Yawn.
Labour pledges low-interest loans for local GPs
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has pledged to introduce a loans scheme to help doctors and nurses get into general practice in communities across New Zealand.
The Labour Party policy would put more doctors in communities and mean shorter waits for patients, Hipkins said.
Under Labourโs Family Doctor Loan Scheme, doctors and nurse practitioners would be able to access low-interest loans to set up new practices or buy into existing ones.
โThis is a practical, targeted way to boost locally-owned clinics across New Zealand and strengthen the ones we already have,โ Hipkins saidโ.
This is a wonk wonk wonk about wonks.
Don’t get me twisted kids, all Labour have to do is coast between now and the election with beige on beige nothings with half mumbled promises.
This wonk wonk ย announcement about wonks is exactly the safe mediocrity that Labour does so well.
All they have to do is coax 2020 Labour voters who voted National in 2023 back to the fold with vanilla missionary promises and a wonk wonk wonk on low interest loans to the establishment of local……..
…sorry, I fell asleep just trying to articulate the policy.
What they should have done is announce this alongside an actually bold program like free Nursing and Dr education for 5 year bonding to a specific region plus 2 years inside NZ.
But that would have required a desire to rock the boat and Labour have zero intention of that when they are so close to winning without having to promise a hell of a lot.
This incrementalism highlights why things will be so tough for the Greens.
I recently wrote about what a disaster te Pati Mฤori self mutilating itself was to the hope of a truly progressive Government which prompted comments that Labour + Greens should be the new hope and not Labour + Green + MP.
This wonk wonk announcement however highlights why Labour + Green isn’t the great win it looks like.
The Greens are notorious for having all the offensive capacity of moss and their ability to be outplayed by Labour in the negotiations has already been proven in the past. The Greens need John Tamihere in their corner when negotiating with Labour.
If Labour + Greens = 51%, then it is highly likely that Labour + NZF would also = 51%, te Pati Mฤori in the mix locks Winston out from being the Kingmaker again.
The Greens want actual change, Labour wants to manage slightly less cruelly than National, only te Pati Mฤori Leadership team have the capacity to negotiate it.
Again, don’t get me wrong, this beige on beige announcement is the perfect softly softly catchy catchy the National voter policy stuff that Labour needs to churn out to win, but for those of us who want the transformative Government Jacinda promised in 2017, it’s looking like another lost promise we’ve had to temper our expectations to thanks to the lesser of two evils political landscape we are left with.
It’s telling that the passion from the membership wasn’t matched by the policy. This is the balancing act Labour’s Leadership need to walk now.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, soย if you value having an independent voice โ please donate here.
Labour, under Chippy, tinkering away at the edges as per usual. What is going on with TPM? What is going on with JT. Need some analysis please. Everyone seems to hate him except you. Why,
“Everyone seems to hate him except you. Why,”
Massive generalisation.
I like him and everyone like me likes him. Does that means everyone likes him? No.
We can say that about every single politician going around except Seymour, Van Velden and Willis of course, they are the most hated.
Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of negative commentary about JT. Even Hone is saying back up the bus and let those renegades back in. That is not supporting TPM leadership or JT. Yeah no idea what you think CG, glad you support JT but not many else are. Not generalising, that is the lay of the land.
LINO represent the comfortably Orff! They’re not going to rock that boat by policies which would give New Zealand society a new Renaissance. The neoliberal Lazy-Boy approach is too comforting!
Any wonder why young people are trying elsewhere!?
It would appear that some in the Labour caucus are compromising the Left by trying to do a deal with NZF โ not the party – we all know NZF is a ‘person’! It’s why Winston slotted in so well with the CoC since they are โALL ABOUT MEโ people. Labour needs to step up BIG TIME, take the bull by the horns and announce serious, firm, sensible policies, with valid reasoning, to save NZ from a total economic collapse. Be BRAVE, smart, clever and court the parties who have your same beliefs! Not the ‘one man, one plan Winston’ with his truck-load of lunatic baggage. I would also like to see our top tax rate go from 39% to match Aus 45% and even 47% as Aus have a Medicare levy. Far too many greedy gouging โtop feedersโ milking our country and its people by writing off or hiding their wealth. Prepare now to close all the loopholes. There is MORE THAN ENOUGH to go around โ SHARE it you greedy parasites.
It’s not merely beige, it is LAZY policy.
Laziness is the whole point of neoliberalism. Nevermind mapping out a balanced socioeconomic policy, you can leave all that to the infallible market – except of course markets just make an end run around delivery and glom the public money. It doesn’t take a hundred million to merely talk about a walking/cycling crossing for Auckland without absolutely epic levels of corruption. Sochi has nothing on Auckland.
And you know, even National voters are disillusioned with current levels of non-performance.
The whole illusion was a story about commercial levels of discipline coming into government – but they never did. Devolve or sell off your responsibilities as government ministers have since Rogergnomics, and, in the private sector, remuneration would be adjusted downwards to reflect that diminished responsibility.
NZ needs a rigorous anticorruption drive – it ought to be an ACT raison d’etre, but they are if anything even more corrupt than their colleagues, with the possible exception of NZF.
China has the death penalty on it fight against anticorruption and apparently it works
It ensures there is no recidivism.
Why do we have these times where one party makes hay in goverment while the opposition is a non-entity. Like as if its f….
labour had a majority and did fuck all TPM isn’t looking good to return to its formal self apparently Orini was at the Nga Puhi conference so she’s IMO has already chosen her side and a tiktok Maori content provider was at that hui and claimed it had nepotism 2.0 only a need-to-know voices were only allowed to speak
Well, if Labour did fuck all why did it take the CoC 3 months to repeal that what Labour hadnโt done?
YEP perhaps MARTIN should put up the graph of where the money went again .Lots of money spent on school buildings ,a minimum of 1000 per student .I know of one school that had 1.3 million to spend .Hospitals started ,since stopped by WILLIS ,700 MILLION DUMPED IN THE STRAIGHT BY WILLIS ON WEEK ONE AND NOW NO BOATS ,the list goes on and on .Labour did a shit load and saved 20000 lives and paid every ones wages for 2 years what more do you want
NZ Labour have adopted the UK’s Starmer/Reeves strategy. Ignore the base and focus on attracting the center and the right.
& pray for leniency from Toxic Tova and her disgusting ilk.
The health announcement was shockingly pathetic – meaning GP access is determined by profitability and not community health needs. GP practices need to be nationalized and operated on the basis of access and need – not whether or not someone can make a profit running them.
I love your work Martin, Yeah that policy is boring, labour needs the center voter back, it also needs that center left voter who is too working class or conservative-ish for the greens/tpm and stayed home last election.
To get the center voter it needs to be at 35%, to get to 35% it needs to shore up its left flank and excite the base and get the working class center left to go from don’t know/none of these to Labour.
Which is why they should steal a few of TOPs policies. Tops the radical center, its kinda populist but centrist enough it doesn’t scare the horses.
First $20 k tax free, an elected upper house, land value tax, uni free for certain professions (if they stay in NZ for x amount) land value tax. These excite both the center and the stay at home left, who both want vague “change”
Also while I do want Labour and the Greens to do an MOU, Chloe Swarbrick is not James Shaw and is much stronger than Marama.
In a Labour/Green government negotiation, Chloe is not going to settle for the incrementalism Shaw did, she’s an activist with a grassroots base, I think you’re selling her short (and I’m not her biggest fan!) and I don’t think she’ll be easily scared into agreeing to crap Tory lite.
A labour green coalition with 4 greens in cabinet and Swarbrick as deputy pm and ten green bottom line polices would be huge.
A green mou should involve agreed shared principles and the greens not standing in some seats and labour not standing in seats the greens hold (or if there are any, are more likely to win than labour)
Tldr labour needs to woo the center and the non voter and the greens under Chloe aren’t as weak as before
There is 12 months to the election Martin Bradbury โwants it all and wants it nowโ
They have had 2 years and come up with ??? While National has dismantled the false settings and put us on a road to prosperity.
Political terms four at the most. Planning for succession, but eventually they have to go. Let’s see some less complacent members. We used to be keen. Neolib has I think hidden understandings which have been partially and now almost fully implemented, that politicians will know nothing when the citizens ask for something to be done please, until the matter has been checked with an overseas provider. Everything good we have done in the past has faded away. And the new replacement isn’t set to advance Kiwis, ‘Sure to Rise’ as by the Edmonds firm, now long gone.
Yeah right Labour should offer everything then get the show me the money bomb FFS
One thing is for certain. After the next election neoliberalism in NZ will continue. Either with National or Labour. Both parties are here to maintain the status quo and the vested corporate interests. Either with the managerial or the elitist class in control.
Until the current gatekeepers protecting the neoliberal doctrine are confronted and exposed there is no hope for the many kiwis trapped here.