What a curious circus act yesterday between John Key and John Banks. The thing that struck me was the nature of the “endorsement”.
First, John Key appears to want National voters in Epsom to vote for John Banks, or so the media tells us. That is National voters except for him, John Key resident of Epsom, who won’t be voting for John Banks.
Not quite the “clear message” to the voters of Auckland. This is compounded by the use of the well known tactic of clarity and certainty- the double negative. In this case, “not unhappy”.
In the end I think how people vote is a very personal thing but what we are clearly saying is we’re not unhappy if National voters decide to vote tactically
Does that mean ‘happy”, does that mean something less than happy. Who knows? But its curious. If you want people to vote for him, have the guts to actually say it.
And where was poor old Don Brash in all of this. Key is reported as saying he thinks Don Brash is “flexible” and not extreme like Roger Douglas. That is a very recent change of tune from the man he described as ‘hard core’ and ‘very right wing’ over the last couple of years.Maybe we can put the double negative down to the 0.7% poll that will be out this weekend for ACT. I guess that’s what is a called “not an ideal result.”
Posted in John Banks, John Key and Don Brash. |
This morning I finally got around to watching Don and Hone on Close Up. I did so in the context of everything else that these two got up to last week (comparisons to Hitler, calling each other racists, re-writing the Treaty, eulogies for Osama, subsequently withdrawn).
Fundamentally I felt sad watching them together as the debate went back down the divisive approach to race relations. There is so much for New Zealanders to be focused on now, re-hashing this debate is just not it. Of course we need to keep working on race relations in NZ, but the Brash/Harawira approach is not it, and it is not where New Zealanders are at.
The day after the programme I travelled through South Taranaki with Phil Goff and our candidate up there Hamish McDouall. We talked with people in small towns like Manaia about their struggles to make ends meet, to get jobs, their desire for apprenticeships for the young people in town and for better funding for the school. We went on to Hawera where we met business people who were working hard to climb out of the recession, social service providers hit by government funding cuts to anti-violence programmes which are more stretched than ever. We heard about the pensioner who had not eaten for two days so she had enough money to pay her bills.
Don and Hone will no doubt try and out extreme each other, pump up the rhetoric, and scratch about for votes to give them an extra MP or two. In terms of the campaign, we will be focusing on dealing with the issues we heard in South Taranaki. Giving people a vision and a plan. Getting government priorities in line with people’s priorities. That’s a plan that will give New Zealanders some hope that they will get a fair go, an economy that works for everyone, a job, and a good future for them and their families.
Posted in Hone Harawira, Don Brash and ACT. |
John Armstrong covers the cost of the Don Brash 2025 Taskforce in the NZ Herald today. It is simply absurd that New Zealanders should keep shelling out for John Key’s government to have a straw man that pops up annually in an attempt to make them look more moderate. They clearly have no intention of following through on the report, so why should we carry the cost? Just can the whole thing now.
On the subject of the costs, I am wondering if the $150,000 spent so far includes the costs of having Matthew Hooton as the PR man for the report. Matthew very properly declared his interest as the spin doctor for the report in Nine to Noon politics slot on Monday. Matthew is very good at what he does in terms of PR and does not come cheap, so it may well be that his costs are not included.
I do wonder quite why it was necessary to contract an external PR agency to spin the report. The government has spent a lot of time telling us there are too many communications staff in Ministries and Departments, surely one of them could have handled this?
Posted in Matthew Hooten, Don Brash and 2025 Taskforce. |
