Think many people voted national as they were sick of the cost of living crisis
National has done nothing to address this and cost of living has gotten worse with huge local council rates increases (some of it due to water infrastructure needing replacement in absence of the Three waters proposal of the last govt) and higher user charges such as public transport costs
It’s not surprising that voters are turning their backs on national who focused more on landlords and giving fast approvals for their mates etc and no improvement in health and education
This govt is in trouble politically- early rot setting in
No they didn't they promised law and order police got nothing but chump change offered to them and then pretty much put cigs and pseudoephedrine back no one new about that they cut kids lunches and targeted disabled kids wtf put regos up rates are going up water problems are serious shut down billions of dollars spent on projects money now gone made 35000people unemployed and they want to make kids do harder time than adults taking cameras off fishing boats, fastrack dictatorship, what's to like about these cunts fair pay gone no fairness ,had a bad day take it out on your tenants your a land Lord yes a Lord now you can start a famine
Pseudoephedrine was not a surprise.
Cutting funding for lunches and disabled kids not a surprise.
Rates going up is an expected consequence of three waters being cancelled, which is what was campaigned on.
They said they would cut costs so job losses are not a surprise.
Hopefully voters will pay more attention to policies next time around.
National campaigned on bringing back prescription fees, increasing public transport costs, repealing offshore oil and gas exploration bans, a "tax cut" that would mostly benefit the rich and more affluent, as well as bringing back the tax deduction for landlords. All that alongside ACT and NZ First saying it would reinstate 90-day work trials, no cause tenancy evictions, bring in sanctions for beneficiaries and fines for truancy in schools. They also said they'd get rid of free lunches in schools, and abolish Fair Pay Agreements...
All of that was campaigned on. And more.
None of this should be a surprise.
Well, I'm sorry that you only found this out after they got into power. But sadly, all of it was signalled prior to the election which is why the PM keeps repeating that they're just delivering on what NZ voted and asked for.
Well the recent poll says people voted for change but not this change kind of like buyers remorse but sadly they'll have to wait a couple more years to return the Brocken goods
Apparently statistics show it had no impact on junkies long term.
But I've heard no one is bothering bringing it back as promised until 2025. NACT were the ones who took it away in the first place. Junkies and pushers quickly found other methods.
Funniest thing the only reason Seymour wants it back is so people with colds and flues will take suppression pills and get their lazy asses to work and not affect his rich mates bottom lines by taking days off.
He was only pro euthanasia to get rid of some tax payer burdens as well. That's who he is.
Add to that list the promise to "get tough on crime" but actually cutting funding to police, stopping the replacement of a dysfunctional deployment system and fighting them on pay.
I mean, the rates thing is more of a 'locals electing people for council for decades who said they would keep the rates low' and now that has resulted in deficits that could have been covered if smaller rates increases had been done in the past years
Also the cost of living crisis is a worldwide problem. The responsibility for it is best attributed to the political class in Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
It's definitely a worldwide problem, but I don't think we can pin this on the political class. Everybody assumed Covid would cause an economic depression. Interest rates were lowered to avoid that. When economic growth turned out better than expected, low interest rates led to high inflation. To fix the high inflation, every country raised interest rates.
Sure, but you don't get pity points when you set in motion policies that actively make it worse, or reward a group that many people already find exploitative.
Yeah, it's frustrating to see so many people fail to consider the global context. Or just generally not put enough effort into understanding the consequence of voting for one party or the other.
For a big chunk of NZ, they vote for either Labour or National simply because that's who their parents always voted for. If you ask them why, they regurgitate the reason their parents told them ("They're good for workers' rights" / "They're good for the economy"), but can't elaborate further.
The next chunk simply thinks "hmm, I seem to be struggling more" so they vote for the main opposition party, or vote to keep the encumbent party when they feel like things are going well. They don't actually consider whether the opposition might be even worse. These voters make sure there's a government change whenever the global economy slows down.
Then there's the chunk that doesn't even bother to vote ...
If every person had to vote, Labour would likely win by a landslide, simply because the people most affected by Nationals shitty policies often also don't bother to vote. Pisses me right off.
"Fuck National, they suck!"
"Did you vote?"
"No, why bother, one vote won't change anything!"
Multiply that by 800k -\_-
It’s almost like younger people don’t give enough of a shit to vote. Said my grandparents in the 1950s. And my parents in the 90s. And every generation ever.
"I was going to vote in the election. But then I got too stoned. And then National won. Bummer. 😔" Said to a group of people at my friends' house by someone in 2014. Wanted to ring her neck. Lol
Washington probably not, but the war on Ukraine, the war on Gaza and China not having the economic rebound that people would have hoped are all hurting.
However, it goes both ways. National and ACT spent all of 2023 blaming Labour for the cost of living crisis, and no are getting the same blame by voters
And National only plan for it to get much worse when they take away the free medicine and cut jobs and social services. People had no idea what ACT on 8% would be like.
The question is whether this will cause the existing government to take pause around whether the degree of austerity and cost cutting they are imposing is popular with the public if they continue for 2.5 more years - or whether they maintain full speed ahead to see how much they can do before being voted out.
There is a very long time until the next election - time either for them to be a little more gentle in their cuts and their approach to recapture support of the middle...or time for them to do a lot of damage if the goal is to privatise as much as possible.
I think they're trying their best to get all this out at the start so the short memories of the voters allows them to cruise for the last 2/3rds of their term and (attempt to) secure another victory (ewww).
That may well be their strategy. It's both risky and novel, polling this poorly so soon after an election has only ever happened twice before, both times the government lost the next election.
Yeah...
Problem for Luxon is that Seymour is a zealous small government fanatic, and Jones anti-environmental policies are not popular and have a very bad smell of corruption about them.
Luxon is deeply unpopular, even with Nat voters but he's fairly well doomed to maintaining policies that aren't proving to be very popular.
He and Peters blaming the media is a losing strategy.
>The question is whether this will cause the existing government to take pause around whether the degree of austerity and cost cutting they are imposing is popular with the public if they continue for 2.5 more years - or whether they maintain full speed ahead to see how much they can do before being voted out.
You're far more optimistic about anyone in Cabinet having the intelligence and self awareness to be capable of introspection.
a lot can change before the next election, think Seymour will allow National to slow things down?
if anything they just need to get more comms people involved
Unlikely. They will get all the unpopular shit out of the way now. Come June people will hear they are getting an extra $20 and support them again. Economic downturns etc are still easy enough to blame on the previous bunch.
An extra $20 per week is laughable when you consider all the fish-hooks of extra charges this Government has brought about.
It's like how a slot-machine disguises losses as wins by making the "wins" frequent but insignificant.
> It's like how a slot-machine disguises losses as wins by making the "wins" frequent but insignificant.
Exactly this! Enough to keep people addicted but not too much so they don’t make a roaring profit. Great analogy.
It is $20 a fortnight. I remember chippy saying $10 a week and Lux butting in $20 a fortnight. Seems it worked, the $20 gets repeated and the fortnight is forgotten.
Anyway, as you say, insurance increase will eat it all up and some.
As I said, losses disguised as wins. A futile tax cut now to try distracting from their shifty 'early in term' actions, and somehow they will engineer another one in election year.
Neither will even come close to compensating for services lost & extra costs imposed on the average punter.
Seems pretty clear that the intent is to take the pain, make the transformation as soon as possible and hopefully have some green shoots visible by the time the next election comes around.
They’ll push through all the unpopular stuff as soon as possible—ripping off the plaster, so to speak. Inflation will be back within band by next year and economic growth will pick up too. Being tight right now will allow them to throw around a bit more cash later in the cycle when folks are more likely to remember it.
Given many kiwis vote on nothing but the electioneering narrative maybe 3 months out from an election I’d say your spot on and this downswing was likely forecasted.
I would say they wouldn’t want it to continue too far that way though, but I agree in that I think this is an expected and planned for turntables at this stage.
Ah well, Voters got what they asked for, didn't they? Run down services, increased costs, but never mind those tax cuts will pay for the private health care, private schooling and increased other costs.....
(Sarcasm)
I'm a leftie whose first ever vote was in the referendum, in support of moving to MMP. But I have to be fair and say most National voters probably didn't get what they voted for. They voted centre right. Which is bad enough in the opinion of your average leftie like me, but those who voted National probably didn't want this revolting neo liberal mess that we have with the Khmer Bleu and the merry throuple.
That's the risk with MMP and the risk has materialised this election period
This is something the left doesn’t seem to understand. It’s psychology.
Voters reward action and doing what you say you’ll do. It’s why Luxon is doing this almost comical quarterly targets nonsense - promising easily achievable short-term things and delivering them is better from a marketing perspective than promising long-term transformation and then spending three years laying the foundations.
What do you mean the left don't understand? Labour and National both fight over the same core voters which are the ones benefiting both from Labour's refusal to do anything from 2020-2023 and National is doing now. Give the greens 61 seats you'll see some promises kept from the actual left.
>those who voted National probably didn't want this revolting neo liberal mess that we have
People might or mightn't be satisfied and I think that's up to individuals to decide.
For those who aren't satisfied, though, I think it's premature to assume they wouldn't vote the same again, because when you're coming from that perspective it's easy to see this as not being purely about National.
If you were a National Party fan then you're very possibly not seeing National as the problem so much as the other parties it had to go into coalition with. If that's your impression then the logical response isn't to completely change and vote left, and for MPs and policies you might dislike even more.... certainly no more than a strong Labour fan would vote right just because they also dislike Winston. It's to *keep* voting for your favourite party and hope it can convince *more* people to vote for it next time, instead of the disruptive smaller parties, so that it's less reliant on others.
Coalitions have excellent benefits to the country. The Greens have Bern able to have some serious influence on climate change issues as a result. And NZF have done a world of good for pensioners.
It just happens that there can be consequences when coalition partners hold the leading party to ransom to get into government, as happened this time around
So does anyone know what the legal mechanism is for the country to move to the single transferable vote system? I know no one in power at the time would want it but there has to be a way for the people of a country to express that desire.
MMP worked exactly as intended, it created a parliament which mostly represents what the votes said it should look like. Whether you like the results or not, they were super democratic. Way better than the how democratic your average FPP election is.
I mean, there *doesn't exist* any more democratic outcome. At least not within the confines of representative democracy.
There's no parliament in the world that could take election results like "38% National, 27% Labour, 12% Greens, 9% Act, 6% NZF, 3% TPM" and produce a government that accurately represented the voters' will. Because voters did not *produce* an obvious will. Voters produced a chaotic mess. That's just... a thing that happens in democracies sometimes.
Most of these sound like great ideas, and I'm sure you put a lot of work into this list, but very few have anything to do with the problem of producing a majority government from a non-majority election outcome, which is what I thought we were talking about.
Barry Soper brought it up on Newstalk ZB (left it on that station by mistake in the car from when I had Si and James on earlier). Seriously what a biased old fuck that guy is, makes my blood boil every time I have to hear him
The actual change in party support in these polls is minor, like one or two points for each party. People haven't actually changed their minds all that much. But even that shifts a few seats and additionally puts NZF out of Parliament, giving the Labour/Green/TPM bloc a decent seat advantage overall.
It shows again that Nat/ACT/NZF just scraped a victory in the last election. It wasn't the overwhelming victory that they claim and their mandate is precarious. But it also shows that supporters of the opposition can't be complacent about winning next election. These small gains need to be maintained and grown.
You're assuming most people carefully consider the policies rather than just voting on instinct.
And let's not forget the absolute shit show that was Labour's third term. They still have a long way to go to concince me they've changed.
Their donors are getting the legislation that they ~~bribed the government for~~ legally requested to be changed put through.
They have no reason to care about the general population's opinion of them.
The CEO of New Zealands shareholders are millionaires, landlords, employers, tobacco lobbyists etc etc.
There never was, nor will there ever be, a reason for them to care what the other 90% of the population say.
Fuck they are all a bunch of cunts, non stop re "So? Election is not till years away"
If my boss told me I was doing a fucking shit job and most people at work hated me, I would not reply with "So? My perf review is not for another 11 months!"
Its true though, if National did a couple popular things six months out from the election a lot of people would forget about this first six months and vote them back in.
Same thing with performance reviews, I've seen colleagues fuck around for months but really pull finger and suck up to the boss the time performance reviews come around and they get glowing results.
No idea why they feel the need to puff this up with the whole "Labour could take back power" thing. That is a complete waste of time to talk about and everyone knows it, governments don't just suddenly step down when they're unpopular. Why do they need to pad this at all? The governments approval rating tanking is news enough as it is. Are they familiar with the election process at all?
>governments don't just suddenly step down when they're unpopular
Maybe Chris Luxon will accidentally drink a sip of wine at his next jaunt and get drunk enough to call a snap election.
The greens and Te Pati Maori should work out what they want to extract out of labour if it looks like they will be needed for a coalition. Act and new zealand first set precedent for making the largest coalition partner concede things in exchange for power
This isn't the first time Winsto has been deputy prime Minister....in fact he was acting Prime Minister for a while. How is that not a massive concession?
I'm not NAct fan. I just don't think we should be deriding something that "the other side" has also done
“Could take back power…” yeah, if there was an election today. There isn’t. It’s 2.5 years away. It doesn’t mean shit until the election.
I suspect NACT is going to get lucky timing wise. They took over mid recession cycle, everyone is feeling pretty glum, and things will probably naturally turn around in the next 18 months or so (regardless of what they do or don’t do).
Things won't naturally turn around in the next 18 months, though. We've seen how austerity works. As glum as everything is now, the outcomes will be even worse in two years time.
It will most likely turnaround in that time frame - it always has in the past. They just have to focus on making sure inflation stays low (by not overspending etc). Eventually interest rates will be back to more palatable levels (mainly driven by global economic conditions), making it easier/cheaper to borrow money. Businesses will then start to grow, people will feel more secure on their jobs and get back to overspending on money they don’t have, and there will be a more positive feel.
We haven't had a government implement austerity and break institutional norms like this before. Don't look to the past. Look at the UK. Hopefully we will be smart enough that NACT will be a one term government.
Yeah we have. You’ve got to be kidding. This is nothing like austerity measures in other countries. This is just a fairly tight budget (try to not increase borrowing), and largely trying to fund it by rolling the size of public service back to where it was about 6 months ago. It feels bad if you’re directly affected, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty minimal.
It isn't minimal, it's just like measures in other countries, it's targeting the poor and the marginalised, and it isn't just about the size of the public service. Add the culture war into the mix, and things aren't going to just turn around in 18 months.
Pretty narrow minded view of the ramifications of this governments actions. They've made poverty worse in many ways, one of the leading causes of crime, while not paying our police appropriately and shovelling more work onto them. And that's just *2* things this government has done which has the potential to cause a huge impact in the future years
The reserve bank has indicated interest rates will start coming down towards the year. By mid next year, the interest rates should be back to decent levels, making it easier/cheaper to borrow money. Business will expand, people will start buying houses for stupid money etc, and the mood will improve.
NACT running a tight budget will help keep inflation low, and shouldn’t derail that. ie, they won’t need to do much, but it should turn around in 18 months or so.
Think people heard tax cuts= more money and labour useless.
I voted Labour and pointed this out on reddit. If you're trashing Labour all the time as a lefties you're essentially helping National and friends.
Labour did lots of little things people didn't pay much attention to while flubbing the big things.
Pick your poison.
Labour should be held accountable as well, yes they are less bad than National but they are too centric to truly improve the country. Completely fair to trash them, especially if you want Greens in.
What an absolutely ridiculous post. It is everyone's right to criticise a government, telling them they shouldn't in case the bad government gets in is a pass to mediocrity.
I was criticising Labour from the left and voted further left to make that point to them. Continued tinkering around the edges is not enough anymore, they need a bigger plan than GST off fresh fruit and veg, the entire tax system needs a complete reset and until they come to the table with real change I'll keep calling them out for it.
You can but theres consequences for doing so.
Greens got more votes left overall did not.
Watch the media latch onto Nationals poll results. They've been doing it since 1996.
Perception is reality.
More going negative in public on social media erodes support if enough people do it.
Even if you're saying I'm voting greens Labors shit. You're not promoting greens you're promoting a left loss.
Labour has to capture the middle voters. That's why they're restrained in what they can do or say
If they don't get those middle voters well here we are.
Labour betrayed middle voters by calling them selfish for wanting tax bracket adjustments when workers pay the largest portion of tax in this country already and bracket creep is increasing that portion every year.
Don't think this governments gonna do much about them.
There's probably a reason for that. Government need money people don't seem to equate tax=services. They want services as well.
Pick one low tax or better services.
That's fair enough.
If they say they're gonna hike tax while campaigning, then do it a'la Helen Clark.
Putting tax up after ruling it out is a bad idea.
Sick of this attitude.
Labour did a shit job in the last term - I don't care who is in government, I won't tolerate shit representation.
And yes, I criticize the nats more
>If you're trashing Labour all the time as a lefties you're essentially helping National and friends.
>Labour did lots of little things people didn't pay much attention to **while flubbing the big things**.
Sod off. I vote Labour, but I feel sick every time I hear that a rapist gets away with rap on the knuckles, because every time I check - it's a judge appointed by our previous government.
Either do thing well or see things undone!
Most appointments are are made by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Attorney-General. The consultation process is robust with feedback sought from various legal entities including any community groups the applicant may have worked closely with. The AG may seek to consult a Minister depending on the court to which the applicant may be seeking appointment, but it's only Community Magistrates who are actually appointed on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice.
The torries had the sense to oust lizz truss when they found out people weren't buying trickle down economics anymore.
Nats will just double down it'll be a tough next few years for a lot of people but hopefully the next government will stop being so deliberately cruel
The polls don't really mean much until the election actually happens, and my money is on National pinning all the problems they have on the coalition, same as every coalition has done for decades.
Given Luxon's relatively unpopularity it's possible voters kick him out on the basis that they just don't like him alone, but even then I think it's totally possible National just kick him to the curb, install someone with a better grasp of basic PR, and then continue to, as aforementioned, blame Seymour and Peters.
I value MMP in general but it's one major downside is how easy it is for the two major parties to use it as a cheap scapegoat.
The reality is that so long as people are easily fooled into voting for these morons nothing will fundamentally change. Imagine voting on the basis of wanting "change". It's fucking lunacy.
Oh NZ... The 3 clown circus is just getting started. The damage they've done so far? They have the time to do it all 5 times over before the next election. Let that sink in.
Nope. Labour said the books were good. But due to so much underspending, infrastructure, hospitals etc were at breaking point, which they were...and still are.
It makes sense for them to do all the less favourable things now. They’ve got another 2 years for the economy to perk back up before the next election and all this would have been largely forgotten.
Time will tell. It’s a bold move either way.
Apparently so little that the incoming government spent 100 days undoing all the nothing under urgency so no discussion of the nothing and the lack of impact that undoing the nothing will have.
I feel like I'm always taking both sides of these discussions, but here goes...
Labour definitely got bogged down with covid (just as Key got bogged down with the GFC and EQ recovery). However, abortion is no longer under the crime act and that's important. Seeing what's happening in the US I'm glad we know what century this is!
Take back Benefit sanctions and give back people their disability allowances for a start. Not cut off support for the vulnerable. Show actual compassion. Look like actual human beings who at least care.
Honest question, so what? Like another election is so far away, "a week is eternity in politics" or what ever.
I'm no fan of what's going on with the current government, but yeah .. this is just the slow realization of the rest of the country waking up to our new reality.
Newsflash the election is still 2 years away. They are analysing polls now acting as though there is an election coming soon. Plus seems a bit odd to include labours internal polling without any real evidence that the poll even exists.
> They are analysing polls now acting as though there is an election coming soon.
I don’t see how they’re doing that. Were the polls taken after the first several weeks of National et al. coming on board examples of the media “acting as though there is an election coming soon”? I think it’s as simple as polls occurring regularly from start to finish of the government’s term and due to a combination of clicks/ad revenue, and satisfying human’s natural interest in thinking about the “what ifs”, the media reports/analyses them.
Labour selectively leaks internal polls when the numbers make them look good. Because why wouldn't you? Makes total sense to do so. Same thing happened during the election period with a leaked outlier poll.
While things are looking real bad for the coalition, the economy is expected to get back on its feet by the next election, and people will inevitably credit the current government for it.
Depends on how much further they fall from these results though.
> One poll is easy to dismiss. A trend is not so.
> Newshub has learned Labour's internal poll also....
Learning Statistics from the media is like learning Home Ec from the media - everything you consume will be half-baked.
2.5 years to the next ejection. You can’t turn a massive boat around in two minutes. It’s going to take time for flow through. God everyone calm down and see what the boys have got. It can’t be any worse than under Labour shit show
>”…calm down and see what the boys have got.”
Just the boys? 24 of the government’s 62 MPs are women. Guess they don’t count. I mean, we all know it’s just the boys in charge.
Think many people voted national as they were sick of the cost of living crisis National has done nothing to address this and cost of living has gotten worse with huge local council rates increases (some of it due to water infrastructure needing replacement in absence of the Three waters proposal of the last govt) and higher user charges such as public transport costs It’s not surprising that voters are turning their backs on national who focused more on landlords and giving fast approvals for their mates etc and no improvement in health and education This govt is in trouble politically- early rot setting in
You know what's insane. They said they were going to do this.
Yeah, but who expects a politician or political party to do what they say? /s
No they didn't they promised law and order police got nothing but chump change offered to them and then pretty much put cigs and pseudoephedrine back no one new about that they cut kids lunches and targeted disabled kids wtf put regos up rates are going up water problems are serious shut down billions of dollars spent on projects money now gone made 35000people unemployed and they want to make kids do harder time than adults taking cameras off fishing boats, fastrack dictatorship, what's to like about these cunts fair pay gone no fairness ,had a bad day take it out on your tenants your a land Lord yes a Lord now you can start a famine
Pseudoephedrine was not a surprise. Cutting funding for lunches and disabled kids not a surprise. Rates going up is an expected consequence of three waters being cancelled, which is what was campaigned on. They said they would cut costs so job losses are not a surprise. Hopefully voters will pay more attention to policies next time around.
National campaigned on bringing back prescription fees, increasing public transport costs, repealing offshore oil and gas exploration bans, a "tax cut" that would mostly benefit the rich and more affluent, as well as bringing back the tax deduction for landlords. All that alongside ACT and NZ First saying it would reinstate 90-day work trials, no cause tenancy evictions, bring in sanctions for beneficiaries and fines for truancy in schools. They also said they'd get rid of free lunches in schools, and abolish Fair Pay Agreements... All of that was campaigned on. And more. None of this should be a surprise.
Well it was for me as I didn't and wouldn't vote for that nasty crap can't believe people thought yeah that sounds good
Well, I'm sorry that you only found this out after they got into power. But sadly, all of it was signalled prior to the election which is why the PM keeps repeating that they're just delivering on what NZ voted and asked for.
Well the recent poll says people voted for change but not this change kind of like buyers remorse but sadly they'll have to wait a couple more years to return the Brocken goods
Yep, let's get nz back on track , looks like it's gone off the rails big time , gonna have to wait couple more years.
I recall nicolla Willis promising no cuts to front line staff ayee
Well, then her promise wasn't broken because only the backend staff are being cut... right? Right!? That's what they keep telling us, anyway...
Pseudoephedrine is NOT back. I want it for my son's horrendous hayfever and they said it won't be back until 2025. I hate David Seymour.
I also suffer from hayfever and yeah pseudoephedrine is the best for it sadly junkies ruined it
Apparently statistics show it had no impact on junkies long term. But I've heard no one is bothering bringing it back as promised until 2025. NACT were the ones who took it away in the first place. Junkies and pushers quickly found other methods. Funniest thing the only reason Seymour wants it back is so people with colds and flues will take suppression pills and get their lazy asses to work and not affect his rich mates bottom lines by taking days off. He was only pro euthanasia to get rid of some tax payer burdens as well. That's who he is.
It's the precursor to P so I think it has long term effects when in that form yeah he's a bit of a sadist
Add to that list the promise to "get tough on crime" but actually cutting funding to police, stopping the replacement of a dysfunctional deployment system and fighting them on pay.
Not to mention them still wanting to give tax cuts to primarily the rich even though the fucking IMF said it'd be a horrible idea.
> Think many people voted national as they were sick of the cost of living crisis o_o
The fast track approvals stuff really gets my blood boiling. Don’t fuck with our taonga
I mean, the rates thing is more of a 'locals electing people for council for decades who said they would keep the rates low' and now that has resulted in deficits that could have been covered if smaller rates increases had been done in the past years
Absolutely this. Investment 30 to 40 years ago would have saved a fortune today.
The why doesn’t really matter, people just feel that things have gotten worse, so they change who they’d vote for.
Also the cost of living crisis is a worldwide problem. The responsibility for it is best attributed to the political class in Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
It's definitely a worldwide problem, but I don't think we can pin this on the political class. Everybody assumed Covid would cause an economic depression. Interest rates were lowered to avoid that. When economic growth turned out better than expected, low interest rates led to high inflation. To fix the high inflation, every country raised interest rates.
No Jacinda personally caused it worldwide. /s of course.
Sure, but you don't get pity points when you set in motion policies that actively make it worse, or reward a group that many people already find exploitative.
Yeah, it's frustrating to see so many people fail to consider the global context. Or just generally not put enough effort into understanding the consequence of voting for one party or the other. For a big chunk of NZ, they vote for either Labour or National simply because that's who their parents always voted for. If you ask them why, they regurgitate the reason their parents told them ("They're good for workers' rights" / "They're good for the economy"), but can't elaborate further. The next chunk simply thinks "hmm, I seem to be struggling more" so they vote for the main opposition party, or vote to keep the encumbent party when they feel like things are going well. They don't actually consider whether the opposition might be even worse. These voters make sure there's a government change whenever the global economy slows down. Then there's the chunk that doesn't even bother to vote ...
If every person had to vote, Labour would likely win by a landslide, simply because the people most affected by Nationals shitty policies often also don't bother to vote. Pisses me right off. "Fuck National, they suck!" "Did you vote?" "No, why bother, one vote won't change anything!" Multiply that by 800k -\_-
It’s almost like younger people don’t give enough of a shit to vote. Said my grandparents in the 1950s. And my parents in the 90s. And every generation ever.
"I was going to vote in the election. But then I got too stoned. And then National won. Bummer. 😔" Said to a group of people at my friends' house by someone in 2014. Wanted to ring her neck. Lol
Boggles the mind aye. An hour spent at the polls could have saved us years of shitty leadership, but no. Too much effort.
Global politics feels like it's become this again: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven maybe it never stopped...
Washington probably not, but the war on Ukraine, the war on Gaza and China not having the economic rebound that people would have hoped are all hurting. However, it goes both ways. National and ACT spent all of 2023 blaming Labour for the cost of living crisis, and no are getting the same blame by voters
And National only plan for it to get much worse when they take away the free medicine and cut jobs and social services. People had no idea what ACT on 8% would be like.
The question is whether this will cause the existing government to take pause around whether the degree of austerity and cost cutting they are imposing is popular with the public if they continue for 2.5 more years - or whether they maintain full speed ahead to see how much they can do before being voted out. There is a very long time until the next election - time either for them to be a little more gentle in their cuts and their approach to recapture support of the middle...or time for them to do a lot of damage if the goal is to privatise as much as possible.
I think they're trying their best to get all this out at the start so the short memories of the voters allows them to cruise for the last 2/3rds of their term and (attempt to) secure another victory (ewww).
That may well be their strategy. It's both risky and novel, polling this poorly so soon after an election has only ever happened twice before, both times the government lost the next election.
>both times the government lost the next election. So, goods news then really.
Clark and Key… both in their 3rd term. 6 month in, yikes
Yeah... Problem for Luxon is that Seymour is a zealous small government fanatic, and Jones anti-environmental policies are not popular and have a very bad smell of corruption about them. Luxon is deeply unpopular, even with Nat voters but he's fairly well doomed to maintaining policies that aren't proving to be very popular. He and Peters blaming the media is a losing strategy.
>The question is whether this will cause the existing government to take pause around whether the degree of austerity and cost cutting they are imposing is popular with the public if they continue for 2.5 more years - or whether they maintain full speed ahead to see how much they can do before being voted out. You're far more optimistic about anyone in Cabinet having the intelligence and self awareness to be capable of introspection.
Can't see national changing direction any time soon, their policies are stuck in concrete.
Concrete? The past? I don't know but agree they are stuck
Yep sure are.
a lot can change before the next election, think Seymour will allow National to slow things down? if anything they just need to get more comms people involved
The damage that would do to future national governments would be enormous. But at the same time the damage would take decades to repair.
> or time for them to do a lot of damage if the goal is to privatise as much as possible. I don't even think I need to phone a friend for this one
Unlikely. They will get all the unpopular shit out of the way now. Come June people will hear they are getting an extra $20 and support them again. Economic downturns etc are still easy enough to blame on the previous bunch.
An extra $20 per week is laughable when you consider all the fish-hooks of extra charges this Government has brought about. It's like how a slot-machine disguises losses as wins by making the "wins" frequent but insignificant.
> It's like how a slot-machine disguises losses as wins by making the "wins" frequent but insignificant. Exactly this! Enough to keep people addicted but not too much so they don’t make a roaring profit. Great analogy.
It is $20 a fortnight. I remember chippy saying $10 a week and Lux butting in $20 a fortnight. Seems it worked, the $20 gets repeated and the fortnight is forgotten. Anyway, as you say, insurance increase will eat it all up and some.
As I said, losses disguised as wins. A futile tax cut now to try distracting from their shifty 'early in term' actions, and somehow they will engineer another one in election year. Neither will even come close to compensating for services lost & extra costs imposed on the average punter.
Seems pretty clear that the intent is to take the pain, make the transformation as soon as possible and hopefully have some green shoots visible by the time the next election comes around.
Yep it's a smash and grab with a third year lolly scramble
They’ll push through all the unpopular stuff as soon as possible—ripping off the plaster, so to speak. Inflation will be back within band by next year and economic growth will pick up too. Being tight right now will allow them to throw around a bit more cash later in the cycle when folks are more likely to remember it.
Given many kiwis vote on nothing but the electioneering narrative maybe 3 months out from an election I’d say your spot on and this downswing was likely forecasted. I would say they wouldn’t want it to continue too far that way though, but I agree in that I think this is an expected and planned for turntables at this stage.
Sir, a second poll has hit the government
[https://imgur.com/a/S9ETaHS](https://imgur.com/a/S9ETaHS)
Thank you for your service 🫡
So the pendulum swings again between "the people have spoken" and "polls don't mean anything".
Maybe the election was the rogue poll.
Ah well, Voters got what they asked for, didn't they? Run down services, increased costs, but never mind those tax cuts will pay for the private health care, private schooling and increased other costs..... (Sarcasm)
I'm a leftie whose first ever vote was in the referendum, in support of moving to MMP. But I have to be fair and say most National voters probably didn't get what they voted for. They voted centre right. Which is bad enough in the opinion of your average leftie like me, but those who voted National probably didn't want this revolting neo liberal mess that we have with the Khmer Bleu and the merry throuple. That's the risk with MMP and the risk has materialised this election period
Tbh if you voted national and didn't see this coming you were either not paying attention or are very ignorant.
National are doing exactly what they said they would. So we've got that going for us right? _Right?_
This is something the left doesn’t seem to understand. It’s psychology. Voters reward action and doing what you say you’ll do. It’s why Luxon is doing this almost comical quarterly targets nonsense - promising easily achievable short-term things and delivering them is better from a marketing perspective than promising long-term transformation and then spending three years laying the foundations.
What do you mean the left don't understand? Labour and National both fight over the same core voters which are the ones benefiting both from Labour's refusal to do anything from 2020-2023 and National is doing now. Give the greens 61 seats you'll see some promises kept from the actual left.
They voted National. They're obviously ignorant!
Most people just don’t care about politics above a very basic level.
>those who voted National probably didn't want this revolting neo liberal mess that we have People might or mightn't be satisfied and I think that's up to individuals to decide. For those who aren't satisfied, though, I think it's premature to assume they wouldn't vote the same again, because when you're coming from that perspective it's easy to see this as not being purely about National. If you were a National Party fan then you're very possibly not seeing National as the problem so much as the other parties it had to go into coalition with. If that's your impression then the logical response isn't to completely change and vote left, and for MPs and policies you might dislike even more.... certainly no more than a strong Labour fan would vote right just because they also dislike Winston. It's to *keep* voting for your favourite party and hope it can convince *more* people to vote for it next time, instead of the disruptive smaller parties, so that it's less reliant on others.
Nationals supporters won’t move, but the swing voters who go either way will change in an instant.
There is no such thing as a center right anymore. It has been completely and utterly swallowed up by the far right.
That was kind of my point
Act is just a scapegoat got National to push through their unsavoury right wing policies. I have no doubt they champion the exact same causes.
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Coalitions have excellent benefits to the country. The Greens have Bern able to have some serious influence on climate change issues as a result. And NZF have done a world of good for pensioners. It just happens that there can be consequences when coalition partners hold the leading party to ransom to get into government, as happened this time around
So does anyone know what the legal mechanism is for the country to move to the single transferable vote system? I know no one in power at the time would want it but there has to be a way for the people of a country to express that desire.
It was on the ballot last time the issue went to referendum but did not get sufficient support
MMP worked exactly as intended, it created a parliament which mostly represents what the votes said it should look like. Whether you like the results or not, they were super democratic. Way better than the how democratic your average FPP election is.
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I mean, there *doesn't exist* any more democratic outcome. At least not within the confines of representative democracy. There's no parliament in the world that could take election results like "38% National, 27% Labour, 12% Greens, 9% Act, 6% NZF, 3% TPM" and produce a government that accurately represented the voters' will. Because voters did not *produce* an obvious will. Voters produced a chaotic mess. That's just... a thing that happens in democracies sometimes.
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Most of these sound like great ideas, and I'm sure you put a lot of work into this list, but very few have anything to do with the problem of producing a majority government from a non-majority election outcome, which is what I thought we were talking about.
This will only matter in August 2026. Still, hilarious to see David Seymour's ridiculous scaremongering email.
Barry Soper brought it up on Newstalk ZB (left it on that station by mistake in the car from when I had Si and James on earlier). Seriously what a biased old fuck that guy is, makes my blood boil every time I have to hear him
It’s unbelievable how much he reeks of bias and they still get him on (yes I know he’s married to Heather)
I can't believe how flippy floppy people are in this country. Are they surprised this happened? We could see it a mile away.
The actual change in party support in these polls is minor, like one or two points for each party. People haven't actually changed their minds all that much. But even that shifts a few seats and additionally puts NZF out of Parliament, giving the Labour/Green/TPM bloc a decent seat advantage overall. It shows again that Nat/ACT/NZF just scraped a victory in the last election. It wasn't the overwhelming victory that they claim and their mandate is precarious. But it also shows that supporters of the opposition can't be complacent about winning next election. These small gains need to be maintained and grown.
You're assuming most people carefully consider the policies rather than just voting on instinct. And let's not forget the absolute shit show that was Labour's third term. They still have a long way to go to concince me they've changed.
I'd struggle to comfortably cast a vote for anyone at the moment....
Their donors are getting the legislation that they ~~bribed the government for~~ legally requested to be changed put through. They have no reason to care about the general population's opinion of them. The CEO of New Zealands shareholders are millionaires, landlords, employers, tobacco lobbyists etc etc. There never was, nor will there ever be, a reason for them to care what the other 90% of the population say.
Fuck they are all a bunch of cunts, non stop re "So? Election is not till years away" If my boss told me I was doing a fucking shit job and most people at work hated me, I would not reply with "So? My perf review is not for another 11 months!"
Its true though, if National did a couple popular things six months out from the election a lot of people would forget about this first six months and vote them back in. Same thing with performance reviews, I've seen colleagues fuck around for months but really pull finger and suck up to the boss the time performance reviews come around and they get glowing results.
The thing that kills me is when the polls are positive, they don't care that the election is years away. And nobody calls them out on it.
Someone should Bolger him, Shipley style!
Wait til Luxon goes overseas then knife him Shipley style
quick! someone light up the ciggy signal... we need the Avenging Bishop
No idea why they feel the need to puff this up with the whole "Labour could take back power" thing. That is a complete waste of time to talk about and everyone knows it, governments don't just suddenly step down when they're unpopular. Why do they need to pad this at all? The governments approval rating tanking is news enough as it is. Are they familiar with the election process at all?
>governments don't just suddenly step down when they're unpopular Maybe Chris Luxon will accidentally drink a sip of wine at his next jaunt and get drunk enough to call a snap election.
The greens and Te Pati Maori should work out what they want to extract out of labour if it looks like they will be needed for a coalition. Act and new zealand first set precedent for making the largest coalition partner concede things in exchange for power
This isn't the first time Winsto has been deputy prime Minister....in fact he was acting Prime Minister for a while. How is that not a massive concession? I'm not NAct fan. I just don't think we should be deriding something that "the other side" has also done
“Could take back power…” yeah, if there was an election today. There isn’t. It’s 2.5 years away. It doesn’t mean shit until the election. I suspect NACT is going to get lucky timing wise. They took over mid recession cycle, everyone is feeling pretty glum, and things will probably naturally turn around in the next 18 months or so (regardless of what they do or don’t do).
Things won't naturally turn around in the next 18 months, though. We've seen how austerity works. As glum as everything is now, the outcomes will be even worse in two years time.
It will most likely turnaround in that time frame - it always has in the past. They just have to focus on making sure inflation stays low (by not overspending etc). Eventually interest rates will be back to more palatable levels (mainly driven by global economic conditions), making it easier/cheaper to borrow money. Businesses will then start to grow, people will feel more secure on their jobs and get back to overspending on money they don’t have, and there will be a more positive feel.
We haven't had a government implement austerity and break institutional norms like this before. Don't look to the past. Look at the UK. Hopefully we will be smart enough that NACT will be a one term government.
Look at the UK where the government that is implementing austerity has been in power for 14 years winning four consecutive elections?
Yep. And we shouldn't let NACT get a second term, let alone 14 years.
Yeah we have. You’ve got to be kidding. This is nothing like austerity measures in other countries. This is just a fairly tight budget (try to not increase borrowing), and largely trying to fund it by rolling the size of public service back to where it was about 6 months ago. It feels bad if you’re directly affected, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty minimal.
It isn't minimal, it's just like measures in other countries, it's targeting the poor and the marginalised, and it isn't just about the size of the public service. Add the culture war into the mix, and things aren't going to just turn around in 18 months.
Pretty narrow minded view of the ramifications of this governments actions. They've made poverty worse in many ways, one of the leading causes of crime, while not paying our police appropriately and shovelling more work onto them. And that's just *2* things this government has done which has the potential to cause a huge impact in the future years
Yeah nothing NACT First is doing will help, things have already gotten worse and will continue to get worse under their current direction
The reserve bank has indicated interest rates will start coming down towards the year. By mid next year, the interest rates should be back to decent levels, making it easier/cheaper to borrow money. Business will expand, people will start buying houses for stupid money etc, and the mood will improve. NACT running a tight budget will help keep inflation low, and shouldn’t derail that. ie, they won’t need to do much, but it should turn around in 18 months or so.
> It’s 2.5 years away. Well that's the maximum it could be.
>There isn’t. It’s 2.5 years away. Unless of course either one of Luxon's coalition "partners" engage in some shenanigans.
“Could take power back in 2026” would be more accurate as a headline.
Think people heard tax cuts= more money and labour useless. I voted Labour and pointed this out on reddit. If you're trashing Labour all the time as a lefties you're essentially helping National and friends. Labour did lots of little things people didn't pay much attention to while flubbing the big things. Pick your poison.
Labour should be held accountable as well, yes they are less bad than National but they are too centric to truly improve the country. Completely fair to trash them, especially if you want Greens in.
Greens are only 15%. I'm not after improvements I'll settle for actively not making the country worse.
What an absolutely ridiculous post. It is everyone's right to criticise a government, telling them they shouldn't in case the bad government gets in is a pass to mediocrity. I was criticising Labour from the left and voted further left to make that point to them. Continued tinkering around the edges is not enough anymore, they need a bigger plan than GST off fresh fruit and veg, the entire tax system needs a complete reset and until they come to the table with real change I'll keep calling them out for it.
You can but theres consequences for doing so. Greens got more votes left overall did not. Watch the media latch onto Nationals poll results. They've been doing it since 1996. Perception is reality.
I don't think you understand what you are advocating for, an unchecked government with the power to do what they want without criticism is horrifying.
More going negative in public on social media erodes support if enough people do it. Even if you're saying I'm voting greens Labors shit. You're not promoting greens you're promoting a left loss. Labour has to capture the middle voters. That's why they're restrained in what they can do or say If they don't get those middle voters well here we are.
Labour betrayed middle voters by calling them selfish for wanting tax bracket adjustments when workers pay the largest portion of tax in this country already and bracket creep is increasing that portion every year.
Don't think this governments gonna do much about them. There's probably a reason for that. Government need money people don't seem to equate tax=services. They want services as well. Pick one low tax or better services.
Labour wasn't either, and now they are looking at a tax reset after being shown the door. Funny that. Workers aren't the only source of tax.
That's fair enough. If they say they're gonna hike tax while campaigning, then do it a'la Helen Clark. Putting tax up after ruling it out is a bad idea.
Bizarre take. I'm a leftie and criticized the shit out of them and will continue to do so. I did the same for National's proposals.
Sick of this attitude. Labour did a shit job in the last term - I don't care who is in government, I won't tolerate shit representation. And yes, I criticize the nats more
You don't even participate in local elections so I'm not sure you should be lecturing anyone lol
>If you're trashing Labour all the time as a lefties you're essentially helping National and friends. >Labour did lots of little things people didn't pay much attention to **while flubbing the big things**. Sod off. I vote Labour, but I feel sick every time I hear that a rapist gets away with rap on the knuckles, because every time I check - it's a judge appointed by our previous government. Either do thing well or see things undone!
Most appointments are are made by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Attorney-General. The consultation process is robust with feedback sought from various legal entities including any community groups the applicant may have worked closely with. The AG may seek to consult a Minister depending on the court to which the applicant may be seeking appointment, but it's only Community Magistrates who are actually appointed on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice.
The torries had the sense to oust lizz truss when they found out people weren't buying trickle down economics anymore. Nats will just double down it'll be a tough next few years for a lot of people but hopefully the next government will stop being so deliberately cruel
The polls don't really mean much until the election actually happens, and my money is on National pinning all the problems they have on the coalition, same as every coalition has done for decades. Given Luxon's relatively unpopularity it's possible voters kick him out on the basis that they just don't like him alone, but even then I think it's totally possible National just kick him to the curb, install someone with a better grasp of basic PR, and then continue to, as aforementioned, blame Seymour and Peters. I value MMP in general but it's one major downside is how easy it is for the two major parties to use it as a cheap scapegoat. The reality is that so long as people are easily fooled into voting for these morons nothing will fundamentally change. Imagine voting on the basis of wanting "change". It's fucking lunacy.
Oh NZ... The 3 clown circus is just getting started. The damage they've done so far? They have the time to do it all 5 times over before the next election. Let that sink in.
Would be a relevant story if it was six months before an election instead of six months after one.
Quick! Someone get Luxon drunk then get him to call a snap election.
Question is: which Labour MP will the media completely destroy to get National back in front?
Oh, is this the new conspiracy? I suppose they'll destroy the one who's an incompetent fuckwit, per the previous bunch?
They're going to use "It's going to take a long time to fix the mess we inherited from Labour" for the whole fucking term aren't they?
So did labour for their whole first term. This isn't as shocking as you think it is
Nope. Labour said the books were good. But due to so much underspending, infrastructure, hospitals etc were at breaking point, which they were...and still are.
It makes sense for them to do all the less favourable things now. They’ve got another 2 years for the economy to perk back up before the next election and all this would have been largely forgotten. Time will tell. It’s a bold move either way.
I mean take back power is a bit of a stretch considering how long it is till election time.
Oh thank God!
Its official NZ think National are monsters.
Take back power and do what? Sweet fuck all again?
Apparently so little that the incoming government spent 100 days undoing all the nothing under urgency so no discussion of the nothing and the lack of impact that undoing the nothing will have.
Schrödinger's policies. They both don’t exist and while take a while longer to undo.
I feel like I'm always taking both sides of these discussions, but here goes... Labour definitely got bogged down with covid (just as Key got bogged down with the GFC and EQ recovery). However, abortion is no longer under the crime act and that's important. Seeing what's happening in the US I'm glad we know what century this is!
Amen to that!
Keep banging that invisible door down.
Take back Benefit sanctions and give back people their disability allowances for a start. Not cut off support for the vulnerable. Show actual compassion. Look like actual human beings who at least care.
Sweet fuck all would be bliss compared to all the vile shit these clowns have done in the last 150 days.
But this time with more sausage roll eating photo ops
Oh it looks like the turns tables
Honest question, so what? Like another election is so far away, "a week is eternity in politics" or what ever. I'm no fan of what's going on with the current government, but yeah .. this is just the slow realization of the rest of the country waking up to our new reality.
MISTER PRIME MINISTER: A SECOND POLL HAS CONFIRMED YOU'VE LOST PUBLIC SUPPORT.
*Sir, a second poll has hit the beehive.*
I don’t trust the media. I don’t trust the polls
Newsflash the election is still 2 years away. They are analysing polls now acting as though there is an election coming soon. Plus seems a bit odd to include labours internal polling without any real evidence that the poll even exists.
> They are analysing polls now acting as though there is an election coming soon. I don’t see how they’re doing that. Were the polls taken after the first several weeks of National et al. coming on board examples of the media “acting as though there is an election coming soon”? I think it’s as simple as polls occurring regularly from start to finish of the government’s term and due to a combination of clicks/ad revenue, and satisfying human’s natural interest in thinking about the “what ifs”, the media reports/analyses them.
Labour selectively leaks internal polls when the numbers make them look good. Because why wouldn't you? Makes total sense to do so. Same thing happened during the election period with a leaked outlier poll.
>Newsflash the election is still 2 years away. Up to a maximum of 2.5 years away. Could also be in 2 months.
While things are looking real bad for the coalition, the economy is expected to get back on its feet by the next election, and people will inevitably credit the current government for it. Depends on how much further they fall from these results though.
If they keep falling affter the budget, they might be in some trouble.
Amazing work Labour. Oh wait they haven’t done anything.
> One poll is easy to dismiss. A trend is not so. > Newshub has learned Labour's internal poll also.... Learning Statistics from the media is like learning Home Ec from the media - everything you consume will be half-baked.
A bit like that Te Whatu Ora data breach idiot, Barry Young. He is definitely good with half baked statistics.
they should definitely just take back power then. That's how this works, right?
Only 2.5 years.
Polls lolz.
What a world if Hipkins hangs on long enough to come back into power to have to deal with the second spell Trump
2.5 years to the next ejection. You can’t turn a massive boat around in two minutes. It’s going to take time for flow through. God everyone calm down and see what the boys have got. It can’t be any worse than under Labour shit show
Found the landlord.
>”…calm down and see what the boys have got.” Just the boys? 24 of the government’s 62 MPs are women. Guess they don’t count. I mean, we all know it’s just the boys in charge.