If National wins ...

[Daytr]

So simple, the point of post went over your head.
My point is they are over charging for electricity to create such a large surplus of funds.
NZers have been told previously we are being charged high rates to pay for unfunded infrastructure.
They could lower power prices instead they go up by far more than the inflation rate each year & quite often multiples there of.
What for? To give shareholders a nice fat bonus.
The electricity industry in NZ is a protected industry & is all about shareholder gains since the government started to sell them off.

Nobody is forced to be a customer of Contact. If you are concerned about their ownership, select one of the mainly NZ owned companies Genesis, Mighty River Power, Meridian and Trust Power. Simple really.

[Daytr]

John Key is a nice guy! Really? You obviously have never listened to him in parliament then. He's like a rabid dog.
And if you ask me he is surrounded by bully boys.
He has lied to the NZ public on multiple occasions.
The man has no integrity.
If that's your definition of nice, I wouldn't like to see someone that you consider nasty!
He knows how to play the game I'll give you that & also be surrounded by the heroes of the day i.e. Ritchie McCaw etc, but that doesn't make him nice.
Just ask a certain waitress in one of his favorite cafés in Auckland if he's nice. I think you may find she thinks he's a bully who harassed her.

It is really not worth while trying to convince someone if they are biased about something, but looking at that quote from Carnegie, by a Labour Party voter, suggesting it refers to John Key, is the biggest piece of hypocrisy I have seen for a while.
Turn it round and use it to look at, not the Labour leader, but the Labour Party.
While do people like John Key? Forget the policies, he appears to be a nice guy, he doesn't lose his temper even when being continually interrupted, see the John Campell interview, he has a reasonable group of people surrounding him, the policies are reasonable, and when they make mistakes they sometimes admit it, or change the policies.
Sure he has made a couple of mistakes recently, IMHO, the Sabin stuff up, and not putting Collins back in caucus, but look at the Labour side.
First Shearer resigns, saying he did not have the confidence of his Caucus, really, well the Caucus had no idea who they wanted in his place, so that doesn't make them look very smart, then the unions make sure Cunliffe gets in, that doesn't work, so they "elect" someone who can't convince his electorate that he should represent them, and he want to rule the country!!, and he really is an Angry man.
Try and look at this without voting, just think about what a man from Mars would think, do I really want these idiots trying to run the country, they can't run their party.
You may be a Labour Party voter, but only because you want to be, not because you think it is a good idea.

[Major von Tempsky]

Nonetheless for all of DayTr's fury, envy, jealousy and mealy-mouthedness, John Key is a nice guy. 74% of NZers, when asked in a poll who they would most like to have lunch with, said John Key, and he is far and away the leader in the most preferred person for PM in all the polls. Previous Labour Party campaigns to attack John Key as a person have proved counter productive. You are wasting your time and need to look for another weak point in the government.

[winner69]

Seems like some of you young uns on this thread are in the minority re nz super

http://www.interest.co.nz/kiwisaver/...about-nz-super

.Finance Minister Bill English has questioned whether young New Zealanders are concerned about the long term affordability of NZ Super, saying he had not heard any concerns expressed by the young and the only party he had heard of that was concerned was the Labour Party.



Waiheke mentioned in that article. I caught the Days Bay ferry the other day and had a nice lunch over the other side of the harbour before getting the ferry back. Most pleasant it was. Good thing that little card I have as a reward for my years of contribution to NZ.

[iceman]

So simple, the point of post went over your head.
My point is they are over charging for electricity to create such a large surplus of funds.
NZers have been told previously we are being charged high rates to pay for unfunded infrastructure.
They could lower power pieces instead they go up by far more than the inflation rate each year & quite often multiples there of.
What for? To give shareholders a nice fat bonus.
The electricity industry in NZ is a protected industry & is all about shareholder gains since the government started to sell them off.

In the post I was responding to you said this
" NZ consumers have been told they are paying higher power prices as there is a need to invest in infrastructure yet Contact wanted to go on an offshore investment jaunt until shareholders told them to pull their head in. Meanwhile electricity prices remain unchanged.
Origin Energy Australian are the largest shareholder 53% so that's where NZ consumers money will be going, Australia ! "

In the first post you say electricity prices remain unchanged, which is true at least for my electricity supplier for the last 1-2 years. But in the following post you say they go up far more than the inflation and all about shareholders gain since the Government partial privatisation and NZ consumers money going to Australia.Utter rubbsish. It is correct they did go up FAR more than inflation for a decade, BUT that is when they were 100% Government owned and Michael Cullen wanted the dividends, not since the partial privatisation.

[elZorro]

In the post I was responding to you said this
" NZ consumers have been told they are paying higher power prices as there is a need to invest in infrastructure yet Contact wanted to go on an offshore investment jaunt until shareholders told them to pull their head in. Meanwhile electricity prices remain unchanged.
Origin Energy Australian are the largest shareholder 53% so that's where NZ consumers money will be going, Australia ! "

In the first post you say electricity prices remain unchanged, which is true at least for my electricity supplier for the last 1-2 years. But in the following post you say they go up far more than the inflation and all about shareholders gain since the Government partial privatisation and NZ consumers money going to Australia.Utter rubbsish. It is correct they did go up FAR more than inflation for a decade, BUT that is when they were 100% Government owned and Michael Cullen wanted the dividends, not since the partial privatisation.

You're not correct either then, Iceman. Maui started to run out, that's why power prices went up so much back then. Huntly was needed a lot, and it ran on gas and coal with its older turbines. Now it runs more efficiently on gas with a new turbine, in general. But the gas price sets a baseline for electricity prices, especially consumer pricing.

[elZorro]

Murray McCully in the news again - he always fails to inspire.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/excl...ay+27+May+2015

[winner69]

Murray McCully in the news again - he always fails to inspire.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/excl...ay+27+May+2015

EZ, obviously Murray hasn't changed over the years

Back in the days when Murray was Minister of Housing or something I had a mate who would do presentations to industry body's and if Murray was on the agenda as well he always insisted that he do his bit before Murray because Murray turned the audience off and put them to sleep. No point in trying to get a mesage across if Murray had done that my mate said.

[Daytr]

So you choose to highlight the bottom of my post about where dividends are going rather than what the post is about & starts with, about what created such a large sum of cash in the first place. High electricity prices.
Are you really saying prices only went up under Labour? Open the other eye, they went up equally under both.
When I say electricity prices remain unchanged, I mean they are still going up!
Contact wasn't one of the SOEs sold by National so its not utter rubbish as you state.
And at least before with the other three SOEs that were sold if NZers were getting ripped off all the money went back into the coffers of their government rather than to shareholders who can afford to buy stakes in these companies, However the government could have cut power prices as well, but they wanted the returns to look good for when they sold the 49%, so again it was with an eye on shareholders.
Is there anything actually correct is what you have posted? I suppose there maybe if you have only one eye open. ;-)
Lastly is it not incorrect to say in Contact's case that at least 53% NZ consumer's money in the form of a dividend is going to Australia.
When I say at least, that's because there are bound to be other Aussie or offshore shareholders.
That's just great for the country!

In the post I was responding to you said this
" NZ consumers have been told they are paying higher power prices as there is a need to invest in infrastructure yet Contact wanted to go on an offshore investment jaunt until shareholders told them to pull their head in. Meanwhile electricity prices remain unchanged.
Origin Energy Australian are the largest shareholder 53% so that's where NZ consumers money will be going, Australia ! "

In the first post you say electricity prices remain unchanged, which is true at least for my electricity supplier for the last 1-2 years. But in the following post you say they go up far more than the inflation and all about shareholders gain since the Government partial privatisation and NZ consumers money going to Australia.Utter rubbsish. It is correct they did go up FAR more than inflation for a decade, BUT that is when they were 100% Government owned and Michael Cullen wanted the dividends, not since the partial privatisation.

[winner69]

EZ, there's hope for Labour but they need to change their positioning if they want to govern again. I sense they are too 'mainstream' and not really that much different from National. They will only win in 2017 if the punters want new faces running he country, policies won't drive change.


Spain's a funny country. They had municipal and regional elections recently with some interesting results. Parties which had social or regional causes as their platforms did very well, based on high levels of community engagement and real passion. This no doubt will roll over to upcoming national elections.

As with Greece and to some extent the UK the political world is changing. Labour could become that champion of the people in NZ, but not where they are positioned now. Maybe to win they have to forget about left or right or centrist tags (whatever they mean) and become the party with compassion, organised compassion, and lead the conversation about how we can make NZ fairer and more equal for all.

Anyway EZ, have a read of this. I think there are messages somewhere in there for Labour
http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/05/...ish-elections/