Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
I think that there is a strong element of opportunism at work here. I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing for the sake of the economy. NZ’s public debt is relatively constrained so makes sense from a macro perspective.
Yeah, it does. But it's interesting that pretty much no one here is characterising it the way you have.
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
Only days ago, Bill English suggested that NZ is not isolated in terms of the need for public debt and spending; in fact, NZ has been a target of this false, monetary-driven post GFC world. Therefore, this decision is not necessarily a victory for vision and good judgment. I would imagine part of it’s driven by economic necessity.
Interesting point. I think it is starting to dawn around here that there aren't many levers left to pull.
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to John Farrell,
I wasn’t necessarily agreeing with the ODT view – but I thought some might be interested in what some of those outside the hothouse think.
It was worth knowing, for sure. Thanks.
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From Hayden Donnell at The SpinOff: A brief history of National MPs trashing the rail link they just funded
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to Sacha,
blah blah savings blah keep rates down blah
She's not really indicating a great commitment to the whole "being mayor" thing.
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to Ben Ross,
I think the Government has been distracted by the Centre Right Local Government establishment long enough that National should probably jettison any association with it given it is that far out of touch with wider Auckland (the local establishment that is) as the Len Brown saga showed.
Yeah, they've got a problem there. And I thought this part of the ODT story was way off:
The Prime Minister will also hurt the mayoral campaign hopes of former Labour leader Phil Goff and nullify the criticism from the Labour and Green parties who have been advocating for the City Rail Link to start earlier.
A centre-left mayor winning a massive government backdown is hardly going to hurt Goff – especially when the local centre-right still can't tell a coherent story. "Vote for us because we're vaguely aligned with the government even though we loudly opposed the ideas the government just came around to" isn't a compelling pitch.
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Hard News: The CRL and the nature of change, in reply to John Farrell,
The ODT’s view:
“Prime Minister John Key effectively launched National’s 2017 election campaign yesterday by agreeing to pour billions of dollars into Auckland’s infrastructure – at the expense of the rest of the country, ODT political editor Dene Mackenzie writes.”
Fair in the sense that Key’s need to keep Auckland voters onside was a factor, but not really fair on the numbers. Greater Auckland is home to 34% of New Zealanders and responsible for 35% of GDP. Per capita, Aucklanders get less government expenditure than people in any of the other regions. Even transport spending is only commensurate with Auckland’s share of the tax take. And infrastructure spending is about growth expectations – in the next 30 years, Auckland is expected to account for nearly two thirds of New Zealand’s population growth. You can’t not plan for that.
This isn’t great for other regions in a variety of ways, but addressing that is the role of a regional economic development strategy, like the one Labour touted at the last election.
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Interesting column today from Fran O’Sullivan who has her biases, but is always a reliable reader of business sentiment:
But the reality is Key was two years too late when it came to his Government finally committing to bring forward spending on the $2.5 billion city rail link (dubbed Len’s trainset) so construction could begin two years earlier that the previously agreed 2020 deadline.
It had taken a concerted behind-scenes campaign by business lobbies to shift the Government off its lofty perch in the first place and start listening hard (and acting) on what Auckland needed.
Key’s Government had initially allowed its concerns over Len Brown’s leadership to spill over to poison decision-making.
And:
Key is now saying that Auckland Council will have to “justify” introducing congestion charges or motorway tolls to help fund its “50:50 share” of the new transport infrastructure.
This is unnecessarily provocative.
Most modern cities use tolls or congestion charges to both fund and constrain motorway construction expenditure.
Aucklanders are now in broad support of this move.
The Government should simply fall into line.
The government also needs to stop listening to the clowns who constitute Auckland’s centre-right establishment.
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Hard News: Music: All this and some…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Some success buying music from 7digital and google play. But both appear to have less-than-stellar back-catalogue.
Bandcamp is great, but didn’t have what I was looking for this time.)Was about to mention all of those. Another good option for nerdy, mostly electronic music is Bleep.com, which also offers lossless downloads. I object to paying money for MP3s and AACs when I can get that quality by just saving Apple Music albums for offline play.
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Hard News: Music: All this and some…, in reply to Alan Perrott,
there’s a fair whack of interesting/ eh? stuff that came out of former Soviet states. Dos-Mukasan were in Kazakhstan – this clip is 26 minutes or so of sorta downbeat surf/ ska (really).
Intriguing. Kazakhstan also has an adventurous avant-garde arts scene, I gather.
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