Polity: The big lie

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, September 5th, 2014 - 44 comments
Categories: labour - Tags: , ,

Reposted from Polity.

With the polls bouncing around all over the map, methinks some folk have been a little quick to bury the left’s corpse. And the interesting thing is the way they have done it, with a disappointed shake of the head and a “if only Labour had concentrated on policy, rather than using all their energy on Dirty Politics.” That is the Big Lie.

The truth is opposition parties have rolled out massively more policy than the government for this election. And the policy that opposition parties have released has been better developed and costed as well. How do you think National is able to release massive (doctored) lists of what opposition party policies might cost? Hard to do that if the opposition has no policy, right?

On the flip side, we have a government that still can’t tell New Zealanders whether the tax system will change, and if it can by how much. That is their flagship policy for an election in 15 days, and still nobody knows what the policy is. How’s that for not concentrating on policy?

Here’s a parlour game. Name the top five new policies of the two major parties. Start with Labour. Go!

  • 100,000 new homes – KiwiBuild
  • Lower class sizes
  • $60 a week for parents of new babies – Best Start
  • Hundreds of dollars a year off your power bill – NZ Power
  • Cheaper doctor’s visits for kids and the elderly
  • Ban on foreign speculators in the housing market
  • Minimum wage up $2
  • Laptops for kids… Oh, sorry, you only wanted five.

And now National. Go!

  • Potentially tax cuts. Or not. Size uncertain
  • Cheaper doctor’s visits for kids
  • Subsidies for first home buyers to keep bidding up home prices
  • Um, axing the nail tax
  • Give me a second. Hang on, I’ll get one… Dammit.

The Big Lie here is that the left doesn’t have any ideas. The left is brimming with ideas, all paid for and popular.

44 comments on “Polity: The big lie ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. infused 1
    5 September 2014 at 8:52 am

    Dumb, or just stupid. I don’t know, probably both.

    https://www.national.org.nz/plan/plan

    • AmaKiwi 1.1
      5 September 2014 at 11:07 am

      The polls are the Big Lie.

      Pollsters do NOT poll cell phones. I have confirmed this personally with one of Auckland’s leading polling firms.

      1. It is too expensive to poll cell phones.
      2. Their clients (news media) don’t care because the purpose of the polls is to generate news stories, not to be accurate.
      3. Most of their clients don’t want a poll that says the Left will win. Please the client.

      People who have landlines own their own home. Are they more likely to vote National or Left?
      Are people who only have a cell phone more likely to vote for Internet Mana or NZ First? Labour/Green or Nats?

      The polls are the big right wing lie. Polls are intentionally inaccurate because that discourages Left voters.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.2
      5 September 2014 at 12:19 pm

      Off the top of your head.

      The fact is that the majority of people would be able to identify 5+ of Labour’s/left policies while very few would be able to name five of National’s because National hasn’t been talking policies.

  2. Tracey 2
    5 September 2014 at 8:54 am

    The things is that cross analysis of polls and polling companies is achievable. If they want to be lazy they can just go to Swordfish website.

    Now an interesting story would be to publish their findings… showing that the polls are largely, consistently wrong about the figures in the final outcome.

    Too much work?

    • AmaKiwi 2.1
      5 September 2014 at 11:12 am

      Too much expense for no gain.

      My source, who owns are large polling firm, says it is hugely expensive to try to poll cell phone users.

      How happy would the client (Granny Herald, etc.) be if a poll including cell phone users showed Internet Mana is well above the 5% threshold. They’d shoot the messenger.

  3. disturbed 3
    5 September 2014 at 8:57 am

    “if only Labour had concentrated on policy, rather than using all their energy on Dirty Politics.” That is the Big Lie.

    There was never a time when NatZ would discuss or consider working with the opposition and this can easily be demonstrated by watching the constant shouting down of opposition during any debate during parliament.

    NatZ have shown a new raw caustic new policy of working exclusively alone now.

    They cannot expect any opposition to even attempt to work now with NatZ who are shown to be diametrically opposed to anything the opposition say.

    Let alone consider it as a working possibility, because National set the tone for no co-operation.

    TV3 this morning Jamie Lee Ross was shouting down Jacinda Adern during what?

    Yes a debate about policy and Jacinda was unable to get her point across.

    Where did we see this emerge?
    Yes it was during one of the first debates on policy with Steven Joyce (NatZ campaign manager) and David Parker, remember that awful bully shouting match?

    So why are NatZs falsely saying left have sadly used their energy on dirty politics?

    Who has set the tone for discussion on policy?

  4. Lanthanide 4
    5 September 2014 at 8:58 am

    Cheaper doctor’s visits and axing the nail tax are from National’s last budget, not election policy.

    The election policy that I know they’ve announced is:
    * Building some roads in favoured electorates
    * Rolling out UFB to 5% more of the population
    * Paying a select group of teachers and principles extra money to preside over ‘area schools’, even though teachers and principles don’t want it

    That’s pretty much it, actually.

    Also there’s the “red-tape” drive Paula Bennett is doing, getting submissions from the public about which laws are stifling people. It’s a nice little PR campaign but ultimately I don’t expect much to come from it.

    • Tracey 4.1
      5 September 2014 at 9:00 am

      I think they are relying on the May budget as their “policy” but don’t have to include it in their spending promises.

  5. go west 5
    5 September 2014 at 9:24 am

    Labour only have themselves to blame. They’ve been letting Hager do the talking and are now paying the price. Turns out the electorate isn’t as ignorant as they were hoping.

    • lprent 5.1
      5 September 2014 at 10:52 am

      Hah… A political idiot neophyte.

      Dirty Politics has disrupted planned Labours campaign just as much as it did for National. Probably more. They had a pile of policy carefully scripted and planned for release and now no-one is really spending much time looking at it in the wake of the book.

      The Labour campaign team have been scrabbling for the last 3 weeks, I get some of that from the back channels. A pretty good test for how versatile they are. However it is apparent that they have been more flexible than National with their pathetic denial routines.

      It seems to me that National were rather stupid to head into simple denial, committing their party machine (their doorknockers!) and prime candidate to it, and then bullheadedly sticking to it. It is quite clear that voters don’t believe them.

      • Wayne 5.1.1
        6 September 2014 at 8:14 am

        And this site confirms the Left’s obsession with DP. Five of the first eight items relate to DP.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1.1
          6 September 2014 at 8:29 am

          Go and stand in the garden while I get the hose, Dr. Mapp: you’re covered in it.

        • karol 5.1.1.2
          6 September 2014 at 8:36 am

          It was big news yesterday.

          Dirty Politics reveals goings on that are very significant in NZ’s political history. Your comment is just another right wing attempt to downplay it.

        • tricledrown 5.1.1.3
          6 September 2014 at 9:56 am

          Wayne rights obsession to deny and blame the left.
          You must be disgusted by the high jacking of your party by extremist mentally unstable professional and corrupt officials !
          Not the National party you grew up with!
          Key would be even more popular if he hadn’t engaged in this lowlife behaviour!

      • Quinnjin 5.1.2
        7 September 2014 at 10:01 pm

        +1 lprent, “Go West” seems to think if he keeps saying it makes it true, just like The nats and their party shills in much of the MSM. Just another ignorant, wilfully deluded propaganda victim too stupid to see through the BS, or just too corrupt to admit it.

    • AmaKiwi 5.2
      5 September 2014 at 11:16 am

      Dirty Politics is all the buzz amongst younger voters.

      It confirms what they have long thought: the Nats are crooked.

      These younger voters are NOT being polled because they only have cell phones. I think Internet Mana has energized (and enrolled) them to vote this time.

      • weka 5.2.1
        5 September 2014 at 12:14 pm

        And do the polls count the people who say fuck off I don’t want to answer your questions? Or people who aren’t very available by phone.

        The risk here is that too many people will see the polls and not bother voting because they think it’s all over. Or like last time the MSM will tell people that National are going to win.

        • Draco T Bastard 5.2.1.1
          5 September 2014 at 4:51 pm

          And do the polls count the people who say fuck off I don’t want to answer your questions?

          Theoretically the demographic weighting that the polling companies do should still capture those people.

          Or like last time the MSM will tell people that National are going to win.

          The MSM have a bad habit of doing that. I don’t think it’s going to work this time though as, IMO, there’s a lot of anger at National out there.

          • weka 5.2.1.1.1
            5 September 2014 at 5:07 pm

            “Theoretically the demographic weighting that the polling companies do should still capture those people.”

            How so?

              • weka …
                5 September 2014 at 6:43 pm

                Are you saying they can weight for the section of the population that says piss off? eg x% of pissed offs vote fo A etc. Wouldn’t people be saying piss off for different reasons though?

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  5 September 2014 at 8:18 pm

                  Are you saying they can weight for the section of the population that says piss off?

                  To within a reasonable degree of accuracy, yes, because not everyone that fits within the defined categories tells the pollsters to piss off.

                  Wouldn’t people be saying piss off for different reasons though?

                  Yes but they’re not asking for why people tell the pollsters to piss off.

    • Tracey 5.3
      5 September 2014 at 1:23 pm

      Thanks for proving the point of the post

  6. Blue 6
    5 September 2014 at 9:32 am

    Exactly. National have hardly any policy, and no big flagship policies. Their entire campaign is based on ‘don’t rock the boat’. There’s no vision presented at all.

    But here’s the problem: if they win the election, then they have three more years in power. And the pathetic scraps of policy they have offered so far will not keep them busy for long. So what are they going to do for the next three years? Sit around and twiddle their thumbs during what would certainly be their last term in Government?

    The fact that they have presented such a lackluster campaign does not bode well for New Zealand. Are we really that stupid that we will vote for a party that won’t tell us what they will do? Apparently we are, and that’s more than a little bit depressing.

    I think we’re going to wake up to some Abbott-style ‘surprises’ shortly after September 20 if the Nats win. And once they know we can’t get rid of them for the next three years they are going to go hell for leather on the hard right stuff they have been saving up for six years.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      5 September 2014 at 4:56 pm

      I think we’re going to wake up to some Abbott-style ‘surprises’ shortly after September 20 if the Nats win. And once they know we can’t get rid of them for the next three years they are going to go hell for leather on the hard right stuff they have been saving up for six years.

      And really fuck over the country.

    • Brendon Harre 6.2
      5 September 2014 at 8:42 pm

      I suspect you are right. The usual groups will get a good kicking…..

  7. ianmac 7
    5 September 2014 at 10:22 am

    @Blue,” And once they know we can’t get rid of them for the next three years they are going to go hell for leather on the hard right stuff they have been saving up for six years.”
    Yes. The far Right supporters have complained that the Key Government has been too soft so far. They did not want to scare the bulk of the Voters. But should they win then all hell will be unleashed.

  8. Peter 8
    5 September 2014 at 11:07 am

    Unfair as it may sound the NATS control the sound bites ……. and that is what matters

    • AmaKiwi 8.1
      5 September 2014 at 11:21 am

      I disagree. The Nats are in disarray. They have campaign money to burn but can’t reply to the torrent of dirty tricks news stories.

      What good are 10,000 posters of John Key saying, “I am not a liar.”

  9. dv 9
    5 September 2014 at 11:35 am

    And here is another way of looking at the NATS housing deal

    On a 500k mortgage

    For an input of 20k, the BANKS collect $32,500 in interest in the first year
    AND
    $1.5 million

    over 20 years!!!!!!

    • Brendon Harre 9.1
      5 September 2014 at 8:45 pm

      The power elites keep winning from a government not willing to reform away unearned income.

    • Wayne 9.2
      6 September 2014 at 8:18 am

      Except you can buy new houses in Auckland for $450,000. It is not necessary to spend $550,000. And as more Special Housing Areas get developed you will see more houses around the $450,000 mark.

      • tricledrown 9.2.1
        6 September 2014 at 9:19 am

        Geeze Wayne so what about Don Brash’s productivity commission was disbande because of inconvenient truths !
        Like the cost of housing particularly in Auckland was damaging NewZealand’s long-term productivity!
        The cost of servicing a mortgage of$300,000 @ $500 per week them maintenance rates and insurance makes house ownership out of reach for most NewZealanders!
        Wayne your full of crap a fair-weather friend of a corrupt govt sneaking back on site when National are up on the polls!

        • Colonial Viper 9.2.1.1
          6 September 2014 at 11:39 am

          Wayne is talking about housing affordability for those on the average household income of about $85,000 p.a.

          Of course for anyone living on the median wage of $44,000 p.a. a $500/week mortgage (even a $400/week mortgage) is pretty impossible.

  10. Oh Busby 10
    5 September 2014 at 11:38 am

    If anything this campaign tells us again that campaigns are not really able to change the outcome of elections. Hager’s book has certainly changed our political discourse, but the fundamental picture of a wildly popular party versus an opposition in seemingly inexonerable decline hasn’t changed in months.

    In this sense Labour launching policy early was good as it at least let them dominate policy discussions. Though obviously the problems for Labour extend far deeper than this campaign and it is foolish to expect a good campaign or policy discussion to change their systemic lack of appeal.

    I think this campaign will result in a new record defeat for Labour, so far all of the polling seems to reinforce this and they are trending down.

    A number of current Labour MPs will not be reelected. Say goodbye to Raymond Huo, Kelvin Davis, Maryan Street, Moana Mackey and Carol Beaumont. Andrew Little is on the cusp of not returning and will really be a 50/50 call if polls continue to drop. Certainly we can be certain that no new MPs will be elected from Labour’s list.

    The only fresh faces entering parliament this election are from the Maori Electorates – and sadly for Labour MPs from these electorate have traditionally been very marginalised within the power structure of the party and are unlikely to be allowed to contribute much.

    The Labour Party is moribund, and seemingly only focused on protecting an ever decreasing number of incumbent MPs.

    • Draco T Bastard 10.1
      5 September 2014 at 5:11 pm

      Wow, what long spiel of delusion.

      It’s National that are in decline and are moribund. Labour’s not as lively as it used to be but that doesn’t matter as there’s a lot more talent on the Left.

      • Wayne 10.1.1
        6 September 2014 at 8:21 am

        Draco,

        Have a look at the CV’s of National’s likely new intake. Some impressively well qualified people in there.

        Don’t see too many new Labour MP’s, even up to the 30% mark.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.1.1
          6 September 2014 at 8:24 am

          Will they go along with the filth oozing from the Prime Minister’s office, or do they have spines, Dr. Mapp?

        • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1.2
          6 September 2014 at 8:39 am

          I’ve never really given a fuck about qualifications. I do care about ethics and rational planning based upon the facts. Neither of which are available from National.

          Also, I said the Left and not Labour.

  11. Plan B 11
    5 September 2014 at 12:03 pm

    The Regan era Republican idea was that people do not actually listen to what is being said, they just look at the pictures- so more pictures of John Key on the news is good for National rather than what is actually being said.
    The selfie idea is part of that, say nothing, just do the same thing again and again – selfies and say nothing

  12. Sans Cle 12
    5 September 2014 at 12:20 pm

    Jane Patterson had good insight into what is happening on the campaign trail.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20148496/insights-from-the-campaign-trail

    • Brendon Harre 12.1
      5 September 2014 at 9:22 pm

      I just listened to the radionz report and found it a considered and intelligent debate. This is the hard thing to convey but Whaleoil or Kiwiblog bloggers would never refer someone to ‘neutral’ ‘considered’ source of information.

      I hope TheStandard does not drop down to there level. Long term people will demand a higher standard of debate about what is important to them and the society they live in.

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