Come on Andrew, I can’t do it on my own, give me some real ideas on social welfare.
Audrey Young, whose write up of the Labour Party list fiasco was closer than anyones else’s analysis, has touched upon the dilemma Labour have with National’s ‘social investment’ program.
Effectively National use mass surveillance powers to generate big data to justify spending money on welfare by viewing the exercise as an accounting trick…
What differentiates social investment from early intervention is its greater reliance on data to calculate future liabilities to the taxpayer in actuarial terms, to identify people through risk predictors who might be a problem, apply a fix if it has been shown to work, and measure the result.
…the fundamental philosophical difference is between universal and targeted…
Targeting versus universality was a major issue during the reforms of the late 80s and early 90s when greater targeting was introduced by Labour and National, including the abolition of the universal child benefit in 1991. Only New Zealand Superannuation survived in the broad welfare system.
…and it is in this philosophical difference that Labour find themselves unable to criticise with a relevance that the electorate will understand.
Labour says, “Wonk, wonk, wonk”. Now “Wonk, wonk, wonk” might excite the Wellington clique but it means sweet fuck all to voters.
The manner in which you expose National’s attempts to whittle down their social obligations to just the worst of the worst using a future cost model is really simple and it’s kinda embarrassing that no one in Labour seem to have gotten it yet.
What National’s targeting does is remove welfare for the white working poor. By focusing on only the worst case social stats, which are always Maori dominated, the white poor of NZ are the ones who stand the most to lose from this targeting process.
If the white working poor of  New Zealand understood how much they have to lose under National, Labour could gain traction. By not explaining this impact, Labour look like they stand for nothing different.
Labour cant get past gender politics and feminist gender studies
All us working poor are actually evil privileged white people living it up on the backs of our slaves
What a bloody embarrassments Labour is to struggling kiwis
To us what difference does it make which party holds the big stick?
NZF is the only viable option ?
Labours policies are very much aimed at the appeasing the needs and concerns of the ‘middle’, including the swing voters, and at this they have had some success…but now they are stalling in the polls.
How can Labour not see that their traditional working class base (of all ethnicities) is simply not being addressed in REAL terms.?
Having been to Little and Aderns Road Show I worry that the majority of attendees and voices heard are of only one particular group, namely the concerned middle class.
Here in the Hawkes Bay there was not one single orchard worker (or equivalent)in attendance.
Yet the local orchard owners are given full attention by our representative Anna Lorcke.
These same owners take great pride in introducing their most obliging workers as being representational of pay and conditions…no questions asked.
Labour have no chance in Hastings simply because, with the exception of concerned clucking noises over housing, they choose to ignore the plight of the workers.
(Ofcouse they will get Napier, but that’s because they are running a National candidate who bangs on about guns, the joys of Marlin fishing and how you can have a drink when you’re at the basketball game.)
Yes SIOBHAN,
Our family all live close to the HB Expressway and will vote for Stuart Nash as he sticks up for rail, and we need to see the Hastings opposition also stand up for local industry who want options to use rail as competition between rail and road will keep freight rates lower and save local residents health by not seeing more truck noise vibration and air pollution destroying there lives and property values.
Most who live near the expressway use radio near their bad at night to block out truck noise all night long now.
Get the Hastings opposition parties candidate to run a campaign backing rail please.
Sell up and move, for the sake of your family’s health. The situation is only going to get worse and won’t change until oil runs out or climate disasters make civilisation untenable, whichever comes first.
Bad call from you Paul Judge as where does trhe human health issues begin to be fought?
Do you advocate we all run to a safe place then?
Where will this be please as you need to advise us all as no where is safe now!!!!!
Even you advise the planet is in peril from the “climate disasters make civilisation untenable”
Best to make a stand now to help avoid this don’t you think?
You speak so much truth, Labour are wasting their time, I cannot believe the idiots running the asylum there.
I could give you an endless intro and more, I have known this for years, even informed Jacinda So Wonderful Up Herself, who did not care that time, it is all available here, if you care:
nzsocialjusticeblog2013:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/author/nzsocialjusticeblog2013/
Why do we even bother with all this, as most are just chasing fast food, cheap entertainment, more dumbing down and so forth, they make NO effort informing themselves, and expect advocates to help them out for free, when the shit hits the fan.
I grow tired of all this BS.
Jacinda mainly gets her oxygen from the urban progressives in her electorate, from Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Westmere and so but is struggling to get anyone in South Auckland to come on board.
Yep, Labour need to send messages out to the white middle class about what the Natz are up to.
Even if it’s stopping TPPA which even now the Natz are still trying to ressurrect, stopping environmental degradation, biosecurity threats for industry by deregulation of standards and stopping the decline on our social services like health and education.
They also need to start to support locals here now, including the 20% of new migrants not born here who are now residents and citizens and have break from the Natz competition strategy of bringing more people into a country that has no jobs, poor job security, no public transport, no houses and an environmental crisis.
Labour are kind of missing in action at they moment, as per the previous elections, no inspiring leader figure heading the message, just blandness lacking any conviction, safety first.
Hence they’re frozen at our about 30%.
Speak out, do it with colour or die wondering!
I feel Labour are gaining momentum. It’s not all gloom and doom. They are actually doing stuff, the Future of Work, getting some more radical views on the radar, thinking about UBI etc.
Then their’s unity, Greens and NZ First Collaboration.
They have rejected the TPPA and lazy immigration (while being pro migrants).
I’m feeling much better about Labour.
‘The white working poor’ are Good Blokes and Sheilas scattered throughout the Heartland in all those little SMEs where they know the boss and the boss knows them and they’re Maates.
It’s been a LONG time since lots of people worked in factories of any kind. A very long time – and all the people from overseas or here who knew, from bitter experience, that all bosses are bastards – are mostly retired, or gave up in disgust. They could never get those Good Blokes and Sheilas to understand that those mean wharfies and the Evil Unions were the source of their reliable pay rises.
And the silly wee critters still don’t understand. They’ve been rolled over by all the mythology of the country’s ‘culture’.
What did Labour do? Let it happen. Were part of the problem. Are part of the problem, and the olive Greens are just the same. Less fight than a bluebottle on its back. Mana is just plain parochial.
No political party can be as on the ground as a shop steward or active rep. Nor is it their place. So they lost the training for politics, the feedback, the connections – and serves them right.
Perhaps Unite and E tu can modernise the worker mindset. Perhaps not. But they’ll get precious little help from the present incarnation of patronising pollies in most parties.
Looks like NZF are it ?
Ahhh, no. I doubt that very much.
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