Hard News: Long will be the lunches
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I've also got to wonder how much of the (IMO) blatantly deceptive election ads run in Australia would get past the Broadcasting and Advertising Standards Authorities here. While media/advertising self-regulation here is far from perfect, I don't think our political parties and lobby groups are quite so shameless.
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Not so successful, according to the commentariat, Labor's "Time Warp" cartoon ad aimed at Tony Abbott:
That would be because it's embarrassing.
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That Timewarp attack ad was so lame it reminded me of that ill-conceived attempt at singalong parody those Labour MPs tried at their party conference in 2008.
Couldn't they have simply run the line "Staved off recession better than any other OECD country, and Abbott opposed our success at every step" ? Or something.
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Couldn't they have simply run the line "Staved off recession better than any other OECD country, and Abbott opposed our success at every step" ? Or something.
Apparently it wasn't that sort of election.
To be fair, the Libs also ran a stupid South Park knock-off aimed at Gillard last week.
I can heartily recommend the Gruen Nation programmes the ABC aired during the campaign.
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Couldn't they have simply run the line "Staved off recession better than any other OECD country, and Abbott opposed our success at every step" ? Or something.
It would have been much easier if they hadn't dumped the leader who "staved off recession etc." because he was supposedly an out of touch bully who couldn't get himself laid at a sex addicts convention let alone win an election...
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. . . couldn't get himself laid at a sex addicts convention . . .
I believe that the Australian version of that is 'couldn't get a pork if he paid for it.'
Then again, it may be 'couldn't get a soapy stick up a dog's bum.' -
I've also got to wonder how much of the (IMO) blatantly deceptive election ads run in Australia would get past the Broadcasting and Advertising Standards Authorities here
Unfortunately our organisations policing advertising laws are actually very weak in my experience and love to water down their decisions if at all possible. They are really into self-regulation so if there is any way to get the complainant to back down they will take it. We had an opponent lying in their ads to compete with us and it took almost 3 years and 3 different authorities to get them to desist.
Our political parties might not be allowed to run ads predicting what their opposition are going to do if they take power but if they did then Asset Sales would be top of the agenda if I was writing Labour's ads here. In fact the whole Time Warp concept works. -
Speaking of elections, am I the only one confused by our own TLA election? I see hoardings approximately everywhere, and assume they're roughly geo-specific. But nobody (Electoral Commission?) has told me exactly what the new entities are that I'll be voting for, or exactly what their jurisdiction or territory is.
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In lieu of anywhere else to post it, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and John Oliver and Wyatt Cenac owned Fox and Friends on Monday (our Tuesday) over their linking a Saudi Financer to the new Muslim Community Centre who turned out to own part of Fox.
Not so much owned as kicked them in the shins, and then while they were lying on the ground kicked them again between the legs. Some of their best work:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-23-2010/the-parent-company-trap
(and er, E1 of S3 of Californication on last night was also good I thought)
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James (and anyone interested) - You may find what you're looking for here: http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/2010Elections/Pages/Home.aspx.
Advertising the process yet another consideration of the public not deemed worthy.
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Not so much owned as kicked them in the shins, and then while they were lying on the ground kicked them again between the legs. Some of their best work:
While their pants were down, too.
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Living in Australia, I've been unable to avoid the advertising which has been both bad and relentlessly negative - particularly from the Libs. The post-election horse-trading is horribly reminiscent of the 1996 election - I can't help but think that most of the Independents, many of whom are formerly Nationals, will favour the Coalition in much the same way Winston reverted to his old party alliances. Either, it's unlikely the nex federal governemnt will last a full term.
For those interested, Ben Wilson and others who've lived here before particularly, you might want to read this analysis on the future of Australian federalism.
I can heartily recommend the Gruen Nation programmes the ABC aired during the campaign.
This has been fantastic fun to watch as insiders have critiqued the approaches of both parties. John Hewson, former Liberal leader and famous for self-immolating on TV while explaining how GST would be charged on a cake, has been particularly insightful (and interestingly commented he'd not be invitied to a Liberal party event in 15 years).
One particular highlight was the regular competition between agencies - this one focused on the Greens. The ad produced to promote the Greens was brilliant. Better than their official effort. They enquired about using it, but were denied. The story is here
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For those interested, Ben Wilson and others who've lived here before particularly, you might want to read this analysis on the future of Australian federalism.
Heh, their politics bemuses me mightily. I had several disconnects in my first years there. One girl got real bitter on me when I said I had liberal values, when I felt sure she'd be much the same. Only later did I realize Liberal values are something quite different there. On the subject of federalism, I remember talking to some socialists, and thinking I was agreeing with them about something saying "The state should pay for that". They blinked, then said "Yeah, keep those federal bastards out of it". I had actually meant those federal bastards, completely forgetting they don't refer to the nation as "the state".
But mostly I couldn't really get their sentiments, the politics seemed weirdly backwards and conservative, whilst at the same time far more socialist than NZ. This might have changed. I was there during the referendum on becoming a republic and was quite astonished at how deeply they did not want it, considering how nearly everyone hated the government (no matter who was in).
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But nobody (Electoral Commission?) has told me exactly what the new entities are that I'll be voting for, or exactly what their jurisdiction or territory is.
Not the Electoral Commission. Local Government New Zealand has a bit to do with it, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I think. And the Ministry of Health for the Health boards, I suppose. And the Electoral Enrolment centre, which is part of NZ Post does the electoral rolls.
But try here: http://www.elections2010.co.nz/
I don't think they quite have all the candidates yet, but they'll tell you what you can vote for at the very least.
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Probably stupid to ask, but is there a guide somewhere as to what these new entities will be doing / looking after? What I'd like on the elections2010 site is if you get to vote for a Ward, Local Board, this is what those people voted in will be looking after, what they will be responsible for etc. This is what they will be doing. If there isn't one already...
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I'm surprised no-one else has brought up the issue of why the anti-MMP lobby is keeping so quiet about the Australian election result and the fact that the barely proportional Alternative Vote electoral system has delivered such a dogs breakfast of an election result. Think I might do a blog on the ALP's idiotic factional morass. Can anyone point me in the direction of an article on same?
Craig Y
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But mostly I couldn't really get their sentiments, the politics seemed weirdly backwards and conservative, whilst at the same time far more socialist than NZ. This might have changed.
No, it's much the same. It's far more acceptable to be openly racist, for example, and gender roles are more narrowly defined than in NZ. But things that New Zealand Labour would struggle to find it in themselves to bring about are considered part of the political landscape and not to be touched by either right or left.
I tried to stay away from the election, but ended up doing a bit with the Greens in the last week. I think that was because their campaign was so gloriously positive and hopeful. It was the first time in years that I felt like I could participate in politics without glum cynicism about what might come. There's a lot the NZ Greens could learn from their Australian counterparts about why things like the economy, education, and health, are important to voters, ahd how they can be addressed in a campaign.
On the other hand, the level of institutionalisation - parties being controlled by small aggressive and closed factional elites - is not something I'd like to import.
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Er, didn't National and Labour go through exactly those processes during the Rogernomics, Mad Mike and Ruthenasia eras?
Craig Y
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Er, didn't National and Labour go through exactly those processes during the Rogernomics, Mad Mike and Ruthenasia eras?
Yeah, I get what you mean. A very small clique effectively ruled the nation.
What I mean is the pure nakedness of power within political party membership, with warring factions whose aims are primarily winning over the other bunch within their own party, everything else being a distant second.
I'm too young to know if that was ever properly the case in New Zealand, but it's my impression that the fish and chip brigade and then Ruth's mob took to the top on the backs of the mass membership parties they had emerged from. They weren't so much a product of their parties as a band apart.Even Muldoon, as hated as he was, came from a party that unified around him. But that is just my impression, nothing more - it might be an ill-formed one.
I don't hold the New Zealand Labour Party in particularly high esteem, but I don't count being beholden to warring grey-men and backroom-boys as one of its sins. Closing the gaps may yet eventuate, as the parties become ever more dependent on apparatchniks and follow the hollow men on a merry dance around the polls, but I'd say we're not there yet.
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I'm surprised no-one else has brought up the issue of why the anti-MMP lobby is keeping so quiet about the Australian election result and the fact that the barely proportional Alternative Vote electoral system has delivered such a dogs breakfast of an election result.
If Australia had a pure proportional system (i.e. percentage of vote reflects percentage of seats) the current outcome would have been a hung parliament too. Nothing wrong with that. But it would have represented Australians better (e.g. Greens should have got 17 seats).
Calculations here
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Hmm, actually the "Time warp" ad is pretty funny.
Certainly funnier that the"Dancing Cossacks" ad by the Nats in the seventies... -
But mostly I couldn't really get their sentiments, the politics seemed weirdly backwards and conservative, whilst at the same time far more socialist than NZ.
That's where Bruce Jesson's comment about New Zealand being a hollow society, without centres of resistance, rings true to me. In the whole history of unified Italy (from 1860 onwards) the centre-left was never in power until 1994. Yet we had and continue to have pretty good social welfare provisions, even under Berlusconi who would dearly love to enact neoliberal reform a-la Rogernomics. But he can't, because Italy is in fact full of centres of resistance (not all of them good, it must be said). The impression I get of Australia, which is certainly not direct, is similar: more conservative parlamentarians in many respect, a more conservative public discourse than NZ, but a more textured society that makes it harder to enact pure free-market measures
I have spent a grand total of five days in the country so I hasten to add I base this entirely on hearsay and conjecture however.
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. . . Italy is in fact full of centres of resistance (not all of them good, it must be said). The impression I get of Australia, which is certainly not direct, is similar . . .
Are these 'centres of resistance' similar to the upper houses and state legislatures in Australia? They've certainly provided an effective check there on the kind of crash-through 'reforms' we've experienced in NZ. One major difference in Australian polspeak is the constant reference to the parliament, rather than simply parliament, as in NZ. It's because they have so many of them, and often tend to think of themselves as over-governed.
In the lead-up to MMP, Jim Bolger expressed his preference for an upper house of parliament. As someone noted at the time, he already effectively had one, in the form of the Business Roundtable.
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Dancing Cossacks, Pah.
Anyone remember the "Labour isn't Working" campaign? that didn't work for National. How about something along the lines of "National, working for less" as a starting point for Labours next campaign? Less money? less people? take your pick. -
Are these 'centres of resistance' similar to the upper houses and state legislatures in Australia? They've certainly provided an effective check there on the kind of crash-through 'reforms' we've experienced in NZ.
My personal favourite is "five hundred thousand people will hit the streets within two hours". But yes, that too. And a constitution, in Italy's case. I thought the fact that the govt could simply shrug off the attorney general's advice on welfare reform earlier this year was simply appalling - in Italy it would have just stopped the legislation dead, end of story.
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