Why we will never have a government that passes good policies

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Eitsop

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#302916 3-Jan-2023 22:09

Why do we think that a Labour lead govt, or a national lead govt has better answers?

We vote members of parliament in when they get 50%+1 of vote. But why should we expect that they run govt on the same approach.

Ideally governments would form & pass laws with 65%+ if they truely want to be a government with "mandate".

Sadly we won't have a government that will truely pass good laws/policies. Laws/policies that are so good, they won't be reversed by a following government. So we are left with laws/policies that are mediocre, or turn into political footballs.

Some good laws or policies are

raising retirement age, both labour and national have raised now or in past
enabling RBNZ to use kiwisaver as a tool for inflation
ensuring house (land) prices don't inflate too much, so people invest in more productive avenues, and everyone can afford to buy a house, and live a sustainable life
3 waters, on face has good ideals, but has turned into a football.

The only good law of recent times, where both labour and national worked together, was where allowing building of 3 houses per section

I would rather have no laws passed than half assed ones.

gzt

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#3016595 3-Jan-2023 22:47

Realistically all governments do a mix of things. Half an ass is better than no ass at all. The select committee process tends to even things out a bit. Imo mmp government has led to more consensus style government compared to the fpp days. Parties still vote against each other's legislation on party lines to a large extent but are much more likely to have made some good contributions and adjustments during the select committee process formally or informally on behalf of constituents or other interests.

wellygary

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#3016704 4-Jan-2023 09:01

"I would rather have no laws passed than half assed ones."

Countries with Legislative logjams often end up with large amounts of "earmarking" or "pork barrel politics" to get support from enough individual members of Parliament to get things passed ..

Some could argue that things like the NZ-First coalition agreement that included $3 billion for the provincial growth fund was just a pay off for NZ First's political support...

Making the hurdle higher for laws to pass, may just mean that the laws that do get passed are a whole lot grubber,

ezbee

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#3016876 4-Jan-2023 14:55

'You can't always get what you want', better something than nothing.

A 4 year term might end up with bolder Governments.
Some want an upper house to slooow down legislation, which seems slow enough already.
Thank goodness no one wants to pay for an upper house so recoil at this.

Housing prices for example are complicated by multiple factors, so its not a one answer problem.
Sell off of state housing that competes with rentals, some time back, and they are not making more land.
Explosion of Rentals as investment, there is an Auckland Radio station that seems to live off advertising for rental investment companies.
AirB&B etc that has exploded to a degree that Motels/Hotels have lost significant business.
Further pushing up demand for 2n, 3rd, 4th, 10th, Houses.
Auckland dragging its heels on the district plan to support higher density occurred at just the wrong time too.

Reform of funding of parties would help a lot also, but that would be very difficult given pushback from interests that benefit from buying a seat at the top table.

Democracy may be imperfect, and we all can't be like Denmark, but its better than alternative.

GV27

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#3017237 5-Jan-2023 11:20

ezbee:

Democracy may be imperfect, and we all can't be like Denmark, but its better than alternative.

We literally voted for that kind of government though. It instead decided to spend political capital on things like water and health centralisation, instead of the things it campaigned on doing.

At this point, where a government has simply walked away from the policies it campaigned on to get elected, what more is there for voters to do?

Eitsop

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#3018144 7-Jan-2023 11:39

ezbee: Democracy may be imperfect, and we all can't be like Denmark, but its better than alternative.

I wish we were like denmark, It would be better if we had more MMP Parties to form a larger proportion 65%

GV27:We literally voted for that kind of government though. It instead decided to spend political capital on things like water and health centralisation, instead of the things it campaigned on doing.

At this point, where a government has simply walked away from the policies it campaigned on to get elected, what more is there for voters to do?

It would be great if the run more, regular referendums, eg for water/health centralisation. So they make a case for it.. and put it to the people?
Even better if the Referendum votes could be electronic.

Some policies are independent of the party you vote for, but we seem mix the meaning

gzt

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#3018168 7-Jan-2023 13:18

The current government has 60%+ which is not far from your ideal.

Eitsop: Sadly we won't have a government that will truely pass good laws/policies. Laws/policies that are so good, they won't be reversed by a following government.

Likewise we do have it, as is the case with stable democracies - far more is kept than thrown away. I think many of your proposals are not grounded in any kind of reality.

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sir1963

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#3018180 7-Jan-2023 13:54

"Good Policies" is very much an "I agree with them" thing.

And that is as varied as favourite colour and food likes and dislikes.

Eitsop

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#3018190 7-Jan-2023 15:11

sir1963:

"Good Policies" is very much an "I agree with them" thing.

And that is as varied as favourite colour and food likes and dislikes.

Yeah, just because we do or don't vote in a National or Labour party, doesn't mean we agree or disagree with all of their policies?

If Labour gets in and if I am a National Voter, but I like one of the Labour policies

We should be voting in people who are good managers/implementers. And we have referendum questions for direction of NZ...

Daynger

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#3018270 7-Jan-2023 17:05

A politicians main goal is actually to get elected next term and not the benefit of the country by policy change.

Hence they never rock the boat too much and nothing unpopular but kinda needed or polarity shifting will ever get done.

The us vs them mentality is also shocking, surely at some point politicians have to admit the other team had a good idea and we should support it too.

MurrayM

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#3018508 8-Jan-2023 09:09

Way too many voters are tribal and always vote for "their party". They always support everything that "their party" promotes and rubbish anything that the "other party" puts forward.

Me, over the years I've voted for National, Labour and NZ First (not in that order) as my personal priorities and concerns have changed as I've got older.

sir1963

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#3018517 8-Jan-2023 09:49

Yep me too.

Belong to no party.

Happy to criticise any party or politician for bad ideas

have voted for different parties at different times

Regularly split my votes, I will vote for whom I think is the most competent local representative but then vote for a different party.

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GV27

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#3019815 11-Jan-2023 08:26

sir1963:

Yep me too.

Belong to no party.

Happy to criticise any party or politician for bad ideas

have voted for different parties at different times

Regularly split my votes, I will vote for whom I think is the most competent local representative but then vote for a different party.

This is how it's meant to work. The people who vote the same way every time without ever weighing up policy or are prepared to question how effectively their interests are going to actually be represented end up as dead weight, and effectively end up meaning a small number of people actually decide who ends up in power.

"Swing voters" are much maligned but they're actually the ones doing things correctly.

Eitsop

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#3019848 11-Jan-2023 09:09

GV27:
"Swing voters" are much maligned but they're actually the ones doing things correctly.

I agree, as long they are choosing the policies than the leader who is most agreeable

Rikkitic

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#3019886 11-Jan-2023 10:29

I don’t always vote for the same party but I do always vote progressive. The reason is not because of the policies put forth, but because I genuinely cannot stand the political right wing in this country. For me any stated policies, which never get implemented anyway, are secondary. What I am voting against is the people at the top, who invariably personify actions and philosophies that disgust me. I find it discouraging that I feel impelled to vote against rather than for, but that is the reality that propels me. I don’t need to look closely at the policies on the left because anything is better than what the right serves up.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

JimmyH

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#3020873 13-Jan-2023 14:46

Good policies are often I the eye of the beholder, what you consider good policy I might consider terrible policy, and vice versa. But I disagree that all NZs policies are terrible. For example I think that our GST is probably one of the best designed value-added taxes in the world and was a great policy, but activists arguing for exemptions for fruit & veges, fuel [insert favoured good here] would probably disagree. Mych like beauty, good policy is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Eitsop:

Some good laws or policies are

raising retirement age, both labour and national have raised now or in past
enabling RBNZ to use kiwisaver as a tool for inflation
ensuring house (land) prices don't inflate too much, so people invest in more productive avenues, and everyone can afford to buy a house, and live a sustainable life.
3 waters, on face has good ideals, but has turned into a football.

Retirement Age. Starting with retirement age. Personally I think raising it to 67/68 would be a good policy (and much preferable to, say, reintroducing a surcharge if the cost needs to be brought down), but there are many who disagree for reasons that they consider just as valid as mine.

Enabling RBNZ to use kiwisaver. Personally I think that's a terrible idea, and would be a good way to incentivise me not to be a kiwisaver member.

Ensuring prices don't inflate too much. Firstly, that actually isn't a policy, it's an objective. Kind of like saying mom and apple pie are both good. The policy would be the thing(s) you propose that the government should do to try and achieve this objective. Secondly, it's too imprecise. You can't design a policy around something as vague as "too much". Who decides how much is "too much", and why?

Three Waters. Again, many (myself included) would disagree strongly with this claim. I think it's a terrible policy. Aside from the racist governance model (which I deeply oppose), it seems to have all the wrong incentives baked into it (for instance there will be heavy implicit cross-subsidies from some communities to others) which mean that it is likely to have highly politicised and irrational decision making processes, high overheads, and glacial decision making,