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His vision of a grey country

Posted by A Guest Poster on November 22nd, 2011

Jordan Carter is a Wellington-based List candidate

John Key’s rather wooden performances in the leaders’ debates so far, are consistent with his vision for New Zealand.  A country painted bright grey, where everyone is “ambushus” for — well, nothing much really, except power in Key’s case.

Through the whole election campaign, Labour has stood up for New Zealand and the country we can be:  a place where everyone can work at a decent job on decent wages, where the environment is clean and protected, and where we respect and look after each other, rather than creating false divides between Kiwis.

The policy framework we have rolled out is a plan that will tackle long-standing problems the country faces.  It’ll fix the things that hold us back: unfair taxes, biased investment into speculation, a lack of skilled and trained workers, housing shortages and so on.

But it’s the frank appeal to what it means to be a New Zealander that is exciting about Labour’s campaign.

Stopping asset sales is part of that, but think back to the other bits of recent political history: “gone by lunchtime” on New Zealand’s nuclear free (Brash, who Key is trying to disinter from his political grave); the effort to get mining done on Schedule 4 lands; the attacks on people on benefits; the pegging in of people’s rights at work; the “it’s not a priority” message to diverse communities all around New Zealand.

Their whole effort is to diminish and undermine the things that make us who we are, and to turn us into a privatised, corporatised bunch of Klingons who are only consumers, never citizens, and where to have a different ambition or even a different opinion is to be something other than “mainstream”.

National and John Key are running a grey campaign and their vision of our country is grey to match.  They are avoiding the tough issues, have no plan to change the economy or protect our environment, and just haven’t got what it takes to let every New Zealander get ahead — and to look after the people who can’t.

There is more to us than that. We are a better country than that.  We don’t need a bright grey future. We need one where everyone can fly.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture
10 Comments

The joy of campaigning

Posted by A Guest Poster on November 19th, 2011

Kate Sutton
This is the smile of a woman who enrolled 20 Labour voters in one hour!

Kate Sutton is the Labour candidate for Waikato

Today I spoke to over 100 people on doorsteps in Morrinsville and Huntly West.  Doorknocking can be hard work for a candidate and their team but it’s where the real action happens.

I love this kind of campaigning – being with real people where they live is THE greatest thing – you get to hear about what’s bothering them, the gripes and rants, but also you get to share in their hopes and dreams for the future.

Too many times during this campaign I have heard from voters on the doorstep in Huntly and Ngaruawahia that they were promised a brighter future and many of them gave their vote to National last time, but nothing has improved for them.

A surprising number remember Paula Bennett and John Key talking about their backgrounds at the last election, how they said they had come from hardship and for the voters they thought that Bennett and Key “got them”, but now they feel ripped off.

There are very few jobs, there is nothing for kids to do, and just living is expensive. They will be voting for Labour this time.

There are still too many people not on the electoral roll. My small team and I have been enrolling Labour voters like crazy (10 – 20 per street) and we will be doing this right up to Friday and I know there are plenty of other Labour candidates doing the same thing across the country.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture
5 Comments

Occupy Red Alert

Posted by A Guest Poster on October 21st, 2011
Dr David Clark is the Labour candidate for Dunedin North

I have been intrigued by the swift spread of the ‘Occupy’ movement.  It’s already a world-wide phenomenon.  While its purpose has not clearly been articulated in the media, it’s got me thinking.

Campbell Jones offers as plausible an explanation and statement of purpose for the movement as any I’ve seen.  His Dom Post article is worth a read. Here’s a taster:

The Occupy movement is, however, not only about economic and political forces, but equally about ideas. It objects not only to the remarkable inequalities between and within countries, but also challenges the ideas that have up until now sought to justify those inequalities.

The movement is fighting the idea that unregulated capitalism somehow benefits everyone, and argues instead that it is a system involving systematic inequality that principally serves the interests of a small elite.

Truth is, it is difficult to escape markets in the modern world. New Zealand sells dairy and other produce in the international market.  Within New Zealand, buying and selling (a market) is our preferred method of distributing goods and services.

Markets have been working – more or less – since the caveman.  (Routine profiteering in markets is relatively new, but that’s another story). Markets are created to efficiently solve distribution issues. But let’s not forget that they are a human construct, to solve human problems.

And markets are not the only solution.

Markets have no intrinsic sense of fairness.   A simple market-economy would allocate the bulk of health and education resources to the highest bidder – likely those with the largest inherited wealth.  And most people don’t think that’s fair.

If we accept that all people should have free access to decent healthcare and a reasonable level of education, it is because we think everyone should have the opportunities that this brings, and because we think our whole society benefits from it.

In the case of healthcare and education, we decide that a market cannot allocate these resources fairly, and so we find another method of allocating them – according to need.

Yes, the Occupy movement is drawing attention to the way in which resources are unevenly distributed, and the way in which they serve entrenched interests.  But the movement is also reminding us that markets are not the only way in which resource allocation questions can be answered.  (Think rapid redistribution of wealth during the French Revolution, for example.)

We should never think that markets are the only option.  And if we think a market is the right option for any given question, we should always ask how it is set up, and whose interests it is designed to serve.  These things can be changed.

In many if not most situations, markets make excellent servants – but terrible masters.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture, Fair Share, democracy, inequality
31 Comments

Respect for our seniors

Posted by A Guest Poster on October 4th, 2011

In 2011, Red Alert has done a few new things. One of them is to introduce you to some new Labour candidates who will do the occasional guest post.

This gives them the opportunity to put forward some ideas and you the opportunity to get a sense of who they are before the upcoming election.

Today’s guest poster is Ben Clark, the Labour candidate for North Shore.

redalertBenClark

It’s Age Concern Awareness Week , and the International Day of the Older Person was on October 1.

Although I spent Saturday being told how young I looked while out door-knocking and at Mairangi Bay market, I was pleased to be able to tell a number of people about Labour’s newly released Aged Care Policy.

And it impressed them.  It’s not just important to an older electorate like the North Shore, because all of us don’t know how we will spend our final years.  So having some of our money protected against rest-home costs ($180,000 currently and increasing $10,000 per year) is important.  Having the certainty of quality care is also vitally important.

And mandating trained staff, with minimum staffing levels and decent pay will make a huge difference.

At the moment there are problems with overstretched nurses and too little knowledge.  The care levels aren’t always what they should be.  With the higher quality care mandated, we can all be assured of the respect we deserve in our final years.

A number of people compared the importance of qualified carers to Labour’s requirements for qualified Early Childhood Education teachers.  If we’re going to pay our taxes, then we deserve proper quality – at both ends of our lives.

Ben Clark lives in Devonport, and has worked as a computer programmer in hi-tech exporting industry for his whole career (mostly in computer games!).  He’s a regular blogger on The Standard and created John Key’s Asset Sales Hoover Game earlier in the campaign.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture, aged care
21 Comments

Pulling the land from under us

Posted by A Guest Poster on October 3rd, 2011

In 2011, Red Alert has done a few new things. One of them is to introduce you to some new Labour candidates who will do the occasional guest post.

This gives them the opportunity to put forward some ideas and you the opportunity to get a sense of who they are before the upcoming election.

Today’s guest poster is Julian Blanchard, the Labour party candidate for Rangitata in 2011.

Juilan Blanchard

One of things that most political parties have consensus on is that we need to export more to help our economy.

The region where I am candidate is based around agriculture products and there is potential here to do more. We have an underutilized port in Timaru and the ability to have sensible environmentally sound water storage solutions in Mid Canterbury.

Currently agriculture makes up two thirds of New Zealand’s exports so why is the National Government (the so-called party for farmers) selling the land from under us?

During the first five months of 2011, the Overseas Investment Office approved 49 deals amounting to 30,724 ha of land that are now foreign owned. Only three offers during the last 12 months have been turned down. One for the Crafar farms and the other two amounting to only 35ha of land. The National Government has said it would tighten controls, but the reverse has happened.

If we don’t own our land how can we make money from it?

For the region of Mid and South Canterbury the family farm is beginning to be a thing of the past. Corporate farms owned offshore are now common place. Timaru and Ashburton are rural towns that have done well when local farmer spend money locally. Now that money is drying up the region will begin to feel the strain.

I am pleased to see Labour will act immediately and reverse the current approach. Labour would restrict foreigners from buying more than 5ha of farmland. While we need investment here, we need also to see the manufacturing of the good to be here as well. That will create jobs for regions like Rangitata and keep our rural towns alive.

Since 2009 Julian was the Manager of the Konica Minolta Timaru and previously had his own business for nine years supplying Panasonic Business Products across New Zealand. Julian also works part time for the Port FM Music Network hosting music and sports shows on the network across the central South Island.

Julian is married to Julie Cloake and together they have a six year old son Archie.

Filed under: #ownourfuture, Investment, agriculture, asset sales
40 Comments

Downgrades raise the stakes for November

Posted by A Guest Poster on October 2nd, 2011

Jordan Carter is a Wellington-based List candidate

Economic issues are what every election campaign revolves around, with few (but always explosive) exceptions.  2011 will be no different, and people face a stark choice about the direction New Zealand will take.

Friday’s double downgrade of New Zealand’s sovereign credit rating raises the stakes for November, making the choice of direction more important than ever.

It’s important to remember what we face is a New Zealand debt crisis. It’s not an issue of Government debt, though that is rising with no apparent plans to pay it off by the current team in charge. Labour’s proposed a set of tax reforms that close the fiscal deficit in the long run, and they’re an important part of the choice. More than that is needed though.

The challenge the country faces is to save more and spend less.  That’s both to meet the international scrutiny we face, and to get New Zealand onto a more sustainable path to growth.

There’s an old truth: doing the same thing gets you the same results. For the past couple of years John Key’s government has done nothing much economically speaking, and so nothing much has happened.  Despite record commodity prices, indifferent policy has led to low growth and static (and too high) unemployment.

Labour is a more open minded party when it comes to the economy.  We are prepared to sort out problems that arise, and are prepared to join the other big economies in accepting that the neoliberal hands off craziness of the 1980s, 1990s and parts of the 2000s is well past its use-by date.

That’s why we have put some very big and very tough policies on the line so far, with more to come.  On fairer taxes, youth employment, Canterbury recovery, spending discipline, we’ve struck a tough but credible line. More policies like that are on the way.

We can’t do those things as a country if the focus is only on cutting spending in the public sector. That won’t satisfy the ratings agencies, and it won’t satisfy what New Zealanders want: shared prosperity and a believable route back to better times.

None of the policies Labour has flagged are particularly easy policies to have crafted.  None of them bring any particular short term benefits in a political sense to Labour or the left.  None of them are the sorts of things you’d expect a self-obsessed opposition to come up with.

That’s because we realise how serious the country’s situation is right now. Other people are waking up to the situation too.

It would be so gratifying to be able to promise the world, or be cute with the numbers, or seek to curry favour with every interest group that has a request for new spending.  It’d be lovely to be able to undo all of the cuts that National has made.

“Get real” is the response.  New Zealand can’t afford to do that, and Labour isn’t going to propose an agenda that the country cannot afford.  Friday’s downgrades should draw a line under plans by any party to make unfunded spending promises or reckless tax cuts that cannot be paid for.

Without the tax reforms we are arguing for and the targeted investments we have pledged, New Zealand’s future is bleak.  This country would simply carry on carrying on with the slow drift we briefly escaped in the 2000s. 

More foreign ownership, more income drift, more tax unfairness, more stealthy cuts to needed services, more downgrades: more of the same, leading to more of the same.

2011’s election isn’t about Labour or National.  It certainly isn’t about the politicians who inhabit either side of the political divide (sorry to my future colleagues!). 

It’s about a choice between two competing paths for the future, and the drive to change and improve things that will turn those pretty pictures into reality.  The stakes are high and the choice is starker than ever.

Filed under: #ownourfuture, economy
10 Comments

Politics matters to conservation

Posted by A Guest Poster on September 14th, 2011

In 2011, Red Alert is doing a few new things. One of them is to introduce you to some confirmed Labour candidates who will do the occasional guest post.

Today’s guest poster is Christine Rose, the candidate for Rodney.
Rose-145x63-fb

Kokako are one of New Zealand’s most beautiful songbirds. They sing in ‘gently paced, wistful tunes’, with an ‘organ-like song’ that can carry for kilometres. They are distinguished by their dusky grey plumage, their bright blue fleshy wattles and a little black face mask. They skip through the forest more than they fly, and come from an ancient lineage.  But kokako have been pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss and predation.

Kokako were once widespread, found in the North and South Islands.  But they are particularly vulnerable because of their poor flying ability, unable to flee from forest destruction to new habitats, and with females on the nest most prone to predation.  One study found only about one chick in 10 nests survives.

In the 1980s there were only about 350 pairs of blue wattled, North Island, kokako left.  Through good pest control and protection of remaining birds, (by volunteers and DoC), the population is now about 750 pairs and the aim of the National Kokako Recovery project is to have 1000 pairs in dispersed locations, by 2020. In Auckland, a small population of mainly male kokako remained in the Hunua Ranges, but they were totally extinct in the Waitakeres.

Over the last few years passionate and hardworking Forest & Bird conservationists have worked with the old Auckland Regional Council and iwi to restore the biodiversity of the Waitakere Ranges to its former glory.  The Waitakere rainforest on the edge of the country’s biggest city covers over 17,000 hectares. More than 2000 hectares is now home to ‘Ark in the Park’ where species are being revived.

Since 2009 24 kokako have been translocated from different parts of the country, returning their melodious song to the forest where once they roamed.  Last year at least three kokako chicks were fledged.  This is a testament to the difference that committed individuals can make to a most  worthy a cause – saving a species.

At our recent celebration to mark Ark in the Park’s successful efforts to save this species, the question was repeatedly asked why we’re seeing cuts to Department of Conservation funding when we have species like this on the brink.  There certainly are amazing DoC workers who devote their lives to kokako and conservation. However, recent retrenchments in conservation budgets show the current government’s priorities lie elsewhere.

That’s another reason why this election is so important.  A huge number of New Zealand’s endemic species are on the global critically endangered list. This is not the right time to cut conservation budgets.  Our species, habitats, forest fragments, are the store of ecological capital, of hope for the future.  Species, and our reputation, depend on our environment. Cuts to conservation budgets can only endanger these further, despite the amazing work of conservationists on the ground.  Extinction is forever.

The South Island kokako, with its orange wattles is now most certainly extinct, and known as ‘the grey ghost’.  How New Zealanders vote at this election, may determine whether our other special species like the North Island kokako, also join the ranks of forest ghosts.

Labour has a great track record working with the environmental sector on species and habitat recovery. That’s why, as a lifelong conservationist, I’m standing for Labour.

Christine Rose served the Rodney area as an elected representative for 15 years between 1995 and 2010. She was Deputy Mayor of the Rodney District Council, and Deputy Chair of the Auckland Regional Council. She chaired various committees including the ARC’s Transport Committee and the Regional Land Transport Committee which led the development of the Regional Transport Strategy.

Christine has degrees in Political Science (with First Class Honours), and Philosophy from Auckland University, where she also taught politics.  She has been a supporter of both Greenpeace and Forest and Bird for over 20 years, serving in various governance roles.
Christine has also led significant environmental campaigns, most notably working with the Labour Government to protect Mauis and Hectors dolphins. She is a strong advocate of sustainable transport for Auckland. In her spare time she is an artist, and tramps, kayaks and cycles.

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Filed under: conservation
21 Comments

Another skeleton for Invercargill?

Posted by A Guest Poster on September 9th, 2011

Lesley Soper is the Labour candidate for Invercargill

This week it was announced that the Department of Conservation (DOC) is to cut 96 jobs around the country from 4 regional centres.    18 jobs will go from the Invercargill office, leaving only 20 of the 38 existing service positions in place.    All staff in service positions will have to reapply for their jobs.

The cuts follow the National Government 2009 cut to DOC’s Budget of $54million over 4 years, which means there are probably more to come in the next stage of the ‘Review’ for efficiency and effectiveness.

Once again the regions suffer, with Northland; Tongariro/Whanganui/Taranaki; and Nelson/Marlborough also to suffer job cuts.    Valuable locals, contributing to their communities economically and socially, with institutional loyalty, knowledge and years of long service are forced into job scrambles;  onto the dole queue;  overseas; or into short-term and insecure contract work.      The regional economies and communities lose out; real people doing valuable jobs lose out; and DOC is expected  to do more with less.

Southland has a significant amount of conservation land, and DOC protects places and species that Southlanders value.   Jobs to go include science, technical, communications, planning and legal, but for the present no ranger positions.   So jobs that allow good conservation outcomes to be achieved and rangers to be rangers go.   Cut to the bone and only the skeleton remains.

Is 19 or 20 the new preferred size du jour for public service Regional offices?      How long before ‘efficiences of scale’  mean the size du jour is in single figures?

Again, local public service cuts that no-one can feel comfortable about.   Silence from local National MP’s on any reasons why.

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Filed under: Unemployment, conservation, jobs
11 Comments

Upbeat about #ownourfuture

Posted by A Guest Poster on September 3rd, 2011

Jordan Carter is a Wellington-based candidate on the Labour list.

This week we announced two policies I really like: a sound position on digital copyright, and some real changes to the policies that affect young people on the way from school to work.

The youth employment announcement was the more important (I’ll leave you to wonder why it got no coverage at all in the Dominion Post or the Herald on Friday…), and is part of what we are funding through the tax policy package we announced in July. It will make a real difference for teenagers stuck without work/training or education.

I haven’t seen anyone arguing that the youth skills and employment stuff is a bad idea — praise is pretty universal, other than the odd angry Tory who has frothed that Labour is somehow stealing their policies.  Why a governing party would think an opposition was stealing its policy when said government doesn’t have any policy (just rhetoric) is beyond me, but we’ll let that rest for now too.

These join earlier policy announcements on the cost of living (tax free zone and GST off fresh fruit and veg) and the land sales initiatives we announced last year, to start to give a flavour of where Labour is heading with policy in this year’s election:
•    focusing on the issues that will make a real difference to people in building their futures here
•    tackling really hard and big choices in the interests of New Zealand’s development
•    arguing that in tough economic times, we have to respond by investing in the things that will leave us ready to grow when times improve

They’re summed up with the theme that Phil Goff launched our tax policy with: Own Our Future.

That isn’t a slogan plucked from the air. It is a simple distillation about what many of us Kiwis want to see for the country: a place where we control our own destiny, and where the big picture of economic and social development is happening in our interests, not in the interests of landlords who live somewhere else and to whom we are all mere economic units.

That sense of ownership, of control, of self-determination, is critical to our sense of dignity and self-worth, actually, and it tugs deep at the heartstrings of most New Zealanders.  People know that we’re on the edge a bit, and that carrying on down the track of not saving enough, of selling ourselves out to the highest bidder, isn’t the way to build a future here.

I can’t remember if I have quoted him before, but there’s a snippet from Allen Curnow (a Kiwi poet, for those who don’t know) from his 1943 sonnet “The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch” that sums this feeling up:

Not I, some child, born in a marvellous year
Will learn the trick of standing upright here.

Curnow was lamenting the Moa’s inability to adapt to the arrival of people on these islands of ours.

I’m not lamenting anything: I’m demanding something — that we make that dream of standing on our own two feet in the world something real, something tangible.  That we have a government that believes in it, rather than one which believes it is impossible.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture, jobs, youth
25 Comments

Another Key con: or pretending to do something when you really aren’t

Posted by A Guest Poster on August 28th, 2011

Lesley Soper is the Labour candidate for Invercargill

Read with fascination the Southland Times Report (Aug 15, p.2) on John Key’s  great National Party Conference announcement of the start of welfare system overhaul.   16 & 17 year-olds first it seems.      They won’t complain too much, and rednecks will think they deserve a bit of ‘nanny state’ overseeing.    Food Stamps don’t equal opportunity or jobs BUT IT WILL LOOK AS IF WE ARE DOING SOMETHING, WHICH WILL HELP DISGUISE OUR UTTER FAILURE TO DO ANYTHING TO DEAL WITH THE WORSE NZ YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

Food Stamps can also be the thin edge of the wedge, & extended to others when we ‘have a Mandate’.

Under this new Policy schools will have to tell authorities when 16 and 17 year-olds leave during the year, and the young people  will be attached to a “responsible adult”.

Quotes from the PM included :  “the first problem that has to be addressed is finding out who the disengaged young people are … we simply don’t know, because we lose track of them when they leave school. … that has to change … and for the first time we will be able to find out who they are, what their circumstances are, what problems they had …”.

But Wait!   The photographic memory clicks in from my years as an MP.   This has to be nonsense.    Didn’t I make more than one visit to a great Youth Transition Service ‘Work’n it Out’ which operates a Call Centre and extended services from Invercargill  [readers will know from my earlier blog on proposed IRD cuts in Invercargill that we run excellent ‘virtual’ operations down here];  and operates under an MSD Contract?     Yes, I did, and it still exists.     Been operating for more than 5 years.     Reports performance and outcomes to MSD every month.   You can look it up online at www.wio.co.nz.   The Social Development Minister & PM could read the reports.   They probably have, but perhaps have ‘forgotten’.

What does this service do?   [and what has it been doing for more than 5 years?]   Well, strangely enough it has been working with 50 Secondary Schools from Timaru South to track every school-leaver at any point through the year, from  ages 16-20.  There are also some self or family referrals, and referrals from other govt departments, but by & large this is a major project to track and assist school-leavers with the rest of their lives.   And it has been working incredibly well!

We are not talking small numbers here.   This is thousands of young people added to the database every year.    They are systematically contacted by the callcentre; they are asked about their plans for further education, training or employment.   They are offered support and assistance, often on a one-to-one customised support basis.  They are tracked from that first call or contact on a regular basis till age 20.     Few of them are non-contactable; very few reject the contact.

Report Data is comprehensive.    We know who these young people are; where they have come from; where they have gone or are going; which industries they are working in; how many are in which other forms of education and training courses; how many return to school; how many head into apprenticeships, full-or-part-time work.

So if this is all already happening, on a large scale, covering quarter of the country geographically [& there are other Youth Transition Services too], and in areas where there are National MP’s [including English, Roy &  Dean], and data exists;  why the announcement of a  ‘First Ever New Policy’;  ‘Never Before Tried’ ; ‘Revolutionary First’ as a  ‘Key Plank’ of the National Party Conference?

Could it be that some Political Spin was required to distract from the failure of the National Government to actually address Youth Unemployment and to create jobs?   Could it be a ‘Key Con’ to pretend to be doing something to distract from actual cuts National has made to apprenticeships and skills training?   Could it be a ‘Big Vision’ like ‘The Cycleway’ or the Budget ‘promise’ of 170,000 jobs  -  with absolutely no substance?    Could it be sheer ignorance of what is already in place?    Or could it be that no-one in Auckland pays any attention to successful initiatives in  Invercargill unless they involve Shadbolt or snow?     Take your pick.

Another ‘Key Con’ when what is really needed is a real economic plan that means young people get real jobs.   Remember the statistic  -  when National came in there were roughly 200 under 24 year-olds who had been on UEB for more than a year.   The number now?

Filed under: Unemployment, children, inequality, youth
93 Comments

Taking the voters seriously

Posted by A Guest Poster on August 9th, 2011

Jordan Carter is a Wellington-based candidate on the Labour list

The Herald carried an interesting column by John Gardner on Friday last week. He was talking about a desire to see political parties treat voters like adults, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Norway last month.

His piece is part of a broader argument that political parties are out of touch with what most people think and how most people feel, detached by culture and language and focus from the people they claim to represent.

He hits on a point that isn’t often made: the people IN THE SYSTEM have to change it.  There isn’t going to be a magical change in how politics work without the politicians agreeing it needs to change. The system has so much inertia in it that it could carry on for a long time as it is, with rare exceptions.

Those exceptions tend to be big, noisy ones. The New Zealand example is the outburst that followed Don Brash’s Orewa speech in 2004.  That showed what happens when an elite moves far further than public opinion – and then someone in the system breaks ranks and calls out the gap.

As a second-time candidate, I am all too keenly aware that people’s view of politics is pretty dismal. I hate that about the job: it is occasionally and by turns embarrassing, frustrating and demoralising.

I’m not in politics to carry that on, but to change it.

A good way to start turning the system around is for individual MPs and candidates to take voters seriously. To listen to their concerns, their issues, openly and honestly: and to respond with empathy and concern, and with a determination to get things right in addressing the issues people have.

Most MPs actually do this pretty well, whatever side of the House they sit on.

There’s a second vital step where we in Labour need to do better. It’s connecting that individual openness, humility, empathy and determination to solve problems with the party’s overall image, practice and strategic approach.

We have done that extremely well recently with the launch of our tax policy. #ownourfuture has done bloody wonders for the issues people are talking about, the challenge they are putting on MPs and candidates from our party and others to define a credible vision for the future. We had a big policy proposal that would help address some deep-seated problems New Zealand faces.

Labour needs to behave that way across the board.  If there is one thing I would ask of all my fellow candidates and future colleagues in the Labour caucus, it is to take the voters seriously, all the time.  Our party is damaged when we don’t portray that ideal in everything we do.

And if there’s one thing I’ll keep doing as part of the Labour campaign, it is arguing for big policies that make a real difference in people’s lives, and that are open, honest and up front with the challenges that the country faces – and the fact that sorting it out isn’t going to be painless.

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, #ownourfuture, democracy
52 Comments

Only the skeleton will remain in Invercargill

Posted by A Guest Poster on August 9th, 2011

In 2011, Red Alert is doing a few new things. One of them is to introduce you to some confirmed Labour electorate candidates who will do the occasional guest post.

Today’s guest poster is Lesley Soper, the candidate for Invercargill.

Lesley Soper

On Friday Aug 5 Inland Revenue (IR)  announced a proposal to cut 191 jobs in 5 provincial cities around the country. Rotorua will lose 44 positions; New Plymouth 42; Napier 16; Nelson 26; and Invercargill, the provincial city most dramatically affected, will have 63 jobs slashed. Invercargill is left with a skeleton staff of 19 positions.

National Finance Minister English said recently that “people outside Wellington were weeping tears of joy” at public sector cuts. This was as  justification for another broken election pledge by National – the one to cap, not cut, the state sector. Justification necessary since more than 2000 state sector jobs have actually gone since National took office.

The 63 people whose jobs will go from Invercargill are not faceless  Wellington bureaucrats. They are part of the 60% of Public Servants working outside Wellington.   They are locals, long-serving and loyal.They are our friends, family, and colleagues.They belong to local Service Clubs; play for local sports clubs; own local homes; spend at local businesses; their kids go to local schools.     No-one in Invercargill is ‘weeping for joy’ that they are losing their jobs and that many of them and their families will leave the city.

The reaction of Invercargill National caretaker MP Eric Roy to this?  -  “I don’t feel that great for the people affected”, he said,  “… but in my role as a member of the government, we have to continue to strive for efficient and cost effective government.” In other words Eric, toe the party line;  you can’t even be bothered fighting for your city or its people. Shades of your 2010 reaction to the proposed loss of neurosurgery for the Deep South, when you said “they are  still making aeroplanes.”

The reaction of Bill English, Clutha-Southland MP to this devastating news for his next-door electorate?   The planned 63 job losses are  “pretty tough” … “but the good news is  …  the economy is pretty sound and it’s going to be growing.   It’s our job to make sure there are other opportunities for them.” Shades of the Budget promise of 170,000 extra jobs  -  from where Bill, and doing what? Where’s the plan from National that will deliver a single extra job to these 63 loyal, experienced, long-serving staff; or to their colleagues in DoC likely to hear the same news; or to the 41 Hillside workers just up the road in Dunedin?

And both National MP’s show their vast ignorance as they witter on about “technology change” and “more efficient information transfer” as though they don’t know that Invercargill too has modern technology and that the IRD has already admitted that ‘virtual jobs’ could be done anywhere. So why not leave them in Invercargill?

This is not a case of ‘reining in’ the public sector [warning: a favourite National MP phrase]. This is a case of cutting the provinces to the bone, by removing much ‘virtual work’ that could be done anywhere from the provinces to the metropolitan areas for no real gain whatsoever. Institutional knowledge goes; community and workplace services go from Invercargill; plus the spending power of good jobs with local businesses.

This is National government cuts to baseline funding.This is bashing the provinces where they think they are safe. Pure and simple.

One of many questions has to be asked.  With a skeleton of just 19 positions remaining, how long before Invercargill loses those as well? Where do ‘economies of scale’ arguments end?”

I’ve heard Invercargill, Nelson, Rotorua, Napier and New Plymouth being referred to as the ‘swing seats’. Either that, or the last bony hand left standing can turn out the lights after November 26th.

Lesley Soper is Labour’s Invercargill Candidate.   She was a Labour List MP 2005-2008, and Deputy Chair of the Health Select Committee as well as a member of Transport & Industrial and Regulations Review Select Committees.    Before entering Parliament Lesley was elected Deputy Chair of the Southland District Health Board; was an Organiser for NZEI Te Riu Roa; previous Head Librarian SIT and a staff Rep on the SIT Council; and Chair of the Combined Education Unions of Southland.   Lesley was Labour Women’s Vice-President 1995-2004.
Outside politics, Lesley & husband David are renovating their 1914 Invercargill home, and Lesley has just finished co-writing the sell-out 360page book ‘Live & Let Live : the history of the Soper family’ and the accompanying ‘Soper Family Cookbook’.

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CYF frontline cuts widen

Posted by A Guest Poster on July 27th, 2011
 
Dr David Clark is the Labour candidate for Dunedin North
 
 I have received further detail of significant cuts to Child, Youth and Family services across Otago and Southland.

The information corroborates my original sources and confirms that cuts are occurring to child care and protection services in more South Island communities than previously thought.

New sources tell me that in Dunedin one frontline supervisor position has been halved and two social worker positions have been cut, plus one family group conference co-ordinator, one administrator and one social work resource assistant position.

That is a total of five and half positions in Dunedin alone delivering or supporting frontline services in our region.

In Otago, two social worker positions and one supervisor position have been cut affecting services in Oamaru, Alexandra, Gore and Balclutha. In Invercargill, at least two social workers and one supervisor position have been cut.

These are reductions in essential services. Services that provide the opportunity for a young person to turn their life around, for a family in distress to get the support they need, for a child in harm’s way to get the care and protection they deserve.

These cuts clearly indicate that frontline social work in Otago and Southland is being hollowed out while National repeatedly claims to be improving public services and moving resources to the frontline.

Is the Minister for Social Development aware that, contrary to the Government’s stated commitment to putting more workers on the frontline, the reverse is happening, that frontline staff are being cut at Child, Youth and Family?

Is the Minister aware that Child, Youth and Family’s head office is claiming: ‘There are no staffing cuts to the organisation. No cuts are being made. No staff member is losing their job’*?

In light of the new detail on reductions in Otago and Southland services, I have lodged a further Official Information Request to get past the smokescreen from head office to the truth of the situation – that deep cuts are being made to already stretched services in the South.

I would be the first to congratulate the Minister if the staffing cuts reflected a significant reduction in the number of children and families needing protection and support. Regrettably, that would be a naive assumption.

Child, Youth and Family is that vital line between hope and despair, between giving a child refuge from neglect and abuse and turning our back on the plight of the defenceless. 

 * Source: CYF manager of public affairs Bernadine MacKenzie, quoted in Otago Daily Times on 21 July 2011.

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Filed under: children, jobs, public services
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Dunedin cuts – CYF spindoctors stretch truth

Posted by A Guest Poster on July 26th, 2011

Dr David Clark is the Labour candidate for Dunedin North

My previous posts about the cuts to frontline child protection services in Dunedin have attracted a response.  Unfortunately the response is clearly the work of CYF’s spindoctors.

I am saddened to see CYF dodge questions regarding front line job-cuts in Dunedin.  The CYF spokesperson describes Otago and Southland as having “more social workers per caseload” than other areas, and talks about deciding whether vacated positions will be filled – according to workload in the region.

This is classic doublespeak.  As positions are vacated in Otago and Southland, they are not being replaced; a straight shooter would call this job-cuts.  Frontline positions are being axed. Vulnerable children are at risk.

Tragically, need for CYF services is in high demand.  Our stagnant economy has put increased pressure on Dunedin families.  Can CYF confirm they have as many front line staff in Dunedin now as they had a year ago?  Or better still, provide credible evidence that our most vulnerable children are no longer at risk?  Of course they can’t.  This makes me angry.  Under National’s direction, CYF are spending money on spindoctors.  That money should be spent on staff at the coal-face.

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Filed under: children, jobs, public services
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Cuts make lie of National’s promise not to cut front line services.

Posted by A Guest Poster on July 20th, 2011

Apologies to David Clark, labour’s candidate for Dunedin North. I accidently posted this under my name not his. Clare

Cuts of up to 30 front line staff at Child, Youth and Family make a lie of National’s promise not to cut front line services.

Our community, our children deserve better. We cannot stand by and let these cuts occur.

In April, Bill English said National was ‘committed to moving resources from the back office to the frontline so we can deliver improved public services to taxpayers with little or no new money over the next few years’. *

Questions:

  • How is reducing the number of frontline social workers in Dunedin “moving resources to the frontline”?
  • How is making highly trained social workers redundant who support and protect our most vulnerable children going to “deliver improved public services to taxpayers”?

The Government needs to honour its promise to retain front line services. All New Zealanders should demand that the Government reverse this appalling decision.

* [Source: Minister of Finance press release, “Room for savings in state sector back office” dated 13 April 2011]

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Filed under: children, jobs, public services
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Children at risk as Government axes frontline CYF staff

Posted by A Guest Poster on July 20th, 2011

David Clark is the Labour candidate for Dunedin North

National is about to axe front line staff at Child, Youth and Family. Up to 30 front line jobs are to be cut from Child, Youth and Family services nationwide.

Dunedin is losing four of those positions, two frontline social workers and two front line supervisors. Cuts are also being made to Child, Youth and Family in Invercargill and on the West Coast.

Child, Youth and Family do remarkable work on behalf of the whole community to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to give families the support they need to care for their children. They provide safe, loving homes for children who need that care and they work with young people to turn their lives around.

The timing of these cuts could not be worse, as the cost of living and unemployment increases. There is growing pressure on families. These cuts are an abdication of our collective responsibility to care and protect our most vulnerable citizens, to help those who cannot speak for themselves.

The Government must reverse this appalling decision.

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Filed under: children, jobs, public services
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Pulling the threads together

Posted by A Guest Poster on July 18th, 2011

In 2011, Red Alert has done a few new things. One of them is to introduce you to some new Labour candidates who will do the occasional guest post.

This gives them the opportunity to put forward some ideas and you the opportunity to get a sense of who they are before the upcoming election.

Today’s guest poster is Jordan Carter, a Wellington-based candidate on the Labour list.
jtc-hs

It’s hard to believe that the election under five months away – but last week’s policy launch by Labour of a fairer tax and economic strategy has brought home the reality that polling day isn’t far off.

I was really pleased with the announcement, because it represents a further public step on the road that Labour has been travelling since our defeat in 2008: to reconsider the policy frameworks we had in place, and to get things ready for the next Labour led government.

Economic policy is at the core of that because the economy is so big a part of our lives. Most of you reading this will spend at least part of your time earning a crust.  The decisions about how we organise our economy have massive implications for the quality of our way of life, and for how much damage we do – or do not do – to the land, the water and the air around us. They also affect in big part the distribution of the economic goods we have, and define who the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ are.

I joined the Labour Party out of a profound conviction that our society was being driven in a reactionary direction. Nobody could grow up where I did and when I did without seeing that.  While the liberal agenda of civil rights was making slow progress (and has made some since), our economic policies were in the grip of a project that was designed to cause, and has delivered, one of the most unequal societies in the developed world.

We all pay a price for that. Our wages are lower than they could be. We are more stressed and work longer hours for less pay than we need.  Our crime rates are higher, and our life expectancy lower than they should be. We abuse our environment but pretend we are clean and green.  The price is high indeed.  The high priests of this particular crazy approach should have been dethroned by their ultimate failure (the global financial crisis and its aftermath) — but their point of view still has too much sway.

The winners out of the past thirty years pour their scorn and their contempt at working people’s ambitions for a bit of economic and social security, and carefully manipulate public debate to obscure that fact. After such a long period where that project was running (ruining) our country, even some of those most hurt by the approach have come to support it.
Labour stands for something different and better than that.

I’d say my party these days stands for a few simple things. We want to start fixing the problems caused by the massive inequalities which we all suffer from, for the social and economic gains that are sitting there for the taking. We have got our heads around the need for New Zealand to turn “clean and green” from a slogan into a reality, hard as that is going to be and challenging as it will be to well organised, wealthy and powerful cliques in New Zealand.

Finally and most important, we stand for a hard headed understanding that both of these are tasks that rely on economic policy to make them happen. There is no easy way that the welfare state can fix our inequalities, and actually no way it should.  In the same vein, there is no feasable way to regulate clean and green outcomes as a single approach: the market will have a great deal to offer here.  Economic policy change is needed to deliver the jobs and incomes people want, but it’s also critical to environmental and egalitarian outcomes as well.

(more…)

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Filed under: economy, inequality
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The pathway to success

Posted by A Guest Poster on June 2nd, 2011

Dr David Clark is the Labour Candidate for Dunedin North. He has worked in shops, in a factory, as a Presbyterian Minister, as a University Tutor and as an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury. He currently runs a University Hall of Residence.

The pathway to success has just been narrowed.

Yesterday, the Government’s Early Childhood Education taskforce released its report entitled An Agenda for Amazing Children.

The opening pages lay the case for investment in the sector out clearly.   Proper funding for early childhood care and education will determine New Zealand’s success or failure as a society and as an economy.

That our society subsequently flourishes (or withers) – according to our commitment to the early years – is not news.  I’ve previously outlined the case for quality early childhood education in the Otago Daily Times. Academics in the field have communicated the case clearly and directly.  We know the sector needs to be supported to deliver us the future we want for our country.

Trouble is, the terms of reference for the taskforce excluded the possibility of properly funding the sector.  In this respect, the group was set up to fail.  They were told to work within the constraints of a budget already strangled by $400million in cuts earlier this year.

The essay within the report proposing new funding mechanisms aligns with the current Government’s privatisation agenda. Centres will set fees according to parents’ perceived ‘ability to pay’. Universal availability is gone. Providers will no longer be required to provide 20 hours free quality early childhood education.

The proposed new funding model, and associated justifications, are captured in the extracted table below:

ece

Although the full detail is not fully explained, it appears that providers will be responsible for deciding just which child qualifies for which subsidy.  Different rates will apply according to parents’ income, ethnicity and other variables. Where parents’ income is tested, it’s easy to imagine funding anomalies that parallel those connected to university student allowances.

Centre managers may be responsible for making judgments about socio-economic need of parents and children.  What was once a welcoming relationship appears set to become something more judgmental.  Under this scenario, centre managers will become gatekeepers on the pathway to success.

One manager of centre I spoke to this morning said: “So people will ring to enquire about fees at a centre, and I’ll be expected to say: well it depends whether you’re Maori, European, disabled or other.  No thanks!”

The Labour Government’s model provided access to 20 hours free quality early childhood education for all citizens.  What is clear with the new model is that this money will be spread far more thinly, and parents will be expected to pay far more.  If under twos are included and more hours are to be subsidised, the subsidy will not stretch as far.  Barriers to accessing education and care for our children will grow.  The pathway to success has been narrowed.

There’s a model linked to the taskforce’s website which shows the panel have given some thought as to the costs for families. But functionality seems to have been removed, and I can’t get it to run any numbers.  I hope someone will put in an OIA for the functional model to see which scenarios have been run.

The report correctly identifies that investment in quality early childhood education is one of the best a country can make.  I agree.  I think we can do better

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Tackling inequality

Posted by A Guest Poster on May 17th, 2011

OECD inequality

In recent decades, inequalities in New Zealand have grown faster than in most other OECD countries.  This trend was halted under the last Labour Government, but other governments have more than made up for it.

Rising inequality is bad for a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism. 

Large wealth disparities are bad for nearly everyone.  High levels of inequality in society have been linked to higher chances of poor health outcomes, poor education outcomes and anti-social behaviour. These things have both social and economic costs for a country.

Last month I posted for Red Alert on why inequality is bad.   But how does one go about tackling inequality?

Increasing GST, and taking the income to give the biggest tax-cuts to the wealthiest people is clearly not the answer.  National’s tax ‘switch’ has hurt those at the bottom, and squeezed those in the middle, who are now worse off than they were before. Inequalities are even worse now than the graph above suggests.

The OECD held a forum on tackling inequality at the start of this month. The background paper is instructive.

Aside from asking if who you marry matters, the report also asks what policy-makers can do about the problem of inequality.  Answers focus in the area of skills training and education, particularly where they are available for disadvantaged groups.  Looks like National’s cuts to education in the early childhood (ECE) and adult and community (ACE) area aren’t the right answer either.

Labour has promised to reverse the ECE and ACE cuts.  We’ve also said we’d make the first $5000 of earnings tax free.  And we’ll raise the minimum wage to $15. All of these things are useful first steps in tackling inequality.

In line with the OECD view, an economy that provides skills, jobs and opportunity for all New Zealanders has both social and economic benefits.

Hat-tip Jeremy Warner at The Telegraph. 

Dr David Clark is the Labour Candidate for Dunedin North. He has worked in shops, in a factory, as a Presbyterian Minister, as a University Tutor and as an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury. He currently runs a University Hall of Residence. 

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Filed under: Cost of Living, Skills, children, education, inequality, jobs
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A brighter future?

Posted by A Guest Poster on May 15th, 2011

Dr David Clark is the Labour Candidate for Dunedin North. He has worked in shops, in a factory, as a Presbyterian Minister, as a University Tutor and as an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury. He currently runs a University Hall of Residence. 

Red Alert readers will have noted several recent stories about the very real way in which cost of living increases are affecting middle income families. I’ve encountered a fair few in Dunedin in recent weeks with similar stories. Here’s one that stuck out for me when I was out door-knocking yesterday…

Bill and Maree (not their real names) live in their own home, and have worked hard to pay off much of their mortgage. Daughter Lisa?has recently turned 17 and is living at home with Bill and Maree. Son Darren has just finished University. Bill and Maree have always held down solid jobs and bring in an average income. This has generally been enough. They were however impressed last election by John Key’s promise of tax cuts and ‘a brighter future’, and placed their vote with him.

But things have not turned out as hoped. Prices have risen and risen, and bills are getting harder to pay. The tax-cuts they were expecting haven’t lived up to expectations. And then Lisa fell pregnant. It wasn’t planned, but she’s determined to be a good mother.? Bill and Maree want to support her, but they’re fearful they won’t be able to provide all that is needed for the new addition to the household. Having worked hard consistently down through the years, they went down to WINZ with Lisa to see what support is available. Nothing: unless Lisa is estranged from the family. Not until she’s 18.

Bill and Maree are feeling hard done by. Having worked hard and paid taxes all of their lives, they were?expecting a little bit extra from Mr Key. Instead, they’re seeing seriously rich New Zealanders enjoy the big big tax cuts, while they don’t have quite enough to make ends meet. And then, to make matters worse, when they need a bit of help, they’re realising that’s not there either.

Bill and Maree are disillusioned. They’re changing their vote. But on top of their disappointment about Mr Key’s failure to deliver them a brighter future, they’ve another concern. It’s the future of their kids. Not only are they worried about their daughter: their son Darren?is wanting to settle down too.?

Darren’s just finished a degree and has been offered a very good job in Dunedin. But his partner’s pregnant, and they’re concerned about the cuts to Working For Families. With a student loan and the cuts to Working For Families, they too will struggle to make ends meet. Darren’s mates are telling him to move to Oz. One of them has already, and he’s earning nearly three times as much doing the same job.?

This story echoes others I’ve encountered in recent weeks.??

Many ‘swing’ voters feel disillusioned with the Government that they voted in last time.? Some say the jury is still out, and they want to give Key another chance. Others are sick of him.

 

 

Filed under: Cost of Living, Tax, Working for Families, children, economy, family
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