Five good and five bad for the Government
Jordan Carter has done a really good post describing five good and five bad things the Government has done. Of course I don’t agree with him on the substance, but it’s a useful balanced post.
I figured the least I could do is to do the same, and like Jordan, challenge people in comments to do otherwise.
I am going to focus on policies and management rather than behaviour and ethics (which frankly are appalling), and suggest others do the same.
I’m going to list five portfolios, and focus on good and bad in each:
Fiscal Policy
Good – running a surplus for the last seven years (the size of it is a different issue)
Bad – running the second largest surpluses in the world and refusing reductions in tax rates
Defence
Good – extra funding for the Army
Bad – reneging on the F16 purchase
Employment/Welfare
Good – historically low unemployment levels
Bad – blow out in sickness and invalids numbers
Telecommunications
Good – Operational Separation of Telecom
Bad – Not doing LLU in 2003
Health
Good – overdue pay rise for hospital nurses
Bad – ideological hostility to using private sector when it has spare capacity
I have not listed education as I am unsure if I can point to a single positive. It’s a fiasco ranging from the 20 hours policy in tatters for pre-school, the NCEA mess to all the tertiary funding scams. I don’t actually know how Maharey could make it worse if he tried. Maybe the apprenticeships one can give a positive mark to.
Anyway that is my five.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Good: Campaigning on accountability back when they won their first term.
Bad: Showing what a complete crock that promise was.
March 26th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Over at jordan’s, there were a number of people saying that the interest-free student loans were a ‘good thing’. I put it in the “bad” category.
I disagree, because I think that the ballooning student debt won’t be solved by this, and secondly, I think that the (ex-)students don’t pay off their loans; not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to.
I did have another thought on this: NZs woeful savings record will be further hindered by this zero interest student loan policy. Because its zero interest, it teaches people to not pay off debt; instead, they spend it on toys (which I believe is why the student debt is ballooning in the first place).
Good? Umm.. Smoke-free restaurants.
March 26th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Good; Dear Leader going to Washington.
Bad; Dear Leader returning.
March 26th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Good: Labour seeing off 3 national party leaders
Bad: Bill English back on the podium again
March 26th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Maharey has also got his sticky beak into interfering in the integrated school sector, refusing to grant them roll increases despite increasing demand.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
GOOD: Keeping NZ nuclear free. Not partaking in the war in Iraq. Keeping National out of govt. for 3 terms in a row
BAD: Not doing enough for the environment
March 26th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Good – Feral inbreds of the West Coast of the South Island (where the Labour Party started), PM land speed records, underclass that is extrapolated from an anecdote and cancerous opposition.
Bad – This Government will be listed on future Internet search engines under the words utopian and corruption. George Bush laughing at lemon face supreme leader .
March 26th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I didn’t make this comment over on Jordan’s because I know he just deletes stuff that makes him look stupid.
His no 5 (bad) thing was;
Too little focus on the poorest New Zealanders….
And he had the nerve to post that after all the posts he did saying that Key was full of sh1t talking about the underclass. All his rhetoric about Labour doing soo much for the most needy in NZ and then he sneaks in the first part of the new Labour policy angle – stolen from National….
Waste of space.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Burt I just posted this on that tossers site just left, you can bet it will be gone by morning ;
Helen Clark said the underclass was “extrapolated from an anecdote.”
Is this a good or bad thing from government ?
March 26th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
The worst Labour Government ever theough Kirk Rowling was nearly as bad, and only marginally better than Muldoon 1981-4 which was probably the worst Government ever.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Bad: Keeping NZ “nuclear free” (apart from xrays, cancer treatment, university neutron sources, etc etc), the most arrogant corruption yet seen in NZ especially the pledge card spending, and new lows in public trust of government. Good, relatively stable economic environment.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Surely the light armoured vehicle purchase was a shocker – great for European or Australian conditions, not really much good in NZ, or Timor, or anywhere that isn’t flat with nice roads.
F16’s? There were other choices, less expensive with greater range – better for over-ocean combat/patrols for example, a shame they weren’t given a chance.
Not going to Iraq – Superb albeit based on a hatred of all things USA rather than sense.
Bad – letting HUGE amounts of NZ coal be sold to the Indians. I bet we thank Helen for that in 50 years as the lights go out. Think why did we sell all the gas to the Canadians?
March 26th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Not only is there Good and Bad but there is also Ugly.
I read in the Herald on the weekend, that first impressions are important, that one’s dress and appearance are taken to illustrate one’s true feelings and attitudes.
In other words if one doesn’t care about ones appearance it gives the impression that one doesn’t really care about anything much.
God, didn’t she look terrible on the TV 1 tonight, the teeth looked more crooked than ever and the makeup was virtually non-existant, or was it just the camera angle? Not a great look for the head of a country.
Most in NZ have become immune as she has been around so long, but is she sending the wrong message to our very ………..very good friends??
Can we really expect them to take us seriously, regarding a free trade agreement, when we send over someone who doesn’t follow basic rules of business engagement .
First impressions count, we don’t expect our dearleader to look sexy but we do expect that she looks like a leader who means business.
Dear Leader allows herself to be made up for the election billboards but appears to lack the ability or is it desire to look the part everyday. One does wonder why, is it that she is too busy, doesn’t want to attract male attention, just plain lazy, too tight……….??
How much would it really cost to get those teeth sorted ??? Extreme Makeover perhaps…???.
March 27th, 2007 at 7:47 am
“Surely the light armoured vehicle purchase was a shocker ”
I could never understand why we needed 105 Lavs, we are never going to deploy a quarter of them let alone requiring 105 – well that was until an Army mate of mine told me that at least 20 are getting serviced at one time!
“F16’s? There were other choices, less expensive with greater range – better for over-ocean combat/patrols for example, a shame they weren’t given a chance.”
Whilst i agree with the gist of your statement, Ive got to add, the F16’s were not overpriced, personally I believe they were a bargain. 28 F16’s for 1Bil NZD over a ten year lease, which included spares, training, weapons, refurbishing and upgrade was in fact a bloody good deal – even though they were the A model, they were extremely low hour jets that only had been flown from the manufacturer to the storage facility, the engines weer cranked up periodically to keep them in running order. When you factor in that at the same time the C model cost 26 Mil USD/plane not including training and spares it doesnt sound too bad.