Posted on 07/02/2002 9:34:11 PM PDT by shaggy eel
Some of you will know New Zealand has general elections on July 27 2002. Some of you have asked me to keep you up to date on anything significant. This thread is where I'll do that. It's a scrapbook of political eMAIL letters from New Zealand's right wing -Richard Prebble, leader of New Zealand's most right wing Party, ACT; Bill English, leader of centre right NATIONAL Party and a variety of newspaper excerpts. We have a bunch of leftists running the show at present and it's all downhill.
Kiwi voters offshore reading this - our best bet at this stage is giving our Party vote to ACT and our electorate vote to NATIONAL.
[G'Day shaggs]
I don't know much more about this, other than the Arab crescent was the most repressive.
I'm a charitable sort of cuss, I wouldn't wish the detainees or Klark on Australia in a month of Sundays.
Finally, the seventh State proposition... you knock out police corruption and capital gains tax and it's a goer.
The total household debt of our population stands at about $NZ79b right now - for a total of 3,8m people. Banks and consumer credit institutions are the winners. Financial engineering. If this country is managed right, our economy can turn on a dime.
T O P S T O R Y [www.stuff.co.nz] July 4 2002
PM sees red over Greens' threat
By JONATHAN MILNE
In an angry escalation of campaign tension, Prime Minister Helen Clark has warned that she will retaliate if the Greens declare "outright war" on Labour.
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons had earlier thrown an election bombshell, threatening yesterday to stop Labour forming a new government unless it extended the genetic modification moratorium.
That action could have left no party able to govern after the election, forcing voters to return to the polls before the end of the year.
Ms Fitzsimons retracted her threat later in the day after talking to colleagues and a call between her office and that of Miss Clark.
But the damage had been done, creating an image of uncertainty for the Greens as they attempted to portray themselves as ready to participate in Government.
Miss Clark said such ultimatums would bring "implications" in Labour's campaign against Ms Fitzsimons for the Coromandel seat.
"Obviously any threat like that simply redoubles our determination to go for a majority government," she said. "Were the Greens to declare outright war on Labour, there are implications.
"When you're told that a party that aspires to hold the balance of power, like the Greens, doesn't even want to let a government get started – that's a fairly stunning thing to say."
She hoped Ms Fitzsimons's retraction meant that the Greens were not yet declaring war, and she would continue to advise Coromandel voters to make their own decisions on whether they should vote for the Labour candidate or for Ms Fitzsimons.
National Party leader Bill English said the Greens simply did not know what they were doing, and Labour was being "slippery" by not committing to campaigning against Ms Fitzsimons.
He had initially suggested National would consider extending the moratorium but last night firmed up his position with a fairly solid "no" to any extension of the moratorium.
Mr English said the Greens' actions showed that they could not be believed. "It's going to be impossible for the Left to provide stable government," he said.
Without the Greens, a Labour-Progressives minority government would be forced to rely on NZ First, whose leader Winston Peters yesterday called the Greens "New Zealand's worst nightmare".
Ms Fitzsimons made the threat – something she had been considering for several days – after a debate on genetic modification in Wellington yesterday with Science Minister Pete Hodgson.
She said her view was that the Greens would want a policy agreement from Labour to extend the moratorium, before offering support for votes on supply and confidence.
"What we said initially was that there would be nothing preventing us from giving confidence to a minority Labour government while that moratorium was in place.
"But given that Labour is now turning that into its own words – which is all about bringing a government down – I actually wonder whether it would be much more sensible to not let it form in the first place, rather than be accused of bringing it down."
Hope the 4th of July is going just fine for you all.
,,, you beauty! In all seriousness, you have no other choice as a New Zealander. Why? If you're doing the standard rate of intake of all the blurb, or better, you'll agree that ACT is really the only Party offering a vision to move us ahead.
Why am I so passionate about this? Because, having lived in NZ since I was born I know this country's potential and I know the people are adaptive to change - it's been proven over the last 15+ years.
Love Winston's delivery on his favoured platforms but he ain't saying enough about the economy for my vote. ACT it is!
I got stranded in Auckland about 15 years ago because of the firefighters going on strike. I wanted to go
sightseeing up north till it was resolved, my fiance wanted to stick around so we could get on the first plane
out to Tahiti. Neither got what we wanted :-).
Well, she got to stick around Auckland waiting. We never made it to Tahiti.
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