Ten Reasons for National to do another term

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, October 5th, 2017 - 28 comments
Categories: bill english, Economy, election 2017, greens, infrastructure, jacinda ardern, labour, national, nz first, poverty, same old national, Shane Jones, winston peters - Tags:

Ten Reasons for National to Do Another Term.

  1. Leave the downturn to National. The economy is cooling, and neither side has any clear plan about how to revive it.
  2. The Greens won’t have to compromise.
  3. Winston would be just too hard work. English can have him.
  4. Jacinda, like Helen Clark, needs time to settle as leader let alone Prime Minister.
  5. Labour and the Greens need a term to sort out their tax policy.
  6. Since National, Labour, and the Greens have all signed up to the budgetary guidelines, why bother changing budget delivery teams?
  7. Large useful parts of government like NZSuper, ACC, electricity companies, and NZTA are largely self-funding and keep going regardless, so why change when the remainder of our government is barely noticeable?
  8. We have too much housing debt to put at risk with large scale housing reform.
  9. We haven’t missed not having a government, so why change anything?
  10. Shane Jones.

28 comments on “Ten Reasons for National to do another term ”

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  1. cleangreen 1
    5 October 2017 at 8:01 am

    All just rubbish from this 10 points as you forgot TPPA and other incidious “trade agreements about to be forced upon us since you do admit “so why change when the remainder of our government is barely noticeable?”

    We need a new brush now in Government to clean up annd disban these trade agreements that will kill us over the next term should National remain in power

    NZTA are not a rail builder so who is?

    Forget this ‘ten reasons poppycock’ before you destroy our country.!!!!!!!

  2. lprent 2
    5 October 2017 at 8:20 am

    Ummm. Shane Jones – that really is a good reason. I kept hoping that National would take him. Hot potato.

    I just look at this election as simply being a win-win for Labour and the Greens, plus even NZ First if they don’t tie themselves to National as a sinker.

    EITHER

    National manages to erect a angry rope attached to an anchor (Winston) around their necks that they have demonised for decades, is forced to piss off their urban base, and commits political suicide for the long term. It is like they decide to commit mutual political suicide by jumping off a boat. Meanwhile both National and their rope shed voters to Labour, Labour sheds voters to the Greens, and there is the nearest thing to a landslide in 2020, and National has to convince their base that they aren’t raving lunatics for the next few elections after that.

    OR

    Labour, Greens and NZ First with a pretty high commonality of policy and intent plus a clear mandate for change go into government (in one configuration or another) to fix everything up after National have slacked around for 9 years doing very little. There is enough to do that each coalition party will be able to claim wins. But they have to fight hard to win the next elections

    Sure in the latter case, we’d have National spending the next few years screaming that they had been robbed. Under MMP it is a really bad idea to blow off your allies to grab their votes. It is an even worse idea to spend decades disrespecting and demonising potential coalition parties – because at some stage you’re going to need them. But National have never been notable for their ability to think.

    Strategically either way this is a win win for the centre-left and left.

    And best of all, the worst that can happen is that a quite a few politicians get disappointed on all sides. Coalition politics without the teeny parties is pretty career damping for the larger parties politicians. My heart bleeds for them…

    • Frida 2.1
      5 October 2017 at 8:27 am

      @lprent – this is my take as well. Although the first option won’t have the immediacy of fixing stuff for the most vulnerable that the second option might be able to quickly achieve in some areas, it will drag National back to the Centre and Winston will definitely act as a handbrake on their worst excesses. I am over my initial despair and disappointment at the election outcome, and now also see it as a win-win for the Left. I also think Joyce’s lie, although having no impact on tribal Gnats as yesterday’s post discussed, has created distaste amongst a big chunk of the soft centre vote for ongoing dirty politics and dishonest tactics (just an anecdotal observation on my part, mind you)

    • WILD KATIPO 2.2
      5 October 2017 at 9:38 am

      … ” Sure in the latter case, we’d have National spending the next few years screaming that they had been robbed. Coalition politics without the teeny parties is pretty career damping for the larger parties politicians. My heart bleeds for them…

      Yeah bloody diddums to them. Never mind all this speculation , – lets just get rid of National and start from there. That’s the first and foremost objective. And leave all the doom and bloody gloom and ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’ to the timid !!!

      This is what we all wanted for so long , the hell with pontificating.

      I say go for it !

    • mike 2.3
      5 October 2017 at 12:27 pm

      I stand by my comment on 25th September for which I was pretty much slammed by tracey and alwyn. The only thing I’d add is that the whole ‘baubles’ thing to describe Winston is yet another national frame up. The guy has proved to be more reliably trust worthy that anybody in the bloody national party.

      25th September
      We keep saying “who Winston decides to go with”.
      No.
      Let us decide!

      We can make our price so high that we can FORCE Winston to go with the Tories.
      Who wants him? And who wants this term in Government?
      Let those people stand there for three years holding the tray of shit they have created.
      A ridiculous bunch of clowns, well known for their failures and lies, desperately trying to be dignified. Bitten in the arse constantly by the dreaded Winston, while they whirl around searching for an idea.

      Meanwhile, as a much larger opposition, with a leader who commands both respect and media interest, we hone our policies and practices to make 2020 the sort of reforming tide that carries another great Labour/Green government to a proper incumbency.

      In one fell swoop we can wipe the floor with both the Tories and old Winston.
      Two birds with one stone!

      It’s the long game.

  3. Munta 3
    5 October 2017 at 8:44 am

    So, in the absence of any other allies for National, let’s take the notion of a Green tie-up seriously.

    Let’s forget those farmers in Morrinsville. And let’s accept that the party of farmers and businesses would embrace the “loony” Greens to avoid the evil clutches of Winston Peters.

    Then let’s forget that for nine years, and more, National has been using the Greens as the bogy men of politics; one of the main reasons people should not vote Labour.

    Let’s forget that in National folklore they have been dope-smoking, RMA-hugging, farmer-taxing, welfare-enabling, SIS-dismantling, Iraq-deployment-loathing, Hager-loving, cow-culling, mining-denying, climate change-obsessive, growth-curbing, railroading, motorway-rejecting anti-free trade peaceniks. And not very bright or realistic either.

  4. marty mars 4
    5 October 2017 at 9:03 am

    Tongue in cheek indeed – nice

    All the ‘needs time’ ‘no plan’ ones are gnat lines. We’ve run out of time to let the gnats continue.

    How about a bit more weight such as

    – allows bill english to continue to not be honest and pretend to be upstanding
    – allows Joyce who is a economic dropout and porkie pie aficionado to continue to manage the budget
    – allows rivers to get sicker and dirtier whilst mega farm owners get richer
    And so on.

    Edit – probably not tongue in cheek enough methinks sorry ☺

  5. Delia 5
    5 October 2017 at 9:25 am

    I would love them just to carry on,(on their own), it is bound to implode sometime soonish and Labour, NZF and the Greens on the Opposition benches just sneering at them, is to good a laugh to pass up.

  6. WILD KATIPO 6
    5 October 2017 at 9:31 am

    9. We haven’t missed not having a government, so why change anything?

    ^^^

    This is the only one I agree with.

    However !

    The reclamation needs to start sooner rather than later. Putting things off only worsens a bad situation . Besides ! , – we need a government !

    Forwards !, Labour !

    And Greens and NZ First on both flanks !

    Attack ! Attack ! Attack !

    No more giving ground!

    • Eco maori 6.1
      6 October 2017 at 12:31 am

      +100 that’s the correct why to deal with this b.s. that’s being served up to us buy national .They think there ideological bull shit is justified because they stayed in power and have a mandate to govern YEA RIGHT it is not ok to hold power when one is cheating and stealing that power from US .
      If national were not cheating and lying than there policys would be acceptable as that is how our democracy works . But democracy does not work if people are aloud to cheat and hack the democratic systems as the left politicians won’t stoop to those lows that neo liberals will stoop to.
      So I’m my VIEW we have to pass laws to prevent this bull shit behavior from cheating US of a future bright future for OUR grandchildren. Ka Pai

  7. Incognito 7
    5 October 2017 at 9:40 am

    Feel the fear and do it anyway because giving in to fear is giving up freedom https://thestandard.org.nz/there-is-hope-2/

    If anything, a new government that does not include National can reset the narrative and by golly do we need a new narrative!

    • tracey 7.2
      5 October 2017 at 11:48 am

      It is a HUGE ask given that the media have probably now convinced a majority that NATs have a “mandate”. We still havent recovered from Douglas and Richardson, the next govt will not even make a dent in 3 years

      • WILD KATIPO 7.2.1
        5 October 2017 at 12:08 pm

        Even more the reason to get the process underway now.

      • Incognito 7.2.2
        5 October 2017 at 10:05 pm

        Sure, it is a huge task but it is not up to the new NZ Government only. There are many changes occurring all over the world and we in NZ are not immune to these (thankfully!) and vice versa NZ can take the lead in many areas of global concern (social justice, climate change, etc., just like in the past with women’s suffrage, for example).

        Like continental drift these changes have been taking place largely under the surface and out of view (except perhaps for a very few very finely-attuned people) and now we’re seeing something bubbling up to the surface (or erupting). Even a fourth National-led government won’t be able to stop certain things from happening. In fact, they can do very little full-stop …

  8. red-blooded 8
    5 October 2017 at 10:57 am

    My replies:
    1) Downturn: Don’t worry – they can spend the whole term (and any subsequent ones) blaming National and its economic mismanagement. (After all, that line worked for years for this lot!)
    2) Greens: And they won’t get to have any influence, either.
    3) Winston: Distract him with a few baubles. Winston likes baubles.
    4) Jacinda, unlike Helen Clark, doesn’t have competition in the caucus and does have the media eating out of her hand. She’s also got the support of Andrew Little (a good organiser and policy guy) and others like HC herself sitting in the background. Besides, this stardust ain’t going to settle!
    5) That’s what the tax working group is for.
    6) Who do you want the budget to deliver for?
    7) That “barely noticeable” government gets to make some pretty big decisions! Charter schools, tax cuts and austerity programmes, state house sell-offs, poking holes in the ETS… I can think of a few decisions from the last lot that I’ve sure noticed!
    8) Who’s this “we” of whom you speak? Those of us who are renting, or who live in places like Dunedin (my home town) feel pretty comfortable with the idea of housing reform.
    9) Why change anything? So that we can CHANGE things!
    10) See (3) above (re baubles).

    • Andre 8.1
      5 October 2017 at 11:01 am

      It’s not baubles that work best for distracting Shane.

      • Brendan 8.1.1
        5 October 2017 at 11:16 am

        Are you suggesting we just put Shane in a hotel room with a TV and a taxpayer credit card for the remainder of the term?

        It’s a small price to pay so that we don’t have to listen to the garbage that comes out of his mouth.

        • Andre 8.1.1.1
          5 October 2017 at 11:21 am

          Hadn’t thought of that exact solution, but it’ll work.

        • Macro 8.1.1.2
          5 October 2017 at 3:55 pm

          What an excellent idea!

        • Stuart Munro 8.1.1.3
          5 October 2017 at 11:40 pm

          I think it’s a bit mean actually. Yeah, he misappropriated some taxpayer money. Yeah, it wasn’t graceful. But Billy Boy’s double dip was about 1000 times larger, and it wasn’t an oversight. Bill’s career didn’t get smashed – so maybe Jones’ shouldn’t either.

          I’m not a fan as it happens, and his fisheries history is in no way a triumph. But if he keeps it sensible he should be allowed to rehabilitate.

  9. Cemetery Jones 9
    5 October 2017 at 11:38 am

    What baffles me is why nothing discernible came of all that Future of Work research, which looked quite decent. Did Robertson in the end just lack the ability to make it into policy, or was Little too middle of the road? I feel like there was a real missed opportunity not bringing it into play.

    • red-blooded 9.1
      5 October 2017 at 12:40 pm

      The tertiary education policy was predicated (in part) on that work. In particular, the thinking about the shift into work needing more skills and training and the fact that people will need to access training and tertiary education options during their working lives, not just before they start.

      There was also policy about things like R&D tax credits, regional development schemes (eg a Centre of Digital Excellence – basically a digital gaming hub in Dunedin, an incubator scheme building on existing businesses and creating a chair at Otago University), reforming workplace relations… http://www.labour.org.nz/jobs

      And not all complex thinking gets translated into election promises. There was a deliberate decision this time for Labour to focus on clearly defined themes and not to put out a jumble of policy that competed for airtime and attention.

      • Cemetery Jones 9.1.1
        5 October 2017 at 10:20 pm

        Thanks, that is interesting and I’m glad something came of it – but it did take a lot of their time during the last parliamentary term for something which doesn’t seem to have produced much fanfare at the end. I’m definitely glad they didn’t go over the top on releasing excessive screeds of policy as they tended to before though, that much is a given in terms of keeping things centred on the attention spans of voters.

  10. infused 10
    5 October 2017 at 9:52 pm

    You’re stealing my lines. You lot can have Winston.

  11. SMILIN 11
    5 October 2017 at 11:29 pm

    NO. 11
    We will turn your whole world Milky Blue

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