Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, November 16th, 2008 - 103 comments
Categories: national/act government -
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As we predicted, National has used a confidence and supply agreement with ACT as a vehicle for its true right-wing agenda.
National has given a wide range of concessions to ACT, far more than is necessary to gain ACT’s already pledged support. Together, they amount to a far more rightwing policy program than National promised.
Here’s a summary (full version here):
Hide to be Minister of Local Government and Regulatory Control (= fewer controls on business, less public input). Roy to be Minister of Consumer Affairs (like appointing Paris Hilton to teach at a finishing school).
Life sentences for people with three serious convictions (what ‘serious’ is we don’t know). In California, this law has seen the prison population explode while crime rate reduction has been in line with falling rates in states without such laws.
The Emissions Trading Scheme will be suspended until ACT gets to have a review under its terms of reference, which are designed to have the ETS scrapped and preferably not replaced or replaced with a carbon tax. National and ACT opposed a carbon tax in 2004, it is just a delaying tactic.
“Task Forces that include private sector representatives and private sector chairs to undertake fundamental reviews of all base government spending. A focus of this work should be on elimination programmes* that do not deliver value for money”. Value for money being decided by the rich ‘advisors’ National/ACT appoints to carry out the review. I wonder how much value for money they will see in poverty relief.
Cap expenditure on government services by law. Which would prevent the Government responding to new policy challenges without cutting existing programmes. That will be a problem for National, it has already promised programs requiring thousands more public servants. It will mean the new prisons National/ACT will build will need to take money from other areas, like health.
Flatter tax. That means any future tax cuts will go exclusively to the wealthy. Most people will get nothing.
Further weakening of the RMA.
More money for private education = less for public education because expenditure is capped.
Your work rights will be attacked too. National/ACT releases this is sensitive so they’ve disguised their plan with coded language.
National/Act agree to close the ‘income gap’ between Australia and NZ by 2025, requiring ’3% productivity growth per year’. Which is just economic techno-babble. What ‘income gap’ are they talking about? GDP per capita or wages or what? And how would a faster rate of productivity growth close this gap? Anyone who knows what productivity is (the amount of wealth produced in a unit of work) knows that merely increasing productivity doesn’t necessarily boost GDP or wages. GDP = productivity x work done. So, GDP not only depends on productivity it also depends on how many people are in work. And boosting productivity doesn’t lead automatically to higher wages – wages are determined by supply and demand in the labour market, nothing to do with productivity. In fact, productivity grows faster when employment drops because it’s the low quality workers that lose their jobs first and lower quality capital that sits idle first, but wages don’t go up because there is more slack in the labour market.
So, why this rubbish statement? The following paragraph gives the answer. National/ACT will establish “a high quality advisory group to investigate the reasons for the recent decline in New Zealand’s productivity performance”. New Zealand has grown faster than Australia and other countries in recent years. Overall, our productivity growth has been slower in recent years at about 1.5% than in past years (2.5%) but for a very good reason. Our economy has grown so fast that it has sucked in lower quality labour and capital, which brings down the average (if you look at just workers who have been in the labour force continuously for the past seven years their productivity has continued to increase at about 2.5%). Any first year economics student should understand this. So, what do National/ACT expect their ‘high quality’ (ie private sector) advisors to recommend? They’ll say work rights are the problem – that weakening workers’ rights is the way to boost productivity and, thereby, wages. It’s all rubbish of course. Just like ‘trickle down’ in the 1990s, the effect will be lower wages and lower GDP growth.
Is this the change that you felt it was time for?
*(yeah, that’s right, National and ACT’s grammar problems have continued from their campaign ads to their official agreements. There are more grammar mistakes in the education section)
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Hi Carol,
My bad. Here is the correct link. It is about 8 newly releases video’s.
There is another 50 something in the pipline.
Thanks, ev.
As expected, act policy will dominate this national government; amazing when you consider act got only 2% of the actual vote which corresponds to around 1% of the population.
So by end of next winter john key will likely be polling as PM around 20% if hes lucky and the poll trajectory is all down from there; suddenly politics not so much fun for him any more. And act are going to fill the vaccuum to control government policy but not by stealth as they are such arrogant assholes. So most likely people will wake up to the reality of their “change”. So bring on the next election campaign…
Kudos to Chris Trotter for saying it as it is in yesterdays SST. Hopefully the Maori Party wake up, spit the dummy sooner rather than later leaving Act exposed as the real engine within this “change” government. But then again, maybe hopefully not, for then their votes will all revert to Labour.
But alas, relitigating the maori foreshore seabed legislation gives the ACT/nat govt a golden smokescreen opportunity to dominate the msm to divert attention, and already they will be working out these strategies. Imagine the racial issues they will play.
Cheers Carol,
Yep Wil, my idea exactly.
It would be a great idea to let the current livestock die off from old age and for NZ to go vegetarian, and be a grower of crops instead. The carnivorous lifestyle is on the way out as it is unsustainable.
And the humans Janet let’s get rid of the humans as well ………. dirty polluters …. pfffouagh !
Madeleine,
Because you suggested, I went and am now looking at the 2006 census data for incomes.
Im struggling to find where, as you suggest: “In the main centres the average wage is over $40k, check statistics NZ.”
Auckland City: Median income: $28,100
North Shore City: Median income: $29,100
The trend continues (Well actually declines in $s) throughout the country.
Notice those are the areas of Auckland that are most likely the ‘richest’ or as I would say, according to Madeleine, ‘Pricks’. Goodness knows how you manufactured your statistics madeleine. Maybe try here? http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/census-outputs/default.htm
With regards to your rant about flat tax. I disagree with flat tax and support progressive taxation. No doubt we will disagree on that.
eg. “The equalisation you support has screwed our economy and has stuffed over the poor”
…Riiiight.
Wil
Have you got a link to the Chris Trotter piece in the SST? Not on their website, nor the policy.net site which is still saying that Chris has hung up his lap top.
hs,
Although you take it to the extreme. Humans are infact terrible to the environment and the population problem is a big deal.
But if one mentions it as a problem, comments like yours will be fired in reply.
Chris
Yes population is a problem ……..but not in NZ.
GC – You’re too honest most National supporters won’t say they’re anti-worker they use a lot meaningless statements and platitudes. They realised long ago that you must deceive the plebs.
HS – Take it back to kiwiblog.
QtR,
I’ll second that.
Hi Chris
I noted this comment
“Got any sympathy for them?
Oh na, thats right, tories dont care about them.”
here you claim that tories ( conservatives) do not are about the poor.
In fact there is some statistical data which suggests that this is false, and in fact conservatives actually give more money to chartities assisting the poor than liberals do. See for example the findings here :http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm and discussion of the details here http://philanthropy.com/live/2006/11/brooks/
I criticised the standard when it made these kind of comments in the past.
I know that Labour supporters think its acceptable to enage in political debate by slandering their opponents and accusing them of bad motives. But I ask you please detist from this.
Moreover you claim you are not envious against the rich, the problem is your sole criticism on the policies in question is that “someone else” benefits. Thats what envy is, its getting upset at the fact that someone else benefits. Apparently because your “class” does not get the benefit as well its unjust. Thats called envy.
Finally you suggest that people earning over 45,000 are rich. Why then do you support working for families? If these people are so wealthy why does the government think they need welfare to help them live. Convenient that they are rich when the government wants taxation and then poor when it wants to justify welfare don’t you think?
Madeliene states that 45?000 living in Auckland does not make you rich. You have not responded to this, you comment is only that the median income in Auckland is 28?000 , The problem is that wealth is not determined by how much you earn, it depends on what you earn relative to the cost of living. Your welcome to believe that a person who has say 4 children on a 45?000 income, paying the rental and food costs in Auckland is rich. But if you truly believe this you are wrong.
A person who is on 45?000 earns around 800per week. A decent house for 4 children costs around 400$ per week in Auckland, petrol is at least 100$ per week, food for a family of comes close to $200. If you factor in power, heat, electricity etc I think you?ll find that a person on 45000 is not rich. And only civil servants with no kids living in wellington would be under the illusion that it does. In fact to site from you linked to notes
“Households in main urban areas had the second-highest average household expenditure of any profile area ($45,075, compared with $43,682 nationally). Housing is usually the major household expenditure; households in main urban areas spent the most on housing ($10,798, compared with $10,159 nationally). The average expenditure on housing varied considerably across main urban areas, with the Auckland urban area having the highest. Households in Northern Auckland had the highest average household expenditure for main urban areas ($53,005) of which an average of $13,865 was spent on housing. Households in Gisborne spent well below the national average ($35,758). Their average expenditure on housing ($7,727) was almost half that of the North Auckland zone.”
So according to your own sources 45?000 is less than the average household expenditure in Auckland. Now it could be that the average household simply spends extragantly. Most families are simply to stupid or irresponsible to spend wisely. Or it could be that these figures give us some idea of what it costs to maintain the average family in Auckland.
So much for National not privatising anything in their first term. Yes, I know, the government won’t be privatising anything they own directly – but requiring local authorities to privatise amounts to the same thing.
L
Captcha: `enemies consumer’.
Lew,
deuh
Why is it that the minute someone raises human rights abuses of the left they get deemed a troll?
You raised work rights “They’ll say work rights are the problem – that weakening workers’ rights is the way to boost productivity and, thereby, wages.’ I point to the human rights abuses your mates inflicted on us and I am a troll.
You want me to engage? Fine. No one wants to weaken workers rights, did ACT call for the abolition of contractual rights? Did national call for a return to the 60 hour week? Did United Future argue for slave labour or 10 year olds to join the workforce? Come off it.
Some people view unions being all powerful as being good for workers and some workers, see powerful unions as weakening workers rights. It is a matter of perspective as to what you think, it is nothing to do with “rights’.
I have never understood why a union has to be compulsory or have the playing field tilted their way in order to achieve, surely if they do a good job and represent the views of the workers people would join them freely.
How you can describe grown adults freely contracting as a human rights abuse is beyond me. Apparently grown adults cannot do this without state intervention when it comes to work but when it comes to sex the state should but out. As usual inconsistent application of the rules strikes again.
freely contracting isn’t a human rights abuse.
Freely is the important word – if you have no choice your not freely contracting – like the MP, they’re not freely nodding and smiling with JK – they know they’ll lose their seats otherwise.
Scalia:
1. You didn’t specify who was supposedly abusing any rights.
2. You didn’t specify or identify any supposed human rights abuses perpetrated by that government.
3. You referred in the abstract to `your employers’ without specifying whose employers. That implies that you still believe that Lynn, or perhaps Steve as author of the post, are or were employed by the supposed abuser to write The Standard.
4. You didn’t actually make any points – and no, `you did it too’ wouldn’t be an actual point, even if you did prove it.
Fix those four things and you might not find yourself labelled a troll. Good luck.
L
Bill Brown: like the MP, they’re not freely nodding and smiling with JK – they know they’ll lose their seats otherwise.
Interesting argument. I don’t think it’s the case. It seems more likely that there’d be a civil war fought in this country if MÄori representation was unilaterally done away with, and even National don’t want that.
L
Oh come on, the Nats don’t really give a shit about the MÄori seats, they just used them as a bargaining chip.
Threaten to take away something you know the other party wants, and “give it back” during negotiation – every used car salesman uses it.
That’s why you always drive away with that sinking feeling in your stomach.
(Reflected in Sharples’ face last night on TV!)
Hi Lew
I don’t follow: how does abolishing maori sets, do away with maori representation?last time I checked maori can be on the general role. If your suggesting that being on the general role does not equal representation, then it would follow that no one except maori are currently represented.
Matthew: I was unclear. Clearly I meant specific MÄori representation in its customary form, i.e, the MÄori seats.
L
Ok. I accept your assertion that National doesn’t care too much about the mÄori seats. That also forms the basis for my argument that they wouldn’t risk the fallout of abolishing them without full and proper consultation with MÄori. So your proposition that the mÄori party are being held hostage here still doesn’t stand.
L
Fallout from who? MÄori? – they don’t vote Nactional anyway. Do you really think the vast rump of the voting public really cares that much? I don’t.
Was the rumour going around true that it would take 75% to entrench the seats?
Bill: Not direct electoral fallout – think Foreshore and Seabed crossed with the Springbok Tour. It’d be horrific.
L
Bill: Oh, and your other question – yes, entrenching any provision requires 75% of parliament, or the suspension of a standing order – I forget which – but the word is that’d never happen.
Graeme Edgeler on publicaddress, I/S on No Right Turn and others have discussed this in more detail than I could.
L
Chris G as you have accused me of manufacturing statistics, I suggest you look up the source I referred to at I
refered to at Statistics New Zealand. You will note that it records the quarterly mean earnings as $12,090 for Auckland which is $48,360pa, $12,240 for Wellington = $48,960pa, $10,080 for Christchurch = $40,320pa.
Hence, I put to you again that $40,001pa is not rich, and that many people earn in this tax bracket. The claim that the tax cuts “exclusively benefit the rich” is false.
Consider also Matthew’s point that wealth is determined not by mean earnings but by mean earnings relative to the cost of living. As such, when you factor in the cost of living in somewhere like Auckland would mean that people who live on $40,001 are not wealthy.
Further, there is also the fact that Working for Families treats people in this bracket as beneficiaries in need of assistance. Did Labour really give out benefits to the rich? Where were your howls of outrage?
Truly patronising isn’t it?
When you want to justify high taxes such people are rich.
When you want to justify high government spending they are poor.
Its almost as if one’s status of being rich or poor is determined not by ones actual ability to provide for oneself and ones family, but rather is conveniently defined and redefined in what ever way expands the state’s power over people’s lives and property.
Madeleine,
Can you provide the link to the page about those stats rather than just the spreadsheet? From the looks those numbers come from only part of society.
The Auckland Region Quarterly Review, for example, gives an average weekly income which works out to a much lower annual total than yours.
I don’t think anyone has said that people on 40k are rich.
Maybe they did, but I doubt it. It smells like a crappy libertarian piece of dishonesty to me. I suspect someone said that National is offering tax cuts that will mostly benefit high earners and these new lib’s with the same old arguments are bringing up 40k as a strawman.
Are National’s tax cuts going to mostly benefit those on 40k? If so then they’ve got a point. Somehow I doubt it though.
It’s the same BS that people use about Cullen’s ‘rich prick’ jibe, pretending that Cullen was talking about everyone in the top tax bracket, when he was just talking about Key. God what dishonest pieces of muck some people are.
They drag out these shamefully dishonest lines by the bucketful, argue that those lines are what their opponents really think, and when people fail to address one or other of the more ridiculous smears, use that omission to claim that ‘that proves it’, or that it is some sort of admission.
I don’t know who they think they’re fooling.
To be clear to Matthew and Madeleine,
I never said someone earning $40K was rich.
to be honest im a bit Yawn about debating about the merits of flat tax (yuck)
Im still awfully confused madeleine as to why you think the census data means nothing. By the way when you use mean for income that skews the statistics and a stats course will quickly tell you median is a more appropriate measure of average income.
And Matthew/Madeleine (You both link to the same site so Im gonna lump you together)
“Madeliene states that 45?000 living in Auckland does not make you rich. You have not responded to this, you comment is only that the median income in Auckland is 28?000″
Ah, No… Madeleine stated:
“In the main centres the average wage is over $40k”
The census disagrees.
Finally: If you are so worried about those who struggle to survive on $45K, granted people may. Does your virtuous concern lend a hand to the 70% of income earners who earn less than $40K? And dont respond by calling me for the umpteenth time ‘Envious of the rich’ cos thats a crock and is just spin
By all means lump Matthew and I together, it is fairly common knowledge we have a connection.
I never said the census data means nothing, I said that the basis of my claims was the data I got from Statistics NZ, which showed the median wage in the main centres was a bit over $40k.
Finally, I stand behind my claim that $40,001 per year does not make you one of the wealthy, especially if you live in a main centre, especially if you have a family to feed.
Yes, it makes you ‘wealthier’ than someone on less money, but ‘wealthy’ means something else entirely and that was the term used to describe who the tax plan would benefit.
So once more for clarity, the statement “any future tax cuts will go exclusively to the wealthy” is false because $40,001 per year with a family, living in a main centre does not render you wealthy.
Madeleine,
I don’t think you ever asked my question, what’s the context of the table you linked to? The spreadsheet doesn’t actually describe the source of the data or anything else which explains what it is it could be, for example, horticulture industry only or any other limited data set.