Key’s first speech as Leader
November 28th, 2006 at 1:08 pm by David FarrarJohn Key has delivered his first speech as Party Leader. It’s a very good introduction to the new Leader and what his beliefs are. I recommend people read the entire speech, but below anyway are the parts that struck me the most:
You may know that before entering politics I had a career in international finance. That career was sufficiently successful that from time to time the media likes to question me about what I might be “worth”.
Such questions imply that in the totality of my life, my investments are the most important assets I have accrued. How wrong that is. As a husband and father, the things I value most in life are not anything you’ll see listed on the Stock Exchange.
I support families. In modern New Zealand they come in many shapes and sizes, so let me tell you that I for one will not pre-judge the construction of them. They are in my view the most important institution in our society, and any government I have the privilege of leading will do what it can to support them.
My father died when I was a young child. I do not remember him.I was raised, along with my sisters, by my mother, in a state house in Christchurch. Back then I thought I was poor and, by most standards, we were. As I grew up, though, I recognised that what my mother gave to my sisters and I was far more valuable than money.
She instilled in us the desire to improve ourselves by our own hard work, the confidence that we were able to do it, and the hope that it was possible to do so. She instilled in me an ethic of hard work and determination and a genuine belief that “you get out of life what you put into it”.
There will always be a social welfare system in New Zealand because you can measure a society by how it looks after its most vulnerable. Once, I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.
Yet, also, you can measure a society by how many vulnerable people it creates – people who are able to work, and able to take responsibility for their own lives and their children’s lives, yet end up depending long-term on the State.
The government, of course, has an important role to play in the modern economy. But the appropriate role for the government is in the background, not in the foreground. We need to improve the regulatory and institutional conditions under which firms operate, and then step back and let them establish, grow, export and hire staff.
I am by nature an optimistic person. I am, after all, a Blues supporter. [DPF - heh]
If you are looking for a guide to my political philosophy then I suggest you look no further than the core values and principles of the National Party.
Personal freedom, individual responsibility, a competitive economy, and support for families and communities are the very principles under which the party was formed 70 years ago, and they are as relevant today as they were then.
The National Party will always believe in one standard of citizenship and I want to make this very clear to you today.Yet within that standard of citizenship we should celebrate the cultural, religious and ethnic differences we all bring to New Zealand.
Maori are the tangata whenua of this country, and we have nothing to fear by acknowledging that. It is part of what makes New Zealand unique. I welcome the Maori renaissance, and some of the great initiatives like the kohanga reo movement which have come from Maori, for Maori.
It is a mystery to me why the political Left acts as if it has a monopoly on environmental policies, when it is obvious to anyone who cares to look that all of us, across the political spectrum, with the exception perhaps of the Greens, have taken too long to put the protection of our environment at the forefront of our thinking.
That needs to change. In the National Party we have taken steps to do this, and we will be taking more steps.
I hope this gives you a brief overview of some of the core principles that motivate me as Leader of the National Party.
There is much, much more to come, and I relish the challenge of building the policies and vision that will help create for New Zealand a more dynamic future.
Again I think it was a very good speech. It set out some differences between National and Labour, yet very nicely got away good messages on welfare, education, family and ethnic diversity and the environment.
Related posts:
- Little has personal concerns over Goff speech
- Don Brash valedictory speech
- The speech Goff should have given
- Key’s speech to the Menzies Centre
November 28th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
John Key is a husband and father. Yahoo serious. Maybe kiwiland is to be injected with some much needed paternal balance. We might even see the family catapulted into importance ? Only time will tell eh ?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
More steps to protect the environment?
So they will protect the tidal area at Whangamata from private developers turning it into a marina ??
Pigs can fly!!
Vote:National is on the side of the developers and allways will be.
November 28th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Who is he trying to appeal to, me? Sorry, no thanks John, I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you didn’t read that email, nor do I believe you were totally unaware of the EB campaign.
And what a massive broadside at the Dishonest one, that I did like.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Does Key have the same contempt for National party voters as Brash did?
And how do all those who voted National at the last election feel about how they were perceived by Brash and co? (i.e. in exactly the same manner as I perceive you).
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Yep, NZs a great place for the rich and poor.
Its the hardworking suckers in the middle that have to pay for it all that concern me!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
“On many occasions I have read in the media that John Key did a good job against Michael Cullen at the last election, that John Key knows his stuff on finance, but that no one knows what John Key really stands for.
Well, I’m pleased today to have the opportunity to say a few words about what John Key stands for, because I know him rather better than most commentators”
Talking about yourself in the third person is the first sign of madness.
Porcupine, easy solution to all of your problems mate, if you think being poor is so great why not give all of your money away. Quick and simple.
Or do you not have the courage of your convictions?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
John Key: If you are looking for a guide to my political philosophy then I suggest you look no further than the core values and principles of the National Party.
Personal freedom, individual responsibility, a competitive economy, and support for families and communities are the very principles under which the party was formed 70 years ago, and they are as relevant today as they were then.
And right after that National voted to nationalise Telecom’s asset.
The country of course has already forgotten that National instituted the welfare state that has brought so many families into state dependency, the modern slavery, for generations.
And who remembers that National introduced the RMA, the property grab par excellence?
Personal freedom and a competitive economy are all good and well, unless they stand in the way of National getting a few votes.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
I like what I hear so far. I would like to be able to vote against Labour at the next election!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Dont have any to give away – I was to busy working and paying taxes when the polis were shafting.
But at least conceeed I’m and EEO when it comes to criticism, unlike socialista flatlanders.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
DPF, that is a fantastic speech, and the standard of comments here in response to it either for or against is sadly lacking.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
And don’t forget National condemned all men as perpetrators of DV, when they kindly gift wrapped a Christmas present for many unsuspecting men . The 15th December 1995 Domestic Violence Act !!….. was passed with a white ribbon attached. I hope John looks at the problems associated with fatherlessness?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
There is nothing in that speech that you couldn’t cut and paste in to a Labour party speech (if not the wet-left end anyway).
Hmmmmmm anyone for a fourth term?
G
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
It is very much a David Cameron style speech.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Gman,
Vote:I think John said he was a parent. Our PM cannot say that, but I bet she would love to cut and paste that eh ? Yeah right !
November 28th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
James C – I suspect you’d vote for Satan before National, so not really target audience.
Hayman – I think allowing the Environment Court to weigh up and decide what is best for the environment is the best option. Or do you want Ministers to be able to ignore it?
Sonic – if third party referral is a sign of madness, then Helen Clark has been insane for some years. Pretty great speech if that is the mest you can find to whine about.
Kent – I agree it is one of the better crafted speeches of recent times.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
The really delightful thing about this speech, is that the usual suspects don’t have to change the script at all: “Secret agenda… glove puppet of Amerikkkan corporate neo-con Exclusive Brethren special interests… fucks puppies… won’t rest until the gutters run red with the blood of poor black babies… you just wait and see.”
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Sonic you said, “It is very much a David Cameron style speech. ”
Is Mr Cameron also a parent to ?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
He is making all the right noises. I was impressed, and I’m a Greens voter – scary.
Does seem like he is pulling the party closer to the centre, which means in terms of functional ‘opposition’ there will appear to be less points of difference. However time will tell.
DenMT
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Love this bit of fence sitting:
“When I left university, if anyone had heard of global warming they were keeping it to themselves. Now, no one with any awareness of the world can be ignorant of it.”
If he said anymore than ‘everbodys talking about it’ those big donors would have their chequebooks firmly shut. Not that anybody knows who they are of course.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Great speech.Helps move National towards the center of the political center, while outlining what National believes in. While short on actual policy detail, the election is still two years away, so this can be forgiven. It appears to show a softening of policy towards the eniviroment and Maori, but still cherishes the economic liberalism that National supports. Can’t wait until Helen clark and her Liarbour colleagues (hopefully) get thrown out of officeand replaced by a Key led National government.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Mr Key made a good point in a radio interview when asked what National would do for pensioners.
He pointed out that NZ Super is indexed to the average wage and that therefore economic growth will lead to an automatic lift in NZ Super payments.
And this is the Key difference between Labour and National.
Labour peddle the politics of greed and wealth redistribution.
National promotes economic growth and opportunity for all.
A rising economic tide will lift the boats of over 450,000 recipients of NZ Super.
Labour have been peddling the myth that we need punitive marginal tax rates to punish the ‘rich’ in order for there to be enough cash to pay NZ Super and run schools and hospitals.
It is absolute garbage.
If we could have a real economic growth rate of 5%, then in 20 years time we could DOUBLE what we pay for NZ Super etc, WITHOUT high marginal tax rates.
It is time for Labour’s politics of greed and theft to be exposed.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
dad4justice said “I think John said he was a parent. Our PM cannot say that, but I bet she would love to cut and paste that eh ? Yeah right !”
I’m a parent who thinks it the individuals choice whether to be a parent or not.
There’s plenty of Parents out there that are arses!
The way you think makes me think you are one of them!
Maybe if you’d spent more time being a good father and partner you wouldn’t be a bitter son of a bitch now.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
OK I’ll try to outline the problems with this.
Firstly, coming from a background such as he did is almost the rule for success, not the exception! But…
Where is the competing in the modern world?
Where’s the future vision for NZ?
We’ve seen a massive increase in the gap between rich and workers under successive left and far left governments. Do we really want another one?
We have failed in developing the third tier of industry we need – private industry between the primary producers on the one hand, and our only other major employer – the gov/quango axis on the other hand. White papers on biotech and smart industry go back decades! But nothing ….
The reason is simple…
You can’t build a modern expert based economy on these archaic ideas. If we want the skills we have to be prepared to pay for them – even if the peasants of the modern economy need to be franchised.
How are we to attract the intelligencia we need for our “knowledge economy”? How are they going to trust that they will share equally in NZs future? The profits will go to the business owners and the welfare state will get the left-overs. And the hard working people will not share in the spoils – again!
There’s nothing here except what the elite need – cheap labour + civil rest.
Look at all countries – the elite don’t care about them – they have their stash overseas in case of trouble. Its us that are stuck here that care about the country.
Fine, have it that way, you keys and Farrars – while it lasts – but it is not sustainable in the modern world!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Is Satan on National’s list?
The speech is nice, a motherhood and apple-pie kind of nice, he says nothing at all though, apart from an implication that he is very different than Brash, which is of course absolutely necessary in the current light.
As for saying nothing, prima facie he is very good at it, even a critical cynic like myself cannot disagree with apple-pie.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Simon
I ask you as a parent .Nothing else . I am not bitter .
Can you explain to me why this government has twice refused to ratify a UN Declaration supporting equal parenting ? I do not understand why ?
The impression I got from John’s speech was that he values encouraging the family .
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
How’s Keysy on the Carbon con?
Even battler still doesn’t get it.
Vote:Superannuation that isn’t private is merely a pension.
November 28th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
“he values encouraging the family”,
No, he is pushing emotive buttons which earn votes for his party.
Sure, he may value the family, but don’t be so naive to assume his ‘values’ show through in a speech.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
James C – maybe you answer the question I asked Simon ?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
dad4justice-
Vote:Wouldn’t you be more at home in some nutty hard right party like Destiny or Act?
November 28th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Sorry d4j, I do not know the details, perhaps you could provide a link?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Porcupine,
Generally the more people you help in getting what they need/want, the more you end up with yourself.
The ‘gap’ between rich and poor is really irrelevant.
There will always be people who are ambitious and push ahead, people who are happy with a basic life and people who just don’t seem to pull their socks up and do anything at all.
What is important is that the tide is rising, since a rising tide lifts all boats.
NZ Super is a case in point – it is the sole income for over 450,000 New Zealanders. Not a small number.
Their income is indexed to the average wage.
Now there might be a small number of people earning a huge wage, a large number earning the average and a huge number just below the average.
Now you could argue that the “GAP” is bad and should be reduced.
Look at what you’re really saying when you argue for the gap to be reduced though?
You either have to lift something like 80% of the work force, or reduce the wage of the top 5 – 10 %. So either you have to pay cleaners $1,000,000 + per year, or you have to tell CEO’s that even though they are managing organisations with 5000+ employees they should only be earning $40k.
Let’s say you support the left and you think it is outrageous that people get paid high salaries.
So we cut all their salaries.
What does that do to the average wage?
Lower it.
What does that do to NZ Super payments?
Lower them.
What does that do to Tax revenue?
Lower it.
What does that do to attract talent into NZ Business?
Reduce the incentive.
Ok, but the “GAP” between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ has been reduced since everyone is earning 40k instead of some people earning $1,000,000.
What is the point of it all? You reduce the incomes of the top 5 to 10% of earners, lowering the average wage, lowering NZ Super payments, lowering tax revenue and reducing the incentive to work to get to those positions.
Are the cleaners any better off? No.
Are receipients of NZ Super any better off? No.
Are schools and hospitals any better off? No.
Oh, but you’ve ‘closed the gap’.
Bah, humbug.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
“nutty hard right party”, you mean National? Or can Act be born-again now that National are disowning their influence?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Good to see National are going to allow gay couples to actually marry, that is a genuine step forward.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
The carbon con is bureaucrat driven – its going ahead no matter what government with the minor glitch that iwi might claim CO2 under the Treaty – but a good dose of compo will cure that one.
Overheard at the IPCC.
“Hey us governments can get away with anything”
“No you cant”
“yes we can”
“Prove it”
“Ok $50 bucks says we can get our citizens to agree to a tax on thin air!”
Hey any wellingtonians willing to go to VUW on the 1st and stir a bit – that would be peachy thanks – sorry I can make it – taxes to save for and all.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
I don’t have time to read the whole thing, but the extract is great, actions always speak louder than words, but if these words are any indication welcome back National, I’ve always thought that the “right” make a mistake not explaining in a targeted way why their policies can be as good for the less well off as the mid-top earners & John Key has talked about that, which also impressed me.
Vote:In alot of ways I think as Labour in the UK found “the new way” of fiscal conservatism ( relatively ) along with social action, there is a new way for the right which is fiscal freedom & conservatism aligned with social policy designed to help everyone with a leg up.
Some might argue the differences are subtle, but I think there can/should be enough differentiation to make for a real choice & so far it looks the path Key/English are heading down, personally I think it’s a very attractive policy mix & very electable.
November 28th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Or, does “one law for all New Zealanders” not apply to gay New Zealanders, thus not allowing them to marry under law? In that case he intends differing laws for different groups.
So either: 1. “one law for all” is true, and gay marriage will be allowed, or 2. “one law for all” does not include gay marriage, so is just a meaningless bull-shit sound-bite and Key is no more ‘principled’ than the dishonest one.
Which is it?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
The one fear I have is that Key’s has been brainwashed by the global warmming nutters. By all means we should look after and try and protect the enviroment but when someone goes to a lecture and comes out a born again green you have to worry. Sure the world has problems but to believe the shit Al Core talks without question is irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst. The last thing we need is the same sanctimonious crap that is the lefts bread and butter.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Looks like a good speech, but you know politicians – the sweeter the talk…
Anyway, Key’s voting record doesn’t really match up with a lot of what he’s saying.
Will wait and see..
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
D4J said “Can you explain to me why this government has twice refused to ratify a UN Declaration supporting equal parenting ? I do not understand why ?”
No i can’t, but i get tired of people judging others based not on their roles and actions as Politicians but whether they have children or not, their sexual orientation or whether they sleep around.
I thought in NZ we have seperated church and state!
Look just put on your batman suit and climb the sky tower or somethin!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
James by definition marriage is a union between a man and a woman who agree to live as HUSBAND AND WIFE.
“Gay marriage” is a self-contradictory term.
This law applies to everyone.
It is one law for all.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I always thought that Andrew Adamson should have looked no further than Helen Clark for casting of the White Witch and Cullen as her angry dwarf for The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
And Helen may have felt she dealt the National Party a fatal blow at the stone table, when Mallard exposed Don Brash’s alleged affair
But like C S Lewis says – the witch had forgotten a deeper magic,
Bring it on John Key – let the Great Battle begin
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I always thought that Andrew Adamson should have looked no further than Helen Clark for casting of the White Witch and Cullen as her angry dwarf for The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
And Helen may have felt she dealt the National Party a fatal blow at the stone table, when Mallard exposed Don Brash’s alleged affair
But like C S Lewis says – the witch had forgotten a deeper magic,
Bring it on John Key – let the Great Battle begin
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I always thought that Andrew Adamson should have looked no further than Helen Clark for casting of the White Witch and Cullen as her angry dwarf for The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
And Helen may have felt she dealt the National Party a fatal blow at the stone table, when Mallard exposed Don Brash’s alleged affair
But like C S Lewis says – the witch had forgotten a deeper magic,
Bring it on John Key – let the Great Battle begin
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Porcupine,
OK I’ll try to outline the problems with this.
Firstly, coming from a background such as he did is almost the rule for success, not the exception! But…
Where is the competing in the modern world?
Where’s the future vision for NZ?
As Key says, this is the job of the business sector, not the government. The government has to focus on creating the environment (of education, health, welfare, justice and infrastructure (eg roads)) that enables a person like Key to succeed as he has. It is not the job of government to intervene heavily in businesses, although they do need to create the right environment. In his speech Key alludes to reducing interference in business and he probably has good ideas on how to generate the right environment given his background.
I think you are expecting too much. He is only a party leader, not God.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I always thought that Andrew Adamson should have looked no further than Helen Clark for casting of the White Witch and Cullen as her angry dwarf for The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
And Helen may have felt she dealt the National Party a fatal blow at the stone table, when Mallard exposed Don Brash’s alleged affair
But like C S Lewis says – the witch had forgotten a deeper magic,
Bring it on John Key – let the Great Battle begin
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Battler, your ideas about how well off seniors will be are flawed by failure to take history and economics into account.
Firstly, as the GDP tide rises so will the aspirations and the wages of the workers and so pensioners will have no greater disposable income. As countries become wealthy they pay the price of high service costs. We get around it temporarily by bringing in cheap labour but they get uppity and want a piece of the pie (thankfully).
Secondly, since when have governments given a toss about old people? Their out of the loop – they can’t be harvested.
What I am saying is we need a vision, as a country, to make the transition from a low tech/low wages society to a high tech/high wages society where more people get a bite at the pie. The elite don’t like this concept because they can survive without this, but I don’t think the country can – in fact since the 80s reforms have been swept aside by “tax us wealthy and spend us poor” governments I doubt that is achievable now. So where is NZs future?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
His description of the family groups that he supports seems as precise as the principles of the treaty. The current definition only excludes widows, widowers and other single people living alone, are we to assume they do not have his support…If he was born in the South Island and is now a Blues supporter he truly is a man in a million…He has impeccable credentials to be a finance minister and so has his predecesser, so why would he allot that portfolio to a farmer.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Furthermore Kent, the Government usually gets it wrong in Health, Education and Roading despite the billions of dollars they pour into these three industries which all suffer from monopoly provider capture.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Wow it’s like Bill English II leading National.
It’s a wonderfully flowery speech that says absolutely nothing. National should make a pledge card, then we’d understand, and it’s legal now so no problems there.
Still, I like National a lot more under Key and English than I did Brash and Brownlee.
All in all, pretty naff.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Tis a good speech, but not a hell of a lot different than what Dr Brash would’ve said; it just has more buzz words chucked in.
He’s been using a lot of buzz words such as inclusiveness & modern. It’s not a criticism, it’s just that it doesn’t actually mean much – just sounds good. Of course Helen’s know this for years.
I like what John said about governments being in the background rather than the foreground.
I’d like to hear what John thinks about the monarchy, our current constitutional make up, & the privy council. Hope he’s in favour of keeping the status quo. The Dear Leader loves screwing around with things like that.
The future looks bright for National, but I’ll miss Don, he would’ve made a great PM. I’d wish John good luck but somehow I don’t think he’ll be needing it. Bye Helen, your toast.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
james c. wrote:
Or, does “one law for all New Zealanders” not apply to gay New Zealanders, thus not allowing them to marry under law? In that case he intends differing laws for different groups.
So either: 1. “one law for all” is true, and gay marriage will be allowed, or 2. “one law for all” does not include gay marriage, so is just a meaningless bull-shit sound-bite and Key is no more ‘principled’ than the dishonest one.
Which is it?
Bloody good question – now why don’t you ask the next allegedly tolerant, diverse ‘social liberal’ Labour MP you meet why they voted for the Civil Union Bill which entrenches discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and when they’re planning to put forward a government bill ammending the Marriage Act to allow gay and lesbian citizens full equality before the law? Perhaps you’d like to get your own forked tongue fixed before calling Key a hypocrite.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Baxter the trouble with the debate about ‘families’ is that it has centred on the ‘nuclear family’ of mum, dad and the children and people who argue in favour of this are referred to as bigots and extremists.
The “Nuclear Family” is the BASIS of family, since everyone has a natural mother and father.
However ‘Family’ includes your blood and marriage ties up, down and across your family tree.
The debate gets bogged down when people start trying to reconstruct family along the lines of ‘adult caregivers with children’ or a ‘household of people who live together and share a common bond’ etc.
While these people may have close ties and bonds and a sense of community (which is a healthy thing to have), they are not family.
We shouldn’t be afraid to determine that the basis of family is a Father and Mother with biological children, who then form part of a wider family through blood and marriage ties, plus through legal adoption, and design “family” related policies around this.
This does not have to automatically exclude addressing the needs of other forms of community for example non-biological care-givers, people who share a household but are not married or related by blood etc.
Sometimes we are too scared to say, ok, this is what family actually is, these are the policies that are good for families, and this is what we are going to do.
And to then say, ok these are other community groups, and they need this or that policy, and this is what we are going to do.
For some bizzare reason we feel the need to re-define ‘family’ or re-define ‘marriage’ to make people feel like they fit in. This is not necessary at all.
Addressing the policy needs of one group need not be to the exclusion of policy addressing the needs of other groups.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
battler – a good response.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Craig,
Marriage is by definition a union between a man and a woman, who become husband and wife.
A homosexual relationship is obviously different in that it involves a man and man or a woman and a woman.
Putting people’s views regarding the rights or wrongs or otherwise about homosexuality to one side, most people would accept that those in homosexual relationships should be entitled to the same treatment as everyone else in terms of tax, property law, benefits & entitlements, wills, health care decision making etc etc.
This is largely achieved by the omnibus legislation that was passed in terms of the Civil Union bill and the Relationship Property bill.
So why then would people in homosexual relationships want to take on an institution that by definition is nothing to do with their type of relationship?
It would be like two children, a boy and a girl, saying that the terms ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ are discriminatory because only boys are called ‘brothers’ and only girls are called ‘sisters’. Or that the terms ‘father’ and ‘mother’ are discriminatory, since only men are called ‘fathers’ and only women are called ‘mothers. Why can’t women be called ‘fathers’ and men be called ‘mothers’? Because by definition they are not.
It doesn’t make men any better than women or women any better than men. It is simply a difference. And it’s ok. We are not all clones.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Yeah good blog battler. All this Orwellian pc new-speak claptrap is just political bullshit.
Get on with dealing with the real issues of the country like helping working families without making them subservient to a Dip Drama at the tax department. Before the rising tide washes us all away.
Speaking of Orwell I am looking at pig to man and back to pig again and having a bit of trouble telling them apart.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
I always forget how politically brutal Conservatives are. Don Brash not yet cold in his political grave and you have all forgotten him already.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Sonic,
how about the lefties?
Dover Samuels anyone?
George Hawkins?
Matt Robson?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Please tell me Keysy is of at least average height….short man syndrome has screwed many with the political control gene.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Yeah Sonic, that old conservative Stalin was pretty brutal.
Meanwhile, Helen and Mike Moore continued to have a loving and respectful relationship from the second she shafted him.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Porcupine:
This might surprise you, but the status of my most intimate human relationship is a ‘real issue’ is me.
And here’s another little reality cheak for both you and battler. When my parents married, the laws of the Republic of South Africa marriage by definition was between one man and one women of the same race. Inter-racial relationship not only weren’t recognised in law – they were classed as sex crimes, and any resulting children were illegitimate in point of law. Using your logic, why would people like my parents want access to marriage in apartheid-era South Africa or the Jim Crow American South? (And I’d note when the US Supreme Court struck down miscegination laws as unconstitional, they didn’t allow a ‘civil union’ marriage in all but name ‘compromise’. That’s worth thinking about.)
While a middle-aged Maori Protestant widow marrying a white Catholic woman twenty-two years his junior might be disapproved by a good proportion of the population, New Zealand’s civil law was wisely silent on the matter. And while you’re running the ‘marriage is for procreation’ line (admittedly with more subtlety that usual around here), I’d also note the infertile and contraceptive users are not prohibited to marry in New Zealand.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
“Battler, your ideas about how well off seniors will be are flawed by failure to take history and economics into account.
Firstly, as the GDP tide rises so will the aspirations and the wages of the workers and so pensioners will have no greater disposable income. As countries become wealthy they pay the price of high service costs. We get around it temporarily by bringing in cheap labour but they get uppity and want a piece of the pie (thankfully).”
However economies of scale and substitution of capital for labour eventually bring prices per unit down meaning people end up getting more ‘bang for their buck’.
Look at food production, cars, computers etc.
Who would have thought 10 years ago you would be able to buy a notebook computer for under $900 that would be 20 times as powerful as the desktop machines that were going for $3000 + back then?
“Secondly, since when have governments given a toss about old people? Their out of the loop – they can’t be harvested.”
They all have sons and daughters and grandchildren that they are concerned about. A voting bloc of 450,000 is not to be sneezed at by any government.
“What I am saying is we need a vision, as a country, to make the transition from a low tech/low wages society to a high tech/high wages society where more people get a bite at the pie. The elite don’t like this concept because they can survive without this, but I don’t think the country can – in fact since the 80s reforms have been swept aside by “tax us wealthy and spend us poor” governments I doubt that is achievable now. So where is NZs future?”
Well it certainly won’t be in tax, spend, regulate and re-distribute.
Democracy is doomed when the voting public realise they can vote themselves largess from the treasury.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Ok Kent, in a small country like NZ the government will always be a bit bigger player than in larger countries with a critical mass to make guv escape velocity.
As battler has said – the government gets it wrong a lot in the wastage in the services it provides. We need this waste diverted into nurturing clean, green, efficient industry.
To do that we need a change of heart as a nation, if we are to move forward. A concrete example is in science and technology teachers. We have a shortage of good ones and we have to be prepared to pay more for them to recruit to the areas needed. And we need standards slowly increasing not decreasing. the world doesn’t owe us a living even if we are godzone people! Malaysia, Thailand, India, China, Ecuador have no such reservations!
We have no shortage of Dip Dramas teaching poetry.
We have got to, as a nation, once and for all accept that productive workers should get paid well, according to their skills and:
F***ing stop funding people’s hobbies just to buy votes!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Have never liked him, don’t trust him (neither should have Bill English), believe he is LYING about his level of knowledge of the EBs and think he is a bit too slick for my liking (reminds me too much of politicians like Paul Keating). He is more image than substance…
But having said that I think he is politically the best choice for National and better than Helen. He will take some heat next election in the leaders debates about EBs but I’m sure he will have thought of some good retorts by then…
He has given a good first speech as leader…
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Sonic,
What is worse is that the public has forgotten him too.
Hagar book? Don is gone, move on.
New National leadership. No blood on the floor.
Meanwhile Labour is making a hash of the Stadium debacle, and looking a combination of both bullying & completely inept.
In the long term Hagar (or is it you Sonic?) has probably done National a favour- the leadership change was almost inevitable, the book made it easy & smooth.
The only good thing for Labour that has come out of all this is that attention is away from PSB (Benson Pope).
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Craig,
How do YOU define marriage?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Battler – I was being devils advocate a bit about old people not having political power. But if they care about their children or grandchildrens future in NZ in the short to medium term they will have to vote themselves poor. I know I do. because my house is my only asset and I want it to devalue for the sake of my children, and I’m not even retired.
Go to America and look at purchasing power – internal goods and services are highly priced. We need lateral thinking here.
Craig – sorry if I hit a nerve. You are a very interesting character. Whatever personal relationship you are in I celebrate it (with boundaries on age and mutual consent which are obvious to any rational human being). I don’t care what people call a family as long as we can stop arguing over it and get on with pulling this country out of the pink hole its got itself into before we re-capitulate SA history in reverse. For example I care very deeply for our environment but it hasn’t stopped the gov/round/brown table from raping the shit out of it since they assimilated the conservation movement in the 70s.
Lets toughen up a bit over semantics and pull together as a nation, while we still can.
And lets remember that the principle of equality crosses party lines – A republican freed the slaves and the very intelligent democrats of Michigan have voted down affirmative action!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
“why don’t you ask your next allegedly tolerant, diverse ‘socially liberal’ Labour MP you meet why they voted for …(CUA)”
I’ll do just that Craig, and if they claim “one law for all” I will be first to label them a hypocrite. However, it is not a sound-bite I personally recall hearing from Labour. “One law for all” is bollocks Craig, and you know it.
I am sick of blatent politicking when even a cursory study of their claims reveals a whole lot of nothing, and I fully intend to apply the torch to such populist nonsense. If all you can do is point the other way and shout (as opposed to calling it for what it is) then that says more about you than me Craig.
If Key does not follow through with the amendment you mention, then he lacks principle, or is not sincere regarding one law for all (I believe the latter), why pretend that such apple-pie rhetoric actually means anything?
So Craig, whether I have a ‘forked tounge’ or not is irrelevant (I’ve been called a lot worse), yet do not dare allude to me being a hypocrite, because that is something I am certainly not, and I openly welcome such scrutiny to the contrary, yet I can assure you it is scrutiny that Key will falter under if he continues with his meaningless crap from today (note, I am not pretending that such crap will not win him votes, just that it will not withstand examination, as with both Orewas).
And for the others, denying legal marriage to a significant number of kiwis is discriminatory, or at minimum an example of two laws in action, marriage is a union of two people, denied to many on the grounds of preference.
Yours
Vote:james cairney
November 28th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
John Key is the dream leader for National and the first time in its modern history to have such a leader without contest. He will ask for the public to put their confidence in him and I do not doubt they will. Clark is staying out of his way for now, and Cullen who seems to take things so personally put out yet another bitchy press statement. Men and women will vote for him, no question, especially women. He is lethal to Labour and they know it.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Tim I have to admire your ability to pop out per rectum and paste the same shit at regular intervals.
Are you an electorate organiser or a spin doctor?
I hope for all our sakes your right but the polls will tell, and I fear seeing 29% vs 31% from now till the run up to the election.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
I’m broadly happy with Key’s speech, but yes, the devil will be in the detail and actual policy.
Vote:It is good Key is making warming noises to Maori.
But look at the old policy. I saw nothing wrong with that.
At the last election, National wanted everyone to be treated the same.
National wanted a quickening of the Treaty settlemts process and was to increase funding for the tribunal to help this.
Again, good positive ‘pro-Maori’ policies.
Little progress has been made under Liarbour. The big settlements were made under National.
However, the media and Liarbour made National out to be racist because National doesn’t want Maori to be dependent on the state like Liarbour does.
I fear National will have trouble if it tries to jump on the apartheid bandwagon of the other parties.
National needs to sell its policies better and hopefully Key will be able to articulate them better than what Don Brash did.
Certainly some of Brash’s comments were unhelpful although true.
But at least John Key has articulated a good vision, even if a bit warm and fuzzy.
National just needs to learn how to sell its message better.
I believe you should treat people the same whatever their background , etc. This is the belief of the National and Act supporters that I know. I also say this as someone who’s ex is Maori.
As for Don Brash, National still owes a great debt to him.
I feel he still has much to contribute and offers worldly experience. Foreign affairs perhaps?
Don Brash is too good to be wasted, tempting as this might be for some wanting to impress their new media friends.
If Don has to go, it has to be with the maximum dignity possible.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
James Cairney:
I’m not going to apologise for pointing out hypocrisy where I see it either, and I’m tired of alleged ‘social liberals’ posturing on a moral high ground they have no right to occupy. I’ve probably jacked this thread far enough, but I think it’s really a little slimy of you to try and dog-whistle Key on this issue, because we both know nobody in this Parliament is going to invest any political capital in genuine marriage equality. Wish it wasn’t so, but that’s the truth.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
I’m broadly happy with Key’s speech, but yes, the devil will be in the detail and actual policy.
Vote:It is good Key is making warming noises to Maori.
But look at the old policy. I saw nothing wrong with that.
At the last election, National wanted everyone to be treated the same.
National wanted a quickening of the Treaty settlemts process and was to increase funding for the tribunal to help this.
Again, good positive ‘pro-Maori’ policies.
Little progress has been made under Liarbour. The big settlements were made under National.
However, the media and Liarbour made National out to be racist because National doesn’t want Maori to be dependent on the state like Liarbour does.
I fear National will have trouble if it tries to jump on the apartheid bandwagon of the other parties.
National needs to sell its policies better and hopefully Key will be able to articulate them better than what Don Brash did.
Certainly some of Brash’s comments were unhelpful although true.
But at least John Key has articulated a good vision, even if a bit warm and fuzzy.
National just needs to learn how to sell its message better.
I believe you should treat people the same whatever their background , etc. This is the belief of the National and Act supporters that I know. I also say this as someone who’s ex is Maori.
As for Don Brash, National still owes a great debt to him.
I feel he still has much to contribute and offers worldly experience. Foreign affairs perhaps?
Don Brash is too good to be wasted, tempting as this might be for some wanting to impress their new media friends.
If Don has to go, it has to be with the maximum dignity possible.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Porcupine the whole scenario with Key looks like Blair when he took over the UK Labour Party. Except Key has more money (so does not have to suck up to wealthy people) and he plainly does not have that scary wife Blair has. As I said he is the dream leader for the National Party and will command the total loyalty of the Party. Yes I am afraid Brash will now be forgotten but there will be some Ruth Richardson people disappointed.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Fighting over the same vote might work for the two major parties but how loony will their coalition partners be?
On another note:
Wasnt Hagar an animal rights loony who got arrested at some stage – I have a vague recollection…
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Craig,
How on earth can it be ‘slimy’ of me to dog-whistle Key over “one law of all”?
And I will gladly assume the moral high ground where hypocrisy leaves it vacant, and you can judge me for my actions and statements, not for actions and statements of those who do not represent me- thank you very much.
It is apparent you have made assumptions about me, and that is merely you letting yourself down, but if you want to join the rabble, feel free.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
The last bright young thing with a history of being brought up by his mother and sister on the housing commission estate, imbuded with a work ethic, and fast tracked thro the party was Mark Latham of disintegration fame.
Vote:Nah…couldn’t happen.
November 28th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I agree that the true test of where National stands will take place in two years time when actual policy. One area to watch closely is the maori seats in Parliament, which are a divisive historical relic of no benefit to anyone other than pleasing the maori radicals, and inherently undemocratic (if people want mapri MPs they should vote them in). If John Key is for “one law for all” he must support abolishing them. national needs clear points of difference with Liarbour, and race relations is an important one of them.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Hey Sonic,you should talk. Benson-Pope is not even in the grave yet and none of you dozey buggers wants to even remember he exists.
And if today is anythng to go by you are going to have a bloody hard time of it. I heard John Key accosted by some journalist or other on National Radio on the subject of the Maori seats and he just laughed and said ‘Well Peter Sharples told me the other day that he thinks they’re a bad ideas too, so what’s your problem? It’s an issue which needs to be dealt with sensitively and in the fullness of time.’
That seems to me to be Key-speak for ‘fuck off and find something intelligent to ask.’ Bob Hawke was an expert at it.
Absolutely priceless.
If Peter Sharples says it it’s fine but when Dr Brash said it the media pursued him relentlessly.
Methinks a hell of a lot of journalists are going to find their holiday is over and they will actually have to work for their stories.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Nicholas….you racist bastard.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
My partner and I are looking at getting civilised sometime in the next couple of years. I am generally non-religious and so a marriage does not really appeal. Although I guess we have been in a de facto relationship so long that it really doesn’t make a huge difference from a legal standpoint, but there has been a bit of pressure for a real commitment!
You know, Labour should really go the next logical step and get rid of marriage all together from the statute books. The idea would be to leave marriage up to the religious establishments. So, everyone would enter a civil union (for legal purposes) and then those who are religious could also add on marriage.
This way, if you didn’t like the rules for marriage, you would just have to change religion rather than trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole.
Cheers, Chris W.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Peter S wins the prize for being the first to believe that everything is now for the best in this best of all possible worlds for National.
Enjoy the warm glow, but the gaping split in the Nats is now wide open, the hard Right are not just going to go away, the plotters become the plotted against.
As for the rest of us, it is the best thing that could have happened, the political centre in NZ just swung to the left.
Coalition with the Maori party is now the big idea, or even the greens!
Do you really think the people who finance you would think that a good return on the dollar?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
“I also say this as someone who’s ex is Maori.”
Sounds like you have the credibilty this debate needs bro!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Talks Cheap.
Vote:John Key has less than 2 years to find something tha National might stand for. As yet that is nothing.
November 28th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Fatherhood and pavlova.
Personally I prefer Don.
Never mind, I will eat humble pie and rejoin ACT.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
A good speech as it could have been made by a politician from almost any point on the political spectrum and appeals to people from almost any point on the political spectrum.
As far as where NZ is going:
It is the dead who govern.
Look you, man, how they work their will upon us!
Who have made the laws? The dead!
Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead!
And the titles to our lands? Have not the dead devised them?
If a surveyor runs a line he begins at some corner the dead set up; and if one goes to law upon a question
the judge looks backwards through his books until he finds how the dead have settled it – and he follows
that.
And all the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead; and the
orators who preach and lecture are not their mouths filled with words that the dead have spoken? Why,
man, our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!
M. Davisson Post, Uncle Abner
This country will carry on in the same direction until things get so bad that we have a revolution.
The politicians of today follow the thumbnail grooves as much as the rest of us.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Don’t laugh at national without weeping for the country. It is our children who will have to fight the battles when the gravy train stalls.
Rodney will have a smile on his jabba face – polling 10% by xamas and 15-20% by the election.
Oh well perhaps the left is right – National is just a relic of a bygone era – a dinosaur that is unable to adapt to the meteor shower and the fires of climate change.
A pentagon general once said: “our institutions are like a fossil record of things that worried the previous generation”
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
“I like what I hear so far. I would like to be able to vote against Labour at the next election!
By voting for Labour Lite?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
In my view, the gravy train only runs because we can afford to run it. Technology and stability has created enough wealth in the west that the right tolerates the lefts obsession with creating a more equitable society, if an economic disaster occurred similar to the 1929 crash eg. as a result of peak oil, society would quickly reduce the number of do gooders in society, as we would no longer be able to afford them.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Absolutely Andrew, and there’s nothing in the bank to cover even a downturn. No assets to sell except our land which we are jetisoning rapidly.
WADR to the primary sector which do a great job our economy is a house of cards.
Viz the lack of traffic congestion in Auckland when the Education industry is closed for the summer.
Do we think that Asia cannot run their own schools and universities? – think again, and they’re not scared of having high academic standards!
Next time wall street sniffs we’re coming down with terminal Asiatic flu, you lefty spendy whackers!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Why is Key signalling a change in policy?
The policies are popular
It is clear what Don Brash’s failing were
John Key doesn’t have those
If he keeps the same policies, National will move ahead another 5% or so in the polls
But..
What the hell is the point of reviewing the abolition of the Maori seats, promising more global warming taxes or not stopping the growth welfare?
These are not popular policies
The jury is still out, but if these signals turn out to be true. National could be heading for another 2002 in 2008 (Not quite that bad though)
If John Key had been clear about these intentions before last week, Don Brash would still be leader and PM in 2008.
I am very concerned
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Well, National’s “Million-Dollar Baby” seemed to me a relatively good go at repositioning towards the Centre. That makes sense, if you think about National needing to have a partner define itself on the economic right (ACT). Overall, I thought it was a relatively good start. I also think the Million-Dollar Baby has outlined an initial approach that could see an unlikely Maori-National alliance in the future. Think about it, I reckon Labour will be lucky to win any Maori seats at the next election. National and the Maori party could work together on a Hand Up not Hand out approach. Even if they don’t actually do a deal, the threat of a deal will put incredible pressure on Labour negotiations. The Greens are were they are today (left right out) because they could not work with National. In the words of Seinfeld…they have “no hand”. It would make a lot of sense of the Maori party to cultivate good relations with National.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Sigh……..
I just hope he keeps his whatsit in his
Armani jeans
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Good Lord – a post fromn Sonic at 6.56pm. They must be pooping themselves on the 9th Floor if they’ve got all their lackeys working overtime. Or maybe they’re preparing for a resignation of two, maybe Field, maybe BP….hhmmmmmmmm
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
I can see the strategy – take votes off labour and hope ACt picks up enough to stay around.
Hope it works but when the government is formed someone will have policies they can’t deliver on.
Good point too – keep the old one eyed trouser snake under wraps, for heavens sake.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
I like Mr Key, but I think his policy speach is just a ploy to win the vote of Maori and the poor old beneficiaries who have been ripped apart by former Nat Govts.
I seriously doubt,even if nat was elected,they would uphold these leftist policies and it wouldnt be long untill we saw benefit cuts,state asset sales,etc etc ,all the old national tricks creeping in again.
Fact, i was a staunch nat voter since I was a teen in 1966, but had a serious injury in 1992,lost all!, because of nats acc policies at the time, and my policy now is “NATIONAL NEVER”, I am also an active anti national campaigner.
Anyway anything is better than gentleman Brash
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Nicholas O’Kane- “Can’t wait until Helen clark and her Liarbour colleagues (hopefully) get thrown out of office and replaced by a Key led National government.”
Why??
Going by Key’s speech, it’s pretty clear that if he ever makes PM, nothing much will change. Key is a compromiser, just the kind of opposition politician the left feel comfortable with. He’s another example of the inability of National to articulate any message other than one that they think the left wing media will applaud.
Brash and McCully were hated by the left. That is a measure of their effectiveness. English and Key have no message. They have no real bullets to fire. Compared to Brash and McCully, Key and English are liked by the left/ media who will call them “moderates”.
With their determination not to “offend” and their lack of fight, Key and English will take this country back to the aimless political state it was in when Shipley and Bolger governed. They’re just socialists. Labour lite. They’re not the people who will save New Zealand.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Talking about “whatsit” , yes I agree Blondes can be hazardous for the male species. I think when the little head is overcome with sexual excitement = big head can turn to putty – much to the regret of many a good man.
With that said, National would be lunkheads to introduce John – Boy into the present political cuckoo spit, if he wasn’t squeaky clean, as many more skeletons look likely to be thrush into the public arena. Can’t wait.
Poor ole Benson – Dope and Phili Tellies are busy playing pass the tennis ball and coconut , probably in some slimeshare the liebourites have on some secret island.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
So, NZ should continue along the same course, with the main influences being our culture, history, technology, and the mechanics of our political system, if technology makes us more wealthy than the average voter thinks is necessary, the electorate will swing to the left to make the country fairer, if government inefficiency makes us poorer than the average voter thinks is acceptable the electorate will shift to the right to reduce the size of govt, at the moment, because the international economy is doing well, and NZ is piggy backing on it, we are happy to see left of centre policies.
Is that all too simplistic? Do individuals within the system make a bigger difference than my cynical view suggests?
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
What a contrast. Today, a new leader of a major political party who is fresh to politics. Meanwhile, Cullen, Clark and Goff celebrate 75 years of collective political life. That’s 75 years of taxpayer-funded, internally focussed politicking.
Regardless of your political persuasion, you’ve got be encouraged about someone who has real life and career experiences coming into parliament with, dare I say, a fresh perspective on politics.
Politicians almost always rank below pond scum in those trust and confidence type surveys. Why? Because most people in Parliament are politicians (and that’s a pejorative term) – not public servants (and I don’t mean as in the Public Service – I mean people who are there with ideals of serving the public).
I don’t think there’s much to celebrate that we have people in Parliament who have done little else with their lives but be parliamentarians.
Anyone who has worked in Parliament knows that, when you spend too long in parliament, it’s easy to lose focus on the World outside – of the reality most citizens lead. Instead, you end up focussing on the political machinations the gossip and the petty little struggles. Oh, you kid yourself “it’s about the issues” – but it’s not really. What’s important in parliament is very often not really important in the lives of everyday people.
OK, so the likes of Brash make the kind of gaffes that someone more practised in the dark political arts might not make…but geez, it’s nice to have fresh faces…fresh faces who have been successful elsewhere in their lives.
I think it’s a shame that most parties exercise a fagging system where new MPs serve their initial years asking inane patsy questions and sitting through monotonous Select Committee drudgery.
The speedy promotion of Brash and Key – and David Lange – I suppose – is something I personally would like to see more of.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I think some people miss the point that this speech happened two days after becoming Leader. It’s silly to imagine that he’d be talking detailed policies on day three. In fact it would be wrong as it would show the Leader invents them off the cuff.
For the next two to three months, what most voters wants is to learn more about the man who would be PM and his *values*. Apart from a few hard core political activists no-one wants policies until say mid 2007 – still 18 months before the election.
Now everyone has been saying they know little about Key except he made heaps of money. So quite brillant to get away that sure he did but this is not what is most important.
This speech is not one you would do in six months times, but it was exactly right for introducing him to NZ, and that is a process that woill take a few months.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Crasster: “What a contrast. Today, a new leader of a major political party who is fresh to politics. Meanwhile, Cullen, Clark and Goff celebrate 75 years of collective political life. That’s 75 years of taxpayer-funded, internally focussed politicking.”
You’re nice. I would have said 75 years of sucking on the taxpayer’s tit. Note, too, that before entering Parliament all three were sucking the taxpayer’s tit as university lecturers. And before that, as students……They would have racked up in excess of 100 years between them.
I don’t care how JK made his money – as long as it was legal, which it clearly is. I think its great that he has been able to get to where he is through his mother’s sacrifice and his own determination. And I’d back his drive and determination to raise all our aspirations against his Clark’s solution of greater state dependency, anyday.
There is a clear different between a Clark-led Labour and a Key-led National. The former seeks to keep the masses in the gutter: the latter seeks to drag them out.
No wonder the Left are so pissed off.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
The idea would be to leave marriage up to the religious establishments. So, everyone would enter a civil union (for legal purposes) and then those who are religious could also add on marriage.
Good call, Chris White.
I can’t see why the state wants to get involved in marriage at all. I can see why the state might have an interest in household formation – we dsitribute lots of benefits and burdens to households rather than individuals – but ideally the state would be able to recongnise that two (or more?) people have decided to form a household, and that would be all. If some newly formed households want their various chuches want to add religious ceremonies on top of that, well, that’s their business.
It goes the other way too. It means that the state is not recognising religions as having any particular power or authority to determine what a household ought to consist in, through co-opting the power of the state to define what a marriage ought to be (i.e. a union between a man and a woman).
But back to the main point – Key’s speech. I’m inpressed by the ideals, particularly by the way that he doesn’t seem to be interested in simplistic solutions (for example, saying that he thinks the Maori seats ought to go, but recognising that the process raises constitutional issues, and that it’s important to work with Maori rather than just abolish the seats). Now I would like to see him and his team grapple with some nuanced policy.
I’m also pleased to see him returning to some of the basic ideals of the National party – compassionate help for those who need it, but with the aim of helping them to become independent, so that they can stand tall and look their fellow citizens in the eye, beholden to no one.
Key will win back the centre ground if he can follow up on these ideals. And that’s the recipe for electing a National-led government.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Toby
I am nice! Seriously, though, I don’t begrudge paying MPs for their committment. If you’ve work ed with these people (MPs) you’ll know the incredible personal sacrifices and workload most of them have to put into the job. That being said, I don’t think being a career politician is anything to be proud of. I would much rather have a bunch of naieve people who want to change the world than a collection of jaded politicians – playing all the angles. I remember when Jonathan Hunt was leaving the House and people were saying he’d done 27 years in the job. 27 years! At the time, a lot of people were making admiring noises about it. I was not one of them.
DPF: Well, you’re exactly right. I thought the speech was careful but just the right note to signal a swing to the centre…
Key’s got a honeymoon now. But it won’t last. He’s got to move into Leader mode quickly. He’s got to start presenting as a credible alternative to the incumbants – that means policies and it means being able to go toe to toe with some of the smoothest operators in Wellington.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
We do and always will help each other out. this crap that only the cntre/left have the moral highground bloody wankersih humbug!
We don’t want to be dragged out – we want to be given the tools to drag ourselves out.
The left are not pissed of they’re happy – why?
David – “We don’t want policies till mid 2007″ – wrong – we don’t accept the last election as legitimate. We are tired of waiting. 7 long years is too much. We want a government in exile, ready to take the reigns at any time.
Also for the good of NZ we want policies NOW that put in place our children’s security for the next 30 years, until they have children of their own. We don’t want to help our children to do well only to have a guv change the rules in 3 years time roll it all back and spend all their hard earned money on ideological hocus pocus.
Enough is e-bloody-nough!
NZ is out of time to compete. 20 years of talk about biotech and the knowledge wave – nothing.
Pain of the 80s – for nothing – swept away – lower wages than ever; higher tax take than ever.
I’m truly sorry for your situation antiNat – you obviously didn’t know how to work the compo gravy train or were too proud to – like my family is.
But bullshit about welfare – their on near the WORKING median family income as we speak. And they can go to university on full pay while our A+ kids take out loans. This is no basis for a future of this country. The A+ students go overseas to earn 1st world pay to repay their loans, then think ..|.. you NZ and don’t come back.
What doctor wants a Dip Drama telling them what to do? They either leave or think “I’ll screw the system for all its got” and then leave.
The biotech scientist don’t want to have to apply to some BA fresh out of school to renew their funding every few years – where’s the pride in that.
Do we want to help the knowledge economy when we have to have office kids at the IRD checking that we don’t earn enough so we’re eligible for subsidies. But wait, aren’t I worth enough to stand on my own 2 feet? What message does that send.
Note to Mr & Mrs French Farmer – did you know we have a subsidised cheap workforce? Ooh shhh!!!
We need lateral thinkers to get us out of the pinko wormhole we’ve gotten into.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Just imagine if both red and blue political parties could work towards the centre …..??….. we could have a common sense rainbow …… that could help haul our appalling child abuse statistc’s in a bit .Our kids deserve that eh . Good night and good luck John Key’s .
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Sorry to sideline this conversation in mid-stream…but have you noticed this: Type “panty slut boy” into Google and you’ll find two pages of links to a range of kiwi blogs. But on the second to last page – you’ll find a link to a Minister’s official Beehive profile. Is this some sort of weird Googling artefact or is someone in the Beehive being naughty? I dunno. I thought it was weird.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Hey crasster what about Hagar – I’ve googled him but can’t find much. I’m sure I recall he was in trouble for animal rights lunacy.
BTW if wikipedia insists on putting every political lowlife in then it will loose credibility rapidly.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Crasster – WhaleOil’s PSB video has been banned on YouTube, so he’s selling it on TradeMe – check it out here
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=79456421
Rumour has it that BP’s diary has been cleared – but the MSM is still strangely silent!
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
dad4justice: “Just imagine if both red and blue political parties could work towards the centre …..??….. we could have a common sense rainbow ……”
Working towards the centre is what the two main parties are best at!
Vote:It’s in the middle ground where elections are won or lost, so we end up with the politics of compromise, e.g. the penal system, the extreme right would have us lock serious offenders up forever, or shoot them, this would indeed be a solution; the extreme left would have us reforming these offenders so they could re-enter society successfully, this would also be a solution. but because of the politics of compromise, we do neither, instead we put them in boarding schools at $70,000/yr where they learn from other boarders how to be better criminals, insane or what?
November 28th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Redbaiter:
I think you misunderestimate Key. IMO, he is the first Nat leader since Shipley to show he has steel sufficient to lead NZ. English is very skillful but didn’t show any steel last time he was leader, and Brash never showed it. NZer’s won’t accept leaders who don’t have it, look what happened to Rowling.
I may be wrong but Key’s clashes with Clark will show this one way or the other.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
If you spelt his name right it would help- Hager
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
You can’t expect his inaugural speech to contain anything substantial. It’s just the usual – “here’s me, and I want to be your friend, whoever you are”, that you could expect. It could be grafted to any party at all, if you changed the personal details bit.
But I agree the tone is far more centrist, pragmatic, conciliatory. Not even bashing PC?
So long as the tone matches the deeds, we could have a National back that has a chance of forging a coalition some time in the next 10 years. That is the real challenge for Key. Matching the tone with the deeds. Show some policy. Show what National really are going to do, and why it’s better. Can’t wait to find out at least one National policy on anything other than tax.
Vote:November 28th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Redbaiter, who would you prefer as leader?
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 12:34 am
A better
NATIONAL MANIFESTO
Dear public of NZ. It has recently come to our attention that the world doesn’t owe us a living.
We have two ways forward – we can support justice and equality where everyone who contributes to our economic success will get to reap the rewards
or We can support factionalism and cronyism where the factional elite will reap the rewards.
As a country, one of these alternatives has a future and one of them does not…
Because times have changed national must change too.
We the people of NZ together will
- work for a society of equals where
- everyone who expects the benefits of the society will be expected to contribute to that society
- resist alarmist and reactionary environmental policies and
- promote clean, green, efficient, profitable industry as our best way of insuring the environment for future generations
- conserve our natural resources for future generations by careful planned management
- divert wasted funds into stimulating clean green efficient industry at a much faster rate
- provide a first in the first world education system where
- skills are identified and resources put in to develop those skills (education and training is key to our future as a nation)
- reward effort, not penalise it
- reward individual responsibility
- introduce 3 strikes and your f*ing out to ensure the safety of all NZers and visitors
- develop a first in the first world health system, run by health professionals, not elitist yes-cronies
blah de blah de blah
Must fit on one A4 sheet – I’m sure your spin doctors can do better but you get my drift.
And for pities sake:
- keep Collins in welfare
Vote:- Rich is probably too lightweight for education – it is the KEY to the country’s future – perhaps even Key should take it, or Tau.
- don’t give a frigin lawyer treaty claims – roll it all together with Maori affairs and give it to Tau.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:43 am
just received the first e-mail from Key with his speech, have to say it’s pretty crap – sounds like something Peter Dunne would write. Don Brash was much better – more to the point and gave solutions rather than half-assed spin
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:21 am
“blah de blah de blah”
Was quite the most sensible part of that manifesto Porcy.
The debate has shifted to the left, thanks chums!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:57 am
“sounds like something Peter Dunne would write”
SO TRUE!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 4:32 am
Well the speech sounded like a long way of saying: “Hey, people. You know all that stuff Labour promises. We promise it too. We just promise to run it better. But if you’re looking for a change in direction. Don’t look to National, we’re scared shitless.”
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:06 am
I like Cullen Clark and Goff cutting a cake celebrating a collective 75 years on the tax payers’ tit. They call it experience. And no doubt their collective expeience makes them formidable in the hot house atmoshere of Wellington gossip and intrigue. But could any of them earn a living in a world not dominated by the taxpayer. Probably not.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 6:22 am
No dispute there Tim. I would still consider voting for him if he promised me I wouldn’t be bossed by civil service appointees who could exist in the real world and are there solely to raise the latest faction’s EEO quota!
but, I digress.
Voter to Keys
here pussy pussy pussy…
Perhaps National could use punitive taxation and subsidies to keep us in line like liarbour does eh?
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 7:56 am
This guy is a mixed bag for us on the left. In one sense his is a blessing because it looks as though he will push New Zealand’s political centre of gravity to the left – i.e. with National moving in on Labour’s middle ground, Labour will be forced to move left. So allin all this can only be good for New Zealand. On the other hand Key is a populist, and if Brash had done his research he would realise that every succesful, long-term prime minister in New Zealand has been a populist. The worry is that Key’s populism may just be a vineer, and that an idealogue lays waiting inside to spring there agenda once in power – i.e. 4th Labour Government. In this case it’s all gloom for New Zealand and we’ll see our Labour productivity continue to struggle, while wage inequality increases. in other words we’ll become more like America.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:09 am
“we’ll become more like America.”
Vote:As opposed to becoming more like Cuba? Get serious, NZ has been further to the right in the past than it would be under a Key government, eg under Lange.
November 29th, 2006 at 8:16 am
No Philip, our centre of gravity is well left of the US. If we move further left we will become more like guatemala, where pay inequity also exists.
Its not pay ineqity that in NZs problem it is pay levels!!! and the gulag clarkipeligo has done nothing for that – except if you call humiliation something.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Dear Phillip John,
Vote:I thought we were like America, as we are proud silver medalist’s behind them when we look at the number of offenders locked behind bars per head of population .Oh nearly forgot….. the average yank lives on peanuts much the same as the old kiwi eh ?
November 29th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Yes Andrew, w bacame the most deregulatd economy in the world during the 80s and look what append 10-11% unemployment, increased levels of poverty and stagnant wages – Actually from 1984 to 2000 the average wage decreased in real terms by 16 percent while in Australia they increased by 30% – in that time. Since 1991 average GDP growth in New Zealand has been 3.5 percent while average wage growth has been 1.7 percent. The comparable figures for Australia are 3.7 percent and 2.9 percent. You work it out mate, the workers of this country need a shift back to the left – the fat-cats are taking the fruits of our labour off shore. We need a higher minimum wage and we need to re-introduce centralised collective bargaining, otherwisse we’ll all continued to get screwed.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:22 am
AAAAh pj, true to form. Why not just say “America and Capitalism bad, Socialism Good” and forget all the pseudo bullshit that you try to dress it up with.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:29 am
No David, moderated capitalism good, unbridled free markets bad – unfortunately New Zealand is currently the latter.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:36 am
The Lange government was in a jam as a result of the huge foreign debt built up under the socialist Muldoon. I agree that that debt and the subsequent selling off as many assets as we did has resulted in a poorer nation today, countries and cities with a large number of the wealthy tend to be richer overall than those with few wealthy eg Auckland vs Invercargill; Australia vs New Zealand.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Crap philip. Crap! NZ is loosing out to Aussie because they dont carry the baggage we do and they pay better and take our fairest and finest, leaving us with the EEO dregs. And so we’re going down relative to SE Asia as well, which have different economies again from Aussie.
So we’re loosing on all fronts not just the Aussie front.
You know full well (and have argued sensibly with me on this before) that we need a lean mean smart mechanised economy where all workers will reap the rewards.
The pain (10-11% unemployment for one) was to bring us into the 20th century where Aussie, US etc already were! Now it must be repeated, because the gains have been washed away and NZers are more convinced than ever that the world owes them a living!
So get over this shift to the left crap – we need highly paid skilled workers to keep the profits onshore!!! And Labour has proven they cant deliver on that!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:40 am
John Key ;
“I support families …I, for one, will not prejudge the construction of them .”
I like the new direction he is heading.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Sonic,
I’m not one for warm fuzzy glows etc.
I also did not say everything is for the best.
I am pragmatic. There is more than one way of winning an election.
If National shifts right, ACT tends to suffer, but middle parties like NZFirst & UF tend to benefit. The key to victory is being the largest single party.
If National shifts to centre, ACT will probably benefit, whilst the Centre parties (which are weak because of their association with Labour anyway) will get squeezed. The key to victory is still being the largest single party.
On another thread I specifically excluded the Greens as a coalition option for National. The Maori party have asperations of being serious players, and provided they can manage to keep Hone from putting his foot in it every 5 minutes they probably will. They will do a deal with either side if they think it is in their interests.
The far right in the National party may muck things up, but not if they are pragmatic themselves. If National + ACT could make a coalition between the 2 of them then the far right would probably be able to get as many of their policies through as a National UF coalition or National NZF one.
Given that politicians are self serving, it is in the interests of the far right to not destroy National- a centerist National is still better for the far right than an ever more Stalinist Labour.
Labour stood to benefit big time if the leadership change in National got ugly. It did not.
If National does not self destruct, then Labour does not benefit. In fact Labour will get squeezed further left, and will be in a 4 way fight for votes with the Greens, NZ First and UF, a similar position to which National under English found its self.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Porci – Australia has amongst the highest minimum wage rate in the OECD – they also have centralised collective bargaining whic means that Unions have a big say in wage setting. The way to increase our skill base and productivity s through increasing wages through collective bargaining (amongst other things). This means that the relitive price of labour to capital increases, which means that the ratio of capital to labour increases, which in turn results in higher wages – which in turn encourages employers to invest in skill training for their employees (why spen money on train someone when you’re paying them peanuts and they’ll just move on to another crappy low wage job in a couple of months any way? The result of this is a more productive, more highly skilled labour force. At the moment we’ew chosing the low wage long hours approach to economic growth – but we can’t compete with the newly industrialised economies on this front. We need to choose the high road to economic growth like Australia – High wages, high productivity hand high skills. We need to work smarter, not harder.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Dear Phillip John ,
You say we need to work smarter , not harder .
Are you saying that it is not smart to have the second highest prisoner incarceration rate, and the highest child abuse rate in the Western World?
Lets just put it in the to hard basket eh ?
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I agree with a lot you say but the tleft cant make the tough decisions and go for it – they are too into cronyism for the unproductive worker.
Collective bargaining has its down sides such as unsmart workers getting the same as smart workers and I think the reality is that there will be ways around that in Aussie compared to the highly regulated here.
These countries reward ideas + effort + choice of productive/export/growth sector
We reward mediocrity + choice of non-productive sector + yay say
Its not sustainable
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Peter S,
I don’t think National will be looking to the far right this time. ACT is quite different under Hide, and probably getting too idiosyncratic (dancing with stars) for Key’s level of pragmatism. I wouldn’t rule out a coalition with the Greens, or anyone for that matter. We don’t know yet what we are dealing with under Key/English, but the English team is very centrist and many of the ideas previously ridiculed by the far right are now sitting in the centre (such as climate change, alternative fuels).
Far right ideology is going to continue to get a bashing for years to come in the wake of Iraq. Key is probably returning us to something more like Jim Bolger but with a lot more mojo.
Being worth many millions doesn’t necessarily make Key ideologically right wing especially if his psychological makeup is defined by a childhood brought up with help from social welfare. It means that he is more than financially independent, and doesn’t need the job to line his wallet or climb the social ladder. It will help him to avoid being seduced by corporate manipulation (like Brash).
He is a politician in the true old fashioned sense of someone who has the means and no need to work again in his life, putting his time and effort back into society. Maybe he is motivated by a strong sense of loyalty to the nation that brought him up, maybe he is motivated by something less congenial. We are yet to find out.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Hey D4J – Better behind bars than slaughtering the innocent though.
I really sympathise with your story and would like to help. How can I? You know this protest everyone’s on their high horse about – it was about bias wasnt it? – your not the group complaining about alimony are you?
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:33 am
I find it interesting that a few people are concentrating on where national should position itself to get into government rather than talking about how to move the position of the voters to a more right of centre position, like Mohammed and the mountain, is this an acceptance of my previous cynical points?
If New Zealand is to be a richer nation the answer is simple, change the economy in a way that results in a greater production of desired goods and services per person, one way to do this is to make everyone work harder, another way is to have more people producing those goods and services and less people producing goods and services that don’t produce wealth, eg buracrats, and other paper pushers.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Kent,
Good points.
I do think that Hide has the capability of being pragmatic himself. He certainly defied the odds in managing to survive the last election, when ACT’s normal voting base got absorbed by National. Given that National is shifting to the centre, if I were in Hide’s position, I would look at the centre, decide it was rather crowded, and go for the traditional ACT votes that are likely to become available again.
Don’t forget that, if National were to retain its current polling position, but from a more centerist position, and ACT were to pick up 5% on the right, then that is getting very close to 50% of the vote.
As far as world trends are concerned, NZ has been out of step with the rest of the world all this centuary, so it is not safe to assume that, if the rest of the world shifts left, NZ will not shift right. Its a kind of pendulum swing thing.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:40 am
A third way to greater wealth is to strike oil, a forth is to save up billions and billions and invest it overseas, let them do all the work, this is where we lost out big time with the sale of assets, and where other nations (probably especially Australia) won.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Andrew – Have a look at the statistics New Zealand report called “New Zealand in teh OECD”
it shows that New Zealand’s public spending as a percentage of GDP is amongst the lowest in the OECD – so you can give upt that argument.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/3526CCF7-E047-47D5-9B80-27C137E068C6/0/NZintheOECD.pdf
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Exactly Andrew. We’ve got far too many non-productives yet again. We tried in the 80s and fail miserably to shift the economy. Like thatcher said each worker probably carries 2/3 of another person on their back. dont know the exact figure.
Hey national campaign manger lovebirds – does that mean that if infanticide came to sit in the centre we should embrace it?
The pendulum is way too far left and has been for decades. Wake up and smell other countries sweat! We need to nudge that pendulum back at least to the point that we all realise tha god did not decend on us and proclaim us as the chosen ones to whom the world owes a living.
We need a modern lead, not and old fashioned sense of one.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:06 am
“so you can give upt that argument.”
Vote:Give up what argument? Too many of the paper pushers that I am refering to are actually otherwise productive people in the private sector that are being forced to waste their time filling out forms to meet government buracratic demands.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Kent Parker,
Short memory laddie. One of the most attractive things about Brash when he first went in to Parliament was that he was not in it for the salary and so was understood to be there to “make a difference” unlike the trough sniffers on the other side of the house for whom being an MP is a life’s work with gold plated retirement benefits (and a plum overseas posting if you get the timing right).
Apart from the media seeming to have some sort of problem describing Brash’s style and indulging in character assassination by lampoon and pun to an astonishing extent, Brash’s problem was that he knew he didn’t have a long time to make a difference and thus couldn’t play the long game. His approach became very much shoot for the bullseye on the first shot and this frightened a lot of people who expect politicians to say one thing and mean another.
His inability to fudge and dissemble was turned back on him in the most devestating way.
Key, I think understands the importance of the phrase “softly, softly catchee monkey” and is young enough to have a programme that may take quite a long time to implement while all the time taking the population along for the ride.
Labour has been doing this for years. If we were frogs we would be well done but still unaware that we have been boiled.
Personally Brash should have an ample sufficiency to see him through after that many years on big salaries at the RB.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Thanks Philip for another useful document. One very praise-worthy thing about this government is that it still gives us some information.
However this information is straw spun into gold, that still looks like straw. To argue your case you need the breakdown of public expenditure. The only example I can find at a cursory glance is our sorry tail of R&D expenditure. We are half the oecd average for expenditure but 50% higher than the oecd average for number employed.
That very roughly means that our scientists are paid only 50% the oecd average.
Add to that the fact the number of jobs is high priority in grant funding (to spin the gov an easy employment ride). And the fact the 50% of government research is non-contestable (got pdf somewhere) – ie just government departments writing about their wet dreams and overhead expenditure. Then you can understand the sad state of our R&D.
Combine that with no industry to develop our intellectual property so we have to go off shore for even tiny projects and you can see where our money goes! Not into the hands of NZ fat cats that’s for sure!
Even you Philip must see the sickness in this circus! The situation is desperate.
Also theirs the competing in the job market issue.
I’m surprised by the 33% for many OECD countries, but I suspect that if you broke down the expenditure in other areas you would find the same thing – NZ spends on inefficiency and bureaucracy while others spend on productive industry and (brain and material) assets.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/sr=8-1/qid=1164749587/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6317552-6354335?ie=UTF8&s=books
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 11:05 am
oops – fresh air is good for the brain!
Our scientists are on 33% oecd average roughly. So they are either underpaid, under-skilled or under-resourced – I suspect a combination of all these things.
And as Andrew said the compliance to regulations imposed on us by the unemployment hiding, Dip Pol Studs, EEO crowd (not just paper pushing) is killing innovation and our competitiveness!
Come on Philip if you are on the inside, help save us from our nightmare!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Reid “Redbaiter: I think you misunderestimate Key.”
Well, maybe so, but politically, I’ve never seen him look anything but wishy washy grey, especially in the last election campaign where he wasn’t even able to articulate a response to the weak wet socialist diversion ‘where’s the money coming from?’..and English’s socialist credentials are well known.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Key and English will just return the Nationals (and the country if they win power) to the ideologically barren days of the Shipley Bolger era. Like Bolger and Shipley, Key and English through their willingness to “compromise”, and “draw National to the centre” will merely allow the socialist grip on NZ to tighten. They do not have the vocabulary or political intuition of John Howard for example.
I see where that presumptuous lefty idiot John Armstrong (Herald) is arrogant enough to be giving Key advice. Armstrong is just the kind of pseudo objective tool of the left that Key should be telling to fuck off. Armstrong has never advocated for anything except bigger government and more socialism, and when I see Armstrong suggesting Key might be “OK”, I’m afraid its a forewarning that Key will just be another lefty washout.
Ben Wilson- Rod Hide should be leader of the National Party.
Stan- “sounds like something Peter Dunne would write” so true…. Not to say at this stage that I think Key is another Dunne, who is IMHO one of the most worthless politicians in parliament.. all things to all men, a poseur who terms himself ‘pro family” and yet joins forces with a group of anti family Marxists for the sake of power. Ugh.. wot a duplicitous creep..
Key’s biggest turn off is that with his deference to so called “maori” he sounds like a cringing pseudo liberal closet racist. Maybe he doesn’t yet know of the association that glorification of race has with fascism.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
This is all about building bridges with potential coalition partners. That’s why it sounds like hte Maori Party, the Greens and Peter Dunne.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Well there’s madness in the nats method. I’d say the left is worried – by the absence of our 9-5 friends – they’re probably too busy spamming the government websites with discussion documents on how to avoid the blue green peril.
But I think national will be relying on the 10-20% strong showing from Rodney – if he can get his ACT together and capitalise on the rank and file disgruntlement the nats must be feeling.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
“they also have centralised collective bargaining whic means that Unions have a big say in wage setting”.
The level of drivel from the resident dinosaur halfwit phil john increases, if that is possible.
See phily, only 17% of working Aussies belong to a union….by choice.
The IR laws are such that individual contracts and general workplace agreements are rapidly replacing industry wide collective bargaining.
The union rump doesn’t like it, of course.
Reduces their power.
Reduces industrial disputes to a fraction of that 20 years ago.
The IRC, that cosy old union fellow traveller, has been disbanded…means no more artificial price fixing of wages.
A Fair Pay tribunal is in place to ensure a minimum living wage and therefore has no roll in anything other than basic unskilled work wages.
Unions have almost zero input in most wage negotiations in Aust, outside the MINIMUM wage determination.
The sight of workers negotiating at workplace level has put the fear of god into what is left of the unions.
The major exception is the public service and some of the big overpaid manual worker unions like coalminers and timber workers….but fear not, individual contracts are rampant and the bruuvers are just about at the end of their self life.
If you’re going to lie about the Aust. situation …you better do it more subtly.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Try “shelf life”
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Good on John Key remembering his childhood at least the Key family had support via the taxpayer. John Key has taken advantage of that and proved to all that he is a self made man. Same goes with Bill English, I know for a fact Bill English has helped out at Shelters for the disadvantaged, just showing up in casual clothes and being part of the team wanting no media coverage for his efforts.
I doubt Hide would give a second to such causes if he didn’t get full media coverage and a guarantee his suit would be dry cleaned after leaving the place.
I believe National have the best team, but winning the election maybe harder than you think.
I’m sure NZF will take a good look at National policy come next election, as far as talks are concerned.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Redbaiter – but Hide isn’t even in the National Party. Do you think he should switch? What does Rod think of the idea?
Porcupine – “I’d say the left is worried – by the absence of our 9-5 friends”
I think they’re still wading their way through Hollow Men. It’s a big book. But I also think there’s a big feeling of ‘mission accomplished’ with the hurried resignation of Brash. Gloating wears thin quickly, even for the gloater.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
for fucks sake Cadmus, Rodney Hide doesn’t talk about the good things he does because he does them ‘cos they’re right, not because he wants media attention like Winston Peters, which is why you have no idea. having visited the ACT office last Summer there was all this stuff he did where i was like, far out why isn’t he telling the media about this, why don’t you write about it your blog? it’s ‘cos he’s too humble
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
National is certainly not anticapating ACT getting 10 to 20% of the party vote It is not part of our plan. We have absolutely no intention of abandoning up to half our vote, simply to get a few percent from Labour. Sounds like a fanciful ACT dream.
Wayne
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
NZers will be normally distributed across the ideological scale. My hunch is that every slight move to the centre will gain National a handful of votes for every one it that drops off the right edge.
Additionally, new votes gained from the move to the centre are more likely to be churn from opposition votes while those that drop off the right may end up going to ACT and therefore may still be leveraged by coalition.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Wayne Mapp, There are many on this site who live in a fanciful ACT dream, as you put it.
As I like to point out and you should also…What has the ACT Party gained for it’s members since it entered Parliament? Thats right a ” 0 ”
ACT can be Nationals bitch anytime you snap your fingers. No other Party wants to be associated with Hide. Hide has no option but to vote with you or not vote at all.
BTW, Wayne you can take out Hide no problem next election. Don’t get suckered by ACT’s you get 2 MP’s for 1.
Vote:At least you could give DPF a go on the list, I’m sure he would give it his all.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Wayne Mapp, There are many on this site who live in a fanciful ACT dream, as you put it.
As I like to point out and you should also…What has the ACT Party gained for it’s members since it entered Parliament? Thats right a ” 0 ”
ACT can be Nationals bitch anytime you snap your fingers. No other Party wants to be associated with Hide. Hide has no option but to vote with you or not vote at all.
BTW, Wayne you can take out Hide no problem next election. Don’t get suckered by ACT’s you get 2 MP’s for 1.
Vote:At least you could give DPF a go on the list, I’m sure he would give it his all.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Quote from Key on Morning report:
I firmly believe in climate change and always have,” was new National Party Leader John Key’s answer to nine-till-noon interviewer Kathryn Ryan earlier this week when asked whether the climate was being affected by Greenhouse gas emissions.
But in parliament in 2005 Key said this:
The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem. Even if it is a problem, it will be delayed for about 6 years. Then it will hit the world in 2096 instead of 2102, or something like that. It will not work,” explained the then eco-sceptical Mr Key.
The liar Brash has been sent packing , but nothing has changed much unless you count the exhumation of Bill English
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Porcupine,- busy day in Courthouse.
The fathers’ coalition made a noise about the gender bias white ribbon day, as it failed to take into account, the recently released academic studies that indicate both men and women are guilty of domestic violence in roughly equal numbers. I know that a small majority of bullet-material-men commit horrific acts of senseless violence, while they are supposed to be the male role model for the family! … However, the point we were trying to highlight is simple; maybe if we addressed the problems of domestic violence at factual core values without gender bias intervention services??…Just maybe kiwis could start to rid ourselves of the insidious unnecessary domestic violence tag. Anyone remember happy families ?
As far as child support goes mate , I have paid it for six years without no access to my two beautiful young daughters.
What else would I expect in this country at present !!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Correct hayman… the comrades can’t control the economy by consensus as they used to…due to demonstrable failure…so anthro glorbal werming is the next bit of faecal dogma that just might get up.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Oh Cadmus there you go taking the moral high ground that’s allowed us to be called racist for the last 40 years because we believe in equality!
You know the story third world poverty, give a man a fish and all. People help out in different ways
- give arms to the dictator
- give food to the dictator who then sells it for arms
- get rid of the dictator
I choose the one with the future, even though it may not be PC by your twisted standards at the time.
Oh and then there’s the story of my son – your wonderful democratic socialists couldn’t give a toss because he was not sexually molested.
Hey Cadmus, the rising tide of ignorance is sweeping our world away – even Redrag will admit that. The new generation worry whether their cell phones are charged or whether there are enough work hours in a life time to buy a house because of liarbour policies. They think Marx is something you get in NCEA, and seriously doubt we had a waterfront in 1951. Get over your holier than though attitude and move on, everyone else has.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Andrew – it could be multimodal with individual normal distributions for each interest area or even multidimensional – after all there are a small confused faction within the greens who believe their main agenda is the environment!
Wayne – the polls will tell – how are the answer phones and spam filters holding up in the regions? I detect a block moving out to ACT which you will get back from the large normal distribution in the centre.
Hayman – changing your mind is not lying. Lets hope he changes his mind back, rather than let Hollywood write our policies. And for the sake of the country before big business starts to trade in thin air (as if futures wasn’t enough!). And he probably believes dinosaurs got hit by meteorites because it was on the Disney film after all. But we wont hold that against him.
Its just geoscientist grantsmanship – they have to apply to the Dip Soc Scis of their respective countries every three years in order to keep their jobs.
Excerpt from 2050 Political/Economic text book:
“And dear students, sure the biggest con that was ever pulled in history by politicians was to buy and sell thin air. Dreamed up in a Japanese Geisha house they never thought it would go so far….” …”but this is a lesson for us all in trusting politicians…”
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Thanks D4J I think you guys are doing a good job and support you.
I would not want to support a group based on trying to wriggle out of child support, although in your case I understand the bitterness felt.
Stick a varifiable address up and I’ll see about a donation, if you like.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Thanks for the offer porcupine, however d4j is awaiting to see whether he was successful in obtaining mainstream funding.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Oh crap, just saw keys pontificating on the climate menace painting his party into a corner that his ego won’t let them out of.
The rason why we all find NZ politics so entertaining is that its such a joke!
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Oh and its worse – there was a Queenstown tour operator trying to get on the compo gravy train by blaming some bad weather on global warming.
The answer to life the universe and everyting
47X Global warming!
You know their blaming non-antropogenic global warming for wiping out the Aussie megafauna now.
OMG
Ooops sorry about the cross post.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
The spin doctors have leached themselves onto the climate menace , while kiwi kids look set to suffer in our communties .
It’s a sick joke .
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
You guys know so little about AGW it’s laughable, like so many on the conservative right, your views can be sumarised as: AGW would suit greenie/socialist politics so it must be wrong. Thats a pig ignorant line of reasoning.
Vote:Base your politics on good Science, don’t think the laws of nature will change to fit your politics.
There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW, though we still have fairly low confidence in what exactly the effects of ~3C rise in global mean temperature will be.
November 29th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
That’s a remarkably big statement, Andrew W.
There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW,’
I suggest to you that the number of reputable scientists who continue to adhere to the largely discredited and debunked pseudo ‘consensus’ science of AGW is declnng faster than David Benson Pope’s popularity at Labour Party fund raisers.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW.
You disagree? name one.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
There are quite a few scientists from other fields eg geologists (Bob Carter), astronomers (Judith Lean), nuclear physicists (Zebigniew Jarowisky), meteorologists (Augie Auer) and a few retired climate scientists (Richard Linden, Tim Ball) who are sceptical of AGW, and also quite a few professional lobyists (Fred Singer).
These guys all have one thing in common; they are political conservatives.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
No andrew you fall into your own trap of not debating the science.
Climate scientists are geoscientists and metoerologists – they dont exist as an entity.
So its not conservatives vs climate scientists its gaoscientists vs the rest, similar to the dino debate. So it is a narrow fairly homogenous group of scientists driving this stuff, and even they debate like bloody hell over the details.
For RSNZ to say the debate is over is concerning in the extreme because no scientist would ever say such a thing.
The scientific debate should include the science of peoples peerception of science, sociaology of science and diffusion of information.
Heil Hollywood, the catastrophists have done it again.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Climate scientists are geoscientists and metoerologists – they dont exist as an entity.
Wrong
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Why
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Andrew, if you are a climate scientist, and you “still have fairly low confidence in what exactly the effects of ~3C rise in global mean temperature will be”
then why aren’t you on the blower to the RSNZ telling them to retract their statement?
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Ok, Various universities do offer PHD’s in climatology, Tim Ball was infact Canadas first PHD graduate in climatology, you are right though that many working in the field of climatology and palioclimatology have more general backgrounds, often in physics, geophysics and meteorology, I stasnd by the statement: “There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW”
These guys, Carter, Auer, Ball, Singer etc just arn’t up with the play as far as what is actually happening at the forefront of research, they are all right wing conservatives, with strong political views, As far as those supporting the IPCC; Hansen describes himself as a moderate conservative, Framo commenting on the NZ CSC site, is a right winger, Im a libertarian.
For us it’s not political, as i’ve said; science first.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Im not a climate scientist, sorry if I gave that impression, I just try to use the best information from those most qualified. I try to be objective.
The figures that are coming out of the research are zeroing in of about 3.2C temp rise by the end of the century if CO2 levels are doubled.
How that will affect precipitation patterns is uncertain, In many areas of the research, positive feedbacks are a feature, because of their nature positive feedbacks are hard to model eg a slightly greater loss of arctic ice than expected results in large acceleration of the rate of future loss.
Uncertainty about the details of the effects of future AGW is not a rational justification for dismissing AGW.
As far as the Royal Society goes, I think you are taking the comments slightly out of context, AGW is a fact, the research is into the details of the effects of that fact.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
One thing I’ve noticed is that the sceptics on gloabl warming seem to use very similar arguments to the Intelligent design/creation science wallahs.
It’s all “oooh look at me, I’m being oppressed for standing up to the consensus” and
“In twenty years my opponents will look soooo stupid, and the how I shall laugh” and
“no really, there is this new evidence that is convincing more and more scientists, soon everyone will be on my side” and
“all my opponents are intellectually bankrupt/corrupt/conspirators”
Apparently there a are a few of the ID guys at the discovery Institute that doubt the link between HIV and AIDS (which is another belief that resides almost exclusively on the conservative right)
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
I agree so put science first – it will be discredited unless we correct the errors like the RSNZs statement.
God knows what I am but I’m for objective science first and the rest can go begging.
You beleive the major debate starts after AGW, I beileive it starts after GW, a small scientific difference of opinion.
So are you a climate scientist and if so complain to the RSNZ that the debate is not over please. Thats all I’m asking.
And help by complaining about the cures which make no sense.
Go to VUW and say these proposals dont make sense for NZ given that we are a small country with emmissions per capita well below the OECD average and GDP even further below.
Tell VUW that their publication should not state the debate is over becasue its not.
All I’m asking is scientific honesty not CSC or IPCC hype, for the sake of science.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Rubbish, its the pro-climate lobby declaring the science is complete and that nay sayers are holocaust deniers that resemble religious zealots – and ultimately thats bad for science.
OK at present “There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW”
but few if any accept the hype.
I accept GW but like the climate scientists agree its magnitude, cause, effect and remedies are hotly debated.
The RSNZ view is counterproductive and could be damaging for scientists.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
And another thing, geoscientists love their catastrophist theories. But the porblem is they are observational theories and therefore cannot prove cause and effect, only an association. They also cannot be experimentally tested in many cases, so are not subject to the full rigors of the scientific method.
And why the silence from the geoscientists. Heres another one from an editorial in nature:
This appears to be trying to argue, in the world’s top scientific journal, that the US is a nay-sayer because they don’t “feel the heat”. This is preposterous stuff and WILL bring scientists into disrepute.
Article:
The upcoming IPCC working group 1 report highlights something interesting about global climate trends – the eastern United States is an anomaly. For a blob centered roughly on Alabama (and encompassing DC and the white house), things haven’t got significantly warmer between 1901 and 2005.
In more recent years, the eastern US hasn’t fallen victim to warmer days (though it has seen warmer nights). The most significant change is that it’s wetter. More cloudy days over the capital might not be hammering home the message that climate change is real and the world is getting warmer…
My reply is:
You cannot expect to argue for or against climate change on the grounds that people feel hotter or colder over the course on a year or a decade.
All decisions made should be base on hard scientific evidence only, not on anecdotal reports. Scientists must not use such reports to argue their case, or for grantsmanship, and if they do they risk damaging the credibility of science forever.
The scientific community must work together to control the hype and hysteria that climate change is causing, or we will all suffer from hastily cobbled together reactionary legislation which will be bad for economies, the environment and science’s credibility. Scientists must take the lead in this issue, not economists, environmental activists or Hollywood.
Its going to bring science into disrepute. Scientist are honest people, they dont accept this type of badgering.
Same with Katrina. It may satisfy the SNAG in scientists to say it is because of global warming but it is a misleading lie and no global scientist would support the statement. But most don’t challenge it. At least Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which contributed majorly to the Stern report had the decency to challenge the hype.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
OMG
Here we go the citizens initiated compo industry is getting in on the act. I don’t know whether I can do this any more.
http://xtramsn.co.nz/businessandmoney/0,,13273-6629208,00.html
What’s the bet they’ll go away if they are paid enough, eh? Slightly more science behind them than Taniwha I suppose. That should up the stakes.
Oh well as you say it will be passed onto the consumer and a few rich greenies pockets will be deep enough.
Vote:November 29th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
There is plenty of bullshit from extremists on both sides of the debate.
Al Gore and Senator Inhofe are both politicians and both are much better at the politics than the science.
One of the big problems I have is how poor the understanding of the science often is by people who surely should know better.
Let me quote you some extracts from an article in The New Zealand Herald, Tuesday, May 2, 2006 titled ‘Global warming just ‘hysteria’
Subtitled: ‘Augie Auer hits out at ‘scientifically illiterate’ journalists and poor-science:
”Augie Auer is irritated. The former MetService chief meteorologist is irked by the bad science that has gone into the dire predictions of the effects man-made global warming will have on the planet.’
‘…he said, if we didn’t have the greenhouse effect, the planet would be 33C colder.’
‘Professor Auer said three-quarters of the planet was ocean, and 95% of the greenhouse effect was governed by water vapour.’
“Of the remaining 5%, only about 3.6% is governed by CO2 and when you break it down even further, studies have shown that the anthropogenic contribution to CO2 versus the natural is about 3.2%.
“So if you multiply the total contribution 3.6 by the man-made portion of it, 3.2, you find out that the anthropogenic contribution of CO2 to the global greenhouse effect is 0.115%… that’s like 12c in $100. It’s minuscule…it’s nothing.”
End quote.
I read this article when it was published, I was irritated, it made me angry with the “scientifically illiterate” practicing “poor-science”, in short, it made me angry with Professor Auer.
Porcupine, how many of Auers “facts” can you spot as nonsense?
Vote:Given his background, the mistakes in his claims simply would not have occurred if he had been objective.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Ok Andrew, I’m not an Auer apologist – his argument looks pretty dodgy there.
But I’m glad you admit the yay arguments are also dodgy.
From a scientists point of view I expect crap in the media, but not in Journal numero uno or the RSNZ.
I’ve check out the sceptics websites and the US boss has converted to yay, and the rest are on a snake oil watch, not committing either way. that’s where I stand now – I recognised shark cartilage and dino meteors the day they hit the scene but I’m having trouble with global warming.
But my point is why the fuck should I have to – the RSNZ should have cornered the skeptics market – that’s their job, their business.
But I gave up on the RSNZ in the early 80s when they crawled up the politicians backsides. I only rejoined recently because some of my colleagues are fellows. And I found that the RSNZ, like most NZ academics haven’t come out for air yet.
I’m not left or right despite what you might think – I’m for honesty and free speech and I never hear boo from scientists. they’re too worried about grants, or being labelled reactionary, conservative or the numerous other small minded put downs people get in this country.
All I want is honest debate and rational solutions, but given the political scene in NZ over the last 40 years I’m not going to hold my breath.
But most of all I’m for science not pseudoscience and that’s why I’m concerned.
Have you seen these two – shows a very different hockey stick – if not I’m happy to send them to you.
Anderson DM, Woodhouse CA (2005) Climate change: let all the voices be heard. Nature 433: 587-588
Moberg A, Sonechkin DM, Holmgren K, Datsenko NM, Karlen W, Lauritzen SE (2005) Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data. Nature 433: 613-617
I’ll paste my full blub below just in case your interested – possibly a bit repetitious but I’m tired.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Heres the rest of the blurb – remember it was written in answer to your post a few posts ago:
I have no idea who has their snouts in this feeding trough, left or right the porkers are all the same to me. Science has fought a rearguard action since that fateful day on 6th Aug 1945 that excused the resurgence of pseudoscience. As a scientist outside the field I am beginning to think we’ve met our nemesis.
Science, by its very nature will always be conservative and so looks reactionary in the rush to the left.
We’ve had this out before.
* most scientists accept GW
there is massive and unrelenting scientific debate on
* the extent of GW
* AGW
* the extent of A
* what to do about GW
* what to do about A
The few scientists willing to speak out are trying to calm down the hype.
As I scientist I am concerned about (A)GW and, as a citizen who believes in freedom and equality, absolutely terrified by the reaction to it.
When a non-scientist at the RSNZ says things like “the price of emissions should depend upon the costs of the damage they will cause, but making that connection is one of the few remaining areas in climate research where the science isn’t settled”, I feel I have a right as a scientist to be alarmed because no real scientist would ever say something like that.
Because that’s not how scientists work.
Something is very wrong here. You must see or feel that.
The heart of the debate should also be on the public perception of science/sociology of science/diffusion of information/power of mass media area. I mention the dinosaur example because it is a classical case study in rapid adoption of a theory as fact. People rapidly adopt hard-line positions and then egos will not allow them to retract them. But if you remain objective there is no humiliation in changing your view.
People flock to simple explanations, catastrophist explanations, religious explanations, punishment for wrong-doing etc. Its part of human nature and this issue bears all the classic hallmarks.
Real GW scientists admit this is all theory and try to calm the waters. But now you’ve got economists, lawyers, politicians, MSM, spin doctors, policy analysts and the like involved the first casualty like with any war will be the truth.
I have been a bit provocative to make a point, but the truth is, like all scientists I just don’t know. I have some hypotheses which may not agree with the consensus but I could be proved wrong. But it’s because I care about science and scientist – we could take a bad hit here if we’re not careful. It’s probably already being taught in schools as fact. Its scary, its not science as I know it and I don’t know what to do about it.
As always NZ is going to have a lot of stuff foist on us because we are at the bottom of the food chain. We will have to deal with it. We must deal with it in a way that makes sense for us. Carbon sequestration and buying carbon credits off third world dictators when we are near dropping of the OECD ladder makes no sense whatsoever. Thank god key is going to talk to Howard.
And most importantly we must not let Hollywood set our policy agenda.
OK END…. oh there goes old porc again, joining Key in orbit.
Better go before David tells me off eh?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:19 am
On the political side of the AGW issue the principle that comes to the front for me is that people must accept responsibility for their actions, all people, if burning lotsa fossil fuels by some results in loses for others, should a system be devised to minimise those loses if such a system is practical?
Carbon trading for me remains the best option for such a system, though there remain huge problems, both with the Kyoto version of carbon trading and valuing the carbon released.
I see no need for Big business or governments to have a major role once the system is rolling.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Just for the record John Key hasnt ‘changed his mind’.
Vote:He said on radio that he ‘allways’ believed in GW.
Pity the Hansard record doesnt back him up.
His credibility is looking creaky to start with. I have yet to believe the rest of the caucus apart from Nick Smith will swallow a rat over this. I see a ‘climate catasrophe’ coming up for the national party.
Either that or once in government they change their minds yet again , after the donors get what they paid for.
November 30th, 2006 at 11:14 am
“There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW.
You disagree? name one.”…….Andrew W
Glad to be of help again Andy …
Guess this group must be your standard collection of non-active right wing deniers?
Further evidence of scientific consensus from the letter from 60 scientists to the Canadian govt.
“Climate change is real” is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural “noise.”
Sincerely,
Vote:Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, former director of Australia’s National Tidal Facility and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards
Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont.
Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont.
Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant
Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology
Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa
Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University of Alberta
Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics, University of Victoria
Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax
Dr./Cdr. M. R. Morgan, FRMS, climate consultant, former meteorology advisor to the World Meteorological Organization. Previously research scientist in climatology at University of Exeter, U.K.
Dr. Keith D. Hage, climate consultant and professor emeritus of Meteorology, University of Alberta
Dr. David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va., and Sioux Lookout, Ont.
Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.
Dr. Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary
Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont.
Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, The University of Auckland, N.Z.
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, emeritus professor of physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.
Mr. George Taylor, Dept. of Meteorology, Oregon State University; Oregon State climatologist; past president, American Association of State Climatologists
Dr. Ian Plimer, professor of geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide; emeritus professor of earth sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
Mr. William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, Scientific and Technical Review
Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Dr. Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia
Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics & geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.
Dr. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville
Dr. Al Pekarek, associate professor of geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn.
Dr. Marcel Leroux, professor emeritus of climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS
Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8 (human health)
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, reader, Dept. of Geography, University of Hull, U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment
Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations) and an economist who has focused on climate change
Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus, University of Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey
Dr. Asmunn Moene, past head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway
Dr. August H. Auer, past professor of atmospheric science, University of Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService) of New Zealand
Dr. Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of ‘Climate Change 2001,’ Wellington, N.Z.
Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics, University of Connecticut
Dr Benny Peiser, professor of social anthropology, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.
Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with Imperial College London, U.K.
Dr. William J.R. Alexander, professor emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member, United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000
Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, University of Virginia; former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service
Dr. Harry N.A. Priem, emeritus professor of planetary geology and isotope geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences; past president of the Royal Netherlands Geological & Mining Society
Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey professor of energy conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University
Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Mass.
Douglas Hoyt, senior scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author of the book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific climate and carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric consultant.
Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore.
Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands organization for applied research (TNO) in environmental, food and public health
Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.; international economist
Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.
© National Post 2006
November 30th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Now now Fred, he asked for just one
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Ah Fred’s fanous list. Just for a laugh pick one and google it
For example Richard S. Courtney is not a climate scientist he is “Technical Editor for CoalTrans International (journal of the international coal trading industry)”
Always who I go to for impartial information on fossil fuels and climate change, a leading coal trader.
Dr. Madhav Khandekar – expert advisor and contributor to oil backed spin machine Envirotruth
Dr. Sallie Baliunas – US skeptic and American Petroleum Institute funded scientist
Dr. Doug Leahy, who, according to the Bercha Group, an Alberta Oil and Gas Consulting firm, is as an independent consultant to the oil and gas industry
The fact that Fred has no sources other than a bunch of oil and coal industry advisors tells us why the debate is already won.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Yeah….I guess 4 out of 60 isn’t bad.
Re-read the list and judge the credibility for yourself….Sonic or this lot…
Vote:At least Andrew W is happy… he got his “one”.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Oh Dear…..
This guy doesn’t sound so bad…….. Bugger.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Well I can certainly see some voters might go to Act. After all that is what some voters are saying they will do in this comment section. What I do not beleive is that it will much of a percentage. Act has never had much more than 6%, and that was at their peak. They simply do not have that level of appeal anymore.
Voters are looking for a positive optimistic message and that is what John Key provides. It is not just his specific policy positons, it is also the language he uses. Politics is not just all grim, knock down the other side, it is also hope. That is what the voters will respond to.
Wayne
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
4 out of the 4 I checked Fred.
Lets try another one just to be sure
oops
http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Corrupt_Sallie_Baliunas.html
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
I love it ….everyone’s corrupt except the greenie left.
I’ll stick with the formidable list …just for Andrew W’s viewing pleasure.
Sonic or the list?
Vote:You be the judge.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
The Warming Challenge – Just one example please!!
Vote:I, and many others, keep looking for the evidence of the “unprecendented warming” which is so evident to so many of you and which is causing so many of you to fear for the future.
So here is a challenge.
Anyone out there who believes global warming is happening and real should be willing to help me by going to:
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm#North%20America%20(excl.%20Arctic)
This site lists the non-urban temperature measurement stations of the world, in all areas of the world. (These stations are reasonably free of the “heat island” effect which raises temperatures because of local heat sources.)
I have lost count of how many of these stations I have examined looking for those which must evidence of this “globaly warming”. So far none show any sign of at all and indeed most show some cooling since 1998 and lower temperatures now than during the last decades of the 19th century. Obviously I must be looking in the wrong places.
Now I would really like to share the concerns that occupy so many of your minds. (I feel guilty about feeling so unconcerned) So if anyone – anyone – can find a non-urban temperature record which shows any sign of significant warming please let me know. I can only spend so much time opening web files.
Come on. It should not be too hard. Just ONE.
I shall distribute it to all my friends and colleagues so we can all join in the general misery.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Ok lets take this argument to its pathetic logical conclusion:
Nay sayers = carbon traders
Vote:Yay sayers = carbon traders
November 30th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Ah Fred you really need to look at my statement before you reply:
There are no climate scientists actively involved in climate change research that don’t accept AGW.
All you did was give me the names of the AGW Denialists attached the open letter to the Canadial PM of 6 April 06
These people are scientist, and economists etc, you think one might actually be actively involved in climate change research? Which one?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Owen,
Really I thought you were brighter than that, the warming is easily seen in locations where the model indicate it will occur most, at higher latitudes, as the CO2 effect is stronger in locations where the water vapour contribution is less, and inland, where the oceans thermal inertia has less of a effect.
try Northern Europe through Siberia and Alaska/Canada. at many of these locations we have already seen 3-5C warming.
And that a result of a 35% rise in CO2, It’s expected to get to a 100% rise by the end of the century, if we see BAU
Are you folks going to clean up the NZ CSC site? Its a hell of a mess.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
“Are you folks going to clean up the NZ CSC site? Its a hell of a mess.”
There is no evidence that this “mess” exists, or even if it did it is not caused by humans but by sunspots or the internet ghosts.
Indeed I have put together a huge list of internet specialists who deny totally this fake, communist inspired propaganda, Viz
Me (The webmaster)
Vote:My Mum
Our Cat
Professor Made Up, at the big University.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Andrew,
Vote:Then please refer me to the non urban stations which show 3-5 degrees warming.
And yes, the models make all manner of predictions about different effects at different altitudes.
But in the end, we would expect to see the impact of such upper altitude warming at surface temperatures. Othewise why do our NIWA types keep reporting early springs and species cooking, and grapes warming and all the other surface temperature responses.
And indeed you might like to explain how the warmer upper altitude temps are transferred to the sea and to the ice.
If surface temperatures are not changing how do we account for all those people who declare they can see it happening before their very eyes.
Anyhow, I don’t really want to argue – just refer me to your measurement site and I shall acknowledge it.
As to the site – we are trying to put together the funds out of our pockets. Unlike Greenpeace we don’t get any corporate funding.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
How the hell did we end up on climate change again eh? There must be something pretty important brewing in the fires of Wellingdor to try to keep us this distracted.
Owen,
there are many little problems here, and you fall into a similar trap that the hard out yay-sayers do. You can’t see climate change occurring in front of your eyes just like you cant see most other geological processes or evolution occurring. We are talking cycles within cycles within cycles over geologic time. So you need to do spectral analysis on many records to see the trend.
And there-in lies one problem – the people who understand this stuff rarely speak out publicly – its just a “scientist thing” – keep your head down and your nose clean, do your job well and the government will look after running things (yeah right! as we all know).
Another problem is the records only go to the early 200s – not because they would show anything different if they went to 2006 but because this is about the time the global politico’s got hold of the debate – and stopped facts getting in the way of a good story – and probably put the hard word out to chose it or loose it (funding).
Another problem is that there are so many “instruments” – thermometers, tree rings ice cores etc. Were they really using the same thermometers in 1951 and 2000? So all the “instruments” need to be calibrated and “aligned” using spectral analysis/time series methods.
Remote sensing will probably prove the most accurate but has only been round a little while and is also constantly improving and so will have similar backwards compatibility issues. Another problem is global warming means different things to different places on the earth both qualitatively and in quantitative existence, magnitude and effect terms.
The reference I gave above is quite interesting – not the final answer and based only on limited northern hemisphere and should not be viewed in isolation which is the Main criticism levelled at the IPCC for relying too heavily on the Mann report. (Gee I just go Déjà vu)
It shows an upturn 1800-2000 but much more variability than previously thought. And who knows where it will go – continue upwards, reach a new homeostasis for a while like most control systems, or trend down again. Its not a critically damped control system so one things for sure – we will continue to see oscillations over varying time scales.
The important message – we’ve got time to put together proper far sighted policies on the total environment – not reactionary legislation hurriedly cobbled together for vote buying purposes. We’ve had enough of that. I am convinced that if the NZ public had this explained, the majority would understand.
Owen – I can send you the reference if you like.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
One thing you can gaurantee
if you go to a denialist site like daly is dishonesty and the cherry-picking of data; check the areas I mentioned on this site with all the data:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Admittedly I misremembered on the temps quite a few with a rise of about 2C though.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Helping Andrew W with some eminent scientists who have doubts about anthro GW…
…big call And.
is a pleasure, don’t mention it. Andy seems to think none are active researchers on the subject…
The greenie left are desperate to make AGW the ultimate Political Correctness.
Vote:Hence the sensitivity when the “everyone agrees” line gets challenged.
Plenty don’t.
Check out that pesky list
November 30th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
To a certain extent its a pity the argument always gets bogged down on “existence” instead of “uniqueness” and “magnitude”.
And especially the social and political effects.
For example the compo gravy train is now pulling out of the station – there was a queenstown tour operator on the news last night trying to blame a couple of weeks bad weather on global warming!!
For christs sake – were are the “active” climate scientists taking the TV station to the BSA? Nowhere as usual.
There are a lot of rational people left in NZ – we owe them a rational debate!
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Fred, if I was you I’d get a new list mate.
http://www.desmogblog.com/signatory-bails-on-anti-climate-science-petition
Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, a Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Alberta says that he was told he was signing a petition asking that the federal government devote more energy to research on climate change. Instead, the letter – given prominent play last week in the National Post – suggested that climate change is unproved and that any effort to create policy to address the problem would be “irrational.”
“I regret signing that damn petition”
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
5:51..5:60…5:48…
Check out that pesky list…
Lotsa really bright academics in relevant fields think the greenies are prunes.
Sonic and the whining, bitch slapped left?
Vote:It’s what’s best in life…..
November 30th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Some posts lost in the trx I see…
Better not leave Soni salivating…
“Gee Andy W, your knowledge of the research interests of 60 scientists is amazing and surely definitive.
When you read the list again at bedtime Andy….check out the qualifications and try to determine in your own mind whether these people can interpret data.
See?
Naughty scientists don’t agree with Andy.
I know…corrupt right wing coal scientists one and all….
The best thing about these posts is that some people out there, under the avalanche of official AGW agitprop, thought there was no disagreement on AGW among scientists.
They can now see a list of scientists that think the green left may be full of organic prunes.
And you know where that leads….
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Owen, do you ever actually read what people say here?
1. I have corrected my statement to ~2C
2. I gave you a source, it’s the same one Daly used, only difference is I’m not interested in cherry-picking only the stations that support my views
Also Owen, as usual you’re out of date, most of those on Fred’s list, including Singer, now accept that surface temperatures have increased this century, now they’re arguing that it’s solar forcing that’s the cause.
You are claiming that Gore, and many greenies overstate SOME OF the effects so far of AGW? So what? So do I.
Fred: “Naughty scientists don’t agree with Andy.”
I’m get the information I use from the Climate scientists best qualified in climate science, not these cowboys you rely on.
Do you think I’m a Greenie lefty Fred?
I’m a libertarian, I suppose to Fascists such as yourself that does make me a lefty.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Libertarian…..
Try lefty pussy Andy….
The information’s out citizens.
All science does not agree with the greenie left.
Tho greenie religious science does.
Check out the list of scientific religious deniers in my previous post.
I invite all (that means you journo students) to read the list of scientists who are skeptical about anthro global warming, digest their qualifications, then listen to the “done deal” as presented by the greenie left.
Andy baby sounds threatened…
This is usually a great contrarian indicator of lurking truth.
Any Aussie mining shares you hate Andy?
Vote:I’d appreciate the heads up.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Fred, Augie Auer is on your little list.
Let me quote you some extracts from an article in The New Zealand Herald, Tuesday, May 2, 2006 titled ‘Global warming just ‘hysteria’
Subtitled: ‘Augie Auer hits out at ‘scientifically illiterate’ journalists and poor-science. ”Augie Auer is irritated. The former MetService chief meteorologist is irked by the bad science that has gone into the dire predictions of the effects man-made global warming will have on the planet.’
‘…he said, if we didn’t have the greenhouse effect, the planet would be 33C colder.’
‘Professor Auer said three-quarters of the planet was ocean, and 95% of the greenhouse effect was governed by water vapour.’
“Of the remaining 5%, only about 3.6% is governed by CO2 and when you break it down even further, studies have shown that the anthropogenic contribution to CO2 versus the natural is about 3.2%.
“So if you multiply the total contribution 3.6 by the man-made portion of it, 3.2, you find out that the anthropogenic contribution of CO2 to the global greenhouse effect is 0.115%… that’s like 12c in $100. It’s minuscule…it’s nothing.
I read this article when it was published, I was irritated, it made me angry with the “scientifically illiterate” practicing “poor-science”, in short, it made me angry with Professor Auer
I have managed to find the source of the 95% water vapour contribution to the greenhouse effect that Auer refers to, please check out comments 118, 144, 148-152 here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/#more-367
You can see from the DOA/EIA site under discussion the accepted values for the CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect i.e. 12-26%.
Auer uses a figure of 3.2% for anthropogenic CO2 created each year with the balance from natural sources.
These figures are correct but are being misused, this is the gross, not the net amount of CO2 produced each year, about 98.5% of the CO2 produced, is also absorbed, the problem of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere is a result of the CO2 cycle being out of balance by that 1.5% excess being left in the atmosphere year after year. As a result it accumulates, that accumulation has pushed CO2 levels up by 35% over the last 150 years or so, at the present rate a 100% increase in atmospheric CO2 is expected by the end of the century.
As far as historic CO2 levels are concerned, it’s not the absolute CO2 levels that are considered to be a problem, it’s the rate of change that is now occurring, it is the climatic changes that will occur as a result of this strengthened GH effect over such a relatively short space of time that we need to be concerned about and investigate.
I realise that you won’t understand all this science Fred, fortunately others will.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Back to the list Andy….hard to avoid isn’t it?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
“done deal” as presented by the greenie left.
It’s not the greenie views I support Fred, it’s the mainstream climate scientists.
The list is old hat, the characters on it are jokesters.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Carbon Tax. Aka.. Con-Tax. The biggest global con-job in the industrialised world since the 1990′s and ISO 9000. Analogous to ISO 9000 having nothing whatsoever to do with producing a quality product; a carbon tax will have nothing…zip….zilch…no affect whatsoever on the climatic changes occurring in the world during our lifetime. Just another global BS scheme to make money for a select group of beaucratic con-arsetists. What a joke!
You can waste your lives trying to change it but better to learn from the likes of the Dutch and embrace it, and work with it and not against it. Ive been observing changes in the NZ climate for almost 40 years and I remain on the fence whether climate changes have been propagated by an industralised world or, whether its just nature at work? I dont have a finite answer and neither does anybody else.
As sure as money cant buy you love, a carbon tax will have not one iota affect on the climatic changes occurring in the world today.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
“All science does not agree with the greenie left.”
And “all science” does not agree with the theory of evolution..
Want a list? it’s rather more impressive than yours.
“Kepler, Boyle, Newton, Linnaeus, Euler, Faraday, Babbage, Joule, Pasteur, Kelvin, Maxwell, and Werner von Braun”
(via http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v5i10f.htm 0
If you wish to keep at it I can get another list of leading “scientists” who attest 9-11 was the work of George Bush.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Sure they are Andy….
Guess you’ve just conceded… errr…gracefully.
Thanks.
I know it’s a bastard Andy…. the list says you’re full of manure.
Back to the list Andy baby…..read it slowly, inwardly digest, and we’ll do a comprehension test tomorrow.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Fred’s post must go down as one of the most ill-timed in history!
He had a little list.
I blame the muslims, oops sorry, I mean he does.
x
S
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
I’m not committed either way as far as which is the greater; the cost of global warming or the cost of minimising global warming.
I recognise I don’t know enough to make an informed judgement, It’s doubtful there was high enough confidence in the information Sir Nicholas Stern had to draw the firm conclusions he did either.
So it’s lucky we’ve got people like Fred and Paul who have such a vast knowledge of the issues without even studying them.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Oh my sainted aunt……
I think I panicked the left.
Soni’s now equating evolution with glorbel wareming and Muzzie terrorists with “the work of George Bush.”
It’s rare to have such a satisfactory evening.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Exactly sonic. And dont forget Einstein’s famous quote “God does not play dice”
But it does support my contention that real scientists would never say “The debate is over” eh?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Precautionary principle Porcupine?
We do not buy insurance because we “know” we will crash the car. We judge the probabilities.
yes “Fred” you have us all panicked, that is why we are reduced to using facts.
xxx
S
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Fred, I have read articles on GW by 22 on your little list, I know they’re political jokesters.
So have been caught telling porkys eg. Carter, Singer, Michaels, Jaworowski.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Back to the list clowns…..
They must all be wrong.
It’s greenie dogma….what other truth is there?
Vote:…..
November 30th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Hey Fred, have you managed to read my rebuttle of Auers argument? Or was it a bit hard for a simple fascist like yourself to understand?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Don’t confuse Fred with facts Andrew.
You can prove anything that is even slightly ture with “facts”
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
I dont understand that reponse sonic. I’m not anti-AGW, I just dont know all the facts and can see the debate. Its better to debate scientifically as you suggest in your previous post – thats all I’m saying – evolution and AGW are both theories.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
No I dont get it now sonic. Are you razing those scientists on the list or agreeing with their right to have a different opinion?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
John Keys. I admire you for what you have achieved in your career and family life to date. But now that you’re in politics, spear me the platitudes. Specifically, what strategies do you have for a nat govt to help NZ pay its way in the world and lift its standard of living? Since true wealth is created only by the primary, manufacturing and tourism industries, what strategies and policies do you propose to assist the prime movers in developing these industry sectors and, how will nat policies differentiate from those of labour?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
” evolution and AGW are both theories.”
And so is gravity, would you jump off of a cliff on the basis that someone had a list of people who doubt its reality?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
You can see the scientists that signed don’t agree with your view….try to get over it….
Or not….
I agree tho, how dare they….just not “NZ correct”, is it?
When in doubt look at the list of scientists….why did they sign?
That’s all a journo student needs to do.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
So it’s lucky we’ve got people like Fred and Paul who have such a vast knowledge of the issues without even studying them.
Posted by Andrew W | November 30, 2006 9:06 PM
Actually, I have (or did) study them. I had a business that was climate-dependent and related in the late 1960′s-1970′s, and studied climatic changes in NZ for about 100 years (where data was available), prior to this period.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Sonic I see and you make an interesting point. But falling to your death is an observation which is independent of the theory of gravity. Before there was a theory of gravity there would have been another theory to cover it. that theory is now considered wrong but the fact that it was wring would not have stopped you falling to your death.
BUT you seem to have painted yourself into a corner here. Either you are using that site to say
1. “one thing that people do is attack scientist credentials if they disagree” which is what you and AW are saying about freds list or
2. you are giving an example of credible scientists on the other side of a “science is settled” debate – but you and AW say those scientists don’t exist on the other side of the AGW debate
How can you have it both ways?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Oh yeah paul, thanks for reminding me about the classic ISO900x rort – that baby was a bumper harvest! A guarantee that your toaster will not last one day longer than its 1 year expiry date. And where are the caring environmentalists when the landfills grow? Their like McCavity – never there!
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Paul, what this country needs is a long-term trans-government environmental strategy to take us through at least the first half of the century. Despite our infamous clean green image we have virtually the worst environmental record in the world in many areas.
A lot of that is down to the political elites assimlate and destroy policies. We need someone with vision to incorporate GW into a whole environmental package.
That package certainly should not include buying carbon credits off third world fascist dictators, using valuable energy to bury CO2 underground or taxing cow farts.
We need a government with vision to move us to sustainable energy, lean green industry and environmentally friendly public and private transport mix. Then get the hell our of our way!
As Winston Churchill said: “Give us the tools and we will finish the job”
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
“why did they sign?”
Why do you have the opinion on AGW that you do Fred?
Do you understand the science involved?
Have you read up on the literature?
Are the names in your little list anything other than simply a list of names of scientists who share your view on the issue?
If you don’t have a reasonable scientific understanding of AGW, how can your views be based on science?
If your views are not based on science, what are they based on?
Are they based on politics?
Do you believe that if you wish really hard, the climate physics that AGW is based on will change to fit your politics?
Don’t be so naive as to think that scientists aren’t blinkered by their politics like everyone else. Every one of the people on your little list are political conservatives like yourself.
The thousands of mainstream scientists that work in climate science, the people who by any meaningful measure, are the best qualified to assess AGW, come from across the political spectrum.
You assume that the IPCC conclusions on AGW is a greenie bandwagon rather than sound science because that belief suits your politics.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
AW I like your scientific approach and agree with you theat science should prevail on GW but you cant always argue rationally with irrational people who have the power to pass legislation.
the government can pass 1000s of bits of legislation a year and we are expected to fight them on a case by case basis and we are loosing the battle.
I think you will agree we have some pretty dodgy legislation on our books and in committee, especially in the hyper-regulation area. Much of that was brought in becasue some whacker was somehow able to argue rationally for it, and it slipped through.
So forgive some of the non-scientists for being a bit cynical about the process – thats where a lot of this is coming from, not some entrenched hatred of left or right or whatever.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Oh come on sonic I thought we were in for a good debate about the nature of knowledge.
But I see your not up for the challenge – just your usual – paste in some obscure website that no one else could possibly find and run eh?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Hey and andrew – ease up on the porky thing eh?
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
I probably read too much. Hardly a soul of our generation disagrees that climate change is upon us. This may or may not, be related to the other subject matter of global warming. For every argument that endeavours to prove global warming is the result of mankind inhabiting the earth there is an opposing, equally valid argument to the contrary. No one really knows , but lawmakers sense an opportunity to capitalise and the whole thing takes on a life of its own and without any real, collabarating and/or, irrefutable evidence.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Oh and I wouldn’t mind betting theyr’re ISO9000 certified.
Vote:November 30th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Porcupine. You’ve got it, mate. Good night.
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 9:04 am
” you never get searched coming through customs anymore…. Dont worry about the fact that we let 100s of people with AIDS and TB into the country.”
Must have been a pretty intense search they used to do if they could locate bacteria and viri with it.
Or are you just talking rubbish again?
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 9:10 am
Andrew
Vote:Choosing rural stations is not “cherry picking” the data – is it removing an obvious and recognised source of error. In earlier days we underestimated the heat island effect. I seem to remember it was only a few years ago that researches acknowledged that a population of 15,000 could corrupt data from a surface station.
I have gone to the NASA link you provided and again I find that none of the identified “rural area” stations show any warming. I did find a station in the Russian area which showed warming of about 2 degrees but this was not identified as rural or non urban.
I have been asking this question around the traps for a little while and to date no one has found a rural station which shows significant warming.
The overall warming of 0.6 degrees which is widely acknowledged could well be the result of heat island effect. However, in that we are getting similar overall warming from satellite readings I acknowledge that minor warming is happening but nothing to endorse the great leaps projected by the Hockey Stick or to justify Gore style panic.
December 1st, 2006 at 10:01 am
come back and debate the issue properly sonic, I’ve still got my quills.
Owen, you never will find the evidence there because thats not the evidence GW is based on – it is based on the synthesis of a large body of data.
But as you imply, its the paniced reaction to GW, and the fact that politicians are involved that have peoples suspicions raised.
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 11:11 am
Just sent a list of locations in for you Owen, being “held for approval by the site owner”
Probably looks like a blogspot to the filter
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Owen: “in that we are getting similar overall warming from satellite readings I acknowledge that minor warming is happening”
Why don’t you just admit that the heat island effect is understood better by the scientists that are working on this issue than by you, that they do know how to take it into account, and that having done so the surface measurements and satellite measurements are in agreement and that agreement is in the 0.6-0.8C range for the rise in surface temperatures over the last 100 years?
Do you know if your NZ CSC colleague Augie Auer has revised the calculations he uses in claiming AGW is negligable since his NZ Herald article I debunked above?
As far as the clean up of the NZ CSC site goes, I would be happy to help pay but my charge would be far higher than you would be prepared to pay – Balance.
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Andrew, the heat island effect –and similar anomolies –are impossible to take into effect with aggregated data which is not distributed around the globe on a random basis. For example after the collapse of the Soviet Union a host of stations were closed as part of the collapse. Most of these were in the outer reaches if Siberia. The end result was a warmer Soviet Union.
Vote:Some cities (and I think Wellington may be guilty) have moved their stations into “more favourable” locations to improve their tourism stats.
Then there are cases were stations which were once in farmland are now in the middle of supermarket car-parks and others which were in airports are now in suburban developments.
Our own met service has done a good job in making these corrections but in many jurisdictions there has been no attempt made at all.
My engineering level physics makes such analysis reasonably easy for me to comprehend and my masters level statistics always reminds me of the need to collect data from randomly distributed sources. Our ground stations are not randomly distributed which is why the satellite measurements (once correctly calibrated) are so much more reliable.
Also, new from NIWA in their ‘just-issued’ Climate update #89, 15 Nov 06
“Sea Surface Temperature anomalies have been decreasing for over a year, after a marked warming in early 2005. The sea surface for much of the region around NZ is now cooler than normal…” The 3-month average anomalies for August to October were also near zero.
Another “Dog bites man story”
Augie’s comments were taped over a telephone interview and the “errors” you refer to are simply attributable to a lack of clear definition of terms. I forget the fine print but essentially in one reference he was talking to annual loading and in another he was referring to the “background” level. IF you have been phone interviewed you will know how easy it is to leave yourself open to criticism on such points – especially from people who do not want to give you the benefit of any doubt. I don’t see many people picking up on the IPCC for using MER for currencies instead of PPP which is a much more serious error than any in Augie’s phone interview – and yet that document was supposed to have been reviewed over and over again.
AS for the 0.6 to 0.8 range for global temp I am not about to argue to much about that because it is hardly a significant rise – and is certainly less than year to year variations. We are dealing with a chaotic dynamical system with multiple feedbacks and hence a trend of this kind tells us nothing about the future other than that we cannot state with confidence that the next annual mean will be higher or lower than the last one.
There is no sign at all of any ongoing blade of the hockey stick. Given that the Llittle Ice Age ended “officially” in 1850 it would be surprising if there had not been a little warming since then.
How do you account for the peak period in the thirties?
December 1st, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Not only NAS but the “Mann” himself have now said that the Hockey stick graph was misused:
From August Nature – the flagship science journal and also heartland yay-sayer:
Correspondence Nature 442, 627 (10 August 2006) | doi:10.1038/442627b; 9 August 2006
Authors were clear about hockey-stick uncertainties
Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes and Michael E. Mann Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
Sir:
Your News story “Academy affirms hockey-stick graph” (Nature 441, 1032; 2006) states that the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel “concluded that systematic uncertainties in climate records from before 1600 were not communicated as clearly as they could have been”. This conclusion is not stated in the NAS report itself, but formed part of the remarks made by Gerald North, the NAS committee chair, at the press conference announcing the report.
The name of our paper is “Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: inferences, uncertainties, and limitations” (Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 759–762; 1999). In the abstract, we state: “We focus not just on the reconstructions, but on the uncertainties therein, and important caveats” and note that “expanded uncertainties prevent decisive conclusions for the period prior to AD 1400″. We conclude by stating: “more widespread high-resolution data are needed before more confident conclusions can be reached.” It is hard to imagine how much more explicit we could have been about the uncertainties in the reconstruction; indeed, that was the point of the article! The subsequent confusion about uncertainties was the result of poor communication by others, who used our temperature reconstruction without the reservations that we had stated clearly.
Vote:December 1st, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Again one of my posts today has been “held for approval by the site owner”
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 3:12 am
Owen, regarding your points about surface temperature readings and the heat island effect.
“a host of stations were closed as part of the collapse. Most of these were in the outer reaches if Siberia. The end result was a warmer Soviet Union”
This claim is nonsense, the station measurements are used individually, the data analysis is not done by taking measurements in say 1950, averaging all of them across a nation, and repeating the exersize while ignoring changes made to stations between years.
See this site:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/the-surface-temperature-record-and-the-urban-heat-island/
“My engineering level physics makes such analysis reasonably easy for me to comprehend and my masters level statistics always reminds me of the need to collect data from randomly distributed sources.”
You can have all the qualifications in the world, but if you choose not to use these skills, they amount to an empty boast. It is clear from the fact that you had not even examined the nasa data that you have chosen not to objectively apply any skill you have to the matter.
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 3:16 am
“Augie’s comments were taped over a telephone interview and the “errors” you refer to are simply attributable to a lack of clear definition of terms. I forget the fine print but essentially in one reference he was talking to annual loading and in another he was referring to the “background” level.”
Here either you are lying to me or someone is lying to you.
Augie was simply regurgitating almost word for word claims he got from Bob Carter, another NZ CSC collegue of yours, as you can see from this site and Carters blog that it links to:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/01/calculating-the-greenhouse-effect/
Carter himself probably got it from here:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 3:19 am
“How do you account for the peak period in the thirties?”
Aerosols seem to be a large part of the reason:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf Hansen on models.
Also on the Hockeystick, I would normally assume someone with your interest in Mann’s work would have read this but you seem to be very selective in your reading:
Summary of NAS report on Manns hockeystick:
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060626/full/4411032a.html
“We are dealing with a chaotic dynamical system with multiple feedbacks and hence a trend of this kind tells us nothing about the future other than that we cannot state with confidence that the next annual mean will be higher or lower than the last one.”
This is why the science of climate change isn’t simple to model.
What is simple is:
1. The greenhouse effect lifts the surface temperature of the planet by 33C
Vote:2. CO2 contribute 12-26% of this warming
3. We are adding CO2 to the atmosphere, now up 35% on pre-industrial levels, likely to be 100% up by the end of the century
4. As warm air supports more water vapour at constant absolute humidity, a rise in tropospheric temperatures through more CO2 will logically increase the strength of the water vapour contribution in absolute terms.
December 2nd, 2006 at 3:25 am
See if I can get these through two at a time.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=222234720005&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=222304690002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 3:28 am
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=222306350003&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=222305540002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 3:34 am
Bugger it, I do have a heap of other station readings that are from rural areas and show temperature rises of 1-2.5C, but if you’re interested, and interested in being objective you can look for them yourself Owen.
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Its just theory parading as fact Andrew. Thats the important message from the NAS – “let all voices be heard”. No one peice of data or modelling is the final answer.
I am convinced by global warming but its mangitude, causes and consequences are greatly debated and the politicians have hold of the methods for solution so we should all be very very worried.
I am not interested in taking sides, but the simple fact is that the yay-sayers started it by saying “the science is settled”.
Even the RSNZ for gods sake – real scientists don’t carry on like that.
For every bit of information you can offer there’s a bit to apparently contradict it – wlecome to the reality of science!
All I want if for the science community to tell the truth – the debate is still on. Then I will calm down and be happy.
But at present we have a situation where either way sceince could take a large hit in its credibility – we’ve seen it before – almost daily in the biomedical field – where the media gets on the bandwagon – but the one thing that is for sure is that “science isn’t settled”. If humans or the public don’t like that then its tough – I don’t make the rules but I sure have to live by them.
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Porc, do you accept Darwin’s theory of evolution as proven?
“the science is settled” Is not a statement that many with a fair understanding of the AGW issues would agree with; it is not even a description many would use even in describing evolution.
Accepting that the science is not settled is a long way from believing that AGW is not proven though.
A problem exists in that if a IPCC supporter say “the science is not settled”, AGW denialist instantly turn it into claiming he believes “AGW is not proven.
“All I want if for the science community to tell the truth”
I didn’t realise you were a fan of collective responsibility.
Vote:The science community is rather large, expect individuals within that community to say all sorts of things that represent their own views, and only their own views.
December 2nd, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Porcy, I left when Soni and Andy W panicked…
My work here is done…
PS boys….You know what to do…
Read the list …check out the qualifications…spread the word among family and friends.
NZ produces .2% of the world’s total carbon I believe.
The figure is decreasing rapidly due to China’s and India’s massive unregulated un-Kyoto’d carbon emissions.
So if NZ shuts down the entire economy tomorrow morning it will have zero effect on the increase in man made carbon.
..PANIC! PANIC!….NZ roasts the globe!
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 8:10 pm
You’re always good for a laugh Fred
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 8:16 pm
You are right though, in that if an accord like Kyoto is to be worth anything, everyone must be in and under the same obligations.
Vote:December 2nd, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Andrew, I accpet that tje 20th century ended warmer than it begun. I am not some anti-socialist denialist (in fact I consider myself a socialist, but argueing that point is another story).
I feel it is wrong and counterproductive to take the easy option on this issue and dismiss it as a left/right divide or a socialist or capitalist plot.
“All I want if for the science community to tell the truth”
This is from the RSNZ Newsletter, with no disclaimer as to it being a personal opinion:
“Eventually, the price of emissions should depend upon the costs of the damage they will cause, but making that connection is one of the few remaining areas in climate research where the science isn’t settled.”
The RSNZ represents scientists in NZ. There is no other organisation that does that and the RSNZ gets government funding to do that job.
As I have said before I find it totally unacceptable that a scientist or their representative orgainisation would make such a statement as it could harm the credibility of science and scientists.
So at the risk of repeating myself, I believe that scientists must take the lead in this issue, not economists, environmental activists or Hollywood.
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 5:42 am
“Eventually, the price of emissions should depend upon the costs of the damage they will cause, but making that connection is one of the few remaining areas in climate research where the science isn’t settled.”
I view this statement as representing one of the most basic principles I know; We should be expected to be held responsible for our own actions, and if we don’t accept this, the society we live in should ensure that we are are held responsible.
The principle of Individual responsibility is at the core of my political beliefs, it’s why I accept a likely need for carbon trading.
I’m stunned that we appear to disagree on this principle.
There is an economic theory (one of those theories that, like evolution, is generally accepted as fact) known as The Tragedy Of The Commons. It’s the one in which a fishery is destroyed because no one has the powers of proprietorship, It applys to other resources also, eg. the atmosphere. As private ownership of the atmosphere would result in a monopoly, with the potential of monopolistic exploitation, proprietorship in the form of a co-operative is the logical solution. A co-operative could be either private, eg. a situation in which you have a power company owned by the consumers, to be a consumer you would have to own shares, or public eg. any Government department is owned by all NZers.
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 8:42 am
Dear Andrew,
I was debating the science, but thank you for opening a debate on the politics.
I was saying as you well know but chose to side-step that an individual wrote ” is one of the few remaining areas in climate research where the science isn’t settled.”. He wrote it on behalf of the society but did not take individual responsibility for it. Therefore I am left to assume he was speaking on behalf of the RSNZ. This an unscientific statement for a scientific society to make and I would like them to take responsibility for that.
I have no problem with calling evolution a theory, since that’s what it is. If people are uncomfortable with calling it a theory and think that somehow degrades it that I cannot help them with. And also only sonic and his ilk like to play the na na na card and say – but you called evolution a fact.
The tragedy of the commons is a politico-economic object (perhaps a commons itself?) that both people of all political persuasions seem to consider they have the right to browbeat their opponents with. It may have been a house of lords wet dream originally because the private ownership lobby loves to trot it out to justify their existence and argue against public ownership. However that is based on the static (spatial) commons idea. When you take time into account, which we humans have difficulty with, then you realise the commons is the whole world and private owners are merely caretakers of part of the commons for the next generation.
” As private ownership of the atmosphere would result in a monopoly, with the potential of monopolistic exploitation, proprietorship in the form of a co-operative is the logical solution.”
So if we must call the atmosphere an, at present, unproprietered part of the commons then we humans now have the chance to sit down and regulate it properly. I see no evidence that is happening.
So then we might want to look at history to see our failures (and successes, if any) in regulation, de-regulation and privatisation. You mention some examples.
“a situation in which you have a power company owned by the consumers, to be a consumer you would have to own shares” – I live under one of these regimes
– shaft you senseless, keep the threat of private ownership (or worse handing you back to the council) hanging over your head to keep you in line and give you a bonus just before election time (now where have I heard that before?)
“any Government department is owned by all NZers” – but run by their elite for their own purposes.
Take the fisheries “common” for example. The government/iwi/business complex has that one running at on average 20% its potential (pretake size), constantly moots outlawing recreational fishing, resists any realistic proposal to set up marine reserves and protected areas and outlaws bottom trawling only in the areas where you cant do it anyway. (Oh and did I say spends an enormous amount of money on research and reports trying to argue against anthropogenic depletion of the fish stocks)
Privatisation – well I think the telecom debacle speaks for itself eh? For anyone to sell off telecom without keeping the lines “commons” you have to suspect their (corrupt) motives.
Water – semi privatised human necessity. Price exponentially increasing.
So any suggestions on what we are to do?
We will have a lot of this stuff inflicted on us from outside, I know but what little control we as a nation have , couldn’t we try to use it to seriously clean up our back yard rather than waste the opportunity?
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 9:55 am
Thanks for all that Procupine.
You said:
“This an unscientific statement for a scientific society to make and I would like them to take responsibility for that.”
So ask them to, I have no sway with them.
“you called evolution a fact.”
I actually said: “one of those theories that, like evolution, is generally accepted as fact.”
Obviously some (mainly creationist) don’t.
“The tragedy of the commons is a politico-economic object…”
You obviously have no understanding of what is a very simple principle, If a depleteable resource is held in common ownership, without agreement between the users on each restricting their use so the total usage is kept to a sustainable amount, the resource is likely to be destroyed, like Fishery’s, Whales Dodos, Moas, Mammoths, the forests of Easter island etc. etc. etc.
“So if we must call the atmosphere an, at present, unproprietered part of the commons then we humans now have the chance to sit down and regulate it properly. I see no evidence that is happening.”
Wow, you’ve stunned me twice in one morning, obviously this is the goal of the Kyoto accord.
“”a situation in which you have a power company owned by the consumers, to be a consumer you would have to own shares” – I live under one of these regimes
– shaft you senseless, keep the threat of private ownership (or worse handing you back to the council) hanging over your head to keep you in line and give you a bonus just before election time (now where have I heard that before?)”
So switch to another power company if it doesn’t work for you, or are the one’s in private ownership even worse?
“”any Government department is owned by all NZers” – but run by their elite for their own purposes.”
Any large bureaucracy is run by the bureaucrats, if carbon trading is introduced, I strongly hope it can be done in an open market without major institutions dominating, and yes however you do it there are problems.
“Take the fisheries “common” for example…”
Again, however you do it there are problems, personally I would rather see the fisheries in private ownership as there are many competing fisheries, so it’s not a case of a natural monopoly. However, the proprietor would need the face the prospect of severe, and enforced, penalties if he damaged the envoronment (someone elses property) in harvesting.
“Privatisation – well I think the telecom debacle speaks for itself eh? For anyone to sell off telecom without keeping the lines “commons” you have to suspect their (corrupt) motives.”
Telecom is effectively a natural monopoly. My understanding is that natural monopoly’s occur where you have either a need of a reticulation system, or one indivisable resourse.
“Water – semi privatised human necessity. Price exponentially increasing.”
Haven’t had any price increases myself, if it’s in short supply in some places, the price increases, Law of supply and demand.
When do you think we’ll see Owen back, I think it was you who said:
“Those who turn and run away live to run another day”…
Cheers Andrew
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 10:42 am
Yes you can have a smart retort for any statement, but it doesnt realay say much.
I’ll give you one example
You say thats what kyoto is for
I said “regulate it PROPERLY”
The bottomline is we haven’t managed our environment well either globally or locally and their is no sign of that improving.
We have a poor track record in de-regulation and privatisation and in fact have ended up being more over-regulated than ever.
For example the fisheries industry is fairly much privatised and heavily regulated but fishing stocks are still being depleted and enforcement is so difficult that its been mooted that fisheries inspection officers be allowed to carry guns – such is the level of abuse they get.
I don’t know whether that abuse is because of greedy fishermen or whether the fisheries officers are indoctrinados that believe killing any fish is a crime against humanity though.
Apparently there is one officer for the whole area around the Lee marine reserve while the others pontificate in wellington.
So without a political wake up I do not know the answer – and all our attempts, even if they were legitimate attempts (and not rorts) which I very much doubt have failed. Kyoto will fail too, that is self evident.
The gulf between theory and practice on the NZ political scene is so vast I do not know exactly where to go from here.
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 11:58 am
Hey Andrew – or perhaps we come into this category eh?
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject” – Winston Churchill
Vote:December 3rd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject” – Winston Churchill
Don’t think thats us, we cover too many subjects, and I when I fly one of my kites I’m shouting that I’m prepared to change my mind.
Vote:December 5th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Andrew et al,
I have not run away. Earlier this year I had an aortic dissection which means my health is tender – and I have just had a bout of diverticulitis which stopped my in my tracks.
I was trying to find the tables on the Hansen site which listed those sites you provided and could not find it anywhere. Could you send me the URL. I am intrigued because not only does the Visual trend line (a bit naughty but OK for this purpose) show considerable warming in those locations but the year to year variations are huge – much larger than the trend gain. Are they are all in a cluster?
Bagdarin moves 5 degrees from year to year and the others range from 3 to 6. What is going on? Is Stan at work here? (Billy Connelly holds that all the problems of the old Soviet Union are caused by someone called Stan. Look at the names of the countries.
Vote:December 5th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Owen, go back to your original John Daly site and click on:
NASA Goddard Institute (GISS)
Click on the map, the locations I gave came from north of lake Baykal, I had quite a few from across northern Europe and Russia that wouldn’t go through enmass and just picked those 4 off the end of the list.
The large annual temperature variations will be in part due to the locations being inland, in NZ we experience much smaller temperature variations largely due to the oceans moderating temperature variations, also because these locations are in areas where the Earths albedo (and therefore solar light absorption by the Earths surface) varies wildly due to variations in snow cover.
No doubt you will be able to use some of the above to argue that factors other than AGW cause the temperature trend at these locations.
Sorry to hear about your health problems.
Cheers.
Vote:December 5th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Owen, I fired this one at you on a previous thread but you must have quit the thread before seeing it:
Owen.
Vote:As you are a member of the NZ CSC I was wondering why the scientists in your organisation are not prepared to defend the claims they make in the articles they post on the site, Why aren’t they available to refute points made in the discussion sections? I have invited them through Terry but I get no response, are they too scared as they know Framo, Gareth, and I will prove their claims nonsense?
December 5th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
I shall go back to the Daly site. Your links took me directly to the NASA Hansen site and I found that much more difficult to find my way round when starting from the end. No trouble when you start at the top of the hierarchy – I just love playing with the anomalies maps.
Vote:I ams still puzzled because I have checked a number of rural stations in the US and Canada and none show the extreme fluctations on year to year of your group but I suppose we can accept that the climate there is much more severe and your point on varying albedo is taken. \I think we are running about a degree colder than normal for this time of year in Northland and it’s highly noticeable. IT must be weirde when say November temps can vary 5 degrees from one year to the next.
The reason the scientists and ecomists etc don’t tend to participate in the forums in simply one of time and allocation of resources. Just participating in the coalition takes a huge amount of time. We are always critiquing each other’s work and planning responses to newspaper articles round the country, and exchanging thoughts with our overseas members. We are not running a blog site and I suspect that most don’t have the time to get involved in never ending debates with a few people who tend to dominate so many similar sites.
But believe me, none of them are sitting round twiddling their thumbs and indeed many spend much time overseas. Bryan is currently in China and not long ago was at the conference in Stockholm.
IT’s also a bit disheartening when you see the major papers being “bombed” my multiple posts of garbage. (Like hundreds) We always wonder why so many global warming enthusiasts are so agressive and seem unable to participate in civilised discourse.
Maybe they are Jung and easily Freudianed but I certainly am not prepared to get involved in barrages of abuse.
December 5th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
I have just had a quick look at the sub-polar North American data, went through the records from about 20 rural sites before I found one that didn’t show a significant temperature rise.
Can you seriously claim that Daly presented the data objectively? He was cherry picking as I have stated, this appears to be standard policy in the AGW denialist camp, clearly science amongst these people has taken the back seat to politics.
I have a problem Owen; AGW denialists put forward arguments attempting to dismiss AGW, these arguments are comprehensively refuted, eg. Prof Auers claims discussed previously, Bob Carters claims that 1998 was the peak year for global temperatures and that temperatures have bee declining ever since, 1998, as I’m sure you know, was a temperature spike as a result of a powerful ENSO, a point Dr Carter acknowledge in one of his earlier articles but hasn’t mentioned lately, temperatures after 1998 are higher than those before 1998 and the trend is upwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
The problem I have is that, from observation, AGW denialist vertually never even attempt to rebutt the refutation of their arguments, they just walk away to continue making the same discredited claims elsewhere.
The non-participation of your scientists in the discussion on the NZ CSC is a case in point.
To me this is starting to look like a deliberate strategy of hit and run.
The use of hit and run tactics is commonly used by one side in a conflict when it knows it is outgunned. It appears to me that, in terms of science, AGW denialists not only don’t have scientific support for their position, but that they know their arguments are scientifically unsound, hence the strategy.
I am now genuinely wondering if AGW denialists are even slightly interested in the objective scientific facts, or if their motivation is simply to play the political game, irrespective of the environmental consequences.
Obviously, if, for arguments sake, AGW is a fact, and that the consequences of business as usual are serious, this could have the potential of being hugely damaging to the conservative right.
Vote:December 5th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
I heard John Key on Leighton Smiths program yesterday, it is good to see that at least he is taking AGW seriously, even if he is a little vague on the difference between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentrations, perhaps the NZ CSC could take another look at itself and see the advantages of using the better science that would result in them moving closer to the current Nat position.
Vote:December 5th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Owen
I hope you don’t percieve this as mere garbage bombing or some such. I have long respected your work on other subjects.
I think Andrew raises a completely valid issue with regard to the non-responsiveness of warming sceptics to their critics.
No one is suggesting that you spend your scarce funds on employing someone to monitor a blog 24/7. Indeed no-one is even suggesting that your scientist allies should slum around in comment threads with dirty hippies or what have you.
All you are being asked is why so many cogent criticisms are simply ignored, with no attempt at rebuttal made, or acknowledgement of error conceded.
Andrew, in his 7:47 post, has made some specific claims in a polite manner. Claims that make the people whose work he cites look foolish at best. Surely these claims deserve a better response than that the apparent fools are a bit busy at the moment?
Either Andrew has misrepresented their arguments, in which case it should be but the work of a few moments to correct him, or they have a case to answer and so should clear their names by either showing Andrew to be wrong or recanting their apparent foolishness?
Vote:December 6th, 2006 at 8:56 am
“perhaps the NZ CSC could take another look at itself and see the advantages of using the better science that would result in them moving closer to the current Nat position.”
In other words Andrew:
perhaps the NZ CSC could take another look at itself and see the advantages of towing the party line. (Like the RSNZ does)
I would prefer scientists lead politicians, not follow them.
It is the religious fervour with which the yay-sayers argue, that ultimately get people’s backs up, especially scientists who have been bludgeoned with the MSM pseudoscience hammer for their whole lives.
Andrew, if you’ve got time could you please refer me to the original article on which that wikipedia graph is based. I would be interested to know how you can get a global average temperature. Did they do a continuous integral of (a) a model or (b) a smoothed empirical fit. Or did they do a weighted or unweighted discrete average. If you don’t have time I will try to look at it further when I get time.
Good points Pascal’s. I am not in the CSC and would like to comment but you deserve more than a one-liner so I’ll try to find the time and get back.
Vote:December 6th, 2006 at 9:22 am
I don’t know how many of you have ever been involved in media debates but in NZ it is very difficult to get responses to responses published.
Vote:If one of our members gets some publicity the editors regard this as a favour to the minority.
They newspaper or whatever willingly publishes the rebuttals but then refuses to publish the counter argument on the grounds that the balance has been struck.
The absence of published material does not mean the material has not been written and submitted.
Also once you get to the scientific debate the problem of readership emerges – the issues become increasingly complex and technical the longer the debate proceeds.
AS regards our own debate I suspect we have a different understanding of “Significant”.
The graph you showed from Wiki shows one degree warming since 1850 the official ending of the Little Ice Age. If we had not warming since then the Little Ice Age would not have ended.
Also we are talking in terms of CO2 driven AGW – there is no difference in the rate of warming in the early decades of the 20th C and the latest decades of the 20thC. How is this graph showing significant warming in terms of CO2 driven AGW?
Another rule of thumb I find useful is that a warming trend over a time series which does not exceed year to year variation within that time series is not statistically signficant. (Chaotic non-linear system).
December 6th, 2006 at 9:24 am
I don’t know how many of you have ever been involved in media debates but in NZ it is very difficult to get responses to responses published.
Vote:If one of our members gets some publicity the editors regard this as a favour to the minority.
They newspaper or whatever willingly publishes the rebuttals but then refuses to publish the counter argument on the grounds that the balance has been struck.
The absence of published material does not mean the material has not been written and submitted.
Also once you get to the scientific debate the problem of readership emerges – the issues become increasingly complex and technical the longer the debate proceeds.
AS regards our own debate I suspect we have a different understanding of “Significant”.
The graph you showed from Wiki shows one degree warming since 1850 the official ending of the Little Ice Age. If we had not warming since then the Little Ice Age would not have ended.
Also we are talking in terms of CO2 driven AGW – there is no difference in the rate of warming in the early decades of the 20th C and the latest decades of the 20thC. How is this graph showing significant warming in terms of CO2 driven AGW?
Another rule of thumb I find useful is that a warming trend over a time series which does not exceed year to year variation within that time series is not statistically signficant. (Chaotic non-linear system).
December 6th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Porc: “I would prefer scientists lead politicians, not follow them.”
Oh, I agree, thats why I said “see the advantages of using the better science”, but as the scientists in question don’t seem that interested in looking at the science…
There are references at the bottom of the graph. I have come across articles that mention that the UK meteorological office, the world meteorological organisation, and NASA, all compile this information seperately. The results being largely in agreement (I understand the NASA figures show 2005 as warmer than 1998, but that the difference is not statistically significant).
Vote:December 6th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Owen, I agree entirely about your comments regarding the general media, in fact when others in the NZ CSC discussion forum suggested a televised debate with your people my view was that it would be a waste of time as the debate would be kept shallow for the audience, infact I doubt any oral debate could be of any use in actually advancing the understanding of those involved.
This is why I am so disappointed that your scientists have chosen not to discuss these matters with us in writing, here or on the NZ CSC site.
Regarding the little ice age, there increasing evidence that this was felt more severely in the North Atlantic than throughout the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, and the Northern Hemisphere was probably affected more than the Southern Hemisphere, the temperature reconstrutions via proxy data has a heavy NH bias, and, as we have seen, the SH is expected to be less affected by surface temperature forcings as a result of its high ocean surface ratio compared to the NH (85% vs 55%) and deeper ocean mixing layer.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/a-linkage-between-the-lia-and-gulf-stream/#more-378
there is no doubt however that the LIA actually occurred, and I dont doubt that it was assosiated with the solar Maunder minimum.
Owen, despite the claims frequently made by some, including Bob Carter, it is accepted that CO2 and other GHG are not the only climate forcing taken into account by the climate modelers, as you will have seen on the Hansen site, changes in solar forcing is taken into account, as are other forcings.
I am not qualified to analysis the statistical significance of uncertainties in the data available, I’m happy to rely on the good integrity of the NAS, and others whose area of expertise it is.
Vote:December 6th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Owen, you said: “The reason the scientists and ecomists etc don’t tend to participate in the forums in simply one of time and allocation of resources. Just participating in the coalition takes a huge amount of time. We are always critiquing each other’s work and planning responses to newspaper articles round the country, and exchanging thoughts with our overseas members”
There you go Owen, there’s your problem!! The members of the NZ CSC have obviously inadvertently formed a clique, instead of giving the any consideration to the views of those outside of your little group, or the slightly larger AGW denialist group, you have all gotten into the habit of simply reassuring each other that you are all heading in the right direction. Get your people to actually examine the arguments against their claims that they have so far ignored, you could all start with the points mentioned above.
Vote:December 7th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Owen, just because this thread has moved off the front page doesn’t mean that we have to abandon our discussion, I see that the NZ CSC has closed its discussion sections, you are using the spamming as an excuse, but as other sites cope, eg. this one, it is obviously only an excuse, your real reason being that you were getting a hiding on the discussion threads.
Sadly this move of yours will only increase the cliqueish, and insular nature of your group.
Vote:December 11th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Owen, I haven’t been able to access the NZ CSC site, have you guys shut up shop?
Vote: