Deep underneath this election campaign there is change. Not actual change but the need to accept change.
Why did genetic modification grow horns? In part, because there was a vacuum where debate on the nation’s future might have been.
* Labour has made a virtue of settling the place down, not painting grand visions; Helen Clark’s unmemorable slogan is that tomorrow has already been done today.
The bluntest message to business from Helen Clark’s government these past two and a-half years has been: coexist with your workers. The sweetener has been an invitation to the waltz — “partnership” in the jargon.
This heady mixture has produced an odd couple. From white hot rage this time two years ago, many in business have found they can do business with the Clark bunch — some even sing its praises.
The bluntest message to business from Helen Clark’s government these past two and a-half years has been: coexist with your workers. The sweetener has been an invitation to the waltz — “partnership” in the jargon.
This heady mixture has produced an odd couple. From white hot rage this time two years ago, many in business have found they can do business with the Clark bunch — some even sing its praises.
When I buy jeans I don’t buy Levis. I buy jeans that fit, cost half the price and last longer. I don’t know what make they are but I do know which shop sells them.
I’m a Vegemite afficionado. When an Auckland hotel serves me up something else with “-mite” in its name, it’s almost enough to dissuade me from staying there.
An election is not just about hopes. It is also about fears. This one is no exception.
Fear is what last week’s excitement over genetic modification (GM) was mainly about. Among voters who don’t go into all the ins and outs it is an issue of fear and the Greens are playing it for all their worth.
Look at me!
Richard Prebble stands outside the walls of Mt Eden prison to promise “zero tolerance” of crims. Winston Peters next day says Prebble should have been inside.
Pansy Wong bungies off the Sky Tower in Auckland to dramatise her campaign for Auckland Central and the Chinese vote.
Helen Clark poses with hammer in hand as a billboard is erected in Richarson Road. Bill English goes boxing. Jim Anderton “sings” Pokarekareana.
Do you draw up a household balance sheet? Not likely. But chances are it is subconsciously influencing your vote on 27 July.
The state of household finances is the lens through which most voters see and judge “the economy”. Whether across the nation household finances are getting better or worse or are beset by uncertainty is a big election decider.
A spectre stalks the mainstream parties this election: American gangster capitalists.
They aren’t a factor for July 27. But beyond election day will the political consensus for the free economy hold?
During the dotcom craze anything went and anything was believed. There was a “new economy”. A philosopher’s stone had been found.
This is the stability election. Or so Helen Clark would like you to think. You are supposed to give her a majority to restore stability after the Alliance stuffed up and the Greens went ape.
Hang on a minute. According to the theorists who gave you the wonderful German MMP system, it was supposed to give you wonderful German stability.
Late in the week the election was called National party planners pulled apart Bill English’s whistle stop tour of 54 towns in 35 days. There was no longer time to go helicoptering all over the countryside.
The regional blitz had come a bit late in any case. English himself is on his own cognisance a slow burner. Now he doesn’t have time to burn in slowly, as Helen Clark did during six years as Opposition leader, touring the provinces a day or two a week, laying down a midden of local publicity and connections.