Just received this parody of Hillary Clinton’s 3am ad, but with a New Zealand twist. Very funny.
Monthly Archive for April, 2008
If National were the Government, Judith Collins would be Social Services Minister. That should be enough to send shudders down the spine of anyone who is worried about ensuring there is a safety net for the most vulnerable members of our society. Collins is rabidly anti the welfare state and a nasty piece of work. Whereas her predecessor as National’s Welfare spokesperson, Katherine Rich said “I’m not your DPB-bashing sort of person…most of the people I meet on the DPB are pretty motivated people who have the same dreams and aspirations as the rest of us. Beneficiary bashing is a most unsatisfactory practice. It doesn’t really take you anywhere”, Collins agrees with Key who spoke of women “breeding for a business”
Collins’ latest attack on our most vulnerable citizens, “Labour gives up on long-term jobless”, claims 60,000 people have been getting benefits for being “jobless” for more than ten years. She’s being deceptive and she knows it. Yes, 60,000 people, 2.3% of adults, have been getting benefits for 10 or more years. But 38,000 of them are invalids – that is, they have an ongoing physical or mental disability that prevents them from being part of the workforce. Of the rest, 16,000 are parents raising kids on the DPB, that’s not a task that’s over within a couple of years. 5,000 have a long-term sickness. Only 1,000 are on the unemployment benefit, and less than 300 have been on the unemployment benefit for the whole 10 years [data here].
What Collins doesn’t want you to know, because it wrecks her anti-welfare state argument, is that the number of long-term beneficiaries is decreasing rapidly (down 20% since December 2003).
A day after a report reveals that the only children left living in poverty in New Zealand are in beneficiary households and the Minister says we should aim to eliminate child poverty, all National can come up with is more hollow beneficiary bashing. Pathetic.
Personally, I think it’s hilarious.
A brilliant piece of activism that got the public’s attention and raised the issue of why we have American spy equipment on our soil. All without any real harm done and no violence.
The wannabe semiotician in me loves that you’ve got a rag-tag bunch of ordinary people attacking a huge, featureless tool of secret State power. And with sickles!
Also, who knew those were just inflated covers? I thought they were some kind of far-out communications spheres
It’s not often National gets something right but their latest flip-flop, on bio-fuels, is a good policy (well, partially and for the wrong reasons). National has announced they will no longer be supporting the bio-fuel requirement in petrol because it may put up the price of petrol a few cents.
The bio-fuel requirement was always an environmentally dubious idea with limited potential to reduce our greenhouse emissions. It is looking increasingly dubious now that it seems we will have to look offshore for some of the bio-fuel, which may mean conversion of native forests or food crops into bio-fuel crops. Unless bio-fuels can be harvested sustainably from plants that do not displace food crops, there is little point in them. That will not be possible until the technology improves so that trees can be used as a crop, and that is some years off. So, bio-fuels are OK but the incoming bio-fuel requirement is not so hot because of where the bio-fuel must come from.
But petrol prices is not a good reason to oppose the bio-fuel requirement. The price of petrol is determined by international prices, they have doubled in a year and our petrol has gone up significantly less than that. People point out quite rightly that some of the price of petrol at the pump is government tax (GST, excise, and the new regional taxes) but every cent of the money collected by those taxes (and then some) goes into transport infrastructure. Cut the taxes, cut the money available for roading and suffer the consequences as the system degrades; if we start cutting taxes because the price is too high, we are burning the future to stay warm now. And prices will just rise again as the international price of oil keeps climbing. Cutting tax is not the solution to international peak oil.
It’s a pity that, at the same time, National also announced they oppose the regional fuel taxes, which will fund increased public transport to give people a cheaper option instead of driving in their cars on expensive petrol.
Still, one decent policy out of two, if for the wrong reasons. It’s a start.
Today’s Herald Digipoll has National up 2 points and Labour down 2, a result the Herald describes as the “Nats pulling away”.
As ever you can’t read too much into a single poll, but the pattern continues to show National coming off the highs in the mid 50s it reached earlier this year and Labour regaining from its low 30s nadir. Now, polls are showing National in a range between mid 40s and low 50s, and Labour mid to high 30s.
Remember that this is actually much closer than it appears. If National sinks below that magic 47% mark it will have a very hard time finding coalition partners to govern with, while Labour has plenty of options if it is near 40%.
Commentators stuck in FPP thinking are writing ‘the phone is off the hook’ and other well-worn cliches, but this is MMP. What matters is the balance between left and right, and who the minor parties will work with, not which of the major parties has the most support. In reality, it is and always has been a close race.
It’s also worth pointing out that this poll is based on a sample size of only 769 respondents over three weeks. In comparison, the recent TV3 poll was taken between 10–16 April and had a sample size of 1000.
Still, it’s not the kind of gap you want at this stage of the election cycle and the pressure will be on Labour to deliver in next month’s Budget.
Yesterday’s site issues were due to a combination of inadequate Expires (causing a lot more files being transmitted) and the web-crawlers grabbing the updated site.
It blew out the memory. I’ve limited the simultaneous sessions to prevent that until I get more RAM. Bandwidth usage for this month is indicating this would be a wise precaution to speed page delivery, even without the site updates.
I’ve done a few tweaks to the front page of the site to speed finding the current state of play and balance out the blogroll. Because of the volume of posts and comments, I’ve increased the size of the latest of both. This means you will be able to see who is talking across posts more easily.
The access to the older posts are now inside ‘Archives’ at the top menu.
There are a number of features that I’ll be turning on over the next week or so as things settle down. But none of those should structurally change the site. The back-end changes are quite effective.
Let me know of the gripes and suggestions either as comments in this post or e-mail (but avoid the political sniping). I will do what is feasible, while keeping a close eye on that bandwidth and memory. Hopefully this is the last of the upgrade issues apart from the disappearing IE comments box that I still have to fix.
Lynn
Strangely, given the fact the National Party is doing so well in the polls and looks to be the favorite heading into the election, things seem to be coming apart for them. We’ve heard a few stories about tense caucus meetings and divisions but mostly only as rumour and, in an election year, that sort of rumour is often a matter of someone’s wishful thinking or a bit of wedge politics. Except this time it’s different. We’ve had information leaked to us from a source within the National Party about what John Key is doing over recess.
I don’t think the information we were given is that big a deal as we were simply told he’ll be shipping off to his new Hawaii holiday home on Thursday. While that’s probably not the best look when he’s claiming to speak on behalf of struggling middle New Zealand, it’s also not exactly a capital offense. What is interesting is that this confidential and potentially embarrassing information was provided from within the National party’s caucus, and apparently not just to us.
In an election year knowing that the leader of the opposition is unavailable can be very useful. If for example the Labour Party was interested in launching a major policy they would know that he would not be able to respond. Equally the leaker may have just decided it could be embarrassing for Key to be seen to be off cavorting in his Maui mansion when he’s whinged about the government forgetting about ordinary New Zealanders. Either way there is someone in National who has deliberately set out to disadvantage Key. Given the fact National is doing so bloody well at the moment that’s very strange indeed.
Greenwoman just flicked us this:
Family First’s petition for a referendum on reversing the amendment to s59 of the Crimes Act that removed the defence of reasonable force for assault on a child (try saying that three times fast) has failed to get enough signatures. It needed 280,275 signatures and seemed to have enough but the Office of the Clerk found many of them were multiple or fake names.
Now, the pro-beaters have 2 months to find the 15,000 extra signatures they need to force a referendum. On the surface, that shouldn’t be hard. Family First has the money to get people out to collect names and polling data from David Farrar’s company Curia to help targeting groups. But it remains to be seen whether they will be able to get so many more names in time, they were already scrapping the barrel to get the names they have and some of the energy must be lost from their campaign after this failure.
Some may have noted an odd series of questions in Parliament and press releases from Bill English around government borrowing over the last month. The questions purposely conflated the idea of maintaining current debt levels with increasing debt. We noted this at the time and Tane correctly picked the strategy: First, sow confusion about debt amongst observers (ie the press gallery) on the issue of government borrowing. Then, announce you will increase government borrowing but keep your language couched in confusing and harmless sounding economic language.
That’s what Key did on Saturday in the Dompost: “we are not fixated on the 20 per cent debt to GDP target. Bill English will spell out what he thinks is the right level. But I don’t think there is a strong economic case that 15 per cent is so much better than 25 per cent.
Oh, it’s just a few percent move of some government thing, doesn’t sound too bad, eh? But consider that increasing gross government debt from its current level of 18% of GDP to 25% of GDP really means that we borrow an extra $10-$15 billion. Every year, we would be paying out up to a billion dollars in interest on that borrowing, and that huge injection of borrowed money into the economy would be massively inflationary. So, why does National want to do it? To get the money for some catchy programmes (like the fibre plan, which is $1.5 billion of borrowing) and to fund tax cuts.
Now, National will say that it is not borrowing for tax cuts, it is borrowing for investment. That’s just more muddying of the waters to confuse people. If National increases borrowing, it will not have to use tax dollars for investment and, so, will be able to afford larger tax cuts. No increased borrowing, smaller tax cuts; increased borrowing, larger tax cuts. Therefore, the borrowing most certainly would pay for tax cuts.
Key says he is happy to increase “intergenerational debt”. Think about that. National will give you a bigger tax cut now, and your children will to left to pick up the tab.
The Child Poverty Action Group has released a report [PDF, 400k] showing there were 185,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand in 2004. That’s a big number but it is out of date and already well down from the dark days of the 1990s.
It is estimated that higher employment, higher wages, paid paternal leave, and Working of Families have combined to reduce child poverty by 70% since 2004. On top of that, improved public services, free early childhood education, subsidised doctors’ visits, and cheaper medicine have improved the lives of all children but aren’t caught by the poverty line measure, which only counts income, not the social wage. Moreover, it should be remembered that the poverty line is a moving target; it is 60% of the median household income. Since real incomes are up 15% since National was booted out, even someone living on the poverty line is 15% better off than in 1999.
Notwithstanding all that, more can be done to reduce child poverty. After nine years of centre-left government, the only children still living in poverty are those living in beneficiary households, who can’t get Working for Families. Something can be done for these families. One option would be to restore benefit levels to what they were before Ruth Richardson slashed them in the 1991 ‘Mother of All Budgets’. Another option would be to increase the child tax credit portion of Working for Families, which goes to beneficiary as well as working families. Both these measures would have the added benefit of putting more money into the pockets of people who are hardest hit by the slowing economy, which would create demand and stimulate their local economies.
That child poverty has been reduced 70% is of great credit to Labour but there shouldn’t be any child poverty in a nation as wealthy as New Zealand. It’s good to see the Minister agrees. The only way to get there is with better assistance to families in need. Tax cuts alone won’t cut it.
Scrapping GST is a classic, populist issue that sounds delicious in times of high food prices but at closer inspection - it doesn’t taste good at all and isn’t the best way to help those struggling to buy food.
The cost of food and fuel has dominated the media over the long weekend and there will be many of you, like me, that just wanted this idea of removing GST to be the silver bullet. But sadly it won’t.
Here are the 7 reasons why:
1. We are global citizens and we are all facing a global food shortage. Drought (climate change), armed conflict and a surge in demand from China and India mean are the causes. Cutting GST on food is not going to do a thing about our food prices which are set internationally. Another wave of increases would take us back to square one.
2. Having two different sets of rules for GST is complicated and costly for food retailers to administer - and you can guess whom they are likely to pass their new cost onto.
3. And new costs are created for Government as well - money that could be spent on public services.
4. It will create a new, energy-sapping and probably never ending debate about what should have GST attached and what shouldn’t. Australia has this problem - cooked chickens have GST attached but cooked cold chickens do not. You have probably heard the stories. And what about taking GST off other healthy/desirable goods and services? Nicotine patches? Pilates DVDs? Doctors visits?
5. This one I just know will happen: in the initial confusion about the new prices of food, retailers will take a slice of the cut for themselves, meaning prices may not decrease by the full 12.5%. This is exactly what happened immediately after the changeover to the Euro.
6. It’s regressive - wealthy people spend more on food and will receive a bigger benefit.
7. It slashes probably 100’s of millions off our tax revenue as a country. This is money we need (especially during these times of higher economic stress) to spend on teachers, roads, doctors, Working for Families, nurses… So we either need to sack some of these people, halt some of these policies or increase taxes.
Those on no or low incomes do need more support at this time - so thank god for Working for Families, which is real financial assistance in the hand to those who need it.
Remember National’s policy of charging a $50 levy on everyone convicted of or, maybe, charged with (Key keeps on mixing up the terms) an offence? Remember all the obvious problems with it – enforcement, administration cost, natural justice issues, the pitiful size of the sum that would be collected? Well, it turns out we missed one. Fortunately, as ever, the US provides an example of what not to do:
A Maryland governmental fund created to assist “innocent” victims of violent crime has paid out nearly $1.8 million since 2003 to injured (or deceased) “drug dealers, violent offenders and other criminals,” according to an investigation by the Baltimore Sun published in March. Burial expenses were awarded for a carjacker, a victim of an inter-gang killing and a sex offender who was fatally beaten in prison. The Maryland courts have ruled that as long as the applicant was not engaged in a crime at the time he was injured, he must be considered for an award. [Baltimore Sun, 3-16-08]
Stands to reason when you think about it; people who have offended or are career criminals are often victims of crime themselves, like Tony Stanlake. So, Key’s plan (which, it is becoming more and more obvious, was made up on the hoof so he could be seen to have some policy) would be hard to enforce, expensive to administer, would punish people the same amount irrespective of the severity of their offence, wouldn’t collect much money, and a good deal of the money would likely go to criminals.
Well, he’s got the Black Power vote.
Thanks to ACT leader Rodney Hide for participating in our ‘Interview the leaders’ series this morning. Our next leader is the Maori Party’s Tariana Turia.
The general question remains:
Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud?
For the two other questions we’ve gone with Higherstandard’s question:
Can you envisage a NZ when there is no need for Maori seats in parliamanent ?
and Daveo’s question:
Having an ethnic-based party makes a lot of sense when faced with a dominant settler majority often hostile to indigenous rights, but how do you intend to address the fundamental economic and class contradictions inherent in drawing support from both powerful Maori business interests and the large Maori working class?
While we haven’t been able to cover everything you asked we have emailed Turia a link to the questions post so she can have a look at your issues. We’re expecting to post her answers next Monday.
In the meantime, our next leader is the United Future’s Peter Dunne. You can place your questions for him in the comments section of this post. Reminder: tough but fair.
Clem Simich has just announced he will be stepping down at the election. As regular readers may have noticed I’m not generally a fan of National MPs, but Simich’s liberal voting record made him one of the better ones.
To see Simich leaving to make room for the likes of Stephen Franks is not encouraging. He’ll be a loss to Parliament.
I see that the Wellington lines network has been sold. Given the network has been in in the hands of foreign investors before I can’t see a sustainable argument for blocking the sale as the Auckland Airport bid was blocked. I do think the government should have bought it back. Electricity is too important to be left to a competitive model and in my opinion the government should be taking every opportunity to return the electricity sector to public ownership and then move to re-regulate it to work cooperatively. Buy it back.
Peter Dunne is once again touting his plans to introduce income splitting.
It’s a policy aimed at helping out the wealthy. New Zealand Institute of Economic Research senior economist Patrick Nolan tells us that “80% of the tax gains of income-splitting would go to the top 20% of taxpayers”.
Dunne was reportedly “not bothered” by the criticism that top earners would do best out of the policy.
No surprise there.
Remember that Dunne’s tiny party hangs on to power only because of his safe seat of Ohariu - coincidently, an electorate with the highest median personal income levels in the country and the fifth highest family incomes.
Last week, Campbell Live ran an article about the framing of Key as slippery. It could have been an excellent piece on the merits of such attacks, the wisdom of them, and their effectiveness. In parts it was, but then Campbell did this:
The shallow premise that politics is only identical brands competing for popularity, Pepsi vs Coke reporting, is the most common complaint you hear from people about political reporting. Not only does Campbell further this empty kind of analysis, he actually acts out the bloody metaphor used to deride it!
Let’s get this clear. Politics is not a game, it is not a popularity contest, it is not commodity branding. The parties fundamentally stand for very different views of society: Labour stands for a decent job with a fair wage for all those who want it, the Greens argue sustainability must come first, National stands for the protecting the wealth and power of those who have wealth and power, United Future stands for Peter Dunne’s ego. The election is most important decision that we as a society make: who has the best policies, the competence to carry them out as well as respond to emerging issues, and can be trusted to act in our interests? It’s such an important decision that all adults get to have their say.
Reporters do New Zealand a disservice when they portray this important process as a meaningless game.
Interesting to see people gradually waking up to what Fidel Castro, last year, called “The sinister idea of converting food into combustibles”.
Even crazy ol’ Mike Moore writes about it today, although he is dead wrong when he calls biofuels “a populist Green response to global warming”. Environmentalists were always suspicious of biofuels, seeing them as a half-step and worrying about the consequences of using grains as the fuel source. It was George W Bush’s subsidies to biofuel producers, introduced with the twin goals of being seen to do something about climate change and increasing returns for farmers in electorally vital Mid-West states, that started the biofuel explosion.
Not enough food, not enough energy. Along with climate change, these could well become the defining issues of international politics in the next decade.
We’re very pleased to have ACT leader Rodney Hide respond to your questions as part of our Interview the Leaders series.
Question to all leaders:
Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud?
Making the IRD legally and culturally more accountable and responsive and getting my Regulatory Responsibility Bill to the Commerce Committee and, I hope, into law. I feel proud and privileged every day to be the MP for Epsom.
From reader r0b: Do you believe that the Earth’s climate is warming? If it is, is the warming dangerous? if it is dangerous, what does ACT believe we should do about it
I don’t like to take issue with questions but this one I can’t let pass. 1) I find it disturbing that questions of climatology are now cast in terms of belief, i.e. “Do you believe the Earth’s climate is warming?”, not about the facts and the testing of our theoretical understanding of climate; 2) the earth’s temperature has never been static and so whether it is warming or cooling or staying the same depends on the time period you choose.
Now to the questions.
The earth has been warming almost continuously for 18,000 years after 100,000 years of the ice ages. Orbiting satellites over the last 18 years have measured a slight decrease in average global temperatures.
The “warming” is NOT dangerous.
ACT intends to stop the Emissions Trading Scheme which will prove extremely costly to New Zealand for no gain. We need to negotiate a much better deal than Kyoto I in the second round. We need a deal that is Smart Green with Smart Green policies for New Zealand, not costly political showcases that don’t deliver
From reader Burt: Would ACT implement tax deductibility for private health and education fees in recognition that by purchasing these services privately tax payers are funding the public system that they do not use?
Yes.
