Tea and Toast
Israeli Elephants, helping Luxon look bad, roads of National's obsession, and who stole mum's cuppa?
When the skies are looking bad my dear
And your heart's lost all its hope
After dawn there will be sunshine
And all the dust will go
The skies will clear my darling
Now it's time for you to let go
Our girl will wake you up in the mornin'
With some tea and toast
Lyrics: Lucy Spraggan.
Good morning all. A few things to cover today, and I’ve decided to make this one public, which hopefully makes sense. They are:
The Israeli Elephant in the room.
Should the media help Luxon look bad overseas or leave him to it?
Simeon’s Monstrous Roading budget, National’s Roads of Obsession.
The case of the missing cuppa and who takes responsibility.
So let’s get to it…
The Israeli Elephant in the room
Yesterday’s newsletter received a more mixed reaction than most I write. Some people liked it, and others weren’t quiet about letting me know they didn’t.
I anticipated that not everyone would be thrilled, so I only sent it to paid subscribers without an open section up front for all. I was concerned enough about what people might think reading the newsletter in its entirety without folks just reading the first few paragraphs and basing their reviews on that.
As I’ve done with a couple of other newsletters I thought I’d put it to the team as to whether it got opened up by way of reaching 100 “likes”. Well as of the time of writing that number is at 99 so I’ve gone ahead and made it public. Firstly, because having read it multiple times, I stand by it, and secondly, because the following won’t make a great deal of sense if you haven’t read it.
So if you haven’t, it’s now paywall-free and open to all:
The truth is I did make it shocking on purpose. If it had just been, oh by the way, spare a thought for these Israeli parents, they loved their children too, then the response would probably have been well, that is true, but so many more Palestinians are dying, so whatever.
So I went with a shocking headline, not to make people angry but to be confronting and say no, all of these deaths matter, no matter which side and any acceptance of human beings being killed is how we got here.
My regret about the headline is that some did not look beyond the title to the fact that the article was almost entirely critical of the actions of Israel, with the proviso that we should remember that these other deaths mattered too. As well as the fact that there are people in Israel opposed to the conflict. Some to stop the killing of the Palestinians, many to bring the hostages home, supportive of a ceasefire in any case.
Perhaps I should have called it Israeli Deaths Matter, a better title in hindsight that might not have put people off. In any case, I stand by the contents of the article, and I appreciate that many could see the intent of it was a humanitarian plea, albeit with a shocking title.
There’s also a part of me that is rather stubborn. No doubt some look at my newsletter and think how woke it all is, but I hate that stuff.
Not the bits that are about accepting others. No, I’m fully down with that and proudly woke as all hell, but I hate the idea that we can’t use certain words - no matter the context.
Of course, it registered with me that the phrase Israeli Lives Matter would offend, but there was something about those three words, if you take them at face value, that is true - they do matter, and I hated the idea of not being able to say them. I’m not saying I got it right; some of you will still disagree, and as you can probably tell, it’s not 100% black and white for me. The long and short of it is I chose not to change it.
Regardless of what some thought and the fact that Biden could have done so much more, so much earlier, it was gratifying to wake up this morning to the following headline. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but perhaps it is a step towards progress. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, which is what we’ve had for months.
Should the media make Luxon look bad overseas?
If you watched 1 News last night, you would’ve seen Benedict Collins asking questions of the Prime Minister on the latest leg of his never-ending world schmoozefest during a press conference in Malaysia alongside Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. He raised concerns about the fact that NZ recognises Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but Malaysia does not. For once, I felt for Luxon.
By all means, question the designation of Hamas; people will have different perspectives. To some, they are terrorists; to others, they are freedom fighters, a natural reaction to the oppression Israel has heaped on the Palestinian people. Ask away, but maybe do it at home? It feels wrong for our country to make the PM look like a jerk in front of an important trading partner and regional ally.
Luxon has mastered looking like a prat all on his own, and there is time aplenty to question those things at home. Maybe some of you disagree? My view is that you discuss things vociferously internally, which is right, but on the world stage, perhaps we shouldn’t be embarrassing our own leader.
Luxon had appearing an idiot fully under control. Our great statesman doubling down with his schoolboy humour against the Aussies, joking that he’d told the Malaysian leader our food products were much better than those from Australia. As I say, the man does a good enough job of making himself look like an absolute tool without Benedict being a dick (credit to G News for that expansion of Collins’ first name).
Simeon’s Monstrous Roading budget
I missed the announcement about all the money we’re going to spend on roads, busy responding to feedback about yesterday’s newsletter as it happens. The first I knew of it was this tweet:
Love that description, “the Monster of Transport”, and that is certainly what young Simeon is if you’re interested in any form of transport that isn’t roads.
It is quite extraordinary how obsessed the man and his party are with roads and how they have no interest in funding other, more environmentally and people-friendly methods.
$32.9 billion is to be spent over 2024-2027, an enormous sum of money. The losers are cycling and walking initiatives, which received $910 million in the 2021-2024 programme but only $460m in this plan. When you add on inflation, that is an enormous cut, and it makes you wonder what on earth young Simeon has against cycling.
Other than the small appendage so obvious in all those rabidly opposed to cycling, a shortcoming that can apparently be overcome with an extra large, double cab ute. I wondered:
Perhaps that would explain his phobia against transport other than broom brooms. Some speculated that perhaps he couldn’t reach the pedals or that he had no sense of balance, while others wished he could ride one so they could tell him to get on his bike.
Anyway, you look at it; $33b is an enormous amount of money, even relative to all the cuts National is making or the amount they are borrowing for unfunded tax cuts. Is this what all the austerity is for? Bloody roads?
The case of the missing cuppa
A couple of newsletters ago, I covered the story about new mothers no longer being given tea and toast after giving birth, and there was quite a reaction.
It’s a very emotive thing. As I discussed with my mother on Sunday, folks will forget some of the other cuts, even things like prescription fees, and the like, but no one that has been in that situation, either as the person having been in labour or the support person would forget the meanness of such a measure as denying a new mum a cuppa.
Minister Reti was quick to try to distance himself from the decision, pointing fingers elsewhere and saying the change was for nutritional reasons. But you know what? I don’t care what his explanations are—in my book, they are simply to avoid responsibility.
Of course, Reti didn’t issue a directive to stop providing tea and toast. Ministers in this government never put their names to the actual cuts. What they do is put enormous pressure on their ministries to cut expenditure, even when they are struggling to provide services as it is, and they distance themselves from the actual decisions where the rubber hits the road, or in this case, mum gets no cuppa tea.
We’ve seen a lot of it from this coalition government. Ministers demanding large cuts in expenditure while at the same time insisting that services won’t be affected. It’s a massive lie, and they know it, but they shift the blame to those forced to make the cuts and wash their hands of it.
Feigning surprise when told that their sector had to, in fact, stop providing things due to the cut in funding. In my view, failure to turn up and take responsibility is unacceptable; the Minister has to own their portfolio - otherwise, what is the point? If all they do is say it’s up to the CEO?
What the heck are we paying ministers for? Simply to issue cost-cutting directives and then duck for cover when the results hit the fan?
For goodness sake, Reti, can’t you do something useful? At least put the kettle on.
Here's a really lovely song to end today: Lucy Spraggan with Tea and Toast. Sometimes, that’s what you need.
"Ministers demanding large cuts in expenditure while at the same time insisting that services won’t be affected. It’s a massive lie, and they know it, but they shift the blame to those forced to make the cuts and wash their hands of it." YES!!!!
I'm undecided if SImeon is really that unintelligent, or just so ideologically driven that he can't see a problem with the short- and long-term damage he's doing. Or the alternative - so corrupt in the pay of the Trucking industry that he needs to whip up hate, while enabling more deaths, more climate damage, and more long-term chaos.