According to The Guardian, Labour’s collapse in vote is all because the vaccine roll out has been slow????
What?
The vaccine roll out is coming up to its crunch time now, but it hasn’t been the main issue and even if it was, National would have benefited, but it didn’t!
The alienating woke Hate Speech issue that is being compounded by a millennial trigger level threshold for outrage is pushing Labour male voters into the arms of ACT who are seen as championing free speech – this isn’t mentioned once in the column.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone, The Guardian we’re caught flat footed like this over Brexit as well. They refused to see that their own woke position on Brexit blinded them from how their own activism/journalism contributed to that result.
Brexit happened Woke young online Labour UK activists savaged Northern Labour voters for being too stupid to understand why remain was better, those older Labour voters became alienated by those woke younger activists and voted Brexit out of nationalism and spite for the younger activists.
It was the first case of ‘proxification’ where activists alienate voters away from progressive parties because their online activism is simply too abusive.
The Right look for recruits, the Left look for traitors. Labour in NZ just lost 18% of their support in 1 month, if you can’t comprehend the magnitude of that, you probably shouldn’t be commenting on NZ politics!
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We need someone who can lift everyone out of poverty and Jacinda is way to distracted to lift something like that.
I’m saying someone has to do a deal with New Zealand’s top 20 richest people so they pay 80% wealth tax in NZ to lift everyone upto middle class status when the wealth tax can be turned off, into profit, preferably in 10yrs.
“Let them eat vaccines!” ??
December 2020: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018776009/tolerating-child-poverty-as-part-of-an-economic-strategy
February 2021: https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition/audio/paul-barber-food-insecurity-on-the-rise-in-new-zealand/
May 2021: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442476/new-figures-show-one-in-five-children-in-households-where-food-can-run-out
June 2021: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/06/more-kiwis-will-need-support-to-feed-their-families-this-winter.html
July 2021: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/calls-to-feed-the-5-million-first-before-exporting-new-zealand-food/RYQ5ETC276D4RWDMUWTIKRJMYU/
From that link:
“People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.
“Almost 40 per cent of adults and 19 per cent of children in New Zealand don’t have enough food.” (From that Herald link)
Excellent opinion piece from Chloe Swarbrick. Not a word wasted.
Except she is in a government that is deliberately ignoring and exacerbating the housing crisis. And to me housing is THE issue Swarbrick and the Greens have to go nuclear over with Labour, a cause worth everything.
I am fucking over Jacinda’s kindness, it’s a manufactured charade. All she cares about is winning the next election because politics is all she knows and recognises. She is too stupid to recognise the damage this ongoing crisis is doing. She is doing her utmost to manipulate child poverty stats, (because she staked her reputation on it), by throwing more money at benefits as an easy sugar high fix than look at the elephant in the room that is causing so much poverty, housing!
Labour are only doing the bare minimum in housing to keep this out of the headlines, PR managing this poison rather than trying to fix it and I don’t know why that is but vested interests and votes must be some of the reason. If our PM was kind AND cared there is no way she would let this crisis go on.
It has reached the point where not only is voting Labour pointless, Ardern and her useless government are destroying the brand.
So who do u suggest we vote for then xray the others are even more f…..n useless. We didn’t get in the mess where in from the current government.
Winston & NZ First.
At the moment this govt is allowing wealthy speculators to continue driving the price of housing through the roof, to make themselves ever more wealthy.
They are doing this by taking food out of the mouths of ordinary Kiwis!
Remove the GST on these six food groups:
ALL NZ-grown & produced
Fruit and Veggies, Cheese and Honey, Bread and Butter.
We produce some of the finest foods on the planet. Yet we are fed CRAP if anything at all.
It is an ABSOLUTE CRIME that any single Kiwi child is going hungry, due to not being able to afford our own homegrown produce!!!!!
That should read, “They are doing this “while” taking food from Kiwi kids
NZ First Policy
Giving our children access to fresh, healthy AO/ NZ grown fruit and vegs etc would have enormous benefit for everyone! Fewer children would present with health problems, fewer children in hospital, better resistance to epidemics such as the recent RSV one that ravaged our health system. Students would perform better in school and higher education. They would feel better about themselves and so about their futures – there would be more optimism, more energy, more readiness to be great citizens.
It is also an essential Climate Action measure. Flying in “foods” from around the world when those replace what we produce right here at home is ANTI- Climate friendly. It is a no-go for the future. By continuing as-is they are making a joke and a lie of their claim to recognise the Climate emergency. Obviously, it is NOT an “emergency” in their eyes. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ are the only emergencies they recognise. King Midas rules again.
Agree +100%
Agree 100%. Again. Plus no gst on children’s clothing. Brits don’t add vat to kids’ clothes and nor should we – especially when much of it is shoddy stuff from China.
Chloe on the Housing crisis, – Article written by her in the Herald:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/chloe-swarbrick-un-enshrined-human-right-to-housing-eclipsed-by-investor-greed/DXNIFZJJ7NBRVBG7CY74O27JCM/
Excerpt from Intro ONLY, Full unmissable article at the link:
Housing is a human right. More than that, adequate housing is a human right.
This is not some new-age wokeness, or whatever the latest culture war-baiting buzzword is.
We signed up to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted and passed without dissent by the United Nations General Assembly. The UN was created after some of the world’s most devastating wars, in hope of creating peace by enforcing basic standards for member nations and their people.
The succeeding 70 years, however, saw basic tenets of that contract broken as elected representatives sacrificed goals of shared security and prosperity in favour of individual greed and gain.
They instead gamed the system to procure untold wealth for a handful of people at the expense of the largest transient population since around the time we were signing on to the Declaration of Human Rights 70 years ago. In Aotearoa New Zealand, that wealth comes in the form of owning houses, multiples of them.
Read the full article by Chloe, at the link above.
Maybe the Green Party should stop signing off the “human right” of water to Chinese big business, pollute NZ with consents for Chinese landfills, also giving the world’s rich and middle class and exploiters the ability to be NZ residents and rent and buy housing and use NZ’s free health system, at the expense of existing NZ residents.
BTW – the reason I mention they are Chinese owned is that China is an enormous economy with huge resources, so not sure why the NZ politicians including the Green Party are so keen to gift them NZ assets while NZ citizens struggle to afford water rates, droughts everywhere, pollution increasing due to poor decisions. NZ Government need to change the laws to protect NZ – instead their laws like ‘hate speech’ are priorities which criminalises free speech and expression. Go figure.
When even your international cheerleaders are voicing concern you know you are in trouble
Bernard Hickey weighs in on the Housing Crisis:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/03-08-2021/here-are-all-the-levers-the-government-isnt-pulling-to-fix-our-housing-catastrophe/
“In response to claims successive governments have enabled a massive human rights failure, the prime minister says hers is doing all it can to fix the housing crisis. Bernard Hickey disagrees.”
Excerpt from Intro:
PM Jacinda Ardern defended her government against the Human Rights Commission’s accusation that it was breaching human rights law with its housing policies. She said the government was “pulling all the levers” on policy, had acknowledged there was a crisis and didn’t need another report detailing the crisis.
But a quick perusal of the Labour-led government’s policies and comments from the last four years show it is not treating it like a crisis requiring a response similar to that seen after the Great Depression and the Second World War. What was a crisis when Labour was elected in 2017 is now both a home ownership and rental affordability catastrophe.
For example, the Labour-Green government:
1. has not set out a crisis-style strategy to build enough new houses to lower prices and rents in a way that would meaningfully improve affordability; …Full article at the link above.
Bernard Hickey and others are part of the problem, as they are too woke to work out that immigration has a big effect on both the cost and availability of housing as that seems to be considered ‘racist’ in the woke crowd. So we have to pretend one of the biggest factors doesn’t exist and thus our housing problem is getting worse. Meanwhile 30,000 are getting Covid visas, but not sure where the 30,000 are going to live? The constant braying of the woke to give every foreign person living in NZ free residency and benefits including those who are high needs, already prosecuted for criminal activity, while next minute decrying the lack of housing shows the lack of insight.
Woke, you can’t ‘wish a house’ for everybody or have another ‘committee/talkfest’ and get a house into circulation. They need to be allocated based on a criteria which somehow at present does not prioritise existing NZ citizens or our NZ workers who don’t have the luxury of bringing money into NZ, and the NZ poor.
Which parts of his article do you disagree with?
Bernard H’s final word is: “In my view, the government is not pulling all the levers and it is not treating the issue as the catastrophe it is.”
And that my friend is typical of the media.
Over my life I have found it fascinating that every time an item was reported in the media about something I was closely associated, they got it wrong, often totally upside down. Michael Crichton refers to this as the ‘wet streets cause rain’ syndrome.
Most items in the media are either reported in error or contain deliberate lies.
In this case a more accurate headline would have been: ‘Ardern’s Popularity Stumbles on their Serial Incompetence’ but that would run contrary to their party line so they had to think of something else.
that has been my experience also.
D J S
Although I don’t disagree stupid legislation is harming Labour, and I suggest with the Greens fully behind this but bearing no responsibility, Labours worsening track record on delivery of major policy is hitting it too.
The PM just radiates indecision and timidness to the point of catatonia and accepts lack of accountability from her Ministers which makes her look at bad as they are.
Her Finance Minister looks like a chip of the National Party block such is his fiscal conservative outlook. He’s a good part of the reason for worsening housing.
Decisions made appear illogical and by virtue entirely poll driven, the pointless e car incentive/anti commercial vehicle tax screams appearance over substance.
And after slightly less than 4 years Ministers look not only out of their depth but out of touch.
Yesterday Poto Williams, who on a good day is hopeless, was filling in for the equally hopeless Meagan Woods telling the Wellington City Council that despite social housing leaving them in a multi-million dollar hole, they could NOT apply for social housing subsidies from the government that apply to all other social housing providers because of the negative fiscal ramifications to the government’s accounts. Poto, whose people were upper most in her mind when cops are getting shot, and who bear the brunt of this countries housing disaster, saw fit to echo mindless fiscal prudence over social housing.
I can see the debt ridden WCC will ditch their social housing because of this. And more people in distress.
How fucking out of touch are you Williams, or for that matter your government?
All of which explains their descent.
Her Finance Minister looks like a chip of the National Party block
Yep. NOTHING in his Scrooge McDuck type policies resonates!!!!
AND he LIED!
He made headlines with some fictitious increase to benefits – then snatched it back and hid it away.
BS artists to the MAX!!!!!!!!!
He’s a good part of the reason for worsening housing.
Robbo: “Let the banks decide!”
(How’s THAT working out then.)
Leaving it to the Bankster’s will never work, ask Fay Richwhite
In case anyone missed it, one main National Party MP has seized the day, seen what was needed, joined forces with Chloe …some months ago, – and together those two are now leading the charge:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/08/national-s-nicola-willis-green-mp-chl-e-swarbrick-continue-push-for-house-price-briefing-after-reserve-bank-s-admission-of-forecast-failure.html
Well it “is” the Guardian. Suffice to say yes Labour’s woke nonsense, especially regarding free speech, their failure on health care, their lack of respect for nurses for example, their failure to address the housing problem whilst refusing a legitimate taxable cost, interest from mum and dad property investors, their failure to reform social services and even ensure clean water for all come to mind as more legitimate reasons they are loosing support.
BTW its not just male voters who are jumping ship. Why would it be?
Sadly the NZ guardian section has been captured by the ‘NZ woke commentators’ who once they destroy the left in NZ, are padding their international profiles to relocate to the UN space.
Thus while reading the guardian on UK news, generally don’t bother to read the NZ section as often an alternate reality of what important is happening in NZ.
The Covid vaccinations program in our country has amplified making this article almost redundant. At this stage we cannot force all people to vaccinate but with the right approach we can persuade them to do so. But we need to bare in mind no matter what some people will never vaccinate, and so we need to plan for this and have policies in place to manage this.
The Guardian is not noted for accuracy. It just happens to be a lot more accurate than most other so-called newspapers, which are more concerned with propping up business-as-usual than actual news.
Don’t you just love the language here:
‘Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse
A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say’
‘must not be allowed to happen’ Ha!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse
Meanwhile every government on Earth -including that of NZ, of course- is working hard to promote increased use of fossil fuels to generate economic growth!
How many tonnes of imported dirty Indonesian coal did we burn yesterday?
So, the NZ winter has been reported as being 1.53oC above average. Obviously not enough. We want MORE flooding, MORE droughts and MORE tornadoes, and we want the lakes to be further depleted so we can import MORE coal and burn it.
That’s called “good for business”.
And business-as-usual has to prevail, whatever the cost!
Here in NZ they are stacking the bonfire! With Californian pine.
Kheala you are being very good at gathering information and feeding the links through to others. Ubteresting that Nicola Willis and Chloe Swarbrick have started a nucleus of cross-party action on housing, it is time for focussed, practical minds to work hard for results, ideas are out there, let’s utilise them. Someone needs to step aside from full-on, fevered personal human issues, to community-wide essential need human issues.
I understood that kindness and practicality had to go hand in hand to keep balance!
Why these journalists Guardian? Ben Thomas (from google) Ben Thomas | The Spinoff
https://thespinoff.co.nz › author › ben-thomas
Ben Thomas is a public relations consultant. He is a former National government press secretary and political editor of the National Business Review.
Morgan Godfery – (google) Morgan Godfery | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › profile › morgan-godfery
Morgan Godfery is an Indigenous writer. Based in Wellington, New Zealand, he appears regularly in the New Zealand media and specialises in Māori politics …
And of all the matters raised that they report, vaccines were only a part. Is that all the UK can think about – it seems as if they are as tunnel-visioned as the National Party here. And let’s say it, why wouldn’t the UK be obsessed about Covid19 matters when they are on the brink of falling deep into the hyperbole pit full of nasty viruses! Actually the heated topic here is hate speech and the lousy example that the UK has given us of how a country run by elites can play with the sensibilities of the peeps they preside over.
Grey, thanks. It’s just that a few fairly simple tweaks to the system would make a HUGE difference to the quality of life for many, many Kiwis. I’m trying to understand what the blockage is, in the govt. Covid didn’t help – That HAD to be kept out if we were to enjoy the quality of life we now have, without living in suspicion of everyone we meet (are they carrying the disease?) . Beyond Covid concern, I don’t know what it is… but it feels as though something or someone is blocking progress. What or who is, I don’t know.
Someone needs to step aside from full-on, fevered personal human issues, to community-wide essential need human issues.
Spot on!!!
It’s all about “the narrative” (why that is so important to the elites remains a mystery to me, but it probably has something to do with control/subservience/obedience). MSM is a complete joke. Unfortunately people are too lazy to even look at “alternative media” for their news, since they don’t trust it (and tbh Q-Anon, Alex Jones and the like haven’t helped in this regard – not everything is a grand conspiracy).
Jacinda says she is better than John Key because she accepts there is a housing crisis and John Key didn’t. Thats it….. thats as far as she goes. But at least she accepts it? She is not going to do anything about it, but she accepts it. Why would anyone bother voting for anyone anymore?
Of course she’s doing things about it you’re simply lying…
https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/45ff69ff-b4da-4662-8629-8103e5d85bfc
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300210598/government-sets-out-where-it-will-build-new-public-homes-as-waitlist-reaches-new-heights
If she is not prepared for house prices to simply go back to 2019 prices, yet alone 2017 then she is a total failure of a person who is responsible for untold pain, damage and trauma caused directly to the people who needed the most support. Gary Lin did not need that extra $5 million last year. He already made millions since 2017 and before. This government will be remembered for eternity for the extensive damage it has done.
Then go back to 2015 or 2012 or 2012 how far back do u GO? N.Z. didneed 30 million on a referendum but Key held one, was he responsible for the utter waste?
What about Winston & NZ First
Bert, 3716.
3716, (the number RNZ have calculated and I’d believe them before our PM any day any year) is all the additional state houses these bullshitters have managed in 4 years. Bill English must be so proud.
Labour are trying to manage this crisis by leaving settings just the way National had them. John Minto’s blogs on TDB on this subject recently were quite illuminating just how little Labour care.
They like housing just the way it is. To sweep the victims of this crisis away from the spotlight of the media they’ve cashed in on an old National Party trick, using motels or buying them, now spending a 3rd of a billion dollars on accomodation supplements with a emergency housing list in the mid 20 thousands and a record number of emergency applications rejected. Labour want a dollar each way using poor people as the collateral.
Meanwhile house prices and sales records keep breaking, going up and up as do record rent prices. It’s so bad Jacinda doesn’t even try to explain, she just says nothing
Marama Davidson who is the Homeless Minister is writing to and talking to Grant Robertson trying to convince him to allow Kainga Ira to take on more debt to build more social housing. Rejected.
Wellington City Council want social housing subsidies because the debt burden they are carrying is too much. Rejected by Meagan Woods and Poto Williams.
Labour don’t give a shit. They are out of touch middle class politicians, comfortable with this worsening crisis. The are charlatans.
When are you going to wake up?
I’ll wake up well before you.
No doubt Labour will have a massive housing policy announcement in the lead up to the 2023 election. Will it be too little, too late? Yes, but combined with other policies such as education, health, and the environment, it may be enough to ensure that Labour get a third term. An 18 percent drop in potential votes in one week is significant. However, there’s still two years until the next election. Labour won their second term by an impressive margin.
Daniel, all they have got is announcements and people are starting to know it. But Andrew Little getting treated with derision/a poor joke by Doctors yesterday at a ministers conference with them suggests to me Labour’s word is no longer credible.
The guardian is equivalent to the NZ Herald, the Natz daily news release. When nanny herald continually wheel out has-been losers like prebble, joyce, hooten and old boomers like osullivan, Treweek, Young, supplemented by their paid letters to the editor, no wonder the natz gained 7%. The farmers howl protest was simply a Tory right-wing rally promoted by all the talk-back radio and TV stations NZMe and their media.
When it comes to housing, Key relied on property speculators to achieve his rock star economy and as a consequence, between 2010 and 2016 the land values escalated by 100% to a point no one will be able to afford a house. My land value is 80% of the property value. No one will give away their land for cheap – Govt and Councils need to use golf clubs, reserves, crown land and other vacant land for social housing.
The right is envious of Jacinda and Labour’s success with Covid, economy, unemployment, freedom and safety. By this time next year the right wont have any topics to complain about. I detect that they hope that Delta or other covid variant breaks loose in Aotearoa to give them a chance in next elections. It is time for dirty politics to rear its ugly head along with playing the race card..
I take a single poll with a grain of salt, especially one conducted using landlines or one which puts David Seymour even in the same league as PM Ardern. I certainly don’t trust the political spin on it coming out of the mainstream media – they should stick to medical misinformation and fear mongering.
What housing crisis?
If you count all the ghost houses and baches and holiday homes there is obviously enough houses to home everyone. So really there is an Accommodation Crisis that could easily be solved by the government requisitioning empty housing. That is something the public could be persuaded to support in a time of crisis.
Then there’s the Home Ownership Crisis, the homeownership to renters ratio. During the time of the golden weather and the egalitarian 60’s and 70’s, New Zealand had a homeownership rate approaching 90%. The kiwi dream was reality. The newspapers and TV did not continually promote landlordism. The middle class felt secure that the government would care for them in their old age and did not feel the need to become mum and dad property investors. The crisis solution to this problem is to regulate that a person can only own one house. (A simple lever Bernard Hickey forgot to mention).
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