Despite Paddy Gower desperately trying to find a critical line against the Government in the latest poll so TV3 can shake the perception of being a media outlet for the Government, the simple naked fact is that despite the housing crisis, despite the poverty, despite the social injustice and despite the tax havens, 47% still give their vote to this corrupt despicable Government.
The truth is that this is still a country who despite the mass surveillance lies and dirty politic revelations of the last election are choosing to vote National because their property portfolios and illusionary inflated wealth are more important than mass surveillance, dirty politics, housing crisis, poverty, tax havens and social injustice.
Outright selfishness has replaced ideology.
The Left need a new voter base or will struggle in 2017. The current voter base owns too many rentals to want to change, this means the Left need to reach out to that missing million voters who aren’t participating to bring new voters into the total to grow the Left’s share of vote while decreasing the Right.
On this polling the idea of Winston being in position to demand a year as Prime Minister isn’t difficult to conceive at all.
I think this still comes down to the property boom. It’s not until the market pops and that sense of wealth distorts into vast unsolvable debt that middle NZ will start voting Labour. The issue is when that pop occurs. This inflation in housing has happened far longer and quicker than most expected but the warning signs of a major global market meltdown are flashing again so Labour either wait for the pop or start reaching out to the missing million.
This poll tells us that NZers are still lost in their delusion of being property speculators to care about their homeless neighbours yet.
The poll taken before the Oregon primary in the US, showed Clinton 15pts ahead of Sanders. Sanders won Oregon by 10pts, so I guess it depends on who you are asking. TV 3 poll says it all – does anyone in their right ( excuse pun ) mind watch that channel after its treatment of John Campbell, and continued trashy reality programmes?
Polls smolls – it ain’t over til the fat lady sings.
Completely agree with you Kim
Wasn’t Key’s popularity rating even lower this time?
Yes. And FJK didn’t lose any sleep over it either, according to this report …
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80356136/prime-minister-john-key-not-losing-sleep-over-new-poll
So dear leader slept well, while too many Kiwi families are doing it rough, living under bridges, in cars, sheds, garages, tents etc, going cold and hungry!
Obviously doesn’t give a thought to NZ’s less fortunate, as long as he and his greedy cronies are alright. Ratbag!
I’ll vote Labour when they give up neo-liberal economics. For me, at the moment they are no better than National. I know plenty of Auckland home owners who are still Labour supporters, so I don’t think you are blaming the right people there.They are worried about their children’s and grandchildren’s future, for housing, education and work.
What the Hell do you mean by the “neo-liberal economics” that Labour is supposed to espouse, Gettingon?
“Neo-liberal economics” essentially seeks to create, or perhaps perpetuate, a world that allows the wealthy to profit, (with intervention by diminished, almost irrelevant, states only to protect their personal and financial security), either in the hope that something will trickle down to the rest of the population, or because they consider that only the financially successful have measurable financial/moral value.
Those in Labour who favour some version of free trade – and many do, for good or ill – do so because they hope it will allow New Zealanders access to markets otherwise unavailable. (You may not have noticed, but this country stands or falls on our access to the markets of the rest of the world). It has absolutely nothing to do with the neo-liberal experiments of the Douglas regime, nor any point of similarity to the softly-softly neo-liberalism-by stealth applied by the Key regime. Easy, ignorant characterizations like yours are way too common on this – supposedly Left-supporting site.
It is attractive for shoot-from-the-hip enthusiasts to thunder “a plague on both your houses!” but it is intellectually dishonest and ultimately damaging to the cause you seem so fervently believe in.
Spot on Nick, well said !!!
Free trade deals…. actually do have a lot to do with neo liberalism. It means the abolishing of interventionism, tariffs for a start.
Tariffs, in particular were there originally to protect not only businesses from sweatshop labour in other country’s by which our industry’s couldn’t compete … but also those workers jobs which relied on those industry’s.
An example is clothing. Many local clothing manufacturers hit the wall in NZ because of cheap Asian sweatshop made clothing imports.
That meant importers vigorously supported free trade deals… while exporters found it often even harder. It took a mega group like Fonterra to ply their wares in China – too bad if you were trying to compete against low wage economy’s with products other than dairy , however.
And just because there is a free trade deal doesn’t mean that it is not one sided … we are notorious for selling ourselves short . An example being : China , with whom we have a large ‘ free trade ‘ deal…. still will not allow New Zealanders to buy property there. Yet we have many instances of mainland Chinese buying up property’s, speculating , and buying ‘ sensitive land’…
The whole concept of free trade deals and liberalization of the markets is classic neo liberalism.
In fact is … the TTPA is the King of that process. Whether it passes or not. The fact is…without the softening up of free market trade deals and the ensuing doing away with protectionism… ie tariffs, and levies… the TTPA and its European counterpart would have struggled to ever get out of the starting blocks.
Military and strategics issues aside.
And while liberating the money markets and floating the dollar etc are a part of the whole neo liberal charter – we can see the destructiveness of that in our housing crisis. It was not long ago there ( 4 months perhaps? ) were articles in major newspapers here talking of in excess of 10.5 billion dollars being injected into the NZ local housing market from mainland Chinese investors.
Another example of the direct effects of having a free trade deal with a larger economy then ours and the unregulated / unfettered flow of money for speculative and destructive manipulation of our housing stock.
Even the Reserve Bank has been warning us of this.
So put it this way… if you have a product to sell that another country needs and will pay for …. why sabotage your own domestic economy and markets , its industry’s and its workers livelihoods by removing all tariffs/ levies?
That makes no sense- unless you have a plan to destroy those industry’s and integrate with other more powerful economy’s that will directly impact not only your standard of living in a negative way… but ultimately centralize money back into the hands of globalist bankers… which in turn weakens that nations sovereignty as it becomes a debtor nation…
The USA is a case in point – during the 1950’s and 1960’s it led the world in wealth earned by production and then exporting to the world. By the time it stopped doing that and ‘ outsourced ‘ to third world nations for cheaper wages… it too.. became indebted. As it started to import more from poorer economy’ and as its workers labour was devalued , wages became stagnant or went backwards.
The whole process of deregulation of protective mechanisms , loosening up financial markets and the moneyflow , free trade deals ( unbalanced trade ) is all part of the neo liberal charter.
And this is precisely and exactly what the neo liberals in the Labour party have advocated and what many Rogernome’s in that party still advocate.
I can see what GETTINGON is saying and to a point, – he/she is totally right.
At least in regards to those remaining die-hard Rogernome neo liberals. The same ones who sabotaged David Cunliffe.
The same ones that have been holding that party back for 3 long decades and have given that party a bad name among so many past supporters and discouraged equally as many future supporters.
The same ones who are responsible for that contemptuous label of being the National – Lite party.
You need to think some more then, Bomber. Screw the missing million. The obvious solution is armed revolution (don’t need more than 30,000 to 50,000 committed fighters, either). Get with the programme. Or are you not really “Left”?
don’t just go you dick–piss off!!
This is the second time I’ve seen you attempting to incite violence in these forums, Castro. If it means so much to you, you know you can start your own blog and form your own movement, right? Rather than playing cat and mouse games here, knowing full well that the authors would A) Never respond in the affirmative, as that would open them up to all sorts of legal implications, and B) Never respond in the affirmative because they aren’t idiots who consider violence an appropriate answer. For someone who incites violence, you do seem to enjoy hiding behind your defence mechanisms.
Yeah well said , in fact I think he needs to be banned. This isn’t Cuba in 1959. And that sort of talk is all very fine until someone gets hurt.
The reality of that sort of thing is wholesale death and societal dislocation. And NZ society is far from having to sink to that level to affect change.
I’m starting to find it grating and embarrassing as well.
And for all we know it could be yet another right wing fanatic haunting this blog to try and set TDB and its posters up.
I reckon he should be given the flick.
‘the Left need to reach out to that missing million voters who aren’t participating’
About 15 years ago I was told that voting was a waste of time. I argued to the contrary and became politically active, and was proven wrong.
More than 30 years of almost exactly the same policies being promoted by both National and Labour have resulted in large numbers of people regarding the system as rotten to the core and the shills for dysfunction who offer themselves as candidates unelectable.
Even as everything gets ruined by the system -environmentally, economically and socially- we are offered nothing new by ‘the Left’, just more of the same policies founded on lies and promoted via lies that got us into this terrible mess.
Couple that dismal state of affairs with a corporatized media that ensures any candidate or party with sound policies gets sabotaged and we recognise voting is indeed a waste of time.
What’s your programme, AFKTT?
What is it that you dream of doing that can’t be achieved by the democratic process of convincing enough people to support your plan?
How politically active have you been – really?
What do you think “politically active” means.
You make me tired.
What makes me and thousands of other would be Labour party supporters TIRED is the same old bloody neo liberal bullshit that has caused that party to rightfully and justly earn the nickname of being the ‘ National – Lite ‘ party.
And to which , by the way – is a very apt and descriptive one.
When the time comes on some sunny , cloudless day in the future when the lambs are frolicking and the birds are chirping and the Labour party has conducted a final emphatic and brutal purge of the cancer of neo liberal / Rogernome hangers on … THAT !!!… will be the day when long lost ex supporters might just reconsider coming back into the fold.
THAT … will be the day when the union membership will finally be able to say truthfully ” Labour has returned to its roots”.
THAT … will be the day that the ‘sickly little neo liberal cousin’ of National tag will finally no longer apply and people will finally take Labour seriously as an alternative and viable govt in waiting .
AND THAT !!! …. will be the day that the missing million disillusioned , disenchanted , and fucked off voters just might start ambling down from out of the hills and the mountains and the valleys to squarely kick the political shit out of the National party and put them into permanent bloody political exile for their crimes against the NZ public , – circa 2008 – 2017.
Looks like NZF and Winston is the only alternative – “Its Common Sense”.
Looks like NZF and Winston is the only alternative – “Its Common Sense”.
“I think this still comes down to the property boom. It’s not until the market pops and that sense of wealth distorts into vast unsolvable debt that middle NZ will start voting Labour.”
And even then, they’ll only vote Labour IF Labour promises to bail them out and “make them whole”. The Auckland Property Bubble is a lose, lose, lose situation. There will be no “winners” in this one (except maybe real estate agents and the property speculators who cashed out early).
You are absolutely right, Bomber.
While the housing bubble grows and wallets get fatter, ethics matter not a jot.
National will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING to keep it going and keep themselves in power.
No good thinking of New Zealand of a caring society anymore, enough has happened over the last decade to show that it is now a myth.
“The issue is when that pop occurs.”
Even with another global recession, the Auckland housing market (followed by the rest of New Zealand) could continue on indefinitely. No matter how many people around the world might suffer, there will always be billions and billions of dollars looking for a safe bet, especially in a time of crisis. Given that the New Zealand housing market is open to the entire world, all you need is a few thousand wealthy over seas investors buying property every six months or so to keep it pumping. They will see it as a sure bet, especially with New Zealand being a ‘first world” nation.
The only way you are going to dampen this housing market is to do all of the following: stop non-New Zealand residents buying property, introduce a serious capital gains tax, and the government building mass housing. You have to attack both the demand and supply sides in no uncertain terms.
Blaming people who own rental properties is too simplistic, they are just trying to provide for their future.If Labour are serious they would have a decent housing policy, because National sure doesnt. But Labour have dont have such a policy because they are either too stupid, lazy, dont care, or there is just too much in fighting within its ranks, god knows.
God might know, you clearly don’t.
“But Labour have dont have such a policy because they are either too stupid, lazy, dont care, or there is just too much in fighting within its ranks, god knows.”
Yes Dave, spot on. We should be demanding more from Labour. National will be National – they’ll never respond to critiques from the left. Nor will they be the voice of the marginalised
Last election Labour had no social housing plan. And Cunliffe is the left of Labour? They won’t get my vote. I don’t vote for neoliberals. The market is no solution.
What the polls tell me is that when the pollsters handpick their respondents then they certainly will get the responses that they want to hear, namely that National is the best that was, the best that is and the best that ever will be (to borrow an expression from Pro-wrestling).
The political polls in this country are conducted by right-wing b…s artists who compete to be the favoured spin city outlet for the National Party.
The ideas behind the corrupt polling in this country are that if you tell big enough lies everyone will believe them (Hitler also said this) and that lies eventually become self-fulfilling prophesies.
New Zealand – happily cutting off its nose in spite of its face!
For some time now its been pointed out that most polls don’t call mobiles only landlines. lots of younger or less well off homes don’t have landlines. This leads to an undeniable bias. Unfortunately there are a group who vote according the the polls so they don’t ‘waste’ their vote. The other problem is that media outlets tend to align themselves with a perceived target audience based on polls. Then there is also the possibility that the fix is in and well connected people have been able to influence the polls in some way. Possibly less likely as most results are consistent. While its does seem unusual for a party to poll so well for so long you have to remember that when someone is doing better than they have before they tend to focus on that rather than how much better they could be doing. Perhaps that is a better target to try and swing voters.
these polls are rubbish, and not really worth discussing, unless it’s to highlight how inaccurate they are. and as for the missing million voters, perhaps a $250 tax credit would be a worthwhile incentive to get them to vote.
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