Post by CrashOn Mon, 23 Nov 2020 16:32:26 -0800 (PST), James Christophers
Post by CrashOn Sun, 22 Nov 2020 21:41:34 -0800 (PST), James Christophers
Post by CrashPost by Rich80105Post by CrashPost by Rich80105David Farrar has toned things down a bit in recent times - "fomenting
happy mischief" is no longer proudly featured on his blog, but the
primary purpose of giving the extremists something to froth about is
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/11/statistical_anomalies_in_the_2020_new_zealand_election.html
but still manages to cater for the fringe dwellers.
DPF says in his point 1 that "MMP was designed to stop any party
getting a majority". This is patently not the case and he will not
ever be able to cite any documentation to support this contention. MMP
was designed to ensure that political parties that could garner over
5% of the party vote were represented by MPs in Parliament.
Any article with an outrageously incorrect statement like this does
not warrant any further attention.
See the comments below the article from PhilBest and Ed Snack and
muppeth8r . . .
Farrar is very clever - his article (it has his name at the top
anyway), is designed so the chooks with a brain know it is a spoof;
the headless chooks see it as proof that 'we wuz robbed', that Trump
right; that NZ is the same as the USA, etc., etc. A win both ways
for the target audience. I am surprised he didn't put in a sop to
those that believe the party with the most votes has the right to
govern . . .
DPF was simply drawing a long bow - pointing out statistics that might
be considered as evidence of suspect results that might warrant
forensic investigation.
Absent of any hard evidence, it is a puff piece of little value.
Post by Rich80105Post by CrashPost by Rich80105https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2020/10/nz-general-election-2020-was-it-rigged.html
https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2020/11/21/ken-cant-count-no-the-new-zealand-election-wasnt-rigged/
The days of dirty tricks are largely, but not completely gone.
The theory that the 2020 election results must be rigged because no
single party has ever received such high percentage of party votes as
Labour did is nothing more than a theory unless proven correct.
National received over 47% support in two elections (2011 and 2014) so
why does a mere 3% more warrant suspicion this time around?
An unusually high level of National voters appear to have moved to
ACT; I suspect National was seen as putting their own interests ahead
of the good of the country.
An even more unusually high level of National voters appear to have
moved to Labour. Who would have thought that possible?
Dismay, disgust and disillusion together with motivation and opportunity are all it takes. 'Nuff said.
But never forget that the origins of National''s present-day woes lie not with the current leader and those immediately preceding her, but solely with John Key and no one else.
If anyone needs to ask why or how, then they simply haven't been paying attention since November 2008. Dupes all.
While you may denigrate National under John Key, the results speak for
themselves.
My post doesn't denigrate National per se; rather, I view the outcomes of John Key's behaviour during his entire 8-plus years' incumbency has having been the prime factor in National's recent trouncing at the ballot box. Top of the list you may place his total neglect of the critical need to address the handling and organising of a down-the-track leadership succession, crucial to the continuance of any effective, stable party and its policies. The sorry fact is, what he left behind him has been the rag-tag tragi-comedy of an unstable, ineffectual bugger's muddle of an Opposition bereft of any leadership or sense of direction; passengers on a boat slowly sinking like a sieve, courtesy of its own bilge-drilling disaffected. How could such an unforgivable lacuna possibly have happened, some might rightly ask?
That explains the 2017 result. This is 2020.
2017 was just another marker on the chart of New Zealand's slippery slide towards today's dominance of the zero-productivity asset/rentier class. It was already well out of control way before 2017 (John Key made sure of that and that it would stay that way) and the condition is now chronic. Surprised? Really?
Post by CrashJohn Key is the classic fly-by-night operator who focuses wholly and solely on his own personal advancement and enrichment. Under the guise of a corporate persona in ill-fitting pinstripes (his trousers never fit him right), he hides in plain sight as a discount retailer of greed and avarice to his own kind. Even now, I am astonished that prior to the 2008 election so few New Zealanders had the born wit, let alone the balls, to call out John Key for the blatantly transparent Arthur Daley he's always been and plainly still is. Thus New Zealand's time-worn electoral apathy and complacency. Suckers every one, and for every sucker there's an opportunist lying in wait. Even so, no-one on this group can truthfully deny I didn't warn more than once of what would transpire once such a consummate fly-boy huckster got his sticky fingers on the prize.
The 'Arthur Daley' character was a never-achieved career criminal
Key is New Zealand's latter-day 'Arfur Daley as achiever. But unlike you, cheap, vulgar, socially half-formed and unread, and never - as one writer tartly put it - troubled by erudition.
Post by Crashalways subservient to Terry (played by Denis Waterman) and "her
indoors"?.
Two words: Casino finance.
Post by CrashJohn Key may not meet your approval but he was elected 3
times to Government, and 'Arfur'?
Around the world, 'Arfur and his kind continue to this very day, just like John Key, doing a nice little earnersuckering the gullible punter, while 'er indoors (Casino finance) continues just as tastelessly crass, Rolexed and medallioned as ever.
Post by CrashPost by CrashGreat political leadership is pointless unless it results
in electoral success and National under John Key achieved that in
spades, whereas Labour under Bill Rowling (for example) did not.
Again, I was not originally addressing electoral success per se. In any case, electoral success can never be the sole guarantor of good, sound governance, as John Key's behaviour has shown. Under Key the economy inexorably stultified precisely in step with his accelerating and uncaring widening of New Zealand's already developing wealth gap. If anyone can identify a single John Key policy intended and designed specifically to redress the societal divide that was already at full throttle, then I'll be pleased to know of it. Until then, I continue to hold to the views I've expressed in my preceding para.
You continue to denigrate John Key and National in spite of their
electoral popularity. In 2008. 2011 and 2014 Key won, you lost, and
badly.
I did rather well during Key's incumbency and still do, not as an economically burdensome wealth extractor but by lending funds to the nation's infrastructure, simply because this way best serves my needs.
Post by CrashI share your view of John Key as a shallow leader, but there
is no denying he was an achiever in what mattered most.
To Key and no one else.
Post by CrashI share your
view that under Key, the National governments he led were not
innovative, but this does not detract from electoral success.
Just one more time, if I may: electoral success is not nearly enough since it can never be the sole guarantor of good, sound governance, as John Key's behaviour has shown.
Post by CrashPost by CrashLabour under Jacinda Ardern have achieved even greater electoral
success.
It remains to be seen how that success works out over time. She's got her work cut out, and then some, too much of it being down to the economic and societal damage Key cynically heaped on this country without a single thought for its inevitable consequences. Because, for Key and his cronies, it's has been and will always be, "Pull up the ladder, Jack, I'm alright". And the leopard - hunter and destroyer-without-conscience of the most disadvantaged and the vulnerable - doesn't change its spots.
Your right in that she has her work cut out, but the reasons for that
are nothing to do with John Key or National and everything to do with
her promises going into the 2017 election and the Government she lead
since then chronically under-delivering.
Like most, you know the current government now has little prospect of delivering as proposed what Ardern and her lot once so exuberantly, imprudently promised.[1] The reasons for this need no re-stating. However, consider the impossible conundrum of a rigorously independent Reserve Bank continuing to print and shovel the cheapest money ever into the pockets of the zero-productivity wealth-extraction/rentier sector while our productive sector - our indispensable lifeblood **earner** no less - is virtually on its knees to the unheeding retail-banks and the hard-nosed, fast-buck property investor. This is what our finance minister is up against as he tries somehow to support the mass of New Zealanders who, already over-committed as they struggle to fund the basics of life, can never seem to be able to keep up, let alone "get ahead". Covid-19 and the extreme severity of the response to it, mean that from now on you'll mostly be seeing little a level-headed finance minister obliged to keep rolling the boulder up the hill like some latter-day Sysiphus while Adrian Orr continues sweetly to further steepen the gradient to fulfil his mandate. Beyond madness.
You say John Key is shallow, and you're right. As an economic entity, New Zealand's economy under Key has suffered nine long years of his wilful intellectual indolence.[2] When it came to governing the countrye, John Key was the very embodiment of uncaring indolence personified. Could this character flaw have been writ even larger? I think not. But you'll have noted that there's never once been any evidence of any such an uncaring indolence in the conduct of his private finances and career advancement, cynicism, greed and self-interest being the very essence of his cold, shrivelled soul.
[1] The recent election landslide suggests that, in the light of Covid-19 and the inevitable severity of government policies to meet it, voters have largely been willing - for the time being at any rate - to 'forgive' such politically callow behaviour and the woeful lack of due diligence behind it.
Post by CrashWhat did John Key have to do
with all the failed promises Labour made in the 2017 election
(Kiwibuild, Auckland light rail to start with)?
See above.
Post by CrashFor that matter, what
did Winston Peters and NZF have to do with it?
He only put Labour in the driving seat! How trivial is that, eh?
Post by CrashWhat did John Key have to do with the pandemic and National's utter
failure in the 2020 election? The answer is nothing, John Key was
already a footnote in our history.
Answered above.
Post by CrashWhen you speak of the current Labour government, all references to
John Key are irrelevant unless you also reference past Labour leaders
such as Goff, Shearer, Cunliffe, Little and perhaps Clark.
All have had their faults - those who follow, likewise no matter their political stripe. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune brought both by a rapidly changing world and implacable natural forces test the best of mettle. As such, then, I view Ardern as having so far shaped up pretty well to what has been demanded of her and her team, the quid pro quo being the immutable if perhaps inane Mick Jagger dictum.