And on another note, re white-anting; the attempts by the Greens to encroach on Labour territory is also happening in Australia. Former AWU Secretary Bill Shorten (now Assistant Finance Minister) got it right when he said that people will always need unions and that Labor and unions were a “bulwark of democracy”.
“The idea that people, when they go to work, don’t need assistance is wrong.”
Mr Shorten said his view of unionism was not based on the idea that workers were stupid or unable to think for themselves.
But an individual working in a large company would always need support.
“The company has a human resources manager, the company belongs to an employer association, the company has lawyers,” he said.
“Who do you have?”
Mr Shorten said Labor’s mission to deliver social justice remained in place and that the party’s strongest asset was its ability to tailor policies to help people cope with change.
He said he did not want to spark a verbal stoush with the Greens but noted that the minor party had no economic story.
The New Zealand Labour Party has its roots in the trade union movement. The unions are evolving and adapting as they should.The Labour Party draws on talent from many walks of life, as it should. It’s perspectives are not always in direct alignment with unions.
But let’s not every forget where we came from and what our enduring values are. And how important that relationship is.
I won’t.
Tracey – I’m with you in much of what you say.
Measuring our ’success’ by the amount of unnecessary junk we can buy is a very bad metric and now that the fundamentals of life for most people are covered does little to improve us as individuals or as a society.
Unfortunately politicians of almost all parties treat this as the Holy Grail, and until there’s some sort of consensus to stop trying to outbid each other in this area it’ll continue with all the negative implications that has.
Someone will accuse us of being other people now George
How about instead of Epoch George, you ask which Demographic or maybe even ” class” I belong to, because where I come from I don’t see many people heading off on holidays, especially overseas ones. As for the plethora of electronic gadgets … can people REALLY afford them or are they just racking them up on credit cards – ( after all, LabNat have taught us all that “Debt is Good”).
Oh, and i’m not talking about 50 years ago , more like 20-30 years ago…y’know the days, when Electricity belonged to US and was affordable…when we had a POST OFFICE and its profits were returned to US…. y’know, before LabNat sold all of OUR stuff to their chums .
Wanda – not to nitpick but 20-30 years ago neither Electricorp nor NZ Post returned a significant dividend.
Then again, they weren’t operated with that purpose in mind.
Often they ran at a loss within any given FY and were essentially propped up by injections of taxation (particularly for Capital Works).