Posts by Hebe
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From the Herald re Labour leadership: "A potential pairing of David Cunliffe and Lianne Dalziel" . The scream team? As a Green I'm happy with this.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I mean, realistically, I suspect that on election day, more Green voters were turned out by the Labour Party than by the Green Party.
Disagree. And there's that same mindset I have been dissing. In spite of this, some of my dearest friends are long-time Labour; truly :-)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Emma Hart,
At some point you're going to come clean about which party you're actually campaigning for, right? Because from the effects? It cannot seriously be Labour.
Oh yes it can. Steve Barnes' attitude is typically Christchurch Labour. They truly regard any vote that is not right of centre as theirs, just stolen by moustache-twirling spivs like the Greens hoodwinking people who would otherwise vote Labour.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Kracklite,
Oh you naughty thing.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I wish the Green party would get strategic about where electorate candidates stand. But Steve, a lot of Green voters would no more vote for Labour than they would for ACT; they just do not believe in Labour's approach: they are NOT protesting, they are voting for what they believe.
Labour does not hold the monopoly on anything slightly leftish. Pundit Unsworth in the NZ Herald this morning predicts the Greens will overtake Labour in the next couple of elections. That will be fine, as long as it doesn't mean that Labour imports bring that culture of smug righteousness with them and try to take over the Green Party culture.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Not for the first time, I think voters are a little more complex – and a lot less stupid – than the media-political complex gives them credit for.
Totally agree.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Tom Semmens,
If you actually talk to such people you discover they are just old school Labour.
Agreed. What I mean by pragmatist, wallet-voters is that they know they must support themselves and their families and go with the vote that they think will help them best do that.
As for the ute-driving caricature, I don't mean it offensively. I live in the city of the cracked; 4wd negotiates the constantly appearing sinkholes in the streets around my way better than a hybrid; me and my greenie friends drive them guiltlessly now. In the south and east parts of Christchurch the most common vehicle on the road is a big ute, laden with tools, driven by a bloke having a quick bite on the way to the next job. (And I'm totally grateful for that: the EQR plumbing bloke has just fixed the toilet for the third time since February.)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I think what happened is that at the last minute a lot of Labour voters decided to give their party vote to NZ First just to spite the right .
But this is a good chance for the left to refresh and regroup and collaborate, and work to support those NZers for whom things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Hilary, that is the essence of the Labour problem: middle-class liberals representing blue-collar workers and the dispossessed by telling them what is good for them. The old tradesmen-type Labour voters are more likely to be four-door-new- ute-driving pragmatists who vote with their wallet now. The hierarchy of the Labour party are the educated who are do not listen to the people they claim to represent, who in turn feel so shut out of politics and having any form of influence that they do not even bother to vote anymore, let alone become members of political parties.
And for that dreadful state of affairs I hold Helen Clark and her gang responsible. Their vice-like grip on the party for years strangled inclusiveness and internal debate, reducing it to constant bitchery and cobra-like process addiction. They did not do any form of succession planning, just focused on staying in power and their “legacy”.
As someone who came to the middle class from a place where a job at the freezing works was aspirational, I despise those pollies who claim to be of the people because they had holiday jobs at the works on their summer break from university.
For Labour to survive, it must give true representation to all sorts of people within its ranks, and be seen to be doing so.
Declaration: I am Green, have been for years and years. Mainly on the basis that if you don't have a healthy planet, you have nothing.
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Waimakariri could be another change. Cosgrove is 400 behind Wilkinson which sounds an unlikely change but the Greens candidate was telling voters to electorate vote Labour and party vote Green as a strategic measure. Many of the earthquake incomers from outside Waimak are expected to have cast special votes; the question is whether they voted in their previous electorate or in Waimak. A lot of the displaced are from traditionally Labour areas, so are more likely to be Labour voters.
National was desperate to get that seat and did a deal with Act not to stand a candidate. That combined with boundary changes in the last few elections mean National did worse than they could have been expected to do.
Also, if the Greens pick up a little more on the party vote, won’t they get the list down to Mojo Mathers? I understood that she would be in with 11 percent party vote.
If those numbers stack, what does it mean for seats in the House?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Then they privatise ACC's good bits.