National on the other hand has exactly two disastrous governments in my adult life. The first one marched boldly forwards while looking backwards. It did the things that would probably have worked in the 1950’s to cope with problems of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It lacked the vision to loook into the future and realize things had to change. The second made a stupid ideologically based decision at exactly the wrong time (and I’d say for the wrong reasons) and plunged the economy into a 5 year recession when the rest of the world was booming.

John Key and the rest of his team look just as potentially stupid as those previous national governments. The fibre to the home proposal for instance looks like it was dreamed up to show ‘vision’. But for fucks sake, what in the hell is it supposed to achieve? Why should I give up my hard-earned tax dollars to give people faster access to beebo and porn sites? For the few who actually can use it - then they can pay for it.

I’d get a better return in putting it into better cheaper childcare to ensure that more parents are capable of rejoining the workforce. That is a measure I could go for, gives much better returns, and it is a hell of lot cheaper.

The question about ‘vision’ is if John Key even knows what a vision is - ultimately it needs to pay off. As far as I can see the man has made his career out of deconstruction rather than construction. That is hardly a good approach to governemnt these days.

The economy is buzzing along the best that I’ve seen in my adult life. We’re finally seeing wages across the whole economy going up now that we’ve gotten back to close to full employment (again for the first time in my adult life). We’re started to put in the infrastructure investment that effectively stopped in the 1970’s when I was starting work.

The government is doing the types of forward looking that it should be doing rather than just trying to cope with continuous emergencies. I like the country being in a position to improve things incrementally. In particular to slowly wind up on initiatives that ensure that supports the gradual growth carrying on into the future. Government is a long-term activity. I get deeply suspicious of quick-fixes, because they never seem to work very well.

I really approve of the government being solvent, and now starting to save to cope with the future demands of an aging population.

The “don’t put it all at risk” is a powerful message to people of my generation, especially when the Nay’s don’t seem to have any better ideas. Certainly the Nay’s are bloody incoherent and very unforthcoming about what kinds of things that they want to do over the next decade. A lack of detail to me equates to either an intellecutual dishonesty or a degree of stupidity.

I’d expect that Labour will establish a few more policies on their long-term objectives. Essentially I’d expect a evolutionary rather than revolutionary strategy - doing things when we can afford them. That is a strategy that I approve of.

With these billboards the Greens have shown they can play the game. Good on them. They are now game players. Don’t come here with some “higher purpose” claim that you can use this kind of imagery in this way without analysis because you are more moral than, say, the Kiwi Party (who will also tell you that the future of our children is why they get up in the morning. And they’ll mean it just as much as you do) because the thing is you are using sharp brand marketing and by doing so are tacitly endorsing the consumerist paradigm. That’s fine but at least have the guts to admit it rather than getting all holier then thou.

Indeed, the 2005 ones were dreadful

I, like many here, think that the billboards are beautiful, effective and clever – good politics and good messaging. If, however, the Greens were going to produce nothing more substantial than beautiful clever content-free messages I’d be really disappointed.

I am optimistic you will continue to balance beautiful simplicity with the detail-filled content which gives us a sense concreteness and completeness from which the symbols hang coherently.

How ludicrous to say the the Greens have ’sold out’ just because we’ve built a better billboard than we ever have before. Do you not remember how appalling they were in 2005? No you don’t. Because they were not memorable in any way. Not thirty seconds after you drove past them.

And to suggest that the new ones lack substance and/or policy is also ludicrous. Children, the environment. If they are not the basis and purpose of our efforts, why do we get out of bed in the morning?

Can people not be gracious, even as some of our far right brethren have, and acknowledge that they are most excellent? Why does every move that the Green Party makes have to be analysed as if it speaks for the whole party or the whole movement? I would concede that a higher standard is required of us because we demand a higher standard in our politics.

If a few more voters are awakened to our message rather than the spin of our political opponents, then we have succeeded.

Oh, dear. A frog on a soap box. I’ll crawl back under my lillypad now…

This election is going to be too close to call. I’ve been watching elections for a long time and largely at the business end of campaigning. I’ve been getting pretty good at calling the effective result. In fact every election since 1981 except for 1996.

The ‘right’ of Nat/Act/UF is not going to get a majority. They will probably wind up with numbers very similar to Lab/Green/Prog.

I think that Nat/Lab percentages will be about 44/40 or a percent either way. The only way that the Nat’s could have got an outright victory was to make the election look so hopeless that Left/Green voters didn’t go and vote. They tried that as a strategy and it has now failed (miserably).

IMO: It is going to come down to skills in how to build a coalition with that other 15%. That is going to be interesting because I don’t think that either John Key or Bill English have the skills. They appear to have enough problems keeping the coalition together inside of their own party.

In case you didn’t realise, I’m kindly reminding you that this isn’t sport - it is politics

yeah, wish people didn’t associate brand with “another evil way to make money”. Those righties would think TheStandard is evil lol.

Board looks fine to me (white writing so it stands out!!! Not Green so it isn’t seen when you drive quickly pass), it is simple, clean and to the point reflecting the Green’s image

Not getting my vote though!

I hope you’re some form of parody - otherwise the irony of someone complaining that the Greens are Luddites, when anyone vaguely proficient with the internet can see what Green policy is all about, will have escaped you. Ditto insider, I guess.

Ie:

1. Introducing Tasers

National will introduce Tasers, subject to a positive evaluation of the Taser trial.

Tasers have been shown to be an effective tool for deterring offenders who would have gone on to harm the public or police.

http://national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=28241

Yeah. I can see why you’re antsy that Labour haven’t released a manifesto. But I’d also like to see one from National at some point - their policy page is laughable. It’s not policy, it’s just excerpts from speeches with nice bullet points. I doubt they’ll let anyone hold them to task for failing to:

1. Expanding Police Surveillance

Amend the Crimes Act to make it easier for police to conduct surveillance on gang communications.

http://national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=28240

Again: That isn’t a manifesto. Labour don’t have one either at the moment, but don’t pretend that National have somehow released a whole lot of policy already.