}

Friday, April 16, 2010

Little bits

The New Zealand National Party wants to kill off New Zealand a little bit at a time. That’s the logical conclusion given their recent announcements.

They said they wanted “limited” mining on conservation land, despite the warnings of what that will do to New Zealand’s international image, let alone the natural environment. We’re not supposed to notice how foreign corporations will make out like bandits while our land is pillaged.

Then National said it wants “limited” commercial whaling. There they almost quoted Old National’s mantra of TINA: “There Is No Alternative”. They seriously expect us to believe that the ONLY way to prevent whale slaughter is to allow slaughter of whales. Apparently, National thinks we’re all really, really stupid.

After that, National said it wants to build a prison with private funds and run by a private company because depriving people of liberty for profit is SUCH a good idea, of course. They expect us to believe that corporate-owned prisons—whose very profits depend on having prisoners—will really work to prevent prisoners from re-offending. Yeah, right.

And now National appears poised to act on its plan to privatise schools, too. This will be a developing topic.

This government is among the most radical that New Zealand has seen since the neoconservatives took over the Labour Party in the 1980s (which they did only because it was impossible for them to take over the National Party back then). And yet this is a supposedly “restrained” National Party. The only thing they’re restraining is their plan to sell off everything that’s not nailed down.

When you add up National’s radical agenda, the coming disaster of the Auckland Super City and attacks on ordinary hardworking New Zealanders that we don’t even know about yet, the next election can’t come soon enough.

2 comments:

liminalD said...

This just saddens and frustrates me, the actual actions of the government and the average New Zealander's complete apathy. So yeah, bring on the elections, except that i really don't think the Kiwi population at large knows or cares what's going on, and would probably vote the Nats back in >:(

On a more positive note, it's nice to have your blog posts showing up in my subscriptions folder when I sign in - is it just me or have you had less time to post of late? (I'm not whining, I realise you have a life, job, family etc... I'm just saying, I like your blog and look forward to new posts!)

Cheers,

D

Arthur Schenck said...

I'm beginning to think that National may very well be a one-term government. They're making radical changes that they didn't tell voters about in advance and I hear more and more people talking about them and saying, "can you believe that National's…" followed with whatever latest radical move National is promoting.

Their undoing, however, will be Auckland: They've made a “pig's arse” of it, as the New Zealand put it. New Zealand elections are won or lost in Auckland, and after nearly a year of turmoil and pain that National/Act will cause, people in this region will be anxious to get rid of that lot and let Labour fix National's mess—AGAIN.

Also, it's important to remember that National didn't win the 2008 election: Labour lost it. Labour's vote collapsed in 2008 as voters simply stayed home (and some voted for National because of that infernal notion that from time to time the "other guys" have to be given a go simply because they should be—policies be damned). So, National has almost no margin for error in the electorate, which makes their mistakes all the greater threat to them and a second term.

Whew! Sorry to go one so long, but I wanted to be clear why I think National's in trouble.

Thank you so much for the kind words! You're right, though, I haven't had a lot of time lately. Things are easing up a bit, though, so I expect to have more to say—including about this topic! ;-)