Public Address - Speaker (Home)

Is Black the New Red? | Apr 12, 2005 08:22

POLL DANCER Keith Ng on the election trail

First, a retraction: only two out of the last six Young Labour presidents were gay - the last one, in fact, was married. My bad, and I apologise unreservedly for my Tamiherism.

Uh ... I thought I was typing into my fridge.

That sad joke is my obligatory one-nail contribution to the Tamihere Coffin Fund. Incidentally, the number of Tamihere-related questions at the PM's press conference yesterday: 24.

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Two leftover bits from the Labour Party Congress. First, a Heather Simpson soundbite to the Labour candidates: "If you get a call from me during your campaign, it could be good or bad. If it's bad, it's very, very bad."

The other bit is about the propaganda that protesters were giving out during the Labour Party Congress, entitled "'Labour' Betrays NZ Workers":

"This Government is extremist. It has devastated our social, moral and economic foundations... it is a typical example of how the 'Left' whores itself to Big Business."

"Labour has always talked a lot of moral humbug against other countries, yet it is willing to jump into bed with China which has turned Tibet, rich in minerals, into a 'special economic zone' which can be exploited by Big Business. Once again 'Labour's' commitment to 'free trade' comes first. Principles mean nothing."

"Our defence forces [are] sent all over the world to prop up some American puppet state set up to secure oil or some other economic resource."

It seems like pretty standard stuff, except that it wasn't coming from the anarchists, hippies and communists, it was coming from the supposed far-right. Sure - adding Socialism to Nationalism is hardly an original idea, but it's still rather funny to see these supposedly diametrically opposed groups shouting the same things at the same people. Indeed - the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

Last year it was the anarchists (many of whom are regulars at the peace marches) going for a bit of mob fuck-'em-up; now, it's the neo-Nazis getting all class-struggle on us. I hope somebody told them that Marx was Jewish.

At least Destiny Church lost the black-on-black-with-jackboot get-up and got themselves some white hip-hop tracksuits - now I don't get them confused with the white supremacists. Strangely enough, though, a few members of National Front still haven't figured it out.

Maybe fringe politics is a bit like Stephen Hawking's theory on the edge of the universe - as you approach it, the various dimensions start to merge and everything gets very messy. Perhaps it's not supposed to make sense. Perhaps they're all crazy nutballs who live on the edges of civil society to begin with. And certainly, they love the media attention, and the media loves to have them around. Nobody really takes them seriously, and they always complain about it, but really - they love it.

And speaking of National Front, it seems that the Yellow Peril has indeed reached the shores of Public Address. Since the door opened to us Asiatics earlier this month, we've grown to 22% of the population within the space of two weeks. At this rate, you can expect Public Address to be written in Chinese by June.

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Upwards, Not Forwards! | Apr 07, 2005 11:49

POLL DANCER Keith Ng on the election trail

"Forwards, not backwards!" was Helen's message to Labour Party faithfuls last weekend. Indeed, one can make a compelling case that forwards is better than backwards. I wouldn't say that backwards was without its merits, but on the whole, I agree with Helen that society should move forwards. If only there was a party that advocated upwards over forwards...

All in all, the Labour Party Congress was a whole lot of cheerleading. Basked in a creepy red glow (everything looked more blue when I walked outside...), Helen and team told everyone not to be complacent (because they all knew they were going to win). This, really, made everything rather dull: 'Opposition sucks, but have lots of cash... we need to do some good old fashioned campaigning... historical third-term led by Dear Leader...'

A lot of "Don't Changes Horses in Midstream" kind of material too: Labour is stable, competent, dependent, reliable, whereas National can't organise a piss-up at a party conference, etc.

Talking about a National government, Helen asks: "Who'd want to risk that?"

Risk? So National didn't even reach "Bad at Governing" on Labour's Tory-o-meter anymore. It's only flickering at the "Who the Hell Knows?" notch at the bottom. But does that makes Labour the "Might as Well" option?

Labour certainly seems to be worried about Wellington Central, though - there were numerous references to the race (no other race in the country was mentioned), and Cullen made the point that National's threat to cut down the civil service is effectively "ankletapping" Mark Blumsky, since Wellington is full of civil servants.

It looks like we'll see a lot of effort made to shore up Marian Hobbs' support in Wellington - which should give me more to write about.

The good Doctor Cullen also spent an awful lot of time explaining why the surplus reported in the media isn't actually a surplus, and how a cash surplus is different from an operating surplus. I got really confused when he talked about funding capital expenditures out of the operating surplus, and the student loan scheme, too. My sixth-form accounting and glasses only gets me as far as "hmmm...". One of these days I'll sit down with a few old Molesworth and Featherstons and figure it out.

Despite the fact that There-Really-is-No-Surplus, Cullen goes on to explain his Keynesian approach to fiscal management: saving a truckload when the economy is strong (which it has been), and spending it when the economy is crap (which is it expected to turn soon). But, ahem, There-Really-is-No-Surplus.

Jordan Carter explained to me that Keynesianism has never really been tried, since no government can resist the urge to spend when a good economy has given them a good surplus. So, presumably, this government won't feel the urge to spend the surplus, since it doesn't exist. The question, then, is whether this non-existent surplus will surface in two years, so Labour can rescue the economy in time for a fourth term, or whether it has just disappeared into the deep end of the books for good. (Or whether it'll surface in the form of a golden submarine with "Cullen" emblazed on the side...)

The quote of the conference goes to Conor Roberts, the newly-elected President of Young Labour, and the first openly-straight President in many years. He expressed his concern at the public perception of Auckland's Young Labour activists: "Everyone gives [the] Princes Street [Branch] shit for being a bunch of Ponsonby homosexuals. We're not all like that. Some of us are bums."

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The first person to have dirt dug up on them this election, it seems, is Labour's token Asian Stephen Ching. He's 42 on the list - a pretty cushy spot - and the second highest newcomer.

The first newcoming being Shane Jones, formerly The-Next-John-Tamihere. Now, he's gone from the next best hope for a future Maori leader to the only hope, and probably doesn't fancy the Tamihere comparison too much.

(And no, Tamihere's case doesn't count as dirt digging, so much as happening to pass by a gigantic exploding mound of dirt.)

Back to Ching - Herald on Sunday's Jonathan Milne was the one who did the digging. Alongside four pages on all the other dodgy going-ons in the dark, deep underbelly of the Asian criminal underworld, Milne exposed Ching's previous run-ins with the law over illegal squid fishing.

Actually, he was just charged with obstruction of justice, and was ordered to pay $500 without conviction. The guilt for the squidding went to the captain of the boat that was chartered by Ching's company. None of the other reporters seem impressed: "Pffft. 'No conviction'...", and Labour Party President Mike Williams was doing the rounds on Sunday saying that it was the Worse Hatchet Job, Ever.

(There'll be more on Ching in a future article that I'll shamelessly self-promote as soon as I know when it'll be published. No squids, though.)

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Raising Eyebrows | Apr 03, 2005 16:41

POLL DANCER Keith Ng on the election trail

A lowly student media hack getting free drinks, warm welcomes and love aplenty: sure signs that the election campaign is well and truly under way.

National candidate, former mayor, United Future President and shoes salesman Mark Blumsky launched his campaign to oust incumbent cabinet minister Marian Hobbs from Wellington Central on Wednesday.

Showing off his considerable clout in Wellington, Blumsky staged his launch at Wellington's sweetheart, the Embassy Theatre (thanks to Blumsky's good buddy Grant "Wheeeeel of Fortune" Walker, apparently). That, and he managed to get a crowd of ~300 despite some pretty awful weather (even by Wellington standards).

The movie they chose for the night was Campaign, which, despite the name and the subject, was a pretty ballsy choice - given that the movie portrayed campaigning as nothing but misery, disappointment and, at best, self-delusion. That, and the main drama of the story revolved around the National's 1996 Wellington Central candidate, Mark Thomas, getting completely rogered by his own leader and party president. Noting Don Brash and National Party President Judy Kirk sitting in the front row, Blumsky remarked: "Lightning never strikes in the same place twice!"

Well, at least I found that funny. Perhaps it was all the free booze I was guzzling down. Just perhaps.

Despite the perfect environment, a well-orchestrated event, a supposedly friendly audience, Blumsky got a dead quiet reception from the crowd. Except for the loud, obnoxious drunks down the back, where I was. ACT supporter and debater Chris Bishop made a point to yell "hear! hear!" at every right-wing comment that was made ("Bah! Where's the crowd?"), while debater Joe Connell furiously demanded that Blumsky get himself some speech writers ("Where's the theme? WHERE IS THE THEME?!?").

There were odd little quirks in the speeches, too, like Blumsky's assertion that Hobbs' #9 list ranking means that Labour knows she'll will lose, immediately followed by Brash getting up and saying that National has so much confidence in Blumsky that they've given him a really high list ranking. Anyway...

At least the movie did remind people that Wellington Central is often a very hot race. This time around, the candidates' profiles and the genuine competition should be enough to generate a fair amount of heat. National has a chance here to whack a cabinet minister, too, so there's a lot of pride riding on this race.

But the battle between the campaign managers will be interesting as well. Blumsky's campaign manager is Kiwiblog's David Farrar, and in Hobbs' corner is Just Left's Jordan Carter.

With NZ's small blogosphere tapping right into the heart of the race, this will be a unique chance to discern the role of blogs in relations to the wider democraptic system. Will the real world race mirror the battle in the blogosphere (and alienate normal folks)? Will the blogs be used to fuel media interest? Will the whole set-up create a feedback loop, turning the whole debate into a loud screeching noise? Will the world ever be the same again?

My prediction for all of the above: Yes.

Incidentally, Carter has said that he won't be lured by Farrar's baiting... though I'd imagine that a unilateral ceasefire can only last so long.

Back to Blumsky, the centrepiece of his campaign is, I kid you not his eyebrows. Apparently it's supposed to represent his sense of humour. As in "ha ha, look at me - I have big eyebrows!" Or maybe it's like a Sampson thing, where if you shaved his eyebrows off, he'd go all corned-beef-and-peas.

He also made a very fascinating claim that he is from the liberal, urban wing of the National Party. Hmmm. It's better than trying to run as a conservative, rural Labour candidate, I suppose. Still, it a bit telling that Blumsky's campaign material is lacking in National logos, or even the obligatory blue. He portrays himself as the Wellington man, and doesn't really do the whole The Party is Mother, The Party is Father routine, though there was a rather unconvincing rendition of We Love Our Dear Leader.

So he's kinda like Wellington's own John Banks. But less angry at... you know... stuff. And with bigger eyebrows.

Along with his conveniently timed departure as President of United Future (precious!), it makes you wonder how much his heart is really with National. And while all the urban liberal maverick renegade stuff will count in his favour for Wellington Central, down at Party HQ, I suspect it'll raise some eyebrows.

Editor's note: Keith Ng will be covering election events for Public Address henceforth. We'll get him his own blog soon.

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