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fungus pudding
29-08-2016, 10:46 AM
Only in your view, somewhat biased towards the right of right of centre.

westerly
No - in my experience.
It's a massive generalisation. I know many property owners, developers and investors who give very generously of their time and money. Besides, why single out property owners and exclude all others such as share market investors and others who have had the nous and discipline to build up a passive income? That's nonsensical; no doubt born of envy.

Daytr
29-08-2016, 11:42 AM
Of course its a generalisation, only someone with low level intelligence would see it any other way.
However in general I believe this to be correct and the evidence of behaviour, again in general underpins this.
Unlike your comment in regards envy. You definitely do not have anything to back this up.

blackcap
29-08-2016, 12:26 PM
Of course its a generalisation, only someone with low level intelligence would see it any other way.
However in general I believe this to be correct and the evidence of behaviour, again in general underpins this.
Unlike your comment in regards envy. You definitely do not have anything to back this up.

However in general I believe this to be incorrect and the evidence of behaviour, again in general refutes this.

Sorry Daytr but you need to provide evidence or your comment is not worth the screen its written on. Like FP, I know plenty of "rich" people who are generous and happy to share their time etc, whilst also knowing many poor ppl who are greedy and spunge off others. Again generalisations and anecdata but that is what this debate will ultimately come down to.

westerly
29-08-2016, 04:22 PM
However in general I believe this to be incorrect and the evidence of behaviour, again in general refutes this.

Sorry Daytr but you need to provide evidence or your comment is not worth the screen its written on. Like FP, I know plenty of "rich" people who are generous and happy to share their time etc, whilst also knowing many poor ppl who are greedy and spunge off others. Again generalisations and anecdata but that is what this debate will ultimately come down to.

I think the behaviour of finance companies which became evident after the GFC where they lost millions of dollars on loans to property developers, money borrowed from people who were told lies to regarding the health of their companies was evidence enough. The ridiculous salaries and bonuses paid in the banking and company director sector provides further evidence of greed.
Greed is not the sole prerogative of the wealthy, but perhaps is more noticeable when someone is caught out in wrongdoing.

westerly

elZorro
29-08-2016, 07:42 PM
Roy Morgan poll out, National sheds 7% from the outlier posted after their last poll.

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6946-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-august-2016-201608291538

Another 6% didn't answer the question.

Daytr
29-08-2016, 07:58 PM
Blackcap, the evidence is in the polls. We have a government who stretching the wealth disparity gap, has created a housing bubble that is increasing homelessness and for many owning a home is now a pipedream. A government that hasn't shown any willingness to combat climate change and its quite apparent many of the MPs don't even think ACG is real. They have encouraged fossil fuel exploration at a time when its apparent that the dominance of fossil fuels is near an end and wouldn't be profitable anyway. They have also looked to introduce seabed mining one of the most controversial mining practices globally that many countries are banning. They have also encouraged the intensification of dairy even after the price had collapsed and again at the expense of the environment and in particular water quality.
And yet they are still popular and poll strongly, so this is evidence that people don't care how their policies impact the country, socially or environmentally as I stated.


However in general I believe this to be incorrect and the evidence of behaviour, again in general refutes this.

Sorry Daytr but you need to provide evidence or your comment is not worth the screen its written on. Like FP, I know plenty of "rich" people who are generous and happy to share their time etc, whilst also knowing many poor ppl who are greedy and spunge off others. Again generalisations and anecdata but that is what this debate will ultimately come down to.

777
29-08-2016, 07:59 PM
Roy Morgan poll out, National sheds 7% from the outlier posted after their last poll.

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6946-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-august-2016-201608291538

Another 6% didn't answer the question.

And Labour gained a big fat zero.

fungus pudding
29-08-2016, 08:02 PM
And Labour gained a big fat zero.

Yes. Much better than I had anticipated.

blackcap
30-08-2016, 04:30 AM
Blackcap, the evidence is in the polls. We have a government who stretching the wealth disparity gap, has created a housing bubble that is increasing homelessness and for many owning a home is now a pipedream. A government that hasn't shown any willingness to combat climate change and its quite apparent many of the MPs don't even think ACG is real. They have encouraged fossil fuel exploration at a time when its apparent that the dominance of fossil fuels is near an end and wouldn't be profitable anyway. They have also looked to introduce seabed mining one of the most controversial mining practices globally that many countries are banning. They have also encouraged the intensification of dairy even after the price had collapsed and again at the expense of the environment and in particular water quality.
And yet they are still popular and poll strongly, so this is evidence that people don't care how their policies impact the country, socially or environmentally as I stated.

So you are implying that National voters are "turning a blind eye to social depravation and environmental destruction as long as their pockets are being lined for doing nothing, i.e. owning property. Brings out the worst in people."?

Pretty damning indictment on half of the population there Daytr. I know many good National voters who are filled with integrity and compassion so I cannot agree with your statement.

Just as there are many greedy and uncaring National voters too, but on the left in my experience the split is the same. (ie between good and bad)

Daytr
30-08-2016, 06:25 AM
Well aren't they? These things are all happening under the National government, so either people don't care or are turning a blind eye as they are more than likely benefitting from these policies ' As I said I'm generalizing, but it is a damning indictment you are right there.
I know many right wingers that are individually generous as well, however sometimes it needs to be put in perspective. I.e they make more by supporting these morally corrupt policies, but are willing to give some back. I know some that say I don't mind helping someone out as long as it doesn't cost me anything. Its amazing how often I have heard this from my right wing mates.

The entire underpinning of the left wing movement is that wealth etc is more evenly distributed so I dispute your claim that its even. One side's philosophy is underpinned by compassion the other is greed. The market will prevail etc BS.

I am a centralist as I believe there is a balance to be had between the two systems. Full on socialism creates lethargy and doesn't incentivise.
Where as too far right promotes greed and leaves many behind and also doesn't account for social and or environmental cost.

craic
30-08-2016, 08:12 AM
So the new leftwing policy of the All Blacks will be to share tries more evenly with their opposition? -to have more consideration for the underdog? and maybe the Warriors will expect the Australians to take their boot off the neck of the NZ players now and then? I am a pensioner -in the last week I bought and sold a block of shares and made $800. Am I supposed to be concerned about the person who "lost" the money?

fungus pudding
30-08-2016, 09:17 AM
So the new leftwing policy of the All Blacks will be to share tries more evenly with their opposition? -to have more consideration for the underdog? and maybe the Warriors will expect the Australians to take their boot off the neck of the NZ players now and then? I am a pensioner -in the last week I bought and sold a block of shares and made $800. Am I supposed to be concerned about the person who "lost" the money?

Yes. It may have been me! :scared:

Major von Tempsky
30-08-2016, 03:59 PM
You need to harden up Craic and FP. Remember how Little dealt to that Labour guy who stood as an Independent? Called him a Fascist and cast him into outer darkness! Or you could be exiled to Auckland like Matt McCarten :-)
Whatever happened to Laila Harre? Disappeared without trace. The Left are ruthless, totally ruthless....

westerly
30-08-2016, 05:52 PM
You need to harden up Craic and FP. Remember how Little dealt to that Labour guy who stood as an Independent? Called him a Fascist and cast him into outer darkness! Or you could be exiled to Auckland like Matt McCarten :-)
Whatever happened to Laila Harre? Disappeared without trace. The Left are ruthless, totally ruthless....

Richard Worth, Pansy Wong, Phil Heatly, Nick Smith, Aron Gilmore, Maurice Williamson, and Mike Sabin, all National MP’s who have “ resigned ” for various misdemeanours. One or two have even been allowed back, suitably apologetic.
The right seem to trip up more. :)

westerly

Daytr
30-08-2016, 06:43 PM
Nothing wrong with excelling on a level playing field, however that's the problem the playing field under this government isn't level, especially when looking at the property market. Its now unaffordable for many and particularly those starting out. When you have employed homeless people something is very wrong. The environment they just don't give a damn about.


So the new leftwing policy of the All Blacks will be to share tries more evenly with their opposition? -to have more consideration for the underdog? and maybe the Warriors will expect the Australians to take their boot off the neck of the NZ players now and then? I am a pensioner -in the last week I bought and sold a block of shares and made $800. Am I supposed to be concerned about the person who "lost" the money?

craic
31-08-2016, 07:44 AM
Not one of those "unfortunate" people started out with less than I did. I arrived here with nothing but the shirt on my back - not even a permit to be here. I starved for the first week or more before I could afford food. Maybe many of those "unfortunates" you talk about will learn, as I did, to survive and prosper as I did. It took me seven years before I could buy my own house. I turn eighty next year but I'm still running three chainsaws and several axes and I have no plans to stop.

westerly
31-08-2016, 11:01 AM
Not one of those "unfortunate" people started out with less than I did. I arrived here with nothing but the shirt on my back - not even a permit to be here. I starved for the first week or more before I could afford food. Maybe many of those "unfortunates" you talk about will learn, as I did, to survive and prosper as I did. It took me seven years before I could buy my own house. I turn eighty next year but I'm still running three chainsaws and several axes and I have no plans to stop.

I arrived here and I did not even have a shirt. Your neighbours must be annoyed with 3 saws running? :)

westerly

fungus pudding
31-08-2016, 12:04 PM
I arrived here and I did not even have a shirt. Your neighbours must be annoyed with 3 saws running? :)

westerly

Not as annoyed as yours, with you running around naked!! :scared:

macduffy
31-08-2016, 12:05 PM
This thread is starting to read like an episode from Monty Python's Flying Circus!

Didn't we all used to live in cardboard boxes?

:D

fungus pudding
31-08-2016, 12:07 PM
This thread is starting to read like an episode from Monty Python's Flying Circus!

Didn't we all used to live in cardboard boxes?

:D

Not me. Our lot were raised in a shoe.

dobby41
31-08-2016, 12:35 PM
Luxury! In my day.....................

You really have to read that with an accent.

westerly
31-08-2016, 01:11 PM
Not as annoyed as yours, with you running around naked!! :scared:

Not a pretty sight. But Health and Safety insisted we turn off the chainsaws.

westerly

Major von Tempsky
31-08-2016, 05:03 PM
Stop quoting me this Labour/Greens claptrap.

I'm not a Greens supporter (nor, obviously a Labour supporter) but I do want to know when the Greens pass Labour relegating them to a minor party. Just send me a telegram when that happens so I can throw a God Almighty party for all my friends, relatives, neighbours.....

craic
31-08-2016, 05:36 PM
One at a time,Westerly, one at a time, and there is no neighbour in sight, just lots of Kanuka and blackberry, hills and trees. And sometimes a signal to my wife that I'm still alive.(This was meant to be posted before I went out to lunch and a movie - Dough - without a chainsaw.

Daytr
31-08-2016, 09:29 PM
Meanwhile back in a fully clothed reality, NZ housing affordability tops the IMFs unaffordability list.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/83750475/nz-tops-imfs-housing-unaffordability-list

Another thing that is up is crime, again the government is reactive rather than proactive.
Has anyone noticed the amount of serious crimes involving guns lately?
Seems like an almost daily event!

elZorro
02-09-2016, 06:22 AM
A webcast from Mike Joy, Massey University, about the Havelock North aquifer contamination. Interesting background.

http://webcast.massey.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/15c004bce02a4127806e5faab8ee49e11d

craic
02-09-2016, 08:24 AM
Why do you always have to spoil the fun by dragging politics into everything? I drink rainwater and its very hard to get cow dung into the tank. Every time get a cattle beast up on the roof it falls off and then craps.
A webcast from Mike Joy, Massey University, about the Havelock North aquifer contamination. Interesting background.

http://webcast.massey.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/15c004bce02a4127806e5faab8ee49e11d

fungus pudding
02-09-2016, 08:44 AM
Stop quoting me this Labour/Greens claptrap.

I'm not a Greens supporter (nor, obviously a Labour supporter) but I do want to know when the Greens pass Labour relegating them to a minor party. Just send me a telegram when that happens so I can throw a God Almighty party for all my friends, relatives, neighbours.....

It won't happen until after the next election. But I think Winston first will beat them both to become the main opposition party.

macduffy
02-09-2016, 08:48 AM
Why do you always have to spoil the fun by dragging politics into everything? I drink rainwater and its very hard to get cow dung into the tank. Every time get a cattle beast up on the roof it falls off and then craps.

I'll nominate that for best contribution to this thread in 2016! Beats all the others' attempts to explain the political environment!

;)

fungus pudding
02-09-2016, 09:10 AM
Why do you always have to spoil the fun by dragging politics into everything? I drink rainwater and its very hard to get cow dung into the tank. Every time get a cattle beast up on the roof it falls off and then craps.

A few years ago I used to frequently stay in a tramping hut where the possums made a game of jumping on the roof and sliding into the water tank. Quite a few drowned. The water tasted fine - until we worked out what was happening. Don't recall cows on the roof though.

dobby41
02-09-2016, 09:24 AM
Don't recall cows on the roof though.

The cows probably don't speak possum so weren't allowed in on the game.

RGR367
02-09-2016, 09:56 AM
A few years ago I used to frequently stay in a tramping hut where the possums made a game of jumping on the roof and sliding into the water tank. Quite a few drowned. The water tasted fine - until we worked out what was happening. Don't recall cows on the roof though.

Okay got that. Those drowned possums are the Labour/Greens. And the cows, if only they can get to the roof, is the Party of Winston :p

Daytr
03-09-2016, 06:16 AM
Not sure about that, but when Shane Jones officially joins the team NZF will be more of a force that's for sure.
I can see The Greens eclipsing Labour in the coming years.


It won't happen until after the next election. But I think Winston first will beat them both to become the main opposition party.

Daytr
03-09-2016, 07:02 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptospirosis
It must have been a fairly poorly designed hut FP if possums could slide into the water tank.
No doubt due to government cost cutting the DOC budget .... ��


A few years ago I used to frequently stay in a tramping hut where the possums made a game of jumping on the roof and sliding into the water tank. Quite a few drowned. The water tasted fine - until we worked out what was happening. Don't recall cows on the roof though.

winner69
03-09-2016, 07:13 AM
Not sure about that, but when Shane Jones officially joins the team NZF will be more of a force that's for sure.
I can see The Greens eclipsing Labour in the coming years.

.......along with Stuart Nash defectingvas well?

Labour seems to be self destructing .....no funds, infighting, power struggles and most other things. And what the heck they done with my mate Matt

Betcha National strategy to prolong the agony

fungus pudding
03-09-2016, 08:39 AM
.......along with Stuart Nash defectingvas well?



Hadn't thought of that one. I thought he'd be hanging around for a crack at leadership of Labour/Greens. Unless he's decided to leave that to Kelvin Davis.

elZorro
03-09-2016, 05:00 PM
Amusing the way you guys just make stuff up.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11701516

Personally I think we'll all need to get a lot greener in future, so whoever sides with the Greens now, will be the smartest in the end.

winner69
05-09-2016, 10:57 AM
EZ - make your mind up if you are going to accept that Chief of Staff job that's going at HQ

Seems to a lack of staff at HQ these days - and only a year out from the election. Not good

blackcap
07-09-2016, 04:26 AM
Amusing the way you guys just make stuff up.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11701516

Personally I think we'll all need to get a lot greener in future, so whoever sides with the Greens now, will be the smartest in the end.

Not sure if stuff is being made up... Rob Hosking has his take on Little and Matts move....

http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2016/09/maybe-the-union-boss-is-just-a-poor-employer/

and from a more mainstream source...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/83908414/labour-leaders-staffing-exodus-continues-with-four-key-roles-now-vacant

winner69
07-09-2016, 11:23 AM
Nearly 96,000 voted for the Conservative Party in 2014 - a fraction under 4%. The party leader got nearly 5,000 votes in Eastern Bays

We had a close call with what has turned out to be a real sleazy sort of character

neopoleII
07-09-2016, 07:42 PM
""We had a close call with what has turned out to be a real sleazy sort of character""

I dont see it as a close call.
There are other wan a be pollies that got close and some won a seat.
The reality is...... those in power or want to be in power have to see this as a wake up call
as there are 10,000's of people who have made a statement with their vote.
If that statement got to a percentage of being a small part of a government ....... then so be it.
A one or two seat party has and can influence the direction of the dominant political party......
but it cant change the direction.
Except of course the Maori party that has forced a tremendous tax on it core voters.. ie.... smoking tax.
Which has helped the National party tremendously get to a surplus.
Politics is an ugly animal that almost every kiwi has to feed, or ignore at their peril.
At least the "top of the bell curve" seems to get it right.

winner69
09-09-2016, 11:15 AM
A good quiz on immigration

http://thespinoff.co.nz/media/09-09-2016/the-figure-friday-quiz-3-the-ins-and-outs-of-migration/

I even got the Gore question correct

Daytr
09-09-2016, 04:15 PM
Well that's way to look at it or it could the Maori Party is trying to tax their people off cigarettes & try and save their lives and the next generation from such an insidious habit. Why on earth the Maori Party sticks with National is beyond me. They are so out of synch its ridiculous.


""We had a close call with what has turned out to be a real sleazy sort of character""

I dont see it as a close call.
There are other wan a be pollies that got close and some won a seat.
The reality is...... those in power or want to be in power have to see this as a wake up call
as there are 10,000's of people who have made a statement with their vote.
If that statement got to a percentage of being a small part of a government ....... then so be it.
A one or two seat party has and can influence the direction of the dominant political party......
but it cant change the direction.
Except of course the Maori party that has forced a tremendous tax on it core voters.. ie.... smoking tax.
Which has helped the National party tremendously get to a surplus.
Politics is an ugly animal that almost every kiwi has to feed, or ignore at their peril.
At least the "top of the bell curve" seems to get it right.

fungus pudding
09-09-2016, 04:18 PM
Well that's way to look at it or it could the Maori Party is trying to tax their people off cigarettes & try and save their lives and the next generation from such an insidious habit. Why on earth the Maori Party sticks with National is beyond me. They are so out of synch its ridiculous.


Tariana Turia will tell you why. Sorry, can't give you her phone no. or email asddress.

Daytr
09-09-2016, 04:22 PM
Well you aren't much help then are you...
Its pretty obvious, its also the reason they wouldn't back Clark for the UN.
The whole issue over the seabed when she was PM

fungus pudding
09-09-2016, 05:55 PM
Well you aren't much help then are you...
Its pretty obvious, its also the reason they wouldn't back Clark for the UN.
The whole issue over the seabed when she was PM

and a lot more.

Major von Tempsky
10-09-2016, 08:44 AM
Why don't you just accept the stated reason for the Maori Party sticking with National. With the natural governing party they can influence policy, get some trade-offs, achieve something. With Labour they are just locked into a long term, torpid sterility.

Daytr
12-09-2016, 11:43 AM
Because that was obvious & I didn't think it needed stating.
However they still hold a major grudge over the seabed wrangle as underlined in them not willing to support Clark's bid for the UN top job.


Why don't you just accept the stated reason for the Maori Party sticking with National. With the natural governing party they can influence policy, get some trade-offs, achieve something. With Labour they are just locked into a long term, torpid sterility.

Daytr
12-09-2016, 11:45 AM
It will be interesting to see if the Maori Party flip to Labour/Greens if they become the government, but no doubt NZF will be the decider so its probably a moot point.

Sgt Pepper
12-09-2016, 02:41 PM
and a lot more.
Such as?????

fungus pudding
12-09-2016, 03:10 PM
Such as?????


Ask the Maori party.

fungus pudding
12-09-2016, 04:53 PM
New poll out tonight. Surely this will finish Little - I hope so, they won't get anywhere the way they are heading. National needs some opposition to keep them on their toes.

winner69
12-09-2016, 05:22 PM
@ColmarBruntonNZ: ONE News Colmar Brunton poll (1/4): NAT 48% (NC), LAB 26% (-3), GRN 13% (+1), NZF 11% (+2), MAO 2% (+1) #nzpol


@MatthewHootonNZ: With one exception in Sep 2014, is @nzlabour now at its lowest level of support since it lost the 2008 election? @ONENewsNZ @ColmarBruntonNZ

iceman
13-09-2016, 05:59 AM
@ColmarBruntonNZ: ONE News Colmar Brunton poll (1/4): NAT 48% (NC), LAB 26% (-3), GRN 13% (+1), NZF 11% (+2), MAO 2% (+1) #nzpol


@MatthewHootonNZ: With one exception in Sep 2014, is @nzlabour now at its lowest level of support since it lost the 2008 election? @ONENewsNZ @ColmarBruntonNZ

And on the same day a poll out in the UK showing UK Labour at its worst result since polling began in the 1950s, at this stage of the election cycle. A party also run by an old fashioned and unlikable unionist that was installed by the party membership with 80% of MPs voting against him. Both parties (NZ & UK) are facing a complete meltdown as they are stuck in the past and simply can not connect with the voters of 2016 and beyond.

craic
13-09-2016, 08:22 AM
You may/or may not, be aware that I don't vote labour for reasons totally unrelated to my parents voting habits but the leader of NZ Labour is ahead of the UK clown by a country mile. Whether you like it or not, the economy is booming even with the dairy problem and that is turning around. Most voters are aware of that and the only voters who count are the floaters and they are unlikely to rock the boat. Our dollar is close to par with the Aussie and the homeless problem is international. Half of Europe would move here tomorrow if they could. Winston Peters? He should get together with Tim Shadbolt and go on a road trip - they could take turns towing the concrete mixer.

Daytr
13-09-2016, 01:13 PM
Of course its booming Craic, we have to build a city the size of Whangarei or Napier every year. The problem is that we aren't!
This should be one of the easiest things to plan for because the government has complete control over immigration, so they new it was coming and if they didn't they were blind to it as the net flows have been changed dramatically since 2007/8.
Let alone the increase in spending required for education, roading, sewerage and other infrastructure.
We have also created a generation of multi millionaires who have basically done very little to earn it.
On the face of it you may think this is a good thing, however having a lot of people retire in their 40s who are vastly experienced and skilled is not a good thing for the long term health of the economy. Particularly when we already have a an issue around the baby boomer generation retiring in massive numbers.
And then there are the have nots who cannot afford to buy a house and a homeless problem like we have never seen before in this country.
Yep but everything is sweet mate. As long as I am doing ok, stuff the rest.
That's a mentality that seems to be growing in this country which is nothing to be proud of.

craic
13-09-2016, 01:25 PM
That's close to 101 good reasons not to vote far Labour
Of course its booming Craic, we have to build a city the size of Whangarei or Napier every year. The problem is that we aren't!
This should be one of the easiest things to plan for because the government has complete control over immigration, so they new it was coming and if they didn't they were blind to it as the net flows have been changed dramatically since 2007/8.
Let alone the increase in spending required for education, roading, sewerage and other infrastructure.
We have also created a generation of multi millionaires who have basically done very little to earn it.
On the face of it you may think this is a good thing, however having a lot of people retire in their 40s who are vastly experienced and skilled is not a good thing for the long term health of the economy. Particularly when we already have a an issue around the baby boomer generation retiring in massive numbers.
And then there are the have nots who cannot afford to buy a house and a homeless problem like we have never seen before in this country.
Yep but everything is sweet mate. As long as I am doing ok, stuff the rest.
That's a mentality that seems to be growing in this country which is nothing to be proud of.

Sgt Pepper
13-09-2016, 01:30 PM
Ask the Maori party.

Oh yes, as I thought. You could not cite one example.

Daytr
13-09-2016, 03:18 PM
That's a vacuous one liner there Craic.


That's close to 101 good reasons not to vote far Labour

fungus pudding
13-09-2016, 03:31 PM
Oh yes, as I thought. You could not cite one example.

It's more that I can't be bothered. I'm sure you've heard their reasoning.

elZorro
13-09-2016, 05:41 PM
Colmar polled 1,000 people for their latest poll, margin of error is 3%. All they needed to do was collect data from affluent households with landlines, and they'd have skewed the results heavily in favour of National. They polled just as average house prices in Auckland averaged $1mill.


Labour used UMR, their poll gave a different result altogether.


https://thestandard.org.nz/the-trouble-with-polls/

blackcap
13-09-2016, 06:09 PM
Colmar polled 1,000 people for their latest poll, margin of error is 3%. All they needed to do was collect data from affluent households with landlines, and they'd have skewed the results heavily in favour of National.


https://thestandard.org.nz/the-trouble-with-polls/

Are you implying that Colmar Brunton are fudging their polling? THat is quite an accusation to make.

elZorro
13-09-2016, 10:01 PM
Are you implying that Colmar Brunton are fudging their polling? THat is quite an accusation to make.

They only call landlines, and they also state their polls can only be used for showing trends, but not predict the outcome of an election. Which is what One News erroneously set out to do, on the news.

Read their methodology.

http://colmarbrunton.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/160607-ONE-News-Colmar-Brunton-Poll-report-28-May-2-June-2016-prelim.pdf

fungus pudding
14-09-2016, 05:29 AM
They only call landlines, and they also state their polls can only be used for showing trends, but not predict the outcome of an election. Which is what One News erroneously set out to do, on the news.

Read their methodology.

http://colmarbrunton.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/160607-ONE-News-Colmar-Brunton-Poll-report-28-May-2-June-2016-prelim.pdf

Yes, of course eZ. Even Andrew Little doesn't believe the poll results - so you're not alone.

elZorro
14-09-2016, 06:18 AM
Yes, of course eZ. Even Andrew Little doesn't believe the poll results - so you're not alone.

While they make some attempt to call people in rural and urban areas, by contacting only households with a landline they are automatically dropping out most flats, many rental properties, and people who are in transitory housing arrangements. A real poll would be conducted face to face at their residence, but of course that is too expensive for sponsors. One News paid for the half-baked poll, then they made it the leading news item to help National out while they were under the hammer. It should never have been a leading news item in any case.

blackcap
14-09-2016, 07:56 AM
ElZorro, if you are that worried about it make a complaint to the BSA.

fungus pudding
14-09-2016, 08:03 AM
While they make some attempt to call people in rural and urban areas, by contacting only households with a landline they are automatically dropping out most flats, many rental properties, and people who are in transitory housing arrangements. A real poll would be conducted face to face at their residence, but of course that is too expensive for sponsors. One News paid for the half-baked poll, then they made it the leading news item to help National out while they were under the hammer. It should never have been a leading news item in any case.


Of course not eZ. The entire world is stacked against Labour. How unfair. Now it's not just Andrew Little grizzling about the poll. Even Annette King thinks they are wrong. Obviously Labour/Greens will fly in as the next government.

winner69
14-09-2016, 08:29 AM
So those in flats, many rental properties, and people who are in transitory housing arrangements don't get polled

Probably don't vote anyway

Major von Tempsky
14-09-2016, 09:10 AM
Little is going down a very dangerous road, any number of polls in the past 2 years have come up with the same sort of results and the last general elections. Helen Clark said she didn't believe it when the Labour results went down from in the 30s to in the 20s but the next General Election confirmed it.

When you reject obviously true polls then it's only a small step for Little to reject the result of the next General Election because he doesn't like it.

Result: End of NZ as a democracy. Civil strife, riots, disorder, civil war. NZ falls into 3rd World.

elZorro
14-09-2016, 06:04 PM
So those in flats, many rental properties, and people who are in transitory housing arrangements don't get polled

Probably don't vote anyway

Yeah well, that's the missing million (http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/panel-missing-million-video-5980806). How to get them to vote, is the question. It's called GOTV, or Get Out The Vote, where parties scrabble around during the election period for miniscule results, ferrying people to voting stations. If voting was compulsory, that'd be interesting for Labour and the Greens.

fungus pudding
14-09-2016, 06:31 PM
Yeah well, that's the missing million. How to get them to vote, is the question. It's called GOTV, or Get Out The Vote, where parties scrabble around during the election period for miniscule results, ferrying people to voting stations. If voting was compulsory, that'd be interesting for Labour and the Greens.

Allah forbid that voting ever becomes compulsory.

westerly
14-09-2016, 06:58 PM
Little is going down a very dangerous road, any number of polls in the past 2 years have come up with the same sort of results and the last general elections. Helen Clark said she didn't believe it when the Labour results went down from in the 30s to in the 20s but the next General Election confirmed it.

When you reject obviously true polls then it's only a small step for Little to reject the result of the next General Election because he doesn't like it.

Result: End of NZ as a democracy. Civil strife, riots, disorder, civil war. NZ falls into 3rd World.

Don't worry, you will be safe locked in your ivory tower, the rioting peasants with only stones to throw will not reach you.
More likely to happen though if National are returned at the next election and the next financial crisis occurs. If it happens before the next election Labour and the Greens will sort it out. :)
westerly

winner69
15-09-2016, 07:58 AM
Wonder what went wrong

@GeoffMillerNZ: 'Labour rockets in poll' - Labour at 38% after @DavidCunliffeMP became leader 3 years ago today #throwbackthursday

elZorro
15-09-2016, 12:37 PM
Wonder what went wrong

@GeoffMillerNZ: 'Labour rockets in poll' - Labour at 38% after @DavidCunliffeMP became leader 3 years ago today #throwbackthursday

David Cunliffe is highly motivational with a group of people, he'd have made a fine PM too. But FP said he'd have to go, and I think the Labour Caucus must have heard him. But then, FP always says the current Labour leader is no good.

fungus pudding
15-09-2016, 02:58 PM
David Cunliffe is highly motivational with a group of people, he'd have made a fine PM too. But FP said he'd have to go, and I think the Labour Caucus must have heard him. But then, FP always says the current Labour leader is no good.


Not so. Clark was good, and I think Shearer would have made the grade given more time. He's proving to be very likeable now that he's gained a bit of confidence. Best of the lot since Clark.

P.S. Goff has been excellent in some portfolios, e.g. housing but was terrible in leadership role. Cunliffe a complete goose and hated by far too many. Labour should have seen that but chose not to look.

elZorro
15-09-2016, 08:42 PM
Not so. Clark was good, and I think Shearer would have made the grade given more time. He's proving to be very likeable now that he's gained a bit of confidence. Best of the lot since Clark.

P.S. Goff has been excellent in some portfolios, e.g. housing but was terrible in leadership role. Cunliffe a complete goose and hated by far too many. Labour should have seen that but chose not to look.

And you said Shearer had no fire, FP, back a few years in this thread.

http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showthread.php?8606-If-National-wins&p=362870&viewfull=1#post362870

elZorro
16-09-2016, 06:03 AM
Here's an anthem for FP and Craic, et al, which I heard on RNZ yesterday. Written in the 70's and still a valid commentary. It's part of a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSiTtAuBL8g

fungus pudding
16-09-2016, 06:04 AM
And you said Shearer had no fire, FP, back a few years in this thread.

http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showthread.php?8606-If-National-wins&p=362870&viewfull=1#post362870

He was certainly lacklustre, but look at him now. Certainly outshines Little.

iceman
16-09-2016, 06:19 AM
Here's an anthem for FP and Craic, et al, which I heard on RNZ yesterday. Written in the 70's and still a valid commentary. It's part of a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSiTtAuBL8g

Ummm, an anthem from the 70s. What about the continuous humming from our well performing economy ? As one commentator said yesterday: " But today's figures are good. You have to dig very, very hard through the roughly 60 pages of GDP data released by Statistics New Zealand to find any bad news – although, no doubt, a few opposition politicians are trying hard."
Robertson continued his ridiculous habit of pulling out all the strongest growing industries/areas and then saying look there is no growth and Little saying the polls are wrong. What a sad opposition we have.

Major von Tempsky
16-09-2016, 07:19 AM
I see the Labour Party are trying to say that the very strong 3.6% growth in the economy/GDP (stronger than Australia, the USA and the UK) are due solely to immigration and population growth.

So I did a bit of searching on Google - population growth in NZ in the last year (INCLUDES Immigration) has been 2%. The newspaper headlines attribute the growth to Building/Housing and Exports. Pretty good effort when dairy prices had such a dent put in them.

iceman
16-09-2016, 10:32 AM
Yes Labour/Little/Robertson are fast losing any credibility. Some of the facts are:
Gross national disposable income up +0.9%
Investment in fixed assets +14.5%
Investment in tangible goods (software) +3%
Plant & machinery + 3.8 (in quarter)
consumer spending +3.9%
exports +7.6%
imports +3.9%
dairy +13%
manufacturing +2.8%
horticulture & seafood both up and the list goes on and on

winner69
16-09-2016, 11:03 AM
Just as well we have MMP

Otherwise the way Labour is going NZ would almost become a one party state

neopoleII
16-09-2016, 07:39 PM
once the next election is over....... national wins.
shearer will be brought back into the game and then we will see a strong labour party.
IMHO shearer came in... or was pushed in.... too early when he was leader.
he has some more experience now, and i think he will do well after the next election.
that i think will be the game changer.
shearer is a good man and a sincere man.....
and a man that will hopefully pull the labour party back as a united party to the center left.
i even think that key has respect for him.
if shearer does become the leader of Labour i would seriously look at his propositions.
hopefully he clears the / his house of unionist and lefty lobbyists.
at this point in time....... i have no respect for labour....... and yet i used to vote for them in the old days.

Daytr
18-09-2016, 02:52 PM
So it appears prophetic that we were only just discussing the Maori Party alliance with National and then there is a bust up in a very similar vein to what Labour experienced over the foreshore etc. What was National thinking not consulting with Maori fully on this. I think its quite likely they would have agreed with it if they had been or even just put a time frame of review say 20 years. Just quite incredible that Nick Smith etc are that naïve or arrogant & I'm assuming its the latter. They make a big song and dance about this marine sanctuary meanwhile encouraging companies in regards fossil fuel exploration and seabed mining. TTR are about to have another crack at mining FE of the seabed off Taranaki after already being turned down by the EPA. The government is trying to pave their way through the RMA that skirts the EPA. They are looking to do the same thing over open air GMO trials, looking to take the power away from regional & local councils who currently decide. The only reason they should take the power away is to put in place a nationwide ban on the practice. Open air trials would be a disaster waiting to happen, with contamination a certainty. They would be risking the growing and very lucrative organic market and also yet again, NZs clean green image. (which is just a façade anyway.)

fungus pudding
18-09-2016, 03:23 PM
once the next election is over....... national wins.
shearer will be brought back into the game and then we will see a strong labour party.
IMHO shearer came in... or was pushed in.... too early when he was leader.
he has some more experience now, and i think he will do well after the next election.
that i think will be the game changer.
shearer is a good man and a sincere man.....
and a man that will hopefully pull the labour party back as a united party to the center left.
i even think that key has respect for him.
if shearer does become the leader of Labour i would seriously look at his propositions.


I can't imagine he'd want to have another go.

iceman
19-09-2016, 07:07 AM
So it appears prophetic that we were only just discussing the Maori Party alliance with National and then there is a bust up in a very similar vein to what Labour experienced over the foreshore etc. What was National thinking not consulting with Maori fully on this. I think its quite likely they would have agreed with it if they had been or even just put a time frame of review say 20 years. Just quite incredible that Nick Smith etc are that naïve or arrogant & I'm assuming its the latter. They make a big song and dance about this marine sanctuary meanwhile encouraging companies in regards fossil fuel exploration and seabed mining. TTR are about to have another crack at mining FE of the seabed off Taranaki after already being turned down by the EPA. The government is trying to pave their way through the RMA that skirts the EPA. They are looking to do the same thing over open air GMO trials, looking to take the power away from regional & local councils who currently decide. The only reason they should take the power away is to put in place a nationwide ban on the practice. Open air trials would be a disaster waiting to happen, with contamination a certainty. They would be risking the growing and very lucrative organic market and also yet again, NZs clean green image. (which is just a façade anyway.)

Yes clearly Nick Smith should have consulted more on this although he did have the 2 Iwi closest to the Kermedecs sign off on it. But not the Maori Fisheries Commission. Of course Maori have no historical or customary catches there. What I do not understand is why the media et al are solely talking about the rights of Maori that have never fished there but no mention of the confiscation of fishing/property rights of operators that have been fishing there for many years. To me that is no less serious than the perceived Maori rights in the area.

dobby41
19-09-2016, 08:26 AM
Yes clearly Nick Smith should have consulted more on this although he did have the 2 Iwi closest to the Kermedecs sign off on it. But not the Maori Fisheries Commission. Of course Maori have no historical or customary catches there. What I do not understand is why the media et al are solely talking about the rights of Maori that have never fished there but no mention of the confiscation of fishing/property rights of operators that have been fishing there for many years. To me that is no less serious than the perceived Maori rights in the area.

Historical bit of who took what off whom need to be put aside.
Wasn't the Kermedecs given to Maori?
If so then how could they take it back again without agreement.
Seems very similar to what a lot of the Waitangi Tribunal cases on historical agreements are about - you promised X but never gave so I want Y back.

iceman
19-09-2016, 09:03 AM
Historical bit of who took what off whom need to be put aside.
Wasn't the Kermedecs given to Maori?
If so then how could they take it back again without agreement.
Seems very similar to what a lot of the Waitangi Tribunal cases on historical agreements are about - you promised X but never gave so I want Y back.

No Kermedecs are not owned by Maori. The debate now is purely about fishing rights

dobby41
19-09-2016, 10:21 AM
No Kermedecs are not owned by Maori. The debate now is purely about fishing rights

OK - fair enough.
I meant the right to fish was given to Maori.
Then they want to change the rules?
Is that a fair summary?

Maori haven't used the fishing right but was the fishing right they were given subject to using it within a certain period?

iceman
19-09-2016, 10:33 AM
Yes that is probably a fair summary dobby41. Maori were compensated through the huge Sealord deal back in the 90s through which they received certain fishing rights, both of existing (at the time) quotas and future quotas. This is the same rights as other quota holders have. I know people who have a significant part of their business fishing around the Kermedecs , which is now at risk of destruction, hence my ponderings here as to why media only talks about Maori rights. It is also worth to remember that all the parties in Parliament voted for this when it went through and even today is supported by at least National, Labour and the Greens.

craic
19-09-2016, 12:25 PM
It's about time Maori rights were balanced by Maori responsibilities. Most of the activists are struggling to make even 50% so maybe one half of their ancestors should be paying the other half. The fish stocks around the Kermadecs are preserved for Maori just as much as they are preserved for the rest of us. Now we have this rubbish about a block of land that was/is private land being used for housing and thy are up in arms because it is next door to a protected site. I live next door to a protected site - protected because someone claimed it was once a Pa site. Half the Kaumata that I know insist that the claim is rubbish and that the Pa was one hill over.

Daytr
19-09-2016, 01:59 PM
To be fair Iceman I have also seen comment in the media re commercial fishing rights / compensation.
Commercial fishing quotas are reviewed and changed regularly so as long as they are given fair notice which may not be the case here, then that should be it. Whereas the rights of Maori are perpetual. I am sure this is more about the lack of consultation as that reinforces a very bad precedent and as Maori rightly say can they decide forever on behalf of future generations and that's why they have agreed to something like a 20 year term and right of review. Well if they had been consulted that is.
However as per my original post, I think its perverse that the same government has been supportive of TTR which wants to undertake a very destructive seabed mining operation of Taranaki.


Yes that is probably a fair summary dobby41. Maori were compensated through the huge Sealord deal back in the 90s through which they received certain fishing rights, both of existing (at the time) quotas and future quotas. This is the same rights as other quota holders have. I know people who have a significant part of their business fishing around the Kermedecs , which is now at risk of destruction, hence my ponderings here as to why media only talks about Maori rights. It is also worth to remember that all the parties in Parliament voted for this when it went through and even today is supported by at least National, Labour and the Greens.

elZorro
19-09-2016, 09:10 PM
National solves Housing Crisis..

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11712162

Sgt Pepper
20-09-2016, 11:47 AM
The government had a near miss with the mishandling of the Kermadec Reserve. This disagreement is nothing compared to the yet to be resolved Freshwater interest negotiations. Is this the issue which will see this government become unstable and precipitate an early election. Quite possible in my opinion. What do others think?

Sgt Pepper
20-09-2016, 02:18 PM
I note a date is set next may for Enimen /National Party alleged copyright violation during the 2014 election. If it goes against National what sort of penalty could they be looking at?

fungus pudding
20-09-2016, 02:21 PM
I note a date is set next may for Enimen /National Party alleged copyright violation during the 2014 election. If it goes against National what sort of penalty could they be looking at?

Why? Should we start a collection? How much are you prepared to chip in?

Sgt Pepper
20-09-2016, 03:08 PM
Why? Should we start a collection? How much are you prepared to chip in?

Well National could resuscitate the 2014 Cabinet Club events in which for a mere $1000 you can meet a cabinet minister or if you are really lucky( or unlucky) John Key

fungus pudding
20-09-2016, 03:16 PM
Well National could resuscitate the 2014 Cabinet Club events in which for a mere $1000 you can meet a cabinet minister or if you are really lucky( or unlucky) John Key

Obviously helped them raise a few bob. It's a wonder Labour don't do the same with their big-wigs! Not.

elZorro
20-09-2016, 05:11 PM
Obviously helped them raise a few bob. It's a wonder Labour don't do the same with their big-wigs! Not.

Labour's Phil Goff seems to have learnt a thing or two about fundraising. Sign of the times.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11712664

westerly
20-09-2016, 05:57 PM
Yes that is probably a fair summary dobby41. Maori were compensated through the huge Sealord deal back in the 90s through which they received certain fishing rights, both of existing (at the time) quotas and future quotas. This is the same rights as other quota holders have. I know people who have a significant part of their business fishing around the Kermedecs , which is now at risk of destruction, hence my ponderings here as to why media only talks about Maori rights. It is also worth to remember that all the parties in Parliament voted for this when it went through and even today is supported by at least National, Labour and the Greens.

I cannot have much sympathy for commercial fishermen maori or otherwise.
Quotes from a report on Parliaments debate on illegal fish dumping -

{“An internal email written by MPI's director of fisheries management, and released as part of the report, stated, "fish dumping is so widespread that the current system is failing and officials have not been able to get on top of it from day one of the quota management system.
"We estimate that if we found the golden bullet to stop discarding, we would probably put over half of the inshore fleet out of business overnight."}

Guy has said that view was a personal one and was not backed up by evidence. He would say that however.

“On Friday, the findings of a high-level inquiry into the decision not to prosecute commercial fishing boats which were caught on camera dumping tonnes of healthy fish in New Zealand waters were released.
The inquiry, led by QC Michael Heron, said the MPI obstructed the prosecution process, that its decision process was "confused", and that it failed to follow up and "draw a clear line in the sand" with regard to fish dumping.
Parker said the amount of illegal fish dumping happening in New Zealand waters was likely to be "enormous". The Heron report suggested "the ministry may have been captured by industry interests".

westerly

iceman
21-09-2016, 07:14 AM
I cannot have much sympathy for commercial fishermen maori or otherwise.
Quotes from a report on Parliaments debate on illegal fish dumping -

{“An internal email written by MPI's director of fisheries management, and released as part of the report, stated, "fish dumping is so widespread that the current system is failing and officials have not been able to get on top of it from day one of the quota management system.
"We estimate that if we found the golden bullet to stop discarding, we would probably put over half of the inshore fleet out of business overnight."}

Guy has said that view was a personal one and was not backed up by evidence. He would say that however.

“On Friday, the findings of a high-level inquiry into the decision not to prosecute commercial fishing boats which were caught on camera dumping tonnes of healthy fish in New Zealand waters were released.
The inquiry, led by QC Michael Heron, said the MPI obstructed the prosecution process, that its decision process was "confused", and that it failed to follow up and "draw a clear line in the sand" with regard to fish dumping.
Parker said the amount of illegal fish dumping happening in New Zealand waters was likely to be "enormous". The Heron report suggested "the ministry may have been captured by industry interests".

westerly

Sadly there are cowboys and unsuitable people in all industries, be it fishing, farming,mining, banking. You name it. A vast majority of NZ commercial catches is taken by deepsea trawlers that process all their catch onboard and use all offal for fish meal and fish oil production. Without a doubt in the top 5 best managed fisheries in the World

dobby41
21-09-2016, 08:01 AM
Without a doubt in the top 5 best managed fisheries in the World

I think there is some doubt if we have video evidence of ships not obeying the rules but officials do nothing.
They were flouting the rule in front of the camera that they knew was there - obviously they didn't expect anything to be done about it.

Sgt Pepper
21-09-2016, 08:38 AM
Obviously helped them raise a few bob. It's a wonder Labour don't do the same with their big-wigs! Not.

National does have an advantage of having some high net worth donors who have deep pockets and small minds
Labour did have a president who was on the rich list. Michael Hirschfeld was much wealthier than John Key ( he sold Mico Wakefield for $60 million) .

craic
21-09-2016, 08:53 AM
A lot of wishful thinking going on here. Only the Right have deep pockets and small minds. Go to any election meeting of any non left politician and count the screaming halfwits at the back, voicing their obscene or vitriolic garbage fuelled by their broad minds and empty pockets and remember that those poor demented souls could afford the petrol to get there and the alcohol to bolster their courage

westerly
21-09-2016, 10:23 AM
A lot of wishful thinking going on here. Only the Right have deep pockets and small minds. Go to any election meeting of any non left politician and count the screaming halfwits at the back, voicing their obscene or vitriolic garbage fuelled by their broad minds and empty pockets and remember that those poor demented souls could afford the petrol to get there and the alcohol to bolster their courage

Not these days Craic, The Right employ security heavies to throw us out at any sign of disruption to the Nationals myth " trust John every thing is OK " :)


westerly

craic
21-09-2016, 11:57 AM
I'll put forward a suggestion that they be ejected from a first floor window rather than a ground floor door.

westerly
21-09-2016, 12:50 PM
I'll put forward a suggestion that they be ejected from a first floor window rather than a ground floor door.

Or down the stairs

"In 1999, Brownlee was prosecuted and fined $8000 for assaulting an environmental activist at a National Party conference.*Neil Abel, 58, a sympathiser of the Native Forest Action Group, said Brownlee grabbed him by the belt, thrust his knee "up my backside", and manhandled him from the venue. He said*Brownlee then threatened to throw him down a*staircase, and that he feared for his life during the scuffle. "

westerly

elZorro
21-09-2016, 06:10 PM
Andrew Little has appointed a new and capable Press Secretary and Chief of Staff.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1609/S00396/labour-leader-makes-senior-appointments.htm

fungus pudding
21-09-2016, 07:48 PM
Andrew Little has appointed a new and capable Press Secretary and Chief of Staff.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1609/S00396/labour-leader-makes-senior-appointments.htm

How absolutely wonderful.

Sgt Pepper
22-09-2016, 01:57 PM
How absolutely wonderful.

At least Andrew Little knows who his media people are and what they do. If I recall John Key " had no idea" what one Jason Ede did or who he was despite being two doors down from his office in the Beehive. YEAH RIGHT John. Another Pinoccio moment for our John.
Oh ..I suppose thats not being fair,..to Pinoccio that is

craic
22-09-2016, 02:16 PM
So now we have a new Labour party leader? All Andrew Little has to do is take some lessons in how to move his lips in time with this new leader voice and interpretation of reality. God help those unfortunates who have to lip read.
Andrew Little has appointed a new and capable Press Secretary and Chief of Staff.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1609/S00396/labour-leader-makes-senior-appointments.htm

Major von Tempsky
22-09-2016, 07:40 PM
Yep, he can abdicate completely on the job now. And when he needs a scapegoat or two - hey Presto! They're there.

iceman
25-09-2016, 08:18 AM
Interesting to see 62% of voters in the UK Labour leadership elections vote to keep the Conservatives in Government for the foreseeable future !!

macduffy
25-09-2016, 10:59 AM
Interesting to see 62% of voters in the UK Labour leadership elections vote to keep the Conservatives in Government for the foreseeable future !!

That was 62% of Labour membership, of course, not 62% of Labour voters - however many of those there might be!

iceman
25-09-2016, 11:13 AM
That was 62% of Labour membership, of course, not 62% of Labour voters - however many of those there might be!

You are assuming all members voted. As I said, it was 62% of those that voted in the Labour leadership election !!
On a different note, a school friend of my wife's is a UK Labour MP. On a recent visit to the UK, she told us about some of the intimidation and threats many Labour MPs that do not support Corbin, have been subjected to, even at their homes. It is quite shocking to hear and shows bullying tactics way beyond what I ever imagined. It is a failed party under his leadership

Sgt Pepper
25-09-2016, 12:38 PM
You are assuming all members voted. As I said, it was 62% of those that voted in the Labour leadership election !!
On a different note, a school friend of my wife's is a UK Labour MP. On a recent visit to the UK, she told us about some of the intimidation and threats many Labour MPs that do not support Corbin, have been subjected to, even at their homes. It is quite shocking to hear and shows bullying tactics way beyond what I ever imagined. It is a failed party under his leadership

So the problem you have with democracy is???

iceman
25-09-2016, 12:43 PM
So the problem you have with democracy is???

Sorry. Don't understand where that question came from. I have no problem with democracy. What made you think that ???????

fungus pudding
25-09-2016, 12:54 PM
You are assuming all members voted. As I said, it was 62% of those that voted in the Labour leadership election !!
On a different note, a school friend of my wife's is a UK Labour MP. On a recent visit to the UK, she told us about some of the intimidation and threats many Labour MPs that do not support Corbin, have been subjected to, even at their homes. It is quite shocking to hear and shows bullying tactics way beyond what I ever imagined. It is a failed party under his leadership

And always will be. He may well have a degree of support from the party, but to the wider public it drops to near zero.

Daytr
25-09-2016, 06:41 PM
However that's what the MPI is there to police, but they do absolutely squat.
Same goes with swamp Kauri extraction.
We had the fruit fly infestations.
The MPI seem to either be asleep at the wheel or in the pockets of big business.
The activity in the fishing industry is a disgrace and has been for years.
Best practice my a'se!


Sadly there are cowboys and unsuitable people in all industries, be it fishing, farming,mining, banking. You name it. A vast majority of NZ commercial catches is taken by deepsea trawlers that process all their catch onboard and use all offal for fish meal and fish oil production. Without a doubt in the top 5 best managed fisheries in the World

iceman
26-09-2016, 12:51 AM
The activity in the fishing industry is a disgrace and has been for years.
Best practice my a'se!
DAYTR, for a confessed banker who was busy ripping off the World before the GFC, I find your holy-er than thou attitude with everything interesting. Your whole industry fell apart and most of you disappeared. Some into Northland. I will continue to defend my industry (fishing) against ill informed know it all people from the part of society you come from that say one thing and do another and have never done anything productive for NZ

macduffy
26-09-2016, 11:00 AM
You are assuming all members voted. As I said, it was 62% of those that voted in the Labour leadership election !!
On a different note, a school friend of my wife's is a UK Labour MP. On a recent visit to the UK, she told us about some of the intimidation and threats many Labour MPs that do not support Corbin, have been subjected to, even at their homes. It is quite shocking to hear and shows bullying tactics way beyond what I ever imagined. It is a failed party under his leadership

We're quibbling here, of course! ;) but I'd find it hard to imagine anyone keen enough on a particular political party to become a member, not to go to the trouble of voting on such an important issue as its leadership!

Incidentally, I agree, UK Labour needs a new leader - for a start!

westerly
26-09-2016, 07:04 PM
We're quibbling here, of course! ;) but I'd find it hard to imagine anyone keen enough on a particular political party to become a member, not to go to the trouble of voting on such an important issue as its leadership!

Incidentally, I agree, UK Labour needs a new leader - for a start!

Corbyn received 62% 0f the votes cast in the leadership election. A fairly convincing victory. The other 38 % went to his opponent. To say only 62% of the Labour membership voted is typical of the misinformation being spread around by those worried of a move to the left by Labour both in NZ and the UK.
The NZ Labour party should take note and forget about centre left whatever that means and start producing policies that will attract the average person. A stop to the continual rundown in Government services instituted by National would be a good start.
As with Corbyn the neo right will use any opportunity to attack the dreaded thought of a revival of the left.

westerly

macduffy
26-09-2016, 07:34 PM
I don't think that anyone said or implied that "only 62% of the Labour membership voted". Clearly, 62% of those who voted supported Corbyn. The concern, if any, would be whether those members reflected the preference of the majority of Labour supporters - as distinct from Labour members. Not that we will know until the next election, of course.

elZorro
27-09-2016, 06:54 AM
Radio interview with Bill English on his views about the economy, and when you listen to his examples, he's talking about the landed gentry, farmers, and is conscious of the ex-farmers who have cashed up and are trying to earn an income from money in the bank. Bill, this is a tiny fraction of the population, what about everyone else?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/news/article.cfm?c_id=34&objectid=11717052&utm_source=ST&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ShareTrader+AM+Update+for+Tuesday+27+ September+2016

elZorro
27-09-2016, 09:09 PM
Latest Roy Morgan poll: Labour gets well over the 30% threshold, and NZFirst would have the balance of power. Winston's not keen on National at the moment, hasn't been for a while.

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6971-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-september-2016-201609271642

fungus pudding
27-09-2016, 09:13 PM
Latest Roy Morgan poll: Labour gets well over the 30% threshold, and NZFirst would have the balance of power. Winston's not keen on National at the moment, hasn't been for a while.

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6971-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-september-2016-201609271642

You'll occasionally get the odd rogue poll.

elZorro
28-09-2016, 06:43 AM
You'll occasionally get the odd rogue poll.

Yes, FP, I'm sure that's what happened here. Labour will never get back in, they'll have to sack Little first and restart with a different leader yet again, the Greens will overtake them in the polls and be the second biggest party.;)

In any case, this Key govt is doing such a good job with the economy, as we saw on the Nigel Latta "The hard stuff" program last night. Nigel was banging on about hi-tech and niche businesses, the natural conclusion for NZ's future prosperity, but failed to mention how National killed the R&D tax credits that were accessible to thousands of SMEs, for just one year, after being installed by Labour. That's helped put NZ behind all of our peers in terms of R&D and the follow-on results. As Bill English is so clearly showing, it's not about SMEs or the average workers looking for jobs and reasonably priced houses. This govt is looking after those who are already at the top.

fungus pudding
28-09-2016, 08:34 AM
Yes, FP, I'm sure that's what happened here. Labour will never get back in, they'll have to sack Little first and restart with a different leader yet again, the Greens will overtake them in the polls and be the second biggest party.;)



Partly correct. They certainly will have to drop Little first. They still remain the largest opposition party. NZ First will die with Winston. The Greens are not mainstream enough, and Labour are staring at their 4th consecutive election defeat. One day they might get back in, or morph into a new party. Neither will happen until they replace Little.

elZorro
01-10-2016, 09:16 AM
Partly correct. They certainly will have to drop Little first. They still remain the largest opposition party. NZ First will die with Winston. The Greens are not mainstream enough, and Labour are staring at their 4th consecutive election defeat. One day they might get back in, or morph into a new party. Neither will happen until they replace Little.

Does anything in this article look familiar?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-30/bowman-we-must-overcome-our-leadership-change-addiction/6054586

John Key's government has been so banal with policy in general, that there is nothing much to see in the wake of 8 years in office. They've done this to ensure they stay in power. Labour has listened perhaps too hard to external voices and social media - still do. Those of us with a bit more background want to see a statesperson emerge from the political rabble. Given time, it could be Andrew Little. The job certainly needs a principled person. So that's not John Key, is it?

craic
02-10-2016, 08:29 AM
Most of the country disagrees with you. The Labour Party haven't produced a leader of JK's stature in living memory. If by chance you scrape enough dissident strays together to form a government, the Winston Peter will probably be the Pied Piper and he will lead all your rubbish over the cliff. But he is a straw man, so one match and he's gone too.

elZorro
02-10-2016, 09:18 AM
Most of the country disagrees with you. The Labour Party haven't produced a leader of JK's stature in living memory. If by chance you scrape enough dissident strays together to form a government, the Winston Peter will probably be the Pied Piper and he will lead all your rubbish over the cliff. But he is a straw man, so one match and he's gone too.

On the face of it, a perfectly coherent paragraph, but every line is just rubbish that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Most of the country disagrees with you. Reply-National were well funded by predominantly wealthy people, and used this to pay for good marketing in the last four elections, while splitting the "Not National" vote with various dirty politics.

The Labour Party haven't produced a leader of JK's stature in living memory. Reply- Oh please, there have been books written on this subject, I've read a few of them, and JK isn't up there with others like Helen Clark, in terms of work ethic or in achievements, and I bet any of his useful speeches have been written for him. Plus, none of our previous PMs have been pony-tail pullers or serial fibbers as far as we know.

If by chance you scrape enough dissident strays together to form a government, the Winston Peter will probably be the Pied Piper and he will lead all your rubbish over the cliff. Reply- A broad denigration of all of the opposition surely can't be correct. After all, Labour people were in office for nine years, and during that time a lot of good things happened - crown debt was paid off, more people were employed, policies to reduce inequality started to have an effect. Some of those policies have stayed in place under National, others didn't, and now NZ has more inequality. Winston Peters is more likely to work with a Labour-Green coalition, agreed. But he will only have the proportional power of his voting base.

But he is a straw man, so one match and he's gone too. Reply - While he likes the idea of keeping his options open when it comes to coalitions, everyone knows he has bottom lines on policies - most of which look like Labour's - and the broad ideas behind his direction. As he showed in Northland, he's a great campaigner too.

GTM 3442
02-10-2016, 03:29 PM
Interesting interchange of ideas.

It will be interesting to see if the traditional rule of "Three in a row, time to go" will apply. I sometimes think that governments get voted out, rather than the opposition being voted in.

After all, I have yet to hear anyone say "Vote the b*st*rds IN!!!"

craic
02-10-2016, 06:02 PM
el Zorro,I had a bet with you last election and I'll probably offer another nearer the day. I know you feel for the poor NZ retailers and "businessmen" who are not particularly favoured by this government but I have started buying in the US for quality and value. the 460 Husqvarna Rancher that arrived in my mail a few days ago from Baileys in California saved me well over $400 on the price of the same saw from the dealership down the road. And yes, that was with gst and other levies and postage.

elZorro
02-10-2016, 06:33 PM
el Zorro,I had a bet with you last election and I'll probably offer another nearer the day. I know you feel for the poor NZ retailers and "businessmen" who are not particularly favoured by this government but I have started buying in the US for quality and value. the 460 Husqvarna Rancher that arrived in my mail a few days ago from Baileys in California saved me well over $400 on the price of the same saw from the dealership down the road. And yes, that was with gst and other levies and postage.

That's a little disturbing Craic. You've bypassed a local business, so they'll look sideways at you when you eventually take it in for service. Not sure how they'd offer warranty on that chainsaw from USA, return to base? Here's a NZ outfit about $300 below RRP.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/outdoor-garden-conservatory/garden-power-tools/chainsaws/auction-1170121529.htm

You can obviously afford a good chainsaw, but can you afford a bet on the 2017 election I wonder? Will your increasing collection of chainsaws get in the way, or are you in fact operating some kind of a dealership in used saws? :)

P.S. I noted the skilful change of topic.

craic
03-10-2016, 07:56 AM
We are coming up to that date when "the dead arose and appeared to many" All Hallows, but I doubt that the labour party will be among them. As to the guarantees from local "assemblers" it is seldom worth the paper it is written on. Believe me, American companies are a joy to deal with. The most obscure parts are just a computer click away. The 460 is set up to meet Strict US standards for emission control and safety but it is not my main saw, that is a 395.

westerly
03-10-2016, 11:15 AM
We are coming up to that date when "the dead arose and appeared to many" All Hallows, but I doubt that the labour party will be among them. As to the guarantees from local "assemblers" it is seldom worth the paper it is written on. Believe me, American companies are a joy to deal with. The most obscure parts are just a computer click away. The 460 is set up to meet Strict US standards for emission control and safety but it is not my main saw, that is a 395.

Maybe you should be asking Husqvarna NZ the question.
“ How come the US can sell a chainsaw for $700 nz when you advertise the same model for $1400 ”
They will have spin as to why this is so. They possibly possibly avoid paying NZ tax as well.
Tough blaming the NZ business man. National appear to be quite happy with this.

westerly

craic
03-10-2016, 11:57 AM
Ayear or two back I tried to buy gps system for my boat from US where it was half the price. They came back and told me that that system could not be sold to NZ but if I had someone in the US who could forward it to me, they would be happy to send it to them. I said forget the brand, send me the best you can for about that price, give or take a hundred dollars or so. The one I got is an Italian system, probably better than the other. NZ Post now have an address in the States for forwarding all this stuff to NZ. You register, they give you a number and then you can go out and buy anything you want. I am currently ordering a couple of pairs of BAD ASS jeans and two pair of braces. The denim is made in the USA - 40 ounce and the jeans are made in the USA. two pair of braces - proper ones - Not rubber bands with useless clps that you get here. I can even get the special stud-type buttons.

elZorro
03-10-2016, 07:10 PM
Ayear or two back I tried to buy gps system for my boat from US where it was half the price. They came back and told me that that system could not be sold to NZ but if I had someone in the US who could forward it to me, they would be happy to send it to them. I said forget the brand, send me the best you can for about that price, give or take a hundred dollars or so. The one I got is an Italian system, probably better than the other. NZ Post now have an address in the States for forwarding all this stuff to NZ. You register, they give you a number and then you can go out and buy anything you want. I am currently ordering a couple of pairs of BAD ASS jeans and two pair of braces. The denim is made in the USA - 40 ounce and the jeans are made in the USA. two pair of braces - proper ones - Not rubber bands with useless clps that you get here. I can even get the special stud-type buttons.

Interesting discussion, Craic, where the implication is that you have more choice and a cheaper price available overseas, even with GST added. There are are a few wholesalers who are moving to take that ground in NZ. I have found that in some specific areas, people selling imported gear on Trademe have small margins, like about 20%. Rural supply stores sell to farmers with about 12% markup or less, on bought-in (unstocked) items.

It's the brand dealers with retail stores who like to think they can import something, add no value to it in NZ, and resell it with a 100% markup or more, that have me perplexed. That's probably not tenable longer term. Usually it's going through an importer and then the retailer, that's part of it. You're chopping out two stages (no pun intended), and buying from a bigger country where prices are more competitive.

While I'm not sure why you're buying braces, unless you're into line dancing or something, you're out there importing stuff on the web, and so is everyone else. It's a big world. I bought two folding trestle tables from a NZ importer the other day, $49 including GST each . Nuts - they were well made, heavy, all the way from China. I can't see how this sort of pricing is sustainable. The lesson for NZ businesses is: specialise, adapt, do something no-one else is having a go at. Or do something that absolutely has to be done locally.

winner69
03-10-2016, 07:54 PM
EZ - why craic wesrs braces

"A grass-roots Conservative is more than likely to wear braces to hold up trousers than opt for these modern belts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10284306/Why-the-party-you-vote-for-affects-what-clothes-you-wear-to-work.html

craic
03-10-2016, 08:29 PM
I have used belts for nearly all of my 79 years but as I get older I find that braces are more comfortable than a bel t I am handling a lot of heavy timbers much of the time
EZ - why craic wesrs braces. '

"A grass-roots Conservative is more than likely to wear braces to hold up trousers than opt for these modern belts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10284306/Why-the-party-you-vote-for-affects-what-clothes-you-wear-to-work.html

Daytr
04-10-2016, 06:14 PM
Confessed? I'm proud of what I achieved in my career. Holier than thou? Where do you get this stuff?
Raised a Catholic perhaps?
Do you know what I have done for NZ, or anywhere else for that matter?
No, thought not.
So your logic is that the bankers are worse so the fishing industry is ok?
Great logic there.
Bankers (some) have done appalling things.
The fishing industry in NZ is squandering a valuable resource and isn't being policed by the MPI who may as well not exist for all the good they do.
So the fishing industry isn't dumping large amounts of fish?
And when I say the industry I include the MPI as well as they are allowing it to happen.
Its a disgrace! I hope that is holy enough for you... ;-)



DAYTR, for a confessed banker who was busy ripping off the World before the GFC, I find your holy-er than thou attitude with everything interesting. Your whole industry fell apart and most of you disappeared. Some into Northland. I will continue to defend my industry (fishing) against ill informed know it all people from the part of society you come from that say one thing and do another and have never done anything productive for NZ

craic
05-10-2016, 07:28 AM
And now the labour party are to resurrect the biggest joke in their past history, the BABY BONUS?

GTM 3442
05-10-2016, 01:40 PM
El Zorro 3/10:

"It's the brand dealers with retail stores who like to think they can import something, add no value to it in NZ, and resell it with a 100% markup or more, that have me perplexed. That's probably not tenable longer term."

How long is the long term? That's the standard New Zealand business model! Born of the lack of local manufacturing capacity, nourished by the disastrous import licensing regime.

History suggests that it is indeed tenable long term.

craic
05-10-2016, 03:38 PM
Interesting to note that Baileys,CA can now boast that they have brought the manufacture of their denim fabric back to the US from China and are manufacturing their logger jeans and others in The USA. The price - comparable to The Warehouse for the genuine Chinese article. I wonder if it's time to apply for Statehood. At least we would have a flag that is recognisable. But then maybe we should wait to be sure that Winnie The Poo doesn't get elected.

winner69
05-10-2016, 04:10 PM
And now the labour party are to resurrect the biggest joke in their past history, the BABY BONUS?

And next resurrect STATE ADVANCES CORPORATION and allow families to capitalise the BABY BONUS to help them into a new home

elZorro
06-10-2016, 06:27 AM
And next resurrect STATE ADVANCES CORPORATION and allow families to capitalise the BABY BONUS to help them into a new home

Yes, that policy worked, didn't it?

https://thestandard.org.nz/phil-twyford-the-housing-crisis/

fungus pudding
06-10-2016, 08:49 AM
Yes, that policy worked, didn't it?

https://thestandard.org.nz/phil-twyford-the-housing-crisis/

Like all subsidies, they never land where they are intended. Give everyone buying a property 10k, and guess what happens to the prices? The beneficiary will always be the vendor.

craic
06-10-2016, 09:44 AM
The problem with housing is the levels of regulation here. There at massive charges just for walking into the council office. I have a three-bay implement shed on my property that I could frame up and line out for just a few grand and thus provide reasonable living for a family. It has three-phase power and could easily connect to water and sewage. But the council would have a hundred reasons why a family could not live there. A guy down the road built a three bedroom home inside his shed and it has been occupied for years. Sooner or later someone will lodge a complaint and another family will be out on the street. And the problem is not unique to NZ.A large article in the Herald detailed the affairs of car dwellers in the USA and my Irish news tells exactly the same story.

westerly
06-10-2016, 10:05 AM
Budding slum landlord ?

westerly

craic
06-10-2016, 03:51 PM
The stone cottage I called home, with several others had four walls and one door and four small windows. That was two rooms created by the dividing wall and the door kept the chickens out. it didn't have electricity or water and the toilet was a hole out there somewhere. My shed would be a palace by comparison and I have managed to get to my eightieth year in cracking good health. The word slum and the word poverty are used in NZ as political slogans by people who have never understood either.

blackcap
06-10-2016, 04:07 PM
The stone cottage I called home, with several others had four walls and one door and four small windows. That was two rooms created by the dividing wall and the door kept the chickens out. it didn't have electricity or water and the toilet was a hole out there somewhere. My shed would be a palace by comparison and I have managed to get to my eightieth year in cracking good health. The word slum and the word poverty are used in NZ as political slogans by people who have never understood either.

Well said craic. Cannot agree more. We society/the media have created a bunch of pansies who cannot handle anything. My aunt and uncle came to this land 30 odd years ago, bought a 120 acre dairy farm but with no house. No problems, they quickly erected a garage (no insulation) and lived in there for 3 years till the farm was running ok and they had spare cash ie (bank would grant a loan) to build a house. Remember staying in their house (garage) and never a problem. There was a pot belly to heat things in winter and a kitchen in the corner but no other mod cons. They never complained but it was their determination to get the farm going that got them to where they are now.

iceman
08-10-2016, 01:02 AM
Good post craic and so true

Daytr
10-10-2016, 01:53 PM
Seems there are plenty of people living in sheds, mostly in South Auckland!

craic
10-10-2016, 03:41 PM
Forty years or more ago we went ot stay with "uncle Jack and Aunty Moire" in their small state rental unit in Avondale. We stayed in a large tent on the lawn. Every evening at around 10 pm a bunch of about six Islanders would file out of the house and down into the little tool shed down the garden where they slept. So the problem is not new. The Irish newspapers have exactly the same tale to tell and its costing millions to house people in hotels and the like.

elZorro
10-10-2016, 06:56 PM
Forty years or more ago we went ot stay with "uncle Jack and Aunty Moire" in their small state rental unit in Avondale. We stayed in a large tent on the lawn. Every evening at around 10 pm a bunch of about six Islanders would file out of the house and down into the little tool shed down the garden where they slept. So the problem is not new. The Irish newspapers have exactly the same tale to tell and its costing millions to house people in hotels and the like.

But isn't it the point, Craic, that the problem is getting much worse under National's watch?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11650103

Now even the National Party has to admit that the market isn't working, and they'll have to step in to help it along, with cheaper housing. In other words, pinch some of Labour's policies - once again. Because they don't have any positive ones themselves.

https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/Homelessness%20Cross%20Party%20Inquiry%20Report.pd f

Local body elections generally favoured Labour-leaning candidates.. could be an interesting bet next year.

fungus pudding
10-10-2016, 07:24 PM
But isn't it the point, Craic, that the problem is getting much worse under National's watch?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11650103

Now even the National Party has to admit that the market isn't working, and they'll have to step in to help it along, with cheaper housing. In other words, pinch some of Labour's policies - once again. Because they don't have any positive ones themselves.

https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/Homelessness%20Cross%20Party%20Inquiry%20Report.pd f

Local body elections generally favoured Labour-leaning candidates.. could be an interesting bet next year.


Now now eZ. You know you're just being silly.

iceman
11-10-2016, 08:38 AM
Local body elections generally favoured Labour-leaning candidates.. could be an interesting bet next year.

Labour leaning candidates like Dalziel and Goff who both claimed to be running as independents and Goff even running on National blue hoardings. Those 2 ex Labour Ministers not exactly enthusiastic about being branded Labour are they ? Probably since they know what a damaged brand it is !!

fungus pudding
11-10-2016, 08:41 AM
Labour leaning candidates like Dalziel and Goff who both claimed to be running as independents and Goff even running on National blue hoardings. Those 2 ex Labour Ministers not exactly enthusiastic about being branded Labour are they ? Probably since they know what a damaged brand it is !!

I've always felt Goff found himself in the wrong party.

artemis
11-10-2016, 12:33 PM
Seems there are plenty of people living in sheds, mostly in South Auckland!

I have a fair bit of experience with state and also emergency housing. Of course every situation is different but there are some common themes. Debt and a problematic tenancy record being chief among them, neither easy to extricate from.

Much easier not to accrue debt or a poor tenancy record in the first place.

Given that some 9 out of 10 applications to the Tenancy Tribunal (and we are talking tens of thousands every year) are from landlords, most for arrears and/or damage, it is not hard to see why those on the TT database are not top of a private landlord's list. And have to take what accommodation they can get.

craic
11-10-2016, 01:45 PM
I have a subscription to the Irish Times and their homelessness problem is exactly similar to here. USA and Canada are the same. I remember the war years when Britain built thousands of Nissan Huts to accommodate people bombed out of their homes. Many were very happy with their lot and took great pride in their little gardens outside the concrete jungle. They took just days to build and there are still a very small number occupied by happy residents. I think that they were meant to last ten years but quite a lot were still there in the late fifties.

westerly
11-10-2016, 05:44 PM
Labour leaning candidates like Dalziel and Goff who both claimed to be running as independents and Goff even running on National blue hoardings. Those 2 ex Labour Ministers not exactly enthusiastic about being branded Labour are they ? Probably since they know what a damaged brand it is !!

Interesting you forgot about ex National mp Colin King standing as an independent mayoral candidate in Marlborough. I would have a guess that independent candidates through out the land would be would be more likely to support National than another party.
Incidentally King invited Simon Lusk to address a candidates seminar.

westerly

elZorro
11-10-2016, 07:06 PM
Interesting you forgot about ex National mp Colin King standing as an independent mayoral candidate in Marlborough. I would have a guess that independent candidates through out the land would be would be more likely to support National than another party.
Incidentally King invited Simon Lusk to address a candidates seminar.

westerly

In Hamilton we have a leftie (Paula Southgate) with a National type (Andrew King) neck and neck for the vacated Mayor's spot. It could go either way by Thursday. I agree with your comment about independents, and Phil Goff would have used the blue colour to hold centre ground. He was still the Labour leader for a while, I think that rules out any chance he thought he was in the wrong party. Some people out there are delusional.. like FP.

Again National has to admit that their policy settings are a bit off.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/315389/govt-out-to-reduce-number-of-new-migrants

Dropping immigrant numbers from 100,000 over 2 years to 95,000, it's a very tentative step in the right direction. After all, did any of us decide we want to increase the population of NZ by 4% a year, including natural increase? If net immigration dropped to zero, that would stop house price increases for sure. Within a couple of months or so, according to that chart I posted a while back. So announcing a policy change this far out from the 2017 elections means it's a small change, meant to show they are doing something, when really they aren't. Immigration must continue apace, if the govt wants to show a growing economy!

I'm contracting in one of these new immigrants for a few weeks. His wife is pregnant, they probably hope to stay here. I have trouble understanding him, he probably says the same about me, but he has trouble with the simplest jobs, and he works at about 1/2 the speed of a competent worker, yet he's trade trained. He's probably being paid well over twice the wage rate he got in his former homeland, but he'll need all of that for rent. I would not employ him, given the chance. Why was it a smart idea to allow him and his wife into NZ? Is this sort of process going to make us more productive here? He could well end up on the dole. I'm not sounding very Labour-Like am I? But these are National's policies, they'll end up biting us in the backside.

iceman
12-10-2016, 11:39 AM
In Hamilton we have a leftie (Paula Southgate) with a National type (Andrew King) neck and neck for the vacated Mayor's spot. It could go either way by Thursday. I agree with your comment about independents, and Phil Goff would have used the blue colour to hold centre ground. He was still the Labour leader for a while, I think that rules out any chance he thought he was in the wrong party. Some people out there are delusional.. like FP.

Again National has to admit that their policy settings are a bit off.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/315389/govt-out-to-reduce-number-of-new-migrants

Dropping immigrant numbers from 100,000 over 2 years to 95,000, it's a very tentative step in the right direction. After all, did any of us decide we want to increase the population of NZ by 4% a year, including natural increase? If net immigration dropped to zero, that would stop house price increases for sure. Within a couple of months or so, according to that chart I posted a while back. So announcing a policy change this far out from the 2017 elections means it's a small change, meant to show they are doing something, when really they aren't. Immigration must continue apace, if the govt wants to show a growing economy!

I'm contracting in one of these new immigrants for a few weeks. His wife is pregnant, they probably hope to stay here. I have trouble understanding him, he probably says the same about me, but he has trouble with the simplest jobs, and he works at about 1/2 the speed of a competent worker, yet he's trade trained. He's probably being paid well over twice the wage rate he got in his former homeland, but he'll need all of that for rent. I would not employ him, given the chance. Why was it a smart idea to allow him and his wife into NZ? Is this sort of process going to make us more productive here? He could well end up on the dole. I'm not sounding very Labour-Like am I? But these are National's policies, they'll end up biting us in the backside.

I agree with you on this EZ. I don't think there is any doubt that businesses are screaming out for more and better qualified people. But we also have many jobs, for example in many of our fast growing primary industries, that Kiwis simply don't want or those that want it are totally unreliable and in many cases can not pass drug tests. So immigration is a tough balance. Always has been and always will be.

elZorro
12-10-2016, 07:38 PM
I agree with you on this EZ. I don't think there is any doubt that businesses are screaming out for more and better qualified people. But we also have many jobs, for example in many of our fast growing primary industries, that Kiwis simply don't want or those that want it are totally unreliable and in many cases can not pass drug tests. So immigration is a tough balance. Always has been and always will be.

Fair enough, Iceman. I have another immigrant contractor who is quite good, but he'd found a fulltime job before filling in at my work. A local NZ-born person supplied by the same agency turned up the first day, was then off sick for the next two days, worked one more day and then didn't turn up at all, not even to get his timesheet signed. They said he'd assured them that he would pass a drugs test. I don't normally even think about that. I don't normally have permanent staff turnover, so this has been an eye-opener for me. Must be the education system, and the parents! Kids growing up that think they'll go straight into a sweet job that lets you play around on your cellphone all day, and have a general chin-wag with other staff to pass the time. It's going to get harder to earn a living, not easier.

Phil Goff valedictory speech, excerpts.
(http://www.nzherald.co.nz/national/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503075&gallery_id=166327)

winner69
13-10-2016, 01:43 PM
@honbillenglish: Thanks to a lot of hard work from a lot of people, the Crown accounts are looking healthy (ps: this year's pie was… https://t.co/DIRqCzjlwP

Thanks to the National-led Government's responsible economic management we've achieved a $1.8b surplus for 2015/16. youtu.be/yqDz75Y9Abw




Not really a good thing is it EZ

elZorro
13-10-2016, 06:25 PM
@honbillenglish: Thanks to a lot of hard work from a lot of people, the Crown accounts are looking healthy (ps: this year's pie was… https://t.co/DIRqCzjlwP

Thanks to the National-led Government's responsible economic management we've achieved a $1.8b surplus for 2015/16. youtu.be/yqDz75Y9Abw


Not really a good thing is it EZ

Yep, a $1.8B surplus, and yet the govt is still spending $1.3B more than it takes in (https://www.interest.co.nz/news/84080/government-increases-budget-surplus-nz18-bln-201516-nz414-mln-201415-english-says-rising). That'll be because of borrowing for interest costs on all the previous borrowings ($3bill p.a.?), which is outside the other data.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp

GDP dropped last year, and even so the operating surplus was 0.2% of GDP then, maybe under 1% of GDP for this latest year. But Labour achieved a record plus 4.5% of GDP during their last term in office, and National also achieved a less exciting record recently, of minus 9% of GDP.

We also hear that some funds will need to be put into Housing NZ soon ($3bill?), that'll be because the govt pinched some money out from portfolios when they shouldn't have, to get to a budget surplus (https://bootstheory.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/there-is-no-surplus/). Some business conglomerates work like that, pinching funds from profitable areas to bolster areas that shareholders might be worried about.

So no, I'm not that excited with their business prowess yet. Bill should have stuck with a mince pie for lunch.

Deliberate Nats policy on immigration, unpicked. (http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/84061/clone-david-hargreaves-says-national-getting-deep-water-trading-education-revenues)

craic
14-10-2016, 01:47 AM
el Zorro, when I pointed to the Islanders living in a state house shed forty years or more ago, you remark that the situation has not improved under Nationals watch. We have had more than one Labour Watch since then and they didn't achieve anything on that front. When I was in the British army, from 1955 there were homeless sleeping under the bridges in London and elsewhere. I know of one family in Christchurch who moved to a tent on the beach area at Sumner/New Brighton for the summer months. Some of the homeless could enjoy life in a tent to scrape up an ante for a few months. Father got up and went to work each day. Right next to them was a family who bought a house near the beach. to pay the mortgage, they planted the whole garden, front back and sides in asparagus.Up at the crack of dawn and down for a swim and then asparagus cutting in the season "till time for work. Apparently they paid the mortgage quickly - those sort of people usually do.

elZorro
14-10-2016, 06:43 AM
el Zorro, when I pointed to the Islanders living in a state house shed forty years or more ago, you remark that the situation has not improved under Nationals watch. We have had more than one Labour Watch since then and they didn't achieve anything on that front. When I was in the British army, from 1955 there were homeless sleeping under the bridges in London and elsewhere. I know of one family in Christchurch who moved to a tent on the beach area at Sumner/New Brighton for the summer months. Some of the homeless could enjoy life in a tent to scrape up an ante for a few months. Father got up and went to work each day. Right next to them was a family who bought a house near the beach. to pay the mortgage, they planted the whole garden, front back and sides in asparagus.Up at the crack of dawn and down for a swim and then asparagus cutting in the season "till time for work. Apparently they paid the mortgage quickly - those sort of people usually do.

Good points, Craic, you know I'm not scared of a bit of work either. It's possible the housing situation will improve, but not if we continue bringing in a lot of immigrants the way we are doing at the moment. It'll need a breather of a year or two at least, to start making progress. And I would dispute that Labour has had no affect on the plight of the homeless and poor, it's mostly since National came in and concentrated on the big end of town, that manufacturing jobs have been lost in NZ.

Vernon Small comments on the Govt books. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/85313152/where-did-all-that-surplus-cash-come-from-and-where-is-it-going?utm_source=ST&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ShareTrader+AM+Update+for+Friday+14+O ctober+2016)

craic
14-10-2016, 11:07 AM
Well! it's all over bar the shouting! Dot com has announced that he is going to get rid of the government. Now that can only be sad news for Labour. He will either be Greens or Labour.

GTM 3442
14-10-2016, 04:45 PM
. . . And I would dispute that Labour has had no affect on the plight of the homeless and poor, it's mostly since National came in and concentrated on the big end of town, that manufacturing jobs have been lost in NZ.[/URL]

Manufacturing employment has been in steady decline since the Muldoon administration began to dismantle "Fortress New Zealand" and introduce some rationality into the New Zealand economy.

The decline has continued irrespective of the party in power.

elZorro
14-10-2016, 08:02 PM
Manufacturing employment has been in steady decline since the Muldoon administration began to dismantle "Fortress New Zealand" and introduce some rationality into the New Zealand economy.

The decline has continued irrespective of the party in power.

Yeah, sure GTM. From the Castalia Report, 2014.


The number of part time workers in the manufacturing sector has also dropped from
15,800 to 15,300 between 2009 and 2013. Similarly, full time employment in the
manufacturing sector decreased from 172,100 to 163,500 over the same period.
1



I didn't note earlier in the day:

RIP, Helen Kelly.:(

GTM 3442
14-10-2016, 10:14 PM
From SNZ's figures

March 1989, 216,400 full time, 14,500 part time manufacturing jobs
June 2016, 167,800 full time, 16,400 part time manufacturing jobs

No readily comparable series easily accessible for pre-1989, although the 1981 census has a figure of 321,000.

Who are Castalia?

elZorro
15-10-2016, 08:39 AM
From SNZ's figures

March 1989, 216,400 full time, 14,500 part time manufacturing jobs
June 2016, 167,800 full time, 16,400 part time manufacturing jobs

No readily comparable series easily accessible for pre-1989, although the 1981 census has a figure of 321,000.

Who are Castalia?

Castalia is a firm commissioned to write a report in 2014. (https://www.businessnz.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/76550/NZ-Manufacturing-Report-2014.pdf)But they don't go back that far, outside their scope. I had a quick look for longer-term manufacturing numbers, and I think you'll find you have to plot them from a Stats NZ spreadsheet. Yes, the trend has been down since the 80s in terms of numbers, even more disturbing as the population is increasing.

My point is that National promised us all a brighter future. So where are these higher paid manufacturing jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled school leavers? The actual numbers employed in manufacturing dropped by 4% over the first half of National's term in office. They didn't stop the trend, they actually sharpened it down. This is the pathetic result from what is supposed to be a business-friendly govt. Labour grew the economy when they were in office, and only just now is National collecting the same amount of tax as Labour grew the take to. No wonder they haven't been able to cover their own state/crown costs each year.

Sounds like Dotcom has a plan to get youth to vote in 2017, that would be very good for the lefties on the whole, they are part of the missing million voters.
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=235134

From Stats NZ, here is a reverse time-trend chart of employee numbers in manufacturing, from June 2016, see total, to March 1989 on the RHS. At June 2008 before the electioneering period, Labour policies and favourable conditions supported 230,000 NZers in manufacturing. Since then, the number of working proprietors and SMEs has dropped away, and along with that, the jobs.

craic
15-10-2016, 11:43 AM
Once upon a time horses were shod. the people who did that job were blacksmiths. most of the horses went to the works because they were replaced by cars. Most of the blacksmiths had to deal with the problem without blaming the government for importing these infernal foreign devices. This process continues in all fields. People are replacing people with more efficient systems - the number of permanent "jobs" available is irrelevant. I am in anew and very upmarket apartment in central Melbourne - There is a magical array of electronic devices - but no telephone. I don't use a cellphone, so I am in trouble. I'm too old to join the army of cellphone zombies wandering around the street.

elZorro
15-10-2016, 12:58 PM
Once upon a time horses were shod. the people who did that job were blacksmiths. most of the horses went to the works because they were replaced by cars. Most of the blacksmiths had to deal with the problem without blaming the government for importing these infernal foreign devices. This process continues in all fields. People are replacing people with more efficient systems - the number of permanent "jobs" available is irrelevant. I am in anew and very upmarket apartment in central Melbourne - There is a magical array of electronic devices - but no telephone. I don't use a cellphone, so I am in trouble. I'm too old to join the army of cellphone zombies wandering around the street.

I'm not that happy with cellphones either, they're good for fishing emergencies maybe. I don't like the intrusion of them generally. If I used texts or apps to control or monitor something for work purposes, I might be more interested.

However, Craic, you failed to debunk my argument that under National, manufacturing has collapsed by about 15% as an employer of NZers, while the population has risen, and it doesn't look like recovering anytime soon. Is there nothing we can manufacture over here, we have to just give up? Is there any intention by National to provide policies to improve the average working class wage and conditions? Note that average manufacturing wage rates are always above those for retail and service industries, by quite a bit.

blackcap
15-10-2016, 01:39 PM
However, Craic, you failed to debunk my argument that under National, manufacturing has collapsed by about 15% as an employer of NZers,

I'm pretty sure that trend is going to continue under subsequent governments as well. It's called automation. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more the union's interfere, the more the drive to automate.

addendum: technological advances also help hugely.

elZorro
15-10-2016, 02:01 PM
I'm pretty sure that trend is going to continue under subsequent governments as well. It's called automation. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more the unions interfere, the more the drive to automate.

addendum: technological advances also help hugely.

That's only partly correct. Assuming a business automates part of their operation, there will always be parts that need human involvement. If the business gains more market share for a specialised product and exports it, then surely the volume manufactured will increase, so they'll need more employees. But that's not happening in general at the moment.

Immediately after the GFC, a lot of businesses threw in the towel. That doesn't explain why there are fewer proprietors in the manufacturing sector now, than there were in 1989. In the meantime the population here went from 3.3mill to 4.6mill, a 40% increase. My argument is that if National knew what they were doing, the drop in manufacturing business activity after the GFC would have recovered back to previous levels, or better. Partly from population increases, partly from the availability of lower cost loans and a better outlook internationally. But the money has gone into the service sector, into retail, and of course into houses and property.

All of these are comparatively unproductive ventures. The National Govt basically sent a message out to (manufacturing) SMEs: keep your head down, we're not helping you out, you're on your own from now on. How else can you explain a lack of new ventures coming through, to more than replace any that are extinguished?

craic
15-10-2016, 05:34 PM
Why does any one person have to supply a job, a paid job to any other person at a wage demanded by the employee?

elZorro
15-10-2016, 06:24 PM
Why does any one person have to supply a job, a paid job to any other person at a wage demanded by the employee?

The employer only has to pay enough to keep a given employee coming to work regularly, and that surely depends on their options too. Since most people are employees, there does need to be a certain number of employers out there, and National is bringing in an extra 40,000 or more people a year, they should be able to find work too. Are we going to pay all of them the dole? It would seem that not many of them are starting up their own manufacturing businesses. I think I've covered why these businesses are useful: they're scalable, they have a small footprint, they can be sited close to residential areas, they need a wide range of skills, and they pay pretty good wages generally. Plus, they tend to export goods.

GTM 3442
15-10-2016, 08:19 PM
Good morning elZorro. . .

"My point is thatNational promised us all a brighter future"

Oh. I missed it then. I thought it was that ". . . it's mostly since National came in and concentrated on the big end of town, that manufacturing jobs have been lost in NZ."

So that's what I replied to.

Sorry.

elZorro
15-10-2016, 08:44 PM
Good morning elZorro. . .

"My point is thatNational promised us all a brighter future"

Oh. I missed it then. I thought it was that ". . . it's mostly since National came in and concentrated on the big end of town, that manufacturing jobs have been lost in NZ."

So that's what I replied to.

Sorry.

No need to be so sensitive, I might have ad-libbed a bit GTM. Like you did, when you said Muldoon started dismantling the protected manufacturing system. Not so, he certainly kept it in place. Here's some background for your edification.

http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwjEkv6gsdzPAhVEjZQKHRruCw4QFggkMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fojs.victoria.ac.nz%2Flew%2Farticl e%2Fdownload%2F944%2F757&usg=AFQjCNFK6R3nzwHS8Lf4I4IjRsQeX9bUPw

I haven't forgotten the painful years since 1984, a lot of jobs just up and left. Muldoon wasn't in power then. The changes were an experiment in how to change a whole country in the quickest time, with neo-liberal policies from think-tanks in Chicago. Labour happened to be in power, it was driven by Treasury boffins with Roger Douglas as the mouthpiece.

But that was a while ago, by now our manufacturers should be all sorted, they should have a bigger portion of our GDP output, they should be growing as employers. But they're not.

iceman
16-10-2016, 07:08 AM
No need to be so sensitive, I might have ad-libbed a bit GTM. Like you did, when you said Muldoon started dismantling the protected manufacturing system. Not so, he certainly kept it in place. Here's some background for your edification.

http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwjEkv6gsdzPAhVEjZQKHRruCw4QFggkMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fojs.victoria.ac.nz%2Flew%2Farticl e%2Fdownload%2F944%2F757&usg=AFQjCNFK6R3nzwHS8Lf4I4IjRsQeX9bUPw

I haven't forgotten the painful years since 1984, a lot of jobs just up and left. Muldoon wasn't in power then. The changes were an experiment in how to change a whole country in the quickest time, with neo-liberal policies from think-tanks in Chicago. Labour happened to be in power, it was driven by Treasury boffins with Roger Douglas as the mouthpiece.

But that was a while ago, by now our manufacturers should be all sorted, they should have a bigger portion of our GDP output, they should be growing as employers. But they're not.

EZ this is a high level of nostalgia from you. Yes many manufacturing jobs have disappeared from NZ over the last 2-3 decades but they have done so because others either do it better and cheaper than us or there is no demand for the product. Meanwhile we have other growing industries such as tourism, horticulture, wine, digital/software. Move on EZ

elZorro
16-10-2016, 08:40 AM
EZ this is a high level of nostalgia from you. Yes many manufacturing jobs have disappeared from NZ over the last 2-3 decades but they have done so because others either do it better and cheaper than us or there is no demand for the product. Meanwhile we have other growing industries such as tourism, horticulture, wine, digital/software. Move on EZ

Tourism, low wages and part-time work. Horticulture, again it's seasonal and relatively lower skilled, low pay in general. "Digital/software" as you succinctly put it, is a very big area, but one thing that scares me there is the hordes of websites offering services from hundreds and thousands of international software graduates and wannabes, in language conversion, data entry, coding, designing, websites, etc etc. You can have a whole team of Indian programmers working on your software for $25 an hour per person through a business with liaison, because staff are paid only $5 an hour each. In my one experience the coding is not great, or even good value, but that's beside the point. In many business areas that NZ could have a go at, we're joining a race to the bottom.

I think you'll find that most manufacturers can quite easily move sideways into new products, as other ones move out of favour. Or they can keep an edge, and their brand going. I personally think that as manufacturing business owners retire, or strike hard times occasionally, they are not able to sell a going concern, and their operation gets dismantled. The business dies, but normally there would be even more to replace those. This govt is not exactly supporting the manufacturing startups, they don't get a mention very often.

You know I'm not talking about consumer manufacturing, it's specialised niche manufacturing that we have to do here. How about the right-wing posters inform us what the National Govt is doing for startup manufacturing of that type in NZ?

iceman
16-10-2016, 10:00 AM
Manufacturing hasn't exactly collapsed though has it EZ ! http://www.statistics.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/manufacturing_and_production/EconomicSurveyofManufacturing_HOTPJun16qtr/Commentary.aspx

Don't take me wrong, I agree a good healthy manufacturing industry is, will and should be a good part of our economy but it will require manufacturers as well as other business owners to constantly change with market demand

elZorro
16-10-2016, 10:29 AM
Manufacturing hasn't exactly collapsed though has it EZ ! http://www.statistics.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/manufacturing_and_production/EconomicSurveyofManufacturing_HOTPJun16qtr/Commentary.aspx

Don't take me wrong, I agree a good healthy manufacturing industry is, will and should be a good part of our economy but it will require manufacturers as well as other business owners to constantly change with market demand

Yes, OK in the last quarter, because dairy/meat prices recovered a bit, but the profit margins are still slender, and this has resulted in a loss of employment on farms. Fonterra has sold a lot of stock, this hasn't been replaced yet.

Surely your comment about manufacturing business owners constantly changing with market demand implies that they need to do more R&D? Have you personally tried to access any funds from Callaghan Innovation lately? It's all there, if you could just be bothered to fill out weeks of paperwork, and additionally get in there before the funding allocation runs out, which is often a matter of days. No thanks, most businesses are having to do R&D from cashflow, and because of National's short-sightedness, there is no small incentive of an additional tax break on part of it.

There was a simple system set up by Labour that would have worked to encourage SMEs into smart manufacturing, but National canned it.

iceman
16-10-2016, 10:58 AM
No EZ I have no experience with Callaghan but did apply (and receive) for a grant from EECA about 10-12 years ago. I do remember the horrendous amount of paperwork which was quite complicated and beyond many small business owners to fill in without expensive assistance from lawyers or other experts. It did put a lot of people off and I remember not all the funds set aside for my industry were actually granted because they didn't receive enough applications.

elZorro
16-10-2016, 12:15 PM
No EZ I have no experience with Callaghan but did apply (and receive) for a grant from EECA about 10-12 years ago. I do remember the horrendous amount of paperwork which was quite complicated and beyond many small business owners to fill in without expensive assistance from lawyers or other experts. It did put a lot of people off and I remember not all the funds set aside for my industry were actually granted because they didn't receive enough applications.

Yep, that's how they do it. Restrict the funding, make it hard to apply for. If you wanted to employ uni undergrads on a research project for the summer holidays, there's more paperwork than there used to be under TechNZ, you'd need to let them know all about your last 5 years of trading etc etc, and then there are only about 200 part-funded positions for all the science/engineering undergrads in NZ. Most of the jobs go with larger companies, who can copy the paperwork and have internal staff to handle it. This cuts out SMEs from the process, by and large.

elZorro
18-10-2016, 06:22 AM
Colin James with some interesting points. Massively escalating house prices are fine when you have one already, until you have to stump up $200,000 for a deposit to help a child into their first house.


Colin James's Otago Daily Times column for 18 October 2016


Dribble politics: quenching policy hotspots


It's the third term, for sure. Last week Michael Woodhouse dribbled some policy coolant on a political hotspot: hot immigration numbers. Judith Collins tried the same on police numbers. Teeming immigration has nicely swelled economic growth statistics, which boost re-election chances in 2017.

But it has also kept wages low in some sectors through liberal issuance of holiday and temporary work visas, has contributed to careering house prices and added to the strain on underfunded health, education and social support services, not least for parents brought in to reunify families.
It is tainted by employment scams that demean our decent national reputation and is encouraging some tertiary students who come to qualify for residence to get diplomas, not degrees.

In short, immigration is now a warming political negative. Even the Greens joined in last week, to Winston Peters' scorn. So, the political quencher has come out. When Andrew Little promised 1000 more police in response to rising political temperature over crime solving, Collins (fresh from telling children there was ample cash to provide all their necessities if their parents were real parents) dribbled a vague promise of more. (Let's guess 500.)

Collins' political problem: population numbers pumped up by Woodhouse's immigration have pushed down the ratio of police to population. That slippage also was in part the result of Bill English's "more with less" budgeting which this term has been sliding into "less with less" across social services. Hence the partial catchup in the 2016 budget, with more signalled for the 2017 one.

English applied the same more-with-less to national superannuation. He is still pushing out to some undefined future date resumption of contributions to the Cullen fund. The super crunch will not come until the 2020s, so for now vague reassurances are a safe policy dribble. (Actually, the fund would, until recently, have returned more than the cost of borrowing to fund contributions.)

Another safe dribble is John Key's trailing of tax cuts, to come either in the 2017 budget or as an election gambit. Cuts of the size Key has mused on would just undo fiscal drag since the 2010 cuts -- that is, they would not be cuts at all. But his dribble is a thirst-quencher to the many voters who prefer personal tax cuts to more spending on others. And Key and English are on National message: lower tax is an article of National ideological faith.

Ideology is one of the three foundations of any government's policy. Labour for a century has backed better working conditions and wages, the Greens genuflect to nature, New Zealand First wants our borders more resistant to foreign influence, the Maori party sticks by article 2, ACT trumpets smaller government and Peter Dunne spoons a middling mix of social and civil liberalism. A second foundation for policy is a technocratic or innovative response, devised by "experts" with ministers, to fix a "problem". "Social investment" is one.

The third is the policy dribble. Take poverty. Leave aside Key's abuse last week of opposition MPs for "dodgy numbers", which are numbers other than those he likes. Key used to insist he wanted his legacy to be what he does for disadvantaged children. He declared child poverty his third-term focus. Assessed by missing necessities in a child's life, the numbers are still sad.

That deprivation and rising numbers of "homeless", as social not-for-profits measure them, discomfort moderate conservatives (National's core constituency) because it doesn't fit their idea of their nation. Key himself is said to have got angry with frustration at ministers a few months back. He did not dismiss the Labour-Greens-Maori party homeless report. Hence Paula Bennett has dropped dribble after dribble of social housing coolants. (Next from her, climate change?) Hence, in part, the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. Hence a Housing Corporation strapped for cash. Hence in last year's budget a welfare benefit rise of up to $25 a week.

Wild house prices were not a worry to Key until recently because house owners were flush. But now some flush National voters have to fork out a couple of hundred grand for an offspring's deposit.

And Bill English has been converted to a soft version of Labour's state-financed Kiwibuild, which in 2013 he called "the back end of Moscow". A policy dribble does not of itself extinguish a hotspot's ignition source. But it can dampen the political embers and quench qualms. Any discomforted actual or potential National voters can take comfort that ministers are doing something.

Third terms usually generate more such discomforts than earlier terms. So get out your political umbrella. There will be more dribbles.

* One who didn't do dribble politics died on Friday. Helen Kelly developed innovative union responses to difficult changes in political, social and workplace conditions. Peters got it right when he said she had earned a place in "our national story".


Colin James, (64)-21-438 434, PO Box 9494, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz (wlmailhtml:{859F7BC3-BC06-49EC-89C0-293E8B5037B7}mid://00000028/!x-usc:mailto:ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz), www.ColinJames.co.nz (wlmailhtml:{859F7BC3-BC06-49EC-89C0-293E8B5037B7}mid://00000028/!x-usc:http://www.colinjames.co.nz/)

iceman
18-10-2016, 07:07 AM
Not Colin James' best piece. I think the old fella must be nearing retirement. I do agree with Winston Peters though that it is time to slow down immigration. For me, we should immediately stop the reunification program where we import people with no particular skill to benefit NZ, only because they have offsprings in this country. Apparently that is quite a large number. Easy to stop tomorrow and should be done. I immigrated to NZ 26 years ago but can not see any reason why I should be allowed to bring my parents here. They would just be a burden on NZ.
I think the holiday and temporary work visas are paramount to many of our growing industries, such as horticulture and tourism and should be very liberal. Having short term workers in the tourism industry also creates connections with NZ which normally benefits us in the future with further visits by that person as well as friends or family.

macduffy
18-10-2016, 07:57 AM
It seems that the govt has finally tumbled to the fact that "fast food workers" has been one of the three biggest occupation groups in recent immigration numbers.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11730683

elZorro
18-10-2016, 09:05 PM
It seems that the govt has finally tumbled to the fact that "fast food workers" has been one of the three biggest occupation groups in recent immigration numbers.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11730683

Chefs and bakers will find it much harder to get in under the new rules, MacD. IT people and nurses, not so bad. Only now are they realising that the rules need plenty of refining to improve on results for NZ.

Something to keep in mind about the wee budget surplus announced the other day. The profit and loss isn't doing too bad because expenses have been cut right back hard, but the capital side of the books is looking a bit sick.

https://thestandard.org.nz/there-goes-the-surplus/

Chris Trotter reports on the closing poll gap and has some astute observations.

http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/10/buying-civilisation-with-higher-taxes.html

craic
19-10-2016, 07:36 AM
In this most prosperous city of Melbourne, the streets are littered with the best organised beggars I have seen anywhere. They have a collection of clothing and duvets, carefully arranged cardboard and a dog, always a dog. One was carefully folding a $10 note and putting it into his wallet as we passed. I see that the same problem is developing in NZ. Must be those bloody immigrants.

elZorro
19-10-2016, 06:31 PM
In this most prosperous city of Melbourne, the streets are littered with the best organised beggars I have seen anywhere. They have a collection of clothing and duvets, carefully arranged cardboard and a dog, always a dog. One was carefully folding a $10 note and putting it into his wallet as we passed. I see that the same problem is developing in NZ. Must be those bloody immigrants.

Sounds interesting, Craic. Like the intersection window washing people, it's quite a financial enterprise sometimes. Not all of those people living in cars have to be there - I know of one who has the cash in the bank to put a deposit on a good house, and a steady job. Still sleeps in a clapped-out station wagon like a dero, just too tight and warped to pay normal living expenses. Another person I know of has decided to be a bankrupt, to defray minimal IRD tax penalties and other debts, and live in a shed on a leased paddock illegally, under the nose of the council. That person has a fairly good inheritance coming soon. IRD won't be in the frame.

Note: both are NZ-born pakehas.

Some of these people just like the idea of living off the grid. Would be a lot simpler I guess.

craic
19-10-2016, 06:33 PM
Passed the possie of the fellow on the station end of Collins Street and he had moved. Paper bags left behind indicated that the kind Australians had given him ore food than he could eat.

Joshuatree
19-10-2016, 07:33 PM
They are getting organised here too. A Bitch with a box full of puppies is really bringing adoring folks in and also filling the tin. They are locals here.

elZorro
19-10-2016, 09:44 PM
Hekia Parata not standing again in 2017. That'll make the news less interesting, she was usually in the middle of some crazy policy change that wasn't going down well.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/85504762/hekia-parata-not-standing-in-next-years-election

Andrew Little had a great comment about the likelihood of other ministers leaving:


Little suggested at least three current Ministers who could also be on the chopping block after Key indicated last month that possibly two would be leaving.
Police Minister Judith Collins, Housing Minister Nick Smith and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy were top of Little's list - "I'll stop there, we'd be here all day otherwise."

macduffy
20-10-2016, 07:57 AM
Seems that something's working in the tech manufacturing sector!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11732068

Joshuatree
20-10-2016, 08:00 AM
Hekia Parata not standing again in 2017. That'll make the news less interesting, she was usually in the middle of some crazy policy change that wasn't going down well.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/85504762/hekia-parata-not-standing-in-next-years-election

Andrew Little had a great comment about the likelihood of other ministers leaving:

Im hearing that Key has had enough too and that he will leave after the next election; win or lose.

fungus pudding
20-10-2016, 08:11 AM
Im hearing that Key has had enough too and that he will leave after the next election; win or lose.

I'm hearing he will announce resignation before standing for a 5th term.

elZorro
20-10-2016, 10:09 AM
Seems that something's working in the tech manufacturing sector!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11732068

That article is about the top 200 tech companies, each averaging 200 staff, but the average size of a tech company in NZ is 3.5 people. These top 200 companies are doing a turnover of about $240k per staff member, 70% exported, which is OK, but not startling compared to Fonterra factory workers. They'll also be accessing Callaghan Funding in a big way, most of them. That's why Steven Joyce was there.

I wonder how many of them are paying plenty of taxes on any profit? That would be interesting to know.

Sgt Pepper
20-10-2016, 01:57 PM
I see that no government minister or MPs would meet with the delegation from Hong Kong. Of course denials in Parliament today that any pressure was exerted from any external source.

GTM 3442
21-10-2016, 03:21 PM
Im hearing that Key has had enough too and that he will leave after the next election; win or lose.

It's getting to being too late for Mister Key to step aside before the 2017 election. I think that he'd rather like to win four elections on the trot. One up on all but one Prime Minister.

But I think that he'd really dislike losing one. And that if he thought that he'd lose, he'd "step aside before the election to let new talent come through"

So if he's leading National into the 2017 election, I think it's a sign that he is has confidence in a National victory.

A practical prediction, based on the practical judgement of a practical politician.

elZorro
28-10-2016, 06:51 AM
It's getting to being too late for Mister Key to step aside before the 2017 election. I think that he'd rather like to win four elections on the trot. One up on all but one Prime Minister.

But I think that he'd really dislike losing one. And that if he thought that he'd lose, he'd "step aside before the election to let new talent come through"

So if he's leading National into the 2017 election, I think it's a sign that he is has confidence in a National victory.

A practical prediction, based on the practical judgement of a practical politician.

Sure..meanwhile Andrew Little is looking more and more like a Prime Minister in waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05hUsPfZjQ

winner69
28-10-2016, 07:14 AM
It's getting to being too late for Mister Key to step aside before the 2017 election. I think that he'd rather like to win four elections on the trot. One up on all but one Prime Minister.

But I think that he'd really dislike losing one. And that if he thought that he'd lose, he'd "step aside before the election to let new talent come through"

So if he's leading National into the 2017 election, I think it's a sign that he is has confidence in a National victory.

A practical prediction, based on the practical judgement of a practical politician.

Isn't his future guided by his 'mentors' in the US

fungus pudding
28-10-2016, 07:29 AM
Sure..meanwhile Andrew Little is looking more and more like a Prime Minister in waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05hUsPfZjQ

Obviously these things are subjective. In your case it's wishful thinking. To most I am quite sure he doesn't look like a P.M in waiting, and he sure as hell doesn't sound like one.

artemis
28-10-2016, 10:58 AM
Sure..meanwhile Andrew Little is looking more and more like a Prime Minister in waiting....

Not sure I would say 'more and more', but perhaps 'a bit more'. In any case, he has a decent shot at getting to be PM in 2017. The election is not a done deal by any means and a few missteps on one side but none on the other could make a difference.

fungus pudding
28-10-2016, 11:25 AM
Not sure I would say 'more and more', but perhaps 'a bit more'. In any case, he has a decent shot at getting to be PM in 1017. The election is not a done deal by any means and a few missteps on one side but none on the other could make a difference.

Whoever becomes P.M.in 2017 will depend on Winston First. I can't imagine Peters bothering with the Labour/Green mob.

Sgt Pepper
28-10-2016, 12:50 PM
Whoever becomes P.M.in 2017 will depend on Winston First. I can't imagine Peters bothering with the Labour/Green mob.

I guess it may depend on how willing National are to agree to Winstons demands. We recall Bill English's observations in 2008 that despite being opposed to Working for Families and wishing to sell Kiwibank he would have to compromise and "swallow a few dead rats" to attain power. It remains to be seen if his appetite for dead rats will be as intense in 2017. For one thing we can be sure, Winstons dead rats will be numerous and large.

GTM 3442
28-10-2016, 07:29 PM
Isn't his future guided by his 'mentors' in the US

No,winner, I don't think it is.

I think that he's guided by personal ambition. I don't think that he'd be willing to lead National into an election which he thought he would lose.

As for his party, well since the demise of mass membership and mass participation, I'm inclined to think that it's the party which will "follow the money".

elZorro
28-10-2016, 08:39 PM
Not sure I would say 'more and more', but perhaps 'a bit more'. In any case, he has a decent shot at getting to be PM in 2017. The election is not a done deal by any means and a few missteps on one side but none on the other could make a difference.

Point taken, Andrew still has some way to go, but he's warming up.

Talk about missteps:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/85816838/pm-key-ticks-off-son-max-over-real-men-ride-women-blurt

GTM 3442
28-10-2016, 11:30 PM
Whoever becomes P.M.in 2017 will depend on Winston First. I can't imagine Peters bothering with the Labour/Green mob.

Oh, I think Winston will do whatever it takes to regain those "baubles of office", fungus old pudding. Whatever it takes. . .

fungus pudding
29-10-2016, 04:23 AM
Oh, I think Winston will do whatever it takes to regain those "baubles of office", fungus old pudding. Whatever it takes. . .

I have no doubt Labour will outbid National in Winston bribes. Winston wants PM role and National wouldn't grant that, but Labour/Greens do not have a suitable leader in Little or Shaw, so anything is possible.

GTM 3442
29-10-2016, 04:59 AM
I have no doubt Labour will outbid National in Winston bribes. Winston wants PM role and National wouldn't grant that, but Labour/Greens do not have a suitable leader in Little or Shaw, so anything is possible.

Ah well, we can agree to agree on Winston, but I think we differ on the PM role being on offer. No party leader is going to give that one up! They just aren't made that way.

fungus pudding
29-10-2016, 07:12 AM
Ah well, we can agree to agree on Winston, but I think we differ on the PM role being on offer. No party leader is going to give that one up! They just aren't made that way.

Desperation can do funny things - and would it be up to Little, or the party? I'm quite sure the party would dump him as quick as a wink.

Sgt Pepper
29-10-2016, 09:46 AM
I have no doubt Labour will outbid National in Winston bribes. Winston wants PM role and National wouldn't grant that, but Labour/Greens do not have a suitable leader in Little or Shaw, so anything is possible.

Fungus

How wrong you are. If Winston demanded the nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and opening an embassy in Pyongyang they would agree. As long as it meant retaining the treasury benches.

They have long ago given up any pretense about being a party of conviction or principle. That train left the station many years ago. Keith Holyoake and Jack Marshall would be appalled

fungus pudding
29-10-2016, 10:18 AM
Fungus

How wrong you are. If Winston demanded the nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and opening an embassy in Pyongyang they would agree. As long as it meant retaining the treasury benches.

They have long ago given up any pretense about being a party of conviction or principle. That train left the station many years ago. Keith Holyoake and Jack Marshall would be appalled

Yes. My post was perhaps ambiguous. I meant Labour would dump Little as leader - not Winston.

Major von Tempsky
29-10-2016, 11:35 AM
Surely Helen Clark has already set the record for how much to bid for Winston's support. Anymore than she bid and obviously NZ First would be the stronger, senior partner!

elZorro
29-10-2016, 12:34 PM
I have no doubt Labour will outbid National in Winston bribes. Winston wants PM role and National wouldn't grant that, but Labour/Greens do not have a suitable leader in Little or Shaw, so anything is possible.

Does National have a 'suitable' leader? Good enough to be our PM? Some people are setting a low standard, if so.

Maybe more arty people will have a go at political satire leading up to the 2017 election, the precedent has been set.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11732723

Sgt Pepper
29-10-2016, 12:36 PM
Surely Helen Clark has already set the record for how much to bid for Winston's support. Anymore than she bid and obviously NZ First would be the stronger, senior partner!

Winston was a frustrated potential leader of the National Party. By instinct his first choice will be to negotiate with National but the price will be very, very high. Complicating this is his strong personal dislike of John Key. Internally there will be friction with some MPs accommodating their Cabinet aspirations. If the price of National going into coalition with NZ First is a significant allocation of cabinet posts to NZ First then this could boil over. In effect this would set back National MPs political careers by many years. Outside Parliament most SOE boards are already stacked with former National Party nomenclature. NZ First will, quite rightly, demand a share of those positions as well for its supporters. None of these are happy scenarios for John Key. If they do a deal the unhappy coalition of Jenny Shipley and Winston in 1996-1999 will seem quite functional by comparison. No doubt John Key will be keeping a closer eye on the polls than usual. Its quite possible he will bail out as leader in April.

And I haven't even mentioned Judith Collins.

elZorro
30-10-2016, 10:01 PM
Winston was a frustrated potential leader of the National Party. By instinct his first choice will be to negotiate with National but the price will be very, very high. Complicating this is his strong personal dislike of John Key. Internally there will be friction with some MPs accommodating their Cabinet aspirations. If the price of National going into coalition with NZ First is a significant allocation of cabinet posts to NZ First then this could boil over. In effect this would set back National MPs political careers by many years. Outside Parliament most SOE boards are already stacked with former National Party nomenclature. NZ First will, quite rightly, demand a share of those positions as well for its supporters. None of these are happy scenarios for John Key. If they do a deal the unhappy coalition of Jenny Shipley and Winston in 1996-1999 will seem quite functional by comparison. No doubt John Key will be keeping a closer eye on the polls than usual. Its quite possible he will bail out as leader in April.

And I haven't even mentioned Judith Collins.

National is down a couple of women ministers, so this does leave room for Judith Collins and Paula "Hyperbowl" Bennett. Full of class, those two.

Paula isn't saying much about the heaps of State Houses now vacant, when it's obvious many could be quickly returned to service. But do National want to do that? No way. It's all about punishing the poor, and jacking up rentals and valuations elsewhere.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/twyford-demands-explanation-over-p-homes-2016102914

Our very efficient but overworked courier driver left his subcontractor operation the other day, his new standard job is working for one of these meth-testing firms. The firm was in expansion mode. Little wonder.

fungus pudding
01-11-2016, 04:37 PM
At long last Labour produces some good news. The unfortunate Cunliffe, the man with all the public appeal of a dish cloth, is leaving.

elZorro
02-11-2016, 06:44 AM
At long last Labour produces some good news. The unfortunate Cunliffe, the man with all the public appeal of a dish cloth, is leaving.

That's interesting, FP. Would you or I be capable of writing an article like this? (Cunliffe, 2012)

https://yournz.org/2012/06/24/david-cunliffe-the-dolphin-and-the-dole-queue/

Major von Tempsky
02-11-2016, 10:32 AM
Hmm, after he did the dirty on the wife with his mistress after his wife got into trouble for energetically sticking up for him he seems to have been sent to Coventry totally and irrevocably by the rest of the Labour caucus and was given the bottom ranking in the caucus.

You're trying to revive a corpse elZorro!

craic
02-11-2016, 10:38 AM
The Labour Party is a whole cemetery full of corpses. After the next election they may have to use a crematorium or at least a bonfire.

fungus pudding
02-11-2016, 10:50 AM
That's interesting, FP. Would you or I be capable of writing an article like this? (Cunliffe, 2012)

https://yournz.org/2012/06/24/david-cunliffe-the-dolphin-and-the-dole-queue/

I don't know. I haven't read it. Regardless of what is written it does not alter the fact that Cunliffe had a total absence of charisma.

Sgt Pepper
02-11-2016, 12:17 PM
At long last Labour produces some good news. The unfortunate Cunliffe, the man with all the public appeal of a dish cloth, is leaving.

Johb Key would love to be a dishcloth. Although if a a dishcloth was in cabinet it would show him up.

Major von Tempsky
02-11-2016, 02:07 PM
Not too long ago that both Sgt Pepper and EZ were promoting Cunliffe as the best thing since sliced bread and the saviour of the NZ Labour Party :-)

The alleged dishcloth scores amazingly well in the preferred PM polls, leaves everybody else for dust. Not bad for an alleged dishcloth....

elZorro
03-11-2016, 09:32 PM
Not too long ago that both Sgt Pepper and EZ were promoting Cunliffe as the best thing since sliced bread and the saviour of the NZ Labour Party :-)

The alleged dishcloth scores amazingly well in the preferred PM polls, leaves everybody else for dust. Not bad for an alleged dishcloth....

If David Cunliffe had made it to be PM, maybe we'd have made a decent start on reducing our climate-change emissions, in line with our international obligations.

This National Govt under John Key is hell-bent on skirting around them, as Gareth Morgan's think-tank is pointing out.

http://cdn.morganfoundation.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Cook-the-Books-launch-version.pdf

winner69
04-11-2016, 11:00 AM
The Opportunist Party will upset the apple cart methinks

'Populist' parties are doing well these days - jeez if the Conservatives got 4% odd last election likely Morgan and his followers could easily get 10% plus.

Labour the loser I reckon

I signed up already

elZorro
04-11-2016, 11:08 AM
The Opportunist Party will upset the apple cart methinks

'Populist' parties are doing well these days - jeez if the Conservatives got 4% odd last election likely Morgan and his followers could easily get 10% plus.

Labour the loser I reckon

I signed up already

No, maybe the Opportunist Party would be a coalition partner for Labour-Greens, easier to handle than NZ First? You have to admit Gareth's policies are likely to be well thought-out and researched so they are workable. In that case they should be closer to Labour-Green policies than non-existent, make-them-up-as-they-go National policies.

fungus pudding
04-11-2016, 11:39 AM
The Opportunist Party will upset the apple cart methinks

'Populist' parties are doing well these days - jeez if the Conservatives got 4% odd last election likely Morgan and his followers could easily get 10% plus.

Labour the loser I reckon

I signed up already

Good luck to them, but I can't imagine them getting over 5%. Morgan has some pretty wacky ideas. And he won't be helped with his views on cats - even though he's bang on on that score, it didn't make him popular.
Still - nothing is impossible, but to get over 5% he would have to take such a number from the greens that it would mean either Morgan or greens, but not both. So his big threat will be to Labour/Greens.

Aaron
04-11-2016, 01:04 PM
The Opportunist Party will upset the apple cart methinks

'Populist' parties are doing well these days - jeez if the Conservatives got 4% odd last election likely Morgan and his followers could easily get 10% plus.

Labour the loser I reckon

I signed up already
I'll sign up once they release actual policy. If you read some of the ideas put forward by Gareth in the paper in the past such as the universal basic income then TOP will be a genuine alternative. I hope people don't get hung up on the cat thing though.

Although still angry from the last election when Labour got caned for proposing to lift the retirement age, taxing capital gains, making kiwisaver compulsory etc. None of the policies personally appealing to me (or a majority of the electorate based on the result) but I felt they would be good for NZ long term and also address the affordability of Nat Super.

I would hope they are not a "Populist Party" I think National fills that role.

dobby41
04-11-2016, 02:10 PM
I would hope they are not a "Populist Party" I think National fills that role.

Where's that like button?

GTM 3442
04-11-2016, 02:30 PM
Good luck to them, but I can't imagine them getting over 5%. Morgan has some pretty wacky ideas. And he won't be helped with his views on cats - even though he's bang on on that score, it didn't make him popular.
Still - nothing is impossible, but to get over 5% he would have to take such a number from the greens that it would mean either Morgan or greens, but not both. So his big threat will be to Labour/Greens.

Perhaps Mister Morgan might have aspirations to become an electorate MP. After all, it's been done before.

macduffy
04-11-2016, 03:28 PM
Don't they say it will be a "List Only" party?

We'll have to wait and see some policy but I wonder if GM will be able to present his/their ideas in terms that appeal to the masses as well as they might do to economic "purists".

Sgt Pepper
04-11-2016, 03:51 PM
Good luck to them, but I can't imagine them getting over 5%. Morgan has some pretty wacky ideas. And he won't be helped with his views on cats - even though he's bang on on that score, it didn't make him popular.
Still - nothing is impossible, but to get over 5% he would have to take such a number from the greens that it would mean either Morgan or greens, but not both. So his big threat will be to Labour/Greens.

I think your observation that Gareth Morgan would take votes off Labour/Green is misplaced and wishful thinking at best. If Gareth's views on reforming National Superannuation and the Health service migrate to Party policy then it will be very attractive conservative/disaffected National party supporters and align with their views. Not all National Party people were happy with Bill English's private observation in 2008 that one must " swallow dead rats" to attain power. What about you Fungus, are you a "dead rat swallower" or do you believe in conviction politics?

fungus pudding
04-11-2016, 03:51 PM
Perhaps Mister Morgan might have aspirations to become an electorate MP. After all, it's been done before.

Can't see Morgan having the popularity to take a seat. Even more established parties such as Greens can't win a seat. NZ first struggled through and only got a seat in a by election.

elZorro
04-11-2016, 04:32 PM
Can't see Morgan having the popularity to take a seat. Even more established parties such as Greens can't win a seat. NZ first struggled through and only got a seat in a by election.

You're underestimating the power of marketing spend during elections. Although he has to firmly establish a brand, first.

fungus pudding
04-11-2016, 04:43 PM
You're underestimating the power of marketing spend during elections.

Good heavens! Am I? You must be extremely gifted to know what I'm estimating. I haven't told a soul.

westerly
04-11-2016, 05:28 PM
Good heavens! Am I? You must be extremely gifted to know what I'm estimating. I haven't told a soul.

Not quite so reticent with political views though.
Most gardeners would regard Morgans views on cats as correct and he may not be as unpopular as is being suggested.

westerly

fungus pudding
04-11-2016, 05:37 PM
Not quite so reticent with political views though.
Most gardeners would regard Morgans views on cats as correct and he may not be as unpopular as is being suggested.

westerly
Certainly no argument with his cat attitude, but everything else he's come out with would be impossible to sell to the masses.

elZorro
04-11-2016, 06:37 PM
Good heavens! Am I? You must be extremely gifted to know what I'm estimating. I haven't told a soul.

I could remind you of this graph, FP, clearly showing that once a party has an established and unsullied brand, then their voting results can be strongly aligned with spend occurring close to the election date. That sort of cash isn't beyond Gareth Morgan.

fungus pudding
04-11-2016, 06:56 PM
I could remind you of this graph, FP, clearly showing that once a party has an established and unsullied brand, then their voting results can be strongly aligned with spend occurring close to the election date. That sort of cash isn't beyond Gareth Morgan.

Let's see what he has to sell, and who's going to sell it. Morgan himself is not the man. Terrible speaker which you will know if you've ever been to any of his his public meetings. .

GTM 3442
04-11-2016, 11:42 PM
Certainly no argument with his cat attitude, but everything else he's come out with would be impossible to sell to the masses.

I rather think that it depends what your "masses" might be persuaded to think he might be selling.

And I'm inclined to think that evidence-based policy focused toward socially desireable and culturally accepted outcomes would go down very well indeed. Across virtually the entire political spectrum.

Especially if presented as apolitical politics.

fungus pudding
05-11-2016, 06:17 AM
I rather think that it depends what your "masses" might be persuaded to think he might be selling.

And I'm inclined to think that evidence-based policy focused toward socially desireable and culturally accepted outcomes would go down very well indeed. Across virtually the entire political spectrum.

Especially if presented as apolitical politics.
Read his books and ask yourself whether his ideas would be acceptable to voters. That is not to say they are without merit. But good ideas need to be popular or they die.

winner69
05-11-2016, 08:03 AM
I rather think that it depends what your "masses" might be persuaded to think he might be selling.

And I'm inclined to think that evidence-based policy focused toward socially desireable and culturally accepted outcomes would go down very well indeed. Across virtually the entire political spectrum.

Especially if presented as apolitical politics.

That's how I sort of see it as well.

Many things incumbent parties haven't really addressed - the 'masses' might think the new boy on the block might actually do something to make change happen

fungus pudding
05-11-2016, 08:19 AM
That's how I sort of see it as well.

Many things incumbent parties haven't really addressed - the 'masses' might think the new boy on the block might actually do something to make change happen

You might be right if there was a charismatic promoter involved. Garreth Morgan just ain't charismatic.

craic
05-11-2016, 08:23 AM
But the masses are very happy with the current state of affairs - except the left, of course. So the result will be a split in the left vote a and a passage to oblivion for the present Labour?

fungus pudding
05-11-2016, 08:47 AM
But the masses are very happy with the current state of affairs - except the left, of course. So the result will be a split in the left vote a and a passage to oblivion for the present Labour?

Possibly. Morgan is a socialist through and through, a modem day Robin Hood, so if he manages to get a following at all - which I doubt - it will come from Labour/Greens.

Sgt Pepper
05-11-2016, 09:34 AM
You might be right if there was a charismatic promoter involved. Garreth Morgan just ain't charismatic.

That was no doubt the conclusion John Key came to with Bill English, promised to support him then voted for Don Brash.