Post by CrashOn Wed, 20 Jan 2021 18:29:48 -0800 (PST), James Christophers
Post by CrashOn Wed, 20 Jan 2021 12:36:01 -0800 (PST), John Bowes
Post by John BowesA good read for all but the sycophants like Rich and Keith. some honesty from the media for a change!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/124000017/why-is-jacinda-ardern-so-timid
This sums up the last three years well and what we can expect in the next three!
"When have we ever heard Jacinda Ardern articulate a serious vision of what New Zealand can aspire to and how we might get there? Never! Why? Because she doesn’t have a clue."
It'll be all words with no solutions much like Keith's long winded ramblings in this ng!
The reality is that the Government is moving, just not in the
directions in the time frames Bishop would like. If you look at every
one-term Government (all Labour from memory) you will find
similarities to the boldness that Bishop calls for, and the result was
that they were tossed out.
The current Government does not need to be bold but it does need to
show success - delivery - on key policies that it was elected on.
There is also the possibility that Bishop does not mention - that the
current Government was elected with a strong majority not because of
what they stood for but because most voters (both electorate and
party-voters) voted against National rather than for Labour.
I think there was very little tactical about it, too. Revulsion - and I think there was an abundance of it directed to towards Collins and her lot - is alone sufficient to trigger abstention. But to actively vote against one's long-held habits and instincts is to disavow all that you have previously thought worthy of your support and nurture. Aversion through betrayal, and it takes a lot for any party to recuperate from such a public fall from grace.
The reasons for this are manifold but, I think, centre on the one factor that characterised everything about the John Key administration. No vision, no plan , no strategy. All we had was 9 years of sleight-of-hand expediency, money-go-rounding and goal-post shifting, not to mention Key's gloriously inept "signature vision" for changing the national flag, so toe-curlingly amateurish in both conception and execution as to be deservedly laughed and kicked into the trash can. With all this came a crass boofishness complementing a smug insouciance that led this nation by the nose into total economic stasis from which it has been struggling to recover against today's unprecedended headwinds.
That would explain a one-term Government, but National under John Key
were re-elected twice.
They were, yes. But ask yourself what kind of **effective** opposition did Labour represent once Clark had exited?
Post by CrashThere is more to that than you outline in your rush to demean John Key..
Fact is, there is much, much more. Demeaning? Fair subjective comment, but it brings to notice the flick-it-on, waft-it-aside Nero-like stance Key adopted throughout his nine years in office. Neither substance nor gravity, this being typical of his own coarsely spun populist fakery. The economy had been running even further into the sand since 2007 and he did nothing, nothing, nothing to turn it around. Selling off public assets doesn't cut it. Reducing government debt may well be no bad thing; however, actively encouraging a zero-productivity housing market blowout certainly is, this wilfully corrupt and destructive behaviour having been based on the crudest - basest, even - of greed-motivated populism that advised to the "already haves", "Do as I have always done - grow rich unproductively on the back of the hard-working productive sector, never, ever by supporting and investing it, and you'll be alright, Jack".
Post by CrashSo is that all, you ask? Mmmm...not quite. How about, say, National's succession-planning? Ah yes, of course. None. Zilch, Zero. Nada. ma-fi.
Nothing could better signify and characterise a man so inwardly consumed by his own ego and selfish ambitions that he has never once considered he might not actually have the **real** smarts required to bequeath a continued quality of leadership this country really needed if it was to get ahead. So we ended up with the calamitously unelectable Collins and her surly crew of cowed and browbeaten losers.
For this inglorious sum total and all-time legacy, Key ashly knelt to the sword.
So when considering Ardern's position, severely circumscribed and overwhelmed as it has been by events no-one could have anticipated, I think it pays to stop for a moment and think about the long-term decline into economic stasis and incipient degeneration that had been dealt to her by her too-plausible-by-half wide-boy predecessor.
So what of Helen Clark? How was the leadership vacuum she left behind
any different? Come to that, what about any other leader of either
party in living memory, such as Holyoake, Kirk, Muldoon, Lange and
Bolger before then.
The world economy was changing out of all recognition right throughout those earlier pre-Clark times, but it was as if New Zealand had hardly noticed. The problem has always been that, ever since 1973 and the ending of New Zealand's **crucial** trading relations with the UK, this country has always done too little and too late ever adequately to meet the inevitable challenges that have since doggedly confronted it.
So permit me to refer you to my immediately preceding post sketchily outlining New Zealand's consistent economic history - pathology, even - of what I would term "a culture of laisser-faire indolence" that has, inexorably, led to this follow-up scenario:
"What are our chances of a substantial lift in economic political performance? On past and present form, the odds must be rate low. Our major handicaps of smallness and remoteness, the consequent smallness of our institutions and their resources, the generally poor standard of education of the ruling élites, continued commodity dependence, deficiencies in research and in tertiary education and training, inadequate savings and investment, and poor productivity will remain formidable barriers.
"(New Zealand's) dismal record of economic failure over recent decades is largely due to extraordinarily incompetent management.
"We should face up to the fact that "better times" would not exist but for much improved and probably unsustainable terms of trade...Time is not on our side. There is a need for a sense of urgency in upgrading our economic structures. Only then will we have a fair chance of making real progress in achieving a modest rise in average living standards at the same time." ("Len Bayliss's book, "Prosperity Mislaid" 1994)
Beg, borrow or steal a copy to know then meaning of a take-no-prisoners approach and analysis of the New Zealand condition by the man with **the** insider's knowledge and understanding of the chronic malaise at the heart of New Zealand's economic failings.
When you've read it -it's only 111 pp - ask yourself how different, really, are we today, all of a quarter of a century since Bayliss put pen to paper?
(Bayliss Profile/obit here):
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/len-bayliss-courageous-voice
Post by CrashIt should be noted that Helen abolished the honours system. If she
had not, I have no doubt that our former PM would have done well out
of her Damehood when the UN Sec-Gen decision came up. Instead she is
still just plain Helen.
None of which is really relevant to the core topic. Except to consider that, by her own self-exclusion she distinguishes herself for all time from a vulgar little fly-by-night barrow-boy chancer who was simply gagging to kneel obsequiously to royal patronage. That alone, I reckon, reflects nothing but honour on the good lady!