worryingly jolly batman

1. So get_together is taking place on Guy Fawkes weekend, y'all. Who would walk up Mt Vic with me at 8 on Saturday? Are we likely to still be eating then?

2. My bitter, apolitical boss (politics self-described as right-wing fascist) was reading the PREFU today and – I shouldn't find it amusing but sadly I do – getting absolutely riled. Particularly, spending on Health and Education – the two biggest areas of expenditure - is predicted to not increase at all (in 2011 dollars) over the next five years. No changes at all. This is effectively (apparently) something like an 8 – 10% cut in teachers', nurses', doctors' salaries. This means health and education is becoming a smaller proportion of the budget (which does get larger) – i.e. health and education are lower priorities over the next five years. It's all sort of astounding and frustrating and it's added to my increasing feeling of desperation, fury, and incapacity. I just don't see what I can do about it and it's stressing me out.

3. Relatedly, hazel has been incandescent in classy political rage lately, highly recommended.

ALSO, deliberately making this a separate post to be an asshole but also because THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Please vote YES this week.

Oh hey, and DON'T FORGET: Saturday is election day, which means TOMORROW is the LAST DAY you can register to vote. PLEASE register and PLEASE vote!

1. 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?

Five Things I Think About The National Party Leadership Thing:

1. I am, on the whole, relieved Brash has finally resigned. On the one hand, Brash continuing to lead the Nats might have been the one thing that would have guaranteed their defeat next election. On the other hand, I hate the man. And less personally, Brash said he'd resign if he lost the 2005 election - they lost and he didn't. He repeatedly campaigned against Labour's so-called disrespect for the instituton of marriage - while having an affair (again, natch.) He gave a speech at Orewa which set back (in my opinion) bilateral race relations in NZ, inciting and validating anti-Maori and anti-Treaty sentiment by encouraging the fantasy of the Maori privilege. (Which, god. Don't you think if there were Maori privilege their health, education and economic statistics would be less depressing? Idiots.) He's also a hopeless politician, has frequently been corrected on his party's policy and is IMO a hopeless party leader and unable to take criticism.The latest, as most of you probably know, is a book released containing a whole bunch of emails that are apparently very embarassing from a politcal perspective, revealing all kinds of corruption and so on. So, you know, goodbye, Don, you won't be missed.

2. Speaking of The Hollow Men, what's that you say, Nicky Hager? The Nats used the leader's budget for advertising very similarly to the way you've been complaining Labour did? My goodness! How shocking.

3. I want to disclaim at this point that I'm not and have never been a big fan of Nicky Hager - although apparently he's a lovely guy face to face, I just can't get over the Corngate thing. On the other hand, come on, I'm supposed to react negatively to an expose of corruption and party politics within the Nats? Please, i'm not made that way. Scoophas some info here and there's more about everywhere. It's all the NZ political blogs are talking about, ha-ha.

4. I'm also interested that the big Exclusive Brethren hoo-ha in the book also seems to smear John Key, who is going to be the next leader of the Opposition (which, yeah, we all picked about a hundred years ago, but me and blademistress were rooting for Bill English anyway. You can do it, Bill: lead national to its greatest electoral defeat! Again!) Anyway, I expect Key will stick around anyway. I'm a little disheartened by this because Key is just young enough for me to count him as a New Conservative and god, I cannot stand the Young Conservatives. They are self-entitled unsympathetic supercilious brats who, because they were raised with every opportunity in the world, cannot conceive of someone not being able o do just as well as they did through anything but lazinss - or natural stupidity, which of course should be punished, probably by burning at the stake.

Yeah, I'm a little vehement about them. Blech. Anyway, since Key grew up in a much-vaunted state house in Christchurch - with headlines like "Christchurch state house boy makes good!" because, you know, being from state housing is just like being a youth criminal! Anyway anyway, I probably can't complain about him being entitled but, you know. I also think the very bright have this same problem - I got out of state housing / made a million bucks / funded my university on scholarship / whatever, why can't everyone else? Which to me fundamentally misses the point - it's not whether or not everyone can or can't, it's that some people don;t and they are not by virtue of that less valuable.

Anyway AGAIN, 5. David Slack linked to a quiz on Key's conscience voting record (it has the answers at the end) which is kind of interesting if a little schizophrenic; he voted against the CUB (black mark!) but for the relationships statutory references (equal treatment of all relationships including de facto and same sex under the law: I suppose this is less surprising since he's younger) and against the gender clarification, hich would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The possible explanation for this is that he was against the CUB on second-class citizen grounds. Otherwise it's mostly unsurprising - he wants lots of tax write-offs for businesses, what a shocker, and he voted to control street prostitution in Manakau and to liberalise shop trading on Easter.

I can only hope that under Key's leadership national will go back to being all about the money, because nobody likes tax cuts, right? Right? oh god.

'Fess up: who slipped Helen alcohol today? stuff.co.nz has an article, and well, some of the highlights:

On Don Brash:

"Labour regards Dr Brash as a corrosive and cancerous person within the New Zealand political system."

"What began this appalling slide in political standards was having a polarising leader of the Opposition – a man who I do not believe should be leading anything in New Zealand."

On Labour MP Trevor Mallard, who said some nasty things about dotty old Don:

"He was responding very, very strongly to quite ridiculous and outrageous attacks on me and on the New Zealand Labour Party and we are not going to stand by and have the sort of behaviour go on that has gone on."
c
"Personal attacks form no part of Labour's strategy. That's where Trevor was out of line," and yet,

"He did not start it."

Or, to put it another way: the Opposition made him do it!


Apart from alcohol, I think the whole Davis thing was the absolute last straw. Helen's marriage has always been the target of criticism - much less than Don's ever was - and frankly I think someone just went a little too far.

As for the rest of the article: Labour is not trying to divert attention from the pledge card debacle, because you know what? The Exclusive Brethren thing was exposed before the pledge card thing, in fact before last election. 1.2 million dollars is a really significant sum, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars more than were involved in the pledge card thing. Russell Brown writes about Exclusive Brethren spending here and overseas.

On a more amusing note, scoop.co.nz satire is always good. (So, by the way, is their news coverage. Very thorough, especially of parliament but also national and international news. Plus, they have a category for "strange and bizarre." That's nifty.) Highlight today: Investigate magazine to claim Clark/Brash affair, by Lyndon Hood, which is fairly hysterical.

Attention! Instead of reading the following boring bitching about New Zealand politicians' sex scandals, you should really just read Tze Ming Mok's hysterical latest.


Sometimes when I'm bored on my Thursday evening shift, I write little lists of what I would prefer to be writing an LJ entry about. Sometimes I write the entry, sometimes I don't, but anyway. Tonight's list had just one item: I can't believe I'm writing about Don Brash again.

That's right, boys and girls of the foreign persuasion. Don "My wife is Chinese* so I can't be racist or anti-immigration", "If National loses the 2005 election I will resign," "I lose my debates with Helen Clark on purpose because it's not nice to be rude to women", "Helen knows my party's policy better than I do" Brash, unbeloved, fuddy-duddy, conservative, frankly bad politician Leader of the Opposition, is back in the news. (National did in fact lose the election, and he... did not step down. Hm.)

Unfortunately, I find myself in the position of supporting him. Excuse me while I go bleach my brain.

This is the thing: New Zealand has something of a tradition of keeping its nose out of the private lives of its politicians, and I generally think this is a really good thing. There are exceptions, times when a politician's private life is relevant (and, obviously, things like corruption and all over everywhere) but as a rule, the validity of what a politician is saying should be judged by what they're saying, not by the politician. This is, I believe, part of the reason the NZ parliament includes a rastafarian and an transsexual.

Now, Don Brash is well-known to have cheated on his first wife with the woman who would become his second - and current, Singaporean - wife. The irony of his conservative positions on marriage is not lost on anyone, but it's not usually considered kosher to bring this up in debates. A few days ago it was leaked that Brash is having marital problems (he's taking a sabbatical, I believe, from which I suspect he will not be returning) and someone in Brash's own party basically said in Parliament that he's been cheating again.

(If anyone not a Kiwi is still reading along, there's been a whole heap of shit-slinging in Parliament lately. First Philip Field is being accused of corruption (Tze Ming Mok's analysis of what he's supposed to have done is here, if anyone has a better one gimme a shout), then the Labour party is being accused of breaking laws using the wrong money to pay for some pledge cards (no link because this is pretty cut-and-dried: it clearly wasn't an intentional mistake, I doubt it significantly affected election results, for fuck's sake, Helen, just pay back the money and everyone will call it quits.) THEN Labour basically threatened to loose the hounds dirt files. This is apparently the first taste of that although, as I said, the original volley came from within National.

Also, National has been trying to smear Labour for... some time, actually, and Labour has generally been fairly restrained about responding, so I guess it was time.)

Okay, that is a very longwinded lot of paragraphs for me to get around to saying: I don't like Don Brash. I think he's not a very good politician and on those occasions when he does manage to articulate opinion I invariably find myself in vehement disagreement (Orewa nearly gave me apoplexy); he certainly managed to revitalise failing National support but he did it in a way that really altered the shape of Parliament, to a shape I don't like (polarised, virtually two-party); and above all, I think that he should have done as he said he would and resigned after National lost the 2005 election. However! If you are going to question Brash's fitness to lead his party, there are a million and one good reasons to do so, like he's a crappy speechmaker, a hopeless debater, he has no control over his party and backbenchers (which, well, sort of proved that), he frequently doesn't know his own policy, even just that he's hopelessly out of touch and old fashioned.

But for god's sake, stay out of the man's bedroom.

Just as I believe the fact that Tim Barnett has sex with men should not be a factor in judging his fitness as a politician, I do not believe Brash's (condemnable, BTW) sexual misconducts should be brought into the limelight. It's not relevant and I want fairness to go both ways. (Although he does look pretty awful in light of the fact that his party is the one that bangs on (and on and on and on) about the sanctity of marriage.)

But if you do want to talk about it, Russell Brown discusses who he was doin' and why it was a problem.

Um, okay, that's more than enough time devoted to Don Brash's - eww - sex life. Let's talk about Bob Clarkson, shall we? Or, rather, let's let amarynth talk about Bob "I had to be told to stop talking about my testicles in public" Clarkson's latest idiocies, because he is smrt and put it very well.

No more politics for another six months, promise.

*Singaporean, in fact

Haka

I want to know!
Don't I belong here?

I was born at Papa-kura.
My whenua turned the soil red.

My mother cried like a seagull.

Her ancestors are buried in Papa-toetoe.
Their old heads are white plumes.

My father held me to this
upside-down sky and I sneezed.

Am I not maori?


I want to know!
Do you belong here?

Where is Kupe from?
His canoe was a strange tree.

Could he feel what my people felt?

This place to rest from the sea.
This longing for home.

Where do the dead return to?
Hawaiki nui. Hawaiki roa. Hawaiki pamaomao.

Are you not pakeha?

-- Glenn Colquhoun

Somewhere, it's international blog against racism week. I do not think I am qualified, both literally and personally, to talk about the race relations problems in my country with sincerity and with good judgement. Instead, I'm going to post a series of poems from Glenn Colquhoun's book The Art of Walking Upright. Colquhoun is a Pakeha man who took a year off from training to be a doctor to live in Te Tii in the Bay of Islands, in a small Maori town. As far as I'm concerned, these poems are required reading for anyone living in this country; they are beautiful in both form and content. Some of these I have posted here before, but I think they're worth reading twice. I'm also going to leave them outside a cut; but if this bothers you, let me know.

Race Relations

My great great grandfather was from Luss.
This is a village on the shores of Loch Lomond.
My parents hang his coat of arms on their wall.

My great great grandmother was a Murray
She lived in Glasgow, by the Clyde.

I don't know if their families fought
but I wouldn't be surprised.


Some Murrays live in Whangape.
I guess we are related
except that I am Pakeha
and they are part Te Rarawa.

Somewhere along the line
I have managed to colonise myself.

It is not the first time this has happened.


My grandmother's grandfather is from England.

This has been a problem for the Scots.

I can't forget what I did to myself at Culloden.

Or what Edward Longshanks
did to William Wallace in Braveheart.

I still hate the bastard which of course I am.


And if that's not bad enough
my grandmother's grandmother is German.

And so is my grandmother's mum.

One half of me has lost a war the other half has won.


Even more complicated is the fact
that my mother's father's family are Jacobs
which if I'm not mistaken makes us Jewish,

who of course won't speak to the Germans.


No-one mentions they were from Tasmania.


Sometimes I don't know how to live with myself.

I am a civil war.


The australians fight the english
and keep the scottish happy.

The scottish fight the english
and then they fight themselves.

The english are offended
and won't speak to the germans.

This annoys the germans
who of course annoy the jews.

The pakeha think they own the place.

The maori want us all to go home.


I would if I knew where that was.


Sometimes it seems I'll never win.
Sometimes I never lose.

( A Problem while translating the Treaty of Waitangi )

(that one's behind a cut because of formatting issues but it's really short so do have a look.)

I was thinking a few days ago, it's been awhile since there's been any really impassioned ranting hereabouts. I was wondering how to fix this; happily, although not really, today's Sunday Star Times front page gave me not one but TWO apoplexies this morning! I have been working up rants on them all day at work.

( Illegal Immigrant gets $500k liver transplant: clearly, kiwis are being robbed of healthcare! )

( OMG LABOUR DYKES ARE FORGETTING THEIR UNIONIST ROOTS, by rosemary mcleod aged 3 1/2. )

And now, feeling much better, I'm going to do my reading for English tomorrow. Mmm, Wordsworth.

ETA: ALSO. So, all this year I've been telling people that I'm doing a BA/BSc, BA in phil, BSC in maths. However, I'm in the middle of confirming some of my course changes and I checked my majors and apparently my BA major is... English. Phil and maths are my joint BSc majors.

This means two things.
1) At the beginning of the year, in some major spaz fit that I have since totally and completely and utterly forgotten, I changed my majors.
2)Um, I should probably be taking those two English papers, since apparently I don't need the science credits any more. Predictably, as soon as I realise this, I instantly decide Semantics looked much more interesting in the Wednesday lecture. *sigh*