Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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

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#3231058 16-May-2024 08:07

quickymart:

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/05/15/auckland-wont-complete-big-busway-in-pm-and-ministers-electorates/

Of course Simeon Brown doesn't want to commit funding to complete the Eastern Busway. That would divert funding from building endless roads for single-occupant cars! 🙄

As much fun as it is to watch the Battle of the Browns, ultimately Auckland loses either way.

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GV27

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#3231116 16-May-2024 09:26

AT made a pig's ear of the Eastern Busway route through the main road of East Tamaki with a stupid dog-leg away from the main road. I'm not surprised it's coming under scrutiny.

If they hadn't stuffed around with that then there may well have been enough in the kitty to complete the diversion in Stage 4.

There's been cooked decisions all the way through the process, including I believe one relating to a bridge that was eventually scaled back to the point it would need to be rebuilt totally before the line could be converted to Light Rail.

rb99

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#3232079 18-May-2024 13:12

How can we save money to give tax cuts to ourselves. I know, lets look after our children a little less -

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/517143/revamped-school-lunches-may-be-less-healthy-principal

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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quickymart

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#3232457 19-May-2024 17:17

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/05/19/its-just-the-beginning-pm-unapologetic-about-moving-at-pace/

He may not care about the "pundits and commentators" who speak about him and his government, but I bet he sure as Hell cares about the base that voted for him. The rest? Not so much.

ockel

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#3232895 21-May-2024 09:46

May 21, 2024 9:07 AM RNZ Live National MP failed to declare election donations A National MP has been stood down from his select committee roles after revealing he failed to declare political donations.
New Plymouth MP David MacLeod said he had filed a new Return of Electorate Candidate Donations, Expenses and Loans for the 2023 General Election after failing to declare 19 candidate donations worth $178,000.
He said it was an inadvertent error.

“I am extremely disappointed in myself for making this error.”

MacLeod said he thought the return was for the 2023 year only so failed to declare the 18 donations he'd received when he became a candidate in 2022.

However, he also failed to a disclose a $10,000 donation in 2023.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon stood MacLeod down immediately from his roles on the environment and finance select committees.

He said "David has failed to meet the high standards we expect of our MPs" and the matter was being taken very seriously.

Swift justice. I mean its not bullying on live television or a pattern of bullying behaviour but its bad enough to see you stripped of your duties.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

quickymart

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#3234506 25-May-2024 09:01

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/05/25/john-campbell-my-pre-budget-roadie-to-northland-was-an-eye-opener/

John Campbell meets up with some Northland residents and takes a look at how the new government's policies are impacting them. Sadly, it's not in a good way.

freitasm

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#3234511 25-May-2024 09:32

What a story. And the current government seems to be not listening.

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sir1963

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#3234541 25-May-2024 11:59

freitasm: What a story. And the current government seems to be not listening.

Auckland has too much influence on the outcome of any election.

GV27

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#3235225 27-May-2024 13:30

sir1963:

Auckland has too much influence on the outcome of any election.

Auckland provides a massive chunk of government revenue, it accounts for a large portion of the country's population and most of the city's problems are due to central government not provisioning for the large increases that Auckland has borne that the rest of the country hasn't.

If anything, Auckland has had insufficient influence over policy outcomes.

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#3235305 27-May-2024 16:16

Auckland has plenty of MPs to represent Auckland's issues in parliament. Sometimes it seems they have other priorities. To be fair, a chunk of those issues are super city council related. The relationship between ak city council and central government does seem to be improving.

Overall I don't think it can improve past a point unless parliament moves to Auckland. It happens that would also be closer to Northland.

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#3235312 27-May-2024 16:46

sir1963: Auckland has too much influence on the outcome of any election.

Back to the topic related to the article - northland area has between two and three MPs depending on how you look at it. It is not surprising it has low weight in parliament.

In recent years imo the representatives in the general area have been influential in governments of all kinds.

Shane Jones for example is currently a minister in the region for the current government and for the previous government holding a regional development portfolio. That would apparently be ideal although many local iwi and other groups of people are opposed to mining development which Jones favors, and it's inevitable consequences. Luckily there are many other sustainable opportunities for development unrelated to mining, if the representatives are listening and learning.

quickymart

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#3235358 27-May-2024 19:20

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/six-month-review-of-the-coalition-government-the-highs-lows-and-what-the-future-holds-the-front-page/J5WK7C4OD5AA3A24OH3NUFPUTE/

Interesting podcast taking a look at how the coalition partners are all getting along after six months together.

Spoiler: if anyone's going to be the "problem child" in the coalition, it's probably going to be Act.

quickymart

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#3235427 27-May-2024 21:05

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/05/27/govt-moves-to-replace-or-repeal-treaty-principles-clauses-from-laws/

Can someone remind me what Shane Jones does again? Is it anything good?

ezbee

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#3235457 27-May-2024 22:08

What use is Shane Jones.

You have to admit Shane Jones controls his temper better than Winston Peters.
He also seems to keep major donors close and without these NZ First would have been toast.
Did they not raise almost as much if not more than Labour?

ockel

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#3236748 28-May-2024 10:42

gzt:
Back to the topic related to the article - northland area has between two and three MPs depending on how you look at it. It is not surprising it has low weight in parliament.

In recent years imo the representatives in the general area have been influential in governments of all kinds.

Shane Jones for example is currently a minister in the region for the current government and for the previous government holding a regional development portfolio. That would apparently be ideal although many local iwi and other groups of people are opposed to mining development which Jones favors, and it's inevitable consequences. Luckily there are many other sustainable opportunities for development unrelated to mining, if the representatives are listening and learning.

Campbells article could easily have been written pre-election or 2 years ago and the essence would be exactly the same.

The opening statement "Kane Lyden has been doing this work for over 20 years. She tells me the cost-of-living crisis has been hitting people hard, then harder, for about three years. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen it worse than it is now." is the total consequence of the monetary medicine NZ has had to swallow to rectify the financial mismanagement post-Covid. Especially when successive Budgets have been expansionary and fueling inflation, fighting against (and prolonging) the tighter monetary policy of the RBNZ.

But the essence of the argument that Northland has been ignored by successive Governments rings true over and over. This is despite the fact that Shane Jones sprayed a disproportionate amount of PGF funding on the region and virtually demanded Northlanders vote for NZF because they werent going to get looked after better by anyone else. A large chunk of PGF funding went to replacing sleepers on the trunk line between Whangarei and Kawakawa. Every time you drive on SH1 you can see the piles of sleepers waiting by the track for some work to be done, still, more than 5 years later. Other than the rail work, the only visible PGF projects are the Paihia wharf expansion (still not a viable place to ferry cruise ship passengers to/from) and the Maori Battalion Museum at Waitangi (well worth a visit but is it worth $14m of spending?). We know what happened to NZF in 2020.

The 2020 election saw a completely red Northland. Perfect opportunity for Labour to address the Northland deprivation that Campbell talks about. With 3 MP's to push for attention. But even 12 months ago most people in Whangarei would struggle to tell you who their MP was. Regarding the Te Tai Tokerau MP, who has represented the area since 2014, there is a reason that the Tourism sector called him Casper the Ghost. And as for Jean-Willow Prime, walk around Kawakawa (where her electorate office is located) and talk to the locals. It wont take long to understand why she struggled to get votes in every election other than the Red Wave. From 2014 with 25% of the vote in a two horse race to 2017 where she was a distant third.

Northland is built on farming, forestry and tourism. The former two industries were getting hammered under the two previous Governments. And tourism, despite Davis' links, saw very little of the Covid recovery funding that enterprises saw in the South Island. Not to mention being economically cut off during Auckland's Covid lockdown while the rest of the country went about its business. Do you think that we're still bitter about that? But what exactly did the last Labour Government do for Northland? Absolutely squat. The article kind of misses that thread apart from the complete lack of work on the Mangamuka Gorge which is simply insulting to everyone in Northland, especially when the work on 25A to get Aucklanders to their holiday homes in Whitianga and Paunui was done so quickly.

But some other "gems" from Campbells article. Free School Lunches. “A lot of people, I have noticed, take home their lunches. If there’s extra ones in the class they take them home. And provide them for their families. Or eat them for dinner, or something.” Just. Highlights. Why. This. Isnt. An. Education. Programme. Since when did feeding families school lunches (or providing dinners) have anything to do with school attendance or achievement. Those lunches taken home are from the absent students that the Free School Lunch program is supposed to be enticing to school. An investigative journalist would have asked whether this is something that the MoE should be funding or whether MSD should be addressing the food poverty issue with such a programme. The discussion on Free School Lunches continues to miss the point.

And Northland wants local input, local solutions, local control. So much has been centralised over the last 6 years, decisions made out of Wellington. But Northland doesnt want Local Water Done Well, it would prefer that centralised planned and control model Entity A was established so Northland ratepayers could be subsidised by Auckland ratepayers for water and wastewater infrastructure (Auckland ratepayers already pay 45% higher rates when you include water which is paid separately).

As for hoping that the Budget is going to do something for Northland (fingers crossed) and why nothing has been done for Northlanders since October 2023? First you've got to stomach-staple the fat middle of the North Island. And the 4,500 job losses to date only address the last 18 months of job growth in the Public Sector (excluding HealthNZ and Education which fall outside of that measure) https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/research-and-data/workforce-data-public-sector-composition/workforce-data-workforce-size Imagine what difference the $400m per year (from wages alone of those 4,500 people) could do to the Northland region - thats 70% what PGF spent in Northland over a number of years. That'd put a huge dent in the $660m water infrastructure deficit that Northland has. Theres no love lost in Northland for public sector workers in Wellington losing their jobs. Something that John Campbell intimates but doesnt really state.

Heres hoping the Budget is about jettisoning central Government bureaucracy in favour of localism.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

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