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Are you a This poll is closed. |
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39 | 22.41% |
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69 | 39.66% |
| stupid peace of poo poo |
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66 | 37.93% |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz4PXOqg4Js and welcome to the thread for complaining about New Zealand politics and ISPs. Previous Threads Here What is New Zealand Politics?  New Zealand is a country of 4.5 million people, found just to the right of Australia. It is a Parliamentary Democracy with a Prime Minister leading the Government and Queen Elizabeth II as the Head of State, represented through the largely figurehead Governor General. There are around 120 seats in the Parliament (more on that later), which is responsible for both Legislative and Executive branches of government, as New Zealand’s Upper House was disbanded in the 1950s. This means that the Government of the day is very powerful and has little real accountability. Hooray! MMP Elections are held every three years, using the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) method which is in my opinion good as hell. The below video explains is better than I can, but basically you get two votes; one to choose your preferred local candidate and another for your preferred party. Parties have List rankings, meaning that even if a candidate fails to win their electorate they still have a chance of getting in. This traditionally has helped women, ethnic, and other minorities to gain better (tho still not great) representation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1gpLr9ftI Indigenous Māori can choose to go on either the General roll or the Māori roll (and can choose to swap from one to the other every five years), and there has been a number (currently seven) of Māori electorates since 1867. The threshold for a party to enter Parliament is normally wins in electorates or 5% of the vote, but multiple members of a party can on occasion enter Parliament with less than 5% by ‘coat-tailing’ in on a single, electorate-winning, member. It’s complicated and also bad. There are currently 121 members of Parliament (the slight overhang is from a couple of single-member parties gaining representation I’m pretty sure), and 7 parties.  The Parties  Centre-right liberal-conservative party, slightly reduced its majority in 2014 to 47% or some bullshit. Lead by its only real asset: John Keys, son of a single mum, grew up in a state house, turned Wall Street banker. Calculatedly beige and shaped by polls at a level probably not seen before in New Zealand; similar to Merkel in Germany. Shine seems to be wearing off, maybe, this time for sure.  The centre-left social-liberal party. Managed to reduce its majority for a third consecutive time to 25%; the lowest since the early 1920s. Was last any good in either the 2000s/1970s/1940s. Newly lead by Andrew Little, ex Engineers’ Union Boss, who is the fourth leader in 6 or so years. Kind of an unknown, he barely scraped into Parliament on the List and the Nats don’t quite know how to deal with him yet.  Left-ecologist party, co-lead by  Traditional conservative party, lead by Winston Peters. Won an additional couple of percent at the election, gets by on xenophobia and caring for the elderly, appears to be where some of Labour’s traditional support has moved. MPs run the gamut from reasonable to ‘ban muslims from flying and also the National Front are true patriots’  Kiiind of centrist Indigenous rights party. Co-lead by Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox, have pledged to go with whichever party will have them as partners. Foundation members both retired at the election; both of their seats were regained by Labour. Mostly just make racists mad, though Fox is a wildcard & one to watch imo  Libertarian but also hardcore Law & Order party. Now lead by David Seymour, a 12 year old boy, after the last leader was done for electoral fraud. The party campaigning the hardest against government handouts; given a free electorate seat in Epsom for electorate fuckery reasons   Not really a party, lead by angry libdem piece of poo poo Peter Dunne. Another one granted an electorate seat for free. Utterly worthless. Some other parties failed to get in: The Conservative Party: lead by Colin Craig who is the ideological descendant of Graham Capill. Entertaining trainwreck. Internet Mana: will a radical socialist indigenous rights party find great success by joining forces with a techno-libertarian video gamer? No. exmarx fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 11:40
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exmarx fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Apr 18, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 11:43
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Sounds like the New Zealand I spent a few months in back in the day. A nice place but drat there is some backwards poo poo going on. What's been the biggest shift in NZ politics in the last decade (if anything)?
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Jan 15, 2015 12:16
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Disinterested posted:Sounds like the New Zealand I spent a few months in back in the day. A nice place but drat there is some backwards poo poo going on. In the last decade? A massive shift to US style personality politics requiring party leaders pretend to have no aspirational qualities. A general mean spirited gently caress you got mine attitude encouraged by the global financial crisis, price gouging by collusive oil companies, and a hosed real estate market that is hell bent on misery based profiteering. One positive side effect of the beigening is that the centre right parties focus all their bigotry on the impoverished, as they are much less likely to vote then any other minority. As a result they are not as anti woman/lgbt/non white as a lot of their overseas equivalents. Farmers are still mostly idiots.
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Jan 15, 2015 19:41
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Neoliberalism working its magic everywhere ~
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Jan 15, 2015 19:43
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Hello little commonwealth cousins. I think you could place the transparent pictures of the prime ministers of Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand on top of one another and you'd find almost no overlap.
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Jan 15, 2015 19:47
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Cameron and Key are basically identical but Abbot is pretty uniquely terrible and even a lot of the right in Australia seem to be sick of that man-ape already. Not super knowledgeable about Harper but from what I hear he is a Bad Man
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Jan 15, 2015 19:54
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Infotainment! posted:Farmers are still mostly idiots. This really should have been the thread byline.
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Jan 15, 2015 20:19
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Infotainment! posted:
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Jan 15, 2015 21:11
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Varkk posted:http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/business/64891314/Workplace-rules-erode-any-future-for-farming Holy poo poo.
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Jan 15, 2015 21:24
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The rules are broken because my literal child labourers are not legally allowed to use any of the equipment they need to do their job.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:34
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*uses extremely exploitative and illegal labour practices, including child labour and the indentured servitude of illegal immigrants. *receives never ending tax breaks, grants, and other government financial support. *inherited farm from parents, hasn't touched a crop or animal in a decade. Mostly just masturbates to Leighton Smith while phillipinos at the mercy of work visa renewals effectively pay for the right to work. *Owns 7 holdens, 2 boats, and shares in 2 utility companies. *always votes national because "those bleeding heart faggots are too soft on loving dole bludgers and foreigners mate". *Drinks Speights, beats wife as outlet for tension caused by repressed homosexuality.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:45
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Varkk posted:http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/business/64891314/Workplace-rules-erode-any-future-for-farming This is perhaps the only time I have read news comments and felt better about New Zealanders.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:53
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Infotainment! posted:*receives never ending tax breaks, grants, and other government financial support. Their disconnect from reality for these two points (which is truly what all of the farmers I met during my two-year stint at boarding school believed) continues to cause me headaches.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:36
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Farmers in the US do that whole take nothing but government handouts and complain about other people getting government handouts. Blinders like woah.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:34
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I appreciate this new thread Should be more about how the OECD said the entire country would be significantly wealthier (and richer people even richer) if we werent so set on neoliberal policy more than almost anyone else for 20 years but the architects of this are rich and dying off laughing
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Jan 16, 2015 04:28
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I worked on the farm as a child. It was my granddads farm. It was my great grandparents before and their parents before that, then their parent probably stole it off the local hapu before them. I did work on the farm as a 10-15 year old to learn and to help dad and granddad. They paid me a nominal fee, akin to pocket money I suppose, a bit more maybe. I would probably feel different if I did this on a corporate farm though. I have a strong connection to this land through heritage, I don't think that's what employment law is targeting though and if this dipshit corporate agrees then lol. Not all farmers are cunts though. I want to make that clear. The drive for profitability is. Get more grass in the paddock for less and more stock through. Blah blah blah. It's a vital yet dying industry. Unless you own a station. Milk for all, at 7 bucks a kg.
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Jan 16, 2015 06:25
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Oh hey, I wonked around my granddad's farm in Helensville until I hit 14. Never got paid, though. Come to think of it, my family never paid me for anything. Digging ditches, fencing, amateur landscaping, all pro bono. I think all I learned from that was that hard work should be avoided whenever possible. Took a long time to shake that off.
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Jan 16, 2015 06:44
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given the context I understand why some of these changes seem ridiculous to farmers, my friend used to show up (on his own) on the quad bike when we were 7 years oldInfotainment! posted:*uses extremely exploitative and illegal labour practices, including child labour and the indentured servitude of illegal immigrants. you don't know very much about farming. Yes they're the hardline conservative backbone of the country which is poo poo, but this is an important point: Displeased Moo Cow posted:Not all farmers are cunts though. I want to make that clear. The drive for profitability is. Get more grass in the paddock for less and more stock through. Blah blah blah. It's a vital yet dying industry. Unless you own a station. Milk for all, at 7 bucks a kg. Farmers in NZ get less government support than anywhere else in the world. They're left nearly completely subject to market forces, that's why the whole country has been converted to dairy and they're doing some of the more egregious poo poo like irrigating the loving Canterbury plains, break feeding (which amounts to basically starving the cows at certain times), or keeping a whole herd of cows perpetually pregnant then inducing labour. The whole thing is kinda hosed voiceless anal fricative fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 09:17
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Most modern agriculture is.
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Jan 16, 2015 09:29
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fong posted:you don't know very much about farming That's as may be, having spent 7 years cleaning up messes made of people's lives through exploitative and illegal employment practices has given me little regard for farmers complaining about employment law. To be clear, this wasn't my actual job but the practices were so pervasive I had to wade through it a couple of times a week. And I think you kinda missed the point about the obnoxiousness of a massive recipient of government assistance being so aggressively anti someone else receiving the same.
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Jan 16, 2015 09:30
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I live literally around the corner from Metiria Turei, she's awesome as hell and I would vote for her except I'm an immigrant and a convicted felon
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Jan 16, 2015 09:54
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Crane Fist posted:I live literally around the corner from Metiria Turei, she's awesome as hell and I would vote for her except I'm an immigrant and a convicted felon So you're basically Bender if he was human and into inbreeding
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Jan 16, 2015 10:00
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Infotainment! posted:That's as may be, having spent 7 years cleaning up messes made of people's lives through exploitative and illegal employment practices has given me little regard for farmers complaining about employment law. Oh its a hosed up industry, I totally agree. What assistance do you think farmers get, though? Fonterra certainly get plenty of help, whole divisions of our diplomacy service are basically marketing & sales departments for them, but the farmers themselves get gently caress all in NZ. The milk-shilling really just puts more pressure on to do more hosed up stuff.
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Jan 16, 2015 10:08
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WarpedNaba posted:So you're basically Bender if he was human and into inbreeding Oh no I am experiencing a racism
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Jan 16, 2015 10:13
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fong posted:Oh its a hosed up industry, I totally agree. What assistance do you think farmers get, though? Fonterra certainly get plenty of help, whole divisions of our diplomacy service are basically marketing & sales departments for them, but the farmers themselves get gently caress all in NZ. The milk-shilling really just puts more pressure on to do more hosed up stuff.
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Jan 16, 2015 10:41
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Glad to be in on the ground floor of a thread for once. I too am looking forward to the day that I can have a beer with John "Low Key" Key.Ghostlight posted:Besides Fonterra/Zespri, there's also the fact that livestock farts alone are 1/3rd of our emissions but the entire agricultural industry is completely, and almost certainly permanently, shielded from the financial pressures of the ETS. And all of the river-poisoning that gets quietly forgotten about. Took a three-day canoe trip on the Whanganui recently, and it was just dead and brown the whole way. Somfin fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 19:52
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The river poisoning potential of the Ruataniwha dam is postponing its construction. I think those concerns are taken seriously, I can only speak for the farms around me though. Farms are generally no good without usable water. It's not in their interest to pollute their supply
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Jan 16, 2015 21:02
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They get given massive irrigation infrastructure as well.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:02
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Tax credits, regulatory exemptions no other business gets, a publicly funded political advocacy wing. It is pretty funny the actual cash subsidies got canned by the Nat government federated fuckwits is still desperately pushing.
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Jan 17, 2015 00:22
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Displeased Moo Cow posted:The river poisoning potential of the Ruataniwha dam is postponing its construction. I think those concerns are taken seriously, I can only speak for the farms around me though. Only important the water you get is usable, gently caress those other bastards downstream. Probably dole bludgers anyway.
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Jan 17, 2015 00:23
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Displeased Moo Cow posted:It's not in their interest to pollute their supply But it's fine to gently caress the water up for everyone else
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Jan 17, 2015 00:31
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Ironically it's probably the lack of subsidies that have done the most damage. Federated Farmers brag about how few (direct) subsidies New Zealand farmers get, and directly attribute the increased growth of the industry - mostly in dairy stock - to the removal of subsidies, even while they admit that in the same breath that actual farm profits are lower. The subtext being that if we hadn't cut off their subsidies, then farmers wouldn't have intensified as much as they did, and their decisions on things like the environment and labour wouldn't be wholly shaped by market pressures out of their control.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:14
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“If the community wants to ensure that certain rivers and lakes are safe for swimming that is supported within the NPS. “But the NPS also requires they be fully informed as to the effect upon jobs, rates and their local economy when making that choice. “To leap into swimming as the gold standard for all, without some sort of exceptions regime, will likely cost urban ratepayers massively in the pocket." gently caress clean water, jobs! JOBS AND TAXES!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Jan 17, 2015 03:28
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I don't know what more you could want from 100% Pure New Zealand™ other than my assurance that we are fully committed to the aspiration of our rivers one day being safe enough to wade in.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:35
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Can someone explain to me why they're always mentioning 'ratepayers' and how 'ratepayers will foot the bill' or whatever. Isn't that what rates are actually for? Like, if you pay rates (and other taxes), that's money leaving your pocket regardless of how it's used. You don't lose anything if the revenue is spent on things that aren't somehow directly economically beneficial. I guess the wider question is: has NZ always been obsessed with having a government and associated bureaucracies that are profitable? Isn't the goal of government to run things as opposed to turning a profit? People seem to think the national party is great because 'they know business!!' but why is that a good thing? Why would you want the government to be run like a business? It makes no sense to me because governments and businesses exist for different reasons and have different fundamental goals.
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Jan 17, 2015 04:11
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Slavvy posted:I guess the wider question is: has NZ always been obsessed with having a government and associated bureaucracies that are profitable? No, people used to care if it worked and kept the Hun at bay.
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Jan 17, 2015 04:15
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Slavvy posted:Can someone explain to me why they're always mentioning 'ratepayers' and how 'ratepayers will foot the bill' or whatever. Isn't that what rates are actually for? Like, if you pay rates (and other taxes), that's money leaving your pocket regardless of how it's used. You don't lose anything if the revenue is spent on things that aren't somehow directly economically beneficial. probably because people think their rates should be spent on some things and not others, and feel a general resentment towards paying rates anyway?
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Jan 17, 2015 04:39
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LIBERTARIANS: irrefutable proof of Dunning Krueger.
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Jan 17, 2015 04:49
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Slavvy posted:Can someone explain to me why they're always mentioning 'ratepayers' and how 'ratepayers will foot the bill' or whatever. Isn't that what rates are actually for? Like, if you pay rates (and other taxes), that's money leaving your pocket regardless of how it's used. You don't lose anything if the revenue is spent on things that aren't somehow directly economically beneficial. People would be expecting their rates to go towards general infrastructure, upkeep of public land like parks and reserves and poo poo, council duties like rubbish collection, etc., so a perceived deviation from that, like being expected to cover for the allegedly skyrocketing bill for the Sky City convention centre which was tendered murky (at best) circumstances, end up being labelled as extravagances that "ratepayers will foot the bill" for. It's an implication of misappropriation of said rates, basically.
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Jan 17, 2015 05:05
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