Politics NZ Politics

Who will get your vote in this years election?

  • National

    Votes: 17 26.2%
  • Labour

    Votes: 13 20.0%
  • Act

    Votes: 7 10.8%
  • Greens

    Votes: 9 13.8%
  • NZ First

    Votes: 5 7.7%
  • Māori Party

    Votes: 3 4.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 11 16.9%

  • Total voters
    65
  • Poll closed .
Jeez, wouldn’t mind someone a bit more neutral than bill english to head the inquiry into kainga ora spending.

Can see grants going for Maori and Pacific students as a review is about to commence. The ones that Shane Reti benefited from by the looks. At least it would be consistent with the hypocrisy from their leader.
Asset sales here we come. As if that wasn't the agenda all along. Seen it all before - it's happening through Wayne Brown too.
 
Newshub's been leaked financial statements showing all 16 polytechs are essentially broke.


The worst are Whitireia and WelTec, which are $28 million in deficit. Waikato Institute of Technology is $22.5m in the red, Open Polytechnic is not far behind on $22m and Toi Ohomai is nearly $21m. The deficit at all 16 polytechnics totals more than $185m.


"That is absolutely correct. That is a result mainly of the unified funding scheme that the previous Government brought in," Simmonds said.




BRUTAL.
 
I want a tax cut even though I'm on a low threshold. Look at it this way. The less tax everyone pays, the less money, this and any other Govt has to waste.
except y'know, healthcare, education, infrastructure, defence, police, navy, customs, hospitals, roads, civil defense, water care, investment etc etc - no waste there dean
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We're doomed
 
Newshub's been leaked financial statements showing all 16 polytechs are essentially broke.


The worst are Whitireia and WelTec, which are $28 million in deficit. Waikato Institute of Technology is $22.5m in the red, Open Polytechnic is not far behind on $22m and Toi Ohomai is nearly $21m. The deficit at all 16 polytechnics totals more than $185m.


"That is absolutely correct. That is a result mainly of the unified funding scheme that the previous Government brought in," Simmonds said.




BRUTAL.
Juju will probably find some comic value out of that.
 
Newshub's been leaked financial statements showing all 16 polytechs are essentially broke.


The worst are Whitireia and WelTec, which are $28 million in deficit. Waikato Institute of Technology is $22.5m in the red, Open Polytechnic is not far behind on $22m and Toi Ohomai is nearly $21m. The deficit at all 16 polytechnics totals more than $185m.


"That is absolutely correct. That is a result mainly of the unified funding scheme that the previous Government brought in," Simmonds said.




BRUTAL.
That was hardly a secret. That was one of the key rationales for setting it up in the first place, which isn’t even complete yet, and now won’t be.

The Tertiary Education Commission summarises this in February 2023:

“The ITP sector was facing a number of financial and operational challenges as a result of a range of structural and external factors.

ITPs operated in a competitive model and were required to offer a broad range of locally relevant programmes, which impacted on overall viability.

Enrolments were also steadily declining over the preceding years, which resulted in several ITPs being under financial stress and more forecast to enter financial difficulties if no changes were made.

The previous ITP structure reported deficits in 2017, 2018 and 2019 with modelling at the time showing persistent and increasing deficits forecast in future years.”
 
Don’t tell me that after banging on about the spend on consultants the new Govt is employing Sir Bill as a consultant and then tries to sell it as independent.

The hypocrisy beggars belief
I know. It would be like setting up an "independent" Tax Working Group headed by Michael Cullen (who lost an election on a CPT policy) to investigate whether NZ should have a Capital Gains Tax.

Or getting the IRD to investigate the top tax earners in NZ.... not to create policy based on it but to fill an information gap as to their worth.... and then have two of the three parties on the left use the report to justify their tax policies.

Or having a 3 Waters report which included centralising the water systems written by the gentleman who wrote the report that established Scotland's version of 3 Waters.

And then when there is actually some independence like with a Royal Commission, the Terms of Reference are often written in a way to either favour the current government or to find against the previous government.... the Terms of Reference for NZ's COVID response comes to mind. Or the ToR are written in such a way that the report will recommend what the government wanted in the first place by limiting what can, and more importantly for the required outcome, what can't be included in the Royal Commission's findings.

Whether we like it or not, it happens with every government.

It's all gamesmanship at our expense, and quite frankly, I'm sick of it!!!
 
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The previous government committed NZ to building a ferry terminal in Wellington designed to last 100 years but, by NZ Rails own admission, will be under water in half that time. Unless it’s been decided to repurpose it as submarine pens, it seems a multi-billion dollar waste of money to me.

The same as 3 Waters was. Scotland went down the same path as us to centralise their water and it was supposed to get them better water quality. The designer of their system is the same gentleman who wrote the original 3 Waters report. Problem is, instead of improving their water system, it’s worse with almost twice the number of boil water days than NZ has yet Scotland has a similar population as NZ.

Why instead of spending billions of dollars so the government can acquire assets which are already publicly owned and then spending billions more upgrading the systems, instead save the money buying the assets and give the money to the councils the upgrade their systems? Instead of spending money buying the assets, use that money on public transport, eduction, health, welfare, social housing, cleaning waterways or hundreds of needs NZ has.
Yeah, but the incoming government aren't doing that either - their 3 water plan is to kick it down the road for a few more years (source: ministry official)
 
Nationals 3 waters solution - basically keeping it how it is but drive higher standards:

National Government will set and enforce strict water quality standards and require councils to invest in the ongoing maintenance and replacement of their vital water infrastructure, while keeping control of the assets that their ratepayers have paid for.

National will:
  • Repeal Three Waters and scrap the four co-governed mega-entities
  • Restore council ownership and control
  • Set strict rules for water quality and investment in infrastructure
  • Ensure water services are financially sustainable

“Under National, councils will be required to demonstrate a clear plan to deliver ongoing investment in water infrastructure. Those plans will need to be approved by the Minister of Local Government.

“While water quality regulator Taumata Arowai will set strict standards for water quality, National will establish a Water Infrastructure Regulator within the Commerce Commission to set and enforce standards for long-term water infrastructure investment.

“Councils will be required to ringfence money for water infrastructure and not spend it on other services instead.
So rates rise to $20k a year?
 
- Labour increased the top tax rate to 39%
- Increased the trust tax rate
- Never increased the tax bands with inflation, forcing people into paying higher tax
- Introduced interest deductibility tax
- Extended the brightline tax form 2 to 10 years
- Increased the petrol taxes, smoking taxes, alcohol taxes, ute taxes, etc, etc

Why, with a HUGE increase in new tax sources, does government need so much?
Why can’t we have some tax relief for middle NZers?
If you're worried about the middle spare a thought for the poor sods at the bottom.
 
If you're worried about the middle spare a thought for the poor sods at the bottom.
Someone working 40 hours on minimum wage is almost in the middle now with lack of tax band indexing to inflation, isn’t it?

They would earn $47k and $48k jump’s them from the 17% to 30% tax rate. That just getting hammered!

A minimum wage worker doing an hours overtime a week thumped with 30% tax. No wonder they can’t get ahead. To me minimum wage should be on minimum tax rate - 10% not 30%
 
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So rates rise to $20k a year?
On your Waiheke mansion that’s a decrease isn’t it? 🤣

If it costs $15k per property per year to clean up water, won’t that exact same amount just need to be paid through taxes if the govt takes it over?

Better the rich landlords pay it than hammering the workers with more tax!
 
Someone working 40 hours on minimum wage is almost in the middle now with lack of tax band indexing to inflation, isn’t it?

They would earn $47k and $48k jump’s them from the 17% to 30% tax rate. That just getting hammered!

A minimum wage worker doing an hours overtime a week thumped with 30% tax. No wonder they can’t get ahead. To me minimum wage should be on minimum tax rate - 10% not 30%
You do understand how progressive tax works right?
You only pay 30% tax on income above 48,000, not your entire income.

But I agree the no tax threshold should be much higher.
 
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