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  1. #101
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    Ah, I see, we're on to whether National will win in 2014.

    My prediction is it will canter home again.

    Fascinating how David Shearer took absolutely no notice of the tired and emotional Chris Trotter on his first day back at work and went off to visit the earthquake shattered people of Chch, ignoring the Stalinist 1951 waterfront strike in Auckland.

    Was very amused to see a "threat" by the union movement that the Auckland waterfront strikers would emigrate to Australia if we weren't careful.

    Hallelujah! Oh Lord let it be! I'd even contribute money to help pay for their tickets....

  2. #102
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    Quote Originally Posted by Major von Tempsky View Post
    Ah, I see, we're on to whether National will win in 2014.

    My prediction is it will canter home again.

    Fascinating how David Shearer took absolutely no notice of the tired and emotional Chris Trotter on his first day back at work and went off to visit the earthquake shattered people of Chch, ignoring the Stalinist 1951 waterfront strike in Auckland.

    Was very amused to see a "threat" by the union movement that the Auckland waterfront strikers would emigrate to Australia if we weren't careful.

    Hallelujah! Oh Lord let it be! I'd even contribute money to help pay for their tickets....
    David Shearer hasn't made any mistakes yet anyway, and if he was being unknowingly taped in a cafe he'd probably not appear as inane as John Key or John Banks. Here's the latest insight into how the trickle-down theory is working for the people of Northland, aided and abetted by National Party MPs Mike Sabin and Paula Bennett.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10780696


    It's not the kids' fault they go to school without lunch or the means to pay for it. The curious thing is that the government gets 1/3 of the gross profit from all gaming sites, plus the 15% GST. It adds up to a lot of income. Another 1/3 gets distributed through trusts to local and national non-profit organisations and sports bodies, with not much of it spent on items that would help the families of pokie players. The bulk of it goes to higher-profile outfits in general, in large lump sums.

    Pokie sites tend to pull a large amount of cash out of struggling communities, quite a bit of it ends up in government coffers, but National are not too keen on helping out when they get the chance. Sounds all too familiar.

  3. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by elZorro View Post
    David Shearer hasn't made any mistakes yet anyway,
    Do you not find his inaction on the land sales to the film producer, Cameron, a little hypocritical? Didn't he state outright that he would ban land sales to foreigners? Now the courts have handed him an open ticket to appeal for the same ruling to call for the OIO to review the sale; and what has he done? Nothing - not one murmur. That's because he went off half-cocked in the first place. Pity for Labour, but he just hasn't got it. However he did them a favour by burying Cunliffe, who I am sure the public would despise. They still need to find a new leader before they'll stand a chance, because David Shearer won't make it to the next election.

  4. #104
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    Vote of no confidence late this year new elections about March next year
    Possum The Cat

  5. #105
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    Quote Originally Posted by fungus pudding View Post
    Do you not find his inaction on the land sales to the film producer, Cameron, a little hypocritical? Didn't he state outright that he would ban land sales to foreigners? Now the courts have handed him an open ticket to appeal for the same ruling to call for the OIO to review the sale; and what has he done? Nothing - not one murmur. That's because he went off half-cocked in the first place. Pity for Labour, but he just hasn't got it. However he did them a favour by burying Cunliffe, who I am sure the public would despise. They still need to find a new leader before they'll stand a chance, because David Shearer won't make it to the next election.
    FP, he might just be taking his good time. I see he got to 10% as preferred leader the other day, and Key is going backwards..Regarding land sales, the farming process is so inefficient that anyone who wants to spend top dollar on immovable land should be able to purchase. If they start getting smart and producing direct energy (water heating at 80%, photovoltaic at 25%), then I might change my mind. Farming for meat/wool/dairy is about 0.04% efficient in terms of solar energy. This is a fundamental problem for NZ.

    Another astute column from Colin James.

    Colin James's column for the Otago Daily Times for 21 February 2012
    Labour's task: out of the margins, into the middle

    Bill English has been sounding as if he is sorry for Labour: he angers iwi by lobbing section 9 of the State-owned Enterprises Act on to the asset selldown embers; he says the size of the selldowns loot is a "guess".The section 9 hoo-ha was so unnecessary that it seems almost like a manoeuvre to give the Maori party's patchy profile a lift with a pretend win and/or a pretext to go round iwi rohe pitching the investment opportunity.Carrying into the mixed model law the instruction to the Crown not to transgress the Treaty of Waitangi would not affect the sale price. Prospective investors will quickly find out that even Contact has had to deal with iwi over geothermal access and there is an iwi-Crown co-management regime for the Waikato River. Section 9 will be in the new law in effect if not in words.English's "guess" (actually avoiding stating a price) underlines that the value of the selldowns lies not in debt or schools and dams but as a source of steady dividends for baby-boomers needing a liveable income from nest-eggs since Alan Bollard and foreign investors drove down government bond returns. The efficiency gain is likely to be marginal and capital raising is constrained by the government's need to keep 51 per cent.

    All this is small comfort for Labour, which focused on the selldowns in the election to scant effect.That line was negative. In fact, negativity dominated Labour's campaign, making the party sound like a cantankerous teenager, not a striding adult. Its big positive policies, not least its child-centred social policy initiative, were not pushed while it fixated futilely on claiming to match National's fiscal line.The challenge now for David Shearer and Labour is to go positive.The light reason for that is that Shearer doesn't have the bite to make negativity work but does have a strong personal leadership story to tell, in his past international work and his earnest decency.If he spends 2012 travelling the country letting that story reach people he might gradually gain acceptance, even with his low charisma. If he tries to play attack dog, to which David Cunliffe is much more suited, English and mates -- and voters -- will scarcely notice.

    The heavier reason for Labour to go positive is that there is a big game on: to devise policies that highlight opportunity (not "problem") at a time when middling people are under pressure from the relocation of manufacturing, new technology and the upward income transfer to financiers, professionals and top executives.In the United States and Europe this has found a small voice on the radical left but a much bigger voice on the right in the Tea Party and populist parties. Social democratic parties have not found the words and policies to offer deliverance to the beleaguered middle.Here National and Winston Peters (whose appeal now goes wider than to "oldies) have more to say to those people than Labour. The Engineers Union's comparatively well-paid members are as likely to find common cause with National's policies as with Labour's. Labour has over the past 40 years become the party of the margins: the very-low-paid, Polynesian commoners, the disabled, gays, feminists.Most of these are atomised, much as the potential vote for a Labour-type party was in 1890, and thus much harder to lock into a voting force the way unions organised Labour's vote in its heyday.

    In fact, Labour activists come less from the atomised low-socioeconomic segment than from the educational meritocracy, which arose from the opening of tertiary education in the 1960s and now forms a privileged self-perpetuating class. The children and grandchildren of educational meritocrats have been far more likely to go to higher education than the progeny of those outside the educated elite.Thus the bulk of what should be Labour's logical support base is outside the meritocracy but most of its activists are inside it. Those activists have to reach across a class divide -- and over the beleaguered middle.
    Reaching that middle requires a deep rethink of policy and organisation.

    Shearer's real task is less to scratch together a win in 2014 than to start that rethink. Applying 1930s or 1970s thinking to the 2010s will leave Labour offside.It will, of course, win office from time to time. But in 2014 or 2017 that will be highly likely to require the Greens. There is now a short, tight hyphen between the two parties. Whether they like it or not they are now a coalition -- in effect if not in fact.On the Green side that means a sophisticated and realpolitik approach to policy and government, as Metiria Turei almost indicated on Sunday: less democracy, more leadership, tough choices.On Labour's side it requires a determined effort to make Labour-Green look like a government in waiting that can work term after term -- and gather in a large chunk of the middle.

    That is Shearer's and environment spokesman deputy Grant Robertson's job.
    Any guesses on the chance of success?

    --Colin James, Synapsis Ltd, P O Box 9494, Wellington 6141Ph (64)-4-384 7030, Mobile (64)-21-438 434, Fax (64)-4-384 9175Webpage http://www.ColinJames.co.nz
    Last edited by elZorro; 21-02-2012 at 06:20 AM.

  6. #106
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    Is there any hope of a balanced assessment here? i.e. John Key is not perfect, he is wrong on one or two things but overall he's going in the right direction and is the best leader.

    I happen to think he's wrong on the Crafar farm sales and if you read what he has been saying closely he's saying Look, unfortunately it may be inevitable (but distateful and regrettable) because of international agreements NZ has signed up to that the sale will go through. However, underlining that, he's not going to appeal against the Court decision - nod, nod, wink, wink. Just as he said regarding Tony Marryatt's rise in Christchurch on hearing that Clerk Tony was now thinking of not taking the rise "It would be a clever rethink".

  7. #107
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    Quote Originally Posted by Major von Tempsky View Post
    Is there any hope of a balanced assessment here? i.e. John Key is not perfect, he is wrong on one or two things but overall he's going in the right direction and is the best leader.
    Going in the right direction? Upping a regressive tax (GST) to cut top income tax rates and refusing to consider capital gains tax. The Trickle down theory must surely be seen as bull**** by now. It is trickle up if the continued increasing disparity in wealth is any indication. That said it can't be an issue for a majority of New Zealanders who have voted in the current govt based on their policies (I hope they didn't just vote national cause John's a nice guy compared to Phill Goff)

    I don't think beauracracies/govt is necessarily effective or efficient but at least they are motivated to consider the majority of people (as well as themselves).
    Last edited by Aaron; 22-02-2012 at 02:35 PM.

  8. #108
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    Well said, Aaron.

  9. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aaron View Post
    Going in the right direction? Upping a regressive tax (GST) to cut top income tax rates and refusing to consider capital gains tax.
    There was also the removal of depreciation allowances which hit the top end more than the bottom. Most of the people I personally know who are leveraged and invested in the property sector were in the former 39% tax bracket and IRDs cost benefit analysis certainly supported this. So the old system was also regressive to have the highest earners avoiding the highest rates of taxation.

    The current mix of policies were designed to encourage debt reduction, discourage additional borrowing to fund property purchases (it also made all investment property less attractive, leveraged or not) and provide a sting to those who wanted to spend the post tax pay rise instead of saving it.

    Given private investors repaid more than they borrowed for the first time in 10 years or so I suspect it worked. In light of the global focus on balance sheet risk and private NZ balance sheets being more leveraged the government's, I think they made the right choice. The benefits of risk management might never be known (we probably will never know if we avoid a Greek style debt default scenario for the fact that it was avoided). However, everyone, rich and poor, benefits from this stability, even if the tax restructure was largely neutral for the bottom end.

  10. #110
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    Quote Originally Posted by Halebop View Post
    There was also the removal of depreciation allowances which hit the top end more than the bottom. Most of the people I personally know who are leveraged and invested in the property sector were in the former 39% tax bracket and IRDs cost benefit analysis certainly supported this. So the old system was also regressive to have the highest earners avoiding the highest rates of taxation.

    The current mix of policies were designed to encourage debt reduction, discourage additional borrowing to fund property purchases (it also made all investment property less attractive, leveraged or not) and provide a sting to those who wanted to spend the post tax pay rise instead of saving it.

    Given private investors repaid more than they borrowed for the first time in 10 years or so I suspect it worked. In light of the global focus on balance sheet risk and private NZ balance sheets being more leveraged the government's, I think they made the right choice. The benefits of risk management might never be known (we probably will never know if we avoid a Greek style debt default scenario for the fact that it was avoided). However, everyone, rich and poor, benefits from this stability, even if the tax restructure was largely neutral for the bottom end.
    You are so right. My tax rate dropped from 39 to 33, but losing the depreciation claim has meant I pay one hellluva lot more tax than before. In fact I dropped more than the Ch-ch bloke who didn't take his increase.

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