Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Prospects

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  • simon g,

    Paul C

    Check out the Herald's Porkometer. National have won (and I bet that's not what the Herald intended when they started it!).

    So the new government will spend more AND cut taxes AND not sell anything AND not borrow more AND make us all safer and healthier and freer and richer and happier.

    Don't get down - the magic money is here!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Check out the Herald's Porkometer. National have won (and I bet that's not what the Herald intended when they started it!).

    And it makes a bit of a nonsense of the rationale for voting National in today's front-page editorial. They should just admit it's tribal and be done with it.

    BTW: can y'all help me here?

    Did the Herald threaten to do a pre-election name and shame (with mugshots) of everyone who voted for the EFA and/or the pledge card spending validation bill?

    It appears they have not been so pissy after all, but I'm struggling to recall the original threat.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Hmmm. less than a day to go and noew we start making up campaign slogans.

    NZ First - Live Free or Die Hard.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    hmmm things just got a little sureal - I just got a letter addressed to "John Key C/- Paul Campbell" (he must be hiding in the cellar or something) - the return address is "The Inconvenient Truth About Winston Peters" - and it's addressed to John and signed by Winnie - it sort of reads like a bad Peter's press conference so I guess it's really from him.

    It points John to a web site that's been specially set up for me personally (maybe that's why he's hiding in my cellar) - I tried looking at it (at www.MrKey.co.nz) but I guess it knows I wasn't really John because all it did was throw up a blank screen and loop telling me I had a bad password (it didn't actually ask for one).

    Seriously though - this piece of crap page is about 90% javascript (and maybe 50% of that is commented out - thanks for looking out for my bandwidth cap Winston) and the variables in it rather condescendingly refer to me as a 'prospect' - note to NZFirst - next time around maybe you could try it on more than just explorer ...

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Epsom is a story for our times.

    I am rather relieved to not be in Epsom any more! I hated having to vote for a candidate I didn't necessarily support, in a tactical vote.

    Wellington Central is so much simpler and straightforward!

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • JohnS,

    So strategically, for Labour voters in Epsom, you vote for Richard Worth if you want a Labour Govt.

    On the button, Christopher.

    I would like labour to lead the next term, so I'll vote National (Richard Worth) and party vote Green.

    Unlikely to work my way but I can't think of anything more intelligent to do in this blue-ribbon electorate.

    Rodney and his poisonous crew need shifting ... out.

    Greenlane, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 26 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Also from NBR ...

    National used OIA to dig dirt on Clark's husband

    They went back 40 years trying to find somewhere Davis had put a foot wrong in applying for a grant or something. It will have cost taxpayers many thousands of dollars.

    So please, no more whining about "smears".

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I predict 3 years of winter

    Don't worry. Aslan will eventually be elected after a tense down-to-the-wire campaign against the incumbent White Witch.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    Russell

    That was revealed by Brian Edwards on TV One, Wednesday night (the post-debate panel). It's been ignored by all media since.

    I don't usually go with "media bias", but there's too often a failure to see a story if it doesn't fit.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    So please, no more whining about "smears".

    As far as I know the only smears have come from National. Secretly recording what an MP is saying in private that contradicts what they say in public is not a smear, it's called journalism. Remember journalism? it used to be big in the seventies.

    Here's another slogan
    Say NO to a sub-prime minister.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    Che, an occasion where I couldn't decide which side I wanted to kick hardest

    neither. that would be lowering oneself to the occasion.

    re: grant r. he was standing outside my place of work the other day handing out pamphlets. i greeted him and he handed me the paperwork.

    looking at it i said, "dude! i voting for you anyhow!" he goes, "well, you won't be needing that then!" and grabbed the papers of me.

    </very humorous moment inadequately captured in lame writing>

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    So she decided she would probably vote for ACT because "Rodney Hide is quite funny."

    I think I'm going to cry.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    Did the Herald threaten to do a pre-election name and shame (with mugshots) of everyone who voted for the EFA and/or the pledge card spending validation bill?

    Both? From memory there were at least two... S59?

    I had a hazy impression they meant to do it on a weekly basis

    I remember thinking that if they kept adding gripes they would run out of space.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Haynes,

    "... Bradford (who, in saltier days, I referred to as "a platinum-plated prick")"

    This is most unfair to ... platinum.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 27 posts Report Reply

  • Ian MacKay,

    Russell said:"Also from NBR ...
    National used OIA to dig dirt on Clark's husband"

    The point of that was that National's tax-paid Research Unit was researching the "dirt" on Peter Davies at exactly the same time Key was slamming Labour for using The Labour Research Unit for checking the credibility of John Key! (The Williams debacle.) "Pigs....etc" says John Key.
    Isn't that hypocrisy?

    Bleheim • Since Nov 2006 • 498 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Haynes,

    And on the "Epsom dilemma", it is as Christopher Dempsey says.

    The Nats have certainly figured it out. I got a letter from Richard Worth this week headed "This election - give your party vote to National." The last line reads, "Choose a brighter future - this election, give your party vote to National", with the last six words underlined. Then, at the bottom is, "PS -- Make sure you give your party vote to National to change the government", with the words "party vote to National" underlined. No other words are underlined. Nowhere does Worth ask for the electorate vote. Get it?

    I am staggered that there are still some people on the left that still can't figure this out. Usually we're the smart ones, right? But if you still don't understand, I posted a short summary on progblog, who were also having trouble getting their head around the intricacies of MMP: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3971499996691266005&postID=6154681028599336194&isPopup=true

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 27 posts Report Reply

  • Ian MacKay,

    Helen is speaking of this on Alt TV tonight.

    Bleheim • Since Nov 2006 • 498 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    My biggest worry about a Nat-led government is that, despite being pragmatic, they'll simply miss the boat policy-wise and the country will slowly slide backward. It won't be a malicious or ideologically-driven thing, it'll be the fact that conservativism will stop us from adapting quickly enough to deal with the challenges ahead

    Bang on the money.
    The problem is, Labour have been just as bad with the maritime timetable in this last term (2nd term, now THAT was something to behold)...


    I'll be voting in Auckland Central in about 20hours or so and still don't know who'll get my party or electorate vote. I'm trusting Jeebus will let me know some time this evening... But, like RB said in the post, I just can't vote in that policy platform. And the DNA thing? Bloody hell...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Dinah Dunavan,

    Harking back to an early comment, the 18 year old who is going to text her vote for Rodders to stay on the Island.

    I'm an old curmudgeon, everywhere I look these days I see greedy selfishness (except at this blog, mostly). It might be because I work in education and I was raised by someone who lived during the depression. So not only do I get to see just how "I" centred the youf of today are, I also hate to carry debt and think my secondhand and old stuff is wonderfully adequate.

    I think we have right wing governments so that life can get a bit hard for a lot of people. That way those folk who have had life pretty damn easy can see that life isn't an iPhone for everyone. Somethimes it is hard. People lose their jobs, go hungry, lose their houses, get screwed by their employers and the government sells the country down the river. That 18 year old never lived through Muldoon, she would not have been aware of Roger and Ruth. So she has no idea what can happen if you give control to people who care more about money than people.

    Then just when things get really bad we sweep a left wing government into power and if we're lucky things get better for a while. (Of course there was always the Lange government, we thought we were voting left and got Roger Douglas. Boy were we screwed.)

    But because we're forgetful, and new voters, who have never known life to be hard, get to vote, the right wing get in again.

    I don't normally get this grumpy in a public forum but I am really angry that just as America looks like it's heading left, NZ look set to head right. "It's safe to come back." said a friend, maybe we'll think "it's time to leave."

    Dunedin • Since Jun 2008 • 186 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    "It's safe to come back." said a friend, maybe we'll think "it's time to leave."

    Well yes. I said a while back. If you look at the migration patterns of Kiwis you will see that more people leave for foreign shores when it looks like we are going to get a National Govt. How John Key can make capital of that fact I will never understand.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Robeson,

    Russell, improving public accounts is irrelevant when you have private debt is as bad as NZ's. Take a look at Japan. The public debt is 150% of GDP--an appalling state for a country in its stage of development. On the flip side, Japan remains a net creditor to the rest of the world? Why? Quite simply, households and the private sector live and operate within their means.

    I personally blame the nanny state for the high level of private borrowing obviously brought on by a lack of tax cuts. This is what caused the housing bubble.

    Since Feb 2008 • 87 posts Report Reply

  • JLM,

    Judy Martin's southern sl… • Since Apr 2007 • 241 posts Report Reply

  • James Harton,

    I am rather relieved to not be in Epsom any more! I hated having to vote for a candidate I didn't necessarily support, in a tactical vote.

    Personally, I'm still trying to understand why we even have electorates in this day and age. Geography is obsolete, after all. For me it's just a waste of ink - I'm in North Shore. I'm not voting for the National incumbent, Twyford will be in on the list anyway, and voting for a minor is a waste of time.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 51 posts Report Reply

  • Ian MacKay,

    Not sure of the Science but it is said that Labour Governments have introduced change especially including social policies but National Governments seldom do. They consolidate and maintain the status quo. Not sure this next time though.
    The Morgan Poll reflects what Helen believes and NZF apparently on 4.5% could upset with another .5 votes. Think of what that would do to the National position!!!!

    Bleheim • Since Nov 2006 • 498 posts Report Reply

  • James Green,

    Roy Morgan is rather more positive for the left
    Lab/Green/Prog 58
    Nat/Act/UF 60
    Māori 5

    BUT if Winston First make it to 5%
    Lab/Green/Prog 55
    Nat/Act/UF 57
    Māori 5
    Winston 6

    *shudders*

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report Reply

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