Friday, July 29, 2005

Poll Surge

Three recent polls show a significant swing in support to Labour. These polls are the first released since the announcement of the election, and don't on the whole take into account the full effect of any changes in support due to the student loans announcement earlier this week.

Importantly, the combined National/NZ First vote (in my view the only possible alignment of Parties that can see National reach the treasury benches) has fallen by around 8%

I suspect that these results have a lot to do with the renewed focus on international issues such as the Iraq war, and increasing irritation with Brash's flip-flopping on when he will release National's centre-piece tax policy, and what it will contain.

In contrast to this Labour has now released three of our key pledge card commitments, and they have all met with public approval. Ultimately the election will be won or lost on leadership, and good policies.

Although these results are a good sign that people are contrasting the leadership and policies of the two Parties, three polls don't make an election and I'm still of the view that this will be an extremely tight election. We will have to campaign hard for every vote right up until polling day.

32 comments:

Too Right and Having A Blast said...

Hey Mikey - your canvasing is working! You are carrying the day. It cannot be the rest of the lying, smirking, snivelling machine behind you. They are disemmblers, sophistrists and cheats. You alone are the clean and unblemished one. Well done. I hope you can continue to carry the mantle.

Progress to date is measured by the size of the bribe (what you call a policy). If it had anything to do with trust Helen would be down and out. Remember she was found to be prima facie a fraudster.

Don't let her have your letterhead - else we'll see plaintive cries from Nigeria offering to invest your $20Million.

Anonymous said...

To the contrary spooks, Labour's policies make sure it's more than just the children of the wealthy that can go to university.

Cheezy said...

Wow, thanks for reprinting those figures Spooksy...

Look at the % by which student debt per person rose under National, as compared to the % rise since 1999. I'd guess that it would be much more damning for the Nats if you take it back to 1990 too...

Plus, I guess we should factor into the equation that there's been a much greater chance of a graduating student actually finding a job since the present government took office too. Very educational. Keep 'em coming, Spooksy...

Anonymous said...

Oh spooksy, you're trying very hard, but....

Take the six years Labour can be held responsible for: 2000 to 2005, (though whether it can be held responsible for 2000 is debatable).

Accumulative inflation of 15% over that six years would take the nominal value of $12 413 to $14 274. Inflation of 20% (probably closr to the mark given compounding) would take it to $14895.6.

And now the time a person takes to pay their loan will fall, as the compulsory repayments all go to principal.

Anonymous said...

Spooks, how does a loan one pays back constitute a "benefit"?

The policy probably is bad business news for Westpac, yes....

Anonymous said...

So spooks, it seems that you are happy for young people whose parents aren't wealthy to miss out on tertiary education because of the cost, and for often less bright young people to that access because their parents can subsidise them...

You also object to those young people from low to middle income homes getting a inflation-adjusted but interest free loan that they pay off by compulsory instalment upon working...

..Or, given your comment that

"if, out of the blue, you found Half a Billion dollars all of a sudden to spend on education, I wonder how many people would choose to spend it on university graduates. Personally, I would like to see this money spent on those at the other end of the socio-economic scale"

is that you actually want the money to be directed in the "benefit" form of student allowances to students from "the other end of the socio-economic scale", ie, low to middle income households?, who don't have to pay it back?

And as for those fee-charging professionals you list, who do you think they pass the cost of interest-bearing student loans on to?

Michael Wood said...

A couple of points:

Firstly, I note that none of the righ-wing contributors have actually commented on the issue at hand - the recent shift in the polls.

Secondly, any suggestion that Labour is focussing on University eduacation at the expense of the trades is palpable nonsense. It was National who abolished the apprenticeship scheme in 1992, and Labour who re-established it in 2000. Our most recent pledge card promise will see an additional 5000 apprenticeship places funded. Additionally, we have placed tens of thousands more people in industry training and have a target of 250 000 by 2007.

Additionally, the interest free policy is likely to encourage lower income people into tertiary education (including both university degrees and practical polytech courses) as it is these very people who are most likely to be debt averse in the first place.

Michael Wood said...

Also, Spooks was correct earlier on when s/he pointed to the fact that nominal debt amounts have increased every year since the inception of the loans scheme.

My mistake for suggesting otherwise - sorry.

I was extrapolating from the fact that average repayment times have dropped that the average loan amount had also dropped, which is incorrect. The average loan repayment time has dropped from 14.8 years under National in 1999, to 10.3 years in 2002, and 9.3 years in 2004.

That's a big drop and it is courtesy of Labour policy on loans, fees, and allowances. The interest free policy will see this time cut even further.

Anonymous said...

spooksy the amounted owing will be adjusted upward by inflation every year, so yes you could conceive of a 2% 'interest rate' I suppose....

Anonymous said...

So spooks, do you think students should be receiving any financial assistance at all, and if so, do you think it should be in 'benefit' or 'loan' form?

Your comments of concern for the less well off suggest that you prefer the 'benefit'/grant form of targeted student allowances as opposed to a loan, which is odd considering the many other derogatory comments you have made about benefits and beneficiaries....

I suspect your argument, to the extent that it exists, is centred on the idea that students, given the return they might get on the degree in terms of future earnings, should be borrowing at commercial rates of interest as any business would.
Three things:
businesses can put the money they have borrowed to productive effect quickly, whilst students can't;

students in many of the professional courses whose future earnings probably will be high, pay a 'premium' of high varsity fees and tend to borrow the most unless their parents are well-off (as is often the case); and

many graduates do not actually have their earnings potential lifted that much by their degree.

That last point is not a problem: tetiary education is not about making money.
It shouldn't be 'free' in my view, but it should be accessible to all, and interest-free loans for compulsory later repayment square that circle well.

Anonymous said...

Spooks said:
"Taxpayers pay the vastly larger part of the course costs....students get student allowances.....students may borrow for some course costs, and for some living expenses. I have no particular problem with any of these forms of assistance".

So you are happy with the current assistance provided to students - including 'benefit' style student allowances - but not the relatively minor provision of an interest-free loan to students. You prefer that they receive a 'benefit' in the shape of a student allowance (you must be happy with Labour's extension of eligibility for student allowances, then), and a 'false price signal' re. fees, than take out a loan they have to pay back, surely contradicting all of your arguments about personal responsibility, etc.

You insist that this policy is assisting graduates.
But what is the assistance?
Is it not an interest free loan?
And to whom is it provided?
A student. Loans are not issued to graduates, they are issued to students.

You are thinking this way because you are only conceiving of today's graduates, (as well as branding them exaggeratedly as all high income earners) and forgetting about future and current students.

Some of those future and current students will be the sons and daughters of 'road workers'.
Their access to tertiary education has been made less fraught by this step.
And I bet most road-workers know the centrality of tertiary education to their children's future and are right behind this policy.
Then when the qualified sons and daughters of road-workers are working they will pay the loan back - fast.

What is the issue here, spooks?

460 000 graduates will be benefiting from this - about 20-22% odd of the workforce - not quite the super high-earning, small elite you seem to have rigidly in mind.

Anonymous said...

yes, you've bowed out of this argument, haven't you?...back to the spooks we know best, 'chocka' with hyberbole, abuse, wild assertion, prejudice, etc, etc...

You are funny.
We're quite fond of you.

Anonymous said...

So, spooks, you would rather that students were given 'benefits' in the shape of student allowances rather than loans they have to pay back?

Anonymous said...

No, spooks, you have said you have no problems with student allowances which are grants given to students in 'benefit' form, which they do not have to pay back.

Student allowances are given to the students most in need and indeed, you have expressed a desire for resources to go to those most in need.
But for some reason you cannot conceive of loans also having been given to students out of need, as they most definitely have over the years and even with Labour's welcome extension of the eligbility for student allowances, will continue to be, esp. if students have to leave home to study.

What is puzzling given your general philosophical stance is why you are against someone having to repay a student loan, in all keeping with notions of personal responsibility, and favour their receiving a 'benefit' in the form of a student allowance.

"Your words, not mine (as in your already well established habit). Not even a legitimate extrapolation of my words. Just another form of your incessant deceit, putting your words in other people's mouths".

What I do, spooks, is point out the utter and frequent contradictions in your own completely oppositionally inspired words - and you can't handle it.

Anonymous said...

Yes, spooks thank you for confirming that you are happy with 'benefit-style' student allowances but not happy for students to get loans they are required to pay back - at the cost of your total philosophical inconsistency ...

....this when both student allowances and loans (though the latter were abused a bit more before Labour tightened up access to them by going to instalment rather than lump-sum) have both assisted students of need, ie, those students from "the other end of the socio-economic scale."

Too Right and Having A Blast said...

Nony, surprised you can type as you clearly have both hands on it.

Spooks' argument is very lucid and very easy to follow. Tax payer subsidised education (call it a benefit if it fits your etymology) has a legimate place in our education scene. It is also universal and can only be accessed by attending a course. Stop attending or get kicked for failing and the benefit stops, along with the cost to the taxpayer. Making student loans free of interest after graduation provides zero incentive to pay the loan outside of the statutory payment schedule. This will ultimately reduce the total dollars available to the Government. Interest if nothing else ensures efficient decisionmaking by the lendee. The amount of loans and number of loans will blow out.

A simple example - the apparent turnaround in the polls since the loan announcement - at the individual level people are going whoopee...tell me they won't max out if they can.

I know you lefties think there is a money tree somewhere which grows dollars - for the umpteenth time Government's do not make money they expropriate it in the form of taxes.

If there is a minimal requirement to pay the loan back and no interest being charged the cost will grow like pinocchio's nose (if you will pardon the metaphor - which is apt anyway, when one considers the mendacious, dissembling, sophistry practiced by Clark, Cullen and Duck in telling the electorate two months the cupboard was bare).

Cullen knew there will be no money left for tax cuts - he was going to blow it all on graduate bribes.

Anonymous said...

What's the argument here, Too Right?

Too Right and Having A Blast said...

Argument is people will max out on the loan free for all. The blowout will prevent/restrict Government fiscal manoevring. This is just the 2005 version of Muldoon's Super promise in 1975. The day he put the universal Super in place the next generation of pensioners to be, stopped preparing for their retirement.

Same will go for students - they will pig out. No need to think about repaying the principle as quick as poss to reduce the interest. The cost will balloon way above $3ooM to a $1B plus.

Anonymous said...

But the time taken to repay will reduce through the compulsory repayments because there are no interest charges ...it is compulsory repayments that the reduced repayment times have been calculated with reference to....

Anonymous said...

So, chaps, it's quite easy.
List these forms of student support in your order of preference.

a) 'benefit-style' targeted student allowances
b) interest-free student loans
c) interest-bearing student loans

My ranking's a-b-c.

Spooks' by the sound of it, is a-c-b, or is it c-a-b? - strange concoctations other way. But 'b' seems to be last.

Anonymous said...

Now spooks,

What I am interested in is why, according to you,(a) is okay - and I agree with you that it is - and (c) is okay, but what's in the middle - (b) - isn't?

You have said (a)is okay - yes? - and that (b) isn't - yes? - when I would have thought your philosophy would have led you to put things the other way around....

Michael Wood said...

Blimey, you guys are persistent when you get in an argument, I'll hand you that!

My Dr Phil-like pronouncement on the whole matter is this:

Right-wingers seem obsessed with the student loans policy, the evidence being that my original posting was about a different topic altogether, yet Spooks for instance has just posted 22 times on Student Loans here.

Older right-wingers of the kind who post here clearly have guilt issues relating to the fact that their generation had entirely free taxpayer funded tertiary education and a well developed industry training framework. It's time to move on with your lives and let todays young people have a fair go.

Cheezy said...

Hey Spooksy, take a deep breath, pull the blanket back up over your knees, take a wee tot of medicinal scotch, ask nurse for a fresh pair of 'Depends'... and relax.

And, oh yes, learn some manners please, old fella...

It'll make you much more reasonable & rational & 'cuddly wuddly' advocate for your cause.

Ahhhh!!! You see? Isn't that better, Spooksy? You feel better already don't you? :)

Cheezy said...

"pig-ignorant" "little toddler", "twerp", "inbreeds", "piglet"...

Gosh, I really feel I'm increasing my vocabulary when I read old Spooksy's posts!

But honestly mate, you only humiliate yourself with that kind of talk - when you can see that Michael was still talking about the issues.

Disagree with him, by all means, but please cut out the potty-talk... or I'll get in my boy-racer car and start doing
'donuts' all over the nice grass of your local lawn-bowls club.

Cheezy said...

All joking aside now... I hope Spooksy isn't getting as angry and het-up as he sounds in his posts... It really isn't good for the health.

All Michael did was point out the benign and undeniable fact that previous generations had much more assistance from the taxpayer in getting educated to a tertiary level (than the current one does)... and it spawns that kind of invective.

Quite seriously now, if we can, let's have a chat about this without the rising blood pressure that I can kinda sense from Spooksy's posts...

Anonymous said...

Two things

a) a technical issue - there was actually a spooks comment in between my two 'a-b-c' comments which seems to have got lost.

b) I think spooks needs to acknowledge that 'in his day' - whenever that exactly was I am not sure - the state intervened in the economy to ensure people had jobs, not always extremely well paid but certainly secure. In that sense it was a more straightforward business being 'independent' of the state, even if the independence had as its base, the action of the state.

Anonymous said...

Yes, spooks is right in that student allowances were not introduced until some time during the 1970's, I think.
But prior to that the university bursary awarded with reference to secondary school results were relatively much more generous and took a student a lot further.

Also, there were far, far less students, meaning that summer work for each student was more plentiful. And it was often in industries that offered relatively unskilled, casual, labour-intensive work, and were often close to the city, eg, meatworks (for the boys), but which don't tend to exist that much today. And, with penal and other rates widely in place, it was often generously paid.

Helen Clark actually made more or less these points re. th 'old' student existence recently - she didn't see it as 'free' in the way that word is understood.

Students, on their bursary and a solid stack of summer work, could flat their way through the year, not work through the year, and study full-time. It's plainly not like that now. They are more often working quite long hours through the year, causing full-time study to suffer in quality (a hidden casualty of this), and often studying part-time in the process, (not that there is anything wrong with that).

It's always slightly surprised me how low the student loan figures are - I don't think today's students are any less hard-working or greedy, I think the costs of studenthood are simply less subsidised and higher, and student work less well paid and so, student loans needed and unavoidable.
Those without student loans will by and large have some parental reason for it.

But, in rare defence of spooks, I do think people today, students included, have higher material aspirations and are perhaps not always as inclined to live cheaply. But you cannot blame them for the society they now live in and the influences they are under.

One other small point on the grand themes of the student loan debate -access to student allowances is widening under Labour. Once a student receives a student allowance they can only receive a loan until the total amount received from allowance and loan reaches $150 per week. Therefore, widening access to allowances will systematically reduce loan monies handed out.

Cheezy said...

Spooksy: Regarding that 'quote' that you attributing to Michael... Where/when did he say this?

You wouldn't be in the business of changing a quote, before sticking quotation marks and posting it as if it was what another person said, word-for-word... would you???

That would be very bad form, Spooksy. Use the copy & paste function in future please. And then don't touch!

Cheezy said...

Jesus, Spooksy...

It's a shame I have to explain this to you, but here goes...

You put quotation marks around a passage of text that you put Michael's name and even the date next to!!! i.e. you were saying that he said precisely that!

But he didn't. Nothing like it.

Although I neither quoted him directly, nor misquoted him (as you did), my interpretation of what Michael said is pretty close actually. They're both to do with older generations getting more taxpayer funding for education.

You really are struggling, Spooksy!

Cheezy said...

(deep sigh)...

...oh dear... I simply don't know what he's on about anymore... Any takers?

You see, I'm not a trained kindergarten teacher. I get very bored having to explain simple concepts, maybe that's it...

Ho-hum then. One more try...

If Michael had said what you quoted him as saying (along with full name and date of utterance), then yes, I would agree with you that he is ageist.

But he didn't say what you quoted him as saying. Because you lied about that, Spooksy.

(And quite what Phil Goff has got to do with this, I have no earthly idea...).

Bottom line: Spooksy tells porky pies. To paraphrase Michael Moore: "How will we ever trust you again?"

You can go on repeating the old 'Pot-Kettle' cliche or 'When in Rome' or whatever you like, till you're blue(er) in the face, it won't change the fact that you lied about this.

I read Michael's posts again. The paragraph that appears to have got your incontinence-knickers in a twist was, for a start, directed at a group called "older right-wingers" i.e. not elderly people as a whole. Not at all. And, indeed, the only advice Michael gave to this subset was "it's time to move on with your lives and let todays young people have a fair go".

It's hardly "Sit at the Back of the Bus" stuff, is it Spooksy?!?!?... despite your lame attempts to link it to sexism and racism....

Sheesh!

I'm going off now to play with people of my own mental age - lest I be accused of 'intellectual paedophilia' for hanging around with the likes of you...

Michael Wood said...

Spooks, you have not only misquoted me, but you have demonstrated a thorough lack of understanding of New Zealand's political history.

My generation has in fact been brought up with a far smaller range of state assistances than either of the two before us. That's simply historical fact. To offensively suggest that young people today have been "born hands first, palm up" is bizarre.

My earlier comments were simply directed at the hypocrisy inherent in your arguments. You begrudge moderate measures like interest free student loans for todays young people when previous generations had virtually free tertiary education, universal family benefits, state assisted home purchase, a protected job market, and all of the other protections of a full welfare state!

Times have moved on from all of this and I accept that, but your moral indignation is frankly laughable!

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