The ‘National won’ propaganda circus and when will the Left stop sulking & fight back?
What we are witnessing is one of the great con jobs of recent political times.
The mainstream media’s deafening scream is that National won the election, that as the Party with the largest vote they some how should form the next Government as a moral right.
Fuck off with your filthy mainstream media lies and naked attempt to manipulate the country into another term of this despicable Government.
There is NO real economic growth…
Productivity growth still missing in action
Over the five years, we’ve had no productivity growth at all, and Australia has managed quite reasonable growth. And over the last five years, using the average measure for New Zealand doesn’t mask anything: from the second quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2017, the strongest of the nine series recorded productivity growth of 0.8 per cent (that is, in total over five years) and on the weakest, the level of productivity fell by 0.6 per cent (in total over five years). Best guess: zero
…and we have just been ranked as one of the worst developed country for kids to grow up in…
The KidsRights Index 2017 is published. NZ has scored abysmally and is ranked 158th of the 165 countries in the index making NZ one of the worst places in the world to be a child.
The KidsRights Index is the annual global index published by the KidsRights Foundation which ranks how countries adhere to and are equipped to improve children’s rights.
The index covers five domains with 23 total indicators. The 5 domains are the Right to Life, the Right to Health, the Right to Education, the Right to Protection and an Enabling Environment for Child Rights. And NZ has fallen from 45th to 158th in a year.
People at breaking point before the election are still at breaking point now. They need change. People in poverty need immediate action now, they cant wait for select committee process that might do something in 18months.
It’s about time the leading lights of the left actually stood up and said something rather than allow the right wing and their symbiotic media parasites trumpet a win for National. If enough leading lights of the left could find their way to getting off their arses and adding their voice maybe the faux shockwaves of manufactured outrage about to erupt when Labour-NZ First-Green gov gets announced won’t spook the country so much.
I refuse to watch the corporate mainstream media and their vested interests manipulate the election result the way they manipulated the election campaign.
Good to see you firing on all cylinders Martyn. Once again you are dead right. We should be out there promoting our case as strongly as the bloody Natz are and not just waiting in the shadows for the special votes result to come out. Fuck the righties and their arrogance.
Funny, Corbyn’s supporters don’t seem to have curled up and died..maybe the trick is to have a “Left’ that doesn’t strangle itself with ‘pragmatism’ and agreeing with the Nats that Tax is a bad thing and that austerity light is the way forward..it must feel pretty bad to have capitulated to the greed of National Lite voters and had them still vote for a bunch of lying short sighted incompetents… while we’re at it, maybe the non voters aren’t so worried about rivers(unfortunately) and $500,000 affordable apartments and free Uni Education.
Labour had policies for wages and renters…but they took a back seat.
For those not keeping an eye on UK Labour…enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBuVZyXHMvo
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-party-membership-corbyn-rise-increase-election-general-uk-a7788641.html
That youtube link is good value – thanks Siobahn
You do like so often raise very good and interesting points, that deserve more consideration by others.
We now have many claim we must all join together, embrace Winston Peters, forget all past insults and accusations, that admittedly happened between Labour, Greens and NZ First at various times, and have them form a government to serve the people.
While that can of course be an option to take, what about the policy that Labour and Greens pushed in the campaign? What about the ‘firm’ commitments Jacinda Ardern made re water policy, standing firm against Federated Farmers and National.
We witnessed how she softened her stand on an already very unclear, not specified tax policy, how social policy itself was only reduced to more mental health and other health spending, and more teachers and so for the vote education.
We heard her make comments about climate change being the anti nuclear kind of issue we need to deal with today. Yet only few details were ever mentioned. More was to be done to bring back meal breaks for workers, and also for their representations. Some stands in their policy, but during the campaign few details.
While committing to not have the tax thresholds shifted, thus refusing the tax cuts National promised, and already passed into law, together with Greens and NZ First by the way, more universal benefits for parents with kids was promised.
Yet, there has been far too little commitment by Labour and Jacinda, to what they would actually do to strengthen workers’ rights, to increase the minimum wage to the liveable wage, to help beneficiaries (e.g. those on Supported Living Payment and Jobseeker benefits, due to health conditions and disability).
Now with negotiations to be started with NZ First, who support work for the dole, just to mention, and the Greens, who have firm commitments on raising benefits, we get more softening by Labour, on various matters.
What does all this signal the voters, who voted Labour and Greens? They will see this as partial back downs, as compromises all over the show, and something they did NOT vote for.
Would Jeremy Corbyn not have said, well, we did not quite make it, together with the Greens, as our progressive partners, we will fight on, and not go into government with a party that dislikes protests on ANZAC Day, that wants work for the dole, that objects to foreign investment, but wants to promote NZ business, and reward them with less RMA rules, lower taxes and what you have.
What kind of government will Labour – NZ First and Greens look like, with the Greens so weak, they will hardly bring anything in, as they suffered a poor result after the assassination of Meteria Turei, the fiasco with internal tensions, that is with two senior MPs, and with James struggling to get a campaign back on track.
The Greens will be out in 2020, if they go into any government as they are now, even if they may yet get another MP through special votes. To make sure they survive, the Greens, even Labour, may be better advised to go into opposition, rearrange themselves, prepare solid, good, smart policy for the next election, and fight with full blown opposition fire power until 2020, so they will win with a landslide, and can present a progressive government for two to three terms.
Labour – NZ First – Greens will most likely only get one term, as the compromises made will disappoint too many. Also will Winston be the one in the driver seat, and Jacinda will be the front as leader, not the true power behind it.
That is what needs to be considered, as desperation is not a good advice to follow.
The “pragmatism” is really just heavily entrenched indoctrination. Mainstream economics’ shameless capitulation to powerful business interests is partly to blame, but as are practically all in positions of significant power and influence. Labour NZ doesn’t want to get their hands dirty and acknowledge the class war; it might mean actually rubbing shoulders with people suffering in poverty. Corbyn by comparison is a working class hero.
Corbyn and his Labour Party went into opposition, as there was no partner to collaborate or flirt with, that made sense. Remember:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-results-2017-maps-breakdown/
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/06/dup-are-real-winners-2017-general-election
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/11/jeremy-corbyn-labour-will-call-on-other-parties-to-defeat-government
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/09/uk-election-latest-jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-says-will-aim-to-form-minority-government.html
While Corbyn initially thought about trying to form a minority government, it was in the end no option, given the very different policies and interests by the parties in opposition.
In the end the Conservatives had noone else but the DUP from Northern Ireland, a weird and backward bunch. That will prove toxic, so next time the Cons will lose, and Labour will get a sound win there, I bet.
Here we have the various possible scenarios, but for Labour it may actually be better to rediscover their roots, to focus on the gains made, to build on that, and to develop solid, progressive and smart policy for election 2020. Jacinda Ardern may realise that she needs to place Labour firmly centre left, not where it is at present, and she can hone her skills and gain experience as leader, to be a formidable campaign leader in 2020.
The desperation to make a deal with NZ First will turn out to be a high risk, dangerous and wrong step to take, as the poison chalice will come and bite Labour in the backside.
Let the Nats go where to Cons had to go in the UK, form some weird agreement with at times weird NZ First, and let that run its course, it will pay off for Greens and Labour in 2020.
I know this will disappoint many, but there will in any case be few gains made under that three party alignment, and with Nats depending on Winston, he will put a brake on immigration and much else, so the harm for the next three years will be calculate-able and limited.
Labour needs to fight full steam from the opposition benches, and we may even have an early election in a year or two.
“Jacinda Ardern may realise that she needs to place Labour firmly centre left, not where it is at present,”
Agreed, it’s absurd for a supposedly “post-neo-liberal” Labour party to still be squatting the centre-right. This skews the political goal posts way to the right, allowing a far right NatACT government to be misleadingly represented as “centre-right”, and the centre-left Greens to be depicted as “far left”.
https://politicalcompass.org/nz2017
Excellent speach from Labour heartland, UK version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0FIFsgxJV4
yep, one of the key jobs of left leaders worthy of the title; is to prepare the people for the consequences of their daring to vote or organise against their usual masters;
“capital flight”, “business confidence plummets”, “Credit ratings and shares crash”, “farmers walk off their land”, “landlords to raise rents”, “SMEs will close if Living Wage comes in”, are just some of the sob stories the media has ready to run right now
and if the torys get a real hiding, and the neo liberal consensus we have suffered since Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, comes under serious threat with Jeremy Corbyn type policies of Rent Control etc.–then you can add “Army top brass concerned about new left wing govt.” to the list
new governments need wide popular support and that has to organised, the reactionary forces have to be put on notice and resisted, and Martyn is correct it will not just happen
Well said.
These far right wing neo liberal scumbags have had their day , – more than their fair share, – and all it ever achieved was to reinforce the theft that they denied they were committing against this county.
Fuck them.
We’ve heard more than enough out of these lying bastards for 33 years.
And if you really want to know what far right wing neo liberal scumbags are all about ?
READ THIS :
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
We need to list their failures as what has to be fixed.
And talk of their greed.
Eye watering payments.
The Hagmann case.
General neglect of infrastructure. and so on.
Who are the Left’s “leading lights” – I don’t think the main streem media has any, anymore
That’s a good point. They’ve vanished from the media, and this is a predictable outcome of neoliberalism
Winstons “smackdown” of the media and their belief of the “moral” decision for him going with National was brilliant. “When will you get it through your heads, this is MMP not FPP”!
+100 BERT
Not sure if you have looked closely at the Kidsrights index but the methodology is a bit dodgy. Venezuela is ranked 64th (80% of children don’t have enough to eat), Myanmar is higher than NZ (those lucky Rohingya will be pleased to know that) and Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan are also higher than NZ despite being active warzones.
I would also be careful criticising the Nats for a lack of productivity growth. The neolib right would argue that massive cuts in taxes and government services would see individuals channel money to more productive areas of the economy and that would result in productivity growth. I doubt they need much encouragement.
Good call martyn,
The phoney media are compliant now to National and resist covering any press releases from the left now!!!!
I have solid evidence of this, because our Environmental Advocacy Centre with 16 years of public press releases is not having our docs being covered now for any of our community issues the public are concerned about as environmental issues they regard worth raising.
Just to give you one example; – we released a strongly presented political public press release and sent it out to all media sources last month and just three media sources covered our public press release before the election.
They were,
Wairoa Star.
HB Today.
Scoop media.
Now you see why Winston lambased the media yesterday rightly so, as the media are now a compliant voice only! for the ruling National Party.
For not for much longer, so Winston will use his ‘negociation’ with other parties to get his broadcasting policy enacted in the next Government so we all have an equal voice before the nation again.
Not a minute so soon.
As a country, we have outsourced the job of managing most of our professional journalists to a bunch of corporations. Most of the revenue for the commercialized public broadcasters, the ones that have so far escaped privatization, comes from the advertising budgets of a bunch of corporations. Is it any wonder are swimming in fake news generated by corporate PR companies?
In some ways, I find the massive propaganda campaign against a potential red-green-black coalition heartening. If a deal had already been done behind closed doors to keep Labour on the corporatist bandwagon – as some here have implied – surely there would be no need for such determined repetition of the lie that the NatACTs won the election? All votes are equal, but those cast for National are more equal than others…
Well this was on the mainstream media, or at least RNZ Morning Report:
‘Shared PM offer to Peters ‘wise’ – Tuariki Delamere’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201860243/shared-pm-offer-to-peters-wise-tuariki-delamere
“Former New Zealand First MP Tuariki John Delamere was an MP alongside Mr Peters from 1996 to 1999 when the party was last in coalition with National.
He says Jacinda Ardern would be wise to offer Winston Peters a shared Prime Minister’s role. He suspects Mr Peters currently favours Labour and thinks the shared role is one big carrot that could clinch the deal.”
There the trouble starts, my friend, PM should be the job for the leader of the largest party among same minded, e.g. Labour, NZ First and Greens, not left to the minor parties in the agreement.
Winston is a very seasoned politician, he will take reign, and Jacinda will be held hostage, too often. I saw her on TV tonight, answering some questions to reporters. She already looks a bit rattled, under the pressure. She has not even been a minister of sorts before, how can she prove to have the competency to be PM, while Winston has been close to that, and more, and can take her up as a light weight anytime.
What would that tell us for the prospects of a Labour – NZ First and Greens coalition or support agreement.
Get of the ganja and see reality, my friends.
Labour needs to return to its roots and fight from the opposition benches, they have more members and more power now, build on that.
on the contrary they would make a formidable unassailable combo imo:
…youth dynamism and intelligence and fresh look backed up by old politician Maori fighter
…female dynamic leadership backed up by tough seasoned male political savvy
cf. this with the old tired looking male hacks of Nactional (and the few old jaded female has- beens of Nactional)…no contest!
Why should Peters demand shared prime ministership? If he’s really looking out for the country, it should be enough for a coalition to adopt his policies and appoint ministers to carry them out. That should be his priority, not the “baubles” of a shared office.
Because the Prime Minister picks the cabinet that adopts the policies ministers ostensibly carry out.
Well said, Martyn!!
Love the parasite meme! Sums it all up really.
Whatever happens, it ain’t going to be perfect – but a 30 year rip off can’t be fixed over night.
The right is SO much about divide and conquer – time to turn the page and UNITE.
Our media need to get on with the job of reporting the news when they do too many NZers will see they were fooled into voting for the same lying mongrels. I see one of our Auckland hospitals have been offering Clinicians redundancy. This is despite 58,000 NZers not being able to see a specialists why because we have a shortage. So why are they now getting rid of them ? and why did treasury pay for an American health specialist who has just said we have too many DHBs. Why because we are heading down the same track as USA every man for himself f..k the rest.
We have long suspected that the worse our collective predicament -energetic, environmental and economic- becomes, the bigger the lies told by politicians and the mainstream media.
It is, indeed, playing out that way.
Sadly, for the moment, the bulk of the populace prefers lies to truth.
They do, and will continue to do so, as delusion is so attractive to the ones who hate to face the inconvenient truth of a grim future, unless they radically change their ways.
I have enough in my own family that rather pretend all is ok somehow, and that humanity has a future, they use it as a cop out, they do not really want to change their lifestyles, never mind the grim future for their off spring and others.
It is nothing but short sighted selfishness.