Thursday, July 3, 2014

The top 10 #nzpol tweets this week - July 3, 2014

Another riveting week in New Zealand politics. The MFAT's mishandling of diplomat accused of committing a crime dominated the news, the results of #TeamKey made international headlines, an MP's electorate office got shot at (yes, you read that right, SHOT AT), and last but not least there was the whole Moa situation - I honestly can't roll my eyes hard enough at this point. In any case, let's get started.

I don't have a lot of institutional knowledge of the NZ Parliament. I moved around the world as a child and really didn't take an interest in New Zealand politics until very late into my undergrad. So everything I know, I know because people have told me or I read about it. But I was working at Parliament through 2011 and 2012 and there were certainly some very 'animated' days in during Question Time. I myself have been frustrated by the then Speaker's rulings but I really don't think it was ever as bad as it has been recently and that was an election year too! Speaker Carter seems to be really inconsistent in his ruling and very partisan (my opinion, maybe someone can do an empirical analysis for a Masters thesis).

Ah yeah. THIS tweet right here. Universal, not just #NZPOL.




National's talk of tax cuts irks me to no end. This government has cut so many programs over the last 6 budgets just to get us to this sliver of surplus. Instead of going some way to restoring some of those very crucial programs, they are once again up to their old antics. I just don't understand the economic or policy justification for this. I simply do not get it.






Earlier this week, National announced that they were going to tackle domestic violence. They tweeted a much talked about image that is circulating twitter (They can't seem to control their content at all). But once again they failed to incorporate the important aspect. The crucial piece.

John Key actually said GCSB were protecting us in response to a child poverty question.


The more I try to get away from covering Colin Craig, the more I get sucked in.

And finally, this did not make much news this week. Pretty serious. Back in '09 someone threw something in John Key's electorate office in the wee hours of the morning, and I remember it made news all day long with reporters on location. Of course he is the PM so technically more important. It is important for us to have robust political debated and to be passionate about what we believe in and to be angry about our opponents too but this is so many steps too far. It is very important that other Parliamentary leaders are quick to condemn this kind of behaviour. I didn't see that this week, I expected that from John Key.


10 Rules of Top 10
1. Tweets must be funny or thoughtful or informative or display critical analysis 
2. What is funny or thoughtful or informative or display critical analysis is subjective and determined by me.
3. I may provide commentary on the tweet if it particularly strikes my fancy
4. They are not ranked from 1-10
5. Disclosure: I *am* particularly looking to highlight gender and racial minority voices
6. If you want to point me to the direction of a good tweet, please do it!
7. Using the #nzpol/#nzqt/#nzvotes is helpful but not required
8. I hope to get better about this as the weeks progress
9. I am a big fan of correct spelling and grammar (but I know mistakes happen too!)
10. Let's try to use social media for good and raise the level of debate! 
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