New Zealand in 2018 : Graeme Hart's new $380 million Super Yacht
During the 2017 election campaign Jacinda Ardern declared that capitalism, or at least its neoliberal manifestation, had failed. But since being installed in office the government that she leads continues to pursue a neoliberal agenda which saw New Zealand's wealthiest individuals grow twenty percent richer in 2017. And while Ardern has taken tax increases on the wealthy off the table, New Zealand's level of inequality and poverty continues to increase. But, even now, the country lacks a political organisation that can give voice to the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders and provide a clear political and economic alternative to the neoliberal 'consensus'.

THIS WEEK the NZ Herald reported that the super yacht owned by New Zealand's richest man is currently taking its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean. Its estimated that Graeme Hart , who is personally worth over $14 billion, spent $381 million on the five-deck Super Yacht. A mini-hotel that floats, it can accommodate up to 66 people and comes complete with its own heli hangar and helicopter, on-deck pool and jacuzzi, wine cellar, gym, bar and sauna (naturally). In 2017 Graeme Hart grew twenty percent richer.

Some five days earlier, the same newspaper reported on the rather less salubrious lifestyles being 'enjoyed' by two South Auckland women.

Louise, who works as a teachers aide and has two young children, lives in house shared with extended whanau. After all her immediate costs are met Louise is left with less than $60 a week to feed herself and her children.

"I spend between $45 and $55 a week on food," she told the NZ Herald.' The rest of my wages goes on car payments, petrol and paying board for me and the children...Like all mums on a tight budget I lose sleep. I lose my appetite. I have to watch out for depression. It can be pretty tough.'

When the NZ Herald reporter visited the home of the second woman, a young solo mother with two children, he discovered that the larder was next to bare: "There are just two carrots, an orange, some margarine and a half-full bottle of tomato sauce left on the shelves."

If you lift up the lid of what the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson likes to describe as a 'strong economy' this is the reality away from the rarified and cocooned world of Parliament: a society in which the rich spend their disposable cash on expensive playthings while young mothers worry about  putting food on the table the next day.

While it might be something that Labour  and Green supporters would prefer not to talk about, under this government the rich increased their wealth by a staggering 20 percent in 2017. But, at the same time, we have seen widening inequality and deepening poverty. The evidence is overwhelming - from increasing demand on food banks to overcrowding in order to compensate for exorbitant rents to increasing numbers of people sleeping rough.

The NZ Herald story quotes Julie Chapman of the KidsCan charity. She says that the charity is now placing food into nearly 800 schools throughout the country.

""In past years I've have seen around 11 per cent of a school role accessing our food, but in 2018 that's almost doubled to 20 per cent. We need long-term solutions to material hardship, because I can only see the need increasing and that's just not okay."

In 2013 Inequality, A New Zealand Crisis (Editor: Max Rashbrooke) highlighted that not only had the gap  between New Zealand’s poorest and wealthiest inhabitants widened alarmingly over recent decades but the differences in income had grown faster than in most other developed countries.

But, five years later, little has changed and little will change as long as we have governments that continue to pursue a  neoliberal agenda.

This week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reaffirmed her government's commitment to maintaining a 20 percent cap on spending - effectively condemning ordinary New Zealanders to further austerity.

There has been a surge in growth for the DSA.
Yet there has been little complaint from Labour supporters. Indeed they have only been raised out of their slumbers to defend Ardern from attacks on her rather expensive travel arrangements. Among Labour and Green Party  supporters  there is a 'denial of the inequality caused by a failed neoliberal experiment now thirty years old'. That's not me talking but Martyn Bradbury, editor of The Daily Blog and keen Labour supporter, talking about John Key's National led government in 2014.

Its also worth reflecting that these are the supposedly 'better times' from the supposedly 'lesser evil' Labour-led government that supporters like Unite Union national secretary Mike Treen campaigned for in 2017. And although he 's more critical of Labour now that it is safely installed in office, Treen will be campaigning for Labour next time round as well. 

To paraphrase actor Alec Baldwin - we can do better. Conspicuously missing on the New Zealand political landscape is a political organisation that can not only give voice to the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders but also provide a clear economic and political alternative that isn't beholden to business interests.

In the United States many Americans, especially millenials, have correctly identified capitalism as the source of their problems in areas such as housing, healthcare, poverty and a lack of political representation from a political system dominated by corporate interests. Many are flocking to organisations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which this week announced it had over 50,000 members. In 2014 it had 6,000 members.

With New Zealand's parliamentary parties all loyal to the status quo and beholden to corporate interests, we need our own political organisation that, in the words of the constitution of the DSA envisions “a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.”







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