They mean well for all New Zealanders.

It is just possible that they are wrong.

Also, I…

No Zespri is the marketing company for kiwifruit sales overseas. The relationship with the govt is that it is granted sole export rights, essentially a govt mandated monopoly.

Before anyone gets all up in arms about that – there used to be a very successful…

I rather liked the farmers assessment of the whole gas leak of which he did complain about on the Friday and again on Monday after ( the RWC finished) the assessment…

Given that, I'd rather our politicians were having lunches with people who actually uplift…

Quite – Australian politics is full of somewhat odoriferous individuals on both sides of the aisle, but I wouldn't presume there's anything sinister…

I rather our PM wasn't meeting with Ashcroft. I think Ashcroft is a…

I find it interesting, Rich, that apparently being in the same room with Ashcroft (who happens to also be a senior official in…

– was a UK politician while not actually fully resident there for tax purposes – representation without taxation, as it were

– runs his political spending through an offshore firm, again to avoid…

Oh, for fuck’s sake… There are some sections of the media who need to asked whether Michael Ashcroft fucked their girlfriends, skipped out on a bar tab or laughed at their weiners while sharing a urinal. Otherwise, I can’t really…

I'd really have to do my research to have any clue what happened to all of those. A cheat sheet would be handy.

nothing secret about it.

though that tag still seems to be framing some coverage.

It had a man with a "stop" sign for Labour and a man with a "go" sign for National.

Would this be the “secret agenda” that only seems to be secret to the clowns who paid ACT’s former ad shop to come up with genius lines for Phil Goff like “vote National…

Winz, Doc, Housing NZ .Military , NZ Transport Agency, MAF,IRD, the beehive, Universities, Zespri to name but a many.

One really should check out 2010 and 2009.Think there was heaps more then too

Not without digging, no. There have been internal reconfigurations throughout government departments, and you'll start seeing that more obviously from the outside once this lot are safely re-elected, especially in the biggest departments like Health and Social Development. All with a handy dose of…

Reacting to an economic downturn by sacking people from those jobs and employing others in filling Keynsian holes…

Do you have some handy examples? I don't disagree, but they don't spring to mind, and it could be handy in arguments over…

They got a new idea as well

Putting pressure on CRIs to freeze salaries isn't "doing nothing". Except for management salaries which have doubled in the last 3 years.

That's just from my field. Actively stifling innovation in NZ is pretty damaging long term.

Their proposed mini-Budget in December 2008 sounded promising – including active investment in job creation rather than the laissez faire fantasy that Treasury and English continue to peddle.

More that the situation has changed and an appropriate response is required, one would think. Labour would contend that of course it would have…

I suppose. Sometimes "do nothing" is shorthand for "do nothing about about x", but it doesn't really matter much anyway, IMO.

If National are "doing nothing" new, it means that National are relying on the work of the previous (Clark) government and are content with the measures already in place.

With a strategy attacking…

It also plays…

Respectfully, they and their supporters have many times complained about a 'do nothing' government. Alternated with the 'far right agenda' line, reflecting what can most charitably be described as strategic confusion.

Labour doesn't follow that line, Labour tries to portray everything the Nats do as a hard right-wing agenda. This isn't working out for them.

Can you calculate how much growth is required to prove him right – if that is more than 3%, you can prove him to be wildly optimistic..

How's that line been working for the opposition?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPj-8_wOZcA

Inevitably.

They proposed and voted for outrageous Canterbury earthquake legislation.

Stuart. Take those rage goggles off and re-read what I said. You might also want to take your own bloody advice because 1) you've done sweet F.A. to convince me to…

Craig, you…

English can “expect” all he likes – but, given the lack of any reliable evidence base, why should anyone else believe him?

Me, I have no faith in faith-based government.

And you know what? I can't prove him wrong.

Its hard to rage against the government, because they haven't really done anything. They've carried on with the centrist, boring, politcally neutral, poll driven theme of the Clark Labour years. NZers are proven to like it and failing a big economic upheaval will probably…

You and I wish for very different things. They’re going to expend that political capital by cutting basic services that have large positive externalities, so that some rich [insert derisory term here] with a view of the water can build a larger swimming pool.

For better or worse, they have…

Really? You think this is us raging?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10758397

Maybe. It is entirely possible that some of the politicians are deceitful selfish scum who are happy to feather their own nests and those of their friends at the cost of the country's wealth.

But in the…

Governing for the good of all NZers rather than the already fiscally-advantaged would be a nice gesture that might prompt me…

If they're trying to do something that hurts me, and are immune to feedback, why not be enraged? ANGER IS AN ENERGY.

It was a good start, but today, by promising pain in the next term ... English showed he might actually be committed to reducing the debt, rather than just promising that future Governments will do it.>
... by selling off state assets?

oh you could very well be right, but I just think we could dial back the rage and hatred a tad, they aren’t trying to hurt you.

edit intentionally

I'm prepared to accept that, for the most part. But I think they have very different ideas about what and who "the country" actually is compared to me. Eg, I think if you asked a National cabinet…

Absent the majestic plural, I…

This government really, truly, believes that the market will provide for all the corrections required and give us all a lovely soft landing when:

Cheap fossil fuels run out.
China’s economy tanks
Australia goes into recession
The European finance system collapses
Aliens invade
Zombie contagion…

You’re not far wrong there Sacha, a quick scan of the radio shows yesterday arvo/eve had most business commentators scratching their heads at the PREFU’s widely optimistic views on the growth in the govt’s future revenues.

Bill has promised more public servants on the dole queue and as Duncan Garner mentioned on te News last night. 2000 jobs gone already ,ain't seen…

One of the philosophical differences between left and right is that right believe private people should pay for (and borrow for if necessary) things like education, health care, earthquake insurance, boats to clean up oil spills. So National will shave…

I think that is what will happen, but in some ways it's better than…

It was, was being the operative word.

Damn, did I miss the election?
Hmmm. Nope. Bart get your head out of the toilet.
Nactional don't have a hope in hell of winning fair and square and…

You reckon? I think they made it so quite deliberately. And I'm pretty sure they haven't abandoned their hopes to cut the crap out of the budget, they just…

That so has to be in the next PAS story.

It does seem to me that National are a little bit caught by surprise that they will get a second term. All their budgets promised that sometime (somehow) in the next 3 years things would get better.…