TOP Party one to watch in this election

[BlackPeter]

I had yesterday the somewhat questionable pleasure to attend the Press Leaders Debate in person (yes, the one where one Chris was sick and the other Chris found no replacement timeslot in his schedule - apparantly too many babies to kiss).

I was looking for an appropriate thread to put this in ... and which thread could be more appropriate than the one from the party which they should have invited, but didn't?

OK - unpolitical observations:

• Lots of police plus a large number of hired gorillas everywhere. Didn't knew police had so many officers in Christchurch. Given that they all have been in or in front of the townhall - this would have been the time to commit a crime somewhere else in town (sorry, too late now );
• Clearly - the audience was just there to fill the seats as background picture for the politicians. We had to be there early, all herded into the foyer and having to stand for 30 minutes or so before they opened the seating areas. However - plenty of TV cameras monitoring the audience during this time. Assume TVNZ filled its archives with crowd pictures for the next decades.
• Quite ridiculous setup of the stage. The audience did sit behind the politicians and could watch during the so called discussion only their backsides. Ever heard a politician talking through their butt? This is how it felt.
• Quite mediocre acustics - I assume at home on the TV it sounded better, but the audicence had to deal with significant back ground noice and a somewhat ineffective sound system. It didn't help either that the upper part of the town hall was empty - which gives very hard acoustics.

What the candidates said has been widely reported, so no need to repeat that. However - some impressions might be interesting:

• Both Marama (Green) and the Te Pati candidate came across as incredibly racist and arrogant. It sort of felt that cis white people should be grateful for being tolerated, but clearly are not wanted to contribute to politics.
• It didn't help that Marama seems to have brought her very own group of claqueures - maybe 20 to 25 people in a group following some signal either jumping up (or lifting their hands) for intense clapping ... and as well stopping in sync - and they had been as well trained to shout in disgust when sometimes one of the other speakers said something their conductor considered as un-PC. Not quite sure who gave the signal - at one stage it looked like Marama was communicating with them directly (which was quiet funny, given that she turned her back to us and was waving backwards with the hands), but I didn't observe enough of these signals to be able to claim correlation or causation. Pretty sure, though they had in the crowd or on the side some claqueure capo doing the organisation.
• The other party leaders or reps had to work for themselves to get applause - did they forgot to bring their claqueures?
• in general not a real discussion - it more felt like the moderator (Tova) was pushing a button and the candidates just came up with the song they practiced before which was closest to the theme of the question. Pity that - hardly any useful discussion between candidates - more like an examen setup with the candidates however freuently missing the essence of the question.
• some good questions, little useful answers.
• It feels difficult for me to say that, but from the participating leaders did David come across as one of the more moderate leaders. Obviously - they didn't invite moderate parties like TOP, so lets put that in perspective.
• Ah yes, and the moderator (Tova) asked what the candidates program for Christchurch would be. Pretty telling - none of the four invited parties had any program for Christchuch. Maybe, they should have invited TOP into the discussion, shouldn't they?
  

OK enough rant.

Pity they invited a Maori splinter party but not a mainstream liberal party (like TOP) into the discussion. Are the media biassed against liberals ?

Pity as well that the Greens felt that their arguments are that weak that they need to bring their own claqueures.

Pity that both Green as well as Te Pati did a lot to increase the racial divide in our society.

Still an interesting experience (even if my back still hurts from first the forced standing and than the long sitting) - but overall a pity affair.

Looking forward to the next election round with TOP being the shining star in the discussion ;