Straylan and Kiwi politics

Wibble said:
So what is going on with the yes vote in WA? With such a huge Labor majority it seems bizarre that the No vote is doing so well.
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pundits claim it has something to do with the Indigenous Act that was rushed through the WA parliament. That went down like a ton of bricks in regional WA due to the requirements to check land differently before development. But i have to be honest, i genuinely don't know. None of the polling nation wide makes sense to me when the No side has basically made no argument this entire time.
 
The Voice referendum vote is tomorrow. I have a very bad feeling it won't get up confirming us as racists particularly when it comes to I digenoys people

Given that it needs an overall majority and a majority in at least 4 states/territories I think it might be game over.
 
And there is a high profile rape case going on in Towoomba where the accused's name has been suppressed for months, which is far from usual.

I was told who it is and, if true, when the person's name is released (hopefully this week) I doubt many people will be surprised.
 
Wibble said:
And there is a high profile rape case going on in Towoomba where the accused's name has been suppressed for months, which is far from usual.

I was told who it is and, if true, when the person's name is released (hopefully this week) I doubt many people will be surprised.
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A politician per chance?
 
Stack said:
I dont understand how Australia has voted No. Its incredibly sad to witness.
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Unfortunately the narrative was set early and they yes campaign never recovered.

The bullshit conservative talking notes that come out always around indigenous rights are an absolute disgrace. It always centres around property (as with everything in this joint) and bullshit land grab claims. For you all, land rights in Australia are so protected that people will never have to hand over land.

unfortunately we have a continually ageing conservative population who have lived on conservative talking notes for the last 60 years.
 
mariachi-19 said:
Unfortunately the narrative was set early and they yes campaign never recovered.

The bullshit conservative talking notes that come out always around indigenous rights are an absolute disgrace. It always centres around property (as with everything in this joint) and bullshit land grab claims. For you all, land rights in Australia are so protected that people will never have to hand over land.

unfortunately we have a continually ageing conservative population who have lived on conservative talking notes for the last 60 years.
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The continually aging conservative population is something we are seeing here in NZ too. My generation are set to double the number of retired over the next 5 years as a huge wave of us turn 65. Sadly I see most of my friends of this age becoming more conservative as they get older. We are about to see a bunch of inherently racist policies pushed through by our new Govt so we arent doing much better here. I really hate my generation and feel sorry for what we are leaving our younger generations to contend with as we now have a large bloc of voting power and its depressing to see the arguments my generation here are using.
 
cesc's_mullet said:
Quelle surprise.

Love his defense trying to argue that releasing his name will have a negative impact on his mental health. No shyte. Deal with it.
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It looks like he took legal advice from ben Roberts-Smith. ;)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...he-admitted-to-under-cross-examination-ntwnfb

So far he has admitted to being a serial liar, and pretty much admitting that he would probably have been convicted if the criminal trial hadn't been abandoned, delayed and then discontinued, for Britany Higgin's mental health (no wonder with so much of the media gunning for her). Now we have her evidence about the rape in parliament. I'm no legal expert but it doesn't seem to be going well for him.
 
I've watched some of the case on YouTube (who knew that the Federal Court live-streamed cases) and Bruce's testimony was painful to watch - he really didn't come across as remotely honest. Caught some of Britany's testimony this morning and apart from being obviously very difficult emotionally she's seemed far more genuine and honest
 
Wibble said:
It looks like he took legal advice from ben Roberts-Smith. ;)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...he-admitted-to-under-cross-examination-ntwnfb

So far he has admitted to being a serial liar, and pretty much admitting that he would probably have been convicted if the criminal trial hadn't been abandoned, delayed and then discontinued, for Britany Higgin's mental health (no wonder with so much of the media gunning for her). Now we have her evidence about the rape in parliament. I'm no legal expert but it doesn't seem to be going well for him.
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Hope they throw the book at him.
 
The Labour government in Victoria have made a total arse of this one. You would have thought it wouldn't be that hard to find a place for wind turbines that didn't involve destroying an environmentally protected wetland. So bad a choice that they forced the Federal labor government to block it. Which they will have hated having to do as it will hand a victory to the renewables hating opposition.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...an-government-port-hastings-wind-turbine-plan
 
Wibble said:
It looks like Jacinta Adheren is going to be return with an absolute majority - unusual in NZ

Well deserved. One of the few real leaders in world politics IMO.
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That she is. Love her.
 
Wibble said:
#scottyfrommarketing has left the building. Don't let the door hit you on your sizable arse on your way out, you evil fatuous twat.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/s...rliament/716f8000-51a8-4926-8439-b9d364e5294c
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Never having any shame or ability to read the room, he leaves politics blaming the electorate for having too much faith (expectation of basic competence) in politicians. No you utter flog, you were totally and utterly shit at everything you touched, and even significant portions of your base recognised it.
 
The sale of vapes without a prescription to be banned from mid-year. The import and sale of single use vapes is already banned. Great if it works but will prohibition work? I also wonder if the shops that sell them are also a major target as in many places there is the suspicion that they are mainly a front for laundering drug/illegal tobacco/crime money. Where I lived in Sydney there were 3 or 4 very close together and you never saw anyone in them. The ethnic ownership of vape shops, barbers shops and the main players in the Sydney drug market would be close to a single circle in a Venn diagram, with bikie gangs also a significant overlap. Correlation not being causation of course, but the suspicion remains, especially as rival gang attacks on barbers shops and vape shops makes the news from time to time.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/...ed-on-south-yarra-street-20230805-p5du4g.html
https://www.watoday.com.au/national...at-tobacco-store-attacks-20230819-p5dxtu.html
https://www.9news.com.au/national/m...shop-hit/6d05dd17-eb82-4777-89a6-b89b251e6809
 
Scotty really doesn't understand that more than half the country can't stand him, and he was one of the worst leaders in a long time
 
Dargonk said:
Scotty really doesn't understand that more than half the country can't stand him, and he was one of the worst leaders in a long time
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And given what a low bar that is after Abbott that is really saying something.
 
A quick snapshot of whats happening here in NZ.

The Govt have repealed our smokefree laws which had been instrumental in massively reducing smoking in NZ. The new Minister of Finance has admitted that the new laws will enable the govt to gather more tax revenue which is to help pay for the planned tax cuts for landlords.
The tax cuts for landlords are to be backdated by 3 years and are estimated to cost about NZ$1 Billion a year.
Also at the inaguration for one of the new Ministers, Shane Jones had 4 guests. 2 of them were tobacco lobbyists. Our new PM's sister in law works in the tobacco industry at a high level.
Our associate Minister of Health ignored Minsitry of Health Advice on the repealing of these laws. Her biggest donor during the election were tobacco companies.

The Reserve Bank of NZ and our new Govt have made comments about NZ needing to have more people unemployed so as to give employers more choice in finding workers.
The Govt under urgency have unlinked our welfare payments to the unemployed and sickness beneficiaries from wage growth and linked it to inflation. Interestingly they have not unlinked those who get the pension. ( their main voter base) Those on Superannuation on NZ take up 5 times more of our Govts social welfare spending than all other recipients combined.
They are also putting in place sanctions on those unemployed who havent been able to find work if they have been unemployed long term and are also talking about monitoring unemployed beneficiaries bank accounts. BTW I am due to retire soon so its my fecking generation who voted these shitstains in.

A few years ago after the horrific Mosque shooting here in NZ where 51 innocent people were murdered by a man using semi automatic weapons the Govt is looking at reviewing the gun laws and allowing semi automatic weapons to be sold again. This despite warnings from the Police. We have a major gang problem here and the Govt are going to ban gang patches in public spaces. So they are looking to make it harder to identify gang members and at the same time making it easier for the gangs to obtain semi automatic weapons. At a time when the largest buyers of illegal guns are the gangs.

They have repealed our EV subsidy laws and are also putting road user charges on to EVs, similar to Diesel road user chargers. In 10 years time this would have been a logical move except right now we need as many EV's into NZ as possible for multiple reasons. The vast majority of NZers will never buy a new car so policies which help people buy EVs mean we will end up with a NZ new second hand EV market rather than a Japanese import EV market.
The road user charges is flawed because the overall size of the Ev market in NZ is less than 2%, Large SUV's and Utes are by far our largest selling vehicles and placing a road user charge on EVs at this point when they are such a tiny part of our car fleet is stupid, there are not enough of them to be doing any sort of measurable or appreciable amopunt of damage to our roads. In a few years when we have a decent sized EV fleet would be understandable.
Our EV new car market has collapsed. I work as an advertising photographer. Back in October I shot a series of photos for a local Electrical company so they could advertise their EV charger installation services. This month I was due to do a 4 day shoot for more adverts as this service was expanding quickly. Thats shoot is now cancelled and the company involved have laid of a dozen staff who had been recruites specifically for this new division. Our EV sales have slowed massively and our EV charger installations are also slowing quickly. We are going to slip well behind the rest of the world. Catch up will be expnsive.

The new Govt have banned cellphones in schools, despite schools already having their own in school bans on cellphone use during class time. This is essentially a policy designed to appeal to boomers ( my demographic). They have also mandated 1 hour of reading, science and Math in class each day. Amusingly that already happens here. No inspirational or aspirational policies but just a nanny state policy which is ironic because thats what they accuse the opposition of.

They are also opening up our conservation areas to mining which I think is horrific for a long list of reasons. Oil and Gas exploartion permits will also be up for grabs soon and they intend putting in place a policy that means oil and gas exploration companies will be able to claim compensation if a future Govt reverses this policy.

They are going to remove a tax that Trusts are subject to and lets remember here in NZ we have no capital gains tax.

We have a thing called legislation pushed through under urgency which Govts in the past have used to get through legislation that is deemed urgent and vital. This new Govt have used this 24 times out of 25 so far to push through legislation without the opposition being able to stop or change a new bit of legislation. Too many to list here but its an horrific abuse of the system.
Last year in September our Finance Minister spoke about how lobbyists have too much power in NZ politics and how they are able to work without identification. She spoke about the need for transparency and allowing the public to know who was influencing ministers. The new Speaker of the House who was appointed by the new Govt just this week allowed 4 lobbyists access to parliament with their identities to be made secret.

Funding for cycleways has been cut. We have huge traffic problems especially in our bigger cities and in recent years many cycleways have been installed and its very easy to find countless studies that show the benefits. Just 2 weeks ago a major study showed how the Dutch have the best helath outcomes in the world and the Dutch on average are cycling 11kms a week each. Traffic, helath and social outcomes all improve as we increase the numebrs on bikes and scooters. We have chucked a great big handbrake at that.

We were told during the election the economy was in massive troubled and the Govt had wasted huge amounts of money and our debt had skyrocketed. Treasury here released its December quarter figures. Numbers which the new Govt had absolutely nothing to do with. They showed our Deficit had reduced by NZ$1.7 billion and the Govt debt to GDP ratio had dropped by NZ$4.7 billion and we sat at 21.4% of GDP govt debt. One of the lowest in the OECD. Economic growth was on the rise and exports were on the rise.

The previous National govt had lost our Standard and Poors triple A credit rating and the Govt thats just been thrown out had it restored back in June last year.
They have removed NZ from a treaty on Bottom trawling in the south Pacific, we are the only country to do this from this treaty.

I mentioned previously how bad I thought this new Govt would be, they have completely blow out of the water my previous expectations of how bad they are. There is still a long list of awful policy they are putting in place I havent mentioned. Its an absolute shit show here.

Im embarrassed to be a Kiwi because of what they are doing.
 
Stack said:
A quick snapshot of whats happening here in NZ.

The Govt have repealed our smokefree laws which had been instrumental in massively reducing smoking in NZ. The new Minister of Finance has admitted that the new laws will enable the govt to gather more tax revenue which is to help pay for the planned tax cuts for landlords.
The tax cuts for landlords are to be backdated by 3 years and are estimated to cost about NZ$1 Billion a year.
Also at the inaguration for one of the new Ministers, Shane Jones had 4 guests. 2 of them were tobacco lobbyists. Our new PM's sister in law works in the tobacco industry at a high level.
Our associate Minister of Health ignored Minsitry of Health Advice on the repealing of these laws. Her biggest donor during the election were tobacco companies.

The Reserve Bank of NZ and our new Govt have made comments about NZ needing to have more people unemployed so as to give employers more choice in finding workers.
The Govt under urgency have unlinked our welfare payments to the unemployed and sickness beneficiaries from wage growth and linked it to inflation. Interestingly they have not unlinked those who get the pension. ( their main voter base) Those on Superannuation on NZ take up 5 times more of our Govts social welfare spending than all other recipients combined.
They are also putting in place sanctions on those unemployed who havent been able to find work if they have been unemployed long term and are also talking about monitoring unemployed beneficiaries bank accounts. BTW I am due to retire soon so its my fecking generation who voted these shitstains in.

A few years ago after the horrific Mosque shooting here in NZ where 51 innocent people were murdered by a man using semi automatic weapons the Govt is looking at reviewing the gun laws and allowing semi automatic weapons to be sold again. This despite warnings from the Police. We have a major gang problem here and the Govt are going to ban gang patches in public spaces. So they are looking to make it harder to identify gang members and at the same time making it easier for the gangs to obtain semi automatic weapons. At a time when the largest buyers of illegal guns are the gangs.

They have repealed our EV subsidy laws and are also putting road user charges on to EVs, similar to Diesel road user chargers. In 10 years time this would have been a logical move except right now we need as many EV's into NZ as possible for multiple reasons. The vast majority of NZers will never buy a new car so policies which help people buy EVs mean we will end up with a NZ new second hand EV market rather than a Japanese import EV market.
The road user charges is flawed because the overall size of the Ev market in NZ is less than 2%, Large SUV's and Utes are by far our largest selling vehicles and placing a road user charge on EVs at this point when they are such a tiny part of our car fleet is stupid, there are not enough of them to be doing any sort of measurable or appreciable amopunt of damage to our roads. In a few years when we have a decent sized EV fleet would be understandable.
Our EV new car market has collapsed. I work as an advertising photographer. Back in October I shot a series of photos for a local Electrical company so they could advertise their EV charger installation services. This month I was due to do a 4 day shoot for more adverts as this service was expanding quickly. Thats shoot is now cancelled and the company involved have laid of a dozen staff who had been recruites specifically for this new division. Our EV sales have slowed massively and our EV charger installations are also slowing quickly. We are going to slip well behind the rest of the world. Catch up will be expnsive.

The new Govt have banned cellphones in schools, despite schools already having their own in school bans on cellphone use during class time. This is essentially a policy designed to appeal to boomers ( my demographic). They have also mandated 1 hour of reading, science and Math in class each day. Amusingly that already happens here. No inspirational or aspirational policies but just a nanny state policy which is ironic because thats what they accuse the opposition of.

They are also opening up our conservation areas to mining which I think is horrific for a long list of reasons. Oil and Gas exploartion permits will also be up for grabs soon and they intend putting in place a policy that means oil and gas exploration companies will be able to claim compensation if a future Govt reverses this policy.

They are going to remove a tax that Trusts are subject to and lets remember here in NZ we have no capital gains tax.

We have a thing called legislation pushed through under urgency which Govts in the past have used to get through legislation that is deemed urgent and vital. This new Govt have used this 24 times out of 25 so far to push through legislation without the opposition being able to stop or change a new bit of legislation. Too many to list here but its an horrific abuse of the system.
Last year in September our Finance Minister spoke about how lobbyists have too much power in NZ politics and how they are able to work without identification. She spoke about the need for transparency and allowing the public to know who was influencing ministers. The new Speaker of the House who was appointed by the new Govt just this week allowed 4 lobbyists access to parliament with their identities to be made secret.

Funding for cycleways has been cut. We have huge traffic problems especially in our bigger cities and in recent years many cycleways have been installed and its very easy to find countless studies that show the benefits. Just 2 weeks ago a major study showed how the Dutch have the best helath outcomes in the world and the Dutch on average are cycling 11kms a week each. Traffic, helath and social outcomes all improve as we increase the numebrs on bikes and scooters. We have chucked a great big handbrake at that.

We were told during the election the economy was in massive troubled and the Govt had wasted huge amounts of money and our debt had skyrocketed. Treasury here released its December quarter figures. Numbers which the new Govt had absolutely nothing to do with. They showed our Deficit had reduced by NZ$1.7 billion and the Govt debt to GDP ratio had dropped by NZ$4.7 billion and we sat at 21.4% of GDP govt debt. One of the lowest in the OECD. Economic growth was on the rise and exports were on the rise.

The previous National govt had lost our Standard and Poors triple A credit rating and the Govt thats just been thrown out had it restored back in June last year.

I mentioned previously how bad I thought this new Govt would be, they have completely blow out of the water my previous expectations of how bad they are. There is still a long list of awful policy they are putting in place I havent mentioned. Its an absolute shitshow here.
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It is like a check list of right-wing idiocy. Maybe #scottyfrommarketing has left the AU parliament to move to NZ as a political advisor. Add talking in tongues and a condition about not holding hoses to the list and it would be his wishlist.
 
Wibble said:
It is like a check list of right-wing idiocy. Maybe #scottyfrommarketing has left the AU parliament to move to NZ as a political advisor. Add talking in tongues and a condition about not holding hoses to the list and it would be his wishlist.
Click to expand...
I have never seen anything this horrific here before. Its frightening. Libertarianism is taking hold. The saddest thing for me is that my generation are driving this and we make up a huge voting block with all the money and all the power. We arent voting for things to benefit our children or our grandchildren but for things to benefit us. Selfish and shameless.
 
Stack said:
I have never seen anything this horrific here before. Its frightening. Libertarianism is taking hold. The saddest thing for me is that my generation are driving this and we make up a huge voting block with all the money and all the power. We arent voting for things to benefit our children or our grandchildren but for things to benefit us. Selfish and shameless.
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It's really not, Luxon is a centrist managerial politician tinkering around the edges, I really don't recognise your description of him at all.

Stack said:
A quick snapshot of whats happening here in NZ.

The Govt have repealed our smokefree laws which had been instrumental in massively reducing smoking in NZ. T.

The Reserve Bank of NZ and our new Govt have made comments about NZ needing to have more people unemployed so as to give employers more choice in finding workers.
The Govt under urgency have unlinked our welfare payments to the unemployed and sickness beneficiaries from wage growth and linked it to inflation. Interestingly they have not unlinked those who get the pension. ( their main voter base) Those on Superannuation on NZ take up 5 times more of our Govts social welfare spending than all other recipients combined.
They are also putting in place sanctions on those unemployed who havent been able to find work if they have been unemployed long term and are also talking about monitoring unemployed beneficiaries bank accounts. BTW I am due to retire soon so its my fecking generation who voted these shitstains in.

A few years ago after the horrific Mosque shooting here in NZ where 51 innocent people were murdered by a man using semi automatic weapons the Govt is looking at reviewing the gun laws and allowing semi automatic weapons to be sold again. This despite warnings from the Police. We have a major gang problem here and the Govt are going to ban gang patches in public spaces. So they are looking to make it harder to identify gang members and at the same time making it easier for the gangs to obtain semi automatic weapons. At a time when the largest buyers of illegal guns are the gangs.

They have repealed our EV subsidy laws and are also putting road user charges on to EVs, similar to Diesel road user chargers. In 10 years time this would have been a logical move except right now we need as many EV's into NZ as possible for multiple reasons. The vast majority of NZers will never buy a new car so policies which help people buy EVs mean we will end up with a NZ new second hand EV market rather than a Japanese import EV market.
The road user charges is flawed because the overall size of the Ev market in NZ is less than 2%, Large SUV's and Utes are by far our largest selling vehicles and placing a road user charge on EVs at this point when they are such a tiny part of our car fleet is stupid, there are not enough of them to be doing any sort of measurable or appreciable amopunt of damage to our roads. In a few years when we have a decent sized EV fleet would be understandable.
Our EV new car market has collapsed. I work as an advertising photographer. Back in October I shot a series of photos for a local Electrical company so they could advertise their EV charger installation services. This month I was due to do a 4 day shoot for more adverts as this service was expanding quickly. Thats shoot is now cancelled and the company involved have laid of a dozen staff who had been recruites specifically for this new division. Our EV sales have slowed massively and our EV charger installations are also slowing quickly. We are going to slip well behind the rest of the world. Catch up will be expnsive.

The new Govt have banned cellphones in schools, despite schools already having their own in school bans on cellphone use during class time. This is essentially a policy designed to appeal to boomers ( my demographic). They have also mandated 1 hour of reading, science and Math in class each day. Amusingly that already happens here. No inspirational or aspirational policies but just a nanny state policy which is ironic because thats what they accuse the opposition of.

They are also opening up our conservation areas to mining which I think is horrific for a long list of reasons. Oil and Gas exploartion permits will also be up for grabs soon and they intend putting in place a policy that means oil and gas exploration companies will be able to claim compensation if a future Govt reverses this policy.

They are going to remove a tax that Trusts are subject to and lets remember here in NZ we have no capital gains tax.

We have a thing called legislation pushed through under urgency which Govts in the past have used to get through legislation that is deemed urgent and vital. This new Govt have used this 24 times out of 25 so far to push through legislation without the opposition being able to stop or change a new bit of legislation. Too many to list here but its an horrific abuse of the system.

Last year in September our Finance Minister spoke about how lobbyists have too much power in NZ politics and how they are able to work without identification. She spoke about the need for transparency and allowing the public to know who was influencing ministers. The new Speaker of the House who was appointed by the new Govt just this week allowed 4 lobbyists access to parliament with their identities to be made secret.

Funding for cycleways has been cut. We have huge traffic problems especially in our bigger cities and in recent years many cycleways have been installed and its very easy to find countless studies that show the benefits. Just 2 weeks ago a major study showed how the Dutch have the best helath outcomes in the world and the Dutch on average are cycling 11kms a week each. Traffic, helath and social outcomes all improve as we increase the numebrs on bikes and scooters. We have chucked a great big handbrake at that.

We were told during the election the economy was in massive troubled and the Govt had wasted huge amounts of money and our debt had skyrocketed. Treasury here released its December quarter figures. Numbers which the new Govt had absolutely nothing to do with. They showed our Deficit had reduced by NZ$1.7 billion and the Govt debt to GDP ratio had dropped by NZ$4.7 billion and we sat at 21.4% of GDP govt debt. One of the lowest in the OECD. Economic growth was on the rise and exports were on the rise.

The previous National govt had lost our Standard and Poors triple A credit rating and the Govt thats just been thrown out had it restored back in June last year.
They have removed NZ from a treaty on Bottom trawling in the south Pacific, we are the only country to do this from this treaty.

I mentioned previously how bad I thought this new Govt would be, they have completely blow out of the water my previous expectations of how bad they are. There is still a long list of awful policy they are putting in place I havent mentioned. Its an absolute shit show here.

Im embarrassed to be a Kiwi because of what they are doing.
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I'd love to know how the smoke free laws that have been repealed were instrumental in massively reducing smoking when they were only passed last year and none of the key measures in them had come into effect. For example the new age restrictions didn't kick in until Jan 2027. Please, tell me how this has worked? In fact we've gone back to the previous laws which to massively reduce smoking.

Sanctions aren't been put into place for those unable to find work, the request is just that existing rules be followed for those who are failing to attempt to find work. The previous government basically stopped applying the existing rules here.

Road user charges for EVs are a matter of fairness, and Labour was going to implement them too. There's simply no reason why a family living in Mangere should subsidise one in Herne Bay to drive a new Tesla.

How many times did Labour push through laws under urgency?

I could go on but you're clearly catastrophising and there's probably not much point.
 
foolsgold said:
It's really not, Luxon is a centrist managerial politician tinkering around the edges, I really don't recognise your description of him at all.



I'd love to know how the smoke free laws that have been repealed were instrumental in massively reducing smoking when they were only passed last year and none of the key measures in them had come into effect. For example the new age restrictions didn't kick in until Jan 2027. Please, tell me how this has worked? In fact we've gone back to the previous laws which to massively reduce smoking.

Sanctions aren't been put into place for those unable to find work, the request is just that existing rules be followed for those who are failing to attempt to find work. The previous government basically stopped applying the existing rules here.

Road user charges for EVs are a matter of fairness, and Labour was going to implement them too. There's simply no reason why a family living in Mangere should subsidise one in Herne Bay to drive a new Tesla.

How many times did Labour push through laws under urgency?

I could go on but you're clearly catastrophising and there's probably not much point.
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We need to increase our EV fleet as fast as we can. For multiple reasons.
Sure the wealthy are being subsidised into EVs but because the vast majority of NZers drive second hand cars we unfortunately have to rely on the weallthy to provide that market. Road user charges are a matter of fairness and as I mentioned maybe in the future when the EV fleet is of an appreciable size that it actually has a real impact on the damage to our roads. We need the Wealthy to build up the second hand EV fleet because in doing so the market then builds up the EV charging system and the associated infrastructure. We end up building up our EV fleet and also we build the infrastructure. Whats happend now is both have come to a grinding halt. Its trite and short sighted to use the Mangere family subsidising wealthy into EVs when there is a longer term picture to consider. Labour were going to start road user charges on EVs but this was in line with an increased fleet.

Luxon is a long way from a centrist politician. The amusing thing is Labour are the centrist party these days. Luxon is happily allowing Seymour and hsi lot to do the dirty work of pushing ideas under the guise of equality which has fooled so many. Equality without equity is meaningless.

The original smokefree act was passed in 1990, the last change before the current ones was in 2020. The 2020 changes provided a pathway forward. I will use my own mother as an example of just how short sighted repealing this policy is. My mother started smoking at age 17, addicted to smoking her entire life and was never able to break the addiction, despite multiple attempts. She had 2 heart attacks, 1 triple bypass, lung cancer with a lung removed, a defibrialtor fitted and that later removed and replaced with a defibrilator/pacemaker. She had 2 mini strokes and in 2022 had 8 ambulance trips. During all of this there have been countless specialist visits, doctors visits, medications, chemo etc. All of this has been a huge cost to the taxpayer. All of these things directly attributed to her smoking. The smokefree laws were designed to reduce the numbers of people such as my mother from costing the health system huge amounts of money over a long period of time. Repealing these laws to fund tax cuts for landlords is repugnant. Willis herself stated the increased revenue from cigarette sales was to help fund the tax cuts. Morally and ethically repugnant.

The welfare sanctions I do understand but they are being put in place when we have an inflation problem and when the Reserve bank and National have stated that we need more people unemployed to improve the options for employers. Predictably the welfare bashing has started. If you thinking purposely increasing the numbers who are unemployed and then reducing the amounts they get whilst also painting a picture of widespread welfare abuse is ok then I feel sorry for you. the amount of welfare abuse is miniscule compared to corporate tax fraud. We spend massive amounts on one thing and sweet feck all on the other. We could have the tax cuts they want if we sorted out the corporate tax fraud.

Tax cuts for landlords do not in any way provide a boost in productivity or generate income for the country. There is no good reason for this. I do some work for Winton and also Templeton group, both property developers and also amusingly two of Nationals largest donors. Luxon has said that we need to restore property rights to being paramount. Libertarian ideal there btw. They have said they are going to remove RMAs from property developers so as to speed up the building of housing.2 problems, we have been through the leaky building thing once before. They have said that property developers will be able to bypass council permits and inspections if they have "high enough indemnity insurance" Their phrase not mine. Thats a massive massive problem. If your insurance is good enough then just go for it because the insurance will sort everything out. It is at the heart of libertarian idiocy. Market forces will correct issues when problems appear. Solutions after the fact. Imagine if we had applied that approach to the introduction of seatbelts. There are really good reasons that we have council inspections, its to stop the problem we had with leaky buildings. We need houses fast, our immigration is putting new pressure on the housing market. This approach of letting property developers avoid permits and checks is not the way. Lets not forget that in the last 6 years NZ has built the most houses ina 6 year period than ever before. 260,000 built.

Labour absolutely pushed legislation through under urgency but never anywhere near close to this burst from this new Govt.

Why on earth was under urgency the report on NZ tax system shut down and killed from ever being published?

We have a low wage economy and everything this new Govt is doing is to keep us as a low wage economy.

Luxon said he would be "laser focussed" in the 1st 100 days at bringing down inflation and ending this cost of living crisis. Not one single policy they have pushed in this forst 100 days addresses that in any way imaginable.

Here are things that are coming, you can give me shit in this thread in 3 years time if they havent appeared.

They will go after the Cullen fund, they will do what Muldoon did which cost NZ massively.
They will suspend payments into the Cullen fund. John Key did this for 9 years during the greatest expansion of the stock market in history which cost NZ conservative estimate of $25 billion.
They will follow the English model of sorting out our water. 3 waters was to follow the Scottish water model. Go have a look at the state of the English water infrastructrue and scotlands.
There is a video of David Seymour in 2010 in Calgary Canada arguing against light rail and cycleways. Today Calgary has the 2nd most used light rail service in North America and one of the most successful cycleway and walkway networks, again in North America.
There will be noises made towards the idea of a flat tax rate. At the next election ACT will push that as a policy. Anyone who thinks a flat tax rate is a good idea is a complete moron.

Fine maybe I am catastophising but I have never seen as regressive, negative, out of touch Govt as this one. Im in my 60s, self employed for 34 years and own 2 businesses, my parents owned superettes and then a supermarket, we all voted National for most of our lives. This lot are appalling.
 
Stack said:
Labour were going to start road user charges on EVs but this was in line with an increased fleet.
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I'll try and come back to a lot of this this later, but just going to call out that Labour was going to do it from April this year, at exactly the same rate that National is charging now.

I agree with you on lack of investment in public transport and cycling, I actively avoid driving and cycle or use public transport all the time. Simeon Brown may well be the worst transport minister in history (he's also my MP sadly), but Labour's staggeringly awful light rail proposal made it easy to cancel. They could have had shovels in the ground on something that was actually deliverable years ago but failed to build a meter of track.
 
foolsgold said:
I'll try and come back to a lot of this this later, but just going to call out that Labour was going to do it from April this year, at exactly the same rate that National is charging now.

I agree with you on lack of investment in public transport and cycling, I actively avoid driving and cycle or use public transport all the time. Simeon Brown may well be the worst transport minister in history (he's also my MP sadly), but Labour's staggeringly awful light rail proposal made it easy to cancel. They could have had shovels in the ground on something that was actually deliverable years ago but failed to build a meter of track.
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Labour screwed up a long list of things so we sit in this situation because of their failings.
 
No matter what these far right governments are universally a disaster no matter if they are in the UK, US, Australia or NZ.
 
Sounds like NZ is definitively heading in the wrong direction :(. After driving around for a month there and enjoying all the nature conservationism, and beauty, the one that really annoys me as the idea that they are pushing for mining in those types of areas is just infuriating.
 
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