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6:00 am, November 25th, 2025 - 31 comments
Categories: open mike -
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Professor Robert MacCulloch ripped Luxon's Kiwsaver policy announcement to bits on RadioNZ's Checkpoint yesterday. Worth a listen.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2019014049/low-income-earners-biggest-losers-in-kiwisaver-changes-economics-expert
Wow! That's pretty strong and unequivocal condemnation!
Well done, that man! Robert MacCulloch in case anyone is confused, not Luxon!
"No economic foundation . . . all coms and politics!"
Yes brilliant…why don't you say what you think Robert
An ally of Douglas.
https://systemchange.nz/2025/09/22/roger-douglas-calls-for-class-war/
A big but
He wants this as part of any KiwiSaver change
1.Compulsion for those employees who cannot afford it.
2.Means testing of state pensions (as they have in Oz)
3.Tax cuts for companies, when the government is not collecting enough tax revenue
1.Labour will talk about how there should be a ban on companies making their KS contribution part of the wage package.
This is not an issue in Oz, because the only compulsion to contribute is on the employer and at 12%.
In Oz, all contributions by the employee are voluntary (and can be at any level).
2.Means testing is fairer than a rising age and placing the sick on benefits in their 60's (since the 1990's) – those unable to work (or without work) over 60 should get super rate benefits.
3.Employees should be able to stay at 3% (higher being voluntary – more possible with a rising MW under Labour and Fair Pay Industry Awards and pay equity back).
Compulsion should rise to 4%, then 6% for the employer.
This does not require a tax cut for New Zealand business – they pay much lower wages than in Oz and this is only half their 12% rate.
The best thing any government could do for Kiwisaver, is to require that employer contributions be above and beyond employee salary (i.e. not considered part of the salary package)- and be fixed (i.e. not tied to whatever the employee contributes)
I'm ambivalent about the whole using Kiwisaver for house deposit issue. I don't like it in principle (it sets young people back in their whole-of-life-savings for retirement) – but I don't see a way around the need for it, right now.
I agree that encouraging use of Kiwisaver for buying a first house is wrong – it is only having to be considered because incomes are too low; and too many are unable to work in the period when they should be starting to save for a home.
This is a good reason for Labour to rule out working with NZF.
"Fossil fuel companies were given privileged, insider access to confidential drafts of legislation during a two-year campaign to weaken oil and gas regulation and overturn the offshore exploration ban, RNZ has found.
Internal documents show how the sector repeatedly lobbied [NZF] Resources Minister Shane Jones to dilute New Zealand's clean-up rules for ageing oil fields – rules brought in to protect taxpayers after the 2019 Tui Oil Field collapse left the state burdened with a $300 million bill.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/579888/how-the-oil-and-gas-industry-helped-rewrite-new-zealand-s-drilling-rules
If Labour even thinks about going into coalition with Shame Jones' party (and says so before the election) they sure as hell won't be getting my vote!
Agreed-If Hipkins does not rule out NZF they could lose many votes…and here's another reason Hipkins should not touch NZF with a barge-poll:
“Last week, the regime rammed through its deeply unpopular Regulatory Standards Act, imposing a radical Libertarian ideological straitjacket on all future actions by the New Zealand state. As part of the current regime, NZ First voted for the bill. And now, just a week later, they've promised to repeal it……..While its good to see they've decided the law is a bad idea, it would have been better if they'd made their opposition clear last week, when it mattered, rather than this week when it doesn't. But the problem for Winston is that this makes it clear that we just can't trust anything he says. He might promise something in an election campaign or even a coalition agreement, but he might change his mind a week later, or work within government to sabotage the policies he has supposedly pledged to support. No-one can rely on such a party – not the other parties they would need to work with to form a government, and certainly not the voters, who can't be sure what they'll be getting”
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/
But who will you vote for instead? If it's the Greens, and they don't rule out going into coalition with a government which also includes NZF – then you haven't achieved much.
The problem with making a sing;e issue the bottom line for your vote – is that the alternative may be worse.
Assuming that we have NZF in the balance of power position – would you really rather that Peters chooses National/ACT by default – because Labour has followed your principled path?
But you, and many other people on TS, are missing the point. This is NOT the NZF of old. They have moved WAY to the Right. If there is a choice of coalitions, Peters and Jones will INEVITABLY go with the Nats. They HATE the Greens and Peters has made it clear he will not join a Hipkins-led Labour in a coalition.
So to rule them out now is to lose nothing, but it may well gain Labour some votes, especially if Hipkins spells out in no uncertain terms why he cannot work with NZF. People will recognise principles when they see/hear them.
It may gain votes. It may lose them. Who knows?
I'd question where the votes potentially gained for Labour will come from? It's not likely to be NZF voters – and I'd doubt that ruling Peters out of a potential coalition will have significant appeal to National voters [using 'voters' here as 'party voted for at the last election' – rather than tribal allegiance] – not even bothering to consider ACT voters, here. And shifting votes within the left (GP, TPM, etc., will have no impact on the right/left divide.
And, TBH, if the left is determined to rule Peters out – then, based on current polling, there's a significant chance that they won't be the next government. That's the outcome that Hipkins is hedging against.
Peters does indeed hate the Greens – however, that didn't stop a Labour/NZF government with support from the Greens in 2017. Much though you may decry him, Peters is Peters, and is in for whatever will gain him most – from left or right.
Peters may hate the Greens, but he also really dislikes ACT – as we see with his repudiation of the Regulatory Standards Act. In my opinion, what he wants is to bend the National Party into doing his bidding. That's what he entered Parliament to do in 1978 – to become National Party leader and the first Maori PM. And for a while that seemed possible – a Maori Muldoon or Holyoake in the making. It was only the Douglas-Richardson revolution that threw him out of the National Party tent. A dominant position in a coalition with a weak National Party leader and ACT kept at arm's length, is now the best available version of his original ambition from nearly 50 years ago.
Yes but Bella, I repeat, NZF now is not the NZF of 2017. The initials may be the same but the political positioning has shifted way Right.
NZF = Tea Party
🙂 Are political principles over-rated – out of date even? Trust no one!
I found this recent article from IPS Journal pretty stimulating , along the lines of how to fix democracy
https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/future-of-social-democracy/power-without-the-people-8694/
There was also another older one on the behind the scenes Swedish decision to join NATO which I found illuminating
In the interests of cohesion and avoiding pointless squabbles, I'm not linking to it and won't comment, but it's there for any of the hardline doubters to check out
Also for reasons of cohesion ,I won't be commenting on trans issues , far too much emotion and heat
Lets work on what we can agree on
In the main I agree with its core premise. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that a root cause of many of the threats to liberal democracy is the accelerating inequity in how its fruits are distributed. That inequity supercharges cynicism and disengagement, concentrates power into fewer and fewer hands, and gives corporate and business interests a disproportionate influence over both the information we consume and the policies governments feel able to implement.
But the class structure this produces isn’t really the one we grew up with. It’s starting to look like there are only two classes left: the mega-rich, and everyone else.
I also agree that greater participation will have to be part of any solution to this dilemma. But it won’t be all of it, and the devil will be in the detail.
Because democracy isn’t the simple imposition of popular will on society. It’s a delicate mechanism for balancing a plurality of views without paralysing government or trampling vulnerable groups. So yes, we could make greater use of referenda and other direct tools. But if the recent votes on Māori wards in local government have taught us anything, it’s that minority rights can’t be made conditional on majority approval.
And we also have to address the economic and social superstructures underneath politics. Without a fairer, more just, and more equal economy freed from the poison logic of neoliberalism, any attempt at political reform will be strangled in the cradle by capital.
For me the Māori wards aren't about giving rights to a minority it's about guaranteeing Māori representation under TeTiriti principles
There may be other ways of doing it but I'm not sure how better to ensure a seat at the table when discussing local resources , and also bringing to the table an indigenous perspective
Oh no, I agree with you. Māori wards are about guaranteeing Māori representation consistent with Te Tiriti, and I don’t think simple head-count majorities should get to veto that.
All I was trying to point to is that “more participation,” understood as straight majoritarianism, isn’t a sufficient fix for democracy. If participation just means “put everything to a vote,” then minority rights and constitutional commitments get treated like optional extras.
Given the author’s background as a democracy scholar (especially in African contexts where these tensions are very live), I was a bit surprised she didn’t dig more into that dynamic: the difference between participatory deliberation and participatory majoritarianism, and how you widen voice without turning rights into popularity contests.
Maybe it's just a context thing. Her frame appears to be very US/European centric. Whereas in Aotearoa, Te Tiriti makes the tension between minority and majority rights unavoidable in a way it often isn’t elsewhere.
The Key government did ECAN.
The Luxon government want to end the regional council entirely.
These do flood protection, environment management and public transport (and own ports) and regional water.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360897777/end-regional-councils-tipped-local-government-reforms
I understand from my reading that if the Maori Wards retention question had been a national referendum, the Wards would have been retained
For keeping Maori Wards …over 542,000 votes
For removing them ….. over 467,000 votes
Then again , as always turnout was poor.
Some recommend syncing Local body and general elections to improve participation in local politics
However, my understanding is that Maori wards were voted on only by Councils which had them and wanted to retain them, or wished to establish them.
Those Councils which decided to disestablish them (Kaipara), or who had never had them and didn't intend to (South Waikato) – didn't have this on the ballot paper.
I don't think that you can legitimately draw the inference that most people (or even most voters) in NZ supported them, from this result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_wards_and_constituencies#Territorial_authorities
You could call it a sample group.
Among those who did vote on the issue , the majority voted to retain
You can call it anything you like, but it doesn't make it a statistically valid result-set, in order to predict either past or future support for the issue.
What will be even more interesting is what they propose to replace them with. Because sure, regional councils may go, but someone will still have to do the mahi.
And folding the work into that of the City Council or associated CCOs (as they did for the Auckland supercity) hasn't been entirely successful.
Yeah, we don't know which way Government wants to with their reform. Smaller, more locally controlled management of theRC functions, or larger entities covering say South Island and splitting the North Island into two or three, or even national.
Transport functions could easily go to district or city level administration, generally they are virtually duplicated anyway. Water / catchment functions, back to something like the old catchment boards, or into Ministry of Environment?
Winners
1.hypocrisy – imposition nationwide done well by central government
2.farmers with a record of pollution known to regional councils
3.those who want local government centralised into unitary authorities (no option for dissent allowed).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/579978/no-more-regional-councils-major-shake-up-of-local-government-announced
Looking at it from an Otago pov not sure farmers are winning with this, with the current arrangement they tend to be more engaged and tilt the council table in their direction, with National's proposal town politics rules the roost. We'll probably start seeing increased farmer participation in District Council / City politics which may or may not go well for them.
And did anyone ask the Mayors? Most of them are busy enough now being Mayor and trying to keep their normal lives intact, presumably there will be funding for some staff to put it all together but I'd like my Mayor's focus to on this district, and he's got major shit on his plate already, not distracted by issues elsewhere in the region.