Now we know. It is official. No more pretence of working on the fundamental WEAG reforms to core benefits. No plans to address the rising child poverty rates projected by Treasury under the current COVID recession. Just more rhetoric around how paid work solves everything and some minor policies that should have been done 3 years ago.
On Sunday 27th September Q & A both Carmel Sepuloni and Louise Upston spoke of the need for more jobs and training. Neither mentioned the valuable work of parenting.
Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals, but what about affirmation of the vital work of procreation and raising the next generation, mostly by women, battling on, raising children in impoverished circumstances? And in ageing society in which very soon the elderly will outnumber youth on whom they will depend?
Neither Sepuloni nor Upston mentioned that quality, well paid flexible work will be even harder to find for those on benefits with children in the recession. Both of these women benefited from the Training Incentive Allowance as sole parents themselves that allowed them to escape the low wage cycle. This policy, along with allowing beneficiaries to earn a realistic amount should have been part of the 100 days plan following the 2017 election, not an election bribe that doesn’t even have a start date.
The child poverty data is two years out of date by the time it is officially reported so that government can always say it doesn’t reflect ‘this’ or ‘that’ policy introduced subsequently. The first report of progress on child poverty reduction targets, based data collected in 2018/2019, for example doesn’t pick up Labour’s full family package. Using 2018/2019 data Stats NZ tell us
- rates of low-income have generally declined from 2017/18, but most of these decreases are not statistically significant
- material hardship rates show no significant change from 2017/18 to 2018/19
Yet on Q&A on Sunday we hear that the government is proud of these outcomes, citing that 18,000 children have been lifted above the 50% After Housing Cost (AHC) line. Some who were close to the 50% line, the low-lying fruit, may have been lifted over the line but 235,000 children are still below it. Many children fall well below this line: 168,000 children below the very low 40% AHC representing 15% of children. That is where they look set to stay.
Who asks the question-why are 15% of our children under the 40% line? How are they helped by the relentless focus on paid work as the way out of poverty mantra? Why do we deny these children the full Working for Families package on the grounds their parents need an incentive to work?
The first three-year targets are supposed to be reached by 2020/21 (year ending June 2021) and be reported on in 2022. Even if government’s 3 -year targets are met on the 50% after housing costs primary measure (which they won’t be) there will be still be 20%, or around one in five children below this line.
In the meantime, COVID has changed things for the worse and even by 2022 we will not be picking up the full negative impact of the lockdown and recession. The $25 a week increase in core benefits was swallowed up in reduced hardship and accommodation assistance. Many hardly noticed. Besides, the poorest of all, couples with children on benefits got only $12.50 gross increase each. CPAG modelling shows that without WEP doubling, the couple with two children on Jobseeker support in Auckland requires $208 extra per week over and above their core benefit and accommodation supplement to reach the 50% AHC poverty line.
The $25 a week was not ‘nothing’, but what the figures show us is that there needs to be a very substantial boost so that the worst off families can be released from the noose of highly targeted supplementary payments and trips to foodbanks to eat. We also need a programme of debt forgiveness and removal of all sanctions that cripple parents.
In spite of COVID relief, the indicators from the social sector are that the worst-off families are worse off than ever with no relief in sight. Then on 1 October the Winter Energy Payment ends removing $40-60 dollars a week from already over stretched budgets. At the same time, other wage subsidies are phasing out forcing many more onto the bleak welfare system. The children in these families face a grim Christmas of toxic stress, food insecurity, ill health, debt and poor housing. Just where is the transformation we expected?
CPAG continues to call for all families receiving benefits to be made eligible for all family support tax credits so those families under the 40% line on benefits would receive at least another $72.50 a week. This could be enacted immediately and should have been done three years ago. It wont of course be enough on its own, but it is very well focused spending if child poverty is to be tackled, will return all weekly child tax credits to their rightful role of child poverty prevention. It is also a way to stop policies that say parenting is not proper work.
That’s why it’s called Work and Income and not called Income and Work.
Dpn’t expect anything other than neoliberalism from a neoliberal government.
Yes, the so often recited ‘increase in benefits’ that supposedly benefited all from 1 April 2020 have been a dishonest exercise also. Those receiving supplementary hardship top ups such as Temporary Additional Support (TAS) or the older Special Benefit (SB), they have never received the 25 or so dollars often talked about by the PM, Ms Sepuloni and others.
In return for the humble increase of the main benefit rate, their supplements in the form of TAS and SB were CUT accordingly. This affected over 75,000 persons, as far as I know. They are already those most in need and they were thus left NO better off at all, while the politicians in charge praise themselves for having done so well for them.
Also remember this post on TDB, perhaps:
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/04/12/did-winz-scum-just-screw-over-the-very-beneficiaries-jacinda-grant-tried-to-help/
COVID 19 and the extra spending to bail out so many large and not so large businesses, paying also billions in wage subsidies, offering cheap loans, and other measures, have given this quasi neoliberal government the perfect excuse to be fiscally frugal from now on, so the poor will continue paying the price for the crisis, more so than anybody else.
Labour does not want to upset those swing voters that have come to them in the form of former National voters, hence they do as they do now.
Who is in charge of child poverty?
Central banks using ‘money creation out of thin air and giving it to the uber rich’
Not National they caused the years of ‘Child poverty’ and elder abuse’ with their love of years of austerity; – is your answer ‘Shovel sh.t ready Herman’.
Don’t just blame National for this, both parties are to blame!
Has little to do with austerity, but not upsetting the middle class who work SO HARD!
I don’t reply to you with foul language. And I hope you sold your car(s) and are cycling or walking everywhere….CleanGreen!
Your favourite Prime Minister in the whole wide world is in charge.
The poor…..because no one else seems much interested.
poverty is political and need is based on gender, age or membership in that club called “The Family” [usually define as heterosexual].
poverty is political and need is based on gender, age or membership in that club called “The Family” [usually define as heterosexual].
I was rather surprised that Labour didn’t announce a benefit increase. I would have thought they had a mandate to lift the basic unemployment benefit to $300 (currently $281 prior to tax) for those over 25, with all other benefits increasing proportionally.
Instead they focussed entirely on the abatement thresholds, as if that was enough.
While I don’t agree with the WEAG recommendation as to the level of the benefit, since it would basically have the benefit rate virtually the same as the minimum wage, the current levels are too low, especially in the larger cities with higher accomodation costs. The Accomodation Supplement does not entirely bridge the gap.
Labour could have done a bit better, given the increases in unemployment and when not everyone can get part-time employment.
While I don’t agree with the WEAG recommendation as to the level of the benefit, since it would basically have the benefit rate virtually the same as the minimum wage,
So what are people meant to do there aren’t enough jobs well not that I have seen.
Wayne I just offered my vote to National if they would do what Labour won’t for the neediest.
Awe shucks Wayne. You’re going all soft in your old age!.
If I were you, I’d concentrate on getting together a few of your old half decent sort of mates over a G&T or scones and tea (maybe the likes of Spud and Don McK and that fella from Seatoun Heights) and work out ways you can claw back the Nats of old before the current crop completely send it all tits up. (You could probably do well though to leave out Burton and Jen and that fella that still hasn’t worked out what caused his children)
Under that situance 2 generations of my family voted for National. Looking after those who need it.
Who took special interest, and indeed outcomes, for child poverty being #1 priority for them….can’t quite remember, anyone help? lol
Now…how can we blame National on this non reduction?
Im right , her name is Jacinda Ardern, favourite to become the next Nobel Piece Prize winner.
What many folks forget to recognise is that Beneficiaries pay tax too. A small amount but, they still paye into the tax system.
Most are savy at budgeting too, they have to be!
This endemic imposed poverty is unnecessary and can be easily reduced by increasing the benefit to 90% of the living wage and by reducing the regulatory compliance with WINZ, and MSD who are the largest cost in the Welfare Budget of more than $25b. Half of the Welfare Budget is Superannuation!
Sometimes reform needs to be reflected in the costly infrastructure of the system itself that creates poverty.
Tax is added onto benefits before being deducted, and there is no ACC levy on benefits, so beneficiaries don’t pay PAYE.
Benefit increases are alright providing they have policies in place to get people back into sustainable mahi.I was on a benefit when needed it has its purpose. And I know first hand it is not good for our people or any people for that matter to be languishing on a benefit. The trouble with Nationals benefit and social polices is they are too punitive and we just had nine years of them and their policies didn’t work. Yet despite nationals policies not working they still keep flogging the dead horse. I see under national prison rates rise, more Maori die, more homelessness and all the poor statistics are something they should be ashamed of. But they (national) don’t have any shame, they will claim the horse is still alive when they have in fact killed it.
they will claim the horse is still alive when they have in fact killed it.
They have to claim it’s still alive, so they can keep on flogging it.
Who created child poverty Herman and whose policies exacerbate child poverty ?
And who has been in govt for last 3yrs and seen the numbers rise….and are you suggesting child poverty did/does not exist under a Labour Govt, it was 0% under Clarke?
Easy to blame National for all of NZ ills, and my God you lefties do blame them, but there is also a reckoning and after 3 yrs in charge and the numbers WORSE, then that reckoning has arrived. Were we all expecting a miracle…NO, were we all at least expecting the numbers to plateau, even fall a little…YES, were we expecting them to actually rise?…after what Arden said and took ownership of it before election..HELL NO!
Blame National all you want, but you are only fooling yourselves with this result after 3yrs in Govt.
Im right I see your wrong again cause every time national get in power Maori and PI end up ten years behind in all stats in all facets of life. And I know I work in public health and have done for many years. I see and hear all the stories and excuses. Why do you think Helen Clarkes government had to introduce the closing the gaps policy. The gaps were so big and obvious they just couldn’t hide them or ignore them. These same gaps occurred under john keys national government and so did rampant immigration. And we saw the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. And so we were introduced to a new phase by Billy English, he spoke of the haves and the have nots. And most of the have nots just happened to be brown. Can you see the pattern im right?
Actually, I don’t care who created it. I want to know who is in charge of the portfolio and how is that person fixing it! That is the job of that minister. A massive fail there, just like everything else… other than the 1pm Covid theatre shows.
Labour will be on their knees every morning, praying to heaven: “Thank you for all those crisis!”
Well, I am certainly thankful every day… So very thankful, that we had Jacinda as leader through each of those traumas and tragedies. Had they occurred under Ms Collins, the outcome in each case would have been terribly, tragically different.
Wow…all those words and facts and data and not one mention of Ardern who’s ‘in charge’ of child poverty!
Well done, point out the problem but not one mention of Arden taking over child poverty as her own personal crusade (not even her quote before the election), unbelievable!
In a nutshell it has nothing to do with Adern, Collins, Key etc etc… MR Shovel.
What people are really railing against here is neo liberalism and its blatant inability to deal with these glaring social ills, – how can it ,… when the whole premise is based on running the country like a business and making a profit?
And yes, New Zealand is registered with the New York stock exchange as ‘ NZ Inc’.
And while Black Lives Matter in America as shown by the vast numbers supporting that movement, … it appears brown lives in NZ don’t.
Very good points and right on topic SSJ. I thank the heavens that the National Party is gone at long last but is the Labour Party much better? Our core problems are still as bad or worse, the CPTPP signing, No CGT, Poverty, Housing all appallingly bad with no end in sight. Go Greens.
Well obviously, Labour are useless .. glad to see you’re starting to realize this.
You’re realizing it painfully slowly, but it’s a start.
And National ate less than useless, you will just never learn.
Remember Metiria Turei – former Green Party co-leader. Her attempt to give voice to beneficiaries and their struggle was met with a level of working and middle class vitriol usually reserved for child killers.
The Labour government are obeying the law of democracy which is that the majority view of the world takes precedence over rational economic and social policy.
Taking care of people who didn’t do well in school or who can’t earn enough to get by is considered to be morally reprehensible by the majority of the voting population.
Beneficiaries are subjected to a form of apartheid in which government agencies are required to treat them as second class citizens and ensure they are only given a narrow prescribed set of options to manage their lives. The TOP party UBI would be a good start in reversing this culture of neo-feudal lording it over the poor. Some courageous leadership from Labour in challenging the incumbent attitude towards beneficiaries wouldn’t go a miss but is unlikely to make an appearance in this election.
Ardern through Turei under the bus when she said ‘she would never be a cabinet minister under my watch’. Turei would have been a fantastic minister of social welfare and we lost her.
Agree 100% re Metiria Turei she would have been awesome.
And imagine if Key hadn’t raised GST we would all have more cash to spend.
Which one? The Metiria that admitted benefit fraud or the one who admitted electoral fraud? Sorry find a better example
An effective CGT say 70% plus a financial transactions tax and a wealth tax to put in its place the rentier asset inflation scam assisted by Australian private banks namely ANZ would generate so much income that putting up benefits to a civilised liveable level investing in our children’s future would be no problem.
But Labour are nothing better than National Lite and are full of the miserable puritanism that afflicts this country. This is a wealthy country claim it back from the above for the people’s sake. JA is just a pretty face and has moved Labour in a Tony Blair coup to the right poaching on Natsos traditional preserve.
Response of the day. Absolutely correct.
JA is just a pretty face
No. She is not.
And still people claim that this govt are somehow “magically’ on the left and voting for them is supporting the left? Left of what exactly? Younger people forget it was Labour who started us down the road to global neo liberalism back in the 1980’s. Is it any surprise they have not changed much in terms of philosophy or policy?
Why would anyone left learning vote for them? The Greens I can understand they are far from perfect in my view too but at least many of their policies are more Socialist. I get why someone describing themselves as left leaning and Socialist would vote for them.
The real tragedy of all of this self deluded stubbornness on the part of some voters is what we see play out in poverty, homelessness, under and unemployment and ever increasing pressure, in particular, on the middle classes to somehow carry all of this on their backs in the form of ever increasing taxes which are in turn not managed or spent where they are most urgently needed. Not to mention “policy inertia” that see’s little reformed and as a result, little changed.
There seems to be a hierarchy of need. If you are a child or woman your need is seen as more important than if you are a single male living alone on a benefit. That is how it appears.
If there is queue to limited resources who gets put first and who goes without?
If we are honest then we already know the answer.
plus one to that.
Add to that if you are young in a relationship get refused a benefit and then have to find several $100 dollars every week to pay for state refused to fund medicines on top of your living costs.
All the while your mental and physical health is going down the gurgler and no one seems to give a shit.
As I said above, Robertson ‘granted’ some of us death sentences.
Need and and entitlement is based on age, gender and membership in that club we call “the family”
I presume they do want us to vote for them?
I’ve just posted this elsewhere, but it really belongs here:
If the Greens can just get this on the table, then change will begin to happen: POVERTY ACTION PLAN.
It is NOT perfect. But it is a starting point for a change that is so long overdue that there is now a groundswell of opinion out here in the wider population that significant change MUST happen. …even among normally conservative people. Even among economists. And among the wealthy. How desperately ironic that it is Labour themselves who seem to be the last, the very last group to comprehend this??
The danger is that Sepuloni, Robinson and co will bury the most desperately poor, out of sight, under the cemented “Two Tier” system. THAT cannot happen. And only the Greens seem to recognise this. And only the Greens have any clear policy to begin to address it.
Yes Labour want to bring in a social insurance to embed the two tier unemployment sham.
Yes. And it is because of that, more than any other reason, that I am party voting Green.
He may as well have brought back the death sentence. Because for some, that is what his policy will mean.
Entrenched poverty will never be really addressed. It can’t while neoliberal policies are followed. Todays deprivation is a direct cause of the policies of each government ( in particular 1991 and the National governments ” mother of all budgets ” that ensured a reduction in benefits and the employment contracts act that allowed hard working people to loose all and any protection they had against exploitation including creating a low wage economy which is still with us today meaning we have a working poor who now work longer per week for much less while relying on ever more credit to survive. The middle class are just holding on but are never far away from facing the dreaded alternative of a low paying job and drowning in debt.
Every three years the establishment and politicians pretend they want to do something meaningful about how dreadful it all is and a little bit of tinkering here and there to be seen to be doing something but not solving the root cause’s of the rich mans market economy.
Kiwis love having an entrenched lower class because it makes them feel better about their own successes , the nice house , the suv and the new ute , the holidays overseas or down to Queenstown for some r and r and the respite of their media room where they can unwind with a movie or game.
The disconnect is deliberate and it is so easy to see in the way the economy is run , the way the news is presented and how business is the only consideration before we do anything else. Everything MUST be about the profit motive and that permeates every facet of our countries systems.
Poverty and its effects are here to stay permanently and will continue to cast a shadow over every well meaning government and PM until the real cause is confronted. Neoliberal thinking and its entrenchment.
Kiwis love having an entrenched lower class
I don’t believe that.
I do, I see it every day.
What Mosa has said is 100% correct.
Well you see different Kiwis from those that I see, and share with, in my wider community.
Poverty and its effects are here to stay permanently
I don’t believe that either! Certainly not the extremes that we have now.
All it needs to change this is for those who do give a damn to keep their focus on sorting it out!
I know its hard to face kheala but i am happy to be proved wrong. The market economy must have slave labour and grinding poverty to keep making profits for the capitalist system the western world insists on maintaining. The poor and oppressed have no representation and are the convenient political football that is rolled out every three years.
I have followed politics in this country since 1984 and the same crap keeps getting regurgitated every three years.
The world has changed beyond recognition, in some ways, since 1984. The internet had not then become available to Kiwis in our homes. While some could sense, if not see the fires of chaos on the horizon, the term ‘global warming’ had yet to become generally accepted.
We are in a different world now. People really are waking up.
Kheala,
Why would they do that. Why would they not just exterminate those who don’t contribute.
Why do you think they give a damn.
Because it is not “them”, it is US. You and I and every other Kiwi with a heart and soul and mind and voice. Live what you believe. Live your values. The effects go out from that.
Oh please Child Poverty is so 2017 and Jacinda has a)moved on to religious hate speech, b) forgotten that she was going to do something about it 3 years ago (memory like a sieve) and c) is not interested in solving the real problems of NZ/AO including housing which contributes to the levels of poverty and the children that live in sub-standard accommodation, in cars and other hovels.
Looking forward to her doing absolutely sweet FA for the next 3 years.
@ SSJ
“Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals,”
Good on it ( collins ) for saying that but bad on it because it belies the underlying intent to manipulate and exploit farmers for their product as they’ve done for generations and generations and you guys can’t understand that. You know what the natzo’s are and yet you think the natzo’s are genuinely worried about farmers and farming? Give me a fucking break?
And if you ask me why Labour’s not all over farmers like the lice the Natzo’s are given farmers are our primary industry, then let me tell you. It’s because labour and the natzo’s are the same fucking thing you dumb shits.
You guys still don’t get it do you? All you wonderfully clever people with your degrees an’ that.
You still haven’t worked it out.
You haven’t worked out why there are ten natzo to one labour hoardings in the countryside.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you guys or sad and angry. I’m literally looking at residential properties in Coolangatta as I mournfully eat my lunch. Coolangatta. 20 c and sunny. Here? It isn’t.
You write about poverty and working class misery here as if it’s something no one has control over and the best we can hope for is any kind of empathy that may result in more dollars to pay for the rorting fuckers who now exploit what used to be OUR taxes paid for resources.
Electricity ‘retailing’ is a good enough example of just how easy it is to sell you guys a few beans and a dead cow. You, are suckers. Yes, you are. You know what electricity retailers do? Other than harvest your dull minded ignorance? Electricity retailers do nothing. Not one thing. Except dip into your pockets and take the food out of your kids mouths just so as you can stay warm. I’ve seen it. With my very own eyes. I was a second hand trader, among other things, who used to go to people’s homes and I’d see it for myself. One story stood out. A young mother in a hideous , freezing cold old damp mouldy villa in bed with her two little kids at about 1.00 pm because the electric blanket was the only way they afford to keep warm. She had a mad dog running around so the doors were always open and she had the dog because she was afraid of the abusive father to her kids who was constantly hanging around to see if she was fucking someone else. She lived in cold poverty while fearing for her safety with her kids in AO/NZ. Did I mention wee kids toe marks in the dog shit all over the carpet?
Now? That’s on us. Not her. She has enough to contend with. That shit’s on us.
Privatisation did that to her and her kids. roger douglas did that to her and her kids and that nasty, ugly little fucker seymour, the twat twerker is enjoying a resurgence in his undies while you dumb fuckers blame those who put food on your tables and who are being exploited by a cadre of cunning, cruel, greedy natzo swine.
Is it time to start thinking that just maybe you dopes deserve what you’re surely going to get?
Let this sink in, if you’ve been patient enough to get this far.
We are without governance. We have NO government which is by us, for us or they’d be fixing things up for our most at risk first and with great urgency. Start there. Move up. But no.
The pivotal question must surely be …Then who the fuck are they?
And how have they managed to become so powerful and influential?
Can you answer that @ SSJ? Who else wants to have a go? Come on? What the fuck is going on?
The reason why farmers are not, at the very least striking and protesting is because they’re as psychologically neutered as the rest of you.
In my opinion we need urgent, outside help. We need a royal commission of inquiry to, at the very least, try to expose just how mind numbing and dangerous our position is on our beautiful AO/NZ.
Our farmers DO work mad hours to farm their animals for us to eat or to wear their fluff but that’s no excuse for assuming that somehow farmers then must love fucking hideous collins and her cadre of worthless, useless hangers on.
How else can I explain this?
We AO/NZ’ers are so used to a warped and buckled reality that we can’t see, we can’t even begin to comprehend, just how entirely head fucked we’ve become used to being to such an extent, I’d argue, that we can no longer create questions we might ask of the stagnant fruit salad that’s our government/s and its politicians.
We need urgent help. Like any victim locked in a psychological prison by abuse, we need help.
Our polls are all over the place, we have no idea who to trust, we lean towards the hardest cock in the coup, we tend to swoon over the toughest old tart.
BUT REMEMBER…?
Above and beyond our politics there are those invisible and anonymous few making billions and billions out of 52 K people who are solely agrarian and who are our primary industry while the rest of us 4,948,000 scratch around in the crumbs while trying to survive.
We need help.
You seriously need your own blog. Totally off on a tangent. Again!
Fuck off Herman unless your prepared to debate Countryboy.
Ok let’s debate then…
countryBoy says:
“@ SSJ
“Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals,”
Good on it ( collins ) for saying that but bad on it because it belies the underlying intent to manipulate and exploit farmers for their product as they’ve done for generations and generations and you guys can’t understand that. You know what the natzo’s are and yet you think the natzo’s are genuinely worried about farmers and farming? Give me a fucking break?
And if you ask me why Labour’s not all over farmers like the lice the Natzo’s are given farmers are our primary industry, then let me tell you. It’s because labour and the natzo’s are the same fucking thing you dumb shits.
You guys still don’t get it do you? All you wonderfully clever people with your degrees an’ that.
You still haven’t worked it out.
You haven’t worked out why there are ten natzo to one labour hoardings in the countryside.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you guys or sad and angry. I’m literally looking at residential properties in Coolangatta as I mournfully eat my lunch. Coolangatta. 20 c and sunny. Here? It isn’t.
You write about poverty and working class misery here as if it’s something no one has control over and the best we can hope for is any kind of empathy that may result in more dollars to pay for the rorting fuckers who now exploit what used to be OUR taxes paid for resources.
Electricity ‘retailing’ is a good enough example of just how easy it is to sell you guys a few beans and a dead cow. You, are suckers. Yes, you are. You know what electricity retailers do? Other than harvest your dull minded ignorance? Electricity retailers do nothing. Not one thing. Except dip into your pockets and take the food out of your kids mouths just so as you can stay warm. I’ve seen it. With my very own eyes. I was a second hand trader, among other things, who used to go to people’s homes and I’d see it for myself. One story stood out. A young mother in a hideous , freezing cold old damp mouldy villa in bed with her two little kids at about 1.00 pm because the electric blanket was the only way they afford to keep warm. She had a mad dog running around so the doors were always open and she had the dog because she was afraid of the abusive father to her kids who was constantly hanging around to see if she was fucking someone else. She lived in cold poverty while fearing for her safety with her kids in AO/NZ. Did I mention wee kids toe marks in the dog shit all over the carpet?
Now? That’s on us. Not her. She has enough to contend with. That shit’s on us.
Privatisation did that to her and her kids. roger douglas did that to her and her kids and that nasty, ugly little fucker seymour, the twat twerker is enjoying a resurgence in his undies while you dumb fuckers blame those who put food on your tables and who are being exploited by a cadre of cunning, cruel, greedy natzo swine.
Is it time to start thinking that just maybe you dopes deserve what you’re surely going to get?
Let this sink in, if you’ve been patient enough to get this far.
We are without governance. We have NO government which is by us, for us or they’d be fixing things up for our most at risk first and with great urgency. Start there. Move up. But no.
The pivotal question must surely be …Then who the fuck are they?
And how have they managed to become so powerful and influential?
Can you answer that @ SSJ? Who else wants to have a go? Come on? What the fuck is going on?
The reason why farmers are not, at the very least striking and protesting is because they’re as psychologically neutered as the rest of you.
In my opinion we need urgent, outside help. We need a royal commission of inquiry to, at the very least, try to expose just how mind numbing and dangerous our position is on our beautiful AO/NZ.
Our farmers DO work mad hours to farm their animals for us to eat or to wear their fluff but that’s no excuse for assuming that somehow farmers then must love fucking hideous collins and her cadre of worthless, useless hangers on.
How else can I explain this?
We AO/NZ’ers are so used to a warped and buckled reality that we can’t see, we can’t even begin to comprehend, just how entirely head fucked we’ve become used to being to such an extent, I’d argue, that we can no longer create questions we might ask of the stagnant fruit salad that’s our government/s and its politicians.
We need urgent help. Like any victim locked in a psychological prison by abuse, we need help.
Our polls are all over the place, we have no idea who to trust, we lean towards the hardest cock in the coup, we tend to swoon over the toughest old tart.
BUT REMEMBER…?
Above and beyond our politics there are those invisible and anonymous few making billions and billions out of 52 K people who are solely agrarian and who are our primary industry while the rest of us 4,948,000 scratch around in the crumbs while trying to survive.
We need help. @ SSJ
“Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals,”
Good on it ( collins ) for saying that but bad on it because it belies the underlying intent to manipulate and exploit farmers for their product as they’ve done for generations and generations and you guys can’t understand that. You know what the natzo’s are and yet you think the natzo’s are genuinely worried about farmers and farming? Give me a fucking break?
And if you ask me why Labour’s not all over farmers like the lice the Natzo’s are given farmers are our primary industry, then let me tell you. It’s because labour and the natzo’s are the same fucking thing you dumb shits.
You guys still don’t get it do you? All you wonderfully clever people with your degrees an’ that.
You still haven’t worked it out.
You haven’t worked out why there are ten natzo to one labour hoardings in the countryside.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you guys or sad and angry. I’m literally looking at residential properties in Coolangatta as I mournfully eat my lunch. Coolangatta. 20 c and sunny. Here? It isn’t.
You write about poverty and working class misery here as if it’s something no one has control over and the best we can hope for is any kind of empathy that may result in more dollars to pay for the rorting fuckers who now exploit what used to be OUR taxes paid for resources.
Electricity ‘retailing’ is a good enough example of just how easy it is to sell you guys a few beans and a dead cow. You, are suckers. Yes, you are. You know what electricity retailers do? Other than harvest your dull minded ignorance? Electricity retailers do nothing. Not one thing. Except dip into your pockets and take the food out of your kids mouths just so as you can stay warm. I’ve seen it. With my very own eyes. I was a second hand trader, among other things, who used to go to people’s homes and I’d see it for myself. One story stood out. A young mother in a hideous , freezing cold old damp mouldy villa in bed with her two little kids at about 1.00 pm because the electric blanket was the only way they afford to keep warm. She had a mad dog running around so the doors were always open and she had the dog because she was afraid of the abusive father to her kids who was constantly hanging around to see if she was fucking someone else. She lived in cold poverty while fearing for her safety with her kids in AO/NZ. Did I mention wee kids toe marks in the dog shit all over the carpet?
Now? That’s on us. Not her. She has enough to contend with. That shit’s on us.
Privatisation did that to her and her kids. roger douglas did that to her and her kids and that nasty, ugly little fucker seymour, the twat twerker is enjoying a resurgence in his undies while you dumb fuckers blame those who put food on your tables and who are being exploited by a cadre of cunning, cruel, greedy natzo swine.
Is it time to start thinking that just maybe you dopes deserve what you’re surely going to get?
Let this sink in, if you’ve been patient enough to get this far.
We are without governance. We have NO government which is by us, for us or they’d be fixing things up for our most at risk first and with great urgency. Start there. Move up. But no.
The pivotal question must surely be …Then who the fuck are they?
And how have they managed to become so powerful and influential?
Can you answer that @ SSJ? Who else wants to have a go? Come on? What the fuck is going on?
The reason why farmers are not, at the very least striking and protesting is because they’re as psychologically neutered as the rest of you.
In my opinion we need urgent, outside help. We need a royal commission of inquiry to, at the very least, try to expose just how mind numbing and dangerous our position is on our beautiful AO/NZ.
Our farmers DO work mad hours to farm their animals for us to eat or to wear their fluff but that’s no excuse for assuming that somehow farmers then must love fucking hideous collins and her cadre of worthless, useless hangers on.
How else can I explain this?
We AO/NZ’ers are so used to a warped and buckled reality that we can’t see, we can’t even begin to comprehend, just how entirely head fucked we’ve become used to being to such an extent, I’d argue, that we can no longer create questions we might ask of the stagnant fruit salad that’s our government/s and its politicians.
We need urgent help. Like any victim locked in a psychological prison by abuse, we need help.
Our polls are all over the place, we have no idea who to trust, we lean towards the hardest cock in the coup, we tend to swoon over the toughest old tart.
BUT REMEMBER…?
Above and beyond our politics there are those invisible and anonymous few making billions and billions out of 52 K people who are solely agrarian and who are our primary industry while the rest of us 4,948,000 scratch around in the crumbs while trying to survive.
We need help.@ SSJ
“Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals,”
Good on it ( collins ) for saying that but bad on it because it belies the underlying intent to manipulate and exploit farmers for their product as they’ve done for generations and generations and you guys can’t understand that. You know what the natzo’s are and yet you think the natzo’s are genuinely worried about farmers and farming? Give me a fucking break?
And if you ask me why Labour’s not all over farmers like the lice the Natzo’s are given farmers are our primary industry, then let me tell you. It’s because labour and the natzo’s are the same fucking thing you dumb shits.
You guys still don’t get it do you? All you wonderfully clever people with your degrees an’ that.
You still haven’t worked it out.
You haven’t worked out why there are ten natzo to one labour hoardings in the countryside.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you guys or sad and angry. I’m literally looking at residential properties in Coolangatta as I mournfully eat my lunch. Coolangatta. 20 c and sunny. Here? It isn’t.
You write about poverty and working class misery here as if it’s something no one has control over and the best we can hope for is any kind of empathy that may result in more dollars to pay for the rorting fuckers who now exploit what used to be OUR taxes paid for resources.
Electricity ‘retailing’ is a good enough example of just how easy it is to sell you guys a few beans and a dead cow. You, are suckers. Yes, you are. You know what electricity retailers do? Other than harvest your dull minded ignorance? Electricity retailers do nothing. Not one thing. Except dip into your pockets and take the food out of your kids mouths just so as you can stay warm. I’ve seen it. With my very own eyes. I was a second hand trader, among other things, who used to go to people’s homes and I’d see it for myself. One story stood out. A young mother in a hideous , freezing cold old damp mouldy villa in bed with her two little kids at about 1.00 pm because the electric blanket was the only way they afford to keep warm. She had a mad dog running around so the doors were always open and she had the dog because she was afraid of the abusive father to her kids who was constantly hanging around to see if she was fucking someone else. She lived in cold poverty while fearing for her safety with her kids in AO/NZ. Did I mention wee kids toe marks in the dog shit all over the carpet?
Now? That’s on us. Not her. She has enough to contend with. That shit’s on us.
Privatisation did that to her and her kids. roger douglas did that to her and her kids and that nasty, ugly little fucker seymour, the twat twerker is enjoying a resurgence in his undies while you dumb fuckers blame those who put food on your tables and who are being exploited by a cadre of cunning, cruel, greedy natzo swine.
Is it time to start thinking that just maybe you dopes deserve what you’re surely going to get?
Let this sink in, if you’ve been patient enough to get this far.
We are without governance. We have NO government which is by us, for us or they’d be fixing things up for our most at risk first and with great urgency. Start there. Move up. But no.
The pivotal question must surely be …Then who the fuck are they?
And how have they managed to become so powerful and influential?
Can you answer that @ SSJ? Who else wants to have a go? Come on? What the fuck is going on?
The reason why farmers are not, at the very least striking and protesting is because they’re as psychologically neutered as the rest of you.
In my opinion we need urgent, outside help. We need a royal commission of inquiry to, at the very least, try to expose just how mind numbing and dangerous our position is on our beautiful AO/NZ.
Our farmers DO work mad hours to farm their animals for us to eat or to wear their fluff but that’s no excuse for assuming that somehow farmers then must love fucking hideous collins and her cadre of worthless, useless hangers on.
How else can I explain this?
We AO/NZ’ers are so used to a warped and buckled reality that we can’t see, we can’t even begin to comprehend, just how entirely head fucked we’ve become used to being to such an extent, I’d argue, that we can no longer create questions we might ask of the stagnant fruit salad that’s our government/s and its politicians.
We need urgent help. Like any victim locked in a psychological prison by abuse, we need help.
Our polls are all over the place, we have no idea who to trust, we lean towards the hardest cock in the coup, we tend to swoon over the toughest old tart.
BUT REMEMBER…?
Above and beyond our politics there are those invisible and anonymous few making billions and billions out of 52 K people who are solely agrarian and who are our primary industry while the rest of us 4,948,000 scratch around in the crumbs while trying to survive.
We need help.@ SSJ
“Judith Collins displayed her feeling for farmers who she feels are not valued enough for the tough work of farming animals,”
Good on it ( collins ) for saying that but bad on it because it belies the underlying intent to manipulate and exploit farmers for their product as they’ve done for generations and generations and you guys can’t understand that. You know what the natzo’s are and yet you think the natzo’s are genuinely worried about farmers and farming? Give me a fucking break?
And if you ask me why Labour’s not all over farmers like the lice the Natzo’s are given farmers are our primary industry, then let me tell you. It’s because labour and the natzo’s are the same fucking thing you dumb shits.
You guys still don’t get it do you? All you wonderfully clever people with your degrees an’ that.
You still haven’t worked it out.
You haven’t worked out why there are ten natzo to one labour hoardings in the countryside.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you guys or sad and angry. I’m literally looking at residential properties in Coolangatta as I mournfully eat my lunch. Coolangatta. 20 c and sunny. Here? It isn’t.
You write about poverty and working class misery here as if it’s something no one has control over and the best we can hope for is any kind of empathy that may result in more dollars to pay for the rorting fuckers who now exploit what used to be OUR taxes paid for resources.
Electricity ‘retailing’ is a good enough example of just how easy it is to sell you guys a few beans and a dead cow. You, are suckers. Yes, you are. You know what electricity retailers do? Other than harvest your dull minded ignorance? Electricity retailers do nothing. Not one thing. Except dip into your pockets and take the food out of your kids mouths just so as you can stay warm. I’ve seen it. With my very own eyes. I was a second hand trader, among other things, who used to go to people’s homes and I’d see it for myself. One story stood out. A young mother in a hideous , freezing cold old damp mouldy villa in bed with her two little kids at about 1.00 pm because the electric blanket was the only way they afford to keep warm. She had a mad dog running around so the doors were always open and she had the dog because she was afraid of the abusive father to her kids who was constantly hanging around to see if she was fucking someone else. She lived in cold poverty while fearing for her safety with her kids in AO/NZ. Did I mention wee kids toe marks in the dog shit all over the carpet?
Now? That’s on us. Not her. She has enough to contend with. That shit’s on us.
Privatisation did that to her and her kids. roger douglas did that to her and her kids and that nasty, ugly little fucker seymour, the twat twerker is enjoying a resurgence in his undies while you dumb fuckers blame those who put food on your tables and who are being exploited by a cadre of cunning, cruel, greedy natzo swine.
Is it time to start thinking that just maybe you dopes deserve what you’re surely going to get?
Let this sink in, if you’ve been patient enough to get this far.
We are without governance. We have NO government which is by us, for us or they’d be fixing things up for our most at risk first and with great urgency. Start there. Move up. But no.
The pivotal question must surely be …Then who the fuck are they?
And how have they managed to become so powerful and influential?
Can you answer that @ SSJ? Who else wants to have a go? Come on? What the fuck is going on?
The reason why farmers are not, at the very least striking and protesting is because they’re as psychologically neutered as the rest of you.
In my opinion we need urgent, outside help. We need a royal commission of inquiry to, at the very least, try to expose just how mind numbing and dangerous our position is on our beautiful AO/NZ.
Our farmers DO work mad hours to farm their animals for us to eat or to wear their fluff but that’s no excuse for assuming that somehow farmers then must love fucking hideous collins and her cadre of worthless, useless hangers on.
How else can I explain this?
We AO/NZ’ers are so used to a warped and buckled reality that we can’t see, we can’t even begin to comprehend, just how entirely head fucked we’ve become used to being to such an extent, I’d argue, that we can no longer create questions we might ask of the stagnant fruit salad that’s our government/s and its politicians.
We need urgent help. Like any victim locked in a psychological prison by abuse, we need help.
Our polls are all over the place, we have no idea who to trust, we lean towards the hardest cock in the coup, we tend to swoon over the toughest old tart.
BUT REMEMBER…?
Above and beyond our politics there are those invisible and anonymous few making billions and billions out of 52 K people who are solely agrarian and who are our primary industry while the rest of us 4,948,000 scratch around in the crumbs while trying to survive.
We need help.
But what does he mean? I’m sure bert you have the answer…
MR Shovel ,… you are completely out of line with more than a healthy dose of far right Americana going on there. What CB is talking about is 100% correct. Are you new to NZ or just a beneficery of neo liberalism. I assure you we NEVER had family’s living in cars back in the 1970’s. NZ was a healthy, progressive and WEALTHY nation. Since 1984, it no longer is. In 1968? we were the 6th wealthiest nation on earth , – just behind Denmark.
Our favorite boxing critique, – bob jones, – set up the NZ party explicitly to roll rob muldoon and introduce neo liberalism, and to destroy the Keynesian economic consensus between the two major party’s. He then promptly disbanded it after the election. The Keynesian system that served most of the prosperous western nations, and many others around the globe , and NZ included, – for more than 60 years and that ushered in the most prosperous period in world history.
And we had many , many millionaires in this country under that system, – many of which owe their colossal wealth to the Keynesian govts which supported them and then were shat on by those same company’s post 1984…
Under John Keys govt we slipped to 32nd place, – behind Mexico. We were compared with Albania, and at the same time labelled, ‘Mexicans with cell phones’. In fact the suicides, the poverty, the unemployment, the housing hardships spiked around 1989 after the roger dougla’s treasonous disaster. And was carried on by spud bolgers national govt with ruth richardson. Key and others, just carried it on and worsened it.
In fact since 1984, we have never had anything BUT neo liberal govts . Even Adern’s govt is essentially a neo liberal govt, – hence the lack of any real change.
So in fact CB is 100% correct.
Yet historically before the Keynesian consensus , he is correct as well.
If you are fresh from America and its down on ‘socialism’ ( and in my opinion so many Americans wouldn’t know the difference between socialism and communism and would call the Scandinavians ‘ communist’s,…) or just a smug, self satisfied local arsehole,… please do us all a favour and read this:
New Right Fight – New Zealand. Against the political New Right.
http://newrightfight.co.nz/
Now, MR Shovel , – please bugger off and do some serious reading. Your comments and blatant general lack of NZ political history and concern for its people is cringeworthy.
And thanking you, countryboy.
Labour do not increase benefits which are needed but doubled the winter energy payment . While I am sure there are a few getting the pension who needed it I do not know any . To most it has meant a meal out but Labour held it up to show how they were the party that looked after people.
Where are the programmes that help couples hold off on having a family until they have the means to look after the child.
Heard a war veteran pensioner on National radio the other day Trev. His story is appalling. He is left with $40 a week even after the winter energy payment and accommodation supplement for everything else. I tried to imagine how he managed through the winter previously, He answered the host question by saying he froze. He stated that whilst he struggles to survive on the pension and supplements, the winter energy payment was enough to convince me of the benefits.
As for your last sentence, I’m sure ACT will tell you these people have choice to choose when to have children, personal choice and freedom of speech and all that sort of stuff.
Id rather be asking what! no rent reductions? No crackdowns on residential property speculation? This is the bottom line for poverty in this country. State, state, state housing. The defining moment for the first Labour government and the defining wimpout for this one.
no rent reductions?
Yes. For shame.
No crackdowns on residential property speculation?
Yes. That too.
You are right. This is the real issue here. Rent and house prices are totally out of whack with NZ wages.
This has built up over successive governments over the last few decades. The reserve bank further stokes this fire.
WFF and accomodation supplements are Labour and Nationals can kicking ways of avoiding resolving the underlying causes of unaffordable housing and rents. Raising benefits will just continue to feather landlords pockets, and be music to their ears, and to all the MP’s with real estate stuffed in their family trusts, and super schemes.
And the govt was just about to address the issues with the disability network and Covid hit and now us cripples are on the back burner again.
Meanwhile working people just had a paid holiday worth more than the benefit and it didnt discriminate them against their partners incomes.
Fucking over this system, compassionless politicians who just dont give a fuck
The only way out of this is to persevere – To keep on making the point, as Susan is doing here, – Until they really do ‘get’ the seriousness of the problem.
Again, Poverty Action Plan
Check it out – can click through to details.
It needs improvement but it is a good start.
It is an actual plan. EVERY party should be submitting one of these!
If you were literary, Susan, you would have writ ‘Wot, no benefit increases?!’.
They cut across their heart for their unwillingness to persuade us about helping the neediest first. Amidst everything they are not willing to help the brown first. They don’t care about our opinion who care about the heart of our matter. We know Jacinda and Grant, and they prefer, who knows? They keep it secret. But it’s something toward the US Democratic Party, a pillar of that plutocracy.
Indeed- wot no benefit increases? Wot cuts instead come 1 Oct?
Under every Yank political utube are beautiful one sentence summaries of their (appalling) situation. In NZ blogs it’s mostly footnotes, appendices and detail-fighting. We don’t understand the imperativeness of the old People’s Cause. Since, unlike them, we’ve had stomachs, metaphorical at least, since birth.
One more time: Poverty Action Plan
Again, it is not perfect. But it IS a starting point. And no other party has one.
Sole Parents Struggle to Feed their Children, Stuff October 2020
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