Labour's double standards
Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images © Enlarge photo
Some interesting double standards from Labour this morning.
Chris Hipkins was on the Breakfast show, largely to talk water rights, but slipped in an interesting policy position on the severing of benefits for those with outstanding arrest warrants.
“It was a good idea the first time [Paula Bennett] announced it, it was a good idea the second time she announced it, and now that she’s announced it for a third time, I still think it’s a good idea,” Hipkins said, looking rather nonchalant during his first appearance on the show.
It’s a nice change from the stuttering and bumbling of David Shearer.
He continued: “If someone’s got an arrest warrant out, people need to turn themselves in. If the police want to talk to them, and y’know, want to arrest them, then they should front up and accept responsibility.”
Bravo.
But, as Sarah Thompson from AAAP points out “most people clear their warrant within thirty days…Bennett is releasing policies like this for no major outcome other than to distract the public from her departments continued failure to decrease poverty and unemployment.”
Aside from defeating her own point, Ms Thompson is right to highlight the government’s failings on decreasing poverty, the roots of welfare dependency, and increasing employment.
As a former member of the unemployed classes myself, and a recipient of the unemployment benefit for six months, the pressure is there for honest people to seek a long-term job. Checks and balances are in place to ensure unemployment beneficiaries are engaged on a job-hunt, and Bennett’s policy proposal seeks to tie up the loose ends.
Together with compulsory drug testing, which I wrote about way back when, it’s a largely non-invasive way of dealing with moochers not holding up their fair share of the bargain.
Hipkins talks about personal responsibility and respect for the law, yet failed to do so when ideas around drug-testing were first introduced.
The moral argument at the core of both issues is identical. Why support one and not the other?
It’s a strange showing of double-standards for a party gasping for political air.
Labour ought to be revolutionising (pun intended) it’s search for solid policy, but are instead cruising on the coat-tails of asset sales opposition. They have a solid media platform from which to work, yet viable counter-policies are not being voiced quite loud enough for the public to hear.- < Previous
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44 Comments
James this is quite good article.
ReplyWhy don't parents front up and give their side of the story -what do they let their kids play truant, shop lift, steal from neighbours homes, and go to school without breakfast or lunch? Exactly how much is being spent on gambling, drugs, junk food and alcohol instead of healthy food.
ReplyBeehive "residents" have had to have their fingers smacked often for milking perks on overseas trips. Low decible families don't have much room to milk anything. NZ could cut it's health costs by a substantial margin if it cut the allowable percentages of sugar in processed food.
ReplyA business owner can legally claim expenses for operating his motor vehicle, but his staff can't, even though they have the same transport costs and work at the same work site. I am sure that wage earners would love a 30% tax deduction on travel costs.
ReplyCash deals are a problem all around the world, but Governments allow for it by having slightly higher tax rates. A self-employed builder admitted to me that a women in the NZ IRD asked him (several years ago)to do some work on her house because he was $1300 cheaper than the other quotes. She handed over the money in cash and told him not to declare it in his tax return because she said he felt he deserved a helping hand because of having seven children. A Labour MP told a kiwi odd-job man with 5 children in 2007, that he was being "too honest" in declaring EVERY cash deal. He said that you should feed your kids first, then see if you have any surplus to share with the IRD. He added that business men claim all sorts of personal expenses under various headings, because they know how to "milk" the system legally. A business man in Palmerston North once hid $6,000 in cash in an old gumboot in his wardrobe, and his wife tossed the gumboot out for the rubbish collection truck. In a panic, the business man went to the recycling centre and assisted the staff to find it in a huge shipping container. He didn't even thank the staff, but he rushed away very relieved it had been found.
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