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@Mokey said in NZ Politics:
Simon Bridges is such a pile of trash. Gleefully sticking the knife in while conveniently having amnesia re his own complete lack of popularity in the country and as leader.
Nats have a huge amount of rebuilding to do. Judith prob won't survive a leadership challenge, but new person will soon find that it's way easier to be the one shooting poison arrows than being in charge.
The rot starting coming to the surface with the Jamie Lee Ross fiasco. Thank fuck we won’t be seeing any of him or his 5G hating covid conspiracy mate what’s his name.
The irony can’t be lost on poor whinny, without him Cindy wouldn’t be where she is now.
Think he’s long overdue to be put out to pasture as wel.Also what the fuck were they on at Green Party HQ lastnight? That screaming...
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@Mokey said in NZ Politics:
Simon Bridges is such a pile of trash. Gleefully sticking the knife in while conveniently having amnesia re his own complete lack of popularity in the country and as leader.
Nats have a huge amount of rebuilding to do. Judith prob won't survive a leadership challenge, but new person will soon find that it's way easier to be the one shooting poison arrows than being in charge.
If Bridges had stayed they would have done even worse. I hope many of the old guard leave now, and I think, as one of the better performing opposition MPs, that Judith stays as leader for now. You are right, the Nats need a major overhaul. If they continue to backbite they will be stuck in this hole. Labour will have a tough job but a 3rd term is plausible with the opposition in such disarray. Of course they might not have covid19 to bail them out next time and we will see how far Jacindamania will take them
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Well done Labour, remarkable result. Philosophically I think centralisation of control doesn't lead to good outcomes, but in a healthy democracy like ours people get to decide what our community gets.
Now there's a mandate, it's time for delivery. Bring on infrastructure, smart protection for disadvantaged and a healthy diverse society. I suspect we'll see Labour cleave to the middle, but you just never know.
National need to go away and regroup, cut out a whole lot of dead wood (Gerry, Nick, looking at you lads), and start looking for some good fresh talent. 2002 led to Key, Joyce, Ryall, Power. God knows they need some quality in that caucus now, it's disintegrating.
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@canefan exactly. The dude who couldn't even poll in double digits when it came to preferred pm can fuck off with his leadership bitching.
First thing Nats need to do (other than ditch the dead wood) is sort out the sabotaging from within. No more rumblings or leaks or public hit jobs.
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@nzzp huge power vacuum. And Bridges seems like a Cunliffe level toxic influence who will hinder the rebuild with his unrealised visions of grandeur. The infighting will have to stop and they need to get together. But its looking tough right now
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Helen Clark in the video below, stated something that gave me a jolt, but I guess this has been discussed and accepted in NZ.
She said that the previous international tourism and overseas student " export" revenue, about 25% of total export income, is gone and will never come back. So it's up to this government to support new industry across sectors to make up those losses.
I suppose you guys knew this but it has been still a shock to learn that international tourism and students is no longer a considered option for nz.
"There's clearly no return for the kind of international tourism or student numbers that we had"
and "because the old economy, we're not going to see again"
That's a bit to get my tiny head around🤔
After a minute:
Good to see a politician refer to her rivals in a complimentary manner for a change
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@canefan I have to think Helen means reorganising that about new sectors she mentions.
It was just how she expressed our " new normal " (my words) that made me shudder.No international tourism focus and a closed off country will make for a very different NZ and probably decimate Air NZ.
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@Snowy said in NZ Politics:
@Siam said in NZ Politics:
and probably decimate Air NZ.
It already has.
The government is heavily subsiding their operations at the moment. Chatting with patients that work for Air NZ and in travel flights to Australia only had 25 people per plane pre-bubble. The government picked up the slack
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@canefan That won't go indefinitely, and they have reduced staff numbers already. We need an airline so they will still get support, it is just how small the operation becomes I guess.
There are a heap of airliners sitting around at the moment if any of you want to buy one. I will fly it for you to, well, nowhere at the moment.
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@Snowy I sense a thread worth of riffing, before we get told off... mariner for the tall skinny flight attendant, hooroo as the "park the drinks trolley next to me" guy, poor old winger gets all his bags searched meticulously for 30 minutes everytime and virgil keeps breaking his wee TV screen 😀
Mods delete as you need....
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@taniwharugby Looks like Shane Reti hung on in Northland, although the special votes haven't been counted yet
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@canefan it's a messy situation. Where are they coming from? how many? and how do 'we' manage these students coming through quarantine etc when we seem reasonably pushed as is.
There is definitely urgency for most of our tertiary education organisations (and also secondary schools) to refocus on local rather than overseas students, at least in terms of figuring out how to plug the revenue gap. National talked about letting Universities and other providers manage their own students (with oversight) but acknowledged the numbers would be low for a while. Pretty sure I've heard Hipkins mention something similar but not the private Q management aspect.
As with a lot of other sectors we can shift education away from overseas student/profit driven to something a bit more balanced. Absolutely nothing wrong with being a strong player in the international education scene, but not to the extent that our education systems can't manage without that revenue.
Hopefully this causes the recent ROVE consolidation of tertiary providers to get some momentum... hopefully!
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@JC said in NZ Politics:
@Godder Did your candidate win?
By 14,455 votes before specials.
International tourism and education being heavily reduced was being signalled already when Robertson pointed out that they couldn't subsidise failing businesses and industries forever, and they were named as examples.
Both were important foreign exchange earners, but tourism jobs were some of the worst in the country (by average wages and looking at the hours of work and other conditions), and I've said before that international education was a blight, at least in terms of how many vulnerable students and families would borrow colossal amounts of money on the promise of NZ residency. No doubt both will return in smaller amounts, but this is a good opportunity for a reset.
NZ Politics