If National wins ...

[elZorro]

EZ, you want to go @gtiso twitter account and follow the conversation from this tweet

@gtiso: Who is this delightful fellow who claims to work for the PM and threatens to track down his critics on Twitter?

Bullies

The press have a story on this W69, just out 4 hours ago.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...-threat-claims

Now here's yet another person well up in John Key's office, who is a bit of a rogue. It's OK though, this is not the office of the Prime Minister. It's the office of the Leader of the National Party.

But just when he'd gathered all these followers, he's had to effectively drop them out, because some of his own personal details were revealed, and he took his twit account private. (I'm not up with twit, or whatever it is). .

[fungus pudding]

FP, that's a weak argument, not up to your usual standard. I don't usually get called 'silly', maybe single-minded, or one-eyed (which I dispute) but not silly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_N...of_New_Zealand

I did not call you silly; rather the comment was. But why dispute the one eyed claim? You seem to spend every waking moment searching for either pro-Labour or anti-National items from every Tom Dick and Harry just so you can post them or links to them here. Most would describe that as one-eyed. When it reaches the extent it has in your case I'd call it paranoia.

[winner69]

The press have a story on this W69, just out 4 hours ago.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...-threat-claims

Now here's yet another person well up in John Key's office, who is a bit of a rogue. It's OK though, this is not the office of the Prime Minister. It's the office of the Leader of the National Party.

But just when he'd gathered all these followers, he's had to effectively drop them out, because some of his own personal details were revealed, and he took his twit account private. (I'm not up with twit, or whatever it is). .

The twits on twitter with their tweets are quite interesting when they start tweeting away about something. Some juicy stuff sometime.

EZ, You should give it a go.

That @gtiso and a guy called @andrewlittlemp have had a conversation how that Tim Barnett is a loose cannon and needs to be reined in because he not being 'helpful'. Amazing how Cosby Textor speak pervades Labour eh.

You know much about this Tim Barnett? one twit reckons he doubles the collective stupidity of Labour. Doesn't sound too flattering does it.

[elZorro]

The twits on twitter with their tweets are quite interesting when they start tweeting away about something. Some juicy stuff sometime.

EZ, You should give it a go.

That @gtiso and a guy called @andrewlittlemp have had a conversation how that Tim Barnett is a loose cannon and needs to be reined in because he not being 'helpful'. Amazing how Cosby Textor speak pervades Labour eh.

You know much about this Tim Barnett? one twit reckons he doubles the collective stupidity of Labour. Doesn't sound too flattering does it.

Very interesting, W69. I hadn't heard about these tweets of course, but I had come to the same opinion myself, when Tim Barnett said on the radio that you can't buy votes. I wrote him a little letter with the proof of my argument - National has been doing just that, for the last four elections.

[elZorro]

I did not call you silly; rather the comment was. But why dispute the one eyed claim? You seem to spend every waking moment searching for either pro-Labour or anti-National items from every Tom Dick and Harry just so you can post them or links to them here. Most would describe that as one-eyed. When it reaches the extent it has in your case I'd call it paranoia.

FP, National supporters have been using the GFC and earthquake excuses for too long now. During the last seven years, dairy farmers have had a couple of standout good seasons, forestry has done OK, so there has been cash sloshing about. But this has been a time for NZ to rebuild, gather its resources, extend its skill base, create a stronger economy for any new headwinds which are gathering.

Many of National's policy settings are having the opposite effect, that's what has me consumed. NZ can't afford to keep National in power. What they are doing is spending on the state credit card, borrowing and selling off good assets until some imagined nirvana occurs. But they don't seem to have a clue about how to take us there, or even what this nirvana looks like. It's something to do with a budget surplus, from what I can gather.

[winner69]

EZ, there's hope yet. Cosmic shifts can happen.

In Alberta, Canada the Conservatives have been wiped out after 45 years in power. Yes a cosmic shift in a rich oil producing state.

The populous wanted change and the New Democrat Party sweeps into power. A left leaning not totally big business favourable party in power.

The catalyst seems to have been a charismatic articulate leader with a strong background in politics. Wonder how your new statesman like Andrew matches up with Rachel Notley? One needs to seduce the electorate.

So there's hope that change can happen and we can see the back of National, but not with Labour in its current state I fear.

[elZorro]

EZ, there's hope yet. Cosmic shifts can happen.

In Alberta, Canada the Conservatives have been wiped out after 45 years in power. Yes a cosmic shift in a rich oil producing state.

The populous wanted change and the New Democrat Party sweeps into power. A left leaning not totally big business favourable party in power.

The catalyst seems to have been a charismatic articulate leader with a strong background in politics. Wonder how your new statesman like Andrew matches up with Rachel Notley?

So there's hope that change can happen and we can see the back of National, but not with Labour in its current state I fear.

Thanks for the heads up, W69. Andrew L was just on TV1, did a good job. The Labour mantra for the moment is to remind NZ that we don't have a long-promised budget surplus. The ACC cuts are two years off, it'll make a good election carrot for National by that point, if they manage to deliver on that promise.

BP asked for other policies that National have done badly on, where Labour had better ideas. Well, depending on your point of view, housing has to be a big one.

If you think it's a good idea for more NZers to buy their own homes, for economic drive and stability, also equity, if that is a big part of being a NZer, then National has done badly. They have provided some super fund cash for new homeowners, but that has added fuel to property prices in Auckland in particular. As soon as one subdivision outfit offered some land at fixed prices, we saw the extent of the demand. The govt hasn't had much luck getting the council to tow the line, as they already have to increase rates by nearly 10% in a year. That'll be highly unpopular.

Labour, on the other hand, have a brilliant plan called KiwiBuild, to gear up with NZ businesses to construct various home types, with a mix of prices, locations, and styles. These would then be onsold, and the cash freed up to build more houses. The govt would use its buying power to provide cheaper land, materials, and can afford to keep margins low. This would also employ and train a lot more people more quickly than the market is likely to do, left to its own devices. Cheaper houses wouldn't be built in general, because the profit is lower.

The KiwiBuild construction target is for 10,000 houses a year, within 3-4 years. This has been done before in NZ, it's not a dream. But National has not been delivering on its lame promises in this area. Little wonder, when many National MPs are using rental property investments as their passive income.

[winner69]

El Zorro said - Andrew L was just on TV1, did a good job. The Labour mantra for the moment is to remind NZ that we don't have a long-promised budget surplus.

Bill was on the radio this morning and said there will be a surplus.

Perception becomes reality eh.

The man in the street probably doesn't care anyway, and if he does probably thinks all is under control. Like his own household budget sometimes spends more than comes in and other weeks there's a bit left over

[BlackPeter]

BP asked for other policies that National have done badly on, where Labour had better ideas. Well, depending on your point of view, housing has to be a big one.

If you think it's a good idea for more NZers to buy their own homes, for economic drive and stability, also equity, if that is a big part of being a NZer, then National has done badly. They have provided some super fund cash for new homeowners, but that has added fuel to property prices in Auckland in particular. As soon as one subdivision outfit offered some land at fixed prices, we saw the extent of the demand. The govt hasn't had much luck getting the council to tow the line, as they already have to increase rates by nearly 10% in a year. That'll be highly unpopular.

Labour, on the other hand, have a brilliant plan called KiwiBuild, to gear up with NZ businesses to construct various home types, with a mix of prices, locations, and styles. These would then be onsold, and the cash freed up to build more houses. The govt would use its buying power to provide cheaper land, materials, and can afford to keep margins low. This would also employ and train a lot more people more quickly than the market is likely to do, left to its own devices. Cheaper houses wouldn't be built in general, because the profit is lower.

The KiwiBuild construction target is for 10,000 houses a year, within 3-4 years. This has been done before in NZ, it's not a dream. But National has not been delivering on its lame promises in this area. Little wonder, when many National MPs are using rental property investments as their passive income.

Hi EZ - I do agree - Nationals current housing policy is a sad joke. What we need is more sustainable supply, but what we get is just fuel for additional house price inflation (using Kiwisaver savings to further blow up property prices).

Let me however clarify as well, that the previous Labour government did still less to keep house price inflation under control than the current National government. Under Helens reign did NZ house prices basically double in 9 years: The index went up from roughly 1500 in the year 2000 to roughly 3000 in the year 2009 - check https://www.reinz.co.nz/shadomx/apps...siteName=reinz
This equals to an average annual house price inflation of 8% under Labour's rule. Quite a stiff increase for a party which now claims that they know better than National how to control house price inflations - isn't it?

Just compare that to Nationals outcome: House price index went up from 3000 (in 2009) to 4300 (in 2015) - this equates to an annual house price rise of just 6.2% during the reign of the recent National government. Isn't it amazing that even Nationals quite ridiculous housing policies achieve better results than what Labour's policies did for us?

So I guess - looking at this you can only conclude that neither Labour nor National have a clue how to resolve the housing crisis. Blind trying to lead the nearly blind. And I think this is one of NZ's problems - we have too many people holding the flag of their respective parties instead of using the grey matter in their back head to think by themselves.

Again - the only effective (and palatable) solutions for the (mainly) Auckland housing crisis would be:

a) increase supply by moving into (high quality) denser housing options. No rocket science, but obviously not invented here - so it can't be good.
b) move jobs into other parts of the country
c) do both of the above.

If you can point me to a credible and achievable Labour policy supporting a, b and c, than you might be even able to get my vote. Think however the risk that I need based on this to change my voting pattern is low ...

[Daytr]

BP, National has had many years of robust growth & record export receipts. Sure they have had the GFC to contend with & the Christchurch earthquake. However, since 2010 they have had plenty of opportunity to capitilise off China's huge appetite for our dairy product & logs. They could have been reducing debt in that time rather than increasing it substantially. They have also had a booming Auckland property market that they could have chosen to tax as discussed to infinitum on this thread, however they again have chosen not to. Labour had good times sure & they reduced debt at a time when other governments were generally increasing debt. They also funded fully the likes of DOC & didn't sell every asset that the government can lay its hands on. Not only has National basically tripled the government debt they have also sold billions of state owned assets, however debt is still rising? Government income is about to take quite a hit from the slump in dairy & also perhaps log prices & there is a general consensus that the NZ economy is starting to slow down, they will also only be receiving only half the dividends they once were from the power companies. This excuse that Labour had the 'good' times, basically suggesting that National has had the tough is wearing thin seven years down the track. 3-4 years ago, fair enough, but they have squandered the opportunity to reduce debt in the last few years.

Hi EZ,

The way I read it - FP didn't call you "silly", but he called it silly to compare the achievements of the 5th Labour government and the 5th National government without considering the completely different context.

I think he has a point.

5th Labour:
Governed during a time of plenty. The world was spending furiously and 5th Labour followed the spending rush in a time when saving would have been a wise thing. Annual house price rises during the Labour reign well above what we observe these days. Obviously not responsible for the GFC in which this rush ended (NZ is just too small for that), but certainly contributing its bit.

5th National:
Started directly after the fallout of the GFC and had to spend more than they had to avoid a crash of the economy (as easily observable in other parts of the world). Christchurch Earthquake didn't help either. Yes, there are lots of things they could have done better, but I think pointing to the increase in government debt (though in international comparison still very modest) without explaining the background is just misleading.

Now - do as you please, I think however that you miss this way an opportunity to highlight the areas where Labour had indeed better policies than National.

For example - just observing the old boys club making sure that the Callaghan Innovation grants stay "in the family". I totally agree - Labour's R&D tax grants looked much more fair and effective.

Why don't you try to find some more areas where Labour was indeed better than National (vs. just being more lucky in terms of timing) - and remind people of these ... you might even be able to convince some of them instead of just alienating them.