To all those people who voted National.

[ManDownUnder]

I didn't vote for anyone in parliament, as did 20% of NZ. Yet there is still a full government. Go figure.

yeah but at least 20% of them are sitting there totally apathetic and doing nothing so... if anything you're over-represented...

[Squiggles]

Same here. My reason for that was the student loan/allowance aspect though.

They tried to buy us off again didnt they? But late in the game this time...

[Brett]

Our medical system is appallingly bad and I only have bad things to say about it particularly when it comes to child health issues. Raging incompetence and filthy conditions. Between two of my kids I've had 27 admissions to deal with in the last 6 years and I do the majority of the Nursing work over night because staff never address issues like alerting flow guards or maintaining treatment plans involving medication. If my wife or I don't do it, it doesn't happen. We constantly battle decisions made by doctors that haven't been discussed with us first.

We never go through those admissions without catching secondary infections and I've had to deal with Glandular fever, encephalitis, swine flu, strep B infections, septicaemia, and a variety of bacterial and viral gastro-intestinal disorders, and these get passed onto colleagues and workmates, simply because hospitals don't get cleaned any more. Too expensive. I'm talking Hutt, Wellington, and Starship too.

Primary healthcare is a joke as well. GPs that charge $100 a visit and then the head of GPs pops up on the radio and says, "Cost shouldn't discourage people from visiting their GP."

Avgas: I would fuck off, but can't get residency in any other country with an Immigration department. For obvious reasons.

Spacemonkey: We have hospitals - but count your limbs at the door and make sure you have the same number when you leave. Depending on whether or not you're in to have some off of course, in which case check you have the correct ones when you leave.

$100 a visit...change GP's then. If I am a mechanic and charge $120/hr and you don't like it, you can go elsewhere. Same deal for GP's...no one is forcing anyone to go to a particular GP.

Unfortuanately health care is a stretched resource in virtually every nation so most face similar issues or different issues with equally distressing outcomes.

[SPman]

Overall they have done a great job steering us through the difficult times, and to be blunt, there was a lot to fix up.

A great job?
They have done NOTHING to steer NZ through difficult times, except sit on their hands, and rort what's there for all it's worth.
There's always a lot to fix up - Labour are now a central right party in all but name so I don't expect too much from them, these days, as they have proved in the recent past, but Key is sleepwalking through the financial downturn and hoping it'll all come right again. National - the first Nat party to come to power with virtually no firm policies and what there were, were so ambiguous as to be useless anyway. Key is totally fucking useless, his ministers seem to be running totally amok, with no control, and every day seems to bring yet another revelation about gov. MP's behaving in illegal and corrupt fashions - this - despite a mainstream media that is falling over itself to heap praise on the government! How many people who are so keen on this government lived through the late 80's and 90's, and saw the way the country was fucked by policies from the same bunch of wankers who are currently in charge? Policies, incidentally, which Labour did s.f.a to change! Now you have the Brash/Douglas duo promoting even more of the same! Those who would be leaders in NZ really are totally out of touch with reality and treat the population as a barely tolerable burden they would do without, if they could!........

[James Deuce]

$100 a visit...change GP's then. If I am a mechanic and charge $120/hr and you don't like it, you can go elsewhere. Same deal for GP's...no one is forcing anyone to go to a particular GP.

Unfortuanately health care is a stretched resource in virtually every nation so most face similar issues or different issues with equally distressing outcomes.

I'm not suggesting my one does ($60 adults, $30 over 6 can;t change no other practice has the space to take us), however if you don't have a GP in the Wellington region you can't get one. There's a shortage and they aren't taking people on. The After Hours medical centre charges $80 for a visit, then $20 if you are from outside the Lower Hutt catchment (They're the only centre open all night in Wellington) and then another $20 if you aren't registered with a GP.

Guess where you have to go in the Hutt if you don't have a GP?

So the pricing is about Supply & Demand, not making sure people get the correct treatment. If people with colds and flus stayed the hell away from the doctor our GPs would be able to do their jobs properly. No one can help your cold or flu.

[Swoop]

... but Key is sleepwalking through the financial downturn and hoping it'll all come right again. Etc.

It is nice to note that the "financial downturn" is on its way back up and has been doing so for a little while now. I'm not too sure what the reporters and the media in Oz are saying though.

[aahsv]

The real problem is MMP itself - remember this system was voted in without a clear majority. Under MMP, the minority parties have become the real powerbrokers having a disproportionate influence on Government policy and our futures. Under MMP we are

[SPman]

then we would not have a national government that was under the puppet-strings of the maori party.

to quote yourself " Who is your drug supplier?"

The real problem is MMP itself

No it's not. National are currently a majority party and can govern without any of the others! MMP gives a more representative government - that's why the big parties hate it! It does have some minor fine tuning problems that should be sorted, though.

[Flip]

Well I like MMP, it means the goverment has to ask its partners what they want and stops or slows the goverment from making stupid law without consultation.

It took Labour 10 years to forget who voted them in and National 1 year to do the same. I think Key knows this and has to walk a very fine line but still has to do what his friends in the BRT want, like sell them ACC when it has a shit load of "our" money in the bank (12 billion dollars of assets and counting).

This has little to do with our ACC payments 62 of 1,000 (surplus) when you have 12,000 (million) in the bank. It has to do with big business wanting to get its hands on our money. Labour will have to buy it back, less the current 12 billion dollars worth of stripped assets. See NZ Rail or my parents super fund.

I like MMP. MMP= less power to the people in power.

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

The real problem is MMP itself

The real problem is the monetory system itself... it doesn't matter how is in power... they are just puppets...

money, barter, trade the day we as humans realise we don't need it to have a functioning society the better

[MikeL]

It took Labour 10 years to forget who voted them in and National 1 year to do the same. I think Key knows this and has to walk a very fine line but still has to do what his friends in the BRT want, like sell them ACC when it has a shit load of "our" money in the bank (12 billion dollars of assets and counting).

This has little to do with our ACC payments 62 of 1,000 (surplus) when you have 12,000 (million) in the bank. It has to do with big business wanting to get its hands on our money. Labour will have to buy it back, less the current 12 billion dollars worth of stripped assets. See NZ Rail or my parents super fund.

Spot on. When will the penny drop, and the brutal truth of the power/wealth/politics nexus become apparent?
Answer: never, because the people, being as self-interested and short-sighted as those pulling the strings, but on average less intelligent, will forever be conned by those who have at their disposal the vast resources and sophisticated techniques of public relations (i.e. propaganda) and marketing/advertising (i.e. manipulation).
Those who argue that today's economic freedoms and greater material prosperity (compared with 20 or 30 years ago) represent progress have been willingly duped by those whose gains have been immeasurably greater than any realised by the average worker.
There is a Latin phrase which ought to be on the lips of everyone who wants to comprehend the reason behind every political, social and above all economic reform: cui bono? Roughly translated it means "Who stands to benefit"?
The statistics for income and wealth distribution in this country, as well as ownership of assets, over the last two decades, prove that despite the illusory increase in standard of living for all, the real beneficiaries have been the already wealthy. We might, possibly, be willing to accept that the greedy will always rule the earth, as long as we are assured of our little place in the sun, or by the sea, but the relentless selling off of NZ to overseas interests will eventually reduce our position to little more than serfs subservient to foreign landlords. But hey, do we care, as long as we've got our plasma TV and Jap import and a house valued at almost half a million dollars? We're rich, too, aren't we?

[Pixie]

Mr Key has done a great job making the economic down turn do a reversal.
He even caused the rest of the world's down turns to reverse as well.

[James Deuce]

So he says!

[Flatcap]

Well I like MMP, it means the goverment has to ask its partners what they want and stops or slows the goverment from making stupid law without consultation.

.

So stupid laws are passed slowly.....

[James Deuce]

They have to be passed slowly because they're so stupid.