In an election year, the Government's Budget marks the informal start of the election campaign.
This year, the start is an even one, with the latest pre-budget poll showing National starting even with the Labour/Greens alliance.
Much will happen between now and election day on Saturday, September 23, 2017.
One thing that many voters may miss is that the parties will release their Policies.
Some already have.
Making an informed voting decision should involve an understanding of what the parties stand for and what their policies actually are.
Getting your view filtered via others, whether it be media personalities or the negative views of rival politicians, is never a sound idea.
But for most voters, it is an unappetizing exercise looking up each party's policy, and then finding the equivalent policy for the other parties.
It is a tough job, even for one issue. We know. We've done it.
And we have done it for over 100 different policy issues, comparing positions of all parties in Parliament on one page. We even have links to some key parties that are not in Parliament.
These comparison pages are here.
A good place to start is to look at what the parties claim is their Philosophy.
We know they will be widely used and shared and become an essential resource for tens of thousands of voters - we know this because we have been doing this type of policy comparison since the 2005 election.
While some 2017 policy positions have been announced, many have not yet, so these pages are a work in progress. They will be updated as soon as new policy is available to be referenced on the party's website.
Our pages show up to five key points for each policy for each party. All the text is the an exact copy of the party's words, and for the full set, just click on it.
We are also tracking Party Lists. Each person on this page has a link to their bio.
You are welcome to point out updates that should be made, errors or corrections required. Contact us here or email julia.wiener@interest.co.nz
22 Comments
I can't understand it ... the reluctance ...
I am utterly puzzled as to why the government is so mired in "housing" and "new housing" and its hopeless attempts at getting more homes built and being suckered into building the houses and providing Special Housing Areas at cheap prices and doing hopeless deals when it could simply require all new imports to fund the construction of a new dwelling as a path to residency and subsequent citizenship - they don't have to live in it - they just have to build it
It's such a simple solution - ripe for the picking - ban all non-citizens from buying existing real-estate
It's quite clear isn't it - if the government do anything that might cause the bubble to pop, they country will go into recession and they'll be ousted. So they're tip-toeing right now, appearing to be in control, looking to do good deeds for the 'average kiwi' - when in reality there's a big elephant in the room that they're continuing to walk around...
Many people would like to build something but there are no sections where they could do so. Most available sections are under covenants which will force you to build an oversized house covering almost the whole section. It's not only Auckland's problem.
I'm an immigrant, I moved to Rotorua from Auckland and I wanted to build a house here, but I found that it's simply impossible as here are no sections. Actually here are some but with covenants to build a house with 125-150 m2 living area. It's 4 bedrooms house, I do not need it and it's too expensive. Moreover you can buy a similar houses here and it will cost you $150K less approximately than if you would build it.
In my opinion, much simpler solution would be simply give some sections so that everybody who wants it could build. I understand that in Auckland it can be difficult, but not in Rotorua.
Restrictive covenants on sections are the root of a lot of our problems.
There must be a hell of a lot of people who'd like to build a cottage and maximise the garden space, or build smaller and higher quality, or renovate a relocatable, but can't, because shoddy McMansion or nothing.
I've said it so many times, over so many years, to so many agencies and local authorities doing this or that report on the housing situation, that I've virtually given up. After all that I've only seen one 'footnote' in one official report on the matter.
Worse thing was - when the government didn't to my knowledge prohibited restrictive covenants as a requirement to gain SHA status. Would have been a perfect opportunity.
You could be right. But in the period June-September 2014 we delivered 166,000 of fhese types of pages, so it presumably helped many ten of thousands of readers then. This time, given how much larger our readership is now, we are hoping to deliver over 250,000.
Anything we can do to shift the focus to policy and away from personalities is progress, I feel.
But in the end, it is up to citizens to take the opportunity. It's our effort to push back against the social media echo chambers.
I often wonder how much of our service and hospitality industry sector isn't 'real' (fulfilling a genuine demand from customers, enough turnover for a profit) but only exists to facilitate money laundering and immigration scams for under-the-table payment.
This could account for some of the great gaping holes in our productivity.
Did anyone see Kerry McDonald on Q & A? Unfortunately the last (and best ) part of the interview has been cut off. He's a true New Zealander (the other fellow wants to justify mass migration)
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/extras/steven-joyce-panel
Getting your view filtered via others, whether it be media personalities or the negative views of rival politicians, is never a sound idea.
....
It starts in the universities
http://imgbox.com/hPbuHrAE
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