RICHARD PREBBLE - Interesting election races: Chris Bishop
Some electorate races matter not because they will decide the government, but because electing an outstanding candidate will make for a better Parliament.
Frankly, many MPs are third raters whom you would not employ to take out the rubbish.
It is not often I agree with Winston Peters, but Chris Bishop is a remarkable MP.
New Zealand has wasted billions of taxpayers’ dollars as incoming governments cancel their predecessors’ infrastructure projects.
One of this government’s achievements is securing cross-party agreement that this waste must stop and that New Zealand needs a bipartisan, long-term infrastructure plan.
While all parties deserve credit, Chris Bishop was the driving force.
For over 30 years, Parliament has known the Resource Management Act was flawed. Successive governments failed to replace it.
Bishop succeeded.
Labour opposed aspects of the replacement legislation but is not campaigning to repeal it. That is a measure of Bishop’s remarkable ability to achieve difficult reform.
What has his Labour opponent, Ginny Andersen, achieved that compares?
Besides, Andersen is number 12 on Labour’s list. She will be back in Parliament regardless.
But for boundary changes, Bishop would probably win easily.
Now he needs voters who normally support Labour to recognise that Parliament will be better if he is returned.
They can still give Labour their party vote.
And perhaps, by electing Chris Bishop, they will give National a better future leader.
Richard Prebble is a former Minister and ACT Party leader who writes at I've Been Thinking
"And perhaps, by electing Chris Bishop, they will give National a better future leader."
Things would have been much better if he had have been the current leader. IMHO.
I’m still trying to to find the HUNDRED THOUSAND. HOMES. Miss PIGGY ( Megan Woods ) Labours Minister of housing promised.
yes
We can only hope that Chris Bishop gets back in We certainly need INTELLIGENT MPs back in Parliament. There are to many LOW IQ. Ones warming up seats and doing NOTHING But Feeding out of the trough. I can only but hope lots of Intelligent people have and will be voting for. National ACT & NZ first.
Chris Bishop certainly deserves credit for his determination and willingness to do the hard work that successive governments have failed to undertake. But determination is not the same as achieving fundamental reform.
What was needed was a complete rethink of the principles underlying the RMA, not simply a substantial reworking of its legislative machinery. While the new legislation makes some welcome changes, it retains much of the old regulatory philosophy, including divisive ethnicity-based provisions and special participation rights.
That is a long way from the fundamental reform New Zealand needed. Bishop's industry deserves recognition, but we should judge the achievement by the quality of the resulting legislation, not merely by the fact that he succeeded in getting it passed.