Richard Boock has a wonderful ability to make us think and laugh at the same time. His latest piece is a classic
Disaster Tourism? I know, fair enough; it does sound quite bad. But we’ve got to look at the positives. John Key reckons the maritime emergency off Tauranga would be much worse if Labour were in power. He’d had that on good authority, apparently. Someone told him that, if there were to be a change of government, the next oil slick would be far more widespread, the crude more toxic and the weather more extreme. Kiwis would probably die.
Even so, Tourism NZ’s “100% Pure” campaign is in tatters. A Twitter pal was suggesting some new slogans the other day. “Come to New Zealand – Wash a Penguin”, was a favourite. “New Zealand – Where Endangered Species Become Extinct”, also polled well. I could see her point, too. It worked in Chernobyl, after all. Tourism there is (almost) bringing the place back to life. What genius; being able to rape the countryside and profit from it as well. Talk about a win-win.
Say what you like about Key’s National-led government but its ability to see the cost of everything and the value of nothing remains undiminished. “There’s Always A Silver Lining” should be on its coat of arms. Four days of inaction while the Rena’s oil was salvageable. Declining offers of expert assistance. Using dodgy and possibly more toxic chemicals than the crude oil as a dispersant. Treating the locals like idiots. Haven’t we heard all this before?
Ah well, we can’t say they haven’t been consistent. When it comes to the importance of the environment, the Nats have always placed it well down their list of priorities. Unless it can be flogged off, that is. Hence the Prime Minister on breakfast TV yesterday desperately claiming that the Rena disaster wouldn’t highlight concerns over his government’s deep sea oil exploration programme. Don’t know about you, but I think he may have jumped the gun there a bit.
I don’t always agree with RB, but I always get something from his articles. He makes one think, a rare thing from a newspaper piece these days.
It amazes me how all of a sudden everyone in the country is a disaster management and salvage expert, or a maritime engineer. I don’t know what Boock expects – yes, birds have died. Does he want us to stop exporting? It’s the only way to completely mitigate the risk of a ship hitting shorelines.
I’ll wait until a Commission of Inquiry establishes if there was an error in the way the response was handled. Forgive for taking the opinions of sports writers and politicians with agendas with a grain of salt.
The point is everyone’s NOT an expert in it, so they needed leadership to help inform them to avert armchair experts causing undue panic and anger. This is what politicians are for.
Anyway this no different to any other topic, teachers, education, health and so on… I mean every parent int he country seems to think they are experts on teaching.
What I find disgusting about this whole thing is opposition MPs using it to try to gain political advantage. In other words, bottom feeding.
And here we have Trevor Mallard, trying to convince everyone that he is fit to be a Minister and Labour are fit to govern… by making jokes about the biggest maritime disaster in the country’s history.
I was a swing voter up until I read that, Trevor, and probably swinging more towards Labour. Not now. That was the last straw.
If that is your last straw then you really had decided before then if you are honest with yourself. For example, if you were a swing voter how come the PM’s lying over S & P wasn’t your last straw, or his lie about who was responsible for the BMW’s? Or who was responsible for rolling over the SCF guarantee? Or that 1/7th of National’s placards for the election politicse the earthquake in Christchurch. That he claims credit for low interest rates which are a result of the precarious global situation.
The S&P comment is a “beltway issue” – nobody cares if he made some silly comment in parliament. They all do it all the time. The BMWs? Seriously?
I haven’t personally seen any billboards that politicise the earthquake. I’d be pretty pissed off about that too if it’s as you say. And being in government means he can claim the low interest rates, just like every government ever has claimed anything they could.
So a bit of tit for tat about BMWs or who’s to blame for what is just political rubbish. However re-posting jokes about the country’s global image as a result of a devastating disaster on the official labour party blog is on a totally different level in my book.
RB , wake up and smell the oil. labour is criticising the governments slow response. Ask the locals about what they think , they will tell you in far stronger terms what they think.
The rest of us can see you are just playing a concern troll, to further nationals agenda, which is ‘not our problem’
the really sad aspect of many of the responses to this post is that , in the main, the only defense that can be raised is to decry the “politicizing” of the issue….
so, we are to understand that the only person, or people allowed to politicize any issue is the pm, and the cabinet?
and are we to assume that any criticism, regardless of how appropriate, or factually accurate, should be regarded as “political”, therefore irrelevent as long as it doesn’t support the political agenda of the current govt?
is it just my impression, or are we being treated to some rather blatantly hypocritical, self serving nonsense based on a complete fiction?
Disaster tourism?? What about the photo of Phil Goff in suit tie and shiny shoes holding a brand new shovel purporting to help clean the beach of some oil. He is not even holding the shovel correctly. For Pete’s sake the Boock piece is an opinion of a journalist blogging about things he has no real knowledge of. OF course his snide reference to Key’s holiday ‘mansion’ as part of the piece shows where he is coming from. All this talk of a slow response. It is an evolving situation and almost all responses to a disaster like this have the same incubation period as it escalates. Do the research, it’s available. Boock’s article is pure partisanship hiding under his ‘concern for our environment’.
Offensive. Banned. Clare
“official labour party blog”
“These are the voices of Labour MPs on issues that we care about – and we’d like to hear what you think too. What you’ll read are the individual opinions of MPs. We won’t always agree with each other and sometimes our opinions may change.”
Ralph B – how many times does someone have to be caught in lies before it matters to you? Just interested given your last straw comment?
The BMW’s matter because the PM’s first public response was to say the contract was committed to and National couldn’t getout. Lie. S & P is important because he lied, or used ridiculously light information to project fact. His first response to the SCF bailout was to say it was down to Labour. A lie because in fact Bill English rolled it over despite a warning from Treasury. You may consider these
things a beltway issue, I consider, from a man who campaign on transparency and honesty and higher standards than the prior government, this is shabby.
“so, we are to understand that the only person, or people allowed to politicize any issue is the pm, and the cabinet?
and are we to assume that any criticism, regardless of how appropriate, or factually accurate, should be regarded as “political”, therefore irrelevent as long as it doesn’t support the political agenda of the current govt?”
That is beginning to look the case for some posters here.
Eric – Key wore a suit and tie to the beach.
Goff came, he helped, he spoke to people and that’s all good!
If he didn’t come he would have been slagged off as well!
Spud, fair call about the clothes but the shovel! He should have gone there talked to people but ditched the phoney worker bit. Actually my daughter was on the beach nearby him and there was no talking to people, he came he saw he posed he shoveled (photo was taken) and he left with the two people he came with.
naughty, naughty Trev…you left out Boocky’s last sentence….
Ralph B – if that was the last straw b….r orf back to the rightwing blogs.
Like it or not, the BOP disaster is a political issue…why else would Tony Ryall stop cutting ribbons up and down the country; Simon Bridges stand around on TV looking staunch; and John Key make more promises he won’t keep…I’m still waiting for his hand-of-god trick with Coro St…he promised…just like he promised the Pike River families…
and…isn’t it strange how all these disasters seem to be happening in National electorates?
Was Boocky tipped off early….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5785798/Red-zone-bus-tours-start-next-month
+1 for everything Tracey has written here.
The West Coast isnt a real National Electorate, never has been and never will be.
Goff should have taken off his Tie and rolled up his sleeves, and in fairness, the comment about him not knowing how to hold a shovel is rubbish.
Can anyone here, including the Trolls ever imagine Mr Key using a shovel, or concreting, or using any form of power tool, or cracking open a coldie after a days work.
National are a bit like the Allblacks at the moment, they should win, all the experts are expecting them to win, but there a few things that have just happened that are showing cracks
the difference is that the ALL Blacks are committed, have leaders all across the park, and have a desire to win for all NZ, wearas national are all words, no action, lack real leadership and have a desire to win for only a small part of NZ.
“Can anyone here, including the Trolls ever imagine Mr Key using a shovel, or concreting, or using any form of power tool, or cracking open a coldie after a days work.”
Not really, I can see Key using a spade and calling it a shovel. Concreting? well that would depend on what he was burying, power tool? I guess there is always Simon. Now, cracking open a cold one after work? I recall a time back at the opening ceremony where he seemed to have cracked one before work but claimed he wasn’t working.
Go figure