Foot in Mouth strikes New Zealand

[chuck]

And in unrelated news, this week's verbal cockup is via Lockwood Smith, the opposition spokesperson on immigration policy, who had this to say about migrant Pacific Island workers:

"There are some skills in the vineyard that some people are perhaps better at," Dr Smith was reported saying in the Marlborough Express newspaper."For example some of the pruning ... some of the Asian workers have been more productive ... because their hands are smaller."

Link (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501799&objectid=10538807)

As Lockwood Smith says in the linked story, he does regret his comments - but they were taken out of context.

bahaha - what a muppet. in what context is that acceptable - in this day and age - by a politician - 2 weeks out from an election - TO A REPORTER.

best bit is - the audio is now online (http://video.stuff.co.nz/audio/stuff_1335_Audio.mp3).

Oh, how I laughed - that's one quick journalist. Her follow up question is brilliant - and the politician's reply just shows how ignorant he is:

"... by and large, I don't say anything that would trouble me."


I wasn't going to vote for the National/conservative party anyway - but now, I'm not going to - on my simple principle of not voting for STUPID people.

And not that you're really interested in NZ politics - but this blog is a good one for keeping tabs on it - from a left/socialist perspective.

http://www.thestandard.org.nz/

This is also quite a good comparison (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501799&objectid=10538705) of the US and NZ election process.

[Deckard]

"For example some of the pruning ... some of the Asian workers have been more productive ... because their hands are smaller."
--
...he does regret his comments - but they were taken out of context.
For example, on spouting bullshit.... some of the conservative politicians have been more productive... because their brains.....