BBC reports “When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wore a traditional Maori cloak to meet the Queen, it had …. most New Zealanders glowing with pride.” Most New Zealanders want their economy administered to grow national wealth fairly I think.
I still wonder how we managed to get an air head for a prime minister and a coalition of minor parties as a government.
Cheers
Roger
www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Roger, the vast the majority are still wondering and hyperventilating not always a good thing. Hypocrisy at it’s finest, bowing to Her Majesty while wanting NZ to be a Republic.
Further embarrassment to Kiwis that she needed to read off a script the few words required to say a toast. However, thankfully there was some hilarity – when the camera at one point, as she was rattling on, switched to the incredulous look on Malcolm Turnbull’s face !
The script was something for Jacinda to get her teeth in to.
Simon Wilson at the NZ Herald presents a glossed up version of Ardern’s first six months.
I prefer Matthew Hooton – Jacinda Ardern stumbling from crisis to crisis 23Mar18
The Government’s only silver lining is that the issues are emerging so quickly they may crowd one another out in the public mind. To re-cap events since March 11:
• Labour’s management of the sexual assault allegations at its youth camp was, to quote Clark, “unbelievable”. That is exactly the word to describe general secretary Andrew Kirton’s version of events, yet Ardern has held no one to account.
• Dithering after Theresa May called for solidarity following the Salisbury attack suggested Ardern is afraid of her own Foreign Minister and reluctant to assert herself as the nation’s chief diplomat. Her later announcement there are no undeclared Russian intelligence agents in New Zealand was mocked by the world’s media for its naivety.
• Ardern broke prime ministerial precedent to greet 50 Greenpeace activists on Parliament’s forecourt, telling them the end of oil and gas exploration is nigh. That afternoon she told the media the opposite and by morning talked of exploration continuing until 2046. Politicians often say different things to different audiences but not usually on the same afternoon in front of the same TV cameras.
• Shane Jones’ popular attack on Air New Zealand was good politics for NZ First but Ardern’s weak admonishment of her minister is a joke in NZ First circles, encouraging future flamboyance from her coalition partner.
• Phil Twyford’s weekend announcement of a “medium density” development in Mt Albert lacked the credibility even of Nick Smith’s pronouncements during his ill-fated term as housing tsar. Twyford’s claim the new Government will build up to 4000 homes on just 29ha of land — with site efficiency of 63 per cent once roads, parks, shops and schools are taken into account — suggests population density comparable with Mumbai and six times that at Auckland’s controversial Hobsonville Pt. With the plan requiring zoning changes, consent hearings and utility installation on bare land, Twyford’s suggestion he will be putting the key in the door of the first houses next year indicates he has absolutely no idea of what is involved.
• Little-known NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft attracted attention after allegations she claimed to be speaking on behalf of ministers when threatening National MP Mark Mitchell over provincial growth fund projects in his electorate — but Ardern has made only perfunctory inquiries over the allegations.
• Ardern’s failure to sack Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran for being — on the most charitable interpretation — less than forthcoming with the truth over her dealings with an RNZ middle manager over the controversial $38 million RNZ proposal constrains her from acting decisively against future bad behaviour by ministers. Ardern risks further humiliation as more information emerges next week.
• Ardern’s decision to become personally involved in the nurses’ pay dispute by advancing yet another “independent panel” will heighten public-sector wage expectations at a time the Government is already up against its fiscal limits. Expect nurses and teachers strikes through winter.
• Adding to the Hooton list – The Offshore Petroleum Exploration ban will cost NZ’ers for utterly zero global environmental effect. Cartoon from Sunday Star Times today
The new COL Govt in Aotearoa is so often about “virtue signalling” and I suppose marking a turning point starting a long term decline in NZ local petroleum production is potentially a multi billion dollar example of signalling a virtue.
Another great example of “virtue signalling” recently was the flagging of a zero road toll target. Facts are the road toll has been decreasing for decades and should continue to decrease if well engineered modern technology can be applied to our vehicle traffic. We all would wish for the fairy tale of a zero road toll but only clever well designed policy changes will keep us on the path of constant reductions.
What is certain about the COL Govt though is that motorists will be taxed and restricted more.
Less money will be spent on roads and that spending will more likely be in COL electorates.
Here is a classic case where the virtue signalling “plant a billion trees Labour campaign” is tangled and strangled by their other policies against foreign investment. Gotta love how dumb the COL is.
Foreign investment ban could hurt billion-strong tree-planting plan 14Jan18
www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/100496529/foreign-investment-ban-could-hurt-billionstrong-treeplanting-plan
Here is the Regional Development Minister Shane Jones on the job planting the billion trees – one thing for sure Shane your local unemployed will not plant the billion trees. Surely Kiwis can see through this shonky stunt-pulling COL Govt. To plant a billion trees in 10 years somebody has to start planting ~274,000 trees per DAY!! and keep that up through rain hail and sun for ~3650 days. 274,000 per DAY Shane!! – 27,400 per hour Shane!! assuming a non-stop 10 hour day – or ~456.6 trees per minute!! Shane – or 7.6 trees per second for 10 years Shane!!
Foreign Help Plea For Billion Trees 23Apr18
www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-new-zealand-herald/20180423/281530816623751
You are just not being fair to the Taxcinda Govt. Surely you can realize that the failure to plant a billion trees will be another “failure of capitalism”.
The new NZ brain-child that is called a government also promised to build 100,000 affordable homes. Perhaps they could grow some of those billion trees and they could call them Tree Houses ! Not to worry though, as it seems that their vapid campaign promises have now transformed into “aspirations,” according to their “ministers.”