If National wins ...

[Minerbarejet]

You remind me of half my teachers at school, they put me to sleep as well.

Well, that certainly explains a lot if we take this statement at face value.

Who was it said" Youth and Age have all the answers. The people in the middle have all the questions"

I trust your snoring during class does not interfere with the ongoing education of others.

[Sgt Pepper]

I sat with a group of people of mixed races on Saturday and the consensus, regardless or race or political leaning, was that The performance at Waitangi was a disgrace and a complete turn-off for most people including Maori. The commentator who suggested in the Herald that it did more to bolster support for the TPP agreement than anything else is right.

There was one positive thing to arise out of this years Waitangi event. We were spared a speech by John Key, and for that we should all be grateful.

[craic]

There was one positive thing to arise out of this years Waitangi event. We were spared a speech by John Key, and for that we should all be grateful.

Anyone who listens to speeches by prominent politicians is wasting their time.
1. They are seldom written by the politician.
2. Anything said is deigned for the greatest impact at that point.
3. In a western democracy, even politicians can change their minds, five minutes later.

The greatest example of that in recent times is the Labour Party decision to scrap support for the TPPA.

[BlackPeter]

Your rhetoric is rather amusing at times.

Glad you like my posts and that they convince you. Remember - the definition of rhetoric is: "the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.". Thank you for the compliment!

I neither support Labour or National but will decide at the next election who I will vote for. (a swinging voter)

I am not surprised. Given that the NZ political Left is long suffering under a group of political parasites who seem to pick every couple of elections a new party to infiltrate and control, so far leading however every time to the destruction of their new "political host" there would be for a voter following them no other choice than to swing every couple of terms their vote. Let me guess: Values Party, New Labour, Alliance, Green Party, Mana, Internet .... so many choices to pick from. Did I forget any other you did vote for in the past?

Interesting that you say you never voted for Labour. You probably should do this soon, they might not be much longer around. Labour is currently the new target for the hard left wing infiltration: Matt McCarten, David Cunliffe, Andrew Little; I do acknowledge that there are still a number of electable politicians in Labour (David Shearer being one of them, but I am thinking as well at the like of Kelvin Davis), but I don't think that they will have a chance against the left infiltration. RIP Labour.

While it is good for the political right to have a bunch of Left wingers destroying any serious opposition party to the left of the centre, it is sad for NZ. We would need a good and electable opposition party, which listens to what people want instead of telling them what they think would be best.

Your continual snide comments (pope Little, Aunt Helen, etc) do little to advance your arguments.

OK - no clue what you read into "Aunt Helen". If you or anybody else finds this term offensive, than I am happy to withdraw and apologise.

Re "Pope Andrew" - I am using this term, because Little seems to control more a religion than a political party. The party faithful are not anymore allowed to think by themselves, but required to think and support whatever their leader is telling them to believe. While I find this sickening, it is still some sort of amusing.

On a second thought - I agree. While many popes in history have been hypocrites and some have been criminals and while I do not share the faith of the most recent pope (Pope Francis), do I still think that he is an honest man who only wants the best for his organisation and probably for mankind (though "wanting the best" is not necessarily "doing the best" - another thing he might have in common with some Lefties). Taking this into consideration do I apologise for using the term pope in the context of Andrew Little. You are right - this was a thoughtless use of terms from my side.

As for unions, it is ok to have Federated Farmers, Chambers of Commerce, Employers & Manufacturers Assoc. and other lobby groups but not for workers to counteract these influential lobby groups,
Corporations of course are paragons of virtue. Volkswagon. Goldman Sachs, ( near $20 billion in fines) spring to mind, not forgetting our own Air NZ partially Govt. owned and fined $7.5 million for price fixing, and the local finance coy. debacle. By comparison NZ unions do well.

You are putting words into my mouth I never used. Of course are corporations and collectives not better (or worse) than unions ... and if too large and insufficiently controlled do they all have a tendency to abuse their powers. BTW - it is "Volkswagen". The problem with unions is that they have often by law more rights than other organisations.

Example: If I ask a company to do some work for me and they than destroy my property, than I can sue them if they behave negligent or malicious. However if a union decides to destroy my products or business by going on strike (for whatever reason), than this is considered as "act of god" and there are no legal means to hold them responsible.

"By comparison NZ unions do well." Yes, Thank god we manage to keep them small. It's similar to cats - nothing wrong with the odd house cat, but if you allow them to grow to lions size, than they soon turn dangerous and nasty. I shudder to think what a powerful union movement would do to NZ - think Britain in the 1970'ies.

[Daytr]

It explains that I get bored by mediocrity, so I'm not sure why I'm not catching up on my sleep now... ;-)

Well, that certainly explains a lot if we take this statement at face value.

Who was it said" Youth and Age have all the answers. The people in the middle have all the questions"

I trust your snoring during class does not interfere with the ongoing education of others.

[Daytr]

BP I can understand how you can type with one eye closed, but two?
You must have a braille keyboard...

[Minerbarejet]

BP I can understand how you can type with one eye closed, but two?
You must have a braille keyboard...

Hows this for mediocrity.
This is an offensive statement, both to BP and the numbers of people afflicted by blindness.
Pull yer head in, Sonny

[Daytr]

Really ! LOL.
I can understand people that are blind being offended by a comparison to BP, but that's where the offense ends... ;-)
You obviously don't credit blind people with a sense of humor. I do.

Hows this for mediocrity.
This is an offensive statement, both to BP and the numbers of people afflicted by blindness.
Pull yer head in, Sonny

[macduffy]

Now, now! Let's keep the content and tenor of this thread at a level where other readers want to read it!

[Minerbarejet]

Really ! LOL.
I can understand people that are blind being offended by a comparison to BP, but that's where the offense ends... ;-)
You obviously don't credit blind people with a sense of humor. I do.

So,
obviously things aren't that mediocre around here after all.

Thought you were going for a lie down, all this effort must be getting too much for you.
Take as much time as you need, you dont want to fall asleep at school tomorrow.