David Cunliffe: Them’s fighting words
Disclaimer: In no way do we endorse any of the things said here. Once again it’s just us providing a platform to MPs to say what they like. David Cunliffe responds with his own tongue in cheek blog post to a post by Judith Collins.
A couple of months ago I was asked to write a post for the Ruminator and, rather optimistically, I agreed.The original brief was to respond to a post by Judith Collins. My post was going to be about snapper, not trout. But considering that issue, along with Judith’s leadership aspirations, has floundered, I’ll try another hook.
The temperature in Parliament is heating up. The newly united Opposition is revved up and holding the Government to account on multiple fronts. The Government is on the back foot trying to stamp out fires left, right and centre.
We are putting the Government’s crony capitalism in the spotlight. The public is growing tired of John Key looking after his big business mates. They are sick to their stomachs of backroom deals done with for the likes of Warner Brothers, Rio Tinto, Sky City, Pike River and now possibly Chorus, while kids around the country are going to school hungry.
The writing is on the wall for the Government. National MPs are fleeing Parliament like Nats from a sinking ship. In the past few weeks at least half a dozen of the rabble have announced they are calling it quits at the next election. Chris Tremain, Kate Wilkinson, Paul Hutchison, Katrina Shanks, Chris Auchinvole, Cam Calder and Phil Heatley can’t stand the thought of sitting on the Opposition benches.
John Key is desperate. His friends have self-destructed. ACT leader John Banks is in the dock for electoral fraud, Peter Dunne is in the throes of a mid-life crisis and the Māori Party is imploding.
John Key is so desperate he is publicly courting Colin Craig. This is a man that thinks sun spots and the alignment of the planets cause climate change. He is the man that slammed Kiwi women for allegedly being the most promiscuous in the world.
The Conservative Party is New Zealand’s branch of the Tea Party, with Colin our very own Sarah Palin. Just imagine what will come out of his mouth next.
Colin Craig has now become National’s only hope. We could hear all sorts of wacky ideas from the MPs he could bring in on his coattails. It will turn Parliament into even more of a circus.
It is even more galling that in 2009 Colin was John Key’s enemy, funding a march to the tune of $450,000 to highlight National ignoring the smacking referendum.
So expect John Key to be having a cuppa with Colin before next year’s election and urging National voters to back him in a new Auckland seat of North Harbour. Let’s hope it doesn’t go as badly as his 2011 Epsom stunt, for everyone’s sake. Labour won’t do dirty deals to win the election.
We are now a year out from the election and Labour is already in campaign mode. We are energised and fired up. Get ready for a new Government.
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Tired old socialist rhetoric and name-calling – is this the best we can expect from the leader of the opposition? Weak.
you obviously haven’t heard John Key at Question Time.
Thankyou Ann, succinctly said
“In the past few weeks at least half a dozen of the rabble have announced they are calling it quits at the next election”
Unlike Labour career politicians who have no hope of a real job outside Parliament, who hanging on, and hanging on, and hanging on.
Any tips on how to clean yellow furry teeth?
Cunliffe display his hypocrisy again. He has already been forced to apologise for rude sexist comment he made about her being on a dessert island with her. The use of the word trout was obviously a reference to the term Old Trout.
The right have been accused of being racist, sexist and every other “ist”, “ism” or phobia conceivable. However, look who is guilty most of the time and when you look at the Labour women there are plenty of easy targets.
The comment at 1.50 pm isn’t me, someone is misrepresenting my identity.
As I’m here I may as well say, I’d hoped a lot better from Cunliffe than this negative cringe. I don’t know how he expects to entice people turned off by politics to vote for him.
Easy there David, don’t forget it was Labour who established the Large Budget Screen Production Grant and dished out nearly $45m for Avatar and nearly $49m for King Kong. Evidently a Labour Government isn’t above doing multi-million dollar deals with Hollywood heavyweights who threaten to take their productions elsewhere.
That aside, shouldn’t we be asking where Colin Craig got his time machine from and when are he and his outdated views on science and social issues going to return to 19th century England?
No money was actually dished out fool.
Before you go calling people a fool, the money was effectively given out in the form of it being a rebate to qualifying productions. It was collective $94m that New Zealand tax payers did not collect from these productions.
If someone would normally have paid us that $94m, and we say “Hey, don’t worry about paying it”, that is us effectively giving them $94m.
I should also add, that the Beehive also refers to it as being a payment to qualifying productions. http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/avatar-delivers-307m-new-zealand-economy
You’ll note the following paragraphs:
“Mr Brownlee said this expenditure was made possible through the incentive of the Large Budget Screen Production Grant (LBSPG), which offers a 15 percent rebate on production expenditure over a certain value within New Zealand. Based on Avatar’s qualifying production expenditure of $307m in New Zealand, it received a grant of around $45 million from the LBSPG.”
“Since the inception of the LBSPG in 2003, overseas movie and television productions have spent more than $1.42 billion in New Zealand, which has resulted in grant payments of $189.4 million.”
And…
“Aside from Avatar, other films receiving grants in the year to 30 June 2009 included the films Wolverine, Jumper, The Day the Earth Stood Still, They Came From Upstairs, Underworld 3 and Prince Caspian, as well as the latest in the Power Rangers children’s TV series. In total, $47.87 million was paid in grants in that year, with qualifying expenditure by those productions totaling $319.49 million.”
So yes, we did effectively dish that money out to these productions, demonstrating that Labour, like National, is just as capable of cutting deals with Hollywood.
Geez you really are nasty little prick aren’t you? God save us if you’re the new PM. Grow up.
Right back at you Mark
It is ok (sorta) to do long set ups for bad puns, but to reference a term (trout) used to denigrate older women is ill conceived.
It drives straight at her gender, suggesting her feminity is somehow aberrant to a common ideal, making her worthy of discounting. And this is in lieu of attacking her ideas.
This is something that all male politicians of a certain age seem to do without hesitation for thought, and largely without comment from their base. But were someone to criticise another male politician because they weren’t good enough at being a man people would rightly call that person an idiot.
I still think Cunliffe is probably a good man, but it is disappointing. As a Labour supporter I am looking for a bit more integrity and thoughtfulness in our leadership than this piece displays.
If we had needed sexist jokes we could have had Shane Jones. At least he would have been funny.
Yes, this comment does drive straight at her gender. I am glad to see a man say this. I am a Labour voter, and I had hoped Cunliffe would re-energise the Labour party, but if he is going to make insulting comments about how a woman looks when she is Collins’ age, then he insults me, too, as I am about that age. So what I get from this is he isn’t really interested in what I think, or whether he has my vote or not. In which case I I don’t see why I should vote for him, and so I won’t, if he keeps this up.
Usual, outdated old sexist crap…same old, same old.
Your commenters are a bunch of precious hypocrites. What’s the bet they’re the same ones who called Helen Clark or manner of malicious names – and who made false and deceitful claims about her and her husband. Can’t take it when the boot’s on the other foot? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I cannot believe you as a woman can excuse this. You must be the type of feral tribal Labour person where party comes first. National is getting back in next year – deal with it.
Far better than a feral tribal nat, labours getting back in, deal with it
“Play it straight”? You mean like how he says one thing to the rabid union and party members and a totally different thing to the media (I.e. the rest of NZ)? The Native American phrase “forked tongue” comes to mind when referring to Silent T.
What else will the Chinless Wonder say?
Name calling is so last century. When will polies learn that most of us don’t want to hear it no matter what team you support. Maybe Cunners has a secret crush on Judith. How many times do people say stupid things about the opposite sex when deep down they fancy them.
Calling Judith Collins a trout is a compliment, “Power-crazed psychophant” is more appropriate..
There was a bold commenter Anne
Who defended Helen and ‘er man
An academic so blighted
Presumably short-sighted
To not see Cunners’ a flash in the pan.
ITS THE ONLY TIME I HAVE EVER AD]GREED WITH A LABOUR PARTY MEMBER
This is a very nasty, piece of gutter journalism. David Cunliffe you should be ashamed.
As a previous Labour supporter I have been very disappointed at the way you have conducted yourself. You come across as arrogant, extremely proud and bitter. I dont think you are a very nice person. Are you prepared to say anything abusive just to get the upper hand? This is immature, teenage stuff. Grow up please.
All the repeated rhetoric about hard-working Kiwis and starving families is getting very old. Helen Clark used to talk about struggling, hard working families as if she was going to wave a wand and they would all be rich. But there are still plenty of those around! There will always be poor people. I think your government will see to that by giving them money every benefit day. You need to help those of us who are not on the breadline but are not rich either: that is the majority of New Zealanders.
You need a new song sheet. Please: rise above the nasty cesspool of abuse that has become the norm in politics. Tell us something honest and positive about what Labour is going to do instead of engaging in the nastiness. Tell us the truth for a change.
what a load of bollocks…
So Judith calls David a c*nt and no-one bats an eye, but David calls Judith a trout and it’s the end of days? Sexism much?
“Old Trout
An older woman, delusional about her sexual allure, who dresses, flirts or otherwise behaves in a manner inconsistent with her age and appearance.”
Urban Dictionary get it right. They were thinking of Judas Collins when they came up with this definition.
Collins reminds me of Muldoon, and that scares me a lot. By that I mean she has an autocratic streak a mile long. I worry she will use the same tactics as the tea party and will use dis-empowered people to push a even more radical agenda. These and many more things could have been said about Judith Collins – but we have a liberal left who don’t stop for one minute to smell there own bullshit.