Comments by "Laurence Fraser" (@laurencefraser) on "VisualPolitik EN" channel.

  1.  @hydrohasspoken6227  Nah, lobbying covers a whole range of things. Some of it is perfectly reasonable and sensible and a representative democracy wouldn't actually Function without it (petitions, for example). ... but yeah, if your system isn't set up right, it can and does end up including flat out bribery... though in the USA it frequently doesn't have to: The professional lobiest class hired by large and wealthy trade associations and billionaires can spend all of their working hours interacting with politicians, while the system is quite intentionally set up to make it almost impossible for the average person to ever be able to afford to take the time off work to even meet their local politician once in a term. No further corruption necessary, the politicians are simply only ever given one side of the story (the public oftend doesn't even know the issue is being considered... not because notices aren't posted, but because they are, in the most useless ways possible, and no one has the time and resources spare to deal with them because, frankly, US employment conditions are often pretty darn rubbish.)
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  2. This was indeed a significant issue. Too bad that you had the option of labour, who were busy making this mistake but not actively trying to ruin everything, the Greens, who most of the time are better read as 'virtue signalling radical progressives' who routinely have no idea how budgets work, te parti maori, which is just straight up a racial supermacist party these days, ACT, who might be the most tolerable liberatrian party you'll find on the planet and have a few good ideas here and there, but are still none the less absolutely a libertarian party with all the flaws and biases that brings (aka: If you're not one of the rich elite you can go die in a ditch and they will file that as a win), NZ first who have gone from compitent, moderately populist, conservative party which is good to have a round (if preferably not in government) to 'basically the american republican party if they were a bit less psychotic', and National, the party that is consistent only in demanding tax cuts, breaking our infrastructure (look into why our health care system is so broken at the moment and you'll find a string of Incompitent decision making by national regarding funding for it) and insisting that anything labour suggests is the worst hting ever because labour suggested it. Which is to say you have the option of Labour (bad) or Anyone Else currently in parliament (an unsalvagable disaster)... and the parties who don't even get in (of which there is basically one that isn't somehow even worse than the existing options). Keep in mind, National (and/or ACT and/or NZ First) Scrapped the Tobacco Ban (that thing we were massively praised for due to finding a way to do it without screwing over anyone other than the tabacco companies) because they needed the money from selling addictive poison to their citizens (causing More Costs to healthcare later, mind you) to cover the Gaping Great Idiotic Hole in thier budget caused by the Unnecessary Income Tax Cuts they insisted on (along with trying to jack up the price on any publicly funded survice they can manage, which, because of how economies of scale work, leave the vast majority of people Worse Off). But, of course, the media and the population did as they always do, and we got what we always get. And there's very good odds that we'll reelected the idiots again at least once unless they set new records when it comes to offending the general public... and given that we kept reelecting John Key that might take some doing!
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