Kiwibank
Secret recordings seem to be the in thing at conferences this year. We had Mike Williams at Labour’s conference, and now Bill English at National’s. English was asked (not during a session, but over coffee it seems) about whether National would sell Kiwibank and he replied “Well eventually, not now”.
Now in one sense, his response is quite unremarkable and consistent with National policy which is not to sell any state asset in their first term of office. And it can be no surprise that as Bill voted against the establishment of Kiwibank, that he doesn’t see any long term reason for keeping Kiwibank – why should the state own a competitive trading enterprise? Why not own New World also?
Now the reality is that if National does get elected, it won’t sell Kiwibank in its first term, and if it wants to sell it in its second term it will have to get re-elected on a policy allowing it to do so. National is not going to break its policy on asset sales, if elected later this year, as they have no desire to be a one term Government.
But the politics are of course a different issue. Bill will be kicking himself for his response, as it means the focus shifts from the infrastructure announcements to Kiwibank. And there will no doubt be many patsy questions to Dr Cullen in the House tomorrow on the issue.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I’m really beginning to think National does not deserve to be our government. They are the one party that seems most capable of self destructing on stupid statements.
Of course, Labour is not exactly an alternative. I do not want a group of people that steal my money for their own benefit as a government. No thank you. Even though I understand there is still a group of people who see liars and cheaters and thieves as their ideal government. But they’re mostly comprised of fools.
So who is left? The Greens and their demonization of religious groups and their own brand of communism? Winston Peters and his duality? Peter Dunne and the other opportunity poodles?
Is there NOBODY left with the integrity and wisdom to lead this fucking country?
About the only two parties left seems to be the Maori Party and ACT.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Loose lips sink ships!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Has Owen Glenn released his policy (via his Labour Party puppets) wrt long term ownership of Kiwibank yet?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:15 am
National has to stop being spooked by the Labour Party on these issues. I do not have a quick fix. But a starting point may be new capital for SOEs can come from the sharemarket. And sales including partial sales can have a significant mum and Dad component and I do not rule out some direct sales to Kiwi saver and Cullen fund. Now that is modest policy and if National cannot work towards that in the second term then far too much ground is being conceded to Labour.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Of course it should be sold. What’s so scary about that? The whole premise of it’s existence is borne out in its pathetic “us against the world” advertising. Are the ad’s designed to attract hippies and communists to open an account? It’s a bank for chrissake!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:28 am
yes..wasn’t the most ‘brilliant’ of weekends for you..was it..?
(here we are at monday morning..and it is pretty much ‘custard’..eh..?..)
and..
“..Why not own New World also?..”
yes indeed..
..an idea just slightly before its’ time there..dpf..
..as the implications/impacts from the international economic ‘crisis’..(clarks’ first use of the ‘c’ word..on telly this morning..)
..that may well be a ’solution’ we will be forced to turn to..
..some form of de-facto state-support of the production/distribution of basic foodstuffs..
..may well be a bridge we will have to cross..
..and i dunno if this is the first you’ve pondered this..d.p.f..
..but..d’yareckon ‘polling’ might at some (getting closer and closer) time in the future..
..be deemed to be not that ‘essential’..?
..to much..?
..by the way..did anyone see espiner on tv (breathlessly) repeating my calls (for months now)..
..of how clark will run her campaign..?
..like it was ‘news’..?
..maybe he needs to read whoar..more..?.
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 8:53 am
What a stupid thing to say. Bill English is starting to make the VDS make sense when they go on about ’secret agendas’. Now making the loony-tune tabloidly paranoias of the VDS appear credible, has to be the hall-mark of a moron. I mean that takes a rare skill for ineptitude, which suggests that English is in the wrong business. Period.
I apologise to the VDS for my rather stupid tendency to be taken in by the National party, and will certainly read their posts about National’s secret agendas with a more informed eye in the future.
Tosser.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am
“demonization of religious groups”
Eh? ‘The Bretheren are a sneaky bunch of so and sos’? Or something else?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am
“demonization of religious groups”
Eh? ‘The Bretheren are a sneaky bunch of so and sos’? Or something else? The use of the word ‘fundamentalist’?
August 4th, 2008 at 9:08 am
philu: I find your use of… in comments makes them very difficult to read.
“.some form of de-facto state-support of the production/distribution of basic foodstuffs..” fairly sure that’s been tried and resulted in long queues and starvation.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am
“And it can be no surprise that as Bill voted against the establishment of Kiwibank, that he doesn’t see any long term reason for keeping Kiwibank – why should the state own a competitive trading enterprise? Why not own New World also?”
There is something seriously wrong in this country when small government is something to be ashamed of.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
“..What a stupid thing to say. Bill English is starting to make the VDS make sense when they go on about ’secret agendas’. Now making the loony-tune tabloidly paranoias of the VDS appear credible, has to be the hall-mark of a moron. I mean that takes a rare skill for ineptitude, which suggests that English is in the wrong business. Period…”
yes..my theory on this is that english is playing ‘the long game’..
..in that..a key defeat would mean key would bow out of politics..
(..does anyone really think that key..with his squillions..would stick around for another three years of the series of small humiliations that are an opposition leaders’ lot..?..)
so..for english..a key defeat wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing..
eh..?
and then of course..there is that (smelly) question hanging around national..
..of just who leaked those emails to hager..?
..that brought down brash..?
..was that another ‘long game’..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 9:38 am
DPF said: Why not own New World also?
Well, that’s an idea! The supermarket duopoly is a law unto itself re food pricing, and there is no real competition (just as the banks largely operated as a cartel before Kiwibank entered the market).
Kiwibank has proven popular and successful, and in doing so has defied the predictions of the National Party. But National would sell it off, for purely ideological reasons. The secret agenda is starting to reveal itself.
Re the supermarket duopoly, I think there should at least be a Commerce Commission inquiry – similar to that in Australia. Maybe we need the Telecom solution here.
Pascal – as for the “Greens and their demonization of religious groups …”, please remember that it was the Exclusive Brethren who entered the fray at the last election by telling a pack of lies about the Greens in a widely distributed pamphlet and being deceptive about who they actually were while doing it.
The Greens attacked the Exclusive Brethren for what they did on that occasion, not for their religious beliefs. Actually, the Greens are more religiously tolerant than any other political party. Sue Bradford negotiated specific clauses [sections 23 and 24] into the Employment Relations Act to provide exemptions from union coverage and union entry into workplaces on religious grounds at the specific request of the Exclusive Brethren.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Pascal asks,
…….”Is there NOBODY left with the integrity and wisdom to lead this fucking country?”
..and then goes on to answer his own question.
“About the only two parties left seems to be the Maori Party and ACT.”
What I see is that Pascal wants the perfect leader in an imperfect world and in a far from
perfect political system, and in an environment that is loaded with hypocritical scum.
Just push for a change that is an “upgrade”. Don’t settle for more of the same or anything less.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The Exclusive Brethren told, if you analyze the statements and base it off publically available material, the truth about the Green Party and their policies. Zentiger did an impressive, factual analysis of the points at the tame with full references to Green Party press releases, speeches and so forth that showed how those conclusions could be made given what the Green Party had said.
Even the Green Party came out and admitted that some of their points were valid. The reason the Green Party went after the Exclusive Brethren was because they told the truth. Their agenda was exposed.
The Greens are nothing more than authoritarian communists who wants to see the free world shutdown and controlled. Note your references already to wanting to look into supermarkets.
Edit: You can search for Zen’s analysis and make up your mind. I know I’d trust an honest analysis above Green Party spin any day of the week.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am
>The whole premise of it’s existence is borne out in its pathetic “us against the world” advertising.
Why should I care that NZers own a bank? Or worry that non-NZers own a bank? Is this some racist thing that I don’t understand, with Australians replacing Jews as the people to hate because they’re involved in finance?
August 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Toad
Its a bit bloody rich for you to accuse anybody of having a secret or hidden agenda, how about you tell us your secret agenda?
Or is accountability only for right wing parties?
I do agree with you that the Greens attacked (persecuted) the EB for what they said about the Greens (all factual by the way) and not for their religious views but even you should be able to admit that the level of persecution was/is ridiculous, you would not put up with anybody attacking any other minority group in a similar fashion.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Am not happy with Bill English over recent months – is he still bitter that he did not re-get the leaders role ? Sometimes his comments, or lack of them at an appropriate time, give me the impression that he is REALLY not behind John Key. Disappointing but I would have expected his perceived support to be better. I do not believe that he will ever re-get the leaders role so why not get over it and enjoy the day.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Absolutely, Pascal and Big Bruv. Toad can get away with these slanderous claims about the EB simply because the MSM went into kneejerk demonisation mode and gave the Greens all the benefit of the doubt and the EB, none. Who were the people spreading the lies here?
Here’s an excerpt from Michael Bassett’s column at the time; “ELECTION DIRTY TRICKS”, which says it all:
“………..These days the media are equally selective about their angles with stories. The point about the Brethren’s attack on the Greens was not whether Don Brash knew it was going to happen. Clearly he was given no specifics. They told him they’d attack Labour, so his initial surprise at discovering they were behind anti-Green leaflets is understandable. What really matters with that pamphlet labelled “Beware” is whether its contents are true. Nowhere have I seen or heard any media analysis of this. Instead journalists chased Don Brash. So I took a quick look at the Greens’ website. In amongst a weird assemblage of nostrums and nonsense about bikes and windmills I discovered their rebuttal of the Brethren. The Greens label the Brethren’s assertion that they would introduce a capital gains tax on family homes “an outright lie”. Yet immediately following that declaration they say that a capital gains tax “could reduce interest rates and house prices”. Hello? How come if homes aren’t affected? Who’s telling lies? Same with the pamphlet’s warning that Greens would spend big on “uneconomic and novel” public transport schemes. The rebuttal calling this another lie is again undermined by what they say. One thing is certain: the Greens have trouble with the meaning of words.
Why did the media last week hound the Brethren and Don Brash when they ought to have been examining the pamphlet’s contents? After all, in politics and journalism one is meant to focus on the message, not shoot the messenger, however odd he might be. I think I discovered the answer when I noticed that the trade union covering many journalists purchased half page advertisements in the dailies attacking the National Party. It’s plain old bias. Our world has changed from the days when papers backed National editorially, and Radio NZ, and TVNZ were scrupulously neutral with reporting. Now virtually all journalists, no matter their inexperience, parade their bias. Have Aunty Helen’s frequent phone calls to them, and her invitations to junkets on the 757 when she travels, turned New Zealand’s once robust Fourth Estate into government lap dogs? Let’s judge them by their own standards: 24 hours after Labour’s state house “eviction” notice misinformation surfaced last Friday, no one had investigated which ministers knew what about it. Dirty tricks aren’t dirty tricks if played by Labour.
Someone needed to blow the whistle on the Green cavemen and women who want to share Labour’s bed after Saturday. If the media wouldn’t do their job, who can blame the Brethren for trying?”
August 4th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I’m sure most banks would find themselves successful if they were bankrolled by a Government that just funds pet projects to make sure they don’t go awry. When do taxpayers start getting back all that money Muppet Anderton poured into Kiwibank?
August 4th, 2008 at 10:11 am
And more from Michael Bassett:
The Political Outlook in 2008: A speech given in
Waiuku, 22 February 2008
EXCERPT:
“………..Controlling the parameters of political debate is something that this government excels at. Helen Clark spends a prodigious amount of time managing public opinion. Her principal acolytes are young, mostly female journalists. Deep down, they regard her as a kindly aunt or big sister, and they happily cooperate, especially when any government critic can be dismissed as politically incorrect. Ministers get away with turning the discourse into playing the man, not the ball. A recent example: when Murray McCully embarked on a footling line against Kordia’s involvement with cell-phone towers in Myanmar, Helen Clark dismissed it by abusing McCully. Another issue: the emigration of skills that has reached serious proportions, is often dismissed as the exit of anti-Labour voters, and therefore a matter of no consequence, or even cause for celebration. Jim Anderton’s early promise to entice them all home has been long forgotten.
On a grand scale, nothing illustrates better this general tactic of playing the man, not the ball, than the brouhaha over the Exclusive Brethren. You will all recall their leaflets at the time of the 2005 election. I am more politically alert than most, but I missed them when delivered, and I had to painstakingly search through my waste-paper bin to find them. They would have had no impact on voters until Labour gave them legs. I analysed the one on the Greens, checking it against their manifesto. I concluded that all but one of the Brethren’s comments were fair. Did any newspaper, radio or TV journalist dissect any of those pamphlets? Not on your Nelly. To their eternal shame, journalists meekly took their lead from the Prime Minister who attacked the pamphlets’ authors, and their religion, never dealing with the issues they had raised. We now seem to inhabit a world where no one can debate things in a manner that Helen Clark doesn’t approve of. I know of three cases recently where bona-fide Labour Party members who have written or said something publicly that the Beehive didn’t like, have received phone calls or emails from ministers telling them to pull their heads in. When someone the government disapproves of appears on something as harmless as National Radio’s Jim Mora Show, Beehive apparatchiks send emails protesting. I’ve seen the messages. Newspaper articles by critics of the government activate a Beehive letter-writing tree. In Auckland Jenny Kirk, her husband Owen, her brother-in-law Jeff Saunders, and at least half a dozen others rush into print with letters to the Herald, the contents of which have a common origin, the Beehive. I possess a Ruth Dyson email urging her supporters to protest about me to the Christchurch Press……..”
August 4th, 2008 at 10:13 am
And more from the same speech by Michael Bassett:
“………..Since 1999 it has become clear that Labour doesn’t believe in contracting out anything – except parental responsibility. This government funds an army of social workers while the problems get steadily worse. Now we are told that police will soon be attached to schools, acting of course in loco parentis. The notion that state-paid agencies can adequately substitute for parental responsibility must be one of the greatest fallacies of modern times. Yet Labour Party branches are full of representatives of the “caring industries”. Their livelihoods depend on a willingness to keep contracting out parental responsibility. Labour has locked these people into its electoral coalition at the expense of the wider welfare of society. A social work army dominates Labour these days. Making up the rest of the voting coalition are many of the recipients of Working for Families. The government will try to frighten them all this year with an up-dated version of “Don’t put it all at Risk”. Meantime the underclass that Labour has helped to create will continue to inflict untold damage, at huge expense, on the rest of us.
The point of my rave? The centre right will have to win across, or neutralize, the expanding voting group of carers. It won’t be easy. Phony statistics will continue to be produced by in-house researchers and friendly so-called academics, arguing for more resources to keep doing on an ever-wider scale, the sorts of things that have helped create the modern underclass. No one seems to care that it gets bigger at a time when jobs are plentiful. The underclass keeps Labour’s hard-core activists busy.
How can we bring social issues into focus?
The National Party seems to understand the difficulties it faces in a world where their opponents set the parameters of debate. Of course there has always been a large part of National that believes in regulation so long as National does the regulating. Those of you who were inspired by Nigel Lawson’s visit, and who have gone on to read his View from No. 11, will know that the so-called Conservatives in Britain have that same wet patch in the middle of their bed. Don Brash made a valiant effort to break out of Labour’s intellectual prison. But too many National supporters happily let him be crucified.
There’s a gender issue that must be confronted. The polls show that women are more likely to vote Labour. They are often the secondary earners in their household. Many work in the caring industries; the hours are congenial. They are wary of change. However, if you think carefully about the social collapse that is taking place, there will in the foreseeable future be jobs for them; they’ll just be differently focused if work for a benefit becomes a requirement as it has in other parts of the world. Yet, despite Judith Collins’ best efforts, there is a cautious note to National’s social policy. Welfare reform was a Brash issue, some National people regard it therefore as tainted.
In other words, Labour has been so successful at confining the debate that crime and social dysfunctionality don’t look like they will feature this election. Nor does education that is dear to every good parent’s heart. Politically correct curricula abound, but on most things, including student loans, National has meekly fallen into the me-too school. It’s another example of Labour’s extraordinary capacity to determine the battlefield.
As an electoral strategy I suggest there are perils in me-tooism. Labour is now suggesting that National must possess secret agendas that they aren’t declaring. That chorus could well become deafening by election time. There is a risk of clumsy off-the-cuff responses. Don’t forget: the left are masters at scary plot theories and demonology……….”
Hear, hear. Keep working at that Horowitz, DPF………..
Oh, and by the way everybody, DO look up the whole speech. It is superb.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Here is a link:
http://www.michaelbassett.co.nz/articleview2.php?id=180&yh=2008&yl=2007
The Political Outlook in 2008: A speech given in
Waiuku, 22 February 2008
Michael Bassett
August 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
philu, if you think it’s a great idea for government to be put in charge of the food supply, move to North Korea and tell me how hard it is to get your hands on a sandwhich whenever you want. eh?
August 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
uh oh..!.
incoming alert..!
.a spam-attack from phil-the-copier..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Exactly PhilBest. And they will do the same thing this election campaign. In fact, it has already started as per the above misinformation campaign regarding what Bill English had said.
Any bets the responses to this will end up attacking the messenger again?
philu:
Hey, dipshit. At least he provides information rather than meaningless drivel laden with punctionation. If you are too intellectually weak to read that volume of text without a smattering of … inbetween every word then that’s your fucking loss.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am
“The supermarket duopoly is a law unto itself re food pricing, and there is no real competition ”
Bzzzz! Wrong Toad. Competition between Progressives and Foodstuffs is rampant. Ever been in a PaknSave on a Mad mondy, cheap as tuesday or wacky wednesday?
Ever noticed the rapid changes in prices in a single day on some items when one supermarkey finds out what the other one is offering at the same time? Ever wondered why supermarkets don’t announce their specials for the next week until the very day they happen or give prices over the phone? No Toad, never probley even thought about it did you? The usual Green party idelogical bullshit line: “its all a giant private enterprise consprisy, the state can give us competition”
August 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Wot Bill said.
ENGLISH: The basic point is… We spend a lot of time on this. The basic dynamics of it are… you look at it from the punters point of view – they’re saying they don’t like the government, and Clark, they took all this frickin’ tax off me and they spend billions of it, and it went on What’s Up badges and websites and bullshit
NATIONAL DUDE: Yeah
ENGLISH: They got a bit fat.
NATIONAL DUDE: Yeah.
ENGLISH: And all our work tells us they’re pretty keen to keeping the bit they’ve got. And we call them Labour-plus voters – and they’re sitting there thinking “that nice man Mr Key is pretty smart – he’ll get me a bit more.” They’re not saying “that nice man Mr Key will take something off me” – they’re saying “he’ll give me a bit more”.
And the reality is if we had been the government with the surpluses they had, we would have had something, like working for families, but not the same. We would have given them quite a bit of cash back. And what happens is – you go in there to try and change it, frankly Don and co got a bit carried away, cos they didn’t understand it. If you give people money then, it is very hard, there’s a set of inevitable problems. It’s like physics, right. If you push something up its gonna drop. If you give people cash, you have high marginal tax rates. OK, that’s it. You can’t get round that. Don thought he could but he couldn’t. So did John, actually – but you can’t. So the only – the raw choice is: fix the problems; or take money off them. And there’s no way you can fix the problems without taking money off them. So we’re sitting here saying the punters are keen to keep it. They’re facing a recession. The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying “Mr Key’s taking money off us”. You can’t do that.
NATIONAL DUDE: Yeah.
ENGLISH: So later on we’re gonna have to have a bit of a sort out. Yeah, we’re gonna do something, but we can’t do it now.
NATIONAL DUDE: What about selling Kiwibank?
ENGLISH: And actually, we just have one guy with a spreadsheet. And it’s bloody complicated.
NATIONAL DUDE: I’m sure you’ve Lockwood Smith’s spreadsheet…
ENGLISH: Oh yeah yeah, it is.
NATIONAL DUDE: What about getting rid of Kiwibank, I mean…
ENGLISH: Well, eventually, but not now. Well, its working. A lot of our supporters get a bit antsy about it, but its working. It’s like a lot of things…
http://08wire.org/2008/08/04/bill-englishs-gaffe-in-all-its-glory/
August 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Actually, who cares? No, this is an over-simplification.
Labour had no intention of setting up Kiwibank on its own initiative, it was something foisted on to Labour by Jim Anderton.
There are two issues that are of concern about banking in general:
1. availability of a low cost basic transactional banking service especially for beneficiaries and the less well off.
2. availability of credit (overdrafts, credit cards and mortgages) at reasonable cost.
Kiwibank has achieved these objectives to some extent, but basically the issue is one of to what extent the Government wishes to ’subsidise’ banking services.
Prior to Kiwibank, it seems that there was an ‘underclass’ of people who for whatever reason could not open a bank account, even a highly restrictive one where the risk to the bank of default or fraud was minimal. These banks were probably delighted to have a bank of last resort on which to unload their undesirable customers, but in the process ‘desirable’ customers have walked too.
If indeed the major banks are operating (or would operate) as an oligopoly where profits are significantly greater than if market forces operated properly (and I do not mean ‘cut throat’ competition that denies investors a reasonable turn with respect to risk), then Kiwibank may be worth keeping in public ownership. I suspect at present the return to the Government falls somewhat short of what would be a’reasonable’ return for a bank to make. A very left wing government would blatantly use Kiwibank as a vehicle to ‘deliver’ subsidised mortgages and personal banking services. This would have been part of Jim’s vision in forcing Labour to set it up, but the Alliance melted away and the political clout for subsidised services no longer is there.
The fundamental issue is how to address ‘market failure’ problems with banking. If a National government can satisfactorily address such issues (or potential issues) in its first three years, then a case to ditch Kiwibank would start mounting. However it may be that there are sufficient ‘natural oligopoly’ characteristics with banking that ‘market failure’ issues cannot be overcome without a government sponsored ‘model bank’ sitting in the market place.
National is philosophically right to question whether the Government should be in ‘retail’ banking but it definitely needs to defer it its potential support base on the Kiwibank issue – this means finding means of overcoming peoples’ itches and irritations with banks, noting too that there is irrational thinking. It is interesting that Labour has continued to use Westpac as its retail banker and has not shifted the business to Kiwibank, or in the alternative require the Reserve Bank to re-establish retail banking to service government agencies (prior to Rogernomics the Reserve Bank provided retail banking services to government agencies within Wellington and the BNZ to local and branch offices elsewhere).
As for me – some years ago BNZ re-jigged their fees structure which really gouged me, so I walked to Kiwibank.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
“..“The supermarket duopoly is a law unto itself re food pricing, and there is no real competition ”
Bzzzz! Wrong Toad. Competition between Progressives and Foodstuffs is rampant. Ever been in a PaknSave on a Mad mondy, cheap as tuesday or wacky wednesday?..”
bullshit..!
that’s just nibbling away at the edges of the profiteering going on under this duopoly..
..we are being screwed..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Hey DPF
Better watch out, I am sure Labour have a secret agenda to nationalise your blog if they win the election.
It seems they want to own Kiwi-Everything
August 4th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Thanks cha! interesting
August 4th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Pascal said: The Exclusive Brethren told, if you analyze the statements and base it off publically available material, the truth about the Green Party and their policies.
Jeanette Fitzsimons’ analysed the EB statements against Green Party policy at the time. Of 15 statements, 7 were outright lies, 7 were half-truths, and just one was completely true.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Concerning supermarkets comment – although there are only two major players, it is far easier to set up a food retail business than to set up a bank. You can probably set up a reasonable size niche food business for $1M, but you would need tens or hundreds of millions to set up a modest bank. Hence, although it seems that supermarkets are in a position to gouge, they must ceaselessly watch their backs for impending competition. For starters, there is The Warehouse who can easily get into the food business. I remember years ago when Woolworths first got into food – they set up mini-supermarkets in their general merchandise stores, until in due course it became separate businesses. The main grocers then were 4 Square, IGA, GHB and various others, there were no big format supermarkets until Foodtown, Otahuhu opened, followed by one at Takanini which had such a slow start that there was talk of it closing.
The convenience stores are also competition despite their significantly higher prices – the smaller the price differential, the more people will use convenience stores.
Hence I doubt that there is ‘market failure’ in the food business to the extent there is in banking.
Dairy products are a special case – local picing is tied to international pricing, and no amount of intervention except Government subsidies will alleviate this.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Toad, you need to look past the politicians spin and go delving for the truth. If you’re simply going to accept the word of the group who instigated this campaign for their own self interest, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. The below is quoted from ZenTiger.
I would strongly recommend that you do not simply swallow whatever the Green Party tells you and to actually engage your mind, read the evidence and then see that it is not quite as simply as the Green Party wants you to think it is. You do have the capacity to think for yourself. Go read the analysis for yourself. It is fully backed up with sources.
You’ll see the only people repeating the same spin you’ve so easily swallowed are either Green Party members or Labour Party members. And both of those groups have a vested interest in keeping the truth hidden.
Go read what Michael Basset wrote based on his analysis as well.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Thanks Pascal I was trying to find that analysis,-
What a load of hollow dribble-Toad
Your claim about Jeanette Fitzsimons – is like saying we don’t agree with what the Labour Party are saying about National because John Key refused it and said 7 things were lies and 5 things half truths etc. What a load of bollocks you claim.
That doesn’t prove a thing the test is whether it is independently scrutinized even by the media if properly researched and then see if the EB’s were right or wrong .
I think the analysis here is rather cut and shut. –
So why are the Nats still so scaredy cat of the EB’s – they state the facts and they obviously cared more for our country than we realized and they paid for it themselves!!!
August 4th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
polemic, I suspect they are so scared because the Green Party and the Labour Party managed to turn the Exclusive Brethren into a political demon for speaking the truth. Unfortunately the media were pushed and prodded by those two parties and their lies have now managed to gain the impression of truth in the eyes of the public.
They used propaganda and the scapegoat of a religious minority to whip the general public into being afraid of “big money” and “National Party bagmen” and whatnot. They carefully distorted events and have built it up to such a degree in the public mind that undoing it will be almost impossible.
In essence, their lies have become a part of popular culture and an accepted truism.
Look at their most recent exploits regarding Key, English and Kiwibank. Look at Bradford and S59. Just look at almost anything they’ve done over the last 9 years. It is part and parcel for those two parties to attack anyone who exposes their hidden agendas and to build an image of lies around them. I’ve got to hand it to them, they are masters at such forms of deception though. They know the value of propaganda and exploiting people’s fears.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Why not own New World also?
Heh, yea or Air New Zealand, or Orcon, or Timberlands, or Meridian, or Genesis.
Oh wait. :-/
August 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Polemic, and Pascal. You guys are simply the top of the class in the whole of Kiwiland. Now, if we can just get another couple of million people out of the grip of the Orwellian Ministry Of Truth that is our MSM……….I think we need to start a movement. Or perhaps it is already there and it is called, the ACT Party………
August 4th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Philu, on supermarkets and the supply of food to the poor, I recommend the article, “The Road To Nowhere”, by David Horowitz. Here is one VERY, VERY relevant excerpt:
“………Impervious to the way the unobstructed market democratizes wealth, the New Left had focused its social scorn precisely on those plebeian achievements of consumer capitalism, that brought services and goods efficiently and cheaply to ordinary people. Perhaps the main theoretical contribution of our generation of New Left Marxists was an elaborate literature of cultural criticism made up of sneering commentaries on the “commodity fetishism” of bourgeois cultures and the “one-dimensional” humanity that commerce produced. The function of such critiques was to make its authors superior to the ordinary liberations of societies governed by the principles of consumer sovereignty and market economy. For New Leftists, the leviathans of post-industrial alienation and oppression were precisely these “consumption-oriented” industries, like McDonald’s, that offered inexpensive services and goods to the working masses — some, like the “Sizzler” restaurants, in the form of “all you can eat” menus that embraced a variety of meats, vegetables, fruits and pastries virtually unknown in the Soviet bloc.
These mundane symbols of consumer capitalism revealed the real secret of the era that was now ending, the reason why the Iron Curtain and its Berlin Walls were necessary, why the Cold War itself was an inevitable by-product of socialist rule: In 1989, for two hour’s labor at the minimum wage, an American worker could obtain, at a corner “Sizzler,” a feast more opulent, more nutritionally rich and gastronomically diverse than anything available to almost all the citizens of the socialist world (including the elite) at almost any price.
In the counter-revolutionary year 1989, on the anniversary of the Revolution, a group of protesters raised a banner in Red Square that summed up an epoch: Seventy Years On The Road To Nowhere. They had lived the socialist future and it didn’t work.
This epic of human futility reached a climax the same year, when the socialist state formally decided to return the land it had taken from its peasants half a century before………”
August 4th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
And here is a link to the whole article:
“The Road To Nowhere”, By David Horowitz.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/The%20Road%20to%20Nowhere.htm
Anyone who likes reading up on their historical political analysis, this is one of the best things you’ll ever read. Philu: you’ve got all day. Please, instead of more frivolous mockery yet again, read it, and tell me if, and why, you think Horowitz is wrong.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Pascal said: If you’re simply going to accept the word of the group who instigated this campaign for their own self interest, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. The below is quoted from ZenTiger…
So Jeanette Fitzsimons is supposedly biased because it’s was her party’s policies that were being commented on (in her opinion, lied about) by the EB. But ZenTiger is an independent and disinterested commentator!!! I can feel a Tui ad coming on, Pascal.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
toad:
Let’s see. What does Zentiger have to gain from an accurate analysis of the Green Party policies? At most a bit of blogosphere credit. What does Jeanette Fitzimmons / Green Party have to lose from the Exclusive Brethren analysis of their policies? And what possible interest could they have in deflecting what was warranted criticism?
Don’t let your political bias cloud your thinking, Toad.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
phil-the-inferior..
..why do you keep banging on about the soviet union..?
..you had may as well be talking about the time of charlemagne..
..both as relevant to now as each other..
so..you hate the soviet union..we get it..!
w.t.f. does the soviet union have to do with a modern/current humanist/green political agenda..?
(as just one example..)
you seem somewhat mired in an hysterical mid-50’s reds-under-the-bed/mccarthyist mindset..
..i think things have moved on since then..eh..?
(and reading horowitz makes watching paint drying seem compelling..
..eh..?)
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
“w.t.f. does the soviet union have to do with a modern/current humanist/green political agenda..?”
Just how drunk are you right now, phule, that you can’t see the connection/similarity between the ideology that failed so horribly in the Soviet Union and the ideology that is driving the “humanist” political agenda?
August 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
OK, philu, it was you who started an argument between Statism and free enterprise regarding the supply of food to poorer people. If you can’t or won’t see the relevance of Horowitz’ remarks as I quote above, most other people will. I rest my case.
EDIT; oh, well said, Kimble, I missed that as I was writing this.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
no..i can’t see the ‘connection’..
plse explain/elucidate..
i consider myself a deep green vegan humanist..
..what this means is protection for the environment..other living creatures..other humans..free speech..etc..etc..
..how you can attempt to wed this to a mega-polluting/human rights destroying state dictatorship..
..is sorta beyond my ken..
..and leads me to the conclusions..that those who attempt such contrived connections..
..don’t really have a clue what they are talking about..
..and seem to have an audio/comprehension issue..
..when they interpret support for communal/co-op actions..
..as evidence of planning another gulag…and a restoration of the soviet union..
..here in lil’ ol’ new zealand..
i mean..w.t.f. is the dairy industry..?
if not a ‘commie-co-op’..?
(which incidentally..has more of those polluting etc soviet-style abuses going on than any gathering of greens..eh..?
..however you view it..there is no connection between a modern/humanist/liberal/social democrat belief system..
..and the abuses of that failed soviet union..
so..if you could clarify what you see as these connections..?
..i may well be able to disabuse you..as to the errors of your conclusions..
this is a conversation that is well overdue..
..you lot seem to have that false-connection..as a ‘given’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
“And it can be no surprise that as Bill voted against the establishment of Kiwibank, that he doesn’t see any long term reason for keeping Kiwibank – why should the state own a competitive trading enterprise? Why not own New World also?”
Because its profitable and because it creates pressure and competition on the banking sector to the benefit of the New Zealand consumer, economic performance and competitiveness?
Supermarkets are unlikely to enter into unofficial cartels like banks can.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
natural party of govt:
Petrol stations and their supply chains?
August 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
If the government entering into the petrol station business would be both profitable and help reduce petrol costs why on earth should they not do it?
CEO of Consumer NZ thinks so too
“Kiwibank plays a significant role in keeping mortgage rates down and has kept some of the bigger banks from closing their branches outside the cities, said Consumer New Zealand CEO Sue Chetwin.
She said if Kiwibank was sold to an off-shore company, the internationally owned banks would have “an even more cosier relationship then they do now”.
“Kiwibank mainly targets more modest or low income people but it has actually been very competitive in what it does,” Ms Chetwin said.”
August 4th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
What a beat-up on TV3. Lead story. Apparently any disinclination to rule out a sale of Kiwibank at any time 3+ years out is now regarded as a confirmation of an intended sale. Absolute bollocks.
What’s more 100% of the off-the-street interviewees was aghast at the impending sale (like it was confirmed..!). And this is somehow a major policy conflict between Key and English.
This is the MSM seizing on this minor matter to try to bring some bad-press equity to National after the unfolding sleaze that is Winston Corruption Peters, Owen Glenn etc. Must be hard for the MSM to be judicious like this. So little beat-up content on National that they’ll probably need leap on difference in Keys’ & Englishs’ favourite jam flavours to ‘create’ conflicts to report on
August 4th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
no,,getstuffed..
this one has ‘legs’..
that should run all the way up to the election..
the next polling after this will confirm this..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 4th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
“..what this means is protection for the environment..other living creatures..other humans..free speech..etc..etc..”
So you’re a National/ACT voter then phil?
Hallelujah mate, you’ve seen the light at last…
August 4th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
as in..dismantling the resourses management act..(all to help wide-boy developers torape the environment..
to ’sort it out later’..how ‘to take away’ from workers etc..the rest of us..
eh..?
yeah right..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 5th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Come on, the Nats were a bunch of mugs to take any help from the EB.
A religion which it seems only has white members attacking a political party in NZ and then being surprised at the results of trying to play big
boys games.
They were damn lucky they only had a crack at a soft bunch like the Greens.
So will National take help from the EB this year, if they did nothing wrong ?
August 5th, 2008 at 1:06 am
So in other words TV3 were desperate for a lead story… sad. I am glad that taxpayers will one day be out of the business of running a bank. Soon we will also be free from running an airline, a train net work and anything else that we are forced to pay out of our wages each week.
Why do Kiwis trust politicians, most without any business skills or experience, to buy and run businessess that could be run by experts – and are already run by private interests. What is our fetish for Kiwi branded state operations?
Taxes are not a right, they are a privilege – and yet Labour think we should be priviledged to have our own money.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:05 am
It’s about time the government got out of the business of running businesses.
Kiwibank should be sold. So should plenty of other state owned assets.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:03 am
natural party of govt:
You could then argue that all enterprise should be in the hands of the state, because they can use our taxes to fund these businesses a competitive advantage. The government has a few core responsibilities:
1. Safety and security of it’s citizens across the world
2. Ensuring diplomatic ties and negotiating agreements on behalf of it’s citizens
3. Providing infrastructure (To a degree)
4. Providing a social safety net for people who have temporary setbacks and need assistance
The government is not there to make a profit. It is not a free enterprise. It is simply a vehicle through which we, as New Zealanders, communicate and negotiate with the world.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:32 am
“..What is our fetish for Kiwi branded state operations?..”
institutional memory of being totally screwed over by previous ‘privatisation-experts/advocates’..?
..could go some way to explaining this..
oh puzzled heine..
(does that help..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
August 5th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надёжный оплот!
Партия Ленина — сила народная
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