Who’s heading in the right direction?

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 10th, 2012 - 13 comments
Categories: education, food, housing, poverty - Tags:

While Labour and the Greens are laying out concrete policies to tackle poverty and its consequences that lead to life-long problems (child payment and home insulation from the Greens, food in schools and reading recovery from Labour), National MPs are acting as slum landlords, refusing to spend a few thousand dollars to bring their rentals up to standard, and National’s education policy is about using a failed method of measuring educational under-achievement for ulterior reasons – rather than do anything to fix the problems.

13 comments on “Who’s heading in the right direction? ”

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  1. aerobubble 1
    10 September 2012 at 10:55 am

    Key comes out, demands Putin is not serious, about trickle
    down trade (because the NZ government won’t protect its
    economy from rent seekers), so Putin counters the
    one finger salute by the NZ PM aimed at the every Kiwi,
    by demanding NZ hand over its intellectual farming
    competitive advantage, like Putin didn’t see how much
    Key hates kiwis and wanted to add his boot in to.

    Putin has a lot to worry about, all female band
    making fun of him, and so undermining his masculinity,
    Key has it easy with a fawning media at home, honed and
    shaped from three decades of neo-liberalist jack boots, removing
    any semblance of open dissent against any serious
    government edicts.

    Take the new social policy, that drug addicts, who
    seriously cannot come off their addiction, are to be
    denied basic housing, food, and so access to healthcare.
    As National lowers the basic standard of decency every
    citizen should expect from its government. Do anything
    abnormal, that can be construed as degenerate, and the
    state will turn you into a non-citizen not even with
    the basic rights to food and housing. Why again should
    a drug addict not get the benefit, and so housing allowance,
    but get a state house? All drug addicts are not alike,
    some own property, can choose to sell, or take a mortgage
    out, to continue their addictive habit, and so loss
    housing allowance, but other addicts would keep their
    state house which is a subsidy in and of itself.

    Two addicts are not alike, one could have savings and
    pay taxes on the interest, or have a large trust fund,
    and so would not feel the effect of losing a benefit for
    decades, but your average low decile junkie would be
    denied basic food, money to goto the doctor, etc.
    But hey, rich junkies already walk free while their
    low decile brothers end up in every increasing strife.

    Welcome to reality, the politicians believe they own the rest of us.

  2. mike e 2
    10 September 2012 at 11:13 am

    Putin is protecting his own economy for stategic reasons
    Their is no way russia is going to give in to letting their borders open to agricultural imports.
    As it would undermine their ability to sustain a long war !
    Like wise just about every other major trading block is not going to roll over and open their borders to free agricultural trade ,all Key and grosser are doing is photo ops.
    Putins body language said it all.

    • aerobubble 2.1
      10 September 2012 at 11:36 am

      Yes, Key put Putin on the spot, Putin is holding back, but the free trade meme has past
      its use by date, without compatible increases in protections for citizens all free trade is,
      is a means to push more wealth into the hands of a few global oligarchs. And therein
      is the thing, Putin is more Nationalist and less pro-oligarch (Key). Which is my point,
      Key does not have the interests of NZ at heart.

  3. Jackal 3
    10 September 2012 at 12:18 pm

    Jian Yang – Asshole of the Week

    Key needs to act to ensure members of his political party uphold the highest standards so that public opinion of politicians doesn’t decline even further…

    • Tim 3.1
      10 September 2012 at 5:00 pm

      Yea but what’s funny though is that Key en his voisas even contemplated doing a deal with Putin in a way that might pose (in some way – the eeeensiest weeeeensiest bit negative way for Russia) a threat. A pusy little pimple at the end of the Earth grovelling is how it actually came across to them.
      .A pusy little pimple with the ego the size of a bus, resting on a Gillard and U.S. bum (right and Lett cheeks) at the end of the Earth is how it all comes across to me.
      Pillocks!

    • Jim Nald 3.2
      10 September 2012 at 5:11 pm

      Whooo is this Jian Yang guy?
      His visibility in Parliament, to date, has been … uhmm … (I will be polite …)

  4. Herodotus 4
    10 September 2012 at 2:15 pm

    “The Herald on Sunday has spoken to more than 20 people who rent their homes from MPs on both sides of Parliament.Many report cold homes, and in four cases the newspaper was able to confirm the houses were not properly insulated.”
    So does anyone know who all of these MP landlords are, as I gather from this article that it is not only National MP’s who could be embarrassed for being poor landlords. Or are some here following what Drew Weston found regarding threatening info and some of “our” team may also be poor neolib landlords, but best keep that quiet.

  5. Jim Nald 5
    10 September 2012 at 2:50 pm

    “Nice to have” (great thanks to Double Dipton for that phrase):

    National MPs putting back their taxpayer-funded salaries (totalling at least $135,000) for public good to benefit citizens renting from the MPs … who would have purchased or be servicing those rentals with their taxpayer-funded salaries.

  6. Carol 6
    10 September 2012 at 3:25 pm

    Well, Cunliffe has posted another piece this afternoon, this time on manufacturing. I’m not keen that he’s still talking about “growth”, but his focus on the need to provide some support and stimulus for manufacturing is good.

    http://www.labour.org.nz/news/national%E2%80%99s-hands-off-and-hope-killing-manufacturing

    “Manufacturers are struggling to cope with an over-valued Kiwi dollar. Just this morning the Herald reported a forecast that the dollar will hit a post-float record of 90 US cents within 18 months. That would be devastating for manufacturers and could see many priced out of traditional export markets.

    “The Government doesn’t have any answers. But Labour is ready to act by adding exports and employment to the Reserve Bank policy targets.

    “Evidently National is content for New Zealand’s economy to continue its sad decline, for more workers to lose their jobs and for more young Kiwis to give up hope and head for the departure lounges,” says David Cunliffe.

    But Cunliffe is succinct and makes his points well – unlike the long rambling piece today from Parker on RA – couldn’t be bothered reading it all. But it seems this David has met with the head of the IMF and has much to say on it. He ends saying he’s meeting with Joseph Stiglitz tomorrow…. now I’ll be interested to see his response to that guy’s ideas.