Friday 22 May 2009

just keep quiet

don't know about you, but i was less than impressed with the "no-moan-zone" idea voted up at the entrepreneurial summit in auckland yesterday. not that i have any problem with the power of positive thinking, it's certainly more helpful than negative thinking.

however, this idea seems to be a way to stifle dissent. if people protest for example, against the a failure to raise the minimum wage, is that going to count as moaning? if they want to raise issues arises from funding cuts to disability services, does that count as moaning? if there attacks on the collective bargaining provisions in the employment relations act, we should keep quiet for fear of dubbed as "moaners"?

it's a worrying concept particularly in times of recession, higher unemployment and a government that may be looking to privatise crucial services. public dissent is crucial for our own protection - as can be seen with the whole supercity charade. pushing aside that dissent as "moaning" would be very helpful in ramming through measures that would be harmful to the country and to particular communities.

6 comments:

Anna said...

I think it's daft. I assumed (maybe wrongly) that this guy was basically talking about people who work in the service industry, and how they promote NZ in their interactions with tourists. If so, that's pretty crappy - how much goodwill should a $13 p/h wage be expected to buy?

Sarah said...

I might be wrong but I think the 'no moan zone' was for the summit itself and the actual promo campaign they voted up was 'Give it a go bro' which is the whole number 8 wire + positivity thing.

stargazer said...

well yes, the second sounds good. didn't mention this in the article (or maybe i didn't read carefully enough!)

Sarah said...

Yeah I know - I think the article was a bit misleading in that way. I read the Herald article which had a bit more detail - but mostly I think I had read about the no moan zone early in the month about the summit. Your comments were fair if that is one of the outcomes, but none of the articles are clear about what the promo campaign is about.

They want to use possum fur as well - I hope they'll use the ones around our place!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anna said...

Anon, I deleted your comment because it was pretty dumb and added nothing to the debate.

Sarah, I actually quite like the possum fur idea - but is it based on hunting possums or farming them? Because adding to the possum population would surely be as unhelpful as Anon's comment.