Tapu Misa plays victim role to hilt

Tapu Misa gets it wrong and plays the race/victim card.

She sometimes gets it right but her heritage gets in the way of reality in her latest column:

People keep telling me what a nice man John Key is. The jovial Christchurch taxi driver told me the National Party leader was the nicest politician he's ever met. Key was so casually dressed and unassuming the driver almost didn't recognise him.

The perpetually grinning Lockwood Smith seems a nice enough man, too. But his comments last week about the smallness of Asian hands and the toilet training needs of Pacific migrant workers betrayed a world view that continues to prevail in the National Party...

So it's become harder for poor kids to escape their lowly position. John Key was fortunate that he was poor before the 1980s, when we were a more equal society, and the welfare system was considerably more generous than it is today.

Government policy matters.

The policies of the 80s and 90s made New Zealand one of the most unequal countries in the OECD.

But since 2000, under Labour, that gap's been closing. Not enough, thanks to Labour's resistance to restoring benefits to pre-1991 levels, but progress.

Full Article

She jumps right on board the Labour KiwiRail train going to nowheresville.

Unfortunately Misa is lying to her readers here. John Key would be far better off today in terms of welfare than he would have been in the 1970s because New Zealand is in the grip of record welfare numbers, when Working for Families welfare and a whole host of other new welfare packages are taken into account.

Another key difference that Misa ignores completely is that because welfare wasn't seen as a right back when Key was a boy he was able to escape its evil clutches and become a successful man. 

He would have great difficulty doing that under today's conditions where Labour inspired incentives are instilled to remain on welfare instead of working hard to get off it.

Shame on Misa, she wears her "culture" like a badge but here fails to inspire only mediocrity and dependence, something that her culture is unfortunately not short on.



c Political Animal 2008

Are Labour voters missing a vital Chromosome?

Am I out of touch or just  landed from outer space via Uranus? Neither I think. Comments in the Granny Herald asking How do you rate Helen Clark's nine years? kinda makes me itch all over.

A selection of comments from the left astound me and I wonder really if Labour supporters have been lobotomised from all that taxpayer cash removed from their wallets or from getting mine in their pockets?

Do they miss a vital chromosome?

Are they the missing link? 

Is the country of Brazil missing some nuts?

Here are a couple of the comments that not only defy gravity but are separated from reality-in my small mind anyway:

Katie Roland (Castor Bay) "These are all measures that quite frankly make me proud to be a New Zealander living overseas. So, to answer your question, I'll be voting for Labour come November."

Thank you Lilly, totally agree with you. Sometimes I wonder if the world has gone insane. I'm proud to be a NZer because of all the things Labour and Helen have done and am left astounded that people would actually prefer a NZ like it was nine years ago.

Katie from Castor Bay is so proud she no longer lives in New Zealand but will nevertheless strangle us with her voting preferences come November 8. They haven't done anything for you Katie from Castor Bay they have done it in spite of you.

Dan X (Auckland) Clark and Labour have done very well in the past nine years, and as with all progressive, forward-thinking governments will be looked back upon in the future with pride by the vast majority. It's a pity so many at the time can't see past their own bigotry and complete lack of understanding of the issues. I look forward to a future where parents who beat their children senseless are prosecuted; that children don't have to grow up in poverty just because they had the misfortune to be born into a poor family; and elections that can't be bought.

Dan X from Auckland is taking the Helen Clark approach to commentary, attacking those that disagree with him. The last comment about "bought" elections titillates me, who bought the 2005 Election, with $800,000 of taxpayer money illegally used? Yes it was Labour Mr X.

Tom (Birkenhead) Helen Clark is internationally respected and her leadership of the Nz labour government has earned New Zealand and New Zealanders that same respect. Her prime ministership has been one with a conscience. The Labour government has been forthright before each election about what it would deliver and it has delivered on those promises. Those NZers who parrot the phrase, "It's time for a change" with reference to National cannot have the faintest idea what this would really mean. National's lack of policy after this long in opposition, its backtracks and its ministers' cynical statements about 'swallowing dead rats' point to a party that has no respect for its voters. At least we know that the Labour party and Helen Clark stand for and believe in.

Perhaps the funniest out of the comments.

Tom, "Her Prime Ministership has been one with a conscience?  Tom, Tom, Tom, what sort of conscience makes a Prime Minister lie like a sewer rat every time she gets into a tight spot?

Forthright about what they will do before an election?

Passing the Electoral Finance Act

Removing the Privy Council

Anti Smacking Bill

Civil Unions

Working for Families Welfare

Veto on Auckland Airport being sold

None of these things were canvassed before elections and we have no Election policy so far pre the 2008 Election.

Tom certainly has is head somewhere and it isn't in the clouds.

I will leave the last word to two insightful individuals, Pam H from Leigh and Steve Marshall from Rodney Hide's electorate, Epsom. They counter the spurious drivel from the non thinking, lobotomised socialists from above

Pam H (Leigh) I feel that she hasn't kept to her promises that where made in the last nine years.

Steve Marshall (Epsom) Helen Clark's time as PM is marred by her hidden agenda of very significant changes which the public were never told about and which were forced through. Examples are the removal of the Privy Council, legalisation of prostitution, gay marriage. I can not believe that she is campaigning on trust and accuses other parties of secret agendas. I would like to know what the Labour Party has planned on their secret agenda should they return to power. 

Enrolments close on Wednesday 8 Oct

c Political Animal 2008