Best On Day

The "ordinary New Zealander"

The term "ordinary New Zealander" has been used a bit by Labour politicians lately. Phil Goff has been using it for years. It reminds me when National was using the term "mainstream" New Zealanders, except Don Brash said that excluded homosexuals.

Goff has not defined what an ordinary New Zealander is. I assume it includes Maori, homosexuals and Michael Laws. Probably doesn't include Hine Elder or Clayton Weatherston. But it may well include the Exclusive Brethren leaders.

There are two classes of ordinary New Zealanders. Those who Labour thinks need state assistance and those who don't. Those who do are referred to by Goff as ordinary low and middle income New Zealanders.

Ordinary New Zealanders, according to Goff, are those who pay ACC levies and gets less and less in return. This week, Goff implies that the relationship between Labour and Ratana is working for the ordinary person, and expects Labour to be forming policy for ordinary New Zealanders. He says "I expect our people to be out there working hard on behalf of ordinary New Zealanders, doing their job as spokespeople and starting to develop their policy alternatives."

At Ratana, Goff said

Too often ordinary working families have to carry the burden for others who do not pay their taxes and meet their responsibilities

Perhaps Goff was thinking of those of us who can save, who are well off -but put money in trusts and get more WFF payments, while those who can't save rely on the WFF payments as their incomes are too low.

And again today, Goff said.

Labour would be working hard "alongside ordinary New Zealanders" to ensure they would get their fair share out of the recovery and the likely tax changes

So what is an ordinary New Zealander?

For Ruth Dyson ordinary New Zealanders are overweight people who should be getting funding for stomach stapling operations.

However, National has a different view of what is an " ordinary New Zealander'

“For ordinary New Zealanders, we’re particularly keen to ensure that our tax system rewards effort, encourages savings and helps families to get ahead.

I wonder what proportion of ordinary New Zealanders have enough income (after paying taxes the mortgage and bills) to actually save. Perhaps the kind of ordinary New Zealanders that vote National, put their savings into a trust and collect Labour's WFF payments that are targeted at ordinary low and middle income New Zealanders.