If National wins ...

[westerly]

[QUOTE=Cuzzie;463203]Something is wrong alright westerly, not enough people to boost our economy. BTW, National & you are brothers in arms on that one and I'm the one going against the grain here. This will get you up to speed. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/busine...-more-migrants

As I said, if you rely on immigration to boost an economy something is wrong It can only be a short term boost. Allowing people to buy their way into the country seems inherently wrong to me. Families with children yes, thier aging parents no. NZ is a soft touch.
As for oil , your enthusiasim runs away,most wells drilled are unproductive. If there is oil there it might be more beneficial in the long term to NZ to leave it in the ground and get the benefit of far higher oil prices as the easy oil runs out.
Nationals borrowed too much money to have any real confidence in their policies. The so called boom is driven by the ChCh rebuild and dairy, neither
likely to be long term.
westerly

[fungus pudding]

[QUOTE=westerly;463279]

Something is wrong alright westerly, not enough people to boost our economy. BTW, National & you are brothers in arms on that one and I'm the one going against the grain here. This will get you up to speed. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/busine...-more-migrants

As I said, if you rely on immigration to boost an economy something is wrong It can only be a short term boost. Allowing people to buy their way into the country seems inherently wrong to me. Families with children yes, thier aging parents no. NZ is a soft touch.
As for oil , your enthusiasim runs away,most wells drilled are unproductive. If there is oil there it might be more beneficial in the long term to NZ to leave it in the ground and get the benefit of far higher oil prices as the easy oil runs out.
Nationals borrowed too much money to have any real confidence in their policies.
westerly

Well you had better get used to it. There is no way Russell Norman will make it as P.M. and Labour are running out of time to find a leader. National will probably be a four term government.

[Cuzzie]

I'm going to be busy too, today. But John Armstrong's piece assumes that Labour will obligingly feed journalists with data from now until the election. The average voter possibly has a shorter attention span than that. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from David Cunliffe before the election date, but closer to the event.

In the meantime MP Shane Jones has fired a very accurate first salvo. It's not all about Labour and the smaller parties. Why did National do nothing about this cosy supermarket situation before now? They also had the heads up.

We have already covered 'nanny state' policies on the thread, and I'm pleased to see no smoking in public places, I don't smack my children so at least they won't have to ponder about that as they get older, and numerous other things Labour did over the years are now part of how NZ operates. Part of our culture. National has by and large left them in place.

I think they made a mistake with the lower drinking age though. Put it back to 20 unless we can educate every youth, who thinks it's OK to drink until they can't remember what's happened.

EZ, you really didn't say anything here. It was kind of unfair of me as I already had you in checkmate mate, thus your bumbling reply. A weak reply by you and I wont really put too much into this post as this clearly has been done and dusted in half a day and only 3 posts. Unless you want to make more of it, up to you.
Let me just use a copy & paste from Ian Wishart's book - "Absolute Power", for now.
"Helen Clark has just been announced as the third most powerful appointee to the United Nations - running the UN Development Programme. This former New Zealand Prime Minister is known for trialling a range of UN social engineering policies in New Zealand, and is well known in liberal circles worldwide for her power and her achievements. With a budget in excess of $5 billion, and responsibility for introducing new UN social programmes and climate change policy, Helen Clark is about to do to the world what she did to New Zealand during a nine year reign as Prime Minister. To find out who Helen Clark really is, and what she brings to the international stage, Ian Wishart's #1 bestseller Absolute Power is the only place to start. This book is devastating. If you want to get inside the head of the new battering ram of the United Nations, this book tells all..."


Care to deny the claim above EZ? Perhapes knock I.W down a peg or two. That wont change the fact that Clark was a control freak to the extent that she needed to change the way we think - or at least try too.

[Cuzzie]

[QUOTE=westerly;463279]

Something is wrong alright westerly, not enough people to boost our economy. BTW, National & you are brothers in arms on that one and I'm the one going against the grain here. This will get you up to speed.http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/busine...-more-migrants

As I said, if you rely on immigration to boost an economy something is wrong It can only be a short term boost. Allowing people to buy their way into the country seems inherently wrong to me. Families with children yes, thier aging parents no. NZ is a soft touch.
As for oil , your enthusiasim runs away,most wells drilled are unproductive. If there is oil there it might be more beneficial in the long term to NZ to leave it in the ground and get the benefit of far higher oil prices as the easy oil runs out.
Nationals borrowed too much money to have any real confidence in their policies. The so called boom is driven by the ChCh rebuild and dairy, neither
likely to be long term.
westerly

I'll except that immigration could just be a short term boost, but that is something that can only be confirmed after the fact not before. NZ could easily house 22 million, I think another 800,000 in the next ten or fifteen years will do a lot to pay for the baby boomers retirement quite nicely thank you very much.
Wow, I gave you one oil companies quarterly profit figures which can be confirmed by going on the TAG Oil website and you say most wells drilled are unproductive. TAG's last quarter profit was $12,939,442 forget about the unproductive wells which TAG has too, look at that profit. Not bad for just one Junior Oil Corp. Then you say, " If there is oil there it might be more beneficial in the long term to NZ to leave it in the ground and get the benefit of far higher oil prices as the easy oil runs out." Bollocks, if the Greenies get their way any oil left in the ground will be worth nothing. Go get it now baby. Most of the Gas alone will be exported directly to China earning NZ billions in revenue. I think what you are trying to say is leave it in the ground until Labour is in power and they can gain the benefit from it. Tough titties westerly, it was National that encouraged and stimulated the oil industry and it will be National's baby even if the Green Labour party win the election.

[fungus pudding]

I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from David Cunliffe before the election date, but closer to the event.

I think Cunliffe has taken the old adage to heart 'better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt'.

[Cuzzie]

EZ, I'm interested to know your thoughts on Dot.com buying stuff and not paying his bills. Albany Mowers & Machinery most certainly did not deserve to get ripped off by convicted criminal Dot.com, but they just have. How say you on that subject?

[elZorro]

[QUOTE=fungus pudding;463287]

Well you had better get used to it. There is no way Russell Norman will make it as P.M. and Labour are running out of time to find a leader. National will probably be a four term government.

I hope not. Can we afford the interest on the borrowings until then? The country could be a basket case in another 6 years, no manufacturing to speak of, heaps of unemployed, the country crippled with high energy costs and the attending low tax take reducing all social spending and capital works.

[craic]

Do you not read the papers, LZ? Are you not aware that the rest of the world disagrees with you? This country is doing better than most and short of some major disaster, will continue to do better than most under the current leadership. The other side, with Winston Peters, Russell Norman, Dot Com led by David Cunliffe do not present a viable alternative.

[elZorro]

EZ, you really didn't say anything here. It was kind of unfair of me as I already had you in checkmate mate, thus your bumbling reply. A weak reply by you and I wont really put too much into this post as this clearly has been done and dusted in half a day and only 3 posts. Unless you want to make more of it, up to you.
Let me just use a copy & paste from Ian Wishart's book - "Absolute Power", for now.
"Helen Clark has just been announced as the third most powerful appointee to the United Nations - running the UN Development Programme. This former New Zealand Prime Minister is known for trialling a range of UN social engineering policies in New Zealand, and is well known in liberal circles worldwide for her power and her achievements. With a budget in excess of $5 billion, and responsibility for introducing new UN social programmes and climate change policy, Helen Clark is about to do to the world what she did to New Zealand during a nine year reign as Prime Minister. To find out who Helen Clark really is, and what she brings to the international stage, Ian Wishart's #1 bestseller Absolute Power is the only place to start. This book is devastating. If you want to get inside the head of the new battering ram of the United Nations, this book tells all..."


Care to deny the claim above EZ? Perhapes knock I.W down a peg or two. That wont change the fact that Clark was a control freak to the extent that she needed to change the way we think - or at least try too.

Was she a control freak, or did she have some good ideas for a better direction for NZ? Her govt moved us away from the globalism experiment, not completely, but it was a welcome change. We were still exposed to global forces, but smart enough to keep ourselves employed in the right sort of areas. That was, until National swept in and gave large landowners and big business the right to set our government policies, mostly in their favour.

We might find another big lot of CNG, but it's hard to send that around the world, so we might have to resort to fuelling our cars with it again. It's a poor fuel for that. We could burn it in thermal stations at about 35% efficiency, but we don't have the need for more power. We could dry milk with it, and send a raw commodity around the world as we've been doing. Or as an even poorer use, we could turn it into fertiliser so we can create milk in the first place at about 0.1% efficiency via cows. Funny how we never hear about these abysmal figures.

Regarding Kim Dotcom, most businesses have their share of slow-paying customers. It's called B.S.ing and it's not cool.

[elZorro]

Do you not read the papers, LZ? Are you not aware that the rest of the world disagrees with you? This country is doing better than most and short of some major disaster, will continue to do better than most under the current leadership. The other side, with Winston Peters, Russell Norman, Dot Com led by David Cunliffe do not present a viable alternative.

Craic, I agree that National is a bit luckier than usual this election year, because ag exports are going well, and the ChCh rebuild is starting properly. But I agree with Rod Oram who was beating the drum again in the SST, we need smarter exports longer term.

National should be worried about the long tail and middle NZ. If Labour can appeal to them through the likes of Shane Jones and many other opposition MPs who are stepping up, maybe more of them will vote this year.

Labour are by far the biggest force in a left-leaning coalition, they will have most of the policy control. It's unlikely Kim Dotcom will be in the picture in any case, unless he does list his company, and people are crazy enough to buy shares in it, giving him the funds he needs to do some electioneering.