by Mary-Ann de Kort
Some think that the poor are in the gutter and love to wait for government handouts. This is my response to them.
So, how do you think people can get out of that gutter? Or do you like them being there so you can criticise them?
Our Labour government trained thousands of apprentices and there are now hundreds of extra health worker training places, including for doctors and nurses. We have 210,000 more houses than we did in 2017, with thousands more being built right now. Farmers were assisted during cyclones, floods and M. bovis.
Children were fed at school so they can feel as if they belong in society and learn. Who knows how many rocket scientists are among them who might have otherwise been lost in a life of crime and hopelessness. Eighty percent of the ram-raiding kids haven’t reoffended after Labour’s rehabilitation programmes.
Thousands more people are working in meaningful jobs due to on-the-job training and government supporting small business with some of the least regulation in the world. They pay tax and keep Aotearoa from going into recession. Their money is spent in local communities to help those communities and businesses to thrive.
Hospitals, mental health units and schools have been improved or built. We have building going on at our own Tairāwhiti hospital. Medical staff and caregivers were given pay equity; medical students voluntary bonding to enable them to stay in Aotearoa and new doctors; nurses etc were recruited from overseas.
We have 1800 more police who have been catching criminals and doing raids on gangs. This smart policing under Labour resulted in the confiscation of money, drugs and assets like those gold-plated motor bikes that were crushed. It’s much safer for police than enforcing a policy of gang members not being able to wear their patches in public.
Successive National-led governments have been the cause of Aotearoa being stuck in a non-progressive loop. They haven’t changed and we’ve already seen their cancel culture in full swing.
Whangarei and Taranaki hospitals put on the back-burner. Ferries and school buildings cancelled. Three waters cancelled so councils have no choice other than to increase rates or sell valuable assets.
The Nats and Act plan to use co-governance in every area to build things that we won’t own but which will enrich their party investors. We will be tenants in our own land with long-term lease payments. I think you’ll find Māori aren’t nearly as greedy as they will be, and we would have kept ownership.
I would rather have a government that supports people to a satisfying life over one that blames the poor, takes everything away from them, ignores tax dodging and gives taxpayer money, assets and contracts to the very wealthy.
They’re also OK with their party donors wrecking our environment and will allow them to take what they want, including seabed mining, gold, oil and gas. No thanks. Time we all woke up.
