Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
The Greens hold the key to this election. If the Greens don’t get 5% and leave Parliament its unlikely Labour will be in government. If the Greens get 5% (or 6%, 7%, 8% or 9%) a Labour/Green government is likely.
Although I remain interested in TOP’s policies and hopeful about their prospects in the upcoming general election, I am not without my doubts.
Cannabis is well and truly an election issue. For the first time ever, most parties now have written policies or have taken a stance supporting reform of some description. There is a lot to consider so to help we have assessed the cannabis policies or public statements of party leaders against NORML’s three core policies:
Given the momentum shift in the last few weeks it seems inevitable there will be a change in government.
There’s a lot at stake in this election. We face huge challenges ahead, including tackling climate change and building a more equal society. The Greens have put transformative proposals on the table. If we succeed in forming a government with Labour, we will usher in an era of progressive change for the benefit of all New Zealanders.
It has taken Coleman five years and 10 months of being Health Minister to recognise that the Government’s suicide prevention strategy is not working (that’s if you can even find the strategy), and for every one of those years and months he has presided over a system that has delivered world record youth suicide statistics.
We are not doing policy development well in New Zealand. Labour now has a real chance here to get it right. There would be time, for example, to investigate the risk-free return method first discussed by the McLeod Tax Review committee in 2001, and more recently by the Gareth Morgan foundation.
I believe that there will be a financial crisis next year (see my recent ’New Zealand’s Cyclical Growth Contractions’, 12 Sep 2017), and that Labour at present is ill-equipped to handle such a crisis. Further, it may take a major financial crisis (with Labour in Opposition) to drag Labour into the present century, just as the 1930s’ crisis belatedly dragged Labour into the twentieth century.
The most important first step is get the government to adopt a moratorium on future negotiations until it conducts a full open review of the implications of these agreements, including the risks of investor-state disputes. But that will only happen if ‘we the people’ force them to do so.
“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.