Posts by George Darroch
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I’m not saying I disagree, but just pointing out that people could theoretically care about most of those things and still happily vote National. And many (at least a plurality) will.
I don't doubt you. I even think that people can feel that Labour would better represent them on most of those issues, and vote otherwise. The divergence between stated and voting policy preference is an observed one, here and internationally and deserves attention (I'm genuinely interested, for a number of reasons). It's more complex than false bloody consciousness.
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I'm also loving the ghost jobs image floating around Facebook at the moment.
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Yeah, but did we get Labour to listen? Or to tell better lies?
That's why we elect them. To answer that question.
Though I'm an active Green member, I am genuinely curious to see how the stable of MPs will perform in Government. I think we deserve that question answered.
Meanwhile, the current mob are promising to halve benefits. I haven't had time to catch which conditions they're ascribing - no doubt aimed at some bunch who are seen to be morally degenerate - but given how little you have to survive on currently (the level National set things at and Labour maintained), it's pretty sick.
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I don’t think you’re diametrically opposed at all, you’re about a hair’s breadth from my position. I think even that gap comes down to taking my reference to responsibilities as meaning “paid employment”. It surely does not mean that to me at all. I mean things like “spending time with your grandchildren” and “getting involved in many things you never had time for before”. The more old people are encouraged to do these things, and the more younger people value them, and are seen by the old to value them, the happier society will be, right across life spans.
I’ve been meaning to say something like this. I don’t think the problem is retirement. The problem is how we value work. My mum is still in her 50s, but has been able to cut down hours to spend time with her grandson (whose parents appreciate the time), take more responsibility with the various agencies and organisations she volunteers with, and just enjoy life. She’s hardly well paid, but I’m fully aware that many people don’t have that option – or load themselves up with costs that mean that doing so is much more difficult. Having lived most of her life in relative poverty, her tastes and spending are rather modest.
What do New Zealanders expect? I don’t know. But I suspect that surety of wellbeing encapsulates those expectations, whether this is retirement, study, or work. We’re well aware that there are gaps in all of these, and that most of us feel like if things went badly we could fall into any of them. That I think is driving a shift in the general feeling. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the turn of this election so far.
Also worth noting is that in a 3 News poll last night, voters ranked their first five issues; environment, food prices, schools (2nd equal), hospital care, petrol prices, and people in poverty. These are all issues which the Greens and Labour absolutely own, and issues that speak to people’s wish for a fair and inclusive society.
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Colin Craig is hilarious. The Alliance; sadly, I didn't even realise they were even running a campaign.
Libertarianz are proposing that Christchurch become a zone with no taxes, and absolutely no laws or regulation. The doors will be locked, and after ten years the survivors will emerge.
The ALCP's use of fades was fascinating.
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I keep saying elsewhere, to anyone who will listen: ideological consolidation. Labour now has it, in sufficient quantity, to present a unified and singular set of messages to the public. Did they look unified? Surprisingly, they did, and I don't think that's an accident.
Which is why they had to spend so long on that last night, so they can establish that set of ideas in the large section of the electorate too young to remember anything other than the last term. They spent about 3.2 seconds talking about it, which is no accident. There's a vague sense of discomfort and negativity, and they just stepped right around it. I can't blame them.
As for Christchurch? It would have required introducing another message into their broadcast, and took the broadcast into a territory they didn't fully own. I can understand why they left it alone.
The Greens? That's what unpolished sincerity looks like. I wasn't at all involved in that production or privy to any details, but I'm almost certain we didn't have the money to do things as well as Labour (who got a generous donation of labour and production from a documentary film-maker). I did wish the camera would stop swinging, and simply leave Metiria and Russel to simply talk. My brother speculates it was made by someone who simply wasn't used to making things as long as this. I'm glad it was only 8 minutes, that was long enough.
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We’ve coddled business owners long e-bloody-nough about how they treat their staff. I’d like to see a provision that forces employers to disclose when they are reducing pay increases to compensate for increased employer contributions into KS, with stiff monetary penalties for misleading behaviour
And yet, The John Key Party (that's the brand they're trading on) just today came out with a policy that would reduce wages. Not only that, but take three dollars an hour off those on the minimum wage.
You can't spin it otherwise. Not only does it directly reduce wages, but it puts downwards pressure on the wages of every earner who competes in these wage segments, and directly pulls down the entire wage sector. Of course, the higher up you go, the less direct influence this has on you, and if you take income as profits or dividends then the effect is opposite.
John Key, stealing from the pockets of young poor workers. Oh yeah, they're young, so they deserve it.
But if politicians don’t like being viewed as offensively out of touch and patronising, it would help if they didn’t try and earn it.
Quite. But you can't blame the politicians, really. The electorate votes for it, time and again. A party doing just what you describe is extremely popular right now.
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I found a 20ft skip bin full to the brim outside the University of Auckland's Tamaki library the other day. Basically, they'd pretty much decided to throw out everything published before 1980, and most things published pre 1990.
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people have money to save?
and to SPARE?
Geeez, really?
I dont, and havent, for the past decade-
you fellas are entirely out of my non-income bracket-Me neither. I've saved about -$34,000 in the last decade.
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While I think stupidity explains more things in this world than malice, let me say that there are only 365 lunches in a year (give or take a few). About that many dinners and breakfasts too.
Given that, I'd rather our politicians were having lunches with people who actually uplift us, make things better. There are plenty of them, despite that goes on in the world.
(Perhaps then they wouldn't risk the perception of taint from people of ill persuasion. Yeah, I know I'm naive. You need such people to survive, I'm told.)