We often hear from this government that they are “doing all they can”, on emergency housing, on families in financial distress, on the impact of high interest rates, on the mess in Christchurch, on closing tax loopholes, on water quality, and so on.
“All they can” seems to be not very much.
It will be more of the same come the budget (Simon Wong on Newshub):
No Budget ‘waves of cash’ to fix NZ’s social problems – English
The Government is failing New Zealand’s “most complex” families, but the Prime Minister says there won’t be “waves of cash” in this week’s Budget to help them out.
…
He says the Government will be focused on meeting a number of its targets, including addressing New Zealand’s “long-running social problems”. But money isn’t always the answer, he told The AM Show on Monday.
Except when it comes to tax cuts of course. Always the answer then.
“The hard bit of that is reorganising Government – the way the Government works with our most complex families – because frankly, Government doesn’t do that good a job with people who have really serious needs.
If your government can’t manage it then perhaps we should get ourselves a government that can do a good job.
“So you shouldn’t expect waves of cash – that’s what everyone else is promising. We can tell you from years of looking at it hard, throwing money at intractable social problems won’t have an impact.”
Bullshit and lies. The state welfare system says otherwise. Working for families had a measurable impact on reducing poverty. Boosting benefits would do the same. Improving our mental health services would have an impact. Building more state housing would have an impact.
National does the bare minimum that it thinks it can get away with for those in need. This positioning is just preparing the ground for a budget that does more the same not enough.
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