Have a look at the profile of incoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully. In addition to being the nation’s diplomat, he is Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for the Rugby World Cup. Firstly, I had no idea that there should be a minister for professional rugby. Most importantly, I certainly hope that there is more to National’s foreign policy than rugby.

The elections are all over. I’ve lost 2 and won 1 – nothing unanticipated. Time to heal and move on. The world is still turning and there is still work to do.

Remember the past and look to the future.

The election posters for this year have been more miss than hit. The Libertarianz have created a minor stir with “Legalise Smack”, but the award has gone to the Greens for their simple Vote for Us campaign. It’s been so popular that it’s drawn out the parodies – some good, some bad.

Parody is a very important art form. It should not be dismissed quickly. Obviously, care must be taken, but it’s an effective way to draw comparisons and criticise an argument. I’ve seen a couple good parodies and one really bad one. Starting at the top:

• Libertarianz: Vote for You/Yourself¹

This is as simple as it gets and effective as it can be.

• Act: Re-writing the script

The ad is a direct replica of the Vote for Us television ad, with the script changed. The Greens are upset about this, citing copyright. The original ad has been pulled from YouTube, even though the girl’s image was evidently replaced.

While I can see the rationale for the copyright claim, I also see the value of the parody. I don’t agree with the position that Act stands for, but the comparison is effective. After modifying the image, it should have remained, in my opinion, and the message could be criticised for the points it makes.

• Private Facebook: Kill cats to make green voters pay for their actions

I couldn’t find a huge amount about this, but a summary is available. Regardless of being a joke or not, this was pretty nasty. It’s been pulled from Facebook, rightly so. I agree with one of the commenters – if you think that a joke like that is funny, I don’t want to know you. If it was a real political sentiment, God help us all.

¹ I saw this while on the bus and I can’t remember the exact wording.

There is a segment of the election advertising that is devoted to change. Act is quite specific, “Change the government”. National opted for “Choose a brighter future”. Both are playing on the apparent fact that New Zealanders get bored after a while and vote out the incumbent. Change implies motion – there is a starting point and there is either a direction or an end point. However, the notion of change that is being pandered to doesn’t care for a direction. The change is more important than the result. Being someone who cares about the policies that the country will eventually implement, I would think that direction would be the important thing.

I am quite opposed to National’s approach. They have set up a platform of change based on keeping a lot of the work that has been done in recent terms – KiwiSaver (with modifications), KiwiBank, KiwiRail (not sold within the first year) and Working For Families. Having pledged that Peter Dunne’s United Future party would be a part of a National government, there is a further pull to the left for this center-right party. What this says to me is that National sees that the leftist policies of recent times are wanted by the public; these policies shall be adopted to win votes. Here’s the problem: this represents a shift contrary to National’s normal stance. Eventually, the party will have to realign to their base position – externalisation of services and assets. However unspoken, National represents a change. Voting for a change of Prime Ministerial face has longer-term consequences.

The 48th session of parliament was stellar. I was not overly happy with the government. There is justification for wanting some change, but the alternatives don’t seem to be an improvement. I don’t think that we need to change the government, we need to change parliament. Reading through transcripts on They Work For You is enlightening and scary. It’s amazing that any work gets done. I want to see a parliament where government works with opposition parties to develop policy that is balanced, reasoned and justified. If anything is going to be changed, can we start with some basics?

• End the extreme divisive mentality in parliament.
• End the slanderous/scandalous finger-pointing that the media feeds on and feeds us.
• And while we’re at it, repeal the parody/satire ban on the media. Politicians should be responsible for their own actions.

I voted at an advance poll on Saturday. The wind and rain were not friendly and only a few people dripped their way into the polling station while I was there. My first duty is done. My second duty remains – to encourage others to voice an opinion.

While flipping through some twitter-provided political news, I saw someone use government as a verb. I couldn’t tell if it was intended – there was a sic attached to it by some editor.

I think that government as a verb should be allowed. It takes the concept of to govern a bit further. It is more about the institution than about the leadership/stewardship. To government is to flex political muscle and knowledge of the system to achieve a result. It will probably be a transitive verb – act on something like a policy or an entity.

To use it in a sentence:

With a deadline fast approaching, the councilors governmented a plan that removed striking from the union’s list of options.

I saw this combination in Auckland over the weekend and couldn’t help the result.

We’ve been building up a list of complaints, we being a group of people who often catch a bus together to go to work. The bus stop that we get off at is nothing more than a painted line on a road with a sign on a lamp post; we alight into a small park along Parkside Road. Under normal conditions, this isn’t too bad. Morning dew and the occasional bottle stands as the biggest of obstacles. However, with winter being wet, the ground has softened or become mud, and with occasional construction going on, it’s also quite rutted in spots. Now that the election has been called, our little bus stop has also become a poster board for local candidates, in the form of a large, wooden-frame billboard.

This has prompted two emails, one to the offending political party office and one to Hutt City Council. In the first, I’ve asked for the billboard to be shifted an extra meter away from the road to allow for direct pedestrian access to the footpath¹. I received an immediate response to indicate that the issue will be forewarded to the right person. Fingers are crossed. In the second message, I requested that a footpath be added along the edge of the park, at least to the bus stop. Given that no fewer than a dozen people use that stop every morning for work, we deserve some sort of stable footing. I was sent an automated response, but no word on when human eyes might see the message. Ideally, we’d see an actual bus shelter along the route, but construction and maintenance of shelters has been outsourced to an advertising company.

Normally, I’d call that a good day, but it doesn’t stop there. Following the re-construction of the park at Courtenay Place, I have seen a few letters of complaint about it’s bland character and the choice of photographs in the display boxes. After discussing this with a friend on the bus, we decided that the best course of action would be to write to Wellington City Council and ask that a rotation of images be used in place of the pictures that are currently in place. Wellington is very photogenic and there is no shortage of pictures taken locally or by local photographers. As a result, I sent off another government-bound message suggesting that CreativeNZ be used to promote local photography in the displays.

If only one of my messages causes appropriate action, I’ll be happy. For the good of all…

Edit 17/09/2008: The offending billboard has been moved. Such is the power of asking nicely.

¹ This shouldn’t be too much extra work, since someone had knocked over that billboard and two others along the same road last night.

I just saw this article in the Financial Times indicating that there is strong international support for Barack Obama as the next US president. That would explain seeing this in a cafe in Wellington:

There are a million things I want to say, but I have to keep this short. I may come back to expand later.

In November 2002, Wellington city opted to use the Single Transferable Vote system for municipal elections. Wellington City Council was obliged to use the system for the 2004 and 2007 elections. Yesterday, I received my ballot for choosing the system for the next election. The mayor, Kerry Prendergast, has always favoured First Past the Post, which was credited for her first Mayoral victory in 2001. Coincidentally, this isn’t the only thing I disagree with her about. The arguments for and against are roughly summarised as STV:representative and FPP:familiar. It’s not in my nature to favour something that is deficient just because it’s popular. My vote for STV was posted this morning.

Several elections seem to be just around the corner. Obviously, the world is watching and waiting for the US to run through the procedures. Meanwhile, New Zealand is meant to have an election this year. The date has yet to be specified, much to the chagrin of the National party leader. I’m happy to wait a while. 3 year terms are not a long time and a couple weeks shouldn’t matter that much. Closer to home, Canada is talking about elections, too. The funny thing is, everyone is talking about change…

Now with all this election action going on, campaign messages are flooding all the news channels. In light of this, I’d like to propose an idea. Politicians are working hard to tell us what we want. They’re shopping for our votes and trying to paint us a glowing picture of their government, should we give it. This has been a very one-sided conversation. They tell us. Instead, how about we come up with our view of what we want our government to look like – what we want accomplished. Instead of talking about which party and which leader, think about policies, actions and outcomes. Write it down and make it permanent. Consider putting your thoughts into blogs and letters. Talk about them with others and get ideas out into the public. Make the election about plans instead of about personalities. And when the time comes, vote in a way that maximises your chances of being happy with the outcome.