Brash’s hostile takeover of the ACT Party had the potential of raising the eyebrows of political commentators around the world since it was unusual and unexpected. But such a takeover was made possible by the failures of ACT Party leader Rodney Hide AND National Party leader John Key.
Hide’s brand was tarnished, according to Brash. Hide, the former perk buster attracted a storm of criticism when he took his then girlfriend on a taxpayer-funded overseas trip. That was one of a number of highly publicized failures. Yet his biggest failures were that under his leadership ACT went off message and ACT MPs publicly fought each other while the government’s other main supporter, the Maori Party, was relentlessly on-message and won a series of public concessions before MP Hone Harawira turned septic.
The National Party’s failure is, as Brash says, that the government is borrowing $300-million a week while failing get rid of some of the weighty, costly bureaucracy that is slowly sinking our ship of state.
The current National Party is led by a person whose life ambition was to be prime minister but once there seemed to lack any clear idea of where he wants to lead the nation. As a smile-and-wave all-things-to-all-people kind of guy, he is unequipped to deal with the swirling whirlpool of self-interest that exists at Wellington’s Bowen triangle.
The current government is incapable of making a decision on the facts placed before it. For instance, the Key government implemented the emissions trading scheme despite expert advice that the scheme would have virtually no impact on reducing global emissions. The Key government was also advised that the whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. We are paying more for petrol and electricity to subsidise a handful of foresters.
For anyone who may think the current bunch of Nats are a tad Muldoonist, Key, like former National Party leader and prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon, does not listen to advice. He has Roger Douglas as a coalition partner yet systematically ignores everything Douglas has to say on the economy. As finance minister during the 1980s, Douglas dealt with the economic chaos wrought by Muldoon. You would think that at a time of economic crisis, like now, a wise prime minister would consult widely with an open mind. Not John Key.
Moving along, I am glad also that Hone Harawira is out on his own leading well-known self-loathing left-wing activists to the polls so that everyone will be able to see the exact amount of support they actually have.
The Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira, who split from the Maori Party ostensibly over differences on the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, gives the appearance of representing his electorate to his party and parliament. However, his new status as the biggest parliamentary spender on travel, and his recent comments that he didn’t like the office or seat in the House that was given to him, shows that he has an ego as big as the open air, and his new Mana Party is really about Hone’s mana.
Harawira’s egotistical campaign against his former colleagues in the Maori Party blinds him to the reality that if he takes Te Tai Tokerau he will return to parliament as the Hone Harawira party of one. He would be able to continue to rail against the evils of colonialism while picking up the perks that colonialism has brought. Hypocrite!
The Maori Party’s battle has become more difficult, and after the election, since co-leader Pita Sharples faces a challenge from Labour’s Shane Jones for Tamaki Makaurau, and the Maori Party’s founding MP Tariana Turia plans to retire, the party will have fewer MPs.
While Harawira may present his victory in Te Tai Tokerau as a given, other parties should contest that seat vigorously to give the Maori voters up there a real choice.
13 comments:
Tribal fighting without spear and club.
As for Brash and Douglas, be careful what you wish for.
The Key government was also advised that the whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s.
Whilst I put myself firmly in the sceptic camp on this topic, this statement seems a little bit on the certain side. Do you have any more info on what form this advise took?
As far as I'm concerned, they're all a bunch of ratbags out after to line their own pockets. Borrowing has increased to $300,000,000's a week. yet our country continues to go down the gurgler. At what price politics?
300-million a week while failing get rid of some of the weighty, costly bureaucracy that is slowly sinking our ship of state.
If Key/English are only borrowing $300 Million per week why did they borrow $1.2 BILLION a couple of weeks ago
Fiscally, Key/English has been far, far worse than Hellen/Cullen. Amazingly worse. At least Cullen would have followed the UK Tories and really smacked up GST, and smacked a top tax rate to 50%.
Smile'n'wave did nothing
I can't wait for Finance Minister Brash's emergency budget in November: 25% cut to all state salaries & all benefits; corporate taxes down to 10%; end of WFF, student loans, DPB, .... there's so much to do and so little time!
And you mongrels had the cheek to call Grey Power the Greedy Oldies. Top Execs salaries up 14% and workers wages up less than 2%. Tax cuts for the "greedy fat cats and nothing for the workers. Isn't it wonderful that the low paid workers get slammed and lose their jobs and income but fat cats salaries increase out of control. A top tax rate of 50% should be the least. At least Brash will never be PM or Finance Minister and if you think that he will you believe in the ":tooth fairy"
Come on Mike, you've had three days now to defend the following extraordinary assertion -- get on with it. (And I'm not the first to ask)
"The Key government was also advised that the whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s"
Get off the Grass Brash is Disaster for the Country.
With Brash in this Country is up a creek without a paddle.
Will the Maoris get less with him in.?
Brash is Bad News remember him and the Exclusive Brethren's.?
True "Smile and Wave has done nothing" for the Country.
I think Brash will be a good influence on National if they win the election as he will force them to restrain government spending. If the government spends less then it means the public can spend more. It is the public who are the wealth creators not the government. Less government spending has to be good for the country!
I think the Maori Parties are like the rash of Christian Parties a while ago. They all self destructed. We are all in this together.
A good account of how the whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s comes from David Evans, who wrote “Climate models go cold” for the Financial Post, April 8, 2011. Read the entire article at http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/3739 He wrote:
“Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, '80s and '90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.
“This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.
“At this point, official "climate science" stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory.”
To Mike Bradstock . . should have checked comments earlier . . . Of course, I presented written and oral submissions to the sleepwalkers to the select committee hearing views on the Emissions Trading (Moderated Response) Bill pointing out the inconvenient details of global cooling at a time when the IPCC zealots are claiming global warming. But my background is in journalism, not science, so I cannot be counted as an expert. However, Dr Kesten Green, who has published in international peer-reviewed journals on the subject of forecasting, including climate forecasting, who therefore can be described as an expert, said that that the procedures used in making the IPCC's forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming violated proper forecasting practice to such an extent that the forecasts had no credibility and hence should not be used by policy makers. I note that for the latest emissions trading review Nick Smith has refused to discuss climate science.
For those readers who may be astonished at my clarity that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis has long been disproved, “Tropospheric temperature change since 1979 from tropical radiosonde and satellite measurements”, by J.R. Christy, W.B. Norris, R.W. Spencer, and J.J. Hnilo, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 2007, provided the scholarly evidence that temperature had not changed in the tropics during a period when global warming should have been warming the tropics. For further scholarly evidence, R.S. Lindzen detailed the fact that the IPCC climate change model failed the test and was therefore invalid in his 2007 paper “Taking greenhouse warming seriously”, published in Energy and Environment.
fact is, though, we are wasting this precious and dwindling resource of energy - oil - so that we can have the luxury of driving down to the corner shop for a loaf of bread - and in the process we are pumping a whole lot of co2 back into the atmosphere ...
of course we all know that will have no affect whatsoever on anything, just like everthing else we do ...
i mean, that usless old plastic bottle i threw away yesterday has nothing whatsoever to do with the big accumulation of plastic circulating in the pacific ocean does it?
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