Decision

I am pleased to announce that, after much consideration, I will be casting my electorate vote in Palmerston North for Mr Iain Lees-Galloway.

Deciding on my party vote proved much harder.

In 2002 and 2005, I voted for the Alliance - the first time in the hope of putting a couple of left wing MPs into parliament if Harre won Waitakere electorate (she didn't), and the second time out of sheer perversity, as I abhorred the direction the Labour Party was taking.

In 2008, I refused to cast a meaningful vote at all, defacing my ballot paper.  At the time, Labour's Free trade Agreement with China was enraging me; and no party that would support a government that endorsed it would receive my vote.

In 2011, I voted Mana, as I agreed with Harawira's relentless focus on child poverty.  I hope the new party might muster enough support to put two MPs into parliament and I wanted to signal my dis-satisfaction with the continued vacillations of the main leftwing parties.

This year, the situation was complicated by the Mana-Internet Party link up.  Put bluntly, Kim Dotcom is not one of us.  He is not on our side.  Everything about him - the flamboyant lifestyle, the massive mansion, the transparent attempts to buy influence, jars hideously with the core Mana message of eradicating child poverty.  This man has no interest in that.  He is interested only in himself, and everything he touches is tainted by the contact.  I tried to ignore all this and focus on the positives - Harawira, Sykes, Minto, Harre ... but it wasn't enough.  Sorry guys.  I told you at the time it was a bad idea.

Labour appealed, largely out of a sense of pity and a defiant urge to do the opposite of whatever Key, Ede, Slater and the rest of the corrupt Dirty Politics scum-bags wanted me to do.  They didn't want me to vote Labour, so it seemed like a good idea to do that.  Also, I felt that they deserved every iota of support going after the Dirty Politics revelations.  What better way to signal opposition for everything John Key has come to represent, the corruption, the venality, the gross indecency masquerading as honest comment, the glib, superficial and deeply cynical and nasty attitude, than by voting for the party most likely to replace him?  But Labour proved impossible to love.  They are far better at mutilating their chances of victory than National.  From Cunliffe's performances in the debates, which consisted of waving his hands about weirdly and trying to talk over Key (when the sensible strategy would have been to stand back, shake his head and look prime ministerial) to the hopelessly clueless decision to announce the promising New Zealand Inc policy on the same fucking day as Dotcom's big reveal, everything they have done has been clueless.  Hell, given three years notice of how Key would attack the (sane and sensible) Capital gains Tax policy, they were still flat-footed.  So a vote for Labour would be endorsing that inebriated stumbling performance.  ANd I couldn't do that.

Which left me with the Greens.  Who I have never voted for before, here or in Britain - largely because I do prioritise social issues over environmental ones (thought they are all social issues in the end).  But this year they offered the sanest policy I have ever heard in New Zealand politics - a new top rate of tax targeting income over $140,000.  And they wanted to use the money from it to tackle child poverty.  And on top of that, they have run the most sure-footed campaign of any of the left-wing parties.

So in 2014 I'll be giving my party vote to the Greens.

So that's that.  Russel and Meteria for joint PMs.  You can all calm down, I have decided ... What, you mean the rest of you lot get a vote as well?  What sort of fool system is this?

Let's hear it for Hone

The election is about two minutes away, and I still haven't decided who I'll vote for.  Last time, I voted Mana.  This time, I'm struggling to see past the large shadow of Kim Dotcom.  Yeah, you can put Hone Haraira and Laila Harre and Annette Sykes and John Minto on one side of the side of the scales - but Kim weighs heavily on the other side.  So probably not.

The Greens I like.  I particularly like their new tax plans.  Labour, well.  It's Labour.  I could vote Labour.  I was tending that way.  Either Labour or the Greens.  Probably Labour, mostly because Dirty Politics made me want to do the opposite of whatever Slater et al wanted me to do, and they didn't seem to want me to vote Labour.

Then Hone Harawira fires off one foul mouthed tirade and suddenly I'm all desperate to vote for him again.  Because who couldn't agree with the rage at the way a really important issue like child poverty is being sidelined by a campaign to legalise weed:

Why am I seeing all this shit about weed and so... f***** little about feed [Feed the Kids]... just because the Internet Party is keen on weed … and got all the money to spend on all this flash advertising shit is no reason why… the same people who are also supposed to be working for Internet-Mana aren’t doing the same kind of package for Feed the Kids.

I am ambivalent about legalising marijuana.  I can see that it is a colossal waste of police and court time.  I can see that it is utterly wrong to render swathes of the population - including an awful lot of Maori - criminal.  But at the same time, I see the effect that marijuana on young people every day in my job.  I know that it won't be legal for 13 year olds - but increasing its availability won't make it less common, will it?   I see numbed minds and personalities utterly blighted by this shit.  I'm with Hone for those reasons alone.

But I'm also with him because, while I'm ambivalent about weed, I'm totally not ambivalent about child poverty, another scourge that our selfish narrow politics tries to squeeze to the sidelines.  Harawira has always made it the central plank of his political platform, and for that, if nothing else, he's one of the most important voices in New Zealand politics.

Anything that moves this from the centre of the campaign is an irrelevant, frivolous distraction.

Pam Corkery?

I've just watched the professional 'feisty leftwing red head' swearing and cursing on t'news.  My immediate reaction was, "Is the New Zealand talent pool really so small and shallow that she has to be the face of Internet-Mana's media operation?"

Lord, I'd forgotten she existed.  And didn't think my life was lacking as a result.

A quick check on Wikipedia reveals that after her less than stellar career as a politician, she's made a less than stellar career on talk back and a less than stellar career as a brothel owner.  I kid you not.

I think I remember Pam, years ago on some TV program, gloating about how she got out of the Alliance before it fell apart, referring to it as a 'sinking ship.'

Obviously Laila Harre must have missed that show.

In her book of political memoirs (really - after a term?!) Corkery describes policians as "by and large, far more self-deluding, devious, bloated, insecure, egocentric wankers" - which may well be true but begs the question why she has decided to work in that field again.

Still, being innured to these traits may be a job requirement for working with Kim Dotcom ...

And contemplation of those uncomplimentary terms might prompt one to speculate what words would describe a foul mouthed, publicity seeking, failed brothel owning, talk show hosting, TV studio cluttering, recidivist political wannabe.