DPF Defends Decent Don

It’s well-known DPF is close to Don Brash. Hell, who can forget the hilarious moment when The Don directly contributed to Kiwiblog to amend his description of the current government as the most corrupt in history (he amended it, “The Clark Labour Government is the most corrupt government in the last hundred years” - ho, ho!). Thankfully, Don was cut short by some rather spectacular spamming ruining the thread (as an aside, I wonder whether Davey boy counted all the spam hits when reporting his stats to Spanblather??)

So it should be no surprise he’s a little defensive when people discussing the Mallard/Tau contretemps and they have the cheek to reference the Brash affair. But geez, standing up for your mate is one thing, “re-imagining” history is best left to the experts at Disney.

Sam Dixon reasonably argued Mallard’s personal situation is fundamentally different to the Brash incident because:

1. Mallard having separated is a free-agent to have relationships
2. There’s not a compelling public interest in Mallard’s personal relationships.

It’s hard to argue with Sam’s logic. Unlike Don, Mallard is separated and few people would call a subsequent relationship “an adulterous affair”. Unlike Don, Mallard did not set himself up as some sort of high-moral authority on family values.

In response, Farrar joins the fray with this quixotic defence:

“Sam lies when he he states Don Brash campaigned on being Honest Don or some such. Don is probably the only MP to have openly admitted he had been unfaithful to his first wife. Sam is depserate for any excuse”

But only someone with advanced amnesia could forget how Don poured out his soul about the lessons he learned after cheating on his first wife with his (now) current wife. It was part of his careful spin to develop this persona of being an honest, slightly awkward non-political politician.

And then, who can forget Don’s wild flip flopping over the Civil Union Bill and this revealing quote:

“I made it very clear in the debate on that issue that I thought this should be dealt with by referendum because it’s a big change in the civil institutions of society. I also said that in the referendum I would vote for it because I have no problem with same sex couples committing to live together faithfully as heterosexual couples do“

Yeah, that’s right - heteros don’t play outside of marriage, eh Don?

Don Brash absolutely set himself up as some sort of fresh, open leader with integrity. He wasn’t. He was a hypocrite. I don’t think Mallard should have made those infamous utterances in the House - but the media seized on it because they knew about Brash’s hypocrisy but didn’t know how to report it. Mallard simply supplied an excuse.

Mallard’s alleged assault of Tau was stupid and also newsworthy. But his personal life is not of public interest. Unlike the hypocritical Don.

Vanity Post Alert

Buried in an innocuous piece on fibre optic cable.

roger…eats at Davey’s table

“Had a pleasant evening tonight.  I caught up with Roger Gnome at the good old Captain Cook and had some beer and nachos.”

So, rog, were you won over by the Billiteracy?

Farrar: Labour Leadership

Farrar’s analysis of the Mallard v Henare incident is an obvious piece of propaganda.

First off, DPF uses a hypothetical to represent Clark as being inconsistent:

“What would Helen Clark be saying if a National MP had punched in the face/head a Labour MP?

I think we could all imagine.”

God, what a dickhead thing to say. Imagine away, DPF - imagine away.

We also have no idea what Clark would be saying if a National MP had punched a Labour MP in the head - because it didn’t happen. I am not even sure Clark would be able to authoratitively say how she would react - because her reaction would no doubt be based on the specific facts of the case.

Anyway, DPF then goes on:

“In just one week Phil Goff has gone from being an outside chance of the next Labour Leader, to the near undisputed Leader in Waiting.

Maharey, Mallard and Goff have always been the three heavyweight contenders. Other possibilities like Gosche and Benson-Pope have fallen by the wayside. And others like Jones are far too new. So amazingly in one week Maharey is out, and so effectively is Mallard. Phil Goff can’t believe his luck. And even better for Goff he genuinely had nothing to do with it.”

First off, how the fuck would a Tory party backroom gnome like DPF know whether Goff was interested in the Leadership of the Party? Davey assumes that, with the potential rivals (in a competition dreamt up in Davey’s febrile imagination) having fallen by the wayside, Goff now has a free run at the Labour Leadership.

Finally, he takes a tilt at Labour’s internal politics by implying there’s underhand political shenanigans going on in Labour by disingeneously suggesting that Goff would lbe happy because he had “nothing to do with it” - as if the normal modus operandi of supposed aspirant Leaders is to undermine potential competitors. I think David’s personal involvement in the Key/Brash/English slag-fest has contaminated his own perceptions of how parties and grown ups work.

Word of advice, DPF, not every political party behaves with the same low grade nastiness that plagues the “gents” of the National Party. Don’t judge others by your own standards.

So should we start scoring?

As regular readers know, we’ve previously mooted the idea of running a competition on Davey’s unabashed vanity posting. But DPF’s recent post about appearing on Holmes was just so classic it rekindled our interest in keeping a running score on Davey’s vanity posting.

I reckon it would probably be worth several bonus points for being so spectacularly gratuitous. I had to giggle, though, some of DPF’s regular readers were less than enthusiastic. KrazyKiwi said:

“Holmes doesn’t interview. He floats soft fluffy questions into the air none of which probe and given the opportunity to dig deeper he changes the subject. He’s waste of media space.”

Even the usually polite Tina said:

“Oh dear…anything involving Holmes for an international audience will be a national embarrassment.

Aust. has a similar problem called Ray Martin.”

National Rates Robertson

The ’strategists’ of National HQ are clearly worried about Grant Robertson’s chances in Wellington and with good reason: He’s got the potential to be a damned fine candidate.

So, how do we know National rates Robertson’s chances? The fact they’ve got young (wink!) DPF to do some early market positioning is a knowing tell.

Let’s be clear: Grant Robertson’s a pretty solid character (intellectually and, one has to say, physically too). So, it must have been a challenge for DPF to find something to get some Tory purchase. But we here at Kiwiblogblog have never underestimated DPF and we certainly don’t think of him as an amateur. He’s been doing National’s bidding through several elections and he knows a trick or two. DPF’s post on Grant’s blog item about challenging or ‘unpopular’ ideas is a marvellously cynical piece of Machiavellian marketing.

In his blog, Robertson expressed a view about the potential of using Te Reo education in schools as a positive way of building understanding between Maori and non-Maori.

To expose this issue to the closed minds on Kiwiblog, DPF delivers what American management gurus call “a shit sandwich” - that is, bookending his crappy comments with fulsome praise. In classic shit sandwich style, DPF first patronisingly praises Robertson for having a blog and bookends this with a comment about his concurrence with Grant’s desire to do better about race relations in New Zealand. But where’s the shit?

Well, here’s the clever bit: DPF doesn’t want to be too negative. Instead he makes some perfunctory comments about the issue of compulsion. But that’s hardly damning. Like we said, DPF is no amateur. He realises he doesn’t need to do much more than simply drop a few lines on his blog about Robertson’s sinfully liberal ideas and his Cro Magnon commentators will say and think pretty much everything HQ wants to say (or be thought) about this issue - without having actually to say anything.

I personally don’t have a whit of an issue with what Grant said about the potential for Te Reo to play an important role in developing a shared understanding and a genuine New Zealand identity. And, as a provincial from the central North Island, I actually received compulsory basic lessons in Maori - and this was many decades ago. So, I really do understand how much of a non-issue it is. But like Grant I understand how this view is potentially controversial and has the potential to draw out some deep seated reactions. Particularly if it is not framed correctly. And that’s precisely why DPF chose this item to draw his readers’ attention to Robertson.

I also had a small snigger about DPF’s final comment:

“…any redistribution of income should be done regardless of race, but based on need.”

I know Davey was trying a Brashism about “one people” etc…but I thought it also sounded like DPF was warming to the idea of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

It’s now official: Kiwiblog is an irony-free zone

DPF begins a post about Peta’s latest campaign for vegetarianism:

“Once upon a time it was the big corporate multinationals that would brazenly use attractive half naked women to sell unrelated products”

Is it just me or do others want to add after “corporate multinationals” the words “…and lazy bloggers looking to retain a horny uni student/middle-aged lonely married bloke demographic…”.

DPF concludes:

“Now the environmental groups are into it also, meaning it is of course okay for everyone to do it.”

Yeah, that’s right DPF….the PETA campaign loosens your brakes - you are now allowed to publish pictures of half-naked teenagers without check or pang of conscience.

Taxy: The one trick pony

As if you needed any further reminder the Tory’s were a one trick pony…DPF once a-friggin’-gain throws up other people’s work to stay on the “tax cut or die” message.  Boring!  Can you imagine Davey at a debating competition?  “Ummm….what that guy said….” (Job done! Sits down looking smug).

Important analysis

Back on message

Davey’s back on message (unions bad, tax cuts good) with two deeply analytical posts on labour productivity and wage movements. The recurring theme in his posts is, of course, National are far better at managing the economy than Labour. As usual, his argument requires the suspension of sensible thought in preference for a narrow focus on a single point of data. Presumably someone from the National Party Research Unit’s put him onto the Stat’s labour productivity report having tried unsuccessfully* to get an Opposition spokesperson to run it.

Davey’s problem however is that too few are prepared to support his conclusions based only on his little bit of cross-tabulation. Neither should they. Changes in wages are important, but in isolation they present a limited picture of economic performance (let alone the government’s performance). And as others have pointed out here and in the relevant threads, government’s have few direct levers, e.g. the minimum wage, with which to stimulate wages and frankly that’s how it should be - National surely aren’t proposing to play a more active role in setting wages? All this is frustrating for Davey ’cause his argument relies upon the reader knowing nothing other than what’s presented them - something that usually works with his regulars but what to do Sam, rogernome, Tane as well as professionals like Matt Nolan? They don’t fall for the reductio ad absurdum technique.

At the risk of getting into a genuine discussion however, it is true that NZ is not performing as well as it needs and NZ wages have tended to be sticky - they don’t move as much as might be expected if compared directly with company profits. There’s no simple explanation for this and sadly limited data, however, all parties agree that improving NZ’s multi-factor productivity is the focus over the medium-term - kiwiblogblog likes a lot of the thinking coming out of the New Zealand Institute (a far more constructive and professional outfit compared with the NZBR) particularly increasing international engagement, savings, R&D and workforce skills - Labour’s policies on these matters don’t need to be rehearsed here (for the moment) but I’d have hoped Davey might provide some insight into National’s?

*Unsuccessfully because (a) they don’t understand it themselves but figure its important or (b) they understand it but the Opposition Spokesperson doesn’t or (c) the Opposition Spokesperson does understand it and realises that once they open this can of worms they’ll be exposed as having bugger all to contribute!