We are all hoping for a better year in 2011. I want to be optimistic about it, but there’s some 2010 issues that are not going to go away (and nor should they) just because it’s 2011.
I believe they will test the government even more this year and John Key’s smile and wave response to the max. None of them will surprise you, but feel free to add more.
- Pike River Coal Mine disaster : The sadness and anger at the loss of lives will continue through 2011 as the inquiry picks its way through the tragedy of 29 dead miners. The now jobless West Coasters will do it hard. Answers to some tough questions will be demanded and it won’t be pretty.
- Canterbury Earthquake – Many Christchurch families are still struggling in temporary accommodation, businesses are still going broke and workers losing their jobs. 8000 EQC claims have been turned down and the Xmas aftershocks won’t have helped. Great to be heroes in the immediate aftermath, but we’re into the hard stuff now. The government will be pushed a lot more about its support to the region.
- Employment law changes : – rammed through under urgency, with still many questions unanswered about the impact of the law. Every day I hear a story of worker dumped under a 90 day trial period and once it applies to everyone from 1 April, look out. We still don’t know why the Minister chose to ignore Cabinet advice that there shouldn’t be any access restrictions where health and safety is involved – the Minister may well regret this.
- The Hobbit – if the government thinks no-one noticed that it sold out a whole category of workers to please an American company, it’s got another think coming. Complaint to the ILO anyone?
- A tanking economy – with pre Xmas redundancies in the Wood and Meat Industries. But the government has little faith in our NZ workforce and is unprepared to invest in NZ jobs so that instead we have China making new locomotives for New Zealand use, putting good jobs on the line in Dunedin’s Railway workshops.
- Cost of living increases, already being harshly felt by those with the least. The tax cuts (for those who got them) will have receded in voter’s minds and austerity will become a word the government uses as its excuse for poor economic management and no plan.
- ACC changes legislated for earlier in 2010 now having an impact. The scandal around sensitive claims was one thing, but more claims will be denied due to “degenerative disease” and the impact of the 6% threshold for hearing loss claims will hit the headlines. Privatisation on the election agenda.
- Cuts to Early Childhood Education – just starting to be felt in late 2010 with more to come in early 2011. Families are already grumpy about this, but the government hasn’t seen the half of it.
And before any of you ask, what’s Labour going to do, I think Phil Goff said it very succinctly in his NZ Herald interview yesterday :
We’re looking at active management of the New Zealand economy to perform better for New Zealanders, to lift wages and to create jobs, none of which the Government has done. We are looking at other small countries that have done so much better than New Zealand in their economic development – Denmark, Finland, Singapore, Israel – smart economies. We will be looking at skill development, at R&D, at better savings and investment track records and being a clean, green clever economy, by contrast to what the Government has done. The closer we get to the election, the more you’ll see the detail, but a lot of that will be in the broad campaign period, the last three months.
Happy New Year – I really mean it. Rest up for a little longer if you can, because there’s a lot of work to do.
You too Darien!
! This is a year for us to show solidarity and fight fight fight! 
!
Darien, I can’t see Labour doing very well this year. I don’t think that people are ready for us yet. Just because things are going bad with National in the first term doesn’t mean that they’ll swing back straight to Labour.
I also think that Labour needs to work on it’s policy more. I was disappointed about the announcement on the fresh fruit and vegetables. I would have preferred opening up the campaign with something like $15 an hour, which you had a bill on.
I too am looking for more this year. I will be looking for National to produce an election manifesto that includes:
* Asset Sales.
* Liability Sales – NZ Rail.
* Tax Cuts
* Winding up WFF
* Review of Student Loans.
* Review and repeal of ETS.
* Withdrawal from Kyoto
Those will be a good start and will start to convince me that a NACT government is worthy of my vote.
RWNJ alert
pdm why wait for national to promise/pledge/whatever your wish list- its allready ACT election policy ….. but you know how much votes ACT gets.-About the same as the Maori party.
meanwhile Labour lite gets national 45% +. They run these things past focus groups you know and polling.
Otherwise you can hold your breath till they ‘see the light’
You wish for more tax cuts? Really? Whose paying for them? Perhaps our ‘small’ weekly ‘borrowings’ (in part thanks to bad mismanagement and ill devised tax cuts in the first place perhaps, from your precious nats??) could be expanded to cut taxes? Perhaps we could build another cycle track? This time from West to east on each island? A zig zag perhaps?
And they think the left are dreamers….
paul – the money saved from getting rid of Wff will be a good start towards tax cuts. Get rid of NZ Rail will be another put Student Loans on a better basis will be a third and I haven’t even mentioned reducing the bloated civil service.
Working for families is tax cuts, given to those who need them most.
Good luck in an election campaign if the nats announce an intent to cut them.
As for the rest of your la la land hatchet philosophies, I noticed your focus is on cutting rather than creating new wealth.
That’s an admission of economic failure from the right if ever there was one.
If you want a growing economy, NZ has to vote Labour.
Its sad that you think we should get rid of Kiwirail PDM. I would have thought the lesson would have been learned that asset sales benefit almost nobody. Last time our right wing government sold Kiwirail, the sale money disappeared into a black hole, the service became unsafe due to lack of investment in maintenance and upkeep and we had to buy it back so there would at least be some rail services. As for the public service, that is being run down to such an extent that it is very hard to get any service any more. I feel sure that if you want hospital treatment, a policeman to come to see you when some left wing person pickets outside your property, kids to be educated etc you would like a decent system to take care of that for you. Stop being such a hypocrite.
@ P.D.m
These ‘tax cuts’ – how will they leave families better off than how they are supported now under wff.
- Who do you think should run NZ Rail instead, and how will our transport system and our communities be better served?
- In what way do you think student loans should be tweaked (on this one we have agreeance to some extent(, but I am curious about your solution and its practicalities)
– and this bloated civil service – who exactly do you refer. You see in terms of culling actual people, its good to know who you mean. In education, is it frontline staff or backroom staff – and whats your justification for culling? Same for Health etc
In otherwords, whats the detail behind your ‘policy’ lines.
The list was a bit pessimistic for my liking. All the things noted are somewhat trivial when compared to the woes of other countries around the world.
If anything I think politicians compound misery rather than abet it.
So your’e a core National voter pdm, students unable to save to buy a home or working families in poverty doesn’t get between you and some money in your own pocket.
SPC – I am probably in the lower echelons of white middle class but I do have personal pride and respect for myself.
In mid April I become eligible for NZ Super – the only benefit anyone in my family of wife and four children has ever received other than my children getting the iniquitous WFF, which they do not need.
- Travelled on public roads
- Had subsidised GP and plunket visits
- Used public schools (or been taught by teachers trained in public universities)
- Interest free student loans and student allowances (say to the grandkids if not the kids)
- Access to emergency services
- Benefitted from food safety regulation, financial services/banking regulation
- etc
What’s this got to do with who you vote for?
Are you saying that people receiving a benefit don’t have personal pride and respect for themselves?
Or is that what you are implying, a not so subtle repetition of the Right Wing meme.
Do people who do not need WFF tax credits need a tax cut instead?
And what has personal pride got to do with wages being so low people need WFF to provide for their families. Or with students receiving interest free loans – a generation ago people got student allowances and free education through university.
What I am saying CV is that I have no time whatsoever for the nanny state and vote buying actions of the Clark led government in particular. Including the misappropriation of $800,000 plus of taxpayers money to fund elections and the passing of insidious retrospective legislation to cover ones tracks and the tracks of their mates – one of whom still owes the taxpayer $158,000.
I drive on the roads etc because my taxes and local body rates where appropriate contribute to there upkeep – as did the taxes paid by my parents while I attended primary and high school.
As far as food safety and financial regulations are concerned – do we need them all or should we not be more careful and responsible for what we eat and where we invest our money.
pdm, isnt WFF just a back door tax cut targeting the opposite end of the earning spectrum to the national tax cuts from 2010? I odnt have children, so children related tax cuts dont come my way, but I pay for schools, free health etc. I benefit from living in a community and understand that other peoples children will be contributing later in their lives to pay for the schools, health, roads, pension (if it still exists) when I get older.
“Every day I hear a story of worker dumped under a 90 day trial period” Darien, what percentage asked for reasons and what percentage are/were told. Is there a way to ascertain any pattern (or too early) in some workplaces these people come from, that they are going through people every 90 days and then the next 90 days and so on? This is the information I would like to hear about, either way.
As for food safety regulations, well the Chinese are importing more milk powder after they found their own was unsafe. And the UK and USA are finding that no matter how careful people over where they invest their money they cannot avoid paying to bail out their own banks.
It seems to me national and ACT supporters only dont like certain types of government interference. For example, I wont hear anyone jumpin gup and down at the new science and technology board and fund which is basically a subsidy for businesses R & D. New Zealand companies have some of the worst rates of investment in their own R & D. National removed the tax break from labour, which encouraged businesses to invest in themselves. Now National introduces a Government fund to give out money for the same thing. I’m sorry which one is encouraging self responsibility and the othe ris a govt handout?
hey guys, leave PDM alone, if national goes down that road with that list labour will win easily.
with the selling of kiwirail,, all you need to do is look at the roading cuts for anywhere but auckland to realise that soon rail will be the only option as trucks will not be able to go on the provincial roads.
yes i am being serious with this statement, some of the rural roads in nz are turning to crap.
hey guys, leave PDM alone..
Abso-blooming-lutely waterboy, all the very best in convincing Grinny-do-nothing to adopt your list pdm.
After all, he squeaked to glory on the back of “Everything Helen said plus $50/week”, so you’re correct: after putting us in hock to give the rich hundreds a week, “Everything Helen said plus my grin” seems unlikely to cut it.
You go, son. (and of course, as someone with “personal pride and respect for yourself”, you’ll be advising your kids to give that WFF they don’t need to charity, hmmm?)
And this is what Right Wing ideology doesn’t get.
Not every Joe and Joanne Blow can be a financial specialist or a nutritionist or a food technologist. Not everyone has the knowledge or the time to develop a comprehensive understanding of the risks and benefits of an investment tool.
Not everyone can see through the marketing smokescreen and the biased experts.
So yeah, we do need a fair bit of regulation – and for that regulation to be enforced – in certain critical areas.
Actually I’m still sure what you said was that you had self respect and that people who receive benefits don’t. Because you didn’t say anything about the nanny state etc in your earlier posts.
As for vote buying – you’ve already stated that tax cuts into your own pocket funded by services cuts and asset sell offs will be enough to purchase your vote for National. Don’t you think that’s hypocritical?
Isnt WFF a subsidy for businesses who pay their workers peanuts but expect the workers to give 110% in return for the pittance so many earn. Every worker who works full time should be able to feed and clothe their families and provide a decent roof over their heads, without this government subsidy but as long as we have a government pushing wages even further downwards, this wont happen. We need this redistribution to happen to avoid more abject poverty in NZ.
No Majorie because the workers without children who get paid peanuts get nothing.
Not just hypocritical but psychopathic.
“No Majorie because the workers without children who get paid peanuts get nothing.”
@tracey – you are absolutely correct with this statement, as a family who has receive WFF for 1 year and will hopefully be eligable for it again in teh future it is a privalege that labour gave familys, its not fair on those who choose not to have children, but it does make life easier and take some of the stress away. labour gave us paid maternity leave, 12 months parental leave, 20 hours free child care for over 3′s and it has maid life alot easier on familys. it isnt fair on those who dont have children, i wont deny this, but there are alot of follw on benefits for the country in doing these.
Personally i thank labour for doing these things to help us survive, i dont feel like national gives a damn about familys.
There are alot of us and alot of granparents.
Yeah, numbers of childless adults/couples continue a gradual march upwards IIRC. These are people with fewer ties who can pick up and leave pretty easily too.
I have said many times that I accept I live in a community and have no problem supporting those who do have children. However I dont support people who make statements which assume that only families are the real contributors or real workers.
familys are mportant for the continued survival of NZ into the future,:)
I think persnoally that 95% of all those in the work force work hard(the amouunt you earn has nothing to do with how hard you work), its like everything, there are always a few are lazy or not part of the team.
i likewise get annoyed with those who are on higher incomes who say that ” got here by hard work”immplying that everyone else is on low incomes because they are lazy. Most businesses do well by the rd work of the workers a the bottom, thats life.
labour has and always will do more for the larger amount of the population than national beacuse labour works on teh principal that a country is only as good as its people at teh bottom. national works on teh principal that if you look after those at teh top, theywill filter there money down to those at teh bottom and those at teh bottom will aspire to be just like those at teh top.
Or more specifically, convincing families that their future, their children’s future and their grand children’s future are better and brighter here instead of in Australia, will be important for the continued survival of NZ.
Marjorie you have hit the nail on the head. WFF is middle class taxpayers subsidising middle class welfare with the IRD taking their admin cut. Daftest bit of bribery ever, where do the recipients of WFF think there cheque comes from. Why not cut taxes for parents with kids and cut out the middle man.
Hi Darien
Happy new year. At least I hope it will be a happy new year as the current news from around the world with regards to oil and food pricing, public demonstrations/riots in Europe makes me less inclined to think so.
But closer to home, Labour’s continual acceptance of the failed neo-liberal economic wet dream experiment that passes for policy these days leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Where is the bold new economic plan for this country? Being National Lite economically will not bring me back to voting Labour and in my opinion will not sway many of those on the left who are currently looking for a political home.
You have a golden opportunity this year, do not waste it by thinking the current corrupt government will fail enough for Labour to sneak in by default.
I’m looking for change we can believe in (where have I heard that before!)
Kevin
@ Kevin Welsh : Thanks for New Year wishes. Tend to agree 2011 will be a very difficult year. There’s been a lot of thinking and dialogue going on within Labour about our economic and other policy. A lot of it’s not public, but Labour members, policy groups and the caucus have been working hard on this. I can assure you that we’re not sitting on our hands and waiting for the government to fail.
Kevin Welsh said:
“Labour’s continual acceptance of the failed neo-liberal economic wet dream experiment that passes for policy these days leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.”
As someone in regular contact with many Labour members and MPs, that is not correct. It needs to be remembered that the former Labour neo-liberals left the Party nearly twenty years ago, but it takes more than nine years in govt.(especially since they were a coalition govt. and so could only move as fast as their partners allowed) to dismantle an economic system which became so entrenched in NZ. Labour was working slowly towards changing our economic structures, but unfortunately they wern’t given the chance to complete the task. Now we’re rapidly returning to square one which is a great shame.
Wow, lets put all your energy into making sure people have their two stat days back that they will miss this year.
Well done Labour, that will really get us moving forward this year. Not surprising though.
Focus on something that is really of importance to New Zealanders and the economy and people may listen.
@Mike – bit of an overreaction don’t you think?
@DarienFenton
“bit of an overreaction don’t you think?”
ummmm… this from a politician? wtf?? ;o)
just fed up mate.
@Mike – aren’t we all?
Mike, you do understand that a happy and well rested workforce is more productive than one that is unhappy and tired? Less workplace accidents, happier families and so on. It is short sited to assume mondayising, not needed every year, is somehow a waste of time.
I know many places which are open for work and have been throughout christmas, and for many of them the owner is not back yet. They certainly understand the benefit of rest for themselves and their family.
Tracey it is a waste of time. It happens every 7 years, get over it. I will still celebrate ANZAC day on a weekend.
If a workforce is unhappy and unrested because they have to work an additional two days once every 7 years… good grief.
Lastly, you will find that the business owners you have mentioned have worked twice the hours that their employees have worked through the year. And they have not been party to the numerous benefits given to employees.
Oh come off it Mike, if only the world were as black and white as you think it is.
I’m an employer, I work longer hours than my three guys do, but then I do get the lions share of profit, yet I gave them the extra time off without thinking about it.
I don’t do 90 day sacking trials either.
Good will on my part goes much much further than the dollars I would have kept in the bank instead of paying out two measely extra days.
My workers earn us our money at the metaphoric coal face.
I respect them, and they respect me – It’s a great relationship.
A pity more kiwi companies don’t seem to value the benefits of a motivated, valued workforce.
Well said Al1ens. I am not arguing that fact at all and it sounds like you have a great little (or big) company.
My argument is that there are more pressing concerns that Labour could be targeting/putting effort into than the issue of 2 missed days holiday every 7 years. Then again it is election year…
I think the true value of any political party, especially in opposition, is that they address all issues, big or small.
I don’t think for one minute that Darien, by posting on this subject, is taking her eye of the bigger picture facing NZ.
I’m confident all the party mps can multitask.
Thanks Al1ens: talk about a breath of fresh air.
And Mike, of course there are more pressing concerns for Labour – I think Phil was just responding to questions from the media; we are putting effort into economic and other policy ideas – perhaps have a look at http://www.labour.org.nz – and watch this space.
I will Darien, I am enjoying the discussion/debate.
Mike, at 4.5m over 2-4 years the PEDA grant was very small fry in the overall sceme of things but it was, rightly, pursued, and mainly int he small, pacific island media and finally others took notice which was great.
I know size matters
but 10 small things can equal one big one.