Whaleoil has dragged my attention to this weekend's National Party conference and I confess to some quiet amusement at his antics. There will be a few raw nerves ready for the touching today. What it's all over, I am not quite sure but in-party politics is a very real and very dirty game.
But more generally it seems timely to reflect on what National has done since taking office;
WELFARE
Key promised the country he would not raise the qualification age for Super. Stupid mistake. Life expectancies have grown enormously yet the pension is universally available at the same age as it was in 1898.
Working age welfare. The Future Focus bill will make minor changes about work-testing DPB parents when their youngest is 6 and some people on the Sickness benefit. The first completely avoids the real problem. The long-term dependency of young mothers who enter the system as teenagers, predominantly Maori. The unemployed will have to reapply for the dole after 1 year but over 80 percent never reach one year and they should be monitored so closely a reapplication process should be redundant anyway.
Kept Working for Families which they railed loudly against in opposition.
Fell into subsidising jobs for the young. Never works long term.
Kept quiet about the large increase in student allowances as people went into study instead of jobs thereby transferring from the dole onto another benefit.
HEALTH
Pretty much status quo but have reined in spending with mixed success. Reducing home services to the elderly was fraught. Home services keep people out of homes where they will need even more subsidised care. And these cuts are high profile and stir up a lot of public sympathy. Tony Ryall has probably done the best out of all Ministers.
EDUCATION
National standards have been highly controversial. Yes, 20 percent of children are failing. So target those children. Not successful schools. Waste of time, energy and money. Seem driven by the right's hatred of teacher unions.
Kept student interest-free loans which they railed against loudly in opposition.
LAW AND ORDER
Trying to turn NZ into a 'soft' police state by increasing police discretion. Non reversal of the very unpopular anti smacking legislation. Introduction of on-the-spot DV orders, requiring DNA swabs from non-convicted people, three strikes which encompasses non-violent crimes, patch bans, looming alcohol clampdowns, upping war on P, stupid comments about the economic benefits of building prisons, car crushing, etc.
ENVIRONMENT
ETS - which they railed against loudly in opposition. This will be a very hard to handle election issue next year. Alienates their usual rural rock-solid voting base. Could lead to the formation of a new farmer's party which could have the effect on National that the Maori Party had on Labour. Stupidest action since in government.
Mining. If they actually get on and do it, one of my few ticks. But picking 'scared' places like Great Barrier was stupid and risks turning the public off the whole idea.
GENERAL ECONOMY
Small tax improvements soon to be cancelled by rise in GST.
So just a once over lightly but I think I have covered most of the things that the non-political joe-average notices.
God knows why they are riding so high in the who-would-you-vote-for-tomorrow polls. As always, I would love to know how many people would join me in the 'don't know ' group.
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8 comments:
Good summation.
National has shown to be the "do nothing" and "do not rock the boat" party during its time as government.
Shame on the cowards.
Short answer: nothing
worse than nothing because in the first year they squandered the best opportunity in a generation to make real changes.
Compare with the UK Tories - a couple of months only out from the election, all departments including welfare are planning for 40% cuts
think how much better NZ could have been today if 40% cuts had been made by Christmas after the election!
Place on the negative side, Lindsay, a government that is both clumsy and heavy handed in their dealings with the individual, for example:
Peter Dunne bragging - in the stupidest fashion possible for someone trying to get the business vote - how he has extorted $120 million of taxpayer money for IRD audit to persecute the taxpayer with, and, pointedly, without clarifying the underlying rules they are going to be enforcing. Many individual lives are going to go through the brutal mincer of State over the next three years, and they will suffer greatly at the callous hands of our tax legislators’ incompetence.
Whether right or not, the heavy handed public shaming of Allan Hubbard before he is proven guilty of anything (other than keeping his books manually as an 80 year old would). We now only wait for the ‘show trial’ to come.
Just to recap many of your points, via the appropriations in this years budget English grew the size of the State by another 9%. He keeps talking up how hard times are coming for our over-sized bureaucracy - and it's huge - but where are the tangible signs of this happening? I can't see any. Indeed, with the ETS, tax changes and increase in tax audit, it will be fair to assume the number of bureaucrats is set to get bigger.
In that same budget changing the entire legal status of a company (a QC or LAQC) at the stroke of a pen into a partnership. The business sector doesn't yet understand the implications of what has happened with these measures. It's appalling, and downright Orwellian.
And on and on.
This lot are Police Statists not just in the making, but in the process of running a police state. As much as I hated the Labour government before them, at least then the enemy of our freedom was in the open.
As Perigo would say (SOLO)we have replaced the Left's subjectivism and collectivism, with the intrinicism and brutal mysticism of the Conservative.
Well said, Mark. I do agree with your excellent analysis, with the exception of the very last sentence.
Today's National Party is not conservative at all. It's reactionary left-wing, and as infected with the socialist virus as its predecessor in power.
40% cuts in the UK - the UK with a much lower net per capita indebtedness than NZ.
We don't need to argue philosophy with libertarians or other nutters.
If Cameron and Clegg can cut 40% of almost all departments in the UK (including welfare) why can't that be done here?
Or need is much, much greater.
I am so tired fo National's fake, plasticated smiles while they do nothing and ignore majority views on issues like the ETS and the smacking bill. Key is a leftie from old, he loves the power and he cares not for the little people. I don't think the polls are as accurate as you might think, and I hope that a Farmers'party is started, the Nats are just socialists in blue. Does Key ever stay in NZ for more than a week?
Fuck the ETS and Smacking.
both of 'em make almost no difference to NZ. And if NZ cancels its ETS, it will be flushing any euro market for agricultural produce fuckety-bye
Now: 40% across-the-board cut in every funding vote.
that makes a real, real difference.
Little Johnny can't get his uni fees paid. Little Allie's parents have to pay their fucking school fees Little Johnny can't go on the dole. Little Suzy can't go on the DBP. And Uncle Trev and Aunt Maisy find their codger-dole (aka "Super") eliminated too.
40% cut across the board in one year.
if the Torys and fucking centerist "Social Democrats" can do that in the UK why the fuck can't our Tories and ACT do it here?
If a 40% cut isn't too much to ask for in England
with ACT in coalition, a 50% cut is realistic here.
They are riding high, on a vacumn.
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