If National wins ...

[elZorro]

jmsnz, I was having a gentle dig at those like yourself who are very capable of a good post, but seldom contribute. It worked..

Bob Jones (and FP) love the Labour party, because the larger public service fills up commercial property, their staff spend their pay on high street purchases, etc. There's bound to be a study on that somewhere. So even if the department outputs might be hard to value all the time, the downstream benefits can be large, and they make up for it. That's how the former Hamilton City Council tried to justify the V8s. (In their case, badly wrong, but anyway..).

My brushes with local CRIs have been disappointing, they're a miserable pack of sods who are only looking out for themselves. Try to strike a deal with them (or even get some research done) and they'll tie you up with a team of in-house lawyers and impossible clauses that no-one would ever sign. To top it all off, they still receive hundreds of millions each year, 80% of it used in admin, the rest on research, and how many results do we see? Not enough.

[Major von Tempsky]

Well me old mates, in the latest Roy Morgan poll (the poll which is always the most favourable to Labour), The Press pA2 21/04/2012;

National up 5.5 to 49.5, Labour down 4 to 26.5.

Seems like the voters approve a free new National Convention Centre in Auckland for $260 mill.

And in case you call it a rogue poll it's pretty well backed up by the TV3 Poll taken about the same time.

[fungus pudding]

jmsnz, I was having a gentle dig at those like yourself who are very capable of a good post, but seldom contribute. It worked..

Bob Jones (and FP) love the Labour party, because the larger public service fills up commercial property,........

FP doesn't 'love' the labour party at all. They do a lot of harm to those htey purport to represent. What I have said it is always easier to make your fortune when Labour are in, and not simply because they fill office buildings.

[elZorro]

Sorry about that FP, I might have taken your comments out of context.. Bob Jones always said he liked seeing Labour in office.

David Shearer still has to hit his straps, why they're not making more headway at the moment could be partly due to a perceived lack of direction by Labour's caucus members. Shearer's speech delivery tends to bring on a yawning episode with me, and I'm all in favour of their policies generally. He is getting on TV a lot though, surely he'll be getting the hang of it.

Keep banging on about R&D though, David. Today I was advised that I could apply for funds for a postgraduate engineer to the tune of $30,000 for 6 months (MSI grant). This is part of how National delivers R&D to the private sector, under their new rules. These grants are not available to CRIs and councils etc, they have other avenues. Great.

Now the reality check. The grant application process is open for 1 month, it closes in a few days (early May). Only one grant per business. Has to be R&D or a new process or service, technically challenging, fair enough. Forms to fill in on the MSI website, (bound to be taxing).

They prefer to see firms with over 10 FTEs apply, who already spend on R&D. Open to employ postgrads in Science, Engineering, Technology, Design or Marketing who are out of work, and can work in the firm for 6 months fulltime, and have a NZ work visa.

They anticipate it will be oversubscribed, suggest firms don't select a student before they know if they've been funded. Why would that be?

Because although thousands graduate from these schools at NZ universities each year, there are only 70 positions to be funded for 2013. Take the 1/3 tax back, it's a $1.4 mill R&D programme at best, chicken feed - 0.002% of the tax take.

[fungus pudding]

Sorry about that FP, I might have taken your comments out of context.. Bob Jones always said he liked seeing Labour in office.

I have heard and read quite the opposite from Jones. Generally speaking he has little time for socialists, or at least for socialism.

[elZorro]

I have heard and read quite the opposite from Jones. Generally speaking he has little time for socialists, or at least for socialism.

OK FP, you know what I mean..despite (or because of) their policies being good for employing workers, commercial and rental property owners do better during Labour terms.

[fungus pudding]

OK FP, you know what I mean..despite (or because of) their policies being good for employing workers, commercial and rental property owners do better during Labour terms.

In the short term most things do well under Labour, but longer term they do immense harm. then sit back. The exception was the 84 - to 90 Labour mob who dragged NZ out of its Soviet style 'protected' economy and set the stage for us to survive.

[CJ]

The exception was the 84 - to 90 Labour mob ...

Who went on to form ACT

[elZorro]

Fair enough, FP and CJ. That was a massive upheaval for many working class people. But National's policies up until the present day seem fixed on making sure that only the priviledged few end up with the benefits of that economising.

This from NZResources today.

Labour needs to hold its nerve

Dene Mackenzie — 25 April 2012

Dene Mackenzie.

If ever there was a time for New Zealand's Labour Party to hold its nerve, now is that time.
Two recent opinion polls shows the party is making no inroads at all into the support by voters of Prime Minister John Key and the National-led Government.
David Shearer won a some-times acrimonious leadership challenge late last year, appealing to supporters to give the party a chance to prove it was worthy of much wider support than shown by its hammering in the 2011 election.
Some hope. Shearer won the election with the Machiavellian help of Labour bad boy Trevor Mallard and the ABC faction of the caucus -- Anybody but Cunliffe -- David Cunliffe, that is.
One thing would have happened if Cunliffe had got the job. Labour would be making far more inroads into National's popularity. David Cunliffe has a streak of mean running through him that would have seen him probably thrown out of Parliament for calling Key some unpalatable names.
But also, he would have managed to drag the party kicking and screaming out of the centre where it has to compete with National and New Zealand First.
The Roy Morgan Poll showed increasing support for Key's National party at 49.5%, up 5.5% since March 12 to April 1. Support for Labour has fallen 4% to 26.5% in the same period.
If a general election was held, the National would most likely be returned to government, the pollsters surmised.
There have already been murmurs about dissent within the Labour caucus about Shearer's performance, or lack of it. His leader speeches so far have been dreary, unexciting and lacking any vision.
His former chief of staff Stuart Nash, a former high-flying young MP until the last election, departed for “family reasons” just a few weeks into his job.
His replacement, Alistair Cameron, is a gay environmental lawyer in Wellington, a close friend of deputy Labour leader Grant Robertson and once worked for former Wellington Central Marian Hobbs, whom Robertson replaced as the electorate MP.
Speculation is that Shearer will not last the year and that Robertson will be elevated to the leadership, the first openly gay party leader in the history of New Zealand politics.
Former prime minister Helen Clark managed to stare down a revolt within her ranks after consecutive poor polls. Many doubt that Shearer has the same nerve. He is likely to go quietly, if he thinks it is in the best interests of the party.
However, as Shearer himself said on Sunday night, he and Labour have time to change the polls. Whether or not he will be given that time is, unfortunately, not up to him.
*Dene Mackenzie is political and business editor of the Otago Daily Times.

Dene is right. David Shearer needs urgent coaching on his deliveries, and needs to write some better motivational speeches. None of the public know who he is yet, apart from a few TV appearances. So it's not too late to make some changes.

[fungus pudding]

David Shearer needs urgent coaching on his deliveries, and needs to write some better motivational speeches. None of the public know who he is yet, apart from a few TV appearances. So it's not too late to make some changes.

The best thing about David Shearer is that he has kept Cunliffe out of the leadership role. Cunliffe would be the end of any support for Labour. Other than that, Shearer has nothing to offer. Seems to be a good fellow and all that, but he aint gonna make it; they still need to find a leader to get themselves up and running again.