Woodhouse talks big in Dunedin but it now appears that he voted to refuse to hear people in support of a petition that 14,000 locals had signed.
If it is true it is a disgrace. He is a candidate there and I am sure the ODT will want to know why he leaves his principles in Dunedin when he comes to Wellington.
Here we go again:
Small petition we support = significant expression of public opinion which needs to be taken note of.
Enormously large petition with which we disagree = orchestrated and confused artifact of a load of rednecks that can be rubbished and totally ignored.
If you want to maintain credibility you can’t have it both ways, Trev.
“why he leaves his principles in Dunedin when he comes to Wellington?”
Easy, he’s a Tory, and they know damn well the media will not join the dots and call them on it. Sadly, a Tory MP lying is not news, by definition.
Regardless of what might have occurred and the reasons for it – I thought details about a select committee’s deliberations could not be made public until the meeting is reported to the House.
So shouldn’t our parliamentarians be bound by Parliament’s rules of privilege, or is Ms Curran above that?
@ Williamsheridan, isn’t it contrary to standing orders for an MP to give a citizen the finger in the street and abuse them? I think it just might be?
this, i assume will get plenty of air in oct/nov down in dunedin…. the fact that the only defense seems to be a refusal to answer, and that the usual apologist can do no more than deliberately misinterpret the message shows me that it is a valid issue…
word to the wise…. there are a large, and growing larger, group of us who have had enough of the gentlemanly conduct in opposing what has been some insanely misguided policy introduced by this government….
time to start the tearing of new orifices…..these dogs aren’t interested in having a “grown up” debate around the sort of country our children and grandchildren will inherit… never have been, and never will…
Once again I see respondents here sliding into abuse… calling people “dogs” and calling for “tearing of orifices”is hardly a high standard of debate.
@jennifer… I don’t know that it was against standing orders but the police are investigating that incidenct. I am sure they will do so professionally …..
… and suggesting someone else has done wrong doesn’t get away from my point that is it very difficult for someone to be taken seriously when they themselves are continually flouting the very Parliament that they have sworn to uphold.
… Clare is taking a complaint to the privileges committee about a Minister while at the same time breaking parliamentary privilege…. I think the name for someone who has such double standards is a hypocrite…. or perhaps it’s just an innocent oversight.
Heads up: you don’t get to set the standards of debate here buddy its not your frakin’ blog.
A lot of good families have lost their livelihoods to John Key and Michael Woodhouse’s export Kiwi Jobs to China programme. So excuse us if we put the boot into your pathetic so-called ‘New Zealander’ Tory mates.
I see the rest of your comment is a typical vacuous thread hijack. Good one Sheridan.
Amusing watching a Tory troll with no credibility trying to define the standard for ‘credibility’. Seriously?
Keep backing Key and Woodhouse’ Export Kiwi Jobs to China programme, if you like.
Ship your kids off to work overseas, all there will be left for them to do here is a job asking “is that the burger or the combo?”
As an added bonus, if your child is 16 he or she can get paid $9/hr for the priviledge of helping a big American corporate make a tonne of NZ cash for shipping offshore.
there are a large, and growing larger, group of us who have had enough of the gentlemanly conduct in opposing what has been some insanely misguided policy introduced by this government….
Correct!
@Anne, you’re getting hysterical again. It seems this “growing” rather disparate group of ne’er do-wells and ne’er do workers are somewhat diminished in number. I recall 27% at last count. Be that as it may, it is clearly a desperate left that seems to be calling for violence rather than debate, in some lame ‘high school loner’ way, trying to look cool because no-one likes them. There are no policies that the public are prepared to waste a vote on for Labour. The most important aspect of claiming to be supported in politics is the actual level of support your policies have. CGT – no impact, GST off veges – no impact. First $5000 tax free – no impact. Well thats all the policy covered.
@CV…. quite right, I don’t get to set the standards…. but I do note recent comments by the Parliamentarians who do run this blog that they are sick of abusiveness on the site….. you know, the sort of thing where posters bully people by denigrating them with terms like “buddy it’s not your frakin blog”.
You might suggest it is a hijack; but in my view I’m addressing the very issue that Trevor has raised…. namely, that he suggested Woodhouse was a hypcrite for saying one thing and doing another (not that I am necessarily agreeing because I don’t know the facts of what Woodhouse said and did.).
… what I am saying is that if someone is going to take the moral high ground they shouldn’t undermine their Hillside by being incongruent (hillside pun intended).
To the other issue of exporting jobs to China… well that is probably a function of our lack of competitiveness and an effort that several decades of poorly executed governance (both public and private sector) could equally be credited with. I guess we could subsidise a whole range of industries and individuals to keep them in employment here… but somone would have to do the math on that for me to show that it makes economic and social sense. I’d be happy to read a cohesive argument from you on that .. and one that doesn’t involve me having to move overseas because I would be taxed so highly here.
Personally, I can see the competitive advantage that a company like Fonterra is taking advantage of here, and could even see that we might be a centre for manufacturing dairy infrastructure and intellectual property that could be exported (perpahs even IP for designing train sets)…. but I can see why others who make train sets might be able to do so more competitively than us.
Dave I’m as interested in debating with you mate as debating with a brick.
People are angry at the direction of NZ and your support for a party which is here to sell off our country piece by piece to foreigners. It shows that you yourself don’t mind your children and grandchildren living and working far away overseas since all they will be able to do here is ask is that the combo or just the burger?.
A large majority that I have asked (and I have asked hundreds) love those policies.
No asset sales and the every young person earning or learning come over very well too.
Oh, don’t forget the other major Labour policy: screw National’s sorry sell-out ass to the wall.
Dave don’t make things up. Try to read comments in the context they were said. It’s not that hard. For starters, I didn’t say it!
@williamsheridan
Well put arguments, and a shame that nobody is interested in putting up some more seriously analysis to your queries.
@CV
All very well to say things like “No asset sales and the every young person earning or learning come over very well too.”
Promising a utopia is fine, but very little in the way as to how to acheieve this. It also begets the question as to why this didn’t happen in the decade Labour had in power, which I might add were ‘good times’ in terms of record tax revenues, which were ultimately squandered on fanciful programmes and election bribes.
Now that the previous decade has been revealed as being a massive credit boom, and hence the tax revenues gained were as fraudulent as the poor loans made, the current government can’t but help adjust spending priorities. All very well for the government to spend money ‘saving’ some jobs, this is the seen. What is unseen is what jobs are lost in other areas of the economy because of this spending, which ultimately has to be paid for from taxation.
I also find it interesting that Labour has opposed any proposals for additional resource mining. You will note Hillside workshows also provides engineering services for mining equipment etc, hence perhaps if we were able to create more jobs in this industry engineering work would flow into this sector. Alas Labours very own policies do not help those it is pretending to be so concearned about.
@Dave – If Anne agreeing with something (saying “correct!”) means she is “getting hysterical”, might I suggest the Labour MP blog is clearly too “racy” for some of its tory readership.
@Williamsheridan – calling you out on the vacuous thread hijack was the right thing to do given that you admit you know nothing about the issue to which this post relates, and clearly do not WANT to be informed about it..
Don’t worry Dave and Williamsheridan, you guys can go post on that great MPs blog the National party has, where you can have a direct connection with the strong and principled tory hollowmen who represent you!
Oh, wait a second…
For clarity..
Who set up KiwiRail?
What is its status, SOE, company?
Is there an expectation that this business should be a good investment for the taxpayer?
Should this business be profitable and efficient?
Who ordered the trains?
MrV
It’s time we started thinking about a little bit of utopia. About the dream our grandparents had for Aotearoa. Because National’s free market globalised neoliberal ‘reality’ is sending this country and its people down the gurgler.
You’re economic mumbo jumbo is not going to fool anyone. Here is a simple idea: building societal and human capital via the consumption of massive edifices of stagnant financial capital is absolutely the right thing to do. And yes that will mean higher taxes on those who can afford it.
BTW mate the only proposals for ‘additional resource mining’ that Labour has opposed have been crap unsafe ones, and ones in the middle of pristine National Parks.
Interesting though that you would support that kind of mining.
@MrV – how about remaining on topic and confronting your candidate’s duplicity? NZ may not be a utopia now, but it sure as hell isn’t going to become one with hollow men trying to dupe their electorate.
@Tim, you’re a typical lefty, don’t like being challenged. The policies I listed are Labour policies, and they have not made one skerrick of difference to the support Labour has. You may say there is great support for these things, but I have yet to meet anyone who says this will change the way they vote. Policy statements with no traction are just “noise”.
@Tim…. I know plenty about the topic…. what I don’t know is what Woodhouse might have said at a closed meeting.
can’t tell if spam or just way off thread. Deleted. Trevor
well… hasn’t this post brought a few out from under the rocks!!!
i’m gratified to the trolls who sought to undermine my comments by displaying the sort of hypocrysy, and lack of intellectual vigor that has characterized the national governments approach to discussing the pressing issues that face us today…
i thank them for showing for all to see just why it is so important for a truly “grown up” debate to commence… unfortunately, these debates will have to go on without the representatives of the elitist cabal masquerading as our leaders…
my thanks especially go to sheriden the younger for openly failing to address the substance of my comment… this kind of petty sloganeering and deliberate misunderstanding demonstrate how far from reality this government has managed to remove itself….
we now have myriad examples of national mp’s engaging in deliberately misleading, and inflammatory rhetoric designed to derail any sensible discussion…. to the point of telling blatant lies, which of course, has been aided massively by the total failure of the “fourth column” to inform the electorate of the real situation regarding the intentions of this govt… indeed, they are acting out of obvious self interest in actively shielding this canine govt from scrutiny…..
so to the trolls…. bark away as hard and loud as you can… you do us all a favor by exposing the fallacy of your logic to the world at large… once again, i thank you.
A petition that 14,000 locals had signed would be making him feel a bit sick right about now and leading up to the election – he’s going to want an All Black victory just to get the voters minds off the scam he’s pulled on them.
He probably thinks it wont hurt his position being as he’s a list mp but the party will suffer for it.
The important questions I’ve raised and would like answers to are:
1. Has the committee asked for submissions on the petition?
2. Have the union and the Hillside workers been asked to submit?
3. Has anyone else been asked to submit?
4. What position Michael Woodhouse, the National List MP who lives in Dunedin, has taken, or plans to take on these issues.
The committee chair clearly is playing games and won’t respond. In parliament you can only ask the cttee chair questions on his actions, not the cttee’s as a whole.
Woodhouse, who sits on that select committee, says he’s bound by parliamentary privilege and can’t comment. He’s quite capable of giving a view publicly on what he thinks. Interestingly, he seemed reluctant to do so when the ODT asked him on Monday.
Hence my questions to the Select Ctte chair. Which I believe are quite appropriate.
Michael Woodhouse can, without breaching privilege, say now whether he will support a motion to be moved in the committee to allow the petitioner, the RMTU and the DCC to make submissions on the petition.
@bbfloyed LOL
!
@bbfloyd… Ummm, I’ve looked and can’t see any substance in your post to respond to.
The one thing glaringly obvious is that the rightwing, when discussing New Zealand’s economy do not see the people involved in that economy, or the damage done by rightwing policies such as exporting coach building to China in a time of recession.
When a country is not in recession you probably go for the global best deal. When a country IS in recession you look to provide for your own people, even if it involves an increased cost, which is easily offset by the savings on benefits for unemployed people like the Hillside workers may be.
But then a stronger workforce in New Zealand is the very last situation NAct want.
Williamsheridan is a perfect example of a wooden type of visionless thinking. He does not actually understand or care that many New Zealanders are hurting; he does not actually understand or agree that the economy should be run for the good of the people of this country, not for the profiteers, often not even living in this country, or worse still profiteers from this country, living in tax havens not paying their way,like Owen Glenn, who is now telling us that it’s good to sell off our SOE assets (Herald,Business).
@ sheridon the younger… that doesn’t surprise me..
this last few months i have been experiencing deja vu on a regular basis…. i’ve realised that this govt is acting increasingly like the muldoon administration was post 1978… by 1984, the results of having to maintain the fictions that muldoon and birch were projecting were manifest in almost total paralysis within the government…
it has become rather obvious that this lot havn’t even bothered with doing the “real” governing stuff before the pantomime got underway. sad, and scary at the same time..
i would be interested to know how many journalists have taken any notice of this…. it seems like something that deserves a bit of sunlight shone om it..
Woodhouse is following NActional’s time-honoured tradition of lying to voters. Hutchison did it in the Hunua electorate, promising to stand up for people against the Auckland bills – the first of which allowed for no select committee access and was the bill which removed assets from the control of the people that owned them, their Councils acting on their behalf, now gone. It also removed the right of voters to retain ownership unless 75% agreed to sell – this is stuff the size of Ports of Auckland, now being prepared for selling in July 2012. Hutchison then went to Parliament and ‘commended’ our betrayal ‘to the House’.
Phil Twyford tried to get a Bill through to safeguard them. NActU knocked it back.
@bb… I don’t see the relevance of your attempt at comparison. We’ve already had the wrongs of Muldoon and cohorts put right through the reforms of the 80s…. reforms which many in NZ seem still not to appreciate the necessity or the wisdom of.
I’m personally a fan of less government- but that doesn’t mean less, or poorer, governance.
With regard to Hillside I think it is fairly obvious that as a going concern it is in a more productive state than when government money was previously thrown at it… that might mean fewere people are working at Hillside but it does allow for wiser uses of taxes.
By the way…. is there some logic behind the “younger” label you put on me…. especially given you don’t know my age or experience. I could assume that you are so old that everyone else is younger than you, and that you judge old fellas know better than “youngsters” ; but then I would be judging that you have a rather prejudiced view of the world … so I won’t do that
williamsheridan do you see any link between the much lower wage rates in China and NZ businesses choosing to base themselves there?
To others, the Labour government signed the free trade agreement with China, hardly something to be laid at the feet of the right wing governments?
“@Tim, you’re a typical lefty, don’t like being challenged” If I were more contrarian I’d suggest this sounds almost hysterical.
Williams heridan I am guessing because you are not the original william sheridan he tagged you ‘the younger”.
No doubt the lower wage rates are one of the factors that might lead to a Chinese- or any other country – being able to offer NZ buyers a more favourable price. It equally could be other costs including cost of capital, a lower expected rate of return by the owners, lower taxes, lower raw material costs, lower compliance costs and so on and so forth. It might simply be there are economies of scale there that can’t be matched in NZ or numerous other countries.
I could equally ask you an overly simplistic question: do you see any link between the much higher wage rates in NZ versus (insert numerous countries here) and the higher cost of housing, groceries, taxes, consumer goods, professional service fees etc…….and the availablility of free healthcare, good roads, relative safety, relative uncrowding etc.
Yep…. life is relative and sometimes choices cost us.
I didnt suggest it was the only factor but to downplay it as one of the factors as you have may be a little disingenuous. Do you favour FTA’s?
Of course it’s other people’s choices affecting “us” that is the problem. For example The Warehouse chose to source from China and played a large part in the demise of some industries here, including apparel (death knell and all that), so while TWH employed people it also contributed to the unemployment of people in other businesses. So, TWH “choice” didn’t “cost” the Warehouse or its director/shareholders but it did affect NZ society etc (benefits to those laid off elsewhere included)
I’m particularly interested in this comment
“I think it is fairly obvious that as a going concern it is in a more productive state than when government money was previously thrown at it….” Can you tell me more with a source or two for further reading?
@Tracey… I’m not sure that I downplayed anything – though you have obviously assumed that.
It appears you have also assumed that the Warehouse’s choices caused a problem – when arguably what they did was the effect of the choice that consumers made of buying lower-priced goods products (though I reckon they often get inferior products with that choice so it is a false economic choice).
With regard to Hillside productivity improvements, there was a paper written some years ago about this:
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/wp/1999/99-10/twp99-10.pdf
For a more recent update you could simply talk with unions…. I’m sure they would say Hillside staff are more productive now than their equivalents were in the late 70s or early 80s. … and I’m not saying people didn’t work hard back then; but they have productivity tools such as new technology to support them now.
…. oh, and regarding FTA…. sure, I think it is great that New Zealanders get to see the World Cup on free-to-air TV.
Fair play Willaim you also make a few assumptions in your posts but I choose not to draw attention to them rather deal honestly and directly with you.
I don’t have the opportunity to speak with Unions, regularly or even intermittently, actually have never had that opportunity. In a dialogue such as this it is trite to advise me to talk to unions to get some substantiation for a comment you, not they made on the blog. You made a statement so I asked for the source behind it. If it was your opinion, that’s great, but say so when asked.
Are you saying consumers chose to buy the warehouses products before the first warehouse even opened? If not, then TWH made a choice and consumers availed themselves of it. I “assume” both TWH and consumers played a part, you “assume” that only consumers did.
“…. oh, and regarding FTA…. sure, I think it is great that New Zealanders get to see the World Cup on free-to-air TV.” Do you only like discourse within which you control the topic?
@ Tracey. Of course it’s opinion, but shaped by observation and information. You wanted substantiation and I gave it. Please don’t belittle me for that. This isn’t an academic site so I dont have to justify my comment, but I chose to.
Re customer choices, absolutely the warehouse catered for them. Stephen tindall has often been quoted on the fact that he wanted to give consumers what they wanted and built the business around that. His research proved to be correct.
Re unions. If you want to talk with them call them. They aren’t a secret hidden society. Don’t criticize me for telling you where you can get further information.
Re control issues. Yep, I have them but given your projection I suspect you know that. … And if I really wanted to control the dialogue I simply wouldn’t respond at all to any points raised
I rest my case