Don’t often agree with Roger but he has it spot on on the relationship between Key and English.
Thanks Scoop.
Don’t often agree with Roger but he has it spot on on the relationship between Key and English.
Thanks Scoop.
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Mr Key gives ACT a place in the sun, and allows it to drive a local governmemt and Supercity agenda as a Soviet tank through Prague. Mr Hide brings back (against his will?) Mr Douglas to shore up ACT’s ideological credentials and sustain economic rectitude in parliament. Mr Douglas calls Mr Key, amongst other things, stupid. And in doing so, deliberately promotes the idea of a rift between Messrs Emglish and Key, in which, for the moment, Mr Key’s image is presented as the important currency.
This was an official ACT statement, presumably released with Mr Hide’s agreement. Mr Key might be excused for feeling ill done by, even irritated, as a result. I doubt if Mr English will be too pleased. There is a rift with a history. But Mr English is too wily a politician to wamt it exposed by others in this way, at least, now. Mr Douglas’ comments will be ignored in public commentary by Mr Key. They can be easily dismissed as the ramblings of yesteryear. Mr Hide should receive, out of the public gaze, a going over by Mr Key for this lack of gratitude. Mr English will prefer to say nothing and keep his powder dry for later. The rift is one important lens through which Mr Key’s long-term viabiity as National leader will be viewed. Mr English will want to use that lens when he is ready.
nice to see the right fracturing, isn’t it?
“Mr Key might be excused for feeling ill done by, even irritated, as a result.”
So Key can go cry to his real buddies, the racist party and the odious Peter Dumne.
Go Roger.
Maybe Key should have had Roger in Cabinet to stop him attacking National?
Did Douglas actually say that it was madness to invest in NZ?
My God! What are they planning for the economy? And – what precisely did he mean by:
“Future Taxpayers paying for other’s retirement” What others? How do the future taxpayers get to become taxpayers in the first place? Who pays for their education and their health, these future taxpayers? Who builds these taxpayers into the contributing, productive souls they become? Would it not be ‘the current taxpayers’ toiling away to stuff the fund with the 40% that will be invested in their own country?
I don’t give a rats one for what the fool is saying about the bigger fool and his sidekick (you choose which is which) – I’m more interested in his analysis about superannuation and investment in the country’s future, BTW – my tax is paying his wages to make those strategic decisions.
To invest in New Zealand won’t produce a healthy return for the future? (is he saying we haven’t got one – him that’s actually speaking like the guru of NZ’s economy – and frankly, from the same pedestal – the fools put him on with his seat outside of cabinet but on the ‘economic think tank’)
That if we put 40% of the fund into New Zealand we won’t have enough and future taxpayers will have to continue to support ‘other’ people (are they aliens? or migrants?) in their retirement.
Has anyone else spotted the threat inherent in his ramblings – is he failing? He’s got the front to make those statements publicly in his illustration of the infighting going on in the National Party – no change there then! He’s actually painted the big picture for us: No return on investment in this country……..wrong, on so many levels!
Trevor, I’m not surprised that you agree with Roger Douglas – Michael Cullen also disagreed with this forced 40 per cent investment in New Zealand.
The cycleway is a mystery project – it started out at $50 million estimate, last I heard it was about $100,000 a kilometre. Any advance on that?
Roger Douglas is having some fun here, isn’t he! Backing a failed leader of the National Party against the dealer that is now holding down the job of prime minister. The way forward is not obvious here.
In fact the area of the super fund investment in NZ was one of my bigger areas of difference with Michael – the 40% idea is nonsense – but a minor tweak could have made a big change in the amount of investment in NZ innovation.
Graeme thinks referring to oneself in the third person sounds weird.
Sir Roger did not say it was madness to invest in New Zealand – he said it was madness to force the Guardians to invest in New Zealand.
Investing in New Zeaalnd for competitive returns is a good idea.
Investing in New Zealand to lower your return is madness when the whole purpose of the Super Fund is to lower the cost of Super in the future.
And Chez, because we operate a Pay-as-you-go scheme, it is correct to talk about future taxpayers paying for the superannuation of others (usually their grandparents and parents). Sir Roger’s ideas on the benefits of moving away from a Paygo system can be found in a speech here: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0906/S00272.htm
Sally is LOL at Graeme’s comment.
@Samuel Konkin,
Oh I’ll grant you he sounds almost plausible – until you get into analysing exactly how he’s illustrating his points.
In every example he’s given a range of percentage of tax paid over low, middle and upper income brackets and happily used the examples of how well those in the upper brackets could afford to pay for their own health, education and superannuation – he’s used the lower income percentages to demonstrate how much those in the upper are having to pay for ‘others’ to have those services – to survive.
The fact is, punch and judy handed tax cuts back to those upper income brackets, as asked – then cut the very spend that would assist those in the lower income brackets to access those services, as asked. But not as much as he would have liked. So he’s grumpy and he’s attacking them, we’ve seen that before – he’s due to stomp off and form a new party any day now. (Pattern behaviour – he hasn’t learned a thing and neither did the voting public)
Great ideas are one thing but the people who don’t mind his are the ones who don’t have to educate their kids in lower socio-economic zones that have pressured schools, they don’t have to sit on hospital waiting lists and they tend not to have to worry about how they’re going to live when they’re too old to pay tax. Yet, his scheme acts on percentage across the board and only really penalises the poor to average.
He was the cause (well he rogered nomincs)that was then treated to nine years of Nat interpretation – it didn’t work then and isn’t going to now.
His ideas plus nine years of tory interpretation did not lower the waiting lists in hospitals, wasn’t touching the sides in developing or even establishing a knowledge economy in NZ – and where do we begin when we start talking about National Governments and Superannuation – with Muldoon? – He’s singing the same song he did in the 80’s and he’s still (how should I put it – off key?).
It didn’t work, and it wasn’t even close to working when the people spoke in 1999. It was a bigger mess than we’ve had for generations and people hurt, the economy was a mess and the workforce was largely unskilled and hugely underappreciated. It was hard living in NZ in the 90’s unless you worked as a ‘consultant’, a ‘CEO’ or you had a good idea for a finance company. See how those took off………….
He’s biting the hand that fed him now because he’s miffed that they were not tough enough with the slashing, he wanted it twice as harsh and he wanted it yesterday, typically before the facilities and resources are in place to cope with the burgeoning poverty that will result – I watched him burble his way through the telling off he gave Key and English immediately after the budget announcement.
Key’s looking peevish because it all sounded like a great idea at the time but now that the hard yards are here, people are asking hard questions and he’realised he’s not actually here to manage anything – he’s been managed!
Whereas English needs a cup of tea and a lie down – he’s got all the talking to do – no-one else is actually equipped. At the moment they’re like three naughty boys fighting over a blanket.
I suggest Chez that you take your own advice about why Rogernomics didn’t work – ‘Tory interpretation’. Roger was a Labour man, much more than most (third generation MP).
Many people who support Roger are those who suffer from the induced poverty of State monopoly as he explained in No Second Class Citizens.
It is fully false to picture him as either a fool, or a man who does not understand and care for the plight of the poor.
You would be surprised.
Why would I want to be surprised? In many older eyes, he is a cross between a thief and evil personsified. As for Hide, well he has absolutely no credibilty left. As my father would say “There is no fool like an old fool.”