By Richard Shaw*
Nearly a year on from its formation, it’s clear a three-party coalition is not quite the same as the two-party versions New Zealand is accustomed to.
Normally, the primary dynamic has been clear: the major party sets the pace while the smaller governing partner receives a bauble or two for supporting the lead act. There may be occasional concerns about tails wagging dogs, but the dog is clearly in charge.
With the present National-ACT-NZ First coalition, however, things are more complex and less predictable. The dog has two tails, both of which are more than capable of vigorous wagging.
On the anniversary of the 2023 election, which produced the first three-party coalition government since the MMP system was adopted in 1996, we are perhaps beginning to get a picture of where dog ends and tails begin.
Speed wobbles
If that picture has been a little blurry until now it’s partly because of the speed with which the government has moved – not always to its own advantage.
In the process of ticking off the 49 items on its plan for the first 100 days, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s administration has kept some election promises but broken or fudged others, having to backtrack as a result.
It has delivered tax cuts, but been forced to trim and cap spending in areas (like health and infrastructure) crying out for extra investment.
It has given the impression of urgency and action with its Fast-track Approvals Bill. But it had to scrap the policy’s core element of granting three ministers unprecedented constitutional authority over which projects to fast-track.
Concerns about executive overreach and potential conflicts of interest have dogged other policy areas, too. These range from the repeal of ground-breaking smoke-free legislation to firearms control – both the responsibility of junior coalition party ministers.
This sense of a government somewhat at odds with itself extends to the swingeing cuts made to the public service workforce. Marketed as freeing up resources for front-line staff, the cuts are increasingly likely to be affecting actual service delivery in health, police, defence and elsewhere.
An ‘executive paradise’
Some of this can be put down to a new government’s distrust of a public service inherited from its predecessor, and a desire to make the most of its first year before the shadow election campaign kicks off mid-term.
But the coalition’s vigorous embrace of the executive authority baked into New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements has still been something to behold. As constitutional lawyer and former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer put it, the fast-track legislation risked turning New Zealand into “an executive paradise, not a democratic paradise”.
The government has used parliamentary urgency more frequently than any other contemporary administration. It has been rattling legislation through the House faster than the wheels of parliamentary democracy are meant to turn.
Submitters on the Māori wards legislation, for example, were given just three working days to prepare their arguments. Those wanting to comment on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill had four days.
And the government has been making less use of parliament’s expert select committees than is standard practice. This has limited public participation and constrained scrutiny of proposed legislation.
Ministers have also been prepared to ignore public service advice while paying plenty of attention to operational matters in the departments that furnish that advice.
New Zealand’s system of public management distinguishes between ministers’ responsibility for policy outcomes and senior officials’ responsibility for the operational decisions required to deliver those outcomes.
Nonetheless, Cabinet has commandeered oversight of operational matters in Whaikaha/Ministry of Disabled People, following botched communications over changes in disability funding. And civil servants have recently been told to stop working from home and return to the office.
The government will be betting this tactical disposition bolsters its “getting stuff done” narrative. But no one wants a concern with short-term operational details to come at the expense of long-term policy thinking.
The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended that the government's proposed Treaty Principles Bill be abandoned.https://t.co/oKfQV3d89C
— RNZ Te Ao Māori (@RNZTeAoMaori) August 16, 2024
Treaty principles pantomime
Nowhere is the coalition’s internal tension more evident, however, than in its confrontational approach to Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi issues.
Having courted voters already sceptical or disgruntled about Māori cultural assertiveness, the coalition moved fast to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora/Māori Health Authority, repeal legislation supporting Māori wards in local government, row back on official use of te reo Māori, and cut funding for Māori language revitalisation.
But its proposed Treaty Principles Bill – an ACT Party initiative – looks set to be especially constitutionally fraught and politically divisive.
National and NZ First have indicated they will not support the bill beyond its first reading, but have agreed it will receive a full six months in front of a select committee.
This only raises the question of why any parliamentary time and money should be spent on the proposal at all – especially given the government’s supposed “laser focus” on cost and efficiency elsewhere.
Can the centre hold?
The politics around the Treaty Principles Bill also reveal just how much the prime minister has had to cede to ACT, for whom the proposed legislation was a bottom line during the government formation process.
And it inevitably casts doubt on the extent and exercise of prime ministerial authority under three-way governing arrangements. ACT leader and soon-to-be deputy prime minister David Seymour has questioned Christopher Luxon’s authority more than once.
And Luxon’s apparent unwillingness to at least censure an under-performing minister from another party (NZ First’s Casey Costello, for example) contrasts starkly with his firmer treatment of those in his own National Party (Melissa Lee and Penny Simmons, both demoted).
One year into a three-year term, these issues can perhaps be dismissed as part of the process of bedding down a new government. But politics never rests. Winston Peters hands the deputy prime minister role to David Seymour at the end of next May. Both NZ First and ACT will want to distinguish themselves from National.
As the next election nears and the jockeying for attention begins, the prime minister’s authority over his administration, and the coalition’s coherence, will be tested further.
*Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
120 Comments
So far, all the doubters who thought the coalition wouldn't hold have been proven wrong. Its been pretty smooth sailling, and there are still no clouds on the horizon.
The coalition feel a bit like a couple in a 3 legged race who want to run faster, are capable of running faster, but the spectators keep getting in the way and the ground underneath is boggy. Hopefully they will hit their stride in Year 3, when it really matters.
As for the Treaty Bill, I presume Seymour has a plan similar to the Euthanasia Bill. Keep pushing it, and eventually it will happen. Just need to move the Overton Window a bit. NZ First and National say they won't support it - this time. But come the next election that may be different. They will want to see what reception it gets.
NZ voted in MMP from a negative viewpoint from how FPP was behaving and understandably so. However the electorate was too small and by international comparison too immature to embrace it entirely correctly. Instead it produced quasi FPP outcomes with the two major parties continuing to lead and dominate. That was well demonstrated in 2020 when the electorate used the mechanics of MMP to defeat the principles of MMP to sideline the Greens and return Labour as what may as well have been a FPP government. The electorate now finally has a true MMP government format and regardless of the ever present partisanship, should be committed to see that continue.
Not sure about that, people's perspective would be based on political leanings and how they have fared the economic downturn. Unless the economy picks up soon, I expect they'll loose support, cleading to ructions between the parties. There is only so long they can continue blaming the last lot for the state of the economy.
@ Eschaton - Labour were allowed to get away with blaming every other entity for their constant failures for the last 6 years.
Labour blamed John Key, who hasn't been governing for well over a decade now, they blamed landlords for reacting to their ill thought out witch hunt policies, they blamed speculators, they blamed developers for not going along with their low incentive over promised and under delivered kiwibuild fantasy, they blamed activists for standing up for individuals freedoms and saying enough is enough, they blamed Winston Peter's for being a handbrake on their first term, they blamed free speech as being an act of terrorism, they blamed anyone with a difference in opinion as a person filled with hate, they blamed white people for black peoples crimes, they blamed.cops for criminals behavior, they blamed common sense on right wing extreme disinformation, they blamed any ideology other than their own as misinformation, they blamed every other non government websites information as false and not credible, they blamed farmers for pollution, they blamed cows for farting, they blamed the weather as an excuse to implement more taxes, they blamed teachers for dearing to go against the propoganda & teach basic.common sense instead, they blamed Healthcare workers for choosing to invoke their born right to refuse medical treatment, and they silenced anyone who dared to go against the pushed propoganda.
There's probably many more we could add to this list, but I think you get the idea. If we allowed this for 6 years, then I think that considering weve had just 11 months of this lot, that you can have a little more patience, and give them a little more credit, or at very least time to tell. We don't want more of this same. We voted that out and said no to that last election.
If you want action, then current governments must hold themselves to account, including their voterbase. If they fail to do so, we unelect them, and we don't offer another chance in 3 years. If we are to get the ball rolling on this, all Labours decieved voterbase can get to work admiting their party failed to deliver anything but carnage and devide, can apologize for poor voting actions & voting them in a 2nd time despite constant failures the first time, and can lead by example. Since that will never happen, as voter pride is far too precious, scapegoating current failures to previous governments is about is good as we will ever get. So get used to it.
Beautifully put ! .... they had 9 years in opposition , and utterly wasted that time with infighting ...
... when Winston surprised everyone by supporting them into government , they were completely caught out , with no credible ideas ... just a billion unachievable pie in the sky promises ...
The interesting bit for me is the NZF question. Winston's 79 (despite campaigning hard to keep retirement at 65...). If this is to be a three term coalition, he'll be 86 at the end of it. National's polling shows no sign of allowing them to govern without NZF, and presumably NZF without Winston will not make the 5% threshold. So what will happen to those NZF votes if he folds? Act? Nats? Labour? They've sloshed to Labour before in 2020, so that's a danger to the coalition in its current format that it can't make a traditional triple term.
Yeah I can see Winston dying in office, as was standard policy in his day. I really don't think Shane has the Winston factor though, and he leans further left than Winston in his economic nationalism approach. It sounds like Winston is having to coach him to stay on brand sometimes. Winston has this broad appeal to the older folk who remember him for their gold cards and being in their corner. Shane doesn't really strike me as someone who really cares about that traditional base - he just wants to get stuff done and spray money around industries in the regions. Sure there's voter factions there, but they're often either corporate or traditionally Labour ones (eg. miners). I don't see 5% in it.
@ nnz - voting every three years for the lesser of two perceived evils red of blue, blue or red, has proven to be rather counterproductive and uneffective. The solution if National prove to be a failure is not to run back to Labour, tail between our legs. That's Stockholm syndrome. We need to take off the rose colored glasses and consider something different. Why do we only keep voting these two parties in, knowing both won't achieve what the people want them to. Even the diehard fans know deep down their parties haven't got a clue what they're doing or how to make it happen.
What makes you think everyone wants the same thing? Its highly unlikely you will ever get a government that will do everything you want, so you need to vote for a party that aligns with your views as close as possible. For most people that will be one of the centre parties, as they deliberately try to be as average as possible.
We've been radical before, in being offered and taking MMP. If we get another generational change like that to upset the majors, anything's possible.
It's entirely possible in a government of the future to have more effective participation. Technology has enabled the government to almost mind-read the populace, at least those young enough to be connected all day.
We could well descend towards something like to AI-guided direct participation a decade from now, where a borg takes everyone's opinion into account, mixes it in a way that reflects actual national interest and filters out short term peeves, then applies policy to reflect it. Who knows whether it'd be good or not, but it'll be devoid of personal bias of a leader, which is something government hasn't really ever had before. A truly altruistic government that is tasked with the long-term best interest of the country, which I imagine would lead to some vastly different decisions being made than humans who never really have to consider themselves responsible for what happens after they're dead.
This, surely, is an inevitability at this stage. It won't take long for a party that's "powered by AI" to start having better and more articulate ideas than the stale human-powered ones, especially if it takes suggestions from the public and assures them they're represented. Just have to somehow guarantee its incorruptiblity...
Luxon is giving both support parties rope to differentiate themselves, within a broad centre right consensus, which gives a better chance of maintaining a 5% threshold.
You'll get socially conservative National voters going to them next election to avoid a return to Labour Green TPM identity politics and dysfunction.
Luxon is smarter than his predecessors in understanding a broad church political movement needs to be multi-party, and giving space for that.
I think you're missing xingmowang's point.
It is undeniable that average living standards in some countries, e.g. China, have been lifted dramatically over the last 30 years whereas ours has just plodded along. I'd equally make the point that some, e.g. Russia's, have gone backwards in the last 10 years, and some, e.g. North Korea, have gone nowhere.
A lot of minority groups in the West joke about the bad state of our political affairs, which I agree we need to get back in order.
Ironically however, you are legally treated as a second-class citizen at best and a piece of furniture (or piece of sh*t) at worse for being born in an ethnic and/or religious minority in their home countries (China, Middle East, etc.).
Indeed the way China has progressed despite the corruption and authoritarianism is incredible. Most countries with that level of grift and insider fighting in the government end up as war-torn vassal states.
I first visited China in 2007, then about every 2-3 years since. Each time I visited there'd be a new bullet train track as long as all of Japan's network. There'd be another 1000 apartment buildings in each city. In all likelihood, there'd be a new city with the population of NZ at each visit.
It takes immense overdelivery to achieve those things against the odds of China's system. Or you can believe that China's model actually works. I think the reality lives somewhere in between.
Either way, we can't poke holes in China's model when we certainly aren't going anywhere good ourselves. We're not achieving even 1% of what China is.
Other places like Russia obviously haven't got the model right and see the need to get into wars to distract from the failure, but China is an exception in the authoritarian stakes.
Growth "stopped" 10 years ago too. What that really meant is it went from 14% to 7%. Even if they undershoot that 5% target now, it's still likely to beat 3%. That can't be considered stopping really, especially in the current global climate. Their population has hit apex, so in theory China doesn't need to grow strongly anymore. As the number of people decline, so long as productivity keeps up, the GDP per capita will continue growing, perhaps strongly.
China has had a great run via mercantilism and using low wages together with lax environmental standards to gain advantage.
The trouble for them now is that model is beginning to fail.
I'm not sure Xingo has any point except that China is good and the west is bad.
They haven't used any advantage that the west didn't use 100 years prior. America was largely built on slave labour and a bait and switch on the British overlords. China is doing something similar with cheap labour and IP transfer as part of FDI deals.
The things China has been doing are only unpalatable because they're doing them in the post-colonial age. A lot of their modernisation has been driven off what might be considered IP theft, which can't be overlooked. China has been master planned to overtake their competitors by hook or by crook, so it's easy to have a bit of a bad taste about their rise. But I wouldn't say they're failing at it.
As my Chinese girlfriend says, Chinese vote with their feet. That's why she's here and not there.
There are not hordes of westerners trying to get into China though is there? So who's doing things best?
Emperor Xi is widely despised by many Chinese and their state propaganda derided. Many see what's happened to HK as tragic and passionately defend the right of Taiwan to remain independent.
That seems like failure to me.
... true dat ! ... recall the dark days of Covid19 , with Jacinda Ardern preaching and waffling daily from her podium of truth ... laying down the lockdowns , the odious rules , the Q codes ... exhorting us to dob in miscreants who dared to defy her police state ... imagine that , and think wow , jeepers creepers , it's kind of like that in China ... every single day of your life , being bullied by control freaks ... like something out of a Franz Kafka novel ...
@ Timmyboy - They were there to advocate for your individual right of freedom. And it worked too, as Ardern finally backed down from tyrannical mandates that caused ultimate devision, separation and segregation throughout the country. It's was like going back in time to the 1940s "can we see your papers". Speaking of which, all those allies of iurs that fought in the war for your freedoms- they mustve been a pack of nut jobs too right?
So people who advocate for freedom of rights are nut jobs, but men who dress up in woman's clothes and parade themselves around in front of children dry humping objects and sexualising womanhood for trans rights is somehow sane?
How far the apple has fallen from the tree, and still rolling a great deal. Crazy to think that we once labelled men who fought for their country and prepared to give their lives for the countries freedom as brave, and now, all it takes is a man to roll out on the red carpet in a pink tutu & say he thinks he's a woman, and we now label this as brave instead.
But please go on, all those crazy nut jobs who wanted to advocate to keep your rights in tack. How dare they. Even at concerts there's always a few that spoil it, and the protests were no differdnt. But to taint the entire concert because of a few who got out of control, is nothing short of nieve.
I know 2 cases of teenagers with severe Heart issues after vax. One whose parents unwillingly let her have it to continue playing high level rep sport, now reduced to low heart rate level activity permanently.
Maybe ask the veterans if their health was worth this outcome.
@ Tommyboy - They certainly did have the right to be protected. That's why the Vax came about. The experts all told us you can't get the virus if you get your 2 shots for summer.
Like a life jacket. It protects the wearer, it's not designed to protect the other people in the water. Thats not how life jackets work. If your worried of drowning, you wear your life jacket, and then those who do not wear theirs are not of concern.
The Vax protects the user. If everyone is required to have one for yours to be effective, then it's not a Vax. A Vax doesn't work like that. Totally respect someone's choice to protect themselves. But again, apply a bit of basic common sense, if you have the Vax, and it's as "Safe & effective" as they pitch, then the unvaxxed are not a concern. If the invaxxed are a concern, the Vax is not effective.
You don't have to be a Dr or virologist to understand that & you dont have to be a kuku crazy conspiracy theorist in order to disagree with government propoganda. Use some common sense instead of letting the government think for you. Nazis let the government think for them & look what they accomplished in the name of their government. I was just doing what I was told is not an excuse.
The vulnerable old veterans fought for your freedoms, not so you could push forced policy on your peers. They fought against forced tyanny with nazis that required to see your papers before you could enter certain areas. Sounds very familiar to the last few years.
Poor ol Timmy boy. This so called vaccine that doesn’t protect you from getting covid? The weak and frail die off. It will happen to us all. Lockdowns and vaccine mandates + covid injuries and deaths far outweighed any benefits this “vaccine” provided. You’ve got your eyes shut and ears covered though so there’s no getting through to you huh
@ Macawsley - When Drs tell you the vaccine is "Safe and Effective" but can't even tell you what's in the vaccine that makes.it so, and in the same breath they also tell you that men can now get pregnant, have periods & breast feed, you know that Wokism Quakery has now infiltrated the medical industry. Again, you don't need to be a Dr, scientist or even a virologist in order to apply some basic logic and common sense. If your Dr thinks mem can get pregnant, then I would find another Dr. I certainly wouldn't be taking any medical advice from vaccine advice from such a Dr.
When you don't many here will listen to basic common sense, you assume that many have instead traded basic common sense for government propoganda. "I just do what the government tells me to do", isn't thinking for ones self. Perhaps you are right though- maybe common sense and sound logic isn't as common.
I was there after work hours, and there were mostly nice people there, some lost their homes, jobs or had fam9ily or friends with permanent injuries due to government choices and disagreed with he level of overreach of their power. For 95% of the time it was peaceful, there was music, people were happy to meet others and socialise, help out how they could and stand up for tat they believed in. Yes there were some unscrupulous characters about town but there always was, and the media falsely reported on attendance by taking photos of the parliament grounds at dawn before people filled it out. Were you there? Do you know? Or have you swallowed what the media showed you? No judgement if you have, just the request to understand differing points of view :-)
No, but I don't think it's the election system that's to blame, it's that Western countries decided to give up producing things and instead become "knowledge economies" and do "higher value" stuff while outsourcing production to other places. Which then allows other places to use their newfound position to puppet us by threatening to cut off our supply of disposable teaspoons, or oil, or cars.
NZ used to proudly make stuff, build stuff, and export our expertise at doing so. Now all we talk about is our trade deficit and how much of our remaining means of production we can sell to foreign investors to pay down debt.
The electorate was coached to want the new way, then we put up options at elections that behave the new way. Even if we had an authoritarian government they wouldn't return us to the 70s by preference I suspect.
Xi knows that if he doesn't feed 1.4 billion people then the Communist party dies faster than my stand up routine . So I suppose that electoral system has an inbuilt requirement to ensure growth. Only problem is that carrying out a hyper stimulus program every 5 years does not seem to be working.
With respect, every time we've called the demise or unsustainability of China's approach, they've lumbered on. Just about every year since 1990 China's growth has been on its last legs and they were about to descend into Japan's trap.
I would be shocked if people calling this the end for China were right this time. Sure growth may continue its downward trend towards developed-nation levels, but at their current size even 2% annual growth is adding three New Zealand economies every year. That's enough to keep a static population fed.
@ xingmowang - Such a great question we should all be prompted to ask ourselves. Of neither blue nor red has produced the country the results we've asked for, and instead put us backwards as a country, then why do we keep voting either one in.
We wouldnt apply the same logic to a business, with an employee who lies, costs the company, puts the company backwards and then gets fired after 3 years. A business wouldn't even provide a reference for such employee, let alone even consider re hiring them back again in another few years time. Why do we accept this from our political system? Surely just saying no thanks is a viable option.
We have been decieved as a country into believing that there is only two options every three years.
It better do a bloody lot better than just holding. We don't want a government for the sake of a government, and this coalition is basically doing that, with every failure to act justified by the compromises of coalition required for itself to exist.
People wanted this government because the Key years were more or less unoffensive and delivered reasonable results. Sure, Key was out of steam by the time the priority became changing the flag. But people remember those years reasonably fondly. Luxon was meant to be Key's apprentice.
This government so far looks nothing like the Key one, in terms of general electorate friendliness and delivery. Despite both Key and Luxon landing election wins in trying times, Luxon so far has kicked off far less and delivered far less than Key and Joyce had done in their first year. Luxon seems content to come up with action plans of bullet points that require nothing more than a pen to achieve, but there's no shovels in the ground, no ribbon cutting, not even the prospect of ribbon cutting this term. By the end of Key's first term we had fibre in our major cities. The Wellington Hospital rebuild was finished. Several RONs at least kicked off. This government is chalking up bugger all.
Nah at least in my neck of the woods I drive roads that Key built and ride trains that Key co-funded on a daily basis. He also kicked off a massive network of cycle trails ostensibly for tourism purposes that are great to take the kids on. Imagine Simeon ordering up a cycle network!
If you live in Chch I'm sure you're more jaded. My relis down there were not at all impressed with the incomplete rebuild.
But I'd love a government that delivers stuff at the rate that Key's government did. Ardern talked about doing something like that, but for whatever reason the bureaucracy couldn't get out of the way of itself except in the case of housing/KO.
The thing really pissing me off the most about the current government is incessant talking about red and green tape holding things back, but their solution is to wave a few of their mates through the tape as a priority, removing any and all focus on fixing the problem. As someone who has been tied up in resource consenting for years I resonate with their message but am offended by their lack of focus on the fixing it for the masses.
Yeah if I were to do this I'd take those nationally significant projects and use them to brainstorm what's wrong with the regulations, then pilot alternate schemes that maybe include a handful of those projects in some region. But I'd keep the consenting authorities in place, just running under the new pilot system. If environmental or other issues come out, reconsider things and try again. Not sexy, but methodical and scientific.
What I think has happened is Bishop still has rage from what the environment court did to his Basin Reserve flyover in 2015 and sought to put in place a system where the government can't be denied its pet projects ever again. It's possibly fair that the government doesn't tie itself up in red tape, but any exemption needs to take into account that the RMA was born from a public rage around the governments of the 70s and 80s self-certifying fairly destructive hydro schemes. Having served the purpose of stopping the government attempting bold infrastructure, it's now time for a rethink, but maybe not the bin.
@ Grattaway - By monopoly players you mean all those that own a home. Why should tenants get a free ride or heavily discounted ride to home ownership? The entire world is not one giant charity and neither does it owe tenants anything. If one fails to do what is required to achieve home ownership, one can blame everyone else, but the reality is that one will end up helping to pay for someone else's. Do what's required, or pay a high price to allow someone to do that for you. It's that simple.
@ nnz - "The thing really pissing me off the most about the current government is incessant talking about red and green tape holding things back, but their solution is to wave a few of their mates through the tape as a priority, removing any and all focus on fixing the problem".
All governments enjoy helping their mates out, its not just a National thing. Labour let into the country 316 foreign entertainers, including 64 DJs, & fast-tracked them through MIQ in 2021 during our lockdowns. Taxpayers have spent $1.2 billion on MIQ. Thats $660 for every household in the country.
@ nnz - You miss the Key difference between the two times nnz.
People don't vote based on effectiveness to govern, but they should. If they did, at the ballot boxes we would have a list of all the parties policies and what they stand for and what they intend on accomplishing. We don't. We just have names and faces, that's it. Tainted by association. Why? Because the electoral system recognizes that the majority of people vote on popularity alone, not effectiveness to govern.
So the difference being that in the Key era, he was incredibly popular, and Labour had no one of real significance. They went through at least 5 different leaders, Cunliff was a Muppet. Key was basically guaranteed the election win based on two things- his popularity and the fact that the opposing party had no one popular to rival.
Compare that to today, or the last election - Luxon didn't win the election, he was practically guaranteed the win based on the unpopularness of Ardern and Hipkins. Remember, people very rarely get voted in, almost always get voted out. It wasn't a win for popular Luxon, it was a landslide defeat for Ardern and Hipkins. Problem is this time neither party had someone to offer that was particularly carasmatic and popular like Key.
So now we have an election result in which the leader only stands not on his own merit, but simply by the fact that a majority of the country had simply had enough of the tyrannical dictatorship style governing of the previous leaders.
The lesson here to learn - popularity alone is no sure bet of effectiveness to govern.
You'll not have to wait much longer. Once he's no longer the deputy-PM the shackles will be off. I doubt he'll bring the government down, but NZ First and ACT are unlikely to be good bedfellows. And let's face it, ACT provides so much ammunition for Winston's acerbic guns.
Sounds like a cap to me. Has NZ ever not been open to foreign investment at unlimited amounts, if it adds value? Having a wishlist of things you want FDI to fund does not make us any more open or closed to taking the money if it's offered. Ardern had that Blackrock $2b fund to get us 100% renewable remember? Where's that money?
The biases in the article by a professor from some place called Te Kunhenga ki Purehuroa appear entrenched and do reinforce why the civli service is not being consulted in the way it thinks it should.
and swingeing cuts to the civil service are impacting services etc etc. LOL
The good prof could try to base an article on facts not emotion - probably to much to ask for from the tertiary sector currently
In what format? Everyone I've talked to of this mind is "this coalition can rule as long as it wants" which to me implies the current triplet. Nobody has said to me it'll be 3 terms National led, or 3 terms NACT. It's always the triple implied. And I find that incredibly unlikely, if only because I think NZF can't outlive Winston, and Winston can't survive 3 terms without the Biden effect kicking in. The next election is going to require the Nats to attempt to slay the other two in what is likely to be a pretty bloody battle. Whichever minor is destroyed in the process will become the whipping boy for the Nats, who will burn that bridge at the earliest opportunity, much like how Labour ruled out the "handbrake" NZF after the happy marriage.
We don't have precedent for minors surviving the first term except as an optional extra, but the Nats aren't polling like they can chuck either coalition partner overboard. So the implication is that the second term requires the coalition to remain intact at this point. I wouldn't put money on that.
They're arguably faced with a new crisis every week. Stuff like the existential crisis looming for South Island if the ferries fail before 2029 hasn't prompted any urgency from them. If they wait for the crises to turn into catastrophes before acting I don't think that'll serve them well at the polls, nor fiscally.
If anything this government is like some kind of wind-up toy robot that's hell bent on delivering what they wrote down last year, and anything that pops up in their way is simply trampled as they continue on that path. In some ways that determinism to just keep calm and carry on is refreshing, but at a certain point their willing blindness to things that really should see them reconsidering their approach is disconcerting.
There is no choice. Cant raise taxes, people are already broke. Cant borrow money, the previous govt tapped that out. If only Labour hadnt borrowed $100B and spent it on nothing, there might have been money in the kitty for the Govt to spend its way out of recession. But alas, that option is now off table, and as the interest cost on all that debt eats up billions of dollars that otherwise would be going into heathcare or education or law & order, we just have to suck it up.
TINA TINA Where for art though TINA - we all know what happened on the streets of London under Thatcher. It's all about choices and this govt. is making all the wrong ones. NZ is a sovereign nation with a sovereign currency. No need to pay interest to anyone. A bit more currency debasement will make no difference
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-debt-to-gdp
I think it's working as MMP intended, and I like it. No more three year dictatorships. (well we did have PM Ardern, just to prove how nasty that dictatorship could be)
National has to respect the votes ACT and NZF got. And those two have to respect National got four times more. There are differences of opinion. What a good thing.
As for the referendum: Many many NZers are not adverse to this. They are unhappy that they are shouted down if they express a view. ACT has given them a voice which until now has been supressed.
I think National know this. It suits them for this to be raised, but for ACT to wear the nasty stuff. MMP working.
We know what a referendum will say. And Politicians are aware at all times of that vote.
No party needs to respect the voters of any other party unless they want to court that party. The Greens almost got as much vote as NZF and Act combined, but the Nats don't need to respect the choice of those voters unless they want to. One of the sour parts of democracies is ignoring very close to half the electorate's wishes at any given time.
I don't know what you mean about the referendum. There's no way to correctly run that referendum in a way that respects the proportionality of the document it intends to override - you'd need to give iwi chiefs half the vote in it for it to be "fair". In the same way we can't (or shouldn't?) have a referendum banning men, or immigrants, or taxes, or deregistering and banning the Act party. All these things could realistically achieve 50% and pass, but are not a good use of a referendum. National understands this, along with their desire to exist as a party that gets along with Maori for more than the next election cycle. Act doesn't really have a 100 year plan to worry about, their policy follows the whims of whoever's leading them at any given time. They're a very minor party that doesn't deserve to set the tone, much like the Greens or TPM don't.
No, we have a composite government ruling by consent of a document many wished was never signed, but was. The only way to override or sunset such a document is to either have mutual consent by those entering into it, or to have a civil war against the signatories you "don't like" and win. Given our military is largely staffed by people openly identifying as Maori, good luck going to war against iwi.
Consider that in the US, to amend their constitution they need to clear a 2/3 majority vote in both houses, then 3/4 of states have to ratify. A simple majority referendum is not enough to amend a constitutional document. If it was, we'd be amending our founding documents every time we switched parties.
@ KH - The greens advocate for charity and constant handouts. If it were up to the Greens we would all be state beneficeries smoking weed and riding bicycles as cars would be banned. National advocate for businesses and business in general. A National/Green coalition, never gon happen.
Think again.
Nothing to improve the economy would imply it's still largely in the same state it was when they got in. So who trashed it?
Or is this one of those things where we pretend everything was fine right up until National got elected and then suddenly all these problems not only existed, but actually mattered enough to need to be fixed?
Seems a very different arrangement to the government they replaced.
Were they? They let vital infrastructure projects blow out past the point of unaffordability. And if they were open to evidence, then they should have realised the importance of actually doing things instead of endlessly talking and consulting about them.
The only ones who had any real influence under Labour were lobbyists and comms staffers. Labour played the electorate for six years and ran up a huge tab doing so. Eventually they ran out of things to announce to head off criticism and had nothing to fall back on to show the value they'd added.
For $100b, taxpayers deserved better.
@ it84 - What "facts" are you talking about? The Labour website?
There are plenty more facts that show that the last Labour governments 6 years governing has been the most damaging to our country than any other government in history.
What ever damage you think National could do, would likely be an improvement still on Labours last 6 years. National has been governing 11 months, they need far longer than just 11 months to undo, re do and improve from when Labour left.
I can provide plenty of facts to back this claim. Where's your 11 months worth of "facts" come from? The fact that one just doesn't like National is irrelevant. If we are dealing with facts, then facts exist that National are now better liked than Labour, and have done far less damage. Care to take another shot at it? As your leaders leading mantra says "Let's do this".
You're completely ignoring the extent to which other nations weathered the same crisis and that many of our own circumstances were self-inflicted.
The irony of claiming National will bankrupt us after Labour borrowed against the family silver to fund self-branded feel-good wellness exercises that simply inflicted more misery they had no capability or interest in actually fixing is laughable, but not unexpected.
at least Labour were open to evidence and advice
They failed to deliver on so many fronts. Having ideas is one thing, but delivering and executing them is another. They borrowed too much and spent too much (overly simplified yes) and we are all living with the fallout of this as it has made it more difficult for the current government to commit to investing via greater deficit spending in our future. Not to say they haven't chosen themselves to cut spending currently, but inheriting a deceased persons debt, and seeing high prices everywhere for everything doesn't make one want to go on a shopping spree.
William Butler Yeats, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.... hope not too badly
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I am concerned that in the current environment it is too politically advantageous to be partisan. National's words on their desire to make long term infrastructure projects that are free from 3-year whiplash are the height of hypocrisy, as they have taken a deliberate approach of destroying everything that Labour had done. This malicious behaviour is beneficial to them as they gain carte blanch to both claim that Labour did nothing and that anything that is wrong now is Labour's fault.
I quite strongly believe that anything National is doing is now fair game for Labour to partisanly demolish under urgency when they return. Game theory is clear that when incentives are against collaboration (aka prisoners dilemma) that you must engage in an optimistic tit for tat strategy or you will lose over time.
Consequently, I would much rather we figure out a way to address the current incentives to demonise your opposition and to tear down everything they do. I worry that much of this use to be the domain of the "fourth estate," that in having strong journalistic institutions, that were required to behave with some minimum standards, that it would become too politically costly to engage in malicious activity--that you would be castigated if you tore down everything that your opposition had done so that you can stamp your own party logo on it. Today, however, it seems that the mainlining of social media into everyones veins means that people either don't care or are actively in favour of demonising a party and wholesale demolishing everything they've done in the name of partisan politics.
Time will tell if Peters is able to get along with Seymour after the change of deputy PM. The ferry debacle seems like dry powder for those two to blow up at one another, and NACT are much more in favour of immigration to solve all economic woes than Peters--immigration has been his strongest policy position over his entire career.
SKF
@ SomeKiwiFounder- "they have taken a deliberate approach of destroying everything that Labour had done".
Absolutely. The last Labour government has caused the most significant damage to the entire country in our countries history. So destroying that is absolutely a good thing.
Can you actually list a single thing that Labour did well?
I got plenty to suggest otherwise. A list so long, I couldn't add it all to this, but I cam give you enough for you to make a much more informed voting choice came 2026. "Let's do this"?
Got rail enabled ferries project that would have seen us fixing our most crucial north-south infrastructure point before it began failing.
Began addressing the failing water infrastructure in this country. Billions in planning that National threw away without a second thought because of partisan identity politics and now they’re trying to blame local councils for rates increases when the cost to fix infrastructure was always going to be paid by the citizen's. National saw a way to fudge the numbers on “tax” they would need from citizens by pushing it into councils and blaming them for rate hikes.
Worked through RMA repeal and replacement intelligently.
Funded Healthcare and Police sufficiently, those National “back office” cuts have made “frontline” staff spend less time doing the actual work.
Rebuilt the Ministry of Works through Kainga Ora which was built 5,000 houses in a year last year. National want to axe it for 750 houses bought through community providers.
National axed the Auckland Fuel Tax without giving the Auckland City Council any additional funding was nothing short of screwing over someone else to advance your own agenda. I’ve come around on Wayne Brown and even his fiscal conservatism was upset with Wellington defunding Auckland.
Labour pumped up the NZ Police task force that cracked down on all the gangs recently too, multiple year long project to get real results. National are trying to pressure the police to stop doing real police work like this and start doing theatre.
Fair Pay Agreements are effectively the industry awards system Australia has and that we use to have. FPAs are vital to having a fair economy for workers and owners, now we’re going to see a push for worse jobs.
Labours fees free first year program led to thousands of new skilled tradesmen and higher skilled workers that wouldn’t have otherwise entered to workforce with those skills. A lack of new talent was one of the biggest challenges in the trades, and now National has scrapped that and Kiwis are going back to moving to Aus rather than staying here, learning a trade, and contributing to our economy and our tax base.
Labours interest on rental mortgages made it fair for actual Kiwis to compete with landlords in buying homes because homeowners don’t get to deduct their interest on their mortgage from their tax bill for the year—landlording is inherently a different industry than other businesses because of this. Giving interest free tax break on new builds would have absolutely juiced the demand for new builds and therefore actually lead to more new homes.
Say what you want about Kiwibuild, but to my eyes it was a cocky government that tried to build new homes and ran into the real problems stopping more houses being built, and then they FIXED those problems. Less red tape through RMA repeal and replacement. More demand through interest deductibility changes. Building an entirely new department from the ground up to build 5,000 houses per year in addition to the private sector.
And for the first time in a long time we’ve seen real house prices decline substantially.
Go ahead GWGB, I challenge you to address these points in good faith and explain your reasoning for why they’re not beneficial.
SKF
They had some ideas, but not the accountability ti execute efficiently. KO was a massive blowout. I have friends who changed jobs 3x in 2 years there and were on 150k doing bugger all work and being able to do as they please with no accountability to budget, they literally could approve near anything. Look at the cost of the housing they’re building, yes they’re somewhat being built but now, but employees, subbies, architects, councils, everyone made off like bandits from the open purse ad the opportunity was there.
There's a saying in business that I've found to be true, you always overestimate what you can achieve in 2 years and you always underestimate what you can achieve in 10 years. Was it good? No, not at the beginning, however rebuilding a public building sector was never going to be simple. The problem I see now is that everyone and their dog wants to score political points just because "the other team" did it. We need to stop that and soberly assess everything in the here and now. As of today we have a new government department that is successfully building 5,000 houses a year, and we should aim to enhance it's efficiency rather than aiming to destroy it because team red built it and team blue wants to tear down anything team red did.
With regard to project costs it is also critical to highlight that the private sector have preferential privileges. People looking to make money providing social housing as a private entity can select for the cheapest type of public housing required. The government keeps its obligation to serve all citizens, and therefore its construction projects will always need to meet a higher standard of muster for disability, elderly, and other special considerations (and therefore face higher price tags).
Usually I would be happy to see the usually pendulum of power swing the other way precisely because Labour is best at nation building and the right are supposed to be the best at fiscal conservatism and budgetary efficiency, however this current lot have shown that they don't have a basic grasp on the economics of a nation and are preferring to engage in partisan politics. They are placing party over country.
SK
The problem I see now is that everyone and their dog wants to score political points just because "the other team" did it.
Labour were still trotting out their 'nine long years of neglect' crap six years in. Sorry but the idea that National are somehow any worse than Labour's partisan defensiveness over their abject policy failures is a joke.
There's an ocean of difference between identifying long term neglect and explaining why it hurt the country, and what you're doing to address it, versus providing no explanation over ideological rhetoric and shitcanning everything your opposition did. Talking about how it takes multiple budgets to address years of underfunding in health, for example, is entirely substantive.
SKF
The rail ferry project that was already hugely overbudget by the time National got anywhere near it, and Robertson had refused to fully fund the existent shortfall of?
The RMA replacement which was, by most accounts, even worse than the current RMA?
The fuel tax that took money from Aucklanders while huge numbers of projects like light rail went on the backburner because they'd been so mismanaged they became easier to just not talk about anymore?
The NZ Police force that was expected to reign in gangs that the government was openly funding under the guise of dug support - when those same gangs were providing the drugs to communities in the first place?
The fees-free program that made close to no difference in the number of people attending university from marginal communities?
Kiwibuild wasn't 'cocky', it was a bait and swtich policy using out-of-date costings to promise something to the electorate that Labour knew they could never provide. It ended up buying houses on the open market (pushing prices up) and pricing them at the same price as the existing Axis affordable housing ballots.
If this is your idea of success than I hate to see what you consider a policy failure. These were instrumental in Labour getting voted out. People saw through the excuses and realised they were worse off.
Let's get into some weeds, the budget overruns on the ferry project are a perfect example of how disastrous this governments wanton destruction in the name of partisan politics is. The budgetary overruns were not in the ferries themselves, rather they were entirely contained within the budget overruns of the harbour expansion. National came along and decided to try and argue that the ferries were also too expensive, but you will find that given the sheer amount of global inflation that has occurred between when those contracts were signed and when they were scrapped that you're going to end up paying more for a far shittier ferry if you renegotiate it. What should they have done? Delay landlord tax breaks for one year and pay for the harbour project while also sending in an ACT party goon to fight over any project scope creep in the harbour project itself. What did they do? "Scrap it all and blame it on Labour, fuck the country and its needs for ferry infrastructure in the next 5 years." In an economic slump the single most effective government spending is on infrastructure that will pay dividends into the future. Governments are not households and they are not businesses, they should run surpluses when the economy is good and borrow debt when it turns to shit because government spending keeps an economy alive during a downturn--look at how much better the USA is off today thanks to the massive Infrastructure Bill.
The RMA replacement was "by most accounts" worse than the current RMA? That tells me all I need to know, you're addicted to living in echo chambers. Make a substantive claim against it or cede the point.
Criticism is not a sufficient answer, explain what about my point that even Wayne Brown was pissed off about the defunding of our largest city. That's a mayor whose primary efforts have been in fighting for more efficient spending projects and he was mad about it.
The government was not "openly funding" gangs, that is an absolutely ridiculous argument that doesn't pass even the faintest level of critical thinking. National started the project. Labour continued it. They found that ex-gang members were the most effective at reaching out to existing gang members. Surprise, sometimes the most effective solution isn't the one that makes your spite feel all cosy inside.
Fees Free made a huge difference in the number of apprentices entering into the trades, that is an effective programme that National destroyed out of spite--end of story.
Wow, that's news to me, how many of those back-room meetings were you involved in? Surely you understand that without a shred of evidence about that accusation you will looks like a rabid dog with no integrity, right?
Labour got voted out during a global cost of living crisis and in an age of mass social unrest being fomented through social media, with the likes of Russia being caught spending 10's of millions in direct quid-pro-quo arrangements with right wing influencers in the United States in return for decreasing support for the Ukrainian war and increasing division among western populations. I do think Labour a terrible campaign too, but no government has ever survived an economic downturn that hurts the back pockets of the everyday citizen. Still, I think they could have made history had they pushed for a net-zero tax reform policy introducing broad spectrum capital gains taxes and reducing income taxes, could have saved the citizen more in tax than National's crumbs and kept the landlord interest tax to fund the ferries and hospital.
SKF
@ SomeKiwiFounder - Where are you getting these stats from?
Labour improved healthcare & police? The evidence from Stats.co says differently than the Labour website:
Te Whatu Ora staff said a year after new health regime changes under Labour that only 11% have seen an improvement while over a half say things are worse.
Under Labours 6 years governing there was 140% increase in serious assaults on what it was in 2017, 60% increase in metal health crisis callouts, 70% increase in gang membership, over 500% increase in ram raids and aggravated robberies, record levels of assaults on police while the 4th police minister in 12 months defended gang members to wear patches.
Labour took away all healthcare targets. Every single healthcare metric has gone backwards in the last five years, even though Labour has increased healthcare spending by 68%.
When National took over last year from Labour the Doctor GP waiting times were 5th to bottom of OECD countries (38 countries). Access to GPs is the first thing to go in a failing health system.
During the cost of living crisis, Labour thought it was a priority to spend money on changing road signs to be bilingual, meantime Labour decreased police funding to tackle out of control crime and not enough money to fix the chronic state of health care.
More than 200,000 New Zealanders were sitting on a health-related wait list at the end of July 2022; more than the entire population size of Hamilton.
Assaults on Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand staff were up 135 percent in 2023 compared to previous year.
Immigration Service setup by Health NZ in October 2022 was intended to make it as easy as possible for getting GPs into NZ but instead resulted in zero new GPs 8 months into it.
Under Labours 6 year reign, the Customs minister had changed 6 times, Economic Development minister 5 times, Health minister 4 times, Immigration minister 4 times, ACC minister 3 times, Police minister 6 times, Justice minister 4 times, Emergency Management minister 4 times, Ocean & Fisheries minister 5 times, Work place and relations & safety minister 4 times & Transport minister 3 times. Clearly competence is low and turnover is high.
Under Labours 6 years there was no change in access to mental health services despite spending $1.9 billion.
When National took over last year there were 30,000 more people on surgery wait list than when Labour came into power in 2017.
Between 2017 & 2023 19,000 nurses left the profession in the last 5 years under this Labour government. In 2017 it was under 3000 leaving compared to 5000 leaving in last year. A 65% increase in nurses leaving.
In 2016, retail crime was 25,000 per year, in the 3 months to the end of April 2023, there were 45,046 retail crimes reported (equates to 180,000 per year) = a 620% increase. 70% of the crimes are not even being reported. In 2016, police attended 1 in every 2 crimes compared to only 1 in 10 now. In 2016 the arrests were 20 times higher, now the arrests are only 2.3% meaning that over 97% get away with it. Police retail crimes unit only has 8 staff.
Labour introduced state funding of pre-sentencing reports to reduce criminal sentences.
In 2023: NZ hospitals are short of 7136 full time workers, Auckland alone needs 1128. During a health crisis.
Patient organisations declared a medicines crisis in New Zealand under Labour in 2023 – New Zealanders' ability to access new and breakthrough medicines lags well behind other comparable OECD countries, with New Zealand dead last, ranking 32nd in a list of 32 OECD countries for public funding of medicines.
By August 2023: There were 50 accused of homicide & 70 accused of kidnapping or abduction who are out in the community on bail with ankle bracelets; which can be wrapped in tin foil to bypass the monitoring allowing them to freely roam around the public.
And these Stats are just some of the failings under Labour for just Healthcare & Policing. We haven't even scratched the surface of Labours failings in business, economics, teaching, housing, transport ect.
Care to try again? Or would you like to choose a different subject to compare Nationals 11 months vs Labours 6 years against? In your leaders words "Let's do this".
The reorganisation into Te Whatu Ora was intended to reduce inefficiency and financial issues with having 20x DHBs each with their own overheads. Centralised administration and debt management is something I would have thought that an ostensibly fiscally conservative person would love, but no you hate it because Labour bad. No core systems overhaul goes smoothly, let alone one of this magnitude.
Labour et al axed the sham National targets and sham waitlists, yes, and that was a good thing. You may have never had the pleasure of working in a large corporate but the old adage of, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure,” hold true. Patients were being “moved into virtual wards” to make the turnover/throughput numbers appear better than they were. Surgeries were prioritised based on how quickly they could be completed rather than how impactful they were to patients just to increase the number of surgeries per month. Patients were routinely removed from waitlists in order to made the numbers look better. These are all shit health outcomes but like any sociopathic middle manager looking to get ahead, National didn’t give two shits about outcomes for the end users, all they cared about was fudging numbers that made them look good.
You simultaneously claimed that under Labour there was “not enough money to fix the chronic state of health care,” AND “Labour has increased healthcare spending by 68%.” You are utterly shameless with how contradictory your arguments are, there’s not even a hint of critical thinking in your unhinged tirade.
You claimed, “Labour decreased police funding to tackle out of control crime” - that is a lie. It originated with Simeon Brown lying about it. The reality is that there were one-time projects that had completed which had reduced the year over year budget and there was an ongoing negotiation between NZTA & NZP. Labour increased funding on policing. I can’t wait to see your partisan hack crocodile tears evaporate as I dare you to address why you felt it valid to list this lie as a criticism of Labour yet have not addressed that National actually cut support roles from within NZP and also forcing through pay negotiations that actual police in NZ have called “a kick in the guts”, “insulting”, “demoralising”, “farcical”, “disrespectful”, “an absolute joke”, and much more. Many have also revealed the extreme financial pressures they are currently facing, difficulty and inability, to pay rent and mortgages and the lure of Australia.
You claimed, “Under Labours 6 years there was no change in access to mental health services despite spending $1.9 billion“ - that is a lie. It originated in fair and genuine criticism that specialist mental health visits for moderate to severe cases had seen no change over that time period, however the budget and programme was targeted at increasing mental health services for mild to moderate cases. Under the scheme more than 180,000 people per year are receiving assistance, including 3,000 youth mental health cases per month. You may still be under the effects of a right wing talking point from 2022 that the money had not been spent on new beds, those comments were made when the mental health institutions were undergoing renovations and construction to extend the number of available beds by 200-something.
You claimed, “Immigration Service setup by Health NZ in October 2022 was intended to make it as easy as possible for getting GPs into NZ but instead resulted in zero new GPs 8 months into it” - that is a lie. For gods sake, this is becoming a real consistent pattern with you. I take the time to look into a claim you’ve made and yet again discover that it is a lie. You have no integrity and no one should listen to your lies until you learn critical thinking skills. Published July 2023, https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/more-6300-overseas-workers-added-health-workforce%C2%A0, states: “A year on since the borders reopened more than 6300 overseas health workers have joined our health workforce through the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme and the Green List Straight to Residence pathways. This includes 2,500 nurses, and more than 2300 workers in the aged care, disabled and personal care sectors.”
You are not worthy of my time when your arguments are this level of drivel. Address the actual points I’ve made or present arguments in good faith where you can tell me both the reasons in favour and against your points and I will happily engage further. At this time I urge any reader to hone their "smell test" senses off of your tirade, as it is the epitome of bullshit.
SKF
@ SomeKiwiFounder - You have failed to address the issues raised. You claim that every statement that does not show Labour in good light as a lie - a real pattern with your information you seem to believe thag if it does not come direct from the Labour website that it is a lie. This is classic Stockholm syndrome that you appear to be suffering from.
He who makes the claim, bears the responsibility of the proof. If you believe these statements and numbers issued above sourced from Stats.co are are lie because they don't come direct from the Labour website, then you now bear the responsibility of sourcing the information that contradicts this as proof. You have failed to do so.
You make outlandish claims touting that the last Labour government has been the best thing for this country since sliced bread despite overwhelming evidence against your multiple claims. You make a number of false claims with no actual data or numbers, just a number of emotive envy claims. You fail to acknowledge that despite you being part of the minority of decieved voters believing our last Labour government was beneficial for the country and moved us forward, that:
The 2023 MYOB survey found that 64% wanted a change in government and only 21% backed Labour. The number of businesses backing Labour had dropped from 38% in 2020 to just 15% before the 2023 election. Your username hints at being a business owner of some sort, yet just 15% of businesses actually supported Labour by the time they were elected out. Perhaps you run a charity instead of a business, or your business is offshore, because most business in NZ did not support Labour come last election.
In a 2023 multi nation survey involving 12,000 people, NZ was ranked 51st out of 52 countries for best place to live, no.52 was Kuwait.
For more than three decades, the Swiss Institute for Management and Development (IMD) has compiled annual rankings of competitiveness for 63 of the worlds most important countries. Back in 2017 when Labour took power, New Zealand ranked #16 – ahead of Australia at #21. Five years on, New Zealand has fallen to #31, while Australia is now ranked #19. Over the past few years, we have plunged in economic performance, falling from 22nd to 47th place. Government efficiency has also deteriorated markedly from 7th to 17th place. Consumer confidence in New Zealand by 2023 stood at the lowest level since Westpacs Consumer Confidence survey began in 1988. And, perhaps most damningly, for the first time, a majority had a negative 5-year outlook on the economy.
2023 May: NZ Health Survey question on if you became ill whether you are confident you will receive the care required = 50.7% said no.
A 2023 Business Survey of 140 businesses in Southland region of 20+ employees: 64% are recruiting overseas, 85% are seeking staff right now. (Labours change in immigration setting way too late to get staff when required).
August 2023: ANZ Roy Morgan survey: consumer confidence at lows of -39%.
2023 May survey of 1,000 people published by the Herald. It shows two-thirds of Kiwis are more concerned they may become a victim of crime today than they were five years ago. The most revealing statistic is the diverging trend between reported crimes which increased 33 percent between 2017 and 2022, and the 26 percent decline in Police arrests, the 25 percent drop in convictions, and the 38 percent fall in prison sentences.
Federated Farmers latest survey results show 81% of farmers say current economic conditions are bad, and only 29% are making a profit (was 72% last year), and only 3% are optimistic that economic conditions will improve over next 12 months.
May 2023 Business survey again showed 70% of NZ businesses have no confidence in Labour government to steer them through the economic down turn.
August 2023: The IMF forecasted NZ will have the second worst economic growth in the world next year, just edging out Equatorial Guinea (which has been ripped apart by civil war).
In 2023 Labour drove NZ into the worst Current Account Balance in the OECD, just like what they did in 2008 when handing over to National.
Now, these are not Stats that show any business confidence at all in Labours "achievements". The most basic fact you ignore is that 2023 election over 75% of voters did not vote for Labour. That there is very telling - over three quarters of the country who voted had no confidence in Labours ability to do anything beneficial for the country. These Stats are much more reflective of the election results. Your cherry picked emotive Labour website statements do not reflect how the majority of the country felt Labours progress went.
You say you'll warn people on here of my advice, obviously because it goes against your Labour lead propoganda. Stockholm syndrome is still very strong with you. Take off your labour rose coloured glasses. I find it hard to believe you are a business owner when a majoroty of business owners did not support Labour due to the overwhelming damage to the economy they did. Your Stats, if you can even call them such, do not accurately reflect what credible sources such as Stats.co, the IMF, Roy Morgan Research, Westpacs Consumer Confidence, NZ Health Survey, the IMD & MYOB all say. Your claims are ones of biast nature, parroted directly from the Labour Website, and are at best the opinions of the minority.
Unlike you, I do not even need to warn people against your advice or your statements, as it's pretty obvious your claims are at best nonsense, emotive government propoganda and are not the views shared by a majority of the country. The election results showed this very clearly.
Nice try though. Good chat. Unfortunately you habe failed to produce the evidence showing Labours 6 years was beneficial to the country & that with only 11 months that National has caused so much damage. This is because such Stats does not exist. Your Labour utopia of dictatorship and charity handout mantras is done. There will not be another Labour government on the horizon for at least the next 2 terms minimum, likely longer, so I'd get used to it. If you thought Labours dictatorship reign worked so well, despite being in the minority who thought this - then you may find better success & solace in places that actively practice such, such as N Korea or China. Labours time is done. Time you get used to it.
I don't know if you can actually comprehend why I've dismissed you. It seems pretty clear to me that you are deeply biased and incapable of critical thought. Critical thought is the ability to question your own thinking and conclusions. An example of this would be if you were capable of saying, "Labour did _____ and while that did achieve some good in ____ it failed to ____ and therefore I believe them to have been wrong in doing so."
What you do instead is something called Gish Galloping, you shit out talking points that have absolutely zero nuance, they are entirely "LABOUR ARE DICTATORS" type comments which are inherently hysterical, at such a high quantity that it becomes impractical to address all of them. I actually take the time to look into each claim you make, or I did before you lost all credibility when they were consistently shown to be wrong, which takes time for every claim. I looked for both articles and raw facts in favour and against your points. I had an open mind to being wrong, despite your smug and arrogant rhetoric. And just as a point of clarification, I did not use the Labour website for stats, I did read one post on it to understand a Labour ministers response to one of the false claims.
I gave you an hour and a half of my time, I looked into your claims DESPITE the fact that you had failed to address a single thing I had raised. In that time I found that many of your "talking points" were lies. I challenge you to provide references for YOUR CLAIMS that I called out as lies, specifically:
“Labour decreased police funding to tackle out of control crime”
“Under Labours 6 years there was no change in access to mental health services despite spending $1.9 billion“
“Immigration Service setup by Health NZ in October 2022 was intended to make it as easy as possible for getting GPs into NZ but instead resulted in zero new GPs 8 months into it”
Until such a time as you either take accountability for those statements being wrong or you find adequate sources to back those claims (that aren't out of date information or reporting of incorrect "claims" that others like Simeon Brown have made, they must be up to date facts) then you have lost all credibility.
I fear that your brain has been destroyed by social media and your username suggests that this likely the case. Persuasive argumentation is not the stuff that you're likely watching with glee online. Online media, particularly radical right or left wing accounts, will never acknowledge the good in their opposition. Nuance is hard, and audiences, like you appear to be, prefer to have a black and white "enemy" over "I think on balance they're bad for the country, however they appear to genuinely believe that what they're doing is good for the country and in some instances such as ____ I think they are doing well."
The ability to acknowledge when those you oppose are doing well, the ability to take accountability and say "I got that wrong," and the ability to highlight the shortcomings on "your own side" are the primary markers of intelligence. To quote Aristotle, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
I do not see any of those in your conduct, you are simply ready to go to war and believe that the left are evil. This is hyper-partisanship. Interacting with you has at times made me want to be as rabidly opposed to you as you are to the left, however I've tried to temper that instinct. I do not think that Labour are the best thing since sliced bread, that is you projecting your own insecurity about how hyper partisan you are onto me. I have argued against your points and highlighted where I think they deserve recognition for their success and on the whole I believe their governments were good for the country. I could give a list of the ways in which I think they fell short of the mark, but I will not be doing so for you, for there is no rational debate to be had with you, only a partisan shitfest.
I doubt you are going to be able to take in what I've laid out here, but I hope that you can rise to the occasion and internalise it.
SKF
@ SomeKiwiFounder - You accuse me of doing the exact same thing. You say I fail to give credit to Labour for anything during their 6 year stint. Like a typical decieved voter You blame everything else for Labours short comings, using such things like Covid as a blanket get out of jail free card for their failings.
You also fail to give credit to National for their 9 years prior to this, despite National leading us through the 08 GFC with far better results than that of Labour during Covid.
It's rather hypocritacle of you to use Covid as an excuse for your political parties support, but yet.you will not except a global recession as an excuse for failings under the opporsition party.
It's hypocritical of you to expect that supporters of your opporsition party should have to give some credit for your supported political party and their ideologies, yet you yourself take every opportunity to slander the current government and opporsitions 9 years governing without the slightest thought of credit on their behalf.
The problem with you leftists is thag you accuse your opporsition of things that you yourselves are guilty of. A guilty conscious. Walking hypocrites all of you. The lefts idealogy blames the right for being extremists, yet the most extreme dictatorship policies were implemented under Labours 6 years left wing. The left accuses the right for being full of.mis information, when the left themselves are full of mis information- they can't define what a woman is they think you can change the weather by paying more taxes, men can be woman and woman can be men, the left accuse the right for being woke but they cant evem define what woke is. The list.just goes on and on of leftist falsehoods.
Your guilty conscious full of hypocrisy is what keeps you writing my way, and what keeps you in the dark to Labours failings. For You have been decieved. The problem with deception is that the decieved do not believe that they are decieved, that is part of the deception. You SomeKiwiFounder lose all credibility when you accuse your opponents of the same falsehoods your political stance takes, when you give no credit to the other side for anything, despite the other side having governed for just 11 months, the damage is overwhelmingly more under Labours 6 years, even 75% of our country who voted knew that. You are part of the woke minority, who wish to silence your opponents with accusations of falsehoods that your left wing ideology are guilty of. Such ridiculous ideology can never be allowed to govern again.
Take your wokeness and start a charity instead. You'd be better at it than running a business. Your great leader Ardern tells you your not allowed to profit. You must run on unlimited smiles, kindness mantras and everybody else's money instead.
@ Rhumline - We don't require our PMs to be qualified. Ardern was formally a DJ before she entered politics, and she was allowed to govern for 6 years. Luxon has been a CEO for NZs largest airline. The stark difference between the twos experience in business and economics is not even remotely comparable. Trying to find fault in Luxons 11 months governing compared with Ardern and Hipkins, it's a failing argument everytime. Socialists are desperate to find something on the current lot, to justify carrying on with what we've had the last 6 years.
Submitters on the Māori wards legislation, for example, were given just three working days to prepare their arguments. Those wanting to comment on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill had four days.
To put this into perspective, if Auckland Transport wants to change a P5 parking restriction to a P10 parking restriction they are required to consult for 2 weeks, they typically will not do it over any school holiday or at local election time. And yet this corrupt administration will push through major changes requested by donors with no electoral mandate and no consultation. In any other country this would be called out for what it is, corruption.
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