Key celebrates one year - Goff steals the limelight

Living in the past
You made some interesting points but
"National cuts the welfare system to the bone each and every time they are in and people die as a result, but thats ok by unsympathetic idots like you... according to you they deserved it anyway".
Maybe I did not clarify my point - The beneficiaries I refer to are the ones that continuously flaunt the system (claiming for extra kids etc...)to get the dole rather than work. It would have taken some pretty inventive thinking (on your part) to take my point out of context to support your own agenda.
The rest of your points are interesting ones which I cannot disagree with. I sway either way in voting (depending on my state of mind (LOL)), but hopefully it their policies that get me in the end (I am just peed off with Labour at the moment)!!!

you also missed the bit jim where I said I dont vote labour.. their policies for years have been to close to nationals, and they are all hypocrites.

I chose not to vote because its either an idiot, or an idiot as the only choices.

Just as an aside Jim... just because somthing was advertised during helen clarkes time doesnt mean that the problem began there.

But I will admitt Labour did nothing for the underclass in their last 9 years so you should be applauding them for not increasing welfare payments and furthering dependency.

All you are talking about is increased beuracrats which isnt about welfare, plus you should look at the latest figures.. national has increased the amount these people get paid and not particularly reduced the number of them.

So they are as guilty as labour of fostering a system of dependency within the "beurocratic system".

National, not labour allowed salary increases during a recession that were unjustified, while keeping middle to low income earners screaming for more.

you prove my point so thoroughly jim, you live in labours past and forget Nationals.

you dont remember the news stories of the 90's of children living under bridges in Auckland or in derelict houses?.

The homeless people who were there because they were booted out of halfway houses?.

As for benefit dependency, cancer patients in pain should they be kicked of benefits or is it ok by you that they are there and that the system is making them die faster because Winz are not giving them everything the need to maintain some form of dignity to their lives?.

You forget all the cuts National made to the health system and how many people have died as a result of increasing negligence by public servants in public hospitals.. not beurocrats but frontline staff.

This is about people having empathy and understanding... but you dont deny that National created an underclass, because it is recognised throughout the world as being fact.

Read some of the material from the poverty action group... its about children.. do you expect them to go out at 5 and get jobs to lift themselves out of poverty?.

National cuts the welfare system to the bone each and every time they are in and people die as a result, but thats ok by unsympathetic idots like you... according to you they deserved it anyway.

Better to look after people than treat them like animals, but the latter has been a National party policy for decades.

you have a very selective memory jim.... very.

People who live in the past -
It looks like Helens social engineering worked on you although Lange started the whole thing with "tomorrow’s schools" which educated us to demand things (like a readymade benefit) rather than earning things (like wanting to work). With Helen's 3 terms in Govt the country should have been booming but instead she created a bureaucratic monster which wasted every dollar NZ earned. This led to her Govt creating the false economy of rich bureaucrats affording:
- Top accommodation for back-office-support while draining its coal face of the necessary tools needed to help the public.
-paying high salaries so that these people could afford more luxuries (like houses in the Mount) at over inflated prices
You would also be aware the Govt Depts. do not raise (earn through trading) money they use tax money which she spent with scant regard for its consequences while her ever increasing bureaucratic dinosaur kept trying to re-engineer our minds.
Wgtn –
I think the biggest case televised over a year of a homeless guy (living in a bus shelter) in Wellington was under Helens watch. You may have to re-think!!!

Lets not forget that National increased the need for homeless shelters and is one of the sole reasons that food banks exist in New Zealand.

The creation of the permanent underclass also lead to increased drinking and violence leading to child deaths/murders.

People put into hopeless situations by Nationals repeated cuts become desperate.. have no idea of how to react so lash out.

Increased crime, child deaths.. all fueled by Nationals creation of a permanent underclass.

Answer this for me, do you see them doing anything to fix this? they complain about the crime rate but they never take responsibility for causing it.

National party supporters love to blame the unions cyril... its called people power.

How about the 2009/2010 proposed benefit cuts creating a bigger underclass... yes they may not be happening through the Ministry of Social Development but they are through ACC.

People claiming weeking income compensation being moved to the Winz scheme where they get paid half as much

A bigger underclass is all national ever creates.

People who live in the past I dont pretend National is perfect but a lot of what you say was caused by Labour. Two examples were Muldoons think big projects.
Marsden Point syn-fuel plant was driven into the ground by the Unions egged on by Labour who when getting into power paid Fletchers 100s of thousands to take it off there hands. Within a short time the price of fuel went up and they made a fortune out of it.
The Clyde dam was another with Labour manufacturing a major unstable ground fault which cost the country millions. I know a man who was near the top of this project and he always claimed it was unessary and was just a political ploy employed by Labour to discredit the scheme although we desparatly needed all the power it could produce from day one.
The last Labour Goverment claimed massive surplasses all through its term but at the end the coffers were empty and they left a heap of financial bombs to discredit Keys Goverment.
The anti nuclear thing was just grandstanding and saying we will not use nuclear power is a non event as the New Zealand population is not big enough to make nuclear power economically viable.
New Zealand is nuclear free is a myth with obvious examples being Hospitals and Universitys.
Although Ive never seen a good trustworthy politician Helen and her mob worked on the same theory Hussein used with the Kuwaity oil fields in 91 "If I cant have them no one will"
Yes Labour is happy to rule but if they cant they are more than happy to drop us in it to discredit others.

Why did labour sit back and do nothing for 9 years?
Dont tell me, Helen Clark was keeping busy entertaining the pacific islands while our country was terrorised by the terrorist..What did golf do, playing golf balls with our tax money..
Our country is in a mess, more death and for what, what is the reason for all this un-explain and un-expected deaths in our country, our folks normally die of an old age or an illness..

Willem, I cannot agree enough. If Duncan Gardner leans any further left they are going to need to provide a stage prop to keep him standing up.