Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 98 comments
Categories: election 2008, national, spin -
Tags: billboards, waste
Perhaps I’ve overestimated the National Party’s PR machine. I mean I’ve seen them run their C/T strategy pretty well and, as much as I hate to admit it, Ansell’s billboards were pretty bloody good last time.
But then I opened the PDF with their latest billboard on it. It’s busy, the message is confusing, and the strapline seems completely at odds with the lines they’ve been building up for the past five years.
‘Wave goodbye to higher taxes’? Wave goodbye to a big chunk of your campaign spend for no real reason more like.
If I was the Waitemata Trust I’d be asking for my money back.
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SP:
“I laughed out loud when i saw that billboard. That’s not to say the others will necessarily do better, but this is pretty poor.”
Did you also laugh out loud when Clark talked about the SFO?
Somehow I think your sense of humour is entirely manufactured.
It’s alright though, you don’t have to answer this one. Just like when you are called out on all matters pertaining to your own good sense, you just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen.
Love your work Rodney! (Wow, never thought I’d say that)
Captcha: Richman great – their next billboard?
the sfo is like everything else in this sandpit of the pacific. it has been infantilised beyond repair and its bye bye sfo straight after the election. and whats more I dont ever recall them ever having detected a serious fraud. just another waste of time from typical kiwi bignoters looking for an office or more like a sinecure where they can have drinky poos with the rich folks on friday nights and go home pretending they are somebodies.
Bomber bro, I’m sure someone will get round to it tomorrow. I only heard about it half an hour ago over a beer with a mate who still watches the TV news.
bomber:
“Hey why aren’t you guys all over the latest issue regarding John Key?
http://www.tumeke.blogspot.com
Lord Ashcroft I presume?”
Because it’s a non-event, perhaps?
And in shocking news, Peters meets with potential foreign, nuke-loving lots of money bag-woman Rice.
Bomber, it’s time to get a new tack mate.
captcha: calamari heads. Somehow fitting, don’t you think?
Bomber is as boring and predicable as Lickspittle Radio NZ and TVNZ.Yawn,yawn, change the record boring bomber.
Is someone proposing higher taxes? Didn’t the government just announce lower taxes? Did I miss National’s tax policy announcement? Or will they be raising taxes via user pays? All very confusing.
wave goodbye to your job? this is just begging for parodies…
while I agree it is not a strong billboard when compared with the iwi/kiwi ones: it still carries a message.
makes sense to me: I left NZ shortly after the 39c rate came in to force. I’d love to be back in NZ too – if it were a little less costly.
it will probably hit the spot with my parents too: all their grandkids born and growing up overseas.
jbc. NZ’s tax wedge is among the lowest in the OECD. But if you’re going to find a corner and have a wee cry over a few cents in the dollar over $60k then all power to you.
In terms of it being too ‘costly’ to live in New Zealand the real issue is wages, which fell or stagnated for most NZers under National’s policies in the 1990s and opened the wage gap with Australia by 50%.
tane: my current average tax rate is 12%. Last time I ran the numbers it would cost me about $55k in additional personal tax. No, I’m not crying about it.
That’s not counting all of the additional tax that IRD would then want to assess via the CFC rules.
I can still come back for holidays and it doesn’t cost me anywhere that much.
Ah, so you’re one of the insanely wealthy elite in the top 1 or 2% of income earners. I agree mate, you’ve got it hard. Who wants to pay tax?
plus of course if all you want is more for yourself you just go wherever tax is lowest and build a big fence to keep out the nasty poor people – don’t think many Kiwis would be happy in those countries for long.
And in any case international labour mobility is now a fact of life all round the world – it has its positives and its negatives but the idea that people should never work abroad is unrealistic.
Tane, if being on a decent salary for a self-employed IT contractor makes me insanely wealthy then I’m guilty as charged. Feel free to hold that against me. As far as the industry goes then it’s nothing special. Used car salesman and plumbers probably earn more.
I would be happy to pay more tax to enjoy living in NZ – a lot more tax – but I feel that at present that I’m actively discouraged from doing so.
oh, god. “insanely wealthy” at that rate does not compute. wtf are you guys smoking? Should we all be making the crap money you do?
Wave goodbye to empty slogans.
Please.
Tane
You link to the Waitemata Trust, good on you.
Could you please link to the trusts that funded Winston and the New Zealand First party. I’m sure their names and the amount they donated are on the NZ1 party returns – Doooh.
We don’t know who that are but we are learning day to day. Winston voted for the EFA ? Along with Labour?
You do look silly when you name trusts that a party returns shows their name and the amount of money they donated. In todays political landscape of unknown trusts propping up the Labour-led govt such denigration is so 2005.
deemac:
Nasty poor people? Are they nasty rich people gone bankrupt?
If anything, deemac, spending time in countries with real poverty will strengthen any thinking, decent New Zealander’s concern for the poor. It will also give them great respect for some of the positive aspects of NZ’s employment law (holidays, minimum wage, etc).
Of course it is. I left for a change of scenery (good), but I stayed for the tax differential (not so good). It’s the long term drift that is important. Ireland reversed theirs. Can NZ?
Back to the topic of the billboard: I’m under no delusion that National will be making any significant changes in the area of tax, but at least they give a hat tip in this direction (rather than the poke in the eye that Labour delivered in 2000).
jbc. if you pay 12% tax and returning to nz would cost you $55K in tax, you have an income of $237K a year. 1.5% of people have an income over 150K. 50% of kiwis have an income less than 27K. I’m more concerned with those people than whether your net income is $210K or $165K, or cutting the 39% rate would put about 10K in your pocket but do nothing for most people.
Now, I don’t earn anything like as much as you but I do earn within the top 10% of income earners, and I don’t begrudge any of the tax I pay. It is the cost of running a society that treats me very well. It treats you even better, maybe you should acknowledge how fortunate you are and realise that without tax that good fortune would not be possible.
Steve, I’m also more concerned for those on the bottom (a fact which causes great arguments in my household). I have no argument with the essence of your post, however I don’t think you can extrapolate my nag with NZ tax to a disregard of the poor. Those things are not exclusively joined.
I toyed with (and scratched) some long replies here but can’t avoid drifting OT significantly. Another day, another thread.
I’ll just leave it at this: the billboard, dull as it is, does present a message that I can relate to.
Fish in a barrel: “Wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones, they can’t afford the tolls”
(I’m glad they left that space at the bottom)
Wave goodbye to your new job.
We’ll give employers the power to fire you after your first ninety days.
This thread resembles something from Kiwiblog.
Lots of petty people trying to be as spitefull as possible with failed attempts at wit.
The bill board is ho hum at best but this reflects the Nats tactics well. Labour are doing a fantastic job of losing the election so they have to try not to scare any potential voters off with messages that may be too devisive.
I am certain that if a change in tact is required they will start thumping out the “a vote for labour is a vote for Winston” line.
crank…of course lots of people are being spiteful…thats the nature of the game. read Seutonius on Julius Ceasar. nothing has changed. the only thing is people in New Zealand realise that Labour gives them a fair deal while National is about tossing everybody who does not come up to their standards to the dogs. cyber space is not real while Labour will win the election no matter how many spiteful tories clog up the cyber channels
Actually Crank there have been some very successful witty lines espoused in this thread – Tane’s is my favourite :
Wave goodbye to Air New Zealand
We’re selling that too
First billboard = unspeakably bad. Deliberately so. Their other ones will be very slick and by the time they are out and about, everyone will be focussed on them thanks to the hook that most of us are taking.
Well done us. Hook, line and sunk.
Brett that number, 100%…
I do not think it means what you think it means.