In the next few months I am going to keep asking our communities what kind of society do you want to live in?  Values and priorities are changing so fast around us, we need to stop and ask this question now, before we lose sight of what is truly important in building strong societies.

For me I want to live in a fair society where everyone is treated equally irrespective of race, colour, religion, sex, age, culture, and preference.  I want for every kid, our kids, to have free access to health care, education, a home, and every opportunity to realise their fullest potential.  I want our kids to be protected from the harm of unhealthy foods, tobacco, alcohol and violence.  If our kids are to take up their rightful place as future leaders of families, communities and indeed our nation, then we must ensure that they receive quality education from early years to primary, high school and be given a choice of tertiary education of either pursuing a degree, trade, or whatever profession they choose.

I would like to see every able person to have a job that will enable them to earn a living that can sustain their family now and into the future. I would like to see more workplace training. 

I would like to see the elderly, disabled, sick and poor being protected and provided with care and their basic necessities.

This can happen provided that everyone is willing to chip in and support a fair society through paying their fair share of taxes.  This can happen provided “a fair society” is the driving force for our political decisions and there is a collective willingness for all of us to look after one another.  It can happen if greed and individualism is not the driving force behind political decisions.  It can happen if we recognise that “poverty anywhere will undermine wealth everywhere”.

Unfortunately, under the National-Act-Maori Party Government I believe we are not heading in this direction.  This Government is positioning New Zealand for a user-pays society and creating a problem for all New Zealanders.  The problem:  is Inequality!*

Consider the 2010 Budget.  Bill English told us it was about building  “a more prosperous and ambitious New Zealand”.  His recipe – big tax cuts for the rich, small if any for the poor, and these tax cuts would be funded by a 20% increase in GST, cuts in health, ECE, housing and lay-offs in other portfolios, and the sell-off, in the near future, of state assets like ACC, KiwiBank, etc.

Every Early Childhood Centre I’ve visited so far will all be affected by the Government cuts, some of the big licenses will lose up to $360,000 from their budgets, other small ones will lose about $25,000. 

The Government has said to these centres they must increase their fees or cut their expenditure.  This may mean centres firing quality staff, cutting staff training, cutting good nutrition, and cutting health checks. 

What this will mean is some parents will not afford ECE for their child and will keep them at home.  Inequality?  Absolutely!  Eventually what I suspect will emerge are centres that provide a low fee paying, low quality play centre service with unqualified staff, and those centres that charge high fees for their service.

Additionally, there’s been significant cuts in health expenditure as compared with previous years.  Budget 2010 have revealed wide ranging cuts to public health services.  About $18 million has been taken out of the oral health budget for young people under the age of 18 over the next four years. About $12 million has been cut from tobacco control programmes over four years.

Also cut over the next four years is $8million of sexual health promotion and prevention programmes, $1 million from public health alcohol and drug services, $4 million from mental health workforce development and $1.2 million from the Like Minds Like Mine campaign.  Inequality?  You better believe the consequences of all these cuts is inequality in the health of our communities, our country.

For example, life expectancy varies by more than 28 years, a disgrace that our Ministry of Health says puts us “in a range generally associated with third world developing countries.”  In some New Zealand neighbourhoods you are unlikely to live long enough to collect your super while in others the family will still be waiting for your to pop off at 90.” *

Income inequality will accelerate significantly with the Government extending its 90 Day Fire at Will Law to every workplace and preventing unions organising in worksites. The erosion of workers rights leads to mass unemployment, the fall of wages, the loss of other terms and conditions such as holidays, sick leave etc.

It makes me angry to know that some chief executive salaries now top the half-million mark while an unemployed person over 25 gets just $221.85 a week before tax, a sum lower in real terms than in 1991.*

If you want a fair and equal society, we must fight for it and not be silent.

* PSA Journal June 2010

Ends.