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NZ Politics is embarrassing.
Yesterday I went to a debate between two of NZ’s major political parties, and the leader of the green party and a student representing our far right minor party.
It was humiliating to watch.
The subject was “What does sustainability mean and what is your party going to do about it”.
Within two minutes, the debate degraded quite literally into a schoolboy fight with the two men from Labour and National caught in a squabble that went:
“You said this”
“no i didn’t”
“yes you did”
“no I didn’t”
“yes you did”
With no end in sight, the audience had to try to calm them down.
We managed to make our way sloooowly though a bunch of questions, that Nick Smith seemed to have trouble remembering, so instead went on these long, drawn out rants about nothing in particular, while the student representative for Act loudly proclaimed that market forces and technology changes were all we need. Oh, and that people should pay for water.
I was horrified that any of these people (aside from the Green party who are so well versed on the subject, Jeanette sat there calmly explaining climate change to the idiots surrounding her as they plucked ‘facts’ out of the air) are going to be sitting in our government come the beginning of next year.
The very fact that we are facing quite literally the worst disaster in human history, which is about 50 years away from obliterating ANY hope of survival makes me think that instead of squabbling, these people should be watching Armageddon or something to realise that tackling climate change should be a united, world wide effort, not some silly debate.
I hear parliament is very much the same. At this stage, despite Claire telling me that at least the debate has become a little more sophisticated over the years, I feel very anxious about how we as a country are going to reduce our emissions by 90% at ANY stage in the future, let alone in the next few decades.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
July 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Yay I topic I get to comment on considering I work at Parliament.
From what I’ve seen so far – the squabbles are done in part because thats what the public expect of them. A suprising amount of cross party work is done behind closed doors and they do at times actually manage to co-operate even though they belong to different ideological parties – shocking, but it happens!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
weird. yeah i expect debate on the ideas, not so much playground mutterings.
thanks for your comment, I read it while eating my leftover dinner from cooking class ;)
July 31st, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Sad but true, what you saw in kindergarten stuff compared to the British and Canadian politicians, so don’t get too disheartened. Though if you really want to see how terrible parliament can be, you should watch question time (it’s web-cast at 2 pm Tuesday through Thursday from
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/Visiting/LiveBroadcast/
there you will see how sad it can be, as well as how amusing. Today the Speaker said she would never jump on one member, and another was accused of having a ‘not-affair’.
Remember, MP is not a well paid job, so you tend not to get great applicants for it. The people who get through the selection process tend to be those who are smarmy ‘people persons’ whose main claim to fame is their ‘interpersonal skills’ not their ability to think. The ones who get into senior positions tend to be the ones who can come back with a cutting one-liner (‘all I can say is diddums’ for instance) to avoid answering a question. The ones who get to the very top have to have so much ‘dirt’ on people that they can keep them in line just by reaching towards their pockets!
I’d pay top dollar (same as Telecom do) if I was responsible for the place, that way we’d maybe get a better quality of applicant and avoid the school yard antics we see now.
Go well, enjoy life and do things you like – always.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Wow. Turned it on and watched some good debate on breast cancer drugs, then good old Nick Smith stood up and I couldn’t stand it any more.
Will keep the question time on from now. Great example of the government embracing the web and engaging the population. Thanks!
August 6th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
It seems that what you really mean is that NZ politics outside of the Green Party is embarassing.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Ha ha, have you listened to their policies on Mariguana? I think it’s stupid int his day and age, with much bigger issues at stake to spend so much time on that one in order to secure the student vote.
On the issue above, the greens are doing well. On other issues, they are just as bad as the pack!
August 6th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Ah, but if, as you say, we’ve got only 50 years to save ourself from an Armageddon-like scenario, isn’t their stance on that issue the only one that counts really?
August 7th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Nope, because it’s not likely they will ever get the backing to do anything and in my mind, the more people who debate this reasonably and come to a unified approach, the better. A tiny minority party in NZ and their opinion is simply not enough.