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.
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.
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.
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.
That Andrew fellow, put him on 7 Dumb at 7 PM on week nights.
I am sure between him and Hosking, it would ensure the demise of that dead end show.
Birds of a feather, the two of them.
I seriously think Andrew & Hoskings need treatment at the Mason Clinic with their chronic obsessions with the National Party?
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.
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/
”
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”
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 !
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.
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.
Photo credit: Ashleigh Collis
Photo credit: Ashleigh Collis
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