John Minto

It is stupid of the government to spend tens of millions on motel accommodation for homeless families when we have 33,000 empty homes in Auckland.

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.

The Christchurch Progressive Network has written to Housing Minister Phil Twyford urging the government to consider implementing an Empty Homes Tax similar to the tax recently introduced in Vancouver, Canada.

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.

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.