Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, May 31st, 2022 - 48 comments
In 21 tweets Clint Smith has set out why National’s tax cut policies and its rhetoric are absurd and how the media is doing us a disservice by not asking the hard questions like what will be cut and how the promised tax cuts will be paid for.
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2022 - 157 comments
The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, April 26th, 2022 - 45 comments
Jack Tame’s interview of Chris Luxon on Q&A suggests that the post leadership change honeymoon may now be over and that Luxon does not really understand how difficult a job being Prime Minister would be.
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, March 17th, 2022 - 141 comments
There has been the occasional criticism of Labour for not achieving enough progressive change by people who then propose supporting National. What are they thinking?
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, January 27th, 2022 - 154 comments
The Government’s Covid 19 response, mainly via Reserve Bank measures, has enabled a mind-boggling increase in inequality, according to influential financial commentator Bernard Hickey. Covid response has saved multiple lives, but its refusal to simultaneously address inequality via taxes raises uncomfortable questions about how a leftist government has overseen a once-in-a-generation shift in wealth
Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, December 12th, 2021 - 23 comments
New Zealand is seeing a strong, business-led recovery. But what will we do with this success?
Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, August 6th, 2021 - 97 comments
Rather than economics, can we talk about the values that underlie how we manage the country?
Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 20th, 2021 - 59 comments
One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below.
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, May 3rd, 2021 - 58 comments
Some good news from over the weekend. Labour is planning to significantly increase the level of Jobseeker benefit.
Written By: - Date published: 6:04 am, March 14th, 2021 - 49 comments
I believe, as our first Labour Government did, that everyone has the right “to a life” regardless of their perceived ,”value”.
In our country, with its excess of resources and capability, we have no excuse for poverty.
For leaving people behind.
Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, March 11th, 2021 - 50 comments
Expecting a bit much aren’t you? We haven’t had that since Muldoon. At least he had them. The kind of people now asking for a plan were those who complained about governments that “interfered with the sacred ‘free market’” and screamed about “central planning”, “picking winners”, “protectionism” etc. They prefer just getting cheap labour to give the illusion of economic growth. And build a cycleway!
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, March 6th, 2021 - 46 comments
A newly published report in the United States on a two year UBI trial shows remarkable results. Is such a trial possible in New Zealand?
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 12th, 2020 - 68 comments
Not a vague let’s raise wages and benefits explanation, but an in-depth, number crunching, evidence-driven explanation. Where is it?
Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, November 23rd, 2020 - 21 comments
Giving migrant workers access to insufficient welfare is a financial coercion tool of right wing and centrist economics.
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, October 22nd, 2020 - 154 comments
Labour want to govern based in stability for all New Zealanders, but how does that work when your grand narrative has massive plot holes around ending poverty?
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, October 15th, 2020 - 74 comments
Here’s the thing about the Greens. They want change. They want change more than they want power. I think that they fully understand that we are out of time on climate, poverty, the environment and now is the time to act boldly.
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, September 28th, 2020 - 84 comments
Why does Labour still not have a plan for unwell and disabled people living in poverty?
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, September 28th, 2020 - 30 comments
There’s been plenty of criticism about Labour’s policies not being effective enough to alleviate poverty. Time for a bit of perspective.
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, September 13th, 2020 - 62 comments
Labour has announced that if elected they will significantly increase abatement levels for beneficiaries and reinstitute the Training Incentive Allowance Scheme, the policy that Paula Bennett famously had the benefit of but then cancelled once she was Minister.
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, September 5th, 2020 - 74 comments
As the covid crisis deepens Labour appear to be committed to entrenching the underclass and giving a helping hand to the middle class.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 5th, 2020 - 43 comments
Our cities are the nation’s lungs; they recycle and accelerate external goods and transform them internally into faster circulation. Auckland and Christchurch have had tens of billions invested in them over successive local and central governments, but has this improved our strength or wealth as a country at all?
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, September 4th, 2020 - 78 comments
Everyone has recently had an education on “Socialism” working in practice.
And a graphic illustration of the shortcomings, of under regulated “Free market” Capitalism, Globalism, tax cuts for the rich, and the mania for monetising everything in sight, and “running it like a business”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, July 25th, 2020 - 81 comments
Act is proposing to introduce measures that will limit the amount of money people on benefits can spend on alcohol and tobacco. But not guns.
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, June 29th, 2020 - 263 comments
The Greens’ audacious new social security policy, the Poverty Action Plan, places manaakitangi and compassion at the centre. It includes guaranteed income across the board for those in need, reorientating ACC to include illness and prioritise care, support for children and single and double parented families, and it pays for it all by taxing some of the assets and income of the wealthy.
Written By: - Date published: 3:11 pm, June 19th, 2020 - 8 comments
Is it time to completely rethink how we deal with unemployment? We face a tsunami of job losses not seen in generations. Two ideas — social insurance and a job guarantee — are gaining prominence as ways to change how we deal with the problem. One provides income protection for those who lose employment, the other aims for something bolder: the elimination of unemployment. All welcome; register here.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 1st, 2020 - 65 comments
National’s new job-creation scheme appears to be inconsistent with their desire to fully re-instate the 90-day trial period.
Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, May 27th, 2020 - 26 comments
It was interesting reading this morning that the updated small business owner loan scheme is now working (unlike the previous guarantee through the banks version). National’s new Small Business shadow minister Todd Muller should be all over this between now and the election offering helpful suggestions. I’m going to be fascinated looking at those to see what type of small business he is trying to help…
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, May 27th, 2020 - 79 comments
While Labour remain wedded to a neoliberal view of welfare as a necessary evil with deserving and undeserving poor, the Greens are standing up for the rights of all of us to live with dignity and have a meaningful standard of living.
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, May 27th, 2020 - 9 comments
Approximately 2.8 million of Aotearoa New Zealand’s 4.9 million residents are now beneficiaries. Covid-19 has shown us that #WeAreBeneficiaries. Those New Zealanders who only need state support for a short time in their lives are incredibly lucky. Let’s stop looking down on and punishing those who are less fortunate.
Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, May 25th, 2020 - 217 comments
I thought we were “in this together” or some such?
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 pm, April 21st, 2020 - 41 comments
More 1% Americans are heading our way, according to Bloomberg. The Texas company building underground bunkers is getting more enquiries. They’re not running from the virus but fear the aftermath when the breadlines turn.
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