New Zealand 'National' Elections - more than 1 sense of the word!

What an interesting mess this has turned out to be. The majority of the people say they don't want asset sales but they think John Key is a lovely pPrime Minister so they voted for the Nats. The Remuera-ites were greedy enough for extra MPs that they voted for ACT instead of National, but didn't achieve any more numbers. So now they have to deal with Banksie instead of one of their own.

No-one trusts the 2 main parties, and Winston Peters makes a great attack dog to keep them 'honest', so NZ First got 8 seats. The Greens managed to show up to everything in suits and not mention marijuana once. They even frowned upon defacing National's billboard, even though it was tastefully done - and they are meant to be activists from way bac. So they got 13 seats.

Then there's Peter Dunne, the lone voice of the  (long think here while I try to remember what party he fronts) It's irrelevant since he is the only one and when he retires, the party is defunct. He specialises in sensability with a bit or morality chucked in for good measure. Ah yes - it's United Future. In reality, he unites  with the winners to secure his own future..  No surprises there this time round.

The Maori party cozied up to National last time, so they managed to half their vote and lose 1 MP this time round. Sure, they got some of their policies through, but if they do it again, they might not exist after next time. Talk about selling your soul! 

Hone Harawira (Mana party) left us all in no doubt what he stood for and good on him. All the other parties hate him but he has the courage of his convictions and he won his electorate seat. Another attack dog. - Lord knows, we need them.

Another one who put his money where his mouth is is the Conservative party bloke.  I reckon he's positioning for the next elections to take over ACT's role as a sideshow for the Nats, should they need a friend.

Then there is Labour.  Oh deary deary me!.  Up against the most popular prime minister in donkeys years, they wanted us embrace some pretty unpalatable policies such as raising the retirement age, and imposing the unpopular emissions trading scheme on farmers.  I couldn't quite understand why they were not emphasizing chasing the party vote rather than the electorate vote. These might be very laudable and possibly very sensible, but also very unpopular.  Phil Goff grew in stature during the campaign, apart from a very damaging debate early on in the piece. Taking over from Helen was always going to be a poisoned chalice. 


So here we kiwis are. The Nats have the numbers to push through the flogging off of our assets and they say they have a mandate for it.  They haven't, but that won't stop them.

Only 65% of the voters bothered to vote. This includes a huge section of our young adults.  Maybe this has something to do with our failure to teach history in schools any more. They don't seem to care that women and ethnic minorities has a real battle to get the right to vote,  Maybe they aren't watching TV any more either - nightly we are shown the latest uprisings to try to get democracy .   People are still willing to die to get the right to vote.  And in many countries they are dying and being imprisoned because they challenge their rulers.

But 35% of our people who have this privilege didn't bother to wander down to a booth to tick a couple of boxes.  Shame on you!  Sooner or later, someone will say,  "This voting thing is unpopular, we'll abolish it and rule you without you having to bother to choose." Maybe only then will those folks who say now 'I'm not interested in politics' get motivated.