If National wins ...

[blackcap]

The Nats got 49% of the vote. 51% did not want them and a million did not vote, As they say we live in interesting times.

westerly

I did not vote Nats, but did want them to be the government. Plenty of people like me who did not vote Nats that I know that still wanted a Nat govt.

[nextbigthing]

Interesting how the Nat. supporters are all full of advice for Labour and the Greens.

westerly

Just trying to help and offer the view of the majority of the country which is obviously different to yours.

Feel free to ignore it. Labour have and look where it has gotten them. Good luck.

[craic]

My simple advice to the Greens and Labour would be, give up now and join the National Party. That way you can at least have the pleasure of being on the winning side before the memory of the last time you were there becomes too old and fades away.

[Sgt Pepper]

My simple advice to the Greens and Labour would be, give up now and join the National Party. That way you can at least have the pleasure of being on the winning side before the memory of the last time you were there becomes too old and fades away.

Craic

Sorry probably wont happen, you see one party states tend to have rather unsavory reputations. Secondly bear in mind my reference to the British Conservative party as I have posted earlier, in 2002 after being obliterated by Tony Blair the Tories were universally being consigned to the dustbin of history and the UK would have perpetual Labour administrations. Yet 7 years later they were back in power. As I said be very careful about premature obituaries. We now live in a dynamic fast changing world, peoples attention spans and loyalty are very, shall we say , fluid."Rooster one day feather duster the next"

[craic]

If you continue to take yourself as seriously as you take me then you'll be under the psychiatrist before you have the chance to enjoy the great benefits of a stable, long-term right wing government. And it wouldn't be a one-party state anyway, Winston and the Legalise Cannabis party would be in opposition.

[stones]

If you continue to take yourself as seriously as you take me then you'll be under the psychiatrist before you have the chance to enjoy the great benefits of a stable, long-term right wing government. And it wouldn't be a one-party state anyway, Winston and the Legalise Cannabis party would be in opposition.

Not to mention the possible resurgence of McGillycuddy Serious Party craic.

[Minerbarejet]

Just a refresher course.
The Mcgillycuddy Serious Party manifesto

• Free dung
• Sending out intelligence agents around the world to wipe New Zealand off published maps, thus ensuring that no-one could invade the country.^[8]
• Standing a dog for parliament in the Hobson seat in Northland. Her policies included the abolition of cars, and turning a meat-works into an organic flea-powder factory.^[9]
• The abolition of money, replacing it with chocolate fish or with sand.
• The demolition of The Beehive, parliament buildings, and all other buildings on a last-up, first-down basis.^[10]
• The diversion of aluminium production away from building US military aircraft and missiles to build giant space-mirrors to melt the polar icecaps and destroy all of the foolish greed-worshipping cities of man in one stroke, thereby returning man to the sea, which he should never have left in the first place (this the inspiration of the Admiral of the Highland Navy Aaron Franklin).
• Raising the school leaving-age to 65 (after Parliament raised the school leaving-age by one unambitious year)^[10]
• Full unemployment, or full employment through slavery^[11]
• Using beer as a National Defence strategy: leaving bottles of beer on all beaches, so that any invading army would abandon its attack and get drunk while the broken bottles would prevent the army advancing any further.
• Restricting the vote to minors: i.e., ONLY those under 18 years of age could vote (announced when Parliament lowered the voting age to 18 years). The party ran its 1993 electoral advertisements during children's programming.
• Student loans for Plunket (or Kindergarten) attendance: prior to the 1984 election, David Lange's Labour Party promised to maintain free tertiary education, but the Education Minister, Phil Goff, introduced student fees when elected. National Party education spokesman Lockwood Smith promised a return to free education if elected, but did not carry out this promise. Most party supporters, many of them students, felt displeased that both major political parties had deemed free tertiary education unsustainable, but had deliberately lied about their intentions to attract votes.
• Abandoning male suffrage: New Zealand, the first nation to achieve women's suffrage (in 1893), made a big deal of the centenary of this at the time of the 1993 election.
• Full hedgehog suffrage: after a goat successfully received nomination in a local body election on Waiheke Island, the party unsuccessfully attempted to stand a hedgehog for Parliament, apparently solely in order to make "prick" jokes.
• Votes for trees: New Zealanders have a reputation as environmentalists, and the University of Auckland's ex-Marxist law lecturer Klaus Bosselmann seriously advocated giving trees (and other bits of the environment) some legal standing. The party could not decide on whether native trees should have the option to vote in Māori electorates, whether male trees as well as female trees should vote, and on the status of shrubs.
• The demolition of the Auckland CBD to create a giant sundial, using the Sky Tower as the gnomon; or to protect the Sky Tower by placing a condom over it.
• Replacing the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps with Mounted Knights, claimed as more modern. The New Zealand Army's outdated equipment became a constant source of quips and embarrassment in the 1990s — at the time Queen Alexandra's Mounted Rifles operated FV101 Scorpions and M-113s.
• Building dreadnoughts in the Tamaki Estuary: a reference to the Royal New Zealand Navy's controversial purchase of Anzac class frigates.
• An All Whites victory in the Football World Cup: both the Labour Party and the National Party used the All Blacks' victory in the 1987 Rugby World Cup in their 1990 campaigning — the All Whites stood about as much chance of winning the Football World Cup as Brazil have of winning the Rugby version.
• An indecent society: Jim Bolger's National Party used the slogan "A Decent Society".
• A potato famine: Jim Bolger's somewhat pock-marked countenance bore an unfortunate resemblance to a potato. Much to his displeasure, he became widely known as "Spud"; the Royal New Zealand Air Force, with a typicallyKiwi lack of reverence, christened his Boeing 727 "Spud One".
• Limiting the speed of light to 100 km/h: 50 km/h in Mt Roskill, (Auckland's Bible Belt), because folks there preferred to stay less enlightened.
• Linking the North Island and South Island by bulldozing the Southern Alps into Cook Strait.^[12]
• Post-natal abortion: making abortion illegal, but any mother could kill her child up to the age of 18, provided she did it with her own hands. The party designed this policy to offend all sides in the abortion debate. Thefundamentalist Christian Heritage Party used abortion as a major policy.^[10]
• Mandatory homosexuality for 33% of the population — also devised to annoy the fundamentalists.
• Free castration
• Setting up a Frivolous Fraud Office to investigate any fraud deemed too silly for the Serious Fraud Office
• Air bags for the New Zealand Stock Exchange (following the 1987 stock market crash)
• Replacing the Queen's chain with hemp: the Labour Party had a policy of protecting and extending the Queen's chain (publicly accessible land bordering watercourses), forcing farmers and iwi to allow public access to waterways. Candidate Dominic Worthington proposed replacing the chain with more environmentally sound hemp; with the Queen, of course, replaced by Prince Geoffie the reluctant. Rather than limiting the chain to protecting water in aqueous form, the King's hemp would also serve to hold together water in solid form, as in the ice in glaciers and in the Ross Dependency (in particular, the Ross Ice Shelf, alleviating environmentalists' concerns that the ice shelf might collapse and raise sea-levels). Ultimately, the policy envisaged that technology would regress far enough for it to become feasible to lasso water in gaseous form (i.e. clouds).^[13]
• Fixing accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers, occasionally accompanied by a pledge to steal some of the Monster Raving Loony Party's other policies as well — possibly a reference to political parties accusing each other of stealing policies, or possibly just silliness.
• Good weather (but only if voters behaved).^[14]
• Full employment by carpeting the national highways: this would also save wear and tear on tyres
• Breaking its promises

[Major von Tempsky]

Given that the Labour Party has said at least twice since the election that their model for a revival is what the National Party did when it rebounded from 22% then I think its a bit rich to say you won't take any advice from National voters. If they are serious they should studying everything the National Party did after 2005 to the point of sending in spies to read their organization files. But I expect it is just mouthing and the Labour Party will hive off in all directions at once as usual. They just don't have the self discipline, the dedication, the attention to detail, the organization that National has. They can't even be bothered to mount serious fund raising efforts. Just a matter of time before some other opposition party takes their place.

"The Nats got 49% of the vote. 51% did not want them and a million did not vote," That's a piece of simple minded attempted sophistry. National got 48.1%, add in ACT, UF, and pro National Maoris that's 50.4%, add in the Conservatives that's 54.5% who are/were very happy to go into coalition with National and would have voted National if their own parties had not existed. Then put Winston into an old peoples home and at least half his vote would go to National, that makes a total of 59%. A million didn't vote? That's their own silly fault they disenfranchised themselves and they can't complain no matter what happens.

[Joshuatree]

Proud to say i allowed Graham Cairns? to put a billboard up on my roadside at one election when he stood for Mcgillycuddys in Tauranga ,way back and he was serious lol.

Just a refresher course.
The Mcgillycuddy Serious Party manifesto

• Free dung
• Sending out intelligence agents around the world to wipe New Zealand off published maps, thus ensuring that no-one could invade the country.^[8]
• Standing a dog for parliament in the Hobson seat in Northland. Her policies included the abolition of cars, and turning a meat-works into an organic flea-powder factory.^[9]
• The abolition of money, replacing it with chocolate fish or with sand.
• The demolition of The Beehive, parliament buildings, and all other buildings on a last-up, first-down basis.^[10]
• The diversion of aluminium production away from building US military aircraft and missiles to build giant space-mirrors to melt the polar icecaps and destroy all of the foolish greed-worshipping cities of man in one stroke, thereby returning man to the sea, which he should never have left in the first place (this the inspiration of the Admiral of the Highland Navy Aaron Franklin).
• Raising the school leaving-age to 65 (after Parliament raised the school leaving-age by one unambitious year)^[10]
• Full unemployment, or full employment through slavery^[11]
• Using beer as a National Defence strategy: leaving bottles of beer on all beaches, so that any invading army would abandon its attack and get drunk while the broken bottles would prevent the army advancing any further.
• Restricting the vote to minors: i.e., ONLY those under 18 years of age could vote (announced when Parliament lowered the voting age to 18 years). The party ran its 1993 electoral advertisements during children's programming.
• Student loans for Plunket (or Kindergarten) attendance: prior to the 1984 election, David Lange's Labour Party promised to maintain free tertiary education, but the Education Minister, Phil Goff, introduced student fees when elected. National Party education spokesman Lockwood Smith promised a return to free education if elected, but did not carry out this promise. Most party supporters, many of them students, felt displeased that both major political parties had deemed free tertiary education unsustainable, but had deliberately lied about their intentions to attract votes.
• Abandoning male suffrage: New Zealand, the first nation to achieve women's suffrage (in 1893), made a big deal of the centenary of this at the time of the 1993 election.
• Full hedgehog suffrage: after a goat successfully received nomination in a local body election on Waiheke Island, the party unsuccessfully attempted to stand a hedgehog for Parliament, apparently solely in order to make "prick" jokes.
• Votes for trees: New Zealanders have a reputation as environmentalists, and the University of Auckland's ex-Marxist law lecturer Klaus Bosselmann seriously advocated giving trees (and other bits of the environment) some legal standing. The party could not decide on whether native trees should have the option to vote in Māori electorates, whether male trees as well as female trees should vote, and on the status of shrubs.
• The demolition of the Auckland CBD to create a giant sundial, using the Sky Tower as the gnomon; or to protect the Sky Tower by placing a condom over it.
• Replacing the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps with Mounted Knights, claimed as more modern. The New Zealand Army's outdated equipment became a constant source of quips and embarrassment in the 1990s — at the time Queen Alexandra's Mounted Rifles operated FV101 Scorpions and M-113s.
• Building dreadnoughts in the Tamaki Estuary: a reference to the Royal New Zealand Navy's controversial purchase of Anzac class frigates.
• An All Whites victory in the Football World Cup: both the Labour Party and the National Party used the All Blacks' victory in the 1987 Rugby World Cup in their 1990 campaigning — the All Whites stood about as much chance of winning the Football World Cup as Brazil have of winning the Rugby version.
• An indecent society: Jim Bolger's National Party used the slogan "A Decent Society".
• A potato famine: Jim Bolger's somewhat pock-marked countenance bore an unfortunate resemblance to a potato. Much to his displeasure, he became widely known as "Spud"; the Royal New Zealand Air Force, with a typicallyKiwi lack of reverence, christened his Boeing 727 "Spud One".
• Limiting the speed of light to 100 km/h: 50 km/h in Mt Roskill, (Auckland's Bible Belt), because folks there preferred to stay less enlightened.
• Linking the North Island and South Island by bulldozing the Southern Alps into Cook Strait.^[12]
• Post-natal abortion: making abortion illegal, but any mother could kill her child up to the age of 18, provided she did it with her own hands. The party designed this policy to offend all sides in the abortion debate. Thefundamentalist Christian Heritage Party used abortion as a major policy.^[10]
• Mandatory homosexuality for 33% of the population — also devised to annoy the fundamentalists.
• Free castration
• Setting up a Frivolous Fraud Office to investigate any fraud deemed too silly for the Serious Fraud Office
• Air bags for the New Zealand Stock Exchange (following the 1987 stock market crash)
• Replacing the Queen's chain with hemp: the Labour Party had a policy of protecting and extending the Queen's chain (publicly accessible land bordering watercourses), forcing farmers and iwi to allow public access to waterways. Candidate Dominic Worthington proposed replacing the chain with more environmentally sound hemp; with the Queen, of course, replaced by Prince Geoffie the reluctant. Rather than limiting the chain to protecting water in aqueous form, the King's hemp would also serve to hold together water in solid form, as in the ice in glaciers and in the Ross Dependency (in particular, the Ross Ice Shelf, alleviating environmentalists' concerns that the ice shelf might collapse and raise sea-levels). Ultimately, the policy envisaged that technology would regress far enough for it to become feasible to lasso water in gaseous form (i.e. clouds).^[13]
• Fixing accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers, occasionally accompanied by a pledge to steal some of the Monster Raving Loony Party's other policies as well — possibly a reference to political parties accusing each other of stealing policies, or possibly just silliness.
• Good weather (but only if voters behaved).^[14]
• Full employment by carpeting the national highways: this would also save wear and tear on tyres
• Breaking its promises

[elZorro]

JT, I have seen the mock battles the McGillicuddys ran at Waikato University from the late 70s. Back then Graeme Cairns was a slightly weird student. Very clever though.

MVT and FP, here is an article by Nicky Hager, that reminds us who National are in bed with.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-t...-across-Tasman

The National Party have recently admitted they are continuing to use the services of Crosby/Textor. A hollow victory indeed.