Defendants facing serious charges were among those given a $75 Prezzy Card for attending meetings in Hawke’s Bay courts to share their court experiences and ideas, and to “re-imagine the District and Family Court” in the region.
What a great idea. Pay criminals to share their experience on how they think the courts should work.
The ministry didn’t know how many attendees were defendants or victims.
The forecast of a potential surplus in four years is wishful rather than realistic. Even if forecasts of the economy in four year times were accurate, the assumptions are a level of fiscal discipline that the current Government has shown it is incapable of achieving.
The more useful numbers are what will happen this year, and probably next year.
Treasury are saying that in the year just ended we will have a massive $10 billion deficit and in the current year an even larger $11.4 billion deficit. Debt in just two years will go from $71 billion to $100 billion.
In my adult life I have seldom watched TV. My kids grew up, by and large, without it – sometimes with comic effect when one of them saw a shark show once and hid behind the couch. We had some 12″ fossil TV (bought in 1986) that we never turned on. Except that I woke up on September 12, 2001 and for no good reason I fired it up. I could not believe that some idiots had programmed on some terrifying movie about planes flying into skyscrapers. It probably took me 5 minutes to click.
In the subsequent years I have been to the WTC Memorial three times and the Pentagon Memorial on one occasion (after a very moving walk around Arlington Cemetery). All of these places are overwhelming and the best I could do on each occasion was to note one name and later look them up to grasp something of the humanity.
When we think of events like these we tend to load in the names, faces and impressions of the major players. Many NZers have a pathological distaste for the USA and at a US government level there are some reasons for that. However, having travelled there many times for family reasons I can say that I have never had a bad experience and have met so many brilliant, positive, welcoming and generous people. We have so much to learn from their higher education system just for starters. At the “ordinary person” level – as well as the spectacular scenery, wild-life, etc, it is a beautiful country.
The two pieces of media that follow remind me most of the importance of Joe Lunchbox. C.S. Lewis was right – there are no ordinary people. So, when we walk down the street or bump into people on struggle street remember there never was, is or will be a human “River of Filth”.
This one is contender for the greatest speech of all time:
It’s become hard to believe that Labour’s fibs about National and Act were mistakes. It looks more like a planned campaign of misinformation executed so badly that Labour got busted.
Clearly, Labour has got desperate. They’ve run out of every other strategy. Policy hasn’t worked. The big one was supposed to be GST off fruit and vegetables. They’re so embarrassed by it they barely talk about it anymore. Hipkins hasn’t worked. He’s now neck and neck with Christopher Luxon in polls. Going dirty is all Labour has. And it’s probably not to win the election, but just to keep the polling high enough to save the furniture. On current numbers, they stand to lose about half their MPs.
Going dirty is not a good strategy though. Telling fibs, calling Act racists, making excuses for their union buddies buying attack ads on Luxon can backfire.
Sure, some voters will hear the fibs and not hear the corrections and will be freaked out enough to flip away from the centre-right and back to Labour.
But there are plenty of other voters who will see the desperation and nastiness for what it is and find it sad and ugly. It’s especially bad for Labour because it’s so off-brand. They’ve just pushed the “Be Kind” schtick for five years. It’s whiplash-inducing to go from Jacinda hugging everyone to Chris’ troops spreading misinformation on Facebook with a brazenness that would make the anti-vaxxers blush.
If Labour’s going to lose, it’s probably better to lose with dignity than to lose dirty.
Hipkins, while appearing like a competent and normal human in more traditional political settings like Parliament and broadcast interviews, appears stilted and awkward when pretending to be normal in public. The campaign, alas for Hipkins, is showing up his flaws and Luxon’s strengths.
What an interesting description.
Things will get worse tomorrow, with the release of the Pre-election Economic Fiscal Update forecasts from Treasury, which are likely to show a gloomy outlook both for the Government’s finances and the economy at large, ideal mood music for the centre-right.
The focus shouldn’t be on the mythical projected surplus in four years time (which would require Grant Robertson to actually restrain spending) but on the current year and next year. I suspect they will be quite nasty.
National has announced five health targets for a National-led Government. They are:
Shorter stays in emergency department – 95% of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
Faster cancer treatment – 85% of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat.
Improved immunisation – 95% of two-year-olds receiving their full age-appropriate immunisations.
Shorter wait times for first specialist assessment – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months to see a specialist (target to be set in government).
Shorter wait times for surgery – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months for surgery (target to be set in government).
The last National Government showed that setting targets and publicly reporting on them does work.
In 2008 only 70% of ED patients were “seen” within six hours. By 2014 it was 94%. Today it has dropped to 78%.
In 2008 only 76% of two year olds were fully immunised. National got it to 93% and it has dropped back to 83% today. Even worse the rate for Maori two year-olds has dropped to 67% from 93%.
With cancer waiting times, National inherited 65% starting treatment within four weeks, and got it to 100%.
It’s time for a Government that is willing to be accountable for health outcomes.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ office has been ordered to apologise by the Chief Ombudsman for breaching the Official Information Act.
In a formal finding that has not been made public until now, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has upheld a complaint by the Herald about a weeks-long delay in the release of government documents relating to the extreme flooding in Auckland earlier this year.
The rebuke follows Hipkins’ comments in May that he “absolutely expects” ministers to comply with the disclosure rules after Willie Jackson failed on several occasions to meet the obligations imposed by the OIA.
Chris Hipkins is increasingly sounding like Jacinda Ardern used to in her longer form interviews, saying a whole lot without saying much at all.
Gone are the days of candid answers, personable musings, a willingness to consider – in the heat of the moment – policies that would make a material difference to Kiwis.
There’s a very good reason for this – and it’s written across his usually comic book-cheery face – Hipkins is worried.
In fact, a shocking revelation from Hipkins in our interview on Tova – Labour has been dropping below 30% in its own internal polling. And more than once.
’ve been told from within the Labour caucus that senior political staffers, even ministers are considering their next moves – they think it is over for Labour.
In one of the clearest displays of optimism, Auckland Light Rail has contracted to buy the prominent Kiwi Bacon Building for $33 million, even though National has promised to scrap plans if elected next month.
Doing such a deal weeks before the election is irresponsible and looks like trying to force a new Government to keep them going, due to sunk costs.
Labour produced attack infographics (L) slamming National for wanting to cut assistance to disabled people that didn’t actually exist and that Labour had never promised, only allowed people to mistakenly believe it had (R)? pic.twitter.com/APoZzW764r
So Labour claimed it was providing half price transport to disabled users, when it fact it wasn’t, and even worse did attack ads claiming National would take the half price transport away.
If only the Disinformation Project even focused on the Government, rather than those who challenge it. But of course as they are Government funded ….
A special arbitration panel found Canada breached trade rules by using administrative complexity to prevent importers from accessing the market.
The dispute centred on how Canada used dairy tariff rate quotas under the Comprehensive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – a free trade deal signed in 2018 among 11 nations in the Asia Pacific region.
This is great news. This is the benefit of trade agreements – they have a mechanism to ensure countries stick to their commitments.
New Zealand exporters could face nearly $100 million in tariffs if the Government forges ahead with its Digital Services Tax (DST).
Often dubbed a “Google Tax”, a DST targets large offshore tech companies whose complex tax arrangements often mean they pay little tax in jurisdictions like New Zealand.
The Government is part of an OECD process to create a global framework for taxing the these tech giants fairly, but has reserved the right to implement a DST if those international efforts fall through. A DST has been on the agenda since at least 2019.
Last Thursday, the last sitting day of Parliament, it pulled the trigger, introducing legislation that would levy a 3 per cent tax on the revenue of firms that make over €750 million ($1.373 billion) a year from global digital services and over $3.5m a year from digital services provided to New Zealand users.
A unilateral tax on revenue instead of profit is unfair and should not be done. We should work through the OECD process rather than do an unprincipled unilateral tax
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is quietly confident Treasury will show the Government meeting its fiscal rules, which require a surplus to be forecast in the next four years.
Treasury independently forecasts whether there will be a surplus or not, but the Government has input into whether it wants to increase or reduce spending to achieve one. It releases those forecasts next Tuesday when it opens the books releasing the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update.
Hipkins said he was confident that the Government’s decision to trim $4 billion in spending over the next four years would be enough to hit a surplus, despite a recent downturn in the economy which saw corporate tax revenue in the year to May come in $2b below budget forecasts.
A forecast path to surplus in four years time is about as useful as a bridge to nowhere.
If one had confidence the Government could keep to its spending track, then it might have credibility. But let’s look at what Labour said in 2019 with its wellbeing budget what it would be spending in 2023?
They said core crown expenses in 2022/23 would be $106 billion or 28.8% of GDP. In reality it looks to be $128.2 billion or $22 billion more than they said they would do. As a % of GDP is is 32.5%.
So trying to tell us that we may get back to surplus in four years with Labour is reliant on us thinking a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government would be far more restrained in its spending that the current Government!
They won 46 electorates at the last election. So on this poll, even if they lose 12 electorates, they would get zero List MPs.
Even if they lose 16 electorates, they would only get in on the list Robertson, Tinetti, Verrall and Jackson. They lose Prime, Rurawhe, Little, Parker etc.
If Labour dropped below 26%, there would be a risk of overhang where they win more electorates than their share of the party vote.
We gave serious consideration to the current structure of the select committee system, and the way that the membership of select committees is determined. Much of this consideration was focused on the control that parties in Government can exert over select committees under the current system.
The ACT Party and the Green Party both suggested making the membership of select committees proportional to the non-executive membership of the House. The effects of that approach would vary depending on the make-up of Governments, but overall, it would generally result in parties not in Government having a majority on most or all subject select committees. Arguments were put forward both for and against this approach. It was argued that non-Government majorities on select committees would improve legislative and financial scrutiny. We also considered the reverse—that select committees with non-Government majorities might undermine the system’s performance of its legislative function, which is widely considered a strength of the current system.
We also considered a proposal from Chris Penk MP for the membership of all select committees to be evenly split between parties in Government and not in Government, as well as a proposal from the Clerk to fundamentally restructure select committees into a system of paired legislation and scrutiny committees under which governing parties would have a majority for the consideration of legislation, and parties not in Government would have a majority for scrutiny of the executive.
I quite like this proposal from the Clerk. So you would, for example, have an Education Legislation Committee which the Government would have a majority on, but also an Education Scrutiny Committee which the Opposition would have a majority on. So the Government could still get its laws through, but the Opposition would have the power to actually hold inquiries, summon witnesses, scrutinise decision making more.
This list below was compiled by a reader (not someone I know). This is why Labour has gone negative, rather than campaign on their record. It is a litany of failure. Feel free to share:
Multiple recessions under Labour in this term of government (2020 & 2023) and another forecast now for 2024.
30,000 more people on surgery wait list than when Labour came into power.
25,000 on Kāinga Ora’s wait list currently without a house, tripling in size since Labour came into power.
Over the past 2 years, the average mortgage has increased by $1000 per month under this government.
2023: 19,000 nurses have left the profession in the last 5 years under this Labour government. In 2017 it was under 3000 leaving compared to 5000 leaving in last year – a 65% increase in nurses leaving.
In 2016, retail crime was 25,000 per year, in the 3 months to the end of April 2023, there were 45,046 retail crimes reported (equates to 180,000 per year) = a 620% increase. 70% of the crimes are not even being reported. In 2016, police attended 1 in every 2 crimes compared to only 1 in 10 now. In 2016 the arrests were 20 times higher, now the arrests are only 2.3% meaning that over 97% get away with it. Police retail crimes unit only has 8 staff.
Labour introduced state funding of pre-sentencing reports to reduce criminal sentences.
2023: NZ hospitals are short of 7136 full time workers, Auckland alone needs 1128.
August 2023: The IMF now forecasts NZ will have the second worst economic growth in the world next year, just edging out Equatorial Guinea (which has been ripped apart by civil war).
Labour keeps trumpeting low unemployment figures, however Carmel Sepuloni from Labour announced in parliament on 31/8/23 that since 2017 there are 52,404 more people on job seeker support and 34,872 on it for more than a year.
NZ total net wealth has been falling for five successive quarters – having peaked in December 2021 at $2.43 trillion.
Announced in 2017 the promise by Labour to build 100,000 homes – by September 2023 only 1834 built, or 1.8% of that promised. At this rate it would take Labour 332 years to hit their own target.
Patient organisations declare medicines crisis in New Zealand – New Zealanders’ ability to access new and breakthrough medicines lags well behind other comparable OECD countries, with New Zealand dead last, ranking 32nd in a list of 32 OECD countries for public funding of medicines.
Against every economist’s recommendation, Labour proceeded with election bribe to remove GST on vegetables.
MYOB survey found 64% want a change in government and only 21% backed Labour. The number of businesses backing Labour has dropped from 38% in 2020 to just 15% now.
August 2023: There are 50 accused of homicide & 70 accused of kidnapping or abduction who are out in the community on bail with ankle bracelets; which can be wrapped in tin foil to bypass the monitoring allowing them to freely roam around the public.
In 2023 Labour drove NZ into the worst Current Account Balance in the OECD, just like what they did in 2008 when handing over to National.
August 2023: Number of children waiting longer than 4 months for hospital treatment has jumped by 600%.
Te Whatu Ora staff say a year after new health regime changes only 11% have seen an improvement while over a half say things are worse.
12.5% increase in the cost of food in the year to June 2023.
NZ has the highest OCR rate in the world, 2nd highest splash of cash per head in world over last few years.
140% increase in serious assaults on what it was in 2017, 60% increase in metal health crisis callouts, 70% increase in gang membership, over 500% increase in ram raids and aggravated robberies, record levels of assaults on police while the 4th police minister in 12 months defends gang members to wear patches.
10,000 school-aged kids are not even enrolled at a school. If the schools don’t enrol them… The gangs certainly will.
Some GPs have a three-month wait for non-urgent appointments. Too bad if you need a medical for a driver’s licence.
Number of Kiwis living in cars has more than quadrupled since 2017.
Sixty-four percent of Kiwis, across all ages, believe New Zealanders are more divided than ever.
2023: 5,500 teachers quit last year in NZ.
Net debt has gone from $5.4 billion in 2019, to $78.7 billion in 2023 (1357% increase).
Labour has taken away all healthcare targets. Every single healthcare metric has gone backwards in the last five years, even though Labour has increased healthcare spending by 68%.
Tax take in 2017 was $69 billion, now it is $107 billion, an increase of $38 billion in tax every year = over $100 million in extra tax every single day! That’s $17,500 in extra tax per household each year.
Average weekly rent in 2017: $400, in 2023 up 53% to $610. Labours Healthy Homes regulations, massive inflation affecting mortgages & removing interest deductibility have pushed rent prices up record amounts while reducing properties for rent by 19% year ended June, while demand is up 35% (against reduced supply, pushing rents up even further).
211,00 kids living in benefit dependant homes, which is 39,000 more kids than when Labour’s government began 6 years ago.
Labour government has increased consultant spending from $900 million the previous year to $1.25 billion this year – a massive 38% increase, even after Labour increased public service employees by 50,000 since Labour took office.
Stats NZ data showed a deficit of $10.5 billion between export earnings and import costs for the year ended June, the highest annual deficit since current records began in 1960.
Ministry for the Environment CEO flying from Hawke’s Bay to Wellington once a week.
3,500 families live in motels paid by the tax payer, and over 400 families live in cars.
Emergency Department wait times are now the worst in at least a decade, with more than one in five people waiting at least six hours for treatment.
Road maintenance budget is only 78% of what it was in 2012, even though population has increased.
Ram-raids on retailers have soared under Labour, with a more than 500 per cent increase within the first six months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2018. 2022 = 516 ram raids. 2023 = 400 in first 6 months therefore tracking for 800. Recent case before courts of someone committing multiple ram raids where could have been sentence to 20 years in prison resulted in only 7 months home detention with name suppression.
Research by Velocity shows that during 2021 only 10% of investment properties were loss making, by the end of 2022 that number rose to 90% & requiring landlords to top up an average of $30,000 per year to be able to keep the property.
In five of our police districts we have more gang members than we now have police officers.
Ramping hours (Ambulances sitting outside ER waiting to get patients in) went from 3000 hours in 2019 per quarter to 9756 hours per quarter in 2023. Targets of 90% of patients should receive MRIs within 42 days – currently it is 36%, 95% for CT scans within 42 days – currently it is 57%.
Michael Hill has 165 stores in Australia, of which only one has been broken into, New Zealand has thirty-six stores with 44 break-ins.
Cultural reports to reduce prison sentences are written by 3rd parties (who don’t always know the offenders) and paid by the tax payer. These have gone from 8 in 2017 to 2,400 in 2022. Harry Tam (life member of the Mongrel Mob) has created 140 of these reports and charged $3500 for each one.
Patients waiting for specialists for over a year has gone up 17 fold since 2019.
More than 100,000 students were chronically absent from school.
NZTA has increased staff by 60% in last 4 years (1000 extra bureaucrats).
70% of NZ businesses have no confidence in this government to steer them through the economic down turn.
Domestic inflation is up 6.3% and has a higher weighting than trade based inflation.
In a multi nation survey involving 12000 people, NZ is now ranked 51st out of 52 countries for best place to live, no.52 was Kuwait.
July 2023: Just 22.1% (-2.7 points on last month) of New Zealanders think the country is heading in the right direction while 64.5% (+7.1 points) think the country is heading in the wrong direction. This results in a new record low for the net country direction of -42.4% (-9.8 points).
This was a Government elected to make housing affordable, help those less well off, reduce child poverty, and give us a kinder, more united society. On every front, it could not have failed more profoundly.
316 foreign entertainers, including 64 DJs, were fast-tracked through MIQ in 2021. Taxpayers have spent $1.2 billion on MIQ – $660 for every household in the country.
Stating that we will be front of the vaccine queue versus being the slowest in the OECD to roll it out.
25% drop in prisoners, just ‘let out’ doing community sentences, while there has been an increase in offending against prisoner officers. Record low number of offences resulting in prison sentences in last year representing an overall decrease of 44% under Labour.
Savings report from Finders that looks at savings data across all the OECD says NZ will record the second to lowest savings in the world at -0.2% (only Poland is lower) compared to the average of +7%, showing how bad the cost of living crisis is.
For more than three decades, the Swiss Institute for Management and Development (IMD) has compiled annual rankings of competitiveness for 63 of the world’s most important countries. Back in 2017 when Labour took power, New Zealand ranked #16 – ahead of Australia at #21. Five years on, New Zealand has fallen to #31, while Australia is now ranked #19. Over the past few years, we have plunged in economic performance, falling from 22nd to 47th place. Government efficiency has also deteriorated markedly from 7th to 17th place. Consumer confidence in New Zealand now stands at the lowest level since Westpac’s Consumer Confidence survey began in 1988. And, perhaps most damningly, for the first time, a majority has a negative 5-year outlook on the economy.
Jamie Ngatata Love – 3rd strike law removed by Labour resulting in his sentence for armed robbery reduced from 10 years to 18 months, with 138 previous convictions.
Day Jacinda resigns, news pushed aside of food price inflation data released showing the highest rate of increase in more than 30 years.
Doctor GP waiting times are now 5th to bottom of OECD countries (38 countries). Access to GP’s is the first thing to go in a failing health system.
Emissions have increased and the importing of coal has more than tripled for year ending June 2022 compared to year ending 2017 – all after Jacinda declared climate change is her ‘Nuclear free moment’.
Farm conversions into forestry in 2013 = 1, under Labour: 2022 = 31 due to carbon credits incentives, 2017 = 695 Hectares, under Labour 2022 = 18,000 Hectares. At the same time Labour calling foul on amount of slash washing away bridges etc & killing a child in East Cape.
Government car fleet grown 16% for past 3 years and 1000 of them are petrol or Diesel, their stated ambition on being EV by 2025 is a joke.
Public sector managers have been growing at nearly twice the rate of frontline workers since the current Government came to power.
Nearly 5000 New Zealand nurses have registered to work in Australia since August 2022. As of March 4th 2023, only 1 nurse has arrived from overseas to NZ.
Burglaries crime stats: 49% under 18 years old, 51% of those did not face court action. 112 between 0-17 arrested received a family group conference – that’s it. Most was just a formal or informal warning. 94 didn’t receive any consequence whatsoever.
Much of the bad luck is the result of Labour’s own actions. The Reserve Bank only agreed to the inflationary $100 billion money printing programme after the Labour Government gave a taxpayer guarantee. Labour is recklessly running a deficit at a time of over-full employment. Borrow and spend always results in bust. The bank has no doubt that Labour’s borrowing to spend is inflationary.
IMFs 2023 outlook forecasts New Zealand will have one of the lowest GDP growth rates and one of the highest inflation rates in the Asia Pacific region in the coming years. In their projections for GDP, NZ’s current account balance is reported as -8.6 percent of GDP, worse than Greece’s at -8.0 percent, in 2023. NZ was one of the best GDP performing countries in the world, now we are bottom half of advanced countries in the world with the worst current account deficit of all of them.
Frontline police told to ‘consider necessity’ of bail arrests as NZ’s largest prison nears capacity.
Core Crown Revenue since 2017 is up 334% (never taxed us more), while Core Crown Expenses has gone up 596% (day to day expenses which do not build physical assets for the Crown), net Core Crown Debt has gone up 482% (borrowing). Can’t run your life like that but Labour are running a country like that.
April 2023: The number of households in emergency accommodation for more than 2 years has doubled in the last year. Over 20,000 looking for help with housing. Now at 65,000 state houses. 3 weeks was the average time in emergency accommodation in 2018, 2022 = 21 weeks, March 2023 = 26 weeks.
Passport power rankings – NZ passport has dropped out of the top 10 in the world to 17th in the world under Labour.
May 2023: 68% of NZ businesses think economy is poor or very poor.
Labour has failed to protect our children from preventable diseases and viruses. From the end of 2017, the immunisation rate of children aged 24 months was 92.4 per cent. Compared to the end of 2022, that number has dropped to 82.9 per cent.
11/5/23 In an attempt to tackle the truancy crisis, the Government funded 82 new attendance officers, so far, even though considered urgent, only one is working. Only 46% of students attend school regularly.
International assessment (PEARLS) of New Zealand’s year 5 reading ability – lowest score it has ever been – half of 15 year olds can’t pass the standard test. Math gone from 4th in world to 27th.
2023 May: Survey question on if you became ill whether you are confident you will receive the care required = 50.7% said no.
Inflation is eroding the incomes of the hundreds of thousands of families who receive Working for Families tax credits, leaving them with less support in some cases than when the Government introduced the families package in its first 100 days.
During the cost of living crisis, Labour thinks it is a priority to spend money on changing road signs to be bilingual, meantime Labour decreased police funding to tackle out of control crime and not enough money to fix the chronic state of health care.
Number of attacks on police has almost doubled in last 2 years.
Reported crime increased in the last year in Auckland over previous year by 26%, Wellington increased by 25%, increased Christchurch by 41%.
Patients waiting for surgery to be asked by Te Whatu Ora if they still need operations to help tackle backlog.
June 2022: When Labour got into power there were approx. 450 prosecutions each year for benefit fraud, now there is only 60 for the past year, not following up as much and prosecuting.
Under Labour the number of fleeing drivers since 2020 doubled due to the failed ideology of not pursuing fleeing vehicles, resulting in a backflip on the policy. Also due to Labours soft on crime stance and reducing prison numbers by 25%, the tax payer is having to fund smoke canons and bollards to private businesses; and at the worse time, during a cost of living crisis and record debt & inflation.
Labour failed to intervene with the closing of Marsden Point, and we now see the results. Roads are falling apart, bad batches of jet fuel are causing chaos for airlines, and food manufacturers are suffering from a shortage of CO2. And all that’s been achieved is to make our national emissions accounts better at the expense of Indonesia – no emissions reduction whatsoever.
80,000 public submissions opposing Three Waters were not only ignored by Labour, they then tried to sneak entrenchment through.
In December 2022, NZ 13 year-olds recorded their worst-ever score in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.
Labours Police Minister Ginny Andersen telling Kiwis they feel safer under Labour while crime is soaring and an overwhelming 67 per cent felt either more concerned or much more concerned about being the victims of crime compared to five years ago.
Net loss of people moving to Auz: 2014 to 2019 net migration loss of 3000 per year to Australia, from 2022 March to 2023 March that number is now a net loss of 31,630 from NZ to Auz according to the Australian bureau of statistics.
More than 200,000 New Zealanders were sitting on a health-related wait list at the end of July 2022; more than the entire population size of Hamilton.
Labours continuous attack on landlords now infiltrating our court decisions – tenancy tribunal will not evict tenants that owe a landlord 97 weeks’ worth of rent ($62,238.90), instead allowed to stay in rental and pay it off at $30 per week over next 40.5 years.
A woman whose broken bones were put in plaster without being reset…. There was no doctor on hand to do the job… So they just plastered her up as best they could.
People waiting longer than four months for their first appointments with hospital specialists has grown from less than 1000 under National to almost 30,000 under Labour.
Labour ministers Ginny Andersen and former police ministers Poto Williams and Hipkins intentionally deceived and misled New Zealanders saying “1800 new police officers are on the beat” when 270 of them don’t have arrest powers and work predominantly within stations.
The IMF suggested NZs personal income and corporate tax rates could be cut and more disciplined government spending.
Nearly two-thirds of students failed the writing standard in the latest NCEA literacy and numeracy pilot.
Chris Hipkins held a celebration ceremony to open Puhoi to Warkworth motorway when previously mocked by Labour as a ‘holiday highway’ and campaigning against it being built.
MPs breaking rules: Michael Wood (failing to declare a conflict of interest – Auckland airport shares even after being told to sell them 12 times – conflict with light rail to airport & North Shore airport decisions, then shares in Chorus & Spark – conflict with including telecommunications technicians on the immigration green list, and the National Australia Bank shares – conflict into study into the banking industry), Stuart Nash (leaking Cabinet details to donors), Kiri Allan (failing to declare a conflict of interest – Meng Foon paid office & donations when her ministry appointed him), Jan Tinetti (first MP in 15 years to be dragged before the Privileges Committee after admitting to misleading Parliament and clearly failed to fix the record immediately as convention demands), Meng Foon (Race Relations Commissioner failing to declare a conflict of interest after being director of a company that received more than $2 million for the provision of accommodation including emergency housing), Ruth Dyson – admitted she has not read the code of conduct governing her position as a Crown entity board member, regarding tweets promoting Labour and attacking the National Party despite a requirement she remain politically neutral.
Assaults on Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand staff are up 135 percent in 2023 compared to previous year.
Labours transport delivery: record number of potholes, the Cook Strait ferry breakdowns, the Wellington bus network shambles, the 1000 daily Auckland bus cancellations, the track maintenance shutting down chunks of the Auckland train network for years, cancelled more significant roading projects than started (Mill Rd, south of Auckland, Stage 2 of the Takitimu Northern Link near Tauranga, Whangārei to Port Marsden highway, the rescoping of Otaki to Levin), slowed down Auckland by allowing the dropping of speeds on 1600 roads and the $51 million spent on a cancelled bike bridge.
In 2022 there were 9800 incidents of drivers fleeing from police, less than a third of them ended up in court.
There’s been a 120% increase in serious assaults resulting in injury – 13,000 more a year.
Under Labour there has been a 35% reduction in prisoner rehabilitation.
Survey of 140 businesses in Southland region of 20+ employees: 64% are recruiting overseas, 85% are seeking staff right now. (Labour’s change in immigration setting way too late to get staff when required).
Four suspended staff still being paid two years after Oranga Tamariki facility closed with no end in sight as no investigation has been performed on the incident by the staff that caused the closure.
Immigration Service setup by Health NZ in October 2022 to make it as easy as possible for getting GPs into NZ have resulted in zero new GPs 8 months into it.
Labour backed down on an element of its early childhood education (ECE) policy to get providers across the line with extending 20 hours free care to two-year-olds, because they didn’t speak to anyone about it and it was unworkable for the healthcare providers – Labour ‘just knew best’.
Westpac & McDermott Miller Employment Confidence report has employment confidence at its lowest level in 2 years.
While NZ is running a deficit, Australia is forecasting a $20 billion surplus mainly due to allowing the extraction of natural resources.
The open letter in 2023 supporting Labour signed by various wealthy people, celebrities, and former civil servants that called for higher taxes with “We write as people who are frustrated with how much tax we pay. We want to pay more” – not a single person who said they wanted to pay more had made a voluntary contribution since then.
Looks like the $2.75 million tax payer dollars given to the Mongrel Mob by Labour has paid off with Mongrel Mob senior leader Harry Tam endorsing Labour and the Greens for this year’s election, telling his Facebook followers Labour Dunedin MP Ingrid Leary attended one of the gang’s ‘election hui’.
The number of public servants is 28% higher than in June 2017. The economy-wide employment increase was only 12%.
More than 211,000 potholes have been reported on New Zealand state highways over the past five years, 54,000 in last year, and yet this government prioritises things like $7.5 million for 22 raised pedestrian crossings on SH2 in Wairarapa alone and spending $330,000 per speed bump.
Within only 2 months of the May Budget, the Crown received $2 billion less in corporate tax than what was forecast.
Between July 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, Te Whatu Ora fell 16,130 procedures short of its planned volume of 132,469. Only two of 12 areas of care met their targets.
In 2017 when Labour took power, police were able to hit emergency response times within their 90% target, now under 50%. Because the police are so under staffed, the targets have now been pushed out 100% from 20-25 minutes to 45 minutes for emergency response within an urban area, just to make the stats look better.
July 2022 there were 345,807 people on main benefits, 171,195 on Job Seeker, more than 100,000 ‘work ready’ – that is still 23,000 (30%) higher than 2019 – how is that possible with record low unemployment? 55% increase in those on jobseeker for more than a year since 2017, during a time when people are crying out for employees.
While Labour has been fixated on trying to build a $30 billion light rail tram in Auckland, our roads are crumbling. It is going to take Auckland Transport up to a decade to clear the backlog of local road repairs, which currently sits at around 1000 kilometres.
Under this Labour government, gone from 15 (in 2017) to 234 families waiting 5 or more years for answers from Coroners Court. The number waiting more than 3 years for a family court resolution have tripled to 1165, and the average number of days to resolve criminal cases in the District Court has jumped from 114 to 176 days.
Jacinda Ardern made a commitment to rule out “any new taxes”, but she broke her word – repeatedly – despite the Labour majority we have seen: Continued tax hikes by stealth through bracket creep, Introduction of the ute tax to subsidise Tesla’s for wealthy people, Annual tax increases to alcohol and tobacco, The extension of the bright line test, Stopping interest deductibility for rental properties, Increasing the trust tax rate, 10c per litre Regional (Auckland) Fuel Tax. Labour was planning a Jobs Tax where everyday Kiwis earning $60,000 will pay $834 more every year. Any Government Chris Hipkins leads post-election would have to involve the Greens and the Māori Party who both want nothing less than exorbitant tax hikes and new asset taxes.
In 1990 12 countries had wealth tax, now its down to 3 because it doesn’t work. Norway increased theirs recently and it had an adverse effect with wealthy people leaving the country and total tax take actually decreasing. Meantime Labour had planned to introduce one regardless of this failed policy elsewhere and with no mandate to, then flip flopped on it.
Dawn raids continued for 2 years after Ardern promised her apology would be made “in such a way that it’s meaningful”. Not a single person in Ardern’s office ever bothered to check if dawn raids were still happening and order that they be stopped. It is incomprehensible that a Government could be so incompetent as to make such an historic apology without bothering to check whether dawn raids were still occurring and ordering them to stop.
In the last half of the previous Labour-led Government, we lost an average of 30,000 people net per year to Australia, now we are starting to track towards the same number of Kiwis desponded by this government to move their life to another country.
Businesses dealing with government contracts now rate their engagement experience worse than it was 5 years ago in nearly every metric (overall experience, innovative, communication & timing, decision making and perhaps most shocking of all, only half of businesses rated their contract manager as “professional” – competent to do their job).
While Labour has been slow to allow businesses to get the migrant labour they need, they have let in many to do jobs that could have been easily filled by the 100,000+ on job seeker benefit: 60 checkout operators, 88 garden labours, 2 windows cleaners, 11 shelf fillers, 22 luggage porters etc
Since Labour have been in government from 2017, bail granted increased 147% while there has been a 97% increase in number absconding from electronic bail.
July 2023, Canada’s inflation rate fell to 2.8 per cent, and the United States’ fell to 3 per cent. Australia’s inflation is 5.6 per cent, but NZs is still 6+ per cent. New Zealand is now entering its third year of out-of-control inflation – the longest period of high inflation since the early 1990s.
Labour’s priorities have been reducing the prison population by 30%, removing three strikes, funding cultural reports for convicted crims pre-sentencing, and giving KFC to escapee youths.
Labour keeps gloating about the NZ unemployment rate only approx. 3.5 per cent, but what they are not telling us is they are not deemed as unemployed if they are not actively seeking employment. So… the proportion of the working-age population on the Jobseeker Support benefit is 6%. When you include all other main benefits like sickness benefit, it balloons out to 11.7 per cent of the working-age population (up from 9.7% when Labour took office).
Achievement data released shows that just 42 per cent of Year 8 students are meeting curriculum expectations in maths & school attendance has fallen to an unprecedented low. This is an utter failure from a Labour Government that is spending over $5 billion more on education.
University of Otago assistant research fellow with more than 40 years’ experience studying firearm use has written a PhD thesis saying the newly-launched weapon registry is a waste of money. Firearms featured in less than 1.5 percent of violent crime and under 0.2 percent of deaths. Creating a new bureaucracy costing $1 million a week seems expensive when no information has been provided to show its cost-effectiveness, a normal practice before the spending of public money on things like roading improvements and public health.
August 2023: ANZ Roy Morgan survey: consumer confidence at lows of -39%.
Since the Government announced its retail crime prevention fund at the end of May last year, there have been nearly 1,000 ram raids on retailers to the end of May this year.
Under Labours current reign, the Customs minister has changed 6 times, Economic Development minister 5 times, Health minister 4 times, Immigration minister 4 times, ACC minister 3 times, Police minister 6 times, Justice minister 4 times, Emergency Management minister 4 times, Ocean & Fisheries minister 5 times, Work place and relations & safety minister 4 times & Transport minister 3 times – clearly competence is low and turnover is high.
Gross debt figure is now $722.62 Billion, up 47% from 5 years ago.
Labours upgrade transport package in 2020 went against official warnings to leave just $48 million in contingency for a $6.8b transport package – that blunder meant a handful of those roads had to be cancelled and the rest bailed out with an additional $1.8b.
During the 2016 Mount Roskill byelection, Labour committed to funding what was then a $1.36b light rail project to the electorate (the airport bit came later). In 2020, the party decided not to attach a cost to the project in its manifesto. Nearly $100m of consultant spending later and we have a revised cost of $14.6b.
The government collected $78 million more tax than forecast for the five months ended November 2022 while its expenses were up $742m on forecast.
Man jailed for 2.5 years for shooting a picture of Jacinda Arden and in 2021 a farmer found guilty of breaching Regional Council Resource Management Act consents received a three-month prison sentence, when: 1. Matu Reid, who attacked his girlfriend so brutally that she needed hospitalisation, ended up with a community sentence – in spite of already being under supervision for a previous violence offence and being assessed by his probation officer as being at high risk of causing harm to others, who then went on a shooting rampage in Auckland CBD killing 2 people, 2. letting another man have home detection for raping 4 woman, 3. An unprovoked punch by a man deported from Australia on a night out in Queenstown left his victim with a fractured skull and a brain bleed, but the judge handed a community sentence and a fine, 4. Ray Marshall is killed by two brothers, the one who hit Ray in the head several times with a claw hammer got a judge who started off sentencing at 7 years in jail, then reduced it by 70% before reaching an outcome of 12 months home detention.
Nationals Nicola Willis’ parental leave bill to allow parents to take paid parental leave at the same time was passed by every party bar Labour. Some babies come very early. Some are twins or triplets. Some mums get bad postnatal depression. In all of those cases, it could be very helpful to the mum if the other parent is at home helping her for the first three months. Instead, Labour is telling parents what’s best for them rather than letting the parents decide.
No change in access to mental health services despite spending $1.9 billion.
May survey of 1,000 people published by the Herald. It shows two-thirds of Kiwis are more concerned they may become a victim of crime today than they were five years ago. The most revealing statistic is the diverging trend between reported crimes which increased 33 percent between 2017 and 2022, and the 26 percent decline in Police arrests, the 25 percent drop in convictions, and the 38 percent fall in prison sentences.
Year to June 2023 record high of charges against people breaching ankles bracelets (2035).
Federated Farmers latest survey results show 81% of farmers say current economic conditions are bad, and only 29% are making a profit (was 72% last year), and only 3% are optimistic that economic conditions will improve over next 12 months.
The proportion of properties selling for less than they were bought is at its highest level since 2015.
Activity sales level indicator is the lowest ever, global comparisons show NZ is the lowest.
Labour makes another major U-turn – Removal of commercial tax write-offs.
No major road started and finished within Labours 6 years of government, new roading pledge a U-turn & 6 years too late.
Countdown has reported a 663% increase in theft & 300% increase in physical assaults over the last 6 years of Labour government. Countdown is investing $45 million in security, which increases food prices as operating costs are passed on. Foodstuffs (PaknSave & New World) has already said publicly that retail crime is the “worst it’s ever been”.
Number of gang members on home detention (rather than in prison) is up 60% in the last 6 years of this Labour government. Absconding on home detention is up 90%.
Firearms violence has increased under Labour.
Government spending has gone up 40% in 6 years and with no KPIs on the public service, what’s improved? Ministry of Education budget has gone up 38% and we now have some of the worst education results and school attendance. A recent poll (including Labour voters) said education, health, welfare, criminal justice and transport have all got worse since 2020.
Number of people on electronically monitored bail has increased from 495 in 2017 to 2345 in 2013, up 474% under the 6 years of Labour government. 140% increase in police opposition to bail being ignored.
The number of students missing from the education system has almost doubled since October 2021.
Labours fast track immigration processing: Only 20% processed with the 10 day timeframe promised by the minister. Setup to process 3500, only got through 169 with only 1 approved within the first 4 weeks it was open.
Labour have increased government spending by 9% every year for the past 6 years – that’s over 50% increase since 2017. The average government spending increase in the 6 years before Labour became government was 1.5% per year. As if this wasn’t enough, in the 2023 Budget unveiled in May, the Government announced plans to spend an additional 32 per cent over the four years to 2027. This despite the evidence that the tax take is no longer meeting expectations. As a result, the Government is going to have to borrow an additional $15 Billion over and above what was budgeted to see it through the current shortfalls. Labour has taken our borrowing from $60b to $160b in just six years. The current account deficit of NZ, as a percentage of GDP, is now the worst of all the countries in the OECD. International Monetary Fund data projects the NZ economy to have the second-lowest GDP growth in the world in 2024, placing us in 159th place out of 160 countries.
In February 2022, Kāinga Ora announced new policies to deal with the worst offenders, including a termination option if three serious incidents were recorded within a 90-day period. In the 18 months since the measures were announced, only three people have been kicked out of Kāinga Ora properties even though there has been more than 10,000 complaints.
Government rushing to spend money without knowing what taxpayers are getting in return – the Office of the Auditor-General on the $640 million of public money spent on the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF): We are not yet certain that Parliament or the public can have confidence that the investments made through the PGF reset will ultimately represent good value for money, did not see evidence of planning for, or commitment to, an evaluation of the outcomes (money channelled into marae renovations, and Māori and Pasifika businesses).
29/8/23 The last week of parliament saw Labour pass many bills under urgency (usually under urgency is very rare and not very democratic and usually results in poor legislation due to it being rushed):
3 waters amendment
Crown minerals amendment bill
Bus driver pay legislation
Local government electoral legislation bill to encourage equality Maori representation
Fuel industry improvement fuel resilience bill (because of the stuff up with Marsden Point)
Visual artists bill
Land transport road safety amendment bill
Grant Robertson’s ‘transformative policy for the productivity of the NZ economy’ announced in 2017 was fees free policy but it attracted less than two thirds of the projected student numbers so they dumped the promised extension last year.
Every measure of education achievement for students leaving high school is going downhill. Of the 64,000 or so students who left school in 2022, only half attained NCEA 3 or above. A quarter of them left without NCEA 2 – considered the minimum level needed to pursue work or further study – while 15 per cent failed to even reach NCEA 1. These proportions are at their worst levels for several years, while the retention rate hasn’t been so poor since 2009; more than one in five school leavers – almost 14,000 teenagers – left school before they turned 17. Fewer school leavers are enrolling in tertiary education, and as high inflation and interest rates bite into household budgets, more and more teens are working rather than schooling.
You know when a government has no idea on how to run an economy when their primary focus is on new taxes to stunt ambition rather than: inspiring business growth, reducing government spending and attracting international investment (lowest its been for some time). It’s all very deja vu. I wonder how many times we have to repeat the cycle to realise the political left in this country almost always ends up in the same place. High government spending, big fiscal deficits, inflation, domestic recession, big balance of payments deficits, a squeezed middle class – and more people leaving for a better life elsewhere.
Labour deliberately left their hidden agenda out of the last election campaign and prevented the public having any say or vote on them; including co-governance, He Puapua, officially backing & rolling out the unofficial Te Tiriti o Waitangi (including the fabricated intent of ‘partnership’), 3 Waters, Maori Health Authority, TVNZ & RNZ merger, speed limit reductions, removal of public vote on Maori health wards, proliferation of Maori names, The Three Strikes Repeal Bill, fair pay agreement and income insurance scheme. Even when most of these were released under stealth tactics (and most only consulted with Maori – especially constitutional transformation), they disguised the impact of change under a mountain of spin, not what New Zealanders expected when Jacinda Ardern promised that she would run an open and transparent government.
Labours failed ideological projects like the unmitigated cluster of merging the most and least successful Polytech’s into one big sea of mediocrity which is haemorrhaging money and lost over half of its top staff, cycle harbour bridge that didn’t deliver anything with more than $51 million spent on it, the bright-line test extension that didn’t slow house price inflation, the clean car discount to the most wealthy to buy an electric car, the Plain Language Act police, the fart tax to put one in 5 farms out of business, banning using NZ coal to use records amounts of imported dirty Indonesian coal, public interest journalism fund where the public has no interest in seeing extortion used by having to promote the unofficial Te Tiriti o Waitangi agenda & falsehoods in order to get funding, the new history curriculum that divides New Zealanders into victims and villains, shutting down charter schools while school attendance rates have plummeted, cost of living payments to foreigners and dead people, preventing immigration while businesses fail due to staff shortages etc. And that’s before you get to the Covid handling abomination – slowest in OECD to get the vaccines causing unnecessary extension to expensive lockdowns, MIQ lottery & debt, leaked private records, tracing failures & millions spent on Covid app Blue tooth tracking then never used, PCR testing meltdown, slowest in OECD to get RAT tests then confiscated private business imports of them, ‘short & sharp’ lockdown imprisoning Aucklanders for 4 months, saying would never mandate the vaccine then mandating it & persecutions etc.
