The left and right blocs are basically going to run campaigns against each other, rather than for something else.
How do we know this?
Last Sunday the Nats put out budget responsibility rules they so far haven't been responsible enough to follow themselves.
Their main argument here is basically, at least we'll do better than the other lot.
Which, if you're worried about debt, is probably true.
Labour is boxing itself into a fiscal corner.
If it is to be believed, Hipkins yesterday told me he would resign as Prime Minister before introducing any tax being proposed by the parties whose support he would need to form a government.
And he'd sooner walk away from talks than entertain any of them.
So, no inheritance tax, no wealth tax, no land tax, no nothing. Just Labour's CGT.
And that tax, remember, relies on 3% growth in house prices every single year to wash its own face.
If it doesn't, then what?
The problem with ruling out every other form of revenue-raising, while at the same time promising the unions a roll-back of Brooke Van Valden's gender bargaining changes, means there isn't just the perception of a hole in the books, but an actual stonking big one.
I'm told Barbara Edmonds is busy beavering away on the books but will have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
If you're leftie left, you'll be mad Hipkins won't go further on tax., If you're righty right, you'll be mad Luxon hasn't yet balanced the books.
The basis of this campaign though, is going to be attack.
The big parties are not so much telling us how or why New Zealand will be a better place under their stewardship, but rather why it'd be a disaster under their opponents.
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
I predict a hung election, and a continuing scramble for votes at least till Christmas. I'm so glad I'm 84, likely dead before sanity returns, [if ever it does], and had a fine time on earth, and do not see any future in Western Civilisation. All gone down the drain....... Zombies will roool.. and AI useless
Dont vote for any of the collaborating established nz politicans.
Vote for a party which promises to investigate and prosecute political financial irregularities:
1. How did H Clark and M Cullen get so rich?
2. Why did Bill Gates give Ardern $40m?
3. Why did Luxon promote a Bell Gully Lawyer's innumerate daughter to finance minister?
4. Why / How is low iq Van Velden retiring after running the sham covid inquiry?
5. Why has Shane Jones allowed the fishing industry to rape and pillage NZ fish stocks?
6. Lift the lid on anything Peters has ever done and youll find kickbacks galore! Start with Peter's suspicious vape/nicotine industry support.
New Zealand voters seem to be under the mistaken impression that they will collectively determine who becomes the government in November.
That’s not how it works.
Their votes will determine the relative positions of each party. Nothing more.
It’s the negotiations which follow the election which will determine who becomes the government - and which of their policies and promises will be sacrificed in the pursuit of power.
Voters don’t get a say in that process.
Therefore polls which show support (or opposition) to particular parties and policies are pointless.
Similarly, preferred Prime Minister polls show voters’ preferences. But voters don’t decide who the PM is. That’s done by the MPs of the party forming government with the largest support.
Even that decision might be taken out of the hands of those MPs, if doing so is an essential precondition of post-election negotiations.
Is it any wonder that only three-quarters of us bother to vote?
People voting for left wing parties must understand that said parties want to take more money off everybody, because they can't bring themselves to admit that they need to reduce NZ's debt. And that's because they're addicted to OPM.
Don't trust the left. Their policies might suggest that they aren't coming after younger people. It's the Boomers! And the "rich"! Whoever they are. But don't count on being exempt from the tax grab, because once they realise that the tax take from the target groups isn't enough (and it won't be), they'll come after younger taxpayers. Don't vote for the left. And if you're silly enough to do so, be very afraid.....
Why on earth would you categorize National as a party of the Right? They are Left Centrist.
"Why on earth would you categorize National as a party of the Right? They are Left Centrist."
As I said above: don't vote for left-wing parties. I wasn't specific, but judge political leanings by whether said parties wish to introduce new taxes. And, of course, whether they support co-governance, in deeds if not in words.
The centre of the NZ electorate has moved to the left in the last two decades. National’s lost support hasn’t transfered to the parties on the right, but to the parties on the left. It explains why Nats are tiptoeing around sensitive stuff, like ethnic issues, but all this tactics has achieved is to piss off their traditional supporters. Wonder what will happen if they come up with a radical conservative idea?!
The major point is that none of the Left or even centre-left are experts in Economics with say, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the discipline--hopefully at top overseas universities. They believe, fundamentally, that the higher the taxes the more jobs (mostly public sector jobs) you can create. These people then can pay higher taxes to create more jobs and so on and so on--a virtuous cycle. No intelligent economist who understands modeling believes in such a scenario. The question is where does wealth come from? Government handouts and reparations? All university students in NZ universities should take mandatory courses in Economics that ask questions as straightforward as who creates wealth? Certainly not Chris Hipkins or Chloe Swarbrick.
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