National – campaign vs reality

13 comments on “National – campaign vs reality ”

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1. Graeme 1

   6 September 2017 at 7:38 am

   On my Facebook page this morning, a grinning Bill photoshopped into an image of the lower Gibbston Valley, with the caption, Party Vote National | Secure Your Future

   Well Bill… I can assure you that nothing in the view behind you is making any money, apart from the real estate agents and receivers. Everything in that view that has to make money has gone tits up, and the rest doesn’t have to make money. And that history goes back forever, and hasn’t changed. It’s not called The Valley of Debt for nothing.
   • Ad 1.1

     6 September 2017 at 8:03 am

     What’s your view on Labour’s water pricing?

     Not too many locals like it in Wanaka. Unsurprisingly.
     • Graeme 1.1.1

       6 September 2017 at 7:21 pm

       Have they got a better way to get water users to value it other than put a price on it.

       While my hydraulics tutor taught me that water was incompressible and unexpandable, I’ve come across a lot of water users who think a given quantity of water is infinite. They are usually the same one who go apeshit at the concept of water meters. The attitude that no-won owns water is a moral conceit that allows water users and polluters to abrogate their responsibility for the effects of their takes and discharges. Somehow these attitude have to change.

       Moving the moral perception from no-one owns water to everyone owns water is the essential first step in changing these attitudes. When I’ve explained the policy in these terms there’s an understanding.

       The part of Labour’s water pricing that intrigues me is how it will change Regional Councils. They are going to be funded, and probably quite well, to have a holistic and active role in catchment environmental management. Could result in a more DOC like organisation and generate a lot more interest in the activities and make up of regional councils.

       There’ll be a lot of Wanaka money tied up in big irrigated dairy. Labour’s water policy will be giving them something to take their minds off National’s tightening of discharge conditions. Which are definitely going to stuff their investments, long before any water charging takes effect. They won’t be able to run the cows to need to irrigate.
2. Incognito 2

   6 September 2017 at 7:41 am

   It would be pretty wet & miserable there this morning …
3. Doogs 3

   6 September 2017 at 8:33 am

   I read somewhere about a southern dairy farmer who says he has spent $300 000 on measures to prevent water pollution on his farm. Good on him. However, he then says that Labour’s new water tax will cost him another $38 000 A YEAR!

   Hmm . . . so I got out my calculator and figured that would mean his using 5 200 cubic metres A DAY! Sounds like his farm covers most of Otago and Southland!

   Went to the same school as old Joyless by the look of it.
   • tracey 3.1

     6 September 2017 at 5:53 pm

     Link?
   • Graeme 3.2

     6 September 2017 at 8:07 pm

     That’s about right for about 100 – 150 ha of irrigation in Otago. Nothing unusual there at all.
4. Patricia 4

   6 September 2017 at 8:42 am

   Didn’t the Government just announce funding of $27 million to Auckland City Mission ?
   Allowing the National Party sign on the ACM building could be a way of expressing their gratitude ?
   • dukeofurl 4.1

     6 September 2017 at 1:11 pm

     Billboards on side of buildings are run by outdoor advertising companies. The building owner gets a flat rent even if not used but doesnt have a say on the advertiser.
     I doubt if national even got to choose which buildings it went on, the main target is the busy Hobson St traffic. In reality they are buying ‘eyeballs’ all over Auckland so they use brokers who tell them what they will get for their spend and arrange the details.
5. DSpare 5

   6 September 2017 at 9:38 am

   There is a good post on TDB this morning about the gap between reality and National’s electioneering. This about bootcamps was particularly good to have a reminder of (as with all the other madness swirling around, it is easy to forget some of it):

   [Rudman writes] the privately run “Devil’s Island” boot camp on Great Barrier Island where the Government banished our most troubled youth from the late 1980s until 2004.

   This so-called “youth justice facility” was abandoned after government investigators finally admitted, after years of dismissing kids’ complaints, that it was a hell on earth. Kids were made “to dig their own graves” and subjected to mock executions. One was hunted by a gun-toting neighbour who shot at him… state-funded “violence and abuse” had “turned them into resentful and angry young people who would never trust the system again”.

   A third of boys said they’d been seriously assaulted by staff. One said he’d been raped…

   In 2009, English’s predecessor, John Key, had another go, introducing Military-Style Activity Camp (MAC) programmes… The reoffending rate proved to be similar to that of other young criminals not involved with MAC.

   Two defence personnel were disciplined over the period for physical and verbal attacks on trainees…

   [Bradbury writes] remember the bootcamp is just a smoke screen. This is all about allowing 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds to be put on trial in adult courts, the bootcamp part is to distract the stupid from seeing what National are really trying to achieve here.
   Once again we have National promoting bigoted spite that will only make things worse to gloss over an even more draconian move (putting teenagers into adult courts).

   https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/06/consider-the-national-party-madness-that-has-been-exposed-in-this-election/
6. ianmac 6

   6 September 2017 at 10:35 am

   Spinoff has a grim story of what the reality is for the people in Decile one schools:

   “What life looks like at NZ’s largest decile one high school”
   I’m lucky enough not to have had a student die by suicide. I had a serious threat earlier in the year which drove me to tears. I don’t know what I’ll do if it does happen.

   After teaching, I spend a non-contact hour marking an assessment. For teachers at low decile schools there is constant pressure to lift student performance in NCEA. Governement benchmarking of Level 2 as the measure of all success, ignoring the massive socio-economic obstacles, is a heavy burden.

   https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/06-09-2017/what-life-looks-like-at-nzs-largest-decile-one-high-school/
   • AsleepWhileWalking 6.1

     6 September 2017 at 12:16 pm

     ! That is a must read article.

     Quote from it:

     “Child Poverty Action Group reports that medical researchers now travel to New Zealand to study third world diseases. They come to Manurewa, where such diseases spread through cramped and cold housing, exacerbated by lack of nutritious food, by the presence of dirt and pests.”
7. AsleepWhileWalking 7

   6 September 2017 at 5:12 pm

   BE just announced BIG IDEA!! to get youths of the drugs and into work. Didn’t even bother reading further.

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