Grant Robertson’s roast of National was hilarious but defensive – hate speech backlash must be huge

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
83
2585

Deputy PM Grant Robertson’s merciless roast of Judith Collins and the National Party’s woes

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson has delivered a merciless but hilarious roasting of the National Party and its recent woes in front of National MPs in Parliament.

Speaking in the general debate at Parliament, Robertson took aim at National for the recent revelations that Todd Muller was forced to resign after his leader Judith Collins learned he had bad-mouthed Harete Hipango to the Newsroom website.

Look, Grant’s roast of National was hilarious and totally on the money.

The cavalcade of political circus freaks inside National who have imploded all because they turned on their own leader in a brittle cocktail of cowardice and venal self interest deserve all the shit they get!

They are utterly unworthy of the term Opposition and they look more like Suicide Squad than a Government in waiting.

So fuck National, fuck them a thousand times!

Judith can’t shrug off the criticism of a Titan like Chris Finlayson! His bone cutting criticism of the current fiasco that is the National Party can’t be ignored! His intellect, his wit and his opinion are gold standard.

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The only National MP I ever feared was Chris Finlayson and he was the only one I deeply respected.

His commentary is the obituary of this current  National Party.

So yeah, yay Grant giving a good old fashioned bover boy head kicking.

But it’s the why that is so disconcerting.

Let’s not pretend that Grant’s sudden desire to turn Parliament into the Comedy Central Roast Battle wasn’t driven by a freaked out Government on the back foot over their ill conceived and ill considered Hate Speech law proposal.

The backlash might not be felt in the echo chambers of the woke, but Labour have not been mauled by Journalists as viciously as this for a long time.

We can all laugh at Grant side stepping the usual kindness mantra and going for National’s throat but the real strategic reason for doing that is because the backlash to the free speech fiasco is huge and potentially politically damaging.

Grant had the laughs, but during question time the flakiness of the hate speech proposals were on display again!

Kris said micro aggressions won’t be part of hate speech but then argued that by stopping someone saying something hateful it will stop the next terror attack? So it’s the philosophy of micro aggression policing without policing micro aggressions?

The Minister said the change wasn’t a big deal and was simply trimming up the old law.

The penalties are moving from 3months to 3years – THAT transforms the whole hate Speech legislation into a totally different world!!!

Sure there has been some change to the language and ‘narrowing’ but the sentences have been increased and includes more groups and it’s now open to the Police to define hate – that’s not just a small change, that’s criminalising speech!

That wasn’t the performance of a Party safe in the knowledge of a controversial policy call, that was a very nervous pre-emotive strike.

Labour have to radically change direction on this hate speech stuff or it’s going to hurt us.

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83 COMMENTS

  1. How dare they! Come up with the new bill or changes to the old one and not be able to tell us what it will mean

  2. And Mr Speaker, during the night Judith knocked off Muller, house prices in NZ went up $20000.

    And guess what Mr Speaker, as always we do nothing.

    Applause, applause…

  3. This is not the only item that this government is pushing that does not pass muster. The SNA is causing worry and heartache
    for both farmers and Maori and could lead to land degredation not the protection intended.
    The rejection of the 3 water plan by many councils is another story of government not getting the message out properly.
    The amateur approach of this government shows through but with an opposition outdoing them in personnal problems it goes unchecked

    • I agree that there are serious concerns about the planned changes for both water, in particular, and the SNA. These seem to be slipping under the radar with no questions being asked, no checks and balances.

      If it were a National-ACT govt proposing these changes, I think the ‘Left’ would be in an uproar; they would soon see the dangers. There would be questions flying, and far more clarity required.

      Yet once the changes are made, any govt will easily turn the new system to their own agenda. (Eg, privatisation, for-profit, exploitation.) And, this present govt have themselves been far too ready to sell out our water and the management of waste disposal etc, to foreign entities. Why should we think that they would do better with these new plans?

      • +1 Kheala & Trevor Sennitt – the councils issues with water is because the government keeps allowing more polluters to operate in NZ, overseas companies to operate in NZ and assets strip and nothing in the RMA to stop them – in fact the government signs it off.

        They can change the law to get better water outcomes by banning polluters near water ways particularly industry and intensive practises! Not changing the law and then putting it into another entity to control rather than solving the problem – must be why nothing in NZ now works! Then giving free money and indemnity to polluters like Rio Tinto!

  6. Muller has had mental health issues.
    It may be the cause of much hilarity to Robertson that he has mis stepped again, in reality it’s just sad.
    The politics of kindness from Labour on full display.

    • Don’t often agree but in this instance I do. I would add however, Collins hasn’t helped Muller’s plight.

    • Keepcco – They’d be sitting in silence if they had to refrain from criticising colleagues with mental health problems. If the Nats can’t attract reasonable political candidates, that’s their problem, but the primary business of Parliament, Defence of the Realm, is too important to be wasted pussyfooting around with low calibre persons.

    • KCCO: “Muller has had mental health issues.”

      Yup. That Robertson fellow: all class, is he not? Urgh!

      I’ve read Chris Finlayson’s comments. He’s supportive of what Collins has done, forcing Muller to step down.

      The leaking: that’s exactly what Labour was doing when Cunliffe took the leadership. Remember the ABC club? I surely do.

      • Which begs the question, if these things aren’t leaked, the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes, stays behind the scenes? Then we must accept that politicians on their word, yeah right.
        So Shona, I agree, Muller is National Party member with a conscience, a very rare breed. Collins shutting he and Nick Smith down, whilst promoting free speech, clearly means she has no conscience. Hat’s off to Muller leaving.

    • Muller is National Party member with a conscience and lacking in avarice. He’s a square peg in a round hole. A middle management type who never got higher up the ranks because he couldn’t create the required arsehole persona. I’d be depressed too if I was him! That whole Fuck! I’m a member of a club I don’t wanna be in realization. that would put anyone off their game.

  7. Well thanks for acknowledging Chris Finlayson anyway; he was one of those rare erudite and intellectual members of Parliament to whom it was a pleasure to listen. I loved him for that, but God knows how he survived among those revolting hoons and hoonesses who not only saturate the National Party, but are scattered amongst other parties as well – except for possibly, TOP. Sorry that he’s no longer in Wellington too.

    • Snow White: “Sorry that he’s no longer in Wellington too.”

      I didn’t know that. Where has he gone? He was still here when the DSP was first being discussed. I know this because I came to his defence on Scoop when another commenter was being dismissively rude and disrespectful about him, on account of his having been a former member of a National government.

      • D’Esterre. I am not sure where Chris Finlayson is, but within the last 24 hours I read a reference made to his working in Auckland – but, on reflection, that could mean anything. Next time I email somebody living on his old patch in Wgtn, I shall ask them if they’ve seen him… even wearing face masks we all seem to be instantly recognisable – a blow to my prospects as a late-starter career criminal.

        Pity if he was being disrespected for his party allegiance, his other talents raise him above that for me, and he’s not one who I ever switched off when he started to speak.

        • Snow White: “…a blow to my prospects as a late-starter career criminal.”

          Oh bugger! There goes a potentially useful adjunct to the Universal Super…

          Chris Finlayson could be working in Auckland, but still resident here in Wgtn. Sure hope so, though I wouldn’t blame him for flying the coop. Who in their right mind would live here if they didn’t have to?

  9. Petulant behavior from a deputy PM and Finance Minister. It will come and bite him in due course. Politics is nothing but a game of patience. It was incredibly immature and shows the nature of senior ministers in this government where they use parliamentary time for childish little games as opposed to solving NZ’s issues around housing, pover(d)y, education, mental health etc.

    A SMUG prick.

    • Frank the Tank: “Petulant behavior from a deputy PM and Finance Minister……A SMUG prick.”

      I agree. I remind people here that this was John Key’s forte: endless trolling of the unfortunate Labour opposition, to the extent that I switched off TV whenever he started doing it.

      It’s just as vile coming from Labour. Playing nasty little games of that sort is unforgivable at any time, but most especially when the government has demonstrated that it cannot run a piss-up in a brewery, as the saying goes.

      I do hope that it indicates a government in a panic over public backlash against its cockamamie hate speech proposals. If ever it needed to back down over anything, it’s this. Dumb, dumb, dumb….

      • @ D’Esterre” A SMUG prick” be careful apparently that insulting statement may be hate speech under the ‘new’ rules

        Threatening, abusive or insulting, and
        Likely to incite hostility or bring into contempt any group on the basis of their colour, race, or ethnic or national origins.

        As this is the criminal provision – if someone breaches this law they could conceivably end up spending three months behind bars

        • SaveNZ: “@ D’Esterre” A SMUG prick”…”

          Heh! Ah well, it were Frank the Tank as used it first. Coined the phrase, even. So they’d be first in line for prosecution, wouldn’t they?

          Come to think of it, isn’t there a defence at law, that the prosecuted has made an accurate statement? It would apply in this case, wouldn’t it? Robertson IS a smug prick.

    • Extremely petulant. People won’t vote for him because he’s a petulant smug politician

      They’ll vote for Judith Collins and Chris Bishop instead. What?

      • New hate speech rules will mean you calling any abusive names could be a criminal act! Make sure you censor yourself!

  10. There are few things that would make me vote for the evil that is National, but restoring freedom of speech is just about one of them.

    I’d rather live in oligarchy than under a government that seeks to control what I say with the rod of punishment.

    It’s not as if there is really any up side to having Labour in power. Shite light as the Australians would say.

      • Snow White: “I’d vote National today, even though they are morons.”

        God’s blood….things have come to a pretty pass, have they not? The thing about the Natz, I guess, is that, were they elected, they probably couldn’t do a worse job than the current lot. Who are by a country mile the most incompetent government I can remember in my longish life.

  11. When peter thiel of paypal and snuggle buddy to elon musk can literally buy his way past AO/NZ immigration to become an AO/NZ citizen? Then you surely know that the embarrassing spectacle of Kiwi politics is a side show orchestrated to keep our tired minds occupied while both sides of the same thing try to pretend they’re fighting for pole position to see who can best serve us. Let’s not forget? That’s why we pay them! While this shit goes on manipulative psychopaths have their way with us.
    Once I became aware of that, I now see these absurd spectacles as both embarrassing and demeaning to us.
    They’re effectively, collectively taking the piss out of us and we’re paying them to do it.

  13. The new rules seem to be stopping Freedom of Speech in a bizarre world full of self obsession, individualism and identity politics. People are going to be offended and able to take it further and lay criminal charges against others.

    British influencer ‘identifies as Korean’ after 18 surgeries
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/british-influencer-identifies-as-korean-after-18-surgeries/ZLPAHQDT5LGWPMEY5AQTAI6S7I/

    “An influencer born in England has hit back at criticism after undergoing multiple surgeries and revealing they now “identify as Korean”.

    Oli London, 31, is a singer and internet personality with more than 800,000 followers across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

    London, who is non-binary, released a video on YouTube revealing they had undergone 18 rounds of plastic surgery to look like BTS star Park Ji-min, also known as Jimin.”

    We already have coffee recipes being the epitome of racism in NZ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-falls-restaurant-accused-of-racism-after-group-called-asians-on-receipt/JFYPIJ6DG74W3WV7HF37C3KPVM/…

    imagine the amount of new prisons that we need to build, police time and justice, when everyone is triggered by hate ‘speech’ and lays police complaints all the time!

    Seems part of the worlds inability to concentrate on real issues and instead everything has become about identity and which is the most desirable identity and individual rights to stop anybody disagreeing with the most bizarre decisions.

    Hope the NZ health system is strong enough for the amount of changes people need to make in their appearances and bodies! Apparently the DHB psychiatrists are already inundated with people who have identity issues displacing mental health appointments like depression, suicide and other mental heath issues.

    • SaveNZ: “British influencer ‘identifies as Korean’ after 18 surgeries”

      Oh for god’s sake….just when I thought I’d seen everything!

      In this household, we view this transgender thing as mostly a fad. And the binary/non-binary obsession is most definitely a fad. Some of the transgender stuff may be being exacerbated by mental health issues. A very tiny number are biologically intersex. The rest of it cannot be biological: it’s happened much too quickly, and biology doesn’t work that way.

      We’re old. We’ve seen these things come and go. Who now remembers the ritual satanic abuse panic? It swept the Western world in the 90s. The recovered memory thing, which ruined so many families’ lives, took hold around the same time. Both have vanished, though not before doing enormous damage; the late Peter Ellis was a victim of the ritual satanic abuse insanity.

      And a lot further back, there was the split personality syndrome. I read about it at uni. That’s also vanished.

      This too shall pass, as the Bible (I think) says. To be replaced by something else, no doubt.

      • @ D’Esterre” be careful with the new hate speech laws on the way….

        “In this household, we view this transgender thing as mostly a fad. And the binary/non-binary obsession is most definitely a fad. Some of the transgender stuff may be being exacerbated by mental health issues. A very tiny number are biologically intersex. The rest of it cannot be biological: it’s happened much too quickly, and biology doesn’t work that way.”

        The new law proposes that

        it’s against the law to use, publish, broadcast or distribute written matter or use words that are both:

        Threatening, abusive or insulting, and
        Likely to incite hostility or bring into contempt any group on the basis of their colour, race, or ethnic or national origins.

        If someone breaches this law they could conceivably end up spending three months behind bars.

        I guess that is the end of most blogs then and ability to disagree with anybody who may be in a ‘group’ such as politicians or religion or sex.

        Delete yourself bro as the Greens would say!

        • SaveNZ: “I guess that is the end of most blogs then and ability to disagree with anybody who may be in a ‘group’ such as politicians or religion or sex.”

          Or – were this nonsense to make it into law – we commenters and the blog authors could just carry on as we do now. There are so many of us, the rozzers’d have their hands full trying to keep up. I take a punt that they’d just give up, and it would finally dawn on the government that their cockamamie law is unworkable.

          • I think the idea is to create fear and suppression of dissent with these rules which could prosecute pretty much everyone at this point …

  14. Labour will get its comeuppance eventually. Of course, when that day comes and we roast Robertson like a pork knuckle, then he will be outraged and call it hate speech.

    • Robertson behaving badly is inexcusable agreed. Tell me why that when John Key did it constantly, it is called “character” and “personality”. 48% of voters loved him, no doubt loved his “performances” in the house, but sadly don’t like it much when on the receiving end. Funny that.

      • It’s just as nauseating when our side does it as well. Perhaps the speaker will clean up the behavior.

        I know it’s a rhetorical question…….

    • john and the kraut. Aw Bless. A little tag-team Machiavellian confederacy.
      While we might be outraged by labour’s fits of distempers we must all never, ever forget that it was generations of the Natzo’s and their hangers on that got us into this fucking nightmare.
      National and their crooked fleas are a despicable, greedy, lying cadre of scum and no disrespect to actual scum .
      You two remind me of a couple of malcontent siblings in the large family. You sit there and snipe and sneer and criticise and no doubt with your hands out and yet you do the least for the common good.

      • Yes Countryboy, it’s like the constant moaning of someone saying a particular player in the All Blacks should be dropped because they are playing badly. The only problem is they never come up with a viable option that will be better. Replacing this Government with an ACT/National is akin to replacing Beuden Barrett with Gerry Brownlee.

      • Actually no, it was Labour who introduced neoliberal “reform”.
        Never forget who “got us in to this mess”.

  16. And this is why labour are on course to lose the 2023 general election. Fucking about with trivia.

    Meanwhile the Maori Caucus are prepping for the onset of a Republic.

    Giddy up you honkeys!

  17. Even the woke are starting to cotton on to how badly written, rushed and ill defined these laws are last night a bunch of Uber woke artists and woke comedians were telling me backstage it’s a major concern but they are slightly afraid to speak up just yet because of the politically illiterate Lynch mob woke who don’t realize they are supporting their own destruction

    The fact is the woke left who claim to hate the cops have the most to fear from a vague law which allows for individual police to interpret it as they see fit, why hand police the keys to your destruction.

    Protesters, Maori and environmental social justice and economic justice will be shut down punished and silenced for speaking out against the next nat/act government or corporations and anyone who doesn’t see this deserves it.

    There’s no problem with updating the existing legislation and putting it under one umbrella and tweaking it for the 21st century but as long as the right of political opinion, the right to protest, satirize and offend aren’t enshrined we must all oppose these reforms.

    It is the poor, the vulnerable, the isolated and the marginalized who will be thrown in jail.

    I will not be voting for any party that supports these laws in their current form so there better be a left of center party that promotes free speech or nzf/act/nat is going to get the entire free speech vote

    TOP if they keep their policies but become a left wing libertarian party on social issues could rack up loads of votes if they opposed these reforms. Otherwise I’m gonna have to vote for Winston cos he’s socially conservative but economically left…. I cannot will not and shall not even entertain the idea of voting act /nat

  18. I notice that Willie Jackson has finally told us that maybe the NZ public will get to find out about He Pua Pua at some point after everyone else has decided what it will be. After its all a done deal and as he says the majority of it is ‘not extreme’.

    Can we get real? To have He Pua Pua or not is not the issue. The issue is a government who has no respect for democracy or genuine consultation and consensus with the New Zealand public who is about to change the heart of our constitutional arrangements without discussion. Call me cynical but does anyone else wonder whether the rush through of ‘Hate Speech’ laws is not driven by the empathy Ardern has for Christchurch?

    Could it be that with Hate Speech laws in place, anyone who rallies people together against He PuaPua will find themselves in prison? What better way to stop political dissent? And I stress here this is not about the rights and wrongs of He Pua Pua but it is clear to me, a Labour voter, that He Pua Pua is a move from a democracy to an ethnocracy (sp?). That is a big deal. I have $100 with your name on it, if this government ever puts it to a referendum.

    • Binky: “Could it be that with Hate Speech laws in place, anyone who rallies people together against He PuaPua will find themselves in prison?”

      There’s something in that. You may well be right.

      Willie Jackson can claim all he likes that the recommendations of He Puapua aren’t at all extreme. Those of us who’ve read that document know otherwise. The correct response is: well, he would say that, wouldn’t he!

  20. Put hate speech thing in the ‘too hard’ basket. There can’t be a reasoned discussion about it. And water.
    Let’s have a flag referendum.

  22. Blinky I totally agree with you.
    This Adern government is above consulting with the people, they know best.

  24. No, mate. It is not at all “Fabulous”. It is bloody tragic.
    This is our future. IF you live here in AO/NZ then this is your future too that is being discussed.

    It is time to rise above party politics, – and that goes for you too, if you are ‘for real’. Look at what is actually happening. Stop slamming politicians for the sake of it. Look at what is actually happening. And speak to that.

    Otherwise you sound a bit like a little “Rah, rah!” chorus – Cheerleading or such. This is NOT A GAME! This is our lives, our children’s lives.

    • I do look at what is going on. I always have. Our government are Beijing’s bitches. The meth trade is a deliberate tactic to destroy our people . We are being robbed of our sovereignty daily tenants in our country and all the result of neoliberal policies . As long as those cash bribes from mainland China keep coming our country will continue to be trashed . Our young will continue to leave and we will continue to be a thoroughly dysfunctional country run by third rate egotists with nothing between their ears.

      • Yes, very much share your concern about Xi-land.
        Most Kiwis seem to have very little awareness or concern about the extent to which that foreign nation already OWN us.

        • Good one, New Xi-land.

          Probably hate speech under neoliberal agenda.

          You can see the next protest like TPPA, climate change, earthquake victims, Greenpeace supporters etc that the end agenda is that NZ protesters will have warrantless surveillance, and hauled into the police station (special division of hate crime police apparently like the Stasi) and then forced to repent and never, ever, go on any of those nasty protests again on the threat of jail because some posts have abusive remarks to some group. Like Thailand with insulting the monarchy.

          Thai court gives record 43-year sentence for insulting king under lese majeste law https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-19/thai-court-gives-record-43-year-sentence-for-insulting-king/13071202

          • They already do that with people who protest outside businesses like McDonalds – aka arrest them and harass them to never protest again, but the few that fight back – can make a positive difference.

            McLibel: British Activists Sued for Distributing McDonald’s Flyers Win Court Case
            https://www.democracynow.org/2005/2/16/mclibel_british_activists_sued_for_distributing

            Corporates who do the right things, don’t get protestors, so dissent is what drives change for the better!

            Sadly in NZ, we have been betrayed like the Rogernomics days because the hate speech laws are just a way to criminalise those that disagree publicly with a group. And like Andrew Little found freedom of speech in NZ is very backwards, already…

            “The Hagamans sued Labour Party leader Andrew Little for defamation and sought $2.3m in damages. Whilst Little was found guilty of defaming Earl Hagaman on one count, the jury could not decide on all other claims, and the High Court judge thus let all claims retire. Shortly after the verdict in April 2017, Lani Hagaman declared that she would seek a retrial.[7] Lani Hagaman laid an appeal in September 2017, after her husband had died. She must overcome the legal hurdle that according to the Law Reform Act 1936, a defamation case cannot continue after a person’s death. Her lawyers argue that the case had already been heard, and they want to test whether the trial judge advised the jury correctly on the point of qualified privilege that members of parliament enjoy speaking inside Parliament.[8]”

            • Remember in NZ, Andrew Little – the leader of the opposition was found GUILTY of defaming Earl Hagaman in our screwed up backwards defamation laws, now they are making it even worse as it’s a crime to insult someone in a group (and everyone is affiliated to some group or another). Remember they had enough money to fight to change the law to sue him again even though the guy was dead! That is how terrible our freedom of speech laws are already in favour of the rich!

  26. NZ pretends it is a fair free speech nation, but cracks keep appearing, apparently NZ is on the UN torture watch list for our inability to do something about historical abuse in care https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/12/united-nations-finds-new-zealand-breached-convention-against-torture-in-lake-alice-abuse-allegations.html –

    Yup, UN had to order the NZ government, cos they were certainly not going to do anything about that themselves! Once ordered they

    then seeks to minimise the torture…

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300316098/lake-alice-royal-commission-to-get-only-a-small-glimpse-into-outrageous-stories https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300147363/royal-commission-solicitor-general-denies-lengthy-legal-action-used-to-wear-down-survivors?rm=a

    Plenty of money though for suppressing freedom of speech and the new hate crimes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country

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