26 Comments
May 25, 2023Liked by Bernard Hickey

I wonder what the % time the MSM (I politely exclude you from this category Bernard), spend analysing polls over the course of an electoral cycle? I wonder if we did half the polls and redistributed the associated time and political energy to solving/debating some of our big problems whether the ROI would be favourable......???? I have a sneaking suspicion it might be ;-)

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Trivia. The intellectual capital of this country is incinerating and you sit on your privilege and ignore it, pulling up the drawbridge with your gatekeeper fellow traveller Hipkins.

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I realise the Greens have had some issues lately, but I still can't quite wrap my head around the motivations of a stated Act voter in an average household in NZ. We just don't have enough multi-millionaires, financially-free of the need for strong public services, in this country to justify more than 50% support for a "multi-millionaires, financially-free of the need for strong public services" coalition.

National and Labour have, in the past 30 years, been pretty centrist (on a skewed scale from 'keeps a herb garden' to 'watches 24/7 Fox News'). In practice, that's meant the large majority of people have gone backwards over that period - and, especially so, if we consider how dependent they've become on a residential home for their retirement plan. But it also means, in practice, National and Labour have retained a pretty immovable base of relatively-disengaged, "always-Nat-bour", voters. That's not the case for their apparently 'natural' partners in The Greens and Act.

We know now, for certain, that climate change is a real-serious problem. Every single day we hear about the threats and costs (and commercial opportunities) from it. I have some problems with their relationship with Labour, but the Greens should (in theory) be the only party without a compromised position on this... This should be important to the vast majority of us. And yet, instead we're apparently still falling, in surprisingly high numbers, for David Seymour's ridiculous quasi-libertarian nonsense.

History should have taught us, scaredy-cats who fall for self-centered sloganeering to avoid shared problems, eventually become fascists. I'm not suggesting that's Act's intent, but I can't help worrying that's where the continuation of these sorts of short-sighted politics might lead, in a world tipping towards major disruption.

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May 25, 2023Liked by Bernard Hickey

I know a poll is just a poll, but assume for argument's sake that the latest poll is the election result, 62 Right wing MPs, less 1 as Speaker, gives a NatAct government a majority of 1. A majority of 1 will not sustain an extremist NatAct government who are intent on slashing essential government services in order to pay for unnecessary & unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy.

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May 25, 2023Liked by Bernard Hickey

When will Tower's change to insurance start to flow into the wider market? Not just with other providers, but also having it applied for commercial and industrial properties? Would you also expect it to flow into Council and infrastructure businesses?

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May 25, 2023Liked by Bernard Hickey

While living in the Wellington bubble, I spend enough time in Auckland & Tauranga to know many people would rather have their teeth drilled than think or talk about politics. Of course, they love bitching about the outcomes of Government and Council policies - urban sprawl, endless traffic jams, high prices, faltering services like health and education. I think we're paying a price for a lack of civics education and lack of regulation of social media misinformation. Otherwise sensible people I know are talking about voting the current Govt out because life is difficult and surely a change in Govt will fix things. Ha, if only they knew. But there is little understanding of the policies and ideology of the right and how much more f**cked NZ could get if we gave the wealthy tax cuts and cut govt spending to deliver this. I have many difficult conversations to have before October. Hopefully Luxon keeps helping me...

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May 26, 2023Liked by Bernard Hickey

I wonder where the 4% from Greens went? There wasn't a bump to Labour, and it seems unlikely they would have contributed to the bump in National. I guess they just went to the "I don't know" category. Come election time my guess is those "I don't know" votes would convert back to left-block votes again.

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