NZ latest nation to try Universal Income for its citizens

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(clicky)New Zealand latest nation to try saving money in the long run via doing away with benefits and going with universal basic citizen's income
IMHO, if NZ and Canada can do it, WE can do it! priorities, priorities- people welfare versus corporations/MICC welfare. how can the right wing argue with the reduced bureaucracy?

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Yeah, why get a job...

Eventually it'll be reality. Robots are on the way for your jobs...

eventually it will have to be bread and circuses versus mass culling.

It is an Opposition policy statement only at this stage. They would have to win the next general election in order to try and get enough votes in Parliament to get the bill through all 3 parliamentary stages toward becoming law and gaining the Governor-General's consent.

So it is a big if, contingent on a lot of things happening over the next few years.

what are the chances the opposition party will at least get enough new seats?

It's hard to say, because it may depend on several parties coming together to form a coalition, to achieve a collective majority under New Zealand's MMP voting system. Probable coalition is the Green Party and the Labour Party, but both would have to have enough seats elected so that these added up to a majority. Then they get the right to introduce new Bills for debate into Parliament.

Will they be elected? Possibly. The current National government is very right wing and has lost support because of exposures of the crony capitalism deals it has done - like giving a casino special privileges, some of these politicians own shares in that casino, the casino makes donations to their political party, and this and other corruptions have been increasingly exposed, so many NZ voters have lost faith in them. Their "trickle down" theory never worked very well in practice- it actually works as a "trickle up" flow of money in reality, (and how it has trickled up, not a trickle but a flood).
NZ never had "an underclass" before neoliberals assumed government in the 1980s; now we have a very substantial one.

NZ was once considered to be the least corrupt country in the world. The current government has caused citizens and others to increasingly question that claim. So it is not impossible that a Labour-Green coalition will be elected, though a lot of dirty politics goes on behind the scenes, which muddies the waters of political prophecy...

I certainly hope enough NZ citizens are disenthralled so as to sweep those sociopathic pols to the curb. then mebbe some progress can take place.

I guess it's a thingy to "stimulate the economy by giving people some change to spend on stuff they probably wouldn't"?

the pump priming would be part of it. also savings in bureaucracy and humanitarian benefits as well to the lower class.

Seems like the poor will just buy more cigarettes, booze, other drugs, and other unneeded things, and neglect their kids if they have any (they will) and/or continue to fail at improving themselves and the lives of their offspring.

Sure, you could say I'm being hard, but I swim and swam at the same level, so I know how it goes with a large portion of the poor.

I would not throw this baby out with the bathwater, it can and should be tweaked with those concerns in mind.

Yes

Hopefully, the legislation for this, and where it'll be tried (I'm guessing most social liberal countries in Europe and the Commonwealth?) isn't haphazard and full of misguided good intentions.

I am certain they at least will make it work and won't look back. to rephrase lennon, poverty is over if you want it to be over.

That only works when businesses cooperate and give people jobs.

Not enough jobs would be more likely, as jobs by their very design need employees.

Stopping outsourcing overseas and cheap imports to create more working class jobs seems like the best thingy here for countries that utilize places like India and China for these things.

But hey, people want their cheap stuff.