State of the Nation
And if ever the country needed a movement to redress the devastation caused by 25 years of free-market economics under both Labour and the current right-wing government of National, ACT and the Maori Party, then now is the time and MANA is the team.
- or the policy aspects -
We need to stop tinkering around the edges, and we need wholesale and radical change or we will continue to lose generations of talented NZers to Australia and beyond.
We need to look to progressive countries like Sweden for models, we need to work with the Child Poverty Action Group to create solutions and we need to look to our history for answers to our problems, because the user pays model has failed us miserably and those who have suffered most have been the children of the poor.
- because we know most of these things already (including the details of the tax plans), I was interested in the strategic undertaking Mana is making to co-operate to achieve it:
We need to park our politics at the door, commit to listening to the experts like CPAG, and we need to agree upon a course of action that delivers immediate and positive change for the children of the poor.
We need a formal commitment to a plan to eradicate poverty and we need to work together on legislative change regardless of who the government might be.
[...]
And having allowed ourselves to be locked into the global economy without safeguards, we need to accept that when economies start going down the toilet, nobody is going to care about our exports or about our economy or about our people – it will be literally every man for himself.
That’s why we need to act now, and we need to act together to push through the policies that will turn our economy around to cater for those in need, before those in need join their rebellious comrades in wreaking havoc around the world right now.
So Mana will act constructively - even if it is in opposition - that's something Mana voters and potential voters for a Labour-Green government need to hear.
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 2:08 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
It's one thing to say you will eradicate poverty, it's another to produce a plan of how you will do it.
So what is Mana's plan?
I liked comments re mobilising people, action now , openness to working with all kinds of people and groups, emphasis on poverty [although I think there should be more on relative poverty so we don't have to keep having to catch up with the rich], caution of what will happen if things don't change, abolish GST, free education [although again thats no good if people are poor - need to go together], employment policy needs more work and would like to see the term 'minimum wage' deleted from the language and policies and changed to 'living wage' or 'decent wage'. Free health care is vital, so thats good to hear. I do think it would help if Mana economic experts could show the public how it intends to fund and resource all of this - the ideas are logical and decent - but I reckon we should publically back these up very clearly. So if a range of taxes is going to fund many of the programmes, illustrate how.
I liked comments re mobilising people, action now , openness to working with all kinds of people and groups, emphasis on poverty [although I think there should be more on relative poverty so we don't have to keep having to catch up with the rich], caution of what will happen if things don't change, abolish GST, free education [although again thats no good if people are poor - need to go together], employment policy needs more work and would like to see the term 'minimum wage' deleted from the language and policies and changed to 'living wage' or 'decent wage'. Free health care is vital, so thats good to hear. I do think it would help if Mana economic experts could show the public how it intends to fund and resource all of this - the ideas are logical and decent - but I reckon we should publically back these up very clearly. So if a range of taxes is going to fund many of the programmes, illustrate how.
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