Tagged: Porcupine Farm

Possibly the stupidest thing our deputy prime minister has said

Labour and Greens hurt share float, says English (Audrey Young, Herald, 24/10/2013)

Finance Minister Bill English conceded that the Government would like to have had more New Zealand investors than the 62,000 and a higher share price than $1.50.

But he blamed in no small part Labour and Greens’ energy policy, accusing them of scaring off mum and dad investors from Mighty River Power and Meridian because of their policy to control wholesale power prices.

“They set out to sabotage lower income New Zealanders doing it. Unfortunately they’ve had some effect.”

So Bill English (yes, that’s the deputy prime minister, not your ignorant workmate) thinks poor NZers can afford to buy shares, and the only reason they aren’t buying shares in what we used to own together is that Labour and the Greens “sabotaged” their investment plans by “scaring them off.”

The most obvious explanation is that he’s trying to contort the embarrassing failure of the asset sales into being somehow the opposition’s fault.

A more worrying possibility is that he actually believes what he’s saying. This is, after all, the man who wrote off child poverty as merely “relative.”

70% of National supporters don’t know anyone who’s unemployed, so what are the odds the National deputy leader knows any “low income New Zealanders”?

As Robert McAfee Brown put it: “who we listen to determines what we hear; where we stand determines what we see.”

(Re. the title: I’m happy to be corrected)

Wheat, chaff, sheep, goats (resources, votes)

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Though political scientist Bryce Edwards suggests maybe we shouldn’t vote in this year’s local body elections, I’ve never missed an opportunity to vote in any local or national election (anarchist sympathies notwithstanding).

This year’s elections in Chch are more important than most… we get to vote for a new mayor, mostly-new city councillors, community board representatives, district health board representatives and Environment Canterbury councillors.

Here’s how I’m voting this time, and – more likely to be useful for you – the resources I used to make my decisions.

I won’t fill out my form and post it until the last minute (Wednesday), so I’m open to changing my mind, and I’m keen to hear about any other useful resources you know about.
 

Resources

My votes

Mayor (pick one or none)
Lianne Dalziel

Councillors – Fendalton-Waimari ward (pick up to 2)
Raf Manji
Faimeh Burke

Community Board members – Fendalton-Waimari ward (pick up to 5)
Faimeh Burke
Sally Buck
Ahi Allen

Canterbury District Health Board members (rank as many/few as you like, up to 26) (Updated 9/10/2013)
7 are elected but your votes are almost guaranteed to be transferred further down your list, so it’s worth ranking at least 12 if you can bring yourself to do so. I’ve ranked 25 to give my votes the maximum chance of contributing to anyone but Keown (see below).

  1. Paul McMahon (preventive health, mentions health inequalities, highlights wider causes of (un)health, community development/youth health experience, supports living wage for all, supports free public dental care in theory, part of the Anabaptist network, People’s Choice)
  2. Heather Symes (health practitioner, focus on vulnerable people, sympathetic to public dental care, supports living wage for all health workers and lower CEO salaries, signed Nurses Organisation pledge, People’s Choice)
  3. Oscar Alpers (focus on vulnerable people, public health not health insurance, People’s Choice)
  4. Adrian Te Patu (health practitioner, community/public health experience)
  5. George Abraham (health scientist, campaigning on free public dental care, wants to look after ‘less privileged’)
  6. Jo Kane
  7. David Morrell
  8. Anna Crighton
  9. Chris Mene
  10. Sally Buck
  11. Steve Wakefield
  12. Alison Franklin
  13. Drucilla Kingi-Patterson
  14. Andrew McCombie
  15. Wendy Gilchrist
  16. Tim Howe
  17. John Noordanus
  18. Margaret McGowan
  19. Andrew Dickerson
  20. Beth Kempen
  21. Murray Clarke
  22. Keith Nelson
  23. David Rowland
  24. Robin Kilworth
  25. Tubby Hansen

Unranked: Aaron Keown (Only attended one two full Health Board meetings in 2012 but still picked up a cool $26,000 for his troubles. Tries to go where the populist wind blows, but occasionally reveals his true colours as an ACT member and Marryattophile who called quake victims whiners.)

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Disclaimer: Fine, I admit it. I linked to the Bryce Edwards post 78% for ego reasons. He mentions me!