Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
10:11 am, August 26th, 2017 - 70 comments
Categories: national, uncategorized, useless -
Tags: #ChangeTheGovt, brighter future, duncan garner, nine long years
After some initial nonsense blaming Labour for the global financial crisis (and repeating the “decade of deficits” attack spin), Duncan Garner gets down to business on National’s record:
Duncan Garner: After nine years in power, why is National’s report card so full of fails?
…
If this is success then our standards have slipped.We have families living in cars. I saw one woman and her two kids the other night at the top of my street. It’s not how we do thing in New Zealand. Except now it is.
We have a Government that is too hands off. Let the market sort it. But markets fail. Markets don’t build emergency, social, state and affordable houses.
Governments, in partnership, lead and build. National utterly failed this group of struggling and increasingly bewildered and powerless New Zealanders.
The Government now buys entire motels to house the homeless and English says that’s a good thing, it’s unprecedented. Sure is. It’s National’s emblem of failure. The gap between the haves and have-nots appears starker than ever.
National also packed the immigrants in to the rafters in record numbers. Wages as a result have been suppressed.
They also forgot to plan where everyone will live. More than 140 people arrive in Auckland every day, sadly housing is provided for just 80 of them.
The poorest Kiwis have been squeezed to the sidelines. Auckland needs 14,000 homes built a year to meet demand.
After nine years of National the past year has seen just 7000 homes finished. Our infrastructure is creaking. The average price of a house in Auckland is more than $1m.
Good luck. First home buyers should be marching in the streets. They face renting for life. Or buying in Huntly or Levin.
National is also ambivalent on climate change, dirty rivers and our waterways. Action is needed now, not another kick for touch.
Polluters should pay. Get this into law. They do in Britain. Emissions have reduced. Why the free pass for our polluters? …
Take home message:
Over the next 28 days ask yourself this question: Am I living that promised Brighter Future?
And if you’re not, what are your options – and are they credible?
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
When reading this article earlier, I couldn’t help but notice Garner start his comments with the usual ‘balance’ about how bad Labour was and what a poor set of books they left the incoming National-led government in 2008. That was not my recollection of what happened. Sure the GFC was underway (through no fault of Labour) and things were not as they had been two years earlier. But had Labour not been responsible while in government, the position inherited by National would have been a lot worse than it was.
While I accept much of what Garner is saying about the performance of this current government, his attempts at balance with the criticism of Labour, do not reflect on him or history well. But then Garner is just one of many media personalities who rather than deliver meaningful criticism of this current government, they instead dwell on the failings of the other team as being far worse!
All this debate about the ‘State of the government books’ amounts to a lot of hot air about nothing. The NZ government is a currency issuer and not a currency user and as such its spending capacity is at all times that ‘it can afford to buy everything for sale in NZ dollers’. The only question is what effects the spending will have on the country.
“The NZ government is a currency issuer and not a currency user”
Currency creation has probably been dealt with thousands of times on TS.
The NZ government is not a currency issuer, other than notes and coins. The government borrows money into existence rather than issuing it. (otherwise there would be no need for government to borrow money)
Currency (fiat money or credit) is issued or created as bank credit by private banks for profit.
All ‘money’ other than notes and coins is created as a debt owed to a bank. This is the only way new money can be created, by someone or something borrowing it into existence.
No debt = No money.
Taken from here,
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/about-us/what-we-do
“Currency Issue”
“The Reserve Bank is the only organisation authorised to issue currency for New Zealand. ”
This is not to say that commercial banks don’t create money when they lend, they do, however the money created is commercial bank deposits and not of the form of the currency which is created by the reserve bank and spent and collected in tax by the government.
There are reasons that the NZ government borrows but it is not because the reserve bank is unable create currency and add it to the electronic accounts which it overseas and operates (e.g the interbank payments system).
When the reserve bank is talking about currency issue they are talking about notes and coins, only around 3% of the overall money supply. The other 97% is created by private banks for profit.
“In practice, by far the largest share
of money – 80 percent or more, depending on the measure
(discussed below) – is created by private sector institutions.”
from – https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Bulletins/2008/2008mar71-1lawrence.pdf
You can’t ‘borrow’ cash from a bank. I’ve tried it. I took out a small loan some years back and on the last form i had to sign it said something along the lines off = “I, the undersigned declare i have received the sum of ….. etc” I said to the guy that I couldn’t sign something saying I have received the money when I hadn’t yet and perhaps if he gave me the cash then I could sign it.
Of course he couldn’t give me the money because until I signed that document the money I was borrowing didn’t exist. Once I had signed to say I had received it, even though I hadn’t, he was then able to go ahead and create the bank credit in my account.
That’s because new ‘money’ is created as bank credit when someone takes out a ‘loan’.
I agree, it’s a terrible record but the reality is, after 9 years in power and with such a bad record, the opposition parties should be soaring in the polls and yet they are not. They should be guaranteed a landslide win at this election. Yet they are not. Why is that?
Middle nz are the ones that decide elections and labour or the greens don’t speak or care about the interests of these people. They seem to think anyone who aspires to own their own home, who is marrried and has children is a rich prick and want to tax the backsides out of them. Is Jacinta going to raise the Paye tax on these people as the last labour government did to a staggering 40cents in the dollar on income over 60k. Now I bet many standidites think that these people should be paying this rate of tax but reality is, these people don’t and therefore won’t vote labour or the greens.
Our infrastructure and immigration levels are dreadful and yes, I agree, this government has done a shocking job at managing this. But let’s not forget, house prices were soaring and immigrants from third world countries coming into NZ was going on under the last labour government also.
I feel, that no political party in NZ has the competence or the ability to address our issues.
Simple reason why. Media is now so ubiquitous and salvaging its about showing a bit of leg, I.e get attention but nothing substantial. As we can see in Media support of governing parties in not doing detail, is causing rabid uprisings of alternatives.
It’s should be pretty obvious. Nothing ventured nothing gained, National failure to invest in housing, tourism, while throttling forward dairy while reversing apprentices despite obvious rebuild needs… …why? big corps don’t want progress they want high priced assets and rortable governance. That’s what n eolib means shifting power to a private politburo of corps where socialism is for the few.
Seymour is a socialist for his rich masters. Everyone else must be stopped from organizing against his hero’s (mostly older men).
A lot of things have also worked. Over 70% participation in the workforce. Unemployment 4.8%. 80% of new jobs being full time. The numbers on benefits falling. Over the last 6 years a significant increase in real wages. Government books in good shape.
While obviously not all problems have been solved, a lot is going well for NZ and that is internationally recognised. It is why more NZers are returning than leaving.
The electorate is going to put it all both the good and bad in the balance and decide.
I note one of Jacinda’s approaches is to try and reassure the electorate there is going to be change, but not a revolution. Her income tax announcement was intended to convey.
In my view things, for the voters who actually decide elections, will turn on whether they think the gains of the the last few years can be banked and relied on, but that they want more social and environmental things than National is willing to deliver. In short keep what has been achieved and then get more on top.
Increasing demand for homes, by letting dotcom move here, letting China, India send students, while cutting state homes and no replacing them. Supersizing Auckland land leaving it financial strapped and incapable of growing. Ideologically locked to bad governance paradigms. Yeah sure National control the economy so well they are not to blame for the declining productivity costs of their ideology.
You actually believe the propaganda?
Unemployment only double what it was under Labour, because the definition of unemployed changed.
Wages have risen so far that working families are living in cars.
When all the economic indicators improve under a Labour led government, you’ll still be talking shit.
PS: not that Labour are that great, they’re just superior to you corrupt liars in every respect.
+ 100 one A B Looks like these Muppet’s have had there hours increased so they can post this shit 7 days a week instead of 5 days
FYI ‘Wayne’ is Wayne Mapp, law commissioner and one-time National Party cabinet minister. The man who once told us that the increase in inequality since 1984 was deliberate.
If he had any integrity, he’d be crawling around the country on his knees begging forgiveness from the families of suicide victims.
I did not no whom Wayne Mapp is. But I did read that our Governments have been coned to believe in privatization the need for unemployment.
And were did all this advice come from Bankers and Foreign advisers with vested interest how much they could fleece from New Zealand.
From the PREFU update. It appears we are in ‘luck’
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/forecasts/prefu2017/004.htm
From the section, Key economic forecast judgements and assumptions.
“The non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) is 4.25% in June 2021”
So Treasury believes that only a minimum 4.25% unemployment is needed by 2021 to prevent inflation accelerating. Last I heard its considered we need about 5% unemployment to prevent inflation accelerating today. The NAIRU is often referred to as the ‘full-employment’ rate of the economy in economics. Though in my opinion there is no evidence, a fixed relationship exists between unemployment and inflation, which would pass a scientific examination.
So when unemployment was ~3% in 2007, inflation “blipped” up in 2008-9 (according to trading economics), and also in 2011-12 when unemployment was ~6.5%. Too much noise at such a small time-scale?
Should be easy to plot the two data sets on a timeline…test your hypothesis.
No, the NAIRU hypothesis is *not* that there is a relationship between unemployment and inflation (which there probably is, though its far from the only factor). Its actually that the unemployment rate is consistent and returned to by the economy, with inflation accelerating consistently while you ‘artificially’ hold the economy below it.
Another thing the NAIRU rate hypothesis says is that you can’t reduce or change the ‘NAIRU’ by running a lower unemployment rate.
The discussion by Farmer here is drawing the conclusion you are asking for and as is also pointed out here the NAIRU ‘estimates’ are little more than an average of the recent unemployment rates.
https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/nairu-more-religion-than-science/
Ah, my bad. Thanks.
WTF?
I put that poorly. The link above explains it better, but the hypothesis is that there is a rate of unemployment to which the economy naturally returns, rather than a stable trade off between inflation and unemployment.
there is a rate of unemployment to which the economy naturally returns
This is for a model economy, right? One in which government policy, corruption and eg: Mr. Peter Talley have no influence…?
If this theory was only applied to a model of the economy then nobody would have any problem with it. But since the model is, it would seem, supposed to imply policy decisions for the real economy I guess the question is how it incorporates, government policy, corruption and Mr Peter Talley into the model.
Some sort of organic computer? An abacus made of Talley’s bones? That’s in poor taste, sorry 🙂
Wayne has been head cheerleader for John Key and trumpeteer of all trade is good trade. He is a feverish believer in the market shoukd prevail except when it doesnt and then all taxpayers shoukd prop it up
… ” If he had any integrity, he’d be crawling around the country on his knees begging forgiveness from the families of suicide victims ” …
Fucking right on , OAB , – its about time all these neo liberal apologists and the neo liberals themselves face the full wrath of decades of bloody bullshit , lies and theft of the Commons wealth .
Screw em.
Had it up to the back teeth with them still trying to justify their crap when we know and they know its just a worn out bullshit facade.
And I don’t give a shit who Wayne is – he shits and farts like the rest of us .
Operation Burnham to him and all.
Oh , and btw-
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
Not been on the Law Commission since 30 June this year.
Naturally I expect Standardnistas to think that New Zealand is going to hell in a handcart.
But that is not the only reality. There is good as well as bad.
That is why Jacinda Ardern has not looked to Chris Trotter for her solutions. Instead her closest mentor seems to be Helen Clark, which is hardly surprising since she won 3 elections in a row. Jacinda is promising change, not a revolution. The combination of the Budget Responsibility Rules and her ruling out income tax increases shows that. Effectively she has a nuanced version of neo-liberaliam, not its reversal as many Standardnistas or Chris Trotter would hope.
Certainly that’s what you’d hope. At least you’d have some more company on the long crawl for forgiveness.
Don’t be afraid of it: look at the goodwill Jim Bolger’s received since his confession.
Some of us don’t want a reversal, we want a fundamental shift towards socialism. It’s conservatives who are natural backward looking, so I think your projecting a wee bit there Wayne.
Some of us understand that socialism will only come about if we give the elects no option but to bring it about.
As for the Tory’s – they look a mess, and in complete disarray. That said, the people who are doing well – will hold onto their little bit as desperately as possible, there is a long history of that in this country. A long history.
There is good as well as bad.
Indeed there is you solipsistic moron. Inequality happens to divide their effects. There’s good for people like you who can’t see beyond their G&Ts and bad for everyone else. Everything you say here is a variation on “Things are good for me, so there’s no problem.” Dirty water? Oh the river near my home’s clean! Housing crisis? Oh I have a nice house! Junior doctors tending the critically injured when they’re so sleep deprived they’re hallucinating? I’m fine, I can afford private treatment! Me, me, me, me all the way. Marie Antoinette in a suit.
Oh well said.
I guess we won’t see Wayne again for a while.
The buggers got a cheek to even show his face around here tbh, – Socialism my merry arse !
And this coming from a git who used to serve in our parliament and was well aware of the social democracy / Keynesian economics we once had under HIS very own party , – the National party under Rob Muldoon.
Pre 1984!
What a way to twist history to suit ones own narrative. Hes starting to sound like all the other wanky extremist far right wing neo cons who come on here trying to push their Americana bullshit in New Zealand.
Bloody hypocrite.
I have a grudging admiration for his (admittedly sporadic) willingness to front up here, even though all he reveals is that his political philosophy is as deep as a puddle.
He fronts to peddle. Like those folk overseas who roll out their mats to sell to tourist. Then the police appear and they dash away. Onlyvto return sometime later.
Except Marie Antoinette genuinely knew no better. And never said “let them eat cake”.
But that is not the only reality.
Oh, alternative facts is it, Dr Blimp?
“Not been on the Law Commission since 30 June this year.”
That has made my day
Wayne Blimp thinks that sleeping in cars means having a snooze in the back seat of a Phantom after too many gins.
LOL
Other things that have “worked.”
More than 120,000 of 19 to 23 year age bracket unemployed.
Zero hour contracts.
People “removed’ from benefits living in cars.
Wages virtually static, “average” wage increased by large increases at top end of income earners.
Government books “in good shape” at expense of social services with future outlook declining and looking grim.
NZ’ers returning from Australia because of mining downturn, tanking economy and ineligibility for unemployment assistance.
Also add to things that have “worked” static and falling productivity, virtually zero economic growth without record immigration, increased living costs including 2.5% GST increase, housing unaffordability with increase from 3x annual average income to 10x average annual income. Sale of state-owned assets to “Mum & Dad” Investors to fund irrigation Schemes for private enterprises.
The list goes on and on.
Do we really have to keep “what has been achieved.”
Amazing what you can do by fiddling the books. Cheap, and it avoids conspicuous policy failures. It’s like the Gnats are running the playbook from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
There are 23,000 more unemployed since National took office Wayne. That is a fact. Yes the total number in the workforce has expanded, but the nasty redefinition to include those who work just 1 hour a week as being “employed” says it all! Your boasting of reducing unemployment rates is just nonsense. There is a huge number of underemployed in this country and it doesn’t take long to find them.
But that is just one social demographic upon which National has failed miserably.
I am involved in our local food bank. I can tell you that under National’s “administration” the number of food parcels issued weekly has continued to climb year on year to the state that our capacity to help is almost at its limits. The numbers are 6% up on what they were last year, and that was a record, and we have just had the loss of over a 100 jobs in the town with the closure of A&G Price. The roll out of fibre cable in the town is hardly going to replace all of those any time soon! And Christmas is yet to come.
As for the state of our rivers and coastlines ……
Can I say that the current Bill which has just had its first reading to remove Mangroves in the Coromandel is one of the most short-sighted pieces of legislation one can possibly imagine. How any government in it’s right mind could possibly countenance this idiocy is beyond comprehension.
Those mangroves are there as natures response to the constant pollution pour into our Firth for the past 150 years of human exploitation from Deforestation, Gold mining, and now excessive agriculture. Their roots remove some of the nitrates and phosphates pouring down some of the most polluted rivers in NZ into the breeding grounds for one of our most prized fish species – Snapper. Furthermore they trap the silt and build up the area within which they grow to form a natural barrier – a barrier which will be most needed in the years ahead with sea level rise and increasing storm surges.
They also provide protection for some of our most rare species of bird – just 100 m from the town Supermarket I was privileged to see a Banded Rail.
https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050905/full/news050905-11.html
“Delivering to New Zealand”
Pffffft
The definition of unemployment has referred to 1 hour work in the last 4 weeks since the 1980s. The recent change was that looking on Seek and Trademe was no longer sufficient by itself to meet the threshold to be considered ‘unemployed’ .
WTF Macro, these muppets want to get rid the Mangroves and may I say WTF for? Hell we are trying to save ours Mangroves around the greater Darwin foreshore and beyond greater Darwin because of the benefits that Mangroves bring.
And the closure of A & G Price is disgusting in itself and probably ripping up the Thames railway line didn’t help either which happened under a National government in the 90’s as did the closure of Hillside workshops under this current bunch of muppets.
We have a new mayor – Sandra Goudie – you may recall her as a Nat MP. I have to say that in some things she has done well. But this “Rip out the Mangroves” Bill she has promoted to Parliament and introduced by her successor Scott Simpson, is simply pandering to the idiots of Whangamata. It was never up for public debate, and pushed through Council under cover.
“An increase in wages”. Really!!!?? I don’t see it. When I look on the Seek jobsite all I see is low wages that do not support the basic costs of living ie: rent or mortgage for a home in a city where all the jobs are. And before you tell me this is the fault of council, how about we ask the question as to why so many immigrants have been allowed to flood into this country from third world countries who think the pathetic low wages on offer by NZ employers are a good deal due to the poor state of their home countries.
Simple fact is Auckland is not up to coping with all of these extra people. Infrastructure is crumbling due to 40 years of mis mangemeant and lack of funding by previous governments and council. National knew that but they still let them all come flooding in. Why? Because their rich business mates loves the high profits they make with cheap labour.
It’s about time that a political party did somethIng for the average working kiwi and none have since the 1972 Kirk labour government.
“Over the last 6 years a significant increase in real wages”
Am gonna have to call it as i see it Wayne. Fucking Bullshit !
Just yesterday businesses were admitting increased profits but not wages. They are actually saying forget increased wages cos you have a secure job. Wayne has come too far defending the post 1984 ideology to step back. Even Bolger had the balls to say sorry.
I note the drift to Australia has begun again…
Now you know what an ungrateful electorate feels like.
We had it in 2008.
Bad luck Wayne the tide’s just running out.
“Ungrateful” presupposes there’s something to be grateful for.
There isn’t. Wayne et al should be grateful there isn’t a political/governmental corollary to corporate manslaughter charges. They were warned repeatedly about the effects their impersonal sadism would have.
OAB
Ah yes, the Stalinist solution again. Let’s imprison/shoot all our political opponents.
Oh get real. Retroactive legislation is obscene. Remind me who passed some recently…
The fact is governmental human rights abuses are already legislated at the Hague. I just want to broaden the definition a bit so that when say, the Treasury Department tells you that “this is the minimum required for subsistence” you risk criminal charges for setting a rate lower than that.
Or physicians tell you that underfunding mental health services and selling state houses is making a lot of people die and you keep on doing it anyway.
That sort of thing.
Edit: Don’t you agree with lying to a court being perjury? Parliament being a court and everything…
Both the Stalinist nightmare solution, and the current system of rewarding cupidity – are vulgar and immoral.
But what about corporations who have lied for 40 odd years Wayne?
Do we arrest them, and get the profits back?
Or do we carry on we with —- steal an apple and go to jail for life, but steal millions and your get a knighthood?
Withhold information from to WINZ when you’re a young Maori woman, you’re a criminal for life. Steal from the taxpayer when you’re a rich white male Minister of the Crown, you get to be PM.
That’s the morality of Wayne’s World, a satellite orbiting Planet Key.
Yes Hippocrates a upper class tax avoidance expert gets 10 months home detection at 2500 a day to stay home no retribution benefit fraud 244-768 over 12 years gets 2 years 5 months jail and has to pay back 10.000 at 40 a week what about the children
Only the corrupt ones Wayne – you’d be perfectly safe if only you’d kept your paws off public assets.
Didn’t see anybody suggesting that.
Only that people be held accountable for their actions.
If a government suggests a policy, is told that that policy will cause deaths, but implements it anyway and then that policy is later proved to have caused a couple of hundred deaths do you think that that government should be held accountable for the mass murder that they committed?
Underemployment 11.8%
A lot of them because they’ve failed to meet National’s rather psychopathic testing and punitive welfare.
housing bubble
increasing poverty
underfunding health
underfunding police
underfunding welfare
But hey, the rich got tax cuts.
No, that would be because they’re being kicked out of Australia.
For the majority of the population there were no gains. A significant proportion of them went backwards and then National kicked them in the goolies at WINZ.
Still trying for DorkLord of the Universe I see. If you are spinning for the Nats shame on you! Or perhaps you really are that thick? In any case, why share here? Set up your own blog where you can languish in obscurity. Your pathetic efforts to seem portentous are tiresome.
Typical DP framing again though from gooner.
Cant look too owned or stupid so states the obvious areas of wilful negligence by prefacing it with the BS attack lines on the party who always ends up fixing what national have broken.
The media is such a huge part of the problem in nz with voluntary voting and no public broadcaster to act as a reference point.
And making stuff up… a decade of deficits under Labour…
What I have observed is on the weekend’s the amount of post drop significantly.
Our Society needs to change in every way that we are doing things.We won’t get a second chance to change things once it is stuffed
Morning sport with family… house cleaning and chores.
Every time I see that numbnut Wayne and others of his ilk comment on justifying his neo liberal crap I hear this in the back of my mind.
This ones for you , Wayne.
Enjoy.
Strawbs – Part of the union 1973 – YouTube
Ode to our ‘Wealth Creators’
Look who it isn’t: it’s the It Man, baby… His motto is ‘Receive.’ Too much is not enough for It Man
I read garners spiel and was immediately off-put by his horseshit about labour leaving the books in bad shape yadayada national did great yadayada then he cuts to his selected issues.
It’s crap and all over the place, basically because:
A: labour left the economy and the books in very good shape, and
B: nationals “great management” policies are the very things that created all the problems in the list quoted .
Homelessness, child poverty and low incomes didn’t just happen, they are snowballing because of National, not in spite of it.
Well he helped tell the lie back in ’08. Anyone seriously expect this dullard to take personal responsibility?
Any politicians or political parties talking about let alone addressing the problem of record levels of household debt??
I guess national wouldn’t, they could spin it as a positive, people spending beyond their means as a sign of faith in the ‘growing’ economy…but any thoughts from Labour on this little problem
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/households-debt-to-income
“The bulk of that was in housing, which was up 9 percent at $232.07 billion. However, a 4.6 percent increase in consumer credit to $16.1 billion continued a trend of accelerating growth”
http://business.scoop.co.nz/2017/03/03/rising-household-debt-a-worry/
Let the lenders take a bath.
Meh …. time for a wee song with spirit…
The Wolfe Tones- Go On Home British soldiers – YouTube
Poverty inequality pollution corruption lack of productivity.
Nationals legacy.
After 9 years of tight fisted economic management on the back of huge borrowing National are emptying the lolly jar with unprecedented spending promises highlighting their spending cuts in every major govt service health education policing etc.