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Posts Tagged ‘democracy’

  1. Lefter 21 ~ What does ‘Labour’ mean?

    November 3, 2009 by emweb

    As I feared, it appears Labour MPs and party members have accepted the mindset that Labour will lose the next election in two years, and that’s how they’ll change from the Old Guard, starring Phil Goff, and move on to something we can believe in.

    If the Old Guard had any balls, they’d start doing something about this now and set up a future Labour, as I’ve said before.

    But it’s unlikely. Pride must triumph for a decent fall to result, I fear. So we’ll suffer another term of National because of this stupidity – National happily privatising NZ services to both make them more expensive for users, to depreciate their utility and to line the pockets of National’s wealthy dependents and speculators.

    And then Labour will have to buy them all back, at even greater cost, to get services running again. But what will National’s cronies care for this? Nothing – it’s a license to print money, after all.

    When I really think about it, I don’t actually know what the Labour Party stands for any more. Do you? To me, currently, it looks like an ineffectual left wing of the National Party.

    This may sound harsh, especially as Labour was responsible for a lot of good over its three terms. But Labour was also responsible for some embarrassingly pedestrian miss-steps. And who can forget the ghosts of Labour c1980s? We can’t forget because, like a slap in the face, that arch right-winger Roger Douglas is back in parliament under his true colours, leering at us and cackling like Muldoon.

    Meanwhile, National’s business supporters wait in hope for the True Blue moves they’ve been dreaming of. These will let them ‘compete’ more (shorthand for ‘make more money with less regulation’). And the farmers await their National nirvana too; they’re already asking for cuts to welfare benefits to save money to lower the currency so they can sell at even better rates, while charging those same disadvantaged New Zealanders more for second grade, home-market agri-produce due to their pecuniary god called ‘export requirements’.

    Will their hopes be fulfilled? Not while John Key remains fixated on his personal popularity. But he can’t have it both ways. The dam will break.

    Meanwhile, it’s enough to make any caring human quail. It also brings back other ghosts – of the 1920s and ’30s, when Labour first rose towards power, and when Wellington and the farmers used to entrain people into Auckland to beat up unionists and break strikes. Farmers had to get their produce to market and, unfortunately for them, a lot of it had to pass through Auckland. And boy, they just couldn’t get Auckland wages low enough, could they? All this while the business owners sat in their Remuera hills and pulled strings.

    Back then, it was damn clear what Labour stood for. Labour literally stood for those who laboured – the eight-hour day, non-dangerous workplaces, better conditions, fair wages, equity and rights.

    But now it feels like Auckland against the rest again. That Auckland comprising suburbs of workers and unemployed, anyway. And it’s up to MPs like Phil Twyford and Jacinda Ardern to rally the cause.

    But what’s the cause, Labour? Without clear branding, you’re lost. If you can’t tweet it in 140 characters (or at least, tweet a link), you don’t exist.

    And we won’t be getting a new manifesto from Phil Goff and co.

    Category Commentary, Left, New Zealand, Politics, Thought | Tags: ,,,, | 1 Comment

  2. Lefter 19 ~ Going to Prison

    September 23, 2009 by emweb

    In New Zealand, currently, there is some disquiet about our exceedingly high ranking of numbers imprisoned. We rank well above many other Western-style democracies. New Zealand seems to be throwing people into prisons at an unprecedented rate.

    The prison population was too high under Labour (a slightly left party that has been in power for three terms until ousted last year by the more right wing National Party). However, it’s now higher still, and National’s response has been to build prisons from shipping containers and to make more prisoners share rooms.

    This is so typical of the difference in right versus left philosophies, I just have to comment.

    The left (again, and understandably, generalising) tends to look at why people commit crimes, and tries to target resources accordingly. Not that this was super-effective under nine years of labour. But the left generally believes that people are good, although guidance can be called for.

    But the right, generally, thinks people are bad. The right therefore prefers to capture and punish offenders, rather than try and figure out why they are offending. You can tell somebody is right wing as soon as they start spouting off about locking people up, and getting certain people off the streets, and about ‘punishment’.

    The difference is illuminating. Philosophically, the left is saying ‘as people, how can we assist other people to be/do better?’ while the right is saying ‘criminals are other. As so  they are beyond redemption; they should be segregated from normal society.’

    The left’s efforts get characterised as those of a ‘nanny state’. Anyone against the left eagerly seizes on such catchphrases and they get repeated so much, any real meaning soon becomes lost.

    But what do the right’s efforts get characterised as? Perhaps the left just isn’t as good at one-liner denigrations.

    (Perhaps it should be.)

    But that’s beside the point. New Zealand has a high prison population because we have large disenfranchised minorities, and because the gap between rich and poor has been growing quickly over the last two decades.

    Just as wealthy people seem to be much more preoccupied with securing themselves and their property, they also seem to be much less willing to look at the possible causes of high offending rates. Partly because they are, themselves, partly responsible.

    I’m not defending criminal activity, by the way. I find violent crime utterly abhorrent. Physical violence immediately denies a victim their human rights. It’s prehistoric.

    But yes, it’s very effective. When you have nothing, or you have a drug habit, or when you’re bored out of your mind, it’s a relatively obvious and immediate option.

    So expect National to keep throwing people into every more crowded jails as they protect the farmers, the landed gentry and the business-owning classes from the other, while promising ‘better’ (as in lower) conditions that can be forced upon workers because of high unemployment.

    Does it make you feel proud?

    Category Commentary, Left, New Zealand, Politics, Thought | Tags: ,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. Lefter #15 ~ Treason!

    June 15, 2009 by emweb

    In Lefter 10 ‘A Good War’, I said that “National’s efforts will expand an increasingly desperate unemployed sector which will work for less and less money and under more onerous conditions.”

    I also said “… instead of NZ trying to trade its way out of this recession, Prime Minister John Key will just follow his experience. Which means he’ll borrow to raise money while pursuing a right-wing agenda of making the lower classes poorer while rewarding his wealthy Pakeha cronies with more access to that wealth.”

    I hate it that I’m right in this case, but National’s first budget confirms exactly what I imagined back then. It’s just so commonly a right-wing response.

    For the record, I don’t care about scrapping future tax breaks – they were only going to benefit the wealthy anyway.

    I’ve also said before that it’s a shame this recession will give National license to push out the right-wing agenda much more quickly. I believed that National was going to tread softly for the first term to win a second, and then it was all right-wing guns ablaze. However, the recession has made all that subterfuge unnecessary as any measure, pronounced with faces grave, can now be blamed on the recession.

    The Herald reported that business has welcomed Budget measures. Surprise! So have the medical and science fraternities. So has the private school sector, that privileged breeding ground of National and Act supporters. (You know it’s true. Well, so does National). While most New Zealanders face cuts and unemployment, private schools get 30 million dollars more!
    However, union groups and public educators are among those not so impressed. This is also predictable. National would actually prefer that unions and their members simply evaporated. They virtually made it happen, too, a few years ago. ‘Workers have rights? Preposterous! That would be an impediment to profit.’

    Bill English also dealt to the Super fund. Does that surprise anybody, with National’s record? Muldoon did the very same thing, disenfranchising a generation of their old ages in the process.

    The tried and true path to negotiating a recession (although it may be a Depression soon) is to invest in skills, thereby stimulating the jobs market, or at least preparing for a turnaround. Infrastructure is ripe for investment too, and pays dividends in the future for the whole country. Instead, National is intent on merely propping up its class. While doing nothing for long-term or even immediate growth.

    Unemployment is forecast to rise. Of course it is – then business owners can demand lower wages and impose worse conditions. This is nirvana for the greedy, and see how they love it. It’s evil, frankly.

    Remember the ‘jobs summit’? Why did Bill English tell a meeting of business representatives a few days before the summit that good times were coming, because soon business ‘leaders’ would be able to ‘do anything’?

    It’s treason, if you ask me. Against most New Zealanders. And does anyone still trust John Key’s ‘management’ after Melissa Lee and Richard Worth? He’s been so keen to get on TV at the drop of a hat – suddenly he’s absent or running for cover.

    We’re screwed.

    Category Commentary, Left, New Zealand, Politics, Thought | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  4. Lefter 13 ~ Representation

    May 10, 2009 by emweb

    Who do they serve?

    According to Statistics New Zealand, the working age population of New Zealand was 3,229,200 (in the year ending March 2007). Of those, 2,126,200 were employed.

    We’re supposed to be a nation of small businesses, as I said in Lefter 12 (The King of Bongo, below), but 53% of new small-to-medium NZ businesses fail in the first three years, according to a Westpac survey.

    Westpac’s analysts put it down to poor financial literacy (this was in 2003). Yes, exactly. I’d add ‘crap management skills’ to that indictment. Anyway … the National Party traditionally appeals to, and finds support from, business people, and from those running small businesses, including those in the farming sector.

    But how many people is that? In 2006, 1,511,250 New Zealanders (so around one-and-a-half million) were in paid employment – ie, they were employees. Another 234,954 were self-employed and without employees while 142,881 were officially listed as employers.

    In other words, about 76% of the listed workforce consists of people working for others. So going by this very crude calculation, National’s policies traditionally represent about 24% of the NZ workforce.

    Of course, more than 24% of the electorate voted them into power.

    Another way of looking at things would be to look at who got tax breaks. National appealed to New Zealanders’ greed with the promise of tax breaks with the implication – lapped up, sadly – that Labour was holding back from passing on their just rewards. Assuming that we’d rather have $10 bucks to spend at the Warehouse but don’t need a government-built road to take us there, perhaps.

    So when National passed on those ‘just rewards’, the tax breaks only went to those earning over $44,000 per year.

    Well, according to payscale.com, an average NZ office administrator earns $37,900, a graphic artist/designer $40,622 and a Personal Assistant squeaks over at 44,069. But if you’re about to go onto a nine day fortnight or a four-day week … goodbye, tax break.

    Last November, the salaries of MPs, ministers and the prime minister were raised by between 4% to 4.8%, by the way. So cherish the luxury of workers being able to grant themselves their own pay rises while they rule over a country going ever deeper into recession. Of course, that luxury goes only to those holding the reins of power, and of the economy, I’m afraid. Including certain board members whose callous disregard for the well being of others has placed them in positions of financial power.

    Great, though – the average wage has been increased to $12.50 an hour. Hoorah. That’s $26,000 a year for 52 x 40-hour weeks. For 60-hour weeks (not uncommon), that’s $39,000. No tax break for you, hard worker.

    Note that the average hourly earnings are much higher than this minimum wage, at $24.33 per hour. That’s a tidy $47,443.50 a year for a common 37.5-hour week, which squeaks over the tax break line, but the average figures are skewed by all those mega-earners out there who are firing people like crazy to protect their own privileged positions. Not to mention rising unemployment; it’s up 2% over the last three months. Not to mention those high earners also got much bigger tax breaks from National.

    Does your government represent you?

    Category Commentary, Left, New Zealand, Politics, Thought | Tags: ,,,, | 1 Comment