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edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
I guess this is the right place to post it.


Remember the excellent Child Poverty documentary that aired last November? One of the NZ on Air board members raised concerns about the timing of its broadcast. The board member was Stephen McElrea, who also happens to be Key's electorate chairman and also holds the post of National's Northern region deputy chairman raising issues about NZ on Air's neutrality as well as accusations of political censorship by the National Party.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1201/S00086/tom-frewen-nz-on-air-spooked-by-political-interference.htm

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6280476/NZ-on-Air-Nat-faces-accusations-of-bias


Labour's already made some noise here, attacking NZ on Air over letting themselves get caught out in a situation where their neutrality is held up to the light and is found wanting, as well as having a dig at National and their concern over a documentary about child poverty in NZ.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1201/S00043/nz-on-air-should-be-politically-neutral-not-neutered.htm

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edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

exmachina posted:

Unless you know something I don't...

Seriously though at this point I think the Labour party should just rename itself to the "Bellamy's Social Club" and be done with it. The absolute abandonment of the Ports of Auckland, with no attempt to have any sort of dialogue with the New Zealand public about what is really happening presumably because they don't want to spend political capital, would make their forefathers spin in their graves. I call it cowardice.

No, they sure haven't said a thing about it - certainly not on Red Alert and there has been absolutely no press release of any kind in the last couple of days. Nope. Not a one.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

exmachina posted:

How brave of them, posting an opinion on their very own blog!

Nice to see you shifting the goalposts. "They haven't said anything about the PoA dispute!" -> "So what? They said it on their own blog!"

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Can anyone tell me how much actual reconstruction has happened?

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Goat Bastard posted:

Focusing on how much money you can earn is entirely the wrong attitude to have in New Zealand - if this is your primary driver then you should absolutely go to Australia or London or the US or wherever as you will undoubtedly earn more.

While you commute for hours each day in your 60+ hour week and maybe see a tree in the weekend.


It depends on the job. There's a reason why an overseas job looks attractive to teachers in New Zealand - you get paid a hell of a lot less than you do in Australia or Canada and you work a hell of a lot more hours on average. It's not unusual to do a 12-hour day, so why wouldn't you take a job in the UK or Australia or Canada if one was offered?

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
You know what? That's pathetic. Just absolutely pathetic.

I spent the holidays in northern Japan, where they went through a much larger earthquake with a tsunami thrown in for shits and giggles, with wider-spread destruction. And you know what? They've more or less gotten their poo poo together in the major urban areas with the infrastructure now more or less up and running, while the hardest hit areas like Kesennuma and Ishinomaki have been cleared out and are in the process of rebuilding.

I guess it helped that the people there just put their heads down and went to work without apparently acting like a bunch of spoiled shitheads.

The Christchurch earthquake was concentrated on a comparatively smaller area with a one-month head-start on Japan. They have absolutely no excuse at this point.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Angry Moo Cow posted:

What if you are interested in sheep? It's a NZ megathread after-all :downsrim:

Also re: Japan earthquake thing, I do not know the answer to this but are they having a shitload of aftershocks with the added bonus of liquefaction to aid the demolition and reconstruction process?

They pretty much had what Christchurch had, but on a far larger scale. Christchurch has no excuse, really.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Varkk posted:

So, what is happening in Japan in terms of aftershocks and insurance?
A similar thing happened after the Napier quake in 1931 also the private insurance companies were wriggling out of paying on claims. Only State Insurance did as it was government owned back then. This is why Phil Goff was talking about re-establishing a government backed insurance provider to step in where the market won't provide services and allow the rebuild to move ahead.

While I was there, the aftershocks were daily but the people there were pretty much used to the shakes. We had tremors that were magnitude 3~4 on a daily basis, but people were used to it and either went about their daily routine and didn't really give a poo poo. The reconstruction was pretty much going ahead and the only place where it had stalled was in Fukushima, where they were kind of preoccupied with the radioactivity.
As for the insurance, Noda announced an extension on the claim period for survivors during December and it seems like the bottleneck caused by a large number of claims has more or less eased. The payouts have been coming along and my Grandfather used his to replace the tiled roof with a corrugated iron roof, as well as make odd repairs around the house.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Varkk posted:

I was meaning more along the lines of getting cover for rebuilt structures. One of the big holdups in Christchurch is that the insurance companies won't offer new policies because of the danger of a fresh aftershock causing new damage. This of course is holding up a lot of building work as no one is willing to assume the risk.

Well, seeing as how the hardest hit areas like Ishinomaki and Kesennuma are now moving towards rebuilding, there hasn't been much of a hold-up. But then again, Japanese people know how to pick themselves back up after a major earthquake.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
What, you think the deconstruction in Japan was simple or that they haven't had any significant aftershocks?

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
It depends on the pet, but I can see his point with the kid. If I was married and had a child, I'd prefer to raise him/her in a more widespread environment than what an apartment can provide.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Ratios and Tendency posted:

The suburban sprawl connected by motorways because everyone has 2 cars and wants a lawn and petrol is cheap has been outdated for 50 years in urban planning. High density gives you all sorts of economies of scale for public infrastructure, environmental considerations and businesses.
Like, I'm sure the property speculator class wants more land opened up for more suburbs but that just expands the current problems to a bigger magnitude when what is needed is a better, more efficient city.

That must mean more motorways, right!?:downswords:

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10781001


Shearer's sniffed a winner with the potential Crafar farm sales by the National government.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
I wonder if Key actually had anything to do with it, considering he's been forced to change his home phone number which was apparently in the recording and it got flooded with prank calls.

Of course, he doesn't have a single right to complain. If he wants to moan about it, he can go cry to Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston. I'm sure they'll be sympathetic.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jan 26, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

miss_chaos posted:

I just don't know why someone would release this today when there are two major anti-government stories that will run at the top of the bulletin: the decidedly lukewarm economy numbers and the Crafar farms, both of which could produce significant anti-National traction and better play into an anti-government sentiment. Labour will of course play the teapot tape and not the actual issues which could help them more long term (bizarro alliance between Shearer and known economic patriot Michael Fay aside).

Let's at least wait for Shearer to do that before criticising him.

As for the lukewarm economic numbers - I wonder if they're trying to prepare us for disappointment in 2014~15. I'm pretty sure we'll still be in a deficit at that point and we'll hear about it being a dynamic environment.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
They're really little more than a bunch of wannabes that saw the Occupy Wall Street movement and thought "me too!"

Ask any of the Aotea Square occupiers what their cause is and all they'll do is either condescend to you about how you "clearly haven't been paying enough attention" or tell you all about the OWS movement.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

sanchez posted:

What is wrong with the education system? It's one of the things I think NZ'ers should be rather proud of.

If you're Pakeha or Asian and can afford a top level private school such as Kings, Kristen or St. Kents or live in the zone of a high decile state school like EGGS, ASHS or TGS, then sure.

It's only recently after decades of neglect and ignorance that Maori and Pasifika kids are starting to close the gap, but then that stupid loving oval office Anne Tolley didn't help none. I don't have much confidence in Hekia Parata either.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

miss_chaos posted:

I don't really think you have to go to a top end Auckland private school to get a good education and everything else is a write off. Yes, there are problems in some schools and it's an incredibly complex issue around achievement, but I don't think you can write off the many many hundreds of mid-decile public schools to who do a good job for their students with teachers who are passionate about teaching a solid curriculum.

No, you don't have to. There are plenty of good mid-decile schools out there and plenty of good teachers involved there. However, like low decile schools, they lack the money and support that top end private schools enjoy.


Also, Dilworth doesn't count as a mid-decile school.



Install Gentoo posted:

You sound like you're trying blame stuff on other races by saying this dude. Like why else would you even say that?

And blaming multicultural classrooms is bullshit, considering that you're more likely now to get those in high decile schools than in a low decile school.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Has anyone else seen this? I haven't seen it commented on in this thread, so if it was and I missed it, I apologise.

Herald posted:

New Zealand has dropped out of the top 10 countries for media freedom after a year in which police searched newsrooms over the now-infamous "teapot tapes".

In its annual press freedom index, advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranked New Zealand 13th in the world for media freedom last year - down five places from eighth in 2010.

The report noted traditionally good performers in the Asia-Pacific region, including New Zealand, had failed to shine. "With New Zealand's fall to 13th position, no country in the Asia-Pacific region figured among the top 10."

The report did not say what was behind the fall - but it comes after a year in which newsrooms were searched by police, the New Zealand Herald was temporarily banned from the parliamentary press gallery and a proposed new law sought to give police greater powers to enter newsrooms.

Media Freedom Committee chairman Tim Murphy, editor-in-chief of the Herald's titles, said it was surprising New Zealand had fallen five places, but the drop itself was not unexpected.

"There are frequent, small regressions in New Zealand in media freedom, and the important thing here is that media freedom is not on behalf of the media, it's not for media companies - it's freedom of expression and freedom of information on the public's behalf.

"To see a country like ours being viewed by an external outfit like Reporters Without Borders as going backwards is very disappointing."

Murphy said any detached view of New Zealand media freedom would have looked at things such as the police investigation into the teapot tapes.

The teapot tapes saga resurfaced yesterday when a leaked recording of the pre-election conversation between Prime Minister John Key and Epsom MP John Banks was posted online anonymously.

The original recording was made when freelance cameraman Bradley Ambrose left a microphone on a table during the publicity stunt at a cafe.

Ambrose, who claims the recording was inadvertent, passed it on to the Herald on Sunday, which approached Mr Key seeking to publish its contents.

Mr Key declined and laid a complaint with police, leading to search warrants being executed at the newsrooms of four media outfits.

Murphy said the decision to call in the police "would not have played well" with those assessing media freedoms. He also cited the Government's Search and Surveillance Bill.

Murphy said erosions to media freedoms were creeping and incremental, and the public did not generally realise until there was "a reminder like this".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10781445


It's rather concerning, to say the least.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

dusty posted:

This is worrying because the average age in the NZ staffroom is getting into the fifties (iirc), and we import too many low quality migrant teachers.

There are also other issues - there's no incentive for people to make the switch to teaching since they're taking a significant pay cut when considering the actual hours worked, which can often end up as 12-hour days. You then get treated like poo poo by a minister who probably doesn't even know what the gently caress a curriculum is, the Teachers Council which doesn't even have a single teacher on it that seems to be designed to gouge money out of you on a regular basis and those ERO cunts that show up once in a while to breathe down your neck. That's not to mention the parents who get mad at you because their fucktard brat got a N/A for not doing any of their homework and handing in a piece of poo poo internal assessment they had 3 weeks to work on that they clearly threw together 10 minutes before it was due to be handed in and the people who don't know what they're talking about, who clearly reckon they're educational experts because they walked by a school once telling you what's what about teaching.

poo poo man, applying for provisional registration costs a newly qualified teacher slightly more than $200, which they would obviously have lying around because if there's one thing students are known for, it's being rich. Applying for full registration costs around $70. How the gently caress does that even make sense?

So why wouldn't a young teacher say "gently caress this noise" and jump on the first plane to Australia or Canada? At least they don't get mistreated to the extent that they do in New Zealand.

Also in regards to the migrant teachers: there's an inconsistency from the TC about that. One of my classmates at uni was a South African art teacher who had taught full time in a Pretoria high school for well over a decade with a full teaching qualification from that country. When she moved over here, she was told she had to get a qualification from a tertiary institution over here as well, meaning she had to go through stuff she'd already done once and the decade+ of actual teaching experience apparently didn't mean poo poo. She did say it was good to get up to speed with some new educational theory, but gently caress me, it must have been aggravating for her.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jan 29, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

miss_chaos posted:

You really think ERO shouldn't exist?

Tell me where I said ERO is unnecessary.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

fong posted:

Teachers get loving awesome holidays, though.

Most of which is eaten up by work. There's also regularly 7 day weeks of work, seeing as how teachers are usually expected to be involved with extra-curricular activities.



The Hamster Man posted:

I've only been teaching a year, and already I'm tired of arguing about this with people. Often I meet people, and as soon as they hear I'm a teacher they bust out these remarks. Now I just phase out and add them to my mental list of assholes.

Don't you realise that they are already experts on educational theory? They went to school, you know!

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
So the asset sales may not be as straight forward as John Key had hoped and the Maori Party may potentially block it in accordance with the Treaty of Waitangi, which is possible thanks to the SOE Act of 1986.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10782277

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

dusty posted:

There's no way National will by stymied here. Asset sales has turned out to the biggest policy message that National has. "Yes we'll sell the assets; but this time it's only a bit, we'll do it smartly, we'll sell to NZers". If you drill down I reckon the vibe in the electorate is that they're barely OK with assett sales cause JK will get us a good deal like he did on the crown limos.

How impotent would JK look if his big ticket item gets stuffed by the House? It aint going to happen.

Key has a lot of incentive to get the Maori Party on board then, and remember the Maori Party are all but retired and out of wind. On the way out the door the only thing they can really achieve is to scoop as much action as possible towards the big tribal-corps. They'll use words and language of the protest movement, but will vote noliberal as they see it as an opportunity to drive money towards Maori interests. Whanau Ora is an example of using a social program to inject a lot of money into Maori businesses - it also fits perfectly with the private provider model that the Right would like to expand. There's a lot of synchronicity there. Auntie Tariana would love to see her legacy as a flourishing Maori economy, and it might be easier to pump some money around to key Maori players than to try and lift Maori kids out of poverty.

IMHO the MP can only posture - once there is enough honey in the sweetheart deal the tribal corps be will be offered, they'll find it in their hearts to compromise.

It's not like we're flogging off the North Island forests, we're supposed to be selling a short list of assets - any potential treaty claims involving those should be able to fit on a shortlist as well, which might not turn out to be that big a deal: maybe rivers or land? Treaty Clauses are viewed as some sort of metastised cancer which might spread if not cut out, Tony Ryall wont wanna let the big policy prize get infected.

Here's the thing - the next Parliament session is on the 7th and the nationwide begging sessions tour doesn't begin until after that. So now Key has to go into parliament with even more against him. I'll bet you someone from opposition is going to bring this up and say something along the lines of "Promising to sell of assets are we? You didn't even bother to check the legality of it, you wally!"

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

dusty posted:

Followed by a standing ovation from Labour caucus and a high five with Chris Hipkins. :downsbravo:


Key won the battle of ideas. Labour found out how unpopular it was, but still couldn't get laid. They just didn't have anything meaninful to add after JK's "we'll sell em off and it'll be fine" assurances. "B...B...B... but it's an asset sale and you'll be screwed on power prices by a private company rather than a government one!"

I'd love to be proven wrong but I predict the assett sale will go smoothly. JKs a very well prepared politician - he didn't expect Winston, but he'll have prepared some strategies in case Phil Goff got a bump from a rugby world cup loss for example.

Seeing as how Labour is still hammering on that point and Mana have also brought it up (I think the Greens as well) on their Facebook news feed, you don't think any of them would challenge Key on this? It can easily be framed as "Key pushing a policy without thinking too hard about it," much like how suddenly we probably won't be back in surplus in 2014~15 because Key apparently just noticed what's happening in the EU zone is being framed.


dusty posted:

edit -

This just in lol "Maori Party may quit Government" http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10782403
Dig through the the article and you get a hint of what the solution will be.


I too recall the "glorious victory" the Maori Party claimed over the seabed issue. They rolled over and gave up on everything but the most flimsy tokenistic points. Note how the article doesn't mention if they have any issues beyond consultation, seems like they're A-OK with selling stuff off providing the right boxes get ticked.

On one hand, the Maori Party were piss-weak in the last election, but considering the slim majority between the National-Maori-Act coalition and the fact that the perception that they were Key's lapdogs last time round cost them a significant number of votes in 2011, plus their prior history when it comes to disagreeing with the ruling party (Turia crossing the floor when the Foreshore and Seabed bill was first passed) means I'm willing to wait and see how this turns out.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jan 31, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
In all likelihood, National will probably try to ram through a change in the SOE act, which is what they are angling for, by misusing urgency again.

Also dusty, you said Key is a very well-prepared politician - that may be so in other cases but with this one, if he had prepared properly in the first place, maybe he wouldn't be in this current situation in regards to the asset sales. The fact that this happened, and that the Maori Party has found itself in a position that it has to stand up to the National Party or risk complete annihilation in its own constituency, has been a pretty big gently caress-up on the part of Key.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Feb 1, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Speaking of Key being a oval office, I agree with Nicky Hagar in that we're probably already well passed the high watermark for Key's popularity and we're probably starting to see the cracks.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

NITOS FLAME KEEPER posted:

Why was he ever popular. He doesn't seem like the kind of person New Zealanders would identify with, he's like a mix of Mitt Romney's out of touchness and David Cameron's smarmy uperclassery.

Labour started to disconnect with people in a big way some time around 2004. They got stale, the same faces were sticking around and by 2007, they felt like a ruling aristocracy.

That plus favourable coverage in the media that had stories ranging from "John Key :swoon:" to outright silence in regards to controversial or questionable (to put it charitably) legislation between then and 2011. Considering how National Party member Stephen McElrea at the NZ on Air board kicking up a fuss over the child poverty doco last year only just recently became news, I wonder what other stuff he was able to squash before it got aired.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 1, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

dusty posted:

I can't figure out how the maths has changed. The Maori Party announced early how they'd be playing this and I can't see how their position has changed.

Pita Sharples in late november.


Everyone has known for the last 3 months the MP position, and they know they aren't needed for bill to pass.

I never said that the Maori Party has sprung this out of nowhere. I was well aware of their position and I'm sure I saw Tariana Turia say something like the quote you supplied during one of the minor party leader debates. I was questioning whether or not Key actually had properly prepared for this and the potential damage it can cause, however small it may be. I'd wager that our of this entire affair, this is what gets remembered, rather than the final outcome.

And for all the preparedness, it appears Key (or his advisers) doesn't actually know what Article 9 is for.

According to Andrew Geddis, the dead giveaway is about 1'20" in this clip, when Key says "I would point out that section 9 is largely symbolic. It's been the law since it was established in 1986, but the Government can't find an example of where it's been yeeeeewsed." (God, he makes my skin crawl whenever he opens his mouth.)

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Feb 1, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Good to know that all it takes to shake (har har) the average urban Kiwi out of apathy is a major natural disaster, almost 12 months of ineffective, shoddy governance at all levels and deconstruction/reconstruction work moving at a glacial pace.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Sorry for the double post, but something interesting just came up on Tumeke.

Bomber posted:

Government to gut Ministry of Maori Development
It is a blitzkrieg of crazy right wing policy this week. After announcing they will kill off Section 9 of the SoE Act that forces the principles of Waitangi to be considered in relation to our assets, leaks are that National are about to reveal a massive gutting of Te Puni Kokiri.

Branches will be shut, massive job losses and reducing TPK's role to a mere managerial role over the distribution of services that are about to be hocked off to corporate providers has all been quietly planned. How this has been allowed to happen with no consultation of Maori is another example of the blindsiding of Maoridom with less than a week to Waitangi Day.

This is becoming National's foreshore and seabed moment.

The Maori Party threatened to walk from this Government when they realized the National party wanted to strangle off the hard fought for Section 9, surely in the wake of news that the Ministry of Maori Development is about to be melted down for scrap they will leave the Government this month?

At a time when poverty is grinding a large proportion of Maori into the ground, should we be destroying the only Ministry focused on them?

That sounds like a recipe for economic darwinism, NZ's slide into deeper inequality just picked up speed.


http://tumeke.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/government-to-gut-ministry-of-maori.html



This is a real "watch this space" story and if this turns out to be true, it could potentially make the Maori Party to bite the bullet and walk in order to survive.


Edit: TVNZ leading with the story on One News right now.

Edit II: and here's the first article I've found. None of the major papers I've checked (Herald, Press, Dom Post, ODT, Waikato Times) have any stories on it online, but we'll probably see something tomorrow morning.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Feb 1, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Well, the Maori Party have to walk away from the coalition now. If they don't, they've all but guaranteed Mana and Labour will be enjoying the seats they pick up from this in a few years. They simply don't have any other option at this point. They can still salvage something, even if it's tiny, out of this.


Edit: Oh wait, never mind.

quote:

The Maori Party is making conciliatory noises over the Government's latest moves to consult iwi over how the Crown should recognise Treaty obligations when the state-owned power companies are put up for partial sale.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6345296/Govt-releases-asset-sale-discussion-paper

Maori Party will be dead in 2014.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Feb 1, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

dusty posted:

I wonder what the link to TPK is? Seems very last minute.

What's concerning is that we haven't heard what the Maori Party has to say about this. Hone was immediately making statements about it, but Sharples and Turia are conspicuous in their silence over it.



miss_chaos posted:

Has there been any preferred PM polling since the election to back this up? I'm not in NZ anymore so a bit out of the loop, but Shearer has come out of the gates strong in directly contradicting his own finance spokesperson by saying James Cameron shouldn't be allowed to buy land and move here with his family - which is frankly just embarrassing - and as long as John Key is still up 50% in preferred PM I can't see anything changing in the short term.

On the other hand, Shearer speaking out about Cameron buying up a bunch of land in the Wairarapas is consistent with the position he took in regards to the Crafar farm sales. If Shearer had either said nothing or supported it, then he'd either get accused of "being too silent on issues" (which is the criticism that got thrown around in this thread a couple of weeks ago) or provide ammunition for the government - "so it's OK for a Canadian to buy up land, but you don't want some Chinese investors to do the same? Why the double standard?"

As for Key's popularity, there hasn't been any polling done since the political cycle hasn't officially started yet. However, there has been a shift, somewhat, in the way he's portrayed in the media. There has been a marked increase in the number of stories and articles that have something of an anti-Key bent and there have been editorials in the Herald that have openly attacked him, outside of John Armstrong's loving, slobbery verbal blowjobs of course, which is remarkable considering how much of a Key love-in the Herald has been in the last 4 years.

miss_chaos posted:

Sharples knew about the TPK restructuring, he is after all the Minister and TPK answers to him. That said, I'm not sure your average Maori voter gets too wound up about 50 job losses in a government department, in affluent Wellington. I guess I'm saying that a TPK restructure won't be the straw that breaks the camel's back for the Maori Party.

It depends on whether or not this was flying under the radar. If Sharples knew about it, then that explains their silence (so far) on the subject. It's still 7:13 in the am so maybe we'll hear what he or Turia have to say about it later in the day. You're right that it won't be the straw that breaks the camel's back - that's already broken. What it would do is remove any realistic chance for them to fix it in any meaningful way.
If National had this under the radar and sprung it on everyone yesterday afternoon, it then acts to further diminish any mandate that the Maori Party would have with the average Maori, since it just makes them look weak as piss (not that the last 3 years helped). If that is the case, their best course of action would be to walk away from the coalition and either join the opposition or do their own thing in parliament.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
"Removal of the current copyright fair dealing exception for transient copying. So, you'd have to get permission from the rights holder if your browser caches any part of a website, whether you know it or not. Can't imagine caching ISPs, search engines or anyone else who actually uses the internet being too pleased with this one.[added 21 March 2011]"

How is this even practically enforceable?

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Well, of Jewish ancestry at least. He's not the first Jew to be New Zealand Prime Minister either.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
So now Bill English is saying that he's considering closing schools and increasing class sizes because it will save money and Treasury reckons it's a great idea since apparently they're calling the shots in education now.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken
Roy Morgan put out a poll a couple of days ago.

Some points of interest:

Labour's gone up to the 30% mark in a poll, picking up 3%, which appears to have been taken from the Greens, Mana, the undecideds and possibly National.
National's poll numbers has dipped by 1 to 46%.


Of interest though, is the general trend of National's poll numbers, which recovered from a dip in September last year:



As you can see, it's been in steady decline since around October 26, with a sharp drop around early November (the Epsom tea party was around that time, wasn't it?).

Of concern for their supporters is the complete lack of support for their coalition partners.
United Future is on .5%, as is ACT. The Maori party picked up .5% from the previous poll to go up to 2%.

If a snap election is taken now and there's no change in electorate seats, the results in seat numbers will be:

Government - 57 seats
National 55
Maori Party 3
ACT 1
United 1

Opposition - 61 seats
Labour 37
Greens 16
NZ First 7
Mana 1

ACT, UF and the Maori Party are in there solely by virtue of their electorate seats and the Maori Party are probably not going to return to all three of those 3 seats next time around. The trend also indicates that the soft National voters are turning away from the Nats, who are getting close to pre-2008 numbers giving credence to Nicky Hagar's statement late last year that Key and the Nats had gone past the high watermark of their popularity.
In order to govern effectively again, with their current coalition partners, they need an outright 50+% majority and by the current numbers, that is simply not achievable.


The poll was from 933 respondents on telephone, FWIW.

edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Feb 5, 2012

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

miss_chaos posted:

The election is also three years away, and the Roy Morgan bounces around so much a 1% change in a month is statistical noise, really.

True, but at the same time, there is a noticeable downward trend in National's RM poll numbers since shortly after the Rugby World Cup - not that I'm suggesting his awkward 3-way handshake cost him votes or anything. I was more highlighting the overall trend that emerges from a long-term view at the RM polls.
It's also noticeable that whenever the National numbers dipped, they were immediately back to around where they were prior to the slight drop or higher. However, there's a a 10% drop from where they were in the RM polls just 3 months ago and I would say that's certainly a lot more significant than 1%.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Felix_Cat posted:

NZ First however is the weak link on the opposition side, no safe electorate seat and no guarantee of getting the 5 percent. That's not to say they won't, but it's no sure thing.

In this situation, if a snap election is done right now and the results reflect the RM polls, NZ First'll end up keeping National in government, assuming Winston keeps his word that he'd be in opposition regardless of who is in government, but the Nats'll effectively be lame ducks.

Even if NZ First doesn't make it back in - and to be honest, Peters is a survivor so I wouldn't bet against him either standing in an electorate in 2014 or taking NZ First above 5% again - it will be interesting to see what the long term fall-out from the SOE Act Article 9 affair is going to be. For all their faults, the Maori Party know which side their bread is buttered on and I wouldn't count against them sidling up to Labour in 2014, if Labour win the next election.


miss_chaos posted:

That's true, but it's polling 2 months after the government was re-elected. So it's all pretty much meaningless and just a way to fill the papers during the summer holiday.

But then again, there's already been quite a bit of activity during the last month and the polls were taken during that period, from National potentially alienating their biggest coalition partner when in the long term, they can't actually afford to do so and any fall-out from the Waitangi protests, where John Key bravely ran away, bravely ran away away.
We'll certainly get a better idea when the other polls are released during the next week or two and whether or not those indicate the same pattern of slowly dwindling support for the Nats that the RM polls do.

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edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

miss_chaos posted:

On the contrary, I think the Waitangi events will actually see Key pick up votes rather than lose them. Those protestors will have zero support in the wider public. Some may agree with their sentiments, but basically nobody agrees with their tactics. Key came out of that looking like the bigger person which is never a bad thing.

I don't think this year's round of protests are really the same as previous ones. This time round, there are some fresh grievances against the government with the (mis)handling of Article 9, including the gaffe that gave away they plan on getting rid of that part of the legislation anyway. Unlike the Aotea Square tent city people, the protest hasn't had the time to become hijacked and turned into something about the protesters, rather than their cause either.


miss_chaos posted:

Not to mention the racial slurs were absolutely disgusting so the protestors aren't exactly winning people over to their cause like that.

Hard to argue with that. Calling Sharples a friend of the family probably wasn't the smartest thing that guy's done.

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