I always argued that we would know very quickly in the first 100 days of a Labour-Green Government whether or not they were going to be transformative.
They are fast running out of time to prove they are.
The first baby steps of this new Government was to endorse a racist drug law, rule out a wealth tax and refuse to lift benefits before Christmas.
They have bewilderingly however locked us into a vast debt trap to fund trickle down economics by printing billions and instead of loaning it to the Government to rebuild our infrastructure, poorly funded public services and refund our welfare state, Labour have green lighted it going to corporate banks to fuel property speculators in the hope the newly inflated paper wealthy spend that false sense of prosperity in the real economy to help the little guy.
Once again Labour use free market mechanics to try and fix a housing market wrecked by neoliberalism.
Add onto this a cowardly unemployment insurance that benefits the elite Public Service Bureaucratic class most while cementing inequity into place with a two tier welfare system.
This is middle class welfare on top of their property portfolios!
Why the Christ can’t Labour love beneficiaries, renters and the working poor the way they do property speculators & middle class white collar bureaucrats?
What’s the point of voting Labour if it’s just a slightly less cruel version of a National Government?
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Is it actually Robbo who is the National Cuckoo? I thought it was Jacinda who was the traitor because of her CGT stance but maybe it is all Robbo’s doing?
It’s been my belief that most of the time the PM is not the one making the main decisions about general policy direction. She’s excellent on policy detail, but the overall direction of most policies have not changed since the time of Goff and Little as leaders, especially when it comes to finance.
And I’ve also thought it’s likely Robertson, and maybe also David Parker who make the major decisions about economic and financial policies.
Agree and every time I see that captioned image I think – 10 out of 10.
From memory @ GW, you don’t watch TV. Count yourself lucky.
I’m not sure what JA’s press conference today reminded me of most. Whether is was as an innocent little choirboy watching Dean Hurst preaching to his flock at harvest time, or a mate who’d misread the label on his bottle of fluoxetine, happy as Larry while wondering why he kept running out and blaming the chemist.
Stay with it OwT. I think you may be more in touch than me with what is happening re Radionz and its legal marriage to TVNZ. I get downcast if I think about their likely joint offering, they together will be a sort of drug, maybe I should go for the historical joint for a more straightforward result? What’s the latest?
“What’s the point of voting Labour if it’s just a slightly less cruel version of a National Government?”
There is no point at all if this is what we get stuck with. What I’m finding interesting is all the labour back benches must know they out of a job if they let this shit keep rolling. I’m surprised by their utter lack of spine.
Do you have any suggestion on who the needy people should vote for then Jeremy ?
Jeremy/John only sees what he wants to see.
His modus operandi is anyone but Labour, Labour sucks, are useless, etc, etc, etc.
National are the answer!
Bertie – honest question – are your starting to get worried now? Uncle Fester while being as delightful as a stale turd on Orewa beach to me is making inroads with females over the age of 50 while Seymour is holding the male vote.
The general feeling I get is the majority of the population (in Auckland at least) is well over it. The rest of the country is now slowly realizing traffic light Red is shitsville and the government’s response to date has been to double down.
I’m very worried that ACT will form part of the next National government after listening to Seymour today. If any of my clients spoke how he spoke today, it would straight in front of a psychiatrist with him. However the loopy need to vote and his is the party for them. So genuine answer Frankie, extremely worried particularly as he’s a gun loving vote collector.
Out of the mouths of babes and suckling . You have joined the dark side Bert welcome
New gen voters need to get up on their hind legs in 2023, and 2026, stop just blaming boomers and chart a new course. All the current parties including sadly the Greens, seem wedded to the neo liberal state and parliamentary monetarist consensus, Reserve Bank Act, State Sector Act etc. so something new will have to be done to finally retire Rogernomics and the toxic legacy of Roger and Ruth.
Politics is not just the bourgeois Parliament, it is also direct action and community organising–Gens X,Y & Z need to learn that pronto and act on it.
Having a class collaborationist Union centre (NZCTU) does not help. The CTU should be natural class left leaders but history shows how the battling FOL spirit was subverted in 1987. Richard Wagstaff (who?) should have been battling the Govt. hard for a Basic Income, COVID relief paid direct to workers via IRD, state house mega build etc. but no, the CTU just puts out press releases “welcoming” whatever the Labour Caucus coughs up.
If a new Alliance type party or movement is not formed only the scumbags that promote ACT and Tax Payers Union and anti Vaccination/5G will benefit. Populists (closet fascists) typically know the pressure points for aggrieved working class people, campaign to get their votes then do absolutely nothing for them materially!
Labour is all about tough love for the underclass and working class–the war on the poor continues–they will never implement the 2019 WEAG Report on welfare. The Labour Caucus hate beneficiaries as much if not more than the National Caucus.
Excellent, T M.
Why is Robertson introducing this now when there is supposedly record low unemployment?
Why doesn’t he treat those who lose their job like every other person in NZ history who has lost their job i.e. feed them to his mates at WINZ who will make them grovel for a couple hundred bucks a week?
Why didn’t Robertson spend 50 billion dollars creating jobs for all instead of funneling public money into private hands, and who now acts like some saviour throwing around the cash lifelines, when his government caused this shitstorm in the first place with their hermit kingdom policies?
I do feel that we should have a wealth tax here in New Zealand. Investors are getting wealthy by not paying any tax on their capital gains. You’d have to pay tax on the interest earned from your savings, so why not the increase in value of your other investments?
Well, this policy is neither here nor there for me. I don’t think it’s terrible….but I can’t say I find it exciting news either. Interestingly, it appears to be a policy endorsed by both sides of the political spectrum – from business to unions. On paper that sounds like a political win, however most people’s reaction seems to be ‘meh’ so it probably won’t move the needle much either way. Christopher Luxon even looked bored as he opposed it out of what appeared a sense of duty rather than genuine feelings against the policy.
But look, to say Labour are shafting renters, beneficiarys etc I don’t agree with. Remember, Labour are centre left not far left. They’re not going to rewrite capatilism in any major way. But they do care about poorer workers and beneficiarys. We’ve had massive minimum wage increases under Labour, we’ve had benefit increases also, and all apprenticeship training has become free. All of this disproportionately benefits the poorest in our society. And how much it this would National have done?
You have some very good comments which will not endear you to many commenters here Brad.
“They are slightly less harmful than National” is not a reason to vote Labour.
The latest announcement, rent controls, is nice in theory for a government who wants to hide the destruction of letting housing implode, but it’s doomed in reality. I recall similar attempts this control prices under Labour in the mid 70’s and under Muldoon, it never ever works.
I am over this government.
Yet so called lefties keep voting for em hoping for different results… this govt has been about as damaging as the Lange govt when you look at what’s happened to housing etc you know the things that really matter in the long term.
But yeah kindness.
Get real guys!
Labour operates at the behest of their main sponsor – the union movement. For years now the union movement has been dominated by middle class public servants – mostly teachers and PSA members. Last time I checked teachers alone were 55% of membership.
These people are predominantly comfortably off Grey Lynn types whose husbands are in one of the professions.
That type of statement illustrates why the only company some posters are likely to enjoy is wandering farm stock with their head caught in a fence.
Just a minority of unions are affiliated to the NZ Labour Party-and none of them are state sector unions courtesy of their rules requiring political neutrality.
And Nact acts at the behest of the business round table so your point Is?
I didn’t take a $1.10 rise in the minimum wage rate to mean that the labour government disliked the working class!
I took it to mean that they turn a blind eye to inflation, which they so often do.
For many, many years in this country, at least fifteen years, the minimum wage would go up once or, maybe twice, a year by around fifty cents an hour each time. Those who were lucky enough to be represented by Unions were paid more than that, as the Union organizers negotiated more money for their members. It was a harsh social system entrenched by the national governments of the 1990’s, a system we’ve just come to the end of only now.
If the divide between ordinary workers and Union members was large, and it was, the divide between ordinary workers and beneficiaries was a chasm. A minimum wage worker in 1997 could expect to receive around $300 a week after tax; a beneficiary would get around $80. Right now in this country our minimum wage workers are getting around $650 a week after tax; beneficiaries, around $250.
The Labour government are responsible for a lot of the work involved in alleviating social divides in this country. Sure, they increased the minimum wage for workers but they also increased benefits. They realized that, in real terms, which means putting the rises in the annual rate of inflation aside, benefits hadn’t been increased for more than 25 years.
Maybe they felt a wealth tax wasn’t something we were ready for as a Nation, which is why it got ruled out.
Because the Greens were as repugnanat
Brilliant thread folks. We’re fucked. “The end game or Capitalism is barbarism”.
We already have a party that supports the ‘beneficiaries, renters & the working poor’…its called the Green party. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, we just need to knock the kinks out of the party we already have.
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