Auckland Council set to agree 50:50 cost-sharing deal with Govt on cyclone land buyouts; Cost to Council well over $1b and to be paid for with higher debt and rates hikes
The cartoon at the end is a summary of National's, ACT's and Labour's climate change election policies.
Another question about managed retreat and property buyouts is the extent to which the recommendations in a very recent report on managed retreat options should be adopted.
It would be an outrage against us all, and a cause for revolution, if a government allowed taxpayer and ratepayer money to top up insurance payouts to anything greater than the $1 million median Auckland residential property value.
We have had enough of privatising gain, yet socialising loss.
With these disasters set to continue and increase in frequency and insurance companies and banks being unwilling/unable to claw back shareholder profits to contribute, will we eventually end up having to buy-out bank mortgages for land value (so central govt and/or councils own all land and provide life leases) and those with destroyed occupied homes being offered state-built housing?!
For sure. After the last election I thought David would be spending most of his time keeping all his new MPs in check, and something was bound to go wrong. On the whole they've toed the line.
They are already trying to do that versus National/Act fear-mongering on law and order (from the couple of party debates I have seen in last couple of weeks).
the Labour government has done at least 3 good things:
increased the minimum adult wage to $22.70 per hour
removed the ability to deduct mortgage interest from residential rental property owners income before their tax is calculated
increased the so-called brightline test to 10 years BUT
they have done an extremely bad/nasty thing:
enacted legislation taking control of water and sewerage assets from councils, and this will result in Labour losing the October election (silly ignorant people those responsible).
the system adopted/envisaged by the Labour government will result in many billions of dollars of additional/extra costs for taxpayers and published comment that it will lessen the costs for taxpayers are nothing but stinking bs!!!
also the Labour government failed to construct the 100,000 public/state dwellings that Jacinda Ardern said they would. now about 185,000 public/state dwellings are desperately needed because of the horrendously large number of people that the Labour government has allowed to immigrate into NZ (125,000 dwellings previously plus an additional 60,000 now).
As a card-carrying member of the curmudgeon persuasion, its all a bit AAARRGGGH!! at present. I suspect it has been increasingly so of late for many if not most of us.
We need the unapologetic kick-arsery of those such as Te parti maori and Act rather than the vacuous nothingness of the vaguely self-identifying 'major' parties. Of course, as a curmudgeon I would say that.
It perhaps wouldn't be as bad if our civil service just competently got stuff done as once-upon-a-time is used to do. But now...not so much....not much at all.
'While all glass collected (103,382t) was recycled onshore, half of the 114,887t of paper and 21,171t of plastics collected were sent offshore in 2022. About 30% of cardboard, tins and steel were sent offshore as well.'
I guess paper and cardboard, and tin and steel, ultimately are biodegradable. But that we continue to export our forever plastics, thousands of tonnes, is appalling.
When I first saw the campaign to lower the voting age to 16, maybe a year or so ago. I was not a fan and didn't agree, now I really think we need to! These 16 year old's generation are having a huge bill and fall out they'll have to deal with. The inter-generational theft is just... words fail me
16-year-olds tend to become 18-year-olds within a couple of years, and eligible to vote. This is mere window-dressing.
It would be a greater step forward for democratic participation to make voting compulsory for those already eligible, as it is in Australia for federal, state, and most local elections.
By that argument, raising the voting age to 20 would also be mere window dressing and make no substantive difference to our democracy. Really? There’s a reason the right is firmly opposed to letting younger citizens contest their theft of the future.
You're quick with your 'right' label. Setting an age is hardly in the same category as limiting the suffrage by ethnicity, by sex, by property ownership, or by academic qualification, which have all been done at different times and places. You ignore that 16-year-olds do mostly become franchised 18-year-olds and prefer to see deferral as 'theft'. Do not doubt that if 16-year-olds were given the vote there would be those who would use the same arguments to demand the vote for 13-year-olds and the consequent more comprehensive implemention of universal suffrage.
If you really want 'substantive difference to our democracy', after you've successfully persuaded all the lazy 18-year-olds to get out and vote, you might campaign for the abolition of the 5% threshold for party entry to Parliament, and for the right of voters to reorder the ranking of candidates on party lists.
Tim, who comments here, suggested a few months ago that voters should get more than one vote the younger they are. The argument being they have more invested in their future. So, say, for the first three elections you can vote in then your vote is worth 4. The next three elections, 3. and so on.
And I also agree with your thought on a person losing the vote at a certain point. Maybe not at 65 but say retirement age plus 15 years. A small nudge to push the retirement age up.
A one person one vote democracy is just fine thanks,
No reason to move the age range, as youth will have decades to inflict their choices on the country. None of my children were ready to vote at 16, and they were bright, thoughtful, if naive young people.
Perhaps others would like older people to get more voting rights because of their world experience. It’s a spurious argument, and opens up unintended consequences, the rules could get changed to a group of voters you don’t like getting extra votes.
That probably depends on your expectations. In short, it's what we have got and better than a number of the proposed options.
It's democracy, so I don't get what I want every time, or even agree with all policies from the party I vote for, much less for the other side, but unlike Trump and his ilk I can accept that at times the electorate has a different view to me and that majority ultimately decides the outcome.
Is it delivering? Not really, but STV is worse, because you get the least disliked rather than most popular candidate. I liked FPP for some reasons (avoiding the tail wagging the dog or Winston being Winston) and disliked it for others (skewed results not aligned to proportional votes) but also dislike the idea of allowing fringe parties even more influence by reducing the threshold. Don't want to become Italy or Israel with unstable government and extremist elements gaining ascendancy.
It's imperfect, but people still trying to make it worse.
The only governing structure that has previously dealt with an environmental crisis was the Japanese Shogun era, where they reforested the country. Not even a democracy.
Democracy is a great structure for avoiding tyrants, but it comes at the cost of being highly ineffective. Which I guess is the reason why democracies have provision for marshal law exists for times war and natural disasters. It is the get shit done mode.
My suggestion is that we have a system that is designed to be slow and unresponsive, which what we witness on these big ticket issues. I have watched can kicking from all parties for the best part of 40 years, it really doesn’t matter red vs blue vs green. Because they are all operating within a system that is designed not to change quickly.
The short sightedness of not facing up to climate change .... this year 2x cyclones - negotiated payouts, increased debt. Next year 2x cyclones, negotiated payouts? More debt? No insurance? What happens when this happens three years in a row? or four? or every other year?
I think we need to get busy building centrally located apartments that we can offer to people whose homes are now uninhabitable. It is just not sustainable to buy people out of homes, it will bankrupt us.
Very unsurprised about recycling which is why it does my head in that so many people feel recycling is their virtuous environmental act for the day so they can jump in their SUV and feel good about life. Actually confronting our own waste and the unsustainability of our current lifestyles is something we all need to do pronto.
The whole recycling racket pi*#!*! me off. We have been bad at recycling since forever. And we've got worse over time. When I say we I mean councils and government.
It annoys me when the truth about our poor track record is presented as a revelation.
This has happened many times, just do a quick search. Plastic shipped offshore. Glass ground up and buried in landfills due to closures of plants, not enough capacity and so on.
We have always known. The information was always there. There was plenty of glossing over the details by bureaucracy and plenty of blatant lies, but the reality was never too far from the surface if people wanted the truth.
But both Council and Government have taken advantage of peoples general LACK of curiosity and or fatigue - those of us who were concerned enough to raise multiple alarms were taken seriously for 5 minutes, nothing much changed and councils resumed unethical practices.
We should be reusing glass and recycling what is unsuitable for re-use, in my opinion.
We should be banning plastic bottles, recycling tin, burning (as bricks incorporating slash) and composting cardboard and paper.
So Heather Duplessis-Allan thinks that Chris Hipkins taking time out to sit with his sick daughter in hospital is 'a cynical plea for public sympathy.' This is a particularly despicable comment even from HDP whose journalism standards are always at the lowest level. If HDP had any unbiased journalistic ethics she would be commenting on the recent immigration scam where 30 migrant workers were crammed into a house belonging to a couple who've just donated $200,000 to the National Party. However, HDP is unlikely to comment on this because at the end of the day, she's a National Party lick spittle.
I think only because the scale of destruction was bigger. Given that climate events will only continue to occur its only a matter of time before insurers will collapse or pull out.
I'm not against voting being compulsory. I much prefer though Bernard's excellent recommendation of eschewing financial literacy classes and pairing a lowered voting age of 16 with civics and compulsory driving lessons in high school
Because a lot of young people don't have some one who can legally teach them to drive. Preventing them from getting to and from work or other opportunities
"An instruction from Alison McDonald......told staff to skip checks on almost all applications under the scheme....."
did Andrew Little instruct/tell Alison to issue the instruction or did she do that herself. It is essential that the person responsible for the horrendous and nasty instruction is exposed/revealed and publicly thoroughly investigated.
Release please Bernard
Patrick Medlicott
The cartoon at the end is a summary of National's, ACT's and Labour's climate change election policies.
Another question about managed retreat and property buyouts is the extent to which the recommendations in a very recent report on managed retreat options should be adopted.
It would be an outrage against us all, and a cause for revolution, if a government allowed taxpayer and ratepayer money to top up insurance payouts to anything greater than the $1 million median Auckland residential property value.
We have had enough of privatising gain, yet socialising loss.
With these disasters set to continue and increase in frequency and insurance companies and banks being unwilling/unable to claw back shareholder profits to contribute, will we eventually end up having to buy-out bank mortgages for land value (so central govt and/or councils own all land and provide life leases) and those with destroyed occupied homes being offered state-built housing?!
So little is known about most of the current ACT MPs. Even less for the new ones on the list. More investigation needed before the election?
For sure. After the last election I thought David would be spending most of his time keeping all his new MPs in check, and something was bound to go wrong. On the whole they've toed the line.
The Prime Minister has, in the last two days in question time, set out a list of what the Labour government has done. Yesterday's example starts at 5:05 in this video: https://ondemand.parliament.nz/parliament-tv-on-demand/?keyword=&subject=&person=&stage=&oral-questions=on
Is this a hint that Labour's formal election campaign will be pushing a positive message on what has been done?
They are already trying to do that versus National/Act fear-mongering on law and order (from the couple of party debates I have seen in last couple of weeks).
the Labour government has done at least 3 good things:
increased the minimum adult wage to $22.70 per hour
removed the ability to deduct mortgage interest from residential rental property owners income before their tax is calculated
increased the so-called brightline test to 10 years BUT
they have done an extremely bad/nasty thing:
enacted legislation taking control of water and sewerage assets from councils, and this will result in Labour losing the October election (silly ignorant people those responsible).
the system adopted/envisaged by the Labour government will result in many billions of dollars of additional/extra costs for taxpayers and published comment that it will lessen the costs for taxpayers are nothing but stinking bs!!!
also the Labour government failed to construct the 100,000 public/state dwellings that Jacinda Ardern said they would. now about 185,000 public/state dwellings are desperately needed because of the horrendously large number of people that the Labour government has allowed to immigrate into NZ (125,000 dwellings previously plus an additional 60,000 now).
As a card-carrying member of the curmudgeon persuasion, its all a bit AAARRGGGH!! at present. I suspect it has been increasingly so of late for many if not most of us.
We need the unapologetic kick-arsery of those such as Te parti maori and Act rather than the vacuous nothingness of the vaguely self-identifying 'major' parties. Of course, as a curmudgeon I would say that.
It perhaps wouldn't be as bad if our civil service just competently got stuff done as once-upon-a-time is used to do. But now...not so much....not much at all.
Rant over....a lot more fuming away.
TOP are pretty kick-arse, but appear a lot more ethical and surgical with their aim
~50% of voters about to vote for parties with no climate policy.
People need to wake up.
'While all glass collected (103,382t) was recycled onshore, half of the 114,887t of paper and 21,171t of plastics collected were sent offshore in 2022. About 30% of cardboard, tins and steel were sent offshore as well.'
I guess paper and cardboard, and tin and steel, ultimately are biodegradable. But that we continue to export our forever plastics, thousands of tonnes, is appalling.
When I first saw the campaign to lower the voting age to 16, maybe a year or so ago. I was not a fan and didn't agree, now I really think we need to! These 16 year old's generation are having a huge bill and fall out they'll have to deal with. The inter-generational theft is just... words fail me
16-year-olds tend to become 18-year-olds within a couple of years, and eligible to vote. This is mere window-dressing.
It would be a greater step forward for democratic participation to make voting compulsory for those already eligible, as it is in Australia for federal, state, and most local elections.
Census is compulsory and that didn't go so well?
By that argument, raising the voting age to 20 would also be mere window dressing and make no substantive difference to our democracy. Really? There’s a reason the right is firmly opposed to letting younger citizens contest their theft of the future.
You're quick with your 'right' label. Setting an age is hardly in the same category as limiting the suffrage by ethnicity, by sex, by property ownership, or by academic qualification, which have all been done at different times and places. You ignore that 16-year-olds do mostly become franchised 18-year-olds and prefer to see deferral as 'theft'. Do not doubt that if 16-year-olds were given the vote there would be those who would use the same arguments to demand the vote for 13-year-olds and the consequent more comprehensive implemention of universal suffrage.
If you really want 'substantive difference to our democracy', after you've successfully persuaded all the lazy 18-year-olds to get out and vote, you might campaign for the abolition of the 5% threshold for party entry to Parliament, and for the right of voters to reorder the ranking of candidates on party lists.
I think a more sensible solution would be to remove voting rights at 65. You've had your say, it's someone else's turn to shape the world.
Hi John
Tim, who comments here, suggested a few months ago that voters should get more than one vote the younger they are. The argument being they have more invested in their future. So, say, for the first three elections you can vote in then your vote is worth 4. The next three elections, 3. and so on.
And I also agree with your thought on a person losing the vote at a certain point. Maybe not at 65 but say retirement age plus 15 years. A small nudge to push the retirement age up.
A one person one vote democracy is just fine thanks,
No reason to move the age range, as youth will have decades to inflict their choices on the country. None of my children were ready to vote at 16, and they were bright, thoughtful, if naive young people.
Perhaps others would like older people to get more voting rights because of their world experience. It’s a spurious argument, and opens up unintended consequences, the rules could get changed to a group of voters you don’t like getting extra votes.
Perhaps a question for you, is the current electoral system producing the results?
That probably depends on your expectations. In short, it's what we have got and better than a number of the proposed options.
It's democracy, so I don't get what I want every time, or even agree with all policies from the party I vote for, much less for the other side, but unlike Trump and his ilk I can accept that at times the electorate has a different view to me and that majority ultimately decides the outcome.
Is it delivering? Not really, but STV is worse, because you get the least disliked rather than most popular candidate. I liked FPP for some reasons (avoiding the tail wagging the dog or Winston being Winston) and disliked it for others (skewed results not aligned to proportional votes) but also dislike the idea of allowing fringe parties even more influence by reducing the threshold. Don't want to become Italy or Israel with unstable government and extremist elements gaining ascendancy.
It's imperfect, but people still trying to make it worse.
The only governing structure that has previously dealt with an environmental crisis was the Japanese Shogun era, where they reforested the country. Not even a democracy.
Democracy is a great structure for avoiding tyrants, but it comes at the cost of being highly ineffective. Which I guess is the reason why democracies have provision for marshal law exists for times war and natural disasters. It is the get shit done mode.
My suggestion is that we have a system that is designed to be slow and unresponsive, which what we witness on these big ticket issues. I have watched can kicking from all parties for the best part of 40 years, it really doesn’t matter red vs blue vs green. Because they are all operating within a system that is designed not to change quickly.
The short sightedness of not facing up to climate change .... this year 2x cyclones - negotiated payouts, increased debt. Next year 2x cyclones, negotiated payouts? More debt? No insurance? What happens when this happens three years in a row? or four? or every other year?
I think we need to get busy building centrally located apartments that we can offer to people whose homes are now uninhabitable. It is just not sustainable to buy people out of homes, it will bankrupt us.
Very unsurprised about recycling which is why it does my head in that so many people feel recycling is their virtuous environmental act for the day so they can jump in their SUV and feel good about life. Actually confronting our own waste and the unsustainability of our current lifestyles is something we all need to do pronto.
The whole recycling racket pi*#!*! me off. We have been bad at recycling since forever. And we've got worse over time. When I say we I mean councils and government.
It annoys me when the truth about our poor track record is presented as a revelation.
This has happened many times, just do a quick search. Plastic shipped offshore. Glass ground up and buried in landfills due to closures of plants, not enough capacity and so on.
We have always known. The information was always there. There was plenty of glossing over the details by bureaucracy and plenty of blatant lies, but the reality was never too far from the surface if people wanted the truth.
But both Council and Government have taken advantage of peoples general LACK of curiosity and or fatigue - those of us who were concerned enough to raise multiple alarms were taken seriously for 5 minutes, nothing much changed and councils resumed unethical practices.
We should be reusing glass and recycling what is unsuitable for re-use, in my opinion.
We should be banning plastic bottles, recycling tin, burning (as bricks incorporating slash) and composting cardboard and paper.
There's just no excuse anymore.
So Heather Duplessis-Allan thinks that Chris Hipkins taking time out to sit with his sick daughter in hospital is 'a cynical plea for public sympathy.' This is a particularly despicable comment even from HDP whose journalism standards are always at the lowest level. If HDP had any unbiased journalistic ethics she would be commenting on the recent immigration scam where 30 migrant workers were crammed into a house belonging to a couple who've just donated $200,000 to the National Party. However, HDP is unlikely to comment on this because at the end of the day, she's a National Party lick spittle.
Never start a sentence with Heather Duplessis-Allan thinks 🙈🙉
Buyout at CV? Yeah nah
Shades of the shambles of the Christchurch earthquakes.
But without the complication of a collapsed insurance company that the state had to step in and manage
I think only because the scale of destruction was bigger. Given that climate events will only continue to occur its only a matter of time before insurers will collapse or pull out.
I'm not against voting being compulsory. I much prefer though Bernard's excellent recommendation of eschewing financial literacy classes and pairing a lowered voting age of 16 with civics and compulsory driving lessons in high school
Why driving lessons!?
Because a lot of young people don't have some one who can legally teach them to drive. Preventing them from getting to and from work or other opportunities
Even accessing a road worthy car with a wof for the test can be a big ask, sadly
"An instruction from Alison McDonald......told staff to skip checks on almost all applications under the scheme....."
did Andrew Little instruct/tell Alison to issue the instruction or did she do that herself. It is essential that the person responsible for the horrendous and nasty instruction is exposed/revealed and publicly thoroughly investigated.