One way of looking at this is Party Vote in Maori seats.

Labour % Maori Seat Party Votes
1996 31.92
1999 55.11
2002 53.73
2005 54.62
2008 50.11

In 1996 Maori Seat PVs flocked to NZ First, in 2008 there was a swing to National (Maori Party PV in Maori seats increased just over a point from 27.7% in 2005 to 28.89% in 2008).

I’m not convinced that, by this measure, Andrew is right.

And I know everyone’s been through it, but just to reiterate it’s the whole narrative: Goff rolled Hone Harawira, the Maori party/National party ETS deal and the Foreshore and Seabed into one speech. He deliberately created a narrative of “the government is giving things away to those bloody Maoris again.”

For those reasons as long as Goff’s leader of the Labour party I’m going to vote for the Greens, being the only party with even a shred of integrity left.

One reason that there is no “left’ and “right’ is that economic differences have all but been eliminated. That would be fine if New Zealand was adopting the optimal economic strategy of the Nordics, which, without sacrificing egalitarian principles, continue to provide the world’s highest standard of living to their citizens, but it is not. Instead it has a record of extremely poor economic policy that has done little to make NZ a better place to live, and has definitely made it a stupider place than it used to be (which I never thought possible).

I’m on board with iprent when he says the true difference between the center parties is what he calls “conservative/progressive”. However, I can’t say i’m particularly happy with this being the case.

Progressive is another one of those words used by disparate political movements throughout its history.

I want gradual progress towards a free society and support any reform or action that gets us closer. As such I can’t much to support in the dirigiste policies of most of those who call themselves progressive. Although I find I agree more often with them than conservatives.

BTW I’m having trouble with captcha it keeps coming up invalid.

Ag – Right – If only the ignorant rabble (they’re more lie animals really) would see the light. Can’t they see how intelligent you are how right you are. Don’t fear you’ll win this epic battle betwen the forces of good and evil. :rol:

[lprent: I just kicked the server and cleaned out its temp directories. The only problem I've seen with this captcha is a tendency to leave generated graphics behind that accumulate over time. Hopefully that will fix it. If you login to the site (ie have a valid e-mail address to get the password), you don't have catcha at all. This is because the generate login does. ]

Apart from the obvious location and industry type differences. The big difference is that there has/is more capital available over a long time to put into businesses rather than property. The tax structures ensures that happens.

Consequently they have a higher locally owned business setup than we do. In my entire time working in export businesses here, the constraining factor has always been getting any capital when the relatively ‘risk-free’ property market has sucked it all up.

The second big area of difference is that they plan long-term at the governmental level, without the type of stupid profit-taking that Keys government would like to indulge in.

Most of what the Nordic countries have done has been because they simply keep pushing ahead with planning for the long-term infrastructures that allow their businesses to grow, prosper, and generate resources and wealth.

With inequalities you have to have sufficient resources / wealth available to deal with them. But you can’t put the chicken before the egg. The government has to balance how to grow the economy with the inequalities that inevitably generates compared to the returns further down the time-line.

The conservatives tend to want to move boldly forward into the mythical past.

The progressives tend to deal (often reluctantly) with the future.

Just at present the clearest case for that is in the way that national and labour were/are dealing with climate change issues. Neither were doing what was required bearing in mind what the science says is required to reduce the risks (regardless what the daft CCDs say)..

However national have essentially done nothing. Everything you see with their policies is negative. Push the costs to the future while removing virtually all of the R&D that would have helped us deal with it (and spawn new industries). Make sure that market signals do not penetrate to the biggest polluters.

Labour was doing the mix of policies that were likely to work, albeit less than I would have liked.

Personally I think that a straight carbon tax at the root stocks would have been far more effective, less susceptible to lobbying, and a whole lot simpler than the Labours ETS. It would have also given some pretty direct price signals to trigger the required innovation. Now that national has throughly screwed up the cap’n'trade approach, hopefully that is what we will do next time Labour gets the treasury benches.

It is a classic conservative / progressive dichotomy

One reason that there is no “left” and “right” is that economic differences have all but been eliminated. That would be fine if New Zealand was adopting the optimal economic strategy of the Nordics, which, without sacrificing egalitarian principles, continue to provide the world’s highest standard of living to their citizens, but it is not. Instead it has a record of extremely poor economic policy that has done little to make NZ a better place to live, and has definitely made it a stupider place than it used to be (which I never thought possible).

“But I do remember the exodus of more pure believers to New Labour. They didn’t last as a elected political party even after they coalesced and split a few times. Probably says something about how popular the policies were.”

Sure, but no-one ever said that the electorate were rational. How long have people been living on borrowed money now? Quite some time isn’t it. I wouldn’t have supported New Labour either. I tend to think that all NZ political parties are delusional, but that’s just me. But in the end it is the voters’ fault, so we can’t blame the parties.

What’s right wing in economics now? This is why I think right and left have become increasingly meaningless concepts. In fact Trevor Mallard said as much on Red Alert a while back. The radical free marketeers sat on the left side of the french legislative assembly (where we get the terms from). There was thick strand of free marketeers within the socialist movement throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries (an incredibly small number today). There are still plenty of free marketeers that self-identify as left wing. The Republicans were protectionist and the Democrats fairly classically liberal in times past.
Lprent comes out with a very mildly pro-market view that he feels is sensible and pragmatic and it’s quelle horreur – conservative – neoliberal bugaboos in my walls! Purge the individualist infiltraterz in the labourz.
This is why I’m becoming increseingly interested in post-left ideas now.

To dismiss Goff’s viewpoint (or Trotter’s) is to marginalize that very large chunk of the electorate that is socially conservative (as opposed to progressive aka PC). When one analyses the defeat of the left at the last election the dominance of the progressive viewpoint within Labour clearly alienated the socially conservative voters. On the issue of the Sea Bed & Foreshore, on the issue of class in Maori society it might behove Labour to understand it must represent and if possible reconcile the concerns of both of these constituencies. It is not as if National does not have (albeit to a lesser degree) the same thorny issue.

It has been a long infiltration.

I’ve been a party member off and on (ie when I remember to pay the sub) since the late 70′s and doing sporadic assistance during campaigns.

I’ve been pretty active since 1990 in Mt Albert.

But I do remember the exodus of more pure believers to New Labour. They didn’t last as a elected political party even after they coalesced and split a few times. Probably says something about how popular the policies were.

I noted the other day that I’m utterly pragmatic about politics. In the end it is less about what the policies are than if they are something you can convince the voting public about. They’re even more pragmatic and skeptical than I am.

In my long history in the party, I’ve never put up a remit. I have helped vote a few down that I thought simply wouldn’t work.

It is my nature to concentrate on things that do work. Like this site for instance.

But whatever floats your boat.