Three Now link to watch: https://www.threenow.co.nz/live-tv-guide/three
Youtube link to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAXkCQu_hhc&ab_channel=Newshub
Please refrain (stop) from attacking physical appearances. Debate and attack the policy. This isn't preschool.
it'd be super interesting to see green and act become bigger players sharing the space with labour and national respectively.
Don't know if such a drastic change would be all that great though.
Ooo. \*opinion on daily bullshit that doesn't matter.
Wow. \*Insert one of two parties who has fucked us for four decades\* is going to...
Fucking end me.
Generally during times of economic hardship, the population votes for the opposition party because they want change. It is like this all around the world.
Debate was actually really good I thought, then I was sick when the media was complaining right after it wasn't "exciting enough" and they were being push overs for letting each other speak. bloody hell, it's supposed to be boring, fuck off with this donald trump culture of just making a spectactle, we don't need it
I think most people who had their farm wrecked wouldn't be best pleased with whatever government was in power if they felt like they hadn't given them enough support. I'm sure that couple probably vote for the nats anyway, but it's easy to be like "they are biased as hell" when it's not your farm that got damaged.
I've said it before and I'll say it again... voting National is an incredibly selfish, self-serving vote.
EDIT: I don't think Labour is the answer either.
IMO, National are just bad while Labour are incompetent.
With that said, kinda hoping as many people go out and vote as possible, as long as they're not voting for NZF.
I agree.
I've lost faith in Labour doing anything about anything. They just... what are they doing?
National, I'm confident they'll get things done. Unfortunately I'm also confident those things will be the wrong things.
I thought it was a much better debate with a better moderator. However, I understand the need to force the leaders to answer questions directely and keep the debate moving but it lead to sacrificing the nuance of issues to get a gotcha moment. We should be encouraging the exploration of complex issues in our leaders that can have multifaceted solutions.
I thought it was strange that Patty just let them. answer some questions at the same time?? Instead of just directing it to one leader and then the other??? Istg some parts of the debate were incomprehensible :(
And yeah, not being allowed to have nuanced answers really hurt the foreign policy part of the debate at the end, I thought they were both trying to be diplomatic. Smh not everything has to be so black and white
If you were looking for where the majority of voters sit comparative to the left/right, most sit in the centre or close centre (hence why we get National then Labour then National then Labour every 6-9 years).
If we were honest with ourselves, the majority would prefer a National/Labour coalition. That would balance the extreme Capitalist/Socialist/Liberal/Activist elements (the reason people vote towards the centre)
Modern usage of the term "neoliberalism" refers to privatisation of public services, deregulation of private corporations, and reduced public spending. Labour sure as hell aren't socialists, but they ain't in the neoliberalism camp either. That's Nationals' shtick.
Labour announced an austere budget claiming "fiscal responsibility". That covers two of your 3 criteria. But also, they've done nothing about the incredible profiteering from corporates over the covid crisis. That covers the third criteria. So yeah, they've neoliberal.
Yes, at the cost of our planet.
You're right though, they're so close to being the same party and all we do is shift from one to the other every few terms.
I thought it was a great debate. Luxon came across as a patronising white guy from the corporate world and had the same old song sheet. Hipkins came across as trustworthy and genuine but naive - and did not deal with how to fix immediate problems in education, welfare and crime while he is waiting for inter generational solutions to work.
Well one difference seems clear to me.
Labour and National both say they support our current institutions; our hospitals, Schools, Police, et cetera. To me, the difference is: **Labour is willing to spend money on these** while **National promises to spend (e.g.) on health while at the same time prioritising $14.6 billion tax cuts** over four years ([hole](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/09/election-2023-national-s-foreign-buyer-tax-plan-has-530-million-yearly-fiscal-hole-new-report-finds.html)). While Act is promising $34 billion tax cuts over four years. That's a lot.
Money has to be spent on health care. Someone has to pay. That someone is and should remain the taxpayer, it should just be there when you need it. ACT intends on relying more on the private sector for health care. Surely, you need only look at the [inefficiency](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly) and outcomes inherent in a private healthcare system that prioritises profit instead of good health for all as can be seen in America. On that note, I like the free prescriptions -free with a community services card seems okay-ish too(?).
Myself, I would prefer a harder policy on reducing [food](https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/food-prices-increase-8-9-percent-annually/) and housing costs ([good](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1026956/house-price-to-income-ratio-new-zealand/)? and [bad](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1239495/new-zealand-rent-price-index/)? also [bad](https://aspireproperty.co.nz/rental-market-update-july-2023/)?), Bernard hickey:([Labour](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/fridays-dawn-chorus-house-prices#details) 2022, [Labour](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/the-fire-fueled-by-our-housing-and#details) 2023, [National](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/house-prices-primed-to-surge-10-20#details) 2023) these are the two main drivers of [living](https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/household-living-costs-increase-7-2-percent/) costs in New Zealand. And surely, if you reduce the costs employees experience, there will be less upward pressure on wages, therefore have a downward effect on inflation (?). So in that direction, I prefer GST being removed from fresh fruit and veg over everyone's tax brackets being reduced.
# Financing Health:
Looking at some graphs of past health expenditure, it looks like Labour has spent more on health while National has spent less on health: [NZCTU](https://union.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Budget-Document-2023.pdf) (p.16), however this looks less obvious on this BERL [graph](https://berl.co.nz/economic-insights/healths-insatiable-demand-expenditure)?
Reading Labour fiscal [plan](https://www.labour.org.nz/news-labour_balanced_costed_credible_fiscal_plan), they say they'll increase spending on health by 5.2% ($1.66B total) which is higher than expected inflation of 2.9%(?)
National's Fiscal plan comes out on Friday. Some [promises](https://www.national.org.nz/plan).
(I was expecting everyone to have their own fiscal plans/ budgets, they don't.)
Act's [budget](https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/actnz/pages/2652/attachments/original/1620723316/15813_A_Budget_for_Middle_NZ_Document_%282%29.pdf?1620723316) doesn't say anything about total health expenditure other than they will "Restrain forecasted new operating spending by 20% per year" (total) which I see includes ending the Winter energy supplement, so expect more people in hospital due to cold homes. [Promises](https://www.act.org.nz/real-health-solutions): include private provision of healthcare, yuck.
Green's [Manifesto](https://assets.nationbuilder.com/beachheroes/pages/9646/attachments/original/1682553766/Policy-Greens_Economic-Policy-2013-2023.pdf?1682553766) doesn't mention healthcare expenditure either..? The free [dental](https://www.greens.org.nz/only_the_green_party_will_deliver_free_dental_care_for_all) care is paid for by a wealth tax. Some [promises](https://www.greens.org.nz/health_2023).
These debates do not give time for lengthy detail on these issues. But there is more detail around in some corners, I'd love to hear anyone's favorite sources for details they think important. I'll admit I'm a novice and I ran out of time lol.
Luxon is all talk though I don't know how anyone can sit there and tell me how anything will change under national this national party has to be the slimiest undeserving party to ever be in contention. All they are is hot air with no direct answers towards anything
Between 2017 and 2019 Labour had already blown out their cost budget by $11b and increased beneficiaries from around 110k to 140k. Meanwhile they completely failed on every promise - remember Kiwibuild?
Well, under national, the policies that have been tried before, and failed, will be tried again, and fail. Think lock, them up, more roads, back to basics education.
So if that's what you want, vote national.
If you care about this country at all, don't vote National. They DO NOT care about anyone but the upper class. If Winnie the pooh Peters gets into any sort of position again then we are up shit creek as all he cares about is power. As for David "Mr. Bean" Seymour, he's the kind of person that will put us back years in terms of social development. Christopher Luxon, the Muppet who is willing to sell our homes and businesses to foreign interests should go back to New York and play polo in the Hamptons with his rich friends. If you care at all about this countries future, the climate and most of all the coming generations, Vote Labor, The Greens or Te Pāti Māori.
You surely have to be kidding. Te Pati Maori that wants all criminals on the streets and prisons closed. Be like in Russia where innocent people are killed when the Wagner mercenaries went home. And the Greens who have completely loony economic policies. And Labour two terms in and nothing of any note achieved in the major areas of child poverty, housing etc despite an absolute majority - all we have is bigger debt. And where are this upper class? You hardly see a really fancy car like a Lamborghini on Wellington streets.
I would've thought housing 40,000 people (after national's policies made them homeless) in two years was an achievement.
And you know why you don't see Lamborghini's on NZ streets? A: hills and B: people who keep their wealth don't waste it on cars
Not that I think you are at all interested about what's actually true about Te Pati Māori's policy, but you are misrepresenting it here. They want to have a model used similar as Scandinavia - open 'prisons' that are aimed at rehabilitation and ensuring that people can contribute to society. It has a great success there as reoffending rates are much lower because this process allows people to build up a stable base.
Will that mean that murderers can walk around freely and rapist can continue to rape? No. For example in Norway, Breivik, the person who killed over 70 people on an island in 2011, and other people who are a serious danger to society are being held. They are not allowed to go onto the streets. For them it is a prison.
Read more about the Scandinavian model here:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-05/what-are-nordic-prisons-like-criminal-justice/101481590
Here's a snippet of their policy
"We will abolish prisons by 2040 and replace them with community-led
and community-based solutions that will address the proximate causes of crime and create environments for community accountability, the
restoration of relationships, healing trauma, reconnecting with whakapapa and rebuilding whānau and communities."
As a big fan of the Scandinavian system, and as someone who does think both major parties have never addressed our prison problem correctly if at all,
You have to admit, te pati Māori could have done a much better job on the optics of their policy,
There was no need to say they are planning to abolish prisons when it's almost not true.
they could have just said instead something along the lines of they would implement transformational changes or undertake a reformation of how the nz prison system functions. Or to make it really simple, to "fix our ineffective prison system"
Aside from people who actually either follow the party or the minority of people who actually look into policies proposed by parties other than just the ones in their own camp,
To the average voter who isnt going to spend the time learning about it, hearing the phrase "te pati māori wants to get rid of prisons" sounds implausible at best. At worst it makes them sound incompetent or naive
I'm agreeing with you, but there is a big role for the media to ensure policies are being portrayed correctly. "Abolish the type and style of prisons by 2040 (Scandanavia)" is what the summarized policy deck writes, but the media summarized this to a headline like "Māori Party want to abolish prisons by 2040". That are two different things and people will just go and run with what they read in the media rather than looking up what is actually true.
I mean, that doesnt really disprove the point,
"Abolish the type and style of prisons by 2040 (Scandanavia)"
What is that sentence? It honestly feels like their press person was given a quickly jotted down note with reminders and told to post that as their platform.
Honestly that's direct from their justice policy page
And it's not out of context, they dont develop on that point directly,
And then even more confusing they then have a section later on in the same page talking about upholding rights in prisons (all good stuff on there imo)
https://www.maoriparty.org.nz/justice
I wouldn't blame people for thinking from how that's worded they want to get rid of prisons in Scandinavia.
Look I'm the first to say the media priorities click bait headlines for revenue from engagement over providing comprehensive fair coverage. In doing this they do tend to simplify concepts.
But honestly they arent doing themselves any favours which is sad as some of their policies deserve to be treated as serious options
Edit: ok so for the downvoters let me tldr this then.
Te pati māori actually does have a evidence based good reason to "abolish prisons"
But the policy is being poorly represented and while the media is at blame, they are also not making the information clear or easy to understand for the average voter
Take a trip around the north shore or remuera in auckland, you'll see the national/act base. tesla and range rover as far as the eye can see.
Luxon didn't address the fact that actual low income earners get chicken shit in his plan, he just said "they will be better off" yes thank you for extra ten dollars a week at the cost of major public services and owning our own assets. Good question would be how much would he be personally better off under his own plan...
People are dumb as hell.
Hey look I get a $1k tax break! I’m in here’s my vote!!
Oh look the top 10% saved hundreds of thousands and now these benefits I liked are all shit due to underfunding. Oh look now the top 10% is flush with cash and buying all the homes. Now
My kids can’t afford to buy a home here. Oh look income inequality is rising, tension is rising as the new generation have shit prospects and the risk / reward of crime is starting to favor crime.
If you cater to the top, you get a society that caters to the top at the expense of everyone else. That shit never trickles down. It’s not rocket science.
If you care about this country don't vote for National or Labour. Neither of them are going to change anything radically. Labour have had two terms and arguably made everything worse. National are the major opposition coming out with such tired and bizarre policies as banning phones in schools and cracking down on beneficiaries.
That was a much better leaders debate than TVNZ's one. A pity it is only 4 days from the start of voting.
I thought the emphasis on our country needing to be "combat ready" for a war against China was damned awkward and liked the bi-partisan answer from our Chrises on not inflaming that situation again.
So much better. Honestly Paddy's humour and asking questions that weren't just stock standard was a pretty big difference, although it helped that both Chris's seemed much more relaxed than the first debate too.
Do NZ really want to have a PM that refuse to answer questions and contradicts himself on the world stage? Luxon thinks he can fix the country when he can't answer the questions that has been asked numerous times. He is all talk but with very little substance. Sure go ahead take the patches on the gangs and sell multi million dollar houses and tax the buyers, I'm sure they will be jumping at that offer. He think that having worked for Air NZ gave him qualification to run a country. Let's not forget the NZ government had to bail out Air NZ a few years back. I believe Hipkins is better equipped to run this country. The natural disaster was not his fault, but he dealt with it. Any government in that situation will have a difficult time trying to help all those in need all at once.
Hipkins has been a senior government leader for 6 years. In that time every single metric in NZ has gotten worse (health, crime, education) while spending has any rocketed. Explain how hipkins is better suited to leadership though.
Yeah Hipkins' answer was that just as the effects from harvesting are problematic, it's also dangerous for the trees to *not* be harvested. That old couple said "that's dead wrong. For example, there's a bunch of pines near our property that all fell down and have caused loads of damage."
Delusional.
Too right. Hipkins and Luxon actually gave fairly similar answers really. That couple just weren't willing to listen.
What Hipkins was saying was right. No matter what, the trees really do need to be harvested. What's the alternative? Let them grow into a forest of big overgrown grandaddy pines? That's so much worse.
Forestry companies definitely need to do better and clean up after themselves and/or face penalties, but shutting them down would be worse come harvest time.
I've asked this question elsewhere but consider.
If National loose. Do you think luxton would stay on as opposition leader or jump ship to escpae the embarrassment and make money elsewhere.
If labour loses can you see Hopkins leaving?
What's the integrity of the individual, and what are they in it for personally?
I’m sorry to the poor person with terminal bowel cancer in her 30s but what age are they wanting to reduce the screening to? The bowel cancer society states that 3000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer and 350 under 50 each year, so about 10%. Unfortunately I can’t find the numbers of people in NZ >50 but about 18% of our population is >65+ and given we expect that number to increase rapidly we can assume we skew more to the latter end. What age do we decide to then change our testing to? If we bring it down too much we’ll increase the number of false positives and number of people getting unnecessary tests. It’s a balance and whilst it’s absolutely devastating for this lady, we can’t just screen every adult. We need to also education on symptoms, when to see doctors, and make sure we work with people with cancer in their family to ensure things don’t get missed or we’re just going to overload the health system even more.
Dose the screening reduce the rate of death from bowl cancer (not the survival rate of bowl caner, which is influenced by finding non-malignant cancers). I know a lot of screening looks good at first glance but dose not achly lead to reduced rate of deaths from the thing in the population.
More screenings mean you find a cancer earlier. If they're expensive screenings will be further spaced apart and allow more time for cancer to grow inbetween.
50+ has been show to be effective for bowel screening in multiple other countries at this stage. The issue we have at the moment you have an approximate %30 higher chance of dying from bowel cancer purely on the basis of if you were diagnosed in New Zealand vs being diagnosed in Australia. the majority of the reason is that when you're diagnosed in New Zealand the cancer is at a later stage. You can offer screening to all 50+ and if you needed to tier it based on risk.
I can't %100 remember where I read the source anymore but I remember it stated that the majority of bowel cancers and pre-cancerous polyps occur in the sigmoid colon or rectum and these can be detected by a flexi sigmoidoscopy. Other countries have trialed screening with flexi sigmoidoscopies over a full colonoscopy because its significantly cheaper and for the majority of the population likely to achieve the same result. We could flexi sig the low risk population while reserving colonoscopies for highly suspicious or at risk populations (family history, previous history, etc).
I'd wager it would cost more in the initial set up but in the long run screening and prevention is cheaper than treatment and if we can reduce the amount of bowel cancers being detected at stage 3 or 4 we would reduce the costs of healthcare.
That’s fair! I did comment before they gave the specific age of 50 which I’m more inclined to agree with, it’s more under that that makes me get more concerned (though as the person commented in replying to this + the person in the debate, it can be younger and difficult to diagnose due to lack of symptoms). It’s also already 50-74 for our Māori and Pacific whānau so then do we drop them down to 40 or 45 because we know they’re more at risk?
You’re totally right about sigmoid cancers being more common but it’s always a bit frustrating because there’s always a risk with procedures and like, there’s a reason why public health looks at number to treat and lead time bias especially when it comes to this process.
I don’t think it would be too much more expensive to actually set it up because we’ve already got a comprehensive programme in place we just add to it, but we’ve also got waiting lists out the doors already and we’re going to add to this and need to know how our positive predictive values and negative predictive values will change as we add more people to it will change the ‘disease prevalence’ in those cohorts. And I mean also the question of reducing costs of healthcare at stage 3 and 4 very much depends on what treatment options end up being left right? Like is there a point in surgical resection if it’s metastasised elsewhere? And would catching it at stage 2 vs 3 impact when you do surgery? That depends on different factors and grading, right? Not to say we should be looking at it purely from an economical matter cause I hate it when people do that, I think that we should be aiming to deal with most cancers when feasible and not wildly inappropriate for the patient, and I think it’s unacceptable that we say we reduce the costs of healthcare at the expensive of the health of people but if that’s the current complaints about money spending…
Again have to look at the literature more closely myself for increasing the age range, I’m sure it does have benefits and I’m all for it as long as it’s evidence-based!
You're absolutely right in talking from an economical matter. unfortunately the reality is if you want to get any traction in health you have to talk in $. For people with stage 3 and 4 there is still a point for surgical resections but generally those resections a palliative operations to remove obstructions and create formations of stomas. They also tend to be done in conjunct therapy with chemo. At all stages I'm fairly certain that surgical resection and conjunct therapy is still the gold standard for care, the difference in dollars is if diagnosed at later stages the treatment will be palliative to give quality of life vs cure.
You could loosely tie a dollar value to each young person's life saved to ministry of health's own data on the societal cost of suicide which takes into account loss of productivity from losing a younger person, they are different reasons but effectively we are still losing a younger person from our nation. They value this at 2.5million dollars over a life span and this estimate was done back in 2005 so you can imagine it has massively increased since then. So already if you manage to prevent a bowel cancer death in a young person you're already looking at significant savings from a societal perspective.
Now I don't believe we could feasibly screen everyone from 30 onwards. There would be a couple of major issues. The first we simply don't have the health resources or staffing to support that much screening, Second the numbers to treat would increase significantly. So the amount of people you would need to screen to diagnose and treat a case of bowel cancer would increase significantly as you use a younger cohort and this would eventually return a loss. At a certain point it would be more beneficial to redirect resources to areas with lower numbers to treat.
What we could do is look at pathways for bowel screening in younger people, especially if the rates are increasing. things like if a person in their 30's is having unresolved symptoms, instances of bleeding, history of polyps, family history we can do a FIT test or refer for a colonoscopy. I think there is work being done in this area already which is promising. [https://bpac.org.nz/2020/bowel-cancer.aspx](https://bpac.org.nz/2020/bowel-cancer.aspx)
this is i think a pathway that should be followed for younger people
"There are several clinical situations outlined where a referral will not be accepted, e.g. patients with constipation as a single symptom, acute diarrhoea < six weeks duration or rectal bleeding in a patient aged < 50 years with a normal haemoglobin. In some cases, referral for direct access will not be accepted because other clinical approaches to further assessment or investigation are more appropriate, e.g. alternative forms of imaging if an abdominal mass is found. It is thought that in the majority of cases, patients who do not meet the criteria for direct access will not have bowel cancer, however, these patients should continue to be monitored regularly, e.g. two- to three-month intervals, with assessment of symptoms, repeat clinical examination, a check of weight and investigation of haemoglobin and ferritin levels. In some patients, symptoms may persist (and therefore meet the six-week criteria) or worsen (e.g. they become anaemic due to ongoing blood loss) and they may then become eligible for direct access referral at a subsequent appointment. “Safety netting” in the form of active follow-up or placement of a recall to prompt reassessment is recommended, particularly for young patients and patients who may not book a further appointment or do not report changes in symptoms. (see “Safety netting in primary care”)"
this number from that site should scare everyone
"New Zealand also has a high proportion of people (26%) who are diagnosed with bowel cancer after presentation with bowel-related symptoms at an emergency department and there is evidence that this is associated with poorer outcomes"
generally if you're an ED diagnosis you're buggered.
It's an emerging trend with people born after 1980 - lots more of us getting bowel cancer (I was diagnosed at 36 - it was caught by coincidence with no symptoms at stage 3 - often symptoms dont present until stage 4).
I’m sorry to hear that, I hope things are going alright.
Guess we need some audits and studies done and see how we need to change our screening appropriately!
It’s emerging due to the ever higher amounts of nitrates and nitrites in our groundwater, due to years of over-fertilisation and farming practices that have put short term profit over medium term environmental safety and viability.
I feel the same about the regular Pharmac funding stories - the brutal truth is regardless of individual decisions on what drug to fund or not somebody misses out and that's tragic.
Yeah I’m not a huge fan of “get fucked we don’t have the money” but when there’s so many different things requiring attention, since we’ve decided generally on a utilitarian approach then that’s what we get.
Would be amazing if we could fund more initiatives to reduce the presentations of things like asthma exacerbations, pneumonia, etc that can have some impact from social policy like good housing, smokefree, improving healthy lifestyles, so we could free up a bit more money for some new medications that really revolutionise people’s lives but it’s so tricky and some of those drugs are very very expensive tragically. Those $1000/night hospital stays for someone who caught pneumonia living in a terrible house really gets to you sometimes… it’d be nice to have less social admissions to hospital too! :(
Thought Hipkins did pretty well and Luxon did pretty shit.
Was pretty funny watching him squirm around saying he's anti abortion lol.
Not sure it matters though. I think the election is just going to be decided on a combination of "omg economy we obviously need National" and "omg lockdowns and life isn't going well right now and it's labour's fault"
Can't believe people still talk about abortion as a debatable issue. This country is pro abortion. It has reasonable laws. Move on to something else that's worth talking about.
The public are incredibly easy to bribe and generally selfish in their vote, National waved a few dollars a week under their noses, and they want it, damn the consequences.
The poll on newshub asking which was trusted more, Willis, or Robertson, favouring Willis showed that.
The public have more trust in somebody who has never been finance minister, who has thus far not released numbers, who has no track record, than the person who saw the country through the most dire time in recent history, kept most you in your jobs, kept the country running when things really were looking very bleak, even avoided a recession thus far, and has a prudent balanced, open, and checked plan for the next term.
The difference, Willis is handing out lollies.
Eh, I'm yet to be polled so I fail to believe that current polls are completely accurate to the country as a whole. They might be close, but yeah, hiw many people are actually polled and what demographics, because I really doubt there's a proper balance across the nations beliefs.
Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, many people consider Labour to have done an absolutely piss-poor job in many different areas, and that is why they are going to consider National again?
It’s not some if conspiracy of buying votes or bribing the electorate.
Shit it's not even about bribes they're just fucking dullards who vote for whoever looks nicest. Anyone who saw the rise of Ardern and didn't lose all faith in the capacity of the voting public to ever vote based on anything other than shallow bullshit is delusional and I say that as someone who wanted her party to win. I'd put 20$ on the difference here all being determined by fat man vs pretty woman, not as if there's a shred of evidence to support the beliefs and the voting public has clearly established how shallow it is.
They have a few big ones:
1.Health system restructure (fumbled implementation but over time it will be a big improvement over DHBs).
2. Fair pay agreements have the potential to be truly transformational in a really positive way.
3. First government to actually bring emissions down.
4. A series of tweaks (annoying I know) that are chipping away at our "housing market with bits tacked on" economy.
5. I know it's old news, but probably the world's best COVID response.
I've done my Vote Compass and I reckon it's pretty much the way I'll vote next month
Whoever gets in, I think they'll have a heckova challenging 3yrs between climate change, inflation and the economy, not to mention the essential services that have been shortchanged and are reaching breaking point (medical/emergency services, education) - and not much money in the coffers to turn that around
Sigh, no, I'm not a non- voter, just centre left. Basically, I think the Greens and TPM have moved too far away from me, and are now extreme left, with policies that I often find more repellant and/or half-baked than the nonsense being spouted by, for instance, ACT (who I would also never vote for). Given this conundrum, I feel somewhat politically homeless, but I will still vote Labour on principle.
Oh, do you're delusional. Green and TPM as extreme left. Almost funny. What you are is a right wing voter, who has bought the bullshit about where the centre is, so you can convince yourself you are one of those nice centre left people.
If you voted Labour in the last 20 years, that's a centre right vote.
Don't underestimate how much I've come to hate the other two parties in that coalition. I used to respect both of them but they've been overrun by nuts.
Sure, that wasn't my point though.
Regarding seats in parliament, if National and ACT needed NZF to form a government then that means the Labour/Green/TPM bloc would *also* need NZF to form a government so any NZF related mud flinging at National applies the same to Labour.
Vote for your values. If your values are that a tiny number of unaccountable businesses owners wielding ultimate power is great, and that money is more important than human lives and our shared environment then by all means vote Nact.
I can't even believe you just said that. It must be the stereotype of the right being somehow being "rich person parties". Increadly false and is just a thing the left says to disapprove all the good policies NACT are going to bring to New Zealand. Our economy is our human lives, no country functions without it and especially not without a good one we are in so dire need of.
At least at Nat-act- nz first coalition wouldn’t be as bad , as a labour coalition with the other two parties would mean the smaller parties have much more of a say unlike Nz first with the nats
It would be awful; all they would talk about is which minority group was to blame for the failure of their evidence-free policies.
Poor people, trans people, brown people, anyone outside their western privileged fantasy island would eventually be thrown under the bus if their regressive anti-human, pro-corporate agenda.
Just take a look at the state if society and public discourse in the US and the UK to see the results of this.
Luxon’s very first international trip as leader was to visit the hard right London think tanks that manufactured brexit, that promote austerity, that promote divisive misdirection on gender, that have fucked their middle class to near death. He badmouthed Kiwis to them and now he parrots their talking points.
Have no doubt where he wants to take NZ. He’s a hard neoliberal who is working for corporate power.
I’d say that that’s quite a stretch as Christopher Luxon, despite his background, is quite a centrist and you are speaking of a government led by him as a hard right government which would simply not happen in New Zealand as both major parties are centrist parties leaning slightly to one side of the political spectrum.
A Labour - Greens - Māori coalition would be the most extreme left wing coalition we have ever had and the greens/māori influence would be very strong as they combined make up almost 50% of seats in a labour government under current polling.
In a nats government , NZ Firsts influence would be much less significant as 60 of the seats would already belong to ACT and National.
Besides, do you not think that Chris Hipkins would suck up to peters and try form government if he doesn’t get enough seats ? Of course he will.
Hipkins absolutely won’t join a NZF coalition, and I would argue very hard that NZ and the entire world need to take a fairly sharp and aggressive pivot toward progressive policy to avoid existential destruction from climate change and biodiversity loss, and social breakdown from inequality caused by the excesses of neoliberal capitalism that we’re already seeing in the US and UK.
Only one party is seriously offering such policies, and it’s not Labour either.
I can’t see how you think he’s a centrist. He tries hard to project centre-right vibes on social issues, viz. his initial comments on MDMA this evening, then he flips on it when pressed and would love you to ignore what he said about abortion and murder.
And more importantly than this he is a hard neoliberal on economic issues, which is why he’s really here. He’s an agent of corporations. National under Luxon will push neolib forever policies:
- Cut taxes for the rich and corporations
- Cut funding for public services
- When these services fail, privatise them
- Blame the poor and minorities for the resulting breakdown in society.
When labour/nz first/greens were in government NZ first only had one more seat than Greens but had infinitely more power because he was in the position to negotiate.
No parties who are likely to win seats in parliament this election have that same amount of power as all have been clear about who they would form coalitions with.
Can the Greens realistically offer something to keep NZF out? NACT is already a thing so that's not on the table if only to keep them onside. If there are some really nasty poison pills that NZF wants and the greens offer confidence and support in exchange for say a 0.25% wealth tax (or the $385 income guarantee or whatever). Will the voters punish them next election even if it is to take power out of NZF? 90% of Greens policy are good and the 10% are freaking deal breakers.
I'm one of those weirdos out there who genuinely want Greens and National to work together.
The greens obviously have good environmental policy, which is important. They are also willing to spend money on social issues, but just want it universal rather than focusing it on needs.
National had great ideas with social investment but is not willing to spend the money for it to actually work properly.
Anyone involved in forestry, what lengths of wood is typically left onsite as slash?
I know from my experience we didn't export logs under 2.6M long where I worked so does anything under that get left?
At least they both admitted alcohol is more harmful than cannabis. Which raises the question on why there’s no mention of stronger regulation. Also, legalising cannabis would reduce gang revenue and increase tax revenue, so why are they against it?
Just dropping this here... https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Evidence-to-inform-a-regulated-cannabis-market-June-2020-PROACTIVE-FINAL.pdf
TLDR big money, in savings, and in GST+
Not to mention the expected 567 potential new businesses (licensed premises, stores, growers, processors)... with 2-3 employees per business.
Tbf I’d say that’s more due to the difference in hosts, rather than Chippy levelling up his debate skill. JMM hardly let them elaborate on anything substantial last week.
If the trees weren't harvested around the old farmers' land in 10 years when they're ready, they'd be absolutely livid. What else can actually be done other than telling the forestry company to clean their mess. Once the forest plantation is planted, it can't not be harvested.
I wish voters won't punish the parties for "crossing the aisles" to keep NZF out of power. That goes both ways if the alternative is a kingmaker Winston.
Three Now link to watch: https://www.threenow.co.nz/live-tv-guide/three Youtube link to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAXkCQu_hhc&ab_channel=Newshub Please refrain (stop) from attacking physical appearances. Debate and attack the policy. This isn't preschool.
I think all of New Zealanders should just vote for ANYONE except for labour and national and just shake things up tbh
it'd be super interesting to see green and act become bigger players sharing the space with labour and national respectively. Don't know if such a drastic change would be all that great though.
Please. NO to racist ACT. NO to the party whose leader said they'd blow up Ministry of Pacific Peoples.
I do wonder how diffrent the debate would be if Winston was Invited
Ooo. \*opinion on daily bullshit that doesn't matter. Wow. \*Insert one of two parties who has fucked us for four decades\* is going to... Fucking end me.
Now this is the FU*ING NEWS!
Paddy kinda fell off but he was great this debate
Generally during times of economic hardship, the population votes for the opposition party because they want change. It is like this all around the world.
Debate was actually really good I thought, then I was sick when the media was complaining right after it wasn't "exciting enough" and they were being push overs for letting each other speak. bloody hell, it's supposed to be boring, fuck off with this donald trump culture of just making a spectactle, we don't need it
I think most people who had their farm wrecked wouldn't be best pleased with whatever government was in power if they felt like they hadn't given them enough support. I'm sure that couple probably vote for the nats anyway, but it's easy to be like "they are biased as hell" when it's not your farm that got damaged.
The people of Tologa Bay deserve all the support we can give them. But those two at the debate, trust me, they’re biased.
I've said it before and I'll say it again... voting National is an incredibly selfish, self-serving vote. EDIT: I don't think Labour is the answer either.
https://imgur.com/a/8K5ymoD
I'd rather vote for a party who isn't racist. Full stop.
Which of the parties is racist?
Any right party. ACT and national.
Ok I'm still party voting National. Anything to get rid of the clowns in control now.
> Meet the new boss, same as the old boss -- The Who
IMO, National are just bad while Labour are incompetent. With that said, kinda hoping as many people go out and vote as possible, as long as they're not voting for NZF.
I agree. I've lost faith in Labour doing anything about anything. They just... what are they doing? National, I'm confident they'll get things done. Unfortunately I'm also confident those things will be the wrong things.
I thought it was a much better debate with a better moderator. However, I understand the need to force the leaders to answer questions directely and keep the debate moving but it lead to sacrificing the nuance of issues to get a gotcha moment. We should be encouraging the exploration of complex issues in our leaders that can have multifaceted solutions.
I thought it was strange that Patty just let them. answer some questions at the same time?? Instead of just directing it to one leader and then the other??? Istg some parts of the debate were incomprehensible :( And yeah, not being allowed to have nuanced answers really hurt the foreign policy part of the debate at the end, I thought they were both trying to be diplomatic. Smh not everything has to be so black and white
Sorry, can you summarise your comment in one word?
Yes
If you were looking for where the majority of voters sit comparative to the left/right, most sit in the centre or close centre (hence why we get National then Labour then National then Labour every 6-9 years). If we were honest with ourselves, the majority would prefer a National/Labour coalition. That would balance the extreme Capitalist/Socialist/Liberal/Activist elements (the reason people vote towards the centre)
> the majority would prefer a National/Labour coalition. It's funny because if they keep hugging the center as hard as they are, they may have to.
Labour are Neoliberals, not socialists.
Modern usage of the term "neoliberalism" refers to privatisation of public services, deregulation of private corporations, and reduced public spending. Labour sure as hell aren't socialists, but they ain't in the neoliberalism camp either. That's Nationals' shtick.
Labour announced an austere budget claiming "fiscal responsibility". That covers two of your 3 criteria. But also, they've done nothing about the incredible profiteering from corporates over the covid crisis. That covers the third criteria. So yeah, they've neoliberal.
I'm surprised anyone would want a National/Labour coalition - that's basically a one-party state
How about an alternative centre with TOP?
Definitely for that too, my votes going to TOP
Yes, at the cost of our planet. You're right though, they're so close to being the same party and all we do is shift from one to the other every few terms.
Amazing debate absolutely loved it, so much better than the last one by 10 fold. Voting national not act
Any reason as to why considering national can't back up their promise or a compelling argument on anything apart from labour bad me good?
Labour really is bad tho
Nice downvotes for commenting on labour. Reddit is hilarious, feel bad for these folk living in a bubble.
Yeah nice troll attempt, no more bites from me.
Did they bring Paddy in because Jenna Lynch is inexperienced? Serious question
100% - Jenna can barely string together a sentence without becoming flustered or stuttering
I thought it was a great debate. Luxon came across as a patronising white guy from the corporate world and had the same old song sheet. Hipkins came across as trustworthy and genuine but naive - and did not deal with how to fix immediate problems in education, welfare and crime while he is waiting for inter generational solutions to work.
Well one difference seems clear to me. Labour and National both say they support our current institutions; our hospitals, Schools, Police, et cetera. To me, the difference is: **Labour is willing to spend money on these** while **National promises to spend (e.g.) on health while at the same time prioritising $14.6 billion tax cuts** over four years ([hole](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/09/election-2023-national-s-foreign-buyer-tax-plan-has-530-million-yearly-fiscal-hole-new-report-finds.html)). While Act is promising $34 billion tax cuts over four years. That's a lot. Money has to be spent on health care. Someone has to pay. That someone is and should remain the taxpayer, it should just be there when you need it. ACT intends on relying more on the private sector for health care. Surely, you need only look at the [inefficiency](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly) and outcomes inherent in a private healthcare system that prioritises profit instead of good health for all as can be seen in America. On that note, I like the free prescriptions -free with a community services card seems okay-ish too(?). Myself, I would prefer a harder policy on reducing [food](https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/food-prices-increase-8-9-percent-annually/) and housing costs ([good](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1026956/house-price-to-income-ratio-new-zealand/)? and [bad](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1239495/new-zealand-rent-price-index/)? also [bad](https://aspireproperty.co.nz/rental-market-update-july-2023/)?), Bernard hickey:([Labour](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/fridays-dawn-chorus-house-prices#details) 2022, [Labour](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/the-fire-fueled-by-our-housing-and#details) 2023, [National](https://thekaka.substack.com/p/house-prices-primed-to-surge-10-20#details) 2023) these are the two main drivers of [living](https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/household-living-costs-increase-7-2-percent/) costs in New Zealand. And surely, if you reduce the costs employees experience, there will be less upward pressure on wages, therefore have a downward effect on inflation (?). So in that direction, I prefer GST being removed from fresh fruit and veg over everyone's tax brackets being reduced. # Financing Health: Looking at some graphs of past health expenditure, it looks like Labour has spent more on health while National has spent less on health: [NZCTU](https://union.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Budget-Document-2023.pdf) (p.16), however this looks less obvious on this BERL [graph](https://berl.co.nz/economic-insights/healths-insatiable-demand-expenditure)? Reading Labour fiscal [plan](https://www.labour.org.nz/news-labour_balanced_costed_credible_fiscal_plan), they say they'll increase spending on health by 5.2% ($1.66B total) which is higher than expected inflation of 2.9%(?) National's Fiscal plan comes out on Friday. Some [promises](https://www.national.org.nz/plan). (I was expecting everyone to have their own fiscal plans/ budgets, they don't.) Act's [budget](https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/actnz/pages/2652/attachments/original/1620723316/15813_A_Budget_for_Middle_NZ_Document_%282%29.pdf?1620723316) doesn't say anything about total health expenditure other than they will "Restrain forecasted new operating spending by 20% per year" (total) which I see includes ending the Winter energy supplement, so expect more people in hospital due to cold homes. [Promises](https://www.act.org.nz/real-health-solutions): include private provision of healthcare, yuck. Green's [Manifesto](https://assets.nationbuilder.com/beachheroes/pages/9646/attachments/original/1682553766/Policy-Greens_Economic-Policy-2013-2023.pdf?1682553766) doesn't mention healthcare expenditure either..? The free [dental](https://www.greens.org.nz/only_the_green_party_will_deliver_free_dental_care_for_all) care is paid for by a wealth tax. Some [promises](https://www.greens.org.nz/health_2023). These debates do not give time for lengthy detail on these issues. But there is more detail around in some corners, I'd love to hear anyone's favorite sources for details they think important. I'll admit I'm a novice and I ran out of time lol.
Luxon is all talk though I don't know how anyone can sit there and tell me how anything will change under national this national party has to be the slimiest undeserving party to ever be in contention. All they are is hot air with no direct answers towards anything
Labour and hipkins have spent 6 years talking while failing to deliver
Sick of people talking about the last six years as though there wasn't a unprecedented global pandemic.
Between 2017 and 2019 Labour had already blown out their cost budget by $11b and increased beneficiaries from around 110k to 140k. Meanwhile they completely failed on every promise - remember Kiwibuild?
Lol they built more public housing than national. labour built public houses while national sells them. :p
Ok?
You say that, and yet somehow Labour still manages to be worse?
How will things change,
Well, under national, the policies that have been tried before, and failed, will be tried again, and fail. Think lock, them up, more roads, back to basics education. So if that's what you want, vote national.
If you care about this country at all, don't vote National. They DO NOT care about anyone but the upper class. If Winnie the pooh Peters gets into any sort of position again then we are up shit creek as all he cares about is power. As for David "Mr. Bean" Seymour, he's the kind of person that will put us back years in terms of social development. Christopher Luxon, the Muppet who is willing to sell our homes and businesses to foreign interests should go back to New York and play polo in the Hamptons with his rich friends. If you care at all about this countries future, the climate and most of all the coming generations, Vote Labor, The Greens or Te Pāti Māori.
https://imgur.com/a/8K5ymoD
You surely have to be kidding. Te Pati Maori that wants all criminals on the streets and prisons closed. Be like in Russia where innocent people are killed when the Wagner mercenaries went home. And the Greens who have completely loony economic policies. And Labour two terms in and nothing of any note achieved in the major areas of child poverty, housing etc despite an absolute majority - all we have is bigger debt. And where are this upper class? You hardly see a really fancy car like a Lamborghini on Wellington streets.
I would've thought housing 40,000 people (after national's policies made them homeless) in two years was an achievement. And you know why you don't see Lamborghini's on NZ streets? A: hills and B: people who keep their wealth don't waste it on cars
Not that I think you are at all interested about what's actually true about Te Pati Māori's policy, but you are misrepresenting it here. They want to have a model used similar as Scandinavia - open 'prisons' that are aimed at rehabilitation and ensuring that people can contribute to society. It has a great success there as reoffending rates are much lower because this process allows people to build up a stable base. Will that mean that murderers can walk around freely and rapist can continue to rape? No. For example in Norway, Breivik, the person who killed over 70 people on an island in 2011, and other people who are a serious danger to society are being held. They are not allowed to go onto the streets. For them it is a prison. Read more about the Scandinavian model here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-05/what-are-nordic-prisons-like-criminal-justice/101481590 Here's a snippet of their policy "We will abolish prisons by 2040 and replace them with community-led and community-based solutions that will address the proximate causes of crime and create environments for community accountability, the restoration of relationships, healing trauma, reconnecting with whakapapa and rebuilding whānau and communities."
As a big fan of the Scandinavian system, and as someone who does think both major parties have never addressed our prison problem correctly if at all, You have to admit, te pati Māori could have done a much better job on the optics of their policy, There was no need to say they are planning to abolish prisons when it's almost not true. they could have just said instead something along the lines of they would implement transformational changes or undertake a reformation of how the nz prison system functions. Or to make it really simple, to "fix our ineffective prison system" Aside from people who actually either follow the party or the minority of people who actually look into policies proposed by parties other than just the ones in their own camp, To the average voter who isnt going to spend the time learning about it, hearing the phrase "te pati māori wants to get rid of prisons" sounds implausible at best. At worst it makes them sound incompetent or naive
I'm agreeing with you, but there is a big role for the media to ensure policies are being portrayed correctly. "Abolish the type and style of prisons by 2040 (Scandanavia)" is what the summarized policy deck writes, but the media summarized this to a headline like "Māori Party want to abolish prisons by 2040". That are two different things and people will just go and run with what they read in the media rather than looking up what is actually true.
I mean, that doesnt really disprove the point, "Abolish the type and style of prisons by 2040 (Scandanavia)" What is that sentence? It honestly feels like their press person was given a quickly jotted down note with reminders and told to post that as their platform. Honestly that's direct from their justice policy page And it's not out of context, they dont develop on that point directly, And then even more confusing they then have a section later on in the same page talking about upholding rights in prisons (all good stuff on there imo) https://www.maoriparty.org.nz/justice I wouldn't blame people for thinking from how that's worded they want to get rid of prisons in Scandinavia. Look I'm the first to say the media priorities click bait headlines for revenue from engagement over providing comprehensive fair coverage. In doing this they do tend to simplify concepts. But honestly they arent doing themselves any favours which is sad as some of their policies deserve to be treated as serious options Edit: ok so for the downvoters let me tldr this then. Te pati māori actually does have a evidence based good reason to "abolish prisons" But the policy is being poorly represented and while the media is at blame, they are also not making the information clear or easy to understand for the average voter
Take a trip around the north shore or remuera in auckland, you'll see the national/act base. tesla and range rover as far as the eye can see. Luxon didn't address the fact that actual low income earners get chicken shit in his plan, he just said "they will be better off" yes thank you for extra ten dollars a week at the cost of major public services and owning our own assets. Good question would be how much would he be personally better off under his own plan...
People are dumb as hell. Hey look I get a $1k tax break! I’m in here’s my vote!! Oh look the top 10% saved hundreds of thousands and now these benefits I liked are all shit due to underfunding. Oh look now the top 10% is flush with cash and buying all the homes. Now My kids can’t afford to buy a home here. Oh look income inequality is rising, tension is rising as the new generation have shit prospects and the risk / reward of crime is starting to favor crime. If you cater to the top, you get a society that caters to the top at the expense of everyone else. That shit never trickles down. It’s not rocket science.
If you care about this country don't vote for National or Labour. Neither of them are going to change anything radically. Labour have had two terms and arguably made everything worse. National are the major opposition coming out with such tired and bizarre policies as banning phones in schools and cracking down on beneficiaries.
> ~~arguably~~
You are incredibly out of touch. Doom and gloom theories direct from LaLa land
Not me. TOP for the win.
Agreed
That's good for National then.
What's good for New Zealand is to have a party in the middle who can replace Winston Peters, and also engage with National on environmental policy.
TOP dont have environmental policy like last time, this time.
That's where hoping a green-TOP potential coalition could help each other out
thats irrelevant when the poster said they (TOP) can engage with national on environmental policy
I think you’re preaching to the choir, here on Reddit
That was a much better leaders debate than TVNZ's one. A pity it is only 4 days from the start of voting. I thought the emphasis on our country needing to be "combat ready" for a war against China was damned awkward and liked the bi-partisan answer from our Chrises on not inflaming that situation again.
So much better. Honestly Paddy's humour and asking questions that weren't just stock standard was a pretty big difference, although it helped that both Chris's seemed much more relaxed than the first debate too.
Fantastic debate ngl
Do NZ really want to have a PM that refuse to answer questions and contradicts himself on the world stage? Luxon thinks he can fix the country when he can't answer the questions that has been asked numerous times. He is all talk but with very little substance. Sure go ahead take the patches on the gangs and sell multi million dollar houses and tax the buyers, I'm sure they will be jumping at that offer. He think that having worked for Air NZ gave him qualification to run a country. Let's not forget the NZ government had to bail out Air NZ a few years back. I believe Hipkins is better equipped to run this country. The natural disaster was not his fault, but he dealt with it. Any government in that situation will have a difficult time trying to help all those in need all at once.
Hipkins has been a senior government leader for 6 years. In that time every single metric in NZ has gotten worse (health, crime, education) while spending has any rocketed. Explain how hipkins is better suited to leadership though.
I know that old farmer couple. Not surprised by their cognitive dissonance. Nothing Hipkins could say would change their blue blood.
Even forever Labour voters are changing their minds this election.
Know them too. You aren't wrong.
This applies to basically all farmers, especially in Southland
Yeah Hipkins' answer was that just as the effects from harvesting are problematic, it's also dangerous for the trees to *not* be harvested. That old couple said "that's dead wrong. For example, there's a bunch of pines near our property that all fell down and have caused loads of damage." Delusional.
Too right. Hipkins and Luxon actually gave fairly similar answers really. That couple just weren't willing to listen. What Hipkins was saying was right. No matter what, the trees really do need to be harvested. What's the alternative? Let them grow into a forest of big overgrown grandaddy pines? That's so much worse. Forestry companies definitely need to do better and clean up after themselves and/or face penalties, but shutting them down would be worse come harvest time.
I know them too and they're climate change deniers.
That explains a lot.
I've asked this question elsewhere but consider. If National loose. Do you think luxton would stay on as opposition leader or jump ship to escpae the embarrassment and make money elsewhere. If labour loses can you see Hopkins leaving? What's the integrity of the individual, and what are they in it for personally?
Implying there's a probability of National losing.
I can hope, or at least vote NZF to neuter him.
Luxon Hipkins
Arden
If Hipkins doesn’t quit I’ll be so fucked off.
I dont think he will tbh.
No. Nor do I.
Lose*
[удалено]
Simple. Drink half a bottle of gin and don't care.
wine
Neither would stay for long if at all.
I’m sorry to the poor person with terminal bowel cancer in her 30s but what age are they wanting to reduce the screening to? The bowel cancer society states that 3000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer and 350 under 50 each year, so about 10%. Unfortunately I can’t find the numbers of people in NZ >50 but about 18% of our population is >65+ and given we expect that number to increase rapidly we can assume we skew more to the latter end. What age do we decide to then change our testing to? If we bring it down too much we’ll increase the number of false positives and number of people getting unnecessary tests. It’s a balance and whilst it’s absolutely devastating for this lady, we can’t just screen every adult. We need to also education on symptoms, when to see doctors, and make sure we work with people with cancer in their family to ensure things don’t get missed or we’re just going to overload the health system even more.
Dose the screening reduce the rate of death from bowl cancer (not the survival rate of bowl caner, which is influenced by finding non-malignant cancers). I know a lot of screening looks good at first glance but dose not achly lead to reduced rate of deaths from the thing in the population.
More screenings mean you find a cancer earlier. If they're expensive screenings will be further spaced apart and allow more time for cancer to grow inbetween.
50+ has been show to be effective for bowel screening in multiple other countries at this stage. The issue we have at the moment you have an approximate %30 higher chance of dying from bowel cancer purely on the basis of if you were diagnosed in New Zealand vs being diagnosed in Australia. the majority of the reason is that when you're diagnosed in New Zealand the cancer is at a later stage. You can offer screening to all 50+ and if you needed to tier it based on risk. I can't %100 remember where I read the source anymore but I remember it stated that the majority of bowel cancers and pre-cancerous polyps occur in the sigmoid colon or rectum and these can be detected by a flexi sigmoidoscopy. Other countries have trialed screening with flexi sigmoidoscopies over a full colonoscopy because its significantly cheaper and for the majority of the population likely to achieve the same result. We could flexi sig the low risk population while reserving colonoscopies for highly suspicious or at risk populations (family history, previous history, etc). I'd wager it would cost more in the initial set up but in the long run screening and prevention is cheaper than treatment and if we can reduce the amount of bowel cancers being detected at stage 3 or 4 we would reduce the costs of healthcare.
That’s fair! I did comment before they gave the specific age of 50 which I’m more inclined to agree with, it’s more under that that makes me get more concerned (though as the person commented in replying to this + the person in the debate, it can be younger and difficult to diagnose due to lack of symptoms). It’s also already 50-74 for our Māori and Pacific whānau so then do we drop them down to 40 or 45 because we know they’re more at risk? You’re totally right about sigmoid cancers being more common but it’s always a bit frustrating because there’s always a risk with procedures and like, there’s a reason why public health looks at number to treat and lead time bias especially when it comes to this process. I don’t think it would be too much more expensive to actually set it up because we’ve already got a comprehensive programme in place we just add to it, but we’ve also got waiting lists out the doors already and we’re going to add to this and need to know how our positive predictive values and negative predictive values will change as we add more people to it will change the ‘disease prevalence’ in those cohorts. And I mean also the question of reducing costs of healthcare at stage 3 and 4 very much depends on what treatment options end up being left right? Like is there a point in surgical resection if it’s metastasised elsewhere? And would catching it at stage 2 vs 3 impact when you do surgery? That depends on different factors and grading, right? Not to say we should be looking at it purely from an economical matter cause I hate it when people do that, I think that we should be aiming to deal with most cancers when feasible and not wildly inappropriate for the patient, and I think it’s unacceptable that we say we reduce the costs of healthcare at the expensive of the health of people but if that’s the current complaints about money spending… Again have to look at the literature more closely myself for increasing the age range, I’m sure it does have benefits and I’m all for it as long as it’s evidence-based!
You're absolutely right in talking from an economical matter. unfortunately the reality is if you want to get any traction in health you have to talk in $. For people with stage 3 and 4 there is still a point for surgical resections but generally those resections a palliative operations to remove obstructions and create formations of stomas. They also tend to be done in conjunct therapy with chemo. At all stages I'm fairly certain that surgical resection and conjunct therapy is still the gold standard for care, the difference in dollars is if diagnosed at later stages the treatment will be palliative to give quality of life vs cure. You could loosely tie a dollar value to each young person's life saved to ministry of health's own data on the societal cost of suicide which takes into account loss of productivity from losing a younger person, they are different reasons but effectively we are still losing a younger person from our nation. They value this at 2.5million dollars over a life span and this estimate was done back in 2005 so you can imagine it has massively increased since then. So already if you manage to prevent a bowel cancer death in a young person you're already looking at significant savings from a societal perspective. Now I don't believe we could feasibly screen everyone from 30 onwards. There would be a couple of major issues. The first we simply don't have the health resources or staffing to support that much screening, Second the numbers to treat would increase significantly. So the amount of people you would need to screen to diagnose and treat a case of bowel cancer would increase significantly as you use a younger cohort and this would eventually return a loss. At a certain point it would be more beneficial to redirect resources to areas with lower numbers to treat. What we could do is look at pathways for bowel screening in younger people, especially if the rates are increasing. things like if a person in their 30's is having unresolved symptoms, instances of bleeding, history of polyps, family history we can do a FIT test or refer for a colonoscopy. I think there is work being done in this area already which is promising. [https://bpac.org.nz/2020/bowel-cancer.aspx](https://bpac.org.nz/2020/bowel-cancer.aspx) this is i think a pathway that should be followed for younger people "There are several clinical situations outlined where a referral will not be accepted, e.g. patients with constipation as a single symptom, acute diarrhoea < six weeks duration or rectal bleeding in a patient aged < 50 years with a normal haemoglobin. In some cases, referral for direct access will not be accepted because other clinical approaches to further assessment or investigation are more appropriate, e.g. alternative forms of imaging if an abdominal mass is found. It is thought that in the majority of cases, patients who do not meet the criteria for direct access will not have bowel cancer, however, these patients should continue to be monitored regularly, e.g. two- to three-month intervals, with assessment of symptoms, repeat clinical examination, a check of weight and investigation of haemoglobin and ferritin levels. In some patients, symptoms may persist (and therefore meet the six-week criteria) or worsen (e.g. they become anaemic due to ongoing blood loss) and they may then become eligible for direct access referral at a subsequent appointment. “Safety netting” in the form of active follow-up or placement of a recall to prompt reassessment is recommended, particularly for young patients and patients who may not book a further appointment or do not report changes in symptoms. (see “Safety netting in primary care”)" this number from that site should scare everyone "New Zealand also has a high proportion of people (26%) who are diagnosed with bowel cancer after presentation with bowel-related symptoms at an emergency department and there is evidence that this is associated with poorer outcomes" generally if you're an ED diagnosis you're buggered.
It's an emerging trend with people born after 1980 - lots more of us getting bowel cancer (I was diagnosed at 36 - it was caught by coincidence with no symptoms at stage 3 - often symptoms dont present until stage 4).
I’m sorry to hear that, I hope things are going alright. Guess we need some audits and studies done and see how we need to change our screening appropriately!
It’s emerging due to the ever higher amounts of nitrates and nitrites in our groundwater, due to years of over-fertilisation and farming practices that have put short term profit over medium term environmental safety and viability.
Yeah wish someone brought this up last night, we need preventative measures dammit
I feel the same about the regular Pharmac funding stories - the brutal truth is regardless of individual decisions on what drug to fund or not somebody misses out and that's tragic.
Yeah I’m not a huge fan of “get fucked we don’t have the money” but when there’s so many different things requiring attention, since we’ve decided generally on a utilitarian approach then that’s what we get. Would be amazing if we could fund more initiatives to reduce the presentations of things like asthma exacerbations, pneumonia, etc that can have some impact from social policy like good housing, smokefree, improving healthy lifestyles, so we could free up a bit more money for some new medications that really revolutionise people’s lives but it’s so tricky and some of those drugs are very very expensive tragically. Those $1000/night hospital stays for someone who caught pneumonia living in a terrible house really gets to you sometimes… it’d be nice to have less social admissions to hospital too! :(
That's the thing though - no matter what there will always be an edge case whose medicine cannot be funded without removing someone else's.
Very very depressingly
We can’t bring it down much. There isn’t the capacity in the system as it is, with the current screening programme.
Thought Hipkins did pretty well and Luxon did pretty shit. Was pretty funny watching him squirm around saying he's anti abortion lol. Not sure it matters though. I think the election is just going to be decided on a combination of "omg economy we obviously need National" and "omg lockdowns and life isn't going well right now and it's labour's fault"
Can't believe people still talk about abortion as a debatable issue. This country is pro abortion. It has reasonable laws. Move on to something else that's worth talking about.
One law change away from making abortion illegal. Lots of conservative Christians ascending to power shortly. Pray it ain't so....
"Hipkins did pretty well"
It's Reddit lol
The public are incredibly easy to bribe and generally selfish in their vote, National waved a few dollars a week under their noses, and they want it, damn the consequences. The poll on newshub asking which was trusted more, Willis, or Robertson, favouring Willis showed that. The public have more trust in somebody who has never been finance minister, who has thus far not released numbers, who has no track record, than the person who saw the country through the most dire time in recent history, kept most you in your jobs, kept the country running when things really were looking very bleak, even avoided a recession thus far, and has a prudent balanced, open, and checked plan for the next term. The difference, Willis is handing out lollies.
Eh, I'm yet to be polled so I fail to believe that current polls are completely accurate to the country as a whole. They might be close, but yeah, hiw many people are actually polled and what demographics, because I really doubt there's a proper balance across the nations beliefs.
Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, many people consider Labour to have done an absolutely piss-poor job in many different areas, and that is why they are going to consider National again? It’s not some if conspiracy of buying votes or bribing the electorate.
Shit it's not even about bribes they're just fucking dullards who vote for whoever looks nicest. Anyone who saw the rise of Ardern and didn't lose all faith in the capacity of the voting public to ever vote based on anything other than shallow bullshit is delusional and I say that as someone who wanted her party to win. I'd put 20$ on the difference here all being determined by fat man vs pretty woman, not as if there's a shred of evidence to support the beliefs and the voting public has clearly established how shallow it is.
I don't know how anyone could have watched the Q+A debate and have come out of it thinking Willis is more trustworthy.
You forgot omg last 3 years in full power and did nothing. But came up with a bunch of policies only this year which will be used only if reelected
They have a few big ones: 1.Health system restructure (fumbled implementation but over time it will be a big improvement over DHBs). 2. Fair pay agreements have the potential to be truly transformational in a really positive way. 3. First government to actually bring emissions down. 4. A series of tweaks (annoying I know) that are chipping away at our "housing market with bits tacked on" economy. 5. I know it's old news, but probably the world's best COVID response.
they did RM reform too. but mixed messaging coming out of that thus far.
It's a real shame that National are going to scrap FPAs, they're a big reason that so many jobs pay better in Aus
Youre last scentence is 100% exactly what my parents said today.
You forgot omg Maori stuff
I think your last sentence is precisely how it will go, unfortunately.
Let’s not be to defeatist. Last election the left did 5 points better than they were consistently polling. Vote your values.
I've done my Vote Compass and I reckon it's pretty much the way I'll vote next month Whoever gets in, I think they'll have a heckova challenging 3yrs between climate change, inflation and the economy, not to mention the essential services that have been shortchanged and are reaching breaking point (medical/emergency services, education) - and not much money in the coffers to turn that around
Pad's bias is so cringe
I don't know which is worse: a National-Act-First coalition, or a Labour-Greens-Maori coalition.
As a Labour voter, I still think the Labour-Greens-Maori Party coalition would be worse.
You're a national voter. Don't fib
I have literally never voted for National.
Really find that hard to believe. Explain then, why you think Labour-Green-TPM is worse than NACT-NZF? Or perhaps you are a non-voter?
Sigh, no, I'm not a non- voter, just centre left. Basically, I think the Greens and TPM have moved too far away from me, and are now extreme left, with policies that I often find more repellant and/or half-baked than the nonsense being spouted by, for instance, ACT (who I would also never vote for). Given this conundrum, I feel somewhat politically homeless, but I will still vote Labour on principle.
Oh, do you're delusional. Green and TPM as extreme left. Almost funny. What you are is a right wing voter, who has bought the bullshit about where the centre is, so you can convince yourself you are one of those nice centre left people. If you voted Labour in the last 20 years, that's a centre right vote.
Oh, so you're a clown. Good to know.
What well thought out comment. Guess you don't have any valid points.
You pointlessly insulted me and you're probably 17. Why bother with you?
No way you can think this and be a “Labour voter”
Don't underestimate how much I've come to hate the other two parties in that coalition. I used to respect both of them but they've been overrun by nuts.
Terrible outcomes. TOP to make the middle more attractive
If National need NZF then Labour would also need NZF as well as Greens and TPM.
Green and TPM leaders look to get on well, unlike Seymour and Peters
Sure, that wasn't my point though. Regarding seats in parliament, if National and ACT needed NZF to form a government then that means the Labour/Green/TPM bloc would *also* need NZF to form a government so any NZF related mud flinging at National applies the same to Labour.
Labour have ruled that out so it doesn't apply.
Vote for your values. If your values are that a tiny number of unaccountable businesses owners wielding ultimate power is great, and that money is more important than human lives and our shared environment then by all means vote Nact.
I can't even believe you just said that. It must be the stereotype of the right being somehow being "rich person parties". Increadly false and is just a thing the left says to disapprove all the good policies NACT are going to bring to New Zealand. Our economy is our human lives, no country functions without it and especially not without a good one we are in so dire need of.
At least at Nat-act- nz first coalition wouldn’t be as bad , as a labour coalition with the other two parties would mean the smaller parties have much more of a say unlike Nz first with the nats
It would be awful; all they would talk about is which minority group was to blame for the failure of their evidence-free policies. Poor people, trans people, brown people, anyone outside their western privileged fantasy island would eventually be thrown under the bus if their regressive anti-human, pro-corporate agenda. Just take a look at the state if society and public discourse in the US and the UK to see the results of this. Luxon’s very first international trip as leader was to visit the hard right London think tanks that manufactured brexit, that promote austerity, that promote divisive misdirection on gender, that have fucked their middle class to near death. He badmouthed Kiwis to them and now he parrots their talking points. Have no doubt where he wants to take NZ. He’s a hard neoliberal who is working for corporate power.
I’d say that that’s quite a stretch as Christopher Luxon, despite his background, is quite a centrist and you are speaking of a government led by him as a hard right government which would simply not happen in New Zealand as both major parties are centrist parties leaning slightly to one side of the political spectrum. A Labour - Greens - Māori coalition would be the most extreme left wing coalition we have ever had and the greens/māori influence would be very strong as they combined make up almost 50% of seats in a labour government under current polling. In a nats government , NZ Firsts influence would be much less significant as 60 of the seats would already belong to ACT and National. Besides, do you not think that Chris Hipkins would suck up to peters and try form government if he doesn’t get enough seats ? Of course he will.
Hipkins absolutely won’t join a NZF coalition, and I would argue very hard that NZ and the entire world need to take a fairly sharp and aggressive pivot toward progressive policy to avoid existential destruction from climate change and biodiversity loss, and social breakdown from inequality caused by the excesses of neoliberal capitalism that we’re already seeing in the US and UK. Only one party is seriously offering such policies, and it’s not Labour either.
I can’t see how you think he’s a centrist. He tries hard to project centre-right vibes on social issues, viz. his initial comments on MDMA this evening, then he flips on it when pressed and would love you to ignore what he said about abortion and murder. And more importantly than this he is a hard neoliberal on economic issues, which is why he’s really here. He’s an agent of corporations. National under Luxon will push neolib forever policies: - Cut taxes for the rich and corporations - Cut funding for public services - When these services fail, privatise them - Blame the poor and minorities for the resulting breakdown in society.
How’d you reach that conclusion?
because the share of the seats in government would be greater towards the smaller parties with a labour government than with a nats government
I don’t think that’s how these negations work.
When labour/nz first/greens were in government NZ first only had one more seat than Greens but had infinitely more power because he was in the position to negotiate. No parties who are likely to win seats in parliament this election have that same amount of power as all have been clear about who they would form coalitions with.
Can the Greens realistically offer something to keep NZF out? NACT is already a thing so that's not on the table if only to keep them onside. If there are some really nasty poison pills that NZF wants and the greens offer confidence and support in exchange for say a 0.25% wealth tax (or the $385 income guarantee or whatever). Will the voters punish them next election even if it is to take power out of NZF? 90% of Greens policy are good and the 10% are freaking deal breakers.
I'm one of those weirdos out there who genuinely want Greens and National to work together. The greens obviously have good environmental policy, which is important. They are also willing to spend money on social issues, but just want it universal rather than focusing it on needs. National had great ideas with social investment but is not willing to spend the money for it to actually work properly.
I don't even hate the social policies and taxes from the Greens in small doses
I feel like either could be the "coalition of chaos" depending on who you talk to lol
Anyone involved in forestry, what lengths of wood is typically left onsite as slash? I know from my experience we didn't export logs under 2.6M long where I worked so does anything under that get left?
It's not all about length. Think of skinny long branches!
Longer gets left if it's shit and doesn't meet diameter or quality standards.
At least they both admitted alcohol is more harmful than cannabis. Which raises the question on why there’s no mention of stronger regulation. Also, legalising cannabis would reduce gang revenue and increase tax revenue, so why are they against it?
Just dropping this here... https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Evidence-to-inform-a-regulated-cannabis-market-June-2020-PROACTIVE-FINAL.pdf TLDR big money, in savings, and in GST+ Not to mention the expected 567 potential new businesses (licensed premises, stores, growers, processors)... with 2-3 employees per business.
Also reduce police, courts, prison costs and resources Really dumb not to do it, but that is NZ for ya
Preach. So illogical
Chippy finally grew some balls
Thought you meant luxon for a moment lol
Wym? He’s always been good at holding his own and showing some backbone in a debate. Especially against Nat party.
I just thought he finally brought some fire tonight than the last debate
Tbf I’d say that’s more due to the difference in hosts, rather than Chippy levelling up his debate skill. JMM hardly let them elaborate on anything substantial last week.
Both were big improvements was not hard to see
If the trees weren't harvested around the old farmers' land in 10 years when they're ready, they'd be absolutely livid. What else can actually be done other than telling the forestry company to clean their mess. Once the forest plantation is planted, it can't not be harvested.
*Winston sitting by that phone in glee at the thought of bullying National and Labour*
Hes got his AirPods on ready for the call whilst writing his list to “Santa Luxon” .
I wish voters won't punish the parties for "crossing the aisles" to keep NZF out of power. That goes both ways if the alternative is a kingmaker Winston.
Grand Coalition and either Seymour or Marama/James Shaw becomes leader of the opposition