How Goff wins and Mana's No sellout, No compromise 6 policies to change NZ

I said in November of last year on TVNZ7's backbenchers that the economic recession would splinter the political spectrum on the right in Epsom and Hone would lead a new sub 5% new left Maori Party anchored in his Te Tai Tokerau electorate and that the election would be far closer than the right wing corporate media pundits like to pretend.

When Chris Carter claimed Phil Goff could not win the election, I disagreed. I argued that Phil could win because the economic recession would get steeper and colder as we got closer to the election and Key's smile and wave political capital would melt once his vacant optimism was seen for what it is when the reality of the budget was presented.

The failure of this budget is due to National's economic incompetence, the economy was already failing before the second earthquake and the so called 'turbo charge' of the economy (Bill English's words) of subsidizing a tax cut for the rich by making us all pay more GST led to a billion dollar hole in our revenue, a hole Bill English is now taking out of public services.

The smoke and mirror Treasury predictions show us how this do nothing Government are merely waiting for Don Brash as Finance Minister should National and ACT win the majority after the election because the 4% growth dependent on the quake rebuild and a Rugby World Cup that still has half the tickets yet to sell is a total joke. In 2008 Treasury said we would have 1.5% growth, followed by 2.3% growth, followed by 3.2% growth, What did we get? -1.1%, -.4% and -.1%. They have been out by as much as 3.1% is little as last year and now we are going to believe we are magically going to gain 4% from selling off our assets?

Who the bloody hell (other than The Nation on TV3) believe this bullshit?


John Key sells aspiration, that is his charm. In a hyper consumer mass marketed culture he sums up the perfect illusion of the rags to riches dream that acts as the forever out of reach cheese on a stick to a rat in a mouse wheel.

A Ministry for Children, R&D Tax credits, first $5000 tax free plus the 15% off fruit and vegetables announced by Labour WILL impact on those kiwi's currently sitting around the kitchen table trying to balance the weeks budget. Add $15 minimum wage increase, add better funded social services to deal with the extra numbers requiring aid and we have some progress.

I'm all for more and for fighting for more, and Mana is proposing further changes but those policy advancements are advancements. John Key's sale of 49% of public assets we already own for the equivalent of 7 months borrowing on the other hand is an intellectually bankrupt cluster fuck that has to be tackled head on.

Sweet Jesus, Standards & Poors are threatening to down grade us because of our PRIVATE DEBT, not the bloody Governments debt. We only spent 1.22% of GDP in Debt-servicing in 2010, the debt bogeyman to justify flogging 49% of our assets off will lead to even MORE money going overseas which will only exacerbate that problem.

Key wants this issue to be discussed around the middle management water cooler with knowing nods and sage 'got-to-make- the-hard-choices' hubris as if that justifies making the same privatization mistakes again at a time when free market theory has imploded. Goff wants to discuss the issue around the kiwi kitchen table to those whom are bearing the brunt of the recession, his challenge is to get that message through to an electorate fed hair dye stories by the content decisions of News Editors more focused on light entertainment than holding the powerful to account.

It's a Kitchen Table vs the Water cooler election.

Phil Goff is a patriotic, decent NZer who sees the ravages of free market dogma run amok and will do all he can to turn that around, but to make the kind of radical structural changes this country needs in the face of the steepest economic recession since the Great Depression caused by venal corporate greed, the Labour Party needs better coalition allies than NZ First. The Greens have sadly been the abused political partner of the left for the last decade, forever frustrated in implementing a new Green economy by Labour's default setting of managing rednecks rather than challenging them. If Mana changed the Parliamentary math, the Greens would finally have the negotiating muscle presented by Mana to see them inside Cabinet.

Without better political allies, Labour will not win and the horror story that is a Key Brash Government will emerge. National are in trouble however, they are bleeding votes to their right and moderates who may have supported the Smile and Wave of Key will flee National to the Greens and Labour, while they in turn will lose some of their more radical vote to Mana.

United, Maori Party and NZ First won't make it at all. Dunne will get clipped by Charles Chauvel, Winston won't get over 5% and the Maori Party will likely face Mana candidates standing in the Maori seats and if not win the electorate's outright will split the vote towards Labour taking them back.

So what policies might the Mana Movement adopt past the by-election from the cross benches in return for a vote of confidence if the people of Te Tai Tokerau empower Hone with a mandate to take a new agenda to the people of New Zealand?


6 Possible Policy for Mana Movement
1: Raise Minimum Wage to Australian Minimum Wage by end of first term ($18.40NZ per hour)
2: Stop borrowing and stop public service cuts by growing revenue with a Hone Heke Financial Transaction Tax, Land Tax and Capital Gains Tax
3: Eliminate child poverty in NZ by introducing living benefits
4: 20% Community Welfare tax on top of corporate tax rates for vice profits from Alcohol, Tobacco, Loan Shark and Gambling Industries for re-investment into those most impacted by those products
5: No more foreign ownership of land, lease only.
6: Our troops out of Afghanistan now!

The Mana Movement - no sellout, no compromise


This election will be for the idealogical heart and soul of New Zealand.

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