so I was doing a bit of thinking about how the Government could better protect NZ Superannuation from the rising costs without changes to the age of eligibility nor sacrificing universal entitlement.
The Government could bring in a ‘pension levy’ on high-income earners. It could be a marginal rate of 2% on incomes between $75,000 and $150,000 and 4% on incomes above $150,000. This would raise about $650million per year.
That $650m could go directly into the NZ Super (Cullen) fund.
Based on continuing contributions, wage inflation, and the Cullen fund rate of return, by 2030 the Cullen fund would have an extra $30 billion to pay for superannuation, a number that’d continue increasing as the levy continues to be paid. The Government is planning to begin withdrawing from the fund around this time.
This is almost like a reverse-means test: it asks the top 10%, and especially top 1% of income earners to make a special contribution to the cost of NZ super whilst protecting universal entitlement to NZ super at age 65.
This is probably the most progressive way of protecting this entitlement, as 90% of people would see no change in their working-age living standard nor their old-age living standard.
Start hitting owned wealth, corporate super profits and financial capital
Thanks
PS by seriously discussing means testing of Super, the NZ Labour Party has shown that it is not fit for purpose, and that it does not understand “the future of work” in the fucking slightest.
IMO Labour probably lost the 2017 election there and then. One of the reasons why Labour is losing election is because they cannot be trusted on super. Little can back track all he likes, the damage is already done.
This is a Labour Party that we will have to work hard to keep in line.
They knew that raising the Super age was an election loser. Took them two elections to figure that one out. Then they progressed to discussing putting a means test on Super instead? Utterly moronic. At this moment I’m calling advantage NATs to win a fourth term.
A blip? Thats not a blip – it just show that stuff is being made up on the spot, and that he dosnt have either the support for his ideas, or he dosnt know what he was talking about.
CR+100….totally agree …re:.”PS by seriously discussing means testing of Super, the NZ Labour Party has shown that it is not fit for purpose, and that it does not understand “the future of work” in the fucking slightest”
It is almost as if this Labour Party does not want to win an Election!…austerity on its own constituency!
….there are many super age people who still work but earn a pittance…..for the New Zealand Labour Party to deny those still working their super is pitiful!
..it is a PR gift to jonley Nact!…at very least the Labour Party should be matching Nactional on this issue …they just dont learn do they?
….the NZLP shows a lack of understanding of its own constituency …( imo the corporate Labour Party MPs of Labour Party Inc should have their salaries halved for this mistake)
Robinson said “that little was asked a question about fairness around super and little said its because we need to have a conversation about it”
Or words to that effect.
Littles right of course but you mess with peoples money at you’re peril.
I have to disagree. Those of us who pay our taxes (and I have paid mine for many years), have had an understanding with the government, that a portion of the taxes we have paid will fund our pension when that time comes. We have paid our money up front, on the promise of a pension later in life.
I can only speak for myself, but I have paid my dues. I began work as a young teen, still at school, in the mid sixties. I worked right through high school – book shop, paper run, department store. I’ve never been on the dole, on the DPB, on the sickness benefit, never been sick in hospital, never had a student loan, never needed to be subsidized in any way. I’ve been an employee, and an employer, creating jobs for others. I raised my kids to be good, contributing citizens who now pay their taxes. I’ve earned my pension. I’ve kept my part of my bargain with the government and more besides. I expect my government to honour it’s part of the bargain it has with me.
that a portion of the taxes we have paid will fund our pension when that time comes.
There’s never been anything in NZSuper about paying up front. It’s always been paid from current taxes and that makes it the countries money and not yours.
I’ve been an employee, and an employer, creating jobs for others.
You’ve never created a job for others in your life – the community did and you just capitalised on that.
I agree with most of what you say Scotty. I, too, am now on the pension and I’ve earned it – every penny of it. But something that perhaps is not fully understood by Labour is that… while our parents could live comfortably on the pension many people no longer can do so because of exorbitant rates, insurance and power bills – to name just the most obvious. We are forced to supplement our income by taking on part-time work just to be able to make ends meet.
I suspect Andrew Little didn’t have us in mind when he made his comment, but rather those who have been able – or lucky enough – to acquire a fortune over the years and don’t need a pension. If that was the case then he should have been more explicit. I hope he has learned a lesson not to expect the MSM to fairly or accurately report him.
…..didn’t someone just ask him if it was on the agenda, and he tried to remain open and calm, saying it was a good question??? or did I actually miss something important, not just a media stitch up. (Nat plan working well, and Labour go into “eating their young” when under stress mode)
If we don’t have a Labour Party willing to defend the inviolability of key foundations of our democratic social welfare state, then what good are they.
+ zillion. Labour’s big issue is regaining trust, this isn’t the way to do it.
On the other hand, let them settle into being a centrist party (better them than UF or the Peters party), and the Greens will take the left and leave room for a new party to take the radical left. We don’t have time to wait for Labour to sort its shit out.
Labour’s big issue is factions/division, against a National machine as organised as Hitler’s Panza divisions.
It’s all very well telling the leaders what people in Labour want, but if we don’t get into power by finding about what the “vast majority of Nuzilland” want, we will continue to watch National stripping the country of any values, cohesion, connection etc.
I’m a GP voter, the core values have to stand, otherwise it’s just about the power. The idea that getting power is the most important thing is why we no longer have a left at the party political level.
I agree about the factions, and that’s something that’s only going to be solved internally within Labour if enough people want it. Having core values and sticking to them would help.
We don’t need to know what that vast majority want in order foe the left for form govt, we just need 50% of voters. That’s not enough to to run a country though, for that you have to know what you believe in and gain the trust of voters to support you.
It’s all very well telling the leaders what people in Labour want, but if we don’t get into power by finding about what the “vast majority of Nuzilland” want
Labour prides itself on being a “broad church”, inclusive and there for the 99%. How can it be that they don’t understand what NZers in general want?
Unless of course, they are socially, culturally and economically disconnected from the people they say they serve.
“disconnected from the people they say they serve.”
The relationship is not that simple, it goes both ways.
Labour caucus has to organise/galvanise people with less power into a big enough group to gain power over those with financial/economic power.
Not an easy task, and made harder if they are expected to be looking behind them all the time. at the fighting factions.
My personal opinion is that investment income and earned income should be taxed completely equally and that there should be no distinction. So I’d apply the levy to both in my ideal world. So I definitely agree with you there.
I think a levy on high incomes (both earned and unearned) that goes directly into the Super Fund makes sense because it is essentially the rich paying extra for the Super that they’ll be claiming as part of the universal entitlement to Super at 65.
Universal entitlements are powerful expression of socialist thought. What are you going to do next? Put a surcharge on rich people who go to GPs and use A&E?
Shall we start asset testing the dole and the DPB?
You may be able to get Sole Parent Support if you’re a single parent or caregiver with one or more dependent children aged under 14 years.
You must also be:
aged 19 or older
not in a relationship without adequate financial support
a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident who has been here for at least two years at any one time since becoming a citizen or permanent resident, and who normally lives here.
Weka, I can assure you on every single application and review form for every type of benefit and supplement they ask about your cash and non-cash assets. There’s a limit to how much you can have before they won’t let you have certain benefits/grants. Can’t remember what it is now because I’ve never had anywhere near the amount so moot point.
Yep, and earlier I was taking means test to mean asset test only when I think Little was talking about income testing (as in means test = income and/or assets).
The ‘dole’ and Sole Parent Benefit are already examined for assets that may provide cash eg caravans, boats, bonus bonds. Housing isn’t counted unless you have more than one. You also have to declare investments and cash in the bank.
Assets affect Accommodation Supplement and TAS, afaik they don’t affect the base benefits. Investments are assets, but interest from investments is counted as income.
At least that’s what it’s been historically. Are you saying that pressure is being put in beneficiaries to sell assets? That would normally only happen if they were after one of the supplementary allowances, which let’s face it, is most beneficiaries (although I think Disability Allowance is exempt).
I am not sure about ‘pressure’ as such, mostly because I have never had anything that qualified, lol, but I know that you get the message in subtle and not so subtle ways, that realisable assets such as bonus bonds, caravans, boats etc should be the first call rather than the resources of the state.
The problem with those ideas are that they rely upon the system remaining the same and it’s actually the system that’s the problem. What we need to do is:
1. The government become the sole creator and source of NZ$
2. Full UBI
3. Comprehensive capital taxes. That means taxes on property, on capital gains and financial transaction
This will create a situation where we don’t need different rules for retired people compared to working people – everyone will get the UBI and all income and wealth will be taxed. But the most important aspect is that it will put the government in the position where it doesn’t need an income or borrowings to pay for anything thus it will always be able to afford everything.
The tax system could then be redesigned upon a more feasible understanding of the flow of money. Specifically, that money always comes from the government and that taxes destroy that money.
I do see chosen roles for private sector credit creation however.
I don’t as it always results in runaway money creation. That’s why such private money creation was made illegal 300 years ago and why crypto-currencies are also a failed system.
There was a comprehensive presentation on the UBI at the Region 4 conference earlier this month, but no remit was put forward. How do we expect the party to adopt a policy without using the democratic processes to push for one?
That’s how all those terrible progressive “identity” issues you hate so much get through, after all.
Max Rashbrooke here references some of the work Perce Harpham has done on the UBI. Perce, one of NZs first and most successful tech entrepreneurs, has done a massive amount of work on the UBI.
In regards to a ubi I just did a quick search and I came up with a total benefit spend including super and WFF of 30 billion(please correct me if my figure s are out.)
Covered by 4 million people it was about 7 thousand each so there would have to be a lot more money found to support those that can’t top this up themselves .
Do a search on the standard for UBI. There have been some good posts and lots of discussion, including what level it could be set at and how that would be paid for (there are various ideas and proposals on that).
You don’t have to “find more money” the money is already there in the current income of the people of the nation, and of the nation itself, it is simply redistributed. And if required, a small amount of additional liquidity no more than 1% of GDP can be introduced by the Reserve Bank to the government’s accounts.
Covered by 4 million people it was about 7 thousand each so there would have to be a lot more money found to support those that can’t top this up themselves .
This is actually incorrect but it’s the fear that everyone focuses upon because everyone looks at government needing an income first which it doesn’t. The government must become the sole creator and source of NZ$ in the economy. The UBI then becomes the primary funding of the economy and taxes become the drain that prevents excessive money buildup. Essentially, inflation would be controlled by taxes rather than the OCR (which doesn’t work anyway and, in fact, causes other problems).
No, in all the countries which are part of the agreed central banking system, the commercial and investment banks have a lot of power to create money/bank credit (they are not quite the same thing, but are often treated as such).
BTW countries which do not belong to this international central banking system tend to end up militarily destroyed.
A system of law can be anything from a concerted effort to establish justice in our human world, to a system of robbery and murder (Nazi law is an extreme example). When a banking lawyer described modern banking as ‘the greatest system of kleptocracy foisted upon the human race’ he was agreeing with many previous eminent and knowledgeable commentators. The American Founding Fathers were particularly vocal on the subject: banking is the enrichment of ‘swindlers at the expense of the honest and industrious part of the nation’ (Thomas Jefferson, 1813). ‘Every dollar of a bank bill that is issued beyond the quantity of gold and silver in the vaults represents nothing, and is therefore a cheat upon somebody’ (John Adams, 1809). Even more bluntly, the banking system supports a ‘tyranny of fraud’ (John Taylor, 1814).
Maintaining a ‘tyranny of fraud’ isn’t the way to maintain a prosperous economy.
This sounds like a complete overhaul of our financial system. Is there an explanation for financial dummies (like me) on how this would work on the net?
Why announce something, then turn around and denounce it on the same day? Was this ‘policy on the fly’ or actually discussed with his colleagues? I just don’t get the strategy here. Groundhog day in the Labour camp, and easily pulled to pieces by Peters and Key.
The number of older people as percentage of the population is rising.
Old people are more likely to vote and younger people are rapidly giving up doing so.
This makes the older vote important now and very likely more so in the future.
By the time they are in their middle 50s most people are starting to think about retirement and how they will cope financially in their old age.
Andrew Little”s musings on the pension are a recurring theme among Labour politicians, and despite what activists may say, are an indication of the warped ideas on fairness held by many of the technocrats who control Labour.
No older person in their right mind would trust Labour unless they were already very financially secure.
Good luck with ever winning an election in this situation – no matter how bad the opposition is.
Heaven help us if any topic raised for musing or discussion is rubbished as toxic. Surely in a democratic society, the issues such as aging population and Super must be discussed.
It is a Right wing tactic to seize on any comment from an opposition member and twist it and malign the speaker. Dirty Tricks I say. But for Lefties to put the boot in makes it worse.
i am just stating the obvious…to everyone outside the Labour Party that is…i do not believe in blind allegiance or loyalty
…Andrew Little was incompetent in what he said…dont care if you spin it as “musing” or “discussion” …it makes me wonder how well he understands Labour’s grassroots constituency
( and I was once an active member for the Labour Party…and my Mother a branch chairperson….in fact my whole family have voted Labour for generations…with emphasis on “have”)
Any party which considers taking away basic state support and services for the people must be rubbished.
Further – does the Labour Party not understand that NZ Super is paid out in NZ dollars? And that the NZ Government is the sole legal issuer of NZ dollars in the world? And that the NZ Government can therefore choose to never run out of funds for necessary and important activities?
It’s utterly idiotic to promote austerity measures because you think you are about to run out of electronic numbers in computerised account scorecards.
well I would if I could ….(cos unfortunately i have jumped ship)
…good luck with turning the tanker Labour around before it hits the rocks and beaches…with people with the smarts like you steering Labour, it could form a very viable coalition with the Greens and NZF and Mana/Int and defeat jonkey Nactional
Labour needs some think tanks pre-plotting the coordinates and steering policy so the captain doesnt run amok..imo
Further – does the Labour Party not understand that NZ Super is paid out in NZ dollars? And that the NZ Government is the sole legal issuer of NZ dollars in the world? And that the NZ Government can therefore choose to never run out of funds for necessary and important activities?
It’s not just the Labour party who gets that wrong – it’s everybody and we get it wrong because we’ve been taught over the generations, but especially over the last 40 years, that wealth comes from rich people rather than the community.
Universal entitlement is a pretty core left wing value. It’s not so much a topic being slammed as Labour yet again proposing centrist values instead of left wing ones. If Labour were discussing lots of policy that made left wing people feel better about the party they might get away with discussing superannuation means testing, but in the very large void that has been left on the left, it’s just going to turn people away to do it now.
The utmost priority for Labour should be regaining trust and remedying the damage done by Labour’s betrayal in the 80s. That stuff’s not going to go away.
It’s not so much a topic being slammed as Labour yet again proposing centrist values instead of left wing ones.
?
Centrist values? You are being very generous. You want to show me a group of centre voters, or even a mid-right voters, anywhere in NZ who would support means testing on NZ Super?
neocentrist/kind austerity ones then. It’s Labour saying, we only have so much money, we want to create a fair society and that means not paying out the limited pie to people who don’t need it. That’s fair right? etc. I don’t agree with that, but I can see that they could pitch it to ‘middle nz’ so long as the means test was high not middle. I think they’re wrong, but it is part of that whole lets be left and centrist at the same time thing.
btw, base benefits aren’t means tested, but Accommodation Supplement and the hardship grant are. That was true under Labour as well.
I think Labour are pitching to a centrist voting constituency that they don’t understand in the slightest. No one in the centre of NZ politics wants to see Super turned into just another means tested asset tested benefit.
Phew, someone else saying it, I responded above but wrong place..
“…..didn’t someone just ask him if it was on the agenda, and he tried to remain open and calm, saying it was a good question??? or did I actually miss something important, not just a media stitch up. (Nat plan working well, and Labour go into “eating their young” when under stress mode)
Don’t fall for it guys!!!!!
whateva next
You are correct. It is a media stitchup just like wotsisname (The reporter who looks like Alfred E Neumann) trying to engineer answers so he can create his own news. I heard the interview and what is reported is nothing like what was said.
Little agreed that the issue had to be confronted. I would have told the reporter to F**k off and stop trying to make news where none existed…or maybe just told him to cut the crap.
yep, the same with MSM (National) picking up on ONE of the issues Young Labour raised, “gender reassignment ops being provided free”
Same trap (abyss) Cunliffe fell into, defending yourself against rabid hounds of the press, backed against a wall with nowhere to go.
ianmac – I agree it is disheartening and demoralising when the left starts attacking itself – particularly in this period when there is so little traction being made in focussing on the right – but Little made it a whole lot worse yesterday.
You are right to raise the point that a healthy democracy should be encouraging debate.
A healthy democracy is not one where a political philosophy can be foisted on a nation just as a result of a ballot box every three years. A healthy democracy is one where nearly 100 percent of eligible voters cast their votes and at least 51 percent (a clear majority) give a mandate to a party to govern. (not cobbled together coalitions).
Of course there is a huge discussion to be had around that.
Our problems in New Zealand and for most democracies is the power of the Multinationals and the growing lack of sovereignty (if we ever had it completely).
You will remember the period of Thatcher (and followed here by Douglas a few years later) – their biggest anti-left action was to remove exchange controls. With a stroke of the pen, the multinationals and big business could shift their monies at will and with that potential radical left-wing policies could never be included in manifestos.
You will also remember Thatcher say to the great unwashed – do not worry about the short term affects of our decisions – there will be a trickle down affect. And you will enjoy the opportunities that the service industries will offer.
She also promised that the new technologies would provide us all with greater leisure time. The new technologies have certainly created a huge pool of unemployed who have subsequently be labelled as lazy by the right. And, of course, who controls the new technologies that are creating the massive pool of “unwashed” – yep and creaming off the profits. The multinationals – e.g. the banks for starters.
A healthy democracy is one where nearly 100 percent of eligible voters cast their votes and at least 51 percent (a clear majority) give a mandate to a party to govern. (not cobbled together coalitions).
If you want a healthy democracy, then party based politics is probably not the way to go. If it has to be party based politics, then coalitions of parties are more likely to reflect the will of the people rather than single party rule by decree terms.
Logie97 – “I agree it is disheartening and demoralising when the left starts attacking itself ”
Really I thought it was our greatest strength – robust debate and thrashing out of ideas. Not some stalinist wet dream of following the party line. The overbearing weight of the old left was what crushed the left in the west – the blind obedience and dogmatism – were a heavy blow for aspirations and new thinking. Indeed freedom and fraternity were crushed under strict adherence to one set of ideas. Did you miss 1968 and the questions raised?
Liberalism as the dominant economic idea is back in force and is very destructive. Both locally and globally. Everyone here gets that basic premises – well maybe not the usual suspects of liberals like Gossy and Hotts .
There is no magical left solution to the damage, and destruction wrought by liberal economics. There are some very good ideas on how to deal with a world postliberalism – and we need to trash those out.
GP Super policy, in case anyone is looking for someone else to vote for (or another party to join)
4. Supporting Older People
The Green Party will:
Maintain universal New Zealand Superannuation for all New Zealanders 65 years and older, adjusted annually in accordance with movement in the Consumer Price Index, and within the constraints that:
The rate for a couple cannot fall below 65% of the average ordinary time weekly earnings (after the deduction of standard tax and the earner premium payable on those earnings) as determined by the Department of Statistics.
The rate for a couple cannot exceed 72.5 % of the average ordinary time weekly earnings (after the deduction of standard tax and the earner premium payable on those earnings) as determined by the Department of Statistics.
The rate for a single person living alone is 65% of the rate for a couple.
The rate for a single person not living alone is 60% of that for a couple.
Identify ways to allow flexibility in the age a person may receive New Zealand Superannuation.
There is no looming funding disaster FFS. the NZ government can simply choose not to run out of the electronic one’s and zero’s that it uses to pay superannuitants with.
This “looming crisis” is a fucking neoliberal/orthodox monetary fiction.
Exactly like Labour/National in the past declaring that ACC is severely underfunded just because they put their own stupid discretionary requirements on ACC, and they trying to use that as justification to fuck with ACC.
Their general economic policy is based on changing how we measure and create wealth, and changing the tax system to take the burden off individuals (esp those who earn less), make all income taxable, and put the onus on polluters and waste creators via ecological taxes (which makes sense in the transition to a post-carbon world).
But what CV said. I don’t believe there is a crisis in the way conventionally presented. The real crisis is going to be around physical resources, not unlimited ones like ones and zeros.
as Weka intimates, real resources: energy, materials, the quality of our people and our infrastructure, thats the stuff which really matters. Not electronic ones and zeroes manufactured by keyboard strokes. All our politicians have been entranced by the BS that it is electronic spreadsheet bookkeeping entries which constrain it all.
“A replacement show, with two yet-to-be-cast co-hosts, is understood to be shaped by these criticisms and will have more of an ENTERTAINMENT focus and more OVERSIGHT by MediaWorks executives.”
Currently at the Region 5 Labour Party conference. The basic message is very good so far – party vote is critical, the party needs to modernise, and be unified, disciplined and, most importantly, win.
This is just the usual motherhood and apple pie “our values are Labour values” rhetoric. Labour have very little room to move or modernise at the moment because of the short 3 year electoral cycle and resulting concerns that any real upheaval will negatively effect the chances of being elected in 2017. Don’t expect any dead wood MPs to go.
…and working on it with the Greens and NZF and Mana/Int
( who loudly opposed sending NZ troops there in the first place!)…our NZ troops lives should not be put on the line or wasted for this mess…they are too valuable!
Chicken hawks like TRP within the establishment Left and Right are responsible for supporting our troops off into an Iraqi civil war which the US has stoked for years and years.
Andy Burnham being touted as the ‘Left’/Union candidate in UK Labour’s leadership contest, with Liz Kendall the most conspicuously Blairite (after her fellow carrier of the ‘moderniser’ torch, Chuka Umunna, suddenly pulled out) .
Despite a general assumption that the Blairites will retake control of the Party, indications are they’re well and truly on the back foot. Polls suggest Burnham leads amongst both Labour voters and the British public in general, albeit with a relatively high Don’t Know factor. Yvette Cooper second, with Kendall well behind (admittedly, some early polls also recorded considerable support for Umunna and David Milliband before they ruled themselves out). Burnham and Cooper also have the lion’s share of nominations from decided Labour MPs, in the process upsetting a number of leading Blairites who can see power slipping away.
With an up-coming contest to replace Labour’s leader in Scotland and the race for the Party’s London Mayoral candidate, UK Labour faces three simultaneous power struggles.
More proof that the market system just doesn’t work:
French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food and must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste.
The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass the legislation as France battles an epidemic of wasted food that has highlighted the divide between giant food firms and people who are struggling to eat.
One of the ideas of the market system is that it always clears the produce from the shelves and yet it creates this waste where huge amounts of edible food is thrown away amongst hunger and starvation.
There was a recent news item (TV3 I think) on Ron Mark using the F word in Parliament. The translator for the deaf in the background did a remarkable translation. Any chance someone could upload the small section for wider enjoyment. It is classic.
But imagine the fury which would be visited on an Opposition Party in NZ if they had the courage to suggest UBI for consideration. The spite and ridicule would spew out at any such spokesman.
“Meanwhile, Labour’s Grant Robertson denied party leader Andrew Little wants to means test superannuation, saying Mr Little was only answering a question about fairness in the system.”
So the outrage pointed at Andrew for the “reported” comments was not quite fair. Funny that.
Means testing superannuation is not Labour Party policy and, although Andrew Little should have been a bit more careful in how he responded to questioning, he at no time said he wanted it to become Labour Party policy.
Tried to click an interesting article titled, “Why current affairs matter”: Without good journalism, Aotearoa will never become the nation it has the potential to be.
When I clicked the link it asks for your login details just to read the thing, i.e., Stuff want to know who is reading it, or they’ve been told they must…
Ironic much?
Anyone else been asked for authorisation to read a Stuff article before?
3 Associate college degrees -Awesome feeling- completed my first few baby steps to my BIG goal- @NobelPrize med doctor/researcher & @POTUS— Tanishq Abraham (@iScienceLuvr) May 21, 2015
That was my first fleeting thought too. However, he has brilliant, highly educated parents who seem to be comfortable about their son. Besides, I think the boy himself is smart enough to figure all that for himself and knows what is important for him. Also, he seems to have a bevy of friends and admirers from all walks of life.
Yeah, people should get ahead the old fashioned way.
//
LEWIS: Tell us a little bit about you and your business experience and how you got here.
RAESE: I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country, which is a key part of my program.
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Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
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so I was doing a bit of thinking about how the Government could better protect NZ Superannuation from the rising costs without changes to the age of eligibility nor sacrificing universal entitlement.
The Government could bring in a ‘pension levy’ on high-income earners. It could be a marginal rate of 2% on incomes between $75,000 and $150,000 and 4% on incomes above $150,000. This would raise about $650million per year.
That $650m could go directly into the NZ Super (Cullen) fund.
Based on continuing contributions, wage inflation, and the Cullen fund rate of return, by 2030 the Cullen fund would have an extra $30 billion to pay for superannuation, a number that’d continue increasing as the levy continues to be paid. The Government is planning to begin withdrawing from the fund around this time.
This is almost like a reverse-means test: it asks the top 10%, and especially top 1% of income earners to make a special contribution to the cost of NZ super whilst protecting universal entitlement to NZ super at age 65.
This is probably the most progressive way of protecting this entitlement, as 90% of people would see no change in their working-age living standard nor their old-age living standard.
Great ideas
But stop hitting wage and salary earners
Start hitting owned wealth, corporate super profits and financial capital
Thanks
PS by seriously discussing means testing of Super, the NZ Labour Party has shown that it is not fit for purpose, and that it does not understand “the future of work” in the fucking slightest.
Don’t worry it was just an annoying blip by Andrew. It’s now off the agenda
Amazing what a little public backlash will do
…well if the idiots have changed their minds it is too late ….it has already been broadcast widely…damage done ….and they look incompetent and flakey
IMO Labour probably lost the 2017 election there and then. One of the reasons why Labour is losing election is because they cannot be trusted on super. Little can back track all he likes, the damage is already done.
This is a Labour Party that we will have to work hard to keep in line.
They knew that raising the Super age was an election loser. Took them two elections to figure that one out. Then they progressed to discussing putting a means test on Super instead? Utterly moronic. At this moment I’m calling advantage NATs to win a fourth term.
you write like you aren’t part of labour
A blip? Thats not a blip – it just show that stuff is being made up on the spot, and that he dosnt have either the support for his ideas, or he dosnt know what he was talking about.
CR+100….totally agree …re:.”PS by seriously discussing means testing of Super, the NZ Labour Party has shown that it is not fit for purpose, and that it does not understand “the future of work” in the fucking slightest”
It is almost as if this Labour Party does not want to win an Election!…austerity on its own constituency!
….there are many super age people who still work but earn a pittance…..for the New Zealand Labour Party to deny those still working their super is pitiful!
..it is a PR gift to jonley Nact!…at very least the Labour Party should be matching Nactional on this issue …they just dont learn do they?
….the NZLP shows a lack of understanding of its own constituency …( imo the corporate Labour Party MPs of Labour Party Inc should have their salaries halved for this mistake)
Robinson has just said that means testing super is not part of there policy revue. On the Nation
So where did Little get the idea from?
Robinson said “that little was asked a question about fairness around super and little said its because we need to have a conversation about it”
Or words to that effect.
Littles right of course but you mess with peoples money at you’re peril.
It’s not their money but that of the country.
I did think that after I put that up that I should of said ‘what they believe is there money”
I have to disagree. Those of us who pay our taxes (and I have paid mine for many years), have had an understanding with the government, that a portion of the taxes we have paid will fund our pension when that time comes. We have paid our money up front, on the promise of a pension later in life.
I can only speak for myself, but I have paid my dues. I began work as a young teen, still at school, in the mid sixties. I worked right through high school – book shop, paper run, department store. I’ve never been on the dole, on the DPB, on the sickness benefit, never been sick in hospital, never had a student loan, never needed to be subsidized in any way. I’ve been an employee, and an employer, creating jobs for others. I raised my kids to be good, contributing citizens who now pay their taxes. I’ve earned my pension. I’ve kept my part of my bargain with the government and more besides. I expect my government to honour it’s part of the bargain it has with me.
There’s never been anything in NZSuper about paying up front. It’s always been paid from current taxes and that makes it the countries money and not yours.
You’ve never created a job for others in your life – the community did and you just capitalised on that.
Nick Hanauer “Rich people don’t create jobs”
I agree with most of what you say Scotty. I, too, am now on the pension and I’ve earned it – every penny of it. But something that perhaps is not fully understood by Labour is that… while our parents could live comfortably on the pension many people no longer can do so because of exorbitant rates, insurance and power bills – to name just the most obvious. We are forced to supplement our income by taking on part-time work just to be able to make ends meet.
I suspect Andrew Little didn’t have us in mind when he made his comment, but rather those who have been able – or lucky enough – to acquire a fortune over the years and don’t need a pension. If that was the case then he should have been more explicit. I hope he has learned a lesson not to expect the MSM to fairly or accurately report him.
Little is NOT right at all.
Labour is gutless going after individual Kiwis instead of the foreign corporations who take $10B or more per year out of NZ.
…..didn’t someone just ask him if it was on the agenda, and he tried to remain open and calm, saying it was a good question??? or did I actually miss something important, not just a media stitch up. (Nat plan working well, and Labour go into “eating their young” when under stress mode)
If we don’t have a Labour Party willing to defend the inviolability of key foundations of our democratic social welfare state, then what good are they.
+ zillion. Labour’s big issue is regaining trust, this isn’t the way to do it.
On the other hand, let them settle into being a centrist party (better them than UF or the Peters party), and the Greens will take the left and leave room for a new party to take the radical left. We don’t have time to wait for Labour to sort its shit out.
Labour’s big issue is factions/division, against a National machine as organised as Hitler’s Panza divisions.
It’s all very well telling the leaders what people in Labour want, but if we don’t get into power by finding about what the “vast majority of Nuzilland” want, we will continue to watch National stripping the country of any values, cohesion, connection etc.
I’m a GP voter, the core values have to stand, otherwise it’s just about the power. The idea that getting power is the most important thing is why we no longer have a left at the party political level.
I agree about the factions, and that’s something that’s only going to be solved internally within Labour if enough people want it. Having core values and sticking to them would help.
We don’t need to know what that vast majority want in order foe the left for form govt, we just need 50% of voters. That’s not enough to to run a country though, for that you have to know what you believe in and gain the trust of voters to support you.
Labour prides itself on being a “broad church”, inclusive and there for the 99%. How can it be that they don’t understand what NZers in general want?
Unless of course, they are socially, culturally and economically disconnected from the people they say they serve.
but not a federation of separatist interest groups?
“disconnected from the people they say they serve.”
The relationship is not that simple, it goes both ways.
Labour caucus has to organise/galvanise people with less power into a big enough group to gain power over those with financial/economic power.
Not an easy task, and made harder if they are expected to be looking behind them all the time. at the fighting factions.
My personal opinion is that investment income and earned income should be taxed completely equally and that there should be no distinction. So I’d apply the levy to both in my ideal world. So I definitely agree with you there.
I think a levy on high incomes (both earned and unearned) that goes directly into the Super Fund makes sense because it is essentially the rich paying extra for the Super that they’ll be claiming as part of the universal entitlement to Super at 65.
They already do a great job by adding halides to the water supply.
You know it’s a plan right?
What is the argument by rich pensioners that they should receive full taxpayer funded super?
That they paid their taxes?
That they built the country?
That they just, um, want it?
That they deserve it?
It all just seems incredibly hypocritical and greedy. Always has.
Universal entitlements are powerful expression of socialist thought. What are you going to do next? Put a surcharge on rich people who go to GPs and use A&E?
Shall we start asset testing the dole and the DPB?
CR +100 …that should bring Labour down to under 20% of the Electorate vote i would think
The NZ Labour Party should engage a few consultants and advisors from Scottish Labour, I’m thinking
Um … we *do* asset-test the DPB (or as it is now called, Sole Parent Support):
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/a-z-benefits/sole-parent-support.html
You may be able to get Sole Parent Support if you’re a single parent or caregiver with one or more dependent children aged under 14 years.
You must also be:
aged 19 or older
not in a relationship
without adequate financial support
a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident who has been here for at least two years at any one time since becoming a citizen or permanent resident, and who normally lives here.
Pretty sure that’s an income test not an asset test.
Weka, I can assure you on every single application and review form for every type of benefit and supplement they ask about your cash and non-cash assets. There’s a limit to how much you can have before they won’t let you have certain benefits/grants. Can’t remember what it is now because I’ve never had anywhere near the amount so moot point.
Weka is correct. Its an income test. The asset test is for any extra things like accommodation supplement etc.
I responded here Kay,
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-23052015/#comment-1019263
Good point, I was reading asset-test in the wider sense of means-test.
ETA: The wider point being that the DPB is not a universal payment to parents the way superannuation is a universal payment to over-65s.
Yep, and earlier I was taking means test to mean asset test only when I think Little was talking about income testing (as in means test = income and/or assets).
The ‘dole’ and Sole Parent Benefit are already examined for assets that may provide cash eg caravans, boats, bonus bonds. Housing isn’t counted unless you have more than one. You also have to declare investments and cash in the bank.
Assets affect Accommodation Supplement and TAS, afaik they don’t affect the base benefits. Investments are assets, but interest from investments is counted as income.
At least that’s what it’s been historically. Are you saying that pressure is being put in beneficiaries to sell assets? That would normally only happen if they were after one of the supplementary allowances, which let’s face it, is most beneficiaries (although I think Disability Allowance is exempt).
I am not sure about ‘pressure’ as such, mostly because I have never had anything that qualified, lol, but I know that you get the message in subtle and not so subtle ways, that realisable assets such as bonus bonds, caravans, boats etc should be the first call rather than the resources of the state.
The problem with those ideas are that they rely upon the system remaining the same and it’s actually the system that’s the problem. What we need to do is:
1. The government become the sole creator and source of NZ$
2. Full UBI
3. Comprehensive capital taxes. That means taxes on property, on capital gains and financial transaction
This will create a situation where we don’t need different rules for retired people compared to working people – everyone will get the UBI and all income and wealth will be taxed. But the most important aspect is that it will put the government in the position where it doesn’t need an income or borrowings to pay for anything thus it will always be able to afford everything.
The tax system could then be redesigned upon a more feasible understanding of the flow of money. Specifically, that money always comes from the government and that taxes destroy that money.
Largely agree. I do see chosen roles for private sector credit creation however.
But we see where Labour’s head is at. They won’t agree to a UBI because there are “fairness” issues with rich Kiwis getting it along with poor ones.
The whole concept of an “unconditional” or “universal” benefit seems to be beyond Labour’s comprehension.
That would certainly solve quite a few problems in NZ 😈
hmm, weird, that’s supposed to be a reply to,
“The NZ Labour Party should engage a few consultants and advisors from Scottish Labour, I’m thinking”
Well, you’re right, that would solve a few roadblocks for the Left heh
I don’t as it always results in runaway money creation. That’s why such private money creation was made illegal 300 years ago and why crypto-currencies are also a failed system.
There was a comprehensive presentation on the UBI at the Region 4 conference earlier this month, but no remit was put forward. How do we expect the party to adopt a policy without using the democratic processes to push for one?
That’s how all those terrible progressive “identity” issues you hate so much get through, after all.
Is there any way of accessing that presentation?
Max Rashbrooke here references some of the work Perce Harpham has done on the UBI. Perce, one of NZs first and most successful tech entrepreneurs, has done a massive amount of work on the UBI.
http://www.inequality.org.nz/universal-basic-income-how-it-could-work-in-nz/
In regards to a ubi I just did a quick search and I came up with a total benefit spend including super and WFF of 30 billion(please correct me if my figure s are out.)
Covered by 4 million people it was about 7 thousand each so there would have to be a lot more money found to support those that can’t top this up themselves .
Do a search on the standard for UBI. There have been some good posts and lots of discussion, including what level it could be set at and how that would be paid for (there are various ideas and proposals on that).
You don’t have to “find more money” the money is already there in the current income of the people of the nation, and of the nation itself, it is simply redistributed. And if required, a small amount of additional liquidity no more than 1% of GDP can be introduced by the Reserve Bank to the government’s accounts.
This is actually incorrect but it’s the fear that everyone focuses upon because everyone looks at government needing an income first which it doesn’t. The government must become the sole creator and source of NZ$ in the economy. The UBI then becomes the primary funding of the economy and taxes become the drain that prevents excessive money buildup. Essentially, inflation would be controlled by taxes rather than the OCR (which doesn’t work anyway and, in fact, causes other problems).
“””The government must become the sole creator and source of NZ$ in the economy.””
Is there any country doing this and does it work?
No, in all the countries which are part of the agreed central banking system, the commercial and investment banks have a lot of power to create money/bank credit (they are not quite the same thing, but are often treated as such).
BTW countries which do not belong to this international central banking system tend to end up militarily destroyed.
”BTW countries which do not belong to this international central banking system tend to end up militarily destroyed”
Is that what Giddarfi was up to.
No there isn’t and yes it does.
EDIT: You should probably also read this:
Maintaining a ‘tyranny of fraud’ isn’t the way to maintain a prosperous economy.
This sounds like a complete overhaul of our financial system. Is there an explanation for financial dummies (like me) on how this would work on the net?
Modern Monetary Theory.
Stephanie Kelton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbM3crOcmR0
Also Randall Wray:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=949JLYr2L90
Warren Mosler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68vVlN3D80Q
Cheers, got a bit of watching to do now :).
There’s a number of systems proposed. The most well known would probably be the Chicago Plan and Positive Money.
“But we see where Labour’s head is at. They won’t agree to a UBI because there are “fairness” issues with rich Kiwis getting it along with poor ones.”
Where did you get that from specifically?
“The whole concept of an “unconditional” or “universal” benefit seems to be beyond Labour’s comprehension.”
Little seems to be in favour.
Yeah except the closest thing we have to a UBI now – NZ super – he reckons we should consider questions of means testing
That tells me that he doesn’t understand the concept of the universality of benefits.
DTB….sounds good…definitely on capital gains and financial transaction tax…and full UBI
Just some screendumps of the daily dose of war propaganda from the Daily Mail site.
Bugger, Screendumps here
Andrew Little is attacked by Grey Power because of his super slip-up
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/top-stories/a/28199670/pension-comments-not-so-super-grey-power/
Three hit and run comments this morning, facetious.
I really admire people who write on behalf of the powerful….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/budget-2015/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503822&objectid=11452961
Why announce something, then turn around and denounce it on the same day? Was this ‘policy on the fly’ or actually discussed with his colleagues? I just don’t get the strategy here. Groundhog day in the Labour camp, and easily pulled to pieces by Peters and Key.
An utter fucking mess
Just a point.
Super is taxable, so there is some claw back (means testing)
Lab introduced a surcharge back in the late 80s. That did NOT go well.
Labour is attracted to austerity; National keeps spending on the poor and disadvantaged even in the face of government deficits.
The number of older people as percentage of the population is rising.
Old people are more likely to vote and younger people are rapidly giving up doing so.
This makes the older vote important now and very likely more so in the future.
By the time they are in their middle 50s most people are starting to think about retirement and how they will cope financially in their old age.
Andrew Little”s musings on the pension are a recurring theme among Labour politicians, and despite what activists may say, are an indication of the warped ideas on fairness held by many of the technocrats who control Labour.
No older person in their right mind would trust Labour unless they were already very financially secure.
Good luck with ever winning an election in this situation – no matter how bad the opposition is.
+100 lefty…the NZLP Inc is gobsmackingly inept
Heaven help us if any topic raised for musing or discussion is rubbished as toxic. Surely in a democratic society, the issues such as aging population and Super must be discussed.
It is a Right wing tactic to seize on any comment from an opposition member and twist it and malign the speaker. Dirty Tricks I say. But for Lefties to put the boot in makes it worse.
i am just stating the obvious…to everyone outside the Labour Party that is…i do not believe in blind allegiance or loyalty
…Andrew Little was incompetent in what he said…dont care if you spin it as “musing” or “discussion” …it makes me wonder how well he understands Labour’s grassroots constituency
( and I was once an active member for the Labour Party…and my Mother a branch chairperson….in fact my whole family have voted Labour for generations…with emphasis on “have”)
Any party which considers taking away basic state support and services for the people must be rubbished.
Further – does the Labour Party not understand that NZ Super is paid out in NZ dollars? And that the NZ Government is the sole legal issuer of NZ dollars in the world? And that the NZ Government can therefore choose to never run out of funds for necessary and important activities?
It’s utterly idiotic to promote austerity measures because you think you are about to run out of electronic numbers in computerised account scorecards.
+100 CR…I would vote for you!
😀 yours is the vote I need!!!
well I would if I could ….(cos unfortunately i have jumped ship)
…good luck with turning the tanker Labour around before it hits the rocks and beaches…with people with the smarts like you steering Labour, it could form a very viable coalition with the Greens and NZF and Mana/Int and defeat jonkey Nactional
Labour needs some think tanks pre-plotting the coordinates and steering policy so the captain doesnt run amok..imo
It’s not just the Labour party who gets that wrong – it’s everybody and we get it wrong because we’ve been taught over the generations, but especially over the last 40 years, that wealth comes from rich people rather than the community.
yep, the BS “wealth creators” meme. Labour in NZ refers to them as wealth generators.
Universal entitlement is a pretty core left wing value. It’s not so much a topic being slammed as Labour yet again proposing centrist values instead of left wing ones. If Labour were discussing lots of policy that made left wing people feel better about the party they might get away with discussing superannuation means testing, but in the very large void that has been left on the left, it’s just going to turn people away to do it now.
The utmost priority for Labour should be regaining trust and remedying the damage done by Labour’s betrayal in the 80s. That stuff’s not going to go away.
?
Centrist values? You are being very generous. You want to show me a group of centre voters, or even a mid-right voters, anywhere in NZ who would support means testing on NZ Super?
neocentrist/kind austerity ones then. It’s Labour saying, we only have so much money, we want to create a fair society and that means not paying out the limited pie to people who don’t need it. That’s fair right? etc. I don’t agree with that, but I can see that they could pitch it to ‘middle nz’ so long as the means test was high not middle. I think they’re wrong, but it is part of that whole lets be left and centrist at the same time thing.
btw, base benefits aren’t means tested, but Accommodation Supplement and the hardship grant are. That was true under Labour as well.
I think Labour are pitching to a centrist voting constituency that they don’t understand in the slightest. No one in the centre of NZ politics wants to see Super turned into just another means tested asset tested benefit.
That’s probably true and true.
Phew, someone else saying it, I responded above but wrong place..
“…..didn’t someone just ask him if it was on the agenda, and he tried to remain open and calm, saying it was a good question??? or did I actually miss something important, not just a media stitch up. (Nat plan working well, and Labour go into “eating their young” when under stress mode)
Don’t fall for it guys!!!!!
whateva next
You are correct. It is a media stitchup just like wotsisname (The reporter who looks like Alfred E Neumann) trying to engineer answers so he can create his own news. I heard the interview and what is reported is nothing like what was said.
Little agreed that the issue had to be confronted. I would have told the reporter to F**k off and stop trying to make news where none existed…or maybe just told him to cut the crap.
yep, the same with MSM (National) picking up on ONE of the issues Young Labour raised, “gender reassignment ops being provided free”
Same trap (abyss) Cunliffe fell into, defending yourself against rabid hounds of the press, backed against a wall with nowhere to go.
ianmac – I agree it is disheartening and demoralising when the left starts attacking itself – particularly in this period when there is so little traction being made in focussing on the right – but Little made it a whole lot worse yesterday.
You are right to raise the point that a healthy democracy should be encouraging debate.
A healthy democracy is not one where a political philosophy can be foisted on a nation just as a result of a ballot box every three years. A healthy democracy is one where nearly 100 percent of eligible voters cast their votes and at least 51 percent (a clear majority) give a mandate to a party to govern. (not cobbled together coalitions).
Of course there is a huge discussion to be had around that.
Our problems in New Zealand and for most democracies is the power of the Multinationals and the growing lack of sovereignty (if we ever had it completely).
You will remember the period of Thatcher (and followed here by Douglas a few years later) – their biggest anti-left action was to remove exchange controls. With a stroke of the pen, the multinationals and big business could shift their monies at will and with that potential radical left-wing policies could never be included in manifestos.
You will also remember Thatcher say to the great unwashed – do not worry about the short term affects of our decisions – there will be a trickle down affect. And you will enjoy the opportunities that the service industries will offer.
She also promised that the new technologies would provide us all with greater leisure time. The new technologies have certainly created a huge pool of unemployed who have subsequently be labelled as lazy by the right. And, of course, who controls the new technologies that are creating the massive pool of “unwashed” – yep and creaming off the profits. The multinationals – e.g. the banks for starters.
If you want a healthy democracy, then party based politics is probably not the way to go. If it has to be party based politics, then coalitions of parties are more likely to reflect the will of the people rather than single party rule by decree terms.
+1
Logie97 – “I agree it is disheartening and demoralising when the left starts attacking itself ”
Really I thought it was our greatest strength – robust debate and thrashing out of ideas. Not some stalinist wet dream of following the party line. The overbearing weight of the old left was what crushed the left in the west – the blind obedience and dogmatism – were a heavy blow for aspirations and new thinking. Indeed freedom and fraternity were crushed under strict adherence to one set of ideas. Did you miss 1968 and the questions raised?
Liberalism as the dominant economic idea is back in force and is very destructive. Both locally and globally. Everyone here gets that basic premises – well maybe not the usual suspects of liberals like Gossy and Hotts .
There is no magical left solution to the damage, and destruction wrought by liberal economics. There are some very good ideas on how to deal with a world postliberalism – and we need to trash those out.
yep
the Labour MPs with their property portfolios, generous parliamentary Kiwi Saver schemes and top 2% income musing on ways to cut back NZ Super.
Disgusting.
+100
GP Super policy, in case anyone is looking for someone else to vote for (or another party to join)
https://home.greens.org.nz/policy/income-support-policy
thanx…seems like a good policy….generally the Greens are more intelligent than Labour ( smirk)
No surprise so many Labour supporters and activists have switched Green over the last decade.
What’s the greens plans on how to fund what’s said to be the looming disaster wlth funding super?
There is no looming funding disaster FFS. the NZ government can simply choose not to run out of the electronic one’s and zero’s that it uses to pay superannuitants with.
This “looming crisis” is a fucking neoliberal/orthodox monetary fiction.
Exactly like Labour/National in the past declaring that ACC is severely underfunded just because they put their own stupid discretionary requirements on ACC, and they trying to use that as justification to fuck with ACC.
b waghorn, one thing they want is to put Super investments into ethical and safe investments.
https://home.greens.org.nz/press-releases/super-fund-should-divest-140-million-high-risk-coal
Their general economic policy is based on changing how we measure and create wealth, and changing the tax system to take the burden off individuals (esp those who earn less), make all income taxable, and put the onus on polluters and waste creators via ecological taxes (which makes sense in the transition to a post-carbon world).
https://home.greens.org.nz/policysummary/economic-policy-summary
https://home.greens.org.nz/policy/economic
But what CV said. I don’t believe there is a crisis in the way conventionally presented. The real crisis is going to be around physical resources, not unlimited ones like ones and zeros.
Cheers yes government should be leading the charge on environmental issues coal is so 1800s
as Weka intimates, real resources: energy, materials, the quality of our people and our infrastructure, thats the stuff which really matters. Not electronic ones and zeroes manufactured by keyboard strokes. All our politicians have been entranced by the BS that it is electronic spreadsheet bookkeeping entries which constrain it all.
Its a kind of collective delusion.
+ 1
You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth.
It appears the right can’t
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11453375
You want the truth?, but you can’t handle the truth.
It appears the right can’t
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11453375
Well, who would of guessed..
“A replacement show, with two yet-to-be-cast co-hosts, is understood to be shaped by these criticisms and will have more of an ENTERTAINMENT focus and more OVERSIGHT by MediaWorks executives.”
Currently at the Region 5 Labour Party conference. The basic message is very good so far – party vote is critical, the party needs to modernise, and be unified, disciplined and, most importantly, win.
How would they do those things?
This is just the usual motherhood and apple pie “our values are Labour values” rhetoric. Labour have very little room to move or modernise at the moment because of the short 3 year electoral cycle and resulting concerns that any real upheaval will negatively effect the chances of being elected in 2017. Don’t expect any dead wood MPs to go.
Maybe, but it would be good to hear from someone who was actually there.
Smarter volunteer management
Better packaging of policy
Fewer headline policies
Better candidate selection
Better use of existing resources
Policy is tomorrow.
Don’t have a very good feeling about this, we’ve sent our troops into a quagmire. Looks like they’ll immediately be on the front line.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/68761120/kiwi-troops-deployed-to-iraq-face-any-number-of-threats–david-shearer
Anyone know of any movement/protest to try and bring our troops back earlier?
Labour Party should be demanding this!
…and working on it with the Greens and NZF and Mana/Int
( who loudly opposed sending NZ troops there in the first place!)…our NZ troops lives should not be put on the line or wasted for this mess…they are too valuable!
Chicken hawks like TRP within the establishment Left and Right are responsible for supporting our troops off into an Iraqi civil war which the US has stoked for years and years.
Andy Burnham being touted as the ‘Left’/Union candidate in UK Labour’s leadership contest, with Liz Kendall the most conspicuously Blairite (after her fellow carrier of the ‘moderniser’ torch, Chuka Umunna, suddenly pulled out) .
Despite a general assumption that the Blairites will retake control of the Party, indications are they’re well and truly on the back foot. Polls suggest Burnham leads amongst both Labour voters and the British public in general, albeit with a relatively high Don’t Know factor. Yvette Cooper second, with Kendall well behind (admittedly, some early polls also recorded considerable support for Umunna and David Milliband before they ruled themselves out). Burnham and Cooper also have the lion’s share of nominations from decided Labour MPs, in the process upsetting a number of leading Blairites who can see power slipping away.
With an up-coming contest to replace Labour’s leader in Scotland and the race for the Party’s London Mayoral candidate, UK Labour faces three simultaneous power struggles.
Canon Media awards serving as a balance against the NZ Radio awards?
More proof that the market system just doesn’t work:
One of the ideas of the market system is that it always clears the produce from the shelves and yet it creates this waste where huge amounts of edible food is thrown away amongst hunger and starvation.
There was a recent news item (TV3 I think) on Ron Mark using the F word in Parliament. The translator for the deaf in the background did a remarkable translation. Any chance someone could upload the small section for wider enjoyment. It is classic.
For your pleasure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fBxDV9zTM
Brilliant! Many thanks.
The Swiss have a referendum on UBI due next year 2016. The Swiss Government oppose UBI but referendum will still go ahead. Many people believe that it would work.
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2014/08/switerland-government-reacts-negatively-to-ubi-proposal/
But imagine the fury which would be visited on an Opposition Party in NZ if they had the courage to suggest UBI for consideration. The spite and ridicule would spew out at any such spokesman.
“Meanwhile, Labour’s Grant Robertson denied party leader Andrew Little wants to means test superannuation, saying Mr Little was only answering a question about fairness in the system.”
So the outrage pointed at Andrew for the “reported” comments was not quite fair. Funny that.
Yep, this is another media beat up.
Means testing superannuation is not Labour Party policy and, although Andrew Little should have been a bit more careful in how he responded to questioning, he at no time said he wanted it to become Labour Party policy.
Tried to click an interesting article titled, “Why current affairs matter”: Without good journalism, Aotearoa will never become the nation it has the potential to be.
http://www.preview.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/11826323/Opinion-Budget-Live-National-hit-two-birds-with-one-stone
When I clicked the link it asks for your login details just to read the thing, i.e., Stuff want to know who is reading it, or they’ve been told they must…
Ironic much?
Anyone else been asked for authorisation to read a Stuff article before?
Tanishq Mathew Abraham
An astonishing 11 (or 12?) year old prodigy!
Read all about this fascinating child below!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanishq_Abraham
Brilliant kids. But what about their socialisation? It is pretty hard for a kid to be different.
And probably more so if that difference isn’t recognised.
That was my first fleeting thought too. However, he has brilliant, highly educated parents who seem to be comfortable about their son. Besides, I think the boy himself is smart enough to figure all that for himself and knows what is important for him. Also, he seems to have a bevy of friends and admirers from all walks of life.
A simple illustrated story about how the wealthy get to stay rich while the poor get poorer no matter how hard they work.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
It’s very good, getting attention on social media, maybe it could go up as a post on ts?
http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/toxic_lobby_edc.pdf
How the chemical lobby blocked action on hormone disrupting chemicals
Apply to [name the industry]
Karen your link is simply a cartoonist with a political bent, doesn’t make it true unless stereotype is the test for truth
It is true. There’s been a number of studies that prove it to be true. Piketty is probably the most detailed such study but there are others as well.
Capitalism doesn’t work the way you believe. It’s essentially feudalism.
Yeah, people should get ahead the old fashioned way.
//
LEWIS: Tell us a little bit about you and your business experience and how you got here.
RAESE: I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country, which is a key part of my program.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/09/24/120661/raese-money-inheritanc/