by frog
Congratulations to Helen Clark on being named a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations for the heroic manner in which she talks about sustainability and carbon neutrality.
“We take pride in our green identity as a nation and we are determined to take action to protect it”
In other news I understand John Key has been named a Champion of the Workers because of the uncompromising stance he is talking about taking to raise wages, Brian Waddle has been named Black Cap of the year for discussing cricket so expertly and New Zealand Herald editor, Tim Murphy, has been named Human Rights Defender of the Year for continuing to talk despite having his freedom of speech crushed by the Electoral Finance Act.
Published in Parliament | Society & Culture by frog on Wed, April 23rd, 2008
Tags: Brian Waddle, Champion of the Earth, Electoral Finance Act, Helen Clark, john key, Tim Murphy
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Yea right. Greenwash Champion of the Earth more like.
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And Matthew Sinclair has been named as one of Wilden’s cricketers of the year while Jessie Ryder is about to front the latest ALAC campaign.
You can tell this award is a joke frog, just look at the throughly discredited organisation that gave her this gong.
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BB
LOL
Helen will need something to do after November…
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Man I like Brian Waddle. Nothing better than a day spent on the tractor listening to the cricket. It’s not cricket unless his voice graces the airwaves!
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I like Brian Waddle too! I was only suggesting he was better known for his patter than his pace bowling.
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You were just putting him in such bad company…
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Oh, those late nights watching cricket when the Black Caps are playing in England next month.
Thanks to Sue Kedgley’s Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Act, I might be able to watch some of it without being a zombie at work the next day.
BB: Don’t knock Jesse Ryder – some of the greatest sportpeople have had alcohol and drug problems – Andrew Johns, Norm Hewett, Andrew Flintoff, and, although not widely reported in cricket circles, Geoff Howarth, our greatest cricket captain before Stephen Fleming.
Doug Walters used to have a cigarette brought out for him at drinks breaks, and he is one of the few who average over 45 in a full Test career.
Pity about the Poms’ Ed Giddins though – his cocaine use and gambling addiction stuffed a very promising cricket career (as a bowler – as a batsman he was in the Chris Martin category – possibly even worse).
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Incredible, left and right blogs all agreeing on something.
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Isn’t it wonderful, mawgxxxxiv.
Even BB and I can agree on something, although he did belatedly after Tim Southee’s elevation to the Test side.
Cricket is a great leveller, a topic that those who advocate left, right, sustainable, unsustainable, authoritarian, libertarian politics can all have an amicable (and often informed) discussion on.
Pity my post earlier was held for moderation (presumably re references to illegal drugs), but was primarily related to BB’s comments re Jesse Ryder.
The guy has immense talent and could be a star on the international scene, so lets not give him too hard a time because he has a few and can’t find the toilet. Many of us have had similar experiences in our early 20s, and perhaps even later in life.
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Um, was talking about Ryder here, not BB! I have no idea whether/when BB can find the toilet, and don’t really want to know anyway!
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Hi, I am not a New Zealand resident, and I am not too much into your politics yet (but I’d like to). But from visiting New Zealand and reading some material about it, I got the really good impression of a country which cares for its environment. And I actually think that this is a very lucky coincidence that such a beautiful country, with such a magnificent nature cares so much about it.
And now I found this blog and from reading the comments on various posts I get the feeling that all the environmental approach is mostly just illusion.
Please prove me wrong.
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Maybe when they go back to carbon charging and end the mistaken bio-fuels programme.
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Oh dear what a love fest , we are all agreeing today! Excellant Maybe theres hope yet.
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Toad
If you want to talk about players and drug use then you do not need to go as far as the UK, there was a NZ fast bowler of the mid 90′s who would often “drop a tab” before going out to terrorize us poor sods who were in the opposition, never have I ever been so happy to bat at eleven or be run out without facing a ball.
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Toad,
Congratulations.
Greg Brave,
Do not worry over much.
This is an election year and this is a political party blog, your reaction is exactly what the Green spinmeisters are trying to create amoung NZers.
The Greens (a political party) who run this blog need to carve a niche for themselves in the coming election. Standard political procedure is to highlight the issue they are percieved to offer the best solution for. In the Greens case it is obviously the enviroment. They need to make it feel like NZ is teetering on the brink of enviromental disaster as a result of the other political parties offering only “illusory” concern for the enviroment.
Come back after the election and the tune will be different. If the Greens are supporting the government the spin will be positive. If not we may well be spinning to enviromental hell in a handbasket.
For a slightly less political perspective on NZ enviromental issues try the Royal Society for Protection of Forest & Bird.
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/
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Thank you unaha-closp for your answer, I feel better now
Forest and Bird is a great organization!
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Greg
Environmentalism is alive and well here, but Greens are not uncritical of our government and its failures on that front. I am not clear on what you regard as our failure… on this blog. I suspect that it relates to the other politicking that greens are prone to, as we ARE a political party.. Frog needed one big cheek to hold in his tongue when making the original post. Cricket is a popular NZ game of some sort that involves people with funny painted faces and floppy hats doing absurd things with balls and sticks for hours on end
… sort of like baseball except for the painted faces part.
I will now retreat to my impregnable flame proof bunker of doom.
respectfully
BJ
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Greg Brave – I have to agree with unaha-closp that we often argue that the other political parties only offer ‘illusory’ concern for the environment. I also have to agree that here we are very political in nature. (No pun, please) However, I disagree that after the election our tune will change. Unfortunately, even with our existing ‘cooperation’ agreement with the government, real environmental concern is still an illusion in Wellington. It is interesting that our lefty critics always accuse us of being too hard on the Labour Party and too soft on the National Party. Our right wing critics accuse us of the opposite. I usually take it that this means we’ve go it about right!
Forest and Bird is a great resource and I highly recommend it. Meanwhile we’ll keep on fighting the good fight in the political arena. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it!
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BB said: So you batted at Jack too BB!!!
You’re obviously younger than me – my cricketing days were long over before the mid-90s. I don’t think drugs were involved in this one (apart from the painkillers afterwards), but I did have the experience in the late 70s of being promoted to No 9 after scoring 15* batting at 11 in my previous innings.
But on my promotion I found I was facing a rampaging Gary Troup bowling at my body on a lively wicket – and at an innings score of just over a hundred for 7 wickets, I was expected to stick around! Try as I did, I couldn’t see the ball, couldn’t even get the relief of a nick to slips, got hit 3 times, was 2* at the end of the innings, and didn’t play for the rest of the season because he’d broken my finger.
Back to the safety of 11 next season.
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Will the WHO give her a Champion of Global Road Safety award. Ok so her road safety strategy hasn’t actually saved any lives or reduced the number of people crippled on her highways every year. But obviously it’s the words that matter not the actions.
Although there has been a 20% reduction in road deaths since she became PM, this happened entirely in the first term and largely as the result of two things Helen had nothing to do with. One was the sudden end of cheap petrol, this caused the drop in the road toll to have a profile so unique that it has only occurred once before – 174-1978. The other was a three year spend-up on highway safety that the board of Transfund committed to in June 1999. This annoyed Helen so much that she refused to reappoint the offending board members, ordered Transfund not to spend money on roads unless it had all the money in the bank even though the previous system had worked without a hitch for 75 years (including the Great Depression, WWII and Muldoon) and finally, just to be on the safe side, she abolished Transfund. Curiously, when it became known that Transit was cooperating with the KiwiRAP program she decided to abolish Transit too. Perhaps she has misunderstood the slogan “Country people die on country roads” and thinks it is ” Only country people die on country roads, and country people vote National – so who cares? Especially when people in my electorate can’t get home from work in time to see me on the 6 o’clock news”.
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Dear frog,
I also thank you for your comment as it gives me a better understanding of what is going on. And as long as your fight is for the benefit of New Zealand and its environment I totally support you. Many people all over the world refuse to take action on things they believe in for all kinds of reasons. I disagree with that kind of behavior and try on my behalf to act according to my beliefs. It seems to me that this is what your party does (or at least for the biggest part of it). So I wish you good luck!
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