Hard News: So long, and thanks for all the fish ...
362 Responses
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Hebe, in reply to
The evidence just doesn’t back this up. Leadership contests are good for parties
Not when the parties are inclined to eviscerate themselves in public.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I and others believe a deal could have been done in 2005 had Labour been truly willing to put MMP into practice. They were not and are still not unless they are the self-selected dominant partner.
I'm sure there was some calculation as to the wisdom of reach towards the centre rather than the left. But it was basically about the numbers required for a working majority. If the Greens had had one more MP they would have been in a vastly stronger position.
But does it really make sense to hold what will be a nearly 10 year-old grudge by the time of the election? Senior Green and Labour MPs -- Kevin Hague and Grant Robertson, for example -- seem to work together very well. I don't expect either side to blow the chance should it arise.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
I wonder if anyone can actually explain what they mean by it.
Dunno about Bart, but I can. Any kind of nationalism worries me, and the Greens seem to have a bit too much of that in their economic policies for my taste, but the biggest problem I have with them is China. I remember Frog Blog or commenters on Frog Blog back in 2008 describing China as "scraping the bottom of the barrel" in human rights terms. Pointing out that my wife is not required to cover herself from head to toe and be accompanied by me, her brother or her father when she goes out, that my wife has equal access to healthcare and education as her brother, and that she does not need my permission to get a job felt like a major waste of time and perfectly fine pixels. The Greens seem to have very fixed ideas of what China is, and the way they describe the country I've lived in for damn near 14 years now bears very little resemblance to what I observe around me.
Sure, not exactly a key element of Greens policy, and not the "loony" that seems to be more generally associated with the Greens, but that is a big issue for me personally, and that is the "loony" that makes it very hard for me to imagine myself voting for them.
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Hebe, in reply to
.....Green if they would stop with the loony stuff and be a serious party with serious business policy as well as serious environmental policy.
By using that term you are playing right into the Joycean spin.
Why should a policy you disagree with be "loony", or any more loony than the unsustainable National growth-at-all-costs economic orthodoxy or Labour's smokestack centrism? I find both those unlovely, but they are not loony, just different ways of living.
Having said that, I would be happier if the Greens would stick to the core environment/sustainability agenda with strong centre-left conomic policy. As it is, they are the only party with the environmental advocacy essential for our times so I swallow some fringe issues that I really don't give a bugger about.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
They were not and are still not unless they are the self-selected dominant partner.
The media, too, seem to still be thinking in FPP terms of National and Labour being the obvious, natural major parties.
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Hebe, in reply to
But does it really make sense to hold what will be a nearly 10 year-old grudge by the time of the election?
No grudge. Some of my best friends are active Labourites. But the Irish in me don’t trust them when it comes to making a government. Good thing I’m not the strategist!
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Hebe, in reply to
Yep; but the media are increasingly dumb (or am I getting old?)
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The main Labour/Green tension seems to be around the economic-growth-is-good-at-any-cost agenda versus saving the environment. Only last week that was manifested in Labour's refusal to support Green MP Catherine Delahunty's bill to clean up the heavily polluted Tarawera River. The decision by Labour to block vote against was criticised by many clean water enthusiasts. I hope the new leadership will be more willing to side with the environment and pursue 'growth' in more innovative ways by working with, rather than in opposition to, our natural heritage.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Labour lost the last election mainly because many left-leaning voters thought National was bound to win and so didn’t bother to vote.
Yes, because National spun it that way through their friends in the Medja.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Had Labour told Peters to get stuffed, there would have been no governing majority available to it. That is what the actual situation was.
In 2005? Well, whose fault was that – the Greens were told to fuck off, and the toxic relationship with the Maori Party “haters and wreckers” wasn’t a one way street. I really don’t know why so many people’s spines turn to jelly at the sight of Peters, but here’s another metric I have for leadership – doing the right thing when it’s not easy. Perhaps, just perhaps, there would have had to be genuine, good-faith bipartisan negotiations (and not just with the parties of the left) to advance its agenda. Even more crazy talk: Perhaps we all would have gotten used to the idea that it’s not Ragnarok if (shock! horror!) the Government of the day occasionally can’t pass bills. FFS, isn’t this what MMP was supposed to do?
Yes, because National spun it that way through their friends in the Medja.
Really, because that sounds an awful lot like the self-exculpating spin I was hearing from too many of my friends on the left. But carry on...
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nzlemming, in reply to
On a lighter, Shearer’s arrival at Auckland Airport yesterday: when media scrums go wrong.
Did I hear someone call out "Mr Cunliffe" at the beginning of that. ROFL.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
the Greens for me need to translate their stellar poll showings into actual election results.
You mean like having 14 MPs, as the party does currently?
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
many left-leaning voters thought National was bound to win and so didn’t bother to vote.
It's really hard to know why people didn't vote. Mostly because it's essentially qualitative research you need to do, not really amenable to polling, and if you assemble a group and ask them, people don't cop to not voting because they know it's shameful.
I know we all have our theories but I don't believe there's any study out there that provides empirical evidence (btw if I'm wrong, please point me at it, I would love to read it).
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
closet
hardly
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
in a spirit of genuine enquiry
Sorry way off-topic.
I'd personally describe some of their policy as not based on consensus scientific opinion but my guess is that a chunk of the population would perceive them as "loony".
The couple of big ones for me are support of alternative medicines and herbal remedies - with the same honour given to herbal supplement eleventy-seven as given to scientifically tested therapeutic compounds (aka drugs). The flip side of that coin is the default distrust of anything that comes from pahrmaceutical companies (note I have some issues where the science is bad). If a big company produces it it must be labelled up the wazoo but if it came from a herbal remedy producer labels would harm sales.
The everything organic is good meme and it's asscociated everything not organic is bad meme. Note there are huge number of farmers who know damn well that "organic" is nowhere near as pristine as claimed and also believe fiercely that scientifically supported safe non-organic practices are good for their own animals/crops and land.
And my personal favourite of course is GMO opposition. Coming from the same group that steadfastly support the consensus of scientific opinion on climate change yet reject the consensus of scientific opinion on GMOs.
There are a few others but those are representative of policy where evidence based policy has been sacrificed for ideology and in some cases the ideology is either unbeliveable (eg telling farmers all non-organic practices are bad) or just plain ... you know the word.
And yet a huge amount of their policy is really good. It's solid, balanced between economic imperitives but retaining long term sustainability and ecological principles that I would love to support - and I'm guessing many others would love to support.
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"chris", in reply to
Yep; but the media are increasingly dumb (or am I getting old?)
Yes they are, this eye-licking craze article is still up
Despite having been debunked.
As this story was going to press, I was able to reach the editor at Core Magazine who had posted the original story on Bucchi. Expressing astonishment at how the story had gone viral in the foreign media, he evaded my questions about the identity of the writer. “The story never claimed the problem was widespread,” he said defensively, implying that readers of his site are looking for thrills, not facts, and anyone who read the story in Japanese would clearly recognize the story’s main purpose, which was to titillate.
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Lilith __, in reply to
many left-leaning voters thought National was bound to win and so didn’t bother to vote.
It’s really hard to know why people didn’t vote.
Of course, and what I said was speculation. However someone here did some number crunching at the time of the last election (Keith Ng?), comparing the turnout and results for the last few elections, and the left seemed to have more MIA voters, while the National vote was basically static.
BTW I admire the way people like you and Keir have got stuck in to the party political thing. And I don’t mean to be dismissive of the challenges Labour faces. It’s just hard to believe how little traction they’ve been getting, given the abundance of material the current govt is offering! Someone’s got to be able to do this, and I hope the party can pick them.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
By using that term you are playing right into the Joycean spin
Yeah apologies for that. I should have been more careful to make clear that it is the perception of loony they need to erase. As far as I can tell by focussing on evidence based policy they are making inroads into that perception but it needs to be consitent for it to believeable.
And note I mean that not from my perspective but from the perspective of slightly right wing but environmentally conscious voters. That's the key target market - the edge of the National vote who currently have no other option than National.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
But it was basically about the numbers required for a working majority.
That is the flaw in the way Labour and National think about MMP. That you can't do anything unless you have a fixed coalition majority on all issues. Essentially recreate the dictatorship for three years that we have traditionally worked with.
I personally can't wait for the day where each and every piece of legislation must garner wide support from multiple parties who each represent multiple views. And that may mean Laboour/National one day and Labour/Green/Mana another day. Yes fewer laws would be passed but I don't see that as a bad thing.
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Sacha, in reply to
If I remember correctly, Labour lost the last election mainly because many left-leaning voters (thought National was bound to win and so) didn't bother to vote.
Or didn't see an alternative government they had confidence in.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
FFS, isn’t this what MMP was supposed to do?
Exactly!
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Sacha, in reply to
half-pie
that's half-pai
#cultures -
That’s a rather foolish presumption to make – there is no constitutional or practical reason why the Greens should do any such thing, as opposed to doing nothing more than guaranteeing a Labour minority government confidence and supply, and everything else contingent on case-by-case negotiations.
I've got 10 bucks and silly hat for the loser on election night if the next labour led government doesn't end up having a coalition agreement with Greens.
My Green vote is not a vote for Labour dressed as a tree.
I also vote Green and deliberately don't vote Labour. But you'd be foolish at this stage to vote Green and not be looking at a Labour led coalition being the way your party is going to be in power.
Also, reading on, what Russell said.
The media, too, seem to still be thinking in FPP terms of National and Labour being the obvious, natural major parties.
Also the electorate. I'm happy for there to be three major parties, but we're not there yet.
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Sacha, in reply to
If they can't convince a marginal electorate that they're worth voting for, how do they expect to persuade a nation?
But don't voters choose electorate MPs on different factors than parties choose list ones?
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Gary Young, in reply to
Well, Hebe and others have made many of the points I would have done had I not been driving home for the last 40mins.
I even agree to an extent with some of your views but I take issue with "loony" as applied to the third largest party in our parliament. This is a non-trivial position in New Zealand's political hierarchy and I really think we could move beyond the kind of terminology more usually reserved for parties that only garner a few hundred votes.
After all, by implication, it suggests the views and beliefs of those who voted for them can be similarly denigrated. Consider that 247,000 party votes and 155,000 electoral votes are also non-trivial numbers.
However, this is, as you point out, somewhat off topic. I'll be quiet now but look forward to resuming this when the electoral campaigns begin next year.
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