There’s been a bit of media kerfuffle about some facebook comments I made about Sir Peter Leitch on Monday. Normally this kind of fuss wouldn’t bother me much, but I’ve had another look at what I said and reckon I went too far.
Peter’s a top bloke and he’s done a lot for Kiwi communities, and even though we might disagree on politics these days, I’ve still got a lot of respect for him.
So, Peter, if you are reading this, sorry about the comments. Oh and we should catch up for a beer sometime – my shout. Enjoy the game at the weekend.
Hopefully, everybody is a philanthropist in their own way and within their means. Just like most people I always try and give a small donation to charities which collect in the street or ring in the evening. Just because some people are richer and have the means to give more, that doesn’t mean ordinary people can’t still criticise their political statements, especially if that political support is for policies that are hurting those who are the poorest and least powerful in the community.
What a lot of people fail to realise is that starting and owning a business is bloody hard work. Sir Peter wasn’t always rich and he struggled just like many others. His determination and attention to customer service was what made the difference. He has been doing work in the community since he started out so it’s not as though he just started giving once he was wealthy – which he gives a lot of it away anyway.
Judging by numerous examples of such people, it is also very easy to forget your roots when you are rich, powerful and famous. Even to the extent of supporting policies which harm those from the community you came from.
@Thomas – Labour has great people, great policies and will fight for this election!
!
Hi Hilary!
“hasn’t grasped the size of this clanger and (2) needs to be taught how to make a real apology.”
Yes far more important than holding a PM to account for his constant lying about the role of the sas, and when finally caught in it, by the Commander and Mapp, an apology? Nah, just an hour gig on a radio station plumping for the retention of Coronation Street. If as so many claim here, over and over, Labour is a non event int his election, then the outrage and focus needs to be on those who will be in charge for the next 3 years. If we do not hold them to account for the lies they are telling now, how do we squeal after the election when they do more flop flops?
spud: Labour has good people, but it also has bad apples. And let’s just say that Labour policy is lacklustre.
Methinks that the putting the dole into apprenticeships thing is a good idea!
The first $5,000 a person earns will be tax free!
Woo Hoo! 
Huh huh?
Tracey – whether you like it or not (and do I detect that you perhaps don’t
) people have warmed to JK.
Labour MPs being really personally nasty about him, and people who seem to like him, isn’t going to change that. In fact it’s going to achieve the exact opposite of what Labour needs to be doing.
Rather than making it obvious how jealous they are of the way in which JK connects with the public, and how outraged they are that it’s unjustified, Labour MPs should be trying to convince the electorate that they’re nice people as well.
I don’t know any Labour MPs, but I’ve seen commented here that most are really decent people, and I have no reason to disbelieve that that’s the case. Which means when it gets nasty, like Darien was the other day, and Louise was in her defence, and Clare seems to manage instinctively more and more often, it undersells the people they are.
At the end of the last parliament Labour were removed largely because a big section of traditional Labour voters thought the party that was the natural home for their vote was out of touch. To win them back you have to convince them otherwise. (I consider myself one of these winnable voters, believe it or not). At the moment all the party is doing by their poor personal behaviour is to convince them/us they/we were right all along.
spud: Labour has good people, but it also has bad apples.
Are you Inferring that Darien Fenton is one of those bad apples Thomas?
What a crazy beat-up over nothing! Darien criticises Peter Leitch who stupidly (in my view) exhorted others to vote for his new found brother-in-arms (John Key) only weeks before a General Election. By doing so, he was asking for brick-bats and he got em. For him to then cry foul and pretend to be gutted…
And btw, those who claim Leitch supported the last Labour govt.? Wrong. He was happy to be associated with Helen Clark when she was prime-minister, but he never politically endorsed her or the Labour Party. In fact he is on record at the time as saying… he never commented on the politics. Yeah right!
@ Hillary – totally agree with your statement re not forgetting your roots. I probably should vote National because I am financially comfortable, have a mortgage free home, my husband was able to subscribe to a good superannuation scheme back in his early teaching days which brings in a good pay cheque once a month now he’s retired and we’re still working [part-time] to give us a few extras to enjoy. BUT I still remember my parents’ recollections of being dumped on the scrapheap of unemployment when they married in 1931[my dad lost his trucking business overnight]and it wasn’t until Michael Joseph Savage and his Labour Government gave them a life line they were able to re-establish a relatively modest lifestyle in their later years. I have not forgotten this and to this day vote Labour [well, I did swallow a few rats in the late 1980s] and will take a hell of a lot of convincing to vote otherwise.
@ Hillary – totally agree with your statement re not forgetting your roots. I probably should vote National because I am financially comfortable, have a mortgage free home, my husband was able to subscribe to a good superannuation scheme back in his early teaching days which brings in a good pay cheque once a month now he’s retired and we’re still working [part-time] to give us a few extras to enjoy. BUT I still remember my parents’ recollections of being dumped on the scrapheap of unemployment when they married in 1931 [my dad lost his trucking business overnight]and it wasn’t until Michael Joseph Savage and his Labour Government gave them a life line they were able to re-establish a relatively modest lifestyle in their later years. I have not forgotten this and to this day vote Labour [well, I did swallow a few rats in the late 1980s] and will take a hell of a lot of convincing to vote otherwise.
Unlike Jilly Bee, I’ve always voted Labour because of CURRENT policies, and my feelings for whether CURRENT Labour candidates seem capable of effectively carrying them out.
Sadly, all that is over now…
Reading the comments on this thread, it is now clear to me that the only hope for Labour is if some proper non-union liberalised lefties from outside of parliamentary politics arrive to oust the old guard and take over, as Key did with National.
Competent, smart people from the real world. Not feckless union people who expect a groudswell of workers to vote for them no matter what, out of some odd kind of loyalty to past Labour Parties now dead and gone.
The incumbent closed shop clique of union people are just clueless, there’s no future with them.
I expect Clare will be along soon to delete this comment. She cannot, however, delete my party vote which is now with the Greens. Respect has to be earned.
Anne: You don’t get it do you. Let me spell it out for you.
Labour is supposed to represent the interests of all New Zealanders—not half of New Zealanders, not Labour voters, not the “working class”. Every single New Zealander deserves a fair go whether they are rich or poor, urban or rural, left-leaning or right-leaning, Maori or non-Maori, male or female, old or young, straight or queer. Politics is a contest of ideas, not people. It isn’t one half of New Zealand at war with the other half. It should be (and mostly is) all of us cooperating and debating the best way forward.
These sorts of comments show that some in Labour have the wrong mentality—”us and them”. Peter Leitch disagreed with Labour—that’s all, a difference of opinion. Somehow this was interpreted as a betrayal and warranted an attack on his personality and (former) business. Is that fair to a hardworking philanthropist?
National are doing a better job of being an inclusive party and the polls reflect that. This is really basic, Labour should not have trouble with this.
In purely pragmatic terms, think of it this way: In order to win an election, Labour needs to win back voters. In particular, Labour needs to convince some people who voted for National to switch to Labour. In the case of Peter Leitch, Darien Fenton has done a poor job of doing so. If a Labour door-knocker had that attitude, I’d slam the door in her face.
Get it together Labour!
well well…. turns out Helen Clark’s “wreckers and haters” are now another faction in her party.
Tough times ahead for the NZLP.
Peter Leitch disagreed with Labour—that’s all, a difference of opinion
So we’re into fairy stories are we Thomas. Take your off-topic and right-wing factless diatribes back to Kiwiblog and The Whale where you belong.
Anne are you part of a right wing conspiracy to make Lab’s supporters look tribal, venal and ridiculous?
OK, here is some free advice for Labour.
Its something everyone except 30% of this country has grasped
Labour have lost THEIR roots. They are no longer the “working mans party” , they have become a party of self servicing politicians telling us all what is good for us, whether we agree or not.
Fentons comments about Peter epitomize labours opinion of the public!
A man who has supported them for over a decade, performed countless acts of charity, then makes ONE comment and suddenly they STAB HIM IN THE BACK.
THAT is the current Labour party, and THAT IS WHY THEY CANNOT WIN THE ELECTION.
As soon as they start to TRY win us back instead of telling us we are wrong and insulting us….they will suddenly find people caring what their policies are…until then…get used to Opposition status
@Appleheart
I have thought the same on occasion but I think that Anne’s flavour of unintentionally humorous, Manichaean, conspiricist, dogmatic frothing would be beyond the satirical rendering of most political commentators/operators in NZ.
Maybe Danyl @ Dimpost might bring it off but I can’t think who else.
To be fair though, the same can be said of a lot of the comments on Kiwiblog or the Standard so Anne is by no means unique.
At least it gets the RWNJs leaping around like two-bit jack in the boxes Gregor W. Can’t accept the truth – especially from a woman? Have to get silly and personal?
I said the Fenton story is a crazy beat-up over nothing. It is.
I said Peter Leitch was stupid in the first place for making a partisan political statement endorsing JK so close to the election
He was.
I said that in doing so, he was asking for brick-bats in response. He was.
And for the record there has been plenty of criticism in other sections of the public domain – not just Darien and Louisa.
So, because he has donated a lot of money to good causes no-one is allowed to criticise him? I call b—–t on that.
“So, because he has donated a lot of money to good causes no-one is allowed to criticise him?”
Anyone can criticise him. And anyone has to accept that there could be a backlash if they annoy people with their criticism.
Whether Sir Peter’s comments were stupid or not doesn’t matter, he’s not standing for election. If some candidate’s comments are seen as stupid during an election campaign it might matter to fellow candidates and to potential voters.
Freedom to speak can have consequences
Your final paragraph is an interesting window into your world, Anne. Donating a lot of money to good causes i.e. ACTUALLY HELPING THOSE IN NEED in the way you are most able to is all very well, but it’s no substitute for being a Labour true believer. Nice.
“So, because he has donated a lot of money to good causes no-one is allowed to criticise him? I call b—–t on that.”
No-one’s saying you’re not allowed to criticise him. Please don’t do what the right-wingers do and pretend it’s a freedom of speech issue.
Plenty of people seem to think you are wrong in choosing to criticise him for merely having a good word to say about Key.
@ Anne
I guess I object to your subjective truth being the only truth.
Anyone who disagrees stoops to ‘factless diatribes’.
All other POVs are ‘fairy stories’.
And finally, yes, it’s all about you being a woman.
You got me.
Anne (and all the others who just don’t get it):
You have every right to tell it as you see it. And you have every right to be as brutally honest, to whomsoever you whish, when you’re doing the telling.
BUT
The voting public has every right to look at you and to think that what you say, and how you say it, is out of order, and on that basis to decide that they’re far less, rather than more. likely to support any party for which you’re currently evangelising.
Just as long as you, and the Labour Party, understand that those are rules by which the electoral game is played. The idea is to get MORE votes than the other crowd rather than FEWER.
Controversial, George.
Are you too blind to see?!
Non-Labour voter = cigar chomping, brandy swilling fatcat class enemy with jackboot firmly pressed on the throat of the workers!
John Key = encouraging the sale by parents of starving, lice-ridden toddlers to child slavers for hunks of stale weevil-filled bread!
I mean, wake up man!
Ahhhh lets not get too intense about this. Peter Leitch is a legend. Darien Fenton had a brain fart. At least she gave him a new experience – being speechless/gobsmacked. The Butcher would have got over it already. Too many things to focus on – the Warriors winning the grand final. And sadly Carter’s groin. Never thought I would be focussing on a man’s groin.
The RWC is a chance to party – not necessarily in the alcohol sense of the word. But feel good about who we are, although Carter’s groin – sad. The victories of Ireland and Tonga have given me hope the underdog can win against expectations.
{deleted, personal abuse. You are banned, Grant}
@Anne
When are the rabid Labour Party supporters going to realise that most voters neither belong to the old school union movement or the right wing ‘sell everything, everyone for themselves’ but actually vote middle ground these days. Those days you long for are gone. Alienating these people, like me, by your left vs right comments does not do any favours for Labour.
I very much hope that someone from the Labour Party is reading the comments by most of the posters here. They will discover why they are trailing in the polls. There are a lot of people out there who would like to vote for Labour but are put off by the continued slagging of other people and their ideas rather than spending time courting would be voters with good policy and courtesies. Actually, overnight, Phil Twyford has actually done what a candidate should be doing and that is advancing sensible ideas to help people in general. Well done Phil with your submissions on a North Western busway proposal.
Interesting photo posted by Phil Goff recently…
Who is sucking up to Whom now??
Once again, it would appear that as far as Labour are concerned…its only a problem if the “other side” do it.
If Goff wanted to mend fences then good on him!
Spud
I agree completely… good on him , bit of a shame though that Fenton didn’t face him and mend the fence when she should have, but that’s another story.
The problem with Goffs photo, is it smacks of hypocrisy. After one of his own made an attack about “sucking up”, there he is (in the typical politicians pose in front of the camera) looking like he’s doing the same thing.
Firstly he shouldn’t have posted the photo, secondly the tweet should have been something less “set-up”, like “Just been to the netball game, met up with Peter. Had a great night”. Simple, to the point and doesn’t sound like he’s sucking up.
Thats just my opinion though, I could be wrong. It been known to happen before