To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, losing one MP from your majority coalition looks like bad luck. But losing two, looks like carelessness.
That's what it looks like now that United's Gordon Copeland has announced he will be joining Phillip Field as the second MP to announce his departure from the ruling coalition, and his plan to set up his own independent party. [See: MP to Quit United Future over Smacking Bill - Newstalk ZB]
So with those two down and the Clark Government now completely reliant on the favours of minor parties to rule, will we see from the influence those minor parties wield over the next year-and-a-bit just exactly how power-hungry the Labour luminaries truly are?
Well, what do you think.
11 comments:
I have two questions:
Why was the conclusion to the Field case?
Why won't police prosecute?
Such foot dragging is dubious at best and at worst an insult to democracy.
It's all good for Key.
Conservatives have no interest in keeping the govt out of our homes and bedrooms. In fact they roll out the welcome mat for them.
They simply want to be able to hit children without censure. Can you see that now? I doubt it.
So the two pieces of Otara shit who tortured that poor wee boy to death were 'conservatives', were they?
Cat got your tongue, Ruth? Can't explain the Nazis at CYFS who removed him from the only safe, caring environment he'd ever known when his mother (now, there's an insult) decided she wanted him back?
That you make no distinction between a smacked hand from the likes of a Simon Barnett and brutality with fence palings, etc, from this evil bitch, is insane. It's beyond belief.
Yes, in fact they were conservatives Sus.
CYFS are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Your idiotic fantasies about police and CYFS smashing down doors and dragging kids screaming into the night are just as stupid as Global Warming "We're all gonna die!!" bullshit.
You are an anti-abortion, anti-choice Libertarian -these contradictions put Libs on an intellectual shoe-string as Rand put it. I can teach you a thing or two about Objectivism. Yes, children need love, but they also need the experience of living in a rational universe. And it is just this experience that too many parents fail to provide.
FYI a rational universe is where people do not permit themselves contradictions and do not assail others with conflicting messages - eg. expecting children to use their minds and ask deeper questions and then hitting them when they disobey us.
A rational environment is one in which adults speak to the child's *mind*, not to his *fears*, and in which a child's desire to understand is honoured and nurtured.
I will repeat - all you need to do is keep your hands off kids as a police officer recently said. You have a problem with that?
Something else...would you care to explain why Simon Barnett is a good parent?
He admits to smacking his daughter before she goes to bed at night to 'calm her down'. Why do his kids still run onto the road in spite of many 'smackings'?
Perhaps reason would have worked, not force?
It's not rocket science. Violence is not a family value.
Good on Copeland!
It takes guts to do that!
The Maori Party will be rubbing it's hands together dreaming up new racist ultimatums and positioning themselves for greater power!
Tainui MP Mahuta will be doing the same thing re their treaty claims on the Waikato river!
It will get ugly for Clark!
She's a goner!
Key must be busy writing his acceptance speech!
Only a massive stuff up by National can keep Clark at the helm.
(Or a massive election year Tax bribe)
Bradford is probably lovin it!
This coalition will survive by making deals, all them requiring higher expenditure, as new programs of one party are voted for in exchange for new programs of another. This will water down next year's promised tax cuts, and raise government spending higher than it otherwise would have.
I understand a recent cross-country study has shown that, other things being equal, MMP raises government expenditure by 5% of GDP compared with non-MMP electoral systems as a result of the horse trading that MMP requires.
The poodle party will still support Labour whatever comes. Good on Gordon, more principle than I thought ever seeing from him.
I think the Gordon Copeland is an idiot. If he was so upset about this piece of legislation (the anti-smaking law) then he should have stood up weeks ago and perhaps a few others who didn't support it would have said so and voted against their party line (and perhaps then Key wouldn't have gone all Chamberlain on us.)
Brian Smaller
Anon said:
"FYI a rational universe is where people do not permit themselves contradictions and do not assail others with conflicting messages.."
This is heady stuff. An authoritarian rationalist. Mr. Spock shall decide and no correspndence is allowed!
You make rationalism sound like a 5th form mathematical equation but if you're honest mathematics often involves dealing with uncertainty, reducing it yes, but acknowledging it, which is what your statement misses.
I occasionally wonder about the background of people. I get the impression that many libertarians posintg here are architects(PC), computer boffins, and former PolSci students.
Personally my background is biological science. I wonder how this influences expressions of "certainty" and the clean "rational universe" expressed by Anon above (my guess is PolSci).
"CYFS are damned if they do, and damned if they don't."
No. Just damning. They're big govt Nazis like yourself.
"You are an anti-abortion, anti-choice Libertarian"
Wrong - again - on both counts. The former must remain a personal choice for adult women; the latter is an oxymoron.
"I will repeat - all you need to do is keep your hands off kids as a police officer recently said. You have a problem with that?"
Of course. The police exist to protect my rights; *not* to tell me what to do. Again, you plainly demonstrate your pro-state, authoritarian stance.
"It's not rocket science. Violence is not a family value."
Agreed. But *I* know what violence is. That you don't, is an insult to the memory of children like James Whakaruru, Delcelia Witika and the many others born to monsters who also don't.
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