Joe Carolan: Last day of Mt Albert by-election – WHAT PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT STAND FOR:
What people before profit stands for…
Make the minimum wage a living wage of $20 per hour
Reintroduce penal rates for the weekends – $30 per hour for nightshifts and weekends.
Rent control Now
Build 100,000 new state houses. Tax the 33,000 empty houses in Auckland 10% of their capital value to end speculation and build 100,000 new, warm, healthy state houses, creating employment.
Free Education for all
Tax the rich to pay for it. Stop inter-generational theft of a political class that benefited from state funded tertiary education. Cancel all student debt now.
Free Public transport
No more new road or motorway building. Use the savings to get 1,000 new electric buses for Auckland that are 24/7, free and frequent. Extend rail to the airport. System change not climate change.
No more corporate led globalisation
Unequivocally reject the TPPA and any proposed successor. Globalise environmental and labour rights – Workers of the World Unite!
Abolish the WINZ regime and unemployment
With solidarity centres and a liveable, universal basic income. Empower the community. Fund Playcentres, Eco Neighbourhoods, community art projects – allow young people to work in social schemes that benefit them and their neighbourhoods. Abolish secondary tax and GST. Fund it through a Robin Hood tax. Taxing all financial transactions at 1%.
Fight Racism and exploitation
Migrants and refugees are welcome here. Stop the deportations – amnesty for the Indian students. Double the refugee quota instantly – take 10,000 refugees as soon as possible.
Cut Politicians pay
Put them on the average wage and see how quickly the world will change. Abolish CCOs (Council Controlled Organisations) in Auckland. Put our port, transport and other resources under genuine community, democratic control.
End the war on drugs
Decriminalise. Fight poverty to fight the P epidemic. Provide free rehabilitation to those addicted to drugs.
Joe Carolan is the Socialist candidate for the Mt Albert by-election. Votes cast Saturday 25th
Great policies Joe. Anyone who thinks that Labour will fundamentally change anything for the good over the long term, while they are slaves to the free market ideology that dictates their economic policies are dreaming.
Turn Labour Left.
100%.
Not if there’s also a rule that says you can’t earn money from any source other than your salary for the duration of your time in Parliament. Also, any financial investments you own must be sold, and the money invested in a publicly-managed fund (eg the KiwiSaver fund) for the duration of your time in Parliament. Note that MPs would need to be put on the *median* average wage, not the *mean* average, which is skewed up by the super-high incomes of the mega-rich.
Kiwi saver is hardly a publicly managed fund. The public has no input to how the private firms play with your money and charge you for doing that.
If they loose the lot in banker induced a down turn then you have no money plus your savings account in a bank will be used to bail out the banks. Helen brought this gift to financiers in and John Key built on it.
Norman Kirk had a far sounder scheme for NZ
Love the ‘tax the 33,000 empty house owners’.
My addition,
Tell any industry that puts workers’ lives in danger (Talleys e.g.) that the first fine for serious injury is $1 million to the worker plus court costs and forfeiture of any profit for that year. If it happens again, because nothing has improved, the business is forfeited and becomes a co-operative and the existing workers will run it. Everything needed is there – managers, administration, line workers… But, they’re working for one another.
Workers should be running the Cadbury’s one in Dunedin. Any company that seeks to invest in New Zealand and then closes down should lose its buildings, fixtures and fittings. The co-operative to then run it would then share part of its profit with Cadbury’s e.g. as or if available.
Any govt funding or tax breaks given to those greedy, opportunistic investors should be refunded, before being allowed to leave. You know the type – if you haven’t paid your student loan, you can’t travel – applied to those that really do have the money hidden away in some other tax haven, and have just exploited NZ workers.
Good luck, Joe
Great policies. I always thought that all heads of unions should be paid the same as the people they represent that way some of them not all of course as some are already pretty stunning e.g. UNITE, would really get of their butt and work harder for their members.
Well back in the day backbenchers used to be paid the same as teachers, well well now they get double that amount what a crock that is.
Definitely need to pull politicians wages down!
“It’s the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you’re mad, then dangerous, then there’s a pause and then you can’t find anyone who disagrees with you.”
Tony Benn, The Observer, 6 October, 1991.
All the Best Joe.