Can you spot which one? Its a fairly major ommission and I bet the ommission is not on the part of the organisers.
To save you having to squint, here is the line up from left to right (on the advertisement, obviously):
Pita Sharples - Maori Party
John Key - National
Rodney Hide - Act
Winston Peters - NZ First
Peter Dunne - United Future
Jeanette Fitzsimons - Green Party
Larry Baldock - Kiwi Party
Taito Phillip Field - NZ Pacific
Richard Lewis - Family Party
(The absentee I am speaking of is not Jim Anderton of Progressive who isn't listed but really who cares that he's not?)
Regardless it will still be a great event, last year was very worthwhile though it is a wee bit disappointing to hear that David Farrar of Kiwiblog (a fellow Student Choicer from back in the day) will not be speaking this year as has been rumoured about the blogosphere but I am looking forward to it and have September 8 circled on my calendar.
Helen's not on the list.
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty off.
Where’s The Legalise Marijuana Party in this debate? Let’s face it they’ll secure more electoral support at the next election than the Kiwi Party, NZ Pacific and Family Party – put together. This is the same Phillip Field that faces bribery & corruption, plus obstruction charges wanting to tell us all how to bring-up our kids. By the way if you give Winston a donation at the meeting – make sure you get a receipt.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't planning on giving Winston a donation but thanks for the advice. I may say hi to him though as I did some research for him a while back that helped him when he was in a tight spot but we have never met.
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about liberty is that the organisers can exclude whomever they want and create their own criteria for how to limit the lengthy pool of potential speakers. The criteria, from what I can tell at this event, is major parties + family friendly ones that they perceived their audience might want to hear from.
Being a little familiar with Family First and the political view they hold to, the sorts of issues they make stands on as well as having some knowledge of the likely makeup of the expected crowd, I was not surprised to note that the Legalise Marijuana Party (LMP) was not billed. However, I was surprised to see that Labour appear to not be coming (as they are a major party - so not for any other reason).
That said, I would happily hear the LMP's policies on the family. They are unlikely, however, to obtain my vote unless their policies are centred on the assumption that the role of the state is law, order and defence (ie. the state has no place in the lives of law abiding families). I suspect (though am open to be proved wrong) that the LMP might try to base their self-titled policy on some version of a freedom and rights based argument I might subscribe too but I suspect that their policies on who pays for the products of the exercise of their "freedom" suffers the same flaws as most political parties in the arena; as in, I end up paying for them.
As far as Phillip Field goes are you familiar with the adversarial system? Its centred on the presumption of innocence until conviction in a court of law. If Field is proved guilty then he has no place in government and as such will not likely feature in future meet the candidates events.
Isn't there some tension though between your advocation of a party's attendance that in all likelihood has candidates that have been convicted of breaking the law and your criticism of the attendance of someone on the basis that he has been charged with breaking the law?
Finally, I must have missed our invitation to attend your next discussion on the merits of atheism as opposed to Christianty? Or are you a group who, like Family First, also do not invite every potentially interested party, particularly those who might hold views opposed to your own, to your events?