NZ 2023 Election Thread

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#3117505 18-Aug-2023 11:17

You could turn that same argument around, without Winston Peters support, Ardern could not have earned enough votes to form a Govt either, thats the way MMP works. Through a variety of factors (not least of which were undoubtedly the provincial growth fund and Peters distain for National following the leaking of his personal information), his support went Labour way.

I don't mean to come across as misogynistic or anti-female in criticism of our previous PM, I am however critical of lack achievement, constant policy failures and the divisiveness of identity politics, whether reproductive organs are internal or external is irrelevant (to me).

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#3117521 18-Aug-2023 11:56

Rikkitic:

You are one of the more thoughtful conservatives here and I enjoy your posts, but your anger and contempt for Labour tend to overwhelm a lot of your comments. Ardern, with far less experience, matched or bettered the much more seasoned English in the debates. Without Ardern, Labour would have been trounced by National. With her, English could not win enough votes to form a government without Winston Peters support. All of this was a significant achievement for Ardern, a late arrival on the stage, since English would have been a shoo-in had she not emerged. She went on to win an absolute majority without Winston Peters help in the next election, which also says a lot.

I personally feel Ardern had back luck and was massively let down by some of her ministers, but of course it can be argued that was a failure on her part. I still believe she was an outstanding and inspirational leader, who was the subject of constant vicious attacks by those who simply could not countenance a capable female in charge.

I can certainly agree with this. I personally don't think Labour has done the best job across the board over their last term (noting that I did vote for them), but ultimately it would be both shortsighted and incredibly unjustified to accuse Ardern for that. Certainly the leader carries some responsibility for the party, but ultimately the blame for Labour's performance is on Labour. Recognising that they weren't exactly dealt a great hand to start with, the lack of simple things like standing up and saying "hey, I know we promised this but here are the reasons that it's simply impossible right now, and here's what we're trying to do to mitigate those" on things like KiwiBuild, is disappointing. I am not, however, suggesting that National would be any better. They might be, because I'm not psychic, but they also might not be.

I do think this upcoming election is probably going to amount to picking "the lesser of two evils" for an unfortunate percentage of the population - neither party seems especially well loved these days. New Zealand really needs to stop and think.

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#3117529 18-Aug-2023 12:07

Kyanar:

I do think this upcoming election is probably going to amount to picking "the lesser of two evils" for an unfortunate percentage of the population - neither party seems especially well loved these days. New Zealand really needs to stop and think.

I think this is really where either Act or Greens can try and stamp their mark. Neither party are likely to pull support from the moderate / centrist voters who will either traditionally go labour or national (whether dedicated or swing) without much thought beyond those two. Act will pull national voters further right, greens will pull labour voters further left. Whilst that makes it look like its still a battle between the two majors, I really don't think its the case this time around.

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#3117531 18-Aug-2023 12:08

Kyanar:

I do think this upcoming election is probably going to amount to picking "the lesser of two evils" for an unfortunate percentage of the population - neither party seems especially well loved these days. New Zealand really needs to stop and think.

Some people are, thankfully. I have a friend who has always been a Labour/Greens supporter, but the woeful performance of the current government has got her looking at all the options. Even Act isn't out of the question, and I think on the day, that's the party she'll end up voting for. It's not just left going further left and right going further right.

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#3117606 18-Aug-2023 13:21

and speaking of Act - Seymour with a bit of foot in mouth disease -

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/david-seymour-slammed-over-guy-fawkes-comment-on-ministry-for-pacific-peoples/FVSTLMS4QJENXD4Y7FMR2AMHPU/

Inappropriate language and inference used to describe a planned action to disassemble a ministry. Agree or not agree with the existence of the department, out of order to (even "jokingly") suggest blowing it up.

GV27

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#3117646 18-Aug-2023 14:34

Rikkitic:

You are one of the more thoughtful conservatives here and I enjoy your posts, but your anger and contempt for Labour tend to overwhelm a lot of your comments. Ardern, with far less experience, matched or bettered the much more seasoned English in the debates. Without Ardern, Labour would have been trounced by National. With her, English could not win enough votes to form a government without Winston Peters support. All of this was a significant achievement for Ardern, a late arrival on the stage, since English would have been a shoo-in had she not emerged. She went on to win an absolute majority without Winston Peters help in the next election, which also says a lot.

I personally feel Ardern had back luck and was massively let down by some of her ministers, but of course it can be argued that was a failure on her part. I still believe she was an outstanding and inspirational leader, who was the subject of constant vicious attacks by those who simply could not countenance a capable female in charge.

I'm not a conservative. I'm more in line with traditional Social Democrats, but I'm not so beholden to tribalism that I'm happy to sit back and watch abject failure because I enjoy seeing someone I didn't want to govern in opposition more than I want the country to succeed.

I would have been over the moon to see even a fraction of Labour's 2017 policy agenda make it into reality, but almost none of it did and there were no consequences for ministers who did not perform. As PM, those ministers were her responsibility and they served at her pleasure. Her 2020 majority was entirely due to Covid and if that didn't happen, she would have almost zero runs on the board to show for three years of government.

Unfortunately leading is more than just inspirational speeches and showing up whenever there's a natural disaster and showing some basic empathy. The rubber has to hit the road at some point and you've got to deliver. If that means putting enough of the fear of God into your ministers that they actually achieve something then that's part of the job. You can try to conflate this with misogynistic tendency all you want, but this only works if you think we should have applied a different (read: lower) standard of expectation to her because she was a woman. And at that point, why even bother with any level of accountability whatsoever?

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#3117868 18-Aug-2023 22:14

Rikkitic:

You are one of the more thoughtful conservatives here and I enjoy your posts, but your anger and contempt for Labour tend to overwhelm a lot of your comments. Ardern, with far less experience, matched or bettered the much more seasoned English in the debates. Without Ardern, Labour would have been trounced by National. With her, English could not win enough votes to form a government without Winston Peters support. All of this was a significant achievement for Ardern, a late arrival on the stage, since English would have been a shoo-in had she not emerged. She went on to win an absolute majority without Winston Peters help in the next election, which also says a lot.

I personally feel Ardern had back luck and was massively let down by some of her ministers, but of course it can be argued that was a failure on her part. I still believe she was an outstanding and inspirational leader, who was the subject of constant vicious attacks by those who simply could not countenance a capable female in charge.

I saw a very different Jacinda Ardern

I'm not sure you can say English was a shoo in without Ardern leading Labour. Certainty Andrew Little, and his predecessors didn't get the cut through Jacinda was able to get. She was a master at communication not unexpectedly given her background, but certainly not effective at turning words into actions. Probably partly due, as you said, to having inept ministers supporting her.

It would have been a 4th term for National something that rarely ever occurs for any government. Even with Ardern's so called "fairy dust" Bill English and National won a bigger proportion of the vote than John Key had in the previous election.

So far as 2020 goes in February Jacinda Ardern and Labour were on a hiding to nothing to lose the election later that year, Covid came along and saved them. The "pulpit of truth" was a fantastic way to get in front of New Zealanders every day, to be able promote yourself.

Capable female. I always saw her like Candy Floss. All nice, puffy, and sweet, but no substance. For a capable person she sure left a few banana skins lying around for her successor to slip on.

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Bluntj

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#3117872 18-Aug-2023 22:31

Technofreak:

Rikkitic:

You are one of the more thoughtful conservatives here and I enjoy your posts, but your anger and contempt for Labour tend to overwhelm a lot of your comments. Ardern, with far less experience, matched or bettered the much more seasoned English in the debates. Without Ardern, Labour would have been trounced by National. With her, English could not win enough votes to form a government without Winston Peters support. All of this was a significant achievement for Ardern, a late arrival on the stage, since English would have been a shoo-in had she not emerged. She went on to win an absolute majority without Winston Peters help in the next election, which also says a lot.

I personally feel Ardern had back luck and was massively let down by some of her ministers, but of course it can be argued that was a failure on her part. I still believe she was an outstanding and inspirational leader, who was the subject of constant vicious attacks by those who simply could not countenance a capable female in charge.

I saw a very different Jacinda Ardern

I'm not sure you can say English was a shoo in without Ardern leading Labour. Certainty Andrew Little, and his predecessors didn't get the cut through Jacinda was able to get. She was a master at communication not unexpectedly given her background, but certainly not effective at turning words into actions. Probably partly due, as you said, to having inept ministers supporting her.

It would have been a 4th term for National something that rarely ever occurs for any government. Even with Ardern's so called "fairy dust" Bill English and National won a bigger proportion of the vote than John Key had in the previous election.

So far as 2020 goes in February Jacinda Ardern and Labour were on a hiding to nothing to lose the election later that year, Covid came along and saved them. The "pulpit of truth" was a fantastic way to get in front of New Zealanders every day, to be able promote yourself.

Capable female. I always saw her like Candy Floss. All nice, puffy, and sweet, but no substance. For a capable person she sure left a few banana skins lying around for her successor to slip on.

Jacinda was as surprised as anyone to learn she was going to be PM. The only reason for this was Winstons decision which came at a heavy cost to Labour.

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#3117877 18-Aug-2023 22:54

People are going to put the interpretation on things that best suits their prejudices. Me too. The right doesn't want to give Jacinda Ardern credit for anything. I think she deserves better. Time will tell.

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#3117904 19-Aug-2023 09:14

Bluntj:

Jacinda was as surprised as anyone to learn she was going to be PM. The only reason for this was Winstons decision which came at a heavy cost to Labour.

Dead right, her body language on election night said "we lost".

Everyone was expecting Bill English to become Prime Minister.

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#3118050 20-Aug-2023 08:12

Technofreak:

Capable female. I always saw her like Candy Floss. All nice, puffy, and sweet, but no substance. For a capable person she sure left a few banana skins lying around for her successor to slip on.

Thats how I see it.

This is the Election 2023 thread but it all seems about Jacinda Ardern and 2017 and 2020. Yes, relevant to 2023, but Im not seeing any/much 2023 discussion on promises released by both parties, zero from National (unless I missed them)

The election is generally about

Labours performance, and what Chris Hipkins can improve on
Nationals skill, talent and leadership that could do better
Labours promises released to date
Nationals promises released to date.
ACT and the Greens, might they have a bumper turnout?
NZ First and the dreaded 5.00% threshold.

Infrastructure, health, education, cost of living are worth delving into, but laughingly you will see little to nothing on that from the two major parties.

EDIT: And Housing

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#3118311 20-Aug-2023 19:11

Financial literacy in schools - I fully support and happy to see both major parties are on board. I seriously hope that whomever is power adopts a current provider rather than reinventing the wheel.

Sadly not one reporter, political party or political commentator highlighted that Labour has failed to deliver on its driving lessons promise from 2017 or the school leavers education policy.

Both of the Education Minister and the former Education Minister should have been held to task at the press conference asking why their future promise should be believed given their failure to deliver on past promises.

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#3118330 20-Aug-2023 21:05

Labour's 2023 slogan, "In it for you". I kind of think it's more a case of "We're (that's the collective we, of us the country) is in it because of them" (Labour).

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GV27

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#3118352 21-Aug-2023 07:10

ockel:

Financial literacy in schools - I fully support and happy to see both major parties are on board. I seriously hope that whomever is power adopts a current provider rather than reinventing the wheel.

Sadly not one reporter, political party or political commentator highlighted that Labour has failed to deliver on its driving lessons promise from 2017 or the school leavers education policy.

Both of the Education Minister and the former Education Minister should have been held to task at the press conference asking why their future promise should be believed given their failure to deliver on past promises.

Somewhat bizarrely no one is asking how they plan on teaching financial literacy to empty chairs. There's also the added bonus of numeracy and literacy rates being well below par, but we're suddenly going to add something else into the mix for kids to not learn.

I grow a bit alarmed at this kind of policy, which seems to oddly mirror boomer memes about schools teaching them algebra they never used but not how to fill out a tax return, as if we're going to be able to give kids who can't do level two maths the level of insight needed to fill out a tax return - nevermind that professionals spend years at university level to get there. It smacks of more focus-group driven announcements.

It sounds good, as long as you don't stop to think about it too much.

sen8or

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#3118360 21-Aug-2023 08:18

GV27:

Somewhat bizarrely no one is asking how they plan on teaching financial literacy to empty chairs. There's also the added bonus of numeracy and literacy rates being well below par, but we're suddenly going to add something else into the mix for kids to not learn.

I grow a bit alarmed at this kind of policy, which seems to oddly mirror boomer memes about schools teaching them algebra they never used but not how to fill out a tax return, as if we're going to be able to give kids who can't do level two maths the level of insight needed to fill out a tax return - nevermind that professionals spend years at university level to get there. It smacks of more focus-group driven announcements.

It sounds good, as long as you don't stop to think about it too much.

I see it quite differently -

Some will find it much easier to learn if they can relate the problem to a real life situation. How often do the current generation get into an absolute fluster behind a cash register when they have to try and manually calculate change, let alone count it back? Buy something for $8.10, give them a $20 note and a 10c coin and watch the panic on their faces when the till doesn't tell them how much change to give back!

It could also help with a point I raised earlier, cost of living (and especially the cost of raising a child), start to throw those problems into learning and I think you'll see a greater level of understanding and possibly engagement.

Perhaps this could be separated out from maths when it starts getting beyond simple equations, percentages, fractions etc. There are numerous elements taught in maths that are simply not needed for a large proportion of the population, yet form part of the base curriculum.

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