Maori Party turns against beneficiaries

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:16 pm, April 30th, 2010 - 24 comments
Categories: benefits, maori party, poverty, tax - Tags: Tariana Turia

The Nat/ACT/Maori Party government has seen 55,000 more people go on benefits. They want to work. There aren’t enough jobs.

How to make life worse for families fallen on hard times? How about cut their benefits?

Benefits are meant to go up with inflation. CPI.

The tobacco hike puts up CPI. Government should put up benefits 0.8% over three years.Turia says that won’t happen.

Her excuse? Not all beneficiaries smoke.

Hmm. So if rents go up will there be no benefit increase? Not all beneficiaries rent. Or if petrol goes up, no benefit increase? Not all beneficiaries own cars.

Dumb and dangerous. Benefits should rise to match inflation. End of story. That sell out Turia doesn’t care. She’s happy to make them beneficiaries poorer.

Don’t worry. It’s all part of the Maori Party’s grand plan.

24 comments on “Maori Party turns against beneficiaries ”

Comments are now closed

Irascible 1

30 April 2010 at 4:24 pm

Has anyone got any evidence of rational thought coming from Turia and her NACT buddies?
- Bright Red 1.1
  
  30 April 2010 at 5:06 pm
  
  mate, you’ve heard the Maori Party apologists (who sound remarkably like the Key apologists): just be patient, it’s all going to turn out super, eventually, in the future, at an undisclosed time, somehow.
tc 2

30 April 2010 at 5:55 pm

What a train wreck of a party……the hireachy have to act now or there could be carnage for the MP in 2011….. people aren’t that stupid surely….hang on they elected key….oh damm.
Jenny 3

30 April 2010 at 8:51 pm

The sectarian attacks from Labour supporters will only cause the Maori party closer to stick with National.

It’s easy to be all sneering and cynical from the opposition benches and to blame others, but it is not a good look. This sectarian blindness will only ensure National tenure will be much longer than it need be.

If we want to create distance between the Maori Party and National, how about supporting the Maori Party when they do something worthwhile.

As has been well signposted the Labour opposition will side with the Nacts to sink the Maori Party’s bill on the removal of GST from food.

Marty G has promised us a post on his rational for this despicable position.

But as I have predicted Marty will wait until this bill is stabbed to death in silence.

The strategy of both the Labour and Nact supporters is to try and deny any oxygen to a debate on this issue.

As part of this policy of silence, I have also predicted that when this bill comes before the house that there will be zero debate from National and Labour in defence of their position. (Arguably their position is indefensible). And so they will not be tempted to argue their case. And will dispense with the preliminaries and use their joint domination of the house to rudely vote this bill down without debating it.

If I was a Maori Party member I would suggest that they should try and go for a filibuster to drag this out as much as possible to embarrass both the Nacts and Labour to make their case with the public.
- Lew 3.1
  
  30 April 2010 at 8:58 pm
  
  Filibuster is hard — nearly impossible — when you only have five members, especially in NZ’s system where the number of speeches for a given vote is generally fixed.
  
  That said, I think the GST-off-food proposal is bad law as well, so I think it’s better abandoned. But nonetheless I’m interested to hear what the Labour rationale is for kicking their biggest potential ally every chance they get. That’s the really classy thing.
  
  L
  - SPC 3.1.1
    
    30 April 2010 at 9:31 pm
    
    Why is it bad law lew. Is it the idea, or the proposed legislation.
    
    Personally I am of a mind not to vote for any party that supports GST on food.
    
    So I hope the Greens step up and support the MP on this one.
    - Lew 3.1.1.1
      
      30 April 2010 at 9:48 pm
      
      SPC, I’m pretty much persuaded by the “if we’re going to have GST there must be few exceptions” critique.
      
      L
      - SPC 3.1.1.1.1
        
        30 April 2010 at 10:14 pm
        
        There are few ways to get support for a more equal society and no GST on food is one of them.
        
        When few exemptions means only the finance sector (the way the middle class fincnes its untaxed welath creation) is exempt … it’s just an excuse for regressive taxation.
  - Swampy 3.1.2
    
    1 May 2010 at 12:39 am
    
    Labour must want those Maori seats back real bad 🙂
    
    They might change tune if they lose again and have to do a deal with the Maori Party, after all there is talk they would snuggle up to Winnie again.
B 4

30 April 2010 at 9:11 pm

Wasn’t the point of raising taxes on smokes to get people to quit? It would defeat the purpose if benefits etc are raised because of the extra tax.
- SPC 4.1
  
  30 April 2010 at 9:33 pm
  
  Are not smokes part of the CPI and thus the impact of the tax rise will automatically impact on future benefit payment levels?
deemac 5

1 May 2010 at 11:01 am

recent research for the TUC in Britain shows how inflation impacts more severely on the poor:
http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/files/InflationReport2009.pdf
so benefits, minimum wage rates etc need to rise by MORE than inflation to compensate.
- SPC 5.1
  
  3 May 2010 at 9:37 pm
  
  For things like benefits – a core necessities index is more appropriate than the all inclusive CPI for assessing annual adjustments.
deemac 6

1 May 2010 at 11:05 am

Jenny: “The sectarian attacks from Labour supporters will only cause the Maori party closer to stick with National.”
Firstly, it is hardly “sectarian” to point out that a party is supporting policies that damage its own supporters.
Secondly, such a response only demonstrates the common human tendency to refuse to admit to mistakes, it’s hardly a long term recipe for success.
- Jenny 6.1
  
  2 May 2010 at 5:08 pm
  
  “…..such a response only demonstrates the common human tendency to refuse to admit to mistakes, it’s hardly a long term recipe for success.”
  
  Could not have said it better myself.
jcuknz 7

1 May 2010 at 12:36 pm

What a silly thread … the whole purpose of the increase is to put people off smoking and there are programmes to help people quit the addiction. It is possible .. I did it in 1974 by simply sucking and handling an unlit cigarette and then found myself a miniature alpine pipe to hold in my mouth. Three months later after I had chewed through the stem once and filed another grip it wore through again was too short but by then I was able to resist the addiction without it …. I’m not cured but my will power continues to be greater than the urge. Though I quite like a wiff of a smoker’s addiction.
As far as GST on food .. the whole point of GST as opposed to the myriad of different duties that were on goods before it was introduced .. is that it is on everything sold to the gneral public and when you start makiing exceptions you get the stupid situation as in Australia where it seems bread from one baker is taxed and from another it is not. So any party which proposes to cut GST from food will definitely NOT get my votes.
- SPC 7.1
  
  1 May 2010 at 7:39 pm
  
  Yeah well just about every nation in the world with such taxation exempts food – and because so many of us buy into the line that no exemptions is somehow “easier and smarter” we won’t do the same. Guess why the development in inequality here is the greatest in the world over the last 30 years.
  
  GST on food is regressive.
Shazzadude 8

2 May 2010 at 1:49 am

Increasing benefits to factor in the rising cost of tobacco taxes sorta defeats the purpose of raising tobacco taxes, doesn’t it.
- SPC 8.1
  
  3 May 2010 at 9:33 pm
  
  The FACT is the CPI covers all cost increases – that’s what an index does.
  
  But that does not compensate people for the cost increase of smokes because the CPI increase ass an average will go up by much less than the cost of smokes.
jcuknz 9

2 May 2010 at 7:28 am

Obviously as with many things, such as giving women the vote, New Zealand leads the world with a uniform GST regime.
- SPC 9.1
  
  3 May 2010 at 9:31 pm
  
  When the idea is good, others follow, when its this stupid – no one does.
just saying 10

2 May 2010 at 6:04 pm

This is so hypocritical.

I was so pissed off to read in the SST the Labour Party going to bat for those earning over 70,000 re the childcare subsidy.
It’s not that I disagree, but when the govt starting beneficiary bashing – invalids being downgraded to sickness beneficiaries at a cost of $50 off their income of $250 – not a bloody word.
On non-widowed solo mothers being work tested Goff talked about “not visiting the sins of the parents……..

It’s not just the Maori Party turning its back on benes!
- Bill 10.1
  
  2 May 2010 at 6:20 pm
  
  Biggest benefit cut since early 90’s?
  
  Benson Pope scrapping Supplementary Benefit and implementing Temporary Additional Support.
  
  Time and time again the left’s idea of what the Labour Party represents and what the Labour Party stands for makes for many a strange disconnect.
  
  eg Goff enabling nuclear technology sales to India….what the Labour Party did.
  Anti-proliferation and moral high ground on matters nuclear…what the left thinks Labour represents.
cheryl 11

20 May 2010 at 7:23 pm

i think the low income familys are going to suffer the rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer and that stinks more money should go into health and education and benefits need a rise to keep up with aconomy to many people out here are suffering and there is no need for it its alright for the ones in parliment you have no idea what its like to find where the next meal is going to come from its time for you’s to see what its really like out here may be there will be light at the end of the tunnel for some out here