Hard News: The sole party of government
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For the last six years Labour was was a fratricidal, jealous, self-absorbed rabble of prima donnas that was simply not fit to govern – and it was no secret, because they assiduously leaked it to every journalist who would listen… and so they listened, and the electorate listened.
Yup. So much this.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
For the last six years Labour was was a fratricidal, jealous, self-absorbed rabble of prima donnas that was simply not fit to govern
It might be that simple ; there was no viable opposition.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Ok found it:
Treatment of Gains at Death: Capital gains on inheritance passed on after death will be rolled over to the heir, and not payable until the gain on the asset is realised.
So basically when a family member dies and leave something of their life’s work to their offspring, Labour wanted to slip in there and skim some off the top when they sell it. I can’t for the life of me understand the ethical position. It’s a death tax. Avoidable by selling your family home in that briefest moment before you issue your last breath. How could that not have been a winner? Anyone give a sh#t?
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BenWilson, in reply to
Except that Betham never got to do half the damage that Muldoon did.
What damage did Beetham do? He was never even in Government. Do you mean he split the National vote and that was somehow a bad thing?
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
There will be the odd commentator that will spout the usual ‘don’t ever write Winston off’
Point is, unless he performs in opposition on this issue (and thankfully Ron Mark got back in with his Parliamentary experience as well) then we might as well write democracy off. That was pretty much what Dame Beverley expressed the other day as well. So, Dirty Politics must be sorted. And it will be.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
NZ was lucky that the Chinese suddenly wanted a whole lot of milk powder. That’s all over now.
Yup. The sheen has been coming off imported milk powder for some time now, with a bit of assistance from Fonterra, Sutton Group, and others in NZ. It's fortunate that NZ has so incredibly dominated the imported dairy sector in China and that China is so bloody huge - and that the local dairy companies still haven't persuaded anybody to trust them. Yet.
But a big economic question NZ has been facing for a while now, although the government hasn't been facing up to, is which economic baskets to redistribute our eggs into? I see no reason to trust National to even notice this question, let alone do anything about it.
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Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
Awesome, thanks Ben. I’ll see if I can do better on the 2011 estimate as well, working from their 2011 base estimates
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
One: Economies are not comparable to a business. Economies are huge macro-money systems often influenced by the wild winds of world trading.
Two: We are relying on the U.S to start reheating the world economy. The U.S economy is being held back from it huge capital potential by a congress that is not supporting the final part of the economic salvage package, a package that was literally thrown at the U.S national economy to keep it alive. We are waiting on others.
We are quite capable of stimulating our own economy through increased taxation and more spending, something the U.S will have to do at some time with a decent congress. So we can put more jobs in our economy, increase the tax base, put much needed better public services in our economy, basically through taxation of wealthier citizens.
Three: Our business community needs to be understood and drilled down to productive industries and how they contribute to the wealth of the country as oppossed to mature business grinding out hard to find yearly profits.
We are in a recessive world economy and everyone must take the strain, not just the battered poor.
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izogi, in reply to
I assume that almost EVERYTHING that I hear or read in the MSM is a consequence of what someone is doing on someone else’s behalf. There are very few , if any honest brokers ; it is all just entertainment.
Have you read the book?
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Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
I'm from the UK. We had death duty. We also had CGT.
Sky didn't fall in.
It helped finance the Welfare State.
It made British society more equal than it ever had been in history.
Now UK is run by neocon drones.
These taxes will be abolished soon.
Welcome to our world. -
mark taslov, in reply to
I’m from the UK
Enough said. I appreciate your perspective, but I couldn’t rightly call people shits for not voting for that. We are but farmers of men, much less money in NZ. But no harm done hopefully, sorry if I got at you. Never underestimate Winston ;) Do however underestimate the accountability of our Government.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
child poverty, increasing house prices, a lack of new jobs, the destruction of our waterways, increasing inequality and increasing foreign ownership of New Zealand,
Assuming , that is , that those are the issues which are going to press the electorate's buttons ; they are mostly not new issues, and neither National nor Labour could claim to be the saviour, even if these were the vital issues for voters.
If the choices are :- throwing more money at the problem, or
claiming to be achieving better value for the same moneythen in the current climate the electorate appears inclined to the second.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
No.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Sorry Ben I didn't mean that he ever did any. I never did get what he was on about.
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I think we’ll have to be the check, Russell. And by we I mean you, me and everyone reading and commenting here. I mean the independent media and – my part of the puzzle – a massive, unified movement of progressive citizens taking smart, effective action to hold the government to account. ActionStation was born because of what we’d seen GetUp achieve in Australia, LeadNow in Canada and 38Degrees in the UK – all under conservative governments. Tomorrow morning we’ll be organising and doing what needs to be done to become both a gathering and rallying point for the many progressive NZers who want to come together and take meaningful action to hold the government to account – and you can bet education will be on the agenda.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
So, Dirty Politics must be sorted. And it will be.
We hope. What, exactly, can the Privileges Committee do to MPs who misbehaved in a previous term? Particularly when the PC is going to be heavy with caucus colleagues of the MPs who are before it, and the Speaker is likely to also be from that Party.
If National were in Opposition, or at least running a proper minority government, we might get somewhere. But they're not, and they're not, so I have very little hope that we'll actually get anywhere at all. Key is not going to convene a Royal Commission that might end up finding that he knew pretty much everything about pretty much everything and lied through his teeth about it to all and sundry.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Right now , Fonterra can't get enough organic milk powder for the U.S. infant formula market, but you can't say that we are not quick on our feet.
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Sanya Baker, in reply to
Stop throwing each other under the bus, and get back to "power to the people". ALL the people.
+1
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I can see why some of our top paid (newly rich) sportpeople might be inclined to vote for National. But if you’re an All Black, try to keep your public image clean and non-political, for God’s sake.
I wonder what Louisa Wall would have to say about that, Alfie.
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Deborah, in reply to
But I’m in the Rangitikei electorate , and I never heard of Deborah Russell until I read this thread.
Articles in every local newspaper, advertising in every local newspaper, leaflets into every single letterbox in the electorate, attended every single event I was invited to, set up various events, held about 50 street corner meetings in towns and villages in the electorate, visited schools throughout the electorate, did so much work that the incumbent National MP was forced to lift his game, even had the incumbent National MP saying nice things about me. (I had nice things to say about him too: he is a gentleman, and although we fought hard over policy at debates, all of us in Rangitikei ran a very civil campaign.)
I really worked hard to get myself known, and judging by the number of people greeting me by name in the last couple of weeks of the campaign, and saying things like, "Hey, you're that Labour lady," I think did pretty well.
Finding out about candidates in your electorate is a two way responsibility. There was plenty of information out there about me, all of it easily found, and most of it put right in front of people in the electorate.
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Andre, in reply to
In the current climate a third of the electorate doesn't turn up, when media bias and corruption are proven there is no response and any party focused on these 'old' issues is branded as crack-pots.
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Kracklite, in reply to
Stop throwing each other under the bus
+1
Indeed. There's been a ghoulish hunt for scapegoats already, those perpetrators of "identity politics" who are unsurprisingly the gay, female, the unemployed and the brown. These are the people pushed to the margins, the kind of people Labour was founded to champion, so if you want to see an example of elitist capture...
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Alfie, in reply to
I wonder what Louisa Wall would have to say about that, Alfie
Is she in the current All Black squad?
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Grant McDougall, in reply to
I wonder what Louisa Wall would have to say about that, Alfie.
She is far less well-known to the general public than Dagg, Lomu and the gold medal rowing pair that also tweeted they'd voted National.
All Blacks and Olympic gold medallists receive far more media coverage than netballers (er, I think that's what she played ?).
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
That was good robust look at the electorate. Thanks.
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