Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
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It was using that fact as a cute excuse to refuse to answer a direct and material question from a member of the interest group he’d come to solicit votes from. It was insulting.
Cautious edging is Key's default position on almost every single subject of substance he's questioned on though, so I don't think it's a personal slight towards the LGBT community so much as he's just not a leader with strong convictions.
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Combine this comment with the earlier comment that he'd resign if National lost the election. It's increasingly clear that Key doesn't see himself in politics for much longer.
The Standard keeping saying the same thing. I think Key really, really likes being an incredibly popular Prime Minister, and that he will stick with the job for the foreseeable future.
This idea that Key's just going to suddenly vanish is related to the common sentiment in the Labour Party that the public should just 'wake up' and vote them all back into power. It's magical thinking.
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Nicky Hager, whose stewardship of the cables on behalf of New Zealand media has been responsible and informed by his own experience.
These seem to have dried up. I guess Hager is either sitting on them for the election campaign or writing another book.
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No, it isn't. Vote for what people say they will do, not because it's "someone else's turn". I cannot grasp how a reasoning adult could find that reasonable.
A centrist voter will be, by definition, a pluralist voter who believes that both left-wing and right-wing parties have appropriate solutions to various social and economic problems, so it makes perfect sense to alternate them. I think this actually makes more sense than picking a party and supporting it indiscriminately of policy or values, which is what many people do.
If you look at both Labour and National it's hard to see any continuity over the last thirty years, other than they've kept the names the same. Yet many people remained loyal to them.
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What gets me is the people who vote because "it's time the other mob had a go". FFS!
Isn't that a completely reasonable thing for a centrist voter to do after one party has been in power for nine years?
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<i>If it were sweetened by a corresponding tax cut (which would actually be completely affordable considering what it is funding), would that make poor people feel better about it? Something for Labour/Green policy makers to think about.</i>
I was very vocal in predicting that Labour's big policy this year would be a tax free threshold diverted into KiwiSaver, a prediction that was totally wrong. I'm still a little staggered that they didn't go for this. Now they still have to come up with a savings policy they won't be able to cost.
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More amusing local coverage. Stuff reports a couple of Kiwis in Cairo are fleeing the city and 'braving the Egyptian desert' to get to Hurghada.
Hurghada is a beach resort accessible via a massive six lane motorway. It's a little like someone from Auckland 'braving the wilderness' by fleeing to Hamilton. -
I know I'm obsessed, but I can't wait to see Chris Trotter's take on all this. Will he endorse Mubarak? (The NDP is a nominally socialist party). How crazy will his historic analogies be from a country with so much history for him to distort? And how will he tie it all into domestic New Zealand politics? John Key as Moses? Phil Goff as Cleopatra? Hone Harawira as Rommel?
It's exciting. -
Conor Friedersdorf wrote this passage describing the dutiful editorials political editors feel obliged to churn out about the State of the Union speech:
He still loves his wife. But after 25 years of marriage, he has lost his enthusiasm for sex with her. Still. It is Valentine's Day. And she has been hinting. So he takes her to a nice dinner, uncharactertistically orders an after-dinner drink, and feels extra discouraged when it only makes him more tired. He is 55. And so tired. Upon returning home, he wants more than anything to just fall asleep, but damnit, he makes the effort. He surprises her with a gift, lights candles, and dutifully makes love to her in the fashion he thinks that she will most enjoy.
I think the Herald's editorial voice takes the same approach to any new National policy. They don't really know what it is. They don't really care. They just support it, whatever it happens to be, because that's what they always do.
Brian Fallow - Granny's Economics Editor - isn't impressed with what passes for economic policy from either main party.
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Is that really a good excuse? When important stuff happens, in defiance of statutory holidays, there are no senior staff to call on?
There are. If John Key resigns then a whole lot of reporters would have to cut short their holidays and crawl back to work. But this isn't really that important.