Remember when John Key used to talk about the “underclass”. Much recently of course John Key’s policy direction has been more about pandering to the wealthy elite, so you don’t hear so much from John Key about his concerns for the underclass anymore. But worries about the underclass still concern some people.
Tau Henare is opposing Labour’s suggested policy of taking GST off fruit and vegetables saying “If they can’t afford to buy a lettuce or a tomato then they should give up the drink and the smokes,” and “It’s a well-known fact that poor people, if they don’t have enough money, will buy smokes and not bread.” Really? Well, it took two minutes checking on the Stats’ website to prove him wrong.
The Nat/ACT/Maori Party government has seen 55,000 more people go on benefits. They want to work. There aren’t enough jobs. How to make […]
In 2008, John Key was promising us a brighter future. 18 months on, we’re in that future he was talking about and Kiwis are reporting their lives are worse than they were before he came to power. 83% of Kiwis surveyed by ShapeNZ rated their quality of life as ‘good’ or better, down from 89% in 2008 and 92% in 2007. Key has a responsibility to live up to his promises
The eXileD has a piece on Ireland’s woes and how they got there. The 1980s neoliberal revolution and dodgy deals for the Right’s mates are familiar. Ireland became a tax haven for bludging international financiers. It’s all come crashing down but John Key wants to copy their mistake by creating an offshore financial centre here.
Denis Tegg of Coromandel Watchdog writes that National is vastly over-estimating the mining potential of the Coromandel. It would take hundreds of mines and tens of millions of tonnes of toxic tailings to get the billions promised. The people of Waihi know that despite the wealth dug up from underneath them, their town is mired in poverty and permanently threatened by tailings leaking.
I got a call from a friend today, thanks to National his rent is going up. I’ll call him Ned. He’s retired and […]
The poor don’t need tax cuts for the top 12% to to inspire them to want to get out of poverty. Poverty is inspiration enough. But thepoor cannot all become rich. To function capitalism needs poverty. There’s got to be lots of people doing the shitty, dangerous, hard jobs for cheap. And the wealth will always flow to the elite few who own capital or defend their interests.
Duncan Garner: “Key must get the compensation [for GST] right or there will be a backlash from voters” Problem is, you can’t get everyone to put some money in a bucket, give a large chunk of it to the rich and then compensate everyone else for what they put in with what is left. It can’t add up.
In their attempts to justify putting up GST on all New Zealanders to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy few, the Right are going so far as to argue that middle and low income New Zealand doesn’t even exist.
The other day I wrote: I reckon we probably will see a passing reference to the ‘underclass’ for appearance’s sake [in John Key’s […]
I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. But how long would he keep up the facade once the PR value had worn off?
The ‘3 strikes’ policy is the kind of policy you put in place when you want to look tough on crime but you […]
Earlier this year, Paula Bennett released the personal details of two women who get the DPB who had opposed her cancelling of a grant […]
The government is beginning to explain more about its Whanau Ora plan, although it is still startlingly vague considering we’re talking a billion […]
Got too much stuff? Know people with too much stuff? Do something different for your friends and family this Christmas. Instead of giving […]
The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services has released its annual Vulnerability Report. Due to rising unemployment, 219,000 children now live in households […]
I’ve been having a look at the OECD’s report on child poverty. A lot of the data is quite of of date and […]
The Standard hasn’t commented on what’s happening with NZAID yet, and people can be forgiven for not knowing what’s going on. But chances […]
