Mike Hosking rips the government: Quote:
The latest backflip contains my frustrations with this Government. My frustrations and also my confusion.
The deal was this: to build a lot of houses we would train one local builder and bring one in from offshore. They’ve back flipped on that, it’s now just bring them in as fast as you can.
The deal was they would be cutting immigration by 30,000.
The backflip is, how can we do that when we are so short of builders?
The deal was foreigners are the problem in the housing market – we are going to ban them from participating.
The backflip is foreigners can build, rent and invest in large-scale projects.
Now my question is this: are they stupid? Are they really that backward? That naive? End quote.
Stupid, arrogant, intransigent and inept. They are the total package of political retards. Quote:
That as industry after industry, as contractor after contractor, as company after company told them of the constraints around labour, costs and finance when it came to housing.
There wasn’t a hope in hell of increasing the build numbers from what they already were.
And there was even less of a hope that KiwiBuild, at 10,000 new houses a year on top of all of that, would ever see the light of day if they insisted on ploughing forward with bans and restrictions.Were they that naive? Or were they Machiavellian? End quote.
Phil Twyford isn’t smart enough to be Machiavellian. Quote:
Did they, because you can quite rightly ask, given how bleeding obvious it all was, simply spout what they wanted to spout during the campaign? Simply to lure in the gullible and get the votes – knowing full well that if they got to government they could never deliver on what they said they would.
I still don’t know for sure. But my guess is the former, and if I am right, that is a hopeless position for a government to be in.
As staggering as it would appear to be, they don’t strike me as nasty, as barefaced dishonest people. End of quote.
Some of them are, especially Phil Twyford. Quote:
But they do strike me as bewildered, inexperienced and perhaps surprised they got across the line last October.
You could argue that these backdowns are good, at least because it shows they are prepared to see the error of their ways.
And that they are capable of listening.
But having handed out that small bouquet, one is left with the glaringly large brickbat.
That almost beggars belief, that the things they couldn’t see were staring at them, so large, so obvious, so alarmingly obvious.
You can rightly feel nervous about the direction of this country.
Two more surveys this week showing falling confidence, and on the housing and finance policy backflips alone you can see why.
The growth number last week that was less than what it has been.
There is a massive “L” plate on this lot, and the damage is starting to get tangible. End quote.
A massive L-plate, and wonky space-saver wheels with only three nuts done up.