At the next election, Labour and the Greens must be better placed to strategically address “fake news” from the National Party. Labour and Green strategists must be conscious that the Nats will stoop to lies if their pre-election polling shows them at-risk of losing. A rapid-response task-force should be ready and well-resourced to counteract such lies; to do it immediately, and with energy.
The final day of campaign is upon us. Tomorrow is the “official” Election Day and nine years of National government is about to either end – or win a rare fourth term.
The jaw-dropping, gob-smacking, forehead-slapping gall of Winston Peters! For him to demand clarity and full disclosure from others – when he himself has made a fetish of not disclosing to voters who he will coalesce with, post-election – takes the Hypocrisy-of-the-Year Award from National and plants it firmly on his own Italian suited jacket-lapel.
I call upon ACT Leader, David Seymour, to publicly announce that his party will be putting forward legislation to ban low-income families from having children. He can advise the public how much people must earn before the State will issue a permit to breed.
The 2017 Pre-Election Fiscal Update (PREFU) revealed that the Nats had achieved a respectable $3.7 billion surplus – contrasting sharply with the $1.6 billion forecasted surplus in the May 2017 Budget. How did National achieve such a remarkable feat, despite reduced revenue from tax cuts in 2009 and 2010 and the re-build after the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes?. One doesn’t have to search far to find one possible answer where cuts were made to achieve their much-vaunted surplus;
The leaking of Winston Peter’s superannuation over-payment is well known. Also known is that Ministers Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley were briefed by Ministry of Social Development and State Services Commission, respectively, on Peters’ private details regarding the over-payment before it was leaked to the media and made public knowledge.
Nearly everyone has seen National’s “running ad” – a variation on last election’s rowing-boat advertisement – but without the plagiarised and illegal use of an artist’s music.
The messaging is fairly uncomplicated and straight-forward; the blue (actually, more like teal) team is a metaphor for National running together as a team, whilst other “joggers” – representing Labour, Greens, and NZ First – are limping along. It’s about as subtle as burning a cross on a Black American’s front lawn.
So many little occurrences and huge events have transpired over the last couple of months, to brand this as one of the most intriguing (and tumultuous) of election campaigns in my life. Only the 1984 and the 2014 General Elections rank as memorable. In all three, there were two threads weaving through the campaigns;
As part of my contribution to the Green party election campaign, I joined the Green’s Billboard Team #5. Our team was assigned to the Rimutaka Electorate – and it was an eventful day…
Then, at 6:10 into the interview, there was this jaw-dropping exchange between Gower and Shaw;