We just need a government that is committed to doing what’s best for the country, instead of one that is focused on maximizing its chance of winning elections.

The Whanganui experiment in asking ratepayers in a referendum what level of rate increases they want with 3 choices is a good starting point and if the council were required to resign on proposing a rise greater than inflation then “Our elected representatives” would no doubt prioritise expenditure more appropriately or risk being kicked out – a win win situation I believe.

National should go back to the level of spending in 1999 when National was last in office, adjust for inflation and population growth, and set spending at that level. The amount that could be returned to taxpayers from doing this would be about $12,000 per family per year.

Sounds good to me.

Democracy perverted by a left wing media who largely project the Labour party view as their default position, and accordingly enthusiastically aided in the vicious demonisation of good men with good ideas.

Someone famous once said “For democracy to work, the population needs to be informed.” (or something like that)

Thats the problem in NZ. The public are continually misled by a cowardly lying partisan mainstream media, yellow so called journalists who are a vile stain on the concept of democracy.

National should go back to the level of spending in 1999 when National was last in office, adjust for inflation and population growth, and set spending at that level. The amount that could be returned to taxpayers from doing this would be about $12,000 per family per year.

Accepting the massive spending increases under Labour and just limiting future increases will not be enough to stop our economy circling the drain.

[DPF: Yes we should hop in the magic time machine and pretend the last nine years have not happened. Just turn the clock back - it's so simple]

The imperative now is to switch resources into the internationally trading sector so as to increase exports and cut imports.

That’s it in a nutshell for me. Call me old fashioned, but real growth will only come from having newly acquired wealth in our pocket, rather than moving the same, tired old tenners from one pocket to the next al la the stimulus package.

I have said this more than once before, and it is not my original idea, that Keynes idea of a “stimulus” was designed in an era when the State took up 10-20% of a nation’s GDP; a “stimulus” on top of this was something proportionlly significant. But countries where the State already takes up 45% of GDP are already at or beyond the point Keynes envisaged a temporary stimulus package taking government spending. What is more, most of that is very low quality spending, and most of it is “entitlements”.

Where an economy is thus already choked in State churn of its wealth, any “stimulus” is going to be of reduced effect, even if it is high quality spending; which largely it is not. The USA is setting a very bad example in this respect. The Wall Street Journal recently called the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus package”; 90% social policy and 10% economic policy. Mark Steyn called it “business as usual, with 3 extra zeroes tacked onto the end…..”