Labour govt 2020-23

[mistaTea]

You make some good points about Winston, although I do get the feeling he curtailed the excesses of what Labour wanted to do in their first term. It was telling, once he was no longer there in the second term, that all the idiocy started.

Yes he was a handbrake. And it turned to sh1t once they had a majority from 2020.

But Winnie can’t escape the fact that he put them there in the first place. It’s not a great sales pitch to say you formed a govt with some crazies but it’s ok because you were a ‘handbrake’.

In his excuse about Bill confiding in Winnie of all people before negotiations had started that he was going to get rolled is just not believable. A blatant lie.

[Balance]

Ardern is/was a nasty bitch. End of.

Cindy Ardern and Piggy Muldoon are referred to as the most divisive PMs and leaders that NZ ever had.

Big difference between the two :

Muldoon was what he presented himself to be - pugnacious, unpleasant, confrontational, racist and aggressive. In the end, he was judged to be a failure.

Ardern is a two faced hypocrite who preached kindness, tolerance and equality but implemented divisive and failed policies by stealth, deceit and with no accountability. In the end, she quit when it became clear to her that she was a failure.

Muldoon was true to himself and he fought to the end & lost. Ardern was true only for herself and quit before she was thrown out. Most transparent government ever?

Ardern the witch is not fit to kiss Muldoon’s backside.

[Panda-NZ-]

In his excuse about Bill confiding in Winnie of all people before negotiations had started that he was going to get rolled is just not believable. A blatant lie.

You must have missed the National party leadership bloodletting after the election.

[blackcap]

Yes he was a handbrake. And it turned to sh1t once they had a majority from 2020.

But Winnie can’t escape the fact that he put them there in the first place. It’s not a great sales pitch to say you formed a govt with some crazies but it’s ok because you were a ‘handbrake’.

In his excuse about Bill confiding in Winnie of all people before negotiations had started that he was going to get rolled is just not believable. A blatant lie.

Agree with you on the last point. I think Winston just did not like Bill. End of. And so he tried in his mind to find a way to work with Labour. I remember that night quite well as I was at a function with a bunch of directors prominent in the Motor industry. The reaction was visceral.

[iceman]

The greatest leader we've ever had and I can't see anyone improving on her .But the usual tall poppy sexist haters here ,nothing new,predictable and self entitled.
Family in Aus are aghast at the conspiracy nutters and divisive entitled dinosaurs here who don't know how to grow ,adapt and be inclusive or caring .Money is their God and they will defend it until they realise they can't take it with them,too late then sadly.

Why is your family in Aus, not back here in Jacinda’s Paradise ?

[mistaTea]

Agree with you on the last point. I think Winston just did not like Bill. End of. And so he tried in his mind to find a way to work with Labour. I remember that night quite well as I was at a function with a bunch of directors prominent in the Motor industry. The reaction was visceral.

Not sure if he had personal beef with Bill, but if you recall someone in National (it was speculated it might have been that may God awful Paula Bennett) leaked details to the media about a pension overpayment he received.

So he just hated National’s guts and decided to screw them.

He got nailed in 2020 in part because of that and then spent 3 years drumming up a c0ck and bull story.

[mistaTea]

You must have missed the National party leadership bloodletting after the election.

What happened after they lost the election is not evidence that Bill was going to be ousted if they won.

I think Bill lead National to a party vote of 44% or something close to that. A very impressive result and there would have been no political reason to knife him in the back if they formed a govt.

And even if I am wrong about that, the idea that Bill would confide that kind of info to Winnie of all people before they have even started negotiations is just not plausible.

[Balance]

Grant Robertson left NZ in declining & tattered state


The Day our Worst Finance Minister Ever Leaves Parliament, NZ falls into recession & drops out of the world's top 10 highest well-being countries.

Whilst Grant Robertson was talking himself up in Parliament about his wonderful political career and how proud he was of his achievements, the result of his past six years as Finance Minister were clear for all to see. We've just fallen out of the world's top ten "happiest" countries and are in recession, practically to the day he gave his farewell speech.

Our problems are largely due to Robertson's excessive fiscal expansion, done on borrowed money, during the pandemic, which amazingly was one of the largest in the world in spite of us having the least number of cases during that time of Covid compared to others. Why did Robertson not figure that our 2020 success in keeping the virus out meant that far less government borrowing & spending was required? In 2020, for example, our tourism industry was not much affected - many people holidayed domestically instead of going overseas.

On top of one of the world's largest fiscal expansion, the Reserve Bank went mad & printed more money than virtually any other Central Bank. Those two decisions by Robertson & Orr threw NZ into the recession we are now experiencing today. By my account, we are one of only a tiny handful of nations on the planet in recession. Unbelievable. Robertson & Orr snatched economic defeat from the jaws of a Covid victory. For that, both of them should have been fired way back. Instead they remain two of the most highly paid people in the country, both on salaries between $500,000 & $1,000,000, as VC of Otago University and Governor of the RBNZ. Its pay for non-performance.

What is most unforgiveable about Grant Robertson's tenure as Finance Minister & Deputy PM is that, in the aftermath of our greatest health crisis ever brought on my Covid, he left our health system in a declining & tattered state. The only thing he needed to get right, more than any other, was to ensure our health-care was world class, because a new type of virus could obviously afflict us again at any time. But he threw always billions on everything but health-care. Clearly he deserve the title, "Worst Finance Minister Ever".

Maybe its also time our Big Media investigated the false claim made by Hipkins just a few months ago in the run-up to the election that NZ was one of the fastest growing countries, after Japan, of all. What garbage - but he was never challenged on that claim - except of course from DownToEarth Kiwi.

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics.

[Daytr]

Grant Robertson left NZ in declining & tattered state


The Day our Worst Finance Minister Ever Leaves Parliament, NZ falls into recession & drops out of the world's top 10 highest well-being countries.

Whilst Grant Robertson was talking himself up in Parliament about his wonderful political career and how proud he was of his achievements, the result of his past six years as Finance Minister were clear for all to see. We've just fallen out of the world's top ten "happiest" countries and are in recession, practically to the day he gave his farewell speech.

Our problems are largely due to Robertson's excessive fiscal expansion, done on borrowed money, during the pandemic, which amazingly was one of the largest in the world in spite of us having the least number of cases during that time of Covid compared to others. Why did Robertson not figure that our 2020 success in keeping the virus out meant that far less government borrowing & spending was required? In 2020, for example, our tourism industry was not much affected - many people holidayed domestically instead of going overseas.

On top of one of the world's largest fiscal expansion, the Reserve Bank went mad & printed more money than virtually any other Central Bank. Those two decisions by Robertson & Orr threw NZ into the recession we are now experiencing today. By my account, we are one of only a tiny handful of nations on the planet in recession. Unbelievable. Robertson & Orr snatched economic defeat from the jaws of a Covid victory. For that, both of them should have been fired way back. Instead they remain two of the most highly paid people in the country, both on salaries between $500,000 & $1,000,000, as VC of Otago University and Governor of the RBNZ. Its pay for non-performance.

What is most unforgiveable about Grant Robertson's tenure as Finance Minister & Deputy PM is that, in the aftermath of our greatest health crisis ever brought on my Covid, he left our health system in a declining & tattered state. The only thing he needed to get right, more than any other, was to ensure our health-care was world class, because a new type of virus could obviously afflict us again at any time. But he threw always billions on everything but health-care. Clearly he deserve the title, "Worst Finance Minister Ever".

Maybe its also time our Big Media investigated the false claim made by Hipkins just a few months ago in the run-up to the election that NZ was one of the fastest growing countries, after Japan, of all. What garbage - but he was never challenged on that claim - except of course from DownToEarth Kiwi.

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics.

I would suggest Robertson comes a close 2nd worst behind Muldoon mainly due to the fact that Muldoon didn't have the impact of a pandemic to fund.

[nztx]

I would suggest Robertson comes a close 2nd worst behind Muldoon mainly due to the fact that Muldoon didn't have the impact of a pandemic to fund.

Nothing like a Pandemic for a crisis to Bullsh*t the resident peasants

Someone still appears to be at it from over in Italy today