National Thus Far

[fixed_truth]

some good info here (pdf)

While New Zealand is spending a lot more on science and innovation, our investment is still very low when compared with the small advanced economies. This is true in both absolute terms (the total that we spend) and in relative terms (the size of our science and innovation investment relative to our GDP). The 1.28 per cent of GDP New Zealand spends on science is well below the OECD average of 2.06 percent. There are many reasons for our comparatively low science spend, although a significant portion of the disparity is due to our low investment in the business sector.


Investment in business R&D has been growing steadily in New Zealand. Since 2004, R&D spending in the business sector has grown by about 7 per cent a year from $677 million to $1.2 billion. Despite this increase, our business R&D investment is still comparatively small (see figure 2 below). We have struggled to match the rapid increase in business led R&D seen in similar economies. New Zealand currently spends 0.58 percent of GDP on business R&D, and you have indicated a desire to lift this to 1 percent of GDP. New Zealand faces some unique challenges to further lift business R&D and innovation. A small number of firms are currently doing most of the R&D, and most business R&D is done in a small number of industries (mostly manufacturing and the primary industries). We do not have a strong share of traditionally innovative industries (for example pharmaceuticals, car manufacturing or electronics), and we lack the large firms which invest significantly in R&D.

[Ab]

how can you trust a document LITERALLY PRODUCED BY THE GOVERNMENT??

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Savage

How is Grant Thornton Ltd immune in this context?

Why would you assume I think one party is immune and the other isn't? Differently affected is what they are, which provides useful contrast.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

how can you trust a document LITERALLY PRODUCED BY THE GOVERNMENT??

Are you conflating f_t and myself?

[Ab]

Yes, of course, that must be it.

[Lightspeed]

It just seems like your post only makes sense if you were responding to something I posted, me being the only one raising the untrustworthiness of the government as an issue.

But plenty is lost in translation when it comes to text only discussion, so it must be that.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Why would you assume I think one party is immune and the other isn't? Differently affected is what they are, which provides useful contrast.

Because you didn't state as much. From your post, it sounded as though you considered the private entity to be more trustworthy than the govt related one.

[Ab]

National MP Judith Collins says she is "very pleased" by what she described as a thorough inquiry, after a report into Dirty Politics allegations found no evidence the former justice minister acted inappropriately.

Judith Collins to return to Cabinet in 5... 4... 3...

[Lightspeed]

It's pretty funny that. Plenty of evidence of wrong doing, just none pointing at those who most benefit from it. "Honourable" indeed.

[sidbo]

All politicians are scum sucking, bottom feeding shit lords. There has never been an honourable one. Ever.

hth

[ChaosWulf]

Originally Posted by sidbo

All politicians are scum sucking, bottom feeding shit lords.

True dat.

[Ab]

But you have to vote carefully, otherwise the wrong scum sucking bottom feeding shit lords might get in.

[Lightspeed]

That's right! If you're not careful you'll vote in some greedy buggers who will give away your hard earned money to the lazy and shiftless! /s

[ChaosWulf]

Originally Posted by Ab

But you have to vote carefully, otherwise the wrong scum sucking bottom feeding shit lords might get in.

Bah, I'm all for the devil I don't know.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

That's right! If you're not careful you'll vote in some greedy buggers who will give away your hard earned money to the lazy and shiftless! /s

[fixed_truth]

unsavoury episode indeed

[Ab]

Even I can't cognitively-dissonantify some sort of positive angle on this bollocks, this whole Key-Ede-Whaleoil thing stinks to high heaven.

[Lightspeed]

And it just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

[chubby]

my fave for the day...the herald screaming with joy this morning..'WINDFALL FOR SCHOOLS!'-

ok,seriously.auckland schools are being swamped with our country's favorite local product,poor kids,requiring massive injections of cash to mitigate the disaster that it is...and the herald,in the most egregious misrepresentation of data ever,says yay.

nice fucking work new zealnd.media and representation you deserve.

[Pimp-X]

Re: Lightspeed

Does it though? The media love this shit and hyperbole is the first station the bus stops at.

Seen this show too many times to buy into any of it until something ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

[Lightspeed]

JK's casual relationship with Slater is real enough. "Lay with dogs, get fleas", all that business. There may be no direct, easily identifiable consequences, but surely this will undermine National's ability to be effective at whatever bastardy they have in mind. At least a little.

[Pimp-X]

I have no direct evidence that there is a relationship, other than media speculation and he said she said. Some actual FACTS would be useful but they seem to be slow in presenting themselves.

[Lightspeed]

Bit behind on the news then?

[Ab]

I think it's pretty obvious that Whaleoil was utilised as a communications backchannel by many entities, including the National Party. Now that it's getting embarrassing for National I expect there's a lot of metaphorical document-shredding and disavowing-of-any-knowledge going on at the National end, and Whaleoil being the mentally-unstable grudge-holder that he so obviously is I imagine that he is going to go bunny-boiler on National now.

[CCS]

I think there are people higher up on his grudge list than National right now.

[Nothing]

Having read the whole 80 page report, it certainly seems to me that Key and the Tucker both could have done more to avoid this mess.

[Farmer Joe]

It's fucking embarrassing that our prime minister is txting with a scumbag such as Cameron Slater. What a joke John Key is... "Oh I can't remember when I txted him, oh wait it was yesterday, oops".

[cyc]

I have absolutely no love for Labour or the Greens but recent events have confirmed to me 100% that I was right in abstaining during the recent elections. For as long as John Key and Judith Collins are around, I won't be voting for National under any circumstances.

Given that I can't ever see myself voting for anyone other than National or maybe Labour (have never yet voted Labour but won't dismiss that as a future possibility), it probably means I won't be voting in the next elections either. I don't expect politicians to be squeaky clean but this is well past any reasonable depths of deplorability that I can be expected to endure.

[Nothing]

Unless you're a climate change denier, and/or just plain don't give a shit about the environment, I can't see why you, or anyone for that matter, would prefer National over the Green party.

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by Nothing

Unless you're a climate change denier, and/or just plain don't give a shit about the environment, I can't see why you, or anyone for that matter, would prefer National over the Green party.

There are a vast number of other reasons many of which are high quality. There is also quite a comprehensive list of reasons why you might be having difficulty appreciating these other reasons exist. I'm leaning towards supposing one of these in particular is causal here but for the sake of not disrupting this thread I will keep my assessment to myself.

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by cyc

I have absolutely no love for Labour or the Greens but recent events have confirmed to me 100% that I was right in abstaining during the recent elections.

There's a risk though that operating from a romantic ideal of how political parties and their constituent politicians should behave results in damage to society that you could have helped to avoid by being willing to compromise down to how our world actually operates.

And, bear in mind that you likely come out pretty okay (or superbly okay) irrespective of which part is in power. The social contract here in my view is to think about and respond to the outcomes that those less fortunate face.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

There are a vast number of other reasons many of which are high quality. There is also quite a comprehensive list of reasons why you might be having difficulty appreciating these other reasons exist. I'm leaning towards supposing one of these in particular is causal here but for the sake of not disrupting this thread I will keep my assessment to myself.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of your 'high quality' reasons would ultimately boil down to having a stick up your ass about the 'economy' and about 'personal responsibility' a.k.a 'the right to accumulate as much personal wealth as you damned well please/are able' and other garbage neo-lib rhetoric.

To be honest, nothing in that boiling down process really differs from not giving a shit about the environment/climate change. Dare I say it, I doubt you have any sense of distributive justice whatsoever.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by Nothing

Unless you're a climate change denier, and/or just plain don't give a shit about the environment, I can't see why you, or anyone for that matter, would prefer National over the Green party.

Seriously, is this a joke? I care about the environment but I also care about things like not having some dick in parliament support using homeopathy to treat Ebola, I also care about not supporting people closely associated with muppets who trash GE labs because they don't like the research, and I care about not supporting people whose party apparatus contain people that trashed other parties' election billboards. And I care about science and don't have time of the day for idiots who mindlessly support so called alternative therapies and automatically harp on about man-made chemicals.

I won't be voting National again any time soon but unless the NZ Greens undergo a radical transformation, the chances of me voting for them in my lifetime is a big, fat zero.

[leadinjector]

Originally Posted by Nothing

Unless you're a climate change denier, and/or just plain don't give a shit about the environment, I can't see why you, or anyone for that matter, would prefer National over the Green party.

right so im gonna file you under people who have no fucking clue, but make idiotic blanket statements. there are a bunch of reasons why someone might prefer nats to greens and vote for them, and just because you disagree with them doesnt make the person an asshole.

TBH, this whole fucking thing has made me glad i didnt vote national, but that doesnt mean i plan on voting for the greens anytime soon either.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by cyc

Seriously, is this a joke?

No. It most assuredly is not a fucking joke. The changes going on in our environment, viz. climate change, are deadly serious. Quite possibly, and very well even probably, extinction level event (ELE) serious. Perhaps not for another hundred years or so, but if you only give a shit about now, then you're an asshole.

Originally Posted by cyc

I care about the environment but I also care about things like not having some dick in parliament support using homeopathy to treat Ebola.

You know that they demoted him for that bullshit, right? And you know that one particular douche in parliament believing that shit, which his party has publicly punished him for, does not constitute a good reason to not vote for the only party in parliament taking climate change seriously, when climate change could well be the aforementioned ELE, right?

Originally Posted by cyc

I also care about not supporting people closely associated with muppets who trash GE labs because they don't like the research.

Yeah, I agree with you that shit really is pretty deplorable. I'm not anti-ge myself, but again, that doesn't constitute a good reason to not vote for the only party taking climate change seriously. I very much doubt that the greens condone the sorts of thing you're talking about, and just about any party you care to name will have its share of associated fringe loonies. The ones associated with the Green party just get a bigger deal made out of them than the ones associated with National, because the fringe loonies that associate with National (exclusive brethren anyone?) are religious and therefore their loony beliefs have to be tolerated. Though, for the life of me I can't work out why. Perhaps also because the greens are a smaller, minority party, and thus an easier scape-goating target. I don't avoid voting for the National party because they have some groups of loonies associated with them. That really would be retarded. The reason I don't vote for National is because they represent a fucking terrible ideology which has no concept of distributive justice and religiously worships market forces which are fundamentally incapable of solving collective action problems.

Originally Posted by cyc

I care about not supporting people whose party apparatus contain people that trashed other parties' election billboards.

I guess that's just the unfortunate state of party politics in New Zealand, I doubt that the Green party (apparatus? supporters?) are the only ones you could blame for this though. And National party billboards probably wouldn't be such popular targets for being defaced if they didn't represent the aforementioned fucking terrible ideology. Either way, this is, again, a really shitty reason to not vote for the only party taking climate change seriously.

Originally Posted by cyc

I care about science and don't have time of the day for idiots who mindlessly support so called alternative therapies and automatically harp on about man-made chemicals.

For a dude who claims to care about science, you really don't seem to be anywhere near concerned enough about climate change. As for that alternative therapies stuff and man made chemicals stuff, yeah, again, I fully agree with you. I don't have the time of day for those idiots either. But last I checked, the green party's policies don't include alternative therapies bullshit. Neither do they include bullshit about man-made chemicals. So, again (you can see the pattern here, right?), just because some loonies hold some loony beliefs is a pretty shitty reason to not give your vote to the only party taking climate change seriously. Get your shit together man, climate change is going to be the defining issue of this century. If we don't stop fucking around and sort it out, it will sort us out.

[Nothing]

Originally Posted by cyc

I care about not supporting people whose party apparatus contain people that trashed other parties' election billboards.

In fact, if this is the kind of reason you rely on for not voting Green, in the face of the probable realities of climate change, it just comes off as either stupid, or really petty. And it wouldn't be unreasonable for Green party supporters to call tit-for-tat on this score either. Did you even see the National party campaign ads? Their whole campaign was based on "our opponents are incompetent". Not to mention the smear campaign bullshit being run out of the PMO. This argument is like saying "I won't vote for the greens even though I have voted for the National party because the green party have engaged in similar tactics to the tactics used by the national party, who I once voted for".

[CCS]

"Green party can do whatever stupid shit they want because climate change. Next to climate change, everything else is petty!"

That's all I'm hearing. All this social engineering shit of theirs. Climate change. Printing money - climate change. Don't smack your kids bum, climate change. In the end, anything the Greens do is justified because nothing they do could be as bad as an EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT!

GIVE ME BACK MY FLAG! EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT!

[Ab]

Blah blah climate change, betcha Nothing still drives a car.

[Pimp-X]

The greens can and will do nothing about climate change. Face it.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Ab

Blah blah climate change, betcha Nothing still drives a car.

Driving a single-occupancy car from Wellington to Auckland vs a full jet (say Airbus 320) - car puts less pollutants into the atmosphere per person even if you allow for the car to drive around in Akls traffic jams then back to Wellington.