Bomber's Blog - The War on News - TONIGHT 10pm Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89

The War on News - NZ News Satire on Stratos Freeview 21 10pm Thursday & simulcast on Sky 89.

It’s just like 7 Days but with fewer dick jokes.

Stratos is now broadcast on Freeview terrestrial 21

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War on drugs = war on people

Dakta Green was sentenced to 8 months jail for cannabis offences relating to The "Daktory". The only political reaction I've seen is from the stoners themselves. The Daktory is a large industrial building in New Lynn operating as a club to smoke dope - that's pretty much it. I call it the Daktorium - the smoker's version of thunderdome. But it was the selling aspect - "the dispensary" as I understand it - which accounts for why Dakta now finds himself behind bars for the next few months. I've met Dakta here and there and also at the Daktory, so I was saddened by the news of his imprisonment.

Having said that I am amazed that a stonking great barn devoted to the purpose of cannabis was able to run for so many years unmolested when it is:
a) known by all, with a facebook page,
b) is visible from Great North Rd with letters three metres high saying 'DAKTORY', and -
c) the big Avondale Police station is just a few minutes drive down the road.
It took the cops how many years to twig something was up?

It is a testament to Dakta's principles, even temperament, manner and professionalism that the Daktory was not closed down a long time ago. And for all the criticisms made of the police they are ultimately the ones that allowed it to exist, preferring to tolerate it while putting pressure on Dakta and the others knowing eventually they would have enough to prosecute without having to do anything dramatic. This was a very sober attitude by the police when one considers what another commander may have seen as a huge provocation in view of the Avondale police station's turret.

For all of his weathered looks and his inevitable entourage of smelly stoners, wigged out wiggas and rastafarian raggamuffins, Dakta managed to keep the place - and old Mary Jane the Canna-bus - as an appealing social scene for the wider marijuana user. Smoking clove cigarettes discussing Indonesian history with a university lecturer on one couch, hits from a giant pink bong and talking shit with some students on the other. It's that sort of place.

Dakta will continue the good fight against prohibition as soon as he's out - maybe in time to contest at the general election if he gets his automatic half.

- Dakta Green's last discussion before sentencing (on the Vinny Eastwood Show. Warning: 1hr 25m!)

The ironies in this case bubble away like a free-flowing water bong. The choicest being the only place you're allowed to smoke inside nowadays turns out to be a marijuana club, and secondly the punishment for running a marijuana club is to spend time in a prison - the only institution that has more bud than the Daktory!

It is pointless to lock up people who don't need to be locked up - he is one of those many, many drug cases where the only victim is him and the person victimising him is the state. "Live like it's legal" is the Daktory's motto.

I'm sick of the Rugby World Cup screwing up central Auckland

Fred Flintstone's ride to work

I don't wish to be critical of the Rugby World Cup - but in the rush to tart up the city in time for the games there seem to be some really stupid decisions being made.

Decisions like putting a dirty great big handrail down the middle of Myer's Park 98 year old stair well. or decisions like wrongfully painting over legitimate street art on Poynton Terrace by anti-graffetti nazi Rob Shields who now chairs the committee as to how the $10 000 Council grant for more art should be spent.

Expect his decision to be as creative as cardboard.

But the worst looming fiasco are the new bus shelters on K Road which obscures pedestrians from the road along a narrow ill devised corridor in what I'm quaintly going to refer to as the Rugby World Cup Assault Alleyways. How this has managed to get to the building stage without any actual appreciation that they are building two long passageways obscured from the road that invite ambush is beyond me.

It's like the Council are purposely constructing a 'killzone' for locals.

There are positives. The re-cobbling of down town and the tree spruce up (which I see getting drenched in urine during the height of RWC alcohol poisoning season) has been matched by a rejuvinated Britomart that actually features some cool night life that out shines waterfront baby boomers sunning themselves.

The increase in prices will see a deluge of inner city types fleeing the local watering holes to suburban parties with some driven as far afield as Kingsland. I can't see the RWC in a recession this steep being the mega carnival economic hope it's being sold as and I'm still pretty confident in our lack lustre oversight to really believe the mass transit infrastructure will match the standards of any visiting tourists from any where more developed than Auckland's shit swamp of a public transport system.

I envisage endless social networking streams all trending #aucklandtransportisFUCKINGAWFUL.

The Flinstones public transport system is more capital intensive than Aucklands.

But good luck and all. I promised myself that this was the Rugby World Cup that I would enthusiastically embrace beyond the Haka and National anthems, it's just I can't stand sped up crap that needlessly makes the central city less pleasant. The way I look at it, when you view how badly damaged Christchurch is and how they are managing heroically with their construction issues, Auckland has no excuses not to get it right.

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First Mana Party Billboard?

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Despite ACT candidate Cathy Odgers faux outrage at Capill tweet, she is still unfit to be a candidate

The latest post by ACT Party candidate and hate monger Cathy Odgers is so weak I'm almost feeling sorry for Cathy if this faux outrage at my twitter post below is the best she can try in an increasingly desperate attempt to hide the spite she spews at beneficiaries...



...oh boo hoo, cry me a river Cathy. Isn't it funny folks, the first blogger to put the boot into those weaker than her is now the first blogger to cry about a satirical quip at her expense. Cathy Odgers sure can shovel it, but she can't take it when it comes back the other way can she?

Let's not be smoke screened by her attempt to divert attention by her faux outrage to what is at issue here, her acceptability as a political candidate. Anyone who says this about beneficiaries deserves all the contempt they get - ladies and gentlemen, Cathy Odgers arguing for her sterilization bonus scheme...

"The heaving pathetic underclass do not seem to have any idea how to look after and better themselves let alone their kids. All the Whanau Ora in the world given to them from the collective troughing of the "consultant" middle class neo-minted Maori brorocracy won't help them.

Laws has already suggested a lump sum of $10k for sterilisation to much horrow and howling from those with no better answer, so how about another way?

How about we cut off the DPB and dole altogether and PAY the underclasses NOT to breed."

..."the heaving pathetic underclass hu?" Do we really want someone who writes such hatred of the poor to be in any political position? Cathy takes the anger and fury every one of us righteously feels when a little baby gets abused and murdered and manipulates that into a shit to smear all beneficiaries with. It's disgusting, it's divisive and it's targeted at those most vulnerable in society.

The sooner the mainstream media pick up on her hate mongering comments, the better for the election.

Cathy, your solution to pay every single solo mother money 'not to breed' isn't just the words of a fascist. You've managed Cathy to make solo mothering a crime in itself!

No where do you limit your thinking to those women who have had a history of previous abuse, at least that would mitigate the offensiveness of your post, you deem all solo mothers as, how did you so charmingly put it? 'The heaving pathetic underclass'.

By seamlessly merging child abusers with solo mothers, Kate has managed to be ignorant and stupid, it's a difficult self snooker, perhaps she should rename her candidacy 'the sound of one hand clapping' rather than crying see through crocodile tears about me.

A silver spooned corporate lawyer has no understanding whatsoever of beneficiary lives, and her blatant fascism should be called for what it is, hate mongering. The issue isn't comments I make as a political satirist at your expense Cathy, the issue is about, and has always been about, your naked hatred of the poor and the language you chose to articulate that hatred of the poor.

And on that issue, you know you are on a hiding to nothing and this pathetic attempt shows how much of a panic your candidacy is in before it's even begun. You think ACT want someone as radioactive as you on the Party list? It is up to the media to hold candidates to account, and until you are unsuccessful in your attempt to become an MP, I intend to hold you and the Party that is endorsing you to account for the hate you have spun all the way up until the election.

The ACT Party have simply managed to appoint a female David Garrett in terms of redneck social views, one more extremist on ACT's party list and they get banned from overseas financial transactions.

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On the Mana Party win

Hone Harawira's win of Te Tai Tokerau represents a huge victory for the Mana Party, and one that will expose the ignorance and latent undercurrents of racism that still exist in New Zealand. It is a move that broadens the political base for Māori, and one that should not be underestimated by Pākehā commentators who have largely critiqued it as a near loss to Labour and a potentially catastrophic signifier for the Māori Party in the lead up to the General Election. Such characterizations underplay the historical significance of the emergence of Mana's emergence, and also overplay Labour's importance in other electorates.

Harawira has always been a controversial figure for both Māori and Pākehā, but for entirely different reasons. Harawira is straight-talking, representing a particular discourse of resistance that still runs strong in many parts of Māori society that Pākehā have come to believe is already assimilated despite a long history of grievances. Picking up the Sunday Star Times this week was a case in point on our collective amnesia when it comes to racism: Michael Laws has stoked the fire again by entering the debate over the dog in Peter Jackson's film Dambusters in a column that compares Harawira to the National Front. Subsequently the paper has a deluge of letters arguing for a return to times when we should call our animals "nigger", "darkie" and "Sambo". We live in a country where people are happy to let our media figures still work after calling people these names, so I'm not certain why there is such a surprise or outcry at Harawira's emergence as a resistance figure and politician. Before the cries of PC gone mad are levelled, let's just bear in mind that similar cases of media outspurts have resulted in people being fined in the US and the UK, and can result in legal action in France. In the UK, the press deliberately ignores the BNP in coverage, yet in New Zealand it embraces it to drive up ratings. It should be telling that there is far more outrage against Harawira's "white mofo" comments in a private email than over Deaker's very public "nigger" comments. Harawira can be inflammatory, but it is hardly unexpected in a country where this is just the contents of another weekend paper, talkback radio show, or television show.

Harawira's win in Te Tai Tokerau in this kind of political climate is significant. He was up against the outrage of mainstream New Zealand, the force of Labour's political machine - which in the absence of any other elections was aimed at securing the Māori vote. If Harawira had not chosen to resign, he would have faced accusation from voters that he was staying in a seat that he did not have a mandate for. This resulted in a campaign without a lot of money backing it, with the North dotted in Labour billboards and few Mana ones to be seen. He must have known in advance he was facing a tough campaign, as despite the popular notion that he was calling a by-election to feather his pocket, smart pundits had already done the math and predicted he had little to gain - in fact, more to potentially lose in this climate. He would have known that the Māori Party were likely to run against him. He would have also known that despite the Botany by-election National were involved with just recently, he would have been attacked as an "expensive waste of time" by politicians like the Prime Minister.

Labour's substantial result in Tai Tokerau was the result of a number of factors, and ones that do not necessarily replicate across other electorates. First, they had the advantage of infrastructure (which Mana and Māori were lacking in). Second, they had a very popular candidate in Kelvin Davis. Predictably, the by-election meant a lower turn out from voters than in a general election. While Davis retained more of his voting bloc than Hone, Hone had twice the number of voters in the 2008 election, signalling that it is likely that he will again attract significant numbers. In terms of party votes, last time Māori were trailing Labour. This can be attributed to strategic voting in the region, which is mirrored across the rest of the Māori seats, where even when Māori Party candidates won the vote, the party votes for Labour were 10-20% higher.

So what does this mean for Labour's claim that it will clean up the Māori seats in the election? In Tāmaki Makaurau, Shane Jones does have a strong candidacy, with recent polls showing that he is beginning to erode Pita Sharples support as a much more popular candidate than Louisa Wall. However, this pattern is unlikely to be replicated across all of the Māori seats. If Goff attacks Hone further, he runs the risk of alienating Māori voters who are still unhappy over Labour's somewhat abysmal historical record in maintaining the status quo for Māori issues, but decreasing the figures of unemployment. If the Māori Party keep attacking Hone counter to principles of kotahitanga and manaakitanga, they also run the risk of alienating voters. For many voters, Turia's attack on Tipene as her own candidate would have been seen as just as provocative as Hone's outbursts. It is clear that as soon as the Māori Party entered the equation, many voters were swayed by the notion of a candidate that represented Māori concerns rather than the Labour-lite version for Māori voters. Labour are still likely to get the highest percentage of the party vote among Māori voters, which also calls the Māori Party's strategic alliance with National into question, especially for those who are hardest hit by economic recessions.

Mana's entry into the game is likely to create interesting consequences. First of all, it holds Labour much more to its principles. Hone represents the return of the repressed for their fumbled Foreshore and Seabed Bill. Unlike the Māori Party, Annette Sykes and Harawira are much more likely to speak out. In some ways, the arrival of Mana benefits the Māori Party in the same way that the Greens benefit - juxtaposed with Mana, the Māori Party looks much less radical having cut its teeth and moved through all the challenges that a party of indigenous people face in establishing themselves in New Zealand. I'm thinking here of the continual headline/question that pervaded most of the Pākehā commentary when they formed - can Māori be politicians? Mana is going through this now, but the Māori Party's success will be grounded in their ability to break out of the antagonistic relationship they share with their former colleagues.

At sixes and sevens

The Nats have said TVNZ's experiment with advertising-free digital channels on the Freeview platform that started under Labour is not going to be subsidised beyond next year. Save TVNZ7 is one response. Making channel 7 the public broadcaster and selling off TVNZ might be Brash's response. I'm not sure what abomination the TVNZ munting machine will throw up to replace the programming already established, or if they will just kill it entirely.

I'm not sure they will relinquish the property however, like TV3 they will want to hang on to their market advantage on Freeview and keep the channel locked up. That's what the management would do - transfer shows that work like Backbenchers and the Court report over to One and dump the remaining self-inulgent wankery and just close the channel.

The content problems stemmed from the financials of the set up and the demise of the TVNZ Charter. It could have been a news channel but TVNZ are lazy, creatively devoid and typically cautious, so TVNZ7 was established as a half-pie channel of odds and ends rather than based in the newsroom taking all the live feeds of things they are gathering anyway. It could have been like SkyNews Australia, but that would have been too radical for their thinking and contrary to their underestimation of the intelligence of any potential audience. But as a news channel it would have dragged a bit of audience off One and that is a golden egg you don't touch.

So TVNZ7 was doomed from the beginning: if it became too successful it would have to be killed to protect the revenue streams from One. So they showed old shows on it with a few niche "beltway" programmes to keep the inner Wellington and Grey Lynn constituencies enthralled and basically wrote it off. They never tried to make it work, it never had the necessary backing from the top floor.

Watched TVNZ6 lately? It's "U" or something, a youf channel camped out in the foyer of the Auckland Death Star - like they are playing forts. Kids and their banal chatter in the lobby and they get a whole channel for it!? And it's TVNZ so it was always going to be shit. Is TVNZ 7 going to become the adults version of that crap - maybe at the other end near the grand piano?

If they wanted out - or preferrably were forced to vacate the channel by the Minister - you would think a JV with the Seven Network would be on the cards. It would be a very cheap entry for an Australian player.

The sad thing is I can't see TVNZ selling 7 to the people who make the shows that air on it - that would be preferrable.

What won't Ian Wishart do for money?

Anti-Kahui book group is a 'lynch mob'
The author of a new book written in collaboration with the mother of the murdered Kahui twins has accused a group opposed to its publication of developing a "lynch mob" mentality. More than 21,500 people have signed up to a Facebook group urging the mass boycott of 'Breaking Silence', authored by Ian Wishart. It gives Macsyna King's account of the circumstances surrounding the murder of her three-month-old sons Chris and Cru Kahui.

Normally Ian is writing investigative books about spaceships piloted by lock ness monsters that are really demons disguised by Satan to implement global control via global warming legislation because global warming is a hoax created by the Free Masons told what to do by a Greenpeace lesbian Trans Gendered Queen who secretly runs the world.

The conspiracy files can't be paying the bills in this recession any longer and so now Ian scrapes the barrel with a book by the mother of the Kahui twins who died and caused outrage by the manner the family seemed to conspire against Police.

Macsyna King is of course allowed to be pimped out by Ian for money, neither are breaking the law, but the complicating factor here is that during the trial for the dead twins, it increasingly became obvious to anyone watching that the Police had cocked it up horrifically and charged the wrong parent. Chris Kahui was found innocent by the Jury in less than 50seconds, that's the contempt they showed the joke Crown case.

People have a right to be angry at the way this case was incompetently handled allowing someone who had a lot of evidence stacked against them personally to be ruled out as a suspect when arguably that just shouldn't have happened.

Which all makes this book as odious as OJ Simpson's 'I didn't kill her, but here's how I would have if I did' book. Allowing someone who the evidence leaves huge questions marks over to benefit from a book by a media pimp like Ian Wishart is like the gross eating challenge in Fear Factor. But grosser.

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Anti-MMP campaign yawns to a start

The Anti-MMP lobby have launched and dear Uncle Bob Harvey is leading the charge to return to a system of voting that cements the powerful back into place by relegating the proportional element of the vote as a winners bonus rather than a genuine representation of the people's will. That's ugly because it's a pretense at representation rather than real representation.

Uncle Bob is a well loved liberal lefty and him fronting this charge backwards to the dinosaur age where Parliament was made up mostly of white, straight, rich, old men is a boon for the forces of evil, it's like when Anakin becomes Darth Vader but with much less marijuana and wine involved.

And here is the problem brothers and sisters, i believe that our beloved Bob Harvey may not be getting his regular supply of everyone favorite class C drug, marijuana. What else could explain his up tight anal approach to something as important as our electoral system. I implore growers from around the country, let's chill Bpb Harvey out, it's an emergency.

Please send all you can spare to Change Society Incorporated, Level 3, 2 Woodward Street, Wellington attention Bob Harvey.

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Why hard right hate merchant Cathy Odgers is an inappropriate political candidate

Hard right hate merchant and corporate lawyer ACT Party Candidate, Cathy Odgers is as appropriate as a political candidate as Alasdair Thompson would be running the Ministry of Women's Affairs. She is more hateful towards the poor than Michael Laws, Paul Henry and Genghis Khan combined. She has all the bedside manner of a brain hungry zombie.

Am I being harsh? Am I being unfair? Am I giving her anything less than she deserves?

No way.

I've known Cathy longer than any other blogger, I've known her since University days when she would write angry right wing letters to me as Editor of Craccum. She has a fierce intelligence and when I judged the NZ bloggers Union Awards last year, I voted for her to win as her financial analysis was the best on the blogosphere, in some regards I have nothing but respect for Cathy - but her despicable hate for the poor is something that simply rules Cathy out as any possible genuine political candidate. If she believes what she wrote, then her position is a casual fascism that must be protested against at every moment.

I challenged her on her sterilization scheme for the poor that she wrote as a disgusting piece of hate speech directed at the weakest members of society. What does a silver spooned corporate lawyer earning half a million a year know about the realities of a woman living on the benefit in NZ and stoop to such language to attack and damn beneficiaries with?

Cathy says she will woo young female voters back to ACT, but how many women hating female voters are there? The language Cathy uses to describe welfare mothers actually makes you cringe.

Cathy you scoffed and laughed and became abusive when I originally challenged you on your hate mongering language, but now you are having to justify the spite and venom you used. It is this spite and venom which makes you utterly inappropriate as a political candidate. You have misinterpreted my disgust at what you wrote as some sort of political game Cathy, which is a terrible underestimation on your behalf, the scope of which will start to become apparent as I do this day in and day out.

How much energy do you really wish to spend on fighting me each day Cathy?

Here is Cathy's weak both hands tied behind her back response that Candidate Cathy is left to respond with. What was it? Your 5th version posted after midnight after you checked it past ACT HQ Cathy?

Quote of the Day - The Best of Cactus Kate
Left-wing hate speech Mana Party aligned site Tumeke is running a series of quotes of the day from trolling through my blog in an attempt to increase my popularity among ACT leaning voters as shown in the recent Kiwiblog poll from leading pollster Curia:

You are holding up the failed methodology of the Penguin as your proof that you will boost ACT? Even if this brainfart was legit all that means is that you are a genuine threat to the wider community with the hateful fascist manner you view those in poverty in the steepest economic recession since 1929. Why celebrate ACT becoming even more redneck when Don's redneck isn't currently attracting votes?

Sadly Bomber Bradbury is one of the most intellectually and physically laziest people I have met in broadcasting. I know this obsession with myself will last all of a week so I am going to give him a hand today and every day he chooses to participate in his little "hate" charade against me and pick a post of my own - this one dated 3rd October 2010 on a 31 year old lady with now six children all paid for by the taxpayer.

Any system that allows such a demographic to breed, and then turns around and encourages them to keep having children over a period of a decade that they cannot afford, really deserves the outcome it gets. More welfarism.

I stand by this comment and I do not and never will represent Ms Tressa Simonsen. She will never vote ACT.

Ahhhh. But Cathy, that's not really the quote is it? That's YOU picking the least offensive element of the quote and holding it up as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth.

Let's remind folks exactly what you said shall we Candidate Cathy?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ACT Party candidate Cathy Odger's hate speech aimed at the weakest members of society...

The heaving pathetic underclass do not seem to have any idea how to look after and better themselves let alone their kids. All the Whanau Ora in the world given to them from the collective troughing of the "consultant" middle class neo-minted Maori brorocracy won't help them.

Regardless of your race, not killing your child is fairly bloody fundamental. One of those things that doesn't need to even be said at Plunket or passed down from generations does it? Sticking a child on a clothes line, body slamming a baby, beating a child up and down isn't even an action of primates. A baboon is more advanced in its thinking.

That's the main issue, those killing and maiming children from any race are not human beings, they are the missing link from...well you can't even say primates can you as most wild animals manage to look after and not deliberately kill their own children? You cannot legislate to protect children from these creatures because creatures do not acknowledge any laws.

So the time has come for a fresh approach. Let's stop handwringing semantics to the problem, remove historians and academics from the debate. Let's forget about offending a few precious souls who would rather see more Maori kids killed because solving the problem ruins their lily white world and exposes them to criticism. Let's actually DO something.

We aren't allowed to sterilise those most at risk of offending and Laws has already suggested a lump sum of $10k for sterilisation to much horrow and howling from those with no better answer, so how about another way?

How about we cut off the DPB and dole altogether and PAY the underclasses NOT to breed.

...the heaving pathetic underclass hu? Do we really want someone who writes such hatred of the poor to be in any political position? Cathy takes the anger and fury ever one of us righteously feels when a little baby gets abused and murdered and manipulates that into a shit to smear all beneficiaries with. It's disgusting, it's divisive and it's targeted at those most vulnerable in society.

While the Mana Party will promise more money for this woman to further do nothing with her life and treat her as a victim to keep her impoverished and voting for more welfare, I seek to represent those who are paying for this woman's lifestyle choices and at the same time struggling to pay for their own family. All while they are contributing to the economy through paid employment.

That's not hate speech.

YES IT IS! This rationalization of her own hatred shows how utterly out of touch this corporate lawyer is with the reality of the people she is denigrating, but this next bit is what catches in my throat...

That's standing up for Taxpayers.

The "T" in ACT.

...Ohhhhh, that's what it is is it? People like yourself wealthy enough to hide their income or pay it overseas, like those Farmers who only pay $1500 in tax each year? You're doing it for your poor taxpayer mates who loophole their way through life yet seem to need you in their spewing hate onto beneficiaries just to cut back a little more do they?

This is ridiculous and beneath you!

Bomber chooses to sit on the sidelines promoting to his taxpayer funded audience of his mother and close relatives, the likes of people of the quality of Hone Harawira, John Minto and Annette Sykes. All while purporting to be the Court of Public Opinion as to whom stand for Parliament for other political parties.

Oh no you don't, I'm in the media, I've seen the spite you write and it's exactly my role to challenge someone like you getting into Parliament and I don't shy away from that responsibility in any way shape or form.

When will he put his name forward for selection himself for the scrutiny he seems to only place on others?

And how many people would be more likely to vote for Mana if he was a top 6 candidate? Lets see a Curia poll on that.

Let's be very clear, I loath politicians and I have no ambition whatsoever to stand as one for Mana. You are pretending my disgust at what you wrote is some sort of launch pad for a political career. It is not. I was disgusted by what you wrote Cathy and if you really believe this bullshit about beneficiaries, you aren't worthy enough to stand. You will quickly become a female David Garrett, just with more offensive ideas.

Your solution to pay every single solo mother money 'not to breed' isn't just the words of a fascist you've managed to make solo mothering a crime in itself! No where do you limit your thinking to those women who have had previous abuse, at least that would mitigate the offensiveness of your post, you deem all solo mothers as, how did you so charmingly put it? The heaving pathetic underclass. By seamlessly merging child abusers with solo mothers, Kate has managed to be ignorant and stupid, it's a difficult self snooker, perhaps you should rename your blog 'the sound of one hand clapping'?

I personally love how any attempt to remove the racist glare of 'it's all dem maori's fault' is deemed 'apologist' by Kate, no attempt to look at what inequality does in a society, oh no, Kate is certain it's all dem maori's fault, for an educated person she sounds hollow and hateful.

Is it all as Kate vomits 'a maori problem' - not according to the people who work with children in poverty...

Cutting welfare to sole parents would not have made any difference in either of these cases. Abuse and neglect of children cuts across income, class and ethnicity. Protecting children means acknowledging this.

New Zealand's high rates of teen pregnancies and child abuse are mirrored across the developed world in societies such as New Zealand that are characterised by high levels of socio-economic inequality.

The causal pathways are unclear but the fact they happen across such a wide variety of countries suggests they are not a sole-parent problem or a Maori problem, or even a problem of easy access to welfare.

In the United States, the states with the highest rates of teen pregnancies are also those with the highest child-poverty rates, the greatest income inequality and most stringent access to public assistance - particularly Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida.

Sadly, inequality and poverty do not lend themselves to simplistic policy responses. Dealing effectively with them takes time and political courage. The domestic purposes benefit was introduced so sole parents could raise their children with a measure of financial security.

In today's labour market, financial security is more elusive than ever.

Abolishing the DPB, or just making it difficult to get, will not prevent a single unwanted pregnancy and it will not stop children suffering at the hands of their caregivers.

Not so many years ago, mothers with no support left their babies on the steps of churches and workhouses.

...and are we being over run by solo mothers all of a sudden? No, no we are not...

beneficiaries dropped from 15 per cent to 10 per cent of the working age group between 2000 and 2008 when jobs were available, and rose again only to 12 per cent in the current recession.

Not only is Cathy hateful about beneficiaries, she is simply wrong. You can get elected for being the latter, you should never get elected for being the first.

Until Cathy can prove that her hate was just redneck dog whistling rhetoric that she was using just to be controversial, then a concerted effort must be made to show the rest of NZ what ACT stands for by associating itself with a candidate who says these things.

Cathy and ACT have miscalculated.

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Can Mana trust the Maori Party?

The debate has begun as to what to do with the Maori Party. Should Mana run against them in the Maori electorate seats and attempt to gain Waiariki as well as Te Tai Tokerau and cause split votes meaning Labour take the rest or should Mana cut another deal that may or may not get broken with the Maori Party to not stand?

There are two questions those who just launched this political waka with the aspirations of Maori, Beneficiaries and Minimum wage workers must ask themselves - the first is can Mana trust the Maori Party and what's it worth for Labour?

The first question is simple - can Mana trust Pita and Tariana NOT to cut a deal with the anti-union, anti-bennificiary, anti-environment, anti-Maori National Party? The answer is no, Mana can not trust Pita and Tariana NOT to cut a deal with John Key, meaning all that Mana hopes to prevent by halting this Government's attack on the poor would come to pass.

The second question is strategic. Seeing as Labour would benefit most from Mana standing, what is it worth to Labour? If Labour were to agree not to run an electorate candidate in Te Tai Tokerau and Waiariki, Mana could reciprocate by running Mana candidates in the other 5 Maori electorates ensuring split seat victories for Labour.

If Labour wanted to actually win this election rather than sulk, there are ways this can happen.

Perhaps the new political landscape is best being understood by Chris Trotter in his brilliant new post...

The Fish Of Maui Lashes Its Tail

...if Labour can wake up and smell what is brewing and if the Greens can be convinced to hold the line for social justice rather than sell out for a green enough price to John Key, there could be real change in NZ. The angry electorate of poverty wants representatives they know wont sell out on them, and say what you will about Hone Harawira, Anette Sykes, Sue Bradford, John Minto, Willie Jackson and Matt McCarten - but they don't sell out!



The revolution may well be televised after all.

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Phil Goff on Mana - let me tell you something about Phil Goff!

Many people come to me wailing that Phil Goff has ruled out Mana. 'How-can-a-grand-left-political-arrangement-between- Labour-th-Greens-and-Mana-happen-and-how-could-genuinely-progressive-social-justice-structural-chagne-occur-if-Phil- Goff-rules-Mana-out?', they cry.

Let me tell you something about Phil Goff people!

Phil Goff is a great man! We would be LUCKY to have this humble NZer lead the country.

Phil Goff is a patriot and we know in our heart of hearts that if Labour, the Greens and Mana had the Parliamentary majority to prevent the nightmare of a Brash-Key Government (made extra objectionable by the new inclusion of far right hate blogger and corporate lawyer Cathy Odgers as an ACT Party Candidate) then Phil Goff would reach across the political divide to protect NZ from that kind of far right privatization Government.

We know this because >Phil Goff is a good man.

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I'm sick of both Penguins

I'm getting bored of this penguin (the other penguin, not David Farrar). We've got X-rays of it now and hourly news bulletins. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish the penguin (the other penguin, not David Farrar) any ill will, it's just that every time I see ANOTHER story on that penguin (the other penguin, not David Farrar) is, 'isn't this time spent better talking about the 5000 people in poverty who have just been doomed to over crowding, transient neighborhoods and constant unsettlement by the national Governments burning of State Housing? Sure, it's a bloody great big penguin (you know I'm not talking about short arse now), but Phil Heatley just set fire to the State Housing stock live on TV's Q+A!

Shouldn't there be a wee bit more focus on the poor living with third world poverty diseases caused by poverty housing rather than a bloody great big Penguin?

Talking of the Penguin - yes David Farrar. I find his bullshit backpedal on why he got it so wrong in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election is extra hilarious because David was actually on the episode of TVNZ7's Backbenchers predictions show last year with me when I argued why Hone would launch a new Maori Left Party using his Te Tai Tokerau electorate with a sub 5% threshold representation strategy. David can't pretend he didn't know the strategy, Daivid can't pretend he wrote my prediction off and scoffed at it and David can't pretend that despite everything he tried to do to stop a resurgent left wing movement he couldn't and he got it wrong.

The cherry on the top of this shitcake is that David insinuated Hone's demise in the Herald and then backpedals on Stuff so that he doesn't have to be accountable to either.

Why this state propagandist continues to sell his failed methodology ridden cheap telephone brainfart polls as gospel and that the NZ Herald STILL CONTINUE to provide him with an unchallenged platform to spread the Government's message is systematic of the outright bias that passes as mainstream media in this country.

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Te Tai Tokerau by-election: comments

Well, for no money and with no polling here is how I did:

TS v. Actual
55% v. 48.3% (-6.7%) Harawira
35% v. 40.9% (+5.9%) Davis
10% v. 8.8% (-1.2%) Tipene

12-14,000 v. 11,606 + 1,916 specials = 13,522 TURNOUT

Not too bad considering specials haven't been counted and the weather was far better than was forecast. Inside the band with the turnout too.

As Morgan Godfery has noted at some length most Pakeha pundits can't read the Maori electorates and made woefully inaccurate calls on Davis winning - Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner among them. Usually explained in most part by a lack of information in this instance it is most definitely also a case a wishful thinking. Using a Pakeha ruler to measure Maori things and as always coming up short.

The mainstream, ie. Pakeha, media are Hone haters because he's a Maori that doesn't take any shit from the white man. They fear him and they oppose him for his independence and cultural integrity - everything that was supposed to have been bred out and beaten out of the subjugated native population by the colonial process and a living reminder on TV every night that Maori exist and articulate their own position - a position that challenges Pakeha domination and the way Pakeha think NZ should be. They don't like him for being him because that is his greatest strength.

That Hone may cross the racial divide and lead a party with Pakeha inside is a terrifying prospect for the establishment, it makes him even more dangerous. The Pakeha commentators - including the PM - were praying for a Kelvin Davis win. Barry Soper I noted at the time was calling it for Davis. Now this at ZB from the sore loser, Soper:

The man who recently described Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter for his people and who labelled his former Parliamentary colleagues as a bunch of dickheads is now back in Parliament.

Titiwhai's boy Hone Harawira spent half a million bucks to get the mandate to represent his constituents in the far north and on Saturday he got it.

His majority at the last election was 6,300 but he couldn't even manage to pull in that number of votes at the by election. Just 5,611 punters gave him the tick, delivering his Mana Party to Parliament with a majority over Labour of just 867.

They say you've got to spend money to make money and that's what he's done because he'll now earn a lot more as a party leader than he did as a Maori Party MP and then an independent. Unfortunately the money is shelled out by the long suffering taxpayer but Hone says that's the price of democracy.
[...]

Amazing how loose the commentators become when their hate gets the better of them: Hone 'spent half a million bucks' on the by-election? Even if you billed him for all the voting expenses and all the rival campaigns would it really be half a million? Preposterous numbers thrown around with no source and then use that wild assertion to claim some personal reason to hate (on behalf of all taxpayers). Can't recall him making those sorts of vehement comments about the Botany by-election which was held earlier this year and had a lower turnout? Then again he is writing for the red necks - here's a flavour of the comments:By racists for racists - that's ZB.

The mainstream media bias against Mana

So the mainstream media are arrogantly pretending they didn't in fact call the by-election wrong by parroting the brainfart opinion polls with failed David Farrar methedology that claimed Hone was only ahead by 1% when in fact they were out by over 7%. They are saying 'it was close' and that Hone got in by just a whisker and downplay the repeat mistakes they made with predicting the Brown-Banks election by not questioning their performance or putting the win under any critical analysis.

Now the Prime Minister is saying the by-election was a waste of money. Really? The chap who has signed off on those luxury limos and gets taxied around to black tie Royal Golf club dinners by the NZ Air Force who says poor people who get food parcels are responsible for their predicament is lecturing Hone on cost is he?

You are kidding right?

Hone sort a mandate, this is a democracy a mandate MUST be given by the people, that's the cost of democracy and it's a pretty cheap cost for a value that is priceless. What is the alternative? The filthy dirty back door corporate coups of the ACT Party where a political zombie wakes from his cryogenic chamber fuelled on the tears of solo mothers to take over the party with no membership say whatsoever? Is that what we want as a political process? The elites just buying themslves political positions? How ugly and contemptuous and anti-democratic is that? Hone sought the mandate and he has it, and he won it with a far larger margin than the 1% parroted by the mainstream media.

Why is it a waste of money when Hone does it, yet it wasn't a waste of money when Botany by-election was called?

Voter turnout in the Te Tai Tokerau 2011 by-election was 41.36% and John Key says that is a waste. In Botany it was only 36.44%, yet John didn't say that was a waste. The difference between the 2008 election and the by-election turn out in Te Tai Tokerau was 22% less voters voting and John Key says that is a waste. Yet the difference between the 2008 Botany election and the by-election was 40% less voters voting and yet John Key didn't say that was a waste.

Funny how it's only a waste when it's a Maori electorate even though that electorate has had a higher turn out and more democratic interaction than his beloved Botany.

The Prime Ministers claim that the Te Tai Tokerau by-election was a waste is a joke looking for a punchline.

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Why Alasdair Thompson has to go!

What would Kate Sheppard say?

For Alasdair Thompson, the glass ceiling isn't just there to stop women gaining leadership within business, it's a barrier to protect him from menstrual blood splash back.

Alasdair Thompson has to go.

This dinosaur who just kept digging and digging and digging during that brilliant TV3 interview where Mihingarangi Forbes clinically dissected Alasdair's bullshit which ended in him trying stand over bully boy tactics to intimidate her!

Alasdair Thompson has to go.

I would like to say he was yesterday's man, but that would put him in the early 1900's where as the opinion he articulated is more early 1800's and it is no wonder that so few Women get top jobs when the bigot who is

Alasdair Thompson has to go.

Pointing out an intrinsic feature of a person as justification of them getting less is not a justification, it's a statement of bigotry.

Alasdair Thompson has to go.

AND NOW - NOW, damn me, there are these allegations that he confronted the CTU President Helen Kelly at an official fucking function in Washington DC and stated that she may have had sex with the Prime Minister??? Who the fuck does this and is allowed to get away with it???

The Herald on Sunday has learned Thompson was among a large group of influential New Zealanders at a high-level trade meeting at the US-NZ Partnership Forum in the United States from October 6 to 8, 2009.

At a dinner at McCormick & Schmick's restaurant in Washington, Thompson approached Kelly, Street and the business leader.

Thompson is alleged to have made lewd comments at the social event about the relationship Kelly had with Prime Minister John Key, who has been married to wife Bronagh since both were teenagers.

The source said the comments were made without any basis other than Helen Kelly and John Key's "good working relationship".

"He asked her what the relationship was between her and John Key. There was sexual innuendo. Then he said he asked John Key, the last time he saw him. He said he asked if he [Key] fancied Helen."

The source said Kelly was visibly upset by the comments. She said to Thompson: "That's disgusting."

She then walked away, the source said. As she left, Thompson shouted: "It's a joke. You're beautiful, you know." The events were recounted to Kelly, who confirmed the account. She said she would not comment further on the incident.

So let's get this straight, he's the representative of the bosses, he makes outrageously offensive sexist statements that show him up for the bigot he is, he physically attempts to intimidate a journalist during an interview AND he approached the President of the Union movement at an official function in America to make lewd jokes about her sleeping with the Prime Minister - seriously - What The Fuck?

Why are the corporate mainstream media who use EMA so quiet on this?

Kate Sheppard would demand that Alasdair Thompson has to go. We should too.

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Far Right ACT candidate Cathy Odgers fascist hate quote of the day

The hate against beneficiaries that Cathy Odgers has vomited on her blog site make her utterly unacceptable as a candidate for any political party, she has the bedside manner of a brain eating zombie and she makes Kyle Chapman look moderate. She claims she can woo female voters back to ACT after knifing Heather Roy making ACT the official political party of backstabbers. To remind ourselves how inappropriate the hateful Cathy Odgers, Tumeke would like to post a daily hate quote from Cathy so we can see she's about as acceptable as Sarah Palin. The mainstream media HAVE to at SOME time start questioning Odgers' appropriateness as a political candidate and left on-line activists should start trawling Cathy's blog right now to dig up her little gems so that they can constantly be put to Don Brash to ask his opinion on them for the entire 6 weeks of the campaign.

Cathy is as much an 'asset' as a cancerous tumour, here is her 'hate quote of the day'

"The heaving pathetic underclass do not seem to have any idea how to look after and better themselves let alone their kids. All the Whanau Ora in the world given to them from the collective troughing of the "consultant" middle class neo-minted Maori brorocracy won't help them."
Cathy Odgers on Sterilizing the poor

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What a Mana win means and why the mainstream media got it so wrong (again)

Well, well, well. What do we have here? It's the 'I told you so' blog folks, and for the haters, suck it up, I've earned my bragging rights all the way to the general election.

So it was 10 months ago that I looked around the political landscape and just couldn't see a way to defeat an ACT-National Government. I started blogging about a party to the left of the Greens using a sub 5% threshold strategy with an electorate seat as a way of changing the Parliamentary math, talked with some staunch lefties and predicted on TVNZ7's backbenchers predictions show November last year that Hone would use the Te Tai Tokerau electorate to launch a new maori left party.

And now it has come to pass.

Despite Russell Brown's Osama Bin Laden smear, despite 4 unprecedented anti-Hone editorials in the NZ Herald, despite Guyon Espiner from TVNZ predicting it for Kelvin, despite the bias of Duncan Garner, despite the bias of Government propagandist David Farrar, despite Russell Norman's attack on Mana, despite the bullshit brainfart cheap telephone polls that claimed Hone was only ahead by 1% when he was actually ahead by over 7%, despite the Labour Party machine, despite the Maori Party machine, despite Cameron Slater who claimed that Mana would never launch or win (by the way Cam - you now owe me $200, dump your shrill calls on your tired blog of me being a coward after calling the hateful ACT Party candidate Cathy Odgers on her bennie bashing anti-woman spite, and pay up on our bet you deadbeat convicted criminal), despite John Key supporting Kelvin, despite far right hate blogger Cathy Odgers writing off Mana, despite know nothing right wing blogger Clint Heine - DESPITE ALL OF THAT - Hone and Mana won!

The spin from the mainstream media trying to explain how they got it wrong AGAIN in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate after calling it neck and neck in the Brown-Banks election has begun. The spin is that the poll was close and the result was close so they weren't so wrong. Bullshit - their cheap telephone brainfart polls said 1%, it actually was over 7% - they were out by 7%! The msm called it wrong twice, let's not allow them to sidestep this fact as they pump the very same cheap bullshit brainfart telephone polls to try and claim John Key has 60% support. The mainstream media are using these cheap brainfart telephone polls to manipulate public opinion, not reflect it.

What does the Mana win mean?
The wider ramifications for the general election from this by-election are massive. It is the first narrative of how John Key gets defeated. If Mana is able to gain 85 000 votes from a voting pool of 340 000 beneficiaries and 300 000 minimum wage earners, that's 3.5% which is 5 MP's which changes the Parliamentary math. Labour + Greens + Mana could defeat Brash + Key.

If Labour can knock out Dunn and if Mana run against the Maori Party in the Maori electorates splitting the vote, Mana could pick up a couple and the rest go to Labour.

Mana is now a political waka being launched from Te Tai Tokerau that will contain the aspirations of Maori, beneficiaries and minimum wage earners. Mana is about class and it's about the electorate of poverty gaining a voice, something the mainstream media doesn't comprehend and can't understand.

Winners
Mana and Hone: In the face of overwhelming opposition they have won. Just consider the level of opposition from the Prime Minister to the Labour Party machine, to the bullshit opinion polls the msm use to manipulate public opinion rather than reflect it etc etc etc. That he won by over 7% is an incredible victory in the face of such overwhelming odds.

Labour:
With such a strong performance, the Labour Party show that they can win in the Maori electorate seats again, and most importantly the voting public now have a narrative of how the progressive left defeat Key with Labour plus Greens plus Mana.

Losers
David Farrar: David is the propagandist of choice by the National Party and the NZ Herald help him. It is his cheap brainfart telephone opinion polls he sells to the National Government that has convinced them in hubris that they can win the election out right. As you read, National Party bigwigs will be poking their favourite stats techno gnome in the ribs and will start demanding, 'you are sure these polls are right eh?' and he will be nervously grinning and assuring them it's all in the bag. David is sweating it out now as increasingly it appears his polling methodology doesn't work in a recession.

Mainstream media: They all parroted the Maori TV poll using David Farrar's failed cheap brainfart telephone polling methodology EVEN THOUGH they had been collectively burnt by the Herald Digi Poll claiming Banks and Brown were neck and neck. The same tired baby boomer pundits giving the same tired ill informed baby boomer opinions clog the airwaves and they all got it wrong. The mainstream media deserve the contempt of the public.

The NZ Herald: this filthy right wing rag deserves special attention. 4 anti Hone editorials and appointing David Farrar unchallenged as their political blogger makes the NZ Herald the NZ version of Fox News. They can't even admit they were wrong when you look at the bullshit that Armstrong spins today claiming Hone is the loser. Unbelievable bias.

Maori Party: They were crucified, and they can't be trusted. Why give them the Maori seats back when they will only cut a deal with National again? Mana must run in their electorates now.

Winston Peters: Who?

What the broader progressive left need to envision is the genuine structural change to NZ a Labour + Greens + Mana could attain in November.

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The Nation and q+a review

Last weeks ratings
Still no ratings through from TVNZ - are they now that unreliable?

The Nation
I have to be honest and admit I missed this mornings The Nation. I was flying back from Wellington where I was doing a celebrity politics debate for Labour and after the Mana win I was too busy doing victory laps of the venue yelling 'we won, you lost'. I interrupted the debate to announce Hone had won, great chance to explain to my Labour comrades that a Mana win was the only way Goff beats Key-Brash.

Oh the laughs I've had.

So I was late to watch The Nation, but that's no great loss, if I want to know what The Nation are thinking I can just go to John Key's facebook page as they are pretty much the same thing. It's a pity as i would have loved to watch Duncan Garner being forced to climb down from his hone hate and try and justify how they as msm got it so wrong. They parroted the 1% line and it actually turns out it was over 7%, they called it neck and neck between Brown and Banks as well, they are wrong, have been continuously wrong, the mainstream media's reliance on the same safe commentators making the same safe bullshit predictions should impact much more harshly on ratings than they currently do.

There is an electorate of poverty that the msm doesn't even bother to acknowledge even when that electorate of poverty prove them and their bullshit predictions wrong!

Q+A
Opening Monologue could have gone way further on Alasdair Thompson, the entire thing should have been about Alasdair.

The same tired baby boomer pundits offering the same tired baby boomer ideas. You can actually hear the dinosaurs roaring in the background. No mention of how wrong Q+A got the TTT electorate.

Guyon outrageously called TTT for for Kelvin, he was wrong, way wrong and yet not a flicker of that when he starts his soft interview with Phil Heatly who is destroying state housing by throwing the poor onto the scrap heap.

Yawns from the baby boomer pundits about throwing the poor onto the streets. National are so arrogant and pumped up by David Farrar's bullshit brainfart telephone polls telling them they have 60% support mean they don't even pause in crucifying the poor. By forcing all state house tenants to move every 3 years or kick them to he road, all we will see are transient, unstable communities with massive over crowding issues.

Not one mention of those poverty issues.

No surprises there, but surely being NZ on Air funded it should actually articulate those wider social concerns rather than patsy interviews to National Party Ministers?

Bob's on chatting about red zones. I actually think the Government have done the best they can in Christchurch, where I criticize them is in the lack of vision which is so important for people to have hope.

Tired analysis by the baby boomer pundits, seeing as the msm got the election so wrong, who cares what they have to say? They don't understand the wider rammifications of Mana in any way shape or form.

Citizen A on Stratos TV Freeview 21 and Sky 89 7.30pm this Friday will have a far better analysis of events.

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Te Tai Tokerau by-election: results [UPDATED: Hone Wins]

@7:30
@7:45pm
Harawira (Mana) 2,773
Davis (Labour) 2,526
Tipene (Maori) 559
Herbert (ALCP) 64
Alp (OUR) 28
Informal 14
TOTAL: 5964

@7:47pm
Harawira (Mana) 3,493 (47.4%)
Davis (Labour) 3,072 (41.6%)
Tipene (Maori) 672 (9.1%)
Herbert (ALCP) 81 (1.1%)
Alp (OUR) 37 (0.5%)
Informal 19 (0.3%)
TOTAL: 7,374 (100%)

TUMEKE! PROJECTING: Hone Harawira WIN
But the big booths in West Auckland probably haven't come in yet, so I'm not so confident the majority for Hone will be as big as I predicted last night. Depending on how big the booths are the turnout may be at the high side of my estimate (the weather was much better than forecast - let's see if I can do better than the meteorologists).

@7:55pm 112 of 134 polling stations
Harawira (Mana) 4,258 (47.2%)
Davis (Labour) 3,745 (41.5%)
Tipene (Maori) 841 (9.3%)
Herbert (ALCP) 104 (1.2%)
Alp (OUR) 46 (0.5%)
Informal 24 (0.3%)
TOTAL: 9,018 (100%)

@8:15pm 130 of 134 polling stations
Harawira (Mana) 5,300 (48.0%)
Davis (Labour) 4,528 (41.0%)
Tipene (Maori) 1,002 (9.1%)
Herbert (ALCP) 122 (1.1%)
Alp (OUR) 58 (0.5%)
Informal 33 (0.3%)
TOTAL: 11,043 (100%)

@8:30pm Stalled at 132 of 134 booths - not sure how big the booths are - it may crack 12,000 turnout tonight, and with 1,854 specials to count that's close to where I thought it would be in last night's post:

the total may only be around 12,000 - 14,000, maybe less. I would say the % vote is stacking up: Harawira 55%, Davis 35% Tipene 10%.

Kelvin did better than I thought. Amazing what you can achieve with all the Labour MPs and their parliamentary services budgets and resources in tow, eh. As for Tipene. Ouch. Even worse than my 10% pick - not even into double figures, not even. They are at a low ebb at this point - destroyed and disheartened by this suicide stunt - and as I said earlier, now is the moment that Mana has to put the boot into what is left of the Maori Party.

Matt McCarten has addressed the troops and Hone is now giving a victory speech. Bravo Mana Party, they deserve this win - they have earned it.

@9:00pm 134 of 134 polling stations
Harawira (Mana) 5,611 (48.3%)
Davis (Labour) 4,744 (40.9%)
Tipene (Maori) 1,026 (8.8%)
Herbert (ALCP) 126 (1.1%)
Alp (OUR) 63 (0.5%)
Informal 36 (0.3%)
TOTAL: 11,606 (100%)
+ SPECIALS: 1,916

Majority Harawira: 867

Turnout 11,606 + 1,916 = 13,522 / 32,193 = 42%.
Hone was on TV3 at 10:30pm and was wanting to talk with Pita and Tariana about re-establishing a relationship. On Mana's terms one would hope - things have changed and Tipene's sub double figure showing is the writing on the wall for the Maori Party. When they crossed to Kawakawa at the Labour Party do Phil Goff and Kelvin Davis were standing next to one another - Goff in front. Campbell asked Goff a question and off he went. Kelvin stood there like the mannequin he is, speechless. It was a good few minutes before Kelvin - the one who was actually in the election - got a word in. It was so embarrassing to see his mana stamped all over by Goff. Compare that to Hone being his own man and now a leader of a parliamentary party - what a difference.

The hateful Cathy Odgers as an ACT candidate shows how desperate ACT are

Right wing hate speech proponent Cathy Odgers is being considered as an ACT Party candidate, which shows you how desperate the ACT Party have become for candidates.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me be 1000% clear, Cathy Odgers is a hateful person who is the very last human being one would ever wish to enter politics.

Her jaw dropping post where she articulates an anti-breeding campaign for beneficiaries still stands out as one of the most disgusting arguments for right wing eugenics this country has ever had the mispleasure to read. Here is Cathy at her most rabid and hateful...

The heaving pathetic underclass do not seem to have any idea how to look after and better themselves let alone their kids. All the Whanau Ora in the world given to them from the collective troughing of the "consultant" middle class neo-minted Maori brorocracy won't help them.

Regardless of your race, not killing your child is fairly bloody fundamental. One of those things that doesn't need to even be said at Plunket or passed down from generations does it? Sticking a child on a clothes line, body slamming a baby, beating a child up and down isn't even an action of primates. A baboon is more advanced in its thinking.

That's the main issue, those killing and maiming children from any race are not human beings, they are the missing link from...well you can't even say primates can you as most wild animals manage to look after and not deliberately kill their own children? You cannot legislate to protect children from these creatures because creatures do not acknowledge any laws.

So the time has come for a fresh approach. Let's stop handwringing semantics to the problem, remove historians and academics from the debate. Let's forget about offending a few precious souls who would rather see more Maori kids killed because solving the problem ruins their lily white world and exposes them to criticism. Let's actually DO something.

We aren't allowed to sterilise those most at risk of offending and Laws has already suggested a lump sum of $10k for sterilisation to much horrow and howling from those with no better answer, so how about another way?

How about we cut off the DPB and dole altogether and PAY the underclasses NOT to breed.

As I pointed out at the time, the ignorance is so apparent in Kates hate speech towards those she considers 'unpeople' it's almost No Minister-esk. Kate you may write with some finesse when it comes to exposing the internal lies within financial news, but sweet Jesus your social policy thinking is more akin to that moment in 12 Angry Men when they all get up and walk away from the bigot left raving at the table.

Cathy Odgers is a hate monger who would only lower the current debate, she is a foul mouthed blogger who argues for the poor to be sterilized for money as a means to deal to poverty. What this hateful, rich corporate lawyer offers the ACT Party in terms of electoral success is as uncertain as appointing a leper to judge a beauty contest.

May I humbly suggest to the Greens and Labour activists that one simply needs to trawl through Cathy's hateful right wing rants and take their pick of quotes. Cathy simply can not debate issues as an adult, I've caught her out lying about me personally and she can not handle actual scrutiny without foaming up and becoming violently responsive. Cut and paste enough of her bile and watch her spin out as a candidate.

That ACT are seriously considering someone so ill fitting for the job of politician like a hateful right wing blogger like Cathy Odgers is a move of absolute desperation on their behalf, looks like the Don Brash honeymoon within ACT after his corporate coup is over.

Provoking Candidate Cathy would become a new game for the left all the way up until the election, especially as she couldn't help herself from biting back in front of a watching electorate as she simply doesn't have the social skills to control or hide her hatred of the poor in a manner that can con the electorate.

Please God let this happen.

Cathy Odgers is so hateful, she makes Kyle Chapman look moderate.

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Citizen A - ONLINE NOW!

Citizen A this week with Deputy Mayor of the SuperCity, Penny Hulse and Auckland Central Green Candidate Denise Roche

Issue 1: What does this hate crime against heritage casino masquerading as a conference centre mean for the St James and in the wake of the decision NOT to charge the Choy Brothers for destroying the Palace Hotel, can the Super City even protect Auckland's heritage?

Issue 2: Social responsibility time - should kronic be sold in dairys and should loan sharks be reigned in?

Issue 3: Mana by-election - is it the beginning of the end of the Maori Party? Who will win and what are the ramifications if Mana win?

PLUS: A special focus on Alasdair Thompson


Citizen A now plays 7.30pm Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89 Fridays

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Bomber's Blog - The War on News - ONLINE NOW!

THE WAR ON NEWS: In this weeks political media crimes against reason kill zone

Mr Magoo from South Canterbury Finance faces 50 charges by Serious Fraud Office - hopes of OJ Simpson like real time TV car chase in his old VW are fading

You're 24 and National want to pay you $8 an hour, welcome to 'change' meaning 'loose change'

Paula Bennett admitting benefit reform is scary is like your dentist assuring you that this is going to hurt.


The War on News 2010 – NZ News Satire on Stratos 10pm Thursday Freeview 21 & simulcast on Sky 89. Posted online at Scoop.co.nz as their Weekend Watch.

Join Bomber’s Blog – The War on News Facebook group
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Tai Tokerau by-election - campaign ends

The Electoral Commission registered the Mana Party today, meaning party leadership status and all that flows from it should Hone win tomorrow. The timing doesn't get any closer and it should be acknowledged that the Mana organisation that has come about in the four months since Hone was forced to part company with the Maori Party has done a great job to be in this position.

What a short, but sharp by-election campaign. Firstly for a while it looked like there wouldn't be any then the Maori Party in a fit of pique reneged on their deal with him and said they would stand someone, then Labour said they would stand - so that was the Maori Party relegated to third place from day one. Then just a few days ago, in view of the finish line, Tariana knee-capped her own Maori Party candidate. To add to the confusion the Tory PM said he was backing the Labour candidate. !? I heard Barry Soper on Prime news tonight picking Kelvin Davis will take it (an astounding prediction). Hone has a lot of powerful haters. The only people who like Hone... are the people.

2008 result:
Harawira 12,019
Davis 5,711
Daniels 788
Tashkoff 680
Rankin 202
Informal 530
TOTAL 19,930

Given the apalling rain forecast for all of tomorrow in the "winterless" North the turnout will be down. Despite the focus of publicity and the novelty of it, a long trip into town in the rain will dampen things. Based on the 2008 results as above, the lower turnout at a by-election and the bad weather the total may only be around 12,000 - 14,000, maybe less. I would say the % vote is stacking up: Harawira 55%, Davis 35% Tipene 10%.

Here are some Mana branch panui coming in on the networks. The organisation will be hard at work from early tomorrow.


The official Election Results:
Targets for release of the preliminary election results are:
● by 7.30pm all advance vote results
● by 9.00pm results from 50% of polling places
● by 10.00pm results from 100% of polling places

CITIZEN A ALASDAIR THOMPSON SPECIAL 7.30pm TONIGHT:

Citizen A - 7.30pm tonight Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK: ALASDAIR THOMPSON SPECIAL with Deputy Mayor of the Auckland Super City Penny Hulse and Auckland Central Green Party Candidate, Denise Roche

Casinos pretending to be conference centers, Kronic & loan sharks, Te Tai Tokerau By-election and periods.

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Alasdair Thompson in 'context'

Here is why Alasdair Thompson needs to be sacked as a moment to restore credibility for the Employer's and Manufacturers Association.

Because it's all about context.

IF Alasdair had been on Tony Vietch's sports show joking around like a chauvinist bloke arsehole, Alasdair could be tolerated. But he wasn't.

In context, he was making his comments ON THE RECORD for the amendment to the pay equity legislation. It's not making a speech at a fucking stag party, he's speaking on the record to Catherine Delahunty's Bill that has been drawn on pay equity and he justifies in the interview that women are paid less because of their monthly sickness and need to have children???

How much more in context do we need here? This is ON the record, and Alasdair then follows that extraordinary statement up by bullying a female journalist who had the audacity to challenge his sexist misogynist dribble.

No wonder Women get so less if the guy advising the Boss thinks this bullshit.

For the love of God, the only way Alasdair could trump his current status as grand cyclops of Chauvinist Pigs is if he pulled his penis out of his pants live on TV and said, 'Oi love, do me a favour and have a suck on this eh'?

That's how bad a position he is in. He has no credibility on any employment position now he has stated such unbelievable sexism.

Alasdair is either:

A) So pig arrogant that he can't see how this is coming across and as such has become toxic meaning the EMA must cut him lose for their own reputation.

Or B) He is trying to get sacked so that he can either start co-hosting with Paul Henry on Radio Live or stand in Epsom for the National Party

Pointing out an intrinsic element of a person as justification for less, is not a justification, it is a statement of bigotry. With bosses like Alasdair, we know now why women are paid 12% less.

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