NZ Herald

ᔥ NZ Herald

John Key has come out saying that Colin Craig hasn’t a shred of evidence to support his contention that NZ chicks are easy:

Prime Minister John Key has said he’s seen no evidence to support Colin Craig’s view that New Zealand women are more promiscuous than others.

The Conservative Party leader, while commenting on the contraceptives for beneficiaries debate, stated that New Zealand has the “most promiscuous young women in the world” and the Government should not be providing free contraception for those who choose to sleep around.

I just bet Colin Craig will be able to point to a dodgy poll to support his claims.

ᔥ the tipline

I received correspondence from two people yesterday. I know them both well.

The first is a long time family friend who has just canceled her subscription to the NZ Horrid. The trigger is their insistence on manufacturing headlines of outrage. The final straw was the Horrid’s headlines about the road toll like it was appalling and on the increase…the facts are totally different of course. We even featured this in our NZ Horrid edition of May 3.

She has decided to take action and cancelled her subscription immediately.

The second person has been a NZ Horrid subscriber since he was 22, essentially for 45 years. This man is deeply conservative, he listens to NewstalkZB in the morning, is known to listen to Radio New Zealand, watches Tv One news and reads, or rather did read the NZ Horrid.

He rang them this afternoon and asked whether he would get a refund if he canceled his subscription early….when informed that yes he would receive a refund he canceled immediately. When asked why he was canceling he said he wanted proper news not lightweight tabloid junk moaning about some bludger or other who felt hard by and entitled to better treatment from some state body or other. He also mentioned their crusading on beltway causes.

So dear readers, it would seem that if you cancel your subscription to the NZ Horrid early you will get a refund. There really is no reason to delay your call any longer, the only issue you may have is finding their number. But as usual I am more than helpful here is the direct line to their subscription service.

To speak to a Customer Representative, call 0800 100 888 between 6am & 5pm Monday to Friday, or 6am & 10am Saturday and Sunday. Or you can
email us at subscriptions@nzherald.co.nz

Don’t forget to ask for your refund.

I received this email yesterday while out shooting, I am posting it today with the permission of the writer. I think it speaks volumes about the smear campaign being run by mainly the Herald but also John Campbell, Tv3 and the Labour party.

Hi Cam

What is this country coming to when a man who put his hand up to serve this country as an MP and Mayor is now being hounded – all because of an alleged criminal (who changed his name – Why? Is it a trendy name?) felt wronged by the person he gave a donation to.

1. Does that mean no matter what an alleged criminal does, he can expect MP’s to rush to support him?

I think not – especially given John Bank’s life story of his criminal parents.

2. Did Dotcom donate to Len Brown’s campaign as well?

Some people like a ‘bob each way’ and donate to both candidates. They want their donation to be anonymous so that it is not leaked to the other candidate, thereby ensuring they back a winner. They break their donations into smaller lot and this is quite common.

Surely they don’t go running to the other party and the media later when they are hacked off.

I would be willing to bet that Dotcom donated to Len Brown also.   The Labourites, Mallard etc are running a smear campaign and doesn’t it make them look tawdry?

I am just a passionate ordinary NZer.  I object to being treated as a moron who can’t think for myself and day after day having to read in the Herald a character assassination campaign. It’s happened too often now with many people and it is extremely tedious.

Bernard Orsman’s Councillor report cards also were a disgrace.  With no right of reply he also has assassinated hard working councillors and elevated people of his persuasion.  I am perfectly capable of thinking for myself and I know other NZers can too.  I wonder how many times Mr Orsman turned up to the Council meetings – a report card on his activities would be interesting.

We are cancelling our Herald forthwith and I hope heaps of other people do the same!  They just have to decide if they are prepared to put up any longer with Herald’s daily dribble and cancel their subscription also.

We don’t have to put up with it anymore – I have a sense of freedom now!!

Sorry to go on about it but the ordinary person has no way of responding. No one deserves that level of attack especially when nothing can be proved and especially when the rules around donations enabled people to break up their donations into smaller lots.  That photo the TV keep showing of Dotcom in the dock, I am sure I can see a tear glistening under his eye – so I wonder if he’s just a big cry-baby used to getting his own way.  He might be loveable as some people think but he’s sure vindictive underneath it all.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Theatres, Super yacht docks, they are all the same. If someone wants one they should pay for it themselves. $16.8 million of ratepayers’ money would go a long way to providing Brian his beloved theatre.

It makes me a bit nervous lining up alongside such luminaries of the right as councillors Cameron Brewer and Dick Quax, but you have to agree with them. Is it the core business of local government to subsidise a dry dock for rich boys’ toys.

Council-owned Waterfront Auckland sees Wynyard Quarter as the perfect location for a $45.3 million lift-out facility where the super-rich can raise their gin palaces out of the tide and have the barnacles scrubbed from their bottoms. The boats, that is.

The problem is, the capitalist system that made the boat owners so wealthy has also ordained there’s no profit to be had in building and operating such a dry dock.

The private boat builders know the only way they’ll make money out of such a facility is to find a sugar daddy who’s a sucker for a good yarn. Waterfront Auckland seems to have fallen for it hook, line and sinker, with talk of “strategic investment” and “partnerships” and the mirage that $16.8 million of ratepayers’ money invested in the $45.3 million dry dock now, will lead to “a further $90 million of private investment” some time in the never never. Over 25 years, the superyacht refit business will, we’re told, bring in $161 million to the Auckland economy.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

A fascinating article about the media and their race to the bottom. The Herald seems to be leading the way in New Zealand.

There is a fascinating section in the Finkelstein report giving chapter and verse on the pitiful failure of media self-regulation. One example is Britain’s Press Complaints Commission, which has collapsed under the weight of its own blindness. This was the body that gave the News of the World and News International a clean bill of health on phone hacking.

The PCC has been the subject of at least eight inquiries and on several occasions there were proposals to add real teeth, but each time the press barons and editors persuaded the authorities to give them one more chance. Now it has cracked completely, waiting for whatever Lord Justice Leveson suggests should replace it.

Tonight the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance hosts the annual press freedom dinner – a worthy occasion to bring to the fore many of the threats to reporters and reporting.

What should not be forgotten is that the media here is not free of certain dark arts. Significant bits of Australian journalism have been drinking at the last-chance saloon well beyond closing time.

The self-regulated, industry-funded regime for newspapers and the partially self-regulated system for broadcasters have failed to deliver a decently accountable standard for a free media.