Politics should be a contest of ideas. Increasingly it’s becoming more and more focused on tactics and personalities. More column inches have been devoted to analysing whether Labour’s tax policies have moved our poll ratings than have been devoted to detailing what the policies actually are and whether they’re a good idea or not. Plenty of publicity has been given to John Key’s Rugby World Cup forays, much less attention to the fact that under his watch unemployment has sky-rocketed and the cost of living is rising at the fastest rate in over 21 years.
But that’s the reality. We can complain about it, or we can get out there and redouble our efforts to promote the ideas we believe in. I want to be part of Labour government after this year’s election because I think we’ve got the best ideas for turning our economy around, giving hard-working Kiwis a break, and securing a brighter future for our country.
I hate comparisons between politics and sport, but there is one analogy with sport that I do find useful from time to time. In politics, as in sport, it’s important to “leave it all out on the field”. We compete fiercely with our opponents, we think our ideas are better, and we think we’re better able to manage the challenges we face. But we should never forget that our opponents are also driven by decent intent, however misguided we may think that they are.
Nobody is entitled to power, or to claim ownership of a particular constituency. In a democracy, it’s a right that has to constantly be earned. Likewise, I think it shows total contempt for voters to declare the electoral race all but run before the starting whistle has even been blown. There are still three months to go before polling day, and I, along with my colleagues, intend to campaign for the ideas and values that Labour represents right up to the last hour. This one is too important.
Oh by the way there is one group of people who earn money for nothing and you aspire to be one. Those are the people who have large amounts of propety wealth earning capital gains that produce no ecconomic growth. In fact ehy reduce growth by pulling capital out of growth area’s to invest in no contributing land and property speculation therefore harming NZ’s economy. They are getting plenty of money for nothing but I guess its OK because they work harder than poor people don’t they?
Crashcart: Your comments have spurred me to action. I am not a property investor, but I know a lot about the residential property market. It really burns me to hear ignorant people such as yourself (and bernard hickey and others) make such sweeping generalizations about this sector. Firstly, the residential property market is quite diverse and you and others make the mistake of categorizing it based on your perception of one small segment eg the property investor (or should I say speculator).
You make it seem as though returns in this sector are money for jam and that no effort is expended. This is a total fallacy.
You also make the mistake of saying that money invested in this sector is not productive. Putting aside the right of mine to invest my own tax paid funds wherever the hell I like, I would have thought that providing housing was an essential service, especially as the government and the councils cannot cater to the county’s total housing needs.
Investment in new housing contributes to the countries growth and to employment. The manufacturing sector that supports the house building industry is a major employer and a substantial contributor to the economy. When the housing sector is in a slump, the whole country feels the effect. It is no coincidence that the economy is struggling to get back into growth mode, whilst the housing sector is still stagnant.
I would also point out that labour has had close ties with the housing sector for a very long time.
Might I respectfully suggest that before you roll out such drivel, that at least you take the time and effort to understand the topic you are making such gross generalizations about.
One final comment, that is slightly off topic. If we want affordable housing in this country, then we will have to get compliance costs down. i did a calculation recently and found that if you purchased a $250,000 section then you would be contributing approx $90,000 to central government (gst) and councils (development levies etc). When you consider construction costs, sale costs etc margins are quite slim. And you suggest these people earn money for nothing. Why do you think so many developers and investors go broke?
this was a post that i have been waiting to see put up..thank you chris for even attempting to engage at a “grown up” level…i have to say that after reading a lot of these comments, and digesting the rationale behind them, i am starting to feel real fear that nz has become a haven for the terminally greedy and selfish…
some of the comments logic was utterly laughable(darren kevin, whale blubber,george, pumpkin) apologies if i’ve overlooked anyone, but they all tend to have the same memes in them so tend to merge in the memory…or would be if these people didn’t represent the modern approach to politics…i;e: whoever is prepared to bribe you the most, and has a slicker advertising campaign, and is better at playing to the lowest common denominator, gets your vote…
we may as well give the vote to primary school children.. the decisions made won’t be any worse..
Pet I am not completely ignorant. I own my own property. You do have the right to invest you’re money where ever you want. However you also have the responsability to pay tax on any earnings from that investment. At the moment proprty is seen as a tax haven. Why invest in a company and pay tax on the profit when you could just buy property and cream the profits. This has lead to a disproportionate investment in property and an assosiated price explosion. The result of which is the exact same recesion every National party supporter uses as an excuse for Nationals incredibly poor performance on our economy.
New houses do emply people to build. I am all for that. You can’t seriously claim however that new housing is anything but a small minority in the property investment that goes on in this country. Most of New Zealands property is old and heavily over priced.
As to your point that providing housing is an essential service I would argue that if housing were affordable it wouldn’t be. If the majority of kiwi families could afford to own their own homes as it should be then the government and public sector would only need to maintain a small stock of rental properties. However the belief in the right to ownig your own home has been so degraded that the belief is now that only the wealthy should be able to afford a home and that because they can afford to own a home any attempt to tax the earnings from the capital gains on that home is the polotics of envy.
The difference between you and I is not that I envy people with money, I am one. I believe that every one has the right to a decent standard of living and not to be the wages slaves of a rich minority.
I can see why Labour wouldn’t want to campaign on personality, given their leader doesn’t appear to have one, but the problem with announcing a contest of ideas is most of us haven’t got a clue what ideas, if any, Labour currently holds.
The party started off solidly socialist, a political wing of the trade union movement, lapsed into social democracy, turned neo-liberal, then recanted and professed social democracy while leaving the neo-liberal framework largely intact.
Now it seems to dip into whichever part of its history is politically convenient at the time – in favour of free trade, in favour of protecting Kiwi jobs, backing coal mining, backing environmental sustainability, in favour of sending troops to Afghanistan, opposing war. You name it, they support it – and, just to be even-handed – they support the reverse as well.
a short history lesson… the labour party was born out of the trials and hardships undergone under the yoke of the predecessors of the national party..
at the time of their formation, they actually represented much more of a cross section of nz society than any other one party. if you look at the demographics, the labour party has reflected the diversity within nz’s developing culture, and economy…this is to be expected as the labour party was, untill the advent of more democratic voting systems, the only party in nz’s political history to represent all new zealanders…
even with different groupings of philosophies gaining representation, they still reflect our demographics comprehensively…
so you have a party that reflects, not only the changing demographics, but the developing dialogue that goes into building a culture…. this generally means that the responses to difficulties as they arise tends to reflect the intellectual vigour, and current knowledge, used in formulating those responses……
this will mean that the probability of producing the “right” response, one that reduces, rather than increases the chances of “unforeseen” consequences is more likely than simply a “reaction” based on assumption, or thinking that hasn’t evolved past a paradigm that involves absolute power to the property owner,and the ownership of people….
and this is a bad thing????
Crash Cart, we all have the ability to get ahead. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth and have done well through hard work and sacrifice. Trying to circumvent that natural part of life by stealing off others to make life “fair” for everyone is a pointless exercise and has led to the riots in Britain and social unrest in other places. As i said above I think, eventually you run out of other peoples money. Socialism is a failure wherever it has been tried. Lets not repeat history.
@darren…. so “socialism” in the form of the wealthy stealing from the poor is a failure??? absolutely right!!!
on a relevant note.. the events, as you describe aren’t happening in the uk… the events you describe are happening in outer gondwanaland… it’s been a trajic lesson for the gluggelegians… thank the stars it hasn’t happened in our dimension….. or they would be stringing up tories outside the parlaiment buildings,, just like the gluggelegians are doing…
You know that is not how Labour’s Socialism didn’t work during their 9 years BB. They stole from the middle classes to give it back to them (minus bureaucracy costs)and to those who dint or wouldn’t work. Shameful.