NZPA on Labour
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarTV3 has an opinion piece from NZPA on Labour that is good reading:
Labour MPs aren’t saying it, but they must be thinking it: this year’s election wasn’t a bad one to lose.
If the results had been different, and if Labour had managed to stitch together a majority, it would have been a fourth term government facing the worst economic crisis in decades with the Greens, New Zealand First and possibly the Maori Party on its back.
Tax cuts would have been cancelled by now, but even with that Labour would have huge problems if it had won. The Greens and NZ First only care about spending more money – their idea of success is how much money they got for a project. I can only imagine how bad the deficit and debt would have got.
Also in for the chop is what English calls the previous government’s wish-list of unfunded projects, like pouring millions into KiwiRail. That caused cries of outrage from Labour, as have other cost-cutting announcements, but they must know that if they were still in office the calls they would have had to make would be just as hard.
How Labour handles the situation in the next year or two will be important in terms of public perception. With the country in crisis, it needs to do more than groan and grizzle every time the Government says something can’t be afforded.
If it demands a plan from the Government that adapts to a worsening situation, it must produce its own blueprint for economic survival.
If the Government says it has to cut funding and Labour doesn’t like that, it must say what it would do under the same circumstances.
This is the key. Everytime Labour complains about a spending cut, ask them where the money would come from. They have left the incoming Government with the worst set of fiscal projections ever. Are they really going to campaign on how they would make them worse?
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
DPF, you ask whether labour would campaign on how they would make the worst set of fiscal projections in NZ’s history worse, which I think shows that you believe that they would campaign on facts.
Vote:They won’t- they’ll lie about the economy, bullshit about what happened, and downright distort what will have been achieved- and after that they will get really nasty.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Making things up – ins’t that covered in philosophy classes
“Tax cuts would have been cancelled by now..”
Any proof ??, in fact Labour voted for nationals next round of tax cuts, along with amendments that would meant Nationals promise that low paid workers would be better off- which English vetoed.
Quelle horreur that the low paid might need help as well Quelle surprise they got the finger- and thats not made up
[DPF: You are again wrong. Hansard shows Labour voted against at 1st and second reading, and against all parts at committee stage]
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The first thing to go should be contributions to the Cullen Fund which will now be showing a rate of return less than the cost of the money which would have to be borrowed to continue contributions. Perhaps Liabour could produce a plan demonstrating savings by scrapping all the unnecessary ‘Commissions” that have been established with Party Favourites as their Commissioners. Many of their activities should be hands on by the excessive numbers of elected and unelected MPs. Next they should unwind the largesse which the previous Minister of Arts and Culture lavished on those activities because she had the power to do so. Next to go should be most of the Political researchers and Press Secretaries and other sundry unnecessary staff from Parliament itself. We want to hear the facts from the organgrinders not crap from spin merchants. The Tea lady can be retained as essential, and perhaps given a pay-rise.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“The Greens and NZ First only care about spending more money – their idea of success is how much money they got for a project.”
This is because the Greens are a PRESSURE PARTY- it’s supposed to be obvious from their name that they are only interested in particular causes, and what those causes are.
I don’t understand why a seasoned political pundit such as yourself doesn’t understand this or has a problem with it!!
[DPF: That doesn't excuse financial illiteracy. We have run out of money to spend. They need to focus on things that do not cost much money]
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I bet Joe and Jane Sixpack a.k.a reef-fish are already thinking it’s all National’s fault, fondly recalling ‘this never happened under Hulun.’
As time goes by this perception will grow. Facts are quite irrelevant to this demographic and the only thing that can alter their perception is the sort of propaganda campaign that Liarbore waged throughout its execrable term of office. Additionally getting the media to play along is critical and that’s another issue given that, like education, it’s infested with lefties.
One angle that’s interesting to me is the ethical question. To get the truth through to the reef fish we may have to engage in the sort of dirty tricks and disinformation that we all railed against when committed by Liarbore. What I mean by that is that even though we’re only telling the truth, to get the message out we may have to do things like obfuscate certain details in order to obtain cut-through and use the same tactics that Hulun did to build relationships with key media players. The question is, is this unethical? Are we lowering ourselves to their level? My immediate reaction is that the answer is no, I look at it like the tactics used in the disinformation campaign conducted by the Twenty Committee for the Normandy invasion. The cause is just, which justifies the means. Problem is, that justification is exactly the grounds on which I used to criticise the lefties.
Regardless, Stephen Joyce is well up to this job and let’s hope the Nats have already permanently secured John Ansell as well.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Re the running out of money thing – I believe the Greens’ rationale for enhancing the railways is that a even a diesel railway locomotive moves freight at about 20% of the fuel cost per tonne-kilometre of a big diesel line-haul truck.
(A common criticism of rail freight is the “But there’s no Railway Station in my street” objection. This is a fallacy because it completely ignores that if you send a parcel (or even a Pallet) by NZ Couriers, Mainfreight, Bullet Freight, Cardinal Freight et al, it gets carried across town in a van or small truck, to a huge depot where it gets sorted onto a giant line-haul truck that takes it out of town. To another depot where it is transferred to a local delivery van. Not really very functionally different than how the railways do it…)
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
As Cunliffe said in the House
Just to put into practical terms what this means for families, let us take under the Labour and National packages the two families who were mentioned in the Inland Revenue Department’s briefs. Under the Labour plan, Meg and Jack, who are both 35, have two kids. Jack earns $45,000 and Meg earns $20,000. By 11 April they would have been $85 a week better off. This is an average family with two kids. Under National, its poster couple Dave and Diane have three kids. They are earning $30,000 and $50,000, around the same, and are receiving Working for Families. They are $26 a week better off, or roughly $60 worse off than they would have been under Labour. These are official Inland Revenue Department figures.
or as Cullen said
This policy is a tax increase for low-income earners and low-income families. It is a reduction, in terms of incentives, for many people. It is a destruction, in terms of savings, for many people. It is an undermining of private sector research and development. It is a policy for a dumber society,
This is why at the procedural stages labour opposed the details of Englishs plan
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I noticed that even United Future, ie The Minister of Revenue voted against the tax bill in the committe sstages
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Ratbiter at 1.03, that is a reasonable argument about rail, but at the end of the day, it does not matter how much arguments you make about “rail must be more efficient because……..”; what is obvious to even the most obtuse intellect is that rail cannot compete on price, against road transport. That elementary fact means that all the time and motion studies in the world are irrelevant unless they reveal the reason why rail is less efficient; it is absurd to roll out abstruse “proof” based on rolling resistance figures or time and motion studies or whatever, when the dollars and cents just don’t lie.
NZ would be a much wealtheir nation today had millions apon billions of taxpayer money NOT been poured down this bottomless pit ever since the time of Julius Vogel. Even the loans that Vogel arranged to pay for rail construction in the late 1800′s, took nearly a century for NZ to pay off, and in no way did “profits” from the said Railway system make any contribution to that paying off.
I recommend the essay, “Applying Systems Intelligence To Transport” by Owen McShane.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Philbest – The Milk Trains appear to make economic sense…?
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
And back to thread topic, I have said it and said it, that an unfortunate consequence of National’s victory at this time, is that there is every opportunity for the lying socialist scum in the media, to shift the blame for economic outcomes off where it truly lay. I would rather National had stuck to the “far right wing” agenda of asset sales, disposal of Rail and Kiwibank and all non-core-government activity assets, cuts in the size of government, big stimulatory tax cuts, especially in company tax, re-privatise ACC, tear up the ETS, stay sceptical on AGW, go PPP all over the health system, and roading, vouchers in education, scrap WFF, scrap student loans; etc, etc;
OK, they might have lost the election…………So how else were stupid Kiwis ever going to truly LEARN the evils that soft socialism is in the process of bringing apon all of us? Better to spend another 3 years saying “we told you so”, than to get into power after tying 1 and a half hands behind your own back by giving an implicit seal of approval to most of the policies that are responsible for our economic malaise in the first place. We will most likely end in another decade or two of tears thanks to the MSM scum, unless salvation arises from the Labour Party itself once again, like it did in the early 1980′s.
If there is NO core of honest people in the Labour Party who can admit the simple economic realities that confront us, particularly that government of over a certain size of the total economy simply and inevitably takes us all backwards, pity help us when they get back in again, and they will, thanks to the way history is written by the Left and conveyed to the public by the MSM.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I am quite happy with the milk trains, Ratbiter, and any other major use of Rail for freighting anything, as long as it does not require a cent of my tax money in the operation of the service. Truck transport does not require a cent of my money beyond what I pay it for the services rendered in moving goods that I require, Rail should not require it either. Not only that, but Rail needs to be making a profit and paying taxes on it at the same rate as Truckies before they can be said to be on a level playing field.
What is it about Rail that justifies quasi-religious treatment in tax and subsidy terms? And Christian Fundamentalists are accused of being irrational………?!
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Oh yes, and REID SAID IT……….
reid (1457) 1 0 Says:
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
“I bet Joe and Jane Sixpack a.k.a reef-fish are already thinking it’s all National’s fault, fondly recalling ‘this never happened under Hulun.’
As time goes by this perception will grow. Facts are quite irrelevant to this demographic and the only thing that can alter their perception is the sort of propaganda campaign that Liarbore waged throughout its execrable term of office. Additionally getting the media to play along is critical and that’s another issue given that, like education, it’s infested with lefties.
One angle that’s interesting to me is the ethical question. To get the truth through to the reef fish we may have to engage in the sort of dirty tricks and disinformation that we all railed against when committed by Liarbore. What I mean by that is that even though we’re only telling the truth, to get the message out we may have to do things like………” etc…….
Let me finish that, Reid. The Nats or their supporters will have to do things like spending serious amounts of money to get the facts into the hands of Kiwis, if the MSM won’t. Actually, the precedent is already there, courtesy of the Heleban, for government departments to communicate directly with Kiwis by advertising and direct mailing and the like. The Heleban was basically conducting a war on the truth with the aid of both taxpayers money and the MSM. The National-led government will need to conduct a war FOR the truth along similar lines, only they will need to break the MSM’s stranglehold on information, rather than using it as their main ally like any socialist government can.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Just think , if labour had not bought the choo choo train’s we’d have an extra billion in the bank to cover the billion missing from ACC…..
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
“The National-led government will need to conduct a war FOR the truth along similar lines, only they will need to break the MSM’s stranglehold on information”
Yes Phil, the web is the obvious new battleground and getting govt ministers heavily involved in blog debates would be an interesting step in the right direction.
Problem is political blogs escape most of the reef-fish who get their news in light friendly easy to understand dollops at 6:00PM. Attention has to be paid to that aspect too. I’d love to direct the TVNZ board to ignore herewith ALL celebrity news, ALL human-interest news and ALL sport news and use the time saved (about 95%) on in-depth analysis. Unfortunately you’d end up with an audience of about 10,000…
I like your thinking on it being a war FOR the truth, I hadn’t thought of it like that but you’re right.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
jacob van hartog – are you Aidan Smith, flogger of red wine? You seem to be very adept in spouting the Labour Party’s line…
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Cheer up David in some alternate universe Liarbore won the election and the poor buggers in that universe are still suffering under the yoke of oppression. I much prefer living in a universe without the squawking socialists running and ruining our lives, they can squeal all they like who cares they have been castrated.
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Ratty
Vote:I agree that the Railways have the potential to lower the cost of med/long haul bulk/containerised goods as does coastal shipping so the job for goverment is to encourage these without subsidies that disadvantage existing transport systems – I suspect that road transport has a subsidy element already. It does however amaze me that new towns like Rolleston and Pegasus in Canterbury both have the rail lines going right past them but no suggestion from local or national governement that an operator be it local council or private run a commuter service – perhaps a pilot scheme with subsidy for say 2-3 years would demonstrate the feasibility and cost effectiveness over building bigger or more roading to service the commuter.
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
The cause is just, which justifies the means.
Yep I’ve heard that before!!
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Just as well we have people like Jacob, Ratty, et al so we have someone to argue against – although it is often all too easy!
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
labour paid too much for the train set – simple economics
Vote:December 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
But enough about labour more about what next. Will national be able to change things for the better after they promised so much or will they be trapped by those middle of the road we won’t change much but we’re different promises?
When unemployment kicks in next year as this global correction really touches us will national have the back bone to implement real change to our schooling system, welfare, economic and taxes systems or will they embark on a short term think big style plans of infrastructure building to the benefit of a few?
Will they step up and be radical futurists (for a better word) or will they just stick to what they know of farming and tourism?
Vote:December 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 am
As I’ve said before, the opposition seats are a great place to be if you like being a heckler. Promise the moon and face no accountability. And get paid for the privilige.
Luxury.
Vote: