and have said Yes to euthanasia and No to legalising cannabis. The margins in both results is such that Special votes which have yet to be counted won’t make a difference.
Good result.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN
and have said Yes to euthanasia and No to legalising cannabis. The margins in both results is such that Special votes which have yet to be counted won’t make a difference.
Good result.
No Minister 
After all this time specials still not counted? Sure, they need to do it properly but the election was over nearly 2 weeks ago. Are the voting papers sent to a central site for the count? Why couldn’t each embassy/high commission do it? Still, apparently they are unlikely to change the outcome, so this is a very good result on balance.
Max … someone will correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that Special Votes are forwarded to the Returning Officer of the electorate they relate to for counting.
“Why couldn’t each embassy/high commission do it?”
Was a time when one expected special votes to be from those overseas.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/428614/election-2020-special-votes-explained
I voted in both referenda but was not at all chuffed that NZ First made us waste all that money on such a pointless exercise. NZ’s a representative democracy and that means we elect MPs to make decisions on our behalf. This utter bollocks of wasting millions of dollars on gathering opinions that governments are under no obligation to pay any attention to (and don’t) is one of the stupidest things that conservatives have come up with.
Milt – it’s a bit like all of those working groups in the last 3 years – 200 odd wasn’t it?.
Most of no benefit whatsoever.
You think the Ardern government had more working groups than the Key government? Bless.
Milt purely a guess but maybe Arderns government had as many in 3 years as Keys did in 9 years.
Milt … it’s a worry. You and I agreeing. Governments are there to govern. Referenda are a mechanism designed to give MP’s who are paid to govern a cop out.
And the biggest cop out was Ardern refusing to nail her colors to the mast … leadership not.
Of course, if she had said how she was voting, National would have had a whole propaganda campaign prepped for “PM is trying to unduly influence the referendum!” Which is exactly why National MPs pushed so hard to get her to say how she was voting. Feel free to be bitter about not being able to run that propaganda line.
Some things are too important to leave to politicians. And others are too contentious for politicians. Hence referendums. Psycho is too young to know this but we used to vote every three years on prohibition. It came close in the 30s. The Veteran just a lad then.
Not so! I voted against prohibition in 1981 and then had a D’oh! moment when my mate pointed out that “national purchase and control” of the industry was also on the ballot. Not that I think my voting for nationalisation would have made a big difference, mind…
Milt … get real. Key manned up on the flag referendum … and lost. Ardern didn’t have the balls to own up to what she believed in. In case you hadn’t noticed both referenda attracted for and against votes across the political spectrum although you could perhaps argue the Greens had a mortgage on the Yes vote on legalising cannabis while clearly the euthanasia vote had majority support right across the five main parties contesting the election.
Does “manned up” mean wasting $26 million on his pet vanity project?
“Man up” isn’t really something Ardern can do. As for Key, we know everything we need to about his willingness to own up to what he believes in from his claim that he couldn’t remember what side he was on during the 1981 Springbok tour.
We were saddled with the flag referendum by Key as part of a personal project that was for some unfathomable reason very important to him, so you bet he had to front up and pitch for it.
We were saddled with the cannabis referendum by NZ First, who were a pain in Ardern’s arse for the whole term of office, so she was under no obligation to promote it. She owed them (and the National Party) no statement about it whatsoever.
Milt … your girl has somewhat of a different view … https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/10/green-mp-chl-e-swarbrick-swipes-at-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-for-holding-back-cannabis-view.html