my pledge to you

Leaders at the Labour party conferrence are crowing about how the pledges on their pledge cards are being met. "We have fulfilled or are fulfilling all of our pledge card promises. Those from 1999: done. Those from 2002: done. Those from 2005: being done" Clark said. What she didnt say is when they will be done by.

Well, lets see: In 1999, Labour promised that no more than 5% of tax payers will pay the highest tax rate . Instead Clark made sure that more than 15 percent were earning more than $60,000 a year and thus paying the highest tax rate.

In 1999 they pledged to keep tertiary education affordable - and then in 2002 they pledged to keep tertiary education affordable without changing anything. In 2005 this was revised to no interest on student loans. Clark, at the Labour party conference said " Already our students and graduates are better off in New Zealand, because they have interest free loans and can plan for the future with confidence". She didn't mention that fees are going up to eat into any interest that may have been saved for those students who don't get loans for living costs, but work to fund their study as well as living costs.

in 1999 they planned to crack down on burglary and crime - but crime and burglary has gone up , and this year it is the highest it has ever been since 1999.

In 2002 - they pledged better access to primary health care so problems can be tackled earlier ( here's the card you won't find on the Labour Party web site. They also planned to double the number of modern apprenticeships, without telling us how many they initially had - and then reduced the figure to 500 extra apprenticeships in 2005. They also pledged proven programmes to cut youth offending. What happened to those?

Labour also pledged 500 extra police - updated to 1000 after the agreement with NZ First - except that this "agreement" will not happen until a year after the 2008 election at least. Why agreeto do something that wont happen until after the following election? It is estimated that 700 will be recruited this year if all graduate - most in Auckland - but 250 police would have left reducing that amount somewhat to less than 500 police, so theres still a way to go yet.