Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, October 9th, 2008 - 43 comments
Categories: climate change, election 2008, Environment, greens, labour, national, Social issues, transport, workers' rights -
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The Greens have announced that they will choose their preferred coalition partner based on their commitment to 12 criteria. I’ll just look at 5 (not that the others are less important, just space):
reduce New Zealand’s oil dependence and climate change emissions;
- senior Nats don’t even think climate change is happening and the Party opposed every climate change policy in the last 9 years. Labour has been disappointing but they are finally taking action, especially around more fuel-efficient transport.
improve the public transport and the rail system;
- National opposed the buyback of the railways and the regional fuel tax to fund public transport. Their infrastructure program consists entirely of building more roads. Again, Labour has been disappointing but is now making progress, especially around rail.
reduce child poverty and violence against children;
- Labour’s record in this regard is excellent but not complete. It has reduced poverty and the conditions for violence with its low unemployment, higher wage, and Working for Families polices and focused on more reporting of family violence but it has left the children of beneficiaries out of the WfF benefits. National created poverty and the conditions that breed violence through its high unemployment/low wage policies. It is running on the same policies again.
protect our national sovereignty from overseas ownership and keep New Zealand out of foreign wars;
- John Key wanted us in Iraq, as did other senior Nats. They would lead us into the US’s next military adventure. One can argue over Afghanistan but Labour’s use of the military in the Pacific has been principled and restrained.
protect workers’ rights and raise the minimum wage;
- National would weaken workers’ rights and attack their unions. They have no commitment to the minimum wage. Labour is making progress on improving workers’ rights and have a strong commitment to the minimum wage.
Seems like the choice is pretty clear.
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Scoopit!
Pat, you missed one:
Grow it.
Get it?
Hey burt it’s nice to finally agree 100% with you on something
I certainly agree with burt, that should be entirely clear from my past comments here.
Pat a visit to one of these websites:Law Enforcement against Prohibition, NORML.
Here are some facts Tim, no one has ever died of an overdose of marajuana, it’s simply impossible as it is not toxic enough. Many, many people die each year in this country from drinking too much alcohol. As to the effects on your brain, well there are a lot of contradictory studies on it, but the damage that alcohol does is well established. Every time a study comes out that says it’s bad, another comes out contradicting it.
Here’s part of Pen and Teller’s Bullshit, on Drugs.
Whoah there. As far as minor parties go, I believe the only one we’ve really got any degree of “official” support for is the Maori Party. NZ First can go do a loop around the racetrack, to be euphemistic.
As for influence on National’s environmental policies- they’d have to make some first. What we’ve seen so far is basically a promise that they’ll have some environmental policies, eventually, perhaps in a couple years’ time.
Quoth: While certainly not a study, I’ve seen plenty of anecdotal evidence of dramatic personality changes and memory damage from dope use. The reason I support decriminalisation isn’t because dope isn’t that harmful, (although there are certainly much worse drugs, like P) it’s because the black market AND dope at the same time are quite harmful taken together, and they get in the way of treating drug addiction like the (mental) health and social problem it is.
Ari – Obviously correlation and causation are very difficult to pick apart. I think if we’re working on anecdotal evidence, the time that people start trying drugs, early-late teens, is the same time that their personalities start changing. We all know this from experience. Memory damage, I think is a myth, have a look at the guy at the end of the youtube vid I linked to, he should have the memory of a goldfish, no? This is certainly not a scientific study, but have a look at this.
Obviously marajuana is harmful in some way, my point is we all know the harm alcohol can do, yet we still drink. We can’t spend our whole lives trying to avoid a little harm, like that. Tell me who seems worse a wino or a stoner?
Monty, – Econonomically illiterate as opposed to the usual variety? Spell checks work pretty well and might get you’re post a little more respect. That socialistic stuff always makes me smile. NZ politics probably hasn’t seen one since, let me think now,- John A Lee maybe? And I honestly don’t think you would recognise one if he sidled up and Roger Douglassed you.
I don’t know Monty, Colin, but I enjoyed reading your last comment because I’m pretty sure of a lot of the uppermost Comments to this particular list.
I have a question, however, which asks whether the ‘requirements’ are geared.? Do they hold some kind of order.? Whereby some rank more than others. And two weeks out from the Election how might one rate their decision based on an interpretation of answers received..
also any folks waiting try click my name above for an update the Skinny
Scoop: Greens add 13th criteria to list!
I can exclusivly reveal that the green leadership just minutes ago added a new desision criteria to their test.
The criteria is: Reduction of water usage through lower pressure on showers.
Labour somehow had gained early warning of this (perhaps through a young labour supporter with a recording device) and earlier decided that if re-elected will limit water usage to 6 litres per minute, down from the 19 litre per minute average. This is their first policy release of the election.
National have yet to put in a competeing bid.
Colin:
“Spell checks work pretty well and might get you’re post a little more respect.”
You did this on purpose as a joke, right?