Hard News: Spring Timing
270 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 11 Newer→ Last
-
BenWilson, in reply to
Just saying.
And not for the first time! But that doesn't make it less of a valid point. It's certainly my most central question to the Greens at every turn "what is your actual plan regarding employment?". It may be the wrong question, I think the answer is likely to be that they actually don't see the need for employment in the same way, or at least to the same degree, but I do really want to hear them say that, if so.
-
Emma Hart, in reply to
It may be the wrong question, I think the answer is likely to be that they actually don’t see the need for employment in the same way, or at least to the same degree, but I do really want to hear them say that, if so.
The Greens do see the need for employment, because they recognise the social good work does. What I don’t think they accept is that employment must come from industries (dairying, mining, etc) that cause significant damage to the environment, and which are currently only sustainable because those industries don’t carry the cost of that damage.
So, a solar energy scheme, which will employ people doing installations, makes more sense than oil exploration, and not just from an environmental point of view. For a start, we know the sun is actually there. We’re not going to get a toxic sunlight spill. And the benefits go to NZ businesses and workers rather than vanishing overseas.
I’m not saying I entirely agree, or that I think it’s enough, but I don’t think it’s fair to say the Greens don’t care if people can’t get work.
Also, in the light of this, and my own very similar experience, I’m heartened by their recognition that “WINZ” doesn’t currently assist people into employment and training, and should.
-
linger, in reply to
so: Conservatives = Flat Earth;
NZF = My* Little Corner Of The Earth...
and the entire collection = Muddle Earth!* "Our" would be too inclusive for them.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I’m not saying I entirely agree, or that I think it’s enough,
That’s my headspace. Plus WINZ and work? They are not helpful. Not that I think that everyone needs to work. some people are not cut out to or don’t wat to and who am I to disagree with that?
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
and the entire collection = Muddle Earth!
The entire collection = Fiddle Earth ;)
Leaving an opening for Cannabis Party = Planted Earth.
-
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Does that leave NZ First as Flat Earth?
Perfect - should supplant No Vote*
Everything is mutable
Scorched Earth could
play musical chairs...*I knew I forgot someone,
and I was looking for an 'N'
Doh!Now I've missed
my final edit window
a cursory existence
winked out... -
Tim Hannah, in reply to
You should read Meteria's third reading speech on the Foreshore and Seabed bill - about a third of the way down this page.
This Parliament is at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history: to return to our paternalistic past, or take the path of justice and peace, and we are about to blow it. We will blow it on greed, on the desire for power, on intellectual fallacies, and on political expediency. All New Zealanders will hold this Parliament to account for the wrong that the Government is about to commit. For Māori, we have been here before and, no doubt, we will be here again, defending our right to be Māori in our own country. We welcome our Pākehā friends and colleagues who object to this raupatu in their name, to join us in this struggle. Together, we will continue to seek justice and peace in our country—ka whawhaitonumātouake, ake, ake.
I guess you could claim that she's sold out and would vote differently now - though that isn't what you did claim - but you'd need to provide some evidence, especially as your initial claim was really quite wrong.
-
Sacha, in reply to
my most central question to the Greens at every turn “what is your actual plan regarding employment?”
-
= Muddle Earth!
shortened to general Merth!
= Fiddle Earth
gets violins off the streets...
-
You can see why a guy working in a coal mine on the West Coast [or an oil rig in Taranaki, or some other extractive industry] might not find that a super reassuring policy, to be honest.
-
Emma Hart, in reply to
You can see why a guy working in a coal mine on the West Coast [or an oil rig in Taranaki, or some other extractive industry] might not find that a super reassuring policy, to be honest.
Yes, I can. I have family who work in those industries. But without government intervention, coal mining is hardly an industry with a long and healthy future, yeah? The West Coast is littered with dead coal mines, and that wasn't down to the Greens.
-
Hebe, in reply to
Or possibly it’s roots are in people who object to being lectured to like this.
Jumpy like that is a bother Tom. I am not lecturing; I'm saying that it's what I see as the gulf between my thinking and some wings of the Labour Party.
I resent the out-greening purists as much as you do -- probably more -- because I believe pretty much every sort of thinking and every sort of people are part of a continuum. (See my Floodland post on cleaning up.) I'm a pragmatic green. Always have been.
As for the comments about Greens being against employment: Tory spin swallowed whole. Read the policy. If you still take that inference, it's your prerogative but please don't tell me what I support and believe.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
*I knew I forgot someone,and I was looking for an ‘N’Doh!Now I’ve missed my final edit window
Mike Williams had something to say about that at Granny
Technicality it seams...
As I facilitated the donation in question, I can report - for the first time - that Peters was in fact telling the strict truth.
-
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Off the top of my head and without looking stuff up, you have:
Macroeconomic measures:
- fiscal measures such as a capital gains tax to reduce property inflation, allowing:
- lower interest rates, possibly QE (the actual settings would depend on the circumstances, appropriate settings after a China crash will be very different).
- also requirement for Reserve Bank to prioritise employmentMicroeconomic measures:
- a house building plan
- a plan to build more renewable power, such as wind farms, which will both employ workers directly and reduce future input costs for imported fuel- plus investment in education which will make NZ workers more employable (not sure if the Greens have committed to make university education free again).
And generally, if Labour put forward good policies, the Greens will support it. If it's moar coal and oil, they won't (remind me how mining and drilling is going again?)
-
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
You can see why a guy working in a coal mine on the West Coast [or an oil rig in Taranaki, or some other extractive industry] might not find [the Green's employment policy] a super reassuring policy, to be honest.
Sure, but you know what? Extractive industries don't actually employ a whole heck of a lot of people in this country. Population of a small town if one includes the downstream employment also (otherwise it's a very small town). And their economic contribution isn't massive either, especially when one considers that "they" don't pay a cent towards all the externalities that their products are heaping upon current and future generations. We get fuck-all in royalties, too ($450m in 2009/2010).
So you'll perhaps pardon those of us who don't consider those industries to be vital to NZ's long-term economic future. They contribute ~1.5% of GDP, from what I can find, bugger-all in corporate taxes (big overseas owners, structured to make as little money as possible), and for all the hype about how well-paid the industry's workers are there are so few of them that they're not even paying overly much in personal income tax.
The dinosaur thinking associated with viewing the extraction of dead dinosaurs from the earth as being of vital economic and employment importance is never going to be swayed to thinking of the Greens as anything other than economic vandals who won't be happy until the entire country is occupied by dreadlocked hippies wearing standard-issue kaftans and smoking standard-issue pot.
-
Hebe, in reply to
The dinosaur thinking associated with viewing the extraction of dead dinosaurs from the earth as being of vital economic and employment importance is never going to be swayed to thinking of the Greens as anything other than economic vandals who won't be happy until the entire country is occupied by dreadlocked hippies wearing standard-issue kaftans and smoking standard-issue pot.
This [missed the edit window for previous comment].
-
Keir Leslie, in reply to
Of course not! And I totally think that the extractive industries are broadly speaking sunset industries. But really, if you live in Westport and you would quite like to get work, being told "you're a dinosaur" by a well-off urban liberal isn't very satisfying.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
But really, if you live in Westport and you would quite like to get work, being told “you’re a dinosaur” by a well-off urban liberal isn’t very satisfying.
No, it's not, but if you care about getting work you might want to pay attention to your long-term prospects rather than just what's getting food on the table today. Everything is pointing to low-grade coal for burning (as opposed to coal for making steel) being very near to death, especially where it's been previously destined for China. The US has plenty of dirty coal of its own.
-
Regarding oil & gas, if NZ absolutely has to drill holes in the ground or ocean, then it could do worse than to take the Norwegian approach instead of the Texan or British approach. The last thing NZ needs is to be treated like a banana republic where most of the oil money goes to J.R. Ewing types in the Lone Star State, and that’s just as big an issue to be rightly pissed off about, as much as the potential for a Deepwater Horizon debacle.
-
Emma Hart, in reply to
a well-off urban liberal
Oh man, remember when this meme was "Chardonnay Socialist" and it was about Labour? Good times.
-
Steve Withers, in reply to
Looks like Peters may be there either way.....
-
coal for making steel
has not been doing very well either. The price was driven up by the demand to make rebar for all those Chinese construction projects (ghost cities and so on). Now that's collapsing, which is why after cheming up the ground of the Denniston Plateau, Bathurst are deferring production and firing staff.
If you make steel from scrap instead of ore, you don't need as much coal, and in a declining market, it's cheaper to use scrap.
-
linger said:
Can we go back to first principles here: just why should we believe that the known history of the Australian Labor and Green Parties should have much relevance for the future of the NZ Labour and Green Parties?
I'd not want to overstate it - electoral systems and parliaments are different - but they appear to campaign on similar issues, target similar voting cohorts and have some common campaign themes. On that basis, it's not surprising to me that they clash from time to time on both sides of the ditch.
Tom said:
Perhaps the Labour party is, just possibly, an organisation that doesn’t like being patronised by high and mighty middle class tofu eaters impatient with their antediluvian “smokestack industrial-age concepts and thinking”.
I used to get a bit of this but not so much now. The last campaign I was involved in, for Labour in Wellington Central in 2008, the Greens and Labour had a good relationship and both had excellent candidates.
I do think Labour must and can campaign on environmental issues as it has a strong claim of actually doing things through 5 governments (and Hebe, I've read your comments and understand what you were and weren't saying).
-
Steve Barnes, in reply to
what’s more they act like light, and smoke, too
mutable particle waveform hybrids
if you know where they are,
you don’t know their speed
but if you know their speed,
ya don’t know where they are at
most of the time they are
neither here nor there…As usual Ian, brilliant. Love the Heisenberg reference. ;-)
As to Labour and Greens…. the way I see it (which seems to mean, on these boards anyway, wrongly)
Labour. Looks after the people that do the actual work of getting things done.
Greens. Makes sure the people that get things done clean up after themselves and don’t make a mess.Bit like…
Dad. Gets Boy to help him fix the car.
Mum. Berates Dad and Boy for getting grease on the carpet.
I don’t think that is grounds for divorce.
Simplistic but that’s just me.Most importantly
If ya know where you are
everything else
is relative…Relatives... eh?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.