Waatea News Column: At some point Labour have to step up

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
21
0

New Labour Government Sworn In By Governor-General WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND – OCTOBER 26: The Governor-Genaral Dame Patsy Reddy joins Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her new executive in an official photograph at the swearing-in ceremony at Government House

At some point Labour have to step up

I like how every Labour party apologist attacks any criticism of this Government’s lack of progress on any of the real issues with ‘how can you expect them to fix a decades worth of National damage in 18months’ – sure, but at the very least I expected them to have an actual plan to fix those problems, not constant excuses and half promises.

The truth is that NZ voters who gave their vote to Labour have very little to actually show for that trust when it comes to an equal society.

The $5billion families package is not nearly as beneficial once the tax clawbacks are taken into account.

The best start package doesn’t do much for those children already in poverty born after the start date.

The elimination of secondary tax still doesn’t help those facing clawback for WFF or the Accomodation benefit.

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Raising the minimum wage still isn’t meeting the actual Living Wage.

Free tertiary education is meaningless if it’s just the first year that is free and no support for graduating students wishing to study further.

State housing is still a basket case, and affordable housing a sad joke.

Welfare agencies are still punishing the poor and the point blank refusal of a Capital Gains Tax has locked in a generational theft of wealth that will never end.

If Labour don’t start some serious economic reforms then voters will need to accept that Labour are merely a softer management version of National.
 

First Published on Waatea News

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Bullshit, Martyn, and I suspect you know it to be true. At some point the Wage Slave Labour Party has to go… or, more likely, merge with the Natzis to for the Transnational Capital Wage Slave Labour Party (purple branding?) and stand for the propertied class in all its resplendent glory.

    Every day, a step closer to No Zealand Wars II.

  2. Yea-but, no-but…!
    AO/NZ is ‘governed’ by the Nationalabournzfirstgreenmaoriact Party. ( Did I miss any other parasitic little hobby-party latched onto the public vein?) And they’re answerable only to the salaries and entitlements they pocket once they bullshit their way into our parliament. They have their pretences, and don’t we all, but really? They don’t care. The ones at the back of the photograph? Are they standing on the homeless? Seen ‘Bruno’? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCno If not? Go get. The scene where Bruno,Sacha Baron Cohen’s character, convinces Paula Abdul to sit on a Mexican is beyond priceless. My jaw fell off and rolled under the sofa. Set your toes into stout splints or they will terminally curl and you’ll never walk straight again.

    The very real problem for me lies in the fact that I seem to be the only one who can see, and comprehend what the f-actual AO/NZ story’ is. I might be barking mad given a couple of incidents in my personal life interconnecting to my professional life. You know that moment when you actually fear that you might be the only one who’s sane and on a level heading? Unfortunately, from what I’ve read and seen, only the truly insane think that way! Oh! The irony? Am I mad? Literally, profoundly… mad? Am I that kind of mad that allows one to move about within ones community, society and workplace fully dressed, wearing the correct pairs of shoes at the same time and not a gumboot on one foot and a wooly slipper on the other? Although tempting, I don’t throw my faeces at the mail truck. I don’t have a dungeon within which I keep the Jehovah’s Witnesses whom I’ve lured inside with a promise of listening to the idiots. I can travel to the local supermarket and never succumb to the temptation to strip naked, drizzle myself in custard then roll about in sprinkles while whistling the theme song to Top Gun.
    I am exactly that sane. I do truly believe I’m sane within the given parameters of sanity. And yet? I have my doubts. (What’s that called? When you doubt your doubts?)
    Here we go. Again.
    AO/NZ’s economy is derived from its agrarian endeavours.
    If you think I’m wrong? Prove it?
    Before the swindles of tourism, dairying and tech? What economy built the infrastructures roger douglas and his mates flogged off?
    What primary industry is never mentioned by our cadre of political parasites? Ever? Not even the pasty Greens with their little sandal’s, bongo drums and Man Buns?
    You drive into Heriot? A tiny little town of about two people, and they’re just one person with a dual personality, and what do you see? The grandest building there? And it is quite grand. Think Catholic Church grand. You know? To make an impression on the masses. The Romanesque ramparts that tower over the common person belongs to the BNZ. Now empty and derelict. A stark reminder of where AO/NZ’s early money came from. And remember humanoids? NOTHING’S changed. While you have bum holes? You will need to eat. One demands that of the other. Still a law of nature, and if you think that’s all just harmless fun. To eat, therefore to poo? Take a magnesium supplement on an empty stomach then fly between Christchurch and Auckland. Go on! I dare you?
    The reason why the cadre of cheeky, greedy little political parasites will never mention the beastly farmer is because to do so risks searching questions and I know, from experience, that searching political questions leads to cowering political answers buried deep within our political mandates. Look it up.

    • “Can they fix it?”
      Apparently not if they aren’t even going to try.
      Meanwhile the rushed gun buy back is going swimmingly with 11 guns stolen from a police station now safely in criminal hands.

  4. While I suspect COUNTRYBOY has nailed the issues succinctly , the fact is you have answered yourself repeatedly , Mr Bradbury. You know why Labour is in a state of inertia. Its because they did not expect to win.

    Yes ,… its of supreme frustration why the coalition has not moved forward with their ‘on the hoof’ policy promises,… but the truth is they are fighting the neo liberal factions within, the neo liberals without ( NZ Initiative etc ) trying to maintain unity , and balance a 3 party system.

    Fascism would do away with all that inertia,- but who wants that? It is not FPP, it is MMP. Therefore, at the risk of being an apologist , it is true that a decade of Key and National will take some time to dismantle.If they traveled faster they would upset many who put them in power. And then we are right back to where we came from- with Bridges in power.

    I see it as a fine balancing act for the coalition that was set in motion by the Key led govt. Key made it difficult to ween people off the gravy train, – and that gravy train being always at the expense of fellow Kiwi’s.

    The Key led National govt made a cult out of screwing ones fellow countryman.

    And once people got a taste of that it was akin to sharks smelling blood in the water. Peoples immediate concerns are those of self preservation, – matters of conscience often kick in much later if at all. And that is what we are fighting for. Hearts and minds. And its going to be a long term process. Its going to be a long term goal to win enough hearts and minds to garner the critical mass point whereby those powerful individuals leading powerful institutions are overwhelmed and overrun.

    I cite the horrendous carnage of WW2 and the implementing of Keynesian economics ,- with the catalyst being that carnage and the rebuild of Europe.

    That’s what we are up against.

    That’s what it takes to shift a nation.

    And as neo liberalism naturally divides between the haves and the have nots , and increases that gulf, people will be polarized into one or the other camps. Which makes it even more difficult for political leaders and party’s to effect change democratically.

    I would say give it time.

    This is NOT the era of a roger doulas, jenny shipley or ruth richardson.

    This govt does not have the advantage of a Blitzkrieg majority of neo liberal advocates , it is a fractured one born out of 3 decades of subversive ideology that was foisted upon us. Its going to struggle and struggle hard on many fronts.

    And that struggle is not one against external elements, – it is one that has to cope with the hardest of all, – that of subversive internal divisions.

    The blunt truth is this :

    We have yet to produce a Jeremy Corban with his message of ‘policy’s for the many , not the few’. We will struggle on until that day comes.

    • I’ve never heard so much crap in my life. You can’t help but go back and beat up onNational again. For Christ sake the coalition is in power. They need to Just do something. You say they weren’t expecting to win the election. So what. What were they doing for nine years in opposition. Sleeping. Your labour coalition just needs to grow up and do the work. Not easy for them I know. It’s time for your coalition to get out of the class room, step down off the soap box and take the rubbish out to the gate. Or do we need a committee to decide who should do it.

  5. I think a lot of this hinges on the assumption that this govt cares about these issues? I for one do not think they do.

    Signing up to the CP-TPP was a pretty clear indicator for me at least of where their sympathies really lie.

    I see little hope for us as a nation if we keep supporting the mainstream parties but most of us still do. Well unless things become so bad that change in one form or another is forced upon us.

    • That’s right, Labour doesn’t care. Its treatment of beneficiaries since 1992 (some would say before 1992) is clear evidence of this. First they backtracked on saying they’d reverse national’s 1991 benefit cuts; then when in government from 1999 they introduced a raft of war-on-the-poor welfare legislation; then when in opposition from 2008 voted in 2014 with national’s war-on-the-poor welfare legislation; then when in government again in 2017 adopted holus-bolus national’s complete rewrite of the Social Security Act which national touted as a policy-neutral simplification of the 1964 Act which is neither policy-neutral or a simplification and is nothing less than another nasty piece of war-on-the-poor legislation designed to make it even harder for those on the lowest incomes to get by. History tells us that Labour still doesn’t care because there’s not one skerrick of evidence suggesting anything’s going to change. In fact, it’s got to a point where even if Labour does say it’s going to do anything positive for the poor you can pretty much count that as evidence that the opposite’s going to happen. The Social Security Act 2018 is the latest proof of that.

  6. “If Labour don’t start some serious economic reforms then voters will need to accept that Labour are merely a softer management version of National.”
    That’s it in a nutshell. I’m not holding my breath.

    • Have to agree.

      Our country has been poisoned by neoliberalism.

      Why are they so afraid to administer the medicine???

      Only two possiblities exist.

      (1) They either can’t (but we have 3 ‘supposedly’ anti-neoliberal parties holding the majority in Parliament so that’s unlikely)

      or,

      (2) they don’t want to.

      This latter option is looking more likely by the day.
      As others have noted, when they kicked things off by signing the TPPA, the signs were ominous……

    • Labour’s become pretty much a laughing stock when it comes to fixing things for the least well off. Everything they say about sorting social welfare out is just nonsense unless your job’s writing Tui ads.

  7. “I like how every Labour party apologist attacks any criticism of this Government’s lack of progress on any of the real issues with ‘how can you expect them to fix a decades worth of National damage in 18 months’”

    The Standard is full of them.

  8. Dont worry brothers and sisters, Jacinda has promised us that this will be the “year of delivery”…

  9. Welfare Expert Advisory Group report public release delayed due to Christchurch attack https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/welfare-expert-advisory-group-report-received
    I just hope it hasn’t been buried altogether. There will certainly be a recommendation in it that benefit levels need to be increased URGENTLY, but alas I fear that Jacinda is getting cold feet on anything that costs money she hasn’t got. Christchurch could indeed be used as an excuse – we had to spend the money on gun buy back and supporting victims instead
    Until income inadequacy up against housing costs and availability is addressed, nothing will change

  10. At a vent, they dinna know their own nose. The strange magic of Jacinda is enough for them. Laughable. A chemistry ‘above’ our heads. Light-weight. In the worst times ever, even if you leave aside the `3000 mile cliff upcoming

  11. Matryn,

    Here’s how Labour can do some of it quickly that I wrote about it on Scoop today.

    Politics. – CEAC – 28/4/2019.

    Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre press release- 28- April 2019.

    “Government needs “National NZ Port Strategy” so Ports work together not fighting over freight”

    A new “National NZ Port Strategy” is needed here in NZ for export of freight.

    Today on News hub’s ‘The nation’ show there was a ‘Port discussion’ that was enlightening to us.
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2019/04/exclusive-no-point-investing-in-northport-without-building-rail-link-working-group.html
    After watching the panel discussion about the mess our NZ Port issues are about, we now see clearly that the current Government needs a new “National NZ Port Strategy Plan” for NZ Ports to be actively working together instead of fighting over freight, as the current model of ‘independent’ scrapping over freight is damaging both the regions and the loss of residential wellbeing in regions who undercut other Ports to get freight income from capturing ‘lower cost freight’ through their Port because those Ports are now operating at a loss and now forced to sell part of their Port as Napier Port is attempting to do now.

    Napier Port are leaving us with a legacy of a residential environmental disaster in their ‘wake.’

    History of CEAC meetings with two of our central Port executives; – At both Napier and Gisborne ports.

    2016:
    Our Committee was invited to the Napier Port boardroom in November 2016 to discuss the massive truck noise and pollution affecting all Napier residents living near the ‘truck network roads’ to and from Napier port, and we sought funding for mitigation for smooth quiet road surfacing and noise barriers and Napier Port said they had no money then.

    At that meeting we were sadly advised that sending logs out of NZ was virtually not viable for them, as the Port staff advised us ‘they could not compete with Wellington Port’ who were actually sending their logs out at such a low cost that Napier Port could not afford to compete for freight at those charges.

    2011:
    In 2011 we brokered a meeting with the Gisborne ‘Eastland Port’ Executives as we were asking them to use rail to move logs to their Port for export rather than using trucks.

    The executives also confirmed to us at the meeting that the cost to send each log out of NZ was so low that they made very little money on shipping logs.

    So it is now painfully clear now that we need to send a clear message to Government that the whole transportation of our export freight from our NZ Ports is in need of a reset policy.

    One that now can offer all forms of ‘land transport’ using rail and road options to make freight costs lower so freight is viable to ship from NZ while giving all Ports adequate funding to offer residential citizens adequate mitigation to lower the transportation effects of road truck freight noise and pollution adversely affecting all those living near busy export road networks to their local port facilities.

    Shane Jones, as Regional Development Minister, was also shown on a video clip saying he will be setting up an election policy to change the way the ports in NZ operate “independently” as he said it is not acceptable and needs to change”.

    We welcome Shane Jones’ position on this change.

    So we seek the labour caucus acceptance to a real Port policy change away from the current conflicting manner that all ports are currently undercutting the charges of freight at the expense of residents and Ports not having any capital to offer residents any mitigation.

    All HB/Gisborne residents living near Port bound trucks are now facing a legacy of a residential environmental disaster in their ‘wake’.

  12. I’m still laughing at all the labour party hacks who attacked me for saying the labour is right wing, because it’s economic policies are right wing before the last election.

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