Adjusting for population it seems to be about the same - population has gone from about 4.3 million in 2013 to 5 point whatever million is it now.
I think it's cold comfort though that every time we get a downturn like this, we do austerity that makes things even worse and let key sectors like construction just collapse and workers relocate to places where they actually try and do counter cyclical support.
Genuine worker involvement in these decisions from the start, not just consulting on a fait accompli.
Ultimately that means proper structured worker representation through unions that can meet management at their level. Germany for example, has union representation on company boards. Worker owned cooperatives are another model.
Given businesses are effectively run like dictatorships, and the public sector orgs emulate privates wherever possible, I'd say good practice in this space is extremely rare.
Not all of them will, they've had no post election honeymoon and polling support has crashed to the point it's 50/50 this govt would get back in.
A fair chunk of people appeared to have voted for them to address cost of living like they said they would, not the endless stream of corruption were seeing now.
Again though, how does one side unilaterally deciding how they are going to interpret it clarify anything. That's how we've ended up where we are today - decades of breaches by the Crown.
It's not impossible to tell but it can take time and effort to determine, that's the function of bodies like the Waitangi tribunal you mention.
What Maori specific things do you think would be lost?
Look up the Māori King movement, it's the same idea.
Regardless, I think as much hate as ACT gets for this - it seems obvious that clarity on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is required so that every New Zealander knows where they stand (legally speaking) and we can move on as a country.
What does this even mean? You can't just 'move on as a country' if one side tries to unilaterally rewrite their obligations to an agreement. That is what ACT is trying to do, the so-called party of property rights.
Unions effectively lost all legal status and recognition in 1991 with the employment contracts act and they have never fully recovered.
Since then it's come back a little with the Employment Relations Act 2000, which is in place today, but there is no sector level bargaining (the new govt immediately repealed the fair pay agreement legislation the last govt passed), it's incredibly easy for employers to pass on collective agreement conditions and sympathy strikes are unlawful (I think this might be the case now in Aus too?). In fact all strikes are unlawful except in bargaining for a collective and for health and safety.
Unions are mostly confined to public sector roles these days, although there are a few in other sectors.
A Google search on it pulls up a couple of studies, one from Germany, one from Australia appearing to show opposite results lol (also some commentary from the NZ Treasury, but not backed up from a quick scroll). It'd be interesting to know if someone's evaluated our ones.
So I guess it goes to my earlier point about feeling mixed about it. I'd suspect they have a far greater equalising effect when the market isnt so constrained that the subsidies can just can be capitalised into prices, so it might depend on the broader market a bit. And so pairing them with a massive state house building programme and allowing density with good public transport should go alongside. You know, all the stuff this government has cancelled, cut or rolled back ;)
Edit: I didn't realise National said they'd keep these before the election. When Bishop got asked about it he said "that was then, this is now". What a bunch of fucking crooks.
I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand these types of subsidies ultimately just drive up prices further, same as when interest rates go down. People can pay more so prices move up.
On the other hand, in the absence of doing anything to drive landlords out of the market (and of course this government is doing the opposite of that), removing support like this just gives them yet another leg up to speculate on housing at the expense of people who just want a place of their own to live in.
Not mentioned in this article - our corrupt, self interested government abruptly cancelling a bunch of much needed infrastructure projects when they came into government, leaving whole sectors in limbo and their workforces leaving for Australia.
Yeah but that's not forever. Big shifts like this don't always happen over night, they often take years of groundwork so you gotta dare to dream in the meantime.
Sidenote, this govt being one term is entirely possible. It's where labour/nz first was heading before covid and they decided to actually act and materially do things.
I think we'll see an increasingly oscillating political landscape as our various crises pile up (climate change, cost of living, infrastructure deficit), and govts fail to actually do anything to address them in any meaningful way.
The Prime Minister is a C-word