While Jacinda is in Britain trying to suggest a free trade deal with NZ will somehow make the cluster fuck of Brexit somehow easier for Theresa May, the latest inequality numbers are out and they show a society horribly distorted by wealth…
Oxfam report says inequality is deepening
The two richest people in New Zealand – Graeme Hart and Richard Chandler – increased their wealth by over $1 billion in the 2017-2018 financial year, a new Oxfam International report says, but the poorest 50 per cent became poorer still.The richest 5 per cent of the population now owns more put together than the poorest 90 per cent.
…these numbers come on the heels of other figures showing that need, poverty and housing are all still at crisis levels.
The truth is Jacinda inherited a neoliberal structure that is built to punish the poor and benefit property owners. Her politics of kindness simply won’t be enough to make real change for those people, for that she needs actual structural reform.
She has plenty of good ideas and she has plenty of good advice, but the real crunch will be in ramming these proposals through a public service that is neoliberal and the vested interests of those who have benefitted from the rigged casino.
If real reform is to happen, it will need to be championed and rammed through by Winston Peters because to successfully make these changes will require breaking noses and punching jaws.
Those on the bottom can’t wait for the politics of kindness to slowly change things, they need a romper stomper who is prepared to spend the political capital they have built over a life time to ensure they get a real chance in NZ, not just a pretend one.
You don’t say, Bomber? That’s some stellar insight there… Wait… isn’t Jacinda a property owner?
Timely post Bomber.
The only way the current stranglehold of the Neo liberal system which clearly effects everyone earning less than 100.000 per year which effectively most working poor in NZ and those who are trapped in welfare dependency and i include many pensioners who are facing financial difficulty as well is a strong socialist government that can succeed under MMP and with ministers and a leader who has the courage to implement good policy that addresses the inhumanity of this totalitarian economic order.
To make real structural changes would require taking on the might of the very powerful people and organisations who prosper on the misery of many kiwis every day and i don’t see anybody in the current landscape that has the strength , intellectual fire power and is well funded that can really achieve a radical response that would be needed.
We don’t have a Jeremy Corban led Labour party here just a pale imitation of one.
Sure Jacinda means well and maybe they can turn some things around but it is only tinkering and is not going to be able to resolve the main fundamental problems we are suffering from and that is this Free market torrent upwards to the wealthy and privileged from the backs of the working poor.
While Jacinda wows them on stage overseas with her talk of the ” well being budget “she has not tackled the ” elephant in the room ” that is the current economic order that needs to be challenged if we are all to prosper and counter climate catastrophe.
Winston promised action on ending neo liberalisim but his is a conservative National party back ground and i have yet to see him or his party put forward legislation that would make the real change we need.
Plenty of stompers but no rompers Bomber.
I think you have hit the nail on the head.
There is possibly a bit of an identity issue within Labour…. and without the PM they are nothing at all, sorry to all the hardworking people but it is true, and everybody knows it.
So Labour have to decide if they are going to be actually “transformational” which would mean them taking on at least one bastion of the neoliberal machine/thing/system/religion. They can’t bring the whole stinking edifice crashing down but they could take on some element of it and actually change something. Which would be a start.
Or they could just be the Claytons National government. Remember the advert?
The yellow Vests of France have some good ideas that N.Z. should adopt.
5 % have more wealth than 90%. And the best hope is Winston? I prefer to start praying to the living God.
No matter David Cunliffe’s, quite rightful, doubts it sounds like he should have broken up the Labour Party a la Corbyn. These sweet talkers of the talk and non-walkers of the walk.
In order for The few to have much more, the many have to be content with much less, Are you Happy?
That describes Gisborne to a G. Except for the contentment implied by ‘content’.
All said with The Who singing “We won’t get fooled again” in the background.
Not true, “The truth is Jacinda inherited a neoliberal structure that is built to punish the poor and benefit property owners.”
…not true anymore based on statistics that show the poorest growing group is Pakeha families with mortgages and on wages…
From Brian Easton…
“Shortly after, I discovered that measured poverty in the country was dominated by children and their parents. This was a revolutionary finding at the time and it took only four decades for it to become the conventional wisdom. Even today, you will find people who focus their poverty discussions on beneficiaries, ethnic minorities, single-parent households, and those in rental accommodation. The research evidence points to the most common household in poverty is a Pakeha couple with children living in their own house (with a mortgage) and being dependent upon wages.”
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/invisible-children
Maybe time to change the record a bit with real research from left wing commentators spreading incorrect information who is benefiting from the neoliberal structures and it’s not all property owners….
Home owners seem to be a popular target and the politics of envy is a wonderful thing, to help distract from the .01% neoliberals who are really making the money and behind NZ Rogernomics and neoliberalism.
Don’t push an in/out/divide discourse that keeps Labour Rogernomics going and helps the right and woke lefties who hate everyone but themselves, to keep the spot light off the .01%, most of whom are not tax domiciled in NZ when they make the real money here while the local’s on the take pocket their political donations, say mum and keep their job and bonuses in MSM, treasury and the like and look forward to the sweet post political deals as the local representative on the boards of the neoliberal companies!
One very very simple thing could be done. Jacinda should instruct the public service that they are there to serve the public. She should insist benefit rates and rules be published and staff make these easy to access. Those Nzers unfortunate enough to need state support should no longer be made to feel like social lepers.
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