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@reprobate said in NZ Politics:
@victor-meldrew said in NZ Politics:
Thanks. I wasn't commenting, more interested in how the media in NZ approached this topic and if there were "acceptable" or "unacceptable" religions/religious views which could or would be challenged.
It's pretty much a no-no in the UK to go into a politician's religious beliefs or question if it might impact their political actions and just wanted to see if NZ media were different.
Yeah, some people would shy away from that line of questioning I guess. But then minorities in NZ get minor positions where basically nobody cares too much, and I don't think a muslim back bencher would get much more or less grief than Luxon previously.
Well we know the answer to that because there is Muslim backbench MP and the press has been uniformly soft and effusive. Nobody asked him about his views on euthanasia or abortion, let alone homosexuality.
Get the top gig and you're going to get all aspects looked at much more closely though, so it is pretty hard to draw comparisons because the minor religions ain't getting close to the top job.
Personally I say grill all of them on their beliefs, because I think it would be pretty absurd to think that people's beliefs don't influence what they are going to say and do - and for an easy example, the oppression of women is one of several religions favourite things, and fuck that shit.One question I'd like to ask the critics is this: Given Abortion and Euthanasia are now irrevocably legal, exactly what Christian beliefs do they think Luxon would use his position to legislate on? Or is it simply that he would have voted against those things and that's unacceptable? If it's the latter that would be interesting because Cabinet Ministers Nanaia Mahuta and Damien O'Connor voted AGAINST the Abortion Legislation Act 2020. Cabinet Ministers Michael Wood, Poto Williams, David Clark, Damien O'Connor and Ministers Phil Twyford and Meka Whaitiri all voted AGAINST the End of Life Choice Act 2019. There are obviously factors other than Christianity that influence why people vote the way they do. But out of all those reasons, voting that way because you are a Christian is apparently an unacceptable one.
I suspect it's because Labour MPs who vote their conscience are doing so out of principle, while National ones who do the same are evil.
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@booboo said in NZ Politics:
@ploughboy said in NZ Politics:
they have moved on from religion today and on to the fact he owns 7 houses
Financial genius. That's a plus.
reeked of politics of envy to me. He's successful; he's run a massive airline and been senior in major businesses. The fact that house prices have exploded in the last few years isn't his fault.
Tall poppies. Same with Key; there seems to be a media presumption that wealthy people are inherently evil
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
@booboo said in NZ Politics:
@ploughboy said in NZ Politics:
they have moved on from religion today and on to the fact he owns 7 houses
Financial genius. That's a plus.
reeked of politics of envy to me. He's successful; he's run a massive airline and been senior in major businesses. The fact that house prices have exploded in the last few years isn't his fault.
Tall poppies. Same with Key; there seems to be a media presumption that wealthy people are inherently evil
There also seems to be this weird left wing belief going on that landlords are evil, which is related to this topic.
If we wan competent or even successful people to be attracted to poltics, they will be competent and, well, successful. In CL's case, he wants to focus on education, upskill the people and get people paid more so they have more choices.
And, well look at that, he knows how to to achieve that personally!
Better experience than working in politics all your life.
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on Luxon and wealth, I kinda understand it because I had the same belief growing up as a lefty. I think it's actually (funnily enough) rooted in some weird Christian puritanism.
When I started working it took a mate to really challenge me on my presumption that wealthy people weren't inherently good people. There is a shedload of charity that goes on from wealthy people too; Bob Jones being critiqued recently by Ricardo Menendez March about being anti-immigration, and him then disclosing the ongoing charity to immigrants he has been doing for years. Wealthy folk often provide massive support to charities and the arts/culture scenes, often on the quiet.
Anyway, it's life in NZ. We're in a weird place where we've broken the social contract with people to work hard and get ahead, and now we're left with a growing group that society has failed. You can call it inequality, but I don't think it's actually the top end that's the problem, it's the bottom that needs to be supported and lifted out of tough tough lives. There is a real issue with working poor in this country, who work damn hard and still struggle to make ends meet.
Our national productivity is a disgrace; we've been going backwards for years and 'brute forcing' the economy with more hours and immigration is not solving the problem.
Now we're in a low infrastructure, high cost of living, about to be high interest rate economy, where normal people can't afford housing, inflation is going nuts, and people are busting guts to just stay afloat. I don't like it, and it's the fault of successive governments to put us in this situation. I don't have an easy solution, but I am deeply concerned for our communities.
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@taniwharugby I read that. Horseshit isn't it? No matter how good Dr Reti is, if he can't win the next election then none of his other talents matter, and the assessment of his peers is that he doesn't do the politics very well.
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@jc said in NZ Politics:
@taniwharugby I read that. Horseshit isn't it? No matter how good Dr Reti is, if he can't win the next election then none of his other talents matter, and the assessment of his peers is that he doesn't do the politics very well.
and doesn't want the job. He's be great if he wanted to - but not his bag by the look of it.
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@nzzp housing and immigration are the major keys here.
NZ added over half a million people in the last 10 years through immigration alone (highest per capita in the oecd). Whilst we added little in terms of infrastructure and have horrendous city planning. This has exasperated the housing crisis where rentals are impossible to find now. It has also allowed our industries acces to cheap labor and thus they had less incentive to invest in more productive means. It has bloated farm prices as these farms costs have been reduced through cheap labor.
Housing is the golden goose in nz where few investments could match a highly geared property portfolio. Now this is a self fulfilling prophecy, why take high risk trying to create a productive business when you can buy more properties. Obviously that's on a spectrum but newzealanders by in large a far too keen on property which creates little real new value(existing) but has added billions in debt. I believe in the last couple of years it has finally started to weigh down the economy, which we will feel harder in a year when interest rate rises hit the market fully. Disposable incomes will plumet unless wages increase dramatically.
The sad thing is so much is reliant on the property industry it is very much too big to fail. It is a very hard problem to fix now. I think John key had the best opportunity after aunty Helen did some great damage.
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@jc said in NZ Politics:
@taniwharugby I read that. Horseshit isn't it? No matter how good Dr Reti is, if he can't win the next election then none of his other talents matter, and the assessment of his peers is that he doesn't do the politics very well.
It would be repeating the mistake of putting English in as leader. A very good MP, but a flat leader.
The contrast between Luxon and Reti's speeches in the last week was striking.
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@kirwan said in NZ Politics:
@jc said in NZ Politics:
@taniwharugby I read that. Horseshit isn't it? No matter how good Dr Reti is, if he can't win the next election then none of his other talents matter, and the assessment of his peers is that he doesn't do the politics very well.
It would be repeating the mistake of putting English in as leader. A very good MP, but a flat leader.
The contrast between Luxon and Reti's speeches in the last week was striking.
English wasn't the most energetic leader but he did bloody well in that election. If Jacinda had any morals at all she would have also told Winnie to go fuck himself, but she had a lust for power so formed a dysfunctional government with a far left and a far right party instead.
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@muddyriver said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp housing and immigration are the major keys here.
NZ added over half a million people in the last 10 years through immigration alone (highest per capita in the oecd). Whilst we added little in terms of infrastructure and have horrendous city planning. This has exasperated the housing crisis where rentals are impossible to find now. It has also allowed our industries acces to cheap labor and thus they had less incentive to invest in more productive means. It has bloated farm prices as these farms costs have been reduced through cheap labor.
Housing is the golden goose in nz where few investments could match a highly geared property portfolio. Now this is a self fulfilling prophecy, why take high risk trying to create a productive business when you can buy more properties. Obviously that's on a spectrum but newzealanders by in large a far too keen on property which creates little real new value(existing) but has added billions in debt. I believe in the last couple of years it has finally started to weigh down the economy, which we will feel harder in a year when interest rate rises hit the market fully. Disposable incomes will plumet unless wages increase dramatically.
The sad thing is so much is reliant on the property industry it is very much too big to fail. It is a very hard problem to fix now. I think John key had the best opportunity after aunty Helen did some great damage.
Adding economic growth through the easy route of rampant migration has been the go-to of the Australian government too. With the exact same ramifications for property and infrastructure. Unfortunately the politicians seem tone deaf to the calls to massively restrict migration and the economic deadweight of investing in existing housing.
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@no-quarter don't they all have a lust for power? as in that's the name of the game no?
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@paekakboyz said in NZ Politics:
@no-quarter don't they all have a lust for power? as in that's the name of the game no?
Most do, but not so much English, he actually seemed like a good person.
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@taniwharugby said in NZ Politics:
Reti seems very capable. But I don't think he has shown he has the personality to lead. Will make a good MoH though
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@paekakboyz said in NZ Politics:
@no-quarter don't they all have a lust for power? as in that's the name of the game no?
Labour were right to try to grab power. Why not? I blame that political cockroach Winston Peters for sending us down the rabbit hole. We have a government who don't really know how to get things done. And after losing power the Nats lost a lot of talented MPs and descended into the dumpster fire they are now
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@ploughboy said in NZ Politics:
they have moved on from religion today and on to the fact he owns 7 houses
Yeah, I thought those articles were bizarre. I mean, shock horror, kiwi man who had enormous salary invested in property. It's not even seven houses either, aren't at least two of them commercial buildings?
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@canefan said in NZ Politics:
@taniwharugby said in NZ Politics:
Reti seems very capable. But I don't think he has shown he has the personality to lead. Will make a good MoH though
He's definitely very capable, but he doesn't come across as a very engaging speaker. He didn't fill me with confidence in that presser about Collins being rolled. Kinda reminded me of at school when the teacher picked the non-confident kid to thank the guest speaker in the classroom or something.
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@aucklandwarlord yeah I went to an event a couple of years back where he was one of the speakers (fortunately went before Grant Fox and Glenn Taylor rather than after) and he does seem to struggle with delivery and tone, cant fault his passion, but being a great orator just doesnt come naturally to some.
Still hope for Nats sake he stays near the front
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@muddyriver said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp housing and immigration are the major keys here.
NZ added over half a million people in the last 10 years through immigration alone (highest per capita in the oecd). Whilst we added little in terms of infrastructure and have horrendous city planning. This has exasperated the housing crisis where rentals are impossible to find now. It has also allowed our industries acces to cheap labor and thus they had less incentive to invest in more productive means. It has bloated farm prices as these farms costs have been reduced through cheap labor.
Housing is the golden goose in nz where few investments could match a highly geared property portfolio. Now this is a self fulfilling prophecy, why take high risk trying to create a productive business when you can buy more properties. Obviously that's on a spectrum but newzealanders by in large a far too keen on property which creates little real new value(existing) but has added billions in debt. I believe in the last couple of years it has finally started to weigh down the economy, which we will feel harder in a year when interest rate rises hit the market fully. Disposable incomes will plumet unless wages increase dramatically.
Unfortunately that's an economic fallacy that is easy to believe. In the medium to long run disposable incomes don't increase if you increase wages dramatically. The wage increases tend to trigger an inflationary cycle that at best maintains the disposable income in real terms. For the working poor it will usually decrease their already limited disposable income. A more accurate statement is that disposable income will plummet unless productivity increases dramatically. There's no getting away from the fact that NZ is a low productivity economy.
The sad thing is so much is reliant on the property industry it is very much too big to fail. It is a very hard problem to fix now. I think John key had the best opportunity after aunty Helen did some great damage.
It may be too big to fail, but even if it wasn't you'd likely still have over-investment in property. Sometimes economically it helps to look for the negative space. In this case if people didn't invest in property what would they be investing in instead? Forget ROI, is there any onshore, in-market alternative out there that even offers inflation-proofing?
NZ Politics