Posts by HenryB
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Legal Beagle: Referendum '11: counting…, in reply to Idiot Savant,
It is sloppy and not ideal practice but I suppose one would have to either cast a second vote in ones own name (thus cancelling out all ones votes except the referendum vote?) or use someone else's on the electoral roll. To have any significant effect on the final result this would have had to have been orchestrated so well it would be hard to imagine it.
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I have just heard that the turnout was roughly 65% - the worst since the 1880s. If true, this is truly depressing. It would mean that pursuing a tactic of taking the politics out of politics has succeeded.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to BenWilson,
I think Sacha's 94% is from the advance votes. The votes from the rest have yet to counted.... but, if I remember rightly, the party votes from the advance votes had National much further ahead then they seem to have ended up. I would expect the pro MMP to improve.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
But this policy is truly awful.
Campbell has written a follow up analysis of the asset sale: it is truly worrying reading and I completely agree with you that even National, if they had not locked themselves and their credibility into this policy, would be having a serious rethink of it.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
...some sort of agreement to abstain on confidence and supply
It will be interesting to watch. particularly when it comes to the sale of Solid Energy. I doubt that the Greens see it as their most favourite state asset but would they sit by and see if being sold off to the highest bidders, especially as there is likely to be a lot of foreign interest in it?
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Matthew Poole,
..a `private communication'..in circumstances in which any party ought reasonably to expect that the communication may be intercepted by some other person..
Thanks for that, Matthew. When I go to a cafe or a restaurant I take extra care to ensure that, if I am discussing anything delicate, I do it very carefully. And if, in spite of this care, I get overheard I don't blame those who have heard what I have said: I blame myself for my carelessness. It has happened! A cafe or a restaurant is not a place where one can expect ones communications to be private.
Unless JK and JB had agreed with the owner of the cafe that they had that space entirely to themselves as a private space, I am afraid the only people they can blame for this is themselves (and maybe the DPS) for their carelessness.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to BenWilson,
Actually, I don't know why Labour and National don't do this even more, if they're going to be so bloody cheeky about using this to their advantage. There would be nothing lost to them to set up a new shadow party, identical in every way to their party, to stand for all the safe electorate seats, with the advice to voters to split their vote. They could do it right now
`Supplementary Member'?
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Key would also not respond to a question from TV3 asking if he talked about “getting unbridled power”.
If MMP is not reinforced by a strong `Yes' vote and if a significant number of the electorate is persuaded that `Supplementary Member' is like MMP then we can truly look forward to near unbridled power. I do wonder if there is going to be a play around this issue between now and the election.
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I’ve heard all that ordinary bloke stuff and all the above politics stuff and I just can’t see where people get that impression.
But that's where one needs to start. Clearly JK `charm' doesn't stretch to convincing at least 45-48% of the electorate of the value of what he advocates or what he stands for. What one needs to understand is how it is that it does to the roughly 10% in the middle ground and one needs to put oneself in their shoes, to try and see what they see. They certainly don't see a `psychopath' or a `sociopath'. And that's where I agree with Steven (and others) who suggest that what they see is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics - and, for this 10%, manages to do this really well.
The thing that worries me is his advocacy of SM in the electoral referendum. Once again (as with asset sales), clearly running against the stream - but drawing on his `charm' to subtly suggest a vote against MMP. It is a subtle political confidence trick which, if successful, will be more consequential than almost anything else.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I just can’t for the life of me figure out why John Key is so popular.
Steven put a big finger on it earlier:
Key’s popularity has partly been based on his appearance of being above politics, an affable, likeable chap, not a politician really.
And that is why the kerfuffle around the tape is being used to emphasise this point again. In this way he can then speak for `New Zealanders' who don't want to bother with such things and want to focus on the "things that matter", such as the economy and trade, pure abstractions.
'Psychopath"? Hardly. A real instinct and damned clever.... so far. There have been a number of slips but he has managed to regain his balance very quickly.