NZ Medical Journal calls for cheaper food

by David

In its latest editorial, the NZ Medical Journal has called for GST off healthy food and higher benefits, according to the Herald.

The good thing about this statement is that these doctors are looking at the wider social factors contributing to poor health among their patients, namely poverty and poor diet.

This leads them to call for political changes like taking tax off “healthy” food and increasing benefits (a brave stand to take in the face of the current government’s beneficiary bashing). The catch is, they also say the retirement age should be raised to pay for this.

But why should senior citizens pay this price? It’s not the cost of pensions or the pensioners themselves who have have forced up the price of food, increased unemployment, held down wages or cut benefits.

(Although I can’t help noting that Don Brash and Roger Douglas still want to call the economic shots, despite being well past the age of retirement.)

Unfortunately these good doctors seem to be buying into the cut-back mentality that insists there just isn’t enough to go around.

This simply isn’t true. There’s plenty of wealth in our society, much of it created by pensioners and those nearing retirement, throughout there working lives. The fundamental problem, underlying the affordability of food and unhealthy poverty is that this abundant wealth is concentrated in the hand of a few.

A fairer way to fund taking GST off food and increasing benefits, would be to reverse the recent cuts to corporate and top bracket incomes and tax financial speculation.

Ruth Dyson admits beneficiaries worse off under Labour

"Yeah... well... it seems that when it comes to beneficiary bashing we're worse than the Nats. But vote Labour of course." A government report has revealed that beneficiaries are worse off under Labour than when benefits were slashed by National in 1991. See Sunday Star Times (11 May), 'Beneficiaries worse off under Labour, report reveals:

"The report, titled Pockets of Significant Hardship and Poverty, reveals that many beneficiaries in South and West Auckland and the South Island are living in extreme poverty. Beneficiaries were being hit by "significant price shocks" in food, housing,power and transport, said the June 2007 report by the Ministry of Social Development. It was released to the Sunday Star-Times under the Official Information Act. The report shows the value of benefits, relative to average earnings, are now even lower than they were after National slashed benefits in 1991. For beneficiaries with children and no extra income living in South and West Auckland and most of the South Island, their incomes were between 30% and 40% of median disposable household incomes. That is well below the widely recognised poverty line of 50 to 60% of median disposable household incomes. Dyson said she agreed that "comparatively", beneficiaries were now worse off than they were in 1991."In my view the report is factual," she said."

Church leaders from the Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches and the Salvation Army have publicly issued a call for benefit levels to be raised to where they were prior to being slashed in 1991. Churches issue call for action on benefits (NZ Herald, 28 March 2008)