Posts by Ben Austin
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Hard News: Not yet standing upright, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Agreed. I think he has misjudged this, if he genuinely wants the flag to change, which I think he does. He has given flag change sympathetic people who don't like him a reason and an excuse to vote against something they'd otherwise be in favour of and this could have easily been avoided whilst still likely getting him what he wants.
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Really? How interesting. I would expect that National Party members would be rather torn on the issue. The rural party membership especially. Certainly the ones I know anyway wouldn't have any time for the idea of a change, being quite happy with the current flag and constitutional setup.
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I do remember reading the government led assessments of the US-Australia FTA deal a decade ago at uni and they were short on actual detail, with the benefits generally flowing from the "invisibles" side of thing, that being the liberalisation on investment, copyright or the like. All of which was hard for them to quantify before the deal.
It would be interesting to see a decade on if those generous guesses have come true or can be proven
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I still don't understand why it is a flop. How many people would have needed to attend for it not to be? 13? A hundred? What is a reasonable expectation here for the first consultation meeting of an issue most people don't care about.
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to Emma Hart,
We actually did do that at primary school, at least sometimes. We had a flag pole and a flag, which was often raised in the morning, and then taken down later, It wasn't really that big a deal, but by the time I had completed form 2, that seemed to have stopped (although my memory is poor on that matter). This was mid 80s through to early 90s, rural South Island.
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think that article is a bit unfair really. What kind of numbers would we expect for the first consultation meeting of an issue that doesn't excite public interest? I'm not particularly experienced in going to such meetings but I can't imagine that many people would turn up to such meetings. Now if it was say a school closure or the like, that would be a flop.
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I think the referendum isn't particularly useful or necessary, nor indicative of public demand, given the previous failed attempt to initiate a citizen's initiated referendum on the same topic. However, it does seem certain to happen now, so the cost argument is now moot, no matter how valid that argument is generally with government spending. So I'll vote too, even though I think it is a bit silly.
My rather passive form of patriotism isn't really that fussed about what the flag looks like as it seems rather unimportant in the wider scheme of the nation. -
Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad, in reply to Caleb D'Anvers,
Soft in the sense I think they thought they would do a bit better
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Also, Nigel Farage has come second in South Thanet.
This election result may see UKIP activists focus on electoral reform in large numbers.
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Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Various Conservatives I know have said they feel that the Conservative fear strategy re Scotland/Miliband was more useful as a get out the vote mechanism. Getting their supporters to turn out when they otherwise may not have.