COMPASSIONATE AUSTERITY

Employment Minister Willie Jackson wants you to know about all the good work he is involved in helping South Auckland's poor this Xmas.

WILLIE JACKSON writes sporadically for The Daily Blog, invariably to promote himself and his Labour-led government and the wonderful work that they are doing. 

The Employment Minister's last column for 2018 sees Jackson giving himself a hearty slap on the back for all the good work he's involved in helping the poor and dispossessed of South Auckland. His entire column, which was probably dashed off in a couple of minutes, reads:

" Last day today at Nga Whare Waatea looking after our people of South Auckland.

"Over 3,000 people have come through our marae over the last couple of weeks – we’ve had a fortnight of giving kai and food parcels out in partnership with the Auckland City Mission. So sad to see so many people still struggling but proud of how our marae continues to support our communities.'

Wow. What a guy. Is Willie Jackson our answer to Bono?

Of course, the reason why there have been over 3,000 desperate people lining up for help at Jackson's marae is because of the neoliberal economic policies that his government continues to pursue. While Willie Jackson is a playing a benevolent Santa Claus, Finance Minister Grant Robertson is doing his best impersonation of Scrooge.

While Jackson says he's 'sad' to see so many people struggling he doesn't see fit to provide any kind of explanation as to why this might be the case. I can think of a few reasons to help him out. How about low wages? Low benefit levels? Escalating living costs? But instead Jackson suggests that widespread poverty is just 'there' - like the weather.

In a society like ours with its extremes of wealth and poverty charity is used to mitigate the symptoms of social distress but leaves the systematic cause unexamined. Instead the welfare being provided by Jackson's marae, while it might be provide some immediate relief, has become an integral part of a capitalist system that isn't delivering for the majority of people.

But multimillionaire Jackson isn't, in any case, likely to provide us with any far-reaching analysis of an unjust economic system he has personally done well out of. Unsurprisingly he often commented through his many years as a talkback host that he's not a socialist. Which makes Labour a natural home for Willie Jackson.