National green lights moves to let Japan hunt Whales (how’s that change feeling?)

When National announced that they were going to butcher Labour’s ‘hug a polar bear’ programmes, their spin drs giggled at how clever they were to avoid answering hard questions about deep social cuts by wrapping the entire affair up as some type of cleansing of political correctness from the awful Nanny State, but few would’ve guessed that National were actually serious at least in killing whales.

Murray McCully, The Dark Lord of the Sith (who NEVER seems to get criticized by Jane Clifton in the Listener*) has been screwing over international aid by removing its independence so that Murray can use the aid money to further corporate interests over and above humanitarian interests. But his latest move to let the Japanese hunt whales is surely a right wing move too far. McCully is destroying NZ’s long stand against whaling by agreeing to a compromise (something the Australians refuse to do) with the Japanese means that NZ will willingly accept that ‘scientific’ whaling is legitimate when every intelligent person knows that ‘scientific’ whaling is an utter lie.

McCully’s aim seems to be the same as his destruction of the independence of the International Aid fund, he wants to give Japan a get out of jail free card on whaling in expectation of trade interests. That this Government’s greenlighting of a concession to let Japan continue the ‘scientific’ whaling lie is more to do with McCully’s trade before aid world view and is just another example of the real type of ‘change’ these right wingers have slipped past the voters. We should NOT allow Japan to continue the 'scientific' whaling lie, and we sure as hell shouldn't be letting them do so because of McCully's bloodmoney worldview. I didn't notice National letting voters know NZ was going to bend over and take it from the Japanese by giving up on whaling protections.

(* PS – I haven’t bought a copy of the Listener since that nice Findlay stopped being editor so I was interested to peruse a free copy I received this week and oh my Christ it’s gone so hard right I had to perform an exorcism with old bong water on my copy as soon as I had read it fearing the combined evil within my house would lead me to start wanting to physically discipline children. The National Party zeitgeist that has washed over NZ is reflected in right wing columnist after right wing columnist of a once great magazine that now sums up the new Sylvia Park anti-intellectualism Ponsonby housewife perspective that the Listener perfectly represents. Won’t someone please give Deborah Hill Cone a) a cone and b) some friends to tell her those Harry Potter glasses are terribly unflattering).