If National wins ...

[Daytr]

BP what you said is "the once environmentally dead Canterbury plains is now again a beautiful landscape".
Are you referring to what you envisage for the Canterbury plains or what it is "now"? If you meant the former then I misunderstood you, however perhaps you can see by re-reading your post how what you wrote could easily be interpreted as the recent changes to the landscape of the Canterbury plains, i.e. dairy conversion. So there is nothing made up in my post, talk about shooting from the hip.

Perhaps before getting high & mighty you may want to understand where others are coming from & being pro a stablised population is not anti immigration. All it means is you fluctuate the level of immigration according to the flows in & out of NZ. Your racist rhetoric is getting tiresome. There is nothing racist about it. Cheap shots do not score points, they are just that cheap.

If you rely on a bigger population for growth, your model is flawed & unsustainable. Where does its stop? 5 million, 10, 60 million like the UK?
One of NZs greatest advantages is its natural beauty and relatively unspoiled environment and open spaces. This is massive for tourism & as the rest of the world concrete's their landscape it will become even more valuable.

Its all a nice way to distract from the TPPA which really is the most pertinent point for discussion imo right now.

[Daytr]

Hi RGR367, yes there have been leaks, and I think they warrant heeding. They referred to increased costs relating to pharmaceuticals for instance & the increase on things like patents & copyright. The PM has finally had to concede that drugs will cost the country more even though only months ago he said it wouldn't. How does increasing things like patents & copyright encourage freer trade? It doesn't, quite the opposite.

Also isn't half the issue that it is being negotiated in secret? If it was negotiated and then brought before parliament before signing I would be a lot happier, as at least that's democratic & we the people get a chance to see what it encompasses, before it's signed & if it's as bad as I think it is, people then get the right to tell the government what they think.

I don't consider myself on the right wing of the political scene but I'll like to just say, that there's nothing there yet about TPPA that warrants any comment from my kind. What we have are just leaks or "hope so" scenarios. What is so sure about it? Would you be betting your dividends on what you've read so far?

[BlackPeter]

BP what you said is "the once environmentally dead Canterbury plains is now again a beautiful landscape".
Are you referring to what you envisage for the Canterbury plains or what it is "now"? If you meant the former then I misunderstood you, however perhaps you can see by re-reading your post how what you wrote could easily be interpreted as the recent changes to the landscape of the Canterbury plains, i.e. dairy conversion. So there is nothing made up in my post, talk about shooting from the hip.

...

Its all a nice way to distract from the TPPA which really is the most pertinent point for discussion imo right now.

Daytr, this statement was clearly part of scenario 3 (i.e. one future possibility, if we go for diversification and all the other mentioned things ...). Maybe I need to colour code it next time for you.

Actually - the discussion was about Kiwi rail. My point was that you can't determine the future (or not) of Kiwi rail in isolation - you first need to have a vision of where the country wants to go ... and population density is one very significant parameter in this context. Sure - keeping the NZ population at 4.6 million is a valid option (even if I might not prefer it) ... however it just means that it makes it very expensive for a small population to afford the maintenance of a hardly used country wide rail system.

Oh - and please accept my apologies that I dared to respond to one of EZ's posts about Kiwi rail while your mind was occupied with the for you so much more important TPPA issue. Maybe you need to clarify internally (within the regressive coalition) which issues you want to discuss on any day. Just let us know afterwards - will you?

Agree however with RGR on TPPA. Lots of hype and rumours yet, no base to have an informed discussion. I am sure that our parliament needs to ratify this contract if & when it is signed. After the signature but prior to the ratification would be a good time to talk about facts ... but maybe this is less fun than hyping people up?

[Major von Tempsky]

I note a recent prediction that in a years time tourism receipts will have grown to surpass dairy receipts and to become NZ's largest exports.
All on market signals and not socialist diktat :-)

Anyone for diversification?

[Daytr]

Well BP it wasn't clear and with your posts quite often jumping from one extreme to another who is to know.
Perhaps colour coding in your world might seem racist... ;-)

What do they say about sarcasm.. or was that condescension its hard to tell.
Either way its not a great way to have a discussion.
I do agree that diversification or added value processing is a good thing as I have advocated on here many times.

I am all for a discussion around population, however why not just put out the options rather than a very tainted view on each one as you did?

A regional rail system is more likely to be for freight not transport of people although if you have one I can't see why you couldn't have the other & for the amount we pay on road maintenance each year due to the damage caused by logging trucks etc I think a network of major depots could easily be funded. I just drove down highway 1 from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei and the state of the road is a disgrace, with one bumpy patch after another and pot holes galore. Most of the damage is created by heavy vehicles and it will be an on-going problem with no end in sight in regards the damage & cost to repair.

In regards the TPPA it doesn't need to go through parliament before its signed as its not a law change but an agreement between nations although it could well undermine our laws and the anility of future governments to implement policy.

[elZorro]

I note a recent prediction that in a years time tourism receipts will have grown to surpass dairy receipts and to become NZ's largest exports.
All on market signals and not socialist diktat :-)

Anyone for diversification?

MVT, tourism is now exceeding the dairy cheque as an overseas exchange earner, but many who work in the tourism area are not paid that much per hour. It's only getting to this point because of the parlous state of other industries, and dairy in particular. So nothing to write home about. How about we diversify into smarter exports? National's plans for that have been either ineffective or non-existent.

BP, if the rail system is hardly used, why do Mainfreight put the equivalent of 110,000 truck movements on it each year? And presumably they're making good money out of that process. More of us should think about that.

[Daytr]

Murray McCully actually came across quite well on The Nation this morning, something I'm not used to saying.
Although I agree with the ambition of getting rid of the veto power of the senior members of the security council & that opening up Iran could also help liberalise the country, why isn't it the same for Russia? The motion of bringing the culprits to account is miss-timed and of course Russia will veto when the Western world is ganging up on it. Why would Russia ever think it would be treated justly under the current obvious targeting by the US with sanctions etc. ? The latest I read regarding the shooting down of the airliner is from a missile that Russia no longer stocks, however the Ukrainian army does. This came from the Malaysian investigation. I am not suggesting this means Russia is innocent, I just don't know & neither do they. I am however a believer in due process & I think Russia is right to say lets wait for the investigations to be completed. Russia is being castigated for its involvement in the Ukraine, however Crimea voted democratically to be annexed. I am not in favour of a any military action in the Ukraine from either side & I'm sure the Ukrainians just want to live in peace as an independent nation. However where are the calls for the US to be brought to account for their illegal war in Iraq? Not only was it illegal, it has created a new militant force in ISIS and has possibly created one of the biggest refugee crisis since WWII. Then there are the illegal drone strikes in other countries jurisdictions. If you are going to be the world police, you need to be leading by example & not just when it suits your agenda.
The UN is very flawed & frustrating with its lack of action, however I don't see the US calling for action in the likes of Syria, or Nigeria for that matter.
I think NZ needs to very careful where it picks its battles and make sure it is on the side of right, not just might.

[elZorro]

Latest business survey is the most gloomy for 6 years..Toby Manhire on the Rock-star economy. Fairly good agreement in the comments that follow.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/ne...ectid=11489555

[BlackPeter]

BP, if the rail system is hardly used, why do Mainfreight put the equivalent of 110,000 truck movements on it each year? And presumably they're making good money out of that process. More of us should think about that.

Wow - 110,000 truck movements sounds a lot - doesn't it? But actually, I don't know, what it really means, given that you typically have to move a truck at least twice to transport something by rail (first you need to get your load to the next station, and than you have to pick it up again) vs only one truck movement if you don't use the rail.

EZ, I am no transport specialist, and I suppose you are neither. What I do know is, that railways are less and less competitive compared with other means of transport, even in much denser populated countries than ours.

I guess the reasons are plenty. One is the above mentioned added complexity (the alternative is typically not rail or road, but it is nearly always either rail and road, or just road). Moving loads from truck to rail and back does cost additional time, money and resources. Another reason is speed and reliability. Unless your load needs to go from one station at the mainline to another station on this line, and you can coordinate your urge to ship with the train movements, does it take ages for your stuff to get anywhere. The unionisation of the railways is a problem as well - if you want to see the ugly face of the unions, look no further than transport. Open blackmail everywhere ...

Example - Germany. Population density roughly 20 times of NZ and even in proportion much more traffic given its not just German loads going through the country, but lots of European through traffic. However - using the rail is no matter what you are doing typically much more expensive than the alternatives (like plane, truck or bus), despite the government trying to protect the German rails as much as possible e.g. by giving them monopoly status for many forms of transport and subsidizing them with billions of Euros per year. Again - a union controlled workforce blackmailing the people and the government despite anyway sucking up billions of Euros subsidies every year ... they had just recently again an ongoing strike action stopping commuters and seriously impacting on productivity (by delaying freight deliveries), just to (try to) increase the power of one rather small union (train drivers unions). Luckily they got stopped, but why would any company or country want to increase its dependency on idiots like that?

I don't think there is any European country where railways work without subsidies ... and now explain to me, how they are supposed to be competitive in a sparsely populated country like NZ. Rails used to have their days when the alternative was a cart with a horse pulling. They still might make sense if you have to transport lots of stuff from one point to another point (enough to fill a train).

If you really want public freight transport without using the road in NZ - even shipping would be cheaper and easier, given that basically every major town has a port. I guess the question is - is there really nothing better we can do with $200m subsidy per year for getting nothing in return?

[BlackPeter]

Latest business survey is the most gloomy for 6 years..Toby Manhire on the Rock-star economy. Fairly good agreement in the comments that follow.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/ne...ectid=11489555

This is great news ... last time the business confidence was so low (2009), the economy grew by 2.2%. Not too bad for a depressed mood, isn't it? Thanks EZ for cheering us up