New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s popularity has plunged to the lowest level since she entered Government, according to the latest polling, which puts opposition parties on course to win the next election, expected next year. The Telegraph has the story.
Tensions soared last week with the murder of a worker in a convenience store who was stabbed to death in a robbery.
Afterwards, the Prime Minister was criticised for making a visit to the remote Chatham Islands rather than visiting the victim’s grieving family.
New Zealand’s media, which had been largely supportive of Ms. Ardern during her first few years in office, now has the Prime Minister firmly in its sights – with the nation’s number one talk show host branding last week as “the Government’s worst”.
Broadcaster Mike Hosking said the Government was facing “an avalanche of bad news, upset, anger, protest and disbelief from one end of the country to another – and I haven’t even got to the recession yet”.
Some 29% of poll respondents said Ms Ardern was their preferred Prime Minister, a 1% drop.
Support for the Labour Party, which Ms Ardern leads, has also dropped 1% in the polls to 33%.
It is the Prime Minister’s lowest ranking since she became Labour leader in 2017.
The 1 News-Kantar poll reflects growing disillusionment among the electorate with New Zealand’s Labour Government, which has been plagued by the rising cost of living and an escalating crime rate.
According to the latest polling, the centre-Right National Party at 38% and the Act Party at 11% are now in a strong position to form a coalition government at the general election, due in the next 12 months.
Christopher Luxon, National Party leader, claimed the poll indicated that New Zealanders felt the country was “going in the wrong direction”, with some of the dissatisfaction stemming from the Government’s handling of the pandemic and the draconian measures it imposed to ‘contain’ COVID-19.
An official inquiry into New Zealand’s strategy will be launched early next year, and will investigate the Government’s strict lockdowns and border quarantine rules, which effectively isolated New Zealand from the rest of the world.
Looks like the toothy tyrant is headed for a fall.
Worth reading in full.
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So far I like the cut of Milei’s jib. A breath of fresh air and common sense.
Billing the head of JSO would certainly be appreciated. A pay up or porridge deal should do the trick.
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
Although, of course, the state has no income. It’s income cones from shaking down the public.
It didn’t take Milei long to act like a hypocrite.
You are total granite Stewart always totally consistent.
JSO can protest and I would not charge them for security, but I would certainly charge them or jail them for damaging art works, buildings etc.—- Damaging things is not legitimate protest. ———I would expect no leniency if I had a JUST START OIL T short on and threw paint at my bank window, and I don’t think I would get any.
Its that thing that the left don’t do terribly well. Consequences for their actions…
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
That’s not really true. In 2017, there was a G20 meeting in Hamburg. These are traditionally also gathering points of the (so-called) anticapitalist/ anarchist hard left who’ll stage ‘protests’ against them. The city was essentially stripped of police in order to ensure the safety of all the meeting politicians. Because of this, the protestors went rioting in several city districts, smashing up and looting shops, torching cars etc.
Milei’s argument still doesn’t hold water, though: The largest parts of these costs will have been paying all the security-related government employees who would have needed to be paid come rain or shine, ie, regardless of the demonstration. And the actual numbers deployed were chosen by the government for some reason only known to it. People have freedom of assembly, however, should they actually assemble, fines in the order of thenthousands of dollars will be issued to people not guilty of any criminal conduct effectively means There’s no freedom of assembly.
I tend to agree
My starting point would be that the right to peaceful public mass protest is sacrosanct and charging people for it isn’t appropriate. If people are engaging in deliberate obstruction then they should be moved on or arrested. The greyer area is when the obstruction is a natural result of a lot of people being in the same place at the same time. I think it’s reasonable to encourage protestors to choose where they go in order to minimise inconvenience to others without losing the impact of the protest but I don’t feel that coercion is warranted
I like the idea of charging JSO for any damage done, then passing that on to donors. Never happen though
What a Christmas gift, that headline really did make me laugh out loud
Good for Milei, if I’m not mistaken a similar principle applies to football matches and pop concerts, so why not.
If you truly believe in what you’re protesting, you’ll be happy to foot the bill, in the knowledge that you will be safe while protesting and as a taxpayer you will not get further burdened.
Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one.
Yep, we are on the same page Jane.
Have a lovely Christmas
There’s a very real danger that this could end up being the thin end of the wedge. Once a government charges protesters blocking roads during a protest it’s a very small step to charging other protests for the policing costs involved and before we know it protest is the preserve of the well off.
The best solution would be to massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law during a protest to help cover the cost of dealing with their law breaking rather than simply charging groups who organise a protest.
“massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law”
I largely agree with your comments but the problem is that the legal system is now largely corrupted. JSO routinely break the law with their pathetic vandalism and deliberate road closures. Bill the tw#t funding this crap and things might change. If he doesn’t pay send him down.
Looking forward to the day when Extinction Rebellion are charged for the disruptions they cause. 10,000 motorists on the M25 x £10.42 an hour…. A few days of that will soon drain ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ the George Soros funded twats of funds.
Damn right.
“a heavy deployment of police, paramilitary officers and anti-riot forces, cost 60 million pesos, or about £57,500, at the official exchange rate.”
We should employ Argentinian police. At those prices we could fly them over here to deal with protests and riots and fly them back and it’d still cost less than using ours.
Yes that’s 1,043 pesos to the pound if my calculator is correct.
They will also strip protestors of Welfare. That’s going to hurt.
No. Just those protesters who block streets – if I understood that correctly.
Mind you that also means they expect to be able to identify these people.
—
Have a peaceful Christmas everyone.
In order to do this they must be closely surveilling the event and have the technology to trace the protesters they have identified. Its easy to applaud the concept of charging the protesters but the mechanics involved in that process are part of the apparatus of the surveillance state which, I think, most here would be against.
Correct. Trudeau tried it against the Canadian trucker protest during Covid. Not just cutting off welfare payments but freezing their bank accounts. I don’t think many on here would have supported that action.