Posts by Matthew Poole
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Speaker: Confidential information: the…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
real estate professional can be anything but in their behaviour with no real consequence
You're speaking, I presume, of their behaviour other than as it relates to their practice of their profession? Because the consequences for misbehaviour in the carrying on of their profession very definitely extend to losing their licence; and look at what doctors get away with professionally without loss of licence before you suggest that it's only real estate professionals that are only notionally at risk of such punishment.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Bart Janssen,
endless people arguing ooo no we pay too much tax already
Or, apparently, believing that Bill English's spread in Dipton comes with that rarely-found species of tree: the pinus money-printarius. They're the ones who demand to know how Labour et al are going to pay for their various policies, as though National somehow don't have to levy taxes to pay for their policies.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to linger,
You meant putting the cart before the horse … rather than the reverse?
Yes, I did. I got too fancy for the early hour and lack of caffeine :(
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And yet again, do we aspire to the OECD average or to the top of the OECD.
Not sure that aspiring to be at the top of the OECD for tax take is something that would go over well with the focus groups, though.
We should aspire to be in at least the top third of the OECD on metrics of social progress and well-being, work out how to fund that progress, and then be where we end up being for tax take against the OECD average. Starting with the question of "How much should we tax?" seems to be rather putting the equine beast before the towed, wheeled carriage.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Labour is proposing an increase in net tax. CGT plus increase in the top tax band, and there’s no major corresponding cuts. It’s how Labour pays for all the spending promises.
They’re offering the possibility of tax cuts in a second term, plus R&D tax credits immediately. That doesn’t look like a sustained net tax increase to me.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Stephen R,
I was meaning politically universal rather than communally universal. Mana appears to be nearly, almost campaigning with a clear policy of a net tax increase, but none of the other parties that have a show of getting into Parliament are doing the same (unless I've missed something in the Greens' policy announcements). Some are actively campaigning on a net decrease, including National.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Bart Janssen,
the ridiculous proposition that National and Labour both subscribe to – that we cannot and should not raise taxes.
Bart, may I introduce you to Labour's policies to introduce a CGT and a new top income tax bracket? Or do you mean "we cannot and should not increase the overall tax take"? Because the latter seems to be a pretty universal sentiment outside of the NZ Communist Party, with even the Greens looking to trade off some increased taxes here with some decreased taxes over there. Hell, even Mana is not clearly advocating a big increase in the overall tax take because it wants to abolish GST at the same time as introducing other taxes.
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to Bart Janssen,
the public don’t appear to care that our science funding is being starved to death to build more roads
Except that the two are not related. Science funding comes from the Consolidated Fund. The Roads of Dubious Significance are funded by fuel excise and Road User Charges. You can blame the Steven Joyce Memorial Highway and its tarmac-coated brethren for the City Rail Link not being funded and cuts to the maintenance budget for non-motorway state highways, but they have zero bearing on science funding.
Science funding is being cut because National are adamantly opposed to tax increases/new taxes, regardless of merit, and because it's much easier to squeeze science out of a fixed-and-shrinking budget than it is to squeeze out education or healthcare. If you really want to blame something, blame penal policies which have turned Corrections into the biggest capital-expenditure sink in the entire public sector. That is a correlation that withstands scrutiny.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
the evidence was there. The victim was under the age of consent….end of story….surely?
That the jury actually had to have a discussion after seeing the evidence says it's not the end of the story. It says everything about the problem that this thread is discussing.
To deem that a trial is unnecessary because the evidence is apparently a slam-dunk is the path to many bad things that have nothing to do with sexual assaults, but we don't need to go that far to address some of the current problems with how sexual assault trials are conducted.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
If there was video evidence of an assault of a sexual nature on a child….under the age of legal consent…why in god’s name was there a trial? Surely, in a civilised society, such evidence would be sufficient to spare the victim from inquisition?
All the rapist has to do is plead "not guilty" and it goes to trial. That simple. And hopefully something that will never change, because down that path lie many bad things.
The "inquisition", however, needs to change. All of the things said about the inadequacy of the judicial system once a rape charge is in progress are true.