...sounds like patronising branding bullshit.
Hold on, I'm already listening to you. You don't need to sell me on the "product" or create "brand awareness". Save the money on the marketing hack who came up with this nonsense and hire another reporter.
Have a look at single malt social democrat
Carl is a friend of mine, with a tinder dry sense of humour whose blog will be well worth watching. I think he is going to blog on a combination of political issues and book reviews.
A fourth obsession of mine is cricket, so for those of you who don't appreciate the great summer game, perhaps skip to the next post.
Cactus Kate has started a campaign of persecution against New Zealand batsman Craig McMillan. As far as campaigns of persecution go, this one is relatively justified.
McMillan’s stats simply don’t stack up. His average, and conversion rate to match winning 50s and 100s are just too low, even when put alongside the rest of the under-performing New Zealand top order.
Most critically in my view, McMillan has failed to develop as a player. Although the available records don’t allow for this, I am quite sure that a season by season analysis would show that his figures have not significantly improved, if at all, over the decade he has spent in the national team.
McMillan consistently plays with the same reckless abandon that is guaranteed to get him out for an insignificant score 7 times out of ten. With a decade of top flight coaching and experience he has failed to apply himself and remedy basic errors in his game such as his inability to leave good balls just outside the off-stump. Time and time again he is dismissed mindlessly wafting at balls that a more focused player would recognise as hard to play, and leave.
This happened repeatedly in his innings of 89 last week, and it was only a matter of luck that he was not given out caught behind while still in single figures. This lack of self-assessment and willingness to apply himself to improving his game is in my view the main reason he should not continue to be selected. It’s a pity because McMillan has some real batting talent, and when in form he sees the ball like a watermelon.
For several years now, my view has been that the logical replacement for McMillan in the team is Scott Styris. While is batting average is far from stellar yet, he shows signs of application and improvement. Critically too, in his shorter international career, he has been far more effective at turning starts into match winning hundreds – something the New Zealand team (a scratchy win over England notwithstanding) desperately needs.
Quite a few of the details on this blog - website links, the blogroll, etc, have become pretty out of date since I was last regularly blogging in mid 2005.
I'm slowly updating all of these, so apologies for any dead links, and the lack of new links. If you have a blog or site that you would like added please just leave a comment here.
Cheers,
Michael.
The PM has given some clear indications about the government’s policy priorities for the year, and fairly typically the mainstream media has failed to provide much analysis or comment on this. The media focus is very much on the issue of caucus and cabinet renewal, but it is a mistake to think that renewal is just about different bums on parliamentary seats – it is not. A renewal of ideas, policies, and thinking is just as critical.
Think about the National administrations of 1990 – 1999. In terms of the personnel, there was actually significant turnover, particularly of those at cabinet level. Jim Bolger, Max Bradford, John Banks, Philip Burdon, Paul East, John Falloon, Peter Gresham, Doug Kidd, and Denis Marshall are just some of the Ministers who turned over between 1993 and 1999. National’s Leader, Deputy, and Finance spokespeople all turned over within the three terms. Yet by 1999, the National government (crippled admittedly by a series of dodgy coalition arrangements) was seen as tired and out of ideas.
So the vigour and vitality of a government is about far more than simply how new the MP’s and Ministers are. While it is clear that some new blood in the Labour lineup is needed over the next year or so, renewal is about far more than this. The PM’s recent comments have been positive in this regard. She has highlighted the following issues as key areas for work over 2007:
Education
Education has been highlighted as “the area (where) the initiatives need to go”. This is an excellent move. There is a clear need for increased investment, particularly in the compulsory sector where the case for increased operational funding is strongly made - and doing so will highlight the emptiness of John Key’s “aspirational” rhetoric. We will need to contrast increased investment in our schools with National’s default setting in this area – attacking teachers, whinging about NCEA without providing any solutions, and banging on about bulk funding as if it actually does anything to improve the delivery of education to children.
The same should happen in regards to the implementation of the 20 hours per week free early childhood education policy. Getting every single three and four year old into early childhood education is one of the best things we can do to ensure that literacy, numeracy, and social cohesion improve – particularly in our poorer communities. This is an expensive policy and the implementation is difficult (the intransigence and greed of many private providers being a significant obstacle), but it is happening, and Key needs to be made to front up on whether a future National government would continue the investment, or spend the hundreds of millions on tax-cuts for mates in the Parnell millionaires club.
If by the end of 2007 we have seen a significant increase to Operations funding for schools, fulfillment of the 20 hours free policy, and progress on the election pledge of reducing class sizes to fifteen for five year olds, then Labour will be able to head into election year with a clear record of using our national resources to invest in the core public services that matter to most people.
Climate Change
With several policy papers out for public consultation, the government has succeeded in starting a national conversation about the issue. While it is clear that there are no quick and easy fixes, and that a strategy needs to be rolled out over a number of years to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it will be important that some policy work is concluded in 2007. Some tangibles need to be implemented by late this year or early next.
There is a real sense that this issue has reached a tipping point. Some kind of action in 2007 is necessary both to ensure that we are meeting our ethical and international issues to reduce our emissions, and to contrast Labour’s action on the issue with National’s lack of commitment to environmental issues. Having a blue-green sector and saying that they believe in the concept of climate change has been relatively easy for National, but I see no evidence that they have any willingness to take on the challenge of reducing emissions if it offends key sector groups in agriculture and industry.
Auckland
The Stadium – decision made, argument over. Build it.
In her comments the PM has focused in on the issue of regional governance and public transport. It is apposite that the two are bracketed as (in part at least) many of Auckland’s public transport woes are down to a failure of regional governance.
After the botched Mayoral proposal to create a super-city (and co-incidentally a new role of Lord Mayor for one of their own), the government and the region have responded well to the challenge of modernising Auckland’s governance structure. The government provided leadership by making the call that change was needed, and setting a timeline. The region responded by engaging in a rare public discussion on local body governance, and then feeding the results back to government. The clock is ticking on this one with local body elections in October. A well-crafted proposal that unifies the region will be critical in ensuring that Auckland is ready for another million people in the next fifty years.
The PM’s other comments on Auckland focused around the rail network, and particularly the issue of electrification.
We know that increased investment in rail services through better stations and rolling stock, more regular services, the Britomart project, and double tracking have delivered increased rail patronage, and with it significant economic, social, and environmental benefits. It is critical that the investment continues. Electrification is a big part of this, as in my view is an expansion of the network – starting with the Onehunga line. I will write more on this later. Needless to say, a government backed plan in 2007 to proceed with electrification would signal a major commitment to investing in Auckland’s future.
It’s about Investment
All of the areas highlighted for attention in 2007 by the PM are about investment. To paraphrase economist JK Galbraith, “there is no point living in a society of private affluence, surrounded by public squalor”. Serious investment in our education system, meaningful movement on climate change, leadership on Auckland’s governance, and investment in the region’s public transportation network in 2007 will show that Labour is the Party that invests in our shared future.
Investment on this scale will signal to the country that this is a government that is renewing its ideas and policies more that one or two new MP’s will.
The debate sparked by Bishop Richard Randerson’s recent comments in the Herald about the nature of God is significant for two reasons – the very fact that such a debate has taken place in the mainstream media, and the public intolerance displayed by some conservative Christians in response.
For several surprising days this week, the dialogue and letters pages of the national paper have been dominated by responses to the Bishop’s acknowledgment that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God, and his belief in God as something other than a guy with a beard “up there”. Letter writers, guest columnists, Herald writers, and other clergy all chimed into the debate. There was conservative outrage at this “heresy”, plenty of liberal letters making great use of the word “inclusive”, and a strident band of atheists maintaining that every calamity and genocide in history was the fault of the previous two groups.
But there it was – a discussion about the nature of God laid out bare for all to see and think about. As the earlier heretic Lloyd Geering pointed out in the 1960s, this discussion is not new. Debate about the nature of God has gone on across all faiths, and within the Judeo-Christian tradition, since Adam was a boy – somewhere between six thousand and two million years ago. Biblical texts such as Song of Solomon, or Mark’s contributions to the New Testament strikingly talk about a God more along the lines of Bishop Randerson’s “God as life-giving spirit flowing through all creation”, than of a thunder bolt wielding chap in robes.
Geering points out that across the Christian Church, clergy have been actively having this debate for at least a hundred years, and congregations have not been far behind. My feeling is however that most outside the Church are not aware of these strands of belief. Rather, it is the traditional image of God (with all that this implies – something I will write on more later) that most agnostics or atheists think of if asked to identify who/what ‘God’means. For most, it is a concept that in our post-enlightenment age simply doesn’t compute.
For this reason, the opening up of the debate publicly can only be a good thing for the Church.
Or at least it would be if the debate is conducted with respect and tolerance. Randerson’s comments were notable for this. Nowhere in them is any denigration of the traditional view of God, or criticism of traditional Christians for their genuinely held beliefs in this regard.
Contrarily, the conservative reaction dripped with bile. Randerson was a “heretic”, he shouldn’t be a priest let alone a Bishop, the decline of the Church is down to people like him, he roasts tabby kittens in tubs of baby lard etc… It was a sadly predictable reaction, reflective of people with a siege mentality, and ignorant of the diverse strands of belief that have shaped Christianity over two thousand years.
A traditional view of God is still relevant for many Christians, and will continue to be so. Equally, there is an alternative paradigm that views God and faith in a different that has many followers. Both groups need to work together in a spirit of irenicism to build a Church that stops looking inwards, and instead goes out into the community to seek justice for the kind of people that Jesus spent his time with – the poor, the sick, the dispossessed, and desperate.
These people probably wouldn’t have even read the Herald this week.
The last proper entry on this site contains graphical analysis of the electoral swing across non-Labour held seats in Auckland.
I sincerely promise to attempt to think a bit more creatively about content on this new incarnation - at least until Election 08.
This blog will focus on 3 big things in my life - Labour, life in Roskill, and Progressive Christianity. I also have some other things in my life, so I'll probably be posting 1-2 times per week.
Feel free to comment, even if you're a vindictive, embittered right winger who views the world through the prism of money.
Cheers,
Michael.
