We need a bigger State, not a smaller State you stupid sleepy Hobbits!

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
39
1293

The public service cuts situation is not as simple as it seems

    • Just over 3000 public sector job cuts have now been announced.
    • The sector grew by 2582 in the six months to December last year, and by more than 2700 in the 12 months toJune 2023.
    • Even with the cuts, the sector will have grown significantly, commentators say, but “across the board” reductions may not be the most effective solution.

As this new hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government continues to burn the state, David Seymour complains that we are being mean to him for his arson of the common good…

David Seymour calls for ‘reality check’ after public service job cut outcry

…this isn’t moderate policy, this amputation as performative art!

The lesson from Covid was that we need more State Capacity, NOT LESS!

We don’t just need more teachers, drs and nurses, we need new hospitals, now schools and new capacity!

New Zealand has an egregious infrastructure deficit in NZ!

The Left have to make the argument for a bigger capacity State funded by taxing the mega wealthy. They have to show where the money will come from and they have to show they will have a plan ready to go.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Because our under regulated capitalism has been robbed of revenue by a rigged economic system that benefits the rich, we are desperately needing more hospitals, more passenger rail, roads, schools, storm repair, tens of thousands still waiting for State Houses

The reality is that we are not spending nearly enough and we need a far larger State capacity, not less of it!

There is a class war happening right in front of our eyes as the wealthy pour millions in donations to National and ACT while Climate Denying Federated Farmers join ACT and National push for landlords to have the power to evict when some of their biggest donors are Real Estate pimps.

The political project of the right is to amputate the State’s capacity to raise revenue so that it can’t be redistributed in the first place.

There are 14 Billionaires in NZ + 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with over $50million each, why not start  start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax!

When Treasury is being for a capital Gains tax, you know shit has gone cray…

Treasury’s warning to new Government: Consider Capital Gains Tax quickly to plug spending hole

…Nationals 3 biggest donors (Hart, Mowbray and Bolton) have a combined net worth of 15 billion! The Bottom 50% of NZ has 23 billion.
The top 5% of NZers own roughly 50% of NZs wealth, while the bottom 50% of NZers own a miserable 5%!

 

Are those stats that live up to the egalitarian dream of NZ?

The ‘cash was splashed around’ by Labour as the price paid to prevent a mass death event from a once in a century pandemic.

Pretending otherwise is simply rewriting history while denying the underfunded present which dooms us in the future.

We need a bigger State, not a smaller one.

This is the time for the political Left to walk away from woke pure temple politics and embrace Broadchurch class solidarity.

Our under funded social infrastructure, our ‘me first’ consumerism, our 30 years of neoliberal mythology, our disconnection from one another, our untreated pain, our lack of hope from grinding poverty in a first world country, our damaged masculinity, the intergenerational consequences of colonialism, our unspoken rage culture, our inability to express emotion beyond anger – all of this demands questions we don’t want to hear as a society.

If we don’t provide people with Hope that there is a better way of being for us all, if we don’t provide vision that actually addresses the material well being of our voters, if we aren’t prepared to debate the expansion of State Capacity by taxing the mega wealthy and funding the climate change adaptation,  if we don’t do all that, this hard right racist Government will win again.

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

39 COMMENTS

  2. The time for the PSA to show us how important the public service is, was when their ranks swelled by 16000 under Labour.
    Did they impress us with targets and improving services and betterment of everyone’s lives?
    No, we got te reo lifts, a war on the working class, a dropping of targets, no accountability and all metrics (homelessness poverty mental health social cohesion, you name it) worse. A billion dollars to mental health for one bed and worse outcomes, 50 million to not build a bike bridge.
    Bigger public service just serves itself.

    • Bullshit, you are fucking clueless…

      10,500 children have been supported through Mana Ake, and this mental health programme benefitted 195,000 kids around the country.
      Labour boosted mental health support for university students. Around 80,000 university students have had access to more wellbeing and mental health support, including talking therapies and addiction help.
      Improved wages and conditions by way of pay equity and collective agreements.
      There is more mental health and wellbeing support online, on the phone and through smart apps, so people can easily access help when they need it. People can now access support at any time, thanks to our investment in online self-help tools and telehealth services.
      There are more than 900 additional full time professionals are now working to support mental wellbeing in the community.
      And 2.7 million Kiwis have access to mental health care through GPs by the end of this year.

      The PSA have been champions. The time for your anti union, anti Labour profiling is over.

      You see KCCO, your right wing bullshit just does not wash with those that work in health and know the facts, not simply regurgitated vile you’ve heard from Mike Hosking or Sean Plunkett.

      And look at the horrid waste by National in cancelling projects that millions have already been spent to try for better infrastructure.

    • Targets are only good if you have a fair eligibility system and it is easy to shift the goal post and more people fall through the safety net. The CoCs are destroying the social fabric of our country, and they are kicking our Māori people in the guts all under the auspices we are one people mantra which we all know is load of fucken bullshit.

    • Go fuck yourself Keep.
      Labour delivered more for the working class than National ever did.
      Year upon year of payrises, restoration of breaks, a new bank holiday, due process before getting sacked, the right to join a trade union, you name it, workers got it.

      We also got free prescriptions and a healthcare system focused on treating people, not profit.

      Also we actually housed people, not kick them out, like you want to do.

      • Charming.
        4 fold increase in people living in cars. Kiwi build an utter failure.
        Do share more of your delusions it might help your psychosis.

        • The psychosis is coming to an end. Luxon sacks two ministers, just 40 odd to go. That will save us plenty.
          Trevor where do the homeless live when not in motels? They were taken off the streets during covid by a caring government. Yes kiwibuild was a failure but Nationals housing policies have always been abject failures.

        • 12,200 state homes built in 6 years under Labour after National left 1500 fewer after 9 years.
          How does that help you psychosis KCCO?

  3. 100% The State is an expression of the power of all the people of New Zealand which by its nature will limit the greed of the rich for the benefit of all. Neoliberalism denies this good.

  4. we have a population of over 5 million and facilites for 3 million .Reducing the size of the government does not fix the situation .Why would you bleat one day about the performace of the health system then next day stop the hire of 500 new doctors and refuse to fund a brand new 150 bed hospital because it was built by the previous government .This government has completly lost the plot .

  5. We do need public servants that help such as teachers and medical workers but we do not need more to control how we run our lives

    • Does the government really control how we run our lives Trevor? As far as I can see you can pretty much do anything and become anyone in this country with the only limitations placed on people being if they impinge on someone elses rights or cause harm to either the environment or another person. Surely that’s too onerous is it?

    • And yet this governments consultant hire on masses seems to have evaded you Tevor. When media asks National ministers questions, most answers begin with ” the advice we have received “. Because they are incapable as proven by the two recent sackings.

  6. ” We need a bigger State, not a smaller State you stupid sleepy Hobbits! ”
    Yes, we do. But. How do unapologetically corrupt gubbimints hide [where] the money comes from that might build that bigger, better state? That, is essentially the crux of the matter. It’s not that politicians don’t want to spend money on a state infrastructure necessarily, it’s just that by spending money it will beg the question: ” Hang on a minute…? Where did that money suddenly come from? After all this time, where did those multiples of billions come from”
    The buried truth behind that conundrum is all but invisible to many because most people lack the capacity to formulate a three dimensional brain-picture of the larger picture which depicts multi-generational corruption and the manipulations by our politic to enable the grotesque wealth sequestering by the urban multi-billionaires and multi-millionaires out from under our farmers noses. Why else do you think that the dirty natzo’s are also the famah dahlings besties? Sure, there were a number of farmers who were one time prime ministers and sundry politicians like Big roger douglals, little billy english and jimbo bolger. Well, they’re called traitors, fellow farmers.
    You’re no fool @ Martyn Bradbury so why are you not investigating, reporting and writing about [that] ? If you don’t think I’m writing sense then prove it. Destroy me? Reduce me to a pathetic old one-man rabble of discontent who knows not what he’s writing about nor where he left his penis.
    We have tons of money. There are only 5.2 million of us. Hundreds of thousands of poverty stricken AO/NZ people are a fabrication, a scam. A script written by a few billionaires and millionaires to hide their literal crimes of their albeit vast and inexplicable wealth creation . If you’re genuine and one of us then your trying to make sense of a fictional logical-fallacy scenario. If you’re one of the ‘Them’s’ then all is lost.
    Words of advice to young people.
    Sell in the cities then buy/build to be freehold in Western Southland because there’s a storm coming. IMO the billionaires and the millionaires and their minions are going to throw us overboard to hide the historic crimes scratching feverishly at the kitchen door then they’ll sell us to Australia which in and of itself might not be such a bad thing. Just expect our population to increase by 26.5 million.
    Countryboy signing off.

  7. We do need the state and we pay taxes for a safety net, but the state can also be a bulwark to sometimes achieving what is best for us as a country. Both National and Labour are guilty of overstepping the mark and practicing, I know bests especially with their treaty partners. We should not be getting rid of 7aa Oranga tamariki this is an example of, I know bests, instead we should be making minor changes to our existing legislation to ensure when problems arise, we have the best tools to fix the problems. And from a relationship perspective I feel we are going backward again, and I will repeat this is not good for our country. Many of our Māori whanau are and have been stepping up but this removal of 7aa is like a kick in the guts.

  8. The mega wealthy will never pay. That’s why they are mega’s. Instead we should be greatful for any trickle down s from the mega’s.

  9. It maybe not too bad for the man in the street but try being in business and getting a project off the ground .Finding the right person and having to submit plans and details all take too long for many

  10. Now now Martyn. Yes, we could pay the salaries of all the public servants being fired with the pocket change that Peter Thiel spends on blood boys, but that wouldn’t be very nice to New New Zealanders like Thiel and Larry Paige, would it?

  14. ” this hard right racist Government will win again. ”

    Yeah Bomber those sleepy Hobbits prefer to just complain or simply not bother at all.

    It is early in the political cycle but at this point in time the current mafia will be back for another term.

    That’s not a win that you are talking about but just a continuation of the neo liberal austerity direction we are travelling in.

    There is no electable alternative out there just the same wash spin repeat with a slightly different model.

    Its lose lose for all those who have no political voice or representation that will stand against the current war on the sub classes in this country.

    Sure LINO made some reasonable changes but the real structural reform that would have prevented the current government being elected they just didn’t enact or actually deliver real change for the constituency they wanted their votes from.

    All we are really doing is going around in circles with these posts and talk about the same failures year after year but never really do anything to change it.

    Many people really doing it tough out here who normally vote are now turning their back on the entire corrupt process and it was a Labour government they expected with a majority to have given them a reason to vote and some reassurance about their own future in New Zealand but Arden and Hipkins and the rest are seen as bad as the Nat ATLAS party such is the cynicism of so many.

    The protection of the status quo is the only winner and those who prosper from it.

    The Nat ATLAS political appointees and those who donate to them will still be in for the win in around 28 months depending on Winston.

  15. I’d prefer No State. Surely we’re smart enough to manage our own affairs. build our own roads and staff our own hospitals. Yes – it’s idealism but shit has to start somewhere and I’d rather it started local.

  17. How about a state that works? Given huge infusions of cash, people, and resources the Public Service managed its way to a previously-undreamt-of level of performative incompetence. I doubt the current Public Service leadership can be safely handed the nation’s resources.

    • Evidence please? Be more specific – what was the performance incompetence you suggest? Or are you just another fucking BS troll?
      If the cash infusion you are talking about was the money the government pumped into the economy during Covid – would you rather have had mass bankruptcies, business failure and shrinkage of the economy so that once the economy did recovery (that is, we got on top of the Covid issue) then it was unable to provide for the local population (e.g. broken supply chains due to business failure and inability to source needed items).
      What else would you suggest? Maybe a return to the moronic feudalism that was the highlight of the dark ages … FFS

  19. It’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it. Labour believed that, to make it work better you needed more people to make up for the inept performance of state workers. National believe you need less workers doing a better job. The problem with labours idea is new employees were trained by said inept employees to be inept. The problem with nationals plan is reducing inept employees still leaves you with inept employees just less of them.

  20. Who was the most socialist British PM of the 20th Century? It’s the crisis one. That our much more devastating crisis snakes up the lane rather than confrontation direct doesn’t deny that. No one needed to persuade in Sept., 1939. The ‘art of the impossible’ Trotter passes by the crisis of the species.

    We are in the age of persuasion again.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here