Author: Ben Ross - Talking Auckland

Admin and author of Talking Auckland Blog ( http://voakl.net )

Inevitable Labour pontification post

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I remember a particular shunning of the blue collar worker (I believe it was called the Waitakere Man) prior to the campaign. The blue collar worker found in Wiri, Takanini, East Tamaki, the Airport and Penrose of which are all our big industrial estates and historically natural Labour strongholds. However, this seems no longer as the social conservative vote either went to NZ First or even National.

Labour have a lot to do to become an effective opposition for which our democracy so needs in order to contest ideas.

It will be interesting to see where things go but at the moment National are on a solid foundation for its fourth term

The Prime Minister on the Next Three Years

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Well Make That Six

 

Last night John Campbell on Campbell Live gave a full show length interview with re-elected Prime Minister John Key.

An extract of the interview below:

John Key’s outlook, goals for the next three years

Monday 22 Sep 2014 8:38 p.m.

Just 48 hours after New Zealand’s general election, John Key sat down with John Campbell in Wellington after he was elected for another three years as Prime Minister.

“I will lead a Government that will govern for all New Zealanders” was a quote from Mr Key’s acceptance speech that stood out for many.

“I wrote the speech that was delivered on Saturday night because I wanted them to be my words and it was how I felt,” says Mr Key.

Mr Key says he believes he has made a difference over the past six years, though he knows he has his critics.

“There will be some New Zealanders who say, ‘Well, he may have made a difference, but not positively to my life.”

To them Mr Key says “[We in National] have certainly tried our best to do that”.

But he knows he must now carve his legacy.

“Helen Clarke will be remembered for the Cullen Fund or the Working For Families,” he says. “If it all ends on Saturday night, I would like to be remembered for leadership around the Christchurch earthquakes and [getting through] the global financial crisis.”

Robert Muldoon’s ambition, “to leave the country in no worse shape than I found it”, Mr Key describes as having an incredibly low ambition.

“I want to leave the country in better shape than I found it,” he says.

……

He also wants to harness some of the lessons learned from the campaign to improve the next three years, and look at what poor voter turnout says about New Zealanders.

“I think something people think that their individual vote won’t influence anything,” says Mr Key. “Nationally, if you look at the trend [of voting] it’s reducing, which is very sad.”

He sees the drop in turnout as especially bad for democracy, as it “means that people aren’t quite as engaged as they should be or they don’t believe that their political leaders can make a difference when they absolutely can”.

Mr Key was quick to brush off criticism surrounding New Zealand’s growing housing crisis, saying housing will always be a struggle in New Zealand.

“Everyone borrows too much, spends too much and has higher expectation than they can deliver for their first home.

“But you can get people in their [first home] and I actually do think that Homestart as a programme is good because it’s highly efficient,” say Mr Key. “You can literally go into Homestart, be with your partner in KiwiSaver for five years and pull out what’s going to be the better part of a $50,000 deposit.”

He believes the Government’s job is to get on top of the land release and the building sector.

Read more (and see the video): http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/campbelllive/keys-outlook-goals-for-the-next-three-years-2014092220#ixzz3E59F2e00

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What I found from the interview was a couple of things.

First was the Prime Minister’s composure in spelling out his vision while for three years it could easily go down for six years – that elusive fourth term which only National’s Holyoake did from 1960-1972 (NZ’s Golden Years). That vision looked of one that will portray the Common Good (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good) which also encompasses Social Liberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism). Now given Key leads a Centre Right Government that would naturally dabble more in Neo Conservatism and Neo Liberalism it will be interesting to see if he does reach over the Centre and towards the Left where Social Liberalism and the Common Good naturally sit.

Given the first third of the interview and most likely the Prime Minister’s talks with Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Bill English I do expect a Centre Right agenda to go through. HOWEVER; if Key and English are looking at that lasting legacy and want that fourth term then something tells me that the Government will sit around the Centre and reach both directions left and right and whether that will be tempered by conservatism

It will be interesting when Budget 2015 comes around to see which way the Government will swing. For the rest of the interview it descended into a confusing buggers muddle apart from the housing section which the Government is looking at more Special Housing Areas and reforms to the Resource Management Act. Both to be controversial and large changes.

 

As for the opposition? Well we don’t have one at the moment unless they can unite and get their collective acts together.

The next three if not six years got interesting indeed.

 

The deconstruction – what went down

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Jono sums it up and thus my thoughts up in a nutshell on what went right for National and what went oh so wrong for the Left Wing.
At the end of the day it all fell over for the Left last Monday with a certain Moment of Truth.

Well it was a Moment of Truth with National now on a very solid foundation for a fourth term as Key will stick with Centrist policies with some dabbling to the Left and Right along the way.

So National is looking for her Fourth Term and the Left are busy blaming everyone else and eating themselves. It also shows Twitter is a rather loud cold echo chamber to a large but not all extent as well.
For example my Tweeting services at a Council Committee is highly utilised as people and even the MSM follow it.

I will put a second post up on what this all means for Auckland Council shortly. However, eyes now turn to the 2016 Local Elections.

jononatusch's avatarOccasionally Erudite Publications

So, in the end it wasn’t even close. Unless the special votes are dramatically out of kilter with the votes counted on election night, National has the numbers to govern alone.

The worse-case scenario now for National is that they lose a seat to the Greens, meaning that National would need one of either ACT or United Future to pass legislation. It’s not such a terrible worst-case for the Nats – both ACT and United Future are entirely dependent on National for their continued survival; they wouldn’t be giving National too much stick. Besides, as Graeme Edgeler writes at Public Address, if the special votes are distributed in the same proportions as in 2011, there’ll be no change to the makeup of Parliament.

So how has National managed to defy the laws of electoral gravity, while Labour plumbs new depths, and the minor parties are all left licking their…

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The Mayor’s Proposal for the 2015-2025 Auckland Council Long Term Plan and Lowering Development Contributions

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Interesting perspective from Local Board member Vernon.
This situation basically comes down to the National led Government passing through an amendment to the Local Government Act that restricts what development contributions can be used for. That is it can not be used as widely to help provide social/community infrastructure as prior to the amendment.

Rates, Road, Rubbish. The catch cry of the National conservatives and its conservative supporters who in all honesty do lack fundamental understanding on how a City works and evolves. It is more than just the physical infrastructure they constantly bang on about. You have the social infrastructure as well which is just as important for a City to function.
While alternatives for funding can be sorted for Greenfield areas (see: https://voakl.net/2014/09/19/what-if-we-go-full-throttle/ ) Brownfield areas (take note Orakei) will face either steeper general rate increases or even Targeted Rates levied (I wonder how Orakei Local Board would find being levied with a Targeted Rate for their Meadowbank Community Centre they are trying to bring forward on the funding table) . So National and its supporters might have just shot themselves in the foot.

Vernon Tava's avatarVernon Tava

It has been a sobering few weeks for Waitematā Local Board as we discuss the implications of the Mayor’s proposal for the Long Term Plan 2015-2025 (LTP). The LTP is Council’s budget for the next ten years and it is being shaped primarily to keep the average rates rise to between 2.5% and 3.5% for the next three years while paying for the City Rail Link. At the same time, Council will be attempting to eliminate the differential between residential and business rates. This will require major cuts to Council spending.

The ‘theme’ that will be most hard hit is ‘Parks, Community and Lifestyle’ (PC&L). This includes Parks and Recreation and Community Development and Culture (CDaC) which includes libraries. The proposed budget reduction to the capital programme in this theme is a massive 39% for the next 5 years. This goes beyond a temporary reduction in spending; it will cost jobs and as a result…

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