Sue Bradford is set to announce in Waitakere for the Mana Party:
Former Green Party MP Sue Bradford is expected to announce within days that she will contest Waitakere, going up against Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.
Sometimes life is just cruel, even when you are “more down to Earth, more authentic, more genuine” than your opponent.
I notice that Mallard has had another swipe at the Government for doing what it’s supposed to - and that’s letting KiwiRail make its own operational decisions when it is buying new trains.
I find this outrage just a little hard to handle - given that he was the shareholding Minister explaining why Air New Zealand should be free of political meddling when it was considering the oursourcing of engineering work…
Air New Zealand—Engineering Outsourcing
Tuesday 21 February 2006 Hansard source (external site)
1. SUE BRADFORD (Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he believe that, as 82 percent shareholder of Air New Zealand, he should have been more proactive in finding a solution that would keep Air New Zealand’s engineering work in New Zealand?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Acting Minister of Finance): No. I would hope that the airline and unions talk further, but as a matter of policy the Minister of Finance, as shareholding Minister, does not intervene in the operational affairs of the airline.
Sue Bradford: Has the board of Air New Zealand shared with the Government shareholder its long-term strategic plan for this business; if so, does it show that what is happening at the moment is just the beginning of a whole series of changes that will lead to lay-offs and cuts in wages and conditions?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: As Acting Minister of Finance, I am not privy to the details of the briefings between the board and the Minister of Finance.
Sue Bradford: Is the Minister aware that Air New Zealand has also put the jobs of over 100 cleaners on the line by putting cabin-cleaning work out to tender; and as a majority shareholder does he see any role at all in trying to get it to reverse its decision, especially in the light of Labour’s own industrial relations policies in the areas of contracting out and job security?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes and no.
Sue Bradford: How does the current Air New Zealand strategy of business transformation, which seems to involve slashing wages and jobs and contracting out, align with the Government’s strategic priority, as outlined by the Prime Minister last week, of economic transformation; if it does not, does the Minister think there is some way in which these two strategies can be aligned?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Without going into a lot of the detail, I think it is fair to say that many members of the House are aware that the future of Air New Zealand itself was at very serious risk when the Government bought back into it, and it is not out of the mire yet.
Clearly the pain killers and his impeding defeat in a cycle race are clouding his judgment. The crippled campaign manager just can’t get his facts right and continues to insist that National to do something which in the first instance is illegal and secondly something he knows can’t be done anyway.
He is struggling, along with his crippled party for relevance and so just flings murk from wherever he can dredge it up from.
A very interesting day in politics.
National’s candidate Jami-lee Ross has covered the electorate in his bill boards. Driving around it is a sea of blue. I haven’t seen a single Labour sign anywhere. Perhaps Labour needs to borrow Conor Roberts to get their campaign off the ground.
Matthew Hooton on Radio Live today at 12:30 is pretty certain that Hone Harawira is bolting to form the new left wing party with Sue Bradford as co-leader.
Bomber of course is wetting his pants at the prospect, though I am not sure the electorate in general is going to be too happy at the prospect of seeing Sue Bradford’s face back on the public teat. iPredict, meanwhile is showing a surge in the likelihood that such a party will be formed.
Still in a democracy it is a contest of ideas and with Hone Harawira holding his seat and the new left wing party grabbing 3-4% and stealing 5 seats the next parliament could well be very interesting.
But for Labour to govern they would still need Winston Peters to make a come back, completing the spectre of the evil left. There is a slight problem with that however and the rise of the new left party. My deep throat spies in NZ First tell me that Winston’s strategy is all hard right.
Could Winston Peters be making a play for the Act party’s neglected members. My understanding is that Winston will make his play on three core policies that will attract the FU vote. But at least one of those platforms is going to put him in direct conflict with a prospective coalition partner that features Sue Bradford.
One of NZ First’s major policy planks will be to campaign to reverse the anti-smacking law. They hope to hoover up the constituency that John Key ignored when bypassing the wishes of nearly 90% of the population. Winston only needs to pick up a few per cent out of those opposed to Bradford’s bill and he is a shoe in again. The problem though is that in campaigning on such a platform will he then chuck it in to form a coalition with Bradford’s new left party and Labour?
Winston at least will for once be acting with some consistency as he voted against Bradford’s bill in 2007. What are his other two major platforms? Well that is a secret for now but rest assured this blog will release them shortly. Suffice to say the policies are more hard right than anything remotely close to a party that will include Hone Harawira, Sue Bradford and Matt McCarten.
Meanwhile Duncan Garner is blogging that Ruth Dyson is a goner in Phil Goff’s line up. One wonders if Goff should stop at stabbing only Dyson. He will however have to watch out for her retribution as that is now nigh on guaranteed. Ask any Labour insider and they will tell you that Dyson is the most spiteful, even evil, person in caucus.
I had a conversation with another blogger about the likelihood of another maori child being based to death by the end of January. We both reckoned iPredict wouldn’t even offer stocks on that, since it was a near certainty.
Unfortunately we were both proved right.
A five-month-old baby who died in an alleged manslaughter in Hastings last week has been named.
Mikara Ranui Jarius Reti, of Flaxmere, was admitted to Hawkes Bay Regional Hospital last Tuesday night and “subsequently died”, police said.
A 21-year-old man, who has name suppression, has been charged with manslaughter.
He is due to appear in the Hastings District Court tomorrow.
Senior Sergeant Dave de Lange said members of the Mikara’s family had been “co-operative and helpful” with a police investigation.
Three things strike me here. First is of course the occurrence once again of Silly First Name Syndrome. If these people took even as much care of the child as they do in giving them stupid names then we would be a whole lot better off and the children may well be alive.
The second thing is we have a 21 year male, not from the family by the looks of the press details. Judith Collins in her Summer Series interview likened this to being the same as Tom Cats going around killing the offspring of other fathers.
“Violent offender who acts very much like a tomcat and goes around basically killing the young of the previous partner”.
I have coined a new syndrome for this:
SOCKS – Some Other C*nts Kid Syndrome, an affliction that sees the SOCK victim brutally killed by another male involved with the family.
The third thing is that the alleged animal who beat this child to death has name suppression but yet again the victim does not. The law is ass-backwards and clearly criminal friendly.
Of course the liberal hand-wringers like Rosemary McLeod will say it is whitey’s fault and society’s fault, and haters and wreckers like Hone Harawira will just blame whitey, but at some point Maori are going to have to own their own sh*t, because with all the vast sums of money pouring into their laps they still seem overly represented in all the wrong statistics. At some point we as a nation have to say money isn’t working, time to turn the tap off.
Ask Rosemary McLeod, if she cares about Blanket Man so much would she shower. clothe and take him to Shed 5 for lunch? Thought not, so she should STFU. Caring is what “other people” do. The fact she got paid to write that drivel just galls me, if Steve Braunias has to go then it is high time she crawled back into what ever liberal elitist tent she came from and then the Sunday Star Times can have some columnists with a grasp on reality.
Brutal killings of children require brutal solutions and brutal honesty. Sue Bradford said that these children were going to be protected, in actual fact it looks more like they are being killed in increasing numbers since her law was brought in. She lied to the nation and criminalised good parents in the process.
Thank goodness parliament passed the anti-smacking law so that “our kiddies are now safe”. If parliament hadn’t passed Sue Bradford’s ;law then the slaughter of our young would have continued unabated…..oh wait!
CYF appalled by abuse to girl hiding in cupboard
Assault charges laid after 5yo found dead
UPDATE: The person charged with the death of the 5y.o. has name suppression, it surely can’t be to protect the victim, she’s dead.
That’s another two kids that Sue Bradford’s law was supposed to protect and failed. One is dead, the other scarred for life.
I’ll bet you dollars to a knob of goat-shit that both of these “families” are maori.
Emmerson puts it very simply…but not simple enough for the congenitally stupid.
Of course now we will get all the liberal panty-waists claiming that this is all of New Zealand’s problem, when it demonstrably isn’t, the demographics clearly tell us whose problem this is. One thing is absolutely certain and that is welfare isn’t working for anyone, and definitely it isn’t working for the children. The answer isn’t more money either, it never is, the liberal panty-waists though will claim that money will solve the problems. If that was the case then we shouldn’t have any problems with the billions poured into lower soci-economic classes.
The system and some parts of society are broken, oh that we had politicians who were prepared to grasp the nettle instead of showboating and acting the goat. National has had two years to make a difference instead they have fiddled and tinkered at the edges. Labour doesn’t have any solutions either, they had nine years to address issues such as these and failed. Both major parties are failing the poor and the children of New Zealand.
Damien Christie is more than a little pissed off with Apple
The Mangrove still has firm roots in Napier, much to the relief of husbands nationwide.
Doesn’t look like the Arctic is going to be ice-free this year.
Blair Mulholland should get divorced more often.
The piss fairy has visited Andrew Williams again, why must it always be when he is writing a presser.
Andrew Williams is a bigger trougher than Len Brown, at least we know who he drinks with, Len isn’t so forth-coming with information.
Yet another name for Bradford’s Wall of Shame, Silly First Name Syndrome strikes again, and Maori keep bashing their kids. That anti-smacking law is saving these kids real well.
Child Mullets are child abuse
With the imminent resignation of Sue Bradford from Parliament, there ought to be much rejoicing among the forces of conservatism and the centre-right that the biggest, baddest social engineer of modern New Zealand is going.
Unfortunately, she’s now threatening to come back to politics by standing as a councillor for the new Auckland supercity. Even worse than that, there are some serious talks to bring in Sue Bradford as the deputy for Brown.
Of course, the role of deputy is a serious one under the Auckland Council given the increased Mayoral powers, the budget and the size of Auckland. But it’s even more serious when you consider the likelihood of her becoming the actual Mayor with Len Brown’s bad heart condition.
[quote]
Everyone knows how Len Brown was probably jump started in order to save his life when he collapsed with a massive heart attack in mid 2008. It’s also well known he spent some weeks fighting for his life, with complications in his heart bypass, meaning he had to be opened up twice under general anaesthetic to save his life. In total, Brown had six (SIX!) heart valves replaced under a double-triple bypass due to massive blocking, and after the first op, one of the valves then ripped open again requiring another operation.
Brown had the last rites read, such was his outlook.
So, having established the clear state of Brown’s lack of health, there is a very real possibility that under a high pressure job like the Auckland Mayoralty, Brown would suffer significant stress, particularly with the massive task of bringing the old councils together.
Sue Bradford would be literally one heartbeat away from the Auckland Mayoralty. Parliament’s most divisive and militant operator, the social-engineer who knew better than 87% of New Zealand’s families, would be in charge of all Auckland.
And that’s a risk that no right thinking person in Auckland would want to consider.
Just unreal. So much for the Mayor for All Auckland. Most of Auckland would be revulsion at Sue Bradford in charge of a major portfolio or even the deputy mayoralty. So Len Brown is claiming he is independent and could work with anyone yet when push comes to shove he is openly backing the most divisive left wing politician in the country, looks like a setup to me.
Len Brown has effectively endorsed Sue Bradford to stand for a super city position .
Len Brown says he would relish the opportunity to work alongside Sue Bradford on the Auckland Super City Council.
The Manukau mayor has thrown his hat into the ring to lead the new local body, and says the Green MP would make a great councillor.
Mr Brown says he enjoys Ms Bradford’s company and thinks she is a great leader. He says while people have mixed views about the anti-smacking campaigner, she is totally genuine.
Mr Brown says Ms Bradford has a continuing role to play in politics, and is young and active enough to do so. Len Brown says he was sad when he learnt Sue Bradford was standing down from Parliament.
This will drive a stake right through the already wobbly heart of Len Brown’s campaign for the Mayoralty of a Super City his own council and he opposed.
There is an article on Stuff and in The NZ Herald from so-called “independent” public economics lecturer Rhema Vaithianathan.
Slight problem there folks. She isn’t indepedent, she is a Labour stoolie. She was one of the candidates for selection in Mt Albert and defeated by Phil Goff’s hand-picked candidate flown in from Amman.
There appears to have been an orchestrated campaign by labour stoolies to get as much bad press out as possible during the Mt Albert bu-election and once again it is a failed labour candidate that is front and centre on the stings against the media.
Wouldn’t it be good if the media researched their article writers just a bit more?
Today we have been provided yet another good reason to vote National at the coming election.
National has said that they would fund the preferred 12 month treatment regime for women with aggressive Her-2 breast cancer.
Labour through its drug buying agency Pharmac has today announced that those women will be just fine by them on the nine week interim measure.
This flies in the face of established medical evidence around the world and from Medsafe the body that certifys treatment programmes and drugs for use in New Zealand.
Labour doesn’t care, they’d rather spend $1.5billion on Michael’s Train set and pour millions more via NZ Post into Kiwibank.
Good god almighty the cost to provide Herceptin for the 350 women per annum affected is only $25 million and the government via NZ Post has poured in $340 million in capital to fund a bank we don’t bloddy need.That is 13 and half yesrs of Herceptin treatment or one measly bank as a sop to Jim Anderton.
Jackie Blue continues to fully represent women on this issue whilst Labour remains silent, ambivalent and uncaring.
