John Key - seeking Anderton voters?

Apparently in the latest leaders' debate John Key pledged to never sell Kiwibank

"ever ... we've ruled it out"

Why John? Is it critical the New Zealand government owns a bank? Why did National so fervently oppose this 8 years ago? Or are you trying to hoover up the votes of Jim Anderton's Personality Cult Progressive Party.

As if anyone who believed in less government needed another reason to vote Libertarianz or ACT!

A vote for Labour is a vote for the Greens

So says Helen Clark who is reported in the Dominion Post as saying:

"The Greens have waited a long time to be in Government. Their time is here"

So if Labour wins it wants to a dart to the left, a dart to the anti-science, control freak, nanny state loving Green Party. This comes along with Clark's declaration, which we all knew anyway, that NZ First is unlikely to get elected. Along with Peter Dunne hopping off the sinking ship, Labour is stuck to going Green and seducing the Maori Party.

So now you know what a fourth term will mean. One could say that at least Clark has nailed her colours to the mast. That's something I can certainly respect. She is not afraid to declare what she stands for and what she seeks, and I see another Labour term being one which intends to change direction, decisively toward the left even more.

Why shouldn't she, when National is so determined to be the classic conservative party and do virtually nothing to reverse anything she does.

John Key ought to think carefully - if Labour wins is it because it actually, convincingly, believes in something other than simply being in power? Labour believes in nanny state, so do the Greens.

Who is campaigning against this?

Grey Power is red

Lindsay Mitchell has written an excellent piece on "Grey Power" that Muldoonist statist group of greedy grey grizzlers who constantly lobby for the state to give them more, whilst moaning about having to pay for it.

As she says:

Grey Power epitomises the pursuit of privilege. They cleverly cover this by tugging on the heartstrings with cases of elderly people shivering in their cold homes, suffering on hospital waiting lists. All the while thuggishly pulling the guilt lever on those who have not yet reached that lofty position of having 'paid taxes and served their countries all their working lives'.

One of the greatest leaps forward for New Zealand would be to declare that the state WONT provide you with a retirement income if you are currently under a certain age, and in return for that here are your taxes - go forth and save, invest and make provision for yourself if you so choose.

Grey Power is against that - it supports the intergenerational fraud that is PAYE National Superannuation.

Moreso, it has provided succour to that aging purveyor of bigotry Winston Peters, but was too stupid to support him in 1999 after he had implemented the abolition of the superannuation surtax - a cause that WAS worthy because it taxed those who had made provision for themselves and because Jim Bolger promised to abolish it in 1990 but didn't.

Many elderly people live dignified lives that they saved up for, and only expect the state to provide the healthcare they've been forced to pay for. It's too late for them to do anything else, but they could at least stop lobbying for the nanny state that has so overwhelmingly let them down time and time again.

State radio openly biased

Not PC points out, the "impartial, balanced and independent" state radio - that you are forced to pay for - has a political editor who is willing, a week out from a general election - to openly call Libertarianz "nutbars".

Now Liz Banas can believe whatever she wants. We all know John Campbell of TV3 is a raving socialist, but you don't pay for TV3, you don't own TV3.

You do own Radio NZ and you are forced to pay for it, whether you listen to it, or not.

It's a mockery of the so-called independence - which of course Labour, the Greens and others on the left say is the hallmark of "public broadcasting".

Liz Banas has proven she isn't impartial, independent or balanced. Many of you may think Libertarianz are "nutbars", but as Libertarianz Leader Bernard Darnton points out "All parties other than Labour ought to be concerned when a week away from the election, it is clear the RNZ political editor isn't afraid to let her political views get in the way of her job".

Who else does she think are nutbars, who does she not think are nutbars, how can anyone have confidence in her editorial decisions?

Moreover, why should we be forced to pay for a broadcaster that hires people who clearly wouldn't care less about sabotaging a political party's campaign?

Labour transport announcement nothing new

Yes, nothing to see here. It is just trying to publicise what it had previously announced months ago. It isn't a new NZ$19.4 billion.

It is saying it is dedicating all fuel tax, road user charges (RUC) and motor vehicle registration (MVR) fees to land transport, when the latter two were fully dedicated before Labour was elected. Oh and the fuel tax dedication came after National campaigned on it in 2005.

The NZ$19.4 billion is over 6 years, a good 35-40% of that will be for road maintenance - so business as usual. The rest is divided between public transport and new road construction.

However it ISN'T news. The money is already being collected from road users, the only issue is how that is allocated. Presumably National would spend the same.