Posts by DexterX
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Hard News: Fluency, ease of manner - and…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
It really annoys me all the discussion about winners and losers in the debate. How superficial. Surely it is about the ethics and morality of the issue itself.
It is as if most of the media have little of no interest in the issues - I can't see that the debate was a win or lose situation - but it is now where the matter appears to rest.
What was an undercurrent in NZ society - inequality the creation of winners and losers - is now been embedded as the mainstream.
The Paula Benefit bash the benefs baseball bat was another major story - coverage of the GCSB and the KDC affair seem to see Mz benefit step up to the plate.
Democracy is quite ill and will get no better once the GCSB Act is passed.
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A healthy democracy needs a wide range of dissenting views - this bill will be used to silence, discredit and curtail dissent. It will be a mechanism used by governments to retain power – presently we have a government that is run in a virtual policy vacuum, which acts as a special self-interest group/collective.
Key’s responses on Campbell live tonight were churlish - that is the real threat right there.
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Hard News: It's worse than you think, in reply to Gareth Swain,
I have read over the past few months about some outrageous behaviour by Key and National in general, but also that Key is polling very highly. So, what is it that's keeping him high in the polls? Someone obviously likes him (or National), so what is it they like?
Two Things
The reform of Welfare, the sale of state Housing Stock, The Assets Sales - all have broad appeal and make it appear as if the government is doing something – getting things done.
The Labour opposition being at war with itself – gifting Key and easy time against a background of pretty damning failures of policy and out right lack of honesty.
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I feel what is keeping National fortunes may be that many of the people who have done well out of the gravity defying ppty market feel a change of govt may adversely affect their future wealth prospects.
The purchase of any real ppty financed from funds raised off shore - overseas bank providing money to non-residents to land bank real ppty in NZ should stop.
The right to purchase of real ppty in NZ should only be available to NZ permanent residents.
My thoughts are that should the gravity defying ppty market continue as it has I feel Auckland (and NZ) will be come politically unstable – can well see riots in say 15 to 20 years time as the gap widens and hopelessness abounds for many.
I also cosnder we don't have the rigour or basic knowledge to fix the problem and the plans mooted to build the nations way out of the problem are just BS - It won't happen.
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Hard News: A different kind of country, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Every single negotiation they've been involved in they've been completely ripped off, not personally of course, it's just our money they've lost.
Yes the Torys, by default, take a position of strength - being the elected government of sovereign nation and negotiate to a position of weakness for the general populace whilst setting themselves up – no surprises there.
I find the media, with the exception of Campbell Live, largely mirroring this government –Example - Key a few weeks ago responded to concerns about the cost of living and price of homes in Auckland with something like –“People can go and live somewhere else if they can’t afford it”. Sean Plunket, who has replaced Michael Laws in more than just the time lot, taunted a caller with basically the same goading.
Aside from Plunket living in Wellington and telling the poor Aucklanders how to and where to live, the taunting fails to recognise that the future “world's most liveable city” needs people at all levels and ranges of skills. The more desirous and aspirational the slogan the further it is removed from the world one is living in .
The different kind of country has replaced the egalitarian moral fabric with a mantra that is despise the people who earn less and have less whilst aspiring to be the people who earn and own more.
More people need to get out and vote – they do however need to have an opposition to for whom they will get out and vote.
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Labour are double tasking - they are heading a recruitment drives for both the Green Party and NZ First.
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I am late by a month or more - but I don't see that much is done right all over Auckland - on many levels - and as apartment blocks are commercial and not subject to the same rigours as residential construction - the incidence of failure is likely to be great (based on the recent and ongoing past).
Worked all over Auckland today - and coming in on the North Western I just couldn't see how digging a series of holes in the CBD and putting inside of them a really, really, really expensive train set is going to solve Auckland's congestion.
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Southerly: Now I Am Permitted, in reply to Sacha,
currently refurbishing cardboard box
in middle of the road - Sheer Luxury!!
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Hard News: A plea for sanity on the…, in reply to Sacha,
Just wait and see.
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IMHO - The way Auckland is heading is to turn the inner city character suburbs into Soviet Style Sausage Apartment Blocks crammed together in mounds of leaky concrete and monocladded ghettos - there is not much that is done right..