The political reminder of how hard right ACT Karens really are

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
64
2290

Look, ACT are funnier than National and far, far, far cooler than National.

Of that there can be no doubt, but beyond the sick burns and clever one liners, the policy mix is fucking crazy and infinitely spiteful.

Be under no illusion, if ACT are anywhere near power, they honestly want to damage the system so much so that the system can’t won’t and won’t work..

ACT’s pledge to reverse sick leave, pause minimum wage hikes, scrap extra public holiday and benefit boost

If the centre-right wins in 2023, ACT promises to pause minimum wage hikes, reverse sick leave increases and the upcoming benefit boost, and scrap either the new Matariki holiday or another public holiday.

ACT MP Karen Chhour, spokesperson for social development, says the Government is entrenching welfare dependency with the benefit increases.

“Welfare should be about helping people get back on their feet, not allowing them to abuse the system and depend on the state. Welfare should not be a lifestyle choice,” Chhour says.

“Almost 188,000 adults are receiving the Jobseeker benefit, yet we have severe labour shortages in many sectors that are not being addressed.”

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

…firstly, almost 82 000 of those almost 188 000 are sickness and disability beneficiaries whom Karen (her name is Karen, isn’t that glorious?) want’s to force back to work at the end of a pitchfork so maybe the question shouldn’t be ‘why are 188000 on a Jobseeker benefit’ and should be ‘why are MSD and WINZ making sick and disabled peoples lives miserable by threatening them with sanctions if they don’t work’.

ACT want to channel the naked rage of those who see bashing dirty filthy bennies as a cultural right, we have allowed the legacy of a de-unionised work force and the jealousy those low wage conditions have generated to spill over onto beneficiaries.

ACT play to this and pretend their hand up not hand out rhetoric is the solution when really they want their hand around your throat.

Here is their catalogue of greatest hits…

  • Cut and freeze the Minimum wage
  • Interest back on all student loans
  • No Kiwsaver subsidy
  • Cancel winter energy payment
  • Dump all climate crisis legislation
  • no more best start payments for families with new borns
  • cut welfare payments
  • no tax credits for research and development
  • cuts to working for families
  • $7b a year cut in public services
  • Abolish Maori seats
  • Abolish Human Rights Commission

…these are the mad rantings of the fringe, but with the polarisation of political debate and the Left incapable of actually debating ACT (because they are too busy cancelling and de-platforming them), ACT + National could be the math that gives them a Parliamentary majority in 2023.

Chloe Swarbrick is the best Left wing MP who can actually knock Seymour off his feet in a debate, the Left and the Greens should be pushing this.

David Seymour wants a debate on co-governance, the space should be set to allow Chloe to do that.

 

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.

If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

64 COMMENTS

  2. Let me guess the script. National will be the saviour, they’ll need to be voted in with enough sway to responsibly moderate the ACT madness away, but only just enough leaving the general gist intact Aim ridiculously high, accept lower.

    End of story. Thanks for coming.

    • Wouldn’t it be funny if next time a whole lot of Labour voters voted National to keep them from needing ACT?

  3. But why should Chloe have to is my question? Where is CLL or Ardern in this? Nowhere!!!

    I like David Seymour (Despite his looney agenda) and find him intellectually ahead of nearly all of Labour and National MPs but he should not be the one championing the impact of Co-Governance on our Constitution, similarly it shouldnt be left to Chloe to answer. It’s simply too important and it’s a question for all New Zealander’s.

    I’d love to see Chloe and David, Simon and Kiri and Chippie in a party together. Probably a couple more, Louisa for example. Then we might see some intelligent solutions and a desire to get them implemented.

    • Agreed. Why should Chloe debate Labour’s policy? Mahuta and Jackson should be fronting this debate.

    • If a collection of indigenous iwi can be so sidered an apartheid state, then surely Isreal meets that definition as well.

                • Australian petrol price: AUD$2 approx

                  South Auckland Peteol Price: NZD$4 approx

                  If you look at why the IQ test was created, it was done to select US marines and I don’t think US marines are anything to be admired.

                  That said, if indigenous communities controlling there own resources, in there interests is apartheid then every indigenous community in the world surely is apartheid. That I can agree.

                  If agreed to, then I claim that the crown will require Maori interests in order to balance Chinese interests in the south Pacific, Israeli vs Palistine style. In other words David and goliath, there by opening up Israel as a viable trade and security partner – and at this moment in time desperately needed.

                  Say what you will about isreal. This is a golden opportunity for cooler heads to stabilise the international rules based order where the fruits of victory are cheers on humanities face.

        • @ex kiwi – I disagree. Bert’s posts are always incisive yet at times subtle and often humorous which shows how clever he really is. If you read his post above carefully it is excellent.

          ps: You omitted to put an apostrophe in the right place in ‘Berts’

        • Surely if you rationalize co governance as apartheid then it’s only reasonable to assume a one party government is a dictatorship, unless of course the apartheid comment is some trash and is an out take from Counterspin.

    • Saying “Co governance is a fancy word for apartheid.”, is code for saying “I’m scared of change”.

  6. Why Chloe? She has no power. If labour want to bring this thing in, they need to start talking about what it involves, what the pros and cons are, why we need it.

    This is likely a big change, so a lot of discussion and a referendum is a good idea.

  8. I like Bomber. But Karen Chhour haS BEEN A beneficiary and knows what it means, Like much of the Left, Bombe4r and Chloe are middle class folk who are playing at it

    • Reading her maiden speech it’s clear her mother went on the DPB and KC was then shunted around by child services which it’s clear she think needs to be reformed. It also seems it was sheer luck that a good Samaritan selflessly took her in when she was at rock bottom. With a 7 bil a year cut in social spending there better be a lot of Samaritans handy.

      • Problem is that the current approach of throwing money at the terrible situation isn’t working either is it?

        I don’t agree with some of what they’re proposing but at least they’re asking questions and putting forward new ideas as something needs to change.

    • Yeah, but Karen wants to make things *WORSE* for those on benefits. She wants to cut benefits further, bring in user pays and hike their rents.

      • Also Millsy what was the benefit when KC was a youngster? Was Ruthless Richards mother of all budgets early mid nineties? Benefits were probably somewhat more adequate back then. Most commentary now days is the existing benefit is not something that would encourage it as a lifestyle choice.

  9. I hate being correct. It’s contrary to my schooling. I was strapped if I challenged the idiots who were trying to teach me that I must conform, then, I was strapped by the same idiots for my failing to learn how. It’s a wonder I don’t have an S&M fetish for ugly people brandishing heavy leather belts. That’s why I live in fear of Rodeo’s and not for my concern for the animals.
    I was right about Chloe Swarbrick and I was right about the smiling attack rodent seymour. No disrespect to actual rodents.
    Chloe Swarbrick is saturated in good intentions. A close friend and I met Chloe briefly and we came away with the impression that she’s inherently a very, very special and warm and loving soul. She’s one of those rare human beings who seems to have been dropped here out of pity. And pity, it’s said, is akin to love.
    Poor twerking david seymour is a sparkling little killer. His words are akin to hate. Or more correctly, perhaps, to a cruelty wedded to a desire to inflict pain and suffering on the defenseless. What he proposes, if the list above is any indication of his intentions, is nothing short of sadism. Do you want to be governed by a sadist? Do you really? Let me clarify the word ‘Sadist’ for you, in case you’re too afraid of the word and are too enthralled by david seymour.
    sadism/ˈseɪdɪz(ə)m/
    [A] tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.
    There’s a photograph of roger douglas standing, smiling, in a dark shed surrounded by pigs in pens. It was a photojurno image in a book I’ve been trying to find. Not even Te Ara can find it because I asked. It says a lot about a man who can keep sentient animals in small pens to be fattened then butchered for their flesh but even more so for the support he gives to david seymour of roger douglas’s ACT party.
    ACT. For Freedom:
    Wikipedia:
    “The name is an acronym of Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, which was founded in 1993 by Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_New_Zealand

    • If National had just an ounce of credibility Countryboy, ACT wouldn’t exist. God help us if the racist party were to form a coalition with National again.

    • Hi CB, I don’t think DS is a sadist, he is in fact something far worse. He is a “believer”. He believes that his policies, which look like they have been copy/pasted directly from the brain farts of Margaret Thatcher, will actually work.

  10. Yeah well, I’m a working class white man who central Wellington funding authorities have decided doesn’t fit their new mandatory diversity drive, so I’m looking to punish vote now.

  11. Yeah well, I’m a working class white man who central Wellington funding authorities have decided doesn’t fit their new mandatory diversity drive, so I’m looking to punish vote now.

    • Someone who thinks that they can help the poor by taking money off them and give them a pamphlet on how to grow veges.
      Yet another proponent of the ongoing agenda to reduce New Zealand living standards to the level of India and China.

  16. ACT’s agenda is to import the USA’s hardnosed, profit focus health and welfare system, which will double the number of people living on the streets, and also lead to major downward pressure on wages and living standards.

    They see the likes of China and India, where the poor scavange through rubbish dumps for stuff to sell from their 1 room mud huts, as something to aspire to.

    • Suggest you check what’s happened to the number of people homeless housed in hotels under the Labour government before you bang that drum millsy.
      Labour could only bullshit the thinking electorate for so long.

        • They only got nothing thanks to Jacinda. 50% house price increase in 4 years. She has destroyed NZ for the poor and made it great for those who enjoy looking down on the plebs.

          • Your lot would slash benefits and wages, hike rents and power prices, as well as impose US style health care. Imagine having to pay $2000 to have your broken arm fixed because some rich prick want to not pay tax.

            • I despise National and Act, and now this new NatLab party too. I wish there was a true Labour party, but there isn’t.

    • the fact that national are shite doesn’t make labour smell of roses, not as bad isn’t good enough.

    • thing is if the yanks system worked, yea give it a go BUT on every metric the US is 3rd world and sliding toward failed state….why emulate fuckin disaster?

  17. To ACT, politics is a lifestyle choice, a place where they get to bludge off the taxpayer while acting out their ideological fantasies.

  18. “Almost 188,000 adults are receiving the Jobseeker benefit, yet we have severe labour shortages in many sectors that are not being addressed.”

    Isn’t the Holy Market on High supposed to correct labour shortages by magically offering higher wages? The mechanism seems to work fine at the higher salaries end of the market.

    • It would work if the alternative state funded life wasn’t as attractive to so many.

      Now I know this will fire up a large portion of the readers here but ask yourself why any able bodied person would rather accept welfare if there is employment available of which there is.

      I believe we need a compassionate welfare system however I also believe in reciprocation and personal responsibility which is definitely missing across a large swathe of the unemployed.

      Again, there are those that should receive support and help but not all and that’s where ACT will drive the wedge

  19. how many of those beneficiaries are in partime/gig jobs so need additional benefits to top up, yes YOU subsidise nz businesses low pay model with YOUR taxes…write about that to your local nat .YOU are taxed to subsidise the NZ businesses who gouge you on prices, you pay twice they laugh all the way to an australian bank…

    LIVING wage now.

    • which will drive price increases and further inflation until we hit the wall and go into a massive recession.

      Who gets hurt the most then?

      It’s almost a circular firing squad idea

      • is that as bad as YOUR TAXES(yes yoursw yeti) not funding bludgers but subsidising NZ employers addiction to low wages by any means neccesary

  20. When is the next poll due?
    One minute we had a new poll every 2 to 3 weeks apart!

    Now, diddly squat. Who’s worried I wonder?

    Apart from the usual bunch of lame political parties.

    Is there a political party like the McGilly Cuddy party or something like that so I can protest vote?

  21. For the employers who hire mostly unskilled workers, the year upon year minimum wage hikes have been an untenable burden, resulting a large percentage of the time with the skilled workers threatening, either directly or obliquely, to look for work elsewhere if their pay isn’t raised also.

    As for sick leave, the increase from five paid sick days to ten paid sick days a year has been a burden on all employers. I feel that, over a period of time of working for a business the amount of annual sick leave should increase but if you are, for example, a healthy man in your twenties and you’ve only been with a company for, say, fifteen months, why on earth do you deserve, or why on earth would you even expect, the same sick leave entitlements as a female worker in her sixties with ongoing health difficulties?

    Holiday entitlements in New Zealand are pretty reasonable, although I personally would scale this back a little bit. Or keep it the way it is, but reduce the amount of public holidays.

    There’s nothing to be overly concerned about with the way things currently are. However, I do think the entitlements ought to be reviewed periodically by an independent authority to cater to our ever changing national demographics.

Comments are closed.