Bob Clarkson adds to his total word tally in Parliament
After I reported Bob Clarkson’s work rate in Parliament at various times as 65 words in 2 and half months, 16 words in one month and 19 words in nearly 3 months, I was hoping after last night to be able to say Bob Clarkson had blown all those previous records out of the water with his valedictory speech.
Amazingly though instead we got this: “Goodbye“.
I’ll be looking forward to his memoirs (which will presumably be issued via txt message).
Bookmark to:
September 25th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Clarkson may have been a hopeless MP, but I like his sense of humour.
His “BYE BYE” card was not a farewell message to the House as a whole - it was a very pointed dig directed to his predecessor as the Member for Tauranga who is now in all sorts of trouble as a consequence of holding up a card with a two letter word on it.
The media seems to have missed it.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Clarkson is not a great MP for one reason only, he hates the lies and BS that surrounds the place.
The sickly white liberals and the painfully PC do not like Bob because he is a good old fashioned Kiwi bloke who speaks his mind, perhaps you might not agree with him but I find his willingness to be open and honest a breath of fresh air in the house.
However he should be thanked by all Kiwi’s for one very good deed, he (Clarkson) is the man who got rid of Winston from Tauranga and inadvertently ushered in the Owen Glenn saga.
If Winston is kicked out of the house after the next election then a lot of the credit is down to Clarkson.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
If he speaks his mind, there must not have been much in there. But, yes, I know that Nats will have seen to it that he didn’t talk.
That he inadvertently was the one to help bring down Winston is a nice thing, but surely no reason to lionise Clarkson.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am
|| The sickly white liberals
Any chance you can make your comment without bringing race into it?
Speaking as a pale person, the reason I don’t give a sh!t about Bob Clarkson is because he was in Parliament for his own gain and did nothing to represent his electorate.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:32 am
With Winston gone and no one else opposing mass immigration we can look forward to house prices remaining unaffordable, coastal property being sold to rich foreigners, more motorways and forever having to let out the city belt. ETC
September 25th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Steve Pierson has just blogged on Clarkson’s valedictory over at The Standard:
I agree with Steve’s sentiments - New Zealand does not need MPs like Clarkson. I suspect the reason he never said much as an MP was that he was not allowed to becasue the Nats were terrified of what he might say if he did.
Still love his sense of humour though.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
>>no one else opposing mass immigration
No party wants mass immigration. We want controlled immigration. We’re all immigrants.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I think Clarkson is a waste of space…..but at least he knew it. Unlike some….
September 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Valis
Ah the sheer arrogance of the left, “If he speaks his mind, there must not have been much in there”
You could have said, “well I do not agree with the man but…” however you revert to abuse simply because he does not share your views.
It is really quiet pathetic.
————————————————————————————–
Numbersix.
“Clarkson is because he was in Parliament for his own gain”
Only a socialist could make such a comment, Clarkson (and many of his National party colleagues) enter Parliament at great financial cost to themselves, unlike the left they do not consider being an MP as the highest paying job they will ever have.
This might explain the panic sweeping the ranks of the Labour party as many face being unemployed in a couple of months.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Steve Pierson aka Clinton Smith called somebody a bigot?
Thats a classic example of the pot calling the kettle a person of colour.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Toad
Why the naked hatred of Clarkson?
Might it be that you do not like the man because he refuses to be PC?
September 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Agree with toad that his bye bye sign is a two finger salute to winston peters.
Clarkson reason for running for the Tauranga seat was to get rid of winston. In fact it was the $40,000 owing by winston (who is so contemptable I wont even spell his name with a capital letter) for the court case to Clarkson to has proved winston’s undoing. Double whammy.
Mission accomplished, time to go and build another Baypark
September 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
big bro
Can you point to anything Clarkson has done for his constituents? This is the issue.
I don’t care that the man said the word “testicles” and can be a rude bugger at times. If that’s all it takes to impress you, so be it.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
No6
“Can you point to anything Clarkson has done for his constituents?”
Yes, he got rid of Winston.
And BTW, where did I say that he impressed me?, I have no real opinion of the man either way, I do like his refreshing “blunt” way of speaking and IMHO that is something we could do with a lot more of in NZ.
Now how about you provide some proof to back up your statement that Clarkson was in “it” for personal gain.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“Ah the sheer arrogance of the left, “If he speaks his mind, there must not have been much in thereâ€?
You could have said, “well I do not agree with the man but…â€? however you revert to abuse simply because he does not share your views.”
Are you standing up for blunt, to-the-point speaking or not? Or are only right-wingers allowed to express themselves bluntly?
Personally I think Clarkson is an idiot. Sorry if me being blunt and honest about this offends you.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
“Ah the sheer arrogance of the left, “If he speaks his mind, there must not have been much in thereâ€?
It was a joke about his lack of discourse in the House, big bro. Sorry you didn’t get it. Could make another joke about the right’s sense of humour, but what would be the point.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
big bro said:
“You could have said, “well I do not agree with the man but…â€? however you revert to abuse simply because he does not share your views. It is really quiet pathetic.”
Yes, BB, a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. So referring to readers here as “sickly white liberals” is not abusive? Not pathetic? Yeah Right!
September 25th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
# BluePeter Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
No party wants mass immigration. We want controlled immigration. We’re all immigrants.
……………………
We have had a 25% in population since 1990, yet national wants to speed things up, which had the blogger at The Landlord Says hinting property investors might want to vote national (but not first home buyers).
We are all immigrants and generation to generation people get used to the new reality, except for the older demographic who aren’t landlords and can smell a rat as the likes of Bob Clarkson revel in their wealth while they pay higher rates and remember when Mrs Smith had a lovely garden on the corner of their street.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I’m just reading Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities* and I wonder at the role of the property developer. Bob Clarkson and his ilk are types that think that they “make it all happen”, without them the hapless public would live under plastic out in paddocks (perhaps). Actually they couldn’t do it without the wealth (sweat) of the community in the form of a loan from the bank and then there are the helpful chippies and subbies , architects etc and finally the residents who ultimately pay. Do we really need the entrepreneurial developer and what advantages do they bring. In Chch they are saying that the market doesn’t deliver the desired outcomes?
* http://tinyurl.com/3uv6v4
September 25th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Property Developers taking major unelected political role in Britain
by IanPJ on Mon 31 Dec 2007 04:03 GMT | Permanent Link | Cosmos
The news today that almost 14,000 acres of Green Belt land - the equivalent of 80,000 football pitches - have been lost to development since Labour came to power, figures have shown.
Essex, Kent, Cambridgeshire and the London suburbs, where there is a high demand for housing, have seen the greatest amount of protected countryside disappear.
The Midlands and the North have also been affected. Nearly 4,000 acres have been lost in Leeds.
This news reinforces the fact that:.
Property Developers are the biggest donors to the Labour Party, both legally and illegally.
Property Developers are the biggest stakeholders in the Regional Assemblies
Property Developers are the biggest donors to the nefarious network of ‘charities’ undertaking political activity in the UK.
The break up of the UK continues, the master plan of NuLabour continues to be rolled out much to the disadvantage of the indigenous people of this land.
The Importing of millions of people into the UK is I feel quite deliberate and designed to de-stabilize the long established way of life and culture in this country
http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2007/12/31/343874 3.html
September 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Therefore, to conclude, we can
see that property developers indeed
have a great interest in influencing
the shape and function of cities
within the urban hierarchy. Moreover,
they have a vast ability to accomplish
their objectives to the point that they
can influence government decisionmaking.
Subsequently, property
developers are increasingly becoming
an important agent of change in
shaping urban areas especially as
redevelopment schemes start to pick
up around the world and as developers
begin to exert their influence in
those redevelopment plans; this will
undoubtedly have consequences on
the performance and function of
cities which will in turn af fect the
positioning of cities in the world
urban system. Whether or not
developers’ decisions will cause
certain cities to rise up or fall down
the hierarchy of cities is another
story but regardless, I believe the
role of property developers will
continue to become more prominent
and as a result, I think more attention
needs to be paid to this group of
actors and to how their actions are
going to influence the development
of cities around the world because
their actions will certainly have
implications for the standing of cities
in the world urban system and for
the way of life of residents in those
cities.
http://www.ams.ubc.ca/clubs/gsa/JOURNAL/4_property_developers_chou.pdf
Their interests or ours?
September 25th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Missed the last bit:
Their interests or ours (witness Queenstown)?
September 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Come to think of it the whole post went to moderation.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
It proves that the left isn’t Green (nor the right)
September 25th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Sam
It is of course your right to consider Clarkson to be an idiot, I assume that you base this on the things he has said in the house (even though some claim that he has not said much)
While Clarkson might seem a tad agricultural I would think that his business success proves that he is far from an idiot, therefore I am left with the impression you consider him an idiot simply because he does not share the same political beliefs as you.
If its an idiot that you seek then how about the Green party MP who only last week said that it was perfectly safe for the NZ cricket team to travel to Pakistan as he (the Green party MP) had the “inside word” from the Pakistani Greens that they would be OK.
Thank goodness NZ cricket did not take his word for it (perhaps they also consider him to be an idiot) as the NZ Cricket team were due to be staying at the Marriott hotel on the day of the bombing.
I think you will find that this is the same Green MP who also famously said that Pol Pot was a great chap.
Or perhaps we could talk about the other Green party MP and idiot who said that the anti smacking bill would stop babies being killed and that all fathers who smacked their kids were pedophiles.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Yawn. No BB, there are plenty of people who’s political views strongly oppose my own who I don’t consider to be idiots - Gareth Morgan, Bob Jones, Helen Clark, Simon Upton just to name a few locals. Clarkson’s comments on Islam and burkas were what did it for me.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Sam
“Clarkson’s comments on Islam and burkas were what did it for me”
I missed those comments, what did he say?
(Genuine question)
September 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
“I think you will find that this is the same Green MP who also famously said that Pol Pot was a great chap.”
You know this is a lie, because we just “discussed” it last week! Stop lying!
“Or perhaps we could talk about the other Green party MP and idiot who said that the anti smacking bill would stop babies being killed and that all fathers who smacked their kids were pedophiles.”
Here we go again. Reference please.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Valis
I provided a link that proves what Keith said, I have also (in the past) provided links in the past to support the “pedophile” statement.
September 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
No way! Re Pol Pot, here’s your post, folowed by mine, to which you never responded.
# big bro Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Valis
“From the early ’70s to 1977, Locke edited Socialist Action. In this job he made a blunder that haunts him to this day.
In April 1975 Locke wrote a lead article for Socialist Action under the banner heading: “Cambodia Liberated: Victory For Humanity� The “liberators� were of course the Khmer Rouge led by the infamous Pol Pot. More than million Cambodians were murdered under the Khmer Rouge.
In 1976 Locke made another faux pas. In a March 26th article for Socialist Action he wrote “Open Door to Warships Raises Nuclear Risks�. The risky ships were of course American. A short time later (July 23rd) a P Neary wrote a letter to Socialist Action, opposing nuclear weapons and supporting fusion power. Keith Locke’s reply “Capitalism cannot be trusted with nuclear power. . . socialism . . . would step up nuclear power research in order to make it safe�
How is that for proof Valis?
I note a distinct lack of “Green� causes in Keith’s past, to even suggest he is a “Green� is laughable.
# Valis Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
big bro,
“How is that for proof Valis?�
Laughable. I’ve just told you why the Pol Pot story isn’t true. To simply repeat it without even addressing the reasons I gave is, well, actually its what you do, isn’t it. The second matter I’ve not heard before, but even if true is hardly proof that Keith ever supported Pol Pot.
And why not give the source? More Trevor Loudon?
“I note a distinct lack of “Green� causes in Keith’s past, to even suggest he is a “Green� is laughable.�
That’s your myopia at work. No one, least of all Keith, denies his socialist past and most of his statements from those days I expect he would still stand by. (By the way, while at least one of his parents was in the NZ Communist Party, Keith was never a communist, though I’m not sure you know the difference.) But people’s views often change over time and Keith has not been afraid to say when he was wrong, such as comments he made regarding the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Keith is now entirely at home with the Greens and supports the Charter in its entirety. While his specialty is foreign affairs, he is the Auckland spokesperson on transport issues, for instance, and has been touring the country this year discussing the politics of peak oil.
——————————-
And re the pedophile statement, if you have the quote, why not post it again? No more reliable thatn the first one?
September 25th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Valis
You may not like the source but that is just tough luck.
September 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
The Dominion Post (New Zealand) ^ | 26 August 2006 | MARTIN KAY
MP Clarkson tells Muslims to unveil
26 August 2006
By MARTIN KAY
National MP Bob Clarkson’s mouth has landed him in trouble again after he said “Islam religion-type people” who wore burqas could be crooks hiding guns.
The Tauranga MP, who is known to shoot from the lip, said Muslim women should not wear the full-body veils if they wanted to “fit into our country”.
“Even walking down the street, to a certain extent, how do we know there’s not a crook with a gun hiding under a burqa? Who’s under that gown?” he said.
He was tolerant of all religions, but Muslims who wore burqas because of deeply held beliefs should “go back to Islam or Iraq”.
The comments, made days after a major diversity forum in Wellington, brought an angry reaction from Federation of Islamic Associations president Javed Khan.
He said the comments were “ignorant and arrogant” and singled out a small section of the community.
Clarkson’s call for Muslim women to stop wearing burqas came in an interview with the Dominion Post and followed comments he made in Palmerston North on Thursday.
“I do have a bit of a problem with Islam religion-type people wearing scarves and burqas around the place. I think people should fit into the country,” he said in Palmerston North.
………………………………………………
I guess he wouldn’t like farmers wearing long oilskins and scarves - who knows what they might be hiding under there?
September 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
For the Pol Pot story, let’s hear what the man has to say :
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/16594
September 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Sam
Thanks for that, I doubt that you would be surprised to hear that there is not a lot in that speech that I disagree with.
I am not a fan of the full face burqas in NZ, surely when you come to a new country you adapt to the local custom.
We must not get to carried away with thus PC rubbish, if your good lady or mine chose to wear a bikini while visiting a Muslim country they would be told to cover up immediately (at the very least)
September 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
# big bro Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
> I provided a link that proves what Keith said, I have also (in the past) provided links in the past to support the “pedophile� statement.
What your link on the ‘pedophile’ statement showed was of course that she didn’t say what you accused her of saying. You accused her of saying that all men who smacked their children did so for sexual gratification. What she actually said was that there was evidence of a small number of men getting sexual gratification from corporal punishment against their kids.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
bb,
I’m interested to know that you own “a good lady”.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
“You may not like the source but that is just tough luck.”
big bro, its your credibility at stake. You haven’t even given a source, just repeated unsubstantiated lies. If that’s all you can muster, its fine with me.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
““Sue Bradford said ‘Personally, I have no problem with sadomasochism carried out between consenting adults using
safe sex practices – what I do have a problem with is a legacy of hidden sexual violence practised on children and
young people under a mantle of so-called discipline…. Section 59 of the Crimes Act, has been protecting the
perpetrators of a vicious mix of sexual and physical abuse for generations.’ “”
September 25th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Eredwen
you have a problem with that term of respect?
September 25th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Valis
Kieth said it, the proof is there, deal with it and move on.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
# eredwen Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
> I’m interested to know that you own “a good lady�.
actually, he didn’t say he owned her, unless you consider that I own my neighbour if I refer to him as MY neighbour
September 25th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
big bro, the only proof there is that you’re willing to repeat a cowardly lie.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:55 am
If Bob Clarkson is “a good old fashioned Kiwi bloke” then I completely give up on NZ males.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:31 am
“Keith is now entirely at home with the Greens and supports the Charter in its entirety.”
……………………….
The problem is operationalising the charter.
Sue Bradford claims her repeal of S59 of the crimes act was in line with the non violence principle.
Kieth didn’t look hard for signs of V in regard to Tame I - ti
The Charter is (usefully) Not clear in meaning or application.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:33 am
“K is now entirely at home with the Greens and supports the Charter in its entirety.”
……………………….
The problem is operationalising the charter.
S B claims her repeel of S58 +1 of the crimes act was in line with the non violence principle.
K didn’t look hard for signs of V in regard to Tame I - ti
The Charter is (usefully) Not clear in meaning or application.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:43 am
“I am not a fan of the full face burqas in NZ, surely when you come to a new country you adapt to the local custom.”
You have a moko and go about in a kiwi-feather cloak then?
There’s no such thing as a “full face burka” (the burka is the robe-type garment, not the veil), but my reasons for thinking this makes Clarkson an idiot is his comments about hiding guns. You can hide a gun under any heavy garment, so why single out burkas? He’s just looking for a tupid justification for his predjudices.
The other thing that bugs me about him is his constant repetition of phrases like “speaking for the ordinary kiwi” and “saying what everybody is thinking”. If he’s so gutsy, why doesn’t he speak for himself and not claim a mandate he doesn’t have?