If National wins ...

[huxley]

Had a listen and he makes some very good points. The guy advocating the Labour side sounds like a sneaky weasel. The farmer is just saying it how it is.

Wow, I would've said "the guy advocating the Labour side" sounded like he was banging his head against a brick wall, sounded painful.

[huxley]

Wait. So farmers are the ones with a collectively owned, vertically integrated, profit-distributing supply chain, and we're the communists?

[Joshuatree]

Vote for a Liar? .Whatever happened to Honest Bill? A Leader?
"But what is National saying to its rural support base? It’s not just that Labour is a tax and spend party, or that Labour’s water tax will cripple good honest farmers. Bill English told the nation on TVNZ’s Q&A yesterday morning that the consequence of the water policies of the “opposition parties” was to “slaughter the dairy herd”. He then said, “The next thing they’ll be talking about: depopulate the cities, because they cause water pollution too.”
This, by the way, was shortly after he’d denied he was leading a campaign of lies and scaremongering. Whatever happened to Honest Bill?"

[Joshuatree]

More Porkies from Bill
"Dairy NZ says there are 2000 dairy farms using irrigation. Most of them are in the South Island and are much larger than the average NZ dairy farm. According to Dairy NZ, Labour’s water tax would cost those farms an average $45,000 per year. Close to the low end of English’s range, but nothing like the $100,000 he also mentioned. There are 10,000 more dairy farms in New Zealand that do not use irrigation. Dairy NZ says they would pay $240 a year."

[Joshuatree]

SLANDER the new norm. Would you trust such a leader?

"It’s revealing in many ways that Bill English thinks it’s okay to get farmers enraged at Labour and the Greens. One is that he appears to believe his reputation for integrity is unassailable. Another is that his party knows slander works, and they’re not above using it. We knew that already, most recently thanks to Steven Joyce and the so-called $11 billion hole in Labour’s budget. That was a fiction English himself would have taken part in creating and which he continues to promote."

[Joshuatree]

No values no caring from National


DHBs critically underfunded, opposition parties say

From Checkpoint, 5:38 pm today
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A Dunedin man whose prostate cancer spread after he waited 10 months for urgent surgery has been failed by an underfunded health system, say opposition parties.
Stephen Hoffman told Checkpoint yesterday his GP referred him as an urgent case to Dunedin Hospital in September last year.
Photo: RNZ/ SUPPLIED

He had classic symptoms of prostate cancer, a family history, an abnormal DRE, a rock hard prostate and progressive urinary discomfort.
But instead of having surgery within the Ministry of Health's six week guideline, the 62-year-old waited 10 months and the cancer has now spread to his rectum.
Labour, New Zealand First and the Green Party said today that Mr Hoffman's case - which was just one of several similar cases at the Southern District Health Board - was the sad consequence of a DHB which has been critically underfunded.
When asked about Mr Hoffman's situation today, National Leader Bill English said while his situation was unacceptable, it highlighted long-standing issues within the Southern DHB's urology department.
"Of course it's the obligation of the DHBs to make sure - where there is any evidence that it's less than a world-class service - that they're taking action to change it.
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"This is a big system, it's seven or eight percent of the whole economy, it's bigger than the dairy industry, and at any given time, there will be pressure points in it and we expect the DHBs to deal with those effectively."
However, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said DHBs had been underfunded by $2.3 billion and Mr Hoffman's story was a sad consequence of that.
"Some of the stories that we've seen coming out of the southern DHB in particular really are staggering.
"I think there would be an expectation in New Zealand that you would, once you are diagnosed, get the health care you need. The fact that this is not happening speaks to the drift we've had in healthcare, and the need for action."
The Southern DHB's Chief Medical Officer of Health Nigel Millar conceded to Checkpoint last night Mr Hoffman was not alone, with other men in a similar situation.
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters said the government had made Mr Millar the fall guy for long-term underfunding.
"The saddest thing there was the head of the DHB, who is obviously a decent, honest person, trying to explain away why somebody waited 10 months for something that should have taken a maximum of six weeks.
"As a consequence, he's got a truncated life to look forward to, and frankly, we are down dramatically in health funding in this country."
Green Party leader James Shaw said waiting times were unacceptable.
"They are, at the very least, life threatening and I know people have had their life expectancy cut because of the length of the waiting time."
Mr Hoffman said he was now incontinent and had been told his prognosis was not good. He's been given five years, but was yet to receive an apology from the Southern DHB, he said.
Checkpoint asked the Southern DHB today when changes would be made to staffing and theatre resourcing within the urology department and if they could clarify if hundreds of urology patients were currently sitting outside the Ministry's guidelines and waiting longer than they should for treatment.
Late this afternoon the DHB responded, saying the request was being treated as an Official Information Act request.

[elZorro]

More Porkies from Bill
"Dairy NZ says there are 2000 dairy farms using irrigation. Most of them are in the South Island and are much larger than the average NZ dairy farm. According to Dairy NZ, Labour’s water tax would cost those farms an average $45,000 per year. Close to the low end of English’s range, but nothing like the $100,000 he also mentioned. There are 10,000 more dairy farms in New Zealand that do not use irrigation. Dairy NZ says they would pay $240 a year."

Interesting data. If you consider that the 'free' water probably costs them plenty already to get a consent, drill a bore, pay for ongoing power and pump and boom maintenance, plus insurance. Why are they doing it?

Two reasons: If each irrigator setup costs $1mill, the farm value goes up $2mill, was the old rule of thumb. The extra water available in times of drought, grows grass that must be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, per year, per farm. The only other option is brought in feed. Some farms have multiple centre pivot irrigators.

So would a $50,000 reminder fee for water table degradation/restoration really break the bank on these farms? I doubt it.

[minimoke]

So would a $50,000 reminder fee for water table degradation/restoration really break the bank on these farms? I doubt it.

A "reminder fee"? Where do you get these ideas. Youll have us dragging up any old memory and charging us for it next.

[Joshuatree]

IF YOU NEED JUST ONE GOOD REASON TO VOTE LABOUR LOOK AT THE TRAGEDIES UNFOLDING IN OUR DHB'S DUE TO UNDERFUNDING

DHBs critically underfunded, say opposition parties

However, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said DHBs had been underfunded by $2.3 billion and Mr Hoffman's story was a sad consequence of that.
"Some of the stories that we've seen coming out of the southern DHB in particular really are staggering.
"I think there would be an expectation in New Zealand that you would, once you are diagnosed, get the health care you need. The fact that this is not happening speaks to the drift we've had in healthcare, and the need for action."
The Southern DHB's Chief Medical Officer of Health Nigel Millar conceded to Checkpoint last night Mr Hoffman was not alone, with other men in a similar situation.

[elZorro]

A "reminder fee"? Where do you get these ideas. Youll have us dragging up any old memory and charging us for it next.

I don't think it's really a full-blown tax. It should be part of the costs in running an irrigation system on a big scale farming business, just like rates are an overhead. And it strikes me that this amount of fees, per farm per year, will be spread fairly thinly on reparation works. It'll need buy-in from locals too.