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‘It felt like bad news after bad news’: why record numbers are leaving New Zealand

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/21/it-felt-like-bad-news-after-bad-news-why-record-numbers-are-leaving-new-zealand

Now, record numbers of people are leaving the country as cost-of-living pressures increase and residents grapple with limited job opportunities. Provisional figures from Statistics NZ show a net loss of 56,500 citizens in the year to April – up 12,000 from the previous record.

Interesting result from within the latest poll. The top-line showed a narrow lead for the coalition government, which was a trend towards them from the previous poll.


Odd to see. Hipkins is polling very well for a Leader of the Opposition, but he had a very bad election result and didn't impress as Prime Minister. So maybe results like these will mean Hipkins will contest the 2026 election after all, I don't know if that's a good thing.

The report also shows that the approval ratings were the other way around pre-election.

'Supermajority' doesn't actually mean anything in Canada either, right?

No, and it's worth noting that Canada has a fairly powerful Prime Minister's office.

Exactly, it's an Americanism and it's dumb to see it being used in parliamentary democracies now. 'Landslide' actually makes sense because nobody thinks that it actually means a more powerful type of majority, just a bigger one.

There are serious people, like former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed who think that use of the Notwithstanding Clause should be subject to a supermajority vote in the legislature.

Their diet? How often they bathe? Other cleaning habits? No two people are exactly alike in that way.

'Supermajority' doesn't actually mean anything in Canada either, right?

No, and it's worth noting that Canada has a fairly powerful Prime Minister's office.

The Friendly Dictatorship by Jeffrey Simpson
https://www.amazon.ca/Friendly-Dictatorship-Jeffrey-Simpson/dp/0771080786

Jean Chrétien’s longevity and reluctance to step down has highlighted the most alarming part of Canada’s de facto one-party government: Canadian parliamentary democracy now places more power in the hands of the prime minister than does any other democracy.

The Friendly Dictatorship demonstrates what has been happening in three areas that are vital to Canadian democracy: the parliamentary system, the political parties, and the electorate. What has occurred within each of these spheres has directly influenced developments in the others, and the combined effect has been to leave Canadian democracy in a worrying state.

There's even a review of the book from fascist J.J McCullough there.

To think there's a 22 year old review from JJ McCollugh on Amazon... reality is strange.

Fabio had Biden tied in MN and Biden was up by 6 just because it's a poll it's MOE

'Supermajority' doesn't actually mean anything in Canada either, right?

No, and it's worth noting that Canada has a fairly powerful Prime Minister's office.

Exactly, it's an Americanism and it's dumb to see it being used in parliamentary democracies now. 'Landslide' actually makes sense because nobody thinks that it actually means a more powerful type of majority, just a bigger one.

The Gaza aspect of this primary contest is vastly overrated, if you ask me. I've probably seen close to 100 ads from both candidates and their backers over the past two months or so. As such, I feel like a bit of an authority on this.

An underrated conclusion I draw from this is support for Biden. While AIPAC obviously supported Latimer in an effort to unseat Bowman, their anti-Bowman ads mostly focused on portraying him as too out of the mainstream for the district he represents, specifically by making him out to be a thorn in Biden's side while in the House.

Meanwhile, Bowman emphasized "Netanyahu's unpopular war and rejection of Biden's peace deal." His campaign seemed to be trying to change perceptions and make Bowman out to be a more reliable Biden agenda supporter than Latimer might be.

Long story short: support for Biden, and his agenda, might have been more of a proxy for this election with this polity.

It doesn't suggest much division in the party to me, especially with the allegedly more supportive Latimer winning pretty substantially.

I imagine dynamics will be similar with Cori Bush in August. Just because a "Squad" member got elected by successfully primarying an incumbent, it doesn't necessarily mean they're eternally right for that district, as with their predecessor.

I think Latimer used the Gaza issue to appeal to jewish voters, who also supported him for that. I think the "results, not rethoric" thing is what he actually wanted to run. Both put Biden in a corner, where he ended up doing some gaffes, which is surely what Latimer wanted. I don't think Latimer cares much about the results on policy, he cares about the party and its standing instead of purity tests. The primary was lefty insurgent vs establishment generic. I don´t think Latimer will be anything outside of a backbencher that tries to get some pork n barrel for Westchester. Outside of what AIPAC tells him, he will vote mostly with whatever the New Democrat Caucus votes.

Meanwhile, there was this hilarious exchange between a reporter and Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie about whether her party's association with Justin Trudeau is a liability for her. She didn't outright say so, but then she tried to associate Doug Ford with Justin Trudeau:

So Doug Ford is trying to beat Bonnie Crombie by calling her a friend of Justin Trudeau, and Bonnie Crombie is trying to beat Doug Ford by...calling him a friend of Justin Trudeau! That tells you all you need to know.

I'm sorry, did she say that she was 'much more of a Centrist' compared to Justin Trudeau?

Jesus the Overton window has shifted... I could never vote Liberal.

Lol Trudeau has quite a left-wing image in Canada, but I wouldn't say it's a shift of the Overton window. A lot of it is just optics, but the Liberals have moved to the left in recent years, when you look at the number of new social programs or the new capital gains hike, sold as a tax on the rich, to name a few. Historically, Liberals are much slower to adopt progressive positions, and that's partially what Crombie's alluding to (and perhaps partially to the nauseatingly "woke" image he projects, for lack of better words, which I agree isn't really left-wing, it's the same performative nonsense big corporations do).

1.I don't know what the increase in the capital gains inclusion rate has to do with the Liberals moving 'to the left.' Any party that isn't owned by elite billionaires/big corporations should recognize that there is no valid economic reason to have some people/companies get special treatment like that.

1966 Carter Royal Commission on Taxation "A buck is a buck is a buck."
https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/pco-bcp/commissions-ef/carter1966-eng/carter1966-eng.htm

2.I think I've mentioned before that Liberals supporting expanding/new social programs is consistent with their history since Louis St. Laurent but only as Jean Chretien said "when we have the money." This seems to be forgotten, but Pierre Trudeau delayed implementing Medicare for at least a couple years due to the fiscal situation.

3.It's still interesting to see conservatives/journalists (such as they aren't the same) make this argument because the long standing Pavlovian line about the Liberals is that they have no values or "Liberals have values, but if you don't like them they have other values."

It's nice to see that there is finally recognition for the historical reality that the Liberals have been generally consistent in their governing philosophy since the days of Louis St. Laurent (until Justin Trudeau especially from 2021.)

The Gaza aspect of this primary contest is vastly overrated, if you ask me. I've probably seen close to 100 ads from both candidates and their backers over the past two months or so. As such, I feel like a bit of an authority on this.

An underrated conclusion I draw from this is support for Biden. While AIPAC obviously supported Latimer in an effort to unseat Bowman, their anti-Bowman ads mostly focused on portraying him as too out of the mainstream for the district he represents, specifically by making him out to be a thorn in Biden's side while in the House.

Meanwhile, Bowman emphasized "Netanyahu's unpopular war and rejection of Biden's peace deal." His campaign seemed to be trying to change perceptions and make Bowman out to be a more reliable Biden agenda supporter than Latimer might be.

Long story short: support for Biden, and his agenda, might have been more of a proxy for this election with this polity.

It doesn't suggest much division in the party to me, especially with the allegedly more supportive Latimer winning pretty substantially.

I imagine dynamics will be similar with Cori Bush in August. Just because a "Squad" member got elected by successfully primarying an incumbent, it doesn't necessarily mean they're eternally right for that district, as with their predecessor.

I agree. This is also a dynamic in the GOP primaries, in which a lot of far-right candidates often are seen as less reliable allies of Trump and/or Mike Johnson than several mainstream GOP candidates.

It’s an argument that worked against Bob Good or Alex Mooney but is less effective against someone like MTG or Boebert.