Those who control Labour at any given time are on the shoulders of giants. For the 4 years, Labour has been controlled by a clique that led Labour to its worst defeat. A year later, with their second choice frontman as leader, they’re still in charge and Labour’s still below its 2008 result, on track for another defeat. The membership voted no confidence in the old guard on Saturday.
There was a time when you expected higher standards from the senior ranks of the public service. Now, more and more, they are just like private sector CEOs. Elitists. The standards are slipping. This slap on the wrist for the Building and Housing CEO who manhandled a staffer just shows how pervasive the elitist private sector ‘one law for us, another for them’ mentality has become.
Embattled Christchurch City Council CEO Tony Marryatt was asked on Campbell Live last night if he is worth his $500K salary. He said it is the market rate (in fact, its 100K over the median) and he would do the job whether the pay “was 200K or a million”. Now, doesn’t that mean the market clearing price for his labour is $200K? The Council could do a lot with an extra $300K. When’s the pay cut coming?
How did the wealth of the 151 richest people grow by 10% of GDP when the economy grew only 1.5%? Mostly by revaluing existing assets. Not a lot of ‘wealth creation’ from our self-appointed Randian Heroes, just book changes. But, apparently, we owe everything to the elite and need to let them suck up more of our wealth for themselves.
Wayne ‘Tipple’ Mapp went to Crete recently with veterans to commemorate our heroic defeat there in World War 2. Naturally, the old fellas who risked their lives and lost their mates 60 years ago got pride of place, like their Australian counterparts, eh? Nope. Mapp stayed in 26K of luxury while the vets had to fend for themselves.
John Key thinks National will lose some support because of the budget saying: “I wouldn’t be surprised if we ease back a bit. I mean that’s logical. Some of that sort of froth in there will come away”. Hear that, tens of thousands of swing voters who believed in the ‘brighter future that Key promised you and didn’t deliver? You’re just ‘froth’ to him.
It took National some weeks to get together a line on their multitudinous spending scandals. When they did, it was rather predictable: ‘Labour’s focused on the small things’. Pretty rich coming from corgi-boy Key. No defence of the actual excesses either. But, naturally, the Herald editorial has swallowed and regurgitated the line.
Patrick Gower has more on the helicopter flight that John Key took in 2009 after opening a walkway that Key says was necessary because of mystery meetings that were supposedly arranged that afternoon. The flight cost us $2,000 when Key learned the helicopter was owned by the Velas.
“We see you on TV a lot. What else do you do?” – schoolkid to John Key at yet another photo-op.
In other news, Key was lying when he said he doesn’t have any choice over his DPS entourage. Helen Clark dismissed her DPS cover for at least 73 days when on private holidays. Key spent $30K of our money taking the DPS to Hawaii.
The out of touchness, she burns! In a few short replies, the Nats said so much this week. The stories of perk abuse have been rolling out almost too fast, in fact. Each needs following up, each minister needs to be hounded, but there are so many targets. The galling thing is in a fortnight the Nats will tell us ‘everyone has to tighten their belts’.
Since Paula Redstock was pushed out of the Commerce Commission with a lot of the other brilliant staff, there has not been one cartel or monopoly abuse case prosecuted by the Commerce Commission. This is the very same Commission that was previously saving us millions of dollars each year and paying for itself with its court settlements.
Wayne Mapp revealed that Murray McCully’s air force flights to Vanuatu cost $65,000 in fuel alone and that he tried to stop McCully. Meanwhile, Key got a free helicopter ride from a photo-op but decided it was a bad look so he paid $2,000 for a 1 hour flight. Well, you and I paid $2,000. It’s always us lesser mortals who pay as Key and co bounce from cloud to cloud.
The cult of management holds that individual shareholders, managers or directors are the main contributors to the success of a corporation, and thence the economy. And deserve the greatest share of the rewards. The jobs and income of all other employees and State servants is a generous charitable gift from these people. It’s a bunch of crap.
National has pillaged the poor to benefit the rich. That can be seen in the tax cuts, the GST hike, the subsidies for climate polluters, even the cuts to public transport to fund holiday highways. But sometimes it’s the smaller stories that best expose the underlying theme of a government, as John Armstrong shows in his piece today.
National pollster David Farrar reckons that its sweet for the elite to spend $100 a head on meals at the taxpayer’s expense. Same time as he’s sneering at a woman struggling to get by feeding four people on $200 a week. This is National’s New Zealand. The best for the elite. Cat food for the rest.
The Crown BMWs are back in the news. One will have a $1000 underseat heater to keep a worthy’s arse toasty. Based in Dunedin. For “long-distance and long-duration movements”. Hmm. Who flies to Dunedin for a 3 hour drive to Dipton occasionally? Guess you need that heater against the Southern cold when you’re used to balmy Karori.
Labour’s candidate for Wairarapa, Michael Bott, on this out of touch government: “John Key smiles and waves for the cameras in Christchurch then jumps on a plane to Cape Kidnappers to spend the equivalent of a pensioner’s yearly income on one-off novelty dining with his wife – you can’t get more different than that.”
A UMR poll shows that 40% of Kiwis support paying an earthquake levy to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild. 22% prefer more borrowing, and 29% want spending cuts. Asked just whether they supported or opposed a levy – 57% supported it. Yet the Nats are choosing cuts instead.
Watching Simon Barnett mouthing some cliched pap in front of photogenic rubble in an ad the other night, I got to thinking about how the earthquake has been hijacked for celebrity. At every turn, the government has used the earthquake as a stage, while the people are pushed into the background and their needs ignored.
So what are you gonna do with the 9K of tax cuts you got with your 400K pa job since October? Why not pay 7K to shack up with 65 of the elite and eat a 6 course meal from foreign chefs?… What do you mean you’re not on 400K, you haven’t pocketed 9K in the last 5 months, and price rises ate your ‘tax cut’? You need a real job.
“The worldwide recession is not your fault… You are being softened up for cuts in social spending… It’s easy to see the people this government is looking after. If you are a bank boss on $5.6million, helping cause a recession, you get an extra five thousand a week. If you are on the minimum wage – you get an extra 25 cents an hour.”
The SST’s John Hartevelt is shocked by National’s decision to pay out millions for Christchurch rugby business while ordinary people live in shattered homes and lose their jobs with meager support. He asks whether the Nats have lost their moral-political bearings. In fact, this is a perfect example of National’s elitist philosophy.
The Welfare Working Group wants to get poor women to breed less by giving them free long-term contraception. Sure, this is all an ‘Overton window‘ exercise but eugenics? Seriously? Trying to stop one ‘undesirable’ strata of society from breeding is one step from forced sterilisations. Has the Right reverted 80 years?
Today’s Herald editorial explores Auckland Grammar’s decision to ditch NCEA in favour of the Cambridge exams and the support this elitism, which undermines the NCEA system, has received from Anne Tolley. Never shy to give helpful advice to its favoured PM, the Herald tells Key it’s time to rid himself of the incompetent Tolley.
Peter Dunne admits that income splitting will be available to only 310,000 families. The other 1.3 million will get nothing and be left to pick up the bill. Even of the lucky 19%, only a fraction will get big tax cuts. Most will get squat but a few families with big disparities between the partners’ incomes win big. Key has voted himself $22K of tax cuts so far, this would be another $9K. Will he be tempted?
