If National wins ...

[elZorro]

Iceman, papers released yesterday show that John Key has been guilty of spin-doctoring, or worse.

Key’s $1b Solid Energy request in doubt
Newly released papers raise fresh questions over Prime Minister John Key’s claim that Solid Energy asked for $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to fund its transformation into a massive resources company.
Key made the claim earlier this year when it was revealed the state-owned coal miner was on the verge of collapse under the weight of almost $400 million in debt. …
Solid Energy’s business proposal said the Government’s willingness to forgo dividends from Solid Energy and Kupe were essential for the project to proceed, and it would require extra equity of up to $1 billion on top of that to fund the expansion.
However, it did not seek that from the Government in the proposals, saying: “All this can be achieved … without requiring a direct Government equity contribution (other than forgoing dividends from Solid Energy and Kupe for up to 5-10 years).”

This is not just a case of a momentary “brain fade” from Key. He made the claim repeatedly, tried to justify it, but the claim is not true. Once again, John Key has been caught in a lie.

[iceman]

Absolutely correct slimwin. Sadly for every extreme action like the London/Stockholm ones we are seeing now, you will get a "response" from the nutters on the other side, one way or another. Racial tension is very real all over Europe now and quite scary.

[slimwin]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=10885841

I, for one, pulled out when the greens and labour threw their ankle tap so they must bear some responsiblity for this. I know of others that did too.

[elZorro]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/n...ectid=10886148

The current oldies in NZ (the ones who benefited from booming house prices) need to have a good look inside themsleves come next election ...

I think a lot of us are lucky that interest rates are very low at the moment, Belgarion.

The latest polls are showing National on about 47-49%, still good, but trending down.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/budget-...olls-ck-140645

David Shearer was just on TV, I saw a well poised Leader, he got the simple messages across, even to the last words. Smiled all the way through, no problem.

54% of people like the new power pricing policy from Labour/Greens. David Shearer was at pains to point out that they might not need the Greens after the election, if they get enough votes. Probably didn't want to scare votes off. It's probably true that Labour will be hoping the Greens run a stable run for office, not too much hard left policy that National can pick up on.

Have a look at the trending poll data: an increasing portion of the public (40%) think John Key talks down to people. He's got his own problems leading up to 2014.

http://www.reidresearch.co.nz/TV3+POLL+RESULTS.html

[craic]

LZ, thats the greatest heap of wishful thinking I have seen in a long time. I don't take too much notice of polls but the stuff I saw on last nights news clearly stated that National had recovered from a recent glitch and were now in a state where they could govern alone on the figures. The Greens were down a fair amount. The performance from David Shearer was as underwhelming as usual. the prospect of a Labour led Government is slipping away with news from our Western Island that many Kiwis are coming home and dissolusionment is setting in over there. Their Labour Govt., is heading for a train crash and in the UK I would suggest that a major move to the right is happening before your very eyes. I, and my family, here and in the UK, are insulated from any mess that may occur, but that is entirely through our own efforts so any changes in power have little effect.

[Major von Tempsky]

Yeah EZ, watch your TV news from time to time.
"The latest polls are showing National on about 47-49%, still good, but trending down."
Take out the spin and look at the news and its 49% and both Labour and Green and Shearer took sizable hits.

Who are Reid Research?

Oh, I geddit. Any tuppenny obscure outfit that comes up with a "result" you like better is quoted approvingly and all other polls are suppressed.

[elZorro]

Yeah EZ, watch your TV news from time to time.
"The latest polls are showing National on about 47-49%, still good, but trending down."
Take out the spin and look at the news and its 49% and both Labour and Green and Shearer took sizable hits.

Who are Reid Research?

Oh, I geddit. Any tuppenny obscure outfit that comes up with a "result" you like better is quoted approvingly and all other polls are suppressed.

There were two poll results of 1,000 people, one had National at 49%, one at 47%. The error is about +-3%.

Colin James has some powerful observations today.

Colin James's Otago Daily Times column for 28 May 2013


Lining up Greens for a role in the cabinet


Two years ago at its Queen's Birthday weekend conference the Green party agonised over whether to go into the government if asked. There will be no such agony this coming weekend -- at least not at the leaders level.

Metiria Turei and Russel Norman are clear: if their side of politics gets the numbers in the next election they will be in a Labour-Green cabinet, provided only that they do not have so few MPs they lack real influence.

This weekend they will promote a "fit to govern" strategy, then roadshow it round the branches and settle it at an end-of-year hui -- with the usual grassroots accountability.

Two years ago the Greens debated whether to downscale their position on backing a National-led government from "extremely" unlikely to "highly" unlikely. They did downscale, partly because the 2008 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with John Key had worked well on insulating houses and five smaller initiatives. But this term they could not find enough common ground to extend the MOU.

Since then the Greens' anti-National rhetoric has got shriller. They and Labour have several times lined up, notably on housing, the manufacturing "crisis", the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) fiasco, the convention-centre-for-gambling-licences deal and state-owned enterprise selldowns -- plus a high-profile joint launch of a policy to buy all the electricity off the generators to cut the cost to consumers.

In this way a two-party coalition-in-waiting is growing organically. Occasionally, Winston Peters joins. His public comments are more often nearer the Labour-Greens' line than National's.

In 2011, given John Key's stratospheric popularity and Labour's hangover after nine years in office, voters did not perceive an alternative government. They spread their votes. Now a Labour-Greens alternative government is becoming visible. That is not to say voters will go for it. But there will likely be a serious contest of personalities, policies and ideas.

But this contest is not just across the divide, against National and its ragtag lot. It is within the coalition-in-waiting.

National does not have an own-side contest. The Maori party is buy-able with small beer. John Banks and Peter Dunne are in Parliament only because National dealt them in and that would likely apply if National reached out for Colin Craig. (Hence National's anti-democratic self-interest in blocking MMP reform.)

On the Labour-Greens side there is one big point of agreement: that the economic policy orthodoxies of the past 30 years have frayed and root-and-branch rethinking is needed. They agree also on greater weighting to environmental and biodiversity issues in the context of economic and other development and on the state doing more for the less-well-off.

But there are also large differences.

The biggest is that the Greens see themselves as a vanguard to a different way of living and see Labour as essentially adjusting the orthodox. For example, Greens say, to the extent Labour subscribes to "environmental economics" that is still GDP-based thinking -- producing and consuming more. The Greens' "ecological economics" centres on maintaining stocks of resources and biodiversity, both, they say, under threat.

The Greens' logic is that eventually voters will see they are the way, the light and the truth, as voters in the 1930s Depression came to adopt Labour's social democracy.

But Labour, like National, knows most voters, at least for now, don't subscribe to that way-light-truth and have an atavistic desire for more things, including more fossil fuels.

So, while Labour is ramping up its environmental positioning in a series of seminars got up by Maryan Street (who on Saturday promised to repeal Amy Adams' big resource management changes), it is promising a nicer "more", not fundamental change. Labour can be innovative -- Davids Parker and Cunliffe have been searching out old and new ideas to supplement market-think -- but not revolutionary.

There are many lower-level differences. The Greens are economic nationalists (so is Winston Peters) and Labour (mostly) backs free trade. Norman wants quantitative easing and backs Reserve Bank funding of the state. Labour thinks that won't work here. The Greens are far more peace-oriented and took a harder line on the GCSB.

There is also electoral tension. The Greens want more than their current 14 seats in 2014, to get more leverage; Labour wants them back to 10 seats or so -- but not so low they risk a sub-5 per cent vote in 2017.

The Greens well know the withering cost of compromise to every small government-support party since 1996. But they also know they have to get their hands dirty in government if they are to bring a wider span of voters to their way-light-truth. And they are bigger and much deeper-rooted than previous support parties.

So this weekend they start a new phase in the 40 years of green national politics since 1972. There hasn't been anything vaguely like it since 1931.




--
Colin James, Synapsis Ltd, P O Box 9494, Wellington 6141
Ph (64)-4-384 7030, Mobile (64)-21-438 434, Fax (64)-4-384 9175
Webpage http://www.ColinJames.co.nz

[elZorro]

National gets a lot a mileage from providing a small amount of assistance to the Food in Schools programme. Again, just a few $million. One of my right-voting colleagues was wondering why all schools couldn't access it, and why National were doing this at all. Five years into office, they finally join the programme, hmm, I wonder.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...ood-in-schools

TV3 had a clip of this programme running in a school, only a few takers at 8.00 before school, not a lot of cost involved, you had to feel for those kids who needed the meal. John Key was then asked what could be done to ensure all kids were well fed at home, and he rambled on about 50% of those on the dole not asking for extra handouts, so it was possible to budget.

Here's the real answer he needed to admit: on the whole, if their parent(s) had a decent paying job, there would be no issue.

Newsflash - more manufacturing jobs would be handy for the people in this demographic.

[iceman]

Here's the real answer he needed to admit: on the whole, if their parent(s) had a decent paying job, there would be no issue.

What load of rubbish. The people not feeding their kids do so because the are useless and irresponsible parents, it is not that they can't afford to give their kids Weetbix in the morning. This silly notion about Government having responsibility to feed children at school will not change anything and is the wrong response to the problem of irresponsible idiots having children that they don't want to provide for

[elZorro]

I did qualify it, I said "on the whole", Iceman.

Anyway, for whatever reason, those kids are there, and at some expense to taxpayers, they have a right to a quality free education until they're 15. If Sanitarium want to stump up some Weetbix in lieu of income tax, and Fonterra to supply milk in the wake of higher domestic prices (and this supply of goods would in both cases be written off as advertising), then fine. National could almost be accused of electioneering with this stunt, using taxpayers money. Are they doing it for the right reasons?

Hone Harawira's plan is closer to what would be required if a sea-change was to be effected. That requires a bit more commitment.