SAME OLD RUBBISH FROM LABOUR

Friday October 1, of course, marks the day when there will be a massive transfer of wealth from the New Zealand working class to the wealthy elite, via the tax cuts.

When the tax cuts were announced John Key said that the rich deserved them because they fitted into some of the more 'critical categories' of the economy.

The rest of the population-who produce most of the wealth, are apparently 'not critical' to the country's well being. Note to John Key - please look up 'surplus value' on Wikipedia.

These tax cuts will only serve to plunge more people into poverty.

But-wait- there's more!

We unimportant proletarian types are also going to see more of out cash disappearing in the way of GST. Another 2.5% will vanish from our wallets and purses every time we buy the groceries, pay the power bill, visit the doctor.

The median wage in New Zealand is approximately $38,000. But if you include what New Zealand's growing number of beneficiaries receive , the median comes down to something like $28,000 .

We are a low wage country and life is just about to get a whole tougher for most of the population.

Someone on the dole , for instance, will get a derisory $1. 20. Does Bill English really think that this will compensate for the hike in prices? In my local supermarket the cheapest you can pay for a litre of milk is $2.10.

And prices will rise more than 2.5 percent. As Matt McCarten wrote in the NZ Herald in May:

'First, price rises will be more than the GST increase as retailers round up prices and take the opportunity to maintain profits.It happened the last two times GST increased and will happen again.'

This massive attack on the living standards of ordinary people is happening at a time when the New Zealand economy is sinking further into the quagmire.

At this very moment the Labour Party and its allies in the CTU have yet another opportunity to strike out and articulate a new economic vision for New Zealand - one that isn't beholden to neoliberalism and the 'market'.

But the silence is deafening. The lack of political will is obvious. The betrayal is reprehensible.

Steadfastly refusing to give up on an discredited economic ideology that has inflicted massive damage on the lives of ordinary people, all Labour has come up with so far is a promise to take GST off fresh fruit and vegetables.

Woo hoo!

But, here's the rub, Labour won't eliminate or even reduce GST.

And we are expected to believe that Labour represents a real alternative to National! You really would have to be a sandwich short of a full lunchbox to believe such loony assertions from the likes of Phil Goff and Helen Kelly.

We are in a economic crisis that demands radical new ideas and radical new policies.

None are on offer from the Labour Party.