ACT's David Seymour - i like his style.

[Balance]

I'm starting to think you and Balance are the same person. Either that, or his negative personality traits have worn off on you.

Where have Hipkins, Ardern, Robertson and the Labour Party made a big positive difference to the lives of NZers in the last 6 years since the likes of you, JAK, voted them into power?

Education?

Health?

Law & Order?

Housing?

Race relations?

Cost of living?

And we have Labour shills here with their shameless & bankrupt audacity to try & poison public opinion against those who contribute year in, year out to the betterment of NZers?

The ideology of communism in full display.

[justakiwi]

Go back and read my post properly. I said, I have no issue with your views. I even agree with some of them. My issue is with the way you make things personal, with constant disrespectful comments directed at those you perceive as lefties. Your language is downright nasty at times, and it is not necessary.

Be a grown up.

Where have Hipkins, Ardern, Robertson and the Labour Party made a big positive difference to the lives of NZers in the last 6 years since the likes of you, JAK, voted them into power?

Education?

Health?

Law & Order?

Housing?

Race relations?

Cost of living?

And we have Labour shills here with their shameless & bankrupt audacity to try & poison public opinion against those who contribute year in, year out to the betterment of NZers?

The ideology of communism in full display.

[Balance]

And note how Hipkins now shy away from any mention of COVID?

Wasn’t that the huge positive which landed them a landslide in 2020?

Why isn’t Hipkins talking up his and Labour’s Covid ‘successes’?

History will judge the actions taken by the Ardern government harshly - it was all about the optics to the detriment of NZers.

[Balance]

Go back and read my post properly. I said, I have no issue with your views. I even agree with some of them. My issue is with the way you make things personal, with constant disrespectful comments directed at those you perceive as lefties. Your language is downright nasty at times, and it is not necessary.

Be a grown up.

Your choose, JAK, to suffer fools. That’s your choice.

I do not and I have no intention to overlook the sort of garbage which comes from the Labour shills on ST.

Examples :

‘Ban mobiles in schools and go back yo the Stone Age.’

‘Embrace Maori culture as NZ has no other culture to identify with.’

‘12,000 new state houses built by Labour.’

‘Right due to TOW’

Etc

Etc

Can you point to any BS or lies written by other than the Labour shills?

[justakiwi]

You literally never actually address the comments I make to you. Your response is to always deflect back to your own agenda without ever acknowledging the points I make.

I honestly do not understand you Balance. Once in a blue moon I get a fleeting glimpse of somebody I could actually like, but those glimpses are like warm breath on a frosty day. Gone in a puff of wind. The rest of the time you are obnoxious, mean, disrespectful, rude and arrogant, with zero empathy, tolerance or perspective. You seem incapable of seeing your own behaviour the way others see it. I don't know why you are like this, but this negative/unlikeable side of you, completely annihilates the "good" stuff you sometimes have to contribute here. I just don't get it.

I keep doing this, in the completely ridiculous hope that I can find just a little bit of humanity buried deep within your angry soul. That maybe, just maybe, I will find a modicum of genuine niceness in you. But I am always disappointed. I am such an idiot for continuing to hope for that. It is a personality fault - mine, not yours.

You have a nice day my friend.

Your choose, JAK, to suffer fools. That’s your choice.

I do not and I have no intention to overlook the sort of garbage which comes from the Labour shills on ST.

Examples :

‘Ban mobiles in schools and go back yo the Stone Age.’

‘Embrace Maori culture as NZ has no other culture to identify with.’

‘12,000 new state houses built by Labour.’

‘Right due to TOW’

Etc

Etc

Can you point to any BS or lies written by other than the Labour shills?

[Logen Ninefingers]

It is not your political views I have an issue with. It is the intolerance and disrespect you direct at people who do not agree with your views. Just stop with the nasty lefty comments. They are unnecessary and do nothing for your credibility or argument. You both just make yourselves look pathetic, like a certain deranged ex President does.

Mate, its you calling people ‘pathetic’ and ‘deranged’, and perhaps you should go back and review the comments you’ve made about David Seymour. ‘None so blind’ and all that….

Nothing nasty about calling someone a ‘lefty’, many will actually be very proud to be called a lefty.

I have no idea what you stand for. You seem to flip flop all over the place and probably won’t make up your mind until a nanosecond before the marker touches the ballot paper. If I think that’s wishy washy, so be it. At least I’m not calling you ‘pathetic’.

[ithaka]

Just had a look this morning Simon Wilson's is an opinion piece. Hope you are not so sensitive and close minded that you can't stand to hear a differing opinion on the world even if you don't agree.

His column is usually too long and wordy for me. Here is a taste though, probably behind the paywall but you would expect opinions are free.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/electi...CE6LKGQ7D65MU/

In other revelations last week, RNZ reported that since 2021, National has received 7.5 times more large donations than Labour.
That’s $8,206,101 against $1,085, 563. Act received $4,236,393.
Why, really, are those big donors pouring their money into National and Act’s coffers? It’s not about personal tax, is it?
Labour has failed to introduce genuinely progressive tax reform, although they know the surveys say it would be popular. But I imagine they also know - have always known - that any attempt to do this would be met by a wall of money. Superwealthy donors would spend whatever it takes to prevent it happening.
Donors who don’t want the fairer society Labour hopes for and the Greens and Te Pāti Māori have the policies to help achieve, because it would cost them a bit more of their own money.
Labour doesn’t want anyone to build that wall. The tragedy is, it’s there anyway. The money’s in.

Reprehensible????

To quote David Seymour

The fact that they are wealthy doesn’t mean they know more about policies. It does mean that they have got the ability to put the hand in their own pocket and help others should they choose.

Looks like they are digging deep to ensure policies that will be to their own benefit.

I am constantly attacking boomers but maybe my target should be the country’s wealthiest 1% who own more than a quarter of the country’s wealth and pay about half the tax rate of the average kiwi on their overall earnings and capital gains.

The amount of money they are pouring in to their representatives at ACT might indicate that at least some wealthy people are greedy.

"In 2020, the big money went to Labour rather than National, with National only declaring $285,000 of big donations."

https://democracyproject.nz/2023/08/...al-to-victory/

[Aaron]

"In 2020, the big money went to Labour rather than National, with National only declaring $285,000 of big donations."

https://democracyproject.nz/2023/08/...al-to-victory/

Interesting link blows my selfish wealthy person theory out of the water. Well sort of... according to Bryce Edwards the big donors tend to back the party most likely to win. I guess you can't buy influence if the party you backed is in opposition.

Also in April 2019 Jacinda had already declared there would be no capital gains tax while she is prime minister, much like John Key before her. Chris Hipkins left his run too late to make the same declaration, David Parker had already scared them off and co governance and govt waste may have also sealed their fate.

Also the point that Labour should be campaigning on their successes is valid. Why aren't they highlighting these. What are they??

Nationals tax policy out tomorrow I think. Lets see what tinkering they can come up with to make them sound more appealing. Something better than taking GST off fruit and vegetables I hope.

[davflaws]

Writes davflaws, the Labour shill who believes that a NZer is without culture unless he is Maori or embraces Maori culture.

Kiss my arse.

I guess that makes davflaws a racist?

It might if that was actually my position. It isn't, and never has been, and Balance has repeatedly been told so and asked to justify his claim. He couldn't, and in truth, he isn't interested in any real engagement on any political or social topic.

His hatred of and contempt for the majority of ordinary New Zealanders overwhelms his rationality and blinds him to any information favourable to any position to the left of his own. He is not stupid, and (I suspect) not particularly racist except insofar as he is convinced (rightly) that racebaiting, attacking "woke" ideas, and dogwhistling about transgender and rainbow issues have become potent political weapons for the right. Effectively, he is a troll,and I try not to feed him.

I used to be neutral towards Maori culture (I am not a Maori and am very proud of my colonial culture and heritage) and can see the good in other cultures and the diversity and different views on life as being interesting.

I currently describe myself as a racist in recovery.

I grew up with lots of racist attitudes and beliefs without realising it, but I don't feel guilty about that. As a middle class pakeha born in 1945, that was inevitable.

I was educated in an overwhelmingly pakeha culture and I grew up believing I knew all about Maoris. After all - we had three at Wellington College and my mother had taught in Ruatoria, and I knew the words of the school haka (ka mate) and could sing Pokarekare ana. But I knew a hell of a lot more about one great great grandfather as a judge in the raj and another as a colonial property developer than I did about NZ History or Maori culture.

It was not until my mid twenties that I actually got to meet a significant number of Maori. They were very tolerant of my ignorance and arrogance, and very gentle in their attempts to teach me something of their culture and to show me something of the reality of their lives.

Twenty years later, when I found myself dealing with problems of social disadvantage on a policy level as well as at the "pain face", I saw very clearly that many of the problems faced by the brown majority of our underclass cannot be successfully addressed (and were not despite over a hundred years of trying) in a monocultural pakeha framework.

I am proud (just a bit 'cos I am prone to arrogant prickery) to have been part of the change in direction towards devolution of governance and resources to tangata whenua, and the success that that particular change in policy direction has brought about. I hope it continues, and I would encourage you to try to decouple "race issues" from your (perfectly reasonable and understandable) desire to see a change of Govt. Unless ACT have a big influence, nothing much will change except emphasis and some of the words, because devolution of governance and resources works, and people who work at a policy level know it.

[causecelebre]

And note how Hipkins now shy away from any mention of COVID?

Wasn’t that the huge positive which landed them a landslide in 2020?

Why isn’t Hipkins talking up his and Labour’s Covid ‘successes’?

History will judge the actions taken by the Ardern government harshly - it was all about the optics to the detriment of NZers.

Yes interesting. It will be equally interesting to see the turnout of the voting ex-pats who were not part of the "team of 5 million"