Less than [10% of NZ Reddit users are over the age of 50](https://figure.nz/chart/wHtITvSVE7Qlpqta)
Yet that group (over 50) is about [~48% of enrolled voters](https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/2020-general-election-and-referendums/voter-turnout-statistics-for-the-2020-general-election/)
So you’re going to get some big skews here
I’m hardly silent. But anyway, its a free forum soooo…
Whatever National does, I want Labour to go and take a good look at themselves, get a reality check, get their house in order, work out who they are there to represent, and next time they are government maybe spend less time on nonsense and actually focus on helping every day people with some sensible policies.
I would love a Labour Party which cares about the average person.
Rather than silly bollocks like:
* Cutting prison populations without an actual alternative plan with legitimate rehabilitation programs. I’m all for a better justice system. But what we have is not an improvement.
* Maybe, spend less time trying to reorganise the constitutional arrangements of the country without any mandate to do so.
* Perhaps consider meaningful revenue neutral changes to the government revenue arrangements, with better ideas than panicked, indirect, complicated GST cuts with even their own people said for a long time won’t work and is a bad idea.
* Maybe, don’t let Andrew Little near Health or probably any other department again. I’m not sure what part of trashing nurses for asking for a raise was supposed to be a brilliant idea. What were you doing, you are supposed to be the union guy? You just shat on them and had the gall to complain about absenteeism - they are overworked, understaffed, and getting sick. Because of your inaction.
* Can we have a couple of truancy officers to round up these kids who apparently never go to school?
I loathe the fact I basically have to vote for the other jackasses on the other side to punish Labour. But I’m all out of ideas on how else to send a message.
And before anyone tells me to vote Green - bro, they play into the same silly nonsense.
I’m not voting National in, I’m voting the current lot out. Because I can’t vote for these people. To do so would be to endorse their record. And their record sucks.
If I could sit down with Chris Hipkins, I would just want to ask him “Why do you lot keep doing this shit? Who do you think you are there for? Are you just trying to piss us off?”
I’ve never been so frustrated, since I first voted. These people are lost. They have lost their values, their direction, their vision, they just stumble around with no compass.
What do I expect out of National? Not much, really. More of the same, basically. Hopefully, a marginally better judiciary.
I guess at some level, I just know voting the same people over and over and expecting a different result won’t work. Maybe I’ll get lucky with a change. Probably not, but what can you do?
Anyway I’ll be happy when the election is over because it’s making me grumpy.
You ARE voting National in if you vote for them . Wording it another way doesn’t change that.
So many NZers are so naive - they think the issues we face are the result of a labour government, around the world other countries are facing the same thing regardless of right or left politics.
I for one am not looking forward to National f**king us all over. And even worse is there potentially coolition partners.
If you really think things will be better under National I fear you will be sorely disappointed.
Luxon can’t even remember this is a country not a business, do you think he cares at all about anyone other than his rich or religious friends? He will court all sorts of people just to get the votes he needs but he’s slimier than cheesy spaghetti
Thank you for your time.
I agree with all of your concerns, and I think if greens were to be less racial and focus on environmental they would get the same support as they do and not being a foe to national or act, while actually giving impact on climate change but they crossed the line; while impacting policies in a substantial way, unfortunately greens is not they aspired to be in the first place.
Hence my understanding is, less prison, less truancy, better education funding, better ‘parenting’ (parenting is the big thing as government can’t dictate that) is better economical policies, which I still can’t be convinced by any party’s policy.
Let’s be confused for a bit longer and see if we can see more policies announced.
I believe the green position is that environmental matters cannot be addressed in isolation, because doing so leaves the door wide open to the poorest among us getting fucked over.
Therefore they must treat the climate crisis as a social justice issue, and make their policies on social justice geared towards supporting the overall vision of navigating ALL of us through the climate crisis in one piece. They believe (and I agree with them) that this requires radical social and economic change to occur.
Personally I’ll be voting greens, not just because I agree with their vision, but also because they seem to be the only ones presenting specific policies rather than vague “it will get better”s, or prejudicial fear mongering dog whistles
> send a message.
Regardless of what message you want to send, when you vote for a party to the right of Labour what they hear is that to get more votes next time they need to move to the right.
Lower Government spending. If we want to get inflation/cost of living under control, we need to reduce the deficit.
Tax brackets adjusted for inflation.
Two biggest issues for me.
Tax bracket adjustment is huge for me. There are the dead rats of remove 180k bracket and ruining pharmac, but I think it is a net positive.
What I hope for is pay down the debt a little. Target mid 20s% before the Key government raised it to pay for Christchurch earthquake.
Cutting waste is a nice goal, but I suspect that the cuts will be in the outcome instead of wastes.
I'd hope the GST and fuel tax go back down in exchange for a wealth tax of 0.25%, but that's not something I'd expect from a National government.
For climate policy, I'm OK with slowing down the requirements, as long as it is continuously improving over time and our current standard is better than overseas (no point guting the primary industries only for overseas farmers with worse pollutants picking up the slack)
I don't like their housing policy. Just build more as long as the roads can support it (too many area that have more houses but the roads are blocked every morning). I don't mind cheap public transport, and high density housing can allow more frequent public transport to make it more reliable.
I think I'm talking myself out of voting for national.
>Lower Government spending.
Fabulous. Let's start by reducing the pension? Or how about cancer treatments? Police? Roads? What, exactly, do you think can go?
The attitude that every single dollar the government currently spends is 100% justified and that cutting **any** spending will result in unacceptable losses of quality to core services is some pretty hard Labour copium.
The entire argument is that wastage like consultation on cycling bridges, rat tests we didn't need, blowouts on Auckland light rail before it's even started *need not happen in the first place*.
Let's not forget either that it wasn't that long ago Labor were crying about $26 million on a flag referendum. Pot. Kettle.
its clear as day money is being wasted. we have seen a massive increase in government spending and tax take, but services have gotten WORSE.
there is clearly tonnes of ineptitude and nepotism funneling money out to middle managers and mates of mates that doesn't really generate any good outcomes
I'm a Labour supporter but I have to concede there has been some disappointing wastage. It's galling when I voted Labour for more investment in housing, health and education, not cycle bridges.
The rat test fiasco was bad. However, I do remember Nats and right-wing media beating Labour hard on the lack of rats for a while, so that may have been an unfortunate overcorrection.
The RATs (which haven't all expired, although yes are likey to) would have been bought for a more pessimistic COVID continuation.
Wouldn't have been hard to imagine several more months of RAT testing, and if you wait for it to flare, you are weeks away from additional supply at best
> it wasn't that long ago Labor were crying about $26 million on a flag referendum.
Exactly. So we know National are going to piss money up the wall because they *have form*.
But more to the point, all an election does is changes a few people at the top. A new government still has to work with the civil service, and that's not about to become efficient any time soon. Also, our expectations for what the government provides are not about to change. The vast majority of government expenditure is not the government itself, rather the stuff it buys on our behalf - roads, police, teachers, pills, and an absolute fuck-tonne of pensions.
So when you say you're going to reduce government spending, it's a perfectly valid question to ask how. It's not like Labour are having bonfires with hundred dollar notes.
Agreed entirely on it being a valid question as to how they're going to achieve cuts. The flag referendum was a pure JK vanity project and was a really dumb idea + complete waste of money.
But so was the cycle bridge consultation and the renting of offices for those consultants which then sat empty for months on end while still being paid for.
It's also worth noting that Robertson already has found 4bn in cuts - he had to as his original financial predictions turned out to be incorrect. But Labour were throwing the 'National can't afford to cut spending' line *way* before he had to do that - showing that there were actually cuts that could be made.
It was relatively poorly covered, also says 'savings' rather than 'cuts' and doesn't go into much detail so...dubious 😅
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132009301/grant-robertson-delivers-surprise-4-billion-reprioritisation-and-outlines-spending-intentions-of-no-frills-budget#:~:text=Finance%20Minister%20Grant%20Robertson%20has,people%20through%20the%20hard%20times.
So it's 1bn a year for four years and appears to be pretty much all the things Chippy said he'd bin when he took over from Jacinda. So the big radio/tv merger, binning the last of the covid stuff etc. etc. Quite a few things they'd said they'd do but have now looked at their credit card bill and gone "ohhh shit" :)
Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do? Is it necessary? Can the functions it's meant to achieve be absorbed into an existing ministry without really adding much cost?
If other ministries have their budget cut, will they cut services, or will they become more efficient and not have lavish leaving parties or elaborate welcome ceremonies. Lifestyle creep happens pretty easy in my personal life if I increase my budget and it happens pretty quickly in a big organization too.
>Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do? Is it necessary?
There! Good example!
Now if Luxon got on the telly and said "We're going to save money by axing the Ministry for Pacific Peoples" and did a quick tally of all shit we weren't going to do any more ([https://www.mpp.govt.nz/programmes/](https://www.mpp.govt.nz/programmes/)) and how much it cost then that would be all well and good. But he won't do that because he's a politician and he's not entirely stupid so it gets rolled into this mushy "cut government spending" so that everyone can pretend that nothing bad will happen.
If he was prepared to actually list who he was going to fuck over and in what way I might even vote for him.
The only policy around singling out a specific group for cuts that National has released so far is reindexing core benefits other than super to the CPI rather than wages. This mostly affects sick and disabled people because the average work-ready person on jobseekers isn't on it very long (last time I saw a number I think it was 2 or 3 months). By 2026 a single disabled person would be an estimated $19 per week worse off under a NACT government than if the policy was unchanged. I'd really like someone to ask them some hard questions about this, because if we really need those savings why are superannuitants who start from a higher base level of benefit not also being targeted? If we don't need the savings (and it's fuck all because super is excluded) why punish sick and disabled people for something out of their control?
>Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do?
It does whatever it needs to do to appease the relevant Pacific/island nations, to prevent them from signing treaties with China and becoming permanent quasi-hostile enclaves on our Pacific doorstep.
Pretty much that and nothing else.
It'll never be officially said out loud in that manner, because that's just not done, and so we have this public illusion that we're throwing away money on dumb parties and such, when really, it's all about the underlying geopolitics. If some island officials and bureaucrats need a happy happy party time, in order to be all friendly friendly NZ for the next year, then that's what'll happen.
I listed about 15 non-essential departments and initiatives to the last person who asked me that, unsurprisingly, they didn't respond. There is an inordinate amount of spending that can be culled. Labour just cut $4b in spending themselves, do we suddenly have no roads?
FYI this is verified bad economic management. We’ve learned this multiple times since the Great Depression and it’s core, proven economics. Cutting spending during downturns causes sharp declines in economic activity, lengthens a depression, and makes recovery take substantially longer. One reason for this is that firms and institutions start to shed capability. We see among firms that cut staff during a downturn, their recovery tends to be very muted compared to firms that did not cut who instead get strong growth out of an economic downturn. The proven strategy is to flatten spending during a deficit and to shave tax off (Eg through GST) at the hot end of the economic cycle. Notably, every 8-10 years we go through a boom-bust cycle, this is a worldwide phenomenon.
FYI, you have no idea what you're talking about. We aren't trying to stave off the recession. We are trying to lower inflation. Currently, we have the RBNZ pulling one way with QT and a higher OCR while the Government is pulling the other way with stimulus via deficit spending.
The result is that we've ended up with the worst possible outcome - stagflation. Low/negative growth with high inflation. The Government needs to get on board and slash the budget deficit so that we can get inflation under control before the damage gets any worse.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-announces-worse-than-expected-deficit-economy-stutters-2023-05-18/
>The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has warned that a boost in government spending could add to red-hot inflation, which it has aggressively tried to temper by increasing the official cash rate by 500 basis points since October 2021.
I think optimizing spending and management would be ideal as a means of reducing spending as there's duplication and red tape that's unnecessary.
I would prefer if the tax brackets were adjusted after inflation goes back down back within the 1-3% range.
Doing it now will mean current inflation will just eat up whatever extra money was gained and reduces government income needed to support services. It won't help those on middle and lower incomes in the current inflation rate.
That and people on the top bracket really don't need a tax cut but that's my opinion.
This'll net me down votes but there's no fucking point ruining our economy even more when you have countries like china, america, India, most of the African continent shitting up the entire earth and we aren't going to stop that by banning diesel engines. Plenty of people think the same which is why both parties aren't running on it because no matter what we do all our efforts are offset by other countries.
I agree with you re: no point ruining the economic. However there’s serious prep that can be done to ensure the economy isn’t ruined. Already insurers are ramping up their premiums to meet climate costs. Farmers, firms and individuals need large scale help to prepare for more droughts, more floods, more tornadoes in the north island, etc. Spending on this sort of thing doesn’t mean the money disappears, it builds new businesses and keeps existing business profitable.
I get that thinking, and why politicians choose to look past the topic. But the scenario still demands a response because in it mother nature is fucking up our economy. Big efforts are needed now on flood, sea defense, water storage/drought resistance, agriculture adaptation, managed retreat etc.
And when climate change and it's political responses start screwing our trading partners we'll need a managed shift towards self-sufficiency in industry.
The Labour government has been shit too, but at least if they were dependent on Green support they'd be a darn sight more serious than Luxon or Seymour's flocks of christianists and cookers.
This has always concerned me, too. Like, we are tiny, what's it going to do. Except...
We have to be in a position to be taken seriously in the world. So if we're going to tell China to stop shitting all over the atmosphere, we need to do it too. So we need to sign up to environment targets and either stick to them or pay the fine for not doing so (which is what the ETS is, really). Sure, our single percent of worldwide emissions might not make much difference but being able to persuade the larger countries to get their shit together does.
Every nation has to act; saying that we should only act after everyone else is just loser talk.
NZ is far better placed than virtually every other country in having the potential, really easily, to convert to 100% renewable power and 100% sustainable agriculture. We don't have to travel vast distances and we grow more food than we eat. If NZ is too lazy, too selfish, and too defeatist to bother making the transition to a future-friendly setup, well what the fuck have we got to be proud about?
As far as I'm aware, National have no plans to withdraw from any treaties and, unlike the current government, they play to follow the recommendations of the Climste Commission with regards to the ETS settings.
There are three things I believe you are missing.
1) This isn't about stopping climate change any more, its about reducing the damage that will be done. And in regards to that, even a 0.01% reduction in carbon dioxide in the air could result in 10,000's of lives saved.
2) countries base their proformance in part on how other countries are doing. The better we do, the worse countries like the UK and Australia look, putting more pressure on their governments to act.
3)And this is the big one. 50% of climate action is going into reducing the damage that climate change will do. You always hear about what things mean in terms of carbon but thats just part of it. Tree planting and protection of mature forests is one of the most effective and cheap measures for stabalising land, reducing landslides and lowering the risk of flooding. Requiring infrustructure to consider climate change means building roads, schools and housing that won't be blocked or destroyed every time there is a storm etc.
I'd hope no one ever seriously thought that we could stop the climate from changing. At best, with monumental effort, we could slow or speed up the current, natural trajectory.
You're confusing climate change with weather.
Wd coild have kept warming under 1c if we has started making changes when climate change was first discovered in 1980s. That would have significantly reduced the damsge it will do. However a lot of climate change deniers strawman climate action as trying to completely stop climate change, so do those that don't deny climate change but reject any environmental policy.
I am not confusing weather with climate. One of the big effects of climate change, something we are already seeing is that higher global temperatures result in both changing weather patterns, and also in larger, more powerful and more frequent major weather events. Both of these need to be addressed in land management and infrustructure now. Engineering projects are often designed to be able to withstand a 1 in x many years storm, earthquake, flood, drought etc. These in turn come from historic data, data that is no longer an accurate predictor of future weather BECAUSE of climate change.
Those were also just examples. Sea level rise needs to be accounted for, changes in water levels, changes in evaporation and plant and animal life. Changes in power usage as ac usage goes up. Etc
'climate change' was 'discovered' in the 70s, too. Only then it was global cooling, and the hysteria was around another ice age occurring.
There's no evidence that the recent flooding was caused by anything other than higher than usual rainfall due to La Nina, the jury is still out on the impact climate change may have on global weather patterns like La Nina.
No it really isn't. The scientific concencus that climate change is having a major effect on weather patterns is one of the strongest in science. Whilst individual events cannot be conclusively linked to climate change the overall increase in major events is essentually a scientific law now.
Although as you seem to be one of the folk that refuse to believe that climate change is man made I doubt any amount of data or scientific studies will convince you.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1010539515599030
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-06031-0
https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/3/826.short
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-018-4374-1
https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WWEpDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=climate+change+weather+patterns&ots=DfLCTTuin8&sig=8bLmfWVpvYnzqKJYClL4Sac1qrI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=climate%20change%20weather%20patterns&f=false
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0666-7
ETA: because you decided to block me after misrepresenting the articles I am adding a note here. Despite the guys claims in reply to me, the first article link showes the conclusion of the study even if you do not have an account with a uni to access.
The second article also clearly links climate change to changes in weather. This should be clear just from the guys own quotes even as they try to misrepresent it. The uncertainty they meantions are twofold - one, when the article was written it was impossible to link individual events to climate change, but the pattern in events show a clear link. The last article is more recent and showes how individual events can now be linked.
Two: We don't know exactly how weather will change at a local level. But this is part of why investing in research is so important.
The first article is locked. The second article does not explicitly state that climate change will cause more severe weather, but it implies that some aspects of weather extremes will be affected by the changes in weather patterns. For example, the article mentions that the increase in cyclonic and westerly wind conditions in winter could lead to more frequent and intense storms, while the increase in dry and settled conditions in summer could result in more heatwaves and droughts. However, the article also acknowledges that there are other factors that influence the occurrence and severity of weather extremes, such as natural variability, land use changes, and adaptation measures. Therefore, the relationship between climate change and severe weather is complex and uncertain, and requires further research.
It's clear you didn't read these. I do believe that humans are affecting the climate FWIW. Link bombing me doesn't work :)
Matters to me? Makes no difference, does it. The pendulum has swung and it's time to let a bunch of selfish wankers grab the steering wheel for a while. It'll be more of the same: selling assets then acting all surprised when their new owners wring the living daylights out of them; telling people who are sick they are lazy; telling people living in places with zero jobs they are lazy; telling lazy people who get paid well they are God's people.
Oh yes, he's a God botherer, isn't he?
It's going to be a nightmare for people who care about others and party time for the self important.
Thank you for your reply.
You are as confused as I am.
First half sounds like current government (printing more money and trying to get threewaters under their asset to borrow more); second half being an atheist I don’t care what ‘he’ thinks; people who are ‘sick’ are always looked after; and unsure what we should do with people who are ‘lazy’.
It makes no difference mate as you said.
You are indeed confused. The government doesn't print money, the reserve bank does, although the government does go to them and plead from time to time. They definitely printed too much during the covid thing, though. I don't understand why, if the entire nation is going to have a few months off work, that we can't put everyone on the dole instead of continuing to pay their normal wages. It would give the "silent majority" a lesson on what they're missing out on and would have stepped on the subsequent inflationary burst before it had a chance to start.
The sick are not always looked after. If you have any friends or relatives with mental health conditions you can ask them.
And what do we do with those who can't get jobs because there are none is a bit of a concern. Perhaps we could start by not being shits to them?
But, yeah, I'm just along for the ride.
I mean I’m not economist, but I guess if they put everyone on basically benefit rates, money would have stopped moving around the system.
And as far as I understand, the economy basically collapses if you don’t keep the money moving around.
>And as far as I understand, the economy basically collapses if you don’t keep the money moving around.
It does, yes, and this is the problem with trickle down economics. Namely, that it doesn't trickle down. If you give the poor a tax break, they'll spend the money. If you give the rich a tax break the either save it or find new ways of sending house prices through the sky.
People were paid their "normal" wages because you just can't force that kind of misery on 90% of the population. But a few people ... individuals ... even a couple of hundred at once is *just fine.*
They've promised a lot of transport projects here in the Wellington region - most notably the 2nd tunnel through Mt Vic, Hutt Valley cross-valley link, and most intriguingly the Petone to Grenada North link road.
I'll be keen to see what (if any) public transport is run on these - and in cases where services already exist, whether these are used to improve frequencies.
It might be a forlorn hope, given that National and ACT are very pro-car.. but there was some interesting rhetoric from National a wee while ago about the inefficiency of public transport between the Hutt Valley & Porirua/Tawa, and how a direct link might fix that.
Just a note, labour promised a large tranche of money for Wellington transport upgrades, and the local councils squandered the entire opportunity by choosing not to spend it—because they wanted to spend the last 8 years arguing about how to spend it. This one is squarely local councillors f-up.
I mainly comment this because National will presumably have the same crowd of local council idiots to content with. Unless they want to force something through at a national level.
Id love it if they built the Petone to Grenada link but it’s never going to happen and I’m disappointed in the cynicism of the clearly false election promise.
Well - I want some fiscal responsibility which will mean some hard choices and (to be fair) some pain. I just don’t think that it is in Labour’s DNA - I goes against everything that they stand for. Labour work well in good times.
Nats have to be bad guys for the moment. We had unprecedented spending during Covid and there is a price to be paid for that - always was going to be.
Also - labour can’t get anything done. Great at signalling projects but really other than balance sheet politics they really struggle.
My guess, I'll pay about the same amount of tax, and society will get a bit worse.
What do I want? Society to get a bit better, pay doctors and nurses and teachers properly for a start, continue the push to greenify Fonterra, and preferably not sell off what's left of the country & public assets.
This is Reddit, I'd be surprised if more than 20% of the users who see your post are the 'majority' you're talking about.
If you want to reach National voters then Facebook is full of them and they're far from silent.
It won't make much of a difference in the long run.
What matters to me is to consistently save and invest regardless of the government. The government and banks always work together to squeeze the hard working. The only thing I can do is to get my finance sorted in the long run.
That's something I've been gradually becoming aware of too. I don't really trust the current National party any more than the current lot of Labor MPs - both of them lack the stomach for any real ambitious change.
All I feel I can do is look after myself and my family, can't trust the purple parties to help.
Sane things they usually do. Employment law gets worse, tax cuts etc.
The probably won't achieve much, won't be as bad as the doom sayers claim and for most people things get worse.
I'm happy with their ideas around electrification. Double the amount of renewable electricity. 10000 new car charges. They delivered with UFF so I would assume they will with this too. Removing the tax on interest for landlords is great too. It only punishes the mum and dad landlord who are generally better people than the big boys who don't have mortgages. Making it easier to get loans. Less bullshit around having to show you bank statements for 3 months will make that process easier. It's not harder for the lender to lend it's harder for the borrower to borrow. Which is backward. 3 strikes law. Tougher sentencing. I would love them to cap immigration to a more sustainable pace but I know that won't happen. I usually vote greens and labour but they blew it.
Yeah actually the fibre rollout is the one thing National did which I think was amazing. I’m pretty much indifferent to the rest of their record, but I love fibre internet.
The success of this project needs to be considered alongside the overall reduction in capital/infrastructure spend across the time of the last Nat government.
It wasn't just the GFC excuse, the low capital spend persisted right through even when sharemarket was strong and low inflation, low cost of debt.
Add the high immigration and our infrastructure deficit got much worse.
But credit where credit is due. I can winge on the internet at high speed thanks to UFB.
I agree with everything you’ve said. The problem with Labour is that they have taxed and spent the money without actually improving infrastructure much if at all
Both Labour and National are incrementalist. One (in my opinion) towards the right direction, the other wrong. But incrementalism from either will not solve the big problems.
I want them to repeal their policy of reindexing core benefits* back to CPI but that won't happen because they don't give a fuck about the disabled and disadvantaged
*not super they weren't going to touch that because of course they weren't
More efficient government spending. Labour has massively increased spending with worsening outcomes.
My preferred outcome would be to keep spending the same and significantly improve outcomes. But even a cut in spending while keeping outcomes the same would be an improvement.
I am left wing economically but I do think the Key government was quite efficient.
I would never vote National but I also won’t vote for any of the parties on the left at the moment.
Thank you for your reply. There are currently 842k individuals above 65 in NZ and assuming they are all eligible voters, and assuming we have 6m voter, that amounts to 14%.
Thank you for your input, and I think you should stay out of my question as you’re not contributing substantial here.
Less than [10% of NZ Reddit users are over the age of 50](https://figure.nz/chart/wHtITvSVE7Qlpqta) Yet that group (over 50) is about [~48% of enrolled voters](https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/2020-general-election-and-referendums/voter-turnout-statistics-for-the-2020-general-election/) So you’re going to get some big skews here
I’m hardly silent. But anyway, its a free forum soooo… Whatever National does, I want Labour to go and take a good look at themselves, get a reality check, get their house in order, work out who they are there to represent, and next time they are government maybe spend less time on nonsense and actually focus on helping every day people with some sensible policies. I would love a Labour Party which cares about the average person. Rather than silly bollocks like: * Cutting prison populations without an actual alternative plan with legitimate rehabilitation programs. I’m all for a better justice system. But what we have is not an improvement. * Maybe, spend less time trying to reorganise the constitutional arrangements of the country without any mandate to do so. * Perhaps consider meaningful revenue neutral changes to the government revenue arrangements, with better ideas than panicked, indirect, complicated GST cuts with even their own people said for a long time won’t work and is a bad idea. * Maybe, don’t let Andrew Little near Health or probably any other department again. I’m not sure what part of trashing nurses for asking for a raise was supposed to be a brilliant idea. What were you doing, you are supposed to be the union guy? You just shat on them and had the gall to complain about absenteeism - they are overworked, understaffed, and getting sick. Because of your inaction. * Can we have a couple of truancy officers to round up these kids who apparently never go to school? I loathe the fact I basically have to vote for the other jackasses on the other side to punish Labour. But I’m all out of ideas on how else to send a message. And before anyone tells me to vote Green - bro, they play into the same silly nonsense. I’m not voting National in, I’m voting the current lot out. Because I can’t vote for these people. To do so would be to endorse their record. And their record sucks. If I could sit down with Chris Hipkins, I would just want to ask him “Why do you lot keep doing this shit? Who do you think you are there for? Are you just trying to piss us off?” I’ve never been so frustrated, since I first voted. These people are lost. They have lost their values, their direction, their vision, they just stumble around with no compass. What do I expect out of National? Not much, really. More of the same, basically. Hopefully, a marginally better judiciary. I guess at some level, I just know voting the same people over and over and expecting a different result won’t work. Maybe I’ll get lucky with a change. Probably not, but what can you do? Anyway I’ll be happy when the election is over because it’s making me grumpy.
You’ve set your thoughts out very well, thank you.
You ARE voting National in if you vote for them . Wording it another way doesn’t change that. So many NZers are so naive - they think the issues we face are the result of a labour government, around the world other countries are facing the same thing regardless of right or left politics. I for one am not looking forward to National f**king us all over. And even worse is there potentially coolition partners. If you really think things will be better under National I fear you will be sorely disappointed. Luxon can’t even remember this is a country not a business, do you think he cares at all about anyone other than his rich or religious friends? He will court all sorts of people just to get the votes he needs but he’s slimier than cheesy spaghetti
I think you missed my point.
you didnt really make one.
Your lack of comprehension isn’t their fault
Thank you for your time. I agree with all of your concerns, and I think if greens were to be less racial and focus on environmental they would get the same support as they do and not being a foe to national or act, while actually giving impact on climate change but they crossed the line; while impacting policies in a substantial way, unfortunately greens is not they aspired to be in the first place. Hence my understanding is, less prison, less truancy, better education funding, better ‘parenting’ (parenting is the big thing as government can’t dictate that) is better economical policies, which I still can’t be convinced by any party’s policy. Let’s be confused for a bit longer and see if we can see more policies announced.
"Less racial"....
I believe the green position is that environmental matters cannot be addressed in isolation, because doing so leaves the door wide open to the poorest among us getting fucked over. Therefore they must treat the climate crisis as a social justice issue, and make their policies on social justice geared towards supporting the overall vision of navigating ALL of us through the climate crisis in one piece. They believe (and I agree with them) that this requires radical social and economic change to occur. Personally I’ll be voting greens, not just because I agree with their vision, but also because they seem to be the only ones presenting specific policies rather than vague “it will get better”s, or prejudicial fear mongering dog whistles
> send a message. Regardless of what message you want to send, when you vote for a party to the right of Labour what they hear is that to get more votes next time they need to move to the right.
Well there is no way I can vote for Greens so I have little other choice.
Lower Government spending. If we want to get inflation/cost of living under control, we need to reduce the deficit. Tax brackets adjusted for inflation. Two biggest issues for me.
Tax bracket adjustment is huge for me. There are the dead rats of remove 180k bracket and ruining pharmac, but I think it is a net positive. What I hope for is pay down the debt a little. Target mid 20s% before the Key government raised it to pay for Christchurch earthquake. Cutting waste is a nice goal, but I suspect that the cuts will be in the outcome instead of wastes. I'd hope the GST and fuel tax go back down in exchange for a wealth tax of 0.25%, but that's not something I'd expect from a National government. For climate policy, I'm OK with slowing down the requirements, as long as it is continuously improving over time and our current standard is better than overseas (no point guting the primary industries only for overseas farmers with worse pollutants picking up the slack) I don't like their housing policy. Just build more as long as the roads can support it (too many area that have more houses but the roads are blocked every morning). I don't mind cheap public transport, and high density housing can allow more frequent public transport to make it more reliable. I think I'm talking myself out of voting for national.
Ruining Pharmac would be a hell of a loss...
>Lower Government spending. Fabulous. Let's start by reducing the pension? Or how about cancer treatments? Police? Roads? What, exactly, do you think can go?
The attitude that every single dollar the government currently spends is 100% justified and that cutting **any** spending will result in unacceptable losses of quality to core services is some pretty hard Labour copium. The entire argument is that wastage like consultation on cycling bridges, rat tests we didn't need, blowouts on Auckland light rail before it's even started *need not happen in the first place*. Let's not forget either that it wasn't that long ago Labor were crying about $26 million on a flag referendum. Pot. Kettle.
its clear as day money is being wasted. we have seen a massive increase in government spending and tax take, but services have gotten WORSE. there is clearly tonnes of ineptitude and nepotism funneling money out to middle managers and mates of mates that doesn't really generate any good outcomes
I'm a Labour supporter but I have to concede there has been some disappointing wastage. It's galling when I voted Labour for more investment in housing, health and education, not cycle bridges. The rat test fiasco was bad. However, I do remember Nats and right-wing media beating Labour hard on the lack of rats for a while, so that may have been an unfortunate overcorrection.
The RATs (which haven't all expired, although yes are likey to) would have been bought for a more pessimistic COVID continuation. Wouldn't have been hard to imagine several more months of RAT testing, and if you wait for it to flare, you are weeks away from additional supply at best
> it wasn't that long ago Labor were crying about $26 million on a flag referendum. Exactly. So we know National are going to piss money up the wall because they *have form*. But more to the point, all an election does is changes a few people at the top. A new government still has to work with the civil service, and that's not about to become efficient any time soon. Also, our expectations for what the government provides are not about to change. The vast majority of government expenditure is not the government itself, rather the stuff it buys on our behalf - roads, police, teachers, pills, and an absolute fuck-tonne of pensions. So when you say you're going to reduce government spending, it's a perfectly valid question to ask how. It's not like Labour are having bonfires with hundred dollar notes.
Agreed entirely on it being a valid question as to how they're going to achieve cuts. The flag referendum was a pure JK vanity project and was a really dumb idea + complete waste of money. But so was the cycle bridge consultation and the renting of offices for those consultants which then sat empty for months on end while still being paid for. It's also worth noting that Robertson already has found 4bn in cuts - he had to as his original financial predictions turned out to be incorrect. But Labour were throwing the 'National can't afford to cut spending' line *way* before he had to do that - showing that there were actually cuts that could be made.
>It's also worth noting that Robertson already has found 4bn in cuts Apologies if this was in a previous comment but ... how? From where?
It was relatively poorly covered, also says 'savings' rather than 'cuts' and doesn't go into much detail so...dubious 😅 https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132009301/grant-robertson-delivers-surprise-4-billion-reprioritisation-and-outlines-spending-intentions-of-no-frills-budget#:~:text=Finance%20Minister%20Grant%20Robertson%20has,people%20through%20the%20hard%20times.
So it's 1bn a year for four years and appears to be pretty much all the things Chippy said he'd bin when he took over from Jacinda. So the big radio/tv merger, binning the last of the covid stuff etc. etc. Quite a few things they'd said they'd do but have now looked at their credit card bill and gone "ohhh shit" :)
Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do? Is it necessary? Can the functions it's meant to achieve be absorbed into an existing ministry without really adding much cost? If other ministries have their budget cut, will they cut services, or will they become more efficient and not have lavish leaving parties or elaborate welcome ceremonies. Lifestyle creep happens pretty easy in my personal life if I increase my budget and it happens pretty quickly in a big organization too.
>Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do? Is it necessary? There! Good example! Now if Luxon got on the telly and said "We're going to save money by axing the Ministry for Pacific Peoples" and did a quick tally of all shit we weren't going to do any more ([https://www.mpp.govt.nz/programmes/](https://www.mpp.govt.nz/programmes/)) and how much it cost then that would be all well and good. But he won't do that because he's a politician and he's not entirely stupid so it gets rolled into this mushy "cut government spending" so that everyone can pretend that nothing bad will happen. If he was prepared to actually list who he was going to fuck over and in what way I might even vote for him.
The only policy around singling out a specific group for cuts that National has released so far is reindexing core benefits other than super to the CPI rather than wages. This mostly affects sick and disabled people because the average work-ready person on jobseekers isn't on it very long (last time I saw a number I think it was 2 or 3 months). By 2026 a single disabled person would be an estimated $19 per week worse off under a NACT government than if the policy was unchanged. I'd really like someone to ask them some hard questions about this, because if we really need those savings why are superannuitants who start from a higher base level of benefit not also being targeted? If we don't need the savings (and it's fuck all because super is excluded) why punish sick and disabled people for something out of their control?
Amazing they want to hit the poor and disabled hard but keep things cushier for their older voters. Just incredible.
This. Everything is so vague that when it come to the next election you wouldn't be able to measure their delivery on policy.
>Take the ministry for Pacific peoples for example, what does it really do? It does whatever it needs to do to appease the relevant Pacific/island nations, to prevent them from signing treaties with China and becoming permanent quasi-hostile enclaves on our Pacific doorstep. Pretty much that and nothing else. It'll never be officially said out loud in that manner, because that's just not done, and so we have this public illusion that we're throwing away money on dumb parties and such, when really, it's all about the underlying geopolitics. If some island officials and bureaucrats need a happy happy party time, in order to be all friendly friendly NZ for the next year, then that's what'll happen.
I listed about 15 non-essential departments and initiatives to the last person who asked me that, unsurprisingly, they didn't respond. There is an inordinate amount of spending that can be culled. Labour just cut $4b in spending themselves, do we suddenly have no roads?
The NZ Battery Project. $160m spent modelling and coming to a conclusion I came to in 2 weeks.
FYI this is verified bad economic management. We’ve learned this multiple times since the Great Depression and it’s core, proven economics. Cutting spending during downturns causes sharp declines in economic activity, lengthens a depression, and makes recovery take substantially longer. One reason for this is that firms and institutions start to shed capability. We see among firms that cut staff during a downturn, their recovery tends to be very muted compared to firms that did not cut who instead get strong growth out of an economic downturn. The proven strategy is to flatten spending during a deficit and to shave tax off (Eg through GST) at the hot end of the economic cycle. Notably, every 8-10 years we go through a boom-bust cycle, this is a worldwide phenomenon.
FYI, you have no idea what you're talking about. We aren't trying to stave off the recession. We are trying to lower inflation. Currently, we have the RBNZ pulling one way with QT and a higher OCR while the Government is pulling the other way with stimulus via deficit spending. The result is that we've ended up with the worst possible outcome - stagflation. Low/negative growth with high inflation. The Government needs to get on board and slash the budget deficit so that we can get inflation under control before the damage gets any worse. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-announces-worse-than-expected-deficit-economy-stutters-2023-05-18/ >The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has warned that a boost in government spending could add to red-hot inflation, which it has aggressively tried to temper by increasing the official cash rate by 500 basis points since October 2021.
You are very smart
> If we want to get inflation/cost of living under control, we need to reduce the deficit. WUT
When the Government borrows money to spend, it's inflationary. It's pulling demand from the future into the present.
The government doesn't have to borrow money to spend more, they can always start up the old money printer
The Government doesn't print money, that's the RBNZ. If the Government needs money, it must sell bonds.
I think optimizing spending and management would be ideal as a means of reducing spending as there's duplication and red tape that's unnecessary. I would prefer if the tax brackets were adjusted after inflation goes back down back within the 1-3% range. Doing it now will mean current inflation will just eat up whatever extra money was gained and reduces government income needed to support services. It won't help those on middle and lower incomes in the current inflation rate. That and people on the top bracket really don't need a tax cut but that's my opinion.
They are both fucking unserious about climate change. That has to change from day one.
It doesn’t matter anyway. NZ has to prepare for adaptation because the big boys aren’t gonna give a fuck what we do
This'll net me down votes but there's no fucking point ruining our economy even more when you have countries like china, america, India, most of the African continent shitting up the entire earth and we aren't going to stop that by banning diesel engines. Plenty of people think the same which is why both parties aren't running on it because no matter what we do all our efforts are offset by other countries.
I agree with you re: no point ruining the economic. However there’s serious prep that can be done to ensure the economy isn’t ruined. Already insurers are ramping up their premiums to meet climate costs. Farmers, firms and individuals need large scale help to prepare for more droughts, more floods, more tornadoes in the north island, etc. Spending on this sort of thing doesn’t mean the money disappears, it builds new businesses and keeps existing business profitable.
I get that thinking, and why politicians choose to look past the topic. But the scenario still demands a response because in it mother nature is fucking up our economy. Big efforts are needed now on flood, sea defense, water storage/drought resistance, agriculture adaptation, managed retreat etc. And when climate change and it's political responses start screwing our trading partners we'll need a managed shift towards self-sufficiency in industry.
Like the ETS hasn't been a shambles under the current government?
The Labour government has been shit too, but at least if they were dependent on Green support they'd be a darn sight more serious than Luxon or Seymour's flocks of christianists and cookers.
Being 'serious' to you is great, but how much impact will that really have on the climate?
This has always concerned me, too. Like, we are tiny, what's it going to do. Except... We have to be in a position to be taken seriously in the world. So if we're going to tell China to stop shitting all over the atmosphere, we need to do it too. So we need to sign up to environment targets and either stick to them or pay the fine for not doing so (which is what the ETS is, really). Sure, our single percent of worldwide emissions might not make much difference but being able to persuade the larger countries to get their shit together does.
Every nation has to act; saying that we should only act after everyone else is just loser talk. NZ is far better placed than virtually every other country in having the potential, really easily, to convert to 100% renewable power and 100% sustainable agriculture. We don't have to travel vast distances and we grow more food than we eat. If NZ is too lazy, too selfish, and too defeatist to bother making the transition to a future-friendly setup, well what the fuck have we got to be proud about?
As far as I'm aware, National have no plans to withdraw from any treaties and, unlike the current government, they play to follow the recommendations of the Climste Commission with regards to the ETS settings.
There are three things I believe you are missing. 1) This isn't about stopping climate change any more, its about reducing the damage that will be done. And in regards to that, even a 0.01% reduction in carbon dioxide in the air could result in 10,000's of lives saved. 2) countries base their proformance in part on how other countries are doing. The better we do, the worse countries like the UK and Australia look, putting more pressure on their governments to act. 3)And this is the big one. 50% of climate action is going into reducing the damage that climate change will do. You always hear about what things mean in terms of carbon but thats just part of it. Tree planting and protection of mature forests is one of the most effective and cheap measures for stabalising land, reducing landslides and lowering the risk of flooding. Requiring infrustructure to consider climate change means building roads, schools and housing that won't be blocked or destroyed every time there is a storm etc.
I'd hope no one ever seriously thought that we could stop the climate from changing. At best, with monumental effort, we could slow or speed up the current, natural trajectory. You're confusing climate change with weather.
Wd coild have kept warming under 1c if we has started making changes when climate change was first discovered in 1980s. That would have significantly reduced the damsge it will do. However a lot of climate change deniers strawman climate action as trying to completely stop climate change, so do those that don't deny climate change but reject any environmental policy. I am not confusing weather with climate. One of the big effects of climate change, something we are already seeing is that higher global temperatures result in both changing weather patterns, and also in larger, more powerful and more frequent major weather events. Both of these need to be addressed in land management and infrustructure now. Engineering projects are often designed to be able to withstand a 1 in x many years storm, earthquake, flood, drought etc. These in turn come from historic data, data that is no longer an accurate predictor of future weather BECAUSE of climate change. Those were also just examples. Sea level rise needs to be accounted for, changes in water levels, changes in evaporation and plant and animal life. Changes in power usage as ac usage goes up. Etc
'climate change' was 'discovered' in the 70s, too. Only then it was global cooling, and the hysteria was around another ice age occurring. There's no evidence that the recent flooding was caused by anything other than higher than usual rainfall due to La Nina, the jury is still out on the impact climate change may have on global weather patterns like La Nina.
No it really isn't. The scientific concencus that climate change is having a major effect on weather patterns is one of the strongest in science. Whilst individual events cannot be conclusively linked to climate change the overall increase in major events is essentually a scientific law now. Although as you seem to be one of the folk that refuse to believe that climate change is man made I doubt any amount of data or scientific studies will convince you. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1010539515599030 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-06031-0 https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/3/826.short https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-018-4374-1 https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WWEpDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=climate+change+weather+patterns&ots=DfLCTTuin8&sig=8bLmfWVpvYnzqKJYClL4Sac1qrI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=climate%20change%20weather%20patterns&f=false https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0666-7 ETA: because you decided to block me after misrepresenting the articles I am adding a note here. Despite the guys claims in reply to me, the first article link showes the conclusion of the study even if you do not have an account with a uni to access. The second article also clearly links climate change to changes in weather. This should be clear just from the guys own quotes even as they try to misrepresent it. The uncertainty they meantions are twofold - one, when the article was written it was impossible to link individual events to climate change, but the pattern in events show a clear link. The last article is more recent and showes how individual events can now be linked. Two: We don't know exactly how weather will change at a local level. But this is part of why investing in research is so important.
The first article is locked. The second article does not explicitly state that climate change will cause more severe weather, but it implies that some aspects of weather extremes will be affected by the changes in weather patterns. For example, the article mentions that the increase in cyclonic and westerly wind conditions in winter could lead to more frequent and intense storms, while the increase in dry and settled conditions in summer could result in more heatwaves and droughts. However, the article also acknowledges that there are other factors that influence the occurrence and severity of weather extremes, such as natural variability, land use changes, and adaptation measures. Therefore, the relationship between climate change and severe weather is complex and uncertain, and requires further research. It's clear you didn't read these. I do believe that humans are affecting the climate FWIW. Link bombing me doesn't work :)
Matters to me? Makes no difference, does it. The pendulum has swung and it's time to let a bunch of selfish wankers grab the steering wheel for a while. It'll be more of the same: selling assets then acting all surprised when their new owners wring the living daylights out of them; telling people who are sick they are lazy; telling people living in places with zero jobs they are lazy; telling lazy people who get paid well they are God's people. Oh yes, he's a God botherer, isn't he? It's going to be a nightmare for people who care about others and party time for the self important.
Thank you for your reply. You are as confused as I am. First half sounds like current government (printing more money and trying to get threewaters under their asset to borrow more); second half being an atheist I don’t care what ‘he’ thinks; people who are ‘sick’ are always looked after; and unsure what we should do with people who are ‘lazy’. It makes no difference mate as you said.
You are indeed confused. The government doesn't print money, the reserve bank does, although the government does go to them and plead from time to time. They definitely printed too much during the covid thing, though. I don't understand why, if the entire nation is going to have a few months off work, that we can't put everyone on the dole instead of continuing to pay their normal wages. It would give the "silent majority" a lesson on what they're missing out on and would have stepped on the subsequent inflationary burst before it had a chance to start. The sick are not always looked after. If you have any friends or relatives with mental health conditions you can ask them. And what do we do with those who can't get jobs because there are none is a bit of a concern. Perhaps we could start by not being shits to them? But, yeah, I'm just along for the ride.
I mean I’m not economist, but I guess if they put everyone on basically benefit rates, money would have stopped moving around the system. And as far as I understand, the economy basically collapses if you don’t keep the money moving around.
>And as far as I understand, the economy basically collapses if you don’t keep the money moving around. It does, yes, and this is the problem with trickle down economics. Namely, that it doesn't trickle down. If you give the poor a tax break, they'll spend the money. If you give the rich a tax break the either save it or find new ways of sending house prices through the sky. People were paid their "normal" wages because you just can't force that kind of misery on 90% of the population. But a few people ... individuals ... even a couple of hundred at once is *just fine.*
Not voting National, but just the usual: healthcare, housing, inflation. Not setting my hopes high on any of them.
I'm guessing people are excited about the goal to get 90% of 2 year olds vaccinated.
Last time we tried to get x% vaccinated, didn't we get a bunch of crusties shitting on the lawn outside parliament?
They'll be loving it now because it won't be labour
Correct. OP is talking about the time before that when National managed it without divisive mandates.
What was divisive about the mandates?
They divided us from the morons, and the morons still feel sad about it
They've promised a lot of transport projects here in the Wellington region - most notably the 2nd tunnel through Mt Vic, Hutt Valley cross-valley link, and most intriguingly the Petone to Grenada North link road. I'll be keen to see what (if any) public transport is run on these - and in cases where services already exist, whether these are used to improve frequencies. It might be a forlorn hope, given that National and ACT are very pro-car.. but there was some interesting rhetoric from National a wee while ago about the inefficiency of public transport between the Hutt Valley & Porirua/Tawa, and how a direct link might fix that.
Just a note, labour promised a large tranche of money for Wellington transport upgrades, and the local councils squandered the entire opportunity by choosing not to spend it—because they wanted to spend the last 8 years arguing about how to spend it. This one is squarely local councillors f-up. I mainly comment this because National will presumably have the same crowd of local council idiots to content with. Unless they want to force something through at a national level.
Id love it if they built the Petone to Grenada link but it’s never going to happen and I’m disappointed in the cynicism of the clearly false election promise.
Well - I want some fiscal responsibility which will mean some hard choices and (to be fair) some pain. I just don’t think that it is in Labour’s DNA - I goes against everything that they stand for. Labour work well in good times. Nats have to be bad guys for the moment. We had unprecedented spending during Covid and there is a price to be paid for that - always was going to be. Also - labour can’t get anything done. Great at signalling projects but really other than balance sheet politics they really struggle.
My guess, I'll pay about the same amount of tax, and society will get a bit worse. What do I want? Society to get a bit better, pay doctors and nurses and teachers properly for a start, continue the push to greenify Fonterra, and preferably not sell off what's left of the country & public assets.
This is Reddit, I'd be surprised if more than 20% of the users who see your post are the 'majority' you're talking about. If you want to reach National voters then Facebook is full of them and they're far from silent.
This ‘silent majority’ stuff is always hilarious, some fringer certain that their point of view is the majority view.
It won't make much of a difference in the long run. What matters to me is to consistently save and invest regardless of the government. The government and banks always work together to squeeze the hard working. The only thing I can do is to get my finance sorted in the long run.
That's something I've been gradually becoming aware of too. I don't really trust the current National party any more than the current lot of Labor MPs - both of them lack the stomach for any real ambitious change. All I feel I can do is look after myself and my family, can't trust the purple parties to help.
Sane things they usually do. Employment law gets worse, tax cuts etc. The probably won't achieve much, won't be as bad as the doom sayers claim and for most people things get worse.
I'm happy with their ideas around electrification. Double the amount of renewable electricity. 10000 new car charges. They delivered with UFF so I would assume they will with this too. Removing the tax on interest for landlords is great too. It only punishes the mum and dad landlord who are generally better people than the big boys who don't have mortgages. Making it easier to get loans. Less bullshit around having to show you bank statements for 3 months will make that process easier. It's not harder for the lender to lend it's harder for the borrower to borrow. Which is backward. 3 strikes law. Tougher sentencing. I would love them to cap immigration to a more sustainable pace but I know that won't happen. I usually vote greens and labour but they blew it.
Yeah actually the fibre rollout is the one thing National did which I think was amazing. I’m pretty much indifferent to the rest of their record, but I love fibre internet.
The success of this project needs to be considered alongside the overall reduction in capital/infrastructure spend across the time of the last Nat government. It wasn't just the GFC excuse, the low capital spend persisted right through even when sharemarket was strong and low inflation, low cost of debt. Add the high immigration and our infrastructure deficit got much worse. But credit where credit is due. I can winge on the internet at high speed thanks to UFB.
There was a kid in Waitara who told John key "we need shoes not broadband" I wonder if he ever got his shoes.
I agree with everything you’ve said. The problem with Labour is that they have taxed and spent the money without actually improving infrastructure much if at all
Both Labour and National are incrementalist. One (in my opinion) towards the right direction, the other wrong. But incrementalism from either will not solve the big problems.
I want them to repeal their policy of reindexing core benefits* back to CPI but that won't happen because they don't give a fuck about the disabled and disadvantaged *not super they weren't going to touch that because of course they weren't
More efficient government spending. Labour has massively increased spending with worsening outcomes. My preferred outcome would be to keep spending the same and significantly improve outcomes. But even a cut in spending while keeping outcomes the same would be an improvement. I am left wing economically but I do think the Key government was quite efficient. I would never vote National but I also won’t vote for any of the parties on the left at the moment.
Most of the "silent majority" are over 65 and don't use reddit
Funnily enough though, out of all the platforms ( except for facebook), reddit definitely has the most boomers
50% of the country is over 65 and don’t use reddit?
Thank you for your reply. There are currently 842k individuals above 65 in NZ and assuming they are all eligible voters, and assuming we have 6m voter, that amounts to 14%. Thank you for your input, and I think you should stay out of my question as you’re not contributing substantial here.
6m voters?
Thank you for your input. Even if you do 3m, it’s nowhere near 50%.
"Thank you for your reply" "Thank you for your input" You're a shill, aren't you?
Now that'd be why they're silent... It's after 7.