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Canterbury MPs earthquake update

Posted by Clayton Cosgrove on August 18th, 2011

Over the past 5 months Labour’s Canterbury MPs, Ruth Dyson, Lianne Dalziel, Brendon Burns and myself, have been writing a daily bulletin to keep people in our electorates and media informed about what is happening at a grass roots level in Canterbury. This has also included a weekly newsletter which has been sent to our Canterbury networks. We thought that it would be worthwhile to start posting this newsletter on Red Alert so the rest of the country can be updated on important issues in our electorates. For anyone interested in viewing last week’s edition you can click here while our daily bulletin can be viewed online here.

Clayton Cosgrove, MP for Waimakariri, Labour Earthquake Recovery spokesperson.

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Posting from Labour’s EQ recovery spokesperson

Posted by Clayton Cosgrove on February 24th, 2011

Emergency service staff, whose priority is saving lives, are doing everything they can in what resembles a war zone. I have been helping distribute emergency phone numbers and I have come across some tremendously moving human stories. I was speaking with a woman whose relative had been killed. The person had accepted that, but didn’t know where the body was being kept. At the Hagley Park centre I was talking to a senior St John man who was marshalling his troops, and who told me his elderly father had gone into the city that day and he hadn’t been able to make contact with him since. It was amazing that given what he was going through he was still continuing to marshal his troops.

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Get your facts right

Posted by Clayton Cosgrove on August 27th, 2010

Labour believes that the Parliament genuinely is a people’s parliament. Even if  people have differing views.So when Labour was asked (by the National Party on behalf of the Speaker) whether we objected to the Sensible Sentencing Trust holding a conference in the parliament, we said no we don’t object. After all the parliament is actually owned by the people.

It is our understanding that all the major parties were asked.

That’s it. The Labour Party was never approached to co-host. I was never approached or asked if my name could appear on the invitation. This happened without my knowledge or my permission.

Perhaps The Standard should have checked.

End of.

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, democracy, parliament
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Jim was the man, Judith didn’t figure…

Posted by Clayton Cosgrove on September 15th, 2009

When Ministers in the previous Labour government opened new buildings or conferences, it was their custom to acknowledge National Party MPs who had made a special contribution to the event or opening. Not to do so is small-minded.

Police Minister Judith Collins consistently shows herself to be just so small-minded. That doesn’t worry me personally, but I was absolutely gobsmacked on Friday when she opened the new Christchurch South police station, and failed to mention the immense debt this new building owes to the advocacy of Progressive MP Jim Anderton over a decade and a half. Instead, Collins trumpeted the new building as proof of National’s commitment to police and policing. National had nothing to do with this new station except as de facto purchasers of the ribbon Judith Collins cut. The station was planned and funded under Labour, but inspired by Jim Anderton’s tireless support.

Judith Collins was incredibly ungracious. The police and public around the country have come to expect that, but Jim Anderton deserved better. Perhaps this picture of Jim and former Minister Annette King turning the first sod at the station site helps redress the balance.

kinganderton

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Filed under: police
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