Election Issue – September 2017
This quarter our newsletter is all about the upcoming election. Please ensure you are enrolled to vote and that you vote on or before Saturday 23rd September this year. There should be a local voting station near you, it is often a primary school. This information will be on your Easyvote information pack.
Here is how to find which electorate you are in: http://www.elections.org.nz/voters/find-my-electorate. If you don’t like the current government, then get out and vote against them as every vote counts. Encourage all your friends to vote too 
Kia kaha.
In this newsletter we summarise the policies of each of the major parties, specifically around issues such as social welfare, beneficiaries and poverty. Some of these policies are very recent, only out in the last week or so. Look at the party websites for other issues. You could also check out this site for more information: http://policy.thespinoff.co.nz/topic/Incomes#Benefits. This site allows you to compare parties on four main topics: benefits, superannuation, wages and working conditions, and tax and income support. Click the heart button at the bottom of each balloon to see which party your views most align with.
You can also look at vote compass here: https://votecompass.tvnz.co.nz/home for other policy options to consider.
As usual, be wary of parties offering tax cuts as history has shown these help the rich more than the poor and can mean less government income for important things like welfare, health and education.
Parties are listed below in order of their current number of seats in parliament.
National
Leader: Bill English
Position: Centre-right, conservative and classical-liberal
Vision: Less debt, more jobs, strong stable government
Website: https://www.national.org.nz/policies
Benefits: Increase payments for students’ accommodation costs & general accommodation supplement; Require gang members who receive a benefit to justify expensive assets; Provide work experience or training to young people who have been unemployed for more than six months, but Introduce sanctions for beneficiaries who fail to attend work experience, training or drug rehabilitation
Superannuation: Raise the retirement age to 67 in stages between 2037 and 2040; Increase the residency requirement for superannuation from 10 to 20 years.
Wages and Working Conditions: Implement new measures to reduce workplace death and injury; Reform pay equity law; Extend paid parental leave to 22 weeks.
Tax & Income Support: Reduce tax on income up to $52,000; Increase Working for Families payments.
Labour
Leader: Jacinda Ardern
Position: Centre-left, social-democratic
Vision: To build a better, fairer New Zealand for all of us.
Website: http://www.labour.org.nz/policy
Benefits: Increase the amount people can earn before their benefit is cut; Extend the supported living payment to people with temporary illness or injury; Restore an allowance to support beneficiaries to study; End sanctions against sole parent beneficiaries who don’t identify the parent of their child; Increase payments for accommodation costs.
Superannuation: Pay people on superannuation or a benefit for winter energy costs; Keep the retirement age at 65; Restart contributions to the super fund; Make it easier for Pacific retirees to transfer their pensions to another country.
Wages & Working Conditions: Raise the minimum wage to $16.50 per hour and abolish the youth wage; Extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks; Oppose proposed reforms to pay equity law and draft a new law to create a more effective system; Pay all core public service workers the Living Wage; Replace the 90 day trial period with a free referee service for unjustified dismissal claims; Develop industry-level agreements for minimum working conditions.
Tax & Income Support: Increase Working for Families payments; Pay $60 per week to all families with babies and toddlers; Abolish secondary tax; Establish a Tax Working Group.
Green
Leader: James Shaw
Position: Left-wing, environmentalist and socially progressive
Vision: Working towards a fairer, cleaner, smarter Aotearoa
Website: https://www.greens.org.nz/policy
Benefits: Increase benefits by 20 per cent; Increase the amount people can earn before their benefit is cut; End penalties and sanctions for beneficiaries; Restore an allowance to support beneficiaries to study; Provide all beneficiaries with a case manager.
Superannuation: Divest the Super Fund from unethical investments.
Wages & Working Conditions: Improve pay for mental health workers; Oppose proposed reforms to pay equity law and make different changes; Require statistics about pay rates for men and women to be published; Require the public sector to achieve pay equity for women by 2020; Raise the minimum wage to $17.75 per hour and Abolish the youth wage; Provide 10 days of sick leave a year.
Tax & Income Support: Increase Working for Families payments; Extend the $72 per week payment for working parents to all low income families (including beneficiaries); Extend the $2,200 payment for working parents of newborn babies to all families; Increase tax to 40 per cent for income over $150,000; and Reduce tax to 9 per cent for income under $14,000.
NZ First
Leader: Winston Peters
Position: Conservative, populist
Vision: It’s common sense
Website: http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/policies
Benefits: Apply more scrutiny to people moving from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit; Adjust benefits with inflation; Require greater parental responsibility from people receiving benefits.
Superannuation: Keep the retirement age at 65; Raise the residency requirement for superannuation eligibility from 10 years to 25 years; Restart contributions to the Super Fund; Stop deducting overseas pensions and benefits from New Zealand superannuation; Make Kiwisaver compulsory and establish a state run Kiwisaver provider.
Wages & Working Conditions: Ensure effective measures are in place to prevent exploitation of migrant workers; Raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour & abolish the youth wage; Require employers to prioritise hiring NZers.
Tax & Income Support: Review the Working for Families tax credit system; Provide a tax advantage for savings; Remove GST from food; Remove GST from residential rates; Abolish secondary tax.
Māori
Leaders: Marama Fox and Te Ururoa Flavell
Position: Centre-left
Vision: A party to promote what it sees as “the rights and interests of Māori”.
Website: http://www.maoriparty.org/policies
Benefits: Introduce a universal student allowance and increase the accommodation benefit; Adjust all benefits to reflect the cost of living and target eliminating poverty by 2025.
Superannuation: Consider lowering the retirement age for Māori and Pasifika; Support Pacific retirees to transfer their pensions to New Zealand; Provide a hardship pension for some Pasifika migrants.
Wages & Working Conditions: Increase the minimum wage to a Living Wage.
Tax & Income Support: Remove GST from milk and fresh fruit and vegetables.
Act
Leader: David Seymour
Position: Right-wing, classically liberal
Vision: Free speech, free trade, limited and smarter government
Website: http://act.org.nz/policies/
Benefits: Impose lifetime limits on the sole parent and unemployment benefits; Impose spending controls on parents who have additional children while on a benefit; Increase support for people with physical or mental conditions; Require all welfare recipients who can work to either work or participate in full-time training.
Superannuation: Require parents of immigrants who join their children in NZ to pay for their own healthcare and superannuation; aise the retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2032; Increase the residency requirement for superannuation.
Wages & Working Conditions: Keep the government off your farms and out of your businesses.
Tax & Income Support: Reduce all income tax rates to no more than 25 per cent; Cut Working for Families and paid parental leave payments to high income earners.
UnitedFuture
Leader: Damian Light
Position: A modern, liberal centrist party
Vision: Strong families, vibrant communities, a fair and open society
Website: http://unitedfuture.org.nz/our-policies/
Benefits: Zero fees for tertiary education.
Superannuation: Introduce a flexible retirement age (60-70), Make Kiwisaver compulsory.
Wages & Working Conditions: Extend paid parental leave to 56 weeks and allow 14 weeks to be transferred to a partner.
Tax & Income Support: Allow couples with children to claim shared income for tax purposes.
TOP (The Opportunities Party)
This party is not currently in Government, but is promoting itself widely for a minor party, so we thought we should let you know where they stand too.
Leader: Gareth Morgan
Position: “Not left. Not right. But… what works”
Vision: A prosperous, fair and equitable society
Website: http://www.top.org.nz/policy
Benefits: Aim to replace targeted benefits with an Unconditional Basic Income; Extend the $72 per week Working for Families payment (for working parents) to all low income families.
Superannuation: Increase the residency requirement for superannuation from 10 to 25 years and Replace superannuation with an unconditional basic income for people over the age of 65.
Wages & Working Conditions: Increase pay transparency; Improve protections for migrant workers’ rights.
Tax & Income Support: Immediately pay $200 a week to all families with young children, everyone aged 18-23, and those over 65; Tax income from all productive assets and redistribute to below-average income earners; Eventually move to a Universal Basic Income for all New Zealanders.
MANA Movement
This party is also not currently in Government.
Leader: Hone Harawira
Position: Left-wing, “a political waka for all peoples”
Vision: Courage and honesty to political endeavour and Māori rights
Website: http://mana.org.nz/
Benefits: Feed children immediately; House the homeless; Free education for all; Free healthcare for everyone under 18; Universal Basic Income; Change the focus of Social Support from attacking the poor to helping those in need; Provide $1,000 Christmas hampers to low-income and needy whanau; Stop discriminating against children, as with the ‘Working for Families’ policy; Develop an independent review and appeals system; Provide stable funding for beneficiary advocacy groups throughout the country.
Superannuation: Extend the payment of NZ superannuation to those aged 60 and over; Everyone has the right to a life of dignity.
Wages & Working Conditions: Create employment that helps people rebuild their communities and their sense of self-worth; Extend paid parental leave to 12 months.
Tax & Income Support: Tax the rich to pay the poor; Cancel GST.
Summary
There are some interesting policies out there on different subjects. If you want to see a fair system where people who have no other form of support than welfare benefits have sufficient to live on, you need to look at the parties that plan to improve the benefit system (specifically Greens and Mana, but also Māori, Labour and TOP)
Parties proposing to raise the minimum wage are : Labour ($16.50), Greens ($17.75), NZ First ($20), Māori (living wage, currently $20.20).
Issues of child poverty are still considered important in this election, but mentioned less specifically than for the last election. Mostly side issues like the Working For Families and Paid Parental Leave are mentioned here to help parents of (young) children.
Recall what Plato (and many others) have said about politics: “The penalty the good pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Make your vote count.
BAS is grateful for the assistance of
- Lottery Grants Board
- The Rātā Foundation
- United Way
- Community Organised Grants Scheme
- Christchurch City Council
- The Trusts Community Foundation
- Lion Foundation
- Mainland Foundation
- Pub Charity
- First Sovereign Trust Limited
- Dominican Sisters
- Thank You Charitable Trust
- Donations from Community
- Our Volunteers and Staff
If you need our help, BAS is keen to hear from you. Just give us a ring, email, or pop in for a visit.
♥ Kia Kaha ♥
If you want information on any issues raised in this newsletter or any matter relating to benefits or poverty, please feel free to call us ☺ If there are other issues you want to see in these newsletters, please let us know.
To Contact BAS:
Office and Postal Address:
Christchurch Community House
301 Tuam St, Christchurch Central 8011
Phone: 03 379 8787
Email: bas.cprc@gmail.com
Website: bas.org.nz
Facebook: Beneficiary Advisory Service (BAS)
Office Hours:
9.30 am—2.30 pm Monday to Thursday
9:30am—2pm Friday
