Labour govt 2020-23

[Balance]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...ents-on-friday

Disasters - Cindy loves them. The more the better as far as this non delivering spinstress is concerned.

She has bugger all else to show for the last 3.5 years of being in government except a lot of excuses and passing the buck.

The BS & Spin gets bigger and bigger as the disaster gets smaller in impact.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...-daughter-neve

“She said Neve had heard about the tornado and wanted to give something to the affected families.” Really?

[jonu]

The BS & Spin gets bigger and bigger as the disaster gets smaller in impact.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...-daughter-neve

“She said Neve had heard about the tornado and wanted to give something to the affected families.” Really?

Yeah, I call BS on that. Beginning to sound a little desperate is our Cindy. I suspect either leading questions from Ardern could illicit some such thing from a 3 year old, or more likely, her PR team dreamt it up.

[JBmurc]

The $50B "COVID-19" fund all but depleted, largely on totally unrelated and out of control expenditure. Well done Robinson. From the Herald:

"As part of the 2020 Budget, the Government established a $50 billion Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF), billions of which was not allocated to particular initiatives to allow Cabinet to allocated spending as needs arose.

When Labour released its pre-election fiscal statement, it not only published an estimate of what New Zealand's debt levels would be if the fund was spent, it provided a second debt track showing what would happen if the remaining funds in the CRRF were not needed, implying that the funds were contingent on specific Covid related initiatives.
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infrastructure welcomes $2
Since then the funds have continued to be depleted, in some cases for spending with little clear link to the response to Covid-19.

By February, the Government said that the amount unspent had fallen to $10.2b which had been "set aside for any future health and economic response needed in the case of a further Covid-19 resurgence".

However, half of the remaining money was allocated to the housing acceleration package, a suite of measures announced by ministers in March aimed at improving housing affordability.

Documents released by Treasury show that initiatives to get funding included wallaby and wilding conifer control schemes, as well as funding for the Olympics, water safety, a play about the Covid response, and a "modern approach to night classes".

Opposition shadow treasurer Andrew Bayly said much of the spending in the fund had been wasteful and now Robertson was likely to have to borrow more in the event that there was a Covid-19 outbreak.

"In a traditional budgeting sense, everyone knows what the operational allowance is. What's he [Robertson] has done is he's just chosen to create this artificial fund, a conceptual fund, and every time he needs a bit of extra money, he's just dipped into it. And, unfortunately, he's dipped into it again and again and now there's only $5 billion left," Bayly said.

"What I'm worried about is, what happens going forward. If we do get Covid, we actually need this money spent on good projects that relate to Covid, but more importantly this was set aside for a health response.

"In the event that there is a lockdown, we need a truckload of money because we know how expensive it is.""

Yes 50bill put on tick with a FED Loan ... with rates to rise >> If only the 50bill actually went into core infrastructure to help NZ grow its low productivity

[Panda-NZ-]

There's the kiwirail and provincial growth fund projects. Roads don't need to be repaved every six years if it reduces fright truck numbers.

Shows they need NZF in there to deliver better focus to the spending.

[BlackPeter]

There's the kiwirail and provincial growth fund projects. Roads don't need to be repaved every six years if it reduces fright truck numbers.

Shows they need NZF in there to deliver better focus to the spending.

I dare to disagree. Winston (aka NZF) always called himself the hand break on Labour. Maybe he was. However - what Labour needs is not a handbrake but a kick into the butt!

[Panda-NZ-]

Well we are corona free and have a world leading economy.
Not great, not terrible.

[BlackPeter]

Well we are corona free and have a world leading economy.
Not great, not terrible.

Well. We hope to be corona free (cross all fingers you can), yes - but a world leading economy? ... you must be kidding, aren't you?

NZ's economy is not doing bad, considering the circumstances, however it is plagued by a lot of systemic problems which so far none of our governments cared to address. Our efficiency and productivity is well below OECD average and the outcomes of our education system dropped over the last 30 years or so from being nearly at the top of the league to being nearly at the bottom. Our economy will suffer under these outcomes, but it certainly will not lead - unless into the abyss.

Inept bunch our recent governments, no matter whether we talk the blue team, the red team or the black handbrake.

[Panda-NZ-]

Jobless rate is rather low despite the MW rising by $1 per hr each year.

Though the oecd lays out some good areas for improvement:
https://www.oecd.org/economy/growth/...rowth-2021.pdf

[dobby41]

Roads don't need to be repaved every six years if it reduces fright truck numbers.
.

'Fright' trucks must be a bad thing - probably bad for the blood pressure.

[Joshuatree]

Well. We hope to be corona free (cross all fingers you can), yes - but a world leading economy? ... you must be kidding, aren't you?

NZ's economy is not doing bad, considering the circumstances, however it is plagued by a lot of systemic problems which so far none of our governments cared to address. Our efficiency and productivity is well below OECD average and the outcomes of our education system dropped over the last 30 years or so from being nearly at the top of the league to being nearly at the bottom. Our economy will suffer under these outcomes, but it certainly will not lead - unless into the abyss.

Inept bunch our recent governments, no matter whether we talk the blue team, the red team or the black handbrake.

A big part of the prob is the relying on cheap overseas labour , no need for businesses to be more productive.The model has to change, pay kiwis more and train them, up skill them, improve efficiencies, systems etc, havnt had to bother with cheap overseas labour.