New Zealand Political Failure

Boris Johnson may be facing a leadership challenge in the UK if the latest virus policy becomes real. They're now talking about lockdowns every winter, without end. Yeah, every winter and then it'll be all year round. I say this often -don't encourage politicians, they just start getting ideas and their ideas are always bad ones. 

In New Zealand, politics has failed the country. Back in the day (violins please), politicians didn't make politics their career. They generally got involved bit by bit, either through whatever their profession was, the unions or business. In other words they had a life before politics. Not now, everyone in parliament is a bed wetting, born to rule numpty who thinks it's a good idea to have their hand in the taxpayers pocket. That's their life choice, they have no other life. And everyone is to blame, National, Labour, ACT, Greens, the lot. Basically, parliament is the enemy. MMP has worsened the situation as now you just can't get rid of them. The cat comes back, it won't stay away. You want examples? Gerry Brownlee and Damien O'Connor, there's two for you (both have lost their electorate seats at some point but stayed in off the list). 

What's the answer? Wholesale change. A new party based on sound core principles and the money to see things through has to take over and actually do what is needed to be done. This is not a cheap undertaking and is very time consuming, but I see no other way around it. The political class has failed, so a vote for Judith Collins, or Simon Bridges will still get the same result as a vote for Ardern. The result is still failure. 

Failure? Yes, here's a short list: 

- crumbling infrastructure 

- plummeting education standards 

- hospitals falling apart 

- complete inability to defend territorial waters 

- circuitous bureaucracy which doesn't actually get anything done 

- economy on the brink of collapse and no idea how to reverse the trend (how about let business get on and do business - shock suggestion) 

I'm sure you can add to the list, this was just off the top of my head. On the individual level, clearly you have to look after the nuts and bolts of your daily lives, so don't carry too much debt. Don't spend money you don't have to. But wider than that, we have to organise, and yes I've been political practically my whole life and I'm prepared to devote time to the task. But please don't suggest joining one of the existing rabble as I just don't see that working. Here's a blog post I did on what it'll take to get over that all-important 5% threshold. https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2020/10/new-zealand-politics-getting-over-that.html