If we look at every single problem facing us as a country, the root cause is National underfunding the system to begin with!
Why are we allowing National to sell us lies to fix the problems they caused to begin with?
Take Potholes for example.
What amazes me when the political Right scream about potholes are all the things they ignore when attempting to blame Labour.
They ignore that extreme weather events caused by climate change that create vast wet events followed by extreme heat are impacting our roads, that’s not too surprising I suppose because most Right wingers believe climate change is a communist hoax.
The second thing is far more difficult for them to pretend isn’t true because they did it! Back in 2010, it was Steven Joyce who increased the weight of trucks in a capitulation to the trucking industry…
Change lifts truck load limit to 53 tonnes
Up to 5000 trucks will be eligible to carry heavier loads on public highways from next month.
The change has raised concerns about motorists’ safety from the Automobile Association and the Green Party, which are also worried about damage to roads from the juggernauts.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce has announced that trucks carrying up to 53 tonnes will be allowed on specific routes from May 1, subject to the new permit system.
Even heavier rigs would be allowed “in very specific instances”.
The nine-tonne increase on the standard limit of 44 tonnes is the equivalent to the weight of nine small cars.
Green Party transport spokesman Gareth Hughes said trucks were already involved in 16 per cent of all road fatalities despite comprising only 4 per cent of the vehicle fleet.
“Bigger trucks have got more mass, more weight – that means worse accidents.”
…it was National who lifted the weights of Trucks which do so much damage to the roading network but the Right always like to pretend they didn’t do that!
The third thing the Right always love to ignore in regards to Potholes is that National froze upgrades when they were in power!
Wood went further, accusing Bennett himself of freezing funding for road maintenance when in Government.
“His assertions are baffling given when he was associate transport minister they froze road maintenance investment and ran our roads down,” he said.
“We’re boosting road maintenance after years of neglect, and stepped in to provide $2 billion of financing to keep our roads up to scratch.
This has been warmly welcomed by councils across the country, business groups, and Federated Farmers.”
So the Right deny global warming is even happening, they ignore the fact they put heavier trucks on the road and they hide the truth they froze roading maintenance.
Isn’t incredible how many lies the Political Right can spin to hide their involvement in creating the problem we see now?
How many lies must the political Right spin to pretend they weren’t the reason for the pothole problems we have and why do the voting public of NZ believe these fucking liars?
Take the get tough on crime stance that has seen ACT and National fight to put ankle bracelets on kids!
The number of serious repeat ram raiders is about 100, 80% of whom are already known to welfare agencies who are the kids from John Key’s draconian welfare reforms that saw kids in cars, state house tenants thrown onto the street for wrongful meth testing and whose parents were incarcerated in our private prison industry.
We know statistically that many of these youth are being abused at home, a home National and ACT want to ankle bracelet them to!
The Right establish draconian social policy, and when that causes more damaged individuals, the Right’s solutions are even more draconian policies?
If you look at Henry Cookes analysis of the swing voter, she is white, educated and in her early 50s, I just don’t think they are stupid enough to be played by the Right.
National have popped all the champagne because they seem to think they’ve already won the bloody election! All National seem to be doing is riding the post Covid bitterness and animosity towards Jacinda, an animosity that hate algorithms one Social media feed with a toxic misogyny.
I’m not sure spite and malice is enough to win an election in New Zealand.
I just don’t think there are enough stupid Kiwis to vote for National’s ‘solutions’, when it was National who caused most of the bloody long term structural problems!
Labour may lose this election, but National and ACT sure as Christ won’t win it because it was their knee-jerk policy that exacerbated these problems via underfunding in the first place!
The 30 year neoliberal experiment in NZ cut the State back to the bone and the political project of the Right ever since is to tax-cut starve off revenue for the State so it can’t redistribute it in the first place.
What we saw with Covid is that you desperately need a State with capacity. So many of the problems we encountered was the shear slowness of an underfunded, under capacity public service.
With the economic recession, the geopolitical shockwaves and catastrophic climate change upon us, we must have a debate about the capacity of the State!
That is how the Left have to re frame 2023 – vote for the Right and get an amputation of the State, vote for the Left and build new capacity for the challenges ahead.
We need more Drs, more nurses, more teachers, more Police, more State houses, more infrastructure NOT LESS!
We need to debate for a bigger capacity State using the example Covid just gave us.
We need more Scientists, Drs, nurses, teachers, Police, more State houses and more infrastructure alongside policy that directly subsidises the cost of living like removing gst off food, free dental, free public transport, free food in schools and we will fund that extra increase through targeted new taxes to rebuild the capacity of the State.
The obviousness of our need for a Ministry of Works that actually builds shit is painfully clear to everyone by now.
Take Police in NZ, we have a pathetic 203 police per 100 000 NZers!
Compare that with 212 in England, 264 in Australia, 318 in Scotland, 349 in Germany, 422 in France, hell even Fiji at 227 has more Police per 100 000 than we do!
We don’t have the capacity to create a functioning State that lives up to our expectations in a liberal progressive democracy because we won’t tax the rich to find that infrastructure!
We need to actually sell the 2023 election in those explicit terms – vote Right and amputate the State, vote Left and rebuild the capacity to actually face the challenges ahead.
These new taxes will be a sugar tax for free dental, a financial transaction tax to lower GST on everything, a bank windfall profit tax to build more State houses, a social media journalism tax.
Taxes aimed at speculators and the wealthy to fund services for the egalitarian country we want NZ to be.
Let’s have the courage to actually argue and win over our fellow citizens for solution based policy that actually builds the capacity to have the extra drs, nurses, firemen, police, and teachers.
Let’s champion policies that subsidise people’s cost of living by redistributing from the few to the many.
The voters of NZ are still waiting for the Transformative change we promised them in 2017.
If the Political Left have all finished squabbling over who the biggest victim is and cancelling people for crimes against middle class dogma, could we get back to winning the election and being actually transformative?
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Martyn, there are numerous amounts of people on this site dumb enough to vote National and ACT.
It’s because of there tribal beliefs and never look beyond attacking Labour for being Labour, even though, as you say, most of today’s issues were created by the neglect of the last Nact government.
It’s not rocket science.
Utter drivel.
The social housing waiting list has climbed by 22000 since 2017.
Inequality
Poverty
Gang numbers
Emissions
Coal imports
Hospital waiting times
Elective surgery numbers
Emergency response times
Ram raids
Hardship
Food grants/parcel numbers
Truancy
Kiwibuild
Lightrail
Mental health
Housing affordability
All far worse now than under the last National government and most were worsening pre-pandemic. Defend that record!
I would be the first to vote for a NAT/ACT coalition if I thought their policies would improve any of these problems.
We can only look at the Key government as what to expect. That is sale of state housing, under funding of the hospital system with an ambition to privatise and more truck roads.
Labour has let us through the pandemic with minimal disruption, our real GDP has outperformed most countries and our crumbling hospital system has kept us alive.
Ickeyboyle you are a dropkick your defense of National is vomit inducing. Everything you highlighted was born by National so fuck off.
With idiots like MickeyBoyle, National stand no chance. If National had done even a half decent job none of his issues listed would be an issue today. MickeyBoyle, just another right wing ambulance voter at the bottom of the cliff.
So National voters are dumb and so obviously Labour voters are not .To my mind not only are Labour voters dumb they must be blind and deaf to not hear or see the distress from all walks of life . Businesses no staff and fear of robber,The poor facing inflation through the roof, wage earns fear losing their job ,farmers fear regulation that will break them, medical people fear each day as things get worse in every area. Collectively they fear 3 more years of poor management and policy driven by trying to divide the country by race
Trevor. I read Josie Pagani’s simplistic drivel in today’s Dim-Post advising King Charles how to stop the Harry horror show, recoiling in despair at the trite intellectual level at which the left functions. The Nats may be no better, but this lot are not even student cafe level, and should be banished, anywhere but Bowen Street.
You never acknowledge that today’s failures were born by National, why is that Trevor?
The voters will forgive Labour for screwing up the tar seal (wet tar seal doesn’t stick to tyres Martyn), the egg shortage due to precipitate legislation, or the CO2 shortage caused by the government failing to manage strategic logistical supply. However, they might blame the government in years to come when they run out of natural gas to heat their homes and we cannot make products such as glass bottles in NZ anymore.
But what the government will DEFINITELY blame this government for is their highly divisive race-based policies and their profligate spending on ill-considered pet projects
Profligate spending ?….You’ve got the wrong party….Pet projects like the soon to be white elephant pet project of the National Party i.e the massive multi billion dollar concrete network of irrigation channels, culverts and tunnels crisscrossing the South Island, running the river’s dry and killing off the Benthic macroinvertebrates was National’s wet dream (soon to be nightmare).
Labour didn’t screw up the tar seal. The Transmission gully fuckup amongst others was all National’s doing.. going for the cheapest lowest price with unrealistic time frames instead of factoring in quality and longevity.
Then there was the importing of cheap uncertified reinforcing steel from China they used to make our motorway flyovers that had to be redone at significant more cost and time than if they had done it properly from the out set… Penny wise …pound foolish …every time. That’s National!!
National are small- minded pea- brained short term thinkers that believe everything that is cheap and quick equals good economics. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are predominantly non practical silverspooner’s …clueless…and….they never learn…they never learn because they have never had to learn and so don’t know how to. Look at the nonsense they were talking during the Covid lockdowns and vaccination process.
Complete nonsensical ignorant and impractical gibberish. Trying to stir up trouble with childish fake stories. That was the best they could do. They had no idea.
They are fundamentally flawed as a species and you just can’t have people like that running a country.
Sco mo was a classic example of that in Australia.
Andrew what is laughable about the CO2 situation is all these bleating true right wingers that say the government should stay out everything the market will take care of it wank, wank. Then as soon as it goes wrong it’s the governments fault. Todd Energy have known they have a monopoly on local production for ages and they can’t even get that right. Their local competition at Marsden Point disappeared because “the market” decided local refining wasn’t giving them the margin on their money. It wasn’t the government that shut the refinery ( sure you can argue they should have bought it, but oh that’s big government it’s it?).
Andrew is right.
Labour want to give away water rights to Maori.
NZ First will support National and ACT to privatise water, rather than give it Maori.
National, ACT and NZ First in 2023.
PM Luxon; Finance Seymour; Foreign Minister Peters.
Luxon and Seymour are political lightweights compared with Mr Peters.
Neither of them deserve to have leadership roles in the 2023 Right-Wing Bloc of power. They will be there to advise and bow to the magnificent warrior, Winston Peters. Winston Raymond Peters was born before the end of the war, but he encapsulates the warrior spirit that setup modern democracies as the go to form of government.
I am a pensioner and Winston is a Gold-Card leader. He understands my demographic and he is able to span the political divides and he stands up for the downtrodden, much like his mentor, Rob Muldoon
Well obviously glorious socialism is the answer. Because we’ll do it right this time….
‘Make it so’ – Picard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xteKObnaA2c
If any one person is responsible for “every bloody long term structural problem”, it would be one Sir R. Douglas of the Labour Party!
The “root cause of every single problem” is that the Uniparty is controlled by Wall Street (and the Martin Place banks, and some large local firms).
In other words, monopoly capital dictates policy. Those policies barely change, regardless of who is elected.
The press barons will not report on the issues Martyn is discussing. The labour movement press has entirely collapsed.
Not even the trade unions can escape the Uniparty. Like the Democrats, Labour have presided over the total collapse of the entire labour movement — in all three countries where they operate.
Until both parties are smashed to pieces by the voters, nothing will change.
This has already begun in Italy, Greece and France.
Otherwise you end up rehashing the arguments about why working class people should vote for Hillary Clinton — someone who nobody likes, and who was to the right of Donald Trump on most of the issues!
If it wasn’t Douglas it would have been Richardson and or every single finance minister we’ve ever had from any party you care to name.
History will confirm this country’s current situation is caused by both Labour and National.
Jack. Agree. Both must go.
If they win, we all lose.
True National are useless. But Labour are even more use less. National the lesser of two evils. That’s why you need ACT to prop up National and Labour are a dysfunction Al mess with out NZ First as a collation partner. MMP solves all those issues.
I was staggered Dr Shane Reti wasn’t in the New Year Honours list. I mean his service in the use of hypocritical bullshit is unsurpassed.
He mightn’t be National’s chief spokesperson on selling us lies to fix problems they caused, but he is the Master at carpeting bullshit over history.
His regular columns in the Northern Advocate lay out how dire things are with everything in Northland, particularly health and roading. No mention of his part in shitting in the nest to make it like it is. His blind, narrow-minded, short-sighted, sycophantic fellow party members sat on their arses for years happy to see the North ‘progress’ to where it is. Including the state of the Northland Base Hospital.
The Government says it’s going to do something about that so of course Reti and his noddies are out out their trees spluttering about the plans to re-develop the Whangarei hospital. They didn’t do anything about the state of the hospital but they’re aggrieved that the Government has only allocated $759 million for Stage one of the project.
No doubt when the project is underway the present MP Emily Henderson will have been despatched to history as a one term MP and Reti will be the Minister of Health. Hopefully he gets a big team of proctologists for the new hospital – there are a lot of arseholes up here.
https://www.northlanddhb.org.nz/news-and-publications/news-2/bigger-ed-more-theatres-and-more-beds-in-new-whangarei-hospital/
Your right Martyn and you seem to have upset the same old wayne kerrs who espouse the same old bullshit excuses for how we got in the mess we are in, in the first place.
And our mates in the UK and Aus have the same problems as us and I wonder why, now who has been in power over there.
Wow! Even back in the Dunedin band days, the lead guitarist and bass player were aware of the issues surrounding at least one of the “three waters”
They were crap Wheel
Kristoff R is correct.
‘Until both parties are smashed to pieces by the voters, nothing will change.’
Both parties have gone far past their ‘use by’ date and are stuffed with political hacks and third raters.
If there is a candidate in my electorate I’ll vote Social Credit.
I do think National can win but I think it will be a closer race than anyone predicts. And the truth is neither big party deserves to win. They both have much to answer for but I have to say it, if you believe in democracy, its impossible to vote Labour or Greens.
There’ll be more than a few on this site whose votes will go to Winnie or TOP. For all that’s made of it, I dont actually think many of the posters on here are Tribal at all. Most see the miasma for what it is.
PS;; I should say National could win, I think its equally possible Labour may cobble it together as well but my instinct says Nats could have the edge.
After six years of Labour, the political party which I have traditionally supported the most, I am thinking that there isn’t actually much they they can do that National cannot do also, and I am thinking that a change of government could potentially be refreshing. In addition to this, I am concerned how the Prime Minister would cope with a third term in power because the last three years of the pandemic, plus inflationary pressures, plus the probability of a recession this year, have been tough, and it is a situation, in particular on a global scale, that is likely to continue to be tough.
I would like to add that I’m proud of Jacinda Ardern so far as the way in which she has represented New Zealand. I support many Labour party policies too.
I’m not proud of a woman who went to the UNO earnestly declaring herself to be a supporter of freedom of speech and then promptly advocated global censorship of speech, describing the words which set us free as weapons of mass destruction. Trevor Mallard’s illegal attempt to have Winston Peters trespassed from Parliament for the years ahead suggests that Peters is a force to be reckoned with, and we’ve few of them on the political landscape.
There is sufficient ignorance and greed in NZ right now to facilitate a rightwing coalition win. Tragically. You are correct, all the issues Labour has faced have been caused by National – especially the John Key version. From Luxon down, the quality of National and Act members is woeful. Mediocre, unprofessional journalists (although that is far too good a name for most of them) are stoking the flames of a rightwing fire by persistently undermining the government. Layer that with the supreme idiocy of self serving specimans* who fail to understand that the society they choose to live in and which has delivered them many benefits from the time they were born, is interdependent. We each have a certain responsibility in times of crises. Certainly, Jacinda Ardern has made mistakes along the way and (I believe) has not always been served well by her team – however, she has worked tirelessly for the good of the country. But a mere slip of a girl who lives ‘in sin’ with her partner and their child, has been ripe for reprehensible derision by a sector who probably have never been referred to as ‘stallions’. *speciman – used derogatorily.
Again, my comment didn’t make it through moderation – now using ID#2. What’s going on here? Hope you have the guts to publish this Mr Bradbury.
Yes, we need scientists, but the Labeen government is busy trying to destroy science by making Matauranga Maori ‘equal’ to science – despite the fact that it is based on Maori religion and spirituality. WTF? We’re supposed to be a secular nation, and the Education Act enshrines a secular education.
We live in a post-Covid age where science is more important than ever, but being challenged at every turn by denialists of all stripes from environmental to vaccines. So what does Labeen do? Poison the new science curriculum with spiritual nonsense.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/?s=matauranga+maori&orderby=relevance&order=DESC&post_type=post
This must stop.
The only way National/ACT lose the coming election is some sort of epic scandal or maybe a new global catastrophe where the current government can capitalise on their “leadership”. Outside of that, I’d say <20% chance Labour/Greens form the next government.
Based on donations, the elections are Nacts to lose. Based on policy, Nact have no chance.
And to @ Nitrium.
a) As you acknowledege, TDB is His blog and He can do what he wants
b) I think He might have a life outside TDB, and comments may appear when He gets around to moderating and posting them. He could be liable for the shit, or words of wisdom people post, especially as lil ole NuZull that punches above its weight moves toward a more litigious, and look-at-me-look-at-me- I’m-the-most-important-commenter-on-Earth.
c) Dropping everything else that might be going on in His life in order to process comments says more about the commenter than the moderator
I’m still waiting for a couple of comments to appear, and its possible they won’t ever. OR they may when things that are today’s issues become yesterday’s fish and chip wrapper.
There are a few things I don’t like about TDB. Martyn appears to be playing the media at its own game (and is probably winning). Media stardom and self promoters, big egos and bullshit artists. The difference seems to be that most of the posters (as opposed to commenters) have a bit of substance.
and d), As @ R Smith notes: Martyn is probably away dealing with other aspects of His life. (Must be a conspiracy eh? – to avoid posting comments he doesn’t like!!!)
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