ( yes ….the ‘ Herald’….) – we see Grant Robertson coming out on two issues among others… one was housing ,…and how foreign speculators will have a free ride at buying up not only residential property’s and locking out NZ first home buyers – but farms as well…
Seems we don’t have a lot of protections in place on that score – particularly as the TTPA could be used to block govt legislation to prevent both cases…
He also mentions – ( hello – what have we all been saying for months now? ) – NZ’s loss of sovereignty on being able to pass legislation to protect ourselves from foreign exploitative corporate moves …eg … minerals in our national parks….
Could we have an Investors dispute here that could sue the govt for obstruction….to their ability to conduct business here and make a profit ???….might be a bit tough on DOC , then ….don’t you think..
Treaty of Waitangi…and mineral exploration and extraction on our beaches and lands…. interesting…
I also think people are justifiably angry at Labour and other party’s for being so weak willed and slow to act to take up the banner against these very real possibilty’s occurring here over the years if this TTPA is ratified…
It is no longer time to be meek and mild about this . This is war, now.
The gloves are off….and it really is the defining era of our times with what we actually perceive is OUR sovereignty – and if we are willing to weakly hand over not only that but our very future generations to this immoral deal…
We have been far too slack and non vocal…and particular blame needs to be apportioned to those who would be named and called as our public representatives – our MP’s.
That is what they are there for – what they were elected into office to do.
It is not an opportunity simply to just tinker with only the small easy to handle issues of the day to day but also to tackle the pressing issues of this generation.
We owe it to ourselves and future generations to INSIST these MP’s and these political party’s start doing their jobs.
Enough is enough.
There’s nothing in the agreement that will do any good for anybody– certainly not create millions of new jobs.
If we read between the lines it basically says corporations will sue the shit out of us if they don’t win a contract.
Let’s just say corporations haven’t given us any good confidence in their inability to not go ‘profit and fuck over anyone in their way’.
Meanwhile, using legislation to retard the development of generic drugs can very quickly turn into a matter of life and death. And since the need for medicines is pretty much guaranteed by society (there are dozens if not hundreds of cancers, and a severe lack of cures for them, to say nothing of infectious diseases) excessive copyright or patent protection on drugs tends to rally almost everybody into opposition.
I best buy some stamps, I got letters to write. I’d suggest everyone here with strong opinions get cracking.
Sam – save off buying the stamps, not needed when writing to the government ministers.
The Labour Party in such disarray (which is has been for such along time now) is only good for one thing: The Natkeys. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if someone has a plant or two in there, quietly sowing disruption within the ranks. After all, what political party would stay is disarray for so long? Anyone with a couple of functioning brain cells would understand that in the long run, that’s suicide.
The more I look at the current situation here, the more it reminds me of “V for Vendetta.”
Which is not a good place to be.
Can we all put pressure on Key and Groser to fold? After all, they did publicly state that they wouldn’t sign New Zealand up to a bad deal, but they are more than willing to go back on their words and show themselves up as treasonous liars to do just that anyway.
Can we all put pressure on key and Groser to keep their word for once?
Judging by Andrew Little’s response yesterday, it doesn’t look like it will be Labour who folds.
“If it came to walking away from the TPPA to get a better deal elsewhere, Little said a Labour Government reserved that right. ”
“Those things of TPP that contradict our policy and what we want to do, in what we think is in the best interests of New Zealanders – we’ll do what we think is right.
“Whether it goes as far as walking away from the whole TPP, you’d never rule that out but you want to make sure you’ve looked at what the benefits are to other exporters.”
And when it came to legislating against land sales to non-resident foreigners, it might be contrary to the TPP but Little said Labour would do it.
“We will look at it from New Zealand’s point of view, do what we think is best, and if it means we have a scrap with the other TPP parties then we’ll do that.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/72904296/Andrew-Little-Bigger-gains-for-dairy-in-India-and-Indonesia-than-TPPA
thanks for the link….good statement by Andrew Little! ( of course we dont need the pathetic TPP concessions for dairy and agriculture….Russia will also take our trade!…Farmers need to wake up!)
…I may yet vote Labour if it takes a strong enough stand against the TPP….ie unequivocally says it will repeal the TPP agreement like NZF has said …
Little could turn out to be a very strong leader
THE WAY TO MAKE IT INTO A SIMPLE ARGUMENT:
Start talking about it as if ‘YOU’ are the one being traded. YOU as a consumer, YOU as a captive market YOU as a citizen and taxpayer. Corporations flanked by Government, are selling access to “markets” – that is, people who buy stuff. They are trading *us* between themselves, for their own benefit.
That ought to get through to a few at the barbie.
there is as much chance of the NZ Labour Party Caucus voting against ratifying the TPPA as there is of them co-operating with the Greens and Mana at electorate level to get rid of Nats
Andrew Little has virtually no chance of coming out of his with his nose clean because it is a planned set up by National and their media sycophants. If Labour supports it then Key will heap on the false praises and claim vindication for his government’s “efforts”. If Labour doesn’t support it National will call Labour a bunch of wowsers and the media campaign to denigrate Labour will recommence.
If Labour doesn’t support it, Key might even call a snap election hoping to con the public into thinking it is a contest between the free traders (National) and the protectionists (Labour and the Greens).
The fact that the TPPA isn’t actually a free trade agreement will hardly be noticed amongst the lies and the spin coming out of National.
Agree with Mike, but feel voters might be (hopefully) smarter than you give them credit for. Even the conservatives in Northland have had enough.
Northland worked due to co operation and dedication – feet on the beat, strategic voting endorsed by the parties, clear messaging and co operation. Nats and Act have been doing it for years and the opposition need to wake up. Dunno should not be in there for a start! Hone should be in there. etc
Hopefully the opposition can work on their mistakes from last election and win next time with some consistent and believable policy.
Whether its a real free trade agreement or not is far too conceptual for Joe and Joanna Public.
Did we get a good deal or not is what matters?
Are the gains better than the tradeoffs.
The TPPA – a deal brought to you by a government that has yet to show a surplus.
Agree with most of the post. In regard to Now look at how the TPPA is being framed as a ‘free trade deal’ when it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a geopolitical response by America to China in the Pacific, this is ‘Forced Trade’, not free trade.
From Wikileaks
Under the terms of the text, countries in the TPP can force each other to suspend legal proceedings if the trial would cause embarrassing information — information “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” — would come to light.
Embarrassment to government spies or economic interests is more important than justice and transparency under TPP.
TPP just enabling a dictatorship then.
This is what I think went wrong last election and I agree with practically everything that Martyn said, apart from it is mostly voters fault.
Labour tried to appeal to good rather than self interest but got it badly wrong.
Labour seems to be using overly simplistic marketing and polling data, interpreting it poorly (or maybe manipulated polls) to formulate it’s policy based on appealing to voters – but getting everything wrong. They were not believable because they fought everyone including their leader and natural allies.
Corbyn works because he just says what he thinks – has integrity – and you can believe his word. But also the UK is a much larger economy and he can get away with more change. Winston is a similar personality but much further right.
Nobody not even Labour believes Labour. The say nothing and everything and their actions betray them as seemingly not having integrity or a vision or (internal fighting stopping them from effective opposition). It’s an example of when mostly good people get together and actually go bad in a group, because they can’t agree anything.
Last election for example Labour tried to appeal to their version of ‘good’ i.e. raising taxes and pensions, but their message had no return on that investment back to the people. It seemed more like lets get Kiwis to pay more so we can give to business and government and immigrants to transform our country into a better economy. It was pretty much the same as National but National appeared to be able to do the same without raising taxes (by borrowing but most Kiwis have no clue about that).
In addition Labour’s train wreck of action and their lack of believability to run the country when they couldn’t even run their own party and their side attacks on their own leader, the Greens, Dotcom and Internet Mana seemed to make them look not just like National but meaner, stupider and more out of touch.
National have a team of minders that teach them to say nothing and keep out of the contentious issues. Labour rush to any photo op set up by the Nats and put their oar in and so appear in league with them. Now the Greens may be falling into this trap aka flag.
It was like Labour was more interested in themselves winning than the country itself. And voters did not like that. Just like they did not like National in Northland doing the same thing.
A lot of blame from the left is put on voters, but my feeling is that the voters are actually smarter than many of our politicians. Voters are being asked to choose between very similar sounding parties who are all mean and out of touch. Last election even the Greens unusually came across as a bit petty over the Internet Mana debacle and wanting to crash property.
In addition the capital gains is a red herring. For most Kiwis their home is their only asset and not only does it house them, it is their nest egg. Anyone in Auckland knows that migration is fuelling the boom with 30,000 new migrants coming in and open foreign investment to boot. After crippling interest rates in the past any party that seeks to cripple property or raise interest rates (while not wanting to tackle it’s main cause or look at other reasons building is so high here) is angering voters. Many Greenies as well as labour voters are home owners.
In fact one of the coups of the Nats, is to appeal to the poor and tell them voting conservative (with a few All blacks to seal the message of course). They are taking over the working poor vote. Nats are taking our the working poor vote and Labour are losing the working middle class vote with their policies on pensions and property.
My mother is a home owner but she is on a benefit for example. Poor people are home owners too. Any change to property law, creates fear for home owners – likewise parties that seem to hate property owners which is still something like 65%.
The working poor who are renting are voting the Nats in for gods sake cos an All Black told them too and they are hating the beneficiaries. The manufactured blame of the opposition on “voters being greedy” is helping the Nats attack on each demographic to blame another. Now it has spread to the opposition parties blaming voters for not voting for them and even left blogs doing the same.
All the mixed messages, meanness and confusion lead to many lefties not voting, poor voting the Nats in, young people not voting due to the mixed messages against Dotcom and for digital rights. Some of the younger ones might have been Green/Internet Mana voters but would have been put off by the frost between all the opposition parties, likewise Labour/Green voters.
I think the left can win next election but they need to actually self examine their actions and stop blaming voters. To win will require a change of policy and to be MUCH SMARTER and CO OPERATE MORE. Now even the Greens seem to be alienating their voters and the lack of vocal and effective opposition to TPP is not helping them.
Voters are in punishment mode to Labour and Greens. Personally I think the deserve it. Just look at the posts.
The Nats with lobbyist and specialist support are running not just the country but also the media and the opposition still have not clicked on with a rival strategy and doing nothing and waiting for voters to tire off National is not working anymore.
The opposition can and must win and use the very successful Northland strategy of co operation and dedication (which had a very seasoned Winston who beat the streets and just says what he thinks) with opposition support to keep the messaging consistent for voters. Northland shows it can be done, but it is not easy.
The need to look at where if they collaborated last election between Greens/Labour/Internet Mana they would have got the votes instead of splitting them. It’s not that hard.
The harder part is for the opposition to agree policy that appeals to voters. Winning by not splitting votes should be the easier bit.
The economy will be tanked by the Nats next election how is the opposition going to recover the economy? More taxes, more immigration and more means testing and longer pensions did not go down well with voters last time and hoping the foreign knight in armour to buy up the country or TPP to ‘save’ us (even though the figures do not work at all) cos our politicians have no other plan and can’t be bothered making one, is not popular.
+100 SAVENZ
Its not a good idea to keep slagging of NZers as a race of sheep.
Its patronising to workers who have always responded staunchly to the bosses’ attacks when not held back by false friends in parliament, church and media.
NZ is replete with the fights for unions, the Red Fed, and waves of strikes against economic oppression and wars.
It is not the lack of will to fight that is the problem it is the systemic controls that divide and rule the working class.
One such control is the inbuilt ideology that capitalism serves the individual well and that there are no such things as ‘social classes’ based on property ownership and the exploitation of labour.
This ideology was exposed as a lie by the turn of the 20th century as the history of the Wobblies and the Red Fed proves.
The real history of WW1 was about the near victory of a global socialist revolution. Capitalism survived by the skin of its teeth only because Labour Parties were allowed by the bosses to take power provided they used the police and army to smash workers revolution.
The Russian Revolution was isolated and contained by the defeat of the German revolution between 1918 and 1923 only by the Social Democratic Party unleashing the military and fascist gangs.
The NZ Labour Party is one of those anti-worker parties. It promoted the hysterical hatred of the SU and painted all ideas of communism as evil.
It was created to divert workers from class struggle such as the general strike of 1913 and to war on behalf of the Empire to save civilisation from communism.
The Labour Party was born out of the labour bureaucracy, the petty bourgeois layer of privileged workers who were paid by the bosses to con workers into believing that capitalism could be reformed.
But reforms always put profits before workers. The wartime anti-strike legislation and the neo-liberal 1984 Government was proof it that.
NZ began as a settler colony run by Britain. It became a neo-colony of Britain when it won its political independence only to become a neo-colony of the US after WW2 when the US took over from Britain as the dominant imperialist power.
Like Greece, there is no electoral solution to NZ’s neo-colonial fate. We can no more legislate to stop the dominance of US and Chinese capital in NZ than we can stop the war in Syria.
That rests in the hands of its working people. The global recession we are in will soon become a depression and the global trade wars between the US and Russia/China block of imperialist powers will become hot wars.
It will become obvious that WW1 was never over and the global class division that emerged at that time will reappear 100 times stronger. This time workers will not allow any illusions in parliament to prevent them from taking power and building a global socialist society capable of preventing ecological and civilizational collapse.
Workers of Aotearoa must unite their tiny forces with the massive forces of China, the US and the rest of the world.
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/is-china-meltdown-end-of-capitalism_16.html
NZ Labour Party has always been anti-worker.
It was born during WW1 as part of the global capitalist reaction to the fear that the Bolshevik Revolution would sweep across the world.
That world revolution was halted only by the perfidious role of Social Democratic governments that used the military to smash the revolutions in Europe in the name of ‘bourgeois democracy’.
The NZ Labour Party was part of that imperialist campaign to rally workers from the threat of communism onto the path of ‘parliamentary socialism’.
WW1 did not resolve the class war that has since continued in various forms.
Today we are at another impasse as the terminal crisis of capitalism revives the class war to end all class wars.
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/is-china-meltdown-end-of-capitalism_16.html
It is the National government, with it’s draconian anti worker legislation that has always been anti worker.
Martyn has provided us in the choir with useful perspective in understanding the Nat’s and middle NZ’s mindset. It’s necessary. Another thing that’s necessary is rhetoric that coaxes NZers away from the capitalist dream and its rewards. What is the way to do that??
Would Labour fold on the TPPA?
Not really, because it has long been Labour policy to sign up to these agreements because, on balance, they’ve been shown to be good for NZ and for workers.
This is why Helen signed up for the deal with China which has subsequently been shown to be of great benefit to us and got us through the 2008 GFC without too much damage.
So surely Andy Little would have to CHANGE Labour policy in order not to support TPPA? Thus no “folding” would need to be done
(The Tin Foil Hat, Loony Left are conflicted on this issue, but those are the basic facts)
Gotta love those minimum wages and cold damp death houses the poor have to live in , don’t we?
Fancy a weekly bowl of rice to go with those cockroaches , son ?
And while were at it we can give three cheers to the Double Dipper from Dipton who once stated ” we should be glad we have a low wage economy AS THIS ENCOURAGES FOREIGN INVESTMENT ”….
And another pearl from the Dipper… ” the concept of govt as we know it will cease to exist and that is a good thing ”…
And you call US the loony left?
What are you ?
Some kind of anti democratic anti sovereignty treasonous piece of garbage?
Will Labour fold on the TPPA?
Labour will do whatever it takes to be ineffectual… 🙂
At this point in time there is only ONE thing that Labour can do and that is to not under-estimate the THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of Kiwis on all sorts of social media sites who are OUTRAGED by the total lack of democracy re the TPPA as much as what any leaked info has told.
At this crucial moment (and it will go down as a VERY pivotal moment) in NZ history) the best thing that Labour can do is be absolutely BOLD!
Come out and speak CLEARLY and STRONGLY against the TPPA because of this lack of democracy, this absolutely arrogant disregard for what the ordinary Kiwi (and THEY are still the majority) thinks or wants. Approximately 90% are apparently opposed to the TPPA. Even if we allow for bias this is still an OVERWHELMING percentage.
Labour must oppose this Corporate engineered 29 chapter document in which only 5 chapters actually involve free trade!!!!!!!
The other 24 chapters are actually the rules of operations that must be carried out in every member country.
So who would sign up to a foreign corporate engineered agreement to be governed by an overseas committee of corporate entities????
It this what Deputy PM Bill English said and inferred he wanted to be controlled by an overseas “Governance committee” when at a business meeting a friend told me he heard Bill English say “Governments are about to become obsolete”????
What right do National have to hand over control of our Government to a highly secretive “Corporate Governance Committee”???
Treasonous crooks they are.
More on the “five Labour MPs who will cross the floor” on the TPPA. Mike Williams on Radio NZ’s political panel today;
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20151012-1106-politics_with_mike_williams_and_matthew_hooton-048.mp3
(alt. link: http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201774228)
Mike effectively dismisses the suggestion of a major rift in Labour.
Of course, this is just mischief making from the usual suspects.
The problem is MSM and the NZ Public are still madly in love with John Key?
Well, so the spin says.
The MSM do not love Key they are told by their masters what to print. Journalism is not about making money anymore but a marketing and control tool for multinational corporate elites who ‘control the message’.
As for the public I would not believe the spin about how much the public love John Key. One would have thought Northland would love Key, but they did not seem very impressed by the Nats either and that was a safe seat.
Labour and Greens and NZ First just need to adopt that winning strategy from Northland to win next election.
Yes they may have to make concessions but probably better than being outright losers under National with zero say in government and their supporters angry at their actions (or inactions) on key issues.
+100
The TPP could lead to seized and destroyed devices, outlaw security research done without permission, and pave the way to perpetual insecurity for the IoT ecosystem.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2991534/security/tpp-will-outlaw-security-research-done-without-permission-lead-to-destroyed-devices.html
+100 SAVENZ….this needs a Post in itself
…and is Little and Labour going to go along with this?…it is fascism!
thus far my vote is going to NZF
[…] Labour have given up on inspiring the missing million voters and are now just trying to woo soft National Party voters and soft National Party voters get spooked by big ideas that grind against their anti-intellectualism. […]
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