How safe will MMP be under Key??

No, because that can be measured objectively. The anti-nuke issue isn’t a case of right or wrong. The shape of the earth is.

If the majority believed murder should be legal would they be right?

Possibly, yes. It will probably be conditional though. In fact it already is legal in some situations.

If the majority believed child sex was ok would they be right?

Again, possibly yes. What if one expert said that child sex is okay?

I say open up the debate.

And then what, go with what the majority say after that debate?

Pharmac spends $500,000,000 of our money subsidising other drugs every year most of which do more harm than good.

Is this another fact?

Not our military – we dont even know whose fishing our waters.

Our territorial waters are a very big place for our frigate to go exercising in.

Agree that the US will never give us an FTA. They’ve never given anyone else one.

Agree it’s an issue that no politician with half a brain would let the NZ public know they were considering other options on.

Agree that Key is doing the right thing, even if he may not have been only a few weeks ago.

Not sure about the secret war between the US and China happening under our waters. Could be, who would know? Certainly I haven’t heard of any submarine sightings here, and they’re pretty easy to see from the air, unless they’re really deep. They’d want to be pretty careful, in case frigates happened to be doing exercises nearby and picked them up on sonar.

If it’s the case then both countries are pissing on our territorial hegemony and if the US ones really are nuclear then they are also violating our anti nuke ban. I actually don’t think either country is stupid enough to risk it, when they’ve got the rest of the ocean to play hide and seek in.

But again, who could know but the military?

Don Brash was seriously misguided trying to even open a discussion on the issue in general. It’s a good think Key has shut it down.

Your totally right about an FTA. The whole nuclear thing is and always has been a smoke screen for protecting their farmers.

a) Believes we live in a benign strategic environment.

b) Is hostile to the U.S., Australia and the UK Monarchy.

c) Comes from a far left back ground that would never see sense on the nuclear issue.

d) Has overseen a huge reduction in the number of defense force personnel in New Zealand.

e) Cancelled an order of Aircraft placed by the previous government, and then totally disbanded our airforce stike wing.

f) Hounded a NZ Exporter of defense related products to the U.S.

If Labour were prepared to admit that we don’t live in a benign strategic environment, that the U.S., Australia and the UK are our friends and we should actually work with them, that Nuclear has come a long way and it’s ok to actually debate the issue, that we need defense force personnel, that we are surrounded by water and air and we actually need an airforce, and that it’s actually ok to export to the U.S., there might be a starting point for some bi-partisonship.

Until then, I would rather National tried to get the public on board with reality than cosy up to commie lefty, “we live in a benign strategic environment” labour party leaders.

I would only add that a wise NZ government would ideology aside, and avoid both making snide public remarks about the US/US politicians and dragging the NZ-US relationship into ou domestic political debate. Therein lies the best way to a constructive relationship.

As for dropping the anti-nuke stance to curry favor with the US on issues like trade. This is a pipe dream. Rhetoric notwithstanding, there is no connection between the US stance on FTAs and the anti-nuke issues. Not only have senior US political figures like John McCain and various State Dept officials said so, but NZ simply is too small a market that competes too directly with subsidised US agricultural producers for it to move ahead in the cue of FTA supplicants. The Bush administration used the anti-nuke issue to bully NZ, but that changed after the Iraq invasion and has all but died with the mid term election. Democrats traditionally have let that sleeping dog lie (can you recall Clinton making an issue of it?), and given that the US needs all of the friends it can get these days (at least in the security field), it is very possible that it will ease the “neither confirm or deny” policy regarding nukes on board rather than force NZ to choose between a deeply ingrained ideological stance against nuclear-driven apparatuses of any kind and better relations with the US. That would be counter-productive at a time when the US is trying to involve NZ more in international security affairs, of the SW Pacific in particular. With the Democrats in power in Congress, a lame duck president increasingly repudiated by his own party, and with the prospect of more centrist and pragmatic administration coming to office in 2008 regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat win the presidency (again, McCain is a front-runner on the GOP side), Key’s announcement is a good dose of political reality. Moreover, and to his credit, it shows that he is willing to act on his pledge to work in a more bi-partisan fashion with regards to foreign policy-making. That has been sorely lacking as of late, and I can only say that I hope the pledge extends to defense and security policy as well.

As for US forces in this theater. The US 6th Fleet only operates nukes on its aircraft carriers and subs (both power and weapons). It may decide to install nuke-tipped cruise missles on its AEGIS cruisers if a threat from North Korea materialises or if China threatens Taiwan, but in the south Pacific its vessels by and large are non-nuclear. In fact, those that are a subs shadowing the growing Chinese submarine fleet, that (being diesel powered and thus noisy) in turn likes to hide under the acoustic signature of its fishing fleet (which are an increasing presence in and around NZ territorial waters). These US subs are LA class attack boats whose mission is to kill other subs or surface vessels, and thus would not be nuclear armed in the main. But they may in fact be operating within NZ territorial limits as part of their shadowing missions, and there is nothing NZ can do about it but be grateful that someone is keeping tabs on the Chinese.

Hence, separation of the three micro-issues subsumed into the anti-nuke stance might be a good way of debating the mertis of each as well as focusing public debate more tightly.

My impression is that a more coherent and united front on foreign policy, a good internal debate on the specific objections to the three nuclear micro-issues, and reiteration of the universal non-objection to conventional powered and armed grey hulls visiting NZ`ports (already done by a host of other countries, including the Chinese), would give NZ increased room to manuever in the diplomatic forum vis a vis the US.

just a thought…

I’d love him to be clear on why, I suspect the answer is “because the majority think that way”.

Therein lies the biggest problem.

Now our only hope is that 51% of NZers are more intelligent than that. It should be an easy matter because how much intelligence does a blood sucking tapeworm have eh?

Of course the left is shit scared of having an intelligent populace because anyone with half a brain could see through their claptrap. Look at what successive left leaning goverenments have done for their hard workers – given them one of the worst standards of living in the western world!

Its a joke – they’re in power and they haven’t even been able to move the minimum wage much – so now you’ve got science techs on less for a 37.5 hr week than a single parent gets when they go to uni! If thats for the hard workers I sure as hell dont get the point.

I think Brash could have weathered the EB strom easily if he had kept his chstity belt on, but taken together it gave Key enough ammo.

Its not a matter of fooling anyone – who in their right mind would trust a politician anyway.

Brash made good inroads and did set National up well. I’m disappointed he fell on his sword. If the EB had never happened he might have been prime minster.

The basis of the modern politic is to do one thing and say another. Look at Helen Clark, Tony Blair, George Bush, and even John Howard.

They are masters at the art of saying what the public want to hear, and framing it right, then doing precisely what pleases them, and spinning the criticsm into oblivion.

Quite frankly, Brash was crap at that. John Key appears, so far, to have some ability to do this.

So, again, simple strategy. Populist policies with an underlying agenda.

It worked for Helen. It’ll work for Key.

Am I a complete cynic…damn right I am.

What we do with our farms, coal and oil is our business.

We shouldn’t be running up debts for ourselves from signing up to some international socialist treaty founded on phoney-science.

I’ve always liked a challenge and one reason why I will help National next election is to try to unseat that little criminal compensating prick Goff from his safe house.

With National’s move to the left that is looking like a more viable possibillity!

The enemy of my enemy and all.

For the same reason we have to accept the world we live in and run it past the majority view.

There will come a time, soon enough when we need the help of oz and the US (and possibly nuke power) to stay on the OECD ladder and then hopefully we can convince >50% that it is the way to go.

The above idea of a labour/national coalition is not actually as ludicrous as it sounds because it would allow each party to dump its loony fringe and the parliamentary muscle to push through some real policy.

The reason this doesn’t happen more is due to the historical adversarial system, the egos of the career minded politicians and the public perception that mps should be handing them nuggets all the time or else they’re not doing their job. eg statement like “well at least Winston got us 1000 extra police” are just politicians being politicians and are ludicrous in the extreme.

This situation allows the loonies to divide and conquer us – and so we get run by a very small minority whacko government. The classic example of this is that 92% of NZers voted for tough laws on violent crimes but we can’t get this through because one or other of the parties is always trying to appease its talliwhackers.

It would have to be carefully thought out though because over time they would have to move ground to keep their majorities and avoid a new 2nd party establishing itself.