Liz Craig - a current Invercargill-based list MP - has been ranked 44 on Labour’s list which puts her in serious jeopardy of losing her place in Parliament based on current polling.
This will be the 16th government election I have voted in and for some reason this year I find myself uninspired with the election.
Its a feeling that after voting and paying taxes over many years the country is worse off than it was 50 years ago. We had a great health system where now that I am older it is a lottery whether you get the required treatment or not, we had an amazing education system but successive governments have tinkered with it so we now have good teachers going into other careers rather than spend their time doing paperwork rather than teaching, we had farmers who were doing great stuff producing food for the world rather than paperwork for the regional councils, we had councils that wanted people to succeed and would help that happen, we hardly ever heard the word "consultant", we had a solid base of workers in Invercargill that kept the local economy humming, we looked after young mothers with Plunket and would never have thought they should leave the hospital a day after giving birth and the list could go on and on.
Maybe it's just what happens when you get old and grumpy, but I feel we have gone slowly backwards, and we have accepted that.
Is the solution to the country's woes a four-lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga? Or is it locking young people up for doing dumb shit their parent let them do?
This election seems to be pandering to either get into power or stay in power rather than a vision of the society or country we want to live in.
We fail to embrace the good stuff like the schools that shine and the farmers who do great things because we prefer to get down in the bottom of the barrel and scratch around looking for reasons to make stupid rules for everyone. We have councils that can talk and talk and talk and we have consultants who can charge like a Spanish bull but we need leadership that is aspirational.
This will be the 16th government election I have voted in and for some reason this year I find myself uninspired with the election.
Its a feeling that after voting and paying taxes over many years the country is worse off than it was 50 years ago. We had a great health system where now that I am older it is a lottery whether you get the required treatment or not, we had an amazing education system but successive governments have tinkered with it so we now have good teachers going into other careers rather than spend their time doing paperwork rather than teaching, we had farmers who were doing great stuff producing food for the world rather than paperwork for the regional councils, we had councils that wanted people to succeed and would help that happen, we hardly ever heard the word "consultant", we had a solid base of workers in Invercargill that kept the local economy humming, we looked after young mothers with Plunket and would never have thought they should leave the hospital a day after giving birth and the list could go on and on.
Maybe it's just what happens when you get old and grumpy, but I feel we have gone slowly backwards, and we have accepted that.
Is the solution to the country's woes a four-lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga? Or is it locking young people up for doing dumb shit their parent let them do?
This election seems to be pandering to either get into power or stay in power rather than a vision of the society or country we want to live in.
We fail to embrace the good stuff like the schools that shine and the farmers who do great things because we prefer to get down in the bottom of the barrel and scratch around looking for reasons to make stupid rules for everyone. We have councils that can talk and talk and talk and we have consultants who can charge like a Spanish bull but we need leadership that is aspirational.