Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced a clearing of the Labour Government's less popular policies ahead of the October 14 election, as indicated by his predecessor Jacinda Ardern late last year and when he was elected unopposed by his caucus last month.
Hipkins announced the changes after the first substantive Cabinet meeting of his new ministry. They included:
- ending work this term on a social insurance scheme that would have forced employers and employees to each pay 1.39% of income in premiums for an unemployment and illness insurance scheme to be administered by ACC;
- suspending plans for a biofuels mandate aimed at reducing climate emissions, but that would have increased fuel prices;
- ending plans for a TVNZ-RNZ merger, but with plans for extra funding for RNZ and NZ on Air;
- ending work this term on hate speech legislation; and,
- increasing the minimum wage in line with CPI inflation (7%) or $1.50 per hour to $22.70/hour from April 1, which is lower than previous increases, which were above CPI inflation.
“I said the Government is doing too much too fast, and that we need to focus on the cost of living. Today we deliver on that commitment," Hipkins said.
He said social insurance was off the table and would not proceed as planned.
"We will need to see a significant improvement in economic conditions before anything is advanced. Work will continue to explore ways to best address these inequities in the long term when the economy is better placed to make change. But it is off the table for now," he said.
Cabinet agreed the biofuels mandate will not proceed.
"The mandate would have increased the price of fuel, and given the pressure on households that’s not something I’m prepared to do," he said.
Hipkins said Three Waters would be reconsidered, with unspecified details to come at an unspecified later date.
"The need for reform is unquestionable. The events in Auckland have once again demonstrated the limits of our existing infrastructure and the need for change. But careful consideration is required," he said.
Hipkins said the changes set a new direction for the Government.
"It will help to provide greater bandwidth and resource for where focus is needed most – the cost of living. When I became leader I promised that the Government would do more to help families with the cost of living," he said.
Hipkins said the 7% increase in the minimum wage would only increase the wages portion of GDP by 0.1%, according to MBIE analysis.
244 Comments
Pay careful attention to Hipkins use of the words I & We indicating some differences of opinion within the Govt and the lack of saying is off the agenda permanently so indicative of a continuation of lies & deceit something which the opposition (ACT) should hammer home when electioneering that Labour/Greens/Maori parties are untrustworthy and unsuitable to be a Govt for a few decades.
ACT will have to do this as Luxon and National have neither the gumption nor the guts to do so.
Imagine believing for a nanosecond that - if Labour win - these policies won't be back.
Today's announcement is clever political marketing, and a test of the attention spans and memories of the electorate.
Rumpole and Dumbthoughts, while I agree with both of you on all of your points, I think that we should also recognize that Hipkins is a very clever politician who he is going to be a formidable challenge. He is reading the room and, at least on the surface, he is trying to shift Labour from a wasteful, anti-business, far-left, woke, divisive and ideologically blinded party to a more centrist, pragmatic and left-of-center reasonable party. If he wins the elections, of course there is a high chance that he will return to the old Jacinda's approach, but in term of optics he is doing very well now, quite brilliantly I would say. And on a personal level he does seem more genuine, and it is difficult not to like the guy.
Had Jacinda stayed on, I would have had no doubt that Labour would have been kicked out at the next elections. Now... I am not sure at all, especially considering the very lukewarm and frankly unimpressive opposition demonstrated by Luxon's National. It is going to be very, very close indeed.
I'm largely in agreement with you.
Hipkins is a shrewd operator, that's for sure. And his appearance has very quickly shown (if initial polling is anything to go by) that people really don't care much for Luxon, but he was sufficiently inoffensive to present a more palatable alternative to Ardern, of whom the nation had clearly tired.
I don't find him particularly likeable myself, because he is clearly quite happy to lie very overtly to the nation (see the Northland "prostitutes", Charlotte Bellis saga etc) and the chummy, 'Chippy' branding and 'Mr Fix It' reputation seem highly contrived. He strikes me as someone who would get nasty without a moment's hesitation, hiding behind the facade of a relaxed, cool dude. That being said he is far less draining to listen to than Ardern, who really lost the plot.
Luxon, however, is even less likeable, as he is just so bland. I do a lot of work with dyed-in-the-wool 'two ticks blue' types and even they seem to struggle to show much enthusiasm for him. Advantage Hipkins here.
National had been on "cruise control", gaining advantage because of how grating Ardern had become, and all Luxon needed to do was not put his foot in his mouth too much.
The problem now is that Luxon and National have to actually mount a decent campaign and present a viable alternative, as opposed to just "not being Ardern". My comment is really that I don't believe Team Blue is up to that. I don't believe they can pivot to a plan B of successfully pointing out that Hipkins has had a hand in almost all of the crap that's now being chucked, and is therefore not to be trusted. Labour must have thought the policies were a good idea to dream them up in the first place.
Seymour really is the opposition leader at this point IMO, because at least he can debate fairly well and articulate an alternative vision and policies.
I don't think Hipkins would bring back the income insurance scheme. It was a weird idea. Basically an admission that the dole and sickness benefit aren't sufficient to support property and the banking sector. But that's not their job - there's private insurance for that.
Having spent most my working life for a multinational, it's not dissimilar to the half a dozen times a new CEO comes on board or we go through another acquisition/merger. Everything must be a point of difference from the predecessor.
"Right, we're not doing that anymore *yoink* here's [my] our new vision folks".
I'm sure Hipkins is a "thought leader" who has "deep dived" and "drilled down" into the core issues.
I'm sure Hipkins is a "thought leader" who has "deep dived" and "drilled down" into the core issues.
Yes but look at the army of human resources at their disposal. The deep diving and analytical grunt work is done by the foot soldiers (and the thieving consultants), not by Chippie.
NZdan, You're such a non thinker.
Hipkins is a slut,
" I will feck the economy, jobs, health, social conhesion, education, race relations, farmers, ... And I will do this with absolute conviction and dedication to Jacinda"
Neck minit.. oh shite the polls ain't good and Jacindas bailed!
" I need votes and ....
Comprehend Now NZDan?
And remember how the media and critics loved to accuse John key of "flip-flopping". You can be absolutely sure that TVNZ, RNZ, Newshub and Stuff will not offer the same criticism on all this backtracking and yet it is a massive (and desperate) about-face for Labour. We need 'Three Waters' to be similarly axed.
Right because your average small or medium business is just cracking it right now and had such a great profitable run over the last three years. No stress just laughs really.
Jumping through labour's endless covid theater nonsense has been such a pleasure.
While employees have had their wages paid, their sick leave extended, and received another paid public holiday.
It sucks that people are poor. But it ain't the fault of small or medium businesses. Yet they should pay for it?
Are wages 100% cost of goods? Hypothetically, if all other costs are static, even in a wage price spiral a min wage should become better off if businesses price "morally" by maintaining their markup applied to COG.
- $1 item. Wages $0.64. Materials $0.16. + 20% GP = $1.00 sell..
- If wages go up 10%, then $0.70 + $0.16 / 0.8 = $1.08. An 8% increase.
Even indirect wages (e.g. transport) are a percentage of the COG before and after. Whatever that percentage ratio is, will determine how much of an impact minimum wage increases will have on the sell price.
How many economists actually employ anyone, or own a business?
If the minimum wage is 21 an hour and goes up to 22 an hour what do you think the girl who is on 22 an hour thinks?
"I'm experienced, I've been here longer, I shouldn't be on the minimum wage, I need a pay rise."
That moves up the chain.
Anyone who thinks this is just about poor people at the bottom getting more and that that exists in some magical vacuum where those are the only effects, is a bit dim, to say the least.
Not true. The finding was that up to a “given point” min wage changes have little effect on inflation. That point was usually somewhere around when 10% of the working population are on min wage / within the band that would be impacted by the min wage rise or something like that.
Of course they will, those indirect wage costs are already factored in to today's cost of goods. If you take the whole supply chain to the shelf item it's a mix of Labour, Material and Profit.
If a product has an accumulated 50% wages as a portion of final COGs at the retail end, then a + 10% in wages across the board should not result in a + 10% in the shelf price. Same with 90%. An increase in min wage alone should never make people worse off if businesses maintain constant mark up ratios.
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In the real world....
Wages go up.
Wages are a business cost so
Price goes up to cover every person and every hour each employee works and holidays( non productive work) 4 + weeks.
Then we have employees taking six months maternity leave all paid for!... Another non productive cost!
Sick leave... Same
Soo .. every company has had huge costs forced on them and what do they have to do .
Pass them. ON!!... But wait there's more...
A freight company has to pass on there " new wage" costs to a retailer .. so a retailer has the aforementioned cost plus freight now!
Then the telco, electric co, rates, rent, accountant, vehicle supplier, and all other suppliers to the retailer, pass in their new prices!!!!
So... In a nutshell your coffee has had dozens of price increase on the way to your cup of coffee going into your mouth. Thus it cost
So increasing the coffee shops staffs wage is just a small part of why you pay Big$$$ for you trim decaff latte!
. thanks labour
.inflation @8% in June!
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”Moral profit” needs to be calculated as fair return on equity above the risk free rate of return / inflation. In your example if inflation is 0% when the business owner made 20% then to retain his margin in real terms when inflation is 7% he will need to take his revised cost of $0.86 and add 27% to it = $1.09. Meaning that when inflation is present and the same as wage inflation then to maintain real (inflation adjusted margins) the cost of goods must rise faster than inflation.
but raising the minimum wage won’t help slowing inflation will it?
Hipkins said the 7% increase in the minimum wage would only increase the wages portion of GDP by 0.1%, according to MBIE analysis.
The alternative is to not raise the minimum wage, or to raise it by less than inflation (which is what the $1.50 raise is), so that people on the lowest incomes go backwards - is that what you want?
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Hipkins is a completely feck wit!
It's not 7 percent ..
Take your average coffee shop...
5 staff @ 7%
Add .. ( all his suppliers have had a 7% wage increase)
+Milk delivery co 7%
+Coffee delivery co 7%
+Milk manufacturer 7%
+Coffee bean supplier 7%
Rent, electricity, water, Telco, maintenance, .... All +7%
Soon your coffee will be $10 soon...
Do you buy a $10 coffee courtesy of Labour .... No!..
Does the coffee shop close and staff get laid off . Yes!
Do labour look after the worker's .NO
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They haven't done much, but there are plenty of changes that are meaningful to many, for better or worse:
- Ban foreigners buying homes directly, bright line test extended to 10 years, phase out of interest deductibility, but house prices still ballooned up to the end of 2021
- Brought back fees free university (not sure how many years worth it ended up at)
- Removed DHBs and replaced with Health NZ
- Doubled sick leave entitlements
- Added Matariki public holiday
- Abortion reform
- New top income tax rate
Sure just as many failed/cancelled initiatives that it's hard to give them a good mark
better or worse? Last I checked you don't vote Govt in to make your life worse.
- "Foreign Buyers" is very subjective, their definition is not what the general public would use. 4/10
- Fees free is an unmitigated disaster, which is why it never got extended past the first year. 1/10
- DHBs are still there. 3/10 (To be fair Nats tried the same thing back in 08 - so not just a Lab issue)
- Sick leave was an actual win. 10/10
- Matariki, another win they haven't focused enough on. 10/10
- Abortion reform was all Seymour (ACT). 0/10
- Top income rate is good, but would have been nice to see a readjustment in all the thresholds. 3/10
You are talking about something entirely different than what I am talking about, which is this: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/docu…
The highly paid would avoid it.. either simply go overseas where wages are more and taxes are less. And we lose skilled workers and put others off coming here.
some will resign and be hired back as a consultant with an accountant who will minimise any tax
Raising taxes for rich is never a simple answer.
Me too but these are different days. If I was earning the modern equivalent and I could push the 33% rate down to 28%, I'd probably feel it was the right thing to do. Or otherwise stop bullshitting and introduce a capital gains tax and sharpen up on consumption taxes.
JumboJones, you are wrong, they are working age, under pension age.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/114628351/an-inconven…
You mean predominantly the most severely disabled people who cannot get hired. Yep lets bring up that unlike the pension benefits which are non means tested and increase regularly there have been severe cuts to income support for disabled and they are on jobseeker even though many need daily support carers for basic needs.
And every doctor in the country would promptly move to Australia. Along with anyone else who possesses any modicum of skill or talent. When all the high income earners who pay most of all the income tax leave, who is going to pay for the 50% of households who dont pay income tax?
This is the real world, everything is a compromise, a give and take. There's never going to be a party or government you 100% agree with and their will always be policies that you think aren't the right way forward. But you vote for what you think will be best overall, or at least that's what I try to do
FBB was not what was campaigned on, there are exemptions for the groups that made up our biggest foreign buyers and Labour campaigned on renegotiating FTAs when it was pointed out they couldn't do what they said they would.
Fees free is a total stuff-up, I want it to succeed and see student loans gone but they've buggered it up totally and never funded a second year of it.
Health NZ is a mess and and even bigger co-governance shitshow than 3 Waters, it's just that no one was paying attention because putting Little in charge of it meant expectations were already low and no one noticed.
Doubled sick leave: Good, absolutely should have happened. Have to give them that, and National would never. Anyone with a kid or burnout owes them thanks for it .
Matariki: I would have preferred to see this flagged for a Parihaka Day rather than elevating Matariki to some sort of level that it's never held legitimately amongst the wider population. It just seems forced.
Abortion reform: I'm glad they expended some political capital on this. It was overdue, but I feel like National would have gotten to this at some point, perhaps not under the current evangelical wing of leadership, but at some point they could have.
New top income tax rate: ....that raises bugger all revenue and doesn't count as tax reform. Even more excusable when you've spent five years leaving the tax brackets on 'seen' despite huge inflation AND the first thing you did when you got in was undo Bill English's tax alignments - so direct and then years of indirect tax hikes. But look, here's a shiny new envy rate! That counts as reform, right?
A foreign buyers ban is meaningless when Labour handed out permanent residency to every foreigner currently in the country, and every foreigner who wants to move here. Foreign buyers (in country) now account for 18% of all home purchases in Auckland. Ban? What ban?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/131141553/migrants…
I was reflecting earlier today that if Ardern/Labour had not been monstered, steamrolled & distracted by Kelvin, Willie & Mahuta into providing all the govt resources towards implementing their secret agenda over the last 2 years they could have achieved a heck of a lot for all NZdrs with their majority.
True, and normally splitting simply keeps on splitting. Hipkins, as far as that faction is concerned, has only one card to play. Either you shut up and tone down or we will lose any chance of staying in government at the next election, so do you want to be in or out. Somehow don’t think that will wash, the relative personal ambitions, agendas and egos are too ascendant.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The Tauranga by election evidenced that Luxon was still trying to control mercury with his thumb. National’s wayward and ill considered selection process a repeat performance by the old guard. Certainly next time in Hamilton conduct was in much better order. Luxon is demonstrably still a political tyro and he will be hard pressed I suggest, to keep some of his mps reverting to their old arrogant type, should they start contemplating that they are going to win by a landslide.
So what does that prove. Your cherished apple is less rotten than another.Well go ahead and enjoy it and while munching on it take time to contemplate how counterproductive and gloating it is to assume superiority because something in comparison, is perceived as being worse. The immature and strident clamour of partisanship on here has become pitiful.
Oh blimey. You can’t get your head out of the red cloud can you. Just try and be more objective and less subjective and you might get the point. Scan through my posts and you will locate much criticism, slagging if you will, of all our blasted political parties and personalities. But in so doing I refrain from falling into the asinine trap of justifying and praising the actions of any one of them on the grounds that the alternative(s) are either a worse consideration or a poorer performer.
For 100 years we have had Labour and National running things, almost that entire time people are saying things get worse. How hard is it for the average voter to work out, that they are the problem?
I will make it clearer for all concerned. If you vote NATIONAL or LABOUR then you are the problem.
I don't recommend any party to anyone, people need to do that bit themselves.
However, I can say that if you vote the two major parties then stop complaining when they do nothing.
9 years in opposition for Labour had they came up with nothing other "National suck!"
Nats are 5 years in opposition, and seem to only be able to come up with "Labour suck"
At least some of the other minor parties are coming up with Policies.
That's exactly it, why if I live in an area that is well organized and has not wasted all the money on pet projects would I want to support somewhere like Auckland that has done this? Look at what happened when it rained.....the infrastructure was blocked in many places, under repair, and just a complete mess. The previous council caused that carnage, not climate change which gets the blame for what incompetent councils will not do.
The co-governance component of Thee Waters is wrong. the transfer of assets is simply theft, and the liability of these unaccountable water entities is pushed back onto ratepayers directly, so if they are mismanaged which they almost certainly will be then creditors can come directly to ratepayers to pay outstanding debts. It's a shockingly badly thought-out system (unless you are trying to steal something, in which case it is genius).
There are obvious problems in some areas for any one of the three services. But first of all where there are no problems, leave them alone, if ain’t broken don’t fix it. Then for what’s left, identify what’s wrong and what needs to be done. Central government then funds and facilitates the upgrading as necessary but does this by way of a loan for which they take a lien over the assets. Yes the rate payers have to cough up but so they should by allowing their councils to neglect basic essential infrastructure. For instance building a new jet international airport 4 hours drive away from your catchment.
3 Waters has financial problems - who owns and who pays, it ought to be 2 waters so it may well change. However co-governance has nothing to do with engineering, infrastructure and drinking, storm and pongy water - nobody knows what co-governance is but it exists for political reasons so it will survive. Of course never actually being explained other than it is a sop for Maori. In practise it will be yet another excuse for ducking responsibility when problems occur.
I have zero faith that these policies won't be back from the dead if Labour wins the election. Fool me once and all that.
I also have zero faith that Luxon will be capable of seeing even the most modest of political success in pointing this out, or drawing attention to the fact that Mr Fix It must have thought they were great ideas when he had a hand in developing them, and therefore cannot be trusted. What does it say about the last five years' "achievements" if the new boss (who was knees deep in all of it) is willing to throw them all away so easily?
More importantly, I don't like either Chris, and I can't decide which one I trust less.
I have to say Seymour has come a long way in the last few years. The delivery and content of what he's saying is excellent. I found out the other day that he's an engineer. Makes me like him even more. Anyway, check this out.
Have you heard him speak live, in one of his public meetings? He's pretty impressive, and not the least because he's the only politician who actually holds public meetings and turns up. And his offsider Brook van Velden is almost as good, and hopefully will get much better under Seymour's tutelage
Just employ more foreigners - they will accept split shifts, anti-social hours, variable hours without complaining until they become permanent residents. Certainly not a career I'd recommend to my children. On reconsideration hospitality is a fine career overseas.
It's not that amazing anywhere.
Think about it, if your waiter was getting paid more than you
You'd be serving them, and not the other way around.
That's why the bible doesn't pooh-pooh slavery, people have always wanted an underclass to do their bidding, cheap or free.
True. I'm projecting forward and assuming they won't do anything too stupid.
Labour - f**k no not after this lot. Pack of idiots.
Greens - ditto but worse
ACT - I struggle with libertarianism, specifically I am anti-gun. They also stoke the climate change skeptic angle too much for me.
Other parties too small
Other parties too small
You realise that other parties are only small because people have very polarised thinking such as the above? If people all voted on policy and not based on tryin to back the percieved winning horse then we may finally see a more diverse parliament for the first time in 50+years. This election is by far the best opportunity for NZ to break away from such polar thinking and see a bigger spread among parties in government, a.k.a a more diverse representation of our more developed and multicultural country that we are these days.
National and Labour IMO are very similar. Labour has basically done what National would have done if they got elected with RNZ merger.
Willis is a politician, whereas Luxon is a typical CEO. But National haven't released any real policies, and the Super age rise is just a recycled p;olicy when English was PM, right down to the dates it kicks in, which gives people under 50, seven less years to prepare.
Yes. Far from the first time on this website I've been accused of being poor and receiving benefits, because I generally support left wing politics. I've been accused of being a government employee, or a Labour party employee several times also.
The only direct monetary benefits I've ever received from the government have been subsidised tertiary education + interest free student loan, and last year when I bought 2x Atto 3 EVs fully paid for in cash and collected the $8,625 government rebate on both.
I am not convinced that National can win with Luxon at the helm. He benefited from an anti Ardern vote. Not many people would vote for him they were just voting against Labour. There is a serious risk that Luxon is more of a liability than and asset. He just lacks authenticity.
Canning Bridges in the manner they did was the dumbest thing the National party could have done.
Up until Covid, he was doing a fairly good job as opposition leader. Yes, he has the crap accent and all that, but polling was fairly tight and he was relatively plausible.
Surely somebody in the National Party must have had enough brain cells to rub together to figure out that the election was unwinnable - incumbent governments tend to do well during national crises, and at the time NZ was doing comparatively well in the Covid stakes. Ardern's star was at its zenith and so on.
National should have campaigned well under a cohesive team, taken the loss on the chin, and then regrouped as a more credible opposition.
I'd argue that Seymour is the de facto opposition leader now. Luxon is so drab and uninspiring, awkward in debates, clumsy with his words etc.
7houseLuxon is a bit like wayne brown unfortunately. He ran a business where he got used to asking high performing employees to do stuff and then assuming it will be done well. He would get mega frustrated trying to 'tell' the bureaucrats (who have made a career from wasting money, galacial delivery and frustrating politicians) what to do.. think 'yes minister' on steroids.
I think we have all seen the problem with voting for personality over policy, you end up with a PM that is solely interested in self promotion so that they can leverage the current job into becoming famous and getting a better job, and quitting as soon as the country demands some accountability for their lack of policy performance
So what we can take from this is, all these things he is ditching only continued to exist when JA was PM.
And that the Labour caucus could not make any changes until she, on her own accord, stepped down.
Do we really believe all these policies were there because this one person was PM?
If she was weak, then how did these policies that Chippy is now jettisoning, get to be the problem that they are?
After all, their flaws were obvious before her departure.
My point is, that we all know that irrespective of who the leader was and now is, these policies are LABOUR policies, and just because they have put them on hold for now, if they got back in, then they would try to impose them again.
Thanks vman. let's remind these people what happened to our nursing and allied health professions when National was last in power. Denigration, objectification and a few other words come to mind. The Nurses Union went after Labour because they were a soft touch... pity the same blowtorch wasn't applied to key's gubmnt as it trashed the conditions of our essential workers.
Not an overpaid public servant by the way... still struggling in self-employment and loss leading rentals.
Let's say for generalisation sake that the average car has a 45L tank:
45L x 0.25c = $11.25 per tank, or more if the tank is bigger
So depending on how much fuel one consumes this can be a large cumulative loss across the country in tax revenue that would otherwise be put to road maintenance etc.
For someone using a tank per week thats approx $45 per month, per car.
When we consider the major cities let alone the rural sector this is massive.
Comments on the Herald are going nuts
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/pm-chris-hipkins-to-announce-bon…
Similar to Mike Hosking,died in the wool right winger,property market spruiker who also doesn't try to be a journalist...he even talks of the media as if he isn't part of it...and as Mikey doesn't take talkback callers on his show,no one has a right of reply to his daily diatribes against the government.
Really? Looks like the good old lefty cancel culture in action! The constant bleating about Luxon owning seven houses is pathetic! Why no scrutiny of the many Labour MP's who own multiple homes? Or that just another inconvenient truth?
The fact that I consider Ardern our worst ever PM and this Government the worst in my lifetime does not mean I am a fanatical National voter. In fact I have not made comment on my voting preferences. But blinkered people such as yourself that believe we can achieve a socialist utopia really worry me and I have huge fear for the future of New Zealand.
Smart decisions. Nothing important got dropped, takes away the boogie men National were conjuring up in people’s minds. Also a good clean break from the past.
The next smart move is a tax cut for the lowest tax bracket in the next budget. Force National to confront the reality of their tax cuts for rich mates.
That is how I see the election going, on one hand labour promising a big bump to the lowest tax rate, and maybe some minor tweaks to the rest.
On the other hand National will do smaller bumps across the board, made even smaller by their planned return of interest deductibility. Nationals changes will look like peanuts compared to Labour's for median income earners, so National may end up having to scrap their plan to remove the 39%
With Hipkins as leader and these sort of changes there really isn't much to differentiate National and Labour on other issues
People like Luxon who own multiple investment properties and earn many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Nationals tax policy is designed to benefit wealthy people by removing taxes on investment properties and people earning over 180,000. Even amongst people earning over 180,000 those who earn more get more.
It's pretty hard to understand what National's policies are at any given time, given Luxon's poor ability to actually talk.
Doesn't really matter, is utterly impossible for them to simultaneously meet all their promises, as we shall see when they come out with their fully costed suite of policies for the election.
Hopefully (for National) there'll be no $4B fiscal hole in it like Goldsmith's attempt in 2020.
You can get around a fiscal hole by just not doing any of the stuff you promise to in order to get elected.
It's pretty brilliant really.
I wonder what the actual state of the books would be if Labour had funded what they said they would, given we are pretty marginal as things stand.
Wow! Putting aside the merits or demerits of particular policies, what does this say about the capacity of ministers and departmental chief executives to actually get things done? Talk about a government short on achievements. No doubt we will be promised the earth in the coming months as electioneering ramps up but on this basis you'd have to rate Labour's capacity to deliver during another term as pretty darn low. I do wonder how much Jacinda's departure was triggered by a growing sense of frustration with her cabinet, many of whom she had to "carry" to a much greater extent than would be expected.
Stable investing environment, consistency of policy. Clarity, stability & transparency, we’re all things national excelled at. You did not get rules coming into effect before the detail was even fleshed out, especially not ones that were designed to punish anyone who built a house in the 2-5 years prior when people were crowing about a housing crisis. Especially bad because it sets a precedent that if you build new houses you may get hammered at arbitrary dates based on arbitrary rules that you could not have foreseen.
Disingenuous to link Auckland flooding with improvements ‘AKA 3-Waters.’ Media need to interview a qualified Civil Engineer with expertise in water flow and ask ‘ Was the substandard infrastructure a significant contributor to the flooding or would any medium quality first world system be overwhelmed by recent events?’ Then get several more opinions.
You would first need to put some effort into redefining "mainstream Labour" after the last few years. If you could be bothered ("fool me once", etc).
Its clear that Labour have no idea about what theyre supposed to stand for themselves: same as National in 2017, they need a period in Opposition to refocus their minds & cull their unproductive herd members.
Not a bad strategy compared to the alternative? At present we have Luxon et al saying "We have nothing to offer but opposition!" When the Nats come up with a credible and humanist platform I'll give them a second look. Labour may not get my vote this time, but a even a protest vote should have more substance than what's on offer elsewhere!
Convenient cover for having no idea what to actually do aside from make meaningless promises to implement things and do better, while also saying Labour have done nothing but also you'll repeal all of the terrible things they did.
Act has got a suite of policies. They even put out an alternative fully costed budget last year. Just like Labour did every single year they were in opposition from 2009 to 2017.
National didn't put out an alternative budget last year.
Act has got a suite of policies. They even put out an alternative fully costed budget last year. Just like Labour did every single year they were in opposition from 2009 to 2017.
This is garbage, Labour changed leader a couple of months before the election in 2017 and Ardern's literal first announcement as leader was a new flagship light rail policy.
How is it garbage? The 2017 budget was in May. Labour had a fully costed alternative budget in May.
You know what an alternative budget is, right?
It's when the party says "If we were in government right now, in these circumstances, this is what we would be doing right now". So that applies in May 2017.
What happened after Ardern became leader, 6 weeks ahead of the 2017 election, is irrelevant as to whether they had an alternative budget in May 2017. Which they did.
Act had an alternative budget last year.
National didn't. Because they can't actually come up with a costed set of policies that make sense.
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