Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
I am concerned at your reported comments in the media – particularly those in the Waikato Times – where you are reported to have stated that you “have the full confidence of the Board”, in relation to the issues arising from the CEO’s expenses, As this issue was not raised with the full Board, there is no basis for you saying this, and it is not accurate.
It would be much more appropriate for New Zealand to scrap ANZAC DAY (25 April – dated for the landing at Gallipoli in World War I) and shift our national remembrance of war to 12 July – the day in 1863 that imperial troops crossed the Mangatawhiri River and the great war for New Zealand began.
Kia ora Mr Peters,
With the counting of Special Votes, a clearer picture has emerged as to what voters in this country have chosen. The majority have voted against National and it’s allies.
At 2PM today (7 October 2017), the Electoral Commission announced the final vote results, including some 446,287 special votes cast (17% of total votes cast).
As a result, National has lost two seats and the Greens and Labour each pick up one seat in Parliament. The Green’s Golriz Ghahraman and Labour’s Angie Warren-Clark enter Parliament on the Party List.
You can feel mainstream media’s frustration with the news-vacuum created by the two week period necessary to count the approximately 384,072 (15% of total votes) Special Votes that were cast this election.
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?
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.
Two current Radio NZ stories in quick succession have shown the strong link between some suicides and bullying. In one, an MSD investigator wrongly told a beneficiary she had been overpaid $22,000 and that she would be prosecuted to recover the money – less than a day later she was a suicide victim, yet the MSD shortly afterwards told the victim’s mother that the claimed debt was incorrect, and it was eventually waived.
Mainstream journalists continue to struggle with multiparty governance. And the amplified rhetoric resulting from their struggle creates doubts amongst the captive consumers of mainstream media. While we wait for the votes to be counted in our 2017 election, now is a good time to review the evolution of party-based government in New Zealand, and to consider the impediments to progress towards mature multiparty democracy.
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.