In the middle of the night our time, somewhere between a quarter and a half a million people marched through London to express their frustration and fear about the impact of huge cuts in the public service.
Most are unglamorous, obscure, unfeted projects, staffed by employees who are not very well paid, but hugely committed to what they do. All of these losses come as a result of the government’s decision to cut spending by £95bn over five years.
Our government has been steadily making cuts since they took office. Most are unglamourous, unfeted projects. Most of the people affected are the already disaffected.
There’s been a steady campaign by the government to build a picture of a public service which is bloated and inefficient.
And to build a picture of the recipients of public services especially beneficiaries, as being rip off merchants. People who didn’t deserve the help anyway. Or should be standing on their own two feet by themselves.
Now we face the prospect of a zero budget. Just think how many more jobs will go, how many more services will be cut, how many more older people will be colder and left to cope on their own. How many more small children in families with low or no incomes will go without a meal, a new pair of shoes, access to a computer at home, while their parents can’t afford the school uniform, the school trips, the essential trips to the doctor, let alone a holiday.
There are no new jobs on the horizon. There are no new industries. There are no really good ideas that people can latch onto and think “this is our future” “I get what this is about”.
There is no hope.
Meanwhile our front pages are full of finger pointing and rotten egg throwing at the latest scapegoat in a political scandal.
My country matters. My electorate matters. I’ve got people who need jobs, who need to know they have a future. I want to give them hope.
I dont like labour’s chances for a win in the election BUT it is crucial you guys work hard and loud on the issues that neeed to be heard to hold the other guys to account. This time in 3 years I believe the country will have suffered irrepairable damage. Again state owned assets will be sold at their rock bottom price to pay down the borrowing National’s done since coming to power.
As an aside, my 18 year ld niece who has been working in supermarkets and cleaning since she was 14, and who has now finished school with her NCEA’s is spending every hour trying to find work. She is a hard worker, strong work ethic, gets up at all hours if she has to. She cannot find a job to tide her over until she is old enough for admission to a particular course she has her heart set on.
She’s had 4 hours work a week for the last 2 months.
These are the young people who dont make the news, dont get interviewed, arent discussed. This is our future, willing ready and able with no job to go to.
This government had a job summit they promised would be do-fest not a talk-fest. They failed my niece and the thousands like her and no one has held them to account.
If we all care so much about the country and its people Labour could help us out by pulling their act together and working as a proper opposition. I have no faith in Labour right now that they could be an alternative government.
The UK is a year ahead of us in implementing a very similar package of ‘welfare reform’ which is very similar to what the Welfare Working Group recommends. In practice it has seen all disability beneficiaries reassessed by a private multi-national company’s computer programme to ensure most are re-classified as ‘jobseekers’. It has led to much injustice and thousands of expensive challenges. So among the protesters would have been the disability sector.
Put forward a bold vision of hope, then. Call the government to account for its slashing. Talk in terms that connect with the public. Get on with it.
Or if you can not actually function as an opposition, get out of the way. Real people are hurting, as you say. What are you doing about it?
Clare I agree with you, we need to invest in real jobs so we can grow out of the current economic situation. However I haven’t heard anything other than spend and hope from you guys. Check out my blog for some of my thoughts http://bit.ly/fR3pUz Keen to hear what you would suggest to address inflated government spending, a growing overburden of welfare and a lack of real job growth in areas that have a future.
There are no new jobs on the horizon. There are no new industries. There are no really good ideas that people can latch onto and think “this is our future” “I get what this is about”.
There is no hope.
Thanks for the honesty.
That this is true, and it essentially is, is only testimony to the idiocy of both Labour and National(/ACT etc). The risks of continuing our oil-dependent, globalised, asset-sale, taker lifestyle have been obvious for ages (and numerous people have warned about this), but successive governments have done nothing about it. Now we’re in for a large dose of “re-adjustment” and there’s little anyone can do about it now. (To be fair, it’s not only the politicians who have been remiss – but your job is to lead and guide).
Worse still, through your ineptitude as an opposition, you’re probably going to hand the next election to the worst possible bunch of people to run the country at this point in history. The damage the Nats will do next term will pretty much sink us.
We could have harnessed our creative skills and been green tech pioneers, but it’s a bit late now.
Just spotted Matt McCarten’s regular column (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10715084) making a similar point:
“Labour needs more urgency, more mongrel and more seriousness about its obligations to its supporters who are really hurting under this Government.”
Look we have no money to spend. Clare, your a dreamer. I hope you dont get your mittens on the government coffers. Look at the budget. But hey you dont care about Chch do you? If you did you would realise that we need to allocate as much money with out increasing our debt. If we do then we’ll have a burdon on our shoulders for years to come. And then what will have to happen? Tax increase. Its not sustainable.
Welcome to the real world, Clare.
Absolutely. I’ve been very frustrated by the ineptitude of Labour’s media handlers. This government has completely mishandled the economy and instead of attacks we get tiptoeing.
When John Key said that beneficiaries “made bad choices” I would have been on that analogy of spending up on flat screen TVs and game consoles (tax cuts for the wealthy, corporate bailouts) while letting the kids go hungry (bad unemployment, cutting benefits). Instead, as usual, you let the right frame the debate. Why aren’t you guys hammering on them for the tax cuts? Why are you letting them go on and on about the debt? Who gave us that debt? Who benefits from that debt? Why aren’t you asking these questions again and again and again. And call them out for their attempts to distract.
Also tell your other Labour MPs to not fall for some right wing honey trap next time.
Matthew we need leaders with courage and vision. We also need responsible economic decisions. We can have both.
Clare… do you mean ‘jobs’ like the Tertiary Education Commission where they finally started culling staff when the numbers reached 450. This work was previously handled by about 20 people at the Ministry of Education. Or ‘jobs’ like the ‘policy analysts’ that were added to the taxpayer payroll at the rate of 500 a year for so many years.
What you seem unable to understand is that paying for those ‘jobs’ sucks money from the productive sector and from all taxpayers. The job of the gummint is not to ‘make’ jobs but to make it easier for those of us who do. Then we are all better off.
Speaking of Darren Hughes, I recall how under Labour and before Darren lost what had been a very safe Labour seat, his uncle (the owner of Swazi) was advised to shift his business off shore. So what is your policy again?
Hear hear Clare. Too often the right frame the debate as though they, and only they have any fiscal responsibility or ide ao fthe correct way to operate an economy.
Matthew continually chooses to ignore that the only proactive thing his favoured govt has done is to borrow money to fund tax cuts that NEVER WERE DESIGNED TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY” – then Matt, with his misunderstanding of affairs suggests you dont care about the earthquake. Little does he realise the earthquake is currently saving this country and his govt because it will be the basis of the biggest influx of foreign money to NZ and the BIGGEST stimulant to the economy yet to happen under his governmnet.
Still, he has a roof over his head, an education, parents who love him, food in his belly and hope for the future. he just begrudges others that right, while accusing those who dont have what he does of laziness or other factors whereby he makes them the harbingers of their own doom. The matthews of this world will not vote for Labour, for a while, until he has been away from the parents for a while, and has a chance to form ideas outside their influence.
Mathew, you’re confusing government debt with private sector debt. Our public debt level is pretty low by world standards.
State spending is a matter of priorities. The current lot seems to think there is more than enough in the kitty to pay for new 1950s highways with cost-benefit ratios less than 1 (even ignoring peak oil), and for tax cuts skewed towards the wealthiest who we know mostly aren’t investing the extra money to get the rest of the economy going. The government already cut savings and early childhood schemes to pay for that. Other slashing is firmly on the agenda just like the 1990s.
Bold investment in forward-looking digital infrastructure, research, and improved business and all-round leadership would help. I’d rather hear more about that alternative vision. Then voters might have an informed choice.
Interesting Bernard Hickey piece about NZ not paying our way in the world: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10715098
..at least then, whoever he votes for it will be down to his experiences of the world, of his own making, and still may be National, or ACT or Greens, but it will be infomred. And I know I sound patronising, but I get sick of the rose coloured glasses brigade spouting forth from their cosey lives about how everyone else could be like them if only they tried harder.
What’s this “no hope” shit. I don’t understand, everyone is criticising the right for declaring that people made bad choices, fine, I get that.
But to dive in the other direction and proclaim that people have *no options* is simply ripping the last vestiges of power from their hands. You are making them seem helpless.
We can’t do that, we simply cannot afford to. Stating there is no hope is the most damaging thing we could possibly do now. At least the rhetoric of the right suggests there are alternatives, that the decisions people make matters (even as it incorrectly attributes all of their problems to their own choices).
We are a country that prides itself on the ability to do wonders with No. 8 wire. We cannot afford to replace determination, grit, innovation and creativity in our national psyche with dependence and helplessness.
Too many of us look to New World and McDonalds and The Warehouse to provide “experience” for our youth. Our businesses are hurting right now, as they should in a global recession. They are not hiring people without experience, because those people are a net loss to productivity while they gain that experience.
Fine. That sucks, it’s a break from the way we did things in the past, but we have to move past that. We have to build experience without necessarily being employed. We need to acknowledge that tertiary education is not a substitute for this experience and shouldn’t be – and this means finding alternatives and integrating them into the way that we learn and live.
These are different for every industry and skill set, but they’re there in every one. Software is my world, and participation and leadership within open source projects is worth its weight in gold without requiring employment. I am confident that if we worked at it, we could find similar ideas everywhere, from volunteer work to solo tasks.
Maybe that’ll work, maybe we need to do something else, but for gods sake we have 4+million people here full of brains and creativity, there is no way – it is simply not possible – that we have reached even a fraction of our potential. This is not a zero sum game, we have a market of 5 or 6 billion people. Stop talking like it’s all going to hell in a hand basket, before you fulfill your own prophecy.
Johnbt@ 2.31. Otaki, kapiti and Horowhenua have always been margibals. Have a look at the old results.
Anne Bilek wants to know who gave us the debt. LABOUR. When they continued to increase gummint spending at the rate of $2.8 billion a year without the income to sustain it. Then National for not doing what needs to be done with interest-free student loans, middle class welfare for families, the bloated bureaucracy, extending the age entitlement for Super, selling off some State assets (but not the power companies, just the unproductive ones like TVNZ), and other centre- right policies that they were elected to do.
{deleted, irrelevant, trolling. Please desist Grant}
Trevor… I heard about your crash and injuries. Does calling Otaki, etc margibals mean you are on the help-yourself morphine for the pain? If so, you lucky sod.
Shame you can not dispute that 400 are now doing the work of 20 though.
“There are no new jobs on the horizon.”
I was disappointed on the position that Labour took on mining in New Zealand. You want to create jobs in New Zealand, then be prepared to make some sacrifices and encourage people to get over their emotional attachments. But I guess you’ll tell people like me that “I don’t get it” – which by the way is a very condescending catch phrase.
So Clare, would your advice to a family earning $60,000 a year but spending $75,000 a year (which are the same proportions as our government spending and income) be to increase their spending?
Or would you advocate to that family to decrease their spending below their expenditure and save and invest the excess to increase their income?
Why do you think government finances are any different from a corporations, a family’s, a persons?
Is it because it’s other people’s money you disrespect, waste and play with on “your visions”?
@Pinkofreezone: I’ve seen some inane financial comments lately but that one takes the biscuit. Corporations borrow money all the time and have varying sizes of debt on their books. And secondly, over the last 10 years or so individuals and households haven’t shown much respect themselves for “other people’s money” by funding excessive consumption through debt.
Your absolutely disgusting Tracy. I’d love to send you to the middle of Christchurch and let everyone whos livelihoods have been destroyed. From houses being write offs to family members, work colleges and friends being killed. You seem to have no heart. Also you forget about the cost of all this rebuilding. Many/most families and businesses will be worse from from loss of income to replacement costs, lack of comprehensive insurance etc. The earthquake is hurting the economy and the community. Not saving it.
New Zealanders do not take heart of these situations. We stand strong united. Im ashamed to call you a New Zealander. Your comment made me sick.
“Too often the right frame the debate as though they, and only they have any fiscal responsibility or ide ao fthe correct way to operate an economy.”
No, we believe that government should take less, spend less and spend smarter. So that we can make the decisions for our lives, not the government making decisions for us. I care about my income, I dont care what Citizen A, B or C does with their money. Its up to them. The left can run an economy, just not very well.
I wouldn’t really call the poor lazy. Sure some are but im sure there are some rich like that too. More unmotivated. High taxes, poor education system, useless healthcare aren’t helping. They dont have much to work for outside of family.
Get over it Matthew. I (until recently) work in Chch CBD and had my office fall apart around me on 22nd Feb but I don’t in anyway find anything offensive about Tracey’s remarks. In fact, twisting her statements into meaning something they clearly don’t and using this disaster to justify your outburst makes you the sicko.
@Robbo, I find your response inane:
I agree people are over consuming through debt, so your argument is that because people are doing so, your advice to them is to continue being irresponsible and for government to copy the same folly..?
Price competetive business of course do raise debt but it is a matter of survival, governments should not be raising money via taxes to more than they should and they sure as heck shouldn’t be raising debt to do more than they should…
*businesses
*to do more
For those interested my intellectually and physically disabled brother-in-law has been staying with me for 4 weeks as a Christchurch refugee. His room has been freed up to allow respite care for those disabled in the community who have no sewerage and need a haven. My cousin-in-law lost their home in the first quake in kaipoi, lost, gone never to be lived in again. Our closest friend works at Canterbury cricket and their building was badly effected. We have friends in Bexley and Redcliffs. No, I dont live in CHCHCH. Yes I have lived there, and have stayed there at least twice a year for 21 years.
I dont usually make comments about grammar and spelling because this is a forum and people, including me type in a rush. However matthew you’re done this for several months now, and I worry it may halt your progress in your career choice.
Your is a possessive
You’re
The former is
The second is a contraction for you are. It has no other uses. This is a 100% rule. If you cannot expand it to you are in your sentence, then it is wrong
Your post disturbed me ( the post is possessed by me)
You’re absolutely disgusting Tracey. (you are absolutely disgusting Tracey)
Lost some words from my post
Your is a possessive
You’re is short for you are. It has no other uses. This is a 100% rule. If you cannot expand it to you are in your sentence, then it is wrong
The former is about ownership of something. Your post disturbed me ( the post is possessed by you)
You’re absolutely disgusting Tracey. (you are absolutely disgusting Tracey)
Urm Tracey, please explain how the earthquake is good for the economy?
Also sacha private sector debt is effectively public sector debt. Why? When Michael Cullen gave a government guarentee to the banks he effectively nationalised private debt. Most private debt is held by those covered, so the government took on the risk.
Clare, if you want a song of hope sung, you’re going to have to sing it yourself. Nobody is going to sing it for you.
If you’re not going to sing it, let someone else. To adapt an old phrase about toilets which would probably get moderated here: sing, or get off the stage.
L
Deleted. You should know better. Clare
We choose not to enter into correspondence on moderating decisions. Argue again and you will be banned. Trevo
johnbt EITHER knows that “we inherited the debt from Labour” is nonsense and is just repeating the Nat Party lie in the hope that, if it is said often enough, people will believe it OR actually thinks it is true, which just shows he knows nothing about economics.
(Of course many people do not understand economics through no fault of their own.)
Seriously Tracey? Thats the best you can come up with? Andrew Klavan was right…
@pinkofreezone: you find my post inane but then agree with some of it. Proves my original post.
No, I do not advocate households follow the lead of the current Govt and continue their excessive consumption through debt. The difference between households and the Govt is some scrooge called Cullen spent the last decade PAYING OFF debt with surpluses which left the Govt books in good shape. And you right-wing loonies have the gall to say he mis-managed the economy, as i say – inane.
The the number of public servants, both at central and local government level, needs to be severely reduced. Some public servants are necessary, most are not necessary, and some are downright obstructive. None create wealth.
A hammer needs to be taken to a huge number of government departments. A tiny fraction of these would include: the ministry of women’s affairs, the children’s commission, the arts council, anything and everything connected with treaty claims, TVNZ, RNZ….. the list goes on. Most of theses are nothing more than expensive work-for-the-dole schemes. GET RID OF THEM BEFORE THEY SEND THE NZ TAXPAYER’S BROKE!!!
Bill.
pinkofreezone, just a question – have you ever studied economics? You don’t (do not) seem to understand this topic.
Mathew – what is there not to get about Tracey’s post (post belonging to or from Tracey) that was about the government’s failure to create growth in the economy (pinkofreezone read this) and how the rebuild of Canterbury (using reinsurance money from offshore) would create the jobs/growth, but not as a result of any action of this government.
That growth will ultimately result in a recovery of taxation revenues and bring the budget back into balance – not cuts in spending which will be be at the comparative margins of this process.
PS We rank number 2 to Australia for fiscal responsibility – this is after 9 years of a Labour government and then National running large deficits while we are in recession.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/australia-tops-fiscal-responsibility-stakes-20110324-1c7h6.html
You have a platform and a voice right here, Clare.
So what would you do? What is it that is not being reported? What is the vision?
I’m listening.
Clare: Have you seen Lew’s post (Off the hook)? If so, do you have a response?
http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2011/03/off-the-hook/
So much misunderstanding
Greg wrote “so the government took on the risk” – nice try but the facts are Bill English renewed the guarantee to SCF and he did not have to and was not beholden to it by the last govt. Sounds like the PM’s first excuse over the BMW’s, which was also wrong in fact.
I and others have explained how the earthquake could be “good” for the economy. In any event it will create foreign income (stated above) and job and growth in Canterbury (also stated above) none of which National could achieve prior to Sept 2010.
SPC – thank you, I began to wonder if I had, in fact, posted in English. Only those drawing a long bow could consider I was glad the earthquake happened. The only people who might be privately (VERY privately) please it happened is national insiders – something they could never voice publicly.
Matthew and Greg please feel free to post the governments success to date on job creation following their fanfared job summit over two years ago.
“Andrew Klavan was right” –
Adnrew Klavan is not dead, he remains Right, VERY Right.
I was talking about what he said in the past. Past tense. Now just because you lost an argument doesn’t mean you have to be bitter.
Tracey you seem to think I’m a National party supporter. I’m not. The jobs summit was a waste of time.
SCF is merely a specific example of the government guarantee. I was talking about the entire industry. Anyway its irrelevant who created it (had Bill English been finance minister at the time I think he would have done exactly the same thing). The fact is it exists. Thus, until it ceases to we have to care about private debt. The argument that ‘only public debt matters’ doesn’t float. Our private debt is public debt.
I get your argument about the earthquake being ‘good’ for the economy. Foreign money flows into the country through reinsurance creating jobs and thus stimulating the economy right? Well that doesn’t float either. It will create unsustainable jobs in the construction industry (and maybe another couple of isolated industries). Construction and whoever else will be better off temporarily. However the jobs lost from other industries will outsrip those made by the construction industry multiple times over
Greg, the government guarantee is only the deposits. It does not include the foreign loand banks took to lend to homeowners and farmers (mortgages) and businesses. The high level of foreign debt risk (private debt of homeowners, farmers and business) belongs to the banks, the government has only guaranteed the deposits (the amounts locals have saved and placed in deposits). Don’t confuse this with private sector debt.