I have had many discussions with friends tossing whether to place their party vote with Opportunity. A common driver has been the desire to see the existing major parties move into a new place.
I share their hopes and I found the questions that Simon Wilson posed recently challenging when he wrote in his weekly column headed Hey Qiulae, why stop at Winston (when Qiulae Wong said that Opportunity will not join a government in which Winston Peters is foreign minister).
The questions Simon asked were like the thoughts I have in my mind. Here’s what he wrote but it should apply to any vote, not just Opportunity – why stop there?
- How about a government in which Simeon Brown is energy minister, reinforcing our dependence on fossil fuels?
- Chris Bishop is fast-tracking the ruination of elite soils and efficient council planning?
- Louise Upston is the welfare overlord?
- Shane Jones runs amok in minerals and fisheries?
- Tama Potaka cancels emergency housing?
- Nicole McKee oversees the gun laws?
- Casey Costello protects the tobacco industry?
- David Seymour tells infectious children to go to school and feeds them abominable school lunches?
- Paul Goldsmith orders rough sleepers away, even when they’re minding their own business and have nowhere else to go
- Where not a single one of them has a decent thing to say about Israel and Gaza?
- Or, for that matter, given Opportunity’s clear climate commitments, why support a prime minister who presides over the undoing of climate progress and deliberately, disgracefully, shabbily, greenwashes the whole process?
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