Looks like the focus groups behind this government are beating the drums against the teacher unions. First Rodney Hide’s dog whistle article against the unions in the HOS, then the Herald running a poll to find out what people think about the unions.
It’s encouraging at least to read the comments below Rodney’s rant.
The right really hate unions that protect their workers, don’t they?
Interesting obsservation Paul, one that strikes a chord. There looks to be a small management clique at the Herald who don’t think much of journalistic impartiality, some of the pro-National editorials from one Herald staffer in particular are quite outrageous in their condescending bias and Goebbels style propaganda.
Hide can say what he pleases, he’s a guest commentator, but it is curious how the Herald have a poll inside his article on the same subject he’s criticising. A cynic might suggest the results of the poll may not be exacty accurate either.
The Herald often run a ‘dog-whistle’story then ask for ‘people’s’ opinions.
It’s an attempt either to test the water for new (suspected unpopular) policy or a attempt by the Herald to sway opinion…as your comment inferred.
A quick look at the Herald’s headlines over the past 6 months show a generally negative perspective on teachers.
The owners of the Herald have spoken to the editor, clearly.
I’d lean towards Pauls view. In the last few years the Herald has written a few editorials of their own criticising the teachers union and I don’t recall ever seeing them praising the union at any time. Further to that the Herald wasn’t exactly union friendly during the ports dispute either.
There’s a definite anti-union bias at some levels in the Herald. They’re also pro-charter schools, again they’ve written a number of editorials in favour of it and I don’t recall any that were against it.
(note I’m taliking about editorials written by Herald staff and not guest commentaries)
A cynic might suggest the results of the poll may not be exacty accurate either.
Don’t need to be a cynic, just a skeptic. Everybody should realise that the polls on the NZHerald aren’t scientifically accurate and especially when those polls are posted on an opinion piece which will probably be read mostly by the people who actually agree with who wrote the opinion.
Three out of four of Hide’s recent columns have consisted of attacks on teachers. These attacks are clearly linked to the dismal charter schools policy. Remember, charter schools are 100% the product of this half-wit and his half-witted party. neo-liberalism is a fanatic religion; the neo-liberals consider the successful resistance by education experts to their crack pot ideological ideas as a religious affront; And they accordingly approach the issue with an obsessive fanaticism.
And the sooner that people realise that the neo-liberal theory that we’ve had dumped on us by governments over the last 30 years is a religion the better.
Conservatives hate two things. Change and instability. Yet we have had conservatism in the ascendancy for the last thirty years, a revolutionary conservatism that made change (growth, profits, etc) the new stability, the new normal. With the end of cheap oil revolutionary conservatism, the bashing unions given any opportunity, is not sustainable, in fact its highly destabilizing. Who in their right mind bashes the unions, whose members have huge buying power in a time of global depression? Well a unreconstructed revolutionary conservative (Key bashing unions quite unnecessarily over the Hobbit movie).
Its like this. Societies need to redistribute wealth or they implode in civil disorder, in cheap oil times the means to redistribute was through the private banking system leveraging the printing of money. But all that has changed, we need to redistribute, that needs workers to demand higher salaries (take the foot off the pedal of high finance that took their marginal pay cuts and turned it into a bubble bonanza), and so all the natural inclinations of the lousy right to bash and screw over, that was once so recently in vogue and necessary to profits and eating up cheap energy, is no longer.
The problem with the Herald and many talking heads in NZ is that they just don’t know they are wrong, or just have invested too much in being tough unflinching types that they don’t get the joke they are becoming.
Editorial: Revamp tax system to help out home buyershttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10865948
Rental housing is a business providing a service that people would prefer to provide for themselves if they could afford to. When competition from the business is making it harder for them to afford it, the business should not have a tax advantage.
If the removal of interest deductions discouraged residential property investment, lowered prices for first-home seekers and forced established home-owners to look for more productive uses of their savings, the country could be better off socially and economically.
Well the NZ Herald Editorial’s argument would be an improvement on the current situation, but it is still tinkering with the system rather than aiming to change it.
It assumes everyone wants to buy their own home.
Rental housing is a business providing a service that people would prefer to provide for themselves if they could afford to. When competition from the business is making it harder for them to afford it, the business should not have a tax advantage.
If the removal of interest deductions discouraged residential property investment, lowered prices for first-home seekers and forced established home-owners to look for more productive uses of their savings, the country could be better off socially and economically.
This is a self-fulfilling prophesy, rather than aiming for a system where their is a choice between renting and owning your home. I am a life-time renter by choice. I think the focus on everyone owning their own home is set up in the interests of the banks and wealthy classes. It adds extra unnecessary pressures to workers on lower pay.
Increasing the amount of affordable state housing, and community housing plus some fair (to both landlords and renters) restrictions on private renting needs to be done as part of a comprehensive policy of change.
The problem being there that for the working poor,those who earn below $45,000 annually a State house is really only a dream as that cohort in the economy number anywhere from 250-300,000, and are now in places like Auckland and Christchurch paying 50%+ of their income in rent,
Successive Governments have aided and abetted the growth of this situation and who knows if this has been a deliberate measure,but, the number of State rental properties has remained static as the New Zealand population has grown from 3.3 million to 4.4 million in a relatively short period of time considering how long that population growth took to reach 3.3 million,
Globalization has allowed the banking cartels to be the sole producer of the money supply and those cartels have been only too happy to ‘produce’ monies to help along the price inflation from the ‘failure’ of the building industry to meet either the actual demand of the numbers of houses required and produce enough lower cost housing to constrain inflation in that sector,
Unfortunately the solutions for those in the rental market in the bigger cities are as radical as the house price inflation that has already occurred,
Government could simply Legislate that all rent for those households with an income of $45,000 or less a year pay no more than 25% of that total household income as rent,
A change to the housing law would be required to remove the ability of a landlord to remove a tenant for any reason after giving 90 days notice leaving only failure to pay rent, damage to property, and, disturbing the quiet enjoyment of neighbors to enjoy their property as the only means of removing a tenant from a rental property,
The $1.2 Billion dollar Accommodation supplement would need be cancelled and a ‘new’ WINZ benefit would need be established as a hardship grant landlords could apply to WINZ for to gain, after the production of suitable proof of hardship, a WINZ grant to enable the payment of mortgages,
Obviously as the banking cartels simply ‘produce’ the mortgages at the center of the failure of the property market they should be returned the same ‘produce’ in return and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand would have to be tasked to provide to WINZ the funds to pay such hardship grants to landlords using the same means of production as the banking cartels…
Back when the AS was introduced (under Shipley?) community organisations such as the Sallies predicted this situation with rising rental prices would occur. How to undo the damage of the AS without causing social harm is a difficult thing.
Until then I have to buy the odd lotto ticket. How pathetic.
The Accommodation Supplement tho was simply the addition of more fuel to the fire, in reality nothing more than a taxpayer subsidy for those investing in rental properties who in all reality have become the ticket clippers for the banking cartels to suck a large proportion of the profits of production,(the workers share), out of the New Zealand economy,
Norm Kirk’s Labour Government were building 30,000 State houses a year at it’s peak, this is the only other means i can at present think of besides what i have outlined in my previous comment of addressing this ‘issue’ particularly in cities like Auckland and Christchurch,
Both Labour and the Green Party have housing policy that addresses specific income groups effected by this house price, (and therefore rental), inflation,unfortunately even with a ‘peak build’ of 30,000 houses annually it would take 10 years for this inflation to be brought under control,
The point of my advocacy of a maximum 25% of household income for those with a household income of $45,000 a year or less would be the immediacy of it’s effect on both rental accommodation in the major cities and, (perhaps), on actual demand from investors for properties…
Or we could get real and build something like this and rent the lot out at 25% of household income,
Apparently the Chinese can knock one of these together in 3 years and have done so all over China and in places in Africa, shops, schools, sports-fields, everything, one of these tho would need a comprehensive public transport link to the rest of Auckland,
You claim that the Kirk Government was building 30,000 state houses/year at its peak.
That is wildly wrong. The peak construction of the 72-75 Labour Government was the 4,000 state houses built in the 75-76 year.
Brilliant CV, abso-lutely f**king brilliant, that also should be included in the school curriculum,
i have been arguing this very argument for years, the building of the houses justifies the printing of the debt, once you have the built houses you have the asset which nullifies the debt so there is no point keeping the debt on the books,
The same could be achieved by ‘selling’ the houses to the tenants, as the payments are made on a minimal basis the debt held by which-ever Government department would simply disappear,
It’s funny how very few people can ‘see’ this,and, i would dare say that such a production of money could not be used to fund everything, and, such a build off of the basis of such money would need to take the Reserve Banks inflationary targets into the time span of the build, but rocket science it aint,
Lolz the last paragraph says it all, threats from the slave masters in London of economic sanctions if Labour continued to print it’s own coin,
Should imagine that such threats would still be forthcoming in these modern times, probably from the banking cartels, bit hard tho to issue such threats when the US Government is printing $40 billion a month to spend upon ‘infrastructure’…
Ok. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand
It’s in section 1.5 “Social Policy” in the bit with the heading “Major initiatives in Housing”. I’m afraid I can’t aim you directly at the words.
The person I am replying to is confusing total house construction in the year with state house construction.
You are in essence correct, i got the figure of 30,000 State houses built at the peak of the Kirk Labour Government’s term in office from a discussion with someone else and it is obviously my mistake to think that these 30,000 homes were all built ‘as State houses’,
The Kirk Government though in it’s generous treatment of low income people ’caused’ the great bulk of those houses to be built by direct intervention in the financing of loans to those reliant upon low incomes,
While happily admitting my mistake vis a vis the 30,000 homes built that year along with the 27,000 the year befor, and, the 24,000 the year befor that not being all State houses i cannot point to how this in any material way has any effect on the discussion here this morning, if it does, please point this out,
Lolz i recommend EVERYONE read that link, (it should be part of the school curriculum), can anyone imagine the skinflint miserly Governments that came after Kirk’s 3rd Labour Government paying beneficiaries an extra benefit payment as a ‘Christmas bonus’,
Kirk’s was a Government on a serious mission to improve the lives of every body, even going so far as to provide the Hippies of the time land via the ‘Ohu scheme’ where they could explore alternative lifestyles,
That Government should be the template by which all Labour Governments of the future Govern….
PS, and if i hear anyone in the Parliamentary Labour team attempt to compare David Shearer to Norman Kirk again i swear i am going to f**king vomit,
I suggest that Labour strategists wanting to make that comparison read the link kindly provided by ‘Alwyn’ above and when David Shearer comes out proposing the same treatment for beneficiaries as the Kirk Government DELIVERED then and only then may you have the temerity to attempt such a comparison…
I’m sorry about the bit that says “The person I am replying to”.
I got confused by the various comments here and didn’t register that it was you who both made the comment AND asked for the reference.
There was one thing the Kirk Government did about their housing policy that I strongly disapproved of though. I built a house in 1974 and the Government brought in a rule that the total area of a house was limited to 1500 sq ft (about 139 sq m). It meant I had to cut out one bedroom from the house which was a pain in the butt. God knows why they decided that that was a limit regardless of the size of your family.
No need to offer any apology, the comments in a post or open mike can be hard to follow, i usually read them all and don’t miss much,
Yes i can imagine people would have been a little up-set over having the size of their build restricted by Government,
i can well imagine why, to keep the allocation of Government resources reasonably even as they were allocated,
i should imagine the next Labour/Green Government will have for the cities a specific build size in mind for their specific housing policies,
Part of the failure of the current housing market is that it is being lead in no small part by the developers building the largest house possible on any given parcel of land to recoup the largest profit off that investment, that’s capitalism for you,
Given tho that in the past 30 years the average size family has shrunk down to Ma and Pa with 1.2 kids while the average house size has risen from 100m to 200m it starts to seem like one hell of a waste of space,
Do we really in a world of shrinking resources, shrinking capital and shrinking earnings for many actually need a fully lined garage for 3 vehicles along with a couple of ensuites attached to the bedrooms of our housing stock,
It all seems way too effete for me, but then i am a peasant who prefers to jump in a river or the sea or even under a hose than get in the shower…
On the awful looking suburbs built by developers in South Auckland that I have seen, I compare with the situation which prevailed in the 1960s and 70s. Then the developer divided up the property, applied for titles and prepared the sections and had a book of plans that had been costed to choose from.
Any changes would add to the price, and you got a nice house that was fitted to your needs. Since when have developers got the right to decide on our living environment? It’s like living in military housing or in an upper class open jail.
Government could simply Legislate that all rent for those households with an income of $45,000 or less a year pay no more than 25% of that total household income as rent,
Set mortgage’s as a fixed value but that it cannot go above 25% of income. The weekly payment would be the lesser of the two. Also make them a fixed term so that extra payments can’t be added to the mortgage to make up any loss when the payments drop below the fixed value.
And then make mortgages available to home owners with 0% interest.
Why mess around with mortgages, it is the people trapped paying rent with a household income of $45,000 or less that i am addressing here, a lot of the time particularly in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington at 50+% of income,
Making mortgages cheaper will simply lead to an increased demand for property and while that demand exists rents will remain as they are, far too high for those forced to rent…
Yes you limited the payments made on a mortgage to 25% of i presume household income,
This would simply have far more people seeking a house as would supplying those people with 0% interest home loans,
That would simply inflate the price of houses further leaving people with limited incomes with mortgages that could never in their lifetime be paid,
The ‘problem’ is tri-fold in that the population through immigration has been artificially increased over a short period by a million while housing construction lags behind by 8 years and the banking cartels have ‘produced’ easy credit for some to allow them to take advantage of the demand,
At the heart it is simply a supply/demand ‘problem’, if as a country we had of built the housing first and then invited in the immigrants to match what would have been an oversupply of housing we would not be faced with the ‘problem’…
That would simply inflate the price of houses further leaving people with limited incomes with mortgages that could never in their lifetime be paid,
How can such a system inflate house prices when the value of the house is limited to pay back of 25% of income, the government is busily building and renting out accommodation at 10% of income as well as supplying mortgages at 0% interest?
You seem to be suggesting that you would set the value of houses by legislation well below their current ‘market value’???,
The particular comment of yours we are debating might make sense in your mind, but, perhaps you need rephrase it as it doesn’t explain anything in the manner it is written,
If you are limiting the maximum amount anyone would pay on a mortgage on any property to 25% of household income while offering loans at 0% interest the end result is that EVERYONE could have a home with an affordable mortgage,
The reality tho, if i may drag you back to Earth, is that demand for housing to purchase currently out-strips supply by 8 years so allowing EVERYONE the opportunity to buy on low cost mortgage only serves to increase demand which the building industry cannot fill…
Not everybody could afford a mortgage or, to be more precise, not everybody could afford a house simply because the real cost of building one would be beyond their capability of repaying. There would be time limits that apply as well. Just because the mortgage is set at no more than 25% of income doesn’t mean that someone on minimum wage would be able to go out and buy a house.
And I’m sure you’ll find that the construction industry is quite capable of building the necessary housing. It may be challenged initially but that could be seen to over time.
Really Draco, so exactly who are you trying to help here, if those who are trapped in the low income brackets cannot afford to buy a house under the auspices of what you propose then just who would be able to???,
Where then does this leave those on the lowest incomes trapped paying rent to the middle classes of 50%+ of their limited income???…
Really Draco, so exactly who are you trying to help here, if those who are trapped in the low income brackets cannot afford to buy a house under the auspices of what you propose then just who would be able to???,
Geoff
To me, one of the biggest problems for renters is that houses get revalued according to current market prices, which are usually up. So the renter is always paying more for the same house or flat, so the return for the owner goes up, often with little maintenance or improvement carried out to maintain the amenity.
Yup agreed, but house prices need to be corrected down significantly. I’m sure there are a number of other factors, rent prices like house prices are sticky upward.
Rent prices tied to house prices??? by what??? rent prices are as far as i can see tied to nothing much in particular and are just as likely to be set by the landlord looking on TradeMe to see what other landlords are charging for ‘like’ properties…
Tied by mortgages. Landlords have to cover the cost of their loans but yes there are other factors, probably none of which favour the renter.
I’m sympathetic with karol’s perspective but I believe there are far more people who would like to own but are forced to rent than there are people who are just happy to rent. In any case there must be solutions that cater to both interests, the trouble being that it certainly won’t be in the interests of the landlords who are quite happy with the way things are.
Another good reason to tax businesses at a gross rate. Remove the perverse incentive to have a continuous flow of interest via buying more properties to reduce your tax bill here and elsewhere by offsetting the losses.
Look forward to the righties today moaning about Lydia Ko bludging off the state. Clearly has the means and ability to support herself but prefers to still live off money from high performance sport funding.
Shit forgot it’s only bludging when you have no job and you aren’t travelling all over the world, you have to go to Winz for food cause you’ve got no money to buy any and you have applied for 50 jobs and got 1 interview if you are lucky, have to live off porridge or weetbix, can’t afford to go to the doctor, and so on.
That writer doesn’t have it right either. I don’t know why but most people seem to have trouble doing averages & percentages in their head.
To understand investors it helps to start with the basic principle of investing; that the investment must provide a market return.
To explain; assume that a property investor wants the same return as bank deposits and that rent makes up the return (they actually want more than bank deposits but run with this for now)
At 10% bank interest rates a $250k property will be returning $25k.
Now interest rates fall to 5%, which is what happened
The property will still be returning 10%, because rents didn’t fall with interest rates. Now it’s returning twice as much as bank deposits.
Investors move from bank deposits to property, because the return is higher.
Price of property goes up until it reaches $500,000 because the $25k return from the property is 5% of $500k and 5% is what the bank is paying.
And if interest rates go back up… well rents go up because the return is then too low. In economic theory the property value should go down but in real life it doesn’t.
That’s actually what happens in commercial property, it’s a kind of rachet which means prices constantly go up but can never come down as long as there’s renters to fill the properties. Interest rates go up & down but rents never go down so changes in interest rates lead directly to higher property prices.
You’re ignoring the fact that many people invested in property for the capital gain.
You could argue that they are not “investors” but I can find you people who would have to charge far more than would be possible to meet their interest bill. They meet this from their good salary and not doing any maintenance.
The only sums they did was if I sell it in 1 or 2 years time how much can I sell it for?
Yeah but that’s the Govt’s fault. To qualify as an investor, and not pay tax on capital gains, you have to be in property for the rental returns only. Can find the IRD ruling here;
“If you’re an investor you buy a property to use it to generate ongoing rental income and not with any firm intent of resale. The property is a capital asset and any later profit or loss from selling the property is capital and isn’t taxable (apart from clawing back any depreciation, which is now recoverable). ”
Now we all know that rents alone don’t provide a market return on most properties and that residential ‘investors’ are in it for the capital gain but they can’t admit that because they’d be disqualified from being classed as an investor if they did. They say they’re in it for the rental return only but the numbers say emphatically that they’re not.
Those people aren’t investors. They’re speculators. Investors underpin market values, speculators ride on the back of the activities of investors.
It doesn’t matter to an investor if the return is from rents or capital gain. All that matters is the return on the investment is commensurate with market rates and those rates are linked directly to bank deposit rates.
To understand investors it helps to start with the basic principle of investing; that the investment must provide a market return.
No it doesn’t, it can lose the whole lot invested. Just because investors look for a return doesn’t mean that they’re going to get one. It’s part of that risk that goes with investing.
When you loan out or invest money, you’re taking a risk that you’re not going to get it back.
Mate the market sets the return according to risk. The market starts at what’s known as a risk free rate of return and every other investment type has to return more than that, by how much is commensurate with the perceived risk. Govt bonds are usually treated as the risk free rate but not always and retail investors tend to rely on term deposits for the guide to investment returns.
Where novice investors often lose out is in high risk investments that pay correspondingly high rates of return. A large part of the return above the risk free rate is supposed to be capital; risk insurance that you invest elsewhere. But they take it as income & spend it all. When the investment goes titsup they’re out of pocket.
Risk is poorly formulated, say in the risk models of Banks.The inverse problem is that the short term games of say bankers and investors is primarily on the rate of return and future expectations of the rate of return Risk comes later (which it did recently) where we have both the markets trying to explain how they lost a few trillion to investors and the remarkable supernatural powers of regulators such as Bollard who discussed the over exposure of Banks to Rural lending to the banks only.
Risk is poorly formulated, say in the risk models of Banks.
One reason being the math underlying things like portfolio management theory / Value At Risk analysis was based on absolutely faulty assumptions. AIG had a team of 20-30 PhDs doing risk modelling for it, just before it got driven into the ground with the financial weapons of mass destruction they were selling.
Nassem Taleb has spoken at length on the subject.
Executives happy not to ask questions and to collect their quarterly bonuses while their scam was running good. When times inevitably turned bad, they got the tax payer to bail them out – and kept all their bonuses anyway.
A very few people did figure it out ahead of the GFC, but the Friedmanite/Greenspan dogma meant that most others put their money where their faith was – in the “Great Moderation”.
However, I think that many at the top knew that it was a rotten ship…NINJA mortgages and other frauds etc.
That’s only partially true. A lot of risk asessment requires insider knowledge and few people have that information available to them. But basic risk profiles such as the risk weightings given to govt bonds, bank deposits and even property are pretty accurate judgements.
I’d also point out that the people responsible for the GFC made obscene wealth from it prior and didn’t lose anything personally from the GFC so their own risk evaluations were pretty accurate weren’t they.
I’d also point out that the people responsible for the GFC made obscene wealth from it prior and didn’t lose anything personally from the GFC so their own risk evaluations were pretty accurate weren’t they.
Too cynical.
A lot of those people were trusted with fiduciary responsibilities, and they should be in jail right now.
But basic risk profiles such as the risk weightings given to govt bonds, bank deposits and even property are pretty accurate judgements.
This is a somewhat absurd, over-trusting statement, even in NZ.
But more so internationally, where the collusion between ratings agencies and their clients are now very well known.
But basic risk profiles such as the risk weightings given to govt bonds, bank deposits and even property are pretty accurate judgements.
Not really. Governments can default, bank deposits (in reality, a loan to the bank) can be lost and property values can go down (usually after a bubble or other financial crash).
I’d also point out that the people responsible for the GFC made obscene wealth from it prior and didn’t lose anything personally from the GFC so their own risk evaluations were pretty accurate weren’t they.
Well, there is that, yes. IMO, that would be a sign of corruption.
Aye, good question. I guess one has to first ask what is it people actually want?
But as far as property investment is concerned there really is a requirement that people understand how investment works. Know it and you can then figure out how to use it against itself. Property has a risk profile and the return from property as a percentage against other forms of investment will never change unless you change that risk profile. That can’t really be done, so what do you do….
If we accept that the return on property will follow basic investment rules then it must follow that if you reduce the return the price must fall to maintain the percentage return to new investors that the risk profile says it must.
You can’t reduce the return by changing tax rules because they’ll just put rents up to recover the lost income. So you do both. You bring rents down by creating an oversupply of rental properties and you tax the capital gain. Investors will be left with no options for restoring the lost revenue so the price of property must fall until it again returns the percentage that the risk profile dictates it must.
Good to see ACC only employs the best of the best (refers to last few lines of the article) and good news for the client … they apologise! Again!! Well now THAT makes it all better.
And, no of course we sensitive claimants wouldn’t expect you to fire anyone.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5
So you are a greater thinker than all the financial brains of the US, Japan,and,England to name a few who are ‘just printing money’, are you,
While your here can you tell us the actual difference in the private banks producing money from thin air and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand doing exactly the same thing…
Actually many of the *events* globally have money at the core, be it getting countries in debt, stealing resorces to stop those same nations you stole from being self sufficient…Not too hard to understand is it, given that its the foot on the throat of the planet!
It does make for depressing reading when you consider this doesn’t appear to be a rougue poll in light of the fact most those supporting National also want Hekia gone. To me that shows they are not just blind National lovers.
They are middle of the road kiwis who can see how destructive and useless Hekia is, but when they look over and see Shearer, well they see no hope.
How long can we go on like this. National voters are showing in polls they don’t support National’s initiatives (asset sales/eduacation) yet they would rather have those policies then have Mumblefuck in charge.
The answer is quite simple isn’t it. Shearer must must must go.
It means people are looking at the big picture.
Most aren’t particularly keen on partial asset sales but they’ll accept it because they prefer national to the labour/greens/mana collective.
Even if labour is saying some good stuff, they’re rather handicapped by their coalition partners, people think “if I vote labour we’ll end up with those green nut bars and Hone the angry racist mofo”.
So tell us again what the actual difference is between the private banking industry producing the money supply and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand doing the same thing???…
No they aren’t. If they were there’s no way that National would ever be in power as National only ever looks to the short term gain of the rich and that only ever comes at everyone else’s expense.
BM you are bang on. I would never consider a vote for Labour with Shearer as leader. However, what is more frightening to me are the potential coalition partners. The Greens and Mana would demand too much that I don’t think a lot of people could stomach, and the potential for chaos is huge. Shearer is not capable IMHO of keeping them under control and he would have to give away too much to bring them on board.
Honestly you people! I give an opinion bad12 and fenderviper and you stoop to that level. How about some intelligent discourse without throwing mud. I feel this says much more about you than it does about me.
If you support Shearer then great. Many don’t and interviews like the one on BFM today certainly do not help.
Chaos as opposed to the well planned and orderly changes brought about by NAct? Our housing policy is run by Australian banks, education is run by Banks, and justice is run by Garth McVicar and that redneck from the Police Association, not to mention the economy being run by a currency speculator and social assistance being handled by an underachieving women who has dominatrix fantasies with everyone except Key, for whom she switches.
I’m not sure the Prozac is strong enough.
Psst, they are only Australian Banks in name only, it’s public relations and advertising which leads us to think of them as Australian Banks when they are actually owned by the global banking cartels,
Just another clever piece of marketing from the Banking Cartels…
yep, it’s a bit bigger than the 5 sisters in the oil cartel, but a banking cartel it is, and, when you look at the connections across the Western world in particular the same players are all there,
i have had debates befor where i have said that all the current 300 million a week Slippery is keeping His government afloat with is simply magic money from Wall Street,
Of course the reply is usually a ”no it’s borrowed from the Banks of Europe”,which is a giggle as they are all inter-connected and the only reason why the digital magic money is sent via Europe is to try and fool us all that it aint Wall Street’s magic money,
The bigger giggle is that it does fool a lot of people, which at the same time is pretty damn tragic…
A lot of the bigger members of the cartel are shy and it would be hard to find, but, sometimes when you dig you find where a biggy like Goldman Saches,(sacks of goldman), have their interest in a particular bank tucked away out of sight in one or more of the nominee companies,(saves the locals getting all antsy about the yanks buying up their banks lol)…
First confuse the people, create credit out of nothing, set up your own competition so there is apparent choice, next thing we’ll all be believing in scientology
Nah we chose neo-liberalism instead, level playing fields, free markets, everyone having personal responsibility, there is no alternative, the phraseology surrounding the Ism are endless, and just as meaningless but the stuff is so glib and the endless flow of it just serves to switch off most of us,
You know tho that ‘they’ have just about run out of steam when they all start uttering that pearl of wisdom ‘at the end of the day’,
Every low level street con-artist was using that phrase years ago…
It’s not Shearer putting them off, it’s the obsession with “identity politics” and the harping of the teacher unions (as shown in the latest survey) that is putting people off Labour. It would be worse without Shearer.
The most depressing thing i see in all that is your belief in this particular poll, the Roy Morgan out barely a week earlier told an entirely different story, what makes you have such faith in the TV1 poll which has since i can remember always polled National at 3% higher than it’s actual election night result…
Exactly, Bad. Not only does the Morgan poll have better methodology, hence more accuracy, they poll fortnightly so they are a more useful tool for monitoring the trend. Which is down for National and their poodles.
I suppose if anything useful can be taken from the CB/TV1 snapshot it is that Shearer appears to have small but solid support in the preferred PM poll. That’s heartening, because Goff never managed to gain traction there and he still came close to winning.
Lolz i take the TV1 and TV3 polls as messin with our heads, even Roy is a bit suspect at times,
i commented about the Morgan poll 1 back from the last 1 as reading National from the high side of the margin of error and Labour from the low side of that error margin,
The latest Morgan reverses that and i believe the TV1 poll does exactly what i suggested the Morgan poll is wont to do…
Oh the f**ked up reason(s) why the Slippery National Government is still strongly supported is simply the ‘tax switch’ which puts 100,s of dollars a week into the pockets of the 40+% of the population that support that Government,
This gives them the ability to fully access the other ‘vote buy’ offered by Slippery the Prime Minister of ‘asset sales’
Across the world the left/right paradigm has closed to just that among committed voters, a few % points either way, this of course is aided by the large cohort who do not vote, even the last election was one of a couple of % points in favor of the right,(with the aberration of the Maori Party thrown in),
So, considering the ‘goodies’ on offer from Slippery’s National Government the ‘left’ aint doing to bad at all,
(take the Maori Party out of the equation and you have a National Government with a knife edge majority)…
part of the difference is that National is the only significant party to cover right to far right policies. I doubt they’ll drop below 35% in the next 6 years, even if labour win in 2014. A bunch of the top 20% will always vote tory, and a smaller chunk of futilely “aspirational” poor people will do so too.
Lab/greens are always going to share the leftish side of the vote.
Matthew Hooton on the radio just now was highly dismissive of this poll being correct. He could not see that nats were polling higher than they were at the election time.Something to do with CB inflating the percentage for nats which is historical.. Inflating was my word as I don’t know how else to put it.
* 972,700 households with annual incomes $20,000+ do not have income protection
* Each year the primary income earner in 14,980 of those households will fall seriously ill and be unable to earn for six months or more
* Those households plunge into The Great Financial Vulnerability Gap at the rate of 288 per week
* With sickness benefits means tested on total household income, thousands of families immediately face serious financial and emotion hardship
Something else that needs to be thought about. People should not be dropping into deprivation through no fault of their own.
My only problem with that case is that it’s going through the courts, rather than medical council for malpractice.
Not to say that the doctor is necessarily at fault, given that medical knowledge does change so maybe banding or whatever wasn’t viewed as an appropriate treatment in those days. Just that I don’t think the courts are appropriate places for highly specialised issues like medicine – similarly I don’t think the cops should be charging pilots and so on without a specific referral from specialist investigation boards. Or even the boards themselves should prosecute, not involve the police at all.
The NZ government fearing that Australia would stop kiwis working in OZ decided that those kiwis who did should not get access to welfare that their earnings are providing Australians.
I’m sorry, but that makes Kiwis second class citizens. That’s just wrong, why should Kiwis pay taxes yet not get the benefits of that taxation all so the NZ government can keep sending them there.
Finally exactly why does everyone think Australia is doing so badly out of the relationship. The business, the banks owned, the work kiwis in OZ pay, the whole relationship is not one
sided. In fact in the free trade speak the sum is greater than the parts.
So why does the media in NZ still demand that NZ just can’t match Australia that kiwis must suffer for the low estimation of what the NZ economy does for Australia. There was never a good reason
for Australia to deny Kiwis access to benefits, since when the sums are done I bet its better together than two seperated economies. Hey, and whats all this business about matching our economies, how exactly is it fait too do that in all areas but welfare?
surely the reason kiwis flock to Oz is that the tax regime here, the lack of a CGT, the leky homes, the astonishing poor retail sector, the lack of even basic consumer checks on food, etc….
they aren’t moving over there because Australia is so great, its because NZ is so poorly run and naff at competing. I have never heard so much bull about how companies need government to ease off, how we need more foriegn investment, etc, all because the hollowed out economy is pumping profits to foreigners (many living in AUSTRALIA).
Kiwis working in Aus should receive a tax cut to allow them to save money for a time when the Aus Govt leave them without a safety net. How they can be taxed at the same rate yet not be given the same protection is just immoral.
You say that “That makes Kiwis second class citizens”. Well no, because they aren’t citizens at all.
Anyone from a country other than New Zealand has to get a work visa before going to Australia. New Zealanders don’t have to and many of them who do go there would not qualify for Citizenship under the Australian rules.
You also say “so the New Zealand Government can keep sending them there”. Also no. Transportation to Australia ended in 1853, which is rather a long time ago. The New Zealanders who go there choose to go, they aren’t sent.
The Australian economy was, until very recently doing better than the New Zealand one. That was mostly in Western Australia and Queensland. Do you think it may be because they allow mining and Oil development or is that just a coincidence?
The main reason that there is foreign investment in New Zealand rather than investment by New Zealanders is because we simply don’t save enough, and there is no incentive to do so. Anyone who saves and invests here is classed, by people like “Sir” Michael Cullen as being merely a “rich prick” and a “scumbag” who deserves to be plucked. On the other hand let us not go down the path of the Government choosing who the tax-payer’s money should be given to. Politicians are terrible at that and are, in particular, never willing to admit when they get something wrong. They much prefer to simply double-up on the bets.
I know its hard to fathom because of all the bull around but the fact that any ‘group’ of people pay taxes and don’t get access to the full range of services that other enjoy, nothing about being a citizen or not, is wrong.
Second, the citizenship argument, there are many people who are not Australians living in OZ who get welfare, its just they come through a process that acknowledges them. Unlike kiwis who just turn up.
Third, you did not address the point, that together our economies do better, the flexibility of allowing Australia to engage more well educated people means their economy can grow faster.
Fourth, everyone pretty much says kiwis should get access to welfare eventually, but do not.
Fifth, when did it become a privilege, Kiwis are guests, when do you treat people worse because they are guest, best mates rates, etc.
If Australia does want to them, send them home, we could do with the economic boost, call their bluff, the economic, social, business, etc relationships all suggest we should be fair, yet this disgrace still exists.
I’ll comment on the paragraphs as they appear. Note these are only my views or the facts of the matter as I understand them to be.
One. I agree, it isn’t really fair but surely a country has the right to set their own rules, not just to submit to what another country demands?
Two. Sure we treat them differently but that is something we chose to do. Again just because we do something doesn’t give us the right to make another country do it.
Three. Perhaps our economies would do better if they were more closely meshed. Observing the EU is making me a little less sure though. Perhaps we could fully mesh the economies. There is a clause in the Australian Constitution that enables New Zealand to become a state. Should we take advantage of that and all become Ockers? At least that would give us a good cricket team and them a good rugby team.
Four. It will probably happen. There is talk of eight years residence.
Five It was in 2001 or 2002. I forget which exactly. It was agreed by Phil Goff, Minister of Foreign Affairs incidentally, something he is desparately having amnesia about these days.
Six. I can’t really believe you are asking that Australia should deport every New Zealand born, non Australian citizen, from Australia?
There are some things Australia does that I think we should emulate. They do not allow non-citizens to vote in Federal or State elections. I heartlily approve.
Another is that Federal MPs (and Senators) must only hold Australian citizenship. There is a slight exception to this, relating mainly to Greek-born politicians but it is there only because Greece refuses to allow people with Greek citizenship to surrender it. I think we should bring in a similar rule. If you want the right to make the laws for this country you should be exclusively loyal to this country. If you want to be an MP here you should be required to relinquish any foreign citizenship.
Countries still need to act reasonably, use commonsense, not be two faced, like invite someone for reasons of closeness and them treat them worse than the most despised. Even criminals get welfare. Sure there maybe an argument that two years without access before welfare kicks in, that people should not just jump the ditch because their NZ PM has told them how great Australia is and how crap NZ compares implicitly when Key says stuff like they made the decision, we have to bend over and accept it NZ is a small useless backwater
we do nothing for the OZ economy. Australia choose to let us in for good economic reasons, is Key saying on the one hand they are so good and on the other were being stupid in a open border policy. Please. As for they choose to when individuals accept the welcome, well no! Howard chose to alter the rules to the extreme end of the spectrum, and its not the first time Australia has done that, removed rights of pacific peoples. Apartheid appeared in OZ before it got to South Africa. Perhaps people who argue for free trade, that the sum of the parts is bigger than the parts alone should not argue that its a burden for Australia, but Key is a hypocrite, there’s certainly no law against PMs being openly ironic, but I don’t have to swallow whole the assumptions implicit in the policy.
As a Australian citizen I find it offense for fence sitters, who want Kiwis in OZ yet don’t treat them fairly, but I suppose if NZ PMs and the community see workers as merely expendable its not a surprise they would flock to OZ and have their leaders vindicitively agree to have taxes taken off them to pay for beneficiaries in OZ but not get the same access
EVER without having to give up their citizenship. I mean they turned their backs on NZ
so why woudl you care that Australia sends them all packing, they after all don’t want to be Australians, and Australia is entitled to make its own laws, and we obviously all believe they can be treated in a second rate way, they are after all our best mates, so why not! Send the all back to NZ, see how long Key lasts when they want some of the economic wealth they saw in OZ and start introducing the means to get it, like a CGT, like no tax
for the first 5,000, like a upper chamber to keep politicians more honest….
Oh, wait a moment you don’t care about the issue, you want second class kiwis in OZ.
“Anyone who saves and invests here is classed, by people like “Sir” Michael Cullen as being merely a “rich prick” and a “scumbag” who deserves to be plucked”
not true – it was a comment directed squarely at john key – who is worth 50 odd million and is quite a prickish scumbag
its not cullens fault that a bunch of pundits then falsely extrapolated that to be cullens opinion of people who earn over 60k pa
please stop repeating such blatant rewriting of history
Of course that remark was made about John Key. Michael Cullen had form in this regard however.
In his maiden speech in 1982 he said
“I’m proud of the fact that my secondary education was not paid for by the taxpayer of New Zealand but by the farmers of Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay. I ripped them off for five years then and I shall get them again in the next few years”.
That is referring to the scholarship he had to go to Christs’ College in Christchurch.
Certainly not very civil was he? He always did seem to have a rather large chip on his shoulder about people who were better of than he was.
Presumably you don’t believe that Cullen said that in his maiden speech.
He did and you can see it in Hansard.
Sorry but if you are trying to pretend that he didn’t say it it is you who are trying to rewrite history.
Give up and start seeing things as they really are.
Don’t get me started aero! Sometimes I wonder whether or not it isn’t Key’s agenda to force a position where (second-class) statehood in an Australian federation, or confederation is his orgasmic fantasy – even better if it could be achieved with the US of A.
The only thing that convinces me that isn’t so is that we all know he isn’t clever enough to have thunk it through.
Meantime though, he’s having a great time sucking up to the celeb politicians in the meed-ya, selling and giving away what’s left of our sovereignty (albeit with the occasional hiccup contested in courts).
It’ll come out one day JUST how hard JK pushed for the plight of NZers in OZ at the little Queenstown dalliance (not very) – in exchange for the NZ undertaking (BAD deal whichever way you look at it – even as far as international reputation is concerned).
When it does of course, he’ll probably be tucked up elsewhere.
Matthew Hooton says that he is sorry for Prosser the Tosser. NZ First is xenophobic and he quoted Winston making ‘colourful’ statements. None of the above have much integrity.
Hootin’ on the minimum wage. Scorn about a ‘number plucked out of the air’ – typical grasshopper approach – pick on a detail and demolish that; ergo the idea is a failed one.
Hootin’ also says that the places that have tried charter schools, (including Labour’s fave Sweden) also are keen on National Standards. I don’t think that is correct, certainly not for all those countries.
Kathryn Ryan says Prosser continues a tradition in NZ of making an absolute goat of yourself. Of course he could try passing pointed remarks about himself, a very funny and fruitful subject.
Yes, I listened to that. But Hootin’ was talking about the living wage, as I recall, not the minimum wage.
An interesting aside was the reference to Williams of the pre-radio broadcast chat between him and Hooton. So they agree on what they are going to talk about and/or signal their positions in advance?
Pretty normal on any talk radio show for the producer to organise what topics are to be discussed in advance and for the panellists to chat before they hit the airwaves, Karol.
It’s also funny geoff and in my mind its beginning to jeopardise the credibility of the likes of rinny ryan. From the LEFT [insert pagani or williams], and from the right [insert “the fair and balance Maaaaaaaaaaaaaathew Hoooooooooten”]. There’s been times when even rinny ryan has had to try and reign him in out of embarrasment, but its probably false advertising at best.
Then we get an hour’s reprieve before the next ultra-nice person takes to the air as part of that horrible band of bloody lefty public service broadcasters [not], including some painful mission to Mars and bestest best song ever written. (Jim hasn’t learned from Monday morning with rinny, that Maaaathew Hoooooten is the best song ever written).
RadioNZ has some isssss-yooos doesn’t it1 Primarily down to the regular gal in the weekday morn, and the exceptional every-person’s frend in the weekday afternoon. Both stale at best
Unfortunately they’re both better than the TINA alternatives. They’ll both probably get ONZs.
Mornings are always better when rinny takes what seems to be an endless availability of annual leave or afternoons have a locum
Hah yeah although I dislike Jim Mora much more than Kathryn. I remember when he was doing the voiceover for a show about cops raiding dope growers homes. Most were maori families probably trying to put food on the table, quite sickening how NZ media types are happy to lower themselves to that level.
I have stopped listening to that tripe on National Radio, the ‘i agree show’ with Hooten and Williams is simply 5 minutes of Hooten exercising his ego and Williams kissing His arse or vice versa,
I caught the pathetic ”why not $25 dollars a hour blah blah blah” from the evil baby look-a-like and immediately switched off my brain as that one obviously did so as to enable Him to comment on that National Radio show,
The only thing Mr Ego got right was His contention that the TV1 poll always gets National’s share of the vote wrong, on the high side of being that wrong as well,
Hooten’s nappies were obviously showing signs of being badly soiled today when He discussed the next election in terms of NZFirst not appearing in the next Parliament because of the overt racism exhibited by NZFirst MP Richard Tosser,
Hooten then resorted to mythology by saying that National after 2104 will be able to rely on the Maori Party for support to form the next Government,
Sorry Hooties, Maori have already got there ahead of you, with one hell of a dose of luck at the 2014 election the Maori Party might get one MP back into the Parliament,
Wonder how long it will take for Hooten to click onto that little fact and try whipping up support for the Conservatives,(snigger)…
bad12
I am shocked to find this sort of thing happening on radio. Thank goodness it’s not tv – we don’t have to view it. But should I complain to the Broadcasting Standards about such goings- on? Please advise.
You could,but, i fear it would be a waste of your energy and time, if you have plenty of both tho you could always take a swipe at such a pathetic display by Hooten and Williams,
The only grounds tho that i can see is on the basis of Williams in the views He continually expresses cannot be said to ‘be from the left’
False advertising perhaps???, of course it would be very difficult to ‘prove’ that Williams is not ‘from the left’ as the left is considered by many (most) to include the Labour Party which Williams was the Prez of…
Hootin’ also says that the places that have tried charter schools, (including Labour’s fave Sweden) also are keen on National Standards. I don’t think that is correct, certainly not for all those countries.
Well, the countries that have tried charter schools usually also have their version of National Standards. Both systems in those countries are failing miserably as is to be expected of ideologically driven policy.
I listened to a fascinating, albeit concerning episode of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme yesterday called Food on a Pension.
Sheila Dillon investigates the food lives of people surviving on the basic state pension. To fully understand the experience of living on a small income and feeling the limitations of older age, food writer Andrew Webb volunteered to spend a week living as his 80 year old self. With an ageing population, an increase in food prices and cuts to local council services, The Food Programme investigates what our food future might look, feel and taste like.
It definitely raised in me some concerns about the future of elder care in New Zealand too, especially after the Southern District Health Board has decided to dump Presbyterian Support Otago from its home support contracts in favour of an Australian provider.
So, I applied for a job last week at MBIE (yes, the new super-ministry). I just got a reply from http://www.hrx.com.au/ Yep, the government even employs Australians to find employees for them in NZ.
And they still wonder why unemployment in NZ is growing.
Too many head-desk moments to cite, but probably the worst is his reply to a simple question:
“Is there room for homophobes in Labour?”
Answer: yes, no, maybe, not a majority, something, whatever …
Basically he’s asked to explain the difference betwen a party position and a conscience vote. That’s not a trick question. You could answer it in two sentences. Shearer can’t.
Hey, gobsmacked, actually he handles that question (and the others) perfectly well. His answer is that he doesn’t think there are homophobes in the party, but he was aware some members don’t accept marriage equality. No surprise there.
“Basically he’s asked to explain the difference betwen a party position and a conscience vote. That’s not a trick question. You could answer it in two sentences. Shearer can’t.”
He answers that question perfectly well in, er, two sentences. Have a listen to the recording. Ok, it might be 3 sentences if what I take to be a comma at one point is actually a full stop, but you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, gs.
According to many on here this … :”His answer is that he doesn’t think there are homophobes in the party, but he was aware some members don’t accept marriage equality” … is not possible.
Not accepting marriage equality equals homophobia. So there you go – the labour party is full of homophobes. Just ask one tane huna.
Um, thanks for the idea. I thought I already had, and then posted the link for others.
I heard a desperately inarticulate ramble, unable to make clear points, with the same old start-stop-restart habit that “media training” was supposed to cure.
But people can make up their own minds. The voters will.
I agree. He was shocking. We get students just starting to learn English who can get their ideas across better than Shearer.
When asked about Prosser, he could have just said that anyone holding those sort of views would not get selected as a Labour candidate. But then they’ve just invited the back pussy guy back in, so he doesn’t even have the moral high ground there.
So there is room within Labour for homophobes but anyone coming out with homophobic comments comparable to the Prosser shit would be stood down. Hmm. So rank hypocracy is fine. Good to know. And straight from the horse’s mouth, which is to say, the mouth of (possibly) the most painfully equivocal political leader that has ever been foisted on the NZ public.
Further eg. of confused equivocation; Living Wage – no policy until next year BUT I (Shearer) made a speech on it last year and other orgs are getting behind the idea (But it can’t be a Labour Party policy idea until next year…yet Labour are leading the way?)
Seriously, I can’t hold up my hand with any honesty and say that I know what the fuck he was on about in that interview. All I can say is that I can’t fathom what he is/is not presenting. Two word summation: Absolutely disastrous.
The reason Shearer can’t say what policy is right now, is that you and the other members haven’t decided what it is yet. It’s your choice, Bill, you get to tell Shearer what he campaigns on.
You miss the point that on the one hand he says Labour has no policy while similtaneously claiming credit for the Living Wage campaign. Meanwhile, if labour has no policy until next year, then what was that housing policy? Not a policy? And what was all the harking back here on ts to 2011 policies as ‘proof’ of where Labour stands?
And – this shouldn’t need repeating… but even with no policy or no final policies, a party or a leader that either cleaved to core values or understood them, would be able to give unequivocal answers to questions based on those values. And that ain’t happening.
This Wednesday between 1-2, with Willie and JT, the John Ansell will be discussing why all Maori, should be hung and dried, oops I meant, reasons nothing he says is racist, he just wants the best for everyone (but please can Maori practise being cultural in their own homes behind closed doors). Should be a giggle.
Ansell never says all Maori, just the “griever Treaty Maori” should be hung, drawn, and quartered, along with any Pakeha who think the Treaty has any place in our society. He’s quite happy to accept support from the odd (maybe very odd) Maori who agrees with him, accepts that the genuine text of the Treaty was found under a wheelbarrow in Taranaki, and that Celts and Egyptians had a flourishing civilisation in these islands before primitive cannibals turned up and ate them all.
Maybe, given Shearer’s openness to homophobes, he could be invited into the Labour Party?
Pride only breeds quarrels yet wisdom is forced on those who take advice-13:10
We are currently within the sixth mass extinction event experienced by the earth, this one caused by humans; 1% of species disappear every six years.
From “Sciencia: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and astronomy for all.” (no religion, well actually…)
an Excellent little book. Walker and Company. NewYork. 2011. a Wooden Book (Wooden Jesus where are you from, Korea or Canada or maybe Taiwan…)
In times of recession and unemployment people’s allegiances and motives get scrambled. I was just reading a Manawatu Standard piece of Rolf Panny’s book Between Hitler and a Hard Place.
We should think about this as we face up to our next election. What will voters make of it all and why? This is a quote from the article.
“There were four children in our family. My father was lucky enough to be offered a job in a bank. It came with the condition that he joined the Nazi Party,” Mr Panny said. “Join the party, have a job, and eat. Don’t join, and watch your children slowly starve … what choice is no choice?”
Hitler’s tactic in the 1930s of re-employing Germans, with the party membership string attached, was based on deficit spending. Broken and beaten by World War I, backed into a debt of impossible reparation payments to the rest of Europe by the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was like a punch-drunk boxer, starving on the ropes with nowhere to go, Mr Panny said.
And Europe after World War I was pincered by two political extremes – communism after the Russian revolution, and fascism. “The political middle got squeezed out.”
Hey lovely Standard readers – can you share this/support this campaign. This sector is almost completely ununionised and the You Tube sets out what it is like working in Forestry. Listen to Kens family talk. We want to promote this clip by way of a billboard in Auckland – see the link to find our how you can help. Thanks in advance!
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Staff at Kāinga Ora are expecting details of another round of job cuts, with the Green Party claiming more than 500 jobs are set to go. The New Zealand Defence Force has made it easier for people to apply for a job in a bid to get more boots on ...
Australia’s agriculture sector and food system have prospered under a global rules-based system influenced by Western liberal values. But the assumptions, policy approaches and economic frameworks that have traditionally supported Australia’s food security are no ...
Following Trump’s tariff announcement, US stock values fell by the most ever in value terms (US$6.6 trillion). Photo: Getty ImagesLong story shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning:Donald Trump just detonated a neutron bomb under the globalised economy, but this time the Fed isn’t cutting interest rates to rescue ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 30, 2025 thru Sat, April 5, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. The formatting is a ...
This is a longer read.Summary:Trump’s tariffs are reckless, disastrous and hurt the poorest countries deeply. It will stoke inflation, and may cause another recession. Funds/investments around the world have tanked.Trump’s actions emulate the anti-economic logic of another right wing libertarian politician - Liz Truss. She had her political career cut ...
We are all suckers for hope.He’s just being provocative, people will say, he wouldn’t really go that far. They wouldn’t really go that far.Germany in the 1920s and 30s was one of the world’s most educated, culturally sophisticated, and scientifically advanced societies.It had a strong democratic constitution with extensive civil ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Mars warming? Mars’ climate varies due to completely different reasons than Earth’s, and available data indicates no temperature trends comparable to Earth’s ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
I was interested in David Seymour's public presentation of the Justice Select Committee's report after the submissions to the Treaty Principles Bill.I noted the arguments he presented and fact checked him. I welcome corrections and additions to what I have written but want to keep the responses concise.The Treaty of ...
Well, he runs around with every racist in townHe spent all our money playing his pointless gameHe put us out; it was awful how he triedTables turn, and now his turn to cryWith apologies to writers Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack.Eight per cent, asshole, that’s all you got.Smiling?Let me re-phrase…Eight ...
In short this morning in our political economy:The S&P 500 fell another 5.6% this morning after China retaliated with tariffs of 34% on all US imports, and the Fed warned of stagflation without rate cut relief.Delays for heart surgeries and scans are costing lives, specialists have told Stuff’s Nicholas Jones.Meanwhile, ...
When the US Navy’s Great White Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1908, it was an unmistakeable signal of imperial might, a flexing of America’s newfound naval muscle. More than a century later, the Chinese ...
While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another attempt.To help answer the question, I am going to use the economic lens of the Coase Theorem, set out ...
2027 may still not be the year of war it’s been prophesised as, but we only have two years left to prepare. Regardless, any war this decade in the Indo-Pacific will be fought with the ...
Australia must do more to empower communities of colour in its response to climate change. In late February, the Multicultural Leadership Initiative hosted its Our Common Future summits in Sydney and Melbourne. These summits focused ...
Questions 1. In his godawful decree, what tariff rate was imposed by Trump upon the EU?a. 10% same as New Zealandb. 20%, along with a sneer about themc. 40%, along with an outright lie about France d. 69% except for the town Melania comes from2. The justice select committee has ...
Yesterday the Trump regime in America began a global trade war, imposing punitive tariffs in an effort to extort political and economic concessions from other countries and US companies and constituencies. Trump's tariffs will make kiwis nearly a billion dollars poorer every year, but Luxon has decided to do nothing ...
Here’s 7 updates from this morning’s news:90% of submissions opposed the TPBNZ’s EV market tanked by Coalition policies, down ~70% year on yearTrump showFossil fuel money driving conservative policiesSimeon Brown won’t say that abortion is healthcarePhil Goff stands by comments and makes a case for speaking upBrian Tamaki cleared of ...
It’s the 9 month mark for Mountain Tūī !Thanks to you all, the publication now has over 3200 subscribers, 30 recommendations from Substack writers, and averages over 120,000 views a month. A very small number in the scheme of things, but enough for me to feel satisfied.I’m been proud of ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on National's racist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, and recommended by majority that it not proceed. So hopefully it will now rapidly go to second reading and be voted down. As for submissions, it turns out that around 380,000 people submitted on ...
We need to treat disinformation as we deal with insurgencies, preventing the spreaders of lies from entrenching themselves in the host population through capture of infrastructure—in this case, the social media outlets. Combining targeted action ...
After copping criticism for not releasing the report for nearly eight months, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released the Independent Intelligence Review on 28 March. It makes for a heck of a read. The review makes ...
After copping criticism for not releasing the report for nearly eight months, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released the Independent Intelligence Review on 28 March. It makes for a heck of a read. The review makes ...
In short this morning in our political economy:Donald Trump has shocked the global economy and markets with the biggest tariffs since the Smoot Hawley Act of 1930, which worsened the Great Depression.Global stocks slumped 4-5% overnight and key US bond yields briefly fell below 4% as investors fear a recession ...
Hi,I’ve been imagining a scenario where I am walking along the pavement in the United States. It’s dusk, I am off to get a dirty burrito from my favourite place, and I see three men in hoodies approaching.Anther two men appear from around a corner, and this whole thing feels ...
Since the announcement in September 2021 that Australia intended to acquire nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with Britain and the United States, the plan has received significant media attention, scepticism and criticism. There are four major ...
On a very wet Friday, we hope you have somewhere nice and warm and dry to sit and catch up on our roundup of some of this week’s top stories in transport and urbanism. The header image shows Northcote Intermediate Students strolling across the Te Ara Awataha Greenway Bridge in ...
On a very wet Friday, we hope you have somewhere nice and warm and dry to sit and catch up on our roundup of some of this week’s top stories in transport and urbanism. The header image shows Northcote Intermediate Students strolling across the Te Ara Awataha Greenway Bridge in ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and Elaine Monaghan on the week in geopolitics and climate, including Donald Trump’s tariff shock yesterday; and,Labour’s Disarmament and Associate ...
I'm gonna try real goodSwear that I'm gonna try from now on and for the rest of my lifeI'm gonna power on, I'm gonna enjoy the highsAnd the lows will come and goAnd may your dreamsAnd may your dreamsAnd may your dreams never dieSongwriters: Ben Reed.These are Stranger Days than ...
With the execution of global reciprocal tariffs, US President Donald Trump has issued his ‘declaration of economic independence for America’. The immediate direct effect on the Australian economy will likely be small, with more risk ...
The StrategistBy Jacqueline Gibson, Nerida King and Ned Talbot
AUKUS governments began 25 years ago trying to draw in a greater range of possible defence suppliers beyond the traditional big contractors. It is an important objective, and some progress has been made, but governments ...
I approach fresh Trump news reluctantly. It never holds the remotest promise of pleasure. I had the very, very least of expectations for his Rumble in the Jungle, his Thriller in Manila, his Liberation Day.God May 1945 is becoming the bitterest of jokes isn’t it?Whatever. Liberation Day he declared it ...
Beyond trade and tariff turmoil, Donald Trump pushes at the three core elements of Australia’s international policy: the US alliance, the region and multilateralism. What Kevin Rudd called the ‘three fundamental pillars’ are the heart ...
So, having broken its promise to the nation, and dumped 85% of submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill in the trash, National's stooges on the Justice Committee have decided to end their "consideration" of the bill, and report back a full month early: Labour says the Justice Select Committee ...
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review offers a mature and sophisticated understanding of workforce challenges facing Australia’s National Intelligence Community (NIC). It provides a thoughtful roadmap for modernising that workforce and enhancing cross-agency and cross-sector collaboration. ...
OPINION AND ANALYSIS:Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier’s comments singling out Health NZ for “acting contrary to the law” couldn’t be clearer. If you find my work of value, do consider subscribing and/or supporting me. Thank you.Health NZ has been acting a law unto itself. That includes putting its management under extraordinary ...
Southeast Asia’s three most populous countries are tightening their security relationships, evidently in response to China’s aggression in the South China Sea. This is most obvious in increased cooperation between the coast guards of the ...
In the late 1970s Australian sport underwent institutional innovation propelling it to new heights. Today, Australia must urgently adapt to a contested and confronting strategic environment. Contributing to this, a new ASPI research project will ...
In short this morning in our political economy:The Nelson Hospital waiting list crisis just gets worse, including compelling interviews with an over-worked surgeon who is leaving, and a patient who discovered after 19 months of waiting for a referral that her bowel and ovaries were fused together with scar tissue ...
Plainly, the claims being tossed around in the media last year that the new terminal envisaged by Auckland International Airport was a gold-plated “Taj Mahal” extravagance were false. With one notable exception, the Commerce Commission’s comprehensive investigation has ended up endorsing every other aspect of the airport’s building programme (and ...
Movements clustered around the Right, and Far Right as well, are rising globally. Despite the recent defeats we’ve seen in the last day or so with the win of a Democrat-backed challenger, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, over her Republican counterpart, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, in the battle for ...
In February 2025, John Cook gave two webinars for republicEN explaining the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. 20 February 2025: republicEN webinar part 1 - BUST or TRUST? The scientific consensus on climate change In the first webinar, Cook explained the history of the 20-year scientific consensus on climate change. How do ...
After three decades of record-breaking growth, at about the same time as Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, China’s economy started the long decline to its current state of stagnation. The Chinese Communist Party ...
The Pike River Coal mine was a ticking time bomb.Ventilation systems designed to prevent methane buildup were incomplete or neglected.Gas detectors that might warn of danger were absent or broken.Rock bolting was skipped, old tunnels left unsealed, communication systems failed during emergencies.Employees and engineers kept warning management about the … ...
Today, the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill has passed its third and final reading, but there is one more stage before it becomes law. The Governor-General must give their ‘Royal assent’ for any bill to become legally enforceable. This means that, even if a bill gets voted ...
Abortion care at Whakatāne Hospital has been quietly shelved, with patients told they will likely have to travel more than an hour to Tauranga to get the treatment they need. ...
Thousands of New Zealanders’ submissions are missing from the official parliamentary record because the National-dominated Justice Select Committee has rushed work on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...
Today’s announcement of 10 percent tariffs for New Zealand goods entering the United States is disappointing for exporters and consumers alike, with the long-lasting impact on prices and inflation still unknown. ...
The National Government’s choices have contributed to a slow-down in the building sector, as thousands of people have lost their jobs in construction. ...
Willie Apiata’s decision to hand over his Victoria Cross to the Minister for Veterans is a powerful and selfless act, made on behalf of all those who have served our country. ...
The Privileges Committee has denied fundamental rights to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, breaching their own standing orders, breaching principles of natural justice, and highlighting systemic prejudice and discrimination within our parliamentary processes. The three MPs were summoned to the privileges committee following their performance of a haka ...
April 1 used to be a day when workers could count on a pay rise with stronger support for those doing it tough, but that’s not the case under this Government. ...
Winston Peters is shopping for smaller ferries after Nicola Willis torpedoed the original deal, which would have delivered new rail enabled ferries next year. ...
The Government should work with other countries to press the Myanmar military regime to stop its bombing campaign especially while the country recovers from the devastating earthquake. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to scrap proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, after attending a petition calling for the Government to ‘Put tamariki at the heart of decisions about ECE’. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill today that will remove the power of MPs conscience votes and ensure mandatory national referendums are held before any conscience issues are passed into law. “We are giving democracy and power back to the people”, says New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters. ...
Welcome to members of the diplomatic corp, fellow members of parliament, the fourth estate, foreign affairs experts, trade tragics, ladies and gentlemen. ...
In recent weeks, disturbing instances of state-sanctioned violence against Māori have shed light on the systemic racism permeating our institutions. An 11-year-old autistic Māori child was forcibly medicated at the Henry Bennett Centre, a 15-year-old had his jaw broken by police in Napier, kaumātua Dean Wickliffe went on a hunger ...
Confidence in the job market has continued to drop to its lowest level in five years as more New Zealanders feel uncertain about finding work, keeping their jobs, and getting decent pay, according to the latest Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index. ...
The Greens are calling on the Government to follow through on their vague promises of environmental protection in their Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. ...
“Make New Zealand First Again” Ladies and gentlemen, First of all, thank you for being here today. We know your lives are busy and you are working harder and longer than you ever have, and there are many calls on your time, so thank you for the chance to speak ...
Hundreds more Palestinians have died in recent days as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues and humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, is blocked. ...
National is looking to cut hundreds of jobs at New Zealand’s Defence Force, while at the same time it talks up plans to increase focus and spending in Defence. ...
It’s been revealed that the Government is secretly trying to bring back a ‘one-size fits all’ standardised test – a decision that has shocked school principals. ...
The Government’s new planning legislation to replace the Resource Management Act will make it easier to get things done while protecting the environment, say Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop and Under-Secretary Simon Court. “The RMA is broken and everyone knows it. It makes it too hard to build ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay has today launched a public consultation on New Zealand and India’s negotiations of a formal comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. “Negotiations are getting underway, and the Public’s views will better inform us in the early parts of this important negotiation,” Mr McClay says. We are ...
More than 900 thousand superannuitants and almost five thousand veterans are among the New Zealanders set to receive a significant financial boost from next week, an uplift Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says will help support them through cost-of-living challenges. “I am pleased to confirm that from 1 ...
Progressing a holistic strategy to unlock the potential of New Zealand’s geothermal resources, possibly in applications beyond energy generation, is at the centre of discussions with mana whenua at a hui in Rotorua today, Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is in the early stages ...
New annual data has exposed the staggering cost of delays previously hidden in the building consent system, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I directed Building Consent Authorities to begin providing quarterly data last year to improve transparency, following repeated complaints from tradespeople waiting far longer than the statutory ...
Increases in water charges for Auckland consumers this year will be halved under the Watercare Charter which has now been passed into law, Local Government Minister Simon Watts and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown say. The charter is part of the financial arrangement for Watercare developed last year by Auckland Council ...
There is wide public support for the Government’s work to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity protections, says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. “The Ministry for Primary Industries recently completed public consultation on proposed amendments to the Biosecurity Act and the submissions show that people understand the importance of having a strong biosecurity ...
A new independent review function will enable individuals and organisations to seek an expert independent review of specified civil aviation regulatory decisions made by, or on behalf of, the Director of Civil Aviation, Acting Transport Minister James Meager has announced today. “Today we are making it easier and more affordable ...
The Government will invest in an enhanced overnight urgent care service for the Napier community as part of our focus on ensuring access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown has today confirmed. “I am delighted that a solution has been found to ensure Napier residents will continue to ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey attended a sod turning today to officially mark the start of construction on a new mental health facility at Hillmorton Campus. “This represents a significant step in modernising mental health services in Canterbury,” Mr Brown says. “Improving health infrastructure is ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has welcomed confirmation the economy has turned the corner. Stats NZ reported today that gross domestic product grew 0.7 per cent in the three months to December following falls in the June and September quarters. “We know many families and businesses are still suffering the after-effects ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Stone, Credit Union SA Chair of Economics, University of South Australia Shutterstock The past week has seen the United States single-handedly rewrite the underlying paradigm for global trade. And while it is fair to say that the methods are extreme, ...
For one day a year, Christchurch pools open for pooches to take the plunge. All week I was hyping up Maggie, our rescue terrier cross, for the big day with her best friend. Ready for the pool party Maggie? With Peachy? Ready to see Peachy? At the pool party? Her ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has urged Kiwis to be "resilient" in the face of the global economic turmoil brought on by hard-hitting US trade tariffs this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Tran, Academic Tutor at Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology Since Iron Man hit the big screen in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has made more than US$30 billion, from films to series, to merchandise and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Cull, Associate professor, Western Sydney University Secure and affordable housing is a fundamental human right for all Australians. Therefore, it is unsurprising the election campaign is being played out against a backdrop of heightened voter anxiety about rental stress and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Wardle, Professor of Public Health, Southern Cross University Rui Dias/Pexels Private health insurers may soon be able to offer rebates for seven complementary therapies previously prohibited. This includes some movement therapies – Pilates, yoga, tai chi and Alexander technique, ...
With the former Labour leader ‘80%’ certain to throw his hat in the ring for the capital’s top job, Tory Whanau’s life just got a lot harder, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.A political heavyweight returns? ...
“We will hold banners, toiere (sing) waiata, and chant to draw attention to the far right ideology of the Tesla CEO and to encourage potential Tesla customers away from a product with fascist ties," says PAFC spokesperson Michelle Ducat. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Winston Peters turns a venerable 80 on April 11, but he showed no sign of retiring as New Zealand’s archetypal populist during his recent ...
A scary look inside the inboxes of two recent politicians. Damon has worked as a social media content creator for the Green Party and helps create content for Wellington mayor Tory Whanau. This piece is written in his own capacity as a private citizen. Opinions do not represent the Wellington ...
In a selection of anonymous quotes, a group of female parliamentarians from across the political spectrum give an insight into what they deal with. A study published today has called for urgent action in response to harassment of female MPs in New Zealand. The researchers from the department of psychological ...
A recent High Court ruling has raised alarm bells about the long-term integrity of Treaty settlements – and concern over how a little-known clause in the Fisheries Act could cost iwi millions. In 1992, the Crown and Māori reached what was meant to be a “full and final” settlement over ...
Analysis: Researching my book The Science of the Māori Lunar Calendar has deepened my appreciation of Mātauranga Māori and its importance to the lives of New Zealanders past and present. Not long ago, Māori knowledge was largely disregarded by the scientific community and treated as little more than myth and ...
The bus heading south from Cork airport left twenty minutes before my plane arrived, on time, from London. The next one was not due for another two hours. From all the stereotypes I had inherited, this seemed very Irish. As did the moniker “Emerald Isle”. Flying in, the June landscape ...
Temepara Bailey and Leana de Bruin can read each other’s minds. They can glance across the netball court and communicate with a simple nod. They finish each other’s sentences.Their relationship has built over 25 years to ‘best mate’ status, and it’s about to take on a new dimension as they ...
Consumers just aren’t feeling it. It’s been clear enough in the anecdote. But, over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen an unsettling sputtering in a broadening suite of retail spending indicators as well.It started with a sharp and unexpected drop in Westpac’s consumer confidence index for the March quarter. ...
Comment: When the US launched fresh airstrikes on Yemen last month, it signalled the continuation of a strategy that has failed for more than 20 years to weaken the Houthi rebels. While bombing Houthi assets in Yemen will reduce the group’s ability to attack ships in the Red Sea, such ...
Three Te Pāti Māori MPs have two weeks to end their deadlock with the Privileges Committee over their refusal to front up at a hearing into their haka last November, or they’ll face serious consquences.They can’t be sacked or imprisoned – The Privileges Committee tried to imprison someone once but ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Vice-President, Public Affairs and Partnerships, Western Sydney University Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have faced off in the first leaders’ debate of the 2025 federal election. The debate, hosted by Sky News and The Daily Telegraph, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorina Pojani, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland Fizkes/Shutterstock In the pre-industrial era, people often lived and worked in the same building. This removed the need to travel to work. The separation of home and work occurred much ...
The plan would ensure that Aotearoa meets its climate obligations and guarantees a just transition for the workers and communities who will bear the brunt of the climate crisis and technological change. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Rosenberg, Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra, and Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney mooremedia/Shutterstock The Labor government has announced it would invest A$1 billion in mental health if re-elected to provide more Australians – particularly young ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fergus Edwards, Lecturer in English, University of Tasmania Amazon MGM Studios Last One Laughing is a battle royale for stand-ups. Ten comedians, one room, surrounded by cameras. Laugh once and they’re warned. Laugh again, and they’re out. Last comic left wins. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Singh, Research Fellow, Allied Health & Human Performance, University of South Australia Centre for Ageing Better/Unsplash Many of us turn to Sudoku, Wordle or brain-training apps to sharpen our minds. But research is increasingly showing one of the best ways ...
Looks like the focus groups behind this government are beating the drums against the teacher unions. First Rodney Hide’s dog whistle article against the unions in the HOS, then the Herald running a poll to find out what people think about the unions.
It’s encouraging at least to read the comments below Rodney’s rant.
The right really hate unions that protect their workers, don’t they?
Interesting obsservation Paul, one that strikes a chord. There looks to be a small management clique at the Herald who don’t think much of journalistic impartiality, some of the pro-National editorials from one Herald staffer in particular are quite outrageous in their condescending bias and Goebbels style propaganda.
Hide can say what he pleases, he’s a guest commentator, but it is curious how the Herald have a poll inside his article on the same subject he’s criticising. A cynic might suggest the results of the poll may not be exacty accurate either.
The Herald often run a ‘dog-whistle’story then ask for ‘people’s’ opinions.
It’s an attempt either to test the water for new (suspected unpopular) policy or a attempt by the Herald to sway opinion…as your comment inferred.
A quick look at the Herald’s headlines over the past 6 months show a generally negative perspective on teachers.
The owners of the Herald have spoken to the editor, clearly.
I agree they are having a go but I don’t think it is focus group driven, I think it is because of a pathological hatred of the collective.
Time for the opposition to stand up and say this is wrong.
“Time for the opposition to stand up and say this is wrong.”
Probably too busy this morning trying to figure out another ‘rogue’ poll.
I’d lean towards Pauls view. In the last few years the Herald has written a few editorials of their own criticising the teachers union and I don’t recall ever seeing them praising the union at any time. Further to that the Herald wasn’t exactly union friendly during the ports dispute either.
There’s a definite anti-union bias at some levels in the Herald. They’re also pro-charter schools, again they’ve written a number of editorials in favour of it and I don’t recall any that were against it.
(note I’m taliking about editorials written by Herald staff and not guest commentaries)
Don’t need to be a cynic, just a skeptic. Everybody should realise that the polls on the NZHerald aren’t scientifically accurate and especially when those polls are posted on an opinion piece which will probably be read mostly by the people who actually agree with who wrote the opinion.
Three out of four of Hide’s recent columns have consisted of attacks on teachers. These attacks are clearly linked to the dismal charter schools policy. Remember, charter schools are 100% the product of this half-wit and his half-witted party. neo-liberalism is a fanatic religion; the neo-liberals consider the successful resistance by education experts to their crack pot ideological ideas as a religious affront; And they accordingly approach the issue with an obsessive fanaticism.
+1
And the sooner that people realise that the neo-liberal theory that we’ve had dumped on us by governments over the last 30 years is a religion the better.
more Doom…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-17/saxo-bank-ceo-says-euro-doomed-as-single-currency-woes-resurface.html
What, the Eurozone crisis isn’t over yet, even after billions in bank bailouts and soul crushing austerity for the peasants? That’s such a surprise
Conservatives hate two things. Change and instability. Yet we have had conservatism in the ascendancy for the last thirty years, a revolutionary conservatism that made change (growth, profits, etc) the new stability, the new normal. With the end of cheap oil revolutionary conservatism, the bashing unions given any opportunity, is not sustainable, in fact its highly destabilizing. Who in their right mind bashes the unions, whose members have huge buying power in a time of global depression? Well a unreconstructed revolutionary conservative (Key bashing unions quite unnecessarily over the Hobbit movie).
Its like this. Societies need to redistribute wealth or they implode in civil disorder, in cheap oil times the means to redistribute was through the private banking system leveraging the printing of money. But all that has changed, we need to redistribute, that needs workers to demand higher salaries (take the foot off the pedal of high finance that took their marginal pay cuts and turned it into a bubble bonanza), and so all the natural inclinations of the lousy right to bash and screw over, that was once so recently in vogue and necessary to profits and eating up cheap energy, is no longer.
The problem with the Herald and many talking heads in NZ is that they just don’t know they are wrong, or just have invested too much in being tough unflinching types that they don’t get the joke they are becoming.
If, as Hide claims, unions are too strong, why couldn’t they stop Hide’s Super City fiasco? Because we live in a parliamentary dictatorship.
No one has power except the government of the day. They do what they want and the public (including the unions) be damned.
This mornings Herald editorial
Editorial: Revamp tax system to help out home buyershttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10865948
Rental housing is a business providing a service that people would prefer to provide for themselves if they could afford to. When competition from the business is making it harder for them to afford it, the business should not have a tax advantage.
If the removal of interest deductions discouraged residential property investment, lowered prices for first-home seekers and forced established home-owners to look for more productive uses of their savings, the country could be better off socially and economically.
Well the NZ Herald Editorial’s argument would be an improvement on the current situation, but it is still tinkering with the system rather than aiming to change it.
It assumes everyone wants to buy their own home.
This is a self-fulfilling prophesy, rather than aiming for a system where their is a choice between renting and owning your home. I am a life-time renter by choice. I think the focus on everyone owning their own home is set up in the interests of the banks and wealthy classes. It adds extra unnecessary pressures to workers on lower pay.
Increasing the amount of affordable state housing, and community housing plus some fair (to both landlords and renters) restrictions on private renting needs to be done as part of a comprehensive policy of change.
More state housing to take the poor out of the market would be a big help.
The problem being there that for the working poor,those who earn below $45,000 annually a State house is really only a dream as that cohort in the economy number anywhere from 250-300,000, and are now in places like Auckland and Christchurch paying 50%+ of their income in rent,
Successive Governments have aided and abetted the growth of this situation and who knows if this has been a deliberate measure,but, the number of State rental properties has remained static as the New Zealand population has grown from 3.3 million to 4.4 million in a relatively short period of time considering how long that population growth took to reach 3.3 million,
Globalization has allowed the banking cartels to be the sole producer of the money supply and those cartels have been only too happy to ‘produce’ monies to help along the price inflation from the ‘failure’ of the building industry to meet either the actual demand of the numbers of houses required and produce enough lower cost housing to constrain inflation in that sector,
Unfortunately the solutions for those in the rental market in the bigger cities are as radical as the house price inflation that has already occurred,
Government could simply Legislate that all rent for those households with an income of $45,000 or less a year pay no more than 25% of that total household income as rent,
A change to the housing law would be required to remove the ability of a landlord to remove a tenant for any reason after giving 90 days notice leaving only failure to pay rent, damage to property, and, disturbing the quiet enjoyment of neighbors to enjoy their property as the only means of removing a tenant from a rental property,
The $1.2 Billion dollar Accommodation supplement would need be cancelled and a ‘new’ WINZ benefit would need be established as a hardship grant landlords could apply to WINZ for to gain, after the production of suitable proof of hardship, a WINZ grant to enable the payment of mortgages,
Obviously as the banking cartels simply ‘produce’ the mortgages at the center of the failure of the property market they should be returned the same ‘produce’ in return and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand would have to be tasked to provide to WINZ the funds to pay such hardship grants to landlords using the same means of production as the banking cartels…
Back when the AS was introduced (under Shipley?) community organisations such as the Sallies predicted this situation with rising rental prices would occur. How to undo the damage of the AS without causing social harm is a difficult thing.
Until then I have to buy the odd lotto ticket. How pathetic.
The Accommodation Supplement tho was simply the addition of more fuel to the fire, in reality nothing more than a taxpayer subsidy for those investing in rental properties who in all reality have become the ticket clippers for the banking cartels to suck a large proportion of the profits of production,(the workers share), out of the New Zealand economy,
Norm Kirk’s Labour Government were building 30,000 State houses a year at it’s peak, this is the only other means i can at present think of besides what i have outlined in my previous comment of addressing this ‘issue’ particularly in cities like Auckland and Christchurch,
Both Labour and the Green Party have housing policy that addresses specific income groups effected by this house price, (and therefore rental), inflation,unfortunately even with a ‘peak build’ of 30,000 houses annually it would take 10 years for this inflation to be brought under control,
The point of my advocacy of a maximum 25% of household income for those with a household income of $45,000 a year or less would be the immediacy of it’s effect on both rental accommodation in the major cities and, (perhaps), on actual demand from investors for properties…
Or we could get real and build something like this and rent the lot out at 25% of household income,
Apparently the Chinese can knock one of these together in 3 years and have done so all over China and in places in Africa, shops, schools, sports-fields, everything, one of these tho would need a comprehensive public transport link to the rest of Auckland,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243
You claim that the Kirk Government was building 30,000 state houses/year at its peak.
That is wildly wrong. The peak construction of the 72-75 Labour Government was the 4,000 state houses built in the 75-76 year.
State housing built with low interest rate Reserve Bank credit.
http://digitalwarfare.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:michael-joseph-savage-explains-how-public-credit-was-used-to-build-33766-state-houses&catid=37:articles-nz&Itemid=56
Brilliant CV, abso-lutely f**king brilliant, that also should be included in the school curriculum,
i have been arguing this very argument for years, the building of the houses justifies the printing of the debt, once you have the built houses you have the asset which nullifies the debt so there is no point keeping the debt on the books,
The same could be achieved by ‘selling’ the houses to the tenants, as the payments are made on a minimal basis the debt held by which-ever Government department would simply disappear,
It’s funny how very few people can ‘see’ this,and, i would dare say that such a production of money could not be used to fund everything, and, such a build off of the basis of such money would need to take the Reserve Banks inflationary targets into the time span of the build, but rocket science it aint,
Lolz the last paragraph says it all, threats from the slave masters in London of economic sanctions if Labour continued to print it’s own coin,
Should imagine that such threats would still be forthcoming in these modern times, probably from the banking cartels, bit hard tho to issue such threats when the US Government is printing $40 billion a month to spend upon ‘infrastructure’…
Lovely link there CV.
Everyone; read and compare to current Labour policy.
Hi CT, if you like that one, this one will make you think that the current set of political parties are reliving a time warp…and not in a good way!
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/housing-and-government/page-2
Provide a link to prove what you are saying is correct,thank you…
Ok.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand
It’s in section 1.5 “Social Policy” in the bit with the heading “Major initiatives in Housing”. I’m afraid I can’t aim you directly at the words.
The person I am replying to is confusing total house construction in the year with state house construction.
You are in essence correct, i got the figure of 30,000 State houses built at the peak of the Kirk Labour Government’s term in office from a discussion with someone else and it is obviously my mistake to think that these 30,000 homes were all built ‘as State houses’,
The Kirk Government though in it’s generous treatment of low income people ’caused’ the great bulk of those houses to be built by direct intervention in the financing of loans to those reliant upon low incomes,
While happily admitting my mistake vis a vis the 30,000 homes built that year along with the 27,000 the year befor, and, the 24,000 the year befor that not being all State houses i cannot point to how this in any material way has any effect on the discussion here this morning, if it does, please point this out,
Lolz i recommend EVERYONE read that link, (it should be part of the school curriculum), can anyone imagine the skinflint miserly Governments that came after Kirk’s 3rd Labour Government paying beneficiaries an extra benefit payment as a ‘Christmas bonus’,
Kirk’s was a Government on a serious mission to improve the lives of every body, even going so far as to provide the Hippies of the time land via the ‘Ohu scheme’ where they could explore alternative lifestyles,
That Government should be the template by which all Labour Governments of the future Govern….
PS, and if i hear anyone in the Parliamentary Labour team attempt to compare David Shearer to Norman Kirk again i swear i am going to f**king vomit,
I suggest that Labour strategists wanting to make that comparison read the link kindly provided by ‘Alwyn’ above and when David Shearer comes out proposing the same treatment for beneficiaries as the Kirk Government DELIVERED then and only then may you have the temerity to attempt such a comparison…
I’m sorry about the bit that says “The person I am replying to”.
I got confused by the various comments here and didn’t register that it was you who both made the comment AND asked for the reference.
There was one thing the Kirk Government did about their housing policy that I strongly disapproved of though. I built a house in 1974 and the Government brought in a rule that the total area of a house was limited to 1500 sq ft (about 139 sq m). It meant I had to cut out one bedroom from the house which was a pain in the butt. God knows why they decided that that was a limit regardless of the size of your family.
No need to offer any apology, the comments in a post or open mike can be hard to follow, i usually read them all and don’t miss much,
Yes i can imagine people would have been a little up-set over having the size of their build restricted by Government,
i can well imagine why, to keep the allocation of Government resources reasonably even as they were allocated,
i should imagine the next Labour/Green Government will have for the cities a specific build size in mind for their specific housing policies,
Part of the failure of the current housing market is that it is being lead in no small part by the developers building the largest house possible on any given parcel of land to recoup the largest profit off that investment, that’s capitalism for you,
Given tho that in the past 30 years the average size family has shrunk down to Ma and Pa with 1.2 kids while the average house size has risen from 100m to 200m it starts to seem like one hell of a waste of space,
Do we really in a world of shrinking resources, shrinking capital and shrinking earnings for many actually need a fully lined garage for 3 vehicles along with a couple of ensuites attached to the bedrooms of our housing stock,
It all seems way too effete for me, but then i am a peasant who prefers to jump in a river or the sea or even under a hose than get in the shower…
On the awful looking suburbs built by developers in South Auckland that I have seen, I compare with the situation which prevailed in the 1960s and 70s. Then the developer divided up the property, applied for titles and prepared the sections and had a book of plans that had been costed to choose from.
Any changes would add to the price, and you got a nice house that was fitted to your needs. Since when have developers got the right to decide on our living environment? It’s like living in military housing or in an upper class open jail.
Set mortgage’s as a fixed value but that it cannot go above 25% of income. The weekly payment would be the lesser of the two. Also make them a fixed term so that extra payments can’t be added to the mortgage to make up any loss when the payments drop below the fixed value.
And then make mortgages available to home owners with 0% interest.
and this.
Why mess around with mortgages, it is the people trapped paying rent with a household income of $45,000 or less that i am addressing here, a lot of the time particularly in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington at 50+% of income,
Making mortgages cheaper will simply lead to an increased demand for property and while that demand exists rents will remain as they are, far too high for those forced to rent…
I didn’t make them cheaper, I limited them.
Oh, and made it so that people won’t lose their house if they suddenly find themselves out of a job.
Yes you limited the payments made on a mortgage to 25% of i presume household income,
This would simply have far more people seeking a house as would supplying those people with 0% interest home loans,
That would simply inflate the price of houses further leaving people with limited incomes with mortgages that could never in their lifetime be paid,
The ‘problem’ is tri-fold in that the population through immigration has been artificially increased over a short period by a million while housing construction lags behind by 8 years and the banking cartels have ‘produced’ easy credit for some to allow them to take advantage of the demand,
At the heart it is simply a supply/demand ‘problem’, if as a country we had of built the housing first and then invited in the immigrants to match what would have been an oversupply of housing we would not be faced with the ‘problem’…
How can such a system inflate house prices when the value of the house is limited to pay back of 25% of income, the government is busily building and renting out accommodation at 10% of income as well as supplying mortgages at 0% interest?
You seem to be suggesting that you would set the value of houses by legislation well below their current ‘market value’???,
The particular comment of yours we are debating might make sense in your mind, but, perhaps you need rephrase it as it doesn’t explain anything in the manner it is written,
If you are limiting the maximum amount anyone would pay on a mortgage on any property to 25% of household income while offering loans at 0% interest the end result is that EVERYONE could have a home with an affordable mortgage,
The reality tho, if i may drag you back to Earth, is that demand for housing to purchase currently out-strips supply by 8 years so allowing EVERYONE the opportunity to buy on low cost mortgage only serves to increase demand which the building industry cannot fill…
Not everybody could afford a mortgage or, to be more precise, not everybody could afford a house simply because the real cost of building one would be beyond their capability of repaying. There would be time limits that apply as well. Just because the mortgage is set at no more than 25% of income doesn’t mean that someone on minimum wage would be able to go out and buy a house.
And I’m sure you’ll find that the construction industry is quite capable of building the necessary housing. It may be challenged initially but that could be seen to over time.
By 1939 the 1st Labour Government was completing 57 state houses per week.
Pretty sure we could double or triple that figure without too much hassle if we set our mind to it.
Really Draco, so exactly who are you trying to help here, if those who are trapped in the low income brackets cannot afford to buy a house under the auspices of what you propose then just who would be able to???,
Where then does this leave those on the lowest incomes trapped paying rent to the middle classes of 50%+ of their limited income???…
Paying 10% of income in rent.
But karol, aren’t rent prices tied to house prices? So theoretically, if house prices dropped then you’d also be helping our people renting?
Geoff
To me, one of the biggest problems for renters is that houses get revalued according to current market prices, which are usually up. So the renter is always paying more for the same house or flat, so the return for the owner goes up, often with little maintenance or improvement carried out to maintain the amenity.
Yup agreed, but house prices need to be corrected down significantly. I’m sure there are a number of other factors, rent prices like house prices are sticky upward.
Rent prices tied to house prices??? by what??? rent prices are as far as i can see tied to nothing much in particular and are just as likely to be set by the landlord looking on TradeMe to see what other landlords are charging for ‘like’ properties…
Tied by mortgages. Landlords have to cover the cost of their loans but yes there are other factors, probably none of which favour the renter.
I’m sympathetic with karol’s perspective but I believe there are far more people who would like to own but are forced to rent than there are people who are just happy to rent. In any case there must be solutions that cater to both interests, the trouble being that it certainly won’t be in the interests of the landlords who are quite happy with the way things are.
Another good reason to tax businesses at a gross rate. Remove the perverse incentive to have a continuous flow of interest via buying more properties to reduce your tax bill here and elsewhere by offsetting the losses.
Look forward to the righties today moaning about Lydia Ko bludging off the state. Clearly has the means and ability to support herself but prefers to still live off money from high performance sport funding.
Shit forgot it’s only bludging when you have no job and you aren’t travelling all over the world, you have to go to Winz for food cause you’ve got no money to buy any and you have applied for 50 jobs and got 1 interview if you are lucky, have to live off porridge or weetbix, can’t afford to go to the doctor, and so on.
year to January; fruit and veg prices rose 5.9% (3.5% just in January compared to Dec) it’s Summer! Hallo?
That writer doesn’t have it right either. I don’t know why but most people seem to have trouble doing averages & percentages in their head.
To understand investors it helps to start with the basic principle of investing; that the investment must provide a market return.
To explain; assume that a property investor wants the same return as bank deposits and that rent makes up the return (they actually want more than bank deposits but run with this for now)
At 10% bank interest rates a $250k property will be returning $25k.
Now interest rates fall to 5%, which is what happened
The property will still be returning 10%, because rents didn’t fall with interest rates. Now it’s returning twice as much as bank deposits.
Investors move from bank deposits to property, because the return is higher.
Price of property goes up until it reaches $500,000 because the $25k return from the property is 5% of $500k and 5% is what the bank is paying.
And if interest rates go back up… well rents go up because the return is then too low. In economic theory the property value should go down but in real life it doesn’t.
That’s actually what happens in commercial property, it’s a kind of rachet which means prices constantly go up but can never come down as long as there’s renters to fill the properties. Interest rates go up & down but rents never go down so changes in interest rates lead directly to higher property prices.
You’re ignoring the fact that many people invested in property for the capital gain.
You could argue that they are not “investors” but I can find you people who would have to charge far more than would be possible to meet their interest bill. They meet this from their good salary and not doing any maintenance.
The only sums they did was if I sell it in 1 or 2 years time how much can I sell it for?
There’s lots of these people.
Short term speculators who have suddenly found themselves turned into long term investors.
Yeah but that’s the Govt’s fault. To qualify as an investor, and not pay tax on capital gains, you have to be in property for the rental returns only. Can find the IRD ruling here;
http://www.ird.govt.nz/property/property-common-mistakes/mistake-dealing-with-investment/#facts
“If you’re an investor you buy a property to use it to generate ongoing rental income and not with any firm intent of resale. The property is a capital asset and any later profit or loss from selling the property is capital and isn’t taxable (apart from clawing back any depreciation, which is now recoverable). ”
Now we all know that rents alone don’t provide a market return on most properties and that residential ‘investors’ are in it for the capital gain but they can’t admit that because they’d be disqualified from being classed as an investor if they did. They say they’re in it for the rental return only but the numbers say emphatically that they’re not.
Those people aren’t investors. They’re speculators. Investors underpin market values, speculators ride on the back of the activities of investors.
It doesn’t matter to an investor if the return is from rents or capital gain. All that matters is the return on the investment is commensurate with market rates and those rates are linked directly to bank deposit rates.
No it doesn’t, it can lose the whole lot invested. Just because investors look for a return doesn’t mean that they’re going to get one. It’s part of that risk that goes with investing.
When you loan out or invest money, you’re taking a risk that you’re not going to get it back.
Mate the market sets the return according to risk. The market starts at what’s known as a risk free rate of return and every other investment type has to return more than that, by how much is commensurate with the perceived risk. Govt bonds are usually treated as the risk free rate but not always and retail investors tend to rely on term deposits for the guide to investment returns.
Where novice investors often lose out is in high risk investments that pay correspondingly high rates of return. A large part of the return above the risk free rate is supposed to be capital; risk insurance that you invest elsewhere. But they take it as income & spend it all. When the investment goes titsup they’re out of pocket.
Except that nobody can make an accurate judgement of the risk and “the market” certainly can’t as the GFC just proved.
Risk is poorly formulated, say in the risk models of Banks.The inverse problem is that the short term games of say bankers and investors is primarily on the rate of return and future expectations of the rate of return Risk comes later (which it did recently) where we have both the markets trying to explain how they lost a few trillion to investors and the remarkable supernatural powers of regulators such as Bollard who discussed the over exposure of Banks to Rural lending to the banks only.
One reason being the math underlying things like portfolio management theory / Value At Risk analysis was based on absolutely faulty assumptions. AIG had a team of 20-30 PhDs doing risk modelling for it, just before it got driven into the ground with the financial weapons of mass destruction they were selling.
Nassem Taleb has spoken at length on the subject.
Executives happy not to ask questions and to collect their quarterly bonuses while their scam was running good. When times inevitably turned bad, they got the tax payer to bail them out – and kept all their bonuses anyway.
A very few people did figure it out ahead of the GFC, but the Friedmanite/Greenspan dogma meant that most others put their money where their faith was – in the “Great Moderation”.
However, I think that many at the top knew that it was a rotten ship…NINJA mortgages and other frauds etc.
That’s only partially true. A lot of risk asessment requires insider knowledge and few people have that information available to them. But basic risk profiles such as the risk weightings given to govt bonds, bank deposits and even property are pretty accurate judgements.
I’d also point out that the people responsible for the GFC made obscene wealth from it prior and didn’t lose anything personally from the GFC so their own risk evaluations were pretty accurate weren’t they.
Too cynical.
A lot of those people were trusted with fiduciary responsibilities, and they should be in jail right now.
This is a somewhat absurd, over-trusting statement, even in NZ.
But more so internationally, where the collusion between ratings agencies and their clients are now very well known.
Not really. Governments can default, bank deposits (in reality, a loan to the bank) can be lost and property values can go down (usually after a bubble or other financial crash).
Well, there is that, yes. IMO, that would be a sign of corruption.
So what’s the solution?
Aye, good question. I guess one has to first ask what is it people actually want?
But as far as property investment is concerned there really is a requirement that people understand how investment works. Know it and you can then figure out how to use it against itself. Property has a risk profile and the return from property as a percentage against other forms of investment will never change unless you change that risk profile. That can’t really be done, so what do you do….
If we accept that the return on property will follow basic investment rules then it must follow that if you reduce the return the price must fall to maintain the percentage return to new investors that the risk profile says it must.
You can’t reduce the return by changing tax rules because they’ll just put rents up to recover the lost income. So you do both. You bring rents down by creating an oversupply of rental properties and you tax the capital gain. Investors will be left with no options for restoring the lost revenue so the price of property must fall until it again returns the percentage that the risk profile dictates it must.
Simple really.
Yes, agreed.
No Right Turn turned 10 on Saturday. Happy decade anniversary Idiot/Savant.
Said it before, but I/S is a national taonga.
Thank you I/S and happy birthday.
Woot woot! 10 years of intelligent comments. Happy Birthday I/S.
– – –
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8315842/ACC-apologises-for-blaming-client
Good to see ACC only employs the best of the best (refers to last few lines of the article) and good news for the client … they apologise! Again!! Well now THAT makes it all better.
And, no of course we sensitive claimants wouldn’t expect you to fire anyone.
National up 5% in latest Colmar Brunton Poll. Labour and Greens down 2% each.
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/national-bounces-up-in-poll-5343671
I know people are waking up. That’s a given. Also, this is probably a rogue poll. That happens a lot. Also, something about landlines.
Lolz, Gormless by nature, fool in reality, hope you kept a copy of that to hold onto in bed at night,
C’mon give us a National Governing alone scenario,(snigger)…
You are right. I should be more grateful. Thank you, David Shearer, for giving us a National Governing alone scenario, (snigger).
Don’t forget a thanks for Russell Norman.
His “lets print money” and “I’m going to be finance minister” comments was sterling stuff.
So you are a greater thinker than all the financial brains of the US, Japan,and,England to name a few who are ‘just printing money’, are you,
While your here can you tell us the actual difference in the private banks producing money from thin air and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand doing exactly the same thing…
Read about how Keynes fucked up the Spanish economy prior to WWII……….
Link please or your just talking s**t, perhaps you are suggesting that the current problems the Spanish economy faces are all Keynes fault,(snigger)…
Because Keynes is clearly what caused all the ‘Prior to WWII’ shit in Spain. what else could it be? *laughs*
lolz
Well, really it’s about how to destabilise a country by manipulating it’s currency….
What is?
WTF are you talking about Grumpy?
I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t actually know.
Actually many of the *events* globally have money at the core, be it getting countries in debt, stealing resorces to stop those same nations you stole from being self sufficient…Not too hard to understand is it, given that its the foot on the throat of the planet!
Where can we read about this? Are you actually sure you have the right country, the right war, or the right planet?
BM:
http://t.co/xahZ5Chw <—- Known socialist rag 'The Economist'.
Times are changing mate, keep up.
I know you were trying to be sarcastic but “the Economist” is widely acknowledged as having a bit of a leftist bent.
By morons maybe.
But go on, give us some citations of people calling the Economist ‘leftist’. Could use a laugh.
I’ll bet they are to do with the fact they they haven’t enodorsed republicans in the last few US elections. In which case; *laughs*.
I hear all of Rupert Murdochs publications, even the WSJ, is going to the Left.
yeah right
well, in the internet tory vernacular “leftist” means “acknowledges reality even once”.
Hahahahahahahaha
According to Kongy boy anything that does not think that Hitler was on solid ground has a leftist twist.
Is a ‘leftist twist’ the current vernacular for how you hold David C’s privates whilst gobbling on them ?
tuckfard.
Is that DC’s pet name for you ?
I can see this exchange ending up well, HS. It’s a hot day, don’t imbibe too fast as it all goes to the brain in a hurry.
is that why Joyce reads it?
Yes of course, next time you get conversing with LPrent you should be more clear in conveying your gratitude for the bestowal of such a name upon you…
You really think you’re on fire, don’t you, bad12?
Zing me another zinger.
You have failed to provide any humor, back in your bucket swamp amoeba…
Zing!
Fool indeed…
you’re it (Tag Heuer)
It does make for depressing reading when you consider this doesn’t appear to be a rougue poll in light of the fact most those supporting National also want Hekia gone. To me that shows they are not just blind National lovers.
They are middle of the road kiwis who can see how destructive and useless Hekia is, but when they look over and see Shearer, well they see no hope.
How long can we go on like this. National voters are showing in polls they don’t support National’s initiatives (asset sales/eduacation) yet they would rather have those policies then have Mumblefuck in charge.
The answer is quite simple isn’t it. Shearer must must must go.
It means people are looking at the big picture.
Most aren’t particularly keen on partial asset sales but they’ll accept it because they prefer national to the labour/greens/mana collective.
Even if labour is saying some good stuff, they’re rather handicapped by their coalition partners, people think “if I vote labour we’ll end up with those green nut bars and Hone the angry racist mofo”.
Fuck that,I’II vote national.
So tell us again what the actual difference is between the private banking industry producing the money supply and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand doing the same thing???…
It’s pretty much this.
No they aren’t. If they were there’s no way that National would ever be in power as National only ever looks to the short term gain of the rich and that only ever comes at everyone else’s expense.
BM you are bang on. I would never consider a vote for Labour with Shearer as leader. However, what is more frightening to me are the potential coalition partners. The Greens and Mana would demand too much that I don’t think a lot of people could stomach, and the potential for chaos is huge. Shearer is not capable IMHO of keeping them under control and he would have to give away too much to bring them on board.
Oooooh scary stuff inside your mind, hasn’t the Prozac dose kicked in this morning…
Please keep away from my teenage son unp(rotected)c(opulating)nzcougar.
Shearer couldn’t do any worse than Key in either control or performance.
Honestly you people! I give an opinion bad12 and fenderviper and you stoop to that level. How about some intelligent discourse without throwing mud. I feel this says much more about you than it does about me.
If you support Shearer then great. Many don’t and interviews like the one on BFM today certainly do not help.
Aw was we meanies to you, we sowwy really, i can stoop lower, really low if you want…
Chaos as opposed to the well planned and orderly changes brought about by NAct? Our housing policy is run by Australian banks, education is run by Banks, and justice is run by Garth McVicar and that redneck from the Police Association, not to mention the economy being run by a currency speculator and social assistance being handled by an underachieving women who has dominatrix fantasies with everyone except Key, for whom she switches.
I’m not sure the Prozac is strong enough.
Psst, they are only Australian Banks in name only, it’s public relations and advertising which leads us to think of them as Australian Banks when they are actually owned by the global banking cartels,
Just another clever piece of marketing from the Banking Cartels…
Damn, you’re on to it.
http://www.spankyourbank.com.au/wbc-top-twenty-shareholders
yep, it’s a bit bigger than the 5 sisters in the oil cartel, but a banking cartel it is, and, when you look at the connections across the Western world in particular the same players are all there,
i have had debates befor where i have said that all the current 300 million a week Slippery is keeping His government afloat with is simply magic money from Wall Street,
Of course the reply is usually a ”no it’s borrowed from the Banks of Europe”,which is a giggle as they are all inter-connected and the only reason why the digital magic money is sent via Europe is to try and fool us all that it aint Wall Street’s magic money,
The bigger giggle is that it does fool a lot of people, which at the same time is pretty damn tragic…
A lot of the bigger members of the cartel are shy and it would be hard to find, but, sometimes when you dig you find where a biggy like Goldman Saches,(sacks of goldman), have their interest in a particular bank tucked away out of sight in one or more of the nominee companies,(saves the locals getting all antsy about the yanks buying up their banks lol)…
First confuse the people, create credit out of nothing, set up your own competition so there is apparent choice, next thing we’ll all be believing in scientology
If it’s good enough for Tom Cruise…?
Nah we chose neo-liberalism instead, level playing fields, free markets, everyone having personal responsibility, there is no alternative, the phraseology surrounding the Ism are endless, and just as meaningless but the stuff is so glib and the endless flow of it just serves to switch off most of us,
You know tho that ‘they’ have just about run out of steam when they all start uttering that pearl of wisdom ‘at the end of the day’,
Every low level street con-artist was using that phrase years ago…
It’s not Shearer putting them off, it’s the obsession with “identity politics” and the harping of the teacher unions (as shown in the latest survey) that is putting people off Labour. It would be worse without Shearer.
The most depressing thing i see in all that is your belief in this particular poll, the Roy Morgan out barely a week earlier told an entirely different story, what makes you have such faith in the TV1 poll which has since i can remember always polled National at 3% higher than it’s actual election night result…
Exactly, Bad. Not only does the Morgan poll have better methodology, hence more accuracy, they poll fortnightly so they are a more useful tool for monitoring the trend. Which is down for National and their poodles.
I suppose if anything useful can be taken from the CB/TV1 snapshot it is that Shearer appears to have small but solid support in the preferred PM poll. That’s heartening, because Goff never managed to gain traction there and he still came close to winning.
Lolz i take the TV1 and TV3 polls as messin with our heads, even Roy is a bit suspect at times,
i commented about the Morgan poll 1 back from the last 1 as reading National from the high side of the margin of error and Labour from the low side of that error margin,
The latest Morgan reverses that and i believe the TV1 poll does exactly what i suggested the Morgan poll is wont to do…
The Roy Morgan did not paint an entirley different story.
It was more fabourable to the left, yes, but for some fucked up reason National still has unbelievable support in any poll you look at.
We have been trying to read trends favourably for years but if an election was held today it would be a very close call.
Oh the f**ked up reason(s) why the Slippery National Government is still strongly supported is simply the ‘tax switch’ which puts 100,s of dollars a week into the pockets of the 40+% of the population that support that Government,
This gives them the ability to fully access the other ‘vote buy’ offered by Slippery the Prime Minister of ‘asset sales’
Across the world the left/right paradigm has closed to just that among committed voters, a few % points either way, this of course is aided by the large cohort who do not vote, even the last election was one of a couple of % points in favor of the right,(with the aberration of the Maori Party thrown in),
So, considering the ‘goodies’ on offer from Slippery’s National Government the ‘left’ aint doing to bad at all,
(take the Maori Party out of the equation and you have a National Government with a knife edge majority)…
PS, the last Roy Morgan had Labour+Green+Mana with the numbers to Govern, the TV1 poll has National in the position to virtually Govern alone,
If that aint ‘an entirely different story’ then i suggest you get your eyes checked…
part of the difference is that National is the only significant party to cover right to far right policies. I doubt they’ll drop below 35% in the next 6 years, even if labour win in 2014. A bunch of the top 20% will always vote tory, and a smaller chunk of futilely “aspirational” poor people will do so too.
Lab/greens are always going to share the leftish side of the vote.
Matthew Hooton on the radio just now was highly dismissive of this poll being correct. He could not see that nats were polling higher than they were at the election time.Something to do with CB inflating the percentage for nats which is historical.. Inflating was my word as I don’t know how else to put it.
Serious illness equals serious financial trouble
Something else that needs to be thought about. People should not be dropping into deprivation through no fault of their own.
As long as it’s through no fault of their own I would agree, as long as we don’t go down this route.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/obese-man-awarded-350000-from-gp-20130207-2e1gs.html
My only problem with that case is that it’s going through the courts, rather than medical council for malpractice.
Not to say that the doctor is necessarily at fault, given that medical knowledge does change so maybe banding or whatever wasn’t viewed as an appropriate treatment in those days. Just that I don’t think the courts are appropriate places for highly specialised issues like medicine – similarly I don’t think the cops should be charging pilots and so on without a specific referral from specialist investigation boards. Or even the boards themselves should prosecute, not involve the police at all.
The majority of fault lies with the patient who is a fat git.
fear-mongering Financial Services Council Propaganda
The NZ government fearing that Australia would stop kiwis working in OZ decided that those kiwis who did should not get access to welfare that their earnings are providing Australians.
I’m sorry, but that makes Kiwis second class citizens. That’s just wrong, why should Kiwis pay taxes yet not get the benefits of that taxation all so the NZ government can keep sending them there.
Finally exactly why does everyone think Australia is doing so badly out of the relationship. The business, the banks owned, the work kiwis in OZ pay, the whole relationship is not one
sided. In fact in the free trade speak the sum is greater than the parts.
So why does the media in NZ still demand that NZ just can’t match Australia that kiwis must suffer for the low estimation of what the NZ economy does for Australia. There was never a good reason
for Australia to deny Kiwis access to benefits, since when the sums are done I bet its better together than two seperated economies. Hey, and whats all this business about matching our economies, how exactly is it fait too do that in all areas but welfare?
surely the reason kiwis flock to Oz is that the tax regime here, the lack of a CGT, the leky homes, the astonishing poor retail sector, the lack of even basic consumer checks on food, etc….
they aren’t moving over there because Australia is so great, its because NZ is so poorly run and naff at competing. I have never heard so much bull about how companies need government to ease off, how we need more foriegn investment, etc, all because the hollowed out economy is pumping profits to foreigners (many living in AUSTRALIA).
+1
Kiwis working in Aus should receive a tax cut to allow them to save money for a time when the Aus Govt leave them without a safety net. How they can be taxed at the same rate yet not be given the same protection is just immoral.
You say that “That makes Kiwis second class citizens”. Well no, because they aren’t citizens at all.
Anyone from a country other than New Zealand has to get a work visa before going to Australia. New Zealanders don’t have to and many of them who do go there would not qualify for Citizenship under the Australian rules.
You also say “so the New Zealand Government can keep sending them there”. Also no. Transportation to Australia ended in 1853, which is rather a long time ago. The New Zealanders who go there choose to go, they aren’t sent.
The Australian economy was, until very recently doing better than the New Zealand one. That was mostly in Western Australia and Queensland. Do you think it may be because they allow mining and Oil development or is that just a coincidence?
The main reason that there is foreign investment in New Zealand rather than investment by New Zealanders is because we simply don’t save enough, and there is no incentive to do so. Anyone who saves and invests here is classed, by people like “Sir” Michael Cullen as being merely a “rich prick” and a “scumbag” who deserves to be plucked. On the other hand let us not go down the path of the Government choosing who the tax-payer’s money should be given to. Politicians are terrible at that and are, in particular, never willing to admit when they get something wrong. They much prefer to simply double-up on the bets.
I know its hard to fathom because of all the bull around but the fact that any ‘group’ of people pay taxes and don’t get access to the full range of services that other enjoy, nothing about being a citizen or not, is wrong.
Second, the citizenship argument, there are many people who are not Australians living in OZ who get welfare, its just they come through a process that acknowledges them. Unlike kiwis who just turn up.
Third, you did not address the point, that together our economies do better, the flexibility of allowing Australia to engage more well educated people means their economy can grow faster.
Fourth, everyone pretty much says kiwis should get access to welfare eventually, but do not.
Fifth, when did it become a privilege, Kiwis are guests, when do you treat people worse because they are guest, best mates rates, etc.
If Australia does want to them, send them home, we could do with the economic boost, call their bluff, the economic, social, business, etc relationships all suggest we should be fair, yet this disgrace still exists.
I’ll comment on the paragraphs as they appear. Note these are only my views or the facts of the matter as I understand them to be.
One. I agree, it isn’t really fair but surely a country has the right to set their own rules, not just to submit to what another country demands?
Two. Sure we treat them differently but that is something we chose to do. Again just because we do something doesn’t give us the right to make another country do it.
Three. Perhaps our economies would do better if they were more closely meshed. Observing the EU is making me a little less sure though. Perhaps we could fully mesh the economies. There is a clause in the Australian Constitution that enables New Zealand to become a state. Should we take advantage of that and all become Ockers? At least that would give us a good cricket team and them a good rugby team.
Four. It will probably happen. There is talk of eight years residence.
Five It was in 2001 or 2002. I forget which exactly. It was agreed by Phil Goff, Minister of Foreign Affairs incidentally, something he is desparately having amnesia about these days.
Six. I can’t really believe you are asking that Australia should deport every New Zealand born, non Australian citizen, from Australia?
There are some things Australia does that I think we should emulate. They do not allow non-citizens to vote in Federal or State elections. I heartlily approve.
Another is that Federal MPs (and Senators) must only hold Australian citizenship. There is a slight exception to this, relating mainly to Greek-born politicians but it is there only because Greece refuses to allow people with Greek citizenship to surrender it. I think we should bring in a similar rule. If you want the right to make the laws for this country you should be exclusively loyal to this country. If you want to be an MP here you should be required to relinquish any foreign citizenship.
Countries still need to act reasonably, use commonsense, not be two faced, like invite someone for reasons of closeness and them treat them worse than the most despised. Even criminals get welfare. Sure there maybe an argument that two years without access before welfare kicks in, that people should not just jump the ditch because their NZ PM has told them how great Australia is and how crap NZ compares implicitly when Key says stuff like they made the decision, we have to bend over and accept it NZ is a small useless backwater
we do nothing for the OZ economy. Australia choose to let us in for good economic reasons, is Key saying on the one hand they are so good and on the other were being stupid in a open border policy. Please. As for they choose to when individuals accept the welcome, well no! Howard chose to alter the rules to the extreme end of the spectrum, and its not the first time Australia has done that, removed rights of pacific peoples. Apartheid appeared in OZ before it got to South Africa. Perhaps people who argue for free trade, that the sum of the parts is bigger than the parts alone should not argue that its a burden for Australia, but Key is a hypocrite, there’s certainly no law against PMs being openly ironic, but I don’t have to swallow whole the assumptions implicit in the policy.
As a Australian citizen I find it offense for fence sitters, who want Kiwis in OZ yet don’t treat them fairly, but I suppose if NZ PMs and the community see workers as merely expendable its not a surprise they would flock to OZ and have their leaders vindicitively agree to have taxes taken off them to pay for beneficiaries in OZ but not get the same access
EVER without having to give up their citizenship. I mean they turned their backs on NZ
so why woudl you care that Australia sends them all packing, they after all don’t want to be Australians, and Australia is entitled to make its own laws, and we obviously all believe they can be treated in a second rate way, they are after all our best mates, so why not! Send the all back to NZ, see how long Key lasts when they want some of the economic wealth they saw in OZ and start introducing the means to get it, like a CGT, like no tax
for the first 5,000, like a upper chamber to keep politicians more honest….
Oh, wait a moment you don’t care about the issue, you want second class kiwis in OZ.
“Anyone who saves and invests here is classed, by people like “Sir” Michael Cullen as being merely a “rich prick” and a “scumbag” who deserves to be plucked”
not true – it was a comment directed squarely at john key – who is worth 50 odd million and is quite a prickish scumbag
its not cullens fault that a bunch of pundits then falsely extrapolated that to be cullens opinion of people who earn over 60k pa
please stop repeating such blatant rewriting of history
Of course that remark was made about John Key. Michael Cullen had form in this regard however.
In his maiden speech in 1982 he said
“I’m proud of the fact that my secondary education was not paid for by the taxpayer of New Zealand but by the farmers of Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay. I ripped them off for five years then and I shall get them again in the next few years”.
That is referring to the scholarship he had to go to Christs’ College in Christchurch.
Certainly not very civil was he? He always did seem to have a rather large chip on his shoulder about people who were better of than he was.
lol come on man, stop rewriting history in your own image.
Presumably you don’t believe that Cullen said that in his maiden speech.
He did and you can see it in Hansard.
Sorry but if you are trying to pretend that he didn’t say it it is you who are trying to rewrite history.
Give up and start seeing things as they really are.
“Certainly not very civil was he?”
whoopdee frickin doo – none of that makes your claim any more truthy.
cullen calling key a rich prick still doesnt mean everyone over 60k is also a rich prick
its a fabrication driven by those on the right and their useful idiots – you’ve obviously fallen for it hook line and sinker
The reason why we tax rich pricks is so we can have things like hospitals.
And you may want to dig up the Southern Alps but I dont.
Don’t get me started aero! Sometimes I wonder whether or not it isn’t Key’s agenda to force a position where (second-class) statehood in an Australian federation, or confederation is his orgasmic fantasy – even better if it could be achieved with the US of A.
The only thing that convinces me that isn’t so is that we all know he isn’t clever enough to have thunk it through.
Meantime though, he’s having a great time sucking up to the celeb politicians in the meed-ya, selling and giving away what’s left of our sovereignty (albeit with the occasional hiccup contested in courts).
It’ll come out one day JUST how hard JK pushed for the plight of NZers in OZ at the little Queenstown dalliance (not very) – in exchange for the NZ undertaking (BAD deal whichever way you look at it – even as far as international reputation is concerned).
When it does of course, he’ll probably be tucked up elsewhere.
Matthew Hooton says that he is sorry for Prosser the Tosser. NZ First is xenophobic and he quoted Winston making ‘colourful’ statements. None of the above have much integrity.
Hootin’ on the minimum wage. Scorn about a ‘number plucked out of the air’ – typical grasshopper approach – pick on a detail and demolish that; ergo the idea is a failed one.
Hootin’ also says that the places that have tried charter schools, (including Labour’s fave Sweden) also are keen on National Standards. I don’t think that is correct, certainly not for all those countries.
Kathryn Ryan says Prosser continues a tradition in NZ of making an absolute goat of yourself. Of course he could try passing pointed remarks about himself, a very funny and fruitful subject.
Yes, I listened to that. But Hootin’ was talking about the living wage, as I recall, not the minimum wage.
An interesting aside was the reference to Williams of the pre-radio broadcast chat between him and Hooton. So they agree on what they are going to talk about and/or signal their positions in advance?
Pretty normal on any talk radio show for the producer to organise what topics are to be discussed in advance and for the panellists to chat before they hit the airwaves, Karol.
karol probably raised this because of the big love-in we get to witness every week between Matthew Hooton and Mike Williams. It’s depressing.
It’s also funny geoff and in my mind its beginning to jeopardise the credibility of the likes of rinny ryan. From the LEFT [insert pagani or williams], and from the right [insert “the fair and balance Maaaaaaaaaaaaaathew Hoooooooooten”]. There’s been times when even rinny ryan has had to try and reign him in out of embarrasment, but its probably false advertising at best.
Then we get an hour’s reprieve before the next ultra-nice person takes to the air as part of that horrible band of bloody lefty public service broadcasters [not], including some painful mission to Mars and bestest best song ever written. (Jim hasn’t learned from Monday morning with rinny, that Maaaathew Hoooooten is the best song ever written).
RadioNZ has some isssss-yooos doesn’t it1 Primarily down to the regular gal in the weekday morn, and the exceptional every-person’s frend in the weekday afternoon. Both stale at best
Unfortunately they’re both better than the TINA alternatives. They’ll both probably get ONZs.
Mornings are always better when rinny takes what seems to be an endless availability of annual leave or afternoons have a locum
Hah yeah although I dislike Jim Mora much more than Kathryn. I remember when he was doing the voiceover for a show about cops raiding dope growers homes. Most were maori families probably trying to put food on the table, quite sickening how NZ media types are happy to lower themselves to that level.
At least we’ve still got Kim on Saturday mornings
I have stopped listening to that tripe on National Radio, the ‘i agree show’ with Hooten and Williams is simply 5 minutes of Hooten exercising his ego and Williams kissing His arse or vice versa,
I caught the pathetic ”why not $25 dollars a hour blah blah blah” from the evil baby look-a-like and immediately switched off my brain as that one obviously did so as to enable Him to comment on that National Radio show,
The only thing Mr Ego got right was His contention that the TV1 poll always gets National’s share of the vote wrong, on the high side of being that wrong as well,
Hooten’s nappies were obviously showing signs of being badly soiled today when He discussed the next election in terms of NZFirst not appearing in the next Parliament because of the overt racism exhibited by NZFirst MP Richard Tosser,
Hooten then resorted to mythology by saying that National after 2104 will be able to rely on the Maori Party for support to form the next Government,
Sorry Hooties, Maori have already got there ahead of you, with one hell of a dose of luck at the 2014 election the Maori Party might get one MP back into the Parliament,
Wonder how long it will take for Hooten to click onto that little fact and try whipping up support for the Conservatives,(snigger)…
bad12
I am shocked to find this sort of thing happening on radio. Thank goodness it’s not tv – we don’t have to view it. But should I complain to the Broadcasting Standards about such goings- on? Please advise.
You could,but, i fear it would be a waste of your energy and time, if you have plenty of both tho you could always take a swipe at such a pathetic display by Hooten and Williams,
The only grounds tho that i can see is on the basis of Williams in the views He continually expresses cannot be said to ‘be from the left’
False advertising perhaps???, of course it would be very difficult to ‘prove’ that Williams is not ‘from the left’ as the left is considered by many (most) to include the Labour Party which Williams was the Prez of…
bad12
I think Williams principles have worn bare with age.
Well, the countries that have tried charter schools usually also have their version of National Standards. Both systems in those countries are failing miserably as is to be expected of ideologically driven policy.
I listened to a fascinating, albeit concerning episode of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme yesterday called Food on a Pension.
It definitely raised in me some concerns about the future of elder care in New Zealand too, especially after the Southern District Health Board has decided to dump Presbyterian Support Otago from its home support contracts in favour of an Australian provider.
Worth the half hour to listen to it.
Looks like the title dropped off when I did the HTML. The episode is called “Food on a Pension”.
year to January-fruit and vege prices rose 5.9% (3.5% just from Dec to Jan this year) It’s Summer! Hallo?
So, I applied for a job last week at MBIE (yes, the new super-ministry). I just got a reply from http://www.hrx.com.au/ Yep, the government even employs Australians to find employees for them in NZ.
And they still wonder why unemployment in NZ is growing.
we’re a perverse stupid hollowed out country. And it’s a trend long led by the top.
You can tell it’s Australian….”we wouldn’t be us without you”
Who ownes these Australian companies/banks people keep referring to?
CV – Yes, thats what NZ is, terrible!
penitence? or Penance?, or Penzance
That’s Corny.
Congratulations to Idiot/Savant on 10 years of No Right Turn.
David Shearer interviewed on bFM this morning …
http://www.95bfm.co.nz/default,209942,labour-party-leader-david-shearer.sm
Too many head-desk moments to cite, but probably the worst is his reply to a simple question:
“Is there room for homophobes in Labour?”
Answer: yes, no, maybe, not a majority, something, whatever …
Basically he’s asked to explain the difference betwen a party position and a conscience vote. That’s not a trick question. You could answer it in two sentences. Shearer can’t.
Hey, gobsmacked, actually he handles that question (and the others) perfectly well. His answer is that he doesn’t think there are homophobes in the party, but he was aware some members don’t accept marriage equality. No surprise there.
“Basically he’s asked to explain the difference betwen a party position and a conscience vote. That’s not a trick question. You could answer it in two sentences. Shearer can’t.”
He answers that question perfectly well in, er, two sentences. Have a listen to the recording. Ok, it might be 3 sentences if what I take to be a comma at one point is actually a full stop, but you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, gs.
According to many on here this … :”His answer is that he doesn’t think there are homophobes in the party, but he was aware some members don’t accept marriage equality” … is not possible.
Not accepting marriage equality equals homophobia. So there you go – the labour party is full of homophobes. Just ask one tane huna.
Have a listen to the recording.
Um, thanks for the idea. I thought I already had, and then posted the link for others.
I heard a desperately inarticulate ramble, unable to make clear points, with the same old start-stop-restart habit that “media training” was supposed to cure.
But people can make up their own minds. The voters will.
Well, there is a difference between listening and hearing gs. You might have heard it, but you clearly weren’t listening.
One of you must be correct, but which one?
I agree. He was shocking. We get students just starting to learn English who can get their ideas across better than Shearer.
When asked about Prosser, he could have just said that anyone holding those sort of views would not get selected as a Labour candidate. But then they’ve just invited the back pussy guy back in, so he doesn’t even have the moral high ground there.
So there is room within Labour for homophobes but anyone coming out with homophobic comments comparable to the Prosser shit would be stood down. Hmm. So rank hypocracy is fine. Good to know. And straight from the horse’s mouth, which is to say, the mouth of (possibly) the most painfully equivocal political leader that has ever been foisted on the NZ public.
Further eg. of confused equivocation; Living Wage – no policy until next year BUT I (Shearer) made a speech on it last year and other orgs are getting behind the idea (But it can’t be a Labour Party policy idea until next year…yet Labour are leading the way?)
Seriously, I can’t hold up my hand with any honesty and say that I know what the fuck he was on about in that interview. All I can say is that I can’t fathom what he is/is not presenting. Two word summation: Absolutely disastrous.
The reason Shearer can’t say what policy is right now, is that you and the other members haven’t decided what it is yet. It’s your choice, Bill, you get to tell Shearer what he campaigns on.
You miss the point that on the one hand he says Labour has no policy while similtaneously claiming credit for the Living Wage campaign. Meanwhile, if labour has no policy until next year, then what was that housing policy? Not a policy? And what was all the harking back here on ts to 2011 policies as ‘proof’ of where Labour stands?
And – this shouldn’t need repeating… but even with no policy or no final policies, a party or a leader that either cleaved to core values or understood them, would be able to give unequivocal answers to questions based on those values. And that ain’t happening.
“And that ain’t happening”
Except on the BFM interview, obviously.
And claiming credit for the Living Wage campaign? Gotta cite for that?
Ahhhh, Shearer’s inability to articulate clear policy is the fault of an indecisive membership. I should have realised earlier that was the problem.
Did you not get the email, CV? We get to decide policy; that’s far more important than choosing the leader, as I have oh so consistently said.
That’s fine then, no probs as once we finalise all that policy detail over the next 12 months, David Shearer will become much more articulate.
Oh yeah how are you going to stop caucus from voting down or ignoring Policy Council decisions in future, like they have in the past?
Constitutional change. We’re taking back our party, CV.
Oh, very clever.
A great piece by Will Hutton. It’s about horsemeat in the UK…but the points and lessons to be learned apply here in so many ways.
Good quote “Capitalism does not organise itself to deliver best outcomes”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/17/horsemeat-scandal-is-tory-party-crisis
A recommended read.
And a great quote from one of the comments under the article:
“what right wing politics is – paying the most stupid gullible fools to act as mouthpieces for calculating and pernicious Corporate interests.”
Quoting article:
hah, is such a thing even possible?
This Wednesday between 1-2, with Willie and JT, the John Ansell will be discussing why all Maori, should be hung and dried, oops I meant, reasons nothing he says is racist, he just wants the best for everyone (but please can Maori practise being cultural in their own homes behind closed doors). Should be a giggle.
Ansell never says all Maori, just the “griever Treaty Maori” should be hung, drawn, and quartered, along with any Pakeha who think the Treaty has any place in our society. He’s quite happy to accept support from the odd (maybe very odd) Maori who agrees with him, accepts that the genuine text of the Treaty was found under a wheelbarrow in Taranaki, and that Celts and Egyptians had a flourishing civilisation in these islands before primitive cannibals turned up and ate them all.
Maybe, given Shearer’s openness to homophobes, he could be invited into the Labour Party?
Oh Dear, How Sad, Nevermind (far-right march in Bulgaria now)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-17/saxo-bank-ceo-says-euro-doomed-as-single-currency-woes-resurface.html
Pride only breeds quarrels yet wisdom is forced on those who take advice-13:10
We are currently within the sixth mass extinction event experienced by the earth, this one caused by humans; 1% of species disappear every six years.
From “Sciencia: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and astronomy for all.” (no religion, well actually…)
an Excellent little book. Walker and Company. NewYork. 2011. a Wooden Book (Wooden Jesus where are you from, Korea or Canada or maybe Taiwan…)
In times of recession and unemployment people’s allegiances and motives get scrambled. I was just reading a Manawatu Standard piece of Rolf Panny’s book Between Hitler and a Hard Place.
We should think about this as we face up to our next election. What will voters make of it all and why? This is a quote from the article.
Yep (Glad i’m not a Kennedy, imagine being a Kennedy)
Lolz old Jack tho would have been pretty pleased to have the family outta bootlegging and into a more genteel confidence profession…
Hey lovely Standard readers – can you share this/support this campaign. This sector is almost completely ununionised and the You Tube sets out what it is like working in Forestry. Listen to Kens family talk. We want to promote this clip by way of a billboard in Auckland – see the link to find our how you can help. Thanks in advance!
http://onebigvoice.com/media-fundraiser/what-killed-ken-callow-billboard
Helen – you can email us any time for requests or to send us guest posts! We might miss a comment like this. I’ll put it up now…
thanks Rob – will do –
Good on ya, Helen, a digital tenner’s just gone in from me. Not that it’s a contest, eh, standardistas.
Thanks! This is such an important video. A hidden industry with a dirty secret.
nice to see you around!
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Monday, February 18, 2013
Announcement 9am Tuesday
I am announcing my new media project 9am tomorrow here on Tumeke
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posted by Bomber @ 5:49 pm 0 comments
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