Political parties always like to think they are on the right side of history, that they are the future. Many don’t succeed.
Some do find a market for the wrong side of history. The Alliance nudged 30 per cent in polls at times after 1993 by giving voice to widespread voter anger at the 1980s economic reforms.
Behind Trevor Mallard’s redistribution of tertiary education money from bad courses to good ones lies a disturbing story — not just of waste but of managerial breakdown. The state’s machinery didn’t work properly.
Indicted stand former Tertiary Education Minister Steve Maharey, Secretary of Education Howard Fancy, a truckload of full-time and part-time bureaucrats and umpteen people who allege they are “academics”.
It’s pot and kettle time: gunpowder-blackened politicians blackening other politicians. That side of politics helps earn politicians their low trust ratings.
Don Brash feigns anger (or maybe is actually angry) at being misrepresented when his Iraq and nuclear policy words are quoted out of context. With hand on presbyterian heart, he declares his billboards just point up differences with Labour.
Colin James’s notes for the State of the Nation series at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, 24 July 2005
No bridge or bus has been blown up. No political leader has been assassinated. No mass popular movement has stormed the parliamentary heights.
Not bad after a couple of revolutions. It augurs well for coping with the next big changes coming down the nation-building highway.
No party ever wants to lose an election but if it has to lose one, this might be just the one, judging by the economic weather forecasts.
Thus, amidst the delight at the polls there is here and there in the National party a tiny discomfort that in government rough economic weather could sink its ship.
Paul Hutchison looks like a buttoned-down sort of chap. But actually he hates wearing ties. So is he the man to loosen up health policy?
Under Helen Clark and Annette King the health system has edged back closer to the old “public” model. That is an article of faith with them. The state-centred model is at the core of this government’s social policy approach.
In barbaric times gods did barbaric things and humans did barbaric things in fear or honour of them. In times supposedly less barbaric, multitudes were tortured and killed in the name of Papal Rome’s god.
We think our sorts of societies have long since left behind god-driven barbarism and vengefulness. Part of the discomfort many feel with traditional Maori spiritual beliefs is that they speak to them of a dark age of untamed gods. Reason and science were supposed to have banished such mythologies.
Tony Blair’s trumpet, Alistair Campbell, made two predictions to an invited audience on Thursday: the Lions would win and so would Helen Clark. Clark will now hope sport and politics don’t mix.
Except, of course, in southern Africa. Labour ministers are at an old game: condemning — stopping when they can — sport with countries whose regimes they abhor. Norman Kirk set the precedent in 1973 when he stopped the racist Springboks from visiting.
The government came into 2005 with two main selling points for this year’s election: the buoyant economy and a credible claim to competence. Both lost traction during the autumn.
The economy is almost invariably the main issue in any election.
Opinion polling of “issues” usually focus on what is wrong and so feature negatives: health, education and crime, for example. But if real wages are rising and jobs are plentiful, such polling can mislead pundits and party strategists. A buoyant economy is a plus for an incumbent government and outweighs worries on other scores with most voters.
Colin James on the state services for Management Magazine July 2005
Government is not a simple business. How then do you go about the business of government? That question underlies much of the froth that will bubble around the coming election.
It is a defining question in our system. The National side sees the state as at best a necessary evil and unproductive. The Labour side sees it as an instrument for improving society and revving the economy.