Election Dates & Dilemma

NZ 2008 Election Date: Sat 8 Nov
US 2008 Election Date: Tues 4 Nov

All NZ citizens and Permanent Residents are eligible to vote.
And if we are Christians, we need to exercise our responsibility to vote - and to vote carefully because the laws governing this beautiful nation depends on who we vote into Parliament.

Those who subscribe to family friendly and Judeo-Christian policies in NZ are in a dilemma as to who to vote for. The Kiwi Party is the party that best represents Judeo-Christian values based on their stated policies as per their website.

http://thekiwiparty.org.nz/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98&Itemid=50

However, they do not as yet register in polls since they are a new party.

Small parties face a challenging task. If none of their candidates win an electoral seat, then they need to attain 5% of party votes to gain seats in the Parliament.
(see http://www.elections.org.nz/voting/mmp/two-ticks-too-easy.html).
If a minor party does not gain parliamentary seats, the votes for that party will not be re-allocated and the votes they receive will be equivalent to no votes.

For a summary of how the various parties voted on issues like prostitution, civil union, anti-smacking, lifting of drinking age etc, please see Family First website or the links below:

http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/
http://www.valueyourvote.org.nz/

Policies on Crime are not captured in the Comparison Chart.

Who will form the next government - Labour or National - depends a lot on the Party vote and their ability to form coalition.

So the dilemma is who to give the Party vote to who are family friendly - National or Kiwi Party?
According to the above website, Labour is the lowest rated family friendly party - at only 8% compared to the National Party at 54%. So if we want a more family friendly Party to form the government - the choice is clear.

As National tries to stick to principles and has declared that it would not form a coalition with NZ First (Winston Peters party), and the Greens have formally announced that they would only work with Labour Party to form a coalition, it becomes all the more crucial for National to receive a mandate to govern almost by itself.

May God bless New Zealanders to vote wisely for our future so that we are more aligned to God's values.