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. TVNZ reports:
The government has announced it will cut nearly $2 billion from ineffective public services and use that money for new initiatives, mainly in health and education.
Yet Labour didn’t have to slash and burn our public services to pay for new initiatives in health and education.
“In this budget we will find another $1.8 billion of low quality spending from the years of now to 2014 which we will redirect into higher priority initiatives,” says English.
Low quality spending like helping beneficiaries into work?
This means there will be $1.1 billion in new spending and $1.8 billion will taken off a range of government departments and put into other areas deemed to be higher priority.
Basically, Key is trying to con us all here. Every year health and education need increased government investment. This is stock-standard. Now all of a sudden we need to smash the rest of the public service to pay for it? Why doesn’t Key instead abandon his tax cut for himself if the cuts are so pressing?
Labour is predicting a public backlash.
“They will accept not those sort of cuts and I think that Mr English is going to need to be very careful where he takes the money from,” says Labour Deputy Leader Annette King.
People will not be happy if services deteriorate while Key pockets thousands of extra dollars a week in new tax cuts.
English will not say where the money will come from although there have been some hints about where it will go.
It is clear the money is being slashed from pretty much every area.
In his second budget English will again say there is no new money for most government departments for at least four years.
The only reason I can think of that government finances are suffering is because Bill “Double Dipton” English will be spending a tidy sum on building himself a new primary place of residence castle (maybe perched on a Wellington hill, with a lovely moat, overlooking the Beehive) 😉
“There was a reduction of about 1500 jobs in the last 12 months and I expect that process is likely to continue.”
It’s just awful to see the Government continue to cut people’s livelihoods. I wonder if anyone in Cabinet actually considers the families of the workers they decide to lay off.
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