Fair share for workers best way to close gap with Aussie

Published by Marty G on 9 February 2010 at 10:56 am in minimum wage, wages and workers' rights.
. 6 Comments.

30 years ago, according to John Key, wages in Australia and New Zealand were the same. Since then New Zealand wages have stagnated and Australian wages haven grown away from us to the point where they are nearly 40% higher.

The conventional wisdom is that this is due to faster economic growth in Australia, driven by higher labour productivity. But that’s only part of the story.

The gap grew as Kiwi workers’ share of GDP fell, and the share going on business profits grew, much more than what happened in Australia. This is due to policy changes in the 1980s and 1990s that advantaged business and weakened workers’ bargaining power.

What if Kiwis workers had been allowed to keep the same share of the economic pie as workers in Australia have. what if the rightwing neoliberal revolution hadn’t set out to purposely hold down wages and we had followed Aussie’s path instead?

About half the wage gap would disappear if Kiwi workers had the same share of GDP as Aussie ones do. If Key really wants to close the wage gap, he should imitate Australia – better workers’ rights and a higher minimum wage. Unfortunately, National seems determined to head in the other direction. Why anyone believes we will catch Australia by doing the opposite of what they are doing, I don’t know.

Ideology trumps science for the Right

Published by Marty G on 9 February 2010 at 9:38 am in capitalism, climate change, minimum wage and science.
. 26 Comments.

Consider these results from opinion surveys of experts different areas of research, I won’t tell you the areas of research just yet:

  • In one, 97% of actively publishing experts agree with a statement (I’ll give you the statement below) concerning their field.
  • In the other field, 46.5% of experts fully agreed with the statement, 27.9% agreed with privisios, and 26.5% disagreed.

Now, which would you say is an accepted fact among experts and which would you say is contentious? Which would you be comfortable accepting as the concensus view of the people who know most about the topic and, therefore, is probably correct (especially as evidence and theory can be presented to you that confirms the consensus)?

Now, which do you think most on the Right reject and which do you think most accept? Clue: it’s the opposite of the rational answer.

  • 97% of publishing climatologists replied ‘yes’ to the question “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” and 96% said the temperature had risen since 1800.
  • Only 46.5% of economists agreed that “a minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers” and over a quarter refuted that.

97% is a pretty damn strong consensus. I’m willing to bet that less than 97% of physicists agree with Einstein’s theory of relativity, and that’s accepted unquestioningly by the public. Yet, many on the Right steadfastly reject what 97% of climatologists agree is true. On the other hand, less than half of economists are willing to unconditionally state that minimum wages increase unemployment, but the Right hold this up as a self-evident truth. Why have they got it backwards?

Money trumps science for the Right

Dealing with climate change requires us to stop behaving like we are, change our ways, and it requires leadership and spending by the government – it requires society to act together to counter the threat and that means constraints for the privileged. So, the Right needs to believe that climate change isn’t real, no matter what the experts say, to justify not doing anything about it so they can maintain the privilege of the few.

Likewise, paying a decent wage for a person to give their time and labour means smaller profits and executive salaries for the rich. So, the Right needs to believe that the minimum wage is bad for the poor to justify their avarice, even though there is no consensus among the experts.

This shows, again, that the Right’s ideology isn’t based on rationality. It’s about protecting the status quo, the privilege of the few. It also shows that the Left bases its ideology on what works. The Left doesn’t bury its head in the sand but has the courage to acknowledge and confront problems.

Great expectations

Published by Eddie on 9 February 2010 at 7:28 am in Economy, Media, john key and national/act government.
. 14 Comments.

“This is his most important speech since he entered Parliament in 2002.”

That’s Duncan Garner on Key’s speech today.

Other political commentators have been emphasising its importance too:

John Armstrong: “What has so far been a comparatively easy ride for Key now starts to get much bumpier. The time has come to do the difficult stuff. The Key Government faces its Waterloo … the day should be labelled “Big Tuesday” … Key has also promised action to spur what he calls a “step-change” in the New Zealand economy.

That is going to require something truly special and innovative. The days when National promised to tweak the Resource Management Act as a fig-leaf to cover the poverty of its economic thinking are long gone … All of the above is making Tuesday look more and more like a defining moment for Key’s prime ministership”

Colin Espiner: “It’s probably the most important speech he’s yet made in his time in Parliament. With the economy swinging out of recession, now’s the time for him to come good on his promise to raise the country’s living standards …We all know what the problem is, and most people seem to agree on it: low productivity, poor wages, slow economic growth, only average standard of living, growing gap with Australia, boom and bust housing market, poor savings record, high overseas debt and exchange rate … Platitudes about cutting red tape, rolling out broadband and tinkering with the RMA will no longer be enough”

Wonder if they'll let me mine Fiordland if I say it's for the cycleway

Key needs to present policies that will get the 275,000 jobless Kiwis back into work and lift wages. Offering more fig-leaf policies like the cycleway to cover another money-grab for the rich is not going to fly.

Undoubtedly there will be some little things in there to excite the media but I don’t think they’re going to fall for the diversions this time. Key got a free ride last year. This year, policies that will actually lead to the brighter future Key promised us are all that will cut it.

Key can talk a big game. Now it’s time for him to deliver some results. If he can’t, his growing reputation as a do-nothing PM will be cemented.

Open mike 09/02/2010

Published by The Standard on 9 February 2010 at 6:00 am in open mike.
. 7 Comments.

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

Key: Look over here! Please, look over here

Published by Marty G on 8 February 2010 at 6:45 pm in humour and john key.
. 41 Comments.

Well, wages are stagnating, unemployment is just shy of its all-time high, crime is up, and there is no chance of the Government fulfilling its flagship promise – closing the gap with Australia by 2025.

Tomorrow, a make or break speech will lay out Key’s programme of action for the year ahead, and expectations are high after a year of do nothing government.

Must be time for another media stunt!

Short of a broken arm this time, John Key drew a funny looking fern leaf on a piece of paper on Breakfast and now it’s being auctioned for charity.

Aww, isn’t he funny and cute, and smiley? I’m not worried about any of that other stuff any more.

Policy roulette

Published by r0b on 8 February 2010 at 1:30 pm in education, election 2011, health and national.
Tags: .. 29 Comments.

I don’t recall the date or anything, but I remember the exact moment I decided to get politically active. Rob Muldoon was called by some brave journalist on the fact that National seemed to be ignoring all its election manifesto promises. Muldoon just grunted, and said that manifesto promises were dreamed up by advertisers, and nothing to do with him. The flippant way that he dismissed the issue made me angry, how are we supposed to make rational choices at election time if the policies are meaningless?

National haven’t changed. According to their health policy before the election:

Restructuring doesn’t necessarily change the way people work. Structural change diverts the attention of doctors and nurses away from improving patient care. National believes our health service can be improved without the distraction of restructuring. …

National will: … Not carry out another round of restructuring of the public health system.

Like Muldoon before him, Tony Ryall has no intention of keeping this promise. Initially at least he had the decency to pretend to feel guilty about it, but now it’s just full steam ahead:

Super-clinics plan in big health shake-up

Primary health services are about to undergo their biggest shake-up in nearly a decade, shifting some hospital services into the community and creating new super-clinics.

In that article we get a rare honest appraisal from Ryall of how the Nats know they can get away with their policy lies, and how they view the public:

Most people in the country wouldn’t know a PHO if they fell over it. This plan of strong community engagement is probably more of a myth.

So there we have it. On the one hand, Health and PHOs, we the public are too dumb to know or care about complicated stuff or National’s policy promises. But it isn’t always the same story! Because we’re also told that on the other hand, Education and “National Standards”, we the public all knew about this obscure detail in National’s (Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts!) election policy and are therefore deemed to have completely endorsed it. In short, for National, election policy only matters if it happens to suit their real agenda. Remember that in 2011.

Quick thoughts

Published by Marty G on 8 February 2010 at 11:06 am in crime, election 2011, john key, labour and phil goff.
Tags: , , , .. 33 Comments.
  • It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that a government that spends half its time on holiday and the rest on PR stunts is never going to get New Zealand to catch Australia by 2025 but having the Reserve Bank Governor say its impossible, that’s hugely embarrassing. Of course, Key is refusing to acknowledge the truth despite the fact that the gap has grown during his time in power.
  • Who’s going to have an op-ed on changing the flag in the Herald next? The typesetter? John Roughan’s cleaner? Give it up, Granny. There really are bigger things to worry about and there’s no public clamour for change.
  • Could Cameron Slater have come up with a better way to kill his ‘campaign’ against suppression orders than threatening to endanger judges and their families? Watch the rightwing establishment distance themselves from him. There’s no chance of reform of suppression now. National can’t be seen to be endorsing Slater’s actions.
  • I’m too hard on Colin Espiner. His print op-eds on Mondays are great, really well thought out and well written. It’s just he provides such easy pickings on his blog.
  • John Armstrong has labelled Key’s speech from the throne tomorrow as ‘Big Tuesday’. Seems like Armstong has been told to expect all sorts of concrete policy announcements. Well, Key’s going to have to come up with some good stuff that makes a real difference to working Kiwis. Unemployment is still rising, wages are stagnating, crime is up, and people are sick of the over-promise, under-deliver schtick. Nobody is going to buy it this time if he delivers more hype and no substance.
  • What ever happened to Key’s plan to end whaling? The one with no details and that he hadn’t discussed with the Japanese.
  • What a remarkable turn-around in the mood of the Left the last few weeks. People are seriously talking about 2011 as winnable. Key’s spark is gone, the media have said ‘enough grins, John, time to actually do something’, Phil Goff suddenly looks much more like a PM in waiting, and his speech, when you see it for what it actually is – the policy/strategy plan for the remainder of the term – has given Labour supporters something they can really get behind. I haven’t seen people this positive in years.
  • Looks like the Maori Party are going to have their expectations dashed again but this time it’s the big one. Will they settle for some shabby deal on the Foreshore and Seabed that pays-off the big iwi corporates? Or will they hold to their principles? A split is coming, if not from National then internally.

When was the last time Key mentioned the ‘underclass’?

Published by Eddie on 8 February 2010 at 10:00 am in john key, poverty and spin.
Tags: .. 8 Comments.

The Emperor's new clothes had a tiki on them

I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. As his first major speech as National Party leader it was designed to frame Key, the multi-millionaire currency speculator, as a good, ordinary bloke. I wondered how long they had bothered keeping up the charade that Key and his party give a damn about the poor.

I’ve searched google news, the Herald, Parliament, Stuff, and johnkey.co.nz archives for the last reference to “underclass” by Key.

It was in the first Speech from the Throne of his government, back in December 2008. It is just a passing reference (“it is in the interests of no New Zealanders, and to the detriment of us all, to allow an underclass to develop in New Zealand”) not a plan to do anything for these people. And, although the Speech from the Throne is the PM’s speech on their plans for the year ahead, it isn’t delivered by them. The Governor-General delivers it. The last time the words came from Key’s mouth was probably long before that.

Anyway, at the end of the day, words are cheap. Acts are what matters. Key’s Government has done nothing. It has awarded the most pitiful minimum wage rises in years, it has sat on its arse as unemployment has doubled, it has cancelled training courses to help people (like Aroha’s mum) off benefits, increased their ACC levies, and now it’s threatening to put up their GST so rich people can have tax cuts.

So, as we wait for another Speech from the Throne by Key, I reckon we probably will see a passing reference to the ‘underclass’ for appearance’s sake but I’m just as sure that his government will continue to fail the most vulnerable members of our society.

Cowardly

Published by IrishBill on 8 February 2010 at 7:43 am in law.
. 42 Comments.

A foreign politician celebrates an act of terrorism on our shores and our Prime Minister refuses to comment on the matter?

WTF?

Nats lying over firing Aroha’s mum?

Published by Marty G on 8 February 2010 at 7:07 am in brand key, national and scoundrels.
Tags: , .. 29 Comments.

A great piece of investigative journalism from Julie Fairey at the Hand Mirror. She read the article in the Herald yesterday about how Aroha and her mum Joan Nathan had been cynically used for the building of Brand Key, only to be abandoned by National and Key after the election, and something about National’s excuses didn’t strike her as right. Here’s the relevant passage from the Herald:

Jackie Blue said Nathan worked 10 hours a week doing administration for Mt Roskill office up until the 2008 election.

She wasn’t re-employed because Blue merged her office with Lotu-Iiga, and didn’t need to rehire staff.

Blue said she had tried to keep in touch, but Nathan’s phone had been disconnected.

Julie writes:

I am a little confused by the idea that Jackie Blue (List MP, office in Mt Roskill) and Sam Lotu-Iiga (Electorate MP for Maungakiekie, office in Onehunga) have merged their offices. So confused was I that, seeing as how I was going to Onehunga today anyway, I decided to drive by and check.

And indeed here is Lotu-Iiga’s office on the Onehunga Mall, where it’s been since not long after the election (remember, he was a new MP in the 2008 in-take).

While here we have Jackie Blue’s office on Dominion Rd…

…Clearly they haven’t merged offices. They still both maintain separate offices, with no reference to each other on their shopfronts. I wonder if Parliamentary Services thinks they have merged? My guess would be no.

And as for the last part of that quote from the Herald – Blue’s difficulty getting hold of Nathan because they don’t have a phone line anymore. Blue is Mt Roskill-based right? She has contested the seat here for two elections. She puts about that she is a local MP. Perhaps she doesn’t know where Nathan lives? Oh, wait…

On that last part, apparently, Blue used to be Aroha and Nathan’s GP, which makes this whole thing from even more transparently a cynical exercise in exploitation by National.

Open mike 08/02/2010

Published by The Standard on 8 February 2010 at 6:00 am in open mike.
. 29 Comments.

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

Shorter Lhaws

Published by IrishBill on 7 February 2010 at 4:36 pm in education.
. 71 Comments.

All teachers are feminist pinkos.

And they’re badly dressed.

And too nice to the kids.

It wasn’t like that in my day.

And didn’t I turn out just fine?

That’s why we need national standards.

Perhaps the most compelling argument against national standards I have read so far.

National, time to put your dog on a leash

Published by Zetetic on 7 February 2010 at 12:17 pm in crime and national.
Tags: .. 49 Comments.

As surely an endorphin high fades, Cameron Slater was going to do something to get his name back in the media.

He’s been trying to test the boundaries for a few weeks. He’s been ignored. So, stepped it up a few gears.

He’s named another person on name suppression. He doesn’t care that the name suppression is there to protect the victims. He just wants the attention. Wants to see his name in print. It fills the hole inside for a while. But the thing is, every high leaves a bigger hole. The next rush has to be bigger than the last. Got to do something bigger.

Slater is threatening to post the names, phone numbers, and addresses of judges who issue suppression orders. It’s sick stuff. It’s an attempt to bully the judiciary. It’s facilitating people who want to harm judges. It says ‘you do what I want or I put you in danger’. That’s blackmail. That’s an imprisonable offence.

National’s Simon Power could only say it’s “probably not helpful”. Not good enough. Slater is National’s rabid dog. He is their responsibility.

Slater’s dad is John Slater head of Citizens and Ratepayers – the Nats’ local body arm – in Auckland. Slater boasted of working with the Nat research unit on smear campaigns before the election. The Nats still feed him stuff they can’t have the MPs or even Farrar use.

Conversation with Slater drove Lee to drink

This guy is not some lone freak. He is Nat through and through. They created him. They’ve got to get him under control before he does more damage.

If anything happens to a judge because of Slater releasing the details, it will be on National’s head.

The victims of Brand Key

Published by Michael Foxglove on 7 February 2010 at 8:12 am in john key and national/act government.
. 50 Comments.

Remember the struggling Auckland family that John Key used in 2007 to help build his brand? Well, according to the Herald:

The mother of the 12-year-old girl John Key took to Waitangi three years ago says she has been let down by the Prime Minister, and her daughter now wants nothing to do with him.

John Key disgracefully used the mum and kids for his own political ends. And now the family are suffering directly from the policies of the Key Government.

She and her family were worse off since National won the election…

She had been impressed by Key during his visit but had changed her mind since the election. “He’s just made everything worse for us and made it easier for ones that are higher up. I’m struggling every week.”

And if that wasn’t a kick of the guts enough. The National Party sacked the mum from the job they had given her.

“They gave me the job to sweeten the deal, and then as soon as they got elected I got the sack,” she said.

The worst thing in all this is the way a 12 year old was treated by Key and his advisers as PR prop. She was used to help perpetuate Brand Key with scant regard for her well-being.

I hope Key feels bad. Because he bloody well should.

Poneke: If only scientists were more like god…

Published by lprent on 7 February 2010 at 7:00 am in blogs, climate change, dpf and science.
Tags: , .. 76 Comments.

Poneke’s weblog recently wrote a critical post about ‘climategate’ where he has had a look through the subset of  selectively leaked pages of private correspondence thieved from the CRU at the University of East Anglia. His analysis didn’t bother to look at the science of climate change virtually at all, and what science was looked at was full of myths. Furthermore it wasn’t particularly original. Most appeared to have been cribbed from a number of climate change denialist sites and throughly debunked in part or as a whole by many other sites. It was hardly the type of original thinking that David Farrar at kiwiblog should have labeled as being

Poneke’s full post is a must read.  It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media.

Continue reading ‘Poneke: If only scientists were more like god…’

Open mike 07/02/2010

Published by The Standard on 7 February 2010 at 6:00 am in open mike.
. 3 Comments.

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

Unemployment: real action, not vague promises needed

Published by Marty G on 6 February 2010 at 4:41 pm in education, minimum wage and unemployment.
. 43 Comments.

The Herald reports:

“[Key] also raised the 15 per cent Maori unemployment rate, saying improving education outcomes for Maori children would help address that.”

Improved education sounds good but:

1) how is Key going to actually lift Maori educational achievement? Not by cutting millions from the education budget like he did last year. Not by national standards – as Labour’s Kelvin Davis, a former teacher and principal, says ‘repeatedly measuring a pig doesn’t make it fatter. Talk is cheap, I want to see some action or even details of what the action will be.

2) education is not responsible for the Maori unemployment rate sitting at 15.4%. A year and a half ago, it was 8.1%. An economic crisis and a do nothing government are responsible for the near doubling of Maori unemployment, not education standards.

3) better education is great but the pay-offs are decades in the future. We obviously should be investing in that future but we also need government job creation to bring down unemployment now.

On a related note, National Party pollster David Farrar has played the ‘blame the minimum wage’ card to try to excuse the shocking level of unemployment. He claims that the abolishment of the lower youth minimum wage in 2008 is somehow responsible for higher unemployment. His ‘evidence’ is that gap between 15-19 year olds unemployment and 20-24 year olds has grown. Of course, the real reason it has grown is that 15-19 year olds always have a higher unemployment rate and, so, as general unemployment increases you would expect there’s to increase faster. If you look at the ratio of 15-19 unemployment to 20-24 unemployment, it’s pretty steady.

We don’t need to blame the minimum wage to explain the growing rate of 15-19 year old unemployment. Groups with normally higher unemployment always get hit the hardest by recession. Is Farrar going to blame the abolishment of youth rates for the greater gap between Maori unemployment and Pakeha unemployment too? Because you could using exactly the same argument he made for 15-19 year old unemployment.

The reality is, the Right hates the minimum wage because it means businesses have to give the working poor a better wage than they otherwise could get away with paying, and that money comes out of profits and executives’ salaries.

And again nothing happened

Published by IrishBill on 6 February 2010 at 12:56 pm in spin.
. 2 Comments.

The usual suspects are bleating on about John Key’s big speech on Tuesday.

As I’ve pointed out again and again this sort of thing is treated by Key as a PR event in which the talk is big and the action minimal. Just like John’s plan to save the whales.

What we’ll see on Tuesday will be a few hollow promises and some kind of token gesture toward unemployment. I’m thinking a small pilot community-work scheme or something equally insufficient.

I think the only interesting thing about the speech will be the unveiling of the new spin designed to sell us tax-cuts for the rich and a hike in gst. I wonder if they will continue with the “incentive” theme or if they’ll shift back to something like “tax relief” in the hope of recasting it as a stimulus measure?

As an aside, what has happened to the plan to save the whales? and the plan for the economy we we promised in July of last year?

Paula, John, seriously, put away the champagne

Published by Marty G on 6 February 2010 at 12:53 pm in john key, spin and unemployment.
Tags: .. 2 Comments.

Paula Bennett and John Key have been, once again, prematurely popping the bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of rising unemployment.
 
In the face of the shocking 7.3% unemployment rate announced on Thursday, the pair responded by saying ‘ah, but that was December quarter things are better now.’ They pointed to the number of people on the dole. Apparently, at the end of January that stood at 68,369 (up 185% since they came to power) and this they said was good news. Because the increase from December to January was only 1,850 – 100 per working day – or 3%, whereas the increase last year was 12%. Smaller increase, things are looking up!
 
But last year is a really really dumb comparison – it was the height of the global crisis. Over the previous nine years (Dec 1999-Jan 2008) on average numbers fell 1% between December and January. That’s the normal seasonal trend, and we’re not following in. In fact, we’re heading in the opposite direction.
 
So, no Paula, no John, that’s not good news, it’s bloody awful news. When we would normally expect dole numbers to drop 1%, they’ve risen 3%. It is an early indicator that unemployment will increase again in the March quarter.
 
The weird thing is the Key Government actually seems to be taken in by their own spin. They have repeatedly declared victory, been shown to be out of touch when things get worse, only to declare victory all over again. Their credibility on delivering for New Zealanders is now totally shot.

A principal writes

Published by Guest post on 6 February 2010 at 9:27 am in education.
Tags: , .. 85 Comments.

School principal Pat Newman posted the following as a comment on Red Alert. It’s not a polished piece written with distribution in mind, but it’s from the heart, and well worth reproducing here (minor typos corrected). Pat added several further excellent comments, follow the link above.

I speak as a principal of a Decile 2 school that was just ERO’d last year in December and has also had independant research done on how we are performing, involving parents and community etc. Both these were superb. I have been a principal for over 28 yrs in a wide variety of schools throughout NZ, and have a reasonable profile in education in NZ. I include the above not to grandstand, but to validate hopefully my comments.

I am adamantly opposed to standards as discussed. I am not opposed to parents have good accurate information and they should be getting that now, and if not their parents should be loud and vociferous to get that info.

That also requires parents to pick up some responsibility to attend school, talk to their teachers and discuss their children’s progress though!.

I am opposed because standards will not identify poor teachers and they shouldn’t anyway and in my opinion, there are already existing avenues for that to happen, that are working. The figures reasonably accurately thought to fit that category are about 1% at anyone time, not the 30% Key reported. He got that figure from a sample survey/report from ERO that said about 30% of junior children were not coming up to standards. That sounds appalling but the reality is about 30% of our NZ children are coming into schools at about a 3 year old level.

In my school only 12% attain standards in Yr 1 (for a 5 yr old), 28% in Yr 2 and by end of Yr 3 99%. I have superb teachers. We pour heaps into kids, and make 5 yrs progress in 3 yrs for most of them, yet under this proposed system my school would be deemed a failure!

We have had extra money for funding lots of targeted funding to assist with his. Unfortunately this year that money has dried up and is going towards the nearly 60 million for standards and 30 million for private schools. For us to get back some of this money under the new standards we have to be labelled as failing school!!!

Private schools and homeschooling are exempt. Although the government is paying tax payer funding to both, the government seems to take it for granted that they never have poor teachers, all their children are up to “Standard” etc…. reality is quite different!

Hopefully that might show some of you why many of us are extremely angry. I also suggest you google “No child left behind” and look at the parent group websites, and see its effect on American schools. I have visited schools overseas that are involved in such programmes and have seen the effect on genuine learning.

Pat Newman

Open mike 06/02/2010

Published by The Standard on 6 February 2010 at 6:00 am in open mike.
. 33 Comments.

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

Pay the money back, John

Published by John A on 5 February 2010 at 4:00 pm in uncategorized.
. 21 Comments.

Today’s editorial in the Herald is headlined “Class standards leaflet a misuse of public funds.”

It says:

In response to criticism from educationists and an opposition roadshow by the primary teachers’ union, National MPs will host public meetings around the country and information on the standards will be mailed out to households. Unfortunately, this material, financed by the taxpayer, features the National Party logo on every page.This is not only a misuse of public money, it discredits the campaign to sell the standards. The information leaflet, which will be financed out of the Prime Minister’s leader’s budget, bears a striking resemblance to the sort of election advertising that National criticised the Labour Party for producing under the Electoral Finance Act.

In fact, Labour used this public money to promote policies that were rather less contentious than this. It would seem National has forgotten the distinction it once made between legitimate public information and political promotions in the last term of the Labour Administration, and ignored the rulings made then by the Auditor-General. The lesson of that episode was that money allocated to ministers and parties for the communication of policies and other information of public interest was not intended to be used to sell politically charged flagship policies such as national standards.

We look forward to the Herald’s campaign for the Prime Minister to pay the money back.

Corporation to run for US Congress

Published by all_your_base on 5 February 2010 at 12:36 pm in International, humour and us politics.
Tags: .. 7 Comments.

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress. Read the whole press release.

Here’s their first campaign ad:

Tax Working Groupthink

Published by John A on 5 February 2010 at 11:25 am in education and tax.
Tags: .. 29 Comments.

The Tax Working Group’s summary presentation at their December seminar came from a senior partner from one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, Price Waterhouse. One scenario for the preferred ultimate outcome aligned income, trustee and company tax at 27%, paid for by increasing GST to 15%.

At the top:

Big change

The graph tops out at $120,000 income. A big 4 partner earns around $500,000 according to David Farrar on Kiwiblog. That would be an extra $47,300 for the Big 4 partners on the group.

At the bottom:

No change

That’s no change for kid’s – 16% left in poverty.

That’s equality? No, it’s a disgrace. These will be the kids who will surely fail National’s rushed-in standards. With no more money to help them, their future stays bleak.

This scenario shows the priorities of the Tax Group – drop  the top rates and pay for it by raising GST. Alignment was their buzz word – but there was no mention of aligning up so everyone paid their fair share.

It will be interesting to compare the approaches taken when the Australian report chaired by Ken Henry is released publicly. Indications so far are that it has taken a much broader approach, scanned the environment, looked at the purpose of taxes, and not resiled from the prospect of increasing as well as broadening the tax base.

At least Aussie kids won’t be left behind.

The 59,000 failures of John Phillip Key

Published by Marty G on 5 February 2010 at 10:31 am in Unions, cycleway, john key and unemployment.
Tags: , , .. 46 Comments.

Nearly a year ago, John Key, shaken by the first whispers of disquiet over his government’s month-long holiday at the height of an economic crisis (whispers that would later grow into cries of ‘Do Nothing’ Key), decided to hold the Prime Minister’s Jobs Summit.

This would not be a talk-fest, it would be a ‘do-fest’ (whatever the hell that is). Key got business and unions together, he promised ‘21 top ideas’ headlined by a cycleway and a nine-day fortnight. The media, in the full swoon of honey-moon, lapped it up and regurgitated it to the public. But it’s a year later and no-one’s buying the empty smiles and the show-boating now.

It’s a year later and 59,000 more Kiwis are unemployed, up over 50%. That’s 162 more Kiwis a day, seven days a week, every week for a year unable to find work. Tens of thousands more have given up looking for work and aren’t counted as unemployed.

While Key promised to created tens of thousands of jobs (the cycleway alone was meant to create 3,400) and save 20,000 jobs with the 9 day fortnight, the reality is that 53,000 jobs have disappeared.

The 9-day fortnight didn’t fail because it was a bad idea. In it’s original form, as proposed by the unions, it would have worked. It was the stupid design of the policy by National that doomed it. They cut the training allowance (the unions wanted the workers training on their day off). They refused to put any decent government money in. They expected the workers to bear all the cost. Far from sharing the burden, businesses got more money from the 9 day fortnight than from firing a worker, and that money came from the workers’ pockets. No wonder the workers wanted nothing to do with it.

The cycleway… The cycleway was always just a cheap trick. If a magician had pulled that kind of crap on 4-year olds he would have been booed and Key deserved to be lambasted for it too. Instead he got mindless praise. Now, finally, the people who fell for that ruse and others are starting to take him to task.

Things are going very wrong for Key very quickly. He is exposed as a fraud, a failure, a charlatan. His over-promise, under-deliver, do-nothing, incompetent government is suddenly teetering. Suddenly, everyone sees that not only does the emperor have no clothes but the clothes he sold you are just rags.

His pathetic excuses – ‘it was population growth’, ‘it was Labour’s policies’, ‘it’s nearly over, promise’, ‘the dog ate my stimulus package’ - just don’t fly any more.

After all the promises he made to the working people of New Zealand only to break them, after he filled people with hope only to let that hope be dashed, his fall is hard and well-deserved.

That’s gotta hurt

Published by The Standard on 5 February 2010 at 9:27 am in ACC, Economy and sport.
. 7 Comments.

The CTU is launching its “that’s gotta hurt” campaign against government cuts to ACC on the big screens at the Sevens today and the result is not what you’d expect from the normally rather earnest organisation.

S

Unemployment? Blame someone else – Key

Published by Eddie on 5 February 2010 at 7:35 am in john key and unemployment.
. 53 Comments.

A panicked, chaotic series of excuses poured forth from John Key’s mouth yesterday as he attempted to shift the blame for the shocking unemployment numbers on to someone, anyone, else:

“He told reporters it was important to note the economy was not losing jobs, it was a case of not creating new ones fast enough.”

Actually, the economy lost over 2,000 jobs in the quarter. The economy needs to gain 6,000 jobs a quarter on average to keep up with the growing working age population.

“”We have a very efficient economy and as confidence is restored internationally you will see this rate fall.’ New Zealand was part of the worst global recession since the 1930s”

But, John, weren’t you skiting about the record confidence level just a few months ago?

“An economy is like a super tanker it takes a long time to turn around and we had nine years of poor economy [sic] policy that put us in the wrong place,”

Wait, I thought we had “a very efficient economy” and the unemployment was the result of the global recession. I’m sure someone told me that just recently.

Isn’t it funny how Labour’s “nine years of poor economy policy” resulted in plummeting unemployment and benefit numbers, and rising wages while they were in power but somehow managed to cause everything to go to crap a year after they left office? Cunning f#cken Labour, how’d they do that?

What exactly is this “wrong place” that Labour put is in? 3.4% unemployment? No net debt?

It was a crazy performance. A random grab-bag of contrary excuses for doing nothing while jobs burn. It was not the performance of an in-control Prime Minister with a plan.

Key needs to stop pointing the finger at everyone else and start doing his job for Kiwis who need help from their government. But he won’t. Because that’s not why he became Prime Minister.

[Update: Neither Key nor Paula Bennett would front on RNZ this morning. They sent Mark Weldon instead]

[Update 2: I see National's pollster David Farrar has still failed to comment on these disastrous unemployment figures - probably still trying to think up a credible excuse. He did manage to post on the Herald's flag distraction though. Speaking of which, the Herald has 10 articles in its flag distraction campaign today. It's only article on unemployment isn't under the 'politics' category]

Open mike 05/02/2010

Published by The Standard on 5 February 2010 at 6:00 am in open mike.
. 49 Comments.

mike

Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

Brown promises electoral reform in UK

Published by Michael Foxglove on 4 February 2010 at 4:35 pm in International and uk politics.
. 28 Comments.

The British PM Gordon Brown has announced he will push through legislation giving citizens the chance to vote on whether to dump First Past the Post (FPP) in favour of Alternative Vote (AV). According to The Guardian:

Brown staked his authority on committing his party not just to a referendum on the alternative vote, but also to making the law introducing the referendum a legislative priority in the remaining six weeks of parliament before the election is called.

A young Gordon Brown contemplates electoral reform

The British people have been denied the full range of political choice for eons. But their proud evolving democratic tradition is slowly catching up (though AV is still nowhere near as proportional as MMP). Brown said:

“I am determined to do everything I can to take on and persuade those who want to deny the people the chance to decide [on a new voting system] at a referendum, and I will build support across the Commons, the Lords and the country.

NZ has had an easier road to proportional democracy than the UK will. NZ’s comparatively egalitarian culture prevented wealthy vested interests from subverting the will of Kiwis. Unfortunately for the UK, where we had ten Peter Shirtcliffes, they have thousands.

The wealthy interests who still are trying to deny Britons a more democratic electoral system is a poignant reminder to all Kiwis. When we are forced defend our democracy in John Key’s 2011 MMP referendum, we must not let Roger Douglas, Peter Shirtcliffe, and Don Brash win this time around.

The Government is to blame for record unemployment numbers

Published by Guest post on 4 February 2010 at 2:54 pm in national and unemployment.
. 57 Comments.

Andrew Campbell

It should come as no surprise that unemployment hit 7.3% today. That’s what happens when a government does virtually nothing to support job creation when there is a recession. But instead of announcing a plan to address this massive economic and social issue the Minister for Unemployment, Paula Bennett, is blaming a growth in the population!

Phew! Because high unemployment is like, totally ok, when you have population growth. I mean it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a job because lots of other people don’t too. Get over it. And it’s not like the government does anything else anyway so why would they do anything fix the economy thing.

The blame for this rise in unemployment can be laid firmly at the feet of the government. It is their fault. Their inactivity on the jobs front has cost people their livelihood. All last year unions and other political parties put forward creative and practical suggestions to keep New Zealanders in work. But instead John Key’s Jobs Summit and “rolling maul” of job activity proved to be yet another photo opportunity and slogan aimed at covering up the fact that the government is doing nothing to help its most vulnerable citizens earn a living to support themselves and their families.

What a disgrace that nothing has been done to limit fluctuations in the dollar to help keep jobs in the export sector. What a disgrace that none of the Greens’ ideas for creating jobs that transition us to a green economy have been picked up to resolve the twin issues of climate change and unemployment. What a disgrace that the minimum wage rose only 25 cents when a fiscal stimulus amongst the lowest paid could have created jobs. What a disgrace that the government itself laid off workers and cut jobs over the past year.

It is hard to see how their inactivity over the last year and their head in sand response today can be viewed as anything but cruel and uncaring. Yes, it is the government, not the people that is to be blamed.