Reform or Revolution in the 2020s

1. Good article Mike but please remember the lost voice of the “gerypwoer we ave within our society who are often left with a low income to scrap together a couple of hundred dollars to survive and ooften die early because they are ignored by all services and poften not given any voive within the social planning of our future political/social order.

   • I’m feeling the last point about local cooperatives of food production, energy, transport, but most importantly media. The most respected financial journalist of the western world Martin Wolf describes what he says is an out of control financial sector is eating out the modern financial market economy from the inside “just like the lava of a spider wasp eats out the host in which it has been laid.” It is thanks to the taxpayer that this unwitting system has been created.

     By now democracy is concentrated at the top with everyone else is disenfranchised and the risk to it all is very high so we need groups like extinction rebellion to tell us specifically who at the top we can no longer listen to and that would be a half way descent media. There’s always been a lot of truth in that, everywhere media retreats the public suffers enormously.

     At the end of the day I do not expect the bourgeoisie to have such mortal feelings but with a media dedicated to local news maybe some day who knows. Maybe this whole thing is elites needing anew car or a hug or to find a new love that we didn’t know about or something like that.

2. I reckon put everyone on employment contracts on par with CEOs or corporates. Our entitled public sector administrators are on salaries the average NZer can only dream of, doing a job probably any NZer could do. Then we have the likes of Fonterra CEOs, who head a failing, polluting, bloated liability of a business and then flee the country with millions of our money (100 times what the average dairy worker gets). What is the DWU doing about this farce? I gave the dairy industry 10 years of my life and got nothing from the union, worked long hours with deadly chemicals (people at Aschwitz did 12 hour days as well), missed the best years of my family’s life including most Christmas’, got passed over for career advancement by untrained, unqualified, fundamentalist Christian racists recently shat out of apartheid South Africa, and got backstabbed by my hillbilly colleagues who were falsifying scientific results (pitting staff against one another was in the Enron playbook).

   • Agree 100%! Everyone should earn, receive the very same income as Comrade Jacinda! $471,000.00. Those that are on more will have their income reduced to the same amount. Only then will we all be equals.

3. I think, or at least I pretend to think to keep up appearances, that we’re going to see dramatic changes in the way we humans exist and it’s going to happen very, very quickly in that way that we will be forced to adapt. Or die. Literally.
   Being stuffed into ‘cities’ to ‘work’ to build one or two multi billionaires ( Bezos @ $133 billion. Putin @ $200 billion. ) wasn’t the strategy that got us this far.
   Small, co-operative groups of agrarian type people, some of whom travelled to engage with other groups of people was our history and I think [it’s] going to be our future.
   I think with the common sense use of ever more sophisticated tech we’ll spread out over the lands to live more sustainable lives.
   But be warned.
   The Multi billionaire sects are not going to go quietly. Watch out for deep fake media tech, watch out for never before seen viruses and bacteria ( like the mysterious SARS virus rising up in China as I write. )
   and any revolutionary direct action should, indeed must, be directed at the scourge of our biosphere and all its inhabitants that is the banking ‘industry’.
   One more thing: Encourage and teach your kids to be multi skilled.
   Basic plumbing, building, electrical, plant growing, mechanical skills, fishing etc may not seem as sexy as being a person who drives a nice new German car to an office in $800 shoes but as a farmer and survivor of a number of earthquakes I can tell you which are the most vital skills to possess when, to use an Americanism, shit gets real. A keen eye for a fine Italian Brogue is chic but when one starts to think “ But are my shoes edible…? “
   Down my way, in Balclutha God help me, the moronic Council are still spraying every grass they can find with Roundup, AKA Glyphosate when really they should be planting flowers for bees, and poets, and fruiting and nut trees for everyone but oh no. Not those right wing fuck wits.
   They completely unnecessarily spray that hideous shit along the road sides for hundreds of kilometres which then drains into the waterways, including our largest river by volume in AO/NZ, the big ol Clutha, which kills off aquatic wee beasties.
   Adern? ‘Lets do this’ Adern? Hello ? Are you there Hello…. Hello…. ?
   Hello?
   I think there should be a governmental working group to travel around the District Councils to ‘persuade’ the Clem Clumps and the Sharon Grumblehumps who settle their dumb fat arses into OUR plush council chairs to jabber and drink tea to, instead, get their arses into gear and prepare for a coming tide of Bankster and climate change refugees.
   ( What do you think’s spiking the Otago and Southland real estate prices? )
   Almost certainly said in Balclutha. The home of the Big Blue Natzo.
   Aww… them Greenies an’ there climate change… They should do some weed spraying. That’d do them good.
   The Guardian.
   “ Ocean temperatures hit record high as rate of heating accelerates “
   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/13/ocean-temperatures-hit-record-high-as-rate-of-heating-accelerates
   Again. The Guardian.
   World’s 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam
   https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report
   The question must be; How? Who did they do it? If we, as we like to hope, have responsible politicians working for our best interests, how do they do it?
   Could it be, that our politicians are doing their jobs alright. For the billionaire cult, not for us, the ones who pay them in good faith.
   Adern? Prime Minister Jacinda“ Lets do this. “ Adern ? Hello…? Hello…? I fucking voted for you and the Greens so as you could head off the rapacious, fascist Natzo’s and their multimillionaire hangers on for us! As did many of my friends ! Hello…? Are you there…? Hello…?

   • This is a link to the $-wealthy money cultists I was trying to find earlier.
     Boingboing.net
     “Visualization of the world’s richest people has a surprise ending”
     https://boingboing.net/2019/12/05/visualization-of-the-worlds.html
     Now. Go out and watch a wee film called ‘The Irishman’.
     Then. Ponder trump and our own home grown jonky.
     Now. Go out and work hard and pay your taxes while you try to believe the bullshit you’re being told by [our] politicians.

4. Spare a give-a-little to our poor multinationals who need a hand out….

   They pay a quarter of the price of electricity than consumers but still begging for more discounts…

   Smelter pleads for ‘prudent discount’
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118743897/rio-tinto-says-nonsense-in-electricity-code-a-barrier-to-saving-tiwai-point-smelter

   If they close down, then electricity prices for consumers would probably drop 15% – a win for nearly 5 million people!

   Rio Tinto apparently produces some of the highest quality aluminium in the world, so in the neoliberal lowest quality model, time to go begging to government for more subsidies and use jobs as pawns and threats to close, unless the NZ working class person subsidises their electricity even further! Nice to have that sort of charity based on thinly veiled threats bestowed upon you!

   Apparently ordinary people who pay on time, are no longer allowed a prompt payment discount which is considered some sort of win???? …

   but in spite of Rio Tinto paying a quarter of the electricity of everyone else, they apparently need a give-a-little tax payer handout for further electricity discounts because NZ are supposed to keep them afloat when the parent company is profitable and the NZ part of the supply chain of aluminium is an essentially expensive part of their business with their losses mostly controlled by their parent company in an accounting capacity.

   So they can generate whatever figures they desire.

   Even if it were true losses, where does the buck stop now for corporate welfare for more multinationals who use NZ as a ‘loss’ maker for accounting purposes while having the gall to demand further subsidies from government aka the taxpayers of NZ?

   No wonder health care per person is on the decline, the world’s richest multinational’s shareholders, need the money more!

   • If they close down, then electricity prices for consumers would probably drop 15% – a win for nearly 5 million people!

     Thank you SaveNZ!! Yes, I read that at the time, and their arguments for being further govt subsidised to keep going. Apart from the ‘providing employment’ line, the greedy heartstrings one was that they need to make a profit for all their poor shareholders! A crazy system, that insists on prices going up and up for profit (their money-god prophet I guess).

     • I suggest divide the $30 million in subsidy amongst the laid off workers, beta they will make more use of the money and create more growth in employment in Southland than Rio Tinto does which only seems to last 3 years before another go for more cash.

       Plus I’m assuming Rio Tinto have to remediate the site when they go, (hopefully) so there is that being pumped into the economy too if they go…

       They also then have to find another country to put their smelter, apparently the NZ site is not performing badly next to it’s worldwide counter parts, so it might not be as easy or as cheap as they think to relocate it offshore…

   • Dontcha just love neo liberalism, savenz?

     Its wonderful how back in the day Roger Douglas expounded the ‘ User Pays’ model to us, – welfare , but only for some,… then Ruth Richardson created the ‘Mother of all Budgets’and commissioned a team of home economists to establish what a family of four needed to survive on then slashed that by 20% … welfare ,… but only for some…then along came Jenny Shipley with her means tests to screw old age pensioners down and snoop through all their finances while tactfully ignoring the corporate’s…. welfare , but only for some….

     Ah yes,… welfare,… but only for some.

     The author of Animal Farm had it right,… (*) ‘ some animals are more equal than others’…

     And that’s what and who we are ruled by : PIGS.

     * George Orwell , Animal Farm.

     • And that’s what and who we are ruled by : PIGS.

       Nah, disagree mate. Pigs is better than that,
       check out Pigcasso
       🙂

     • +1 WILD KATIPO

5. in Balclutha God help me, the moronic Council are still spraying every grass they can find with Roundup, AKA Glyphosate when really they should be planting flowers for bees,

   You think that’s bad? My local council in the BoP was using 2,4-D to spray the roadsides until recently. (Maybe they still are, I don’t know.) And yes, it is still frigging legal in NZ/AO today!!!!

   I was at my Mother’s house one day when I got “the chills” – I recognised that unique odour, – over in Aus they used it a lot, including around sugar cane plantations. I once got a mouthful over there, – of rainwater after spraying – and it paralysed my mouth, throat and face for some time.

   So I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw the nonchalant way they were dousing the roadsides here…

   Within the next 5 years, a dozen households along that stretch of road had lost a family member permanently. First it was the oldies, so we didn’t take much notice. Then it was my much younger neighbour next door, then more of the same (youngish, fit, farmers, fisherman, horse lady, fencing contractor, orchardist, even an engineer). Almost every household along that stretch was affected. Including myself (my mother set me up to see a doc – I thought I was taking her in – They told me on the same day to go home and “get your affairs in order”.) I was a rare lucky one. After mega-op I survived, due to the amazing care of friends and family. That was all just a couple of years ago, and I moved away from that stretch of road. But I cannot drive along there now without feeling haunted – So many people gone in such a short space of time.

   • THAT. IS. SO. BAD.

     • Not as bad as the response of that same Council to 30-odd people being effectively roasted alive – remember? At least two of them expressed immediate concerns and reassurance, … that “Tourists will be going back there!”

6. Some great rants above. They are not just loads of emotional guffle – they note the things gone wrong, continuing to go wrong, and the likely outcomes. It is painful to those who are really ‘woke’ in a sense that makes sense, to see the complacency of the well-off who have ‘made it’. Yes they have worked hard, and most have avoided becoming addicted to drugs, especially alcohol which is a solvent to difficulties; add enough alcohol and you don’t even notice them!

   The problem is that we have lost the ability to work together for simple life. Probably the sort that countryboy above suggests: “Small, co-operative groups of agrarian type people, some of whom travelled to engage with other groups of people was our history and I think [it’s] going to be our future.” At present shifting to simple may be forced on us by a lack of income. But the present meme is that we have a responsibility to spend – being consumers makes us a huge part of our narrow economy. Though many of us don’t have enough money to do so, we can borrow. Lending money to us, potential consumers, is another big part of our economy. This is to be repaid from our incomes, reduced and reducing because of inflation. But we don’t have inflation! Not the CPI count, but the real inflation that hits us where we live, in truth our abodes, our leaky nests, our contested housing. Don Brash years ago put forward the idea that individuals did not need to own housing, this resulted in too much of what would be available for consumer spending tied up in providing ourselves with accommodation. The persistent theme of economists is that housing is a capital investment and provides a return to the owner that isn’t taxed, and individuals should not be able to build wealth that way, and avoid taxation as business does. This is a sick economy!

   We are losers if we don’t have the stylish house, the style of living, the leisure machines, the sports gear, the clothes du jour, the conformist pattern, but have instead the questioning, testing mind. Peggy Lee sang ‘Is That all there Is’, and we could then follow up with the song ‘I’ll never Fall in Love Again’ and enlarge ‘love’ to ‘love of money’. An interesting thought exercise, with some music to brighten the day. I find listening to most music a great turn-off – from worry; it uses a different part of the mind, giving respite from the stress.

   • #1. Try smoking Pot @ GW ?
     #2. There’s nothing wrong with rants and emotional guffle.
     We must remember that Kiwi-As, Tall-Poppy Put-Downer Confederates are always on the look out.
     ( Rant. Is such an ugly little four letter word btw. I much prefer ‘fuck’. )
     I say; Rant and Guffle on y’awl and show no fear!
     The Word is infectious so spread it, I reckon!
     In fact @ GW. You’ve touched on an important element.
     People are easily intimidated by others who belittle and scoff when they try to convey an idea or an opinion. Hence, the ‘Tall Poppy syndrome’, a syndrome that defines Kiwi’s who believe they should be heard but are too afraid to speak up. Unless they’re pissed, then they often go fucking mental.
     pig muldoon was a champion of the art of belittling which is ironic since he was such a short little prick, with, no doubt, an equally short little dick.
     Very interesting…

   • … ‘ We are losers if we don’t have the stylish house, the style of living, the leisure machines, the sports gear, the clothes du jour, the conformist pattern, but have instead the questioning, testing mind ‘….

     ———————————————————

     My Dad died recently, and one of the things I said at his funeral was ” Dad made the right decision moving our family out to Huia ( Waitakere Ranges as a ranger ) when I was a small child, – I learned you could be an absolute millionaire without being a millionaire in Gods great creation. I still think that way.

     Last night I watched all 3 of the Crocodile Dundee films. I could see the same sort of characters back in my childhood , the same sort of gritty humour and slang , with Dundee saying ” me and God are mates”… I laughed all the way through the films.

     Simple, uncomplicated living.

     I used to say the old time Aborigines used to go hunting for half an hour and fed their family’s for a week,… we go to work all week and can barely feed our family’s , let alone afford a house… who is the smarter ?

     So much for ‘ modern ‘ living , eh ?

     • Sorry about your Dad, Kat. (I remember your earlier post…)

       I’m still grieving for my Mum, and that was two years ago. Just wish I’d told her how much she’d meant to me, ..one more time.

7. Great blog thanks Mike. I think that many in the working class don’t understand the usefulness for change in actively belonging to a union and doing other things. We have to have real change and it isn’t going to come from any of those in parliament currently.

   I would like to see politicians paid the median wage probably, they need to understand how people live because they sure as hell get in – on the backs of the poor often, especially Labour – and forget it all or do squat about it.

   Makes be very angry.

   • I would like to see politicians paid the median wage probably

     I’d like to see then paid the same as beneficiaries 🙂

     We might finally see some changes then.

8. Winning armed conflict is the only way a socially responsible govt can be established and that means repelling the marines from the USA.
   Cuba is a good example of a progressive movement and the West hates any such example surviving.
   NZ would be no different.
   If we look at the first Labour Govt in NZ and the template they laid down then we have a guide to follow.
   The banks are the source of the extreme wealth concentrated in transnational hands that controls business NZ and our Govts.
   John A Lee in the first Labour Govt, moved to the NZ Govt taking over control of banking and the NZ Govt becoming the banker. That has been undone by National then neoliberal puppets since.
   Jim Anderton fought Helen Clark to establish Kiwibank and since then the Co-operative bank has also evolved out of the old PSIS. Community and Govt owned banks need to be more widely established and the people educated about the racket of private banks. They create money out of loaning money the don’t have.

   The State advances also needs to be revived to supply loans to home buyers and small business followed by reviving a state owned insurance company.

   This stuff needs to be taught in colleges and tertiary institutions.
   Education and health need to be absolutely free at all levels.

   MSM is the tool of rich capitalist and that needs to change so some balance of information is freely supplied to the public.
   Lies and false news given out at present may be laughable to the knowledgeable, but shit stick with most of the population.
   Take a lying toad like john key who as a capitalist banker has ignored referendums and sold off the energy sector shares. The lying prick works for off shore investor banks who suck money out of NZ
   The energy sector was built and run by the NZ people before roger f…..g douglas corporatised them.

   The neoliberals know it is hard to undo these structural changes.

   • Some good words there, mate.

9. I’d like to see the Council-controlled_organisation companies banned. They have developed toxic cultures, incompetence, arrogance, zero accountability (now seem to be cumulating in alarming deaths as well as dysfunction) as well as now apparently taking up over 1/2 of Auckland rates spending.

   CCO’s have failed. A failed neoliberal idea that seems to cost a fortune to run, while killing people and enriching themselves into a toxic culture of self interest and incompetence. It fails to perform to any standard of good practise in the community as well as creating massive siphoning off of profits via screeds of subcontractors that are poorly skilled and poorly paid to do the work which means they attract poorer quality people.

   NZ main cities are now grid locked and have community assets stolen (aka the harbour) by these corporate thieves.

   Auckland Transport

   Pedestrian hit by bus in central Auckland
   “It’s the second time in two days an Auckland bus has been involved in a pedestrian accident.”
   https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/pedestrian-hit-by-bus-in-central-auckland.html

   Bus driver sentenced over death of two south Auckland pedestrians
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/113092919/bus-driver-sentenced-over-death-of-two-south-auckland-pedestrians

   One dead, nine hurt in Auckland bus crash
   https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/01/bus-and-car-collide-in-auckland.html

   15 students involved in Auckland school bus crash
   https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/emergency/bus-crashes-causing-chaos-around-auckland/

   The extraordinary incompetence of Auckland Transport
   https://thespinoff.co.nz/auckland/03-12-2017/the-extraordinary-incompetence-of-auckland-transport/

   Just saw someone on social media complaining that the so called ‘free’ children in weekends is already charging them adult price on the HOP card, not much joy after numerous complaints, as it’s a waste of time with AT of course, you just get nowhere! Better not to travel by bus next time, to save being ripped off!

   Ports of Auckland

   Ports Of Auckland Fined $40,000 For Illegal Actions
   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1212/S00210/ports-of-auckland-fined-40000-for-illegal-actions.htm

   Port Admits Leaking Worker’s Details – NZ Unions
   https://www.mua.org.au/news/port-admits-leaking-workers-details-nz-unions

   Ports of Auckland worker dies in hospital from injuries
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/106796803/ports-of-auckland-worker-dies-in-hospital-from-injuries

   Ports of Auckland enters not guilty plea over death of ocean swimmer
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/106821799/ports-of-auckland-enters-not-guilty-plea-over-death-of-ocean-swimmer

   Police will not lay charges over death of ocean swimmer Leslie Gelberger
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/99464379/police-will-not-lay-charges-over-death-of-ocean-swimmer-leslie-gelberger?rm=m

   Consent approved for 90m mooring extension of Auckland’s Queens Wharf
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/112219259/consent-approved-for-90m-mooring-extension-of-aucklands-queens-wharf

   Metrowater and waste water and yet more ways to hide the truth

   (note it sounds like the cost of the supercity could have paid for the upgrade to the Auckland sewerage system and had it completed by now, instead the supercity has pushed Auckland into more debt, more secrecy, more little deals to make the rate payers pay for follys via accounting mechanisms to hide the truth, rather than create efficiency and transparency…)

   Dirty water: Raw sewage flowing into Auckland Harbour will increase with new housing projects

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11785299

   https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/07/29/guest-blog-mike-lee-goffs-toilet-tax-aucklands-winter-of-discontent-set-to-continue/

   Does anyone have any faith that the new review of CCO’s by Phil Goff’s lawyers will do anything?

   For a start one of the many problems is caused by too many paper pushers, lawyers, accountants and neoliberals and not enough proven people on the ground experts for transport and utilities, as well as honest, competent people on the ground, who work for the public, not paid for shills of industry as the current ‘expert’ culture has created!

   • National changed the rules so local councils cannot undo CCOs.
     There needs to be revolt across the country about this.
     CCOs are a step towards privatisation which is a creeping sore that is infecting CCOs and councils.

     • National changed the rules so local councils cannot undo CCOs.

       This surely is just one of many things Labour should be un-doing I bet they complained at the time!

10. And that’s what and who we are ruled by : PIGS.

    Nah, disagree mate. Pigs is better than that,
    check out Pigcasso
    🙂

11. No question about it. Revolution is all we have to save us. Capitalism is in its terminal crisis – that means whatever wars or depression come at us from here on in, capitalism cannot survive because it is killing off the conditions for its existence, a biosphere that will sustain human life. If follows if there is no human life there is no human society. We must kill capitalism before it kills us and most other species.

    We can see what fighting for reforms means today. The French workers and poor self-employed rose up in Yellow Vests last year against an unjust fuel tax and before long faced deaths from cops on the streets. Elsewhere, from Syria, Iraq, Iran Sudan, to Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil and Chile, we see those fighting for the most elemental reform, actual democracy, face live ammunition from state forces and paramilitaries, and growing numbers of deaths.

    In the US and Aotearoa, we are learning the lessons the German workers learnt in 1919 when they refused to fight the war and formed armed councils in most cities fighting for socialism. Social Democracy betrayed them by forming a government with the bosses, and in the name of ‘democracy’ conspired to kill the leaders of the Communist Party.

    Today the US has a would be fascist as President, and both Republicans and Democrats have no answers. Bernie can offer no answers either other than shepherding idealist young people into the Democrats. The Green New Deal will serve the same purpose as the original New Deal or of the 1930s of sowing illusions in reforms when what is needed is an independent workers party backed by organised workers formed into councils and militias.

    Aotearoa has a Labour Party in a coalition with centre and centre right capitalist parties also betraying the workers. Parliament offers no hopes to workers who need to organise independently forming councils and militias, around a revolutionary program that tackles the big issues of climate change, threats of war between the US and China, and puts forward a workers plan for socialism.

    Inevitably all over the world, workers and the poor will continue to rise up fighting for the most basic rights to life, speech and assembly, and be met with lethal state and paramilitary repression. There is no other scenario. That means reforms can only be won by workers mobilising against the bosses’ state machines, organised in popular militias with a clear program for revolution to overthrow the capitalist states and create workers states based on a new form of democracy – workers democracy.

    This democracy will allow the working class to advance all of its economic struggles, to take control of society from the capitalists and plan the the global economy to solve the problem of climate change, and win the power to plan production in a way that respects the needs of nature and of humanity.

    There is no separation in life between reforms and revolution. Without the fight for reforms workers will never see the need to overthrow capitalism. And without overthrowing capitalism there will be no human existence let alone reforms.

    • Every day the papers advertise overseas holidays at cheaper and cheaper prices. The mall car parks are full after 10 am most days. Yesterday we went to 2 coffee shops before we found a seat . Some are doing it tough but that has always been the way but the majority are doing OK. Most workers get on with life regardless of who is in power it is only those at the bottom who rely on the state and they are too busy surviving to be involved in a revolution.
      Taxing the rich and stopping the energy created by capitalism will not help the poor as the money will soon dry up. Unions are good for the workers until they are taken over by leaders who look to feather their own nest or have their own agenda as happen in Germany .
      In NZ they changed the retirement age from 60 to 65 with out a murmure imaging that happening in France .

      • Trevor there are still a few great unions out there as the old ‘guards’ retire. Unite is undoubtedly top of the tree.

12. No question about it. Revolution is all we have to save us. Capitalism is in its terminal crisis – that means whatever wars or depression come at us from here on in, capitalism cannot survive because it is killing off the conditions for its existence, a biosphere that will sustain human life. If follows if there is no human life there is no human society. We must kill capitalism before it kills us and most other species.

    We can see what fighting for reforms means today. The French workers and poor self-employed rose up in Yellow Vests last year against an unjust fuel tax and before long faced deaths from cops on the streets. Elsewhere, from Syria, Iraq, Iran Sudan, to Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil and Chile, we see those fighting for the most elemental reform, actual democracy, face live ammunition from state forces and paramilitaries, and growing numbers of deaths.

    In the US and Aotearoa, we are learning the lessons the German workers learnt in 1919 when they refused to fight the war and formed armed councils in most cities fighting for socialism. Social Democracy betrayed them by forming a government with the bosses, and in the name of ‘democracy’ conspired to kill the leaders of the Communist Party.

    Today the US has a would be fascist as President, and both Republicans and Democrats have no answers. Bernie can offer no answers either other than shepherding idealist young people into the Democrats. The Green New Deal will serve the same purpose as the original New Deal or of the 1930s of sowing illusions in reforms when what is needed is an independent workers party backed by organised workers formed into councils and militias.

    Aotearoa has a Labour Party in a coalition with centre and centre right capitalist parties also betraying the workers. Parliament offers no hopes to workers who need to organise independently forming councils and militias, around a revolutionary program that tackles the big issues of climate change, threats of war between the US and China, and puts forward a workers plan for socialism.

    Inevitably all over the world, workers and the poor will continue to rise up fighting for the most basic rights to life, speech and assembly, and be met with lethal state and paramilitary repression. There is no other scenario. That means reforms can only be won by workers mobilising against the bosses’ state machines, organised in popular militias with a clear program for revolution to overthrow the capitalist states and create workers states based on a new form of democracy – workers democracy.

    This democracy will allow the working class to advance all of its economic struggles, to take control of society from the capitalists and plan the the global economy to solve the problem of climate change, and win the power to plan production in a way that respects the needs of nature and of humanity.

    There is no separation in life between reforms and revolution. Without the fight for reforms workers will never see the need to overthrow capitalism. And without overthrowing capitalism there will be no human existence let alone reforms.

    • What do you suggest? Occupy or ‘blow up’ Parliament?

      Where are the ‘masses’ prepared to do this?

      • Which suggest you don’t oppose violent revolution just you don’t think there is enough support for it.

        • Rattling the cage, violence is LAST resort.

13. Banned from TDB (a public platform after all) for expressing views contrary to Bradbury, his TDB brown shirts & all the middle class chardonnay socialists & fake radicals who follow him. Be courageous DB & publish this with an attached statement of banishment. Nah, to gutless I suspect.

    • Where’s the Johnny Overton is banned from commenting on this site? I do have a bit of a public profile (albeit an infamous one) so I expect the TDB to notify TDB punters that I’ve been banned from commenting here. This is called a fair go, it’s what our nation is known for, is it not? I’m a battler so I’ll keep hammering away at this, even if it means looking into bringing a discrimination/deformation case against TDB.

      • They publish your negative comments to discredit you, and stop other comments.

14. Can you get property obsessed and lazy Kiwis excited like this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQRKR2SQ2ZY

    • Another ‘taste’, for the SIS and Nazis that observe everything here:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZekB3tlAAu8

      A teaser.

15. Viva Chile, we are making a DIFFERENCE:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yCT91fduSc

16. What do ‘comfy’ Kiwis think of the fight in France, asleep, still?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-zPcWgcco

17. Revolution:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAw_ZeAwhiA

    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLz-y6GKwYA

18. NZ is a shit country as it is so divided and has no revolutionaries:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLz-y6GKwYA

19. This is what revolution looks like, little kiddies of NZ:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4y9UCjftUI

    • I suspect there is only one child here. a keyboard warrior that will wet himself when they come knocking on his door with a sharpened spike and heavy cosh lol

      • Idiot comment

20. Jacinda, piece of SHIT, YOU TRAITOR to the worker’s cause and the people’s cause!”

    • I wish Jacinda Traitor this:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-zPcWgcco
      You are deluded and dishonest.

21. Another important Chilean song, few understand, revolution:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6ek-ew2FgY

22. Modern Day, forgiveness:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Fncf8TAVc&list=RDT6ek-ew2FgY&index=2

23. You NZers are such a cowardly people. It disgusts me so gutless a people putting up with anything.

    • Perhaps the “gutless” and “cowardly” people of New Zealand are waiting for your leadership Marc. Come on comrade, lead us to the barricades!! El Presidente for life is yours for the asking Marc. Or are you a dreamer, not a leader? You prepared as by quote (“….. organised in popular militias with a clear program for revolution to overthrow the capitalist states and create workers states based on a new form of democracy – workers democracy”) to serve in the militias and kill people? You do realise that in this new “workers democracy” the votes could swing back to capitalism?

      Have you ever considered that perhaps life is not so bad and the multitudes are quite happy?

      Perhaps, just maybe you are reading the mood of the nation all wrong?

      Jacinda is saving the masses so there is no need for a revolution?

      • Go pull yourself one off again!

        • If Mike Treen ever needed an example of why any revolution idea is doomed to failure, simply read Marc’s comments above and below. All bluster, denigration and complaint. No sense that he/she knows what a successful revolution entails and that maintaining the principals of the revolution after wards is the real key.

          Mindless complaints about what is wrong and how numbskull the proletariat are will not lead to a working class paradise.

          Worth a read in full for the keyboard “warriors” Marc’s of this world

          http://socialistreview.org.uk/390/do-revolutions-always-fail

          “……….who would write of revolutions as doomed to fail are drawing the wrong conclusion from the struggles. While it is true that a movement that does not go beyond simply occupying public spaces is unlikely to succeed, it is quite false to imagine that such mass mobilisations cannot go beyond such limitations.

          Indeed the correct conclusion is that mass mobilisation on the streets is an absolutely necessary step in any revolutionary process but we also need mass strikes and occupations of workplaces, because it is at the point of production that capital is most vulnerable and working class power is concentrated.

          In addition we need revolutionary socialist leadership, because without revolutionary politics any mass movement can be misled, misdirected and betrayed.”

          The Marc’s of this world only see the revolution as a occupation without the further need to consolidate the power once in charge. For that you need leaders that promote the working classes. Leaders like Mao, Hitler (and yes he did lead a revolution) or Castro never denigrated the people they wanted to join the revolution by calling them “cowards” or “gutless”.

          The real problem every revolution has to address is once the old order is abolished, how to control the revolution from there on.

          “But can the working class maintain democratic control over its own leaders – won’t a new set of privileged oppressors inevitably rise from its ranks to take over? Posing this question raises the issue of human nature and also brings up the fate of the Russian Revolution and its transformation into dictatorship.”

    • actually to be super honest i couldnt give a shit whats happening in Chile

24. Westpac accused of 23 million money-laundering breaches, including child abuse transactions
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/118853764/westpac-accused-of-23-million-moneylaundering-breaches-including-child-abuse-transactions

    Commonwealth Bank of Australia hit with record $700 million fine
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/104455548/commonwealth-bank-of-australia-hit-with-record-700-million-fine?rm=m

    “Declaring that “choices must now be made”, Justice Hayne has also referred some of the country’s biggest company names to regulators for possible criminal or civil action for the way they treated their customers.

    “The damage done by that conduct to individuals and to the overall health and reputation of the financial services industry has been large,” he wrote.

    “Saying sorry and promising not to do it again has not prevented recurrence. The time has come to decide what is to be done in response to what has happened.

    “The financial services industry is too important to the economy of the nation to allow what has happened in the past to continue or to happen again.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/110372532/australias-banking-royal-commission-final-report-at-a-glance?rm=m

    In NZ they get record profits and the banks know that there is little change of any enforcement here….

    Making bank: Big four banks cashing in on New Zealanders
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117025775/making-bank-big-four-banks-cashing-in-on-new-zealanders?rm=m

    “But the leaked documents show that BNZ was confident it would not be pinged by New Zealand authorities and rated the risk of fines as “minor”, though it worried about the public finding out, and its reputation being damaged.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114664719/bnz-struggled-to-abide-by-antimoney-laundering-laws

25. Money Laundering and crimes against children, seem to be ‘no big deal’ in NZ. Overseas citizens caught in sexual abuse or sexual crime or money laundering, don’t seem to get a criminal conviction here or a deportation notice and known sex offenders from overseas get NZ permanent residency!

    Must be part of that essential skills list… sarcasm.

    William Yan AKA Bill Liu to keep NZ citizenship despite money laundering conviction
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11905478

    Queen St money remitter discharged after laundering Polish and Russian crime syndicate’s cash
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12260326

    Child abuser wins right to stay in New Zealand for humanitarian reasons
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/84891031/child-abuser-wins-right-to-stay-in-new-zealand-for-humanitarian-reasons

    Child abuse dad avoids deportation on humanitarian grounds to stay with family
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/76059417/

    New resident convicted of sex offending twice, won’t be deported
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11837608

    Judge’s difficult sentencing of a former refugee who won’t stop offending
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/111480343/judges-difficult-sentencing-of-a-refugee-who-wont-stop-offending

    Rapist wins case to be allowed to stay in NZ
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/327784/rapist-wins-case-to-be-allowed-to-stay-in-nz

26. How likely is 2020 the year to clean up how multinational companies can avoid both paying taxes and not reporting due to NZ laws that are beneficial to them while wiping out local industry who can’t compete with the semi-legal scams…

    “take advantage of Companies Office reporting requirements which only require overseas-owned subsidiaries to file financial statements if either their assets exceed $20 million or their total revenue is more than $10 million. Under the business model these companies appear to be using, the New Zealand subsidiary is usually paid a fee for “marketing” services provided to its parents. Unsurprisingly, these fees appear to be below the threshold for reporting. ”

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/01/opinion-uber-is-a-case-study-in-our-complicity-with-tax-avoidance.html

27. World running out of sand and water but in NZ we just give it away as our environment laws are so stupid and easily manipulated, little documentation or strategy on key natural resources here, and the government can’t get off their arses and make a business with a crown entity operating in a sustainable way!

    The future of sand mining in NZ
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104065329/the-future-of-sand-mining-in-nz

    Vince Beiser – black market sand
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/summer-days/audio/2018729920/vince-beiser-black-market-sand

28. The Lebanese are not tolerating it anymore !!

    “Lebanon is more than two months into the wave of protests rocking the country. Chief among the grievances driving people onto the streets are entrenched inequalities and compromised human dignity. Even given the notorious vacuum of data, Lebanon is clearly a highly unequal place where nearly a quarter of income is held by the richest 1 percent, a larger share than in, for example, South Africa and the US ”

    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/protests-lebanon-inequality-worldwide-191229135952800.html

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/security-forces-fire-tear-gas-night-lebanon-clashes-200116053638585.html

29. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/407474/creditor-calls-for-government-to-step-in-over-tamarind-taranaki-collapse

    Big business not remediating environmental impacts and ripping off subcontractors should be a criminal offence, with jail time and being deported and stripped of any residency or citizenship, so they can’t return here !

    Parent companies and subsidiaries should be required to pay subcontractors and remedial costs if they benefited or contributed to the debacle, aka paying them money to pretend to be solvent in the first place and set up the scam intentional or not!

    Clearly oil and gas and construction, are not trusted industries and there should be a billion dollar+ bond for the oil and gas industry and similar bond for construction for any clean up or faulty workmanship before they are allowed any where near NZ.

    “When they couldn’t pay their bills in one company they get handed another one to make money out of, and the New Zealand taxpayer and us New Zealand companies are left to foot the clean up and the bills for their failed drilling campaign.”

    Hareb was clear what he thought should happen now.

    “Personally, I think TAG should be taken off them and they should be made to sell it to repay their creditors and pretty much get them out of New Zealand.”

    Other creditors spoken to by RNZ described the Tamarind collapse as tantamount to “daylight robbery” and said a “heck of a lot of people had got done over”.

    – the law is a joke, even when criminal proceedings are bought and directors ordered to pay aka Mainzeal, the directors and shareholders can give NZ and their creditors the finger!

    Mainzeal’s Yan says NZ laws don’t apply in China, won’t pay back $18m
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271022

    • Yan is basically a crook.

      Capitalism allows crooks to escape through bankruptcy or liquidation.

      Many if not most nuclear energy plants are privately owned.
      Most nuclear plants have cooling vats full of spent rods that have no future as processing of these spent rods is not economically viable and there is not processing plant available for such a volume.

      When all cooling tanks are full then companies can shut up shop. go into liquidation and leave the highly dangerous cooling tanks to deteriorate to the point of nuclear catastrophic.. The world will pay for their profiteering without responsibility.
      All nuclear facilities should be state owned.
      An explanation
      https://www.answers.com/Q/What_happens_to_the_nuclear_power_plant_when_the_cooling_system_fails_in_it

      The situation
      https://nuclear-news.net/2013/01/26/dangers-of-nuclear-spent-fuel-cooling-ponds-and-of-dry-cask-storage/

      Yokoshima disaster has no end in sight. Clean up locally may take many decades meanwhile contaminated sea water has stretched across the pacific. Cost of containing the radioactivity unknown but 40 billion is a present conservative estimate for just containing the site.
      Over a million tons of contaminated material they don’t know what they can do with it.

      Nuclear power is the most expensive ever dreamed up and is certainly not a green alternative.

30. ” Big business not remediating environmental impacts and ripping off subcontractors should be a criminal offence, with jail time and being deported and stripped of any residency or citizenship, so they can’t return here ”

    That would require a stiff backbone that does not exist.

    We don’t do direct responsibility unless you receive welfare from the state or are at the mercy of ACC.

    We are good at killing though without consequence like Pike , CTV , Cave creek and Erebus.

    Remember the marketing from the 80s and 90s ” personal responsibility ” unless you are rich or are in the corporate elite and have contacts then you are exempt off course.

    • @Mosa, Yes, corporate responsibility is now replaced by personal responsibility. However personal responsibility doesn’t exist for the executives and shareholders of business.

      So easy, peasy if you want to avoid liability – start a business! Business seems to be where individuals hide to avoid rules for those not in that privileged realm. In particular if you have tons of money, no empathy, and little moral compass.

      The only reason Mainzeal even went to the courts is become even bigger shareholder fish lost some money and went out to get it back and had the huge amounts of money to do so.

      Even then, why bother, because they ain’t gonna pay if they can escape overseas.

      NZ is too gutless to even cancel yet another recently minted, criminal “NZ passport’ holder…. who has ripped off millions of dollars.

      Mainzeal’s Yan says NZ laws don’t apply in China, won’t pay back $18m
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271022

      Not to mention the subcontractors who lost everything when they did not get paid, and the ordinary people left with poorly constructed buildings, that like CTV building will no doubt eventually claim losses.

31. Treen is deluded like the PM:
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117086660/public-housing-waitlist-nears-14000-with-recordhigh

32. Idiots in NZ know nothing, cannot organise a piss up in a brewery:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-zPcWgcco

33. Where’s the climate protest marchers, home from holiday in Fiji?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-zPcWgcco

    Mum and Dad drive you home in a nice new SUV.

34. But Macron signed the ‘Christchurch Call’, yeah right, BS.

35. Immigration kills revolution, there are always willing slaves to undermine the locals.

36. Treen is happy with immigration thus killing all hope for revolution.

37. Treen is a hypocrite BS artist, like MB.

    • Ensuring a lifestyle star gets another term for doing NOTHING.

      • Jacinda MUST go, we need a NEW LEFT party!

38. We have social and economic warfare, but most duck and sign off, too scared to stand up for themselves, NZ Inc is a hopeless shit situation.

39. With Robo’s recent announcement that the governments coffers is about to runith over to the tune of $400m+.
    Why then are all the DHB’s already, this year in a -$100m deficit?

    Why does the MoH budget, have still, $273m of budgeted, allocated putea still unused?

    Why do we still think surpluses are good management?

    Why do peeps still vote labour?

    Is that a conundrum?

40. There’s something vile about letter-writers as captured in Monte Holcroft’s memoir of 60s Listener editorship. Inordinate force is lost to us.

41. Death of depth. Solidarity, when that’s the only power against the powerful. Atomisation killed the cat. And the non-idea of cruising. Our joyful pleasure …

    Why I can’t find a democratist party in NZ. Thinking of spoiling my vote a la 1987.

42. Marc & Mike, ref above, caught online here

    They were captured by Sergey Savvi in 2018, first in “This Is Sparta” then in the Martian Tango (both at the link).

    • Reflections by an ape, seeing only apes, I note.

43. Iwi headed to High Court over water bottling consent
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/407614/iwi-headed-to-high-court-over-water-bottling-consent

    Short term thinking and zero risk management in NZ on environmental issues and zero democracy on the issue where the community is now expected to pay tens of thousands to lawyers to have their say.

    The huge environmental degradation is led by a lack of risk control by the environment courts here which should be renamed, development for private profits, courts!

    Environment courts are not run like criminal courts but are process based with much of the process able to be highjacked by the party with the most money and able to pay the current paid-for experts to say whatever is in their profits interests. Meanwhile constant tinkering of the rules mean that practical considerations or future risks happening all around the world like climate change, drought and increased disasters are not able to be calculated in the rulings in many cases.

    So many examples of stupid thinking in NZ, which is leading to NZ becoming a world wide environmental joke now.

    NZ are the idiot class that allow their natural assets to be squandered at a time where it is becoming clear that the climate is changing droughts are occurring around the world as population rises, and aquifers and rivers are drying up, while sand (mined willy-nilly in NZ) has become in short supply. Oil companies promise jobs but it’s the locals who seem to pay the most https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118332123/tamarind-taranaki-placed-into-liquidation-after-watershed-meeting-with-creditors https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/supreme-court-overturns-mobils-10m-wynyard-quarter-cleanup-order-b-191835 http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/9399690/PM-avoiding-Pike-River-payout

    The government is allowing through the environment court the polluters to transfer all the risks onto the community based on paid for and flawed thinking!

    In addition our environment courts and government have an inability to consider and plan for the future when many jobs will be lost when the aquifers dry up and who is going to compensate the flora and fauna that will become extinct, pay iwi, and the community for the losses?

    • That water fight – they only have to the end of the month to get the money needed for their final case.

      It’s a worthy fight – I hope they make it.

44. WTF is this on Facebook? It seems others are already working on Memes. No doubt the most popular of these banalities will be trotted out at the next election.
    https://www.facebook.com/nznpmwg/

    The image of the poorly spelt message mown into the field has already made it into MSM.
    They also have a Boomer support group. Clearly the next election is going to be fought on facts. Oh wait, telling lies on social media seems to get you elected. Bridges has been briefed on this by those responsible, who to our eternal shame are from NZ.

    • Oh come on some one put a lot of effort into that. It’s probably the largest fuck off comrade in the world. Pity it doesn’t include China to. Could have shot to birds with one bullet. Most importantly don’t get triggered.

45. to our eternal shame are from NZ.

    Ummm – Very similar messages are published right here on this blog.
    If you can see that it is disgusting there, which IT IS, why the silence when it is slimed across these pages? (in comments section, where same posters are crying “Censorship”)
    It’s a sickness, – like that SARS-type virus. The sign of sick minds.

    • Nope, don’t it. Over the years we’ve explored every moral question on The Daily Blog and the vast majority of them are electoral dead ends. It’s election year, the only things that ought to be uttered are engineering and economic solutions to social problems. And the woke, they can sit this one out.

      • Sooo… something like this might not be the most pc response then?

        pity, that…

        • No it’s that extremely hard radical doves are so far to the left that everyone else to their right looks right wing. But it’s not true that centre left parties are in fact centre right. Anti gay, anti woman, anti minority, anti science are all the domain of the right. Not the left.

    • I was referring to this.
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113080148/the-new-zealanders-who-won-victory-for-australian-pm-scott-morrison
      The National party memes group is right out of this playbook. They also advised Boris in the UK. Simon has been briefed by them. Lots of nasty politics and smears coming up. Maybe the odd break in to discredit the government.
      The fact the mown message has gone mainstream is proof it is working. Shit sticks.

      • From your link:
        “Within an hour of something going wrong for Shorten, the Libs would have something running digitally to exploit it. Facebook and Instagram were the key platforms, whether it was a video of Morrison cooking a curry or a savage lampooning of a Labor mis-step.”

        Same in AO/ NZ right now! Only it’s Paula who’s spotlighted, not Simo, … baking and stirring in her homey-style snake skin dress (each to their own I guess).

        • Re: the “savage lampooning” – I have no idea why the right even bother. The “Left” are doing a superb job of this themselves. Ref: Matt Evans cartoon or Minto’s “Problem” article. It’s become target shooting practice from both sides, a race to the bottom, – who can shoot her down first and destroy her more completely.

          (Friggin IDIOTS!!!)

          • shoot – MAL Evans .. aaargh

            (deriding a cartoon’s one thing… Misspelling the toonist – unforgivable)

46. As the neoliberals grow NZ cities and develop too quickly, more and more infrastructure problems are occurring that the current rate payers are expected to finance and the environment and public safety is further put at risk.

    Sewage in Wellington marine reserve 43-times worse than acceptable levels
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/118890119/sewage-in-wellington-marine-reserve-43times-worse-than-acceptable-levels

    Wellington road closed for two months amid waste pipe repair
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/wellington-road-closed-two-months-amid-waste-pipe-repair

    Work on burst Taupō waste pipe begins
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393896/work-on-burst-taupo-waste-pipe-begins

    The media still pushing more growth and zoning changes (think Ihumātao) will somehow in neoliberal magical thinking, make housing more affordable and stem homelessness!

    Laughably no mention of the demand factors, aka current government’s loosening of immigration visas in particular temporary ones and loosing of conditions for non income relatives.

    Nor is there any mention in terms of screaming headlines like, “Housing affordability worsens” of the low wages and worsening employment conditions in NZ, like local firms going under, easy, peasy redundancy conditions here at no cost to the employer to get older, experienced, qualified higher paid staff out while bringing in new jobs for cheaper workers, driving down both wages, but also quality of workers and work, in NZ and increasing the brain drain the opposite way. Aka high paid workers leaving, low paid workers coming into NZ.

    Let’s remind ourselves that nearly 1 million migrants have come into NZ in the past decade…10% are elderly migrants (now overtaking in numbers both aged Maori and PI aged in terms of numbers https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12281479,) the biggest skill category is a ‘chef’ followed by low waged sunset jobs like working as a manager at Burger King,https://croakingcassandra.com/2019/10/14/reopening-parent-visas/ and our laws allow the applicant to sign up for benefits within 2 years… vote within 1 year… and being unemployed, not speaking the language and having no work is no barrier to coming here on work visas … in addition you can ‘study’ in NZ as a foreign student and then get 3 years to stay in NZ post study, even if you don’t have a job, and during that time get married and bring your wife over, have kids in NZ, all while not having any work but needing accomodation and using the public systems like roads, waster water, education and health care, here!

    All these people (like the 4 million tourists) each year, need housing, jobs, health care, transport, use the waster water, sewerage systems, etc …

    Quite frankly I find it hard to fathom how a $20 p/h job at Burger King as a chef or restaurant manager, or someone’s elderly foreign love interest or unemployed foreign student, has become so essential to the NZ government, that they are borrowing billions of dollars for roads and now state housing to keep the Ponzi going and destroying the amenity of those who currently live here so that Burger King or Thirsty Liquor can open another franchise in NZ.

    How can the future generations pay government debt back when NZ burgeoning low wage, sunset jobs require tax payer money into their wages to top them up not the other way around!

    Cleary the MSM don’t have much handle on the relationship with residency and house prices in NZ.

    As soon as the government changed residency visa points away from Auckland, then the provinces house prices went up massively, … while Auckland house prices which was taken off the list, finally slowed down….

    Annual median house prices 2018

    Northland average house price $507,500 up 10.8%
    Gisborne average house price $420,000 up 25.4%
    Hawkes Bay average house price $500,000 up 12.4%
    Wellington average house price $636,600 up 7.9%
    Manawatu/Wanganui average house prices $390,000 up 25.6%
    Southland average house prices $310,000 up 29.2%
    Otago, average house prices $489,000 up 13.7%
    Nelson average house prices $586,000 up 11.6%

    (Now they have stopped awarding visa points for living in Auckland, house prices, down 3.5%)

    So are the wages in Gisborne and Manawatu/Wanguanui up over 25%????

    With pathetic MSM articles which could be direct from the NZ initiative themselves, as they spout the same bullshit, MSM wonder why they can’t make it in the modern world and nobody trust their articles anymore.

    However no doubt Labour & COL will be fooled yet again and blow their election changes by taking the NZ initiative lead and trying to make everybody happy instead of what needs to be done, which is stop all the people living in NZ who don’t need to be here until they sort it all out, and in particular non inomce relatives coming, which requires some balls!

    Much easier for COL to announce that by borrowing in the nether, nether, middle class NZ will eventually be able to use a public transport, not have a poo swim, afford a house to buy and rent one….get that operation in the public health system…not have 30% of kids coming out of school semi- illiterate..

    • Nor is there any mention in the screaming headlines” High house prices ‘a threat to the middle class’ of the 1 billion per year of social harm from Meth and it’s contribution to housing shortages and homelessness!

      ‘Landlord’s worst nightmare’: Meth tenants remain a problem
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/118853496/landlords-worst-nightmare-meth-tenants-remain-a-problem

      Meth NZ’s top drug – it’s in the water
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112352168/meth-nzs-top-drug–its-in-the-water

47. Waiting for job security to realy kick in,what your one or two half million bedroom property debt,not top worry if i cant afford the mortgage payments ill rent it out to sdome other suckers,probably forgieners,they now,yet family home lets see how thirty years of six seven eight hundred per week mortgage payments can i continue,oph,morgagee sales on the callendar and on mass,as capitalism,and these youn g uncaring capitalist thinking millenials shall precide over.

48. Waiting for job security to realy kick in,what your one or two half million bedroom property debt,not top worry if i cant afford the mortgage payments ill rent it out to so other sucker.
    Family home,debt weekly,650 easy, supposed ownership afford.25 YEARS morgage payments for this two bed home in a shared drive way,on the out skirts of Auckland.Do you own your lifes employment,or does your employer give you a insurance of your lifes emplyment for your home bankers profit mortgage.
    I am without wonder going to see at the end of my time with great saddness,bankers in nz,wavin g buy cheap these morgage sales homes.

49. Revolutions is VERBOTEN in NZ Inc. – by law.

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