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Comment by duncan_bayne | Hacker News Reader

This is the result of negotiations between a party called New Zealand First, led by notorious xenophobe[1] Winston Peters, and a socialist PM who has described capitalism as a "blatant failure"[2].

In fact, Peters has already confidently predicted an economic crisis post-election, and begun distancing himself from it[3].

My current bet is on the coalition collapsing, with new elections held in October 2018. A few of my NZ friends and family are placing similar bets; closest guess wins.

I'm glad I left for Australia in 2007.

[1] http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/winston-why-are-you-like-t...

[2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/jacinda-ardern-ca...

[3] https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/98061685/Winston...

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The full quote from the 'socialist PM' was 'If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that's a blatant failure', which is accurate; the reason why we have government regulations is to address market failures.

> hundreds of thousands of children

I don't think there is that many children in NZ. Let alone living in poverty.

Roughly 20%, so around 950k of NZ's pop are under the age of 15.

Of those it is estimated 20% live in poverty, so roughly 180k.

These numbers are not hard to find.

The Australian is hands down one of the poorest quality news sources in Australia: It is pretty much the direct mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch and is notorious for being grossly inaccurate and terribly biased.

It's getting increasingly hard to deny that we are starting to see the cracks in capitalism, so I don't think it's wrong of him to say that.

This is not a NZ First policy, it's been listed as a major policy on the Labour Party website since before the election.[1]

[1] http://www.labour.org.nz/housing

Welp, Australia's coalition may collapse on Friday too!

Huh. Funnily enough I don't follow Australian politics; I checked out of politics almost entirely after leaving NZ (where I was quite involved with the LibertariaNZ).

Been doing a bit of reading about the last election in NZ, though, as you can probably tell :)

It should be an entertaining coalition collapse. Apparently they have a 31-MP executive!??!?!

https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2017/10/strengths_and_weaknesses_...

To be fair, it was likely doomed whichever way Winnie went, because both outcomes would have still had Winnie in there.

Got my popcorn ready for 2.15PM AEDT.

I have my fingers crossed that it does. At the very least there'll be some good popcorn from the drama.

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