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6:00 am, May 29th, 2026 - 69 comments
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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 …
"Chandler" of the hospitality business want to reduce the MW (by $4) and believes this will lower living costs.
This is their considered advice as to how to manage the lack of consumer demand in the economy. It is as if there was no connection between lack of income after affording housing (rent or mortgage rates, water and insurance), power, food and transport and the business.
The business owner as the persecuted minority routine is what it is. But the lack of awareness that workers are the consumers is Queenstown thinking (where tourists are consumers) in Auckland and Hamilton.
Is it a class thing, the low cost service worker and desired clientele being of disparate groups in the society?
This is the only nation in the OECD that has no CGT or estate tax.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/361010458/election-despair-hospitality-leader-says-business-under-attack
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/361011793/business-think-tank-proposes-slashing-youth-minimum-wage-minimum-wage-opt-out
Lower outside urban centres
Their "training wage" proposal would be under $16 – $16 is 66% of $24.
There are apprenticeships now – real training jobs
We do have starting out wages for those age 16-17 and those off the benefit over 18.
This covers the training period for lower skilled jobs. But expires.
https://www.moneyhub.co.nz/minimum-wage.html
Australia does have an aged based system
It is hard to justify a lower wage for doing the same job as older workers once they have been trained up.
The Samsung family took 5 years to raise the US$8.5B to pay their inheritance tax bill
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20260409/samsung-family-completes-inheritance-tax-payments-with-hong-ra-hee-share-sale
https://awu.net.au/minimum-wage/
That's such weaselry. The people earning the top few percent of declared and taxable income may be paying 40% of the tax, but that's mostly higher wage and salary earners having tax withdrawn from their salaries via PAYE. It is definitely not the richest 1% of the population.
Even disregarding the various forms of creating accounting that can disguise income, as you point out "This is the only nation in the OECD that has no CGT or estate tax." We aren't even trying to tax significant sources of income among the wealthy.
Top stuff!
"Surviving Topp Twin, Dame Lynda, has delivered a blistering impassioned volley at the government for overlooking the arts in this year's Budget, and been met with a standing ovation at the Aotearoa Music Awards."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/music/dame-lynda-topp-blasts-governement-in-emotional-speech
Well done indeed Dame Lynda.
In legal circles when you don't refer to something that is relevant it is deemed a lie.
In the several post-budget interviews I have heard Willis do she has never once mentioned the arts.
People from that side of the house recognise the threat the arts present, to their world-view and modus operandi. Since forever, they've sought to destroy the practice of creating art along with the creations themselves. This present heartless crew have done all they can to carry on the tradition of their people. They have to cover their activities so as to look innocent of their nasty behaviours, hence the diversions, misleads, cover-ups and lies.
They are philistines.
In fact the CoC has no redeemable features. It must go on November 7.
"She's obviously had a difficult week, and we wish her all the best," he said."
Goldsmith. Arrrrrrrrrse!
"Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith has brushed off criticism of the government at the Aotearoa Music Awards as the "same old cliché", after Dame Lynda Topp delivered an expletive-laden broadside over arts funding."
"Brushed off criticism". Arrrrrrrrrse!!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596729/same-old-cliche-paul-goldsmith-brushes-off-dame-lynda-topp-s-criticism
Goldsmith just lost them a swathe of votes,
Good result, Pāora!
Tino pai tou mahi!
Perhaps she is merely recognizing reality? She isn't referring to the arts because they aren't relevant.
To most New Zealanders the "arts" aren't relevant, and how many low income individuals think it is a sensible thing to heavily subsidise the hobbies of the wealthy such as Ballet or Opera?
Alwyn marks himself, "Team Atlas".
They can fund the arts easily enough just by discouraging leveraging equity to buy up investment property.
Alwyn, I think that's a rather misleading characterisation. In the past, governments wanted to supply 'public goods' like this because they were animated by some idea of a nation of people with a collective heritage and of a citizenry who deserved to be educated and informed participants in civic life. A symphony orchestra might be something that was mostly appreciated by richer, well-educated citizens, but by no means only by them, and in any case, a sharply progressive income tax ensured that they paid the greatest contribution towards funding that orchestra anyway.
These days arts funding tries hard to be non-elitist, which amusingly tends to draw the opposite criticism when things that appear to be vulgar or offensive get funding, i.e. they are not elitist enough.
I'm actually not in favour of showering the arts with a lot of money – my guess is that it produces a long tail of mediocre, ephemeral and bourgeois work. The best work is the stuff that comes from a compulsion or fixation that bubbles up uncontrollably and in wild, variable forms. That is not to say though that we should starve art to death because we have discarded all ideas of their being a public good.
There are many different forms of art and different levels of art, e.g., creative vs performative art, amateur vs professional, individual vs collective, etc. Ballet is art but ice-skating is sport, go figure!
One function of art/artists is to open up closed and narrow minds – the Coalition is in dire need of an immediate arts-infusion.
You may have heard of the Korean Wave that’s been a hugely successful tool of South Korea’s soft power. China is now copying it. NZ uses its (indigenous) culture and art as a tourist gimmick and as a side show at sports events. The cultural cringe here in and of NZ is phenomenal.
Yes, but… the essence of art is creativity, originality and expression outside of technical language. Those guys hate that stuff.
They just don’t understand and appreciate it – bunch of xenophobic pearl-clutchers.
It surprises me how so many artists are so certain that their work is so terrible that no one would voluntary purchase it. You’d think they’d have more faith in themselves. If they don’t attract enough audience to make them viable, they should do something else.
You could apply that test to the Coalition of Corruption Jimmy.
Artists just need to be better at marketing and have better business plans. Or outsource production to countries with cheaper labour and less regulation (red tape, in artist’s parlance). Avantgarde artists use AI for more efficiency and to lift productivity.
Incognito has found the page in the neoliberal playbook where it explains how to tap into the lifeblood of artists when the Actor knows nothing about art, but knows what he likes – the large amounts of money people are prepared to pay for it if the market is psyched up. For instance huge sums paid in USA etc for known originals of famous dead artists.
You've given artists and the arts some serious, in-depth thinking, Jimmy – big ups to you!
I have a 'modest proposal': we could take seriously Jimmy's opinion that all personal expression should be commodified, and it has no value that can be ascertained through anything other than market transactions.
Taking it seriously would mean applying it to his to his own comments, i.e. they get published only if someone is prepared to pay for them.
Bad economic ideas (such as the commodification of everything) run very deep, seem to be ineradicable and have bonkers consequences
Market tip for you: invest now in Jimmy’s comments because they’re about to go up in price in the near future.
Jimmy
"It surprises me how so many artists are so certain that their work is so terrible that no one would voluntary purchase it. You’d think they’d have more faith in themselves. "
"Ehlana (Kiwiblog)
"It surprises me how so many artists are so certain that their work is so terrible that no one would voluntary purchase it. You’d think they’d have more faith in themselves "
"To most New Zealanders the "arts" aren't relevant….."
That statement truly reflects the sentiments of the current govt…….
In the 2024-2025 year the NZSO presented 49 concerts and the total attendance was 52,297 people.
Even if they were all different people that would mean that only 1% of the New Zealand Population went to a NZSO concert. I think the comment seems to be a fair one.
https://nzso.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/publications/annual-report-2025.pdf
I remember you getting your knickers in knot about NZSO previously (Feb 2025). You reverted into Right trolling behaviour then.
If you’d bothered to look a little further (i.e., scroll down to pg. 25):
In addition, you may have heard of that quaint medium called RNZ. Tonight, Live on RNZ, the NZSO: https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert
Willis seems to realise Labour can outflank them on taxation of banks.
So National will campaign on this (but its just noise as ACT would block them doing anything more).
https://www.tickaroo.com/e/GHD7nKwLqIDGIgZ0
As I said yesterday, Willis has offered Labour an open goal here.
Labour should increase the bank levy from Willis' $50m a year to $200m a year OR MORE, while at the same time stating that if the four Australian banks reduce their NZ profits to the same level as they make in Australia (in percentage terms) the levy level may be reduced. These four banks are gouging NZ citizens at the moment.
For the Left this is BOTH a revenue raiser and vote winner at the same time.
And Willis says National will have its superannuation policy (whatever it is, NZF would veto it, so it is yet more noise)
The 3 have no unity on a plan as per super or tax on banks.
https://www.tickaroo.com/e/GHD7u22sfcrWaqL0
The 'Hon.' Nicola Willis (Dip. Sortd) has blown her 'out-of-touch metaphors' budget, but other NAct MPs will continue the tradition of kicking Kiwi 'bottom feeders', and targetted 'squeezed middle feeders' who didn't escape to Australia, while they're down.
Their behaviour – sticking it to marmite sandwich munchers and other losers – just comes naturally. Nooooooooo, look, so I got carried away and said what I said – Move-On!
And still the IDF and their political leaders kill, whilst our press and political leaders say nothing.
Solid reporting by Hayden Donnell in The Spinoff, but any costs recovered from NZ-based Canadian billionaire Grenon are hardly going to offset the latest round of cuts administered to our public broadcasters. Nothing personal, of course – onya CoC.
https://vote.nz/
I’d say that the ball is now in Labour’s court. Tough gig.
In reply to Alwyn at 2.1.2
Via Gemini
At an April 30, 1953 Royal Academy Banquet, Churchill famously noted: "The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them… Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due."
Yeah but they must pay their own way, Stephen – no freeloaders will be tolerated by the Coalition of Philistines!
There was of course contemporary of Churchill who was a totally obsessive fan of Wagner. He didn't end up in a very good state though.
Hardly surprising really. Have you ever seen or heard a Wagnerian work?
You mean, he died?
Do you blame Wagner for that?
Well, the person I am thinking of did shoot himself in the head. That seems rather like something out of Wagner. Have you ever seen a Wagner work, or even read the plot of one?
I wouldn't be that surprised if it gave Hitler the idea of the way to go out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1wZLsl61tPdmWxT9cz3n5B4/die-walkure-the-plot-essentials
I don't really care what people do in their leisure activities. I just wish that those who want to listen to an Orchestra, or to Opera, or watch Ballet and who are, at least among the people I know, generally from the ranks of the more affluent, would actually pay for their interests themselves instead of expecting the taxpayer to pick up an enormous part of the bill.
The NZSO, NZ Opera and NZ Ballet each get about 15% of their income from ticket sales. More than 50% comes from the taxpayer or ratepayer. Let the people who want to see the performances pay for them.
Surely, the "50%" goes to the performers, not the audience?
A graduated ticket price would do the trick; if you're wealthy, pay a lot, if you're not, don't.
I take it you're in favour of means-testing everything, alwyn?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltrdYi0-tIM (video of organ playing Wagners Wedding March) Wagner gets played every hour of the day, somewhere.
Stephen Fry has a great documentary about being a fan of Wagner, as Fry is a fan & a jew, so it's very … complicated for him. He goes to that 3-4 day Wagner opera in Germany.
What was missing from Budget-2026 was a story of blood, sweat & tears, the heart & soul, that so many stories are based on, even, or even more so, good old mythological fairy-tales and fantasies. They resonate with the people, they hit a (raw) nerve. The field is wide open for Labour and the other opposition parties.
Something different – disappearance of glaciers from Papua. A bit of info for wide thinking people. And how a thinking person is channelling the info that 97% of this world wonder has been lost since 1980. Martin LeFevre who writes 'Meditations' on Scoop:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2605/S00075/dialogue-with-the-universe.htm
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/496554/tropical-glacier-in-papua-expected-to-disappear-in-three-years Aug.2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carstensz_Glacier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puncak_Jaya
Not many are aware of tropical glaciers, apart from Kilimanjaro perhaps.
They are in Venezuela as well
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx8qv1nvdppo
Interesting aj there is so much that never gets more than seconds of display in the 'common' media. So much to know.
I am cynical now and wondering if the Russia-Ukraine war isn't a convenient distraction for the USA so that Israel and Netanyahoo can commit genocide in Palestine while we worry about self-harm and venturous people in trouble, not the doomed, chastened and beaten Palestinians not daring to hope.
It's an easy world to become cynical about.
Hmm. Let them eat paua pie?
https://vote.nz/
I'd be careful now RNZ. After all, you are NZ Aotearoa's most trusted news brand, and the NActF Coalition of Corruption can’t be having that. More cuts anyone – anyone?
https://vote.nz/
Here is a link showing a graph of the donations so far this year. It is frightening for the Left.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596721/act-gets-600-000-donations-surge-in-20-days-doubling-campaign-year-contributions
ACT is a firm supporter of the silly LNG import terminal plan. One wonders if some of its massive donations are from backers of this…we should be told.
Meanwhile Meridian Energy CEO Mike Roan has said today that the LNG terminal is not needed "from an electricity perspective."
There is going to be a hell of a fight in the Coalition of Corruption if Luxon tries to dump the LNG terminal. Meanwhile Labour is laughing as it has already said it will not back it. Of course the Greens would dump it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/596723/lng-imports-not-needed-for-dry-year-cover-meridian-says
The pieces of the missing story; awesome commentary at The Spinoff (https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/29-05-2026/christopher-luxon-sees-himself-as-ceo-of-nz-and-it-shows-in-the-budget):
Relying is not the right word here, it’s hoping, as in ‘hoping to win Lotto’.
Yup, it’s like asking a terminally ill patient to donate blood.
By that time, we won’t even be able to call it our economy, as it will be mostly foreign-owned and controlled. WTF is Peters thinking?? Too busy playing with his train set?
Indeed, Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne wrote something very similar in today’s Newsroom e-mail newsletter:
@ Incognito @ 11
"What was missing from Budget-2026 was a story of blood, sweat & tears, the heart & soul, that so many stories are based on,…"
Certainly would have expected better from someone with a degree in English.
By that I don't mean Sir Bill.
Nicola Willis’ story, and thus the Coalition’s story – just wait for the three spin-offs – is The Return to The Surplus. I don’t give a flying fuck about such a crap magic realism story, it’s boring as hell.
Does Willis’ story touch people, does it speak to them, can thy find themselves in the story?
I’d think that very few people would answer affirmatively.
It won’t be too hard for the opposition to write an alternative and more inspiring & appealing story – the critics are circling above waiting to shred it to pieces.
However, the soft numbers in & of the [Treasury] forecasts in some ways make it easier to write a narrative that’s not bogged down in techno-fiscal gibberish & cult-economic dogma.
So, Labour, let your imagination run wild, be brave, be bold, and don’t chicken out and cross the road.
+1000 Incog.
Labour crossed the road some time ago – now there is more traffic and they tend to get paralysed by those dazzling headlights that the big bruiser vehicles now seem to have on all day. And the vehicles decorate themselves like funfairs with fairy lights all around the body, and red rear lights like horns that show where to kick!
Willis' "success story" relies upon the extinction of x-number of Kiwi jobs?
Great story bro!
@Incog above
Well put.
Surely I am not alone in thinking that a government surplus is offensive, even more so given ' Move on orders', Working for Families welfare, record homeless, high levels of child poverty etc.
After all, in the military, a good storeman has an empty store not a full one.
As to the narrative, the options are dizzying. Electrifying the nation with solar on public buildings, schools etc.
Support for domestic solar, batteries and smart inverters that can supply to the grid in high demand and be recharged in off peak.
Renationalise the power system so it's kaupapa is affordable energy for all.
Support for EVs and electric trucks and invest in electrifying the train set.
Ticking off: cost of living stresses, Climate Change obligations and resilience for the next inevitable fuel shock.
As to health….
"a good storeman has an empty store not a full one."
Genius!
The "dour" budget.
I like that.
Imho, it's a 'keep 'em Lotto lean and marmite sarnie-hungry' budget – but Nicola, what about the sorted? Phew, well alright – our fair Lotto Lady, the paua-partaking Willis, says thanks to AI the sorted are safe as houses. Well played Luxury Luxon, well played.
https://vote.nz/
Well…..Awesome : )
I hear the squeaking and creaking of blue nickers being twisted!
lol, and a wailing and gnatshing of teeth : )
Was an after budget silver screen lining for sure.
that is awesome. I've been thinking I'd like to watch it again. It's truly remarkable.
Belladonna's probably writing a glowing review as we speak!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/596747/trapped-looking-for-gold-in-a-flooded-cave-how-were-they-found-and-will-they-be-rescued
We could get some headline-winning, heart-stopping stories like this every day if the news and camera people were allowed into Palestine. And really stirring comments from Israelis living in that country, if they were allowed to speak up. But it seems that all over the world our political systems govern our force systems or versa-vice, military or whatever, and are blocking us from intelligent free speech.
Keep out of caves will you Finnish or whoever, the world is finishing, crumbling for sure, that is exciting enough for any sentient being, but many are merely shamming that.