Hard News: Last Words
203 Responses
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The day after Goff was made leader of the Labour Party the media decided Labour was going to be humiliated in 2011,
You know what, Tom, I’m not going to slap you around for buying into that bullshit because I was every bit as deep in the river denial the day before the 2002 election. It’s not pretty to watch, but will pass.
What isn’t going to be pretty, I suspect, is certain elements in Labour who going to try and build a Dolchstoßlegende around those awful Greens and Maori Party supporters (**FULL DISCLOSURE**: The Greens got my party vote. Got a problem with that? Tell someone who gives a shit - that ain't me.) and any left-leaning person who dared criticise Labour on any front. Heretics are always more contemptible than infidels, I guess.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Am I being an idiot, or is it the Herald that's wrong?
The Herald is constantly wrong.
Labour will win on Saturday by a large margin. The people of New Zealand will wake from their collective slumber and realise that johnkey and pals are a bunch of rip off merchants and vote for the only real alternative, Labour.
johnkey will run off and go live in Hawaii and the rest of them will go off to Australia because "it's better" and they failed to make NZ a smaller copy of Aus.
Come Sunday the sun will shine, the birdies will chirrup and the bees will be buzzing around with joyful smiles as they sup the sweet nectar of a Labour victory.
If and it is highly unlikely considering the shit they intend to dump on us all, johnkey and pals rule the day it will be because the system has been rorted by the filthy few and we will have to have a revolution. In which case, I will see you at the barricades brothers and sisters. -
I would have voted Green, if they removed all the equivocation from this page and just said that they will not support National on confidence and supply during the next parliament and will consider any legislation against their policy and principles.
As it stands, I'm party voting Mana and electorate voting for Grant Robertson, as he's one of the better Labour MPs and deserves to survive a wipeout on the list.
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+1 for Tom's 3rd paragraph, above.
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And what pisses me off about Labour …
Well, I think some policies aren’t well-considered. The Broadcasting policy is a missed opportunity, and removing GST from fresh fruit and vegetables is like to achieve little beyond eroding the tax base. It’ll save my household way more than it saves a household on the benefit or minimum wage.
But mostly … it’s the list. This term was the perfect time to clean out the time-servers and give Labour’s new talent three years to find its feet.
Instead, a badly flawed process may well see Carmel Sepuloni – one of a handful of MPs picked out as the face of the party for the opening broadcast – out of Parliament because her list place isn’t high enough. Others behind her, like Jordan Carter and Kate Sutton, have no show.
In the likes of Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, Labour has authentic future leaders. They should have had company on this year’s party list and it’s a bloody criminal shame they don’t.
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Sacha, in reply to
interesting stats on landline ownership
Interesting, thanks. Wonder why higher income earners would have lower rates?
NO LANDLINE TELEPHONE
Horizon Research earlier this year found 6.4% of New Zealanders 18+ do not have a landline telephone at home. This rises to 19.6% among 18 to 24 year-olds; 18.8% for those earning $100,000 to $200,000 a year and 12.5% for those earning less than $20,000 a year.
12.9% of business managers and executives no longer have a landline at home, along with 17.2% of students and 14.6% of labourers, agricultural or domestic workers. 13% of those flatting and boarding and 11.6% of one parent families have no landline at home.
HorizonPoll research finds 95.5% of its panellists have access to the internet at home, 39.3% at work, 19.1% by mobile, 7.3% at an internet café and 8.4% at a wireless hot spot.
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3410,
Except that they do have "Party Vote Labour" billboards up all over the place.
Yeah, some, but most of their billboards are for candidates and look like this (below).
Note that the second one has been "fixed".
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3410,
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Sarah King, in reply to
A friend was talking about how she's so pleased with how her son was going at University - "I've got my bubbly boy back, high school was just surviving". I look at my boy who has "survived" his inner city intermediate and wonder if he will fare much better at high school. According to National Standards this "gifted", engaged and engaging child is average at best. Something is wrong here and I struggle to have confidence in the education system.
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David Haywood, in reply to
Wonder why higher income earners would have lower rates?
Just did a thing on NatRad about this very issue (which seems to have genuinely skewed opinion polls in the US). Annoyingly, I didn't find the NZ landline data until after the programme:
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Sacha, in reply to
National’s even going to give “good” schools more money.
which was the whole plan all along - ideologically consistent rewarding of the already "successful"
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Russell Brown, in reply to
As it stands, I’m party voting Mana and electorate voting for Grant Robertson, as he’s one of the better Labour MPs and deserves to survive a wipeout on the list.
I keep having to remind myself I'm not in Auckland Central any more (it was the boundary that moved, not me), because I'd really like to vote for Jacinda Ardern.
Which isn't to say I don't think Nikki Kaye isn't capable. Indeed, the quality of candidates in the electorate is remarkably high -- both the Greens' Denise Roche and Act's David Seymour do their respective parties credit. But winning in Auckland Central would give Ardern a political base that I really think she deserves.
Stil, can't complain about the MP I have. David Shearer, who should canter home in Mt Albert, strikes me as one of the most genuine people I've met in politics. He's hardworking, humble and intelligent.
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Sacha, in reply to
I'd really like to vote for Jacinda Ardern
so it was *you* who amended that billboard?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Fascinating (as Bishop would say, dissecting a dead facehugger in Aliens), listening to Hooton on Nine to Noon. He was obsessively repeating “ so-called asset sales” and puffed up with moral indignation over Labour’s “scare campaign” (this from a man who compared them to the Kahui parents a few years ago). His urgency, and his repetitiveness was quite morbidly interesting – he seemed to be panicked.
Hooton has made disingenuousness a high art.
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I've been trying to convince people who usually can't be arsed to vote that there is one vote that will count for a lot in this election - MMP. While they're there, they might as well flick one off to whatever party is most closely aligned, even if not really representative of them.
Also, despite the polls, I do think it's going to be close. If National can't govern alone, it will need to convince one coalition partner to work with it, and that might not actually happen. They have quite literally eaten the entire right wing vote pool. Even if they win an outright majority, it's likely that this election will be a structural loss to the right, which will definitely temper their ability to do anything really unpopular.
So I'm nowhere near as gloomy about this as die-hard Labour supporters are. Indeed, if National gets to govern with the barest of majorities, cobbled together with some minor party, they could be virtually powerless to bring about any unpopular policies, and the recession will grind out support for the party of the wealthy class.
There is every chance that the next few weeks are going to be even more interesting than the last 4.
I'm still undecided about who to party vote for, but it will be to the left.
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Steve Curtis, in reply to
"National standards" only applies to primary/intermediate schools.
High schools can do their own thing until the pupil starts NCEA which is a form of standardisation
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Crowdsourcing the PAS hive-mind, and as I'm too lazy to do the research myself, anyone got any good info on Ben Clarke? He doesn't have a chance of winning against that... gardening ....woman, but I'm wondering whether to throw him a bone with my candidate vote.
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As with almost every first term government in New Zealand history, there are a fair number of people willing to extend National the benefit of the doubt. That said, it is looking like the what I think of as "parties National gives a lifeline to in order to be able to change it's policies and still look like the moderates" are collapsing this election, so the most likely result is, say, a National/Maori Party government. Which will have the flow on effect that if National wants to go beyond its mandate it will have to own it rather than being "forced" into it by a sockpuppet party.
I think the poll movements have shown that the Greens are increasingly been seen as a third axis rather than National and LabourOrGreens.
I think this election will hinge on turnout, not so much of the party faithful but of the increasing number of people that have become undecided in the past month- if the show and which way will they move. -
BenWilson, in reply to
Stil, can't complain about the MP I have. David Shearer, who should canter home in Mt Albert, strikes me as one of the most genuine people I've met in politics. He's hardworking, humble and intelligent.
I'm a little worried that he doesn't have an especially developed television presentation yet, though. He would need to work on that.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
pissed-offness with how this National government acts
*
Which is fine for determining what you won't vote for.
But still leaves what you will vote for confused, well maybe not for you, but certainly for me.
* Yet another example of National using gut-feeling and what it knows to determine policy, sometimes in the face of evidence to the complete contrary.
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My pick for tomorrow:
National to get about 59 or 60 MPs. NZ First to get moderately close but miss out - 4.6% or something. ACT gone, Dunne in, Mana to get 2. Conservatives to miss out but I could see them getting in in the future if they stick at it and pick up NZ First/Christian Coalition/United Future/Act votes from a religious/socially conservative/crime and punishment angle.
National-Maori Party govt in a couple of weeks, asset sales and a child poverty initiative to be the big two things traded away, greens to again pick up some environmental stuff - insulation and sustainable energy in a MOU.
I'm going to go with Greens for my party vote - like some of their MPs that are in the teens on their list and feel they're easing away from their anti-science stances. Victor Billot from Alliance (he's great value at debates, rips a new hole into some of the other candidates) will get my electorate vote, the Dunedin North Labour candidate and campaign has been really disappointing this election.
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Sacha, in reply to
The Greens got my party vote.
onya
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Despite my efforts encouraging the tactical vote in Epsom, I'm quite glad I live in Auckland Central and get to vote for a candidate I actually want in parliament. MMP definitely makes the campaign period a bit more of a democratic buffet. I've been out door knocking for Jacinda, campaigning for the Green party vote, and flyering for MMP.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Which is fine for determining what you won’t vote for.
But still leaves what you will vote for confused, well maybe not for you, but certainly for me.
I'll vote how I always vote :-)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I’ve been out door knocking for Jacinda, campaigning for the Green party vote, and flyering for MMP.
Bravo.
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