Hard News: Spring Timing
270 Responses
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Hebe, in reply to
a well-off urban liberal
Oh man, remember when this meme was "Chardonnay Socialist" and it was about Labour? Good times.
This.
That pointless arguing is why the swinging voters refuse to vote for Labour and to let a Labour-Green coalition into power. National's strategists know this and exploit it to maximum effect.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
That pointless arguing is why the swinging voters refuse to vote for Labour and to let a Labour-Green coalition into power.
So why on earth, Planet earth we all live on,do we let the swinging voter make up our minds?
The mining thing, Miners don't just see it as mining for mess and money. They see family ties, community, place of birth, job,history, much as Labour supports and stemming from way back in Waihi I imagine.The Greens don't see that in mining I suspect, much the same as many people don't understand why Cantabrians still want to stay in a CHCh after it's problems, the argument I hear is, swamp still sinking, will happen again, but I see family ties,community,place of birth,job,history etc. the mining situation is a bone of contention because Jones has a loud voice, the media love him, the Greens dont. Labour know they can work with Greens Greens know they can work with Labour. It's the voters who need to get past the fact that not everything they like about their respective Parties will make policy.That some parties need to join and compromise to form a government most of us can enjoy most of the time,not all of it. -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Secure jobs in mining and drilling?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9760927/29-jobs-go-as-mine-production-delayed
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/9821753/Anadarko-pulls-plug-on-NZ-drillingYep. It's not unwashed greenies who've put the brakes on mining, it's the bean counters at the big end of town.
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Hebe, in reply to
Agree. But it's not us who let the swinging voter--or the likes of Peter Dunne-- set our country's direction. It's the system wherein micro-polling and its results are a matter of routine for crucial-vote harvesting.
BTW, who does Roy Morgan poll for? I had a call, seeking a respondent with specific criteria.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I’m not saying I entirely agree, or that I think it’s enough, but I don’t think it’s fair to say the Greens don’t care if people can’t get work.
No, it's not fair, but it is fair to ask how they propose to decrease unemployment levels. Certainly it's very fair to ask them if that is even one of their goals. I actually wouldn't hold it against them if it wasn't, so long as they had some alternative plan regarding the social ills of unemployment, of which there are so many possibilities.
Their official policy is mostly things I agree with, btw. I have voted for them twice now. Ironically, I'm more interested in their generally socialist economics than I am in the environmentalism. Such has been the movement of Labour toward neoliberalism that this seems the only way for me to actually vote for the kind of socialism I believe in. IF Labour were to move toward that, I might vote for them again. Not that I think they should treat pinching votes from the Greens as a good reason in itself to make an economic U-turn. They should do it because it's the right thing to do. Pinching votes is a rather pointless course in an inevitable coalition government. It might, however, bring back un-voters, who (unlike me) can't really stomach environmentalism. Tactically, THAT would be worth doing. But I can also acknowledge that pinching votes off National is quite possibly even more worth it, where they can, if they can do it without losing their entire identity and soul.
While I can understand that there are such things as Green jobs, there is also very strong antagonism towards some of our biggest employers, and biggest earners. To say that we shouldn't be so much in dairy, when dairy is what NZ does best, is very close to talking up contracting the economy and making a lot of people unemployed, well in excess of any substantiated Green jobs proposals I've ever seen.
I know that's a big oversimplification of their actual policy, which is directed toward polluting practices. But in a practical world where negotiations lead to such simplifications, where parties are expected to prioritize what is really important to them, the Green are far more likely to put "taxing the pollution" ahead of "dropping other taxes", even though I know that their overall vision is predicated around both happening together. But "dropping other taxes" is such a massive issue, so central to economic management generally, and so at general variance to the more traditional socialist left, that it's very much underemphasized. Labour usually raises tax. They're not going to drop the income tax of "rich prick" farmers, even though raising their pollution tax might actually fill the gap, because that looks like something ACT might think of.
These are conundrums for a Green/Labour coalition, and they should get a plan together.
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Hebe, in reply to
These are conundrums for a Green/Labour coalition, and they should get a plan together.
Not really because Labour is going to be the dominant partner this decade. Policy concessions rather than merging will be the price of Greens' support.
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FWIW, I think such Green initiatives as have been widely adopted so far for jobs have actually been both popular and sucessful. I don't know anyone who isn't grateful for making better insulation in their house affordable. That kind of thing is gold for votes, IMHO, in the same kind of way the Winston Card is. I'd like to see a lot more of that. In terms of energy efficiency they should probably tackle it in biggest bites first - solar panels aren't at the top of that list. Better subsidization for heat pumps is probably next, and I can bet a whole lot of people feeling warmer from getting an excellent device like that would translate into a sense of a party of the future rather than a party of the past telling us to put a hand-spun woolen jersey on and turn the lights off. Solar water heating is probably above solar panels in terms of ROI. Also, the effectiveness of solar panels as an option is very contigent upon a push for increasing the ease by which a fair system of reversible metering is pushed forward, which is technologically and politically complex, in a way that installing a decent climate control system isn't.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Not really because Labour is going to be the dominant partner this decade. Policy concessions rather than merging will be the price of Greens’ support.
OK, but that's essentially what I'm saying: Piecemeal policy concessions don't work very well in the favour of the Greens at all, makes them just look like a big cost, and makes the coalition itself an easy target. Conveying something more complex than that does actually require coordinated strategizing.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
solar panels aren’t at the top of that list. Better subsidization for heat pumps is probably next,
How about both, choice of one or the other, I mean I want more panels but can understand how others would want heat pumps for convenience.
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They see family ties, community, place of birth, job,history, much as Labour supports and stemming from way back in Waihi I imagine
Maybe a few, but I know a guy who works at Stockton, and he has no background in mining and got into it because he gets paid a decent chunk of money to work a block of 12 hour shifts and then gets several days off. He isn't really part of the Westport community, drives in from Nelson once a week and stays in a motor camp - and has lots of mates doing the same. I think that's probably more typical than the idea of a tightly knit community of tenth generation miners.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I think that’s probably more typical than the idea of a tightly knit community of tenth generation miners.
Yes there are those guys and so be it. However Pike River showed a community, family, with intergenerational miners. that's what NZers see. Interestingly Denniston is hugely important to the Greens now whereas in the past only Miners were there and pretty much no one is there now but Greens see it as really important. If viable options rather than just unemployment was offered in these places ,I'm sure the shift across to those would occur naturally but until then people hold onto what they have got.
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
Hey, Damien O'Connor's made a career out of that. Fuck him and all, but it's a split that the Greens are quite happy to fall on one side of, and Labour has to bridge.
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BenWilson, in reply to
The seabed and foreshore bill was passed into law. When the Greens a support partner to the Labor led government.
I don't think the Greens were a support partner. Labour was with Progressives and UF, IIRC. The Greens would not support Labour because of the GE flap. I think people felt they were support for Labour far more than was actually formally the case, on account of a widespread sense of their compatibility.
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Sacha, in reply to
The Greens do see the need for employment
Ah, snap.
And the jobs of our future are not factory ones. Huge likelihood they will be services, knowledge and creative in focus. Romanticising some cloth-cap past does nobody any favours. The Greens seem to have a decent grasp of the IT industry's potential, for instance.
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Sacha, in reply to
high and mighty middle class tofu eaters
helpful stereotypes, we has them
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it’s those cloth-cap-wearing tofu-eaters who really upset things..
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BenWilson, in reply to
Huge likelihood they will be services, knowledge and creative in focus.
We're still a fair way from shaking ourselves free from primary production, though. These are still highly lucrative businesses. And if we want to value-add to that, a future involving factories is not a crazy idea, should not be written off as a thing of the past. The factories should be modern, though. I'm by no means convinced that a growing services industry is a particularly dynamic formula for growth. It's still labouring. In a world of exploding access to knowledge, I think the overall trend on those kinds of earnings is going to be down, as we compete with cheaper intellectual labour. If the labour is physical, and delivered locally, like what tradies do, then the earnings will probably maintain, but competing with the whole world to write software? We can only really do that by being a low wage economy.
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David Cunliffe delivers speech to business-ey audience about Labour's economic vision. You won't like it, Ben. :)
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Sacha, in reply to
A lot of the value-add to farming over recent years has been from IT/communications investment and professional consultants in areas like livestock, soil/grass, finance and energy.
Food tech also has its place but more likely to be particular niches and high-value brand marketing, not big smokestacks that other countries will always do cheaper.
None of this is either/or – there will still be farms, trucks, workshops – but some areas of investment will produce better returns for this place and people than others over the next 10-20 years.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
The Greens seem to have a decent grasp of the IT industry’s potential, for instance.
True, but whats a miner gonna do in the IT Industry, not meaning to be stereotypical clothcap tofu eater of which, hmmmmm....
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Sacha, in reply to
Local miners will do the same as many others have done as the world has moved on – find a different type of work that’s viable and valuable, or shift to another place. How we support them in that transition is the question, but frankly there aren’t many of them anyway.
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Sacha, in reply to
I’m by no means convinced that a growing services industry is a particularly dynamic formula for growth. It’s still labouring.
Accountants and lawyers would probably agree. Consulting to the rest of the world is a better option. Not all services are as valuable.
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Maintain data centre plant?
Mining today isn't done by headbutting ya way through't seam with pick'n shovel if ya lucky, you know. They use electrics and computers and geology and stuff. I worked with a programmer many years ago who'd started off with the Coal Board - the PDP/11 was apparently capable of continued operation when almost full of coal dust.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Not all services are as valuable.
Perhaps that's why people stick to and protect what they do do well. They feel valuable, no matter what industry they are in, and no matter what living they eke out. To be told you are now unemployed ,you are now redundant because your field of work is worthless must feel deflating. Of course some handle it, have to handle it and move on, and then some cant. Takes all sorts to do all sorts. Everyone should be able to feel valuable no matter what service.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
the PDP/11 was apparently capable of continued operation when almost full of coal dust.
Ha! sounds like what t'others looks like now!
Yes I'm being figurative a bit here. I'll shuddup now. Can you tell I'm convalescing :)
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