Partisan hackery in response to the New Zealand election

[axver]

God, New Zealand. What a mistake on Saturday. Not only did you fools (FOOLS!) vote in John Key and a National government by a considerable margin, but you also gave the right wing neoliberal nutjobs in ACT enough of the vote that they get five seats in parliament and, since they hold the balance of power, allow National to govern. So, great, not

Comments

[ladyphoenixia]

I tried to enrol, but twas too late to get it registered in time to vote. I hear that a ridiculously small percent of overseas citizens voted, which says sad things about our apathy... we're not as bad as America, at least, but still. It's a real shame, and I know that my vote wouldn't have shifted the balance... but still, every vote counts.

[axver]

Damn, that's a shame you couldn't register. From what my father was telling me last night - no idea what his source is, but he tends not to talk out of his arse - there are sufficient overseas and other special votes that the Greens may just score an extra seat in parliament if past patterns continue this time around. I'm hoping that proves to be the case, though Dad was unclear at whose expense the extra Greens seat would come.

[tcpip]

The only reason that educated New Zealanders will return to the land of their birth with ACT-like economics would be to vote against them. :)

[axver]

Hah! I'll stick with doing that from the comfort of Australia ... well, 'comfort' at least until the next Liberal government.

[spacegirlnz]

I take no responsibility! I voted 2 ticks Labour!

But now I am considering moving to Australia... Is Melbourne nice.

[axver]

I absolutely LOVE Melbourne. I've come to like it even more than Wellington, truth be told. In an ideal world, I wish I could just pick up Melbourne and move it to New Zealand, say plonk it down on the Canterbury Plains somewhere.

[spacegirlnz]

Oh, that would be awesome!

[augustine]

I don't know much about New Zealand politics admittedly, so let me just leave you with a quote I think everyone can relate to:

It's terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged

-G.K. Chesterton

[axver]

Don't blame me - I have the gallows at the ready!

[augustine]

Sure you do....

OK, so I have nothing to write, so I'll just give another GKC quote, this time from his poem A Ballade of Suicide that seems related:
_____________________

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours--on the wall--
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

[axver]

'Okay, so why do you hate National so much again?'

National has suspended the freedom of the press, cancelled important infrastructural works (New Zealand has the infrastructure of a third world state in some respects), pursued idiotic economic policies, exascerbated the gap between rich and poor, done nothing to improve race relations, and marginalised or simply ignored the most disadvantaged in society. I cannot see one logical reason to support this obscenely self-interested, reckless, ill-informed, narrow-minded party.

'And poor old Peter Dunne?'

Ineffectual centrist who should just go away. He deserves a kick in the Balzers for opposing the Civil Unions Act. Plus I'm wary of any party promoting "family values" (read: traditionalist moralising bullshit that wants to impose one particular set of values on the lot of us).

'Nathan Guy won in Otaki!'

Yeah, damn.