Gotta pay for those tax cuts for landlords somehow

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, June 20th, 2024 - 16 comments
Categories: Living Wage, minimum wage, national, same old national, wages, workers' rights - Tags:

What is the lowest most disgraceful thing this Government has done?

How about cutting funding for top ups of the wages of disabled workers aimed to get them to the living wage?

In my life I did not think that this Government would stoop so low. But here we have it. They are cutting funding designed to increase the pay of disabled workers just so they can afford their tax cuts for landlords.

The Herald has the details:

The Government is saving $56 million over five years by dumping a programme topping up the pay of disabled workers to the minimum wage.

That could see 900-plus workers – mostly with intellectual disabilities – continue to be paid as low as $2 an hour, but the Government says it’s better than not working at all.

The previous Labour Government had planned to end the exemption that allowed employers to pay disabled people below the minimum wage. Budget 2023 allocated $37.3m over four years to top up their pay to the minimum wage (currently $23.15 an hour) – from next year.

But that was axed in Budget 2024, boosting the Government’s coffers by $11.34m in the coming year, and $56.345m over five years.

And they attempted a snow job by saying that the policy made disabled workers less employable when the reality was it was a Goovernment top up so that there was no cost to the employer. Again from the Herald:

Social Development Minister Louise Upston was grilled about this today at the Social Services and Community Select Committee, leading to heated exchanges between her and Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March, as well as with her ministerial predecessor, Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni.

…

Sepuloni said Labour’s Budget 2023 commitment had no intention of anyone losing their jobs.

“The plan was for a government subsidy of sorts for employers so they [the disabled workers] could work with dignity and receive the minimum wage.”

She said the $11m the Government was pocketing in the coming year could have gone towards those workers being paid the minimum wage.

“Not if they weren’t able to keep a job,” Upston retorted.

Sepuloni: “It’s subsidising them. This argument is going around in a circle. It makes no sense.”

They cannot even claim that there was a fiscal cliff. The spend was programmed for the next four years until it was cut.

This must represent a new low and shows the Government’s disdain for families with members who have disabilities. I can’t believe how tone death let alone how heartless they are.

16 comments on “Gotta pay for those tax cuts for landlords somehow ”

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  1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1
    20 June 2024 at 9:04 am

    NActFirst : World champs at setting the morality bar….low. Lowest of the low. The ultimate political Limbo group.

  2. dv 2
    20 June 2024 at 9:18 am

    SLAVERY is better than not working at all.

    Government says it’s better than not working at all.

  3. tc 3
    20 June 2024 at 12:42 pm

    Totally micky, backers have to be rewarded it would seem no matter what that takes.

    Heartless for sure as expected from this owned mob.

  4. Incognito 4
    20 June 2024 at 1:07 pm

    In the eyes of this government the intellectually disabled are D-listers who can be treated with disrespect. This is not the New Zealand way, which begs the question why we (still) have this government of neo-authoritarians.

    • Descendant Of Smith 4.1
      20 June 2024 at 1:22 pm

      Sorry it is the NZ way. Disabled workers have been paid that way for years. The agencies caring for them such as the IHC don't want the incomes to increase over the allowable level for not affecting benefits because it creates more admin for them, the employer doesn't want to pay them more either and rort the legislation as do those who do the sign off on the pay rates.

      A family member worked for a workshop some years back and assessed the productivity of individual workers which was fair and would have resulted in pay increases for many. The managers hit the roof and asked her to change it and she refused on the basis that these staff were more productive than they were being paid – and noted the records that she had been asked to do this. She was removed from the job and someone with no expertise or experience did another assessment that kept them all on the same low rate. The local MBIE approver signed off he lower rates even after being told what had happened. Crooks the lot of them.

    • Anne 4.2
      20 June 2024 at 4:02 pm

      D-listers? Worse than that. They are not even being treated as humans. The thing is: they can get away with it because the intellectually handicapped can't fight back.

      There are are no words left to describe this government.

  5. Obtrectator 5
    20 June 2024 at 1:20 pm

    Our fellow-countryman John Kent laid the process bare in a Guardian Varoomshka cartoon shortly after the UK Tories were elected in 1970. Blacked-up versions of Edward Heath and his Chancellor, Anthony Barber, were depicted as the incoming administration in a fictional African republic.

    Heath: "Eh, Oombaba? Now we is de guv'mint …. "

    (Oom-)Barber: " …. we got to repay our backers' loans!"

    That strip comes constantly to mind lately. (It would of course never get past the PC police these days.)

  6. tWig 6
    20 June 2024 at 2:52 pm

    Big Hairy News chat with MP Barbara Edmonds, finance spokesperson and MP for Mana on the 2024 Budget (from 4 min on). "Jobseeker" benefit includes those who cannot work because they are sick or disabled (previously sickness beneficiaries).

  7. Kay 7
    20 June 2024 at 2:56 pm

    I'm not batting an eyelid hearing this, and nor should anyone be shocked at the CoCs disdain for people at the bottom of the heap. I would've been more shocked if they hadn't done it.

  8. adam 8
    20 June 2024 at 6:59 pm

    The renter class in this country are fully in control.

    Going to take something special to put the bankers, property speculations and financiers in their place.

  9. Champagne Socialist 9
    21 June 2024 at 10:53 am

    In a democracy you can easily get away with causing hardship and deprivation to a minority – whether that's the disabled, beneficiaries, nursing graduates, nature conservationists or Cancer patients.

    You might get a bit of bad PR when you do this but the vast majority of voters don't care because it doesn't affect them directly and in the privacy of the voting booth a $20 a week tax cut will override any concern for others in the community. In fact – for many the option to cause harm to others – who deserve it, of course – can be extremely appealing.

    If you want to know what this does to an economy and society look to the UK – David Cameron's Conservative party introduced austerity in 2010 ushering in 14 years of under funding the health system, social care, support for the disabled, in work benefits, the education system and the military and as a consequents the UK has experienced massive declines in investment and productivity across the private sector.

    The most shocking aspect of this is that it was voted for over and over again until, a finally, exhausted and demoralized public are now looking to elect a different government albeit with almost identical economic constraints.

    Most voters have a very warped understanding of government deficits and the purpose they serve in underpinning economic growth. When voters choose tax cuts they are in effect asking the government to deliberately reduce it's income – something very few individuals or private business would choose voluntarily themselves. And yet we are convinced that it's a good idea for a government to do this and that outcome will be an improvement in living standards. It is an illogical viewpoint.

  10. Jim Skeats 10
    24 June 2024 at 6:27 am

    There is no tax base in New Zealand because Greens -Labour dont want mining and oil. WA derives 60% of its revenues from mining, Qld 31 %. Stop whining. Poverty is a decision you guys made. Wallow in it.

    [Some trolls troll so blatantly that it is impossible to ignore. You’re now in Pre-Mod.

    FYI, NZ’s tax base is based mostly on personal income, company income, and GST. And relative to other OECD countries, NZ derives a higher proportion of its tax revenue from company taxes (https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-new-zealand.pdf) – Incognito]

    • Incognito 10.1
      24 June 2024 at 6:05 pm

      Mod note

    • SPC 10.2
      24 June 2024 at 6:14 pm

      Can you name the peak contribution of mining and oil to Enzed government revenues? And show how Labour and or Greens diminished this?

    • observer 10.3
      24 June 2024 at 6:34 pm

      Poverty is a decision you guys made.

      National have been in government for 6 terms, 18 years since 1990. The 7th term is now.

      The Greens have never even been in Cabinet. Not once. There has never been a Labour-Green government. Not once.

      Those are the undisputed facts. Governments make the decisions.