I’m just  not sure what can actually be said for Mike Hosking’s latest column….
Where’s the New Zealand First in foreign aid? And all this on the back of the news that cheaper doctors’ visits in this country have been delayed.
This is the stuff a classic New Zealand First voter would have expected and embraced – you miss out, so Mr and Mrs Tokelau can get some more help. And to what end? We can’t subsidise a doctor, but we can hand out thousands to a person who doesn’t even live here.
It doesn’t make sense to me, but then I was never sucked in by the Peters snake oil act.
And is the money, this billion dollars, for aid or to suck up to the islanders and remind them what’s what when the Chinese arrive – and if it is that we can give up now. Because guess what? China have more money.
…he just really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hates Pacific Islanders doesn’t he?
There are a couple of things to try and unpack here.
Firstly NZ spends .23% of GDP on international aid when the UN standard is .7%, so you know, we’ve been shortchanging others for a long time.
Secondly, we don’t just owe our Pacific Island brothers and sisters kinship because they are whanau, we owe them because as an industrialised country that is contributing to climate change we have to try and offset the damage we are creating to the environment that will impact them first.
Thirdly, I just don’t think Mike understands that Tokelau, like the Cooks and Niue, are actually free association states officially placed under NZ sovereignty. We have obligations to them whether he seems to know it or not.
Look, I agree that aid isn’t enough to combat Chinese influence, that’s why I suggest Rugby Diplomacy and promotion of Journalism in the Pacific, but that doesn’t mean that aid isn’t needed or necessary.
This isn’t the first time Mike has lashed out at Pacific Islanders, but by trying to paint out this aid budget as robbing the poor in NZ to splash cash around for feckless Islanders is ugly, especially because I can’t recall Mike ever articulating any concern for poor people needing access to cheaper health care in his entire media career.
I hold MH in the same regard as slaters in my compost heap, but not as useful.
Bloody Hoskings is a dick, as he has no humanity at all.
I never watch him as I get sick to the stomach.
I was waiting for the spiteful racist nasty prick hoskings to show his ugly swede (head) about this issue. He doesn’t give a stuff about poor or marginalised people he is all about himself and so is his sugar daddy mate sop- par. All they are is national party flunkies doing their dirty deeds.
Michelle
I like your work and insights. The ZB mob and the Herald have held onto a few cock roaches who crawl up old ladies legs.
Only to be bathed in droplets that ooze from mouths of Soper and Hosking – who seem to be bereft and homeless.
“Hi there Hosk – Check the bloody money they’re payin us!. Yes Sop! I sure will.”
“Geez. that Gayford fella is straight Hosk”. “Yeah he is Sop. He’s Honest”. The whole of the pacific loves him ya mug. And Europe.
“You buggered ua up Hosk ” So did you Sop.
I love this piece. And they said Michael Jackson was very odd living inside a bubble.
http://spy.nzherald.co.nz/spy-news/mike-hosking-reveals-his-bizarre-anti-ageing-secret/
Forgot the link
It’s the sort of negative commentary expected these days from Sad Mike.
Because since the greatest Prime Minister NZ has ever had, maybe the world has ever seen, quite possibly in the universe resigned, he has been really, really, really, really, saaad.
For him it’s about apologising for obedience to the powerful and their order of rule – rendering unto caesar/imperial coin.
Hosking has no problem with us spending money retaining a military presence in Iraq, because this is doing what the Americans want, but he sees no point helping out foreigners otherwise.
As you note, while he prefers money spent here to money spent there, here he prefers money dispersed in tax cuts to targeting it in aid to low income families.
And when the issue of welfare level or poverty is raised, he will join those saying that our poor are not really poor when compared to those overseas.
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