The National Party are lying to us when it comes to their facts, figures and statistics. There are certain lines that each of the members has at one stage or another repeated. For example low unemployment, budget surplus, low crime rate, booming economy, like little repetitive catchphrases put out there to fool us.
This week I read a poster put out by National to do with their unemployment figures. It got me thinking, as it didn’t ring true compared with the life I live and my experiences in it, and the people I come across as well.
I am classed as a stay at home mum. I am neither employed, nor unemployed in anyone’s figures. I am in the position of stay at home mum who really needs to work. I’ve been looking. Luckily for the kids and I we are fully financially supported by my husband, but that makes me no part in their measuring tool. I am not unemployed because I don’t claim a benefit. How many more mum’s and dad’s are out there who are not included in the unemployment figure? Quite a lot is my guess. The other side of the unemployment numbers are the people who for whatever reason don’t claim any benefit, but are still unemployed or under employed. I know several people who support their own lifestyles but don’t work in the traditional way and are not registered as unemployed with anyone. These people are also not counted in the unemployment statistics. It really is a figure of people coming off a benefit into as little as 1 hour of work a week. The figures are fudged, they are wrong and portray an incorrect picture.
I believe the same can be also said of the crime statistics. Certain crimes have been taken off the list of measured crime, removed from the stats completely. Alongside that is the police under reporting crime and the public also under reporting. Wow look, the crime rate has dropped. Compared to a completely differently compared list, of course it has. They are counting different things, so it is impossible to compare one to the other. Our crime rate has not dropped, the way we measure it now has changed.
These things lead me to believe that if you apply this theory to all the other facts and figures that National quote, then it will probably be a repetitive theme. Conveniently missing out certain facts and figures and hand picking which results to publish. Recently during the budget it was a widely used tactic to try and hide the record high national debt by endlessly repeating “budget surplus”. That is all many people heard from this year’s budget. Not true, there is no real surplus once you offset it against our country’s debt. Fudging figures and very careful choice of words once again. Proof to me that it is in fact a constant tactic for National’s release of statistics. Take a good look at what you are being fed by media, look a little deeper and you will find the lies and omissions are everywhere you look and in everything they say.
“I am in the position of stay at home mum who really needs to work.”
There was a time in this fair land when only one wage earner was required per family.
that may be true but it does not mean all mums should stay home
there was a time in this fair land when a mothers best friend was a valium bottle
not all of us are cut out to be so isolated in little boxes in suburbia, without adult contact and mental stimulation
Yeah, but they had the option. There was enough money from one income to provide for a family, and there was enough work to allow the caregiver, male or female, to work if they so wished. Neo-liberal policy destroyed that. I was fortunate enough to spend my childhood in that time, and I remember how NZ felt before Roger Douglas f***ed us all. It wasn’t perfect, but every kid at my school had clean clothes and a full lunchbox. My mum was one of those valium girls, but then again, being married to my dad would do that to someone. IT wasn’t governmental policy that caused it though. NZ is better off for opening up to the world at large, for sure. However, we were fooling ourselves to say that it could only be done through the neo-lib system. We had a choice then, and we chose. We still have a choice now, and we can change everything. All with our votes.
Lara,
I deliberately used the phrase “only one wage earner” rather than “husband” because of the point you raised. As a matter of fact I have retired early, because there’s no suitable work out there for me, while my wife continues to bring home the bacon. ( I’ll have to find another idiom now we know what happens on pig farms – keeps the home fires burning, perhaps.)
Quite correct, Yogibare, My dad was the sole income earner and the wages he earned paid the mortgage, food, power (remember $30 power bills once every two months?), clothing, doctor’s visits (prescriptions were free), transport, holidays (mostly camping trips by rivers and lakes), petrol, shoes, movies, etc, etc, etc.
One wage for a blue-collar worker.
For a family of six.
The catchphrase I keep hearing from government, via Key, English and Bennett is the one where they keep repeating themselves over and over again and have been doing so for well over a year now. It keeps cropping up in Parliament when challenged about unemployment etc –
“1500 people are coming off benefits and going into employment each week!”
That’s 78000 jobs a year!!!!!
Seems Key, English and Bennett are drowning in their own bullshit! It’s what they do best!
That just means that 1500 people a week are having their dole cut because they dared to work the measly 10 hours a week necessary to push them over the WINZ income threshold. And for that effort, they usually end up poorer. If they dare to quit, they are stood down for however long, and are pushed further into debt as a result. NZ as a welfare state is no kind of ideal, but it’s also not the crime they make it out to be. When a government can provide an alternative, stable, thriving economy that offers the welfare recipients a choice to change, then we can come back and re-examine the idea of welfare as a lifestyle choice. Until then, it’s a necessity, and people should not be demonized for being in need.
I can confirm this is true — I’m on a benefit, and work part time. The secondary tax, combined with mandatory student loan payments (part and parcel of secondary tax), combined with the WINZ system of cutting back the benefit over a certain threshold, means I am WORSE off in real terms (take home pay).
Furthermore, the tax system in this country is fucked up — because I do freelance work, and pay my own tax for that, it means I end up being screwed yet again, what with mandatory (and unknowable at this point) ACC payments as well as having to save for tax that is sort of an unknown factor to a degree. The ACC payments seem especially absurd when I work from home. It’s overly confusing and my dad is an accountant, so unlike most people I have free advice about these things and I am still totally confused about what I’ll end up paying.
The tax system needs a massive overhaul, just like the government.
what was a PROJECTED surplus turned into just… surplus
by the MSM when the Nats presented their budget
its just a projection that government income will exceed government expenditure
its not here yet
there is no surplus
they’re still borrowing every single day
net government debt as a % of GDP has risen from 5.5% in 2008 to 26.3% in 2013 (- figures from NZ Treasury Dept)
and Nat voters still think this government is “balancing the books” and managing the economy well!
Exxon had fantastic budget projections, and look how well that turned out.
Dear Opposition parties, – Urgent message needs to be unveiled here.
Can you send this message out to NZ Voters now please as it became a shock to us when national is saying we are recovering and the economy is just a “rockstar economy”?
Is this true?
“net government debt as a % of GDP has risen from 5.5% in 2008 to 26.3% in 2013” (- figures from NZ Treasury Dept)
Our household is another where the unemployed is not captured: spouse has mental illness and has not worked for 10 years, my income is just over the threshold for him to qualify to receive a benefit and he is 2 years away from getting superannuation.
The western world used to be swimming in a sea of lies. But now it is drowning in a sea of lies. Obama, Cameron, Abbott, Harper, Key -compulsive liars the lot.
But they do have the mainstream media as allies. And that does make a huge difference.
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure
National have John Key, they don’t need facts.
It’s all so true that the Nat’s lie through their teeth on just about everything ………. and this comes from the top down.
http://thestandard.org.nz/still-an-honest-man/
But to encapsulate why the Nats are so bad can be distilled down to one simple statement…….. which is:
‘Greed hates fairness.’
In fact Greed and fairness are totally incompatible. You can be one but not the other.
If you have greed for money you will rip people off and exploit them.
If you have a greed for power you will abuse that power.
The Nats are based on greed …………….. which in turn means they can never be fair ………. which is why their natural methods involve lying and abuse of power.
Pathalogical liars have a belief that if they say something enougb times it will make it truth …. sociopaths seem to think it’s their right to impose opinions as facts
I’ve just started reading the seeds of distrust by nicky hager. I’ll paste the first paragraph below, seems things haven’t changed a bit when it comes to the Nats…
“In 1999 I co-authored a book about the relationship between government, business and public relations companies. Our conclusion was that secrecy allowed the then National Government to abuse power as it allowed state agencies to mislead the public and play politics in pursuit of their preferred policies. After nine years in office, National had become arrogant and complacent in its exercise of the power that citizens had conferred on it.”
Food prices skyrocketing http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11292485 really says it all.
Really.
Really.
Not my experience.
Gosh, I guess you know better than Statistics New Zealand then (eye roll…)
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