Research released last week that 600 000 New Zealanders require help from Food Banks each and every month highlights how enormous the cost of living crisis has crushed parts of our society while the property speculators sing and dance.
National’s policy takes from the poor and gives to rich landlords alongside punishing new sanctions against beneficiaries while ACT wants to target drug addicts and the disabled on welfare.
Māori are over represented in many of the worst social statistics and they will face the blunt trauma of these policies hardest.
We already have an underlying poverty, tax cuts for landlords and disconnecting welfare payments from continuous upgrades only serves to punish the poor, not help them.
How the Māori Party, Labour and Greens respond to this attack on the poorest and most vulnerable will set the tone for their new role in the Opposition.
With the Specials to yet be counted, it looks like National and ACT will require NZ First to form a Government, which could result in even more reactionary policy like designating all Gangs domestic terror groups which would spark a level of paramilitary policing most would be deeply ashamed of.
One would hope past all the yelling of the election that ACT/National and NZ First would step back from the abusive policy, but that is all the policy they have and the level of vitriol generated in this election has left angry reactionary voters demanding results.
Our poorest and weakest were used as a punching bag this election and they will suffer the injury as well as the insult after this election result.
First published on Waatea News.
Greens and Te Pāti Māori will need to lead the Parliamentary opposition this term while Labour decides whether to finally ditch Rogernomics or disappear up its own backside for good. NZ Labour might consider giving ordinary members a say and a vote on this rather than HQ officials and the Caucus.
Apart from that, people (the lower 50%) are going to have to keep doing what they have been doing–looking after themselves and capacity building in communities–gardens, Patiki Kai, childcare, shared transport etc. Māori have been doing a good job of this up to and including the peak COVID years. Lots are getting into tiny houses and co-ownership deals to get a home underway and get out of mouldy, overpriced rental dumps.
The irony of the Natzos campaign against the poor and working poor will be further reducing purchasing power of those groups, which–doh–will directly impact thousands of small business operators who need customers!
A lot of SME and owner operators side with the filthy tories out of misguided aspiration–they identify with the parasite class even though they have little chance of ever joining the 1%ers or even their 9% enablers.
So, it is fightback time and more workers need to rediscover what “industrial action” means and start sticking it to the man in a disruptive but strategic way. Social media and public campaigns can be run without necessarily having to “pull the pin” and engage in strike action. Some stoppages will definitely be needed though to give Baldrick and Twerker a bit of a slap.
Industrial Action —> Increased Automation
Capitalists are on a loser here if they push automation to the max–presumably the parasite class still need customers for their products…as do small businesses, owner operators and SMEs.
A basic income for all citizens is supported by the Greens and many others because it preserves some level of disposable income and dignity regardless of employment status, and don’t forget–a hell of a lot of work is unpaid already–caring, domestic duties, internships, ‘always on the clock’ jobs, on call, the precariat generally.
Ideally unnecessary manual and intellectual labour could be done away with so people could live their lives in an interesting and fruitful way, advancing science and society rather than paying off thumping great bank mortgages–but the reality is that until an anti capitalist movement is flourishing, fightback is what the working class has.
Yes a ditch of Ole Rogernomics would be a good start. Hopefully the old Rogernomes are dying out in the party anyway. But this loss may be the impetus see the error of there ways hope so.
Seymour being unhinged during the election cycle claiming the ‘Paaart Maaaaari’ title than doing a Winston by putting the boot into the culture he really has no affiliation nor could give 2 fucks about under the guise of equality. The poor already were suffering under Labour one can only imagine what this Far-right govt has up its sleeves for the already marginalized
So is someone only considered Maori after approval from Willie Jackson? What traits do they need? What’s the minimum vocabulary do they need?
If any bloke can feel like a women, then it goes without saying any ethnicity can feel Maori.
You can’t have it both ways
Offer Winston the position of P.M, of a coalition of all the other parties. It’s NOT like Winston might loose credibility for his future in NZ politics.
NACT won’t be able to compete with that.
Think outside the box. Use intelligent negotiation skills. Think clever like TraitorKey did keeping ACT alive by ‘manipulating’ the Epsom electorate.
Or do as the ‘left leaning’ in NZ seemingly MUCH prefer to do, do nothing and winge a lot.
Too many dumb NZers voted for so called change and we all know the change is not going to be good for the poor, Maori, PI and our poor Pakeha whanau.
The assault on our poorest and most needy started in 2017.
Thankfully help is on the way.
The poor and Maori did not vote for Labour due to broken promises and lack of real action to help and probably voted Green or TPM.Small business owners did not vote Labour as they saw a breakdown of law and order putting them and their staff at risk of assault and the cost of extra protection.
National /Act /NZF were voted in with the promise to help and fix these problems
,The first step was to admit there were problems and they will be judged in 3 years as to their success of fixing them.
They certainly will Trevor. It will be interesting to see how their budgets balance.
Perhaps I can be of assistance Trev without you having to wait 3 years…a good predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour–and boy do the Natzos have some form…
• union busting Employment Contracts Act 1991 demolished the decades old National Award System which set a wage floor for workers across the country in most industries and professions, FPAs are set to put that right but Baldrick and Seymour want to repeal
• Mother of all Budgets 1991 MOAB, market rents for state housing, run down of health and education to drive people to private sector, Ruth Richardson’s stab at copying Thatcher and Pinochet, she came very close to mimicking her heroes, and consigned vulnerable NZers to a miserable life for 3 decades
• Creating an artificial power market of generation and supply and handing it to the parasite class. Hydro was literally built and paid for by tax paying working class people.
I need not go on really, but put it this way do you seriously think Bennie bashing, union busting, and shovelling the wealth upstairs, is going to deliver anything for most New Zealanders? Petrol prices are not going down, property prices are going up, immigration is going up–with no plans for corresponding infrastructure increases. And Mr Reti even had the temerity to signal the fully funded new Whangārei hospital build will be on hold if he is Health Minister in a future Govt.! Even a few Northland tories who know the deadly reality of the current crumbing Whangārei Hospital might not agree with Reti’s cowardice.
” National /Act /NZF were voted in with the promise to help and fix these problems
,The first step was to admit there were problems and they will be judged in 3 years as to their success of fixing them”
Your taking the piss or just not inhabiting the real world !
” Back in 2009, we learned that then-Deputy PM Bill English was being paid by us to “rent” his own home, thanks to some dodgy corporate arrangements – involving, of course, a trust – so that he could pretend that he didn’t really own it. The public recognised this for the corrupt rort it was, and following an investigation by the Auditor-General, the system was “reformed” to just give MPs and Ministers a fixed accommodation allowance, so they could rort without question. And so somewhat unsurprisingly, they’re still doing it:
I love these Right wingers and LINO recipients none of who actually are on planet New Zealand which is why we keep getting the outcome of their votes for NACT that obviously does not impact on their entitled existence and their mindset
” At least 20 MPs are claiming up to $45,000 a year allowance to stay in their own Wellington homes, a perk that sees the taxpayer help politicians pay off their mortgages.
Four ministers (Duncan Webb, Jan Tinetti, Deborah Russell and Willie Jackson) claimed the capped allowance, of up to $45,000 a year, to cover living costs in the city. They then use it to pay rent on property they already own.
Four Government MPs (Arena Williams, Jenny Salesa, Jamie Strange and Sarah Pallet) claim an entitlement of up to $31,000 per year.
Twelve National Party MPs, including leader Christopher Luxon, do the same. They are: Andrew Bayly; Gerry Brownlee; Judith Collins; Jacqui Dean; Barbara Kuriger; Melissa Lee; Ian McKelvie; Mark Mitchell; Simon O’Connor; Stuart Smith; Louise Upston and Michael Woodhouse.
ACT’s Simon Court also claims the allowance and owns property in the Capital, but the party did not respond to a request for comment.
None of these parasites will admit there is a problem and sure as hell will not do anything about it.
I guarantee that greed , position and entitled wealth wins every time Trevor
” The poor and Maori did not vote for Labour due to broken promises and lack of real action to help and probably voted Green or TPM. business owners did not vote ”
The business owners DID VOTE for NACT who can’t remedy the problems while they support neo liberal policies and like LINO think that by talking tough that will be enough to solve the crime epidemic we are facing now.
LINO promised nothing except mystical transformation which is all the plutocracy and their own greedy selfish entitled MPs would allow them to.
I look forward to the next messiahs peddling their donor corporate self entitled bullshit to the long suffering financial slaves.
Trevor they will do more in their first year than Labour did in 6 years.(Not that difficult considering Labour didn’t do anything.)
All that power Labour was given in 2020 and all it wanted to do was make the rich richer and pose for Vogue… total betrayal.
Still taking the piss New Zealand and in the next three years will shit on the non entitled.
” As I said when English’s corruption was exposed, living in Wellington is part of an MP’s job, and it is entirely properly that we meet the actual, reasonable, and necessary expenses of doing so. But its quite another thing to be paying them to live in their own homes, or giving them a leg up on the Wellington property market (and taxpayer-subsidised capital gains) as a perk of office. These MPs are rorting us, and undermining trust in our political system in the process. What makes it all the more appalling is that they know how toxic such behaviour is with the public, and yet they keep doing it. Its as if they just can’t help themselves. Which something pretty bad about the sorts of people we’re electing as MP’s ”
” So what’s the alternative? While the temptation is to make MPs live in a dorm with cold showers, or in rental properties from lowest-bidder providers with management outsourced to Quinovic, so they know how normal people live, we do actually need them to be able to do their jobs without being dragged away from the House by pointless property inspections and demands that they clean the inside of the oven ”
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2023/10/still-ta