15 Comments

Christmas Day is almost certainly the best day of the year to create familial disharmony and disfunction.

So I kept my mouth shut when a family member started whittering on about the enormous task the government (aka the clown car coalition) had to dig itself out from the enormous debt incurred by the Labour government and then started to bitterly complain about the lack of government services in health and education among others.

We're amazed by the Americans who voted for Trump. Be amazed no longer. NZ has its fair share of politically and economically ignorant voters who gave their vote to this trinity of tosspot.

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Yep. As an American who has taken refuge here in Aotearoa, I have only awoken to find that this nightmare of voter irrationality chased me down and found me here. People are so, SO disappointing. And why is it always those claiming Christianity as their guiding light?

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Indeed, Mark.

People wanted a "change" but t's difficult to understand clearly what kind of change they had in mind.

The only explanation is that government's of both 'hues' were voted out after covid. It's as if (some) people wanted to forget the period from 2020 to 2023 - again that collective amnesia. I'm sure psycho-historians have a better explanation for this kind of human behaviour.

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Yes Keith I’m very sorry to say I agree with everything you’ve said this morning. What a depressing and dismal scene we have in New Zealand at present. We must make voting compulsory!

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At the very least, civics in schools has to be a mandatory curriculum. The best defence against politician's offering the moon,and delivering nothing, is knowledge. Hopefully.

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It's sad how many people have developed a kind of selective amnesia, forgetting how the previous goverrnment propped up the economy with massive spending.

At one point, then-leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges even suggested that subsidies to business be INCREASED:

"He [Simon Bridgers] said National would have gone harder and faster for businesses – meaning more wage subsidies for more businesses to extend to some of the bigger and middle-sized companies.

"Our Prime Minister said she's gone harder and faster – I don't see it"."

Ref: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/national-leader-simon-bridges-slams-governments-covid-19-package-not-hard-or-fast-enough/YM7HFWSL24Z6ISLHV6RQ5UKAWA/

The alternative would've been a crashed economy, which, I suspect is what National/ACT-supporters would have loved to have seen. That would've fed into the (false) narrative that National is a better steward of the economy.

It annoys some people not that Labour failed, but that it succeeded.

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Wow! When you list it all like that, and I'm pretty sure there are other cuts not mentioned, you have to wonder can Aotearoa come back from the the black hole they have dug for most of us?

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I'm positive there were many more cuts. (Except, strangely, MFAT - Winston Peters made sure his Ministry made only minor "savings" - ref https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/winston-peters-fight-for-minimal-foreign-affairs-cuts-revealed-in-new-documents/JU5V3A5NAVCWLJAR2DCYG2I4H4/)

After the election in 2026, and if this rotten government is only a one-term administration, I hope Hipkins announces his own "100 Days of Action". Basically undoing National's rubbish tax depreciation for landlords; cuts for state sector; and implementing a Capital Gains Tax. Plus other policies enacted by Luxon, Willis, Seymour, and Peters.

Make the CGT at 33% which is the same as Ireland. (Luxon held up Ireland as an example of economic success.)

We can make our own savings: close down Seymour's Ministery for Regulation.

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A smorgasbord of cold cuts to services of every public good, with a side dish of barefaced lies. My hope for 2025 is for the media to call bullshit on this government

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They've certainly provided enough ammunition to the media!

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"Core revenue down to $13b in the forecasts through to 2028..." in just 12 months this government has seen our families broken as children leave like refugees for other countries looking for meaningful work and our world envied famous health system run down to promote private health insurance in just 12 twelve months. It takes moments to destroy things that are irreplaceable, and families should be together not forced apart by political landlords

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True. Luxon's first "100 Days Action Plan" was mostly cancelling things.

It's easier to demolish than to build. Just look at any 5 year old in a sandpit.

Willis's decision to scrap the iReX ferries was probably one of the most expensive, as well as ludicrous, decision ever made by a Finance Minister. She has basically thrown away $300 million (?) of our taxes just to spite the previous government.

If a Labour goverrnment had done something similar to scrap a roading project after contracts were signed, costing us hundreds of millions of dollars, the media, Opposition parties, Taxpayers 'Union', et al, would be apoplectic with fury.

But when the Nats do it...

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What a wonderful public service you would be undertaking Frank, if only you could get ZB to talk about this post or the Harvey Norman Herald to publish it . The voters of Aotearoa need to be exposed to these facts. Thank you for your research.

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ZB and the Herald are both organs of the parasitic NZme. My letters to them go unpublished unless I complain to the Press Council which is stacked with right minded souls

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Thanks, Mac. Many of the media stories I've referenced have been sourced from NZ Herald and NewstalkZB. But it's tying them up together, to form a narrative, that NZME appears reluctant to do.

We'll see what the New Year brings us.

I believe several of this government's policies are ticking timebombs.

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