Auckland buses rolling out this week. Campaign moving.
Auckland buses rolling out this week. Campaign moving.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at 10:34 am and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Tories say that trickle down tax cuts for the top guys is affordable and necessary, but trickle up tax payments to feed hungry kids is reckless and will send us broke. They cost about the same. Problem is, there is no way to make sure the top end tax cuts were saved as Key promised and not spent on champagne and overseas holidays.
from Keeping Stock
“It looks like the authorization statement is on the bit that folds over when it is on school runs (peak times in the morning and afternoon). In that case there will be no authorization statement visible – and I’m sure that will be in breach of the rules. ”
Electoral rules being flouted yet again?
Ironic really – this policy will put up the price of public transport or see services cut as operators claw back increased costs.
But by then the votes will have been bought and delivered, so that doesn’t matter.
I think you’ll find, Jen, that if the top taxpayers decided to call it a day and go to a place where they were better rewarded we’d all suffer, whereas if the same was said for an equivalent number / proportion of the unskilled we’d be financially better off.
I’m not suggesting that policies should be pitched to encourage beneficiaries or unskilled workers to leave, but fiscal policies certainly need to be considered fair by the top end earners. There’s a huge competition within the world for their expertise, knowledge and experience.
If Labour is going to continually roll out the ‘hungry kid’ motif it’s got to be prepared to do something more than just throw someone else’s money at the problem. Yet it constantly dismisses as ‘bene bashing’ any suggestion of means to ensure that benefits, especially those which are given as a result of children’s needs, are spent appropriately.
@ Old George, you mean like the 100,000 others who voted for Key with their feet and moved to Ozzie in the last 3 years? Like them, you mean? Or were you thinking of the other 100,000 people who suddenly got hit with the lazy stick and decided work and good health was no longer for them? And their hungry kids too, I guess?
I’d like to know the timing of the $15.00 p/h minimum wage policy.
If elected into government does Labour intend to increase the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour at the next review? Or is it going to be drip fed increases over the next few years.
It cost a family of 4 about $500 per week to live above the poverty line in Auckland. This includes rent, power and food, transport to work etc.. Just the basics…
If your extended family lives in another town forget it, you can’t afford to go see them (and forget about owning a car)….
Working 40 hrs its about $15.60 per hour… On current minimum wage its 50 hrs per week… Life on the poverty line isn’t fun, it is survival from week to week and nothing else!!!
What ever happened to the 40hr working week with one stay at home parent? Guess the rich must have got richer while the poor got poorer!!!
Brilliant policy, great advertising. Are you bringing back the other awesome bus advert “axe the tax” as well? 15% gst is hurting!
Ed your calculations take no consideration as to WFF and Working Tax credits + Accommodatuion allowances and any other benefits that the family is eligible for. You have fallen into the trap of using gross income. Thanks to WFF I have been aware of cases whereby a family on one income is above the threashold to receive any assistance, yet families below this income level are eligible and recieve more disposable income than the single income earner, thanks to the way that the tax system works in taxing based on earner and benefits by family incomel. yet both have mirror images of family makeup.
There are many families who sacrifice to maintain a stay at home parent, yet Lab, Nat and others display distain towards this group regarding income splitting. Perhaps principles are not worth the votes following them, may result in.
What about a bus ad that says no child left behind? Then you can focus the eleCtorates mind on the work you meant to finish three years ago if you were given a fourth term?
@ Herodotus “You have fallen into the trap of using gross income.”
I was simply stating how much it costs to pay for life in New Zealand if you don’t take any government assistance, as the Right Wing would like us not too…
My calculation involves paying $125 in tax every week as well, at 20% of gross income.
If minimum wage is at $15 then two people working full time (80hr total) can earn $960 per week after paying tax which is more than enough to cover expenses without the need for a government handout but then who looks after the kids?
If one person is earning $20 per hour working 50hrs then they have $800 per week after tax and one parent stays home. This is still tight but possible to live a normal life on (wear nice clothes etc).
The only reason we need government assistance for families is because living on the poverty line is incredibly hard to do (unless you have the perfect mind set, which you cannot easily get if you are brought up in poverty!).
Poverty of mind cannot be helped by demonizing poor people for getting government assistance! It can only be helped through good education and financial stability at home.
So with a minimum wage of $15 per hour, there will be about 6000 more people at the low end of the scale out of work, and so much harder for youth to find work. I know you lefties deny this, but it is a fact. No matter the way the polls are, you can hold this policy over to 2017, by which time the minimum wage will be about $15er hour
Monty 6000 people will not be out of work because of an increase in minimum wage. its not true.
No Labour Party candidate wants to answer my question.
I wonder why.
Hey- rare debt- if you read the Work and Wages policy doc on the Labour website it says- first year in government.
Rare Debt confirm – next review – implemented April next year
Hi Monty!
!
The youngens will be just fine!
The bus looks good!
Monty, can you outline the detail plan, the timelines and the basis for belief in success of the national policy to create more jobs for all NZers, including the young? I’ve looked through parts of their policy and can’t find the detail. Thanks in advance.
Tracey – I think you need to realise that what people are going to be voting for when they turn out for National in a couple of weeks time is a change in attitude rather than specific policies.
For decades the pendulum has swung, under governments of both colours, away from personal responsibility in almost every area of our lives and towards dependency on the state. It’s a move that is very much supported by those of the Left, and has been received until recently with ambivolence by the masses.
I believe that we’ve seen a fundamental change over the last couple of years, for a variety of reasons, and that the great majority of people now wish for the pendulum to swing the other way.
Just as the Left started gently in bringing in its measures (the Labour Parties of the 30s and 40s would never have believed that we’d get to the sort of position we’re in today, I bet) then so too must National follow a ‘gently, gently’ approach in retreating from the current situation.
It’s like getting a kid to ride a bike without the trainer wheels. They’re uncertain at first, but once they understand they can do it on their own they’d never go back to the trainer wheels again. So too does the population need to be led slowly to believe it can stand on its own two feet once again.
Seeing the mess that Europe has got itself into by paying itself far too much for doing far too little is one of the things assisting this swing, I believe.
You seem to have forgotten that the pendulum swung with Thatcher in 79, Reagan 1980-81 and here from 1984. Since then the workers have been less likely to have work and more likely to be poor in work and the income and welath gap has increased. They called it market reform – and incentivising. Now how well has it worked in practice and when it does not who gets blamed – the people for having needs they cannot meet without work or sufficient pay.
And you really are quite gullible aren’t you old george, just another boy out of the working class estate who is trying to be middle class by sucking up to his “betters” and looking down on others. The GFC and the subsequent Euro crisis had nothing to do with domestic government policies.
The GFC resulted from financial sector deregulation and the subsequent unleashed corporate greed, the aftermath is high bank indebtedness and need to re-capitalise. Bank bailouts added to existing government debt, now the market is risk averse and punishing governments. Why, so that the cleanout cost from their corporate capitalist greed is borne by the people who were/are the victims of the whole market liberalisation in the first place.
It’s just a form of cut worker wages, cut staff levels and hand over the profits to the management, directors and shareholders – but as practiced at the aggregate level rather on a company or industry level.
The capitalist system is requiring government share of debt to be reduced to retrench debt/save itself – the source of this is in the GFC, not levels of government indebtedness (that was not an issue previously).
One reason is that formerly a Keynesian approach to economic recovery would have occured but on this occasion (the GFC debts that have to be swallowed and re-capitalisation of banks needs to occur) this is not possible. In Europe the problem is complicated by the Euro system that prevents the use of the tool of currency devaluation – that has helped the UK survive more easily than those within the Euro zone.
The country that should be most exposed is the USA – yet because the dollar is a reserve currency somehow the market players are unable to place pressure on its debt cost mechanism (CT – maybe American funds are bullying Europe via pressure on nations in turn, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain – to reduce global public debt to reduce pressure on themselves).
This is not going to end well, in bullying governments to retrench to meet the cost of capitalist refinancing – there will be a market demand decline in the first world that will increased public pressure on governments to replace lost revenue (from slow growth) by taxation of financial sector – this will ultimately result in outsourcing financial services to offshore/non western nations. We are witnessing the last days of Wall Street and London capitalist hegemony. If we are to be under occupation by global market capital, then let it be a heavily regulated internationale rather than a class elite system restored amongst us within our own democracies.
So the old ‘you’re a toff and have no idea’ changes to ‘you’re a wannabe’ when the former is shown to be false!
I’m working class, mate, and always have been. By that I mean that I don’t have private means and I have to get up in the morning and work day in day out to provide a living for myself and my family.
Like many others who comment here you sound as if you’re stuck in a timewarp where those who wear overalls to their employment are ‘the workers’ and those who wear suits are ‘the toffs’. The world has changed mate. There are far more working class than there’s ever been. It’s just that most of them would rather get stuck in and work hard (and reap the benefits) than man the barracades and carry placards for whatever is the cause du jour.
Never called ya a toff, but if saying that I did is the only way you can find a way to reply that justifies yourself and continue to sneer at others so be it.
It does however speak to the meme, that those who consider themselves justified and worthy also try and find a world view that finds others less worthy – preferably claiming that the righeous majority are on their side against the unworthy minority.
Randolph Churchill explained this to Tories back in the 19th C – explaining why an extension of the franchise would be good for the party. The Liberal voters would then vote Tory rather than vote with the working class. Of course it has become mroe complicated than that, as the successfully indoctrinated working class would have more in common with working for themself rather than solidarity with others, whereas some of the educated elite would continue to side with justice for all.
“The world has changed mate. There are far more working class than there’s ever been. It’s just that most of them would rather get stuck in and work hard (and reap the benefits) than man the barracades and carry placards for whatever is the cause du jour.”
Well its time for me to get to work, but working hard for someone else doesnt reap any benefits under this government, And yet we still give 100% to our employers.
And i think youll lfind most people wouldnt man barricades in NZ anymore, it kills your chances of future job prospects, blogging is as good as it will get for most of us anymore.