<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: Kiwis trashed by frogs in rugger shock!</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> G'dday No one noticed this at all as it didn't happen, the All Blacks are world champions and all is well with the world- or so says my boss who is finally found a use for his anti realism. To judge from the dailies this has been a disaster of epic proportions , national mourning may take longer to finish than Robs doctorate. I'd say it hasn't helped the national parties chances but probably hasn't hurt them that much either . The NZ election survey people live just down the corridor from me and they are apparently going to try and measure this effect (though this could just be the caffine talking). I'll let you know if anything concrete emerges. Interestingly the wounds of the 1981 springbok tour of NZ haven't healed as much as some would claim with a fair chunk of people I spoke to who protested during the tour still revelling in the All Blacks being snotted by the French (myself included). Anyway I watch league so i've had the pleasure of seeing both the English and Aussies get what they so richly deserve at the hands of the Kiwi's - I'll be laughing like a bastard on friday night when the Aussies get a second pasting as well. One of the little noted things that is going on at the moment here is the continued campaign by, particularly but not exclusively, the right against the MMP electoral system. The main thrust this time is an attempt to reduce the number of MP's from the current 120 to 99- a non binding referendum is being run concurrently with the election plus the whole system is up for review in 2002. We've got a little website on this stuff at http://www2.waikato.ac.nz/politics/pol/frontpage/news/index.html#top and also people might try http://www.nzes.org/ for general election study stuff. Seems that nothing scares the right as much as a little bit more democracy. On the topic of clarke/labour anderton/alliance its nice to see Clarke being reasonably unequivocal about having Anderton as deputy PM in a coalition government - people out there in the real world probably dont realise just how much personal history these two have and what an effort its been to bury the animosity that has existed both personally and politically. cheers <BLOCKQUOTE>Bill Cochrane From: Russell Grinker <grinker@mweb.co.za> Reply-To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 13:55:12 +0200 To: lbo <lbo-talk@lists.panix.com> Subject: Kiwis trashed by frogs in rugger shock! </BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>To resuscitate the rugby discussion on this list - did anyone notice the unprecedented defeat of NZ by the French yesterday?  The North now faces the highly unusual prospect of taking the World Cup if Australia can't cut it.  Reports here (SA is still smarting after a last minute defeat by the Wallabies) say that so great is the shock to the collective Kiwi system, that the right wing NZ government may fall in the pending elections, only to be replaced by the other right wing NZ Party formerly known as Labour.  Any comments from Kiwi lurkers on this list?   Russell </BLOCKQUOTE> </BODY> </HTML>