I am sorry but this really gets to me.

Forums › Off topic › I am sorry but this really gets to me.

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frankv

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#1260146 16-Mar-2015 12:06

KiwiNZ:
frankv:
Clueless minister? Check!
Irrelevant stats? Check!
Impossible goal? Check!
Pointless goal? Check?
Distorted stats? Check!
Work unchanged? Check!

Outraged? The public ought to be!

That has nothing to do with Ministers being "clueless" etc that has to do with what the public wants.

I meant "clueless" here in the sense that the Minister apparently believes that all is well (and improving), whereas the reality is very different. I guess the alternative could equally be true: the Minister is clued up, knows what the reality is and approves of it, but uses the garbage stats to keep the public ignorant and happy.

People want the Government to break even, no surplus no deficit, they also demand 120% service but are only willing to pay for 50% or less service. I know only too well that the health sector has problems but is anyone really willing to pay more taxes or pay user pays fees to improve the heath sector, the answer to that is no

Yeah, I agree with all of this.

But maybe the answer is for the Govt (who have after all been elected to run the country) to insist on reality in the stats that they (I assume) use for measuring the performance of the public sector, and therefore for making decisions.

Glassboy

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#1260148 16-Mar-2015 12:10

Mark:
Glassboy: So out of interest, why are people so keen to be nasty about civil servants and members of parliament?

Are you all having a bad day? Do you for some reason feel entitled to not behave with respect towards anyone involved in the government?

I know of course you're all constantly hard working exemplary citizens whose lifes could be lived in a glasshouse, you being so perfect and all. I'm sure all your profiles have your full real name because you're not afraid to stand behind your comments.

People who pay tax (pretty much all of us) like to see it spent on meaningful things .. having tax money spent on ex-MP travel perks (plus other perks) grates a bit, it is after all money being spent that is not bringing in a return.
Company shareholders also feel the same way when a company they have invested in/own spends money on something they feel provides no benefit to the company (which is why some of the big corporates now don't cover travel for CEOs wives/mistresses).

Being a tax payer does not give someone the right to be a horrible person. And doing it anonymously makes you a coward as well. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

There's already plenty of forums and blogs in NZ where this is the norm. It's a shame it's getting more prevalent here.

Linuxluver

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#1260149 16-Mar-2015 12:13

I know lots of non-MP's who do that.

Foreign travel whilst they are an MP is fine. After, not so much.

I see that they now want to benchmark the allowance against the most expensive airline in NZ - ANZ!!

Sure.

I guess I can only say that being a former MP opens doors overseas that might remain closed to a 24/7 plumber or dress designer.

I can certainly understand why some people might not see much value in it. I can only suggest they found out more about who uses it and what they do when they use it. That might change a few opinions. Or not.

Air New Zealand is the most useful metric as they are the only airline based in NZ that provides anything remotely resembling global reach. Plus, we own most of it.

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dolsen

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#1260173 16-Mar-2015 12:37

Glassboy:
Being a tax payer does not give someone the right to be a horrible person. And doing it anonymously makes you a coward as well. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

Just to be clear, you are calling him a horrible person and a coward? Seems a bit of a ad hominem attack to me.

JaseNZ

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#1260175 16-Mar-2015 12:38

Glassboy: So out of interest, why are people so keen to be nasty about civil servants and members of parliament?

Are you all having a bad day? Do you for some reason feel entitled to not behave with respect towards anyone involved in the government?

I know of course you're all constantly hard working exemplary citizens whose lifes could be lived in a glasshouse, you being so perfect and all. I'm sure all your profiles have your full real name because you're not afraid to stand behind your comments.

I was not being nasty about civil servants and members of parliament I was saying I did not believe they should receive the extra benefits they receive when they leave the job.

Things went a little off topic here and there.

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Glassboy

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#1260179 16-Mar-2015 12:45

dolsen:
Glassboy:
Being a tax payer does not give someone the right to be a horrible person. And doing it anonymously makes you a coward as well. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

Just to be clear, you are calling him a horrible person and a coward? Seems a bit of a ad hominem attack to me.

You shouldn't use phrases you don't understand. Argumentum ad hominen is a specific type of logical fallacy, which I assure you I'm not committing, but you seem to want to.

Mark

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#1260182 16-Mar-2015 12:46

Glassboy:

Being a tax payer does not give someone the right to be a horrible person. And doing it anonymously makes you a coward as well. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

There's already plenty of forums and blogs in NZ where this is the norm. It's a shame it's getting more prevalent here.

Ummmm .... are you accusing me of being a horrible person ?!?! Why ?

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dolsen

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#1260205 16-Mar-2015 13:01

Glassboy:
dolsen:
Glassboy:
Being a tax payer does not give someone the right to be a horrible person. And doing it anonymously makes you a coward as well. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

Just to be clear, you are calling him a horrible person and a coward? Seems a bit of a ad hominem attack to me.

You shouldn't use phrases you don't understand. Argumentum ad hominen is a specific type of logical fallacy, which I assure you I'm not committing, but you seem to want to.

Yeah, I don't speak Latin so I might have got it wrong.

Just copied from the FUG where it states "Ad Hominem premises are not acceptable.". The link from there went to a wiki page that stated "An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments.".

Sorry if I got it wrong.

Glassboy

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#1260211 16-Mar-2015 13:11

dolsen:

You shouldn't use phrases you don't understand. Argumentum ad hominen is a specific type of logical fallacy, which I assure you I'm not committing, but you seem to want to.

Yeah, I don't speak Latin so I might have got it wrong.

Just copied from the FUG where it states "Ad Hominem premises are not acceptable.". The link from there went to a wiki page that stated "An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments.".

Sorry if I got it wrong.

All civil servants are lazy (or stupid) is an Ad hominem. Saying that someone would only make such a claim anonymously borders on ad hominem in that it goes to their motives rather than their argument but I think we can all agree there's not a real argument going on here. There's a bunch of people without the courage of their convictions slagging of a bunch of other New Zealanders from the safety of their pseudonyms.

Do you think the spirit of the FUG is to encourage people to be horrible to others?

JimmyH

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#1260583 16-Mar-2015 20:09

KiwiNZ:

[...] Admission to the hospital involves a whole lot more administration, because it must be reported to the Ministry, funding claimed, forms filled, yada, yada, yada, [...]

Nope.

Firstly, funding isn't claimed that way. DHBs are bulk funded based on the size of the populations they serve.

Secondly, they don't file a new report with the Ministry every time the admit Bill Bloggs. That would be daft. Of course they record that they have admitted a patient, it would be daft not to know how many patients you were admitting/discharging and when. Among other things, they couldn't manage your beds or nursing rosters without knowing this. The overhead of then providing summary information to the Ministry at regular intervals would then be a trivial exercise.

I'm a bit disturbed that the discussion of MP's perks has morphed into a general attack on public servants in general. If people really feel that all public servants are useless overpaid incompetents then I hope that, on principle and to avoid being seen as hypocrites, I hope that those people will accordingly refuse to use hospitals when they get sick, schools if they have kids, state highways when they travel, financial assistance if they are out of work, request a passport if they want to travel, call the police if they get assaulted, or claim a pension when they retire. Or any of the other things that they think those feckless and useless public servants apparently ruin the country by organising and doing.

frankv

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#1260606 16-Mar-2015 20:50

JimmyH: I'm a bit disturbed that the discussion of MP's perks has morphed into a general attack on public servants in general.

I'm sorry if you think my comments were a attack on public servants. That wasn't intended at all. It was meant to be an attack on the public service, which has systemic problems that are ignored or perhaps even amplified by those whose job it is to make it run efficiently.

Glassboy

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#1260608 16-Mar-2015 20:51

JimmyH:

I'm a bit disturbed that the discussion of MP's perks has morphed into a general attack on public servants in general. If people really feel that all public servants are useless overpaid incompetents then I hope that, on principle and to avoid being seen as hypocrites, I hope that those people will accordingly refuse to use hospitals when they get sick, schools if they have kids, state highways when they travel, financial assistance if they are out of work, request a passport if they want to travel, call the police if they get assaulted, or claim a pension when they retire. Or any of the other things that they think those feckless and useless public servants apparently ruin the country by organising and doing.

You see it's very simple, you can't say those things about Maori, Pacific Islanders, Queers, Women and now fat people, but everyone hates that John Key guy right!? So it's ok to be rude about politicians. And if you can be rude about politicians you can be rude about all the government types, because hell no one really knows what they do right!? So we can just go and get our hate on, and if we keep linking to stories on stuff (Ad Verecundiam) maybe the mods won't notice we're totally breaching the FUG.

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