Recession’s edges getting sharper
Data out this week that unemployment has reached 6 per cent, after the highest quarterly increase in 20 years, is sobering news.
Our unemployment rate has overtaken Australia’s – which is at 5.8 per cent – with 138,000 Kiwis now unemployed. This is an increase of 24,000 people in three months.
New Zealand’s rate of unemployment is forecast to escalate further and reach 8 per cent next year. The Government must do more than just tinkering around the edges and recognise both the extent of the problem and the affect it is having on our communities.
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Funding cuts for special needs kids must be reversed
This week the National Government failed to put up any good reason why its heartless decision to cut funding for special needs kids in our schools shouldn’t be reversed.
I visited a number of the 23 schools catering for children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy which have had $2.5 million in funding for therapy cut from their budgets. Four schools from my Mt Roskill electorate alone are affected and have written letters expressing their dismay at the move.
The cuts are not only unfair. They directly contradict John Key and Bill English’s pledge that the budget would help protect the most vulnerable in our society.
At the same time this funding has been cut, the government is pouring $35 million dollars of additional funding into New Zealand’s elite private schools.
Save our night schools
On Tuesday afternoon in the pouring rain about 300 people marched on Parliament to protest at the Government’s cuts to Adult education and night school courses.
Myself and Labour’s Tertiary Education spokesperson Maryan Street addressed the passionate crowd, which represented the 1000s of people across New Zealand who have been or will be affected by the cuts.
Education Minister Anne Tolley refused to come out to talk to the crowd. Labour and the Greens are the only parties in Parliament standing up to support this vital community function, which has been a tradition in New Zealand for 100 years.
Report card on government’s youth opportunities package: ‘Could try harder.’
This week’s youth opportunities package gets an initial pass mark, but the Government must do better if it intends to make a real dent in rising jobless numbers.
The package has some surface appeal, but it leaves lots of unanswered questions. Grant Robertson has blogged on the package here.
Wrong time to send SAS to Afghanistan
The National Government has a big decision to make in the next few weeks over whether to send our SAS troops back Afghanistan for the first time in four years.
Sending New Zealanders to war is a big step for any government. It is about putting the lives of our people at risk.
The Fifth Labour Government sent our SAS to Afghanistan three times. In the context of 9/11 we believed that this was the best way at the time we could help stabilise Afghanistan and help drive out Al Qaeda.
But is sending the SAS back again the most effective contribution we can make for ourselves as a nation or for Afghanistan? Labour's view is that it is not.
We believe that our efforts should continue to be centred on the Bamian Provincial Reconstruction Team, which has proved to be effective in winning local support and promoting development.
Health services to be cut, despite promises
National’s promise of a ‘Better, Sooner, More Convenient’ health service is fading fast and will soon be a distant memory.
It claimed that health bureaucracy was out of control and needed to be reined in. But nine months in, it is frontline health services that are being axed.
Whanganui, South Canterbury, Southland, Otago, Tairawhiti, Taranaki, and MidCentral DHBs have all signalled cuts to patient services, in response to National’s first Budget. As more DHBs have their annual plans signed off, these cuts are expected to spread.
MP in the spotlight
Clayton Cosgrove is this week’s MP in the spotlight. Clayton is a Labour MP representing the electorate of Waimakariri.
Clayton give an impassioned speech in Parliament’s general debate this week on the National Government’s heartless cuts to kids with special education needs, you can watch it here.
Final word
Next week Labour MPs will be getting on the bus for a two day caucus meeting in Whanganui and New Plymouth, stopping off at Levin and Hawera on the way.
We will be holding community forums in Whanganui and New Plymouth with the public invited to ask any questions and tell us as bluntly as they like how they see things.
I think it is really important for us to get out of Wellington and meet the real people out in their own communities. It is a part of our Touching Base programme of regional visits which give us the opportunity to hear what’s on Kiwis’ minds.
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