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.

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Filed Under: 2008 Election, Economics, NZ Labour Party Tagged With:

A Teacher for Peter Conway?

May 24, 2008 by

– Don Franks

NZ Council of Trade Unions economist Peter Conway’s reponse to the Budget included a request for the minimum wage to be $15 an hour. However, the bulk of his statement was fulsome praise for Labour’s “timely” “positive initiatives”. Peter summed up the government’s record: ” In other words it has been a comprehensive and balanced approach to economic management.”

By contrast, spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group, Susan St John flayed Labour¹s brutal treatment of the poor. After the budget Susan St John noted:

“Forgotten and invisible are the 200,000 children and their parents who eke out a subsistence living on benefits, propped up by a variety of income and asset tested, stigmatising special hardship payments, loans from Work and Income as well as from high-cost loan sharks. Do the needs of these families not count as much as the needs of those over 65? The relativity with net wages for those on sickness, sole parent and other benefits has been falling for some time. This Budget amplifies that fall, pushing these families further to the margins of society outside the normal standards of the community.

“It is greatly disappointing that the Government has not grasped what welfare groups, churches, doctors and nurse have been saying, in an increasingly agitated way about child poverty. Our child health statistics are appalling for a developed country and can clearly be sheeted home to the effects of poverty. How much louder do the voice have to be? Clearly, no one has been listening in this budget.”

Susan St John is also an Auckland University senior economics lecturer. CTU economist Peter Conway might benefit from attending her classes.

Filed Under: Economics, NZ Labour Party Tagged With:

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.

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Filed Under: 2008 Election, NZ Labour Party Tagged With: ,

“Crimes against the working class”

April 9, 2008 by

– A talk presented by Don Franks at a recent Wellington public meeting in solidarity with those arrested during the so-called “anti-terror” raids in October 2007.

Mass media treatment of politics these days is largely soundbites, titillation and trivia.

The present structure of society is not subject to serious examination or question. Capitalism is accepted as the most natural form of human cohabitation; quantitatively improvable in some areas, but essentially unchangeable.

That position suits those who are well placed in today’s society.
Capitalism’s prosperity and survival depends on mass belief that the present private property system is “as good as it gets.”

I was asked to speak this evening about the nature of the Labour party.

Workers Party members are sometimes asked why we’re so critical of Labour. Why not attack the main enemy, we’re told. Labout is not perfect but National is worse.

In fact, the “National worse” argument is a myth.

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Filed Under: Civil Liberties, NZ Labour Party Tagged With: ,

Different kinds of money

March 1, 2008 by

 Editorial from this month’s issue of The Spark:

Labour’s biggest donor, billionaire Owen Glenn, recently embarrassed Prime Minister Helen Clark by skiting that she wanted him in cabinet, and by angling for a diplomatic post in Monaco.

Then, more strife came when Labour “forgot” to mention a $100,000 interest-free loan that Glen had given Labour in December 2006.

Has Labour finally lost touch with its working-class origins?

Labour’s always been right in the pocket of the rich. A major supporter of the very first 1935 Labour Government was brewing magnate Ernest Davis, at that time New Zealand’s richest man. Davis’s support was rewarded when Labour knighted him in 1937.

In 1946 Labour knighted construction boss James Fletcher, a central figure in Labour’s repressive WW2 administration.

Like National, Labour seeks office to serve the political system of capitalism.

That mission necessitates constant kowtowing to the biggest private property owners, at the expense of the rest of us whose work creates the wealth of the few.

The Spark and the Workers Party membership who produce it are in total opposition to capitalist bosses and capitalist political parties. Our aim is a socialist political system, where workers run society.

Workers Party finance comes from a steady trickle of small regular donations made by our readers. These contributions come with no strings attached. Together they keep a socialist alternative alive and growing. Much appreciated – please keep them coming.

Filed Under: NZ Labour Party
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