Hi,
I must say New Zealand is quite pleasant. For a start, there are no ex–PMs completely ignoring the fact that they were so out of touch with popular opinion that they were voted out of their position (in one case by his own electorate; in others by their own party), and lecturing me on what I should be thinking. But leaving politics aside, the weather has been nice, the fush and chups have been tasty and the people don’t make fun of my accent.
Sitting here with the benefit of distance, I must say the Coalition look even more absurd than they do when I’m at home. I mean, I’ve grown used to the idea that they can attack the Labor/Wilkie deal for self-imposed limits on poker machine losses as the nanny state gone mad, yet turn around in government and introduce a cashless welfare card without any of them expressing similar concerns.
And, I can accept that, even for the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott is an outlier. Who else could come up with the idea of a vote on marriage equality, insist that any debate will be civil and to suggest otherwise is to insult the Australian people, only to turn around and say that we all must vote “No” because the debate has turned ugly.
No, looking at the green hills as I drove to Napier, I couldn’t help noticing a wind farm and I thought would any NZder – apart from Barnaby – think that a coal mine would be less intrusive. The newspapers aren’t filled with the idea that without coal civilisation as we know it will be destroyed. And Labour (yes, New Zealand Labour still includes “u”) is written about as they’re an alternative government, not some illegitimate group of rabble-rousers. Even The Greens seem to regarded as people with a point of view which may differ from other parties, but isn’t that what democracy is all about?
Ok, it might be different if I lived here and started to pick up the intricacies, but it does seem more mature than the attempts by the Liberals to win political arguments by coming up with alliterative nicknames for their opponents.
So, greetings from New Zealand. I presume that Barnaby is still Deputy PM, and that Malcolm is still impersonating Tony in the hope that the part won’t dump him before the next election. Although from what someone told me, Turnbull is completely safe until it’s closer to the next election when the theory is that they can dump him and hope that the new leader’s honeymoon period will win them enough votes back to make it close.
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Rossleigh, you don’t need to travel far to realise that our right-wingers ,including Hanson and Xenophon’s people, are a ‘weird mob’ indeed…
Thanks for brightening up my day. 🙂
Hi Rossleigh
While you’ve been away there has been a move to introduce the cashless welfare card into our national parliament.
Colleagues of A. Abbott are blaming him after he admitted to getting pissed and missing a parliamentary vote.
Rights groups are saying that it’s all about Love and if we can keep Tony on the straight and narrow until the next election it will work for him in getting a new job where he may actually have to work.
Haere rā
And Western Australia has decided that ‘no death penalty’ and ‘caveat emptor’ are simply figures of speech and decided to introduce a law to enable police to kill those they declare terrorists.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/wa-police-to-get-shoottokill-powers/news-story/0149eda57d02a53e34dcd580bb352ef1?nk=cd1b8e660035aa530a0de2879559b15e-1507096457
having moved to France 5 months ago, and with the benefit of an even greater distance than Rossleigh in NZ, the LNP look more obscenely corrupt from here. not at all incompetent. purely. corrupt. criminally corrupt. it is so depressing.
The Long White Clown ? More like The Short RED Clown…
Another fine “think piece” Rossleigh! And as always, many words spoken in truth–with a touch of comedy on the side! You are right about the political scene in NZ, we were there about 7 years ago, & the complete political scene was very laid back compared to here in OZ & there was none of the crap that seems to be the “norm” here in our Parliament. One wonders at the maturity & commonsense (?) shown by our pollies, compared to their compatriots in NZ.
Just back from the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka – now almost completely owned by China apparently. The remainder belongs to India. Has a Parliament of 225 members for approximately 20 million people. But it has 111 Ministers . (Everyone gets a prize if you’re in the right team.)
Never seen so much building activity – day and night – high rises galore – lots of ‘guest’ workers (Chinese). The Chinese are reclaiming 269 hectares of the ocean, near the main port in Colombo. Massive.
The locals don’t have any money but the Chinese have plenty.