National wants to convert farms into pine forests

It really hasn’t been a good time on the opposition benches lately. Not only have we had the various National Party scandals to ensure a decline in their public support, they’ve also entirely misread the room when it comes to the Climate Change Commission’s final report and the Government’s Clean Car Policy.

There is now a somewhat robust pathway to slash emissions so that New Zealand can become carbon neutral by 2050. Of course the right wing don’t like it, mainly because most of them are climate change deniers.

Everybody else on the other hand knows that New Zealand needs to start pulling its weight when it comes to climate change mitigation. While the opposition flails about with arguments that often make no logical or scientific sense, the Government is getting on with it.

The right wing’s attempt to score political points over climate change, by essentially advocating for a do nothing approach, looks even more ludicrous in the wake of recent flooding. Many farmers will understand that these huge consecutive storms are linked to climate change and with their industry dependent on a sustainable future, will hopefully realise that supporting the Government to reduce emissions is the way to go. This would also seem to put farmers at odds with the National Party. 

National is claiming that the ETS, which has been made largely ineffectual by numerous amendments, can get us to net zero by 2050 all by itself. The thing they aren’t telling people, including farmers who are purported to be core supporters, is that around 400,000 hectares of farmland would need to be converted into pine forests for their ETS only plan to work.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the planting of trees to mitigate the effects of climate change, but this is something that the National Party campaigned against in the lead up to the last election. The other issue here is that New Zealand doesn’t need more pine forests than we can ever hope to utilise, especially when we haven’t even got our wilding pines under control.

The Climate Change Commission's report stated that the ETS wouldn’t deliver a desirable low emissions future even if it was increased to $50. The ‘unconstrained removals’ scenario would come close to meeting net zero by 2050 but mean a very small reduction in gross long-lived GHG emissions.

This would also encourage more exotic forests than NZ could ever hope to process or sell overseas.

So if the National Party’s submission to the Climate Change Commission is to be believed, I wonder if Judith Collins has informed her farming friends that National wants to take over their farms with pine forests?

National is falling apart

You’ve really got to wonder what possessed MP Simon Bridges to blatantly lie about gang violence he claimed to have witnessed yesterday.

Perhaps he was just a bit desperate for some attention being that the headlines haven’t be very flattering for the National Party lately.

His belief that misleading the public and police was a good idea was clearly misplaced.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Simon Bridges witnesses 'gang fight' in hospital carpark - police dismiss gang link

"Patched" gang members today took over the entrance to Tauranga Hospital and were involved in someone being "badly beaten up" in the nearby carpark, National MP Simon Bridges claims.

Bridges has taken to social media with an experience he said he witnessed after going to visit his elderly father at the hospital this afternoon.,

On a post to Twitter, he wrote: "Patched gang members had taken over the entrance and someone was being badly beaten up in the carpark in a gang fight."

In a further post, he wrote: "I say this because so many want to downplay this gang thuggery and violence. There have always been gangs but nothing like what we see today.

"It is at epidemic proportions."

A police spokesperson said they were called to a "report of disorder" at the Tauranga Hospital carpark at 3.15pm.

Police said it followed an incident where "a motorist was involved in some sort of altercation with a couple in the car park".

"One police unit attended, spoke to the parties involved and advised there were no issues."

The police spokesperson said initially that there was nothing on their file to suggest it was a gang fight.

It also appeared that there were no arrests.

So there was no gang fight. Just a sad politician lying to attain relevance.

Bridges misleading the public into believing that gang violence is becoming worse under a Labour led government just shows how desperate the National Party actually are.

This follows other notable instances of the right wing recently being in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

When politicians change their minds

EDITORIAL: The National Party has not had a good time recently. If it’s becoming hard for even political pundits to keep track of the gaffes and scandals then spare a thought for the ordinary punters.

A sordid story about former candidate Jake Bezzant​ has raised questions about vetting procedures, MP Paul Goldsmith​ has courted controversy with his views on the benefits of colonialism, the leader is outpolled by a retired predecessor and Parliament’s longest-serving MP, Nick Smith​, has left for reasons that remain mysterious.

 

It’s a pity the political pundits aren’t digging a bit deeper into these controversies. For starters the public deserves to know what Nick Smith actually did to force his resignation?

There’s obviously some juicy reporting to be had with a recording of the idiot being abusive as well as a Parliamentary Service inquiry into the incident.

But instead of the scoop all we generally get on the mainstream news is puff pieces about how he changed his bigoted mind over same sex marriage after his son came out of the closet.

Last week, RNZ reported:

Person who recorded Nick Smith's 'verbal altercation' no longer at Parliament

The person who recorded the row between outgoing National MP Nick Smith and a staffer no longer works at Parliament.

After 30 years, Smith abruptly threw in the towel on his political career on Monday, citing the loss of the Nelson seat and a Parliamentary Service inquiry into a "verbal altercation" in his Wellington office.

Smith said the investigation into the spat that happened last July is ongoing and the best course of action was for him to resign.

He was also under the impression details of that inquiry had been leaked and would hit the headlines on Tuesday, but no such story has appeared and it's not clear why he was told one would be coming.

Other than her Wednesday morning media round, National leader Judith Collins has refused to speak to journalists about Smith's resignation and the investigation this week, only responding to written questions through her media team.

RNZ, however, managed to question Collins as she was leaving a kiwifruit pack house in the Bay of Plenty on Thursday afternoon.

She refused to say if she or anyone from her office had advised Smith a media organisation was set to run a story about the investigation.

As well as the usual backstabbing that goes on within the National Party there’s also Jake Bezzant’s sex scandal that’s been undermining Judith Collins as so-called leader of the opposition.

There’s no question that a number of National Party insiders knew all about Bezzant’s abuse. After all there are numerous victims who have now come forward to inform the public about the National Party candidates issues.

But instead of doing something about the creep the National Party chose to turn a blind eye to his depravities, obviously because the right wing is scraping the bottom of the barrel and lacking in any proper and decent candidates.

Last week, RNZ reported:

Judith Collins distances party from former National candidate Jake Bezzant 'and his perversions'

National's leader Judith Collins has ripped into former candidate Jake Bezzant, calling his actions some of the most disgraceful things she has seen while in politics.

National MPs, including the leader, want changes made to the selection process, after allegations the party's former Upper Harbour candidate posted naked pictures of an ex-girlfriend and impersonated her online.

Collins said she only found out about the allegations on Tuesday.

"I had no idea about what he was actually doing and what sort of fantasist, possibly sociopath, he is. I didn't know about him," she said.

She still had confidence in the party's president, Peter Goodfellow.

Peter Goodfellow is the same guy who hand picked Chinese spy Jian Yang to be a National Party MP, so you’ve really got to wonder if Collins’ faith in him is justified?

Of course Yang wasn't the only National Party MP or candidate that has had to leave politics.

Last week, The Standard reported on:

National’s culture problem

On Monday Nick Smith announced his retirement from Parliament.  A leak of a Parliamentary Service investigation around “a verbal altercation in [his] Wellington office last July” was getting close to the reporting back stage.  And the report was not good.  And the Press knew something about it.

…

His disappearance adds to a growing list of National MPs and candidates who disappeared under a cloud because of what appears to be inappropriate behaviour.  Remember the following? 

Richard Worth and what was it that he did which so incensed the Malaysian Government;

Pansy Wong who resigned after her husband was caught conducting business when accompanying her on a Ministerial trip to China;

Mike Sabin whose activities Cameron Slater said were almost too horrible for words;

Don’t you know who I am Aaron Gilmour who also had CV accuracy problems;

Claudette Hauiti who used her parliamentary charge card for a Christmas trip to Australia and spent approximately $23,000 on MP’s expenses after she had announced she was standing down;

John Key’s ponytail pulling fetish;

The police investigation into Todd Barclay and his use of personal recording devices;

Bill English’s mischaracterisation of the truth relating to his police statement;

The complaints by four women about Jami-Lee Ross’s behaviour;

Andrew Falloon’s resignation for depression caused by the drunken sending of inappropriate graphic material to a woman who was not his wife and was a teenager;

Michelle Boag who stood down from all party positions because of the leaking to National MPs of confidential personal health information;

Sarah Dowie who in her valedictory speech said that she would claw at the windows or walk across hot coals to get out of the National Caucus;

Hamish Walker who was willing to trash the Country’s covid response for political advantage and who racistly claimed that Indians, Pakistanis and Koreans some infected with Covid were on their way to Queenstown while at the same time sending confidential medical information to the media;

National’s Palmerston North candidate William Wood who had photos of himself on Social Media impersonating Hitler.

I can’t be sure that I have captured everyone.  But to that impressive list we can add Smith and Bezzant and I suspect Hipango’s employment relations practices will come back to haunt her.

All of this makes the National Party unelectable, especially while people like Peter Goodfellow are continuing to select candidates. He appears to be going out of his way to find people without morals in the vain belief that National can cover up their transgressions...and if that's not a losing strategy, I don't know what is.

They Are Us film should be made

Rose Byrne to play Jacinda Ardern in controversial movie ‘They Are Us’

Framing is always an important aspect of media reports, especially when it comes to politics. In fact the way a story is framed can often determine whether a topic gains popular support or receives widespread public outrage.

That’s been the case with a proposed film called They Are Us, which will obviously be about the Christchurch mosque shootings that occurred on 15 March 2019 during Friday Prayer, terrorism that shook New Zealand and dare I say the world to its core.

Not only did many mainstream media outlets in New Zealand report on the film in a way that fostered resentment towards the Prime Minister for the pivotal role she played after the terrorist attacks, they also took a lopsided approach to how the film might portray Muslims.

Yesterday the NZ Herald reported:

Christchurch mosque shootings: They are not us, and it hurts to be props in a Hollywood movie

As a Muslim, I have never had any faith in Hollywood. It is an industry that for decades was the only source of information for billions of people on Islam and Muslims, and what they saw were monsters marionetted on screen to sell cinema tickets.

Grotesque antagonists screaming nonsensically, cloaked in black, firing AK-47 rifles in the air before getting mowed down by Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone or Harrison Ford or whatever heroic white saviour was in vogue that year.

Look, I get that Mohamed Hassan has misgivings about old Hollywood movies that typecast not just Muslims, but many ethnic minorities, in a bad light. However the fact that the producers of They Are Us have stated that the film won’t be promoting Brenton Tarrant’s terrorism should put his mind at ease.

Besides, the script has been written by a Kiwi, which should somewhat allay any fears that the film will somehow promote hatred towards Muslims. I mean if any director sought to blame the victims of the mosque shootings, they would likely need to get a job flipping burgers.

And here we are again, being spoken about but not spoken to. Our intimate and devastating trauma packaged and sold by yet another twinkle-eyed Hollywood producer. Our voices are irrelevant. Our bodies props on a set designed to tell someone else's fable.

Even I am surprised by how much this hurts. How angry it makes me. But it's a reminder the pain is still fresh. These wounds have not healed. I write this from a place of utter exhaustion. I am tired. I do not want to deal with this today, but here we are again.

The problem with Hassan’s argument is that a movie informing people of that horrendous day and the governments excellent response to it is more likely to help foster global awareness about racism rather than promote white supremacy. It is more likely to keep the atrocities of a racist gunman firmly in people’s minds, events that if told correctly could help deter such terrorism from happening again.

This is important because only through awareness can we hope to heal the hurt that has been caused by this type of ignorance and racism, and part of fostering awareness is a portrayal of these tragic events in popular media such as film. The alternative to that is silence, which will only be a solution towards more suffering. After all, silence is the abusers friend because it allows people to forget or ignore what has occurred.

Many of the details surrounding this film are still yet to be revealed, including whether Jacinda Ardern approved her likeness being represented on screen, how many of the Christchurch victims were consulted, and how the rest feel about their story being told in this way.

What seems clear is the gleeful tone of the press release, the passing mention of community consultation that feels like an afterthought added by a legal team to stave off social media backlash.

Obviously the PM doesn't need to approve of her likeness being represented on screen, but there are further misconceptions here that also need to be addressed.

Firstly, the directors clearly did consult family members of the terrorist attack and the film hasn’t yet been made, so any assumptions about what it might portray, outside of what has already been published by the producers, is all a bit hasty.

It should also be stated for the record that a number of Muslims played a pivotal role in confronting the gunman and saving lives, which any director would be remiss if they failed to incorporate into their film. For Hassan to believe that a Kiwi director will disrespect these heroes is his fear and not reality speaking.

Furthermore, presuming that Muslims will be used as some sort of prop to promote Jacinda Ardern, when her own commendable response to the tragedy is promotion enough, completely disregards the professionalism and previous work of director Andrew Nicoll.

Demanding the arts be silent about New Zealand's worst terrorist attack will only foster ignorance...and ignorance is what white supremacists like Brenton Tarrant rely on to spread their hatred.

Donald Trump loses

Former US President - Donald Trump

What on Earth was America thinking? Four years of a Trump administration has brought the country to its knees. Civil unrest, particularly during the bungled COVID-19 response that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, looked set to escalate into full-blown anarchy.

A legacy of increased environmental degradation and economic conflicts are also major ticking time bombs. But perhaps the most damaging aspect of Trump’s failed presidency is the United States’ international credibility, which is now in tatters.

Not only did the 2016 Trump presidential campaign collude with Russian Intelligence Officers in order to damage their political opponents, over the last four long years they've also undermined their own democratic system from within, which in my opinion is tantamount to treason!

Of course the Don hasn’t admitted to playing any part in the underhanded affair. That’s because Trump cannot admit to ever doing anything wrong!

Trump mocks disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski

Even now, with Pennsylvania flipping and nearly every news agency calling it, Trump is on Twitter claiming that he’s won the 2020 election. There is of course no doubt that he’s lost. Over 4 million voters are now in favour of Biden with Georgia and Arizona on the cusp of adding to the incoming Presidents considerable electoral vote tally.

Today, New York Daily News reported:

Adios, Donald: Trump loses, Biden wins, and America has a precious opportunity to rebuild

Finally, our long, national nightmare appears to be ending.

Though tight margins in some swing states may trigger some automatic recounts, and we all know that the president may try to cry foul, for now it seems as though Joe Biden has done it. He’s ousted Donald Trump from the White House to become the next president of the United States — and he’s brought with him the first Black woman vice president.

Man, it feels good to write that. After the four years of corruption, incompetence, division, racism, sexism, nepotism, cronyism, nihilism and nationalism that Trump foisted on the American people, often against even the will of his own supporters, we can hopefully go about the business of restoring some semblance of normalcy, decency and calm to American life.

 

The final result will likely be Biden on 305 to Trump on 229, which should be considered a decisive victory for Joe and the Democrats. In fact we should consider it a victory for the entire World as well.

However the fact that millions of Americans did vote for an evil lunatic is terribly concerning. I mean if a President can openly encourage people to inject chlorine as some sort of treatment for COVID-19 and there still be no widespread questioning of his legitimacy, you know that things aren’t at all well in the US of A. 

Utter devastation for National

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer - Maori Party co-leader

If the preliminary 2020 election results were bad for the blue team, the final results are entirely devastating! The National Party, with the unlikable Judith Collins in charge, has lost another three electorates after special votes were counted.

Labour has picked up Northland with Willow-Jean Prime winning a slim majority, which is significant because Labour hasn’t won there since 1938, and list MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer joins Rawiri Waititi in Parliament to issue in a resurgent Maori Party.

The news gets even worse for National in another two blue seats that used to be considered safe. Maungakiekie and Whangarei have also flipped, meaning National has had a comprehensive defeat in terms of overall electorate losses.

Today, RNZ reported:

Special votes: National loses two MPs, one each to Labour, Māori Party 

The National Party has lost another two MPs on the final election result - with Labour and the Māori Party picking up an extra seat each.

Results on election night had Labour at 64 seats, National at 35, ACT at 10, the Greens 10 and the Māori Party with a sole electorate seat, but the counting of what was estimated to be nearly 500,000 special votes has delayed final results until today.

Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishnan has won Maungakiekie off National's Denise Lee by 635 votes.

Northland Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime has beaten National's incumbent Matt King with a majority of 163 votes.

In Whangārei, Labour candidate Emily Henderson has beaten National's Shane Reti by 431 votes, but Reti stays on in Parliament making it in on the list.

All other electorate candidates leading on election night have been confirmed as winning their seats.

Overall seats in Parliament have changed with Labour picking up one - the seat filled by Henderson. National loses two with both Lee and King being tipped out of Parliament.

The Māori Party picks up one more seat, which goes to co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer who comes in on the list.

There really is no question that Judith Collins must now step aside. Even her deputy leader Gerry Brownlee is calling it a day which is a clear sign that he, like many other National Party MPs, have no confidence in their current leader.

The problem for National however is that there’s nobody likeable or competent enough to take Crusher’s place. How exactly are they meant to rebuild when the few MPs who remain are largely unknown or entirely incompetent?

It’s not as if the significant divisions within the party have miraculously been fixed either. Clearly things have now become even harder for the National Party to rebuild. In fact it's patently obvious that they're incapable of mounting any semblance of an opposition to a formidable Labour led Government who look set to win in 2023 as well.

National’s electoral slaughter

Judith (Crusher) Collins

We all agree that the 2020 general election was a complete disaster for the National Party. Not only did the blue “team” receive only 26.8 per cent support, the results also left those who did unwisely back the National Party with a lingering bad taste in their mouths.

In fact the more time National takes faffing about with reviews into why they polled so terribly, the more voters will perceive that National is in complete disarray. Despite this fact, National doesn’t seem to realise that time is of the essence and wasting more of it naval gazing isn’t going to fix things. As well as creating even more resentment within the party towards the current leadership, this will ensure National’s voter base continues to dwindle.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what some National Party MPs have been saying about the causes of their defeat and their current divisive and disingenuous leader, Judith Collins.

Today, Stuff reported:

Election 2020: The 'complete disarray' of National's campaign that led to electoral 'slaughter'

Throughout September and October, Judith Collins and Jacinda Ardern flew into at least one region on each day, visiting local businesses, shaking hands and capturing selfies.

But as Collins criss-crossed the country, chasing ever dwindling poll numbers, she too fell victim to the Cunliffe curse.

“If I had her in my electorate, it was actually a net negative for me,” one National MP confided.

“I’m capable of locking in our National supporters myself. But I need to appeal to the centre voters to get our party vote up, and Judith doesn’t appeal to the centre. She’s our Cunliffe.”

…

Her colleagues found it hard to stomach pleas for loyalty. “She’s destabilised three leaders. She did John Key in 2014, she completely destabilised Simon Bridges, and she was behind the coup with Todd Muller,” one MP fumed.

Another raged: “It is pretty hard when two months earlier she put out a book bagging John Key. That woman held a grudge for six years! She needed to lead by example.”

…

A few days later, Collins was hobbled by a catastrophic own goal: Goldsmith was forced to admit multi-billion-dollar errors in his budget. The first overshadowed Collins’ campaign launch and National lost its best weapon – economic credibility.

There were few people to blame. The leadership team gave candidates little notice of the economic plan, which included a controversial pitch to cut taxes, despite Collins previously ruling that out.

“Policy was a disaster zone,” one incredulous MP said. “All we saw at the start was big spending – whether it was Bishop [on infrastructure], Willis on education, or Reti on health.

“They were coming up with big numbers and that was a massive mistake because it made us indistinguishable from Labour.”

The tax cuts confused voters, the MP believes. “[Finance Minister] Grant Robertson made the best point of the entire campaign: we’d fallen into some sort of economic Bermuda triangle. We were going to spend everything, but we were also going to be better on debt, and provide tax relief.”

…

“It evolved from the low energy into the Crusher,” an MP explained. “But ... because it hadn’t started that way, it was confusing and inauthentic.”

Another MP disliked the straight-from-the-heart, unscripted style. “The second [Newshub] debate really put a line under it. The one where she just went a bit crazy … she went very shouty, talking to herself and giggling to herself.

“The whole thing fell apart. Gerry and her fundamentally started disagreeing on issues and she apparently had a huge blow-up at the campaign team because she felt they were trying to make her too soft.

“She started to harden up, and become the Crusher again. They were trying to keep her on message, with a softer face to try and appeal to the middle voter ... And middle New Zealand switched off her completely.”

…

From the inside, the campaign careered off the rails. Two weeks out from the election, one MP complained to Stuff: “If you think it looks bad, it’s even worse.”

…

“The central campaign was a disaster,” a National MP sighed. “Candidates were getting collateral [advertising material] very late, we saw collateral go out there with wrong spelling, graphics had our numbers wrong.”

…

There was frustration that the new team entirely shut out Paula Bennett, who’d amassed and absorbed a treasure trove of data over months.

“For a good year, [Gerry] was critical of Paula,” one seasoned MP said. “They didn’t get on personality-wise, he was clear in his head that he could do much better. Then he got there and didn’t know what to do.

“He has certain skills but an organisational brain to run a campaign just isn’t one of those areas.

…

The cracks become obvious. On October 5, an email emerged in which first-term MP and Auckland Council spokesperson Denise Lee criticised Collins for not consulting her about a new local body policy.

“All of the experienced MPs from the John Key and Bill English governments, we know what discipline is,” a departing MP said. “[Judith] made that decision and that is the leader’s prerogative.

“Let’s be honest about the class of 2017: they have been the bane in National’s life. There has been nothing but leaks, a sense of self-entitlement and real arrogance … Is it any wonder this email was sent and leaked, was it written to be leaked?

“That was our demise. I believe Judith when she said it probably took about five points off us.”

…

She digressed into fat-shaming, accused Jacinda Ardern of lying, goaded the Labour leader to sue her, and then accused her rival of name-calling. There were attacks on the media, and an incautious explanation of how, as a tax lawyer, she used to help people avoid inheritance tax.

“What typified the whole campaign for me was we had [Brownlee], our deputy leader and campaign manager in the media, explaining that he is responsible for his own obesity,’’ one MP said. ‘’How mad is that? How off-topic is that?”

Another explained: “None of them were talking to each other. Judith would say what she wanted at the media standups because there wasn’t anyone else giving her clear direction, certainly in the last two weeks.”

…

Others don’t accept that analysis. “Gerry and Judith both share fault in this. It’s galling to see them portraying themselves as reluctant heroes, who it was thrust upon.

“Judith crawled over broken glass for a decade to get this job, she isn’t some Joan of Arc figure. Sadly, when she got there, there was nothing. She didn’t even have an A4 of a plan.”

Another said: “She has had her day. She is from a bygone era. She’s brittle, I don’t believe she is the face of National and she definitely won’t be the leader going into ‘23.”

So at what point does Judith Collins stop making excuses and put the party ahead of her own self-interest? In my opinion she must take responsibility for National’s resounding defeat by stepping down to let a more capable and credible leader take her place.

Let’s also not forget Crusher’s previously held belief that anywhere below 35 per cent in a general election should trigger a change in National's leadership. But now that she’s assumed command Collins has reneged on her own stipulated cutoff mark.

Crusher has also said that she won’t go willingly. So it’s up to the National Party to oust her. This must happen if New Zealand is to have an opposition that actually works, which is required in order for our democracy to properly function. Because if Crusher is allowed to stay on we will simply see a continuance of the same disorganisation exhibited over National's disastrous 2020 election campaign.