Phil Heatley

From the Herald of course, where they employ “decent journalists, trained and skilled”:

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Matt McCarten has turned his brain off and written a silly, snarky piece for Herald on Sunday about how unpopular John Key apparently is with the Exclusive Bro-thren’s.

I have called them a cult church and I will repeat it again, they are the Exclusive Bro-thren. Who cares if a bunch of sect Maori like you or not?  They even changed the rules banning women speaking on a Marae when it suited them.  When rules are changed for Metiria Turei to speak you know those extending the pleasure are an extremist bunch of nutters belonging on a list with Destiny Church.

McCarten has gone all whiny again about the sacking of Kate Wilkinson and a guy I have already forgotten. Phil? The guy who John Key  stuck his neck out for before.

Given they only got told about it hours before their dear leader gratuitously humiliated them revealed something ugly in Key’s psychological makeup.  Read more »

Scott Yorke is perhaps the best left wing blogger in the country right now. He takes a satirical look at John Key’s reshuffle:

The biggest winner is Dr Nick Smith. He returns to Cabinet after his fall from grace last year, and is appointed as Minister for Creating a Perception of Crisis in Order to Justify Savage Cutbacks in Entitlements.

Dr Smith’s interest in resource issues has also resulted in his appointment as Minister for Exploiting High Political Office for the Benefit of Friends.

Steven Joyce remains Minister for Economic Development, Minister of Science and Innovation, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, and Associate Minister of Finance. A new super-ministry is to be created to encompass these various portfolios, and will be called the Ministry of Squashing Ambition and Innovation at their Conception (MOSAIC).

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John Key has announced his new cabinet, and has axed Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley.

I can understand Wilkinson, she was inept. Someone in Bill ENglish’s team had to get the axe to cover for Hekia Parata and so it was Kate. But I can’t for the life of me work out Phil Heatley…is John Key saying that Phil did a worse job than Hekia?

There is some bullshit in the press release about National nominating David Carter. Many MPs I have spoken to have wondered if they missed the caucus meeting resolving that particular nomination. This is a Bil English inspired stitch up that shows that Bill and his bratpack mates are very much still causing grief in the formerly smoke filled rooms. The nomination of Carter, ostensibly for his large donation gathering ability rather than any talent is a sop to rehabilitate Nick Smith.

Although there is some renewal bringing back Nick Smith and promoting Carter shows that Key is still beholden to Bill English, and rewards tired old faces.

The renewal looks promising with Simon Bridges rising into cabinet and taking on the Labour portfolio. Let’s hope he is small-dicked about his job in that role.

The full list is:  Read more »

Shane Jones is having another flick at the Green taliban, over their anti-progress nihilism.

Northland-based Labour list MP Shane Jones has again hit out at the Green Party for opposing development of the regions’ resources, including oil and gas, which he says could help reduce spiralling Maori unemployment.

Energy and Resources Minister Phil Heatley this week announced which areas, including a large section of seabed off Ninety Mile Beach, would be opened up for oil and gas exploration next year. He said the Government had begun consultation with relevant iwi.

Green Party oceans spokesman Gareth Hughes said the Government was “gambling with New Zealand’s economy” by allowing the exploration in deep water, “because if there is a leak there is no sure way to stop it”.

Promotion of the petroleum industry was “not a smart way to run the economy”, he said.

The Green taliban are acting like ostriches, with their head in the sand. They simply do not want to even know if there are resources, they are opposed to progress.

But Mr Jones, who has clashed with the Greens before over the prospect of mining in Northland and also over the party’s criticism of the fishing industry, said Mr Hughes’ opposition was premature.

“Let the information be uncovered first. It may be that the area is commercially barren, not unlike the minds conceiving that Green rhetoric.”

Mr Jones did not think the prospects of any significant oil and gas industry in Northland in the short term were high, “but in the absence of information you can guarantee you’ll never see it up there”.

“Let these decisions be made in a rational fashion, not this kneejerk emotionalism that one comes to expect from the Green Party.”

Maori unemployment is 25% in Northland…imagine what it would be if Green economic policies can to bear…Northland would become like Greece with 58% unemployment!

When are people going to stop listening to the child MP who isn’t even remotely qualified to comment on anything other than the price of a Happy Meal at McDonalds.

David Shearer clearly has a problem with names.

Today he confused Housing Minister Phil Heatley, with Craig Heatley, businessman, entrepreneur philanthropist, and one of New Zealand’s wealthiest men.

It was such a cock-up, even members of his own Caucus sitting behind him were sniggering.  When Darien Fenton is sniggering at you as Leader because you are a doofus you know it is time to run numbers.

After performing un-natural acts of praise at the start of his post Brian Edwards went on to pass judgement on today’s politicians:

Where the two major parties are concerned ‘tired’ is the word that most readily springs to mind. The tone is set by their leaders. Shearer is plain dull. And, in the sense of something that was once shiny but has now lost its gloss, ‘dull’ will do fine for Key as well. I look at both of them and long for a Kirk, a Muldoon, a Lange or a Clark. I’d even settle for a Holyoake, Bolger or Shipley – leaders with personality.

And the front bench pickings are meagre as well. Tedium thy name is Steven Joyce, all too ably assisted by Gerry Brownlee, Bill English, Jonathan Coleman, Phil Heatley et al.

Labour does not fare any better – dull, dull, dull.

Ouch…but who catches Brian’s eye?

The notable exceptions in both major parties are women Judith Collins in National, Annette King in Labour. Both strong, both intelligent, both charismatic. Collins will almost certainly be Prime Minister of New Zealand one day; King should have led the Labour Party, but didn’t want it – a minor tragedy in my view for the party and the country.

Then back to the boring:

There is in fact no shortage of forceful, charismatic women in Parliament; it’s the men who are the drones. Pondering suicide, Hamlet observes, ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!’ Which is more or less how I feel watching Joyce or Brownlee on television. Could anyone be more lacking in verve, more mind-numbingly dreary? Well, let’s not forget Peter Dunne.

And the gender pattern is continued among the Greens. Yes, Russell Norman is both intelligent and articulate, but his flat, Aussie delivery and lack of perceptible warmth pale against the energy, vitality and passion of his co-leader Metiria Turei.

So who does that leave to rouse and inspire us, to infuse us once again with zest and enthusiasm for Parliament and politics? Where is the joker in this pack of dullards? Where he’s always been of course: hiding behind his naughty boy smile, up to no good, and waiting to steal all the pies.

Three cheers for Winston! Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.

Oh god, poor old Brian Edwards has fallen for the wily old tricks of the infirm and bewildered Winston Peters.

Hopeless Hekia Parata is copping flak from teachers and this time she deserves it. She should be getting headlines and howls of outrage because she IS putting drug dogs in schools not because she isn’t.

A Northland headmaster has written to Prime Minister John Key expressing his concerns about banning drug sniffer dogs from schools, saying it is “short-sighted nonsense” and proposed new legislation was “nuts”.

The Education Amendment Bill, which was introduced to Parliament this month, aims to abolish the use of drug sniffer dogs and drug testing in schools.

The Ministry of Education says the changes will encourage safe learning environments without invasive methods.

Whangarei Boys’ High School headmaster Al Kirk has outlined his concerns to politicians Hekia Parata, Phil Heatley, Mike Sabin, Hone Harawira and John Key.

“I can tell you that WBHS is not supportive of the two amendments relating to drug tests and drug dogs. We are strongly opposed to these suggested changes. Schools will be left to pick up the pieces,” Mr Kirk said in his letter.

“I urge common sense and ask you think long and hard before supporting such retrograde changes.”

The Press

Labour is having a major beat up again on housing and the media is helping them with uncritical analysis of the stories being fed to them by the Labour party.

Take the calls last week for Phil Heatley to visit Christchurch:

Labour has invited Housing Minister Phil Heatley to Christchurch to meet families living in desperate conditions after he told Parliament the city faced housing ‘‘challenges’’, not a crisis.

Heatley this week said Labour ‘‘might like to drum up the idea that there is a crisis’’.

‘‘The reality is that there are housing challenges in Christchurch.’’

Housing New Zealand recognised those challenges and was rebuilding damaged houses, upgrading its stock and looking at building up to another 350 houses, he said.

However, local welfare agencies have insisted there is a crisis and are backed by Labour after Wigram MP Megan Woods and housing spokeswoman Annette King spent time with some of the city’s most vulnerable people.

King said they visited a family of five being charged $300 a week to live in a freezing and mouldy caravan on a relative’s property.

There were up to four families living in single houses because they had nowhere else to live.

‘‘Because they are not seen, the Government says it doesn’t happen.’’

More than 500 people had serious housing problems in Christchurch, she said.

‘‘Yet Mr Heatley doesn’t think it’s a problem.’’

Woods yesterday wrote to the minister inviting him to visit her electorate.

‘‘To call this a challenge, not a crisis, is an absolute abdication of his responsibility as minister. I’m happy to show him what a crisis looks like.’’

The current flu outbreak in Christchurch was caused by the cold and damp conditions people were living in, she said.

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee last month denied there were massive rent rises in Christchurch, and has also denied there is a housing crisis.

Heatley has said there would be no Government intervention in the rental market because the solution was to build more houses.

Hornby Presbyterian Church’s the Rev Hamish Galloway said average rents in Hornby had risen from $280 to $360.

‘‘For low-income families, that’s really difficult. The biggest areas of stress we are coming across are people who are having their rental tenancies come to an end and having to find new places.’’

The Government needed to take the issue seriously, he said. Its refusal to intervene in the rental market was philosophically driven because National supported the free market.

‘‘Surely, when you’re in an exceptional situation you can make laws and rules to protect the poorest of the poor.’’

What is amazing to me is that the example they use of the family living in a mouldy caravan. It appears that the family is being ripped off by their own relatives and yet this is the government’s fault for some reason.

I’m not denying there are issues with housing in Christchurch but this kind of sensationalism is wrong and is using those in a difficult situation for political point scoring.

Perhaps Gerry Brownlee and Phil Heatley could launch and investigation into people taking advantage of their relatives and friends in a time of need and profiteering from the situation.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

There hasn’t been a woman selected for National who is pregnant.

Yahoo chief executive officer Marissa Mayer is breaking new ground for Fortune 500 companies by starting her job more than six months pregnant, a trend already embraced by young women running Silicon Valley start-ups.

Mayer, an engineer and former Google executive who helped develop the company’s home page and maps products, was hired by Yahoo after a nine-week search for a CEO.

Yahoo have a much more enlightened view.

“Yahoo’s board found Mayer’s pregnancy a nonissue and that’s a big sign of progress,” said Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, deputy director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, who is pregnant with twins. “But at many companies, it’s still an issue.”

During National selections board members go around telling delegates that we shouldn’t have a woman young children in parliament. They don’t directly say a woman’s place is in the home, but if they didn’t they would be more welcoming of women without children as well as women with children in parliament.

After all they accept MPs like Phil Heatley, Jonathon Coleman, Sam Lotu-Iiga, Jami-Lee Ross and Simon Bridges becoming fathers while serving.

UPDATE: I now know of two woman candidates who were asked specifically during pre-selection this question: “You aren’t going to do a Katherine Rich are you?”