pudding and a movie

Looking more and more like Goff will be picked as leader of the opposition. UPDATE: (Confirmed)

Thought I’d share some of my personal recollections on the subject of Phil Goff. I remember, it was Goff who was head of Education when they got *rid* of the (general) student allowance and introduced unversity fees – yes that’s right those same student allowances that Labour was offering to put back in place, if we only voted them back in one more time. This all happened in the year I started University no less. Joy!

I recall marching along in Christchurch at a (mostly) student protest about the fees chanting “Off with Goff”, “Off with Goff”.

The only occasion I had an in-person run in with Goff was at a meeting in the 40th story boardroom of a bank in NY, back in (I guess) 2001? – he arrived with a TVNZ camera crew in tow.

The general tenor of the meeting was “Australia said they would declare war on Afghanistan not hours but just minutes after the US and where was NZ. Apparently NZ had waited a whole entire day before they said they got involved and this was just not good enough. Also, folks wanted to know, what’s this about getting rid of the NZ Air Force – hardly what we need right now as we fight the war on terror”.

Goff spent most of the meeting trying as hard as possible to make ‘us’ sound as belligerent, hawkish and 100% in support of the Bush Administration and the war on terror as possible. Also we weren’t really getting rid of the airforce it was just a matter of adjusting our priorities so we could play a more useful role (yeah, right!). In retrospect I wish I had spoken up to put the other side of it. To say “well actually maybe its OK that Helen Clark may have mentioned the word Switzerland in this context” (apparently that was absolutely beyond the pale). I might even had gone out on a limb and said that we shouldn’t support the war against Afghanistan. However I guess I was a bit overawed by the fancy bankers at the meeting (I was a bit younger than everyone else too). It would’ve been worth it even I had been kicked out of the group. After all, just a fortnight before I had been on the streets directly below protesting predatory lending practices and putting ‘pills before profits’ or something .. (but I digress)

Wanted to mention that at least at that meeting, Goff did not impress me as being able to stand up to fat cat bankers, not at all. The fact that he was the foreign minister (or assistant something) didn’t seem to make him think that he, not they, had the right to speak on matters of NZ foreign policy. and that he didn’t need to apologize so much. Well maybe he’s grown a pair by now. ?

Most galling was that after the consensus of the room had established that ‘we’ (NZ) were looking bad and that the public image needed to be rectified, Goff turned around to the TVNZ cameras and said “OK yup lets make a statement right now, see what can be done to correct things”. Next thing you know its on the 6 O’Clock news. Well If only the protesters outside had had the ability to get their message out with such ease.

Still he may make a good opposition leader – let’s hope so.

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