The 2017 Election Thread

[mashman]

But the water? off whom?

Not off whom. No one owns water, but it quite clearly has a price. If you want the water for NZers, then buy it all for all NZers.

[Ocean1]

You are slagging off stuff and yet offering no solution. Epic.
I ask again yet how are you going to pay to police this regulatory organisation. Who is going to be be taxed, how are they to be identified in order to be taxed fined or regulated.
Where is the funding to set this up going to come from.
Don't worry i realise you will not actually answer. You still have a bright future in National party politics ocean, All rhetoric, no answers just maximum spin.

You're spin RPM is in the red, you're losing blood flow upstairs...

the budget required to effectively regulate a given area should come form those that use it. I'd also suggest that if farmers saw one of their neighbours lose their farm because they ignored those regulations it'd have a tolerably salubrious effect on the industry. In WA, if you're caught with a single undersized fish you lose your boat, car and any equipment involved. Turns out that meaning what you say wrt regulations works.

And I'm not slagging off just Labour, any party that wants to tax water can get fucked.

[Ocean1]

... it's an old boys club here and they all piss in each others pockets.

Aye. Given the solid monopoly they have and the continual trickle of rumors like that it's hard not to be deeply suspicious of many local/regional council eh?

I'd like to see a breakdown of the costs that put a developed section on the market for $400k for example. A mate has developed complete suburbs and reckons $100k is about it, and that's including the council's extremely inflated charges.

[oldrider]

Aye. Given the solid monopoly they have and the continual trickle of rumors like that it's hard not to be deeply suspicious of many local/regional council eh?

I'd like to see a breakdown of the costs that put a developed section on the market for $400k for example. A mate has developed complete suburbs and reckons $100k is about it, and that's including the council's extremely inflated charges.

I think your mate has got it right - maybe a wee bit light but depends on location of course.

[T.W.R]

Yep, all true. If the progression of the last few years continues I'm expecting more and bigger fires here this summer.
The basic reason for the National govt appointing commissioners to run Ecan was that the cockies moaned they couldn't get enough water allocations.
So now we have the situation where water is over allocated to fuck - and we have dry rivers.
Then it follows that stream maintenance isn't done - no water in them - and when we do get rain, we get floods.
What a fuckup.
Locally, I'm told that the River Committee responsible for the stream maintenance has been playing brinkmanship. They get a small subsidy from SDC but have been neglecting work to try and squeeze more out of the Council when they see floods....The old boys club again...

Come Late January through to March it'll be a tinderbox locally, but don't worry the arrogant bloody farmers will continue their burn-offs and plead naivety when things get out of hand
Ashburton district is a fucking National stronghold because of all the cockies, even bloody Shipley was/is based locally which is a laugh in it's self; they're classic failed farmers that got paid off their farm in the 80s by the government when 99% of farms were thriving yet half the local idiots think the sun shines out their arses
It's definitely the classic "old boys club" around here due to the generations of farm bred muppets who have now weaseled their way into positions of authority, just white collar inbreeding.....you can't say much about anyone as they're all bloody related some way or another

The minor rivers are as bad if not worse than the Selwyn, the Ashburton itself, the Hinds, Orari, Opihi etc are all well n truly fucked already and the so-called river & stream maintenance is a joke and the committees overseeing things are laden full of farmers too

Unfortunately having been in a few jobs over the years that feed directly off the farming community I've seen 1st hand exactly how arrogant & brazen the majority of them are towards the environment and the regulations that are supposed to police their actions, they just thumb their noses at it & flaunt the rules and play hard-up when things get a bit tough

[T.W.R]

Aye. Given the solid monopoly they have and the continual trickle of rumors like that it's hard not to be deeply suspicious of many local/regional council eh?

I'd like to see a breakdown of the costs that put a developed section on the market for $400k for example. A mate has developed complete suburbs and reckons $100k is about it, and that's including the council's extremely inflated charges.

No rumors here locally..it's a fact!

It was a shade under $20k here to get a section re-surveyed about 10yrs ago & about $5k to get power & water to the boundary for an undeveloped section that would be on the market for $65-80k here in the township.
I'm on the verge of addressing that situation at the moment as I well into the process of upping roots and selling the property off but the dilemma is that I either sell as one lot or sell the back paddock that is marked out as 3 (1000m sq +) separate sections and to be honest I don't know if I can be bothered with all the headaches involved

[Swoop]

To be fair i understand it was a swamp Kauri Digger rather than a farmer

Yeah, I knew that when I posted it.

Pondering this again last night...
Everyone knows that the pipeline is shut down at the moment, so I was wondering how many farmers have put up a small shed over the pipe, dug down and then drilled and tapped a valve into the side of the pipe?

Surely a cow-cocky would have done this? Free diesel / petrol / JET-A1...



Yes, farmers need to lift their game with farming activities. NOT demanding a handout when it's too wet or too dry either. You got into fucking farming knowing the risks. Mother Nature is the boss, so get used to it.

Businesses now how could they be charged...

We have a distinct difference between two concerns which are lumped into one "crisis".
Farmers sucking water out of the ground to water the cows, rinse the potatoes / carrots, etc, and
Companies extracting water for bottling purposes and sending overseas.

Perhaps those companies who want to extract water should pay an "establishment fee" for access and the ability to conduct their business? Not the reportedly $100- to the local council like at present, but more like 100-200k?
OR, they are required to locate their business on the West Coast (helps employment and has plenty of H2O to spare).

Problem sorted! DING! Next problem?

[James Deuce]

They certainly deserve to comply with the rules they operate under.

They probably don't deserve to have a bunch of politically popular rules dumped on them at their cost overnight.

All I want is for them to wear deodorant and take their shit encrusted gumboots off when they go into the supermarket. Until then, they deserve everything they get.

[jasonu]

Ironic, coming from KBs stupidest member.

Did someone mention Cassina???

[Ocean1]

We have a distinct difference between two concerns which are lumped into one "crisis".
Farmers sucking water out of the ground to water the cows, rinse the potatoes / carrots, etc, and
Companies extracting water for bottling purposes and sending overseas.

Perhaps those companies who want to extract water should pay an "establishment fee" for access and the ability to conduct their business? Not the reportedly $100- to the local council like at present, but more like 100-200k?
OR, they are required to locate their business on the West Coast (helps employment and has plenty of H2O to spare).

Problem sorted! DING! Next problem?

Correct. I can only see one water bottling outfit, (just) on the Canterbury plains, in Tai Tapu. They generally want to set up where supply isn't a problem. Looks to be a lot in Orks though.

Pack the lot of 'em off down to Balclutha, 600 cubic meters per second is enough alpine goodness to fill any possible market. They could send enough bottles up the road to water no end of cows without making an appreciable dent in it.

Well, you'd have to filter the pristine alpine eels out...

To be fair someone did propose sitting a supertanker in one of the fiords to suck up an almost unmeasurably tiny percentage of west coast water and flog that off to Japanese commuters, but what passes for environmentalism hereabouts waved the RMA under their nose and told them to fuck off. So it's not as if environmentally sound, technically advanced and commercially workable solutions haven't been attempted.

[Voltaire]

Nicked from Herald.
Rather than moan about how much butter is.....and the 'look over there' pipe leak.

1.Why is our GDP per capita so low?

Our GDP is only about US $37,000 per person. Australia's is $48,000, the United States is $57,000, and Ireland's is $69,000.

If you want more wealth to go around, then you need strategies to increase GDP per capita, yet our political parties only seem capable of reactive redistribution measures like tax, tax credits, and welfare (the "ambulances at the bottom of the cliff"). Like all things in life, if you don't fix the root cause, you don't truly fix anything.

2. Why is our Government debt so high?

Sometimes it's good to borrow, but $86 billion Government debt with $4 billion in interest penalties per year seems far too high. That's $4 billion dollars of our money servicing loans rather than the people of New Zealand. I might be missing some smart thinking here, but like all of these questions, I'd still like an explanation from those making these decisions on our behalf.

3.Why do we let big foreign companies avoid tax?

A Herald report last year suggested that multinationals like ExxonMobil, Apple and Google are getting away with not paying $500 million of taxes each year. $500 million could fund a number of essential community projects (or reduce individual tax rates), so why hasn't our Government closed this tax loophole like they have in Australia?

4. Why can foreigners buy our houses (especially when we can't buy theirs)?


It's the simple question we all ask at home, but no politician ever gives us a straight answer. I suspect the truth lies in trade deals with double standards. On a related note, why do we allow foreign companies to control our natural resources like bottled water, and why aren't company ownership rules consistent between countries?

5. Why has net migration septupled (x7)?

For 20 years from 1993 to 2013, New Zealand's net migration averaged 10,767 per year. Our infrastructure seemed to manage ok. But in the four years since 2013 it has risen to an incredible 41,000, 60,000, 69,000, and now 72,000. You have to add a further 28,000 net births on top of this figure too.
Housing, transport, schools, hospitals, and the environment clearly can't keep up and are only getting further behind. So why does the Government let in such unsustainable numbers? And why is Labour only willing to reduce this number to 70,000 - 80,000 new arrivals each year? Love him or hate him, Winston seems to be the only politician who faces these facts.

6. Why haven't we got electronic voting yet?

Every business communicates electronically, yet our central and local governments still operate an archaic paper and postal system. A general election looks to cost about $35 million, and we already know a referendum costs about $26 million. Not only would electronic voting significantly reduce voting costs, but it would mean our politicians would have more frequent and accurate insights into what Kiwis really want. If digital market insight is a no-brainer for running a business, why isn't it a no-brainer for running a country?

7. Why do ex MPs get perks for life?

We don't get perks for life just for doing our jobs, so why should MPs? Given the recent churn of politicians, and longer life expectancy, this will get a lot more expensive going forward too!

Some of you may already know some of these answers, but most of the country will not.

My challenge to all of our political parties with one week remaining is to confront the issues head on and be honest. As crazy as it sounds, some people do still vote based on policy and integrity.

[Ocean1]

All I want is for them to wear deodorant and take their shit encrusted gumboots off when they go into the supermarket. Until then, they deserve everything they get.

Spare a thought for those of us living here in the civilised world, with rotund 24 year old beneficiaries in cow print onesies arguing with the manager about whether the six pack vodka shooters sale is still on.

[James Deuce]

Spare a thought for those of us living here in the civilised world, with rotund 24 year old beneficiaries in cow print onesies arguing with the manager about whether the six pack vodka shooters sale is still on.

Aaargh, thought spared to the point of trying to empty brain of horrible imagery. Thanks. A. Lot.

[Woodman]

Twat............

Edit... No. You fuck off shit for brains.

[husaberg]

We have a distinct difference between two concerns which are lumped into one "crisis".
Farmers sucking water out of the ground to water the cows, rinse the potatoes / carrots, etc, and
Companies extracting water for bottling purposes and sending overseas.

Perhaps those companies who want to extract water should pay an "establishment fee" for access and the ability to conduct their business? Not the reportedly $100- to the local council like at present, but more like 100-200k?
OR, they are required to locate their business on the West Coast (helps employment and has plenty of H2O to spare).

Problem sorted! DING! Next problem?

there is the rub
cows drink about 70 liters a day drystock about 50L... not so bad
but with dairy cleaning up after milking is about the same per cow. on top of the first 50-70
Irrigation is an vital ingrediant in most farming and horticulture to make a product that is sold overseas.
thats a huge amount.
but then the water is removed (other than Butter and the meat)when it is sold overseas so its a bit complex.
Normally the waste water from the dairy factories is either returned to the river or the land.