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Some things
Jan. 30th, 2007 12:59 pm1. Stupidly excited by Sam and Dean on the cover of the Dom Post's TV Week. I can't wait to watch the pilot on actual television. *silly*
2. theyworkforyou.co.nz.
3. John Key gave his first big speech today - his Orewa, I guess you'd say. I know he's actually forgoing the Orewa speech (Winston Peters will be speaking instead), presumably to avoid recalling Orewa '04. The transcript is here, and I just want to tell you all that I told you so. Oh yeah, he's all about his tough upbringing, and how everyone can take advantage of opportunity, and it doesn't matter how much money your parents have if you can just see the ladder and make your way up it. (What a metaphor, honestly.)
There are in the middle of the speech some fairly dramatic surprised that I am reluctant to admit impressed me. He acknowledged (or appeared to acknowledge) the fact that poverty and crime and blah blah are cyclical and that not everyone can get out of these neighbourhoods. (The speech was all about bad neighborhoods and New Zealand's "emerging underclass", which is terribly interesting because National is not exactly historically the party of the poor. Everyone wants good health and public education systems. These come with taxes. Left wing parties say, okay, we'll take the taxes; right wing parties say, hey, we'll take the tax cuts and pay for them ourselves. Except that the less money you have, the smaller your tax cut is, the less it helps you out, and the less likely you are to be able to pay for expensive private education and medical care, which you have to go to because the tax cuts meant there wasn't enough money to maintain high standards in this area. Oh, diversion.) He talked a bit about engrained helplessness and youth suicide (sort of) and it's actually very exciting to see someone mention youth suicide.
But the third section is basically unsurprising and frustrating, a lot of things about how throwing money at the problems won't fix them, smaller government, family dysfunction has flourished under Labour (he "proves" this by pointing to the Kahui family, who were receiving about a thousand dollars per week all up from the government. I don't know how many people were receiving some of this money and he didn't bother to explain what they were getting it for, but seriously. One hot-button example does NOT demonstrate that family dysfunction has flourished. Anecdotal evidence is only worth the paper it's not written on.) He was quite explicit about being tough on parole (Graeme Burton is a gift to his policy making. I'm only surprised he didn't bring up Jayden Headley since he's name-checking horrifying high-profile news stories...) and obviously anti "the rights of criminals" which, more on that later. He also spent a lot of time on welfare dependency which just makes me want to say ARGH. yes, there are people who are welfare dependent - but - right now we have the lowest unemployment ever and 67% of npeople on the dole are only on it short term - ie less than six months. NOBODY is acknowledging this.
The fourth section is just bizarre - apparently, the way to solve problems like kids coming to school without lunches is to encourage philanthropism in local businesses. Um, okay, then. Good luck with that, Mr Key. You may be happy giving away some of your millions but the whole thing about tax cuts doesn't come about because your core voters are real generous types. (Although I guess they like to *think* of themselves as generous, as long as they're being generous to hungry kids and not criminals, or sick people, or disabled people, or teenaged mothers. Or roads. Or schools that aren't in their classy neighbourhood.)
4. There was a very interesting article on the difference between NZ and Scandinavian prisons in the Dom Post today. It's not online as far as I can see but read it if you get a chance; basically it was about the fact that Scandinavia acknowledges that simply being in prison is a significant punishment and works to make sure that its prisoners don't suffer unnecessarily in prison. And let's all remember what Scandinavia's crime rates are. (They're low.) Ironically on Sunday there was a big cover of the news paper - Bailey Junior Kurariki has been denied parole at 17 for his part in killing a pizza delivery boy when he was 12. Parole Board basically said he was a very high risk of reoffending, that he had not matured in prison and showed no sign of remorse. Wow, guys, that's a huge shock. You took a 12 year old (who was obviously pretty screwed up to begin with), chucked him in prison, and five years later he's probably a worse danger to society than he was before he was convicted. Who could have predicted this outcome?
2. theyworkforyou.co.nz.
3. John Key gave his first big speech today - his Orewa, I guess you'd say. I know he's actually forgoing the Orewa speech (Winston Peters will be speaking instead), presumably to avoid recalling Orewa '04. The transcript is here, and I just want to tell you all that I told you so. Oh yeah, he's all about his tough upbringing, and how everyone can take advantage of opportunity, and it doesn't matter how much money your parents have if you can just see the ladder and make your way up it. (What a metaphor, honestly.)
There are in the middle of the speech some fairly dramatic surprised that I am reluctant to admit impressed me. He acknowledged (or appeared to acknowledge) the fact that poverty and crime and blah blah are cyclical and that not everyone can get out of these neighbourhoods. (The speech was all about bad neighborhoods and New Zealand's "emerging underclass", which is terribly interesting because National is not exactly historically the party of the poor. Everyone wants good health and public education systems. These come with taxes. Left wing parties say, okay, we'll take the taxes; right wing parties say, hey, we'll take the tax cuts and pay for them ourselves. Except that the less money you have, the smaller your tax cut is, the less it helps you out, and the less likely you are to be able to pay for expensive private education and medical care, which you have to go to because the tax cuts meant there wasn't enough money to maintain high standards in this area. Oh, diversion.) He talked a bit about engrained helplessness and youth suicide (sort of) and it's actually very exciting to see someone mention youth suicide.
But the third section is basically unsurprising and frustrating, a lot of things about how throwing money at the problems won't fix them, smaller government, family dysfunction has flourished under Labour (he "proves" this by pointing to the Kahui family, who were receiving about a thousand dollars per week all up from the government. I don't know how many people were receiving some of this money and he didn't bother to explain what they were getting it for, but seriously. One hot-button example does NOT demonstrate that family dysfunction has flourished. Anecdotal evidence is only worth the paper it's not written on.) He was quite explicit about being tough on parole (Graeme Burton is a gift to his policy making. I'm only surprised he didn't bring up Jayden Headley since he's name-checking horrifying high-profile news stories...) and obviously anti "the rights of criminals" which, more on that later. He also spent a lot of time on welfare dependency which just makes me want to say ARGH. yes, there are people who are welfare dependent - but - right now we have the lowest unemployment ever and 67% of npeople on the dole are only on it short term - ie less than six months. NOBODY is acknowledging this.
The fourth section is just bizarre - apparently, the way to solve problems like kids coming to school without lunches is to encourage philanthropism in local businesses. Um, okay, then. Good luck with that, Mr Key. You may be happy giving away some of your millions but the whole thing about tax cuts doesn't come about because your core voters are real generous types. (Although I guess they like to *think* of themselves as generous, as long as they're being generous to hungry kids and not criminals, or sick people, or disabled people, or teenaged mothers. Or roads. Or schools that aren't in their classy neighbourhood.)
4. There was a very interesting article on the difference between NZ and Scandinavian prisons in the Dom Post today. It's not online as far as I can see but read it if you get a chance; basically it was about the fact that Scandinavia acknowledges that simply being in prison is a significant punishment and works to make sure that its prisoners don't suffer unnecessarily in prison. And let's all remember what Scandinavia's crime rates are. (They're low.) Ironically on Sunday there was a big cover of the news paper - Bailey Junior Kurariki has been denied parole at 17 for his part in killing a pizza delivery boy when he was 12. Parole Board basically said he was a very high risk of reoffending, that he had not matured in prison and showed no sign of remorse. Wow, guys, that's a huge shock. You took a 12 year old (who was obviously pretty screwed up to begin with), chucked him in prison, and five years later he's probably a worse danger to society than he was before he was convicted. Who could have predicted this outcome?
