For a Better New Zealand?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, October 15th, 2018 - 44 comments
Categories: act, alcohol, business, climate change, drugs, Economy, global warming, labour, political parties, Politics, tax, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

A new political party has been announced. It’s name is Better New Zealand and it wants to create, er, a better New Zealand.

Its website is something to behold. A screen shot is above. It is apparently written in plain vanilla html. It is like a throw back to the 1990s.

The leader appears to be Daniel McCaffery. If I am not mistaken he was a Labour Party rogernome back in the 1980s and 1990s, a member of the Backbone club and was Labour candidate for Te Atatu in 1990 which he lost. I presume he then went onto ACT.

The policies are not, how would you say, well developed as yet.

The first policy is to reduce corporate tax to 10% within two years. That way apparently Companies will then be able to pay higher wages to lower income earners and this will ensure balanced prosperity.

The policy is so stunning you have to ask why hasn’t this been tried before?  Or has it?

BNZ wants to remove excise duty on alcohol, cigarettes and fuel. Clearly they are aiming for the bogan vote.

BNZ wants to bring back enforcement to the Ministry of Transport. They yearn for New Zealand in the 1980s.

Amongst the mish mash of policies is one about global warming. At least BNZ accepts that it is occurring. But as New Zealand produces 0.15% of the world’s greenhouse gasses with only 0.06% of the population we should bludge and not worry about it. The US, China and India are where the action is. Apparently action by New Zealand is futile and should cease. 39% of the world’s population should cover the rest of us. The world would be absolutely doomed with this sort of denial of responsibility.

To top off the list of policies BNZ proposes to legalise and regulate the supply of cannabis. Bogans will really be pleased.

I was disappointed to not read an anti 1080 policy. Perhaps this is on the way.

I suspect that BNZ’s prospects of capturing the public’s imagination are rather low. Even if it gets a better website.

44 comments on “For a Better New Zealand? ”

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  1. te reo putake 1
    15 October 2018 at 9:15 am

    McCaffrey is an unreconstructed Actoid as far as I can tell. No sign that his party has any members other than himself; it’s certainly not registered yet.

    The website certainly looks like a solo effort from someone who thought to themselves ‘how hard could it be?’ It’s pre-Windows 95 aesthetic has a certain charm, to be fair. I look forward to the release of the party’s IT policy, which is probably going to be the compulsory return of CD ROM disk trays that double as drinks holders.

    However, if endorsements from former ACT MP’s start popping up, it could be a sign that moves are afoot to end National’s Epsom charity arm. Which would be nice.

    • Dukeofurl 1.1
      15 October 2018 at 10:20 am

      Wasnt ACT thinking about a new name? They could have backed away a bit and could try for the soft re-branding, a bit like Spark did- you first say a logo change to something more generic, then maybe ‘ACT – a better NZ’…cough cough….then eventually the dropping of the ACT bit .

  2. Stuart Munro 2
    15 October 2018 at 9:31 am

    “I was disappointed to not read an anti 1080 policy. Perhaps this is on the way.”

    Will no one think of the trout?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/10566260/Tests-reveal-risk-in-1080-zone-trout

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    15 October 2018 at 9:35 am

    Perhaps the BNZ will sue them for breach of copyright? If they ever abridge their name onsite they could be in deep shit. Good to see them fronting as progressive on cannabis, which could be significant in respect of a potential coalition partner for National if they manage to get enough members to register.

    They won’t get traction with that global warming policy unless deniers in Aotearoa come in over 5% of the electorate. I googled “better New Zealand” and got no evidence of an msm report yet, so I share TRP’s scepticism that any such party exists currently.

  4. Carolyn_Nth 4
    15 October 2018 at 9:35 am

    Could a certain bank sue them/him for stealing their acronym?

    • Dukeofurl 4.1
      15 October 2018 at 10:23 am

      BNZ could only be copyrighted for certain types of uses, financial services, banking, investment, etc.
      Political group could be excluded, and BNZ could copyright themselves as a ‘poodle for national’

  5. cleangreen 5
    15 October 2018 at 9:39 am

    We are also advocating for the return of the ‘Ministry of Transport’ as NZTA are only a RCA (Road Controlling Authority).

    We want to also see a new portfolio for a ‘Minister of Rail’ as we do not currently have any minister who is moving to push our public rail services forward now.

    Most of the last century we had a ‘Minister of Rail’ who did protect our public owned rail services until 1992 when National sold the public owned rail company.

    National never wanted a rail system.

    Since Labour’s Helen Clark Government bought rail back into public ownership in 2008 we are still waiting for a new ‘Minister of rail’.

    Winston Peters would be an excellent MP choice for ‘Minister of rail’ with his “Rail of National Importance” (RONs) NZF policy.

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1407/S00252/green-light-moves-nz-forward-on-rail-and-road.htm

    • Ad 5.1
      15 October 2018 at 9:44 am

      You are more likely to see Kiwirail funding get fully subsumed into the NLTP than a structural merger of Kiwirail into NZTA or a Minister of Rail. The governance trend is towards greater modal integration, not greater modal separation.

      • WILD KATIPO 5.1.1
        15 October 2018 at 12:25 pm

        Sounds like some gobbledygook there,… but this statement :

        [ ‘ The governance trend is towards greater modal integration, not greater modal separation ‘ ]

        Is interesting. Just an observation that Hitlers air, land and sea divisions were quite centralized , – yet Hitler created overlaps by favours that caused all manner of friction,… He did that to keep them all in deference to him. Whereas the Allied command kept them separate , more fluid , and with appointed chiefs as a general principle ,… which did away ( in theory ) with any potential infighting.

        I wonder if that same manner of streamlining by separation is a principle that should be utilized more in govt and civic depts…

  6. Sanctuary 6
    15 October 2018 at 10:48 am

    Better NZ appears to be the result of too much smuggled Pinot Gris on long, lonely Friday night in the retirement home.

  7. Bill 7
    15 October 2018 at 10:53 am

    Is “bogan” a term intended to dismiss and diminish a whole tranche of people in much the same way as the term “deplorables” was used by the Democratic Party in the US?

    Disclaimer: I know and am friends with people who that term might be taken as applying to. They’re good people.

    • Dennis Frank 7.1
      15 October 2018 at 11:20 am

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan “Since the 1980s, the bogan has become a very well-recognised subculture, often as an example of bad taste.”

      The binary good/bad taste frame is traditional: it was part of our culture in the fifties when I was a kid, can probably be traced back to the 19th or 18th centuries – if not even earlier. Obviously elitist, yet sufficiently common to denote a general preference for quality.

    • Siobhan 7.2
      15 October 2018 at 1:11 pm

      …and as anyone familiar with bogans can attest, most bogans have jobs and families. Their concerns usually revolve around wages, employment and taking care of the kids: actual affordable housing and apprenticeships would be more effective vote winners ‘out west’ I suspect.

      If we had a real Labour Party they would embrace the bogans as members of the proletariat. They certainly wouldn’t be used as a term of abuse.

      • Bill 7.2.1
        15 October 2018 at 1:17 pm

        Indeed.

      • UncookedSelachimorpha 7.2.2
        15 October 2018 at 1:18 pm

        “If we had a real Labour Party they would embrace the bogans as members of the proletariat. They certainly wouldn’t be used as a term of abuse.”

        100% correct right there. I know lots of ‘bogans’ and most are entirely disengaged from all NZ political parties. And yet they have many genuine concerns that are 100% political in origin and solution.

    • mickysavage 7.3
      15 October 2018 at 3:09 pm

      Bogan could be equated as westie. And yes they are good people although I wish they cared less about petrol.

  8. Gareth 8
    15 October 2018 at 11:22 am

    As much as I dislike their policies, I applaud them for the vanilla HTML. Damn auto-play video ads are straight from the fourth circle of hell.

    • chris73 8.1
      15 October 2018 at 12:11 pm

      I really dislike the practice of doing +1 on comments however for this I’ll make an exception

      +1

    • McFlock 8.2
      15 October 2018 at 3:56 pm

      The layout is pretty special.

      I only noticed the link to it’s youtube channel when I was reading the page source for lolz. At the time of reading, the youtube channel has been up for 11 months, with very few video views, several with zero views lol.

      Looks like someone cried after the election results or coalition was announced lol

  9. UncookedSelachimorpha 9
    15 October 2018 at 12:05 pm

    Yeah….nah

  10. soddenleaf 10
    15 October 2018 at 12:46 pm

    Food stress, not in the top ten. Housing? nope.. Nothing about global food risks, or even local duopoly, nothing about retiring boomers effect on house prices, or massive immigration. No, nothing on why kiwis overwhelm the Aussie welfare system, or the Ozzie banks own most of the nz banking sector. no nothing but ACT leanings.

    Nice when an ad sums up a chronically underperforming economy, old boomer remonstrates his prodigy, as eating his biscuits. Overly privately controlled economy handed over by neolibs, like somehow a centralized private politburo would work better… …which is the contradictory outcome of supposed free marketeers. Demonstrating the prodigy by essentially tying down the kid to the sofa, like he would want to earn real biscuits on his own.

    Massive concentrations of wealth in a few is no different from the worse economics of communism. Planet loses, people lose, communities degrade, youth stuffed with biscuit crumbs to shut them up.

  11. Poission 11
    15 October 2018 at 1:18 pm

    But as New Zealand produces 0.15% of the world’s greenhouse gasses with only 0.06% of the population we should bludge and not worry about it. The US, China and India are where the action is. Apparently action by New Zealand is futile and should cease. 39% of the world’s population should cover the rest of us.

    Ill posed argument.The uncertainty and error rates (for emissions) cover both fractional and absolute numbers and the big and emerging nations. eg Marland 2008

    The data differed significantly for many countries but showed no systematic bias, and the global totals were very similar. Relative differences were largest for countries with weaker national systems of energy statistics, and absolute
    differences were largest for countries with large emissions. The two estimates for the United States differed by only 0.9%, but the absolute value of this difference was greater than total emissions from 147 of the 195 countries analyzed.
    The 10 countries with the largest absolute differences between the two estimates (for 1990) included the USSR, North Korea, India, Venezuela, and China. When the differences between the two estimates were summed, without regard to sign, the difference for the top 5 emitting countries was larger than the sum of the
    differences for the remaining 190 countries. …

    The bottom line is that the details of the global carbon cycle and the details of compliance with emissions commitments are limited by the uncertainty
    of the emissions estimates. And the uncertainty in the global total of emissions is increasing as the contribution increases of emissions from countries with higher uncertainty

  12. millsy 12
    15 October 2018 at 2:44 pm

    0.0001% of the vote.

  13. Jenny 13
    15 October 2018 at 5:25 pm

    Make New Zealand Better Again

    An MNZBA cap anyone?

    Is there room on the political spectrum for this Right Wing fringe moonmoon party.

    Scientists say it is possible. (though unlikely)

    As ACT is to National as the Moon is to the Earth

    Could moonmoons exist?

  14. mosa 14
    15 October 2018 at 5:30 pm

    Hilarious !!
    Cutting company tax will all of a sudden increase low wages to liveable wages at the snap of one’s fingers.
    I am sure that was peddled out with the introduction of Rogers neo liberal miracle cure when there was ” no alternative ” in 1984.
    Anyone promising this must need their head read.

    • UncookedSelachimorpha 14.1
      15 October 2018 at 5:55 pm

      Of course!! That will be the #1 thing to do with the saved tax dosh – no company would dream of just forking it straight over to the shareholders.

    • Craig H 14.2
      15 October 2018 at 7:57 pm

      If it was accompanied by a large minimum wage increase, maybe, but somehow, I doubt it.

    • the other pat 14.3
      16 October 2018 at 6:01 pm

      no that will not work at all….anyone who falls for this will have nothing in the head to read!

  15. feijoa 15
    15 October 2018 at 6:20 pm

    Well, the risk to the Coalition government is National finding friends.
    However, is this really the sort of friend they want. If they are under 5%, they will steal votes
    If over 5% or an MP, National could be in government 2020

  16. jcuknz 16
    16 October 2018 at 11:03 am

    To all you ACT haters I would point out that orginally as Sir Roger started it is an alternative left wing party and formed in the main by ex Labour folk, Ministers etc. What it is now I really do not know or care but acknowledge that it was yet another splitting of leftwing idealists like Greens, Alliance where as the ‘right’ tend to be more pragmatic and solve their internal problems away from the spotlight [current stouch excepted 🙂 ].

    As an ACT member at the start I blame the hatred of ACT on a few brainless lefties who grabbed the headlines and slung mud which sadly stuck and more brainless didn’t think for themselves and joined in the mud slinging to this day here on The Standard and et al.

    As for BNZ concepts, the 10% tax rate could be good, very good, for NZ as currently it has one of the highest rates in the world which discourages business from coming here and providing jobs/ tax revenue to pay for welfare.

    Folk are wrong to think that capitalism is dead and really an amalgamation of prudent management along with careful care of a responsible society is the sensible way to go.
    Labour+National together in todays terms without the extremes of each.

  17. jcuknz 17
    16 October 2018 at 3:14 pm

    Perhap Greywarshark that you saw the commonsense in my remarks? As I drifted away from ACT to my current position of middle road I have come to realise that you simply cannot have a truly responsible society without the populace all being responsible to the society in return and that political parties scared of offending and loosing votes will not make limits to the way they help. “Responsible Society” came to me long before ACT and came from Dr Bill Sutch’s book which was my first and only book I read and made me realise I was a socialist basically and common sense guides me from that long forgotten read. Not that I am uncommon as I am sure even most Kiwibloggers too would be reluctant to give away the responsible elements of our society.