by frog
In an exclusive scoop just televised on TV3 News, a recording of Bill English from today’s conference revealed that Kiwibank is definitely one SOE heading for the chop. Possibly paraphrased:
Anonymous: Will you get rid of Kiwibank?
Bill English: We will eventually, but not yet.
This is consistent with the Nat’s policy of not privatising within the first three years of their government. (Cue the Tui advertisement) The leopard has not changed his spots. National also announced that they will be borrowing to pay for tax cuts. Another fine example of forward thinking. Just when we are about to formally declare a recession, lets borrow more money for things we don’t need, (read roads and tax cuts), and saddle the citizens with more debt than they are already labouring under.
The logic is that because of the international credit crunch, individual Kiwis cannot continue borrowing against their depreciating houses in order to prop up the economy. Therefore, we should use the government’s good credit rating to borrow more, give it to the taxpayers in order to spend and prop up the tettering economy, and then charge them more for it in taxes later, with interest. Better yet, let’s charge our grandchildren for the tax cuts we get today!
If the government was going to borrow money for infrastructure we actually needed and in order to creat jobs at a time of recession, I would have less problem with it. Borrowing to buy lollies in order to buy an election is foolhardy in the extreme. At least Labour has the decency to take the money off the very people they are going to give it back to in their election lolly scramble. National is stealing candy from our babies in order to give it to their parents. And we Greens get vilified for wanting to tax the heavy polluters and give every Kiwi a tax break on the bottom of the income band! Go figure.
Published in Campaign | Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Sun, August 3rd, 2008
Tags: Bill English, cut, election, kiwibank, national party, privatise, tax, TV3
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Hear hear! What a great post! Thanks frog, you rock!
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When will those rich bugger realise that u poor kiwis would like to see profits staying in New Zealand not all head overseas. We are being raped by big business in this country if the owners are not Kiwis even the Aussies make more profit out of the NZ divisions.
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This is more like it from English, the govt has no place owning kiwibank, and please, the tired old left wing comments about “us kiwi’s wanting to see the profits stay in NZ” is simply stupid.
Good to see that you are maintaining your neutrality Frog (Yeah right!) why not stop lying to the public and come out and tell us that you will never do a deal with the Nat’s, after all you are supposedly the party that wants transparency (another tui billboard)
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Sika – I personally am not opposed to some foreign ownership. But not every industry, every property and every natural monopoly. As you say, as many profits as possible should stay in NZ for kiwis. Kiwisaver will begin to rebalance this, as our collective savings begin to flow into the stock market and kiwi funds buy back kiwi industry. The Aussie’s compulsory savings scheme has been so successful that all their extra money had to come over and buy up NZ. I hope that trend is beginning to reverse!
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The best thing to come out of the conference is the promise of a binding referendum on MMP.
The country will reject it MMP in a flash, I would not be surprised to see a return to FPP.
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Sika, there is a way to keep Kiwibank’s profits in New Zealand – it is called, listing Kiwibank on the New Zealand Stock Exchange and issuing stock to New Zealanders, like what happened with Auckland Airport. While it may be nice for the state to own all these businesses; the problem is that our stock exchange has virtually no depth anymore and we are running the risk of losing our stock exchange (and I for one would not be keen to have to invest in the ASX because it is the only option).
In terms of borrowing for tax-cuts, I believe you have it wrong there. The National Party would borrow to pay for infrastructure developments, instead of paying for it through taxation. That would free up funds for tax cuts to enable growth for the present generation, and also spread the costs of infrastructure development across the generations. We don’t need to be so penny-pinching anymore, most of the debt incurred as a result of Think Big (an example of reducing oil dependency gone wrong) has been paid off over the last twenty years. Our government has debt of about 25% of GDP, and we can handle up to 30% of GDP without causing our credit ratings damage, or making the payments unbearable.
The thing that you guys are forgetting is that tax rates and tax brackets in New Zealand, aside from the introduction of the 39% bracket, haven’t changed since 1997. Since that time, purchasing power has dropped by 22.7%, and of course, the increased incomes that workers would have gotten would have been cut because of fiscal drag. In 1997, $38,000 was a pretty good income for an employee; now $38,000 would be just above a starting income. While Labour’s plan for tax cuts in the budget was good, nevertheless, we need to ensure that the tax brackets cut in at appropriate rates. National, I believe, would want that sooner, rather than later.
Of course, the other thing you guys forget is that tax cuts tend to create economic growth. Let us consider the following; when a government has 0% tax, they get no revenue. When they initially increase taxes, the revenue increases rapidly – until it hits a point where the revenue to the state starts decreasing; and continues decreasing until the government gets no revenue when a 100% tax is imposed (this is the Laffer Curve, by the way). Cutting taxes often results in increased revenue, especially as seen in the United States in the 1960s when Kennedy’s tax cut package resulted in an increase in taxation revenues.
My own personal belief is that we need a zero-tax bracket for low earners. We also need a very low corporate tax rate, at around the 10% mark – when Ireland cut its corporate tax rate in the 1990s from around the 40% mark to the 10%, and later the 12.5% mark, it saw economic growth shoot through the roof. Only now has it started retracting, and now Ireland has gone from the bottom of the OECD to near the top. While economic growth may not be the be all and the end all of your party’s policy, nevertheless, it is important or else you cannot have the social infrastructure that New Zealanders desire, and indeed once had.
Finally, big bro, I wouldn’t want a return to FPP at all. While Australia doesn’t use FPP, nevertheless, it has an electorate based system – elections there tend to see massive amounts of infrastructure money earmarked for marginal electorates. The last thing I would want to see is a billion dollars being spent on a motorway through Gisborne, just because it is a marginal electorate.
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“Finally, big bro, I wouldn’t want a return to FPP at all. While Australia doesn’t use FPP, nevertheless, it has an electorate based system – elections there tend to see massive amounts of infrastructure money earmarked for marginal electorates. The last thing I would want to see is a billion dollars being spent on a motorway through Gisborne, just because it is a marginal electorate”
Is what we have now any better?, a small party has the chance to force its will on the vast majority who DID NOT vote for them simply to keep a govt in power.
With FPP you know what you are getting, under the stupid system we have now any party can promise anything they like the slide their way out of it after the election by saying that it was part of a confidence and supply agreement.
MMP means less accountability, we need to know exactly what we are voting for and exactly what is going to happen post election.
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frog,
“And we Greens get vilified for wanting to tax the heavy polluters and give every Kiwi a tax break on the bottom of the income band! Go figure.”
Untill you come up with what “bads” you are going taxc and how much of this tax you are willing to retuern to kiwi,
You deserve to be filievied.
So here is your opportunitu. What and at what rate will you tax the” bads” and how much will you return.
No good slagging the Nats until you have a definitive economic model of your own.
As we are in stagflation, what is the Greens economic policy?
The time for activism has passed, you now need to be a strategist.
Do the Greens have a balanced budget option? If not why not?
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I switched to Kiwibank because I objected to my profit contribution going offshore and the day that Kiwibank is privatized will be the day I switch to Taranaki Ttrust, PSIS or similar NZ owned. Perhaps Big Bro can explain why wanting to keep my profit contribution in NZ is stupid. If he can produce sufficiently cogent reasons I may choose to act otherwise.
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Yawnies Frog. National have outlined what needs to be done.
Outline your economic policy. Who will you tax, and how much? How will we pay for infrastructure?
Seems you are neither the smart party, nor the party of transparency, as you so often claim (we recall the “Gareth’s Missus” thread with mirth). Perhaps you could call yourselves the hot air party
We’re waiting…..
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“Is what we have now any better?, a small party has the chance to force its will on the vast majority who DID NOT vote for them simply to keep a govt in power.”
Yes, it is far better – while with MMP, a minority party may be needed to keep power, under FPP, it is only people in marginal electorates that really have political power. I live in a safe National seat, so no matter who I vote for, chances are, it would remain National. Under FPP, thus, I would have no power to change the government if I wanted to. At least with MMP, I have a slightly better chance.
Also, it means that a large amount of taxpayers money doesn’t end up being used for the benefit of a few people who happen to live in a marginal electorate. Nelson, for instance, was a marginal electorate in the 1950s and Labour promised to spend sixteen million Pounds on a railway line there. Nelson didn’t exactly need a railway line, and that money would have been far better spent in let us say, Auckland (in fact, the railway never got built as the Labour Party got voted out of office in 1960 before too much construction had been completed).
“With FPP you know what you are getting, under the stupid system we have now any party can promise anything they like the slide their way out of it after the election by saying that it was part of a confidence and supply agreement.”
Wrong! For instance, in 1990, Bolger promised a return to the Great Society. Because of the budget deficit that they inherited, they didn’t quite get to go there. It was because people didn’t know what they were getting that they voted for MMP in the first place.
“MMP means less accountability, we need to know exactly what we are voting for and exactly what is going to happen post election.”
Personally, I believe it means far more accountability. It means that politicians are now accountable to every New Zealander, not just the few hundred thousand who by luck live in marginal seats like Gisborne and Taupo were back in the day.
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michaela,
Like you (and the many many people who have FLOODED into kiwibank)
I moved there because it was a Kiwi owned and operated bank.
I started in Post Office Savings Bank as a child, and then moved into Canterbury Savings Bank for the same reason, (but CSB gradually “morphed” into foreign owned Westpac … )
It is ironic that these so called “free enterprise” /”free competiton” people are unwilling to allow us (the customers) the freedom of choice to keep kiwibank operating in the way that we want.
(Or do they “owe” their Banker mates the chance of “profits” from the kiwibank that is winning all the awards ??)
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Shortly after Kiwibank was launched, I decided to bank with them. I’m a “Foundation Member” and have the card to prove it.
I had opened an account with the ANZ as a schoolboy, and had been treated like crap by them for years. You know, the sort of silly thing like the $150 cheque being bounced because I hadn’t quite got around to transferring the funds from my other (ANZ) account.
Kiwibank are not like that. They have provided the best service I have had from any bank, and put the lie to the neo-con premise that it is fundamentally wong for the State to be involved in business.
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eredwen, The losers from the establishment of kiwibank aren’t the Aussie banks, it is the local institutions that needed that point of difference to build themselves into real rivals to the Aussie banks. Kiwibank was the best thing that could have happened to the Aussie banks. They don’t have to fear competition from TSB, PSIS or SBS anymore. Of course NZ Post had to “joint-venture” (privatisation by stealth) with DeutchePost to free up the resources to establish Kiwibank.
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I am a kiwibank customer from the start and I think it should stay in NZ ownership, but national have not said they will sell it yet , and If they do I will oppose it.
However to say that national are borrowing to pay for tax cuts is pretty misleading.
The real situation is more like a company saying we are going to increase infrastructure, increase wages and create more jobs and a higher standard of living for current employee’s and their children down the track.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
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big bro
I wonder how much (more recent) voters really know about Proportional Representation and MMP (and the reasons why it was considered the best system for Aotearoa NZ’s Parliamentary elections).
I see the current political situation in the USA as just one example of how unrepresentative FPP (First Past the Post) can become.
AotearoaNZ is officially a bicultural and bilingual society (and is becoming increasingly multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic). We are a country of immigrants (now from many parts of the World), and we are fitting together very well … considering!
FPP just won’t hack it as a method of electing a REPRESENTATIVE Parliament for our growing and increasingly diverse population.
(I’m sure frog, toad or another Green can check this quick explanation:)
The MMP voting system was designed for post war Germany “to make sure that another Hitler could not rise again”. It was chosen as our system after a survey of possible systems led to an education campaign followed by a “nationwide” vote … (and the STV, Single Transferable Vote system was chosen for local body etc elections.)
The late (and, I believe, great) Rod Donald was a major driving force behind AotearoaNZ choosing to change our voting systems.
It has apparently transformed the way in which Parliament operates (though one could be excused for doubting that statement when listening to the goings-on in the House).
If a major Party wants to get rid of MMP for its own supposed short term advantage, it demonstrably does not have the interests of the people of this Country at heart …
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STV should be used in electorates and MMP with a STV base should be used for the national body.
but then again that would be even more complicated and we wouldint want to stress those small brains that dont understand MMP any further than they already are.
Just think, if america used STV in their states naders vote wouldint of been wasted and gore would of got the state instead and in doing so giving america a democratic president as opposed to dubya – think of how many lives would of been saved
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Eredwen, Here, here!
Although I think two improvements should be made.
1) reduce the threshold either immediately to 2.5% or progressively in 0.5% steps over the next five elections.
2) eliminate the bonus mp for party leader winning an electorate when the party can’t crack the 5% threshold.
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STV is just as bad, if not worse than FPP in my opinion. You get the electorate base, which opens up the way for massive marginal electorate bribery (you see it in Australia all the time; you had a proposed railway bypass of Adelaide that would have seen a line going through Alexander Downer’s electorate reduced to only suburban services, not suburban and freight, you had a proposed motorway in a marginal electorate near Ipswich). To make it even worse, of course, is you have voter overload – I have heard of Australians merely ranking their candidates in order on the voting paper once they have chosen their favourites.
“Just think, if america used STV in their states naders vote wouldint of been wasted and gore would of got the state instead and in doing so giving america a democratic president as opposed to dubya – think of how many lives would of been saved”
Since Gore would have been a coward (like Clinton), there probably would have been another 9/11 by now, that would have killed many people.
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randomize the candidate order.
electorate bribery happens reguardless of if its fpp or stv in the electorates, the thing that effects it most though is the way the national body is elected, and under MMP that is drasticly decreased.
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> Since Gore would have been a coward (like Clinton), there probably would have been another 9/11 by now, that would have killed many people.
Clinton’s security advisor told Condolezza Rice that most of here time would be taken up with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. If Clinton or Gore had been president there would not have been one 9/11.
Condi’s “Defense”
“But no one told us we needed to DO anything.” (to the 911 commission)
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The actual audio clip is at Scoop but its damned hard to hear what English was actually asked.
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A majority of people disagreeing with you is no reason for you to be discluded from government. Most politicians are not approved by 50% or more of the population, (generally the exceptions are very popular prime ministers) yet they maintain legitimacy.
Nobody should have their vote essentially discarded just because they picked the “wrong” candidate. The party vote system is better than that, even if it means we have to put up with another term of Winston- just make sure to tell your friends in National that you don’t want them supporting him, even to form the next government.
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STV is marginally better, but it has problems. The version of STV we use for Wellington’s regional electorate allows you to rank only those candidates you support, which puts it a big step above the Australian system. That said, there are some serious problems with STV- for instance, you can cause a candidate to lose by ranking them first.
Far better would be an evaluative system where you rated each candidate you knew enough about from 0-99. Sure, people are likely to put their preferred candidate at 99 even if they’re not perfect, and their least preferred one at 0, but there’s no disincentive from being honest about everyone else between the two.
This sort of system completely avoids issues with transferring votes that cause your rankings to have completely counter-intuitive results, still allows you to vote your second- third- and so on favourites up, and even allows you to vote candidates you dislike down, preventing the “Winston Peters effect”. 
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I have to admit that I am attracted to STV, and voted for it in the first electoral referendum back ing the ’90s, but I am not sufficiently attracted to it to think a further referendum on the electoral system is justified.
The one change that I would like to see is to make it compulsory for Parties to have a democratic internal selection process for their Party list (as the Greens do).
BTW, john-ston, STV operates only for the Australian Senate. The preferential system that is used for the House of Representatives, which is what I think you are talking about, is not STV, and is even less representative than FPP.
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Over at Key wee-blog David Farrar has been blogging about the National Party Conference. Seems they held a forum on infrastructure, upon which Farrar blogged:
Now give me a minute to work this out. Maurice is going to build more roads – lots of them! But Gerry admits that replacements for current fuel sources are not extensively available, so demand [and therefore price] of fuelling the cars that will travel on Maurice’s roads will be high.
So won’t people want alternatives to travelling in their cars on Maurice’s roads? Seems not, according to National Party logic – just build more roads, even though people will be able to afford to travel less on them!
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I’ll have you know that white elephants are an endangered species, Toad, and deserve proper respect and preservation
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BigBro – still waiting for an explanation on “the tired old left wing comments about “us kiwi’s wanting to see the profits stay in NZ? is simply stupid” given that thats exactly what some people are saying. Why is that so wrong?
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One thing this post makes clear is that Frog should never be in charge of the New Zealand Economy.
If the country is facing a recession then one thing a government can do is lower taxes to increase the amount of money in the economy, however we still have infrastructure costs which we can meet by borrowing, note there is nothing wrong with borrowing for infrastructure costs and amortizing this cost over the lifetime of the infrastructure.
Thanks to Cullen the great New Zealand Robber Barron, we should of had Tax cuts years ago and removed the 39 cent tax bracket, long term we should be aiming to remove all the tax brackets and eventually remove the income tax all together.
When are the greens going to push for capital gains taxs including on the sale of homes.
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borrow to build more roads ?… why more roads?
( How much exactly does Fulton Hogan and similar businesses donate to Political parties anyway ? )
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>>why more roads?
Because many of the roads we’ve got are rubbish. The road out of Wellington is a bridle track.
We’ve yet to hear the Greens infrastructure vision. Perhaps they don’t have one, or it’s just too ridiculous to air publicly?
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We’ve yet to hear the Greens infrastructure vision. Perhaps they don’t have one, or it’s just too ridiculous to air publicly?
BP – get off your bum and read our policies, or stop whinging that we don’t have any! You must be the laziest troll I know…
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frog,
One thing to have policies, quite another to have costed and formulated a stategic plan to implement them.
You have a vison but without a plan it is just that, a wishful glance into the future.
So put the strategist hat on for the Greens infastructure vision and come up with bugetted funding, timeline plus construction plans.
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“BP – get off your bum and read our policies, or stop whinging that we don’t have any! You must be the laziest troll I know…”
Ewww….watch out BluePeter, thats code for “you are asking questions we do not have the answer for”
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http://www.greens.org.nz/policy
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OK I’ll take a bite Frog.
Lets start with the Greens Work Summary Policy
– Establish a high-level commission into the future of work.
How much will this commission cost Frog?
– Increase the minimum wage to at least $13 an hour.
How much will this cost Frog, what effect will it have on unskilled labour in NZ
– Shift tax from work and enterprise onto pollution and wasted resources
This is good but it is a radically different approach to gathering government revenue, so how will it work exactly.
– Ensure government policy recognises the contribution of unpaid work to society and the economy, including the work of parents and caregivers.
So will we now pay unpaid workers or what does this imply exactly how much will it cost.
– A greater commitment to proactive job creation, including more public sector support for self-employment, small businesses, co-operative and community-owned enterprises, and for employment resource centres and agencies that train and support people going into business.
How much will this support cost Frog?
– Expand the apprenticeship programme
sounds good but is the government going to have to pay any money for this.
– Greater availability of bridging courses for immigrants in professions that New Zealand needs
will the government have to pay any money for these courses.
– Promote and ensure equal opportunities and pay equity
How much money will this promotion cost?
– More resources for vocational advice and employment support, including for women, Maori and Pacific Island peoples, disabled and other statistically lower-paid groups
Resources equals MONEY how much will this cost?
– Access to careers advice and job search support for all registered unemployed (and other beneficiaries should they so choose) as soon as they register as jobseekers
How much money does the access to careers advice cost.
Not a single word about cost in this policy document Frog why???
Sometimes Frog I think you believe that the Governments Revenue belongs to you to be spent on all sorts of schemes and ideas never realizing that the government revenue is the stolen property of the people.
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Lowering income taxes has no meaningful effect on personal incomes and does not ameliorate the effect of the recession on households, especially as it goes disproportionately to the rich most of the time, (Even Labour’s cuts are pretty friendly in that regard) and may not even be invested back into New Zealand interests. I’d rather see GST take lowered or suspended during a recession if we needed tax relief that badly, especially as this helps out people who don’t pay income tax, and assuming the relief is passed on to the consumer, should boost circulation.
Investing in infrastructure is a great idea, but 60% of National’s borrowing can be accounted for by its promised tax cuts. That seems irresponsible to me, especially when we’ve already emptied the bank to provide quite significant cuts under Labour, and the interest repayments alone could well be crippling to the economy. If we dump National’s extra tax cuts and extra broadband spendup, that cuts back their addition to the national debt to a billion dollars, which is much more reasonable. Of course, it leaves National with no significant new flagship policies. So, essentially National’s big plan is to get us into debt now to bribe us with even bigger tax cuts and faster internet. Yay?
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Ari, the only reason why tax cuts go to the rich all the time is that most tax cuts involve the adjustment of thresholds, and thus the rich, who often earn incomes that cover three or four different rates would benefit. A zero tax threshold, on the other hand, would ensure that everyone benefits.
I took a quick look at the Green’s transport policy, and it left me very disappointed. They are willing to spend money on the Napier to Gisborne line, a line that only attracts one train a week, and they have not indicated that they would spend money duplicating the NIMT from Te Kauwhata to Amokura – this is in spite of the fact that the Auckland to Hamilton section of the NIMT sees nearly three hundred intercity freight trains a week, and that the mentioned section of track will become a bottleneck. Would it not be better to spend money on rail lines that are suffering from bottlenecking before spending money on rail lines that no-one wants to use.
The other thing is that it tended to be full of puffery, with no specifics. I would like to know what sort of rail network the party wants; I get to see what sort of road network other parties want. Where is the detail?
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This is what I think will happen, but maybe I’m too cynical:
1) A National government will reduce taxes and invest in infrastructure, resulting in significant debt.
2) A future (Labour or National) government will sell the infrastructure for less than it cost to build, the justification being that debt needs to be repaid.
3) The shortfall will be recovered by cutting or selling other government services (e.g. schools and hospitals).
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turnip 28 asks:
“Not a single word about cost in this policy document Frog why???”
I reply:
I’m not part of any executive group within the Green Party, but to answer your question from the Green “(organic!) grass roots”:
Greens are not known for having “delusions of grandeur” and we are aware that the Greens will not be Governing alone (in the forseeable future at least!)
Each Green Policy is developed with input from the entire membership and this high(est) level of democracy takes time!
They also reflect our awareness that we will be negotiating with a Party (or Parties) which will have their own Policies.
Our Policies are consistent, they reflect our stated values, and they are more than adequate for the task ahead.
The costings of these Policies will be included in due course.
Maybe a Green who is involved might like to correct any misconceptions in this post ?
eredwen (who has been around since the 1970′s)
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samiuela
Can you give me one good reason why the govt (any govt) should own schools, hospitals, railways, vehicle testing centers or television and radio networks, it just does not make sense at all.
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Big Bro,
I don’t have time to reply to your question right now, but note I was predicting what will happen, not approving or disapproving of government provision of services.
My prediction is based on what past governments (both Labour and National) have done.
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OK Big Bro,
Here is a reason why governments should own and fund schools (a similar argument would apply to other services such as health care).
If we are going to live in a society where all children have an equal opportunity to learn and develop, then it will be necessary for some sort of redistribution of wealth, because poor parents won’t be able to afford the cost of education. The government is in an ideal position to effect this redistribution of wealth through the taxation system (or some other centrally administered means).
Now, as far as to how education is provided, I’m sure we all want maximum value for money? A well managed not-for-profit education system has higher potential “value-for-money” than even a well managed for-profit system (simply because there is no profit siphoned off in the not-for-profit model), This does not mean the government needs to provide the education, other groups such as churches could (and do) provide it. However, it would be silly for the government to totally pull out of education, when it has got such a good track record of providing high-quality value-for-money education.
ps. I do not work in the education sector. My comments are based on the high quality government funded and provided education I received, and I see my children currently receiving.
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Except there is a reason those higher thresholds exist. That reason is that people in those thresholds likely have a much higher percentage of disposable income and can much more easily afford higher taxes. It seems counter-intuitive in a time when many families are struggling with the basics to give tax relief on any threshold that is unlikely to feel the pinch.
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Ari
I assume a zero tax threshold is a level of income where no tax is charged, ie your first $15,000 is tax free? I think that is what john-ston was talking about and I think it is a great idea, everyone benefits, rich and poor.
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Hah, I completely missed that because it was sitting right next to “adjust the tax thresholds” which is usually a dogwhistle for lowering the highest tax rate. Thanks, and yes, I support that too.
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Well, now we have Lockwood Smith also inadvertently revealing the true National Party agenda:
Seems there is a pattern developing here.
BTW, Lockwood, the term is “dead rats”.
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Whether they are rats or fish they are certainly easier to swallow dead than alive. Mmm, tickly.
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Toad
Give the faux outrage a break aye!, tell me what on earth is wrong with what Dr Lockwood Smith has said?
There is NOTHING in that statement that would even suggest that the Nat’s have a hidden agenda.
I wish they did have a hidden agenda, if they were actually going to do what is right they would get my vote, instead we are going to see National continue with most of the failed policies of the Labour party.
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Now, BB, what does “If you try to do everything differently you’ll scare the horses and under MMP it’s very hard to win. Once we have gained the confidence of the people, we’ve got more chance of doing more things.” mean to you?
To me, it means placate people by telling them you won’t do too much too differently, so you can get into power. Then, when you are in power, unveil a few discussion documents, and then full steam ahead with the hidden agenda, ie the “useful things that may not be policy right now”
Now that may be how the Nats operate, but it is not how the Greens operate.
We put all our policies out there so people know what we actually want to do if we are in Government. We even put out the unpopular ones, rather than hold them back to pander to public opinion. We acknowledge that most people probably won’t agree with our trade policy, or with our drugs policy, but we still campaign on them rather than hide them from public view.
That may be part of the reason that our polling is in single digits while the Nats is around 50% at the moment. But at least we are being honest about what we want to do, and hopefully more people will come over time to respect us for that honesty, and to mistrust National (and Labour and NZFirst for that matter) for their dishonesty.
With the Greens, what you see is what you get. I don’t think any other Party, with the possible exceptions of the Maori Party and ACT, can claim that.
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Toad
Where do I start!
You have ZERO costed polices, you know full well that you will never be in a position to actually implement any or even some of them so you can promise what ever you like, it is therefore a bit rich for you to claim the moral high ground.
As for Dr Lockwood Smith’s comments, I repeat he has said NOTHING that could ever be construed as being part of a hidden agenda, lets take his comments at face value ““If you try to do everything differently you’ll scare the horses and under MMP it’s very hard to win. Once we have gained the confidence of the people, we’ve got more chance of doing more things.?
What that means to me is that the Nat’s will not do anything until they have gained the confidence and mandate from the people, you seem to find something sinister in this but then given that you are the party that forced the anti smacking bill upon 82% of the population that did not want it I am not surprised that this confuses you.
You seem to be expecting the Nat’s to be held to a higher level of accountability than the Greens.
The Nat’s and Dr Lockwood Smith recognise that after nine years of failed Labour policies and nine years of Labour increasing the publics reliance on the state for their income they need to take things slowly and educate the public toward a state of mind that does not default back to the government providing them with everything.
You are a very smart person Toad yet you do yourself no favours by parroting the Labour party line on this subject, all it does is show that once again you will end up being Labour’s poodle post election and just shows that a vote for the Greens is a vote for the Labour party.
You had your chance to distance yourself from Labour and refused to take it, the next election will be one where so many of your potential supporters will look at a vote for the Greens as being a vote for Labour and as such this will cost you plenty of support.
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Totally agree with what Big Bro said,
Labour cannot take the moral high ground as they have introduced a raft of policies during the last 9 years that were never policy, nor hinted at during the election campaigns.
Getting rid of the privy council being one that comes readily to mind.
frog and toad, you are pious taking the moral high ground, not a single green policy is costed, yet you read into a covertly taped private conversation what you want based on your bias.
Take the selling of the Kiwibank. After research the National party may well float the bank on the stock exchange and the shares distributed free to all elegible New Zealanders on an even share basis.
The people then have the choice to sell the shares or hang on to them for the profit.
Do you think that New Zealanders will be mature enough to handle that transaction?
In fact all SOE and government owned assets should be listed on the stock exchange and the shares distributed to the peole who actually on them.
The people (the market) will then really be in charge. Not the penpushing state servants on those massive salaries. (47 was it not, at SPARC over the $100,000 mark?).
Did the Labour party ever say to the electorate that they would increase public servants levels by 32%? Or is that a secret agenda item as well?
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The difficulty of interpreting the importance of the English and Lockwood-Smith tapes is that there are at least two levels of agenda operating. The fundamental one, hidden in full view (Does a fish notice the water that it swims in?), is for the small ruling elite to use the general population as a cash cow. At the second level are the methods used to extract the cash; capturing Treasury, university economic departments and the Labour Party before 1984 is an example, Douglas and Richardson being the public instruments. Others are: not releasing policy or only speaking publicly on topics of your own choice; pushing freetrade agreements so as to apply economic coercion to the general population. There are endless variations on the primary theme; take a look at economic history since Luther if you don’t believe me.
I know this from having floated on the periphery of the National Party. Years ago when I was involved with the Young Nationals in Palmerston North, and Les Gandar held Manawatu for National, someone suggested that we have a competition to answer the questions: What is the National Party; what are it’s goals: what does it stand for? I promptly said “That’s easy. The National Party is a mutual back scratching club, it’s goal is power at any cost and it stands for anything that can be ignored, covered up, whitewashed, swept under the carpet or otherwise gotten away with?. Les (a decent old stick) was shocked. “You can’t say that Michaela! “Why not? It’s true?. “Yes, I know,? he replied, “but you don’t ever actually say it?. “Why not? Everybody else does?. “Because, when they do we can simply deny it and accuse them of sour grapes. But if we admit to it, it’ll cost us a lot of votes?. That was my first lesson in Realpolitik.
Milking the general population is the primary agenda and is always operating, all else is secondary and may or may not be hidden depending on opportunity and circumstances.
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great post frog
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Hey! This old thread reminded me of what a clown Big Bro is!
Michaela’s comments are classic! They deserve to be reposted today.
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Thanks for reminding us of this thread, Riverside. Oh, and I’ve fixed the formatting of the comments thread, for those who were wondering why it looked weird.
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frog,
Very interesting! Thanks for the “trip down memory lane”!
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