It annoys me that the news media elevated the leaders of the legacy parties to their own private Chrisfest, instead of having a leaders debate that included these 4. That would have been a much more robust and insightful debate than listening to two sheets of human wallpaper dribble talking points at each other.
@zl2tod
> then every one of the fired public servants will be replaced by a contractor
Good point. I have no problem with public services contracting specialists whose skills are needed for one-off projects. But not when contracts are being tendered over and over again for jobs that require the same skillset.
Creating a permanent position is cheaper for the public in the long run. It also provides job security for someone the public service clearly needs on staff.
In the Chrisfest on Sept 19, Hipkins ruled out a wealth tax. In the "Powerbrokers" debate 2 days later, both Marama Davidson and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made it clear that it will be a bottom line for their parties, in post-election negotiations.
So if Hipkins wants a full term as PM, he can declare a change of heart now, showing voters Labour can work with them. Or he can flip-flop on it after the election having campaigned against it and look either weak or dishonest.
Good call. There were two sets of potential coalition partners on that stage. One set looked the makings of a coalition of chaos, for sure, but it wasn't Marama and Debbie ; )
Bomber is bang on here, and its nice to see him calm enough to write in whole sentences again 😁
"This election is not over yet, no matter how much the mainstream media want to convince you it is.
We have 3 weeks this Saturday till the election.
If NZ First slips below 5, if TPM create an overhang, if the traditional overpolling and underpolling bias is taken into account – Luxon is NOT Prime Minster.
I'd really like to see an election debate where the host has a button to turn off each speaker's microphone. As soon as any of them starts delivering a scripted talking point, they immediately lose the floor to the next speaker. By having their mic turned off if they don't yield to the host.
Imagine a cross between a debate and an episode of The Weakest Link.
@bigblen@futuresprog
> Can they each be seated above a dunk tank and the audience is given a handful of tennis balls to deploy as they see fit?
Even more fun than the dunk than, give the audience a mute button each. If a supermajority (eg 60%) of them press it while a speaker is talking, their mic is muted, and they lose the floor.
How about instead of a mute button a fart sound button. Then as the audience gets restless they keep pressing the button more and more until the wind blows the speaker away.
@strypey I was just saying I'd like RNZ to pre-record (or delay) interviews with the understanding that any time the interviewee repeats their talking point verbatim, it gets deleted. The audience has heard your f***ing talking point already
@bigblen
> The audience has heard your f***ing talking point already
Exactly. Talking points are a way of avoiding the question, while using up limited debate time. This is why I propose the mute button. Then even the live audience wouldn't have to put up with that.
The panel discussion after that TV3 debate revealed that Seymour spoke the most during that debate. But they all agreed he was mostly waffling talking points and losing the audience.
David Seymour admitted that having 10,000 people in prison, costs the public $7 per week for every man, woman, and child in the country. That's a lot to spend.
Especially when it's well known that people who spend time in prison are more likely to reoffend, and to commit more serious crimes when they do, than when the criminal justice system responds in other ways (eg restorative justice).
That was the figure gave in the debate per day. I've done a Luxon and given the figure over a longer period of time, to make it look more impressive ; )
@IceNine
> Awaiting the tenders for private prisons to go up
It's the only logical reason for wanting prison numbers to go up.
A party of real libertarians would want imprisoning people to be a cost to the state - a serious one - so they're discouraged from doing it unless there's a very good reason.
@IceNine
... and only until we achieve a democratic economic system that doesn't suppress free enterprise in the interests of capitalists. So prisons can be abolished, along with the state.
It really pisses me off that David Seymour keep implicitly claiming kura kaupapa were created by their charter school policy. A US privatisation model shoehorned into the NZ education system in 2011.
The first kura kaupapa was set up no later than 1985 (Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi). By 2011 there were dozens. Since 1989, the Special Character Designation policy has allowed them to operate autonomously within the public education system, :
Seymour is either speaking about kura kaupapa without knowing this history, or he does know, and he's cynically co-opting other people's mahi to sell his party's neoliberal education policy. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether he's ignorant or lying.
It also pisses me off to hear him praising kura kaupapa out of one side of his mouth, while ranting about kaupapa Māori services being "separatism" and even "apartheid“ out the other side. Pick one.
Another thing that pisses me off about NatACT is the rhetoric about cutting "government spending". What they actually mean is abolishing jobs in public services, and for every one of them, that's someone pushed onto a benefit and using other publicly-funded welfare services. The total cost of which could be as much or more than the cost of their salary, without the public service getting the benefit of their work.
It's not good economics, it's small-minded, short-sighted and mean.
Now before some apologist says oh but the people working in public services have skills, qualifications and contacts, they'll get another job straight away in the "private sector", ie a business or NGO. Even if that's true (and it's not a given) that job could have gone to someone already on a benefit. Either way, someone is being kept in poverty and the public denied the benefit of their labour, for no good reason.
... except to get unemployment up, so wages can be screwed down.
Also, as Winston points out in this debate (even a stopped clock is right twice a day), even if the NatACTs were successful in taking an axe to government spending, the most likely result would be to throw the economy into a depression. All to supposedly help with an inflation spike that a) has nothing to do with government spending and b) had already peaked and started dropping by April:
@strypey National have never been "better economic stewards" like they always try to argue. The economy is going to (by-and-large) do what it always does and governments can potter around the edges.
The goal for Nats is to sell the story that they're more qualified because it's the brain cycles spent on the talking points that matter. The attention economy doesn't have time for critical thinking.
@paw
> The economy is going to (by-and-large) do what it always does and governments can potter around the edges
That's not true either. Gordon Campbell did a piece a few months back quoting figures showing that the economy has consistently been healthier at the end of a Labour-led govt than at the end of National-led one. It could just be a hell of a confidence, but...
@paw
... it's not hard to see why it would be that way.
Economic activity is, by definition, money moving via transactions. Nat govts move money from the majority to the wealthy ("trickle-down"), who hoard it. Labour govts move money from the wealthy to the majority, who spend it, producing economic activity ("inside-out", to borrow Nick Hanauer's phrase). Not only does more economic activity look better on paper, it also facilitates real works work getting done, infrastructure created etc.
Intriguing to see the Marama, Debbie and Winston agree on not raising the retirement age, while David makes a bean counter's argument for raising it. Ignoring that a far smaller proportion of Māori even make it to 65, and a disturbingly high number of our elders are already living in poverty.
@strypey Not to mention the effects of constant reinfection of COVID and the effects on longevity of that. It’s an unknown but some disturbing data is emerging.
Again, this retirement age policy reveals the short-sightedness of ACT's handbag economics approach to government spending.
If the retirement age was raised, there's no guarantee people would work for longer. Many would spend the years between 65 and retirement on a sickness benefit, because they're not well enough to work fulltime. Or an unemployment benefit, because employers would rather hire younger people, who they can pay less, and keep for longer to make it worth training them.
More importantly, the news media have no right to be picking winners in advance. Regardless of what politics geeks know is likely and unlikely, in theory any of the party leaders could be PM (or co-PM?) after an election. So any leaders debate should be inclusive of all of them, to avoid prejudicing the result.
Sure, they can't include every registered party, they wouldn't all fit on the stage. But they could set a reasonable cutoff, like polling over 3% in at last 3 election year polls.
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