I share your pessimism, Paul.
It's not just the poor quality of most of the opposition. It's voter suppression by eliminating late voting and late registration. It's multi-million dollar donations going towards ACT and National, much of which gets opaquely pushed into social media campaigns intended to scare muddled voters into either choosing parties of the right, or apathy. Only 53% of18-24 year olds are enrolled this year, compared with 89% of all voters. That's a failure of our system.
To me, it feels like Dirty Politics has been given a huge budget. I'd like to think that most kiwis would realise they've been generationally impoverished by this coalition. But these days, people seem to have shorter memories.
Ref: youth voting
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/868515/things-are-screwed-anyway-why-try-youth-voter-enrolment-rate-plummets
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