Open mike 17/03/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 17th, 2024 - 9 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

9 comments on “Open mike 17/03/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. dv 1
    17 March 2024 at 5:47 pm

    Back well done .

  2. SPC 2
    17 March 2024 at 7:49 pm

    New Zealand is known for its low level of debt and associated lack of infrastructure. and National exaggerates the debt level (to the point of not counting assets) to reduce investment (in anything not a road servicing business interests/trucking and those with access to second homes).

    The Government's general net debt to nominal GDP was 21% in the year up to June 2023, up from 19.7% the year before.

    Finance Minister Nicola Willis has frequently criticised rising debt levels and the quality of spending under Labour.

    ACT leader David Seymour also criticised Labour for leaving the next generation with a debt burden in the billions.

    Meanwhile, other commentators called for an even higher debt ceiling given the country's enormous need for infrastructure.

    New Zealand's infrastructure deficit is at about $210 billion, and growing, according to a 2021 report ordered by the Infrastructure Commission.

    National does this as part of its keep government small to provide occasional tax cuts to those in the middle class (not being burdened by "wasteful spending" as part of protecting the well to do from a CGT and estate tax – 24/36 OECD nations have both).

    In raising this issue Grant Robertson is highlighting a lesson he learnt as Minister of Finance – that both National and Labour have focused too much on low debt

    In 2017, Robertson said he and James Shaw — then a Green Party co-leader and Associate Finance Minister — devised the budget responsibility rules their respective parties wanted to limit themselves to. At the time, the pair wanted to keep net debt at 20% of GDP, similar to levels set by previous Governments.

    In 2022, Robertson announced a new net public debt ceiling of 30% of GDP. "New Zealand does need a lower level of public debt than some other countries around the world because we have natural disasters and we are a small country," Robertson said.

    "But keeping slavishly to a percentage like that means we're not investing enough in our infrastructure. That's the bottom line. "We should use our balance sheet more and better to invest in infrastructure."

    A classic case is the Cook Strait connection, public transport, coastal shipping, water infrastructure, "Onslow" hydro dry years insurance, public housing, health and education buildings etc

    National are moving to advocate for private sector funding in health and education buildings and roads – enabling private sector profit from lack of public sector investment.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/17/grant-robertson-nz-can-sustain-more-government-debt/

  3. aj 3
    17 March 2024 at 8:32 pm

    Cameron Bagrie:

    When you cancel plan A, make sure you have plan B

    https://twitter.com/cameronbagrie/status/1768521403392012389

  4. SPC 4
    18 March 2024 at 12:40 am

    A drunk uncle at a wedding impersonation, Archie Bunker with his son in law.

    • SPC 4.1
      18 March 2024 at 1:07 am

      7min 20 seconds in, the name Winston comes up.

      One of his final topics was the Treaty of Waitangi. Peters pushed back on the idea that it was “a partnership between the signatories”.

      ”Today what is being taught at universities on this matter denies the simple fact that neither Queen Victoria, nor her successors, could constitutionally enter, with their subjects, a partnership.”

      Not much of a lawyer then, because the Crown was negotiating with the indigenous people, who had claimed sovereignty in 1835, not subjects.

      And the partnership that was created was one between the UK Crown and the residents in New Zealand, settler and Maori. One that any Crown government in that realm was expected to honour.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/watch-live-nz-first-leader-winston-peters-to-give-state-of-the-nation-address/BPCKTCK2MBAWRD5CHADECZDG4Y/

    • SPC 4.2
      18 March 2024 at 2:21 am

      If a person of superannuant age was privileged enough to go to university, they did so at a time when this was uncommon – that indicated an origin, or future, of privilege.

      How people use that privilege is up to them.

      One would know that there was little education in Maori history at the time, nor the story of native education well known.

      At one point it was thought Maori might die off a as a people. And it had also become uncommon for there to be any discussion of Treaty rights.

      And so Maori were coming to assimilate into a settler society, just as migrants were.

      It was at this time 1950's-60's that Winston Peters received his cultural upbringing. And this is how we should see the like of him – as someone who chose to join the National Party back in the early 1970's while at university

      https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/maori-history-avoided-schools-academics

      The end of academic education for Maori, lest they remain a people of mana.

      https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/09/29/the-danger-of-an-untold-story.html

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_schools