Which Party Cares?

winston peters is little better than trump. he takes his own polls and campaigns on the results of what they show as peoples biggest fears he was campaiging against "asian invasion" decades ago. he will campaign against islamists, he's campaigning to ban 1080, he would campaign to cut down the forests if it would win him votes. he will shift his allegiances as he sees fit to gain power. he is notorious in wellington for getting drunk and getting into arguments in pubs. he will create divisions for the sake of it, he was known for intimidating and bullying lower ranked politicians around parliament national are gathering the worst reputation against the environment since the industrial revolution... natural resources are just there to be financially exploited in their eyes, neo classical economics through and through... striped $50 million a year out of the conservation depts budget, introduced rampant increase in commercial activities in parks, not to mention the rapid decline in water quality going on, but that has been a long time in the making and not entirely nationals fault, but they have been accelerating the problem with encouragement of greater agricultural intensification of dairying on soil that won't cope with the effluent run off from the land

Once upon a time Winston was in line to be Prime Minister under a National government. He was Muldoons prodigy and the only reason it never happened was that he got impatient and went out to form the Winston (I mean NZ) First party. He does beieve in what he says and is as honest a politition as any but Ive said elsewhere that honesty isnt necessarily a good measure for politicians. One thing that is having a huge impact on the poles is the so called Jacinta effect. Less that a year ago this was called the Trump effect in a different country. If you look back through our last several Prime Ministers you see the elected PMs of Muldoon Clarke Key and possibly Ardern this time. You see appointed PMs Shiply,English etc. The elected ones all have media nouse and could use it to great effect even if they used it differently right from Muldoons scowl to Clarks matter of fact authority to Keys mischievous smile (especially when fondling some strangers pony tail). English does not command the media well and he could well lose on that rather than policy. Any of the labour leaders from after Clarke till now would of fared no better in the election so policy might actually influenced the outcome. Unlike Trump though I would like to see Jacinta win as I believe the policys being promoted are the best fit for NZ as it is today. However I also see a need for the Greens to have a positive moderating voice in government as well. This is my view and no attempt to alter any one elses view. My only attempt to influence anyone else is to ensure they exercise their right to vote and be counted

National may have had to make moves on effecting legislation to improve water quality as the explosion in dairy cow numbers required this. Of course the dairying corporations are not actually milking cows, they're milking increases in land value. This is why our interest rate is kept so low - it's to keep them afloat as they are mired in debt.

Ahh kreig my old mate, You had me until you jumped on the good looking 30 something woman bandwagon .jacindamania. Didn't see your post when Andrew little was around. All of a sudden labour are the go to. Hmmm.....

@Kreig, My reference is more to politicians in general irrespective of their hue. In an election year they are known for their promises any number of which will be dropped and totally ignored once they have gained the power to govern, or regained the power to govern. Am I simply being sceptical or is it the long ingrained cynicism of age? Probably a bit of both. Largely due of course to occasionally nursing a glass or two whilst eaves dropping on conversations in that long standing institution called Bellamy's. Something that I became accustomed to doing during my late fathers long tenure there as a bartender. I still indulge myself on occasions when in Wellington. From such occasions I developed the view that there was not a single politician that could be trusted in an election year. Hence my comments in the first paragraph. Key was a prime example in proclaiming that a public referendum would be held at the forthcoming election. The public were ecstatic and voted with clarity. Totally ignoring the fact that he also said don't expect the government to pay any heed to the result of the referendum, and they totally ignored the referendum. In election years anything goes, even collusion with the enemy and the trading of seats in exchange for full support. Heavens knows how many deals i have heard of that nature. Not to mention the crass attempts to tarnish an opposing players reputation. The classic one this year in respect of superannuation. Made even worse of course by the accused over the top reaction. But hey! any publicity is better than none. I think the original response of "it was repaid immediately I was made aware of the mistake", what is your problem with that. Of course this is the person who has campaigned loud and long on the retention of 65 as a retirement age and many other benefits for the over 65's. Yet he appears to not know the rules, how strange? Not to mention the current furore over water. Heaven forbid we all are only too aware of what the major problems are. So as an extremely innovative nation what are we actually doing about it. I love it that some are stating they are going to apply a tax to water use. Why! We are charging one company $500 a year, No I haven't left a couple of zeroes off that figure, to bottle and export millions upon millions of litres of water every year. Lets start by charging these companies a more realistic sum. As for water taxes on farming that is going to be about as useful as carbon taxes. Similar situation, we know what the problems are, we can do something useful about it or we can tax it. Of course some of the farmers are likely to adopt the attitude of, I pay the tax you use it to fix the problem. That wont happen either, they will just increase the tax. We need innovative thinking, mandatory and workable rules. We need more trees for carbon emissions, we greater space along the waterways, no stock should be allowed less than a hundred metres either side of a waterway. The 100 metres should be replanted as it was before the land was stripped for farming. Wetlands need to be replace. More practical means for the disposal of effluent are required. Goodness knows any one of us could go on at length on this subject. However we appear to hear about it in any great depth during an election year. But this is politics. Whatever my opinions of politicians in general may be (albeit somewhat jaundiced at best in an election year) what will be will be. Only one tenth of any promises will actually be kept and some good will result from same. You may be rest assured that the conservation estate will be well down the list as has been the case in many a year past. There will be the odd nod to satisfy the squeakiest in wheel in respect of it. With the exception of the anti 1080 brigade who will be ignored as usual. Personally, the only real nous that any politician has is for self preservation. Why did Key leave when he did, odds were that a fourth term was going to be impossible, there has't been one since Keith Holyoake was in power. So one suspects Key left at the height of his reign. Good timing. Or shrewd judgement. Anybodies guess. So, sceptical, cynic, pessimist, perhaps a little of each. I have listened to many at various events and places. They are most voluble leading to an election, and significantly subdued thereafter. Go and imbibe a glass or two on a busy night I am sure you will find it enlightening.

American politics have been about the people not the policies for as long as most of us can remember. I worry we are starting to go the same way. However we need to read and discuss policy and how it affects what we and our families do and decide but most of all remember that last election 40% of the possible vote went to "dont care" Thats enough to of allowed any party that contested the last election to win if they could of got all those votes

@FrankB: "So one suspects Key left at the height of his reign. Good timing. Or shrewd judgement. Anybodies guess." If you've not read Danyl McLauchlan's analysis of John Key's 8 years as PM, I highly recommend it. Agree with his conclusions or not, there's some excellent formulation of insight into words. ======= https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/16-12-2016/the-four-john-keys-you-meet-when-he-governs-your-country/ The final couple of paragraphs: "It’s frustrating, given Key’s obvious political genius, that he only addressed it to winning at the superficial elements of politics: raising money, winning elections, mocking the opposition as it self-destructed, getting good coverage, being popular. Understanding the game and then beating it. To me the most quintessential Key policy is his reform of the Emissions Trading Scheme: Key and his Trade Minister found a brilliant way to rort the international carbon trading system, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of quasi-legal Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits. It was an ingenious way to prevent New Zealand from having to reduce our carbon emissions, which would have lead to all sorts of reforms and costs that might have compromised Key’s popularity. "Now some other sucker will have to deal with carbon neutrality and climate proofing our infrastructure, along with fixing the sustainability of the superannuation scheme, and low productivity, and child poverty, and the broken housing market, and the broken tax system, and the cost blowout of our aging population on the health system, and so on; Key gets to retire with all of the political capital he accumulated through evading all of those problems intact. John Key won at politics. Good for him. But another few winners like that and we’re done for."

Key wasnt really that great a politician. He was a good leader and good in front of the media which really is all a prime minister needs to be. His forte was finance and winning bets in the finance industry and he did bring those skills with him as the above shows. Beyond that it was up to his ministers and advisers to help him make the right calls. Unfortunately he always asked what will this cost and whats the profit margin. For at least 6 of the 9 years he was the PM we needed. For the other 3 he was the best available. His party let him down in a number of ways though. ps I only voted for him in the first of the 3 elections

The leadership is just a popularity contest. Jacinda is far more likeable than Bill, and that has done labour a world of good. We like to think of ourselves as an intelligent country and that popularity would not influence our decision making but it does, and it has in a way even labour couldn't of imagined in their wildest dreams. I'm a very left liberal guy. As I have gotten older and bought a house, had kids etc I have noticed a slight ego centric rightist slant shadowing my decision making as I look to make my and my families lives better. So where as I used to think of national as red neck money hungry white men, I know see slightly more from their point of view what they are really all about. But it's still not for me. There are bigger issues in this world than me and my wallet. I think the biggest loser will be the greens. Labour has suffered from the greens popularity over the last decade. But now those voters are going back to labour. I'm one of them and you can smell it in the air. This is how I see it. Most decision making is made from a huge number of policy analysts. They really call the shots. The party in power will make a decision on those calls depending on the country and their best interests. New Zealand is a little country that the world doesn't care to effs about. We have nothing to offer except for some dried milk and a rugged landscape to escape in. Political leaders in the power houses are ego centric narcissist. They don't want to be our friend, but they may take more interest in us knowing we have an attractive young female leader (if you think this is fantasy just think Bill Clinton or Donald trump, you think they would rather have a cup of tea with Bill English or Jacinda ardern). She could really play that card to our advantage, she's a pitbull. I like her and it's obvious that the rest of the country do too. I've been waiting for labour to have a leader with balls and it's ironic that it's a female that has filled that roll. She is a bit of a popularity vote gatherer and she does seem a little idealistic and naive. She seems to be spending a lot of money and not saying where it is coming from. I imagine it will come from taxing high income earners and home owners. I don't like the fact she thinks to help beneficiaries is to throw them more money. There are jobs out there that they could do. But refuse and I'm over it. Go milk the cows wait the tables and walk the factory floors. That life. We need to get much harder on beneficiaries as far as I'm concerned. Though there are exceptions of course. But at the end of the day I can't stand Bill English he is an arrogant smug prick. Money makes his world go round and he still thinks it's from raping this beautiful land. So there is no way in hell I'd vote for him.