MEDIAWATCH: Nation Newshub vs Q+A – David Seymour beats up Simon Shepherd

Ouch…

ACT Party Leader David Seymour says he is ok with the wealth gap in New Zealand, saying he ‘doesn’t resent people for being wealthy’ https://t.co/JKCZYy0PoT #NationNZ pic.twitter.com/7mwhcUBZOA

— Newshub Nation (@NewshubNationNZ) August 5, 2023

…You should only try and take on David when you are ready – the host led with his chin and Seymour dropped him!

That was a beat down and a powerful reminder that ill-researched Journalists are allowing Seymour to run riot!

He is an alpha politician in his prime and his ability to wrestle journalists and pin them is a stark reminder of how much Seymour will overshadow Luxon in the election.

Once National voters don’t believe Luxon can do it if he gets thrashed in the debates, there will be a last minute surge to ACT, because if David can pull these types of broadcasting stunts off, he’s going to run circles around Luxon’s wooden performances.

Willie Jackson with Rebecca reminded everyone how excellent a communicator Willie is and why he needs to front foot a lot of the media. He was honest about where the Party is but made it clear Labour are in it to win it.

Chippy has one last chance to impress and surprise the electorate, the supermarket prices are crippling everyone: beneficiaries, the poor, the working poor, the middle classes being hit with every extra cost, renters and first time home buyers.

Removing GST from all supermarket food instead of just fruit and vegetables would be that moment because if Labour don’t at least pretend to be a Party for the workers, then the sole reason to vote Labour becomes ‘we aren’t as bad as ACT/National, which while a compelling argument, just doesn’t even manage to cover the economic pain voters are feeling right now.

Boys, if it means our debt ratio is higher, so fucking be it!

Or else a sociopath like David will be implementing the kind of amputation of the State that will hilariously spark a race war.

Over on Q+A, Jack Tame keeps reminding everyone why he is 4th best public broadcaster in the game, (John Campbell is of course number 3, Kill Him is number 2 and Queen Barbara Dreaver is number 1).

Powerful story about migrant exploitation and Andrew Little on why we are now gearing up for war.

The Napier pay out is on and it’s painful.

Grant makes his case that they are doing what they can but the problem is that some of the Council’s simply doesn’t have the money to pay their share of the payout.

There needs to be a new fund created by Central Government that pays out the smaller Council’s hit by catastrophic climate events…

Tairāwhiti locals walk out on meeting with Forestry Minister Peeni Henare

“Just way off the mark,” according to Tairāwhiti land-use researcher Manu Caddie.

He told Newshub the scale of support needed has hardly been met at all

“I went into that meeting with a lot of optimism, then there’s a lot of outrage. And now there’s just heartbreak. If this Government doesn’t care, who will?”

 

…I consider Manu Caddie to be one of our most brilliant minds and a true next generation leader, if he is highly critical of this deal, then it is worse than worthless.

There is a real sense of that announcement just being a photo opportunity for Tāmati Coffey, the brutal calculation here is that a 50-50 Government/Local Council buy out arrangement is one the rest of the country will accept as we enter the age of consequences from Global Boiling.

The problem is that there is no real plan beyond the most basic buy out deals and that simply isn’t going to be enough to enable devastated areas to rebuild with adaptation let alone get on their feet in time for the next catastrophic climate event.

And this is where the grim reality now lies.

Jack pushes hard on the claims of a budget blow out. The claim is $20Billion which just seems total garbage!

Winston says there’s a $20billion dollar budget hole and State Bosses were frantically summoned in panic – this is the same Winston who claimed Harry Tam helped COVID-infected women enter Northland from Auckland…

Winston Peters apologises to Harry Tam over Northland allegation

Former deputy prime minister Winston Peters has apologised to Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam for incorrectly associating him with the Northland Delta outbreak.

On October 9, Peters told Newshub Nation during a live interview that Tam brought the two women at the centre of the Northland outbreak to Northland via Auckland.

Tam sent a legal letter asking for the record to be corrected and for Peters to apologise, which he has now done.

In a statement Peters said he “gave an interview to Newshub on the issue of people who had crossed the Auckland alert level 3 border improperly using essential worker credentials.

“I therefore apologise to Mr Tam for naming him as the Mongrel Mob affiliate who entered Northland with others, causing a two-week level 3 lockdown,” Peters said.

…of course there is a severe economic jolt coming, the Reserve Bank Governor has been ratcheting up interest rates and this Government has chosen to borrow to get us through Covid rather than tax the rich, so the jolt is coming, is it $20Billion?

Ask Harry Tam.

Look, if National and Winston are right and they truly have found a $20billion budget hole, how come the Market less than an hour after those statements rushed to buy Government Bonds with all the poise of meth addicts on a bender?

As Bernard Hickey devastatingly points out...

fund managers bid $1.037 billion to buy $500 million worth of Goverment bonds for an average yield of 4.80%⁴. That strong bidding kept the yield flat in secondary financial markets:

• • at the same time as a global bond selloff that saw yields on the bonds deemed the safest in the world (US Treasuries) rose 20 basis points to a record-high for 2023 of 4.19% because of actual fears of an actual fiscal deterioration in the United States;
  • at a time when annual inflation in New Zealand is still reported to be 6.0%; and,
  • at a time when there is a real prospect of a hung Parliament within nine weeks.

These fund managers were so keen to lend their money to an institution allegedly “in financial panic mode”⁵ that they gladly handed it over to Treasury’s Debt Management Office, knowing they were receiving a negative return after the corrosive effects of inflation on the buying power of that money. In other words, these professional investors were so confident they would get repaid and that there was no actual fiscal crisis that:

• • they were willing to essentially hand over a gift to taxpayers of the difference between the yield of 4.8% and the inflation rate;
  • they were willing not to receive any compensation for the risk they took, or the time they don’t have the money; and,
  • they were willing to hand that money over knowing the Treasury⁶ would come back to them next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, to borrow another $500 million per week.

That bidding yesterday included $220 million worth of bids for $75 million worth of 30 year bonds. Those fund managers were so confident about the Government’s finances they bid nearly three times the amount available, knowing they would probably be retired or dead before the Government had to repay it.

…Bernard is right. If the Corporate money men whose job it is to analyse Government economic reliability believed any truth to what is effectively gossip, there is no way you would have seen demand like that!

It seems insane that right wing political gossip can suddenly become headline news in this country!

Jack asks hard questions of Grant’s borrowing history and he finally defends it by pointing out we had a once in a century pandemic plus catastrophic weather events and argues NZs debt ratio is actually still low by Global standards.

THIS is the Labour Party we need to hear more from, one that defends the borrowing challenges and Grant powerfully did so.

What exactly was the alternative? Letting people die of Covid and simply suffer catastrophic weather on their own?

Of course not!

We had no choice but to borrow.

If all Labour do is remove GST off fruit and vegetables they will fail, they need to surprise the electorate and remove it off ALL supermarket food, that will show Labour have heard peoples pain from the cost of living crisis.

The snide smug voices claiming GST off food won’t help are simply projecting their own privilege. People are screaming in pain when they go to the Supermarket, Labour needs to help people by removing GST from all Supermarket food, not mere tinkering.

Jack is so good and pushes Grant hard on the wealth tax, those punches landed.

Grant is such a good politician and because he has been so busy you forget that because he hasn’t been on the screens much. Nicola Willis vs Grant Robertson will be a fascinating debate but she better be bringing her A Game or he will win hands down.

Another story about migrant worker exploitation. Chinese tricksters set up fake contracts that use an Auckland based construction company that tricks them and exploits them and throws them aside.

Migrant labour companies exploit their own people and then it gets dumped on the rest of us as our domestic problem! Jobs for money scams are rife and there is no way the accredited employer visa is working because they aren’t actually policing it properly because they don’t have the capacity to police it!

There are no checks or balances!

It is another example of how under funded our checks and balances are!

Every migrant worker coming into NZ should be made a universal member of a Union! That way a unionised migrant workforce could no longer be exploited!

It’s a simple solution – every migrant worker needs to be a compulsory union member and the Union police these scams and clean up the industry if the State won’t!

Andrew Little is on with our new defence posture but gets bashed by Jack on the meaningless of the State’s policing of migrant labour.

Andrew has no where to hide as Jack keeps smashing him over the toothlessness of migrant worker exploitation protections.

22 000 accredited businesses, only 2 have had their accreditation pulled. That is a total failure of regulation.

Andrew moves on from that to defending our new march to conflict.

I spy with my 5 Eyes, something beginning with War.

Make no mistake, this new defence position is lining us up with America for their war on China.

Pretending otherwise is delusion.

Yes China is a threat, but signing up for another fucking war with America is not the solution!

We have to consider neutrality and independence over war and conflict, but if we go down that road we need to acknowledge that it will cost more!

To ignore the real need for us to invest far larger amounts into the Defence force and to build a bigger Air, Land and Sea service as a response to the crisis emergency is as unacceptable as climate denial is.

The current political spectrum in New Zealand can not radically adapt fast enough to adopt the changes we must make if we are to survive the climate crisis and geopolitical conflict…

• • Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self sustainable in terms of food.
  • Immediately ban all water exports
  • 5 year Parliamentary term.
  • Upper and Lower House (Upper House 50-50 split between Māori & Pakeha that can hold up legislation if unhappy about Treaty issues)
  • Massive investment into R&D from Government with the understanding research is to benefit NZ first before sold offshore.
  • Large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce.
  • Mass limiting of tourism numbers with increased tourist taxes.
  • Only citizens can vote.
  • Sustainable immigration and an end to exploitative migrant workers.
  • Resettlement Programms for all pacific island neighbours.
  • Increase refugee in take to 10000 per year
  • Fully funded public services.
  • Mass Green housing rebuild.
  • 100% renewable energy for entire country.
  • Massive native tree planting across previous farming land.
  • Wholesale re-write of state services act to end commercial values.
  • Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
  • Financial transaction tax
  • Wealth tax
  • Multinational tax
  • Inheritance tax

…as the climate crisis unfolds more and more people in fury will turn against the current political system too wedded to the economic profits margins of the polluters. It is just a matter of time before the NZ electorate rejects the limitations of the current political spectrum.

Only the Māori Party is offering neutrality as our foreign policy – friend to all, enemy to none should be our position but understand that will cost us more.

The climate crisis will demand we have the military engineering capacity to rebuild from extreme weather events; have the military power to project across the Pacific in response to climate crisis civil disruption or extreme weather events; protection of fishing stock.

Independent Neutrality means increasing our GDP spend on the military and we need to invest heavily in drones, special forces, deployable troops and a far larger Navy.

Another great Q+A.

Newshub Nation not so.

Talking of NZ on Air funded current affairs.

The Working Group announces 7 live-streamed TV simulcast Election Debates for 2023 Election with no NZ on Air money whatsoever!

The Working Group is proudly New Zealand’s Best Weekly Political Podcast (that is not funded by NZ on Air) and we are excited to announce that we will be taking The Working Group live around the country over the 7 weeks leading into the 2023 Election as we will be hosting the Taxpayers Union Live-streamed simulcast on Freeview Election debates.

We will be coming live from the following electorates:

Tuesday 22nd August – The Napier Electorate Debate

Tuesday 29th August – The Ilam Electorate Debate

Tuesday 5th September – The Party Election Debate in Auckland

Tuesday 12th September – The Northland Electorate Debate

Tuesday 19th September – Finance Debate in Wellington

Tuesday 26th September – The Auckland Central Debate

Tuesday 3rd October – The Tamaki Electorate Debate 

Each Taxpayer’s Union debate will be livestreamed and simulcast on Freeview 200 with a unique electorate poll for each debate!

That’s 7 live debates with unique polling – no other media network is doing anything as huge as this for the NZ Election – The Spinoff isn’t doing anything this huge, neither is NZME, Newshub, RNZ or TVNZ!

Despite all them receiving huge money from NZ on Air!

We are doing this because if you have ever seen the show you know we love to vigorously debate and argue politics where everyone at the end shakes hands and no one gets cancelled by the woke!

We do this because we believe in Democracy and believe Democracy should be debated, so come see us or watch the debates online or on Freeview!

Are you not entertained?

 

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