Ae Marika | Hone Harawira | 6 March

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin in Ae Marika

Last week I talked about the lockout down in Moerewa, and how it fits alongside the lockout down at the Ports of Auckland in shaving even more money off workers while directors and CEO’s of these huge companies are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in fees and salaries and company profits soar.

I also talked about how it was part of National’s plan to attack those at the margins rather than tax those at the top.

Well, last week National rolled out another doozy when the Prime Minister and Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Development, launched National’s Welfare Reforms which will involve a range of complex tax credit changes, solo mums having to look for work, and young people having their benefits put into somebody else’s hands to control.

The Prime Minister said “the emphasis has got to be if you can work, that you should work and people should make themselves available to work” which shows that the man has completely missed the most obvious point which is … THERE ARE NO BLOODY JOBS!

So when the Minister of Social Development talks about young mums going out to look for jobs, does she think young mums should be allowed to go to the front of the queue of the 150,000 people who are already unemployed, or does she think that the young mums should be made to wait till the 150,000 get jobs first, and maybe she can tell us where the jobs are for the 150,000 who are already unemployed so that young mums can then get in line for the next jobs?

I asked the Minister that question in the house last week and she came out snarling and snapping, but couldn’t come up with even 50 jobs that young mums might apply for.

And her welfare reforms also highlighted some very deep double standards in her own life as well because when she was a young solo mum, Paula Bennett was on the Domestic Purposes Benefit but was able to buy her own house in Taupo for $56,000, courtesy of a Housing Corporation loan. She said that she’d worked part-time but that she “pretty much fell apart because I was exhausted. I went back on the DPB”.

But now she’s a minister it’s a different story.

Seems it was OK for her to go back on the DPB because it was too hard to survive, but its tough luck for her sisters today. It was OK for her to get a Housing Corp loan back then, but it’s no longer available today. It was OK for her to stay on the DPB to raise her daughter, but she’s making sure that other young woman won’t have that privilege anymore. And it seems it was OK for her to get student loan back then, but not today. In fact she was the Minister who got rid of the Training Incentive Allowance.

Basically, Paula Bennett set herself up in life with help from the state, but now she’s made it, she’s makin’ sure nobody else gets that kind of help.

Bashing beneficiaries will not solve the problem. Introducing the Hone Heke Tax will. Make those who earn millions on the financial markets pay 1% on every transaction and the country will actually have the money it needs to invest in job creation.