Remember when Labour knee jerked over that stupid bloody Bike Bridge because David Slack and his militant North Shore cycling Militia forced their way over the Harbour Bridge?
So frightened was Minister Michael Wood of his own militant cycling wife AND David Slack, that he freaked out and promised an unbelievable $750million for an ill thought out Bike Bridge.
I say unbelievable because the idea of angry commuters driving past a Bike Bridge being built for 5 years is less an infrastructure idea and more a conceptual Art work called ‘Helping National win the next election’.
The architectural ugliness of what they were proposing didn’t matter, the counter productive political fall out didn’t matter, all that mattered was David Slack and the Minister’s wife were pacified.
Which is why the $750million bike bridge came across as tone deaf and stupid.
Which beings me to this appalling Unemployment Insurance, it’s so tone deaf because it’s about Labour pacifying the demands of their mates rather than actual sound policy.
We have historically low unemployment so why this is so pressing now when we have Housing and the Poverty crises to solve is a tad beyond me, but it’s the self interest that is most galling about all of this.
Labour intend to push through the Fair Pay Agreements which will see universal union membership, as the largest faction inside the CTU, the PSA would see most of their political influence evaporate. To make this easier for them, the CTU are giving the PSA a taxpayer funded 6 month holiday that the Wellington Bureaucrat class can tag onto their working life for those Northern hemisphere summer sojourns when the NZ winters are a drag.
This ridiculous Unemployment insurance will benefit white collar workers like Wellington’s Bureaucrat class most WHILE creating a two tiered welfare system.
The Government asked if everyone could get the unemployment benefit, and when they found out they couldn’t they proposed this nonsense. The reason not everyone can get the unemployment benefit is because WINZ are fucking arseholes who make the process as impossible as possible, so instead of forcing WINZ to stop being malicious pricks, the Government decided upon an insurance plan instead and PSA self interest did the rest.
So poor people get fucked over while the white collar Wellington Bureaucrat class get to tag one a 6 month taxpayer funded holiday as they bounce between Wellington Government Agencies.
This is as inane and self serving as that fucking Bike Bridge.
Quit the self serving bullshit and get on with Fair Pay Agreements that will help every worker you lazy buggers.
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If Labour really push these Fair Pay Agreements into play it’s going to drive unemployment up and accelerate automation.
I’ve worked with a few different businesses over the past two years that are well into structuring their organisations to either implement fully automated distribution centres at the expense of many jobs(into the 100’s). Then there’s others that will simply reduce hours and or headcount as they just don’t have the capacity to absorb the kinda of increases that this along with inflation, fuel prices, etc. have brought into consideration
FPA is tone deaf and the insurance idea is batshit student politics
and I’ve been hearing the groundless claim that fair pay loses jobs my entire life….the only real example the right can ever give is the atypical (because it’s unique) example of seattle.
Automation now that’s another kettle of worms.
Why don’t you just admit you are a greedy rich prick who wants to hold wages down. A lot of the workers you complain about haven’t had a decent payrise for decades and their employers are taking it in with record profits. Surely you can have some commoner decency and give workers a pay rise and better hours?
You obviously did not read the article from AAAP THAT condemned this move as did the Action Against Child Poverty. The Green Party is against it as well as the Parties from the Right. It will cause a two tier benefit system and the lowbpaided that you claim to represent get FA of nothing while the overpaid government staff get heaps.
As with much of Labours policies they look good in theory but not so great in practic
Those on minimum wage would still get way more than on the dole. Plus they wouldn’t lose their houses, cars, etc.
Getting over rich pricks like you who want to starve people.
On what planet does 80 percent of minimum wage save your house… its a shit policy and deserves to be called such. Better that the proposed tax actually goes where its needed. Increasing housing supply. Increasing benefits. But no the supposed defenders of the downtrodden shaft them again.
Still waiting for working for families to actually help children of parents on the benefit… reality is Jacinda doesnt actually give a fuck about anything but re election. Hence keeping the home owning classes happy.
Yeah – that’s what’s supposed to be happening in a developing nation. It means that the nation can then do other stuff rather then importing the more expensive foreign produced.
Government need to stop thinking up more taxes that only effect people who pay tax. Some of the worlds biggest companies and richest people continually never pay income tax. Win, win for them that their workers need to pay it for them.
Half the time government think up a new tax aka petrol tax, then take money from the community at a time where the working population are struggling, then have the tax put in a bank account doing nothing,
“The citywide fuel tax was introduced by the government in 2018 to help the local council fund transport projects. The additional 10 cents per litre added onto fuel has so far raked in $515 million, but as of December last year, around $285 million remained unspent.”
People are sick of more taxes and poor/zero delivery focus to help those who paid for it, aka not spent on what it was supposed to be for, such as creating trains and public transport that people ACTUALLY USE (against transport bureaucrat ideas and options that are so consumer unfriendly nobody uses them).
You see all the private businesses benefiting from the government money, upgrading their buildings and having a jolly time while delivering poor transport options at glacial speed and finding more and more excuses to make more money out of the clueless government who make matters worse with enabling lobbyists (and taxpayers taxes not spent on real results in health care and social benefits to NZ citizens living in NZ).
Actually congestion is down in Auckland, not because they solved public transport, but because they stopped 300,000 people coming to NZ on temporary visas and 1 million tourists being able to come here with Covid.
Kiwibuild was another white elephant that made things worse. They were supposed to help by privatising state house land and demolishing existing states houses…. WHHHAAAAT…. of course doomed to fail. Then the war on private landlords, well they got rid of the private landlords and now the country has billion dollar bills for emergency motels run by big business for the most part, that are higher priced and worse quality than private rentals.
Like Kiwibuild, they should have done the obvious, fund Housing NZ to build more houses on existing land they own, rather than just rebranding HNZ into Te Reo and creating a new bureaucracy of Kiwibuild. They should have helped private landlords to deliver better housing until they actually built the Housing NZ housing. Or make sure that wages are high enough so that people can actually afford to live in NZ and it’s not just housing out of control, power, food, water – you name it, going up above wages….
Instead as we see with this new unemployment tax, government don’t make exisiting rules work for redundancy, unemployment and sickness benefit of which there seem to be 3+ government departments already that could do the job better. But nope, another expensive bureaucratic exercise to be ‘sold’ to the public sick of more taxes and more bureaucracy.
Poly techs another bureaucracy of management over the existing structure instead of making the existing structure better,
Supercity in Auckland, more people in the councils doing nothing but out sourcing their work and responsibilities at lower quality and higher costs to everyone.
3 Waters, another joke.
Public prefer Labour to do nothing, as all their reforms as they have a proven record of creating a disaster, Rogernomics, student loans, maternity “one provider”, Tomorrow’s schools….
Do nothing Labour!
Yep, it’s a vote winner as they are too incompetent to do change and are too Rogernoms/business focused to be able to do proper social reform that helps most people.
As for Greens, should be disbanded as they are too woke to function and only talk about themselves and network about their sexuality/problems/books….
Sad as Natz will take Labeen reforms that strangle the workers and make it worse… see it through last 30 years of NZ politics.
it does have to be said that the euro social democracies are more accepting of higher (though in reality similar to the US when you factor in local taxes sales taxes and health insurance costs—but I digress) BECAUSE they actually get something back for their taxes like ohhhhh roads, schools, potable water, cleaner rivers etc etc etc…if our pollies provided the goods people would resent the taxes less…but they don’t
and poor benighted rich people/business can’t afford taxesssss boo hoo is an absolute crock SNZ and you know it…..step outside now, right now and count the urban tanks driving past.
When they poll people about increasing taxes for better health care and social services of course people say ‘yes more taxes, but they want results!’
The reality in NZ, is the Rogernoms/ACT, privatisation/outsouring/insourcing (COO, SOE, privatisation etc) agenda means that for a long time now as NZ stealth taxes have increased but the services have not increased and in many cases NZ are significantly poorer, such as many areas falling in the OECD.
Transport and housing are perfect examples of where Natz and Labeen have put all their energies to transform, but both fail miserably to get any real results out of NZ’s public or private sector with Kiwibuild/Developer funding producing overpriced housing at glacial speed and not high quality as well as /huge money for transport maintenance that goes know where.
Finland has a similar size and population to NZ, worse weather conditions, but has proper public transport ..
When they tax people they concentrate on enforcement of taxes not creating more taxes like NZ but creating a cash/ponzi/money laundering economy here.
In addition to qualify for residency in Finland you must pay your worldwide taxes there and they deport migrants quickly who don’t pay taxes and have fake qualifications.
Finland deported unusually many foreigners last year, writes YLE
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/17335-finland-deported-unusually-many-foreigners-last-year-writes-yle.html
Finland to decline asylum to & deport 20,000 migrants
https://www.rt.com/news/330652-finland-deport-migrants-asylum/
Essentially NZ’s brain drain, replacement team of 5 million many who seem to be opportunistic people existing with fake paperwork or only here to game the system, engage in the cash economy, billionaire Covid refugees and high needs fragile individuals.
Even today when we have the highest community cases of Omnicrom some so called Kiwi senior transport executive have forced their way through MIQ.
I mean no wonder safety on our roads is failing. Fake transport licenses, identity fraud and constant truck accidents are prevalent – most executives in NZ feel above the law and operate between countries.
NZ government enforcement does nothing to executives or migrants who break the rules but a different story to others living in NZ. We have a two tier system operating.
add this to the list of changes that will lead to more division between groups in NZ . It shows lack of knowledge of how business works . Many businesses will be reluctant to take the risk of expansion incase if it does not work out they will be forced into costly redundancy.
Ae, that’s right Trev. Labour is the party of division. Who wuddah thought? I blamed the gweens for most of that with their ‘Hate’ speech and ‘t’ mental problems.
Says someone who think cancer patients forced to stop working and just lose everything and move into a homeless shelter. You digust me. No decency at all.
Do you really think that workers should be let go with nothing, and loose everything.
Let’s be clear. If you oppose this, you are generally an enemy of humanity. Simple as that.
You are a cold hearted individual who see business profits take precencent over basic human needs.
ohhhhhh fuckkkkkk having to treat workers fairly..where will it all end trev? the red queen (stalin and hitlers love child) will destroy NZ with her wet noodle half hearted nod at workers rights….yer roight.
@yeti
Are you talking about the supermarket duopoly? Those bandits would replace all of their workers with robots if they thought it was cheaper than wage slaves and “contractors” (as opposed to white collar “consultants” who are able to actually properly charge to contract their labour).
The truth of the situation is that automation is a straw man argument advanced by vested business interests that are focussed on the wholesale exploitation of the working class to facilitate the extraction of monopoly rent (a type of theft which has somehow come to be called commerce).
The bogyman here is not the machines, it is the basic inequity in the system that allows for this crass exploitation in the first instance.
Is the FPA system as proposed a panacea that will ultimately address this inequity? My view is no, however it is at least a proximate solution (a step down the road if you like…) that has merit for being an attempt.
Middle class welfare is not a sensible answer unless the question is “how do we fuck the working class in general and the working poor specifically?” The idea that workers should pay tax for their own redundancy is breathtakingly bad and as pointed out by others who comment here designed to disadvantage the least powerful in our society while advantaging the wealthy (this has happened before, it was called serfdom) although in your case yeti, I suppose that one cannot make a person see whose salary relies on their blindness…
This is the brain child of a corporate management. The idea of dividing life into time-limited pieces, based on actuarial calculation for profitability and efficiency – they’ve done it in the USA. I have read the story of a man sick but failing to recover within his period of health insurance, so he hes to go home still ill or become a charity case. I think ACC have started the same autocratic, fomulaic style. We have been taken over by the market zombies. Defend ourselves we must otherwise we will face the daleks – Exterminate. The idea of getting a time limited chance and then be on the scrapheap is classic capitalism.
The Holocaust was just a practice run for the deadly mindset – intelligent supposed, enlightened supposed people, can be led and coerced to the stage where brutal thugs control them; it can be done. It has been done, and could happen again. Switch on something in the brain and large numbers of people can become irrational, drop their cunning wariness; in the USA! Antivaccers in NZ. Truckies in Canada! We started the slippery slope in 1984. Who would have thunk Labour would be such jerks, now ACT has followed in their footsteps.
I’ve painted a dark picture. When one reads about the Jewish people, the Cambodians under Pol Pot etc and really think about those people being destroyed by evil forces it is harder to watch horror movies and the rampages of action movies. We are going to need to make limits and establish boundaries because of climate change and overegging our populations and use of resources and crazy poisoning of the earth. Iif we don’t make decisions purposefully,thoughtfully and intentionally with a wide group of informed people trying for wisdom, pragmatism and being humanitarian, we will be back in flat earth times.
…the CTU are giving the PSA a taxpayer funded 6 month holiday. Explain this a bit more if you would.
Simple. The Labour party relies on their vote so they get the money. Brazen self interest to keep the professional career politician face in the trough.
Nothing to do with the betterment of the part time burger flipper or fish and chip wrapper upper. All about feathering the nest of those who will vote for the incumbent trougher’s.
Gawd fucking strewth. I was wondering why a Bunny had taken over as spokesperson and PR spin meister for various fuckups.
Little Meggie Main has moved in to another gig that I have no doubt she sees as a challenge in introducing the Labour party’s latest brain fart (in that space, going forward).I’ve no doubt she’ll have a loyal enterage of ambitious peons she’s so good at throwing compliments at who’ll be wanting to follow her.
Now, what became of that other thing that’s caused so much misery over the past couple of years? Perhaps we’ll see her pop up in an ACC role also, as Chief executive of Unemployment Insurance.
Yea/nah, it really has beyond a joke. There are corrupt bureaucracies in the 3rd World that have more ethics than this, AND I’ll bet those responsible don’t even understand why that is
Universal union membership. Yeah good luck with that.
If after you have read all the discussion and arguments about this and feel sad and lonely, there’s a service I can render… /This is what we need to have at the back of our minds as a theme:
Now, don’t forget me ’cause if you let me
I will always stay by you
You gotta trust me that’s how it must be
There’s so much that I can do…
Now, don’t forget me ’cause if you let me
I will always stay by you
You gotta trust me that’s how it must be
There’s so much that I can do
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/franksinatra/callme.html
And if you have time on your hands and can’t get a job and have to live on bird seed – try sharing – it will make you feel so warm and good inside. Here is how.
What I can do today is give you a 20m video that is amusing and instructive. They have squirrels and we have opossums (from Australia on a 501)! Enjoy if you’re not able to get to Waitangi Day celebration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg