Xiao Banfa
14th January 2008, 06:28
“No time to lose”: People Power in the 21st Century (http://alliance.org.nz/blog/2008/01/13/no-time-to-lose-people-power-in-the-21st-century/)
Speech by Alliance co-leader Victor Billot to public meeting, Crossways Community Centre, Wellington, Sunday 18 November 2007
This talk is about some of the problems we face as a society, and some of the solutions the Alliance Party are advocating.
It is also a personal talk. I will talk about some of the ideas and issues about the future that I personally see as being important and relevant to us all.
Firstly, I would just like to mention about where the Alliance is at as a political movement today.
We recently held our national conference in Dunedin over Labour Weekend. The general view is that it was a positive event, and we had around 30 delegates from throughout New Zealand.
The Conference elected a new leadership, with myself and Kay Murray as co-leaders, both from Dunedin. Our President is Paul Piesse and General Secretary Tom Dowie, both of Christchurch.
The goal for the Alliance is to run a small-scale but credible election campaign in 2008. We will be running a party list as a registered party but we need to increase our membership to a more comfortable level than it is at the moment to maximize our effect.
A key point about the Alliance is that we offer a clear alternative. We are a democratic socialist party that is on the side of the people.
We have a Labour Government in New Zealand which does not seek to change society but to manage it. The other option is an even harsher version of capitalism advocated by the National Party, where control and power is passed over completely to those with lots of money.
The Alliance is different. We stand for rational and long term changes to the way our society operates. These changes are necessary because a combination of social and environmental problems are growing in seriousness. They can not be solved by more of the same.
I don’t believe we lack wealth in New Zealand. It is the distribution and use (or misuse) of that wealth that is the problem.
I don’t have a problem with wealth. I have a problem with poverty. I have a problem with the lack of choices that a lack of money brings. I also have a problem with the fact our current economic system is destroying the planet.
Here I would quote the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez:
“The planet is being destroyed under our own noses by the capitalist model, the destructive engine of development . . . every day there is more hunger, more misery thanks to the neo-liberal, capitalist model.”
Human beings are a product of the natural environment.
We should protect our physical environment for three reasons. One for other people, and our children. Two, because it is our responsibility. Three, because our survival depends on it.
However when most people are caught up in a debt ridden, consumerist rat race that is becoming the norm in New Zealand, then there is little time or energy to think about what we can do together to change things.
The economic problems faced by the great majority of New Zealanders are debt, inequality, insecurity, instability and knowledge.
Unless these social problems are resolved, there is no way that the environmental issues will get solved. People need to be economically secure and feel part of a community before serious collective action is possible.
These are problems generated by an out of balance society, an economy where the profits of shareholders are the only priority.
Let us look at debt.
Young people are in debt as never before. I have an old fashioned view of debt. If you are in debt, you are not your own person. You don’t own your own time. I think that is where the system wants to put the workers. In credit card debt, hire purchase, enormous mortgages, student debt, consumerism: the whole works. They want to keep people on the treadmill.
If people are scared of losing what they have, they are easy to manipulate and control.
Since 1990 the average debt level of your typical New Zealand household has risen from $18,800 to $99,000 (Herald on Sunday, 22 April 2007)
A 2007 report by Massey University shows house affordability has been dropping for the last 4.5 years, as housing prices rose faster than wages.
In the three years from 2004 to 2006, house prices increased by 38.5 per cent while at the same time wages went up by 8.7 per cent,
meaning that house prices are outstripping wage growth by 4 to 1.
The internationally accepted standard for housing affordability is that median house prices should not exceed three times median household incomes. A 2007 Demographia Survey found that the median house price in New Zealand was 6.6 times the median household income.
The home ownership rate has been falling. It was 73.8 per cent in 1991 and was 66.9 per cent in 2006.
Under the Labour Government of Helen Clark course fees for tertiary education have continued to rise. Student fees now account for around a third of tertiary institutions’ income, compared to 19 percent in Howard’s Australia.
The Government now predicts that student loan debt will reach $12.7 billion by 2014/15.
Student debt is crippling young New Zealanders, forcing many to work part-time in low-pay, low-security jobs, when they should be focusing on learning.
Then there is the problem of work. While unemployment is claimed to be low, there are serious problems in the working environment.
We have an entire group of people trapped in a low wage service economy. Many jobs are casualized and insecure. The level of unionization of workers is very low. And the workers who most need to be in strong unions are those who are least likely to be covered by a union.
Shift work is another problem.
Today’s work environments can be extremely stressful and challenging. The 24 hour society has major disadvantages. Two income families are the norm and there are also a lot of struggling single parent families. This creates a lot of problems.
I am strongly in favour of a reduction in working hours to 35 hours a week without loss of pay.
Families need more time to be with each other. People need more time so they can be involved in the community, see their friends, further their education, develop themselves as people through sports, reading, creative activities and simply enjoying life. What on earth is the point of having an advanced, civilized, technological society where people are working more not less?
With all the extra wealth that is being generated by this frenzy of work, where is it going? Into the pockets of the super-rich to fund ostentatious levels of consumption. Being spent of worthless consumer junk from the Warehouse or pokie machines. But not into anything useful.
Any society needs a sense of cohesion to successfully function. There must be healthy debate and diversity. But there also needs to be a sense of what we share in common.
I suggest to you New Zealanders are being held together by less and less. The economic and social model we have is failing in many very serious ways. As it continues to fail, there will be more and more casualties. Alcohol and drug abuse, violence and mental problems will become increasingly pervasive. Building jails will not solve this problem.
We live in an inter-connected world and globalization is not going to go away. But as socialists we want democratic globalization – globalization of the people. Not globalization for the benefit of corporate executives, or political elites.
What are some of the global issues we face in the 21st century?
These include social and environmental issues, and also the effect of rapid and accelerating technological change.
Earlier this year, the UK Ministry of Defence released a report detailing what they believed would be the major issues of the future.
Despite its source, I believe that many of its suggestions or predictions are accurate.
They include:
New weapons including electromagnetic pulse weapons and other forms of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, that leave property intact – but kill people.
By 2010 more than 50% of the world’s population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and “new instability risks”, and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. National wars may decrease but internal civil conflicts may increase.
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world.
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a “youth bulge” in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. “The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment … are unlikely to be met,” says the report.
Islamic militancy is seen as a major issue, but the report also notes that political change could come from another direction.
“The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx,” says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest”.
Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the “sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism”.
This is an interesting thought. Of course the reports authors see capitalism as the natural order of things, so any challenge is dismissed as a threat to the security of the ruling class
Given the terrorism hysteria that has now gripped New Zealand, it is worth noting this official report noted casualties and damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict.
There is “compelling evidence” to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. “The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries.”
Reading all of this can remind you of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
Then there is another issue that I believe is overlooked by many. This is the effect of rapid technological change or acceleration.
These processes have been described by technologist Ray Kurzweil as comprising three overlapping revolutions in technology with the acronym GNR.
G stands for genetic engineering.
N stands for nanotechnology, or the technology that deals with very small particles
R stands for robotics, and artificial intelligence - machines whose abilities are constantly developing.
Running alongside these technological advances is the rapid increase in speed and power of computers which will have a major impact on life in the future.
Possibilities include information chips hardwired into brains and extended life spans for those with money to afford special treatment.
This may sound rather science fiction, but it is not. All these processes are currently under development. Due to the accelerating rate of technological change, these events may not be confined to a distant future but within our lifetimes. These changes will have an enormous impact on society and I believe, as a technological optimist, potentially a very positive effect.
But unless the driving forces of these changes are the common good, then the potential is there for even greater disaster. If we just keep trying to make things work with the wrong system, then it will be a failure.
For example, in the case of renewable energy sources, biofuels are a promising technology.
But British author George Monbiot has noted along with others including Fidel Castro that biofuel production under a capitalist model is creating new problems. Land used for food production for poor people is now being turned over to biofuel crop production to feed the rich world’s transport system.
Monbiot writes that “Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the county of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.”
(George Monbiot, Monbiot.com, An Agricultural Crime Against Humanity, November 6, 2007)
My point in raising these issues is simple. The world is changing but the values of democratic socialism are needed now more than ever to ensure that all people benefit from the advances of the human race, rather than just more and more misuse and abuse of people to fit in with the profit model.
Democratic socialists and social democrats have been on the back foot for quite a while. The ideas that dominate our society are the ideas of capitalism and of the elite class who dominate our world.
It is time that we reclaimed the debate and direction of society. That means rather than letting the agenda be set by money power, a small elite, we need to widen out the debate to all of society. The ideas of the left, of justice and equality, have to be the bedrock of such a change.
The key goals of the Alliance are based around the idea of the good society.
Such a society is based on values and relationships. At the moment the main relationship people have with each other is as financial units. Our sense of each other is reduced to what we can get out of each other.
This is the basic problem of a capitalist society. People and planet are seen as resources to be exploited. The result is the creation of enormous wealth that is distributed with great inequality. The result is a planet that is being degraded and poisoned.
The result is also a crippled type of human who is unconscious and unaware, controlled by mindless forces of the so-called market and a totally commercial view of existence.
The goals of the Alliance are concrete and simple. What do we need to do to create the kind of New Zealand that can cope with the vast changes and threats of the 21st century? We need to create a secure, resilient and caring society where people feel a commitment to each other.
Practically speaking, the key Alliance policy goals are:
Affordable housing
The Alliance will help people to get into affordable housing. Our priority is housing for all, not profits for some.
Power for the people
Electricity must be taken back by the people and run for the public good. There needs to be affordable, reliable power for all people.
A future for our world
We can only save the environment by creating an economy based on need and sustainability, not greed and waste.
Quality health care
All people deserve good health care regardless of their wealth. The Alliance would properly fund public health with a dedicated health levy, and throw out user pays and means testing.
Free education
Free education for all is a right not a privilege. Student loans are out of control. It’s time to drop the debt and give young people a good start in life.
Secure jobs
The Alliance will protect workers in low paid and insecure jobs, reduce the working week and increase the minimum wage.
Real Democracy
We have the right to make the decisions about our lives and communities – not be dictated to by anti democratic private interests.
The Alliance has a fair tax system to pay for a future in which New Zealanders are healthy, well-educated, well housed and in work.
We support a progressive tax system where:
1. GST is abolished on food and gradually phased out altogether. GST is an unfair tax that hits the poor hardest.
2. First $10 000 income tax free to provide immediate relief for those on lower incomes
3. A progressive tax rate that would slowly rise with income level. This reduces the tax burden on those least able to afford it. The services paid for by progressive taxation would be universally available for all New Zealanders.
The Alliance does not believe in the concept of “tax cuts.” We believe in an appropriate level of taxation that spreads the cost of running a civilized society in a just way. We believe in using the collective wealth of society, produced by all, to provide social structures and services for all.
These policies are just a start. What they do is create the basis of society where the the basic needs and security of all people are met. Rather than limiting individual freedom, they create a society were people are truly free to reach their potential and live fulfilling lives.
What advances could then be made by the great development of true wealth and balanced wealth by such a society?
This wealth is not just financial; it is the wealth of time to enjoy life, the wealth of supportive communities, the wealth of a democratic and egalitarian society.
The Alliance cares about the things you care about. But we need your support to make it happen.
Speech by Alliance co-leader Victor Billot to public meeting, Crossways Community Centre, Wellington, Sunday 18 November 2007
This talk is about some of the problems we face as a society, and some of the solutions the Alliance Party are advocating.
It is also a personal talk. I will talk about some of the ideas and issues about the future that I personally see as being important and relevant to us all.
Firstly, I would just like to mention about where the Alliance is at as a political movement today.
We recently held our national conference in Dunedin over Labour Weekend. The general view is that it was a positive event, and we had around 30 delegates from throughout New Zealand.
The Conference elected a new leadership, with myself and Kay Murray as co-leaders, both from Dunedin. Our President is Paul Piesse and General Secretary Tom Dowie, both of Christchurch.
The goal for the Alliance is to run a small-scale but credible election campaign in 2008. We will be running a party list as a registered party but we need to increase our membership to a more comfortable level than it is at the moment to maximize our effect.
A key point about the Alliance is that we offer a clear alternative. We are a democratic socialist party that is on the side of the people.
We have a Labour Government in New Zealand which does not seek to change society but to manage it. The other option is an even harsher version of capitalism advocated by the National Party, where control and power is passed over completely to those with lots of money.
The Alliance is different. We stand for rational and long term changes to the way our society operates. These changes are necessary because a combination of social and environmental problems are growing in seriousness. They can not be solved by more of the same.
I don’t believe we lack wealth in New Zealand. It is the distribution and use (or misuse) of that wealth that is the problem.
I don’t have a problem with wealth. I have a problem with poverty. I have a problem with the lack of choices that a lack of money brings. I also have a problem with the fact our current economic system is destroying the planet.
Here I would quote the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez:
“The planet is being destroyed under our own noses by the capitalist model, the destructive engine of development . . . every day there is more hunger, more misery thanks to the neo-liberal, capitalist model.”
Human beings are a product of the natural environment.
We should protect our physical environment for three reasons. One for other people, and our children. Two, because it is our responsibility. Three, because our survival depends on it.
However when most people are caught up in a debt ridden, consumerist rat race that is becoming the norm in New Zealand, then there is little time or energy to think about what we can do together to change things.
The economic problems faced by the great majority of New Zealanders are debt, inequality, insecurity, instability and knowledge.
Unless these social problems are resolved, there is no way that the environmental issues will get solved. People need to be economically secure and feel part of a community before serious collective action is possible.
These are problems generated by an out of balance society, an economy where the profits of shareholders are the only priority.
Let us look at debt.
Young people are in debt as never before. I have an old fashioned view of debt. If you are in debt, you are not your own person. You don’t own your own time. I think that is where the system wants to put the workers. In credit card debt, hire purchase, enormous mortgages, student debt, consumerism: the whole works. They want to keep people on the treadmill.
If people are scared of losing what they have, they are easy to manipulate and control.
Since 1990 the average debt level of your typical New Zealand household has risen from $18,800 to $99,000 (Herald on Sunday, 22 April 2007)
A 2007 report by Massey University shows house affordability has been dropping for the last 4.5 years, as housing prices rose faster than wages.
In the three years from 2004 to 2006, house prices increased by 38.5 per cent while at the same time wages went up by 8.7 per cent,
meaning that house prices are outstripping wage growth by 4 to 1.
The internationally accepted standard for housing affordability is that median house prices should not exceed three times median household incomes. A 2007 Demographia Survey found that the median house price in New Zealand was 6.6 times the median household income.
The home ownership rate has been falling. It was 73.8 per cent in 1991 and was 66.9 per cent in 2006.
Under the Labour Government of Helen Clark course fees for tertiary education have continued to rise. Student fees now account for around a third of tertiary institutions’ income, compared to 19 percent in Howard’s Australia.
The Government now predicts that student loan debt will reach $12.7 billion by 2014/15.
Student debt is crippling young New Zealanders, forcing many to work part-time in low-pay, low-security jobs, when they should be focusing on learning.
Then there is the problem of work. While unemployment is claimed to be low, there are serious problems in the working environment.
We have an entire group of people trapped in a low wage service economy. Many jobs are casualized and insecure. The level of unionization of workers is very low. And the workers who most need to be in strong unions are those who are least likely to be covered by a union.
Shift work is another problem.
Today’s work environments can be extremely stressful and challenging. The 24 hour society has major disadvantages. Two income families are the norm and there are also a lot of struggling single parent families. This creates a lot of problems.
I am strongly in favour of a reduction in working hours to 35 hours a week without loss of pay.
Families need more time to be with each other. People need more time so they can be involved in the community, see their friends, further their education, develop themselves as people through sports, reading, creative activities and simply enjoying life. What on earth is the point of having an advanced, civilized, technological society where people are working more not less?
With all the extra wealth that is being generated by this frenzy of work, where is it going? Into the pockets of the super-rich to fund ostentatious levels of consumption. Being spent of worthless consumer junk from the Warehouse or pokie machines. But not into anything useful.
Any society needs a sense of cohesion to successfully function. There must be healthy debate and diversity. But there also needs to be a sense of what we share in common.
I suggest to you New Zealanders are being held together by less and less. The economic and social model we have is failing in many very serious ways. As it continues to fail, there will be more and more casualties. Alcohol and drug abuse, violence and mental problems will become increasingly pervasive. Building jails will not solve this problem.
We live in an inter-connected world and globalization is not going to go away. But as socialists we want democratic globalization – globalization of the people. Not globalization for the benefit of corporate executives, or political elites.
What are some of the global issues we face in the 21st century?
These include social and environmental issues, and also the effect of rapid and accelerating technological change.
Earlier this year, the UK Ministry of Defence released a report detailing what they believed would be the major issues of the future.
Despite its source, I believe that many of its suggestions or predictions are accurate.
They include:
New weapons including electromagnetic pulse weapons and other forms of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, that leave property intact – but kill people.
By 2010 more than 50% of the world’s population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and “new instability risks”, and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. National wars may decrease but internal civil conflicts may increase.
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world.
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a “youth bulge” in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. “The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment … are unlikely to be met,” says the report.
Islamic militancy is seen as a major issue, but the report also notes that political change could come from another direction.
“The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx,” says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest”.
Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the “sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism”.
This is an interesting thought. Of course the reports authors see capitalism as the natural order of things, so any challenge is dismissed as a threat to the security of the ruling class
Given the terrorism hysteria that has now gripped New Zealand, it is worth noting this official report noted casualties and damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict.
There is “compelling evidence” to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. “The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries.”
Reading all of this can remind you of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
Then there is another issue that I believe is overlooked by many. This is the effect of rapid technological change or acceleration.
These processes have been described by technologist Ray Kurzweil as comprising three overlapping revolutions in technology with the acronym GNR.
G stands for genetic engineering.
N stands for nanotechnology, or the technology that deals with very small particles
R stands for robotics, and artificial intelligence - machines whose abilities are constantly developing.
Running alongside these technological advances is the rapid increase in speed and power of computers which will have a major impact on life in the future.
Possibilities include information chips hardwired into brains and extended life spans for those with money to afford special treatment.
This may sound rather science fiction, but it is not. All these processes are currently under development. Due to the accelerating rate of technological change, these events may not be confined to a distant future but within our lifetimes. These changes will have an enormous impact on society and I believe, as a technological optimist, potentially a very positive effect.
But unless the driving forces of these changes are the common good, then the potential is there for even greater disaster. If we just keep trying to make things work with the wrong system, then it will be a failure.
For example, in the case of renewable energy sources, biofuels are a promising technology.
But British author George Monbiot has noted along with others including Fidel Castro that biofuel production under a capitalist model is creating new problems. Land used for food production for poor people is now being turned over to biofuel crop production to feed the rich world’s transport system.
Monbiot writes that “Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the county of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.”
(George Monbiot, Monbiot.com, An Agricultural Crime Against Humanity, November 6, 2007)
My point in raising these issues is simple. The world is changing but the values of democratic socialism are needed now more than ever to ensure that all people benefit from the advances of the human race, rather than just more and more misuse and abuse of people to fit in with the profit model.
Democratic socialists and social democrats have been on the back foot for quite a while. The ideas that dominate our society are the ideas of capitalism and of the elite class who dominate our world.
It is time that we reclaimed the debate and direction of society. That means rather than letting the agenda be set by money power, a small elite, we need to widen out the debate to all of society. The ideas of the left, of justice and equality, have to be the bedrock of such a change.
The key goals of the Alliance are based around the idea of the good society.
Such a society is based on values and relationships. At the moment the main relationship people have with each other is as financial units. Our sense of each other is reduced to what we can get out of each other.
This is the basic problem of a capitalist society. People and planet are seen as resources to be exploited. The result is the creation of enormous wealth that is distributed with great inequality. The result is a planet that is being degraded and poisoned.
The result is also a crippled type of human who is unconscious and unaware, controlled by mindless forces of the so-called market and a totally commercial view of existence.
The goals of the Alliance are concrete and simple. What do we need to do to create the kind of New Zealand that can cope with the vast changes and threats of the 21st century? We need to create a secure, resilient and caring society where people feel a commitment to each other.
Practically speaking, the key Alliance policy goals are:
Affordable housing
The Alliance will help people to get into affordable housing. Our priority is housing for all, not profits for some.
Power for the people
Electricity must be taken back by the people and run for the public good. There needs to be affordable, reliable power for all people.
A future for our world
We can only save the environment by creating an economy based on need and sustainability, not greed and waste.
Quality health care
All people deserve good health care regardless of their wealth. The Alliance would properly fund public health with a dedicated health levy, and throw out user pays and means testing.
Free education
Free education for all is a right not a privilege. Student loans are out of control. It’s time to drop the debt and give young people a good start in life.
Secure jobs
The Alliance will protect workers in low paid and insecure jobs, reduce the working week and increase the minimum wage.
Real Democracy
We have the right to make the decisions about our lives and communities – not be dictated to by anti democratic private interests.
The Alliance has a fair tax system to pay for a future in which New Zealanders are healthy, well-educated, well housed and in work.
We support a progressive tax system where:
1. GST is abolished on food and gradually phased out altogether. GST is an unfair tax that hits the poor hardest.
2. First $10 000 income tax free to provide immediate relief for those on lower incomes
3. A progressive tax rate that would slowly rise with income level. This reduces the tax burden on those least able to afford it. The services paid for by progressive taxation would be universally available for all New Zealanders.
The Alliance does not believe in the concept of “tax cuts.” We believe in an appropriate level of taxation that spreads the cost of running a civilized society in a just way. We believe in using the collective wealth of society, produced by all, to provide social structures and services for all.
These policies are just a start. What they do is create the basis of society where the the basic needs and security of all people are met. Rather than limiting individual freedom, they create a society were people are truly free to reach their potential and live fulfilling lives.
What advances could then be made by the great development of true wealth and balanced wealth by such a society?
This wealth is not just financial; it is the wealth of time to enjoy life, the wealth of supportive communities, the wealth of a democratic and egalitarian society.
The Alliance cares about the things you care about. But we need your support to make it happen.