Our new coalition government.

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#2321490 20-Sep-2019 18:22

Dingbatt:

I think in Twyford’s case, his only real fault is he talks a big game, but is then made to look foolish when it can’t be delivered. That included being caught without detailed plans for enacting their promises because they didn’t expect to be in power (IMO). The initial smugness has been somewhat blunted by the reality of how difficult some of the problems the country faces are to solve.

Yep. He was called the fixer. You dont get that for being an idiot. He was charged with fixing the housing affordability crisis, no one can fix that now. So while I dont profess to being a Twyford expert, he was billed to deal with a problem no one can solve. He was probably better qualified to deal with the revised Kiwibuild, than Woods. But his name is tainted due to the Labour fail of the decade.

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#2321499 20-Sep-2019 18:34

Mahon:

tdgeek:

MikeB4:

@tdgeek the list of Twyfords' faults, mistakes and incompetence would take a very long time to type something and be very depressing. I have no real desire to do so. My previous post I believe is a good and concise summation of what I feel. Jacinda Ardern, the coalition and Aotearoa would be better served if he were not taken into the 2020 election.

Ok, Mike you wont say. Well, if I said Simon B was incompetent, I would expect others to want to know why I said that. The fact that he is still an MP, still has the Transport portfolio , and given that transport is a huge issue here, especially Auckland, it has to be the worst possible judgement of Adern to keep him, let alone in that portfolio. Yes I am aware of his career, I dont see a long list of fails

This thread isnt about Simon or National, its about the coalition government.

Twyfords long list of faults are not all down to him, but to his boss who for some idiotic reason gave him close to half the portfolios of the Govt. How could he ever do justice to any of them when he had so many? I note he is still blaming the previous Govt for NZTA's woes when he has been their boss for 2 years. Amazing.

Yes, this thread is aboiut the Coalition, but you cannot look at that in isolation. If they inherited stuff, that relevant. We can then discuss if that relevancy is justified or not, that's fair is it not?

Can you list the long list if faults? Mike stated the same, so a list of what I assume is 6 or 10 faults would add balance to this. I can see KB, he was charged with that, and doomed to fail. CAA is rife with issues already. He used a phone on a plane, guilty. Let me know the rest of the long list.

They gave him half of the portfolios?? Dont think so. But feel free to list them as well.

I note he is still blaming the previous Govt for NZTA's woes when he has been their boss for 2 years. Amazing. Are you serious? National was boss of them for 9 years, is that not relevant? While I wont assume National caused that, it was on their brief. National could be fully responsible, or NZTA were poor in their own right and did not do the Government proper service. I dont know. I suspect the latter. But its a bit rich to say/assume NZTA was awesome, then on 2017 it went south, real fast. The Govt whoever it was, then and now, doesn't rule NZTA, they do operate relatively at arms length from Govt so while its not exact to blame National, its clearly not exact to blame the new Govt who is barely 24 months in. Again, balance. Bias is fine, but you need to have balance, otherwise all we discuss here is A vs B and not reality

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#2321913 21-Sep-2019 12:35

tdgeek:

Dingbatt:

I think in Twyford’s case, his only real fault is he talks a big game, but is then made to look foolish when it can’t be delivered. That included being caught without detailed plans for enacting their promises because they didn’t expect to be in power (IMO). The initial smugness has been somewhat blunted by the reality of how difficult some of the problems the country faces are to solve.

Yep. He was called the fixer. You dont get that for being an idiot. He was charged with fixing the housing affordability crisis, no one can fix that now. So while I dont profess to being a Twyford expert, he was billed to deal with a problem no one can solve. He was probably better qualified to deal with the revised Kiwibuild, than Woods. But his name is tainted due to the Labour fail of the decade.

Met him in Palmerston North at a Labour public meeting on rentals.

Came away thinking he's an idiot, that he has some sort of pan in his head where by nothing could go wrong. Landlords would just roll over, rents would not increase, no one would divest on the rental markets, etc etc etc.

He could not see any reason why landlords would need to use a 90 day notice, tenants should be able to redecorate however they want, and they should be allowed to have pets.

Reality is, he was 100% wrong.

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#2321916 21-Sep-2019 12:42

Here is yet another overseas assessment that the NZ economy is doing pretty well under the government's stewardship. This in spite of constant right-wing efforts to portray Labour and the Greens as fiscally irresponsible and committed to runaway spending. Quote:

"The IMF praised the government's Wellbeing Budget, saying it struck the right balance between fiscal prudence and tackling the priorities like mental health, child poverty and Māori and Pasifika aspirations.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the report confirms the economy has strong fundamentals and showed the country was doing well against a backdrop of global uncertainty.

"Unemployment is at an 11-year low, the economy is growing faster than the likes of Australia, the UK and the EU, and the government is running a surplus and keeping debt under control in case of a rainy day."

Nothing wrong with any of that, though some will no doubt try to find something.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#2321976 21-Sep-2019 14:13

I guess my biggest problem is "fiscal prudence" could also be interpreted as "we've walked away from a lot of the promises we made in the election so just aren't spending anywhere near what we said we would".

If they actually had Kiwibuild underway and were pushing ahead with Light Rail etc then the books might look a bit different.

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#2322499 22-Sep-2019 10:46

GV27:

I guess my biggest problem is "fiscal prudence" could also be interpreted as "we've walked away from a lot of the promises we made in the election so just aren't spending anywhere near what we said we would".

If they actually had Kiwibuild underway and were pushing ahead with Light Rail etc then the books might look a bit different.

Perhaps if they did not have to bail out Heath, Mental Health, and Education things would look different too.

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Rikkitic

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#2322509 22-Sep-2019 11:02

GV27:

I guess my biggest problem is "fiscal prudence" could also be interpreted as "we've walked away from a lot of the promises we made in the election so just aren't spending anywhere near what we said we would".

If they actually had Kiwibuild underway and were pushing ahead with Light Rail etc then the books might look a bit different.

I put my response to this post on hold because I wasn't sure exactly how to frame it. But it seems to me to be a typical damned if you do/damned of you don't circle. If the government had spent tons of money and pushed ahead with these big budget developments, they would have been pilloried by the right with the usual irresponsible spendthrift criticisms. Instead, for whatever reasons, they have not blown the budget so they are pilloried for not spending money. I think this kind of criticism is inherently unfair.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

GV27

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#2323759 24-Sep-2019 10:48

Rikkitic:

I think this kind of criticism is inherently unfair.

Claiming credit for keeping the books in order when the only reason the books are in order because you basically mislead the electorate about what you were going to deliver isn't really fair either.

https://www.interest.co.nz/news/101800/nzta-will-announce-week-how-313-million-funding-originally-earmarked-aucklands-light

Funny, they managed to stick Aucklanders with the regional fuel tax pretty quickly and then immediately rule it out for anyone else.

My money is on a global pandemic thinning out Auckland's traffic before we ever get the rapid transit we need.

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#2323764 24-Sep-2019 10:50

I believe the Coalition had genuine intent during the election but they drastically under estimated the incompetence of their Ministers.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

tdgeek

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#2323782 24-Sep-2019 10:56

GV27:

Rikkitic:

I think this kind of criticism is inherently unfair.

Claiming credit for keeping the books in order when the only reason the books are in order because you basically mislead the electorate about what you were going to deliver isn't really fair either.

https://www.interest.co.nz/news/101800/nzta-will-announce-week-how-313-million-funding-originally-earmarked-aucklands-light

Funny, they managed to stick Aucklanders with the regional fuel tax pretty quickly and then immediately rule it out for anyone else.

My money is on a global pandemic thinning out Auckland's traffic before we ever get the rapid transit we need.

Who said the books are in order due to that? There was a huge surplus a couple of years ago? that wasnt a huge surplus as they said it was some items yet to be spent. Would it be preferable to have no policies and do little then get the credit? We already had that, hence everything is well behind and out of date

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#2323783 24-Sep-2019 11:01

MikeB4:

I believe the Coalition had genuine intent during the election but they drastically under estimated the incompetence of their Ministers.

Where are the alternative competent Ministers? The alternative Govt doesn't enact policy. Do you feel they would have resolved Health, Education, Auckland Transport, National Transport, Housing? Oh, and climate change, if that really matters, which it doesn't to them. Im quite happy to vote for them and get my free tax cut, then see what happens.

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GV27

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#2323789 24-Sep-2019 11:08

tdgeek:

Who said the books are in order due to that? There was a huge surplus a couple of years ago? that wasnt a huge surplus as they said it was some items yet to be spent. Would it be preferable to have no policies and do little then get the credit? We already had that, hence everything is well behind and out of date

Again, criticism of the previous government for doing very little, but zero meaningful scrutiny of a government who promised the earth and backtracked on almost everything?

Objectively speaking, this government's achievements are almost indistinguishable to what we would have had with National. But National bad, Labour good.

MikeB4

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#2323790 24-Sep-2019 11:13

tdgeek:

MikeB4:

I believe the Coalition had genuine intent during the election but they drastically under estimated the incompetence of their Ministers.

Where are the alternative competent Ministers? The alternative Govt doesn't enact policy. Do you feel they would have resolved Health, Education, Auckland Transport, National Transport, Housing? Oh, and climate change, if that really matters, which it doesn't to them. Im quite happy to vote for them and get my free tax cut, then see what happens.

Regrettably those with the ability to resolve those issues don't stand for Parliament. As for tax cuts, they can help with those issues as the funds add to cash flows and disposable income which flows onto economic growth. Economic growth increases wealth and incomes and as such increases tax take both via income and consumption thus repaying itself.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

tdgeek

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#2323800 24-Sep-2019 11:26

GV27:

tdgeek:

Who said the books are in order due to that? There was a huge surplus a couple of years ago? that wasnt a huge surplus as they said it was some items yet to be spent. Would it be preferable to have no policies and do little then get the credit? We already had that, hence everything is well behind and out of date

Again, criticism of the previous government for doing very little, but zero meaningful scrutiny of a government who promised the earth and backtracked on almost everything?

Objectively speaking, this government's achievements are almost indistinguishable to what we would have had with National. But National bad, Labour good.

Thats not what I said. In fact its ignoring the past and blaming the present. Id rather try and fail than not try at all. National bad Labour bad.

Almost everything means say 95% of all policies never happened and never will? There are key policies which we all know have failed or have vastly under achieved. They dont make up all policies. I think we have already mostly agreed here that both are useless

TBH Id rather just vote National and get a free tax cut

GV27

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#2323829 24-Sep-2019 11:51

tdgeek:

TBH Id rather just vote National and get a free tax cut

I'd rather pay the tax and not spend hours of my life that I'll never get back in congestion. I'd pay more if I have to. But I don't want to pay the tax and be told I should be grateful to have nothing.

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