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xSaffax t1_j0ecbqo wrote

Kiwi here, it was the idea of David Seymour to do this, but the general consensus of most Kiwi's is that it shows great sportsmanship from them both to be willing to put it all aside and come together like this to raise money. The current bid is at $45,500 with 6 days left on the bidding.

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Laogama OP t1_j0emko3 wrote

Hard to think of other countries where this story would be possible

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MarcoMaroon t1_j0ft2s5 wrote

Let's make a new country and make it possible

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LCranstonKnows t1_j0gbt47 wrote

New New Zealand? Newer Zealand?

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strangecabalist t1_j0gdxcv wrote

New Zoolander you say?

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SYLOH t1_j0jxzfl wrote

Zealand 3: The Return of the Dutch.

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phido3000 t1_j0fl9zl wrote

What I like is that to appeal to voters, they have to get along, and not blow up about the small stuff. Also be accepting of the things you say.

Politics doesn't have to be cess pool. You could win people over with love, compassion, and heroic deeds.

Just remember if nz fucks up as a failed state, Australia will invade.

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ItsNotButtFucker3000 t1_j0ghph8 wrote

This is how we do it in Canada!

There's always cursing in the House of Commons here. And then passive aggressive apologies.

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AFlawAmended t1_j0g54j2 wrote

American here. I'm continuously jealous of how smooth and functioning the New Zealand government is. Or at least seems to be, again I'm American so I don't hear a lot about it, but anytime I do it's awesome.

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Status_Advantage t1_j0gum7f wrote

Lol right?! I read a Washington post article on this the other day and the conflict resolution was astounding. It really put into perspective just how utterly fucked up our political landscape is.

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BoldBlackManta t1_j0h3rsw wrote

It's mostly optics. NZ is good at that because it's so isolated that the rest of the world can't verify.

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xSaffax t1_j0hz76a wrote

This party has been in for 2 terms now so people are definitely getting tired of her/labour, but they still have a lot of fans too. Like any country there is division but our two main parties both sit very close to centre so there's not that much difference.

Also we have an MMP political system so there's usually a lot of political representation as if they get at least 5% of they vote theyvgll get a seat in parliament. If the big parties don't get enough votes to govern alone (usually) they have to form coalitions with other smaller parties which guarantees those smaller parties specific things they want/a spot in government and helps the bigger party get the numbers.

An example of this is that labour didn't have the numbers to govern alone so they formed a coalition with NZ First and the Greens, and agreed that Winston Peters, the leader of NZ First, would be deputy PM

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Birchtooth t1_j0hn36t wrote

New zealander here, constantly surprised that people in other countries think shes great. She has sunk lower in the poles than ever, its hard to find a person on the street thats happy with the current government.

The minister of foreign affairs is literally married to her first cousin and he seems to get a lot of jobs as an expert consultant along with her son/nephew.

Shits all sorts of fucked mate watch almost any interviews she does with a guy called ryan bridges on a show called newshub, they are all on youtube. Hes a local guy so its more of a nz perspective

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generally_sane t1_j0hw6ho wrote

I hear you, but that's amateur corruption if it's mostly just about nepotism. Try living in the States for a day to see just how Mad Max our country has become. Nepotism is one of the tiniest crimes our so-called leaders engage in. Come back to play when someone tries to overthrow your government or is accused of any host of crimes, e.g. rape, murder, espionage, gun fetishism, hate crimes, etc. I think many romanticize NZ because 1) we only hear the good stuff and 2) LOTR. Humans are a pretty simplistic species.

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AFlawAmended t1_j0hpqw0 wrote

Thank you for your perspective!! Yeah, like I said I hear very little about NZ except for stories like this, breath of fresh air from the hellscape that US politics has become. But yeah, I'll definitely check those out, thanks!!!!

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pnutbrutal t1_j0fn051 wrote

Just own it. Pretty good example. Wish we could get leadership like this in more countries!

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rfor034 t1_j0hl7sp wrote

I went to school with Seymour. I can see him agreeing to this even though it's about 20 years ago.

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