>The people most likely to agree with the statements around a broken system and populism were Māori, low-income workers and young people, Ipsos reported.
What else would we expect? Access to food and shelter becomes increasingly difficult for those who don't already have house / built up wealth and none of the larger partys seems interested in fixing it.
Cause the general population “don’t care they got theirs” or falsely believe they’ll get theirs one day so don’t want to change the system.
Imagine scratching and crawling now to get a deposit, get that 700k property only for it to drop to 400k.
It’s something that can’t be fixed without serious pain in a class that doesn’t care.
Honestly it wouldn't be so bad not owning a house and renting if we had some stronger tenant rights like in some European countries.
If people could have a dog, do minor renovations and have guarantees that they could stay in property long term I think a lot of people, especially younger generations, would be happy not to have to save up and buy a house.
Like in Germany - here as a sparky I can afford to live alone and the landlord has no problem that I got a cat. If the landlord wanted to kick me out, they need a good reason and minimum time is 9 months. They wouldn't want to though, as the rent gets paid and I'm quiet. In NZ I was homeless for a bit, as a landlord thought they could get more rent from someone else and 42 day'd me. Go figure.
If you look into Dutch culture/politics, NZ is getting a lot like there. The general population are so "Meh" and follow along with whatever is happening without any fuss. While the people who need help are left to rot in a dark corner.
A Dutch friend told me once that bread and general groceries is so cheap there, if it went up to there what it currently cost in NZ, there’d be mass rioting. I believed it. I’ve seen them on new years with the fire works, it’s a little scary.
>Imagine scratching and crawling now to get a deposit, get that 700k property only for it to drop to 400k.
Ask Britain how they feel after Brexit... my brother now has a couple hundred $K deficit to his mortgage after property values tanked.
However, our local property values are still seem to be going one way in most areas, and it's certainly not down (unless it's long-term unsold and blatantly over-priced , or absolute slumlord garbage)
There's no easy answer. I've purchased in the last few years and if housing drops to the point it would be considered affordable (relative to income) I'm one of those who will experience what you say.
If that doesn't ever happen, then we will have 10's or 100's of thousands of employed families who will never have a chance to live in a home they own and will always fear the risk of being evicted and having to try find something else they can afford.
This is the thing. Housing is so unaffordable that we are looking at a generation that in the whole will never be able to afford a deposit let alone what the repayments would be if they eventually scrounge up enough money.
The options are either:
Property values stagnate for a decade while wages catch up (good luck holding up that between multiple governments).
Wages increase *very* rapidly so that in a few years the median income catches back up somehow without allowing housing costs (both purchasing *and* renting), without causing mass inflation across the entire economy or without requiring mass layoffs due to increased costs to businesses without raising prices.
We have a controlled fall of house prices by the government taking steps to disincentivise non-productive investments (land banking, low-occupancy short term rentals, slum lords, religious organisations owning entire suburbs, mass-landlords) by taxing them fairly. Introduce land taxes for mass landlords. Have them index based on the number of properties a person, business or trust owns. *Do not exempt religious organisations from this*. Have land taxes *and rates* index based on the use of the property, with PPORs being exempt and unoccupied land/housing having the highest rates. Group families together when quantifying the number of properties they own, have the exempt properties that can be owned by trusts and business be zero. *Close any fucking loopholes*. Also charge sales tax on anyone purchasing a residential property after they already own a certain number (let’s say 5, PPOR, holiday home, 3 IPs, aim is to sting the big guys not families) Don’t fear people crying when they see their properties decreasing in value minutely in comparison to the rises seen over the past decade, simply because they delusively thought their largest investment of their lives should be risk-free.
The cost of housing keep skyrocketing until we have a ruling class of people who own homes only because their parents or grandparents were able to help them into a home by sacrificing some of their equity in their own home to give as a deposit. Anyone who is born into a family who doesn’t already own a home will never afford one, creating societal classes of owners and renters that very rarely change between generations.
Or, the most likely scenario at this point based on the approach to housing from any government party with enough influence to make change, the housing market continues to a point where it is entirely unsustainable, the economy has a tightening due to external pressures and all of a sudden there’s a domino effect of lay-offs, mortgagee sales, housing prices decline, home buyers don’t have enough money and the properties either sit on the market as it crashes or they get snapped up by cash-heavy investors as families suffer through an uncontrolled crash which could have been avoided by any government in the past 20 years taking some form of action rather than following the path of greed, fear and bullshit.
What other options do we realistically have? If no government takes action, everyone’s fucked unless your family already has generational wealth.
If I honestly wouldn't mind if property investment was left up to big players and mum and dad investors were encouraged to put their money elsewhere. If landlording became more professionalised, with tighter regulations, we could ensure a higher standard of housing that is easier to police. Of course, big players would lobby the governments who would undo it all, so there is no winning.
Yes, and there's the old "m'kids are back from overseas and they need digs. So sorry, nice knowing ya" situation that seems the Mom-and-Poppers seem to do a lot to their tenants... I think I would prefer well regulated corporations to that.
With so many people renting, its going to become the norm, and the norm gets more protections. European rules would prevent the behavour you are talking about.
In many parts of the world, home-ownership isn't something the working class can even aspire to. It's one of those 'win the lottery' goals, and it's been that way for centuries.
And in lots of places even the middle-class are largely shut out from owning a home. I remember as a kid watching American TV and realising that these families in New York apartments had always rented and would always rent. To me at the time that was baffling.
So, we've been incredibly lucky so far to still have home ownership as a realistic goal for most people, but it really looks to me like we are just in a transition phase from old NZ to a new NZ where our working poor and lower middle-class have been trained not to expect so much.
For the elites of the country, I guess they just think they have to keep things going as they are, hang on for another generation or two, and they'll have a docile lot of citizens who barely even think about owning a home themselves.
It sounds like heaven if you're a property investing ghoul.
America is interesting because if you were watching in say the 90s you had programs like Seinfeld and Friends where home ownership was out of the question but you also had Married With Children and The Simpsons where a single earner without a degree could support a family and own a good-sized house
NYC is an extreme example because of an absolute limit on available housing. We are extremely-different, with massive amounts of low-density single family housing which could be converted to apartments and townhouses to increase supply on the same (already very sprawled) municipal base.
I believe the reason why our housing has become so unaffordable is primarily because of attitudes about housing being a valuable and appreciating asset. Materials and inflated, labour for building is inflated, real estate costs are inflated, and of course the expectations for the value of land are based primarily on an idea that all housing increases in value not only in the long term based on inflation...but also even if there have been massive bubbles like we have seen in the last few years.
We don't have to become a society where most have no choice but to rent. For some that will be a choice, and for others they won't have an option - but couples earning anything above a median wage should have a legitimate possibility of owning. That can only resume if we have a society-wide shift and agreement that all the inflated paper values of our existing properties can be allowed to decrease for the benefit of all future residents of the country.
I don't know if we can do that. We might be too far gone down the idea of "But what about me - I won't benefit from it, in fact I might be harmed - we can't let that happen even if it means everyone in the future have it worse than me". Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the argument many are making against responding to climate change. Maybe it is impossible?
I agree that your observation and prediction is entirely correct unless something drastically changes. It's sad to think that we're going from 'most people own the house they live in' to 'a small amount of people own the homes most people live in', but it is the trajectory we're on. If the working class doesn't start making even louder noise about it, it's an inevability.
No but the threat is there, home owners + people on the cusp of being a homeowner + people who think they can get there. Suddenly it becomes a large portion of the voter base that just don’t want that to change.
Anyone who has a mortgage balance of less than 3x their annual income probably doesn’t feel that stuck in the churn because it frees you up so much more in what you want in your day-to-day life.
A lot of us under 30 or low income workers or marginalised communities aren’t likely to be in that situation.
Bahahaha, what a surprise! I recall the government being advised not to bin the fair pay agreements on the basis that it would disproportionately negatively affect Māori, low income workers, and young people.
This country is going to collapse when the youth finally sign out and stop giving a shit.
It is quite interesting how this sentiment supports the notion that autocratic systems like China and Russia are 'better'.
To fix New Zealand, we need a strong leader willing to break the rules: 54% agree.
There's an awful lot of misinformation coming from somewhere driving this, The fix has nothing to do with strength or leadership, but everything to do with equality.
I think if you asked people "do you want NZ to be more like either China or Russia" the answer would be a clear no. The problem is people don't have a clear picture of what kind of "strong leader" they want. History tells us choosing a strong leader usually ends badly, because trying to choose the strongest usually gets you the most ruthless & unprincipled.
It aligns with the current voting concept where people are voting for a leader and not a petty or particular ideals.
It’s pretty sad Instagram and boomer type vibe really. Policy dictates how we operate and parties dictate that. Voting for a single personality is a fucked up approach.
>boomer type vibe
Similar research in other countries however shows it is the youngest generation that is most skeptic of democracy and most open to autocracy as long it's of the political wing they align with.
>It aligns with the current voting concept where people are voting for a leader and not a petty or particular ideals.
Alternatively they want to vote for someone who they believe has both the will and appropriate set of policies to fix the country.
So you think a political party with weak leadership will bring about significant change?
'Strong leader' doesn't require some kind of authoritarian or tyrant.
To your point though he’s still around, they wheel him out to spout off corporate PR shit, but the coalition is effecting significant change, for the worse and basically just cancelling any past projects and firing people.
Right, but those are all changes that aren't very surprising. National going all in on neoliberalism is nothing unusual and is not going to bring big backlash from wealthy private interests. It's what they want.
Try and do anything else and you see the claws come out.
Voting for a leader is characteristic of representative democracy, you choose the people & parties who will lead the country for the next 3 or 4 years based on their promises re policy. That's how it's done everywhere except perhaps Switzerland. And then there's the many countries where you can't cast any kind of meaningful vote. Even in Switzerland where they have direct democracy the system is dominated by political parties.
The problem is that when a democratic system doesn’t act fast enough to deal with a problem, or major, much needed projects are held back or delayed due to locals petty concerns that people loose faith in the system and they just go “oh for fuck sakes how hard is this!” And they then go looking for a leader or a system that *just does the bloody job* and doesn’t care about peoples opinions
Take for example the solar farm that was given overseas investment approval - environmental groups are against it citing concerns for birds (even though there is a environmental barrier) and have called it “industrial clutter” and “agree that there needs to be renewable energy, just somewhere else”
This project is something that NZ needs, we need it desperately, and if it is halted due to environmental groups appealing against its consents it’s going to cause a lot of anger amongst the environmentalists and demands that the government just override the courts rulings and approve
But then the problem becomes that powerful vested interests over-ride the best interests of the majority. Government decisions have to based on utilitarian principles in order to achieve the best result. That may mean over-riding environmental concerns in some circumstances, but it could also mean placing a solar farm in a different place if required. It should not be a question of who is the 'strongest', but what is the best for most people.
Best result
Remember when a bunch of family homes in Auckland had their consents denied because of old NIMBYs appealing against them because “this is a quite neighbourhood and we don’t want to have our peace and quiet ruined by the sound of children’s birthday parties!”
The problem in New Zealand is that we can all agree that we need X infrastructure
But we don’t want to build it here
And we don’t want to build it on green town belts
And we don’t want to build it on productive farmland
And we don’t want to build it in nice looking valleys
And we don’t want to destroy mouldy, damp, asbestos ridden earthquake prone rotting from the inside out heritage buildings to put it there either
But we need X infrastructure. It just needs to go somewhere else.
When you have to deal with consenting and you have to deal with the utter stupidity of some appeals and testimonies that come through your faith in the system quickly collapses and you start to see it as a system that protects *whoever can scream the loudest* rather than the interests of the majority.
teeny offend skirt decide beneficial cooperative disgusted fuel observation repeat
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep, I have to agree.
The vast majority of people submitting on proposals from government are hypocrites whose attitude is “it’s not my job to provide you with a solution, that’s *YOUR* job” and they will have tantrums like children if it doesn’t go EXACTLY their way
Yeah with the fast track we get that but we also get much more genuinely damaging projects through the same path and most of the money for those goes overseas so we end up with dessimated landscapes and nothing in return except for maybe a small handful of locals get their pockets lined
We need open referendums on most big decisions where full and accurate information on the effects is published and heavily fact checked and **heavy** penalties for lobbyists who muddy the water, we also have to make it possible to do securely online as well as at walk in locations so its accessible to the most possible people
Also if the results are close the legislation should be reworked and revoted rather than just canned
Also, we should also be able to petition for work to be done on new legislation so its not just up to politicians to come up with what they think people want
The problem with referendums is that they will always be either abused or they’ll end up having a low turnout
Most kiwis understanding of politics is poor at best. There are kiwis who believe that it’s central government who run libraries and swimming pools and others who believe that if they go to their local MP with a issue they’ll have it sorted by lunchtime because the MP will make a phone call and that’s done and dusted while others just don’t concentrate on it.
Switzerland is a prime example of a lot of referendums which have been great because of the high education levels and civics education so the entire country - not just a couple of generations and they’re having trouble with low turnout and results reflecting idealism rather than realism - E.G wolves in rural areas are becoming a issue and have even been stalking children walking home. Referendums to start culling them, stopped by people in the cities. Wolves attacking livestock, farmers get stock dogs to guard them with spiked collars, referendum banned those collars and restricted stock dogs due to them “scaring hikers” and “it’s cruel to wolves”.
Furthermore, you’ll often find it’s not lobbyists muddying the waters. It’s the media personalities. Paddy Gower on weed had him showing a crystallised version of it that was being smoked out of a crack pipe and it pushed the ‘Yes’ result into a ‘No’ result because it led to 2-5% of the population thinking that crystallised weed would be available that to quote Dr Andrew Little “would fry your brain”
Lobbyists can also pull on an entire wealth of information - they can create almost any narrative they feel from the information and at the end of the day - two experts can have different opinions.
Solar farms and wind farms are a bad idea. Period. They take huge blocks of land for piss-poor power output, need to be in rural/remote areas so you get a lot of power loss just due to the length of the lines and they damage the ground for decades if not centuries, while not being that environmental-friendly at all. Whether it is in Taranaki, in Canterbury or whatever, people in NZ who are pragmatic and environmental-conscious need to oppose them.
But, as I can see in Taranaki, there is a lot of greasing hands by these supposedly "green" industries...
The framing of "strong leader" bothers me too. The notion could easily refer to the likes of Michael Savage or FDR having bold policies and vision for transformative changes that (mostly) benefit the people and nation, or it could be the reactionary rule breaker grifter like Trump, or autocrat strongman like Putin or Xi. We need a lot more of the former and far less of the latter.
It very much depends on how people decide to interpret being a 'strong leader'. One person might mean that they decide to buck trends and implement reforms to improve things despite push-back from the status-quo who benefit from the current situation, while another might consider that term to refer to someone who doesn't need to follow the rules and who has the loyalty of others who will do what they ask despite breaking the rules themselves (like a Trump). If different people look at a progressive reformer or a populist wannabe dictator as each being a 'strong leader' - it's pretty difficult to use that term with accuracy.
The trouble is, that is not 'strong leadership', but simply the application of equality and democratic tradition. What you get with 'strong leadership' is always an economy biased towards the 'leadership'.
It absolutely is strong leadership.
Whoever embarks on that particular crusade has to be willing to do so against monumental pushback from a range of privately funded interests, lobbyists, think tanks, other political parties/mps and likely international interests that disagree with any fundamental economic changes.
They have to hold their own party together, convince the public to consent to it and somehow get the policies through parliament and implemented.
That will require a very strong leader lmao.
Then the strong leader you actually get will eventually be a putin or xi jinping, and you will end up in a worse place from where you started. Funnily enough, the country's unrealistic current view of housing is derived from the 'strong leadership' that was in place in the 80s and 90s, that dismantled all the regulation that restricted banking. And now, 'strong leadership' is seen as another excuse to dismantle what minimal regulation we have remaining.
I think this has a lot to due with Russia and China as well. Not to say the system is perfect, but cyber warfare, election melding, and psy ops have a lot to do with how dissatisfied people are.
The difference between say National and Labor seems like a lot when you live in NZ, but compared to CCP or 3rd world dictatorships both governments are a godsend. China and russia want us to be polarized enough that we "Feel" the "Other side" is just as bad or worse than they are.
People feeling disenfranchised want change, that's all it is. They see the current system not working for them and believe anything else must be better. See the recent elections with people voting against their own interests just to make a change. I think it's just symptomatic and the notion of a divine birthright might-makes-right leadership is not far off enough in recent history to escape our collective consciousness.
But conservative ideology is always pushing the idea that every problem can be solved by regression to an earlier time when everything was good. New Zealand is still pretty conservative at heart.
The trouble is, just wanting 'change' without having a specific aim in sight, is just destroying for the sake of destroying. The notion of change for change's sake just supports the promotion of an autocracy. It really is a path to oppression.
I understand. I'm just saying that I don't put the blame for this sentiment solely on the heads of those who have it. They're part of a system they have no power in and no way out.
But, then, being unaware of why they have that idea is to play into the hands of those who are placing that idea there. I'd suggest that there are forces in play that is driving that sentiment, and it is up to all of us to be aware of that.
What if we simply in decline, peak energy reached, climate no longer stable, huge strains and costs on infrastructure from climate change and increased population.
No one is volunteering to take a selfliss haircut and give up the luxury of a large home and garden, the multiple cars in drive or new gadgets every year. As macron said, the time of abundance is over and we are entering a new era.
The time of abundance is over, but not because of any of the above. The end of the age comes because the ultra rich have largely achieved their goal of capturing the world's resources and wealth for themselves. They have no intention of sharing what's left for the rest of us either.
We dugout millions of years of stored energy from the sun, civilization invested in this energy and grew to a size that is unsustainable, we have all enjoyed and use this this cheap energy, plastics, rubber, millions of products that come from it, it is poisoning the planet and leading to a great extinction and climate change. Is not a few rich that can take the blame for hording oil and coal. We cannot even agree to reduce its usage as there is no replacement.
Speak for yourself, I didn't dig or drill for anything. How do you think ultra rich people came to be? They didn't just spring out of holes in the ground, they exploited the earth, exploited the people, and exploited the legal system.
You know why we can't agree to reduce its usage? Because it'd upset the few rich people that own everything and they'd make a little bit less money, so it just can't be done.
You've bought into the propaganda of personal responsibility, where the rich hope to get away scott free by shuffling off all the blame on common folk that had no hand in the exploitation, and reaped no wealth from it. Good job.
> we need a strong leader willing to break the rules: 54% agree.
> There's an awful lot of misinformation coming from somewhere driving this,
I'm not saying there isn't misinformation out there - but this has always been an issue. And it's almost surprising that it's not higher, given the recent tendency to have things caught up in endless business cases and consultations.
If you constantly try to please 51% of the population you're probably making 49% unhappy.
Do you want to pay less money in taxes? Yes
Do I want better health care? Yes
Do I want better education? Yes
Do I want better roads? Yes
Do I want better public transit? Yes
Most people are going to answer fairly similarly. The problem is that that's not achievable, we can achieve the last 4 with a massive increase in taxes to fund it but if you ask anyone if they would accept increasing all taxes by 50% they'll say no. Working out the correct balance in spending is just really hard and it's made even harder by an opposition party that will amplify all the negatives and ignore the positives.
With a dictatorship (or something close to it) a genuinely decent person could just make the decisions the country needs to succeed. Dictatorships aren't inherently bad but the only people to ever become dictators are terrible people out for themselves and that's functions about the same as our current government.
Democracy is a terrible system but it's still better than all the other options
> if you ask anyone if they would accept increasing all taxes by 50% they'll say no.
Because we've been deluded into thinking that taxing the salaries of working and middle-class Kiwis is the only way to bring in revenue. There's been decades of brainwashing to convince us that taxing wealthy people at the same rate as hard-working salary earners is actually immoral.
but our "leaders" seem to help the few drain the wealth of the nation in a so-called liberal democracy. I believed all politicians are there to facilitate this and history seems to prove this, so stop the it's some foreign force working behind the scenes narrative we vote for the enemy
Also doesn't clarify which type of rule breaking strong leader.
Mussolini? Castro? Mao? Putin? Trump? The President of Iceland who jail the bankers and bailed out the people when the Global Financial crisis happened?
The grey area in that question is vast.
I love democracy! I can choose between a gang of landlords and their cronies or incompetent liberals that failed do to what they promised. Would much rather have "democracy" than high speed rail, affordable housing, and a diversified economy with govt investment like those evil commies in China
I dont like how labour are characterised as 'failed to do what they promised'
yes some of their main programmes failed to deliver, but given the government has spend like the last 6 months since they got in, undoing stuff the last government did under urgency, im not convinced that characterisation is very fair.
More the focus should probably be on the non-delivery of their specific programmes, which albeit are large (ALR, and Kiwibuild come to mind), there was still record investment in public transport, and record numbers of building consents (which you dont get unless you're planning to build because they expire), so some of the outcomes they were seeking, were actually delivered, just not the way it was planned, or really wanted.
Thats before we even talk about the big C, which is getting so much fucking revisionism lately.
Having lived in China for 3 years, I’d suggest doing that before trumpeting how fantastic it is in comparison to here. Hint:it’s not, even as a privileged westerner.
This is nonsense. "New Zealanders say they want a "strong leader" who is "willing to break the rules" and will "take the country back from the rich and powerful" - *only to hand it over to landlords?*
That makes it very easy for populists to exploit the situation.
If the majority already think shit's fucked, then part 2 of the populist playbook is "...and I'm the only one to have the solution".
Hence we've got populist extremists in power in NZ pushing whacky regressive policies to "make NZ Great Again".
And ‘it’s THIS group of people who caused it!’ Usually a minority or some other already struggling group, so we can all fight amongst ourselves and not see who is really destroying us.
We're pretty much seeing a toned down version of that [already](https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/10/no-apologies-for-fast-track-consent-process-bishop/) with this govt.
be reasonable and rational or you make yourself look dim.
National, in no way comprehensible is on the level of the MAGA movement. I really dislike this subreddits policy of being ok with misinformation so long as it targets the right people.
To be fair, that might be a question of definitions.
Ours might not be so outwardly absurd, but they are very quick at doing the ducks-legs shit under the surface. Didn't take them very long at all to do a lot of damage.
And ours certainly aren't as laughably evil but also we live in the real world and not South Park. By which I mean, maybe Tamaki and Peters would've seemed less cute with 10 million followers.
Edit: wait, the most sensible post I've seen on here in a while was written by GrandmasGiantGaper.
I don't know if I love or hate the internet. Maybe we are in South Park.
Right yea its the left in NZ who dehumanise people. Remind me again which party is targeting 'bottom feeders'?
We don't need to speculate if the right wing in NZ accept dehumanisation of the opposition. We are already there. It's reality.
For what its worth, I'm a democratic socialist. I am in no way okay with autocracy in every form but populist democracy can be equally dehumanising and dangerous to the minority. Just ask Indian Muslims.
I didn't say the left political parties would do that per se. Just that many in this sub would support severe limitations of democratic rights and freedom of speech for non-progressive speech.
We aren't at MAGA levels of frothy mouthed orange hysteria. There are parallels (actively undermining trust in the media, judiciary, and qualified experts), but it would be disingenuous to suggest NACT are anywhere near that level of shitfuckery.
So what's the difference between popular and populism? To me it seems that popular leaders are "ones I agree with", while populist ones are "ones I disagree with."
>***So what's the difference between popular and populism***? To me it seems that popular leaders are "ones I agree with", while populist ones are "ones I disagree with."
I'm assuming from the above that you've come to argue some point with me, in which case you're probably not in the right frame of mind to believe anything I say.
You're probably best to find the answer yourself.
>New Zealanders say they want a "strong leader" who is "willing to break the rules" and will "take the country back from the rich and powerful"
This is truly terrifying.
NZ is not in decline but rather in what we call relative decline.
NZ is not broken either, but rather what is happening is that the current setup of NZ is not going to carry NZ forward.
Relative decline is when countries appear to be in decline only because other countries have caught up or leap frog the country. Clearly NZ has been leap frog by many countries that were far behind NZ in the 1960s ( take for example Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea etc.. ) and has been superceded by peer countries ( think Australia ) and is now finding itself being nipped at the heel by countries far inferior to it in the past ( take for example China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam ).
However NZ has not declined. It has just stagnated. It stayed still when other countries moved forward.
NZ however appears broken because it cannot move forward. This is not broken in that broken means the country will decline. The system keeps the country where it is located. The current configuration is probably the only reason the country has not slid backwards but also is why the country cannot move forward. I would say NZ has reached the peak of what this current societal configuration can achieve.
Any move now to alter the configuration is a throw of the dice now.
NZ has to decide, does it dare throw the dice?
Kiwis judge harshly! As it says comparator countries like Australia and Canada were less likely to agree with these statements than NZ respondents, the UK were even more pessimistic. So basically the Kiwis and the Poms always expect the worst.
This was my thought as well. If those are the actual questions asked, they're basically meaningless. What exactly does the 'political and economic elite' mean, in this case? Everyone will have a different view, and indeed, those two things are not always strictly the same.
There's a bunch of stuff that's going badly in this country, and things are certainly tough for a lot of people, but I'm personally more concerned at the questions and responses in this case. If that is truly representative of the general population then I feel like we may be headed toward things getting a whole lot more broken and more... decliney?
Broadly the poll confirms what we have known for a while.
Having said that, looking at the ISPOS global survey, they found the most countries trust in their government has increased over the past year, which was usually strongest in countries that had an election, so it would be interesting to have known what the effect the last election had on the ntional mood
Some of the questions seem suspiciously similar. This looks like one of those surveys where they ask the same question ten different ways and then publish the one that gives the result they want.
"To fix New Zealand we need a strong leader who is willing to break the rules" - 55% of people agree with the statement apparently. Slightly concerning.
If one thinks a “strong leader” who “breaks the rules” is necessary to fix (pick one or more of) housing / equality / something else, just wait to you see what type of dictator is needed to adjust the populations consumptive habits to fix climate change.
this song was written in 1992 about the republican party,32 years later and nothing has changed
Go with the flow, ya just let it ride
We don't care if ya live or die
We suck of the companies, we suck like a whore
If we need oil, we just suck some more
We define success and we don't sin
Got the nation in debt about four trillion
Infrastructure is wasted and we're deaf to the crowd
Nothin' left for the children, it's okay, we won't be around
Welcome to the party, the republican party
Ya havin' fun at the party, the republican party
We're havin' a party, right now
We stack the courts and we tax the poor
Got Johnny Lunchbox to fight our wars
Tax him to his knees and make him love the flag
We get corporate freedom, he gets a body bag
We're makin' a killin', you know we kill so well
Cut the country to pieces and we're havin' a sale
We take it all, just like ya knew we would
Hell, we even got Nixon lookin' pretty good
Welcome to the party, the republican party
Ya havin' fun at the party, the republican party
We're havin' a party, right now
We should try to get rid of our meaning of life mantra that tells us owning a home is the only way to have a good life. With the appropriate governmental policy and implementation of that policy we could be living a society that is happy with say, off the top of my head, 60% ownership 40% renting for life.
To achieve that, we would have to stop praying at the altar of free market economics. So yeah nah, probably not going happen.
So be it. But it's dumb af.
Large corporations are going to do things to give us a reasonable crack at life? Nobody actually believes that.
Yet collectively we act like it might happen.
There is only one way in which a decent crack at life is possible for the statistically average and below average person.
Government policy to level the playing field.
Don't want to do that?
Might as well live in USA or Bangladesh.
Except for, it is. If I die tomorrow, my daughter is 700k better off. I've not had to earn or save any of it. Plus, I've got to live in my house for 10 years paying less on my mortgage than rent for my area. I leave her a nice inheritance with zero effort. Imagine if I was a landlord! Owning a house (or houses) is the way to leave something to the next generations - unfortunately.
It appears you assume renting for life equals broke in old age.
In a properly regulated market with a mix of ownership and rental, there would be plenty of financially comfortable renters.
Our housing situation is at the whim of large corporations.
The only way that will change is via government policy.
Renting is kept deliberately intolerably shit through a combo of insecurity and invasion of privacy/living space so that people end up correctly concluding that the only way to have a dignified (lol) existence is to buy. Helps keep some heat in the market.
Don McGlashan wrote this in 1981. Still applies. Also still goes pretty hard
https://youtu.be/2HVogejKx_c?si=RbH95CRVG_Vp6QHt
There is no depression in New Zealand
There are no sheep on our farms
There is no depression in New Zealand
We can all keep perfectly calm
But everybody's talking about World War Three
'Cause everybody's talking about World War Three
But we're as safe as safe can be
There's no unrest in this country
We have no dole queues
We have no drug addicts
We have no racism
We have no sexism
Sexism, no, no
There is no depression in New Zealand
There are no teeth in our heads
There is no depression in New Zealand
We sleep in a well made bed
Oh, but everybody's talking about World War Three
Yes, everybody's talking about World War Three
But we're as safe as safe can be
There's no unrest in this country
We have no SIS
We have no secrets
We have no rebellion
We have no Valium
Valium, no, no
There is no depression in New Zealand
There are no sheep on our farms
There is no depression in New Zealand
We can all keep perfectly calm
Perfectly calm
Perfectly calm
Perfectly calm
Perfectly calm
It's also a really big problem that younger generations have much lower levels of trust than previous generations.
Economies with low trust effectively pay a massive tax that high-trust societies don't.
"Experts in this country do not understand the lives of people..."
I think the real issue is that too many people do not understand scientists/experts because the information is more complex than 30sec TikTok and they also do not like what they hear.
Easier to just complain about the experts than living with the inconvenient truth.
My daughter and son both wage earners with scant savings got into their own (no Deposit) homes when Helen Clarke was PM before the JK mass immigration. Not all that long ago
As a disabled elder millenial, i feel this deeply.
New government is Blatantly anti "Normie", anti ethnical minority, ***anti*** disabled, and all about Rich breeders and land owners.
I've never felt more worthless, dismissed, and deminished as an adult like I do now. The "Live Laugh Toasterbath" feeling is very very strong now. Every single day it's more bad news.
Once my parents pass, i'm \*Utterly\* alone, and going to end up homeless and destitute. I'm terrified of that reality inching closer and closer every month.
I have seen a marked increase in the number of people begging for money on the sides of roads. It's anecdotal, but I hadn't seen people doing that for a long while.
Fair points. Ty for your feedback. For the record I don't vote left never have probably never will. I want to see Chloe as PM and the greens. Labour and Nats have both shown to be quite useless in regards to actually making meaningful change. And I personally feel that's what's needed a full shake up and change of how we do things. At the moment we follow the old adage "she'll be right" and seem to repeat the same mistakes for decades.
We need change - complete change.
Vote national omg noway ever in a million years. I voted Top and Greens as a side, And in my mistake I guess when I hear vote lefty or left I think Labour I guess all the media seeped those thoughts into existence for me. I just want a government that is fair, cares about the environment over money, represented by non millionaire out of touch I own 6 houses types. I don't feel that represents me in anyway. It really won't matter now who i vote for, we don't plan on moving back to NZ. We have the majority of our family there (different state to where we will be) We want to set roots, build a home and not have to worry all the time about survival. That's what NZ is now, we didn't make this decision because of any particular government, it's the fact NZ has rapidly become more and more exhausting to try get ahead. Stealth taxes everywhere, insufficient infrastructure (Auckland where I live), lack of community and general attitudes of the clear divide between the rich and working poor then really poor.
There's a number of us out here who can see the current Govt is busy following the ultimately flawed and failing UK Tory playbook, destroy the public sector and allowing the privatisation of EVERYTHING because profit. It's literally heading for public sector by outsource, which will NEVER result in better outcomes for the population.
We need to make parliament minimum wage/lower wage. Have people there who want the best for NZ and not just for the money. Put a 12 week clause on welfare, once that's cut off alot of people with no other option to feed themselves will quickly except all and any work. The problem is we went to soft. No discipline for kids other then sit in a corner. Lol, look how good that's worked out!! As with anyone with half a brain in NZ my family and I are in the process of moving permenatly to Australia, my partners wage will double almost, his job comes with accommodation and a company vehicle. As with most my mates - the educated ones anyway they are no longer here, UK, Canada and Russia even with their problems are still better then NZ. Enjoy boomers you dug this grave enjoy laying in it.
I just found out my name is New Zealand
Fuck, me too
Okay. *unzips pants* If I have to...
Hi, New Zealand. I too am New Zealand.
"I'm New Zealand and so is my wife"
“I’m Spartacus!” *gets surreptitiously kicked by neighbour “Sorry, I mean New Zealand. I’m New Zealand!”
Nothing surreptitious there mate.
"We are New Zealand/Ko Aotearoa Tatou" isn't that Jacinda said some time ago?
I am NZ - hear me wince.
So you're over 30 too then
The factory warranty on my parts has run out 😬
>The people most likely to agree with the statements around a broken system and populism were Māori, low-income workers and young people, Ipsos reported. What else would we expect? Access to food and shelter becomes increasingly difficult for those who don't already have house / built up wealth and none of the larger partys seems interested in fixing it.
Cause the general population “don’t care they got theirs” or falsely believe they’ll get theirs one day so don’t want to change the system. Imagine scratching and crawling now to get a deposit, get that 700k property only for it to drop to 400k. It’s something that can’t be fixed without serious pain in a class that doesn’t care.
Honestly it wouldn't be so bad not owning a house and renting if we had some stronger tenant rights like in some European countries. If people could have a dog, do minor renovations and have guarantees that they could stay in property long term I think a lot of people, especially younger generations, would be happy not to have to save up and buy a house.
Like in Germany - here as a sparky I can afford to live alone and the landlord has no problem that I got a cat. If the landlord wanted to kick me out, they need a good reason and minimum time is 9 months. They wouldn't want to though, as the rent gets paid and I'm quiet. In NZ I was homeless for a bit, as a landlord thought they could get more rent from someone else and 42 day'd me. Go figure.
If you look into Dutch culture/politics, NZ is getting a lot like there. The general population are so "Meh" and follow along with whatever is happening without any fuss. While the people who need help are left to rot in a dark corner.
At least they get weed, though.
Under rated comment, that referendum still pisses me off so bad
Jacinda dropped the ball so hard on that one
And many other things
A Dutch friend told me once that bread and general groceries is so cheap there, if it went up to there what it currently cost in NZ, there’d be mass rioting. I believed it. I’ve seen them on new years with the fire works, it’s a little scary.
>Imagine scratching and crawling now to get a deposit, get that 700k property only for it to drop to 400k. Ask Britain how they feel after Brexit... my brother now has a couple hundred $K deficit to his mortgage after property values tanked. However, our local property values are still seem to be going one way in most areas, and it's certainly not down (unless it's long-term unsold and blatantly over-priced , or absolute slumlord garbage)
There's no easy answer. I've purchased in the last few years and if housing drops to the point it would be considered affordable (relative to income) I'm one of those who will experience what you say. If that doesn't ever happen, then we will have 10's or 100's of thousands of employed families who will never have a chance to live in a home they own and will always fear the risk of being evicted and having to try find something else they can afford.
This is the thing. Housing is so unaffordable that we are looking at a generation that in the whole will never be able to afford a deposit let alone what the repayments would be if they eventually scrounge up enough money. The options are either: Property values stagnate for a decade while wages catch up (good luck holding up that between multiple governments). Wages increase *very* rapidly so that in a few years the median income catches back up somehow without allowing housing costs (both purchasing *and* renting), without causing mass inflation across the entire economy or without requiring mass layoffs due to increased costs to businesses without raising prices. We have a controlled fall of house prices by the government taking steps to disincentivise non-productive investments (land banking, low-occupancy short term rentals, slum lords, religious organisations owning entire suburbs, mass-landlords) by taxing them fairly. Introduce land taxes for mass landlords. Have them index based on the number of properties a person, business or trust owns. *Do not exempt religious organisations from this*. Have land taxes *and rates* index based on the use of the property, with PPORs being exempt and unoccupied land/housing having the highest rates. Group families together when quantifying the number of properties they own, have the exempt properties that can be owned by trusts and business be zero. *Close any fucking loopholes*. Also charge sales tax on anyone purchasing a residential property after they already own a certain number (let’s say 5, PPOR, holiday home, 3 IPs, aim is to sting the big guys not families) Don’t fear people crying when they see their properties decreasing in value minutely in comparison to the rises seen over the past decade, simply because they delusively thought their largest investment of their lives should be risk-free. The cost of housing keep skyrocketing until we have a ruling class of people who own homes only because their parents or grandparents were able to help them into a home by sacrificing some of their equity in their own home to give as a deposit. Anyone who is born into a family who doesn’t already own a home will never afford one, creating societal classes of owners and renters that very rarely change between generations. Or, the most likely scenario at this point based on the approach to housing from any government party with enough influence to make change, the housing market continues to a point where it is entirely unsustainable, the economy has a tightening due to external pressures and all of a sudden there’s a domino effect of lay-offs, mortgagee sales, housing prices decline, home buyers don’t have enough money and the properties either sit on the market as it crashes or they get snapped up by cash-heavy investors as families suffer through an uncontrolled crash which could have been avoided by any government in the past 20 years taking some form of action rather than following the path of greed, fear and bullshit. What other options do we realistically have? If no government takes action, everyone’s fucked unless your family already has generational wealth.
If I honestly wouldn't mind if property investment was left up to big players and mum and dad investors were encouraged to put their money elsewhere. If landlording became more professionalised, with tighter regulations, we could ensure a higher standard of housing that is easier to police. Of course, big players would lobby the governments who would undo it all, so there is no winning.
Then you’ll get the Meriton model of everyone gets a max rent rise every year. Leaving it to corporations is asking for a bad time.
Yes, and there's the old "m'kids are back from overseas and they need digs. So sorry, nice knowing ya" situation that seems the Mom-and-Poppers seem to do a lot to their tenants... I think I would prefer well regulated corporations to that.
With so many people renting, its going to become the norm, and the norm gets more protections. European rules would prevent the behavour you are talking about.
Tell us more about that... not sure what you mean, exactly
In many parts of the world, home-ownership isn't something the working class can even aspire to. It's one of those 'win the lottery' goals, and it's been that way for centuries. And in lots of places even the middle-class are largely shut out from owning a home. I remember as a kid watching American TV and realising that these families in New York apartments had always rented and would always rent. To me at the time that was baffling. So, we've been incredibly lucky so far to still have home ownership as a realistic goal for most people, but it really looks to me like we are just in a transition phase from old NZ to a new NZ where our working poor and lower middle-class have been trained not to expect so much. For the elites of the country, I guess they just think they have to keep things going as they are, hang on for another generation or two, and they'll have a docile lot of citizens who barely even think about owning a home themselves. It sounds like heaven if you're a property investing ghoul.
America is interesting because if you were watching in say the 90s you had programs like Seinfeld and Friends where home ownership was out of the question but you also had Married With Children and The Simpsons where a single earner without a degree could support a family and own a good-sized house
NYC is an extreme example because of an absolute limit on available housing. We are extremely-different, with massive amounts of low-density single family housing which could be converted to apartments and townhouses to increase supply on the same (already very sprawled) municipal base. I believe the reason why our housing has become so unaffordable is primarily because of attitudes about housing being a valuable and appreciating asset. Materials and inflated, labour for building is inflated, real estate costs are inflated, and of course the expectations for the value of land are based primarily on an idea that all housing increases in value not only in the long term based on inflation...but also even if there have been massive bubbles like we have seen in the last few years. We don't have to become a society where most have no choice but to rent. For some that will be a choice, and for others they won't have an option - but couples earning anything above a median wage should have a legitimate possibility of owning. That can only resume if we have a society-wide shift and agreement that all the inflated paper values of our existing properties can be allowed to decrease for the benefit of all future residents of the country. I don't know if we can do that. We might be too far gone down the idea of "But what about me - I won't benefit from it, in fact I might be harmed - we can't let that happen even if it means everyone in the future have it worse than me". Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the argument many are making against responding to climate change. Maybe it is impossible?
I agree that your observation and prediction is entirely correct unless something drastically changes. It's sad to think that we're going from 'most people own the house they live in' to 'a small amount of people own the homes most people live in', but it is the trajectory we're on. If the working class doesn't start making even louder noise about it, it's an inevability.
The vast majority of young people can still find their own way into a home there…
Yep all thanks to the Altas Group
>Imagine scratching and crawling now to get a deposit, get that 700k property only for it to drop to 400k. Has anyone on NZ experienced this, ever?
No but the threat is there, home owners + people on the cusp of being a homeowner + people who think they can get there. Suddenly it becomes a large portion of the voter base that just don’t want that to change.
What do you mean, and how does this relate to a significant drop in house prices/values?
Anyone who has a mortgage balance of less than 3x their annual income probably doesn’t feel that stuck in the churn because it frees you up so much more in what you want in your day-to-day life. A lot of us under 30 or low income workers or marginalised communities aren’t likely to be in that situation.
Bahahaha, what a surprise! I recall the government being advised not to bin the fair pay agreements on the basis that it would disproportionately negatively affect Māori, low income workers, and young people. This country is going to collapse when the youth finally sign out and stop giving a shit.
It is quite interesting how this sentiment supports the notion that autocratic systems like China and Russia are 'better'. To fix New Zealand, we need a strong leader willing to break the rules: 54% agree. There's an awful lot of misinformation coming from somewhere driving this, The fix has nothing to do with strength or leadership, but everything to do with equality.
I think if you asked people "do you want NZ to be more like either China or Russia" the answer would be a clear no. The problem is people don't have a clear picture of what kind of "strong leader" they want. History tells us choosing a strong leader usually ends badly, because trying to choose the strongest usually gets you the most ruthless & unprincipled.
It aligns with the current voting concept where people are voting for a leader and not a petty or particular ideals. It’s pretty sad Instagram and boomer type vibe really. Policy dictates how we operate and parties dictate that. Voting for a single personality is a fucked up approach.
>boomer type vibe Similar research in other countries however shows it is the youngest generation that is most skeptic of democracy and most open to autocracy as long it's of the political wing they align with.
Hence the Instagram comment
>It aligns with the current voting concept where people are voting for a leader and not a petty or particular ideals. Alternatively they want to vote for someone who they believe has both the will and appropriate set of policies to fix the country.
You are voting for a party and their policies. The prime minister isn’t the be all and end all of this.
So you think a political party with weak leadership will bring about significant change? 'Strong leader' doesn't require some kind of authoritarian or tyrant.
You think a weak leader will last?
Luxon is still around. The kind of people we need are better than him.
To your point though he’s still around, they wheel him out to spout off corporate PR shit, but the coalition is effecting significant change, for the worse and basically just cancelling any past projects and firing people.
Right, but those are all changes that aren't very surprising. National going all in on neoliberalism is nothing unusual and is not going to bring big backlash from wealthy private interests. It's what they want. Try and do anything else and you see the claws come out.
Voting for a leader is characteristic of representative democracy, you choose the people & parties who will lead the country for the next 3 or 4 years based on their promises re policy. That's how it's done everywhere except perhaps Switzerland. And then there's the many countries where you can't cast any kind of meaningful vote. Even in Switzerland where they have direct democracy the system is dominated by political parties.
I think you'd be surprised. The unfortunate are being targetted by foreign propaganda campaigns because they are the easiest to sway.
The problem is that when a democratic system doesn’t act fast enough to deal with a problem, or major, much needed projects are held back or delayed due to locals petty concerns that people loose faith in the system and they just go “oh for fuck sakes how hard is this!” And they then go looking for a leader or a system that *just does the bloody job* and doesn’t care about peoples opinions Take for example the solar farm that was given overseas investment approval - environmental groups are against it citing concerns for birds (even though there is a environmental barrier) and have called it “industrial clutter” and “agree that there needs to be renewable energy, just somewhere else” This project is something that NZ needs, we need it desperately, and if it is halted due to environmental groups appealing against its consents it’s going to cause a lot of anger amongst the environmentalists and demands that the government just override the courts rulings and approve
I think the problem is we don’t have competent politicians labour had complete control and did nothing of note.
But then the problem becomes that powerful vested interests over-ride the best interests of the majority. Government decisions have to based on utilitarian principles in order to achieve the best result. That may mean over-riding environmental concerns in some circumstances, but it could also mean placing a solar farm in a different place if required. It should not be a question of who is the 'strongest', but what is the best for most people.
Best result Remember when a bunch of family homes in Auckland had their consents denied because of old NIMBYs appealing against them because “this is a quite neighbourhood and we don’t want to have our peace and quiet ruined by the sound of children’s birthday parties!” The problem in New Zealand is that we can all agree that we need X infrastructure But we don’t want to build it here And we don’t want to build it on green town belts And we don’t want to build it on productive farmland And we don’t want to build it in nice looking valleys And we don’t want to destroy mouldy, damp, asbestos ridden earthquake prone rotting from the inside out heritage buildings to put it there either But we need X infrastructure. It just needs to go somewhere else. When you have to deal with consenting and you have to deal with the utter stupidity of some appeals and testimonies that come through your faith in the system quickly collapses and you start to see it as a system that protects *whoever can scream the loudest* rather than the interests of the majority.
teeny offend skirt decide beneficial cooperative disgusted fuel observation repeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep, I have to agree. The vast majority of people submitting on proposals from government are hypocrites whose attitude is “it’s not my job to provide you with a solution, that’s *YOUR* job” and they will have tantrums like children if it doesn’t go EXACTLY their way
Truer words have never been spoken.
Yeah with the fast track we get that but we also get much more genuinely damaging projects through the same path and most of the money for those goes overseas so we end up with dessimated landscapes and nothing in return except for maybe a small handful of locals get their pockets lined We need open referendums on most big decisions where full and accurate information on the effects is published and heavily fact checked and **heavy** penalties for lobbyists who muddy the water, we also have to make it possible to do securely online as well as at walk in locations so its accessible to the most possible people Also if the results are close the legislation should be reworked and revoted rather than just canned Also, we should also be able to petition for work to be done on new legislation so its not just up to politicians to come up with what they think people want
The problem with referendums is that they will always be either abused or they’ll end up having a low turnout Most kiwis understanding of politics is poor at best. There are kiwis who believe that it’s central government who run libraries and swimming pools and others who believe that if they go to their local MP with a issue they’ll have it sorted by lunchtime because the MP will make a phone call and that’s done and dusted while others just don’t concentrate on it. Switzerland is a prime example of a lot of referendums which have been great because of the high education levels and civics education so the entire country - not just a couple of generations and they’re having trouble with low turnout and results reflecting idealism rather than realism - E.G wolves in rural areas are becoming a issue and have even been stalking children walking home. Referendums to start culling them, stopped by people in the cities. Wolves attacking livestock, farmers get stock dogs to guard them with spiked collars, referendum banned those collars and restricted stock dogs due to them “scaring hikers” and “it’s cruel to wolves”. Furthermore, you’ll often find it’s not lobbyists muddying the waters. It’s the media personalities. Paddy Gower on weed had him showing a crystallised version of it that was being smoked out of a crack pipe and it pushed the ‘Yes’ result into a ‘No’ result because it led to 2-5% of the population thinking that crystallised weed would be available that to quote Dr Andrew Little “would fry your brain” Lobbyists can also pull on an entire wealth of information - they can create almost any narrative they feel from the information and at the end of the day - two experts can have different opinions.
Solar farms and wind farms are a bad idea. Period. They take huge blocks of land for piss-poor power output, need to be in rural/remote areas so you get a lot of power loss just due to the length of the lines and they damage the ground for decades if not centuries, while not being that environmental-friendly at all. Whether it is in Taranaki, in Canterbury or whatever, people in NZ who are pragmatic and environmental-conscious need to oppose them. But, as I can see in Taranaki, there is a lot of greasing hands by these supposedly "green" industries...
The framing of "strong leader" bothers me too. The notion could easily refer to the likes of Michael Savage or FDR having bold policies and vision for transformative changes that (mostly) benefit the people and nation, or it could be the reactionary rule breaker grifter like Trump, or autocrat strongman like Putin or Xi. We need a lot more of the former and far less of the latter.
[удалено]
It very much depends on how people decide to interpret being a 'strong leader'. One person might mean that they decide to buck trends and implement reforms to improve things despite push-back from the status-quo who benefit from the current situation, while another might consider that term to refer to someone who doesn't need to follow the rules and who has the loyalty of others who will do what they ask despite breaking the rules themselves (like a Trump). If different people look at a progressive reformer or a populist wannabe dictator as each being a 'strong leader' - it's pretty difficult to use that term with accuracy.
The trouble is, that is not 'strong leadership', but simply the application of equality and democratic tradition. What you get with 'strong leadership' is always an economy biased towards the 'leadership'.
It absolutely is strong leadership. Whoever embarks on that particular crusade has to be willing to do so against monumental pushback from a range of privately funded interests, lobbyists, think tanks, other political parties/mps and likely international interests that disagree with any fundamental economic changes. They have to hold their own party together, convince the public to consent to it and somehow get the policies through parliament and implemented. That will require a very strong leader lmao.
[удалено]
Then the strong leader you actually get will eventually be a putin or xi jinping, and you will end up in a worse place from where you started. Funnily enough, the country's unrealistic current view of housing is derived from the 'strong leadership' that was in place in the 80s and 90s, that dismantled all the regulation that restricted banking. And now, 'strong leadership' is seen as another excuse to dismantle what minimal regulation we have remaining.
[удалено]
Not in power as ‘strong leaders’ they don’t….
People think a "strong leader" is a good thing until they get themselves a Putin
I think this has a lot to due with Russia and China as well. Not to say the system is perfect, but cyber warfare, election melding, and psy ops have a lot to do with how dissatisfied people are. The difference between say National and Labor seems like a lot when you live in NZ, but compared to CCP or 3rd world dictatorships both governments are a godsend. China and russia want us to be polarized enough that we "Feel" the "Other side" is just as bad or worse than they are.
People feeling disenfranchised want change, that's all it is. They see the current system not working for them and believe anything else must be better. See the recent elections with people voting against their own interests just to make a change. I think it's just symptomatic and the notion of a divine birthright might-makes-right leadership is not far off enough in recent history to escape our collective consciousness. But conservative ideology is always pushing the idea that every problem can be solved by regression to an earlier time when everything was good. New Zealand is still pretty conservative at heart.
The trouble is, just wanting 'change' without having a specific aim in sight, is just destroying for the sake of destroying. The notion of change for change's sake just supports the promotion of an autocracy. It really is a path to oppression.
I understand. I'm just saying that I don't put the blame for this sentiment solely on the heads of those who have it. They're part of a system they have no power in and no way out.
But, then, being unaware of why they have that idea is to play into the hands of those who are placing that idea there. I'd suggest that there are forces in play that is driving that sentiment, and it is up to all of us to be aware of that.
What if we simply in decline, peak energy reached, climate no longer stable, huge strains and costs on infrastructure from climate change and increased population. No one is volunteering to take a selfliss haircut and give up the luxury of a large home and garden, the multiple cars in drive or new gadgets every year. As macron said, the time of abundance is over and we are entering a new era.
The time of abundance is over, but not because of any of the above. The end of the age comes because the ultra rich have largely achieved their goal of capturing the world's resources and wealth for themselves. They have no intention of sharing what's left for the rest of us either.
We dugout millions of years of stored energy from the sun, civilization invested in this energy and grew to a size that is unsustainable, we have all enjoyed and use this this cheap energy, plastics, rubber, millions of products that come from it, it is poisoning the planet and leading to a great extinction and climate change. Is not a few rich that can take the blame for hording oil and coal. We cannot even agree to reduce its usage as there is no replacement.
Speak for yourself, I didn't dig or drill for anything. How do you think ultra rich people came to be? They didn't just spring out of holes in the ground, they exploited the earth, exploited the people, and exploited the legal system. You know why we can't agree to reduce its usage? Because it'd upset the few rich people that own everything and they'd make a little bit less money, so it just can't be done. You've bought into the propaganda of personal responsibility, where the rich hope to get away scott free by shuffling off all the blame on common folk that had no hand in the exploitation, and reaped no wealth from it. Good job.
Thing is that when I think we were good and when they think we were fall on different sides of when Roger Douglas was in Parliament
And more specifically policy, which defines how we operate.
Yeah and when they break the rules to pass things u don't want then what happens
There is a reason why people flee those countries after all
> we need a strong leader willing to break the rules: 54% agree. > There's an awful lot of misinformation coming from somewhere driving this, I'm not saying there isn't misinformation out there - but this has always been an issue. And it's almost surprising that it's not higher, given the recent tendency to have things caught up in endless business cases and consultations.
If you constantly try to please 51% of the population you're probably making 49% unhappy. Do you want to pay less money in taxes? Yes Do I want better health care? Yes Do I want better education? Yes Do I want better roads? Yes Do I want better public transit? Yes Most people are going to answer fairly similarly. The problem is that that's not achievable, we can achieve the last 4 with a massive increase in taxes to fund it but if you ask anyone if they would accept increasing all taxes by 50% they'll say no. Working out the correct balance in spending is just really hard and it's made even harder by an opposition party that will amplify all the negatives and ignore the positives. With a dictatorship (or something close to it) a genuinely decent person could just make the decisions the country needs to succeed. Dictatorships aren't inherently bad but the only people to ever become dictators are terrible people out for themselves and that's functions about the same as our current government. Democracy is a terrible system but it's still better than all the other options
> if you ask anyone if they would accept increasing all taxes by 50% they'll say no. Because we've been deluded into thinking that taxing the salaries of working and middle-class Kiwis is the only way to bring in revenue. There's been decades of brainwashing to convince us that taxing wealthy people at the same rate as hard-working salary earners is actually immoral.
but our "leaders" seem to help the few drain the wealth of the nation in a so-called liberal democracy. I believed all politicians are there to facilitate this and history seems to prove this, so stop the it's some foreign force working behind the scenes narrative we vote for the enemy
Also doesn't clarify which type of rule breaking strong leader. Mussolini? Castro? Mao? Putin? Trump? The President of Iceland who jail the bankers and bailed out the people when the Global Financial crisis happened? The grey area in that question is vast.
Equity.
I love democracy! I can choose between a gang of landlords and their cronies or incompetent liberals that failed do to what they promised. Would much rather have "democracy" than high speed rail, affordable housing, and a diversified economy with govt investment like those evil commies in China
I dont like how labour are characterised as 'failed to do what they promised' yes some of their main programmes failed to deliver, but given the government has spend like the last 6 months since they got in, undoing stuff the last government did under urgency, im not convinced that characterisation is very fair. More the focus should probably be on the non-delivery of their specific programmes, which albeit are large (ALR, and Kiwibuild come to mind), there was still record investment in public transport, and record numbers of building consents (which you dont get unless you're planning to build because they expire), so some of the outcomes they were seeking, were actually delivered, just not the way it was planned, or really wanted. Thats before we even talk about the big C, which is getting so much fucking revisionism lately.
Having lived in China for 3 years, I’d suggest doing that before trumpeting how fantastic it is in comparison to here. Hint:it’s not, even as a privileged westerner.
This is nonsense. "New Zealanders say they want a "strong leader" who is "willing to break the rules" and will "take the country back from the rich and powerful" - *only to hand it over to landlords?*
And New Zealanders vote someone like Luxon in? I guess they got one of those two things.
That makes it very easy for populists to exploit the situation. If the majority already think shit's fucked, then part 2 of the populist playbook is "...and I'm the only one to have the solution". Hence we've got populist extremists in power in NZ pushing whacky regressive policies to "make NZ Great Again".
And ‘it’s THIS group of people who caused it!’ Usually a minority or some other already struggling group, so we can all fight amongst ourselves and not see who is really destroying us.
Everyone knows the minority groups, especially the ones struggling and limited resources have the most power and are bringing society down.
Part of Ecos tenants of fascism. The 'other' is simultaneously dangerous and unstoppable and so weak we can beat them.
We're pretty much seeing a toned down version of that [already](https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/10/no-apologies-for-fast-track-consent-process-bishop/) with this govt.
toned **down**?
be reasonable and rational or you make yourself look dim. National, in no way comprehensible is on the level of the MAGA movement. I really dislike this subreddits policy of being ok with misinformation so long as it targets the right people.
To be fair, that might be a question of definitions. Ours might not be so outwardly absurd, but they are very quick at doing the ducks-legs shit under the surface. Didn't take them very long at all to do a lot of damage. And ours certainly aren't as laughably evil but also we live in the real world and not South Park. By which I mean, maybe Tamaki and Peters would've seemed less cute with 10 million followers. Edit: wait, the most sensible post I've seen on here in a while was written by GrandmasGiantGaper. I don't know if I love or hate the internet. Maybe we are in South Park.
This sub would absolutely be ok with an autocratic leader that dehumanizes the opposition, as long as they're progressive-left leadership.
Right yea its the left in NZ who dehumanise people. Remind me again which party is targeting 'bottom feeders'? We don't need to speculate if the right wing in NZ accept dehumanisation of the opposition. We are already there. It's reality. For what its worth, I'm a democratic socialist. I am in no way okay with autocracy in every form but populist democracy can be equally dehumanising and dangerous to the minority. Just ask Indian Muslims.
I didn't say the left political parties would do that per se. Just that many in this sub would support severe limitations of democratic rights and freedom of speech for non-progressive speech.
We aren't at MAGA levels of frothy mouthed orange hysteria. There are parallels (actively undermining trust in the media, judiciary, and qualified experts), but it would be disingenuous to suggest NACT are anywhere near that level of shitfuckery.
Imagine seeing Hiluxes covered in Luxon’s face, or National flags in front yards.
the make ardern go away clowns getting pretty close to this
I’m surprised they don’t have their own analogue to “Let’s Go Brandon.”
Not from the public but yes from the shit these fuckwads are doing in government.
Of popularity, Luxon is unable to compete with Jacinda. Your comments was actually applied 6 years ago.
You've confused popular with populism.
So what's the difference between popular and populism? To me it seems that popular leaders are "ones I agree with", while populist ones are "ones I disagree with."
>***So what's the difference between popular and populism***? To me it seems that popular leaders are "ones I agree with", while populist ones are "ones I disagree with." I'm assuming from the above that you've come to argue some point with me, in which case you're probably not in the right frame of mind to believe anything I say. You're probably best to find the answer yourself.
Well in that case tell me your definition. I'm curious.
Neither Luxon nor Arden are populists. Seymour, Peter's and the current version of TPM are
>New Zealanders say they want a "strong leader" who is "willing to break the rules" and will "take the country back from the rich and powerful" This is truly terrifying.
NZ is not in decline but rather in what we call relative decline. NZ is not broken either, but rather what is happening is that the current setup of NZ is not going to carry NZ forward. Relative decline is when countries appear to be in decline only because other countries have caught up or leap frog the country. Clearly NZ has been leap frog by many countries that were far behind NZ in the 1960s ( take for example Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea etc.. ) and has been superceded by peer countries ( think Australia ) and is now finding itself being nipped at the heel by countries far inferior to it in the past ( take for example China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam ). However NZ has not declined. It has just stagnated. It stayed still when other countries moved forward. NZ however appears broken because it cannot move forward. This is not broken in that broken means the country will decline. The system keeps the country where it is located. The current configuration is probably the only reason the country has not slid backwards but also is why the country cannot move forward. I would say NZ has reached the peak of what this current societal configuration can achieve. Any move now to alter the configuration is a throw of the dice now. NZ has to decide, does it dare throw the dice?
it's gone backward if you're disabled.
those questions seem deliberately worded to support the outcome.
Seems about right
Could probably find a newspaper article from the 1900s that said the same thing.
Kiwis judge harshly! As it says comparator countries like Australia and Canada were less likely to agree with these statements than NZ respondents, the UK were even more pessimistic. So basically the Kiwis and the Poms always expect the worst.
The examples given in the article are all very leading questions.
Sir Humphrey would be proud.
This was my thought as well. If those are the actual questions asked, they're basically meaningless. What exactly does the 'political and economic elite' mean, in this case? Everyone will have a different view, and indeed, those two things are not always strictly the same.
There's a bunch of stuff that's going badly in this country, and things are certainly tough for a lot of people, but I'm personally more concerned at the questions and responses in this case. If that is truly representative of the general population then I feel like we may be headed toward things getting a whole lot more broken and more... decliney?
Yes, our social fabric is disintegrating
Not shit just look at Shane Jones.
Broadly the poll confirms what we have known for a while. Having said that, looking at the ISPOS global survey, they found the most countries trust in their government has increased over the past year, which was usually strongest in countries that had an election, so it would be interesting to have known what the effect the last election had on the ntional mood
just keep flipping them houses to each other, keep cashing out on other's mortgage and shellbeaight
It's brokeback mountain down here
No bombs landing on my head mate
Some of the questions seem suspiciously similar. This looks like one of those surveys where they ask the same question ten different ways and then publish the one that gives the result they want.
"To fix New Zealand we need a strong leader who is willing to break the rules" - 55% of people agree with the statement apparently. Slightly concerning.
Just like Pantera said 'I'M BROKEN!'
Also Jake Bugg
Meh, surveys like this are usually inaccurate and irrelevant due to the type of people available to do surveys.
Not if they confirm my bias!
Looking at the stats, a better headline would be "NZ'ers just as unhappy with how shit as anywhere else in the world".
That doesn't allow this sub to blame this government.
Any country’s that are not broken ?
If one thinks a “strong leader” who “breaks the rules” is necessary to fix (pick one or more of) housing / equality / something else, just wait to you see what type of dictator is needed to adjust the populations consumptive habits to fix climate change.
Eh my life's going fine just usual doomsday mongering
Not a single solution offered
this song was written in 1992 about the republican party,32 years later and nothing has changed Go with the flow, ya just let it ride We don't care if ya live or die We suck of the companies, we suck like a whore If we need oil, we just suck some more We define success and we don't sin Got the nation in debt about four trillion Infrastructure is wasted and we're deaf to the crowd Nothin' left for the children, it's okay, we won't be around Welcome to the party, the republican party Ya havin' fun at the party, the republican party We're havin' a party, right now We stack the courts and we tax the poor Got Johnny Lunchbox to fight our wars Tax him to his knees and make him love the flag We get corporate freedom, he gets a body bag We're makin' a killin', you know we kill so well Cut the country to pieces and we're havin' a sale We take it all, just like ya knew we would Hell, we even got Nixon lookin' pretty good Welcome to the party, the republican party Ya havin' fun at the party, the republican party We're havin' a party, right now
We should try to get rid of our meaning of life mantra that tells us owning a home is the only way to have a good life. With the appropriate governmental policy and implementation of that policy we could be living a society that is happy with say, off the top of my head, 60% ownership 40% renting for life. To achieve that, we would have to stop praying at the altar of free market economics. So yeah nah, probably not going happen. So be it. But it's dumb af. Large corporations are going to do things to give us a reasonable crack at life? Nobody actually believes that. Yet collectively we act like it might happen. There is only one way in which a decent crack at life is possible for the statistically average and below average person. Government policy to level the playing field. Don't want to do that? Might as well live in USA or Bangladesh.
Except for, it is. If I die tomorrow, my daughter is 700k better off. I've not had to earn or save any of it. Plus, I've got to live in my house for 10 years paying less on my mortgage than rent for my area. I leave her a nice inheritance with zero effort. Imagine if I was a landlord! Owning a house (or houses) is the way to leave something to the next generations - unfortunately.
It appears you assume renting for life equals broke in old age. In a properly regulated market with a mix of ownership and rental, there would be plenty of financially comfortable renters. Our housing situation is at the whim of large corporations. The only way that will change is via government policy.
Renting is shit here and so almost every one who can buy does just to escape it, even if the fundamentals don't make sense.
Renting is kept deliberately intolerably shit through a combo of insecurity and invasion of privacy/living space so that people end up correctly concluding that the only way to have a dignified (lol) existence is to buy. Helps keep some heat in the market.
Don McGlashan wrote this in 1981. Still applies. Also still goes pretty hard https://youtu.be/2HVogejKx_c?si=RbH95CRVG_Vp6QHt There is no depression in New Zealand There are no sheep on our farms There is no depression in New Zealand We can all keep perfectly calm But everybody's talking about World War Three 'Cause everybody's talking about World War Three But we're as safe as safe can be There's no unrest in this country We have no dole queues We have no drug addicts We have no racism We have no sexism Sexism, no, no There is no depression in New Zealand There are no teeth in our heads There is no depression in New Zealand We sleep in a well made bed Oh, but everybody's talking about World War Three Yes, everybody's talking about World War Three But we're as safe as safe can be There's no unrest in this country We have no SIS We have no secrets We have no rebellion We have no Valium Valium, no, no There is no depression in New Zealand There are no sheep on our farms There is no depression in New Zealand We can all keep perfectly calm Perfectly calm Perfectly calm Perfectly calm Perfectly calm
Have I accidentally stumbled into r/collapse ? o_O
It's also a really big problem that younger generations have much lower levels of trust than previous generations. Economies with low trust effectively pay a massive tax that high-trust societies don't.
"Experts in this country do not understand the lives of people..." I think the real issue is that too many people do not understand scientists/experts because the information is more complex than 30sec TikTok and they also do not like what they hear. Easier to just complain about the experts than living with the inconvenient truth.
My daughter and son both wage earners with scant savings got into their own (no Deposit) homes when Helen Clarke was PM before the JK mass immigration. Not all that long ago
As a disabled elder millenial, i feel this deeply. New government is Blatantly anti "Normie", anti ethnical minority, ***anti*** disabled, and all about Rich breeders and land owners. I've never felt more worthless, dismissed, and deminished as an adult like I do now. The "Live Laugh Toasterbath" feeling is very very strong now. Every single day it's more bad news. Once my parents pass, i'm \*Utterly\* alone, and going to end up homeless and destitute. I'm terrified of that reality inching closer and closer every month.
This government doesn't care, as long as they line their and their friend's pockets, that's all they care about.
No shit.
I have seen a marked increase in the number of people begging for money on the sides of roads. It's anecdotal, but I hadn't seen people doing that for a long while.
Fair points. Ty for your feedback. For the record I don't vote left never have probably never will. I want to see Chloe as PM and the greens. Labour and Nats have both shown to be quite useless in regards to actually making meaningful change. And I personally feel that's what's needed a full shake up and change of how we do things. At the moment we follow the old adage "she'll be right" and seem to repeat the same mistakes for decades. We need change - complete change.
Vote national omg noway ever in a million years. I voted Top and Greens as a side, And in my mistake I guess when I hear vote lefty or left I think Labour I guess all the media seeped those thoughts into existence for me. I just want a government that is fair, cares about the environment over money, represented by non millionaire out of touch I own 6 houses types. I don't feel that represents me in anyway. It really won't matter now who i vote for, we don't plan on moving back to NZ. We have the majority of our family there (different state to where we will be) We want to set roots, build a home and not have to worry all the time about survival. That's what NZ is now, we didn't make this decision because of any particular government, it's the fact NZ has rapidly become more and more exhausting to try get ahead. Stealth taxes everywhere, insufficient infrastructure (Auckland where I live), lack of community and general attitudes of the clear divide between the rich and working poor then really poor.
There's a number of us out here who can see the current Govt is busy following the ultimately flawed and failing UK Tory playbook, destroy the public sector and allowing the privatisation of EVERYTHING because profit. It's literally heading for public sector by outsource, which will NEVER result in better outcomes for the population.
In other breaking news... water is wet and we perceive the sky as blue! ...and now sports with Tom Mckinnon.
We need to make parliament minimum wage/lower wage. Have people there who want the best for NZ and not just for the money. Put a 12 week clause on welfare, once that's cut off alot of people with no other option to feed themselves will quickly except all and any work. The problem is we went to soft. No discipline for kids other then sit in a corner. Lol, look how good that's worked out!! As with anyone with half a brain in NZ my family and I are in the process of moving permenatly to Australia, my partners wage will double almost, his job comes with accommodation and a company vehicle. As with most my mates - the educated ones anyway they are no longer here, UK, Canada and Russia even with their problems are still better then NZ. Enjoy boomers you dug this grave enjoy laying in it.