Recycling the bribe

Working For Families was Labour's biggest electoral bribe. And it worked. Once. When they won the 2005 general election.

But it has stopped working for them thanks to National retaining the massive redistribution of wealth it rallied against in opposition.

But could Labour harness THEIR policy to their advantage once more? Tim Barnett (Labour's behind the scenes brains) obviously thinks so.

The collective wisdom says that non-voters are low income, Left-leaning voters.  Many will be WFF recipients. So if they won't, in the first instance, take the bribe and do what Labour wants them to do, why not threaten to take the bribe off them? Recycle it.There's some petulant satisfaction to be had. Labour having a tanty and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Even if the idea came to fruition, resentful submissives may quite purposefully vote against the party that forced them into the ballot box. After all, National isn't threatening to make them worse off.

But what is the big deal about people voting if they don't want to?

I could easily become a non-voter myself. As it is I vote for the least worse party. I vote against socialism yet we keep getting more of it. As a conscientious non-voter I'd retain the right to complain however:-)

Why is it always assumed that non-voting indicates apathy and a lack of engagement with this precious governance institution called democracy (also famously described as the best of a bad bunch)? It's not serving the local government process very well with ratepayers routinely up in arms over their inability to control rampant councils and rate hikes.

Anyway, back to Labour, who are becoming more and more desperate and ridiculous.

I'd have more respect for a decent first-time bribe than this sort of second-time 'screw you' for not taking it.