Hard News: Five further thoughts
446 Responses
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
Yeah. But this is the line that the Labour right will be running over the next few weeks: we gave the unions and the left their chance, and look what happened. Worst result ever. The only people who did well were Nash and Davis, who ran on pretty centrist platforms.
The stuff about Nash/Davis is bollocks, but the party did give the unions/left their guy, and he fucked up. Inevitably there's going to be push back.
The Labour left needs to pull itself together and actually think about what the hell it is up to, and seriously reconsider its stance, because whatever Greg Presland and Martyn Bradbury are selling, the voters aren't buying.
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I read through this thread and think, yes, lots of good valid arguments and points of view worth discussing. But would anything said here ever gain any traction on, say, a Trade Me opinions message board? Because they are the people who have to be won over.
Are Labour and the Greens simply guilty of respecting the voter too much? Whereas National have no qualms about aiming for the lowest common denominator?
Remember when we pooh-poohed stupid American voters for re-electing George W? That would never happen here! Well, guess what…
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Like it or not, what I’m hearing is that Kelvin Davis just got the basics right in ways Labour hasn’t in Te Tai Tokerau for a long time – reconnected with a lot of flax roots networks, rebuilt up an effective and energized ground operation, and worked his arse off in a huge electorate that’s really hard to stay visible in because it’s geographically huge and your target voters are widely dispersed.
Yes. And it's not like he was coming from nowhere -- he was bloody close last time. He will make a decent and capable MP and he may well hold that seat for a long time.
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Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
Yes and no.
Labour did not have a simple, easy to understand platform that was well communicated. So, yes, if they had that the netizens of Trade Me would have been able to get it (whether they believed is another matter).
But the rout went much deeper. I’ve been looking at my electorate’s data (and it would seem others are similar) on the electorate/party vote schism. There must have been a big chunk of voters voting the Labour MP but party vote National. While some may have done that in the past, it was glaringly obvious this time around. That doesn’t occur by only failing to make Josephine Average understand the message. It suggests that she actually dislikes the message (or what she perceives as the message).
What ails the Labour Party now is much worse than the Democrats failure against Dubya in 2004, IMO.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
rust never sleeps...
the rancid carcass of Blair’s legacy
Who knew he had a Subaru,
I'd have thought Landrover at least...
...oops that's owned by Jaguar, which is
owned by Tata Motors in India...oh well, dreams of Empire...
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
the rancid carcass of Blair’s legacy.
Speaking of which, one wonders if the reinvigorated National government will be sending the SAS back into a land war in asia.
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tussock, in reply to
Random.
"Well, yes, but we're doing alright."
See, these things you think are important, a bunch of people don't. They just want a carrot. National's message was there are enough carrots, thank you, we've got ours, and we don't particularly care about what you've got, so long as you don't take any of ours away.
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tussock, in reply to
What may be better is to work on policies where there is at least some alignment or some willingness to accept a path that aligns.
That's what the Greens have been doing for 24 years, including as part of the Alliance in '93 and '96. Consensus building, policy by policy. It's slow, they'd rather be in government, but it is what it is.
They sit in their little idealistic space in the liberal left where people have the time and energy to care about trees, attracting what vote they can, and they write policies for government which benefit their core, which are often taken up due to being so popular.
It helps when National isn't in, though. Because the National party doesn't really like anything about the Greens policy, unless the returns on investment are crazy high and that investment can be gamed by the rich.
But they still get some policies in through National governments, and will this time too.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Damn loonies with your rational approach to politics :P
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tussock, in reply to
I'm not convinced the foreignness is a *huge* part of it...
Oh, speaking as someone who's been seen as a foreigner in Nuziland, despite being born here, it's all about the foreignness. This country is incredibly hidebound and inward looking, and readily falls to open hatred of outsiders.
That's more true south of the Bombay Hills, where Aucklanders are also seen as a bit foreign. And yes, that can get really ugly in a hurry too. When Winston talks about "the Chinese" he really doesn't mean people born here. Those people who tick "New Zealander" on the census are not kidding, they are instead 'not one of those fucking Europeans'.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Yes. And it’s not like he was coming from nowhere – he was bloody close last time. He will make a decent and capable MP and he may well hold that seat for a long time.
He sat in on Council stuff with the farmers and the likes of the Mayor (ex National) and developers (ex Mayor,/Wayne Brown). Dover Samuels backed him which would have influenced many Maori Kaitaia way,then buddy Winston put the nail in Hones coffin. Result.
I get the impression he is looking to help grow big business rather than help any poor tho’ e.g. mining . jmo -
tussock, in reply to
what I'm hearing is that Kelvin Davis just got
what Mana said, before the election, is a huge sum of money and people got dumped on the wider region two days out from the polls, busses and signs and radio and newspaper adds, after Mana had spent theirs and couldn't respond. That it came from all of New Zealand First, National, and Labour. Every single bit of it focused on killing the Mana party with bullshit attack slogans that they had no chance to respond to.
They could have rolled most MPs in the country with an attack like that. Could've turfed out Dunne easily. A single word from National would take out ACT. Instead, they killed the little party on the left. In a literal massive conspiracy across party lines.
And thus, the real left gets some money for a change and is again denied a foothold and it's voice. Dirty Politics ain't just National. -
Steve Barnes, in reply to
That doesn’t occur by only failing to make Josephine Average understand the message. It suggests that she actually dislikes the message (or what she perceives as the message).
As in what she is told to think by wavey smiley people "the world will end if the loony left and the grizzling greens get in so Party on and vote National party party vote"
Wavey John, he's cool, party on dude... -
tussock, in reply to
Given the numbers who voted candidate Labour, party National, I’m not even sure what you mean by National voters.
It's MMP. I'm not even sure why anyone cares who wins anything other than the minor party toeholds. It's the party vote, eh.
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tussock, in reply to
particularly through Cunliffe's hapless grasp of the details, it created exactly the uncertainty the voters didn't want.
That's the bullshit lies Key told right at the end of the second debate. Cunliffe made the mistake of thinking Key might be telling the truth, that the Nats had found some error in the press papers. It was just a tissue of lies, and the media ran with it like usual, ignoring that Key had lied like usual, and then hammering away at Cunliffe for a while just for kicks.
NB: Explaining is losing. Key always new the lie would cost less than the explanation of why it was wrong.
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Hang on, Hone Harawira, bankrolled to the tune of ~3 million dollars, is complaining the cash strapped Labour Party outspent him? Well, that's his problem really.
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Brian Easton has an interesting column up on Pundit that theorises, among other things, that the election was early because of an expected slowdown in the economy later in the year.
I have to admit that it has occurred to me that an economic implosion in the short term might do better for the country in the long term, by forcing change on the change adverse, although only when I'm feeling particularly ungenerous.
I'm still amazed by how much we choose to ignore the housing bubble and pretend it is the new normal, and expect to go on as we are now forever. Not too different to our approach to climate change though, I guess.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Hang on, Hone Harawira, bankrolled to the tune of ~3 million dollars, is complaining the cash strapped Labour Party outspent him? Well, that’s his problem really.
I thought Internet party was Dot com rolled to the tune of $3,000000.00 and if it's true national NZFirst and Labour did a final push in the North, how much and who bankrolled that? The far North has wealthy Nats. So if labour had nothing,where did it come from?
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tussock, in reply to
He's not, no, Bomber Bradbury was a couple days out from the election. They went Nationwide with a party-vote campaign and tried to manage the local budget to allow for that, with the opponents not putting up much fight it didn't seem like an issue. Then once the millions were almost gone, a huge coordinated cross-party bunch of money went into their seat to oust them, with neither time nor money to respond.
Various labour pundits openly gloated. Rob Salmond considered it hilarious, as it added two more seats to National's total. As, I don't know, you may be here.
To me that's incredibly fucking stupid for anyone thinking of maybe being in government, but I guess they never were, so stabbing the splitters in the back instead is so very Labour, isn't it. There's a lot of hate in our tiny little red party for anything to do with those upstart little poor-folks unions, after all.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
To me that’s incredibly fucking stupid for anyone thinking of maybe being in government, but I guess they never were,
Well it sounds that way .
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
how much we choose to ignore the housing bubble
Bringing in a CGT just before the bubble pops would have been ... interesting.
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Right. So Harawira jumped in bed with a hugely unlikeable millionaire, and didm't even get any money for his trouble? I see the problem.
Fundamentally, Kelvin Davis was always running to win Te Tai Tokerau, he fought hard, and the voters of TTT said they'd rather have Davis than Harawira. That's electoral politics. And if Davis was better at managing his money, better at running a campaign? That's not cheating, that's politics.
Look, I'm kinda sad that Mana's gone. But they have no one to blame but themselves.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Bringing in a CGT just before the bubble pops would have been … interesting.
You thinking negative payouts/tax credits? That would be interesting. If you were implying "oh it's not the right time yet" then eh, I have no patience for that sort of thinking. Change is always hard, the band-aid approach is best.
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
You thinking negative payouts/tax credits?
I don't think they were on the cards but I'm pretty sure you could 'bank' your capital losses, against any future capital gains. The CGT wasn't retrospective- it would only apply on increases in capital value from the time of implementation. If it came in at the top of a bubble, you'd see (on paper) some remarkable losses.
I still think it's a good idea. But a little dubious about how much it would raise, for a very long time. -
Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
I still think it’s a good idea. But a little dubious about how much it would raise, for a very long time.
I also think it's a good idea but it shouldn't be viewed as a source of revenue - more as a way of changing investment behaviour. Maybe some of those slum landlords would get off their arses and manufacture something other than reactionary windbag comments on interest.co.nz
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