Posts by mark taslov
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Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Steve Parks,
Where do we draw the line in terms of voting age? Can’t we just be pragmatic about this too?
I’d go with 16, because it’s the minimum school leaving, driving license, marriage age among other things.
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That was an absolutely fantastic article Russell. The gulf between the history and the official modern narrative is obscene. Kudos for the David Herkt High Times citation, I'll be checking that out now too.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Awesome stuff Ian. And to be very clear I have not suddenly become obsessive about Muldoon as much as campaign strategies, and so I was a little concerned to open the victor’s link, but Knowledge bro. Thank you.
The first thing that grabbed me about Muldoon’s town hall meetings was that he began almost two years out from the election. It’s a tragedy that his family was the sacrificial lamb for his ambition, but I imagine that’s not unusual in politics as in many jobs. So: 2 years.
The second thing was that the team were touring provincial halls all around the country. Andin saw
productions like ‘L&P Top Town’, or ‘It’s in the Bag’ united New Zealand
Andin assumed I was referring to a TV show. However in the end of that sentence:
in some strange intangible way.
I was recalling experiences as an 8/9 year old when the word quickly spread around the school that Chelsea and Sam’s dad had been picked as one of the contestants on It’s in the Bag, and everyone felt just a little cooler. Or when Top Town arrived and so and so’s mum was training with the local team. These kinds of intangibles. I never watched either of these episodes on TV, and just knowing that our town was connected to something larger, something nationwide was big stuff in a town of 20,000 in the swinging Wairarapa electorate enjoying its first taste of Labour since 1975. We felt connected. To the hub.
But as you quite rightly point out: those were different times.
Only a few major entertainment& information sources;
Radio, Reading and Other People…Dance Halls, shows (including ‘fillums’), meetings – all good options.
Distracting attractions.So I turn my attention to what would attract me nowadays, and I guess this is something that’s always attracted me, the traditional 3 person team debate. Certainly if the criticism of the brevity of the last TV1 leaders debate is anything to go by then there is still a demand for debates in New Zealand, it remains a viable form of entertainment. Maybe our hangouts have changed, but people still go out, to bars, to pubs, to sporting events, to the theater. There are venues.
Who debates who? Mix up the reds and greens, rotate members, always include a local party member, but ensure that the Labour leader is a strong debater. As for the opponents; invite local National electorate and lists MPs, blue councillors, also look to invite surrogates, people like Michael Laws, who hated (bonus) as he is, is a world class debator. John Banks? Surely he’s got time to kill. Aim for something entertaining, perhaps include a local band, a well-loved timekeeper/MC. As is the case in any cinema, post a ‘no cellphones’ sign. Make use of your best writers, invite and encourage some form of audience and local participation (choosing the winning team/ providing the moot (via radio competition)/a question time). As is the freedom beyond the MSM, don’t be shy of letting the humour stray into the R18, that’s the voting age, Kiwis love it, within reason of course. And what if the red/greens lose the debate? Learn from it, rethink the policies related to the issues being debated and get better at debating your policies. Unleash the mongrel. In the flesh.
But most of all, through the entire 2 year period, and this is the Key thing, never let PM Johno onto that stage. He has more important things to do i.e. running the country.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to andin,
Oddly, almost the complete opposite Andin: The easily digestible abridged early morning cut:.
"With a hostile media […] to side-step this media interference” […] ”filling halls throughout the country” […] ”provincial” […] “road test"
Careful with them clippers.
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Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Chris Waugh,
all of a sudden people are trying to roll back these hard-won rights. Disappointing, to say the least.
Yep. If this is the left, I’d hate to see what the right looks like.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to WH,
I’m going to leave it there.
I can appreciate that, The doco has it’s moments; Bob Jones recounts the story of a cocktail party at his place where PM Bob Muldoon happened to – for whatever reason – strip naked, chasing Bob Jones’ sister around the house, ending up with Jones’ sister sitting on Muldoon’s head almost drowning him in the pool. If only.
Anyway try as I might I can find very little of substance on Kirk’s campaign other than small snippets like:
Using the slogan ‘Make things happen’, he campaigned tirelessly for planned development which, with new financial incentives, he hoped would lead to faster economic growth.
Perhaps the campaign styles weren’t so different. The majorities Kirk and Muldoon held when they took office were both in the 20s. But only some of the older community members would recall and be able to share. I do like to dream that there may be – after these years staring at screens – a renewed public enthusiasm for the live show. but yeah, make no mistake:
Labour needs to build something, to have its members gather momentum from each others’ efforts. The regularity and tone of these leadership contests is not helping.
I’m with you.
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As for the puppet master politics slur, this:
But Cunliffe avoided answering, turning the topic instead to Labour’s broader tax plan. His advisers told media in the break that the tax would not apply to the family home oif it was in a trust.
It’s time to road test this shit. If the policies take a bit of explaining then give yourselves a fighting chance to do just that.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to WH,
But yeah, no worries, whatever you’re into. One of those two dozen posts was a response to your:
This is an unfortunate diversion,
With regards to me taking up Deborah’s offer to answer a question unsolicited.
When I later recommended “The Grim Face of Power” to you and name checked Muldoon’s ‘Meet the People’ meetings your reply was:
The left has its share of telegenic leaders. Kennedy is often said to have beaten Nixon on the back of a televised debate. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were charismatic leaders, and Obama and Elizabeth Warren are too.
To save you the trouble, I wasn’t referring to telegenic leaders or televised debates. With a hostile media, and party support this low, the course of action I was suggesting in the conclusion of my initial post here yesterday with:
that long forgotten practice of engaging with the constituency. Get your feet back on the God damned tarmac,
is that Labour’s pursue different avenues to side-step this media interference in a concerted effort to get back into power. I was compelled by Muldoon’s approach:
"By early ‘74 with an election almost two years away, he was filling halls throughout the country.”
“In November 1974 over a year before the expected election Muldoon began his ‘Meet The People’ campaign’"
Sir Rob Muldoon:
"So I kept on having these, very frequently, all over the country, in the various provincial areas, invariably full halls and people overflowing outside."
Because I’m not that concerned with the intrigue as to who the next Labour leader will be, whoever it may be is of very little meaning if Labour lose the next election. And a 2017 loss doesn’t look unlikely at all. 2 months lost to a leadership battle is a heavy price to pay, and what I’ve seen of the current leadership candidates is that they are much of a muchness, two middle aged sandy haired well spoken, well educated white men. Heck I’ve lived in China long enough – and excuse my racism – that I can barely tell them apart. One wears glasses. That’s the derail, James’ letter is the derail. Labour’s fluffing about is the derail. The tracks lead straight ahead, it’s Government or bust.
I don’t feel that any of the current frontrunners would be able to take down Key on charisma alone. If Labour are to win they will collectively need to campaign in a way that is truly special, fresh or at least different from what we’ve seen in the last six years. And so I put ‘Meet the People’ or something of that ilk on the table. In the hope of igniting conversation into a direction we could collectively influence and that might actually make the difference.
In answer to your question Sacha over the page:
To get less insular, how can Labour best improve the prospects of a broader left coalition?
I also contend that this could ideally be done in conjunction with the Greens and other left leaning parties: really connecting with and listening to the rest of New Zealand - the same New Zealand Labour's policies only included as an afterthought in 2014 - in a similar vein to the way productions like ‘L&P Top Town’, or ‘It’s in the Bag’ united New Zealand in some strange intangible way. Because shark the numbers however you like, the provinces still carry 43% of the population. The maps tell the story. We are a long way from the time when Labour was as Big Norm liked to call it ‘the natural party of New Zealand’.
The problem is that I’m too young to remember, I don’t know how ‘Meet the People’ really went down or worked logistically, so I hoped it would jog someone’s memory. We did see something roughly in this vein with Internet-Mana, but again it wasn’t really anything like this, and Internet-Mana’s campaign was hampered from the outset by their own impairments. I don’t know, perhaps it is a derail, perhaps I should have kicked off with this post. I’m tired of smelling Labour’s dirty laundry. and I’m looking forward WH.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to WH,
Responding to Deborah who had of her free will offered and taken the time to discuss Labour’s CGT I missed my edit window to include the link with ‘models’ in my final thanks, I considered giving it a miss, but I found that the German CGT’s €801 exemption was along the lines of the example I’d just given on the previous page when Deborah had responded:
it could be possible to put in some some of low level exemption
Thinking this and the church tax might be things that the Labour Party could consider, if they’re still open to that. I decided to paste it as it also addresses the problem of property speculation, which Sue had brought up last night, and seeing she was getting a hard time from Craig I thought it might be a different avenue if she wished for a change of pace.
Russell asked me to stop talking about James lack of engagement on this thread and provided good reasons why James may not wish to show up here, I’ve not touched it since replying to Kyle ten hours ago.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Deborah,
I quite like the sound of this:
In January 2009, Germany introduced a very strict capital gains tax (called Abgeltungsteuer in German) for shares, funds, certificates, bank interest rates etc. Capital gains tax only applies to financial instruments (shares, bonds etc.) that have been bought after 31 December 2008. Instruments bought before this date are exempt from capital gains tax (assuming that they have been held for at least 12 months), even if they are sold in 2009 or later, barring a change of law. Certificates are treated specially, and only qualify for tax exemption if they have been bought before 15 March 2007.
Real estate continues to be exempt from capital gains tax if it has been held for more than ten years. The German capital gains tax is 25% plus Solidaritätszuschlag (add-on tax initially introduced to finance the 5 eastern states of Germany – Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg – and the cost of the reunification, but later kept in order to finance all kind of public funded projects in whole Germany), plus Kirchensteuer (church tax), resulting in an effective tax rate of about 28%. Deductions of expenses such as custodian fees, travel to annual shareholder meetings, legal and tax advice, interest paid on loans to buy shares, etc., are no longer permitted starting in 2009.
There is an allowance (Freistellungsauftrag) on capital gains income in Germany of €801 per person per year of which you do not have to be taxed, if appropriate forms are completed.