[fixed_truth]

I think it’s more important to make voting decisions based on policy because that’s what is going to directly affect people lives. There were a lot of people voting for National because they liked John Key but by doing so were voting against their own interests. Imo New Zealand is in the sorry state it is now because of personality politics (& ironically, we’ve got the opportunity to do better because of it!).

Though saying that I do think social media is a difficult platform/structure to have meaningful policy discussions. That’s partly because people have preconceived opinions that they identify with and so treat anything that counters this as an attack on them. Also because there’s so much false information and scare mongering going on. A big part of National staying in the game is because they can just spray bullshit knowing some of it will stick, which we saw a lot of during the lead up to the election (11b hole, tax scare mongering etc etc). During this election people were still parroting the line that the last Labour Govt. were poor financial managers and left a mess for National. Oh the cognitive dissonance when explained who Michael Cullen is and why he was knighted and particularly by who.

The Greens have a bill that all policy would need to be independently costed, I’d maybe like to see that extended to an independent analysis of likely outcomes.