by frog
The silver lining to the concerning polling numbers for Labour is that far more Kiwis think the country is on the right track than the wrong track. The would suggest that voters swinging in behind National at the moment don’t have the same deep-seated pessimism about the state of the country that Kiwis had in, say, 1984 or 1990 or 1999. The key to Labour’s success over the next few months will be getting voters to make a connection between their general optimism about the state of the country and the policies that the progressive parties (Labour, Alliance, Progressives, Greens) have implemented over the past six years.
Massey University has just released a New Zealand values survey, which makes for very interesting reading. The first key finding was that New Zealanders are very proud of their country: 95% saying they are either very proud or quite proud to be a New Zealander. There is no deep-seated negativity about this place we live in.
Those Kiwis who said they were committed to spending most of the rest of their lives in New Zealand were also asked which of a list of eight factors were important to their decision to stay here. A good public health system, a high quality natural environment, good work/life balance and a good education for their children were cited as important by almost all people (between 93% and 96%). The proportion of people citing possible earnings as important to their decision to stay here was much lower, at 77%.
What does this mean? To me, it means that the progressive forces in this election (Labour and the Greens) have to tie the provision of quality public health and education systems and the protection of a quality natural environment to our mast and proclaim that this is what we are fighting for. If we do so successfully, then no promise of a tax cut from the Nats, which will imperil these very things, will be able to win the day with voters. As Toby Ziegler on The West Wing liked to say: government can be a force for good, a place where people come together, and make their country a better place. We should not be scared to say so.
Published in Campaign | Society & Culture by frog on Sun, July 10th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I think I prefer this one:
“When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself.” – Cicero
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Can’t you find a quotation less than 2000 years old to support your cause?
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Actually, Toby’s quote was as follows: “We have to say what we feel. That government no matter what its failures in the past, and in times to come, for that matter, government can be a place where people come together. And where no one gets left behind. No one gets left behind. An instrument of good.”
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Well if you knew when Cicero lived, then you would of course know that that quotation is fewer than 2000 years old. But, if age is the deciding factor in whether or not you agree with a sentiment, then you a firstly a fool, and secondly:
“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force.” – George Washington
“In all that people can do for themselves, the government ought not to interfere.” – Abraham Lincoln
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Certainly the quote attributed to the Toby character has sentiments that I can endorse. Joy.
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Government has a role in doing things for people that they cannot separately do themselves, but Carnifex has a strong point here… it has to limit itself to those things.
The problems this government faces in public perception have to do with a reality. It does things that people should do themselves. I don’t doubt that Carnifex would take that a lot further than I would, there are numerous good things that have been accomplished, but there are limits and they have been breached. Nobody will EVER forget the “Hip Hop tour” and that is hardly the least or worst.
So when I fill out my taxes and see the more than $20000 I’ve contributed to the government (not counting GST), I HAVE to wonder just who is getting the benefits. I’m supporting a family and slowly going broke, so I really have to wonder at the priorities being pursued.
Voting Green is important to me, but does it have to be a form of slow suicide? Do I forever have to wonder at who is sucking my blood in order to deliver some completely UNNECESSARY service to someone who has done nothing whatsoever to deserve it? No grip with necessities, but they CAN’T be as loosely defined as they seem to be currently.
People NEED food, housing, education, health care and clothing. Those are government mandates. Transportation is needed to facilitate their work. Government also has to provide defense and infrastructure… the things that nobody can do alone.
So I look at the situation I am in and I see a “Hip Hop tour” and I have to question whether I should work at all…
This is the ONLY place I’ve ever lived that I found the taxes so onerous as to justify a complaint. I don’t mind paying heavy tax, I am a liberal, but I DO mind when I can’t make ends meet no matter how hard I work.
So if you think that nailing government services to the mast will keep the riff-raff in line Frog, you have another think coming.
Those services have to be related to REAL needs. They haven’t been. Anyone with three working brain cells knows that this government has gone a bit too far. That’s why National is getting a good look at possibly winning this next election. Labour can’t come up with ONE tax cut worth mentioning? Can’t control spending better?
Horse****!
If we don’t get SOMETHING out there for people to consider, something real and reasonable and damned soon, we are going to lose this election. People could give a s*** about Zimbabwe when their tax bill looks like the down payment on a house, but they can’t afford the house.
Why is it that there is no recognition that people who live in THEIR OWN houses have more incentive to fix them up to be energy efficient than the landlord does, but the landlord (by forming an LAQC) is able to pull as much as a 40% reduction in tax and so EVERYONE wants to be a landlord?
Don’t you wonder why the housing market is the way it is, and the housing stock is as crappy and energy inefficient as it is?
We could cut the GST or we could give people who live in their own houses the benefit of a deduction on the interest, same’s the landlords get… or pick something else… but don’t presume that you can just sail on when the storm flags are flying. Labour doesn’t want to propose any cuts? Fine. Maybe we SHOULD, cause if we don’t this election is going to be very easy to lose.
Hell, I may not even regret it if we lose. I never really wanted to commit suicide. If I had to run on the platform we have to date I might not even vote for myself…
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Powerful stuff from you in the dark hours of the night.
I am shortly to go to work, (cows), and I am moved to ask you if you were in NZ in the early ’90’s? Bill Birch, Ruth Richardson and co? They were high profile Nat ministers during some very, very bleak years for working class NZ. They assisted in the CREATION of many, many thousands of unemployed. I still shudder when I reflect upon those years.
Sure, any Government spending of any political colour needs to be transparent and yes, there most certainly are a solid, broad range of needs that I expect a Govt to address, such as health, education, police, justice, road and rail etc.
I do agree with you that perhaps there were/are issues around the housing boom that could have been tweaked.
Ah well, the cows have needs too, which in this job I can help to meet. Joy.
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Joy
Wasn’t here for that… and don’t know much more about it than you just told me, though my workmates here have let me know that NZ had some very ugly economic episodes in the past half-century.
I don’t doubt it.
I just know that if the load is heavy enough the horse dies ( – referring to “Animal Farm” ). I WANT a productive, active government ensuring that every living soul has health and education and the like.
I don’t want a National government…. oh Lord I do not want it…. but I look at my bottom line after two years working my tuchas off here, and it isn’t a good picture, and the worst offender is tax. When someone hoists the flag of services I usually salute, but there has to be some effort in this government to flag down the wild-eyed proponents of social programs of dubious worth. If the need is real I shut-up and soldier, but it looks like my sacrifices are ALSO spent on the production of fertilizer.
What Frog is saying doesn’t do it. Not unless the the money isn’t being wasted. Spending on services that are necessary is fine, but dropping backbreaking taxes on the middle class, they aren’t rich (who originally got hit up for 39%, the top 5% of earners? I don’t know, but it surely wasn’t the percentage paying that percentage now) . That process has got to be rectified PROMPTLY if this government expects to get any votes at all from people at my income level… or someone has to show us how a government that could EVER organize funding for a “Hip Hop Tour” is necessary for the national well-being.
That’s it. I don’t want national, and I don’t intend to vote for any of the other lamebrains, but Frog, that doesn’t mean I regard the leadership of THIS party or of Labour, as particularly deserving of my support. Environment is my issue and I’m sticking to it… but you’re missing the big issue here. It isn’t Zimbabwe Frog, it really isn’t. You can’t make Zimbabwe a bigger issue to people than their ability to earn a living and feed and educate their kids and put away a couple of bucks towards retirement.
Taxes are where this election is headed Frog, and if they are the basis of the election, as it stands now no matter WHAT you say about “services” you are going to lose. There has been too much wasted too publicly for too long. People are NOT going to buy your line, and I don’t think they should. The tax load IS too high and there is NO apparent willingness to address it and if you can find even ONE more sucker like me willing to support you in spite of that I’d be pleased to meet that person.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Be very glad you were not here. There will be some documentaries in archives, a short film, at least two books on the social destruction that came about as a result of an excessive right wing monetrist policy. I am ashamed to say it was all begun by a Labour Govt, who clearly had right wing moles in it. Richard Prebble and Roger Douglas. The kernal of the idea for the extreme policy came fron a think tank in the states.
I agree I want a coalition govt with a strong and fair social policy, and, yes, the money does of course come from taxes, but I do support stringent auditing of govt money/funding, and clearly this current govt had some rather flaky funding proposals.
I have had some very strong discussions, with my daughter, just this weekend, about the scream for tax cuts. What I would like to ask ALL the wage and salary earners who cry out for tax cuts, above all other spending or policies, just how much of a tax cut do you expect in order to give your vote to the Nats? No, I am not speaking directly to you BJ, but to the allegedly many thousands out there who appear to place their tax cut above all other considerations. Joy.
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Cicero died in 43bc, 2048 years ago. he was offed on the instructions of Mark Antony, one of the second triumverate after Caesar’s assassination. Ciciro attacked Antony once too often in the senate…
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Joy
Just as well.
The Nats couldn’t pay me to vote for them.
It isn’t so much the amount, it is the impression and the timing that I am screaming about… particularly to Frog but I would also address Cullen and Clark et.al. The appearance, and it is pretty clear to people in my bracket, is of an effective 90% tax rate on the last $30k I earned. I don’t appreciate that… I personally accept it if it is necessary but I don’t appreciate it, and most people in my bracket regard it as I have stated… a form of state assisted suicide.
Votes for Labour and Greens will be very sparse among people making between $50K and $100K as a result.
I have highlighted at least one area where Greens could make a fairly substantive tax proposal that would directly assist in getting NZ housing stock up to an acceptable standard of insulation and energy efficiency.
I don’t know how much it takes to buy a vote really, it varies with the individual and the situation. The question has to be what is the cost in terms of services lost… and that isn’t at all clear given the history and the appearance of waste.
In the USA the votes were bought with tax cuts that were paid for by increased debt on their children. The direct debt is $28k, and is laid on every child born there. The debt using accepted accounting practices is much higher, over $100k, and there’s no plan to deal with it at all. In the meantime the schooling, health care and safety of citizens is deteriorating, the quality of life is down the tubes even though the standard of living is flying.
That’s one of the reasons I left.
So I’m real sensitive to the tradeoffs. The point is that for Labour and Greens to make headway against National we really have to come up with something that throws a bone to the middle class. Not two years from now either. If there had been some semblance, some appearance of real economy in the government operations that might not be necessary, but there’s a small surplus in spite of the apparent waste.
This might be a good thing, as there’s every chance for us to be headed into recession by this time next year (lead unwillingly by the USA), and having some stimulating tools available isn’t a bad thing if that happens… but we are not going to be in government if we don’t do something before the next election.
respectfully
BJ
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jeex tough competition in here this week fwwog, yous jokers talking shakespeare mn stuff, chipper mate i lower yo taxes to nothing i promise and i not cheat, check out ACt meeting or fascist front any time, we dont like tax too much, we can clean yo river next year, promise, watch space,
did you say $20,000, yes redgreen is suicide because you have lost the dead Koyote, and you have lost the Government, and people like me chipper, are more likely to achieve Green directives in the next decade than you or fwwog, or Rod Donald.
In short, chipper, old chapper, yous on the wong side.
you are needed where you belong, of course not with NAT, they
are fat and soft, inside ACT you get your own money to spend in you budget, and as i told yous before, we are thin on the ground, and the general who puts in Hide gotta lottsa clout
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BJ,
You echo what my email friend in Ohio says. We have been corresponding for 3 years now, and his sad, depressing descriptions of life in an Ohio city for someone who is ill and not able to work breaks my heart.
For some many months last year I was a regular browser/chat person to a specific health forum. The website created by and for sufferers of chronic heart failure in the USA. Terribly ill people who could not afford medicines or treatments. Once they were ill and unemployed they could not afford insurance cover. Some lost their homes and finally their lives. This was in the most medically advanced nation in the world. In a few states, some of these ill people did qualify for welfare. Oh, and ditto comments for a depression group website, also states based. Mentally ill, no money for meds or therapy. Nothing. Horrific.
I could go one with his comments, but then you know, sadly, only too well what is happening.
I am not even close to the top tax rate and only a soupcon of my partner’s salary tips over into that bracket, but we ARE NOT asking for tax cuts. Even handed, well accounted for welfare and community stuff, plus a good rail and road network. We would applaud your point about improving the housing stock. The ancient work cottage we dwell in is so drafty, and our own now rented out cottage is little better.
Someone made the comment that voters get the government they deserve. I guess that means, the majority of voters. Ah well, its only 3 years. If I am not dead by then perhaps after 2008 I may have enough energy to help pick up the pieces again.
Joy.
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Peter
I can’t go with ACT. GE is one reason, Kyoto is another. I am learning though, that there is another party which has acceptable policies, a minor party to be sure, and I am certain you can guess which.
Too early to say. I still have some hopes for this mob… but I get your message.
respectfully
BJ
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The proportion of people citing possible earnings as important to their decision to stay here was much lower, at 77%.
The survey was taken of people self-selecting for this trait by staying… in spite of the punitive taxation. As such it is not telling you that people don’t care about taxes if they get services. It is telling you that a fair swag of people who need/want to earn a few bucks have departed these shores already.
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