Good to see so many mainstream media pundits finally catching up to where TDB has been for the last 6 months.
Comrades you can read it here first or wait for the mainstream media to catch up.
For the record.
Again.
- With the enrolment rule changes that allow for enrolment on the day, prisoner voting alongside booths in Marae, I think we will see a larger turnout than is being predicted.
- I think overseas votes will go overwhelmingly to Labour and not the Greens.
- I think with the huge number of fringe parties we will see more wasted vote than ever before.
- I think the Government will be a Labour Majority.
- I think National will be lucky to gain 30%.
- I think Judith will increasingly become more desperate and vicious.
- NZ First won’t be politically relevant.
- The only hope for the Greens is Auckland central.
- ACT will suffer rapid growth pains from candidates they haven’t vetted properly.
- Labour only need 47% on election night to get scaled up for a majority AFTER specials get counted.
- Greens must hit 4.5% on election night to successfully get scaled up over the 5% threshold AFTER specials get counted..
- NZ First must hit 5.5% on election night to guarantee they won’t get scaled down AFTER specials get counted.
- Because of the high amount of wasted vote, the Māori Party should be able to gain an extra seat from their list with as little as 1% if they win an electorate seat.
So what are progressives supposed to do if Labour win an unprecedented majority Government?
If we see a Majority Labour Government, the factions inside Labour become politically relevant for the first time since MMP.
It is to those factions that progressive activists must turn to in order to gain real policy change post October 17th.
It will be the new Labour factions that wield the power.
Union, Māori, Feminist, Public Service, Rainbow.
If Labour are the majority post the election, progressives need to immediately call for a giant Hui with the Labour factions and reach out to see where common ground can be found.
A Liberal Carnival if you will that can channel this enormous political mandate towards the urgent changes we need to see implemented in the first 100 days of a second term Labour Government.
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LOL. So now the whole progressive left’s political strategy is to focus on Labour Party factions? This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. It’s like a trailer for the Gods must be Crazy 2.
Tell me again why a Labour-led government hell bent on staying in power by appealing to the selfish middle is anything different to what Key and Clark did before? I can’t wait for Grant’s credit card to hit it’s limit and in desperation pump and dump immigration is to start back up again….Seriously it will be good this time because there’s hugz, feelz and we are all part of team 5 million.
Bhahahahaha and it begins…….
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-labour-will-relax-covid-19-border-rules-to-allow-more-skilled-workers-in-if-re-elected.html
Pump, pump, pumpty, pump……..
The only strategy in this ideologically deficient time…….
Your entire swathe of comments read like an envy tax Frank
The likes of “Frank the wank” and “Hermione Tory shit shoveler” are exercising freedom of speech granted by TDB’s management that is rarely extended to our left wing brothers and sisters that stumble upon Offal pits like Kiwiblog.
So it would be refreshing to see some attempt by them at putting arguments or factual information out there.
Sticks and Stones Tiger, sticks and stones. My observation is that you are all so tribal you can’t see the contradictions in the Labour party that are presenting themselves. You want progression yet all you get is another holiday, peppercorn tax increases and bullshit energy projects. You keep hammering that you want housing affordability yet the RB and their rate reduction strategy is promoting the exact opposite. You talk about improving child poverty yet the government does nothing meaningful.
I’m not John Key fanboy and saw the issues that were getting worse such as housing affordability, crumbling infrastructure and unsustainable immigration. The irony is despite pointing this out in opposition, the government has done nothing to tackle these issues indeed arguably is promoting policies that worsen these issues.
But please keep up with the insults rather then addressing the above
Bottom line.
It matters not how bad Labour are but how much worse National is.
Bang on the debt to GDP ratio with that summation Frank.
Going to be some disappointed people in 3 years if not the first 100 days when they may just realise that the Messiah and the rest of the Popular Peoples Front of Judea, are never going to be a transformational force, and never were. Keep sipping the Kool aid, till then.
The same cycle continues, election after election, heaps of promises, fuck all delivery on what really needs to be addressed.
Popularity politics reigns supreme.
Happy to address the above Frank, now that you’ve articulated it instead of playground bullying comments that you seem fond of. Labour are a neoliberal party, like the national party, only with a slightly softer surface, a bit like the democrats and republicans in the states.
It’s good that you acknowledge that National has completely screwed us in their 9 years in power.
While you seem to perpetuate the tall poppy bashing that seems so prevalent in this country, at least you acknowledge that housing affordability and child poverty are key issues in this country that are appalling and unsustainable.
I disagree with you on energy projects, I think a complimentary raft of projects and progressive policies need to happen in this country. The climate change threat is real, and I have no doubt in 50 years time there will be no debate at all. We will have had to change.
I agree that we probably won’t in the near future..
So while it might be fun for you to engage in what is quite frankly boring childish insults, thank you for at least expressing some form of coherent position.
Oh yeah. Tribal? Jesus Frank, have you seen the right lately? Racists, bigots, gun nuts, terrorists, welfare bashers, classist you name it.
You could be right about the left (heh), but don’t ignore what’s in your own camp either.
Today Forest and Bird have reveled more broken promised about mining on DOC land.
The government is slow to act on labour shortages in some areas of horticulture and farming while paying out a fortune to firms and their staff to keep them going when there is no hope for years that we will be the tourist mecca of old .
We need some realism.
While we are looking down the barrel of a depression we need some real direction and a few smiles will not get us through
While the political games are being played in NZ and the pretence that things can carry on much as before the repo-Covid crisis, in the real world everything is turning to custard faster
California gets noticed simply because so many people live there (twice the population of Australia) but Oregon is in deep shit too:
‘Oregon Faces “Greatest Loss Of Life In State History” From Wildfires As La Nina “Threatens Bigger Blazes, Storms”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/oregon-faces-greatest-loss-life-state-history-wildfires-la-nina-threatens-bigger-blazes
And, unsurprisingly, Europe is in deep shit with respect to Covid-19 and the imploding tourism/corporatised sport/eating out/entertainment/retail etc. which make up such a large portion of the economies. Trust is gone.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/czechs-face-second-coronavirus-wave-as-cases-soar-in-europe
Just as ‘interesting’ is the situation in America:
‘The most dangerous phase of the US Covid-19 crisis may be yet to come’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/10/us-covid-19-crisis-health-economy
Probably the only good news coming out of America is:
‘Most Americans Think The Government Is Corrupt’
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/most-americans-think-government-corrupt
Again, trust is gone.
So just how the [NZ] new government is going to cope with a world falling apart and everything people believed in no longer applying is going to be very interesting to witness.
That’s if the system holds together till the end of the year, of course.
Three weeks from now the first votes will have been cast by overseas voters.
Three weeks from tomorrow, advance voting begins.
Yes, if Labour are re-elected, the pressure point has to be identified. In the absence of a powerful mass movement–it is no secret that 35 years of neo liberal pyscology and the settler/conservative nature of NZ have led to the low level of political organisation–then the system has to be worked, and influenced, to get the required changes to roll back neo liberalism, bring the Labour Caucus to heel, and greatly expand the state role with infrastructure and employment.
Start reading the Labour Constitution and rules folks–that is what enabled Jacinda and Grant to capitalise on Andrew Little’s grand gesture in 2017. “Entrism” may be a thing again in 2021!
The NZCTU urgently needs reform from the bottom up too–it is full of careerists pursuing essentially tailist politics. If we had a class struggle based Central Labour Organisation we would have natural leaders for what needs to happen. The last mass mobilisation really was the Auckland TPPA day of action in 2016. Climate Strikes have engaged a lot too, though the big day their was affected by the Mosque massacre. Those types of community organisation are ideally what needs to accompany leaning on Labour internally to achieve transformational change.
Yep Better than never solder of freedom.
I think …. wishful thinking M. If you were to build the ‘bias factor’ into the “I thinks”, you’d end with a NZF,Maori Party, Labour probable coalition by December sometime.
Or A Labour, Nat’s coalition if both NZF & the Maori party reject them both.
My prediction is a Labour – Maori governing arrangement after the election. If the Greens and Winston Jones are out that will make the Maori seats once again the ones to watch. Tamihere has energised the campaign in the Maori seats and may pick up a seat or two from Labour which could mean a far different result for the NZLP. That will mean any prospect of a progressive voice will be gone as Tamihere was always in the right faction in Clark’s government.
https://www.waateanews.com/waateanews/x_story_id/MjQ1NzU=/What-latest-Poll-means-for-the-Maori-Party?
One thing about John Tamihere is that he actually gets things done! He won’t take crap. He just pushes through. And THAT is what we need. He may be like a bulldozer – a few delicate plants and slow critters 🙂 might get squashed along the way, but he does roll in the needed changes!
How much do you really know about Tamihere. He hates unions with a passion, he is incredibly rude about gay people ‘front bums’ and he is an extremely arrogant man, I never want him in parliament ever again.
A Labour majority rule alone government will be a DISASTER, as nothing much will change.
That is the major concern of a “one Labour to rule them all” majority Govt.
Robbo and his merry Rogernomes will happily continue down the neo liberal path unless there are Green and Māori voices in government.
Well after Sepuloni’s “Overhaul” sham released today, in such sharp contrast to the Greens Poverty Action Plan,
and the Green’s rather up-beat farm package also released (though it needs to go further and have more funding), I am again looking back at the Greens. Maybe I’ll just have to swallow a few pest-controlled dead rats (and a whole lot of other yuck stuff) and reconsider them.
I’m still weighing some things up, even at this late date.
Well for what its worth, I’ll be electorate voting Labour and Party voting Green (after a lifetime as a loyal Labour suppota. And I’m doing so fully conscious of how wet and namby pamby the Greens have become.
Principle is more important that populism and dirty politics and spin and cultist neo-liberal BS language (in this space, going forward).
You can’t promise transformation and kindness, and then put certain sectors of our community in this ‘team of 5 million’ that punches above its weight through agony. Especially when there were various mechanisms in the state apparatus to have done better, had it not been for a number of Labour Munstas putting the entire load on JA and half a dozen others.
Everything that’s now coming out of Labour could have AND should have started happening in the term now nearing completion, be it the rescinding the mean-spirited cutting of the Training Incentive Allowance (even when people had signed up to one of WINZ’s plans, then had the rug pulled; his evil intent in creating that bugger’s muddle called MBIE (that even some of its own senior policy analysts realise isn’t working); Immigration changes; the fuckup that is/was NZTA; the fuckup that is Corrections; the fuckup that is Oranga Tamariki that has more empire builders and arse lickers that we’d once have seen when Missionaries and Cargo Cults were in fashion, and that are more concerned with their impressive CVs than actually doing something and properly resourcing social workers (numbers AND support); and then perhaps one of the most important issues in a well-functioning democracy: Media and the 4th Estate. Which reminds me of the half-arsed loanshark usuary/payday loan solution.
Stealing Green policy and trying to outdo them is all very well and good, but it wouldn’t have happened without them.
So let’s hope everybody goes Labour except for a respectable number ready to keep the wet and woke in the game. AND if I lived in Orkers, it’d be the opposite. Electorate Cloe and party Labour.
IF I’m still around in 4, and Labour still don’t ekshully get off their chuffs, the story might be different again.
Yesterday I had a yarn with my youngest bloke about whether there was anyone to vote for this election and I just cant see it.
I used to vote Mana but since the ersatz lefties screwed that one respite from neoliberalism over, there is nothing. Last time I voted for the green candidate that was alleged to be in with a chance, but that came to nothing after the local fishwrap screwed him over in a series of slanders.
Maybe Mana had a party vote last election cos I vaguely remember giving that the tick.
Anyway this time around I’ll consider the Maori Party purely because they will put a stop to the Oranga Tamariki child abductions.
Yeah yeah they are a bunch of wannabe greedheads just like the Natz, but after Green Party’s ‘gift’ to rich pricks, no one can name a party running this time which isn’t.
Bradbury’s wishful thinking is just that wishful thinking.
Robertson isn’t going to change a thing. If Labour had an outright majority first time in then maybe, just maybe he would have ditched the book balancing nonsense which any serious economist will point out is a nonsense for any economy which runs fiat currency generation.
Sure a government shouldn’t create so much extra money that it causes inflation but as we have all seen with amerika post-GFM when obama gave trillions of newly created cash to the elites and with Covid 19 when Trump, aided & abetted by Nancy Pelosi, gave even more trillions to the same richfellas and there was no inflationary effect in either case. That shows it is possible to increase the amount of money ‘out there’ by up to 15% without causing any inflationary pressure.
So Robertson could easily generate the funding for a massive housing program and Health Services revamp without any issues.
But he won’t now because he has been held captive for three years by the out-moded thinking of ‘follow the rules’ treasury wonks. Types who haven’t had an original idea since they decided to eschew dunny rolls and installed a bidet in their bathrooms.
If Labour does win an outright majority Aotearoa will be thrust into the most frustrating political era since the piggy muldoon government got up. Probably the only time ever that an even slightly left of center administration holds the reins unimpeded by closet tories and the opportunity will be frittered away on tosh – showy baubles that achieve SFA about our accomodation crisis, healthcare shortfalls and badly screwed up education system.
In fact everything they do will exacerbate these problems.
Right now the farmers are whining about not being able to get slaves into Aotearoa any more, so what does this allegedly Labour government do?
Do they tell the cockies to pay their workers more so that locals can afford to work for them? Hell no! They hand out thousands more residencies to poverty stricken foreigners allowing the slaver gangs to steal from these already oppressed imported rural workers, taunting, raping & torturing them to boot.
Aotearoa is a primary production based economy and as long as farm workers continue to be underpaid this problem will remain. Many of the new arrivals will apply for kiwi permanent residence and as soon as they get that they will run from their farms at 90 mph. That will keep going until it is too late.
Too late, will be when there are more humans living in Aotearoa than we can grow food to feed everyone.
That has happened to Australia already & they are stuck now. Why do we want to make the same mistake? At least Oz could insulate their society from the worst effects by digging more holes in the ground.
We don’t have that option so Aotearoa will get bowled into a hand to mouth existence immediately.
Such a bullshit slogan, ‘Let’s Keep Moving’. Says everything about Labour’s mind. They are trashed permanently in ‘the Winter of Discontent’ of 1999. Rich fucks who had got all their ways for 15 years and burped loudly with the eternal lack of understanding of businessmen. Where Labour should have come in.
They blamed, I construe, the lack of a Labour movement behind previous Labour govts. So they were rational in their response, they think. ‘Political Science’. Real Labour is force and heart.
+100
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