For the love of Christ, if the Right are relying on Liam Hehir to be their cheerleader this is going to become very cruel very shortly.
He just doesn’t have the hips or chin for it.
Look, his 5 stages of liberal grief as an explanation to the liberal rage that has erupted at this hard right racist Government is such bullshit I can’t believe I need to step in and point out how much bullshit it is, but before I take a bandsaw to his argument, let me back the truck up on Karl du Fresne’s crypto-fascist attack on John Campbell!
That’s right, you heard me right. Crypto-Fascist. I called Karl a crypto-fascist.
The role of the Fourth Estate is not to became the vassal of the new Government, the role of the Fourth Estate is to critique, challenge and criticise public policy that is not in the public good, and the journalist is the professional decider of that line.
John Campbell is one of the best journalists and broadcasters this country has. He is without a doubt the most engaged servant of the Fourth Estate and as the Public Broadcaster he has the mana, the skill and the authority to call it the way he fucking sees it!
To attempt to pressure him on the Public Broadcaster is a form of casual fascism, it’s the strange hold of the State on the State Broadcaster, a warning shot that Journalists who challenge this hard right racist Government will be sacked or censored.
Karl du Fresne is arguing FOR self censorship and agreement with the new hard right racist Government.
Fuck Karl du Fresne.
Normally he is actually far better than this on free Speech, right up until someone says something he doesn’t like.
This is a liberal Progressive Democracy you brownshirt crypto-fascist. This hard right racist Government is getting the backlash and rage not because liberals are in 5 stages of fucking grief, they are incandescent with rage BECAUSE this hard right racist Government has blitzkrieged a vicious slashing of vital structures built to bring equality to NZ, as we watch in horror that a Government spat out by an angry post-Covid bitter electorate has mutated into something vastly more dangerous!
Liam wants to say you are in a stage of grief, no you are not, you are fuelled with a bright burning light of righteous outrage that our shared Covid sacrifice has been squandered and rendered into this banjo twanging, redneck, culture war revenge fantasy counter productive fuckwittery and Liam’s call for calm is that the public service will ‘slow them down’.
Wow.
I bet Liam would offer his 5 stages of grief to the Palestinians as well and misread their blank expressions as delight at his intellectual offering.
What’s next? Dr Incremental Max Rashbrooke preaching we should sit on our hands?
Oh. He did write a column calling for exactly that.
What a surprise, Dr Incremental cautions caution.
Liam’s call for calm is that the institutional bias of the administration will kill off the blitzkrieg, which would be true normally, but this aint fucking normal world no more.
We ain’t in Te Puke no more Toto.
We are implementing conspiracy theories and superstitions as social policy!
That is very alarming!
If you are not frightened and angry by what this toxic stew of vested self interests masquerading as the public will has vomited up, YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!
Luxon is a weak and shellshocked leader buffeted from crisis to crisis. Winston is the fox in charge of the hen house and David Seymour intends to amputate a vast chunk of the State with the glee of a horny sociopath in a slasher film.
Did you Right wingers think that only YOU were allowed to protest?
What?
The Dumb Lives matter Parliament Lawn protests?
The Taxpayer’s Union roadshows?
Groundswell?
The NZ Initiative?
The FreeSpeech Union?
Corporate Lobbyists?
Real Estate donors?
Federated Farmers?
Anti-Māori roadshows?
Did you think that only you were allowed to protest?
Oh no Comrades, oh no.
The Right are alarmed at the level of backlash they have received in just their first few months, and they should be fucking alarmed.
The Left are organising and the backlash of protest will eclipse what we have previously seen.
The Kings call on January 20th will sound an eruption of anger from Māoridom that will light a fuse at Waitangi Day.
The detente has been broken, the Right intend to rip away the wins and agreements made and denigrate Māoridom for their redneck voting base.
There is a price to pay for using Māori like a political punching bag.
The Right seemed to be under the impression that once they won power we would all fall into line?
This is a liberal progressive democracy, we all have every right to protest and stop you every where.
Everywhere will become a front line.
Everywhere.
The Right have started this deplorable agenda, the damage they have already caused workers, renters, Māori, beneficiaries and the environment is immense.
We are seeing the State used by the powerful to immediately bully the weak, but don’t worry says Liam, the public service will slow it down.
Great.
You can either take Liam’s very wafer thin assurances or you can get the fuck off your hands and fight this hard right racist Government.
What else do you need to see these political vandals do before we all agree everyone has to be on the battle lines?
Sure, they won an election, but that doesn’t stop every single one of us who are offended by their actions to protest it directly!
Do you honestly think a Government led by a feckless Luxon getting pulled between Winston’s latest venomous folly and David’s secret plotting has anything to offer but a bitter harvest of malice?
The economic pain is getting worse, not better.
The Right have egregiously underestimated the backlash to their agenda.
Less people voted than in 2017. There is a swath of those who couldn’t vote because Labour broke their heart and they are seeing the immediate ramifications of that decision and all this hard right racist Government has managed is to shock those voters out of their heart broken apathy.
The Right’s agenda is what people of conscience recoil from, and in a liberal progressive democracy we have every right to free speech and protest to challenge the powerful.
If this democratic truth is news to the Right, they are in very a very rough ride.
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Wait, what…..you NOW want the fourth estate to do it’s job, hard interviews with the PM and MPs, but you happy with the patsy interviews/questions Labour had over the last 6yrs…..Pffft.
‘The role of the Fourth Estate is not to became the vassal of the new Government, the role of the Fourth Estate is to critique, challenge and criticise public policy that is not in the public good, and the journalist is the professional decider of that line.’
@ I R
“…..Pffft.”
Another gas leak out of a puffed up privateer puppet.
The parasites within National, where ever that is, cloned a Maori, Anti-Maori gasbag, a Chrome headed God bothering hypocrite and a Dark Arts fancy, mincing money fetishist Nancy to breed in murky media waters to solidify the enduring Great AO/NZ institutionalised Lie, that being, lets steal as much farmer money as we can while we build the facades of a more diverse economy around that gigantic pile of bullshit over there, and over there, and there, and there, and there.
Normal, human, human beings? You’re getting fucked without the kissing. We’re currently floating about between one reality and another. We think we’re independent with a Treaty and also married to The Crown but in reality we’re being exploited by a criminal elite and once they’re done with us and we and our economy are hollowed out we’ll be sold to China or India or welded to Australia then exploited by rich americans who will cover us in American Military Industrial Complex Industry built missile silos. Either way, we Kiwi/Maori are heading to extinction. But hey! Good News! Woo Hoo! 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires, each with $50 mil and four foreign owned banks, one of which is headed up by our very own little jonky steals $180.00 a second nett 24/7/365 while 600,000 of you go hungry in a country larger than the UK which makes food to export as a living. Nothing to see here though, move along, be brave, be strong Kia kaka etc
and smile while you, as I’ve already pointed out, get fucked without the kissing.
buhaahahaha keep the jokes coming lol
Did you not watch the daily, relentless, and often inane, frivolous questioning of Jacinda
Ardern by the full media pack month after month during Covid!
I never witnessed any ‘patsy interviews/questions’ at all , but i did witness, on a number of occasions, an uncalled for hostile nature to some of the questioning by certain quarters of the media.
Go back and look at the tapes and interviews. It’s there for all to see and hear!
None are so blind as those who do not want to see.
You must have been watching the wrong media, all the publicly available media I read/watched over the last 6 years were constantly criticising the government for a range of issues some of which were inconsequential to us.
I didn’t see anyone round here giving Labour an easy ride but I did see a lot of shit being thrown at Labour by right wing media…
But we’re both missing the point. Labour and National are economically identical while being culturally different. They both represent the established order – but ACT and NZ First want to tear it all apart for the sake of the angry mob they whipped into an electoral frenzy.
I don’t like the established order too but I don’t see any vision for what could take it’s place – just a desire to smash everything.
What the fuck are you on about?
Winston packed a sad with Jack Tame when he asked for costings for his BS policies – then was threatened by Winnie the Shit for doing his job well – challenge the ideologues … conservative, liberal and social democrat!
The so called 4th estate has historically been “owned” by right wing fucktards – editors are generally right wing maggots so you can guess what actually gets to “print”.
Stop your whinging to sort the country like you said you would – oh, that was just bullshit to get elected – heel we forgot from last time.
Dang …
We make pretty much the same call every year because we think it is notbjust common sense but also the right thing to do.
What utter bollocks. Don’t give us some shit about the media being soft on Labour. Are you a Winston Peters fan boy? They ask light weight questions of politicians of all shades. With that stupid old shit Peters they had the audacity to ask what his policies actually were.
The Dumb Lives matter Parliament Lawn protests?
The Taxpayer’s Union roadshows?
Groundswell?
The NZ Initiative?
The FreeSpeech Union?
Corporate Lobbyists?
Real Estate donors?
Federated Farmers?
Anti-Māori roadshows?
Did you think that only you were allowed to protest?
Which one are you, or as I suspect, you are all of the above?
“Wait, what…..you NOW want the fourth estate to do it’s job, hard interviews with the PM and MPs, but you happy with the patsy interviews/questions Labour had over the last 6yrs…..Pffft.”
Well given the biggest patsy interviews /questions the previous 9 years, why are you even complaining?
“Tova then Jessica”
We all saw how the media treated the last govt.
Ohhh Charles, going back to last National Govt over 6yrs ago….ohhh look a squirrel!
Look it’s easy enough, if PM Luxon is being interviewed over the next 9yrs and he replies to a probing question with either: ‘I will get back to you on that’, ‘I refute the premise of the question’….then let’s see how the lefties (and Martyn) react, not well I would imagine?
Oh dear, you clearly lack any intelligence. I may be a squirrel yet not a nut like yourself. You won’t have noticed any questions on policy to National is followed by ” we are seeking advice” That is clue for we don’t have any idea.
And any other questions are answered by ” under the previous Labour government ”
Yet it seems that’s okay in your miniscule blue stained brain, yet looking at squirrels if it’s the other way around. You are very droll.
Journalist wouldn’t recognise “the line” they are simply not competent.
Why do you keep going back to Labours 6 years you right wing twat. National are in Government now, they need to take responsibility. The only thing we’ve seen is soft patsy even pansy profiles of Luxon in the right wing National party NZ Herald.
As someone said the other day “I feel a March coming on”
Been up the street a time or two in ’81.
Don’t ride bikes any more but I’m glad I still have my helmet and crash gear.
Karl du Fresene is a racist, homophobic, misogynistic evangelical theocrat who wants a total ban of abortion, homosexuality and sex outside of marriage and imposition of biblical gender roles.
.
Millsy, that is the most sense you have posted…ever!
Please keep it up.
Good reply I’m Bob right.
…and Hehir is a hard right Catholic neo-Falangist who holds a torch for Franco and Pinochet. The guy needs to be cancelled.
Martyn a “liberal progressive democracy” is what you apparent WANT NZ to be. But it’s a contradiction in terms, because most contemporary “progressives” are decidedly illiberal. As Tui pointed out last year, contemporary progressivism is self-righteous, AUTHORITARIAN, and untethered from reality.
I’ll stick with just “liberal” democracy thanks.
I would rather have free healthcare and abortion on demand with rights for LGBT’s, etc than free speech.
Where is that quote from Ir? Your first sentence is obviously only personal opinion, but who was it that commented on the role of the Fourth Estate?
The fascist NATZ coalition have already started their purged even before the new year begun targeting my poor pakeha friend invalid beneficiary who is blind cutting her TAS of $88 for someone to come and mower her lawn attend to her gardens.
In edition with her rent increasing by $50 also other inflationary cost she would be lucky to be left with $15 to spend on food. This is the crypto-fascist BS the right lead govt is implementing to give their elite donors a tax break.
Free Aotearoa
It’s exactly what the majority voted for so yes, let’s have it all please
It seems like the RWNJ don’t like it when the boot is on the other foot. Well, tough. If they were pleased at the paltry pissant tiny turnouts at their trite little protests, just wait till they see what a real 100K strong angry protest looks like. They might, just might, get a inkling of how far out of touch they really are. It might behove them to remember that ignored protests lead to bricks through windows. That’s a warning that the next thing through the window is Molotov cocktail. It’ll only take one. Then the message might get through.
John Campbell is one of the best journalists and broadcasters this country has.
That might not say what Martyn intended.
Unfortunately NZ doesn’t appreciate the Fourth Estate. See below – we prefer bankers. Journalists left and right need to ask themselves why that is. I certainly wouldn’t rely on any journalist to guard my free speech.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/11/the-most-trustworthy-professions-in-new-zealand-and-other-countries.amp.html
Sean Plunkett never came out openly as, a knuckle dragging champion of white race nation supremacy via majority while the boomers live (and by landed gentry estate wealth and power afterwards), while working in state broadcasting.
In his day, establishment expressed its cultural hegemony merely with the dominant presence of the white face affecting a toned accent of the wealthier suburb, or private school.
Whereas du Fresne one of the Mr Magoo’s at the Dominion was always a Garth George, but one without a conscience.
That said Plunkett has become boorish on radio and on x social media and Du Fresne can still write in complete sentences.
“Less people voted than in 2017. ”
Fewer.
Thank you. That annoys me too.
Amazing how the left can’t accept they lost.
It’s hard to accept the loss of our democracy with the new government, you are right there Bob a job.
“Normally he is actually far better than this on free Speech, right up until someone says something he doesn’t like.”
I’ve been censored several times on du Fresne’s blog to the point where I’ve given up commenting. He freely admitted to me that he gives his toadies a lot more latitude than his critics. So his free-speech credentials are pretty shaky to be honest.
“superstitions as social policy“
And what are “te mana o te wai” policies then? No superstition involved in Mātauranga Māori either huh?
Unaddressed white guilt dies hard.
It was a fair assessment of NZs most incompetent government ever!
Let’s see if the coalition government can trump that. I don’t see much difference between the two so I guess it’s another 3yrs+ of neoliberalism failures.
It’s all labours fault too. Lange & Douglas rinse and repeat over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… again.
Labour did it!
I ain’t signing up to some blue review – I mean these big “C” Conservitives spell conservatism C-H-R-O-N-Y C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M. National wouldn’t know a Nationalist movement if they fell in front of one. I’d vote for a conservative environmental party in a heartbeat. Fuck GreenPeace – I want GreenWar.
I guess someone at TVNZ has to balance out the tepid Conservatism of Jessica and the insipid Centrism of Maiki and Benedict.
I can see it now. Health (especially Maori health), education, the economy, child poverty, the govt books, CO2 emissions, and more will be getting dramatically better in NZ, but the Left will continue to be mind-numbingly hyperbolic about this govt. “Oh, they make ministries use English words (instead of words only 5% of the population know)? Welp, then they are racist fascists! Sure, NZ families are doing dramatically better, but that doesn’t matter! That basically no one knows the names of the different ministries is what matters!”
Seriously, it never ends. It’s truly comical.
Also: “Less people voted than in 2017.”
The total numbers were higher in 2023. But in terms of turnout, the drop was 1.7%. About 23k votes. Even if all of them went to Labour, that wouldn’t have changed anything. Heck, many of the close races where Labour lost were to TPM. It was always only gonna be a question of whether Winnie got in or not. That’s all.
Let’s face it: Lots of previously centrist Labour supporters turned to National, much much more than this “swath” who just didn’t vote.
All you say will get better under National was created by National. Health, child poverty etc. Population explosion meant more deficit in those areas under Labour but the fact can’t be denied this was a right wing construct.
Let’s face it, it is clear and obvious the voters voted for change, they did not vote for National to fix the issues they created. You would be extremely naive and mind-numbingly hyperbolic to think otherwise.
It’s just silly to say they were created by National, when they improved under National. They just so happen to improve dramatically under National, then start failing the moment Labour came in? You are that big on coincidences?
Let’s take just one example: Immunisation rates.
In 2009, Maori 24 month immunisation rates were under 75%. That’s what the Key govt took over from Clarke’s Labour govt. By 2012, it was at over 90% and stayed over 90% for the rest of the time National was in power, almost reaching 95% by 2016. Labour comes in and by 2018, it’s dropped under 90% and never goes back. It then just totally collapses in 2020 and is now under 70%.
Another example: Child poverty
In 2012, the number of children living in material hardship was almost 200,000. In 5 years, they reduced this down to about 140,000. Labour takes over, and over the last 5 years, they only reduced child poverty down to about 120,000. That drop only started after covid BTW. And remember, this is supposedly why Jacinda got in to politics. It was supposedly their main focus and they couldn’t even do better than National, who Lefties constantly claim don’t care.
People need to stop voting and supporting parties based on how well that party can LARP as if they are for the people and start looking at what they actually achieve. And guess what? That seems to be exactly what people.
I’m angry now and scared, I can tell you.
What I can’t grasp is how people, who I thought were reasonably level-headed, were so blind to the obvious signs that they were electing cruel and un-hinged people, or as it was, just allowing them to walk into office without trying.
What did they have to be angry about, really? It doesn’t take much it seems, to offend people when they really want to be offended.
Someone legislated to save their lives, someone legislated to save their businesses (without much oversight sadly). But someone cared whether they lived or died and yet they are angry.
We accepted the draconian covid measures, at the time, considering it worthwhile to protect the already over-burdened health system (not entirely Labour’s fault) and to protect ourselves. We did so on the understanding that those measures would be lifted asap. We KNEW they would be. We didn’t think Labour were really trying to be dictators at the time.
I still don’t but some people found it a convenient thing to get worked up about. They lost patience. The fact that it was mainly Aucklanders who were restricted most, didn’t sink in with a lot of them.
Those are the same people who don’t think they need safety equipment on themselves or their quad bikes and tractors or their children, or seat belts. They love to buck against the ‘nanny state’. Yet if they were so smart as to not have unnecessary accidents the state wouldn’t have been nannying them. Therefore, they aren’t that smart it seems.
These angry people have let this cruel and secretive govt. get in. Luxon’s self-confidence about getting the best deal in negotiations has been shown to be over-hyped nonsense born of vast inexperience and we’re left with the exact crowd that MB has described.
it’s interesting how many groups and individuals are required to support the right. Those r/w protest groups noted by MB, are just the most obvious ones.
I’m very glad the left is now taking action and leaders are emerging who have much more mana and reputation than that ill-educated, over-confident, raggle-taggle lot on the right.
Our problems are far beyond their petty, self-serving understanding.
Is it so bad to put peoples’ welfare and our precious planet above profit-making, dependent on exploitation of poor people and our one Earth? Why should we even have to ask that question?
Bob is right Joy in agreeing with you.
Like you Joy, only a few of us get what you say.
NZ hasn’t been progressive since its treacherous leaders embraced neo-liberalism.
Fauxgressive is what we’ve got.
Only few of us get that.
Kiwis voted out of frustration and rage and fear. Lockdowns and Three Waters and the Cost of Living and Crime were the issues at hand. The electorate has a short memory and National will make all of the above materially worse. Except their Covid response will be nonexistent and another outbreak is just gathering steam as the Nats get rid of all the free RATs and jabs.
Kiwis will learn the hard way that Nats never change. But the MSM spin machine will work double time to convince us that a) everything is wonderful b) Labour is horrible c) TINA to corrupt crony capitalism, deep cuts to public services, and asset sales to NAF’s rich mates.
Once a bully always a bully.
In this case another example of “Don’t you know who I am”!
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350142368/maggie-barry-claims-misunderstanding-after-police-called-board-flight#cxrecs_s