I listed off three types of "elector" in this fashion;
The apathetic; the people who do not care until it is too late. Write in most Germans during the 1930's.
The followers; the people who "party vote" because they are the party my father supported.
The brain dead; is there any way other than total mental deficiency that people can be barred from voting? Under this group include all of those who vote for the fear-monger, the popularist, and the single issue politicians
If you want a convenient snapshot photo of the politicians who hunt the specific group of "brain dead voters" then go to any of the major NZ news sources ( NZ Herald ; A good slice of the rest..) and search on "winston peters".
Winnie is the archetypal "survive at all costs" politician. He is rightly credited with bringing down NZ's first MPP elected government. He is polling like the kingmaker again, only three and a bit months out from the projected election date. He is already beating (as hard as he can) the immigration drum, the tax cut drum, the pension drum and the "law and order" drum.
Immigration he wants to cut to zero, it has been the source of some 30% of our annual GDP growth these past nine years.
Tax he wants to cut by some 20%. When you look at all of the little "trimmings" he proposes there would be little beard left to pull.
Pensions he wants to increase by about 15%. The reason for this is the support he gets from "The Grey Power" movement. Have to keep onside with them, huh!
As for "law and order" I don't think it would be too far wrong to summarise it as "lock up everyone who did not vote NZ First"
Last time around that he was "kingmaker", Winnie ( as in Winnie the Pooh, NOT Churchill ) kept the whole of government of this country in limbo while he did his best to play right off against left ( the poll between the two major parties was almost a dead-heat). It took six weeks for him to put together a deal with the centre-right National Party that broke one of his fundamental promises to his electorate - that he would not form a right wing government...
And it looks like we are in for a deja vu election.
The last published poll - taken about a week back - had;
Labour (centre left, present government) 37%
National (centre right) 38%
The Winnie Party (otherwise known as NZ First) 13%
The rest ( a range of far right to far left busybodies) 5%
The "don't knows" 7%
I have expressed the opinion on a number of occasions that there are times when a government (in this country anyway) does all it can to lose an election.
It seems (to me at least) that this is one of these occasions. The major problem facing us at present is definitely the economy. The present government has taken a quite conservative (in accounting, not political terms) approach. There have been fiscal surpluses for the past six years. Government debt is comparatively low. The government has "salted away" some three or four billion the income from which is intended to relieve the pressure of our aging population on superannuation benefits in particular.
The right wing, obviously, thinks this is all a very bad idea. The thought that the government should save for future certain events is anathema. The thought that the government should be making a surplus is an even greater anathema. The savings are directly connected to the surpluses. The approach of the right is "cut taxes, then worry about the consequences after".
That is but one of the expected majors -
How about this one. Auckland (current population approaching 1.7 million) is looking at the possibility of power shortages, brown-outs and failures by 2010. The construction of a 600KV supply line is in the "planning and consent" stages at present. Total cost is expected to be over $1.2 billion. There is major opposition to having it built (predominantly by those who will have it pass over their land). Those in opposition to it are predominantly right wing voting farmers and land-bankers and "life-stylers". What better solution (for a left wing government) than to leave the right wing to impose a solution on their own electorate. If the right wing fails to get sufficient electricity into Auckland then they the right wing offside with the Auckland and northward electorate. Catch 22 for the right wing, win-win for the left. Oh, BTW the 600KV line is not being built by the government. All of the energy sector in this country is "privately owned", with the government's role being limited to regulation of the total industry. So the government can not, does not direct. Quite an intractible problem that one...
Auckland again, has major transportation problems. Up until last year the local government was predominantly "right wing". The structure of local government in the region has not helped, I must admit. But the "right wing" solution has been "build more roads, build more motorways". Within the next ten years, one of the major internal links - a 1.4km long bridge over the harbour - is going to need to be duplicated either by tunnel or another bridge. To make matters worse the bridge carries a huge amount of traffic every day - something over 150,000 vehicles rings a bell - and part of it known as the "Nippon clipons" is due for rebuilding in 2010-2015. How long would it take to build a six lane , four km tunnel under a harbour? Just the construction, no design, no planning, none of that liberal sh!t. Just to build it?
Then we get into the realms of "public transport". There are local debates going back 60 years and more about what form Auckland public transport should take. I think Motat has one of the old trams. Our "rail" system uses third hand rolling stock that was bought from Perth at scrap value plus 50%. Otherwise it would have gone to India or Indonesia for scrap metal. This is a fascinating example of the NZ psyche - if a decision is too unpalatable, look for as many alternatives that you can find and appoint a committee.
That way the problem can become some-one elses'... and you can stay in power.
OK, let's make a fourth reason to stay out of power...
Despite their best efforts, the Labour Government has ended up with an economy that has been steaming along just fine thank you. To the amazement of all, and the joy of international hedgefund operators and bankers everywhere, the lil' ol' NZD chugs along on the coat tails of the AUD. Nothing spectacular but offering very reasonable returns - 5.5% no less with the prospect of quite sizeable one off returns when the NZD drops. And it is going to drop.
HARD
When? Well it might be next year, it might be 2010. The betting money is on sooner not later. We could be looking at the NZD going from US0.70 where it is at present to the cellar-realms of USD0.38 or below. How does a one-time profit of 50% sound? Non-taxable? Here is your chance.
And who wants the watch when that happens?
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