2014 New Zealand Election thread

[Bahnz]

Couldn't find the old NZ politics thread, and given that no one has posted in it since 2011, I thought we might as well start a new one.

The election date has been announced as September 20th.

PM reveals 2014 election date - National - NZ Herald News

National obviously looking to capitalise on their strong numbers in the polls atm and get their third term nailed down as quickly as possible.

Personally really struggle to see anything other than another National win (the bigger question is who they'd go into Government with), especially with David Cunliffe stumbling, like a drunk Otago Uni student on an icy footpath, from one faux-pas to the next. Still, a week is a long time in politics and all that...

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I just hope against hope that National don't get to govern alone.

At the same time, I also hope that the lunatic fringe don't get to manipulate government policy (by this, I mean Colin Craig). It'd be good to see the last vestige of the ACT Party disappear off the map, but if National are going to win (which looks increasingly likely) then I hope they have to deal with Winston Peters.

 

[_Ed_]

At the same time, I also hope that the lunatic fringe don't get to manipulate government policy (by this, I mean Colin Craig).

Exactly right. You won't often hear me say nice things about Key, but I have to say he's done a good job in the past of distancing himself from the more extreme elements. His inability to rule out working with Craig this time has been striking and kind of alarming. But there's still a good chance the ghastly man won't make it into Parliament - his party's still well short of 5%, and his hopes of winning his electorate probably rely on National withdrawing or standing a weak candidate. That said, his ability to personally fund all his campaigns (and ludicrous defamation lawsuits) seems to have no bounds, so I guess you never know.

Clever move by the Nats to set a relatively early election date. The centre-left are nowhere near having their act together, so this gives them a pretty limited time in which to sort things out. Around November was what I'd been expecting. My hopes of Cunliffe improving/being replaced by someone more electable have almost certainly been dashed.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

legalise pot dudes

Nah voting green. Labour have lost it, nfi what they think they're doing. You'd think it wouldn't take a genius to capitalise on the substantial dissatisfaction with Key among youth.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

legalise pot dudes

Nah voting green.

So yeah?

 

[Hurricane]

I am a born and bred Labour voter and was brought up going to election rallies on the polling night for Trevor Mallard and Noel Scott.

However I think National have been reasonably competent apart from their foolish plan to make the UN security council. I will vote Labour but won't cry into my beer if National gets in again.

 

[Athlai]

I just hope against hope that National don't get to govern alone.

At the same time, I also hope that the lunatic fringe don't get to manipulate government policy (by this, I mean Colin Craig). It'd be good to see the last vestige of the ACT Party disappear off the map, but if National are going to win (which looks increasingly likely) then I hope they have to deal with Winston Peters.

Hahaha God that'd be good.

May cast my vote for uncle Winnie again.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

So yeah?

two birds one stoner

 

[Flem274*]

I have a lot of time for the greens on a lot of things but there is no way a party with a co-leader whose solution to the house price inflation is to freeze prices (Turei said it on The Vote) should be anywhere near a position of substantial influence. That and their ridiculous scare mongering on scientific issues like GMOs pisses me off no end.

no idea who I'm voting for. Disagree with Key too much, Labour are a joke and **** Cunliffe, and the rest are pretty bad too.

 

[Hurricane]

I have a lot of time for the greens on a lot of things but there is no way a party with a co-leader whose solution to the house price inflation is to freeze prices (Turei said it on The Vote) should be anywhere near a position of substantial influence. That and their ridiculous scare mongering on scientific issues like GMOs pisses me off no end.

no idea who I'm voting for. Disagree with Key too much, Labour are a joke and **** Cunliffe, and the rest are pretty bad too.

On Saturday after I scored a fifty and had given two chances - the fielder said he has looked less convincing than David Cunliffe. Which started an on the field discussion about his merits between all concerned including the umpires.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

I have a lot of time for the greens on a lot of things but there is no way a party with a co-leader whose solution to the house price inflation is to freeze prices (Turei said it on The Vote) should be anywhere near a position of substantial influence. That and their ridiculous scare mongering on scientific issues like GMOs pisses me off no end.

no idea who I'm voting for. Disagree with Key too much, Labour are a joke and **** Cunliffe, and the rest are pretty bad too.

Yeah I don't agree with the way they do that either. Still by and large agree with them more than any of the others. I'd like to agree with labour but I just have no idea what they actually stand for apart from "we're not national!"

 

[Bahnz]

I voted for the Greens at the last election. However, in the last few years I've had a bit to do with them through my work and I have to say that in terms of their policy generation they come across as intellectually lazy and at times incompetent. The whole GMO issue is a good example of this. Have grown so tired of their **** that I'll probably vote for the Nats to make sure they aren't a part of a Government. Urgh.

 

[Hurricane]

This oversimplifies things - but I basically think they should not aim to be a viable governing party and should just seek to influence the other parties on the environmental issues. I can't stand the crap they come up with about the economy and I blame them for the anti smacking bill.

 

[Flem274*]

Nah while I agree with some policy they comes out with the issue with the Green Party is they are uninformed environmentalists and fundamentalists. They are not coming from a position of knowledge - they're a mixture of politics degrees, social sciences, law, activists and what not - rather than climatologists, ecologists, geologists and other environmental sciences. This means they buy into the concept of nature being this thing separate from humanity and never changing existing in a state of equilibrium. Their underlying philosophy will always hamstring them. I suspect for example they would be amazed that some lakes naturally look like filthy poisonous buckets of ****, but some actually are.

Plonking windmills on some hills is good, but their other issue is you cannot separate environmental issues from the economy and various social issues. New Zealand is very reliant on agriculture, oil and mining. Tertiary industries are nice, but they are only there because of the primary industries, and tourism won't save you in a financial collapse because no one needs tourism. Everyone needs food and raw materials.

I've been working in the lower North Island over the summer on water quality and I'll be the first to acknowledge farming causes significant damage to not only bugs and fish but also to drinking water aquifers, but there are elements in the Green Party who want all agriculture and raw material extraction out the door and if that happens, goodbye first world status. Their fundamentalism against open cast mining (for example) means the more dangerous underground mining is encouraged (made even more dangerous by the appalling lack of regulation in the industry which creates death traps like Pike River - even if the men had made it to the escape shafts due to their nature all the hot air would have rushed up those shafts and burned them to death as they climbed), and if they want farming to have less of an impact then we need to go full speed ahead on GMOs - plants that can grow in a variety of conditions, cows who produce even more milk on less food - but of course they don't want genetic engineering either. We have a choice between a good standard of living and less cow ****, because we can't have both unless we science the **** out of it (and NZ is trying within the political limitations they have).

They are the wishful thinking chardonnay socialist (I heard or read that term the other day somewhere and it's fantastic) party who can get away with their prattling because they will never have to rule a country. If they did they would have to be far more pragmatic, and pragmatism is what separates them from Labour.

 

[NZTailender]

Nah while I agree with some policy they comes out with the issue with the Green Party is they are uninformed environmentalists and fundamentalists. They are not coming from a position of knowledge - they're a mixture of politics degrees, social sciences, law, activists and what not - rather than climatologists, ecologists, geologists and other environmental sciences. This means they buy into the concept of nature being this thing separate from humanity and never changing existing in a state of equilibrium. Their underlying philosophy will always hamstring them. I suspect for example they would be amazed that some lakes naturally look like filthy poisonous buckets of ****, but some actually are.

Plonking windmills on some hills is good, but their other issue is you cannot separate environmental issues from the economy and various social issues. New Zealand is very reliant on agriculture, oil and mining. Tertiary industries are nice, but they are only there because of the primary industries, and tourism won't save you in a financial collapse because no one needs tourism. Everyone needs food and raw materials.

I've been working in the lower North Island over the summer on water quality and I'll be the first to acknowledge farming causes significant damage to not only bugs and fish but also to drinking water aquifers, but there are elements in the Green Party who want all agriculture and raw material extraction out the door and if that happens, goodbye first world status. Their fundamentalism against open cast mining (for example) means the more dangerous underground mining is encouraged (made even more dangerous by the appalling lack of regulation in the industry which creates death traps like Pike River - even if the men had made it to the escape shafts due to their nature all the hot air would have rushed up those shafts and burned them to death as they climbed), and if they want farming to have less of an impact then we need to go full speed ahead on GMOs - plants that can grow in a variety of conditions, cows who produce even more milk on less food - but of course they don't want genetic engineering either. We have a choice between a good standard of living and less cow ****, because we can't have both unless we science the **** out of it (and NZ is trying within the political limitations they have).

They are the wishful thinking chardonnay socialist (I heard or read that term the other day somewhere and it's fantastic) party who can get away with their prattling because they will never have to rule a country. If they did they would have to be far more pragmatic, and pragmatism is what separates them from Labour.

Ugh, what hyperbole. Comments like this

"New Zealand is very reliant on agriculture, oil and mining."

is the problem with your bog standard person today. Everything has been this way since I can remember therefore thats how it should stay and anything else to the contrary is wrong because it might involve some hard ****ing work.

 

[Flem274*]

What are you going to change us to? I'm quite happy for New Zealand to explore new stuff, but we've struggled to branch out from those staples. Personally, I'm quite happy we're a food producer and exporter rather than a country that needs to import (yes I know we do import stuff like Canadian pork, but it's not a necessity for us).

And we're always going to have mining at some level. A fair chunk on the North Island ranges are smeared all over the country in the form of roads for a start.

edit: and frankly if you're going to tell me what, how and why I think what I think then I'm not sure I can be bothered with this discussion. Work I did over the summer will probably be used to help regulate agriculture, rather than let it continue as it is which is the picture your ad hominem attack would paint.

 

[NZTailender]

The agriculture can be remodelled, regulated and changed to the point it is eventually no longer environmentally detrimental, which is what the Green Party wants (and something I want). To say that there are members who want to do away with it altogether holds as much weight as there being members of National who would want all slant eyes and ragheads booted out of New Zealand.

 

[Hurricane]

edit: and frankly if you're going to tell me what, how and why I think what I think then I'm not sure I can be bothered with this discussion. Work I did over the summer will probably be used to help regulate agriculture, rather than let it continue as it is which is the picture your ad hominem attack would paint.

Don't be like that Flem - the whole fun of the thread is to cross swords provided no insults are used.

I came in here to make a smart alec comment about your post but now see you are no mood for it so feel dissappointed.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

Voting Mana, greens have moved to far to the centre for my liking.

Nah not eligible to vote but hopefully the TPPA marches will build up some much needed momentum for the left.

 

[Hurricane]

Voting Mana, greens have moved to far to the centre for my liking.

Nah not eligible to vote but hopefully the TPPA marches will build up some much needed momentum for the left.

Why are you not eligible if you don't mind the question. You don't post like a teenager.