On Thu, 23 May 2024 08:38:23 +1200, Crash <
[email protected]d>
wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2024 20:37:39 +1200, Rich80105 <[email protected]>
wrote:
http://werewolf.co.nz/2024/05/8372/
This article points out how poor that report from Bill English was - I >>suspect he did make some reasonable suggestions, but he was probably
not allowed to be seen to show up the lack of ability of the Minister
of Finance. The debt held by Kainga Ora could have been extinguished
by the government by the stroke of a pen - criticising a property
owner for having debt is implying that the government's favoured
investors are so stupid that they really needed favoured investment
tax breaks to be profitable. So Bill English dutifully wrote a report
that said what the taxpayer Union wanted them to say - and set the
scene for passing over responsibility for growing state house
provision to community and private sector organisations that will
require funding to build the new houses that Chris Bishop has promised
. . .
In reality they will not be prepared to take on large debts, and the >>fragmented approach will see housing continue to be a problem when
trying to attract doctors, nurses, police officers and teachers to New >>Zealand, and the big private landlords will laugh all the way to the
bank as rents increase in response to the demand . . ., and coupled
with the cutting of the first home grants, it will be harder than ever
for the next generation to buy a house . . .
Rich this is fair comment and it remains to be seen whether the
predictions made both by Gordon Campbell in the article are borne out. >However the need to reform Housing NZ (also known as Kainga Ora) is
clear, given performance in recent times with tenant and financial
management issues. The status quo was completely untenable.
This is government by the wealthy for the wealthy.
Remember the mantra of "equal opportunity" used by previous National
led governments? Under this NZTP / NZ Initiative driven government
they are hell bent on small government and paying off political donors
. . .
Rich you start a thread on an issue of the day, with valid comments,
but you simply cannot post without ending in worthless political
rhetoric that reminds us yet again that your motivation in posting
solely political.
Gordon Campbell's article was titled:
"Gordon Campbell on the privatising of state housing provision, by
stealth"
"Equal Opportunity" will not happen where the only housing options are
from private landlords. Dysfunctional families have been problematic
under all governments for many years, but rehabilitation des not
happen easily, and breaking families up can create worse problems. The Government has not been honest about the problems they are not fixing,
and their experience of the Key / English governments will make
community organisations very wary of getting more involved in
provision of social housing - they will also not be prepared to carry
debt that they cannot be very confident they will be able to repay,
and it will take longer this time to agree contracts with the
government. Currently the government have stopped many ongoing
contracts while they re-group; there are a few private developers
starting new projects, but I know we are losing some skilled
tradespeople to Australia.
I was contrasting the election policies articulated by Jim Bolger in
promising "equal opportunity" - which was comprehensively destroyed by
the financial policies of his finance Minister, Ruth Richardson. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Richardson - it is no surprise that
Ruth Richardson has for a long time been a supporter of ACT and a
Board member of the "NZ Taxpayers Union" - linked by the Atlas Network
to the Mont Pelerin Society which Richardson has belonged to for even
longer.
(see
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/215796/1/Full-text-book-Plehwe-et-al-Nine-lives-of-neoliberalism.pdf
from page 253 to 290 )
The political decisions being made by the government are clearly
closer to those of ACT than the National-led governments of Key and
English - quite a few staffers of Ministers have past links to the NZ
Taxpayer Union or the NZ Initiative, and David Saunders has a
significantly greater role than when ACT was previously in government.
All three of the Government parties are giving priority to policies
that assisted funding, and ACT is prominent in being able to get
policies through that would have caused the more financially aware
John Key and Bill English to have resisted more strongly.
Crash, you may not want to hear it, but to a greater extent than any
other government than I can remember, the policies we are seeing come
through from this government are being driven by political ideology,
with the impetus being the link to the meetings of the three
''leaders" that resulted in the coalition agreement which is being
taken as absolute policy commitments rather than issues where
discussion among the parties can reach consensus. I know of National
Party supporters that are concerned that the party is being told what
policies are rather than having any say in even how they are
implemented.
I do not know how many Atlas Network people are staffers with
Government Ministers, but Christopher Luxon has Joe Ascroft as his
economic adviser - he was previously an economic adviser at the NZ
Taxpayers Union.
Like it or not, politics is what leads to political decisions, and
those decisions do affect all of us. The changes going through at
present are as significant as those during the times of Roger Douglas
and Ruth Richardson - the decisions now do not appear to be initiated
by the current Minister of Finance, but they are important for the
future of our country, but are not being well explained to the
population that will be affected by them.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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