By Chris Trotter*
“Twee.” That was the word my father used to describe the Wellingtonians of 54 years ago.
It was, he said, a Wellington word, entirely unfamiliar to a person born and bred in the South Island. It’s novelty notwithstanding, my father was rather taken with the expression. It suited the professional public servants he rubbed shoulders with every day, capturing the lofty tone of their communications and the distance these opened up between themselves and ordinary mortals.
Perhaps the best way to define “Twee” was by its antonyms: it wasn’t earthy, or direct, or coarse. Least of all, was “Twee” common. Coming from a farming background, the word’s connotations of high-falutin cliquishness did not sit well with my father’s egalitarian principles. There was, however, no denying its effectiveness as an adjective.
It would seem that Wellingtonians have not changed much these past 50 years. They are still defined by their conviction that, as citizens of the nation’s capital, the place where decisions are made, they inhabit an altogether superior social plane to the rest of the population. To be a Wellingtonian is to be well-connected and “in the know”. That deliberate distancing from the rest of the country, which my father noted with concern way back in the late-1960s, is still there.
Oh, and there’s one more important thing to note about Wellingtonians. They are not confined within the boundaries of Wellington City. To be a Wellingtonian means living anywhere south of the Remutaka Ranges. (Or, these days, maybe Waikanae and Martinborough?). In select niches of the Hutt Valley – Woburn, Heretaunga – one can still very easily run into senior public servants at the local dairy, or sit beside them on the electric “units” that still carry both the Twee and the un-Twee into the echoing spaces of Wellington Railway Station.
All of which contributes to the important political fact Chris Hipkins is a Wellingtonian. Important because it not only explains his extraordinary tone-deafness as a politician, but also accounts for his talents as a plotter and schemer. “Chippie” has the mind and style of a bureaucrat. It’s why he was able to climb so high. Unfortunately, he also possesses the imagination of a bureaucrat, which is why he fell so low.
Just how low was made clear last week in a series of interviews with political journalists. It is highly unlikely that Hipkins understood how much he was giving away in these discussions. It is much more likely that he believed himself to be demonstrating his political reliability. And, to a lot of high-ranking, high-earning Wellingtonians, that’s probably how he came across. As someone who knows how the whole intricate mechanism of power operates. As a practical politician: someone not to be blown off-course by the fever-dreams of political extremism. As a safe pair of hands.
Unfortunately for Hipkins (and his Wellington apparatchik-dominated Labour Party), most New Zealanders do not live south of the Remutakas and north of Cook Strait. In the months leading up to the General Election, what they saw did not at all resemble the capital city cognoscenti’s’ solid political operator. The man they saw, his red hair notwithstanding, looked alarmingly like a grey and uninspiring Wellington bureaucrat. A Prime Minister already weary of the job which, in his heart-of-hearts, he had always known would be the death of his career.
To the people who live south of the Brynderwyn Ranges and north of the Bombay Hills, however, Chippie was the Minister who’d kept them locked-down for week after week after week, while their businesses faltered and the mental health of their family and friends deteriorated. When, almost overnight, Chippie’s predecessor ceased to be the pandemic-defying fairy princess, and became, instead, Covid’s wicked queen. As the handling of the pandemic shifted, without adequate explanation, from “elimination” to “vaccine mandates” to “let her rip”. While Chippie stood there, at “the podium of truth”, telling stir-crazy Aucklanders stories that kept changing.
Being a Wellingtonian made it harder for Hipkins to grasp just how hated the Sixth Labour Government’s post-2020 handling of the Covid Pandemic had made it in Auckland. Jacinda Ardern, who had represented the City as the MP for Mt Albert since March 2017, could not make that excuse. Although, remaining in Wellington for pretty much the entire Auckland Lockdown undoubtedly helped.
“I didn’t take the election result personally”, Hipkins told the NZ Herald’s Audrey Young, “I think it was a reflection of the fact New Zealanders have had a tough time with Covid and cost of living and a whole lot of other things and were just looking for something different.”
Something different? Yeah, that’s fair. Something very different from the Sixth Labour Government!
Hipkins disputes the suggestion that the emphatic nature of the country’s rejection of Labour was because he’d made it very clear that he and his government would not be following the Labour Party’s electoral base on its journey to the Left.
“People don’t vote on a left-right continuum”, says Hipkins. “They vote on the vibe of the campaign. I probably learned that a lot more in this campaign than I have before because leading it, you definitely get a much greater sense of the vibe of the campaign.”
We’ll come back to this extraordinary invocation of New Age political science: to Hipkins’ lame explanation that Labour’s catastrophic defeat “wasn’t necessarily policy-driven”, but was “just how people were feeling.”
The precise nature of those “feelings” is entirely absent from Hipkins’ analysis. (As well, evidently, from the analysis of his caucus colleagues, since they opted to re-elect Hipkins as their leader unopposed – no one even daring to test the temperature of Labour’s ideological waters by offering the Caucus an alternative candidate.) That huge policy failures in some areas of government activity (housing), offset by frightening successes in others (co-governance), might have engendered a “feeling” that the contradictions within Labour’s programme had reached insuperable proportions, does not appear to have occurred to Hipkins, or his caucus.
The he was not required to face an alternative candidate raises the disturbing idea that within the Labour Caucus (and quite possible across the entire party organisation) there are no alternative ideas or plans. Hipkins appeared to confirm this in the interview he gave to Newsroom journalist, Jo Moir, where he discounted the possibility of a recrudescence of Labour’s factional caucus infighting (which Hipkins led) between 2008 and 2017:
“I think some of the preconditions for that is having people with fundamental policy differences in your team, and we don’t really have that. There are some issues around tax that we’ll work through but it’s not fundamental – people might have a different view on wealth tax and a capital gains tax, but these aren’t major fundamental philosophical differences in approach.
“Then you also have to have burning ambition, people who are just willing to claw each other’s eyes out, and we don’t have that either.”
Nothing could signal a more comprehensive victory for the Wellingtonian mindset than this ideological and psychological retreat from politics as a contest of ideas and a battle to see whose ideas are implemented. Labour has ceased to be a political party by any definition that would have made sense to Mickey Savage or Norman Kirk. It represents no massive social surges (with the exception, perhaps, of Māori tribalism) or even thwarted provincial ambitions, being perfectly content in its role as the alternative executor of elite interests. Happy always to step back into office whenever the tide of public opinion turns. Whenever the vibe is right.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
114 Comments
"The man they saw, his red hair notwithstanding, looked alarmingly like a grey and uninspiring Wellington bureaucrat."
He looked like TinTin - Snowy was smarter. Thankfully adults are now back in the room.
"I think some of the preconditions for that is having people with fundamental policy differences in your team, and we don’t really have that. There are some issues around tax that we’ll work through but it’s not fundamental – people might have a different view on wealth tax and a capital gains tax, but these aren’t major fundamental philosophical differences in approach."
Not fundamental at all (sarc/). As I've previously posted Peter Dunne (of all people) puts his finger on the pulse of Labours deliberate class flaw.
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/12/peter-dunne-social-investment.html?m=1
The election result bottomline is that the majority of people saw through Labours unmandated & secret attacks on NZs fundamental democratic principles, facilitated by the wilful complicity of Wellington bureaucracy including NZOAs TOW seperatist "guidance" & a paid for MSM.
They will never be forgiven.
"Thankfully adults are now back in the room"
This is a joke I assume? A minister of finance without a scintilla of financial education, training or experience. Minor coalition leaders so vain they had to take turns at playing deputy PM. Tax cuts for landords funded by repealing legislation preventing children from starting smoking with an ex-tobacco lobbyist as a senior cabinet minister.
Have they launched a new policy or initiative of their own yet? This morally and intellectually deficient rabble are going to be found seriously wanting.
In another eloquent article today, Chris Trotter nails both Meaghers inspirational speech & the rabid Left/TPMs reaction:
https://thebfd.co.nz/2023/12/11/you-dont-own-us/
Thanks that is as unsurprising as it is malevolent . Not only do we have racism abundant in that reaction we now have selective racism within racism. Reminds of the time when Hone in full cry, in his parliamentary days, declared no boyfriend of his daughter , should he be a pakeha would be welcome in his house. All the Jacksons and more rushed out to the media saying no no that was not racist. But if in a reverse situation, if a pakeha father asserted the same about a Maori bloke, it definitely was you see. No things don’t change in that culture, they just get worse.
A lot of us just want a government that takes very little tax off us, and doesn't waste it, and tries to run our country at break even. Like the rest of us try to do in our own little lives. It is not rocket science. We have only just managed to throw out the people who were doing the opposite. Naturally the people with their trotters in the trough have come out fighting, literally, as shown at racist protests and at the Te Papa vandalism.
Yeah, that was very interesting. Now they are demanding it does not go back up because it was not the real version. My understanding is that the English version was the one that was signed. and therefore it is the actual document. The Maori version was translated afterward. The English version is the document that stands. If the Maori one is different, then that is too bad, it is void. The English and the Maori signed the English version. The English wrote it in English, why would they agree to sign one they did not understand when they were the superior force in a position to dictate terms. That is what counts. I think the whole thing is ridiculous anyway. The thing has been 'interpreted' so many different ways, it should really just be assigned to history, and an agreement on what it means voted on by the New Zealand public. Whatever the outcome is the outcome. I know it what it will be and so do those protesting, so the sooner it happens the better.
It is the Maori version that is signed, not the English.
I understand the international legal precedence that is established but have issues with it. I suggest the legal beagles who established stretched the bounds of credibility, and ignored some pertinent facts. There are two versions of the treaty, and English and a Maori version. As English was the language of those who drafted the treaty, it can be assumed that their intent and meaning is encapsulated in the English text, but the existing English version is translated from the Maori text at the time with the provison provided by William Hobson "I certify that the above is as literal a translation of the Treaty of Waitangi as the idiom of the language will allow." However the draft was translated into Maori to be presented to the Chiefs. But in doing so the language differences fail to properly communicate concepts that were then foreign to Maori. The translation back into English will still have the issue that the concepts the colonists had brought from England will have been understood by the translators, but not necessarily Maori.This results in the current tension.
The current interpretation, which has significant political imperatives, puts article 3 of the treaty into conflict with the other articles. The protest attempts to discard article 3. But I would suggest that that cannot happen. Two parties signed the treaty, a bunch of Rangatira and Governmental representatives (Hobson and Shortland). I suggest Article three which is intrinsic to the colonial powers intentions cannot be set aside with re-negotiating the treaty. For the protest group to argue that it is not valid, is to equally argue that the rest of the treaty is not valid too.
Oh well, the fact remains the intent is in the English version. If there are mistakes in the Maori version then the document is void and the English version prevails. That it is how this works, and there is nothing that can be done about that now, which, I guess is why a national discussion in the topic is required and the result will be decided by the public, hence the protests. The result is already known. This part "I certify that the above is as literal a translation of the Treaty of Waitangi as the idiom of the language will allow", as you say is very important, as he is specifying here that he has done his best to translate, into the Maori language given the restrictions within that language, i.e. words do not exist to translate exactly, and therefore the English version will always prevail if tested.
As I understand the matter, though I may be wrong, "sovereignty" was transcribed into Maori as "the shadow" of the land". If the Maori did not know what that meant in reality and, indeed, had no concept of sovereignty, then they can't really have ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria. If they thought it meant meant that Queen Victoria would merely protect them from theft of whenua and taonga by greedy colonists, then that's the meaning one would have to take from the term.
I agree, it's probably both. I am still waiting for a single policy, just one new policy to stimulate economic growth. Is that too much to ask?
Unwinding Te reo, what an absolute joke. Imagine being offended by that. Most Maori couldn't care less which order they are in tbh but the symbolism of that being your first change as a new Govt is horrendous for young Maori.
The unwinding of Te Reo in government departments and hopefully a lot of other places is an absolute must. Forcing people to learn it or put up with it is an absolute waste of time. Lord knows how much money has been wasted putting in place and maintaining this shambles. So much complaining has taken place due to the suggestion that the Te Reo bonues for public servants is being unwound, but there are only 500 of them out of 60,000 (<1%) and they are almost all at the lowest possible level (so pretty pointless).
Young Maori are not disadvantaged one iota. They can now get on with making their way in the world speaking the world language and not learning a language that is a) Dead, b) There will be no jobs for unless you are wanting a specific tourism job. Most Maori understand that if you want to make your way in the world, you speak the language that most other people speak, which in this case is English. It should be very very obvious to absolutely anyone with half a brain that when you offer people money to do something, and less than 1% take it up, then no one is interested.
We have been bombarded with ads aimed at the general populate with sprinklings of Te Reo that a) No one understands, and b) Makes a lot of people angry. So that strategy has been an absolute failure as well. Whoever came up with that plan needs their head read. They did more to kill Te Reo rather than save it. Thank goodness that it is now over and broadcast adverts will be back to normal and in a language people understand.
Obviously, whoever you are, if you want to learn any language, you can, just like you can learn any language.
Young Maori are not disadvantaged one iota. They can now get on with making their way in the world speaking the world language and not learning a language that is a) Dead, b) There will be no jobs for unless you are wanting a specific tourism job. Most Maori understand that if you want to make your way in the world, you speak the language that most other people speak, which in this case is English
Enjoy the next 2 1/2 years because I sense you aren't going to like the future much.
Oh yeah. Because there is going to be a takeover and we will all be living in the stone age because you said so. It's a pity that would not fit on a Tui ad. One thing you have to remember is that regardless of the size of the Maori population block, just because you are in it, does not mean that all of them (or even half of them support your racist outlook). That sort of thinking is just about as dumb as the thinking of the left that all the boomers will soon be dead and the young people will all vote for us and we will be able to ruin the country for ever. Unfortunately the left are in general not that bright and the one important thing that they forget is that young people a) get older, and the older they get the more conservative they become and b), we have an aging population anyway, so as time goes on the conservative vote will get even stronger. So, as Winston quite right pointed out in his speech in parliament last week, 'you guys have had your high water mark'. He is right on the button there....and don't worry, I will enjoy the next 3 years of this government whilst they right the ship, and then the two or three terms after that....and if you think the next Labour government will even think about the same carry on as they mistakenly implemented this time, your dreaming.
What racist outlook? Right the ship, repealing anti tobacco legislation?
I'm not left, I voted for National. I had low expectations admitedly, but not this low.
Winston, hahaha. It's a job, he's smart enough to know his demographic and what gets him elected. He'll probably go back with Labour next time if it suits him.
It's politics. Mr Luxon, said all through the campaign that the racist stuff would go, and the economy has to be sorted. Poor old Robbo still squeaks whenever a reporter squeezes him, but we just enjoy his drivel, without taking him seriously. The people who enjoyed the handouts are fighting, but the people who try to give hand ups instead, are in charge of the money now. Things always had to change, and now they might.
I think that it's easier to learn a language if you have an affinity for the people speaking that language. Many kiwis are sympathetic towards the growth of spoken Maori, but when preconditions are loaded onto the learning of the language then fewer people will want to learn it.
When the social implication is that Maori is a taonga that is only available to those who believe that Maori's are the older brother, that Europeans are inferior beings who reside in New Zealand only by the grace and favour of Maori elites, that Europeans should not be in the same room as Maori's when discussing distribution of water and whatever water touches, then the language becomes tainted. When learning Maori implies acceptance of a servile status then very few Europeans will want to learn it.
The bureaucratic weaponisation of the Maori language might have seemed like a good idea to ensure that only the cadres would be able to enter the public service but I think that this new govt is allergic to this way of thinking and they are going after members of the bureaucratic class that have got a bit above themselves. Labour politicised the public service big time and it looks to me that this is going to be rolled back big time.
I don't know a single Maori who thinks pakeha are inferior, what a ridiculous statement. maybe there are some who do, but it would be less than the reciprocal.
The real issue here is that many pakeha cannot abide by the fact that they need to consult with Maori with respect to resources such as water and foreshore rights.
"The real issue here is that many pakeha cannot abide by the fact that they need to consult with Maori with respect to resources such as water and foreshore rights."
Consult is one thing but I'm under the impression Maori had veto rights with respect to resources such as water and foreshore rights.
All my Indian friends know their village language, Hindu, and English. They think it is normal. My Euro friends all know a mixture of their own language, French, German, Italian, and English. They think it is normal. The difference between them and us is that their languages are all used as part of their normal lives. I took Latin as a subject at school for a few years. It was just another subject, to be learnt and examined on. Neither it nor Maori are part of my normal life. However, I am happy to learn a bit of Maori, and I am happy for others to do so. But apparently being fluent in Maori is becoming a prerequisite for public service advancement. That is an obvious no no. My Scottish descent friend did a Doctorate in education, specializing in Maori and music. Apart from being subjected to a lot of extreme racist behaviour from the lecturers and University departments, it wasn't too strenuous, and guaranteed a great career in the M of Ed.
Right. This shows that English is just a method of communicating. We couldn't care less where the words come from. We just want to communicate simply and accurately, or use the language to have a lot of fun with, as we are doing here.
On a related note, a lot of Maori language seems to be just English words shuffled round to suit the ten consonants and five vowels it apparently has.
That's right. English apparently has over 500,000 words. Maori has 10,000, so far, but is being made up all the time. All they are doing is adding words that are twisted English words used for all the things that do not exist in this 'sacred' language. It is laughable that people say that Te Reo is sacred and needs to be protected. It barely exists, and has to be added to all the time to make up for all the things that are missing. All it was, and still is is a simple way to communicate between groups of stone age people. It is in the past, you cannot take a language that does not exist and pretend it can be turned onto a modern commonly used language. That is simply never going to happen. Just like Latin, yes, it is part of history, but will it ever have widespread use again apart from in legal texts etc. No.
It seems strange to me that there needs to be a Maori name for Sri Lanka, amongst others, for instance. Quite appropriately Ceylon was replaced by this name in their native tongue. Any American, Australian, Canadian and on easily adapted to respecting that name for the nation and using it. Why should any foreigner anywhere not simply do the same? Until europeans starting arriving Maori would not have known Sri Lanka existed let alone have a name for it.
Lol you can pick and b*tch about some pollies/several policies but the last rabble fked the country and the future generations to come... the choice was keep the government and definitely see the country go further into the sh*tter with more racial division, racist policies and full steam ahead pissing on the future generations or change the government :P
The swing to the right wasn't that strong and long-term demographic trends are against conservative narrow minded pakeha pretending they are living in an outpost of "old blighty". Maori and Pasifika will unite like nothing I have seen in my lifetime and that is a 30% plus voting block today.
I will never vote National again,
Te Kooti - those "conservative narrow minded pakeha" have given you a record 35% of maori descent in the cabinet, without any maori seats. I guess they are the wrong type of maori. The record 45% female cabinet members must be the wrong type of females because I missed the "Most Diverse Cabinet Evah!" headlines from the bitter, narrow minded MSM. They waxed lyrical about the Ardern cabinet - Luxon's notsomuch. Woke intersectionality at it's finest.
So true, however, someone has noticed (Byron Clark for one), and I am sure there are others. Those educated conservative Maori that make up that 35% are now referred to as 'traitors'. Strange isn't it. If I don't agree with the rabble and don't want to learn a different language and give public assets and control away, I am 'racist', but a Maori that thinks the exact same thing is a 'traitor'.
"A minister of finance without a scintilla of financial education, training or experience."
...well, seeing as you mentioned that:
"Robertson had a paper round as a boy and at 16 he got his first job at a New World supermarket in Dunedin in the fruit and vegetable department preparing fruit and vegetables for display and sale.[5]
"Robertson attended King's High School in Dunedin, where he was head boy.[4] He then studied political studies at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with honours in 1995.[6] His honours dissertation studied the restructuring of the New Zealand University Students' Association in the 1980s.[7] Robertson served as President of the Otago University Students' Association in 1993 and as co-president of the New Zealand University Students' Association in 1996."
Then, straight into Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UN. So like so many of Labours student PMC he's qualified for a political career running NZ - not.
Are you saying you were unable to understand the books? They looked pretty standard to me.
But I'm once of those sad people that actually reads the PREFU and analyses it against the various party's policies. National's policies never stood up. NZF's were piecemeal and woefully incomplete. ACT's was complete but so dangerously radical that the unknowns would have slaughtered them. And yet - here we are. Getting everything we didn't know we voted for.
Could be that we are not getting what we didn't vote for. That is a good start. If these guys can make some sort of attempt to organise the economy, as they said they would try to do, that would be good. If they can get rid of the racist policies, that would be good. If they can keep NZ as a vibrant, liberal democracy, that would be good.
Restoring the ability for landlords to claim interest as an expense is sensible and principled provided interest is a claimable expense for any other business. It might be popular as in it is sticking it to the ‘greedy’ landlord but there are other groups like banks and supermarkets which you could also create stupid rules to punish as well. All it does is add costs to the end customer. Nobody is going to want to provide accommodation when the cost of providing it is exceeds the income it generates. Fixing the fundamental reason why houses are so expensive is the solution.
Restoring the ability for landlords to claim interest as an expense is sensible and principled provided interest is a claimable expense for any other business.
Interest is a subsidy to borrowers, whatever the the business. Such a subsidy may be justified in a productive business, bu t not in a rental business, such a business being extractive rather than productive.
Crikey. A business expense is a business expense. No arguing. If the government says some expenses are deductible and others aren't , then that is just artificial manipulation of certain sectors of the economy. All property owners I know, and myself, jacked our rents up for two reasons. Firstly to get the money back we were not allowed to claim as a deduction. Secondly, because there is now an artificially induced shortage of rental properties. Just brilliant. Yes Minister could not have scripted it better. Unless they also decided to tax off veggies and fruit that everyone pays, and the poor people are helped to pay for it, which of course means that only the rich pay tax on them. But that would never happen on Yes Minister. Too stupid for them.
Yes. Sid Barrett once said to his record company executive, "What about we just make the music we like, and just see if the kids like it." Same thing . Get the things organised the way Chris Luxon's bunch of ragtag no hopers like it, and see if the punters like it at the next election. My suspicion is that the loud, fighting racists don't actually carry a lot of vibrant, liberal democratic votes.
Fantastic description of Wellingtonian Governmental apparatchik, numpties. The only gap is that so many of them seem to come from Jafa town. But not all voters came from Auckland, and if only the Auckland voters turned on Labour then they might not have lost the election.
So there was a lot more going on than what happened because of COVID. But make no mistake, the lack of imagination, planning and understanding of consequences through COVID was appalling. But then I doubt any other Government would have been much different.
The more going on? Try the Three Waters debacle for a start, and then the rank arrogance of Labour in introducing apartheid by stealth.
And then the last quote of CH; "Then you also have to have burning ambition, people who are just willing to claw each other’s eyes out...." History tells us that's not how its done. The meat cleaver in the back is the form. You just never see it coming. They maintain the appearances that they are all perfectly normal, ordinary, moral, decent, diplomatic people, while behind your back they've dug your grave and even have the sharpened wooden stake ready, just to make sure you never come back to haunt them.
Said it before and say it again a bureaucracy that is opinionated, self serving and unaccountable is a threat to society and democracy itself. Operandi Modus - “all authority, no responsibility.” In 2008 the 5th Labour government got booted out, the electorate had had enough of “we know, we say you do.” The 6th Labour government did not waste much time either adopting the same mantra and the control they assumed over the people during the pandemic and lockdowns seemed to be more than a little to their liking to the point they were not all that forthcoming in relaxing their hold. This last Labour government demonstrated time over time that if you don’t know what to do, what you are doing, or even what you have done then the best policy is to either do nothing or simply obscure and obfuscate.
Adern has set a bad precedent. Most of their leaders (like most party leaders) are starchy types - the nature of the territory. They won an election by installing a firebrand idealogue at the 11th hour.
They can try and do the same thing again, with diminishing returns as people tire of all talk, no walk.
It is already well and truly embedded in hiring practices and how people do their CV's for govt roles, as well as how they conduct themselves in government positions to better climb the career ladder. Virtue signalling is like currency, however at least many are becoming wiser and being more critical on this.
It will take years to unwind this as it will take two things that deteriorated under the 6th Labour government across the board: Accountability and leadership. Leaders who are able to make hard decisions and have real and hard conversations as necessary. Speaking from experience here, as if the leaders are too afraid to enforce productivity and targets or to have stern conversations as necessary for fear of offending, and having an HR complaint laid against them, then as they know full well their superiors will throw them under the bus, they will do the bare minimum and tiptoe instead of displaying the qualities that enrich their staff.
The New Zealand voter is stupid. She got up there and said she never lies. Bill on the other hand admitted sometimes he felt he had to. The msm lauded her. The fairy princess would never lie to us people....and the people believed it.
That got me very worried. It took about 4 years for the penny to drop for the people. Lying was in her bones. It oozed from every word and every pore.
Labour will be real trouble if they don't come up with some sensible policies to address rising inequality. How much of the middle has slipped backwards? A lot.
Hipkin's big fail was having no policy to address the inequitable outcomes built into our tax system.
What Labour and the left must do is start educating Kiwis why our tax system needs to change. They also need to tone the new taxes down so the net captures fewer and the rates are more palatable. Having the tools in place (where none currently exist) will allow future Finance Ministers to tweak the rules as the economic times fit.
As an aside, was at a family dinner with lots of family friends present. I was asked who I voted for. I said I couldn't vote for a tax policy-less Labour party and voted greens instead. Echoes of "me too" went around the room with some echoes, "so I voted NZF instead". The Left is far from dead in NZ.
But Pa1nter alot a labour supporters who like a smoke. Just go and sit at a wild bean and watch them come in put 10 dollars petrol in but buy 100 dollars of ciggies. Then head off to work. Old Winnie ain't stupid we should all know that especially the media by now
People that vote on vibe are the key to winning elections. They vote for ideas that sound good but aren’t when you get into the detail. Taking GST off fruit and vegetables was a prime example. The compliance costs would have been significant and also the admin costs of classifying each product to determine the GST status. The real issue was the high prices, not the GST. Another was the free prescriptions for all. The prescription cost isn’t the main issue. It is the cost to see the Dr in the first place. If you don’t have the $165 (after hours) to see a Doctor, a free prescription isn’t going to help.
Labour lost the election because they were cancelling their own policies in election year and calling it progress. National were also campaigning on cancelling labours polices.
I'll have to disagree with you about the free prescriptions. I saw some "proper" analysis (by some public health academics, or some such) and their conclusion was the $5 fee was putting some people off taking their relatively inexpensive medicine. So they would then turn up at an A+E department and cost thousands...
Well done CT - bang on again
back in the country and I see the whiners here are still complaining - now about the lack of talent in the current govt. They could of course stand themselves
Looks Ok to me and there are people there with experience at delivering, real qualifications, and a drive to get things done - from all three parts of the coalition.
I am prepared to see how the 100 days unfolds as a starter -already better for NZ Inc. than the previous crew
One word co-governance.
Alot of people I heard talking was the main reason why they dropped Labour like a hot potatoe and woke agenda that they were espousing. And some of them were die hard Labour supporters a bit like Chris Trotter who publicly said he won't be voting for them because of their agenda for free speech. About time politicians realize that maybe Joe average kiwi ain't as thick as the politicians would like them to be.
Not sure Chris' fundamental point is right. He's saying the Labour government was lacking in policy ideas and initiative for change, but (like the governing legislative decision or not) they took on huge pieces of change-orientated work - so transformational that the new government is reversing them quick-smart, but has not yet provided any idea of what new direction they intend in terms of solving the 'still there', massive problems the changes were meant to address.
EDS just completed its feedback for the incoming government and points this out well in its press release/summary;
https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/12/01/new-government-crashes-environment/
That's the environmental side - and same goes for the infrastructure deficit side and the health-policy reversals side. I'm just hoping we don't drift along with the status quo for yet another three years. But, I fear, the way things are heading - most of this government's time will be spent trying to pay for tax cuts and other pet-project initiatives agreed to in the coalition agreements.
The ‘tax cuts’ that are being given under national are basically reversing some of the bracket creep that has occurred over the last 9 years. Someone earning the minimum wage now is earning $47.2k. The 30% rate kicks in at $48k. 9 years ago the minimum full time wage (40h a week) was $29.6k. Adjusting this is well overdue. The tax thresholds haven’t changed since 2014 (excluding the $180k+ 39% addition). If I was a lower income earner without kids , I’d be rather grumpy about it being branded a tax cut. Inflation has caused effective percentage of tax they pay to increase.
Yes, a good discussion below about bracket creep;
It is funny that people claim Labour achieved nothing, but then we voted in a government whose only policies seem to be to reverse Labours many changes. Of course opinions differ whether those changes were positive or negative, I would say most were actually positive, but most people hate change.
Ouch every portfolio Carmen handled was a discriminatory dinosaur of direct failures and lack of change with hundreds of millions wasted on reviews with no action that trashed those at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap; and her portfolios were meant to directly improve and support them. I would have more faith voting in a rat instead of Carmen; rats at least show more altruism & compassion with less greed & hypocrisy. It would actually perform the same functions as her with more output.
At least we can get back to normal in NZ in terms of race relations. We have always been divided and are simply returning to the status quo. We Maori have always known this and have been waiting for the populace at large to reassert their condescending contempt for us, our language and culture politically without any obfuscation. Takes me back to the Don Brash 2004? speech at Orewa. Where he articulated perfectly the contempt we are held in by a great number of our fellow citizens. The backlash against any Maori centric solutions to Maori problems are being rescinded based on the fact they are not democratic and are racist because of that as though our problems are based on the fact we are an underperforming bunch of average citizens rather than the latest generation of victims of a deliberate attempt by the NZ government and institutions over multiple generations to erase the truth about how we have been impoverished and brutalised since the signing of the treaty. We are a separate culture that live within the borders of NZ connected forever by our whakapapa and tikanga and any attempts by the latest version of NZ government to cancel us will be as unsuccessful as all others. We are Maori first and NZ’ers second and will always be so. What we currently lack is political cohesiveness. We need a political party of our own that brings us together under the twin banners of whakapapa and tikanga instead of dissent and protest. This will bring in more of those centrist voters who want more of a say in Government to promote pro-Maori policies just like any other lobby group promoting policies that support their constituents.
Keep believing that this is the cause of your problems and you are always going to have problems. Separatism is not the solution these so called problems that some parts of society of all races encounter. Hard work, leadership and education are the answers. Pandering, handouts and separate departments are not.
The wealth of having a real family, a large group of people to call home is undervalued in my book. Maori are blessed with having that. They can point to a place not far away that is their place. They can visit it and see cousins aunties grandees or grandads.
Imagine having no wider family here in the country you were born into. Many kiwis or their forbears came here in small family units with nothing. They left their home countries for a reason. They had nothing and were going nowhere. Or were chased or forced out of their homeland. So they left everyone they knew. Most arrived with little.
The new Kiwis and the Maori have had different things to contend with. I dont think its been easy for either. Just different.
Firstly WM Don Brash did not hold Maori in contempt. He held them as FULLY EQUAL to every other person in NZ. This is one of the fundamental principles that is specifically mentioned in the Treaty.
"The backlash against any Maori centric solutions to Maori problems..." I have worked in Health and other government departments as well as defence, and I can speak with considerable experience that everywhere in this country organisations are bending over backwards to try to be responsive to individual needs. To all of them this means that if you're Indian and with particular cultural requirements, they try to accommodate them, if you're Maori with the same, they try to accommodate them, if you're Inuit with particular cultural requirements they try to accommodate them. If you're Muslim, Hindi, Sikh or whatever with particular requirements they try to accommodate them. In other words they try to respond to and meet individual needs so long as they do not perpetuate harm. So why do Maori think this is not good enough? When I hear ill Maori complain that their nurse didn't understand because she didn't have a brown skin, who was being racist?
It is my experience that few Kiwis are genuinely racist. But we really do have very little tolerance for bad attitudes, and entitlement is generally considered to be a bad attitude. So when you as a person, or as a group persist in coming out as being 'special' with special entitlements over everyone else, the forthcoming response can pretty much be foretold.
Geoffrey Palmer, Labour elder statesmen said that the RNA was no longer fit for purpose. The ground was laid for a revamp of local govt planning systems but what actually happened was that the new laws made the consenting process worse. In reality the law change was cover for further entrenching of elite Maori interests and the employment of more bureaucrats.
The NZ public learnt that whatever Labour said it had only two goals in mind - to further elite iwi interests and to grow the bureaucratic class.
We still have the same problems. We still have a lack of energy self sufficiency and a lack of housing. We have degraded educational standards for lower decile areas and higher educational standards in high income areas and the Catholic schools. We have a societal structure that enables wealth concentration but that discourages wealth creation and innovative thinking. In many areas we are managing to combine the worst of both worlds.
We have many politicians with high social intelligence and networking skills but low managerial and technical competence.
Pumped Hydro in the South Island and a practical tram network for Auckland are two good ideas that look as if they will never come to fruition. Labour would never have got around to doing them and National are too cheap to do them. Events will eventually necessitate an expensive and bodgie work around in both cases because it seems like this is how NZ does things. We will waste a lot of money on an inferior product that doesn't work very well for anyone except the guys clipping the ticket.
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