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175
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2 yr. ago

  • To an extent. The Government cancelling three waters has forced massive rate rises across the country so yeah you might have seen this no matter who was in.

    I think credit is still due for sticking to it though, especially when you have candidates pretending they can do this with no rate rises, and pay for billions of dollars of underinvestment by putting back a few carparks.

  • The Science Media Centre got comment from bunch of scientists on this and it's a really interesting read. There's a couple of positive takes I there, but mostly skeptical it will actually happen and if they do is it really a moa.

    The point that resonated with me most is the risk that these big claims are picked up and used to undermine actual conversation work and protecting endangered species as "we can always just resurrect them later"

    https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/07/09/moa-de-extinction-plans-announced-expert-reaction/

  • The bill did not call for racial equality, it declared there is already full and complete racial equality. If there are in fact ongoing inequalities, doing this locks them in and prevents them from being addressed. That is a big difference and is one of the reasons it was so widely opposed.

    Laws are not some magic Harry Potter spell that immediately make things true because they're said a certain way. Youve either been taken in by this fantasy, in which case, grow up and learn something about the history of this country and how it still shapes us today, or you know what the grift is here and in which case, fuck you - you're a facist and a racist because it's always projection with you ghouls.

  • We got the project 2025 test run when a three party far right coalition got elected in 2023. Most regressive, cruel and mean sprited government in a generation.

    USA, NZ, Australia, Canada, UK and beyond. They all coordinate, they use the same consultants, the same messages, their AstroTurf political advocacy groups all share info and coordinate policy to make our lives worse and the rich richer. Tailored slightly for local conditions but the same overall goal.

  • Lol fuck off. Writing down "actually we've unilaterally decided everyone is equal now" after decades of theft and oppression is not equality.

    How rich to be accusing others of fascism when the party that pushes this is so strongly linked to facism and regression across the world.

  • Yes we've been through multiple housing crises although it's gotten truly ridiculous in the last couple decades.

    The crowning achievement of the first labour government when they were elected in 1935 was to create a massive state house building programme due to the huge shortages and miserable state of the stock at the time. This continued until the 1980s when we went full neoliberal, privatised everything and sold off most of the state houses and private landlords and speculation now dominate.

    Anything built between early 1990s and 2004ish is prone to leaks due to the deregulated building code at the time and is basically trash.

    Wellington is a particularly bad case, and has always had a worse housing situation than the rest of the country (although Auckland is more expensive). Hilly topography has meant lack of space to build and lots of damp hovels that get little sun. Add in character/heritage protection that made it effectively illegal to alter or demolish the draughty and falling apart 1920s wooden villas that make up most of inner Wellington and there you go.

  • This place is fucked, and now we know Australia won't shoot themselves in the head for another three years at least people will continue to leave in droves.

    When the bloodbath government budget here hits in two weeks time it will turn into a torrent.

  • To an extent, choice isn't a huge feature of our housing market. That will certainly change eventually if theres a big increase in supply, but therell be a lot of poorly thought out stuff in the housing stock to get to that point

  • He says ugly buildings, implying what they look like aesthetically from the outside, but he actually seems to be talking about designing apartments to actually be functional to live in, which I agree with. It gets even more important the smaller the size I reckon

    There's a huge difference between ones done by private developers and kainga ora/kiwibuild imo. The former are more often investment units to extract tenant wages first and foremost. Storage, building amenities, light etc all non considerations. People I know in kiwibuild apartments love them.

    The rest of what he says is the same old garbage and speaks to the risks of the govts approach. If nimby councils reject density around transport hubs as theyll be able to do under this, theyll push lower density sprawl further out and it'll be worse and more expensive for everyone.

  • I didn't say I don't consider roads as critical infrastucture, I specifically said "mega roads", i.e new multi lane motorways that are a waste of money because they will encourage more driving, more sprawl and make traffic even worse in the long run (and I imagine local roads will deteriorate as they did the last time this happened).

    Three waters, the ferries, state housing, public transport are all better options right now that are woefully underfunded and in fact actively sabotaged by this govt.

    The "we don't have the density" argument is often pulled out against funding public transport and it's unfounded. We're one of the most urbanised countries in the world. We could absolutely build more PT if we chose to, we've had far more extensive networks in the past than what we currently do.

    Overall, saying what's happening is a symptom is just an attempt to claim what's happening right now is inevitable imo. Different choices can be made that would be far less damaging, they'd be positive even and actually address the underlying problems you highlight instead of this "better things aren't possible" fatalism.

  • Oh, is that the sound of a free market correction?

    I get where you're coming from, Retail NZ and the sector they represent (which is not all retailers of course) always come off as incredibly self absorbed and uncaring imo, particularly when they comment on employment stuff. Bunch of small business tyrants.

    But that lets the govt off the hook a bit I think. A lot of the article is Wellington focused, and talks about the link to the job cuts in the public sector and the way that's been done. They've actively cratered things on top of a downturn that was already happening.

  • Terribly, with a layer of sneering smugness to boot. The austerity justifciations are national party spin, swallowed whole. The govt is throwing billions to landlords and mega roads while cutting funding for public housing, critical infrastructure and even fucking food banks at a time of record demand for them.

    They're also dumping costs onto households by cranking up user charges and abandoning councils to pay for decades of infrastructure underinvestment.

    So no, they've chosen to loot and plunder.

  • Oh that's a pain, yeah there's a bit of a mix of places where you have to confirm the surcharge on the machine and others that just have a sign and you get automatically charged for credit/contactless.

    It's all a bit of a mess and I can see that could lead some to just go back to cash, although there'll be other reasons I'm sure

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