Hard News: Local Heroes?
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Yeah. They listened to weird bastard.
Thanks for the link. I get the impression that a lot of New Zealand politicians, and quite a few would do well to listen to weird bastard's sucessors. There are an awful lot of people crying out for less regulation. We need smarter regulation, which will foster the best products and services, and do away with the worst.
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If you can't communicate your own policies properly when in power it's your own damn fault.
Danyl, let me refer you to a post I wrote last September on these issues -- sparked by a Goff mea culpa pretty much exactly like the want you want Labour to utter now, which was, on the evidence, completely ineffective.
You know, there was a normal communications policy associated with the energy efficiency standards for the bulbs, there were any number of precedents to look at -- including that of Australia, whose decision to phase out most incandescent bulbs (there was never a ban, just a minimum performance standard which actually included some incandscent bulbs) was what prompted the move here, because we wanted to stay in step with their regulations.
Brownlee knew all this. But there was political mileage in pretending he didn't. Ditto for the privately-backed scare campaign around folate.
Do you have any theories on why this kind of policy has been uncontroversial in other countries -- and yet allegedly brought down a government here?
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Labour's path back to power is to pull National to pieces, and work really hard at well thought out and researched coherent policy. They need to turn into research machines, pulling apart everything that is seen as a strength of National's and really hammering it. They do seriously need credible economists going straight for the jugular of every utterance that National makes on the subject. They need to come across as really hard workers. The less it becomes about sweeping ideologies, and the more about specific goals and failures of National, the better their chances.This is how they were ousted themselves.
They don't need to change what they stand for. I don't even think they need to rebrand substantially. They may need to lose Goff, though. Not that I know who else it should be, but to me he will always be the last of an old, old guard, a hangover from the Lange Govt.
I doubt it's going to win them the next election, though. A government in NZ has to really fuck up to only get one term, and National have been doing this for too long to make that kind of mistake.
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I do think that the core of the message - focus on the economic hardship, focus on the 75% of us who live on less than $30k - is a very good one. Refusing to be distracted by other things is not the same as apologising for them, or being ashamed of them. It simply means not engaging.
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+1
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Brownlee knew all this. But there was political mileage in pretending he didn't. Ditto for the privately-backed scare campaign around folate.
You are right. Sorry to be cynical, but a proper communication strategy should have been prepared for a debate that would not be fair.
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Yeah, you would have thought that after years in government, Labour would have realised that the NZ media's default mode is report the controversy rather than the issue.
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Unless of course they didn't forsee a controversy. Which is likely, because a strong cross-spectrum consensus in favour of action on environmental issues exists in Europe (much unlike "clean" "green" NZ), and Howard was trying to establish his environmental credentials at the tail end of a very severe drought widely linked in the public imagination to climate change.
Looking abroad, you would have thought it a perfectly reasonable thing to do, that nobody but crazy nutters would oppose.
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Sorry to be cynical, but a proper communication strategy should have been prepared for a debate that would not be fair.
I think the point is well made that Labour, and everyone else, can bitch as much as they want about the bum job the media is doing.
If they want to win an election any time soon they have to do a better job at presenting themselves and their policies, and attacking the government.
Seriously, we're nearly two years into National's term and Labour just a couple of months ago was still getting slammed for things it did while it was in govt. It's media management has been pretty bad for quite some time now.
"Hey that's not fair!" ain't going to put them in power.
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any theories on why this kind of
policy has been uncontroversial in other
countries - - and yet allegedly brought down a
government here ?
Larger quota of retards? -
Larger quota of retards?
I really don't like the term "retard". At any rate I believe the technical phrase is "Kiwis who don't want to be told how to live their lives".
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Yeah, what Giovanni just said. I believe the traditional New Zealand translations for "treating people with mental disabilities with respect" are; "PC" and "nanny state".
Can I have the decent society back sometime soon?
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merc,
"In due course it's all part of a roll-back of the nanny state and the 'Government should provide everything' mentality," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10665405
Search "Nanny State" on NZHerald, most revealing. -
Seriously, we're nearly two years into National's term and Labour just a couple of months ago was still getting slammed for things it did while it was in govt. It's media management has been pretty bad for quite some time now.
The departure of Mike Munro and Mark Watts I suspect had a lot to do with it.
And the current lot in power continue to polish turds and put lipstick on pigs - and make it look possible.
The less it becomes about sweeping ideologies, and the more about specific goals and failures of National, the better their chances.This is how they were ousted themselves.
As the saying goes, oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. But oppositions can set political boobytraps.
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Meaningless songs in very high voices...
Can I have the decent society back sometime soon?
sadly, it looks like we are stuck with the descent society for now, and with the current castrati in power best we can hope for is a descant society...
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sadly, it looks like we are stuck with the descent society for now, and with the current castrati in power best we can hope for is a descant society...
"We would love to see wages drop."
"Don't be jealous."
Best viewed on a giant telescreen.
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sadly, it looks like we are stuck with the descent society for now, and with the current castrati in power best we can hope for is a descant society...
Wit of a desiccant sobriety.
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Wit of a desiccant sobriety.
more of a dry white whine...
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Try as I might, I can't beat the wry wight.
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Since I'm clogging the tubes, I might as well link to Danyl's brilliant latest effort. "Win Brian Easton" has to be the best touch there.
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Has anyone seen or posted this. Quite pertinent.
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can't beat the wry wight
From the link: "a creature or living sentient being".
Assuming you're referring to the public that voted in the current government, I suspect "creature" rather than "sentient being" would be the more-apt of the definitions. -
Has anyone seen or posted this. Quite pertinent.
Yes, and I don't think the timing issue of Chris Carter will be that important. This statistic will still be true next month, and the "brush off" is on record.
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wight flight...
Assuming you're referring to the public that voted in the current government, I suspect "creature" rather than "sentient being" would be the more-apt of the definitions.
I have wight defined as the more apt:
[archaic or dialect] a person of a specified kind, esp. one regarded as unfortunate: "he always was an unlucky wight." which segues nicely into the more current usage described as: ...undead or wraith-like creatures: corpses with a part of their decayed soul still in residence, often draining life from their victims. -
Try as I might, I can't beat the wry wight.
To-wit to-woo,
the 'owling throng,
all creatures great 'n' thrallThe national obsession
of Aussie progression
A gap; a ditch; the gall!Assuming you're referring to the public that voted in the current government, I suspect "creature" rather than "sentient being" would be the more-apt of the definitions.
Yes, 45% of voters in the last election were almost certainly lacking the capacity to feel or perceive. Wait, what?
[Including myself, I might add. So if you could 'enlighten' me, I'd like to rise above the subclass of rock.]
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