Winston’s Dream Can Only Be Realised By Putting New Zealand Second
WHAT DOES NZ FIRST WANT? More than anything else, NZ First and its leader, Winston Peters, would like to reconstruct the New Zealand economy of the 1950s and 60s. Given that these were years of extraordinary economic and social progress, during which more and more New Zealanders were lifted into relative affluence, and the country’s […]
Read More →The Maker Of “Men” – Masculinity and its Origins
WHO MAKES “MEN”? With the behaviour of movie magnate, Harvey Weinstein, dominating the headlines, the nature and origins of masculinity have become a hot topic. At issue is whether all expressions of masculinity are to a greater-or-lesser extent “toxic” – or only some? And, whether the ultimate liberation of womankind is contingent upon the unequivocal elimination of the culturally constructed beings we call “men”?
Read More →Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution – Or Not?
“THESE TALKS ARE ABOUT A CHANGE in the way this country is run. Both economically and socially.” That is how Winston Peters characterised the government formation negotiations currently drawing to a close in Wellington. But, what could his words possibly mean, in practical terms?
Read More →The Hallelujah Song
In the absence of the Left’s uplifted voices, Winston will take what he can get from the Right. Better to deal with people who have never known that such transformational music exists, than be disappointed by Labour-Green politicians who no longer consider the Hallelujah Song worth singing.
Read More →Adults In The Room?
WHAT’S GOING ON, JACINDA? Why has the former Labour Finance Minister, Sir Michael Cullen, and Helen Clark’s former Press Secretary, Mike Munro, been invited on to your team of negotiators with NZ First? And, while we’re on the subject of Labour’s Rogernomics Generation, why was Annette King sent to ride shotgun alongside you for the duration of the election campaign?
Read More →Bryan Gould To Labour: This Is No Time For “Conventional Answers”
BIG UPS TO BRYAN GOULD. Perhaps anticipating a disappointing choice from NZ First on 12 October, the former Vice-Chancellor of Waikato University has put the rhetorical boot into Labour’s fiscal and monetary caution.
Read More →The Difference Between Jeremy And Jacinda, Is The Difference Between Government And Governance
Even if Winston Peters deigns to make her our next Prime Minister, Jacinda has made it very clear that she hasn’t the slightest intention of frightening the Establishment’s horses; and that her own – and Labour’s – determination to provide good and responsible governance to all New Zealanders, from the top down, will not falter.
Read More →The Last Thing Progressive New Zealand Needs Is A Coalition Of Contradictions
IT IS POSSIBLE to want something too much. The New Zealand progressive community’s hunger for power – so shamelessly on display since Election Night – has led it to treat Labour, the Greens and NZ First as unambiguously progressive entities capable of working together without fault or friction.
Read More →MMP With FPP Characteristics: New Zealand’s DIY Electoral System
MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about who “won” the 2017 General Election. Sharp differences have emerged between those who have judged the outcome as a clear National victory, and those who insist that Labour, with the assistance of the Greens and NZ First, has every right to anticipate forming a new government.
Read More →What If? Some Random Thoughts about The Next Three Weeks
WHAT IF, three weeks from today, National decides that an acceptable deal with NZ First just isn’t on “the cards that count”?
Read More →You’re Wrong Keith: We Have To Do This NOW.
KEITH RANKIN IS WRONG about Jacinda needing to lose this election. If that’s what happens on Saturday: if National somehow hauls itself back onto the Treasury Benches; then it is the purest folly to suppose that the election of 2020 will be a Labour walkover. If the Centre-Left cannot win in 2017, then the question that begs to be answered is: “Can it win at all?”
Read More →1969: The “Nearly-But-Not-Quite” Election
“WE’VE GOT IT!” Was the triumphant (if incautious) assertion of the supposedly neutral Professor Bob Chapman on the night of the 1969 “nearly-but-not-quite” general election. The worthy professor should perhaps be forgiven for his premature psephological ejaculation. He had marked down the electorate of Eden as the seat Labour was bound to take if it was on-course to becoming the government.
Read More →VOTE!
IF, ON ELECTION NIGHT 2017, you end up staring at the numbers in horrified disbelief. If National proves the people at Reid Research are the best pollsters in the business. If the Jacinda Train runs out of puff several percentage-points short of being able to form a government. If the Greens: the dear, earnest, tree-hugging Greens; fall below the 5 percent MMP threshold. If, after all these calamities, you’re casting about in your anger and your grief for an explanation, then reclaim from the back of your mind this crucial piece of information from Elections New Zealand.
As at 15 September, just over a week out from Election Day, “nearly 20,000 fewer young people under 30 [have] registered compared with 2014”.
Read More →This is still a fight: Some thoughts on the Newshub-Reid Research Poll
Labour thought it could bluff its way through this election with warm fuzzies and vague promises. They assumed that these would be enough because the electorate has grown weary of the National Government. Well, the Newshub-Reid Research Poll has reminded them in no uncertain terms that this is still a fight.
Read More →Let’s elect ourselves a progressive government with the politics of addition – not subtraction
THE BIG QUESTION confronting progressive voters in this election is: how do they elect a genuine centre-left government? Is this best achieved by abandoning the Greens and delivering the entire progressive vote to Labour? Or, should at least some progressive voters step off the Jacinda Train and re-board the Greens – thereby delivering Labour a reliable and ideologically compatible coalition partner?
Read More →Tales From A Possible Future: Expanding The Tax Working Group
THE FIRST SIGN that Jacinda Ardern’s would be a very different sort of Labour Government came early.
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