Dead Rats and Broken Promises

Politicians and other Charlatans

This was once the best country in the world — bar none.

Not any longer. Koreans and Slovenians are better off. Luxembourgers have nearly three times our income. We're sinking fast. Iceland were better off than we were and look what's happened to them!

Whose fault is it?

Yours and mine.

Each and every one of us who've allowed our politicians to lie, to prevaricate and to indulge in short term thinking.

We've allowed them to bribe us with empty promises, to push policies designed only to win elections – not to fix our myriad problems.

It's the politics of myopia and they've just done it again in the 2008 election campaign.

NZ Listener cartoon

We can force change on our politicians

I've had it with political lies and short term political thinking.

I'm doing something about it. I need your to help.

Dreams of a better New Zealand

Imagine a nation where politicians told the truth. Think of a New Zealand where electioneering consisted of putting forward policies that were designed to improve the lot of all of us.

Dream of politicians who put growth, productivity, the environment, quality of life, education, security and health first. Before their own prospects of re-election or of holding the reins of power.

A political climate where electioneering promises were binding and where aspiring politicians told we voters what they considereed to be the correct policies to promote for our future wealth and well-being rather than those which they considered politically possible.8

Possible?

Why not? We can force the buggers to do just that.

New Zealand is in trouble.

We've been in a steady decline for decades. Our political leaders promise the earth. They keep the easy pledges and they abandon the difficult. You know you're being conned but you carry on voting for the same old tired promises regardless.

At the polling booth, in despair, you cross your fingers and pick the best of a bad bunch, at worst, you give up on the whole process and stay at home.

None of our politicians will tell you the truth. Some don't understand and some don't care. Those who have the wit to understand the problem and who haven't become too jaded to be concerned don't dare tell you the bad news.

Catch 22

The people to whom you pay damned good money to serve you, whether they're tinted pink, blue, green or piebald, reason thus:

If we tell the punters the hard truth: that it's all blood, sweat and tears for a few years, with no immediate reward, they won't vote for us.

They'll vote for the other crowd.

We'll languish on the back benches.

Better that we don't tell it like it is. We'll just follow the crowd and push the same old tired policies that've led to our descent from 3rd richest country in the world to 46th and sinking.

And I suppose they're right to a degree.

But that's only because they all spout a load of drivel. They each must tell you and me porkies because they can't compete with their opponents if they tell you the cold unvarnished truth.

There's an easy answer to the problem. We just need them all to tell us the truth as they see it. How hard is that?

Don't hold your breath.

Our adversarial system

It's not working.

They defend the adolescent antics in the house. They think it's OK to abuse one another, score cheap points, fight and squabble. They justify stupid behaviour because it's the Westminster adversarial system.

Well sorry. It's not OK. It worked once upon a time. It doesn't work now.

MMP

The MMP system isn't working either. Why not? In two words. Winston Peters.

Did you want this loose cannon deciding who would be our government again? I didn't. He came very close to getting his 5% again in the November 2008 election. He might make it next time.

We got away with it this time. Because over 4% of votes were wasted on Winston First and the Greens are too thick naive to understand the system, the voters' intentions were realised. We may not be so lucky next time.

Do you approve of the tail wagging the dog? Two parties garnered over 80% and more of your votes, but a bunch of loser list members really decide who becomes the government. It's lunacy.

Disclosure of interest

What about superannuation?

It's unsustainable as it stands but your elected representatives are too gutless to tell you the truth.

I'm a superannuitant, I paid a lot of taxes over the years (66 cents in the dollar under Muldoon) to pay for other people's superannuation and I would not take kindly to any party who wished to unreasonably rein in my own pension provisions.

However, as the population ages and as we oldies get fitter and healthier, the retirement age should increase. It should go to 70 as soon as possible and pensions for those choosing to remain in work should be very heavily taxed.

OK, it's easy for me to say that, I'll be over 70 before it happens.

Nevertheless, it's been my conviction for several years and it needs to be done.

As this site is intended to be a critique of our political system I should make my own position clear.

I'm vaguely liberal and centrist but lean to the right. My natural home would be the the centre-right if only they'd stick to their avowed philosophy. In a perfect world I'd join the National Party and try to change it from within. I recently considered doing just that, but in the end decided that remaining unaligned would be a more honest course.

I believe in free enterprise, freedom of choice and small government.

I believe that welfare and social engineering have careered out of hand.

Political correctness is a crock. I'm over it.

Employers and the wealthy provide work and investment capital. Most of them deserve our appreciation and support, not vilification by head-in-the-sand socialist bludgers.

Getting around

On all Dead Rats and mistywindow.com pages, you can search the site using the JRank search box in the left column under the navigation buttons. The JRank search function should be indexed by 29th September 2008.

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