Hard News: Prospects
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Yet another great commentary from you Russell. The observation about John Campbell is on the money - he has increasingly became a blow-hard in recent times. And I have no doubt that in years to come Helen Clark will be seen as one of our greatest ever PM's.
Why o why cant other commentators be as objective and as sharp as you?
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Hey, uh, slightly off-topic
When do they have to take the election hoardings down? I was thinking they look ideal for sliding down the wet grassy slopes of the domain.
I think a Libertarianz sign would be most appropriate
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Jono,
My mums church has just re-established a foodbank in her garage. The last time it operated was from 1991-1995. I remember those years in rural northland as unrelentingly wet, grim, laced with lonely suicides and empty storefronts. Some towns have recovered, others have yet to do so.
The Bible says there's nothing new under the sun and the Byrds paraphrased about there being a season for everything, not that it makes it any easier to swallow.
So I also offer my thanks to Clark and Co for a (comparatively) sunny last nine years, which served as a backdrop to growing up, finishing a Masters degree, travelling overseas, losing a parent, getting a job, buying a house and having a baby.
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PS our work election straw poll of 111 people today produced almost exactly the same result as the national polls: ~44% nats, 6% act, 1.7% united, 10% green 4% bill & ben, and i forget the rest
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I was thinking they look ideal for sliding down the wet grassy slopes of the domain.
One Tree Hill is steeper.... I, for one, already have that sinking feeling - without creative re-use of a Libz sign.
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They mean to DNA test innocent people for the police database.
Nanny state = bad, invasive steps towards a police state = good.
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Mikaere, you've mastered the Ron Mark school of political philosophy.
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Well, I can't countenance the idea that the likes of Ryall, McCully, Williamson, Brownlee, the Smiths etc. are capable of changing their spots.
Well, fair enough and vote accordingly. There seemed to be quite few rehabilitated Rogernomes coming in from the cold in '99, so who knows?
Moreover, there are plenty of "commentators" around (see "Your Views", KB) who appear to believe that Clark has led an "extreme socialist government". Make of that what you will.
Compost -- though I suspect the high level of acid would make it almost unusable. If the government changes, I expect the same level of Chicken Little-ism and Little Partisans Who Cry Wolf as there ever was, only the names will change. Way of the world, I guess.
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When do they have to take the election hoardings down?
Before midnight, but please don't presume to do anyone a favour by 'liberating' their hoarding for them. That's rude. :)
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Anyone up with how Jimmys Progressives are polling?
As he gets his seat in Wigram pretty huch as granted and therefore the 5% threshold doesn't apply, how many are needed for Matt Robson etc to get in?
Loved the EMPU clashing with National in the square yestie.
First time my household are not voting Labour, mixing up between the Greens & Jimmys Progressives.
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I've been trying not to think too hard about it, hoping that the polls might start creeping back towards the leftish side of the spectrum. Today's polls have made me sick to the stomach: while I'd have been deeply disappointed by a National-led government, at least it might have been forced to compromised if it had had to come to coalition agreements with a range of minor parties. But to give free reign to a National-Act coalition of rednecks and rogergnomes? That's a horrifying prospect.
Oh well: who knows how things might turn out. I'm telling myself that polls don't always tell the full story. Still, I'm not expecting that at my election party tomorrow night I'll be able to put aside the Creme de Menthe and fill the water cooler with Champagne instead.
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I'd just like to say in every forum I can manage...
They mean to DNA test innocent people for the police database.They say they have "legislation already drafted" for that, but has anyone seen it?
Are they really going to permanently keep the DNA samples of people found not-guilty of any imprisonable offence? Sweet Jesus.
Also, the no-parole policy is going to bite them fiscally, if not in other ways. There's major policy suckage going on there.
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...but please don't presume to do anyone a favour by 'liberating' their hoarding for them. That's rude.
But if you were going to, targeting the hoardings of property rights fetishists would have a certain poetry to it.
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I've been trying not to think too hard about it, hoping that the polls might start creeping back towards the leftish side of the spectrum. Today's polls have made me sick to the stomach...
I'm in exactly the same boat. If it pans out as dreadfully as those polls suggest, I'm going to start hanging out on Your Views talking about how I'm going to leave the country.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure I could handle living under the "coalition of rednecks and rogergnomes" again....
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The Progressives say they are polling very well internally (by which they mean 2 seats). I don't for a second believe they have enough money for polling outside Wigram, so I'm guessing they share info with Labour.
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Yeah - a great writeup Russell. My biggest worry about a Nat-led government is that, despite being pragmatic, they'll simply miss the boat policy-wise and the country will slowly slide backward. It won't be a malicious or ideologically-driven thing, it'll be the fact that conservativism will stop us from adapting quickly enough to deal with the challenges ahead. These are extraordinary times economically and, more importantly, environmentally. We're buggering up the world, we know we are, and Rodney doesn't believe that humans are responsible for climate change. Sigh.
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"Are they really going to permanently keep the DNA samples of people found not-guilty of any imprisonable offence? Sweet Jesus."
Christchurch Police are still keeping the lists of Prostitutes they made before it was legal.
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Cheers Ben
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The polling is certainly interesting as an academic exercise in and of itself (see the excellent wikipedia article Opinion polling for the New Zealand general election), however I'm almost convinced they have almost no basis in reality. There are too many demographics whom these polls just don't reach (anyone too cool or too poor to have a land line, for starters). All this stuff about the party with the largest majority having a "moral right to govern" is weird though - do they not get the idea of proportional representation?
Look, it looks to me like it could go either way, and really the 49th parliament of New Zealand looks to me like it hangs on the outcome of a bunch of Hui happening after election day. Pita Sharples himself said in response to a Marae poll saying 62% of Maori would be upset with a National-Maori coalition that they would be "stupid" to ignore the polls.
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Regarding National being more left wing than RB ...
All I can say is "remember Muldoon." It's not so much where Key is (or Muldoon was) on the spectrum, it's their misguided and contradictory notion of Government involvement that hurts people.
It's been described before as soft fascism.
Or: Government is bad. Therefore good governments reduce themselves wherever possible, except when that good government wants to actually DO something, such as enact actual policy, in which case it should think like big bisiness, and remove - annihilate - all possible barriers as rapidly as possible.
Sir Douglass in the Herald this week. "If I get elected, I'll do heaps of stuff." Well, he never was one for revealing his near-universally unpopular ideas before inflicting them on the rest of us.
If Rodney Hide gets in, Douglass won't need to get elected.
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I am soooo sick of ACT supporters - can we vote them off the island(s)?
just saw heather roy and a flotilla of them on cuba st.
my first thought was "everyone last one of them beaten up at school"
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It's not too late to hobble the Nats through strategic voting in Epsom. Could someone from there confirm that such a scenario might uphold? It would certainly hobble the Nats if they did...
C.
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Loved the EMPU clashing with National in the square yestie.
Really? Watching the coverage, there was one woman who really needs to lay off caffeinated beverages. Maximising your face time is one thing, shoving people out of your camera line like a crack-head at the opening of the Harrods' Sale is quite another.
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It's not too late to hobble the Nats through strategic voting in Epsom.
What are you talking about, Young?
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Couldn't quite bring myself to run over Peter Dunne this morning as he ran across the road at a Ngaio roundabout - probably would have still got in posthumously anyway I guess.
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