Hard News: The sole party of government
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izogi, in reply to
I get the idea of learning from how an opposition did well, but…
Did anyone notice that National was NOT promising tax cuts?
…did National promise anything besides some kind of non-specific thing about obviously being brilliant economic managers and taking the country in the "right" direction?
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Farmer Green, in reply to
No Ben, but I did save his life one day when he was rolling backwards down a a bloody near vertical slope on a three-wheeler. I was lower down, so I rammed him from below and brought him to a stop.
And you know what.. he was pissed about the grease that had ruined his suit trousers. -
All you talk about is keeping an economic status quo, a status quo which doesn't hold water for 52% of the population.
There was no mandate for our current economic direction. There was a New Zealand MMP state election and National have won the governance rights for three years. Lots of problems to solve and 52% of the voting population yesterday wanted someone else to do it. So there's debate. No one belongs here.
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mark taslov, in reply to
OK, no worries, I think it's about then that I began to wonder exactly what the object was, I'll keep asking around.
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Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
Farmer, have you escaped from Kiwiblog by any chance?
His style is very similar to a troll from the Hot Topic climate change blog.
Somebody get a hockey stick and we can have at him... -
Farmer Green, in reply to
That doesn't sound like the Tariana Turia that I know.
Too much testosterone in the new leadership? -
izogi, in reply to
Someone I never heard of until he became a transitory media idol.
the whole episode was irrelevantI've yet to meat anyone who habitually took any direct notice of Cameron Slater, but if you've had any exposure to media in NZ, chances are you've been very subject to the consequences of his involvement.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I did save his life one day
That’s even better than the one about the guy who pulled Corporal Muldoon out of a wadi in the North African desert, using a grappling iron that stuck in his left cheek.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
The opposition has a lot of ammo, if aimed correctly, who knows.
Indeed. And they also have the three Offices of Parliament and the privileges committee. WP is the most constitutionally informed. He needs to be given the reigns to lead this for the whole of the opposition.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I’m also keen to see all of these stats, Lucy. David Hood already gave this link on the Time To Vote thread which has some figures that might help you. It’s got the eligible voter stats. You’re actually a little under on the estimated eligible population, which is 3,391,100. I’d expect that when linearly extrapolating an exponential model.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I’ve yet to meat anyone who habitually took any direct notice of Cameron Slater, but if you’ve had any exposure to media in NZ, chances are you’ve been very subject to the consequences of his involvement.
And that includes teachers and principals who had the temerity to oppose National Standards. What David Slack said about the purpose of the whole Dirty Politics thing being to silence people was apposite. You might never have heard of Slater, but what you saw and heard in the media was often a consequence of what he did on National’s behalf.
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mark taslov, in reply to
jack and mark , if you are trying to tell me that politics are dirtier today than they have ever been, then I’ll just say that it has never been so easy to play that game. I don’t believe that anything has changed except for the means to play in the dirt.
Not at all, just giving you the rough gist of the book as it appeared to have passed you by there in Rangitkei. I agree, the song remains the same.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
his brand has attracted too much vitriol from the powers-that-be to make that happen.
No, the only powers-that-be that matter are the judiciary. And the judiciary is no fan of this government (and not just on the Dotcom issues). Read, for example, the judgement associated with the challenge associated with denying prisoners the right to a vote.
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
If we can't see him we can't start casting the movie.
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BenWilson, in reply to
You were his next door neighbor?
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Farmer Green, in reply to
I think that you're right. If you asked me what National was seeking a mandate to do, I wouldn't be sure.
Maybe shift the tax brackets . . MAYBE.
Reform the RMA . . . some vague noises in that direction.
Can't think of anything else. -
Farmer Green, in reply to
No . From recall , it was something to do with a farmer meeting about the sales tax on three-wheelers , which were a new tool. It might have been during the Muldoon era Ben.
I've always wondered whether I should have just let him go :-) -
Jack Harrison, in reply to
There's a choice bit in the book when they stop slandering the opposition and plot to slander themselves. It's a funny old book.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Except that Betham never got to do half the damage that Muldoon did.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
That doesn’t sound like the Tariana Turia that I know. Too much testosterone in the new leadership?
Willie Jackson discussed in on Marae this morning.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
All you talk about is keeping an economic status quo,
Was that addressed to me Jack?
If so, I’ll say that the status quo is not an option in my book. NZ was lucky that the Chinese suddenly wanted a whole lot of milk powder. That’s all over now.
We are back where we started ; deep in debt as nation, and running deficits.
If it was your business doing that , what would you do? -
A lot of analysis seems to me to be about spherical cows. It's an old joke: a theoretical physicist loses his job at a university and gets a job on a dairy farm. Missing the common room discussions, he decides to hold a seminar in the milk shed and puts up a whiteboard. On it he draws a circle and begins, "Consider the qualities of a spherical cow..."
Is it worthwhile debating policies from the viewpoint of the theoretical physicist as if they were perfect objects in a frictionless vacuum? Is it worthwhile to assume that everyone else thinks the same way?
The public may have been wrong, but don't call them stupid or deluded. They on the whole may have voted intuitively and I think that a major factor was the perception of competence.
"Vote for me, I'll make the sun shine every day," says candidate X. What kind of fool wouldn't vote for candidate X? The kind of fool who asks "How?"
For the last six years Labour was was a fratricidal, jealous, self-absorbed rabble of prima donnas that was simply not fit to govern - and it was no secret, because they assiduously leaked it to every journalist who would listen... and so they listened, and the electorate listened.
Nice picture of a cow though, very creative.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Russell , I assume that almost EVERYTHING that I hear or read in the MSM is a consequence of what someone is doing on someone else's behalf. There are very few , if any honest brokers ; it is all just entertainment.
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Anonymous, admiring Herald editorial. Roughan?
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A fundamental problem seems to be the fractured left-wing progressive vote. A grand alliance of the parties now with three years to work out how it could achieve the main changes in direction needed would seem the best chance of winning some of those swinging seats next time. It would involve some mainstreaming but I doubt Cunliffe, Harawira, Turei et al can argue too much on which of the current problems are the most pressing generically. If they formulated shared policy responses to problems like child poverty, increasing house prices, a lack of new jobs, the destruction of our waterways, increasing inequality and increasing foreign ownership of New Zealand, and put up one candidate in each electorate with a combined message they would definitely get a better result. The other million kiwis who were missing may never get engaged enough to show up. Merging into one party and sharing resources would make it a lot harder for the right-wingers to scaremonger too. No more 'Internet Mana and/or the Greens are mad' hopefully. It is sad to think that none of these issues will be addressed and that in 3 years all of the stats around these problems (well, those that National bother collecting) will only get worse. The third that vote National to protect their house prices will continue to do so unfortunately. They're making $83k a year on their houses on average. Untaxed. I suppose a vote for the Nats is a bit like saying 'Screw the kids and the environment - where's the money?' Maybe this just needs to be made more obvious?
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