Te Parti Maori will be the left blocks Achilles heel . They will become ever more radical to attract their voters and so ever more scary to the swing voter.
Heaven help us if a coalition of these rogues gets back in. We need a true statesman like Seymore to lead NZ out of apartheid and into democracy again....someone who is not swayed by votes but is truthful and sincere and has the best interests of New Zealanders at heart.
I'd have to disagree that Hipkin's ideological principles are indistinct. Hipkins as Minister of Education presided over grotesque academic slides of numeracy and literacy. His ideological principle in this instance at least seems clear - to produce a generation of uneducated voters, hopefully dependant on state aid for life.
I commend the Nats for using up their political capital driving costs out of the public service. Yes, they have made mistakes but those mistakes pale in comparison to those in power the previous six years. The last government blew their political capital wastefully.....just like a lot of taxpayer funds.
I do not think they will, nor will any party, have the public service operating efficiently and cost effectively.
This government is not driving costs out of the public service, it is making it ineffective so many of its current functions can be contracted out and privatised to the benefit of donors to National, ACT and NZ First.
So do tell me, what were the more than extra 10,000 public service personnel doing?
Thats not teachers, policemen, nor doctors and nurses....that is bureaucrats we are talking about....what benefit did they add?
I think the government, no matter who is in power, are terrible at getting value for money, whether thats internally or using external contractors to do the job. I see a lot of local government waste but can only imagine how much worse it is further up the food chain.
What examples do you have that current functions are being contracted out to donors? Were you upset that people contracted to the last government increased their wealth exponentially?
Many of those bureaucrats you so casually dismiss had been busy on a wide range of tasks and projects that have been binned by the current mob. Think of all the legislation, such as RMA reform, water, environment scrapped without sound replacement policies.
What you are saying is that it was taking more than 10,000 extra of them to do this, even though the government engaged external consultants to do a lot of the work and already had swathes of policy people.
Most of the policies needed scrapped because they were terrible and didn't achieve what was best for the country as a whole.
I agree, we need sound replacement policies but why throw good money after bad and continue to forge ahead with poor policy?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the current rabble in parliament no matter which side they sit on, but the last government took waste and incompetence to a level that our great grandchildren will be paying the bill for.
Human beings working for public purpose are not costs. They are our real benefit. The government cannot run out of NZ dollars, they create the currency. The cost of a public service is labour employed for public purpose not now available in the private sector. But examine how much bullshit work exists in the private sector and you will realize the public service sector is on balance an enormous benefit to our economy, not a cost. Taxes do not pay for public servants, it;'s the other way around. No one can pay a dime in tax before the government spends (or licenses banks to lend).
The problem with Labour isn't Hipkins. Hipkins, like Ardern before him, is an ideological void who is simply doing his best to balance the interests of the various factions of his party. I'd even say he is an excellent leader of the Labour party and I suspect the reason no-one wants to topple him is because they know that no-one else could do a better job.
The Labour party of old simply isn't going to come back.
The Labour Party I joined in 1976 had a very good understanding of the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people for their lives and that of their children. The LEC's were made up largely of these strugglers committed to make this a better society. The Party now appears to me to be made up of university graduates with little, if any, understanding of life's strugglers. If your argument is that Hipkins reflects this head only commitment to everyday struggles then I realize why I, and most of my mates, took our hearts and commitment elsewhere and left the Party.
Even a whiff of Americanised healthcare would likely be politically radioactive, if the former UK Tory government's attempts to chip away at the NHS in Britain are anything to go by.
I've got an alternative, perhaps complementary narrative for you. It is not the "traditional party" that is unpopular, it is the Neoliberal. Traditional conservatives at least had largess when it came to capitalist cronyism, which albeit regressively propped up monetary economies (i.e., all state tax-driven economics). Traditional Labour Party supported... wait for it... labour! Who would've known with digging way back into history books? This is still highly popular, by definition, most people are still working class, we literally cannot ever afford to go full rentier feudal capitalism in NZ — we do not have the army and CIA to do that neocolonialism sh*t. Our current "Labour Party" are neoliberal wankers and do not know how to support the working class with anything more than lying words. They could be popular, but those career Labour politician are only in it for the money and PMC careerist cushion. Total ℭ𝔘𝔑𝔗𝔰.
A thousand apologies for the cusswords. But some form of violence is called for in NZ, and we'd better keep it to intellectual violence, not physical.
So long as the left collectively, particularly Labour, continue to thump the tub of social justice ie equity, they are unlikely to gain any traction, as most NZers find the way this has been forced upon them by the last government to be completely bonkers. Equal opportunity means all get an equal share of resources; some will rise to the top, others won't. Equity means resources are shared based on need in an attempt to level the playing field. The two need to work in tandem to achieve social change; neither will do so on its own. There are several elephants in the room here, one of which is that ALL people of whatever race or ethnicity are not equal in any sense - there is no one-size-fits-all. So even if you level the playing field as per equity, many will still fail to make the grade.
David Seymour's Bill has given Te Pati Maori plenty of rope but they are unlikely to use it wisely. An ascendant Maori Party will give National a second term which they barely deserve given their failure to give a boost to public infrastructural investment and their lack on action on school attendance.
I have read and understood Te Tiriti and the history and breaches of Te Tiriti and the process of colonialism. Have you?
Have you really understood it from a position other than the colonisers lens?
Te Tiriti established a country where two sovereign nations could live together. Maori are Tangata Whenua and you are likely Tangata Tiriti. Maori are the indigenous people of NZ and Te Tiriti protects their right to live and flourish as Maori in their homeland. The whole Maori are benefiting narrative means what exactly?? What are your measures for supporting your assertion that Maori are benefiting? You do not provide any substance ergo you are deceiving yourself.
When you say Maori are just NZers you are like Seymour verbalising the erasure of the special status of the indigenous people? Such a typical colonial tool. And who benefits from the erasure of the special status of the indigenous people?
Lastly, Mearns - Scottish? I would have thought that a Scotsman would have an understanding of colonialism since the Scots were brutally colonised by the English.
Seymour is the divisive, racist. You have been seduced by his libertarian speak ‘everyone is equal’, ‘we are all NZers’. You need to do your homework on which race is benefiting from this so called ‘apartheid’ you speak of, and tell us who and how? Maybe even do some homework on Te Tiriti and the history of Crown breaches. If you value truth and sincerity and are not swayed by populism then do some homework.
Oh dear...it is you who have been deceived. You need to do some reading of the Treaty and the Kohimarama meeting to understand the treaty. Who is benefitting??? Now??? Maori are benefitting due to racist ruling of this and previous governments making Maori special, They are not. Maori are just New Zealanders...no more and no less. Anything more is racist as you well know.
Your fundamental flaw is that you deal in propaganda, not facts. Two parties to Te Tiriti. One party is now seriously disadvantaged in terms of health, housing, employment and education. The war on Māori from this coalition government is to remove a significant obstacle that limits the extent to which rentier financiers are able to rape and pillage our natural resources and loot our public institutions. Seymour is working for them.
Te Parti Maori will be the left blocks Achilles heel . They will become ever more radical to attract their voters and so ever more scary to the swing voter.
Heaven help us if a coalition of these rogues gets back in. We need a true statesman like Seymore to lead NZ out of apartheid and into democracy again....someone who is not swayed by votes but is truthful and sincere and has the best interests of New Zealanders at heart.
I'd have to disagree that Hipkin's ideological principles are indistinct. Hipkins as Minister of Education presided over grotesque academic slides of numeracy and literacy. His ideological principle in this instance at least seems clear - to produce a generation of uneducated voters, hopefully dependant on state aid for life.
I commend the Nats for using up their political capital driving costs out of the public service. Yes, they have made mistakes but those mistakes pale in comparison to those in power the previous six years. The last government blew their political capital wastefully.....just like a lot of taxpayer funds.
I do not think they will, nor will any party, have the public service operating efficiently and cost effectively.
This government is not driving costs out of the public service, it is making it ineffective so many of its current functions can be contracted out and privatised to the benefit of donors to National, ACT and NZ First.
So do tell me, what were the more than extra 10,000 public service personnel doing?
Thats not teachers, policemen, nor doctors and nurses....that is bureaucrats we are talking about....what benefit did they add?
I think the government, no matter who is in power, are terrible at getting value for money, whether thats internally or using external contractors to do the job. I see a lot of local government waste but can only imagine how much worse it is further up the food chain.
What examples do you have that current functions are being contracted out to donors? Were you upset that people contracted to the last government increased their wealth exponentially?
Many of those bureaucrats you so casually dismiss had been busy on a wide range of tasks and projects that have been binned by the current mob. Think of all the legislation, such as RMA reform, water, environment scrapped without sound replacement policies.
What you are saying is that it was taking more than 10,000 extra of them to do this, even though the government engaged external consultants to do a lot of the work and already had swathes of policy people.
Most of the policies needed scrapped because they were terrible and didn't achieve what was best for the country as a whole.
I agree, we need sound replacement policies but why throw good money after bad and continue to forge ahead with poor policy?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the current rabble in parliament no matter which side they sit on, but the last government took waste and incompetence to a level that our great grandchildren will be paying the bill for.
Human beings working for public purpose are not costs. They are our real benefit. The government cannot run out of NZ dollars, they create the currency. The cost of a public service is labour employed for public purpose not now available in the private sector. But examine how much bullshit work exists in the private sector and you will realize the public service sector is on balance an enormous benefit to our economy, not a cost. Taxes do not pay for public servants, it;'s the other way around. No one can pay a dime in tax before the government spends (or licenses banks to lend).
As a lapsed member of the Labour Party my view is until the party gets rid of Hipkins it won't win again.
The problem with Labour isn't Hipkins. Hipkins, like Ardern before him, is an ideological void who is simply doing his best to balance the interests of the various factions of his party. I'd even say he is an excellent leader of the Labour party and I suspect the reason no-one wants to topple him is because they know that no-one else could do a better job.
The Labour party of old simply isn't going to come back.
The Labour Party I joined in 1976 had a very good understanding of the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people for their lives and that of their children. The LEC's were made up largely of these strugglers committed to make this a better society. The Party now appears to me to be made up of university graduates with little, if any, understanding of life's strugglers. If your argument is that Hipkins reflects this head only commitment to everyday struggles then I realize why I, and most of my mates, took our hearts and commitment elsewhere and left the Party.
Bryce, I hope you are proud that your work is attracting more and more awful racist fuckwits every time. Maybe it should tell you something?
Even a whiff of Americanised healthcare would likely be politically radioactive, if the former UK Tory government's attempts to chip away at the NHS in Britain are anything to go by.
I've got an alternative, perhaps complementary narrative for you. It is not the "traditional party" that is unpopular, it is the Neoliberal. Traditional conservatives at least had largess when it came to capitalist cronyism, which albeit regressively propped up monetary economies (i.e., all state tax-driven economics). Traditional Labour Party supported... wait for it... labour! Who would've known with digging way back into history books? This is still highly popular, by definition, most people are still working class, we literally cannot ever afford to go full rentier feudal capitalism in NZ — we do not have the army and CIA to do that neocolonialism sh*t. Our current "Labour Party" are neoliberal wankers and do not know how to support the working class with anything more than lying words. They could be popular, but those career Labour politician are only in it for the money and PMC careerist cushion. Total ℭ𝔘𝔑𝔗𝔰.
A thousand apologies for the cusswords. But some form of violence is called for in NZ, and we'd better keep it to intellectual violence, not physical.
Hear hear!
So long as the left collectively, particularly Labour, continue to thump the tub of social justice ie equity, they are unlikely to gain any traction, as most NZers find the way this has been forced upon them by the last government to be completely bonkers. Equal opportunity means all get an equal share of resources; some will rise to the top, others won't. Equity means resources are shared based on need in an attempt to level the playing field. The two need to work in tandem to achieve social change; neither will do so on its own. There are several elephants in the room here, one of which is that ALL people of whatever race or ethnicity are not equal in any sense - there is no one-size-fits-all. So even if you level the playing field as per equity, many will still fail to make the grade.
Well stated
It would be good if your writing was based on actual facts and evidence to support your assertions. Just being opinionated is not good enough.
David Seymour's Bill has given Te Pati Maori plenty of rope but they are unlikely to use it wisely. An ascendant Maori Party will give National a second term which they barely deserve given their failure to give a boost to public infrastructural investment and their lack on action on school attendance.
John Strevens
I have read and understood Te Tiriti and the history and breaches of Te Tiriti and the process of colonialism. Have you?
Have you really understood it from a position other than the colonisers lens?
Te Tiriti established a country where two sovereign nations could live together. Maori are Tangata Whenua and you are likely Tangata Tiriti. Maori are the indigenous people of NZ and Te Tiriti protects their right to live and flourish as Maori in their homeland. The whole Maori are benefiting narrative means what exactly?? What are your measures for supporting your assertion that Maori are benefiting? You do not provide any substance ergo you are deceiving yourself.
When you say Maori are just NZers you are like Seymour verbalising the erasure of the special status of the indigenous people? Such a typical colonial tool. And who benefits from the erasure of the special status of the indigenous people?
Lastly, Mearns - Scottish? I would have thought that a Scotsman would have an understanding of colonialism since the Scots were brutally colonised by the English.
None of this is relevant to what I said. I did not comment on the treaty. I was just commenting on the Maori party reaction to Seymour's Bill.
And to get rid of the racist way NZ is being ruled currently. Seymore knows what to do....hopefully we will give him the right to do it.
Seymour is the divisive, racist. You have been seduced by his libertarian speak ‘everyone is equal’, ‘we are all NZers’. You need to do your homework on which race is benefiting from this so called ‘apartheid’ you speak of, and tell us who and how? Maybe even do some homework on Te Tiriti and the history of Crown breaches. If you value truth and sincerity and are not swayed by populism then do some homework.
Oh dear...it is you who have been deceived. You need to do some reading of the Treaty and the Kohimarama meeting to understand the treaty. Who is benefitting??? Now??? Maori are benefitting due to racist ruling of this and previous governments making Maori special, They are not. Maori are just New Zealanders...no more and no less. Anything more is racist as you well know.
Your fundamental flaw is that you deal in propaganda, not facts. Two parties to Te Tiriti. One party is now seriously disadvantaged in terms of health, housing, employment and education. The war on Māori from this coalition government is to remove a significant obstacle that limits the extent to which rentier financiers are able to rape and pillage our natural resources and loot our public institutions. Seymour is working for them.