elections - personality matters more than policy

"Equality! What derision! Isn't it ridiculous that my voice, which represents a whole family, is not worth more than that of this miserable wino!"  An interwar cartoon from France.

That's the clear message from recent NZ elections, reinforced by media interviewers last night who swooped on Labour Party leader David Cunliffe as soon as he showed up to the Party's party wanting to know, because his party had lost 2.5% of the vote, was he staying as leader, when was he going to resign, did he have the confidence of his causcus? Good grief.

In a country as heavily foreign trade dependent as NZ, the most important factor affecting the economy, and something the government can do little about, is the prices of major exported and imported commodities; dairy products are to NZ what minerals are to Australia, and the prices have fallen about 40% this year.

The second biggest economic factor, which the government does control, is how much of the GDP the government spends and what it spends it on; and from what and how much it collects from taxes.

Regarding our main interest, and probably that of this blog's readers, namely transport, the re-election of the National Party will mean lots of money being spent on motorways, unlike the more sensible wish of the parliamentary opposition parties - Labour, Greens and NZ First - to spend more instead on railways and commuter transit. Oh well.