Image: Ezra Whittaker

PoliticsAugust 13, 2020

Policy is back for Election 2020: the easy, smart way to make an informed vote

Editor-at-large

Image: Ezra Whittaker

The peerless Policy tool returns for its third edition, and it’s better than ever – fully geared to easily compare both parties and candidates across all the important issues.

Campaigning might have been suspended for the rest of the week, along with much of normal life, but don’t let that stop you: it just provides extra opportunity to curl up with a superb policy comparison tool and get to know your options a little better.

“The stand-out success of the 2017 election is the Policy tool published on the Spinoff website,” said political commentator Bryce Edwards three years ago. As of today, it’s back – and brighter and better – for 2020.

If you used Policy in its original edition at the 2017 election or the local version last year, you’ll know already just how essential it is. If you’re not familiar with it, you’re in for a treat. There are other election tools designed to help you vote, but the souped up personality tests don’t come close to Policy for the serious voter.

Strictly non-partisan, sumptuous and intuitive, Policy lets you compare the policy offerings of all the parties. And you can do it, if you wish, with the party names and colours blanked, just to check you’re not being swayed by branding.

Across 74 different issues, you can compare more than 900 policies – all presented in crisp and accessible terms. But wait, there’s more: this time the Policy team have added candidates. We’ve got information there about all announced candidates – 474 of them so far, with the deadline for individual nominations the end of next week – and profiles on close to three quarters of them. (If you’re a candidate and haven’t made contact yet, double check your inbox and fire an email to candidates@policy.nz.) Soon there’ll be a new section on the referendums.

I’m absolutely not exaggerating when I say Policy has become one of my favourite things about New Zealand elections. At a time when misinformation remains on the march, when the internet is teeming with flame-wars and fabulism, Policy is an online oasis. We’ve had plenty of feedback from first-time voters saying Policy was an essential aid in making decisions. Over recent months we’ve received a bunch of inquiries, including a number of school teachers who have used the tool as part of civics learning, keen to know whether it was coming back.

A big shout out to Flick Electric, our headline sponsor, whose support for the concept is hugely appreciated. Here’s Flick Electric’s chief marketing officer, Sunil Unka, on why they’re on board:

“We got behind Policy to support New Zealanders to think about their aspirations for Aotearoa this election. Being informed enables people to make the most of their voting power and enter the voting booth confident their choices best represent what matters most to them, their whānau and communities.”

Huge thanks, too, to the Google News Initiative and NZIER as joint lead sponsors, and we welcome back Jenny Sutton & Greenlight Ventures NZ as a supporting partner, alongside Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. Their contributions help to make the project possible, along with support from the Electoral Commission.

Dive in.

Keep going!

Just asking questions here!

PoliticsAugust 12, 2020

Is Gerry Brownlee a brainwashed operative for foreign panda bears?

Toby Manhire

Editor-at-large

Just asking questions here!

And is he about to launch a coup against Judith Collins? Just asking questions here.

Jacindamania was meek by comparison. Just as Ardern captured a nation from the role of deputy leader of the opposition in 2017, so it is with Gerry Brownlee in 2020. Relentlessly grouchy, Gerrymania is in full flow, as most recently evidenced by his appearance at a media conference this afternoon. Brownlee perceptively noted that the government had spent some time telling people that there was a very serious risk of the reappearance of Covid-19 in the community, and then there was a reappearance of Covid-19 in the community.

Where fools might see that as an example of how warnings work, Brownlee saw something deeper. Today and over the last week, with the energy of an all-caps Facebook post, Brownlee has demanded to know what the government knew and Ashley Bloomfield knew but we didn’t kNoW. He’s had questions. Questions about questions. Questions about facts about facts about questions.

But there are questions for Gerry Brownlee, too. For is he not panda bear adjacent? Has he not spent time among the panda bears? Do the panda bears control his brain remotely from Wuhan? I just think it’s interesting.

What we do know is this: in 2015 Gerry Brownlee, then defence minister, went on a panda bear mission to China. The pandas there reportedly “melted his heart”. He was “smiling broadly”. Smiling broadly is the sort of thing that people who have just been brainwashed and indoctrinated by a foreign government or foreign species do. I’m just outlining the facts.

Here is a picture of Gerry Brownlee with another man and a hanging featuring panda bears.

Note: The Spinoff has nothing against panda bears, in fact quite likes panda bears

It is tempting to dismiss this as a rogue panda bear-based photograph. But the question must be asked: is this a panda bear cult? Is Gerry Brownlee pledging fealty to the panda bears? Is Gerry Brownlee releasing a guttural howl in the language of the panda bear, as if to say, “O Mighty and Powerful Panda Bears I am your servant forever?”

Just asking questions here.

Here is a hoarding with Gerry Brownlee on it.

Look at his tie. Look how it folds strangely, down there, towards the belt region.

Panda bears, if they were controlling a human politician, would surely use a tie to control a man. They would twiddle it like a puppeteer might a string. They would control the human politician with the tie from the groin region, and it would be decidedly awkward if the tie were to go askew in an election hoarding. The panda bears would want their tool, their shill, to take control, and so I ask simply this: is Gerrymania in fact a cover for Gerry Brownlee to mount a coup against Judith Collins in the cause of the panda bears?

These are just an interesting series of facts. Facts that a less useless media industrial complex might start asking some questions about.

Another question: Is the image below a window into Gerry Brownlee’s nightly dreams?