GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – What’s happened to Kindness?
There are a lot of things I applaud in our current government. You only have to look at the carnage Covid 19 has been allowed to cause in countries such as the USA and the UK, for example, to realise that were it not for the decisive leadership our government has shown throughout this public health crisis many New Zealanders, perhaps me, perhaps some of you reading this post, would not be alive today.
But no government is perfect and this one certainly has a central flaw which it needs to address if we want to have a society where every child gets a fair chance at being the best that they can be.
And what’s that flaw?
Answer – it wants to practice the politics of kindness while clinging to the neoliberal economics of meanness introduced by the 4th Labour Government 36 years ago..
This is nowhere more apparent when you look at the numbers of our children living in households experiencing income poverty.
Despite introducing the Child Poverty Reduction Act in 2018 Child Poverty Action Group report we still have approximately
241,600 children living in households with less that 50% of the median income after housing cost are deducted ( the NZ poverty line)
167,600 of our children living households with less than 40% of the median income after housing costs are deducted
66,100 are experiencing severe material hardship.
If you gathered all these kids together what would it look like?
241,600 – imagine the entire population of Auckland’s Northshore
167,600 – imagine the entire population of Hamilton and add about 10,000 more
The shame of it is that the record shows (kept by Stats NZ) that today’s situation is roughly as it was in 2007.
The plight of these children was not met in the last budget.
That’s not kindness.
PS More detailed information can be found on CPAG’s site
https://www.cpag.org.nz/the-latest/current-statistics/?
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Sadly , very sadly, – you are right as you more than often are, Bryan Bruce.
Never stop campaigning and never give up. Thanking you.
‘Answer – it wants to practice the politics of kindness while clinging to the neoliberal economics of meanness introduced by the 4th Labour Government 36 years ago.’
Spot on, Bryan.
And by clinging to the dysfunctional neoliberal economics of meanness (and accumulation of wealth by the few at the expense of the many) the Adern government digs its own grave and that of NZ.
NZ under Adern is not doing well. It is simply doing less badly than it would under National. The loot-and-pollute and transfer-wealth-upwards continue unabated, and it will be the children who will pay the ultimate price, when the system goes under fairly soon (having destroyed the base it needs to exist).
But try telling that to any politician. The institutional deafness is truly appalling.
…’ But try telling that to any politician. The institutional deafness is truly appalling’…
———————–
And quite deliberate.
“And quite deliberate”
Yep, I wonder about that these days, but aside from the gNats who are equipped with Divine Rights, and who’ve pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, I look at others that have come in with the best of intentions but who then succumb to the cistern.
Now I’m thinking we may have lost the best opportunity we’ve had in a century to reform that system and structure. But you know what they say about the definition of madness.
At the moment the neoliberal fiscal giants appear to be biding their time while wealth transfer to them continues under civid19. Remember Grant gave them $31 billion to play with and if we are lucky the public may get to use 8% of that as trickle down.
Labour is busy attempting to ride the wave and keep the covid19 campaign rolling.
I suspect they know full well that any structural changes made moving away from neoliberal ideology will see a very powerful reaction against that with MSM used ruthlessly. NACT will bide their time waiting and niggling until Labour tries to break out of privatisation. strengthen our health system, expand education and refuse to give tax cuts to coporate investors.
As Grant puts it that we do not need to scare the horses.
Once Labour are elected as a majority then swift action will be needed that is hard to turn back.
Nordmeyer type suicide was not well planned strategically.
A simple start will be to open up a Govt backed Kiwisaver fund as an option. Let the public vote with their feet.
Bryan or someone else, could you expand upon…….241,600 children living in households with less that 50% of the median income after housing cost are deducted ( the NZ poverty line):
1) What is the Median income?
2) And what is the median income after housing cost are deducted?….this must be difficult to calculate, given two variables, with big city rents skewing the data?
Thanks for any help.
“….it wants to practice the politics of kindness while clinging to the neoliberal economics of meanness introduced by the 4th Labour Government 36 years ago..
This is nowhere more apparent when you look at the numbers of our children living in households experiencing income poverty.”
This is why – despite being an old lefty and a longtime Labour voter – I won’t be voting Labour at the next election. And possibly never again.
The government clearly doesn’t “want” to practice the politics of kindness or it would.
It’s not some sort of mistake, its a cheesy slogan: There has never been an intention to change the system, which makes this government more cynical and hypocritical than the National/ACT bloc they despise.
At least NACT are honest about not caring about the poor.