Tax cuts, not big

Cullen has come out today with a statement saying the tax cuts will not be big, with no more than $10 a week in the hand for most. As they raise the thresholds, but the low income earners will get nothing, and the only ones who will win are those that earn amounts over each of the thresholds, so seen as I am at the bottom one currently tax cuts will not help me. I don't think I would call these tax cuts either as moving thresholds is not a cut it is just changing qualifying terms.

Brash's Farewell

Don Brash gave his Farewell speech in Parliament today, admitting to having made a few mistakes along the way, but also saying he was glad he had done it and he has found respect for many people in Parliament across party borders. Including a respect for Clark and Cullen, even though he disagrees with their policies.

He thanked Gerry Brownlee and Murray McCully for being with him through thick and thin and gave a special thank you to his wife, saying "Only families of those who have been involved in politics knows what they go through."

The excerpts on Stuff are quite thin on the ground, but if anyone finds a copy coulf you please post it on thanks.

Threshold Raised

The repayment threshold for student loans has been raised to 17,784 per year. This is only $342 a week. Now I pay rent of 119, phone of 5, power about 13, and internet of 10. thats a total of 147 without counting food and/or travel, I think most people would struggle to survive on the amount that the government thinks is a fair wage, and every dollar over that you don't only lose 20%+ to tax, but also 10% to your loan, and then add on if you have a job on secondary tax, that is then 33% + 10% of every dollar earned so for a second job you pay 43% of it to the government, there really is no incentive to get ahead in this country, and these students when they are studying also receive less money than those on the dole, and their parents are mean tested til they are 25.

I don't see any fairness in this!!!!!

Oh and to compare it to Australia, over there the repayment threshold is $37,355 New Zealand. This is ludicrous, no wonder so many students bail and head overseas.

Personal Freedom

Ok so NO sugary drinks in school from 2009.
Ok now while on the surface this may seem fine, yeah it cuts back on tooth decay and obesity. Well no how does it do that?? Banning something does not work, look at Prohibition.
And then to top it off you are punishing everyone because the few can not control their diets and exercise.

I am totally against this, how about an education set-up to educate people how to live properly. or start with the parents 90% of the problems we have these days extend from the childs early years and a lack of discipline etc, or bad habits introduced by the parents.

Don't punish the many to help the few.

Labour Backs Down

Labour has backed down on attempting to get data from its citizens at the borders and will not be including it in changes to the laws on immigration and travel that are to be coming out. They have decided that there was too much opposition to making New Zealanders give fingerprints, Retina scans and in extreme cases DNA as they leave and enter the country.

Laws on Fiji/Tonga

Michael Laws has written a great opinion piece in the SST today, the bit that will get him in trouble is a reply to the critics of his "fat brown slug" comment from earlier about Tonga. He has come aut and said that it is true, the King was a fast brown slug, but it is acceptable to use being brown as an excuse. While this comment is kinda racist it is also true, people in New Zealand are led to believe that "brown" people are behind the 8-ball to begin with so therefore it is ok if they don't achieve. But the bit that I agreed with the most was the part about New Zealand being confusing and the parties leading the charge for fighting back against the coup, while condemning those involved in the riots in Tonga, both of these were fights for democracy. Though I think the governments line on it is going to be that Tonga was against the 'rightful' government, while Fiji was for the 'rightful' government, as countries of New Zealands ilk are supposed to support the government of other countries, but I agree with Laws they are being two-faced.

National Backs Electoral Review

National has come out today saying they will support the electoral funding review which will include measures such as the removal of trust funds as a funding scheme, and possibly go so far as to make campaigning funded completely by the Tax Payer. They also want the removal of 3rd party electioneering. But as in the case of the EB last year, does this funding count as support for every party, but the ones they attacked??
I personally even with the suggestions that have been made have started to see loop holes for more possible "secret" funding, Dummy Companies, Dummy Societies etc are not hard to set-up and would be a perfect method of funding. I personally see it as Labour annoyed that they get less outside funding than National does, who knows why National has agreed to support it? Though maybe they have already noticed the loopholes as well and plan to exploit them.

Thanks to DPF

Attack on Personal Freedom

If Labour and New Zealand First have their way the Immagration service will be able to take fingerprints, eye retina scans and (in extreme cases) DNA at the borders. This will not be only of immigrants and visitors, but also of citizens. I see this as a direct attack on my personal freedom, even though I know someone will come out and say that only the bad people need be worried. I disagree, I think that I have a right to certain freedoms and even in the states the only record is of foreigners or immigrants. This is not right!!! Though of course it may just be another means for the Police to catch criminals...like the scandal recently over blood taken from babies.

Idiots

david. nope. never tire of it.
but that said, "Take
Greece as an example. Their culture was 12 Gods etc, and all the powers and
myths. Great job they preserve the culture, but you'd be locked up as insane
in
Greece if you proposed spending public money on having people call on
Zeus to
take away the spirits of those who died in car crashes."
the
ancient greeks
didn't have cars. so, that argument isn't flying
either.

Che Tibby on Kiwiblog

Well I didn't think anyone could be this stupid or use a point so ridiculous, Well no of course the Ancient Greeks didn't have cars, but neither did the Maori, you bloody blathering retard, oh and I don't think there is a real religion in the world that is based in a time with cars, so how about no religious blessings of roads, no need according to Che's logic the Gods don't understand it anyway.

Brash Falls on his Sword again

Well it appears Don Brash has fallen on his own sword twice inside a week after resigning as leader he announced at lunchtime today his resignation from parliament and that he would not be back for the new year. This was pretty much expected as he was unlikely to be wanted by many in the national party as it appeared they wanted a fresh start and a new looking team.

If someone can tell me who this brings into parliament could they post a comment and I will run a profile on them I am lost as to who is next on Nationals list

"So I shall name my "Front Bench aka Key Leaders for National" I believe that John Key is the right pick to lead the national party. behind him as Deputy I would pick Judith Collins as this will a) get more women attracted to National and secondly she has been one of the top players in this term in opposition. The other key members of a strong National front bench would have to be Katherine Rich, Bill English, Simon Power, Nick Smith, Gerry Brownlee, Lockwood Smith and Tony Ryall. This combination I believe would be able to lead the party to a victory in the next election. Then behind these are an excellent team still with Murray McCully, David Carter and Maurice Williamson pushing them hard. "

I said this on my blog on Sept 27th 2006, and I stick by these members as the right team to lead National now that a change is needed. here is the whole post...National Blunders

So I would like a John Key and Judith Collins team, but its not going to happen.

LIOT Part V: Stadium

The Government seems to be more willing to spend taxpayer money on White Elephants like a "National" Stadium in Auckland than concentrating on making the country better for the people who live here.

The so-called "National" stadium will not be used and is more Labour trying to build a monument to their time in power than giving any benefit to the country. If Labour really cared about the people they would be spending the money they want to waste on this stadium on Healthcare education or even to stop this disgusting spiral of violence that is currently prevalent in our society.

Did anyone else know that it would be cheaper for Labour to fly 80,000 people to Sydney to watch the World Cup Final than it would be for them to build this stadium, now that is ridiculous in itself. Labour has continued with building on their ideas and not bringing about policies that will better the country, but what more could we expect from a group that use taxpayers money to get themselves reelected??

Smacking Poll

Well this is slightly unexpected, Stuff has a poll on whether parents should be able to smack their kids and it is currently running at 85% Yes and 11% No...these are huge numbers opposing the Section 59 Repeal.

Home Detention

What a load of bollocks, at a time when the rest of the country is screaming out for harsher sentences, we have the Labour Government increasing the use of Home Detention because it will increase savings. Well of course it will cost less to have them out in the community, but it will greatly increase the chance of them reoffending hence the social costs are much higher and then as the next step on from that if they reoffend they also cost more in the end when they end up getting punished for their new crimes...

Labour is out to make a quick buck, I say harsher sentences they say "Let them loose"

They are also extending the non-parole period to 2/3 of a sentence, but this is not going to make a difference when they are suggesting sentences cut by 25%... Hence an old 10 year sentce out after 3.3 years is now a 7.5 year sentence and they are out after 5...

Oh a very small increase and that is on a large sentence. a four year sentence out after 1.3years is now a 3 year sentence out after 2.

This is obscene... The link is here

IRD "Interest Free" Student Loans

Well here is a breaking story for all of you. Did you know that IRD charges us to make our loans interest free...??? Yup you heard it they whack on a certain amount every year as they write off our interest so its not free no matter what they try to say this is Bull, if they are going to call something free doesn't it have to be free according to the Commerce Commission???

LIOT Part IV: Education

Our Education system as it is currently stinks. NCEA has made a joke of everything, no longer do you fail you get a not achieved oh and they don't even appear on your final grade paper so you don't have to worry cause noone will see them in the future anyway. This is pathetiuc and then to top it all off our Tall Poppy syndome has extended into the class room, the top students are being punished, while yes they can get excellence if they got one easy question wrong, like I know I did in my days at school chances are they could fail the whole paper even if they get all the excellence and merit questions right, this is ludicrous and if they can use those ones as credit for lower marks then they lose the excellence that they should've got.

There needs to be a full overhaul of our education system NCEA does not work, and guess what, the one thing they said it would remove would be scaling, well it didn't even fix that they still have to scale marks...and then there are people who can get into university with pass grades in Work studies, Life Studies and "Communications English" what a load of crap. I personally think a drift back to Bursary/School C would be great, but noone would accept that so my idea is to hell with all the New Zealand Exam systems, lets use the Cambridge international exam systems...

Liot Part III: Helen the "Great" teacher

David Farrar has a great post on Learning from Helen and now I suppose also from Winston as his staff have burned all copies of the leaked Brash emails as they were worried about an ongoing police investigation, this is exactly what Helen's staff did when they heard about the painting forgery issue.

Now in Part II I discussed positive role models for our kids, these two are an extremely bad example of this not only did they break the law in the first place, but then they taught out youth that the best thing to do when the cops turn up is to burn the evidence or find some other way to destroy it...

And these are supposed to be the leaders of our country, great work guys.

LioT Part II: Violence & Crime

Violence is starting at younger and younger ages, the youth of today are growing up without good role models, they are not getting taught respect or responsibility at home and the country is slowly spiraling into a dark and dirty hole. If the violence in our society continues the way it is going soon it will not be safe to walk the streets at night without a gun in your pocket.

The problems as I see it are obvious, firstly the police are no longer respected in New Zealand a lot of this in my opinion has happened since the Traffic Officers got phased out, now that cops are being petty and having to control traffic as well they are seen as not doing their job properly and the government is more worried about them as revenue gatherers. Secondly our prison senetences are a joke, 17 years for murder??? and that is not counting that they can get out earlier than that for good behaviour after as little as 7 years. Our prisons are not tough enough, some of the criminals in prison have better treatment and lives than their families including little children on the outside. This is not right and something needs to be done about it. The soft punishments for crimes in New Zealand is starting to cause the violence...a huge number of criminals reoffend so obviously the rehabilitation is not working. So my system is simple...Sentences should be firstly a DETERENT to criminals, secondly a punishment and finally a rehabilitation, but this rehabilitation should be the last third of their sentence and no matter what they should serve out the whole thing from start to finish.

These measures would actually start to deter criminals from committing crimes. As far as I know from my experience at University it is widely accepted that Humans are cost/benefit rationalising beings, therefore if the cost is too high they are less likely to commit the crimes in the first place.

But at the same time something needs to be done to make sure these kids have positive role models from an early age, even if this means communtiy leaders working within their communtities directly and noticing at risk kids early on and helping the parents to keep them out of trouble and setting them on the right path for life. we have heard in the news lately that it is the fault of Alcohol, well this is a poor tradesman blaming his tools. These criminals need to accept personal responsibility for their actions. But while saying it is not society's fault that these criminals are doing this, I think it is now society's problem and we have to deal with it as a group.

Life in our Times Part I

Well this is going to be nothing more than a rant and may lead to a viable discussion, but we shall see.

Right now the world is getting more violent, our school system is a joke, the government would rather spend money on a white elephant for Auckland than anything else, PC is running rife, Helen lies cheats and steals, and the rest of the Labour party can do anything and get away with it because the people of New Zealand in general are stupid.

I cannot for the life of me understand after all of the bad things that happened during the last six years how the New Zealand Public could vote Labour back into power again.

Over the last six years, Unemployment has gone down, well no actually it hasn't the total number of those unemployed has skyrocketed, Labour just found ways to put them on sickness benefits. Violent Crime has increased a lot. The PC brigade is stomping down on everything, more money is being given to minority groups even since Labour said they would stop funding based on race, oh and continuing on that line, Maori Quotas at Universities have increased. These "Reverse" Discriminations are not fair and are still discriminations and they actually end up hurting the people they are supposed to be hurting. The people they are supposed to be helping end up thinking that they are not as good as others thats why the government thinks they need these grants, quotas etc.

The Economy has not risen to the heights expected, and even though it has been risaing the whole time labour has been in power it has been steadily flattening whereas pre '96 the economy was rising something close to exponentially.

In General the Country is going to the dogs and something needs to be done about it.

Bush to NZ???

President Bush may be coming to New Zealand next year to hold a forum with the pacific leaders to try and find a way forward for the Pacific as a whole.

This has just been announced by Helen Clark, but as she says it was only an informal idea, so chances are it will never happen...Just like the Waterfront stadium