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Let us know what you think of today's changes to the Labour Party leadership and how it will affect their election chances. Take our survey

Let us know what you think of today's changes to the Labour Party leadership and how it will affect their election chances. Take our survey

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49 Comments

The problem is still that they side with that fraudster Turei, when Barclay did illegal stuff he stepped down as an MP. Turei needs to be removed.
One can not in good concience vote Labour knowing that they will side with the fraud party.

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"stepped down"... lol

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Alternative facts.

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... agreed ... I think the Labour Party need to tear up the Memorandum of Understanding with the Greens as soon as possible ... and distance themselves from Mitera Turei , laying out her fraud for what is it , a cheat on the taxpayer ... not an admirable " Robin Hood " ...

If they do that , I reckon the Labour party will pull votes back from the Greens , and some from the Gnats .... expect their polling would head back up to 30 % or more ... still a tick less than it was when they booted out David Shearer , all those years ago .... ha haaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!

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wait a minute.
What about the fraud from Double Dipton which was probably larger in $ value than anything Turei got.
That man is now PM.
Maybe he paid it back probably without incurring any interest but ......come to your own conclusion.
No excuse for Turei but the criticism has to be balanced.

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Technically legal, as his votaries are wont to shrill.

Nothing untoward at all about skirting a law saying you can't claim taxpayer subsidies to rent a house you already own, by putting that house in your wife's trust. Nope, not unethical at all.

Neither is lying about a crime one of your MPs is alleged to have committed, after the party using taxpayer funds to try to hush up said crime.

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i suspect, given the pittance paid out in the 1990's to beneficiaries, that her wrong doing fell a long way short of Mr English's $32,000 of housing allowances received before 2008.

Those without sin, people in glass houses, killing two birds and all of that.

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A crime requires both Mens Ria and Actus Reus. Turei had both. Bill definitely did not have Mens Ria, it looks like he expanded some effort ensuring that he complied with the law.

Most importantly only Turei is still ACTIVELY engaging in criminal activity by refusing to disclose the identities of fellow fraudsters who are currently engaging in fraud.

The key issue here is that the rule of law is being blatantly snubbed by a politician.

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What do you prefer, someone who is honest about it, or someone who lies about it:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/paula-bennett-says-she-n…

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when Barclay did illegal stuff he stepped down as an MP.

UNTRUE, that's blatantly dishonest.

The actual reality is that when Barclay did illegal stuff, he refused to cooperate with the Police, and the Police stopped investigating him despite having Bill English's admissible statement to work with. The National Party then spent taxpayer money trying to cover up Todd Barclay's illegal stuff, and Bill English lied to the NZ public about it.

Todd Barclay is still an MP, so as not to affect National's majority prior to the election. (Coincidentally, Mike Sabin's similar circumstances last election-round saw Winston Peters elected in Northland later.)

When National were eventually caught out by information coming out, Barclay was allowed to skulk away to his office and keep receiving his paycheck until the next election, also being advised to cooperate with Police this time around.

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Hang on Rick. The police would be hugely disinterested in anybody on such a matter. Barclay was probably disadvantaged by being an MP and they had to investigate. Try popping into your local copshop and make a similar complaint. They would chuckle and show you the exit.
Bill did not lie. He was just careful not to be a combatant or comment on police matters or disputes around employment.
We don't know what happened in Gore. We probably don't want to. Likely to have been a sordid little fight over something not worth fighting over.

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400 odd texts from BE to affected employee uncovered after BE swore black and blue he had little to do with it. Oh and while on the subject of BE playing fast and loose with the truth, when questioned yesterday in parliament as to why $140,000 is being spent DAILY on emergency housing in the likes of motels and why that was not cut off at the pass long ago, him replying that it "may have been a hidden problem till now". For the issue of homelessness and unaffordable housing to go unnoticed by someone they needed to have spent the last 8+ years on a mountain in a monastery, with a vow of silence

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sadr001,

The outpouring of righteous indignation from all those whohave never done any illegal(yea right) in their lilywhite lives,is hyprocritical in the extreme. Sure,what she did was wrong,but as has been pointed out before,what about English's double-dipping on his housing allowance. Were you howling with outrage then? I bet you weren't.
I suggest you take a look at the research doen by Victoria University; it found that some 22% of tax offenders got gail time,while some 60% of welfare fraud a=offenders did time. Tax evasion-a predominently white collar crime-cost NZ somehere over $1bn in 2011,while the blue collar crime of benefit fraud cost $39m.
I can smell the stench of hypocrisy from here.

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The specific crime is largely irrelevant. Even the fact that she committed a crime is largely irrelevant. The problem is that Turei is still ACTIVELY engaging In criminal activity whilst running for parliament. By not providing the authorities with all the information she has pertaining to those actively committing fraud she is an being an accessory. The issue isn't that she was a criminal 30 years ago but rather that she is one now!

If you believe that the law isn't balanced then change the law by lobbying your local MP. Blatantly ignoring the law is never acceptable. Can I choose not to pay tax because I believe that morally GST is the only fair way to tax people or that every $70 per year I give to charity in Africa saves another life whilst here it costs $11,000 per year per beneficiary (157 school aged girls starve to death every year for each beneficiary we fund) ? Everyone has differing morality. The law is meant to be the line in the sand.

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Survey doesn't seem to work on safari or chrome for iPhone

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Maybe this will be Jacinda's shining moment when she spurns the Greens...let's see?

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YES , get rid of the Green agreement ..........Jacinda cannot be seen in bed running the country with people who openly advocate or condone Benefit Fraud .

Imagine if everyone did that ?

The system would be broken and bankrupt

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..thats so hypocritical is beyond commenting.

The Jk govt stood by and welcomed crime proceeds through foreign tusts, sold off our lands and housing to laundered money from afar, turned a blind eye to immigration fraud, Collins actively selling water, kauri or waterver whilst on govt junket trips to China, Bill rorting the housing allowances - the list goes on and on.

Yet you focus on about someone on struggle street taking in a couple of boarders (oh lets not mention Paula )...

Priorties please.

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Publicly declaring disregard for the law and actively engaging in criminal activity by failing to disclose information regarding ongoing fraud is not something you can just gloss over.

The law isn't perfect, but at least some of us try to abide by it, as opposed to cherry picking the ones we like and only following those.

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...missed the point. The reaction to her possible fraud and the corrupt antics on the Nats pales in comparison. The outburst aimed at her in comparison is absurd.

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If you boil it all the way down, you get dileberately commiting crime in blatant disregard for the law ( without punishing this we can't fix it) vs legalistic following of the law ( we can fix this by amending the law to close any perceived loophole if enough people actually believe it to be a loophole )

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" is beyond commenting" - and yet you do ; make your mind up mate .

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I will repeat an earlier post
I would like to vote for Labour but cant because their whole culture seems to be geared toward increasing welfare dependence rather than deal adequately with the issues that are causing the need for welfare.
National have a veneer of being labour lite but behind that they are geared to looking after the very wealthy - property speculators, tax evaders, overseas interests. Nationals increases to working for families and the housing supplement have further dragged average New Zealanders into the trap of welfare dependency and indirectly ends up in the pockets of the landlords and wealthy. It does nothing meaningful to help people to get ahead and succeed. Unfortunately Labour appear very similar and seem only too happy to increase taxes and hand it out by increasing welfare dependency.
What labour need to do is put a lot of effort increasing the purchasing power of these people who are currently welfare dependent by dealing to the monopolies, duopoly's and artificially constrained land supply. They also need to strongly promote increasing the countries productivity, and moving our production further up the value ladder.
Labour also seem just as happy as National to play the immigration ponzie scheme, albeit at a slightly toned down level. Fact is that we cannot afford any extra people when we have very significant homelessness and are building new houses at half the rate that new immigrants are arriving. It is also facilitating a low wage low productivity economy.
I think that the only sensible vote has to go to NZ First because whoever wins will have to deal with them and NZ first will deal with the real underlying problems.

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Our paper is quoting Jacinda's admiration of Winston & Shane. Cosying up like that, would seem to be realistically, the only pathway available, the only hope for her & Labour to be part of any government. My god, how would two old opportunistic campaigners view such an approach from such a novice! Smiling tiger! Grinning alligator! It reminds me of an old lyric by the Hollies. " He treated you kindly until he found out what he could get from you."

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She is a smart young woman and I would have more respect for her than that. She is a straight shooter, has had enough time in Parliment and she did not get to the position she holds, not to be able handle those sorts of situations professionally. The few things that I have heard from her today indicate that she will have a good impact on Labour's results.

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Perhaps, perhaps not. Simply cannot summon up your level of optimism but it would surprise me more than worry me if she becomes a leader of the stature of Clark,Lange or Kirk ( which is what Labour desperately needs) because we all need, and it is long overdue, an effective parliamentary opposition. The absence of that has given National way too much license and ability to abusively use the power they have had as a result. Of course in saying that, the assumption is that National will return to office one way or another. And on that note, your comment about NZF being the only effective handbrake to that on offer, as far as I am concerned, holds water.

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Make your mind up, moving our production further up the value ladder is hardly going to increase any low income earner's purchasing power. And I trust you do not mean that further competition will put even more pressure on our suppliers to cut prices, they are already fairly well screwed into the ground.

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As someone in the younger demo can say that I know a lot of people will seriously consider labour. A lot of people I know have been on the fence as they support policy, but couldn't see Little as a long-term prospect, should have kicked him for touch when the election became contestable when JK stood down.The cynic in me wonders if they've purposely timed this so the unions were kept out of the decision-making process.

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I thought Gareth had already bought all the young votes for $200 a piece.

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Well, $52k is the real price at $200 per week over 5 years.I think the majority of young people are rational enough to realise as far as policy goes that won't be high on Gareth's list when it comes to negotiation.

To clarify by young I meant someone solidly in the millennial camp, but not voting for the first or second time.

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Cheers
I had my tongue so far into my cheek I nearly bit it off! I have greater faith in young people than that.

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Andrew Little wasnt working. Desperate times. Bill English didnt come this far in politics to be a short term stand in for JK. Remember he was polling at about the same as Little was when he took National to its worst loss now hes PM. He will make a deal with Winston at worst and Im sure he will be trying as hard as he can to get the minnows up to give himself choices. Even if Count Dunne, Maori and the pathetic Act party dont get up Winston will only want a nice job for himself. They may have to offer Shane Jones the same job they offered before to betray Labour.
We're in for another 3 years of the high immigration low wage economic wonderment. Maybe we could have a military coup like Fiji as our economy looks more and more like theirs everyday. Sigh!!!!

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I suggest Jacinda and Kelvin are an improvement, I have little faith that they will change anything. From what i have read that Jacinda has put out, she has bought into "conventional political wisdom" too much, and will not have the strength or drive to push through any meaningful reforms.

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I'm excited about this change. I think that she is principled and charismatic and it's going to be nice having a young vibrant face leading this country after the election. Super stoked that we've got the youngest leader ever too. She also engages on Reddit if you're interested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/5tr3fq/ask_me_anything_wit…

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Agreed. If I were a betting man (and I am), this is a game changer. Not only will she attract younger voters, I suspect the female vote will shift slightly towards Labour. If Jacinda chooses to put some distance between Labour and the Greens, courts Maori and shows the electorate that she's got some steel in her spine while continuing to show us those beautiful gnashers, I'll take the odds of her being PM after September 23.

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Dumb.

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In one weeks time it will be National talking about coalitions with NZ First instead of Labour. This will give the party an immediate boost.

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Great stuff, I'm sure Jacinda will get many votes from younger voters.. Might be looking up from here for Labour.
Now NZ has leader that didn't need photo-shop!

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How can Labour be in bed with the Greens ?

Its just crazy , the Greens are so out touch with real world economic realities its just not true.

And now we have the Benefit Fraud case to cap it all .

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If she has been planning this for awhile we will see a few big signalled policy changes over the next few weeks, which will have been well thought out. If she has just stumbled into the role we will also be seeing changes, but these will be haphazard.

Could be good, could be awful - it is way too early to tell.

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Of course she has planned this for a while now. She didn't just stumble into the colour of jacket she has on today, by some sort of fluke!!

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This will get Labour a lot of extra attention over the next few weeks and force National to play catch up. Looks like a well-timed move. Maybe Bill should resign too.

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The change of leadership will be good for Labour, I'm confident they will have more than 24% support come election day

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Well the TV media clearly like her. They are singing her praises as loud as they can.

Personally I am not a fan of hers.

She was gifted the safest Labour seat in the country, and seems to have flown up the ranks based on nothing more than Gender and age (and a lot of internal manipulation)

She actually reminds me very much of Comrade Helen. An out and out bureaucrat who plots and schemes with the sole intention of consolidating power, rather than making the country better.

For the Game of Thrones watchers out there, she would be a perfect Cersei, she already has the hired muscle to watch her back in the form of Davis.

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I think Labour have just gifted the election to National.

Their biggest mistake was embracing the greens. The should have kept their distance and picked up some of their environmental ideals

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It never fails to amaze me that a party can think that a change of Leader will change things. While certainly we have had the American political idea of personality politics rather than policy for a number of years now, in my view, that indicates there is no policy at all, just a vacuous snake oil salesman like John Key. When are we going to get a Jeremy Corbyn here. While I would like to see a Labour, Green, Maori, NZ First coalition in Government I don't think any of those parties could compromise enough to work together for the benefit of the country so it looks like another term of neoliberalism with New Zealand descending even further into a social mess of haves and have nots.

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In fairness, National slid to 20.93% of the vote in the election defeat under Bill English. They struggled through under Brash, and then climbed up again once Key came in. And Key basically got away with anything.

So, yeah...agree, it's personality politics indeed.

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This isn't just a change of leadership - it's a change of generation - a shift in the power base.

Ardern quietly signaled this difference in her opening gambit.

Expect difference - expect change toward the future. Jacinda won't pander to the aged-centre cohort - she'll be taking it forward for her generation. Kelvin too - they are a new breed.

Finally in NZ - the past might actually become the past!

Winds of change - when the electorate feels it for real - they'll be right in behind it.

She's the Justin Trudeau and the Emmanual Macron of NZ politics.

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It is a desperate move for a a desperate time - and a good one given they had nothing much to lose the way Little was tracking. I still think this election is lost for Labour but it is rather less certain than it was 3 days ago.

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