NZ’s political parties at the 2011 election now updated for the 2014 election, according to PoliticalCompass.org

“It’s actually a very clear decision for New Zealanders. It’s sort of centre-right versus the far left.” – John Key today

Coming from the most right-wing prime minister in NZ’s history, this is the height of dishonesty and hypocrisy.

At most, Cunliffe et al will take NZ as far left as the Kirk government (1972-1975), which was the last government that didn’t make a total mockery of our claims to be an egalitarian country.

More likely, the next Labour government will be centrist or centre-left… still considerably to the right of traditional Labour values yet hopefully a genuine alternative to the neo-liberal inequality consensus of the last four Labour/National governments. Cunliffe has gone on record acknowledging that this neo-liberal inequality experiment has failed our economies and our people.

Meanwhile, Key, a long-time architect of this failure, is still drinking the neo-liberal Kool-Aid… dogmatically pushing National’s far-right, anti-democratic, economically idiotic, ultra-capitalist inequality ideology as far as we let him get away with.

Key, with his loyal servants in the corporate media, will attempt to claim the ‘centrist high ground’ and whip up McCarthy-esque hysteria about Cunliffe. For the second time in Cut Your Hair history, I’m advising: set your bullshit detectors to maximum.