Jacinda Ardern accused of killing her reelection hopes with kindness

[JanieAllen]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jacinda-ardern-accused-of-killing-her-re-election-hopes-with-kindness-pcx79tg8d

archive here archive.ph/z8puL

Another small country leader off the rails... interesting enough the article does not mention the trans wokeness which has settled like a blight across NZ

Interesting. Being soft on crime goes down really badly with poorer communities as they tend to be the hardest hit by anti-social behaviour. NZ also has very high housing costs.

In San Francisco, the Democrat mayor who in 2020 defunded the police, after BLM protests..... now has changed her mind after soaring crime rates and more deaths from drug overdoses than Covid 19.

There's got to be balance.

I never understand how New Zealand has such high costs for housing.
It is a country bigger in size than the U.K. with a population half the size of London. It has land a plenty. They could build new towns everywhere like Milton Keynes in U.K. and solve the problem surely?
it can’t be all inhospitable land
it has to be vested interests keeping building rates down. Who owns all the land?

And Boris got married during covid and had a baby too. Almost like there is a difference between Boris and Jacinda. Wonder what? 🤔

'this whole kindness thing means people can do what the hell they want'

It will be interesting to see whether any anti-carceral idealists will run for elections in the near future and to see how they do.

According to article Adern was elected in part due to promising lots of new, low cost housing that has failed to materialise? Seemingly at least impart due to lack of migrant labour/closed borders during covid.

I heard other cost of living rises are also worse than here/the US but anecdotally from friends, I haven’t checked the numbers.

As far as housing I think imported materials are pretty expensive in NZ? That could be a factor.

But it is interesting, the crime issue with these progressive governments may prove as problematic as any of the other silly things they do. But they don't seem to get it. You have more and more crime, things like tent cities, drug problems are through the roof, and the answer is always more forgiveness, more providing drugs for addicts, allowing more tenters, etc. The fact that it doesn't seem to work does not seem to make any difference.

I think JA shares many of the same principles and approaches as Nicola Sturgeon.

Which is why she scares me.

I have family in seven households across NZ. All of them started as Ardern fans and they've all gradually fallen off the bandwagon. Many think her Covid strategy, which everyone thought wonderful to start with, was a disaster. In my family several people are gender critical and I think in what is still quite an old-fashioned society in many ways the attacks on the motherhood and mothers has not played well.

Good to hear Pattihews... I feel so sorry for women trying to fight for women's rights in NZ - which ironically was one of the first countries to award women the vote!

I wonder if smaller countries tend to be faster to adopt more extreme policies?

Be interesting to look at politics specifically related to population size.

She wants to sort their global warming contribution by stopping cows from farting.

madness.

Yes indeed. Root and branch reform and stringent oversight needed. As someone on Twitter once put it, "ho do you think catches criminals? The Tooth Fairy?"

Nz politicians seem to be heavily influenced by Canada.

We all know where they are heading.

50% of the Parliament is women, and no one seems to know what a woman is.

Its deeply depressing & sad.

I'm not sure if it's smaller, Canada is fairly large, although I guess with a smaller population than the UK.

I have thought that it seems to play well in English speaking countries that see themselves as having been in some sense colonized.

StealtheatingTunnocks, I haven’t seen what she said about cows, but actually it’s a thing! Cows aren’t really designed to just eat grass/artificial feed, and if they have a more appropriate diet they do produce less methane - but obv that’s associated with less intensive production & higher prices. Just sayin….

She wasn't that kind with her response to Covid.

Security is important to most people.
I don't think my NZ friends will forgive her for the terrifying brain washing and locking down travelling for so long. Many were not in agreement with the length of time it took to emerge back into the world, and it has been very damaging.

All leaders in democratic countries are likely to pay the price for the disaster that has been the pandemic.

Actually it’s burping. Cattle burp out huge amounts of methane and are the main agricultural source of emissions around the world. Methane is a potent warming gas. I’m Australia, methane from cattle makes up 11% of the country’s total carbon emissions, and the CSIRO (Australia’s government science group) has invented a seaweed supplement to feed to cattle which drops this number by 80%.

So it’s not totally mad.

New Zealand has huge problems with nitrogen run off from farms into waterways though.

*In Australia.

NZ also have to contend with all the anti-science nonsense in schools. Not only with gender ideology but with the decolonisation of science and the teaching of Maori "ways of knowing" in science classes rather than in theology. Scientists who complain that indigenous ways of knowing are not science are heavily criticised.

www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/scientists-rubbish-auckland-university-professors-letter-claiming-maori-knowledge-is-not-science/GN55DAZCM47TOZUTPYP2Q3CSLM/

Sorry if a bit off-topic but Meghan Murphy did a really interesting interview with Aaron Gunn (documentary maker) who looked into Vancouver Island homelessness / burgeoning tent cities, escalating crime and the "harm reduction" drug policies that appear to be making the situation exponentially worse. It's crazy how these liberal, well-meaning policies can have such devastating unintended consequences. And when it all goes pear shaped how reluctant they are to say "this isn't working" and attempt to turn things around. And how some people are making a LOT of money off the back of some of these schemes.

The colonised aspect is interesting, yes. Scotland's parliament is very new, of course, too. Canada's not so much, though!

Scotland had a Parliament from the 13th century until the early 1700's.