While support for Act and New Zealand First has remained fairly steady over the last twelve months, the average of the last five public polls shows National declining from an election result of 38.08 down to 32.94.
Pity you understate, significantly, the Minister of Finance, by her decisions and actions, crashing the economy. And instead run with the fake news National line that it is the fault of the Reserve Bank and of the previous government.
A pretty fair commentary. National seems beset by characters, certainly Luxon, who are naive and with little interest when it comes to resolving societal matters. Luxon is also clearly more of a pedantic business caretaker rather than the kind of energetic entrepreneur this nation needs right now, able to lead a team to create and seriously progress some kind of light at the end of the tunnel economic vision for this country. As it is the days of wealth from growing cows, wool and trees is over, with successive Governments failing to see that writing on the wall.
So New Zealand has a floundering economy, a floundering Prime Minister, and, most importantly, no more promising policies or leadership on the horizon. Can this be attributed to bad luck? Not at all. The failure of policies and leadership can be put down to structural causes. New Zealand's colonialist chickens are coming home to roost, featherless. The political establishment no longer has a Bruce Jesson to tell them the inevitable fate of a colonial economy and a colonialist polity. If it did, would it be listening? I doubt it. An effective response to the inexorable long term decline of the New Zealand economy and its political system will not come from Christopher Luxon, Chris Hipkins or any other member of the current political establishment. It can and will come only from tangata motu.
Do you think you are offering an alternative way to more economic success for NZ ? Your argument for moving away from a colonial economy has not been very convincing, because we need more than wishful thinking to improve our economic wellbeing. Just dissing the achievements of our current govt will not convince people that you have a good solution. I am sure there are plenty of benefits in what you are advocating, but I havent seen a way to economic recovery or success for NZ in what you are saying.
The colonial economy is a trading economy. When the current Prime Minister took office he declared that he wanted to increase the country's exports by a certain percentage. I think it may have been something like 20%, but the actual target is immaterial. The point is that having a trade target is economically irrational. It amounts to nothing more than the proposition that New Zealand should cement in its dependence on other economies (whether China, Australia, the US, India, Japan, Korea and so on) for the provision of manufactured and processed goods, including both capital goods and consumer commodities. A rational and nationalistic economic development program would consider the medium to long term future of trading relationships (how might they be impacted by war, environmental disasters, pandemics, international supply constraints and so on) and what goods (both primary and manufactured goods) could be profitably produced here on a reasonable scale. There are other considerations, such as the massive leakage of wealth from New Zealand in the form of company profits (the banks are a particular example). The colonial regime's policy is to encourage trade and foreign ownership ("investment"). (That is why they are moving to privatize Kiwibank. It has nothing to do with making Kiwibank more efficient or effective. It is to overcome the anomaly in which just one medium size financial institution is not foreign controlled). There is nothing economically rational about this policy. It is purely purely political, and it will continue to hurt the people of New Zealand. On the other hand, removing the bias towards foreign control and an import-export economy would do wonders for the country. This is not to "diss the achievements of the current government". All the major parties, and most of the minor ones, have committed to a colonialist political system and a colonial economy. They then blame each other for the consequences of the policies for which they are all equally culpable. Thus stupidity has become systemic within the institutions of the colonialist regime.
Exporting has worked for NZ in the past exporting sheep meat, and civilizations have always been built on trade, from the beginning of civilization. How else will we buy things we dont produce in NZ ? We might not even be able to afford cellphones or petrol, and end up with a subsistence society, where a few people have some wealth. As somebody said, people want more from the govt than they are paying in taxes, and I dont know if any amount of wealth redistribution can fix that deficit. I do like self-sufficiency, but the amount of austerity people may have to endure may force them abroad. People might not be able to live on kindness alone, as we saw with Jacinta Ardern, and you might find it hard to persuade people to go without, to help the country. We arent at war, except with each other, but keep looking for a good way forward, as nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. I am not an economic expert, but I am trying to recognize good ideas when I see them.
Prior to the nineteenth century Aotearoa had virtually no external trading relationships. The dependence on foreign trade came with colonization, and as the influence of colonialism has become more pronounced into the twenty-first century, the New Zealand economy has become more committed to external trade "in principle". For the colonialist regime the ideal would be to have everything that is consumed in New Zealand come from overseas, and everything that is produced in New Zealand consumed off-shore. That would satisfy the political imperative to bind the country to the interests of foreign "partners" and "traditional allies". However it would make no economic sense and would also make any sort of independent national security impossible.
Generally speaking tangata motu do not seek a return to the economic and political isolation of the eighteenth century, but they do want rational economic policies in place of the colonialist fetish for external trade, the wholesale transfer of national assets to foreign capital, and the steady bleeding of wealth to foreign entities. The moderate and well reasoned economic policies of mana motuhake would in fact improve the living conditions of the majority of our population. They would not be a recipe for austerity.
At the same time tangata motu are not blind to the need to shift patterns of popular demand in a healthier direction. That includes reducing the supply and demand for the addictive drugs (alcohol and tobacco) introduced by the colonizers, the newly added lines (such as vapes) which the regime employs as a means of revenue collection and social control, and the illicit drugs coming through illegal channels. There are many other commodities which people should be persuaded to "go without, to help the country" and, just as importantly, to help themselves.
The ideologists of colonialism are at best indifferent to what we consume or where it comes from. Tangata motu on the other hand believe that these choices are important matters for personal and collective decision, with each case to be decided on its particular merits.
I hope your final sentence "New Zealand politics could look very different by the end of next year." comes true. It requires Labour and their potential coalition partners being prepared to work with others around the world seeking an economic alternative to neo-liberal economics. The Labour Party also needs to appoint a new leader, have a decent cleanout of current MP's (especially former academics who add little value) and start understanding ordinary working people's hopes and expectations and enshrining this new discovery in decent, implementable policy. I live in hope........
Pity you understate, significantly, the Minister of Finance, by her decisions and actions, crashing the economy. And instead run with the fake news National line that it is the fault of the Reserve Bank and of the previous government.
A pretty fair commentary. National seems beset by characters, certainly Luxon, who are naive and with little interest when it comes to resolving societal matters. Luxon is also clearly more of a pedantic business caretaker rather than the kind of energetic entrepreneur this nation needs right now, able to lead a team to create and seriously progress some kind of light at the end of the tunnel economic vision for this country. As it is the days of wealth from growing cows, wool and trees is over, with successive Governments failing to see that writing on the wall.
Depressing.
A good overview however.
Please keep holding Nationals feet to the fire over their lack of a plan ...or competant people to lead a plan, if they had one ha ha.
At least we have more Darth Hooton outbursts to look forward to in 25, the only evidence based narrative we have from the right
So New Zealand has a floundering economy, a floundering Prime Minister, and, most importantly, no more promising policies or leadership on the horizon. Can this be attributed to bad luck? Not at all. The failure of policies and leadership can be put down to structural causes. New Zealand's colonialist chickens are coming home to roost, featherless. The political establishment no longer has a Bruce Jesson to tell them the inevitable fate of a colonial economy and a colonialist polity. If it did, would it be listening? I doubt it. An effective response to the inexorable long term decline of the New Zealand economy and its political system will not come from Christopher Luxon, Chris Hipkins or any other member of the current political establishment. It can and will come only from tangata motu.
Do you think you are offering an alternative way to more economic success for NZ ? Your argument for moving away from a colonial economy has not been very convincing, because we need more than wishful thinking to improve our economic wellbeing. Just dissing the achievements of our current govt will not convince people that you have a good solution. I am sure there are plenty of benefits in what you are advocating, but I havent seen a way to economic recovery or success for NZ in what you are saying.
The colonial economy is a trading economy. When the current Prime Minister took office he declared that he wanted to increase the country's exports by a certain percentage. I think it may have been something like 20%, but the actual target is immaterial. The point is that having a trade target is economically irrational. It amounts to nothing more than the proposition that New Zealand should cement in its dependence on other economies (whether China, Australia, the US, India, Japan, Korea and so on) for the provision of manufactured and processed goods, including both capital goods and consumer commodities. A rational and nationalistic economic development program would consider the medium to long term future of trading relationships (how might they be impacted by war, environmental disasters, pandemics, international supply constraints and so on) and what goods (both primary and manufactured goods) could be profitably produced here on a reasonable scale. There are other considerations, such as the massive leakage of wealth from New Zealand in the form of company profits (the banks are a particular example). The colonial regime's policy is to encourage trade and foreign ownership ("investment"). (That is why they are moving to privatize Kiwibank. It has nothing to do with making Kiwibank more efficient or effective. It is to overcome the anomaly in which just one medium size financial institution is not foreign controlled). There is nothing economically rational about this policy. It is purely purely political, and it will continue to hurt the people of New Zealand. On the other hand, removing the bias towards foreign control and an import-export economy would do wonders for the country. This is not to "diss the achievements of the current government". All the major parties, and most of the minor ones, have committed to a colonialist political system and a colonial economy. They then blame each other for the consequences of the policies for which they are all equally culpable. Thus stupidity has become systemic within the institutions of the colonialist regime.
Exporting has worked for NZ in the past exporting sheep meat, and civilizations have always been built on trade, from the beginning of civilization. How else will we buy things we dont produce in NZ ? We might not even be able to afford cellphones or petrol, and end up with a subsistence society, where a few people have some wealth. As somebody said, people want more from the govt than they are paying in taxes, and I dont know if any amount of wealth redistribution can fix that deficit. I do like self-sufficiency, but the amount of austerity people may have to endure may force them abroad. People might not be able to live on kindness alone, as we saw with Jacinta Ardern, and you might find it hard to persuade people to go without, to help the country. We arent at war, except with each other, but keep looking for a good way forward, as nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. I am not an economic expert, but I am trying to recognize good ideas when I see them.
Prior to the nineteenth century Aotearoa had virtually no external trading relationships. The dependence on foreign trade came with colonization, and as the influence of colonialism has become more pronounced into the twenty-first century, the New Zealand economy has become more committed to external trade "in principle". For the colonialist regime the ideal would be to have everything that is consumed in New Zealand come from overseas, and everything that is produced in New Zealand consumed off-shore. That would satisfy the political imperative to bind the country to the interests of foreign "partners" and "traditional allies". However it would make no economic sense and would also make any sort of independent national security impossible.
Generally speaking tangata motu do not seek a return to the economic and political isolation of the eighteenth century, but they do want rational economic policies in place of the colonialist fetish for external trade, the wholesale transfer of national assets to foreign capital, and the steady bleeding of wealth to foreign entities. The moderate and well reasoned economic policies of mana motuhake would in fact improve the living conditions of the majority of our population. They would not be a recipe for austerity.
At the same time tangata motu are not blind to the need to shift patterns of popular demand in a healthier direction. That includes reducing the supply and demand for the addictive drugs (alcohol and tobacco) introduced by the colonizers, the newly added lines (such as vapes) which the regime employs as a means of revenue collection and social control, and the illicit drugs coming through illegal channels. There are many other commodities which people should be persuaded to "go without, to help the country" and, just as importantly, to help themselves.
The ideologists of colonialism are at best indifferent to what we consume or where it comes from. Tangata motu on the other hand believe that these choices are important matters for personal and collective decision, with each case to be decided on its particular merits.
I hope your final sentence "New Zealand politics could look very different by the end of next year." comes true. It requires Labour and their potential coalition partners being prepared to work with others around the world seeking an economic alternative to neo-liberal economics. The Labour Party also needs to appoint a new leader, have a decent cleanout of current MP's (especially former academics who add little value) and start understanding ordinary working people's hopes and expectations and enshrining this new discovery in decent, implementable policy. I live in hope........
I cant see any good solutions coming from you commentators. I will stick with the status quo till you have some better ideas.
Without the helpful progressive authoritarianism of Te Pāti Kakariki and Te Pāti Māori Luxon may well be a one-term Prime Minister...
Just stop all the bogus payments to the so called Maori and claw it back!