KEY POINTS:
So far this week things have been going great!
Yesterday morning I visited Henderson Mall in West Auckland. Generally I don't go anywhere that sells lunch for $5.95, and as a result became briefly disoriented and fell over. I don't think anyone saw though.
Later, as I walked
through the shops, I found that, unlike previous Future New Zealand visits, there was almost no violence, which is large part thanks to my new campaign strategy of being so blandly likeable that nobody actually knows what I stand for. My political advisors call it the 'Westlife Effect'.
However, a lot of people are asking me what specific policies we have in order to deal with the coming Financial Crises. The main thing to keep the country on track is positivity. If anything is required at the moment in this country it is to have our chins up and keep a 'can do' attitude.
Last week I outlined by Gondola Policy, and my Wheelchair Policy but it seems that there are a lot of people are still negative and worried that politicians are not coming up with real ideas and instead just focusing on slogans, dirt digging, and desperate last second policy announcements designed to win the election while actually make the long term situation much worse: See graph
Clearly, there is a lesson to be learned here, and that is that it's that the best thing that New Zealanders can do to put the country back on track, is relax, and trust that I know what I'm doing without looking too closely.
Another thing we can do to be more positive is have a sense of humour.
For example, just last year, when I was forced to fire half a dozen of my staff in order to repay my campaign overspend at the last election, I got a Billy Bass* which I had up in my office and used to sometimes take it out and make them laugh. First, it looks like a normal fish mounted on a plaque, but you can press a button underneath and begins to flap around and sing! It's really funny! Generally I find that gets people in the right mood: See graph
Aside from that, today I talked with some old people about my 'Three Strikes and You're Out!' policy. I think it's about time politicians stood up and said what they think is the right thing, even if it means having to take a populist stance with a superficial knee jerk policy right before an election.
On a similar subject, that afternoon, I was hoping to have my economic policy endorsed by a couple of rugby players, but it just turned out they were some kind of religious nuts who just wanted to get rid of gay marriage. They seemed quite angry, so I figured I would show them my fish, however they became even more agitated, as apparently there is a passage in the bible banning that as well.
Tomorrow I will be traveling to Northland to talk about my Health Policy and hoping the prison I built on a swamp doesn't collapse into the ground (before Saturday).
Dennis Plant
You can visit the Future New Zealand website www.futurenewzealand.co.nz and see more of me here.