0 They call him Flipper...

We get sent lots of internet memes, photoshopped images and the like. Some of them are unprintable, some are arguable actionable, some are in poor or borderline taste and there is the occasional gem; like this one:

It's not just the Maui's dolphin policy that has seen a flip-flop from David Cunliffe. This is just the latest in a series of botched policies from the Labour leader.

And Labour's Rotorua candidate Tamati Coffey has gone into damage control after having the rug pulled out from under him by his leader. He's posted this on Facebook:

Mr Coffey may have an assurance from David Cunliffe today, but will he have the same assurance tomorrow? With David "Flipper" Cunliffe, anything is possible!

0 Imperator Fish on fishy confusion

Scott at Imperator Fish is confused. In the wake of David Cunliffe's Maui's dolphin flip-flop, IF has posted this plaintive cry:

As a Labour Party member, I’m becoming increasingly confused about the party’s position on the Maui’s Dolphin.

I thought we were for the dolphins, but now I’m wondering if maybe we were against them all along.
I don’t mind either way. I’m a loyal party man and I’ll do what I’m told. If it’s decided that the Maui’s Dolphin must be sacrificed on the altar of progress, then that’s fine. I’ll just tell myself that they’re only glorified fish. But I do need to know one way or the other, in case I’m asked by someone what Labour’s policy is.
Are we for saving the Maui’s Dolphin? Or is our policy, like National’s, to drive those cetacean bastards to extinction?

We understand Scott's frustration, which will doubtless be shared by a league of dolphin-loving aspiring Labour MP's, including Tamati Coffey. Party members and candidates don't deserve to be blind-sided by sudden u-turns from the leader when he holds his finger up to the winds of public opinion. 

Then again, could this be such a cunning plot from Mr Cunliffe and his confidantes in the War Room that you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel? Is this a way of getting Donghua Liu off the front pages of blogs and newspapers?

Perhaps, but we doubt that Mr Cunliffe has the smarts to do something like that. Anyway, could he be sure that Donghua Liu isn't a secret fan of marine mammals?

0 So; what IS Labour's policy?

Another day, and Labour is hopelessly confused over another policy. This time, it's Maui's dolphins, and Taranaki oil exploration; 3News explains:

Labour leader David Cunliffe has had to perform a U-turn after this morning announcing Labour was against oil exploration in the Maui's dolphin mammal sanctuary, when it actually approves.

National has jumped on the gaffe, saying Labour is hypocritical because it allowed 13 wells to be drilled in the area.

The Government has opened up 3000 square kilometres of a marine mammal sanctuary for oil exploration on the North Island's west coast – home to the Maui's dolphin. The Green Party obtained documents revealing that last week.

This morning Labour came out opposed, aligning itself with the Greens.

"I don't see any need for the exploration permits to overlap the sanctuary, so yes, I'm opposed to that," said Mr Cunliffe.But this afternoon saw a U-turn from Labour, because the last Labour Government approved 13 wells to be drilled in the area.

The Greens continued their criticism of the Government today.

"His legacy to this country will be to drive the Maui's dolphin toward extinction," said Green Party co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

However John Key dismissed the complaints as "a load of mumbo jumbo".

"He wants to close down Taranaki, the thousands of jobs that are supported there, and what is incredible is that David Cunliffe […] wants to do that as well," said Mr Key.

But it turns out Mr Cunliffe is open to exploration in the dolphins' home if "done responsibly".

It looks as though Andrew Little is the winner here. Earlier in the year, he and Shane Jones were the lone voices of sanity in Labour over oil and gas exploration in Taranaki.

And once again, David Cunliffe has been exposed as a wavering duffer who hasn't got a clue what side of the issue he's on. It hasn't helped that Tamati Coffey, #30 on Labour's list, but already with a profile higher than his leader's was the centrepiece of a Maui's dolphin protest outside Simon Bridges' Tauranga office on Saturday; check these out:

From the pictures, the Labour Party flags, the political rhetoric and the many other comments on Tamati Coffey's Twitter feed, it is patently obvious that he was representing the Labour Party on Saturday, and was protesting Simon Bridges' decision not to exclude the area inhabited by the dolphins from exploration. 

That sends a pretty good signal that, right up until the moment that David Cunliffe flip-flopped this evening, Labour was opposed to oil exploration in the dolphin sanctuary. We actually feel sorry for Tamati Coffey; allowing his profile to be used for this protest on the basis that his party actually did stand against the Government on this issue. Who would blame him for feeling totally disillusioned this morning?

 

David Cunliffe can't manage simple, straightforward policies, and doesn't seem to have a clue what he and Labour stand for. How on earth could he be expected to make the decisions needed to run the country?

0 Some advice for Tamati

The Dom-Post has a profile of Labour's Rotorua candidate Tamati Coffey this morning. Now Mr Coffey doesn't really need profiling, given his graduation from the TVNZ School for Aspiring Labour Candidates. 

But this bit stood out:

He said he was still taking time to come to grips with being a candidate.
"I've been taken under the wing of people like Sue (Moroney) and Nanaia (Mahuta), they were there this morning and are helping me understand all of the problems going on regarding young people," said Coffey.
He said education was the policy area that would likely tip the scales at the September election.
"It's that thing we need to get right for the sake of all of these kids," he said.
The official campaign period begins on June 20 and while Coffey has been on the hustings since he won the confidence of the party in March, he said policy was still weeks from being released.
"Nobody likes the Government's current proposals to spend $350 million on education that's not going to directly benefit the outcomes of children." 

In being mentored by Sue Moroney, it's likely that Tamati Coffey has been spoon-fed NZEI anti-National propoganda. But we'd like to give him the benefit of some advice, and suggests he reads a little more widely.

To say that "Nobody likes the Government's current proposals to spend $350 million on education that's not going to directly benefit the outcomes of children." is an outright porkie, but that's what happens when you start using absolutes like "nobody" and "everybody". It may provide a sound-bite, but it's not the truth.

The PPTA claims to represent 95% of secondary teachers; around 17,000 in all. That's a pretty big bloc of nobodies, and a group with far more experience in the education sector than Tamati Coffey or Sue Moroney. And over the last couple of weeks the PPTA has put aside its traditional suspicion of education initiatives proposed by National. 

We have blogged extensively on this, and even though we are no fans of trade unions we have praised PPTA and its leadership for being open to Hekia Parata's Investing in Educational Success policy. But for Mr Coffey's benefit, here's what PPTA had to say two weeks ago:

The government’s $359 million Investing in Educational Success (IES) program has been a positive example of sector collaboration, says PPTA president Angela Roberts. Roberts welcomes today’s release of the working group report on the initiative which will see schools across the country collaborating rather than competing. From PPTA’s point of view the consultation over IES was comprehensive, robust and genuine, Roberts said. “We stepped up to the challenge and engaged as fully as it is possible to do.” The sector had worked hard together to find pragmatic answers and there had been significant movement from the originally unacceptable cabinet paper, Roberts said. “You know it’s collaboration when it’s hard work – and this was really hard work.” “We feel cabinet has heard us,” she said. That did not mean there would not be further work to be done or challenges in the future. Details of the new provisions would be a matter of collective bargaining, Roberts said.
“This is just the next step. We still have a long way to go to make sure that this lands well in schools and look forward to continuing to be part of the process,” she said.
Roberts was pleased cabinet had affirmed the working group’s final report.
“This is not performance pay and it is not a lolly scramble – it’s an investment that will have a positive impact on our schools and our students.”
In her engagement with teachers and principals they agree that competition is destructive and that something should change.
“This is something PPTA has been working towards for more than a decade, we are pleased a government has finally decided to resource it,” she said.

So here's the choice, Dear Readers. You can take the word of a political novice with no education sector experience that "Nobody likes the Government's current proposals to spend $350 million on education that's not going to directly benefit the outcomes of children.", or you can take the word of one of the major education sector unions that the IES is "an investment that will have a positive impact on our schools and our students.”.

Can you guess which option we're backing?  Here's a hint; it's not the bloke being mentored by Sue Moroney. We reckon he could do worse than find someone who might give him some more balanced and accurate talking points.

0 Photo of the Day - 16 June 2014

This image arrived in our inbox overnight from a reader with a very sharp eye for detail:

Did anyone know that Rawiri Cunliffe was of Maori descent? We guess that explains his accent on this infamous speech:

Thanks for clearing that mystery up Tamati!

0 Another SMOG from guess who?

A certain aspiring MP in a provincial seat in the central North Island can't take a trick at the moment; a reader has just sent us this:

Here's the Herald story showing the word that Tamati Coffey left out:

New Zealand could soon have its first female Muslim MP.
The Herald on Sunday understands Hamilton chartered accountant Anjum Rahman performed well at a recent Labour Party conference, and is expected to be ranked inside the party's top 30 candidates for the September 20 general election.
In 2011, Raymond Huo was number 21 — the lowest ranked Labour candidate to win a list seat.
Labour Party president Moira Coatsworth and general-secretary Tim Barnett did not respond to calls from the Herald on Sunday. However, Rahman, 47, this week said: "Who told you that?
"I don't have expectations but I'm working to get as high as I can. The list is decided by a whole lot of people in a couple of weeks."

In the meantime, here's a history lesson for Mr Coffey. New Zealand's first female MP was Elizabeth McComb, elected in 1933. New Zealand's first female Cabinet Minister was Mabel Howard, and New Zealand has had two female Prime Ministers, Dame Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark.

We'll apologise to Rex/Edward/Judge now for being the hall monitor again, but clearly Mr Coffey didn't take heed of the advice we gave him yesterday; type, read, read again then tweet. 

If Tamati Coffey is going to continue making gaffes on social media, we will continue to declare them SMOG's (Social Media Own Goals). And at the moment, Tamati is in the running for the Golden Boot award for most goals (into his own net) for the 2014 General Election!

0 Whatever happened to Tamati's tweet?

We blogged on Wednesday about a rather unfortunate tweet from Tamati Coffey. The former TVNZ presenter and Labour candidate for Rotorua had made a rather unflattering reference to "Tory scum". Here's the tweet in question:

It's just as well that we took a screenshot, because it seems to have disappeared from Mr Coffey's Twitter feed; Whaleoil reports:

What page doesn’t exist?

That was the Tamati Coffey tweet where he found it was lovely to talk about Tory scum.

We've got some advice for Tamati, if he'd like to listen to it. If you make a cock-up (which as a first-time candidate, you may well do) own up to it and apologise, then move on.

But pulling the offending tweet without any acknowledgment and pretending it didn't happen is NOT the way to go. People already have a low enough opinion of politicians, and even former television personalities who aspire to be politicians. They don't need any excuse to diss them, so don't give them ammunition.

Social media can be a very useful tool for politicians or aspiring MP's to connect with their followers. But it can also turn to custard very quickly. Builders have an old saying; "Measure twice, cut once". 

We reckon the same logic should be applied by politicians to their social media engagement; type it out and read it, then read it again before hitting the "tweet" button. It might save some embarrassment later in the piece from future SMOG's (Social Media Own Goals). 

0 Tweet of the Day - 10 June 2014

Here's something for all those voters in the Rotorua who thought Tamati Coffey was ever such a nice young man:

Now we're prepared to accept that Coffey's comment may have been in jest. But with election candidates these days increasingly taking to social media to campaign, there's a warning here to Tamati Coffey and to other candidates; don't give your opponents any ammunition.

This is Coffey's first SMOG (Social Media Own Goal) as a parliamentary candidate. Best he makes sure that it's his last.