Toby Manhire: "Campbell, who did a good job at keeping things rolling, at one point observed, “You sound like you’re both on auto-pilot,” he was mostly right, except that would have required leaving the ground."
Trish Sherson: "Real politics is live, off script, a contest of ideas with tough questions. Collins owned it."
Morgan Godfery: "The prime minister had it all over her: on the border, on housing, on education, and in personality. "
Ben Thomas: "Ardern was strangely hesitant."
Justin Giovannetti: "When asked about her plan for poverty reduction, Collins responded with ripping up the RMA. Campbell was incredulous, voters were probably confused."
Madeleine Chapman: "both leaders argued about who could commit the hardest to not taxing property. In my mind, we all lost tonight. And I will spend the next seven working days of my life fake-smiling and announcing “my husband is Samoan, so talofa” to everyone I meet. In that sense, Judith Collins won simply by saying something so ridiculous that she’ll be living rent-free in my brain until the next debate."
Steve Braunias has written an article for the Guardian on the leaders' debate. The link is below. One notable quote…
After the curious stage direction, Campbell gave a warm welcome to Ardern and Collins, and revealed that he was holding nothing more sinister than a brand new clipboard. The next 90 minutes were all downhill.
“I tell you what, John,” she kept saying, and one of the things she told him over and over is that she had experience as a small business owner. “I once was one.” She treated the debate as a kind of autobiography in instalments.
Old Jude's really quite skillful, don't you think? No flies on her in this regard.
When there is very little of relevance that you can confidently dominate the debate with, revert to repetitive and vague historical recollections, including inane self promotion.
And then hope that it might appeal to the emotions of a number of the disillusioned or worried, (in this case small and medium business operators), or any other target audience which you know will be feeling some pain or distress at the time you take to the podium.
Then hope like Hell that your murmurings will convince the target audience that their suffering and predicament was brought about by your opponent, or those who advised him or her and also by those who continue to do so.
Maybe Ardern was just plain tired , pandemic to navigate NZ through since March and electioneering since July. She knew it and had to tread cautiously first time around.
Janet I would think you're 100% right. The knowledge that the election would be over now if not having to be fitted round wilfully ignorant people undoing the efforts of those really doing God's work on earth leads to pockets of depression. She may have been on the edge of one of them.
And for those not wishing to sleepwalk to the polls, just roll over and go back to sleep, (perhaps until 2023).
Another way, if are worried that you might be accused of NOT voting or you are getting a bit nervous about being caught out abstaining from the three yearly habit, is to go to the nearest polling place, walk in, and then out.
After you've done and then just mill around (smoke a ciggy if you're that way inclined, or sip on a water for about 20 minutes) and then leave with an old "I voted" sticker from 2017 or 2014 that you brought with you, stuck to your jacket, shirt or blouse.
Collins made her points rather than answer the actual questions. The arrogance was on show with those cutaway shots so her media minders have work to do unless that's the desired outcome.
Collin's is hardly going to make any impact trying to play Ardern at her particular skills, because a) she isn’t that cuddly feely, b) She would look incincere, so pointing out basic points is pretty much all she has to go with at this late stage I think.
I did think Collins got the better of Ardern with coming across to your average normal voter who doesn't particularly follow politics, with plain speak tbh, while Ardern's normally excellent communication skills kind of had an off night.
If anything, to me it looked oddly like Ardern had just over practiced the thing and was just sticking to a routine or script, with no improv' when Collins pointed things out.
If you like full on cringe you would have picked Collins over Ardern. Her performance was on par with what a certain Don Brash could produce, even Bridges probably would have been more convincing.
Collins response of "that we know of!" to Ardern's statement on the tiny amount of border/quarantine breaches was one such example.
I guess it comes down to how you prefer you leader to come across.
Different voters prefer different things. If you like the touchy feely persona, Ardern is always going to win (although she had an off night last night). If you prefer just basic truthful points rammed at you then you would go Collins.
And if you are a die hard voter for either party, you are going to view each persons performance with rose coloured glasses and ignore the flaws of your preferred.
An old trick that seasoned or street smart politicians on the offensive often come up with is having it appear that they are trying to be polite and truthful, when all they are trying to do is to dislodge their opponent and dominate the debate.
Ardern seems to be aware of this tactic and has obviously been quite well coached in relation to avoiding repetitive distraction. For example, repetitive title errors or name pronunciations"errors".
Expressing opinion as to package it as a "truthful presentation" is another tactic which is well used. It is commonly acceptable just as long as the opinion expressed cannot be legitimately challenged as being erroneous or non-factual at the time that opinion is provided.
This is as old a trick as using percentages of percentages to embellish or appear to exaggerate a statement so as to give it impact.
Say the unemployment figure for women in NZ from Sept 2017 through to Sept 2018 decreased from 5.4% to 4%, some might convey it this way; "The number of registered unemployed women in NZ dropped by about 22% during Sept 2017 and Sept 2018".
Quite entertaining really.
All I am suggesting is that we all need to be careful with our definition of the word; "truthful", especially when quoting politicians lines.
No matter what her minders have told her she must change – and it's obvious her minders have said there's a lot she needs to change – there's nothing Collins can do to mask her abject narcissism and multiple personality disorders.
I was a bit put off by the hype- Wendy Petrie over the poll results, as if they were handed down to Moses as gospel to the repeated gushy ad with Campbell.
I am not the target audience, I have made up my mind and will be early voting.
@ Dennis Frank …yep with you there..I fucking love political debates, and this one I actually thought was pretty good, it showed for anyone who bothered to watch the whole thing where both political parties lined up and where the light was between them…the environment was obviously the most stark difference between them, while Madeleine Chapman summed up housing and capital gains (which is also of course directly related to inequality and poverty outcomes etc)…"both leaders argued about who could commit the hardest to not taxing property. In my mind, we all lost tonight."
I found Ardern to be quite uncharismatic which combined with an awful semi pleading delivery style was quite hard to watch, while Collins left me with the feeling that I cannot excuse anyone who would actually vote for someone so seething with uncontrolled rage and a barely contained nasty streak that spilled out time and time again in almost every sideways look and glance she made at Ardren..she seemed to me to be quite unhinged.
Indeed. Someone ought to explain biological signalling to her! Viewers read the plea as a sign of weakness. Sincere, genuine leftists use the plea style out of habit, presuming others have rapport, empathy, and will give the reasoning due consideration. My guess is that their assumption is valid for about 20% of the audience. Inept politics to use it then, eh?
" Sincere, genuine leftists use the plea style out of habit" exactly right, which is why I have been advocating taking a hard line for years…stop asking and start demanding change from these fuckers..no more bended knees and more clenched fists of righteous outrage imo.
The problem in NZ is that we have never strung up any politician from a lamp post by their feet, so there is no historical reference for them to have any fear of us..hence their demeaning, insulting and frankly outrageous shift over the past thirty or so years to regarding the population as mere consumers rather active citizens.
Really? I can't think of any Leftist politicians or activists that do/have ever done the plea gesture so often..if at all..ever.
It has certainly never been used to create change or forward momentum. Infact the only political figures who tend towards that sort of thing are possibly James Shaw and Justin Trudeau..add Ardern to that list..and it looks rather like a Centrist's trying hard not to look like centrists technique…pleading with the voters to buy into their fragile narrative with its elusive promises.
That being said..qudos to Shaw for managing to talk about inequality at the finance debate…
“…so seething with uncontrolled rage and a barely contained nasty streak that spilled out time and time again in almost every sideways look and glance she made at Ardern…she seemed to me to be quite unhinged."
Spot on, wholly accurate assessment. I cannot add a thing to it. Would be good if the commentators had the balls to say so, too, although many wouldn't have the tools to detect it.
A lot of dreams are in tatters around the town, and a lot who thought it was all over in April are going like never before, so a very interesting town right now.
It's a bit different to actually have an election campaign in town, usually it's a pretty subdued affair with just the local candidates and maybe a senior Nat down on a fundraiser. This time the work is going in and it's all on. Labour actually putting up a viable local candidate along with the current situation has really got things going.
They played a short clip on breakfast news and I couldn't believe how much Robertson – who doesn't normally seem a big man – towered over the pipsqueaks on either side of him. One of whom was Goldsmith.
Tova just now reckoned that Seymour won. He seems to be flavour of the month, so wouldn't surprise me.
"ACT leader David Seymour announced the party's tourism policy at an event at the Te Anau Club last night, calling for privately run managed isolation facilities, and allowing rich foreigners to pay to use them for a New Zealand holiday. "
edit
We need to be retreating from barefoot tourism but still need to keep overseas tourists' money cycling through the economy. You express horror at the idea of wealthy coming here to managed isolation prior to being able to tour round the country using some of the expensive infrastructure set up for such people. And also it would I hope have a dedicated set of workers earning, is not a disgraceful or impractical idea.
Until we get organised shipping set up that perhaps follows the seasons, and sails around the tornado areas as much as possible, then having an airline running reducing kilometres to bring people here, and enable NZs to go to certain places, requires the two-way coming and going numbers to keep viable.
Who has thought about how shipping could serve us? Can we expand the numbers of berths on container ships? I have an old advertisement advertising these on a 'banana boat'. And can we provide business for the Greeks again? The Fairstar and the Fairsky ships were owned by Onassiss I think. They did a busy trade in the 1960-70s.
" You express horror at the idea of wealthy coming here to managed isolation prior to being able to tour round the country using some of the expensive infrastructure set up for such people. And also it would I hope have a dedicated set of workers earning, is not a disgraceful or impractical idea."
I express horror? Dont imagine what I express. I merely stated
" Lets not forget what act really is… "
and linked to an article. But hey your comment paints a picture.
Well you know what thought thought…Anyway you seem to want to be on both ends of the game. You decry neoliberalism…while praising an idea that stems exactly from there. Huh?
Thanks to both neolib nats and neolib "labour". NZ did away with our our NZ Apprenticeship scheme and became a hospitality/waiter/waitress/touristguide/bartender/service industry neolib playground.
If you cant see the Irony here? I cant help you across the road to it.
Labour seems to be getting back to what they are supposed to be. I really hope so.
No. I briefly thought I should watch it, then decided a better use of my time would be to find a rusty old can-opener and give myself an anesthetic-free vasectomy.
Did not watch. Working. Caught the odd snippet here and there.
I doubt I missed much, to be honest. I find Collins personally repellent and I try to avoid watching her in the same way I actively avoid reading anything written by Mike Hosking and his similarly awful wife. Life is too short to spend it shrieking at the television. I've spend decades watching National ruin everything they touch, and National would have to stop being National for me to ever consider voting for them. The current incarnation is probably the worst I've ever witnessed.
"National ruin everything they touch", unlike Lange and the Graham Scott Puppet Show.
"In late 1979 Mr Scott moved to the Treasury, eventually becoming secretary in 1986. He worked closely with the fourth Labour Government as it reformed the New Zealand economy in the 1980s."
The main point of a debate is the post-debate momentum- did an underdog 'wipe the floor' with their opponent? Was there a "show me the money" moment? Did someone drop a clanger?
Facts matter, but most people won't have watched the debate. They will probably see the distilled coverage, though. That's the bit that affects the outcome.
The problem with debates is that they are not easy to fact check on the fly. Nationals claims tend to lose in the long run when properly fact checked.
National tend to claim a lot of things that when fact checked are shown to be made up of cherry picked data that falls over, or put up claims they are they ones who could better balance the books when they can not even seam to get the accounting right on their alternate budget.
Look at the holes slowly showing up in Nationals alternate budget as people start to go through the numbers. First an easy to catch mistake they have owned up to and now a second big hole they are not admitting to.
Judith's claims that NSW in Australia dealt better with Covid 19 than NZ with fewer restriction, another claim that falls over when the full numbers are looked at and not cherry picked.
National in a debate are like a boxer that hits below the belt every time the ref is not looking to win a match. They toss in cherry picked and misleading data all the time to win debates and it is hard to win a debate against someone with actual facts when they have "Alternate Facts" they will use to score points on you.
Quite right Anne – I play my TV through a good Hi Fi sound system, and distinctly heard 'Miss Ardern'. Mind you, I doubt if it matters in terms of votes. Judith is trying to sound nice, but every so often I find myself wondering if she is a sour cow or a sour sow. That may sound sexist, so maybe I should balance it with full of bull, and boring bore..
The nasty Muldoon persona does not help. It is actually a bit piggy, I think.
The debate needed a better camera person/s. We were often looking at the back of Jacinda's head, though we never saw the back of John's or Judith's!! What was that about??
Leaders debates like this are about personality and not the facts, about building popularity through charisma rather than informing people and have them make informed choices.
Because of this I consider such debates detrimental to democracy.
Ardern, for her part, a now hardened political professional, seemed determined to avoid creating a viral Internet meme out of the night. If that were the intent, she achieved it.
The tactic from Collins seems to try to get under Ardern’s skin, while Ardern seemed to be trying to be relentlessly optimistic and nice – presumably to draw a contrast between the two. She consistently hewed back to Labour talking points. Both leaders fell back to entrenched positions and didn't answer a lot of questions.
How much extra tax did it bring to the coffers. They will need some to help pay for their coffins.
However we need extra tax to help provide living people with decent basics, of which we have a thriving market selling off to toffs from NZ and overseas. Come and buy anything you like, our houses for instance, (and our farms, by the dozens), and get lots of moolah. Then pile it in one of your spare rooms with a diving board like Grandpa Duck used, though that silly duffer had piles of gold coins. But the wealthy aren't too sensitive, he probably never noticed the hard edges.
But I wonder how much CGT here would have raised because the poor here do feel the hard edges of everything.
Bomber's cultural analysis features the Top 8 Green Party Woke Alienations. The photo of the Wellington Twitteratti Green Activists ready for their next micro aggression policing social media lynch mob shows the traditional side of wokesterism.
It’s like the woke middle class identity politics mummy blogger trans ally Green Party cancel culture militant cyclist humourless vegan micro aggression policing activists are incapable of understanding how their behaviour over the last 3 years on social media has done nothing other than alienate voters to the point the Greens are now in danger of sinking beneath 5%.
Not only like that. It is that. They think
they are speaking truth to power by endlessly calling people out for breaches of woke mantra, but to everyone else they are simply toxic.
When you are class left, the demarkation of power in society is between the richest 1% and their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us, that’s how we win the democratic majority, but when you are a woke Identity Politics activist, all men are rapists, all white people are racist and anyone supporting free speech is an actual uniform wearing Nazi.
Yes, yes, but that's been obvious the past year or more, so why not learn the lesson? He can't – he's so fixated on bitching about the problem. If a faction seems to discredit a party in the public mind, you fix that problem by changing the public mind. That's what political management is for.
Why have the Green caucus not used their moral authority to make that happen? Because too many of them are wokesters themselves, perhaps. Because those who aren't lack sufficient leverage. It's a failure of collective leadership.
Bradbury has been banging on about the same thing for some time. I think he is ageing mentally, getting into that inflexible style of thinking that is so prevalent in the older age group.
Perhaps his blog has had its day as a therapeutic outlet for his boiling stresses, and he has gone to excess so often that he has poisoned any fertile ground around him where inspiration and creatively beneficial ideas might grow about better policies and wise politicians.
" woke middle class identity politics mummy blogger trans ally Green Party cancel culture militant cyclist humourless vegan micro aggression policing activists"
This interests me. As the world we are living in becomes more and more complex; ideas surface and add to those already circulating, they fracture and multiply like the brooms of the Sorcerer's apprentice, do we dig our heels in and sweep the nuanced plethora of new ideas away with our broom of conservatism and condemnation (listen to Magic talkback if you don't know what I mean) or do we surge forward, into the morass of fractionated thinking; meet those challenging ideas head-on and ride the wave of knowledge they represent? I reckon, catch the wave. Bomber seems to want to build a sandcastle on the beach, while wearing a knotted handkerchief on his head.
The irony of his past three years line – is he started the three years saying the same thing and has repeated it ad nauseum throughout the entire period.
He basically wants to silence the Green Party on identity politics society concerns and reduce it to class and environment economics (not sure how that relates to historic party support for Maori self-government/revival aspiration, multi-cultural society and feminist concerns).
He has basically taken up the Free Speech rights are at risk line of the ACT Party protecting white race man civilisation from the woke threat – which is what one would expect from someone who keeps meeting Sean Plunkett and the insolvent wage subsidy dependent libertarian.
He will claim the polls prove him right – but that is cynical – minor parties in government lose support, and minor parties out of it but in parliament gain. As per 2002 – Alliance down and United Party up. This time NZF and Greens down and ACT up.
Awlful to watch. Did anyone else think Campbell cut Jacinda off far more than Collins. ? I also noticed quite frequently when Jacinda was talking the camera went to Judith. And I am not sure about this but an after thought was that the camera angle favoured Judith. ……..interested to hear if others noticed this.
Thought Jacinda was not at her best. This is rare. Seem to remember first tv debate Jacinda was in with English didn’t go so well.
I think it would be great if someone fact checked the debate. Collins said something about building houses and that I am sure was crap.
campbell didn’t address competency of the two parties. I think that is a serious omission.
national could spout any policy, but surely it blindingly obvious that they. Have lied, acted unethically and made major mistakes
"Did anyone else think Campbell cut Jacinda off far more than Collins.?"
YES
"I also noticed quite frequently when Jacinda was talking the camera went to Judith. And I am not sure about this but an afterthought was that the camera angle favoured Judith. ……..interested to hear if others noticed this."
YES. Also, I noticed that the focus was on Collins pulling stupid faces and slightly off focus on Ardern. Being a photographer this is a technique used to highlight the main subject,
Also Campbell did not shut Collins up when Ardern was speaking so Ardern could not finish what she was saying.
Agreed 100% John Campbell may live for these debates but he did not ask any clarifying questions, nor was he actively listening to what Jacinda was saying, cutting her off at the end of her first point, more than once.
The camera work and the lighting favoured Judith greatly, shaving at least 15 years off her face. The shadows showed Jacinda's almost gaunt look of 3 years of unrelenting responsibility, and the knowledge of what is ahead.
However, I feel Jacinda's lack of reaction led to overconfidence on Judith's part, and Judith clearly showed her lack of respect and her scoffing "give back double" nature.
The insincere swap between charm and scoffing was quite marked
Jesicca Much MacKay is excited to lead "her" next debate!! "Judith did so well." "When is yours?" says John…..the ego of these people is amazing. It is all about them of course.
I didn't watch the debate because Collins repulses me. So l appreciate the updates. Sounds like Collins had more energy on the night but Ardern stuck to her high road approach.
Ardern's main weapon is that she is a normal adult humanbeing and comes across as such. Sadly a rarity among senior politicians.
I didn't watch because I just find it all incredibly stupid anyway … and I find Judith's mantra of "hurting people double who hurt her" incredibly juvenile.
Making enemies just means there are fewer and fewer people on your side and fewer people willing to go the extra mile to help you. It seems like an odd way to be a politician.
Excellent comment! How many non-voters would have been enticed to vote now after watching this show on TV, if they watched at all? Is this format good for voter engagement?
I did not watch for one reason only – Judith Collins' sheer nastiness. I just don't choose to spend my time witnessing that sort of behaviour. We have had more than enough of National Party members and hangers on behaving disgracefully this year.
Talking to friends this morning, they picked up on the eye rolling etc.etc. One used the words 'hate her' which is their usual way of talking.
"Shifting Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western US states and elsewhere, and methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilisation will require dramatic interventions.
Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.
Many think of the climate crisis as distinct from the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic. But the three crises – and their solutions – are interconnected."
The letter from Public Service Association (PSA) union members to senior managers was written in February this year but workers say little has changed since.
The Chief Ombudsman inspected the unit in March and found it breached the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel or Degrading Treatment.
In the strongly worded letter to Capital and Coast District Health Board, 28 staff detailed a list of what they called urgent and critical problems.
They described the ward – Te Whare O Matairangi, Wellington's acute in-patient mental health facility – as severely overcrowded, under-resourced and unsafe – both for workers and patients.
The letter gave examples such as a homicidal patient showing up with a bag of weapons, and a staff member being sexually assaulted.
At the time it was written, most of the patients in the unit had a criminal or violent past including assaulting staff, significant stalking behaviour, arson and drug use.
PSA organiser Alexandra Ward said the 29-bed unit was over capacity for 11 months of the past year, sometimes caring for 34 people at a time.
so our pm who odds on will be on after the election still PM and could also govern alone, and then any legislation resulting from the cannabis vote can be whatever labour decides (captains call)will not tell us what her personal views are. Ffs you are a leader what are you afraid of ?? That your opinions may result is losing a few votes. Your opinion has more than any other in deciding how any law is shaped.
imo this is steep walking to a victory, I hope that labour does not govern alone because they do not deserve to allow NZ to drift further. And their First past the post strategy just shows how they think the greens deserve to be managed… with distaste.
I don't agree, remember Keys support of the flag, many people voted to keep the flag to spite Key. Adern staying out of it is sensible, as well as her right, to keep her decision private. Also, the euthanasia bill being supported by Seymour makes me question by own beliefs around it (I support it, or do I? I'm not 100% sure, coz Seymour supports it, loudly).
Our PM and labour keeping out of it is ALL political as IMO they want to win and govern on their own and will do whatever to achieve this (no team including The Greens). What happens if the vote is 45-55 or even 50-50?We have been given no indication as to what any law will look like or if should the vote be too close what then? So totally disagree.
Labour will be averse to taking risks that might dent their commanding lead over the National opposition party in recent political opinion polls. I'm guessing their strategists are pretty comfortable letting National indulge in risky business, and there's been plenty of that since the Bridges-Ross spat kicked off, Boag-Walker, Andrew ‘Balloon-Falloon’, and ‘Merv from Manurewa’ being recent examples.
It's worse than that. Brexit has antagonized the US and Eu leading to a probable economic crisis on which Judith does not seem to have a constructive position.
[This user handle and e-mail address are now blacklisted. Please use the pair that you last used on 21 Aug and that we had agreed on previously, thanks.
You are wasting Moderator time each time you change your user name and/or e-mail address and you have never provided a good reason why you are doing it.
I did ask you again only 2 days ago but you simply ignored the note so I wasted even more time on your antics when I gave you the benefit of doubt – Incognito]
Thoughts from abroad – Headlines from UK The Telegraph: You will have to search for more details yourself. This is just to show the drift of the thinking of the UK.
'Despite 10,000 new cases a day the French are embracing life – not imposing new rules.. From the Travel Correspondent.
(The French have large numbers of cases of Covid19 and are still enjoying life. Fool or hardy? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.)
Oxford’s Sir John Bell: ‘We’re not going to beat the second wave’ Oxford University has announced that clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine are to resume in the UK At lunchtime on Tuesday, Sir John Bell received a call telling him that the groundbreaking Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial would, regretfully, be paused.
(So UK is at sixes and sevens. But they know what they are doing, right. Trust us to do the right thing is the Conservative approach – now they've kicked Labour and Corbyn to the side.)
'We can beat Covid without lockdowns, says top German virologist Hendrik Streeck argues big gatherings in closed spaces amplify the spread, but going to shops or hairdressers are manageable levels of risk'
Margaret Atwood wants to see The Handmaid's Tale scenario remain a fiction!
And Brexit, the entitled classes from which Boris has arisen stamps its foot over EU intransigence or something. It's all their fault. The bad-faith EU is furious that the UK now has a backstop of its own The PM is offering Brussels a choice: negotiate fairly, or the whole country will leave without a deal
Are we feeling a little anxious while we wait for the election and the Right waffle on about things, and thrust sharp things into the thread of our democracy and then grab our arms and say 'Look at these holes we found', that they made themselves? And all the time the Left are doing a pretty-good job. Here is Jonathan Pie relating the cares and woes of the UK people about their Right government, that is attempting to lead them all up the garden path, like a character out of P.G.Wodehouse.
Boris is advancing fast, he's a father now, and getting into confused grandfather territory at supersonic speed; reminiscent of the joke I got out of the paper years ago and put on the fridge:
"My grandfather's a little forgetful, but he likes to give me advice. One day he took me aside, and left me there." Ron Richards* (Witty & Wise.)
*Ron Richards (22 January 1929 – 30 April 2009) was a British record producer, manager and promoter, best known for discovering The Hollies. and – The record producer Ron Richards played a central part in the British “beat boom” of the 1960s, taking charge of the Beatles' first recording .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Richards_(producer)
A friend who is a mortgage advisor told me that the banks apparently refuse to lend to people whose businesses either received the wage subsidy or who did receive the wage subsidy themselves. So yeah, anyone who thought that the low lever interests would benefit the houseless is in for serious disappointment.
At this stage the housing market – private, social and commercial – and the official response to it is nothing more but a farce.
Yes, Judith Collins sat down with an “adoring supporter” who has a tattoo of the latest leader of the opposition on one of his thighs. Could this be a turning point in Collins' election campaign (worked for Trump) – maybe we'll all see more of her soon.
It is with the cost of paying a mortgage or limitation on access to finance to buy.
A guy called Bollard said he would not need to increase the OCR to constrain inflation resulting from rising land and property value if the government introduced a mortgage surcharge instead – then the OCR would be lower and so would the dollar to the advantage of exporters.
But now over a decade later and still nothing. The RBG gets rid of the equity requirement and cuts the OCR and so of course property values will rise.
This will change as soon as the government adds a mortgage surcharge or taxes equity in property (TOP) or a land tax. Of course only taxing property equity wealth over $M is Green policy.
Lower interest rates only benefit those with access to property finance, a mortgage surcharge is the balance to this so that government can help tenants and finance homes for first home buyers or build more state houses.
We used as first home buyers, to get a 25 year mortgage at an affordable rate, and that was a good start. It encouraged people to settle into stable lives etc etc. But though you would think that good people in government roles would want that, I think that this evil neolib economics is actually keen to keep people on the hop, make them work harder, not be complacent, and ensure that they didn't have anything to sink savings into, underpay them so they had to borrow so business would profit from the interest they had to pay to provide the necessities demanded in a 'developed' economy, and keeping more money flowing in the economy.
It is such a twisted approach that ordinary people don't comprehend it; don't understand the diabolical nature of the financial people at the top who twiddle the economy's knobs.
It used to be expressed that government gave first home buyers a step up into the housing market to get them started. But neolib doesn't want people to even get started. Don Brash didn't think that people should be tying their money up in their own house. Though the system produced a stable and relatively happy country pleased and proud most of the time.
Not the way we are now with an attitude of the quick or the dead, and lack of generosity towards others, competing for stuff all the time. To the people at the top the hoi polloi are just to be used as if life was a cockfight, and the hens get slaughtered if they don't produce enough eggs. As you can tell, I am pretty disillusioned – the NZ spirit is mainly found in bottles now.
Judith Collins is just a trashy piece of trailer trash. Her "poor wee thing" describing Jacinda Adern is classic "how low can you get" – uncouth is another description or as my old grannie used to say to me "all hair oil and no socks". She is a disgrace to any position of responsibility or representation of our country. Jacinda Adern should never have to be put in a position that she has to even engage with her. Fine porcelain versus crude pottery. Trump is the company Collins deserves.
I think it's a major miscalculation to think people are flocking to Labour and a self described bold progressive because they think she'll be moderate and consersative.
What if labours rise in the polls is due to non voters who jacindas boldness turned on and who need change and former Nat voters whose lives have fallen apart and this moderate tinkering approach makes them stay home. Honestly. Labours dropped in the polls since it announced policy and showed it's cautious af direction. Labours messaging just seems so wrong for the times.
Labour desperately needs to start exciting people again. People who were excited are getting bored and despondent. Maybe I'm wrong maybe people are flocking to her because they want a self described transformational progressive to not be bold or transformational and middle class people are flocking to Labour cos they want everything to stay the same. I think it's a bit of both
They'll need a cast-iron gut to keep the meal down – but it's a dirty job that needs doing. They might even become a genuine conservative (in the best sense of the word) party. One worthy of respect – which we don't have at present.
Trust the hard left to whine about it. Calling an anxious voter looking for policy change 'hard left' is hard Ad. It's nervousness really – probably better left unsaid at this stage.
Maybe those who really want "bold transformational progressives" have already flocked – the rest are hunkering down, still hoping to weather a 'storm' that shall not pass.
A former senior government manager planted a spy camera in an Auckland gym's changing room capturing video of a naked couple, then went on to plant the camera on at least three more occasions, the Auckland High Court has heard.
Police appealing the man's discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression, argued his offending, which took place on at least four separate days, was not taken into account by District Court Judge Clare Bennett.
RNZ and NZME also challenged the man's name suppression.
I wonder if we have here the Judge adopting Queen Victoria’s moral levels whereby if one doesn’t want one’s mind to be sullied by distasteful scuttlebutt, one just doesn’t listen. The Queen is supposed to have said, “I don’t want to know that.” The better secondary schools now probably don’t even study DH Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
‘We’re better than that’, is the quote of the new century, to be applied to bloody massacres, and derelictions of duty by well-paid government officials. I can say that, without a qualm, that bit about well-paid, because it seems to be an absolute dead cert these days as the anointed move up the line following the well-worn Peter’s Principle Curve.
How Can We Make Wellbeing at the Centre of Public Policy If We Dont Measure It?When the Minister of Finance announced in the 2018 budget that in the future economic policy would focus more on wellbeing, many saw a glimmer of hope that we were moving away from the mechanical ...
Below is a statement we received from LGB Fight Back in the States, a new group that advocates for LGB rights under vicious, homophobic attack by trans ideology activists. LGB Fight Back, a US-based organization that represents the interests of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people, launched on February 14, ...
Mā te mōhiotanga, ka mārama – mā te māramatanga, ka ora. (Through awareness comes understanding, and enlightenment empowers well-being) Dr Tahu Kukutai embodies this whakataukī (proverb), a wahine (woman) who is driven by a purpose to unveil the stories behind population statistics. Tahu specialises in Māori population research, Indigenous ...
Mihi mai ki a Jade Rangiwhiua Hyslop whose area of research is river restoration and kaupapa Māori. Passionate about the outdoors, learning and improving the environment in socially-just and innovative ways, she works at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in Kirikiriroa (Hamilton). A budding researcher in its Manaaki Taiao Māori research ...
The report is back on another Universal Basic Income trial, this time in the USA. And as with the others, it shows that this policy works: After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got ...
Revolutionary Formula:A new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua (Māori) + Tangata Tiriti (all other ethnicities who are committed to a tiriti centric Aotearoa) = the Aotearoa I believe in fighting for. - Rawiri Waititi, Co-Leader of the Maori Party.NEW ZEALAND is in the early stages of a revolution. ...
Mob Psychology: Deep down inside us dwell all manner of dark and violent impulses. In times of social stress and/or crisis, these “atavistic” urges have a nasty habit of rising to the surface like an insufficiently weighted corpse – and unleashing mayhem.ARE WE AS SAVAGE as our forebears? Would we ...
Over the past few years there's been a growing trend for bespoke secrecy clauses in legislation, excluding specific types of information (or even whole agencies) from the coverage of the Official Information Act. These pop up in all sorts of unusual places, sometimes when introduced, sometimes put there by select ...
In this week’s podcast Selwyn Manning and I discuss the ethics and practicalities involved in the so-called “conflict industry.” It includes a discussion of the who and what of the “kill chain” and the implications of Rocket Lab’s position as a major US military logistical provider. You can find it ...
Ramin SkibbaTo turn the tide against climate change, on the day of his inauguration President Joe Biden signed an executive order instituting a raft of policy changes and initiatives. One directed his team to reassess the social cost of carbon. This seemingly obscure concept puts a number on how ...
All Out Of Kindness: At her post-Cabinet media conference on Monday, the Prime Minister demonstrated conclusively that she could be cruel as well as kind. Those revealed to have breached the self-isolation protocols felt the full force of Jacinda Ardern’s displeasure – and the nation lapped it up.JACINDA ARDERN KNOWS ...
Session Thirty-Seven… our last full session in the Dreamland. So the Fae Queen was after a rematch. To the extent that she was literally willing to destroy her own forest in order to replenish her forces. I imagine one of her advisers pointed out that “destroying something in ...
Today the shabby little train of denial ran out of smoke. Payment, apology in Dirty Politics case — Newsroom Crushing defeat for Dirty Politics PR man with apology to defamed academics — The Spinoff Here’s the apology wording, below. It’s ruined only by the clearly bullshit implication that there was ...
It’s always tempting to reach for the easiest “answers” to make sense of an uncertain world. It’s a tendency that has been there for a long time, but in the time of COVID, a lot of it seems to be on steroids.Desperate people do desperate things. In ...
Why New Research? Skeptical Science exists for the purpose of improving public capacity for critical thinking about anthropogenic climate change. Effective critical analysis requires a basis of information, and for our purpose the wellsprings of fundamental understanding are found in peer-reviewed academic literature, our best grasp of how Earth's climate operates and ...
This column will be calling it out. There’s so much folx need to educate ourselves about and DO BETTER. From cis privilege to white privilege, whether it’s how to decolonise, how to handle the pronoun illiterates, this column will be an inclusive space, for ALL GENDERS and ALL IDENTITIES. It ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh, Colombia, 26 February 2021 The recent decision taken in California to place men and women in the same wings of prisons as a response to the violence meted out to trans prisoners is a nascent issue in Colombia, but sooner or later it will get here. ...
About 10 years ago there was a proliferation of home wares promoting ‘Keep calm and carry on’. This adage came from World War 2 posters produced by the British Government in an effort to boost the morale of its citizens. Typically printed as white lettering on a red background you ...
Having spent most of the pandemic alternately calling for mass-death by relaxing lockdowns "for the economy", and for those who breach lockdowns to face harsher and harsher punishments, the National Party has finally made a useful contribution by calling for people told to self-isolate to be paid directly: The ...
The Ombudsman is supposed to be our core watchdog on administrative decision-making. Their central job is to review decisions by public agencies to ensure they are fair and reasonable and followed a proper process. So its more than a little embarrassing that they've been called to account by the courts ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington For many, people life moved online in 2020. From preschool to dissertation defenses, first dates to weddings, video calls brought us together. To entertain ourselves, we streamed concerts and movies, played video games, and scrolled social media. Demand for internet ...
The Government has made a litany of mistakes over Covid, and we have been more than willing to forgive Labour these missteps and give them some leeway. Branko Marcetic says that when members of the public also make mistakes, we should be focusing on designing a wider system that insulates ...
Naïve optimism has been blinding everyone from Ashley Bloomfield to Case M. Josh Van Veen argues we need to be more aware of our biases in dealing with Covid – but especially the authorities. In the United States, naive optimism was at the heart of the Trump Administration’s failed ...
Cecile Meier walks us through some of the costs of a border system that has neither been able to safely scale up to meet need, nor able to find any reasonable way of prioritising entry into those scarce MIQ spaces. When Zane Gillbee hugged his family goodbye in South Africa ...
Technology lists, what’s this thing called “Deep Tech”, and thinking beyond the tech. Top “x” lists of technology developments, breakthroughs and trends aren’t hard to find. But how useful are they? MIT’s “Breakthrough Technologies” This time every year MIT’s Technology Review magazine produces a “10 breakthrough technologies” list. This ...
Having watched and read about the Conference of the Paranoid, Angry and just plain Crazy (CPAC), including the Orange Merkin’s return to the political centre stage, I am more convinced then ever that if US conservatism, and indeed the US itself, is to find its way back to some semblance ...
Back in 2019, following media revelations that bullying was widespread within the police, the Independent Police Conduct Authority announced that it would be investigating the issue. Today, they reported back, and found the police to be a completely toxic organisation: An independent report into police culture has described a ...
Dr Ben Gray*New Zealand has begun to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme, starting with those working at the border, including in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities. There have been calls for prioritising other groups such as those in South Auckland [1] and meat industry workers ...
The Climate Change Commission’s recommendations span the breadth of the economy. They are required to come up with sector-by-sector climate budgets consistent with getting New Zealand with net zero emissions under the Zero Carbon Act. The sector-by-sector budgets rest on underlying models. The models build predictions about what will happen ...
Revolution From Below: The original “Long March” was, of course, undertaken by Mao Zedong and what was left of his communist military forces. They did not, however, head off for the nearest school or university, government office or medical clinic. Their goal was not to infiltrate the institutions of capitalism, but ...
There are some genre authors who like to demonstrate their edgy, iconoclastic credentials by sticking the boot into J.R.R. Tolkien. Michael Moorcock springs to mind, with the much-beaten dead horse that is the Epic Pooh essay. Each to their own, I suppose, though seeing as Epic Pooh really boils ...
John SchwartzElizabeth Kolbert lives her stories. In the course of reporting her new book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” she got hit by a leaping carp near Ottawa, Illinois (“It felt like someone had slammed me in the shin with a Wiffle-ball bat”) and visited ...
New Zealand has an excellent Emissions Trading Scheme covering everything except agriculture – a non-trivial exclusion, but we can come back to that later. The ETS has a cap. Net emissions from the covered sector cannot exceed the cap. So any other regulations that affect sectors covered by the cap ...
Michael SchulsonDays before the inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would ...
Last year, Beef and Lamb New Zealand produced a bought-and-paid-for report claiming that their industry was already carbon neutral, so didn't need to do anything to reduce emissions. The report was full of obviously dodgy accounting - basicly, it didn't bother to follow international carbon accounting rules, because they would ...
Last year, the government chickened out on clean rivers, setting "water standards" that failed to properly control poisonous nitrates. So who was to blame? MPI: The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) opposed introducing a tough bottom line for nitrogen levels in rivers over concerns the economic impact would outweigh ...
Robert Greenberg, University of AucklandThe world was excited by the news last week that NASA’s Perseverance rover had successfully landed in a Martian crater. The rover will now set about collecting samples from what scientists say was an ancient lake fed by a river. The name of this exotic ...
Faith In The Essentials: Fenced-in, almost literally, by motorways. Located, seemingly permanently, at the bottom of politicians’ priority-lists. Heaped with praise for their cultural vibrancy, but not rewarded for it by the presence of white pupils in their public schools, South Aucklanders (like people of colour everywhere) provide their paler ...
Image credit:POLITICAL BLOG I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL ...
Since the pandemic began, the UK government has restricted protests in an effort to contain the plague. But of course, they're plotting to make these restrictions permanent: Concern over the government’s limitation of the right to protest during lockdown continues to mount after it emerged that the home secretary, ...
Completed reads for February: The Dream of Scipio, by CiceroThe Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance The Dream of Scipio is Pearman’s translation. A very quiet month in the reading department… but a truly excellent one in the writing department. Better yet, this was not merely short stories, but solid ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (Colombia, 18 February 2020) Two soldiers, Jhony Andrés Castillo Ospino and Jesús Alberto Muñoz Segovia, fell into the hands of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN; National Liberation Army). Their capture produced the usual reactions that they had been kidnapped when in fact they were prisoners ...
As much of the world is still implementing lockdowns, including New Zealand, it is a good time to see how Sweden has fared. After being demonised for a year for having relatively moderate restrictions the Swedish death toll is rather much in line with other years. Sweden followed the standard ...
Under The Influence Of The "Governance" Kool-Aid: The furore surrounding Mayor Andy Foster's "review" of the Wellington City Council's "governance" is but the latest example of the quite conscious delegitimization, and sinister re-framing, of spirited political opposition and debate as irresponsible, immature and “dysfunctional”. It shows how very far from ...
Hello there everybody. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come on his blog today and speak my mind about stuff. The government has a lot to answer for. I was sitting there last week as Auckland came out of it’s latest lockdown and I knew the government was making ...
There are times when tikanga needs to be broken for tikanga to survive.I recently gave a presentation on Māori economic history based on my Not in Narrow Seas. Its most important message was that Māori proved to be a very adaptable people continually evolving as new opportunities arose. The European ...
Some of you may remember our blog post "A conundrum: our continued presence on Facebook" in which we detailed our misgivings about and decision to stick with Facebook for the time being. So these latest developments - reposted from the Cranky Uncle homepage - might come as a bit of surprise! ...
Image credit:Quick Data Lessons: Data Dredging Oh dear – another scientific paper claiming evidence of toxic effects from fluoridation. But a critical look at the paper shows evidence of p-hacking, data dredging and motivated reasoning to derive their conclusions. And it was published in a journal shown to be ...
We've had a housing crisis for the past decade, and successive governments have done nothing to solve it. Why not? Bernard Hickey gets it right when he says its all about protecting the rich: The Government is reluctant to push down house prices fearing they'll loses the support of ...
There’s more of the Obama legacy here and Deporter in Chief: Obama chucks out 2,000,000 and Can Trump really deport more people than Obama? and Obama, gay rights and the killing drones ...
My Department Right Or Wrong: Far from “politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters” being a bad thing, their involvement – along with that of the Ombudsman – constitutes a necessary check upon the unreasonable and unlawful exercise of authority over prison inmates by prison staff. A Corrections Minister who ...
New Zealand is supposed to have a progressive tax system, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. But it turns out that the rich are cheating: The wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average, according to research from ...
Ground truths on warming When we think about rapid climate change of the kind we've accidentally unleashed and the warming of Earth systems inherent in the process, we tend to focus on phenomena in order of their immediate tangibility, their drama. Sea ice loss in the Arctic, atmospheric and ocean ...
by Daphna Whitmore The Department of Corrections has called in the police over a pamphlet that supports protests at Waikeria Prison, saying the material might incite another riot. The group People Against Prisons Aotearoa denies it advocates for riots and has said it “encourages persistent, peaceful protest action such as striking from ...
One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in ...
I've just lodged my fourth complaint to the Ombudsman for deemed refusal of an OIA request by police this year. That brings their total to four for four - every request I have sent them has not been answered within the legal timeframe, even when they extend it to give ...
Will the health reforms proposed for the Labour Government make the system better or worse? Health commentator Ian Powell (formerly the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) gives his analysis of what change is most necessary, and what should be avoided. The review of the Health ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections An off-course polar vortex meandered toward the Mexican border, bringing with it frigid Arctic air rarely seen as far south as Texas. Frozen equipment rendered power generation systems in the state inoperable, forcing grid operators to begin rolling blackouts to customers then left to fend ...
Just as National once produced a “rock star economy” that Grant Robertson rejected as being only for the rich, the Labour Government has produced an economic “bounce back” that leaves out the poor. Branko Marcetic argues for a rise in benefit levels to give the poor a real bounce back. ...
Virginia has voted to abolish the death penalty: State lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the ...
Yesterday a New Zealand Judge issued a formal finding that the Department of Corrections had treated prisoners in a cruel, degrading and inhumane manner, illegally detaining them, using excessive force, denying them basic necessities unless they performed degrading rituals of submission first. Some of the conduct appears to be criminal: ...
The Herald reports that there is a "storm brewing for the Climate Change Commission". The "problem"? Polluters are unhappy with its economic projections saying that action will not be as costly as they have previously claimed: Last week a coalition of over a dozen New Zealand business and industry ...
The Green Party are calling on the Government to assess how the COVID-19 leave support scheme can be better improved, distributed and enforced so that workers can properly take leave when self-isolating. ...
We know that when our rural communities do well, all of New Zealand benefits. Labour is committed to supporting our regions so that, together, we can achieve even more. Here are just some of the ways we’re backing rural communities. ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Health Minister Andrew Little welcomes the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation of New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction is underway. “This is an important step in the Government’s work to provide better and equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in New ...
The Government’s Consumer Travel Reimbursement Scheme has helped return over $352 million of refunds and credits to New Zealanders who had overseas travel cancelled due to COVID-19, Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says. “Working with the travel sector, we are helping New Zealanders retrieve the money owed to them by ...
An additional 88,000 students in 322 schools and kura across the country have started the school year with a regular lunch on the menu, thanks to the Government’s Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme. They join 42,000 students already receiving weekday lunches under the scheme, which launched last ...
New Zealand’s economic recovery has again been reflected in the Government’s books, which are in better shape than expected. The Crown accounts for the seven months to the end of January 2021 were better than forecast in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). The operating balance before gains ...
More than half of New Zealand’s estimated 12,000 border workforce have now received their first vaccinations, as a third batch of vaccines arrive in the country, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. As of midnight Tuesday, a total of 9,431 people had received their first doses. More than 70 percent ...
The Government is significantly increasing its investment in restoring Central Otago’s waterways while at the same time delivering jobs to the region hard-hit by the economic impact of Covid-19, says Land Information Minister, Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor says two new community projects under the Jobs for Nature funding programme will ...
The Government has confirmed details of COVID-19 support for business and workers following the increased alert levels due to a resurgence of the virus over the weekend. Following two new community cases of COVID-19, Auckland moved to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level ...
The Government remains committed to hosting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 should a decision be made by World Rugby this weekend to postpone this year’s tournament. World Rugby is recommending the event be postponed until next year due to COVID-19, with a final decision to ...
Community and social service support providers have again swung into action to help people and families affected by the current COVID-19 alert levels. “The Government recognises that in many instances social service, community, iwi and Whānau Ora organisations are best placed to provide vital support to the communities impacted by ...
The Government is following through on an election promise to conduct an independent review into PHARMAC, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced today. The Review will focus on two areas: How well PHARMAC performs against its current objectives and whether and how its performance against these ...
Some of the country’s most forward-thinking early-career conservationists are among recipients of a new scholarship aimed at supporting a new generation of biodiversity champions, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has awarded one-year postgraduate research scholarships of $15,000 to ten Masters students in the natural ...
I acknowledge our whānau overseas, joining us from Te Whenua Moemoeā, and I wish to pay respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I am very pleased to be part of the conversation on Indigenous business, and part ...
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced today that main benefits will increase by 3.1 percent on 1 April, in line with the rise in the average wage. The Government announced changes to the annual adjustment of main benefits in Budget 2019, indexing main benefit increases to the average ...
A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Ngāti Maru and the Crown settling the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The Ngāti Maru rohe is centred on the inland Waitara River valley, east to the Whanganui River and its ...
With a suite of Government income support packages available, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni is encouraging people, and businesses, connected to the recent Auckland COVID-19 cases to check the Work and Income website if they’ve been impacted by the need to self-isolate. “If you are required to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her condolences at the passing of long-serving former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare. “Our thoughts are with Lady Veronica Somare and family, Prime Minister James Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea during this time of great ...
E te tī, e te tā Tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou Ki te whenua e takoto nei Ki te rangi e tū iho nei Ki a tātou e tau nei Tēnā tātou. It’s great to be with you today, along with some of the ministerial housing team; Hon Peeni Henare, the ...
The Government is backing a new project to use drone technology to transform our understanding and protection of the Māui dolphin, Aotearoa’s most endangered dolphin. “The project is just one part of the Government’s plan to save the Māui dolphin. We are committed to protecting this treasure,” Oceans and Fisheries ...
Major water reform has taken a step closer with the appointment of the inaugural board of the Taumata Arowai water services regulator, Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. Former Director General of Health and respected public health specialist Dame Karen Poutasi will chair the inaugural board of Crown agency Taumata Arowai. “Dame ...
The newly completed Hibiscus Coast Bus Station will help people make better transport choices to help ease congestion and benefit the environment, Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said today. Michael Wood and Phil Goff officially opened the Hibiscus Coast Bus Station which sits just off the ...
New funding announced by Conservation Minister Kiri Allan today will provide work and help protect the unique values of Northland’s Te Ārai Nature Reserve for future generations. Te Ārai is culturally important to Te Aupōuri as the last resting place of the spirits before they depart to Te Rerenga Wairua. ...
Today the Government has taken a key step to support Pacific people to becoming Community Housing providers, says the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio. “This will be great news for Pacific communities with the decision to provide Pacific Financial Capability Grant funding and a tender process to ...
Conservation Minister Kiri Allan is encouraging New Zealanders to have their say on a proposed marine mammal sanctuary to address the rapid decline of bottlenose dolphins in Te Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands. The proposal, developed jointly with Ngā Hapū o te Pēwhairangi, would protect all marine mammals of the ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
It’s time to recognise the outstanding work early learning services, kōhanga reo, schools and kura do to support children and young people to succeed, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins says. The 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards are now open through until April 16. “The past year has reminded us ...
Three new Jobs for Nature projects will help nature thrive in the Bay of Plenty and keep local people in work says Conservation Minister Kiri Allan. “Up to 30 people will be employed in the projects, which are aimed at boosting local conservation efforts, enhancing some of the region’s most ...
The Government has accepted all of the Holidays Act Taskforce’s recommended changes, which will provide certainty to employers and help employees receive their leave entitlements, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said the Government established the Holidays Act Taskforce to help address challenges with the ...
The Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and faster than expected economic recovery has been acknowledged in today’s credit rating upgrade. Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) today raised New Zealand’s local currency credit rating to AAA with a stable outlook. This follows Fitch reaffirming its AA+ rating last ...
Tena koutou e nga Maata Waka Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu whanui, Tena koutou. Nau mai whakatau mai ki tenei ra maumahara i te Ru Whenua Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga ora ki te hunga ora Tena koutou, Tena ...
The Minister of Justice has reaffirmed the Government’s urgent commitment, as stated in its 2020 Election Manifesto, to ban conversion practices in New Zealand by this time next year. “The Government has work underway to develop policy which will bring legislation to Parliament by the middle of this year and ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Social Development Hon Carmel Sepuloni today launched a new Creative Careers Service, which is expected to support up to 1,000 creatives, across three regions over the next two years. The new service builds on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to ...
Vroom vroom, beep beep, get in losers! Drag Race Down Under is coming to TVNZ later this year, and today the 10 Australian and New Zealand competitors have been revealed.The wiggiest show this side of Real Housewives is finally making its way to the southern hemisphere. That’s right, RuPaul’s Drag ...
Three years ago clinical psychologist and culture warrior Jordan Peterson rode a bestseller to equal parts adulation and excoriation. Danyl Mclauchlan reviews a sequel that sprang from chaos. Since publishing his mega-bestselling self-help guide 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos in 2018, Jordan Peterson has led an existence ...
Asia Pacific Report Papua New Guinea’s Supreme and National Courts in Port Moresby will be partially closed for a week beginning yesterday after a judge has been tested positive for the covid-19, reports The National. Registrar Ian Augerea said in a statement the closure was to prevent any further infections ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it is hard not to feel like New Zealand is having a run of bad luck, with residents waking up today to a tsunami alert amid the covid-19 restrictions. The tsunami alert was triggered after three quakes overnight – the first of ...
Asia Pacific Report The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has called on the Australian government to stop trying to keep Papua off the agenda at the Pacific Islands Forum and “strenuously support” Pacific leaders in urging Jakarta to allow a PIF fact-finding mission to the territory. Congratulating the PIF Secretary-General ...
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All the major news events, which will hopefully not be too many. Get in touch at info@thespinoff.co.nz Help keep The Spinoff alive and kicking. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.00am: The day aheadThere are a couple of things we’ll be looking out ...
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Spinoff has a team verdict on the leaders' debate: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-09-2020/leaders-debate-the-verdicts/
Toby Manhire: "Campbell, who did a good job at keeping things rolling, at one point observed, “You sound like you’re both on auto-pilot,” he was mostly right, except that would have required leaving the ground."
Trish Sherson: "Real politics is live, off script, a contest of ideas with tough questions. Collins owned it."
Morgan Godfery: "The prime minister had it all over her: on the border, on housing, on education, and in personality. "
Ben Thomas: "Ardern was strangely hesitant."
Justin Giovannetti: "When asked about her plan for poverty reduction, Collins responded with ripping up the RMA. Campbell was incredulous, voters were probably confused."
Madeleine Chapman: "both leaders argued about who could commit the hardest to not taxing property. In my mind, we all lost tonight. And I will spend the next seven working days of my life fake-smiling and announcing “my husband is Samoan, so talofa” to everyone I meet. In that sense, Judith Collins won simply by saying something so ridiculous that she’ll be living rent-free in my brain until the next debate."
Steve Braunias has written an article for the Guardian on the leaders' debate. The link is below. One notable quote…
Braunias is such a good writer.
First TV debate between Ardern and Collins avoids being a horror show
She told him what.
Exactly Dennis. It's a good one.
Old Jude's really quite skillful, don't you think? No flies on her in this regard.
When there is very little of relevance that you can confidently dominate the debate with, revert to repetitive and vague historical recollections, including inane self promotion.
And then hope that it might appeal to the emotions of a number of the disillusioned or worried, (in this case small and medium business operators), or any other target audience which you know will be feeling some pain or distress at the time you take to the podium.
Then hope like Hell that your murmurings will convince the target audience that their suffering and predicament was brought about by your opponent, or those who advised him or her and also by those who continue to do so.
Ardern has done truckloads of speeches with radiant anecdotes and transcendent aspiration.
Absent.
Maybe she prefers we just sleepwalk to the polls.
Maybe Ardern was just plain tired , pandemic to navigate NZ through since March and electioneering since July. She knew it and had to tread cautiously first time around.
Janet I would think you're 100% right. The knowledge that the election would be over now if not having to be fitted round wilfully ignorant people undoing the efforts of those really doing God's work on earth leads to pockets of depression. She may have been on the edge of one of them.
And for those not wishing to sleepwalk to the polls, just roll over and go back to sleep, (perhaps until 2023).
Another way, if are worried that you might be accused of NOT voting or you are getting a bit nervous about being caught out abstaining from the three yearly habit, is to go to the nearest polling place, walk in, and then out.
After you've done and then just mill around (smoke a ciggy if you're that way inclined, or sip on a water for about 20 minutes) and then leave with an old "I voted" sticker from 2017 or 2014 that you brought with you, stuck to your jacket, shirt or blouse.
That'll be sure to do the trick.
Personally found the whole debate totally underwhelming.
Thought Ardern was flat and Collins, was just stating points we all knew, and Campbell was just irritating.
Collin's probably pipped it, but neither were particularly inspiring me to think vote for them.
Collins made her points rather than answer the actual questions. The arrogance was on show with those cutaway shots so her media minders have work to do unless that's the desired outcome.
Different styles I think.
Collin's is hardly going to make any impact trying to play Ardern at her particular skills, because a) she isn’t that cuddly feely, b) She would look incincere, so pointing out basic points is pretty much all she has to go with at this late stage I think.
I did think Collins got the better of Ardern with coming across to your average normal voter who doesn't particularly follow politics, with plain speak tbh, while Ardern's normally excellent communication skills kind of had an off night.
If anything, to me it looked oddly like Ardern had just over practiced the thing and was just sticking to a routine or script, with no improv' when Collins pointed things out.
If you like full on cringe you would have picked Collins over Ardern. Her performance was on par with what a certain Don Brash could produce, even Bridges probably would have been more convincing.
Collins response of "that we know of!" to Ardern's statement on the tiny amount of border/quarantine breaches was one such example.
I guess it comes down to how you prefer you leader to come across.
Different voters prefer different things. If you like the touchy feely persona, Ardern is always going to win (although she had an off night last night). If you prefer just basic truthful points rammed at you then you would go Collins.
And if you are a die hard voter for either party, you are going to view each persons performance with rose coloured glasses and ignore the flaws of your preferred.
"truthful points" Judith? spare us!! Se incognito’s quotes.
Codger? Truthful? C'mon man.
An old trick that seasoned or street smart politicians on the offensive often come up with is having it appear that they are trying to be polite and truthful, when all they are trying to do is to dislodge their opponent and dominate the debate.
Ardern seems to be aware of this tactic and has obviously been quite well coached in relation to avoiding repetitive distraction. For example, repetitive title errors or name pronunciations"errors".
Expressing opinion as to package it as a "truthful presentation" is another tactic which is well used. It is commonly acceptable just as long as the opinion expressed cannot be legitimately challenged as being erroneous or non-factual at the time that opinion is provided.
This is as old a trick as using percentages of percentages to embellish or appear to exaggerate a statement so as to give it impact.
Say the unemployment figure for women in NZ from Sept 2017 through to Sept 2018 decreased from 5.4% to 4%, some might convey it this way; "The number of registered unemployed women in NZ dropped by about 22% during Sept 2017 and Sept 2018".
Quite entertaining really.
All I am suggesting is that we all need to be careful with our definition of the word; "truthful", especially when quoting politicians lines.
No matter what her minders have told her she must change – and it's obvious her minders have said there's a lot she needs to change – there's nothing Collins can do to mask her abject narcissism and multiple personality disorders.
Straw poll….how many subjected themselves to the full 90 mins?
Yes…..0
No….1
Another no from me, I tried to stay engaged.
I was a bit put off by the hype- Wendy Petrie over the poll results, as if they were handed down to Moses as gospel to the repeated gushy ad with Campbell.
I am not the target audience, I have made up my mind and will be early voting.
who was the target audience I wonder?…insomniacs?
Psychiatrists.
Yes for me. And regretted it.
Yes…..1
No….2
Yes I watched it all. Regret? Not really – you risk missing a gotcha or king-hit moment if you yield to the tedium.
@ Dennis Frank …yep with you there..I fucking love political debates, and this one I actually thought was pretty good, it showed for anyone who bothered to watch the whole thing where both political parties lined up and where the light was between them…the environment was obviously the most stark difference between them, while Madeleine Chapman summed up housing and capital gains (which is also of course directly related to inequality and poverty outcomes etc)…"both leaders argued about who could commit the hardest to not taxing property. In my mind, we all lost tonight."
I found Ardern to be quite uncharismatic which combined with an awful semi pleading delivery style was quite hard to watch, while Collins left me with the feeling that I cannot excuse anyone who would actually vote for someone so seething with uncontrolled rage and a barely contained nasty streak that spilled out time and time again in almost every sideways look and glance she made at Ardren..she seemed to me to be quite unhinged.
awful semi pleading delivery
Indeed. Someone ought to explain biological signalling to her! Viewers read the plea as a sign of weakness. Sincere, genuine leftists use the plea style out of habit, presuming others have rapport, empathy, and will give the reasoning due consideration. My guess is that their assumption is valid for about 20% of the audience. Inept politics to use it then, eh?
" Sincere, genuine leftists use the plea style out of habit" exactly right, which is why I have been advocating taking a hard line for years…stop asking and start demanding change from these fuckers..no more bended knees and more clenched fists of righteous outrage imo.
The problem in NZ is that we have never strung up any politician from a lamp post by their feet, so there is no historical reference for them to have any fear of us..hence their demeaning, insulting and frankly outrageous shift over the past thirty or so years to regarding the population as mere consumers rather active citizens.
Really? I can't think of any Leftist politicians or activists that do/have ever done the plea gesture so often..if at all..ever.
It has certainly never been used to create change or forward momentum. Infact the only political figures who tend towards that sort of thing are possibly James Shaw and Justin Trudeau..add Ardern to that list..and it looks rather like a Centrist's trying hard not to look like centrists technique…pleading with the voters to buy into their fragile narrative with its elusive promises.
That being said..qudos to Shaw for managing to talk about inequality at the finance debate…
It's the tedium that’s interesting to see.
“…so seething with uncontrolled rage and a barely contained nasty streak that spilled out time and time again in almost every sideways look and glance she made at Ardern…she seemed to me to be quite unhinged."
Spot on, wholly accurate assessment. I cannot add a thing to it. Would be good if the commentators had the balls to say so, too, although many wouldn't have the tools to detect it.
Got bored after 10 mins.
Queenstown one was much better.
Would have been a good night, 400 turnout is pretty good for Queenstown But we're right at the front end with Covid economic effects, so a lot of motivated people.
A lot of dreams are in tatters around the town, and a lot who thought it was all over in April are going like never before, so a very interesting town right now.
It's a bit different to actually have an election campaign in town, usually it's a pretty subdued affair with just the local candidates and maybe a senior Nat down on a fundraiser. This time the work is going in and it's all on. Labour actually putting up a viable local candidate along with the current situation has really got things going.
They played a short clip on breakfast news and I couldn't believe how much Robertson – who doesn't normally seem a big man – towered over the pipsqueaks on either side of him. One of whom was Goldsmith.
Tova just now reckoned that Seymour won. He seems to be flavour of the month, so wouldn't surprise me.
Did anyone learn anything of import at the Queenstown debate?
Yes. Act really is on a roll.
Goldsmith is flat.
Robertson needs a lot better lines than "we've got policy coming"
Lets not forget what act really is…
"ACT leader David Seymour announced the party's tourism policy at an event at the Te Anau Club last night, calling for privately run managed isolation facilities, and allowing rich foreigners to pay to use them for a New Zealand holiday. "
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/426599/act-tourism-policy-bold-but-operators-question-uptake
edit
We need to be retreating from barefoot tourism but still need to keep overseas tourists' money cycling through the economy. You express horror at the idea of wealthy coming here to managed isolation prior to being able to tour round the country using some of the expensive infrastructure set up for such people. And also it would I hope have a dedicated set of workers earning, is not a disgraceful or impractical idea.
Until we get organised shipping set up that perhaps follows the seasons, and sails around the tornado areas as much as possible, then having an airline running reducing kilometres to bring people here, and enable NZs to go to certain places, requires the two-way coming and going numbers to keep viable.
Who has thought about how shipping could serve us? Can we expand the numbers of berths on container ships? I have an old advertisement advertising these on a 'banana boat'. And can we provide business for the Greeks again? The Fairstar and the Fairsky ships were owned by Onassiss I think. They did a busy trade in the 1960-70s.
" You express horror at the idea of wealthy coming here to managed isolation prior to being able to tour round the country using some of the expensive infrastructure set up for such people. And also it would I hope have a dedicated set of workers earning, is not a disgraceful or impractical idea."
I express horror? Dont imagine what I express. I merely stated
" Lets not forget what act really is… "
and linked to an article. But hey your comment paints a picture.
I thought that you thought that the idea was a significant one. It actually is important whether ACT said it or not.
Well you know what thought thought…Anyway you seem to want to be on both ends of the game. You decry neoliberalism…while praising an idea that stems exactly from there. Huh?
Thanks to both neolib nats and neolib "labour". NZ did away with our our NZ Apprenticeship scheme and became a hospitality/waiter/waitress/touristguide/bartender/service industry neolib playground.
If you cant see the Irony here? I cant help you across the road to it.
Labour seems to be getting back to what they are supposed to be. I really hope so.
so no then.
Yes an no.
Was listening to the stream on the web while watching TV, and tbf for a bit of it, my attention to the tv won over the stream in my attention span
10 minutes was plenty.
NO and that is the right question !
Not a single second.
Yes
No. I briefly thought I should watch it, then decided a better use of my time would be to find a rusty old can-opener and give myself an anesthetic-free vasectomy.
Did not watch. Working. Caught the odd snippet here and there.
I doubt I missed much, to be honest. I find Collins personally repellent and I try to avoid watching her in the same way I actively avoid reading anything written by Mike Hosking and his similarly awful wife. Life is too short to spend it shrieking at the television. I've spend decades watching National ruin everything they touch, and National would have to stop being National for me to ever consider voting for them. The current incarnation is probably the worst I've ever witnessed.
"National ruin everything they touch", unlike Lange and the Graham Scott Puppet Show.
"In late 1979 Mr Scott moved to the Treasury, eventually becoming secretary in 1986. He worked closely with the fourth Labour Government as it reformed the New Zealand economy in the 1980s."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/804306/An-old-hand-sees-the-parallels
Didn't watch.
The main point of a debate is the post-debate momentum- did an underdog 'wipe the floor' with their opponent? Was there a "show me the money" moment? Did someone drop a clanger?
Facts matter, but most people won't have watched the debate. They will probably see the distilled coverage, though. That's the bit that affects the outcome.
The problem with debates is that they are not easy to fact check on the fly. Nationals claims tend to lose in the long run when properly fact checked.
National tend to claim a lot of things that when fact checked are shown to be made up of cherry picked data that falls over, or put up claims they are they ones who could better balance the books when they can not even seam to get the accounting right on their alternate budget.
Look at the holes slowly showing up in Nationals alternate budget as people start to go through the numbers. First an easy to catch mistake they have owned up to and now a second big hole they are not admitting to.
Judith's claims that NSW in Australia dealt better with Covid 19 than NZ with fewer restriction, another claim that falls over when the full numbers are looked at and not cherry picked.
National in a debate are like a boxer that hits below the belt every time the ref is not looking to win a match. They toss in cherry picked and misleading data all the time to win debates and it is hard to win a debate against someone with actual facts when they have "Alternate Facts" they will use to score points on you.
Collins said that Agriculture contributed 0.02 % to the Worlds pollution.
Quite true but the Agriculture contributing 48% of NZ's pollution more relevant. But who cares in such a non debate.
Sort of interesting that she 'knew" that, when she she was well out with number of covid deaths in aust states.
And her 'scrapping' the RMA fills me with dread. Remember what happened last time the Natz did that —LEAKY BUILDINGS.
Mould deserves freedom, you know.
Jacinda, "Ms Ardern" pointed that out, and that transport was a further 20%.
Actually I'm sure she was saying "Miss Ardern" Patricia.
The one thing I took away from the debate is that Judith Collins showed us what a nasty cow she really is.
Quite right Anne – I play my TV through a good Hi Fi sound system, and distinctly heard 'Miss Ardern'. Mind you, I doubt if it matters in terms of votes. Judith is trying to sound nice, but every so often I find myself wondering if she is a sour cow or a sour sow. That may sound sexist, so maybe I should balance it with full of bull, and boring bore..
The nasty Muldoon persona does not help. It is actually a bit piggy, I think.
Or how about crushing boar?
I reckon Piggy Jude is about right. Muldoon reincarnated in female form.
She is nowhere near as competent as Muldoon was in his prime..
True, but she doesn't know it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
The debate needed a fact checker.
The debate needed a better camera person/s. We were often looking at the back of Jacinda's head, though we never saw the back of John's or Judith's!! What was that about??
Yes I particularly noticed that too – the lighting was not balanced over the two speakers – often a bit "dark "on Ardern .
Good – we need aware viewers to complain and let TVNZ know that we understand their biased editing techniques.
With an electric shock capability.
Leaders debates like this are about personality and not the facts, about building popularity through charisma rather than informing people and have them make informed choices.
Because of this I consider such debates detrimental to democracy.
What a smart line from Madeline Chapman. (See No 1 Dennis @ 6.19 from Spinoff.)
I thought her line "In my mind we all lost tonight" was the closer to the mark
CGT did nothing to Australia's housing market.
There are other ways of reigning in the ponzi scheme….if the will is there.
How much extra tax did it bring to the coffers. They will need some to help pay for their coffins.
However we need extra tax to help provide living people with decent basics, of which we have a thriving market selling off to toffs from NZ and overseas. Come and buy anything you like, our houses for instance, (and our farms, by the dozens), and get lots of moolah. Then pile it in one of your spare rooms with a diving board like Grandpa Duck used, though that silly duffer had piles of gold coins. But the wealthy aren't too sensitive, he probably never noticed the hard edges.
But I wonder how much CGT here would have raised because the poor here do feel the hard edges of everything.
I guess because it was poorly executed.
Green voter attacks Green Party: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/09/23/why-are-the-greens-dying-and-what-happens-if-they-do/
Bomber's cultural analysis features the Top 8 Green Party Woke Alienations. The photo of the Wellington Twitteratti Green Activists ready for their next micro aggression policing social media lynch mob shows the traditional side of wokesterism.
Not only like that. It is that. They think
Yes, yes, but that's been obvious the past year or more, so why not learn the lesson? He can't – he's so fixated on bitching about the problem. If a faction seems to discredit a party in the public mind, you fix that problem by changing the public mind. That's what political management is for.
Why have the Green caucus not used their moral authority to make that happen? Because too many of them are wokesters themselves, perhaps. Because those who aren't lack sufficient leverage. It's a failure of collective leadership.
The answer is in the question.
Bradbury has been banging on about the same thing for some time. I think he is ageing mentally, getting into that inflexible style of thinking that is so prevalent in the older age group.
Perhaps his blog has had its day as a therapeutic outlet for his boiling stresses, and he has gone to excess so often that he has poisoned any fertile ground around him where inspiration and creatively beneficial ideas might grow about better policies and wise politicians.
" woke middle class identity politics mummy blogger trans ally Green Party cancel culture militant cyclist humourless vegan micro aggression policing activists"
This interests me. As the world we are living in becomes more and more complex; ideas surface and add to those already circulating, they fracture and multiply like the brooms of the Sorcerer's apprentice, do we dig our heels in and sweep the nuanced plethora of new ideas away with our broom of conservatism and condemnation (listen to Magic talkback if you don't know what I mean) or do we surge forward, into the morass of fractionated thinking; meet those challenging ideas head-on and ride the wave of knowledge they represent? I reckon, catch the wave. Bomber seems to want to build a sandcastle on the beach, while wearing a knotted handkerchief on his head.
That rant reveals more about Bradbury than the party. What a word salad.
The irony of his past three years line – is he started the three years saying the same thing and has repeated it ad nauseum throughout the entire period.
He basically wants to silence the Green Party on identity politics society concerns and reduce it to class and environment economics (not sure how that relates to historic party support for Maori self-government/revival aspiration, multi-cultural society and feminist concerns).
He has basically taken up the Free Speech rights are at risk line of the ACT Party protecting white race man civilisation from the woke threat – which is what one would expect from someone who keeps meeting Sean Plunkett and the insolvent wage subsidy dependent libertarian.
He will claim the polls prove him right – but that is cynical – minor parties in government lose support, and minor parties out of it but in parliament gain. As per 2002 – Alliance down and United Party up. This time NZF and Greens down and ACT up.
Bradbury is a pain in the ass.
I think it would be great if someone fact checked the debate. Collins said something about building houses and that I am sure was crap.
campbell didn’t address competency of the two parties. I think that is a serious omission.
national could spout any policy, but surely it blindingly obvious that they. Have lied, acted unethically and made major mistakes
Some fact-checking:
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2020/08/election-2020-the-whole-truth/#/1193304839/the-avocados-will-be-fine
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2020/08/election-2020-the-whole-truth/#/1193304232/collins-jobless-numbers-claim
"Did anyone else think Campbell cut Jacinda off far more than Collins.?"
YES
"I also noticed quite frequently when Jacinda was talking the camera went to Judith. And I am not sure about this but an afterthought was that the camera angle favoured Judith. ……..interested to hear if others noticed this."
YES. Also, I noticed that the focus was on Collins pulling stupid faces and slightly off focus on Ardern. Being a photographer this is a technique used to highlight the main subject,
Also Campbell did not shut Collins up when Ardern was speaking so Ardern could not finish what she was saying.
Agree with you on all points U made
Agreed 100% John Campbell may live for these debates but he did not ask any clarifying questions, nor was he actively listening to what Jacinda was saying, cutting her off at the end of her first point, more than once.
The camera work and the lighting favoured Judith greatly, shaving at least 15 years off her face. The shadows showed Jacinda's almost gaunt look of 3 years of unrelenting responsibility, and the knowledge of what is ahead.
However, I feel Jacinda's lack of reaction led to overconfidence on Judith's part, and Judith clearly showed her lack of respect and her scoffing "give back double" nature.
The insincere swap between charm and scoffing was quite marked
Jesicca Much MacKay is excited to lead "her" next debate!! "Judith did so well." "When is yours?" says John…..the ego of these people is amazing. It is all about them of course.
I watched the first 5 minutes, but then found this!!! Really interesting!
"New Zealand's oldest surviving observatory falling down in a field, held up only by a tree"
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122815070/new-zealands-oldest-surviving-observatory-falling-down-in-a-field-held-up-only-by-a-tree
Judith looked liked she was auditioning for Mean Girls.
John doing his fanboy impersonation.
Jacinda the only adult in the room.
I didn't watch the debate because Collins repulses me. So l appreciate the updates. Sounds like Collins had more energy on the night but Ardern stuck to her high road approach.
Ardern's main weapon is that she is a normal adult humanbeing and comes across as such. Sadly a rarity among senior politicians.
I didn't watch because I just find it all incredibly stupid anyway … and I find Judith's mantra of "hurting people double who hurt her" incredibly juvenile.
Making enemies just means there are fewer and fewer people on your side and fewer people willing to go the extra mile to help you. It seems like an odd way to be a politician.
This is totally anecdotal but a friend of a friend works for a Nat List MP. She said they’ve all started looking for new jobs.
Goldsmith's staff who check his numbers have clocked off already too.
Well if anyone still has the will to do so after last night we can vote in 10 days (and counting)
Excellent comment! How many non-voters would have been enticed to vote now after watching this show on TV, if they watched at all? Is this format good for voter engagement?
How many non voters would waste their time watching a non debate?
bullseye.
I did not watch for one reason only – Judith Collins' sheer nastiness. I just don't choose to spend my time witnessing that sort of behaviour. We have had more than enough of National Party members and hangers on behaving disgracefully this year.
Talking to friends this morning, they picked up on the eye rolling etc.etc. One used the words 'hate her' which is their usual way of talking.
"Shifting Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western US states and elsewhere, and methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilisation will require dramatic interventions.
Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.
Many think of the climate crisis as distinct from the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic. But the three crises – and their solutions – are interconnected."
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/107187/mariana-mazzucato-sees-no-alternative-radical-overhaul-corporate-governance-finance
They will have a policy for this, right? Surely?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12367232
so our pm who odds on will be on after the election still PM and could also govern alone, and then any legislation resulting from the cannabis vote can be whatever labour decides (captains call)will not tell us what her personal views are. Ffs you are a leader what are you afraid of ?? That your opinions may result is losing a few votes. Your opinion has more than any other in deciding how any law is shaped.
imo this is steep walking to a victory, I hope that labour does not govern alone because they do not deserve to allow NZ to drift further. And their First past the post strategy just shows how they think the greens deserve to be managed… with distaste.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12355405
I don't agree, remember Keys support of the flag, many people voted to keep the flag to spite Key. Adern staying out of it is sensible, as well as her right, to keep her decision private. Also, the euthanasia bill being supported by Seymour makes me question by own beliefs around it (I support it, or do I? I'm not 100% sure, coz Seymour supports it, loudly).
Our PM and labour keeping out of it is ALL political as IMO they want to win and govern on their own and will do whatever to achieve this (no team including The Greens). What happens if the vote is 45-55 or even 50-50?We have been given no indication as to what any law will look like or if should the vote be too close what then? So totally disagree.
We appear to have a risk averse Labour Party.
Labour will be averse to taking risks that might dent their commanding lead over the National opposition party in recent political opinion polls. I'm guessing their strategists are pretty comfortable letting National indulge in risky business, and there's been plenty of that since the Bridges-Ross spat kicked off, Boag-Walker, Andrew ‘Balloon-Falloon’, and ‘Merv from Manurewa’ being recent examples.
There’s a lot riding on Collins’ eyebrows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2020_New_Zealand_general_election#Graphical_summary
At the end, when Campbell was wrapping up, he spoke of one of the two leaders being the Prime Minister.
Interestingly, Ardern was looking straight ahead and Collins? She was looking at Ardern.
It's the eyes that give us away………….
It's worse than that. Brexit has antagonized the US and Eu leading to a probable economic crisis on which Judith does not seem to have a constructive position.
[This user handle and e-mail address are now blacklisted. Please use the pair that you last used on 21 Aug and that we had agreed on previously, thanks.
You are wasting Moderator time each time you change your user name and/or e-mail address and you have never provided a good reason why you are doing it.
I did ask you again only 2 days ago but you simply ignored the note so I wasted even more time on your antics when I gave you the benefit of doubt – Incognito]
See my second Moderation note to you in 2 days @ 11:59 AM.
Thoughts from abroad – Headlines from UK The Telegraph: You will have to search for more details yourself. This is just to show the drift of the thinking of the UK.
'Despite 10,000 new cases a day the French are embracing life – not imposing new rules.. From the Travel Correspondent.
(The French have large numbers of cases of Covid19 and are still enjoying life. Fool or hardy? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.)
Oxford’s Sir John Bell: ‘We’re not going to beat the second wave’
Oxford University has announced that clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine are to resume in the UK
At lunchtime on Tuesday, Sir John Bell received a call telling him that the groundbreaking Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial would, regretfully, be paused.
(So UK is at sixes and sevens. But they know what they are doing, right. Trust us to do the right thing is the Conservative approach – now they've kicked Labour and Corbyn to the side.)
'We can beat Covid without lockdowns, says top German virologist
Hendrik Streeck argues big gatherings in closed spaces amplify the spread, but going to shops or hairdressers are manageable levels of risk'
Margaret Atwood wants to see The Handmaid's Tale scenario remain a fiction!
And Brexit, the entitled classes from which Boris has arisen stamps its foot over EU intransigence or something. It's all their fault.
The bad-faith EU is furious that the UK now has a backstop of its own
The PM is offering Brussels a choice: negotiate fairly, or the whole country will leave without a deal
Are we feeling a little anxious while we wait for the election and the Right waffle on about things, and thrust sharp things into the thread of our democracy and then grab our arms and say 'Look at these holes we found', that they made themselves? And all the time the Left are doing a pretty-good job. Here is Jonathan Pie relating the cares and woes of the UK people about their Right government, that is attempting to lead them all up the garden path, like a character out of P.G.Wodehouse.
Boris is advancing fast, he's a father now, and getting into confused grandfather territory at supersonic speed; reminiscent of the joke I got out of the paper years ago and put on the fridge:
"My grandfather's a little forgetful, but he likes to give me advice. One day he took me aside, and left me there." Ron Richards* (Witty & Wise.)
* Ron Richards (22 January 1929 – 30 April 2009) was a British record producer, manager and promoter, best known for discovering The Hollies. and – The record producer Ron Richards played a central part in the British “beat boom” of the 1960s, taking charge of the Beatles' first recording .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Richards_(producer)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122845115/tick-tick-podcast-the-economic-phoney-war-and-what-will-happen-to-house-prices
House prices will not take a hit because the wealthy will continue to buy them all up so nobody else can afford them.
A friend who is a mortgage advisor told me that the banks apparently refuse to lend to people whose businesses either received the wage subsidy or who did receive the wage subsidy themselves. So yeah, anyone who thought that the low lever interests would benefit the houseless is in for serious disappointment.
At this stage the housing market – private, social and commercial – and the official response to it is nothing more but a farce.
Yes, Judith Collins sat down with an “adoring supporter” who has a tattoo of the latest leader of the opposition on one of his thighs. Could this be a turning point in Collins' election campaign (worked for Trump) – maybe we'll all see more of her soon.
https://www.ktnv.com/now-trending/ohio-man-has-donald-trumps-face-tattooed-on-arm
https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/trump-stamp-man-gets-trump-tattoo-on-lower-back-after-losing-bet/523-a89bac84-d7eb-4523-9551-83a5e89c7825
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3937678/British-roofer-38-gets-huge-tattoo-Donald-Trump-leg-says-doesn-t-mind-criticism-great-art-controversial.html
@ 22 The "minds" (I use the term advisedly : ) of them . Gotta laugh
Let me know if you'd like some more.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
would you like to be out for the day?
Once a month I'm allowed out for the day.
The way to reduce house prices is known.
It is with the cost of paying a mortgage or limitation on access to finance to buy.
A guy called Bollard said he would not need to increase the OCR to constrain inflation resulting from rising land and property value if the government introduced a mortgage surcharge instead – then the OCR would be lower and so would the dollar to the advantage of exporters.
But now over a decade later and still nothing. The RBG gets rid of the equity requirement and cuts the OCR and so of course property values will rise.
This will change as soon as the government adds a mortgage surcharge or taxes equity in property (TOP) or a land tax. Of course only taxing property equity wealth over $M is Green policy.
Lower interest rates only benefit those with access to property finance, a mortgage surcharge is the balance to this so that government can help tenants and finance homes for first home buyers or build more state houses.
We used as first home buyers, to get a 25 year mortgage at an affordable rate, and that was a good start. It encouraged people to settle into stable lives etc etc. But though you would think that good people in government roles would want that, I think that this evil neolib economics is actually keen to keep people on the hop, make them work harder, not be complacent, and ensure that they didn't have anything to sink savings into, underpay them so they had to borrow so business would profit from the interest they had to pay to provide the necessities demanded in a 'developed' economy, and keeping more money flowing in the economy.
It is such a twisted approach that ordinary people don't comprehend it; don't understand the diabolical nature of the financial people at the top who twiddle the economy's knobs.
Yes a government could waive the mortgage surcharge for first home buyers …
It used to be expressed that government gave first home buyers a step up into the housing market to get them started. But neolib doesn't want people to even get started. Don Brash didn't think that people should be tying their money up in their own house. Though the system produced a stable and relatively happy country pleased and proud most of the time.
Not the way we are now with an attitude of the quick or the dead, and lack of generosity towards others, competing for stuff all the time. To the people at the top the hoi polloi are just to be used as if life was a cockfight, and the hens get slaughtered if they don't produce enough eggs. As you can tell, I am pretty disillusioned – the NZ spirit is mainly found in bottles now.
I think Collins sounded more like Trump. Me me me, I know best, Vote for me,
Judith Collins is just a trashy piece of trailer trash. Her "poor wee thing" describing Jacinda Adern is classic "how low can you get" – uncouth is another description or as my old grannie used to say to me "all hair oil and no socks". She is a disgrace to any position of responsibility or representation of our country. Jacinda Adern should never have to be put in a position that she has to even engage with her. Fine porcelain versus crude pottery. Trump is the company Collins deserves.
She is starting to make John Key look reasonable.
I'll tell you what. The sooner this election comes round, the better.
I think it's a major miscalculation to think people are flocking to Labour and a self described bold progressive because they think she'll be moderate and consersative.
What if labours rise in the polls is due to non voters who jacindas boldness turned on and who need change and former Nat voters whose lives have fallen apart and this moderate tinkering approach makes them stay home. Honestly. Labours dropped in the polls since it announced policy and showed it's cautious af direction. Labours messaging just seems so wrong for the times.
Labour desperately needs to start exciting people again. People who were excited are getting bored and despondent. Maybe I'm wrong maybe people are flocking to her because they want a self described transformational progressive to not be bold or transformational and middle class people are flocking to Labour cos they want everything to stay the same. I think it's a bit of both
Labour still has the highest polling it's had in thirty years.
Sure we're not exciting, but not-exciting is effectively eating National.
Trust the hard left to whine about it.
"Labour … is effectively eating National"
They'll need a cast-iron gut to keep the meal down – but it's a dirty job that needs doing. They might even become a genuine conservative (in the best sense of the word) party. One worthy of respect – which we don't have at present.
Trust the hard left to whine about it. Calling an anxious voter looking for policy change 'hard left' is hard Ad. It's nervousness really – probably better left unsaid at this stage.
If people want bold transformational progressives, why aren't they flocking to the Greens?
Good question
Maybe those who really want "bold transformational progressives" have already flocked – the rest are hunkering down, still hoping to weather a 'storm' that shall not pass.
edit
This is a good bit of goss and shows our system is working at weeding out the baddies eventually, somewhat.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/426737/spy-camera-case-police-appeal-suppression-of-former-government-employee
A former senior government manager planted a spy camera in an Auckland gym's changing room capturing video of a naked couple, then went on to plant the camera on at least three more occasions, the Auckland High Court has heard.
Police appealing the man's discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression, argued his offending, which took place on at least four separate days, was not taken into account by District Court Judge Clare Bennett.
RNZ and NZME also challenged the man's name suppression.
I wonder if we have here the Judge adopting Queen Victoria’s moral levels whereby if one doesn’t want one’s mind to be sullied by distasteful scuttlebutt, one just doesn’t listen. The Queen is supposed to have said, “I don’t want to know that.” The better secondary schools now probably don’t even study DH Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
‘We’re better than that’, is the quote of the new century, to be applied to bloody massacres, and derelictions of duty by well-paid government officials. I can say that, without a qualm, that bit about well-paid, because it seems to be an absolute dead cert these days as the anointed move up the line following the well-worn Peter’s Principle Curve.
"Westpac has agreed to pay a record $A1.3 billion ($NZ1.4b) fine for major breaches of money laundering and terror financing laws."
https://www.odt.co.nz/business/westpac-cops-record-fine-australia
I've often wondered….why is westpac our NZ Govt's Bank? Maybe Kiwibank should be…