The proposal is for Horizons Regional Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and the NZTA to fund the Capital Connection as part of the Wellington Metro rail service.

This makes complete sense since the Capital Connection is the only commuter rail service in New Zealand that is currently expected to run on a totally commercial model. The funding proposal simply brings the Capital Connection into line with every other commuter train in the country.

The problem is that while the two regional councils have indicated support for the proposal, the NZTA is holding out. Why? Because a Road of National Significance is being built near by.

Suddenly, the only criteria the NZTA will consider is whether or not the rail line will relieve congestion. Ignore the environmental benefits, ignore the social benefits it’s all about congestion and of course spending billions on roads that don’t stack up economically is much better than encouraging people to use the train.

If yet another regional rail service is lost this year, it will have been killed off by National’s significant obsession with roads.

I’m really pleased to see that the Road Safety Remuneration Bill passed with a resounding vote in favour in the Senate.  It comes after a long running campaign to make roads safer for all users by taking the pressure from truckies to work long hours, take short cuts and scrimp on maintenance just to earn a living.

I tried to get an inquiry into NZ truck safety and its relationship with remuneration a couple of years ago, but was blocked by the National Party, despite evidence of a trucking nightmare in New Zealand.

The problem hasn’t gone away.  There is still one truck related death a week in New Zealand.  Many drivers are owner-drivers, so they have no employment rights, because they are in a commercial arrangement. Some do okay, but others are struggling. Other driving industries, such as the Courier Industry also face enormous pressure.

I just want to see people earn fair income for the work they do.

The other bill the Australian Senate passed this week is the Fair Work Amendment (Textile, Clothing and Footwear Inudstry) Bill which extends most provisions of the Fair Work Act to contract outworkers in the textile, clothing and footwear industry by deeming them to be employees. Our legislation covers “Homeworkers” and deems them to be employees, which came about after serious exploitation of Homecare workers in the 1990’s and a major court decision.

It may be that we are ahead of Australia in this instance, but their legislation provides a good study on how we might tackle the ever increasing dependent contracting arrangements in New Zealand.

But wait…. does National care?

Unfortunately we have run out of these great posters already. Considering a reprint but in the interim you can go to here to download or even donate to help print some more.

Support Labour’s campaign here.

To get one thing out of the way straight up, no one is saying the Government is to blame for the Rena hitting the reef. I am also sure that John Key, Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are as disturbed as I am by the images of the oil on beaches and the death and injury of wildlife. Every New Zealander will want to see the damage from the accident mitigated and the environment cleaned up. What is a legitimate question though is whether faced with the incident the government showed the leadership that we should expect of them and acted as swiftly and effectively as they should have.

My take is that the government were flat footed and to keen to sheet blame and responsibility elsewhere rather than take the leadership role we want our government to take in times of crisis. Someone I worked with once said that people mostly want the government out of their way when things are going well, but they want them there yesterday when things go wrong. I think National got that wrong in the first few days of the Rena incident.

And criticism of this is not just coming from Labour, but also from people who might normally be described as friends of the government like John Roughan, Paul Holmes and even Matthew Hooten. Here is part of Hooten’s NBR column which is not on-line. (h/t Liberation)

Joyce failed totally to comprehend what the Rena grounding meant to the Bay of Plenty’, and ‘He did not see that, as transport minister and arguably the most powerful figure in the government after Mr Key, his role was to lead and improve the quality of the response, and ensure it was sufficiently empowered and resourced. When he spoke publicly, he demonstrated little empathy with locals, telling them there was no point going to the beach to clean up the oil, saying more was on its way and that it could take years to resolve anyway

Then there is the question of whether the government had done the work over the last three years to have us planned for a disaster like this. There are questions here too, with the freeze on funding for Maritime NZ and the failure to put in place the mechanism that would see more of the costs of dealing with the disaster fall on the ship company and less on you and me.

So, in the face of this disaster, we join with all New Zealanders in wanting to protect our beautiful coastline and all those, human and animal who inhabit it. But we also take our role seriously to raise the question- Where was the leadership?, and in this case it was sadly lacking.

Courier drivers are struggling to earn a living wage, with incomes stalled at about the same level as they were 20 years ago, while running costs have exploded. Urgent Couriers’ managing director Steve Bonnici said prices had been slashed due to cut-throat competition, which only intensified during the economic downturn of the past few years. Bonnici said prices have been cut to “ridiculous levels” – and it wasn’t just small, fly-by-night operators doing the cutting. As contractors, drivers had few of the benefits of employees, yet they were still obliged to wear a corporate uniform, work certain hours, apply for annual leave, and work exclusively for one company – as well as providing their own vehicles.

I’ve been on about this for some time now, including calling for SafeRates and better protections for all drivers. My Minimum Wage and Remuneration Bill, which would have provided at least minimum wage protection to these contractors was voted down early in the term of the National Government.

The National government, despite claiming it is the party for small business, has ignored the problems for small business operators like those in the Courier Industry.

“Anecdotal evidence from couriers looking for work indicates some firms are paying less than the minimum wage of $13 an hour. That’s not enough to live on, especially for drivers with families and mortgages”, Bonnici said……

“It’s sad what’s happened to our industry; there are plenty of owner-drivers out there whose revenue before expenses is barely the minimum hourly wage. After they have paid costs out of this revenue they are below the poverty line,” said Paul Holdom, who developed CourierPost Urgent for NZ Post and is now sales manager at Inter City Urgent.

The  industry is now coming around to the view that regulation might work better so that there is protection for small business operators who are totally dependent on one firm for their income.

“Every other industry has the minimum wage. You can’t put an ad in the paper offering employment at $7.50 an hour”, Bonnici says.

I’ve had a lot of contact with courier and other drivers over the last three years. Some of their stories are shocking.

Another piece in today’s SST  gives an insight into what Labour’s policy will include when it is announced on the 18th October.

Karl Anderson, First Union’s representative for transport and logistics in the Northern Region, said legislative protection was coming in Australia and it was the union’s desire to see it here too.

“I don’t think we have a bolter’s show under a Key government, which is ironic, given they say they are the saviours of small businesspeople,” he said.

Sadly, he’s right.

Two examples from this weekend. The first and most transparent being the transport debacle that David has already posted on. On Friday Murray McCully was full of confidence about the state of Auckland transport, and seemed to be taking some ownership of what he saw as a success waiting to happen. It of course did not turn out that way.

Now of course this is not all the Government’s problem. The successful running of infrastructure for RWC was always going to be a matter for both local and central government to manage. Len Brown fronted on Saturday morning and apologised. All we have seen from Murray McCully, the Minister for the Rugby World Cup is comment on how bad things were and that they should be better. Why have a Minister for the Rugby World Cup if you are not going to play your part in making things work, and in taking some responsibility when they don’t?

The more subtle version of this tactic came from John Key in response to the reluctance of insurance companies to pay out for Christchurch homeowners to rebuild. Mr Key is quoted in the Press as saying he was “bothered” by the stance that the companies were taking. Is he auditioning for Catherine Tate or something? If you are bothered you are the one in a position to do something about it. For god’s sake man you are the Prime Minister not some talkback radio caller. Do something.

There are other examples, like the PM saying National could do better in terms of the number of women on on the National Party list. I know, why doesn’t he talk to someone who could show some leadership on this, like the Leader of the National Party?

The Prime Minister and his Ministers are not interested spectators in how our country runs, they are the people who have their hands on the levers of power. They should be held to account for what they do, not just that they have had something to say on the matters of the day.

But a world class event being held with a third world train system lies at the heart of the problem. When can Aucklanders finally see a world class transport system like other cities of our size? Not with the rear-visionary Steven Joyce in charge.

Other than adding a few more electric trains to the current order, there have been no new rail initiatives announced by this government – except for pouring a bucket of cold water on the Coucil’s inner city link. Without it we can’t expand the system including running trains to the airport – something that Aucklanders see as a top priority and a symbol of us joining other smart cities – because the network will not run frequently enough without a link.

So hopefully Saturday’s failings – in the midst of a great, great opening – will get Joyce out of his yesterday’s thinking and support the Council rather than white-anting its plans.

One small curiosity from the night.  On Tuesday morning on Firstline on TV3 Rachel Smalley asks the Prime Minister at the end of her interview (relevant bit at 4.35) where he will be for the opening game of the Rugby World Cup, and will he be there “beer in hand”.  Key says he will be there, laughing saying maybe not beer in hand, “although maybe I will, I don’t have to make any speeches that night.”

Except he did of course.  Now that Opening Ceremony must have been set for months and months beforehand so surely he would have known, and Mr Key was quite definite he was not speaking.  Odd. Perhaps it was an on the night decision, which seems extraordinarily casual for such a major and important event, but it might explain what was a pretty ordinary effort (not even a Kia Ora?) from the PM in front of a TV audience of millions.