Should Phil Goff resign?

[avgas]

with the lurve of baby Jesus.

My plastic manger fell out of the storage cupboard in the weekend. Does this mean somewhere........someone.................farted loudly.

What does the Church of Plastic Jesus say?

[Spearfish]

at least 10 characters.

[shrub]

My plastic manger fell out of the storage cupboard in the weekend. Does this mean somewhere........someone.................farted loudly.

What does the Church of Plastic Jesus say?

No, your cupboard door was open.

[Winston001]

....because most people are too lazy to read and analyse policies and want to be told who to vote for just like they want to be told what shirts to wear.

I think you are correct but unduely dispairing of the average Bruce and Sharon.

If you talk to the average person, no matter their educaion or background, they do worry about jobs, health, crime, and their children's education. The problem is each of these issues is complex even with only 4 million people. If we lived in villages of 500, it would be a lot simpler.

So the detail is too difficult to understand. We are also ill-served in my not so humble opinion by our government and our media. They do an appalling job of explaining debates and ideas. Everything is boiled down to sound bites or else completely side-tracked by irrelevancies.

For example, when the govt reduced adult education and two beneficiaries spoke up, those women became the focus of the media attention. Not the issue itself - of course not when you can much easily attack two women who were silly enough to have an opinion.

I was disgusted that journalists could so readily miss a serious story.

[Usarka]

Journalists report what the public want to hear. That's why TV7 is being closed down and why the NZ press association has been shut down - people don't want documentaries, analysis or investigative important journalism, they want reality tv wife swap oprah fat loser sound bite wank.

[Smifffy]

I think you are correct but unduely dispairing of the average Bruce and Sharon.

If you talk to the average person, no matter their educaion or background, they do worry about jobs, health, crime, and their children's education. The problem is each of these issues is complex even with only 4 million people. If we lived in villages of 500, it would be a lot simpler.

So the detail is too difficult to understand. We are also ill-served in my not so humble opinion by our government and our media. They do an appalling job of explaining debates and ideas. Everything is boiled down to sound bites or else completely side-tracked by irrelevancies.

For example, when the govt reduced adult education and two beneficiaries spoke up, those women became the focus of the media attention. Not the issue itself - of course not when you can much easily attack two women who were silly enough to have an opinion.

I was disgusted that journalists could so readily miss a serious story.

Very true, and if there were actually a couple of journalists that went right to the heart of the debate, and delivered pulitzer prize worthy reporting, do you think Bruce & Sharon would care? Or would they be more interested in who just got caught having an affair on Shortland St, and who got eliminated from American Idol?

[shrub]

If you talk to the average person, no matter their educaion or background, they do worry about jobs, health, crime, and their children's education...

We are also ill-served in my not so humble opinion by our government and our media. They do an appalling job of explaining debates and ideas. Everything is boiled down to sound bites or else completely side-tracked by irrelevancies.

People may care about those issues, but want to believe "someone else" is dealing with it, and are very keen to believe the politicians and the media when they blame 'the previous government' or 'beneficiaries' etc. If a politician was ever honest enough to say "hey, it's all of our problem and if we want to live in a safer society with good health care and education and more jobs we all have to participate regardless of our race or class, and we all have to pay" they would be gone by lunchtime.

And the media has become a commercial enterprise and soundbites and trivia are what sells. Welcome to the brave new world of private enterprise. I re-read BNW and 1984 a few months ago, it was like looking out my window and looking at the world I live in.

[oldrider]

Case in point, ACC state monopoly, biggest rip-off around, name one satisfied customer!

i am one,

I have had a broken femur, 17 dislocated shoulders, 2 ops on that shoulder, broken collarbones, wrists, thumbs, foot, and a 7 week stay in hospital with internal injuries, all covered by ACC, and all with time off work paid at 80% of my wages,

on all that time i had one claim attempt to be declined, that was for a shoulder that popped out as i rolled over in bed, and i sent them the 8 previous claim numbers and they admitted that it was still covered by an accident,

i do have a slight issue on how the goverment brings in the fees tho, ie the rego levy

True as far as the medical side goes the same people/providers would would still be the ones doing all of that irrespective of what ACC/insurance system is in place.

If ACC had been left in it's original format and only smartened up professionally and performance wise I would be all supportive "but it hasn't" and it "wont be"!

ACC is no longer no blame, motorcyclists (for example) are being blamed and penalised in every which way possible and you still can not sue to recapture any subsequent losses when it's not your fault!

The way ACC acquire their disproportionate levies is nothing short of extortion IMHO!

As a state monopoly you have no alternative and they have no competition, they can just charge whatever they like aided and abetted by our own ("elected"?) representatives holding a gun at your head!

If the government insist on running ACC as an insurance company I want to have alternatives, the right to sue and a refund from ACC if I choose the alternatives!

While I don't dispute the quality of the medical treatment etc I do not believe I have ever heard anyone say that ACC charges are spot on and that they are satisfied with the way things are!

I have been a licensed bike rider and have continuously ridden bikes for 57 years with only one small claim to ACC that cost them nothing!

Now that I am retired and don't have a commensurate salary to support the ACC levies attached to my motorcycle registration, I can no longer afford to continue to enjoy my life as a motorcyclist even though I have cost ACC next to nothing as a result of that pursuit.

Go back to the Woodhouse model of ACC or bring on "real" accident insurance, competition and personal choice!

Phill Gough and Labour will not rectify this ACC situation either even if they were the government for the rest of their lives, they are part of the problem rather than the solution IMHO!

Should Phill Gough resign? Well not really, I think those who vote for him should be the ones that should resign!

[Winston001]

I re-read BNW and 1984 a few months ago, it was like looking out my window and looking at the world I live in.

The Party is always correct, brother. The Huxley prole was a fiction. You are directed to report to your Re-Education Centre at 8 am tomorrow.

Yours In Truth
Winston S

[Winston001]

While I don't dispute the quality of the medical treatment etc I do not believe I have ever heard anyone say that ACC charges are spot on and that they are satisfied with the way things are!

I have been a licensed bike rider and have continuously ridden bikes for 57 years with only one small claim to ACC that cost them nothing!

Now that I am retired and don't have a commensurate salary to support the ACC levies attached to my motorcycle registration, I can no longer afford to continue to enjoy my life as a motorcyclist even though I have cost ACC next to nothing as a result of that pursuit.

You make good points John. I don't exactly disagree with you but here's my thoughts FWIW:

• I don't know whether ACC charges are spot on but having just paid my Southern Cross medical insurance premium, ACC looks cheap by comparison.
• You have paid plenty to ACC but not claimed. You have also paid plenty of tax to cover unemployment, domestic purposes, and sickness benefits. Yet you may not have claimed these either. But other people have...
• ACC is a type of social insurance, quasi-social welfare. You may never need it but you help others who do. Is that bad?
• Although we tend to think of ACC in terms of covering wages, it actually covers a heap of medical and rehabilitation costs. Part of NZs healthcare budget comes directly from billing ACC. If you have an accident thats an ACC cost even if you are not working.
• Overseas KBers have said on previous threads that insurance and registration fees in other countries are far higher than what we face. Possibly we are luckier than we realise.

[Jantar]

....Yeah, I'm a cynic. I don't believe elections are won by the best party but by the party that has the best spin doctors because most people are too lazy to read and analyse policies and want to be told who to vote for just like they want to be told what shirts to wear.

I guess I'm even more of a cycnic. In my opinion no party has actually won an election in New Zealand for almost 50 years. Rather governments change because the party in power upsets enough people that they lose the election, and government changes by default.

[shrub]

[*]ACC is a type of social insurance, quasi-social welfare. You may never need it but you help others who do. Is that bad?

We have been trained over the last couple of decades to base most of our value assessments on money. It's worked really well for manufacturers and the financial services industry because we now measure success and happiness by how much wealth we display which in turn is achieved by what we own - flash car, flat screen TV, flash bike, huge house etc. Most of us (self included) have more shit than they can really afford and certainly want a lot more, and the old idea of either cutting back or earning more has been replaced by demanding tax cuts. We have been trained to believe that paying tax is a bad thing and that tax cuts are not just our right but essential to our success as a society because why should anyone work harder/earn more if all that means is paying more tax?

Because tax pays for stuff many of us don't use (ACC, benefits, prisons etc) we resent people who use those things, and especially resent the inability of others to work/earn/pay their share whatever the reason. The reason I don't have a 5 bedroom house with a BMW in the garage is because I pay so much tax and the reason I pay so much tax is because lazy, useless pricks are enjoying a great lifestyle on the dole, prisons are luxury hotels for lazy, useless and dishonest pricks and worst of all lazy, useless bureaucrats in Wellington are getting paid a brazillian dollars a year for doing nothing.

Our changed values have made a lot of money for people lending money to buy shit from people who have made a lot of money selling that shit but made our society the poorer.

[shrub]

I guess I'm even more of a cycnic. In my opinion no party has actually won an election in New Zealand for almost 50 years. Rather governments change because the party in power upsets enough people that they lose the election, and government changes by default.

Pretty much bang on the money. It's a truism that parties don't elections, governments lose them and that's why apart from the Nash government of 57 - 60 and the Kirk 72 - 75 government they all run longer. Nordmeyer's black budget was why they only ran a single term and Kirk's death in office with only Bill Rowling to replace him was the reason Muldoon et al took over.

Key was always going to win this election because the fact that his government hasn't really done anything at all means they haven't done anything to piss the voters off. I think Labour have left nice but bland Goff in control because they don't want a potential PM to lose an election (not that they really have anyone on their books for that role).

[mashman]

Oh dear...

[Spearfish]

at least 10 characters.