Posts by JLM
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Just at the moment my WOTY is Mojo!
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Legal Beagle: Election '11 -…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Having the general public chose party lists is getting dangerously close to an American style primary system – personally I think that it should be up to the parties to decide how to choose their lists – a party with a system (or a country with a system) that elects 3 potential ministers of Education but no one who can be minister of Finance is probably doing it wrong.
+1
I remember going to a talk years ago when it was suggested that the public vote for how the health budget was allocated. It sounded appealing until it was pointed out that most of the budget would be spent on minor surgery and virtually nothing on mental health.
Um, wait a minute...
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Up Front: What if We Held an Election…, in reply to Richard Aston,
I asked the lovely election worker how much she got paid – $15/hour – her face showed this was the most money she had earned for ages .
At least two of the very competent poll workers at the booth I scrutineered in were currently unemployed. One had been laid off from Hillside in the latest shameful purge and it was the first paid work she had done for four months. She kept saying how wonderful it was to be working again, even for a day.
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And I think Key has bought himself a "sleeper" problem by being seen to have aligned himself with SM - an electoral system patently less fair than the one we have
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Heather Gaye,
So I’d like the left to balance that out by drilling into the media the kind of phrases that promote the egalitarian ethics we’ve traditionally associated with nz society – “the social contract”, “protecting the vulnerable”, “second chance” , that kind of thing. The way to sway the national dialogue – specifically the “gut feelings” of people that aren’t interested in politics – is sheer repetition.
Winston cornered the one that should speak best to all of us - "fair".
That's where the Greens have been heading and Labour should - encapsulating all that research in the Spirit Level in a few choice phrases hammered home for three years
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Emma Hart,
I don't think you have to be either from Christchurch or connected to the Deaf community to really hope this happens. Couldn't be better, really.
If you know Mojo, you want it even more, whatever community (I'm neither of the above)
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Just back from taking down a PVG sign and an MMP sign - last ones left on our public site.
Greens.
David Clark in Dunedin North. Kyle thinks he's run a poor campaign, but I've seen him round a bit. Mostly voting for him because Metiria likes and respects him - he was their marriage celebrant.
MMP
STVBiggest fear of the campaign - National getting an absolute majority of seats in the house
Biggest disappointment - that no-one, including the Greens, talked about climate change much
Biggest side issue - public broadcasting
Biggest surprise - that no-one pointed out that the tragedy at Pike River seems to have been created in a toxic brew of the things the Nats love most - light regulation; cost-cutting in the public service and relying on privatisation and the profit motive to drive efficiency -
Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Jackie Clark,
I have to vote Labour, don’t I? Don’t I?
I think you can do it with pride after the policy in that campaign. Much as I would like to see James Shaw, David Hay and Rick Leckinger become MPs, I don't think it matters too much ultimately how the votes and seats on the left are arranged. So just vote for who you want to - you don't even have to tell.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to tussock,
Edit: Oh, and Green, the local Sue Coutts so she gets the refund (very safe National seat), Keep MMP, and STV.
Thank you Tussock. I wonder how much of an extra sympathy vote Sue gets because of that shafting QLDC gave to Wanaka Wastebusters.
Even more votes I suspect because she has been an energetic and appealing candidate. Hope it translates to party votes.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to webweaver,
Craig, you have no idea how inordinately happy I felt when I read this. You rock!
I did a happy, waving-hands-in-the-air dance too.