In a desperate and heartless attempt to spin their way out of their awful record on jobs, National is getting surreal. First, there’s Bill English claiming that the job you used to have under Labour wasn’t a real job. Then, you’ve got John Key saying that you’re not really unemployed now. I guess it’s all in you imagination. Don’t look to National for help.
English’s line is that the job you used to have was based on unsustainable spending and government borrowing. I’m not quite sure what he means by that because Labour always ran government surpluses and government spending was 30% of GDP when they left office, the same as when they entered it. Under National, $36 billion has been borrowed and government spending has jumped to 35% of GDP.
Key says that “The household labour force survey indicates whether a person is looking for 1 hour’s work” and that’s not real unemployment. In reality, it indicates if you are not working, looking for work, would take a job if you can find it, and want at least one hour of work. But the survey shows that 95,000 of the 150,000 unemployed are looking for full time work, that’s up from 56,000 wanting full time work and 94,000 total unemployed when National came to power. (Statistics NZ Infoshare).
Key then says “60 percent of the 15 to 19-year-olds they rang up in that survey [who were unemployed] were in training, work, school, or, basically, at university”. And, apparently, that’s not real unemployment either. I don’t know about you, but I remember being out of work while at uni and it felt a lot like being unemployed. It felt a lot like not having an income and scrapping by trying make ends meet at the same time as studying. But what would Key know of that?
It’s time for National to grow up and face the facts. There are 65,200 unemployed people aged 15-24 – 22,600 more than when they took power (Key lied in Parliament yesterday, saying that 26,700 15-19 year olds are unemployed when it’s really 39,300). Do you believe that this army of unemployed are all kids looking for some after school pocket money?
– Bright Red
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