However, the Maori party has always been an electorate only party. Effectively they are also gaming the system, but the nature of the Maori seats seem to make people more accepting of it. I can imagine campaigning for electorate vote Maori, party vote National in the Maori seats – again, nothing to lose in doing so.

It’s intriguing when you read ‘Cactus Kate’ had to say about him, his tax situation etc. To think a man who has structured his affairs to avoid paying tax supporting a govt increasing taxation in a country with very low wealth thresholds. Fascinating that somebody would support the infliction of circumstances on others that they wouldn’t have for themselves.

I think Labour have some explaining to do.

National could engineer a very strong result with actively polling “party vote National – Electorate vote ACT” OR “Electorate vote National, party vote ACT”. Especially in their traditional strong electorates. Why not campaign “Party vote National, electorate vote Maori” in the electorates where they support the individual Maori party MP’s?

Do they have the balls to campaign for a coalition or will they “Two ticks National” again this year?

The old Marxist saw about “the rich becoming richer while the poor become poorer”, is actually only true in regulatory environments. What you say about becoming rich if you want to, working to a goal, is true in itself, but notice that SINCE people like Hart become wealthy, the obstacles to getting started on the process, have increased. The RMA. Employment law. Property prices (a legacy of restrictive zoning). How many potential Harts or James Watties have been locked out of the process?

Hernando DeSoto, in “The Mystery of Capital”, calls this effect “The Glass Bell Jar”. Less well-off people are on the outside looking in, unable to break in, not because of a “wealthy right wing plot” to exclude them, but because of leftist-oriented regulatory environments and compliance costs.

Do you see my point?

But there is a new thread about Owen Glen now. Let’s let this argument redevelop there.

I am very concerned about whether we will actually get a new government. In theory we should – NZers in general have had a gutsful of this one, and the media are reflecting that in starting to ask the hard questions that Helen has avoided for the last 8 years.

The problem is that I don’t yet see the viable coalition, and I don’t yet see National fully presenting as a government in waiting. John K has done a good job of pulling it together, and I presume is keeping his tinder dry for the upcoming election season. But they do have a history of choking at the last hurdle (a bit like the All Blacks in that sense), and I’m not sure whether the team will manage to stay on message to the end without making some amateur mistake.

I also don’t want to see a one term government. Even were the poll ratings to turn into an election result, it would be unheard of to keep those votes going into the next term. National needs a coalition partner in order to go more than one term.

ACT will be there, but in a sense they are a bit like Jim Anderton – you can pretty much just count them in the National total, and without some change I doubt that they will be more than a couple of percent of the vote. National need to allow them to retain their electorate seat – if they can do it for Peter Dunne they sure as hell can do it for their most reliable partner in parliament.

Winston First is a conundrum. Ideally he would be out of parliament, and if National could be sure it would work they should encourage that outcome. The problem is that if they go in hard against Winston, and the wily old bugger manages to hold on, then he will support Labour. That would be a big problem. I’m not sure what the realistic chances of him ever supporting National again would be, but I don’t see how National can take that risk. Ideally Labour and National would make a pact to go hard after him just to get rid of him – but I can’t see any way they could get together and do it without one of them reneging on it (despite it being in both their best interests).

United will be interesting. I think Peter Dunne will go with the largest party, which will be National. Irrespective of what you think about Peter himself, he represents a constituency that have a voice. National can easily work with him, as could Labour. The key is to get him to publicly state that he will go with the largest party (not the largest grouping) after the election.

The Maori party are in theory very possible, but in practical terms National and Maori vote the same on about 25% of legislation, Labour and Maori about 60%, Green and Maori about 90% (or numbers something like that, can’t remember them exactly). Relying on the Maori party to form a government is a high risk option. The question is how much of that legislation they really cared about, v’s just voting with the government because they support the govt. So if they came in with National, would they then vote 75% the same as National? High risk.

Green – never happen. Again, in theory if the greens could get their green agenda implemented then they would go with National. In reality they want social legislation that National shouldn’t support. Their new leader Russell is more in the Sue Bradford mold than the Jeanette Fitzimmons mold. I can’t see them going with National. That leads to an interesting question – should National play nice with them, or target them?

My thoughts are:
– play nice with ACT – what do National care about an electorate seat?
– play nice with United – they will be needed
– go hard against Winston – he is unreliable, and if he fails to reach the threshold then his votes effectively get split in proportion between the remaining parties. National is the biggest party, so gets the biggest benefit. If he gets in and goes with Labour, then Labour get the benefit of all his votes
– play nice with the Maori party. They will get the electorate seats either way, and playing nice may pick up some of the party votes from those people. No downside in playing nice, and may work out well
– play nice with the greens. Unlikely that they wouldn’t make 5%, and every vote they get comes from Labour. Attacking the greens won’t really get National votes, it will just drive green voters to Labour. Letting the greens do OK will hold down Labour’s vote, and allow National to be the largest party.

This would then make a National/ACT/United Future coalition possible, with Winston out of parliament, and Maori supporting on issues of common interest. This could be very stable for a number of elections.

If this happened, then Labour would self destruct – all their senior folk would leave. I doubt Phil Goff really has the stomach for 6 years in opposition, so the question is who would take the leadership. I would see them going the way of the Libs in Australia – a period of working out what they really stand for and shaking themselves free of all the dirt that comes out once you’re out of power. In my opinion that would be a great place for NZ politics to be.

If so… perhaps Helen could use the ‘under the influence’ defense for her offer… that didn’t happen.

They certainly do not care about the continuance of conditions and freedoms that will enable OTHERS to become wealthy too, in fact they would prefer others to be locked out of their exclusive “club”.

That’s not my perception of the wealthy Phil, do you have evidence they want others to be locked out? Personally I think they’ve just learned how to play the game, which is simple. You only need to get yourself obsessed with it – focus on it, all the time, hold the specific amount you want at front of mind all the time. Be very specific and very dedicated to holding that focus, all the time. Of course you have to combine that with specific and dedicated action, but that comes naturally if you hold that focus long enough. Becoming wealthy is not rocket science, and if you study wealthy people, what I said above is what they all have in common. The problem with many is that they think they can’t do it, for whatever reason – they’re not clever enough, they’re not entitled to it, it will isolate them from their friends, the list is endless. Most people are comfortable, they get by, they have their pleasures, and so there is little to no pressure on themselves to change their circumstance.

Look at Hart, for instance. Do you think that while he was a towie that he wasn’t thinking about his next move, with a specific objective? My point is, that you can do it just as well as anyone else. It’s only an exclusive club because most people don’t.

His motivation was clear when he said that we should get rid of our anti nuke stance to open the door to a FTA with USA.

I think he would support FTA’s anywhere anytime and doesn’t really give a toss who runs the country.

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/02/good-news.html

Announcing this won’t do Phil Goff’s stocks any harm – should be an awesome BBQ at his palce tonight!

A former incarnation of myself POC, who only frequents the Whale’s den now, as well as a couple of sporting sites.

Thanks for your link. I’ve read it and entirely agree with your sentiments.

Comments in Fran O’Sullivan’s column of concern:

He had previously been prepared to meet me [OSullivan] but went to ground for the weekend.

Any particular reason (other than divine political intervention) why he was so forthcoming with Kim Ruscoe, but a day or so later, was incommunicado?

And those at “the other blog” need to attack Kim Ruscoe as well. Does she have an excitable imagination as well? Is she a journalist with NZ Herald affiliations, and therefore subject to the “attack Labour” rule that the Standardistas claims has been issued?

Then this:

Helen Clark tried to lure him back to New Zealand and a post in the Labour Cabinet, suggesting that he would be a sitter for Transport Minister

Why Minister of Transport, I wondered to myself, before realising that OTS Logistics just happens to be *cough* a freight forwarding business. Now while that in itself may raise eyebrows, the potential overlapping (and conflicting) interests are so obvious as to make it surprise (to me anyway) that Clark would offer such a position to Glenn.

Oh, and on your other point about Phillip John/Roger Nome, his idea of link-whoring is it goes like this: “I say this and here’s the proof [link to Kiwiblogblog attack sheet]. You’ll find this interesting [link to Wikipedia]. Here, educate yourself [link to Phillip John's blog]. This proves blah blah blah [link to Wikipedia]“. Now, I and several others have followed a few (not all, mind you) of his links – and been prompted to accuse him of intellectual dishonesty.