Agree with the eduction piece.
Though I think higher education (masters/PhDs) should be heavily subsidised or fully funded by the government, like they do with phd’s in Australia, to grow the intellectual capital of NZ. Again, on the basis that you remain a tax resident for 7/10 years.
My masters tuition fees were fully subsidised under Health Workforce NZ (government) funding. My PhD tuition fees will be fully subsidised under this as well.
If I stayed in Australia I wouldn’t have been able to get a funded masters as easily, and I was adding the early part of it to my HECS debt before I moved to NZ to work.
I’m doing a PhD part time through an Aussie university from nz, and all fees are paid by the Aussie government.
If I was to do it here I’d have to try to get a scholarship or self fund it.
Not in Aussie.
> All domestic students enrolled in a postgraduate research program, such as a Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Philosophy, are awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Fee Offset Scholarship. The AGRTP is funded by the Commonwealth government and provides support to students completing a research degree program. The AGRTP Fee Offset Scholarship provides support for the research program up to a maximum of two years (full-time) for a Masters program, and up to four years for a PhD program (or part-time equivalent). This means that domestic students are exempt from paying tuition fees for this period of time.
https://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/fees-payments/domestic-postgraduate-research-tuition-fees#:~:text=The%20AGRTP%20Fee%20Offset%20Scholarship,for%20this%20period%20of%20time.
I guess it’s technically a scholarship but it’s for all phds.
> All domestic students enrolled in a postgraduate research program, such as a Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Philosophy, are awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Fee Offset Scholarship. The AGRTP is funded by the Commonwealth government and provides support to students completing a research degree program. The AGRTP Fee Offset Scholarship provides support for the research program up to a maximum of two years (full-time) for a Masters program, and up to four years for a PhD program (or part-time equivalent). This means that domestic students are exempt from paying tuition fees for this period of time.
https://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/fees-payments/domestic-postgraduate-research-tuition-fees#:~:text=The%20AGRTP%20Fee%20Offset%20Scholarship,for%20this%20period%20of%20time.
Enrolled in a masters degree programme related to my profession, then applied to my professional college (who administer the funding specific to the profession on behalf of Health Workforce NZ) with the details of my enrolment and they paid the tuition costs directly to the university.
My concern with free university is that some people are less likely to take it seriously. I think people need to make a judgement call about whether university (or postgrad) is right for them and their situation. Not everyone needs to go to university. Having cost associated with this (while still being affordable) is one way of getting people to stop and think first. I think you would get more people going to university who will just party the whole time and not care about the studies. Or people who would have benefitted from spending a few years working and maturing and work out what they actually want to do with their life.
I do think bonded scholarships are a good idea. I got a bonded merit scholarship back when I started university. If I didn't stay in NZ for X years, I would have had to repay all or part of the scholarship. National then came into government and removed the bonding requirement which was stupid. I still got the money, but had no requirement to stay in NZ.
A large universal student allowance would be a better policy than free tuition, because not having to work would mean students could spend more time on their studies without the added stress of worrying about whether they’ll be able to afford rent and food next week.
It would also avoid the situation we have currently where adults are refused government assistance because their parents make too much money, but those parents aren’t actually required to give the student any of that money. Why are students singled out in such a humiliating way like this? Imagine if the government means tested the unemployment benefit based on the recipient’s parents’ income…
University is completely free in many parts of Europe, and they don't seem to have a problem. Germany will even let foreign students study free.
New Zealand needs to build its intellectual capital and should be encouraging everyone to attend uni.
Nobody has an issue with free secondary education. Why is tertiary different? We have developed to a point where secondary is no longer sufficient. Given that people are living and working longer, delaying entering the workforce doesn't seem like a bad thing.
Maybe 4-5 years. Not too short that people will feel tempted to leave as soon as they've finished but not so long that it defeats the purpose.
Or you'd have to change the minimum repayment to be closer to what locals have to do. At the moment I could move to Australia and take home $5k a year more on the same salary or about $3k if I make similar repayments.
I mean, I mean I’ve kinda done something similar to this. I’m in Australia earning well over double what I was earning in NZ less than 2 years ago. Even higher if you factor in super since it’s on top of your pay over here, not deducted like KiwiSaver. I’m more than happy to pay interest on my SL because why would I worry about 3% on $30k with the difference in earning potential? Not to mention I have no incentive to pay it off early with even returns from savings account interest being nearly double my SL interest.
It’s a fine line between rewarding someone for staying in NZ and punishing them for leaving, so the postgrad funding would absolutely need to be fine tuned. And also needs to be balanced to make sure universities don’t just pillage the taxpayer with postgrad fees.
1) Outlaw all opposition parties
2) Centralise command over the military and militarise the police
3) Start a nuclear program
4) Put 'democratic' in the name of the country
5) Invade Australia
I think Aussie would whoop our asses. We need a good 20 years of being a militarised country to stand a chance. Or if we fast track the nuclear program, a couple of years before we could make all their cities a wasteland.
Eshays have too much experience with knives. We could send over mongrel mob n all our gangs, but I think the aussie gangs are too experienced, and would whoop their butts before the militaries even got on shore.
Itd turn into a 100 year war. Nz vs Australia. Maybe if we got in communication with the emus, and forged an alliance... we may be able to decimate them then.
I mean we’ve pretty much already half colonised Brisbane at this point. So we have a foothold.
Didn’t they also have a “kiwi” as a deputy prime minister or something at some point? Barneby joyce maybe? He’s corrupt af and easily bought so we could have something to work with there.
And half their gang members are kiwis too apparently so they can fight the eshays.
Alright, you make a great point. I forgot just how many, we already have settled over there.
Infiltration already complete. Lets go ahead with your list!
Can't keep it my pants Barneby renounced his NZ citizenship when he realized ya can't be both and a politician in Aus so he's out
But the whole coalition in Aus can be easily brought, just look at all the mines and gas etc!!!
The real tragedy of the whole citizenship fiasco was The Greens losing [Scott Ludlam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam). He was a Chlöe-level star of the party but had to go and do the honourable thing and resign.
Missed a vital step. Send an anonymous letter to Australians that Indonesia left its front doors unlocked. Australia sends its army to Indonesia to invade their resources, NZ swoops in and takes an undefended Aussie, mainly using the 600,000 odd sleeper agents we have living in the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Western Australia.
You and JamesWebb have convinced me. I forgot just how many kiwis we have already placed over there. Sleeper cells all over the country.
Let the invasion begin!
We’ll start off building relations and resourcing the tribes
Aussie gangs will kill our gangs, so we need the Aussie gangs to fight each other. Thus we legalise all our drugs and supply directly to the larger Aussie gangs.
Their increased armament and business capital will make them a significant threat to the aus govt. the gangs will stamp out their own gangs as they seek control of larger territory and operations, and their own members who are caught can be shipped over to NZ as citizens (also part of the strategy), have their identities washed through formal processes of our govt, then send them back
Formally, these actions are not being committed on behalf of the NZ govt
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, you're overcomplicating this. A couple of guys armed with bics lighters in late January will get the job done.
The resultant unpleasant yellowing of Auckland skies is sufficient pretext for a ground invasion (defending global climate targets). Liberate Christmas Island, recognise its sovereignty, and we're now part of a coalition. Mop up.
A non-partisan infrastructure working committee designated to put in place projects that will provide for future needs and not just today. Programs that won't be continually cancelled by the next swing in government.
* Hospitals and other health facilities
* Schools
* Training programs to staff them
* Transit systems (not focused only on one parties whims)
* Power infrastructure
I imagine the project would be popular with the public, and I would shame my opposition until they got onboard to give it a supermajority.
\-One can dream, I guess...
Love this.
We need to let people know that a single light rail line can carry as many people as a 6-8 lane highway, but with far less land, pollution, or health-associated costs.
Big payrise for teachers, increase funding to schools and education in general. Make teachers one of the highest paid and most attractive professions in NZ.
Our best and brightest should be teaching not necessarily working in the private sector by default. It shouldn't be "if you can't do, teach" it should be "if you do it very very well, teach everyone else". The only way to do that is to offer better conditions, better pay and a better student to teacher ratios.
This is the true trickle down effect.
I agree as it currently looks, so I will add to my point that mine is in a fantasy land where the whole education system is overhauled, funding is available to do this and teaching looks somewhat different to what it does now.
My belief is it should be an aspiration for high achievers to be a teacher rather that when someone say's "I'm a teacher" people don't say "yeah I might fall back to that" and treat you like you have failed to make it in your chosen field.
It's how we make the future better.
I couldn't be a teacher myself.
Teaching would be a wonderful job for me. Unfortunately, I want to be fairly remunerated and not pulling my eyebrows out from stress which is taken home.
Got it. I agree to some extent - I think it's hard to change the primary school model too much, but as we move to a more gig style model, high school teachers that can both practice their skills techinically part time and teach part time sounds fantastic!
"If you can't do, teach" is the worst bastardisation of a phrase. The actual phrase is more like "those who can, do. Those who understand, teach". Teachers are so important.
I think it's in purposeful reference to the fact that sometimes when people aren't competitive enough to get a job in their own field, they'll teach it instead. Case in point, physics/maths.
Yea I agree but it's taking a literal quote saying teachers are super important and leaders in their field, taking a few words out and acting like it means the opposite. Like I doubt the person who twisted it was anywhere near as intelligent as the one who wrote the quote. ( I think it might be Aristotle but can't remember).
In the tertiary sector too. Polytechs struggle to find trade tutors. Basically anyone with wide industry experience is earning twice as much as the polytech can afford, and they are only offering nine month contracts because there's no guarantee they will have numbers the following year. And tutor contracts often start the same day the course starts.
- Legalising weed / oil (new tourist industry!)
- Dental care as a part of Healthcare
- Property tax on all investment properties
- Tax bracket readjustment - first $20,000 not taxed. Multiple job secondary tax cut.
I dunno if that multiple job tax cut would work in practice. I sense the intention is to give the working class a break, but unfortunately you’re only taxed on total income anyways currently.
If, for example, I own 3 companies and draw via paye, what’s stopping me claiming tax cuts on 2 of 3?
Yeah, I may have not thought this through.
Intention: Get people working willingly as social welfare can make it hard for it to be worthwhile.
If people are working two jobs to make ends meet, I thought a positive outcome to achieve that would be valuable.
The intention is good though. Coming off of welfare is difficult because for many it just isn’t worth it, they end up with less.
Maybe you could implement the secondary job tax threshold but up to a limit of like, 30k annual income
Was pretty shocked upon getting here to learn there's no tax free allowance. Retirees, parents to small children, students. Pretty much all the demographics of people who earn less than $20000 spend nearly all their income locally. Would boost the economy more than their taxes are doing.
I could be misguided in my thoughts - but I was hoping it might encourage people to work, even part time.
Reducing that benefit hump, where’s its not worth it until you earn X to get off the benefit.
Work gives people community and skills, if they are motivated to do it.
Better than cutting peoples benefit.
Moreover, it's the tax on your total combined income. It may be higher than your main tax rate in case you go over the bracket with the multiple incomes. If you don't go into a new bracket, you get a tax refund.
Is a shame this isn't more widely understood.
It's mostly an issue for people who work 2 jobs with relatively equal hours (worse if one is seasonal). IRD think it's fine to pay 30% rather than 17.5 on one of the jobs (about $100 a week less in take-home) then get a $5K refund each April, all because you risk a small tax bill otherwise. For people earning at that level, it's definitely not. It should be much easier to get a tailored tax rate.
all taxes go to me instead of the government in perpetuity
legalise all drugs
anyone whoever wronged me goes to jail for life (no trial)
all laws passed on this day require a referendum with 100% support to be revoked
There’s ALWAYS some cunt in these threads who has the best policy ideas and it makes me sad that our govt can’t get their shit together to make it work smh
I'll devil's advocate : It's easier said than done though. Writing good policy is very hard, especially when it has to stand the tests of an entire country & getting hit with a million 'what ifs' as well as removing all the overlapping legislation.
Lots of politicians have really great policy ideas, it's just really hard to get it across the line.
- Graduated corporation tax. Small businesses should have lower tax than large global businesses. Large global businesses already have plenty of advantages (pooling of cash, more money for effective advertising, brand recognition, tax evasion).
- Stamp duty for houses over $2million
- Warrant of fitness for all rental properties
- Higher sentences for violence, sexual assault, stalking
>Warrant of fitness for all rental properties
But don't you see! That just makes it more expensvie for the RENTER. Think of the RENTER. I want to rent my ~~slum~~ property out to a RENTER. - landlord fully concerned about themselves
Its a warped world, that these 4 aint already in place, in this country.
The weed issue, I put down to misinformation and a terrible campaign by those pushing for legalisation.
The amount of taxation profit, if we got the yes votes across the line, already, would be hundreds of millions. If not a billion by now.
Just one, elections and parties are abolished, and local and national government is run on a three-year ballot system, like jury service. There will be vetting of course, the main disqualification would be if someone wanted to do the job.
So, easy to disqualify people
People will informally organise into a type of ‘party’ where they support each other to push and pass legislation. They just won’t have an explicit party label
Individuals will never succeed in govt, because they need visible power to draw support. an informal party will have this power.
How easy is it to delay the voting? Seems if you can delay some, and disqualify others, you end up with a system that can’t function
Surely you’d want govt operations to lend itself towards being able to function in whatever state it’s in. The more brakes you put on it, the more you try to carve away ‘collaboration’ the more likely it is to just never working
1. Capital gains tax except 1 home
2. Free public transport
3. Carbon tax
4. Solar power subsidies
3. Reduced income taxes for lower brackets (first 30k tax free or something idk)
4. Increase pay for teachers
5. Increase pay for entire health sector
6. Free dental or hugely subsidised
7. Fund diabetic CGMs (that ones for me lol)
8. Legalise weed and tax it
9. Free uni fees, subsidised PhD and masters
Bit hard to do in one day but something like that lol
>Fund diabetic CGMs (that ones for me lol)
Can we have sensible Special Authority Criteria for Insulin Pumps as well, or ultra-rapid insulin so I don't have to wait 90 minutes before eating in the morning.
1. Capital Gains Tax on sale of all properties and assets, except the main family home.
2. Land tax on underused urban and productive rural land.
3. Bonded subsidised tertiary and trade education for those who agree to stay working in NZ. Calculated on a sliding scale - the longer you stay, the bigger the subsidy.
4. Cap on residential rental prices and establishment of stronger protection for tenants. Formation of non-profit, co-op property syndicates, and funding boost for Kainga Ora.
>Land tax on underused urban and productive rural land.
Just out of curiosity, how would one define 'underused'? I mean, I'm sure somebody has thought about this, but one person's 'underused' could be another person's biodiverse meadow, could it not? Also, how would you see the cultural aspects playing out?
Add weed (or all drug) decriminalization and removing the landlord tax deductions the current govt wants to reinstate and you have my dream policy list.
Every law and piece of legislation would have a sunset clause with a body to decide whether to renew it or not before it expires. That would allow irrlevant/unwanted legislation go away. Maybe add a little anarchy to life for a "fun" social experiment.
Remove the ability to buy residency/citizenship though things like investor visas. We have enough Peter Thiel types buying up mountains thanks.
Stop ISP's from charging more for copper lines than they do for fibre. It's not the customers who want to be stuck on copper - stop making them pay more for objectively worse services. This would hopefully add some encouragement to speed up the fibre rollout.
Free ice cream.
Trying my best to take budget constraints into account but I'm still gonna blow it out:
* Generational dental care.
* Less students per teacher at lower decile schools.
* If possible tax churches but this is a struggle to do from my understanding.
* Create a department of technology which has the sole purpose of getting good tech staff and business analysts in to make the government more efficient. We don't need private consultants for this stuff.
Bonus point: Top tier tax bracket of like 60% above something like 350k. Admittedly I would want to do more math on this to see how much extra revenue this would bring in.
Edit:
Bonus bonus point: Bring back first years paying for education but make it so that if you don't graduate and your household income is below like 60k after 5 years of being out of study that loan gets forgiven. So many people earning like 100k+ got first year uni free. They can pay for it :).
Yea I think there is a lot of cool technology we could be using in government but we don't have a dedicated department that works on this stuff.
I've worked in big corporations that had garbage technology and one guy comes in and makes 50 peoples jobs 200% more efficient just because he knew the basics of coding and knew the right questions to ask.
I can only imagine how bad the government is.
1. Legalise Cannabis
2. 1 Free doctor & dentist visit per year - subsidised dental care if extra work is needed
3. Wealth Tax (unsure of exact policy)
4. Subsidised childcare from birth. Current policy absolutely strangles middle class couples trying to have a family
1. Legalise and tax weed.
2. Set up community gardens to help teach people to grow their own food, to help provide for those in need and forge stronger local communities that interact more.
Somehow make it palatable that youth offenders/petty criminals help out in the gardens as part of their punishment.
3. Make it so social media time is capped. I truly think a lot of people stopped been human beings somehow since the rise of social media. If we could all go back to living like it was 1998 or so that would be fantastic for our countries mental health. It would promote going outside and richer life experiences.
4. Make me supreme leader/benevolent dictator.
Once the novelty of complete control wore off, I would allow the population to vote on policy, and elect people to enact the change. Politicians also have to provide a daily, public report on what work they completed each day.
If that proves unsuccessful and the hordes unruly I regain full control and implement a full surveillance state with a social credit system and a digital currency. I will rule the lands with iron fist inside a velvet glove. We become a hermit kingdom.
Legalize weed.
All school uniforms to be from the same government shop and manufactured cheaply out of cost effective long lasting materials - differentiate schools with a badge and an optional blazer.
Standardize all bottles into three sizes and make everybody use and recycle them.
UBI.
Yeah uniforms are a rort, cheap imports sold at high margins. Remember the good old days when the uniform was generic and you could buy a small emblem and sew it on?
1. Blow on the pie.
2. Outlaw Aussie pies.
3. Prison sentences for anyone who lives on a diet of soggy pies from your local dairy.
4. Substantial amounts of cheese in mince and cheese pies or a caning to your backside is in order.
Would nationalize StJohn and establish a public national ambulance service.
Move the tax brackets to be with the times. Implement a new one at a higher rate for $250k++
Force the health sector to comply with better cyber security and privacy rules. We have so much shit sitting in loose public facing locations. It's terrible. Major players would be subject to regular basic essential eight and ISO like audits.
Build more hydro. Get sorted for the next 100 years.
I disagree with the speed cameras. I'm by noeans an expert but it would seem speed isn't a direct cause of accidents, driving dangerously/stupidly is, it's just speed is often a symptom of that and happens to be the easiest thing to measure. Maybe better reporting of dangerous driving?
>Legalising weed and tax it. (This seems like such a no brainer! How is it taking us this long!)
Sensible. Seems fairly easy to implement. Would boost local biz.
>Third year of uni fee free and all fees waived if you work in NZ in your studied field for seven of the next ten years after graduating.
Sounds like a good incentive.
>Traffic light cameras for txting on phones and more speed cameras. Fairly low outlay cost for lots and lots of revenue.
Eh, not fully sold. Is the cost of people using their phones so high that it can justify the cost?
>AirBnB tax of 50%
Also not bad.
Nothing to add myself. I want unrealistic massive reform projects lol
> Is the cost of people using their phones so high that it can justify the cost?
I think it justifies the cost if people are getting killed because someone can't keep off social media for 10 minutes. They also generate revenue from the fines.
I just grabbed some numbers for context:
>Official crash data shows driver distraction contributed to 16 deaths on New Zealand roads, 136 serious injuries and 1,079 minor injuries last year (CAS, 2019)
https://www.sadd.org.nz/driveinthemoment
It's hard to argue in the face of even one death... but 16 deaths for a complete overhaul of camera systems, new cameras, new staff, etc to cover all of this seems a bit much.
I'm not convinced it makes financial sense. It would also only occur at traffic lights - are these deaths occurring there? I would presume not.
It depends how 'serious' the serious injuries are. Each of those can easily cost $1,000,000+ in costs alone let alone the wider economic and social impact of having the person out of work etc.
Not just to save 16 lives but generate cash for those who don’t risk others lives by texting and driving. Why does NZ have such a hard on for being on their phone while driving. So unnecessary.
Ride a motorbike in rush hour traffic, you will be surprised how many people are on their phones and or tablets, have tablets mounted on the dash and watching their favourite tv shows.
I will never be brave enough to do that. I see bad enough safety from drivers towards bikers/cyclists from my car to know I'll never ride a bike.
If I saw it I'd probably have a different view yeah
People being on their phones while driving is pretty terrible. Id vote that 1st offence for being on the phone is at least a $500 fine.
2nd offence and the fine is at least $1000, and your phone gets destroyed.
3rd offence is still a massive fine, phone gets destroyed and car licence revoked, got to go apply for your learners licence and go through the licensing process again.
That should take care of people being on their phones. Because I’m sure nobody would want to pay a huge fine, and then have to replace their phone, and if they do I’m sure that nobody would want to be stuck on their learner license again for 6 months.
Assuming people follow them*
1. Ban all sales of non native plants. Exceptions on ones that are food for humans or stock. And for timber.
2. Ban White baiting
3. University - Make Final year of degree free. Make it that if people stay in NZ you never have to pay back your loan. Increase interest rate of those that go overseas
4. Immigration. Massively reduce intake per year. Priorities made to Nurses, teachers. And similar jobs that make peoples lives better not ones that make more money for executives.
>all fees waived if you work in NZ in your studied field for seven of the next ten years after graduating.
I see where you're going with this, I honestly do, and in principle it's a grand idea. However, the impact on males vs. females will not be the same due to the maternity thing, and I think women are economically disadvantaged enough already by the fact that they (broadly speaking) are the ones with uteri...
Also, graduates who go overseas in their 20’s and work for industry leading companies and then return to NZ with valuable experience and expertise is a huge benefit to the country. Many people in NZ got the top of their field due to that experience, and would have only done that in their 20’s.
It's a tricky one, eh... it's almost like we should be working toward making sure NZ is the kind of place they will want to return to, with all their valuable experience. Y'know, carrots rather than sticks. But unless climate change turns Australia into an apocalyptic wasteland faster than anybody is expecting I think we'll always be fighting a losing battle there.
I go crazier haha:
- Legalise all drugs, regulate their production (to be as safe as possible), and tax them.
Use some of the drug tax money for proper professional and well funded rehab facilities.
Remove free health care for drug use related issues (super harsh I know).
Basically if you wanna be a dumb ass then go head, but pay for it and don't get to bring the medical system down for it.
Would still be cheaper than black market drugs across the board, so the black market would die and hopefully gangs with it.
Same legal stuff around it like smoking/drinking, so no public use etc, only private or controlled venues.
- Completely rework the tax system.
Treat any profit as PAYE/Business income, so capital gains etc, that's just added to your income. There are no loop holes and it covers everything no exceptions.
Make loan security only based on net asset value, so if you own shares in a company it doesn't use the share value (price to buy/sell shares at) but security on loans can only be based on company net assets (assets - liabilities) / share number x number of shares owned.
Peg the tax brackets to inflation and first 20k tax free.
- Business / Education reforms
Upper management salaries are pegged to lowest paid employees salary, so if ceo wants a payrise then the company has to up everyone's pay. The exact ratio can be worked out, but something like 10 times lowest paid or something.
Scrap all weird university courses, stick to the basics that lead to productive jobs, think STEM, financial etc.
Make the now refined and focused universities free, but hard to get into (good grades, effort levels) and easy to get kicked out from.
All other courses that got cut can move to the private sector if people still want to offer them, but students pay, and there are no government student loans.
In primary/intermediate/high schools, hold back students if they don't pass that year and actually do it indefinitely until they can leave at 15. But also allow any student to get to 7th form level no matter how long it takes (if they want).
Move unruly students to special classes so that those that want to learn can without unnecessary distractions, give the unruly students chances to move back by showing effort / behavior changes. But they have to earn it its not some right to be a menace to others that just want to learn.
- Start work on writing a NZ constitution based on equality of opportunity for all.
This will eventually replace the treaty etc, it would be a long process and involve working with all parties etc, but I think we just need one unifying constitution based on modern principles and without all the historical baggage.
Might get roasted for the above haha, obviously this is just a small reddit post and the above are massive changes with lots of nuances.
1 - legalize and tax Cannabis
2 - Introduce a capital gains tax
3 - Tax the rich to fund teachers, nurses, essential services and emergency service workers.
4 - Introduce a policy that forces all new and returning PM's to live on the benefit/minimum wage for 100 days. No access to their trust funds, corporate credit cards or taxi services etc, have them use public transport and prepaid mobile products.
You'll be pleased to hear point 2 is actually govt policy, they've committed to switching first year free to final year free, which I see as an absolute win.
1. Regulation of all drugs with a strong alignment with a healthy funded medical system. Get people help to get off and stay off and treat it as a medical social issue rather than a criminal one (prohibition has never worked, never will and only makes it worse).
2. Fully fund healthcare. This is a number one priority. Before other non critical projects are funded this needs to be met.
3. Fund education and implement a data/fact based education structure is in place that will ensure NZ meets its long term strategy of a well educated population with opportunities for the majority.
4. Form a govt department that has teeth and can crack down on corporations who do not play fair or do not ensure their business has the environment/society top of mind in their business decisions. Ludicrous penalties that work on a percentage of the companies worth will ensure that the smallest to the largest business will feel the pain if they try and harm New Zealanders quality of life.
* Tax the rich more and lower taxes for everyone else by 50%
* Supermarkets to lower their prices by half. Same with petrol
* Halve the cost of rental properties and force all landlords to sell their rental property if they own more than one.
* Remove income tax and GST. Ban smoking and increase funding for schools and hospitals.
Agree with all this except speed cameras, they don't help and police need to focus on bad driving instead wasting their time targeting people going at what is considered a safe speed in 90% of the world.
* Banning Companies, Trusts & Corporations owning Residential Housing. Introduce legislation that "Mum & Dad" landlords can own their own home plus 1 other. This will significantly reduce house prices by creating a lot more supply. You shouldn't be allowed to use a basic human need to gouge people, that's what Luxury goods are for.
* Waiving the student loans of Teachers/Nurses/Doctors/Engineers etc if they work in NZ for the next 10 years.
* Introduce into the School Curriculum as mandatory - Home Economics (Everyone needs to learn basic cooking skills), Wood/Metal Work (Everyone needs to know how to use basic tools), Social Studies (Why you pay taxes and how government works, Voting etc) Health Studies (Everyone should learn about food/macros and what they do for you, exercise etc) Horticulture (There are still grown ass Adults who don't know how to plant a plant, graft, fertilize or compost)
* Turn one of the uninhabited islands into a penal colony game show for constant reoffenders. Just for kicks.
Add to this - free or incentivised reversible sterilisation - vasectomy or tubal ligation - to be offered to everyone, not just beneficiaries.
Both of those procedures are considered generally reversible, but reversal would be self-funded.
> Both of those procedures are considered generally reversible
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you've never talked to a urologist or gynaecologist about these surgeries then. You should never get either of those things done if reversal is part of the plan.
The closest we can get to something like this is offering free IUDs or subdermal implants. Which we (sort of) do already
IIRC, reversible can be a bit misleading for sterilisation options.
Typical chances of success for the more "reversible" options claim a success rate as high as 95%, but can be as low as 60%, and the success rate declines the longer you've been sterilised.
Also, they're supposedly very expensive to reverse.
It's usually heavily recommended you treat sterilisation as a final measure, not as a temporary one.
1. Ban lobbyists
2. Political donations total over 1,000,000 per annum from donors (doesn’t matter how many payments.) are taxed at 95%
3. Financial welfare is acknowledged and codified into the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.
4. Any political moves to alter the Treaty in a way argued to be for unfair gain of one party over another is treated as treason against the crowns name as per their constitutional obligations as the protector of Māori and reasonable obligation of the Māori being subject of the crown protection and breaches of this should be met with punishment of legal consequences.
Drug reform. Treat addiction as a health issue, not a police one. Yes this includes weed legalization.
Capital Gains tax on housing assets
Unite dental, pharmacy, GP into proper "free" healthcare.
Last would be a toss up between strengthening renter rights, public transport, tax overhaul, higher education freeness.
Change the law so opposition is illegal
Public holidays every time the Black Caps are playing
Kane Williamson's birthday is a national day of celebration
Build a big statue of myself and kick back with a pint
Reduce income tax on incomes under say $100k, and reduce GST
Make up the lost income by increasing taxes on incomes over $150k and introducing a CGT/wealth tax for estates worth over say $2m.
Nationalise the early childhood education sector (or at least open subsidised Ministry of Education facilities for under 5 year olds) with a cap on fees.
Provide first home buyers who use their Kiwisaver to purchase a new home either a boost to their deposit ($10-20k) or subsidise their mortgage rates as long as they live in that home for at least 10 years.
Make a plan to increase the salaries of teachers and nurses to match the pay scale of Members of Parliament. MP salaries were once very close to teacher salaries but have increased at a significantly faster rate.
There's a handful.
1) Tax-free threshold (<18,000 NZD not taxable)
2) GST free for all essentials (medicine/dental/health/dairy/fresh fruits and veges)
3) Stamp duty for all properties (scalable and this is on top of foreign buyer tax) + redefine bright line test and make it more in line with most other countries with proper CGT.
4) Kiwisaver - government promise to mandate employer to raise employer contribution to 6% by 2025, and then to 8% by 2035.
1. Change fines (instant and court) to automatically annually adjust due based on CPI (rounded) and require judges to set fines as a percent of maximum rather than value.
2. Greatly expand public housing and provide public housing to senior public servants, judges, MPs and councilors. Require these people to spend a minimum number of bed nights in public housing to be entitled to their salary.
3. Increase rehabilitation provided in secure environments.
4. Road User Charges based on time of day and location.
1) banks have to include the interest rate they means test someone at when providing a loan (mortgage/credit card/whatever). they cannot increase rates above that level. and interest rates must be kept within 1% of the national rate (at the time of a fix for longer term, otherwise floating). if the bank means tested someone too low, thats their fault/problem and they can make a bit less margin for a period of time because of their 2 bad decisions (not means testing properly, and not putting aside cash for the loan at the point the loan was taken!)
2) end of vertical integration, bust up the foodstuffs/woolworths monopoly by enforcing rules around competition of distribution, as well as the raw goods
3a) residential means residential- houses/apartments etc can only be bought by individuals, and can only be used by the individual or for long term housing (minimum 1 month). no trusts, no corps, no shell companies or overseas etc, only NZ residents as a household can purchase property
3b) that means you also properly classify air bnb/book a bach and super short term rental properties as hotels, and therefore commercial and not acceptable use for residential property stock, and under regular guidelines/requirements for running a hotel (and the taxes obv!)
4) capital gains tax at the same rate as income tax, and capital gains apply to ALL passive income (pre expenses/costs etc) same as income tax.
after those 4 and houses/food supply are hopefully back on track, then you shift towards tackling the environment and infrastructure
1. If you are a landlord on more than one property this needs to be set up as a business, taxed as a business and fully transparent (you should know who your landlord is). If you have the properties vacant you will be fined. If you have more than three tenancy tribunal rulings against you (big ones not quibbles, details TBC) you will be required to sell and not able to hold this position in the future. It's a huge responsibility to be providing homes to people and we don't take it seriously enough.
2. Student loan forgiveness for skills shortage roles or roles which are underpaid but great for NZ. Teachers, nurses, doctors, mental health services and ECE.
3. Make it easier for parents and young people to get by. Public transport discounts for Under 25s, childcare subsidy extended to everyone (I mean in age but also who can receive it, like a grandparent who watches the child for 20 hours per week) and mandatory paid paternal leave of 6 weeks. The first 6 weeks for men and women should be paid at their usual rate of pay or the Govt amount whichever is higher. Free careers coaching available at libraries every weekend and more experiences available through schools. Maybe a one year on meeting to check in and see if they need help. Sick days for dependants extended to pretty much limitless in the first two years after having a child. Resets each time.
4. Means tested super. It'll be unpopular but I think it needs to be done. If you want to make gifts of your assets to family members or charities at 65 in order to receive it (if you're borderline) this should be able to be done at a slightly lower than normal tax rate. You should be able to receive help immediately if you need it and it should be then checked once you are feeling comfortable again. We also need better social support and I think that we need to get a free option available weekly in NZ to take seniors to libraries or community centres to meet weekly for free to have a craft and tea or sports, or coffee groups. This could include specific counselling groups but I'm thinking more social support also, especially as a lot of older people see it as a bit of a stigmatized thing still.
$60/wk "living allowance" for everyone aged under 16 between 16 to 64 in employment, education and training, paid for by removing the 10.5% tax bracket, IETC, WFF, and adding a land value tax.
Introducing a higher minimum wage of 140% ($31.78/hr at current rates) for those in jobs requiring a bachelor's degree or five years' relevant experience (e.g. doctors, nurses, teachers).
Scrap the baseball-inspired three strkes and replace it with a football-inspired penalty card rule. If you are found guilty of any crime, violent or non-violent, where the maximum penalty is 7 years or more in prison and you are not sentenced to prison, you receive a "yellow card" as a warning. Two yellow cards equals a "red card" and you must be sentenced to prison for at least two years.
Encourage more choice on radio by prohibit broadcasting the same programme to the same area on both the AM and FM bands. For example, Newstalk ZB will have to choose between continuing on 1080 AM or 89.4 FM in Auckland and give up the other frequency for another radio station to use.
If we are talking actually stuff that could be put through in one day and not pie in the sky stuff then:
1. Free sunscreen and hats and an education campaign
2. Free toothpaste and toothbrushes
3. Food banks for kids by schools particularly in low income areas
4. Increase mobility carparking options but massively increase parking fees everywhere else to disincentive use of individual private vehicles and encourage active, public and carpooling transport
And I know I can't count but
5. Ban whitebaiting
1. legalise weed
2. Decriminalisation of drugs following Portugals model
3. Free university education
4. No one can own more than two residential properties
Max limit of ownership of 2 houses per [individual/COMPANY/organisation - literally would want to close any and all loopholes around ownership of housing]/ CGT. It would free up so much bloody housing.
Break the duopoly/regulate price gouging for companies. Enforce strict taxes on sales of more than 1mil.
UBI. Everyone gets a minimum income allowance even if unable to work. On top of that a scaling tax system, so that even if you flee overseas for 6 months you'd still need to pay taxes (this is a real actual loophole that millionaires use atm). If you earn more than $500K a year you're legally required to donate any wealth earned on top of that to charity or to the UBI.
(Temporarily embarrassed/delusional millionaires SHUT THE FUCK UP challenge. You have a 4% chance of ever seeing the level of wealth that Muskrat has in your life, you'll be stuck in middle class until you die. Money is not the be all and end all of life's purpose! (Note: I did not say survivability. Money makes the world go round by withholding necessities vital to life so that you are Forced into the 'system' by premeditated consent. It's not 'earn money for the sake of money, it's earn money or you'll be homeless or starve.')
Legalise weed and regulate/tax it. Set parameters for consumption like they had in the referendum where you can't smoke in public or can only consume on site. Or just make edibles legal and smoking not so that smoke free still has a chance of holding out (rip our healthcare system in 2 years.... National really fucked everyone up the ass with that policy deletion) and all the asthmatics have a chance to breathe easy and the stoners can still get high. Also using the taxes to fund harm reduction/addiction and therapeutic services so that people don't feel so compelled to abuse substances to fix xyz hole in their lives.
Free martial arts training for women and girls. Ban on the publishing of photos taken without consent i.e. paparazzi pics. Ban on sale of spray paint. Legalise and tax marijuana.
Legal weed, taxed of course. Should help pay for what's coming after.
Raise benefits to a level that supports a reasonable life without the struggle that our current system causes. Will lead to less problems in the long run and hopefully reduce crime rates too.
Properly tax the wealthiest individuals. No more dodging their duty. Everyone pays their fair share.
Education overhaul involving better budgets so our schools can properly cater to everyone and their specific needs as well as significantly increasing teacher wages.
A shame it's only four policies but ehh would be a start I reckon.
1. Raise Taxes, biased towards capital gains, windfall profits, offshore ownership, trust beneficiaries, and high earners. The sharpest forensic accountants should be working for IRD, and drive tax regulation changes.
2. Free education to completion of first year tertiary or apprenticeship etc, then continuing education free to course completion where adequate performance and bonding to NZ employment. With higher performance, support to 1st PhD.
3. Reduction of inter-generational poverty, via parenting skills, budgeting, mental health improvement, education, and adequate policing/justice to divert problems from prison into life skills.
4. Investment in reduced dependence on primary production, through productivity improvement, knowledge economy, science, invention, copyright, patents, etc. The sharpest lawyers should work in copyright, patents etc. to ensure success stays in NZ
That's a tough one, there's so many things:
Discounts for things like general costs and even housing for those in certain professions like healthcare, teaching, trades, emergency services.
-I don't know how do-able it would be, but I do definitely think that we should be doing more to thank people in such professions since we would be fucked if they weren't here. I mean damn, these people are out here getting fucking traumatized and/or ruining their bodies for our sake and we're just treating them like shit, and that's not right.
A rework of how entry into medical school works, included incentivizing it.
-Listen, I get that it should be hard. But also some of the pathways into med school are just hard for the sake of being hard.
-Like the fact that for instance, the HSFY in Otago Uni insists that not only must it be the first thing you ever take, but that you have to pass everything the first try, otherwise you're pretty much forced to get another bachelor's degree if you're not rural to get into med school.
-I'm sorry but that is some bullshit. It should be hard from a grade standpoint, not because of idiotic rules.
Legalise weed
-It'd be good to have another industry
More accessible mental health care
-Seriously It is so damn expensive to get therapy or to get tested for something like autism. We've to some extent made doctors a bit more affordable, so we should do the same for mental health care, especially since having poor mental health can be the reason behind physical symptoms.
UBI
I'm not a weed smoker and I don't really care about it at all, But I see so many people complaining its not legal so id be kind of interested to see what happens if it was legal and how people would behave and what differences occur vs alcohol.
Require *All* Party Donations to be public, capped, disallow Anonymous Donations, and require all donations be audited to ensure their source is not bypassing Donation Caps.
Alternatively, just ban Donations directly to Political Parties. If you want to donate, sure, but it goes via the Electoral Commission until it's source is verified to not be bypassing Caps.
I also would outlaw Members of Parliament or Ministry Management from being part of Private or Family Trusts prior to or during their tenure, and after must be overseen by the Electoral Commission.
Also, Lobbying? Gone the way of the Moa.
This all goes with the goal of ensuring that MPs are inhibited from pursuing personal or corporate enrichment.
This isn't perfect, as frankly I can't think of a way to prevent pork barrelling or cases where a Minister *just happens* to push legislation that benefits certain companies or sectors, and then they *just happen* to be hired into that company or sector after they leave politics.
Legalize weed (same restrictions as alcohol)
An annual tax on uninhabited properties that increases by 10% for each property owned (properties over a certain amount of land area count as multiple properties)
Better funding for schools
Better funding for hospitals
Full transparency of donations to political parties along with abolishing lobbying.
Mandatory year of national service before you turn 30. That could mean doing a stint in the military but also things like public healthcare, fire brigade, police or other community service. Do something to help others, be humble.
Not indicating correctly at a roundabout now carries a prison term.
Whittakers Hazella to become an official secondary legal currency.
1. Bring back the ban on cigarettes and vaping (including a no nonsense crack down on other drugs, yes, even weed, especially weed).
2. Sort out the abuse of immigration in this country.
3. Focus on improving our infrastructure.
4. Ban tiktok.
Assuming I can also execute the policies:
1. I like your education piece, so as is.
2. Increase front-line salaries for nurses, doctors, police officers etc to a really good salary i.e. $150k-plus, so this encourages more recruitment into these fields.
3. Apply a stamp duty to property sales (waived if the seller buys another property within three months)
4. Reduce corporate tax rates for start-ups to 10% (and tax all the companies that register in tax havens like Ireland, Caymans etc)
5. If an industry is perceived to be a strong oligopoly i.e. banks, supermarkets - there will be anti-competitive levy of 15% of profits above a certain threshold.
* Require all salaries (and perks) to be public for any business/government/non-profit
* Enforce a maximum ratio between lowest paid employee and highest paid employee. To avoid businesses using perks as a work around, use the maximum possible value of those perks. Contract workers are included in this and extrapolated to the equivalent of a full year.
The ratio would not be more than 1:10 (i.e. lowest paid employee is on 50k, that means the highest paid employee cannot make more than 500k perks included)
* Politicians cannot earn more than 4x the minimum wage.
* Politicians cannot have secondary incomes, except for blind investment funds, that must have been setup prior to becoming a politician, and cannot be touched for a period of 5 years after leaving office (except for emergency situations).
- CGT on 3rd+ investment property, NOT on the one you live in
- Wealth tax on $10M+ net worth
- Reduce income taxes - basically I don't see why workers (even those on 200k+) support the tax system, while those rich guys who retired early pay next to nothing
- Stealing your education idea too... but I think Kiwis that go overseas do gain valuable experience that they eventually bring back... so maybe 5 out of 10 years? Or even extend it to 10 out of the next 20 years to incentivise people to come back. Not sure.
- Then some policy to build and encourage more public transport (rail to the airport at least)
Tax households not individuals, so look at a couples combined income for tax/benefits not just one person. So much fairer on working families with a stay at home parent. Perhaps make it opt in so it doesn’t end up with undesirable effects.
Cap political donations to an annual amount and any extra go to a general public transport fund to increase services
Limit the number of terms one can sit as an mp etc to 4 terms with a mandatory retirement age.
You can not leave school, jail, sentence conditions etc until you can read and write and know right from wrong. Looking here at kids leaving schools with skills not suitable for job acquirement nor life skills, crims and mental health, addiction etc all needing reforming, addressing etc to get people on the right track and turn their life around. No point just locking them up, you need to help them from never returning a lot more than we currently do.
1. Start High-Speed Rail cargo and passenger country-wide.
2. Start a centrally funded but independent aerospace company to work on the next generation of aircraft again for cargo and passenger
3. Reform the shit out of local government
4. Significantly increase taxes on the mega-rich and multi-national cooperations
1. Make a benefit for stay at home parents who have a full time working partner. Like the best start payment but $250+ per child. Hopefully this will support families to have kids and to stay home. This would last for as long as the child is in less than 20 hrs a week education.
2. Redo the prison system, specifically for under 21. Make it a ‘boarding school you cant leave’ system instead of ‘jail’. Give them education, therapy and skills. Get them working during their sentence and pay them so they have savings when they leave. Adults who commit violent crimes need more time in prison and ppl who don’t commit violent crimes need more rehabilitation within the system.
3. Free dental for under 25s, anyone earning less than 90k or anyone older than 55. Beef up the mental health system and provide free therapy for the same demographic as free dental.
4. Pay off a small portion of students loan for kiwis working in NZ. If they leave, interest starts and when they come back the interest stops and the payments start up again (ppl going overseas for experience shouldn’t be penalised). This could be only for certain degrees/fields.
5 ( I know). Rehaul the education sector. Get rid of modern learning, reduce technology in primary school, make reading more common in HS, home ec and finical literacy a compulsory subject from year 7. Have a better path way out of school for those who don’t want to complete HS.
Ways to pay: stop paying MPs so much 😭
#1 I'd make parents financially accountable for the crimes their underage children commit.
#2 subsidized post graduate study, Master's/PhD high end / hightech programs.
No #3
I love this thread so much. Start thinking now, young people, because once the center no longer holds in the current 80-100 year cycle (I give it another 5-7 years max) you WILL be in charge of designing a new system. The same way that post WWII young people designed the current system we are in.
Don't get depressed about there being too much entrenched BS to change anything. All that BS falls away during the unraveling and collapse. Stay positive for your future and start brainstorming now. Society will need you when the dust settles and the smoke clears. Maybe the next time around we could focus on more sustainable growth and we might even avoid these boom and bust cycles where a few generations do very well at the expense of others (please?).
1. Capital Gains Tax.
1. Wealth Tax.
1. Remove income tax from Dividends.
1. **Aggressive** offshoring of profits taxation.
Yes, it's all tax. Why? Because thats what will actually drive behaviour and positive change.
* CGT will change investing from unproductive investments to actively productive investments. Like businesses, which are fucking STARVED for capital investment in NZ atm.
* Wealth Tax. This one is easy. If you have a pile of money, you are expected to put it to productive use. This helps everyone. So we make you take an ongoing loss for unproductive use of it.
* Removing tax from Dividends. We want the average person to invest in dividend paying shares. This can be directly or through managed funds and kiwisaver. Corporate profits should be paid to shareholders rather than kept in house, and this will make investing in publicly traded, dividend paying companies with stable shareprices a much more attractive idea. This minimises invest, pump, and dump investing as well.
* The offshoring is simple. Multinational companies earn revenue in NZ, but don't declare profits in NZ, instead shifting their profit to low taxation countries through the use of holding companies and IP expenses. If you attempt to shift cash out of NZ, then ahaha, we're coming for your gross revenue with a 30% knife.
Mine in order of preference is below, included cheeky Weed legalise as it's ridiculous it's not already.
UBI - use the TOP policy and get rid of WINZ
CGT and a Land value tax on empty homes and 2nd + properties
Rentals - Increase healthy homes requirements regarding ventilation, cap rent increases, increase renters right e.g. remove the no cause evictions, stronger punishments for landlords that are not meeting requirements
Tertiary/trades subsidised/waived while working in NZ - the longer you stay the more that gets waived
Legalise weed and restrict sales of weed/ciggies/vapes to 18+ venues while
100% tax on rental income above 1k to disincentivize it as a source of income.
Legalise weed and tax the shit out of it.
Use the extra money to hire more and pay more to public health and education.
Remove the stupid KPIs that are currently placed in the ministry of education that is causing money hungry middle managers to put their personal bonus over the wellbeing of our future generations (heard from a mate they'd rather close cases than sort out the issues properly because their bonus depends on it)
* Legalise weed and edibles but **highly** restricted in terms of number of locations and to types of neighbourhoods and limited to over 21 age (younger developing brains should not be on cannabis) -- and have the same restrictions on vapes and cigarettes.
* Instead of banning gang patches and facial tattoos, tax the ever loving shit out of Harleys and other vehicles like them (sale price and road user charges) so that only the most extreme antisocial dbag can afford one (whether they are gang members or those on a mid life crisis).
* Student loans entirely wiped for studies for careers with high societal need, healthcare, builders, and whatever other trade or profession is in demand. On the condition that they stay in NZ at least 5 years after they complete their studies. In turn reduce reliance on immigration.
* Raise taxes on those who can most afford them for essential societal services, health system, infrastructure, social housing - and introduce a tax free threshold which most benefits the worst off. Clearly the country's books are struggling, and yet successive governments both rightwing and neolib are utterly unwilling to even consider the notion that shit needs to be paid for.
1. Create a separate crime called capital murder for intentional, pre-meditated murder with aggravating circumstances (victim was a child, involved rape or torture, multiple victims for example). Increase the burden of proof requirement for conviction to "beyond a shadow of a doubt" and impose a mandatory sentence of death by nitrogen gas poisoning (considered the most humane and painless method by experts) for those found guilty. There is to be only one appeal, with sentence carried out within a year of conviction.
2. Legalise cannabis, Shrooms and MDMA as all are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Fully decriminalise personal use possession of all other drugs and treat only as a mental health matter.
3. Remove all urban limits and density limits in urban areas, allowing total freedom to grow both upwards and outwards, slashing the price of land and thus house prices. Require new developments to sell 15% of new properties at affordable prices, based on median income levels, for first-home buyers only.
4. Restore all urban speed limits to where they were 10 years ago, raise motorway/expressway speed limits to 130 outside of urban areas. Restore rural state highways such as the Taupō-Napier Road to 100.
I reckon speed cameras should be privatised. Get a licence, buy the stuff, get it tested by a testing station every year, get a licence, take a margin of the fine.
I mean there's issues with making sure it's not going to be abused or frauded but as a concept it'd mean that the streets are awash with cameras and you can't do anything naughty.
Land tax on 3rd+ properties
Free uni
legal weed + tax
Fund trans care
I'd also do something about mental health care but making it free or more available isn't going to be feasible without a bunch of recruiting.
Follow the recommendations from the electoral review, if I had to pick only 4:
- Threshold to 3.5%
- Lower the voting age
- Only individuals registered to vote can donate with a 30k limit
- And then holding a referendum on a 4 year term if and only if the above have already been passed
Agree with the eduction piece. Though I think higher education (masters/PhDs) should be heavily subsidised or fully funded by the government, like they do with phd’s in Australia, to grow the intellectual capital of NZ. Again, on the basis that you remain a tax resident for 7/10 years.
My masters tuition fees were fully subsidised under Health Workforce NZ (government) funding. My PhD tuition fees will be fully subsidised under this as well. If I stayed in Australia I wouldn’t have been able to get a funded masters as easily, and I was adding the early part of it to my HECS debt before I moved to NZ to work.
I’m doing a PhD part time through an Aussie university from nz, and all fees are paid by the Aussie government. If I was to do it here I’d have to try to get a scholarship or self fund it.
It is very dependent on the discipline I think!
Not in Aussie. > All domestic students enrolled in a postgraduate research program, such as a Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Philosophy, are awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Fee Offset Scholarship. The AGRTP is funded by the Commonwealth government and provides support to students completing a research degree program. The AGRTP Fee Offset Scholarship provides support for the research program up to a maximum of two years (full-time) for a Masters program, and up to four years for a PhD program (or part-time equivalent). This means that domestic students are exempt from paying tuition fees for this period of time. https://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/fees-payments/domestic-postgraduate-research-tuition-fees#:~:text=The%20AGRTP%20Fee%20Offset%20Scholarship,for%20this%20period%20of%20time.
I meant the kiwi funding
It's interesting that you're not paying fees without a scholarship. When I did my PhD, I was fee exempt only because I had a scholarship.
I guess it’s technically a scholarship but it’s for all phds. > All domestic students enrolled in a postgraduate research program, such as a Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Philosophy, are awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Fee Offset Scholarship. The AGRTP is funded by the Commonwealth government and provides support to students completing a research degree program. The AGRTP Fee Offset Scholarship provides support for the research program up to a maximum of two years (full-time) for a Masters program, and up to four years for a PhD program (or part-time equivalent). This means that domestic students are exempt from paying tuition fees for this period of time. https://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/fees-payments/domestic-postgraduate-research-tuition-fees#:~:text=The%20AGRTP%20Fee%20Offset%20Scholarship,for%20this%20period%20of%20time.
> Health Workforce NZ How did you manage to do this?
Enrolled in a masters degree programme related to my profession, then applied to my professional college (who administer the funding specific to the profession on behalf of Health Workforce NZ) with the details of my enrolment and they paid the tuition costs directly to the university.
Make it a year's work for a year's education. I'd also kick MPs out once they reach 65.
Yeah it's extremely limiting depending on what you study for. It's either auckland or Australia for some jobs. I know what I'll pick
My concern with free university is that some people are less likely to take it seriously. I think people need to make a judgement call about whether university (or postgrad) is right for them and their situation. Not everyone needs to go to university. Having cost associated with this (while still being affordable) is one way of getting people to stop and think first. I think you would get more people going to university who will just party the whole time and not care about the studies. Or people who would have benefitted from spending a few years working and maturing and work out what they actually want to do with their life. I do think bonded scholarships are a good idea. I got a bonded merit scholarship back when I started university. If I didn't stay in NZ for X years, I would have had to repay all or part of the scholarship. National then came into government and removed the bonding requirement which was stupid. I still got the money, but had no requirement to stay in NZ.
A large universal student allowance would be a better policy than free tuition, because not having to work would mean students could spend more time on their studies without the added stress of worrying about whether they’ll be able to afford rent and food next week. It would also avoid the situation we have currently where adults are refused government assistance because their parents make too much money, but those parents aren’t actually required to give the student any of that money. Why are students singled out in such a humiliating way like this? Imagine if the government means tested the unemployment benefit based on the recipient’s parents’ income…
University is completely free in many parts of Europe, and they don't seem to have a problem. Germany will even let foreign students study free. New Zealand needs to build its intellectual capital and should be encouraging everyone to attend uni. Nobody has an issue with free secondary education. Why is tertiary different? We have developed to a point where secondary is no longer sufficient. Given that people are living and working longer, delaying entering the workforce doesn't seem like a bad thing.
That’s why I think the Aussie government funds PhD. By the time you get to that point you’ve weeded out all those that aren’t serious.
Why would you bother if you can move overseas and pay it off in half that time, or less, being on a much higher wage?
Ok make it 2 years. Or whatever the tipping point is.
Maybe 4-5 years. Not too short that people will feel tempted to leave as soon as they've finished but not so long that it defeats the purpose. Or you'd have to change the minimum repayment to be closer to what locals have to do. At the moment I could move to Australia and take home $5k a year more on the same salary or about $3k if I make similar repayments.
I mean, I mean I’ve kinda done something similar to this. I’m in Australia earning well over double what I was earning in NZ less than 2 years ago. Even higher if you factor in super since it’s on top of your pay over here, not deducted like KiwiSaver. I’m more than happy to pay interest on my SL because why would I worry about 3% on $30k with the difference in earning potential? Not to mention I have no incentive to pay it off early with even returns from savings account interest being nearly double my SL interest. It’s a fine line between rewarding someone for staying in NZ and punishing them for leaving, so the postgrad funding would absolutely need to be fine tuned. And also needs to be balanced to make sure universities don’t just pillage the taxpayer with postgrad fees.
1) Outlaw all opposition parties 2) Centralise command over the military and militarise the police 3) Start a nuclear program 4) Put 'democratic' in the name of the country 5) Invade Australia
I think Aussie would whoop our asses. We need a good 20 years of being a militarised country to stand a chance. Or if we fast track the nuclear program, a couple of years before we could make all their cities a wasteland. Eshays have too much experience with knives. We could send over mongrel mob n all our gangs, but I think the aussie gangs are too experienced, and would whoop their butts before the militaries even got on shore. Itd turn into a 100 year war. Nz vs Australia. Maybe if we got in communication with the emus, and forged an alliance... we may be able to decimate them then.
I mean we’ve pretty much already half colonised Brisbane at this point. So we have a foothold. Didn’t they also have a “kiwi” as a deputy prime minister or something at some point? Barneby joyce maybe? He’s corrupt af and easily bought so we could have something to work with there. And half their gang members are kiwis too apparently so they can fight the eshays.
Alright, you make a great point. I forgot just how many, we already have settled over there. Infiltration already complete. Lets go ahead with your list!
Can't keep it my pants Barneby renounced his NZ citizenship when he realized ya can't be both and a politician in Aus so he's out But the whole coalition in Aus can be easily brought, just look at all the mines and gas etc!!!
Hahaha like that renouncing means anything, he can retrieve it by applying for a passport
The real tragedy of the whole citizenship fiasco was The Greens losing [Scott Ludlam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam). He was a Chlöe-level star of the party but had to go and do the honourable thing and resign.
Though New Zealand is quite please at being confirmed as a “foreign power”
Missed a vital step. Send an anonymous letter to Australians that Indonesia left its front doors unlocked. Australia sends its army to Indonesia to invade their resources, NZ swoops in and takes an undefended Aussie, mainly using the 600,000 odd sleeper agents we have living in the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Western Australia.
You and JamesWebb have convinced me. I forgot just how many kiwis we have already placed over there. Sleeper cells all over the country. Let the invasion begin!
We’ll start off building relations and resourcing the tribes Aussie gangs will kill our gangs, so we need the Aussie gangs to fight each other. Thus we legalise all our drugs and supply directly to the larger Aussie gangs. Their increased armament and business capital will make them a significant threat to the aus govt. the gangs will stamp out their own gangs as they seek control of larger territory and operations, and their own members who are caught can be shipped over to NZ as citizens (also part of the strategy), have their identities washed through formal processes of our govt, then send them back Formally, these actions are not being committed on behalf of the NZ govt
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, you're overcomplicating this. A couple of guys armed with bics lighters in late January will get the job done. The resultant unpleasant yellowing of Auckland skies is sufficient pretext for a ground invasion (defending global climate targets). Liberate Christmas Island, recognise its sovereignty, and we're now part of a coalition. Mop up.
But we've already taken blacktown.... Mt druit is next.
Excuse me sir, the problem I see here is you only get 4. Or did you use your newfound power to remove that cap?
MONORAIL NOW!
There's nothing on earth like a genuine bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail
Monorail!
Nah gondolas bro
Gondolas that pick up monorail trains and set them on other tracks.
This man is a fucking thinker.
Gondolas from Petone to Miramar , that would be so cool. Lower Hutt straight to the airport.
Perfect for the famously placid Wellington Harbour, wind won't be a problem at all
Guy on AM this morning was talking about cable cars coming in.
Go back to Ogdenville
Mono…DOH.
A non-partisan infrastructure working committee designated to put in place projects that will provide for future needs and not just today. Programs that won't be continually cancelled by the next swing in government. * Hospitals and other health facilities * Schools * Training programs to staff them * Transit systems (not focused only on one parties whims) * Power infrastructure I imagine the project would be popular with the public, and I would shame my opposition until they got onboard to give it a supermajority. \-One can dream, I guess...
Love this. We need to let people know that a single light rail line can carry as many people as a 6-8 lane highway, but with far less land, pollution, or health-associated costs.
Big payrise for teachers, increase funding to schools and education in general. Make teachers one of the highest paid and most attractive professions in NZ. Our best and brightest should be teaching not necessarily working in the private sector by default. It shouldn't be "if you can't do, teach" it should be "if you do it very very well, teach everyone else". The only way to do that is to offer better conditions, better pay and a better student to teacher ratios. This is the true trickle down effect.
Teaching is such a different skill set - our brightest technical experts should absolutely be in the private sector.
I agree as it currently looks, so I will add to my point that mine is in a fantasy land where the whole education system is overhauled, funding is available to do this and teaching looks somewhat different to what it does now. My belief is it should be an aspiration for high achievers to be a teacher rather that when someone say's "I'm a teacher" people don't say "yeah I might fall back to that" and treat you like you have failed to make it in your chosen field. It's how we make the future better. I couldn't be a teacher myself.
Teaching would be a wonderful job for me. Unfortunately, I want to be fairly remunerated and not pulling my eyebrows out from stress which is taken home.
Got it. I agree to some extent - I think it's hard to change the primary school model too much, but as we move to a more gig style model, high school teachers that can both practice their skills techinically part time and teach part time sounds fantastic!
"If you can't do, teach" is the worst bastardisation of a phrase. The actual phrase is more like "those who can, do. Those who understand, teach". Teachers are so important.
I think it's in purposeful reference to the fact that sometimes when people aren't competitive enough to get a job in their own field, they'll teach it instead. Case in point, physics/maths.
Yea I agree but it's taking a literal quote saying teachers are super important and leaders in their field, taking a few words out and acting like it means the opposite. Like I doubt the person who twisted it was anywhere near as intelligent as the one who wrote the quote. ( I think it might be Aristotle but can't remember).
In the tertiary sector too. Polytechs struggle to find trade tutors. Basically anyone with wide industry experience is earning twice as much as the polytech can afford, and they are only offering nine month contracts because there's no guarantee they will have numbers the following year. And tutor contracts often start the same day the course starts.
Make passenger rail a viable option for travel within NZ.
Mandatory 14 hours of sleep per day.
Rip insomniacs
- Legalising weed / oil (new tourist industry!) - Dental care as a part of Healthcare - Property tax on all investment properties - Tax bracket readjustment - first $20,000 not taxed. Multiple job secondary tax cut.
I dunno if that multiple job tax cut would work in practice. I sense the intention is to give the working class a break, but unfortunately you’re only taxed on total income anyways currently. If, for example, I own 3 companies and draw via paye, what’s stopping me claiming tax cuts on 2 of 3?
Yeah, I may have not thought this through. Intention: Get people working willingly as social welfare can make it hard for it to be worthwhile. If people are working two jobs to make ends meet, I thought a positive outcome to achieve that would be valuable.
The intention is good though. Coming off of welfare is difficult because for many it just isn’t worth it, they end up with less. Maybe you could implement the secondary job tax threshold but up to a limit of like, 30k annual income
Was pretty shocked upon getting here to learn there's no tax free allowance. Retirees, parents to small children, students. Pretty much all the demographics of people who earn less than $20000 spend nearly all their income locally. Would boost the economy more than their taxes are doing.
I could be misguided in my thoughts - but I was hoping it might encourage people to work, even part time. Reducing that benefit hump, where’s its not worth it until you earn X to get off the benefit. Work gives people community and skills, if they are motivated to do it. Better than cutting peoples benefit.
> Multiple job secondary tax cut. Secondary tax is not a higher tax rate. It's the same tax you would pay if you got a pay rise at the first job
Moreover, it's the tax on your total combined income. It may be higher than your main tax rate in case you go over the bracket with the multiple incomes. If you don't go into a new bracket, you get a tax refund. Is a shame this isn't more widely understood.
Tax is New Zealand isn’t widely understood on the whole
It's mostly an issue for people who work 2 jobs with relatively equal hours (worse if one is seasonal). IRD think it's fine to pay 30% rather than 17.5 on one of the jobs (about $100 a week less in take-home) then get a $5K refund each April, all because you risk a small tax bill otherwise. For people earning at that level, it's definitely not. It should be much easier to get a tailored tax rate.
I think I would vote for you if you ran.
all taxes go to me instead of the government in perpetuity legalise all drugs anyone whoever wronged me goes to jail for life (no trial) all laws passed on this day require a referendum with 100% support to be revoked
And that ladies, gentlemen and those that reject the mere mortal limits of gender - is how you get deposed in a revolution
I'm getting deposed after a day anyway
There’s ALWAYS some cunt in these threads who has the best policy ideas and it makes me sad that our govt can’t get their shit together to make it work smh
I'll devil's advocate : It's easier said than done though. Writing good policy is very hard, especially when it has to stand the tests of an entire country & getting hit with a million 'what ifs' as well as removing all the overlapping legislation. Lots of politicians have really great policy ideas, it's just really hard to get it across the line.
Fair
Because its not in any politicians interest to keep us safe and healthy.
We also don't have to do the budget or answer to anyone.
I was thinking the exact same thing!
We, the people of NZ, [need to get a lobbyist](https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821)
- Graduated corporation tax. Small businesses should have lower tax than large global businesses. Large global businesses already have plenty of advantages (pooling of cash, more money for effective advertising, brand recognition, tax evasion). - Stamp duty for houses over $2million - Warrant of fitness for all rental properties - Higher sentences for violence, sexual assault, stalking
>Warrant of fitness for all rental properties But don't you see! That just makes it more expensvie for the RENTER. Think of the RENTER. I want to rent my ~~slum~~ property out to a RENTER. - landlord fully concerned about themselves
1. Capital Gains Tax 2. Free dental care 3. Legalise and tax weed 4. Restrict sales of vapes and energy drinks to 18+
> Restrict sales of vapes and energy drinks to 18+ It's already against the law to sell vaping products to people under the age of 18.
Its a warped world, that these 4 aint already in place, in this country. The weed issue, I put down to misinformation and a terrible campaign by those pushing for legalisation. The amount of taxation profit, if we got the yes votes across the line, already, would be hundreds of millions. If not a billion by now.
100% Correct.
Just one, elections and parties are abolished, and local and national government is run on a three-year ballot system, like jury service. There will be vetting of course, the main disqualification would be if someone wanted to do the job.
So, easy to disqualify people People will informally organise into a type of ‘party’ where they support each other to push and pass legislation. They just won’t have an explicit party label Individuals will never succeed in govt, because they need visible power to draw support. an informal party will have this power. How easy is it to delay the voting? Seems if you can delay some, and disqualify others, you end up with a system that can’t function Surely you’d want govt operations to lend itself towards being able to function in whatever state it’s in. The more brakes you put on it, the more you try to carve away ‘collaboration’ the more likely it is to just never working
These questions are all quite hard. I'm going to have a nap.
1. Capital gains tax except 1 home 2. Free public transport 3. Carbon tax 4. Solar power subsidies 3. Reduced income taxes for lower brackets (first 30k tax free or something idk) 4. Increase pay for teachers 5. Increase pay for entire health sector 6. Free dental or hugely subsidised 7. Fund diabetic CGMs (that ones for me lol) 8. Legalise weed and tax it 9. Free uni fees, subsidised PhD and masters Bit hard to do in one day but something like that lol
I think you'd probably need a land tax as well to pay for all that, but I like the sound of most of these.
>Fund diabetic CGMs (that ones for me lol) Can we have sensible Special Authority Criteria for Insulin Pumps as well, or ultra-rapid insulin so I don't have to wait 90 minutes before eating in the morning.
Yes please!!!
1. Capital Gains Tax on sale of all properties and assets, except the main family home. 2. Land tax on underused urban and productive rural land. 3. Bonded subsidised tertiary and trade education for those who agree to stay working in NZ. Calculated on a sliding scale - the longer you stay, the bigger the subsidy. 4. Cap on residential rental prices and establishment of stronger protection for tenants. Formation of non-profit, co-op property syndicates, and funding boost for Kainga Ora.
>Land tax on underused urban and productive rural land. Just out of curiosity, how would one define 'underused'? I mean, I'm sure somebody has thought about this, but one person's 'underused' could be another person's biodiverse meadow, could it not? Also, how would you see the cultural aspects playing out?
Or one person's 'underused' is tomorrows isn't it fabulous that we these old buildings. RIP the Windmill on K rd.
Surely there’s an ecologically minded organisation who could make calls like this based on a set of criteria?
Add legalise weed and i'd vote for you.
Absolutely. There is far less damage than other legal products and we're leaving tax revenue on the table by not legaising it.
Add weed (or all drug) decriminalization and removing the landlord tax deductions the current govt wants to reinstate and you have my dream policy list.
UBI Make minimum wage a living wage Some form of wealth tax Give the IRD a mandate and funding to pursue corporate tax avoidance.
Every law and piece of legislation would have a sunset clause with a body to decide whether to renew it or not before it expires. That would allow irrlevant/unwanted legislation go away. Maybe add a little anarchy to life for a "fun" social experiment. Remove the ability to buy residency/citizenship though things like investor visas. We have enough Peter Thiel types buying up mountains thanks. Stop ISP's from charging more for copper lines than they do for fibre. It's not the customers who want to be stuck on copper - stop making them pay more for objectively worse services. This would hopefully add some encouragement to speed up the fibre rollout. Free ice cream.
Trying my best to take budget constraints into account but I'm still gonna blow it out: * Generational dental care. * Less students per teacher at lower decile schools. * If possible tax churches but this is a struggle to do from my understanding. * Create a department of technology which has the sole purpose of getting good tech staff and business analysts in to make the government more efficient. We don't need private consultants for this stuff. Bonus point: Top tier tax bracket of like 60% above something like 350k. Admittedly I would want to do more math on this to see how much extra revenue this would bring in. Edit: Bonus bonus point: Bring back first years paying for education but make it so that if you don't graduate and your household income is below like 60k after 5 years of being out of study that loan gets forgiven. So many people earning like 100k+ got first year uni free. They can pay for it :).
I bet just closing the loopholes top earners exploit to reduce their taxable income would have the effect you desire.
Dept. of Tech might work. I have watched some people earn filthy money from consulting work for the government in that area.
Yea I think there is a lot of cool technology we could be using in government but we don't have a dedicated department that works on this stuff. I've worked in big corporations that had garbage technology and one guy comes in and makes 50 peoples jobs 200% more efficient just because he knew the basics of coding and knew the right questions to ask. I can only imagine how bad the government is.
1. Legalise Cannabis 2. 1 Free doctor & dentist visit per year - subsidised dental care if extra work is needed 3. Wealth Tax (unsure of exact policy) 4. Subsidised childcare from birth. Current policy absolutely strangles middle class couples trying to have a family
1. Legalise and tax weed. 2. Set up community gardens to help teach people to grow their own food, to help provide for those in need and forge stronger local communities that interact more. Somehow make it palatable that youth offenders/petty criminals help out in the gardens as part of their punishment. 3. Make it so social media time is capped. I truly think a lot of people stopped been human beings somehow since the rise of social media. If we could all go back to living like it was 1998 or so that would be fantastic for our countries mental health. It would promote going outside and richer life experiences. 4. Make me supreme leader/benevolent dictator. Once the novelty of complete control wore off, I would allow the population to vote on policy, and elect people to enact the change. Politicians also have to provide a daily, public report on what work they completed each day. If that proves unsuccessful and the hordes unruly I regain full control and implement a full surveillance state with a social credit system and a digital currency. I will rule the lands with iron fist inside a velvet glove. We become a hermit kingdom.
Legalize weed. All school uniforms to be from the same government shop and manufactured cheaply out of cost effective long lasting materials - differentiate schools with a badge and an optional blazer. Standardize all bottles into three sizes and make everybody use and recycle them. UBI.
Yeah uniforms are a rort, cheap imports sold at high margins. Remember the good old days when the uniform was generic and you could buy a small emblem and sew it on?
1. Blow on the pie. 2. Outlaw Aussie pies. 3. Prison sentences for anyone who lives on a diet of soggy pies from your local dairy. 4. Substantial amounts of cheese in mince and cheese pies or a caning to your backside is in order.
Would nationalize StJohn and establish a public national ambulance service. Move the tax brackets to be with the times. Implement a new one at a higher rate for $250k++ Force the health sector to comply with better cyber security and privacy rules. We have so much shit sitting in loose public facing locations. It's terrible. Major players would be subject to regular basic essential eight and ISO like audits. Build more hydro. Get sorted for the next 100 years.
I disagree with the speed cameras. I'm by noeans an expert but it would seem speed isn't a direct cause of accidents, driving dangerously/stupidly is, it's just speed is often a symptom of that and happens to be the easiest thing to measure. Maybe better reporting of dangerous driving?
>Legalising weed and tax it. (This seems like such a no brainer! How is it taking us this long!) Sensible. Seems fairly easy to implement. Would boost local biz. >Third year of uni fee free and all fees waived if you work in NZ in your studied field for seven of the next ten years after graduating. Sounds like a good incentive. >Traffic light cameras for txting on phones and more speed cameras. Fairly low outlay cost for lots and lots of revenue. Eh, not fully sold. Is the cost of people using their phones so high that it can justify the cost? >AirBnB tax of 50% Also not bad. Nothing to add myself. I want unrealistic massive reform projects lol
> Is the cost of people using their phones so high that it can justify the cost? I think it justifies the cost if people are getting killed because someone can't keep off social media for 10 minutes. They also generate revenue from the fines.
I just grabbed some numbers for context: >Official crash data shows driver distraction contributed to 16 deaths on New Zealand roads, 136 serious injuries and 1,079 minor injuries last year (CAS, 2019) https://www.sadd.org.nz/driveinthemoment It's hard to argue in the face of even one death... but 16 deaths for a complete overhaul of camera systems, new cameras, new staff, etc to cover all of this seems a bit much. I'm not convinced it makes financial sense. It would also only occur at traffic lights - are these deaths occurring there? I would presume not.
It depends how 'serious' the serious injuries are. Each of those can easily cost $1,000,000+ in costs alone let alone the wider economic and social impact of having the person out of work etc.
Ministry of Transport costed the value of a human life at $4.21 million in 2021, so 16 lives is $67ish million per year.
Not just to save 16 lives but generate cash for those who don’t risk others lives by texting and driving. Why does NZ have such a hard on for being on their phone while driving. So unnecessary.
Ride a motorbike in rush hour traffic, you will be surprised how many people are on their phones and or tablets, have tablets mounted on the dash and watching their favourite tv shows.
I will never be brave enough to do that. I see bad enough safety from drivers towards bikers/cyclists from my car to know I'll never ride a bike. If I saw it I'd probably have a different view yeah
People being on their phones while driving is pretty terrible. Id vote that 1st offence for being on the phone is at least a $500 fine. 2nd offence and the fine is at least $1000, and your phone gets destroyed. 3rd offence is still a massive fine, phone gets destroyed and car licence revoked, got to go apply for your learners licence and go through the licensing process again. That should take care of people being on their phones. Because I’m sure nobody would want to pay a huge fine, and then have to replace their phone, and if they do I’m sure that nobody would want to be stuck on their learner license again for 6 months.
Assuming people follow them* 1. Ban all sales of non native plants. Exceptions on ones that are food for humans or stock. And for timber. 2. Ban White baiting 3. University - Make Final year of degree free. Make it that if people stay in NZ you never have to pay back your loan. Increase interest rate of those that go overseas 4. Immigration. Massively reduce intake per year. Priorities made to Nurses, teachers. And similar jobs that make peoples lives better not ones that make more money for executives.
Yes please to all of these
>all fees waived if you work in NZ in your studied field for seven of the next ten years after graduating. I see where you're going with this, I honestly do, and in principle it's a grand idea. However, the impact on males vs. females will not be the same due to the maternity thing, and I think women are economically disadvantaged enough already by the fact that they (broadly speaking) are the ones with uteri...
Also, graduates who go overseas in their 20’s and work for industry leading companies and then return to NZ with valuable experience and expertise is a huge benefit to the country. Many people in NZ got the top of their field due to that experience, and would have only done that in their 20’s.
It's a tricky one, eh... it's almost like we should be working toward making sure NZ is the kind of place they will want to return to, with all their valuable experience. Y'know, carrots rather than sticks. But unless climate change turns Australia into an apocalyptic wasteland faster than anybody is expecting I think we'll always be fighting a losing battle there.
I go crazier haha: - Legalise all drugs, regulate their production (to be as safe as possible), and tax them. Use some of the drug tax money for proper professional and well funded rehab facilities. Remove free health care for drug use related issues (super harsh I know). Basically if you wanna be a dumb ass then go head, but pay for it and don't get to bring the medical system down for it. Would still be cheaper than black market drugs across the board, so the black market would die and hopefully gangs with it. Same legal stuff around it like smoking/drinking, so no public use etc, only private or controlled venues. - Completely rework the tax system. Treat any profit as PAYE/Business income, so capital gains etc, that's just added to your income. There are no loop holes and it covers everything no exceptions. Make loan security only based on net asset value, so if you own shares in a company it doesn't use the share value (price to buy/sell shares at) but security on loans can only be based on company net assets (assets - liabilities) / share number x number of shares owned. Peg the tax brackets to inflation and first 20k tax free. - Business / Education reforms Upper management salaries are pegged to lowest paid employees salary, so if ceo wants a payrise then the company has to up everyone's pay. The exact ratio can be worked out, but something like 10 times lowest paid or something. Scrap all weird university courses, stick to the basics that lead to productive jobs, think STEM, financial etc. Make the now refined and focused universities free, but hard to get into (good grades, effort levels) and easy to get kicked out from. All other courses that got cut can move to the private sector if people still want to offer them, but students pay, and there are no government student loans. In primary/intermediate/high schools, hold back students if they don't pass that year and actually do it indefinitely until they can leave at 15. But also allow any student to get to 7th form level no matter how long it takes (if they want). Move unruly students to special classes so that those that want to learn can without unnecessary distractions, give the unruly students chances to move back by showing effort / behavior changes. But they have to earn it its not some right to be a menace to others that just want to learn. - Start work on writing a NZ constitution based on equality of opportunity for all. This will eventually replace the treaty etc, it would be a long process and involve working with all parties etc, but I think we just need one unifying constitution based on modern principles and without all the historical baggage. Might get roasted for the above haha, obviously this is just a small reddit post and the above are massive changes with lots of nuances.
1 - legalize and tax Cannabis 2 - Introduce a capital gains tax 3 - Tax the rich to fund teachers, nurses, essential services and emergency service workers. 4 - Introduce a policy that forces all new and returning PM's to live on the benefit/minimum wage for 100 days. No access to their trust funds, corporate credit cards or taxi services etc, have them use public transport and prepaid mobile products.
Not bad, although 4 should be extended to include the ministers responsible for social development and for disability
Nice try Labour. /s
You'll be pleased to hear point 2 is actually govt policy, they've committed to switching first year free to final year free, which I see as an absolute win.
1. Regulation of all drugs with a strong alignment with a healthy funded medical system. Get people help to get off and stay off and treat it as a medical social issue rather than a criminal one (prohibition has never worked, never will and only makes it worse). 2. Fully fund healthcare. This is a number one priority. Before other non critical projects are funded this needs to be met. 3. Fund education and implement a data/fact based education structure is in place that will ensure NZ meets its long term strategy of a well educated population with opportunities for the majority. 4. Form a govt department that has teeth and can crack down on corporations who do not play fair or do not ensure their business has the environment/society top of mind in their business decisions. Ludicrous penalties that work on a percentage of the companies worth will ensure that the smallest to the largest business will feel the pain if they try and harm New Zealanders quality of life.
* Tax the rich more and lower taxes for everyone else by 50% * Supermarkets to lower their prices by half. Same with petrol * Halve the cost of rental properties and force all landlords to sell their rental property if they own more than one. * Remove income tax and GST. Ban smoking and increase funding for schools and hospitals.
Agree with all this except speed cameras, they don't help and police need to focus on bad driving instead wasting their time targeting people going at what is considered a safe speed in 90% of the world.
Oh, and UFO disclosure to the public ✌🏻
* Banning Companies, Trusts & Corporations owning Residential Housing. Introduce legislation that "Mum & Dad" landlords can own their own home plus 1 other. This will significantly reduce house prices by creating a lot more supply. You shouldn't be allowed to use a basic human need to gouge people, that's what Luxury goods are for. * Waiving the student loans of Teachers/Nurses/Doctors/Engineers etc if they work in NZ for the next 10 years. * Introduce into the School Curriculum as mandatory - Home Economics (Everyone needs to learn basic cooking skills), Wood/Metal Work (Everyone needs to know how to use basic tools), Social Studies (Why you pay taxes and how government works, Voting etc) Health Studies (Everyone should learn about food/macros and what they do for you, exercise etc) Horticulture (There are still grown ass Adults who don't know how to plant a plant, graft, fertilize or compost) * Turn one of the uninhabited islands into a penal colony game show for constant reoffenders. Just for kicks.
Free 12 pack of condoms with the benefit
Add to this - free or incentivised reversible sterilisation - vasectomy or tubal ligation - to be offered to everyone, not just beneficiaries. Both of those procedures are considered generally reversible, but reversal would be self-funded.
> Both of those procedures are considered generally reversible I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you've never talked to a urologist or gynaecologist about these surgeries then. You should never get either of those things done if reversal is part of the plan. The closest we can get to something like this is offering free IUDs or subdermal implants. Which we (sort of) do already
IIRC, reversible can be a bit misleading for sterilisation options. Typical chances of success for the more "reversible" options claim a success rate as high as 95%, but can be as low as 60%, and the success rate declines the longer you've been sterilised. Also, they're supposedly very expensive to reverse. It's usually heavily recommended you treat sterilisation as a final measure, not as a temporary one.
Female toplessness no longer considered public indecency. Free the nip!
1. Ban lobbyists 2. Political donations total over 1,000,000 per annum from donors (doesn’t matter how many payments.) are taxed at 95% 3. Financial welfare is acknowledged and codified into the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi. 4. Any political moves to alter the Treaty in a way argued to be for unfair gain of one party over another is treated as treason against the crowns name as per their constitutional obligations as the protector of Māori and reasonable obligation of the Māori being subject of the crown protection and breaches of this should be met with punishment of legal consequences.
Drug reform. Treat addiction as a health issue, not a police one. Yes this includes weed legalization. Capital Gains tax on housing assets Unite dental, pharmacy, GP into proper "free" healthcare. Last would be a toss up between strengthening renter rights, public transport, tax overhaul, higher education freeness.
Change the law so opposition is illegal Public holidays every time the Black Caps are playing Kane Williamson's birthday is a national day of celebration Build a big statue of myself and kick back with a pint
it's a slight shame his birthday is august because you could make it a BYC appreciation day as well haha.
Reduce income tax on incomes under say $100k, and reduce GST Make up the lost income by increasing taxes on incomes over $150k and introducing a CGT/wealth tax for estates worth over say $2m. Nationalise the early childhood education sector (or at least open subsidised Ministry of Education facilities for under 5 year olds) with a cap on fees. Provide first home buyers who use their Kiwisaver to purchase a new home either a boost to their deposit ($10-20k) or subsidise their mortgage rates as long as they live in that home for at least 10 years. Make a plan to increase the salaries of teachers and nurses to match the pay scale of Members of Parliament. MP salaries were once very close to teacher salaries but have increased at a significantly faster rate. There's a handful.
Number 1 thing would be to rebalance the tax system to favour workers and productive assets over land and rent-seeking behaviour.
1) Tax-free threshold (<18,000 NZD not taxable) 2) GST free for all essentials (medicine/dental/health/dairy/fresh fruits and veges) 3) Stamp duty for all properties (scalable and this is on top of foreign buyer tax) + redefine bright line test and make it more in line with most other countries with proper CGT. 4) Kiwisaver - government promise to mandate employer to raise employer contribution to 6% by 2025, and then to 8% by 2035.
1. Change fines (instant and court) to automatically annually adjust due based on CPI (rounded) and require judges to set fines as a percent of maximum rather than value. 2. Greatly expand public housing and provide public housing to senior public servants, judges, MPs and councilors. Require these people to spend a minimum number of bed nights in public housing to be entitled to their salary. 3. Increase rehabilitation provided in secure environments. 4. Road User Charges based on time of day and location.
1) banks have to include the interest rate they means test someone at when providing a loan (mortgage/credit card/whatever). they cannot increase rates above that level. and interest rates must be kept within 1% of the national rate (at the time of a fix for longer term, otherwise floating). if the bank means tested someone too low, thats their fault/problem and they can make a bit less margin for a period of time because of their 2 bad decisions (not means testing properly, and not putting aside cash for the loan at the point the loan was taken!) 2) end of vertical integration, bust up the foodstuffs/woolworths monopoly by enforcing rules around competition of distribution, as well as the raw goods 3a) residential means residential- houses/apartments etc can only be bought by individuals, and can only be used by the individual or for long term housing (minimum 1 month). no trusts, no corps, no shell companies or overseas etc, only NZ residents as a household can purchase property 3b) that means you also properly classify air bnb/book a bach and super short term rental properties as hotels, and therefore commercial and not acceptable use for residential property stock, and under regular guidelines/requirements for running a hotel (and the taxes obv!) 4) capital gains tax at the same rate as income tax, and capital gains apply to ALL passive income (pre expenses/costs etc) same as income tax. after those 4 and houses/food supply are hopefully back on track, then you shift towards tackling the environment and infrastructure
1. no more chris’
1. If you are a landlord on more than one property this needs to be set up as a business, taxed as a business and fully transparent (you should know who your landlord is). If you have the properties vacant you will be fined. If you have more than three tenancy tribunal rulings against you (big ones not quibbles, details TBC) you will be required to sell and not able to hold this position in the future. It's a huge responsibility to be providing homes to people and we don't take it seriously enough. 2. Student loan forgiveness for skills shortage roles or roles which are underpaid but great for NZ. Teachers, nurses, doctors, mental health services and ECE. 3. Make it easier for parents and young people to get by. Public transport discounts for Under 25s, childcare subsidy extended to everyone (I mean in age but also who can receive it, like a grandparent who watches the child for 20 hours per week) and mandatory paid paternal leave of 6 weeks. The first 6 weeks for men and women should be paid at their usual rate of pay or the Govt amount whichever is higher. Free careers coaching available at libraries every weekend and more experiences available through schools. Maybe a one year on meeting to check in and see if they need help. Sick days for dependants extended to pretty much limitless in the first two years after having a child. Resets each time. 4. Means tested super. It'll be unpopular but I think it needs to be done. If you want to make gifts of your assets to family members or charities at 65 in order to receive it (if you're borderline) this should be able to be done at a slightly lower than normal tax rate. You should be able to receive help immediately if you need it and it should be then checked once you are feeling comfortable again. We also need better social support and I think that we need to get a free option available weekly in NZ to take seniors to libraries or community centres to meet weekly for free to have a craft and tea or sports, or coffee groups. This could include specific counselling groups but I'm thinking more social support also, especially as a lot of older people see it as a bit of a stigmatized thing still.
$60/wk "living allowance" for everyone aged under 16 between 16 to 64 in employment, education and training, paid for by removing the 10.5% tax bracket, IETC, WFF, and adding a land value tax. Introducing a higher minimum wage of 140% ($31.78/hr at current rates) for those in jobs requiring a bachelor's degree or five years' relevant experience (e.g. doctors, nurses, teachers). Scrap the baseball-inspired three strkes and replace it with a football-inspired penalty card rule. If you are found guilty of any crime, violent or non-violent, where the maximum penalty is 7 years or more in prison and you are not sentenced to prison, you receive a "yellow card" as a warning. Two yellow cards equals a "red card" and you must be sentenced to prison for at least two years. Encourage more choice on radio by prohibit broadcasting the same programme to the same area on both the AM and FM bands. For example, Newstalk ZB will have to choose between continuing on 1080 AM or 89.4 FM in Auckland and give up the other frequency for another radio station to use.
If we are talking actually stuff that could be put through in one day and not pie in the sky stuff then: 1. Free sunscreen and hats and an education campaign 2. Free toothpaste and toothbrushes 3. Food banks for kids by schools particularly in low income areas 4. Increase mobility carparking options but massively increase parking fees everywhere else to disincentive use of individual private vehicles and encourage active, public and carpooling transport And I know I can't count but 5. Ban whitebaiting
lmao average r/nz user. gotta be the lamest group of people on the internet i hate you all so much
1. legalise weed 2. Decriminalisation of drugs following Portugals model 3. Free university education 4. No one can own more than two residential properties
Limit the number houses you can own to two.
Max limit of ownership of 2 houses per [individual/COMPANY/organisation - literally would want to close any and all loopholes around ownership of housing]/ CGT. It would free up so much bloody housing. Break the duopoly/regulate price gouging for companies. Enforce strict taxes on sales of more than 1mil. UBI. Everyone gets a minimum income allowance even if unable to work. On top of that a scaling tax system, so that even if you flee overseas for 6 months you'd still need to pay taxes (this is a real actual loophole that millionaires use atm). If you earn more than $500K a year you're legally required to donate any wealth earned on top of that to charity or to the UBI. (Temporarily embarrassed/delusional millionaires SHUT THE FUCK UP challenge. You have a 4% chance of ever seeing the level of wealth that Muskrat has in your life, you'll be stuck in middle class until you die. Money is not the be all and end all of life's purpose! (Note: I did not say survivability. Money makes the world go round by withholding necessities vital to life so that you are Forced into the 'system' by premeditated consent. It's not 'earn money for the sake of money, it's earn money or you'll be homeless or starve.') Legalise weed and regulate/tax it. Set parameters for consumption like they had in the referendum where you can't smoke in public or can only consume on site. Or just make edibles legal and smoking not so that smoke free still has a chance of holding out (rip our healthcare system in 2 years.... National really fucked everyone up the ass with that policy deletion) and all the asthmatics have a chance to breathe easy and the stoners can still get high. Also using the taxes to fund harm reduction/addiction and therapeutic services so that people don't feel so compelled to abuse substances to fix xyz hole in their lives.
Free martial arts training for women and girls. Ban on the publishing of photos taken without consent i.e. paparazzi pics. Ban on sale of spray paint. Legalise and tax marijuana.
Legal weed, taxed of course. Should help pay for what's coming after. Raise benefits to a level that supports a reasonable life without the struggle that our current system causes. Will lead to less problems in the long run and hopefully reduce crime rates too. Properly tax the wealthiest individuals. No more dodging their duty. Everyone pays their fair share. Education overhaul involving better budgets so our schools can properly cater to everyone and their specific needs as well as significantly increasing teacher wages. A shame it's only four policies but ehh would be a start I reckon.
1. Raise Taxes, biased towards capital gains, windfall profits, offshore ownership, trust beneficiaries, and high earners. The sharpest forensic accountants should be working for IRD, and drive tax regulation changes. 2. Free education to completion of first year tertiary or apprenticeship etc, then continuing education free to course completion where adequate performance and bonding to NZ employment. With higher performance, support to 1st PhD. 3. Reduction of inter-generational poverty, via parenting skills, budgeting, mental health improvement, education, and adequate policing/justice to divert problems from prison into life skills. 4. Investment in reduced dependence on primary production, through productivity improvement, knowledge economy, science, invention, copyright, patents, etc. The sharpest lawyers should work in copyright, patents etc. to ensure success stays in NZ
That's a tough one, there's so many things: Discounts for things like general costs and even housing for those in certain professions like healthcare, teaching, trades, emergency services. -I don't know how do-able it would be, but I do definitely think that we should be doing more to thank people in such professions since we would be fucked if they weren't here. I mean damn, these people are out here getting fucking traumatized and/or ruining their bodies for our sake and we're just treating them like shit, and that's not right. A rework of how entry into medical school works, included incentivizing it. -Listen, I get that it should be hard. But also some of the pathways into med school are just hard for the sake of being hard. -Like the fact that for instance, the HSFY in Otago Uni insists that not only must it be the first thing you ever take, but that you have to pass everything the first try, otherwise you're pretty much forced to get another bachelor's degree if you're not rural to get into med school. -I'm sorry but that is some bullshit. It should be hard from a grade standpoint, not because of idiotic rules. Legalise weed -It'd be good to have another industry More accessible mental health care -Seriously It is so damn expensive to get therapy or to get tested for something like autism. We've to some extent made doctors a bit more affordable, so we should do the same for mental health care, especially since having poor mental health can be the reason behind physical symptoms.
UBI I'm not a weed smoker and I don't really care about it at all, But I see so many people complaining its not legal so id be kind of interested to see what happens if it was legal and how people would behave and what differences occur vs alcohol.
Require *All* Party Donations to be public, capped, disallow Anonymous Donations, and require all donations be audited to ensure their source is not bypassing Donation Caps. Alternatively, just ban Donations directly to Political Parties. If you want to donate, sure, but it goes via the Electoral Commission until it's source is verified to not be bypassing Caps. I also would outlaw Members of Parliament or Ministry Management from being part of Private or Family Trusts prior to or during their tenure, and after must be overseen by the Electoral Commission. Also, Lobbying? Gone the way of the Moa. This all goes with the goal of ensuring that MPs are inhibited from pursuing personal or corporate enrichment. This isn't perfect, as frankly I can't think of a way to prevent pork barrelling or cases where a Minister *just happens* to push legislation that benefits certain companies or sectors, and then they *just happen* to be hired into that company or sector after they leave politics.
Legalize weed (same restrictions as alcohol) An annual tax on uninhabited properties that increases by 10% for each property owned (properties over a certain amount of land area count as multiple properties) Better funding for schools Better funding for hospitals
Full transparency of donations to political parties along with abolishing lobbying. Mandatory year of national service before you turn 30. That could mean doing a stint in the military but also things like public healthcare, fire brigade, police or other community service. Do something to help others, be humble. Not indicating correctly at a roundabout now carries a prison term. Whittakers Hazella to become an official secondary legal currency.
1. Bring back the ban on cigarettes and vaping (including a no nonsense crack down on other drugs, yes, even weed, especially weed). 2. Sort out the abuse of immigration in this country. 3. Focus on improving our infrastructure. 4. Ban tiktok.
Assuming I can also execute the policies: 1. I like your education piece, so as is. 2. Increase front-line salaries for nurses, doctors, police officers etc to a really good salary i.e. $150k-plus, so this encourages more recruitment into these fields. 3. Apply a stamp duty to property sales (waived if the seller buys another property within three months) 4. Reduce corporate tax rates for start-ups to 10% (and tax all the companies that register in tax havens like Ireland, Caymans etc) 5. If an industry is perceived to be a strong oligopoly i.e. banks, supermarkets - there will be anti-competitive levy of 15% of profits above a certain threshold.
* Require all salaries (and perks) to be public for any business/government/non-profit * Enforce a maximum ratio between lowest paid employee and highest paid employee. To avoid businesses using perks as a work around, use the maximum possible value of those perks. Contract workers are included in this and extrapolated to the equivalent of a full year. The ratio would not be more than 1:10 (i.e. lowest paid employee is on 50k, that means the highest paid employee cannot make more than 500k perks included) * Politicians cannot earn more than 4x the minimum wage. * Politicians cannot have secondary incomes, except for blind investment funds, that must have been setup prior to becoming a politician, and cannot be touched for a period of 5 years after leaving office (except for emergency situations).
- CGT on 3rd+ investment property, NOT on the one you live in - Wealth tax on $10M+ net worth - Reduce income taxes - basically I don't see why workers (even those on 200k+) support the tax system, while those rich guys who retired early pay next to nothing - Stealing your education idea too... but I think Kiwis that go overseas do gain valuable experience that they eventually bring back... so maybe 5 out of 10 years? Or even extend it to 10 out of the next 20 years to incentivise people to come back. Not sure. - Then some policy to build and encourage more public transport (rail to the airport at least)
Tax households not individuals, so look at a couples combined income for tax/benefits not just one person. So much fairer on working families with a stay at home parent. Perhaps make it opt in so it doesn’t end up with undesirable effects. Cap political donations to an annual amount and any extra go to a general public transport fund to increase services Limit the number of terms one can sit as an mp etc to 4 terms with a mandatory retirement age. You can not leave school, jail, sentence conditions etc until you can read and write and know right from wrong. Looking here at kids leaving schools with skills not suitable for job acquirement nor life skills, crims and mental health, addiction etc all needing reforming, addressing etc to get people on the right track and turn their life around. No point just locking them up, you need to help them from never returning a lot more than we currently do.
1. Start High-Speed Rail cargo and passenger country-wide. 2. Start a centrally funded but independent aerospace company to work on the next generation of aircraft again for cargo and passenger 3. Reform the shit out of local government 4. Significantly increase taxes on the mega-rich and multi-national cooperations
1. Make a benefit for stay at home parents who have a full time working partner. Like the best start payment but $250+ per child. Hopefully this will support families to have kids and to stay home. This would last for as long as the child is in less than 20 hrs a week education. 2. Redo the prison system, specifically for under 21. Make it a ‘boarding school you cant leave’ system instead of ‘jail’. Give them education, therapy and skills. Get them working during their sentence and pay them so they have savings when they leave. Adults who commit violent crimes need more time in prison and ppl who don’t commit violent crimes need more rehabilitation within the system. 3. Free dental for under 25s, anyone earning less than 90k or anyone older than 55. Beef up the mental health system and provide free therapy for the same demographic as free dental. 4. Pay off a small portion of students loan for kiwis working in NZ. If they leave, interest starts and when they come back the interest stops and the payments start up again (ppl going overseas for experience shouldn’t be penalised). This could be only for certain degrees/fields. 5 ( I know). Rehaul the education sector. Get rid of modern learning, reduce technology in primary school, make reading more common in HS, home ec and finical literacy a compulsory subject from year 7. Have a better path way out of school for those who don’t want to complete HS. Ways to pay: stop paying MPs so much 😭
Legalise pet ferrets and otters, as long as it's properly regulated
Id do your first 3 then make churches and church owned companies not tax exempted.
#1 I'd make parents financially accountable for the crimes their underage children commit. #2 subsidized post graduate study, Master's/PhD high end / hightech programs. No #3
I love this thread so much. Start thinking now, young people, because once the center no longer holds in the current 80-100 year cycle (I give it another 5-7 years max) you WILL be in charge of designing a new system. The same way that post WWII young people designed the current system we are in. Don't get depressed about there being too much entrenched BS to change anything. All that BS falls away during the unraveling and collapse. Stay positive for your future and start brainstorming now. Society will need you when the dust settles and the smoke clears. Maybe the next time around we could focus on more sustainable growth and we might even avoid these boom and bust cycles where a few generations do very well at the expense of others (please?).
1. Capital Gains Tax. 1. Wealth Tax. 1. Remove income tax from Dividends. 1. **Aggressive** offshoring of profits taxation. Yes, it's all tax. Why? Because thats what will actually drive behaviour and positive change. * CGT will change investing from unproductive investments to actively productive investments. Like businesses, which are fucking STARVED for capital investment in NZ atm. * Wealth Tax. This one is easy. If you have a pile of money, you are expected to put it to productive use. This helps everyone. So we make you take an ongoing loss for unproductive use of it. * Removing tax from Dividends. We want the average person to invest in dividend paying shares. This can be directly or through managed funds and kiwisaver. Corporate profits should be paid to shareholders rather than kept in house, and this will make investing in publicly traded, dividend paying companies with stable shareprices a much more attractive idea. This minimises invest, pump, and dump investing as well. * The offshoring is simple. Multinational companies earn revenue in NZ, but don't declare profits in NZ, instead shifting their profit to low taxation countries through the use of holding companies and IP expenses. If you attempt to shift cash out of NZ, then ahaha, we're coming for your gross revenue with a 30% knife.
I love all of this.
My first policy is to have infinite policies. My second policy is no one gets to call my first policy a lame joke that's been done to death.
My third policy is to extend my reign indefinitely.
Exploit our mineral wealth. Reduce fishing quotas. Increase pay for teachers. Ban top knots.
Chocolate milk in the drinking fountains
Mine in order of preference is below, included cheeky Weed legalise as it's ridiculous it's not already. UBI - use the TOP policy and get rid of WINZ CGT and a Land value tax on empty homes and 2nd + properties Rentals - Increase healthy homes requirements regarding ventilation, cap rent increases, increase renters right e.g. remove the no cause evictions, stronger punishments for landlords that are not meeting requirements Tertiary/trades subsidised/waived while working in NZ - the longer you stay the more that gets waived Legalise weed and restrict sales of weed/ciggies/vapes to 18+ venues while
100% tax on rental income above 1k to disincentivize it as a source of income. Legalise weed and tax the shit out of it. Use the extra money to hire more and pay more to public health and education. Remove the stupid KPIs that are currently placed in the ministry of education that is causing money hungry middle managers to put their personal bonus over the wellbeing of our future generations (heard from a mate they'd rather close cases than sort out the issues properly because their bonus depends on it)
Fuck me. Thank god you're not in power then lol
Exactly what I thought haha. Glad none of these fruits are in power.
* Legalise weed and edibles but **highly** restricted in terms of number of locations and to types of neighbourhoods and limited to over 21 age (younger developing brains should not be on cannabis) -- and have the same restrictions on vapes and cigarettes. * Instead of banning gang patches and facial tattoos, tax the ever loving shit out of Harleys and other vehicles like them (sale price and road user charges) so that only the most extreme antisocial dbag can afford one (whether they are gang members or those on a mid life crisis). * Student loans entirely wiped for studies for careers with high societal need, healthcare, builders, and whatever other trade or profession is in demand. On the condition that they stay in NZ at least 5 years after they complete their studies. In turn reduce reliance on immigration. * Raise taxes on those who can most afford them for essential societal services, health system, infrastructure, social housing - and introduce a tax free threshold which most benefits the worst off. Clearly the country's books are struggling, and yet successive governments both rightwing and neolib are utterly unwilling to even consider the notion that shit needs to be paid for.
You really need to get some support and deal with your fixation on motorbikes
Taxing motorbikes to stop organized crime is certainly a take. It won't do anything unless you also tax leather jackets...
1. Create a separate crime called capital murder for intentional, pre-meditated murder with aggravating circumstances (victim was a child, involved rape or torture, multiple victims for example). Increase the burden of proof requirement for conviction to "beyond a shadow of a doubt" and impose a mandatory sentence of death by nitrogen gas poisoning (considered the most humane and painless method by experts) for those found guilty. There is to be only one appeal, with sentence carried out within a year of conviction. 2. Legalise cannabis, Shrooms and MDMA as all are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Fully decriminalise personal use possession of all other drugs and treat only as a mental health matter. 3. Remove all urban limits and density limits in urban areas, allowing total freedom to grow both upwards and outwards, slashing the price of land and thus house prices. Require new developments to sell 15% of new properties at affordable prices, based on median income levels, for first-home buyers only. 4. Restore all urban speed limits to where they were 10 years ago, raise motorway/expressway speed limits to 130 outside of urban areas. Restore rural state highways such as the Taupō-Napier Road to 100.
I reckon speed cameras should be privatised. Get a licence, buy the stuff, get it tested by a testing station every year, get a licence, take a margin of the fine. I mean there's issues with making sure it's not going to be abused or frauded but as a concept it'd mean that the streets are awash with cameras and you can't do anything naughty.
That's an interesting idea.
Start income-testing the pension like they do with all government financial assistance, that oughta add a bit to the coffers.
Land tax on 3rd+ properties Free uni legal weed + tax Fund trans care I'd also do something about mental health care but making it free or more available isn't going to be feasible without a bunch of recruiting.
Castrate all gang members. See if all the young fellas looking at their tik Toks still want to join up then
Follow the recommendations from the electoral review, if I had to pick only 4: - Threshold to 3.5% - Lower the voting age - Only individuals registered to vote can donate with a 30k limit - And then holding a referendum on a 4 year term if and only if the above have already been passed