National Thus Far
Talk.
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as a labour supporter... not bad... thinking positively.
early days still. pretty upbeat at this stage. time will tell. |
I've never really felt as though the government in power has much of an effect on my day to day life. That feeling might be wrong, though.
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What have they done? It's probably too early to perform a swooping review, but I'm content with how they're going considering that they haven't fucked things up yet.
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Some interesting ideas, some which do make sense to me.
I think i trust national in this crisis, mainly because of their leader (more $$ orientated) than anyone labour could have put forth at the time of the elections. Normally i'd agree in saying that the govt. has very little bearing on my day to day life, unfortunately right now it seems that they will have a large impact, not in the months to come, but the years. |
Should Maori follow in John Key's footsteps?
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Quite a different feeling in this thread to the Obama one...
"She'll be right" |
Binning the EFA, good.
The "guilty upon accusation" shit - bad, but they canned it, good. Reducing RMA bullshit, good. Trying to sort out the auckland council bullshit, good. |
i also will reserve judgement for a year or two, however it seems things arent too bad. they have made some awful choices tho.
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waiting for the royal inquiry on the subject. then taking credit. as all good governments should. |
Oh, probably not the thread for it, but doesn't deserve its own.
Anyone care to explain to me: America is doing shit, massive losses etc. empty housing, doom and gloom etc. Why the fuck is our dollar so weak against theres? Since from what i can understand we aren't as ecomomically stuffed as they are. |
Aside from the return of the honours system BS (which is fairly petty anyways) they've done ok; they're keeping to their promises so far. I have to admit that Key and English seem to have a fairly good grasp on the economic issues of the day - which is obviously important right now.
I'm still concerned about longer term effects of a National government though. They seem to be hellbent on privatising ACC; and the scrapping of the regional fuel tax is questionable - I don't think they've offered a suitable alternative to the revenue streams that were already earmarked for roading and public transport improvements. B+ |
too many jews and maaries! nah I think they're doin alright. Is not the National of old. Could find heaps of things to moan about if I put my mind to it no doubt.
More importantly though, when's the rest of the country gonna grow up and pay extra tax to support the fine city of Auckland!? |
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Try Harder, PLZKTHX! :D |
Still disagree with what they did to Kiwisaver, but at least my company stepped up and volunteered to keep employer contributions at 4% (above the 2% min) even though they won't get tax credit for it anymore.
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/moves to GMGs |
SLASH! BURN! ooo look something labour. BURN IT!
that is all |
Has anyone seen the Keys Deception?
lolz! |
Fairly impressed actually so far.
I can honestly say, when I heard that he'd won, I was like "oooo fuck, bad news", but that was mainly because instinctively the pyshology behind it was "i didnt vote for them, that means bad news for me", you hear "right wing" this and "left wing" that, and I felt like since I have a more left wing view point I expected a whole lot of negative reprecussions for me personally to stem from a National victory. But hes really supprised me so far, good on him for dancing with those drag queens on stage! that was choice! I really thought that was so cool of him, he seems like a lively happy dude that enjoys life and I really like his positivity, maybe not be the best qualities to bring to the forefront when talking about our countrys leader, but I have a lot of people who live life in a happy and positive way. It was like that rabbitohs coach (or whoever it was that came last on the table last year), and how positive he was at the end of the season "we're fine, this is a really good place for us to be in and next year we'll be fine". It was really good to see and if I was one of the players in that team I would have drawn a lot of strength from that. |
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Some of Nationals moves I have been dead against, one in particular is the 90 day probation which does create the risk of abuse, to the detriment of employees. After thinking about it though; I am of the belief that John Key is interested in stimulating the economy and looking at the big picture, rather than focusing on the minor draw backs and not acting, which seemed to stagnate the labour government.
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I am quite liking the fact that they've removed the regional petrol tax for Aucklamd. Keeping in mind however that our petrol tax will still increase by 3 cents this year and another 3c next year. But a hell of a lot better than 'How's 9.5c? Pretty good? Awright, 9.5 it is"
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I believe the 55-60cent mark is probably the benchmark for where our dollar should be. |
Causes for concern:
Rodney's climate change committee. The ACC beat up. Talk of private prisons. |
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The regional fuel tax funds were also supposed to be largely spent on roading alternatives; like public transport network development. This blanket tax has no such provision. |
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You live in auckland. You get paid more. You have many more options for shopping etc. You have to put up with congestion as part of that. You want to solve the congestion, you can pay for it. Not the people living out in the sticks who earn less than you and don't have the options. They choose not to live in auckland as their solution to the congestion affecting them. Not happy about it to be honest. |
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I'm not suggesting ACC isn't wasteful in its current form, and it could certainly be run more efficiently; but certain public services don't have to be run like lean, profit-making companies in order to best serve the public that funds them. Sometimes higher funding does = better, more equitable service to the community. |
As a marketing campaign it's going well, lots of meaningless distractions to give people the impression of good strong governance, e.g "crushing boyracer's cars", trademe auctions, dancing with drag queens, the "job" summit and bringing back titular honours.
On the actual stuff that matters, it's all bad and it's going to get worse. |
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Auckland's tax money has for years been funding the rest of the country while our roading needs were mostly put aside.
The problem with a regional petrol tax funding the electrifiying of the Auckland railway is that people on the North Shore, for example, end up funding this railway even though there's no railway on the North Shore. If Hamilton doesn't want to pay to electrify a railway that only covers part of Auckland, then why should the North Shore also help to pay it? And really, this is the problem with regional taxes. What say Hamilton wants some totally cool public transport system... is the rest of the country going to object to paying for Hamilton's public transport? Is Dunedin going to get shitty? Probably not, because it's more fun to say "Bluddy fucken Aucklanders can pay for their own train set" than it is to say "Bluddy fucken Hamiltonians, who do they think they are?" The only way to fairly implement a regional petrol tax would be to slice the whole country into regions and raise the petrol tax by the same amount across the board and that way everyone can pay for their own roading and public transport costs. Then we'll get rid of the pathetic "WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR 'X' CITY'S ROADS?!" nonsense. Of course, the obvious problem with that is that the amount available to spend is proportionate to how many motorists there are in each region. A low population area might end up with bugger all money to spend. Because why should Auckland pay for roads anywhere but Auckland, right? I think the ideal solution is no regional petrol tax anywhere. When the government wants to increase the petrol tax, it gets increased for everyone. That way everyone is paying for everyone's roading and public transport. The money gets allocated on the basis of necessity. And no more of this bullshit where money from petrol tax disappears into Michael Cullen's mysterious pile of cash which doesn't necessarily get used for roading/transport. |
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'Bad, but they canned it, good.' Makes it sound like the law wasn't written when Labour was in charge... |
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CCS - yeah, fair cop. I shouldn't single out Auckland. However, I think a regional fuel tax would work. Otherwise, as you say, regions/cities/towns that need transport spending might end up funding other regions.
There may be some exceptions to the rule of course - otherwise residents of Fiordland might get $3.26 to spend every year on roads. |
I think tolls would be more effective than a regional fuel tax at targetting those that an electric rail would most benefit, and give incentive to use public transport.
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Good call CCS. Watch for the hicks from the sticks moaning about it on the news all week.
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An issue with a regional fuel tax is the residents who live on the very fringes of an area; think of someone on the Kapiti Coast or the Hibiscus Coast or Pukekohe. If you live in Dairy Flat, you're going to drive to Orewa to fill up, not Albany, so you avoid paying the tax altogether.
By comparison for Wellington, people between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki would probably drive to Paekakariki to avoid paying extra for fuel (instead of getting it locally or in Porirua), and not contribute anything to the regional fuel tax at all. A nationwide fuel tax is the best way, IMO...I'm just disappointed to hear that the train station upgrades and integrated ticketing probably won't happen now :( |
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