Recognising the Peoples Potential

Our existing economic woes are said to exist because of the whim of the market with its sweeping invisible hand. For the poor this 'invisible hand' culminates in job losses and welfare dependency. ‘Welfare dependency’ is a term used by the right, (many) centrists and the conservative left, who deride those forced onto benefits by their very visible hands.

Welfare dependency exists because the Labour Party initiated, in the late 1980' - early 1990's, ROGERNOMICS . Rogernomics is to blame for the slashing of benefits, anti-union laws and halving the top tax rates. Māori and Pacifica peoples felt the effects of this through major job losses. This lead to consecutive governments further slashing employment laws, freezing benefits and tinkering with other policies that would see the poor, predominantly Māori and Pacifica peoples left behind. In 1999 Helen Clark abandoned policies that would target the growing gap between the rich and the poor. A decade after Rogernomics and Clark’s duplicity, Māori and Pacifica unemployment sat at 51%, in 2014 it is estimated that 26,400 Māori are unemployed.

2014 Māori have become the new driving force behind local economies. The hope is to increase Māori employment in local areas with the help of Treaty settlement money (see Te Rarawa leader Haami Piripi hopes for the North). Correct me if I am wrong, but Māori unemployment exists because Pākehā have not honoured Te Tirit o Waitangi and because of the illegal confiscation of lands? Thus using settlement money to address institutional racism must mean that Māori are being doubly penalised? Is it not 'Maori digging Māori out of the Pākehā hole.'?

All roads then lead back to Rogernomics ,the 2^nd major catalyst for mass unemployment and poverty of Māori and Pacifica peoples. Rogernomics the brain-child of the then Labour Party and built on by the National Party, penalises the poor, even today. Whilst labour might argue that it has moved on since Rogernomics, Māori and Pacifica families have not been able too.

So why would any Māori, Pacifica or even Pākehā working class peson vote for Labour? There is no REAL intention by David Cunnliffe to roll back the effects of Rogernomics, reminder Helen Clark -  closing the gaps, duplicity!

So this article is a timely reminder to all that neither Labour nor the Nat’s have Māori, Pacifica or Pākehā working class and or poor people in their sights. Any changes by Labour will merely tinker with already institutionally racist policies. With 27% of rangatahi unemployed, an estimated 128,430  Māori living in Australia and 40% of all Maori males over the age of 15 years incarcerated in NZ (this figure is higher for Māori women), there can only be one vote in  2014. That vote must be for MANA.

To quote Dr Kukutai on speaking about the effects of unemployment on Māori, “There is a lot of unrealised potential, a lot of waste.”

MANA and MANA alone see’s the potential of the people. Mana's policies reflect the potential of the people. Therefore, a vote for MANA is a vote for the realisation of the people's potential!