If National wins ...

[elZorro]

It's a small survey, but Labour can take a bit of heart from this.

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland...in-latest-poll

Here's some perspective on costs to govt: Novopay is costing tens of millions more than planned, and might have to be dropped in a few weeks, with the old supplier Datacom getting the go-ahead again. The whole cost was going to be about $100mill over 8 years. At the bottom of another article today in the press: how much IRD writes off in unpaid tax each year.

IRD write-offs
• In the year ended June 2011, $785.4 million of tax debt was written off because taxpayers were unable to pay.
• That was an increase of more than $118 million from the amount written off in June 2010.
• For year ending June 2009, $722.3 million written off.

So why were National playing around with a parking tax? Not for revenue, well, I hope not. They have more important issues.

[Major von Tempsky]

Hmmm,latest Herald-Digi poll, National unchanged on 49%, Labour up 4 to 36% at the expense of its potential coalition allies. And in answer to a direct question 49% think the country is going in the right direction.
Spit the pips out of that one.... :-)

[Major von Tempsky]

Interesting aricle in today's Press (and no doubt other papers) by Vernon Small, an astute observer, that Shearer's secret NY account contains at leat $100, 000 and probably a half million or more.
Rather a challenge to overlook that 3 years in a row....

[fungus pudding]

Interesting aricle in today's Press (and no doubt other papers) by Vernon Small, an astute observer, that Shearer's secret NY account contains at leat $100, 000 and probably a half million or more.
Rather a challenge to overlook that 3 years in a row....

But a good place to leave it if your going to promote policies to lower our dollar. h
Hard to think why anyone would leave money rotting in an account unless speculating on the currency. Nothing wrong with that, but how on earth could you forget it was there?

[Major von Tempsky]

Anyone watch the live continuing coverage on Sky News of the Australian Labour Party leadership spill? Fascinating stuff!
Superficially not much happened, the challenge seemingly evaporated. But underneath - hoo boy!
Last time when Rudd did challenge only a few MPs backed him. This time Simon Crean (a former Labour leader) backed him and has been sacked as a Minister for his trouble. And, the media who are very good at ferretting this stuff out and being leaked to, say that 47 MP's back Rudd and he only needs 51 to be successful. The polls say Rudd is way ahead of Gillard and that Rudd is the only possible Labour leader who has a chance of staving off a Coalition electoral victory. A poll taken after tonight's putative spill say 51% of the public want Rudd as Labour leader, 19% only, want Gillard and 13% want Crean with smaller numbers for other possible contenders. Naturally the polls will be lower for Labour after this and Crean's sacking - how long before just 4 more MP's switch sides? Gillard claims that this finishes the leadership spill festering sore but as you can see in fact it has got a lot worse for her and is just a matter of time with this momentum.
Hmm, paper this morning says Rudd was expected to win the leadership by a narrow majority if he had run.
But heigh-ho, why win by a narrow majority with all sorts of bitter infighting only to lose the gen election in Sept when you can stick around to October and take over the leadership easily with all your enemies being blamed for losing the election? Its a no-brainer!
Lord it while you can Gillard!

PS - on a different topic why pack such a sad over the balance of payments? There has been huge amounts of foreign exchange coming in as earthquake settlements (capital account of the BoP), and as we now have a floating NZ dollar any BoP problem can only be a temporary phenomenon.

[elZorro]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10873038

Yip ... current national govt is doing a great job ... [heavy sarcasm]

Brian Gaynor had a good article out today, too.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/brian-gayn...ectid=10873028

The Australian economy has created 676,600 new jobs while the New Zealand economy has lost 22,800 over the past four years.

Brian Leyland gives a good overview of the cost of power in NZ. We're paying too much, and it's inefficient.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opin...-off-consumers

I heard the other day that Tiwai smelter's secretive price is about 3c to 5c per kwHr. Still a margin above cost.

Update from Tim Hunter April 2013: using the annual reports, the average price they pay now is about 5.9c per kwHr, some of it being spot market.

[elZorro]

Telecom may be sacking up to 1500 employees, full and part time, contractors.

On top of this, National continues to screw down DOC, not allowing for inflation, ever tighter budgets, and so some front line and many back-room jobs must go. They'll save only about 1/3 as much as they state, by doing this. Downstream effects will be felt. Out of work will be graduates of our universities, who trained for this highly important and specialised work, who probably treat the job as a salaried position.

The gaps will be filled by retired farmers and trampers by the sound of it. National don't really care about conservation, that's the message.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/new...in-restructure

[Major von Tempsky]

But they do care about wasting our taxes, unlike Labour. And reigning in the waste at the Families Commission and women who are on the DPB who then go on to have another on the DPB...and another...and another...all by different fathers.
NZ would have been another Greek/Cyprus/Spain/Portugal basket case by now under Labour....

[elZorro]

But they do care about wasting our taxes, unlike Labour. And reigning in the waste at the Families Commission and women who are on the DPB who then go on to have another on the DPB...and another...and another...all by different fathers.
NZ would have been another Greek/Cyprus/Spain/Portugal basket case by now under Labour....

Are you trying to get my attention MVT? How many are on the DPB? Do you think they enjoy being there? More important, what is National doing for this struggling country of ours? They are concerned about reducing taxes for the well off. This, they are doing well at. As far as keeping most of us employed and well paid, they are doing badly. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10873868

Given a few more years in office, they will be able to scuttle most of the public service, at which point they will be able to say how useless it is in delivering outcomes. I know we need the public service intact. I will do all that I can to help ensure National get taken out at the next election. More input from the public sector might have spotted the ruinous financial sector rorts. South Canterbury Finance will cost taxpayers $800mill, alone. All on National's watch. That's what they should have been looking after, not a few million in savings here and there. National failed to help the economy recover quickly enough, and rolled over SCF's guarantee as soon as they got into office. About the same time as they removed the R&D tax credits.

[Major von Tempsky]

Careless, sloppy emotional stuff.
When Roger Douglas floated the dollar it settled at 44 US cents now its at 84 US cents. That's a 91% increase in the NZ dollar's US purchasing power and in US dollar terms our GDP has increased by 91% plus probably a third in natural growth.
"As far as keeping most of us employed and well paid". 6.9% unemployed - what's that if it's not keeping most of us employed?
Obviously the ones who keep getting pregnant enjoy being on the DPB. Then there's heaps more who could get a job and off DPB and won't or refuse to move out of Ruatoria.
That's a gross cost for South Canterbury Finance not the net cost after several years of receivership vastly reduced that amount.