Aotearoa New Zillund Overdue Uluctions Thread

[Puja]

Useful knowledge. Will Ardern need a coalition partner this time? Looking from the outside, she seems to be a top leader and I'm not sure why anyone would be voting for someone else given the success she's made of her COVID response.

Puja

[morepork]

Jesus, National have turned into a cartoon. How long before Luxon is installed as the new-new second coming of our Lord Johns Keys?

Because, you know, fuckin business and all that.

[Sandydragon]

No one likes them, and their chances of entering parliament are roughly proportional to the likelihood that Ireland will win a quarterfinal at the Rugby World Cup.

Ouch!!

[Son of Mathonwy]

For anyone paying attention, the New Zealand General Elections was supposed to be held *checks wrist watch* 2 days ago, but was delayed until October 17 for some unfathomable reason.

In Aotearoa, as they do in Germany, we use the Mixed Member Proportional system. "What in the dick is that?" you might ask? Here are a couple of videos to help you:

So, how has polling looked?

You tell me.

Great system, pretty much exactly what I would have in the UK if I could (I'm no expert on electoral systems but it's the system I came to when trying to design one. So thanks for telling me what it's called!).

Great polls too. Looks like you guys are living in a little oasis of sanity.

[zer0]

Looking from the outside, she seems to be a top leader and I'm not sure why anyone would be voting for someone else given the success she's made of her COVID response.

I can definitely see why that would be the case. The major two unprecedented incidents during her tenure -- the pandemic and shootings -- have really helped by rolling what would've been a first term turd in glitter gold shavings. I think Cas is being somewhat generous in saying they have "not necessarily achieved all that [Labour] set out to do". They've achieved little in the way of any meaningful progress on the big ticket issues. At least not that I can recall/am aware of. Were Ardern as ruthless as he's claiming -- also something I disagree with; for exhibit A) see that plonker Twyford maintaining two important portfolios and bungling both, Genter should've been minister of transport -- then at least something would've been achieved in spite of Peters. Were it Clarke in charge then I suspect wheels would've been in motion.

In terms of specifics the capital gains tax is a bit of a biggie as NZ is one of the few OECD countries that does not have a capital gains tax on real estate. She has also let the reserve bank keep doing everything in its power to keep that housing bubble inflated. We have a recession and house prices continue to rise. Go figure.

Related to the CGT and housing is Kiwi Build; a government driven scheme to build more affordable housing. Set some laudably ambitious targets but made laughably little progress. Got so shit that they stooped to fudging the numbers by buying developments already in progress, and some even finished (IIRC), and chalking them up as new developments even though they were already underway so were not adding anything new to the housing stock. They also haven't made any real attempt to deal with the other issues that drive up housing prices in NZ, such as Fletcher's control over the building industry. Though Fletchers are in the process of, somehow, screwing up a monopoly so that may sort itself. Hopefully.

Then we have Auckland's light rail fiasco. Oh boy, where do we even begin with this one. One of their biggest policy promises was to modernise the Auckland public transport system by starting work on the much needed light rail system. Great stuff. NZ having no such system anywhere in the country would normally mean this would be a big undertaking that might get off the ground in the third year at best. But in what was basically a victory gift on day one, they got gifted a fully shovel ready light rail project by the Auckland transit agency who had been fighting the previous government on this for years. All the leg work was done. Engineering plans drawn up, properties identified to purchase, etc... All they had to do was give them some cash and there's one great big election promise ticked off on the first day. But no. Instead they take it off the local transit agency and give it to the national transport highway building agency. The road engineers there filibuster it long enough for the plonker of a minister in charge to get side-tracked by a shiny metro proposal delivered on half a dozen shitty power point slides an intern whipped up that morning while nursing a colossal hangover. Four years later and literally nothing has been done on something that was good to go on day one.

TLDR: Got gifted a major election promise on day one and pissed it away because of a shitty power point slide.

That being said it would take a complete 180 for anyone other than Ardern and Labour to win. She handled the pandemic well, which absolutely will stick in the mind of many, as well as the shooting before it as they play to her strengths. The pandemic has also seen the more able of her ministers take more prominent roles. Hopefully one or two of them will end up with housing and transport to get things back on track there because it's really needed. Similarly, hopefully she ends up becoming as ruthless as Cas is portraying her. God knows Twyford needs a slap on all four cheeks.

Personally I would definitely prefer Ardern and Labour to win, but with the Green's involved in some way (e.g. Genter as transport minister). Primarily because National are just terrible, but also because then we'll see exactly how much of this term was Peters dragging the chain and how much of it was Ardern's third-way/Blairite background. As much as I hope it was mostly the former, I fear much of it will be the latter.

EDIT: Hopefully this rambling mess makes sense. It's nearly 1am here in Owtearowa Un Zud at the time of posting, so may review and reformat tomorrow if I can be bothered/remember.

[zer0]

Unrelated to the above post, but we also need to add ranked voting into the mix.

[morepork]

Labour have led well without doing anything too seismic on the policy front. They can be forgiven for now given the current situation, but they rally haven't addressed poverty and income inequality, particularly as it impacts on young underserved minorities. I don't like that and it was a big part of their push for power, so I would like to see that change. In the back of my mind there is a little voice that says *she used to work for Tony Blair*, and I hope that stank has washed off.

Finally, National are just terrifyingly incompetent. Johns Keys sold the family silver and fucked off, and they don't seem to have any other tools in the box. Tax cuts and mental breakdowns is it. Thank fuck they weren't in charge when the Pest hit.

[Banquo]

How has lockdown/Covid response affected the economy and education there?

[morepork]

It's fucked tourism hard, which has been the biggest GDP contributor for a few years. Good chance to break free of that.

[Banquo]

It's fucked tourism hard, which has been the biggest GDP contributor for a few years. Good chance to break free of that.

Cheers.

[morepork]

Can someone please buy Paul Goldsmith a fucking calculator?

[Banquo]

How has lockdown/Covid response affected the economy and education there?

The Ministry of Education had to make significant amendments, easing the requirements to pass at each level of NCEA, including further amendments and easing exclusive to Auckland, where we had a second lockdown. My kids have mostly already passed the year as a result.

The girls in their final year at my school are completely demotivated and burned out though, and I can't really blame them, since they're basically missing out on pretty much every single milestone event for a high school kid.

Same here for kids- it’s a massive chunk of their lives and as you say key years. My wife is a teacher- well just retired after 38 years- and she is distraught at what lockdown has done to ‘her kids’. Sad for them- 5-20 year olds, bad times.

[morepork]

How has lockdown/Covid response affected the economy and education there?

The Ministry of Education had to make significant amendments, easing the requirements to pass at each level of NCEA, including further amendments and easing exclusive to Auckland, where we had a second lockdown. My kids have mostly already passed the year as a result.

The girls in their final year at my school are completely demotivated and burned out though, and I can't really blame them, since they're basically missing out on pretty much every single milestone event for a high school kid.

Same here for kids- it’s a massive chunk of their lives and as you say key years. My wife is a teacher- well just retired after 38 years- and she is distraught at what lockdown has done to ‘her kids’. Sad for them- 5-20 year olds, bad times.

This is going to sound opportunist, but are any formal long term studies of the effects of this going on? Employment, crime, social behavior all a few years down the track would likely be affected by this.

[Banquo]

The Ministry of Education had to make significant amendments, easing the requirements to pass at each level of NCEA, including further amendments and easing exclusive to Auckland, where we had a second lockdown. My kids have mostly already passed the year as a result.

The girls in their final year at my school are completely demotivated and burned out though, and I can't really blame them, since they're basically missing out on pretty much every single milestone event for a high school kid.

Same here for kids- it’s a massive chunk of their lives and as you say key years. My wife is a teacher- well just retired after 38 years- and she is distraught at what lockdown has done to ‘her kids’. Sad for them- 5-20 year olds, bad times.

This is going to sound opportunist, but are any formal long term studies of the effects of this going on? Employment, crime, social behavior all a few years down the track would likely be affected by this.

Mental health too and big knock on from not using NHS (or rather, NHS closing to all bar Covid) for older folks.

[zer0]

This is going to sound opportunist, but are any formal long term studies of the effects of this going on? Employment, crime, social behavior all a few years down the track would likely be affected by this.

There's on-going longitudinal studies -- like the Dunedin Study, Growing Up in NZ, and Pacific Island Families -- that will catch some things, but don't think anything specific has been whipped up.

[Puja]

Thanks for writing these Cas. I don't have much to add myself, but it's a really interesting read.

Puja

[morepork]

Ahahahaha. That Ponsonby Rd. episode was fucking gold. What an utter long drop of a campaign.

[Stom]

Thought this might belong here...

[paddy no 11]

This is going to sound opportunist, but are any formal long term studies of the effects of this going on? Employment, crime, social behavior all a few years down the track would likely be affected by this.

There's on-going longitudinal studies -- like the Dunedin Study, Growing Up in NZ, and Pacific Island Families -- that will catch some things, but don't think anything specific has been whipped up.

People murder their parents so i don t think it's emotive misinformation to suggest some vile people will pressurise there parent s into eutheniseing themselves

Needs to be serious safeguards in place to prevent horrible shit happening

[paddy no 11]

change your will and now off to dignitas type situations occur

[paddy no 11]

There's on-going longitudinal studies -- like the Dunedin Study, Growing Up in NZ, and Pacific Island Families -- that will catch some things, but don't think anything specific has been whipped up.

People murder their parents so i don t think it's emotive misinformation to suggest some vile people will pressurise there parent s into eutheniseing themselves

Needs to be serious safeguards in place to prevent horrible shit happening

Yeah nah bro, it's a total free-for-all brah! Gonna round up all the old ones and kill the fuck out of them!

Tell you what, we'll let you know when we see people getting pressured into euthanising themselves, yeah?

Just keep shouting as loud as you can it's all you know

[paddy no 11]

go fuck yourself - you are the one who started throwing shit with emotive disinformation as if death isn't an emotive issue

Take a look at yourself when it comes to sanctimonious - you just disparage the other side in your post with misinformation comment....cas is on the right side of this and thats all

The end of life is worth debating srsly

[paddy no 11]

Emotive disinformation are your words

You attacked the people on the other side of the argument to you unnecessarily

You're a cunt cas

[Sandydragon]

Cas, Paddy, enough already. Wind your necks in please.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is an instruction from a moderator.

[zer0]

Thought this might belong here...

This video, potentially relevant to NZ, is not available in NZ. Classic.