Helen Clark provides inspiration

Helen Clark provides inspiration

 If we are to recognise the qualities we should expect froma Prime Minister then
 these You Tube videos from Forbes magazine are worthwhile watching. Especially as they demonstrate the capabilities of one of New Zealand's more influential Prime Ministers.

David Shearer, the Labour Party and the country's future.

On David Shearer and the Labour Party

David Shearer knew that NZ must fight to stop Key selling our assets off to foreign corporates.

It is always difficult when a Party Leader either retires after an election loss or, worn down by a combination of negative reporting, constant sniping from the “pundits”  and the stresses of constant campaigning to build and sustain the Party as the Government in waiting decides that enough is enough.

So it is with the New Zealand Labour Party once David Shearer made the call that for his own political credibility, for his own health and for the greater good of the Labour Party he should step aside and allow a new leader to emerge from the caucus and for the membership to elect the person they, collectively, felt the best to consolidate the Parliamentary Party and to lead the greater Party in the 2014 election campaign.

David Shearer. An honest man with great integrity.

David Shearer is an honest man, a man with integrity, a man with a reputable past, a man with the courage to face his political foes and to campaign hard for the oppressed, the down trodden and those who, being exploited by the present Government and its parasitic hangers on, need a champion to protect them. For that he is to be praised. 

David Shearer, championing workers' rights in the face of a government hell bent on removing all employment protections.

Above all, David Shearer is a realist who recognised that he could not always be all things to all while being distracted by the constant sniping and vindictive carping that masquerades as informed political commentary in New Zealand.

There is no doubt David was aware that his political credibility was being gnawed away by the feeding frenzies created by sniping journalists, by political pundits bedazzled by their own punditry and the carping that fed upon itself that came from the blogs and social media and that, in the face of this, he was not going to achieve that which he’d set out to do back in 2011 and that, if he wanted to remain in politics he should step aside and focus on being the well respected and hard working Member for Mt Albert.

Having watched Patrick Gower and other media mavens in action at the November 2012 Labour Party Conference as they manufactured personality conflicts, leadership conspiracies and bitter angst during well informed debates and realised that I was attending a totally different conference to the one they were pontificating on each evening I can sympathise with David Shearer.

He was probably, also, well aware of the reports of inter-nicene feuding within the ranks of the National Party as the rival camps being gathered around Judith Collins (the ABC group) and Steven Joyce (The ABK group) jockey for position and power as their polling reveals growing disenchantment with their current Leader, John Key (the member for Hawaii).

The still closeted National Party feuding should, once it breaks out into the blood baths that that Party is known for (witness the Shipley knifing of Bolger, the Brash ascendancy and subsequent assassination by Key )  give every opportunity for the Labour Party to demonstrate its cohesiveness and positiveness to the electorate. With a Party Leader not ground down from enduring the 20 months of media induced negativity there would be greater chance of the Party’s policies and positions being heard and understood as the factions with in the National-ACT party played out their end games.

David Shearer took a principled stand on education as he fought to preserve our world class education system from the corrosion of Heki Parata and John Banks.

Whatever the pundits write as they congratulate themselves for their self fulfilling prophecies there can be no denying that David Shearer has lead the Labour Party into a more dynamic future. Under his leadership, with the NZ Council, the Party has reformed itself, created new management systems and established a smoother, more inclusive policy development process and encouraged a greater electorate involvement with its MPs. All of which have invigorated the membership and will stand the party in good stead come the 2014 election.

Now that David Shearer has resigned his leadership the Labour Party will enter into an electoral college process to elect a new Parliamentary Leader. From the meetings to be held around the country and the individual votes from the membership (40% electorate 40% Parliamentary Party and 20% affiliate) the Party will elect a Leader whose status and credibility will be seen as being secure and endorsed by the greater Party electorate and who, because of this, be able to see off the snipers, the “pundits” and sideline “experts” (much loved by google infatuated journalists) many of whom (like Farrar, Slater, Lusk and company)  have never been seen anywhere near a Labour Party branch, and present the positive , constructive and socially responsible face of New Zealand Labour to an electorate that is getting increasingly disenchanted by the arrogance, disingenuous and dictatorial behaviour of the John Key owned and lead National-ACT party.

Once the New ZealandLabour Party elects its leader New Zealand will have a political party leader who has been elected  from the people, by the people, for the people unlike those, like those feuding within the National Party, who, with expensive PR spin machines, like John Key’s favourite firm Crosby-Textor, behind them,  purchase their leadership with favours called and paid for.

Key's mantra in support of the GCSB bill has historical heritage.

This photograph and the quotation with it serves to remind John PinoKeyo of the source of his "Trust me, I'm the PM"  mantra as he tried to hard sell his legalised spy on NZers legislation to the news papers and public.

Enough said.

Has John Key lost his mojo?

Has PinoKeyo lost his mojo?

Key's distortions and misinformation over his badly drafted spy on NZers GCSB bill has added to his loss of Mojo.

Despite the razamattaz at the Rutherford Hotel over the weekend of the National Party Conference there were back room deals being made as the two major groups jockeying to unseat Key attempted to make sense of secret private polls taken to assess Key’s recent performance in The House and in front of the TV cameras and its impact on the credibility of the National-ACT government.

Our informant, C.L.Dodgson, revealed that the ABK group around Joyce and the ABC group around Collins (heavily and openly critical of Key and the Henry enquiry ) have had very similar poll results. Both indicating that Key is losing his mojo and credibility with the NZ public across the political spectrum.

Both camps are apparently cock a hoop with the results as they continue with their clandestine feuding and plotting to gain advantage when the opportunity arises to push the Crosby-Textor created “great manipulator” off and send him back to his residence in Hawaii.

The pollsters used by both camps were rumoured to have asked respondents to free associate all words they’d use to describe Key’s performance this year. When the results were presented to the ABK and ABC camps there was gob-smacked astonishment at the strongly negative word associations connected to brand Key.

Key's cold dead eyes have begun to lose their hypnotising powers.

Contrary to the perceived wisdom that Key is invulnerably popular with the public the pollsters apparently discovered a strong negative reaction to Key and his performance in The House and in public.

Our informant said that the common words to describe or be associated with Key by respondents across the political spectrum, were: slippery, devious, untruthful, insincere, arrogant, inefficient, bumbling, corrupt, doesn’t tell the truth- he only deals in half truths, indifferent, out of touch, disingenuous, false, hypocrite....... 

The shonkey deals over the SkyCity pokies for convention centre deal have added to Key's loss of mojo. Allegedly Poll respondents made frequent mention of this to the National-ACT pollsters.

Key's response to TV3 questioning and Alistar Thompson (Scoop) questions on the GCSB have further fueled the public disillusionment with Key. Much to delight of the ABC camp within the National_ACT party.

POST SCRIPT: The strategic National-ACT polling allegedly commissioned by the feuding camps within the party has been substantiated by the latest IPSOS-FAIRFAX political poll reported on the Stuff website (26.8.13) reports that John Key is not believed by the NZ voters. Extracts of reported comments about Key are, according to Vernon Small's story:

When respondents were probed for the reasons behind their views about Key some themes emerged, including that the pressure was getting to him, that he was coping - just - and that trust was slipping although he was doing well under pressure.
Typical negative comments included:
"I suspect the pressure he is under is making faults more obvious. I don't think there is a better opposition at this stage."
"Weak, always on the defence, and not very much on directions and purpose."
"The Tiwai smelter deal - John Key wants to keep that deal, which comes at a huge cost."
"Not as good as he has been, harder to trust him than it was. He doesn't appear as genuine as he once was." 

With growing reports of a growing disenchantment with the performance of Key we can obviously expect to see even more obvious jockeying for power as the dark closets within which the National-ACT party creates policy, decides who and which foreign corporates can buy influence and state assets and buys and sells its leadership begin to split open.

The response: Crosby-Textor push Key's panic button:
The decision,obviously made by Crosby-Textor advisers, that Key appear on the Campbell Live show to counter public suspicions about the GCSB legislation can be seen as an attempt to counter the polled perception of Key as being out of touch, arrogant and slippery. His performance, much praised by The Herald commentators, was a masterly demonstration of the aspects of his personality that the polling revealed was turning off the public - hectoring, ill informed, often providing false information and bland reassurances based on false analogy and incorrect interpretation. The suddenly announced, exclusive to the Herald, decision, by Key, to “clarify” his interpretation of the GCSB Bill and “Prime Ministerially” order the GCSB not to spy on New Zealanders unless it has the New Zealander’s permission and- of course- Key’s over riding authority to over-ride the necessity to obtain permission, was in response to the polling that revealed Key was not trusted to tell the truth on the issue.

While, too many of our readers, these may sound like the words one normally associates with the National Party - the ABC group around Collins, bouyed by her 11% popularity among the National Party supporters, have, apparently seized on these results and have begun an even more serious lobbying to gain ascendency over Joyce and his cronies as the internal feuding that has been long hidden in the closets of the National-ACT party begins to break into the open as the teflon, so carefully applied by Crosby-Textor to John PinoKeyo Key begins to flake off.

Sums it all up- Key is totally out of touch with NZ. There is no connect with Planet Key and reality.

The Young NATIONAL-ACT party members to protest at Anti-GCSB bill meeting!!!

Rumours are rife that the youth branch of the National-ACT Pinokeyo cheerleading group are using social mediato organise a protest against the organisers of the anti-GCSB Bill legislation meeting in the Auckland Town Hall on Monday 19th at 7.00pm.

Our rapid sketch artist has provided a cartoon of the variousmembers of the young Nat-ACT members, led by their anti-worker hero, Jammy-Lea Ross, practising their protest moves at a secret location last night.

Botany MP(centre front) , Jammy-Lea Ross (National-ACT) leading his PinoKeyo cheerleading team in practice for their picket outside  Auckland Town Hall anti-GCSB meeting.

GIVING THE LIE TO PINOKEYO'S ASSERTIONS ON CAMPBELL LIVE

So John PinoKeyo Key finally decided to front up to TV3 Campbell Live and attempt to persuade the NZ public that his treasured GCSB Bill wouldn't enable the agency to spy on NZers regardless. He tried likening the bill to providing a Norton Anti-Virus patch on a personal computer... an analogy so simplistically ridiculous as to make one collapse in incredulity that anyone even pretending to be a PM would make it.
Despite the cheerleaders around Key praising his "performance" when finally fronting up to a face to face interview with John Campbell closer analysis has demonstrated that Key was exposed as a vacillating (the cheerleaders call this pragmatism) and ill informed about the legal niceties of his hastily drafted GCSB bill which he created, and then fudged with Peter Dunne's "co-operation", in order to protect his (and, ultimately, Dunne's) own, very vunerable back.
This article from the Standard and the opinion piece by Rodney Harrison QC provide an in depth analysis that proves the Key was living up to his PinoKeyo nickname yet again. PinoKeyo should learn that democracies don't work on the dictatorial model he seems to favour.

What is necessary to oppose the anti-worker legislation

The legislation, designed to attack the rights of workers to organise and negotiate wages and conditions, framed by political novice, Jammy-Lea Ross on advice from the Slater-Lusk National-ACT organisers must be opposed. This video clip - WAR ON THE WORKERS lays out the need to organise.

The Truth about John Key- erstwhile PM of NZ

Over the past few weeks the teflon carefully laid over the body and image of John Key (alias PinoKeyo) by his PR firm, Crosby Textor, has begun to flake off.

The true nature of the gambling Merchant Banker has begun to be revealed to the MSM and the NZ public and it is not pleasant.

Mind you we have had indications of his real nature earlier in his posturing as a Prime Minister. There was the fiasco of the Scuttle & Run, Smile & Wave attempt at leading a trade mission to the ME back in 2009, then there was the more obvious readiness to sell NZ to the highest arm twister when he gleefully sold the rights of unionised workers to negotiate their wages and conditions to Warner Bros, then, there has been the ongoing SkyCity deal in which NZs gambling regulations have been compromised with the promise of a "free" international convention centre to which the present National-ACT govt will have the right to vet those parties wanting to use the centre to ensure their presence doesn't embarass them, there is the proposed anti-union legislation tabled by novice MP, Jammy-Lea Ross and Simon Bridges and now comes the privacy invading GCSB legislation for which Key is responsible and which is designed to retrospectively OK bad interpretations of the law.

His dictatorial manner has become even more pronounced with his Prime Ministerial ordered enquiries into, first, the Great Cup o'Tea recording saga- in which he and the sole member of the ACT party, John Banks, conspired to come to "an agreement" in the Epsom electorate and were accidentally recorded by a reporter invited to be present at this "historic" event and now the enquiry over the leak of the Kitteridge Report on the activities of the GCSB.

The secret diary published on the STUFF website may be satirical but the elements of truth within it would in the present political climate of John PinoKeyo Key's NZ be almost real.

When Principles Mattered... Labour on the importance of privacy

This 1970s newspaper advertisement from the Labour Party says it all about the protection of individual rights and privacy.

Norman Kirk on the need to preserve individual privacy.

Meanwhile John PinoKeyo sets about destroying and undermining civil liberties and the right to privacy in one of his biggest betrayals of trust and responsibility.
Meanwhile, David Shearer declares that Labour will honour its 1970s principles on individual liberties.