On our regular radio show (on Radio Chinese Voice AM936) the Minister for Ethnic Affairs Pansy Wong and I engage in a Q & A session with listeners.
I made the point recently that under her watch the ethnic unemployment rate has grown to 13.5 percent while the Asian unemployment rate has doubled to 10.5 percent.
However, it is not fair for me to make her to face the music on these statistics. After all, she is just following her Party lines. No wonder every time I ask her about topical matters (either through my columns in the Chinese media or Written Questions) such as how to grow economy or create jobs her standard response appears to be organising yet another “ethnic forum”.
The ‘ethnic forum’ she so positively speaks about sounds eerily similar to her Government’s catastrophic Job Summit. It will be just another talk-fest. A token gesture which does nothing to address the unemployment issue.
Media have summarised well that the top three measures implemented by the National-Act Government so far are the national cycle way; the job summit and the 90-day fire-at-will employment law.
The top three measures, despite being futile, have prompted blogs on the Chinese-language social media site istars.me to encourage fellow internet surfers to play a game similar to but different from crosswords.
A loose translation of the blog (copied below) is as follows:
After listening to what Raymond Huo said this morning regarding the National Government’s top three measures in job creation, I had the following words sprung to my mind:
a 2-word phrase: ‘be disgraced’;
a 3-word phrase: ‘can’t help it’;
a 4-word phrase: ‘donkey exhausted its tricks’ [derived from a Chinese idiom];
a 5-word phrase: ‘come off sentry duty now’ [derived from a popular Chinese phrase "xia-gang" which means "if one failed to deliver he or she will be removed from the office.]
Being made redundant is probably its English equivalent. Some further commenting by bloggers said that they would ‘never vote’ for National again for failing to deliver and for breaking promises such as raising GST, among other things.
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2010-07-22 16:20
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2?????????
3???90?????????????
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The bright side of this is that the National Government’s empty rhetoric is not always useless. It offered, like this blogger has demonstrated, some good initiatives for migrants to hone their linguistic skills.
Ha, brilliant. Poor P.W. must so look forward to engaging with you in the media.
“After all, she is just following her Party lines.”
So are you Raymond, so are you.
Um, it’s inevitable to follow the partyline –but at least Pansy should have tried to be a bit creative.
Ethnic forum, I wonder what words of wisdom Pansy WrONG has about this?
So tell us Raymond – how much of the unemployment is due to Labour and Cullen driving the tradables sector into recession in 2005 – and entering a general recession in 2007? The former of course being during a world wide economic Boom.
The reality is that National is trying to dig the country out of this deep deep hole – and the task is not made any easier by bailing out companies such as South Canterbury Finance to the tune of $1.7b which will put the recovery back years. (Thanks to Cullen and his gaurantee of dodgy financial organisations)
The reality is that National is standing beside the hole waiting for someone else to dig us out of it.
National could have removed the guarantee. It’s not like they feel beholden to promises or such things given the broken ones so far since 2008.
N moral high ground here Monty.
Monty…..monty….where have i heard that before????……..aah! monty python!!! they told me you were dead! your material needs work though.
richard… are you trying to impersonate vincent price? not a bad one if you are. just needs a bit more gravitas to be convincing!!!
Her name is Pansy, and she is a Pansy. It all in the name… I remember her on telly and she seem a bit colourless and flat…
Monty
Could you explain how tax cuts for the rich gets us out of a hole.
What colored glasses does one need to see it.
C’mon Monty what is Nationals plan to increase equity through our society.
What is Nationals plan to discourage the imports that are making some traders and importer rich but creating unemployment here and ramping up our national debt.
Meh.
The main problem is that the National Govt took so long to act once it became clear that there were major issues with SCF.
The reality is that National will make unemployment worse, will make socioeconomic inequality worse, will make working conditions worse, will make pay for the average worker worse…but yeah, Jonkey and Blinglish voted themselves $300pw tax cuts so all is not lost.
@Loota
I’m pretty sure they (Key and English) didn’t go to all the bother to get themselves into the leadership of this country just so they could vote themselves some more money per week
you’re right that’s the small change that they’ve picked up along the way, Double Dipton shows he is far more ingenuous and ambitious than that for instance.
I must say English’s double dipping dos throw some doubt on the idea that they dont go into politics for the enrichment?
Loota, is it really up to the government to directly get involved in SCF? Was the state of SCFs affairs all fully open to scrutiny? How about all the other finance companies, or SMEs around the country going under? The crux with the finance companies and the like is simply a lack of regulation and crap, unqualified and again unregulated so-called financial advisers.
“regulation and crap, unqualified and again unregulated so-called financial advisers.”
Yep, that about right.
Plus the directors, management can’t be held responsible in any way what, all golden parachutes.
So the don’t have to perform well, they got nothing to lose.
If the company doesn’t make a profit they still make a bonus.
Also want goes on with directors and management NEEDS to be more transparent. They use smoke screens and mirror to hide the bad stuff and serious issues.
So when anything bad does happen it seems to appear out of nowhere!
“I’m pretty sure they (Key and English) didn’t go to all the bother to get themselves into the leadership of this country just so they could vote themselves some more money per week” Well why would they need to ?
Blinglish has the Dipton cash cow and Key his millions 
Agreed Tracey, so good to have you here