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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Slow Learner: Effective leaders develop a political “muscle memory” of their own. The National Party should get one.SPEAKING IN PUBLIC tops most people’s list of fearful situations. There are some careers, however, for which public fluency is a non-negotiable pre-requisite. There’s little point in pursuing an acting career, for example, ...
Reality appears to be about to shatter Jacinda Ardern’s dream that New Zealand could lead the world in showing how to deal with farm emissions. The Government is facing a breakdown in negotiations over its much-vaunted He Waka Eke Noa deal with farmers to price greenhouse gas emissions and ...
Hi,Webworm won a Voyager media award over the weekend for “Best Team Investigation”! This would not have been possible without readers. Without you. Thank you.Also, there’s a new Flightless Bird out today, where I look at drug rehab clinics in Florida. I talk to three former addicts, and their stories ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Government is coy about some aspects of its relationship with China – and with the United States. Earlier this month, the PM spent a hectic 23 hours in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, where he responded to the superpower security deal just ...
What do Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and your daily newspaper all have in common? They all tell tales of imaginary worlds.In Game of Thrones the honourable Stark family find themselves in deadly conflict with the ruthless House of Lannister.In the NZ Herald the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins finds himself ...
What do Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and your daily newspaper all have in common? They all tell tales of imaginary worlds.In Game of Thrones the honourable Stark family find themselves in deadly conflict with the ruthless House of Lannister.In the NZ Herald the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins finds himself ...
In 2022 the government announced a periodic review of the Intelligence and Security Act, the legislation governing New Zealand's spies. Yesterday the review presented its report, Taumaru: Protecting Aotearoa New Zealand as a Free, Open and Democratic Society. Its a chunky read, and I'm not finished yet, but from the ...
The Charities Services decision to require the Waipareira Trust to claw back $385,000 of interest-free loans from John Tamihere brings renewed attention to the links between Whānau Ora and the Trust.Thomas Cranmer writes – Revelations earlier this month in the Herald that the social services charity Waipareira ...
National has developed a novel election strategy. It involves being both for and against almost every issue that comes down the pike. The use of te reo on public signage? Recently National Party leader Christopher Luxon came out against the bi-lingual use of te reo in the naming of government ...
Anti-densification residents’ and ratepayers’ groups are cock-a-hoop over National’s partial backflip on MDRS over the weekend and have ramped up their campaigns to stop densification in their areas. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: NIMBY groups are cock-a-hoop this morning, calling on councils and the Government to completely abandon the MDRS housing ...
It’s been two months but today the Auckland Transport board meet for again. There’s a lot on the agenda so I can’t cover it all in this post but here are some of the highlights from their regular board papers. The open session starts at 9am and can be watched on ...
This story by Aaron Cantú was originally published in Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Monic Uriarte was thrilled to get approved for an affordable apartment in Los Angeles’ University Park, close to USC. But soon after she and her ...
This incomplete picture speaks of everything we love most about a summer holiday in Aotearoa: The bach, the beach, the barbecue, the sand, the christmas ham sandwiches, the serenity.We love it, don’t we, Aotearoa? Getting away to somewhere warm and quiet with a high tide and a hammock. And if ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers who took time out from the Labour Party congress to attend to portfolio duties were focused largely on promoting the country’s interests overseas. The statements with the widest implications dealt with: Trade – Damien O’Connor joined ministerial representatives at a meeting in Detroit, USA, ...
In the last year of a second term in government. the election outcome shouldn’t even be close. All that’s required for a competent Opposition to be streets ahead in the polls, is an ability to look like a credible government-in-waiting. Instead, we’ve got a very tight contest. There’s a reason ...
The Herald reports that WINZ debt has reached the staggering total of $2.4 billion, with the usual racism and sexism in who owes and how much they pay: Anti-poverty groups say the poorest Kiwis are caught in a debt trap as the total amount of money owed to the ...
There was a poll last week which asked if now was the right time for a tax cut. Which is quite an odd thing to ask really, don’t you think?We’ve got to pay back the money used to keep paying people and stop businesses going under during the pandemic. Our ...
The Treasury released its budget economic forecasts. What do they say about the economy over the next four months?Brian Easton writes – Let me begin me with an irritation. One post-budget headline was ‘Treasury optimistic over recession risk in Budget 2023‘. Treasury being optimistic is almost an ...
As a politician swallowing a rat under a very public spotlight, Chris Bishop gave a spirited and relatively smooth account of himself yesterday. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Chris Bishop has detailed National’s new housing policy for Election 2023 that confirms a National Government would not force councils ...
After signalling it a week ago, yesterday National launched their new housing policy which abandons their support for the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) that they had worked with the government to deliver back in 2021 and shifts the focus to more sprawl. Overall there are three key areas National ...
The audacity of National’s “u-turn” over housing intensification is an extraordinary slap in the face for Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis. If it does nothing else, it raises questions about their political judgement, not for the first time.. Some in the Caucus have still not forgiven them for their ...
As the general election approaches, the Association of Former Members of the Parliament of New Zealand has organised an essay competition to to foster democracy. Secondary school students are being challenged to identify the important elements of a successful democracy, explain their value and consider whether they can be improved ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: For paying subscribers, here's my pick of the week’s top six news developments, quotes and charts of the week with my personal reflections, plus my suggestions for Sunday reading and listening. There’s also one fun thing. In summary this week, my six takeaways were:Christopher ...
With Open Arms: Is it at all reasonable to suppose that a colonial society in which whites traditionally occupied all the upper rungs of the ethnic hierarchy, and where the colonised were relegated to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, will respond positively to a concerted indigenous push from below, ...
Hi,Just a quick online-only update that Webworm won “Best Team Investigation” last night at the Voyagers.This means a lot, especially considering we were up against giant newsrooms like Stuff and TVNZ:WINNER: David Farrier and Hayden Donnell | Webworm – The Downward Spiral of Arise ChurchJUDGES: Alan Sunderland and Ali Ikram“This ...
May 28, 2025.Ladies and gentlemen. It’s a beautiful clear morning here in Auckland City. We’re heading for a maximum temperature of 14 degrees, and the local time is now 10:30am. Please remain seated if you’d like to, or get up and walk around the plane if you prefer. New regulations ...
Somebody has made a new survey and it tells us this little waterlogged nation of ours is rocketing up the misery charts. Maybe they took it before the sun came back out.Or maybe they took it any time in the last two years. Because negativity is quite surely the new ...
The appointment of Elizabeth Longworth as Chair of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO was one of just two press statements on the government’s official website today. Perhaps that’s because ministers have been busy preparing speeches for the Labour Party faithful who have gathered in Wellington for the party’s ...
Alarm bells have been rung by the department after its Deputy Director-General for Operations warns, ‘the initial view shows that we do not have sufficient funding to cover our basic running costs’.Thomas Cranmer writes – Following last week’s budget, alarm bells have been rung by the Department ...
Luxon went after the NIMBY vote, declaring National’s 2021 bipartisan deal with Labour to make it much easier to put three townhouses on a regular section ‘wrong’. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: The week’s news in Aotearoa’s political economy I covered via The Kākā for subscribers included:The Labour ...
Hello! This is the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the week.Here’s what you may have missed.Last Sunday’s column was about the budget A big chunk of this year’s budget coverage was brought to us by the words crass, gauche and venal. The big questions ...
Hi,Usually Webworms are quite focussed — this one is the opposite. No rhyme or reason. A bit like my brain: sometimes ultra-focussed, other times utterly unable to settle on a goddamn thing. And as we head into the weekend, there are a bunch of things buzzing around in my head ...
The Mainstream Media, and especially the New Zealand Herald, regularly carry misinformed columns on the causes of the country’s low-grade economic performance over recent years. One old codger, John Gascoigne, who describes himself as “a Cambridge-based economic commentator” (not the university, alas!) correctly told us early this week that New ...
The Treasury released its budget economic forecasts. What do they say about the economy over the next four months?Let me begin me with an irritation. One post-budget headline was ‘Treasury optimistic over recession risk in Budget 2023'. Treasury being optimistic is almost an oxymoron. They fire down the centre.It is ...
Photo by Ron Fung on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with special guests:5.00 pm ...
1. Who most likely gave LOTO Luxon the idea to pull the rug on the urban density policy?a. A leading thinker on affordable housing b. A leading thinker on 15 minute cities c. A leading thinker on sustainable urban planning d. National-Party-supporting property developers2 . With what was this illustration made?a. Artificial inseminationb. ...
Buzz from the BeehivePoint of Order tallied $314.4 million of spending in the latest ministerial statements posted on the government’s official website. This includes a lump of money to – yes, really – help identify businesses in tourism and hospitality which treat their staffs well and to fund the ...
It’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for an hour from midday (my apologies for the late start today), including:the Government’s payment of $130 million of Climate Emergency Fund money to NZ Steel to help it cut ...
National/ACT would have 62 seats in a 120 seat Parliament if the latest poll results were replicated in the October election, but micro-movements around the median and the size of Te Pāti Māori’s caucus will decide who governs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: National/ACT could govern alone after October ...
Welcome to Friday – again! Hard to believe we’re almost in June. Here’s our latest roundup of stories that caught our eye this week. The Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Matt covered the transport highlights from this year’s Budget. On Tuesday, Matt asked if the end is ...
What should one make of the Reserve Bank Governor’s extraordinary donation of a hostage to fortune in forecasting an end to interest rate hikes? Conspiracy theorists will be scratching their tinfoil hats and mumbling about positioning for a whacking great payoff on being forced out by a new government. ...
During New Zealand First coalition negotiations our policy was to train and resource 1800 new frontline police. We secured this coalition policy win to ensure our streets had a police force that could tackle crime - after years of neglect. Remember those previous nine years of neglect saw a ‘tag ...
Katie Kenny from Stuff published an article today with a lazy attempt at so-called ‘fact checking’ my recent comments on the World Health Organisation’s concerning new regulations being developed. What is most surprising is that throughout this entire ‘fact checking’ process, Kenny never once rang me asking for my side ...
The National Party has released another confused and rushed policy that will only further worsen the inequality that is driven by unaffordable housing. ...
Welcome to sunny and calm Wellington, which I know those of you who are visiting would of course expect to be the case. It’s been a busy week since we put forward the 2023 Budget. Labour MPs have been out across the motu giving the good oil on the Budget. ...
Kia orana, Talofa lava, Mālo e lelei, Taloha ni, Fakaalofa lahi atu, Noa’ia e mauri, Ni sa bula vinaka, Kia ora, Tena Koutou Katoa. Labour Party President Jill Day, Prime Minister Hipkins, Party faithful, delegates and comrades, whānau and friends, it’s a privilege to be here today. I begin my ...
One of my kaumātua up North stood before the Waitangi Tribunal and said: ‘He aha kē ahau, te tangata kore hara i mua i te Atua, e tu nei kia whakawaatia e koe, te tangata tāhae, te tangata hara, te tangata kore tikanga?Ko koe kē te tika, kia tū ...
New Zealanders will be highly concerned that the World Health Organisation proposes to effectively take control of independent decision making away from sovereign countries and place control with the Director General. W.H.O International Health Regulations on future outbreaks of disease aim to give the Director General extraordinary and wide-sweeping powers. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take responsibility for reducing inflation by taxing wealth instead of leaving RBNZ to continue hiking the Official Cash Rate. ...
The Green Party has released its list of candidates for the 2023 election. With a mix of familiar faces, fresh new talent, and strong tangata whenua voices, this exceptional group of candidates are ready to set the direction of the next Government. ...
Thank you for your invitation to be here, after yesterday's budget, and for the opportunity to talk with you. In the economic and social turmoil following the arrival of COVID 19 in New Zealand many concerns emerged. How would we keep our economy going and maintain our exports which are ...
At the heart of Budget 2023 is a cost of living package, designed to ease the pressure on New Zealanders in the face of global inflation and the challenges of rebuilding from extreme weather events. It provides practical cost of living relief across some of the core expenses facing Kiwis ...
A long standing Green Party policy has been extended yet again in this year’s Budget. This will deliver warmer homes for thousands of people, lower power bills, and cut climate pollution. ...
The Green Party is fully on board with free bus and train travel for under 12s and half price travel for under 25s - next stop, free travel for all under 18s, students, and apprentices. ...
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced a billion dollar flood and cyclone recovery package as part of Budget 2023. This is about doing the basics - repairing and rebuilding what has been damaged and making smart investments, including $100 million of protection funding to ensure future events don’t cause ...
The Fuel Industry (Improving Fuel Resilience) Amendment Bill would: boost New Zealand’s fuel supply resilience and economic security enable the minimum stockholding obligation regulations to be adapted as the energy and transport environment evolves. “Last November, I announced a six-point plan to improve the resiliency of our fuel supply from ...
The Government is making sure those on low incomes will no longer have to wait five weeks to get the minimum weekly rate of ACC, and improving the data collected to make the system fairer, Minister for ACC Peeni Henare said today. The Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) ...
A compulsory code of conduct will ensure school board members are crystal clear on their responsibilities and expected standard of behaviour, Minister of Education Jan Tinetti said. It’s the first time a compulsory code of conduct has been published for state and state-integrated school boards and comes into effect on ...
Tena koutou katoa and thank you, Mayor Nadine Taylor, for your welcome to Marlborough. Thanks also Doug Saunders-Loder and all of you for inviting me to your annual conference. As you might know, I’m quite new to this job – and I’m particularly pleased that the first organisation I’m giving a ...
The Government will enter into a funding arrangement with councils in cyclone and flood affected regions to support them to offer a voluntary buyout for owners of Category 3 designated residential properties. It will also co-fund work needed to protect Category 2 designated properties. “From the beginning of this process ...
The Government has announced changes to strengthen requirements in venues with pokie (gambling) machines will come into effect from 15 June. “Pokies are one of the most harmful forms of gambling. They can have a detrimental impact on individuals, their friends, whānau and communities,” Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds said. ...
The total Police workforce is now the largest it has ever been. Police constabulary stands at 10,700 officers – an increase of 21% since 2017 Māori officers have increased 40%, Pasifika 83%, Asian 157%, Women 61% Every district has got more Police under this Government The Government has delivered on ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon Nanaia Mahuta met with Korea President Yoon, as well as Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna, during her recent visit to Korea. “It was an honour to represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the first Korea – Pacific Leaders’ Summit. We discussed Pacific ambitions under the ...
The Government’s Research and Development Tax Incentive has supported more than $2 billion of New Zealand business innovation – an increase of around $1 billion in less than nine months. "Research and innovation are essential in helping us meet the biggest challenges and seize opportunities facing New Zealand. It’s fantastic ...
The next ‘giant leap’ in New Zealand’s space journey has been taken today with the launch of the National Space Policy, Economic Development Minister Barbara Edmonds announced. “Our space sector is growing rapidly. Each year New Zealand is becoming a more and more attractive place for launches, manufacturing space-related technology ...
A new Year 7-13 designated character wharekura will be built in Pāpāmoa, Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis has announced. The wharekura will focus on science, mathematics and creative technologies while connecting ākonga to the whakapapa of the area. The decision follows an application by the Ngā Pōtiki ā Tamapahore ...
Protecting the environment by establishing a stronger, more consistent system for freedom camping Supporting councils to better manage freedom camping in their region and reduce the financial and social impacts on communities Ensuring that self-contained vehicle owners have time to prepare for the new system The Self-Contained Motor Vehicle ...
A new law passed last night could see up to 25 percent of Family Court judges’ workload freed up in order to reduce delays, Minister of Justice Kiri Allan said. The Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill will establish a new role known as the Family Court Associate. The ...
New Zealand businesses will begin reaping the rewards of our gold-standard free trade agreement with the United Kingdom (UK FTA) from today. “The New Zealand UK FTA enters into force from today, and is one of the seven new or upgraded Free Trade Agreements negotiated by Labour to date,” Prime ...
The Government will reform outdated surrogacy laws to improve the experiences of children, surrogates, and the growing number of families formed through surrogacy, by adopting Labour MP Tāmati Coffey’s Member’s Bill as a Government Bill, Minister Kiri Allan has announced. “Surrogacy has become an established method of forming a family ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little departs for Singapore tomorrow to attend the 20th annual Shangri-La Dialogue for Defence Ministers from the Indo-Pacific region. “Shangri-La brings together many countries to speak frankly and express views about defence issues that could affect us all,” Andrew Little said. “New Zealand is a long-standing participant ...
Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall and the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang met in Wellington today and affirmed the two countries’ long-standing science relationship. Minister Wang was in New Zealand for the 6th New Zealand-China Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation. Following ...
5 percent uplift clearer and simpler to navigate Domestic productions can access more funding sources 20 percent rebate confirmed for post-production, digital and visual effects Qualifying expenditure for post-production, digital and visual effects rebate dropped to $250,000 to encourage more smaller productions The Government is making it easier for the ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs (Pacific Region) Carmel Sepuloni will represent New Zealand at Samoa’s 61st Anniversary of Independence commemorations in Apia. “Aotearoa New Zealand is pleased to share in this significant occasion, alongside other invited Pacific leaders, and congratulates Samoa on the milestone of 61 ...
The Government is continuing to support retailers with additional funding for the highly popular Fog Cannon Subsidy Scheme, Police and Small Business Minister Ginny Andersen announced today. “The Government is committed to improving retailers’ safety,” Ginny Andersen said. “I’ve seen first-hand the difference fog cannons are making. Not only do ...
The Government has received the first independent review of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says. The review, considered by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, was presented to the House of Representatives today. “Ensuring the safety and security of New Zealanders is of the utmost ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has expressed condolences on behalf of New Zealand to the Kingdom of Tonga following the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili. “New Zealand sends it’s heartfelt condolences to the people of Tonga, and to His Majesty King Tupou VI at this time ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has expressed condolences on behalf of New Zealand to the Kingdom of Tonga following the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili. “New Zealand sends it’s heartfelt condolences to the people of Tonga, and to His Majesty King Tupou VI at this time ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little and Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta have today announced the extension of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) deployment to Solomon Islands, as part of the regionally-led Solomon Islands International Assistance Force (SIAF). “Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of working alongside the Royal Solomon ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will travel to the Republic of Korea today to attend the Korea–Pacific Leaders’ Summit in Seoul and Busan. “Korea is an important partner for Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific region. I am eager for the opportunity to meet and discuss issues that matter to our ...
Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor joined ministerial representatives at a meeting in Detroit, USA today to announce substantial conclusion of negotiations of a new regional supply chains agreement among 14 Indo-Pacific countries. The Supply Chains agreement is one of four pillars being negotiated within the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework ...
Our most spoken Pacific language is taking centre stage this week with Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa – Samoa Language Week kicking off around the country. “Understanding and using the Samoan language across our nation is vital to its survival,” Barbara Edmonds said. “The Samoan population in New Zealand are ...
Over 90 per cent of New Zealanders are expected to receive this year’s nationwide test of the Emergency Mobile Alert system tonight between 6-7pm. “Emergency Mobile Alert is a tool that can alert people when their life, health, or property, is in danger,” Kieran McAnulty said. “The annual nationwide test ...
ENGLISH: Whakatōhea and the Crown sign Deed of Settlement A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Whakatōhea and the Crown, 183 years to the day since Whakatōhea rangatira signed the Treaty of Waitangi, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Whakatōhea is an iwi based in ...
Elizabeth Longworth has been appointed as the Chair of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, Associate Minister of Education Jo Luxton announced today. UNESCO is the United Nations agency responsible for promoting cooperative action among member states in the areas of education, science, culture, social science (including peace and ...
Tourism and hospitality employer accreditation scheme to recognise quality employers Better education and career opportunities in tourism Cultural competency to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces Innovation and technology acceleration to drive satisfying, skilled jobs Strengthening our tourism workers and supporting them into good career pathways, pay and working conditions ...
Tourism and hospitality employer accreditation scheme to recognise quality employers Better education and career opportunities in tourism Cultural competency to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces Innovation and technology acceleration to drive satisfying, skilled jobs Strengthening our tourism workers and supporting them into good career pathways, pay and working conditions ...
Greater access to primary care, including 193 more front line clinical staff More hauora services and increased mental health support Boost for maternity and early years programmes Funding for cancers, HIV and longer term conditions Greater access to primary care, improved maternity care and mental health support are ...
Greater access to primary care, including 193 more front line clinical staff More hauora services and increased mental health support Boost for maternity and early years programmes Funding for cancers, HIV and longer term conditions Greater access to primary care, improved maternity care and mental health support are ...
The Government continues progress on the survivor-led independent redress system for historic abuse in care, with the announcement of the design and advisory group members today. “The main recommendation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s Abuse in Care interim redress report was for a survivor-led independent redress system, and the ...
Aotearoa New Zealand is providing NZ$7.75 million to respond to urgent humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its most severe drought in decades, with five consecutive failed rainy seasons. At least 43.3 million people require lifesaving and ...
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall has opened two new state-of-the-art mental health facilities at the Christchurch Hillmorton Hospital campus, as the Government ramps up its efforts to build a modern fit for purpose mental health system. The buildings, costing $81.8 million, are one of 16 capital projects the Government has funded ...
The Government is continuing to invest in our regional economies by announcing another $24 million worth of investment into ten diverse projects, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan says. “Our regions are the backbone of our economy and today’s announcement continues to build on the Government’s investment to boost regional economic ...
An $8 million boost to New Zealand Māori Tourism will help operators insulate themselves for the future. Spread over the next four years, the investment acknowledges the on-going challenges faced by the industry and the significant contribution Māori make to tourism in Aotearoa. It builds on the $15 million invested ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has marked the arrival of the first 18 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles for the New Zealand Army, alongside personnel at Trentham Military Camp today. “The arrival of the Bushmaster fleet represents a significant uplift in capability and protection for defence force personnel, and a milestone in ...
NZ Post has, with little or no warning, stopped sending mail to 34 countries; there are another 21 that aren’t sending mail to us. But it's kept pretty quiet about it ...
Why is she in trouble, and what could happen if she’s found in contempt? Scorn and entitlement. Or, at least, contempt and privilege. In the strange world where constitutional law and politics intersect, people are bad at naming things. Parliament has “privileges”, and even a whole committee specially devoted to ...
What questions will a green doctor ask you? What should you do if police see your weed? And should you really drink it in a tea? Natalie Lowe is placing her sandwich board on a central Auckland footpath. She’s been outside mere seconds when she’s approached by three burly men ...
The ANZ Premiership grand final will be a showdown of netball’s great wingwomen – Mystics’ Michaela Sokolich-Beatson vs Stars’ Gina Crampton. Suzanne McFadden speaks to both athletes, on a common mission. It’s a gritty battle just too close to call. Stars wing attack Gina Crampton and Mystics wing defence Michaela ...
The first King's Birthday Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list, described by Steve Braunias FICTION 1 The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35) Next week's Book of the Week review at ReadingRoom is by Philip Matthews (crowned Best Reviewer at last year's ...
Aotearoa has vast tracts of suburban and urban terrain. The possibilities for reformulating under-used landscapes into massive carbon-capture terrains are enormousOpinion: Many New Zealanders are engaged in the environmental work that needs to be done to halt the degradation of our planet. However, addressing increasing carbon dioxide emissions and ...
New Zealand's big emitters are under pressure to do more as the country heads towards its zero carbon 2050 target. NZ Steel's the first mover with a big deal with the Government to help it cut its emissions. Who will be next? The $300 million deal between NZ Steel ...
This week on the Raw Politics podcast: National struggles to deal with race relations and Labour and National fall out over housing density - plus the risk of a caucus breakdown for ACT The Raw Politics team takes a look at how National's leader and MPs are dealing with ...
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A new poem by Wellington poet Victoria Lewis. Carmine well – the cherries appeared quietly there on the kitchen bench as if to smile and say i love you,and you dared to forget those gleaming fruit form a prayer, a devotion bloody on the inside, taut on the out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra nitpicker/Shutterstock By coincidence, the furore around the consultancy firm PwC is raging just as the National Anti-Corruption Commission is gearing up for its start of business on July 1. The PwC scandal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ricardo Villegas, Senior Lecturer of Law, University of South Australia Today, Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko handed down his long-awaited judgment in the defamation case that Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living former SAS soldier, brought against the Age, the Sydney Morning ...
Wayne Brown has named and attempted to shame councillors who oppose the sale of the council's airport shares, but some are returning fire, saying he does not have the votes to pass his plan. ...
Some certainty has arrived for those impacted by severe weather events earlier this year but the bulk of the detail for a buyout scheme affecting at least 700 homes is a work in progress, writes political editor Jo Moir.Analysis: Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson has been determined since February ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rolph, Professor of Law, University of Sydney At the heart of the spectacular defamation trial brought by decorated Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith were two key questions. Had the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times damaged his reputation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Bateson, Professor of Practice, University of Sydney Shutterstock Australians’ access to a range of contraceptive options depends on where they live and how wealthy they are. A recent parliamentary inquiry recommends ways to end this “postcode lottery” for people ...
Labour's campaign chair is standing by a social media post which likens National's prescriptions policy to dystopian TV show and novel The Handmaid's Tale. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition’s decision to oppose the Voice to Parliament has put its moderate members in a jam. Some moderates are active yes advocates, while others are trying to keep low profiles. Bridget Archer, the outspoken ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling out the agriculture industry’s "undue influence" over the Government’s agricultural emissions policy, saying that " predatory denial and delay " have stalled the development of plans to price and reduce ...
“The huge fire in South Auckland illustrates the serious human health risks of incinerating flock, the residual material left over from the scrap metal process. It is one reason we will be opposing the building of a waste incinerator in Te Awamutu ...
It’s reassuring to think that by paying for private treatment you’re ‘freeing up a bed’ in a public hospital. But the reality is private beds don’t free up public beds, they replace them. Ethicists argue that healthcare is special. Unlike other consumer goods, its availability and accessibility should be based ...
The office of mayor Wayne Brown has hit back at criticism journalists were “cherry-picked” for this morning’s budget announcement. A number of media outlets, including The Spinoff, Stuff, TVNZ and Newshub, were not invited to hear Brown’s budget address. Some, however, made it into the room after Brown had started ...
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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’…
🙂 My pleasure…amazing what’s out there eh.
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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