A tweeting Minister

December 8th, 2012 at 2:00 pm by David Farrar

Fran O’Sullivan at NZ Herald writes:

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce has taken a leaf out of Obama’s book by taking to Twitter to chew out high-tech entrepreneur Selwyn Pellett for raising hell over the Endace takeover.

Joyce’s Twitter exchange was more prosaic than the US President’s, but no less focused.

What got up Joyce’s nose was the implication that Pellett – who is a cherished Labour Party favourite – was having a bob each way on the issue du jour: whether Endace should pay back $11 million of Government R&D loans it received before it passes into 100 per cent foreign ownership, substantially enriching its founders.

Let’s say upfront that Pellett has been a thorn in the Government’s side.

I expect he will be on the Labour Party list. He is their biggest cheerleader on Twitter.

He is a spokesman for the Productive Economy Council and has kicked the Government’s shins hard over its plans to sell down its holdings in state-owned assets. So it’s no surprise that Joyce – who has been remarkably unrestrained recently – took the opportunity to have a slash back. …

The Twitter battle between Joyce and Pellett was great sport:

“So you collect taxpayer support, decide to sell shares, make lots of money & then moan about it in @nzherald #unbelievable … BTW R & D co-funding is about doing R&D in NZ, not supporting individuals. But happy 4 u 2 repay so we can fund others,” Joyce tweeted at Pellett.

Pellett tweeted back: “Mr Joyce, you should check all yr facts. Interesting a Minister would target an individual for speaking out on policy.”

It’s called hypocrisy. It is fine to target people for that.

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Pellett calls on Goff to resign as Labour Leader

April 6th, 2011 at 2:00 pm by David Farrar

Bernard Hickey writes:

Imarda Chief Executive and Endace co-founder Selwyn Pellett has called on Labour leader Phil Goff to stand down to allow Labour to strengthen its opposition to the policies of the National-led Government.

Pellett is an economic policy activist with links to the Labour movement, having spoken at the last two Labour Party conferences about the need for economic and monetary policy reform.

Pellett said voters had stopped listening to Labour under Goff and it was time for the opposition to renew itself cleanly before an election wipeout.

“Labour is likely to lose the election no matter who is leading it, but with Phil Goff at the helm it could be a devastating result. People have simply stopped listening,” Pellett said.

“It’s sad as Phil is a very nice and sincere man, but now it’s time for him to go,” he said.

Pellett made the comments in a comment thread under a blog post on Productive Economic Council (PEC) , a business lobby group co-founded by Pellett.

Pellett is very aligned with Labour. He’s been quoted eight times on Red Alert alone. This is arguably their most high profile business backer, since they lost Owen Glenn.

Pellett said the Labour caucus already knew who the contenders were to replace Goff.

“I personally hope Phil will just stand down and avoid splitting the caucus and the party. People’s instincts are that greed and lack of appropriate market regulation caused the global financial crises and lost them their jobs and savings,” he said.

“They may not understand the intricacies of what happened but they understand it was wrong and now they need credible political advocates to champion their corner. Phil Goff hasn’t delivered that for our country and we need it.”

Those are damning words by one of Labour’s biggest supporters.

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