Labour can’t be all things to all people

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The left-leaning members of the Labour Party have invested a fair bit of hope in new party leader David Cunliffe.

After almost 30 years of party devotion to neo-liberal economics and the welfare of the rich those who have stayed with the party desperately hope the new leader will finally make the break and put into policy practice Labour’s oft quoted “traditional values” to give everyone a fair go.

It’s only seven weeks since his election as leader and those who might have been expecting miracles will be disappointed but most party members will be happy that at least there is a leader able to articulate opposition to National leader John Key and the party conference this weekend has given Cunliffe the chance to shine as a public speaker.

They will have been pleased there were no obvious gaffes or open party warfare on the TPP negotiations or plans to raise the retirement age for national superannuation which are hot potatoes for Labour. Instead we had the announcement of Kiwi-Assure and some detail for Christchurch on the already-announced Kiwi-Build.

But it doesn’t add up to much.

Kiwi-Build is to provide affordable homes for sale to the sons and daughters of the middle class while Kiwi-Assure will provide another choice in the insurance marketplace. Besides a timid capital gains tax the only other significant policy announcement so far has been the accord with the Green Party to intervene in the artificial electricity marketplace and set the wholesale price of electricity.

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Meanwhile the right-wing of Labour has ensured the parliamentary party will be able to support TPP and raise the retirement age further down the track without interference from party members. Those MPs from the 1980s such as Phil Goff, Trevor Mallard and Annette King retain disproportionate power as they fight for some kind of political legacy other than seeing their neo-liberal warhorse hobbled by Cunliffe.

Both the TPP and raising the retirement age are very nasty right-wing policies – the retirement age issue for example is far to the right of National and utterly unacceptable for any party wanting to call itself progressive.

Why would any self-respecting party claim that national superannuation at age 65 is unaffordable while following a tax policy where the poorest New Zealanders pay a higher percentage of income tax and GST together than the typical one percenter?

Half the wealthiest group of New Zealanders don’t even declare enough income to pay the top tax rate which cuts in at $70,000 so why would it be OK to force the lowest-income New Zealanders to work a another two years while the wealthiest laze around on massive unearned and untaxed incomes.

Just to reinforce the point here’s a quote from an interview this morning with one of New Zealand’s wealthiest men, Doug Myers.

“And he’s still having fun. He sold his luxury superyacht Senses. That’s freed up time to try other things. This year he’s been in New York with his son, fishing in Alaska, flew to Burgundy with friends to visit vineyards and then down to Tahiti to go fishing with Marlon Brando’s son.”

Myers is a silver-spooner who accumulated $880 million in personal wealth not through his own efforts but in significant part through the economic policy settings put in place by Labour in the 1980s.

The interview with Myers finishes with this self-serving gem –

“Life’s not fair and you need to accept it and get on with it. And do the best with the hand you’ve been dealt.”

He would have said the same thing to African slaves.

Labour can’t be all things to all people. Its policies must make a clean break from corporate welfare and provide a fair go for everyone.

14 COMMENTS

  1. I tend to agree with your piece. I do find Labour’s (in particular Phil Goffs) stance on the TPPA a little worrying. However, I don’t believe Labour now will simply just raise the Super age, I suspect they will opt for the framework of a sliding scale for Superannuation. David Cunliffe also spoke of substantially taxing higher income earners who are now getting a free pass and fixing the trust laws to discourage tax evasion. He is also talking about changing the Employment Relations Act which can only be a good thing. But I suspect that true collective bargaining will never be put back on the table
    Is David Cunliffe the reincarnation of Karl Marx? Of course he’s not. However we are in a MMP system and all Labour have to do is hold the vote just left of centre and ensure enough of the 800,000 vote in 2014. Labour’s natural coalition partners are Mana and the Greens. MMP is a lot about compromise with a coalition partner. Look at how many ACT policies have been pushed through by the Natzis. Mana and the Greens can help push Labour’s policy more leftwards if they are in Government post 2014.
    Are we ever going to achieve a pure socialist utopia in New Zealand? Not in a thousand years. But we can vote and keep NZ out of the clutches of a fascist dystopia

  2. With all due respect Mr Minto, I think he did touch on all of these things in his speech. I agree I would like to see the last traitorous remnants of the neo-liberal labourites gone too but I have great hope for the Labour party for the first time in 30 years. Maybe I’m naïve? Having said that I admire you greatly as one of the very few who stands up (in a real way) for what you believe in. That’s why I voted for you for mayor.

  3. While I welcome labours apparent shift to the left, there is still I believe a deficit in key policies such as retirement. I fear that this may be a beach head of vacillation, upon which if the global economy worsens while labour is in office, rather than increasing the pace of reform labour will drop or reverse its progressive policy. This would lead to a severe demoralisation of the left and pave the way for severe reaction.
    No right turn Mr Cunliffe.

  4. “…where the poorest New Zealanders pay a higher percentage of income tax and GST together than the typical one percenter”.

    Do you have any evidence for this or is this just an assumption on your part?

    • The poorest 10% of New Zealanders pay 14% of their income on GST and will pay at least the 12% income tax rate on their gross earnings. Compare that with the wealthiest 10% who pay less than 5% of their income on GST and pay nothing on any capital gains which for the 1% is the majority of their income.
      Remember also that Inland Revenue tells us that half the top income earners declare income of less than $70,000 so don’t even pay the highest income tax rate.

  5. Kia Ora: I did support Cunnliffe as leader but it’s obvious that he can’t move too far to the left all at once until the Rogernomics outfit are all in Act with Prebble. In spite of the obvious failure of rampart capitalism and Freidmanite ideology which is still being experienced in the form of job losses we got those hangers on in Labour. Why can’t Labour promote policies like lower or no taxes for those on fixed incomes from $20k or lower and stop the tax dodges of those $100k and over? Also forget about increasing the age of super-annuation but leaving it as it is and providing a “living benefit?” Make it universal so that the rich can see it as a tax deduction-after they pay what they should be paying. How about a living wage for the worker and a tax break for employers aimed at increasing their workforce? I can go on. Why are house prices not part of the inflation index? Etc Etc.

  6. Can Mana be many things for Maori people?

    Mana didn’t even run a Maori seats campaign for the Maori option, where the option was the political gift of the year. How many media releases did Mana put out in support of the Maori seats? (before the Ikaroa by-election, where Mana had a vested short term interest in having voters on the roll). Not many, if any.

  7. Labour should quit being so concerned about the center, it just pisses people off to hear the kind of double talk involved – leave the subterfuge & swing voting obsession to the Nats, they’ll soon branch of into 3 or more factions (just after they start eating each other).

    Labours message is not clear for the disengaged & economically oppressed, those people need the confidence that a large party has their back.

    The party surely by now should rebrand itself? Surely better than another round of ‘vote for us! Because we used to stand for something!’ Maybe not though, they may just wait for the greens to surpass them? If so, why not try a more transparent approach to 2014 ‘we will stand & represent the average (voting) New Zealander’ and I have feeling Cunliff has started using that one already….

    • Indeed double talk is not helpful. So long as they have the Phil Goff’s, Mallard’s and King’s they are not to be trusted. Whilst I am pleased that we will ultimately once again have a NZ owned insurance company this means squat for those renting housing living on the bones of their arse. We need some concrete policies out there not just things that placate the middle classes. I read somewhere that half of Auckland’s working population earn less than $24,000, these are people who I am sure would never bother to vote, why would they, they have never seen anything from either of the main parties that is going to make a blind bit of difference to them and their whanau.

  8. John Minto sees it as it is. And I do largely agree with him. While I am glad Labour have a leader again (Shearer tried but did not cut it), I am concerned what we will get, when Labour will form the next government. The Greens will be the natural ally and partner, but they will have to struggle to get what they want out of any agreement.

    While this government gets nastier by the day in dealing to beneficiaries, now planning to bring in UK style private assessors for sick and disabled for work capacity from February next year, I hear nothing at all from Labour about this. It seems that they quietly do agree with the direction in welfare reform, where sick and disabled are now pressured to look for work, unless they are wheel chair bound or mentally insane.

    No, I am cautious with my expectations, especially re welfare, and just tonight I read a fair bit about what was planned and done in that area under Labour between 2000 and 2008. It is not encouraging, sorry.

    • Yes they left 150,000+ kids in poverty, the party that is meant to look after the poor, what an appalling record. And then there is Annette King telling Child Poverty Action a year or so back that they wanted to do something but Cullen and Clark wouldn’t let them, Yeah right, what sort of gutlessness was that from King.

    • I thought Labour was the party for ‘the working class’; a large number of which happens to be poorly paid and exploited. Not for ‘the poor, as such.

      They’ve never been much for caring for the not-employed poor – whether they be beneficiaries of some kind, or struggling small business proprietors, or those miserable invisible dependents who are partnered with someone and are therefore ineligible for any benefit – despite having paid taxes. (A stingy and amazingly old-fashioned point of view, surely?)

      Just ‘workers’.

      Should this party ever drag itself out of the past and start replacing the basics such as night classes and affordable education so people can upskill without being crippled by debt; when it includes the many who would like very much to work in some way – even if not in a Fully Approved JOB, but need a helping hand that simply isn’t there now – then, maybe, they’ll be worth voting for.

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