Politics and Prose

Despite the palpable change of mood that is in the air, I can’t help but come across diehard Labour supporters who will honestly back
Clark no matter what she does, what she says, or who she crosses.

I’m not a 100 per cent National supporter – it certainly isn’t the perfect party and I’m critical of National whenever I see policy I disagree with.  However, in alignment with my principles, it is the best party for me.  National is very different from Labour – it’s a party that accepts dissenting views, allows for contrasting opinions to meld in the same pot, expression of speech and individuality is paramount to their polices.  I think they’re more family friendly, more environmental, better economic managers and the MPs are more well-rounded people.

Supporting Labour this election is to fight a losing battle.  And while I admire the confidence (and indeed courage) to face adversity when the odds are stacked up against you, I cannot understand why anyone would want to give Labour another go, considering the peril we’re in.

Let’s see how we’ve done:

• Our standard of living has declined in the last 9 years;
• our poor are still poor;
• our hospital waiting lists have grown longer;
• our standard has living has declined;
• our justice system is still weak, still favouring the criminals and punishing the victims;
• our wages are still decline;
• our OECD ranking has declined;
• and our brightest are leaving our shores.

Our years of ballooning surpluses have been squandered by a government more interested in their own future than in New Zealand’s.  The Labour government is undeniably partly responsible for the current economic turmoil NZ is in, and we’re to trust them to see us to the other side, yeah right.

Besides, Helen “safe pair of hands” Clark won’t even be around.  She’s warning us about changing horses mid-race but, ironically, she’ll be out of there before the terms up, so we’ll be changing nonetheless.  Clark won’t led Labour into 2011 - so why risk voting for Clark when she won’t stick around.

So change is inevitable - do we change one lame horse for another, or cash in our old horse now for a fresher, brighter finish.

Lo and behold, Labour is at it again, circulating lies and attacking Key for having vision. Below are excerpts taken from labour08.org (possibly the worst political website in the world).

It confirms that Labour’s main campaign website is not only as misleading as their adverts, but also run by twelve year olds (who haven’t heard of spell check).

Note the spelling mistakes (in bold):

So John Key wants to take the tourism portfolio. But while he’s praising the importance of tourism with one side of his mouth, he’s ripping it down with the other. The thing is,
New Zealand’s tourism industry is built on our environmental image - 100% pure, remember? The trouble is, John’s flip-flops on climate change aretn’t going to fool anyone when his policies show just how little he cares about New Zealand’s clean, green image.

The last thing we need is a brand advocate (which is what the Minister of Tourism’s role includes) who is at best luke warm about the central concept you’re trying to sell.

There’s nothing in National, or John Key’s view of the world that suggests that they understand that being Minister of Toursim is more than just photo-ops, it’s about building an industry and a country that has sustainability at its core.

It also includes a picture from Wikipedia (where coincidently Labour gets most of its “facts” from) of Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.  Labour slams Key’s pledge to take on the Tourism portfolio, and asks “Is this John Key’s (AKA: Shadow Tourism Spokesperson) vision for Tourism in New Zealand?”  For Labour’s information, Waikiki Beach makes USD200 million a year from tourism alone, it is one of the popular beaches in the US and invests 23% into the Hawaiian economy.  I’m sure local businesses in and around Takapuna Beach or Oriental Bay wouldn’t mind an injection of that magnitude every year. 

But Labour isn’t opposed to Tourism for any other reason that Key has advocated it.  Remember their campaign is all about undermining Key’s creditability and maintaining lies about him so they eventually stick.  

Shame about the so-called “neutron bomb”. 

The Progressives have shown once more why they ought not to be in power.  Following the release of National’s prison policy, Deputy Leader and former corrections minister Matt Robson (yeah, “who?” I hear you ask) attacked the policy as “objectively pro-crime”.

Privatising prisons won’t stop a single crime. The highest priority for reducing crime should be reducing the availability of alcohol and drugs, and intervening early before people start out on a life of crime. National will do none of that.

Concentrating on who runs the prisons, instead of on initiatives to prevent crime makes National objectively pro-crime because crime will rise under National.

Obviously, Robson failed to take the first step of any response – that is to first read the policy.  But that’s OK, because he’s a clairvoyant – he knows crime will rise under National because he read it amongst the tea leaves.

National’s focus on prisons is misplaced. Some people need to be locked up, but prisons do not change the crime rate. National should focus on alcohol and drugs and on intervening early to reduce reoffending.

National’s policyis very clear, and stipulates that under a National-led government, the Dept of Corrections might allow the private sector to tender contracts, should the conditions and benefits be right.  The policy clearly stipulates that by allowing private sector in to manage the prison system, National will save money - it even shows how and where – that can be used to boost drug and alcohol rehabilitation and other post-prison initiatives for inmates.

So the Progressives are criticising National for: firstly, saving money, and; secondly, using that money to fund projects which they are advocating for.  

And this is bad news how?

It’s no wonder Robson is such a terrible Corrections spokeman - he was an abysmal Corrections Minister too.

ACT leader Rodney Hide has come out guns blazing against
Clark’s suggestion that people are afraid of Sir Roger Douglas (ACT’s no. 3 on their list).

“My question to Helen Clark is: what is it about Sir Roger Douglas policies didn’t she like?

“Why did she vote for every single one when she sat in Cabinet with Sir Roger?

“Why, in the past nine years, has she not undone a single one of them?

For once, Hide asks a good question.  I’m sure most people don’t actually know that Clark and Douglas sat around the same Cabinet table, when Clark was Minister of Housing, Conservation and later Health.  In fact, Clark actually voted for all, not some but ALL, of Douglas’s “evil” policies.

It is very hypocritical for Clark to condemn Douglas and his policies when she supported every single one of them.

As expected, the Greens have announced they will go with Labour.  What a surprise. 

We don’t exist to prop up anyone else’s Government.

Well, ain’t that the truth – but only because no government ever wants them.  Try as they may, the Greens have been left out of government in 1999, 2002, 2005 and looks like 2008 too.  I’m sure the Greens will be celebrating this as some slick political move, but in reality all it tells voters is that the Green Party are pushovers – so don’t vote for them.

We found that they are closer to each other than either is to us, and neither of them aligns closely with our own ideals for a fairer and more sustainable
New Zealand.

And thank goodness for that.  The fewer parties that adopt Green Party thinking the better.

Here’s what they had to say about National:

There are individual policies where we agree with the National Party, for example they helped us stop a law that would take away control of dietary supplements and they want to see more of the NZ Super Fund invested in New Zealand. 

However our analysis showed us that on the whole National would take New Zealand in the wrong direction, in fact, many policies headed off down a dead end street. This means that we can not form a Government with National, or support them on confidence and supply, although we could work with them in areas where we have common ground.

And on Labour:

Labour also seems to be heading off in the wrong direction in some areas, while in others they are on the right track. Whether we could form a Government with them would depend on reaching a policy agreement that advanced green policies on a number of fronts.

How they have managed to properly analyse Labour and National’s policies when about 40 per cent are still to come bewilders me.

If I was an advisor to the Greens, I wouldn’t have been so honest (not that I believe that this has been a proper analysis – it’s a total farce).  Part of the Greens’ problem is that they are constantly regarded as Labour’s lackeys, with little more merit than that.  Despite having consistent numbers of MPs, they are always discounted by Labour when it comes to coalition building, and it appears 2008 will be no different. 

I would also have waited off a while longer before making this announcement.  Now the mainstream media will discredit anything the Greens say from now on, because they’ve already accepted that they will be Labour’s props (and who cares what props say…)

Writing off National is a blatant disregard to any political commonsense.  This move will not attract anyone towards the Greens and it will put off those who are Green-leaning but sick of Labour.  Watch their popularity plummet.

(Soon to be ex-) Climate Change Minister David Parker’s claims that making the productive sectors pay for emissions via the emissions trading scheme is cheaper than if the taxpayer (government) paid for the Kyoto shortfall is completely at odds with analysis undertaken by leading economists, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

Unlike, Parker I’m interested in what businesses and industries think of the ETS.  NZIER’s analysis shows that it is eight times more expensive in the near term to put all the costs onto producers and exporters, than if the government just paid the bill.

Catherine Beard, executive director of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition, put it this way:

“The reason it is so expensive to put all the cost on to producers is because in the absence of all your trading partners pricing carbon, all you achieve is a loss of competitiveness of local industry and relocation to other countries where those costs will not be faced.  Making your local producers internationally uncompetitive and causing plant closure and business re-location is a high cost strategy.”

At a time of economic crisis when most Western countries are in full retreat from expensive climate change policies, it is foolhardy to be pursing policies that will cost New Zealanders jobs and increase global emissions.

It is also a moronic idea to make producers pay for what the government has failed to do.  Under Labour, CO2 emissions have doubled, so our
Kyoto liabilities are vast and expensive.  Sheesh, so much for making money out of Kyoto.

Dear, oh dear.  The Greens have released their Maori policyand while this policy would not ordinarily intrigue me, I want to draw attention to it to make a wider point.

Maori Affairs spokesperson Metiria Turei released the policy saying:

“At a time when the Maori voice in Parliament is threatened by National for political purposes, the Green Party says we must entrench the seats, and give them the same status as the general seats.”

Poor Metiria, she fails to see that by entrenching the Maori seats, she will not “give the same status as the general seats” but rather she will concrete their inequality for a long while.

In contrast, the Maori Party (who’s very political existence depends on the Maori seats) say differently.  Pita Sharples has said that his party is more than happy for the Maori seats to go – as long as Maori say so.

For me, this policy epitomises the Green’s ideology on any and every issue: We know best.  Their policy fundamentally neglects to understand what the Maori seats are for – Maori.  Not the Greens.  Any person or political party that honestly believes the Maori seats should stay, even if a referendum amongst Maori overly declares they should go, should question their motives. 

Like most that comes out of the Greens’ research team, this policy is more about attacking National then it is about the Maori seats or Maoridom in general.  It’s neither about Maori or about giving Maoridom a voice, it’s about the Greens and how they know what’s best for you.  And if you disagree, it’s because you don’t understand how things work and soon you’ll come around.

The policy goes onto say:

“We need to focus on building our education system now, to ensure all our children access their right to learn their tikanga and reo, for free, as enshrined in te Tiriti o Waitangi.  Having to pay exorbitant tertiary fees to learn the Reo is a disgrace.”

There is no where in the Treaty that says anything about the entrenched rights of children to read and write in Te Reo Maori.  Its not that I’m against Maori and non-Maori children having access to such education, but it’s misleading to claim it was somehow written in a 160-year old document and therefore it’s an intrinsic right.

Thank goodness that this policy stems from the Greens, and not a major party – I’m sure we can all be relieved that it won’t ever come into effect.  No doubt we’ll see more policy along these lines. 

Remember: Greens know best.