Posts by simon g
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I voted today (Auckland CBD).
I enrolled after the August cut-off date, so I wasn't on the printed roll. My own fault (well, I'll share it with the people at my previous address, not forwarding my mail). But anyway, I've learned my lesson: if you move house, you should re-enrol, not procrastinate. I was told today I had to cast a special vote, which I duly did.
It doesn't really matter, it was easy to enrol a few days go and easy to vote today. We were all in one queue, all voting in the same place. The difference was the box I put my ballot paper in - it was full to overflowing. Given its demographics, Auckland Central is going to have a truckload of special votes.
This is not a party political thread, so I'll keep this "neutral", but when you're watching the results on election night, think about the specials. They have changed the provisional result in previous elections, and the make-up of the government formed. Feel free to shout this at telly pundits on Saturday.
(ETA: Emma mentioned the tablet in the other post. I had assumed that my enrolment details would be available to the staff (I enrolled a week ago, and checked my details on the Commission website online before I went out to vote - so I'm definitely enrolled). But they didn't seem to have anything except the printed "book").
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Policy proposal for next election (any party welcome to adopt it):
"We will make tertiary education completely free, but only if 90% of under-30s enrol."
I mean, 68%, come on, put down your Walkman (check this reference - Ed) and get cracking.
*shakes zimmer frame at passing young person*
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to linger,
There's been a lot of coverage of advance voting but less coverage of people not enrolling at all.
97% of the olds, but only 67% of the youngs. That makes any "youthquake" a fairly mild tremor ... so far. It's the difference between Labour having to accommodate Winston or the Greens.
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Horizon polls have come up with some ridiculous numbers in the past, so I would treat this with a truckload of caution, but their latest poll in the NBR is not far off the general picture.
Except for the prospect of a second ACT MP. Oh the horror, the horror ...
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For Friday night poll junkies (let's get lives, people!) here's Roy Morgan latest:
NAT 40% LAB 39.5% GRN 9% NZF 6% MAO 2% ... rest irrelevant.
Least reliable of the pollsters, traditionally. But as a very rough guide, confirms the "all to play for" narrative rather than the TV3 Newshub loner.
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Do we abdicate all moral judgement, because racists say shit? Here's the thing: North Korea is worse than China. China is worse than Singapore. Singapore is worse than Japan. Those are my human rights reckons, and it can all be debated, but only a "Yellow Peril" racist says that North Korea and Japan are the same. The rest of us should make distinctions, and not be defined by which bigot (or more usually, cynic pandering to bigotry) spoke last. Otherwise we're just giving a free pass to every political bastard from Netanyahu to the Saudis to Mugabe.
On t'other hand, if the response is "well, China has the cash, and a lot more than Taiwan" then it's not anti-racism at all. It's actually not giving a toss about Chinese people who don't want to live under a dictatorship.
A good, long read here. He's basically right:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/14/47848/on-standards-in-public-life-and-jian-yang
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The audio for that is on the Newsroom website. It's not damning (my Chinese listening is very rusty, but I got the gist, the subtitles are fair).
Again, I don't think the original story is a Shock! Horror!, but the cynical dismissal of all criticism (see the PRC's response) is the part to push back against.
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This is the reporter who broke the story.
http://www.chinafile.com/contributors/jamil-anderlini
He's fluent in Mandarin, because he's racist ..
There's a lot more but the FT is subscription only. You can Google his extensive writing. I think calling his journalism "smear" is the real defamation here.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to Neil,
Which was widely condemned on here by many of us, including me.
But there's a government in charge, and making decisions, and setting agendas, and just saying "Opposition too!" is nonsense (really, do we have to play these games?).
Gordon Campbell nailed it years ago. Key not giving a toss about Liu Xiaobo was the day we found out that defending Chinese people was not National's concern. Only power. Only cash.
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to Trevor Nicholls,
That's why we don't have government by referendum. People would vote for better health, education and the environment, and not the taxes to fund them. That's what they say in response to polls, and that's what we would get (i.e. broke American states).