Our MP: Schools, mining and tax

Happy New Year! I hope that 2010 is a good year
for you and your family.
It has certainly started off well for Labour! The
Prime Minister rejected the usual “State of the
Nation” speech at the start of the year, and instead
hyped up his speech for the opening of Parliament.
Unfortunately, it contained nothing that had not
already been announced! Grant Robertson, my
colleague from Wellington Central, described it as
being like watching TV late at night in summer –
repeat after repeat after repeat!
John Key spent a lot of time promoting National
Standards. I still can’t figure out why they are so
set on imposing these National Standards. Our
schools already test our children. Our teachers tell
the parents how the children are doing. They also
tell them how they can work with the teachers to
improve the child’s educational achievements.
What teachers need is more support to do that job,
rather than being attacked by their Minister!
Leading academics – experts in testing methods –
have said that the government’s National
Standards are “fundamentally flawed”. But they
are determined to impose them on an increasing
frustrated education sector.
John Key also talked about the proposal to mine
our National Parks. This is an issue which has
really made lots of my constituents angry! We
have had one public meeting in Mt Pleasant on
this issue, and another will be held soon in the St
Martins area. Let me know if you want to attend
and/or sign the petition against this proposal.
Two other things in his speech stand out. One is
the proposal to lower the top rate of tax. This is
worth absolutely nothing to anyone who earns
under $48,000 per year. It’s worth $509 per week
to the Prime Minister and $2500 per week for Paul
Reynolds, Chief Executive of Telecom (and
anyone else who earns as much as he does!).
That is just not fair!
But the icing on the cake has to be the proposal to
put GST up to 15%. We know who will be hit the
hardest with this increase – those with the lowest
incomes. John Key says that the government will
make sure that no-one is worse off. Nice
sentiment but really hard to deliver. And actually,
it would be even better if National thought about
making the lowest income earners better off,
instead of giving such huge tax cuts to people who
just don’t need it.
Labour is going to work even harder than we did
last year to make sure that people hear our
message and see a clear difference between the
current government and Labour.
Your help and support is really appreciated in this
work. If you have any comments to make on any
issue at all, please feel free to email, write or call
me.