They also never talk about why the public services under Labour led governments tend to hire more.

1. Because National governments get rid of so many the Ministries struggle to get the work they were asked to do done so hire consultants & contractors
2. Because Labour led governments typically want the Ministries to do more things to fill the gaps in need that the private sector leaves
3. Because Labour led governments typically see a need to have a public service overseeing compliance from the private sector, whereas National led governments typically think its fine for private sector to regulate & monitor itself.

etc, etc, etc.

Talking about a number of people is a useful tool for propagandists like Bridge, but it dumbs down the discussion when we lose all the context about why we might, or might not, need certain numbers of people working in the public sector.

Also, his arguments (like most from the neo-liberal right) assume the magic of the private sector, as if there’s not vast amounts of waste happening in corps all the fricking time as well.

I just think that if enough people vote for some party that it would (absent a threshold) amount to 1 MPs worth of votes, that those people deserve representation even if its a conspiracy theorist nutter. But i’m open to ranked choice or other similar systems that are better at ensuring everybody has at least some say in who’s represented in parliament.

Agree re the dark money in the TU, NZ Initiative etc. But even if we found an effective way to nullify that the same interests still own most of the media and would spread their messaging and campaigns through influence on those outlets instead.

I’m definitely in favour of ditching the 5% threshold, and i’d also be happy reducing the ratio of electorate:list MPs too (probably by increasing the size of the house).

I would also prefer all political party funding to be provided solely by the state and to ban private money from political parties entirely.

That’s what im saying; the old plain white racists are dying off, so he’s pivoting to outrage amongst young males instead.

That’s the only thing that’ll potentially save us - just how bad they are at running the economy. But you have to keep an eye on polling which still shows the majority of our voters trust National on the economy more than Labour.

Plus Act & National have a huge amount of money from the real estate & landlord grifters who are going to dump it in yet again to fight against CGT which Labour will have to go with some form of to keep their own voters on side.

There’s some fairly large amount of NZers that interact on the daily (some on the hourly) with Facebook. I dip in from time to time to read what people are saying just to try to keep some perspective on why it seems so many of my fellow citizens have such strange ideas.

For the most part replies and discussion on just about any topic are full of false assumptions, minimal facts, naked and unquestioned bias (x is always bad no matter what, y always good etc) and then the usual racism, misogyny and nastiness. This sort of crap from Winston appeals to that sort of folk, really he’s just targetting a little lower and more broadly than his usual tactic of talking to the 70+ old white racists.

That I don’t know, though my perspective is that’s up to them to work out and as Pākehā i’ll have to learn how to negotiate that relationship if/when it ever happens.

That’s not a position i’ve always held, but over the years as i’ve read books like ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ and other stories about the dispossession of indigenous people i’ve come to a much more complicated understanding of the price that was paid for the privilege I enjoy. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s a minor inconvenience compared to the cost others paid.

It would just be a different representative body negotiating the relationship with the pakeha crown I guess. Its entirely their choice as to whether they want to represent as individual iwi or as a whole in that relationship.

I think about it like it seems pretty normal that at an official level the NZ Government talks to the Australian Federal Government, not to the Melbourne mayor :)

Its a regressive tax, because the greater proportion of your income you spend, the greater proportion of your income ends up taxed. And if you’re poor, you spend all of your income (and then some), so all of your income ends up getting hit with a 2nd round of tax via GST.

But if you’re rich, you don’t have to (hell, at some incomes, can’t) spend all your money, so you put that excess money in the bank, then leverage it to buy a house to let to the poor person, who pays your mortgage for you, but you offset your costs to reduce your own tax further, then sell the house a couple years later for some sweet tax free capital gains.

Just an edit to add:

Using GST to dampen consumption by raising it when there’s high inflation, and lowering it when there’s not could be a useful purpose for it; but its not used that way here. I suspect taxing excess cash out of the economy would be a less awful way than ramping up unemployment through interest rate hikes, but old white people won’t vote for tax hikes. GST is also a way to get tax off some people who might not have an income otherwise taxable; but I would think wealth taxes, or capital gains taxes would be far better ways of achieving that.