Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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Forums › Politics › Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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#3195606 15-Feb-2024 11:27

I agree as well. I was trying to find logical reasons to put my mind at ease from all the frustrating things that are going on at the moment. But once I told myself that game was won/lost on the voting day and we are living with the aftermath. GenPop must've felt super fed up with previous govt that they (reluctanctly maybe) had to vote someone different!

I'm curious to see if Greens under Chloe S will attract more or less of the undecided centre general population to the left.

elpenguino

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#3195609 15-Feb-2024 11:33

thinkingtrex8848:

I'd like to contribute my 0.01c to this conversation around "undoing/repealing" of policies by the current govt.

From my very limited understanding, National party, at its core is centre right and went into coalition with more right leaning parties. Right leaning parties literally want as little govt intervention in the economics and clearly root for free market to fix the issues rather than govt intervening and trying to fix the issues.

In theory, that's the general idea but there's some other factors too. For example, the privately owned Marsden Point oil refinery closed recently. The owners of that refinery couldn't see a way to make money out of it yet the new NZFACT government want to have an enquiry into this and see if they can get it online again. The refinery is old and competes against newer, larger refineries in the asia pacific region which have access to cheaper supplies of electricity and gas. Restoration of Marsden Point is going to require a large investment (i.e. subsidies or grants) to modernise equipment.

Forcing an investment in a private economic concern is directly in contradiction of the principles given and could be explained by pork barrel politics appealing to Northland voters as well as a bit of MAGA yearning.

Restoration of Marsden Point wont even lead to a better strategic fuel supply because currently fuel can be supplied from one of a dozen refineries instead of a single point of failure. Remember the pipeline which got dug up a few years ago?

The dead end enquiry is the kind of waste of money the previous government was lambasted for and it's not even 100 days yet.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#3195708 15-Feb-2024 11:55

elpenguino:

Restoration of Marsden Point wont even lead to a better strategic fuel supply because currently fuel can be supplied from one of a dozen refineries instead of a single point of failure. Remember the pipeline which got dug up a few years ago?

The dead end enquiry is the kind of waste of money the previous government was lambasted for and it's not even 100 days yet.

The MAGAs also think we will be energy independent if we reopen Marsden Point because we have our own oil. Except Marsden point never refined NZ oil for fuel. It's no good for that (too much sulphur). They only ever refined imported oil - so it really makes little difference whether we import refined fuel or crude oil. Either way, we are still reliant on imported oil.

On the other hand NZF also scream about how the imported bitumen is crap and that's why our roads are falling apart, so we should start making our own at Marsden Point again as well.

But then you look at water and the government is all "it'll be fine, we'll just make it a rule that it has to be fine". So, why don't we just make it a rule that the imported bitumen has to be good too? There is no consistent position from this government other than "tear down everything the other team did".

Actually that's not quite true. They are pretty consistent with "**** the environment" too.

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sen8or

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#3195740 15-Feb-2024 12:55

There was a big negative from the closing of Marsden point, no more CO2 supplied to NZ industries (hospitality, manufacturing, medical etc), that had quite an impact on costs as we now have to import the gas from o/seas.

I have a much broader / more liberal view to trickle down economics, yes the very top can get the lions share of profits, they provide the capital and take the financial risk for the business so have much more at stake than the average worker, but, I have not yet been in an institution that doesn't provide opportunity for growth of individual workers to advance themselves and improve their financial position at the same time. Granted, I have never worked in a factory / blue collar industry that is unionised and where you are a small cog in a big wheel so will happily accept that my viewpoint is from a different perspective than some (many).

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#3195809 15-Feb-2024 13:10

sen8or:

improve their financial position at the same time.

If by that you mean "get paid to work" then sure, but that's normally it. As a general rule, people don't get rich by giving all their money to the workers, even if they couldn't be rich without them.

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sen8or

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#3195819 15-Feb-2024 13:28

SaltyNZ:

sen8or:

improve their financial position at the same time.

If by that you mean "get paid to work" then sure, but that's normally it. As a general rule, people don't get rich by giving all their money to the workers, even if they couldn't be rich without them.

yes, paid to work, but that doesn't mean that you have to be stuck in the same pay bracket (inflationary pay rises and/or minimum wage rises excluded), some of the businesses I have worked for have rewarded over and above for individual effort and improvement.

Way I look at it, if I work to improve my value proposition for the good of the company, invariably the company will reward me. If it doesn't, then as a worker I am free to pursue somewhere else that will. An employer / business owner however does not have that luxury.

tdgeek

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#3195824 15-Feb-2024 13:59

SaltyNZ:

GV27:

Including 'maximum sustainable employment' in the RBNZ's list of obligations was at direct odds with the idea that it should act, first and foremost, to restrain inflation when making monetary policy decisions.

I seem to remember Orr saying that it wouldn't have pushed his decisions much one way or another anyway. But I can't find a link to prove that. Just because you have to "consider" it doesn't mean you have to decide differently.

I recall that too

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tdgeek

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#3195826 15-Feb-2024 14:03

GV27:

The ferry issue, again is different. If your project estimates blow out $400m in less than 30 days then the government is rightly going to question whether you have a handle on what you're proposing and how much it is going to cost. Again, it should never have reached Willis' desk to make that decision, it should have been nixed before it got anywhere near that out of hand.

I'll also not the previous government did not assure Kiwirail it would fully fund the last request it got for extra money, they merely gave it the assurances it needed to progress the project. I do not see that being held against that with the same fervour.

In any case, what is a cost blowout? Did the costs blow out, or were they under costed to begin with? Doesn't really matter, as do we need to cater trans Cook St people and goods, or not? If so it needs to happen, if not then bypass Welington and use Auckland and Tauranga to Lyttelton seaways, and leave Wellington for local and less volume of people/traffic. Not much good for Wellington/Picton, but they aren't Auckland.... :-)

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#3195860 15-Feb-2024 14:40

freitasm:
The lack of planning on ferries, the cancellation of infrastructure to support rail traffic between the islands will come back to bite the nation in 20 years time.

This government is not planning for the future, is about looking at the past. And they aren't doing well in that front either.

Why would they have had a plan for the ferries? Like the rest of us they were under the assumption that Kiwirail wouldn’t try and increase the budget by 400 million in a couple of weeks.

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#3196010 15-Feb-2024 20:15

Interesting article

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350181615/tova-podcast-should-blue-and-red-parties-combine-unstoppable-coalition

elpenguino

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#3196012 15-Feb-2024 20:26

sen8or:

There was a big negative from the closing of Marsden point, no more CO2 supplied to NZ industries (hospitality, manufacturing, medical etc), that had quite an impact on costs as we now have to import the gas from o/seas.

I have a much broader / more liberal view to trickle down economics, yes the very top can get the lions share of profits, they provide the capital and take the financial risk for the business so have much more at stake than the average worker, <SNIP>

That's very admirable and justifies those profits staying in the bosses pockets. Luckily, no risk taking business has ever been bailed out by those same 'average workers', nor ever gets a subsidy or special treatment (hand out , you say?).

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#3196019 15-Feb-2024 20:40

SaltyNZ:

sen8or:

improve their financial position at the same time.

If by that you mean "get paid to work" then sure, but that's normally it. As a general rule, people don't get rich by giving all their money to the workers, even if they couldn't be rich without them.

Equally you don't retain staff by not paying them and if your staff add a lot of value then you need to retain them.

Too many economic assumptions, like if I pay well I won't get rich, are based on a zero sum game, which is not how economics generally work.

The standard of living that we all enjoy is largely based on productivity increases over the last 200 years.

That doesn't mean there aren't problems to be solved but the explosion of productivity from industrialization and digitalization is the fundamental reason we don't have many kids in the developed world dying from cholera and infected cuts anymore.

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#3196021 15-Feb-2024 20:52

sen8or:

Way I look at it, if I work to improve my value proposition for the good of the company, invariably the company will reward me. If it doesn't, then as a worker I am free to pursue somewhere else that will. An employer / business owner however does not have that luxury.

A business always has the option of exiting the employment relationship and employing a different person with better skills who can generate more value. Whether the value the new person generates is more than the cost of doing either upskilling the employee or redeploying the head count is part of the arithmetic of running a business. Ultimately employment is a value based relationship not a personal one.

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#3196023 15-Feb-2024 20:57

Handle9:

That doesn't mean there aren't problems to be solved but the explosion of productivity from industrialization and digitalization is the fundamental reason we don't have many kids in the developed world dying from cholera and infected cuts anymore.

And yet it remains true that the explosion of productivity from industrialisation disproportionately enriched the already rich. That's what the Luddites were all about. They weren't afraid of new technology. They were angry about new technology that concentrated even more wealth into the hands of those that already had it while leaving them to starve.

And we see it playing out again today with digitalisation. The digital billionaires who started out rich and used it become even richer. Bill Gates was the son of a lawyer and a banker. His mother - the banker - influenced IBM to get him a deal. Elon Musk was the son of a Zimbabwean emerald mine owner. Jeff Bezos was given nearly $250K by his father ...

Bezos and Gates, at least, worked very hard, true. But millions of other people worked just as hard but didn't start out rich. The wealth accrued to Gates, Musk & Bezos. Not all the thousands of smart people who worked as hard, or harder, than they did.

The next round is about to begin with generative AI with the likes of Sam Altman arguing he should be able to train his monkeys on everyone else's work for free, because how would he make a profit if he had to pay?

You don't have to unhappy with your life or envious of Elon Musk's 350 IQ and Herculean physique to see that trickle down is a crock. There's only one golden fluid that trickles down from the rich, and it ain't lucre.

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#3196027 15-Feb-2024 21:12

SaltyNZ:

Handle9:

That doesn't mean there aren't problems to be solved but the explosion of productivity from industrialization and digitalization is the fundamental reason we don't have many kids in the developed world dying from cholera and infected cuts anymore.

And yet it remains true that the explosion of productivity from industrialisation disproportionately enriched the already rich. That's what the Luddites were all about. They weren't afraid of new technology. They were angry about new technology that concentrated even more wealth into the hands of those that already had it while leaving them to starve.

And we see it playing out again today with digitalisation. The digital billionaires who started out rich and used it become even richer. Bill Gates was the son of a lawyer and a banker. His mother - the banker - influenced IBM to get him a deal. Elon Musk was the son of a Zimbabwean emerald mine owner. Jeff Bezos was given nearly $250K by his father ...

Bezos and Gates, at least, worked very hard, true. But millions of other people worked just as hard but didn't start out rich. The wealth accrued to Gates, Musk & Bezos. Not all the thousands of smart people who worked as hard, or harder, than they did.

The next round is about to begin with generative AI with the likes of Sam Altman arguing he should be able to train his monkeys on everyone else's work for free, because how would he make a profit if he had to pay?

You don't have to unhappy with your life or envious of Elon Musk's 350 IQ and Herculean physique to see that trickle down is a crock. There's only one golden fluid that trickles down from the rich, and it ain't lucre.

Yet tens of thousands of other people got rich working at Amazon, Microsoft and Tesla. The earning power for software engineers and associated professions has exploded in the last 20 years.

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