Columns

You’ve got your haves and your have-nots. I’m a have, you’re a have. But what’s to be done about all these bloody have-nots, eh? Surely something better than sitting around drinking champagne and talking socialism. And perhaps, just perhaps, the misguided free-market principles that inform National and their various uncritical mouthpieces all railing against socialists don’t help either.

So what, as a Kiwi, can you do about it?
If you want to address poverty in our country, you could hit up the Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett. The problem is she’s actively antagonistic towards the people she is supposed to be looking out for. She acts like some horrible step-mother who is obliged to look after the little scrots. Give her an office on the seventh floor of the Beehive and rather than using her ministry to stop her from making silly comments, she puts it to use benefit-bashing and lashing out at solo mums who dare to be critical of her policies. On behalf of all the solo mums who recognise the hypocrisy in her pulling up the ladder behind her, the green finger is pointed at you, Paula.
Perhaps you are concerned with poverty outside our borders. Say, in the Asia-Pacific region. Then Murray McCully is your man. You might want to ask Muzza to honour our international obligation to untie our overseas development aid. Only a dick would use aid as a political tool. Tell him that people in absolute poverty need assistance just to survive. The poor shouldn’t suffer because of the shitty government they’re subjected to. The Millennium Development goal of 0.7 percent of GDP towards overseas aid is achievable and morally obligatory. But this is the guy that likened overseas development assistance to flying around the Pacific chucking cash out of a helicopter. What an offensively inhumane and embarrassingly inaccurate analogy. Also, I would recommend that you keep your distance lest you get covered in his Tory smarm.
The moral is: don’t bother with the Nats if you want to address poverty. If they don’t give a shit about inequality they sure as hell don’t give a flying-nigga-flipping-fuck about poverty*. A cursory glance at New Zealand political history shows that Labour are the leaders, National the followers, and Greens the ones with the good ideas.
 
* Consult Mr. Google before sending me your hate-mail. Just, erm, lock your bedroom door first.