Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Listening to Guyon Espiner's interview with CLuxon. He starts off sounding a tad more human than he did with Jack Tame, but the chatbot-speak kicks in about 5 minutes in;

"But what we are doing, is we have refreshed all of our Defence leadership, from heads of the Forces, through the Chief, through the Defence Secretary, through to the Minister, obviously. And I've asked them for a new strategy on our defence strategy."

rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyo

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#30

Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Listening to CLuxon's interviews with Tame and Espiner, it's become clear to me that our PM is a plausible sentence generator in a man suit.

Like ChatGPT, he generates sentences based on the data he's been trained on - in this case talking points - and the prompt he's given. But he has no idea what any of it really means. He just blurts out some variant of the talking point he associates with the keywords in the question.

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#NZPolitics#CLuxon#MOLE
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Problem is Hipkins is pretty much the same. A Hollow Man, parroting talking points he barely understands. I saw it in person at a Labour meeting he spoke at in The Tron, a few months after the election.

How did we end up with such an intellectual vacuum at the top of the Parliamentary pecking order? How do we solve it, given whoever we vote for next year, one of these muppets most likely still gets to be the PM?

I'm pinning my hopes on constitutional reform I guess. Or revolution ...

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Steven Ensslen :flag_tino:
@ensslen@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week
@strypey, my answer to your question will be my first 2026 election post: vote 2 ticks Green.

Though honestly, there are *some* capable people in the other parties. What we need is to stop driving good MPs out of politics and electing the least offensive MPs as leaders.

PS: Will national pick a new leader before the election? They should, but are they smart enough?
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

"To say what is it that we're going to build capability in, over the next 20 years, and that new leadership the will be accountable for that strategy. So that as we invest more in defence, we actually know that that money is going to a place where we are building capacity, and are adding to our alliances."

, 2025

rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyo

So 'we have no idea if the military even needs more money, but we're giving it to them anyway. They'll figure it out, we're not accountable'.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Gotta love this one ...

Espiner: "51% of people say you're out of touch."

: "Well I just say to you I think I am, because I'm out and about talking to New Zealanders ..."

rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyo

Even as he tries to deny it, his unconscious knows what Espiner said is undeniably true (that 51% of people in survey X see him that way), and let's the cat out of the bag.

He's not even a competent liar, let alone a competent leader. The classic Hollow Man.
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Espiner invites CLuxon to address problems created by the lack of Capital Gains Tax in NZ, which most OECD countries have. Among other things, it allows people to make tax-free income by owning stuff, instead of riskier investments in new or growing businesses that actually produce something.

After dodging the question multiple times, CLuxon plays the Jacinda card. Ruling out a CGT while he's PM. 65% of us want one in some form;

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/poll-65-kiwis-support-capital-gains-tax

You know what to do folks.

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#CGT
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

If Chris Hipkins had any sense, he would have immediately announced that the next Labour government will bring in some form of CGT. Encouraging kiwis to write to Labour about what they do and don't want in the policy, and why.

Policy detail can come later. No doubt many CGTs are being designed by Labour wonks as we speak. just show the 65% of kiwis who want one that Labour is on their side, and CLuxon is not. Basic electoral politics.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

Coda: A handy bible on #CGT scaremongering and how to spot it, kindly provided by former ACT leader Rodney Hide. He lays out the basic talking points, and the misdirection and blatant lies that will be used to attack it;
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/54435/opinion-why-capital-gains-tax-very-very-bad-idea

Perhaps he even believes this long-debunked neoclassical garbage. Or perhaps he just gets paid well to spew it. Either way, study up and prepare your counterarguments. This election will be fought on taxing wealth, to restore universal public services.