by frog
I headed along last night to listen to Russel at his Politics in the Pub Budget Night Debrief at Bar Edward in Newtown. It was an informal, and often witty analysis of a budget that failed to take into account any of its surrounding environmental and societal circumstances – any that is except for an upcoming election and the overwhelming political need to offer tax cuts a few weeks before it happens.
I enjoyed Russel’s description of budget negotiations with Labour as like being the exciting other woman in a relationship; you get certain fringe benefits, but not a great deal else.
(That said the Greens managed to negotiate about $100 million of Green budget gains out of this year’s budget which is fairly significant for a party not even in Government. Jeanette highlighted those budget wins in towards the end of her budget speech).
Aucklanders will be pleased to hear that a packed out pub full of Wellingtonians spent quite a bit of time talking about the numerous hurdles the government continues to put in place of the electrification of the Auckland rail network and that fact that it (the Government) continues to spend $6 on roading for every $1 on public transport.
A Green Party member sent me this of Russel with one of Wellington’s three Green local body councillors, Celia Wade Brown.
Published in Campaign by frog on Fri, May 23rd, 2008
Tags: Auckland, Bar edward, Budget, Celia Wade Brown, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Newtown, Politics in the Pub, public transport, rail, roading, Russel Norman, trains
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“about $100 of Green budget gains”
Wow. $100.
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oops will fix that now $100 million
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And the Facebook link doesn’t work…. might be something to do with needing to be a friend of the person who published them.
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i see russel still favours vile shirts..
and that english-movie-gangster open-knecked collar over the coat look..
(does he suffer from guy ritchie wannabe-delusions..?)
so 1997..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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‘vile’ seems a bit strong Phil!
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Well, he is an aussie. Have to make allowances.
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OUCH! Lol!
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Mmm…do it at parties, but at least he isn’t doing it as party leader any more.
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This a budget that stole took from the poorest, and gave to the middle classes and rich.
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People who work, you mean.
’bout time….
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We have seen worse theft, georgedarroch, under a National led government. But I agree, those who are worse off in this country are getting left further behind, in an effort to win votes. The LabNats are the same people who then complain about the disintegration of families and the increase in violence in our society. How they can miss the connection between their policies and the results of those policies is beyond me.
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I hope that you guys talked about how unfair it is that Wellington got its electrification, EW class locomotives, ED class locomotives, English Electric units, Ganz Mavag units, and now the Mitsui units paid for by all taxpayers, while Aucklanders are going to have to pay for their electrification, as well as their units and their locomotives.
Of course, the other big thing is that the government is going to have to take a look at the demand for public transport services in Auckland; as I have said before, the Eastern and Southern Line rail services are now standing room only during the peak, and are very soon going to be at crush load, and many of the “main-line” bus services are in a similar situation. At the very least, some money could be put in to ensure that we don’t start driving away people from those services due to overcrowding.
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>>the increase in violence in our society
Yeah, throw more money at the Kings and Kahuis. That’ll help.
Or cut their breeding program…
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i’ve given it more thought..and re-evaluated..
..but i just can’t get past ‘vile’..
it’s sorta like that 70′s flock wallpaper..eh..?
that you find in mairangi bay..and environs..(shudder..!..)
(was it a present..?..he asked charitably/clutching at straws/offering an ‘out’….)
were you at the end of a laundry cycle..?
(there must be some explanation..!)
someone get that man a clothing allowance..
you can take the man outta brisbane/queensland..
but you can’t etc etc..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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put down the bong phil, you are not making much sense.
here is Hone Harawira’s coments on the budget for the rich, from labour:
TAXATION (PERSONAL TAX CUTS, ANNUAL RATES, AND REMEDIAL MATTERS) BILL : First Reading
Hone Harawira, MP for Te Tai Tokerau
Thursday 22 May 2008
HONE HARAWIRA (M?ori Party—Te Tai Tokerau)244HARAWIRA, HONE17:39:47Kia ora t?tou e te Whare.
I do not often support the Employers and Manufacturers Association in this House, but when it comes up with the comment “Was that it?? about these tax cuts, I absolutely support that comment.
The difference is that I am talking on behalf of the poorer people in this country. I am talking on behalf of organisations like the Child Poverty Action Group. I am talking on behalf of the Salvation Army. I am talking on behalf of all of those social service agencies that have been calling for some real, basic relief for people in need.
The fact that both ends of the scale can be screaming out for assistance and getting nothing suggests that this Budget is going nowhere for anyone.
I am talking about food, for example, and the call for GST to be taken off food. The response of the Prime Minister is that it would be an administrative nightmare. Hello—an administrative nightmare? We would be happier to have people starve than to bother to do the paperwork to take GST off food. That is insulting to the population of this country.
I am surprised that the so-called Labour Party—the so-called party of the working class, the party that is supposed to represent the interests of those in need—could talk about an issue as important as reducing the price of food, and say that the Government is not going to take GST off food simply because it will be an administrative nightmare.
Then on top of that we find out that Australia has done it—it is not too hard for Australia. Canada has done it—it is not too hard for Canada. Why can we not do it? At a time when this Government admits that there is not a lot else that it can do for the poor, a simple step would have been to take GST off food. Sure, there are all kinds of arguments that we should be looking at non-processed food etc., etc., but let us get there eventually. But the simple call to take GST off food would have lifted a weight off the families in greatest need in this country.
This Government had the opportunity to do it in this Budget, and it chose not to because it would have meant more paperwork. For anybody to assume we cannot do it because of too much paperwork is an insult to the people who have voted Labour for so long, an insult to the people most in need in this country, and an insult to the intelligence of New Zealanders.
I am not a great fan of Labour, but I saw something from John Tamihere, a former Minister, apparently. He made a comment in the paper that if the Government wanted to connect with the voter, it could start with something as simple as saying that people’s first $5,000 would be tax-free. The M?ori Party thinks it should actually be $10,000, but $5,000 is a start—the first $10,000 tax-free would be great.
That does not mean anything to people in Parliament. I am probably the lowest-paid guy in Parliament and I am getting $125,000. That is bucket loads of money where I come from. That is more money than I could ever contemplate making; it is more than twice as much money as I ever made before. Taking the tax off the first $10,000 is kind of meaningless to me. But to a family whose total income is $15,000 it is a hell of a change. It is a huge change.
HONE HARAWIRA244 It is an opportunity for them to actually do things for their kids at school, to buy their children a pair of pants instead of having their children come to the school—I have seen this—wearing pants that they must have had handed down to them from their granddad. It is really saddening when that child stops coming to school. When we track down that child’s parents we find out that the reason the child cannot come is that he or she loves doing kapa haka but cannot afford to go away on the kapa haka trip, and the parents are embarrassed about it so they do not let their child go to school.
It is simple stuff; it is not rocket science. If we take tax off the first $10,000 earned by every New Zealander we will create the opportunity for everybody to benefit, and most of all those in most need—those at the bottom of the ladder. At the moment those at the bottom of the ladder are in desperate need, not because I am saying so or because the M?ori Party is saying so but because everybody is saying so.
Every economic commentator in the country is talking about how dear the basics of life are, and, for example, how costly milk is. I do the shopping in my family, and I have watched it rocket up. When I came into Parliament, milk cost $2.05 at our local Pak ‘N Save; now it is $4.15. It has gone up by more than 100 percent.
Those are the basics of life that we should have been trying to address in this Budget, but they have been completely ignored. What happens to the people at the bottom? They will get $12 in their hands. Well, that is two litres of milk, a little tub of butter, and one loaf of bread. That will make a difference at the end of the week—not!
This Government had the opportunity to signal that even in times of genuine stress for the whole country it would make a genuine commitment to those at the bottom, but it has chosen not to do so. I congratulate the Green Party on winning that fifty million dollar retrofit for all of the State houses. I know that heaps and heaps of my wh?nau will benefit from that, and I congratulate the Greens on pushing that and on the fact that it has come up in the Budget. I also thank Labour for going ahead with that. That is a really cool one.
I would also like to thank Labour for putting up that twelve million dollars for the M?ori nurses. I think that is amazing. That is awesome. That is fantastic. I was also going to congratulate Labour on putting seventeen million dollars into M?ori wardens, until I did a bit of a check and found out that it stole seven million dollars from Te Puni K?kiri to pay for it. The other ten million ain’t coming next year; it is spread out over the next four years.
Folks, Budgets should be based only on one year. We can have a projection, but let us be honest: will this Government be around to spend the rest of it? No, it will not. It is $2.5 million, and that is all it will be—that is all that the M?ori wardens will get.
When I talk about k?hanga, I am talking about M?ori-specific money here. How much will k?hanga get? Nothing. How much will kura kaupapa get? Nothing. How much will wharekura get? Nothing. How much will w?nanga get? Nothing.
I am a member of the M?ori Party. It is our role to defend M?ori rights and advance M?ori interests for the benefit of the whole nation. This Budget destroys all of the things that we have wanted to achieve over a period of I do not know how many years. There is not a heck of a lot going on.
We support absolutely a bottom-line philosophy of ending child poverty. We had the opportunity here to do it. This Labour Government had the opportunity here to do it. It chose not to do so, and at a time when it has been running surpluses of more than $6 billion for the last five or so years. The total tax cut is $1.5 billion. We could have done a lot better than that. This Labour Government has chosen not to do so, and I think this will rebound on it in the polls, when M?ori people start looking at those issues. M?ori wardens received only 2.5 million, nurses received three million, kura kaupapa received nothing, k?hanga received nothing, wharekura received nothing, w?nanga received nothing—M?ori have received nothing.
We are disgusted with what is being presented here, and we will be taking this back to our people, because we do not accept that this Government, at any time—neither this Government nor the next one—should ever again be allowed to treat M?ori so badly. Tēn? koe
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am not a great fan of Labour, but I saw something from John Tamihere, a former Minister, apparently. He made a comment in the paper that if the Government wanted to connect with the voter, it could start with something as simple as saying that people’s first $5,000 would be tax-free. The M?ori Party thinks it should actually be $10,000, but $5,000 is a start—the first $10,000 tax-free would be great.
————–
I am talking about food, for example, and the call for GST to be taken off food. The response of the Prime Minister is that it would be an administrative nightmare. Hello—an administrative nightmare? We would be happier to have people starve than to bother to do the paperwork to take GST off food. That is insulting to the population of this country.
I am surprised that the so-called Labour Party—the so-called party of the working class, the party that is supposed to represent the interests of those in need—could talk about an issue as important as reducing the price of food, and say that the Government is not going to take GST off food simply because it will be an administrative nightmare.
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“It is our role to defend M?ori rights and advance M?ori interests for the benefit of the whole nation.” How the hell does that work? I thought they focused on no one, but worked through a maori philosophy? What the hell is a Maori warden?
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“it (the Government) continues to spend $6 on roading for every $1 on public transport.” How many dollars is it (the Government) spending damning the Mokihinui River compared with each dollar it is spending digging up Happy Valley? Or is there an ulterior motive for wanting to confuse a statutorily independent entity with the Government?
Anyway isn’t 6:1 rather a generous ratio compared with the actual ratio of usefulness to the average New Zealander? But then “pub full of Wellingtonians … talking about …. electrification of the Auckland rail network” pretty much sums up the National Land Transport Program.
Where’s the Green’s questioning of the Government’s unlawful demands that Environment Canterbury has to introduce a regional petrol tax to get it’s per capita share of the regionally distributed petrol tax? The budget’s $33m over three years a few million less than Canterbury was entitled to receive during the first 3 years of the 5c/l regionally distributed petrol tax. $250m over ten years also matches the regions entitlement through to 2018. If you don’t believe me check the figures in Treasury’s briefing to Cabinet on 9/12/04. The region is entitled to that money. It is blackmail to now make it conditional on having a regional petrol tax. Especially if the Government is serious about hypothecating the petrol tax.
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and of course..we must remember to thank nandor before the election/his departure..
..for his tireless work over the years..
..promoting the rights of men to wear large swathes of cloth on their heads..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Bluepeter, throwing money at people actually is a good way of discouraging them from breeding, statistically speaking
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I think Phil is right.
It is extremely important to the future of the Green Party that SOMEONE should provide Russel with a shirt that doesn’t hurt and require him to promise never to wear anything like that again.
Since the fortunes of the Green Party are important to the future policy decisions of New Zealand this issue attains national importance.
Burn it.
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Ari Says:
May 24th, 2008 at 11:21 am
> Bluepeter, throwing money at people actually is a good way of discouraging them from breeding, statistically speaking
is not, unless you throw the money at educating them. There are a few countries where the people have become rich without being well-educated (notably Saudi Arabia) and they still have lots of kids. There are also some countries where most people have become educated but not wealthy (eg Ukraine). These countries have low birth rates.
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Yeah, that shirt lacks colour, way too subdued.
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*blush*
gosh, didn’t expect my photography to get used so quickly!
And on the ‘shirt’ side-thread: House of Hank, go complain to them. (Educated guess … Well, damn near everything else Russ wears that ever looks good to my mind comes from there!)
BTW, the shirt is a nice colour for media to work with.
Not like some of the checked and striped horrors that made it into the Dompost’s Life section, earlier this week. I saw a young fella wear an abstract check-y tie with a blue & white patterned shirt this week, and it made me wince. Nice suit, but the shirt-and-tie combo was a howler.
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I just realized that we’ve bent another gender rule. We’ve given one of the guys a long commentary and criticism based solely on his appearance.
The Green Party LEADS…
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Yeah ‘not left not right but out in front’!
i’d be surprised if anyone here really gives a toss tho
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and let’s not forget nandor..bj..
..and his ‘way with swathes’/curtain cut-offs…
(sorta lifts recycling to a new plateau..eh..?..)
..and how about that keith locke..?
..he who sets the benchmark for/in ‘sensible-dressing’..
civil servant/’glide-time’..circa 1973..
(i’m sure he’s still got some of those socks..
..the long ones with the ribbed tops..
..that so showed off a comely masculine calf..
..and book-ended the star of the show..the knee..
it was a strange time in our history..that one..
..where we celebrated/worshipped that most plain/ordinary..some say ‘ugly’..
..of body bits..
..the adult male knee..
(and one of the first bits of the body to ‘go’..go figure..!)
and of course the shorts..and the shirts..
and..and..
..then we have the (hilariously) colour/pattern-challenged mike..’the spoiler’ ward..
..he of the horizontal bike..
all in all…
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Not often this happens, but ‘eh..?’ is right.
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stephen r..
..is your mouth permanently ‘pursed’..?
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Sorry, yes. Apologies for all past and future back-handed compliments!
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newsflash..!
i was walking the hounds along ponsonby rd..(as you do..)
..and there..outside ‘household linen’..on special..
..are duvet sets the same colour/pattern as russ’ shirt..!
..(it’s called ‘mosaic’..b.t.w..)
i was thinking..
..a photo-spread..on the duvet..in the shirt..!
whoar..!..eh..?
womens weekly might be interested..?..maybe using the ‘linen’/taste in shirts angle..?
(what is it with green mp’s..and wearing household linen..?..anyway..!)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
stephen r..check yr comment b4..and tell me that’s not ‘sniffy’..?
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Good to see the “really important issues” are still being debated here, eg Green Party MPs’ choice of clothes. Gotta keep our priorities right…
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