30 Comments

I imagine that the recipients of the largest WINZ payments would be landlords. The maximum accomodation benefit seems to be $305 a week, or $15,860 pa. Owning 20 rentals is not unheard of for a "mum and dad" investor/speculator, so individuals could easily be getting upwards of $300,000 per annum. Of course, it would be difficult to get the actual figures for any individual, since WINZ pretends that this benefit is paid to the tenants. These are the true bottom feeders, scavenging every cent they can off those who need it most.

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A terrific piece to go with Coughlan's article in the Herald today. Finally msm drawing the connection that people who are barely scraping by now will have huge dollars taken off them to contribute to the tax cuts (that even Goldman Sachs say are inflationary).

Please open this one up!

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I'll make it the Saturday freebie

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Awesome! I'll be sharing the crap out of this one.

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The inhumanity and lack of any sort of empathy from lyin luxon and co. is so very disturbing . Topped only by the lies regarding beneficieries ........

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Please find a way of getting this into the mainstream

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If we all put copied and pasted to our social media pages perhaps

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I was standing outside a public, "Meet the Candidates", evening last week, waving Labour Party placards for the benefit of those arriving along with others from our local branch (incidentally, 3 drivers coming into the carpark made as if to drive into us as we were standing on a corner) when I got into conversation with a couple who pulled up next to me and wound down their window to harangue me along the lines of "wot abaht the bludging beneficiaries then?" When I tried to make the point that the cost of white collar crime and tax evasion way exceeded the cost of any beneficiary fraud etc the response of the woman in the passenger seat was to bark at me in rising tones that she knew the names of 100's of 18 year olds with babies living in Porirua rorting the system etc. So I asked her to name some at which point they drove off rapidly narrowly avoiding driving over my foot. My point is that there are many like them out there who, while having no actual knowledge of the issues that beneficiaries face, are very happy to swallow sound bites and outright lies if it matches their particular mindset. Sadly accurate stats will do little to change their minds.

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Today a hostile old joker delivered his anti-vax diatribe at full volume. When I suggested that maybe the Nobel Prize panel knew what they were doing when they awarded it to the mRNA inventors, he screamed that he knew a 21-year-old who died from the vaccine. I departed at that point with little faith in the veracity of the claim.

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I met one of those from ‘Taowronga’ in Dubai Airport the other day. Heaven help us - they appear when we least expect it.

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Wow David .... an excellent piece that needs to be sent far and wide!

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Under that shiny thing he calls a head Luxon has very little going on. Oh yes he can bleat on for hours like a sheep on speed but who wants to listen to that.

His mental picture of other people is informed by what ever misbegotten institution filled that void with. Its seems to be a variant of that piece of shit called prosperity gospel. If you arent a success it your own fault and all is needed is a kick in that arse, comfortably lying on a couch.

Thats all he knows how to do, Oh and do business with war mongers against peasants.

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Nicely put!!!!!

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Great post David and one that would be great to see on TV1 News. Some hope of facts being reported on there though unless it's a bus accident from overseas or some other such news which has little relevance to us in this part of the world.

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Great column. I voted today. Safe Labour seat but with a fabulous Green Party candidate.....we shall see...

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Think I'm in that one too, or are there many?

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Rongotai

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Ah, Kelston Auckland too

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If the Green candidate is high on the list they will get in anyway so vote for the Labour candidate as they might need your vote to get in and then there would be two great representatives for the electorate.

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Someone apparently once said “When the facts change, I change my mind”. (And it was not Keynes).

The people we would like to reach with David’s post don’t seem to give a damn about ‘facts’, all they care about is extra dosh in the pay packet every fortnight.

Are we screwed?

Not necessarily.

I live in hope that New Zealanders will do the right thing and bugger the pollsters.

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Depressingly, facts don't actually matter to the people who don't actually even care. My anxiety levels have been cranking up lately as I realise that the data about rent increases, the data about benefits, the data about public facilities and service cuts only means something to the people it has always meant something to. Telling others how bad things will be for a whole swathe of people they have never given a shit about will not sway their vote. National have pitched their BS to the middle, what's in it for me crowd, and unless the alternative reality check is served up to them in obvious sound bites, they are already lost and residing in NACTNZ.

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Wahhh Cannot understand the mentality of people being sucked in by Luxon and Co! "Simply not Credible" costings, selling our land to foreign buyers, re-introducing live animal exports, punching down at every opportunity, tax breaks for landlords - make it STOP!! Someone! Please? What's become of us?!

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It is the beginning of the end...many .overseas countries are way further down the road to ruin

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Thanks for the perspective that exposes the tawdry tropes of the desperate as depressingly amoral.

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PS

Excellent post David.

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Great information and piece, thanks David, great work

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Good article David.

I’ll be sharing it come the weekend. All we can all do is tell it like it is. Keep on telling.

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