Voters are still waiting for the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST), the Samoa Uniting Party (SUP), as well as other minor parties to make public their manifestos. The Human Rights Protection Party is drip-feeding us theirs already – a good tactic, as it will give voters time to digest each promise and determine how beneficial it is for them and their family. The newly launched Labour Party announced its policies yesterday in several sweeping statements that cover virtually everything from economic development to supporting trade unions. Voters need to go to the voting booth well-informed about what each party, if it is serious, hopes to do should it become the government, rather than being bamboozled with confusing and uncosted verbal promises.

Last week, HRPP announced a $500 Cost-of-Living Allowance (COLA) for all. This week, it's the Pension Ensuring Lasting Empowerment Golden Age (PELEGA), the Special Underprivileged Population Assistance (SUPA), the Grant for newborn babies ($1000 at birth and another $1000 post vaccination), and the removal of the Value-Added Goods and Services Tax (VAGST) from basic grocery items. Further sweeteners are coming, which may include the removal of the recent addition to the departure tax that has made airfares even more expensive, as well as reverting the entry charge to the airport to $5. (By the way, these charges are discriminatory because they penalise only members of the public, while taxpayers pay for prime ministers and their Cabinet members, government officials, and public servants. The last four years, travel by this elite group has cost taxpayers millions of dollars in business class fares.)

Education and health are other areas where the public can expect more benefits. In the area of health, walk past any medical clinic and you’ll see a queue of the most vulnerable people - the aged and children with their mothers outside – seeking medical treatment or prescription medication. That is probably the tip of the iceberg of our population who need health assistance but cannot afford the bus fare or a doctor’s fee. School fees are preventing some children from completing their education or even attending school, so some parties will likely promise free education for all.

Financial assistance for the elderly (HRPP’s PELEGA and SUP’s increase in pension scheme) will bring joy to many pensioners if either of these parties becomes the government. However, our improved life expectancy, as it has been the case in the last 25 years, (rising from 69.3 years in 2000 to 73.66 years in 2023, especially for females, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO)), will impose a financial burden on taxpayers if it is not accompanied by growth in employment and an increase in job opportunities that will expand our labour force.

Removing VAGST from basic grocery items is one policy that all parties should include in their manifesto. The prices of some commodities, such as cereals packed with vitamins and necessary for children, and chicken, a good source of protein, have risen by 200-300% over the last 3-4 years. (We cannot continue blaming such astronomical rises on inflation, as one political party leader did recently, when the average inflation rate had gone down to 3.59% last year from 8.75% in 2022 and 11.98% in 2023.) Mothers and wives will welcome this, as they are the ones who feel the pain more than anyone in our households, because they do the family’s shopping often on a very meagre budget, sometimes juggling between buying food and necessities for the children. And when the husband comes home from a night out socialising with friends and finds that there is no food or the meal is not to his liking, domestic violence erupts. Poverty and domestic violence are interconnected. So, the more a government does to alleviate poverty, the greater our chance of reducing violence against women and children.

Lastly, payments for newborn babies. There are already negative comments floating around, maybe more so on social media. (Admission: I don’t use social media.) The birth and post-vaccination allowances will help parents with the cost of raising their child. It’s a small amount of money because it costs much more than $2,000 for the first five years of raising them. And for some working mothers, having a baby sometimes means staying away from their jobs on unpaid leave. Newborn allowances should be accompanied by eligibility for both maternity and paid parental leave for all women, as they do in the public sector.

Our economy needs to grow, and having a larger population helps. New Zealand and Australia's solution is to allow in more skilled immigrants. Ours, well, make more babies!