That's gotta sting.
Bill'll have some line or other denying the obvious, but he and Key and the rest of the Nats have been told loud and clear. What that means for the coming election is the interesting thing. Bill, having read the writing on the wall, has abandoned the seat and will stand for the list only. Curious. Mind you, he's a Wellingtonian now, has been for years and he knows we Southlanders prefer our representatives to live locally.
11 comments:
Interesting Robert interesting result ...ahh what was the turnout of this very blue seat ..realising the tories were told not to vote etc all a waste time mesage and like good little political slaves they did exactly what their masters told them :(
Just to add comment though I think it high time we lobbied and demanded referendum results be binding on politicians no matter what their political persuasion
It's a clear and decisive win to the left here in Southland, Pauline. The Nats got thumped. Bill was given a message from his people and if some of them were too dim to vote in support of Bills and John's fire sales, then so be it.
It's a walloping!
Ah no RG, as Paulinem notes only 2/3rds of those that voted said no. Not a walloping at all.
To suggest it was a walloping shows you're spinning what is a disaster for the Greens and Liabour. Less than 50% of the electorate turned out with only two thirds of those voting in favour. If that is indicative (i.e. only 29.5% of the electorate) of the support for left politics, the gnats are a shoe in next year.
don't think they should ever be binding. Common sense would suggest to every politician that they are a hiding to nowhere to keep on with the re-sales remembering that Air NZ and the Railways have been sold and bought back before. Once the energy companies are run down through lack of investment by people only interested in profits we will be buying them back in ten years anyway. Bill English will be working for the Nigerian scammers in his old age showing them how the mirrors work
That's a very selective view of history PT.
Wisconsin rail asset stripped NZ Railways as they were under direct threat from the then Liarbour government that the railways would be nationalised. If they'd known that Cullen would pay over the odds for a useless train set I'm sure the history would have been quite different.
If (and it is a big if) the politicians can keep out of the business of electricity generation and let the companies get on with it, then there will be no problems. The businesses are completely different to risky / marginal profit operations like airlines and outdated technology like railways.
Not sure how it could be called selective. The facts are there for all to see. Utility services have been built with public funds and I agree fully that the politicians should not manage them there is no good reason for selling them. It is just to easy for so called business experts to generate money by doing no more than adjusting prices. Then they rush off and pay themselves millions of dollars. Telecom would be the classic and if anyone ever sat down and worked out how much has been stripped from the company in inflated wages their would be people rioting in the street. The last CEO took in excess of 20 million dollars back to Scotland for less than five years work. Because every NZ home has a telephone they just ease the price up and its like gathering taxes. If you look at every so called successful business leader in NZ today everyone of them is doing nothing more than finding ways to cut costs. Not one proactive person amongst them finding ways to increase business and employ more people. They have no social conscience or vision for the future. The right wingers want none of the culture of the days when Govt departments built the infrastructure such as the MOW who built Twizel as they cant clip the ticket on the money spent. Strange that!
PT you have a myopic and distorted outlook of the current situation and a very rosy tinted view of history.
To address a minor part of your distorted views: Telecom is a good example. All was not well with telecom when it was sold off. As a government department it was a basket case - and that's a polite description.
Telecom has had the worst political interference from the left that has stripped, and continues to strip the value of the company. You are quite wrong when you talk about them being a monopoly. Their business is under attack from technology and is not the stable provider of ongoing funding you see it as. Just look at the number of homes that no longer use their services and don't have a landline. As for what the CEO earns - that's up to the directors and shareholders. It's their decision if they feel they receive value for what they've paid. Similarly their customers will decide what the company's social conscience should be - not commentators with chips on their shoulders.
And thank all that's good that we no longer want need or desire the sort of culture that had government departments running fortress New Zealand into the ground.
Have no problem with someone not agreeing with my opinion but do when people say its distorted or use other big words intended to put down. My opinions are based on my life experiences and watching what goes on around me.It would be quite wrong to call you a small minded bigot who hides behind a non de plume and has a picture intended to show some extension of your private parts which cant be big enough wouldn't it?
I saw the privatisation of most of the Govts services in the late eighties and we lived in a country that we pretty well off. Headlines such as children living in poverty were unheard of back then. Since those days we have seen a growing gap between the rich and the poor and most young people now cant buy their own home. Michael Faye and his cronies have mostly fled NZ with their treasure chests and we are seeing businesses crumbling as the short sighted attitudes prevail. I am one of the lucky ones who lived in the land of plenty but understand that I cannot shut my eyes and ignore those who do not have plenty. Our society is reflective of those who are at the bottom, not those few at the top. Selling off the family silver is just another short sighted cynical move by a govt that has no vision.
I'm sorry my comments upset you. They're based on what you write here. What you write appears to be a jaundiced view of corporate NZ coupled with a rosy tinted hue of fortress NZ without seeing its warts. Again my POV.
To a certain extent your thoughts on what my picture represents could be more a reflection on you, but hey that's something Freud thought...
If you want to blame the figment of child poverty on privatisation you go for it. That still won't fix that particular problem. Similarly believing the gummint will fix it when it's big gummint with its creeping socialism that's caused the problem of 'child poverty' in the first place. Look no further than poor schooling, welfare dependency, inefficient tax systems - all failings of big gummint. What surprises is you want to double down those failings.
Takes more than some words to upset me. Been savaged by some of the best over the years most who have gone on to prove me right about what I think. Sadly one of those cases was about the fact business knows best how to run business during the debate on getting rid of mines inspectors in 1997'8. You wont see Bill Birch fronting the same argument nowadays after Pike River will you?. Just one example but plenty of others like the demise of Solid Energy because of the failure of the management to understand business. To blame coal prices which for years have cycled up and down is stunning to say the least. The same Bolger Birch govt cut apprentice training as again business knows best and would train the required people. Did they. Could keep going but doubt any argument would ever change your mind.
You seem to confuse government meddling in business with 'business knows best'.
Doing away with apprenticeships was pure leftist mantra delivered yet again by a National government. And we're both agreed then it was a stupid thing to do.
Similarly Solid Energy was an example of an SOE taking risks that a private company just wouldn't, all because they feel they have government/taxpayer backing.
There is a theme here that you don't want to acknowledge. Government meddling in business leads to bad outcomes. State organisations particularly departments make bad decisions as they don't have the same incentives and limitations that private companies have.
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