Ever figure out what why that happened?

Because they saw Don Brash as the electable face of ACT.

It just goes to show that it’s all in the branding: ACT policies got 39.1% of the vote in 2005.

Yet those same people who deserted ACT for the best of reasons in 2005 (because those policies had far more chance of coming to fruition under National than ACT) have failed to return, despite the National Party having long since abandoned those policies and adopted many of Labour’s.

Therefore, one can only conclude that those people prefer the personality of John Key to the principles of Rodney Hide and Roger Douglas.

ACT cannot hope to win them back until they clearly spell out what they stand for, and why their policies will work better for all New Zealanders, especially the poorest.

Ever figure out what why that happened? Or was it people ‘not getting MMP’?

Lets look at schools.They abolished corporal punishment.Great test case.Now they are more violent then they were before when the teachers had corporal punishment.

Bring back corporal punishment for parents and in schools.Watch order be restored.

peteremcc’s comment is worth restating:

“If National had got 5% less at the election and ACT had got 5% more at the election, the law would already be gone.

“Vote for the party that supports the policies you want and you’ll get them.

“Vote for the party that can’t decide what policies they support and…

“Anyone that voted National after they supported the law, only has themselves to blame.”

If all those ACT-turned-National voters haven’t spotted it before, it must now be dawning on them that there’s a yawning chasm of difference between ACT’s commonsense, principled policies and the National Populists’ worshipping of the Great God Pragmat.

What’s interesting is that the gap would now seem to be wider than that which separates Clark and Key.

(Remember: Key promoted Clark, his government is outspending hers by $8 billion a year, and – for now – he seems to be prepared to die in a ditch for her most odious policy of intervening in parental discipline.)

ACT has a golden opportunity to point all this out, in words of very few syllables, in places where the public can see them. If the budget can’t run to billboards, I suggest walking sandwich boards.

Thank you for proving my point. Lying and conflating issues to blur the differences? How progressive.

The Nat’s appear to me like they think they have the next election in the bag already. A fall from those dizzying heights might be enough to make them (and all other politicians) never forget who pays the bills.

Of course, I’d rather John just changed the bloody law in the first place.

“Something I have wondered, and perhaps DPF knows, is what correlation if any there is between the vote in the referendum and there people have raised children?.”

It would be interesting to know how many people voted “No” in the referendum whose offspring are beyond childhood years. Let’s hope modern day parents are far more enlightened and less violent and reactionary towards their children. Thankfully parenting books and child psychologists seldom advocate smacking children.

But God forbid anyone get in the way of the scumbag Greens and their precious social agenda.

Come on John Key – power to the people!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10404809

[DPF: And I disagree with him on this issue. I think there is absolutely no doubt the vast majority of NZers do not want light correctional smacking to be a criminal offence]

and Banardos say:

“”Half the population either doesn’t care, or half the population thinks the law’s okay, have chosen not to vote and have expressed their democratic view that way.”

What should we make of those who didn’t vote?

a. Don’t care if the law stays; don’t care if the law goes?
b. happy to let those who take the trouble of answering the question and then posting it decide?
c. are non voters expecting their lack of action to be taken as representing their wishes in some way?

Right on the money

Blue Coast

For example, do you think the result would have been the same if the question had been framed: “Should beating your children until they scream be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

[DPF: No one is wanting the proposition you suggest. There have been a dozen polls done over many years on the anti smacking law. Every single one shows 80%+ are against it. The referendum is in line with those polls. Removing the word good would make minimal difference I submit. This is an issue that has been deated vigorously for over two years. The public are not stupid and know what they were voting about.]