Posts Tagged ‘Policy’

First it was the air force

Now is the whole defence force. While I was away, National's Defence Minister Wayne Mapp just told NZ public his "philosophy":

"We have 105 of them (Light Armour Vehicles), mostly parked in garages where they are in long-term storage. My own philosophy is Defence should have things they use and don't have things they don't use."

I immediately started to wonder how he got that post - by that logic, New Zealand's whole defence force is simply a waste of money, nobody is going to invade us as far as we could tell, and all our forces sent oversea are largely non-combat forces. Defence is like a life insurance, you buy it, and hope that you or someone else will never use it (well in this case, some needed to be used for training purposes).

His comment worries me quite a bit, but the associate minister, ACT's Heather Roy, is even worse:

"The Defence Force doesn't necessarily need to own everything. It could work in a partnership where somebody else owns the land or owns the buildings and they lease it back."

Well, I have an idea for this government since they are in the mood of privatisation (where's the election promise?), how about ...  let's privatise parliament buildings, at least the debating chamber. Here is my reasoning:

1. The debating chamber is rarely used - no more than half of the year, so ... what a waste.
2. ... and Parliament doesn't have to own everything it uses.
3. so the chamber could be used to host picnics, or give a private company to run tours.
4. it costs less to tax payers - as tax payers only pay for the building when it is actually in public use.
5. it's also more efficient - if every minute use of the chamber costs money, I hope parliamentarians would keep their debate and squabbling succinct - although I know I put my hope a bit too high.
6. ... the current debating chamber is too much of luxury for politicians. A large garage would do anyway. or we can have the British house of the commons style, let the MPs squeeze in the seats.

So what are we waiting for, let's do it! I look forward to have my picnic on the speaker's seat.

A smart move

Auntie Helen has announced this afternoon that if reelected, her government will eventually make the student allowance universal by abolishing the parental income test in 2012. Before that, the threshold for receiving an allowance will rise each year to make more students eligible for student allowance.

Well sure this policy is not targeting at current university student like me, so I won't benefit much from it. The real target of this is the middle-class family: 40ish couple, with a bit of money but not too much, got a kid or two that is about to enter the university but don't want kids to ruin their life.

Middle class people do not form the stable vote base of neither major party, and they are the real king/queen makers of the election. People will eventually have children at a point of their life (well most of them), so a few bucks of tax cut sure is no match to Auntie Helen's big cash out bribes.

Just need to see how would the voters respond to this policy...

Although I will not benefit from it, it does, however make me swinging more toward Labour. I like left-wing more than right wing Nats - lefties usually tell public what they really think, wheres Nats tend to tell you what you like to hear - I cannot understand why National's cash dishing policy (tax cut) can be branded as "smart" "helpful to economy", but Labour's same type of policy is branded as "big election bribe". So why high income earner's spending can stimulate economy, but give more money for students' to spend is a bribe?

Some people are really  too greedy, 2% more of taxation in exchange for the cheaper labour and social stability, that's the best deal in the world. Most importantly, that 2% reduces the gap between the rich and poor,  prevent proletariat to become lumpenproletariat class (gosh, such a long word).

Just a thought

Labour want you to save money, so it set up the KiwiSaver and people praised for that;

Nats need money to fund their tax cut,  so they slashed the government contribution and reduced employer contribution into the fund; some people praised for that as well.

But wait a minute  -  for us, especially ones who joined the KiwiSaver, isn't this just politicians play your money around? give you a $1,000 tax cut, and take out $1,000 government contribution from your KiwiSaver?

Em....