As usual, the voter suffers the most out of all of these “games” politicians play.

Any bleating of what National *might* do has to be offset by what Labour *are* doing (or not doing as the case may be.

Unfortunately, I have many hours of work ahead of me tonight, so this conversation will have to wait for another day.

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Andrew – the New Right may well rule the roost at National (in the same way that they do at Labour), and this means that we have a very New Right economic framework that both major parties agree upon (and parties like the Greens are increasingly silent on). But that doesn’t mean that there’s an incredible enthusiasm, momentum, or plans for another New Right revolution. The New Right have pretty much achieved what they wanted already. Now the parliamentary parties just fight about the crumbs and details. We now have a very different political context to that of the 1980s and 1990s – which is why Don Brash had to compromise so many of his policies and principles when he was leader of National. Read the Hollow Men – it’s essentially the story of Brash and his supporters having to moderate all their beliefs to have a chance at power.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

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As for the EB… I have already accepted that point… though they were misleading on several points and issues, there WAS more truth in parts of it than I was aware of (thanks Keith), and it does point up that I need to pay additional attention to the Defense Policy project. Some people have motives that need further examination.

I hate politics and I have nothing but disdain for people who think that the cavalry can come to their rescue after they’ve turned the horses into dog food. .

No Greens would read that pamphlet the way you state. A good half the steam generated was related to their characterization of good policies as bad. There were still some lies and but there was the little bit (and a bit more than I thought) of truth contained.

With respect to defence spending I think there is not as much traction as Keith or the EB would like there to be…. we will see…. but Keith definitely said what he said and if I ever meet him in person he will find himself less comfortable for it. Defence spending cannot ever be driven by a desire to get money for other projects… it has to be governed by defence policy and the needs set forth by the defence professionals who are tasked to implement that policy.

Defence policy itself IS negotiable in terms of what tasks are required, but the spending cannot be at the mercy of domestic bliss… though there are limits to what the country can afford… it has to provide for the continued survival of the country BEFORE any other consideration. That minimum HAS to be afforded.

Imagine a defence policy that required 3 full Carrier Task Groups with multiple strike wings embarked to implement it, for an example of that last. That would be a force-projection defence policy, required only if an interventionist foreign policy were in vogue. That’s something we CAN’T afford, but we can’t afford to be without the ability to stop ships we don’t want coming here, to protect trans-tasman traffic and to protect our fisheries.

respectfully
BJ

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Lies Whale0il…
Lies Edge…
Lies Zen…

(your comment, further up the page). The way I read that short sentence, in light of the entire comment was to take inference that you were indeed calling me a liar. With other people I might be very disbelieving if you protest otherwise, but from what I have seen by the way you conduct yourself, I can understand this was simply a side effect of “rant mode”, and thus I accept that you may not have meant it that way.

You say the EB thing is misleading, because 5 years had passed, this was the reason I commented about about the still up to date Green idea about the Peace Dividend (on the Greens Archive Home Page) which states that the intention is to halve Defence Spending.

I accept that as our Defence Forces are decimated, (have been decimated) the Greens will be able to revise the percentage of cuts downwards, but equally, the money available for the “Peace Dividend” also decreases.

We are back to arguing about semantics and shades, and to me all that means is the EB had a point when they leveled the criticisms they did. Remember, just because they criticise the Greens over a policy doesn’t mean the Greens are “wrong” as many Greens would read the EB brochure and go “halve Defence spending – great. I’m definitely voting for them; support Kyoto, fantastic; up the price of diesel – has to happen.”

My reasons for bothering to defend the EB brochure are more complex than this, and I am to explain it better via a post on my blog at some point.

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respectfully
BJ

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http://pc.blogspot.com/2008/01/minto-vs-history.html#86340999907280344 02

http://antidismal.blogspot.com/2008/01/minto-on-property-rights.html

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bj – I don’t have any facts on it, but I had the impression that Labour were increasing the amount of money spent on defence.

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Zen… I never called YOU a liar. I called the EB liars and now I have a date and a condition which rather makes some sense of this… and makes me at least partly wrong.

The EB is still misleading. If I call for halving defence spending in 1999 and 5 years of defence reductions later someone says I am still calling for halving the spending, there’s a time problem. Some things are already done and the inference that I would halve it again from a lower base is NOT real truthful.

However, that said, I have to accept that Keith did do something I regard as unforgivably stupid. He tied defence policy to reducing defence spending to get money for other programs. THAT would have been a more universal and damning criticism that is not subject to any time question. It is less forgivable in my eyes.

Moreover, it makes the EB pamphlet truthful (at least if we ignore the passage of time and events)… and AGAIN undermines my ability to support the party.

Sigh… Maybe I AM a sucker. Mostly I only arrived here 4 years after he shot my feet off. Current conditions and policies are the ones that are important and the EB didn’t do very well on that basis, but my absence earlier was important. I read Green policy carefully enough before joining and while I regard Keith as a bit of a loose cannon, I didn’t go through all the releases in detail.

I still have no choice because the damned environment is the first problem and this party is the only party which puts it in a place of proper importance.

However, defence of the country IS equally important.

respectfully
BJ

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To mark Hiroshima Day on the 6th of August ‘99 we launched a new web section on our Peace Dividend – our plan to save $800 million dollars by halving defence spending. What would you spend the money on? Hospitals and schools?

You appear to be moving from calling me a liar, to saying “yes, we did say it, but for good reason”. I don’t mind the latter, but that position doesn’t mean I am a liar just because I get the wrong impression from The Green’s press releases and other documents.

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http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR3877.html

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I’ve looked pretty hard for that press release and I would appreciate a link. It is wholly invisible to me so far. If it is true that Locke said that I can certainly assure you that it is ALSO true that he has not said it to the policy group formulating the Green Defence Policy.

A policy group I happen to have been participating in.

There has been exactly NO discussion of halving defence spending. Nor have budgetary considerations figured in policy development at all. That is I think, a correct method of formulating policy.

However….

Can you justify the requirement for ASW capability based on known and projected threats?

Can you justify the air strike wing based on known and projected threats.

Are aging frigates the best tools for the problems our children are going to face?

===

Some parts of those quotes make sense but halving defence isn’t a consideration…

Still.. if Locke did say that and I don’t question that he might have, I’d like to know the timing and the context more exactly. It isn’t policy, no matter WHAT he said, but his ability to yank the rug out from under me (even if it turns out to be with stuff he said before I showed up in NZ) is just another part of that set of distractions that I spoke of earlier.

respectfully
BJ

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There is no such thing as “roading money”? Not legally since 2003. But prior to that the Transit NZ Act used the phrase “roading revenue” to refer to source of funding for the National Road Fund. Amending the legislation to omit that phrase and create the National Land Transport Fund does eliminate the legal status of “roading money” but it doesn’t change the popular belief in roading money because that legal status is still fresh in most people’s minds.

In rebutting the claim about the deisel tax Jeanette states that the second petrol tax is paying for the health costs of vehicle use. To the extent that any tax can be said to be paying for any item in the government’s budget this is of course true. To the extent that no Minister of Finance ever made this claim in the 30 years between Rowling introducing the tax and the STCC report being published the rebuttal is false.

The problem with any pamphlet, advertisement or press release is that it necessarily has to abbreviate the facts to fit into a few words. That looses all the nuances and “limitations to the study” type of detail and makes it very easy to state the facts in a misleading way. This is hardly the exclusive domain of politicians or the EB.

Land Tranport NZs press releases on last year’s road toll state that 30% was caused by alcohol and 30% was caused by speed. This overlooks the fact that 20% was caused by a combination of speed and alcohol. So of course the two factors in isolation caused 20% each. It also suggests that the Police should be breath testing every driver they stop, but for some reason this isn’t done. Most importantly, earlier this decade when the speed percent was higher than the alcohol percent the ommission of all the facts led to the incorrect belief that speed was killing more people than alcohol, leading to an unwarranted and disastrous change in enforcement emphasis.

Just be grateful the EB weren’t in a position to turn their version of the truth into actions imposed on the rest of us by organs of the state. Ideological politicians can do just that.

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You also forget that by taking money from the defence budget and moving it to foreign aid “the amount of money the Government spends on making the world a safer place (defence, peacebuilding, foreign aid) would not decrease.” How can you possibly call that “disarming”?

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The Green Party has announced at its annual conference that it will campaign to halve spending on defence from $1.6 billion to $800 million. “We see this cut as a ‘peace dividend’ providing much-needed money for social and environmental projects,” said Green Party Defence Spokesperson Keith Locke, speaking at the party’s annual conference in Wellington this weekend.

“The saving will come from disbanding the offensive capacity of the Defence Force.

“We’ll save $650 million by removing the frigates, their support ship Endeavour, and the air strike force.

“Another $70 million can be saved by disbanding the SAS and the expensive and irrelevant anti-submarine capacity in our air force and navy.

From a Green’s Press Release. Sometimes, people can get the wrong impression with what the Greens say and do, and then what they write down. Like National and Labour, maybe they are simply getting canny and think one thing, but say another.

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“decriminalize illegal drugs like cannabis” — one can do as you do and divide the field and say they mean SOME illegal drugs, or associate an example of an illegal drug to emphasize the illegality.

Perceptual psych makes it clear that the meaning you get from such ambiguity is a mix of BOTH meanings. Even if you ultimately choose one or the other for argument, it is not possible to exclude it from your initial perception.

Once again, I point out that THEY did not use the word “some” which would have made it true and left us unconcerned and not coincidentally, kept it from being such an alarming statement. Add the word you imply should be there. The meaning and the alarm provided changes enormously. Take it away and watch the change again.
BJ

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We would do that with SOME CURRENT illegal drugs, but not all illegal drugs and the clear implication is that we have no limits. You want to read it another way, adding the implied words that I just used but they didn’t use those words… instead they ensured that the worst possible meaning is not excluded. There is a perceptual psychology hook here…. and they used it. The pamphlet writer made it very clear what he wanted people to think we think. You can go on saying whatever the hell you like apparently, but I am sure you are smart enough to know EXACTLY what was done and how.

You want to call us on our policy you quote OUR policy along with your restatements, insinuations and outright falsehoods.

BJ

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A summary that was written two days after Jeanette responded to the claims in the EB pamphlet.

“Decriminalize illegal drugs� is not limited by the “like Cannabis� clause in this sentence. It is an example given, but it is not specific. Cannabis is an illegal drug.

The statement was “Decriminalise illegal drugs like cannabis (marijuana)”. You well know (or at least I hope you do) that there are illegal drugs like cannabis and illegal drugs that are unlike cannabis. It is recognition of this fact that has led the Green Party to adopt it’s highly nuanced drug policy, are you repudiating this to adopt the Anderton position that all illegal drugs are equally bad?

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Can’t seem to find the URL though? Care to link to it?

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