The genius of Bill English’s Superannuation stumble and why it spells trouble for the Left

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I think that Bill English stumbled badly when he brainfarted out his fanatical desire to erode Superannuation.

What most miss about English is that he is a hard right, God fearing ideologue who is hell bent on mutilating the State so badly that it doesn’t have the capacity to perform its obligations towards the poor.

So when pressed on Super he couldn’t help but admit that he wants to dismantle it.

That was a stumble, but what English and Joyce put together as their solution, a do bugger all rise in 20 years time, is a brilliant strategic move that reminds us again that English is far more cunning and dangerous than we on the Left want to acknowledge.

By proposing a change in 20 years time, English has managed to do 3 brilliant things.

1 – He has made it a generation war between boomers and millennials instead of another example of his mutilation of the State to reduce its capacity to deal with its obligations.

2 – Suddenly the Housing Crisis is off the front pages because the newspapers see clickbait in fermenting a generation war between confused Boomers and Millennial and Gen Xers all screaming at each other without understanding that neoliberalism is the cause of their war.

3 – The most important part of this announcement is that English differentiates his leadership from Key and creates a straw man policy that he will dump immediately when he starts negotiations with Winston to form the next Government.

This policy is bait for Winston, and Winston took that bait. The reason neoliberals are furious with English is because this policy announcement wasn’t designed to actually change Superannuation, it was announced to recover from Bill’s original stumble and to advance National’s chances at the ballot box.

This Super announcement is a bullshit position that English will trade in a  second when he is seducing NZ First so that Winston can announce he’s gained a major victory when National dump the policy to get a fourth term.

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English has shown he is far smarter than the Left want to admit.

Bill’s decision to not go to Waitangi when the Peter Leitch ‘racism’ ‘scandal’ was at its zenith made Bill look Statesman like in the face of people who wanted to take offence and Bill’s decision to not stand in the Mt Albert By-election left Labour and the Greens to squabble at a time when they needed to look like a Government in waiting. The end result was the Greens looked far weaker because they dialled back their campaign after being spooked by TOP entering the race and are now in danger of being overtaken by NZ First and reduced to being the fourth largest party.

This move by English to put up Superannuation which he’ll happily kill off to keep power for another 3 years is a reminder that  Key may be gone, but any belief that this election will be an automatic win for the Opposition needs to be checked, English is far more shrewd and far more cunning than Key ever was.

 

17 COMMENTS

    • yup…if you want quality retirement or health care you won’t get it from the public taxpayer funded health system ( you have to go private)

      …the Nact Government is determined to kill off the elderly and burn New Zealand youngsters dreams of affordable tertiary education and NZ housing and NZ jobs …. and pit them against the elderly who lived frugally and paid taxes all their lives

    • Worth noting too that privatized pension funds in the USA are often invested in “safe” investments, long-term, low-yield bonds. That money is then borrowed and reinvested in shit like fossil fuels, weapons, alcohol and tobacco etc. Also worth nothing that the financial institutions that manage pension funds are the most vulnerable to losing everything and going belly up whenever there’s a stockmarket crash or any other kind of financial crisis. Privatized retirement insurance is a recipe for working class seniors living in Victorian-era poverty.

  1. I have a suspicion that National is gearing up to something else: and that something else is MEANS TESTING, not for the boomers and generation X you understand, but for the same ones who will pay the price for the first rise in the age of eligibility.
    Even if I am wrong, I am sure there is something else coming up.
    For National to put out a policy that appears to be political suicide is just not like National at all. Political survival is and has always been number one for National, despite Bill English’s claim on Morning Report last week that he wanted to do what was right rather than do what would get him reelected.
    Since when did National EVER do that?

  2. Bill English is following the puppet master’s plan (Goldman Sachs/Bilderberg global corporate club,) to privatise all NZ assets including Super as we saw they have ALREADY DONE IN GREECE & OTHERS !!!

    So we shouldn’t be surprised he has a hidden agenda this lying snake in the grass character he is.

    Also he screwed up the bullshit over “the swimmable water” changes that saw the accord leave his accord.

    he is stumbling as he goes and we need to be aware he lies equally as his former boss did.

    he is no saint.

    • Most people have been inoculated at anything bar local issues and petty politics to view a coordinated broad plan as a ‘conspiracy theory ‘.

      The term ‘conspiracy theory’ was actually coined by the CIA as a method of throwing people off of the ‘ hidden in plain sight’ plan .

      Plausible deniability , neither confirming nor denying, and the use of Hegelian Dialectics are only part of the methods used. Labeling something a ‘ conspiracy theory ‘ is always a favorite as they know in general the populace just doesn’t want to have to deal with an issue and would far rather simply trust their govt. End of story.

      When you talk of Bilderbergers, Trilateral Commission , Council on Foreign Relations etc… , and when you draw the dots and link the links and see where it has its origins ie Rothschilds / International Banking / Masonic etc… People have trouble with that for two reasons :

      1) Perceiving the ‘Big Picture’ .

      They only see large large organisations , and cant imagine ‘ how does that work?- you cant have hundreds upon hundreds of workers all keeping a tight secret and all agreeing in unison !!”… But what they fail to see is that it is only a very few individuals that are needed to oversee that particular field… these in turn report to those higher up. The rest are the drone bees, nothing more.

      2) The idea that there is a ‘Grand Plan’.

      Most just cannot believe that when George Herbert Bush Sr repeatedly spoke about ‘ Our New World Order’… he was NOT talking figuratively – he was talking LITERALLY. And what most cannot perceive is that this has been something that has been carried on for more than two century’s of western development . ” Its all too complex- it just COULDN’T be so !!!” . And yet these same people do not know their history to learn by it , – let alone realize the Roman ‘ Empire’ went through many stages from humble beginnings over several hundred years before it ever became an ‘ Empire’…

      Empire building, domination , hegemony is as historic as the human race.

      And always as oppressive.

      Neo liberalism ,… is but the latest tool used by what we now call the ‘ Globalists’. And it has all the hallmarks of former Empire builders- dissolving of national sovereignty in all but name , nations being tied up in economic and military agreements – with always there being the dominant player calling the shots… it may not use military force to bring a desired result about… but sanctions, economic measures and the like…

      Bill English … is but a bit player , a regional tool . He is also a willing ideologue in full agreement with the coming new ‘ Empire’…

      He once stated at a business conference words to the effect that ‘ the concept of national sovereignty/ the nation state will cease to bear relevance in the future as the world becomes more globally interdependent ‘…

      Everything this individual does is geared toward the weakening of New Zealand as an independent , sovereign state in the truest sense of the word. Every significant statement he has ever made points always towards this end goal. Every policy , every initiative is designed to weaken us as a united populace for that end goal.

      And that end goal is a totally free market economy where there are no tariffs or real borders barring ‘ trade deals’ and military alliances , and administered by a handful of giant multicorporates that render true independence virtually null and void . And that is the criteria for this ‘ New World Order’.

      Because it is ,… an ‘ Order’.

      An order with a compartmentalized hierarchy that reaches all the way to the top banking family’s of both the UK and Europe.

      • Excellently put WK,

        Also Billy Clinton was up the Bilderbergers pole always, and attended many meetings to plan the One World Government agenda like Hillary was later and was only stopped by being threatened by Donald Trump during the election process.

        Hillary Clinton then only changed her mind on TPPA during the election (all be it temporarily).

        If she had won the race she now would be signing up to it join TPPA now for sure.

        Trump’s current war of opposition comes from Goldman Sachs, George Soros, Koch bros, Rothschild’s, Rockefeller’s, and the whole filthy cabal you spoken of.

        • Trump’s current war of opposition comes from Goldman Sachs, George Soros, Koch bros, Rothschild’s, Rockefeller’s, and the whole filthy cabal you spoken of.

          It’s interesting you say that, Cleangreen. Many of Trump’s appointments have been ex-Goldman Sachs as well as other corporate leaders. There is nothing “anti-establisment” about Trump’s Cabinet – they are in fact representative of it.

          • It’s no surprise when the mildly tolerable appointments resign like the former Security advisor Flynn. And unfortunately none of the better people stick around and figure out how the fuck did banon and golden ball sachs sink there octopus fangs into trump.

            Its way to late for better people to talk sense into trump because every one was against trump.

            Oh god we suck, so bad

            • Trump is a billionaire from a wealthy background. No one got their octopus fangs into him, he’s one of the rich boys.

  3. “sigh” Yup it’s genius alright…as of today we have a real commitment to restart contributions to the Cullen Fund and bullshit tax cuts are off the table…please keep calling bullshit on this super commitment and see what happens next, I promise you it will be worth it…oh and its my pleasure…

  4. I maintain my view that English made a rushed decision to announce this “super policy”. He had the MSM and commentators and also lobby groups speculate and debate his previously ambiguous position that he hinted in an interview on The Nation over a week ago.

    All he dared talk about then was a “reset” for National Super, avoiding any details. I have heard they did some work on such policy, but were far from ready to announce anything of substance.

    So English made a political mistake. Winston may be seen to have “fallen” for a bait, but I do not really think so. Thus far Winston Peters has continued to play his non committal line, and also stated rather clearly, that this policy will not get his and his party’s approval at any time. That sounds rather something like a principled position on a core policy area for Winston and NZ First.

    They may be having unclear policies in some areas, not this one.

    But it is true, that English’ announcement means little much of substance as it was presented, as every informed and intelligent enough person knows, this is so far out in the future, many things can and will happen before 2037.

    It is the same BS like a “rodent free NZ” in thirty or fifty years, gosh, does anybody believe that crap?

    English has revealed how awkward he is in handling sensitive policy, he made a fool of himself, and lost much support also, for himself and the Nats.

    I feel he is given too much credit here, for what he did, he may be cunning, but not cunning so.

    This super policy may indeed sink National’s chances for a fourth term.

  5. The housing crisis is still there, its constant reminders have new ways of catching you unawares, its more than a constant irritant. Need look no further, for example, than the brown river of sewage coming out of Coxs Creek this weekend to remind us all Aucklands sewerage has surrendered to Nationals stupidity and prior right if centre councils rate freezes.

    And the Herald can’t leave the subject alone for 5 minutes, all week and today even are storys of great profit and outrageous selling prices.

    No, English’s dumbarseness was an own goal by an idiot who is convinced the invisible hand of the market will still deliver if he goes a bit further!

  6. Whatever happens, the world is going to be in such a state in the next 50 years that the level of care of the elderly care today is going to seem like nirvana in hindsight.

  7. The issue isn’t Superannuation, or the cunning of Bill English…

    it’s that the Left of NZ is so easily baffled, befuddled and set against itself.

    The NZ Left has no plan, no strategy, no program, no comprehensive agenda, no face, no voice, no cohesion, no solidarity, no party and no vision… it is tossed around by every puff of wind and speculation. It is so ephemeral and without solidity that I suspect it has no objective existence at all. I have come to believe that the NZ Left is a product of our collective imagination, a memory, a ghost of politics past, nothing more.

    Get. Your. Shit. Together. F. F. S.

    • I must admit, having followed Andrew Little as of late, and how he has done all to avoid answering questions in interviews, many out there will truly wonder, what the hell Labour stands for.

      No changes to taxation, we now heard, as the “surpluses” that Bill English and the Nat led government has help “generate”, are supposed to cover the costs of what Labour wants to spend extra on health, education and so much more. Only some commission of sorts to look at the tax system is what Little seems to indicate for the first term, provided they ever win the election.

      There are NO plans for the accommodation supplement for those struggling to meet their housing costs, I heard, I cannot believe this. No comments on this that and the other topic, as they want to wait and see what the budget will bring.

      I know, same as it was before the last elections, after that we will get told, the policy comes later, just before the election. And this time this will mean only very few bits of policy, as I heard. So people are then supposed to be convinced and vote for Labour and Greens at short notice, giving them trust, to run the country as the alternative government.

      Going by what I observe, apart from criticism of the admittedly incompetent and nasty present government, there is no clear plan, no clear program that we can rely on, so I fear indeed, we will have another repeat of what happened since 2008, and lo and behold, English will be in with Nats and perhaps ACT, and form a fourth term government.

      Surely, the whole approach needs to be reviewed, or we will get just that once again. Simply waiting for people to get “tired” of a government does not make for a good recipe to form a new government that has a strong enough mandate for making necessary changes.

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