The pain of having automatic advertising on site.

Edit: There are at least two ads:

I say no.

And I’m sick of people saying it is.

And saying that the National Party will be the knight in shining armour to save us.

The reality is that we are doing pretty well.

Excerpts From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Zealand%27s_international_rankings

• Political freedom ratings - Free; political rights and civil liberties both rated 1 (the highest score available)
• Global Peace Index - 4th, at 1.35
• Corruption - In a three-way tie for least corrupt, at 9.4 on index
• Economic Freedom - 5th equal freest, at 81.6 on index
• Failed States Index, 172/177, being one of the few “sustainable” states in the world.
• Global Prosperity Index - 5th country in overall
• Ease of paying tax - 9th easiest
• Top Country Award - New Zealand has won the honor two years in a row (2007, 2008) by Wanderlust Magazine.

From: http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2008/4327/

New Zealand Election Tightens;

National Party drops 7% to 40.5% to be just ahead of Labour (37.5%)

In early October 2008 the New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows National Party support at 40.5% (down 7%), a tight lead over the Labour Party 37.5% (up 1%). If the Election were this weekend there would be a hung Parliament in New Zealand with either major party capable of forming a governing coalition.

Support for the Greens 9% (up 2.5%) has jumped to its highest level since April, while support for NZ First is 4% (down 1%), ACT NZ 3.5% (up 2%), the Maori Party 2% (up 0.5%), Progressive Alliance 1% (up 1%), United Future 1% (up 0.5%) and Others and Independents 1.5% (up 0.5%).

National Party tertiary education spokesman Paul Hutchison said students should be able to decide for themselves whether they wanted compulsory membership of student associations.

“I’m aware there are concerns by some that say there isn’t strong accountability for the money they get,” he said.

“All the time, I hear murmurings of there being inappropriate usage of student levies by the unions.”

It was important that accounts were “absolutely transparent” to show that each student dollar was being spent well on students, he said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4707318a6530.html

Dr Hutchison has stated three times this year that he wants to see Students’ Associations become voluntary. Yet it is not a National Party Policy.

For the record Dr Hutchison and National:

• Students’ Associations are incorporated.
• They are required to be externally audited.
• They are required to be registered with the companies office
• They are required to hold AGMs and keep their books open.

So where is this inappropriate use and mismanagement? The reality is there isn’t any. If there was there would be lots more cases of fraud. Which there isn’t.

http://www.thestandard.org.nz/what-will-you-do-with-your-tax-cut/

If your annual income is over $14,000, your tax will decrease by $12 to $28 a week from Wednesday. That’s a reduction of up to 26% on the income tax you pay. By 2011, people will be paying up to 31% less income tax. With boosts to Working for Families, many people with children will be paying no net tax (already the average tax paid by a single earner family with two kids is only 2%).

Funny, then that the actual amount of cash seems a little underwhelming to those on comfortable middle-class incomes. Funny because we’ve had nearly a decade of National basing its entire political argument around the need for tax cuts. Yet, now we have tax cuts, no-one seriously thinks they will be the panacea that National has made them out to be. National’s argument, of course, is that we just need to cut more, specifically for the wealthy (they have ruled out cutting the bottom rate any further). But if $1.7 billion worth of tax cuts this year, rising to over $3 billion a year by 2011, isn’t the cure to all our woes why would more make all the difference? It wouldn’t, of course. Tax cuts are not a solution to low wages, they are not the difference between people leaving NZ and staying, they are not compensation for inflation, and they never can be. And every dollar spent on tax cuts is a dollar that can’t go on health or education or, in the case of National’s cuts, a dollar that has to be borrowed on the turbulent international credit market.

A bit of a different perspective.

From Fair Go Ad Awards: