Originally Posted by
BlackPeter
Hi EZ, not quite sure how to take your comment about being an anomaly. Doesn't everybody read Greek mythology ;)
Looking however at your political statements - you start to sound like a broken record when you are singing the praise of the 5th Labour government. Yes, these guys and gals happened to have the reign during an international bull cycle (which means that their figures are more than somewhat distorted). You know, even an economically impaired government can make money during a bull cycle - and this is what they did. No reason to be proud of.
The other thing they did was inflating a not just lazy and often useless, but actually sometimes damaging bureaucracy (the most expensive method to reduce the unemployment rates you feel so smug about). Believe me - I served during this time for a board of trustees - and the stupidity which came at that time from the ministry of education often beggared believe. The Labour led MoE wasted not just huge amounts of tax payer money by doing nothing, they actively undermined good schools and worked hard to make them more inefficient. Shame on them.
Their (Labours) other big achievement - Labour significantly increased the ratio of welfare recipients. At the end of Labour's reign we had more than half of all Kiwis depending on some sort of benefit (domestic purposes, unemployment, sickness, student allowance, superannuation, working for families). These benefits are acting like drugs, while they are useful in a small number of cases ... people become welfare addicted. Getting them afterwards away from the easy accessible gravy train and back into working for their own money instead of consistently demanding higher transfer payments from the people who still work for their own living is hard work. A huge pile of welfare addicts is the real legacy of the 5th labour government. Is this really something which makes you proud?
Looking at the NZ Greens - you are right, we never have seen them in government - and it looks like they don't want to take responsibility anyway. It is just so much easier for them to stay professional complainers instead of doing something positive - isn't it? Don't take me wrong - I am an environmentalist and used to be (in a different time and a different country) not just a member, but as well a candidate for a "green" environmentalist party. I think this might be one of the reasons I feel at times so angry about the bunch of professional Nay-sayers and bludgers who just stole the green movement from New Zealand to further their own confused political ideas they couldn't bring forward under social credit, new Labour, Alliance, Internet Mana or the Australian Communist Party. Shame on them for hiding their real intentions under an once honest brand.
And than - why would we want to see how they behave in government? They (as well as Labour) caused already enough damage to New Zealand while in opposition. Just remember the absolute stupidity of Green and Labour to run the value of our electricity companies down prior to the partial privatisation. Green and Labour own the NZ taxpayer more than 1 Billion Dollars. This is the amount their ill conceived policies cut off the value of our electricity generators before they had been partially privatised. Just imagine, how well our education system (or health, or whatever) could do, if we would have had at that stage a Green/Labour party with slightly more brain and slightly less malice.