The Labour party has announced another excellent policy aimed at helping every day Kiwi’s who are struggling. It’s basically a more focused continuation of their working for families’ package, a policy that has been badly undermined by a National led government intent on decreasing our quality of life.The policy isn’t just about working for families though, it also targets other areas where there’s an obvious need for further social assistance.
Today, Stuff reported:
Labour to prioritise families and scrap Budget tax cuts
It would also reinstate the independent earners tax credit, which was dumped in the May Budget, but keeps in place National's big boost to the accommodation supplement.
The flagship policy, announced by leader Andrew Little in Auckland on Tuesday, aims to contrast Labour's targeted help for middle income families with the extra cash the wealthier receive under National's tax package.
That’s really the tricky bit for Labour... the people they’re trying to help are often non-voters while the people the tax cuts would have benefited are generally speaking still going to vote National. Labour's pragmatic stance is also a political conundrum that has cost them support at the polls.
By making such a policy announcement so close to an election, Labour is once again placing its faith in the public to come out in force on election day. Let’s hope their ground game is able to convince the missing million non-voters that participating in democracy is worthwhile.
It includes a winter energy payment for beneficiaries and superannuitants, announced by Labour on Monday.
That would be paid between May and September and give $450 a year to a single person and $700 to a couple or a person with dependent children.
The howls of protest by right wing propagandists decrying that Labour promising to scrap National's tax cuts is the end of the world could be heard all the way to Rangitoto Island, which clearly indicates that Labour is on the right track.
Labour's winter energy payment is particularly insightful, being that New Zealand has some of the coldest and dampest houses in the so-called developed world. Helping people who couldn’t normally afford to heat their homes properly will go a long way to ensuring they remain healthy productive members of society, which in the long run will end up saving the government and the country millions.
