Big day for the New Zealand Labour government as it opens up its books to reveal its true level of debt. This is what it cost to keep us at 3.4% unemployed and not sinking into social anomie. And the Reserve Bank puts the choke on us all with another rate rise.
And Robertson has to watch Labor Australia's budget as well. The previous government had tax cuts are already legislated, and due to come into effect in July 2024. The changes create a 30% flat tax rate for anyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000. Flattening the tax scales costs the budget $244bn over 10 years. My bet is Labor says they can't afford that and reverse the tax cuts. This would align the objectives of fiscal and monetary policy, which is important when the RBA is trying to subdue inflation with the very blunt instrument of rate hikes. That is a tough process that belts leveraged working families through higher borrowing costs.
I expect our government to just keep borrowing and subsidising us more because most of us don't earn as much as Australians and we are simply more brittle. More debt will now come at a pretty high political price from ascendant Act and National.
Your mortgage (if you really have one) is keeping me afloat via marginally better returns on bank deposits. And those deposits mostly come from a lifetime of saving. If you want to construct society as a competition, you'll have to accept that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Come to Rotorua, check out your local level of unemployment which sits at 11% and realise that Labour is no where to see and has no plans and will not come to town to pretend they have plans lest the local populaces shows up to pelt them with rotten eggs and tomatoes.
Mind, all of this is coming to a town near you in soon enough time. That is all Labours books is going to show.
Nothing to do with the lack of Tourism due to Covid.Lack of investment by National who control most rural electorates knowing they vote National mostly.National love high unemployment because it keeps wages down ,keeps inflation under control, then they bully the poor blaming the poor for political gain.
[please correct typo in your e-mail address, thanks]
Yep, true that, we moved to Hastings about 20 odd years ago, and this town was in a very sorry state indeed…consequently commercial rents where low in the city back then as well, so starting a business was at least a viable option.
Also now I think about it, back then working on a orchard picking fruit paid pretty well, there where several established big industries that also afforded reasonable social mobility through pretty decent wages and job stability…all that is now gone….it seems very obvious that something inherent within the capitalist free market economic ideology that both Labour and National are both adherents of, is seriously wrong..and of course the poor and workers pay the highest price for us all being tied to a broken economic ideology
ACT's answer to the rural unemployment problem and Nationals by default is to move the unemployed to the big population center's where there are jobs.But no housing or support networks.Winston had his $1 billion dollar a year provincial growth fund which was dropped by Labour so neither of the major parties have a rural investment policy.
[please correct typo in your e-mail address, thanks]
Winston wasted 30 million on synthetic racecourses, one at Riccarton not in a provincial area. They are fast becoming a liability not used by racing participants as they are becoming an animal welfare issue with a huge number of breakdowns and deaths of horses. The money could have been better used to support provincial growth.
Rotorua has always been mainly right wing. Your attitude does not surprise me!! When National Act get in and your "Good times' fail to materialise, I want to see you bitching here.
Tell me what are they offering?… no Policy yet, and the same old crew, plus Uffy.
The impact of prosperity/poverty is highly uneven across provincial NZ. Some areas are going remarkably well. I am amazed at the prosperity in Hawkes Bay these days, and any town that is associated with things that go "Moo" is looking most smart indeed.
However, towns and regions associated with defunct industry or structurally stuck with "emerging economy" ownership models and politics (i.e. Northland) are still struggling to make headway. Those places have generational problems that have been festering for forty years.
"The Hastings-Napier Heretaunga Plains are doing great"…..not sure if know this, but the Napier water front on the Awatoto end is the semi permanent base of the homeless who live in their cars and tents..often whole families…most of our motels are taken up with homeless people also, rents are outrageously high…and also not sure if you are aware of the despicable way many of the RSE workers have been, and I am reliably informed, still are being treated?…which of course the corporate owners and orchard managers are well aware of….
So yeah if you are ok normalizing homelessness, rent gouging and worker exploitation, then I guess you could say that "The Hastings-Napier Heretaunga Plains are doing great"…personally I am not at all OK with normalizing any of the above, but then I am on the Left Wing of politics, so of course I don't.
We must live in a different Hawkes Bay. The levels of homelessness, the schools that are resigned to being nothing more than holding pens for feral children ..the appalling hopelessness of people on hospital waiting lists,…lets face it ..we live in a Society that has fully embraced the idea of inequality, literally right under peoples noses, as being just the norm, barely worth noticing, as long as the Poors (of all ages) keep to their own ghettos where we don't have to see them,…..while the property developers make nice precincts for the liberal class to mill around in….either that or we have to talk ourselves into thinking we live in an area that totally transformed over the last 5 years..
"In the HBDHB, 29.1% (64/220) of data zones were in NZ's 20% most income deprived, while only 12.7% (28/220) of data zones were in the 20% least income deprived. The median income deprivation rank in the HBDHB was 3755, 13.0% (776 ranks) worse than the NZ median.17/10/2017"
..we live in a Society that has fully embraced the idea of inequality, literally right under peoples noses, as being just the norm, barely worth noticing, as long as the Poors (of all ages) keep to their own ghettos where we don't have to see them
Well said – sad but true, and maybe this is as good as it gets. Time will tell.
Those Stuff reporters came looking for “the bad stuff” aided and abetted by National. Will they do anything for those people they currently shed crocodile tears over? Hell no. Not a thing!!!
We have more homes being built in Rotorua than any other time. More land being zoned for building and intensification.
As a lawyer you know how long that takes to get underway. All areas have problems made worse by the Pandemic. With one and three quarter million cases, 10% with long covid… yes we all have problems.
Rotorua housing homeless in the many motels that used to be Tourist havens is one problem. It is being worked on, to say otherwise is stretching the truth.
Patricia, if people 20 years…(hell 50 years!) younger than "your age", had your level of nous…and, that most uncommon combination with Empathy, NZ….well, Our Blue Dot would be so well off. It would be literally a Good Place.
Keep up your observations. I always read with Interest. And Respect.
"So much bitching moaning and hyperbole!!"….I would like to see you go and say that to one of the families living in their cars on our Napier waterfront….yes National are bad, that goes without saying…but understand that Labour have tied themselves to the mast of a fast sinking failed Freemarket Capitalist economic ideology that is nothing less than a Death Cult at this point, that is just a sad but unavoidable fact.
In reality as it stand today, we really only have the option of National driving the train directly toward the cliff…or Labour taking the scenic route toward exactly the same cliff.
Iam inclined to agree Sabine. But don't think they should be driven from the country as such. But it is looking more and more likely they will be voted out.
BTW did you see the TOP announcement on tax? They will make the first $15,000 tax free and then 20% tax rate up to $80,000. They will pay for this with a tax on land .75%. They say land records are well kept and not so possible to dodge paying. Superannunants can defer paying until they pass away.
They are also going to give some billon dollars to community housing organisations to build more housing.
And they are going to write off beneficiary debt.
First time in a long while, I felt some optimism that things could change, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much.
The end of certainty
How long did that “long 20th century” last? DeLong thinks it ended in 2010, making it a long century of 140 years. Since the global financial crisis, we have been unable to return economic growth to anything like the pace of those 140 glorious years.
Today, DeLong says material wealth remains “criminally” unevenly distributed. And even for those who have enough, it doesn’t seem to make us happy – at least “not in a world where politicians and others prosper mightily from finding new ways to make and keep people unhappy”.
DeLong sees “large system-destabilizing waves of political and cultural anger from masses of citizens, all upset in different ways at the failure of the system of the twentieth century to work for them as they thought that it should”.
Rotorua's overall deprivation is 8 with 10 the worst. Some of its suburbs are, from the July report, "among the most deprived communities in New Zealand."
Maori are about 40% of Rotorua's population and all social issues hit Maori disproportionally. That's 4 out of 10 Rotorua families.
Almost 30% of households were considered to be in the top 10% of the most vulnerable NZ households. 78% were "performing below the national average."
About 33% of working-age Maori are unemployed, 41% were not homeowners, 18% do not have access to the internet.
Housing quality for Maori ranks 56th out of 67 tla's due to damp and mould, and 59th out of 67 for overcrowding.
Rotorua is ranked 66 out of 67 for all local authorities for crime.
But if you don't want to hear facts, you can hear the impact of that from the leadership: Te Tatau o Te Arawa chairman Te Taru White said the report was a "recognisable picture. You can't put any sugar over this."
He said the district was not the same as it had been seven years ago "by a long shot" and he no longer felt safe at night.
This is not a picture of what you call "grotty photos".
Labour central were protected from this until recently because Steve Chadwick was an ex Labour MP. The covers are now being pulled off.
Labour have been in power for two terms and this is not the result of a functioning Labour government.
they just want to pretend that all is well, as the other option would be too scary.
so they will insult, belittle everyone who dares ask questions, who dares not to agree.
and fwiw, this is the result of a ‘functioning’ labour government. This did not happen accidentally. This happens because they simply refused to listen to anyone who asked them to consider other options. It is their way or the high way. And Labour will be paying that bill for the next few decades if it still exists as a party in the future.
It's interesting watching the Rotorua elite get all huffy when the results of decades long profit gouging and exploitation are shoved right back in their face in the form of social issues in emergency housing.
Patricia you and I are 80 years of age and we are women. That means we are comparatively-speaking ignorant and lacking intellectual heft. We don't have the benefit of having spent our working lives in a technically advanced digital world and therefore we don't always understand modern day technical speak. I certainly don't anyway.
In short, that makes us inferior and we must learn to bow to our younger brethren whose knowledge and experience is so much greater than ours.
I know sarcasm is supposed to be the lowest form of wit but sometimes…..
Ahh, sorry Patricia. I didn't see your reply. Glad to note I was right. 🙂
Rotorua seems to have been building up to the current situation for a long time. The Covid outbreak has served to exacerbate the problem.
Ad is firing off on the back of one report with a shock/horror headline.
I know a little bit from a family member who is a police officer in Rotorua. It sounds to me like a deep seated problem which is going to take many years to turn around. When one reads the linked article, it is clear the local council, together with other affected entities, are doing as much as they can.
Instead of heaping criticism on them isn't it better to give them positive support?
i think what it is on this site is tribalism. Labour all one's life and therefore pay selective attention to things Labour may have achieved and avoid their catastrophic failures.
Anne and Patricia, you are both entitled to your views. I based my judgement on people's arguements not whether I perceive them to be technologically competent or older (god knows I am pretty old myself)
Having been a loyal Labour member and supporter all my life, it has been profoundly disillusioning to observe what is happening to our country on their watch. I know they have had Covid to deal with and that was some challenge, but its all the other stuff for me.
The Health system. They have set up an expensive bureacracy, but still the nurses pay agreement hasn't been finalized. They cut the $100 shift bonus for nurses recently. IMO they have treated health workers (including mid wives) with contempt. These are the people who will give us the best treatment and save our lives. Little has prioritized a health re structure when the ship is sinking.
Housing……f up.
Education, kids not attending schools and Jan Tinettis response is an add showing how great school is. Yeah that will work won't it. Not. BTw I saw it in the add break of the Prime news at 5.30pm and thought, yes, good, kids who don't attend school will be tuned in to Eric reading the 5. 330 pm news.
Labour have spent up large and things in NZ are worse.
The 'problem' is the widespread and frankly mad belief that (overall) things should get better. They will not – not under Labour, not under NAct, not under anyone. And how could they – we’ve fouled our own nest (spaceship Earth), and there’s no getting out of it.
The end of certainty
How long did that “long 20th century” last? DeLong thinks it ended in 2010, making it a long century of 140 years. Since the global financial crisis, we have been unable to return economic growth to anything like the pace of those 140 glorious years.
Today, DeLong says material wealth remains “criminally” unevenly distributed. And even for those who have enough, it doesn’t seem to make us happy – at least “not in a world where politicians and others prosper mightily from finding new ways to make and keep people unhappy”.
DeLong sees “large system-destabilizing waves of political and cultural anger from masses of citizens, all upset in different ways at the failure of the system of the twentieth century to work for them as they thought that it should”.
Rural towns have had it good for a number of years now on the back of river-trashing dairy intensification and high milk prices.
It was time to reset, almost everyone wanted that reset, so now rural towns must take their beans rather than rush headlong into environmental disaster.
Sabine, is the 11% that Rotorua shows a recent trend upwards away from its usual stats? If so, what has happened locally that caused the increase- loss of tourism, timber industry, local closures?
Where I live, a SI rural town, we are at less than three percent unemployment and are importing labour as RSE workers. Perhaps our demographic which contains the highest % of seniors in the country affects the unemployment figures.
Is Rotorua’s 11% high age related? With the number of motel housed residents in Rotorua, is the housing industry locally moribund? Are the figures also distorted by social housing needs being met in Rotorua by the motel band-aid solution and people moving there for housing?
That was from the pre-election report that the council commisioned.
It is by now worse. The plumbers and other trades people started laying off staff now as people can no longer afford to call them in prices are too expensive.
Seriously people need to understand that Rotorua was just the canary in the coalmine. And the canary died.
I would not be surprised if that number has not gone up since.
And thanks to all the shit happening, local tourists are not staying over night, coming in only for a bit of mountain biking and then leaving. So there is no revenue coming in.
Vote Labour, cause they really really don't give a fuck.
It does seem that once the decision was taken to house the most vulnerable in Rotorua's hotels was taken there was nowhere enough thought given to support services or a pathway to getting people back on their feet and back into their previous communities. Instead the govt contracted out the 'support service' no doubt making some considerable amounts of money and it seems against advice undermined the human rights of the 'Tennants' in the emergency housing by removing them from the protections the Tenancy act provides.
That last part is on this government. How we ended up in this situation sits with all our govts over the last 30 years.
There is some commonality in the areas that are doing poorly. Generally dependant on low paid tourism and horticultural work and a younger Maori population. It is no co-incidence that Auckland urban areas doing poorly are also with high young Maori and Pacifika populations.
Some disparity is a consequence of having a young population – people generally earn less while young, are obviously more likely to be out of the work force to have children and so on.
Some is clearly as a reason of insecure work which regardless of age is more likely to be given by the labour market to Maori and Pacfic Island workers. The level of racism inherent in the New Zealand labour market – especially to its own population is mind-blowing. It clear that many employers would rather import labour than employ local (Maori and Pacific) workers. RSE has its place as it does seem to have cleaned up some (but not all) of the illegal labour orchardists used to use.
Maori business is growing which will offset some of the racism that exists in the current labour market but I suspect will have its challenges. If lots of existing businesses got well ahead by paying back-handers (tourism and building industry for two examples), by exploiting workers, by suppressing wages and being racist, by pocketing cash sales under the table, etc does this mean that Maori business will only succeed by doing the same thing i.e. it is a fixed game in order to be competitive.
The thing is that all governments know these demographics and the consequences of them. Talking about reducing taxes when we know for instance we have an older European population who is placing an ever increasing burden on health and welfare seems suicidal. Supporting continuously low paid low productivity industries like tourism also seems equally stupid. Not fully supporting our young population to thrive and to become the future tax payers is also dumb.
There are people doing good stuff out there but we don't hear enough about them and we don't regulate to ensure others behave as well or don't enforce when we do regulate.
In many ways all the conspiracy bullshit is just playing into existing business owners hands – they are not affected by it really and can just carry on while everyone is distracted doing the old company town cycle.
Suppress wages and exploit to make excess profit
Own the houses (and motels) that your workers have to rent
Own the finance companies that lend you money to buy stuff that you can't afford because of 1 and 2.
It is a typical capitalist exploitive arrangement that then leads to:
Blame the poor
Charity not welfare
Until we decide as a society to stop this insidious slide back into Victorian exploitation we are shot.
The graph shows the poll figures averages (the coloured dots are the actual poll figures, and the line is the average between them)
The latest RM poll is (as I said last night) an outlier based on the recent polling. RM have form on this – they produced a poll last April with 8% between the parties – which wasn't shown by other polls, or by them subsequently. So it seems as though their results might be a little more variable and/or prone to error.
We'll need to see what the next polls show, to see if this is a trend. Curia will be polling now (they always do the first week of the month), so shouldn't be too long to wait.
However, even with these rose-coloured-glasses – this is not a good result for Labour – they are certainly not rising in the polls.
The really interesting thing (to me, at least) is the continued strength of the 'minor' parties (ACT/Greens). I think that, whether the election goes right or left, the minor parties are going to have a much greater influence on the government than they have had previously.
Big day for the New Zealand Labour government as it opens up its books to reveal its true level of debt.
Between the budget update and the May ( last figures) update net debt increased 5 billion.
Total borrowing reached 202,617 b and increase on the budget figures of 8.6 billion.Watch for the spin as they try to sell a lower figure,its only for the voters the markets calculate risk on the actual debt,and ability to pay.
Iranian security forces stole the body of a 16-year-old protester, and buried her secretly in a village, sources close to the family told BBC Persian.
The family had planned to bury Nika Shakarami on Monday, but her body was snatched and buried in a village about 40km (25 miles) away, the sources said.
If you promise your wife you've done enough for your career, then change your mind for the money, well what happens is you've fucked up your marriage and your family permanently.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon is standing firm on cutting taxes for the highest paid despite the turmoil caused by a similar plan in the United Kingdom.
Well of course. Never mind the "mistakes" …Kinda puts in mind of WW1 British Generals. (most Generals for that! ) Keep a frontal assault on the machine guns. We have more men than they have bullets. And WE will be ok.
Maybe ol' Lux-deluxe had General Haig..or similar, as one of his historic heroes?
ACT's answer to the rural unemployment problem and Nationals by default is to move the unemployed to the big population center's where there are jobs.But no housing or support networks.Winston had his $1 billion dollar a year provincial growth fund which was dropped by Labour so neither of the major parties have a rural investment policy.
They will continue to fade away back to where they were when Little was leader.
Probably just as well Ms Adern has a well supported international profile so her future employment is assured.
They don't know her as well as we do.
Meanwhile the new messiah is trying to justify tax increases for the struggling rich.
Apparently our economy is doing so much better than the U.K and its time to give more of our money back to those up top. At least he is consistent but like the rest of the Nasty Natz it always thinks it can fix the problem by making the rich a little richer.
Asked about reducing the top tax rate for high-income earners, he said New Zealand had a higher cost of living and lower wages than other countries and in a competitive world, it needed tax incentives.
Well at least Aloha Luxon admits we are a low wage economy and he like his predecessors and business leaders want to keep it that way.
There is a reason that Luxon looks so smug when asked the same question again and again and he trots out the same stuff. But sadly the peasants latch onto the parts which say, wasteful spending, incompetent government, unfinished projects, too high taxes on your money etc etc.
Anker we are the peasants. I know this because I hear ordinary chaps like me explain to reporters that this Government is hopeless because that nice Air N man told me often about that, so what he says must be true. Perception?
And Luxon does look smug when being given the chance in QT to say it all again.
What's that you say, strong economy? Deficit half what was forecast?
Intelligent people can tell the economy is strong, just drive on the motorway, go to the shopping malls on the weekend. Don't need Treasury to convince, or the opposition to try convince otherwise.
Grant Robertson exposes the constant lying coming out of the boardrooms:
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said that “while there are some ‘mood surveys’ that say one thing about New Zealand’s corporate sector, you can see from here that there was significant profits within our corporate sector evidenced by the corporate tax return to IRD”.
Robertson took a swipe at the National Party and at businesses unveiling the figures.
He took time in his speech to "call out" the National Party for criticising Covid spending that it had once supported, and he made a veiled reference to the NZ Herald's Mood of the Boardroom survey, noting that while "there are some 'mood' surveys that say one thing", corporate profits told a different story.
Robertson finished his speech with another dig at National.
"Now is not the time to fritter it away on tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders and property speculators," he said, referencing National's tax cut policy.
Grant Robertson exposes the constant lying coming out of the boardrooms:
As ever. Continuous. "Belts must be tightened" (just not theirs).. "The employee wages ! " Who EVER looks at what these fkn Board members..or useless "managers" receive? When are they EVER Performance Reviewed?
And….you prob remember…sir Key and his "devilbeast" which the slimy creep lobbed to derail Labour and Greens.
Also…different Bank "spokespeople" who continually (and IMO malignantly) threw all the shit at Labour Greens.
We must fight hard as, to prevent those Nact creeps from throwing NZ back to…the dogs.
Then to compensate for every tax payer except those within the lowest threashold could have their INCREASE in tax paid compensated with an increase of the tax theasholds. Pay increases below inflation (which is most of us) and paying more in tax how is that allowing for this prosperity, less in real terms of after tax income ???
Instead of 'frittering' it on those richies that don't need it, how about 'spending' it on those poor-ohs that do! Then tax the richies at the same time. Who the hell would feel sorry for them?
Luxon's tax cuts for the well off who have had massive untaxed wealth gains during the pandemic . the subsequent massive disruption to the just in time supply line ,local food supplies and the Ukrainian war disruption of oil , gas and grain supplies leading to inflation.Which is hitting the middle classes and poor really badly.We shouldn't criticise Luxon let him have his Tricledown fantasy and let him cling to it,as 65% of New Zealand is against Tax cuts for the well off as they have already had the lions share of the $50 billion QE money print.The peasants are paying for it in everyday rapidly rising accomodation and food cost's.Luxon is peddling cruelty to those who are struggling while those who have gained the most are being rewarded again.The well off! What will they do with their tax cut windfall while the rest line up at the food bank .The well off will be buying up under valued properties for more tax free capital gain making it even tougher for the poor to work there way out of poverty. Luxon = Tricledown=more widespread poverty.
A Newsroom survey of local election contenders reveals unexpected support to expand co-governance with iwi Māori – and already, some councils are embracing those principles by reversing their Three Waters positions
With the South Island’s two biggest cities both pulling out of the group spearheading Three Waters opposition to make peace with local iwi, the co-governance horse could be …..
Damn. The rest is behind the Newsroom paywall. Could hint a change of support which would help the 3 Waters initiative which the Opposition cynically oppose. Anyone have the substance of the article?
RBNZ increases OCR rate by .5 meeting market expectations,said .75 was on the table.
Market responds with currency appreciation (against US$) of 1.25%,as bond buyers come back and yields dropping on long bonds.
Anti inflationary to some extent as liquid fuel costs expected to increase with OPEC cut later tonight,and Whitehouse suggesting limits on distillate fuels.
" Ministers are already more than well-remunerated for their public service. We should not allow them to continue to corruptly profit from their public roles as some sort of "retirement package".
”More than 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain in recent years can be attributed to spending cuts to public services and benefits introduced by a UK government pursuing austerity policies, according to an academic study.
The authors of the study suggest additional deaths between 2012 and 2019 – prior to the Covid pandemic – reflect an increase in people dying prematurely after experiencing reduced income, ill-health, poor nutrition and housing, and social isolation.”
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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 ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
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Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
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There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
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Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
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Big day for the New Zealand Labour government as it opens up its books to reveal its true level of debt. This is what it cost to keep us at 3.4% unemployed and not sinking into social anomie. And the Reserve Bank puts the choke on us all with another rate rise.
And Robertson has to watch Labor Australia's budget as well. The previous government had tax cuts are already legislated, and due to come into effect in July 2024. The changes create a 30% flat tax rate for anyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000. Flattening the tax scales costs the budget $244bn over 10 years. My bet is Labor says they can't afford that and reverse the tax cuts. This would align the objectives of fiscal and monetary policy, which is important when the RBA is trying to subdue inflation with the very blunt instrument of rate hikes. That is a tough process that belts leveraged working families through higher borrowing costs.
I expect our government to just keep borrowing and subsidising us more because most of us don't earn as much as Australians and we are simply more brittle. More debt will now come at a pretty high political price from ascendant Act and National.
Tough day at the office.
Is my floating mortgage going up by 0.25% or 0.5%?
Your mortgage (if you really have one) is keeping me afloat via marginally better returns on bank deposits. And those deposits mostly come from a lifetime of saving. If you want to construct society as a competition, you'll have to accept that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Ask your bank.
0.5% by the sounds of it.
Did the bank phone line put you on hold?
Come to Rotorua, check out your local level of unemployment which sits at 11% and realise that Labour is no where to see and has no plans and will not come to town to pretend they have plans lest the local populaces shows up to pelt them with rotten eggs and tomatoes.
Mind, all of this is coming to a town near you in soon enough time. That is all Labours books is going to show.
Similar stories in a lot of regional towns.
Te Kao. Kaitaia. Kaeo. Kaikohe. Go through the North Island starting from the top.
None of those towns were going anywhere a decade ago. You trying to put that on Labour is disingenuous at best.
Just another chance to seethe. Sad AF.
It's on any government. Labour is the current one.
Just another chance to act.
Just another chance not to be a LINO.
The absolute destruction of Rotorua is 100% on Labour
Nothing to do with the lack of Tourism due to Covid.Lack of investment by National who control most rural electorates knowing they vote National mostly.National love high unemployment because it keeps wages down ,keeps inflation under control, then they bully the poor blaming the poor for political gain.
[please correct typo in your e-mail address, thanks]
Mod note
You go tell yourself that every day now, and hope to hell that what was done to Rotorua is not coming to a place near you.
Other than the mechanization of looking killing jobs what else was done to rotorua?
Genuine?
Along with other struggling individuals and communities – not considered a priority to identify and/or help?
Yep, true that, we moved to Hastings about 20 odd years ago, and this town was in a very sorry state indeed…consequently commercial rents where low in the city back then as well, so starting a business was at least a viable option.
Also now I think about it, back then working on a orchard picking fruit paid pretty well, there where several established big industries that also afforded reasonable social mobility through pretty decent wages and job stability…all that is now gone….it seems very obvious that something inherent within the capitalist free market economic ideology that both Labour and National are both adherents of, is seriously wrong..and of course the poor and workers pay the highest price for us all being tied to a broken economic ideology
I can remember Northland topping 19% unemployed back in the 80,s and that was with out a pandemic and climate change moves to complicate things.
ACT's answer to the rural unemployment problem and Nationals by default is to move the unemployed to the big population center's where there are jobs.But no housing or support networks.Winston had his $1 billion dollar a year provincial growth fund which was dropped by Labour so neither of the major parties have a rural investment policy.
[please correct typo in your e-mail address, thanks]
Mod note
Winston wasted 30 million on synthetic racecourses, one at Riccarton not in a provincial area. They are fast becoming a liability not used by racing participants as they are becoming an animal welfare issue with a huge number of breakdowns and deaths of horses. The money could have been better used to support provincial growth.
Tauranga. Tokoroa. Taupo. Whakatane. Gisborne. and so on and so forth.
There is a reason we don't ever see regional unemployment numbers and just the 'average'.
Rotorua has always been mainly right wing. Your attitude does not surprise me!! When National Act get in and your "Good times' fail to materialise, I want to see you bitching here.
Tell me what are they offering?… no Policy yet, and the same old crew, plus Uffy.
Inhale into the paper bag, and take a trip to Rotorua or one of those other hardbitten towns Patricia.
Rage and denial doesn't help.
The impact of prosperity/poverty is highly uneven across provincial NZ. Some areas are going remarkably well. I am amazed at the prosperity in Hawkes Bay these days, and any town that is associated with things that go "Moo" is looking most smart indeed.
However, towns and regions associated with defunct industry or structurally stuck with "emerging economy" ownership models and politics (i.e. Northland) are still struggling to make headway. Those places have generational problems that have been festering for forty years.
The Hastings-Napier Heretaunga Plains are doing great.
Go further north to Wairoa and inland, or south anywhere from Marakakaho to Eketahuna.
Ain't pretty. The Deprivation Index still tells the compelling story.
Agreed Wairoa is basket case – The provincial villages – they are not really towns – outside of the dairy boom zone are all really, really dire.
"The Hastings-Napier Heretaunga Plains are doing great"…..not sure if know this, but the Napier water front on the Awatoto end is the semi permanent base of the homeless who live in their cars and tents..often whole families…most of our motels are taken up with homeless people also, rents are outrageously high…and also not sure if you are aware of the despicable way many of the RSE workers have been, and I am reliably informed, still are being treated?…which of course the corporate owners and orchard managers are well aware of….
So yeah if you are ok normalizing homelessness, rent gouging and worker exploitation, then I guess you could say that "The Hastings-Napier Heretaunga Plains are doing great"…personally I am not at all OK with normalizing any of the above, but then I am on the Left Wing of politics, so of course I don't.
Yes Sanctuary, correct. These are long standing problems made worse by covid.
We must live in a different Hawkes Bay. The levels of homelessness, the schools that are resigned to being nothing more than holding pens for feral children ..the appalling hopelessness of people on hospital waiting lists,…lets face it ..we live in a Society that has fully embraced the idea of inequality, literally right under peoples noses, as being just the norm, barely worth noticing, as long as the Poors (of all ages) keep to their own ghettos where we don't have to see them,…..while the property developers make nice precincts for the liberal class to mill around in….either that or we have to talk ourselves into thinking we live in an area that totally transformed over the last 5 years..
"In the HBDHB, 29.1% (64/220) of data zones were in NZ's 20% most income deprived, while only 12.7% (28/220) of data zones were in the 20% least income deprived. The median income deprivation rank in the HBDHB was 3755, 13.0% (776 ranks) worse than the NZ median.17/10/2017"
Well said – sad but true, and maybe this is as good as it gets. Time will tell.
Blow in a paper bag yourself.
I live here, and it is far better than during the GFC.
So much bitching moaning and hyperbole!!
Good luck with Luxon, his worst won't affect us, but I feel utterly sorry for the duped.
Rotorua Council's own pre-election analysis for everyone to read demonstrates a scary and damning decline, and shows with facts how wrong you are.
'Scary and damning' report paints grim picture of state of Rotorua | Stuff.co.nz
Read the report Patricia. Do something besides empty cheering.
Ad, do something yourself!! You are not 80!!
Those Stuff reporters came looking for “the bad stuff” aided and abetted by National. Will they do anything for those people they currently shed crocodile tears over? Hell no. Not a thing!!!
We have more homes being built in Rotorua than any other time. More land being zoned for building and intensification.
As a lawyer you know how long that takes to get underway. All areas have problems made worse by the Pandemic. With one and three quarter million cases, 10% with long covid… yes we all have problems.
Rotorua housing homeless in the many motels that used to be Tourist havens is one problem. It is being worked on, to say otherwise is stretching the truth.
Patricia, if people 20 years…(hell 50 years!) younger than "your age", had your level of nous…and, that most uncommon combination with Empathy, NZ….well, Our Blue Dot would be so well off. It would be literally a Good Place.
Keep up your observations. I always read with Interest. And Respect.
Appreciated Cycling Left always.
I've done the work for you below.
Two electoral terms is time for political accountability.
"So much bitching moaning and hyperbole!!"….I would like to see you go and say that to one of the families living in their cars on our Napier waterfront….yes National are bad, that goes without saying…but understand that Labour have tied themselves to the mast of a fast sinking failed Freemarket Capitalist economic ideology that is nothing less than a Death Cult at this point, that is just a sad but unavoidable fact.
In reality as it stand today, we really only have the option of National driving the train directly toward the cliff…or Labour taking the scenic route toward exactly the same cliff.
Turn Labour Left!
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought Patricia once said she was domiciled (my word) in Rotorua in which case she might know what she is talking about.
Anne. Thanks. We have a large Maori population 37% Aprox and unemployment and rents always impact them first. ( and Gisborne 52%)
Our city is beautiful, and well cared for. Every town has its problems, You could take “grotty area “photos anywhere!!
There are problems, but they are not all on Labour. Forestry changed and jobs went. 1987 on…
None so blind as those that don't want to see.
Were you here during the GFC Sabine?
I do.
and that is why i say what i said. And that is why i will repeat what i said.
namely that what was done to Rotorua, or Tauranga, or Auckland or any of our towns is criminal.
And Jacinda and her motely crew of highly paid fuck ups should be driven from this country.
Iam inclined to agree Sabine. But don't think they should be driven from the country as such. But it is looking more and more likely they will be voted out.
BTW did you see the TOP announcement on tax? They will make the first $15,000 tax free and then 20% tax rate up to $80,000. They will pay for this with a tax on land .75%. They say land records are well kept and not so possible to dodge paying. Superannunants can defer paying until they pass away.
They are also going to give some billon dollars to community housing organisations to build more housing.
And they are going to write off beneficiary debt.
First time in a long while, I felt some optimism that things could change, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much.
Maybe that would 'fix' things – maybe that would make thing worse (always a possiblity). Time will tell, whenever.
Tbh, I don't understand why people are clinging to the (imho) unrealistic expectation that things will get better.
Forestry – Red Stag Timber, are the only gig left in town.
Inexcusable cant.
Rotorua's overall deprivation is 8 with 10 the worst. Some of its suburbs are, from the July report, "among the most deprived communities in New Zealand."
Maori are about 40% of Rotorua's population and all social issues hit Maori disproportionally. That's 4 out of 10 Rotorua families.
Almost 30% of households were considered to be in the top 10% of the most vulnerable NZ households. 78% were "performing below the national average."
About 33% of working-age Maori are unemployed, 41% were not homeowners, 18% do not have access to the internet.
Housing quality for Maori ranks 56th out of 67 tla's due to damp and mould, and 59th out of 67 for overcrowding.
Rotorua is ranked 66 out of 67 for all local authorities for crime.
'Scary' report paints grim picture of Rotorua | Te Ao Māori News (teaomaori.news)
But if you don't want to hear facts, you can hear the impact of that from the leadership: Te Tatau o Te Arawa chairman Te Taru White said the report was a "recognisable picture. You can't put any sugar over this."
He said the district was not the same as it had been seven years ago "by a long shot" and he no longer felt safe at night.
This is not a picture of what you call "grotty photos".
Labour central were protected from this until recently because Steve Chadwick was an ex Labour MP. The covers are now being pulled off.
Labour have been in power for two terms and this is not the result of a functioning Labour government.
they don't want to hear that.
they really do not want to hear that.
they just want to pretend that all is well, as the other option would be too scary.
so they will insult, belittle everyone who dares ask questions, who dares not to agree.
and fwiw, this is the result of a ‘functioning’ labour government. This did not happen accidentally. This happens because they simply refused to listen to anyone who asked them to consider other options. It is their way or the high way. And Labour will be paying that bill for the next few decades if it still exists as a party in the future.
It is amazing how some people fail to look in the mirror or to really respond except to "Other".
Ad, you still don't say what should be done that is not already underway. !!
Steve Chadwick had the final casting vote for…… more housing areas for public housing!! So your rubbish about cover ups is more nasty inferences.
What are you going to do? (Apart for vote for Top)
You are right in the middle of an election Patricia.
So the first think you should do Patricia is open your eyes to the facts.
Then face to face ask those standing for office what their plan is.
Not what their party is. What they promise to do.
Then vote like that and get others around you to do so.
This is what democracy is for.
You do that Ad Good luck… still no real plan offered by the opposition though.
Yes, and Steve is the only one who wants these reserves – and low lying flood zones – to be turned into shit boxes for the poor.
The rest of us we signed petitions and voted against that.
Steve – ex Labour MP, not giving a fuck as to what their constituents want and need. So Labour of them.
It's interesting watching the Rotorua elite get all huffy when the results of decades long profit gouging and exploitation are shoved right back in their face in the form of social issues in emergency housing.
It's tough when not out of sight, out of mind.
Once again Sabine, You exaggerate.
As we used to follow the soccer teams around these parks, I can assure you "They are NOT all in the flood zone"
Where should the homeless go?
Not the Motels?
Not the newly built "shit boxes" to use your descriptor.
So where Sabine? I am sure you have an answer. sarc.
Patricia you and I are 80 years of age and we are women. That means we are comparatively-speaking ignorant and lacking intellectual heft. We don't have the benefit of having spent our working lives in a technically advanced digital world and therefore we don't always understand modern day technical speak. I certainly don't anyway.
In short, that makes us inferior and we must learn to bow to our younger brethren whose knowledge and experience is so much greater than ours.
I know sarcasm is supposed to be the lowest form of wit but sometimes…..
He won't change lol And we are rigid? lol
The 2nd year of the 2nd term is nearly done – that's a nice round up
Ahh, sorry Patricia. I didn't see your reply. Glad to note I was right. 🙂
Rotorua seems to have been building up to the current situation for a long time. The Covid outbreak has served to exacerbate the problem.
Ad is firing off on the back of one report with a shock/horror headline.
I know a little bit from a family member who is a police officer in Rotorua. It sounds to me like a deep seated problem which is going to take many years to turn around. When one reads the linked article, it is clear the local council, together with other affected entities, are doing as much as they can.
Instead of heaping criticism on them isn't it better to give them positive support?
Would you like more reports? Is that the problem?
Sometimes you remind me of a rocket which whizzes up into the air – all fanfare and noise – then fizzles out and falls to the ground.
Wilful ignorance like yours is the prime reason Labour is set to lose.
its not the willful ignorance
its their gleeful arrogance coupled wit their ignorance that will have them lose.
Labour supporters have become the epitome of let them eat cake.
i think what it is on this site is tribalism. Labour all one's life and therefore pay selective attention to things Labour may have achieved and avoid their catastrophic failures.
Anne and Patricia, you are both entitled to your views. I based my judgement on people's arguements not whether I perceive them to be technologically competent or older (god knows I am pretty old myself)
Having been a loyal Labour member and supporter all my life, it has been profoundly disillusioning to observe what is happening to our country on their watch. I know they have had Covid to deal with and that was some challenge, but its all the other stuff for me.
The Health system. They have set up an expensive bureacracy, but still the nurses pay agreement hasn't been finalized. They cut the $100 shift bonus for nurses recently. IMO they have treated health workers (including mid wives) with contempt. These are the people who will give us the best treatment and save our lives. Little has prioritized a health re structure when the ship is sinking.
Housing……f up.
Education, kids not attending schools and Jan Tinettis response is an add showing how great school is. Yeah that will work won't it. Not. BTw I saw it in the add break of the Prime news at 5.30pm and thought, yes, good, kids who don't attend school will be tuned in to Eric reading the 5. 330 pm news.
Labour have spent up large and things in NZ are worse.
The 'problem' is the widespread and frankly mad belief that (overall) things should get better. They will not – not under Labour, not under NAct, not under anyone. And how could they – we’ve fouled our own nest (spaceship Earth), and there’s no getting out of it.
Rural towns have had it good for a number of years now on the back of river-trashing dairy intensification and high milk prices.
It was time to reset, almost everyone wanted that reset, so now rural towns must take their beans rather than rush headlong into environmental disaster.
Agree for those in non-West Coast South Island and in much of central and western North Island.
The rural squalor is there to be fixed – if one has the will to.
Sabine, is the 11% that Rotorua shows a recent trend upwards away from its usual stats? If so, what has happened locally that caused the increase- loss of tourism, timber industry, local closures?
Where I live, a SI rural town, we are at less than three percent unemployment and are importing labour as RSE workers. Perhaps our demographic which contains the highest % of seniors in the country affects the unemployment figures.
Is Rotorua’s 11% high age related? With the number of motel housed residents in Rotorua, is the housing industry locally moribund? Are the figures also distorted by social housing needs being met in Rotorua by the motel band-aid solution and people moving there for housing?
Certainly 11% is a figure that needs addressing.
That was from the pre-election report that the council commisioned.
It is by now worse. The plumbers and other trades people started laying off staff now as people can no longer afford to call them in prices are too expensive.
Seriously people need to understand that Rotorua was just the canary in the coalmine. And the canary died.
I would not be surprised if that number has not gone up since.
And thanks to all the shit happening, local tourists are not staying over night, coming in only for a bit of mountain biking and then leaving. So there is no revenue coming in.
Vote Labour, cause they really really don't give a fuck.
It does seem that once the decision was taken to house the most vulnerable in Rotorua's hotels was taken there was nowhere enough thought given to support services or a pathway to getting people back on their feet and back into their previous communities. Instead the govt contracted out the 'support service' no doubt making some considerable amounts of money and it seems against advice undermined the human rights of the 'Tennants' in the emergency housing by removing them from the protections the Tenancy act provides.
That last part is on this government. How we ended up in this situation sits with all our govts over the last 30 years.
There is some commonality in the areas that are doing poorly. Generally dependant on low paid tourism and horticultural work and a younger Maori population. It is no co-incidence that Auckland urban areas doing poorly are also with high young Maori and Pacifika populations.
Some disparity is a consequence of having a young population – people generally earn less while young, are obviously more likely to be out of the work force to have children and so on.
Some is clearly as a reason of insecure work which regardless of age is more likely to be given by the labour market to Maori and Pacfic Island workers. The level of racism inherent in the New Zealand labour market – especially to its own population is mind-blowing. It clear that many employers would rather import labour than employ local (Maori and Pacific) workers. RSE has its place as it does seem to have cleaned up some (but not all) of the illegal labour orchardists used to use.
Maori business is growing which will offset some of the racism that exists in the current labour market but I suspect will have its challenges. If lots of existing businesses got well ahead by paying back-handers (tourism and building industry for two examples), by exploiting workers, by suppressing wages and being racist, by pocketing cash sales under the table, etc does this mean that Maori business will only succeed by doing the same thing i.e. it is a fixed game in order to be competitive.
The thing is that all governments know these demographics and the consequences of them. Talking about reducing taxes when we know for instance we have an older European population who is placing an ever increasing burden on health and welfare seems suicidal. Supporting continuously low paid low productivity industries like tourism also seems equally stupid. Not fully supporting our young population to thrive and to become the future tax payers is also dumb.
There are people doing good stuff out there but we don't hear enough about them and we don't regulate to ensure others behave as well or don't enforce when we do regulate.
In many ways all the conspiracy bullshit is just playing into existing business owners hands – they are not affected by it really and can just carry on while everyone is distracted doing the old company town cycle.
It is a typical capitalist exploitive arrangement that then leads to:
Until we decide as a society to stop this insidious slide back into Victorian exploitation we are shot.
And you seriously believe that Natz and Act do?
Always, bitterness should have some foundation in reality!
yep. must be lonely being that bitter ALL or the time. must turn chocolate sour.
"From ascendant ACT and National". The Luxon bubble seems to have burst if you look at the poll of polls here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_general_election
Though that Labour 29.5% in the latest Roy Morgan is a worry.
well their low was Cunliffe 26.7 %.
They can beat that any time, they are that good.
The October Roy Morgan certainly does not reflect the trend in the graph in the Wiki article.
There National is dropping and Labour levelling out. The previous August Roy Morgan had the gap between the blocs as 1.5%.
Outlier or new trend?
Mac-even in that Roy Morgan poll it is;
Lab/Gr/MP 45.5
Nat/Act 48.5
So with over a year to go there is all to play for, and as you say the trend seems to show the Nats share of the vote falling.
The graph shows the poll figures averages (the coloured dots are the actual poll figures, and the line is the average between them)
The latest RM poll is (as I said last night) an outlier based on the recent polling. RM have form on this – they produced a poll last April with 8% between the parties – which wasn't shown by other polls, or by them subsequently. So it seems as though their results might be a little more variable and/or prone to error.
We'll need to see what the next polls show, to see if this is a trend. Curia will be polling now (they always do the first week of the month), so shouldn't be too long to wait.
However, even with these rose-coloured-glasses – this is not a good result for Labour – they are certainly not rising in the polls.
The really interesting thing (to me, at least) is the continued strength of the 'minor' parties (ACT/Greens). I think that, whether the election goes right or left, the minor parties are going to have a much greater influence on the government than they have had previously.
Just choose the poll you like best.
It really doesn't matter as there is no election until next year.
Yes Jimmy. One real poll.
It could in theory be held in early 2024.
Between the budget update and the May ( last figures) update net debt increased 5 billion.
Total borrowing reached 202,617 b and increase on the budget figures of 8.6 billion.Watch for the spin as they try to sell a lower figure,its only for the voters the markets calculate risk on the actual debt,and ability to pay.
One of hundreds thought to have disappeared during recent demonstrations.
https://twitter.com/Asope_/status/1577362914108915716
Iranian security forces stole the body of a 16-year-old protester, and buried her secretly in a village, sources close to the family told BBC Persian.
The family had planned to bury Nika Shakarami on Monday, but her body was snatched and buried in a village about 40km (25 miles) away, the sources said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63128510
When women (born ones) have no value that is what happens.
If you promise your wife you've done enough for your career, then change your mind for the money, well what happens is you've fucked up your marriage and your family permanently.
'The end': Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen hire divorce lawyers amid marriage woes – NZ Herald
All for greed Tom Brady.
Electricity Generation well within safe bounds,with around 300mw of reserve in each Island.
Demand reduced somewhat by school holidays,and daylight saving reducing demand somewhat at nights due to less lighting needed.
Wholesale prices 86-96 mwh (south to north) compared with Australia spot price at 160-179 mwh.
and people not turning on the heater.
Putin needs to be given an off-ramp. Here is my suggestion:
Mine.
Why do you think NZers want tax cuts for high income earners, when it’s gone tits up for the UK?
Look, Brian, it’s totally different here.
Why’s that?
Well we think we can get away with it, Brian. Very important that.
So you think the NZ people are suckers?
Your words, Brian. We prefer trickle down positive. Much better.
Just so!! Brilliant summation Newsense.
Brilliant – how I miss the ABC's 'Clarke and Dawe' sketches on the 7:30 Report.
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/clarke-and-dawe-on-howards-end/2678252
It's great.
Even though the subject matter is different and decades had passed, I still hear Fred Dagg in the delivery.
Here’s an oldie and goodie – Aussie PM John Howard discusses Climate Change.
https://youtu.be/PhZK2KFV8SU
Different Brian to Bryan? It does matter……
Well of course. Never mind the "mistakes" …Kinda puts in mind of WW1 British Generals. (most Generals for that! ) Keep a frontal assault on the machine guns. We have more men than they have bullets. And WE will be ok.
Maybe ol' Lux-deluxe had General Haig..or similar, as one of his historic heroes?
ACT's answer to the rural unemployment problem and Nationals by default is to move the unemployed to the big population center's where there are jobs.But no housing or support networks.Winston had his $1 billion dollar a year provincial growth fund which was dropped by Labour so neither of the major parties have a rural investment policy.
general melchett. do the same thing nineteen times and the hun wont suspect anything. too bad about the collateral damage.
Yes indeed. Sadly almost true to life history. ( and was probably the tragicomedy of the Blackadder series: (
Lux-deLuxe could well be channeling Haig/Melchett
29.5 % !!
They will continue to fade away back to where they were when Little was leader.
Probably just as well Ms Adern has a well supported international profile so her future employment is assured.
They don't know her as well as we do.
Meanwhile the new messiah is trying to justify tax increases for the struggling rich.
Apparently our economy is doing so much better than the U.K and its time to give more of our money back to those up top. At least he is consistent but like the rest of the Nasty Natz it always thinks it can fix the problem by making the rich a little richer.
Asked about reducing the top tax rate for high-income earners, he said New Zealand had a higher cost of living and lower wages than other countries and in a competitive world, it needed tax incentives.
Well at least Aloha Luxon admits we are a low wage economy and he like his predecessors and business leaders want to keep it that way.
Just occurred to me that there is method in Luxon's "Lower the Tax" repetitions.
Every time he gets asked to justify why they will Lower the taxes, he gets to repeat endlessly:
-wasteful spending
-borrowing too much
-too many taxes
-projects unfinished
And those things stick in the minds of we the peasants. He must welcome the question every time. Are we playing into his strategy?
Well said ianmac.
There is a reason that Luxon looks so smug when asked the same question again and again and he trots out the same stuff. But sadly the peasants latch onto the parts which say, wasteful spending, incompetent government, unfinished projects, too high taxes on your money etc etc.
Who are the peasants you refer to Ian mac?
Maybe the so called peasants think wasteful spending, incompetent govt unfinished projects too higher taxes on your money rings true.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-08-2022/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-table
I’d be interested to hear NAct’s plan to fix this – pity "the struggling rich"? [@8]
Anker we are the peasants. I know this because I hear ordinary chaps like me explain to reporters that this Government is hopeless because that nice Air N man told me often about that, so what he says must be true. Perception?
And Luxon does look smug when being given the chance in QT to say it all again.
What's that you say, strong economy? Deficit half what was forecast?
Intelligent people can tell the economy is strong, just drive on the motorway, go to the shopping malls on the weekend. Don't need Treasury to convince, or the opposition to try convince otherwise.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/476112/treasury-reports-smaller-than-forecast-budget-deficit-of-9-point-7-billion
I hope the electorate is listening…
…and…
Grant Robertson exposes the constant lying coming out of the boardrooms:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/130056150/tax-take-up-more-than-10-as-company-profits-and-paye-receipts-jump
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/corporate-profits-give-grant-robertson-a-93b-surprise-as-government-books-inch-closer-to-surplus/JRLR66PD5Z47BMWU2T4OAT26HQ/
Total borrowings increased 203965 22 an increase of 44.1 b.
Interest increased to 3.349 billion an increase of 1.1 b.
Total revenue 141.6b
Total expenses (151 b)
Gains (non financial) 3 b
Financial instruments ( 9b) loss.
Other (.3b) loss.
= Operating balance (16.9B)
page 4
As ever. Continuous. "Belts must be tightened" (just not theirs).. "The employee wages ! " Who EVER looks at what these fkn Board members..or useless "managers" receive? When are they EVER Performance Reviewed?
And….you prob remember…sir Key and his "devilbeast" which the slimy creep lobbed to derail Labour and Greens.
Also…different Bank "spokespeople" who continually (and IMO malignantly) threw all the shit at Labour Greens.
We must fight hard as, to prevent those Nact creeps from throwing NZ back to…the dogs.
Now there is the unpublished plan!! PL.O They dare not publish that as policy or we would throw Nat/Act to the wolves.
Then to compensate for every tax payer except those within the lowest threashold could have their INCREASE in tax paid compensated with an increase of the tax theasholds. Pay increases below inflation (which is most of us) and paying more in tax how is that allowing for this prosperity, less in real terms of after tax income ???
I hope you can see that !!!!
Instead of 'frittering' it on those richies that don't need it, how about 'spending' it on those poor-ohs that do! Then tax the richies at the same time. Who the hell would feel sorry for them?
Luxon's tax cuts for the well off who have had massive untaxed wealth gains during the pandemic . the subsequent massive disruption to the just in time supply line ,local food supplies and the Ukrainian war disruption of oil , gas and grain supplies leading to inflation.Which is hitting the middle classes and poor really badly.We shouldn't criticise Luxon let him have his Tricledown fantasy and let him cling to it,as 65% of New Zealand is against Tax cuts for the well off as they have already had the lions share of the $50 billion QE money print.The peasants are paying for it in everyday rapidly rising accomodation and food cost's.Luxon is peddling cruelty to those who are struggling while those who have gained the most are being rewarded again.The well off! What will they do with their tax cut windfall while the rest line up at the food bank .The well off will be buying up under valued properties for more tax free capital gain making it even tougher for the poor to work there way out of poverty. Luxon = Tricledown=more widespread poverty.
Yes and Luxon has promised to remove all hinderances Labour have created to the "Fire Economy". (See Jane Kellsey’s work.)
Let Luxon have his trickle down fantasy?
In 18 months it will be our reality.
Damn. The rest is behind the Newsroom paywall. Could hint a change of support which would help the 3 Waters initiative which the Opposition cynically oppose. Anyone have the substance of the article?
Well spotted Ianmac. Yes guardianship and co-governance is gaining credibility.
Link please or I'll be deleting.
Here it is:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/newsroom-survey-council-candidates-support-co-governance-with-iwi-maori
RBNZ increases OCR rate by .5 meeting market expectations,said .75 was on the table.
Market responds with currency appreciation (against US$) of 1.25%,as bond buyers come back and yields dropping on long bonds.
Anti inflationary to some extent as liquid fuel costs expected to increase with OPEC cut later tonight,and Whitehouse suggesting limits on distillate fuels.
" Liz Truss MUST ditch welfare cuts to prevent a 'benefits bloodbath', says Gordon Brown
An all out assault planned for the the poor and people planning to retire by the Tories.
The Queen is to blame for the anger generated over the rich listers tax cut.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/kwasi-kwarteng-blames-queens-death-28154596
Mr Faafoi has become a lobbyist.
" Ministers are already more than well-remunerated for their public service. We should not allow them to continue to corruptly profit from their public roles as some sort of "retirement package".
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2022/10/close-this-revolving-door.html
Parliament is on it.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/129962986/tova-obrien-bill-seeking-to-limit-restraint-of-trade-clauses-to-be-debated
Thanks for the intel Incognito.
Heaven help us if National get anywhere near being the government.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
”More than 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain in recent years can be attributed to spending cuts to public services and benefits introduced by a UK government pursuing austerity policies, according to an academic study.
The authors of the study suggest additional deaths between 2012 and 2019 – prior to the Covid pandemic – reflect an increase in people dying prematurely after experiencing reduced income, ill-health, poor nutrition and housing, and social isolation.”
As woodart said at 7.2… collateral damage. Just those at the lower end of course.
Love this one.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/05/stage-three-tax-cuts-what-is-albo-even-doing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
First Dog is on the money again.