The day Jacinda betrayed children in poverty for the Wellington bureaucracy & Andrew Little’s last stand
Once again the neoliberal Wellington bureaucracy beats Jacinda’s best intentions…
The Government considered immediately lifting benefits by $50, which would have more than doubled the number of children pulled out of impoverished households.
This would have also doubled the immediate cost of the benefit increase, pushing it above $1 billion.
Ultimately the Government opted to spread the benefit increase over two Budgets, lifting core benefits by $20 from July 1 this year and topping them up next year to lift all benefits by $32 to $55 overall.
The initial boost was estimated to cost just under $500 million, and total package $3.3b over four years, lifting up to 33,000 children out of poverty.
…this is ultimately a political failure by Labour – they didn’t expect to win in 2017 & didn’t expect to win a majority in 2020, so they had no reform agenda for the neoliberal bureaucracy.
There’s no point shoveling billions into policy when the bureaucracy fiefdoms rule!
You can see why Mike King handed back his medal in shame.
The real difference difference between Labour and National is this.
National are ruthless pricks. Nasty, bullying ruthless pricks and you need nasty bullying ruthless pricks to beat the bejesus out of the Wellington bureaucracy to actually get shit done.
Labour on the other hand wants to give everyone a cuddle and an inclusive Hui with a vegan lunch menu in te Reo and a side dish of pronouns, where they all feel safe and as such, the Wellington bureaucracy isn’t scared of Labour.
Jacinda pumped $1.9 billion into mental health and what has she got for it? 5 extra acute mental health beds! The Wellington bureaucracy are laughing at her and divvying up the latest splurge of cash on whatever they want.
New Zealanders don’t understand that the representative democracy they interact with once every 3 years is merely a masquerade of democracy, a pretense to keep you voting and giving the process the flimsiest of legitimacies, the real powers are the Wellington bureaucracy and a Party’s success is determined purely by how much they can force the Wellington bureaucracy to actually implement policy.
In the words of the great Unionist, Robert Reid…
National got shit done because the Wellington bureaucracy was frightened of them, Labour can’t achieve jack shit because they are too busy giving everyone a cuddle.
Kiwibuild, child poverty, inequality, that bloody bike bridge we all know they will never build – Labour can’t bully or headkick the Wellington bureaucracy and that’s why nothing ever gets done.
This frustration is evident with Andrew Little damnding mr accountability…
Health Minister Andrew Little introduces 12 new indicators to replace ‘arbitrary’ health targets
Health Minister Andrew Little is launching 12 new indicators to assess how well the health system is working for New Zealanders, to replace what he describes as “arbitrary” targets scrapped in 2017.
…Jacinda and Grant are too frightened by the Wellington bureaucracy to force real change, Andrew Little isn’t frightened.
That makes Andrew our last hope.
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To me Labour’s problems come back to them relying on a ministerial bureaucracy to implement their whims (policies), not the bureaucracies themselves. Otherwise you have to sign up to the belief that each Monday morning the respective bureaucracy heads hold a meeting setting the agenda on how they are not going to carry out government policy this week. Accompanied by evil laughter.
Light rail is a good example. Jacinda said in 2017 that Labour would deliver light rail from Wynyard to Mt Roskill by 2021. There was no plan, no homework done, nothing for the respective government departments to work from or with. Just a whim. They didn’t seem to realise the NZ government does not have a civil engineering department to call upon anymore.
The funds were put in place upon been elected. But somehow Labour politicians, who seem to have no adult life experience, thought some government department would just make it happen, just like that. Little men like the 7 dwarfs would just hi ho off to work and build a light rail system magically, well at least in their infantile brains thinking they would. And Jacinda starring as Snow White, making them sandwiches. Yep.
Kiwibuild, same
Mental health, same.
Climate change, same.
The $50 increase in benefits was actually an easy win for Jacinda, a paper transaction. She elected to be fiscally prudent. She would have already known they would claw it back anyway. And if she has an IQ level above a brick she would have known that because Labour have failed so miserably to address the housing crisis, that $50 was headed into landlords pockets anyway. A pointless virtue signaling exercise.
As for Andrew Little, he wasn’t voted 3rd prize as an amateur comedian at last week’s Doctors conference he attended for no reason. All they had to recall is the mental health debacle their Minister seemed entirely unaware of until the media let him know, to conclude he has zero credibility.
His 12 new indicators mean sweet FA in a government that has mastered the art of non delivery!
Truth was it took a massive economic depression during the early 1930’s and an equally as massively destructive and murderous world war to force the global power elites to consider their futures to effect any change. If they hadn’t, the howling, rioting mobs who’d just been through that world war and were armed, trained and willing would have torn down their doors.
Hence Keynesianism. However, that didn’t suit them so along came Lassez faire’s cousin, neo liberalism, to claw it all back.
We’ve come close with covid, but not nearly enough.
As for what needs to happen to overturn neo liberalism, I’ll leave those thoughts up to others to think about in light of the above. As for me?… a return to a similar economic setting we had before 1984 would strengthen this country immeasurably and cure many of our ills.
“We wuz gunna give bennies $50 but the officials said no”–even taken with all necessary cynicism that statement from PM Jacinda illustrates just how neo lib the Labour Caucus is apart from Willie Jackson.
WINZ/MSD remain as punitive and sadistic as they ever were. Sanctioning, standing down, moralising and instituting what are effectively life time debts on vulnerable working class people.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018807392/beneficiaries-ending-up-in-dire-straits-unnecessarily-moroney
I am incredibly worried that Labours back of a postage stamp plan to overhaul the DHB system will be a disaster.
As I said above, unless there are robust detailed step by step plans with ministerial and project management know how, micromanagement and communication, this whim is going to go spectacularly wrong with the publics health services failing even more than now.
As much as the DHB system needs attention (and far bigger budgets), doing a typical Labour on this subject and leaving it to the interpretation of layers of bureaucrats to work out is a disaster waiting to happen.
Given Jacindas Labour government’s shortcomings in this area, I would prefer they left it alone.
Every stupid idea they have to centralise and restructure is a disaster, government can pretend they are doing something without actually having any outcome! Stop doing it! Has anybody got any restructure any government has done that made things better???
I am with you on the worrying prospect of this crowd getting more power . They are trying to do the same with water but it seems the $ 2.8 million bribe and the TV ad has not worked so they will either have to strong arm councils or just let the idea slide along with the cycle bridge in Auckland and the light rail to the airport.
The Natz were just as bad. No matter who is in power, thinking that a marketing restructure or centralisation of power has worked in NZ is not true, they need to work out the problem and then legislate that under existing laws. The worst is that the government and councils are one of the worst for adding to the problems with their neoliberal dogma. For example Landcare converted a lot of forestry to dairy farms during the ‘boom’ then landcare was selling off their land holdings, then government allowing millions of new residents into NZ when they knew there was no infrastructure for the new people and thus the pollution would increase. They failed to track all the new people and many were liars and a disaster, aka vineyards and Waiwera being ruined and economic activity lost instead of gained, then even if forced to sell, they then make a killing on their land banking. Then all the chefs, labourers and so forth who don’t seem to have filled any skills shortages as apparently their industry is still braying, but their low wages mean they will be able to go on benefits, not to mention the petty and serious criminals setting up ventures in NZ and the individualists training for their terror attacks, because NZ welcomes them in.
Without meaningfully addressing housing, benefit increases disadvantage the majority of lower income earners/renters.
It’s snowing lightly where I am, big flakes floating down lightly, and looking very pretty. When I went into the Sallies, the lady said her hands were so numb with the cold, that her touch wasn’t registering on the eftpos machine. If it’s like that in a heated shop this morning, heaven knows what it’s like waking up in a garage, or aunty’s wash house, or trying to get the children off to school from somebody’s shed, or the family car.
Still, govt says we’re not doing this until we can do it properly – something like that.
THE REAL BENEFIT INCREASE WAS PEANUTS.
1.Giving those on benefit $50 would have made a significant difference .And was a fair go.
2.Giving $20 was better than nothing but only made a marginal difference when you look at current housing and food costs.
3.Only half of those on a benefit got the full $20 .Why ?
Half of all those on a benefits who had received ( accommodation grants ),(temporary additional support) or( a disability allowance ), either got nothing at all or a reduced amount between $5-$10 .They will ,in all likely hood receive around the same $5- $10 increase next year not the full $50 .
IE: It was a means tested increase not a universal increase .Cheap trick .
Thousands of households on benefits have been deeply disappointed and are really no better off than before . Being able to afford one more $5 latte a week ain’t gonna solve child poverty .
For half the people on a benefit , WINZ (with Labour’s support ), gave with one hand and then took away with the other hand in an “accounting adjustment” , thus denying those people any meaningful increase. .
Labour then went on , to spin it as some great victory for uplifting the poor . Complete bullshit .For at least 1/2 of those on benefit the real increase ,if any , was more like zero to $5 not $50
5.Despite the promise to increase the dental allowance for those on a benefit in the budget , this still has not occurred . Even Judith Collins agrees its advantageous to have some teeth at a job interview .
6. People on benefits are a captive demographic for Labour so it doesn’t really matter how you treat them , as they will probably not vote for Act or National .
Well Done Jacinda for our Toyko medal haul , but when it comes it comes to winning the gold medal for child poverty , affordable housing, and mental health ,you are still not even close to a bronze .
So the targets were scrapped in 2017 and it has taken 4 years to work out there replacement.
Little is an ex union man and dealing with the nurses should have been more on the ball so to talk of him as the last resort shows how limited Labour is in quality ministers
It is absolutely incorrect to say the National achieved things while in office, while Labour hasn’t achieved anything. This article was written by someone who presumably doesn’t have covid, for example.
When in office National had a 4 point plan.
Their plan went like this.
1). Deny that there is a problem.
2). After constant pressure say that there might be a problem
3). After much more pressure say that they will look into it
4). Do nothing
That is how they governed for 9 years