Today’s News
I was going to do the normal summary and extracts from stories, columns and editorials, but National Home have already done it so go read.
I agree with them that there was a startling difference between TV One and Three news last night. TV One played it straight and reported on Brash, reported a poll and then had commentary from Espiner.
TV Three was to be blunt pretty disgraceful. They mixed in opinion and reporting all the way through. They asserted as fact things very much in contention, and their whole story was almost a campaign against Brash.
The editorials today are pretty negative on whether Brash will stay on. My view, as I expressed on Agenda, is that with an election two years away, nothing is going to happen too soon – people are going to wait to see where the story goes, how the polls move, and how well National and Brash do when the House resumes in four weeks.
September 16th, 2006 at 11:55 am
“but National Home have already done it so go read”
true, but you permalink to subs.nzherald…
September 16th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Umm no I don’t. Just checked.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
You are clutching at straws David.
If a man cannot be honest with his own family and betrays them(twice at least) then there is no way he can be trusted as being an ‘honest’ man with integrity.
Thats how I see it, sorry mate.
The word CAD springs to mind. I don’t vote for parties led by CADS and that seems to be the common feeling in this neck of the woods.
Spin away all you like but reality is about to bite you on the bum.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Oh I see – you mean they don’t. I’ll pass that on to them.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
DPF: your timid posts and your ‘walking on eggshells’ comments on the Brash issue demonstrate that your loyal toadiness to him has had a neutering effect on your previously respected voice. You plainly don’t know how to handle the issue. Hopefully I am wrong, but it would suprise me nought (judging from your comments) if Brash has been patting your back and effectively procuring you as his internet PR guy. It is one thing to be a Nat supporter, but to be Brashes finger puppet is another thing altogether. Quite unbecoming of someone as smart as you. Looking for an election year contract one might guess.
In past weeks you have been ceaselessly trumpeting points scored aginst labour overspending to the exclusion of some of the more topical current events that make your blog interesting. At least the Brash issue has effectively shut you up on the political front and seen a slight return to less political (but more interesting) matters.
As they say, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a stooge, than to open it and remove all doubt.
If todays NZHerald report about reporters asking Clark for comment on rumours about her husband are true, then I see little chance of you escaping this matter without wearing the same hypocrite tag as Brash.
PS- I also don’t see how you can credibly claim not to have known about Brash’s affair when it was reported in Sydney 12 months ago. Although the article itself was not demonstrative, if Brash had not been ‘in bed with the Round Table’ he would undoubtedly have launched defamation action in Oz aginst such a malicious rumour. Their was no bona fide reason for him not to, indeed it would have been to his benefit.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Spinning for beginners
1) It is not an issue it is a personal matter
2) The media are to blame
3) Don’s personal problems are distracting people from our message, so regretfully we have to make a new start.
Get that CV sorted Don.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
If Don, and in fact National, are to have any chance at the next election, then the traitors need to be outed and shot very publicly – soon.
Today’s revelation Brash offered to resign weakens his leadership.
As a nation, we like to be lead by people who have a strong sense of direction, and aren’t afraid to stand behind their convictions.
Don’s waaaay to Hubbardian…
September 16th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Jodie:
Oh, perhaps DPF – like most of us – doesn’t actually consider Indymedia Australia an essential party of his media diet? And I think it’s amusing to follow your warped chain of logic that if you don’t sue over every nasty little smear that appears on the internet, it must be true.
FFS… Do you have any idea what a massive expenditure of time, money and energy is involved in launching a defamation action – let alone one in another country? And there’s always the consideration that if you sued a fringe outlet like Indymedia, all you’d achieve would be to spread the smear even wider.
Still, let’s play this out by your rules. I guess every smear spread about Helen Clark and Peter Davis must be true. After all they’ve never sued anyone – despite there being ample precedent, and it might even be to her benefit.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
BTW, Jodie, if you’re such an expert on defamation, I wonder why some of you comments about DPF were *ahem* less than entirely prudent. Just a thought…
September 16th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
If todays NZHerald report about reporters asking Clark for comment on rumours about her husband are true, then I see little chance of you escaping this matter without wearing the same hypocrite tag as Brash.
excellent! excellent!
and I’m sure Brownlee and Power and even Lockwood will have the courage to do what Brash should not and English could not.
Labour are about to find out – once again – that they have much much more to lose!
perhaps now, National begins to understand:
each Labour politicaion must be personally destroyed
by whatever means is to hand.
September 16th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
The only issue at this time is the criminal theft of money by Helen Clark.
The NZ Po-lice lets us down miserably.
Gutless wonders!!!
September 16th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Gosh we better ditch our anti-nuke legislation imediately because David Lange was a “CAD”.
Yes more socialist consistency at play.
Andrei your personal morals are just that. You don’t get to impose them on the rest of us any more than labour gets to impose theirs on all of us. Praise be to God… aww crap now I’m a wacky cult again.
September 16th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Jodie – you seem to have a comprehension problem. I have now said multiple times I heard the rumours over a year ago. What I have said is I do not know if they are true.
I have no desire to work in Parliament again, so your smears on that front can piss off. Nice to see you have no problem inventing motivations.
As for the Davis rumours, there is no comparison unless you know of National MPs who have been shouting them out in the House and threatening to reveal them, and alluding to proof of it.
September 16th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
If todays NZHerald report about reporters asking Clark for comment on rumours about her husband are true….
Is there a link to this article? Or do I have to haul myself away from the mower to go and buy a Herald?
September 16th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Andrei – so you would have voted against Churchill?
September 16th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
If todays NZHerald report about reporters asking Clark for comment on rumours about her husband are true….
Is there a link to this article? Or do I have to haul myself away from the mower to go and buy a Herald?
September 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Toby, link is here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10401569
September 16th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
“so you would have voted against Churchill”
Don Brash as Winston Churchill?
That’s a keeper.
September 16th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Murray I have no desire to impose my morals on you or anyone else.
But when you have the most corrupt Government in NZ history with their ears nailed to the wall it is a real pity that they can use this type of personal weakness against you don’t you think.
I’m sorry if my previous comment was a little intemperate … but this man has let us down badly
September 16th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
What’s a CAD?
In a past life I knew it Computer Assisted Dispatch. But I’m sure that is not the definition here!
September 16th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
um..gooner…me..(esp in my 20′s.)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 16th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Quite right DPF – TV3′s political journalism is really quite abysmal. I don’t think they are necessarily biased either way – it is just that TV3 have very young journos, who have little time or experience of policy analysis. I think TV3 need to appoint some researchers to do proper reading and analysis, and a more experienced political editor who is a bit less naive.
September 16th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Im impressed by nationals spin on this whole “affair”, they obviously took professional advice and cancelled Dons leave( to save his marriage , 18 months after the events you must be joking ) and put Don out there and even let people know where he was. Hes stonewalled of course , but others in the Caucus ( who still support him) have been everywhere and made sure its their voice thats heard in the media. Congratulations you may well save a wounded Don for another day.
I dont want Don because of his discredited and out of date economic views, but really will the burdens ( and temptations as Clinton found out ) of high office be too much for him. Thats for National to decide but Don could really come out of this on top if it all goes well as it seems to be .
September 16th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
This passage from the Herald article is worth quoting in full. Significantly, the caucus meeting referred to took place BEFORE Mallard and Benson-Pope attacked Brash in the house.
There’s also a rumour that someone has hired private detectives to spy on Davis – I can’t help wondering if it’s this behavior, and not Nationals attacks over election spending that prompted Labour to ‘go nuclear’ and raise Brash’s affair in the house.
September 16th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
My guess is that caucus leaking is a campaign within National to make Don Brash’s position untenable but to avoid a damaging public bloodletting by letting him be disgraced. Hence National is a winner all ways.
a. It gets rid of a leader with dubious public (as opposed to sex) appeal.
b. It does so in a way that makes Labour look despicable and hence can grab the high moral ground in the affair.
c. It can be seen to be a victim of gutter politics
Apparantly this affair has been reasonably widely known for at least a year so the scenario that journalists were alerted to it by Trevor Mallard is absurd. As is the claim the whole thing was orchestrated by Brian Connell.
Brian Connel says he simply responded to the issue being rasied by another member whose name I have not yet heard.
So I presume the elegant public knifing of Don Brash is connected with that MP and his/her associates.
The only thing that is curious is how Ian Wishart didn’t get hold of it.
September 16th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
The hapless Mr. Brash will be a footnote in NZ’s political history.
Business and politics mix, necessarily, but few business executives anywhere make a success of a subsequent political career.
Different creatures, skills, motives…
The hapless Mr. Brash had his lackeys (Mr D, Farrar is one of them) principally because these followers were too easily impressed by his ‘executive credentials’. Never because they thought highly of this weak character’s political skills (minimal). It was never about a shareholder vote.
It’s about politics, guys. You missed that.
Further, I suggest many who are his servile followers doubt their own abilities to ever scale a corporate ladder etc. These unhappy, under-confident kiwi followers are potentially the most destabilising group in the NZ National Party today – because they have no political philosophy of their own. They are not natural political thinkers.
Mr. Brash has been able to be so easily set up because he is ‘a weak character’ – ‘Nixonian’ etc. People can see this in the poor man’s public visage. I called it after the first debate. TV unmasked the poor guy.
There is even more damaging information about Mr. Brash to potentially leak yet. This guy is too flawed in a nerdy, perverse, contrary way. He never looked right, did he.
It’s not over though…until the poor guy is ‘pushed’. And he is being so.
National are unelectable today…again.
Labour look more and more like a new ‘natural party of Government’. They know how to both defend and attack superioraly.
Brash-apologists…defend your choice?
No, never…because you are weaker characters also – footmen, toadies, lackeys.
None of you guys ever gave cogent arguments for Mr. Brash’s incumbency. Mr. Farrar tried valiantly, but was only ever misinterpreting cause and effect – which I pointed out for him on this blog.
It looks very much like I will be right about Mr. Brash. And that feels so good.
Best wishes,
James
September 16th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Danyl says, “There’s also a rumour that someone has hired private detectives to spy on Davis”
[Deleted by DPF, A repeat of such stuff will get Mr Biard banned]
September 16th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
James, you say “Labour look more and more like a new ‘natural party of Government’. They know how to both defend and attack superioraly. ”
To me it seems you are just as naive and ignorant as your lame Government. Labour are a herd of lying, manipulative, corrupt and gutless individuals who treat the public of New Zealand with contempt. Despite being harassed by the public to repay the money they corruptly used to gain the vote of thousands of sick, lame and lazies in this country, they arrogantly declared they would not pay it back and instead, would change the law to protect their position. Complete ARROGANCE.
Labour know how to lie, spread rumours, be under-handed, steal tax-payers money and get away with it. REASON? They know there are far too many beneficiaries and people dependant on Government hand-outs who would support them no matter what they did wrong.
Why would any of these sick, lame and lazies want to get rid of the Golden Goose? Please tell me.
September 16th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Candida,
I was born physically disabled. I would love to be able to work but unfortnatley it is impossible, bummer I am pleased that the Nz Tax payer contributes to my well being as I would starve otherwise
I have this strange feeling that a Labour party Government looks after my corner much better then a National government would but I may be wrong
As an aside:
The most interesting thing about this whole “affair” is the best thing for the Nats is to install Key /Rich as soon as possible. They won’t of course. I’m picking Brownlee who is probably unelectable
The latest polls confirm every poll for a number of years the lab/green vote always is 47%/48% it never changes no matter what happens
politicaly. Bummer,
The Nats have to move to the centre or they in danger of being in permanent opposition.
Thanx Rod Donald !
September 16th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
James, noddy, sonic, et al.
Yes, I’m happy with the new order, in which personalities are the prime target. So much so that I crossed my own line yesterday.
In 1971 I was molested by a schoolteacher at Primary School. I subsequently received counselling, but never laid charges.
However, as a direct result of hearing of Benson-Pope’s involvement in the Brash issue, I’ve changed my position. I am now laying a formal complaint against the teacher concerned. He is now in his 70s, so it will be interesting to see how his health stands up in the face what is coming. As Pete Hodgson assures us daily in Parliament, our health system is world class, so he should be able to handle the stress.
Incidentally, the fact that he later (late 70s/early 80s) became a Labour activist has nothing to do with my decision. Nor is the fact that his son is a journalist in a major daily, and has consistently taken an anti-Brash line.
Unleash the dogs of war……….
September 16th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Strange ….. thread ….. man.
September 16th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
This affair is a real wingnut magnet.
September 16th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Ben:
Open a door, and you’ve never quite sure what’s going to fall out do you?
September 16th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Great to see the National live up to it’s true principles and instantly deflect all the blame onto Mallard. His sin of course is that he was the one who finally pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes.
And who in the House that day had not already known this for months?
September 17th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Craig, if only you’d convinced Brash of that months ago.
September 17th, 2006 at 6:59 am
Ben and Craig – you’re onto it. I was trying to be deliberately controversial in order to make a point about digging into peoples’ lives for political gain. That said, I realise that I went about it the wrong way.
Everyone, please accept my apologies for this.
David, could I request that you remove my earlier post?
September 17th, 2006 at 7:20 am
I wonder if the Nats would like to move to the centre but don’t feel they can because it might compromise the vast campaign funding that Dr Brash has secured for his party.
September 17th, 2006 at 8:44 am
So: SST leads with Peter Davis story
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3799464a6005,00.html
glass beehives about to come down
September 17th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Well, Ian Scott is right – it is ‘despicable’and just confirms why I wouldn’t put Investigate on a nail in a long drop and use it as toilet paper.
Still, you just can’t have it both ways can you? AFAIC, this kind of crap is all on for everyone (including Ian Wishart), or it’s totally out of line. We’re not done yet, folks, and I’ll restrain the urge to start chainting “told you so”.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Wishart has just handed Labour a massive PR coup. His story doesn’t appear to have any substance and will be (successfully, I suspect) spun by Labour as a National smear story of really quite unbelievable loathsomeness. Investigate has probably cost the Nats the shreds of whatever moral dignity they managed to preserve over the last week.
This also means that National can’t retaliate with a genuine smear against Labour, if they so choose. Labour can simply laugh it off as another toothless National smear job.
But the biggest problem here is that it provides a continual distraction from the real issue of Labours election spending. Labour are wrong! National are right! Labour broke the law! Labour are corrupt! Virtually the entire country agrees!
Is Wishart so utterly blinded by his hatred of Clark that he doesn’t realise that THAT is the REAL story, and not some year-old footage of the PMs fiercly low-profile husband being hugged by one of his mates at a party?
What a fucking moron.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:59 am
I can’t help but agree, unfortunately.
September 17th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Seems to me all this crap about politicians private lives will blow over really quick. The average Joe simply isn’t interested.
Looks to me that recently Labour hasn’t been talking much about policy issues. Hodgson sure hasn’t been talking much about the stuffed up health system and King sure isn’t mentioning the Police recruitment drive which may not be going very well. If the Nats have any brains at all they will talk policy not “genuine smears”. They have to start looking like an alternative government not running around slinging mud a la Mallard. Talking about Mallard hasn’t he been a little bit anonymous this week.
As for all the Labour spin well does anyone with a half a brain actually take it seriously? I sure as hell don’t
September 17th, 2006 at 10:46 am
I would like to think that all the speculation in the Herald about leadership coups is just that.
Believe me, from what I hear and read, anyone who overturns Don Brash at this time will be seen as handing Don’s scalp to Mallard and Helen on a silver platter.
The electorate will see this as rewarding despicable behaviour and given the propensity to conspiracy theories half of them will conclude that it was a conspiracy between Mallard and National’s new Machiavellian Princes to claw their own way to the top.
Even Labour voters are disgusted by Mallard and Co’s gutter politics and will not look kindly on anyone who is seen to profit from them.
And by the way, if the Election was lost because of the Exclusive Brethren, how come it was lost in the working class and Polynesian/Maori seats of South Auckland, where they would not have worried two bits about the Brethren.
If the Brethren were the problem the election would have been lost in the latte/intellectual electorates of every city and town in NZ.
They weren’t and it wasn’t.
That is just another figment of journalist’s imagination – and shows they never stop to analyse anything.
The election was lost by a tight nose because Labour bribed more beneficiaries and students than National.
September 17th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Business on the table, I am almost certainly going to vote National. The previous two elections I voted ACT. I do not know the extent of your physical disability but if you are unable to find work that you may be capable of I certainly not mind paying taxes to support you.
I am only speaking for myself. I know there are some on the extreme right who believe that you should be helped by your family, charities or sit with a tin on the footpath. Fortunately I believe people with such extreme views are very much in the minority.
September 17th, 2006 at 10:54 am
I find the Investigate thing not so much loathsome as laughable. It’s like a blow aimed low and simply missing,tripping and falling. I’ve hugged plenty of mates over the years, usually at times of great jubilation, like winning something, or seeing them after years apart. If that makes me gay I guess most guys are gay.
And certainly some of the people I’ve hugged have been gay. Perhaps they were loving it, and wanted to grab my arse, but I doubt it, and I don’t care either. It didn’t make me gay, or the gesture.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Daryl wrote:
Is Wishart so utterly blinded by his hatred of Clark that he doesn’t realise that THAT is the REAL story, and not some year-old footage of the PMs fiercly low-profile husband being hugged by one of his mates at a party?
Hey, to be fair, back in the day Investigate would quite happily have gotten the innuendo mill grinding if Burton Shipley & (say) Chris Finlayson or myself had been within arms length of each other. He may be a very sleazy operator, but you can’t say he won’t throw it in all directions.
Having said that, if I was a closeted heterosexual doing the nasty with Helen Clark, would I be making out with my secret lover at a crowded election night party with the better half, and a good chunk of the media and party elite, milling around? In that context, I think most people’s bullshit detectors would red line. But, if you leave out enough incovnenient facts and pad it with enough nudge-nudge, wink-wink innuendo, anything can be twisted into a very sleazy and ugly shape.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Craig, yes it’s sleazy, but no, it’s not scary. Or at least about as scary the fantasy stories you’d find in a Penthouse letter to the editor. Amusing bollocks, that is.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Whats this crap about hugged, embraced etc.. for fuck’s sake, if you must go on about it, (and (sigh) here’s diddums Cwaigy right into the queer shit once again) let’s be honest about the reality that he appeared to KISS HIM ON THE LIPS.. and that is what is notable.. embrace hug is of course not remarkable, its the apparent male to male lip kissing that is the issue… Leftist trying to cloud the matter as usual.. all they ever do..
September 17th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Redbaiter (or should that be diddums Wedbwaiter?):
Here we go again – and yet again, I have to wonder who’s really “into the queer shit”. Isn’t it more than a little queer watching all these ‘normal’ men, getting flustered over all this hot man-on-man action nobody else can see?
Still there’s one slender thread of evidence that Master Baiter isn’t a closet queen in desperate need of a blow job – the most feeble attempt at a camp bitch-slap I’ve heard in many a season.
Try again, you leaky douche bag.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Craig, what thread is that? Aren’t the deniers usually butch rather than camp? I’m only guessing, but it would seem that camping it up is a pretty silly way of being in the closet.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Craij,
I don’t think this stands up. Wishart doesn’t seem to have touched the Brash marriage story even though it’s been New Zealands worst kept secret for over a year. And, as is also well known, there are a couple of very high-profile closeted gay National MPs who he could have gone after. Instead he’s quixotically focused on the PM and her husband. The guys a partisan nut, and in the way of such things he’s hurting his party a lot more than he’s helping it.
September 17th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Daryl:
Well, as I’m not a sock puppet for Ian Wishart, perhaps you need to ask him what editorial crteria he sets for his magazine. Myself, I’m more interested in when he’s going to change the paper stock to preforated two-ply.
But if you really think he’s some fan of Don Brash in particular, or the National Party in general, I guess you must have been asleep during the 1990′s. Believe me, I think there would be a hell of a party in political circles (all around) if Ian Wishart and his magazine were hit by a meteor.
September 17th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
“Believe me, I think there would be a hell of a party in political circles (all around) if Ian Wishart and his magazine were hit by a meteor.”
Which of course is the reason that any person who TRULY values the principle of freedom of political expression would be speaking out in support of Wishart and Investigate.
September 17th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Danyl says, “And, as is also well known, there are a couple of very high-profile closeted gay National MPs who he could have gone after. Instead he’s quixotically focused on the PM and her husband.”
You are probably right at least in part. The issue is the homosexual agenda that the Labour Party is pursuing. I thought Muldoon’s attack on Moyle was quite wrong and I still do. The situation is now entirely different. Labour stopped screening refugees for HIV. Labour would introduce homosexual adoption and surrogacy if they thought they could get away with it. Labour wants to introduce such things as hate speech and hate crime legislation. Labour wants to promote the homosexual lifestyle as valid alterative. The list could go on and on. If that is what they want that is okay but they should come clean and all the closeted homosexual Labour MPs who are driving this agenda behind the scenes should come out of the closet.
The left wing homosexuals see nothing wrong with attempting to blackmail closeted homosexual National MPs to vote how they think they should but cry foul when the right tries to expose how many closeted homosexual MPs Labour has. Where is their gay pride?
September 17th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
September 17th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Stupid HTML tags
Actually I was drunk or chemically debilitated for most of the 90′s. And overseas. So you’re not far wrong.
I understand Ian Wishart was involved in the winebox inquiry and that National was a target – but that was a legitimate investigation about a matter that was in the public interest. It was also (I believe) before Wishart found the Lord and lost any semblance of ethics or morality.
September 17th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Redbaiter:
And here you go again… I do support Wishart and Investigate’s press freedoms, while abhoring the trash it contains. I thought anyone who really believed in freedom of expression wouldn’t need that spelled out, and those who don’t wouldn’t care. But I guess I’m just part of the Stalinist dykeocracy trying to bring down the brave truth-tellers wah wah wah…
September 17th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Can we just clarify some stuff about the Moyle affair? Muldoon was many things, but he was not the author of Moyle’s demise. Moyle was foolish enough to accuse Muldoon of corrupt practice in his accounting firm, and Muldoon simply returned fire.
The real architect of Moyle’s downfall was Rowling. Keen to ward off an imminent leadership challenge from Moyle, Rowling insisted on a full inquiry to “clear Moyle’s name”. Had he not done so, the whole thing would have died and the history of New Zealand politics may have been very different.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:51 am
It’s interesting where this post has gone. As a previous National Party supporter I cannot understand why a man who failed in politics several decades ago, has already asked to resign at least twice since the election and trips more than he dances, is still the head of the party.
Danyl admits to being drunk or chemically debilitated for most of the 90′s. Is this a picture of the state of the National Party in the 00′s or is it really that hard to decide on a suitable replacement? I suppose, after Bill English’s experience in 2002, no one is in a rush to stage a coup, least of all him. Such suspended decision making is costing National dearly.
However, as has already been inferred to in this thread, Brash’s supporters used the MMP list system to bypass the democratic electoral system and get planted by business into a position of political leadership. I don’t think the NZ public are ready for a PM who isn’t an electorate MP, least of all one who is in their late 60′s. National will be superceded by parties with youthful vigour that owe their allegiance to the voting public rather than minority business interest.
As for the argument that Labour bought the election with beneficiary handouts it may enlighten you to be reminded that in 1965 family benefit was universal and 45% of the population were in receipt of social welfare benefits (visit http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/W/WelfareServices/HistoryOfMonetaryBenefits/en ). At that time the National Party was ‘bribing’ the electorate with handouts. Nothing really changes.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Sorry Trevor, but things do change. Gradually. In 1940 about 8% of the population were receiving benefits. By 1965 that had grown to about 23%. By 1980 it was at 30%. In 1990 it was about 37%. In failing to reverse this trend, the Nats betrayed the principles they profess to hold dear. The only way we can measure politicians is by what they do, and the Nats thru the ninteen nineties, when they held power for 9 years, did SFA. Nowadays its even worse, in that they can’t even communicate the ideals they should be promoting. I think a lot of the dirt that’s being slung now is in the end, down to the fact that the Nats are unable to think of or sell the policies they should be promoting. They will not challenge the left on ideology. It appears they are content to be “Labour lite”.
Why are they so limp when it comes to articulating the Conservative position, and making the pro individual small government ideal a reality? Because they’re full of half educated dimbulbs who don’t understand what the party stands for and are more ideologically suited to the Labour party. The most effective way forward is for true believers to join the Nats and work towards the expulsion or marginilization of the mindless inarticulate socialists that currently hold sway there.
I think that in one way, Brash’s entry was an attempt to do this. The idea is OK. The mistake was choosing Brash. Anyone who lets a dopey over confident over paid loud mouthed peroxide blonde beat him up on National TV over the Brethren non issue doesn’t have the balls to fix the National party.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
“Why are they so limp when it comes to articulating the Conservative position”
Because positions like yours are the electoral equivalent of Anthrax. If National stood on that platform they would be lucky to get 20% of the vote.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Because you touch yourself at night.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Sonic, your comprehension skills are (like most leftist’s) abysmal. I acknowledge your point, but what I am trying to alert you to is that the reason that is so is that you and your braindead lot have been allowed to demonise the right and embed your sick commie ideology in NZ culture virtually unopposed. The right in NZ have been AWOL. It is the Nat’s duty to argue rightist ideology, to articulate those ideas truthfully and confidently and forcefully, and provide the public with the information needed to allow them to change their minds on the perceived benefits of leftism, that sick disease that has allowed good old NZ culture to become the culture of the whining government dependent lemming. The Nats haven’t done this. They are frightened rabbits. So dumb, because in fact its so easy to do. Barren of reason leftist pissants like you can be chewed up and spat out in a millisecond.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
It seems RB is a little bit bitter.
*pets the cute little IT critter on the head*
Lighten up mate, it might all come good in the end (well probably not but shhhhh)
xxx
S
September 19th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
“Redbaiter (or should that be diddums Wedbwaiter?):”
Bedwetter.
BTW: I was out of town all weekend & only fleetingly caught sight, in a garage, of a Sunday newspaper’s headline “outing” Peter Davis.
I went back to the car & announced to the family, “Holy fuck, the 5th Dr Who turns out to be gay!”
September 19th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Dr Who was always gay. You could tell by his scarf, and the fact he was always hanging around in a phone box.
May 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
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