The danger of woke middle class identity politics replacing class left analysis is that the politics devolve into a micro aggression deplatforming campaign that alienates rather than builds solidarity against free market capitalism.
The true demarcation of power in a. democratic capitalist state is the 1% richest + their 9% enablers Vs the 90% rest of us.
Identity Politics simply cements into place a caste system of intersectionism alongside a terminal tribal affiliation to your skin colour, gender or identity.
There needs to be far more common ground and shared values.
We need to remove the yoke of taxation from the 90% and reset it to the 10% richest.
The minefield of social justice and it’s never ending pure temple deplatforming of everything that triggers it will only drive people further from the Left in an intense economic downturn because you can’t eat virtue signalling aesthetics.
- $608 million in housing equity was made by landlords
- 9.6% increase in rent for tenants
- 18.4% of children live in households earning less than half the median income after housing costs
- $5.5 billion in profit made by ANZ, BNZ, ASB and Westpac
and the Top 1% own 25% of wealth while the Bottom 50% owns 2% of wealth
If you think the worst inflation in 30 years is bad now, wait until the impact of the Ukrainian war and broken supply chains in China hit.
New Taxes & Tax cuts
Financial Transaction Tax – Bring in a flat rate on every electronic transaction, capture the speculators and the wealthy to fund vast new services and lower the GST to 10%.
Journalism Tax – On Google and Facebook to force media to get paid for the journalism both those companies destroy.
Sugar Tax – Hit big sugar and use the money for free dental.
GST Off fresh fruit and vegetables – poor people need price relief now!
First $10 000 is tax free – the only tax cut that really helps the poorest!
Methane Tax – tax the farmers for the methane they generate.
Legal cannabis market – The taxation and judicial costs amount to half a billion extra in revenue, you could fund every drug programme in NZ and still have money left over!
New universal provision of services:
Short term the Government has to be focused on deflationary spending, mid term economically we need radical climate change adaptation, long term they need to start navigating a post growth economy.
The best way to push those values is via the Public Service Culture and processes.
For essential state service workers like teachers, like police, like Drs, like nurses, like ambulance and Firefighter services, we can match the rising inflation in wages, but the focus needs to be on expanding capacity, expanding State responsibility and expanding quality of work experience.
It is insane that our Ambulance Service is privatised, and the State should nationalise it immediately. As first responders, their obligations and responsibilities will only climb as society continues to rock from the shockwaves of Covid.
Professional Firefighters must be expanded to acknowledge the danger we are under from climate change and fire seasons.
Rather than compete with inflationary wage rises, focus on better conditions. 11 weeks paid holiday each year, 4 day weeks plus housing projects where subsidised rentals are available for houses.
We also need to start bonding Teachers, Drs and nurses with free education in exchange for bonded work around NZ.
We shouldn’t be looking to slash public servants, we need more!
ACT want to amputate 5 Ministry’s while Luxon is promising to slash 14 000 jobs!
That is ideological vandalism, that’s not an actual plan!
Covid showed us the need for a strong State with capacity to step in and with the climate crisis here, we will continue to need a strong State with capacity!
The Right’s never ending march to amputate and slice down the State is so that the people don’t get used to a well functioning public service and so will politically agree to starve it of funds via tax cuts.
Global free market capitalism is dead, hyper regionalism is here. We need a bigger State with actual capacity rather than the threadbare barely regulated joke that it currently is.
We shouldn’t agree to cutting public services, we should fund their capacity and infrastructure rebuild while making the working conditions for those there a better quality!
Where should we get that money? Windfall taxes on the corporations and banks!
We need better conditions for those workers and the values of working 4 day weeks, extra holidays and housing solutions are aimed at making better working conditions as opposed to never ending inflationary wage pressures.
We need a sustainable bureaucracy rather than 7 figure technocrats who see their own fiefdoms and glass palaces as the measure of public policy achievements.
The last chance for Left progressive policy is a list of bottom line first 100 day laws in the 2023 election to force Labour into being more Bernie Sanders than cautious Grant and Jacinda.
Here’s what a Labour/Green/Maori Party Government should be committed to passing in the first 100 days of the 2023 election…
1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help. The slow incrementalism touted by favourite public sector for dragger apologist Max Rashbrooke isn’t good enough because the lower middle classes are feeling the same pinch thanks to mortgage rises and universal school lunches and breakfasts would help them as well.
2: 50 000 State Homes for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs plus Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements)
3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.
4: 30% stake holder in a new Government backed supermarket operation run to provide lower food prices for kiwism better prices for supplies and better conditions for workers.
5: GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health plus a sugar tax.
6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.
7: Taxation focused on corporations and banks like financial transaction tax, a sugar tax and first $10 000 tax free.
8: Offer nurses, teachers and Drs free education and living allowances in return for bonded time in our health and eduction systems.
9: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances.
…Kiwis have to see a progressive Government ACTUALLY doing shit in the first 100 days or they won’t believe any change is coming and when you consider the economic maelstrom we are entering, the most vulnerable amongst us will be screaming for real change.
If we on the Left don’t offer voters real solutions to their material problems and instead prefer to micro aggression police the latest middle class virtue signals of hate speech, cancelling Comedians and screaming everyone is racist, we are fucked politically in 2023.
We need more real economic solutions on the Left and far less pronoun policing.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to Corporations.
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A progressive, annual capital value levy on non-owner-occupied housing, i.e. Luxon pays 10% of the value of his first investment property, 20% of the value of his second, 30% of the value of his third, etcetera, EVERY YEAR.
That would help the rental market as rents rise to cover cost of owning a property. You do realize if it was not for tax free capltal gain renting would cease as in itself it has a poor return on investment in most cases.
Were there no landlords the glut of houses on the market would crash the price of housing by 60% or 70%, making house-buying affordable for many of those who now rent.
That aside, we need a Government that will build, own, and manage 100,000, nay 200,000, houses for secure, lifetime, income-moderated rent by all who want them.
Ah good old Adern style first order thinking in progress right there.
Never think about the crash in demand for new house builds that eventually lead to a total lack of housing.
Honestly, if this is how the average voter votes, there is little wonder Adern can still command 30% support whilst being the most incompetent NZ PM in history.
Jay, one must bear in mind that fully half the population have less than average intelligence. 😉
Zzz zzz zzz…boooring
speculators don’t build the houses we need jays faux american townhouses are good as empty investment properties but do nothing to help our shortage.
were there landlords in NZ before the tax breaks trev….and are there landlords in the other ‘western’ countries who do have capital gains tax…now if your saying kiwi landlords are greedy fuckers who don’t do maintainance and screw their tenants you may have a point.
and if an over inflated market falls landlords like good free market capitalists should accept the market decides and let the chips fall where they will…
The problem you seem to have totally missed or more likely just ignored gagarin is it is the Government who controls the financial environment everyone has to work inside, bar obviously the Governments mates as we have seen with this and every previous Govt.
The landlords are only being wise within the system they have to work with, just like all other wise people who use money.
So if the Govt wanted to stop landlords they could tomorrow……but this one like all before her has decided not too.
Aim your angst at the right target and stop being a political drone.
and the point you are willfully ignoring peter is your droning is highly political too, no one denies the actions/inaction of SUCCESSIVE govts has overinflated a bubble market…and the thing with bubbles is they burst.
Or we could just build houses for rent. Not GJ Gardners crappola sheds, but 1 – 3 bedroom flats/small houses to live in and implement rent levels and lock them in.
100% – 8 – 10% low income affordable housing built by cost effective MOW itype situation in properly planned communities. Use compulsary purchase to acquire land off of land speculators. (Could do immigration bonding for tradespeople like they did in the 50’S). My dad came on a free ticket and built houses at power stations across the Waikato for 3 years and then got citizenship.
All houses offered long term at below market rents, say 35% less. Then watch what happens to crime, poverty and community spirit. Also look at how affordable mid level housing becomes and how much the rents drop.
It isnt rocket science, it has all been done before.
What has been done before?
8-10 % of new houses built are built by the government?
And those houses are rented out at 35% below market rates?
Can you narrow down where and when?
Thanks.
GJ Gardner build good houses actually.
They are too big if we’d be honest. I am not commenting on their quality, but size.
And who pays for it?
Not landlords if you remove the opportunity of return on investment.
Not the government because communist style states invariably languish as the talent leave and the losers do what losers always do – nothing.
as the demographic of ‘singletons’ increases due to social phenomenon more single person units will be needed..but it’s not addressed because it’s not young couples.
This just in. And I don’t give a fuck about you or whether this is on-topic or not im right. Just an FYI there Big Guy.
Did you know? Electronic shop front billboards can measure your mood and ‘dwell time’..?
Russell Brand. YouTube.
Didn’t take the Covid vaccine? You’re also a bad driver, obviously. Now get ready to pay through the roof for insurance. Thought the pandemic was over? The corporate and State convergence nightmare is only just beginning.
https://youtu.be/GkEXIups7co
so don’t stand gawping in shop windows..problem solved anddddd moving on.
” ” Commentators have described Robertson’s statements as being extremely conservative, with comparisons made with the likes of Steven Joyce and Bill English. Labour’s Finance Minister essentially sounded like a National Party politician ”
Not much chance of any of your program being implemented Bomber. They have had two years and a massive majority and have only tinkered. The problems we face wont be solved by the current parliament or the current government. It no longer serves our many poverty stricken New Zealanders.
Labour doesn’t need to publish an election manifesto for three reasons…
1: They have no intention of telling anyone what they really want to do, as that would make them unelectable.
2: People are already aware of what they can expect from Labour based on the previous 5 years experience, so know not to believe anything they say.
3: There is little chance they will be part of the Government after the election.
So smile and get used to the prospect of a ACT & National Government next year.
Not totally sure on the last one but spot on No.s 1 and 2.
Interestingly one of the major political parties is doing some research into New Zealanders feelings on the subjects of co-governace and New Zealand becoming a republic, so maybe we’ll see some major policy changes or announcements early next year. Interesting times.
in cabinet, fingers in ears ‘nar nar nar nah nah can’t hear kiwis’
thumbs up castro.
“We also need to start bonding Teachers, Drs and nurses with free education in exchange for bonded work around NZ.”
That’s lazy writing, we need to RETURN to that, it was a system that worked brilliantly back in the day, just like the country service provisions in teaching. Now instead of country service we could use a mandatory low decile rating to jump a pay bar.
“ACT want to amputate 5 Ministry’s while Luxon is promising to slash 14 000 jobs!”
We have a Ministry of Womens Affairs and other nonsense Ministries, with the salaries to match, but we have lost the Post office Savings Bank which did do something useful for ordinary people. I know which I prefer.
Cheers
James
100% James. Couldnt care less about losing five ministries. It will likely make no difference. The Ministry of Women is now the Minsitry of anyone who identifies as a women. As far as I am aware they are not even keeping any data about the impact of gender self id on women. So they can go. Sayonara.
In the words of the singing Von Trapp family, So Long, Fairwell, Auf Weidersehn Good bye
Personally, I don’t like the sound of ‘bonding’ people to work. Sounds too much like slavery.
How about if someone wants to be a nurse, doctor, etc; lend the the full cost amount of that study qualification, call it a ‘student loan’.
Slightly lower than market interest would be kind.
For me, it would be acceptable to stop people leaving the country who had outstanding debts eg student loans, fines, etc.
A qualified doctor or nurse would logically then work in the industry for some years to pay off that loan.
If someone wanted the education they could also have the option to pay the full cost, and leave NZ anytime they wanted… At no tax spent education cost to the South Auckland factory worker / taxpaying working person.
Better with more individual freedom?
I would say to luxton which jobs exactly show me an itemised list and all he’d be able to do is waffle about bloated civil service…the man almost reaches a boris level of ineptitude
Sort of agree. It’s not as one can stop someone going overseas.
But on top of interest free TD for all those working here, do not require any TD repayment for health workers.
Normally Im a left wing voter.
Labour and the Greens.
But the past 5 years Im starting to wonder who Labour is representing, it sure isnt the people down the bottom.
Welcome to adulthood Mark! Are you a late bloomer by any chance ?
LOL
They represent the ‘bottom-feeder’ a damn sight more then Natz or Act, that you can be sure about!
Labour are far from perfect, but Luxon and Seymour would be a disaster for all but the top 10%.
Tony Veitch They will keep the much needed Commissioner for Vulnerable Children which Labour, and Labour only, are determined to annihilate.
And Labour had 5 years to do a few things and managed to do absolutely nothing, in fact somehow managed to make it worse.
Absolutely
Reactionary Bratwurst The thing to get your head around is that although Labour and those ghastly Greens have made things worse, the alternative would have allegedly made things worser, so stick with worse rather than worser – or jettison the whole useless lot of them.
you keep telling yourself that in order to keep the faith, i won’t. I am done with both parties.
Reactionary Bratwurst No, it’s a long time since Labour and the Greens moved out of my orbit and the Nats were never in it nor likely to be.
Allegedly. Unproven and unprovable. Imaginary or hypothetical.
So everything that the conservatives are saying about what Labour is doing is bullshit then. All those changes that will be unwound by the National party are delusions? The brightline test has not been pushed out to 10 years – the DHB’s aren’t being reformed, 3 waters is just a conservative meme, negative gearing interest deductions will still be available? WTF are you talking about – whilst they haven’t exactly been transformative and haven’t abandoned neo-liberal economics for socialism they are actually doing things. The baying from the neo-con press is all the evidence you need to see that.
I would love the sugar tax to fund free dental. WIN-WIN situation.
Would that include a tax on the sugar in orange juice and onions too? Because they’re both loaded with sugar. 😉
yup andrew.
Another area is primary care costs. My 16 year old had a telephone interview with a Nurse for 5 mins for conjunctivitis. We paid $70 fee + $15 medication. 2 weeks later it came back, so we have just paid another $40 for the nurse to get the Dr to get antibiotics. Probably another $15 at the pharmacy as well.
Everyone likes to dramatise Maori Health but we all know it is in large part nothing to do with innate health and everything to do with poverty. Even on community services cards they must be paying close to 1/2 that amount which if they are a family, they cant begin to afford. Then living in cold sometimes damp environments.
Can labour get down to brass tacks? Screw the Arts and Transgender toilets, equal pay and Maori redress. Does anyone remember the joke that is “Full and final settlement’? Lets end the grievance industry and victimology narrative and get on with building more housing and more facilities for heath and quality education and deliver it to all NZers. Primary healthcare should be free for all households earning less than $100K (including dental) and then a sliding scale of payment after that.
Most Maori dont want Iwi settlements, if asked they’d rather have a decent house and a steady job and food on the table as do all NZers. Labour had a once in a lifetime opportunity to turn NZ back into the ‘Happy Isles of Oceania’ but they chose the divisive misery of identity politics instead. I didnt think things could get worse after the Nats but this is so very much worse.
Fantail. Yes. All in all, this government is pretty devious. I went to a GP for the first time in a couple of years and was directed to go to a chemist and buy a product which “ is no longer available on prescription.”
At the Chemist Warehouse, prescriptions are free anyway, regardless of whether one has a Community Services Card or not, which is clearly helpful for patients- oops -clients- oops- customers- with ongoing or chronic conditions. But when a medication, previously available on prescription, is removed from the list of prescribed medications, and ergo it has to be purchased, then patients are having to pay out, regardless of whether they can afford to or not.
There’s been anecdotal evidence from pharmacists about patients not uplifting prescription meds because they simply can’t afford the cost of doing do.
The Chemist Warehouse has alleviated that to some extent, so government response is undercutting the Chemist Warehouse by removing meds from the prescribed list, and forcing patients to pay money for them.
It’s very devious and totally crazy when it’s in all parties’ interests to keep people healthy, but the New Zealand health system ain’t interested, it sees patients as yet another revenue generator for a ruthless sociopathic government.
Here here Snow White. 100%
Bravo! Totally agree.
Well said!
Very much worse.
And with a 30% increase in public service employees wage bill too?
Tremain has tripped up FTTT but he’s 80% gold at least and this one speaks so clearly for now.
The pollies want us to think it’s all a circus, sit back and enjoy the show and the tumbling clowns and forget about the reality for those who who can’t get in to The Big Top.
GST off fruit and veges has been New Zealand First policy turned down by Labour during negotiations in 2017 to form the NZ First – Labour coalition.
Labour / Greens are full of crap. Good riddance.
“The 2023 Real Left Election Manifesto”
We don’t have a ‘Left’. All we have is a now deeply embedded capitalist fascism condescendingly allowing us to pretend we have choices when, in reality, all we have is a savage, tribal, rogernome-neoliberal-National Party greed factory. The disease that is National and its adherents and proponents, made up largely of the already obscenely rich at our expense have become a systemic sickness that pervades our systems and societies like a virus. At this point in time, we have little or no hope of a curative approach to their insidious presence. We have no unions, no practical infrastructure, no public transportation, no communication, no neighbourhood solidarity. We have the internet, TV, prescription opiates and then our beds where we can only dream of hope and better lives before we must wake up into a house-price Hell scape of their making.
We have two choices on election day. Stay in bed and not vote or simply not vote because, ask yourselves, what are we voting for?
Seeing adern being cheerfully manipulated by seymour was a shock to me personally. She should have carefully convened an MSM gathering then she should have stepped up and slapped his little mouse face. No disrespect to the faces of actual mice intended.
Royal Commission of Inquiry please.
In the words of Lange and Roger Douglas. “Fuck’em! Let’s go and have a feed of some fish & chips!”
Now that’s what I call a manifesto!
Labour & the Gween will not be in government for the rest of the decade or even longer. The proto-fascist woke-stasi Mellinials and GenZ’ers have really fucked this up for the left.
I think we should build on this fishing meme. I started thinking about Jesus’ saying Tane. Perhaps a new true leader will arrive replacing the fish and chips bunch from 1984 Labour etc.
Catching Fish or Men? (Luke 5:1-11)
https://bible.org › seriespage › lesson-18-cat…
By verse 11, Peter has left his business to follow Jesus in catching men, not fish. … The story shows us how Jesus transforms everyday people. ..
Boy do we need a new and vital sage.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300767728/machetewielding-robber-chops-off-dairy-workers-fingers-in-vicious-attack
A Castle Law & a Stand Your Ground Law.
You do have the right to defend yourself & others in your care if you fear for your safety. However the NZ Police will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law if you do, but on the plus side, no jury is likely to convict you. On the negative side, legal costs and personal costs will be high, and you will need to carry them.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/self-defence-laws-are-clear-says-goff
yea robbie cause that’s worked so well in the USofA do grow up.
Agree gagarin. Freaky USA dad shoots youngster coming to door in costume on Halloween. Poor scared old man! – like David Gray Aramoana NZ. Trigger happy laws play into deranged minds of which there are many in NZ, on a sliding scale of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/130798761/attacked-dairy-worker-who-pleaded-with-robbers-not-to-kill-him-has-had-thumb-reattached
NZdrs are past caring about the excuses made for why these ferals exist, they need to be dealt with so they can do no harm.
lol – delusional wannabe sheriff. if they’re already prepared to use a machete then wouldn’t pulling a trigger be easier? most places in civilised countries install bars, cages and remote locking security doors for self defense against ferals. Although Arizona seems to have it right – not.
WASHINGTON – Violent crime rates in Arizona rose faster and remained higher than the national rate in recent years, according to the latest data from the FBI.
Violent crime – which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – rose 4.6% in the U.S. between 2019 and 2020, to a rate of 398.5 crimes per 100,000 people in 2020. The rate in Arizona climbed 8.6% to 484.8 per 100,000 in the same period, according to data from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer.
yup typical rightard robbie change the argument when you lose…it doesn’t wash with me
My “argument” hasn’t changed, unlike your strawman
oh and ‘ a good man with a gun’ and ‘hang em high’…etc etc aren’t a strawmen? robbie
Generally, agree with your specific points. Specifically agree the only salvation for the Left, the people and the planet is a positive programme. So … not freemarket Labour.
Minorities speaking up for themselves may undermine non-big-thinkers buying into our good cause. On the other side being right about everything is a task beyond humans. Being right about everything makes y’nervous. I don’t think cancel is the culture anymore. Maybe that’s prophesy.
The prob is more the modern social media exploiting every crack in the people’s solidarity, as much by ‘individual expression’.
Sumsuch. Hence Ardern recently advocating global censorship to the UNO and trying to enact anti- free speech legislation in New Zealand. Telling pandemic citizens not to speak to their neighbours, and the SIS advising people to spy on each other, are smaller parts of the divide and rule mantra of identity politics. Interesting that the PM used the Blair-Bush ‘weapons of destruction’ terminology, describing word usage at the UNO.
TAX
1. The Greens 1% wealth tax on those with asset equity over $1M
2. The American concept of progressive income tax for companies as we do for individuals (so high profit companies pay more tax – the Oz banks etc
3. A FTT (if seen as more efficient than incorporation of the financial services sector into GST)
4. 1-3 enabling reduced income tax and or WFF/AS changes.
5. A land tax for contributions to an infrastructure fund (for housing/PT/water etc)
6. The first year after any increase in AS involves a rent freeze
Housing
7. buy up homes (or lease) to increase the number of state houses charging income related rent to 100,000 and get people out of motels.
8. the upgrade/renovate or replace phase to get stock up to modern standard include a focus on disability and aged friendly accommodation renovation and inter-generational family (such as granny flats/small builds on the section) arrangements.
9. take advantage of the building downturn to reboot Kiwibuild – and allow existing flat/apartment owners to buy in when starting a family, aging singles seeking co-ownership companionship/mutual support, and boomers downsizing (see 7).
PT
10. Free offpeak to CSC holders and students. Half fare otherwise.
Dental.
11. Expand CS card service from hospital treatment (emergency check and tooth removal) to annual dental visits.
12. Expand hospital treatment to low income workers.