Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Which will be the party of reform?

At Red Alert Trevor Mallard links to a report about UK Labour re-thinking welfare. But he makes no comment of his own. Mine is still in moderation (while the considerably more caustic Cactus has carte blanche. Can never figure this particular censorship rule. Must be Trev's titillation thermometer.)

It has always been my view that based on history, Labour would be the party to make meaningful welfare reforms in this country. And I haven't abandoned it entirely. National is doing stuff but mainly mimicking what has already occurred in the UK and  Australia.

But hell. Time marches on. National evolves, Labour evolves. There is no ACT to speak of. The Greens remained wedded to 'social justice' - code for communistic compulsory wealth 'sharing'. And Maori politics continues to be schizophrenic. Independence and identity is idealised but impossible without economic input from non-Maori. Their craved population boom presently relies heavily on the continuance of the DPB. (Ironically Maori politicians could boost their population  more by enticing whanau back from Australia but that won't happen until they wean themselves off the victimhood politics and pleading that alienates the ex-pats).

So which party in the next 30 years (my average life expectancy remainder) will make the difference? Remember 30 years ago was only 1982 which saw the beginnings of major economic reform under Labour.





8 comments:

Mark Hubbard said...

It is an interesting link for Mallard to post. I wish he had commented. I actually put a 'good' comment up, but my post never made it past the one year ban I have from posting there from Mad Mallard, for questioning their censoring policies :) As far as the censorship rules are concerned, it's as per the Left, period: arbitrary. Which is why every country they govern is a country freedom is not to be found.

But yes, interesting. Perhaps Mallard is on his Road to Damascus. Or he fallen off his bike onto his head one time too many.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I did two elections with Trevor in the Hutt South and felt he had some empathy with my criticisms of welfare.

Mark Hubbard said...

Yeah. But pity he's taken his Internet debating policy from North Korea. He can't stand debating an opinion different to his own: indeed, he can't stand debating full stop, and as far as Red Alert is concerned, he operates it like a school yard bully. As does Robertson. Thank God they've got no part in running the country. I'm sick of bullies thinking they have some sort of mandate to run my life when the one thing their own lives symbolise is incompetence and bad manners.

The last part of my comment to his post, which will never go up, was good luck with it. I approved of his thinking if that's what his link meant, but Labour had been so successful in instilling the entitlement mentality, that adopting the approach he seemed to be suggesting - and dishonest of him not to put his actual thoughts on the line - would mean Labour falling under the 5% threshold.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Mallard is a career politician. Of necessity there is conflict between what he really thinks and what he is paid to think.

Mark Hubbard said...

Actually I will detail why I was banned from Red Alert, because it's relevant.

My problem was that site has it's pet posters who are allowed unmoderated posts. Which is fine. However, when debating them all my posts were held for moderation making it look as if I had withdrawn from debate and the pets were allowed repeated attacks on each post I made without possibility of timely defence by myself. My point to Mallard was that if they must moderate, then they must do so chronologically, including the pets, so that debate went up in the order it was being had.

Result: I got a one year ban for complaining about their posting policy.

The Left: wouldn't want them running your life.

Mark Hubbard said...

its - typo.

Mark Hubbard said...

Did your comment come out of moderation Lindsay?

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Eventually.