I struggle to find anyone, which is of course how Cynical Cindy came through. My main point is the nervousness that must exist in the party faithful. Must be some interesting Christmas drinks in the Labour Party offices.
Printable View
David Chaston on www.interest.co.nz doesn't score the Government highly on economic indicators summarising it like this :
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters last year claimed "one year on, and New Zealand has a brighter future" but the evidence is that their first year was a non-transformational toss-up, one where we simply marked time while other countries got further ahead. On the economic front, 2019 has not been a "year of delivery" either, one that has not transformed anything in the economic landscape. That claim turned out to be shallow wishful thinking, rather than heralding an actual political drive.
My view is that, based on the benchmarks above, we have gone from being a nondescript "quite good" to "decidedly average", and that is being generous. New Zealand should be able to do much better than that. It continues to be disappointing to keep on slipping back internationally.
Benchmarks from that one opinion looked good to me
RISING CONFIDENCE CONFIRMEDHard on the heals of the WestpacMM quarterly consumer confidence report, the ANZ-Roy Morgan onefor the month of December was out today and also recorded a lift in sentiment. Consumer confidence lifted +2 points in December to 123, its third consecutive increase and that is now above its historical average. The proportion of households who think it’s a good time to buy a major household item lifted another +3 points to 44%, a solid level.
$10b road safety spend up
And for once stating how many injuries will be saved , 5,600 and 750 deaths with "the road to zero "strategy. Median crash barriers a no brainer for one.
"There's just no question that under National our road toll got a lot worse at a time other countries were reducing theirs," Genter said.
"They redirected a lot or money from roads and road safety to a few urban motorway projects,"
"she said the increased investment will support new technology like drug testing equipment for police, 1000 kilometres of new median crash barriers, 1700 kilometres of other safety improvements like crash barriers and rumble strips, and 1500 intersection upgrades."
Dope testing, another new govt thing also coming in will indeed stop most of them.
I see David Clark now says Dunedin hospital will be smaller than first thought.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/d...esign-contract
"This week, planning for the new hospital hit its first snag when it was announced confirmation of the hospital site master plan — the decisions about the final size and shape of the complex — would be delayed.
Dr Clark said he expected the new hospital would probably be smaller than was first thought, although bigger than the present complex."
Should get Twyford on board to sort it out.
The roadside drug testing policy came about after a large petition from Karen Dow who lost her son Angus to a dope driving killer https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pol...esting-reopens.
Nick Smith fought this on her behalf in Parliament and finally managed to get Julie Ann Genter to do this despite early on finding all the excuses in the World not to
The $10B infrastructure spending on, so far unnamed projects, will no doubt include some of the
"roads of national significance" that were already approved by National and canceled by this Government when they came into power. They have not started one new large roading project in 2 years of Government.
The lowering of the speed limits is an ill thought out policy that will not make the roads any safer and will annoy many voters. Some of the road safety upgrades are however a good idea but so far, like so many other things from this Government, it is only talk.