And mebbe read Roger Ruth and Me. Quick read, only $4 for the kindle version, articulate, angry and thoughtful, and you can help pay off a student loan.

Thanks for your refreshing comment…

There's still Splash Planet.

Flaxmere never existed. It’s been erased and quietly forgotten, like a third world shanty town that offended the sensibilities of the local nobs who peddle Hawkes Bay to the like minded for it’s “lifestyle”. Originally built on…

Hastings district has a bigger population than Napier and includes posh Havelock North and much of the…

Instead, automation took away some of the industrial jobs, while in many other cases the labour cost was just reduced, onshore or offshore -…

Hell, the Soviets likely sent ‘bludgers’ to the Siberian…

Or for that matter, living behind razor wires and concrete barriers, and…

Boogie man stuff. I teach the children of people on benefits. By the dozen. They don't live anywhere near the same standard of those who work for…

In particular, Mike Munro and Heather Simpson left some big shoes to fill after they left.

I'll not name those that I particularly regard as such, but there's a number, Salmond is definitely one of them. That said, their specific influence will always be limited relative to Caucus, Leadership and the broader membership…

Point well made Deborah. I had noticed, and entirely support, the close attention to the future of work and also the debate on housing. I guess my lens on…

And don't tell me you have provided for just such…

sounds excellent to me

Where a solicitor arranged for their cash-rich clients to lend money to ones that needed a mortgage, in essence acting as a more-or-less unregulated bank.

This then morphed into finance companies, which then collapsed. Because you don't need regulation by the government, oh no sir.

For the…

Yup. But there were workarounds. Banks aren't the only ones who can lend money. My folks spoke of some mysterious substance called a "solicitor's…

That wasn't really the point I was trying to make. It was more that he followed the path so often lauded as this great thing by firm believers in capitalism, to take risks in investments. He had bad luck,…

The Paula Bennetts of this world are deluded…

Hehe, my mum bought a 6 bedroom giant victorian mansion on the cliffs above Freeman's Bay when she…

Indeed. Of late Labour has been talking about housing and the future of work, and the major response to the formation of "Progress" has been to say, "Oh, that's interesting. Labour…

Rob Salmond I reckon. YMMV :)

woo

http://www.rmit.edu.au/media/public-site-media-production/documents-to-be-sorted/documents/pdf/ideologiesofglobalizationes4cefpg6ifj1/es4cefpg6ifj1.pdf

It's really interesting to look for those parties that out rightly deny one or more of those six core claims. They are the real challengers of the status quo.

Jesus was a communist. Respect.

Think of it as enlightened self-interest, then. Every child whose education is hampered by hunger, or who suffers a poverty-related disease will be a drain on the public purse for decades.

In South Auckland, we're already facing a public-health time bomb that was [[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12367|set ticking in…

It's a one seat majority parliament. The "Parties who know National are a pack of rich elitist banking men terrified of the real common man and woman, feral as they are " need two more seats. Two more seats.

More people vote…

We only need to look at the social security policy area to find hypocrisy. What Labour MPs say during debates and question time in…

Deadwood who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBMsXcSTi4s

Yes. If Labour can't perform basic backroom strategy and comms functions, no amount of shuffling frontpeople will make a difference. Shunning or undermining your likely coalition partners is also not something voters ignore.

If only the incompetent would…

From February 2014 there were anti-Cunliffe stories all over the MSM. Some, like the Donghua Liu story were clear examples…

Is it Labour voters who have left, or Labour Party members? If the 'hard left' have become strong within the party it's because the soft left have…

That is exactly how I feel, Bert. I want every child born in this country to have a warm, secure place to live and to have…

What do you consider "hard left"? What qualities does the "hard left" have? What policies does it support?

I ask because I consider Labour a pointlessly wishy-washy party who have incrementally third-wayed themselves rightward into nothingness. I am mildly…

The one about the cartoon, or the one about the ‘normal rules’? Or both? I wasn't directing my comments at you personally, I was referring to the wider issue of the "just world" fallacy.

You don't think it exists, or you think that it's the only political system that can help disadvantaged people?

Good for you. It pretty much failed as a political ideology.

Do you however, believe that there is no value in helping those who are struggling?

What I'm describing is that the idea of winning and losing in society is inherently wrong. Things that harm…

Progress is to Labour as ACT is to National

with parties running a two brand strategy.

Brilliantly put. I wish I'd thought of that, but now you point it out I think you're absolutely right.

Only if you perceive life as some kind of grammar school sporting event.

It isn't. Those "losers" are actually human beings. They have children, who themselves have the intellectual and physical potential to create and love and contribute to the "wealth" of everyone.…

If only I had some aspirational figures to look up to in the "not throwing a hissy fit when you lose" department.

Unfortunately right now I have people…

Yup. They did work very hard, that I freely admit. But there was also a tremendous amount of luck involved in choosing St Mary's Bay, which went meteoric, and then Herne Bay, which is now the most expensive suburb in NZ. This on top of secure…

Data doesn't lie, only the people interpreting data lie.

The data indicate that for some reason…

And I'd rather today's young people were looked after…

Yeah, but a lot of tradies are sole traders. As in, the business owner is the worker. It's not an especially high aspiration that after learning the trade, one can contract out.

But…

Well…actually, my Dad bought his house in Herne Bay when he was at Uni. I’ve got photos…

People conflate what a company charges for trade services with what the worker earns (this applies as much to professionals like dentists – I'm quite glad IT people mostly don't do work for consumers). The tradies with those V8 pickups…

Given their perceived inability to talk to each other that seems a fairly obvious corollary.

Also, your points about being unemployed after Uni etc are well taken (and the ridiculous rent thing too). To address those points I would say the following:
(1) Not everyone can afford to live in Auckland. Get over it and move where the work is.…

yes, well

And then had a big whine about being left out of Little’s caucus rankings altogether. He has a higher…

don't be mean

Well, Josie (?)

It means having to pay $250 a week for a room in a slum miles from anywhere.
It means working three years for a degree and getting a job in a supermarket.
Or leaving school with good NCEAs and…

What irks me most is rather than engage with their party's existing policy and candidate development processes, they are trying to set up their own parallel ones as if the rules do not apply to them. That's…

Also, the cyclical…

Nobody will ever think differently (better, or worse) about Goff, King, Mallard, Dyson, etc. All the reviews in the world won't change that. Goff's reinvention in 2011 didn't work,…

I don't really see how the attitudes of Pagani and Quin are left of the current government. They're just people (like Shane Jones, who already jumped ship) who are basically Tories, but came from a background where…

What the ‘Progress’ faction would do is to…

There’s a reasonable degree of coherence in Labour at the moment, driven by a recognition that it’s a…