A Belated Pike River Re-Entry? Better late than never, folks, I suppose...

So is it simply Government(al) grandstanding - as readily suggested by *many another glib talkback host? Yes, spending the present (New Zealand) Government largesse as if it's going out of fashion - e.g. throwing $36 odd million at this, and **$2-3 billion on that - isn't tantamount to real wisdom, is it...

All the foregoing is correct as - 'for sure' (as an 'ole Aussie buddy might have put it) - but guess what, folks? It's an old-fashioned concept, I well realize, but keeping your political word, sticking to your election promises and pledges and commitments...is the sort of tradition-keeping - 'old-school politics' as it were - that most of us, I'd respectfully suggest (to many and another talkback hosts in particular), would readily welcome a return to...however generally forlorn such a prospect might well be 'in the real world', more's the pity...

*But anyone who knows me - and talkback hosts/programmes - knows there's talkback hosts and talkback hosts...i.e. they differ one from another as ye proverbial chalk and cheese... So to 'blanketly' dismiss any and all such is akin to saying, as so many once (anyhow) did: "I don't watch TV...it's all [rubbish] etc." (Which to my mind, anyhow, is the mark of a superficial sort of person. For technology is most assuredly good or bad entirely depending upon the use or abuse made of it. And there are surely usages falling into either of the above two broad-brush categories... .)

**And yes, the election pledge ***follow-through of splurging without due sense upon a first free year at varsity (and other tertiary institutions) is just such a dumb thing, folks...and the Government, were it really on its toes, would readily 'fess up to a ***rash and extremely unwise promise, and ***speedily resile from it...ipso pronto...

***Yes, I'm - well - aware I've just managed to completely contradict myself...but life is complex, isn't it... . Yes, some promises need to be kept - as the psalmist commended the one 'who swears to his own hurt and does not change'. But most would tend to agree that a good and effective government doesn't have that 'luxury', needing to carefully account for each and every dollar of taxpayers' monies.