Look at the outrageous profits the NZ banks are bleeding us dry with….
…once upon a time when the Left were more focused on class and economics, we would have had a plethora of responses to this madness.
Sadly the entire movement is infected by woke identify politics with no intellectual muscle beyond micro aggression policing and cancelling people on Twitter.
As economic anxiety builds for the working classes in NZ, look at the NZ political left’s response.
- Gerrymandering the Sexual assault laws so that any man accused of rape is convicted.
- Climate change emergency declaration that doesn’t do anything.
- Strangling off free speech with a blasphemy law and criminalizing the misuse of pronouns.
- Ending Gay Conversion therapy that proponents can’t quantify.
- Critical Racism theory in 0range Tamariki.
For the 190000 children in poverty, 24000 on emergency housing wait lists and generations locked out of home ownership, the NZ Left’s response is woke wankery.
Rather than focus on jobs, houses and poverty (because they are hard) we get middle class virtue signals.
Let’s remind you of the holy trinity of woke identity politics dogma.
In the name of the non-binary mother, non-binary daughter and the monthly ghost: All white people are irredeemable racists, all men are rapists and anyone defending free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi.
The Right look for recruits, the Left look for traitors and right now, the dangerous far right are winning.
Thanks to middle class identity politics, the Left have spent more energy since 2016 on fighting heteronormative white cis male patriarchy than capitalism.
Look at this…
…In 2010, the 388 richest individuals owned more wealth than half of the entire human population on Earth
By 2015, this number was reduced to only 62 individuals
In 2018, it was 42
In 2019, it was down to only 26 individuals who own more wealth than 3.8 billion people.
And now in 2021, 20 people own more than 50% of the entire planet.
This isn’t democracy, this is a feudal plutocracy on a burning Earth!
Labour have failed us over 4 years because they had no plan to scare the public service into serving the public.
They need 5 big Radical Centre ideas that actually do more than woke virtue signalling to challenge inequality and poverty .
1 – Financial Transaction Tax – TAX BANKS!
Society needs money for social infrastructure and to rapidly adapt to the climate crisis. It is unacceptable that citizens pay more tax. A Financial Transaction Tax set at .001 cent would capture all those speculators who trade and the banks that enable their gambling. Hit the corporates with this tax and the beauty is that it’s unavoidable because every electronic financial transaction is recorded. This would see billions available each year and start to push back on corporate power.
2 – Use Public Works Act to seize 90% of all golf courses in Auckland.
The Housing crisis needs an immediate solution, not more empty promises. Using the Public Works Act, central Government should seize 90% of golf courses in Auckland and build a mix of state houses and first time home buyer owner/occupier tiny houses using the best environmental & urban design housing. Fuck the golfers. We could solve homelessness, provide extra resources to these new communities while giving first home buyers an immediate way into the housing market. Why not turn golfing privilege into economic justice?
3 – Feed the bloody kids – all of them!
Not just some bullshit unhealthy food, I’m talking community garden, local produce, parents paid to come in and help serve up the most nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school we can provide. To actually care about our children and set standards of what is most healthy for us. Hungry children can’t learn and removing this cost from the poorest parents pockets would do more to put money back into those pockets than any welfare increase would do without getting clawed back by MSD. We would build community at schools, while providing healthy food to our kids, while putting money into the poorest parents. Make this universal.
4 – Legalize Cannabis
The hundreds of millions in tax revenues, the 5000 jobs, the weakening of gangs plus the means to move criminals out of the black market into law abiding jobs all combine to the need for a State regulated industry that will benefit everyone. A stoned nation is far less violent than a drunk one, I’m certain it would reduce the terrible culture of rage we live with in this country.
5 – Free Public Transport
You want Aucklanders to get out of their cars? Make public transport free. Again this would help save the poor money and force change by providing and enormous incentive to get people out of their polluting cars.
This Government is failing in every indicator except keeping us safe from Covid but that’s not enough.
What is required are some big ideas with immediate pay off that enables the Government to bypass the public service and their fiefdoms.
Keeping Covid out isn’t enough. Those 190000 kids in poverty, those 24000 on emergency housing wait lists and the generations locked out of home ownership deserve better.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.
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