Posts by Andre
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Wealth tax
Uber
Vote Chloe
MSM
Socialist
Euthanasia checkpoint
Swimmigration - when you are swimming in new migrants
Homelessness
Housing Crisis -
Her passing is very sad. She came across as a bitter hardened campaigner until her cancer was announced. She will now be remembered as a caring patriot. RIP.
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The biggest losers in all of this are the Chinese. Maybe they'll still try to retrospectively change our FTA with them based on the fact our government ratified the TPP at our end? Nothing would surprise me when it comes to our bulk steel supplier / real estate purchaser.
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Hard News: Forgetting what we didn't know, in reply to Jason Kemp,
I've heard Fairfax have made all of their sub-editors redundant now, with journalists required to sub their own stories and Editors the last line of proofing.
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I applaud Simon and also Grunter. I think you underestimate Grant Hislop's role in the rise of New Zealand music. A champion of rock, he eventually founded The Rock and The Edge. Groundbreaking achievements that were central to the quota being adopted etc. Crusading for Op Shop should never be seen as a negative, in my view.
I think Grant's purchase of these titles was altruistic in part. I mean why else would he subsequently have bought UpFM? It can't have been to make money.
I think Grant felt that he could make them work where others have failed. -
The Hanover collapse was openly talked about by business journalists and insiders for six months before it was mentioned in the press here. If anyone had done so they would have been sued for all they were worth.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Luke Williamson,
Maybe we could take another look at an immigration policy that seems to be driven by recent residents and citizens importing their (often elderly) extended family just in time for universal non-means-tested superannuation and free healthcare? The 50,000 extra immigrants are definitely exacerbating the problem and a small percentage get in because they are wealthy or have skills we need. How about banning non-resident foreigners from buying property? Completely. Not "just existing housing stock" but all of it.
How about the government creating more state housing, rather than trying to sell that off to foreign landlords too? How about a requirement for local government to continue to provide social housing? I'm one of the Monte Cecilia Park residents recently given an eviction notice from the council so they can bowl our 30 homes to build a car park and grand entrance-way to the park. This isn't social housing - officially we pay market rates, but renting a similar home in the same area will cost about $200 a week more. Almost all of us have children. I have 4 kids at school. The rents are about $300 less than my income a week. There is no real political will in either central or local government to act differently around housing in case baby boomers' and their parents' votes are lost. -
I always enjoy the attacks I get from boomers when I mention inter-generational theft on PA. What else could you call the support by mainly older home owners for the immoral housing policy of John Key's government? It has been 8 years watching a slow fiscal train wreck occur. 8 years of listening to those benefiting financially saying "shit happens". There has been a breakdown in trust that may take a generation to mend.
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I reckon that if a market correction occurs, the clamour for financial government assistance will be greater even than that from drought-stricken farmers every few years and the government will cough up faster than you can say South Canterbury Finance. May be John Key will decide at that point that under the China FTA. all foreign home owners should also get a handout so they're not treated unfairly differently than kiwi home owners?
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I was on a benefit over Xmas as an employer laid me off with no reason under the 90 day clause in our contract, explaining that he was saving money over a slow time of the year by doing so. I squeezed into the Job Seeker course and was amazed they never mentioned LinkedIn for example. The entire system seems to be dependent on the beneficiaries having a device and internet connection or an ability to visit a WINZ office to use theirs. I imagine many can't afford this.
So a week before Xmas I managed to get an appointment at a WINZ office a few suburbs away that wasn’t booked out (just because I asked the woman on the phone to check all of the other offices, luckily, otherwise I would have waited another ten days with no support). They were very helpful and got us through a tough time, but on a subsistence level only, obviously. I’d hate to be stuck on the dole for any longer than a month though. The stand-down period is plain stupid. The refusal to tell you what you are fully entitled to is Machiavellian. The underlying psychology that it is your fault that you are out of work and that you are somehow avoiding gaining employment is demeaning. The fact that the employee giving the job course is probably less able than you are at finding work was as hilarious as it was to most of those on it. The request to apply for 20 jobs a week that you probably may not really want to do backed by threats to cut off your benefit is leading companies to receive hundreds of useless applications for jobs from completely unqualified applicants, costing millions of dollars in wasted time going through them by managers and HR people.
I got a job in the end, but the system often seemed bizarre, demotivating and depressing.