1: The ongoing Pandemic
The Covid Pandemic looks like it is reaching out of control proportions in America and Europe. We will not be safe until there is a vaccine and the soonest that is possible is 2022. The ongoing need to build broader and more secure border capacity while maintaining stringent track and trace programs will demand the Governments attention above all other things. Keeping us safe has been Labour’s most powerful argument to remain in power, the moment they lose that, they lose the trust of the unforgiving public. International student exploitation, migrant worker exploitation and hyper tourism can not be a solution.
2: 100 day Policy Platform
Labour need to inoculate themselves from criticism on the Left with a mix of symbolic gestures and direct initiatives like lifting welfare and increasing sick days as part of their first 100 day policy programme. If there isn’t enough reform and transformation in those first 100 days, cynicism towards Jacinda’s kindness will be the first casualty.
3: Trump meltdown & possible Chinese aggression
Best case scenario is Trump loses in a landslide, but the worst case scenario is Trump wins a shallow majority on the night, declares victory before the mail in votes are cast and plunges the country into civil turmoil which China exploits by militarily enforcing South China Sea sovereignty. How would NZ respond to an America imploding with a China exploding?
4: Climate Change Summer from hell
We are currently in an accelerated warming spike which will see extreme heat and droughts followed by destructive cyclones which will damage drought wrecked land. The hollowness of being carbon neutral by 2050 will never look so shallow.
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In respect of no.3 and how the world will be saved by the removal of Trump. This should be listened to by everyone who is interested in the world outside and the US part in affairs. Before and undoubtably after Trump. You might want to spend a week of evenings listening; it’s long…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55748.htm
D J S
David the current information in the suggested link is vital knowledge to be considered.
But the wider and ongoing Military Industrial Complex corporate driven history of the USA is a shocker and almost unbelievable.
Our MSM never goes near reporting on any American driven horror and the estimated 55 million slaughtered by the USA since its MIC takeover, may as well never happened as far as NZ news is concerned.
I would recommend watching asd listening to those in power who became powerless to stop the global terror by the USA.
1. Martin Luther King Jr. (02:55)
2. John Stockwell, Ex-CIA Station Chief (06:14)
3. Coverup: Behind The Iran-Contra Affair (19:34)
4. School of Assassins (13:25)
5. Genocide by Sanctions (12:58)
6. Philip Agee, Former CIA Case Officer (22:08)
7. Amy Goodman, Host of Democracy Now! (5:12)
8. The Panama Deception (22:10)
9. Crisis In The Congo (14:11)
10. Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, Peace Activist (04:32)
11. Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (04:35)
12. Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General (07:58)
13. S. Brian Willson, Vietnam Veteran for Peace (08:45)
The new segments are:
Crisis In The Congo – Dr. Dahlia Wasfi and Jimmy Carter,
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Visuals have been added to the John Stockwell segment.
Three Presidents have spoken out, Eisenhower, JFK and Carter.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55774.htm
This is the world we live in and held as hostage.
Agree with yourlogic martyn, I am worried Labour will get complacent ad do fuck all for climate cange and restore our Kiwirail services to provinces as gisboe/HB has no rail service for passengers and little freight as we see it now that labour are still happy to see annual incresed truck freight continuing as they in the last three years did nothing to restore rail frieht and passenger servic es so we may see roads that are grdlocked with trucks and increased deaths and increased transport emissions from heavy freight tucks inventory.
HOUSING.
Now beyond a crisis, it’s walked of a cliff.
Insane prices equal elevation of rents equals to worsening poverty. Good luck to first home buyers. It CANNOT be fixed with housing subsidies or minimum wage increases. Nor should it.
The risk of this Dutch tulip auction imploding grows each week. Greed and panic drive prices upward but the prices even for rubbish housing are now so stratospheric unaffordability is now ingrained.
Covid inspired low interest rates is stimulating the market, kind of like throwing a tanker load of petrol on an already out of control fire.
It will take government and only government to deal to it. It’s the root of many of societies ills. Will they stand by and smile and wave. Or will they take action?
100%. Until the housing and rents crisis is fixed ordinary kiwis esp beneficiaries will get nowhere. Stuff all this rhetoric about mental health, wellbeing and kindness.
It is difficult to see how good mental health and wellbeing could be achieved without first having adequate housing. Homelessness and housing insecurity are not a good fit for wellbeing or for mental health.
LOL and your mob is supporting the RBNZ and their policy settings. If you have zero interest rates and weak borrowing rules to stimulate zombie consumer economic growth then the flipside is that you further inflate the housing market. There is no other realistic investment avenues with a pigmy sharemarket, shit finance companies/investment schemes and profitable, cash producing companies being hen’s teeth and being held onto.
Robbo and the Blairite both know this is the lesser of 2 evils politically and Robbo’s pride would negate doing anything structural in the housing market and instigating a large scale economic depression.
Just do what the middle are doing – chucking on the lego movie and singing along with “everything is awesome”. You know it’s not then in the face of a recession car prices are going up.
But, but, but outdoor pizza ovens for all – unless of course you are already amongst NZ’s underclass.
More sick days is just the thing that struggling businesses do not need at this time. The rules should change and if the stand down is covid related the government should pay 100% of lost wages .
Well it has been an interesting weekend travelling about in my adopted Christchurch. The arrogance of people with a total lack of respect or courtesy for anyone as they frequent the shops and drive on the roads. Most have now given up scanning the covid tracer or using the hand sanitiser provided. With the exception of myself and maybe one person out of every ten seem to have decided there is no longer a pandemic raging or that quite possibly there could be someone who is infectious out there. The pollution we generate is horrendous as we flock to the Chinese junk shops which charge exorbitant prices for the nick nacks to make our homes supposedly beautiful. Consumerism is alive and well and poverty is not in evidence as the wealthy and middle class barge their way past you knocking you out of the way without even stopping to apologise for the transgression. Neo liberalisim has turned the yeah nah brigade into frightful monsters with an air of arrogance and f**k you ingrained on their faces if you dare to reprimand them.Weaning the general population off their addiction that the market gives them will be the biggest challenge of all. The PM and her plea for kindness has been quickly dispensed and forgotten.
“…which China exploits by militarily enforcing South China Sea sovereignty.”
LOL! they already have!
Indeed… they are already rounding ethnic minorities into camps, too… oh, but the truth is also WACIST… shhhhh
Your name sake, the great Fidel said: “China Is Most Promising Hope for Third World”
https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/China-Is-Most-Promising-Hope-for-Third-World-Fidel-20171128-0017.html
You’ve often written about changes that need to happen in New Zealand, Mr Bradbury.
This opinion piece from Lana Hart on Stuff today. You’ve been right all along ,@MB. Not that we really needed encouragement from those of us who have railed against the rich mans favourite political /economic mantra to suck the blood like a vampire out of the populace….
nzwww.stuff.co.nz › the-press › opinion › govt-needs-to-tar…
Govt needs to target our soaring cost of living | Stuff.co.
Govt Needs to Target Our Soaring Costs of Living
Labour and The Green Party should woo the farmer away from National then enable, by what ever means necessary, farmers into becoming regenerative in their farming practices.
( Ban glyphosate and pesticide use immediately and tax foreign bankers at a 100% rate on the net profits they take out of AO/NZ annually to pay for a lay period to allow our farm lands to heal and become more productive and less toxic. They should then increase the top tax rate to 60% above $500,000 of taxable income and nail the bankster minion real esnake industry’s arse to the floor with a hefty capital gains tax )
If Labour and The Green party did that, we’d see more money pour into AO/NZ than at any time in AO/NZ’s history and would undo generations of financial abuse and control over not only farming people but over all of AO/NZ’s citizenry.
We need foreign exchange to buy stuff and things we don’t / can’t manufacture and we need to eat.
It’s that simple.
Come on, they are looking three years down how to keep the populace content, well more the same with a few not many changes, priorities Health Education Employment, all steadfast foundations of a Labour, alone control Governance with a few progressive policies. And that is going to be it.
Food costs in this country are getting out of hand. Even buying locally and in season, it seems the price of tomatoes and bread is forever ridiculous. After living in New Zealand 23 years, I still can’t answer the question: if we produce so much milk, why does it cost so much?
A $9.5 million house is being built in Christchurch. Shaped like the letter Z, swimming pool and tennis court. When completed, it’s going to be one of the biggest and priciest properties in town. The owner? A director at Foodstuffs South Island and owner of Pak ‘n Save Wainoni, one of Christchurch’s poorest areas.
My blood boils when I think of the families who anxiously push half-empty trolleys through that store, selecting items that are a few cents cheaper and a little less nutritious, so they can squeeze more out of their wages to feed their families for another week, while helping to fund that Fendalton swimming pool and import its Italian tiles.
The duopoly in New Zealand supermarkets must end and the Ardern government can instruct the Commerce Commission to investigate. There should be more competition in this lucrative market, better regulation of prices, and more options for small suppliers to access mainstream markets.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/123193640/govt-needs-to-target-our-soaring-cost-of-living
The USA has no place in Taiwan nor the China South seas.
Reuters carefully controls what information the NZ public is allowed exposure to.
Delve into the History of how the USA and KMT got driven into Taiwan then brutally quelled the rebellion of Taiwan’s native people. Use Asian history sources not the US revision.
Taiwan is a part of China.
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