Posts by HenryB
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OnPoint: Spending "Cap" is Fiscal Anorexia, in reply to slarty,
My point being that if you don’t actively resist, then you are culpable.
The least one could do, then, is get out and vote? It's not as if there isn't as much choice as there used to be in the past.
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As someone who expects to never quite reach "retirement age" as it constantly moves back, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some sacrifice on the part of the people who might still get there.
What sort of sacrifice were you thinking of? And would it be universal?
It is true that there is a strong connection between income and wealth disparities and age - but then, hasn't that been the case for a long time?
My experience with some of my `older' friends and relatives is that some only have National Superannuation to live on and others much, much more. The idea that baby boomers are an undifferentiated wealthy lot who all did well seems strange to me and at variance with my experience and the statistical facts.
ETA: And many were forced to retire because 65 was the limit.
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So Labour’s processes and institutions are both a curse and a blessing. It needs to reinvent those to reinvent itself. It needs to pay attention to the public’s evolving political tastes. What it doesn’t need to do is panic.
The problem as I see it is that N-ACT (and after yesterday this feels more and more appropriate) probably do see this as the last chance they have to do a whole lot that they have been leading up to doing. By this Christmas (!!), we are told by Banks, we will have Charter Schools: that's just 15 days after the final results are in. A TABOR type bill will be drafted and enacted - and I am less sanguine than others that this will be easy to simply repeal. And the timing of the later is as to suggest that National is already fairly sure it won't be the government next time.
Panic is not appropriate but I agree with Bryan Gould that Labour cannot afford to be silent in the first two years of this next government as it seemed to be over the first two years of the last. Just too much is going to happen. And, in the light of this, the leadership contest really matters because Labour needs somebody who will take the fight to these people. Otherwise, it will be Winston who will do the running.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I stick to my view that the next left-wing government in NZ will be Green led with Labour as a support partner.
With Labour on 22 electorate seats (roughly 18% of all seats) and the Greens on 13 list seats (roughly 10%) the Greens would have to do extra-ordinarily well on the Party vote and Labour extraoridinarily badly to be the lead partner in any negotiations. It needs repeating: Greens do not have a single electorate seat. I don't have the arithmetic to work it out, but if by some circumstance this were to happen, I would imagine the `overhang' would be enormous and who knows what that would do to the figures.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Ask your average Tea Bagger in the United States, and every center-right government in the Anglophone world with any kind of welfare, public education and public healthcare might as well be North Korea.
Listening to John Banks this morning on morning report one would believe this is where his heart lies.
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Keith, your analysis of the `Tea Party' bill is spot on and I am really surprised at the MSM silence on it. Morning report didn't even raise it with Key in its interview with him about the deal with ACT yet, in many ways, it is as portentous as the Charter Schools matter. Given that it is not so long ago that Obama had so much trouble with the Tea Party republicans over breaking the limits on a legistatively imposed limit on government budgetary matters, you would think it would be fresh in their memories of journalists and point of reference for serious questioning of what is being proposed here. Yes, I know the US limits are different from the ones being suggested here, but the problems they created are the ones that Banks wants to introduce here as well.
@bulbul: On the matter of PA members attitudes I am really surprised that you can't see Keith's remarks as the sarcasm they were meant to be and it gives one pause to accept your judgements about the `underlying attitudes' of some PA contributors. I am not sure what the typical PA age demographic is and whether I fit I but I like you have many friends and family who are "older". I have not sensed here anything that could be seen as an attitude that
the silent generation and baby boomers having had it good all the way are somehow the cause for all their current and future problems, are horrible people, and dispensible
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Matthew Poole,
one of the panellists made the point that Shearer was overseeing a budget of billions and had hundreds of people reporting to him (doubtless through several layers, but still).
I have heard this too ... but find it surprising, then, to see a person so clumsy in presentation of self. It is endearing at one level, yes, but also a worry. I agree with Craig - a mashap(?) of Cunliffe/Shearer would have made for an ideal leader. The person that Shearer most reminds me of is Bill Rowling - and Muldoon made mincemeat of him. And would it be the case that we might end up with a kind of `Citizens for Shearer' campaign? Rowlings didn't serve him particularly well.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Tom Semmens,
the more likely outcome is for environmental damage to worsen both internal class and external international conflicts over resources. Standing on the beaches imploring the resource hungry and desperate invaders to be reasonable will butter no parsnips with most people, who will see a more immediate logic in voting for the party that plans to tool us up with missiles and machine guns
Not quite sure what you are saying here: that as the environmental crisis deepens - and IMO that will be much swifter than we know - that we will all be rushing off to vote for a party that re-arms New Zealand with an airforce, re-enter the Anzus alliance, and introduces compulsory military training?
If this is the scenario would Labour not be better engaging with a party that actually tries to forefront the environmental crisis and which is the advocate for policies which might just possibly avert the conditions that might give rise to the vision you describe?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to BenWilson,
in which case [the Greens] will be in every government from now on, left or right. The more I consider it, the more I actually want this to happen
This is the last thing I would like to see happen and I doubt that the Greens would, in the end, go there: they would have to concede too much to National to make serious coalition partners for them. If any of them think that one can have environmental justice without economic and social justice then they are on different planet.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Tom Semmens,
They are all terribly cocky right now on the back on a 10% result of 68% of voters who bothered to vote – so really, the high tide of the Greens is around 7% of all voters.
So, using the same arithmetic, is 19% the low tide for Labour?
IMO this last election did see something of an implicit concession by Labour to not occupy the same turf - the environment - as the Greens...and, but for the resurrection of NZF, this might have worked and the result not been so disastrous for Labour.
If Labour engages in a tactic of trying to drive the Greens into "margin of error territory" it can only do so by starting to foreground environmental issues as part of its policy platform - and, frankly, I doubt that this will be taken too seriously by the "market segment" it has ignored. Worse still, in adopting such a tactic it will be trying to ensure that it has no reliable partner to work with post the next election. I don't believe that is the basis for attaining the government benches next time or the time after.