The time is never right. Making change always causes a bit of pain in the short time. That is not a reason to not try and improve our country.

As a business owner I support this.

This government's plan seems to be:

1. Scrap everything they can that Labour did.
2. ????
3. PROFIT!

I recently drove SH6 over the Whangamoas. Most areas that were once 100 are now 80 or lower (except the closest part near Blenheim). I was towing a trailer, and it did not add any appreciable time to the trip, but made the whole drive much less stressful. No more Utes up my arse because how dare I not do the full 100 on the windy as fuck road. So from my personal experience I like the change.

It also helps that 80 is right around the most fuel efficient speed, which is nice now that petrol is $3+

I think a lot of this comes down to the neoliberal reforms of Rogernomics. Neoliberal capitalism is a failed experiment at this point, that trends towards wealth disparity and concentration of wealth with the elite. We were sold on the dream of a free market helping everyone, but it has not done this.

This isn't unique to NZ, of course. Just look over at the UK and the current Tory government. Massive inflation, cost of living out of control, and a housing shortage.

Without protection for the working class against exploitation the trend will always be towards wealth hoarding. Our current system rewards greed, selfishness and shortsightedness.

How do we address this? Well, Labour was beginning to try with things like raising the minimum wage and FPAs. Nothing much will improve in the next 3 years, however.

What's so stupid about this is sick kids do worse at school. Sending your kid to school sick gets other kids sick, which makes them do worse. Then they bring it home, and now parents are under performing at work as well. Keeping your kid home when they are sick objectively improves outcomes for everyone.

Jesus fucking christ. What a stupid take.

Does National's transport plan add up?

Nope. /thread

You know in other, arguably more civilized countries, it is the norm to stay home, or at the very least wear a mask, when sick even with a "little cold" right? The "fuck it they can go to school" attitude is not universal, and these other countries don't suffer from it.

Going to work sick or sending sick kids to school has always been stupid. It spreads disease, which kids take home and then infect parents, who go to work and spread it further. Having a cold greatly reduced learning and workplace efficiency.

Perhaps we should try something different, no?

I'm shocked. 😐

God this is depressing. People are both shortsighted (tax cuts instead of fixing the underlying problems) and narrow minded (the books look bad during a global recession, let's go with someone else!).

I'm a business owner, so ostensibly should vote Nats because they are more likely to benefit me. But I'm not a selfish prick. I want society to be more equal, more inclusive, and less unfair. I want the wealth gap to shrink. I want public transport and climate responses. None of these things help me right now, but they help all of us in the long run.

Even with Labour wiffing hard during their terms, I have zero confidence in NACT to improve anything except for the wealthy in the long run.

Fucking depressing.

Contrary to this commenter, I believe the current government has done a good job of navigating a globally challenging time that has hit every country. Although I think they could have made more meaningful changes, I understand that the circumstances of the last 3 years means they have had to be very careful with what they tackle. I think we would be in a worse state if a fiscally conservative political party had been in power.

This is all very well and good, but the evidence shows harsher prison sentences does little to reduce crime rates.

A lot of virtue signaling and dog whistling in the list as well. For example:

• As a matter of urgency, issue a Cabinet Office circular to all central government organisations that it is the Government's expectation that public services should be prioritised on the basis of need, not race.

This isn't a thing that happens, but it's playing up to the whole 'hospitals use race when determining surgery' misinformation bullshit. It will have zero impact in how care is given.

This is, of course, concerning, but I seriously doubt the suggested enforced 3h of learning is going to change things one iota. IMHO, the biggest problem is not how schools are teaching core subjects, but how much learning is happening at home.

I say this with no judgement. Parents are, increasingly I feel, using a tablet to babysit their kids when they are younger, and not monitoring their social media use when they are older. I would also be interested to learn how much reading to your kids has declined. I could be wrong, but I suspect it has been slipping in line with the PISA results.

This really shouldn't be allowed.

This was a great game! The Ferns were dominant for 90 minutes.

This guy is such an entitled prick.

Well fuck

Can we get a clamp down on medical advertising while we're at it?

Not only are they expecting endless capital gains, they are expecting to not be taxed on the income they receive when they realize said gains.