Posted on 07/02/2002 9:34:11 PM PDT by shaggy eel
Some of you will know New Zealand has general elections on July 27 2002. Some of you have asked me to keep you up to date on anything significant. This thread is where I'll do that. It's a scrapbook of political eMAIL letters from New Zealand's right wing -Richard Prebble, leader of New Zealand's most right wing Party, ACT; Bill English, leader of centre right NATIONAL Party and a variety of newspaper excerpts. We have a bunch of leftists running the show at present and it's all downhill.
Kiwi voters offshore reading this - our best bet at this stage is giving our Party vote to ACT and our electorate vote to NATIONAL.
GE shambles
Further papers released by Labour show the shambles behind the GE [Genetic Engineering] moratorium. Labour and the Greens signed up to the moratorium, but didn’t put in place the processes to enforce it. The moratorium stops applications going to ERMA [Environmental Risk Management Agency] for GE material coming into New Zealand but there is no other way of dealing with threatened contamination. Clark and Hobbs broke the law they passed. It was also revealed that other types of seeds such as canola and maize weren’t tested at all for a long period.
A way ahead
I have proposed setting up a comprehensive testing regime, restoring the ERMA processes. This would ensure that the risks are assessed properly and the science debate gets the consideration it needs. Then we would lift the moratorium. It doesn’t work and it has become the problem, not the solution. Our proposal means much better safeguards for GE in New Zealand.
Another positive proposal
Yesterday, I also put forward a five-point plan to resolve the teachers’ dispute. We will make a better offer to get teachers back in the classroom, then move to introduce a more professional pay structure. We will delay NCEA for 6th formers (Year 12) for a year, and work on refocusing NCEA on achievement not assessment. Finally, we will move to self-management for schools as a tool for the teachers and the parents to make the decisions.
The next big issue
Education will be the next big issue because it affects hundreds of thousands of families. It has all Labour’s hallmarks – short term political tactics that end up in a mess, just like GE. Our internal polling shows a history-making event – for the first time voters rate National ahead of Labour on education. My message to parents is that they should vote National for their kids because a vote for Labour is a vote for more of the same. Our secondary schools are crumbling and I am determined to do what it takes to fix it.
Polling
National’s support is now picking up, as middle-ground voters realise Labour can’t get there on their own. Clark’s performance last week had a big negative impact on swinging voters. Labour has dropped 10 points in two weeks.
How it happens
Please tell your media that you want to hear about alternative policies. On Sunday, I put up my proposal for a way ahead on GE and on the teachers’ strike. They were a bit too positive to get media coverage today, but I will stick to it.
Election Wide Open
ACT's daily tracking polls saw Labour crash to 38% last Thursday and National jump to 31%. TV1's poll has ACT at 8% - 10 ACT MPs.
Labour's Strategy has Failed
Labour's election strategy was to scare centre/right voters to support Labour to stop the Greens. This strategy only works when Labour is polling above 50%. Now it has become clear Labour won't be able to govern alone, centre/right voters are abandoning Labour.
The more Labour pushes its "stability" message, the more voters are reminded that Labour is dependent on the "extreme" Greens and the "repugnant" NZ First.
ACT is Winning on Issues
ACT's decision to campaign on the real issues - health, law and order, the economy, one law for all, and education - is proving a winning formula. ACT has managed to stay out of all the personal abuse, and out of the bogus GE debate.
NCEA [National certificate in educational achievement] - an Experiment on our Kids
ACT today is releasing its education policy. ACT alone has opposed the replacement of external exams with the NCEA. (The NCEA was a National policy, implemented by Labour.) The new system is proving a bureaucratic nightmare for teachers, and the lack of marks is confusing and disillusioning pupils. ACT's education policy is on the web at http://www.act.org.nz/education.
Ten reasons to Scrap the NCEA
The Letter agrees with Parents Against the NCEA which outlines 10 reasons the NCEA should go.
1. It is untested anywhere in the world - our kids are guinea pigs.
2. It has no international standing.
3. It overloads teachers - leaves little time for teaching.
4. It is grossly under-resourced.
5. It 'dumbs down' learning and de-motivates kids.
6. It attempts to compartmentalise knowledge into little bits - based on a model for vocational subjects.
7. It can't be marked consistently by different schools.
8. It doesn't tell kids how well or badly they are doing.
9. It is meaningless to employers.
10. It risks destroying our education export industry - foreign students won't want a worthless qualification.
Corngate
When the government put Marian Hobbs on TV and we realised she was in charge of bio-security, public confidence collapsed. When the GE corn incident occurred 20 months ago, what was Ms Hobbs doing? She was preoccupied explaining to the Auditor-General why she had been claiming for a house in Christchurch when she lived in Wellington.
Labour Strategists Worried
Labour strategists are worried. Helen Clark has been making mistakes. It was Clark's decision to call a snap election, then to campaign negatively on one issue - stability. It was the PM who called in her lawyers to threaten the media over Paintergate. Clark lost her cool on two TV interviews - the ABC and John Campbell. (For three years she has had no practice at tough interviews.)
It was Clark again who decided that Nicky Hager's book was a Green Party plot. (It appears Jeanette Fitzsimons genuinely did not know about the book - indeed, Jeanette's failure to ask questions two years ago does not reflect well on her.)
Labour will not survive another week like last one - that's the problem with being a one woman government.
ACT Leads, the Others Follow
If you could copyright political ideas, ACT would have a good case against National and NZ First. Both parties voted against ACT's Waitangi Bill to set a timetable for claims. Now, National is even using ACT's calendar - 2008 for final settlement.
Both parties are also now claiming to be tough on crime, despite National's policy being to continue with early release of violent criminals.
National now has a TV ad saying it will cut company tax to 28%. Hang on. National's policy is to have personal tax of 35% and company tax of 30%. A 28% company and top personal tax is ACT's policy (based on the McLeod Report).
Paintergate - the Lawyers' Story
State TV is angry with Labour. On Sunday last week they got the police file on Paintergate - which is damning. Then they got a strong letter from the PM's lawyer, Hugh Rennie. They called their own lawyer: "I cannot give advice, I advised the PM," was his reply. On Sunday TVNZ could not get independent legal advice, so killed the story. Other media decided the legal threats were bluff and published, making TVNZ look silly.
Eight Leaders Debate?
TV1's decision to invite MPs who won't be re-elected (Laila Harre), or won't have a party (Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne), has made a mockery of tonight's Holmes debate. In 90 minutes, with ads, questions and introductions, each real leader will get six minutes.
To keep viewers' interest, TV1 is using the worm, with "undecided" voters rating the politicians' answers. Most "undecided" voters are ex-Alliance and hate ACT, so Richard Prebble is at a bit of a disadvantage!
E-Politics
ACT has been pleasantly surprised at the donations the party is receiving over its secure web page - contributions have ranged from $20 to $5,000.
There were 380,000 hits on ACT's website last week - about half from overseas. The website has a link to ACT's daily media conferences, and archives of previous media conferences, the campaign launch and the party's opening TV broadcast. http://www.act.org.nz/action/livestream.html
Hidden Talent
At 8% ACT gets 10 MPs. Number 10 is Kenneth Wang - he owns his own advertising agency, and examples of his work can be seen in ACT's billboard campaign.
On present polling the following Labour list candidates would be elected: Dave Hereora, Lynne Pillay, Carol Beaumont. Labour's website says their biographies will be posted shortly. Labour wants us to just elect them and find out later they are all militant trade unionists.
That's what keeps me amased as a newcomer to this country - voting (and campaigning) on issues.
"Issues" is just another name for election time promises, and even if politicians are sincere in giving them, their fulfillment is a question of possibility.
That is why I was always convinced that one chooses a party to vote for on the basis of shared principles/values. Sure, Bill English doesn't have it, as somebody here had put it. But if you share the Nats' priciples and values, curse them and vote for them!
On the other hand, whatever Labour, Alliance, or Greens promise or do, they would never have my vote: I know only too well, that the Reds in power is a disaster - the exact hue of that colour notwithstanding.
So ACT will have my party vote on this ground, and since there is no ACT candidate in my electorate, my majoritarian vote goes for the Nats' one.
But Miss Clark slammed the allegations as "untrue" and "sickening" at a hastily called press conference in Auckland last night.
It's not bad at all when the Water-mellons (green on the surface, red inside) and Labour fight each other... but how can people with a droplet of brain in their sculls to believe all that newspeak about "GM-contamination"?
Don't they understand that there is no one domesticated species of plants or animals which ARE NOT genetically modified?
What is the breeding process? It is a process of changing (modifying) the starting set of genes. Same with the plants' selection.
Could it be that the Water-mellons are just fearful of the contemporary scientific means of breeding and selection? It looks like that, them being New Age ignorants giddy of dope...
I hope, I hope so!
It was at Victoria University in the time of 1999 elections that I was really shocked: the Alliance/Labour campaign among the students was under the slogan "Fat pigs can give more!". They promised to increase allowances, to drop fees and what not in order to harvest votes (this is issue based campaigning, nothing new), but what a language! It's like 1968 Paris riots or some Latin American "revolutionary" movement... Leftists are beyond any hope.
,,, in actual fact, the apathy of the right is to blame. "Fat pigs can give more" is the sort of thing Klark is saying without saying it. Look at what you're paying in taxes, direct and indirect and who's getting the redistribution.
EBUCK
To the far left we have the shattered ALLIANCE, who believe in what they're doing - I'll give them that much. Possibly one thousandth of an inch closer to the centre are the GREENS, who are at around 11% approval in the polls right now, then there's Labour at what we politely term "centre left". Labour's predominant characteristic seems to be keeping power at all costs. For seventeen months they've quarrelled with teachers over pay issues. You can bet your arse a lot of traditional teacher votes will go to the GREENS this time round, as they take time out from striking to vote.
The health system is in mild turmoil too, but I won't go into too much detail on that. In Labour's juggling act, they've heralded a $NZ2,5b fiscal surplus. They're keen to let all in sundry know they're capable managers of the economy etc. The reality is that farmers have had a combination of a low $NZ, very favourable climatic conditions and demand for NZ agricultural products has been healthy. Labour was left an economy growing at 5% by the outgoing NATIONAL administration and it's performing presently at around half that. That doesn't add up to meet their claims in my view.
Strikes on until election By LEAH HAINES
The Government made an eleventh hour plea to the secondary teachers' union yesterday to call off industrial action this week and immediately let non-binding arbitration begin.
The Post Primary Teachers Association dismissed the call as mere panic in the run-up to the election.
Its answer last night was simple: "No."
Union president Jen McCutcheon said the latest action would go ahead as planned today, with a ban on teaching seventh formers.
The bans will continue with other year groups till the day before the July 27 election when the union has called an all-out strike.
Union and Government negotiators have agreed an impasse has been reached in the 16-month pay dispute and want to let independent arbitrators sort it out.
However, the union will not stop industrial action till all 15,000 of its members have signed off on the arbitration idea.
Education Minister Trevor Mallard maintained yesterday that their approval was not needed.
In a move to avoid the embarrassment of hoards of teenagers on the streets during the election campaign, he solicited help from the media and schools yesterday to pressure the union to call off action.
All secondary schools in New Zealand were sent a copy of the terms of reference for the independent arbitration panel yesterday and a copy of a letter he faxed to Mrs McCutcheon calling on her to stop the strikes.
Teachers and parents had now had such a "gutsful", Mr Mallard said, that he hoped the union would soon get "a pretty clear message back from teachers that they are sick of this and want the process to proceed".
He launched a stinging attack on the union's executive, declaring a lack of confidence in them and saying he would be "relatively happy for the executive to stand aside".
He also:
Blamed union executive members' school holidays for slowing the arbitration process – suggested by union negotiators on June 28, but not discussed by the full executive till they all got together last weekend.
Said the union had twice been "burned" by having two settlements rejected by its members, its reputation was on the line and that was why it was acting cautiously.
Said the union could call a strike quickly, but dismantle a strike slowly.
Ms McCutcheon responded to the attack by saying there was an "obvious contra to that". But she said she was too nice a person to say it.
The union was sending information on arbitration to its members last night and had written to principals asking them to free-up teachers to vote on the move as soon as possible.
A decision could be issued by Tuesday next week, she said.
"If the Government wanted a smooth ride into this election, it should have resolved pressing problems in the secondary education sector 16 months ago," Ms McCutcheon said.
Secondary Principals Association president Bali Haque said he agreed that the union needed to go to its members, mainly because of the executive's history of making decisions they were not pleased with.
He believed that if principals had been asked they could have found time for teachers to vote today on arbitration with the votes counted by tomorrow.
The association had also written to schools advising them that it was their decision on whether or not to pay teachers who took industrial action.
National Party education spokesman Nick Smith said Mr Mallard's attack on the executive had the diplomacy of "a bull in a china shop".
"If anyone should go in this disgraceful saga it is Trevor Mallard," he said.
Dunne may hold ace card By RUTH BERRY
United Future MP Peter Dunne is on a high after polls showing the self-styled voice of reason may hold the balance of power after the election.
But natural highs would be all voters could continue to legally indulge in if Mr Dunne's party does play a key role in the new government - opposing decriminalisation of cannabis is one of his coalition negotiation bottom lines.
It has been a heavenly week for the Ohariu-Belmont MP.
Mr Dunne's party, which had been polling between 0.2 and 0.4 per cent, reached the 1 per cent mark in a TVNZ Colmar-Brunton poll at the weekend.
On Monday night he was voted top performer in the TVNZ worm debate and yesterday a Herald-DigiPoll put him on 1.1 per cent.
That poll puts Mr Dunne's party just 0.1 per cent away from getting a second MP into Parliament, Rongotai candidate Gordon Copeland.
With current polling making it unlikely that Labour could govern alone, Mr Dunne together with Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition could join forces in a three-way coalition to form a government.
That would save Labour from the unwelcome prospect of being forced to negotiate deals with the Greens and NZ First.
Mr Dunne has already signalled that, unlike before the 1999 election, he is willing to enter into coalition talks with Labour.
That he could now hold the balance of power has suddenly made him a more important man – a fact not lost on commentators, who have noted the friendly gestures made to him by Prime Minister Helen Clark during Monday's debate.
Mr Dunne said yesterday that though United Future had been in the poll doldrums several weeks ago, feedback on the ground had led him to expect a rise in support.
Fielding 63 candidates – many more than in the past – had been a key, he believed.
Then there's the fact that voters like a straight talker.
"They want to see an end to the silly rhetoric that we've seen over the years and they see me as providing that.
"United Future has always set out to be a centrist force and it's sometimes been a little difficult to spell out precisely what that means. The contrasts are becoming clear for people now."
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