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NZers and Aussies: Switching it up


The Anti-Targ
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12 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm rather opposed to income tax as well, at least to any income tax below a particular threshold. I like re-distribution, but with income taxes at low/low-medium income levels and GST on everything (in NZ it's everything, in Aus it's not on food(?) and..?) means you are taking away and giving, which just creates churn in people's bank accounts.

This is going to be surprising coming from a conservative like me, but I think the churn of giving and taking is not necessarily a bad thing if government can allocate the capital better than the individual (which admittedly is a big if). I just don't think it's possible to leave lower-income people alone. By their own nature they will need government support and benefits in various areas (e.g. Medicare) and relying solely on a limited segment of the population (rich) to keep this working for them is not as reliable as having a broader base where government can tweak the dials.

Wow. Voting Labor in the state election, talking about trusting the power of big government....what's happening to me!!? 

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You're actually observing the same reality as the rest of us where a lot of things are generally good, but clearly some things are very much not. And in those cases, the systemic issues just keep getting more entrenched.

I don't know how anyone can look at housing in Sydney and not see a ticking bomb for large scale social unrest if it's allowed to continue and that's not good for anyone that plans to still be alive when it happens. But at every turn the top priority is preserving value of property as investment over ensuring people have homes to live in, and any attempt to reprioritize gets smacked down.

Large chunks of our print media being wholly reliant on property advertising for they're business model doesn't help there either.

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Property prices are a big problem that is affecting most Western countries, though admittedly in Australian capital cities the problem is accentuated more than most. 

I think the fundamental issue is that property acts as a giant store of wealth which transfers on death, so the rich get richer and so on. This is where @Paxter's inheritance tax could make some sense, though there's no chance of that passing in the near term as it would be political suicide. 

The other fundamental issue is that current policy settings encourage people to own multiple properties (negative gearing for property investment). When you have so many investors in the market competing with limited stock with owner-occupiers, you either have to increase the stock or you have to limit the demand (ie crowd investors out of the market, as by definition they already should have one occupied property and don't need another as an essential).

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11 hours ago, Paxter said:

Looks like Minns is not going to get a majority.

It’s quite something that Ward is effectively the missing seat. His criminal proceedings are ongoing.

I can't quite believe that Gareth Ward is holding on.

While you always want majority government, Minns could actually hide behind the minority if he were clever. Labor promised a lot in the election campaign and may find it hard to deliver on all priorities, a minority government allows Minns to blame problems with delivery on the composition of the NSW parliament.

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15 hours ago, Jeor said:

Property prices are a big problem that is affecting most Western countries, though admittedly in Australian capital cities the problem is accentuated more than most. 

Part of the problem is that it's not just the capital cities anymore, everything within even a few hours of Sydney is now grossly overpriced - higher than Sydney prices were 15 years ago. I grew up in the Southern Highlands and regular houses are clearing a million now. And it's a snowballing problem - more and more areas get sucked into the inflating bubble.

Australia also has terrible rental protections which make renting miserable rather than just inferior and that's gotten far far worse in the last few years too.

Not to mention real estate agents doubling as data brokers with all the unnecessary information they demand to presumably sell, and tripling as marks for hackers to get personal data without anyone even realising there was a hack.

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23 hours ago, Paxter said:

Looks like Minns is not going to get a majority.

It’s quite something that Ward is effectively the missing seat. His criminal proceedings are ongoing.

If Ward is found guilty, won't that effectively eject him from the seat and force a byelection?

Also, did the Libs run a separate candidate for Kiama seeing that Ward was suspended and ran as an independent?

It is rather mind boggling though that the people of Kiama voted for someone who's currently being charged with multiple accounts of sexual assault....

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3 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

If Ward is found guilty, won't that effectively eject him from the seat and force a byelection?

Also, did the Libs run a separate candidate for Kiama seeing that Ward was suspended and ran as an independent?

It is rather mind boggling though that the people of Kiama voted for someone who's currently being charged with multiple accounts of sexual assault....

Yes, I believe he’ll be disqualified if found guilty.

Yes, the Libs ran a candidate who polled a poor third.

No, it’s not just mind boggling. It’s fucked. He has nine lives.

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Labor wins the Aston byelection.

Wow, Libs truly have been decimated here in Melbourne. Result is 54-46 with a 7% swing to Labor. It's one thing to flip a seat in a byelection (hasn't been done in over a century), it's another to do so and win comfortably.

If the Libs weren't so devoid of aspiring members with talent, Dutton would be toast.

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11 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

If the Libs weren't so devoid of aspiring members with talent, Dutton would be toast.

It comes in cycles...this is evidently the low part of the Liberal one. There aren't really any major alternatives to Dutton and I think he's safe for the next year or two, no one really wants to do the hard yards in Opposition until an election is around the corner.

The problem for the Liberals is that the internecine wars between Abbott, Turnbull and ScoMo eventually had the effect of clearing the frontbenches of any talent. Most of the second tier of leadership have now retired or gone on to other jobs (Cormann, Pyne) or they're in the Senate (Payne, Birmingham) where they can't lead.

Paul Fletcher is a possible transition leadership candidate (in my old seat of Bradfield) and seems a steady hand having run a few second-tier portfolios e.g. Communications and now being the Liberal manager of opposition business. He's 58 though and a moderate, if people start souring on Dutton and the hard right then Fletcher might come through. The other possibility is Julian Leeser, who is younger and a possibly more long-range future leader, and in between the moderate and right factions so could be an acceptable compromise candidate. I don't really rate Angus Taylor, I think he's a seatwarmer at this stage.

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https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/01-04-2023/did-people-spontaneously-applaud-the-donald-trump-indictment-in-a-rotorua-cafe

Two things about this article:

Some Americans still think everything in the world is about America. I love that the real reason was cricket.

I wish journalists were this diligent about fact checking actually important stuff.

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On 4/1/2023 at 8:51 PM, Jeor said:

It comes in cycles...this is evidently the low part of the Liberal one.

Yes, although the Coalition tend to have longer cycles in power than out.

Perhaps this could be something long-lasting from the ALP, since they are basically devoid of any policy separation from their centre-right counterparts.

Apparently on Wednesday we will get a decision from the Liberal party room on The Voice. I’m expecting “no”. Dutton is leader after all - he was one of the Liberals who walked out during Rudd’s apology.

Edited by Paxter
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21 hours ago, Paxter said:

Yes, although the Coalition tend to have longer cycles in power than out.

Perhaps this could be something long-lasting from the ALP, since they are basically devoid of any policy separation from their centre-right counterparts.

Apparently on Wednesday we will get a decision from the Liberal party room on The Voice. I’m expecting “no”. Dutton is leader after all - he was one of the Liberals who walked out during Rudd’s apology.

You can see how torn they are between their ideological drive to go no and their desperate need to move past being the "Noalition" and show some attempt at trying to modernise.

We all know who Dutton is and we all know he'd personally be against the Voice. But he's aware that his strategy of saying no to everything so far has been costing him and hasn't worked out like it did with Abbott, so now he's effectively wedged.

I, too, expect the Libs to settle on no as they've shown they really can't get over themselves and show any semblance that they're able to evolve beyond what they are.

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Referendums are particularly difficult for oppositions to fight as the governments can usually wedge them. The Opposition will generally know there are people who will vote "No" and hence feel an almost visceral need to court them. I do wonder what will happen if the Liberal party room is divided (which it probably won't be).

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I think with the Coalition it’s more a visceral need to not recognize Aboriginal people in the Constitution.

Abbott promised this referendum long ago. The Libs had several years in government to come up with a proposal. They never quite got around to it.

Edited by Paxter
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50 point rate hike here today. Most banks and economists were predicting 25 points. The RB was seeing a downward trend in fixed mortgage rates and they thought a 25 point rise would have lead to further drops in fixed rates, so the 50 points was to ensure retail interest rates stayed up.

Meanwhile house prices have fallen $100K nationwide in the year to 31 March, in Auckland it's $200K down and Wellington it's nearly $300K down. So we definitely have house price deflation.

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Interesting that the RBA decided to pause at 3.6% at the same time that the RBNZ hiked to 5.25%. Clearly plenty of hawks across the Tasman. Headline inflation is actually running hotter in Australia (7.8%), but the RBNZ is opting for a higher nominal (and therefore real) interest rate.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out now in terms of the relative performance of these two open economies. 

The Bank of Canada also paused recently, but rates here are 4.5% and inflation is lower (5.2%). 

Edited by Paxter
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