Pity it has taken so long for Governments to treat viruses in a better way.

Whilst our Government has treated many financial victims of the current Covid-19 virus with appropriate generosity, the same cannot be said for those of the two earlier “epidemics” in NZ.

The “Covid-84” virus (also called “Rogernomics”) spread systemic greed, with the main symptoms being a belief that excessive wealth was a result of hard work rather than work, luck, inside knowledge, and warped taxes. And a belief that excessive wealth would be good for the economy. Victims, and there were many, received little help,` and were judged to be lazy, rather than the casualties of political policy. What a disaster.

The later “Covid-91” virus (also known as “Ruthanasia”) spread systemic vitriol towards the poor and beneficiaries calling them the “undeserving poor” to justify the Government’s decision to slash benefits to these groups, instead of raising taxes of those who did well out of earlier tax cuts, when budgets didn’t balance.

It is sad that the Governments of the time chose to almost ignore most victims of those two viruses and allowed the effect to spread to later generations.

Those two viruses have been largely responsible for the movement of New Zealand from a highly egalitarian country to one of high levels of income and wealth inequality with consequent bad social and economic results.

It is hoped the present Government will take the opportunity to continue its good work and seriously tackle income and wealth inequality. It can do this by significantly increasing the income of the lowly paid, the poor and the beneficiaries, by significantly increasing the progressivity of our tax scales, and by spreading the things that can be taxed to generators of wealth such as capital gain, large rich assets including land, and wealth transfers.

Finish to job says Peter Malcolm of “Closing the Gap”

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