The Coalition Government has finished its first proper week in charge of Parliament and has wasted no time pulling apart the legislative legacy of the previous Labour government.
It has already repealed the Clean Car Discount scheme, Fair Pay Agreement laws, and removed the employment mandate from the Reserve Bank Act.
These were three signature policies from the 2020 Labour government and the 2017 Labour-led coalition government, and there’s still more to come.
Early next year—if not next week—the new Government will repeal the Resource Management Act replacement, the Three Waters/Affordable Water Reform, and Smokefree laws.
The latter move is so unpopular with the medical community that the brand new Health Minister, Shane Reti, appears to be unwilling to front the repeal.
Casey Costello, a New Zealand First MP and Associate Minister for Health, has been delegated the job. The policy was originally supported by Act and NZ First, but not National.
Happy losers
You might think the Labour Party, watching all this unfold from the opposition benches, would be distraught. But no, it is oddly relaxed and upbeat.
One interpretation may be that the party feels like the Coalition Government is moving too fast and will be overwhelmed by public backlash.
New Zealanders voted for change but some are getting more than they asked for.
This is purely anecdotal, but I spoke to an enthusiastic (if not very politically-engaged) National Party voter in Auckland last week who was baffled by “all the Māori language stuff”.
There are, of course, many voters who want to see pushback against ‘woke-ism’ and ‘Māori-fication’ but most are only bothered by these things if the basics aren’t going well.
How many other ‘Get New Zealand Back on Track” voters are surprised by the “Let’s Take Our Country Back” and “Real Change” policies that are coming through?
Labour hopes the answer is “a lot”, although there is no evidence of that. The only poll since the Coalition took over showed a statistically insignificant fall in support for the governing trio.
Still, the party’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni pushed this idea in a Parliamentary debate earlier this week.
The smoke-free and te reo Māori policies were like a bad circus she once attended, in which the performers botched their tricks and made the audience question their professionalism.
“I think there are a number of New Zealanders who bought tickets to this political circus and are asking themselves the same question right now,” she said.
Perhaps it is equally likely that the new Government has spent its honeymoon period getting some contentious policies out of the way and the rest of its agenda will prove popular.
On message, off message
Nicola Willis, the Minister of Finance and National’s deputy leader, has been trying to keep the conversation focused on inflation, the cost of living, and the economy in general.
She said the Labour Party and its allies were struggling to adjust to the change in Government and the new direction New Zealand had chosen.
“They're feeling a little uncomfortable about their new situation, and I think that New Zealanders around the country would welcome me reminding members opposite why they lost and why they no longer control the Government benches,” she said in the debate.
“That's because over their six long years, they managed to preside over an economy that worsened and made the outcomes for New Zealanders worse”.
Her laser-focus on the issues that put her in Government was quickly undermined by her coalition partner’s desire to zoom in on subjects that secured them 6.08% of the vote.
New Zealand First would “bring rigour and common sense to the hysteria surrounding climate change,” Shane Jones proudly announced.
Even though climate change is not in the top five issues, as tracked by polling firm Ipsos, it is still a “big worry” for respondents with 25% selecting it as a top issue for the future.
Were those voters happy to hear Jones brag about how the new Government would restart oil and gas exploration, and encourage mining on conservation land?
“We are not going to meet the 2030 dreamy, fairy-tale, aspirational figures that we'll be freeing ourselves of fossil fuels as a source of generating energy,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Government’s Climate Minister, Simon Watt, was in Dubai pushing for a global agreement to “phase out” fossil fuels and take more action to combat global warming.
The two perspectives were not in direct conflict with one another, since oil and gas are still needed in the transition to clean energy, but the harmony was sounding awkward.
Finally, there is the Act Party. Deputy leader Brooke Van Velden had a moment in the spotlight as some employment law changes were made, but the party has been otherwise sidelined.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that NZ First had picked up two percentage points from Act in that poll we mentioned earlier?
But really, it is too early for all and any of the speculation this column has indulged in.
The new Government is still getting its feet under the desk and the micro-dramas of these first weeks will be quickly forgotten in the New Year — now only days away.
241 Comments
Well the electorate booted the previous government out. That is the stark reality. What percentage of that vote was actually dedicated supporters of any of the three members of this coalition government is of course unknown. But I would wager the greater part of that vote arose not from offering support in that direction, but in an emphatic rejection of the 6th Labour government. In other words, the negativity heavily outweighed the positivity.
So you agree that most NACTF probably have no idea what the NACTF plans to replace anything with?
Or, once they've torn everything down, what they plan to do next?
(I mean tax cuts for rich people will be done and dusted within 6 months according to the NACTF. What will they be doing for the next two and half years? Do share. Because the swing voters that put the NACTF in don't appear to have any idea.)
In terms of loss of parliamentary representation the 6th Labour government is the most heavily defeated since that of PM Coates in 1928. Regardless of what percentage swung where, what or how that is, by any measure, being booted out. But to develop your own conjecture would suggest that the voters that contributed to that would feel both vindicated and relieved given the damning report by Mr Ryan the Attorney General exposing and condemning the wilfully uncontrolled $15 billion expenditure much of which remains unexplained and untraceable and furthermore, if that report had been presented to the public prior to the election last October, the Labour party would have found themselves now with even less representation.
I wouldn't be so gleeful.
Labour were booted out because of the reserve banks monetary policies over the last few years, not because of any other reason. One of my colleagues called the election during winter when the economic downturn was obvious.
Willis seems not to have the wherewithal to steer us through the economic environment, and Luxon appears not to have the political nous to enact the coalition's social program in a positive manner.
There was no glee expressed and nor is there any to be had in relating dismal facts that record ineptitude, spendthrift beyond the pale. But do appreciate the contribution after all of 7 months & 3 weeks membership on here aligning with the 7 months & two weeks of the same, from GF as above. Wondered what had happened to the usual little coven of up-tickers and head nodders that always spring up from the left on here in the run up to an election. In 2020 for example recall amongst others, Jolly Albert and Fat Penguin team led by DCWNZ etc etc. New monikers same players? Here come the denials!
Labour were booted out because of the reserve banks monetary policies over the last few years, not because of any other reason. One of my colleagues called the election during winter when the economic downturn was obvious
I called the election in late 2020/early 21, when I saw the level of public contempt towards Labours COVID policies. Not that I necessarily disagreed with them, but I could gauge how incredibly divisive and unpopular they were amoung some levels of the public.
But the reasons were wide and varied, certainly not just down to RBNZ action - the last government held a political majority, but somehow managed to deliver little of benefit to practically any segment of the country.
Why wouldn't they have? The RBNZ did exactly what it is designed to do. Read Milton Friedman.
Find a political party re-elected into Government during a recession. I'll wait.
It's a truism that Governments are voted out, rather than Oppositions are voted in.
As Carville said, its the economy.
Amongst other things, my time on an obscure forum is not relevant to the conversation.
I'm ignoring the other points made by you and others. They aren't productive or conducive to a positive discussion.
Analysing the above comments, you have simply made assertions, twisted others words in attempt to goad them into other assertions they didn't make, then conveniently decided not to listen to their responses in attempt to take a moral high ground. (rhetorical question) Would it look productive at a real debate if one simply decides not to listen when being faced with opposing views, or would this seem arbitrary.
Of course this is a real debate.
To be clear, the parts I'm ignoring are the "points" about sock puppet accounts and ad hominems, and related unproductive comments.
I engaged with other points raised and contributed to the discussion. I notice the substance of my points were ignored and no productive contributions have been made.
Would it be positive at a formal debate if one simply decides not to listen when being faced with opposing views, and make ad hominem arguments directed towards opponents, or is this against the rules?
In 2017 NZF had 6.3% of the vote
What's your point?
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/
"This is purely anecdotal, but I spoke to an enthusiastic (if not very politically-engaged) National Party voter in Auckland last week who was baffled by “all the Māori language stuff”.
There are, of course, many voters who want to see pushback against ‘woke-ism’ and ‘Māori-fication’ but most are only bothered by these things if the basics aren’t going well."
Lots of opinionated "reckons" in there. I recall that the writer also stated a few weeks ago that the "Treaty debate was settled" (or similar).
Edit: 77% of Kiwis believe NZ is becoming more divided (3% less divided) - theFacts.
From one train wreck to the next.
It’s fascinating National have any support at all considering their promise of cutting spending heading into a recession.
Imagine approaching your boss and asking for an inflation meeting pay rise, they cut your salary, and you walk away chuffed.
Everything else is going swimmingly, let’s promote ciggies, cut the South Island off and make it glaringly obvious that we never read the budget pre-election. Nice. In good hands. Adults in the room.
Nicola is out of her depth, I’d thought earlier this year she’d be better off leading National but the more air time she gets the more obvious it is that she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing.
Imagine approaching your boss and asking for an inflation meeting pay rise, they cut your salary, and you walk away chuffed.
Imagine working somewhere and management totally ignored their fiscal situation, spent a large amount of money for no material improvement (things actually went backwards instead), they shut down, and you're out of work due to their economic mismanagement. And then due to overall economic malaise, you can't get another job.
Both suck, but the latter much more.
This isn't really an endorsement of National, just highlighting that often when times are getting tough, things are about the lesser of two evils.
This was a good spend by the previous Government
FIFA Women's World Cup exceeds expectations, returning New Zealand more than $100m
The report said the benefit-cost ratio was 1.34, so for every $1 spent, there was a return of $1.34
Well they have made their top priorities, tax cuts for landlords March 2023, tax cuts for workers July 2024, repealed anti-smoking laws, trying as hard as possible to get redundancies for Xmas (better to do this mid year when workers can go straight to another job), repealed electric car incentives without an alternative, and been short sighted with quality ferries that are needed on the dangerous Cook Straight. Truly inspirational (tounge firmly in cheek). But thats National (and worse with ACT) governments, looking backwards not forwards.
Well they have made their top priorities
No, they handled the quick, easy bit first. Now, there's the hard part of where to from here. Which we probably won't know the full extent of, for 1-2 years I'd say. I'm not expecting much to be truly groundbreaking. But I am expecting in the short term a business environment more conducive to navigating out of a dark economic period. Some of the niceties we have, work fine so long as there's full employment and money sloshing everywhere. We're heading for a period of necessities first (we should have already been in one, get the basics going well first).
tax cuts for landlords March 2023
No one's benefited from this, outside of a handful of FHBs. Less houses for rent, and higher rents.
tax cuts for workers July 2024
Fairly dumb campaign ploy, but they have a mandate in favour.
repealed anti-smoking laws
Fair enough, given the hypocrisy of our drug and alcohol laws
trying as hard as possible to get redundancies for Xmas (better to do this mid year when workers can go straight to another job)
Economy is doing that, on it's own.
repealed electric car incentives without an alternative
Walking, biking, ICE transportation, paying the full cost for an electric vehicle (it's a long way from mass consumption here).
and been short sighted with quality ferries that are needed on the dangerous Cook Straight
We need new ferries, 100%. Do we need roll on, roll off freight? Financially debatable, from the looks of it.
Looking backwards not forwards.
You kind of need to do both, at the same time. Where are we at? How did we get here? Are things you can't ignore when making future based decisions.
We need new ferries, 100%. Do we need roll on, roll off freight? Financially debatable, from the looks of it.
We need freight to get from island to island.
Rail is much more energy efficient than trucking.
It's more cost efficient too.
I saw commentary from an Australian laughing at the naivety of our politicians for not expecting a major national civil project to double in cost.
Rail is much more energy efficient than trucking.
Water is more efficient than both. What you'd gain with roll on roll off, is the reduction of transferring rail freight onto the ferry from carriages via loaders, vs shunting the carriage on. But if you were wanting to transport something from Auckland to Chch for instance, you'd be better just shipping it direct instead of via train.
As a landlord: mortgage interest claimable as an expense: 2021 100%, 2022 87.5%, 2023 75% and in the current tax year it will be 50% unless the new govt keeps its promise in which case it will be 60%. It is true that the current govt is reducing taxes that went from nothing to something under Labour but it is not a tax cut compared to the first three years of Labour in power.
Te Ahu a Turanga: Manawatū Tararua Highway nears end of 'heavy lifting' stage https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/301027920/te-ahu-a-turanga-manawat-tar…
Coromandel's SH25a to reopen in time for Christmas https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/502292/coromandel-s-sh25a-to-reopen…
A government is NOT a business !!! Completely different operating rules apply.
Can a business create money from thin air? No. But governments can.
Enough of the b.s. Janet & John level pub economics! It is tiresome! And nonsense!
Next we'll be comparing nationally important ferries to cars owned by rich people ... No ... Wait! ... OMG!
A government is NOT a business !!! Completely different operating rules apply.
I didn't start by using a business analogy.
At their core essence, they are collecting levies from the population, and then delivering core public services. Similar rules apply to that as an operation, to a business. Ineptitude in that function results in over spending, and under delivering.
Except they have no competition, unless you want to emigrate.
The government has to create and spend its currency first before it can be taxed back again or be retained as government bonds. Economist Steven Hail explains this here.
Albanese Government can find money for infrastructure https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/albanese-gov…
It can, but ultimately basic economics catch up. If the money you create is not providing decent returns, it's value decreases, and you is broke.
If we take infrastructure for instance, somewhere like Japans, is an example done amazingly, that provides a decent economic benefit to the nation.
As much as traffic is lame and many of our state highways are pretty meh, there's a diminishing return for many of the funds that would be needed to make NZs infrastructure more closely resemble Japans.
Using private sector money is no more of a solution and the financiers are expecting a profit from it and which is more of a cost to us in the long term and much of the profit may also disappear overseas. Very shortsighted to cancel the ferry upgrades and the the new port infrastructure would have been giving us a return for many decades and improving our transport efficiency. Willis will do anything to try to keep her promise of tax cuts.
It would have given "a" return, but at over 3 billion dollars, likely negligible as if it was lucrative Kiwirail's additional net revenue could've covered the cost of finance.
There's other ways to get freight between islands, and some of it's more efficient than overwater rail.
malamah. "...It’s fascinating National have any support at all considering their promise of cutting spending heading into a recession......"
You didn't notice then that national offered spending cuts and the people supported them. It was an election. You missed it.
You can click the quotation marks in the comment textbox toolbar to highlight quotes, like this:
You didn't notice then that national offered spending cuts and the people supported them. It was an election. You missed it.
Then you can write your response to the quote like this:
I saw the election and I saw the promise. I found/find it fascinating. As I mentioned in my comment, which I assume you read before quoting;
It’s fascinating
Not made up. I've read them too. And a NZ one that concluded the same. (Google is your friend.)
In countries that don't tax a 20 pack, a pack costs $1. Buy the same pack in NZ and the cost is $42.
So let's say $35 is tax (allowing for higher margins in NZ). A pack-a-day smoker - a medium smoker - would contribute $12,775 per year to govt coffers.
But they die younger, so less pension payouts, and they die faster, so less long term palliative care (which is expensive).
Not necessarily, you just can't say something like "smoking will cost the country money". Like, it kinda will, but also return much more back than you spend. So it's not at any cost to a non-smoker, and actually to their financial benefit. Alcohol on the other hand, has the opposite result, and we lowered the age for that.
The taxes discourage it, but for those who insist, the cost is recovered (and then some).
Absolutely not. It would be better if smokers never started smoking.
The studies above also look at the impacts of the extremely high prices. The majority that smoke come from lower socio-economic sectors. Such high prices result in cuts being made in household budgets. This furthers the downward direction of the whole household by removing disposable income. It also increases crime.
When the anti-smoking policy was implemented I argued against the slow stepwise increase and instead for a massive and sudden increase. This would have driven most smokers to cessation treatments immediately and most would have stopped within a year. The the slow stepwise increase has decreased smoking slowly but has also been a massive tax grab. Further, it enabled the massive transition to vaping we see now.
With nicotine being as addictive as heroin, never starting to smoke is the wisest solution. (But apparently not for the NACTF - nor their greedy supporters demanding tax cuts).
Can you share these Nordic studies please or is this another made up fact?
Finland:
Smoking was associated with a greater mean annual healthcare cost of €1600 per living individual during follow-up. However, due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers.
Tiihonen J, Ronkainen K, Kangasharju A, et al. The net effect of smoking on healthcare and welfare costs. A cohort study. BMJ Open 2012;2
NZ:
The Treasury document acknowledged that the revenue gathered in tobacco taxes already exceeded the health costs of smoking.
A University of Otago study in 2007 estimated that the direct cost of smoking to the Ministry of Health was $300 million to $350 million.
The Treasury cited a Ministry of Health study that estimated the indirect health costs of smoking at $1.9 billion, but acknowledged the figure had been disputed and was far higher than previous estimates.
That's not a societal cost though, it's a subjective cost based on ascribing a value of life years lost to the individual. Your argument was about society subsidizing smokers health outcomes, from a fiscal view the reverse is the case.
Also worth noting is a pack of darts cost double in NZ than Finland - and that difference is mainly all tax.
Ciggies are doing it for us for the ones that are smokers. Also bacon, and alcohol.
What's your position then exactly, if not for money. We should dictate to people how and how long to live their lives? Is a year worth the same for someone who played it safe and did and experienced almost nothing their whole life, worth the same as someone who lived a full and varied one? Someone sad vs happy? Someone lieing in a respite bed for 10 years instead of coherent and able to move on their own?
These are choices the individual should be making on their own. I can't judge or lament anyone I feel is making poor choices in their life, they're not me.
My point is pretty clear.
They should not reverse the tobacco laws. An overwhelming majority of New Zealanders agree. It was never even raised let along debated and yet this is the first thing this government passes.
It shows that they are not here to help the people or nation, they are there because they have been paid to be there by powerful financial backers, i.e. rich pricks. Newsflash, rich pricks do not give a shit about ordinary New Zealanders they only care about getting richer and removing any constraints on them being able to do whatever they want to do even if it f***s up the world for everyone else
But cool, I can see you're fine with that.
I'm not fine with corporate interests lobbying government. Then again, we have surrendered much of our personal agency to these entities with our own choices anyway. I try to make active choices not to let my existence be as reliant on these agencies as possible. Some I can't escape, fuel, insurance, etc. But I can always abandon some of them, if need be.
But im pretty Switzerland on whether people should be allowed to smoke or not. Doesn't cost me anything, and if they enjoy it despite the significant financial and personal cost, who am I to tell them what to do.
You were initially arguing the latter, with expenses etc, but now it looks like that's less of an issue to you than the former. Your point looks far from clear, and seems fairly fluid.
The smoke free repeal baffles me. I assume it's about tax revenue, but surely the health cost of treatment must be much higher. And that's only putting a money spin on it, the societal impacts are high.
what baffles me is the lack of punters nashing their teeth at the elephant in the room being the vaping epidemic!
If you follow the trend line of declining smoking rates we were going to achieve the Govt. dated goal of 5% without the ban.
So the question is why would Labour introduce a policy that would not make any difference to the target?
And research by Thomas Sowell has shown that every time a Govt. has tried to hurry up the laggards to make it happen faster than the trend, they end up making the problem worse.
In this case, it has been the promotion of vaping as the alternative, and the effects of prohibition if the ban had gone ahead.
Good. Lets them protest. Rip the bandage off, let the angry minority scream. No one cares. No one speaks Māori apart from a very small percentage, probably less than 1%. They can speak it to each other. The rest of us are not interested in seeing it or hearing it. That’s the reality. All these useless policies or the previous govt need to be rolled back fast, just as they are doing. The screaming and yelling won’t stop the progress. The faster it’s all gone the faster we can start rebuilding. Remember too, the screaming and yelling is coming from an insignificant part of society that don’t vote for the coalition parties anyway. The govt know this.
The old calling anyone that does not agree with you racist. It’s pitiful. It used to mean something. It doesn’t work any more because those that use it mostly have no clue. You have demonstrated that very well. How do you know that I am not Māori. After all around 40% of Māori voted for the coalition so a good chunk of Māori (or those who consider themselves as such) voted for this change, and the 16% of haters and wreckers that voted for TPM are making all those irrelevant noise). Let’s say I am Maori (maybe I am), I just don’t agree with policies that take us backward financially, and make our kids dumber and our future poorer. That’s what forcing an irrelevant language on a population will do. It restricts our ability to move forward in the world as a result of spending less time learning things they are worthwhile. It a failed social experiment as we are seeing now. So if I am Maori and I think these things, am I racist still, and if that is the case then are 40% of Maori also racist? I also fully support the closing of the productivity commission, ministry of women’s affairs, ministry for pacific people, the removal of the Waitangi tribunal powers as well. Unfortunately not all of these things will happen. To me this is common sense. None of these organisations provide any value. I could also be a woman, a Māori woman. So this means I am sexist and racist? Or maybe I just believe in common sense and you have no argument for that and so you scream racist. It is common these days. You should probably keep that card in your pocket until you understand people’s backgrounds.
What does it matter if some people speak Maori? Many of us find Maori language interesting and feel it adds to our identity as a country. My kids sang a lot of Maori songs at their school prize giving, they were great, much better than some old English song. The kids did a kapa haka, that was great too.
And Waka Kotahi is a much better name than NZTA.
In all fairness, I don't really care what languages anything around me converses in.
But what I do know, is most societies who's governments actively try to enforce a minority culture on a much larger populace, usually aren't run well, or stand on some pretty shaky ground. Unless maybe if they got oil (even then, debatable).
If the Chinese end up ruling us, whatever. Ni Hao Ma.
That's all I really know, except swear words.
They were here well before us Europeans. We stole their land and we will never be able to compensate them properly as the value of the land taken is huge today. I cannot see why names that are Māori upset so many people. We have bigger issues to sort out such as hunger, housing, health and education.
It so ironic though that it is the Māoris that I voted for that are in charge of this delicious rollback of stupidity. But, I get it, they are not the lazy stupid kind, they are the smart educated kind, the Māori that are referred so as the ‘wrong type’ right. The ones that are educated and successful. I get it, they have it all wrong and should just watch TV on the couch and demand free stuff all their lives. Maybe I should have voted for the other lot and just sit in front of the TV my whole life living on handouts. Sounds like an awesome option.
We stole no land.
A feature of the Treaty was to protect from the prior 1840 outrageous behaviour of the likes of The New Zealand Land Company.
The government did protect, and went to considerable trouble to sort out the pre 1840 land mess and the inter-maori genocide.
There was rebellion against the agreed Treaty by some murderous lunatics, Te Kooti and others leading to confiscations. Overall the Treaty was magnificent for Maori who survived the Kupapa wars.
maybe you should learn some history
Land confiscation law passed | NZHistory, New Zealand history online
the New Zealand Settlements Act enabled the confiscation (raupatu) of land from Māori tribes deemed to have ‘engaged in open rebellion against Her Majesty’s authority’. Pākehā settlers would occupy the confiscated land.
On the eve of the British invasion of Waikato in July 1863 (see 12 July), the government ordered all Māori living in the Manukau district and on the Waikato frontier north of the Mangatāwhiri stream to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen and give up their weapons. Those who did not would ‘forfeit the right to the possession of their lands guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Waitangi’.
Under the New Zealand Settlements Act, the Waikato iwi lost almost all their land and Ngāti Hauā about a third of theirs.
@sharetrader: yes that is the history and I know it well. If you reflect we could agree. It's important not to note only one side of it.
My family were involved as well in the murderous goings on South of Auckland that led to the actions into the Waikato. One was even an emissary into the Waikato to try and talk sense.
But in the end, rebels, seeking to abrogate the Treaty needed to be sorted. The Treaty was/is about making us one nation with one government.
As for Te Kooti it is interesting factoid to know that of the military expeditions into the Waioeka to sort the murderous creep had about a thousand soldiers. All Maori with Maori commanders, Majors Kemp and Ropata. Only 2 or 3 Europeans along, not of rank.
Have you ever asked the question why others have different stance on issues…. More importantly the question of why it appears so now more than before to you…
Western values are under attack all throughout the Western world… yet we have the highest wealth, most freedom and tolerance than any other system of governance…. I say those calling for apartheid or so called equality have no idea what path it puts a nation on… the Bolshevik revolution had the same position and how did that turn out.
Western wealth is mostly due to plundering resources and less to do with the work ethic. If the UK hadn't colonised so much of the globe, London would be similar to Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Norwich etc etc That is, completely unremarkable and in fact quite grim.
Perhaps the pats on the backs are a little undeserved.
And technology. The technology allowed them to take over the world, and best capitalise from it. 10,000 poms with muskets/rifles managed to rule over the whole of India. And wiped out a great deal of their textile industry with newer looms.
And the West still owns most of the technology, although the rest of the world is much closer now in that realm.
That's come with other issues, mostly a culture that's all flat, no debt, and off the rails.
English culture and values has freed so many from ignorance poverty and slavery like no other culture before … even bigoted you must realise that.…
You are obviously educated…probably from institutions based on colonial institutions and education steeped in the wealth of European knowledge from thousands of years of trading, warring, inter marriage, collaboration and Cristian values….hell, you’re probably part European yourself…yet that chip on your shoulder is so large it turns you into a hypocrite.
England profited fairly prolifically from slavery for quite some time.
And hooked millions of Chinese on opiates.
Plundered much wealth from the countries they "helped".
The fact they've been on a downhill slide since they couldn't dibsies much of the world anymore speaks volumes.
Really? You do understand that if David Seymour’s referendum takes place the yes vote is expected to be in the region of 70-80% right. You also understand that after all of the promotion that the previous govt did to try and force people to speak and learn Māori and even pay people in the public service to learn it even though it had no relevance to their job, only 527 people did out of a workforce of 60,000 right. Sounds like a really popular mainstream thing.
I think you will find that it will go through its process as outlined in the coalition document, polls will be done and it will be found to have majority support. The coalition will like last three or maybe four terms. That’s the most we ever seem to allow. I think it likely that if there is support for it, a referendum will be held at the end of this governments likely last term, and it will be binding so the next government (Labour I assume) will have to implement it.
What I find ironic is the Maori Language Act 2016 was passed under a National government and had the support of 104 MPs including David Seymour. All 11 NZ First MPs voted against it so at least they're being consistent. The way I see it the previous government were just implementing something passed under National which recognised Maori/Te Reo as an official language of NZ that should be revitalised.
While I appreciate the majority of New Zealanders are racist bigots who are afraid of any change that threatens their existence I doubt they have a 70 to 80 per cent majority. If that was the case then I would be appalled. We worry more about race and language than we do about hunger , a lack of good reasonably priced accomodation, health and education.
You are kidding yourself. If you were not a racist you would not be taking your stance. Where was democracy in the 1800’s when the settlers plundered land belonging to the Māoris. To the extent they killed people to get it. You are lucky you were not a Māori and alive in those terrible times. There was not much democracy being practiced by the settlers.
Whatever. I come from a country that did worse to my forebears several hundred years ago too. It’s part of history. I don’t really think about it. If I went back there and started moaning about it and asking for compensation and for my ancestral lands back people would laugh at me and rightly tell me where to go. I think you maybe need to move on from mulling over that. This is New Zealand 2023 not 1840.
Maoris treated other Maoris even worse until the ToW stopped it & gave all Maori the protection of the rights & privileges of British subjects.
Breaking Views: Mike Butler: Hidden slaughter revealed (breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com)
Those were the times: my own ancestors came to NZ from both the Highland Clearances & the Irish Famine. At least an attempt was made with the Treaty to seek a peaceable coexistence - this was almost unique in the world at that time.
Yep. Māori don’t really appreciate how good they got it. Go ask the Indians from South America how they got on, if you can find some. The alternative would have been to deal with the French or Spanish, and if that had come to pass we would not be having this conversation today. The Māori would have been wiped out. That was the way the Spanish and the French did things. The English were much more civilised.
….and one has around 10,000 words, and one has 500,000. One is clearly superior and is the most widely spoken language on the planet. One is dead but a revival is being attempted but words must be made up as we go along. The revival however has failed. Just like it will everywhere there is a dominant and superior language.
Ok, it’s dying, on track to be dead. It’s not unique, 100s of other languages spoken by almost no one are also dying. I get that it has had an artificial dead cat bounce due to the wokeness we have experienced over the last six years but that is now dead (sorry, dying) too.
If you take the foreign language influence out of new English, you’d end up about the same. The effectiveness of English is generally due to it being a mash up of many influences and mash up of many different cultures.
Latin, Greek, French, Dutch, Norse, even Indian and Arabic language influence! But not Māori, that’s too far.
Protests are becoming common globally now. NZ is not unique in that:
https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-year-protests-2023-12-11/
But will they be peaceful like this:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/24/french-farmers-turn-r…
or violent like this, is the question?
https://www.politico.eu/article/protesters-clash-with-police-over-water…
Maori's protesting? All the Maori MPs in parliament? Or are you only counted as Maori if a pakeha intellectual gives you permission to be a minority? My Pacifica grandson has been told by his social studies teacher that the new govt is persecuting poor Maori and Pacifica.
This is what it looks like if Labour and the other racists have their way … https://youtu.be/N1i0zvnEipA?si=oeUgr41F2slvBtdb
Get on with it.
There, new president Javier Milei has just begun his term with his minister of economy announcing an "emergency package of measures" including, among other things:
- letting go every government employee who has been employed for less than 1 year
- appointed government positions are cut by 34%
- abolishing all government PR and related spending for projects
- no more transfers to local government
- suspension and cancellation of all public infrastructure (all subject to a lot of corruption in the past)
- reduction of energy and transport subsidies
- immediate devaluation of the peso from 350 to 800 pesos per dollar (with a plan towards rapid dollarisation)
- elimination of all export and import quotas and licences
- temporary increase in non-agricultural taxes for exports and imports (for uniformity, to the same level of present agricultural taxes)
- temporary expansion of direct aid through the child benefit and food aid debit card
This, he says, represents cuts to the govt's budget equivalent to over 5% of GDP, that should "completely balance the budget in 2024." The IMF supports the measures.
http://pc.blogspot.com/2023/12/javier-mileis-first-100-days.html
The previous Kirchner and Fernandez Governments have been beyond terrible. Milei may not be better but people want to try a new direction. The middle class has been decimated and with 40% of the population now at the line of poverty the country is f?cked. Mi famila es Argentina
Okay. The NACTF is winding us back to 2017.
But what are they replacing it with?
Would I be right in concluding the answer is basically NOTHING?
Or - Would I be right that anything the NACTF do attempt to replace it with is something the vast majority of the NACTF voters were completely unaware of? (e.g. using tax from tobacco to pay for rich people's tax cuts?)
Another case of dumb Kiwis getting everything they didn't know they were voting for?
The tobacco rollback is a great idea. You have to also remember that it is not implemented yet, so unlike three waters it can be cancelled at no cost. Three waters was an idiotic idea too and will cost money to rollback, but needs to be done.
The reason that the tobacco rule is being rolled back is because it was a dumb idea. Not only did it created different classes of adults in the same manner as the vaccine mandate did, it also purported to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and would result in an increase in crime. This week confirmed that rates of Tobacco usage continued to drop this year, faster than last year even and so the goal of having less than 5% of people smoking is on track. So, the rules was going to be pointless and is being rolled back. I don’t see why people get all up in arms about it. The rule doesn’t exist yet, things will continue as normal and what we have in place is doing the job as planned.
If it were me I'd be pulling the state services apart from top to bottom, one after the other, until only the good stuff [front offices, great IT etc] was left in place. By the end of 2025 there would be less than 50,000 state employees needed with only one mandate - better services for better value.
Education & healthcare would be at the top of the list, with welfare & transport close behind.
We can run this country on less than $100 billion per annun. Way less.
Remember that poor government is the problem, not the solution. And we have soooo much poor government.
Wrong John is right. We have a highly bloated public service that needs to be ripped apart.
Out of 60,000 staff currently employed, 15,000 are likely to be laid off. We have a lot of pointless ministries to close, and a lot of bloated ones to fix. Health is the big one. They have something like 2:1 ratio of managers to doctors, so there needs to be a clear out there of the people that do nothing. Then there is the Māori Health authority that is being closed down. There are savings to be had everywhere.
Labour governments hire people into the public service to keep unemployment artificially low to hide their incompetence. Happens every time. Now is the time for a clean out. Less staff, more automation, KPI set, CEOs accountable results in better services and outcomes.
Unfortunately there is no plan to reinvest that funding into the frontline service. So although there’s job losses and less money flowing in to our economy while our GDP is dropping, there is no real alternative benefit to the approach. People feel like the benefit is “savings” but really there’s no such thing, there’s no pile of gold at the beehive that we’re protecting. It’s simply dumb and dumber.
The problem is not the spending, it’s the allocation of spending. Govt can spend whatever it pleases, and will never run out of money because it creates the money at the time. So long as there is effective tax, then inflation can be kept under control. So to suggest the govt need to spend less would suggest we want a free market classical economy. The first place to start in that regard would be accommodation supplement, income related rents, and super. The costs of those three dwarf 15,000 workers.
Let’s just wait and see how 2024 goes and how long it takes before national repeal the cuts and need to spend spend spend. It’s unfortunate that we as a country chose this.
The secret is to not employ people in the public service just for the sake of it, which is what Labour govts do.
Support for private companies and people that create real jobs are the important thing. They makes us collectively a richer society both in me of knowledge and wealth.
To put it into perspective, I work for a company (several in fact) that individually produce more than NZ in GDP terms than our entire country (each of them do). They do this with staffing levels of 5-10 percent of our population. That is a good measure of how efficient we actually are here. In comparison NZ has Fonterra, which in comparison is tiny, and is also poorly run….the NZ way…..and even then we do our best to drag them down further.
Here we need a clean out of the public service, it must operate more efficiently and provide better outcomes. In tandem private enterprise must be supported to succeed and enrich our country.
This makes sense but has absolutely nothing to do with NACTF propositions.
Cut public spending, choke private business. All in on housing.
the majority of money created in this country ends up in the pockets of the last seller in a long chain of real estate transactions. It’s no wonder we have such a booming coffee industry.
So you are saying the huge profit driven companies that you work for producing a tiny number of products are the same as a government that must provide thousands of different products and services that cover the vast majority of its citizens and residents?
Good to know. You are an undoubted expert in pub economics. Truly a sage among them.
No. I’m talking about companies that make many thousands of products in many different industries. So, yes, similar to the type of govt organisation where 1000s of different products and services are provided. I get your point about companies that produce one or two products for the masses, but that is not it so your comparison is completely wrong. My comparison is pretty much like for like and so it does effectively highlight how useless and inefficient we mostly are here compared to others.
re ... "I’m talking about companies that make many thousands of products in many different industries."
So products, huh? What about services? Healthcare? Social services? Education?
I bow before a true master of pub economics. I am truly humbled by the enormous breadth and width of you economic prowess.
The multinational concern Luxon & I both worked for has operated successfully for over a century in nearly 200 countries now with over 3 billion consumers using their products daily.
Certainly a force for much good ... No .. Wait a moment!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/jul/2…
(See my reply to the Oracle of Pub Economics above. And perhaps engage brain before being a corporate shill.)
The Guardian...really
Capitalism is the only reason a functioning society exists. Ultimately the sources of govt & public sector funds are taxes on capitalism's private sector profits & jobs (salaries and wages) - directly, indirectly (GST, rates or to fund Govt borrowing). There is no free lunch.
I think GetFeeling, really needs to GetReal. If he thinks that these massive companies employ 1000s of complete idiots and end up making massive amounts of money and employ and support 1000s and 1000s of families, but the real geniuses are in the public service dreaming up ways to avoid work and hand over billions of dollars of other people’s money to mainly complaining losers then he/she is more retarded than I initially suspected.
William Lever was part of Gladstone's government in the UK that founded the modern welfare state.
You'll also note that today's living conditions are socially utopian, compared to those in 1840s Britain.
While Government revenues are sourced from the rest of the economy, I don't see the private sector engaging in nation building activity or scientific and technological research programs. Case in point, the New Zealand infrastructure deficit is approaching dangerously overwhelming levels, most research is publicly funded, most actual innovation comes out of publicly funded labs and incubators before it is eventually mature enough for the private sector, etc.
The private sector does retail and craft manufacturing very well and not much else.
In a few months time, when the coalition are done repealing things, making dumb populist announcements, and stumbling into clumsy public sector cuts, they will have to turn their attention to the ongoing collapse in aggregate demand and escalating unemployment / business failure. Bizarrely, the Govt plans to reduce spending into the descent, which will only accelerate the fall. We are in for a shocking 2024.
You still want to receive some sort of value for that spending.
If you spent a billion dollars on some infrastructure, and it provided the jobs for the build, and 100 million dollars a year in extra revenue going forward, that'd make sense. But if you kept feeding the same machine that thus far hasn't shown any improvements, or actually slid backwards, that is probably money better never spent.
re ... "You still want to receive some sort of value for that spending."
Do you though?
Milton Freidman talked about throwing money into the economy. He coined the phase "helicopter money". I.e. it didn't matter where it came from - only that it was injected into the economy.
(I have my own opinions on this, i.e. I am not endorsing Freidman's avoidance of issues that upset his various theories.)
Preferably.
If it's money just being thrown around to generate activity in and of itself, like central bank helicopter money, the population will be putting it somewhere that presumably gives them some benefit, whether for essentials, or their own leisure/purpose.
But I agree, much of that practice ends in malinvestment. Refer the multitude of corporate entities with values that greatly outstrip their actual financial performance.
I am open to a view that much of us potentially live in money-go-rounds run by debt, and the actual living standard we enjoy, may be an extremely tenuous proposition.
Yes, this time last year I was well in National favour on some false believe that their election campaign would be focused on value bast investment in infrastructure and services to provide some essence of productivity. To enact an economy we’ve been faking for too long.
But nah.
I absolutely agree with your collapse in aggregate demand foresight. However I will share two anecdotes from my own life that tell me that there needs to be some action taken against bureaucratic inertia endemic in our society.
My brother's wife has had a scan that shows the possible return of a brain tumour. Her oncologist is leaving the health service because she said did not receive the support she needed to continue in her position. The oncologist is not being replaced so people in that area do not have access to one any more. When a letter was sent to the authority responsible for the neurologist in the next population centre they referred her back to her GP. Meanwhile there are a whole fleet of useless bureaucrats responsible for these types of failures driving around at the taxpayer's expense refusing to pay for the needed frontline staff, getting in the way of the medical staff. They will be paid enormous salaries in return for which they make the frontline staff's lives extremely difficult. Meanwhile the patients suffer, their conditions worsen and the expense grows.
I am in the process of trying to get a resource consent for a small subdivision in the upper North Island. The process has been going on for 2 and a half years and has cost me some $400,000 in reports. The subdivision is allowable under the town's district scheme, the council involved supposedly want it, but it just never happens. My lawyer tells me there's not much I can do. Councils are a law unto themselves and can basically do as they please up until the consent has been granted. The 21 day rule is there but if you say anything about it you just go back to the bottom of the pile. So all I can do is wait and hope.
The contractors that could be getting the job won't get any work until the council moves. The sections that could be created, the houses that could be built in a town where there aren't very many available won't happen until the council moves. I won't be able to make the contribution to struggling businesses in the middle of a coming recession that I could have done until the council moves.
Many, many other individuals and business owners in New Zealand face this sort of frustration in their daily lives. So I am not surprised that many of us will wait and see if this govt can roll back some of the avoidable bureaucracy facing all of us every day.
There was a guy on here who said he had done a small subdivision in Johnsonville three years ago and it had taken 6 weeks to go through. He was doing a similar one after that but it had been 2 years with still no result. The second term of the recent Labour govt has made a very big difference to the workings of local govt and not in a good way. I don't think the general public understands just how much the increased price they are paying for land and houses is due to the extra regulatory requirements and liability responsibilities placed on local councils by the previous Labour govt and the lack of funds given by central govt to finance those indemnity responsibilities.
To stop councils from refusing consents or going slow to cover their butts central govt needs to set up a system that doesn't punish the council and their engineers when something happens that is not their fault, but a fault with the system they are obliged to work within.
So yes there will be a recession if the credit is not eased. Yes the National govt is too dumb to understand the link between govt spending and economic growth. But I will still vote for them again and again and again if it will release some of the pressures in my own life by cutting away some of the red tape.
Labour made the bed and it is the NZ public that must lie in it.
One added issue with these regs, aside from extra cost to be born by the population, is there's an assumption they'll just be accepted, rather than reviewed and weighed by businesses and investors as part of their decision making and actions.
Sometimes if something becomes too hard people just stop doing it. We kinda learnt that with eggs. Pass laws that restrict how chickens are farmed (by National, and I'm not condoning animal cruelty), hey presto, you've just told anyone getting into the egg business (or already in it) to think twice before putting any extra energy into it.
Extrapolate that out to rules and regs that impact every industry, what do you get. And you also drive more people into investing in passive investment classes (and then add cost pressures to that also).
Maybe the aim is to just have one massive ACME corporate make and sell us anything, that we're all working for, who adhere to the governments rules, which it also lobbies for.
Similar story. My retaining wall that had been built and approved by the council 21 years ago, failed - it started to lean against the house so an experienced consultant was employed to specify a replacement 80cm further away (same height and size but thicker longer poles). That took a year to consent! If the flooding a year ago had caused the old wall to push my house off the hill I would not have been happy. Once it was consented it took less than 3 months to find a contractor and have the job completed (despite the heavy rains in 2023). The house insurance didn't cover it since the failure had been too slow; neither would EQC and the council who had consented and approved it in 2002 - of course not.
We need a modern computerised system for consent (why did the council insist on surveyors when you can check the boundary on the council's own mapping sotftware?) and then it needs an insurance company to guarantee the work. If fact almost anyone other than the council to guarantee the work.
It sounds like congratulations are in order for managing to save your house! The El Nino is maybe turning back into a La Nina event so who know when the next Gabrielle will arrive.
A word in support of surveyors. In the late 1990's I needed to buy and subdivide a bush block in front of the bush block that my father had owned for years but have never been able to gain access to. I put together a subdivision plan, took it to a local surveyor and he drew up a proper set of plans for me. He then said do you want to put this through the council for you? I said Yes and he did. Nowadays I understand those powers have been taken away from surveyors and given to council planners. Perhaps the powers should be given back to the surveyors and the process made more simple and achievable.
"(why did the council insist on surveyors when you can check the boundary on the council's own mapping softtware?)"
Too inaccurate. It's not cadastral. I retained a surveyor to map out certain parts of my property. The Council GIS was good enough for the preliminary desktop study that I did but I never hesitated to pay a surveyor to do some survey work. I did not need approved boundary markers so it was not necessary to submit any survey work to Linz. That would have added to the cost, somewhere around $150-250, I think. Fortunately retained a one man surveyor and I acted as his staffman so hourly rate was very good. Made enquiries on a surveying company with a few employees about some other survey work and that would have been about 50% more hourly rate.
One of my intentions was to build close to the neighbour's boundary which in my specific case would require at least 25mm accuracy, about the accuracy a cadastral survey can achieve in this case.
Sorry to hear about your predicament, NL. Your situation sounds awful.
If I may offer some unsolicited advice ...
1. central government and local government are two distinct and very separate entities. to get either to 'pull finger' requires quite different tactics.
2. health services. central government (i assume). make sure you write down the date and name of everyone you talk to. ensure they know you are doing this. ensure every call or meeting has an outcome. note down this outcome. tell the people in the call or meeting that the outcome was agreed. a day before the outcome is due, remind people the outcome is due tomorrow. if anyone refuses to a outcome or date for an outcome immediately demand to speak to their boss. if their boss is unavailable, ask when they are, and this becomes an outcome with a date. keep the summary of these that you append to every email / letter. They'll be shamed into action. It works.
2. council. these are a law unto themselves. all councils are different. I've had a couple of RCs like yours until I did the following. when they ask for reports, ask them to explain in detail and in writing why these are required. if you get a hint they are cookie-cutter, or if the detail is vague, demand clarification and set dates for responses. if their reasons are not sound, tell them you won't be producing them. (engage a RC lawyer. just tell them its a watching brief at this stage. let council know and all cc' correspondence to lawyer. council must NOT start trying to engage with lawyer.) start visiting council's offices. talk to them. get in their face in a nice way. if you can do something in person, do it that way, take notes and follow up with an email record. like 2 above, be disciplined in taking notes and maintaining a log. quote the log often in every f2f and in emails. Also, sometimes your being stalled because can't let you do something even though it should (e.g. sanitation upgrades) and they're reluctant to 'fess up. If you smell it. Ask outright. better to put the project on hold (or cuts your losses before similar projects know of the issues) than to stress about something you have little control over.
Sorry. The above sounds a lot like PM101. But it works. Best of luck. Sounds like you need some.
You're really suggesting ongoing social welfare for well paid jobsworth bureaucrats.
This is the real problem:
Elite overproduction - Wikipedia
Are we overproducing elites and instability? - Niskanen Center
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/elite-revolt/ (paywalled)
No. I'm talking about how to get things done.
I've had to do exactly the same when directing big (and small) projects on behalf of private concerns. If you don't stay in people's faces, your issues slip off their radar, and once small delays start, they tend to mount. People are like computers in that regard - once something has been flushed from RAM into the memory cache it can take much longer to reload it to continue the process.
Thanks for the advice and sympathy. Nothing like being told your predicament is awful to make you think oh god perhaps it is awful.
My brother will fight his own battle on behalf of his soulmate if the GP cannot circumvent the bureaucracy and they won't know what's hit them. I'm talking emails and letters here.
I've already ruffled a few feathers with my own project and there was progress for a while but now that seems to have subsided. I've been told they might actually think they are doing a good job - responding after a week to a prompt from my engineer rather than a month like other even worse councils apparently do.
Grim reading, but sadly familiar to me having had a spectacularly bad experience with the healthcare system a year ago. We do have some really poor quality public organisations that don't provide good support or service (the same being true of many private organisations too!)
I would also tend to agree that we have bloated public service agencies - layer upon layer of pet projects and initiatives left behind by ministers and public servants who are incentivised to continually review and renew - making make sure there are ribbons to cut, shiny new things to announce etc etc. We also have stacks of regulations that are designed to create more and more work over time. I therefore have no problem at all with a good look at regulations and a strategic rebalancing of investment towards frontline public services. However, there are still two big issues to resolve.
Firstly, successive Govts have neglected medium- to long-term planning for hard infrastructure (bridges etc) and soft infrastructure (people, skills etc). We have used immigration as a get out of jail card on health and care staff (for example), but we are easily outcompeted by other countries now. We need to set about making sure that it is easy for people to train to be the workers we know we will need in 5 - 20 years.
Secondly, and on a related point, we won't get quality public services while teachers, nurses etc earn less than accountants and tilers (and care work pays less than shop work). We have to face up to the reality that Govt spending at around 30% of GDP is incompatible with high-quality public services.
Worth repetition: "" we won't get quality public services while teachers, nurses etc earn less than accountants and tilers (and care work pays less than shop work). We have to face up to the reality that Govt spending at around 30% of GDP is incompatible with high-quality public services. ""
Extraordinary bad behaviour from the oncologist. When dealing with someone in desperate situations. (they all are). You don't, just don't hit them up with your personal hassles with the system.
Further, as a health professional myself I would translate the oncologists bleat differently. Our profession(s) - the college(s) - fight to make entrance to their group difficult. Keep numbers low.
And, I can make more money elsewhere
Damien Grant nails the dental profession closed shop:
https://i.stuff.co.nz/opinion/301027907/damien-grant-kaikohe-tooth-fair…
Our profession(s) - the college(s) - fight to make entrance to their group difficult. Keep numbers low.
Great point, I've felt for years that this is an absolute sham. I understand they wish to keep numbers limited to avoid any overall decrease in the average pay for highly qualified individuals in the medical profession, however granted the increase in demand that will last the next 20years (ageing population) and assuming immigration taps don;t continue to flow endlessly as they are now, we need more medical specialists everywhere we can get them.
Oh dear, another self serving idiot who is only interested in their own little universe. It's all about me, me, me, I, I, I. When you start to think about why people act and feel the way they do you may discover some empathy towards their situation - not them specifically. But then of course their situation is of their own making and they only have themselves to blame. They should have all had an extra hour of reading, maths and writing each day. That will make them all just like you - insufferable clones.
Yeah. Not sure what you are saying there. I think you need to lay off the Waikato Draught a bit. Quoting the minster…..the initiative was a “waste of time and money”, like many other Labour initiatives and was cancelled in line with the change people want. Same applies to the pointless reductions in speed limits that no one wanted and police don’t enforce.
Removing disabled access for a cycle way is truly getting the poorest and most vulnerable to sacrifice their lives, removing their ONLY transport access (often to medical centres, places of education and work), for gold plated access for the most able bodied and elitist, (who incidentally were more often than not older rich white men), who already had transport access in multiple forms. The old dinosaurs were more often than not the rich and ablebodied.
Transport access for disabled people, in WK 2022 research, had not improved "in any measurable way since the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry almost two decades ago".
Come back when you are denied access to your work, to study, to most housing and to the doctors and hospital. Let me know how you survived 10 years of that. Because for most the disabled population in NZ protip they are not surviving and dying prematurely at a minimum of 40 years before they should.
That is not a individual that is an entire social group who have been directly harmed and those most vulnerable to loss of transport access have had it permanently removed by cycle ways. But sure your access which you always had and never lost at any time can be easier so you can be more lazy. You are a Bully who only seeks to harm those you see as beneath you because they were born differently, had different genetics or the unfortunate luck to get illnesses. That was not a choice to be disabled, you also cannot magically cure disability and denial of access by reading and a positive attitude. A power chair literally physically cannot be lifted by its occupant over cycle way barriers.
That is not a individual that is an entire social group who have been directly harmed and those most vulnerable to loss of transport access have had it permanently removed by cycle ways. But sure your access which you always had and never lost at any time now costs millions of dollars per km so you can be more lazy. You are a Bully who only seeks to harm those you see as beneath you because they were born differently, had different genetics or the unfortunate luck to get illnesses. That was NOT THEIR CHOICE TO BE DISABLED. YOU CANNOT MAGICALLY CURE PHYSICAL DISABILITY AND DENIAL OF ACCESS BY READING AND A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. As Stella Young put it a smile is not going to make it accessible again. Especially after these cycle way initiatives removed the only form of access.
It is ironic that those who complain of months of lockdowns and not being able to go to luxury events seem intent to force denial of access on the disabled & most vulnerable populations in NZ (especially since they cannot ever put up with even a smidgen of that loss of access themselves). Disabled people in NZ are denied access to equitable participation in most aspects of what is considered "normal life". If you spent once ounce to learn why access is so vital to people you may have empathy.
Even the US is 3 decades ahead of NZ on accessibility. It is embarrassing to see you revel in denying access to people in the community who had no choice in being disabled in fact for many it was a matter at birth. You seem equally intent in removal of disabled people from community through first denial of access and then denial of basic living needs access and the similarities in your arguments tends a lot towards the ableist propaganda of earlier decades (particularly early in the last century). That you can learn to have some humanity and be less ableist by reading and I encourage you to do so.
How is removing transport access not a disability issue? If you had your access to housing, businesses and healthcare stripped and denied would it not affect you? You are getting older it will effect you especially if you are lucky to stay alive (and has done in your life already but you were too underdeveloped in the brain to remember).
Considering the hundreds of clients I have worked with the worst issue for them has been transport because if you cannot travel and interact with your community or receive services, attend to healthcare and get education it is a huge effect on their lives.
But I am sure that little fact surprises you. I suppose you think everyone can teleport with Star Trek deus ex magic, that transport and access to places would not affect anyone's life especially those who have transport and access removed to housing & workplaces. No that certainly would not affect them in NZ (sarc).
It seems you are clueless to basic living needs once again. Do you need the education of a toddler to learn that housing, access to food, family, education, and healthcare is important to live.
Except I replied to the pro cycle lobby movement comments, those whose actions and policies literally removed disabled access to prominent and important streets. Streets that included workplaces and homes, streets that included medical businesses and those of education. After all if they wanted to comment about the changes proposed they should expect the consequences of their policies and actions to be some pretty annoyed people with dead clients now buried and those who are still suffering from the effects of those policies to inform them. You cannot disparage human lives and their only means of transport without those people making some noise. Admittedly most cannot protest without transport access and the means to live past survival mode so they have successfully silenced many. Also many have died and will continue to die really young so the herd is effectively thinned of those who would protest.
However being so sensitive a single pro cycleway lobbyist cannot stand up the the harsh realities of what they are doing to those who are the most vulnerable to loss of transport and access. Do they really need you to defend them too? Because here is a clue defending them is the far right position.
Here is a simple learning guide:
If you remove access for disabled people those disabled people have their access removed.
Do you think that is simple enough for you? Do you think it is clear enough that removing the only access option for disabled people may in turn might affect their lives. Do you need the education of a toddler to learn that access housing, access to food, family, education, and healthcare is important to live. That people need access to work to afford those things.
Perhaps you are living in a clueless fantasy land. After all you have literally never had your access removed and denied because of your birth once. Try it, try never having access to housing for a year and stop going to any work or entering any businesses. Let see where you end up. Then for a bonus round develop sepsis from and internal infection and have no access to a GP or hospital. I promise it would be a learning experience for you for however long you live from it.
Good those initiatives permanently removed access for disabled people, which did measurable physical harm to the population most vulnerable to transport issues. Cyclists and walkers could always cycle and walk. There was nothing stopping a cyclist from using the footpath and their feet but removing disabled access for a cycle way is truly getting the poorest and most vulnerable to sacrifice their lives, removing their ONLY transport access (often to medical centres, places of education and work), for gold plated access for the most able bodied and elitist, (who incidentally were more often than not older rich white men), who already had transport access in multiple forms. The old dinosaurs were more often than not the rich and ablebodied.
Transport access for disabled people, in WK 2022 research, had not improved "in any measurable way since the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry almost two decades ago".
Come back when you are denied access to your work, to study, to most housing and to the doctors and hospital. Let me know how you survived 10 years of that. Because for most the disabled population in NZ protip they are not surviving and dying prematurely at a minimum of 40 years before they should. So much so why bother with investment when your future has denial of essential needs like access to basic medical care.
While I have supported many who have been exceptionally lucky to find medical treatment, study, and work outside of NZ the fact NZ denies access to their local population simply because they are disabled is embarrassing. The fact that those clients represented the top 1%, the luckiest who were able to have access to study, gain experience and employment at all but to do so they had to go outside of NZ and CBDs for it is really shameful. When the bar is that low and most are denied access to even get to the bar at all with it being worse than a coin flip for disabled youth to have access to education and training in NZ at all. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out why so many "jobseekers" with severe disabilities are still not able to gain employment even with the skills behind them. It is hard for most to find jobs when they are denied access to nearly all of them.
Even Te Papa removed most the disabled access to the building and does not even have accessible toilets in most levels.
And you literally are promoting initiatives that strip even more disabled access to the outside world. Way to go with your genocide eugenics movements there (using the UN definitions which I am sure you will be familiar with).
I can see you're pretty passionate about this and am guessing you have some sort of disability. You should try to work more closely with the organisations that work on behalf of disabled people.
They do not have any issues with cycleways in principle. They do not think cycleways restrict access, in fact most organisations think that they improve access. It's actually the needs of disabled people that cycleways are being put in, at the request of disabled people. Blind people, for example, strongly oppose cycling or scooting on the footpath and want people on bikes and scooters separated from people walking.
I am very familiar with the Waka Kotahi report and would suggest you get in touch with the organisations that supported Waka Kotahi put it together to understand their position before you claim to talk on behalf of all disabled people.
Fun fact All leading disability organizations in NZ, (which is clear you have never read any of their submissions and statements because they are clearly and vociferously against the loss of access, you are just lying & ignorant of their clear, easy to read, in multiple format, statements) are also against the removal of disabled mobility access to streets and businesses for a cycle way. Care to guess why, it is really easy when you think about it for 1 sec. When asked about the long term changes and how they affected their communities the replies from disability organizations exactly were:
Transport access for disabled people, in WK 2022 research, had not improved "in any measurable way since the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry almost two decades ago". Protip I was part of all those organisations that participated in the research not just as an advocate, a support worker, someone with first hand experience, but also as a fucking human being with ethics. I vividly remember the researchers telling each disabled person who sacrificed their lives on the many days to shut up and they were allowed to say only 1 thing, 1 small part of their transport journeys. Guess which was my 1 word. Guess how overwhelming the response was with everyone's 1 thing for there to be no measurable improvement from a state of deathly discrimination to be the outcome in that report. We did not coordinate across respective organizations even though we were members and organizers of many. There was no pro forma prepared response for anyone.
If you want some real fun try the responses to the fraudulent accessibility legislation which every disability organization could recognize as making it worse for their respective clients & their families. Which is why there were submissions by all the leading disability orgs Against the legislation as it stood. In fact of all things accessibility when used in councils is a word that has been made to expressly exclude disabled people and remove disability access. Not everyone can walk and cycle. Care to guess why, it is really easy when you think about it for 1 sec.
Here is a simple learning guide:
If you remove access for disabled people those disabled people have their access removed.
Do you think that is simple enough for you? Do you think it is clear enough that removing the only access option for disabled people may in turn make the organizing bodies & charities less favorable to the changes. Even the families and support workers have their access to support disabled people removed which in turn leads to a further denial of medical essential needs. All removal of road access leads to exclusion and premature death.
If you wonder how so called progressive countries in Europe, (often trotted out by the most genocidal cycle lobbyists) handle and traditionally handled disability access then I have a prison institution to sell you. Even the most forward thinking accessible European countries still have difficulty in the "ramp up" for accessibility. They are also 30 years behind America in disability access and if that little fact breaks your utopian bubble that Europeans could be so dehumanizing and genocidal towards disabled people then you are far less educated then I thought.
If you want to know why disabled organizations had little faith in the last government (even though they were often dependent on them for funding and even for basic living needs for their clients so they had to work with them) you do not need to look any further than the track record of the last 2 governments in their push to remove accessibility for disabled people CBDs and the god awful accessibility legislation that was a literal shit sandwich we were all being forced to eat.
If anything dissolving LGWM is actually an improvement as the cycleways & modular bus stations literally did cause harm. Wellington is a shit show of inaccessibility. So much so family have no access there to the CBD, there are no mobility transport services at night and most days, even prominent disabled journalists covering politics were told they had no accessible bathrooms anywhere in any accommodation and they would have to shower at the pool. There is no accessible transport access to Te Papa and the golden mile (kiss most the CBD goodbye actually). The CBD is so inaccessible it is a literal health risk and death trap. With many being left with the unmistakable feeling they do not have the right to live and participate in any employment in the area.
But sure. Go ahead. Life as an ableist must be so tiring for you. You have to take any humanity and empathy then burn it out and really ram home that disabled people have less rights and no right to access the same spaces you do. Less human, of little value, not worth even retaining their access to hospital, businesses or education. How hard that must be for you to do. To openly ignore the human suffering your attitude and policies inflicts on others. Poor you.
I voted for NZ First at the last general election.
I am not especially right wing. In fact I'd call myself a centrist, former Labour voter.
To date I am very happy with what our first Tripartite Coalition Government has done.
I am looking forward to seeing all the woke identity politics nuttery completely undone - including the Maoriology, the gender woo woo, and the climate shrieking.
Get the "principles of the treaty of waitangi" out of legislation too! If you're going to reference the TOW, then reference the actual treaty itself, not some invented undefined nonsense called "the principles".
Get all the wokery gone!
Get inflation back under control. Get our economy back on track. The economy shouldn't be contracting when our population is increasing and when inflation is higher than desired.
"I am looking forward to seeing all the woke identity politics nuttery completely undone"
What the coalition is doing will not undo any of it. They are worsening it by trying to stoke a culture war like in the US so we stop working together and become more tribal.
Do you really think one of the government's first priorities should be to rebrand Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency to New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
Do you know how much this costs and what a distraction it is. Every sign re-skinned, document reformatted, every video voiceover re-recorded, every video edited ... This? The N1 priority?
Go back in time and female voters, gay marriage, and not drowning witches were probably all woke. Woke is just another term for progress, and the anti-woke are the people too dumb to recognise progress.
The National party are just the Labour Party 20 years in arrears. JK got them within 10 years (he even wanted cycle infrastructure), this lot are probably behind 40 years (they may even find some witches). Its a pity as I’d like an economically Conservative Party that weren’t stuck in the past.
Yes it's pretty funny when people slam Labour for things like cycle lanes and Maori representation in policies.
- 2014 $100m on cycle ways -> https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/100-million-urban-cycleways
- 2015 $330m on cycle ways -> https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/69712345/government-to-spend-330m-on-4…
- 2010 National Govt to support UN rights declaration -> https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-govt-support-un-rights-dec…
"Acknowledges that Maori hold a special status as tangata whenua, the indigenous people of New Zealand and have an interest in all policy and legislative matters;"
Everyone has a different view on the term woke. Personally I see the term as describing a cultural shift that discourages rational, logical and intelligent debate and instead panders to those who yell and bleat the loudest and refuse to listen to others points of view. Our species have always valued education and held it at lofty heights as many of the modern wonders we have to make our lives easier come from intelligent people and use scientific knowledge that has taken until the last hundred or so years to be discovered or devised. Being dismissive and trying to get what ones wants by creating the most noise and then insulting and attempting to shame others with opposing views in the name of what they themselves be the one true correct view, is in essence childish behaviour and an exact opposite to the empathy they so strive to portray that they have for the world.
The term is a new one, there were many before. But the inability to work towards a consensus for everyone's basic needs to be met is sadly something that occurs on all sides. Any chosen defined group of woke and unwoke are both unable to cross the lines. In my camps sadly ethics, code of conduct and consensus is almost a lost cause in the business, industries and youth groups. People often only seek a majority voice and will do anything to get it, tying into branding and the current zeitgeists with little ethics and honesty in their words. As a scientist there are never any hard and fast rules but rather degrees of probability, outcomes, risks etc. People cannot handle variability they need black/white, yes/no, really simple concepts to grasp. Shades of grey needs way too much grey matter understanding. Even in terms of gravity we know the force of an apple falling towards a greater mass of the earth but it does not mean there is a equal constant force of the earth on objects and it does not rule out that in future the pull of the earths gravity may be overridden by other forces. We cannot define or predict anything exactly and the more defined you want something the less accurate predictions will be. (E.g try to predict down to the exact nanosecond the apple reaches the ground accounting for the position in the earth exactly and the mass distributions, the wind, surface level changes, the movements and nerve reactions of the person holding the apple, the species of apple etc).
Take a easy or so called easy argument to win lets set up the groups: policy & health planners who say the earth is over 6500 years old and creationists who believe the earth is younger. Now you need to set up social services in a district heavy with creationists and faith healers. The problem becomes not one of science but an issue of finding consensus in planning and task setting to meet objectives which must be defined and shared between both groups. Sadly humans still are tribal and the us vs them pull overrides any discussion and the objectives are suddenly not ones shared and no consensus can be reached further dividing the community. Even though there is a clear division & that one side can be perceived as wrong in their belief it does not change the over arching objectives project was trying to meet and the fact of trying to fight the point will only make the project fail even more without buy in.
This is also why in NZ many health initiatives fail in Maori communities (just making very clear not related to example above but more why consultation with iwi and delivery through certain orgs is better than trying to go without) with worse outcomes; because there is little buy in and it does not aim for consensus between groups. To achieve a goal of objectives both consensus and buy in are needed regardless of the science or which side or camp you are on. It is what us scientists often hate lots of politics and glad handing that ignores the science parts and often may be inefficient in delivery, but when considering the wider success of the project as a whole for stated social aims it is the better strategy. It is better to have consensus for the whole of humanity rather than using terms like woke, and oversimplification bias. Also sometimes you actually do have to work with people you disagree with on many levels. So instead of a defined delivery distribution network we need lots of marketing and consultation on marketing and a committee to review the marketing outcomes, then after a while we will set up some distribution points that need more marketing. Take the vaccination delivery as an example. One DHB thought they could skip consultation by using a Maori design company and a Maori artist and we got depictions of viruses as Maori being kicked by a guy in gumboots. Which had the exact opposite effect and actually kind of metaphorically suggested the vaccination would harm Maori and the perception of treatment of the culture. Consultation with iwi and with all iwi is still required regardless of who is doing the design rollout. However not all iwi agree on the same things and not all hapu within an iwi which is where the nitty gritty of issues can arise. Whose side is seen as the one for final rollout when it comes to things like language for instance, or stories of events. Are those things where consensus is needed for basic needs to be met or do we just pick one side, like one iwi over another, one hapu over another?
You cannot take an us versus them point of view. Many are threaded with biases that can be racist, ageist, homophobic & transphobic, sexist, ableist, etc. Which in turn we know are destined to only drive further division amongst everyone and force even more project failures and worsening conditions for divided groups. Hence the known medical bias against women is something still unresolved and present with the effects being serious and spreading to affect more than just women but also their families in turn (I have seen it first hand as an advocate for a disabled person in their medical appointments). But to achieve consensus we still have to live within each others space and share the same resources for desired outcomes regardless of tribal groups. It is painful for many but we need everyone's essential needs to be met to achieve objectives for ourselves as much as them. Otherwise it does tend to fighting and wars, deaths that were unnecessary and somewhat genocidal. We cannot just serve one tribe but need that so called great provision of everyone's needs "equity" which is far from equality Equality in many cases would have us inadvertently kill all old people, the Logans Run scenario, by denying them essential medical care and removing the pension benefits and other supporting benefits for them immediately.
Agree. Woke in itself is a rational shift in society/culture. For example, being woke in the past would have been calling out blatant discrimination based on gender or race.
The problem with Woke today is people are now "chasing ghosts" on these issues and drawing incorrect correlations between unfortunate outcomes as being due to discrimination. "I didn't get the job, it must be because I am Muslim". "I'm a teacher, my Engineer husband earns more than I do, therefore gender pay gap".
I'd have to say it is more so a shift towards the irrational. A person with blind rage will lash out without thought of the consequences, and a highly woke individual has such a sense of right for their perceived cause that they will be blind to others and go the next step to trying to destroy, shame or cancel the others in the name of what they see as right and rational. The broad ability for critical thought, and to keep fact and feelings distinctly separate, is on the decline as time marches on.
i thought ACT have done well in the first week, they got rid of FPA's , they supported getting rid of the clean car rules, there next bill up is the 90 day trial.
so far NZ first has not got any runs on the board, apart from supporting NACT, i will be interested to see how the kiwi rail ferries saga plays out as i suspect we could see a PPP used to either build and own the ports and terminals, even the ships and would not be surprised to see the interislander split away from kiwirail to become a PPP company which will hurt kiwirail greatly as its one of the most profitable parts of the company.
using bluebridge as a template is not comparing apples with apples, bluebridge main source of income is freight and that is what they concentrate on, passengers and cars are treated as top up for extra profit
interislander is the main source for moving locals and tourists across the cook strait mostly with vehicles, so i will be watching with interest to see how NZ first reacts when NACT comes out with its plan
Apart from a short term capital saving , nationals main aim is to remove the rail capability of the Ferries , to please their road transport donor mates.
This has way wider implications , it doesn't just affect the Strait, but the Main North Line from Picton to Chch, and the NIMT. Anymore damage to the MNL would probably see it closed.
In the same thread of logic you have used: hospitals, house builders, house residents, universities, businesses, schools and councils also favour roads. Something to do with logistics being essential for all walks of life in NZ, even in support of conservation efforts but it is essential for all human living needs.
Hospitals, house builders, house residents, universities, schools and councils are not moving large volumes of freight from one end of NZ to the other. Why we don't finish electrifying the main trunk lines and take the fossil fueled trucks of our main roads I don't understand.
Er the construction of houses, supply and operation of hospitals, universities schools and councils all depend on FF logistics. So however much you want to live in fantasy land a single shipment of medication, computer gear, education resources, food, trade supplies (e.g. for plumbing, electricity, heating & ventilation) and the maintenance of council assets and services would vitally depend on road logistics. But sure you think we can go without things like houses, medical equipment and medication, computers, education, food, heating, sewage systems.
You think everyone can live without FF logistics which equates to living in caves, eat moss and have their shit drain into the creek. What a dream you have but leave most the population out of it because the sad fact is most of the human population (as over populated in concentrated centers as we are now) would not survive it. To be fair I am ok with you deciding to live that lifestyle because it would give me pleasure to see you relearn why humans needed water treatment and sewer systems to live a healthier, longer lives, and in greater population density. I do love seeing people learn basic facts about civil engineering, including the development of roads and the massive improvements in living standards, lifespan and rising population numbers they led to.
It all must seem so easy to you when things magically appear like houses made from wishes, and food stocked on shelves brought about with appeals to the lord, education resources (including equipment & materials) and internet services made with appeals to the dark ones, and fairies magically taking the shit in the water and turning it into clean water you can drink.
Good luck drinking your shit water. I can see not even Wellington can maintain their pipes without equipment and materials brought by roads and they are very bad with deferred maintenance to begin with. I guess you have not heard of basic physics and why you cannot build and maintain sewage lines without the equipment and materials brought by roads. This is probably why these people never think of funding repairs, replacement, the project costs balloon, and they want to skip the logistics planning. They must, like you, think this stuff magically appears and fixes itself.
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