National reckon public health and education are a waste of money?

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, July 20th, 2017 - 27 comments
Categories: class war, education, health, labour, tax - Tags: , , , , , , ,

Voters have a clear choice this election – tax cuts for the already rich or more spending on social services. There’s a good summary by Bernard Hickey on Newsroom – How Labour plans to spend $17bn and stay in surplus

The key to Labour’s spending plan is its decision to forgo tax cuts costing almost $8 billion over the next four years, and to reduce slightly the size of surpluses and debt reduction planned by the National Government.

Here’s where it plans to spend the money over four years:

1. $8 billion more on health than the Government planned in Budget 2017, including paying back what Labour said was $293 million worth of underfunding due to inflation and population growth and an unannounced plan to spend $6.7 billion on “delivering a modern health system.”

2. $5 billion on its families package, which includes spending more on Working For Families, offering a baby bonus and paying beneficiaries and superannuitants a winter energy payment.

3. $4 billion more on education, including its plan for three years free tertiary education, increased funds to put fully qualified teachers in early childhood education centres and $1.8 billion for an unannounced plan for ‘delivering a modern education system.”

4. $2.4 billion extra in contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which Labour would restart three years earlier than the current National Government.

5. $1.4 billion on research and development tax credits, regional development and its ‘Ready For Work’ scheme to offer 10,000 young people six months of on-the-job training.

6. $2 billion to fund Kiwibuild in the first year of Government.

Hickey continues with a similar summary of how the spending will be paid for.

There are desperate needs in the underfunded health and education sectors that could be addressed by this plan. But the Nats are still arguing that they need their $20 / week tax cut more than we need health and education. According to Morning Report the Nats are calling Labour’s budget “a plan to waste more money”. Yeah tell it to the patients on waiting lists. Tell it to the parents of kids in overcrowded classrooms. Tell it to the people who can’t afford private healthcare and education.

27 comments on “National reckon public health and education are a waste of money? ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    20 July 2017 at 9:22 am

    Our blustery Steven Joyce was humbled and contradictory on Guyon’s interview this morning. Is Steven overwhelmed? Is he tired? Can he see political doom ahead?
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201851725

    • CLEANGREEN 1.1
      20 July 2017 at 5:02 pm

      Yes Ianmac,

      I see Steven Joyce now as the tired strategist that National has held onto for to long but he is reaching his end of use now as we all do after years of holding up a vision whether it be truth or false hope.

      later i think he senses this later is coming true this time, as he sees a vibrant green Party now aligning to the Maori Party policies like the new Marama Fox Iwirail policy that may see the Iwi’s operating provincial rail services and that is a winner that Steven will not be happy with.

      Because Steven Joyce was the mainstay who railed against Kiwiraail when as the Minister of Transport he spent all his energy forcing the closing down as many rail lines as he could.

      But now the prospect of Maori Party finally taking his dream away with the help of Greens support, he must be shattered into realising that he has been out foxed, (sorry about the pun) as the prospect of National loosing the backing of the Maori party support, and with the possibility of them teaming up of them with the Green Party now must be a second shock wave that he is now seeing his bream of truck freight dominance coming to an end finally.

      yes his kingdom is crumbling and he is looking very tired now.

      Every dog has his day they say! Woof – woof.

      • WILD KATIPO 1.1.1
        20 July 2017 at 6:22 pm

        100 % , CLEANGREEN.

        What Labour is proposing is , like the Greens , revolutionary in light of the current neo liberal narrative.

        Any jaded, poisonous thieving government that is on the ropes can offer the desperate bribe of tax cuts ,- and hope that the public wont notice the glaringly obvious run down state of its social infrastructure , – run down because of their obsessive adherence to paving the way for complete privatization of all state run services…

        It has not escaped our attention for the whys of their motives one jot.

        Nor have the fallacy’s inherent in their justifications… justifications that continually do not stack up with close perusal of the facts.

        Stephen Joyce,… the failed and jaded John Key era campaign manager.

        He failed monumentally in that pursuit as he does now in trying to justify this govt’s failed economic policy’s… a picture speaks a thousand words and so does this clip…

        Comedian John Oliver mocks Steven Joyce – YouTube
        you tube▶ 4:30

  2. marty mars 2
    20 July 2017 at 9:57 am

    Yep no more blurred lines, the choice is stark between the options. I’m feeling good about how this is playing out. I think the left can make it happen, can influence the centre of gravity. This post shows the contrast. Dont be fooled – the gnats are shit.

  3. dv 3
    20 July 2017 at 10:01 am

    Hey Mr Joyce Here is somewhere to waste money on!!!!!

    Christchurch’s Princess Margaret Hospital too ‘awful’ for government reviewers to visit
    Some of the South Island’s most vulnerable people are being treated at derelict Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), but it’s too “awful” for government-appointed reviewers to visit.

    Urgent plans to move the remaining mental health services from PMH have been in bureaucratic limbo for more than two years, despite staff and patients describing the facilities as “disgusting” and “appallingly depressing”. The rest of the services shifted out last year.

    About 31 patients from the youth mental health, mothers and babies, eating disorders and long-term rehabilitation units were stuck at the facility, which the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) described as “substandard” and “not appropriate”.​

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/94566711/christchurchs-princess-margaret-hospital-too-awful-for-government-reviewers-to-visit

  4. red-blooded 4
    20 July 2017 at 10:04 am

    Plus, I seem to recall hearing him say that Labour are playing games with the figures by announcing spending planned over a period of 4 years, rather than just in the cycle of one budget year. The Nats do this all the time! (And then re-announce it the later in the year, and the next year, and the next…)

  5. Chris 5
    20 July 2017 at 10:14 am

    I’m all for more money in Health and Education. (Not so much, money for rich people to have kids and to have cash they don’t need for power).

    But how do they get 23 billion extra to spend from not spending 1.5 billion on tax cuts?

    • You_Fool 5.1
      20 July 2017 at 10:46 am

      Not to do your research for you, but from the linked article (which you were recommended to read to discover this info)

      Here’s how Labour is planning to offset most of the spending with extra revenue over four years:
      1. Reversing the National Government’s tax cuts, which increases revenue by $8.3 billion over five years.
      2. Extending the ‘bright line’ test for taxing the capital gains of rental property investors from two to five years and increasing tax collection from multinationals, which it forecast would raise an extra $1.1 billion over four years.
      It also plugged in unidentified ‘other revenue charges’ line of $420 million over four years. This is expected to cover a border levy on foreign visitors to pay for tourism infrastructure.
      The rest of the gap is made up with slightly smaller surpluses, and therefore less debt repayment over the next four years totaling $7.2 billion. That increases total interest costs for a Labour Government, relative to the National Government’s Budget plans, of $936 million over the next four years.

  6. roy cartland 6
    20 July 2017 at 10:38 am

    Brilliant! That is the exact line that LAB should be running. Easily and succinctly counters the tired reprehensible attack line by Joyce and NAT.

    “National reckon public health and education are a waste of money” – perfect.

  7. You_Fool 7
    20 July 2017 at 10:48 am

    I never understand why the media go running to political parties for comment on these sort of things.. I mean is it surprising that Joyce thinks Labours plan is wrong? I could have told you that with zero investigation.

    What I want to hear is opinions from experts about the effectiveness of the plan and if it will do what they say. I want the same for Nationals policy announcements.

    • Siobhan 7.2
      20 July 2017 at 11:13 am

      Excellent point. And not just ‘experts’ from one sided Think Tanks, which would be just as pointless.
      Then again RNZ have this same problem when covering the US and UK elections and politics…hence their(and the general public) being blindsided by the results.

    • tc 7.3
      20 July 2017 at 11:45 am

      You know its bad when senior medical staff bitch about how strained the system is and how the numbers folk are driving too hard without being prompted.

      Last one that did that I said ‘and yet you still probably voted national…’ that shut him up as the logic burned in.

      Dont expect sheep to change paddocks folks it’ll be decided by the swingers as turkeys will continue to vote for xmas.

    • Norfolk Traveller 7.5
      20 July 2017 at 3:48 pm

      Actually there has been some very good analysis in the media of Labour’s plans.
      Rob Hosking has an excellent piece in the NBR (paywalled). Labour supporters won’t like it, but it does expose the fiscal holes in the plan. But there have been others, some positive, some not. You do need to scratch away though, to be fair.

  8. greywarshark 8
    20 July 2017 at 11:10 am

    But, but – health and education – isn’t it what a modern country does, what it works at to maintain good standard of everything? Isn’t NZ a modern country? Has it just been putting on a good face all these years and we reap now what we sowed in that past?

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      20 July 2017 at 12:38 pm

      Health and education is what a modern, progressive and innovative country does. This raises the question of if a capitalist country is actually a modern country.

    • Stuart Munro 8.2
      20 July 2017 at 12:47 pm

      Unfortunately I think that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

      People don’t often progress in NZ – apprenticeships, that people should be taking at 15 or 16 are mostly being taken by folk in their mid-twenties. Puts their life back ten years.

      Instead of creating a skilled local fishing industry, government hand out 900 work permits a year for underpaid foreigners who won’t be paying tax, won’t be concerned about our environment, and won’t be transferring their skills to new NZ workers.

      Our people are being held back by a strata of unqualified managers, producing bulk low-grade products.

      Governments need to receive a clear message that their underperformance will not be tolerated – it’s killing our rising generation.

    • greg 8.3
      21 July 2017 at 5:41 am

      we have be living off infer structure built in the past know the bill are due

      • greywarshark 8.3.1
        21 July 2017 at 9:09 am

        greg
        I repeat my comment from Dr Who yesterday. If you can write a joined-up sentence using the correct words for your meaning, I urge you to do so.

        Greg’s a dalek silly, just very evolved. You can tell by the lack of punctuation, he just goes on and on and on….

  9. Sabine 9
    20 July 2017 at 1:56 pm

    this needed to be repeated

    Our people are being held back by a strata of unqualified managers, producing bulk low-grade products.

    and add to that,
    that with our unwillingness to educate and transmit skills from the elder to the younger generation we are literally killing our ‘savoir faire’ on how to make the most basic things like shoes, clothes, food, building etc etc etc.

    • greywarshark 9.1
      20 July 2017 at 3:00 pm

      Stuart Munro and Sabine 8.2 and 9
      That’s what I see and experience and I try to keep in touch with the real world and the people who live in it and try and hold it together while we pray for NZs of the comfortable and decent-earnings class to look around with real care and concern for how other people are not managing to get a chance.

      The chance when it comes may not find the people it is available for actually able to take it up if they are not healthy enough and ready in their heads, lives and duties to others to step up. So even opportunities are hard to grasp in this inhuman time of our society.

      It is certainly time for a change, and stop relying on the work of the minions of society who keep things going tickety-boo while you swan around and worry if you will be able to go skiing or get tickets to that international concert.

  10. Foreign waka 10
    20 July 2017 at 5:59 pm

    This must be a continuation of the Maori Party proposal on immigration. No money needed as we will get all these immigrants providing services and training – yes, hold on: for free!
    Banana republic.