Dear John, interesting ideas. Politics left our youth behind years ago and buried them even deeper in 2020. Our childrens generation have been the worst hit by Jackboot Jacindas maniacal commie-fascism.
Because of this global-dystopian nightmare they have no literal faith in govt, nor media. Ours are more conservative, less risktaking, harderworking than their millennial cousins as survivors of this hardship, as their job prospects are ruined by FTA deals and migration. Theyre not served by any current election campaigns and are too savvy to the fearmongering of the greens new deals and digital prisons, and are genuinely reaching immunity to broken National and Labour party promises. Grant the hapless elderly MAID if you will, only the sheeple like resthome demicidal protocols, for an earlier inheritance. We will be old too one day, and our kids wont be under the influence of political parties if we prepare them for the road, not the road for them.
Some good points John. Prior to sorting power pricing, I would advocate for the complete removal of any and all 'cultural' roles, policy and doctrine from NZ. We live under a dominant & common culture, being the one we live every day. Sure, there are personal touches, but the myth that Maori Culture is actually how a large number of people live needs addressing. Even the Scribble Faced Ones pull on trousers, eat toast, drive to work, oops, drive to the pub, eat KFC and slam the door on their wahine. The hypocrisy is that so-called 'Maori' live as New Zealanders, albeit in many cases not very productive or pleasant ones. But Kiwis they be, first and foremost, and thus the term 'Maori' as a primary identity needs to be exorcised from our land. Then we can allocate resources, care and welfare to folk based solely on need. And hold us all to the same standard as citizens of this should-be-but-sadly-failing great country.
But I digress with this personal rant and YES, agree fully that kids have been hard done by due to weak parenting, scaremongering & risk averse nannies and that much of their anxiety stems from being told they are bad stewards of Planet Earth. Just imagine how upsetting it must be for young, conservative, white men who are born of actual nazis who have evilly fucked everything up for everyone else...
Looking back, I’d say that the greatest influence on our young people is the example we set for them ourselves, after that it’s teachers, peers and so on.
I'm not sure about the timing, but what would make the vaccination of the youngsters absolutely outrageous, is if Jacinda et al tried to continue enforcing it after admitting that the "shots" didn't stop you getting Covid, and then that they didn't stop you spreading it either......
IMO the eligible age for national super should have been raised ages ago. I don't agree with it being means tested; it should remain universal. The more well-to-do people probably contributed more. Please remember it's taxed, so the Govt gets more of it back from those with other incomes....
Might I go so far as suggesting that Winston is buggering MMP with his outright refusal to raise the eligibility age. We need a new, innovative election system, where we vote for policies rather than parties; perhaps some modification of the Swiss referendum system.....
OMG loved this. You’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this one John - woke, phonics, electricity, super, COVID, the entire shooting box. Agree with you about how the debt mountain burdens the young and agree with most of your solutions (though uneasy about the living wills for those with dementia). A rollicking fun read.
Well said Yvonne, but whatever happens to me I don't want to spend my last years in a vegetative state.
I appreciate we can never "cross the line" and have someone decide certain people should be subject to enforced euthanasia, but once you're no longer aware of where/who you are, it seems like a horrible "existence" as well as a substantial waste of resources (spending more on those with no future, than on the youngsters who could gain a better future)..
For some reason I feel queasy about the assisted dying business, even though the logic is irrefutable. I think I worry that the Overton window might keep opening wider and wider, and all sorts of folk might be deemed surplus to requirement. Although on the other hand, i am rethinking my objection to the death penalty. Maybe it makes sense for those obviously guilty of heinous crimes.
Agree that no-one else sb able to "put you down" Yvonne.
My worry about the death penalty relates to the number of people we've convicted for murder, and then subsequently released - Arthur Alan Thomas being the most notorious (hopefully Scott Watson soon).
But for blatant confessed-to murderers, esp those with a trackrecord, maybe.
Does it cost us $1Mpa to "house" Tarrant?
But at the very least (provided it doesn't cost as much as Tarrant) life should mean life in prison...
I was thinking of people who are obviously guilty like Tarrant. No question of mistaken identity or confused evidence there. Why are we paying him to stay alive? I won’t make it my cause though. The blowback would be horrendous. I’ll stick with being transphobic.
2) Its inter generational theft to support boomers.
3) Education debts discourage self improvement and innovation.
Stop immigration.
1) its just fueling the real estate ponzi.
2) its mostly just importing useless people who doge tax , drain welfare and healthcare.
3) expensive land prices get added to all costs of living and business.
4) if mass third world immigration was beneficial, you'd see the benefit by now.
Treaty.
Just add to the conversation of 'what's owed' , 'what's already been paid' and then deduct that.
see what's actually left after taking that into account. 17.8% of the population 6.5% of the GDP, that's where you can see the multi billion dollar price tag add up. Remember there is no pay out to the tribes the Maori genocided, or land stolen by Maori from other Maori, we just conveniently forget that part. It all just a giant white guilt trip.
There is no gain in worshiping a non literate stone age culture over western civilization. If you want to play racial guilt and give away a country take a look at South Africa today, it was given away in the mid 1990's, that's your future.
No one will have the courage to implement anything like what I have proposed, and the economy will keep failing and the productive people will keep leaving.
I am not your slave, and I don't owe you anything.
Ehara ahau i te taurekareka nāu, ā, kāore aku nama ki a koe.
Aren't they proposing $370 pw as a UBI? They call it Citizen's Income. And 'honouring the Treaty' BS? The only niche I can see for that twaddle is in a ditch somewhere. But if they bleed votes from the puerile Greens, then ok I guess...
All good points made there John. Just thinking about encouragement for our younger set, I would like to see a tax reform that would remove the current punishment for the hard workers out there (of any age really), and that is secondary tax.
In my view if someone is prepared to put in the extra hours of overtime, or another job on top of their principal source of income, there should not be an increase in their tax rate.
If anything, that secondary work might be set at a lower rate.
As it stands, the current system discourages workers, instead of encouraging them.
To be fair Barry, if they can be bothered to put in a tax return, then the seemingly punitive 'secondary tax' resolves to a normal tax rate (eg for two part time jobs). Perhaps if IRD just automatically worked it out and refunded those negatively affected? A savvy accounting person will know more about how it actually works.
My understanding is that the secondary (higher) tax is cleared up in the annual washup by IRD, so you get a refund if total tax = more than applies to the combined earnings at standard rates
Yes, I saw Boris reminded me of that as well. I am trying to think of some simple improvements where the tax system encourages those who put the graft in - up front if you like.
As best I recall, IRD "sharpened their act" a few years ago, to put the innovative tax refund businesses out of business.
Back then, you could pay those businesses (on a success fee basis) to get you a refund, esp if you had more than one job (=secondary tax).
So as I understand it IRD will now "automatically" check your employer-provided returns after 31 March, and issue you a refund if you've been "over taxed".
I agree with you John about the young people but do not agree that the Opportunity Party would do anything to help the young. The OP are too woke/leftist, that makes them as self serving as the others on the Left.
Some myths here John. When I started teaching in 1962 phonics was well on its way out. Phonics is great for about 10-20% of the population but the others don't 'miraculously' learn to read -the language they are reading is their own and children who are reasonably intelligent and living in language rich households have little or no need of phonics which tends to bore them. What we had was a system that couldn't cope with the number of children who could read before they went to school and then were forced to twiddle their thumbs waiting for the rest to catch up. The fault of Marie Clay and the system was that like most changes they tossed out phonics instead of keeping it as a back-up. You have repeated a number of urban myths - doesn't make them true.
John, You are quite right with that observation, our educational standards have declined dramatically and there are various reasons for that. Tomorrow's Schools had some advantages but the disadvantages for primary schools -especially rural primary schools have been profound. Also the decline in the number male teachers resulted in a mass feminization in primary education. I was all in favor of abolishing corporal punishment but there could have been a much greater effort to upskill teachers to replace it. No one learns when distracted by ill-disciplined others. Today's education is infested with people who are trying to propagate racial, social and other theories that they have no right to be doing. Spending hours a week in Karakia and practicing haka is not education and is making our future look very bleak.
I am a self-proclaimed expert in NZ literacy history and third generation NZ educator. Few if any have been able to challenge my perspective .I accept parts of your assessments of NZ education , Roger,but reject most . Research has revealed most students do benefit from intensive phonics aka structured literacy since it greatly aids spelling for written work. Currently NZ written skills of students are shocking . . Even many tertiary undergraduates have trouble writing an essay , let alone construct a sentence.
It is progressive education that cancelled out phonics in 1950. Prog. ed’s focus was not educating children academically but using schooling as a means of social engineering . Hence a child’s social adjustment was of greater importance than academic learning . Before 1950 , children who arrived at school already reading skipped a year and were placed in primer 3. But as you say by the 1960s these children were wrongly held back.
Tomorrows schools certainly didn’t help educational standards but the introduction of Clay’s Whole Language reading method and Reading Recovery is the main culprit . After all reading is the quintessential element of schooling and destroying that ,which Clay did, destroys the futures of most students..Pure evil. Feminizing education was also bad . I agree.
NZ having , since about 1990, the longest tail of underachievement in the developed world is tragic , since in 1970 , we were tops in the IEA reading comprehension test . Whole Language cancelling out phonics is the explanation , not distal factors like administrative rearrangements.
I very pleased to read John’s article in Breaking Views . I thought I was a loner in raging on about Clay.. Are you the same J. McLean who has Whitcombe ancestry ? If so I would like to discuss the 1930-50 intensive phonics of NZ Whitcombe and Tomb’s ‘Progressive Readers ‘ with you and how they are directly related to my mother Doris Ferry’s teaching of 1500 remedial reading students on the Kapiti Coast late last century .
I was very pleased to read John’s article on Breaking Views. . I thought I was the only one who raged on about Marie Clay’s iniquitous Whole Language , Balanced Literacy and Reading Recovery . Are you the same J. McClean who has Whitcombe , ancestry ? I was wishing to discuss the intensive phonics of the 1930-50 NZ Whitcome and Tomb’s progressive readers and how they relate to Doris Ferry’s private remedial reading 1970-2000, in teaching of 1500 students on the Kapiti Coast . These readers and Doris’ teaching contributed to NZ’s recent change back to phonic instruction. Academia mostly ignores their significance.
My hope is that both the Opportunity and Greens Party get 4.9% with no electoral seats come November.
Dear John, interesting ideas. Politics left our youth behind years ago and buried them even deeper in 2020. Our childrens generation have been the worst hit by Jackboot Jacindas maniacal commie-fascism.
Because of this global-dystopian nightmare they have no literal faith in govt, nor media. Ours are more conservative, less risktaking, harderworking than their millennial cousins as survivors of this hardship, as their job prospects are ruined by FTA deals and migration. Theyre not served by any current election campaigns and are too savvy to the fearmongering of the greens new deals and digital prisons, and are genuinely reaching immunity to broken National and Labour party promises. Grant the hapless elderly MAID if you will, only the sheeple like resthome demicidal protocols, for an earlier inheritance. We will be old too one day, and our kids wont be under the influence of political parties if we prepare them for the road, not the road for them.
Some good points John. Prior to sorting power pricing, I would advocate for the complete removal of any and all 'cultural' roles, policy and doctrine from NZ. We live under a dominant & common culture, being the one we live every day. Sure, there are personal touches, but the myth that Maori Culture is actually how a large number of people live needs addressing. Even the Scribble Faced Ones pull on trousers, eat toast, drive to work, oops, drive to the pub, eat KFC and slam the door on their wahine. The hypocrisy is that so-called 'Maori' live as New Zealanders, albeit in many cases not very productive or pleasant ones. But Kiwis they be, first and foremost, and thus the term 'Maori' as a primary identity needs to be exorcised from our land. Then we can allocate resources, care and welfare to folk based solely on need. And hold us all to the same standard as citizens of this should-be-but-sadly-failing great country.
But I digress with this personal rant and YES, agree fully that kids have been hard done by due to weak parenting, scaremongering & risk averse nannies and that much of their anxiety stems from being told they are bad stewards of Planet Earth. Just imagine how upsetting it must be for young, conservative, white men who are born of actual nazis who have evilly fucked everything up for everyone else...
Looking back, I’d say that the greatest influence on our young people is the example we set for them ourselves, after that it’s teachers, peers and so on.
Dang, no wonder we have some challenges!
I'm not sure about the timing, but what would make the vaccination of the youngsters absolutely outrageous, is if Jacinda et al tried to continue enforcing it after admitting that the "shots" didn't stop you getting Covid, and then that they didn't stop you spreading it either......
IMO the eligible age for national super should have been raised ages ago. I don't agree with it being means tested; it should remain universal. The more well-to-do people probably contributed more. Please remember it's taxed, so the Govt gets more of it back from those with other incomes....
Might I go so far as suggesting that Winston is buggering MMP with his outright refusal to raise the eligibility age. We need a new, innovative election system, where we vote for policies rather than parties; perhaps some modification of the Swiss referendum system.....
OMG loved this. You’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this one John - woke, phonics, electricity, super, COVID, the entire shooting box. Agree with you about how the debt mountain burdens the young and agree with most of your solutions (though uneasy about the living wills for those with dementia). A rollicking fun read.
Well said Yvonne, but whatever happens to me I don't want to spend my last years in a vegetative state.
I appreciate we can never "cross the line" and have someone decide certain people should be subject to enforced euthanasia, but once you're no longer aware of where/who you are, it seems like a horrible "existence" as well as a substantial waste of resources (spending more on those with no future, than on the youngsters who could gain a better future)..
For some reason I feel queasy about the assisted dying business, even though the logic is irrefutable. I think I worry that the Overton window might keep opening wider and wider, and all sorts of folk might be deemed surplus to requirement. Although on the other hand, i am rethinking my objection to the death penalty. Maybe it makes sense for those obviously guilty of heinous crimes.
I think slippery slope objections aren’t usually convincing. Most things taken to extremes are bad, but aren’t taken there
I just selfishly don’t fancy having to hang around with dementia
I read that in the Netherlands they are helping young, depressed and mentally unwell people to die. That seems slippery slope to me.
Agree that no-one else sb able to "put you down" Yvonne.
My worry about the death penalty relates to the number of people we've convicted for murder, and then subsequently released - Arthur Alan Thomas being the most notorious (hopefully Scott Watson soon).
But for blatant confessed-to murderers, esp those with a trackrecord, maybe.
Does it cost us $1Mpa to "house" Tarrant?
But at the very least (provided it doesn't cost as much as Tarrant) life should mean life in prison...
I was thinking of people who are obviously guilty like Tarrant. No question of mistaken identity or confused evidence there. Why are we paying him to stay alive? I won’t make it my cause though. The blowback would be horrendous. I’ll stick with being transphobic.
They should wipe all the student loans.
1) Because debt bondage slavery is illegal.
2) Its inter generational theft to support boomers.
3) Education debts discourage self improvement and innovation.
Stop immigration.
1) its just fueling the real estate ponzi.
2) its mostly just importing useless people who doge tax , drain welfare and healthcare.
3) expensive land prices get added to all costs of living and business.
4) if mass third world immigration was beneficial, you'd see the benefit by now.
Treaty.
Just add to the conversation of 'what's owed' , 'what's already been paid' and then deduct that.
see what's actually left after taking that into account. 17.8% of the population 6.5% of the GDP, that's where you can see the multi billion dollar price tag add up. Remember there is no pay out to the tribes the Maori genocided, or land stolen by Maori from other Maori, we just conveniently forget that part. It all just a giant white guilt trip.
There is no gain in worshiping a non literate stone age culture over western civilization. If you want to play racial guilt and give away a country take a look at South Africa today, it was given away in the mid 1990's, that's your future.
No one will have the courage to implement anything like what I have proposed, and the economy will keep failing and the productive people will keep leaving.
I am not your slave, and I don't owe you anything.
Ehara ahau i te taurekareka nāu, ā, kāore aku nama ki a koe.
Mostly on target - except for the enthusiastic support for the OP. The OP's only virtue is to split the left wing vote.
To be clear Mike, I don’t remotely support the Opportunity Party in its current form. I just think there’s a niche for them if they change their tune
Aren't they proposing $370 pw as a UBI? They call it Citizen's Income. And 'honouring the Treaty' BS? The only niche I can see for that twaddle is in a ditch somewhere. But if they bleed votes from the puerile Greens, then ok I guess...
Give up on TOP. They pretend to not know what a woman is.
They are not fit to lead the country in any way, shape or form.
All good points made there John. Just thinking about encouragement for our younger set, I would like to see a tax reform that would remove the current punishment for the hard workers out there (of any age really), and that is secondary tax.
In my view if someone is prepared to put in the extra hours of overtime, or another job on top of their principal source of income, there should not be an increase in their tax rate.
If anything, that secondary work might be set at a lower rate.
As it stands, the current system discourages workers, instead of encouraging them.
Good ideas Barry. What about making the first $20k tax free? Seems to me that might help the younger set and encourage entrepreneurship in general.
I think the Aussies do something like that - the IRD here would point out how much they’d lose though!
At least abolishing that secondary tax could be effected almost overnight, and might just boost the coalition’s chances at the same time.
Probably too easy!
Good idea.
To be fair Barry, if they can be bothered to put in a tax return, then the seemingly punitive 'secondary tax' resolves to a normal tax rate (eg for two part time jobs). Perhaps if IRD just automatically worked it out and refunded those negatively affected? A savvy accounting person will know more about how it actually works.
True, I’m just trying to see where simplicity mixed with a bit of encouragement might be beneficial to all concerned, even IRD for that matter.
If I have any further ‘brain waves’ I’ll stick my neck out!
Hi Barry
My understanding is that the secondary (higher) tax is cleared up in the annual washup by IRD, so you get a refund if total tax = more than applies to the combined earnings at standard rates
Yes, I saw Boris reminded me of that as well. I am trying to think of some simple improvements where the tax system encourages those who put the graft in - up front if you like.
As best I recall, IRD "sharpened their act" a few years ago, to put the innovative tax refund businesses out of business.
Back then, you could pay those businesses (on a success fee basis) to get you a refund, esp if you had more than one job (=secondary tax).
So as I understand it IRD will now "automatically" check your employer-provided returns after 31 March, and issue you a refund if you've been "over taxed".
Thanks Noel, sounds right.
Jeez... that photo of Helen "Calamity" Clark.
She looks just like Dracula's daughter 😉
I agree with you John about the young people but do not agree that the Opportunity Party would do anything to help the young. The OP are too woke/leftist, that makes them as self serving as the others on the Left.
I would put my faith in NZF
But Winston stubbornly refuses to consider raising the age for eligibility for super, despite the fact other countries have done so.
Likewise he wants to guy a big bank from the Aussies - how does that make sense?
AND he wants to merge it with KBank - all of us who have been around as long as him know bigger ain't better! Just look at Auck's "supercity"....
Hi John, Many good points in you piece today but I wonder if we will ever have a government with the guts to implement you suggestions.
Some myths here John. When I started teaching in 1962 phonics was well on its way out. Phonics is great for about 10-20% of the population but the others don't 'miraculously' learn to read -the language they are reading is their own and children who are reasonably intelligent and living in language rich households have little or no need of phonics which tends to bore them. What we had was a system that couldn't cope with the number of children who could read before they went to school and then were forced to twiddle their thumbs waiting for the rest to catch up. The fault of Marie Clay and the system was that like most changes they tossed out phonics instead of keeping it as a back-up. You have repeated a number of urban myths - doesn't make them true.
Fair enough Roger. You sound like you know that area. What’s indisputable is that basic reading & writing (& numeracy) inexcusably fell off a cliff
John, You are quite right with that observation, our educational standards have declined dramatically and there are various reasons for that. Tomorrow's Schools had some advantages but the disadvantages for primary schools -especially rural primary schools have been profound. Also the decline in the number male teachers resulted in a mass feminization in primary education. I was all in favor of abolishing corporal punishment but there could have been a much greater effort to upskill teachers to replace it. No one learns when distracted by ill-disciplined others. Today's education is infested with people who are trying to propagate racial, social and other theories that they have no right to be doing. Spending hours a week in Karakia and practicing haka is not education and is making our future look very bleak.
I am a self-proclaimed expert in NZ literacy history and third generation NZ educator. Few if any have been able to challenge my perspective .I accept parts of your assessments of NZ education , Roger,but reject most . Research has revealed most students do benefit from intensive phonics aka structured literacy since it greatly aids spelling for written work. Currently NZ written skills of students are shocking . . Even many tertiary undergraduates have trouble writing an essay , let alone construct a sentence.
It is progressive education that cancelled out phonics in 1950. Prog. ed’s focus was not educating children academically but using schooling as a means of social engineering . Hence a child’s social adjustment was of greater importance than academic learning . Before 1950 , children who arrived at school already reading skipped a year and were placed in primer 3. But as you say by the 1960s these children were wrongly held back.
Tomorrows schools certainly didn’t help educational standards but the introduction of Clay’s Whole Language reading method and Reading Recovery is the main culprit . After all reading is the quintessential element of schooling and destroying that ,which Clay did, destroys the futures of most students..Pure evil. Feminizing education was also bad . I agree.
NZ having , since about 1990, the longest tail of underachievement in the developed world is tragic , since in 1970 , we were tops in the IEA reading comprehension test . Whole Language cancelling out phonics is the explanation , not distal factors like administrative rearrangements.
I very pleased to read John’s article in Breaking Views . I thought I was a loner in raging on about Clay.. Are you the same J. McLean who has Whitcombe ancestry ? If so I would like to discuss the 1930-50 intensive phonics of NZ Whitcombe and Tomb’s ‘Progressive Readers ‘ with you and how they are directly related to my mother Doris Ferry’s teaching of 1500 remedial reading students on the Kapiti Coast late last century .
Very Sorry John . Confused you with Chris McLean , who is also a writer. and historian . Careless of me .
I was very pleased to read John’s article on Breaking Views. . I thought I was the only one who raged on about Marie Clay’s iniquitous Whole Language , Balanced Literacy and Reading Recovery . Are you the same J. McClean who has Whitcombe , ancestry ? I was wishing to discuss the intensive phonics of the 1930-50 NZ Whitcome and Tomb’s progressive readers and how they relate to Doris Ferry’s private remedial reading 1970-2000, in teaching of 1500 students on the Kapiti Coast . These readers and Doris’ teaching contributed to NZ’s recent change back to phonic instruction. Academia mostly ignores their significance.
Brilliant!