46 Comments

We teachers recognise the fourth form ‘mean girl’ and we’re pretty sure that Erica fits the bill, as does our Minister of Austerity… Double standards, lying and hypocrisy seem to be KPIs for this lot, it’s the way they roll.

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Not only teachers. When you've covered the social and political circuits a few times over, you learn to instantly pick them. When you meet them, they seem to know you've got their number so immediately move into battle mode. That is, they establish their supposed superiority with a bored stance then walk away. If you have to work with them, they constantly criticise your contributions. They suck big time. I can just see Stanford doing it, even more so than Willis.

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They are not hard to spot. I had to work with one, my new sales manager. She was nice as pie with the ass kissers, but thats not who I am. I kept it real, did the best with what I had. But my ideas and contributions were never good enough. The last six months felt like an attempt at constructive dismissal. It sucked. Then, they restructured the sales team and I was made redundant. Not long after she implemented some of my ideas. Lol.

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You make light of it, but I expect it took a toll on your well-being and enjoyment of llfe. A working day is long enough without having a bully on your back. Sorry to hear you were treated like that.

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Thanks Jill. It did take a toll. I still hold a grudge, and will never spend a cent on that companies products.

We were fortunate and I was able to be a stay home dad for our one year old for a summer, it was awesome. When ready to get a job again I got the one I wanted first shot.

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How lovely to have that special time with your baby. I'm glad there were some up-sides to the situation.

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Indeed Sander. It takes a big toll on a person's life. I had the same experience in the Public Service. The manager who stole my idea was mentioned in dispatches, so to speak, and congratulated for his initiative. I was forced to resign.

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Bullying is so prevalent in workplaces. What a demoralizing experience for you, Anne. Hope you're doing well.

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Yes and I also recognise the 'smart a*sed know it all' 4th form boy in Seymour. Neither are very emotionally mature.

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I do wonder if Minister of Austerity is planning to 'roll' the Out of Depth PM. He is out of NZ often enough!

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If she pulls an inter Island ferry out of the hat before years end, she may feel emboldened.

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Well that would be out of the frying pan, into the fire!

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Willis is one of those nasty playground inhabitants. More nasty than bright. Is known in Welly to yell at her children. She seems to be quite vindictive. Wellington never voted for her. Think that might be part of her anti public service stance.

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So true Keith.

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Nicely expressed Keith!

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Thanks Nick. Just mulling over a few things here... So you call someone a liar, when that someone has indeed lied, and you are sent out of the house. You call someone a stupid bitch, and that's ok - stay where you are, oh National Party Person! For some reason I've always hated that b word, and hearing it said in Parliament quite shocked me.

We on the Left just know, that had any members of our team done the bed leg thing, snap chatted young girls, got pissed at a winery whilst on work duties and abused a worker, called someone a stupid bitch, and so on and so on, there would have been hell to pay. Mostly hysteria from the media. (To be fair to the media, some are starting to almost hold the government to account. Just not those related to former National MPs.)

On top of that, Gerry Brownlee is such a disappointment as the Speaker. As the saying goes, he has one job... But doesn't seem to get it.

Enough from me! I'm off shortly to do a volunteer guiding stint at the Museum. Have a great weekend!

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Well said Alison.

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Cheers Nick . I raise my glass of kombucha to you.

Home fermented. And delicious.

I agree NZ has a Real Big Problem.

Boozing to be commatosed, helps to stop the hurt, the shame, and keeps the boredom away.

I stopped consuming alcohol & drugs over 30 years ago.

I was very young when I started.

I'm not talking for everyone, but, I think a lot

of us did.

This coalition perpetuates the same mindset & happily supports the vile cycle of addiction, of mind-numbing brainwashing every day, on repeat.

This non-government is over flowing with Bully's.

I see no hope. No joy. No moving forward, From this lot.

Almost like, stay in your lane.

And we'll stay in ours & stamp & shout, belittle, & take everything.

Are people so numb to want is going on ?

Tuesday 19th November

I felt passion, respect , aroha, joy to be fully present ,acceptance . Alive. The communal coming together for the Right Cause.

This is how Aotearoa NZ has a chance to look like , to feel like.

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This Minister of Education is proving to be as incapable as the other ministers in this COC. The following I penned a couple of days ago in regard to the Minister of Finance and her incompetence.

Last night on the TV One News Chris Bishop actually told the truth for the first time to my knowledge. He assured us that our Finance Minister Nicola Willis was in Antarctica getting financial advise from the penguins down there. It was of course the Emperor penguins because they wore tuxedos unlike those left wing Adelie penguins who stand around screeching about the ice cap melting, seal levels rising, climate change and the increasing food shortage so many are experiencing. For Nicola somewhat like home in other words. Nicola also cut a few holes in the ice so that she could sit around with some iceholes which she knew would happen back in Aotearoa when she would be forced to respond to the views of so many economists who are saying what a crap job she was doing with our economy.

Arnie once stated “I will return” and he did. Mark Plod and Nicola said “I will resign if..” And they haven’t. Luxton pontificated on how he would get us back on track except he didn’t mention that was the track to Australia and he was also going to work hard to take the whole country forward. We didn’t hear his aside that he didn’t mean the brown ones as he has definitely proven this week.

Haven’t mentioned the little facist, the any drilling for my donors, or grumpy old barrel aged we take cookers, who comprise but a short list of so many inept and ideology driven incompetents.

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Well said Mac. The tale of Nicola and the penguins could almost have been written by Aesop as a fable. There's an interesting similarity. You might remember Happy Feet, the Emperor penguin who arrived on our shores in 2011, in a rather wretched state. (One too many at the club the night before?). He was revived, cosseted and housed at huge expense then released so he could return home. Sadly, his homeward bound journey was apparently terminated shortly afterwards by a hungry hunter. The Adelie penguin who arrived a couple of weeks ago, on the other hand, landed on the beach, had a good shake of his feathers, was deemed fit to travel after a couple of days and released. Twice. Apparently he felt at home here and wanted to stay. It was a country he felt had potential to become somewhere he would want to bring his family to. He didn't have a visa so the police finally sent him home. There may well be a message for Nicola here. Choose your penguins carefully. Some may look pretty but have no resilience, while those regarded as lower caste are the ones that keep going when the going gets tough.

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Great Korero today Nick. I can think of three examples of the word bitch.

A female dog.

A great, driving Rolling Stones song.

Life, when you get caught doing or saying something to or about someone else that you know to be morally wrong, particularly when you hold a position of authority which requires the utmost decorum and tact. Perhaps Erica might be put on detention, have to take a look in a mirror and repeat what she said over and over until she learns her lesson. She could perhaps make a reality TV show of it, to share with others thinking of a career in the public domain. She's perfectly qualified, on all counts.

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Thank you. What a roll call. Will our part time completely out of his depth Pm do anything about Stanford ….

Also is it just me or can others see the striking resemblance between Andrew Bayly and Nigel Farage?

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I agree about the resemblance.

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No it’s not just you, there’s definitely a resemblance.

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Yup

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Whilst I deplore Erica's name calling, I am more concerned about the 'authoritative' manner in which she presented 'structured numeracy'. This is an invention of her advisory group. It has not ever been tried let alone researched for its success or efficacy. They made it up. (There is structured literacy that has success for some students and is already practised by many teachers for beginning readers.)

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NZ Initiative provided her advisors, a triumph of ideology over evidence

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Yes it is. Wonder who has the contract to create the numeracy workbooks? This is where 'the savings' from previous school lunches were redirected.

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My first thought when I heard it mentioned. Lucrative contract no doubt

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Excellent post today thank you Nick. Captured the situation very well regarding the arrogance and hypocrisy of this dreadful government. Sitting here shaking my head - yet again 🤪

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Thanks Nick. They are a bunch of two faced, double standard, uncaring arses, no doubt. There’s long established protocol over calling another MP a liar in the house. You need to front with the evidence. It’s a part of our inherited political system. Willy said the people on the Hikoi were calling Seymour a liar, which is why we haven’t heard any more about it and IMO he shouldn’t have been sent out. I’m tempted to say that when we get a reasonable government again, the bar for any sort of censure should be set very high…

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Am I the only person in Nz who doesn't know who the pedophile ex politician is?

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I’m not sure. I found out a few months before the election and assumed they’d release it once that was over. I’m not going to say who it is but let me just say that if you’re reading this it’s almost certainly not from a party you vote for.

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I gathered that lol. I say name and shame.

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Appeals still going through mean the name is still legally suppressed even though Judge D Sharp, god love him, refused a further name suppression

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No I don't 😂🤣😂🤣 don't know if I'm that interested in who the creton is seems to be an epidemic 🤮🤮🤮

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No Janine I don't. It's annoying.

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Great newsletter Nick! Erica and Nicola could well be best friends, but I'm guessing they can't stand each other.

BUT ... have you seen Matthew Hooton's column about Luxon? I agreed with every word!!! So many quotable lines: "Luxon's language is often derided as business speak, but no genuine business person uses so much corporate twaddle": "Extraordinarily, he communicates even less substantively than the lamentable Dame Jacinda Ardern": (obviously I don't agree with the bit about Jacinda, but he harshly criticised her all the time, so the comparison is interesting): "Luxon's leadership of the country and the party will stumble on while achieving little and meaning less". Brutal. Don't miss it - there is much more!!

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Ironically Luxon is very much an example of public service CEO speak which very clearly marks him out as NOT a businessman at all....... Just saying.

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Didn't Hooton say that Luxon was out of his depth? Understatement I thought. What about the rating of the Ministers in the Press yesterday. Malpass was involved so it was very positive for the Nats. Bishop got 10 out of 10! He also stated that Luxon was comfortable in his own skin and didn't mind about being unpopular and on the whole was doing a good job leaving everything to his Ministers!???

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Well done getting this out. Can you please explain this as I became confused about the bullying of a young boy by Stanford “National hiding their internal report”. Good wishes for a safe journey. If my memory serves me well it was Brownlee’s female dep speaker who was ruling when Stanford abused Jan, as I recall her saying something like “did you really say that or you didn’t say that did you”. She’s been doing quite a lot of talking beneath her breath I noticed, thought it was a technique she had determined would attract attention, not for a minute thinking she was abusing her counterpart.

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This was Sam Uffindell, not Erica Stanford.

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I’m not getting what you are referring to? Oh was Nick talking about him, I did t get that. Then he referred to Stanford’s remark.

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I haven't re-read it, but Nick was saying (paraphrased) that the coalition have a teeny pool of actually decent people...so, the fact Stanford probably didn't beat a young boy with a bed leg at high school puts her ahead of a National MP that did.

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Hate to play Devils advocate but Willie was sent from the house for refusing to withdraw his comment and apologise not for the actual comment.

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So in retrospect, would it have been better for Labour and the Green's leadership to have ignored the opposition and media's baying for the heads of their targeted MPs? To have instead gone through the motions of sanctioning them but not removing their portfolios or sacking them? Honour and doing the right thing doesn't seem to hold much weight with the media or the majority of the voting public these days - in fact it's almost ridiculed by some.

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