“Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s my number, Let’s do this maybe” – Jacinda’s conference speech in 17 words

1. 100% Martyn,

   Jacinda’s speech was so very lacking.

   A very disappointing speech sadly.

   It was said this AM show, by ‘Radiolive’ that Jacinda actually had her speech written by her partner Clark Gayford!!!!

   That seemed to be why important parts of her key issues were left out of her speech; – ” like Climate change” and the thorny issues of “transport”

   We are concerned why he did this, as his city of Gisborne is now the worst most isolated region in NZ without a rail service and the local and highway roads are now dangerous potholed “goat tracks” that are being pounded to death by freight trucks.

   http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1811/S00031/speech-ardern-labour-party-conference.htm

   Nothing about rail or road or zero carbon or climate change sadly either. Jacinda lost her way here sadly. – Disappointing to all. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1811/S00031/speech-ardern-labour-party-conference.htm

   Speech: Ardern – Labour Party Conference
   Sunday, 4 November 2018, 1:58 pm
   Speech: New Zealand Government
   Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern
   Prime Minister
   MP for Mt Albert

   4 November 2018 SPEECH NOTES

   Prime Minister’s speech to 2018 Labour Party Conference
   Kia ora koutou katoa,
   Kia orana,
   Malo e lelei,
   Ni sa bula vinaka,
   Fakalofa lahiatu,
   Malo Ni
   Namaste,
   Ni Hao.
   And thank you for the warmth of that greeting.
   I’m really pleased to be here in Dunedin.
   For all of the creativity, history, and beauty that this city holds, you still had me at ‘cheese roll.’
   I’m also pleased to be here because this is my first leader’s speech at a Labour Party conference.
   That means my first order of business is a very simple one – to say thanks.
   When I took over the leadership from Andrew at the beginning of August last year, the election was seven weeks away.
   I said we’d run the campaign of our lives. And we did.
   To all those who worked the phones, pounded the pavements, stuffed the letterboxes, erected the hoardings, or did countless other tasks – thank you from the bottom of my heart.
   There are a few people I also need to pay special tribute to.
   To our president, Nigel. To everyone in our party organisation from branch level to the New Zealand Council.
   To my deputy Kelvin, and my parliamentary colleagues. My warm thanks for the support you give me, and for expanding. We welcomed 17 new MPs to our caucus after last year’s election.
   And that Class of ’17 included ten women – a fitting tribute to mark Suffrage 125, and let’s be honest, just a bloody good addition to our team.
   There are also a few people outside of the Labour movement I want to acknowledge. The Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his New Zealand First team for their commitment to the success of the Coalition Government.
   The Greens and in particular their Co-Leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson for their goodwill and co-operation in this most MMP of governments.
   It’s not easy to describe the journey since the Labour caucus handed me the profound responsibility of leading our party.
   A number of words come to mind.
   Frenetic.
   Fascinating.
   Fulfilling.
   Which you could call a polite set of F words.
   None of that probably seems surprising.
   You’d probably expect that in this job I get to meet amazing people every day. And I do.
   That I get thrown a diverse set of challenges and exciting opportunities. And I do.
   And that there are some days that are tougher than others. And there are.
   But I will be honest, there are some things that have surprised me about this job, and I want to reflect on one of them.
   Letters.
   It’s fair to say I get a few. In fact every MP probably does.
   I still remember, as a brand new member of parliament, being given the opportunity to feature alongside a National Party MP in a weekly breakfast TV slot known as ‘The Young Guns’.
   One day I received an email from a member of the public politely advising me that she thought my hair clashed with the National MP, and perhaps I should consider dying it.
   I replied that perhaps she could make the same suggestion to the other MP. After all, his hair was shorter.
   But whether they’re positive, negative or indifferent – it’s not the letters themselves that have been surprising, it’s the profound impact they have had on me.
   I should have known that was possible. I remember some years ago watching old footage from when David Frost carried out an interview with the late great Prime Minister Norman Kirk in 1973.
   He asked him a broad open-ended question – what was his most memorable incident since taking office?
   He could have talked about absolutely anything. Instead, he said this, in that quietly spoken way that he often adopted.

   “I would think the thousands of letters that came in December after we’d made a nominal payment to social security beneficiaries and not the fact that we’d given an extra week’s pay, but in those letters, and there were thousands of them, came through the fact that there were a whole section of our community who were missing out on ordinary everyday things.

   One women wrote in and said “I had my first pair of shoes in seven years” she had trouble with her feet and had to have them specially made and “oh what a comfort to have new shoes” and you know, you don’t think in 1972 or 73 of people not having access to basic things like that but literally, there are thousands.”
   A Prime Minister who was gifted a question on national television, had an opportunity to speak on anything, and he talked about a woman who wrote him a simple letter about buying an extra pair of shoes.
   There are many things that have changed since Kirk’s time, but the power of this simple form of communicating with the people we are here to serve has not.
   They tell me when we are on the right track or the wrong track.
   They tell me when we have made a difference, or when we need to make a difference.
   They tell me what children think, what adults think, and sprinkled in-between, what my mother thinks.
   But there is a particular group you won’t be surprised that I keep coming back to.
   Kids.
   They write to me in their hundreds.
   About just about everything, like this letter from a young child with some interesting economic philosophy.
   “I think we should make everything free because then there would be no such thing as poor people.”
   And a seven year old who clearly thinks my powers have no limits and wrote.
   “Dear Jacinda, can you change the boring grey toasters into bright colours please. Perhaps you could pass a law?”
   The lovely kids of Rolleston Primary in Canterbury sent me a letter with their wish list of ideas to make New Zealand a better place. It reads:

   “Stop the pollution.
   Make our rivers clean for swimming.
   Don’t close any more schools because it makes children sad.
   Stop cyber bullying.
   Peace.
   No nuclear bombs.
   Help the homeless.
   Look after the animals.
   Help beached whales.
   Help the sick, the poor and the old.”
   I can assure you Rolleston Primary, it is on our list too!
   But if you ask me the same question that was asked of Kirk all those years ago – what has been the most memorable letter since I have become Prime Minister, it’s not quite toasters.
   It’s the families’ package. It has been my greatest source of pride, and I hope is yours too.
   Under this package some 384,000 low and middle income families will receive on average $75 a week extra once it’s fully rolled out.
   In addition, we are helping one million people heat their homes in the coldest months of the year with the Winter Energy Payment.
   And we are supporting young families with the $60 a week Best Start payment for their first child, and extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks.
   I know what a difference this more than $5 billion package is making, because people have told me.
   Just a few weeks ago a mother of three wrote to me and said:
   “Dear Jacinda. I have been meaning to email you for a while now.…I have a son, step daughter and step son…times are just so tough.

   Money doesn’t go very far at all so I had started working as a cleaner part time….Anyway, I just wanted to say that the extra money in family tax credits that we receive because of your government has meant I can work one less cleaning job, creating less stress, less tiredness and a bit more of the mother I want to be.

   Thank you from the bottom of me and my family’s hearts.”
   And another wrote this in a letter:
   “With the extra money I am able to buy my kids some more school socks with no holes in them, I am able to buy warm sheets and blankets so they are warmer at night.”
   But whether it’s shoes in the 1970s, or sheets and socks now – it’s the fact people are going without these things that stands out to me the most.
   These letters may have been written to convey thanks or acknowledgment, but I just see further work that needs to be done.
   Kids should be warm at night.
   A mum shouldn’t have to work multiple jobs to get by.
   There are still huge systemic problems that we all know we need to address. And that’s why I want to pay particular tribute to our Finance Minister, Grant Robertson.
   Grant knows and understands those challenges, and has made it a priority to transition New Zealand to a sustainable and inclusive economy, where everyone benefits from prosperity.
   He is completely focused on well-being, and I know our well-being budget next year will demonstrate that.
   But alongside this transformation, sits one of the issues that we campaigned so hard on, and that remains one of our most pressing issues.
   Because if we want to increase the incomes of families we need to reduce their biggest cost – housing.
   Housing will be one of the things that our success or otherwise, will be measured against. And I welcome that challenge.
   Already there are over 1200 more public housing tenancies than a year ago.
   In our last budget we funded 6400 more public homes and housing New Zealand are investing $4 billion to not only build this new stock, but to renovate existing state houses so they are warm and dry.
   And then there is KiwiBuild.
   Last Saturday I stood alongside Phil Twyford as we welcomed 18 families to their new neighbourhood in McLennan, Papakura. They were the first families to buy a KiwiBuild home.
   It was a huge day. I was standing near the front of one of the families’ new homes when I overheard Phil Twyford say to one of the people gathered at the street party “this is one of the most important days of my political life”.
   And I can see why.
   KiwiBuild will give thousands of young families who have been locked out of home ownership a chance to buy their own affordable home, not through a subsidy, but through the government using our scale and buying power to do what the market hasn’t.
   It’s an example of the government seeing a problem, and fixing it. And that’s exactly what Michael Joseph Savage did.
   I like the way he summed up his housing agenda though. As new state house tenants were moving into their new homes, Savage once told a gathered crowd that:
   “We are trying to cater for everyone…we do not claim perfection, but we do claim a considerable advance on what has been done in the past.”
   But housing is not the sum of our ambition. We are after all the Labour Party, we will always have a focus on the value and dignity of decent work with decent wages.
   That’s why we have increased the minimum wage, extended the living wage to core public sector workers, and improved our pay equity laws.
   But it’s also why we are so focused on skills and training, especially for the next generation.
   I’m really proud for instance of our Mana in Mahi, or Strength in Work, programme. It will help some 4000 young people to gain apprenticeships.
   I know it will make a difference, because people in the industry have told me that. Here’s just one letter I received after we introduced this programme:
   “Mana in Mahi trade training initiative is the most intelligent skills training proposal witnessed thus far.

   The proposal of businesses topping up wages to the minimum wage is a step in the right direction. Implemented across the whole work spectrum should be the next move. It will promote business expansion and God forbid it may even claw back some ownership of our economy.”
   And that of course is not the only tool we’re using to drive job opportunities.
   We will continue to work with our regions on regional development strategies, and supporting them through the Provincial Growth Fund.
   And we will continue to reach out to communities, including Māoridom, to find solutions to economic and social challenges through partnership.
   We have set up the Māori-Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti portfolio to oversee the Government’s work with Māori in the post-settlement era – our recent partnership on housing in Porirua with Ngati Toa shows just what is possible.
   But so have the existing partnerships with Maori around governance and the environment.
   I’ve talked a lot about the environment in the past year.
   Our changing climate.
   Our dirty rivers.
   The pollution of our precious coastal and marine areas by plastics.
   And yes, I do think plastics warrants its own special mention. And why? Because the kids told me so. And they didn’t tell me just once. They wrote and told me hundreds of times.
   Like the student in the Waikato who wrote me a letter to say:
   “Dear Prime Minister, I’m only 10 years old and I am trying to convince you to ban plastic bags. They are killing our wildlife, they swallow the plastic and it gets stuck in their bodies and they can’t breathe. It is our responsibility to stop this.”
   I agree. And so with the help of Green Party Minister Eugiene Sage, we have.
   The past year has also seen David Parker pursue a comprehensive plan to restore our rivers to becoming swimmable again, James Shaw’s progress on our climate change goals, and with the ambition of New Zealand First in the mix, our plan to plant one billion trees is well under way – for those who don’t follow the tree counter as religiously as I do, we are up to 60.6 million.
   As you have probably picked up by now, if you pick a subject, I will have received a letter on it.
   It is fair to say some subjects generate more mail than others, and as much as Grant will be disappointed to hear this, the Budget Responsibility Rules haven’t been the subject line of too many messages.
   And yet we all know that some of our critics gloomily forewarned that Labour in government wouldn’t be able to balance the books.
   But Grant – a proud Dunedin boy – has proved the naysayers wrong.
   He has kept a firm grip on the country’s finances and he is focused on running surpluses which is a vital part of our plan.
   A surplus is a safety net.
   Nobody knows what’s around the corner. The surplus is insurance against those risks.
   Right now the volatile international situation means having that cushion is more important than ever.
   But we are also balancing that financial security with the pressing social needs that the Government promised to deliver on. That is what we were elected to do.
   We can’t do everything at once, just like it doesn’t make sense to spend every cent you earn.
   But we are investing carefully in the areas that need it most. Things like health, housing, education.
   In the seven or so years since the Canterbury earthquakes, there has been insufficient investment across these important areas.
   Over the next four years we’re turning this around, and significantly. In fact we’re investing $24 billion more than the last government in those priority areas, because that’s what we need to start rebuilding New Zealand’s infrastructure, and improving the wellbeing of our people.
   We’re also prioritising managing the debt that arose from the GFC and Canterbury earthquakes, because we always need to be prepared for the challenges of the future.
   And there are challenges.
   We may have a lot to be proud of – long list of things we have managed to do these last 12 months – but we have many things we are yet to do too.
   But we will miss the urgency if we just characterise that list as statistics or numbers.
   If I say for instance that there is a lot to do in education, that there has been significant under investment over the last nine years, that we came into office facing the reality that not even population growth had been factored into future spending by the last government – all of that may be true – but it doesn’t factor in the human face.
   I want to share with you an example of what does, with a letter written to me by the aunty of a boy with special needs.
   “We as a whānau have tried with dead ends where ever we turn so I then turn to you Prime Minister and plead for your help, he is missing out on so much and it just isn’t fair. Please help us find a solution for this young boy who deserves the best chance living with autism.”
   There’s a lot in that letter that stood out to me – including the words “the best chance.”
   You may have heard me talk about my goal to make New Zealand the best country in the world to be a child.
   We simply will not achieve that unless we ensure that every single child, no matter where they live, no matter their background or ethnicity, their ability or disability, has the best education possible.
   We’ve already begun the enormous job of rebuilding our public education system.
   In the last budget we provided funding for 1500 more teachers.
   We provided the first per-pupil funding increase to ECE in ten years.
   We have begun plugging a massive hole – running to hundreds of millions of dollars – in New Zealand’s schools rebuild budget.
   We got rid of National Standards to free teachers up from the red tape and hours of compliance so they could focus on teaching.
   And we provided the biggest increase in learning support in over a decade.
   This funded around 1000 extra places for students with complex needs so they could get specialist support such as speech therapy.
   Teacher-aide funding received an extra $59.3 million.
   About 2,900 deaf and hard-of-hearing students and approximately 1,500 low-vision students got more help, and around 1,900 more children with high needs in early childhood education will now receive support each year.
   Yet there’s more to do.
   There are still children who need extra support to learn.
   Maybe it is help to hear, or concentrate, or to be calm.
   If a child needs support and is not getting it, that’s not fair, and I’m not prepared to tolerate it.
   So today I want to say to parents, to kids, to teachers, to aunties, to anyone who has asked for more support for those with additional needs – we’ve heard you.
   Today, I am announcing that we’ll be employing a new workforce of approximately 600 Learning Support Coordinators to work alongside teachers across the entire country.
   Their job will be to make sure that children with extra needs are identified. They’ll work alongside classroom teachers to ensure kids with high and complex physical needs get the support they deserve.
   This will be a game changer for those children.
   It will be a game changer for teachers, who’ve been crying out for these roles, so they’re freed up to do what they do best – teach.
   And it’s a game changer for those children who don’t need additional learning support, who’ll get more quality learning time with their teachers.
   These coordinators – similar to what we now call SENCOs – are part of a new way of doing things and have been developed by my New Zealand First colleague and Associate Minister of Education, Tracey Martin, through the draft Disability and Learning Support Action Plan.
   But teachers have been urging governments for some time for this kind of role to be dedicated and fully funded. And for good reason.
   At the moment schools ask their existing teaching staff to do the work of Special Education Coordinators. But teachers tell us this is a drain on their time and takes them away from their classroom teaching.
   That’s why these coordinators will not only do that job for them, they will also support teachers, with professional advice and guidance about how to teach children with additional needs.
   But more than that – these new roles will give parents a single point of contact with someone who understands the needs of their child, and will advocate for them as they move through their time in the school.
   This is a big change.
   It will mean investing $217 million over four years – and these 600 fully funded Learning Support Coordinators are just the start.
   Taken as a whole, this investment alongside what we have already done, means that in just 12 months in office, we’ve committed nearly half a billion dollars to special education and ensuring every child has access to the best education possible.
   Thank you Tracey for your work in this area. And thank you to Chris Hipkins for your leadership in education too.
   I’ve shared with you today what people say when they get in touch with me.
   In finishing I will tell you what I would say if I was writing a letter to New Zealand.
   I’d start by saying thank you.
   Thank you for supporting us.
   For giving us this incredible privilege of being in government.
   For allowing us to create a fairer, kinder New Zealand.
   And I would finish with a big giant PS,
   Let’s keep doing this.

   • Let’s get those “climate change goals” sorted and then we can carry with BAU.
     Good times.

2. The number one priority for the Labour led coalition must be State Houses so that there are no New Zealanders left homeless

   (….if the legacy of homelessness and destruction of social cohesion and egalitarianism in New Zealand is to recover from the onslaught of Bill English and Jonkeys nine years of Nactional Government, where the concept and reality of State housing was annihilated )

   …surely factory made kitset prefab housing made from NZ timber is a possibility

   • “…surely factory made kitset prefab housing made from NZ timber is a possibility”

     Certainly are possible, but the #1 problem is finding land to put them on when local councils don’t want cheap houses built, and in particular anywhere near the current housing.

     • imo ideally in the first instance State houses should be interspersed into ‘good’ areas or established housing areas, so they do not become ghetto…ised.

       So this would mean:

       1.) the Government buying up empty sections in cities and rural areas for State housing …so that State housing tenants can become well integrated and their children have equal educational opportunity ( this is the reverse of what National did…ie they tore down or removed State houses in expensive areas)

       2.) also the Government should buy up land close to established maraes both in the countryside and in the cities

       3.) the Government should proactively encourage every local council to make land available at a good price, which the Government then buys up

       4.) special effort should be made to buy up land close to areas of major employment opportunities

       ( that is my tuppence worth…the Government must be proactive in the acquisition of land for State housing)

3. I think its pretty insulting to suggest Jacinda and others in Labour couldn’t give a shit about homelessness. I guess you think she just sits there and sneers at them with contempt. Funny, I but I do not think that is the case.

   But as is everywhere on the left of the left, the delusion that all wrongs can be righted in the flick of a switch is madness. All the settings our economy has gradually been set to can be turned off just like that, no consequences. What fucking ever!

   There are some very vested interests both domestically and internationally with a shit load of money and even more influence that can fuck this government over if they feel like it. Banks for starters. They own us like it or not! Why the fuck the left cannot see this is beyond me. Yep, 30 plus years of Neo-Lib has got us here and it cannot be fixed overnight, not even close.

   I am picturing that Labour has discovered some very cold realities in government that only a disciplined long termed strategy can overcome.

   I do not think for a minute they wanted to sign up to a fiscal straightjacket but as Stephen Joyce proved with his off the cuff 11 billion dollar fiscal hole lie, it all but won National the last election. Voters were and are conditioned and convinced in 2017 onwards that NZ has to run like a business. If Labour had done anything else it would be National Mk4 for another 3 years.

   It is obvious if the supply of houses floods the market enough it will firstly curtail prices then drag them down, aka Christchurch, and discourage investors, along with other measures, and ultimately make housing cheaper all around. That is a long-term strategy. And who can possibly blame Labour for targetting people who can be bothered to vote?

   And quite how Labour address cheap housing to buy for the least well off in an economy inexorably linked to low wages and tenuous employment conditions and yet somehow pay such a house off is beyond me.

   Our economy has been taken so far over to the right that it cannot be sorted overnight unless of course, one wants some kind of ridiculous Bolshevik revolution thingy and the the shit that goes with that, not forgetting that this is NZ, not feudal Russia late WW1!

   In one year a fair bit damage that was on course to be even more damaging has been slowed or halted. There are positive signs but damage done is damage that can be very time consuming to fix. There are so many hours in a day.

4. Totally agree Martyn. Word for word gospel truth.
   Also you didn’t mention “woke” once 🙂

5. People voted for Labour, Green and NZF because they wanted an end to neo liberalism not because they had been wooed by it. If they wanted more all they needed to do was trot down to the voting booth and tick the National box. Reality is this is not Labour as I remembered it growing up. Its gone down the same path as the Blairite Labour in the UK and has not stepped off that path nor does it want to. The passage of the CP-TPP simply awaiting the Royal stamp of approval is clear and emphatic evidence of this in the face of voters who were told by all three parties they did not support it.

   No Labour has stepped to the right and traditional right has simply stayed put. Its as simple as that.

6. All I want to know is? Did everyone stand up and sing Kumbyah?!!

   • National have a new song, dedicated to JLR…

     “It Takes Two ”

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCwe2WftI7Y

7. But no singing of Kumbyah. I’m deeply dissapointed.

8. Nothing will change until enough people rise up – it’s the only thing that has brought change in the past and it’s the only thing that will do it now. Labour are either too scared or truly can’t do it because of the danger of an being punished by the markets

   The sad thing about Labour is that they are slowing the arrival of this key moment by making it look like they’re doing something about the problems.

   I’m not sure we should be wasting our time even talking about this

   • Yep @ AARON. I would agree. I’ve seen all of the above, election after election. The only thing that changes is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And tellingly, there are ever more poor people these days.
     The Right Wing fascists have nailed it. They’ve figured out how to stay hidden in plain sight. They’ve parasitised our democracy and they’ve overtly convinced us urban types to hate on our primary industry. Divide and conquer right?
     I heard a woman reporter on RNZ today saying that we were about to hear from the rural sector, “from the people who feed us”. When was the last time you heard a Labour Party member or minister mention farmers? And who are our primary industry? You’d think Labour would really be wanting to go down on the farm and get all Yee Haww with them there simple country folk now wouldn’t ya? Play some hokey banjo cords and talk all Brian-like?
     I’ll do it for her so’s you get the picture.
     “Hi! Brian? I’m Ms Dill Nasal-Squeak from RNZ. Tell us how you’re doin’ would ya? ”
     ” Yeah-nah. Brian can’t be here. He shot himself this morning. I’m Bruce and I’ll be fillin’ in for ‘im. Don’t worry though. I’ll shoot myself later. How can I help?
     You wanna know how we’re doin? Serious? Well, ok. I’m fucked. Them ones over there? They’re fucked. My neighbour? He’s fucked. His wife’s fucked, their kids are fucked, the cows are fucked, the sheep? Fucked. The dogs, rams and the horses? Fucked too. The land’s fucked, the water’s a bit fucked, the trees were good but yeah-nah, fucked now.
     You city people? You hate us but you’s eat our stuff we grow and then when you’re finished eatin’ ? You’s go back to hatin’ us which makes us all feel a bit sad and a lot more fucked.
     So? Yeah-nah. Yeah, as I said, we’re a bit fucked. You? ”
     NB. Actual conversation. Serious. No.
     Two words to Labour? Fuck off.
     Three words to National? ( Same as Labour.Irony ) Fuck off too.
     Honestly? We’d be better off without the pricks. All of them. Fuck national, fuck labour, fuck the useless greens and the equally useless fucking nz first wankers. Fuck them all.
     How’d the country run, you ask? Easy. We’ve all got fucking cell phones and the internet! It can’t be that fucking hard for Christ’s sake. We just ring around.
     They, our useless, expensive fucking politicians, make it look all hard-as. Bullshit. They’re playing us like fiddles. They’re the ones on the gravy train, not fucking us.

     • fuck , fuck, fuck…..fuckity fuck!

       • @ RED BUZZARD ! Now you’re talking !

         • lol

9. The Labour conference and Jacinda’s speech were more disappointing than I had prepared myself to be disappointed about. I watched an interview on Newshub Nation, that already indicated that Jacinda and Labour Party members would simply repeat the ‘achievements’ since they took over government, hype these up, and reaffirm they are under control and that there is ‘unity’ within the coalition and support agreement.

   Jacinda’s speech was simply the above and lots of shallow feel good talk and contained virtually NOTHING of anything new in policy that would be ground breaking and sending a signal to New Zealanders re where the journey is going.

   She clearly lacks herself a background with solid practical work experience, and with competence in scientific and economic areas. She is simply a good talker, speech holder, messenger, articulate, charming and perhaps inspiring, but has NO real message with a substance.

   With this they will perhaps win another term, but only narrowly, and it will not be enough to bring real changes, which are not really thought out anyway, as it seems.

   The party does well because of Jacinda, not because of its policies and its strength. The new following can leave Labour as quickly as it joined them, and that may show, if Jacinda burns herself out too much, and may decide after the next election, hey, I had a good time, really appreciated the support and liked the job as PM, but hey, I really see a need to be a full time mum now, to give Neve what she really needs for a good start in life.

10. Good piece and pretty much on the nose, expect for this bit….

    “Jacinda wants to be the friendly non threatening Namaste to their slumping middle class property portfolios.

    While that is smart politics”…

    This is exactly the narrative that all centrist liberal parties (and MSM) want us to believe, but they are completely wrong (and I am sure they know it), it is not “smart politics” it is the slow death call of all traditional Left wing parties in the West..that is just a plain fact.
    Smart politics is turning your traditional Left party back into an actual proudly Left Wing party that actually represents and defends the people it was designed to do, remember the now never to be mentioned ‘missing million’?,, that is the demographic that is the future of Labour NZ…as it stands today, it is obvious that Labour NZ is at peak centrist vote, and they will never take any National voters.
    Unfortunately they are proving to be a stagnant political movement whose bitter defense of a plainly defunct liberal ideology is starting to smell quite off.

11. Labour

    I realise that the commentors on here like to abuse Jacinda and the Labour Team and their Supporters.

    So I think you should just stick to your wealthy little mean National Party and make sure that only the wealthy get a decent living.

    Your motto is : Wealth for the Wealthy. Vomit for the Vomitous

12. Labour is building 1000 state houses a year and is aiming to get to 10,000 kiwibuild homes a year. It is already ambitious. Calling for 10,000 of each is unrealistic.

    Kiwibuild was designed when the budget was tighter than it is now. It was the affordable way to get supply onto the market. However the current budgetary good fortune does allow change – more borrowing to build state houses.

    If we targeted 100,000 state houses (another 35,000 – 3000 pa for 12 years – so we had 20,000 per million population). Assuming 1000 funded within budget as planned and 2000 afforded by borrowing each year ($1.2Bpa) – $13B total debt cost at $650M pa for this programme (income related rent more than covering maintenance, and then there are the savings in not paying AS to those moved from private rentals into state houses). The downside is the higher public debt of course. But on projections this is affordable. And having too few state houses with an aging and growing population may well be the option that leads to future problems.

    That would reduce the number of Kiwibuild homes for on-sale to 8000 pa. And some of them will be sold to those with shared equity/rent to buy.

    As for innovation – I like the idea of

    1. trailer parks for small mobile homes
    2. nationwide regulatory change to make placement of small mobile homes on back sections much easier.

    It is the fastest way to get people housed cheaply.

13. You do realise the 100,000 KiwiBuild houses are being built and sold on revolving credit, so it costs less for 100,000 of them than it does for 5,000 state houses?

    What would it cost to build 100,000 state houses?

    • Regardless of whether you think the housing stock should go up or down. It’s about housing people in the short term so we can really get unemployment under 4% because when unemployment is low then interest rates are low and you can really stack on the growth with out prices blowing out on you.

14. If I were a woman and had just been told that Jacinda’s speech at the Labour conference was written by her unelected lover, I would be livid. What does this say about the image of NZ women?

    • Deception is the rule and only rule.

      I think it’s less that she does it, and more that she does it openly.

      Now adays errybody’s gasin as hard as they can.

      I just get the feeling shes trying to hide The National Party and keeping them out of it. Taking away Nationals half measures to sooth every ones PTSD symptom.

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