Kiwiblog

From Stuff:

OPINION: Mohsen al Attar responds to criticism by Chris Trotter of his Auckland University law course.

Last week, Chris Trotter dedicated his column to assailing an advanced international law course – Colonialism to Globalisation: International Law and the Making of the Third World – I teach at the University of Auckland law faculty.

Trotter was springboarding off a recent blogpost on the same topic.

That would be me!

Anyway good to see a response.

I conclude with a word of thanks. As the debate about my course (and my person) has gone viral, so too has enrolment. At this stage, I am pleased to report we have doubled our numbers from last year – and, at this rate, may even reach maximum enrolment by week’s end – meaning that far more students will be exposed to a Third World perspective on the relationship between colonialism and international law.

I should get a share of the capitalist profits from the course!

I blogged on Monday about a 400 level law course at the University of Auckland called LAW495 Colonialism to Globalisation. The lecturer is incidentally a fervent supporter of one party rule in Cuba.

Anyway Chris Trotter writes about the course in the Dominion Post, and people may be surprised at his comments:

An interesting course” were the words Kiwiblog’s David Farrar used to describe Colonialism to Globalisation – an academic paper offered by the Auckland University’s law faculty.

Knowing Mr Farrar’s political leanings, it was with some trepidation that I activated the hyperlink embedded in his posting. My strong suspicion (instantly confirmed) was that my Kiwiblog host was not drawing his visitors’ attention to this course purely on account of its academic merits.

A swift perusal of the course description told me all I needed to know. Here, as I feared, was a particularly stark example of what I call “self-loathing Leftism” – that self-critical mode of Left-wing analysis which takes “the politics of victimhood” out of its more familiar context in the anti-racist, feminist and gay rights movements, and extends it to the whole world.

The result is as predictable as it’s banal: an “Avatar” world of Goodies versus Baddies and Nature versus Technology, in which the holistic philosophy of innocent and virtuous indigenes crashes into the murderously exploitative intentions of malignant and rapacious colonisers.

The Avatar analogy is a very good one. What I would be interested to know, is whether anyone who has ever done the course has managed to get good grades, while disagreeing with the world-view of the lecturer.

Anyway, back to Chris Trotter. Chris is an avid student of history, and picks apart some problems in the course description:

Just take a look at the opening sentences of Colonialism to Globalisation’s course description: “In the late 15th century, imperialist Europe emerged intent on exploring and possessing the New World. Fast forward through 500 years of colonialism, capitalism, slavery, industrialisation, genocide, and international law and greet the 21st century in all its paradoxical glory.”

There’s so much wrong with this statement that it’s difficult to know where to begin. For a start, there was no such thing as “imperialist Europe” in the late 15th century. The only entity worthy of such a description was the empire of the Ottoman Turks – whose steady expansion into southern and central Europe was halted only at the gates of Vienna in 1529. …

Let’s start by listing the things he left out: the Renaissance; the Reformation; the Enlightenment; the American and French Revolutions; the exponential growth of scientific knowledge and technological expertise; the expansion of democracy; the abolition of slavery; the emancipation of women; the defeat of totalitarianism; the birth of the United Nations; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Minor minor achievements.

We can only assume that Mr Attar’s justification for bracketing “capitalism” with “colonialism” and “slavery” is because he sees it as being emblematic of the West’s lust for conquest and its colonists’ pathological need to demonstrate racial and cultural superiority.

But to hold up capitalism as a purely Western construct is to engage in precisely the same ethno- centrism his course condemns. For most of human history it was the manufacturers and merchants of East and South Asia who controlled the global economy.

And they projected their reach and protected their profits no less ruthlessly than their Western counterparts.

I think Chris should enrol as a student in the course. The debates between lecturer and student could be worth You Tubing!

Chris Trotter writes:

Labour has become electorally implausible because it no longer projects itself as either psychologically, or morally, convincing.

Mr Goff, in last week’s “State of the Nation” speech, spoke of a Labour Party dedicated to serving the needs of “the many, not the few”.

He lambasted those who avoided paying their fair share of tax and he vowed to cap the salaries of state sector chief executives at the level of the prime minister’s annual income.

A traditional Labour message, and by all accounts powerfully delivered.

But was it real?

No, not really. It took the redoubtable Right-wing blogger, Cactus Kate, less than a day to uncover the fact that a significant number of Labour MPs belonged to one or more family trusts, the very same tax avoidance device that Mr Goff was railing against.

Rhetoric without substance doesn’t do well in the blogosphere.

And what about all those state sector CEOs on excessive salaries? Well, Mr Goff is to be congratulated for wanting to share the “pain” of economic recession more equitably.

But, in order to restore a measure of equity to the pay scales of the public service, surely Mr Goff would have to renounce his own, and Labour’s, continuing support for the State Sector Act?

After all, Mr Goff was a cabinet minister in the fourth Labour government, which introduced the State Sector Act. Its purpose?

To bring the private sector’s market- driven discipline into the public service: to give the heads of government agencies the same powers and responsibilities as corporate chief executives and pay them accordingly.

If Mr Goff is now acknowledging that the ideology underpinning the State Sector Act is flawed, then I, for one, will cheer him to the echo.

But if he still adheres to the neoliberal ethos which gave it birth, then he should let the market in CEO salaries find its own level, and like the original author of the State Sector Act, Stan Rodger, remain steadfastly on the sidelines and keep his mouth firmly shut.

And if Goff does suddenly declare the State Sector Act is wrong, the question will arise why has it taken 30 years to realise it. Longevity in Parliament is not always helpful for an opposition leader.

To win back the love Labour’s lost, the leader of the Opposition must learn how to channel not only the hopes and aspirations of Labour’s educated middle-class minority, but also the fear and antagonism of its sullen working-class majority.

A genuine political leader will gladly and gloriously reflect the idealistic light of his best followers but, when pressed, he must also be capable of tapping into the darkest impulses of his worst.

True leaders are feared as much as they are loved.

Think of Helen Clark in the midst of the “Corngate” scandal: chilling. Think of Rob Muldoon ordering Tom Scott out of the Beehive theatrette: terrifying.

Watching TVNZ’s Guyon Espiner interviewing Mr Goff on the Q+A programme, I was struck by how keen the leader of the Opposition was to please.

I don’t think it is a bad thing, that Phil Goff does not have a streak of Clark or Muldoon in him. While I disagree with his policies, I think Phil Goff is a pretty decent person, who achieved many good things as a Minister. I don’t think he will become Prime Minister, but if he did I think he would do an okay job (again I probably would disagree with a lot of his policies).

Democracy, it is said, substitutes ballots for bullets. And that’s fine so long as, like the metal projectiles they replace, ballots also have the capacity to inflict real damage.

Labour needs policies that not only help but hurt.

Out there in the electorate, some groups need to understand that they will be paying for Mr Goff’s promises. Sweet reason and bipartisanship, as President Barack

Obama has discovered, make for poor politics. There’s nothing the voter enjoys more than the whiff of fear and panic – especially in high places.

No politician gets elected purely on the strength of being everyone’s friend. At least symbolically, and preferably in reality, a party leader must also be somebody’s enemy.

Actually Obama has not been at all bipartisan. I think problem has been his moving to the left, instead of the centre. And by doing so he seems to have positioned himself as the enemy of fiscal hawks. The trouble is they are winning the war.

Chris Trotter writes:

How many times during the holiday period have you seen those irritating notices posted on the doors and windows of restaurants and cafes, informing you that a 15 per cent to 20 per cent “surcharge” will be added to your purchases because of the Holidays Act?

I don’t know about you, but whenever I see such a notice, I turn on my heel and go in search of an alternative eatery. According to the vast majority of restaurateurs and cafe owners who don’t impose these surcharges, it’s what most people do.

I’d like to know Chris’ source for the allegation most cafes don’t charge a surcharge on public holidays. To the contrary I think the overwhelming majority do.

Does the surcharge cover the cost of your lost trade? Probably not.

That is a decision best made by individual owners. Some might advertise no surcharge as an advertising plot, others might need the surcharge to make it worthwhile opening.

The intelligent – and economically rational – course of action for any proprietor in the hospitality industry is obvious. The entirely predictable cost of hiring workers to run a business on statutory holidays can be simply factored into its overall cost structure, and recovered during the course of the financial year.

With no disrespect to Chris, but statements like the above are made by people who I swear have never employed people or tried to run a low margin business like hospitality. They think making a profit is just as simple as factor in overall costs and hey presto.

They just have no idea. Business goes up and down. Staff are rostered on as demand is predicted, but often it can be a mismatch. Your cost of supplies goes up. You need to hire and train more staff. Your cashflow is negative due to tax requirements. so need to borrow.

Only in Neverneverland is it as simple as oh just recover your loss later in the year.

The bottom line is that there is no point in opening a cafe on a public holiday if the marginal cost of doing so is greater than the income for that day. And a 50% hike in staff costs can be the difference between making and losing money. Why would you as a cafe owner spend the day working, to lose money?

I own a polling company. We do not poll on public holidays unless the client will pay the cost of the extra wages. Otherwise I will lose money on the polling done that day, and if I was a cafe owner instead of a pollster, I don’t need Chris Trotter telling me I should just have made more money earlier in the year. It does not work like that.

Now people are quite free to refuse to dine at a cafe with a surcharge on a public holiday – good on them. But you have no right to expect them not to impose a surcharge, if that is the only way they will make a profit from opening that day.

I was interviewed for TV3 News on Saturday about what Bradford’s departure may mean politically, along with Andrew Little, Chris Trotter and Matt McCarten.

I took the view that it was potentially beneficial to the Greens as replacing Bradford with Clendon strengthens their environmental brand and if they are smart they could get as much as 10% of the vote if they position themselves as “greening” the Government no matter if it is National or Labour.

I stressed that the Greens will always support a Labour-led Government over a National-Led Government if one is possible. But if only National can form a Government, the Greens might be able to go beyond their current co-operation agreement to an abstain on supply and confidence agreement.

I understand Matt McCarten saw the move as potentially beneficial to the Greens also, and their ability to work on both sides of the aisle so to speak.

Andrew Little saw it as good for Labour, as Labour could pick up social justice voters from the Greens. I responded that this doesn’t actually help Labour win office, just as National picking up ACT voters doesn’t. And it can actually backfire if the Greens drop below 5% (as they have done in last night’s TVNZ poll). Also I have some doubts that Goff-led Labour will be more convincing to social justice voters than the Greens.

The real benefit to Labour would be if the Greens pick up some centrist voters who were previously put off by Bradford. For that will grow the left’s vote.

Chris Trotter sees the departure of Bradford as being the death of the left as the Greens go middle class.

He’s done a follow-up post today, which has some interesting observations:

The dangers inherent in the Greens’ educative model are demonstrated in their policy on the Treaty of Waitangi. Though the signing of the Treaty, like all historical events, is the subject of multiple, and often sharply contradictory, interpretations, the Greens have adopted an unequivocal and quite inflexible interpretation of the Treaty’s meaning. So much so that when some of their own members, unconvinced by the official party line, openly questioned it’s accuracy, they were deemed ineligible to stand as Green candidates by the Party leadership.

That the dissidents’ views on the Treaty of Waitangi were actually more in tune with those of the majority of Pakeha New Zealanders was an “inconvenient truth” to be overcome by – yes, you guessed it – a taxpayer-funded traveling road-show which would take the “true” meaning of the Treaty directly to the ignorant Pakeha masses and educate them into full conformity with the Greens’ historical interpretation.

This authoritarian aspect of the Greens’ political style is nowhere more apparent than in their so-called “consensus-based decision-making” constitution. Described as a means of “seeking positions that the maximum number of people can support, rather than a simple majority”, what these rules actually make possible is the ability of a tiny minority to over-rule and/or subvert the will of the majority.

In practical terms, it allows the leadership of the party, either directly or through their surrogates, to prevent the membership from directly challenging the Green Party caucus’s political strategy and tactics. Rather than promoting the open contest of conflicting political options, it fosters the cobbling together of compromises. Also, by imposing enormous emotional pressure on dissenters, it drives opposition below the surface of party affairs – a situation which, once again, privileges those in senior positions, and makes rank-and-file challenges to official party policy extremely difficult.

That is an interesting analysis of how the much vaunted consensus system actually can favour the hierarchy.

Chris Trotter is unhappy that Labour are pushing for Len Brown as Auckland Mayor, ignoring the wider left:

WHEN will Labour ever learn? A party whose membership now numbers less than 5,000 nationwide, and probably less than 1,000 north of Taupo, has decided – unilaterally – to select the Left’s mayoral candidate for the new Auckland “supercity”.

“Cheek” is too small a word to describe this sort of behaviour. Why? Because, if we accept the well-established rule-of-thumb that only ten percent of any organisation’s paper membership should ever be considered active players, fewer than 100 people took it upon themselves to choose the person aiming to represent 1.4 million.

For the sheer, jaw-dropping arrogance of this pre-emptive strike against democratic procedure, Labour deserves a hefty political smack – to say nothing of the “good parental correction” required for putting its own, narrow, partisan interests ahead of Auckland’s future.

Of Labour (and City Vision, its front organisation) I did, however, expect something more imaginative (and democratic) than an old-fashioned “deal”, hammered out in a variety of smoke-free rooms, between a clutch of anonymous party hacks and the Mayor of Manukau City.

Strategically commissioned opinion polls, notwithstanding, Mr Brown has long been the Auckland Right’s preferred opponent. He comes across as an evangelical social-worker, who, when he’s not mouthing bogus Pasifika street-slang, delivers earnest speeches in which the buzz-words “vision”, “passion” and “community” are endlessly repeated.

I do, however, give Labour points for staking its claim so early and with such clarity. The other potential candidates: be he Waitakere City Mayor, Bob Harvey, or the Chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee; can now be intimidated into withdrawing from the race – on pain of “splitting the Left vote”.

The truth, of course, is that the only splitters operating in the broader Auckland Left are Labour and its allies. By dividing the field of mayoral hopefuls into Mr Brown and “the rest”, they have very foolishly, and selfishly, made the best candidate the enemy of the first.

But, if the Left accepts Labour’s fait accompli, what will it be getting in Mr Brown? A Palangi lawyer from Manukau, with a very thin portfolio of municipal achievements (unlike his illustrious predecessor, Sir Barry Curtis) and a rather goofy grin.

Chris Trotter has blogged a scathing column on Labour called Labour’s nightmarish road trip: From “Broad Church” to “Shopping Mall”:

WHAT’S the matter with Labour? Why is it making so little impression on even its hard-core supporters? And can anyone explain why Labour’s strategists still believe it’s intelligent politics to have their MPs recorded, singing songs, on a bus, in the Tory-blue heart of Taranaki?

I don’t know whose strategy it was, but I’d like to buy them a drink

Even so, you would think that any political party planning a “Regional Road-Trip” might do just a little bit of “advance” work. Like sending someone to have a chat with Davey Hughes, the telegenic proprietor of the Swazi clothing factory in Levin. It’s really quite important to know how someone like Hughes is going to respond before your Leader, in front of a pack of amused reporters, asks him what he would like Labour to do for small business – and discovers it involves ripping the guts out of the Employment Relations Act.

That’s funny enough, and then the killer blow.

After all, how hard would it have been for the Labour Whip, Darren Hughes, to quietly sound out his Uncle Davey on the subject?

Ouch.

And while the newly-elected MP for Mt Albert, David Shearer, plays a mean guitar, what on earth were his colleagues thinking of singing Take Me Home, Country Roads and Hotel California? I mean – John Denver and The Eagles! Could they have possibly screamed “Hey everybody – we come from the 1970s!” any louder?

It could have been worse, I suppose. They could have been recorded singing Kumbaya and If I had a Hammer.

Chris Trotter fires with both barrels at Phil Goff. This is significant as Chris endorsed Labour in 2008 and was seen wearing a Labour rosette.

LISTENING to Radio New Zealand-National’s “Focus on Politics” yesterday evening, I was incensed and depressed, but I can’t honestly say surprised, to hear Phil Goff dismiss Labour’s founding objective – “the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange” as “nineteenth century history.”

It got worse, with Phil adding ideological insult to historical injury by declaring that the modern Labour Party believed “a well-functioning market system is the most effective and efficient way of organising an economy”. Yes, he was willing to “recognise market failure”, but only to the extent of ensuring “an adequate level of regulation”. …

Let’s begin with his glib dismissal of the “socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange” as “nineteenth century history”.

It was, in fact, only at the Labour Party conference of June 1951 that the socialisation clause was deleted from Labour’s aims and objectives.

The dropping of the socialisation clause did not, however, mean that the Labour Party constitution was purged of any and all references to its socialist beliefs and objectives. Even today, the Party’s constitution declares, as one of its foundation principles: “Co-operation, rather than competition, should be the main governing factor in economic relations, in order that a just distribution of wealth can be ensured.”

And among its objectives one can still read of Labour’s determination: “To ensure the just distribution of the production and services of the nation for the benefit of all the people.”, and “To educate the public in the principles and objectives of democratic socialism and economic and social co-operation.”

It looks like Trotter knows the Labour Party constitution better than Goff.

Trotter argues:

A capitalist economy, unmodified by the ameliorating reforms of a politically organised working class, will always fail to deliver for the overwhelming majority of the population. That’s because capitalism is intended to advantage the few at the expense of the many, and can only lead to the political domination of society by “elites at the top”.

To guarantee that the economy works more effectively for the majority, it is necessary to challenge the idea that private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange leads to a fair and equitable society. It has been Labour’s historical mission to lead that challenge, and to play a decisive role in the struggle against capitalist ideology.

The history of the past century has made me extremely wary of mounting that challenge primarily by the application of political violence and repression. My preference is for the principled and peaceful promotion of social-democratic ideas throughout the population – for making socialists of conviction rather than socialists by compulsion.

Certainly, that means the journey will be slow, and there will be occasional reverses, but it most emphatically does not mean that we can ever afford to give up the challenge; put an end to the journey.

If it is your view, Phil, that the quest for democratic socialism should be dismissed as something belonging to “nineteenth century history”, then I say: “The hell with you!”

And, to the members of the NZ Labour Party I say: “Find yourselves a new leader.”

Chris Trotter repeats one of the great myths of the Labour left as he makes excuses for Labour legislating away the rights of Maori to go to court:

But, of course, your enemy’s enemy can just as easily be your enemy too – and in the case of the foreshore and seabed debacle this was especially true. Labour’s erstwhile deputy-leader, Michael Cullen, was telling no more than the truth when he pointed out that his government had no room to manoeuvre over the Foreshore & Seabed Bill.

From the moment the Court of Appeal’s decision was announced, Labour’s pollsters began to register a rising level of anti-Maori feeling in the Pakeha population. Clearly, it would require a strong, bi-partisan effort to withstand such political pressure. Of course, National’s pollsters were picking up the same racist vibes as Labour, but, rather than stand against them, the strategists surrounding National’s new leader, Don Brash, opted to exploit them.

The Orewa Speech delivered by Brash in January 2004, and the extraordinary shift in political allegiance from Labour to National that it accomplished, destroyed any hope of a bi-partisan approach to resolving the issues raised by the Court of Appeal.

I’ve seen Labour push this version of events often, and am disappointed that Chris has fallen for it. Quite simply it is a lie, and the dates prove it.

1. Thursday 19 June 2003 – Court of Appeal announces decision
2. Monday 23 June 2003 – Clark and Wilson announce they will legislate to prevent any applications for title

Yes Labour announced the legislation just four days (or two working days) after the court of appeal decision. I’m sick of the fucking lies about Labour backing down under a nasty Don Brash led campaign that finally forced Labour to legislate.

Labour announced legislation as their first reaction – not their last. They panicked – totally. Thursday they hear the decision, and within 24 – 48 hours they would have resolved to recommend to Cabinet they legislate.

Even more stupid is the attempts of the left to portray Labour’s decision as being linked to Brash’s leadership and his Orewa speech. The dates for those are:

1. Brash becomes Leader on 28 October 2003 – 127 days after Labour announced they would legislate.
2. Brash’s Orewa speech was on 27 January 2004 – 218 days after Labour announced they would legislate.

Chris Trotter pulls no punches, but people may be surprised at his targets:

WHAT IS IT with left-wing women? Why does it take a Cactus Kate to spell out the bleeding-bloody-obvious about Phil Goff’s damsel-in-distress? And, where’s the advantage, when it comes to living a fulfilling, exciting and, yes, occasionally risky life, of behaving like a permanently helpless victim?

So Dr Richard Worth hits on women. So what? It’s a thing men do. Some with genuine style and panache, others with all the finesse of a slobbering dog. Women worthy of the name take the stylish ones to bed, and tell the slobberers to take themselves somewhere else.

And, if the silly sods refuse to take the hint? Well, that’s what, workmates/bosses/girlfriends/boyfriends/husbands and, if worse comes to worst, police officers are for.

By the sounds of things, Dr Worth is a slobberer. A slobberer, moreover, who seems to have real difficulties taking the hint. Presumably, that’s why he’s become the subject of a serious allegation of wrong-doing, and why his political career lies in ruins.

If you behave like a slobbering prat, entirely unmindful of your responsibilities as a husband, a father, a minister of the Crown, a member of Parliament, a member of the National Party caucus (not to mention a member of the human race) then you deserve nothing better. …

Sex is a thing that grown-ups do. Learning to negotiate one’s way through the reefs of lust and longing is, therefore, an important and inescapable part of becoming a mature human-being. In an culture (one of the very few cultures, in fact) which proclaims and enforces the principle of sexual equality, it looks really bad when left-wing “feminists” start behaving like a bunch of Victorian maidens confronted with a naked table-leg.

If “girls can do anything”, then surely they can tell some randy old bugger to fuck-off and leave them alone?

And now the complainant is refusing to provide the text messages in advance of a meeting. This doesn’t seem a reasonable request to deny.

In fact considering the allegations have been promoted and publicised, it would be very useful for the public to be able to read both the texts received and sent to be able to form an opinion.

I’m no defender of Richard Worth. In fact my language about him has been very harsh. But having the full text conversations released does not seem inapproprate – especially as the identity of the complainant remains private.

Chris Trotter writes a provocative column on the great Wanganui debate (personally I have no problems with it going to Whanganui as Wanganui was basically a typo):

For a start, I am more than a little disturbed to learn that the Geographic Board is legally obliged to replace English with Maori place-names wherever possible.

This suggests to me that the New Zealand state will not be content until all evidence of its colonial history has been, quite literally, wiped off the map.

WHO IS responsible for this extraordinary policy? Did anyone seek the endorsement of the New Zealand electorate before embarking on what can only be called a campaign of historical ethnic cleansing?

Are the achievements of our pioneering ancestors worth so little that all trace of their presence and contribution is to be expunged?

The place-names chosen by the early settlers to animate the landscapes they were creating reveal much about both their personalities and their aspirations.

What and who we are is inextricably bound up with the words we choose to describe both ourselves and our surroundings.

While I have no issue with Wanganui being Whanganui, I think Chris does have a very valid point. I ma proud that Wellington is named after the Duke of Wellington. I am proud to live on Hobson Street – named after Governor Hobson who signed the Treaty of Waitangi. I would not want to see these names disappear over time.

Let me tell you about Bowalley Road, the rough gravel track that runs past the farm where I grew up in the early 1960s.

Geoffrey Miller happens to drive past Bowalley Road a few days ago. He took these two snaps.

The signpost.

And the road itself.

The proper noun Bowalley is a corruption of another proper noun, Bewley, which is a corruption of the French adjective beaulieu, meaning beautiful place, which itself became a proper noun when Charles Suisted, a Swedish settler who, having acquired that part of the North Otago coast lying to the north of the Waianakarua River and east of Mt Charles in the 1850s, bestowed that name upon it.

When my father came to purchase the property, nearly a century later, Beaulieu was still its name.

By that time, however, the locals, who struggled with the correct French pronunciation of Beaulieu, had taken to referring to the property as either Bewley or Bowalley.

Another version of Bowalley was Baldie, which eventually became The Baldie, signifying the little creek that runs through the property, and empties, via a marshy delta, into the Pacific Ocean at the end of Bowalley Rd.

Obliterate the names Beaulieu, Bewley, Bowalley and Baldie and you obliterate the linguistic legacy of all the lives that have been lived in that part of North Otago since the beginning of European settlement nearly 190 years ago.

The point Chris makes, quite elegantly, is even typos or corruptions, can come to have real meaning over time.

Chris Trotter applauds Paula Bennett:

When Paula Bennett waded, alone, into an ugly West Auckland brawl physically separating the teenage combatants she defined herself in a way the public will long remember.

The minister’s actions demonstrated not only her considerable personal courage, but a rare willingness to act decisively when confronted with a critical set of circumstances.

Indeed. You could spend ages thinking about what happens if I try to intervene, can I call for help, is this unseemly. But Paula went off instinct – and in this case good instinct.

What makes this incident even more of a “good news story” is that Ms Bennett is a politician (a Cabinet minister, no less) and a National Party member to boot. We are accustomed to depicting our political leaders as all talk and no action: moral cowards who will consent to “do something” only after exhaustive polling and focus-group research has reassured them that more than half the electorate will approve.

But this 39-year-old woman acted without political calculation, wading in to prevent a bunch of teenage girls from doing themselves harm, acting in loco parentis in the way we like to think our parents and grandparents used to do back in the good old days.

Not that they were that grateful. Did you see one of the teens the next day on the news boasting about the swear words she used at Paula? I hope her parents saw that, and care enough to ground her for a week.

Grabbing these young miscreants by the scruff of their necks, and calling them to order with a few ripe phrases, will not only commend Ms Bennett to conservative, elderly New Zealanders, but it will also deeply impress her no-nonsense Waitakere constituents confirming her forever as a true Westie.

After all, breaking up a catfight is just the sort of thing Cheryl West, the tough-as-nails yet strangely principled heroine of the TV series Outrageous Fortune, would have done: direct, strong, commonsensical action; and not a single family-group conference required.

If I may get all theoretical for a moment, I’d describe Ms Bennett’s actions as displaying a high degree of “emotional congruence” with her political constituency.

I think most Kiwis like what Paula did, but there is no doubt her direct approach was very much true Westie behaviour.

Fifty years ago, when most working-class people still went to church and subscribed to the rigid ethical code of conservative Christianity, being moralistic wasn’t a problem. And 30 years ago, when it still meant opposing the Vietnam War, apartheid sport and nuclear weapons, political correctness was actually electorally sexy. Today, however, many in Labour resemble the Protestant Political Association, that censorious and illiberal body of bigoted wowsers who struggled to restrict the electoral success of the unsuitable elements of New Zealand society (i.e. Catholics) in the years immediately following World War I.

Labour needs to loosen up and lighten up, becoming a whole lot less judgmental and a whole lot more spontaneous. In fact, until Labour starts selecting candidates a whole lot more like the people it wants to represent – rough, tough and unashamedly aspirational types like Paula Bennett – the Opposition will struggle to win another election.

One can only hope

First we have some nice photos from the Auckland protest, equating Israel with Nazi Germany.

Oh a nice professional sign comparing Israel’s response to 10,000 rockets to Nazi death camps where Jews were gassed, and their possessions looted.

While this protester gets marks for his home made sign.

Ironically I suspect that if WWII was occuring today, they would be demanding Churchill be placed on trial, for an unacceptably high civilian death toll in Germany.

Anyway once again I am pleased to quote Chris Trotter. Chris explains why so many on the left support liberation movements:

A fairly substantial chunk of the New Zealand Left would echo Keith’s view. In part this is because a great many leftists see Israel as the primary instrument of “US imperialism” in the Middle East – making the Palestinian cause one of the World’s last great unresolved struggles for national liberation.

For leftists of Keith’s generation, people who came of age in the early-1960s, when the empires of the European powers were being challenged by a multitude of national liberation movements, the anti-colonial struggle was something to be supported wholeheartedly and unequivocally.

Even more exciting for these young leftists was the fact that most liberation movements espoused some variant of the socialist ideology, and many enjoyed the backing (overt or covert) of the Soviet Union and/or the Peoples Republic of China.

National liberation struggles and the socialist revolution seemed inextricably linked.

Hamas is anything but secular and quasi-socialist, and its dedication to the elimination not only of Israel, but of the entire Jewish people, is unequivocal. In the words of its own charter:

“The Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree.”

The last time people talked about the Jews in this way, they were wearing brown shirts and jackboots. And the fate they had planned for the Jewish people gave new meaning to the word “disproportionate”.

Which is why I find it so hard to respond with any degree of positivity to Keith Locke’s call for New Zealand to stand up and be counted among the outspoken opponents of what is happening in Gaza.

Were Hamas a secular and socialist organisation dedicated to the creation of a secular and socialist state of Palestine: a state where all those with an historical and/or religious attachment to the Holy Land; Jews and Arabs, the followers of Judaism, Islam and Christianity – all the people of the Book – could live together in peace and harmony; well, then I might feel differently.

But it isn’t.

There was twit-nit Catholic priest Gerard Burns daubing his blood over a peace monument, bizarro MP Keith Locke accusing Israel of war crimes, and sundry radio commentators giving full voice to anti-Semitic outrage.

All followed a simple maxim, straight out of Animal Farm: Israel wrong, Palestinians right.

Indeed.

Almost without exception, liberals accept that the Israelis are the baddies. They are the ones with the fighter planes, helicopter gunships and tanks tearing through the ghettoes of Gaza. As John Minto opined this past week they are the primary aggressor. Ipso facto, they are morally inferior.

The truth is considerably different. The Gaza Strip is a territory controlled by an Islamic fundamentalist faction that has sworn to wipe Israel from the planet. It has been doing its best by launching rockets at Jewish settlements, arming and directing suicide bombers, and ending the uneasy ceasefire.

Yep, they are delighted that they finally got Israel to respond.

The only problem is that Hamas are not freedom fighters. In fact, they are not even sane. They are religious fanatics. Fundamentalist nutters armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and rockets. Their idea of a Palestinian state is one that eradicates Israel. They emerged victors after a bloody civil war with the Fatah party in 2006 killing plenty of innocent civilians themselves and now consider that Hamas is the frontline in the fight against the infidel.

Yet these are the people that Minto, the Greens, the Catholic fringe and Kiwi liberals seek to embrace.

The UN has got it right (this time). They have called for both sides to stop fighting. But the Greens and Minto want Israel to unilaterally stop, and nothing to be done about the rocket attacks from Hamas.

This is not to suggest that Israeli actions over these past 60 years meet any antipodean morality test either. There have been inhumane actions and outrageous abuses. But not this time: not in Gaza in 2009. Israel is responding as any nation would were it under continual military harassment.

This is quite right. Israel bashers can’t tell the difference between the times when their actions have been outrageous, and legitimately responding to Hamas and their rocket attacks.

The death of innocents in Gaza is regrettable it is sad and it is wrong. But all the more so for being orchestrated by Hamas, in pursuit of their despicable ends.

And this could all end is Hamas will agree to cease the rocket attacks.

Fran O’Sullivan writes in today’s Herald, criticising Israel:

The reality is Israeli excesses helped pave the way for Hamas to become a power in the first place. Israel is not alone in facing provocations from “terrorists”. But the extent of its retaliation will simply empower its enemies further as Palestinians react against the loss of life. At the end of the day, the moral arguments used by both sides to promote their excesses will not have much currency.

Israel does often over-react but it is easy to criticise imperfect reactions from the “armchair” so to speak.  But when the Red Cross is concerned, we should be also:

Even the International Committee of the Red Cross says: “The Israeli military [has] failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.”

That is not good.

What will matter is the consequences that result from the Gaza War. If Israel’s onslaught destabilises the Middle East further how much longer will it be able to count on the United States for unwavering support?

In this case though, there has been considerable support for Israel’s right to try and stop the rocket attacks. Russia and China have been muted – not just blaming Israel. The EU and most western states have been careful not to just blame Israel or call on them to stop unless Hamas will agree to stop also.

Even in Canada, the new Liberal (centre-left) party leader is taking a balanced view:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Israel is justified in taking military action to defend itself against attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

“Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself,” he told reporters in Halifax on Thursday after speaking to a forum of business leaders on the economy.

“Israel has been attacked from Gaza, not just last year, but for almost 10 years. They evacuated from Gaza so there is no occupation in Gaza.”

And I can only quote approvingly from Chris Trotter:

To the Israelis, however, a more persuasive precedent might well be found in their own history. After all, in ancient Judea, wasn’t it the Jews who found themselves in exactly the same position as present-day Palestinians: under the heel of a brutal army of occupation? Was not the Great Jewish Revolt of 66-73AD, and the second, far more destructive Jewish-Roman War of 132-35, the intifada of their time?

And what was the outcome of those revolts? Massive retaliation: countless deaths, towns destroyed, lands seized, and, in the wake of that final, cataclysmic defeat, the “ethnic cleansing” of Judea – the 1,900-year Jewish Diaspora.

“Impossibel!” you say. “Unthinkable!” Not really. What, after all, was the policy of the Allied Powers regarding the German speakers of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II – if not “ethnic cleansing”? The intractability of the problems caused by ethnic Germans living amongst Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and Rumanians led to the wholesale uprooting of entire communities. Families which had lived in the same towns, farmed the same land, for hundreds of years were simply put on trains and “resettled” in the West. Under the auspices of the “Big Three” – the USA, the USSR and the British Empire – Eastern Europe was ruthlessly, and very effectively, “cleansed” of its German-speaking population.

The Germans, of course, had sent six million of Europe’s Jews in the opposite direction, to an altogether more permanent kind of “resettlement”.

And can anyone seriously doubt that, should Hamas “win”, their “final solution” would be any different?

1. Neil Sanderson has research from Pew. In 2008, the number of people gettign their news off the Internet went from 24% to 40%, beating newspapers at 34% for the first time.  Tv remains top at 70R% but is slowly declining.
2. Chris Trotter has a repost of a 2001 address he gave on defence. Many may be surprised by his views. I found myself agreeing with much of it!
3. Tim Blair notes that *only* 1,147 cars were burnt in France on New Year’s Eve, which was described by authorities as “rather calm”
4. MacDoctor finds the new English requirements for foreign nurses as idiotic at a time of nursing shortages, and points out most NZ nurses could not meet the new standard.

Idiot/Savant looks at what would happen if the Foreshore and Seabed Act was repealed. I tend to favour repeal of the Act, but also would like the Court of Appeal ruling to have been tested by appeal to the Privy Council or the Supreme Court. Maybe one can repeal the Act, legislate to allow the Supreme Court to hear an appeal from the Court of Appeal ruling, and then whatever the Supreme Court decides, forms the basis of negotiations between Crown and Iwi.

Adam Smith at The Inquiring Mind links to an article in The Times on the huge number of subtitling mashups done of the bunker scene from Downfall. Over 150 mashups have been done, including three by Whale Oil. They are Winston’s Downfall, Helen’s Downfall and Judith’s Downfall.

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs on how Waiheke Island and Great Barrier Island residents will be polled on whetehr they want to remain part of Auckland City, or transfer to the Thames-Coromandel District Council. I don’t think many do want to change but as 10% o residents signed a petition, the Local Government Commission is obliged to run a poll.

Paul Walker retires from blogging. A real pity – I enjoy all the economist blogs, even though they are not high traffic. Maybe if they all combined together?

Bryce Edwards has done a series of posts on the party that shall not be named. They are a fascinating background read. One day he should publish them as children’s horror stories

Finally Adam Smith scans in and blogs every day a good Letter to the Editor. Have a look at this one from the Co-vice-president of the Maori Party responding to Chris Trotter.

You know I sometimes wonder if Chris Trotter is bi-polar. He goes from calling the Maori Party race traitors one week, to calm and considered the next. Today’s column is the latter:

If it is not too soon to reuse the word “adroit”, that is certainly how I would describe Mr Key’s management of the 14-day political transition from Labour to National.

In addition to securing both his right and left flanks, Mr Key has also selected a Cabinet in which old and new (and, in the cases of Stephen Joyce and Paula Bennett, very new) faces are judiciously blended.

Some have characterised the new lineup as reflecting a greater step to the Right than the broader electorate had been given reason to anticipate. I disagree.

Indeed. The ODT called it this, and I can’t work out how they possibly could claim that in good conscience.

To my eyes, Mr Key and Bill English have allowed the National Party to assume the mantle of sweet moderation, and his Cabinet choices reflect not a betrayal, but a very fair reflection, of the public mood.

Had the prime minister been hell-bent upon a lurch to the Right, he would not have exiled Maurice Williamson to that wintry region beyond the Cabinet door. Nor would he have decked out Lockwood Smith in the Speaker’s wig and gown, and left him to the tender mercies of Phil Goff, Michael Cullen and Trevor Mallard.

If the National Party leader had really wanted to come over all right-wing horror-show, he would have allowed the nation’s beneficiaries (instead of the nation’s criminals) to fall into the sharpened talons of Judith Collins. And, with more than a nod to Night of the Living Dead, have appointed Sir Roger Douglas associate minister of finance inside Cabinet.

Trotter is one of the few commentators to note this. Lockie and Maurice (both whom I have immense time for) are definitely amongst the most right wing MPs so not having them in Cabinet, plus shifting Judith from welfare to law & order (where she will shine)  and not even giving Douglas an Executive role makes any claims of a shift to the right, nonsense.

Personally I’m all for shifts to the right, but the mood of the electorate at the moment is for evolutionary change, not revolutionary change, and John Key has indeed judged that adroitly.

The confidence and supply agreements with ACT, UnitedFuture and the Maori Party place National not only theoretically, but practically, in the prime real estate of contemporary politics – the Centre.

When the war-horns of ACT start braying for privatisation and massive cuts to public spending, Mr Key can roll his eyes and reiterate his government’s unwillingness to do either. And, when Tariana Turia embarks again on one of her magical mystery tours into the outer reaches of Maori mysticism, he can furrow his brow, pinch his chin and, along with the rest of the Pakeha electorate, nod his head in complete incomprehension.

In practice, the prime minister has cast himself in the role of the voter-who-needs-to-be- convinced. If ACT can make out the case for privatisation; and if it can sell its taxpayer accountability bill, and its “three strikes and you’re out” penal policy to the wider electorate; then Mr Key can democratically respond by translating ACT’s passion into action.

That’s not a bad way of looking at it. Key as the to be convinced voter.

Likewise, if the Maori Party can convince New Zealand that it needs a written constitution, with the Treaty of Waitangi at its heart, then Mr Key and his clever new attorney-general, Chris Finlayson, will be quick to summon the Constitutional Convention.

I’m not sure it will be quick, but Chris will be an excellent guide as we deal with constitutional issues.

But, for my money, Mr Key’s most adroit move has been the appointment of a feisty, 39-year- old, former solo mum with a whakapapa as his minister of social development.

Ms Bennett and the prime minister both pose a formidable symbolic problem for the Labour Party. They speak to an ideologically unmoored working class about the power of aspiration and the possibility of self- improvement.

Yes they do.

I was overseas, but a reader has sent me Chris Trotter’s column yesterday on the Maori Party. The poor chap seems rather upset, calling them all sorts of names:

KUPAPA – that was the name they gave to the Maori who cooperated with the British colonists. The colonial authorities’ terminology was somewhat kinder. They dubbed these collaborators the Queen’s ‘‘Loyal Maoris’’ and erected statues in their honour (one still stands on Auckland’s Symonds St).

How ironic, then, that a political party whose very name pronounces its ambition to speak for and on behalf of all Maori should end up throwing its support behind the direct political descendants of the colonial authorities who enlisted the kupapa.

Will John Key erect a statue in your honour, Tariana Turia? He should, because you, and the once-proud party you are dragging behind you, have just voted to become his ‘‘Loyal Maoris’’.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Tariana, this column is not patronising you – it’s attacking you.

As a Pakeha, I am not constrained by traditional Maori decorum, nor am I silenced by a people’s shame.

The anger that is stirred in me by this latest political betrayal of your people is the same anger that rises every time I read about the way the Scottish lairds of the 19th century abandoned their people for English gold. Or, the way the South African chiefs abandoned their people in the 1970s and 80s for the Afrikaners’ krugerrands.

They, too, professed the purest – the most high-minded – motives for throwing in their lot with the men of power. They, too, were seeking a ‘‘voice in government’’ and equally determined to get the ‘‘best possible deal for their people’’ under the circumstances.

But the reality was always the same. They got the equivalent of the ministerial houses, and the people remained the playthings of their leaders’ new playmates.

And please, Tariana, don’t insult the intelligence of Maori and Pakeha by pretending there is anything even remotely democratic about your party’s decision.

We have seen your much vaunted ‘‘consultation hui’’ – or, perhaps I should say, we have seen as much of them as you have allowed us to see.

The news media has been prevented from recording the real debates, and so the people who must live with the consequences of your decisions have not been able to hear your justifications for making them.

And what happened to your party’s generous invitation to all those on the Maori roll to participate in these hui? At whose insistence was that rescinded, Tariana? John Key’s – or your own?

Did the prospect of those Maori who gave their electorate vote to the Maori Party and their party vote to Labour turning up in their tens of thousands to have their say frighten your new friends? Is that why participation was suddenly restricted to Maori Party members only?

If only 40 people could make it to the hui held in Pita Sharples’ South Auckland headquarters, I can imagine how risible the turnout was elsewhere. We saw the one-time radical, Hone Harawira, chatting away with about a dozen party faithful somewhere up north. I’m guessing that was about par for this farcical course.

I know whakapapa is everything to you Tariana, so I invite you to consider the whakapapa of Labour’s relationship with Maori.

I ask you to recall the alliance forged between the prophet Ratana and Michael Joseph Savage.

I ask you to recall who it was who gave Maori full citizenship – and equal access to the benefits of citizenship.
I ask you to recall who established the Waitangi Tribunal.
I ask you to recall who extended its remit back to 1840.

Your people move forward on the road they laid with Labour, Tariana, not with National.

And, you do not recite National’s whakapapa correctly. How do you dare cite te kohanga reo, one of the most outstanding and independent cultural initiatives of modern Maoridom, as a National Party achievement?

Your people will not easily forgive this turning away, Tariana. When unemployment and homelessness and poverty bite. When the prisons are full of your rangatahi. When National’s true whakapapa stands revealed.

They will curse your name.

Kupapa!

I don’t normally quote in full, but how could I cut any of it out? It reminds me of when John Hart Minto lectured Nelson Mandela on not having done enough for blacks in South Africa as he didn’t overthrow capitalism.

Chris gets beaten up so much for his inflammatory columns, I thought I would quote from today’s one with approval:

How can a kid raised among the stark, bare walls of a state house hope to compete with a kid who has grown up with Beethoven and Bach, Rembrandt and Brueghel?

But as I watched the prizewinners make their way across the stage, it suddenly hit me that this attitude was both extraordinarily arrogant, and very, very dangerous.

For one thing, a great many of these prizewinners were the children of immigrants.

Wrenched away from their homelands; required to learn a whole new language; subjected to grotesque racial stereotyping and often outright verbal and physical abuse; these children, backed by their families, have never wavered in their quest for academic, sporting and cultural excellence.

Who is served by belittling, or condemning, the distinctions conferred upon these children? Who is served by an ideology that refuses to recognise that crucial aspect of the human spirit which refuses to accept the brute statistical reality that many are called but few are chosen?

Are we socialists, in our drive for an absolute equality of outcomes, really willing to descend to the level of a certain species of crab which will, when collected in a bucket, seize and haul back into the doomed mass any individual that attempts to escape its fate by climbing out?

Should John Key’s mother be condemned for instilling in her son the notion that, with lots of hard work and a little luck, he could transcend his state house roots?

I think Chris does hit on a key point. Scoialism and Communism does not take of the human ambition, the quest for sucess that can drive people and lead to great things.

Is that why so many other New Zealanders raised in state houses voted against Helen Clark’s Labour-led government last Saturday?

Because, somehow, they had got it into their heads that she would be happier if they never left them? Never climbed out of the bucket?

Or, God forbid, that Labour’s social-democratic state was actually about seizing them in its claws and dragging them back down into it?

Labour has to understand that its state houses, and the welfare state that built them, was just the first, not the last, stage and crowning achievement of the socialist journey. Social democracy must never be about maintaining vast swaths of the population in perpetual electoral peonage.

But that is exactly what Labour was doing. Their mission was to create a majority of people dependent on the state for income, so that they would always vote for a more-state party.

State houses, along with our public health and education services, must be regarded as launching-pads for heroes, not stables for Labour’s donkey-vote.

And I couldn’t agree more.

Had a fun time out drinking last night. A very mixed group with Chris Trotter (wearing a Labour rosette!), Keith Locke (Greens), Joe Hendren (Alliance/NDU) and a couple of UNITE staffers plus Ben Thomas (NBR) and Hamilton Blonde (SAHM-WLP).

We were at Galbraiths and I was disappointed to learn I missed Helen doding a flying visit at 6pm. But regardless was a good time with lots of interesting conversation. We all wrote election predictions down on a beer coaster. God knows who has it – I can’t even recall what I predicted.

Today I need to do three things – haircut, vote and swot up on 2005 results – not in that order.

Russell Brown is not too happy with Labour on Peters:

The failure of the Labour members of the privileges committee to find with the multi-party majority that Winston Peters had provided “false or misleading information on a return of pecuniary interests” was pathetic, and they know it.

And later on:

I hold no brief for Peters, and I suspect there will be worse to come on his and his party’s affairs. I think Chris Trotter’s comparison of the privileges committee’s action to a lynching (he even has a picture of a man being lynched on his blog) is revolting.

There is an interesting split occurring on the left. There are those who are disgusted with Labour and willing to say so. And there are those who are hugging Winston closer and closer and trying to turn him into a martyr and a hero.

Russell of course also has a go at John Key, linking to the editorial in today’s Herald about him. I have previously blogged my criticism of the Tranzrail responses, along with my relief that unlike Peters and Clark who never admit they do anything wrong, Key did admit his mistakes.

I have said for some time that this election is National’s, unless they stuff up. This is not an impossibility, to put it mildly. It would be an incredible shame if they do stuff up, and we get a fourth term of Clark and Peters. They say we get the Government we deserve but seriously we’re not that bad are we?

Chris Trotter has criticised Matthew Hooton for his use of the term Clark/Peters Axis. Matthew explains why in a long post:

First, yes, I do believe that Winston Peters is an evil influence on New Zealand politics and the use of the phrase “axis” was entirely deliberate, chosen as being more appropriate than “allies” or even “bloc” for the regime he sustains.

Peters is a person who has attacked Asian immigrants for being too rich and Somalian refugees for being too poor, and, in both cases, has known that to do so is wrong, with his friend Sir Robert Jones saying that, in private, Peters believes none of it.

Like Matthew I think the only thing worse than a bigot, is someone who is not a bigot, but pretends to be just to get votes. I respect people from the left who genuinely disagree with my beliefs, and I respect “social conservatives” whose views differ from mine also. But I have little time for nationalists and populists who believe in nothing and will say anything to get elected.

Matthew goes on to criticise Trotter and many others on the left for their constant support of Peters. And then he states his opinion of Clark:

Clark has dictatorial tendencies. She has marched through the institutions. She has improperly brought the civil service under her control, including, most outrageously, the police. She has stolen taxpayers’ money for her election campaigns, deliberately broken our election spending limits, run filthy fear campaigns such as the letters to state housing tenants saying they would be evicted under a National Government, told lies about all this, and rammed through retrospective legislation to legalise her own staff’s and party’s crimes.

Constitutionally, she is far worse than Muldoon, who people like Chris would eagerly have called a fascist in the early 1980s.

The Clark/Peters Axis? You bet.

I’m not in the same space as Matthew here. Don’t get me wrong – I think Clark is shockingly unethical and I think someone from Labour should have gone to jail for the $800,000 overspending in the last campaign.

But I never find comparisons to Nazis, fascists, “evil regimes” or “eyes of a killer” particularly useful on the blogs.  On the billboards against the Electoral Finance Act, we did feature praise for the EFA from various dictators but that was purely in response to an Act which deserves to be vilified as it was designed to silence critics of the Government.

And as someone with Jewish relatives, I find comparisons to Nazis especially ranging from trite to offensive. I disagree with Matthew that Bolger was justified in comparing Peters attacks on Asian immigrants to Hitler’s attacks on Jews.

Matthew then talks about his role with Don Brash and the Orewa speech as The Standard wrongly claimed he was an architect of it. They could not have been more wrong.

Then I pushed Don to do his controversial press conference at the Tamaki Yacht Club a bit later, where we really put the knife into Bill, and then …. the rest is history.

(Unfortunately for me, Don was forced to do the Tamaki thing a week earlier than I had planned, and I had law exams, so I couldn’t go to Wellington for the vote, so Catherine Judd arranged for Byran Sinclair to do the media work instead, so I missed out on being part of all the drama …. )

I’m not sure I ever mentioned this to Matthew, but I was sort of responsible for Don having to bring his coup announcement forward a week. I was unofficially on the team trying to keep Bill in office and heard whisperings of what was coming and alerted the leadership to it and they forced the coup out into the open. So Matthew was working for Don and I was working to keep Don from winning – sort of ironic as I then ended up working for Don when he did win. In fact it said a lot about what a great guy Don is that he kept me on, despite me having featured on television the night he won plotting victory at the Backbencher with the English team.

And then it came to the fateful Orewa speech.

I was sent a draft for comment and I hated it. The truth is, I’m a “sickly white liberal”, as Peters would describe it. I got Diane to pay me to write an alternative that had the same policy ideas (because they had been agreed by caucus) but which wasn’t as nasty in tone.

When it was confirmed to me that Brash was going with the Keenan [version of the] speech I cancelled my table. Lockwood tells me there was a gap, which he – as local MP – was embarrassed about, but which I am quietly proud of.

The Standard obviously need to re-read the Hollow Men, as the book makes it pretty clear Matthew was an opponent of the Orewa speech.

Matthew Hooton did a good post on Friday about his political perspective and beliefs. The full post is worth a read as he includes a recent speech he did. He comments that sometimes the different political tribes can never understand each other, quoting something Chris Trotter said:

“There live among us a reckless and very dangerous minority who use their triennial vote not as a tool – with which to construct a better future – but as a weapon. For these sociopathic individuals, the ballot is valuable only for the pain and suffering it is able to inflict upon the individuals and groups they despise. They seek to punish these people, by facilitating the election of political parties whose policies are most likely to fulfill their twisted fantasies of violence and revenge.”

Like Matthew I doubt such people really exist in politics – these sociopathic individuals with twisted fantasies of violence and revenge. But Chris Trotter semes to genuinely believe they do. Presumably so do some others in the “left tribe”. How very sad for them.

Bill Ralston blogs:

Trotter takes the view that The Listener has rushed out and deliberately “retained a stable of journalists and columnists whose published material places them firmly on the right of the political spectrum”. He fingers as the key culprits writers Jane Clifton, Joanne Black, David Young, myself and Deborah Hill-Cone.

He notes:

The sad fact is when it comes to the political spectrum I tend to sit somewhere in the wishy washy liberal middle.

I’ve never voted National or Act and throw up at the thought of going Green or, worse, Progressive – so I suspect you can guess where my ballot has usually been cast.

So Bill has never ever voted National (or ACT) yet because he dares to sometimes criticise the current Government, people assume he must be a right winger.

This time I might consider National, mainly because I get that “time for a change” feeling and the Nats really are “Labour-lite” – Labour minus the hand-wringing political correctness that annoys the hell out of me.

I don’t know. Like many New Zealanders, I haven’t made my mind up yet.

Clark is certainly the most effective Prime Minister we’ve had in my lifetime, although she and her government appear to have run out of ideas and now cling to power for the sake of being there.

It’s a government that got sidetracked. Because so many in cabinet are academics or teachers the emphasis went on to process rather than delivery. Huge amounts of money have been thrown at social policy areas to little real effect other than stimulating a huge growth in bureaucracy and providing policy analysts with a mother-load of work.

I also think the government let blind ideology get in the way and it should have bought in tax cuts three years ago.

Does that sound right wing? Maybe.

I am not sure voting National once in thirty years qualifies as right wing, let alone membership of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

In identifying a rabid right wing conspiracy in the media Chris is just following the government’s paranoid lead. The fiercely tribal Left are collectivist in nature, it tolerates no deviation, no independent thought and demands all toe the party line at all times.

Sounds like the Borg!

Chris Trotter and the Ninth Floor need to remember it is the media’s job to be critical, look for fault and expose government blunders. That’s our job.

I can proudly say I have infuriated every Prime Minister from Sir Robert Muldoon through to Helen Clark. I’ll put money on it that, if he takes power in November, I will have thoroughly annoyed John Key by Christmas. That’s not very right wing, is it?

I suspect Bill will prove himself right!

Anyway, I have to go now and polish the portrait of Sir Roger Douglas that hangs over the fireplace and get ready for tonight’s meeting of the cabal.

Welcome to the dark side Bill!

Bill Ralston fires at multiple targets, and hard to disagree with him too much:

Ok, you can argue, like Obama, Key is not part of the political establishment but anyone more politically experienced would know you get your staff to run quietly around the gallery comparing you to Obama and then, hopefully, some hack short of a line or two for their column will make the comparison for you.

By doing it yourself you merely look vain and immediately open yourself to ridicule and sneering from Clark and Cullen and, believe me, no-one can curl their upper lip and mock like those two. Which they duly did, in a schoolyard “nah, nah, nan, nah, nah” fashion.

Indeed they did, and Key took the ribbing in good humour in the House today.

There was a big backfire with Clark’s attempted counter-attack on Key’s refusal to work with Winston Peters, Clark first saying he must have been tipped-off about the Serious Fraud Office Inquiry by the SFO then, when the SFO strongly denied it, she said it must be the Police or the Crown Law Office who told him.

So much for her sad attempt to undercut John Key’s long awaited sudden growth of a political spine. He didn’t need a tip-off. I suspect he simply came to the conclusion most of us have already – Winston Peters is completely untrustworthy and a liability to any cabinet he serves in. Three Prime Ministers now have come to that same conclusion (even if Helen had that conclusion forced upon her).

Exactly. The Owen Glenn affair was proof enough.

The Prime Minister just looks desperate, she is guessing (wildly and I believe wrongly), she has just slandered her own public service and she has implied that she is facing some kind of internal revolt by her own top public servants. For someone who has always appeared so in control, so well grounded in maintaining constitutional proprieties, sternly retaining discipline over those who serve her government, Helen Clark has now given us the impression that she is weak, beset by traitors and reactionary forces plotting to bring her down.

Slandered her own public service. Indeed.

By the way, is it only me or are you too immensely amused by Labour aligned commentators and politicians trying to play their violins for Winston Peters?

I know several blogs have been sniggering at poor old Chris Trotter’s convulsions as he tries to extract some sympathy for the NZ First Leader, accusing the media of “pack raping” Winston. Aside from the ghastly imagery involved in that metaphor, dear old Chris seems to have forgotten Winston spent the last 25 years building his career on getting the media to “pack rape” other individuals and institutions he had targeted with the odd leaked document and claims of impropriety.

Those who live by the allegation, die by the allegation.

Touche.