Couple of  extra items here

https://www.labour.org.nz/our-record

tdgeek:

 

Couple of  extra items here

 

https://www.labour.org.nz/our-record

 

A lot of these are great if you look at them as isolation, but many of them are fragmented outcomes of wider policies that abjectly failed (e.g. $2b Mental Health spend). Healthy Homes? Great. But the state housing provider giving itself more and more time to meet the same policies it expects the market to meet now? Miss. Increase FHB grants? Well sure, but you left them at their current levels for four years before that happened, during which your flagship state building policy failed and house prices blew out massively because you wouldn't rein in the Reserve Bank. Hell, you re-hired the guy who was responsible, who also bungled our response to increasing inflation. A 'larger' economy? In $ terms maybe, but how much of that is the result of private residential property which is going to grind to a halt as interest rates rise, or people just having to spend more to get by?

Many of these seem to treat simply spending money as an achievement, and I'm guessing if there were more measurable wins here, they'd be talking about that instead. One can only assume why that might not be the case.

GV27:

 

tdgeek:

 

Couple of  extra items here

 

https://www.labour.org.nz/our-record

 

 

A lot of these are great if you look at them as isolation, but many of them are fragmented outcomes of wider policies that abjectly failed (e.g. $2b Mental Health spend). Healthy Homes? Great. But the state housing provider giving itself more and more time to meet the same policies it expects the market to meet now? Miss. Increase FHB grants? Well sure, but you left them at their current levels for four years before that happened, during which your flagship state building policy failed and house prices blew out massively because you wouldn't rein in the Reserve Bank. Hell, you re-hired the guy who was responsible, who also bungled our response to increasing inflation. A 'larger' economy? In $ terms maybe, but how much of that is the result of private residential property which is going to grind to a halt as interest rates rise, or people just having to spend more to get by?

 

Many of these seem to treat simply spending money as an achievement, and I'm guessing if there were more measurable wins here, they'd be talking about that instead. One can only assume why that might not be the case.

 

They had been increasing for decades, now its the Reserve Banks fault?

Inflation is a world wide issue due to the same QE reasons, lack of production due to some virus, lack of production due to extra sick days after some virus was deemed ok, and the increased fuel price that affects virtually every product. You cannot fix that, you try to manage it while you wait till supply is more in line with demand. Oh and regular weather events that screw the vege prices that everyone is complaining about. How much of all this is due to private residential property??  We seem to be fixated on that and ignore the overriding factors

Its clear that a party should avoid any slightly larger policies that can be measured? That has often been successful. Maybe just increase the minimum wage which you count as a win, but when that happens its a furore, yet the opposing party told us the other day they want to increase incomes?? 

I guess what I take from this is that its best to have zero or few policies, make sure they cannot be measured and just let the market take care of everything

tdgeek:

 

They had been increasing for decades, now its the Reserve Banks fault?

 

They dropped the OCR to emergency levels, took an age to hike it, and are still in negative territory compared to the level of inflation. The FLP for cheap bank lending only ended in October. The dropping of investor LVRs was impossible to justify on any grounds. So in the sense that they deliberately pursued policy settings that caused the biggest price increases in NZ history, I mean yes, it is their fault. 

tdgeek: 

 

Inflation is a world wide issue due to the same QE reasons, lack of production due to some virus, lack of production due to extra sick days after some virus was deemed ok, and the increased fuel price that affects virtually every product. You cannot fix that, you try to manage it while you wait till supply is more in line with demand. Oh and regular weather events that screw the vege prices that everyone is complaining about. How much of all this is due to private residential property??  We seem to be fixated on that and ignore the overriding factors

 

You can fix it. You don't dump billions of dollars of cheap credit into an economy obsessed with housing and at the same time wind-back the safeguards that stop people ploughing ever cent of their income for the next thirty years trying to buy more and more houses and you don't have the problems we have now to start with. 

There are other factors, like war etc but we are talking tens of billions of dollars here, entirely within our borders. Yes, there is a fire, but you're asking me to look the other way while people pour petrol over it and then claim that the fire was already there regardless. 

Your comment about measurement here is hugely ironic given there has been no consequences for RBNZ failures over the Covid recovery period and Robertson has reappointed Orr. They now have close to zero credibility as an inflation-fighting institution and belatedly hiking the OCR will disproportionately affect young people with huge mortgages and renters who will be stung by piss-taking investors salty that they can't rely on taxpayer funding to cover their financing costs.

If you feel that NZ inflation is entirely fixable, and that other factors are not the main or anywhere near the main drivers, well, not sure what to say, but I disagree. Ironic that other first world countries have the exact same issues

tdgeek:

 

If you feel that NZ inflation is entirely fixable, and that other factors are not the main or anywhere near the main drivers, well, not sure what to say, but I disagree. Ironic that other first world countries have the exact same issues

 

Sorry, but they aren't. The main issue in NZ was the revocation of LVRs and the failure to respond to rising house prices, leaving the OCR at emergency levels, and then only cottoning on that inflation was going to overshoot when it overshot. Our response to increasing external costs would have been a lot different if we had an exchange rate that reflected a proactive response to rising house prices, not one of belated hikes once inflation was already running hot. How's that 'transitory' inflation working out for us now, after a year of 7%+? 

Other countries have their own issues and their central banks are loose fiscal policies may be issues, but it doesn't change what the core driver of our problems are here, nor does it mean we should just abandon trying to control the things we can control. I can't accept that. 

In that case if the vast majority of our inflation is locally caused by the current Government then easily fixed in October by a new Government. Easy, if they followed your recommendations, and I say that in all seriousness. It will be easy. And no excuse

tdgeek:

 

In that case if the vast majority of our inflation is locally caused by the current Government then easily fixed in October by a new Government. Easy, if they followed your recommendations, and I say that in all seriousness. It will be easy. And no excuse

 

You are twisting words and making no sense.

It is far easier, cheaper and faster to smash something than it is to put it back together again and there are no easy fixes now the damage has been done to our economy.

Orr and Robertson were warned about their excessive and prolonged money printing. They ignored advice from both Treasury and private sector experts including former RBNZ staff. We will be paying the price for years to come, and young new home owners will be among the worst affected.

johno1234:

 

You are twisting words and making no sense.

 

It is far easier, cheaper and faster to smash something than it is to put it back together again and there are no easy fixes now the damage has been done to our economy.

 

Orr and Robertson were warned about their excessive and prolonged money printing. They ignored advice from both Treasury and private sector experts including former RBNZ staff. We will be paying the price for years to come, and young new home owners will be among the worst affected.

 

Explain where the funds were to come from to provide the financial support during Covid?  Other countries did the same, we fared better, although it was very costly. Are you saying we should not have provided that support? Or where does the funds come from? 

Also, there has been excessive damage done to our economy by way of avoiding infrastructure, health and education spending, and other sectors. Past governments of all types have kicked that can down the road, yet we complain now that its not fixed, same with housing affordability. Now its a problem. It always was. But that's apparently ok

tdgeek:

 

johno1234:

 

You are twisting words and making no sense.

 

It is far easier, cheaper and faster to smash something than it is to put it back together again and there are no easy fixes now the damage has been done to our economy.

 

Orr and Robertson were warned about their excessive and prolonged money printing. They ignored advice from both Treasury and private sector experts including former RBNZ staff. We will be paying the price for years to come, and young new home owners will be among the worst affected.

 

 

Explain where the funds were to come from to provide the financial support during Covid?  Other countries did the same, we fared better, although it was very costly. Are you saying we should not have provided that support? Or where does the funds come from? 

 

Yet more twisting of words. I'll cease to respond now.

Fine, You cannot get something for nothing. You stump up the cost to support the locked down economy or you don't

I disagree with GV's assessment, but at least he has his ideas on what was done wrong, all local, so those can be wound back

Whether its partisan twisting of words or partisan head in the sand, these are all our opinions

So a person on the new minimum wage working 40 hours a week will earn a salary of $47,216, very close to the $48,000 where 30% tax comes in. With some overtime or working on a few public holidays some will go into the next tax bracket. How can it be right that "minimum" wage is on one of the top tax rates? Feel like it's a poorly targeted change and what should happen is the thresholds moving with inflation as they haven't moved since I think 2010.

I'm no expert on minimum wage - I don't consider myself very well off and things like owning a home will likely never be a possibility, but I gained a qualification that has allowed me to earn a stable average sort of salary so have never needed to worry about it. My impression of minimum wage  is that when it goes up, the places that pay it (supermarkets, shops etc) will tend to raise their prices to cover the increased costs, and landlords probably raise rents knowing their tenant has just had a pay rise. So you probably never actually see any increase in your pocket as it gets eaten up by the things that have had to go up to cover it. Or is that way off the mark? 

invisibleman18:

 

So a person on the new minimum wage working 40 hours a week will earn a salary of $47,216, very close to the $48,000 where 30% tax comes in. With some overtime or working on a few public holidays some will go into the next tax bracket. How can it be right that "minimum" wage is on one of the top tax rates? Feel like it's a poorly targeted change and what should happen is the thresholds moving with inflation as they haven't moved since I think 2010.

 

I'm no expert on minimum wage - I don't consider myself very well off and things like owning a home will likely never be a possibility, but I gained a qualification that has allowed me to earn a stable average sort of salary so have never needed to worry about it. My impression of minimum wage  is that when it goes up, the places that pay it (supermarkets, shops etc) will tend to raise their prices to cover the increased costs, and landlords probably raise rents knowing their tenant has just had a pay rise. So you probably never actually see any increase in your pocket as it gets eaten up by the things that have had to go up to cover it. Or is that way off the mark? 

 

Largely it in a nutshell.  A nail salon owner was interviewed on TVNZ last night - he pays above minimum wage but will have to lift his wage rates by the same amount to retain his staff.  And he said that customers will have to accept paying more for services.  Those like you who have qualifications will demand higher pay because your employer should value you more than those semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the labour market.

Meanwhile we wait to hear what will happen with nurses, teachers, doctors, police etc wage rates.  Will the Government be promising them wage increases at the rate of inflation such that "that thousands of New Zealanders don't go backwards."?  From the NZ Herald on Feb 8th - "A spokesperson from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and Middlemore ED staff member said the department was continually short-staffed and vacancies were not being filled in time to keep up with resignations."   And I understand its not just Middlemore ED.  The catchcry to fill bus driver vacancies is to pay them more - so what about the public vacancies in our core services??

tdgeek:

 

Who built Kiwibuild, who funded it?

 

Labour built it and taxpayers funded it. Unsure how that's relevant to UFB, a global phemonema, where taxpayers funded it, and network operators built it

 

Look, I think it's fair to say that at the risk of going off-topic, we can at least credit National on that one with not sabotaging it like their Australian counterparts did with the NBN. I don't think there's anything wrong with giving "the other side" a nod when they do something right, and it does seem to me, as a detractor at the best of times of National, that there does seem to be a lot of effort to try avoid giving National even the barest minimum of credit for anything.

In fairness, some posters (and I think they all know who they are) are equally determined to spin anything Labour does as incompetent, malicious, or purely out of self-interest.

This kind of partisan point-scoring is exactly why political engagement is in the toilet. To anyone looking at it from the outside, it just seems pointless when everything is reduced to petty quibbling.