Jacinda Ardern

A couple of questions after David Parker got schooled by John Key it was the turn of Socialist Cindy, Jacinda Ardern, for a wee lesson in front bench politics as she took on Paula Bennett.

Lockwood Smith is going to get real sick of explaining simple parliamentary procedures to Labour’s front bench star.

“Questions can’t state things, questions have to ask things”

I think Labour are going to have to assign Trevor Mallard to run interference for Socialist Cindy else she’s going to end up being slaughtered.

What do you call a deer with no legs and no eyes? The Labour party….still no idea.

Labour has now had the chance to get the measure of National’s ministers. Their initial punts as to who would be vulnerable targets were sometimes wide of the mark – such as welfare minister Paula Bennett.

They used their caucus retreat to refine their attack plan. Anne Tolley and Jonathan Coleman can expect to come under some pressure this time round.

Paula Bennett will not get off scot-free because Labour can not afford to ignore such a critical area as welfare reform. However, Labour is likely to wait until it has heavy artillery before trying to embarrass her.

Labour couldn’t get Tolley when she was Education Minister, I doubt they can get her now she is Police Minister. Jonathan Coleman?? Oh come on surely they jest?

I’m going to so enjoy watching Jacinda Ardern try and get one on Paula Bennett. The Pig hunter vs Socialist Cindy…can we have a reality TV show please.

Jacinda Ardern aka Socialist Cindy is Labour’s Welfare spokesperson. She is going to need to get her head around some really good socialist dogma.

I wonder though if this is just a step too far for the new Shearer lead Labour party:

People living in benefit-dependent households have been urged by the Prime Minister to “go out and work” rather than complain about the loss of welfare payments.

David Cameron said that living on welfare had become an “acceptable alternative” to working and suggested that benefit payments were too easy to receive.

He spoke as the Government faced serious opposition to the plan to cap the maximum benefit payments that can be received by any household at £26,000. The House of Lords is seeking to block the policy.

The cap has been set at the same level as the average family’s earnings and ministers insist that it is unfair that taxpayers must subsidise those receiving more from the state than typical employees earn.

The Government was defeated in the House of Lords after bishops tabled an amendment to the Welfare Bill proposing that child benefit is excluded from the cap.

The amendment, which was backed by dozens of Liberal Democrat peers, threatens to wreck the entire concept of the cap.

Senior Conservatives have said they are determined to force through the legislation by overturning the Lords amendment, a move which is said to have widespread public backing.

Speaking before the Lords debate, the Prime Minister sought to echo Norman Tebbit, the former Conservative minister, who told unemployed people to “get on your bike” in 1981.

Asked about the impact of the £26,000 benefits cap, Mr Cameron said: “In many cases the answer will be for someone in that family to go out and work, and that will be the right answer for that family.

“We have too many children growing up in our country in households where nobody works, where a life on welfare has become an acceptable alternative”.

That is the Samoan PM and now the British PM manning up….will we see the same here?

With my call for new nicknames for the politicianary I must note something for the record.

Now Jacinda Ardern has moved to the front bench she needs to be taken a bit more seriously so she doesn’t need a nickname mocking her appearance. We don’t do it for male MPs, except for Lindsay Tisch and so we should raise the bar a bit on nicknames regarding appearance.

Her nickname really needs to reflect the damage she could do to New Zealand if she ever wields power.

So she is no longer going to be called “my little pony” or “Neigh Neigh” and is going to revert to her old nickname “Socialist Cindy”.

The Kim Kardashian of the Labour party is not young enough to forget My Little Pony.

Good grief, all the wailing about Ben Hana aka Blanket Man is ridiculous. None more so than this headline from Stuff.

It is complete rubbish. What he meant to people was he was a boozed, smelly, indigent man with clothing issues. He means more in death to people like Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern who can see political opportunity, but the reality is that to most people he was simply a nuisance.

How do I know this? ….Grant Robertson put up a post at 6:24pm about Blanket Man…there wasn’t a single comment until 11:11pm. That’s how much Blanket Man means to people….No comments on a Labour party MP blog for nearly 5 hours.

Yesterday it was Grant Robertson that jumped on the death of an indigent man to score a political point about “poverty”.

This morning it is Jacinda Ardern who is cuddling corpses to score political points.

Labour has reiterated its call for a cross-party approach to fighting child abuse following the death of two-month-old Hinekawa Topia.

…Labour’s social development spokeswoman Jacinda Ardern said she did not want to comment specifically on Hinekawa’s case while the investigation was continuing, but speaking broadly about the issue of child abuse, she reiterated Labour’s call for more cooperation across Parliament to tackle the problem.

“We know that our child abuse stats in New Zealand are appalling, we know we have an enormous issue that we need to be dealing with. I don’t believe we need another inquiry to tell us what we already know, we need action.”

The Government announced last year that it would set up a ministerial committee to look at the issue of child poverty, and Ms Ardern said with poverty and abuse being so inter-linked, the group could be an opportunity for parties to work together.

“We’ve asked the Government to allow us to be a part of that group … as yet the Government hasn’t taken us up on that offer but we’ll keep making it,” Ms Ardern said.

Labour doesn’t want to talk about the individual case, they simply want to use the case for an excuse to try and embarrass the government into let them come along in a “me too” capacity on a committee. That isn’t going to address the issue of Maori killing their kids now is it?

Labour really are shameless. They don’t care about the issues, they are simply trying to score points against the government. In doing so though they are trying to lay the blame of child murders at their feet which is shameless politicking using dead people.

Labour is constantly worrying and fretting that the New Zealand electorate isn’t taking them seriously. LIttle wonder when their star number 4, Jacinda Ardern thinks the solution to Maori killing their kids is cross-party talks:

Labour’s social development spokeswoman Jacinda Ardern said she did not want to comment specifically on Hinekawa’s case while the investigation was continuing, but speaking broadly about the issue of child abuse, she reiterated Labour’s call for more cooperation across Parliament to tackle the problem.

“We know that our child abuse stats in New Zealand are appalling, we know we have an enormous issue that we need to be dealing with. I don’t believe we need another inquiry to tell us what we already know, we need action.”

The Government announced last year that it would set up a ministerial committee to look at the issue of child poverty, and Ms Ardern said with poverty and abuse being so inter-linked, the group could be an opportunity for parties to work together.

“We’ve asked the Government to allow us to be a part of that group … as yet the Government hasn’t taken us up on that offer but we’ll keep making it,” Ms Ardern said.

So she doesn’t want an inquiry, instead she wants “more cooperation” whatever that means.

Ultimately it is all futile because until people start to understand that killing their kids is wrong it will keep on happening. I’ll be you a dollar to a knob of goat poo that Labour’s solution involves chucking more cash at poor people. If money was the solution to all these problems then we would have solved them when we passed the first billion spend.

Have fun with the My Little Pony Creator. The pose function is 1000 kinds of awesome.

I made one earlier I call it Jacinda.

Chris Trotter looks at David Shearer’s first major speech and his metaphor of turning the page:

To “turn the page”, in common English usage, means “to stop thinking about and dealing with something”. As in: “Your divorce came through over a year ago, it’s time to turn the page”.

So what is Mr Shearer so keen to stop thinking about? What’s he so tired of dealing with? Is it Helen Clark’s Labour Party? The Labour Party that Phil Goff inherited but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, change? Turning a page on that would make a huge difference.

But has he?

A party leader reveals a great deal about his character and intentions through the people he chooses to sit alongside him, and those he relegates to the back-benches. If Mr Shearer really is determined to stop thinking about and dealing with Helen Clark, his ‘Shadow Cabinet’ ought to show it.

What it actually discloses, however, is that the Shearer-led Labour Party is more about continuity than change. Mr Shearer’s two big winners, Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, though certainly younger than Ms Clark’s generation of politicians, have yet to demonstrate the slightest ideological deviance from her “social-democratic” prescriptions.

Some of Mr Shearer’s other picks: David Parker, Clayton Cosgrove, Shane Jones, Nanaia Mahuta, Su’a William Sio, Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff, Annette King and Damien O’Connor; suggest a greater willingness to acknowledge the ideals and aspirations of his more conservative caucus colleagues. This could presage a turning away from the social-liberalism that cost Labour so dearly in Ms Clark’s final term, although the inclusion of David Cunliffe, Phil Twyford, Charles Chauvel, Lianne Dalziel, Chris Hipkins, Darien Fenton and Clare Curran in the Shadow Cabinet, points to the rather mundane conclusion that, more than any burning desire to turn over a new leaf, Mr Shearer’s choices reflect the need for “rejuvenation” and the balancing of caucus factions.

No page turning there…same old, same old is Trotter’s conclusion on the personnel changes. But what about the policy changes?

In pledging to “grow the pie”, Mr Shearer’s speaking in code to New Zealand’s wealthiest men and women. He is telling them that they need not fear a future Labour Government. Wages will continue to be subsidized by Working For Families, and the government will pour millions into scientific research and development. Mr Shearer will use the additional revenue flowing into the state’s coffers from innovative new business ventures to boost spending on education and health. The new jobs created by these business will reduce the government’s welfare obligations, allowing it to repay debt and rebuild surpluses.

If you’re asking yourself: “Weren’t these the economic and social policies of Ms Clark and Dr Michael Cullen?” The answer is: “Yes, they were.”

Mr Shearer and the Labour Party aren’t turning the page forward – they’re turning it back.

I could be reading Chris incorrectly but I get the distinct impression that his feeling towards the prospects of Labour and their new fondness for page turning is distinctly brown bread.