Appearing in a segment on yesterday’s Radio NZ “Ideas” program, Workers Party Wellington Central candidate Don Franks explains the reality behind the superficial rhetoric about New Zealand being a “classless” society.
The budget – funded by workers, controlled by the bosses
June 3, 2008 by
Jared Phillips reviews some aspects of the 2008 budget and the response to it from a Marxist perspective
The qualification threshold for the top tax bracket has changed from $60,000 to $80,000, which provides some relief for the middle class,which is where Labour draws its support from. The media has seized on the fact that this might help prevent middle-New Zealand’s political migration to National. Those earning an annual $80,000 will have a weekly after-tax increase of $28 in Ocotber. For working people the tax cuts provide little relief. For those earning an annual $20,000- $30,000, after-tax weekly income will increase by $12 in October. Social Issues reporter Simon Collins has noted that in terms of percentage changes, lower income earners are in fact receiving bigger cuts with a 5.7 percent cut at 20,000, a 3.3 percent cut at 50,000, and a 3.6 percent at $80,000. While this percentaging won’t provide any comfort for those living on the hardest incomes and receiving lower dollar-amount tax cuts, it does help illustrate that increased incomes and wages, not tax cuts, have more relevance for the restoration of real incomes, and that this budget has done nothing to lift the abysmal income of beneficiaries.
Labour’s brightest and best?
May 21, 2008 by
– Don Franks
As Labour sinks deeper in the polls, political commentators speculate about the party’s future in opposition. Are there any bright spots shining among the ruins? One very promising ‘new talent’, who, according to columnist Matthew Hooton “should go straight to Labour’s front bench”, is Wellington Central candidate Grant Robertson. You can form some opinion about Grant Robertson by taking a look at his blog. Much of this journal is devoted to descriptions of Grant’s busy social life watching rugby and patronising the cafés of the capital.
Abolish GST
May 4, 2008 by
The Workers Party for many years has said GST has to go. Below is an article originally published in The Spark in July 2005, in which Philip Ferguson explains why the rich favour this tax and why we oppose it:
In recent months the National Party has been pushing for income tax cuts. Although they present this in a populist way, as if it would benefit workers, they vigorously oppose measures such as raising the minimum wage, serious across-the-board wage rises like those sought by Auckland bus drivers and the abolition of GST.
During the upcoming election campaign, one of the minimum platform points of the Anti-Capitalist Alliance [now called the Workers Party] will be demanding the abolition of GST, something that would be done by any government with even a token desire to make life a little easier for workers, especially the poorest workers.
A letter to our readers
April 30, 2008 by
Dear Spark readers and Workers Party supporters,
In the last two years the Workers Party has participated in and supported many campaigns, most notably:
* Against racist detention of Iranian migrants at Mt. Eden prison (taking arrests and legal costs)
* Stop The Killings (in the Philippines) campaign
* Hotel workers unionisation campaign
* Restaurant workers unionisation campaign
* Progressive Distribution Centre workers lockout
* Civil Rights Defence campaign after government raids on Tuhoe and activists
* Box city protests – living allowance for students (Wellington)
* Successful Save the Film School campaign at Victoria (Wellington)
* Campaign against the intervention in Aborigine communities Northern Territory
* Middle-East solidarity campaigns
* Numerous workers strikes and pickets (taking an arrest in Auckland)
We have also:
* Raised working class issues through interventions in local government elections
* Been the only left organisation to produce a monthly socialist publication
* Contributed to the monthly Workers Charter
* Held numerous education forums on topics of importance to the movements of workers and oppressed
* Put our website into an upgrade and initiated a blog
* Maintained healthy links with workers organisations and parties in other countries
* Recruited a number of new party activists
Almost all of these activities have relied totally on WP members donating their own time and hard-earned money.
Now we need your financial support as 2008 is the first time the Workers Party will be standing on the party list in a national general election. Please make a donation in one of the following ways:
* Send cash wrapped in envelope to PO BOX 10-282, Dominion Road, Auckland
* Send a cheque made out to ‘Workers Party’ to POBOX 10-282, Dominion Road, Auckland.
* Transfer money from one of your accounts to 38-9002-0817250-01
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