The myth that National are better managers of the economy has been laid bare as a sick joke

9 years of National Party rule 

The myth that National are better managers of the economy has been laid bare as a sick joke by all these briefing papers showing the truth behind National’s vacant aspiration.

The horror story of what the last 9 years has done to almost every sector of our country is now violently apparent…

Health

• Health care waiting lists have recently become one of the most prominent complaintsmade about District Health Boards, the Health and Disability Commissioner has told the new Health Minister.

• There were also issues which needed addressing within the midwifery care, aged care, disability support services, primary care, mental health – where services were “clearly struggling” – workplace culture and leadership and seamless service delivery, the commissioner said.

Housing

• The Government says it has “inherited a mess” after newly released figures on the country’s housing crisis put the national shortfall at more than 70,000 homes.

• State housing agencies said the new Government’s plan to increase its social housing supply by 1000 a year could impact the cost and speed at which it happens.

• A new report to the Housing Minister showed a total of $21.6m was spent on emergency housing grants in the six months to September this year – driven by higher demand than expected.

• Housing New Zealand has identified a need for a long term sustainable financial strategy as it grapples with an increased need for social housing.

Education

• State-owned universities and polytechnics have embarked on a building spree that will increase their combined debt by more than half, from $452 million at the end of last year to $697m next year, the Tertiary Education Commission says.

• The Education Review Office says it is still concerned about the quality of some home-based early childhood education services. A review of home-based early education is one of the office’s six immediate priorities, along with reviewing learning support, Special Education Grants, guidance counsellor funding, teacher training and more effective school evaluation.

• Education Minister Chris Hipkins will receive an Education Ministry report this month setting out a business case for education growth in Auckland over the next 10 years.

• The Education Ministry says it planned to provide a Cabinet paper for Hipkins last month on extending the voluntary bonding scheme to all Auckland schools.

Crime and justice

• The prison population is expected to soar to more than 12,000 by 2026, Corrections has revealed to its new minister.

• In the Labour Government’s first 100 days in power, police are keen to address firearms legislation and policy with their new minister.

And the organisation will seek the minister’s views on a range of other issues affecting the frontline including gangs and family harm, fleeing drivers and road policing.

• Pressure on the criminal justice system pipeline is currently the sector’s most “significant challenge”.

Transport

• The Ministry of Transport has told new Transport Minister Phil Twyford that rapid technological changes are making it more difficult to estimate future infrastructure demand, raising the risk of over-investing in some physical projects and a poor return. Things like smart vehicle-to-vehicle technologies allowing more vehicles to travel on roads, autonomous vehicles and ride-sharing are on the horizon.

• The Ministry of Transport says “we are reaching the stage where expensive land acquisitions or tunnels would be required to expand major transport corridors, making these developments prohibitively expensive or disruptive”. “In Auckland, there are few opportunities to build or expand transport corridors due to its challenging geography. Auckland’s motorway network will be largely complete once the Western Ring Route is constructed.”

Environment

• Environment officials have recommended their new minister begin by addressing a tax on bottled water, amid dire warnings about growing demands for freshwater in New Zealand.

They also believe regional councils should have increased powers, so they could potentially claw back consents where catchments are over-allocated.

• New Zealand needs a more proactive plan for adapting to climate change, “requiring action across many parts of the economy” environment officials say.

Conservation

• The Department of Conservation says its key challenges are:

– Continued decline of native threatened species
– Insufficient knowledge of species biology, populations, distribution and threats
– A biodiversity challenge that extends beyond public conservation lands and waters, that government cannot address alone
– Insufficient understanding of the contribution of our unique nature and heritage to our nation’s economic, cultural and social success is not well understood by the public
– The need to deepen effective and enduring relationships with our Treaty partners in a post-settlement era
– Unprecedented growth in tourism is changing funding needs, and expectations of the department – putting pressure on facilities, but creating opportunities to increase investment in conservation

Immigration

• Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has been told to expect “significant changes” at Immigration New Zealand’s Visa Services branch. The agency’s offshore presence will be reduced from 17 locations to five.

• The agency said the changes were part of efforts to further enhance its technology platforms and simplify end-to-end visa application process.

• The minister was also told that three reports would be released in early 2018, which will include visa transitions and outcomes of international students, the labour markets of temporary migration and the annual Migration Trends report.

Internal Affairs

• Archives NZ is in crisis and its ability to function is compromised by the lack of space and earthquake safety issues. New buildings are required. There is no longer space to accept anything new in Wellington.

Christchurch regeneration

• The Government wants to make sure taxpayers don’t fork out too much for the rebuild of Christchurch, incoming Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods was told in handover documents.

Natural disasters

• The Earthquake Commission accepts that “mistakes and missteps” were made after the devastating Canterbury earthquake sequence 2010-2011.

Defence and national security

• Up to one in six deployed personnel could have some form of long-term mental health issue arising from experiences during service.

Social issues

• Families with children, particularly one-parent and Maori and Pacific families, experience much higher levels of discrimination in the private rental market, the Human Rights Commission has told incoming Minister Phil Twyford.

The commission intends to ask Twyford to enact better rental legislation that gives more security towards tenants with children and vulnerable adults.

• Steps by police to tackle hate crimes and racism are currently “insufficient”. Details of the crimes need to be recorded by a central system.

• There is an urgent need to reduce the risk of radicalisation and violent extremism by using community-based strategies and programmes to support residents, the Human Rights Commission warned.

Social tensions can arise between diverse communities as pressures upon housing, social services, misunderstandings of New Zealand’s social norms and an increase in cultural and religious differences. The commission suggested an increased emphasis on education to foster a sense of inclusiveness between and among communities.

• An aging population will challenge New Zealand’s ability to grow economically, the Ministry for Social Development warned.

• Almost a quarter of Kiwis identify as having a disability, the Human Rights Commission identified. This is due to increase with New Zealand’s ageing population.

This group do not fare as well as non-disabled people. They are twice as likely to be unemployed, earn $200 less a week when they are employed and 20 per cent of them are under-utilised and want more work (compared with 5 per cent in the general labour market). Disabled children are more likely to be bullied and the number not in education, employment or training is four times higher than the mainstream.

The Disability Rights Commissioner will focus on education and employment sectors as key areas that determine a person’s life course.

• The Human Rights Commission is challenged by fewer staff than it had a decade ago and tight organisational funding. Since 2007 it has undergone two significant restructures to manage cost pressures and put staff on a performance-based pay system.

• Using the paid parental leave extension to encourage men to take time off to care for their child is one of the suggestions the new Government has received to improve the lives of Kiwi women, as revealed in a briefing to the Ministry for Women.

• New Zealand has one of the highest rates of residential mobility among developed countries. It is nearly twice that of the United Kingdom. This is accompanied by very low levels of social housing tenancies and decreasing levels of home ownership.

…National’s economic agenda over the last 9 years has been to open the floodgates of cheap immigration to fuel a speculative property bubble to keep the property speculating middle classes believing they were millionaires based on their over inflated house prices while privatising public assets to subsidise their corporate farmer mates irrigation plans and slashing welfare to pay for the tax cuts.

The obviousness of this hollowing out of public services and the social damage their property speculation, draconian welfare reforms and mass migration has created are no longer hidden but the contemptuous denial by 44% of the voting electorate means none of this will be acknowledged.

If the new Government are serious about the problems confronting them, they must be prepared to use the looming economic crash as an opportunity to rebuild the entire public service and re-regulation of the economy using borrowed money that goes outside the self-imposed boundaries Labour & the Greens have committed themselves to in order to not spook our corporate overlords, because when the crash comes our Corporate Overlords will be the least of our problems.