Instantly, the title of this Bill tells you its not going to be a straightforward one:
Taxation (International Taxation, Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill
What a mouthful.
This Bill is so complex that it has got almost everyone involved all ‘wee-weed up’.
The phrase ‘wee-weed up’ was coined by the extremely gifted orator Barack Obama recently to describe people who get all nervous for no reason.
This Bill has left me all ‘wee-weed up’ – but for good reason.
As the Hon David Cunliffe pointed out during his speech on Thursday - at 824 pages, this is a huge bill. Add to the fact that a vast number of Supplementary Order Papers didn’t even get sent to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and this bill is positively perplexing.
The size and breadth of this bill, combined with a tight report-back date, put considerable pressure on the deliberation process.
Bearing in mind that Labour first introduced this well intentioned bill, which is now in danger of being blighted through a rushed process, and it’s fair to say that I’m now officially ‘wee-weed up’.
Can you give us a nutshell as to what its about or am I asking for a 10 page essay?
We all admire Obama but there are obvious limits, even dangers, in faling in behind the leader of the USA. Anyhow we have John Key who has not so far used in public statements, ‘wee wees’, ‘arse hole’m, ‘dick head’, ‘fucked’ or ‘cunt’. Of course he likes to say on side with the electorate. I expect he likes to use these words all the time but so far not in public.As he is having a dream run in the polls,his failure to draw on manly language hasn’t hurt him. At the risk of writing the bloody obvious, words that in my childhood incurred punishment in playground (the strap even if you were a girl) and home (even Play Centre mothers punished the young & vulnerable, for innocently repeating words they themselves used when surprised or very angry) and whe yelled loudly in a public place (never Parliament in those days) might lead to the magistrates’ court, naming in the pages of The Evening Post and a week behind the bars,have become hardly worth uttering. Obama gets away with a ground breaking use of ‘wee wees’ but this word is in frequent use by the very young and their carers. It is not in the same class as words used freely in this very blog by men and women alike. Freedom of choice. You use them. I have known them most of my life,as did my mother, a staunch Labour Party supporter, but not my grandmother who never voted Labour because she thought it was coarse and working class. What stops Key from loading his discourse with good Anglo Saxon and Kiwi words? Is he an outsider? Was his mother born in a state house in CHch? I go to far and go on too long, and stae the obvious and get bored eaily. People say what they like. As a crude value judgenment – I hope not a class one – my sense is this vocab no longer works. Some politicians may need to try harder.
This is a very unusual post Raymond.
So do you understand the whole 824 pages of this Bill yet before you vote on it?
Kste, that’s the point he was making. Were you half asleep at 5.05am? An MP surely has a duty to vote against something he or she simply hasn’t had time to understand? But then, the Tories in government never cared much for good process and I see nothing has changed.
Cactus Kate: the point I want to make is that it’s a huge Bill plus huge Supplementary Order Papers. I wished the FEC would have time to deliberate on them but the SOPs were not even sent to the committee. I do like the Bill and Officials and independent specialist advisers had worked hard on it.
You see, if you follow the Nat-led Govt’s style, you will learn more and more about less and less. And you will get less and less for more and more.