What NZers don’t seem to understand about the last 9 years of National

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After 9 years of National we have a

  • housing crisis
  • mental health crisis
  • water quality crisis
  • infrastructure crisis
  • inequality crisis
  • poverty crisis
  • homelessness crisis
  • historic state abuse crisis
  • prison incarceration crisis

What NZers don’t seem to understand about the last 9 years of National is how ideologically driven it has been. National pretend to be moderate and balanced when the truth is they are hard core believers in underfunding the State so that it can’t afford its social obligations.

Bit by bit, National have underfunded our public services so that they can’t carry out genuine welfare for our most vulnerable and instead have become neoliberal welfare agencies whose goal is to punish and damage anyone who is unfortunate enough to require their assistance.

National have replaced the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff with a giant stick that beats the snot out of anyone who has ‘chosen’ to fall down the cliff.

For those who haven’t been able to get a foothold in the property market and can’t afford private education or health, National’s pledge of a ‘Brighter Future’ feels as hollow as hungry children watching MasterChef.

For those who have benefitted from National’s property bubble build on open floodgate immigration, they will continue voting National even if their drinking water comes complete with a floating cow turd. These people are financially invested in National’s small Government fantasy and won’t change.

This leave the Opposition with a huge challenge to get those most damaged by National’s small government mutilation to the polls without spooking those who have benefitted from 30% untaxed property valuation gains.

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How wedded are those who have benefited from National’s grotesque mutations in the property market?

Well, currently they are prepared to put up with a…

  • housing crisis
  • mental health crisis
  • water quality crisis
  • infrastructure crisis
  • inequality crisis
  • poverty crisis
  • homelessness crisis
  • historic state abuse crisis
  • prison incarceration crisis

…just so that they can jet off to Bali for their holidays.

This is who we have become.

 

 

 

40 COMMENTS

  1. Taking apart your points:

    housing crisis – created by an incompetent Auckland council, low interest rates and the turnaround of mass emigration we saw in the Clark years

    mental health crisis – is it any worse than it ever has been. Most of it is due to chemical abuse anyway

    water quality crisis – what crisis is that?

    infrastructure crisis – National have been great infrastucture builders. We now have, at long last our completed motorway system in Auckland. National has poured billions into roading. If you’re talking about council infrastructure, look to successive Labour mayors for that

    inequality crisis – Complete rubbish of course. There is no evidence to suggest inequality by any measure is worse now than it was a decade ago. In some areas inequality has diminished – specifically Maori and Pacifica educational outcomes

    poverty crisis – tell that to the care workers

    homelessness crisis – back to councils

    historic state abuse crisis – non existent

    prison incarceration crisis – due to revised bail laws. A good idea in my view

    • As usual, Andrew, your “insights” are superficial, contradictory, and points the finger at everyone except at the real root causes of this country’s real socio-economic problems. You blame everyone except those in government.

      Which is risable of course, as the poor, homeless, and most vulnerable in our society have never been in power to make our laws.

      By the way, your reference to mental health being “due to chemical abuse anyway” shows you to be the ignorant fool we’ve become accustomed to.

      • Plus one to what you say frank.

        Andrew is nothing but a superficial right wing ideologue. That cant see the smoke for the flamez thats burning his house down ti the ground.

      • Its National friendly voter’s like Andrew ( formerly John Key fan club member’s ) who are the biggest obstacle to get a change of government.

        People like him come out in huge number’s to support the status quo and there are a lot of them who vote for these policies and safe in the knowledge that its not hurting them so it must be working.

        Just like the images of poverty , people living with young children in vans on the side of the road and the homeless in doorways and the serious issues Martyn has pointed out as abject failures have become an acceptable cost of Andrews ” Brighter Future ”

        I can imagine what is must be like not to have a conscience or feel empathy or even a smattering of intelligence when i read comments like Andrew’s.

        • Mosa,

          You really need to do some work on apostrophes, because it diminishes your argument, when you cocque up the English language (excuse my French).

          voter’s – no apostrophe needed here, it is a plural.
          member’s – ditto
          number’s – ditto again
          its – should be it’s, this is a contraction of it is.
          Andrews ” Brighter Future ” – apostrophe needed, it is possessive (but I agree that with Andrew’s “Brighter Future” under National and a coalition led by ACT).
          i – should be a capital.

          More Charter Schools will fix the problems that Mosa has with the English language.

          • Thanks David for the english lesson and for taking the time out of your busy day to read my blog and good on you for doing so.

            More Charter Schools will not fix anyone’s problems, a right wing prescription is never the answer particularly where education is concerned.

            I want schools to have first and foremost registered teachers and for them to be highly trained which is not a requirement in a Charter run School and be subject to the Official Information Act.

          • DAVID SEE-MORE ,

            Thank goodness you are not anything to do with the legal system .

            You would be the sort who would dismiss evidence in a written statement from a witness at a murder trial because it held some spelling mistakes…

            Idiot.

        • People like Andrew Mosa are purely selfish they vote for themselves not for the betterment of our country and the majority of NZers and they are very judgmental.

        • People like Andrew Mosa are purely selfish they vote for themselves not for the betterment of our country and the majority of NZers and they are very judgmental.

    • Only in Andrew’s world of a hands off government, a laissez faire government, that only intervenes when it fears public frustration or anger, does this government get off its responsibilities.

      Blaming everyone else, including the victims suffering the consequences, that is what English and his buddies in the Nats are doing. The immigration policy is not made by Auckland Council, nor is a Council responsibility for selling off Housing NZ homes that are needed for homeless people.

      Blaming those suffering mental health issues for allegedly indulging in mind altering drugs is a blanket labeling and stigmatising, next he will tell us rape victims are to be blamed for being raped.

      Ignoring real crisis and problems seems to be his recipe, for water pollution, like high incarceration rates, higher than in most other developed nations.

      Andrew lives in his neoliberal and right wing bubble, he indulges in trolling on TDB, as he has too much time at his hands, as a privileged person, so he can annoy those that read here, and who express more genuine concerns and views.

    • Andrew – I could go into a point by point on your nonsense But you and I both know your a self centered prick so all I will say is your time will come. You can’t go through life not caring about 25% of kids in poverty and the exploitation of hard working people and not understand the ethical ramifications. Take a long hard look at yourself and you will understand what I mean.

    • Housing crisis, we all agree mass emigration in the past 10 yrs. I don’t think you can blame the previous govt forever.
      Infrastructure crisis, yes we have a new motorway which is to have traffic lights right in the middle of it and at the end of the tunnel so we can idle in the fumes. There was no new south Avondale off ramp or Unitech off ramp (over 15,000 students) so all that traffic will be forced to join to the Pt Chev and New Lynn traffic jams.

    • You’re calling mental health issues a product of chemical abuse, Andrew? You really are an ignorant ass, aren’t you?

      Only someone with a loose grip on reality could make such an asinine comment and think they’re being clever. But you’re not as clever as you think.

    • Andrew you need to do some homework before you make those stupid comment about mental health. Have you dealt with the public mental health services bet you haven’t but you have heaps to say. I have dealt with these services so I speak with some authority here you need to shut the f ..up and stop talking crap. The services have been cut Andrew 100 million plus funding cut now this is why we are seeing so many sick people on on our streets including pedophiles you need to stop talking through the whole in your backside as usual and wake up mate.

    • I can hardly get to the end of this dribble…just because you put it into a bullet point presentation,doesnt make it so….you havnt explained /solved one damn thing.

    • “inequality crisis – Complete rubbish of course. There is no evidence to suggest inequality by any measure is worse now than it was a decade ago. In some areas inequality has diminished – specifically Maori and Pacifica educational outcomes”

      You’re a bit out of step, Andrew. Both Bolger and Birch admitted on Radio NZ that inequality has increased since the 1980s. So your neo-liberal heroes are recanting faster than you can type your right-wing garbage. Time to wake up and smell the coffee, petal.

  2. The blame can be put fairly and squarely on our asinine MSM. They have gleefully connived in the fantasy for their own corporate advantage. Journalism is all but dead in this country and it is thanks to our corporate profit obsessed MSM and their brain-dead attitude to reality.
    The truth is so covered up that it would take a revolution to reveal it.

  3. NZ’s ‘ problem’ has always been a few individuals, i.e. farmers making the thing to sell over seas for our hand money to spend here, once it gets here. Indeed, if it gets here at all.

    The reason that’s a problem is that, that simple fact has become basterdised by criminals who’ve politely, and no doubt less than politely swindled off massive after the farm gate profits from that enterprise for their own wealth creation. It’s really that simple. And more interestigly, if that’s not interesting enough in itself, is that none of those crooks could have ever seen the internet coming to threaten their fifedoms and secret accounts with the harsh light of day. Just where to hide swindled funds from our tax systems? Is a question much asked I’ll be betting. And who knows to this day? The BNZ knew, then it was flogged off to the Aussies after we, the tax payer bailed out the crooks what sunk that particular dung barge. Those who seem to know least are the bewildered farmer wondering why they’re broke all the time and loathed, despised and hated by city people who, ultimately live by their work on the land.
    I know ! A double irony with a lie fest back lash.
    Did anyone hear Brian Easton talking to some one or other on RNZ the other day? He just about coughed it up. He was huffing and puffing about financials and nearly said that without agriculture, NZ’s fucked. In fact! When I think back, I think he did say that! Therefore, one might ask, since , without agriculture today we’d be fucked, imagine how fucked we would have been historically ? Pretty fucked I’d say. We’d a had nothing of the assets for them neo libs to sell, the stuff and things we paid for with our taxes, back in the 1980’s for starters.
    It’s all there for everyone to see. It’s the forest hiding behind the trees. I’m amazed and frustrated that no one’s figured it out yet.
    The day a Labour Party starts talking about bringing the farmer over to the Left? That’ll be the day we know we finally have an opposition.
    And if you think a big cow in a river is dreadful, remember, it could have been paula bennett.

    • ” And if you think a big cow in a river is dreadful, remember, it could have been paula bennett.”

      Good Lord , COUNTRYBOY !!! … now that’s just scraping the barrel and taking the imagery TOO FAR , … shes already managed to pollute NZ politics and now your suggesting that !!!

  4. When we have parties and businesses use technologies and services provided for instance by Cambridge Analytica, then any election becomes more predictable, and government parties may be able to keep hanging onto government, because they can manipulate and misinform the voters, and do not only have to rely on the also biased MSM:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zvqtx
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
    Quote:
    “SCL Group calls itself a “global election management agency”[12] known for involvement “in military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting”.[6] SCL’s involvement in the political world has been primarily in the developing world where it has been used by the military and politicians to study and manipulate public opinion and political will. Slate writer Sharon Weinberger compared one of SCL’s hypothetical test scenarios to fomenting a coup.[6]”

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win

    Here in NZ Inc we have David Farrar and his polling company, and unless he has already taken on board such tactics and methods used by the above, he will most certainly consider doing so some time soon.

    In any case, he can read what most people think and worry about, so like John Key, he will most likely have a direct phone line to Bill English, to give advice on what the government needs to do, to avoid losing an election:
    http://www.curia.co.nz/

    Add to that his innocent looking blog, and you are half way there:
    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/

    The Nats continue serving up some bits of “social” policy now and then through their Budget, and one is due very soon. Settlement of female care-workers case, putting in some new restrictions on immigration, and spending a bit more here and there, that are the first indications of what is to come.

    They try to take the wind out of the sails of Labour, NZ First and Greens, before the election date has even approached. That is the major problems, to counter it, Labour and Greens need to offer a solid, committed and still feasible, responsible alternative, and stick with what they announce, no matter what.

  5. It’s not just a mental health crisis… the entire health sector is in crisis. That it manages to continue to operate is down to sheer goodwill from the people who work in it.

    • One of the reasons for the mental health crisis is the fact DHB’s are forced to conform with the Govt edict, that is, savings. This forces DHB’s to do more with less, thus the many, many unfilled clinical positions, resulting in savings.( this is real) As a consequence however, this results in stretched resources, staff burn out, too over capacity of client numbers and eventually costly mistakes.

      • Roger that. My 86 year old mum was hospitalised with a potentially fatal kidney infection last weekend. She was so bad she had Rigor tremors and needed bulk fluids and I/V antibiotics for 24 hours which fixed it, pretty much. She is still on orals though.

        The point is that the two docs who attended her at Hutt Hospital (HVDHB) wanted an ultra-sound to have a look at the offending kidney – but could not because of the “savings”, saying “Sorry but you’ll have to pay for it”! To be done privately of course – even though they have a perfectly good setup at Hutt Hospital.

        My mum could easily have died of this – and came uncomfortably close to it. Is the need for cost saving so bad that they deny a 10 minute procedure that could well save a life? Shame on this Govt. I have not been paying taxes for 50 years to have anybody treated so shabbily.

    • I seriously think Andrew & Hoskings need treatment at the Mason Clinic with their chronic obsessions with the National Party?

  6. National critically underspends on every government department and state service with two exceptions.
    One is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
    The other is roading.
    That shows what National’s priorities are: if it is business or cars can use it then it gets top billing and money is not a problem
    If it deals with mental health, joblessness, homelessness or poverty it goes to the bottom of the deck and there isn’t enough money for it.
    At least National is consistent. If it involves raping a natural resource then they are all for it, if it involves protecting people then they don’t want a bar of it.

  7. Don’t forget the waste crisis!
    Even though the Waste Minimisation Act was passed in 2008 Nick Smith has refused to bring in product stewardship for problematic waste issues like tyres, ewaste, agricultural chemicals and packaging.
    He has spent $20 million on ewaste projects, $21 million on agricultual chemical projects, $11 million on packaging projects and $1 million on tyres – with barely any impact (if any) on these waste streams!
    The tyre, agricultural and electronics industries have all drafted product stewardship schemes and asked him to make them mandatory so there would be a level playing field (no free -riders) and he has refused.
    At one point he said he didn’t support tyre product stewardship because tyre companies would lose the “income” from fraudulently charging their customer a recycling fee for tyres that were then dumped.
    He has just spent another $3 million on a pointless and ineffective anti-litter scheme with the stated purpose of “naming and shaming” communities with high litter at an awards ceremony later this year.

    The NZ Product Stewardship Council is running a campaign to bring back bottle deposits (where you get 10c back if you return your bottles for recycling) like we had when we were kids. It works. Its common cents. It will create jobs and reduce litter by 65%.
    Why does Nick Smith oppose it?
    http://kiwibottledrive.nz/


  8. If it deals with mental health, joblessness, homelessness or poverty it goes to the bottom of the deck and there isn’t enough money for it.”

    And the one and only reason for this?

    It doesn’t return a dividend!

    As the ABBA lyric goes

    “Money, money, money
    Always sunny
    In the rich man’s world”

  9. those with high leverage in the housing market cant afford a labour led government
    an end to the house bubble is the last thing they want a wreaked economy broken society is the price they will accept to keep bubble land afloat there solvency and paper wealth depends on it.of course all bubbles and disillusion of reality pop and as the mass sheepLE default they will become dangerous blaming those who are the least re-possible we have seen fjk leave dodge in a hurry.debt bomb ticking !

  10. Martyn, the worst thing about that list is that New Zealanders seemed more and more inured to the ever-increasing problems we are witnessing. It’s like the worsening state of our rivers being so gradial that people aren’t noticing it.

    If our rivers and lakes were polluted overnight from 1940s levels to current levels, there would be rioting in the streets and the government would fall. But because it’s happened over 30 or 40 years, it’s a frog-in-slowly-heating-pot-of-water scenario.

    That , in my view, is the real crisis here.

  11. The main impact from this government will be paying off debt for the next generation . Billions owed to foreigners who now have a knife at the neck of any incoming government. The Labour government in the late 30’summer had to agree to impoRte almost everything from Britain and constrain any competing local industry to get an extension on our debt and agree to pay 3 or 4 times as much in repayments in the early 1940’s because of their social welfare policies. The same thing happened to the Lange got enabling Roger no mics.

  12. How about this: instead of haranguing ANDREW, try and engage with him and bring him round. You’re never going to get anyone onside by name-calling and put-downs.

    BTW, it’s pretty obvious ANDREW is never going to agree, it’s pretty obvious trolling (he knows he’s wrong, he’s smart enough to read political material). But there are people out there who generally think like him: we should practise actually debating the points amicably with him so that when we meet a *real* Nat-supporter who believes they haven’t actually fucked the country up, we can enlighten them.

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