Tuesday, October 24, 2017

PM elect Jacinda Ardern: ‘Capitalism has failed New Zealanders’

theaustralian.com.au - New Zealand prime-minister-elect Jacinda Ardern has said she is prepared to pull out of the Trans Pacific Partnership while outlining her goals for her first 100 days in office.

Ms Ardern, who has been on a weekend media blitz, also warned the Turnbull government she would retaliate if Australia moved to restrict tertiary entry for New Zealanders.

Ms Ardern has cited New Zealand’s poverty and homelessness among her top priorities, yesterday calling capitalism a “blatant failure” in her country. Today, she doubled down.

“There is no point gloating about the economic growth of a nation if you have some of the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world,” local media quoted Ms Ardern as saying.

“My view is there a role for us to play where we are being much more proactive and intervening where there are signs the market is failing our people.”

Said she was not concerned her comments might trigger a “winter of discontent” with the New Zealand business community.

“Not at all ... I intend to work in partnership [with business] Ours will be a government of partnership.”

However, the 37-year-old Labour leader said she was prepared to pull out of the TPP trade agreement if it precluded her government from restricting foreign ownership for housing.

“Our view has been that there has to be a balance between delivering for our exporters but also making sure we can protect the ability of New Zealanders to buy homes, our view is we can do both.”

Raising the minimum wage to $NZ16.50 is also on her 100-day agenda, the New Zealand Herald reports.

She said she planned to visit Australia “as soon as I am able” and urged the Turnbull government not to follow through with a shelved plan to increase tertiary fees for Kiwi students and other permanent residents. She warned her government would reciprocate if it did.

“I hope we have the mutual access that we had in the past so I certainly hope that it doesn’t come to that,” Ms Ardern told Sky News on Sunday.

“But if we do find that New Zealanders aren’t able to access tertiary education in the same way as Australian students currently do then there will be flow-on effects here.”

In her first major TV interview since her elevation on Thursday, Ms Ardern said New Zealanders were not feeling the benefits of prosperity. Asked if capitalism had failed New Zealanders on low incomes, the prime minister-elect was blunt: “If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure. What else could you describe it as?”

“When you have a market economy, it all comes down to whether or not you acknowledge where the market has failed and where intervention is required. Has it failed our people in recent times? Yes.

“Wages are not keeping up with inflation (and) and how can you claim you’ve been successful when you have growth at roughly 3 per cent, but you have the worst homelessness in the developed world?”

Real measures that the public can rate the government on are important, Miss Ardern said, citing improved waterways, child poverty, homelessness and building 10,000 new homes every year to judge them on.

Ms Ardern said the biggest difference between National and the incoming coalition government would be change, vowing the Labour-NZ First-Greens coalition would be active and “won’t leave anything to chance”.

She also said there would be compromise on Labour’s desire for the minimum wage to be raised to NZ$16.50 and New Zealand’s First to have it at NZ$20.

“We have common ground and you will see change in this area.” Ms Ardern said despite there being three parties in a coalition, things have come a long way since MMP began in 1996, and there was confidence this would be an “effective and efficient” government. (ontinueReading

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