Thursday, January 28, 2010

Goff to define a 'welfare rort'

It is very hard to read this and remain composed;

Labour leader Phil Goff is expected to ramp up his rhetoric against welfare rorts and vested interests in a speech in which he needs to put Labour back on the front foot after a year in the poll doldrums.

....He is expected to return to his theme of personal responsibility – taking aim at those who "rip off" the system, rich or poor. Among those in his sights will be wealthy Kiwis exposed by a tax working group last week to be hiding income to qualify for benefits.


It will be fascinating to hear how Goff defines a "welfare rort". He can hardly use the high profile examples National has been parading, when the whole point of this 'state of the nation' speech is to differentiate the party he leads.

Make no mistake. It is Labour that has time and time again given society programmes that are open to exploitation. They are warned of the unintended consequences but always press ahead in the interests of 'social justice' and vote-buying. They gave us Working For Families and now he is going to rail at the matter of it being ripped off.

And "personal responsibility"? It is a long, long time since Labour philosophy and policy has been synonymous with personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is only for the suckers who keep the show on the road in spite of extensive government efforts to demoralise and disincentivise the lot of us.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Personal responsibility is only for the suckers who keep the show on the road in spite of extensive government efforts to demoralise and disincentivise the lot of us.

Yep. And you don't have to write out too many provisional tax, GST, FBT, and terminal tax with usurious use of money interest, cheques to figure this out.

Anonymous said...

It will be fascinating to hear how Goff defines a "welfare rort".

let's guess: the labour party and the unions?

He'd never admit it!