Key cocks it up.

**Hitcher** · 5th August 2007, 21:34

Originally Posted by pritch008

Well thankfully these days we don't actually have to vote for either of those.

Technically true. One can always declare one's ballot paper invalid. But unless every other voter does something similar, that's a bit pointless really.

And under New Zealand's MMP system, most of the alternatives are almost interchangeable occupying, as they do, the political centre. Where are the extreme parties? Where are the Stalinists? Where are the Friedmanites? Whatever happened to the Communist Party? Where's the ACT Party of 12 years ago? What about a Nazi Party? The Greens or Maoris are hardly likely to turn our political world on its head.

That's the beauty of MMP -- a system designed to play the ends off against the middle. Invented for post-WWII Germany to stop the Nazis getting back into power, something that it has succeeded at doing spectacularly well.

We're too comfortable and becoming increasingly dependent on The Gummint to do our thinking for us and to protect us from misfortune and our own patent stupidity. No New Zealander is going to vote that away and replace it with some hard-arse, pragmatic and laissez-faire administration.

Labour or National.
Holden or Ford.
DB or Lion.
Tweedledum or Tweedledummer.

Your choice.

**pete376403** · 5th August 2007, 21:49

Keys not the only nat who says silly things - Williamson apparently announced that "there were no fat people in concentration camps" - not a good move when the party leader has jewish ancestry
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/...ectid=10455790

**rwh** · 5th August 2007, 22:03

Originally Posted by Deviant Esq

Not voting at all is an apathy vote for the status quo. If you don't vote you can't complain about the current state of affairs - bugger that. I will exercise my right to bitch and moan by voting.

Even if it means voting for someone you don't like?

You're welcome to interpret lack of a vote that way; hopefully there are people out there (perhaps even in political parties?) who realise there may be other motives.

I would welcome an option for 'Nobody's any good' on the paper, but I'll still abstain before voting for someone I disagree with.

Luckily, that (mostly) isn't the case.

Richard

**Deviant Esq** · 5th August 2007, 22:29

Originally Posted by rwh

Even if it means voting for someone you don't like?

I never said I was voting for someone I didn't like. What I was saying is that if you don't like the current state of affairs, but don't voice your own opinion as to who you think would do a better job, then you're basically saying (by doing nothing) that you don't care enough to try to make a change. Sure, you might be saying there's noone worth voting for, but what it means is that you're not voting for any change either.

**k14** · 5th August 2007, 23:24

Originally Posted by pete376403

Keys not the only nat who says silly things - Williamson apparently announced that "there were no fat people in concentration camps" - not a good move when the party leader has jewish ancestry
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/...ectid=10455790

Whats the problem with that statement? It was in response to all these people saying that the only way for fat people to be non-fat is to have an operation. I think its a fairly good point, everyone is too pc these days that no one can say even something remotely sensitive for fear of a bashing by the media.

Yep, Key did make a bit of a blunder, would surprised the whole crowd didn't crack up laughing then. Hard to know whats going on in there. Anything is better than that useless set of lefties.

**Bullitt** · 5th August 2007, 23:31

Originally Posted by k14

Yep, Key did make a bit of a blunder, would surprised the whole crowd didn't crack up laughing then. Hard to know whats going on in there. Anything is better than that useless set of lefties.

The reason noone cracked up is his speech was at a national party conference. National party supporters dont crack up when their leader makes a mistake.

Who cares, its not like he let slip they wanted to bomb the south island or anything.

**MSTRS:Me** · 6th August 2007, 10:16

A trip over the tongue is a very different beast to a lie...and no-one says whether Key went red in the face and apologised for his gaffe(s)...something else missing on the crimson-side.

**avgas** · 6th August 2007, 10:46

A very good point was brought up, if you abstain your vote is wasted.
Vote for me - and for every 4% i get, i will hack up a chair in the house.
i reckon there would be a good 5 or so chairs that could get removed from the beehive according to previous figures.

**Skyryder** · 6th August 2007, 11:03

Key is a guy who has been at pains to portray himself as poor man made good.

He's only been leader for a few months and in his one big test to the 'party faithful' he blunders about what party he leads. Maybe Oldrider is right. He is more Labour than National, but I don't think so. He was on the news the other night claiminjg the high dollar was caused by Government spending. It is interesting that he is the only one saying that when most commentators who have some knowledge of this say that the high dollar was/is caused by overseas money investors and that precisely is how Key has made his money. By speculation.

He also gaffed with his tax and 'wage' cut statement. Take that and add his often quoted cut 'government spending' and it is not to hard to see that this guy is going to go down the privatisation road in much the same way Douglas and Prebble did.

Key is glib but under pressure he has folded. He 'don't' bode well for the country in my books.

Skyryder

**steved** · 6th August 2007, 11:10

Originally Posted by Hitcher

Labour or National.
Holden or Ford.
DB or Lion.
Tweedledum or Tweedledummer.

Your choice.

My choice.

National.
Ford.
Water.
Tweedledummer.

A vote for National is a vote for more

.

Tax cuts = newer bike. It's the only rational choice.

**Sanx** · 6th August 2007, 11:20

Originally Posted by pete376403

Keys not the only nat who says silly things - Williamson apparently announced that "there were no fat people in concentration camps" - not a good move when the party leader has jewish ancestry
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/...ectid=10455790

Every politician says daft things at times. Williamson's mal-mot is made even worse by the media's immediate highlighting of it, and the usual Jewish pressure group's responses to anything that attempts to compare anything to something that happened to Jews in Nazi Germany. For a start, the Jewish pressure groups always seem to forget that concentration camps weren't just for Jews. Gypsies, communists, homosexuals - basically anyone the Nazis didn't like - also ended up there, and in very large numbers. Not quite the six million odd Jews, but still a significant number.

Despite Williamson making a pretty valid point, it's a shame that what he said automatically gets condemned by people like B'nai Brith and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. They're, especially the latter, pressure groups that don't do the people they claim to protect any favours at all. They over-react to anything that mentions the holocaust in any way other than a reverent hushed apology for the atrocities carried out against the Jews (no-one else) and, the thing that really pisses me of, massively over-react to anything said that attempts to criticise Israel's policies or actions. Some of these groups need to research their own history and realise that Judaism does not equal Zionism, and Zionism does not equate to giving Israel carte blanche to act like a petulant bully.

I speak with some experience of this, having had to listen to this crap on a very regular basis for the time I've lived in New Zealand; something to do with the Jewish Council chairman referenced in the NZ Herald article being my uncle. When it comes to religion, race relations and anything to do with Judaism or Israel, he and his rabid cohorts can get fucked.