Wednesday Afternoon Smashed Avocado on Toast

Thomas Coughlan at the NZ Herald helped David Seymour kick off his campaign today to try to bend National and NZ First to support his Treaty Principles Bill past the select committee stage by singling out an Atlas Network Poll ( Taxpayers Union ) from October 2023 which reported that 60% of us want the Treaty Principles changed and 45% want a referendum versus only 25% who oppose the idea.

Why Thomas reported and highlighted the Atlas Network poll when it contradicted a more neutral Reid Research poll taken in the same month of October 2023 is hard to understand, unless Thomas has some kind of skin in the game and was talking things up to his audience?

A Reid Research Poll taken in October 2023 showed only 32.2% wanted a referendum while 55.% were opposed and David Seymour went on record about how this was an idea he launched just 18 months ago and now one in three New Zealanders support it.

So G News suggests Thomas is clinging to a poll at 13% variance with Reid Research and of course the Atlas Network have an interest in poll results here right now.

Readers are reminded that the Atlas Network / Taxpayers Union polls are generally released on around the 10th of each month, so pay special attention if another poll on this question is promoted by Thomas over the next week.

In other news, there's many reasons to think the Prime Minister scrambled to make up some spin over night - after he was caught out copying and pasting parts of his speech from last year's speech.

Firstly let's get this straight - whilst most media and X formerly Twitter have been reporting that Luxon copied parts of his speech from last year, G News identified ( probably before anyone including Spiderhoof ) that Luxon was copying parts of his speeches ( just scroll through the record ) - and this goes all the way back to 2022 when Luxon gave a speech online and there was no get together at Waitangi that year.

Anyway - the reasons to think Christopher Luxon made up some spin last night stem from how :

1.) Luxon could not answer Amelia Wade's questions about why he copied parts of his speech - as he hurried away from Waitangi, Luxon said "We've got some great work to do.."

2.) The line Luxon has created this morning that he wants consistency to fight misinformation is not credible.

I laughed my flip top head off when Tama was blindsided about the copying and pasting on Three News last night - but let's go through point 2 a bit :

Luxon has repeated every year that it's 182, 183 and 184 years ago and seven decades after Cook sailed south from Tahiti - that Hobson and the Chiefs assembled at Waitangi.

What misinformation was Luxon protecting us all from here?

Seven decades since Cook Sailed South from Tahiti or was it misinformation about how Hobson was never at Waitangi?

Exactly.

Luxon's claim about protecting us from misinformation is simply ridiculous.

Luxon has also repeated that "the promise and the obligations of the Crown were not upheld".

Um - I have never heard anyone report the contrary even in the wildest conspiracies online - so once again what misinformation is Luxon referring to?

Finally - Luxon repeats that - the guys that signed the Te Tiriti were "people just like us, trying to navigate their way through towards a united, stable, peaceful and prosperous future".

Luxon added the word "united' this year for obvious reasons but the "people like us" thing is a one size fits all blanket and as you know "we tend to be attracted to people similar to ourselves" and this line by Luxon is more like PR spin designed to influence us more than protect us from misinformation.

So for the above reasons I do NOT BUY Luxon's excuses this morning and detest the way he boldly bullshits his way through such a flimsy, after the fact explanation when last night he was caught like an egg in the frying pan.

In further scuttlebutt - media are making a great deal out of a subtle shift in language about National's position on Act's Treaty Principles Bill this morning - suggesting the "no intention to support" and "no commitment to support" rhetoric has been shortened to "will not support".

Perhaps this is a slamming of the door after the latest internal polling and the Waitangi experience? Further - this may relate to the first item we discussed - Seymour and his campaign amplified by Thomas.

However it's worth noting Luxon frequently gets his words wrong and then doubles down on what he said long enough for the mistake to pass by.

Pullya Benefit was riding hard for Christopher this morning insisting that Luxon played a vital role in uniting us - ha ha ha.

OMG - but as was pointed out Luxon missed the opportunity to explain and address the elephant in the room and listen and we all laughed when Chippy said, "Christopher Luxon has demonstrated he knows how to read aloud".

Ha ha ha ha.

Anyway this is kind of trifling stuff that would be really funny if it were not so unbelievably bad.

You can only laugh really.

Much else has been going on - especially as Mihingarangi Forbes does a sterling job interviewing Seymour and Shane Jones and breaking down their arguments. I totally recommend you watch those interviews. She's a boss.

Seymour is quite rude to Mihingarangi but she takes no shite and when she says the Treaty is a contract he says it's a legal compact and what is that? A contract by strict definition - an agreement between groups or states...and yes we can split definitions with people like Paul Moon - but that hostile interview approach from Seymour comes with accusing journalists of being silly and stupid and conspiracy theorists and peddling bad information while Seymour ..slips and slides around selectively asking for examples when it suits him...and declaring Universal Human Rights are the highest power when it suits him - and contradicting himself when it does not ( voting age ) suit him.

Mihingarangi got Shane Jones to admit he was full of it - blowing rhetoric in the political wind - and Jones arguments about changing the scope of the Waitangi Tribunal are fork tongued.

Jones has no solutions - just hot air and criticisms.

That was a big underline - by Mihingarangi.

Jones seems to want Maori leaders to protest about too much immigration cos NZ's population may reach 7 Million by 2040.

Jones is petrified - but yes - he's tearing things down...and ripping up the scope of the Tribunal and full of it.

Apparently Tama ( insect face ) did not like being called a spider or a lion and said - do I look like one. to you?

Wow...I held my breath... cos.... ha ha ha.

 Anyway Jones says Dame Sean Elias' name has been passed on to Tama to shut down the Waitangi Tribunal scope later this year in the form of a review...you know how they go about these things. Very foot in the door, bag of dirt, oh look at the carpet - now watch the sucker suck....type stuff.

Yes so no wonder nearly everyone is feeling threatened by this Government in Te Ao Maori and there's so much push back.

You probably saw Jack Tame's interview with Seymour about him leaving Maori out of the decision - when it comes to using the tyranny of the majority over this Treaty Principles Bill.

Seymour uses his soft voice and the same old lines - but the traffic is all one way...and Tame has his finger on the button pointing out...Seymour is butting in and excluding one party to an agreement from having a say about changing it...using his clobbering stick - the majority.

Finally over on racist radio - The Platform ( home of Nicola Joy - internet troll ) - Oliver Sean Plunket has been trying to accuse Labour MPs about AK47's - you know references to guns - metaphors on the marae...but even Shane Jones put him straight about that one.

Oliver Sean Plunket did not attend Waitangi nor bother to read the media headlines cos he now thinks he can mind read them all, but he did get invited to Shane Jone's place for a party.

Plunket thinks everything was political at Waitangi and it should not be political when that does not suit Oliver Sean. Of course he does not blame his mates in the Atlas Network for stirring these conditions up - but instead the decision to split out the days for Labour and the Greens from the Government.

Some fearful racist colonial whites backed by the Atlas Network are worried about mission creep whether it's about the Waitangi Tribunal scope - covering constitutional reform and sovereignty, or whether it's about Treaty principles.

Truth is - Maori have been right about sovereignty all along and the courts will back them so now the right wing are trying to justify the unjustifiable - as Luxon demonstrates he can read out aloud and come up with lame excuses the next day, Thomas fluffs Seymour over dodgy Atlas Network polls as a means of influence , Plunket growls at media and lashes out at Maori even when things are peaceful and magnificent - and Shane admits he's full of it.

That's what I reckon anyway.

Wednesday Afternoon Smashed Avocado on Toast

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