Taxpayer’s Union comrades celebrate glorious Socialist revolution

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, May 22nd, 2021 - 31 comments
Categories: Dr Deborah Russell, Satire, social democracy, socialism, spin, tax, taxpayers union - Tags:

It is good to see our comrades in the Taxpayers Union celebrate the glorious Socialist revolution that is currently engulfing Aotearoa.

After all they must be part of the glorious socialist revolutionary movement.  I say this because they describe themselves as a union and like all unions they are funded by many small contributions from tens of thousands of members and not by big business.  No sirree.

They also took $60,437 from Comrade Jacinda’s government’s wage subsidy during the Covid-19 pandemic and as an expression of solidarity will be paying it back in monthly payments over the next 24 months.  It is unclear if they will be paying interest.

They have celebrated the glorious Socialist revolution by putting out some outstanding graphics.

Like this one featuring Comrade Kieran.

Then they featured Red Deb.

Socialist Angie received similar treatment.

And Duncan Lefty Webb did not miss out.

It is good that the Taxpayer’s union have highlighted to the country the importance of socialism.  Especially after the year we have had where the need for an active and well resourced and compassionate Government has never been clearer.

Which is why Jordan Williams’ press statement from last night is so strange.  In it he said this:

“Last night in Parliament, multiple Labour MPs took off their masks of kindness and confessed allegiance to socialism,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Jordan Williams.

The following quotes are taken direct from Hansard:

  • Kieran McAnulty: “Yes, I am a socialist and I’m proud of it. Yeah—there you go. [Applause] Thank you very much. Bring it on, and I’m very proud to say to the good people of the Wairarapa that they elected a proud socialist as their MP.”
  • Angie Warren-Clark: “Oh, what a pleasure it is to speak after my colleague, my comrade, Kieran McAnulty.”
  • Duncan Webb: “Well, there’s so many of us great socialists on this side of the House.”
  • Deborah Russell: “I stand here as a very proud member of the great socialist democratic Labour Party.”
  • Anna Lorck: “I’m a socialist!”
  • Ricardo Menendez-March: “The Green Party will continue working hard to offer our support to Labour to enact genuine bold socialist policy.”

“New Zealanders who came here to escape socialist regimes in China, Venezuela, and the Soviet Union would have been looking on in horror,” says Mr Williams.

“It’s easy to write these things off as a joke, but we must remember that socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery across the world. MPs don’t joke about the Holocaust, nor should they about socialism. The Prime Minister must demand that these MPs publicly retract their outbursts.”

“Hopefully these MPs were just caught up in an ideological fever over red Robbo’s benefit-boosting budget. But they should put the record straight.”

Unions do go through ideological change but normally this is a gradual process, not something that happens overnight.

Our comrades in the Taxpayer’s Union should be allowed to do the same.  But swinging dramatically to the right while they still have the use of Comrade Jacinda’s money seems rather hypocritical.

31 comments on “Taxpayer’s Union comrades celebrate glorious Socialist revolution ”

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  1. greywarshark 1
    22 May 2021 at 10:13 am

    edit
    We channel Orwell more and more. This 'socialism' by the Act-less and gutless clowns of ACT Party, in place of fascism is just use of Newspeak.

    In Orwell's fictional totalitarian state, Newspeak was a language favored by the minions of Big Brother and, in Orwell's words, "designed to diminish the range of thought."

    Newspeak was characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another, the interchangeability of …

    Have a look at Tom Scott's cartoon in stuff – I saw it in the Nelson Mail. It deals with mike Hosking and Judith Collins sampling hospital care from the intensive care wards. (No spoiler!) Tom is still firing on all cylinders that react in all parts of the brain with little explosions of irony and amusement.

    You know ‘I heard it through the Grapevine’ Marvin Gaye told me.

  2. weka 2
    22 May 2021 at 10:15 am

    Lol. Taxpayer Union normalising socialism ✊

    • ghostwhowalksnz 2.1
      22 May 2021 at 2:45 pm

      Farrar the other leading light of the Taxpayers Onion, got $310,800 via DPF Group from the Covid wage subsidy

  3. Tiger Mountain 3
    22 May 2021 at 10:59 am

    what the…“Red Robbo”…they really are quintessential dicks at the Taxpayers Union

  4. Byd0nz 4
    22 May 2021 at 11:05 am

    I dont see any great Socialist Revolution occuring, maybe a flickering flame, but until landlords have a rent cap where rents are linked to a tenants income or better still, nationalise the rented housing stock, then, you may start talk of a great revoluton in the making.

  5. Muttonbird 5
    22 May 2021 at 11:31 am

    Wow. Equating Socialism with the Holocaust.

    I'm sure Juliet Moses and David Cumin will be all over this…

  6. Siobhan 6
    22 May 2021 at 12:13 pm
    • Anna Lorck: “I’m a socialist!”

    Anna Lorck rented out the shop next to us two elections ago ..that woman couldn't even deal with out "Labour- I prefer their early work" poster featuring Norman Kirk. However back in 2011 she was more than happy to respond to a request from Foss to man the phones on behalf of the national Party and encourage folk to vote.

    If National wasn't so preoccupied with imploding Lorck, like a number of Labour politicians, could quite easily swap political allegiance without too much effort and with zero compromise of their ideals.

    None of these people have shown any support for any Socialist Government or Politician or political movement.

    This carry on is just appalling ..its offensive.

    This isn't 'normalising' Socialism ..its killing it and making the concept entirely meaningless in any mainstream narrative. The concept of "Left' has been watered down to become meaningless to many voters by the Centrists…and now this.

    Socialism is a total joke to these people..so thats fine…but it hardly makes them somehow 'better' or 'smarter' or 'funnier' than the dummies at the tax payer Union.

    There is nothing to be celebrated here.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/im-no-nat-says-labour-candidate-anna-lorck/XLFJSPZGVDYKBHNID6ABNYVS2Y/

    • greywarshark 6.1
      22 May 2021 at 1:04 pm

      Siobhan This isn't 'normalising' Socialism ..its killing it and making the concept entirely meaningless in any mainstream narrative.

      Agree. It's subtle mocking, and befuddling meanings and the earnestness of people who push socialism. He is wily and amoral making me think of pictures of Pan, but making play with a word just as ‘Pan’ was turned from a positive to a negative over time.

      Such a mention of the ancient Greek god, Pan, hardly seems threatening. It certainly does not suggest that Pan was evil incarnate yet by approximately 300 C.E., the demonization of Pan had begun, and it continued until the western world largely associated images of Pan with the devil. https://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/StudentPapers/pan.html

    • ghostwhowalksnz 6.2
      22 May 2021 at 2:57 pm

      " man the phones on behalf of the national Party and encourage folk to vote ON ELECTION DAY." Is the full quote.

      You cant electioneer on election day

  7. Pete 7
    22 May 2021 at 12:24 pm

    Williams uses the word "outburst" in his outburst. The outburst where he has it “New Zealanders who came here to escape socialist regimes in China, Venezuela, and the Soviet Union would have been looking on in horror.”

    The streets are full of despondent, disillusioned people who came here to escape socialist regimes in China, Venezuela, and the Soviet Union. So much that they are now in horror.

    At least he didn't use the "reds under then bed" line.

    • Anne 7.1
      22 May 2021 at 1:00 pm

      "At least he didn't use the "reds under then bed" line."

      The silly brat is attempting to use the word socialist as a means of equating the MPs in question with a barbaric regime like the old Soviet Union [especially under Stalin] in the minds of voters. The “reds under the bed” line is synonymous with communism not socialism so best left unsaid.

  8. Tricledrown 8
    22 May 2021 at 6:20 pm

    Jordan William's should go to China no [deleted weird embedded text] socialism their.It's a fascist dictatorship.

    The Soviet Union is 30 years out of Date.

    Before Venezuela was a socialist state it was a murderous fascist dictatorship.

    What Jordan William's doesn't like is an open democracy that exposes hollow men like himself

    [deleted spurious “k” from user name]

  9. Tricledrown 9
    22 May 2021 at 6:43 pm

    Scott Morrison according to Jordan Williams must be worse than Stalin as the Liberal govt has pumped $100's of billions into their economy.

  10. georgecom 10
    22 May 2021 at 9:55 pm

    another somewhat unhinged slightly deranged from the big business union. another squawking headless chicken moment. I wonder if these blokes actually stop and wonder why few people take them seriously.

  12. Jenny how to get there 12
    23 May 2021 at 2:04 am

    This socialsit thing is far bigger than even the Taxpayers union will admit to.

    Yes it's true, hard working taxpayers are propping up communist landlords to the tune of $30 million a week.

    Accommodation supplement propping up rental market by $30m a week

    Susan Edmunds 05:00, May 22 2021

    The amount of money spent on accommodation supplements to help struggling tenants pay rent has doubled in recent years but there are warnings there is no easy way to redesign the system…..

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125195278/accommodation-supplement-propping-up-rental-market-by-30m-a-week

    There is in fact a very easy way to redesign the system.

    Just a small tweak to the accomodation benefit legislation should do it.

    Any landlord who has had their rental income "propped up" by the accomodation benefit can not by law evict a tenant without first paying the subsidy back to the government.

    Same for the banks. Any bank which has benefitted by having their mortgage income 'propped up' by the accomodation benefit. Can not force a morgagee sale without first paying back the subsidy to the government.

    Landlords and banks would be a lot less keen on evictions and mortgagee sales.

    Another gain for taxpayers, who are currently paying $100 million a year to motel owners to house homeless families.

    Such a tweak would act also to cool the jets of the over heated property market, by driving out property investors to the benefit of first home buyers. Property investors will be less keen to out-bid first home buyers to buy properties to rent out, on the thought that they they might have to pay back the accomodation subsidy.
    Benefitting families who actually want to buy a house to live in. Instead of investors buying a house for a rental income.

    Making landlords and bankers pay back the accomodation subsidy they have benefited from before they can evict families…..

    The taxpayers union would approve, surely?

    • roblogic 12.1
      23 May 2021 at 5:37 am

      +1 good idea. landlords are the biggest beneficiaries & also the biggest tax dodgers

      • Jenny how to get there 12.1.1
        23 May 2021 at 9:46 am

        The accomodation subsidy should be about helping tenants, not propping up high rents. To help tenants have some security, and not be moved on at the whim of their heavily government subsidised communistic landlords.
        If you are a landlord, you end a tenancy for any reason, you pay back the subsidy.

        Child Poverty Monitor 2020

        Rates of mobility are higher for households who rent, which can have negative consequences for children in relation to schooling and social interaction.52

        ….Constant moving and insecure housing can take children outside of familiar environments, disrupt schooling and disconnect children from important relationships in their lives.

        http://nzchildren.otago.ac.nz/

        A lot of New Zealand schools experience very high pupil turnover even during the school year due to their parents having to shift from rental to rental.

        The experience of children having to leave, or never even experiencing stable communities to grow up in, of never staying long enough at one school to form stable childhood friendships. Childhood dislocation and alienation, comes with huge social costs to society.

        Surely the Taxpayers union will approve, giving rental tenants greater security to keep costs to taxpayers down.

        • Descendant Of Smith 12.1.1.1
          23 May 2021 at 12:06 pm

          It would be better that if you wanted to access the subsidy then this is the maximum rent you could charge. Then gradually over time it could be phased out as houses were built and rents lowered with increased supply.

    • RedBaronCV 12.2
      23 May 2021 at 11:46 am

      I do kinda like that. Could even do some sliding scales to start with. Offshore landlords who are non citizens could pay back the lot. On shore start with repayment of 1-2 years then gradually increase that. But there would have to be some fairness built in. Otherwise the landlords who are altruistic with low rentals and had tenants getting the subsidy would get caught too.

    • RedBaronCV 12.3
      23 May 2021 at 11:51 am

      Are they channelling some of the US Repug talking points. Somewhere, Politico I think, there were some newly elected Repug congress peeps who had migrated to the USA equating stuff like USA medicare with hard out repressive regimes like North Korea or Cuba. The false equivalence was pretty high so I guess delusion has no international boundaries.

      • Jenny how to get there 12.3.1
        25 May 2021 at 7:32 am

        Taxpayers Union absurdist hatred of taxpayer funded health care knows no bounds.

        Off the back of the latest tragic outbreak of bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians.

        Taxpayers Union spokesperson Damien Grant finds Israel's universal health care troubling.

        Vitriol and double standards are directed against Israel

        Damien Grant 05:00, May 23 2021

        ….There are valid reasons to critique Israel. The settlements, blockades and universal healthcare are all things that trouble me. If I lived there, I would be as contrarian towards their government as I am to my own.

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/300313665/vitriol-and-double-standards-are-directed-against-israel

        • Jenny how to get there 12.3.1.1
          25 May 2021 at 12:04 pm

          Damien Grant is troubled by Israel's tax funded health system. But not by Israel's tax funded war machine, propped up by $3billion a year by US taxpayers.

          The US Republicans, who the Taxpayers Union take the cue from, talk about having alternative facts, you gotta wonder if they all live in an alternative universe, where public funded healthcare is bad and publicly funded war is good.

  13. DS 13
    23 May 2021 at 2:49 am

    If Mr Williams checked the Labour Party constitution, he might note that Labour is officially a democratic socialist party (the actual phrasing, curiously. Not social-democratic).

    By his reasoning, I suppose he'd consider being a Proud Christian an affront, given the Spanish Inquisition.

  14. KJT 14
    23 May 2021 at 8:43 am

    The only thing wrong with socialism, is we allow fools to survive to adulthood, to claim it doesn't work.

    Most of the people who don't like socialism would be the ones living in a cardboard box, in their ideal Dog eat Dog ,"free market" society.