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September 27, 2009 8:01am by David Farrar

Edwards on ACT

Bryce Edwards reviews ACT’s 2008 election campaign.

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Comment10

Election 2008
ACT
Bryce Edwards
Election 2008

Comments (10)

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Elijah Lineberry

Giving credit where it is due…

I did think the ACT closing address the night before election day was by far the best of all the parties; I know of three people who had promised me their party votes for the Libertarianz who switched after seeing the ACT closing address and specifically Rodney Hide’s suggestion to vote for a guaranteed coalition partner..(and guiltily rang me afterwards to admit their treachery! HAHAHAHA!!)

On the other hand, after 10 months in office kiwiblog readers may like to compare the ACT manifesto with their performance in Government and try to find a single election policy which has been implemented (or even discussed)

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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September 27, 2009 9:35am
peterwn

A minor party can promise the earth knowing they have a plausible cop-out for non delivery. In 2008, National was the only party required to put its money where its mouth is. Even Labour was not constrained by this as its concern was to win the election first then figure out how to stay in power. Such was its dire position running up to the election it had nothing to lose by promising the earth.
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September 27, 2009 12:23pm
Adolf Fiinkensein

The capacity of minority cheer leaders to demand policy reform within ten months of a three year term always reminds me that idiots usually are short sighted.
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September 27, 2009 6:00pm
Gooner

Adolf, that’s exactly when you do it! Did you miss your morning walk?
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September 27, 2009 6:29pm
John Ansell

peterwn and Adolf:

Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting the party founded by New Zealand’s most courageous reformer would not have followed through on its promise of further reforms?

ACT may be too dumb to brand themselves consistently (and God knows I tried, but the party of free enterprise insisted that 61 brand images were better than one), but timid they ain’t.

If they’d got their hands on the levers of state, a lot of the bad aspects of that state would be history by now: poor people’s kids forced to be ‘educated’ by useless teachers with jobs for life, murderers getting paroled to kill again, racial discrimination against non-part-Maori, high taxes destroying the incentive to work, the nutty $4000-per-family-per-year ETS tax etc., etc.

The tragedy is that until they learn to speak with one voice and sell their message simply, they’re doomed to remain bit-players.
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September 27, 2009 9:30pm
reid

John, how much of their message gets buried in the simplistic ACT=selfish=rich=bad equation?

There’s a significant negative undertone in NZ from media-promoted slogans such as:
“the failed policies of the 90’s”
“Rogernomics”
“Privatisation”
et al

Those connotations are poison to the electorate, thanks to years of Pavlovian conditioning.

Of course, I myself never fell foul of such but I have wondered why ACT has not yet come up with something, anything, to counter that?
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September 27, 2009 10:21pm
Clint Heine

Adolf – better to announce that you fully intend on delivering what you promised than to leave every single drop of your principles behind and run the ship the same way as the last captain. If I remember correctly, Sir Roger did an awful amount of his excellent work last time in the first 10 months when we were in crisis and look how much better off we are as a result!

Or are you advocating that the Nats just do a little bit of tinkering around election year?
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September 27, 2009 10:25pm
reid

“If I remember correctly, Sir Roger did an awful amount of his excellent work last time in the first 10 months when we were in crisis and look how much better off we are as a result!”

Sadly Clint, we’re not going to get that this time and given Roger’s age, probably never again. Much to the delight of the morons who believe propaganda and much to the regret of those of us who think he was always right, which apparently includes neither Key nor surprisingly, English.
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September 27, 2009 10:44pm
stephen

Sadly Clint, we’re not going to get that this time and given Roger’s age, probably never again.

If all the ACT MPs are on the same page (with regards to economics an’ that), why does it matter if Douglas leaves?
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September 28, 2009 8:10am
CharlieBrown

I’m starting to think that the only way we can get positive change for the country is to have some right wing, free market, economic literate people infiltrate the labour party again, and introduce the changes needed on an unsuspecting population. National are too stale to ever bring in necessary change, and don’t have much of a track record doing so (Ruth Richardson being the exception). The ACT party’s lack of success really makes me think that these changes cannot be voted in.
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September 28, 2009 9:26am

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