Wow.
Today’s Q+A between Jack Tame and Chloe Swarbrick was so frosty that it could have cured global warming!
I am a huge Jack Tame fan, the only time he ever disappoints is his apologist position towards Israel, but outside defending Israel, his work is some of the best in NZ.
He is one of the best straight bat interviewers in NZ. I like him.
But sweet Christ everyone has a howler on the job and I think his interview this morning was appallingly condescending rather than a fair interview.
If you are a Green supporter you should have every right to feel genuinely angry at his patronising attitude and sneering disdain for Chloe.
That really was a snide dig at her throughout the interview.
Chloe is right to argue the budget the Greens have argued.
Chloe should have known about the flight risk of assets and how the Greens proposed a solution to that and Jack was right to bring that up as a problem, (I say a cheeky 50%), but the contemptuous manner he kept using ‘adult’ and ‘fantasy’ was more ZB sneering than TVNZ public broadcasting.
Jack didn’t say the C word, but sweet Zombie Jesus he was thinking the B word throughout the interview!
It was like watching a vegan eat a steak.
Despite Jack’s demeaning mockery, Chloe is right.
Late Stage Capitalism on a burning planet demands adult solutions to a. reality that is now upon us. The lack of resilience and true funding of our social and physical infrastructure demands radical reform and that means ethnic sacred cows of the past are now on the table!
Sugar tax, financial transaction tax, windfall profit tax, inheritance tax, pollution tax, it needs to all be on the table, especially so as to ensure the tax yoke is taken off the people and placed on the mega wealthy!
Yes nurses at the highest and most senior levels will pay $5 more a week in tax, but that will provide so much more for the rest of society and the community those nurses work in!
I think there is a lot to like in the Green Budget, some will need refinement, but it actually attempts to answer the real questions confronting us.
You didn’t get that from Jack’s interview, you got ZB culture war malice rather than TVNZ robust debate.
It was ugly.
Green Party and Israel, the two blindspots of Jack Tame.
How disappointing.
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There was a time in this county when one fulltime income could pay off the house and support the family
It was about as good as it will ever be and should be the goal to strive for going forward.
Not according to Labour.
In Chris Hipkins speech (at the party’s Auckland regional conference today) he stated: “We won’t govern by nostalgia or try to turn the clock back to some fictional golden age. The world is changing too fast for that.
New Zealanders don’t need fairy tales. They need leadership that looks forward, not backward”
Is this dig from Labour directed at the Greens? Hinting to them and voters that they clearly won’t be doing that
We usually sneer at things we don’t understand or fear. Maybe Jack can’t get his head outside the hundrum orthodoxy of the current government and it’s sycophantic so called independent economists.
You don’t have to agree but you can at least consider.
When a jockey rides a racehorse he follows instructions from the owner and trainer.
When Jack Tame conducts interviews he follows editorial guidelines.
If he is told to try and make the Greens look silly he does what he is told (and paid) to do.
Ditto if he is told to defend Israel.
Why these targets?
Media outlets depend on advertising to keep operating. In fact they have to compete for it.
Advertisers are not usually in favour of higher taxation or fairer wages, or added environmental costs. They are usually pro-Israel because they are also pro-USA.
In short advertisers are Capitalists who support an anti-capitalist media( for some weird reasons various Zeldas and others write here babbling about our socialist and left wing media when such a thing is impossible for commercial media).
The only way that would change is if we had a non-regulated, independent, state broadcaster. We could call it – I don’t know- how about New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation – ( funny, I seem to have heard that name before)
Anyway do not blame Jack personally for his interviews. He is, after all, just following orders.
cheers to all.
Razorbotham
You like terrorists then? Murdering civilians is all OK and socialism for NZL even better.
Sounds like it is more of a draft plan and they are open to hearing from others. Moreover, would consider making changes – very good.
Overall, I also think there is a lot to like in the Green Budget
Raise the ultra wealthy taxes. and should they decide to leave our shores…. so be it, good riddance
Jack was nice to the ex police commissioner though who was spinning about social investment talking like a typical cop using language and terms not consistent with social policy terms. And he did not mention the racist algorithms used in this new approach either.
There are those who will look at the interview and, like some of the commenters here, see it as vindication of their capitalist beliefs. They live in the airy fairy world where there are no consequences to their system of exploitation. In their blindly held beliefs, the planet and future generations of humans are expendable, provided they can continue to try to fill the bottomless holes, where their souls and hearts should be, with wealth, especially when it is obtained on the backs of others. Such egomaniac narcissists are building hatred from their descendants, who when faced with the consequences of their parents and grandparents actions and inactions, will dig them up and cast them out with curses. Karma is a bitch, and inescapable.
Most sane people know that the Greens alternative budget is but a necessary first step, if we as a species, is going to survive beyond 2100 CE. We also know the media here in NZ is as biased as Fox and BBC. So we make our views known and continue the struggle for humanity’s survival, praying that we’re not too late. We also know the political wheel turns, like a pendulum, and education prevails. Already those born this century have the vote, and I for one, note with glee, the numbers of the new generation and the one before it, who are seeking alternatives, and are not afraid to vote with their feet when needed. Dinosaurs like Bob et al, face extinction, and derision from the history books. Chloe has already earned her place among the planet’s saviours, as do all Green and leftists.
I was appalled by Tame’s scepticism and smirking about it all, he clearly knew the very negative comments from penis head and that other shit Seymour. They only have one way of looking at the world and it is the way of their masters. They cannot see outside the neoliberal shit that they follow that makes the rich richer and the poor een poorer. They had this ndependently looked at but that is not good enough, people want every cent detailed. I’ve just read Edmunds comments about debt so that is Labour done absolutely done, useless.
I agree with Jimbob if the rich don’t like it here they can bugger off alright and if that means I have to lower my standing of living that is better than having the whining richest hanging around moaning.
NZ is pretty broken now, & part of the reason is that media criticism is reserved for the Greens, instead of examining the persistent non-performance of the Coalition. We are going backwards as never before, but hey, tax cuts for a bunch of wankers that don’t pay enough as it is.
A senior woman cabinet minister Louise Upston denied womens poor wages were the cause of social inequalities, if they can’t see that actual decent money in people’s pockets that is spent in the economy is for the betterment of all is all that really matters anything else these days is superfluous to change and its all really window dressing
I find it difficult to trust anybody in a suit.
Balls of fucking steel. I’ll give the Greens that credit. They are starting way outside the Overton Window of acceptable economic discourse and staring down the reaction with the attitude of an 80’s punk rocker.
Swarbrick demonstrated a steely resolve to hold her own against the far more comfortable and confident (some might say smug) Tame. Her lack of time on camera and under scrutiny showed up a little but this was a massive step for the party and her as leader and she made that step firmly and deliberately.
She will improve with more time in front of the camera and gain the confidence to expand the economic story more eloquently.
That will include getting onto the ZB circuit and making the case on it’s social and economic merits. And being able to respond in some way to the “gotcha” questions that are going to be coming up over the next 18 months with more frequency and ceremony than shit in a sewerage system.
The left needs to get into that and be able to hold their own – to make the case for greater rural access to health care and social support. To make the case for a stable and predictable income – how that would transform lives in all parts of the country. Make the case for higher levels of deficit spending and higher taxes. Be ready for the pushback have a counter narrative that has wide appeal.
Easy to say I guess. Go the Greens – this is where the economic conversation needs to start.
She’s just like Jacinda. Amazing at campaigning and getting people excited.
However both are terrible at communicating policy, terrible at debating beyond making blanket statements.
Ardern, Swarbrick, Luxon and Key all use so much media trained corporate double speak it’s horrendous listening to them in long form media.
Chloe is fantastic in campaign mode at Rally’s with true believers , fantastic on Twitter, amazing at short sound bites, great at pithy one liners in the house
However, in debates when she has to explain her beliefs to non believers she’s horrendous, rewatch the marijuana referendum debates, she flails constantly in a bill she wrote.
She was particularly horrendous in the debate where Helen Clark joined her
Helen Clark debated in favor of legalization based on harm reduction, tax revenue, new industries for jobs such as hemp growing, replacing single use plastic with hemp plastic and saving hundreds of millions in court and police budgets by legalization.
Chloe just said dumb generic crap like “prohibition is racist”
If Helen Clark wasn’t fighting for legalization it would have been 60% no.
We need more informed, briefed politicians who can communicate and debate policies in plain English like Helen Clark and less touchy feely media com obsessed polis like Ardern and Swarbrick.
James Shaw would have been able to communicate this better than her because he has a deep understanding of the Nz economy.
It’s a travesty that the leadership isn’t James Shaw on the environmental and economic side and Chloe Swarbrick on the social justice side.
Well said Corey
The Greens are like the saying about a box of chocolates: you never quite know what you’ll get.
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