Pampering landlords has been a consistent feature of New Zealand economic policy by successive governments. Leaving housing to the market has meant plenty of quality homes and good choices for higher-income tenants and families but the reverse for everyone on modest and low incomes. Today’s housing crisis means impossibly high rents and steadily reducing quality for private-sector tenants.
Yes – I know most readers of the Daily Blog are very cynical about the Tax Working Group. I share the cynicism. The TWG is stacked 8 to 2 with people who have spent most of their lives earning huge money to advise corporate New Zealand how to avoid tax. I blogged about it here.
But we have to build an alternative tax framework and you can help get your thoughts together on this through preparing a brief submission THIS WEEKEND.
Our lives have been hijacked by billionaires.
They cream off the wealth we create and leave us and our families struggling.
Most of us work longer hours for poor pay in insecure jobs. We have less money, less choices and face lives of increasing struggle. Most of our children will never own a home and face bleaker life chances than us today.
Obama won decisively on the basis of a fervent campaign driven by his supporters believing he would bring real change. Obama’s two terms did nothing of the sort. He bailed out the banks, increased weapon production and delivered 10 times more drone strikes than his predecessor George Bush.
There are occasional lovely moments when a politician’s carefully arranged façade of decency and respectability is stripped away to reveal their inner person with all its ugly racism and stupidity on display.
This campaign means a lot to me and the more support we can get behind it, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can read more and sign the petition here:
The bill has been promoted as providing the option for a terminally ill person who is suffering intolerably to get assistance to end his or her life in a dignified manner at a time of their choosing. It isn’t. Seymour’s Bill is much broader with wording which opens a wide spectrum of people suffering from a wide variety of conditions to the scope of the proposed legislation.
When Maggie Thatcher was elected the first female Prime Minister of the UK in 1979 there were many who hailed her victory as a victory for women. The argument went that irrespective of your political views it was worth celebrating the fact that a woman had finally made it to the top political job in the UK by popular vote.
The ACT Party were out on the weekend with 100 people supporting their Auckland march to oppose the closure of charter schools.
In their first 100 days Labour has offered us “not-National” policies but little else – unless a Woman’s Weekly Prime Minister is considered in the common good.
