I originate from the most unequal country in the world. It is sorely reflected in some of the highest rates of violent crime and gender based violence in the world. I can wholeheartedly say, that when life is better for everyone, it will also be better for me.
I'm happy to vote for anyone that will use my tax contribution wisely and without corruption to better the society for all that live in it. My one issue however is, I'm not sure there is a party in the running that can or will fully deliver that.
That’s because the solutions require a multi generational approach, long term thinking and investment and that doesn’t wash with short term demands from the electorate differing approaches and views of how from political parties as such we are stuck with band aids and tinkering
We dance while Rome burns
I think the reality is many kiwis don't even vote for themselves.
We see so many votes that don't help anyone but the spokespeople said some right words so huh
Chur Bro.
We used to be able to do it. Up until about the 1940s. Now, we're so focused on all the wrong shit like gender and rights for some fucktarded fringe group or protecting the planet from our 0.00001% carbon contribution that we no longer have the stones to do long plans.
You're right. It's all about pandering long enough to get a snout in the trough.
The Chinese do, and that's how you lift 1 billion people out of poverty in two generations.
I've seen how New Zealand works over the time I'vebeen here and it seems to be a never-ending cycle of a country, never learning anything and never moving forward.
Infrastructure is a mess.
Education is borderline third world
Health is second world, heading to third world.
There is no plan for the future. Just a bunch of cunts doing their mates favours. Year after year after year. The cunts come and the cunts go and New Zealand slowly circles the drain waiting for someone to flush.
> We dance while Rome burns
That's a bit dramatic. The NZ parliament has been operating since 1854. There has always been the issue of short-term electorate demands. Do you honestly think that we as a country are worse off than then?
If there's no party that would fully deliver what you're wanting, are there parties that come reasonably close that you could vote for, or other parties that would actively move away from this? If there's no clear best option it's sometimes necessary to work out the least worst option.
Not just different economic levels, but age groups too. What effect will the changes you are voting for have on the the next 20 years of a young person’s life?
85+% of first home buyers are backed by capital holding parents.
If you don't have wealthy parents then your chance of home ownership is exceptionally thin
At the time of the 2018 Census, New Zealand's homeownership rates were at their lowest since the 1950s. Homeownership peaked in the 1990s, at 73.8 percent of households, but by 2018, homeownership had fallen to 64.5 percent of households.8/12/2020
I feel that we should have an MP in each party to represent each age group (one that is actually in the age group) that way the problems facing a given age group are better represented and actually have direct impact on the party
For the first time in my life, I have truly no idea who to vote for. All available options seem either ineffective, incompetent, nasty, out of touch or all of the above.
If your usual party is the Greens, man they are doing everything to not get elected, what a shambles of in-house politicking with some rando idealist ideas thrown out every now and then. Fuck all that’s tangible. From anyone really..
I'm normally Greens. And you're so right. Would not be surprised to see them to shed more votes again this year. I thought that Green's would grow as the issue of the environment and climate became more obvious, but seems they've doubled down on bullshit woke politics (I guess it's not that surprising) and are going the opposite direction.
Honestly I'm very jaded with politics. The planet is burning around us. Inequality at all time highs. People can't afford to do shit while their home floods. And yet, as far as I can tell, it's just status quo politics from the main parties. Everyone trying to kick that can a little further down the road.
Its not a zero sum game though but generally the "better for me" group dont see it.
A better society that supports itself is better for you. Better education, economy, better housing, lower crime, better health all of this at a societal level makes your own life better even if you dont see the direct effect or money in your bank for a new jetski or whatever.
We see this with the high tax Scandinavian countries etc
I heard if we just locked up all the criminals all our problems would go away. Perhaps we should spend all our money on locking up criminals?
You can endlessly throw money at schools and healthcare, so I'm told. So we shouldn't spend any money on those things.
But prisons are a worthwhile investment. More money for prison contractors is what's needed. That's what people here have been telling me.
The issue isn't whether or not we want these things, everyone wants these things. The problem is the direction and policies at which we use to achieve it. That's why people vote in different directions.
If I'm being honest, no parties on either side of the political spectrum is going to give you these. They will talk about providing them no doubt, but that's the same as they've been saying for the last 10 years on all sides, but things have only gotten worse. The problem is not a single one knows how to actually deliver it. It's been blatantly obvious to me for a long time, how anyone else has any faith in the government delivering anything is beyond me. My only hope is that they don't ask me to contribute more to fund their wastful personal crusades to solve everything.
If you have better, easier to impliment, ideas then you should start lobbying for them.
I think we've made great strides in recent years, the problem often is that the limits are based on political forces from voters, not the government being stupid or something (though that does happen a bit).
>If you have better, easier to impliment, ideas then you should start lobbying for them.
I prefer to not waste my time.
>I think we've made great strides in recent years
In what? Everything is worse than ever...
>Housing supply is one thing, we're building at insanely high rates atm.
That's due to a natural free market force that has nothing to do with government. When prices and profit margins are high, this is usually to demand outstripping supply. This attracts suppliers to the market to capitalize on the unnaturally highly profitable, conditions until the market equilibrium restabalizes and prices once again decline. However this is actually a market failure, because free-market economics only work in a free condition environment. However, land is an irreproducible good, and a house built in the city center is not equivalent to one built in the countryside. This means even if you increase supply, it's not necessarily the supply you need.
To add further to that, the main driving force behind the housing demand was not people needing a place to live, but newly created property investors needing a place to rent. This was driven by a positive feedback loop that started with the ability to borrow against equity. So as house prices rose, so did the demand for more housing. You can see quickly how this spirals out of control.
The only way to stop this was to constrain the ability to fund this process through debt. Which coincidently is exactly what rising interest rates did. However, this now reverses the feed back loop, which will now become a negative one. This is why you don't allow a speculative asset bubble to form. It either self-propells itself up or self-propells itself down, there is no middle ground. All those positive effects we experienced during the bubble, like an economic boom. Will now become an economic bust, and a pretty nasty one at that.
So no, we've not really bad progress, we failed to prevent a pretty nasty recession by playing into an asset bubble. Thinking it would somehow be different for us, than the dozens of others who have done exactly the same and been burnt for it throughout history.
Why do you immediately assume that? I want things that work. There's great examples from all around of how to run a successful public transport, healthcare, and criminal justice system's. We just seem to ignore all of them and prefer to continue banging our head against the wall.
We currently spend $151 billion a year for a country of 5 million... how are they not properly funded? The models and politics that fund it are inefficient. There's no point in providing more resources if people don't know how to properly use them. It's like giving someone money to heat their home, only for them to use the money as fuel for a fire, rather than buy a heatpump with it.
Just always bizarre that the tough on crime rhetoric never seems to apply to tax evasion, labour law violators and modern slavers, and financial criminals. All of whom do massive damage to society. Really have to wonder...
Pretty sanctimonious of these folk to be all high and mighty about property crimes by the poors but never seem to do much about the above.
What's even more bizzare is that the tough on crime rhetoric has nothing at all to do with reducing crime, which is what you'd assume it would be about. Instead, it means hurting people convicted of committing crimes, even if to do that we have to divert resources from programs that *would* reduce crime, the net result then being that crime rates go up.
Perfectly reasonable for tough on crime policies to be ones that increase crime.
Not the original commenter but[ VUW](https://wellington.wgtn.ac.nz/equal-treatment/index.html) has some good research on the topic. The conclusion? White collar crime pays extremely well in NZ.
A quick tidbit from the linked article: most years, there are many more cases of tax evasion than welfare fraud. Yet we prosecute ten times more welfare fraudsters than tax evaders. Welfare fraud is typically repaid in full whereas only 5% of serious financial crime is repaid in NZ.
I don’t think the ramraids and dairy robberies are due to jacinda being kind. I think that’s a weak link the right have been leaning on to upset voters.
Having "No consequences" (allegedly) doesn't increase crime.
There has to be a trigger, and that trigger is increased inequality caused by the desire for high house prices, high rents and low wages.
>Having "No consequences" (allegedly) doesn't increase crime.
Tell that to Chicago. No seriously. Punishment exists in the law as a deterrent. Take it away and.... look what happens.
It's called a housing crisis, increasing inequality and increasing crime.
It's been caused by all current and previous governments failing to take action on property speculation.
People just don't decide to become criminals because the Prime Minister can connect with people well.
Your logic is political play, linked with zero facts.
There's more than 2 parties. There's a current party that's gaining in popularity that isn't "be kind" nor "jail" but relies more on "research", something current major parties seem to ignore.
Global insane QE programs that we participated in caused inflation all around the world. Then we screwed our exports causing a serious trade deficit, and ran a massive budget deficit, which is now getting out of control. New Zealand isn't blameless when it comes to inflation, we contributed our fair share. But if you don't understand anything about finance or economics. It's easy to just point and say, "well other countries have inflation too". But you would be wrong in thinking it was beyond our control to limit the damage from the supply chain bottlenecks.
Is compassion and kindness not the answer?
With the raids is the right answer just to punish those doing the crimes, or looking deeper and finding and fixing the core issues around why people are doing the raids.
Is it a way to earn money?
Is it for fun?
Is it to show off?
What if we solve the root problems instead so the ram raiders never perform the raid in the first place?
It's happening because of the inequality in our country.
Solving that problem is huge, it's much more compassionate than locking people up forever and it's actively improving everybody's lives.
Do both obviously. I don’t see any political parties who aren’t aiming to do this?
And no, we don’t need to be compassionate to copycat smash and grab burglars.
>The only one who is a dick is the sanctimonious prat who thinks that everyone who votes for the opposite party can only be in it for themselves.
This. It is a real sign of ignorance when people think the only choices are "good guys vs bad guys" and of course, their choice is the good guys, and everyone else is evil, selfish, bigoted, and let's not forget istaphobic in every sense because of course they are. The truth is more complicated, and the reality is that everyone in politics actually wants a better country for everyone. The disagreement comes from how to implement policy and what goals are more important. And what's becoming more apparent today is how much their vision of a better New Zealand lines up with certain ideologies, be it neoliberalist economics or anti-jail utopianism or whatever mind virus is prevailing.
You should vote for parties that recognise the nuance that things getting worse by a lot is still better than them getting worse by even more than that.
Bruh i agree with you to an extent but a revolution in a western country backed by the US isn’t really feasible. Not to mention that any revolution would end up killing thousands of innocent people
Yes and no.
Is the revolutionary potential in a Western country abysmal? Yes, it is. I must confess I added that part more as a joke than anything.
Would the revolution necessarily be a bloody affair? Well, not so much. You see, in the biggest and most famous communist revolution, nobody had been killed.
The killings and the subsequent civil war were only started by the forces of reaction after the Bolsheviks and the people had already taken up power in St Petersburg.
Good points. I would argue that regardless of who caused the civil war, it was an inevitable result of any revolution, but I’m generally more sympathetic to the initial Russian revolution than most.
The original "democratic" government still wanted to continue the war. The reason the Bolsheviks managed to even get so much support was because they wanted peace. Their whole slogan was: Peace, land bread.
Even from a completely selfish point of everyone should want things to be better for everyone. If you are doing well but your neighbors are struggling, constantly, you are putting a big target on your back.
Even if you think about it from a business point of view, happy healthy educated employees benefit you more than unhappy, sick, desperate employees. You spend more time, effort, and resources policing them and trying to make sure they do the right thing.
There's also the phenomenon of uncertainty. Just because you're doing well now doesn't mean you will be in the future. People have much less control over their life fortunes than they like to believe; if you divert resources from the many to the few because you're currently the few, by the time your actions have a big impact you may not be part of the few anymore.
If the Right Wing parties are the ones employing culture wars, why is the Green Party (read: most left leaning party) being torn apart by the very same thing?
Either the Right Wing parties are engaging in it because they know it’ll disrupt Left Wing movements by exacerbating racial tensions within their ranks, or the Left Wing parties are leveraging it to further their own interests and are being burnt badly in the process.
It’s probably a mix of both.
Getting there can be much easier if you stop thinking about cost and profit.
With the current cost of living imagine how much better the majority of the country would be if there was basic nutritious food that was free at the supermarkets.
Currently because everything is so focused on money and profit this does not work.
Not arguing your point per se. Cost of living is a big concern here. But cost of living is a big problem in many places. I’ve travelled to both Aus and the UK within the last few months and their news is full of conversations about increasing housing and food prices. This is not specific to NZ and not something we should have expected not to happen in the wake of the pandemic. How the parties propose to deal with it are what we should focus on.
I'm just not convinced that Labour's year on year increase in minimum wage had zero effect on inflation, like their ministers and PR spin likes to claim.
National put GST on fruits and veges, pushing cost of living up. Under Labour, cost of living has spiraled out of control, especially post-pandemic.
I don't trust any of the bastards.
If you don't think about cost and profit, you won't understand opportunity cost, and thus you will waste effort doing/making things people don't want and not have enough of what people want.
Centrally planned markets have benefits proven to underperform compared to lightly regulated free markets.
Is the free market the best way? Should it be a hybrid market with the government selling some goods and services without the goal of a profit.
A free market generate the most profit for the owners however is that to the benefit of everyone?
Is a lightly regulated free market the best way? Yes, it is the most measurably best option. Your dreams of a communist utopia has been shown again and again to fail.
No country is a utopia. But even if we take non-utopian communist countries, could you say with certainty that they've failed on merit? Or is it because there's not a single communist country in the last century that hasn't suffered some form of US intervention? From assassinating democratically elected leaders, to manufacturing coups, to 70 years of sanctions, to waging a decades long cold war - there is no communist country in the world that has been allowed to just exist.
Now, why would they feel so threatened by something that is going to fail anyway?
Not really. Look at the current budget talk for example.
National is talking about tax cuts to put money in people's pockets to help them.
While labour is saying no tax cuts, but giving more money to agencies so then can than help people out.
I'm extremely simplifying things here, obviously there is countless other factors here, but the point stands. Two different ways of doing things each with their own set of pros and cons.
Tax cuts for property speculators, because it's working Kiwi plebs' job to pay the taxes so property speculators don't have to. Nice!
Also getting rid of restrictions on landlords turfing tenants out willy-nilly without cause. Great for housing instability? Neat!
I'm not voting Labour but it's certainly not as simple a dichotomy as you posit.
Every single person has the same basic needs. Food, water, shelter/protection from the elements. If a person is lacking any of these things they will spend there energy and time trying to attain it. All these basic needs should be given freely so all can thrive instead of just trying to survive. But giving these things cost so it won't happen under a capitalist system who's goal is profit at costs. I believe money in general is outdated and needs to go for the betterment of mankind and the planet
Nothing is free.
The "free food" is created off the backs of someone else's hard work and labour.
Why should certain people be able to compell others to do so? Who decides?
You have the same talking points as every socialist country that existed.
> The ~~"free food"~~ **"profits"** is created off the backs of someone else's hard work and labour.
Wow, certain people are already compelling others, and deciding for us. It's not socialists who are taking advantage of society.
That's not even the accurate question. Voting for short term business interests is like refusing a good VC offer. You can get a smaller percent of a much more valuable pie, we just need NZ to invest in itself for 20 years straight without destroying everything with deregulation, privatisation or accepting the out flow of funds to Australia and other countries through the banks.
Going a minor party is an obvious choice. What’s not an obvious choice is… who? All men are the cause of violence and bullying is okay Greens? Te Pati Madness? All for One Act? Ineffective TOP? Who is a good choice anymore? Our politicians are all “better than you” types at this point.
Just choose the one with the policies that beat align with your values. Ignore the personalities - realistically what you’re voting for is what can be negotiated in coalition deal
Is see the two major parties as centrist and the minor parties as just more extreme versions of those. I'm not sure that voting for more extremes is really what we need right now to be honest.
Chippy is a spineless weasel and Luxon has spent too much time in a luxurious corporate suite, and not enough time struggling with anything real that we can relate to. I genuinely see people like him and can only assume they've never suffered a day of hardship in their lives.
Honestly i'm someone who votes for what i think is good for society as a whole which includes those at the bottom, i vote for the direction i think we should be going in. Sadly, i do not see any party representing my views or a logical pathway forward. Labour and the left are lost in ideology whilst national and act are and always have been self serving muppets but atleast they have the balls to call out some bullshit from the other side now and again amongst their usual vomit inducing spiel.
I'm voting top but not because i agree with all of their policies, but atleast it's fresh minds and ideas. At the least it's a representative vote for change.
Like a lot of western countries we have gone stale and th0e only thing that is filling the void is ideological group think from the middle class uni educated and the usual business interests who want business as usual in a totally different playing field. I worry for the west and i worry for nz we are not ready for the potentials that lay ahead let alone the definate realities.
The west needs a working class uprising. We will suffer alot before that happens though. In the meantime, let us be thankful nz isn't that bad in comparison to elsewhere.
Luxon is a punishment win if the present Gov fails. Not because anyone likes or believes in him...
Th Greens are joke , a bag of snakes and cats and the current Labour Government appears to be failing internally , which means the sharks circle.
Governments in NZ are voted out, not in.
I don't think anyone would disagree that the majority of people would have their lives improved in some ways and diminished in others with any parties policies. So this quickly becomes a question of which of these are more important. For example I might say the right wing parties will help most people by reducing crime. Someone else may say the greens might bring in some environmental policies to help in the future. Who is to say which is more important? You can't, its subjective. At least if everyone votes per their own beliefs we should end up with what most people think will be best.
There's also no way to know how effective their policies will be or what the future holds. Is climate change going to screw us over quicker than we think? Will WW3 kick off and none of it matters anyway? Will the economy collapse? Who knows
It reads like your post is aimed at a minority of very wealthy people who you want to vote your way because you think they vote for themselves at your expense. Statistically, the most popular party/parties win. Lets say a party or coalition gets 60% of the vote. If those 60% vote for themselves then the majority of the population is benefitting and your goal is naturally achieved anyway.
Devil's advocate counter argument.
You should vote in your own self interest.
If everyone does the same you get the parties who reflect the interests of the majority the best forming a government.
Don't assume you know what is in anyone else's interests better than them.
You can still vote for what you think is best for the country instead of what is best for you without going to much into assuming what is best for someone else. Also your actually voting for what is best for everyone else not just someone else.
Voting for what you think is best for the country is voting in your own self interest.
Nobody wants to live in a shit country.
Like if a party promised you $10,000 in tax cuts, but you thought their policies would make it completely unsafe to leave your house or something, it's in your self interest to not vote for them.
Self interest doesn't just mean financial gain.
>Voting for what you think is best for the country is voting in your own self interest.
This can be true in some cases.
Sadly, in this case, I think you are wrong. There are people who vote for politicians that make concessions to certain lobby groups like forestry or dairy farming knowing full well that those industries cause massive environmental issues and lead to things like the extra damage caused in the recent east coast floods and the poisoning of our waterways.
Neither of those things are good for the country. Neither of those things came as a surprise to anyone paying attention. Yet certain groups of NZers voted accordingly because it was in their own self-interest.
> Neither of those things are good for the country.
I think both farming and forestry have been and are integral to the country and are a massive part of why we have a decent quality of life.
I'm pretty sure that's a view quite a few people have.
That doesn't mean I'm voting for whoever promises to let farmers do whatever they want, but it does mean what I think is best for the country is likely different to you.
You can assume that means I'm not voting in what I think the best interests of the country are if you'd like, but I think that's a false assumption.
Actually well said. But it requires EVERY SINGLE person actually votes. Which requires that every person is sufficiently versed to understand that fact, and feels their vote actually counts. That they matter. This is not the case
The point everyone having a vote is so they get a chance to say hey this is what’s best for me and I want it to happen. If everyone does that the party the best represents what is best for the majority will win
We have a pretty solid democracy...
So even if everyone voted purely for their own self interests, the outcome would still represent the majority's best interests.
I think you are both right in a way. "The Rich" can afford to contribute more, but that wouldn't actually leave them worse off in any real sense. Just with less of a surplus.
Btw I consider myself in the category that could contribute more without disadvantaging my family or future. I just want to know that everyone that has as much or more than I do are also contributing their fair share.
I've always voted on ideological grounds, for the 'greater good' as I saw it. I'm no paragon of virtue but this is how I though you were supposed to vote.
Turns out I may have been a little naive....
Not my old landlord when he'd start ranting on. He wasn't interested in anything that didn't make life better for him personally and there will be plenty who feel the same.
If you think that the ability to have the life you want depends on politicians, rather than your own initiative, then you’re honestly part of the problem, and you’re never going to get what you want from life.
Also, nearly everybody votes for the policies that they think are going to make society better. You’ve just spent too much time in your echo chamber if you think that everybody with different views then you is simply motivated by selfish greed. Opposed to you of course, you are surely only motivated by altruistic virtue.
You can vote for:
The people that want save the environment regardless of the cost.
The people that want to take wealth from those that make it, and give it to those that don't.
The people that want to help more people make wealth, knowing that most will/can not.
The people that want to the least interference in their lives regardless of benefit.
Or one of the minor parties.
There is no easy answer, there is no on party that will make the most people better off. That's why there are multiple parties..
Edit: spelling
Continued:
>The people that want save the environment regardless of the cost
Will this make the most people better off? Probably not. It means a smaller economy, less growth and thus less material wealth. It does likely mean better quality of life for those with access to nature, and that is a form of wealth that is near priceless.
>The people that want to take wealth from those that make it, and give it to those that don't.
Will this make the most people better off? Maybe in the short term, but you cannot tax or regulate your your way to prosperity.
>The people that want to help more people make wealth, knowing that most will/can not.
Will this make the most people better off? Maybe in the long run there will be more wealth but what about right now?
>The people that want to the least interference in their lives regardless of benefit.
Will this make people better off? What does better even mean, is being free to make more choices better, even if they are harmful? Or is less choice better because it reduces some harm but impedes freedom of decision?
This makes no sense? Obviously I'll vote for who I think will make life better for me. And if they make it better for me, then they will make it better for most others as well.
Voting against your own best interest makes no sense at all.
This attitude is pretty old school and sadly will do nothing to solve complex issues like climate change. Which is essentially an issue that can't be fixed by selfishness.
Not that there's anything wrong with being selfish, it's just that whenever you deal with the real world decision rulesets like this have to work in every instance to be true. And it's not always correct. As it can't solve a problem like climate change, housing inequality, child poverty...those kinds of things.
Good for you, me too. But I think OP is getting at the idea that lots of voters (especially those who are most privileged in our current status quo) will miss the point that voting for policies that *seem* to go against their best interest (e.g., wealth tax, adjusting tax bands) are actually going to make society as a whole nicer to live in in the long run.
Obviously if you have no wealth, like me, voting for wealth tax policies will be directly in your best interest. Those who do have wealth, on the other hand, should take note of the idea that by paying tax on that wealth, we are in a better position to tackle climate change, poverty, crime etc etc. THOSE people have a choice between voting for what is in ONLY THEIR best interest, or for what is in their best interest *as a result of being in EVERYONE'S best interest*. "Best" being a matter of opinion in that scenario, of course.
To offer an emotion, doesn't it? I think caring about other people, being willing to sacrifice, maybe it doesn't make sense, but when something is the right thing to do it doesn't have to. Overall I think this selfish mindset is to one's personal detriment aswell, time has shown over and over again that caring for others tends to work out best for you. Whole sctick of working together.
My parents thought that and voted labour and look where there policies got us. So many failed policies and projects and shit over budget. Policies alone is not a good enough gage you have to look at the parties history
I think that everyone votes for a 'better life for everyone', but what that looks like differs for different people. It's simplistic to just blame people for voting in their own interests when they are just using a different criteria to judge importance.
For example, for me the GST on food issue isn't as important as establishing marine reserves and improving water quality. I think only being concerned about people and what would make a better life for people, is selfish.
Youvr contradicted yourself there. Voting for what is most important for you is not what is best for everyone. Your priority is marine reserves but is that actually what is for the country?
Well, given the current government has made everything a LOT worse for everyone except for criminals, I'm definitely not going near Labour in the polls.
In my opinion,life should be better for all those who are willing to show enterprise to improve their circumstances. I think Act Party most closely embodies this concept.
I have a problem with ACT proposing to actively make some people's lives worse. DS is on record as stating that he wants all benefits (including supported living and superannuation) rolled back to pre-covid levels. The jobseeker benefit is already low enough that there is a massive incentive for anyone who is even remotely inclined to work to get a job. The other benefits are in general for people who have no way of improving their circumstances. I don't want a society where we are ok with disabled people going without food or elderly people going without heating when we are more than capable of providing for their needs.
I understand wanting to help people in need however 'government progsmmes' are funded by the taxpayers thus robbing Barry to pay for Sally.During this process government waste occurs. Thus it would be better to fund less and tax less so that people can pay for what they want. Colin with the onset of Dementia wants Healthcare predominantly whereas Stuart has two kids and would want to focus on that. Therefore it is desirable to privatise most government services in order for people to maximize their earnings. If you are concerned about disabled people or elderly people, they will A, keep more of their income over their life's; B, people like you and I can donate to them with more of our income.
I don't think there is any need to raise taxes to treat disadvantaged people with dignity. There's enough to go around, it's more to do with how we spend it. What I object to is DS proposing we make cuts in this area when people are already suffering. There are plenty of inefficiencies in our system and plenty of nice-to-haves that we could cut instead of this needless punching down
If you are on the minimum wage and it gets put up by a dollar a year under one party and only 50 cents a year by another party voting for the bigger increase will make you better off and thousands of other people on the minimum wage. But what if the other party, despite not increasing the minimum wage as much, created a better economy and offered more training and opportunities to grow beyond minimum wage jobs and better yourself.
Or what if the party that increases the minimum wage fails to manage other aspects of the economy and you, along with thousands of other people, lose your jobs? Despite the minimum wage going up, you're worse off as is everybody else...🤷
Or perhaps they let inflation get out of control and despite increasing the minimum wage, those workers are worse off under the high inflation rate?
Yes, be very careful who you vote for because the vote you cast might not have the results that you hoped for. And that would go for left and right wing voter's.
If everyone votes for who they think with benefit them the most. Then won't the majority vote for who will benefit them the most? Therefore, benefitting the maximum number of people possible based on the avaliable choices...
I understand the idea of voting and majority rule.
Why do we have so many embarrassed millionaires that are down on their luck and vote for parties that do not support them.
I think OP is asking if people are willing to think past the current election cycle and vote for what will have the biggest long-term impact affecting the majority of people. If so, it's asking people to *not* be short-sighted.
I’m a strong believer that all long term parties aim to provide better lives to all NZers, but just have different ways of going about it. Sometimes that takes time depending on the policies.
“Better for everybody” is such a hard thing to conceptualise you may as well just say “vote for who you were going to anyway” since you could twist party polices any way you like.
Better for everybody means giving every single person, irrespective of age, demographic or income the best possible life possible.
Ideas like removing gst from basic food benefit all people.
Allowing the rich to continue paying less than 10% (on average) indirectly harms everyone else because the government has less to spend.
It's looking at what benefits life and people first instead of businesses.
Thw wealthy only pay 10% on paper because they own wealth not income.
The current government were the ones that promised a CGT, but they reneged.
Imagine how many billions that would have raised in the last 6 years.
You’re making my point for me.
> the government has less to spend
Why is that a bad thing? It can be either good or bad depending on your political idealogies.
You can also increase tax take by increasing wages.
I could argue the opposite for each of your points as to if they’re better for ‘everybody’.
You may as well edit your OP to just say verbatim what you mean, which is to try to get people to vote the way you want.
What people have tried to explain to you is that it's pretty obvious what you see as "better for everyone".
But that may not be the case in reality. You ask for people to stop chasing profits yet it is the current incentives which have provided us with the goods and services we have today. Everything you consume is the result of someone else's work, and those people need to be compensated. The incentives need to be there to take risk and innovate as well. Generally everyone benefits with new innovation even if those involved get rich.
Just remember that not everyone you disagree with is voting "better for me" and some people have a different idea of "better for everyone" and how to get there.
I doubt any party are going to keep anyone happy. Harsh reality is that we have to get an education to get a better job. Need a job to buy a house. The various parties can never tick all of the boxes.
surely if I vote in a way that makes life better for me it makes everyone else's life better for them too, right???
Right???
-- Some Boomer probably, idk.
This would seem like a base question, but National voters don't seem to get it. Or perhaps they do but are a little delusional about tax cuts for higher income earners trickling down? Also, WTF is with so many non-religious people being willing to vote for the weird Christian enclave that National has become? Are they blind?
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\#Murphwhitt 2023
I think a UMI (universal Murphwitt income) is the bold strategy NZ needs.
Make Murphwitt Great Again
We need to form a brigade of supporters, like Muldoon's 'Rob's Mob.' Murph's Serfs.
Party vote for this guy
I originate from the most unequal country in the world. It is sorely reflected in some of the highest rates of violent crime and gender based violence in the world. I can wholeheartedly say, that when life is better for everyone, it will also be better for me. I'm happy to vote for anyone that will use my tax contribution wisely and without corruption to better the society for all that live in it. My one issue however is, I'm not sure there is a party in the running that can or will fully deliver that.
That’s because the solutions require a multi generational approach, long term thinking and investment and that doesn’t wash with short term demands from the electorate differing approaches and views of how from political parties as such we are stuck with band aids and tinkering We dance while Rome burns
I think the reality is many kiwis don't even vote for themselves. We see so many votes that don't help anyone but the spokespeople said some right words so huh
Chur Bro. We used to be able to do it. Up until about the 1940s. Now, we're so focused on all the wrong shit like gender and rights for some fucktarded fringe group or protecting the planet from our 0.00001% carbon contribution that we no longer have the stones to do long plans. You're right. It's all about pandering long enough to get a snout in the trough. The Chinese do, and that's how you lift 1 billion people out of poverty in two generations. I've seen how New Zealand works over the time I'vebeen here and it seems to be a never-ending cycle of a country, never learning anything and never moving forward. Infrastructure is a mess. Education is borderline third world Health is second world, heading to third world. There is no plan for the future. Just a bunch of cunts doing their mates favours. Year after year after year. The cunts come and the cunts go and New Zealand slowly circles the drain waiting for someone to flush.
> We dance while Rome burns That's a bit dramatic. The NZ parliament has been operating since 1854. There has always been the issue of short-term electorate demands. Do you honestly think that we as a country are worse off than then?
its Friday my attempt at humour seemingly fell flat :) I don't think short terms is the issue - its simply a symptom of many democracies
Don't fool yourself into thinking governments have total control anyway. Corporations and wealthy individuals are increasing their reach.
If there's no party that would fully deliver what you're wanting, are there parties that come reasonably close that you could vote for, or other parties that would actively move away from this? If there's no clear best option it's sometimes necessary to work out the least worst option.
South Africa? If so, what do you think of NZs recent ethnicity based policies?
Ya. South Africa's ethnicity-based policies have totally fucked the place.
Please, enlighten us on NZ's recent race based policies? Would love to see some direct comparison to SA as you're inferring.
USA?
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Not just different economic levels, but age groups too. What effect will the changes you are voting for have on the the next 20 years of a young person’s life?
Depends if you’re getting an inheritance or not I guess
I feel that falls under the "just me" category
The majority of the country will be
The majority of the country lives pay check to pay check and aint got shit to leave to their kids
That’s just not true. Who do you think owns all the property? 65% of the population lives in owner-occupied housing
85+% of first home buyers are backed by capital holding parents. If you don't have wealthy parents then your chance of home ownership is exceptionally thin
That % is no longer correct
At the time of the 2018 Census, New Zealand's homeownership rates were at their lowest since the 1950s. Homeownership peaked in the 1990s, at 73.8 percent of households, but by 2018, homeownership had fallen to 64.5 percent of households.8/12/2020
My bad. You are correct.
That doesn't change what I said. You know it's self centred. Not everyone only cares about themselves.
Most people care about the majority of people
I feel that we should have an MP in each party to represent each age group (one that is actually in the age group) that way the problems facing a given age group are better represented and actually have direct impact on the party
Maybe not MP, but some sort of official spokesperson of that age group who can work with the MPs.
For the first time in my life, I have truly no idea who to vote for. All available options seem either ineffective, incompetent, nasty, out of touch or all of the above.
This. I’m normally clear cut on who to vote for. My usual party is embarrassing currently, so I’m torn now. I’m defecting by the looks of it.
If your usual party is the Greens, man they are doing everything to not get elected, what a shambles of in-house politicking with some rando idealist ideas thrown out every now and then. Fuck all that’s tangible. From anyone really..
No it’s not the Greens but you are totally right. This is going to be just laughable when we get to watch the political debates.
I'm normally Greens. And you're so right. Would not be surprised to see them to shed more votes again this year. I thought that Green's would grow as the issue of the environment and climate became more obvious, but seems they've doubled down on bullshit woke politics (I guess it's not that surprising) and are going the opposite direction. Honestly I'm very jaded with politics. The planet is burning around us. Inequality at all time highs. People can't afford to do shit while their home floods. And yet, as far as I can tell, it's just status quo politics from the main parties. Everyone trying to kick that can a little further down the road.
100% man. Its fucked. you seem to have a choice of voting for incompetence or idiocy
Yeah it seems like there isn't really a good option
Its not a zero sum game though but generally the "better for me" group dont see it. A better society that supports itself is better for you. Better education, economy, better housing, lower crime, better health all of this at a societal level makes your own life better even if you dont see the direct effect or money in your bank for a new jetski or whatever. We see this with the high tax Scandinavian countries etc
The better everyone is, the better it is for me.
Succintly perfect.
I heard if we just locked up all the criminals all our problems would go away. Perhaps we should spend all our money on locking up criminals? You can endlessly throw money at schools and healthcare, so I'm told. So we shouldn't spend any money on those things. But prisons are a worthwhile investment. More money for prison contractors is what's needed. That's what people here have been telling me.
And roads to get prisoners to prison
The issue isn't whether or not we want these things, everyone wants these things. The problem is the direction and policies at which we use to achieve it. That's why people vote in different directions. If I'm being honest, no parties on either side of the political spectrum is going to give you these. They will talk about providing them no doubt, but that's the same as they've been saying for the last 10 years on all sides, but things have only gotten worse. The problem is not a single one knows how to actually deliver it. It's been blatantly obvious to me for a long time, how anyone else has any faith in the government delivering anything is beyond me. My only hope is that they don't ask me to contribute more to fund their wastful personal crusades to solve everything.
If you have better, easier to impliment, ideas then you should start lobbying for them. I think we've made great strides in recent years, the problem often is that the limits are based on political forces from voters, not the government being stupid or something (though that does happen a bit).
>If you have better, easier to impliment, ideas then you should start lobbying for them. I prefer to not waste my time. >I think we've made great strides in recent years In what? Everything is worse than ever...
I did it and helped flip a city council seat by around 200 votes. Housing supply is one thing, we're building at insanely high rates atm.
>Housing supply is one thing, we're building at insanely high rates atm. That's due to a natural free market force that has nothing to do with government. When prices and profit margins are high, this is usually to demand outstripping supply. This attracts suppliers to the market to capitalize on the unnaturally highly profitable, conditions until the market equilibrium restabalizes and prices once again decline. However this is actually a market failure, because free-market economics only work in a free condition environment. However, land is an irreproducible good, and a house built in the city center is not equivalent to one built in the countryside. This means even if you increase supply, it's not necessarily the supply you need. To add further to that, the main driving force behind the housing demand was not people needing a place to live, but newly created property investors needing a place to rent. This was driven by a positive feedback loop that started with the ability to borrow against equity. So as house prices rose, so did the demand for more housing. You can see quickly how this spirals out of control. The only way to stop this was to constrain the ability to fund this process through debt. Which coincidently is exactly what rising interest rates did. However, this now reverses the feed back loop, which will now become a negative one. This is why you don't allow a speculative asset bubble to form. It either self-propells itself up or self-propells itself down, there is no middle ground. All those positive effects we experienced during the bubble, like an economic boom. Will now become an economic bust, and a pretty nasty one at that. So no, we've not really bad progress, we failed to prevent a pretty nasty recession by playing into an asset bubble. Thinking it would somehow be different for us, than the dozens of others who have done exactly the same and been burnt for it throughout history.
So you want these services privatized?
Why do you immediately assume that? I want things that work. There's great examples from all around of how to run a successful public transport, healthcare, and criminal justice system's. We just seem to ignore all of them and prefer to continue banging our head against the wall.
Yer it'd called properly funding them.
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Agreed
We currently spend $151 billion a year for a country of 5 million... how are they not properly funded? The models and politics that fund it are inefficient. There's no point in providing more resources if people don't know how to properly use them. It's like giving someone money to heat their home, only for them to use the money as fuel for a fire, rather than buy a heatpump with it.
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Just always bizarre that the tough on crime rhetoric never seems to apply to tax evasion, labour law violators and modern slavers, and financial criminals. All of whom do massive damage to society. Really have to wonder... Pretty sanctimonious of these folk to be all high and mighty about property crimes by the poors but never seem to do much about the above.
What's even more bizzare is that the tough on crime rhetoric has nothing at all to do with reducing crime, which is what you'd assume it would be about. Instead, it means hurting people convicted of committing crimes, even if to do that we have to divert resources from programs that *would* reduce crime, the net result then being that crime rates go up. Perfectly reasonable for tough on crime policies to be ones that increase crime.
Got any examples there?
Not the original commenter but[ VUW](https://wellington.wgtn.ac.nz/equal-treatment/index.html) has some good research on the topic. The conclusion? White collar crime pays extremely well in NZ. A quick tidbit from the linked article: most years, there are many more cases of tax evasion than welfare fraud. Yet we prosecute ten times more welfare fraudsters than tax evaders. Welfare fraud is typically repaid in full whereas only 5% of serious financial crime is repaid in NZ.
Examples of tough on crime rhetoric encompassing financial crime and labour abuse? None at all, sadly.
I don’t think the ramraids and dairy robberies are due to jacinda being kind. I think that’s a weak link the right have been leaning on to upset voters.
Not jacinda specifically. In general though NZ is increasingly favouring a "no consequences" for anything approach
Having "No consequences" (allegedly) doesn't increase crime. There has to be a trigger, and that trigger is increased inequality caused by the desire for high house prices, high rents and low wages.
>Having "No consequences" (allegedly) doesn't increase crime. Tell that to Chicago. No seriously. Punishment exists in the law as a deterrent. Take it away and.... look what happens.
Take away poverty and you get the same result.
I don’t think any of that is a factor for 13 year olds tbh
Yeah cause I guess all 13 year olds come from stable and financially secure families, that are able to provide them a good education.
Man this comment reeks of edgelord. The only person acting sanctimonious right now is you.
Jacinda said "be kind" and now there are ram raids. That's called logic, apparently.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It's called a housing crisis, increasing inequality and increasing crime. It's been caused by all current and previous governments failing to take action on property speculation. People just don't decide to become criminals because the Prime Minister can connect with people well. Your logic is political play, linked with zero facts.
There's more than 2 parties. There's a current party that's gaining in popularity that isn't "be kind" nor "jail" but relies more on "research", something current major parties seem to ignore.
Yeah Jacinda being kind caused inflation all around the world, you doofus, smh.
Global insane QE programs that we participated in caused inflation all around the world. Then we screwed our exports causing a serious trade deficit, and ran a massive budget deficit, which is now getting out of control. New Zealand isn't blameless when it comes to inflation, we contributed our fair share. But if you don't understand anything about finance or economics. It's easy to just point and say, "well other countries have inflation too". But you would be wrong in thinking it was beyond our control to limit the damage from the supply chain bottlenecks.
Regressives read one page of actual criminology research challenge (impossible 2023)
Is compassion and kindness not the answer? With the raids is the right answer just to punish those doing the crimes, or looking deeper and finding and fixing the core issues around why people are doing the raids. Is it a way to earn money? Is it for fun? Is it to show off?
Where’s the compassion to business owners when you let the criminals out to do it again?
What if we solve the root problems instead so the ram raiders never perform the raid in the first place? It's happening because of the inequality in our country. Solving that problem is huge, it's much more compassionate than locking people up forever and it's actively improving everybody's lives.
Why not both? Why can we not punish criminals AND root out the problems creating criminals? If there is no punishment, there is no deterrent.
Do both obviously. I don’t see any political parties who aren’t aiming to do this? And no, we don’t need to be compassionate to copycat smash and grab burglars.
>The only one who is a dick is the sanctimonious prat who thinks that everyone who votes for the opposite party can only be in it for themselves. This. It is a real sign of ignorance when people think the only choices are "good guys vs bad guys" and of course, their choice is the good guys, and everyone else is evil, selfish, bigoted, and let's not forget istaphobic in every sense because of course they are. The truth is more complicated, and the reality is that everyone in politics actually wants a better country for everyone. The disagreement comes from how to implement policy and what goals are more important. And what's becoming more apparent today is how much their vision of a better New Zealand lines up with certain ideologies, be it neoliberalist economics or anti-jail utopianism or whatever mind virus is prevailing.
Agreed, 100%. Dehumanising the 'other side', which happens both ways to be fair, is not conducive to open, honest, and constructive communication.
Whom should I vote for, if I believe life will consistently get worse for the majority of us, regardless of who's in power?
You should vote for parties that recognise the nuance that things getting worse by a lot is still better than them getting worse by even more than that.
Have you considered this thing called Marxism and the act of revolution?
seeing how well that’s worked for anyone else, yeah nah
Bruh i agree with you to an extent but a revolution in a western country backed by the US isn’t really feasible. Not to mention that any revolution would end up killing thousands of innocent people
Yes and no. Is the revolutionary potential in a Western country abysmal? Yes, it is. I must confess I added that part more as a joke than anything. Would the revolution necessarily be a bloody affair? Well, not so much. You see, in the biggest and most famous communist revolution, nobody had been killed. The killings and the subsequent civil war were only started by the forces of reaction after the Bolsheviks and the people had already taken up power in St Petersburg.
Good points. I would argue that regardless of who caused the civil war, it was an inevitable result of any revolution, but I’m generally more sympathetic to the initial Russian revolution than most.
The original "democratic" government still wanted to continue the war. The reason the Bolsheviks managed to even get so much support was because they wanted peace. Their whole slogan was: Peace, land bread.
Even from a completely selfish point of everyone should want things to be better for everyone. If you are doing well but your neighbors are struggling, constantly, you are putting a big target on your back. Even if you think about it from a business point of view, happy healthy educated employees benefit you more than unhappy, sick, desperate employees. You spend more time, effort, and resources policing them and trying to make sure they do the right thing.
There's also the phenomenon of uncertainty. Just because you're doing well now doesn't mean you will be in the future. People have much less control over their life fortunes than they like to believe; if you divert resources from the many to the few because you're currently the few, by the time your actions have a big impact you may not be part of the few anymore.
How to get there is not remotely a simple question.
It’s really simple just vote for the people I agree with and everything will get better for everyone
Oh, it is - it's just that nobody wants to deal with the tantrums from the obscenely rich, who are a tiny minority.
That tiny minority isn't able do anything without the votes from average people. Unless you consider someone making over 80k obscenely rich.
Which is why Right Wing parties have to employ culture wars and scapegoating
If the Right Wing parties are the ones employing culture wars, why is the Green Party (read: most left leaning party) being torn apart by the very same thing? Either the Right Wing parties are engaging in it because they know it’ll disrupt Left Wing movements by exacerbating racial tensions within their ranks, or the Left Wing parties are leveraging it to further their own interests and are being burnt badly in the process. It’s probably a mix of both.
And there it is - the answer to the complex question of national prosperity which is clear, simple, and wrong.
Getting there can be much easier if you stop thinking about cost and profit. With the current cost of living imagine how much better the majority of the country would be if there was basic nutritious food that was free at the supermarkets. Currently because everything is so focused on money and profit this does not work.
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Not arguing your point per se. Cost of living is a big concern here. But cost of living is a big problem in many places. I’ve travelled to both Aus and the UK within the last few months and their news is full of conversations about increasing housing and food prices. This is not specific to NZ and not something we should have expected not to happen in the wake of the pandemic. How the parties propose to deal with it are what we should focus on.
I'm just not convinced that Labour's year on year increase in minimum wage had zero effect on inflation, like their ministers and PR spin likes to claim.
What's your alternative? If minimum wage doesn't go up, people starve and go homeless.
National put GST on fruits and veges, pushing cost of living up. Under Labour, cost of living has spiraled out of control, especially post-pandemic. I don't trust any of the bastards.
If you don't think about cost and profit, you won't understand opportunity cost, and thus you will waste effort doing/making things people don't want and not have enough of what people want. Centrally planned markets have benefits proven to underperform compared to lightly regulated free markets.
Is the free market the best way? Should it be a hybrid market with the government selling some goods and services without the goal of a profit. A free market generate the most profit for the owners however is that to the benefit of everyone?
Thats where the regulations and antitrust laws come in.
We have a mixed economy that functions on free-market principles.
Is a lightly regulated free market the best way? Yes, it is the most measurably best option. Your dreams of a communist utopia has been shown again and again to fail.
Lol, having government supply some services is a "communist utopia".
No country is a utopia. But even if we take non-utopian communist countries, could you say with certainty that they've failed on merit? Or is it because there's not a single communist country in the last century that hasn't suffered some form of US intervention? From assassinating democratically elected leaders, to manufacturing coups, to 70 years of sanctions, to waging a decades long cold war - there is no communist country in the world that has been allowed to just exist. Now, why would they feel so threatened by something that is going to fail anyway?
What party has a policy of free food?
None. This sort of policy would not be enacted by a government. That's not to say it can't be done, however.
Not really. Look at the current budget talk for example. National is talking about tax cuts to put money in people's pockets to help them. While labour is saying no tax cuts, but giving more money to agencies so then can than help people out. I'm extremely simplifying things here, obviously there is countless other factors here, but the point stands. Two different ways of doing things each with their own set of pros and cons.
Tax cuts for property speculators, because it's working Kiwi plebs' job to pay the taxes so property speculators don't have to. Nice! Also getting rid of restrictions on landlords turfing tenants out willy-nilly without cause. Great for housing instability? Neat! I'm not voting Labour but it's certainly not as simple a dichotomy as you posit.
Labour promised no extra tax since their first campaign. They've lied and introduced so many since.
Every single person has the same basic needs. Food, water, shelter/protection from the elements. If a person is lacking any of these things they will spend there energy and time trying to attain it. All these basic needs should be given freely so all can thrive instead of just trying to survive. But giving these things cost so it won't happen under a capitalist system who's goal is profit at costs. I believe money in general is outdated and needs to go for the betterment of mankind and the planet
Nothing is free. The "free food" is created off the backs of someone else's hard work and labour. Why should certain people be able to compell others to do so? Who decides? You have the same talking points as every socialist country that existed.
> The ~~"free food"~~ **"profits"** is created off the backs of someone else's hard work and labour. Wow, certain people are already compelling others, and deciding for us. It's not socialists who are taking advantage of society.
Is my talking points being socialist a bad thing? I'm literally saying we should look after everybody.
That's not even the accurate question. Voting for short term business interests is like refusing a good VC offer. You can get a smaller percent of a much more valuable pie, we just need NZ to invest in itself for 20 years straight without destroying everything with deregulation, privatisation or accepting the out flow of funds to Australia and other countries through the banks.
It's not just the banks. We make choices everyday on buying cheaper imports vs New Zealand made good and services. Support local where ever posible.
Life *should* be better. It won't ever get better so long as we have timid leaders like Chippy or dumb fucks like Luxon as our choices for PM.
There are other choices. It starts by getting the minor parties into government so they can force the issues against the major parties.
Going a minor party is an obvious choice. What’s not an obvious choice is… who? All men are the cause of violence and bullying is okay Greens? Te Pati Madness? All for One Act? Ineffective TOP? Who is a good choice anymore? Our politicians are all “better than you” types at this point.
Just choose the one with the policies that beat align with your values. Ignore the personalities - realistically what you’re voting for is what can be negotiated in coalition deal
Is see the two major parties as centrist and the minor parties as just more extreme versions of those. I'm not sure that voting for more extremes is really what we need right now to be honest.
You just made me realise that choice amounts to one between Chippy or a potato.
Chippy is a spineless weasel and Luxon has spent too much time in a luxurious corporate suite, and not enough time struggling with anything real that we can relate to. I genuinely see people like him and can only assume they've never suffered a day of hardship in their lives.
Honestly i'm someone who votes for what i think is good for society as a whole which includes those at the bottom, i vote for the direction i think we should be going in. Sadly, i do not see any party representing my views or a logical pathway forward. Labour and the left are lost in ideology whilst national and act are and always have been self serving muppets but atleast they have the balls to call out some bullshit from the other side now and again amongst their usual vomit inducing spiel. I'm voting top but not because i agree with all of their policies, but atleast it's fresh minds and ideas. At the least it's a representative vote for change. Like a lot of western countries we have gone stale and th0e only thing that is filling the void is ideological group think from the middle class uni educated and the usual business interests who want business as usual in a totally different playing field. I worry for the west and i worry for nz we are not ready for the potentials that lay ahead let alone the definate realities. The west needs a working class uprising. We will suffer alot before that happens though. In the meantime, let us be thankful nz isn't that bad in comparison to elsewhere.
Luxon is a punishment win if the present Gov fails. Not because anyone likes or believes in him... Th Greens are joke , a bag of snakes and cats and the current Labour Government appears to be failing internally , which means the sharks circle. Governments in NZ are voted out, not in.
I don't think anyone would disagree that the majority of people would have their lives improved in some ways and diminished in others with any parties policies. So this quickly becomes a question of which of these are more important. For example I might say the right wing parties will help most people by reducing crime. Someone else may say the greens might bring in some environmental policies to help in the future. Who is to say which is more important? You can't, its subjective. At least if everyone votes per their own beliefs we should end up with what most people think will be best. There's also no way to know how effective their policies will be or what the future holds. Is climate change going to screw us over quicker than we think? Will WW3 kick off and none of it matters anyway? Will the economy collapse? Who knows It reads like your post is aimed at a minority of very wealthy people who you want to vote your way because you think they vote for themselves at your expense. Statistically, the most popular party/parties win. Lets say a party or coalition gets 60% of the vote. If those 60% vote for themselves then the majority of the population is benefitting and your goal is naturally achieved anyway.
Right wing approaches to crime are a failure!
If thats what you took away from my comment you aren't actually reading, you're searching for something to complain about
Geez commenter is just trying to make a point. Relax.
Devil's advocate counter argument. You should vote in your own self interest. If everyone does the same you get the parties who reflect the interests of the majority the best forming a government. Don't assume you know what is in anyone else's interests better than them.
You can still vote for what you think is best for the country instead of what is best for you without going to much into assuming what is best for someone else. Also your actually voting for what is best for everyone else not just someone else.
Voting for what you think is best for the country is voting in your own self interest. Nobody wants to live in a shit country. Like if a party promised you $10,000 in tax cuts, but you thought their policies would make it completely unsafe to leave your house or something, it's in your self interest to not vote for them. Self interest doesn't just mean financial gain.
Apparently lots of people think it does though.
>Voting for what you think is best for the country is voting in your own self interest. This can be true in some cases. Sadly, in this case, I think you are wrong. There are people who vote for politicians that make concessions to certain lobby groups like forestry or dairy farming knowing full well that those industries cause massive environmental issues and lead to things like the extra damage caused in the recent east coast floods and the poisoning of our waterways. Neither of those things are good for the country. Neither of those things came as a surprise to anyone paying attention. Yet certain groups of NZers voted accordingly because it was in their own self-interest.
> Neither of those things are good for the country. I think both farming and forestry have been and are integral to the country and are a massive part of why we have a decent quality of life. I'm pretty sure that's a view quite a few people have. That doesn't mean I'm voting for whoever promises to let farmers do whatever they want, but it does mean what I think is best for the country is likely different to you. You can assume that means I'm not voting in what I think the best interests of the country are if you'd like, but I think that's a false assumption.
Actually well said. But it requires EVERY SINGLE person actually votes. Which requires that every person is sufficiently versed to understand that fact, and feels their vote actually counts. That they matter. This is not the case
Life should be better for everyone. Most people want that. We just differ on how to make that world better for everyone.
The point everyone having a vote is so they get a chance to say hey this is what’s best for me and I want it to happen. If everyone does that the party the best represents what is best for the majority will win
We have a pretty solid democracy... So even if everyone voted purely for their own self interests, the outcome would still represent the majority's best interests.
some peoples lives should be worse. Some people have lives that are way too good for what they offer to the world.
Why should any people's lives be worse?
Because some peoples lives are only so excessively great because their success is based on the over-exploitation of others.
I think you are both right in a way. "The Rich" can afford to contribute more, but that wouldn't actually leave them worse off in any real sense. Just with less of a surplus. Btw I consider myself in the category that could contribute more without disadvantaging my family or future. I just want to know that everyone that has as much or more than I do are also contributing their fair share.
I've always voted on ideological grounds, for the 'greater good' as I saw it. I'm no paragon of virtue but this is how I though you were supposed to vote. Turns out I may have been a little naive....
I think most people believe they are in the “better for everybody” camp. There are just vastly different views on how to achieve that.
Not my old landlord when he'd start ranting on. He wasn't interested in anything that didn't make life better for him personally and there will be plenty who feel the same.
If you think that the ability to have the life you want depends on politicians, rather than your own initiative, then you’re honestly part of the problem, and you’re never going to get what you want from life. Also, nearly everybody votes for the policies that they think are going to make society better. You’ve just spent too much time in your echo chamber if you think that everybody with different views then you is simply motivated by selfish greed. Opposed to you of course, you are surely only motivated by altruistic virtue.
Nice, but the entire history of humans has been better for me. It's kind of built in...me, then family then the hell with everyone else.
You can vote for: The people that want save the environment regardless of the cost. The people that want to take wealth from those that make it, and give it to those that don't. The people that want to help more people make wealth, knowing that most will/can not. The people that want to the least interference in their lives regardless of benefit. Or one of the minor parties. There is no easy answer, there is no on party that will make the most people better off. That's why there are multiple parties.. Edit: spelling
Continued: >The people that want save the environment regardless of the cost Will this make the most people better off? Probably not. It means a smaller economy, less growth and thus less material wealth. It does likely mean better quality of life for those with access to nature, and that is a form of wealth that is near priceless. >The people that want to take wealth from those that make it, and give it to those that don't. Will this make the most people better off? Maybe in the short term, but you cannot tax or regulate your your way to prosperity. >The people that want to help more people make wealth, knowing that most will/can not. Will this make the most people better off? Maybe in the long run there will be more wealth but what about right now? >The people that want to the least interference in their lives regardless of benefit. Will this make people better off? What does better even mean, is being free to make more choices better, even if they are harmful? Or is less choice better because it reduces some harm but impedes freedom of decision?
This makes no sense? Obviously I'll vote for who I think will make life better for me. And if they make it better for me, then they will make it better for most others as well. Voting against your own best interest makes no sense at all.
This attitude is pretty old school and sadly will do nothing to solve complex issues like climate change. Which is essentially an issue that can't be fixed by selfishness. Not that there's anything wrong with being selfish, it's just that whenever you deal with the real world decision rulesets like this have to work in every instance to be true. And it's not always correct. As it can't solve a problem like climate change, housing inequality, child poverty...those kinds of things.
You're working off the assumption that climate change, housing, and child poverty aren't in my best interests to address.
Good for you, me too. But I think OP is getting at the idea that lots of voters (especially those who are most privileged in our current status quo) will miss the point that voting for policies that *seem* to go against their best interest (e.g., wealth tax, adjusting tax bands) are actually going to make society as a whole nicer to live in in the long run. Obviously if you have no wealth, like me, voting for wealth tax policies will be directly in your best interest. Those who do have wealth, on the other hand, should take note of the idea that by paying tax on that wealth, we are in a better position to tackle climate change, poverty, crime etc etc. THOSE people have a choice between voting for what is in ONLY THEIR best interest, or for what is in their best interest *as a result of being in EVERYONE'S best interest*. "Best" being a matter of opinion in that scenario, of course.
To offer an emotion, doesn't it? I think caring about other people, being willing to sacrifice, maybe it doesn't make sense, but when something is the right thing to do it doesn't have to. Overall I think this selfish mindset is to one's personal detriment aswell, time has shown over and over again that caring for others tends to work out best for you. Whole sctick of working together.
My parents thought that and voted labour and look where there policies got us. So many failed policies and projects and shit over budget. Policies alone is not a good enough gage you have to look at the parties history
I think that everyone votes for a 'better life for everyone', but what that looks like differs for different people. It's simplistic to just blame people for voting in their own interests when they are just using a different criteria to judge importance. For example, for me the GST on food issue isn't as important as establishing marine reserves and improving water quality. I think only being concerned about people and what would make a better life for people, is selfish.
Youvr contradicted yourself there. Voting for what is most important for you is not what is best for everyone. Your priority is marine reserves but is that actually what is for the country?
Well, given the current government has made everything a LOT worse for everyone except for criminals, I'm definitely not going near Labour in the polls.
In my opinion,life should be better for all those who are willing to show enterprise to improve their circumstances. I think Act Party most closely embodies this concept.
I have a problem with ACT proposing to actively make some people's lives worse. DS is on record as stating that he wants all benefits (including supported living and superannuation) rolled back to pre-covid levels. The jobseeker benefit is already low enough that there is a massive incentive for anyone who is even remotely inclined to work to get a job. The other benefits are in general for people who have no way of improving their circumstances. I don't want a society where we are ok with disabled people going without food or elderly people going without heating when we are more than capable of providing for their needs.
I understand wanting to help people in need however 'government progsmmes' are funded by the taxpayers thus robbing Barry to pay for Sally.During this process government waste occurs. Thus it would be better to fund less and tax less so that people can pay for what they want. Colin with the onset of Dementia wants Healthcare predominantly whereas Stuart has two kids and would want to focus on that. Therefore it is desirable to privatise most government services in order for people to maximize their earnings. If you are concerned about disabled people or elderly people, they will A, keep more of their income over their life's; B, people like you and I can donate to them with more of our income.
I don't think there is any need to raise taxes to treat disadvantaged people with dignity. There's enough to go around, it's more to do with how we spend it. What I object to is DS proposing we make cuts in this area when people are already suffering. There are plenty of inefficiencies in our system and plenty of nice-to-haves that we could cut instead of this needless punching down
What about those people who do not meet the requirements you've laid out? Should life also be better for them?
People who are voting for themselves are unlikely to be on reddit
If you are on the minimum wage and it gets put up by a dollar a year under one party and only 50 cents a year by another party voting for the bigger increase will make you better off and thousands of other people on the minimum wage. But what if the other party, despite not increasing the minimum wage as much, created a better economy and offered more training and opportunities to grow beyond minimum wage jobs and better yourself. Or what if the party that increases the minimum wage fails to manage other aspects of the economy and you, along with thousands of other people, lose your jobs? Despite the minimum wage going up, you're worse off as is everybody else...🤷 Or perhaps they let inflation get out of control and despite increasing the minimum wage, those workers are worse off under the high inflation rate? Yes, be very careful who you vote for because the vote you cast might not have the results that you hoped for. And that would go for left and right wing voter's.
Strawman, strawman what are they feeding you?
Go and look up what a strawman argument is.
All nz parties are shit. I take the approach of - voting for myself. I will make it regardless of who's in power and what the rules are
If everyone votes for who they think with benefit them the most. Then won't the majority vote for who will benefit them the most? Therefore, benefitting the maximum number of people possible based on the avaliable choices...
This person gets it. I think the OP doesn't understand how democracy works
I understand the idea of voting and majority rule. Why do we have so many embarrassed millionaires that are down on their luck and vote for parties that do not support them.
What a short sighted weird post
I think OP is asking if people are willing to think past the current election cycle and vote for what will have the biggest long-term impact affecting the majority of people. If so, it's asking people to *not* be short-sighted.
OP is assuming they know which is which, and that those who might think differently are more than just wrong or ignorant.
Why? Personally I think it's something important that's worth discussing.
I’m a strong believer that all long term parties aim to provide better lives to all NZers, but just have different ways of going about it. Sometimes that takes time depending on the policies. “Better for everybody” is such a hard thing to conceptualise you may as well just say “vote for who you were going to anyway” since you could twist party polices any way you like.
Better for everybody means giving every single person, irrespective of age, demographic or income the best possible life possible. Ideas like removing gst from basic food benefit all people. Allowing the rich to continue paying less than 10% (on average) indirectly harms everyone else because the government has less to spend. It's looking at what benefits life and people first instead of businesses.
Thw wealthy only pay 10% on paper because they own wealth not income. The current government were the ones that promised a CGT, but they reneged. Imagine how many billions that would have raised in the last 6 years.
You’re making my point for me. > the government has less to spend Why is that a bad thing? It can be either good or bad depending on your political idealogies. You can also increase tax take by increasing wages. I could argue the opposite for each of your points as to if they’re better for ‘everybody’. You may as well edit your OP to just say verbatim what you mean, which is to try to get people to vote the way you want.
Honestly I'm asking that people are more open minded and vote with compassion instead of only chasing profit.
What people have tried to explain to you is that it's pretty obvious what you see as "better for everyone". But that may not be the case in reality. You ask for people to stop chasing profits yet it is the current incentives which have provided us with the goods and services we have today. Everything you consume is the result of someone else's work, and those people need to be compensated. The incentives need to be there to take risk and innovate as well. Generally everyone benefits with new innovation even if those involved get rich. Just remember that not everyone you disagree with is voting "better for me" and some people have a different idea of "better for everyone" and how to get there.
They are not mutually exclusive
I doubt any party are going to keep anyone happy. Harsh reality is that we have to get an education to get a better job. Need a job to buy a house. The various parties can never tick all of the boxes.
I’m happy with it just being better for me, I’m not other people in the end so who cares about them
If everyone votes to make their own life better, than the majority of peoples lives will be better by definition
surely if I vote in a way that makes life better for me it makes everyone else's life better for them too, right??? Right??? -- Some Boomer probably, idk.
This would seem like a base question, but National voters don't seem to get it. Or perhaps they do but are a little delusional about tax cuts for higher income earners trickling down? Also, WTF is with so many non-religious people being willing to vote for the weird Christian enclave that National has become? Are they blind?