10:31 AM |
If you could just suck it up, that would be noice
By KARLO MILA - The Dominion Post
OPINION: Times are hard. In our local supermarket the pork heads, brisket bones and chicken giblets are all displayed in the open freezers like never before. Nobody pretends any more that these are for Fido.
Unemployment has hit a 10-year high. In fact, we've gone from the lowest unemployment rate in the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (both 2005 and 2006), to the fourth lowest (2007), dropping all the way down to tenth equal in 2008. Last year we didn't even make it to the top 10.
Mortgagee sales hit a record high in November 2009. Losing your family home doesn't happen overnight.
When a new supermarket opened in South Auckland with 150 jobs on offer, more than 2000 people queued to get jobs that pay $1 more than the minimum wage.
There are 168,000 jobless New Zealanders. That's a population the size of Hamilton. We're losing our jobs in unprecedented numbers and it's hitting our young people and our Maori and Pacific communities the hardest. For those aged 15 to 24, the unemployment rates are up at 18.4 per cent from 12 per cent a year ago, for Maori 14.8 per cent (up from 8.6 per cent a year ago) and for Pacific people 14.3 per cent (up from 7.8 per cent a year ago).
Harry S Truman said: "It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." When young people, Maori and Pacific people lose theirs, it seems it's called an underclass.
The fastest way to create an underclass is for a leader to respond inadequately to rising unemployment and then divide society into taxpayers and those who are poor "investments" (the recipients of social services not "showing the results that taxpayers have a right to expect").
In his opening speech to Parliament, the prime minister got into classic victim-blaming mode, associating unemployed people with those "who lack the will or desire to work as hard for their living as their fellow New Zealanders". The queues of thousands for minimum return jobs suggests there's no lack of will or desire, just lack of opportunity.
Mr Key spoke of cutting welfare so as not to leave a burden for the future generation. The irony is that, to some degree, it is the future generation that is on welfare.
Almost a fifth of our young people can't even get their feet on the first rung of the career ladder. They're learning one of the hardest lessons the labour market can teach.
Business Week described this group as the lost generation: "bright, eager - and unwanted". Paula Bennett eloquently advised young people having trouble finding work to "suck it up". Noice.
In a context of hard times, aside from telling us to suck it up, our Government's plan is to increase GST. Say it three times and rub your sparkly red shoes together: GST is not a tax, GST is not a tax, GST is not a tax. Did it work for you?
For a Government that campaigned heavily on tax cuts, a move to increase tax is phenomenal. Actually, they intend to increase one tax (that affects everyone) to reduce another tax (that affects some).
There is so much talk about catchup with Australia but so little talk of match-up. Australia managed to sidestep the recession. Unemployment is at 5 per cent. As Alan Bollard pointed out, Australia is helped along by its minerals. Analysts have pointed to a relatively functional banking sector, an advantage New Zealand shares. One major difference was that Australia's approach to the recession was generous stimulus. . They supported people to keep on participating in the economy.
We've gone for penny pinching, service slashing, line-by-line reviews and 1402 job losses in the public sector. We're losing jobs and homes in unprecedented numbers. Higher GST is another pinch and a punch for ordinary Kiwis.
Of all countries with GST – rather than VAT – ours is already the highest. Australia's rate is 10 per cent, with no GST on most food items (junk is taxed), education and health services. They choose to tax capital gains instead of the basic necessities of life. Bad things happen when people can't afford these.
Nobody gains. A similar move in New Zealand would be outrageously fortunate for the average family struggling to put bread, milk, meat and veges on their table.
Whether Mr Key realises it or not, we're all in this together - and it might even stimulate our economy at the same time.
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pacific islands media association
pima.nius@gmail.com
aotearoa, new zealand
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