Today at the National Party conference, Steven Joyce spun the line that his Party was all about jobs and the Opposition was about fairytales.
His own intellectual dishonesty is breathtaking. Neither he, nor any member of his government have ever been able to articulate the source of the Kiwi jobs of the future other than in vague unsubstantiated terms.
His government has instead made countless decisions which have cut skilled Kiwi jobs and resulted in the flight overseas of thousands of New Zealanders who should have been plotting their futures in our country not elsewhere.
Perhaps one of the worst things this government has done to demonstrate its disregard for Kiwi jobs, Kiwi skills and Kiwi industry is to use the purchasing power of government to buy trains built in China which do not meet New Zealand standards.In doing this they are responsible for destroying essential skills and ensured that a whole industry has been cut off at the knees.
A country that deliberately destroys manufacturing capability is not a smart country.
Yesterday, Radio NZ revealed that the brakes on all 500 Chinese-built freight wagons ordered by KiwiRail had to be replaced before they could hit the tracks last year.
Initial tests found that when the wagons were fully loaded to 72 tonnes, the wagons did not stop within the required 650 metres.
The wagons have been in New Zealand for less than a year and have been plagued with problems. Kiwirail pretends it’s no big deal and the government says it’s an operational issue and nothing to do with them. They have backed Kiwirail all the way in its outsourcing decisions. At some point they will become accountable.
As a result, the Hillside Rail workshops in Dunedin, which made the original wagons in the 1950s, has been gutted, skilled workers made redundant and now the workshops are up for sale in a deal which Kiwirail shows little enthusiasm for.
False economy is a kind way of describing the harebrained decision to buy cut price substandard wagons shipped across the world, which require serious faults to be fixed and parts replaced before they can even be put on the tracks. It’s my understanding that some of the wagons are already demonstrating more serious faults.
How long will it be before there is a serious derailment involving these wagons? Who will be held accountable then?
Gordon Campbell wrote sensibly about this issue yesterday.
Steven Joyce, meanwhile, speaks with a forked tongue.
These guys are the masters of spin and most of the NZ Public fall for it, the rest are apathetic and swim with the tide whether it’s going in or out.
NZ gets what it deserves.
Hear, hear Jack Ramaka. The NZ public is getting exactly what they deserve for being so stupid. They don’t even comprehend this Nat govt. is actually treating them with contempt – and laughing about it behind their backs.
A lot of people voted, Anne, to keep you lot out rather than vote the tories in. If you really want to ‘reconnect’ you should start treating the NZ public with the same respect you say is lacking from the present dysfunctional rabble. Just because people have a different opinion to you, Anne, they are not stupid, arrogant, idiots, parasites, ‘bankers’, naive, uneducated or whatever word you choose to use. They just have a different opinion. I’m sure you’d feel better about yourself if you didn’t hate your neighbours so much.
It’s no wonder that the national party is described as cons ervative. All they seem capable of doing is wool pulling, spinning, deceptive statement, deceitful behaviour and conning the public. I would hate to be inside any one of their brains- a very muddled and nasty place.
Feeling better now ss? I know the truth hurts, but you will get over it one day.
@softstarter
“I’m sure you’d feel better about yourself if you didn’t hate your neighbours so much.”
Unfortunately, this is exactly what the National Government and it’s apparently nasty minded followers do- hate,lambast, and deride their fellow Kiwis.
New Zealand would be a far better place if they were all to sycophantically follow their dark, sardonic and cunning leader to Hawaii – not so good for Hawaii though!
“A lot of people voted, Anne, to keep you lot out rather than vote the tories in”
Aside from never being able to prove such a lame comment, you know over half the country voted against the government?
“Just because people have a different opinion to you, Anne, they are not stupid, arrogant, idiots, parasites, ‘bankers’, naive, uneducated or whatever word you choose to use.”
Except for where guilty as charged, like in Epsom.
Seriously? At least publish all the facts if you are going to take a shot at the government. The brakes were replaced under warranty at no cost to Kiwirail.
On complex machinery (admittedly my experience is in agriculture not rail) it’s not uncommon for for this sort of problem to arise, that’s why you have operational testing before deploying into production.
How would Steven Joyce know where jobs are coming from given that he flunked out of more economics papers than most people have had hot dinners?
Have to agree with meh a bit. The faults so far have been remedied free. Even Toyota has recalls. The heinous crime of Key and co was ordering the rolling stock from outside NZ in the first place. Even if they honestly (possible?) felt the contract was beyond us there is NO excuse for not having a proportion built here OR a part contract and allowing finishig here. Could the Nats just be bloodyminded with respect to union workplaces? Or is some ‘party’/body feeling more affluent since? Makes you wonder?
“al1ens says:
July 22, 2012 at 3:29 pm
“A lot of people voted, Anne, to keep you lot out rather than vote the tories in”
Aside from never being able to prove such a lame comment, you know over half the country voted against the government?”
Not true champ – another misleading left statistic, to get to that they subtract votes for National/Act/Maori/Peter Dunne from total votes cast. The problem is, this includes all the parties that didn’t make it in to parliament and makes the very bold assumption that they would all support Labour…
If you exclude parties that didn’t make it into Parliament, the current government funnily enough gets more votes.