Thursday 29 January 2015

Sean Plunket and John Key spit their dummies:




Key and good mate Sean Plunket ,,,good kiwi blokes yeah right.

Chubby cheeked Sean Plunket opened his mouth and let the wind blow his Wellington Polytechnic School of Journalism.[1]   trained tongue about as he’d had a rant about New Zealand’s most successful author Eleanor Catton who wrote the hugely and world acclaimed book ‘The Luminaries’ which as most people know won the Man Booker prize.
Now according to wee Sean, Eleanor Catton should not have been critical of our Prime Minister and the behaviour of his Government. According to chubby cheeked Sean baby she should not be so out spoken, she should act like a good Kiwi woman and simply keep her mouth shut and her opinions to herself.
Sean really is a typical Kiwi male…women are to be seen and not heard…and like a good New Zealand Policeman who don’t investigate rape cases especially when they involve policemen or officers, national party politicians, bloggers who are friends of the PM, etc. women should be ignored and locked away in the cupboard only to be let out on special occasions...

I suppose we could now rightly claim that Sean Plunket has joined that elite group of nasty foul mouthed idiots who are close to the PM and therefor above the law. He joins with Paul Henry, Mike Hoskins, Jason Ede, Cameron [Whale Oil] Slater and money hungry Simon Lusk all these males are of a particular elk…anti-women, anti-worker, anti-free speech, in fact anti-democratic. But hey what’s new…
Can I suggest you read the editorial in Thursdays Manawatu Standard where Matthew Dallas wrote an worthy and professional editorial on the subject of Eleanor Cattons remarks.  You can read it at :  
The Luminaries author and Man Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton gets up Keys nose.


I can but agree with his headline: ‘Eleanor Cattons candour does NZ proud’ and simply add that Sean Plunket takes his foolish rant and shoves up his back-side…
Plunket was born in Christchurch, the son of journalist Patrick Plunket.[1] He was educated at Plimmerton Primary School and Nelson College from 1980 to 1982, where he was a member of the 1st XV rugby union team in 1981 and 1982.[2] He went on to study at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Journalism.[1]

Now he is simply some one who is constantly looking for regular employment...his latest effort was to take over from Michael Laws at News Talk ZB and boy was that a huge step backward...

Wednesday 28 January 2015

A look at our national and local media bias.



Australian TV flop Paul Henry

It’s a strange world we live in…we, well some of us, try really hard to be democratic, but the Main Stream Media [MSM] gives clear examples of opposite styles of behaviour almost every day. TV and the National MSM dailies are just populist and are in the process of becoming nothing more than, if you will excuse the language, ‘bullshit’ rags. No wonder the young don’t bother to read them. For example:

We have TV 3’s Paul Henry supposedly offering a balanced view of events, when all know [especially Australian TV and TV One] just how rude, foul mouthed, sexist and simply ignorant he is…they both sacked him…but John Key loves him…so TV 3 hired him [Well they had to do something for the gift of a forty million dollar interest free loan, that got them out of their financial dilemma].  

Mike Hoskin and his good buddy.
TV One, that once proud state TV channel has now become absolutely overrun by terrible low quality commercial advertising and overseas produced rubbish programmes that few, if anybody actually bothers to watch. It like TV3 hires well known failures to front what once were informative and factual news programmes. Now we get Seven Sharp! A programme all about its ‘presenter’ and his ‘female fall-guy’ and very little about honest news analysis, that is thought provoking or even stimulating and educational. Seriously folks could you take anything said by Mike Hoskins as intelligent…or even seriously.
The only Television channel that could be considered as informative and one that tells the truth is ‘Maori TV’ their interviewer / presenter of ‘Native Affairs’ 

Mihirangi Forbes.
Mihirangi Forbes is without doubt the master of the intelligent, transparent and balanced interview, she makes both Henry and Hoskins look like rank amateurs [which they are, which has been proven by the number of times they’ve been sacked or dumped].
She scares the pants off the PM and most of his cabinet lackeys, so they avoid being interviewed by her. In fact if Key comes up against an interviewer that he hasn’t written the questions for…he is absolutely hopeless. His most loved interviewer is without doubt Paddy Gower of TV3 infamy…who is on the same level as the NZ Herald [The National Parties mouth organ].
The print media is hardly worthy of that title…our overseas owned media is simply a pale representation of News Media in days past, when journalists were actually journalists both in educational terms and in actual reporting and investigative abilities. Name a journalist you know what fits the term ‘Investigative’ these days.
Investigation, for our MSM these days means listening to bloggers like Cameron Slater [Whale-oil] David Farrar [Kiwi Blog] Jason Ede [who has disappeared into a National Party PR Company run by a ex-Nat MP.  Big-time [for a price] image maker Simon Lusk, Cactus Kate, and other members of the Nats sleaze team as revealed by Nicky Hagar’s best seller ‘Dirty Politics’.
A local example of clap-trap media behaviour took place here in PN last Wednesday [25th Jan]. At seven pm in the public library, the local Fairfax newspaper, The Manawatu Standard hosted a public meeting of four of the nine mayoral candidates standing in a mayoral by-election. Now you may well ask why only four? After all there are nine candidates…it would seem highly unfair to allow only four to gets the chance for one last meeting with the public. It is also doubly unfair when you consider that the voting system being used is STV. Is this yet again dirty politics in action…did Jason Ede, or Simon Lusk come up with this idea…or was it Steven Joyce, it has a sort of a Steven Joyce feel about it.
Now you may well ask how were these lucky four selected…well according to the editor it went like this.
1.     They [MS] ran a poll [of around 400 of which 120 answered, but we do know that it was only to landlines [and we all know that these days hundreds of thousands cannot afford landlines], and according to one source, only four replies were from young voters [18 – 24].   
2.     The top scoring candidates [4] got to appear at the Manawatu Standards Rate payer funded library presentation at which the paper pushed its community worthiness. [Or could it be that Fairfax made a solid donation to the council for the hire of the library and the extra work of the poorly paid staff? According to staff, Fairfax did not, but according to some councillor candidates they have paid. My inquiries would suggest they paid nothing…so much for community spirit…
3.     Now we all [at least some] know the STV allows electors to rank candidates in order of preference. So a poll basically using a first past the post system is hardly worth the name at predicting an election outcome. And to back up this fact, the Manawatu Standard has a really, really bad and non-noteworthy predictability record based on recent predictions, for example they predicted that Labour lose PN, but they were wrong yet again in that regard..
Deeply embedded National Party undertones exist in our local paper and is clearly visible by its editorials and reports as well as its strange use of well-known right-wing so-called columnists, Act’s [Karl du Fresne] and National’s [Liam Hehir].
Karl du Fresne.
 Karl du Fresne is a well versed believer in ‘Voodoo or supply side economics’, he simply hates government controls of any sort but especially ones that protect the public from being ripped off unless the ones being ripped off are members of the 1% club. I don’t doubt that Thatcher and Reagan were his heroes a few years ago. But now that the Act Party only consists of one member who owes his all to the PM who gifted him a seat in Parliament thereby paying him [and this must really bug Mr du Fresne] over five hundred thousand dollars plus over three years…of TAX-Payers money! Yet Karl has not said one word about this misuse of public funds…how hypocritical can one become?

Liam Hehir, is a slightly different kettle of fish, he could be considered a sort of a ‘Toy-Boy’ who likes to play with the big boys, you see he is a lawyer [mainly dealing in property transactions as I
Liam Hehir
understand it], he was really selected by the Fairfax media hit men because firstly, he was probably cheap, if not free, and they knew he would preach the party line. They could well have known too that he once had connections to the now defunct Alliance party…a left wing party. Regardless of how he was purchased his input into the value of the Manawatu Standard was a complete flop. He spends all his allotted space telling the Labour Party what it needs to do to become more Right-wing than the National Party…He simply adores John Key’s style of selling off state assets, especially state houses and such like, and his feeling or compassion for those employed on starvation wage rates is a well-known joke around town. In fact he makes the middle class look radical…

Friday 23 January 2015

I confess to being political



I confess for being political
“Hi Peter,
Unfortunately, we cannot broadcast today’s Wheeler’s Corner. As it consists in its entirety of comments which disparage current mayoral candidates, this puts the programme in breach of the Electoral Act, which states: “Third parties cannot broadcast at any time a programme that appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote, or not to vote, for a party or candidate.

Your personal opinion of the various candidates is entirely acceptable to express as such on your blog, but when it is broadcast, it becomes subject to broadcast law. If you want to make claims about candidates on your radio programme, there needs to be a clear and accessible right of reply to those claims. Ideally, such commentary would come in the form of interviews with the various candidates where they could make their replies immediately and directly.

Unless you have an alternative plan you would like me to follow, today’s Wheeler’s Corner will be a repeat of the last episode broadcast. If you would like me to do something else, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can take the appropriate action before 11:45am.”

Now I received that message via email on the day my Wheelers Corner programme was due to be broadcast [Thursday 22nd Jan 2014]. I can understand why the message was sent, and I believe it was sent in good faith. If you are a reader of Wheelers Corner you will have received a copy of the issue and will have already read my comments on various candidates, some positive and some negative and yes I did suggest how I thought you might like to vote…but I did point out that it was your choice…and I even stated that you didn’t need to accept my opinion but that you did need to vote.I plead guilty and hope I will be forgiven and not sent to the block...you don't need to torture me, I confess [and I hate pain]

Anyway you are no doubt aware that an by-election is being held to replace Jono Naylor as the Mayor of Palmerston North. The voting papers have already being sent out and voting has actually started. 

The last day for voting will be on Tuesday the 10th of February 2015. Now the rules [law] as defined by the reference above http://www.elections.org.nz/media-handbook-publishers-and-broadcasters/part-2-election-broadcasting) commands that third parties [that means me and you if you broadcast] cannot suggest whom or whom not to vote for. Even if you are fully aware that what some candidates are pushing is simply not true or has had spin applied so as to give the words a sense of correctness or truth or factualness.

I accept that what I recorded to have broadcast was based on my Wheelers Corner published via email on the [21st Jan 2015] and that the station was compliant with the Broadcast rules… I truly believe that the rules are simply a means to stifle debate about the behaviour [well known and otherwise] of those standing for public office. Since I am on the board of Access Manawatu and was its chair for some years, I will naturally support the action taken by the Station management appointees.
Here is a copy of my Wheelers Corner published on the 21st Jan 2015:I have removed the pictures to save space:


Wheeler’s Corner
“Connecting Citizens Who Care“. Every Thursday at 11.45am on Access Manawatu 999AM” Join Peter’s blog http://wheelerscornernz.blogspot.com/  


04 22nd January 2015

This week: 1. “Helping you decide or sorting out the wheat from the chaff and a neat visit to Ashhurst, where Dennison makes a public confession”.
 1.
One of the big problems with any election is the way in which some candidates portray themselves for public consumption. It is easy to say one thing while knowing full well that it’s stretching the truth to suggest that the so-called facts actually have, or will have anything to do with later council or mayoral behavior.

This is best demonstrated by an example used by one candidate who said: ‘My Father was a social worker…therefor I must have inherited his behavioral concepts? Yeah right.

First term mayoral candidate Cr. Grant Smith claims that because his father was a social worker, that this means that he was taught or had demonstrated what the word ‘Community’ means…I have no comment to make about Mr. Smith senior…no doubt he is a very nice chap, at least I would hope so…but being a social worker in itself means almost nothing in regard to doing right by the ‘community’.

I mean local evidence is obvious, ex-Mayor Jono Naylor was a social worker, he even had a degree so I’m told, but he used his position as a social worker and PN Councillor to cancel a community grant of a thousand dollars to an organisation named ‘PANIC’ whose role was to question the behavior of the then Social Welfare Department in taking control away from family members, Social Welfare was the outfit [SWD] that used to employ Jono Naylor. In fact at the time it appeared that Jono was being really rather hypocritical… because the argument was actually about ‘so-called Christian beliefs vs a more humanistic approach.

I have found that much conservative evangelistic fundamentalist practice is in itself a very restrictive and autocratic style of social behavior practice and was even damaging to young people, because it is and was extremely judgmental which in turn has little connection to, modern day social work practice, Other candidates are equally guilty of the same hypocritical behavior.

Take for example the weird mayoral candidate Ross Barber who calls his team…Team God!; I say weird in a humorous way, because he believes that all the present councilors are in fact crooks…or is it Devils? Why because they allow fluorination of our water… and according to Mr. Barber’s biblical way of thinking that’s murder, but wait for it, he still wants to represent them by being their boss and public leader…If that’s not hypocritical I don’t know what is. Surely he’d want to see them all in jail, or caged as possibly his pigs are [he is a pig farmer and to be honest I don’t know if it’s open range or caged or boxed/crated…I can only hope it’s open range…for the pigs sake, I’m sure that if the pigs had the vote they would vote for Ross. Ross had a earlier run in with the legal system: go to http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9857092/Mayoral-candidate-guilty-of-assault to read more and decide if you’d like him looking after your youngsters.

The last negative example among the present bunch of candidates who is are standing for mayor is without doubt Cr. Vaughan Dennison, [according to some] a good born-again evangelistic fundamentalist Christian, one who has completely changed his views in the last few weeks since Naylor’s flight down to Wellington, firstly he was against improvements to what is now known as Te Manawa, he voted against changes to the Art Gallery, the Museum, and especially the Globe Theatre improvements. Now of course he absolutely adores them…yeah right. Dennison’s attendance record and negative actions on protecting or supporting social based organisations like the Community Service Council was and is shocking. He voted to cancel grants to groups he didn’t like [PANIC etc.] his bias has been shocking and very disheartening for the more progressive community groups..

Naylor forcibly made him [Dennison] chairperson of the much weakened [2014] Community Development Committee when the majority of councilors preferred Cr. Lew Findlay for the role…Seriously folks Dennison couldn’t even get his residential address correct…simply because it proved that he lived out of the PN City Council area. If you would like to read more about Dennison’s strange behavior and about how Naylor saved his bacon go to: http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/9394066/Dennison-address-furore-a-beat-up and you decide if it was a beat up…or someone being caught out telling porkies.
In the latest voting papers he says his address is in the PN City area…but I can’t find out what address he now resides at? Is he still telling porkies? Maybe the media can tell us.

So I believe those are three candidates you should not vote for when you receive the voting papers.       

Now it’s true that every candidate suggests that you should make them number one…so I see nothing wrong we me suggesting how you could vote: You can ignore the suggestions or consider them. That is naturally over to you, but please, whatever you do VOTE,

Who should you vote for! Here are my suggestions…

I would suggest that you give Number One or two to: Lew Findlay or Tangi Utikere.

I will number Abi Symes and Sue Pugmire three or four respectively.

I will not be numbering any other candidates for to do so would or could harm the chances of my first two options being successful.

Ashhurst speaks: The Candidates meeting held last night [Tuesday 20th Jan] outside on a beautiful, but later chilly night on the Ashhurst Library grounds was sponsored by ‘The Friends of the Library’ and chaired by Harvey Jones, a past Ashhurst Ward Committee Chairperson…this beautiful spot amongst trees and a community garden showed clearly the energy and collectiveness of the village known as Ashhurst.

The aspiring want-to-be mayors all had their say and as at all the meetings thus far my rating of their performance was much the same. Lew Findlay and Tangi Utikere topped my list, with Abi Symes and Sue Pugmire displaying a clear and profound empathy for the residents of this wonderful village as did both Lew and Tangi.

But a bit of startling news did become public after a question asked of all the candidates by myself: “Do you think that a mayor of PN should live in PN?”…One by one the candidates answered the question with the answer YES. But Dennison went further; he made a public statement and said…After the last election there was a bit of a non-event about where I lived. I lived about one and a half K outside of the city. So as to make sure that I was actually living in the City, last August [2014] I moved back into the city… so at last we finally got a confession that his residential statement [made two years ago] was incorrect. At the last local government elections, and since this oath made in 2013 would have appeared to have been knowingly false, Dennison’s position on council surely must be in doubt. Another point is, how he knew there could be a by-election for mayor coming up so as to put his property outside the city on the market and move into the city…had Jono suggested such behavior…I get the feeling that Dennison is making it up as he goes along, and this would be very unbecoming of someone wishing to be mayor…

Peter J Wheeler