Letter to editor of Sunday Star Times
The Sunday Star Times published my letter today in response to Matthew Hooten’s column of last week:
Dear Editor, Matthew Hooton (SST 6-1-08) accuses the Greens of being Labour’s poodle. Well it’s true there is a lot of yapping in parliament but who is it really coming from?
Which party got in behind Labour’s decision to allow GE food and food of unknown origin onto supermarket shelves? The National Party.
Who is comfortable with Government inaction on industrial dairy’s pollution of rivers, and relaxed about taxpayer subsidies to cover dairy’s greenhouse emissions? National again.
Which party cheers when Labour encourages foreign ownership of our land, provides bipartisan support for George Bush’s spy base at Waihopai, supports Labour’s plan for a trade deal with China, and couldn’t agree more with Labour’s motorway spending spree which comes at the expense of desperately needed public transport? Of course it’s National.
On so many critical issues, the National Party lopes happily alongside the Government regardless of the costs to people and the planet.
The Greens will continue to fly an independent flag for sustainability, justice, peace and democracy; while, on so many issues of the day it’s your party, Matthew, not mine that’s Labour’s rottweiler.
Dr. Russel Norman, Green Co-leader
Matthew, like many on the right anti-green side of politics, is unhappy about the Electoral Finance Act. But he should get over it. MMP means that, issue by issue, different parties find themselves on the same side or a different side. The Greens vote for legislation that moves towards our policy, and vice versa, not whether Labour and National supports it. And the reality is that on so many issues Labour and National are much closer to each other than they are to us.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Well written Russel.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Electoral Finance Bill (Act).
Bought and sold, poodles….
January 13th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
it’s not very often i’m left speechless..russell..
we should ‘just get over it’..?..you say..?
(splutter..!..curse..wtf..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
btw..stop denigrating a fine breed of dog..
(you should be so lucky..!..)
January 13th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
BluePeter
For that to be true we would have to have no reason to want the EFB. For reasons that are counted in large denomination notes, we DO want the EFB. We may not like the way it was provided, but this is politics, not a ritual purification.
Try again.
Phil…. I know you don’t like the bill as it is, and as it WAS it would have caused me to bolt the party, but it is not as bad as the alternatives appear to me. We both know that we’re not going to get a purebred out of this process so what is your real beef here? The process? What alternatives do we really have?
BJ
January 13th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
too many beefs to list..
it may take far less time for you to list what is good about it..?
“what alternatives..?”
ah..!..nostalgia..!
the t.i.n.a. argument..
spawned by roger douglas..?
wasn’t it..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 13th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
What is t.i.n.a. ?
January 13th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
there is no alternative..
the mantra of the rogernomes..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 14th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Ah… but that is not what I was saying. Many thanks for the referent though.
The alternatives available to the Greens were to oppose from the start, which gets us no bill and no protection from the financial abuse that nearly caught us in the last election, or to accept and modify,,, or to abstain We had no power to propose.
As to the alternatives themselves, the ones on offer appear to be to give the government over to the wealth party until the next revolution, to campaign for restrictions on the use of money to obtain power or to establish a hereditary monarchy (see the first option). Everything else is details.
I think you have a particular detail (anonymous donations) that makes this bill particularly distasteful.
There are always alternatives and it is often useful to state them. If only so as to confirm the reasons one must dine on unpalatable measures (political sausage).
A similar question - What are my alternatives to being a member of the Green Party?
respectfully
BJ
January 14th, 2008 at 12:32 am
the maori party..?
and just one..?
the greens refused to vote for an exemption for online stuff..
um..!..a peoples forum..?
the main parties are still being bought..
(need i go on..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz..
i repeat..what was/is good about it..?
January 14th, 2008 at 12:50 am
and of course..the denigration by hooten is accurate..
going on the record to date..
how can it not be ..?..bj..?
under this (green supported..in various modes.).labour govt..
deforestation is up..
reforestation is down..
our rivers/streams are awash in cow manure/farm runoff..
and in far worse state than when labour/grns came to power..
and labour is just pimping “..more..!..more..!..”
nothing has been done about the horrors of factory farming..
human health stats suck..
c’mon bj..tell/show me one thing the greens have achieved for the environment..
in these nine long years..
just one..?
(cue tumbleweeds..)
i mean..if we are calling the new democrat-dominated senate a bunch of useless b*st*rds..
cos’ they have not done what was/is needed..
and in fact have done just the opposite..
and are therefore complicit in the ongoing ‘crimes’..
how on earth can the greens expect to avoid such approbium..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
BJ,
Please name one election in NZ which was bought. You forget (convieniently) that the EBs, for all the money they spent probably cost National the election.
If anything, what we will see this year is Labour using our own money to buy the election. How do you reconcile that?
January 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am
what that guy said
January 14th, 2008 at 8:49 am
It cost National the election because National LIED about not knowing what was going on. How many votes would Labour and the Greens lost if we hadn’t cottoned on to what was really going on?
January 14th, 2008 at 9:02 am
bjchip
Which election since 1999 was bought, and by whom?
Please demonstrate cause and effect.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Actually I spose it was just Brash who lied.
Hasn’t all this been done BluePeter? Perhaps not satisfactorily, but its probably in the archives.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:54 am
>>Hasn’t all this been done BluePeter?
Yes, sadly. No one can yet name the election, or the buyer.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Mmmm…but how could you provide evidence without electoral reform of *some* kind?
January 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
What a waste of a reply. Apart from “The Greens will continue to fly an independent flag for sustainability, justice, peace and democracy” that was utter twaddle.
Describing the greens as “not National” will not, in my opinion, further the cause.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:50 am
The letter to the editor makes some excellent points about the increasing ideological and policy positions of Labour and National. But it doesn’t exactly refute the ideas that the Greens are becoming poodle-like themselves. Since the Greens left the Alliance, they’ve been somewhat less critical of Labour. I assume this is part of the Green’s long-term trajectory towards the right, perhaps to eventually becoming a non-left centre party?
In terms of parties buying elections in NZ, I too would be interested to know which elections the Greens think were bought. There’s no doubt that money has some influence in elections, but the Greens tend to exaggerate this beyond usefulness. If you look at how much *private money* the parties have spent in election campaigns, you’d have to go way back to 1993 to find the highest spending party winning an election. And if you look at big-spending parties like Act you’ll see that they can’t seem to buy themselves any real credibility with voters. They’ve spent absolutely millions of dollars, and after all that they’re only about 1% in the polls! For more examples, see my post on ‘Political finance and inequality in New Zealand’ at: http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2007/10/political-finan.html
Or ‘Jane Clifton: Money does not ‘buy elections’ in NZ’ at: http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2007/11/jane-clifton-mo.html
Bryce
January 14th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Phil Ur said…
tell/show me one thing the greens have achieved for the environment..
Only one?
Ok: http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10814.html
peace
W
January 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
is that it..?
that’s the extent of your rebuttal/riposte..?
so..just so i’m'clear’ on this..
we’re ‘doing something’ about polluted coastal wetlands..
but doing nothing about the sh*t pouring from dairy farms..etc..
that is causing that pollution in the first place..(!)..?
um..!..isn’t there a name for that sort of thing..?
something about ‘bolting horses’..?..and stable doors..?
not to mention..having your head firmly up your ars*..eh..?
(still..nevermind..nice ‘to be seen to be doing something’..eh..?..)
i’m not convinced..mr/ms bliss..
i think you need to show us more..eh..?
and..whatever you do..!..
don’t mention that (unfortunate) solar hot water cylinder business/’unpleasantness’..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz
January 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I would recommend watching “The Future of Food”. One thing that I found chilling was the quote from Monsanto who said they basically didn’t care who won the next US election as they had donated enough money to be looked on favourably by both the Republicans and the Democrats.
This is the whole point of the EFB, as imperfect as it may be.
It is sad to see opponents of the EFB using the supposed obstacles of free speech of the little people being used as a human shield for the major players who are the ones who will have their wings clipped severely.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Just had a thought about the EFA and frogblog, Russel.
We know there’s an exemption in the EFA for ‘blogs, but that only applies to non-commercial blogs. I don’t know exactly how frogblog is written, but if it’s part of your job, or frog’s job, to write it (and you or it, or they get paid to do it) then you probably don’t fall within that exemption.
If this is true that you or frog are paid, then how about a disclosure statement? I’m interested to know the identity of the person in the green costume. And while I don’t care about the home address, apparently that should be forthcoming too
January 14th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
scott..scott..!
dear boy..!..
that is just the point..!
it dosen’t do that..!
(repeat slowly..after me..
“it dosen’t do that’..)
got that..?
and frog..?
it looks like the edgey one..has gotcha..!..
(btw..i’ve linked to this thread..in part to preserve it before the post-comment sanitising/editing done on frogblog..sucks any life out of it..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 14th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Edge - that’s a very good question. I don’t know how the legislation (or anyone else) defines commercial websites. But Frogblog is definitely commercial in the sense that it is operated and paid for as part of a professional operation - it’s certainly not an amateur site run by unpaid activists. But then again, it doesn’t really seek to make profits, and nor does it have any streams of revenue. It’s only real return is winning of votes, which is increasingly a commercial affair, but not really inherently commercial.
Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz
January 14th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I asked the EC about posting on internet forums. i.e not specifically “a blog”, and forums that run advertising, therefore presumably not “non-commercial”.
The EC could not tell me the answer. They did not know.
Simple question, one would have thought. And remind me who voted down the internet amendment, again?
January 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Roman, BluePeter, Bryce
I am here partly because I don’t have any desire to be in a country where elections ARE bought. So far in this country, this has been avoided. Last election it was avoided by the incompetence of the EB and National in keeping secrets… but elections get influenced by money in every democracy and it is recognized as a problem in every democracy.
http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2006/Aug/01-62833.html
(you have to go about 2/3 down the questions to get to the financing questions. I use this as a reference because the bulk of people addressing
the problem elsewhere are on the left and I actually want you to acknowledge that in fairness unequal money IS A PROBLEM FOR ANY DEMOCRATIC PROCESS) .
Of course, money isn’t the ONLY problem. Once the dirty tricks get a leg up, everyone seems to get into the act…. this is a VERY recent and fascinating example
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__080110_obama_clinton_ 3a_remar.htm
So… I submit to you that the 2004 presidential campaign in the USA was effectively “bought” by the few individuals financing the “Swift-Boat” campaign against Kerry. For good measure of course, there was rampant election fraud in Ohio. Overall the money going into the campaigns attracts vultures and con-artists of every type and the electoral process in the USA is now so damaged as to be unlikely to produce an honest result again. The contests are between rival dirty-tricks campaigns and smear campaigns and the whole thing costs billions of US $ every election cycle. I am sure you’d love it, but in terms of open and fair democracy, it sucks swamp water.
You are correct that you cannot simply buy an election. It has always been more complicated than JUST having money, particularly in a FPP electoral system ( Perot proved that ). The problem is that you cannot campaign or compete in an election WITHOUT having massive amounts of money. This opens the door to corruption just as surely as sunrise. Once the corruption takes hold it is permanent as the “wealth party” can, once installed, protect its privileges and increase them until it cannot be dislodged. That is the current situation in the USA and the differences between Democrats and Republicans are quite miniscule. Both are branches of the wealth party.
This bill needs to be better than it was and is and needs more citizen input than it got and I think you need to consider which party managed to get further consideration of the bill and improvement of the process. You want to rubbish the bill and the process, do so with the folks in government who set things up the way they did. We ain’t them.
I regard your demands for evidence of an election that was bought here with some asperity. To be so insistent that we damage our democratic process before fixing it when the process of damaging it is so one-way that the only way to fix it is a revolution is “Darwin Award” material on a national scale. Which means unfortunately, that some folks backing National haven’t gotten that much smarter.
This bill does work to avoid it. Imperfectly but it is better than the alternative.
Fair Elections and Open Democratic Processes do NOT demand that people with money get to say more than people without. That is simply wrong and you know it. It isn’t “free speech”… the Radio, TV, Newspapers all charge money for it.
My preferred solution is quite different from the way this bill works, but this bill DOES appear to be workable. Not great but workable.
BJ
January 14th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
All that said I do believe that an additional amendment providing for some more rational regulation of the net would be appropriate. No way that people should have to publish their home addresses for every netizen on the planet to have a go at.
Frogblog would appear to be somewhat unique in this as it is the Green Party blog, not a third party blog and its home address is GPANZ not someone’s house.
Is it “official”? Well not really.. views expressed here are pretty much all over the lot. I think Frog has editorial control over what gets posted, rather than GPANZ but it’s hard to work out where the blog stands.
This goes to my PRINCIPLE complaint about the way NZ parliamentarians in this goverment work (or fail to). We have seen it several times now. The knotty questions come up and rather than passing a bill that answers the question clearly there is some vague wording and handwaving and the new law is passed over to the Police or the Electoral Commission and the courts to interpret and then enforce.
That is to say. Parliament, who’s job it is to make laws, is passing the buck down to the bureaucrats and police. Lazy as well as irresponsible.
respectfully
BJ
January 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
>>To be so insistent that we damage our democratic process before fixing it when the process of damaging it
With all due respect, that is a pile of - another name for a donkey - .
Tilting at windmills….
Please explain how ACT spends a lot of money yet gets nowhere, whilst the Greens have, up until recently, spent very little money, yet consistently poll above 5%.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Phil U said: we’re ‘doing something’ about polluted coastal wetlands.. but doing nothing about the sh*t pouring from dairy farms..etc..
Phil, it is all about power. With 6 Green MPs, there just are not the numbers to do most things that are in Green Policy. Occasionally they will manage to negotiate a few things that move in the direction of Green policy. With 15 or 20 Green MPs, you would see things change. That would give them the power to do something about the pollution generated by the dairying industry, and about cannabis decriminalisation and medical cannabis which I know are issues very close to your heart, and about all sorts of other things that are in Green Party policy.
But numbers are power - so instead of slagging off the Green MPs for what they haven’t achieved (and I think they punch well above their weight for what they actually have achieved), why don’t you work to get more MPs elected? It’s numbers in parliament that will make all the difference.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
toad..it’s not just about ‘number-power’..
(sorry..i won’t buy that canard/excuse..)
it is about the media/voice/platform powers the greens have had for nine years now..
and have not used..because their voices are stilled by the ‘agreement’ with labour..
so they sit..(willingly) silenced..
while.literally..the country turns to sh*t..
the silences are/have been..deafening..
do i really need to embarrass you by listing what they haven’t said/don’t say..?
so..no..toad..
it is not just all about the number of mp’s..
it’s what those numbers choose to do..
and for nine years..the greenmp’s..have largely been silent/silenced..
(not one word from metiria on cannabis law reform/medical marijuana in all of 2007..?
how’s that for starters..?
(and just on that ‘media’ note..
what have you done to one of the finest writers the listener had..?
he has disappeared into your world/reality..
and would seem to be a potent example of the exhortation to ’stick to your knitting..!”
cos’ by all the evidence to date/hand..he seems to be making a total horses ar*e of being your media-dude..
eh..?
is that because he can’t sell/work it..?
or is he doomed from square one..?
from the dearth of material he is given to work with..
and hey..!..if you don’t want him/can’t use him..
give him back..!..eh..?
and let him get back to his forte..knitting..
we need him..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
BluePeter - Finlayson’s Internet amendment didn’t address the non-commercial requirement - he just wanted to delete the “(being the kind of publication commonly known as a blog)” bit at the end.
That way non-commercial statements of private opinion on Internet forums and youtube, and newsgroups (and websites that aren’t blogs) would fall within the exemption. It was this that was rejected, and I’ve never heard an explanation why (I’ve heard reasonable explanations as to why blogs also shouldn’t be exempt, but none as to why they but nothing else should be).
BJ - I don’t believe it matters whether frogblog is official or not. If it’s official then the cost of it will probably have to be included in the Green Party expense calculation, but since the greens aren’t going to spend anywhere close to the maximum that’s an irrelevancy.
For me, the publication of an opinion is commercial if the person has been paid to write it or people pay to read it. I do not believe that revenue from advertising will have all that much to do with anything.
If someone in the Green party - either frog, or Russel, is paid to write any of this then it is commercial and in my opinion it falls outside the exemption (note that the rest of this comment is premised on this being so).
Because the non-exempt ‘blog encourages votes for the Green Party it requires the prior approval of the Green Party financial agent. The person promoting each statement (i.e. the person on whose initiative each post is made available to the public) is required to give their full name and residential address. If the blog is official, you can probably reasonably claim that the whole enterprise is being published as an initiative of the Green Party financial agent and you could have an overall authorisation from Jon Field.
If you want to call it unofficial, or it is considered that frogblog is published with Jon’s agreement, but not on his initiative, then each post should probably carry the full name and residential address of the person behind it (but you might be able to get away with a few generic statements about overall responsibility without specifying with each ‘blog post).
January 14th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Bluepeter
Explaining ACTs incompetence isn’t my job. I don’t even know what ACT really stands for… and that probably speaks more to the problem than anything else.
As I pointed out, it requires MORE than simply money…. but the money shouldn’t make any difference and it really does. Kerry was “Swift-Boated” and someone tried a similar tactic here. It was good that it didn’t work. It would’ve been better if it hadn’t been tried.
It was tried. We got sentenced to this EFB as a result.
BJ
January 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Phil Ug said…
is that it..?
that’s the extent of your rebuttal/riposte..?
so..just so i’m’clear’ on this..
we’re ‘doing something’ about polluted coastal wetlands..
Silly me. I thought Phil Um meant what he said…
c’mon bj..tell/show me one thing the greens have achieved for the environment..
And that was one thing! Take a chill pill Phil!
The Greens have activly lobbied to get responsible water management into our rural industries, particularly dairy.
This release from Jeanette 8th December 2004
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR8152.html
This speech to Dairy Farmers of NZ AGM in June 2005
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/speech9161.html
If you want us to *do* more get more people to vote for us so we have the balance of power.
Face it Ug, you got it wrong this time!
peace
W
January 14th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Edge
Dunno ’bout that. If Russel is paid because he’s the co-chair of the Greens (and I would want to be if I had to take all that abuse) … then he’s part of the Greens, not a commercial advertising agency or publication. This is pretty gray to me… and the status of the blog itself is a bit gray as well. It isn’t the official Green forum. That’s another thing entirely.
My only point specific to this blog was really that using this blog as an example is really not going to help in general. This blog probably needs to be ruled on by the Electoral Commission explicitly.
My other point is that people running blogs (and I think, publishing any public content) should welcome/demand the ability to register with the Electoral Commission rather than posting their own full details. They need to be legally identifiable and accept legal responsibility and perhaps some locus provided in terms of nation of residence or citizenship, but full details for anyone being published out here is, and I think everyone on all sides would agree here, a bit more risk than anyone should be required to accept just to publish an opinion.
respectfully
BJ
January 14th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
act = association of consumers & taxpayers - do you feel richer for the knowledge?
of course everyone is a consumer & everyone is a taxpayer, but it’s not an “inclusiveness” thing - it’s more about how people see themselves
January 14th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
bjchip,
- “I am here partly because I don’t have any desire to be in a country where elections ARE bought. ”
So when are you leaving? And where will you go?
Labour and National are both planning to buy the next election by “redistributing” a vast amount of other people’s earnings to key sections of the electorate. The Greens are just the same.
So let’s hear a little less indignation from everyone about the trivial amounts involved in political advertising. They are a red-herring and are irrelevant compared to the earnings of the workers, which are considered just a vast slush fund.
If you want to live somewhere where elections are not bought then you should give some thought to the libertarian idea that we are not serfs of the state to be plundered at will by those who seek power over us.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
bjchip: you keep pretending that the NZ electoral system is similar to the USA one, and therefore we need the EFB to prevent what happens in the US.
It is just not true. In the US, the influence of money is actively encouraged in the electoral process. (A process nobody alive on this planet understands)
In NZ (replete with its tall poppy syndrome) the influence of money actively works against being elected. (Yes, that is a strange part of the New Zealand psyche, and hard for foreigners to understand)
Within a true democracy (NZ is much closer to a true democracy than the US) the best counterbalances involve freedom of speech, and freedom of information.
Sadly the EFB that the Greens supported, actually works against both freedom of speech and freedom of information.
Russel:
your topic is very valuable as a method of reminding us that all politicians (by necessity) become lapdogs and poodles, rather than having the guts to stand up for what is right. (As an example, I have lost a substantial amount of respect for John Key because he failed to fully stand up against the anti-smacking bill when he had the opportunity. I regained a small amount of the respect when he offered to repeal the EFB if elected. However…he showed he is still clearly a weak-kneed lapdog).
I admire (increasingly) the Greens for having the courage to stand up for what is right. Unfortunately, their most recent efforts have suggested they don’t know what is right.
I hope the Greens one day understand that they could easily achieve at least 20% of the votes, if they showed some respect for the validity of the bulk of public opinion.
These days, having “green” goals does not mean being out of step with the bulk of public opinion, as it did 10 years ago.
The Greens must evolve into a party that understands that when 75% of the population says ‘no’ to the antismacking bill, there is good reason for it.
I have listened to you a lot lately Russel, and your heart is in the right place.
Please learn to respect the validity of the other 99.9% of society. Keep educating us and you will definitely get our vote. Keep dominating us as you did with the EFB, and the AS bills, and you will see your support decline. (Except amongst 18 year olds who know no better)
January 14th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Greengeek
The biggest hurdle I see to the Greens achieving 20% is that many of the public do not know where the Green issues start and the Red issues take over.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Nice quote Bigbro. I do think the public prefers the Green issues to the Red ones.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
You guys don’t get it do you? big money is already in play and has been for some time. It goes back for quite some time. Some say 1.8M of money outside the Brethren into the National campaign of 2005. Where did it all come from? It is not tax deductible as far as I can tell. Who was the professional Republican rumoured to have helped out the Nat’s in the last campaign and who paid. What was the payoff, potential or realised?
Look back a bit further and consider the effect of American money in the Ivan Watkins Dowell fiasco in Taranaki. How intelligent and learned people in the Health Department and government could deny what was in front of them? Surely they weren’t bought, threatened or bribed?
January 14th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Scott
Are you sure that you get it?
If it is MY money and i chose to give it to the Nat’s then so be it, i cannot help but think this is driven by the left inability to raise campaign funds of their own.
The next step will be the full tax payer funding of all political parties simply because the left are sick of running raffles.
BTW, what is so wrong with the Nat’s getting a little advice from the yanks? Clark basically copied Tony Blair’s campaign back in 99 yet was little was said about that.
The paranoia and anti USA feeling in left wing circles is a bit of a worry.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Scott: yes, we do get it. That is the point. The big money is not having the effect you pretend.
Each New Zealander of voting age gets one vote. We can tell when we are getting bought out. We can also tell when we are being unfairly dominated by a party (parties) who have ceased to listen to us.
Take another look at your example… the Health department you refer to was not a political party, it was a government department. Their reaction would have been the same regardless of whether we had a National, Labour, or even a Green government.
It is true that there is no way to avoid the influence of money. However, it is just stupid to pretend that it will buy electoral power in New Zealand.
I come back to my point: being Green does not mean turning your back on what the other 90% of society believes.
If the Greens could restrict themselves to fighting the battles worth fighting, and leaving the voting up to us, we would all be the happier.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
ooops sorry,
I forgot that each New Zealander of voting age gets TWO votes, not just one.
That just means we can get rid of duplicitous parties twice as quickly
January 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
You can’t have it both ways even if you want it like that.
I have no problem with people spending money on attempting to get their views across especially if it is completely transparent.
I do have a problem with lots of money being used to buy a campaign through skilful marketing. Do you really believe ACT would still be here today if this was not the case?
National came within a whisker of being elected in 2005 through some clever bill boards and some pamphlets from the Brethren. If they had changed leader a little earlier they would be on the treasury benches today.
I cannot see the difference between votes that have been “bought” and votes that have been “captured” by slick marketing.
The trick is to make the punters believe they haven’t been captured and that what they do is of their own volition.
The ultimate answer to that of course is that this isn’t true. If that is the case, why do advertisers spend hundreds of millions of dollars in our media advertising product that is in a lot of cases completely un-necessary and sometimes down right unhealthy?
The trick is to make us believe that it is necessary, healthy and that we would be lesser people than we are now.
As for marketing, another trick is to pay people to post on blogs such as this to effect popular opinion. anyone ever wondered how someone such as big bro can afford to be on line making so many posts to this blog. How many other blogs are you on big bro? who pays the piper?
January 14th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
How about selling bill boards on the net. You propose a bill board and get subscribers (people pay a nominal deposit) when/ if enough people subscribe it goes ahead or they get a refund(?).
January 15th, 2008 at 12:51 am
BJ said “The knotty questions come up and rather than passing a bill that answers the question clearly there is some vague wording and handwaving and the new law is passed over to the Police or the Electoral Commission and the courts to interpret and then enforce.
That is to say. Parliament, who’s job it is to make laws, is passing the buck down to the bureaucrats and police. Lazy as well as irresponsible.”
It is also deliberate. When the proverbial hits the fan it’s the judiciary that’ll cop it. Or the bureacrats, or SOE directors. Anybody other than the pollies. Of course, if they fluke it and the law actually works then and only then will you see the pollies standing center stage.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:04 am
dear me..bliss is a bit..um..?…
wot with the ‘ugs’ and all..
(maybe an ill-suited/blunt attempt at humour..?
let’s be charitable..and think that..eh..?..
any alternative explanation could only be..kinda strange..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
and bliss..
a press release from 2004..?..(!)
and a speech from 2005..?..(!)
that’s it..?
that’s all you could dredge up..?
thank you very much for bolstering/underlining my arguments/case/riposte..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 15th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
BJ,
This is not America, it is not Singapore, it is not Zimbabwe,it is not Venezuala, it is New Zealand. A country my family came to in 1839. I can assure you we do not need your help in stemming off any evil election process. We have done farely well fending off corrupt Election practice.Well until the Greens supported the EFA…..And Labour and other parties started to steal money of us for their electoral activities.
Still waiting for you to justify that.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Roman
The problem doesn’t depend on what country you’re in or you’re from from how long ago. It is inherent in the practice of electoral democracy.
Having done fairly well in the past is no guarantee for the future. The USA did fairly well in the past too. It allowed the money people to get in. They are very subtle and extremely eager to get in. It has never since been able to get the money people out and the process has deteriorated continuously.
Believe it or NOT, the Green party is well aware of and quite firmly against any abuse of incumbency in terms of funding for electoral activities.
Now tell me what it is I have to justify in your view?
respectfully
BJ
January 15th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
so toad..
your silence is deafening..
phil(whoar.co.nz)