National declines to discuss policy

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, November 17th, 2011 - 16 comments
Categories: accountability, election 2011 - Tags: , ,

RNZ has a great Policy Q&A site up.  They list policy under many topic areas  (Climate Change, Economy, Education etc.), with questions that they put to the parties, and the answers that they received.  Here’s a sample from the Agriculture & Primary Industry section:

What will you plan to do to counter declining fresh water quality and will that include toughening regulations on intense farming and other users?

National

Declined to answer this question.

Labour

Labour’s water policy supports irrigation from sustainable sources but says taxpayers should not be asked to fund new water schemes. Labour will investigate and work with farmers and other major water users to develop a resource rental charge as an economic and environmental tool that would encourage wise use of water. It will vary by region to reflect differing climates and be spent locally on new irrigation schemes, the clean-up of polluted waterways and improved drinking water supplies.

National declined to answer the question?  Too hard?  Nope, check any question you like (even the one on keeping National Standards). National declined to answer them all.  Nothing.  Nada.

This could have been an excellent resource for voters.  Elections should be about options for the future, and Key tries to deflect attention from the teapot tape fiasco by saying that National wants to focus on the serious issues. But National’s non-participation shows that they’re too arrogant to even bother engaging on policy.

16 comments on “National declines to discuss policy ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. hoom 1
    17 November 2011 at 6:54 pm

    The feedback I’m getting and what the public of NZ are telling me is that they are really interested in the Tea Tapes not the unattractive details of our policy.

  2. ianmac 2
    17 November 2011 at 7:00 pm

    My impressions are that the National Policies are just little bits around the edges.

  3. idlegus 3
    17 November 2011 at 8:00 pm

    i saw this the other day & i couldnt believe that national are this backward. national have totally missed the boat with social media & putting information online, the other parties seem to be way more engaging & upfront on the internet. the parties that seem to have a best grasp of social media are the greens, mana & labour, its definately made me a bit more involved. so maybe this election will have more participation & votes from young & otherwise lethargic (politically) people & maybe it will advantage the left because they have better internet networks, i do hope.

  4. Lanthanide 4
    17 November 2011 at 8:32 pm

    “This could have been an excellent resource for voters.”

    I think you’ll find it is an excellent resource for voters. They can see what the National party thinks of an informed electorate.

  5. freedom 5
    17 November 2011 at 8:50 pm

    This Q+A should be immediately disseminated as far and wide as possible .

    This is nothing short of a middle finger to the Voters !

    24 hours ago their Leader bleated for Policy discussion.

    This is something practical everyone can do, regardless of their leanings.

    Get this Q+A out there people and help save New Zealand

  6. hoom 6
    17 November 2011 at 9:22 pm

    Look I’ve referred the possibly illegal absence of our policy to be investigated by the police and that’s all I’m going to say about that today.

  7. Michael 7
    17 November 2011 at 9:49 pm

    The reason the National Party haven’t given any answers to the questions posed by NatRad is because the National Party simply don’t HAVE any answers to the problems facing the country. It’s not that they won’t answer the questions; it’s that they can’t.

    • seeker 7.1
      18 November 2011 at 12:08 am

      Totally correct Michael. I was only thinking today how completely unskilled the Nats are when it comes to governing /running a country. When is new Zealand going to wake up to this very real fact? Any minute now I hope.

  8. Fred 8
    18 November 2011 at 8:16 am

    What do the polls say ?

  9. Paul Bailey 9
    18 November 2011 at 8:18 am

    For the Policy Q&A site the Greens policy is..

    The Greens have been leading the charge on fresh water, both in and out of Parliament. We recently released Clean Rivers, our plan to make our rivers and lakes clean enough to swim in again. We will: Set standards for clean water; introduce a fair charge for irrigation water; support water clean-up initiatives. The first goal involves adopting a National Policy Statement on fresh water, setting a minimum standard for water quality and adopting a National Environmental Standard for intensive agriculture. We would also introduce a moratorium on resource consents in at-risk catchments. We need better regulation, otherwise we will be forever cleaning up the mess further down the catchment. We would assist farmers to meet the new standards by incentivising the adoption of sustainable farming practices, and helping with funding for riparian planting and fencing.

  10. ianmac 10
    18 November 2011 at 8:21 am

    Amazing National absence. And here is Joyce saying that there are more important issues to discuss than tea-tapes. Yeah right!

  11. anne 11
    18 November 2011 at 9:00 am

    National have only put superficial policy out there because if they put out there real intentions
    it would scare the voting public.
    One mooted is that there will be “Much,much deeper and bigger cuts involving everyone” key’s words under the shroud of the rwc,so what does that mean for nz’ers?
    Another is that the nats intend to issue $35b of govt bonds,costing tax payers $100-$150m a year,
    $1.3b govt bonds have already been downgraded in the national and westpac banks.
    Standard and poors are now eyeing up how the partial sale of state owned assests are going to stand up to the scrutiny of the agency,scary times comming from scary political nat politics.
    Salary increases for all politicians backdated to july,should this kind of rort of the tax payers happen when people are thrown out of jobs and the minimum wage got .25c increase,that increase wasn’t backdated 5-6months, where is the justice?

  12. locus 12
    18 November 2011 at 10:19 am

    Can anyone fill in the “Declined to answer this question” with what the national party line is on each of these topics/questions? No let’s make it easier… does the nat party have one unambiguous well reasoned policy on ANY of the questions raised by RNZ? If so, why didn’t they put up an answer?

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