Does Sir Ian Taylor’s elegy for the Ardern government match the mood of many Hamilton West electors?

Hamilton West voters sent a direct message to the capital on Saturday, although behind the Labour fence  some found it had to read.

For those, the NZ Herald’s  political editor  Claire  Trevett spelt it out:

“Make no mistake: no matter what Labour says about the result, it will be—and should be—very worried  about it”.

For its part, Point of  Order sees  it as  vindicating the pollsters who in their  national sampling traced the gap  widening between Labour and  National, and  becoming so wide even a  budget full of handouts couldn’t do the trick in turning back the tide.

Clearly those in  Hamilton West who voted Labour in 2020 deserted in droves Some of them may have  felt like Sir  Ian Taylor, who  delivered his own elegy  for Labour in an article in the  NZ Herald.

How the Govt aims to make us safer by strengthening NZ’s terrorism laws – but might this work with other laws?

Buzz from the Beehive

A government committed to improving our wellbeing and safety is assuring us it intends strengthening counter-terrorism laws “to make it harder for people who are known threats to undertake terrorist acts”.

The headline announcing this proclaims:  Stronger terrorism laws make New Zealand safer.

This is hugely encouraging and may well become the subject of study by criminologists around the world.   If our legislators can draft a stronger law to make us safer from terrorists, then all sorts of possibilities are opened.

A stronger law that makes it harder to conduct a ram raid is an attractive possibility, for example, or a stronger law to make it harder for those of us with homicidal inclinations to murder our fellow citizens.

But fair to say, Allan did acknowledge:

“While no law can ever stop a motivated terrorist from undertaking an attack, these changes will go a long way in preventing, disrupting and limiting their ability to do so.”

Bryce Edwards puts a spotlight on Hamilton West: Here comes an unpredictable and intense by-election

DR BRYCE EDWARDS,  director of the Democracy Project, looks at the political climate in Hamilton West as  the political parties prepare to campaign for support in a by-election.  He writes: 

Get ready for a hard-fought and intense by-election in Hamilton West, triggered by the resignation from Parliament of former Labour MP Gaurav Sharma. Both Labour and National are going to throw everything at winning this by-election.   Complicating matters, there will be a number of minor parties and fringe elements – Sharma included – that might have a big impact on the result.

At this stage, the outcome is entirely unpredictable, with both Labour and National having good reasons for desperately needing to win it, and with some good reasons to expect success. But it’s likely to be a very close race, and a number of vital factors could determine which way victory goes.

The National Party is the frontrunner 

National is surely seen as the frontrunner in the by-election, due to the party’s hold over the seat in 4 out of 5 preceding elections, together with the fact that the Labour Government is currently in the doldrums.

As always, Opposition parties seek to turn by-elections into referendums on the current performance of the incumbents – and at present there is a lot about the Labour Government for the public to be dissatisfied about. This was evidenced by last week’s local government elections, which have also been described as a referendum on the current government.

Attention is drawn to the ethnicity of Tauranga’s MPs (Maori) for more than three decades …

We are grateful to David Farrar for drawing attention to something we overlooked in our report yesterday on the Maori Party’s reason(s) for not standing a candidate in the upcoming by election.   On Kiwiblog today, he reports:

So Tauranga is unsafe for Maori!

Stuff reports:

Te Pāti Māori says it considered standing a candidate in the Tauranga by-election, but opted not to over concerns about safety and racism in the region.

Party president Che Wilson said racism and hate speech in Tauranga made it a “safety issue” for the party to participate in the upcoming by-election.

Astonishing that Tauranga is so unsafe for Maori as it has had a Maori MP for 35 of the last 38 years!

While we are on this topic, did any of the nation’s political journalists ask Wilson why the party did not stand a candidate in that seat in the 2020 general election?

Buzz from the Beehive – or (unwittingly) is the way being paved for booze in schools to boost kids’ health and wellbeing?

The news from the Beehive has been mixed on the trade front – greater trade liberalisation with China was welcomed by Trade Minister Damien O’Connor but was countered by his announcement (alongside Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta) of significant new sanctions against Russia.

It’s a good thing our trade with China is much greater than our trade with Russia.

But the government’s general inclination to regulate rather than liberalise is reflected in its signalling a Nanny State crackdown on what our kids can drink.

It has opened a public consultation on a proposal for primary schools to offer only “healthy” drinks.  We trust they know what they are doing with this one.

We say this because alcoholic drinks are good for our health, according to some websites checked out by Point of Order. Consumption must be moderate, true, but that should apply to whatever our kids eat and drink.

Hence we look forward to our toddlers toasting each other with a cheery “good health” before they sink their daily toddies.