Entry 886, on 2008-11-10 at 20:17:19 (Rating 4, Politics)
According to one headline on the NZ Herald web site, New Zealand has just taken a giant step to the right (sounds like a line from the Rocky Horror Show but that's a topic I want to discuss in another blog entry) with the election of a new National-lead government. Its difficult to say whether this is accurate because National have been making efforts to appear much more centrist that they have been in the past, so it might be a small step to the right, but hardly a giant one. Of course, the image portrayed at an election and the actions demonstrated once in power can be quite different so we might end up more right than we expected.
More worrying is the raving nutters from Act gaining the power they have. It was probably inevitable that when the two main parties both moved nearer to the center that the parties on the political extremes (Act on the right, Greens on the left) would gain support from voters who felt abandoned by the traditional right and left (National and Labour).
National have already indicated a reluctance to deal with Act, which in itself shows how dangerous they are. I can't imagine anything worse than Roger Douglas gaining influence in New Zealand again. If National does deal too much with Act then they will lose any semblance of being truly centrist and will probably suffer at the next election. Of course a lot of damage can be done in three years!
Maybe the suggestion in David Haywood's blog, "Southerly" might be a good option. He suggests that Sir (what a joke that is) Roger Douglas should return to government in a role outside cabinet as Minister for Zoos. He would encourage individual responsibility of zoo animals by removing "cross subsidies" from popular to less popular animals. At the end of the year less popular animals would be culled. The hunting rights for the cull would be auctioned which would provide a valuable new income stream for zoos. Very humorous and it lampoons Act nicely - but that's just too easy!
Its always interesting to consider what you did do and what you should have done in your voting in an election. Of course, one vote makes no real difference so it doesn't really matter, but having that attitude both makes democracy a waste of time and also destroys the point of the speculative game. So what should I have done at this election?
I should have voted for National! They have reasonable policies as long as they stick to them and don't veer off to the right. So National governing alone (a proposition I originally dreaded) is infinitely better than them governing with the influence of the Act nutters. I assumed the smaller centrist parties (United Future, NZ First) would have been the junior partners for National which would be good, but (as I said above) the small parties which dominated were the extreme ones so what should have been a "moderating" effect will probably turn out to be the opposite.
The good thing about having the party you vote for not in power is that you can claim that you aren't responsible for whatever stuff-ups the government makes. For example, if the new government does something really stupid and unemployment skyrockets I can say "well I didn't vote for them, and I told you not to!"
Of course, there's a good chance that unemployment will rise but it probably won't be the fault of either the new government or the Labour-lead one they are replacing. Its more the fault of Roger Douglas and his followers when they exposed this country to greater influence from the global economy (yes I know we can't avoid it entirely but there is a compromise position which might have given a better outcome).
This morning I talked to a friend who had just spent some time in hospital and he was horrified at how terrible the experience was. I constantly hear stories about the disaster our health system has become so the Labour government's efforts there don't seem to have been successful. It will be interesting to see if National can do any better. I think they might, but they have to keep away from the nutty freaks who might want to be their friends. I wouldn't even trust them to manage a zoo!
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