The reality of MMP is it is next to impossible for any party to get over 50%, (although most elections 48 or 49% to a single party would almost get them a majority in the house) so there has to be coalitions or confidence and supply agreements.

What are your predictions for the next Government?

I find it amazing National is ahead in the polls, considering what a disaster their party has been over the last week since they announced their tax package.

My money is still on Greens/Labour/Jim forming the next Government, but the intensity is holding up, and it could still be National/NZF.

National's biggest problem is going to be stopping NZF in the next couple of weeks, Winston knows their immigration and "race relations" policies have taken a big bite into his support - who will he focus his attack on over the next few weeks?

I don't see as many problems on Labour's radar, but I'm interested to hear what people think will happen over the next two weeks.

That sounds about right. If National is willing to form a coalition with NZF they'll probably win, otherwise it'll be Greens/Labour/Jim. I doubt National could win without NZF unfortunately.

Either way, a party I hate will be part of the next government.

I have heard that if greens and labour form a co-allition that greens are being given the Jobs of transportation and Energy..........


if thats the case......... Lord help NZ...... we will be back in the stone ages!

Yeah... I'm going to say that NZF are the lesser of two evils here, AFAIK they're only morons when it comes to foreigners, whereas the Greens are morons on almost any issue that can be at all related to the environment.

they oppose everything with regards to roading in NZ, the eastern corridor, the SH20 extension.......... I for one hate living in east auckland and taking over 90 minutes to get home in traffic from town......

If they had half a brain between them they'd realise that better roads = less sitting in traffic = less pollution. Public transport should not be funded at the expense of roads.

I find it ironic that with their anti-road and anti-nuclear thinking (nuclear power in this context), they're arguably the most pro-carbon emissions party of the lot.

I think NZ should allow Nuclear ships in our ports..... Just coz they are big and cool and i want to see them

I also agree, because I don't like pissing off major allies over petty issues and idealistic principles (and I should point out I don't count going to war as such an issue). It's not like the yanks want to put a nuclear silo on Stewart Island.

But even if we don't allow nuclear ships, I don't like that the anti-Nuclear policy has been extended to almost all things nuclear. As I've said before, Luddites piss me off.

We agree on a lot it seems.

at least we'll be better suited to face the peak oil crisis.

Peak Oil is a load of bollocks. The problem isn't so much a lack of oil as it is a lack of refining, and because we've already got most of the 'easy' oil. Prices will rise because the oil we've got left is harder to extract, not because we're running out of oil. They will eventually fall again as the technology and infrastructure required to extract the 'tricky' oil improves.

There's this, this, and a score of other plans to get more oil.

Labour/Greens/Progressives it seems like. United Future are going to be dead in the water with just Peter Dunne and one other MP.

New Zealand First are going to recover a lot of what they've lost, but I honestly don't see them getting near their poll result last time (which was in an environment where they could've made HUGE gains from exploitating floating National voters, but they weren't capable of doing it).

I'd rather have Greens stopping new highways than National privatising our roads.

I'd rather have additional privatized roads than no additional roads at all.

What is the big deal people have against privatized roads anyway? They become public after a while, the only difference is you're paying the private sector to make the road (through tolls) rather than the government. What am I missing here, besides the delay of stopping to pay a toll?

also greens are against motorsports which I am for.....

Against using public roads for motorsports or against it in general?

probably against it in general because they are twats!

If they do it right you don't even need to stop, you can get electronic tags that act kinda like a pre-pay toll. So you can just drive straight through.

Yeah I was thinking of that after I posted.

Ok so yeah electronic toll highways would be good to help out the traffic problems. But then again so would a better public transport system. Which is something the greens are always harping on about. So its not all bad.

PS Fuck motorsport.

If they weren't advocating it in lieu of more roads I'd be all for it. But if I must choose one, given the realities of Aucklands geography, I'll go with roads.

ok we sort out a good public transport system, but then we still have to travel for fucking ever in this new fancy fandangled public trasport system because some greeny didnt want to shell out on a new motor way....... most of the southern motorway has been the same since the 60's....... then SH20 only goes to hillsborough, the proposed extension takes it thru to west west auckland IIRC..... therefor saving having to get on to back streats etc...

I wouldnt worry too much about them having the power to stop motorway extensions and what not, Im sure Helen will tell them to STFU if it gets that bad. Afterall she lives in Auckland too.

Better public transport system != more buses != travelling ages on a fandangled new transport system.

I think they mean better train services/skytrain/subway.

Think of more ferries boy and girls.

A subway is an obscenely expensive alternative. Likewise a skytrain.

More ferry routes could deal with a lot more people. The second element is to stop skimping on shit roads that only meet the current needs rather than having any form of foresight.

Ideally, we bulldoze Auckland and build the fucking thing properly.

Even though motorsport involves highly-tuned machinery that is far far more fuel efficient than those cars would have ever been on the road as stock standard road cars?

Fucking morons.

PS: Motorsport rocks. Except dirt biking. Seriously. WTF.

how do I ferry from west auckland to the city?

given that we havnt experienced a catergory 4 hurricane here recently I see a lack of water for said ferry to use.

No matter how good public transportation gets, it will always take second fiddle to private transportation which can go anywhere, anytime, and is overall more convenient.

Especially in Auckland, where we have a very large land area for a comparitively small population.

I'm picking Destiny, United Future, Progressive, ACT and the Maori Party to form a bloc.

The leftovers coalition?

I catch a ferry everyday into town.... its great. But those of you who know Aucklands harbour know that the channel entering to halfmoon bay is very shallow at low tide...... meaning some ferrys have to be ditched at lowtide.... which sucks when you finish uni at 12 and have to wait till 4:15 till the next sailing. One thing they could do to fix it is dredge the channel, however greenies complain about commercial boats entering the channel......

The tricky oil? oh thats right you mean the stuff locked away under the ice in alaska which would totally fuck up the environment over there just for the sake of a little bit more oil :/ Peak oil is not bollocks, oil is a finite resource, therefore at some point it will run out. Sure, there is heaps of oil left but the amount of oil that can be efficiently extracted is dwindling every day, what with increased demand from India and China, plus the political situation in the middle east.. and now hurricane katrina fucking up supply to the U.S, i really don't think oil is going to go down in price for a while.. sure it may go down to say $40-$50 for a few years but it is eventually going to keep rising.. that is why we need to start researching the options for driving cars and what not on renewable energy sources etc

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/Business/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4178282.stm

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?...340&p=y54y84x46

Oob, I support building more roads. I was the only left winger (or one of the few people I knew for that matter) who supported the massive highway projects promoted by John Banks. Fuck public transport, we need high quality roads first (which are already being delivered, though the public needs to bite the bullet and allow more highways).

BUT DONT PRIVATISE SHIT. Why ? Because I dont want to be fucking tolled each time I drive out of my house: roads can never be a truly 'free market' due to physical limitations, and honestly, from extensive discussions with a libertarian friend of mine, I still don't see how roads would be anymore efficient once they are all owned by one large corporation than by the government (yes, giving shares to local people will result in gradual sell off then accumulation by a handful of people/companies if you're looking at it realisticailly).

What in god's name is wrong with public ownership of roads anyway?

Hoooray!

Im not alone!

You haven't heard of shale oil have you? Read those links I posted earlier. This price spike is only temporary.

If all other factors are the same then yes I prefer public roads as well, but if having a few tolls means having more roads than we would have before, then I'm all for it.

you know I jsut realised something Oob, if you vote National, and they borrow in order to lower taxes, that will push interest rates up. That means that it will really cut into the profit you're making off those two houses of yours, maybe even put them at a loss.

:naughty:

Not if you don't have a mortgage, in which case, big ups to land owners who get to charge more because more people can't afford homes. Yay!

This is of course assuming that the amount they supposedly need to borrow is sufficient enough to warrant raising interest rates.

Borrowing isn't even the major problem: inflation will occur if people were to elect National and they implemented their tax cuts, thus you'll have to push up interest rates in the first place. THEN the government will start having to borrow to try and sustain some weak sort of public spending, with increasing inflation making this bite even harder.

3.5 billion they need to borrow AT LEAST Mrt. Probably more, considering inflation will be going up.

Wow, do I hear an echo of 'Muldoon' and 'destroying the country with debt' ringing out of the National party HQ?

So you suggest we vote labour, who will keep giving money hand over fist to people who dont deserve it? People that breed like animals in order to get more money from benifits? People who steal and lie? The type of people we really dont want in the country as they do nothing to benifit it?

Quote your sources.

you always have a mortage on investment rental properties. they make shit returns otherwise.

Be fair to Muldoon. I don't know why you should be, but someone has to be.