I was amused the other day when co-blogger The Vet, teased me a little about not being an 80/20 bloke – one who’ll take the 80% he agrees with, while accepting the 20% he does not agree with but that comes with the package – and instead being a bit of an ideological purist.
As such I decided to run back through NZ elections I’ve been able to vote in and try to recall who I voted for and why.
| 1981 – Social Credit Yeah, I laugh too. But under FPP getting rid of Muldoon meant picking the party most likely to defeat National in each seat and where I was registered that year meant that SC was the party most likely to do it. Bit of a shame in that I rather liked our MP Marylin Waring. . | 2002 – National / National Sure, every one knew English was going to be buried and deservedly so given how useless National were that year. But the prospect of Clark getting 50%+ of the vote for an absolute majority scared the crap out of me. |
| 1984 – New Zealand Party (Bob Jones) Amazingly I found that I was stuck in Remmers, darlings. As before, that meant voting for the party most likely to beat National, although it helped in this case that I agreed with Jones’s notions of freedom from government rules and regulations. Once again I was saddened that the electorate National MP, Doug Graham in his first run, seemed very good, but that’s politics for you. . | 2005 – National / National Clark simply had to be beaten. Brash? Meh! |
| 1987 – Labour Finally, I got the chance to vote for them, and to do so in a positive way rather than as merely a protest or negative vote. Wall Street was in the movie theatres, and the future was so bright I had to wear shades. . | 2008 – National / ACT Given that a National win seemed likely, it was already clear that Key and company were going to be squishes so backbone would be needed. The cunning players of National were happy to go with both the Maori and ACT parties, nullifying the “extremes” of each. |
| 1990 – Did not vote I was just too damned busy in the USA to figure out how to vote remotely. In any case everybody knew Labour was going to be buried (though I don’t think anybody saw how badly they would be), although I still would have voted for them as I had little time for “Spud”. . | 2011 – National / National Ok, so the ACT Party was a busted flush and MMP sucks. But who the hell would have wanted Goff and Labour in power? Still, voting National felt like a purely defensive measure. |
| 1993 – Labour I was still registered for Wellington Central and the Labour MP was Chris Laidlaw whom I took to be a smart chappy (Rhodes Scholar and all). Plus I really enjoyed his old rugby book, Mud In Your Eye. . | 2014 – National / National Same again. God, Labour were awful. All the same, every day I woke up to find some new rule and regulation that made life more difficult. |
| 1996 – Labour Same again, and MMP didn’t mean much. It would not be until I returned to NZ that I found out what a completely wet drip Laidlaw was. I blame Frik du Preez. . | 2017 – National / National Same again. Despaired of the idiots who voted for Winston on the basis that National needed a spine (true) but that a man with thirty years of utu would deliver it. The overall result didn’t surprise me. The only positive thing in National that I could truly say I voted for, was Steven Joyce. . |
| 1999 – Labour Back from the USA just in time to vote and it was apparent to everybody that the wheels had fallen off Shipley’s government. Also Clark and Cullen did not seem likely to try and turn the clock back, especially given that the worst troglodytes had decamped to Anderton’s Alliance Party. | 2020 – ACT / ACT Again, more defensive than anything else, since there were policies I didn’t agree with and Seymour struck me as a professional politician and sap. Still, kudos to him for having taken on what may have seemed like a dispiriting challenge and bring ACT back from the dead. |
So there it is. Who will I vote for in 2023? At this stage I’ve no idea. Labour perhaps, on the theory that ideas should be tested to destruction. In hindsight we had to have Muldoon if we were ever going to move beyond him and the system of which he was the last gasp.
No Minister 
Given that no one in parliament, apart from David Seymour in a very roundabout way, would talk to the Wellington protesters, none of them are getting any recognition from me.
Tom … I retract my comment. With that record no-one could ever accuse you of being ideologically pure.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I thought you’d get a kick out of it!
Extraordinary. Any sort of political philosophy is missing. A good argument for limiting voting to residents. And citizens, although that presumably doesn’t exclude Tom.
Any sort of political philosophy is missing.
Hey! Meow!
Winnie will wake from his slumbers in 2023.
O.K. for what it’s worth: National / National all the way through, due to being uninformed and believing the surface comments of the political herd. Then a simple protest vote of Conservative / conservative in 2020 as a voice of support for something right-of-centre . The rot has gone too deep. Time to encourage some novices who say they will govern according to ‘old fashioned’ values and to hell with the short term pain.
Dear oh dear oh dear ! Voting Labour 1996 & 1999 ?!
I was done with the Labour Party when the likes of Moore, Bassett, DeCleene et al were ousted by a motley collection of cardigan-wearing androgynous types only interested in their jaundiced feminist / sexual agenda. Circa 1993.
I lost track of the NZ political scene in that decade, as you can gather by my comment about voting for Chris Ladlaw FFS. By 1996 with the arrival of the Interwebby thing I was at last able to start catching up but still didn’t pay too much attention.
For example I was getting on a plane in Berlin in ’96 when I saw Helen Clark’s toothy grin on the cabin TV’s, with garlands and petals falling about her, so just assumed she’d won the election. I didn’t find out the result until a couple of weeks later.
Aah Laidlaw, very talented Half back.
What is it with the committed socialists who understandably have a wish to make the world a better place but fail to see the failures generated when they ignore “The Market” and continue to believe they have the power to do it better.
There is so much truth in the adage attributed to various people from history about being a socialist at twenty and remaining suspended in that dream world——.
I think it was third form at the college My dad chose on security grounds, Hahahaha, having a Library.
Out in the sticks prior to that it was a place Mother went to get books, as part of the Memorial Hall in the village where silence ruled and children never ventured. Any way I began reading voraciously and soon came upon the concept of “Utopia” and claimed benefits of communal living, beginning a brief flirtation with socialism that immediately began to diminish as the lessons of life intervened until coming to an abrupt end when Animal farm was read twice and followed by 1984 on the natural progression by Author.
Not a long journey but one accomplished quite quickly.
Now one massive conundrum remains, so many committed socialists become very wealthy often through marketing a talent within a system perfected over many decades where the ruling elite survive the depredations delivered by their efforts but remain married to the brand when natural intelligence should either see them revealed of the truths or even one might imagine, a Damascus like moment to give it all away as it is contrary to socialism they should not be so wealthy when so many are left poor, even destitute, often from the philosophy embraced while they live high on the hog flying up the pointy end hither and thither doing stuff all.
Laidlaw did a Rhodes Scholarship too – which is tantamount to a training scheme for 20th century globalists. Now we have the World Economic Forum.