Yeah kiwis just fundamentally hate tax now. Blame it on the Americanisation of our society or something.
Lets not act like NZ First is a party made up solely of racist pricks, sure thats where most of the most outspoken of those folk end up voting but as a party they've been a perfectly respectable champion of elderly rights for the last few decades now. They've also rarely looked to enact any actual policy that is particularly harsh or unfair based on race.
Labour was already campaigning on bringing down immigration numbers and had discussed ideas to put barriers in place for foreign buyers. I'm personally not a fan of implementing a reduction of any kind but I don't exactly feel even NZ First is talking about particularly Draconian immigration measures.
This isn't America, we aren't talking about banning muslims and refugees. All parties had campaigned on raising the number of refugees (aside from NZ First who campaigned on it staying the same/whatever), and I may be mistaken here but I also haven't seen any form of policy that will target Asian migrants or buyers specifically, the net will be cast on everyone inbound which to me sounds pretty reasonable.
If NZ First were just anti-migrant I'd roll my eyes but wouldn't be too worried about them because they'd never get votes.
The issue is they're woefully uninformed on every topic.
Several weeks ago Ron Marks posted a photo of the Waipawa bragging how clean and green it was and how Labour are nuts. Because he has no understanding of the issues surrounding our waterways and even more importantly, no desire to understand, he didn't see the issue with the Waipawa catchment which was right in front of him all along - it was full of gravel.
The Waipawa is not meant to be a braided river, but it is fast becoming one because of the deforestation on the slopes surrounding it. It is completely altered and that isn't just an ecological issue it is also a safety one because now the Waipawa channel has to support both its water transport and its bedload transport, which is the jargon way of saying that bitch is like a million times more flood prone.
NZ First also bury their heads in the sand when it comes to the retirement age. So do Labour, but they don't need a friend with them in that corner and Labour almost lost my vote over that. I can't recall what NZ First plan to do about automation but its Winston so it will be something unrealistic and stupid.
Their policies boil down to "we will have free access to markets, but we will protect our traders from overseas traders, and overseas traders will bend over for this completely unrealistic dribble because everyone so wants to trade with us because we are NEW ZEALAND P.S. pls don't ask us how much our policies will cost because we don't actually know."
The best thing Adern can do for NZ is take up Winston on his promise of being the first man into the Pike River death trap and lock the door behind him.
