Red Alert

If Gerry won’t, Labour will

Posted by Charles Chauvel on February 16th, 2010

Today I was the opening speaker at an electricity industry Conference held in Auckland. 

Gerry Brownlee did this last year, and was invited again, but declined to attend this year. 

His office apparently told the organisers that “he had nothing to say”.

You can read a copy of the speech at my website.


10 Responses to “If Gerry won’t, Labour will”

  1. Spud says:

    I’m glad you were there. :-)

  2. Thanks Spud. Happy new year.

  3. Spud says:

    Happy New Year to you too. :-)

  4. James99 says:

    Poor effort from the big guy, did the electicity industry not mention that they would be putting on a feed? If they had, Brownlee may have changed his mind.

  5. ghostwhowalksnz says:

    Or is Gerry booked in for the stomach stapling so he has no time for these sort of things

  6. Luke says:

    Whilst we are on the personal insults, did you hear the one about the photo shopped election posters?

  7. Simon Arnold says:

    I think in fairness you should have mentioned that this was a commercial event run by Terrapin (http://www.terrapinn.com/aboutus.aspx). I remember in the old days when commercial event managers like Terrapin put on yet another money making conference and wanted speakers I started charging $1000 plus expenses for the organisation I represented and got duly paid.

    I hope the taxpayer got similar recompense for the Charles’ time and costs.

  8. Kiwireader says:

    Care factor = zero.

  9. Simon, Gerry spoke at this very event last year. Ever week, ministers accept invitations to speak at similar industry events. Everyone knows that their business model is to put a couple of days’ worth of speakers together and then charge as many interested people as possible to attend. More importantly, especially for an opposition MP who doesn’t have access to the Government PR machine to publicise policy, what they say then goes into the public domain and can be accessed widely. I would be appalled if any politician charged for his or her time or expenses to attend any event.

  10. Patrick Andersen says:

    Boil down that speech and you get “We would definitely consider taking strong action if we were in power.”

    Labour had three terms to fix this mess and they did nothing.

    Old people with arthritis are paying $500 a month to keep warm in winter.

    The answer is simple comrade Chauvel – we must nationalise the means of production!

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