A pal of mine just sent me through a picture of National’s new Billboard with the comment “boring and bland”. Which I see The Standard has already blogged about (damn you, technical difficulties with uploading images or I would’ve been the first!)
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To me this billboard is a step above those that we saw last election campaign because it only manages to boil down the policies of one party into a vague statement of intent. In fact the calming blue planes remind me of tropical holidays and almost urge me to hope on a plane to get the hell out of this country before National have a chance to fuck it up any more than they already have.
The fast-forward sign next to their new catch phrase is interesting. Why is it there? What is it doing? Are you going to see another avalanche of neo-liberal reforms pushed through at a fast forwarded pace? Is it some metaphor? I really don’t know what it means. Could someone tell me. Can I push it, and will another ad spring up onto the billboard, maybe one for penile enhancement?
The planes in the background are so totalitarian. It reminds me of the videos on the telescreens in the 1984 movie dropping bombs on Eurasia, or is it Eastasia? One almost expects John Key’s calming face to dissolve through the ranks of planes to grant us a reassuring word: “It’ll be alright New Zealand, she’ll be alright.”
The catchphrase made me giggle a lot. I went to an ACT meeting earlier in the year, just after they wheeled Roger Douglas out of retirement. I saw Heather Roy talk about keeping our loved ones here in New Zealand. So I guess the irony in their choice of statement: “Choose a brighter future”, is that National has chosen a bighter party to steal their ideas from (in that ACT’s colours include a lovely bright aquamarine colour). It is also perturbing me that “brighter” is in bold. What sort of waffly term is brighter? Are National going to play with New Zealand’s contrast control or something? Ban us from wearing sunglasses and increase reflective surfaces?
Hopefully the planes (notice how they’re flying to the right… by the way, and all look the same) represent all the people who will be leaving the country if the Nats get into power. I know I’ll be on one of them. Waving goodbye to my much loved hard earned dollars when the price of living, health care, road tolls, and food goes through the roof when these suckers get in. Waving goodbye to the poor people who will be placed under further burdon by an unfair tax system. Waving goodbye, as I step on a plane, only to return to New Zealand when there is no longer a National government.