National’s Broken Promises

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, November 1st, 2010 - 18 comments
Categories: national, same old national - Tags:

Sometimes National are predictable, like when they can instantly rustle up $1.7 billion for a finance company’s shareholders, but can’t find $400 million for poor IHC carers or to pay our teachers properly.  Or when they can find $80 million to hang with a pair of hobbits, but can’t find money to give our toddlers the best educational start.

But sometimes it’s not predictable which promises they’ll break.  So I thought I’d try and keep track, starting with the biggies:

1/ According to John Key, the fundamental reason of his government was To Catch Australian Wages: instead we’ve gone backwards by over $50/week

2/ Not raise GST: it’s now 15%

3/ Leave the Early Childhood Education 20 hours free policy alone: they’ve broken it by cutting subsidies by $400 million, ensuring the quality of teaching decreases and the cost goes up for parents.  And now Tolley has raised the prospect of cutting the policy entirely.

4/ Ultra-fast broadband: we should all be connected to ultra-fast broadband by now.  Instead there are no moves so far.

5/ “Cap” civil servants, not cut any from the front line: over 2000 jobs gone, including from the “front line” of nurses and doctors etc.  Another 500 to go in the next year.

6/ Prioritise public education: instead they’ve cut Adult and Community Education and Early Childhood Education, using some of the money to fund private schools.  Indeed Stephen Joyce has said public education is not a short or medium term priority.  Meanwhile National Standards are set to lower the quality of what has just been pronounced the world’s best education system.

7/ Tax cuts “north of $50/week”: Only those earning over $80k have seen these, with those at the bottom of the income scale worse off tax-wise.  And much worse off after 2 years without pay rises due to National’s policies.

8/ No further restrictions on union access to workplaces: New bill introduces exactly this.

9/ They promised to allow beneficiaries to earn $100/week before their benefits were affected: But only did it for some.

10/ Abolish Maori seats (not that I have a problem with them breaking that one…)

11/ Be responsible economic stewards: they’ve put the country into debt to give our money to the rich, had a do-nothing economic policy that has failed to allow us to “race out of recession” (in John Key’s words), leaving us stumbling back into a second recession.  They’ve conducted multiple attacks (from the 90-day fire-at-will bills to the Hobbit law, with much inbetween) on the rights of the ~80% of us who are “workers” (employed for a living), lowering our wages in real terms.

Any I’ve missed?

18 comments on “National’s Broken Promises ”

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  1. the sprout 1
    1 November 2010 at 8:44 am

    12/ Reduce the flight of talent to Australia. Migration from NZ to Aust is going up.

    13/ Revive the economy with John Key’s Magical Cycleway to Salvation. Chain must have fallen off.

    14/ Stop Nanny-Statism. Instead we’ve seen countless instances of anti-democratic We Know Best rule by fiat, from Christchurch to the Auckland Supershitty.

    • Colonial Viper 1.1
      1 November 2010 at 10:49 am

      Don’t forget banning mobile phones while driving, which the research show is probably an ineffective step – or might in fact worsen the risk of accidents as drivers try and use their phones surreptitiously.

  2. pollywog 2
    1 November 2010 at 8:46 am

    5.4 million to PEDA LTD.

    I wonder how that money’s getting divvied up now ?

  3. DS 3
    1 November 2010 at 9:21 am

    15. Despite declaring that Voluntary Students’ Association Membership was not a priority, and that the existing law was sufficiently flexible, National has backed ACT’s VSM Bill to kill Students’ Associations to at least its second reading.

  4. the sprout 4
    1 November 2010 at 9:29 am

    16/ Increased accountability. Well… there are so many instances of that one being broken, but the latest is changing the rules to allow non-disclosure of MPs’ travel rebates.

    • Lanthanide 4.1
      1 November 2010 at 12:56 pm

      However that is the Speaker doing that, not National. John Key has publicly said he didn’t want Lockwood to do it. Whether he’s lying again is hard to say.

      Rodney has come out saying that the information should be kept public, and apparently the Greens are considering releasing their details anyway, which may in turn spur all the other parties to do it regardless of the Speaker’s ruling.

      So there is a little more left to play in this one before we can have a final judgement either way.

      • Carol 4.1.1
        1 November 2010 at 6:41 pm

        Key just said on TV3 news that he plans to continue to make this spending available to the public. Goff said he wants continued transparency, as did Turei. Dunne was the only one against it.

        However, one thing occurs to me. So far who has had control over releasing this information about spending? If parties have control over releasing this information, can they be subtley selective about what information they release?

      • Jum 4.1.2
        1 November 2010 at 11:45 pm

        Rodney’s just setting the scene ready for core-cutting the services in Auckland, and then country-wide; Florida-style.

        He will keep the rates low, by removing any socially responsible aspect of them; aspects that reinforce the difference between a caring region and a gutless, monetary-driven commercial model. The previous Councils could have removed any humanity from local government and kept the rates low – that wasn’t difficult, just not what people wanted. People wanted the whole package that considered all the community not just those who put greed above people. JKeyll and Hide put greed above community.

  5. ghostwhowalksnz 5
    1 November 2010 at 10:42 am

    Didnt he promise ‘not to borrow for tax cuts’
    The previous tax cuts were mostly a shifting of taxes.ie , first the Kiwisaver tax credits were taken from business for personal tax cuts and then GST went up for all and personal tax for some went down.
    But there was a fiscal hole for the last cuts/increase , where he had to ‘surprise’ every one and the difference was put down to ‘economic growth’.

    Well the growth doesnt look like it will happen, as predicted by many when National wound back labours stimulus spending.

  6. Colonial Viper 6
    1 November 2010 at 10:51 am

    Didn’t NAT force uni’s to cap the number of new NZ students a few months ago, just to raise the cap again recently? As far as I know universities still have in place new restrictions on part time students and students studying ‘for interest’.

    • Amber 6.1
      1 November 2010 at 1:55 pm

      Not quite.
      The funding cuts and restrictions that have been in place on growth (3% pa) meant that a lot of universities had already allocated a significant portion of their student based funding in first semester.
      For example: Massey had already used most of their funding to go towards students in semester I and II, meaning that there was very little left to fund summer semester students. Leading to very few places being available, so enrollments closed over a month early.

      The reason why the restrictions are still in place is two fold.
      First is the funding issue. This is a huge thing for all of the tertiary sector at the moment.
      The other is the awesome new way of funding that actively discourages anything that isn’t going to directly further the economy. So out goes mature learners, a lot of part time students and the people who are studying for interest rather than a degree.

      The new cap is for 2011 and is a standard growth formula. Like CPI for the amount of students funded.

      The extra number funded, however, is well down on what it has been in previous years. But usually it’s reported as a percentage rather than a hard number.

      • Jum 6.1.1
        1 November 2010 at 11:50 pm

        Doesn’t the dickhead Joyce understand that education has its own momentum; books in homes encourage learning; gran/grandad going back/to university to further their own education, purely for the love of learning, has more of an effect upon youth than the enforced regurgitating of work related tomes.

      • Colonial Viper 6.1.2
        2 November 2010 at 12:06 am

        Thanks for the detailed understanding Amber.

        I guess NAT are keen to maximise the number of places for those NZ students destined to graduate then emigrate to help the Australian and Chinese economies.

        Jum: I guess Joyce really doesn’t.

  7. BLiP 7
    1 November 2010 at 1:36 pm

    17. Ministers will be accountable to a higher set of standards than previously.

  8. seeker 8
    2 November 2010 at 12:40 am

    re: “17. Ministers will be accountable to a higher set of standards than previously.”
    and then, unbelievably, failed to hold Paula Bennett to account for breaking privacy laws…..

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