New Zealand election results and a Melbourne Cup holiday
An email to 2UE’s John Kerr
Good morning John,
I’ve been listening to New Zealand radio for a while so that I can listen to them discussing the results of their federal election and must say that I am very pleased by the result.
John Key and his National Party, which is a conservative party, have been returned with greater numbers, and with the help of other conservative parties, will have a majority in parliament. Labor had one of their worst results in history with about 26% of the vote, and it seems that the Greens have picked up a bunch of Labor votes as the Greens got more than 10%…it’s similar to the situation here in a way with the Greens slowly but surely taking the more left-wing voters away from Labor.
They have voluntary voting over there and had a fairly low turnout by their standards…only 65% of people voted. I wish we had voluntary voting here John. It worries me that our close elections are probably decided by votes from people who probably couldn’t care less about politics or elections. I wonder how different our last federal election would have been under a voluntary voting system, especially seeing as the Coalition had more votes but ended up losing the election.
Anyway, I’m in awe of New Zealand and how well they seem to be doing in spite of the natural disasters which they have endured. It’s a testament to the success of John Key and conservatives in New Zealand, and I’m glad that New Zealanders are getting behind him.
Just quickly on the subject of a Melbourne Cup holiday. We tried that in Canberra and it failed miserably. Venues had to put prices up because of public holiday pay rates so people tended to stay home and the venues lost business. Work functions ceased because nobody was at work and caterers lost out as a result, and the general culture of the day, which promoted workplace harmony and added a bit of interest to an otherwise fairly standard work day, was lost. It works in Melbourne because the race is based there and people can go to the track…it doesn’t work anywhere else because everywhere else has an existing Melbourne Cup Day culture which mostly revolves around work and private functions.
Have a great week John.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 27th, 2011 at 01:37am