Post-election reflections, 1

Liberty Scott has letters of advice and "support" to the incoming National Socialist regime and their coalition partners and sell-outs, to Jeanette Fitzsimons and to the departing Winston Peters, Helen Clark.  Read them all here.

He says it all really -- at least, pretty much all that I'd like to say.

Except these few points:  Maybe New Zealanders are more sensible than they're often given credit for. Despite the near wall-to-wall support for the Maori Party from the Maori (taxpayer-funded) media and loud if not stentorious backing for the racist Maori seats, the racist party only managed five seats in an electorate that only represents half New Zealand's Maori population.

Looks like there's more common sense out there than we might think.

And despite the years of indoctrination from schools, politicians and the media about the the bullshit of "sustainability and the "urgency" of environmental action -- all the mass hysteria and all the wall-to-wall fawning about the Green Party "Vote for your neighbours' children to be poor" campaign (and the polling that suggested they'd do wonders instead of barely survive), the Greens themselves only managed to grab seven seats, and rather than cementing their place in Parliament they've shown they could easily be the next minor party to lose their place.

That's another really encouraging signal showing the rude common sense of most New Zealanders.

It's heartening.

Oh, and two last things.  Last night there was a massive 11% swing to the Libertarianz.  Very heartening indeed.  ;^)

And is anyone else looking forward to seeing Rodney Hide being made Minister of Jails?

UPDATE 1:  Is anyone else heartily sick of the drivel about how the media and the politicians drove Winston out of Parliament?  IN the end it was his own lies and crookedness that did him in. And rather than doing him damage, the last few months of near-constant media and political attention dragged out of irrelevance and almost got him over the line on the night.

The media and Rodney Hide were not his nemeses; they were almost his saviours.

UPDATE 2: Some difficult choices now for John Boy, not least finding competent ministers inside the National Socialist caucus. He'll obviously play off the Maori Party and ACT in negotiations, but he'll need to resolve one potential thorn in the side now before it causes sepsis.  With the worst economic calamity in decades upon us, what does he do with Roger Douglas -- the only finance minister now in Parliament who's dealt with a crisis before. Better, John Boy will surely be thinking, to have Douglas inside the tent pissing out, that outside the tent pissing in -- because as the crisis gets worse, that will become awfully corrosive.

I quite like the idea floated by The Hive, that if Helen is given the Ambassador's job to Washington (she'd have no problems cosying up to Obama to protect our trading relationship against his protectionist instincts, and whatever else you may think about her, her free trade credentials are moderately sound) then perhaps Don Brash's unique skills could be put to good use here in an economic advisory cabinet.  A team of Roger Douglas, Roger Kerr and Don Brash would be a team of formidable talent, not to say credibility, in providing the sort of advice a responsible government would need.

UPDATE 3:  Oh, and I can't fail to point out the country's most principled electorate.  :-)

UPDATE 4: Former Libertarianz deputy Deborah Coddington suggests in today's Herald that the only ones who will be "ungraciously" dancing on the grave of Helen Clark will be "organisations such as the Business Roundtable and parties like the Libertarianz."  How ungracious of her. Here's the tune the Wellington Libertarianz were dancing to last night.  And here's what we were dancing to in Auckland.