If National wins ...

[craic]

What an unthinkable tragedy! A country slightly larger than Great Britain with a population around half the size of most major cities in the world. There are a dozen or more countries in the region who could, with little effort, overrun this place in a couple of days. A few more million people could mean that there might be someone on a headland somewhere to see the coming.QUOTE=Daytr;585058]I would suggest of you want NZ or Auckland to emulate Taipei, Singapore etc then move there.
If you want to change NZ so much & make it like the rest of the world, over crowded, perhaps you are just living in the wrong country.
I think there is room for more urbanization of Auckland i.e. more apartment blocks in the CBD, however we don't need more people, simple as that.
Just stop the urban sprawl. The roads in Auckland are already overloaded & more concentration of people outside the CBD is only going to make it worse.
The way we are going the population of NZ will be over 5 Million in less than 10 years![/QUOTE]

[BlackPeter]

I would suggest of you want NZ or Auckland to emulate Taipei, Singapore etc then move there.
If you want to change NZ so much & make it like the rest of the world, over crowded, perhaps you are just living in the wrong country.
I think there is room for more urbanization of Auckland i.e. more apartment blocks in the CBD, however we don't need more people, simple as that.
Just stop the urban sprawl. The roads in Auckland are already overloaded & more concentration of people outside the CBD is only going to make it worse.
The way we are going the population of NZ will be over 5 Million in less than 10 years!

Daytr - you are the ultimate bully: "If you don't like it here, than just go". Shame on you - though it helps me to understand why you support Winstons's NZ First.

OK - so lets look what I said. I said that there are people who prefer to live in apartments over houses. I said apartments housing has some benefits over single houses (particularly looking at energy efficiency and public transport), but obviously it has as well drawbacks. I didn't say everybody needs to (or should) live in apartments.

I certainly didn't propose to turn Auckland into Singapore ... hardly possible by building just 25.000 apartment units in Auckland (which would represent less than 5% of all existing Auckland dwellings). 95% of all Auckland houses would be unchanged as is ready to be occupied by whoever wants to live in them - however if there are people in Auckland preferring to live in (quality) apartments, than they could do so - and the Auckland housing crisis would be fixed.

Ah yes - everybody could buy a cheaper place to live (balanced demand and supply) but I guess this would take you another opportunity to complain about the government ... and this would be a pity, wouldn't it?

Ah yes daytr, and if I would prefer to live in Singapore or Auckland than I would live there. I don't. However - in my view is it always a good idea to learn from others .. maybe that's the difference between a progressive Liberal and a regressive NZF supporter?

[elZorro]

Too much name calling on this thread: even I do some of it I suppose, so apologies for that. Was up in Auckland today and on one intersection there was one rabid group getting started on local body electioneering with the sign:

Len Brown Sux. Toot your support.

They were getting some support, but then it's hard to know how you'd indicate you didn't agree. He hasn't been that good a leftie ambassador I guess.

Lots of articles in the paper and on the news about the dairy payout. It is just as bad as I feared, there are sharemilkers talking about letting staff and part-timers go, losses of $200,000 per business per year, 18 months to recover, if then, rural suppliers very worried too.

This is going to be bad for the govt too. Less GST revenue, less PAYE, higher unemployment costs, less income tax. In fact farmers and some allied businesses will be running tax losses through, and might not be paying prov/ income tax for two or more years. John and Bill, this is going to make balancing your own govt books decidedly difficult.

I think they'll be forgetting all about a budget surplus, this was never promised, it's not happening, and NZ should be reminded, it doesn't matter, does it. National will bring NZ through, they're great at managing the country. Much more trustworthy than Labour.

National have two choices for the immediate future. Start shutting down some govt services by sacking people, or raise some new tax income. I wonder which option they'll pick.

[craic]

At least they will have the options. Labour will just have to sit back and suck it up for at least two years and possibly a few more. And those of you who find every minor flaw like the hair pulling or the sheep to Arabia or whatever will have to continue to collect trivia and behave like frustrated old maidens sticking pins into a doll in the belief that the person represented will eventually succumb to your darts. If that's political science in NZ, I will continue to trade my dollars on the markets and enjoy all my punts as much as the last one that returned me ninety dollars for a ten bet on the last race.

[elZorro]

At least they will have the options. Labour will just have to sit back and suck it up for at least two years and possibly a few more. And those of you who find every minor flaw like the hair pulling or the sheep to Arabia or whatever will have to continue to collect trivia and behave like frustrated old maidens sticking pins into a doll in the belief that the person represented will eventually succumb to your darts. If that's political science in NZ, I will continue to trade my dollars on the markets and enjoy all my punts as much as the last one that returned me ninety dollars for a ten bet on the last race.

Craic, surely not all your bets turn out winners? I know of one in particular that didn't, but I think you've done fine out of that area overall.

Of course I made an omission in the previous post. National has a third way of making their problems go away for the meantime - do some more borrowing on the taxpayer credit card. After all, we are not yet the world's most indebted nation. We're average, or better than average. This ignores the fact that when Labour left office, old Crown debts were almost completely repaid. The Labour government had led the way by showing that in the good times, it's a sensible idea to pay down old debt. National are acting like NZ Crown assets are something that should be shared out to current taxpayers or bystanders, some being more deserving than others, until there is nothing of net value left.

Winston Peters and Andrew Little were on Q&A this morning, mainly covering the dairy situation. Winston called Federated Farmers out for backing the National Govt no matter what, when they should be backing their members - who as it turns out - are farmers. Winston should get some more rural votes for his plain speaking, and it doesn't sound like he's on National's side of the fence at the moment.

[BlackPeter]

Craic, surely not all your bets turn out winners? I know of one in particular that didn't, but I think you've done fine out of that area overall.

Of course I made an omission in the previous post. National has a third way of making their problems go away for the meantime - do some more borrowing on the taxpayer credit card. After all, we are not yet the world's most indebted nation. We're average, or better than average. This ignores the fact that when Labour left office, old Crown debts were almost completely repaid. The Labour government had led the way by showing that in the good times, it's a sensible idea to pay down old debt. National are acting like NZ Crown assets are something that should be shared out to current taxpayers or bystanders, some being more deserving than others, until there is nothing of net value left.

Winston Peters and Andrew Little were on Q&A this morning, mainly covering the dairy situation. Winston called Federated Farmers out for backing the National Govt no matter what, when they should be backing their members - who as it turns out - are farmers. Winston should get some more rural votes for his plain speaking, and it doesn't sound like he's on National's side of the fence at the moment.

... and while praising Labour for its part in reducing the public debt, you always seem to forget to mention that it was Labour leading us into the NZ part of the GFC. They allowed very shonky finance business to operate throughout the time they have been at the reigns ... no Labour politician called for a reduction of house prices (which went up faster during Labours reign than they do now), nobody in Labour stopped absolutely incompetent finance directors to allow the dirty deeds of Bridgecorp, Hannover Finance and South Canterbury finance (even if latter blew only up under the next government - the mistakes have been made earlier), nobody in the Labour government tried to stop the inflation of the property bubble (not just in Queenstown), and they didn't stop the huge increase in private debts either. Private mortgages as well as credit card debt ballooned during the time of the latest Labour government.

.... just to balance your praise ...

EZ, if reducing public debt during a time of plenty is really the only thing Labour can be proud of, than I am not sure, whether they are qualified to lead the opposition (not to think about getting back into government). And this is in my view the problem - I do see a very complacent opposition just waiting for its "next term" - instead of positively fighting for it. Yes, there is the odd mud-throwing exercise and as well attempts to steal votes from each other (e.g. Labour trying to steal from Winston, who used to own the xenophobic and racist vote).

Don't misunderstand me - yes, the current government is getting stale, John Key seems to follow Helen in terms of arrogance and loosing touch.
A good democracy needs a balance of power ... what we currently seem to have is however a balance of mediocrity on all sides. What is missing is an opposition offering a credible alternative. Just look at the numbers - yes, sure - maybe National gets next time less than 50%, but how could the other half form any credible government?

Lets assume Labour and the Greenies could get into bed together, then how would Winston fit into this relationship? Same - if its Little and Winston, how would the Greenies fit into the game? And even these two full and two half (co-)leaders might not be sufficient - you would need as well the support of one or two Maori flavoured organisations.

How do you combine hard left socialism (so called Greenies), lobbying for fringe groups (Greenies as well as Labour), blatant racism (NZF ... and don't forget the "chinese sounding names"), the power hunger of the union movement and the interest of the in itself not so homogeneous Maori movement?

The only common interest of these groups might be to get closer to the baubles of government. Though I am not even sure about that, the Greenies never wanted to run the country ... it is just much more convenient for them to sit back and criticize whoever is in power.

So what would be the common thread / objective / interest which would keep an "anti-National" government together for three long years? Still more relevant - how are you going to convince the voters that such a colourful "group" would be able to run the country?

[winner69]

NZ was in recession before the GFC struck

[elZorro]

Technically, W69 is right, but Helen Clark's govt also had eight unbroken years from 2000 to 2008 where the economy grew strongly by an average 3.5%. We truly had a rock-star economy then, even though the dairy payout started off about the same level as it's going to be now.

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/...ew/2010/04.htm

During this period, BP, they paid down a lot of govt debt to reduce ongoing interest costs and risk, while the calls from the opposition National Party were all about lowering taxes. Nothing useful, just lowering taxes. As it turned out, that BS changed to increasing tax on the masses with GST by 2010, while the already wealthy did get the tax cuts as promised. Tax cuts that helped cripple govt income for several years, meaning the govt has never been able to post a surplus.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...-video-emerges

BP, I'm not about to second-guess who is going to have the higher votes in 2017, but I hope it is a leftie coalition. National are running their own coalition already, ACT and the Maori Party, most of us aren't too keen on all their policies. That was foisted on us too. You just don't like anything that's a bit left-leaning.

National could certainly have clamped down on SCF, and nothing to stop them reining in the smaller finance companies steadily, after they were elected. I still think that any controls were far too slow to be organised. In the rush to lower compliance costs generally, lots of things went wrong. Even Labour are not without blame there.

[Major von Tempsky]

Helen Clark just coasted on what Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson had achieved already with economy and Cullen ran it down to please Helen until in their last year they were in for a Budget deficit the next year.

As far as the execrable Len Brown goes he will be eased out next year one way or the other and my bet is that the right wing Labourite Phil Goff will become Mayor and apply some common sense to Len's grandiose bankrupting Transport dreams.

[Daytr]

BP, getting a bit fed up with derogatory terms. You have called me racist on this thread on many occasions & now a bully.
How is suggesting something & it was suggested as in I used the word suggest (if you didn't get it the first time which you obviously didn't) bullying let alone the ultimate bully. Quite ridiculous as have been your racist calls.

Suggesting if someone isn't happy with the way NZ is now & want to change it to be like other densely populated countries/cities to me says you are probably living in the wrong place. As in you might be happier in a place that already exists rather than one you want to change NZ into.
Hardly bullying, but maybe check with your Mum first.

You also seem to think the post was directed at just you, it wasn't, but don't let that get in the way of a good rant.

And by the way when you use quotation marks you are supposed to quote actually what someone said/wrote, not make up your own version of it. You must have learnt that from Dirty Politics of the right.
So the shame is very much on you & not for the first time.

Daytr - you are the ultimate bully: "If you don't like it here, than just go". Shame on you - though it helps me to understand why you support Winstons's NZ First.

OK - so lets look what I said. I said that there are people who prefer to live in apartments over houses. I said apartments housing has some benefits over single houses (particularly looking at energy efficiency and public transport), but obviously it has as well drawbacks. I didn't say everybody needs to (or should) live in apartments.

I certainly didn't propose to turn Auckland into Singapore ... hardly possible by building just 25.000 apartment units in Auckland (which would represent less than 5% of all existing Auckland dwellings). 95% of all Auckland houses would be unchanged as is ready to be occupied by whoever wants to live in them - however if there are people in Auckland preferring to live in (quality) apartments, than they could do so - and the Auckland housing crisis would be fixed.

Ah yes - everybody could buy a cheaper place to live (balanced demand and supply) but I guess this would take you another opportunity to complain about the government ... and this would be a pity, wouldn't it?

Ah yes daytr, and if I would prefer to live in Singapore or Auckland than I would live there. I don't. However - in my view is it always a good idea to learn from others .. maybe that's the difference between a progressive Liberal and a regressive NZF supporter?