As Low As You Go
Is anything safe from being sacrificed for tax cuts?
Taking you as low as you go
As low as you go
A sense of Déjà vu this morning. How many times have I begun a newsletter, “just when you thought they couldn’t go any lower…” Only for the groundhog to reappear, more pissed off than the day before.
Another day with headlines of calamity from the coalition. Doing things which are worse than we even thought possible - and some of us had mighty low expectations to start with.
Things so short sighted, small minded, callous and cruel that your jaw drops once more as you mutter - seriously? Or possibly something stronger…
A lot of what has happened was easy to predict. We all knew there would be cuts to the public sector, initiatives defunded, people let go. They told us they’d do that, although they never wanted to say who or how many.
The cynically minded might suggest they had a figure to save, but no plan of how to get there.
We knew there would be setbacks in the culture wars. The coalition parties determined to alleviate the suffering of those triggered by te reo names in government departments. NZ First wanting to check privates before admitting people to public facilities. That sort of thing.
The environment would come under fire with wealthy investors lining up for permits to drill or mine, regardless of any endangered species or conservation consideration. As for climate change - LOL - what climate change?
Then there were the, “holy heck, you’ve got to be kidding me” things no one saw coming.
Surely no one foresaw the cuts to our Smokefree initiatives. Causing many to say WTF? You’re kidding? Nobody expected our government to roll back public health measures in favour of Big Tobacco.
The debacle over cuts to Disability Support - jeez, you couldn’t get much lower than that could you?
Sadly Nicola Willis likes a challenge saying, “hold my beer, you can have those tax cuts I staked my career on but these cancer drugs we promised - well, you know we can’t do everything at once. Taxpayers need relief, cancer sufferers will just have to wait their turn.”
Even with all of this, the lack of concern for others, the demands for public service cuts without regard for the impacts - just trotting out the same bullshit line that it’s only back office bureaucrats getting canned, not precious front line service.
Even with all of that you kind of imagined that certain things would remain sacrosanct. Turns out not so much.
Professor Joanna Kidman’s expression in the photo above pretty much says it all.
Just five years after violent terrorism was unleashed so horrendously and tragically in our country the government is cutting research funding. I don’t even know what to say any more, just shaking my head in disbelief.
You can read the full article here, and a summary below.
The government has slashed funding of research into terrorism and violent extremism, with the fledgling centre that carries out the research already having to cut back.
The research funding for the He Whenua Taurikura National Centre of Research Excellence - founded two years ago - was cut in last week's Budget from $1.325m a year to just $500,000, a drop of almost two thirds.
The centre was started in 2022 after the Royal Commission into the mosque attacks found the country was largely blind to the threat of far-right extremists.
It’s a pittance as it is. Surely a government concerned by extremism in a world beset with conflict ought to be increasing the funding, not cutting it by almost two thirds.
For context that half million dollar report Bill English prepared, to advocate the sell off of our state housing, cost 60% of what is being cut here. Even over the four years of these cuts there’s only $3.3m being saved.
Centre Director, Joanne Kidman: “We were planning to be funding a lot of research on matters relating to the safety of people living here. Because the cuts are fairly severe we will have to really pull back our operations.”
National Security and Intelligence Minister, Christopher Luxon’s spokesperson assured that, “The government is committed to the safety and security of New Zealanders. Ongoing support for research on preventing and countering violent extremism remains important.”
Hollow, meaningless words. Come on be honest, you’ve dropped the funding. It would be more accurate to say, “Research on preventing and countering violent extremism is now about a third as important as it was previously - tax cuts must come first.”
The funding came about because in the three months leading up to March 2019 our spy agencies looked at 7,500 reports - and not a single one was about right-wing extremism. We were not looking in the right places to protect out people.
The Federation of Islamic Associations, pushed for funding through the Royal Commission to undertake local research into “causes” and “measures”, in order to tackle right-wing extremism.
I feel deeply uncomfortable that the wishes of that community are being disregarded in this way. It’s shameful, a slap in the face to people who have suffered far too much already.
Federation of Islamic Associations spokesperson, Abdur Razzaq said, “National security is not something where you skimp on, and the Minister's very much aware of it - look at the amount we're putting on defence and so on and so forth. On one hand you're giving money for equipment, on the other hand you're taking away money from the research. It just doesn't make sense.”
Is there nothing that’s off the table with these guys?
Nothing so important than even those who voted for this government wouldn’t say, “yeah - that matters more than tax cuts?” I thought cancer drugs might’ve fallen into that category - but I was wrong on that.
Still, cutting funding put in place to achieve a better understanding of terrorist threats, and to aid in reducing the likelihood of a repeat of that awful day in Christchurch on March 15 2019 - that’s pretty low.
Even for these guys.
If you’re familiar with the music video for this track it probably comes as no surprise that I’ve included an audio clip instead. I do like it when the Foos get a bit darker, and seriously that man Taylor could play some drums…
And we have pseudoephedrine back in pharmacies because Seymour cared so much about the "agony" being suffered by people with a cold. Crikey, try cancer for a bit of agony.
Far right extremists need someone to vote for, if they do. The near right signals to them that we're with you, we just can't say or do what you do. It just makes evil pragmatic sense for a right-wing government to be soft on far-right terrorism. If you couch almost every decision they've made in terms of who benefits and draw the intersection with NActNZF core voters, you'd get near 100% match, IMO. The cancer patients and families aren't a big enough demographic to tip an election and the rich can afford the drugs anyway.