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6:00 am, October 12th, 2023 - 58 comments
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An additional bonus of a left win this election, is that Hosking might have a final tanty and shift camp to aus as he has frequently threatened to do.
I imagine they are financially independent, so being unemployable won't be an issue
Sorry, but there’s no final tanty coming, no shifting of camp.
Being aggrieved is oxygen to Hosking. Peters being elected and being in a position of power will energise and invigorate him.
The broadcaster will look on the election as the classic – coming up with a gold watch but having to fall down a sewer to get it.
At last – something good to vote for!
There is no serious Left wing political party active in New Zealand….Centre and Centre Right…..The Centre is a political ideology…which is what Labour is.
There is no serious Left wing political party active in New Zealand
Watch out, Marama will give you a severe telling-off! You've been a naughty boy.
However, with the messiah as precedent you can easily pull a Monty Python on her.
Richard Harman laments “it’s about to get difficult for Luxon” in his latest piece.
https://www.politik.co.nz/its-about-to-get-difficult-for-luxon/
His premise is that there is a large undetermined vote–that obviously has not early voted–and that this “soft” vote may well lean toward Labour. He also outlines Winston’s close relationship with Hobson’s Choice.
An appraisal of yesterday's 3 polls:
Harman subtly points us to Luxon's delusion re momentum. An influential media mainstreamer suggesting that the Nat leader is in perverse denial of polling reality is likely to seem entertaining to his readers.
I Voted yesterday. 2 ticks for our Left (unsurprisingly : )
When I arrived at the Poll station there was an "older" couple standing in the doorway having a bit of a discussion with a friendly Polling helper .
She looked past them to me asked if I had my EasyVote card….I showed her, she smiled and pointed over to the Polling checkers.
I got verified and given voting paper….meanwhile the doorway discussion was still going on, and another Polling helper had joined them. Seems it was all about their address and where.. to actually vote ! (I was hearing all of this ..)
OK, so me being me, I asked the guy who had taken my EasyVote card, if there had been urgent action to get the process moving (1 million not sent ?)
He seemed maybe not so pleased to be asked this ? And said it was mainly South Auckland.
That didnt really answer my question. The doorway discussion still going.
Anyway I left..having voted Left… and got on my bike and the Sun was shining.
Positively Left as it were : )
Officers are supposed to query addresses to ensure the correct electorate is selected but not to discuss turnout or any other EC business.
Ah. That might explain him. And maybe the others were just Helpers? Still doesnt help the EasyVote situation. Which was my concern. IMO really not good enough. Especially with the lack/apathy around..Voting !
I am, by the way, basing my reply on my own experience working at the polls in previous elections. I am not doing it at this election because I am laid up after a leg operation.
As polling booth officials, we are given strict instructions on what we can and can't say and do at the venue At times we are challenged by unusual enquiries and events and have to rely on our own common sense when there is no obvious rule to consult.
I would say that polling officials get it right mostly, because they are often very interested in our democratic system of voting and want to participate in helping it, as well as the money. But being human errors can happen. There are a lot of checks designed to spot errors in registration and the voting process but humans can make mistakes. I myself once had occasion to tell my booth officer that all ballot boxes had to be opened before the general electorate count could be started, she had thought only the general electorate box should be opened until I reminded her that almost inevitably at least one person puts their vote in the wrong box and should a general electorate vote end up in the maori electorate box the count would have to be done from scratch again – a time consuming process. I was right, but not particularly popular with her for the rest of the night.
I think there has been a lot of media misinformation spread about voting problems. People in rural areas whining that they can't vote at the exact time it suits them should be reminded that in the old days they had one day only to vote and didn't have the choices that they had today. Some people expect to have a voting booth open at every sheep station along the backroad. That costs a lot of money for not a lot of gain.
My easy vot card got delivered to a previous address, but had my current one on the card itself??!!
Yes. All seems quite…disjointed ? Not like they only had weeks to sort it out? IMO its slack.
Anway…I did read you got early voting. And Tactically too.
Onya Matey : )
Folks ought to watch keenly for co-governance aka treaty rights in tonight's debate!
Harman has outlined what this election outcome is likely to hinge on. Aotearoa seeks a better way forward, politicians adopt postures accordingly, then supply what the situation seems to demand. Supply & demand being market forces, the public will buy any agreed deal that seems better than the current situation.
So, they’re going to seriously piss off the poor and disenfranchised. At the same time, give them right to buy AR15s. Mmmmmm.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces is moving to a “full offense” against the Gaza Strip… …“I have released all the restraints, we have [regained] control of the area, and we are moving to a full offense,” Gallant said…"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gallant-israel-moving-to-full-offense-gaza-will-never-go-back-to-what-it-once-was/
Israel basically just issued its own version of the severity order.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severity_Order
That two groups of humans can come to hate each other so much is just shocking beyond description.
Classic landlord/tenant relationship.
That two groups of humans can come to hate each other so much is just shocking beyond description.
That mutual hatred arose from dispossession after conquering. Jews & Palestinians are both semitic people so orthodox ethnic relations experts have a commons basis for reframing, should they choose to use it.
Do the UN use such experts? Not to my knowledge. What's the point of developing expertise in that field if you don't use it when crises happen??
One of them has powerful friends. Doesn't help. The world is f****d.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/lindsey-graham-declares-were-in-a-religious-war-suggests-israel-level-the-place/ar-AA1i3tn7?fullscreen=true&cvid=4c91f609ed684a49ac91a85827630e9c&ei=26#image=2
The average of the last two polls, which were taken within 4 days of election day is:
Lab/Gr/TPM 44.4
Nat/ACT/NZF 51.0
While it is closing, there is still too much of a gap at 6.6.
There is one glimmer of hope-NZF average 6.4 in those last two polls. Just a faint chance they will still come in at 4.9 which would make the election too close to call.
It is also possible the polls understate TPM’s vote and that they do not fully take into account overseas votes, both of which favour the Left.
The pondering of a closing gap and the overall closeness reminds me of a final flourish of a rugby team which gives them a sniff at the end of a game which suggests they could have done it.
The silly penalties and dropped balls earlier are what put them in the position, what eroded their chances.What you might term the ‘Stuart Nash factors.’
Worm-world in retrospect:
Spinoff founder Duncan Greive plays analytic historian culture vulture:
And declares us in “vibes era of politics”. Vibes being field effects in physics, he's not wrong. Then outlines the push-me, pull you theory:
That's an impressive triad he's pointing to!
A shift is pending:
I'm with Marama on this. James disagrees with the shift:
Inasmuch as peacemaking requires a negotiating body, I'm with James. The basic problem is ethnicity as basis for sovereignty. Politicians are reluctant to admit this. Just because the old testament God told the Israelites to use genocide to take possession of the promised land doesn't mean such exclusivity is morally right – when it's morally wrong!
To err is human. He has every right to demonstrate humanity.
John Key is such a slime. His faux praise for Chris Hipkins being "a man of his word" to remind everyone, especially Hipkins, that if Labour goes with Peters then "he's not a man of his word". Then just yesterday warns everyone that the nats' tax cuts and other promises are at risk because of all the palaver and chaos NZF will cause if part of a coaltion with the nats. What a schmuck.
If Hipkins is a "man of his word" it might be a reason to vote for him. Meanwhile Luxon is man of many words, all pre-scripted and repeated endlessly and irrelevantly upon the stimulus of seeing a microphone. Is he Air NZ's first embarrassing attempt to replace their cabin crews with AI? And you do know that traducing the personal ethics of Saint John is a thought crime?
Luxon is absolutely a man of of his words – his weasel words.
Reports of Israeli 'white phosphorus' use in Gaza
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-report-israeli-white-phosphorus
Suffocation and Isolation
17 Years of Israeli Blockade on Gaza
"Rather than undertaking its duty of protecting the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been placing Palestinians under a suffocating blockade, which constitutes an unprecedented form of collective punishment in a stark violation of international humanitarian law."
Infant Mortality In Gaza No Longer In Decline “Alarming Trend” According to New Report by UNRWA
"“this is an extraordinary warning sign, an alarming trend in the overall situation not only of health for infants but also the health of entire Palestine refugee population in Gaza. Moreover, it is a warning sign on the overall social and economic situation of Gaza, as the Palestine refugees account for more than seventy per cent of the entire populations in Gaza. Infant mortality is a barometer of the health of an entire population”.
Nat/Labs neolib wet-dream spurts this:
Nat/Labs will be delirious with joy at this resumption of the Ak property escalator. True neolib believers are already salivating. Make the rich richer, asap!
From the "ask a stupid question" category, I see Guy Williams has asked Luxon if he believes in dinosaurs. Luxon confirmed he did believe in dinasours.
The reason I say it was a stupid question is that I don't know any fundies who don't believe in dinasours.
A much better question to have asked is if he believes dinasours were alive at the same time as humans. I know fundies who believe the earth is literally 6000 years old who hold that view.
Sure it was on TV, Dino was pet of the Flintstone family in Bedrock.
And they know what will happen at the end time because they read the Left Behind books (thought they will be taken to an airport for rapture to escape it all).
People with those sort of beliefs usually have better evidence than that to support their views!.
That sort of thinking usually involves finding evidence that confirms a particular theory but ignores the vast amount of evidence that refutes it. For example, fossilized foot-prints of humans and dinosaurs, suggesting they were walking together. The various historical pictures of dragons that looked remarkably similar to some of the historical dinosaurs. And one explanation for how light could have been travelling for billions of years if the universe is only 6000 years old, is the conjecture by some scientists that light has been slowing down.
I don't know if they have given much thought to how much light actually would have needed to slow to explain the fairly stark difference between 14 billion years and 6 thousand years.
Your last point is a good one.
As for Guy Williams, he usually isn't very funny, although "NZ Today" had some good moments. He stopped Leo Molloy becoming Auckland mayor, at least. (Wayne Brown was only the second worst candidate in the race).
Fossils were planted in the rocks by God to test the faith of humans. Carbon dating is the devil's handiwork. How can you not know this tsmith?
They have got a bit more scientific about this sort of stuff these days. But, the arguments are still stupid. For instance, if you point to carbon dating of some fossil showing it to be a million years old or something, they will point to some dubious result where, for instance, a live penguin was carbon dated and found to be millions of years old or something.
The inference being that one dodgy result disproves the whole history of carbon dating as a science.
Carbon dating doesn’t work on/with dinosaur fossils.
Thanks incognito. Like Maureen Pugh, I'll need to do some reading this weekend.
One of the more absurd explanations that I have heard from a fundy to explain the existence of fossils is that that were 2 creations. In the 1st God stuck all these bones and so on in the ground (for what reason I have never been able to fathom) and then of course the 2nd with Adam and Eve.
lol
I voted today.
It's easy to forget how well run our elections are. Compared to the shambles in some other democracies (see Trump), NZ's is a model of efficiency and accessibility. If we take it for granted, we shouldn't. What would our turnout be if we had to queue for hours?
No ID either, something used to block participation in other jurisdictions (again, see USA). EasyVote card, ballot paper, done.
Luxon's "new favourite dinosaur"? "The TaxReliefosaurus" – except it's not new, is it Chris, nor anywhere near as big as Willux would have voters believe. Can't trust these “bottom feeders“.
Get
Our CountryUnearned LandLORD Income Back on TrackVery National in deed – self-serving scammers absolutely in thrall to Mammon.
Nats aim to reheat the property market – donors are fuming over falling house prices.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/10/election-2023-video-labour-s-chris-hipkins-on-why-he-didn-t-sleep-for-weeks-where-his-trouble-with-pastries-may-have-started.html
Hipkins seeming pretty calm, measured, and philosophical about it all.
Marama does a co-knitting session with Lloyd Burr of Newshub: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/10/election-2023-video-the-greens-marama-davidson-faces-new-level-of-political-pressure-knitting-with-newshub.html
Along with the dextrous reciprocity we get small owl calls, Marama's whanau & her parlimentary career. This is the best kind of journalism, revealing the dimensions of a politicians connection to community, so we see them in their operating contexts.
Luxon's coined a new election campaign meme: 'up the lux'. Wonderfully fitting. Reminds me of my old mum complaining she's lost something: "oh no, it's probably gone up the lux."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300987385/nz-election-2023-live-national-up-the-lux-and-on-the-defensive-over-nz-first
😆
Lol. To me, up the Lux sounds like something stuck in a very questionable, unpleasant, uncomfortable place.
Same. It sounds more like something his non-supporters would say 😖
Definitely does. He's so obviously trying to imitate the "up the Wahs" catchphrase.
Will he go ‘full imitation’ & dip out in a preliminary final? Hope so – suck it up Lux.
True, but as unpleasant as it is, would he rather be in Hipkins' place?
I stole that for twitter 😉
Some would say that Unilever hired him because he was on lux brand.
Trying to over egg it is a little trumpian.
https://www.dealercreative.com/blog/branding-the-denny-crane-way
PS Note that Winston Peters has been wearing his suit as a brand since …
Given that National and their supporters' typical way of communication is negative, dishonest and often abusive, hopefully the moderator on tonight's leaders' debate will have the professionalism to acknowledge this, and not persist with the false narrative that this has been, and is, Labour's usual style.
Dylan Asafo: "Opinion: Last Friday, a study was released finding that 94.5 percent of the National Party’s Facebook posts from September 11 to September 24 had been negative. The academic leading the study, Victoria University’s Dr Mona Krewel, said this finding was “not unexpected, given Labour is the incumbent and National is wanting to change the government”. To many of us, this finding was also unsurprising because it reflected the intense fear that’s been driving its campaign and the campaigns of Act and NZ First".
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/a-chance-to-cut-through-the-fear-and-find-the-best-of-us
Dr Mona Krewel.“Results show National is far more negative than Labour, which is campaigning from an incumbent’s position and that means mostly staying positive and trying to emphasise achievements in government.
“If we subtract negative posts from positive posts, about 63 percent more Labour posts included positive self-presentation than negative attacks. In comparison, when we do the same for National, it had a net positivity score of just 5.5 percent".
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2023/10/negative-campaiging-in-the-2023-new-zealand-election
Viewers surely can expect insightful questions, to help the undecided voters make informed decisions. I hope the moderator lets Chris Hipkins finish his responses rather than talking over him, and gives him equal time as is given to Christopher Luxon.
The moderator is told what to do by the Nats, and the media, before the leaders debate gets started. my opinion.
So the IDF are bombing homes of journalist now. And first responders going to peoples aid.
We are just going to attack Hamas – yeah right.
https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin
Paula Bennett!!!. Really!!!! Could not believe it. How in the heck was she brought on as a panelist. She who believed there was no such thing as Poverty, GOLLY GOSH. I’m done.
Not watching any more of this travesty. Straight in delivering the NP lines. Accusing Chris Hipkins of negative accusations against The Lux. Oh, the irony. Do they all sleep in the same bed.
Blatant put up job. Sick.
She and other Nats made people on the benefits' lives miserable IMO.
I haven't forgotten what she did with Training Incentive Allowance 😡🤬