The huge family policy launched by Labour with the goal of halving child poverty does more in 9 weeks than National managed in 9 years.
BUT.
That’s not really saying much is it?
National did all they could to hide the poverty their mass immigration and speculative property bubble created while their draconian spiteful welfare system punished anyone too poor to escape it.
National refused to measure poverty and refused to acknowledge there was a housing or homelessness crisis.
Against that track record, Labour looks like Mother Teresa.
The problem of course is that this simply makes up for the last couple of decades underfunding, it doesn’t really change the wider environment that makes poverty a cultural and social problem.
The fact that we only talk about children in poverty rather than poor people in general highlights that our 30 year neoliberal culture which places success and failure on the individual still shapes the entire debate.
This is a great start, but to truly change we need a new Government who will use the looming economic meltdown as an opportunity to borrow and invest directly into the social infrastructure to handle the jump in poverty that economic recession will cause…
Red alert: Australia’s economy in trouble
The OECD warned Australia on its debt levels in March. The IMF warned us in October. Now the Bank of International Settlements has flipped on the alarms. That’s the whole set of global financial institutions sitting in our rear view mirror telling us to slow the heck down.Pre-GFC signs are back, financiers worry
Some of the signs seen before the GFC are back, financiers are warning.These include rising debt, strong demand for more loans and an increase in past-due debt, according to KPMG’s latest survey of non-bank lenders.
National did spend 9 years reducing as many people as they could to poverty.
The more people that live in poverty the better people not living in poverty feel, even if they are feeling poorer. National was merely doing, in Lloyd Blankfein’s words, “God’s work”.
Hi Martyn,
This is a good sign that labour are as good as their word, and you are correct, we should be talking of all poor people not just the kids.
Though the kids were needing urgent attion but we all expect labour to carry through with all pledges made, even if they need to raise taxes.
Labour please do not fail us when we on the East coast (Gisborne/HB still have no rail services since march 2012, so we need it back in service.
As for regional RNZ reporting we dont have any now!!!!
We have called the Minister of Broadcasting office and emailed the paliamentary Secretary for service and she email us back last night saying take it up with RNZ so we callled the RNZ and they said they have no idea when we will get a reporter back in HB to cover both HB/Gisborne regions.
So we need our regional voice back, and call on you to arrange to have a regional RNZ reporter who is able to cover our commities issues again as neither the minister of broadcasting nor RNZ say they can help us.
Labour you now have to put all these services back into action as we are just as important as Aukland, Wellington, Kaikoura or Queenstown is.
Labour ‘lets do this’
+100 CLEANGREEN…and great Post by Martyn Bradbury
Everyone I talk to is so happy with this government…and that the old NACT one is GONE!
National are full of b..s.
They spent most of the last 9 years alternately denying the existance of child poverty in NZ and then insisting they were tackling it.
Their “offers” to assist the Labour government in its mission to eradicate child poverty deserves a smack around the ears for every National member for rude audacity and sheer arrogance.
National lost the election due to their supreme arrogance and unwillingness to share power.
They are demonstrating in opposition that they have learned nothing from defeat.
The most recent National government will leave a legacy. It will be the legacy of denial, rejection, blame games and refusal. In fact I am sure the main stream NZ media that is in the National Party pocket will have through out many of its articles the following of: the National governnent(at the time) rejects there is a poverty problem. The National government(at the time)denies there is a poverty problem. The National government(at the time)blames someone else for there being a poverty problem. That past, and now viewed as a total failure when it came to the poor of NZ, National government cared more for courting the wealthy than it cared about the poor in NZ. It held the wealthy into sainthood status and the poor into servitude.
One would think after 9 years in government it would have learnt something of value(other than money)that would be in the best interest of NZers. But no. in those 9 years all we saw was a political party that cared more for photo opportunities, pony tails, corruption, bribes and spending sprees on vanity projects. That is the legacy National has left in its wake.
National just cannot accept the fact they are no longer in government. They react in their childish manner whenever they are shown to have been in error of their actions. Their pure arrogance even is reflected when one of their number has a temper tantrum because he cannot go to lunch on time. Perhaps we should request Jame Lee-Ross being at the Auckland City Mission giving food to the homeless so he knows what NZers have to live with rather than his arrogant view that he is more important than a beggar in the street.
“Pre-GFC signs are back, financiers worry. Some of the signs seen before the GFC are back, financiers are warning.
These include rising debt, strong demand for more loans and an increase in past-due debt, according to KPMG’s latest survey of non-bank lenders.”
Sadly we all need to add “Bespoke Tranche opportunity” into this list. Another raft of financial packages being sold which are, in fact, rebranded Sub-Prime Mortgages.
the lessons of the gfc were to carefully manage personel debt not to abuse it and get rid of it as fast as bloody possible.very few learnt
gfc never left only delayed nats answer was to pump up assets values to pump consumption and gdp all on the back of cheap credit collateralised by rising house values. poverty homelessness hunger are the fall out of a deliberate policy to con there way through by using private debt to fuel the economy .private debt is at saturation point only the government books can take more. i agree with Winston dark clouds are on the horizon. the nats could have weened the new Zealand economy off credit after the gfc but they poured fuel on the fire we haven’t seen the full legacy of 9 years of incompetence yet. labour yet again has to clean up the mess. keep the credit card at home this Christmas for your own sacks
Labour in NZ First has a significant weapon in its armory. The push for regional development could result in the reinstatement of the Ministry of Works, and sooner than later.
Then we will see real progress in destroying the neolib experiment that has produced the irony of “child poverty” in “Godzone”.
return of council works departments could provide a lot of employment 30 years of lack of maintenance has left a mess in local government as well
You must be pretty cleaver. +1
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