Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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Don Brash has a good summary of why we shouldn't start piling exemptions into our GST system here. His examples of the complexity involved in calculating exemptions leaves me, a regular GST return filer, somewhat cold.
Hey also says:
If the Government sees a need to help those families most adversely affected by rising food bills, then the best way of doing that is by reducing the income tax levied on low-income families, or adjusting the Working for Families policy to help those on low incomes.
I wonder if this means he would support the Green's $5000 tax-free threshold ?
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Reading this is an eye opener as how far to the right even the chardonnay socialists of P.A. are.
Depends what you are referencing. If it's the "Don't pollute GST with exceptions" meme then I'd say it's born more of bureaucratic pragmatism than some kind of latent right wing tendency.
My reading is that there is a general leaning towards alternative approaches to configuring the tax/benefit regime to it delivers the most benefit to those who have the least capacity to endure the coming hard times.
If you mean the meme that beneficiaries are already catered for and don't need assistance a la WFF, then I would have to agree that this has rightish connotations.
The CPAG have been campaigning for years about the need to do something meaningful about child poverty at all levels. The (depending on your source/definition) 130K to 180K children in poverty is a significant problem for our country, with real world ramifications in terms of future spends relevant to the criminal justice and health votes.
The fact that Labour have had nearly nine years during which they have presided over so many excellent economic conditions/indicators, and that they don't even have a target for eliminating child poverty, speaks volumes to me about political expediency vs the needs of the most disadvantaged groups.
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I'm in the Leave GST Alone crowd. Addressing poverty is not going achieved by complicating the consumption tax system.
I like the Greens' tax policy of no tax on the first $5000 of income. The lower your income, the more you would benefit. And everyone gets a tax cut, which is not the case if we simply lower the top tax rate from 39% to 33%.
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Is it just me, or is treating the death of your children primarily as some sort of test from God just further proof that all fundies of whatever religious persuasion have a tendency towards being death cults?
I put it down to some kind of tragic dissonance reduction. i.e. "I love my child. I love God. God took my child away *disonnance* => God must be testing me."
Any other conclusion could result in a loss of faith, or the belief that there was something wrong with your child - neither of which are even remotely palatable.
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I think it's probably just a modern social skill for everyone involved -- and part of that is not staring; or looking a breast-feeding woman in the eye like you would talking to anyone. Once you get that, it's no big deal
Agreed. You've just got to treat it like what it is - perfectly normal. It gets easier if you can detect that baby is getting hungry, so the breastfeeding is more expected.
If only the Hero Parade was still going. Apart from lots of other things, like a celebration of sexual diversity, it was a social inoculation against the meme that breasts had to be covered at all times.
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Are we doing that though?
Labour has been critical of China on human rights issues.
I think so. Actions speak louder than words. The message is that despite our limited criticisms, China's brutality isn't really that bad and we can do an FTA with them.
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I don't have time right now to go back through the audio, but I did listen to Russel on Checkpoint yesterday and he seemed unwilling to acknowledge that Chinese manufactured goods could be legitimately produced. I think he used the phrase "slave labour".
I listened to the podcast a couple of times. He was definitely against the FTA, but did emphatically say that we should still trade with China, which is a tacit agreement that China does legitimately produce goods.
AFAIK, he didn't mention slave labour, but he did talk about "widespread" child labour. According to a Human Rights Watch article, 400,000 schools use Work and Study programs and they fear hundreds of thousands of children are at risk from exploitation and lax safety standards. While it could be debated whether this constitutes "widespread", it is certainly a systemic problem.
Although would tend to agree with you if you thought Russel could have got his points across more clearly.
What could have said is: trade is between economic entities such as individuals and businesses and the Greens agree with this kind of international integration.However, FTAs a between States and that means we need to be cognisant of how the other State operates. The Green's position is that we should not give international credibility to brutal states that have poor human rights records, labour rights, and environmental records, especially when these are used as a competitive advantage in the productive sector.
Seriously, how brutal does a regime need to be before we rule out an FTA with them ? Or is it all about "teh money" ?
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But I really wish that Russel Norman of the Greens would stop speaking as if every Chinese factory is staffed by 12 year-old slaves.
Russell, can you back this up with a quote from a press release ?
Is it this one from Russel Norman's press release yesterday ?
This trade deal does not eliminate non-tariff barriers to fair trade - things like forced prison labour, child labour, sweatshop conditions, a ban on independent unions and poor environmental protections.
If so, then I'd wish you would stop speaking as if the Greens are scaremongering on the FTA. What's wrong with advocating for fair trade, and being realistic about the more undesirable drivers of China's competitive advantage ?
My view is that Algae fuel technology is the ONLY realistic fuel technology being developed that can replace our current liquid consumption without all sorts of unpleasant Malthusian consequences for the world's hungry.
What about the biofuel from trees ? Trees can grow in places that are unsuitable for food production (i.e. steep hillsides), so won't compete with food production.
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The only metrics we should be looking at to decide among those who want to live here are merit and need
How do you define merit ? I'm sure Brown would include metrics around how closely the applicant's originating culture matches our own. This would, of course, favour Europeans.
We really do need to have a national dialogue on immigration. It's an important issue which is highly visible and the shouting down of depressingly regular racist rhetoric from NZ First is no substitute for real discussion.
Me, I'd start with a discussion on population. How large do we want our population to get ? Is Auckland full ? Do we need mechanisms to moderate immigration into targeted parts of the country ?
A discussion of "integration" would be useful too. Should we require immigrants to integrate ? What does that mean anyway ? Can we select for a propensity to integrate ?
And lastly, our discussion would absolutely need to address Te Tiriti and the relationship immigrants have with it, and the fact that, as Keith points out, immigrants are on the Pakeha side.
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I really enjoyed Media 7, and I think it's heading in the right direction.
It felt Mediawatch-with-Pictures-esque, which is all good since I like Mediawatch too.
Perhaps the best thing about the show is that it isn't fronted by presenters as much as by people who have significant experience in media. I liked the non-confrontational probing and holding to account in the panel section.
The Pounder was good too.