Legal Beagle: The flag referendum: complicating your decision
108 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
Audrey Young, Claire Trevitt and (apparently) Paddy Gower wrote immediate pieces that amounted to being apologists
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Email
Key hasn't got a Legacy to stand on...
Duncan Garner sort of has a go...For once the prime minister has seriously misjudged the mood of the public.
And after all these years of preaching financial constraint, that's $26 million down the toilet.
Every politician hates losing, but Key hates it more than anyone. It's a big part of his success, both before and after entering politics. It's what drives him.
He's a chirpy, happy, likeable, positive, ambitious, calculating, smiling assassin.
I also respected Helen Clark. And she could be warm and likable – especially away from the cameras.
Key has no time for losing – runs a mile from political disasters, like they never actually happened.
The flag result is a disaster for him.
But it's also not. He'll say, 'Oh well, we gave you a chance, we move on'.http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-flag-debate/78253159/duncan-garner-the-flagging-fortunes-of-a-leader-chasing-a-legacy
but still trots out the excuses...His legacy is that he could end up being the most popular prime minister of all time. A man with few economic options, so he traded on his personality.
On the other hand, Labour and its support partners had golden economic times while in power.
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It was raining money for Labour. It's been years of pain for National. -
Email
When it comes to turnout, and it's relationship to the result, I tend to agree with Linger that you need to think of the electorates as different clusters. I reckon 3, each with their own story.
I would also say turnout was not significantly motivated by interest in the new flag in any of the communities, if you want the full argument on that one, I've put it here
https://thoughtfulbloke.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/stuff-pakeha-like-flag-referendums/
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linger, in reply to
Nice. Completely agree re: interpretation of the South Auckland cluster too.
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Email
I'd suggest there were two fairly separate groups opposed to change: conservatives who identified with the old flag and it's imperial links, and liberals opposed to anything from John Key. (and design snobs, who form a statistically insignificant outlier).
Add to that Maori people who as David notes, saw the new flag as not representing their community. (And/or, as Andrew Little suggested, having an affinity for the British monarchical link).I would imagine that a future left-wing government would have less problem changing the flag, especially if a suitably elaborate and inclusive process was followed, and Gareth Morgan paid for it.
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Email
"And Gareth Morgan paid for it"
Would he want exclusive use of a corner of the flag for his lifetime?
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Email
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11615542
Just how did John Key get two of the biggest names in rugby to back his failed flag campaign?
It could have been as simple as a text message.
Former All Black captain Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, currently World Rugby Player of the Year, were texted by the Prime Minister and asked to watch his video promoting a change of New Zealand flag. They both went on to publicly support the campaign for change just weeks before voting began last month.
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Mr Eagleson said it was unclear whether Mr Key was texting in his role as Prime Minister, or in some other capacity which would mean the text messages were private. Rather than make a call on which role he was in while texting, Mr Key had volunteered the information.The tosh keeps coming...
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Alfie, in reply to
He said the Prime Minister didn't have copies of the text messages and couldn't remember the exact date.
After getting rapped over the knuckles with a wet bus ticket by Archives NZ last year for deleting incriminating texts between himself and Slater Junior, you'd think Key might have learned a lesson.
Unless of course he was wearing his I'm just a dickhead who knows famous sportspeople hat this time, in which case, that's apparently O'K.
I wonder if Key has his own milliner?
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