Compulsory training or what Helen?

So Helen Clark will make 16 and 17yos be at school, in training or on apprenticeship.

So if you have a job at such ages, you'll also be forced to be in training! You could be working in a family business, but no Auntie Helen wants your life.

So what happens if they don't? Will you get arrested if you're not in training?

Now I'd simply abolish welfare benefits for those under 18 - but that's a separate issue. Since when has Clark decided she can control 16 and 17yos?

Don't let the financial crisis damage capitalism

According to the Financial Times, UK Conservative Leader David Cameron has said that it is important to not let the left use the financial crisis as a reason to undermine capitalism:

“We must not let the left use this as an excuse to wreck an important part of the British and world economy"

Indeed. He further rejects calls for tighter regulation of financial markets and higher taxes, saying centre-right leaders should unite in defence of capitalism.

Remarkable - look forward to John Key doing this then right?

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are on 52% in the polls, and Labour at 24% (Lib Dems at 12%) look convincing winners - if the election was not two years out. The Tories are getting a little bolder with policies the wider the gap grows - and it seems to be working. Education vouchers are mainstream policy in the UK - but not in NZ.

Anderton, Bradford and Sharples let off lightly

Not PC has pointed out that the mainstream media continues to be on the Winston Peters feeding frenzy:

"while Helen Clark campaigns on "trust" that she's already demonstrated she's lost ,and John Key promises to "change" New Zealand when he's already promised not to make any change that will in any way make a difference -- while all this happens, New Zealand's media is still fiddling around with Winston Peters, his dancing monkey, and the question of which dog ate whose homework, and in which motel Brian Henry might have been when it all happened".

Meanwhile, the paid "professionals" known as journalists have completely let it slip by that the leader of one party supporting Labour, a co-leader of a party that may support either Labour or National, and the MP of another party have all publicly backed a group of Cuban spies convicted of conspiracy to murder.

Yes, Jim Anderton, Pita Sharples and Sue Bradford have declared their credentials to be blood red. They repeat the nonsense that Cuban dissidents are "terrorists" and that these Cuban spies were fighting terrorism when they dobbed Cuban refugees into the Cuban police state. THAT should be a small scandal, it SHOULD be getting scrutiny that a senior Cabinet Minister has aligned himself to a police state.

However, for the cherubs who are reporters in the mainstream media, that is too complicated - you see they would have to explain how Cuba is a police state, how Cuban dissidents help Cubans flee and spread propaganda to encourage Cubans to rise up against their dictators, and then explain the judicial process faced by the Cuban Five.

Not as interesting as Winston though is it? Three MPs (and by implication three political parties) are sympathisers to those aligned with a communist dictatorship and nobody gives a damn.

Imagine voting for National

To do that I'd have to accept either this:
- Centralised bureaucratically funded and directed education, with central bargaining for teachers and no performance pay, with no funding following students, and no tax refund fior buying your kids' education is ok;
- Centralised bureaucratically funded and directed health care, with central bargaining for nurses and doctors, and no performance pay, with a virtual lottery on getting surgery and no accountability for poor performance and no refund for providing for your own healthcare, is ok;
- Property rights remain under the control of local government with the RMA, except that central government can fasttrack its projects whether they be by energy SOEs, transport agencies or local government;
- All the current bureaucracies should remain and not face any real cuts in funding or roles;
- Government spending should still grow, just less than 9% per annum;
- Local government should retain its current wide ranging powers to use ratepayers money for any purpose it deems as promoting the economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing of "communities";
- The government should hold onto unprofitable and poorly performing SOEs and not seek private capital;
- Some minor tightening of the welfare state is all that is needed, but state housing stock should continue to grow, and people should still be able to have state houses with income related rents AND accommodation supplements;
- The Maori seats are not to be questioned, nor are laws that grant any ethnic or racial group different rights from others;
- The ETS and the Kyoto Treaty commitments are not to be questioned, but ETS should be tweaked;
- The top tax rate should remain higher than most major trading partners (outside the EU).

OR National has a secret agenda, which ala Ruth Richardson in 1990, will bring tears to my eyes and make me smile.

I want Labour out of power. I wont be voting for Labour. Voting for a party that will not grant Labour confidence and supply is not supporting Labour being in power.

However to vote National is a positive endorsement of either a wholesale capitulation to almost all Labour policies since 1999 or wishful thinking that it is a lying deceitful bunch of confidence tricksters who will play a one trick game of liberalising the New Zealand economy, education, health and welfare systems. I say a one trick game because it will revive the political fortunes of Winston Peters in one foul swoop if that IS true.

If I had voted National in 1996, I would have had to swallow the deal with NZ First, the deal with Alamein Kopu, Tuariki Delamere and the rest of them, the continued abomination of the RMA, the lack of any constructive change in education, health or welfare. However EVEN then, National still privatised, still was seeking to restrict local government's role and deregulated postal services, abolished tariffs on imported motor vehicles. National said it would do these things. Now? Nothing.

What is it I am voting FOR if I choose National? All I can see is that it gets rid of Clark, and Co. A fine goal indeed, but on day two I get to be governed pretty much to the same extent to the same degree in similar ways by people who apparently don't have the courage of their convictions in doing it. Labour believes it is good to govern the country, National believes it has to, almost grudgingly.

Maybe that's it?

Vote Labour if you want big government and to be governed by people who believe they should be governing you.

Vote National if you want big government and to be governed by people who believe they have to be governing you.

So who do you vote for when you don't want to be governed, but want government to protect you?

Leftwing economic illiteracy and hypocrisy

Well The Standard obviously thinks tolls are a bad idea, having posted on this several times, even though:

- Labour introduced and passed legislation to allow toll roads to be introduced by Order in Council under recommendation by the Minister of Transport. The ALPURT B2 Orewa motorway bypass will be the first. Tauranga Harbourlink would've been the second if Winston hadn't made removing the toll a condition of his confidence and supply agreement. Penlink in Rodney District may be the next one;

- Transit New Zealand under Labour undertook a study following the passage of that legislation to investigation what other new highways could be part funded through tolls. It concluded that several Auckland projects (Waterview connection being one), parts of the Waikato expressway, an expressway in the Bay of Plenty and a handful of other projects could be tolled.

- The Labour led government commissioned a study into introducing road pricing in Auckland to reduce congestion and raise revenue called the Auckland Road Pricing Evaluation Study (ARPES). It considered a daily charge which was $6 a day, so that means $30 a week for a commuter.

And the Standard got this hatred for tolls from a Green blog - when commonsense says that charging vehicles for road use is bound to be better for the environment that subsidising roads from general taxes.

but apparently the Standard opposes Labour policy. How odd.