Nothing spells out what is at stake this election more glaringly than the Greens announcement on free dental vs the cruel amputation of the State that David Seymour gleefully announced over the weekend.
Dental should have always been included in public health, it was a weird quirk and some oddity that it missed out on being included when public health was established.
The cost of dental is through the roof for most Kiwis and oral health is an enormous precursor to ill health so making it free is a fucking no brainer and I applaud the Greens for having the courage to step up for so many Kiwis who are silently suffering from the shame and pain of tooth decay and gum disease.
Of course the buying power of the State should step in and get us free dental care and the manner in which the greens propose that is a good start.
Yes we should consider a staunch wealth tax, but it should be what Labour was suggesting, where the Greens could make up the extra revenue needed is after lifting GST off supermarket food, put a 10% tax on fizzy drinks.
It is only fair that Big Sugar pay for the damage they do to our kids teeth.
The Greens are prepared to use the existing system to benefit us all and that is the type of positive Governance and progressive leadership looks like, a means to work together for the public good and the common good.
Compare that to the fuckwittery of ACT over the weekend with David’s gleeful announcement that he will slash MBIE by 50% on top of dumping every climate change regulation on top of slashing 5 Ministries of top of dumping the Human Rights commission.
It’s so fucking romper stomper it’s difficult to visualise the pure savagery of ACT’s slash and burn madness.
This is an amputation of the State! MBIE employs the people who regulate the poorly policed laws!
22 000 Bosses are given the power to import migrant workers and exploit them, of that number only 2 have had their exploitation scams ended and that’s because there is no State policing the current regulations we have!
We see this time and time and time again, State regulators who are supposedly policing the under regulated markets with barely enough staff to look into anything at all!
Max Rashbrooke highlighted the horror of NZs under regulated market…
The bad news is that, to investigate 200,000-300,000 terrible rentals, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has employed a frontline inspectorate numbering … 37. Each inspector will have to check somewhere between 5000 and 8000 rentals.
…there is only 37 inspectors of rental properties for 300 000 terrible rentals?
Similar poorly funded regulation is apparent in the 82 labour inspectorates who are supposed to police hundreds of thousands of migrant worker exploitations!
ACTs bullshit dismantling of Capitalism’s police tells you all you need to know about the deregulated hellscape a National/ACT monstrosity would birth into this world!
That is the stark divergent future we have right now, the Greens using the State to lower the cost of your living vs ACT who want to slash and burn any regulation that impedes their capitalist paymasters a single cent.
This is why Roger Douglas, the founder of ACT, denounced them recently as a party for the rich!
This election is dangerously polarised and each other will see the opposition as an existential threat, which in terms as stark as these policy directions is absolutely true!
Many men who voted Labour in 2020 and so angry by the lack of actual change and alienated by the Woke left that they are flirting with voting ACT this election without fully appreciating just how fucking radical and damaging ACT will be in any Government.
I just don’t believe for that group of voters, men who voted Labour in 2020, I don’t believe they appreciate what they are voting in and when the issues are this polarised, it’s very important to know exactly what you are voting for.
The Greens deserve our support on this, not just because they are right, but because the alternative of ACT is so terrifyingly destabilising.
This election we could have the most Left wing Government since Michael Savage or the most Right wing Government since Roger Douglas.
I’m pissed off at Labour’s incremental fecklessness and the Greens alienating woke bullshit too, but that’s no excuse for allowing Darth Vader and his dancing Christian Stormtroopers from taking over the day care eh?
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
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I work with
apologies – dropped the phone before finished writing the post.
I work with MBIE officials on their various projects. The officials are not impressive and the projects are pointless.
MBIE is a make-work scheme for the PMC.
I second that, my husband works with them the same and they are definitely amongst the most incompetent and the most woke.
Crown Revenue
2019/2020 circa $440 Million
2022/2023 circa $950 Million
Salaries
2019 $457,000
2022 $703,000 (61%)
2022 Employees, 59% Female, 39% Male
Leadership 56% Female, 43% Male
Age 60+ Employees 6.5%, NZ still working from age 60, 27% and of those about 55% still working FT
55% European (NZ Population about 69%)
Prime PMC/ Woke Territory
But you are happy to take the money .
You will miss out
I also work for the government and have a completely opposite view of the officials and projects than you. I don’t make assumptions on MBIE.
True Story – MBIE knocked out a Supplier this year who had no LGBTQ specific policies. The Company had a 25 year record of very low prices and high quality and has devoted public sector clients in a number of sectors and different parts of the country.
The company was told they failed to get on the panel because of LDBTQ despite having a higher than average No of LBG staff and no criteria in the tender document relating to LGBT. Also no criteria in the tender document on Price. Yes this was a procurement led tender and price apparently doesnt matter.
The difference the company is mainly run by older pakehas. And yes, I can make a direct comparison. Their company recently brought a similar company, same area, but more niche. Because they are Niche, they charge an additional 7% on their services.
Because of confusion over price, they decided to put the entities in separately. The only difference between the 2, the workers in that company are all 25 – 34. The proposals were identical (cut and paste names) but the main guy from the new company was known to one of the panel.
For comparison, the new company superficially doesnt appear to have any LGBTQI staff. And both companies had nominated the same Maori partner for Maori business requirements.
The panel this year comprised something like 13 new companies (No track record) out of 30? providers.
Everyone in the old company was utterly gutted and many looked to be facing redundancy and why? Because they were too old, too white? Who knows?
But as is so often the case with MBIE, it has all become a nullity and everyone is mostly continuing as before. All their major clients and a few of their minor ones have said, dont worry about that, just put it in under a different heading and we just carry on.
As I said, useless, endoctrinated and not even doing the job they are paid for.
My husband does very little work with them but has had to deal with their edicts and strictures and admin for a good ten years. And ten years of poor process, cock ups and similar has lead to his opinion of them.
And BTW, we have both worked previously for departments now comprising MBIE. Things have changed a great deal.
Martyn – Nice idea from the Greens, and yet, I do not believe they can deliver due to infighting, and stupidity.
Free dental was a proposed Labour Party policy, prior to 2017. Before the dentally blessed Dame Doctor Jacinda’s blessed Time In Government. It wasn’t obviously put forward as policy, ultimately. I strongly advocated for it as a vote winner. At the time I was working with toothless beneficiaries. Who couldn’t get jobs, because their faces had no teeth! And my KPI’s depended on them getting jobs! They also didn’t have cars. If they did, they were living in them. And that’s why I couldn’t do my job. Because I was running a health care course. To get these people jobs looking after your loved ones. Toothless, homeless alcoholics. And you wonder why I rage-quit the job and am now a toothless, homeless alcoholic. Lol not really. Im paying $600 a week to a very lovely family and my daughter is now my son. Not a lie
CR – Wow…that is some story
Take your blue rinse psychotic tablet and leave your irrational beliefs to yourself.
Your attack on Jacinda shows your true colors with the rest made up crap.
Hate the thought of good folk losing jobs but you have to admit the State Services are out of control and writing their own contracts at present. If Act is the party to bring SS under control sobeit.
This has been a long time coming. The Dental Association first started lobbying the government for free dental clinics in public hospitals in the early 1900s. It was also Jim Anderton’s last major campaign in national politics. Poor dental health has always been a widespread domestic issue.
The Social Security system in general has been deliberately broken in order to force austerity into the workers. It was supposed to be funded by the levy from the payroll tax — a scheme that could not be taken away, as one had paid into it for life. General practice visits and medications were supposed to remain free of charge, via bulk billing to the Department. The later destruction of the levy, which could have easily been adjusted to bulk bill all basic dental care, was vital to austerity efforts.
Like most people posting here I have no idea what the ideal level of staff is at MBIE. What is f’ing laughable was Seymour’s comment about giving water infrastructure back to the councils who have been managing it! For the most part that means mis management. He is f’ing deluded.
Apart from Wellington which has been a green/labour council for decades, list the councils that have mismanaged water reticulation.
Given that 80% of NZ’s public water supply meets all three drinking water biological and chemical standards, and 95% meet at least one standard, ‘for the most part’ might not be accurate, though I gather our waterways are much less satisfactory – can’t recall the relevant statistics.
Dave Lenny (using my name here, because the only way I can log in is with my wife’s email)
Oh right and nothing needs replacing at all. Give me a break
The assessment commissioned by Anne Tolley under National after a load people were poisoned highlighted the issues if you can think more than five minutes ahead
Do both, slash buerocrats to pay for free dental.
Although I will probably vote TPM this year I am considering Act. The working class in New Zealand, and the Beneficiary class intentionally created by neoliberal economic policy seem happy to sit on their arse and take whatever crap comes their way. Likewise the parties that should be actively helping , Lab/Greens, have proved useless. I begin to suspect that meaningful change will only happen as a response to the extremism of an Act lead government. Sadly the people are going to have to suffer and suffer badly before transformational social change can occur.
The Greens couldn’t deliver a pizza, let alone free dental. Fortunately many Labour & Greens MPs will take up new career opportunities at Domino’s, so may actually learn the true principles of delivery.
Prevention in the form of a sugar tax along with any other measures that will work has to be a part of any dental payment scheme otherwise it will become a bottomless pit of increasing costs.
Dental is the only part of the medical system that functions properly at the moment, so it’s best left alone:
> I can go to the dentist of my choice
> There’s no waiting list
> I don’t need ‘referring’ by a GP
> I can have as much or as little work done as I like
> I just have to phone up to make an appointment
and if your poor andrew, blood poisoning bone abssesses at the mild end, and that ALL costs the health service and the taxpayer more than a little bit of prevention/early treatment
Perhaps it’s because of you don’t have the money, you dont get treatment. Perhaps you are better off in the USA.
A lot of this is about personal priorities.
Are those people who ‘can’t afford’ to go to the dentist smoking, drinking, tithing to their idiotic church? Are they making sure their kids are cleaning their teeth? Are they drinking sugary soft drinks?
It’s not functioning properly if people can’t afford it, I brush my teeth twice a day, don’t consume sugary drinks and stick to a plant based diet so most of my 6 month check ups are an inspection only but since I am the wrong side of 60 there is a bit of damage from when I did not follow healthy living that needs to be fixed which I am able to afford. There are people who can’t afford treatment though so some form of help is needed still,
fuck the personal behaviour horseshit at the end of the day a bone absess costs the TAXPAYER more than a filling…..and that’s the issue
I don’t think there is a need to panic. Act will sputter at the finish line. Their rabid dog approach will scare away potential voters because they’re starting to sound and act like crazies.
Winston will have it all over them on the day and then Seymore butt will have a meltdown.
I suspect you are right. Seymour has some good ideas but just cant help himself. Out goes the baby with the bathwater every time and then he wants to start charging for the new bathwater!
We saw what happened to many countries and their people that dismantled and privatised their welfare/state during the covid epidemic, many died and suffered unnecessarily.
CiP: “…many countries and their people that dismantled and privatised their welfare/state during the covid epidemic…”
How about you provide a link evidencing your claim here? Words are cheap….
See death rates per country (of covid) who had the most and what commonalities they have.
Christ D’Esterre if you wanted evidence for comments made then most on this site wouldn’t be able to comment.
We already have free dental care for under 18s.
You can promise all you want but unless you have the capacity to deliver you are just moving air around the room.
It take 5 years to train a dentist and due to dentists already leaving NZ at an alarming rate we are short. Try booking a checkup and see how long you have to wait. If you can get in straight away, check on Neighbourly, there may be a good reason to cancel
ACT Seymour & his current crop beside Brooke Van Velden use the paaaart maaari meme to get redneck votes this isn’t debatable. Brooke Van Velden is an ardent apartheid Israeli supporter and with her Dutch heritage isn’t surprising that she is a supporter of apartheid regime anyone remember apartheid SA?
Brooke Van Velden “her Dutch heritage isn’t surprising that she is a supporter of apartheid regime”
Excuse me! Dutch ancestery equals support for Apartheid? I would have to say that making a comment like displays a pretty extreme racist tarring of well north of a 100,000 Kiwis of dutch ancestry in NZ.
How about you reign in the race baiting rhetoric
Fair enough. Dutch people are well known liberals.
but boers not so much fantail
But Dutch people are not Boers G
“May I present to you, the very sexual, the very toite, Austin Power’s fahza”
David Seymour.
What’s said about knowing ones enemy? Sun Tzu could explain that better than me which won’t stop me from having my opinion of course.
Seymour started with rob muldoon. In my opinion, Natzo’s Muldoon secretly groomed Labour’s roger douglas to dig in to Labour as a liar and a confederate as Labour’s two term finance minister while gathering about himself a cadre of traitor crooks like quigley, moore, brash and sundry other serpents I can’t be bothered to remember to mention.
roger stabbed his mate, Labours Prime Minister Lange in the back, the front, the sides, the top and the bottom so Lange, true to his word, resigned as PM to allow lawyer geoff ‘horse-face’ palmer to become the prime minister of the wandering political cadaver AKA the Labour party. ( You know what they say about lawyers? Being used in lab testing now instead of rats because there are some things even rats won’t do. ) Then, The Adams Family retard reject Mike Moore took up the reigns to steer Labour off a cliff where, at the bottom, privateer neo-liberal parasites lay in wait for poor old Labours guts to split open to spill out our state owned, taxes paid for services, assets and infrastructure for less than fuck all to create the 14 multi-billionaires, the 3118 multi-millionaires and to give four foreign owned banks free access to our money at a rate of $180.00 a second after tax 24/7/365. They also built 480 people now living in cars, over 200,000 kids living in poverty and a terrifyingly de railed primary industry whom we rely upon for not only our money to be able to buy the stuff and things we need to import but the food they produce which, the last time I looked, we need to eat to survive.
And now seymour, a thin lipped, twerking, spank-master and roger douglas protege`. A ghastly little thing who only comes to life when the money of others is detected within his snatch and grab radius.
So there ya go. Muldoon, then the douglas-bolger double act and now a seymour-luxon side show slithering about under the sticky nylon sheets lip syncing to ‘It’s hip to be square’ while we can only get drunk, buy junk and pray to Jesus. Warning! Contains graphic and extremely satisfying violence. ‘American Psycho’ https://youtu.be/Ruw9fsh3PNY
We’re heading into an election where there’s no one worthy of electing. We’re wandering about within a society of lost souls who have no idea where they came from and an even less of an idea of how the got here.
It’s a perfect set of circumstances for lil ole NZ to become the Banana Republic of the arse end of the world.
All tied in with Obesity epedimic. We just can’t get enough sugar into our day to help us try and get our mojo back.
Why stop at dentist bills. Orthodontist bills also please free Green Party.
What do you not understand about the following.
“I’m confirming today that under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election. End of story,” Hipkins said in a statement.
End of arrogant Hipkins and LINO
little known fact the ‘british teeth’myth is exactly that a myth…mine are fucked but that’s down to me, since the intoduction of the nhs the avarage brit now has better teeth than the AVARAGE yank…when the nhs 1st started lots of people (my auntie em for one) went for full dentures their teeth were so bad
and yes I know someone will post a pic of a brit with a mouth like a row of bombed houses BUT post similar of normal folk from the us low tax red ‘mountain dew’ states….it’s fuckin scarey
An NZ Dental Service. Who will the staff be? Are all the dentists on board, knowing free care means no part charge when inflation erodes the payments? As happened in the past.
Oral surgery and complex procedures are done by surgeons with many years of training, and they are thin on the ground. What if they don’t want anything to do with the Greens? Are you going to nationalise them by force?
and the cost for fixing bone absesses and blood infections and other operations doesn’t matter? jr? prevention is cheaper than cure
Any Green policy presented by Davidson could be regarded with a certain amount of scepticism; she talks claptrap and seems to equate being “ rich” with being evil. They’d have been better having it presented by a more normal sort of person, like Eugenie Sage, or an intelligent man.
how exactly is saving kiwis from extreme pain ‘envy of the rich’ sw
Rich people are evil. All they do is milk others for all they are worth.
Hate to break to you, but there is no such thing as “free” anything. The spiralling cost of dentists will simply transfer to the govt budget book which already is not funded from tax revenue and thus putting it even further into debt (which always = higher inflation by definition) unless they cut something else.
Nitrium. Correct, nothing is free, we still pay. Davidson saying that she couldn’t afford dental treatment before she became an MP, is a bit rich when many mothers of six never get to score such a lucrative gig as she did. She had choices.
oh wow nitrium what an astounding revelation govt spending is funded by taxes….jeez mr obvious strikes again
What choices are those
? Clearly obvious that you and Nitrium both want US style healthcare. Actually our dental system is worse than US, because at least in the USA you can buy dental insurance to cover part of the cost. We cannot here.
which is why they have travelling field hospitals run by charity in the red low tax states…because their system works soooooo well
Perhaps you should fuck off to the USA is if you hate the idea of free anything. Over there you are free to live under a bridge
Dobby is angry!
no worries mate. just lend it into existence. it’ll be worth a lot less soon and we can pay it back.
D Esterre back for the election aue! see death rates per country (of covid) who had the most and what commonalities they have.
The greens say they will pay for their free dental scheme with a wealth tax.
Prime Minister Hipkins rules out a wealth tax.
“I’m confirming today that under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election. End of story,” Hipkins said in a statement.
Hipkins admitted he had shut down plans for a “tax switch” in this year’s Budget, which would have seen a tax-free bracket and a 1.5 percent tax on wealth above $5 million
At the end of 2022, Chris Hipkins had an estimated net worth of $5.3 million
Chris Hipkins;
I will let the teeth rot in your head before before I tax rich people like myself. You stupid poor people just better fuck right off with that idea.
Like I give a fuck, I would rather let National win the election than impose a wealth tax on me and my rich mates.
I personally think free dental is essential. You need to be seriously rich in this country to take good care of your teeth.
The problem comes that if we move to public care, many dentists will flood overseas to make more money. However, we could pay or part pay training and shove a 3 or 5 year bond on to them.
Love the free dental care, hate the Greens!
I Can’t belive this no-brainer is actually a debate…maybe it reflects to no-brain possessed by many kiwis
Health care why seg, health care, social, eh tooth fairy,. should not give these island wealth the tools, to insure.
Health care why segregate, health care, social, eh tooth fairy,. should not give these island wealth the tools, to insure, and Island profit. Shall, the Gerry Anderson clone, get in the seat, desperate Nats, why Peters, so Gerry Anderson, clone,, truth if your debate the other day on the Three, your Island support, shall be looking, pull your head in.
meh – just import some dentists from China with free citizenship
Free dental care, social care always had that in schools, and socialist societies care provided.
Bus stop to far, no, care, got a party to go too. One Two Three.
a few shitheads do not make a case 100
As always, the term free is bandied about in meaningless fashion.
What is proposed is not free, but rather paid for by working people and administered in the most inefficient manner possible by government departments.
wHY, TALK, our dental should be caring.. Vetetra, six years your pet creatures care you will pay,, teeth, humanity, our skill dentest, is the same learn as a Vet. So there are political parties, that not only believe in pet insurance, but also human health insurance.
Bomber, one too three.
Island,eh, lock down the harbour,.wealthexploit i s sayin, get oot. EH! FOOL, REMEMBER. that cat, whit fancy name they gave him, saying,, our infrastructure Auckland, need lookin. Rates, who our profit, shall decline,, look know.
Under 18s get free dental care yet their dental health has never been worse. Ergo making it free not only doesn’t help it makes it worse. Free dental care effectively encourages poor dental lifestyle. Spend that money better.
Even the Dental Association said this is not feasible – no staff, no attempt for children with diseases and not enough money available.
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