What will happen to National now?

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#3092842 21-Jun-2023 08:12

Despite his low polling, I don't see Luxon going anywhere before the election - I doubt National wants to have another Judith Collins Moment, a la 2020.

GV27

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#3092846 21-Jun-2023 08:22

quickymart:

Despite his low polling, I don't see Luxon going anywhere before the election - I doubt National wants to have another Judith Collins Moment, a la 2020.

There's no one else, unless Stanford wants it, and even then there's no credible deputy that would represent a shift away from the status quo - Bishop is just as bad as Brown these days.

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#3092847 21-Jun-2023 08:27

And along with Nicola Willis as Finance spokesperson, then presumably to be Finance Minister, that's a massive gulf between PM Luxon, Minister of Finance Willis and John Key/Bill English. A vastly different league

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#3093289 22-Jun-2023 06:33

sen8or:
The face of the current Govt already kicked herself out and many NZers seem to think that all the Govt poor decisions went with her. I don't think that will help compare Nationals chances vs Labour when looking at the rest of the world.

National may have made a mistake, trying to install John Key V2.0 as a leader, Luxon just doesn't have the same charisma, confidence or credibility as JK and his naivety shows up too frequently. I have no desire to see Labour win a 3rd term, but I have a strong suspicion that is what we will get until National can present a viable alternative as party leader.

Luxon was never Key 2.0. Key was a kid from a statehouse who made good. He as relatable in a way that Luxon isn’t.

Luxon was the son of a corporate type went to St Kent’s and Christchurch Boys. He’s spent his whole life around privilege and it shows.

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#3093292 22-Jun-2023 07:06

Handle9:

Luxon was the son of a corporate type went to St Kent’s and Christchurch Boys. He’s spent his whole life around privilege and it shows.

The formative years of my political ideology were laid down well after any intermediate or high schooling I might have had, even though I grew up in a pretty nice part of Auckland. I'd be pretty bemused if someone down the line tried to hold the place where I grew up against me as a kid, as if I should have emancipated myself and lived on the street for cred.

sen8or

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#3093304 22-Jun-2023 07:53

Handle9:
sen8or:

The face of the current Govt already kicked herself out and many NZers seem to think that all the Govt poor decisions went with her. I don't think that will help compare Nationals chances vs Labour when looking at the rest of the world.

National may have made a mistake, trying to install John Key V2.0 as a leader, Luxon just doesn't have the same charisma, confidence or credibility as JK and his naivety shows up too frequently. I have no desire to see Labour win a 3rd term, but I have a strong suspicion that is what we will get until National can present a viable alternative as party leader.

Luxon was never Key 2.0. Key was a kid from a statehouse who made good. He as relatable in a way that Luxon isn’t.

Luxon was the son of a corporate type went to St Kent’s and Christchurch Boys. He’s spent his whole life around privilege and it shows.

They plucked Luxon from the corporate world, different industries than Key, but very similar principal. Even before he had joined National officially he was being put forward as future leader based on his corporate credentials. Remove the personality / social upbringing element of Key/Luxon and you have a very similar "business world" profile.

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#3093325 22-Jun-2023 09:12

Technofreak: Do you mean as opposed to Labours "drag everyone down to the same level" approach as has been so well demonstrated this week? Rather than fixing the root cause let's just apply a band aid eleswhere thus creating more division. Very much a mindset of "I want what you have".

National sure hasn't been perfect in the way it's done things in the past but I much prefer their stated aim of giving everyone an equal opportunity rather than Labour's which seems to be trying to give every one an equal outcome.

You seem to be parroting some wonky and thoroughly disproven supply side economics argument. Much like the ACT Flat Tax Rate all of the arguments all of those policies favour the wealthy with the detriment of the poor.

The root cause of the majority of NZs problems is we are a low wage economy which has for decades been based on earning money from primary industry shipping goods to the UK and the rest of the world. It has never been on building a knowledge economy based on the incredibly smart people we have living here.

None of the policies National propose will fix the problem, nor does any of the rhetoric any of the elected MPs or use in public show they have any interest in fixing the growing inequality.

I could go on about how timid Labour have been in regards to changing policy but this is a thread about National.

Tax - Their policy is to significantly cut spending and as a result they will need to slash services. There is not one policy talking about the specific services they will cut other than the intentionally vague "Back office jobs in Wellington" and "Improve efficiency" which is all very easy red meat that appeals to voters but intentionally ignores the very critical roles all Government Departments provide in keeping society running from Wellington.
Welfare and minimum wage - Lets just say cutting the welfare payments from MSD and not raising minimum wage won't have positive outcomes for society which National and ACT have been consistently against. Only the least skilled are on minimum wage and if employers could pay people less they would. So raising minimum wage helps lift the whole country.
Justice/Corrections - Their proposal is to throw more people in jail for longer periods and down scale all rehabilitation services for those in prison. Just think for half a second what will happen to the prison population and the current 2.2B and $150k we spend per prisoner to keep them there. National have made no bones about wanting to privatise prisons with exactly the same disastrous outcomes that has been observed time and time again overseas. Worse outcomes and rates of recidivism and the government spending twice what it would pay for the Government run system to the private company. Prisons should be only for the most violent offenders and as a society we should be trying everything in our power to keep people out of prison as it is just so expensive to keep them in there with such poor outcomes when they come out.
Education - See the above solution for Prisons applying to Charter Schools which is an ACT policy. When they are privately run but receive significant government funding they consistently have worse outcomes for kids and cost the taxpayer twice as much.
Health - The health system needs approximately a 50% increase in spending to keep pace with other OECD countries on the government spending per patient.
Transport - Build more roads for cars, not infrastructure that can move a lot of people with mass transit. It's the only way that cities grow and are sustainable is having rapid mass transit which National are consistently against.
Superannuation - All parties are too afraid to even touch this as the elderly are a strong voting block. IMHO we should say if you take the pension you can't vote. That would significantly change tax policy and the behaviors of pensioners who take the pension but have plenty of money but still take the pension no matter what.

I don't know a single wealthy person who doesn't work as hard as possible to minimise their tax burden.

All of this requires more money to go into the tax take to fund these core critical services that require society to function.

National want to cut taxes... so the only logical outcome is services will be slashed as the talk of improving services is a nonsense. Those who work in government aren't always the best and brightest but it's not like they plan to pay the government workers more so most things require a contractor working for higher rates to get the difficult stuff done.

Time and time again overseas it has consistently shown that by lifting the wage of the poorest and most vulnerable then crime goes down, everyones standard of living improves and society as a general has a better outcome. But National want to go in the opposite direction.

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GV27

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#3093344 22-Jun-2023 09:53

BarTender:

National want to cut taxes... so the only logical outcome is services will be slashed as the talk of improving services is a nonsense. Those who work in government aren't always the best and brightest but it's not like they plan to pay the government workers more so most things require a contractor working for higher rates to get the difficult stuff done.

The difficult stuff isn't getting done. Taxes through a lack of indexation are eating more and more people's real incomes, while basic state services like health and education walkback. Funny how there's plenty of money for huge centralisation exercises though.

It's very easy to point to what National want to do and say "but that won't work" when whether it works or not seems like a very secondary trifling issue as things stand. That it suddenly matters when National propose something different to the status quo should be seen as patch-protection and nothing less. If civil services being able to function properly actually mattered, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

At this point the reality for many of us is not wanting to vote for a clown-show opposition with evangelicals at the helm who aren't capable of running their own ship, but who are also fed-up with being gaslighted by the current government, even over stuff they said they'd do but just lost interest in or don't want to talk about anymore.

sen8or

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#3093351 22-Jun-2023 10:08

Until we get to the position where half of Govt budget isn't chewed up by social spending, we simply will never have enough $ in the bank to actually make a difference to other critical Govt functions (Health, Education, Justice, Defense).

How we get to the position of more self reliance / less reliance on Govt handouts is the multi-billion dollar question for which there are no simple answers (well, no singular answers that will provide a total solution).

ockel

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#3093371 22-Jun-2023 12:07

sen8or:

Until we get to the position where half of Govt budget isn't chewed up by social spending, we simply will never have enough $ in the bank to actually make a difference to other critical Govt functions (Health, Education, Justice, Defense).

How we get to the position of more self reliance / less reliance on Govt handouts is the multi-billion dollar question for which there are no simple answers (well, no singular answers that will provide a total solution).

Half of our budget isnt chewed up by social spending. Only 34% (which is comparable to that of Australia at 35%). Our other main categories are health (18% of our budget excluding COVID), education (15% of our budget) and Law and Order (4.3%).

Interestingly we spend twice as much on education (per person) as Australia does and 4x as much on Law and Order.

Australia also allocates 14% of its tax take to State Governments - essentially all of the GST collected goes back to the States for their function and spend.

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#3093532 22-Jun-2023 15:40

BarTender:

You seem to be parroting some wonky and thoroughly disproven supply side economics argument. Much like the ACT Flat Tax Rate all of the arguments all of those policies favour the wealthy with the detriment of the poor.

The root cause of the majority of NZs problems is we are a low wage economy which has for decades been based on earning money from primary industry shipping goods to the UK and the rest of the world. It has never been on building a knowledge economy based on the incredibly smart people we have living here.

None of the policies National propose will fix the problem, nor does any of the rhetoric any of the elected MPs or use in public show they have any interest in fixing the growing inequality.

I could go on about how timid Labour have been in regards to changing policy but this is a thread about National.

Tax - Their policy is to significantly cut spending and as a result they will need to slash services. There is not one policy talking about the specific services they will cut other than the intentionally vague "Back office jobs in Wellington" and "Improve efficiency" which is all very easy red meat that appeals to voters but intentionally ignores the very critical roles all Government Departments provide in keeping society running from Wellington.
Welfare and minimum wage - Lets just say cutting the welfare payments from MSD and not raising minimum wage won't have positive outcomes for society which National and ACT have been consistently against. Only the least skilled are on minimum wage and if employers could pay people less they would. So raising minimum wage helps lift the whole country.
Justice/Corrections - Their proposal is to throw more people in jail for longer periods and down scale all rehabilitation services for those in prison. Just think for half a second what will happen to the prison population and the current 2.2B and $150k we spend per prisoner to keep them there. National have made no bones about wanting to privatise prisons with exactly the same disastrous outcomes that has been observed time and time again overseas. Worse outcomes and rates of recidivism and the government spending twice what it would pay for the Government run system to the private company. Prisons should be only for the most violent offenders and as a society we should be trying everything in our power to keep people out of prison as it is just so expensive to keep them in there with such poor outcomes when they come out.
Education - See the above solution for Prisons applying to Charter Schools which is an ACT policy. When they are privately run but receive significant government funding they consistently have worse outcomes for kids and cost the taxpayer twice as much.
Health - The health system needs approximately a 50% increase in spending to keep pace with other OECD countries on the government spending per patient.
Transport - Build more roads for cars, not infrastructure that can move a lot of people with mass transit. It's the only way that cities grow and are sustainable is having rapid mass transit which National are consistently against.
Superannuation - All parties are too afraid to even touch this as the elderly are a strong voting block. IMHO we should say if you take the pension you can't vote. That would significantly change tax policy and the behaviors of pensioners who take the pension but have plenty of money but still take the pension no matter what.
I don't know a single wealthy person who doesn't work as hard as possible to minimise their tax burden.

All of this requires more money to go into the tax take to fund these core critical services that require society to function.

National want to cut taxes... so the only logical outcome is services will be slashed as the talk of improving services is a nonsense. Those who work in government aren't always the best and brightest but it's not like they plan to pay the government workers more so most things require a contractor working for higher rates to get the difficult stuff done.

Time and time again overseas it has consistently shown that by lifting the wage of the poorest and most vulnerable then crime goes down, everyones standard of living improves and society as a general has a better outcome. But National want to go in the opposite direction.

I don't se how you came to the conclusion I was parroting any particular economic argument when what I said was it was better to provide equal opportunity for everyone up rather than drag people down to provide an equal outcome.

You seem to be conflating spending with outcomes. There is plenty of evidence to show that isn't the case. Our bureaucracy has grown significantly and we are not seeing any tangible benefits. No doubt more money could be spent in areas like health and education but it needs to be better targeted and not spent on administration as has happened in the past.

Just arbitrarily raising the minimum wage as you appear to be championing doesn't fix the underlying issue. We need better education outcomes than we've ben getting to raise the skills of our population. Just raising the minimum wage without increasing productivity is just chasing your tail. Costs go up, we all pay more for the same things, and we end up no better off.

I'm not sure I accept your point of view on charter schools, at least for the time being. I'm not saying I disagree but I think there been some vested interests who given the chance haven't allowed these schools a fair go to prove themselves either way. Like many political footballs there are pros and cons and I've heard strong arguments for both sides. For me the jury is still out.

I agree the less people in jail the better. The trouble is we have reduce our prison population but we've done nothing to fix the issues as to why these people went to jail to start with.

The mass transport can has been kicked down the road, in Auckland anyway, since the 1960's. To point the finger at the National party as it is now is just deflecting the discussion. We only have the critical mass for mass transport in about 4 centres.

Pretty well all those receiving superannuation have paid their taxes so they are entitled to vote like the rest of us. Using your logic someone on the dole shouldn't vote either.

Cutting taxes it always an election topic no matter the party in power/opposition, nothing new there. Whether they do it is another matter though our taxes need to be better spent.

I agree lifting wages is a very good idea, it just a matter of how you achieve that in a meaningful/practical/useful manner.

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Handle9

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#3093600 22-Jun-2023 17:52

GV27:

Handle9:

Luxon was the son of a corporate type went to St Kent’s and Christchurch Boys. He’s spent his whole life around privilege and it shows.

The formative years of my political ideology were laid down well after any intermediate or high schooling I might have had, even though I grew up in a pretty nice part of Auckland. I'd be pretty bemused if someone down the line tried to hold the place where I grew up against me as a kid, as if I should have emancipated myself and lived on the street for cred.

Best you don't run for office then.

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#3093606 22-Jun-2023 18:03

Technofreak:

I don't se how you came to the conclusion I was parroting any particular economic argument when what I said was it was better to provide equal opportunity for everyone up rather than drag people down to provide an equal outcome.

You seem to be conflating spending with outcomes. There is plenty of evidence to show that isn't the case. Our bureaucracy has grown significantly and we are not seeing any tangible benefits. No doubt more money could be spent in areas like health and education but it needs to be better targeted and not spent on administration as has happened in the past.

Just arbitrarily raising the minimum wage as you appear to be championing doesn't fix the underlying issue. We need better education outcomes than we've ben getting to raise the skills of our population. Just raising the minimum wage without increasing productivity is just chasing your tail. Costs go up, we all pay more for the same things, and we end up no better off.

I'm not sure I accept your point of view on charter schools, at least for the time being. I'm not saying I disagree but I think there been some vested interests who given the chance haven't allowed these schools a fair go to prove themselves either way. Like many political footballs there are pros and cons and I've heard strong arguments for both sides. For me the jury is still out.

I agree the less people in jail the better. The trouble is we have reduce our prison population but we've done nothing to fix the issues as to why these people went to jail to start with.

The mass transport can has been kicked down the road, in Auckland anyway, since the 1960's. To point the finger at the National party as it is now is just deflecting the discussion. We only have the critical mass for mass transport in about 4 centres.

Pretty well all those receiving superannuation have paid their taxes so they are entitled to vote like the rest of us. Using your logic someone on the dole shouldn't vote either.

Cutting taxes it always an election topic no matter the party in power/opposition, nothing new there. Whether they do it is another matter though our taxes need to be better spent.

I agree lifting wages is a very good idea, it just a matter of how you achieve that in a meaningful/practical/useful manner.

Lets just add extra funds to fix these oft mentioned issues (health, education and so on) and also reduce taxes so many of us are better off

Win win... /s

ezbee

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#3093686 22-Jun-2023 20:07

Oh...

National Party donation from CCP-linked newspaper publisher 'by the book'
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132368451/national-party-donation-from-ccplinked-newspaper-publisher-by-the-book

""
National leader Christopher Luxon says he has never met the publisher of a Chinese Communist Party newspaper who donated $18,000 to his party, which has acted “by the book”.

Luxon and his foreign affairs spokesperson, Gerry Brownlee, said the donation had no sway over the party’s policy on China – however, a senior National MP has said he would “never” have accepted the money, while Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he would be “sceptical” about receiving such a donation.
""

quickymart

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#3093750 23-Jun-2023 07:33

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/06/23/how-act-is-an-existential-threat-to-national-and-why-tamaki-will-be-the-proof/

National should be a bit concerned about ACT - while I would never vote for David Seymour or ACT he does come across a lot better than Luxon in many respects, but he does have more experience in politics than the latter does.

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