Clark, Key scared to face the MMP parties
So we learn today that:
Prime Minister Helen Clark and National Party leader John Key have refused to share the stage with other party leaders in an election campaign TV debate.
And the TV stations are going to roll over and let this happen. Well that will make for an interesting debate:
Pepsi - My party believes in tax cuts to key undecided voters, oops, sorry I mean middle New Zealanders.
Coke - So does mine. But my party believes in saying the word sustainability a lot and pretending to cut carbon emissions while still putting more cars on the road, mining more coal and promoting more industrial dairy.
Pepsi - So does mine. But my party believes in cracking down on young people in hoodies and people who dress strange.
Coke - So does mine. But my party believes we are purer than the driven snow unlike that other corrupt untrustworthy party.
Pepsi - So does mine…
What a choice.
September 27th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
It makes sense.
The rest of the “leaders” will weld less power than a cabinet Minister. What’s the point? They can get their party message across in other forums.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Agreed, this isn’t like last time when some parties were specifically excluded whilst others of the same size were allowed. Its a debate between the potential future leaders of this country.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Boring. We already see a lot of HC & JK on mainstream tv. Too presidential. Much more interesting if all the party leaders currently in parliament this term are sharing in such debates.
September 28th, 2008 at 8:19 am
joy,
I agree!
I think that at least part of the problem is that many people (including those in the Media) have not got past the idea of an FPP Two Party System …
This possibly reinforced from watching too much American TV.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Hey frog, are the greens going to mention cannabis at all or will we see jeanette caught off guard again by peter dunne and the worm burrowing under again for the greens on the minor parties election debate tv1 special?(like last time and the time before)
and will ALCP get blamed again for greens poor performance?
doesnt pay to backfoot issues - like digging a hole as the greens are doing with pot law reform zero advocacy. makes you look very unsure of your selves, meanwhile a very poor and unjust law has gained legitimacy it does not deserve in the minds of the NZ public.
but anyway, fyi there are sustained lawandorder/cannabisreform threads on trademe though. Grass roots NZ is having some lively debate on the real issues there while the media can only see the two useless major parties. Heres my favorite thread (under my other on-line name ’starwagon’): http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=29684 258&topic=7&L=1&C=1
(but Warning: for sensitive green souls, there are alot of nasty types on TradeMe opinion pages all trying to be nastier than the next person - kind of like Parliament point scoring but without anyone cracking the whip)
Anyway, i just thought id remind you frog, you never going to progress if you keep burying the hot potatoe.
September 28th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Chris Trotter: What is Maori Party up to?
“Professor Winiata told Radio New Zealand’s Afternoons programme of September 22 what the Maori Party was seeking wasn’t so much a coalition agreement as a “treaty partner” agreement: “It won’t be looking to be a coalition partner it will seek, as Hone said on the weekend, to find a treaty partner … and that’s one with a high level of independence as well as influence in the house.”
Winiata clearly sees the Maori Party assuming a role over and above that of simply being one among many political parties represented in parliament: “The Maori Party will want to have more direct influence on what happens in parliament. You see, they form the Maori house the tikanga Maori house in parliament.”
Tikanga Maori house?
Winiata is using a term familiar to members of the New Zealand Anglican Church, whose bicultural constitution allows its “Tikanga Maori House” to exercise a form of veto over the proceedings of the General Synod. Surely this is not what Winiata is contemplating?
Well, yes, apparently it is. Responding to questioning, the Maori Party president declared: “It means the partners respect each other and the decisions they come to are not determined by a head count.”"
This is great news for the Greens who say “te tirriti” a lot (especially Toad and Eredwen.).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4708244a28609.html
September 28th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Weedeater
Those of us who are not happy with the hard left direction the Greens are taking would be more than happy to see the Greens bang the cannabis drum, that and that alone will see them fall below the 5% threshold.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I agree with the stance TV has taken, there is no point having a debate with all of the leaders trying to get their points over in such a small space of time.
The VAST majority of the people will vote Labour or National, there can and should be another debate for the minor parties at another time.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
in the contest of ideas the ALCP balance of power, ‘primary issue’ is being left out of the mainstream mix somewhat (unless u count Trademe)- not quite the civil society with its head screwed on some of us aspired to when the greens won the cannabis election in 1999
(remember, when helen and labour with the greens undertook to ‘review the law’, botched its format, heard the evidene wholly in favour of reform up and dwont he country during 2001, but FOR SOME STRANGE REASON stalled it then lost any hope of civil society with UNited Future backlash of 2002…..)
then contemplate the combined wisdom of a nation of 4 million facing its 3rd election of the 21st century with 373000 NONcriminals under everyones noses corruption left right and centre and a law and order crises to match the absurdity of that erronious criminal definition of the hemp plant (even by Green party standards), and not one of the ‘big’ parties mentions cannabis law reform…tut tut
Where is Nandor when you need him?
September 28th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Weedeater, the legalisation of marijuana is one of the policies that the Greens need to get rid of if they are to have any hope of winning further votes. People are driven away with the idea that voting Green will eventually lead to the legalisation of pot.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Is your solution just to hide under a rock, Frog, and apartheid rule the nation? When are you going to front up and smack people like john-ston over the hand.
john-ston, you seem to have no concept of ‘equity’, and that as a criminalising nations, ‘as we sow, so shall we reap’…
the silly people fear legalising of pot - doh!, NZ already has a defacto unfettered market: $20 is all thats required at a tinny house, no age ID…373,000 consumers, 15,000 convictions per year. 800 new prisons required to hold all the criminals….
The greens do not like cannabis much, that is obvious, but they at least recognise the current law is wrong. Under your proposal john-ston, the greens abandon the feeble grasp they currently have of principled SOCIAL JUSTICE. Do you really think that will be a vote winner?
Anyway time is running out Frog. You cant keep poaching the cannabis vote if you dont put your money where your mouth is. The less you lot advocate, the more determined ALCP will be to expose the green party’s collective cowardice/ignorance and punish you in the polls.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Big Bro: duh.
You’re justifying the media’s acceptance of the John and Helen show on the grounds that most people will vote for them. FFS. Maybe we shouldn’t bother with the election. Costs too much. Democracy, debate, and all that rubbish. Ideas. Policies. Bah!
Why wouldn’t we just give the PM’s job to the guy who offers the biggest tax breaks? Hey, what else is there? Woohoo. The market rules. Happy clappy times for the ignorocracy and damn anyone who thinks I don’t deserve a tax break.
We live in a multi-party democracy.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
So the argument seems to be that “minor” parties should not have coverage because nobody will vote for them. But it is catch 22. Nobody will vote for them because they don’t have coverage. If we are to have a level playing field in the marketplace of ideas then all views have to be debated.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
They will be debated, just not in a leaders debate.
Laila Harre had a good suggestion.
“Laila argued that there should be a “Leftâ€? debate and a “Rightâ€? debate.
To develop the idea further, Laila’s idea would mean we get to see Clark v Key and decide which of these we want to be Prime Minister. Then we see Clark, Peters, Anderton, Norman in a debate, then Key, Dunne and Hide. The Maori Party, being more uncommitted, could decide whether to appear in one or both of the debates.”
September 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Cond….
“The Greens could make the case why Labour votes should vote Green, and so forth. Everyone gets exposure, but in a more serious context. And Clark and Key together, as the two candidates for Prime Minister, aren’t put in the position of being equals with the smaller party leaders, which they are not.”
September 30th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Having successfully dealt to Winston Peters in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, the mass media will not be eager to lend him a forum during the election campaign. They have exercised the freedom of the press in order to re-shape the political landscape of New Zealand. Now they have an attendant responsibility to see that a fit and proper government, unimpeded by fractious minorities, is installed in office. If some obliging, but potentially difficult minor players are shut out of the political discourse, then that has to be accepted as the price to be paid for living in a modern democracy.
And the minor parties really have no grounds for complaint. They have played the game to this point. They were all happy to see Winston Peters dispatched. As Pastor Niemoller observed “When they came for the communists I did nothing. When they came for the trade unionists I did nothing. When they came for me it was too late…” It may be too late for the Greens as modern democracy continues its evolution into the dictatorship of the fourth estate.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:12 am
NZ First is the only party that tackles growth in the form of mass immigration. The others are all for it or can’t face it; that’s why I feel there’s a place for them (regardless of what Peters said to Joe Gigliono}.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Paradox
“We live in a multi-party democracy.”
Not for much longer, that “multi party democracy” is about to get a lot smaller.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
What we get is Political Stew potatoes with meat and bits of old shoe from one party and vegetables with raw worms from the other.