Proposal on UBI for Online PPI GA 29th March

@hubatmcjuhes That is what my problem is. If PPI was purely a lobbying body on behalf of the Pirate Movement then that would be OK but that is not what is being proposed here. PPI is concentrating on European issues and that should be PPEU's job. PPNZ and the other non European nations are not being served by PPI at the moment.
I want to see who turns up at the GA and what the attitude of the board is.

How we vote is not that important.

@petercummuskey am I right in thinking that you are not objecting to UBI as a policy, but rather commenting on the possible public perception of that policy? Looking at the copyright issue as an example, it seems obvious that any policy we offer that is more "radical" than Lab/Nat authoritarianism ("the centre") risks being misunderstood, especially when it threatens corporate interests and is therefore misrepresented by corporate media.

As I see it, we cannot make progress by trying to figure out how to "sell" our policies through corporate media, as other parties do, by pandering to existing ignorance and prejudice. The task before us is to help facilitate a seachange of political opinion in the electorate, by taking part in sensible, evidence-based policy debates online, and in person. Ideally we can use Loomio (or Liquid Feedback or whatever) to engage directly with the 5% or more of the population who already have more radical views than the mainstream parties, and to facilitate agreement on specifics policies, which we can then campaign on in future elections,

Not only is UBI a just and sensible policy, but there is broad and growing movement in support of it, both from the "left" and the "right". It seems obvious to me that the NZ Pirates take a prominent part in this movement.

@strypey Yes, and I agree. More than anything I want to make sure our policy on UBI is easy to understand and accept, but the policy itself has clear merit. The real question we're going to be faced with, is how to pay for it? The most obvious answer is more taxes, which people hate, but a Wealth tax might be a good option.

Thoughts?

@petercummuskey You are right that how to pay for a UBI is a big question, but there are also major difference among proponents, such as whether the system should be a universal basic income where everyone gets a top-up, or a universal minimum income which is still means-tested:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/02/14/political-minders-and-basic-income/

There are a number of proposals being thrown around for paying for the UBI. In the late 90s, the proposal was usually a "Tobin Tax", now known as a Financial Transaction Tax. Brian Easton claims a NZ FTT would not produce enough to fund a UBI: http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-is-the-problem-with-a-universal-minimum-income

I looked at the link he provided. He says that based on work done by an EU working group on FTT, the NZ government could potentially earn $1 billion from it: http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/2014/08/an-eu-financial-transactions-tax-and-new-zealand/

Divided by 5 million people, that's just over $200 for every person in the country. Factoring in that everyone over 65 already gets a UBI (NZ Super), a UBI of $200 for every adult over 15 and $100 for every child under 15 (paid to their caregiver) would cost $680,964,800 (see attached spreadsheet for details). That's well under Easton's estimate for FTT revenue, and considering also that most of the current Work and Income budget could be redirected into the UBI fund (plus the cost of Working for Families), it seems pretty affordable.

Easton also seems to claims that a UBI at that level would not lift children out of poverty. Under the above proposal, a household of 2 adults and 3 children would have a UBI of $700. Where they have at least one fulltime income between them, it's $700 more than they get now. Where both parents are not in paid work, that's about $200 more than they would get on a benefit, and they won't lose money if one of them succeeds in finding paid work. If that doesn't help lift children out of poverty, what could?

As soon as I posted the last comment I realised the error in my numbers. Easton's figure for FTT is per-year, while my figure for cost of UBI is per-week. Hmm, back to the drawing board.

It would be worth getting hold of the current per-week spend on benefits (including the portion of income support from ACC which could be replaced by UBI) and Working for Families, and see how big a shortfall we still have to fund. But as I suggest in the discussion on taking action, I think we're best to pool our effort with other UBI proponents rather than trying to come up with detailed policy in isolation.