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Welfare debate already ugly

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, June 10th, 2010 - 74 comments

According to Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, the welfare debate could get nasty: “we may even see an ugly side of New Zealand”. Well here’s a newsflash – the welfare debate is already ugly. The Nats have worked long and hard to make it ugly. Paula Bennett the ugly side of New Zealand is you.

Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, June 8th, 2010 - 24 comments

According to a new report: “New Zealand is a great place for children if their parents have a good income, live in a warm dry house and are well educated.” However if you’re not born into a privileged household, then death and disease “is worse than that of all but two [developed] countries, Mexico and Turkey.”

Coddington on our overgrown weeds

Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, June 6th, 2010 - 21 comments

Tall poppy syndrome. It’s one of those useful, mindless terms that comes up again and again in our political discourse. Like its cousin ‘PC’ it is used to delegitimise any criticism the behaviour of those with privilege and power towards others. It survives because it is useful to an elite, not because it makes any sense.

The weak neolib defence of asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, June 1st, 2010 - 23 comments

The neoliberal dinosaurs at Anti-dismal have presented their defence of National’s privatisation agenda by responding to my post “Privatisation: the facts”. Their responses offer an insight into the neoliberal mind – asset stripping is good, it’s fine to get ripped off when selling assets, and who cares that the ‘mums and dads’ line is bollocks, the rich deserve the assets more.

The tax swindle, visualised

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 pm, May 25th, 2010 - 75 comments

Here’s a graph of tax week’s tax swindle. I can’t do the property tax/rent increase part but here’s the net weekly effect of the income tax changes and the GST hike. These numbers match up with those provided by Treasury. The first 1.2 million taxpayers get less than a dollar a week. The first 3 million (of 3.4 million) get an average of $4.24 a week. The top 100,000 average $105 a week.

Daily Show on lucky duckies

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, May 25th, 2010 - 7 comments

Seeing as the theme of the day has been inequality and class war, this video from the Daily Show is very appropriate. Interesting to see that in the US the Right is running the same ‘lucky ducky‘ line about the poor who are supposedly getting it easy because their incomes are so low they don’t […]

Nats floundering on inequality

Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, May 25th, 2010 - 35 comments

Pointing out that a “rich get richer” budget is going to increase inequality in NZ seems to be making the Nats uncomfortable. Bill English tries to simply deny the facts. DPF tries to divert attention to “social mobility”. Lame efforts in both cases. The truth is that inequality isn’t on the Nats radar. They simply don’t care.

Working Kiwis aren’t lazy

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 pm, May 24th, 2010 - 74 comments

The Right claims that people who aren’t on high incomes are just lazy and need to work harder, and, so, are undeserving of a fair deal. It’s insulting, it’s false, it’s just another excuse for maintaining the wealthy’s privileged position. Most people who work long hours are on low and middle incomes. And there are hundreds of thousands of low income Kiwis wanting more work.

Nasty attacks on workers hidden in Budget

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 pm, May 23rd, 2010 - 30 comments

There’s some mean little barbs hidden in the Budget. National has abolished a tax rebate for redundant workers that helps you out if you are made redundant and your payout pushes you into a higher tax bracket. It’s a petty mean-hearted attack from an increasingly rightwing government. In fact, this insult to hard working Kiwis is an exact repetition of what they did in 1992.

I can’t believe it’s not satire!

Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, May 23rd, 2010 - 94 comments

The other day, we had a satire guest post about ‘thank the rich day’. Michael Laws appears determined to out do us: “On Thursday, this Key/English administration decided to abandon the pretence that we are an egalitarian society, or that we should ever attempt to be so. The wealthy are the wealthy because they merit that status, was the prime minister’s underlying message.”

The Brash budget

Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, May 22nd, 2010 - 17 comments

Colin James makes a good point in his latest column which talks about the rightward shift this budget has created: Longer term, the Budget points to smaller government. Core spending is projected to fall from 35 per cent of GDP now to 28 per cent in the early 2020s. The last National leader to talk […]

Did the tax agenda deliver?

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, May 21st, 2010 - 11 comments

In what it seems to think is an act of benevolence and economic genius, National has decided to borrow a pile of money, cut key public services, put up GST, and give me an extra $1000 a year. Will it make me work harder? Hell no. My partner and I are already paid plenty. If anything it will make us look at ways to reduce the amount we work.

Government Propaganda: Corrected

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, May 21st, 2010 - 20 comments

There’s some useful scenarios to look at on the beehive’s tax site. They show how we all pay less tax, even after GST, and somehow the government also gets more tax. I love maths like that. But some of them seem to have something missing, so I thought I’d correct a couple of them…

…and your children’s children

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 pm, May 20th, 2010 - 70 comments

Let’s get this straight. Borrowing a billon dollars for tax cuts while cutting services is not centrist.

Even if tax cuts go to middle and low earners too.

Meanwhile the opposition is MIA.

The courage of his convictions

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, May 20th, 2010 - 56 comments

Hone Harawira does not want to vote for the ‘don’t be jealous’ budget and he doesn’t think the Maori Party will be standing true to its principles or supporters if it does. Harawira sought permission to vote against the Budget. Tariana Turia, who is awfully comfortable in the back of her Crown limo, refused. Let’s hope Harawira has the courage cross the floor anyway.

So what’s the rabbit?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 53 comments

The Nats thought they could spin anything. Even more tax cuts for the rich.

But they were wrong.

What rabbit will they pull out of the fiscal hat now? And who will fall for the trick?

Grateful poor to thank rich for trickle down wealth

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 29 comments

It is befitting that the 27st of May – just one week after the Budget – marks Thank The Rich Day, which sees poor people the length of the country gearing up to offer their gratitude to the rich for their contribution to the welfare of the poor through making themselves richer. Thank The Rich Day is, in fact, the brainchild of grocery packer Joe Brown…

Inequality Aspiration Envy

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, May 19th, 2010 - 71 comments

Inequality is terribly damaging to society. National want to increase inequality by transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. They argue that this provides “incentives” for the vast majority of the rest of us to “get ahead”. But this aspirational argument is both incoherent and absurd.

Excusing the ‘Don’t Be Jealous’ Budget

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 19th, 2010 - 15 comments

Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ’em.

Closing the wage gap

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, May 19th, 2010 - 5 comments

Unions are closing the wage gap in the oil industry using collective action

Meanwhile the government is preparing to give rich individuals tax cuts and has been eroding the rights of workers.

Green alternative budget

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, May 18th, 2010 - 53 comments

The Greens have released their alternative budget, “Mind the Gap”. It focuses on the inequality between rich and poor in NZ (rightly called “the scourge of modern societies”). It’s great to see the Greens tackling this issue head on.

Renters will pay for Nats’ tax cuts for the rich

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 71 comments

The tax changes that will soon be announced are characterised even by the Government as a ‘tax swap’. They are fiscally neutral. The tax burden will not fall. All that will change is who it will fall on. Most people end up neutral or slightly worse off from the GST and income tax changes. The rich get huge cuts, which renters will end up paying for. Who are the renters? The census tells us.

Financial crisis spreading

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, May 8th, 2010 - 42 comments

In other cheery news this morning: “Euro crisis goes global as leaders fail to stop the rot”. Germany’s Chancellor says that “politics have to reassert primacy over the financial markets”…

Pay rises for CEOs, pay cuts for workers

Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, May 7th, 2010 - 13 comments

The other day I wrote about pay rises for workers. 75% of non-union workers took a pay cut last year. Seems their bosses made off a lot better. Despite all the business collapses and the 21,000 lost jobs, half of all CEOs got a pay rise last year and the typical pay rise was a massive 5% (only 10% of workers got a 5%+ way rise). It’s the essence of class war.

Nats show their contempt for working Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, May 6th, 2010 - 6 comments

Yesterday, Darien Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill was voted down by the Government. Disgraceful. The Nats added a kick in the teeth by having David Bennett lead their side of debate with a mad, disrespectful speech. Congratulations to Darien, Labour, the Greens, Progressives, the Maori Party, and the groups representing 350,000 Kiwi workers who fought for this. We’ll win next time.

Rising education costs undermine our future

Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, May 5th, 2010 - 27 comments

You might say that National’s new $50 a year graduate fee is a small thing. But it’s another discouragement for a young person who is looking at either going straight into low-skill, low-pay work or borrowing thousands to get some skills. The last thing we need to be doing is discouraging more people from going on to polytech or uni.

Another blow to families

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, April 28th, 2010 - 42 comments

Not content with raising the cost of living through a GST increase, the Nats are clearly planning another blow to young families. In a move that breaks yet another election promise, Bill English is preparing the ground for the axing of 20 hours free early childhood education.

Goff: I’ll reverse unfair tax cuts for the rich

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 pm, April 24th, 2010 - 125 comments

Labour leader Phil Goff has come out swinging against National’s proposal to cut the top tax rate. It’s great to see Phil living up to his promise to stand up for the many, not the few. National’s plan to cut the top rate will only benefit the very wealthy, like John Key. Now we can stand assured, the 6th Labour Government will fix that injustice.

Weeding out low quality

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, April 24th, 2010 - 58 comments

The Nats are looking to cut $1.8 billion in spending over four years. Where from? What and who will be deemed to be “low quality” in need of “weeding out”? The answers are going to tell us a lot about the National Party’s values…

John Key to slash public services

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 pm, April 22nd, 2010 - 48 comments

John Key is planning to slash and burn $2 billion out of our public services. Key says the slashing is needed to pay for increasing health and education costs. Bullshit. It’s about paying for John Key’s and his rich mates’ tax cuts.

Give that bludger a tax cut

Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, April 19th, 2010 - 102 comments

Patent lawyer John David Hardie is a bludger. You and me, we pay our taxes. We know we get public services and a decent society out of it. This rich prick is trying to get out of a $10.3 million tax bill. What to do with this rich bludger? How about give him a $1.25 million tax cut. That’s what that other rich layabout John Key is planning.