Farmers used to be solid, sensible folk. At least, that is the memory of I have of living among them as a youngster. Now they are common-or-garden protesters.
They drive tractors down main streets and up Parliament’s steps. They dress up in dog’s clothing.
They use the classic protest techniques of students down the ages: overstate and exaggerate and strike poses of moral and civil offence.
When the lights go out next winter, so will the light go out on Labour’s hope of a fourth term. And that comes down to the national interest.
Next winter inflation will be in its second year above 3 per cent. That is the Reserve Bank’s projection. It will change the way we think about prices after 15 years of low inflation.
Michael Cullen funds the great bulk of his capital spending out of cash. Don Brash goes for tax cuts and funding capital projects with debt. Or so it seems.
Cullen gets Tina to push his line: There is no other way. Tax cuts will have to be paid for with cuts in social spending, he says, schoolmasterly.
With little debate, this country has de facto taken on a “responsibility to protect” citizens in failed and fragile states in our region. There is a cost.
The “responsibility to protect” doctrine was developed by a Canadian-led United Nations commission in 2000-01 in the wake of the ghastly slaughter in Rwanda which the international community could have mitigated but chose not, despite this country’s prodding in the Security Council.
Why is Michael Cullen so uptight that he made himself hostage to TV1’s camera last week? Because he is clamped in a vice.
One jaw of the vice is an unsatiable public hunger for government supplies, services and money. The other jaw of the vice is public hunger for material goods and personal services which needs tax cuts, now the boom and easy debt are fading.
Underneath the high diplomacy of prime ministers and presidents and the detailed diplomacy of the professionals lies “track 2”. It is a growing dimension of our outreach.
Track 2 is high-level people-to-people diplomacy: academics, business leaders, heads of institutions ranging from culture to economics, plus usually a media figure or two.
As the general mood becomes less cheery and the government begins a gentle slide down the polls, it is trying harder to look fresh, inventive and solicitous of business needs.
Even tax rate cuts are no longer ruled out, though still heavily qualified. Competition rules are being turned over, the quality of regulations and their implementation is to be scrutinised — and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are likely to get more latitude.
The last time the Greens changed leaders, in 1995, three options were debated: one leader, two of different genders or 693. The 693 was the total Green membership at the time and many in Green and green politics abhor traditional notions of leadership.
This weekend there are two options: an MP or not an MP to co-lead with Jeanette Fitzsimons. That question will be decided before the vote on who is to be leader and if passed would bar all candidates save Nandor Tanczos, for none of the other three are MPs, though Mike Ward was until last year.
One Budget done and certain to pass. Two to go. That’s how to measure the life of this government: Budget by Budget till the third is passed in August 2008.
But equally important is the one after that. How does Labour get to present the 2009 Budget?
First it has to hold New Zealand First and United Future in until 2008. Then the computations get tricky.
The focus is on 2008. That’s when the tax cuts come, if any. They are left over from Budget 2006 and won’t go away. So what are the odds?
First, there are tax cuts programmed for April 2008: the part-indexation of personal tax thresholds to inflation announced in the 2005 Budget: 2 per cent a year from 2005, the midpoint in the Reserve Bank’s target range, well below the likely actual averages.