5 years ago
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Labour Party candidate
A good friend of mine, Grant Robertson, has been nominated as the Labour candidate for Wellington Central. It's likely to be a sought after nomination not least of all because the sitting MP, Marian Hobbs, has done a great job around the electorate as well as leading a team who rebuilt the local party structure. I hope Grant is successful at gaining the nomination and goes on to win the seat. He's a talented, honest and bloody funny bloke who'd make a huge contribution to the NZ Parliament and Labour Caucus.
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NZ politics
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11 comments:
Well said! Nice contributions on the KIwi blog-sites, by the way.
Ah, but can he drive around Oriental Bay in an open-topped Mercedes Benz to prove how down with the working man he is? Such qualities make Mr Chauvel an obvious Labour choice....
Labour's a broad church but; welcoming of wealthy lawyers as well as Mainlanders!
Righto. Remind me again - what's the difference between Labour and National?
"What's the difference between Labour and National?"
Policy, man. Not people. Policy. I wouldn't care if Labour was made up of Purple Monsters from the Planet Xenon as long as the advanced a progressive agenda.
Yeah, that's pretty much my view. The late Michael Hirschfeld wasn't short a penny. I'd also add that I think Labour is generally more redistributive than National - that can be challenging for the well-to-do.
I'm guessing here that "progressive" is code for "middle class capture/welfare"...
Provocative. Its not an entirely unreasonable comment given the last decade or so, but what I mean by progressive is reforming - social and economic reform - I think both Labour and National are reasonably progressive hence the compromise on the smacking legislation. I'd agree that one problem for Labour is the extent to which it is only progressive, and not a party for workers/labour.
Yes, but "reform" can mean virtually anything. The Employment Contracts Act was touted as "reform", yet many folk didn't see it as particularly "progressive". Judging by the past eight years, "progressive" appears to mean more regulation and more State control/intervention - which is a perfectly valid approach, but is that what you're meaning?
by progressive i would like to think that Labour does not try to impose a particular set of 'moral' values on the population and lets people make their own choices (homosexual law reform and civil unions being two good examples), and promotes redistributive policies so that poorer people don't keep getting stomped on. And yes, that means a greater role for the state. How we are supposed to deal with some of the most pressing issues this generation will face (eg. climate change, poverty) with more individualism I do not know...
I've always thought that the essence of individualism was respecting the rights of people to live their lives as they see fit (provided it doesn't infringe the rights of others), so I'm not sure if that's an exclusively 'progressive' trait. (Moreover,one could argue that it is the very actions of the State that have led to discrimination against some minorities.) And with the exception of one party, I don't think any political grouping in Parliament questions the need for some redistribution - the key points of difference are how, how much and for whom.
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