Feelings are the only currency now in our age of subjective rage and this election will be fought by the Hateful Right against the Unforgiving Woke to try and woo voters over.
The Hateful Right will vomit up racist rhetoric while the Unforgiving Woke will banish everyone who disagrees with their dogma.
If the Left want to win, our activist base need to shut up and stop driving voters into the arms of the hateful right.
Labour: Needs to push for a big policy vision that has an impact on resetting the social fabric: free dental, Nationalise ECE, free after school care, extend maternity leave. Something big.
Greens: Must dump the identity politics shit and just focus on their Wealth Tax and something visionary for the environment (solar panels on every school).
Māori Party: I think the 3 bottom lines in return for their Supply and Confidence vote should be broad universal policies that make an immediate material difference to the poorest amongst us.
1 – Remove GST from food.
2 – Tax the Banks with a financial transaction tax
3 – Follow Commerce Commission recommendations to set up new supermarket option using Iwi in the same way as 2Degrees was created as the owners with a focus to lower cost to consumers, raise wages and conditions for staff and pay more to suppliers.
Removing GST from food, taxing the rich with a financial transaction tax and creating a new supermarket chain around Iwi would build the Māori Party legacy status.
To the Right we have a National and ACT Government with a cavalcade of political circus freak reactive policies that knee-jerk so hard, that their reign of power would amount to nothing more than endlessly kicking ourselves in the face for 3 years!
To the Left we have a Māori Party more concerned with political theatre, a Green Party that has declared a culture war on heteronormative white cis males and a Labour Party you could give a red van to, call Pat and they still couldn’t deliver!
No one is actually looking at the real issues in front of us!
Nationals 3 biggest donors (Hart, Mowbray and Bolton) have a combined net worth of 15 billion!
The Bottom 50% of NZ has 23 billion.
The top 5% of NZers own roughly 50% of NZs wealth, while the bottom 50% of NZers own a miserable 5%!
IRD proved NZ Capitalism is rigged for the rich and Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200billion in tax revenue.
$200billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now!
There are 14 Billionaires in NZ + 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with over $50million each, why not start start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax!
Culture War fights make all the noise, but poor people aren’t sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns, they are trying to work out how to pay the bills!
Bread and Butter cost of living pressures are what the electorate want answers to, and that’s where the Left need to step up and push universal policy that lifts that cost from the people.
The Commerce Commission is clear that the Supermarket Duopoly should be broken up and the State should step in and provide that competition.
We need year long maternity leave.
We need a nationalised Early Education Sector that provides free childcare for children under 5.
We need free public transport.
We need free breakfast and lunches in schools.
We need free dental.
We need 50 000 new State Houses.
We need more hospitals, more schools and a Teachers aid in every class room.
We need climate change adaptation and a resilient rebuilt infrastructure.
We need all these things and we need to fund them by taxing the rich who the IRD clearly showed were rigging the system.
That requires political courage and there is none!
No one is willing to fight for tomorrow, they merely want to pacify the present!
Tired, bruised and post Covid bitter Voters want solutions and someone to punch. The Left have to make the punching bag the 10% richest with policy that will lower the overall cost of living crisis for the remaining 90%.
The Unforgiving Woke need to be quiet until after the election so that voters aren’t reminded what condescending pricks they are.
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Martyn comes up with various popular policy ideas that would certainly win votes, but the corporate political donors are opposed to all of them.
There are no anti-establishment candidates that could put any of the ‘swamp creatures’ under pressure to adopt all of these suggestions. It seems more likely that what will be offered up is everything the Wall Street funded thinktanks and N.G.O’s are calling for, with a few meaningless crumbs thrown in to appease the angry plebs.
After 6 years in charge three of those with a majority that gave them complete control with no Winston or Greens what have they achieved. I see high inflation ,education in a mess from early childhood through to Polytechnics and Universities ,roading in a poor state .armed forces undermanned ,police losing the war against crime with gangs out of control and to top it off a cabinet that is falling apart with no ledership in sight
Would you rather no inflation and no payrises then? In the 1990’s no one got a payrise at all. SO rich pricks like you could live in luxury.
Sweeping statement Millsy and not untrue to an extent but whilst a number of people have had substantial increases (in % terms, not relative to inflation). Some people are still being screwed. I know someone who hasnt had a payrise for 7 years. In fact they had a pay decrease as their company stopped paying their kiwisaver when they turned 65 and told them that despite it being a total remuneration package, they were not going to make up the difference. (When you hit 60, terms and conditions are very much subject to ‘put up and shut up if you want to work, especially over 65)
You will find there are still people out their being screwed over, migrants, older workers, people with disabilities, those in country towns without a lot of work. The only ones getting the payrises are those who are ‘mobile’.
You could always return to the UK trev. Heaps better over there….Oh wait?
Did you notice anything different with the weather that has destroyed some roads, and bridges in certain areas? Our roads are fine although we have not had any extreme weather where I live which makes a difference. We know that disaster events are going to increase in frequency & intensity which will require money to repair or to abandon certain areas. The housing ponzi scheme where house values rise therefore rents increase therefore house values rise etc is going to come to a crash landing when the government has to spend money on repairs so cannot afford the accommodation supplement landlord subsidy anymore.
Not sure Trev understands how potholes occur. Not sure Trev understands that the devastating effects of the cyclones impacts on our roading infrastructure the like we have never seen before. Sure we have had isolated incidents but nothing like the catastrophic events since xmas.
High inflation globally and the rest just your usual verbal assault from someone on the right, pure and simple.
The Bank s will just pass the cost s onto the customer. Better to have profitable banks. And the supermarket will delight in gst being removed. They will make up some other supply change cost and the prices will be about the same.
You have shares in the banks I take it?
They have sucked out millions of dollars in bank fees. Bank fees should be banned. We need to go back to where it was 40 years ago where there were no fees at all.
Who pays bank fees??? I’m a member of several banks and pay ZERO fees..
..except for tax on my interest, I’m down for eliminating that!
There are still bank fees. Fees for manual withdrawl, setting up automatic payments, missed payement, overdrafts, etc. They should all be banned, SIck of banks trying to milk customers for all they are worth,
The left MUST win if we are to have payrises and free healthcare.
After watching bovva boy Chris Bishop’s trainwreck of an interview on TV3’s ‘The Nation’ on Saturday with his stone silence blank eyed reaction to a question on inequality, followed by Luxon’s lisping breathless toe-curling shambles of an uninspiring speech to the converted, followed by Nicola Willis’s lame cliched – infused diatribe slogan talk, i’m picking National will be lucky to crack 30% on election day.
A body language expert would have had a field day deconstructing those 3 performances. It wouldn’t be pretty!
Nobody in their right mind would vote for them except the deluded throwing good money after bad.
One things for sure ….they have no idea and no new ideas. Clueless in fact. They are a train-wreck in waiting.
As for that puffed up little bantam Seymour peacocking around. He needs to stop reading his own press. The delusion is already deeply entrenched. Fundamentally he’s a waster. His ideas, if you can call them that, are so stupid it beggars belief that he has the audacity to voice them publicly and incomprehensible that people would throw truck loads of money his way.
In some masochistic way i would love to see him having to wear the consequences of his stupid ideas, but the collateral damage to the country would be catastrophic, so that little experiment cannot be allowed to see the light of day.
Bring on election day!
Grant, National are a complete waste of space, they keep rolling out the same old corrupt politicians with 1980’s policies to protect the rich whilst 99 5 of the country suffer. That is beyond dispute and now their great messiah Luxon says one thing and retracts it within 24 hours. He’s no John Key as Key was dodgy and slippery as fuck( panama papers)and took the country back by decades. We are where we are today directly as a result of the John Key National led government, that is undeniable. An example of his lewd government…
“It emerged that there were “at least five” complaints against former National MP Andrew Falloon from women who accused him of sending lewd images. Falloon resigned.”
“National Party candidate Jake Bezzant resigned from the party in June after his ex-girlfriend accused him in a podcast of posing as her to solicit explicit images online. Collins said it was “disgraceful”.
Judith Collis Oravida
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/87218934/john-keys-best-and-worst-moments-from-8years-as-prime-minister
Nick Smith – 2012
National MP Dr Nick Smith resigned from his Cabinet portfolios in an emotional statement to the media in March 2012. He was under immense pressure to resign following revelations that he had intervened in his friend and National Party activist Bronwyn Pullar’s ACC claim while he had been the ACC Minister. Dr Smith had used his ministerial letterhead to advance Pullar’s ACC claims.
“I’m disappointed I’m not going to be able to continue my work in some of those areas I have a passion,” he said. “But I apologise to all my fellow representatives for those misjudgments.”
National Party Minister Pansy Wong stepped down from her role as a Cabinet minister after it was revealed that her husband could have conducted private business while on a taxpayer-subsidised overseas trip to China in 2008. A month later, Wong resigned as MP for Botany, saying that the furore had made her reflect on her future and how much her family had paid because of her political pursuits.
“I want to ensure the National-led Government can progress its agenda without unnecessary distractions,” she announced at a media conference in Wellington.
7. Richard Worth – 2009
National Party list MP, Dr Richard Worth entered Parliament as the MP for Epsom in 1999. His career was fraught with drama.
In 2002 he skipped a Maori Battalion service to make a visit to Cairo to see the pyramids and take a camel ride while on an official trip. In 2009 there were reports of a private trip to India promoting aviation training in New Zealand, while having an interest in an academy. Later in the year there were allegations he visited a taxi driver who had allegedly been attacked by a group – one of whom was the son of an acquaintance. The following month there was a serious sexual allegation from an Auckland business woman.
He resigned as a Cabinet Minister and a few weeks later as a list MP.
“I went into politics to make a contribution to New Zealand. I can see that it is no longer possible for me to do that through politics, so I am now choosing to follow another positive path,” his said in his resignation statement.
Aaron Gilmore – 2013
The National list MP was forced to resign last year after allegations that he verbally abused a waiter at a Hamner Springs hotel for refusing to serve his dinner party more wine.
He was put under further pressure a few days later when it was revealed that he had been warned about sending inappropriate emails while working at a government department.
With a reputation like theirs National have no hope.
We know a vote for Labour is a vote for inaction so why not vote for National they could not do worst
They were worse before and will be so in the future, seems like you learn the hard way Trevor?
What inaction are you talking about?
Any fool knows that things had to be put on hold during the unprecedented worldwide situation with Covid and due to the full on decisive action of the Government we ended up with some of the best results in the world, ie. highest vaccination rates and lowest death rates per capita.
Even taking that into consideration they have still managed to build more houses than any other Government in recent times and despite more whining from certain sectors aggressively instigated the necessary change from combustion engine cars to EVs and we now have one of the fastest uptake of EVs in the the world.
On the trade front they have negotiated an extremely good trade deal with the U.K and the Dairy Farmers are reaping some of the highest payouts on record.
Unemployment is at one it’s lowest points ever and spending is up. The bars and restaurants are bursting with people everywhere you look.
The whining coming from certain sectors of society and certain sectors of the media do not tally with reality!!
Grant I could easily alter what you said and insert Labour where you put National and Greens where you put Act
One thing seemore misinterprets about the U.S. second amendment right to guns is it’s not about protecting people from other people it’s about protecting the people from a tyrannical government.
In New Zealand Maori signed a treaty with the crown for protection based on good old fashioned checks and balances there are clear deferences between Kiwi gun controls meaning no machine guns and more background checks and balances so no fucken machine guns.
That’s way to simple. Government doesn’t control freedoms it regulates them. Private sector effencies are just a bushshit if government effencies.
Why would anyone be interested in supporting a movement that are only maintaining a polite, less aggressive and alienating facade till after the election, solely to win votes ,when it’s already long been obvious what blatant fuckwits some of them really are?
I would love to see the Maori Party eliminate the neoliberal Green freaks. Unlike in Sue Bradford’s days, the Greens bring nothing to the table.
Martyn, Hart, Mowbray and Bolton will just leave the country and take their billions with them. Ditto a fat chunk of the top 5%. Short of bringing in emergency controls immediately post-election, who is going to pay for your socialist dreams?
They’re all awful, whether with or without wings. The Greens cannot change, they’re a kind of madness, they’re scripted to behave the way they do, unbelievably arrogant, ignorant, sanctimonious, unreasonable gender-benders, and a tragedy for the big issues like the future of planet earth and our children. They’re not worth consideration except that they are meant to be an environmental party. Pretty racist too. Sack the Race Relations Commissioner for letting them be.
Labour long ago lost it roots and it’s way, and if there’s any good people in there, they may be being silenced for the good of the party, and their secret agendas. Nats are the vulgar nouveau riche wannabes, ill-bred, and probably dumber than the Greens, the sort of people who make the Millsy ‘s of the world think that rich is bad when it is avarice, and the desire for money which corrupts. Mana could have been good, had they not been racist, as is the Maori Party, wallowing in its genetic superiority while playing victim better than the Greens do.
When Winston Peters, and constant referenda, have become the best option, that may be the only way to get back to the basics like homes, food, health care and a sound education, which the neolibs fail at and show little sign of really wanting to change.
Hipkins, the PM who expressed regret about not joining in the vicious silencing of women at Albert Park ? He owes all New Zealand women an apology for that.
The Greens are not racist.
And the fact is, that the wealthy in this country have had huge tax cuts over the past 35 years, while everyone else have had service and benefit cuts.
100% Hollyhock. At the moment NZ is screwed, damned if they do and damned if they dont. Winston or TOP are the only possible votes and although I like TOP, I cant see them getting enough votes to get traction.
But I have to be honest, whilst I shudder at the thought of a Nats/ACT govt, I am at this stage more scared of a Lab/Greens, TMP govt.
Scared of payrises, a more generous welfare system, public ownership and free healthcare. Jeez, you have really lost it,
Fantail. Labour’s determination to cancel freedom of speech, has to be a bottom line. The annihilation of the independent Commissioner for Children is part of this continuum of silencing people, and indefensible in terms of our heart-breaking child abuse and child murder stats. Politicians and police supporting the silencing of women at Albert Park, is shocking, but equally so is the ease with which they bought into the misinformation campaign against K-J Keen, and I think that a Herald columnist spear-headed that. Pity that media are too indolent or callous to address what’s being done to women, and children, and,gulp, cis- gender white males.
Like Anker, I’m considering the politicians as individuals, and have always voted for the person, and their party affiliation has usually panned out ok, but no more. I’m reluctantly dumping TOP, and need to know more about NZ First, including re the crucial ‘ Freedom of speech’ issue, and the promulgation of gender ID issues to young kids which is also one of K-J K’s concerns, but there’s no point elaborating on that now.
Anker mentions grown-ups, and at least Peters is a mature well-educated experienced politician, and seems decidedly unwoke, and that’s a biggie. But unless NZ First supports free speech, they can jump in the loch too.
Never voted National, like a couple of their MP’s, but find Luxon abhorrent in a way which I can’t be be bothered thinking about.
100% Hollyhock, especially the bit about Hipkins owing the women of NZ an apology.
I have to say I now think about politicians as individuals in terms of who is worthy of a place. I am looking for grown ups and smart people, preferably both.
So Labour = no one
National =. Nicola Stanford, Shane Reti, Chris Penk, Simeon Brown (long story, but I have my reasons)
Act=. Seymour, van Veldon, Chou, Chris from Nelson, James (and probably the rest of them as they haven’t got into trouble
Greens = possibly Shaw
TOP. =. Raff
Maybes, Brownlee as a result of listening to him on TWG, although he did stuff at Chch airport, Shaw, Nicola Willis,
You disgust me Anker. YOu have shifted to the right, and it sickens me.
You will gladly vote for a party that will impose a wage freeze on vulnerable workers and restrict access to health care.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,
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