The true damage to Labour in last weeks leaked UMR Poll release was the reminder that Labour have an MMP majority and still can’t get things done!
190 000 kids in poverty, 22 521 people on emergency housing wait lists, mental health still a shambles, child abuse inside Oranga Tamariki and generations locked out of home ownership all add up to a Government that is fundamentally failing to deliver DESPITE having an unprecedented majority.
It’s not that Labour aren’t doing some bold work. Health nationalization, EV rebates, mass water reform and universal Union membership are enormous feats of genuine reform, but the very shallow talent pool inside Cabinet is limiting what can actually be achieved now.
Labour has all the power but only a few talented Ministers. The UMR Poll is highlighting that.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
…but prices should never come down. Says it all, Bomber. Neo-liberal Slave Labour Party. Next.
If they want to turn this around, and not have to deal with a final ACT/ Nat-remainder coalition (lead by Herr Seymour?) then it’s time to take some bold, courageous steps, such as, eg:
– Remove the GST from essential foods and essential services. Bread, fruit and vegs, cheese, eg. And electricity – power bills are already unaffordable for many. Remove the GST!
– Cap rents now. Not an across-the-board figure, but work it out in some fair way.
– Put a temporary hold on ANY new purchases of houses by speculators – eg those who already own several properties and will not be living in the house.
– All benefits to be universalised – So that all are the same amount regardless of living arrangements, house sharing, partner arrangements, or age, or whatever. This would be beneficial in so many ways – would reduce tension within families, would free up some houses, would take some of the stress out of the situation many find themselves in. It would also bring some stability, rather than having to chop and change as people move in or out of accommodation.
(Also, Stop selling our land!! and Stop selling our water!! — to ANY foreign regimes or O/S based megacorps. Just Stop!)
“It’s not that Labour aren’t doing some bold work. Health nationalization, EV rebates, mass water reform and universal Union membership are enormous feats of genuine reform, but the very shallow talent pool inside Cabinet is limiting what can actually be achieved now”
Ah no. It’s because changing big complex systems with lots of vested interests is really hard and slow. Unless you want to act like some authoritarian nutter who will charge ahead, be oblivious to unintended consequences, alienate everyone including your own supporters, get thrown out of office at the next election, have anything you have done reversed by your opponents, and be out of office for a generation. I’m all in favour of being radical in our diagnoses of what is wrong with the world – but solutions and their implementation have to be far more carefully nuanced.
With each of those points that I’ve listed above, there has not been even the faintest hint of a nuance!
Nothing. at. all.
The nuance would be in removing the GST from SOME essentials – Other countries, such as AUS, UK and Canada do not have a gst or equivalent on any foods. All are exempt, afaik. Yet here, just asking for alleviation of the essentials. And if they made it for NZ grown fruit and vegs, then our local growers would benefit greatly as well.
Similarly for the purchase of houses by speculators – Only asking for a temporary hold on them, not permanent – just until pressure is eased on our emergency housing list.
And for the MSD – The entire ediface needs turfing out, demolition, start over, imo. But – nuanced – only asking for standardised benefits – one size fits all, regardless of partnerships etc – which would reduce departmental work required in sorting out all the different amounts and exactly when each change kicks in etc etc etc
Removing GST on selected items has come up since Jim Anderson’s time however having helped my son run a small business in Australia which does this and it was a nightmare to do the accounts. This added to the cost of operation and so any savings may not be that great and as there is huge price differences in market how do you know you are getting the full amount.
I stand to be corrected but am sure changes were made to taxes when GST was first introduced
to compensate for food prices and it would be easier to do another tweak if needed.
Trev, Businesses have multiple options for sorting out any accounting problems. Hungry kids often have none, have no way at all to ease the hunger and lack of good nutrition.
So exactly what do they do in the 9 years they’re in opposition, rather than just bicker at each other in present form maybe they should be developing policy before coming to parliament rather than all this review BS to slow all the processes down
Too much focus from NZ government that the super rich must be great business people and be good for the country and can provide advice for the government. Often they are good at ripping people off. Our housing, water and many other crisis are because of poor advice in those areas taken up by government.
Not working.
It’s no surprise that NZ crooks get to rip people off in NZ cart blanche for decades in plain sight and never go to prison (and there are plenty of those who are still in NZ emulating his crimes and being supported by government figures, venture organisations linked to government money and media) while other more successful countries actually prosecute these types of frauds for his crimes.
Former Hanover Finance co-owner Eric Watson charged with insider trading in US
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-hanover-finance-co-owner-eric-watson-charged-with-insider-trading-in-us/6BXPQTTPKQPNHKDOKNTMSCZUNY/
PWC sued for $1.5b for allegedly providing wrong advice to Brierley companies
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/125617853/pwc-sued-for-15b-for-allegedly-providing-wrong-advice-to-brierley-companies
BIL NZ Treasury and Brierley Holdings are New Zealand registered companies, owned by GL, which is based in Bermuda, Companies Office records show. GL Management PTE is not registered in New Zealand.
The Brierley companies said they accumulated losses of $1.58b and were seeking to recover them, the judge said.
(Great to know that you can lose billions and then try to recover them from NZ taxes! Please that one, failed and seems have upset Brierley who apparently have little documentation from PWC which seems unusual with that amount of money.)
Not only do we seem to be exporting crooks from NZ, we seem to be importing foreign crooks as fast as we can and selling our assets to them. Could this be why NZ productivity is low and we apparently can’t get any materials like wood that we grow here easily anymore?
PGG Wrightson shareholder Agria settles US fraud
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/pgg-wrightson-shareholder-agria-settles-us-fraud/TYE3WKUAWQIPG3DR2GX7V7MHME/
“Pol said criminals involved in drugs and human trafficking generated the greatest amount of illicit funds.
But the criminals who had set up trusts in New Zealand were more likely to be involved in large-scale cartels, corruption and professional “trade-based” money-laundering.
One New Zealand trust has already been associated with Unaoil, a Monaco company under investigation for helping multinationals bribe oil ministers and officials in the Middle East.
Woodhouse and Prime Minister John Key had said the OECD had “looked at our foreign trust rules in the past and had no concerns”.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/78585843/foreign-trusts-hiding-darker-secrets-than-tax-avoidance-says-expert
Totally agree.
Incompetence in the Labour Minister ranks.
The 190,000 children living in poverty. Minister in charge of this portfolio Prime Minister Ardern?
don’t worry about that, its not her fault.
It is someone elses fault, and she is trying her hardest, she be be best as good as she can and oh, ain’t that a nice smile of there? And soon she will marry, and what dress will she wear? Priorities. And poor kids and unhoused people is not sexy, really hard work, and maybe someone else will do it, cause this lot will not. It will give tax incentives to those that can afford 50.000+ vehicles under the guys of environmentally friendly vehicle, never mind the batteries and that rare earth materials that need to come from somewhere.
Labour/Greens before they get excited and import in hundreds of thousands of new resident students, workers, pensioners, super rich, Marie Antoinette “critical” workers like waiting staff and baristas, remember there are no houses coming soon and infrastructure, and they will be more expensive because the NZ Rogernomic strategy of NZ making raw materials then selling our assets and giving them away for peanuts doesn’t seem to be a very risk free strategy.
The waiting game: exporters, builders face months of shipping hassles
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125618407/the-waiting-game-exporters-builders-face-months-of-shipping-hassles
Covid is not the NZ governments fault, but NZ’s inability to plan for disruption and crisis and clinging to Rogernomic, globalism for decades now, seems to be very disruption in being able to create massive good shortages and price rises in NZ (of ironically our own raw products and assets like wood, water, steel, concrete) while allocating any new goods like housing and resources to new arrivals based on ability to pay the most (note new housing does not seem subject to any restrictions of foreign investors or bright line test like existing housing). AK there is still no provision of social good to existing NZ citizens allowed under Animal Farm NZ.
NZ is like the titanic where once hitting the ice berg and being short of lifeboats, our governments decide to keep selling the tickets to the highest bigger for the life boats so the Titanic owner can make more bit of profit on the side. And disasters actually increase GDP so it’s all good for the economy.
Martyn,
are you trying to get a writing spot on the NZ Herald??
you appear to have gone very anti Jacinda & Labour recently.
abit more balance please , & try to be more positive about NZ.
negativity is not good trait.
John B.
Be best, be positive, that pile of shit in your launge ain’t shit, its bovine excrement dear.
Who the fuck are these clowns in Labour now? They seem more right wing than what the party is meant to represent. I dont see a point in voting anymore. they’re just as bad as the last lot of arseholes we kicked out
The clowns?
Jacinda Ardern
Grant Robertson
And that union man, Andrew Little.
The same crew literally that gave us the DHBs that they now try so hard to undo.
It’s all the previous govt’s fault!!!! And who was the previous govt? Labour.
It must be really hard to understand, painful even, that the Queen and her posse are truly just mediocre at best, useless at worst.
During Key the left always screamed’ They are incompetent”, which of course they weren’t they were callous and gave no fucks. Now we have a Left single majority government that seems devoid of any practical solutions to any of the issues that will hit us tomorrow and they days after, Covid, Supply Chains, Housing, entrenched generational poverty, followed by the lack of education as kids change schools every few month if they get enrolled at all and above all the global weather fuckery that we can start see happening every where including here.
So maybe the Labour Party since Helen Clark is nothing more then a bande of dilettantes and incompetents, and at worst they are callous and give no fucks about poverty, global weather fuckery and such.
Your choice.
The best that can happen is that labour is forced into a coalition with a third party other then the Greens. The current labour party does not need a subservient rubber stamp disguised as a political party. So here is hoping that both, the Greens and t he Laobur party are send packing until they come to their senses.
The quesiton really is, would the Hologram from Act be so bad, and that is the saddest thing about Jacinda Ardern. That that is becoming a consideration. Thanks for nothing.
I see the rational about water and hospitals being put under a smaller unbrella but it has to be noted that these same type of public servants are organizing the MIQ, the vaccine role out,the so called mental health reform. What is to say going forward it will be better.
Christ, it’s exhausting. Carroting and sticking these 84 donkeys.
This is the most useless and underperforming Govt NZ has EVER had.. and it is like this as the Labour party MPs are just so incompetent.
There is no talent is this caucus at all.
‘It’s not that Labour aren’t doing some bold work. Health nationalization, EV rebates,’
Oh dear, here we go again!
Presumably EV stands for Electric Vehicles. And we categorically know that EVs are worse than petrol-driven vehicles when it cones to waste of resources and overall emissions.
But let’s not have a good argument disrupted by irrefutable facts, huh?
Nevertheless, everything that either LINO or the idiot Nats promote is both unsustainable and destructive. And counterproductive in the long run -which is why there is now no long run..
Comments are closed.