A democratic deficit & a broken relationship at the heart of our political economy engineered a monstrous inter-generational wealth transfer since 1989. These results lock it in for decades to come.
Bernard - you need to dial-back your agenda, the boomers are no longer the biggest percentage of the voters, and even they didn't bother voting as the more barriers and restrictions you put in place, the more property goes up. The left leaning mayors and council members got swept out as they achieved nothing! - Or they can just blame COVID (and the left Govt for locking us down for so long) and stalling progress over the last few years. Sadly saving lives cost them their political lives.
Hi Bernard, presuming Labour can get Turnout high enough to slide past National it seems like there are a lot of commissioners jobs going if councils refuse to implement central govt policy?
We should have a target population debate! People have to realise the trade off between immigration, new infrastructure, higher service levels and growth.
Hi Bernard. I think this one would be a good one to make publicly shareable. Election results are pretty devastating around the country, and I suspect the abysmal voter turnout is partly why, but it is hard for a lot of people to see the direct connection between who gets voted in and very real results in things like access to resources, decent homes for all, pulling back on the rapid destruction to the natural environment that supports us.
Kia ora Bernard! I'd support this one being made public. Do you have a preferred tool, or preferred tools, for financing infrastructure development that may help alleviate the burden on ratepayers? eg. sharing GST from construction with councils, or revenue bonds, etc.
Time to replace non democratically elected councils with commissioners. Either that or face revolution from generation rent. Any council or mayor elected wiht less than 50% of the registered voters should be sacked and replaced by commissioners. And party donations from corporates and trustees banned - only from individuals who are tax resident in NZ. And capped at the amount of tax paid in the previous tax year. Its time for all political parties to get real about the desperate damage that 30 years of neoliberalism has done to our nation; and for us all to stop focussing on our selfish interests, but those of our wider community.
If a body has a cancer in it - you don't feed the cancer to get better, or just focus on improving the health of the healthiest cells - the cancer will still kill the body. Youd focus on rooting out the cancer, even if the healthy cells get damaged in the short term - to allow the whole body to survive.
Its time to get rid of the cancer of neoliberalism and its cultural basis of greed, self interest, and short termism.
Fab piece in the economist this weekend on this very issue.
B, On TWG tonight can you press Nicola on whether she supports ACT/TOP policy on returning GST on new builds to a hypothecated fund for councils to build new infrastructure for more development.
I think this is a good one to share, for people like me trying to understand what's going on. There's not a lot available that attempts to provide context.
Some say the Labour government next year needs to throw all their cards in and give massive social welfare changes to help boost their voting. But would this really help? I often see people call this government extremely left wing, which I just have to laugh at. Would more social welfare, for the people that would typically vote for them, actually help?
I am also interested to see what the National policies will be - at the moment it seems like they are having a free ride of criticising the government, while giving no direction for what they will offer/cut.
I enjoyed the pod this morning Bernard , and whilst I admire the mission that you , and far too few other journalists are on to explain and simplify the status quo in economics and politics , perhaps it is just too ruddy complicated these days ?
Collins : “Supporting a collaborative move to a sustainable future , by working together on shared goals whilst remaining fiscally responsible and realigning Auckland’s relationships with central government”
Brown: “I’ll fix it by sacking the incompetent “
Simple messages have always been effective in politics , thats never been more true than now seeing the rise of populism globally , and our problems now are so complex that progressive solutions to them are quite frankly difficult to get one’s head around .
The message is not just ‘ it’s the economy stupid’ - it’s a greener , fairer , more productive , balanced , debt neutral , global-but-not-too-global , tech focused , diverse etc etc economy ...
The scale of the challenge overwhelms , so we outsource leadership to those who boil it down to slogans.
Auckland council did a shocking job of sending out voting papers. Mine arrived a week into voting, finding a post box to return them was a nightmare, who posts letters now? Both my early 20's children voted, one a student, one is working, both are renters.
Centralisation and intervention is what Robertson promised from their Labour government in 2017. This is still ongoing, but they have stumbled on almost everything.
- The 3 waters convoluted bureaucracy is a farce. Why would it be better than other projects?
- Te Pukenga/Polytechs is a bureaucrats dream but functional nightmare
- Kainga Ora is struggling to fund their massive commitments
- AKL Unitary plan generated an increase in house building but not cheaper housing, new Labour/Nats extra rules just annoyed people and might have gone too far.
- As for Auckland, AT have taken a "bugger the lot of you" approach to local roads. Raised crossings cause higher emissions - forcing every vehicle has to accelerate afterwards. Placing on key transit roads just annoyed people. Speed limits overdone, consultation ignored, and just annoyed people.
- Light rail investment would be better linking existing Heavy Rail and the CRL to North West Auckland and even perhaps replacing the Northern busway in the future using an alternative crossing.
It does not feel surprising that incumbent council members got bounced, where they were seen to support the governments wider policy platform, not just housing.
Bernard - you need to dial-back your agenda, the boomers are no longer the biggest percentage of the voters, and even they didn't bother voting as the more barriers and restrictions you put in place, the more property goes up. The left leaning mayors and council members got swept out as they achieved nothing! - Or they can just blame COVID (and the left Govt for locking us down for so long) and stalling progress over the last few years. Sadly saving lives cost them their political lives.
Hi Bernard, presuming Labour can get Turnout high enough to slide past National it seems like there are a lot of commissioners jobs going if councils refuse to implement central govt policy?
Wayne has shown us who he is.
We should have a target population debate! People have to realise the trade off between immigration, new infrastructure, higher service levels and growth.
Hi Bernard. I think this one would be a good one to make publicly shareable. Election results are pretty devastating around the country, and I suspect the abysmal voter turnout is partly why, but it is hard for a lot of people to see the direct connection between who gets voted in and very real results in things like access to resources, decent homes for all, pulling back on the rapid destruction to the natural environment that supports us.
Kia ora Bernard! I'd support this one being made public. Do you have a preferred tool, or preferred tools, for financing infrastructure development that may help alleviate the burden on ratepayers? eg. sharing GST from construction with councils, or revenue bonds, etc.
Time to replace non democratically elected councils with commissioners. Either that or face revolution from generation rent. Any council or mayor elected wiht less than 50% of the registered voters should be sacked and replaced by commissioners. And party donations from corporates and trustees banned - only from individuals who are tax resident in NZ. And capped at the amount of tax paid in the previous tax year. Its time for all political parties to get real about the desperate damage that 30 years of neoliberalism has done to our nation; and for us all to stop focussing on our selfish interests, but those of our wider community.
If a body has a cancer in it - you don't feed the cancer to get better, or just focus on improving the health of the healthiest cells - the cancer will still kill the body. Youd focus on rooting out the cancer, even if the healthy cells get damaged in the short term - to allow the whole body to survive.
Its time to get rid of the cancer of neoliberalism and its cultural basis of greed, self interest, and short termism.
Fab piece in the economist this weekend on this very issue.
B, On TWG tonight can you press Nicola on whether she supports ACT/TOP policy on returning GST on new builds to a hypothecated fund for councils to build new infrastructure for more development.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/10/06/british-cities-have-far-too-little-power-and-its-holding-them-back
Would like to see this post be free.A good summary of a very bad situation.
I think this is a good one to share, for people like me trying to understand what's going on. There's not a lot available that attempts to provide context.
Hi Bernard, great piece as always. I'd support this being made public.
Some say the Labour government next year needs to throw all their cards in and give massive social welfare changes to help boost their voting. But would this really help? I often see people call this government extremely left wing, which I just have to laugh at. Would more social welfare, for the people that would typically vote for them, actually help?
I am also interested to see what the National policies will be - at the moment it seems like they are having a free ride of criticising the government, while giving no direction for what they will offer/cut.
I enjoyed the pod this morning Bernard , and whilst I admire the mission that you , and far too few other journalists are on to explain and simplify the status quo in economics and politics , perhaps it is just too ruddy complicated these days ?
Collins : “Supporting a collaborative move to a sustainable future , by working together on shared goals whilst remaining fiscally responsible and realigning Auckland’s relationships with central government”
Brown: “I’ll fix it by sacking the incompetent “
Simple messages have always been effective in politics , thats never been more true than now seeing the rise of populism globally , and our problems now are so complex that progressive solutions to them are quite frankly difficult to get one’s head around .
The message is not just ‘ it’s the economy stupid’ - it’s a greener , fairer , more productive , balanced , debt neutral , global-but-not-too-global , tech focused , diverse etc etc economy ...
The scale of the challenge overwhelms , so we outsource leadership to those who boil it down to slogans.
Yet again, a bunch of people voting for a world they won't be alive for
A seriously depressing listen. Thanks Bernard ;) Also agree, make this public
Auckland council did a shocking job of sending out voting papers. Mine arrived a week into voting, finding a post box to return them was a nightmare, who posts letters now? Both my early 20's children voted, one a student, one is working, both are renters.
Centralisation and intervention is what Robertson promised from their Labour government in 2017. This is still ongoing, but they have stumbled on almost everything.
- The 3 waters convoluted bureaucracy is a farce. Why would it be better than other projects?
- Te Pukenga/Polytechs is a bureaucrats dream but functional nightmare
- Kainga Ora is struggling to fund their massive commitments
- AKL Unitary plan generated an increase in house building but not cheaper housing, new Labour/Nats extra rules just annoyed people and might have gone too far.
- As for Auckland, AT have taken a "bugger the lot of you" approach to local roads. Raised crossings cause higher emissions - forcing every vehicle has to accelerate afterwards. Placing on key transit roads just annoyed people. Speed limits overdone, consultation ignored, and just annoyed people.
- Light rail investment would be better linking existing Heavy Rail and the CRL to North West Auckland and even perhaps replacing the Northern busway in the future using an alternative crossing.
It does not feel surprising that incumbent council members got bounced, where they were seen to support the governments wider policy platform, not just housing.