Posts by Kent Parker
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Nick,
even if it is a small percentage, given the small percentage difference between Nat and Lab in the last election, it is significant.
Another point about your sweeping 40% of the population support Nat monetary policy is that an election is a very blunt instrument. By ticking 'yes' in the party vote, we may be supporting National (or opposing Labour) but we are not necessarily supporting the monetary policy. We may want tax cuts but not as much, or we may not care about tax but want to get rid of the Maori seats.
Under MMP, answerability does not stop with the election. The elected majority has to keep on shifting and changing. National has a tendency to think that we are still under FPP and to get advice from the US which is still FPP was probably not helpful for Brash. No future electorate is likely to ever give a single party more than 50% of the vote so long as the memory of Muldoon remains.
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Nick,
National policy was Act policy and 40% supported it. Therefore 40% agree with it.
There's a laugh.
1. most National voters just wanted to get rid of Helen
2. as Terence said, National was deceptive about their monetary policies
3. many people were confused as to just exactly what the National policies were, see 2. above.Governments are usually voted out and not voted in. Voting for an opposition party does not necessarily indicate support for it. it could just as easily indicate lack of support for the incumbents.
This blog is great but could do with an edit facility of some sort.
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Whatever the leanings of Key and the likelihood of him being the next PM, he still has to deal with the whole concept of MMP and not having absolute power (assuming National get less than 50% of the vote). If, over the next two years he proves to be leaning too far to the right then the electorate will deliver accordingling (unless he pulls off a Brash-style deception, without the gaffes).
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Correction, Danyl, you got the 'Hagar' spelling from reading Sir Humph too much, which is probably not a good think for anybody, least of all the SH bloggers.
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Oh, btw, it is interesting how the spelling of 'Hager' has migrated towards 'Hagar' (the Horrible).
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The book seems to illustrate the following:
Brash was a naive inexperienced politician who needed coaching. The emails exist because of this need for coaching. Because he was in the early stages of a learning process he did not 'own' the ideas and policies he expressed. All his major speeches and platforms were manipulated from often conflicting sources and were not unified in the middle by a coherent personal assessment.
The book makes literal what was evident from the Brash persona.
To further what you said Terence about the far right. If the far right agenda is implemented then its bye bye democracy. Democracy depends for its existence on elected governing bodies, both national and local. Business is by nature undemocratic. Leaders become leaders by outperforming their peers and can do so by doing things that are very unpopular. A Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch cannot be voted out of their positions.
There should always be a balance between government and business and the present model of government providing human service industries in health, education, justice etc. and business providing other goods and services seems to be working.
A large business ends up imitating a government department with all its inefficiencies, and at the end of the day there is not much difference, except the people at the top of government tend not to walk away with such big pay cheques.