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Posts Tagged ‘National Party’

TINA’s back

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 21st, 2011

Since Labour announced its Work and Wages Policy, there’s been the editorials repeating the “TINA” (There is no Alternative) lines of yesteryear and arguing for trickle down. Then there’s those who have an in-built opposition to anything that might improve the lot of working people, and an aversion to those dreadful organisations called “unions” – the 370,000 New Zealanders who are part of today’s unions.

This is old National at their worse.  It’s they who haven’t changed and who are out of touch. They need to catch up with the reality of work and wages for most New Zealanders and they need to tune into the debate that’s happening around the world about the failure of the orthodoxy of the last 20 years.

When Labour introduced the Employment Relations Act (ERA) in 2000, we heard the same rubbish from some National MPs who are now Ministers and others best forgotten.  The ERA was going to be the end of the world, while today, most will concede that it was very modest regulation indeed.

Eleven years ago, this is what Jenny Shipley, Max Bradford, Gerry Brownlee and Richard Prebble said in Parliament.

Rt Hon. JENNY SHIPLEY (Leader of the Opposition):  Welcome to Jurassic Park. This is a step backwards for New Zealand…… Taking New Zealand back to ideas that most people thought were extinct is no way to forge the future for this country. I do give notice here that the Government would have been far better to build on the strengths of the Employment Contracts Act, rather than destroy them and try to reintroduce some notions that most people thought had seriously gone 50 years ago, or more.

Hon. MAX BRADFORD (NZ National): …  why is the Labour-Alliance Government digging up all the old processes, the old institutions, the old dinosaurs of the past in order to get it? One of the reasons that the Employment Contracts Act was introduced in 1991 was the old system under the industrial relations legislation, the Labour Relations Act, was not working. Yet here we have a grand march backwards into the past to try to assert—because that is all it is; an assertion—that somehow or other employment relationships will improve, growth will improve, and we will get more jobs out of this approach to industrial relations……. there are people who are waiting to leave this country because it will be too difficult under this legislation to employ people and to invest.

Hon. RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ):…. Who do the Alliance, the Labour Party, and the Greens think they are fooling? This bill is compulsory unionism by the back door. We know what the consequences will be. It is well known that the country’s port unions have already been meeting. They have already agreed that they will be asking for a collective agreement. When this bill comes into effect on 1 August, they will be making a demand to every single port in the country for a collective agreement—in other words, a national award. They are prepared to go on strike to get it. It is already well known that the North Island freezing works sheds—the unions—have already met. They have already agreed on their collective agreement, and the moment this law comes into effect they intend to exercise industrial muscle to get that agreement.

GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam): ……  This bill, dressed up as a herald of integrity and individual choice in industrial relations, is nothing more than another step on the long march backward that this Labour-Alliance Government is determined to inflict on New Zealand. This bill rips out any element of trust and mutual respect from industrial relations in this country. It is based on the premise that the employer is always wrong. It is based on the premise that there is an intrinsic, irreconcilable difference between employers and employees. Always it is the employer who is the guilty party, regardless of the circumstances. This bill is the most unbalanced legislation that could ever have been introduced in the industrial relations area.

Eleven years ago, according to the National Party, employment law change was going to be the end of the world. Did the world end?  No, of course it didn’t. In fact we had good growth, low unemployment, no debt and an improving social outlook.

Thank goodness there are some real thinkers contributing to the modern conversation about how we build a better and fairer economy and society.

Here’s a good piece on wages from Bill Rosenberg today.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture, Work and Wages, Workers, economy, low pay
17 Comments

Message to women – the numbers say it all

Posted by Carol Beaumont on September 5th, 2011

Continuing a well established pattern the latest National list continues to sideline women.   Are there no competent women out there who share National’s philosophy?

If we compare the National and Labour lists by gender this is what we find – in the first 10 positions National has 2 women, Labour has 4; in the first 20 positions National has 5 women, Labour has 8; in the first 30 positions National has 7 women, Labour has 12; in the first 40 positions National has 10 women, Labour has 16; in the first 50 positions National has 14 women, Labour has 21.  So National has women in 28% of the first 50 places and Labour 42%.

Women make up just over 50% of the population so I accept that Labour needs to work harder to increase the number of women in our Caucus.  But at any given point in our political history Labour has led National in terms of representation of women in Parliament.  Fighting for real equality for women is part of Labour’s core values and there is no doubt we have delivered consistently in this area with strong leadership from Labour women MPs.

In comparison this National Government has failed to deliver for women. In fact National has an appalling record in areas like progressing pay equality (closing the Pay and Employment Equity Unit, failing to act on pay investigations and cutting funding to the EEO Trust) and violence against women (cutting successful programmes and creating  less secure funding for those delivering successful programmes like Girls Self Defence, leaving the Domestic Violence Bill languishing on the order paper).  A number of legislative and policy changes have disproportionate negative effects on women (reducing access to the Training Incentive Allowance, 90 days fire at will provisions, meagre increases to the minimum wage and cuts to Adult and Community Education).   Where are the strong voices advocating for women in the National Caucus?  The current Minister’s priority seems to be increasing the number of women on Company Boards.   This is important and I support greater representation of women everywhere (including in the National Caucus) however I don’t think this initiative is really the most burning issue for the many NZ women who are struggling to make ends meet.

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Filed under: democracy, parliament, politics, women
80 Comments

National Party Blues

Posted by Darien Fenton on August 15th, 2011

At the National Party’s Conference Party on Saturday night Natties were supposed to dress up in 1930’s gangster costumes (very appropriate I thought) and they hired some of NZ’s best to play for the gang. I don’t blame the musos for agreeing, because they need to making a living.  But Facebook comments and suggestions were not so discreet once followers found out who the band were playing for.  Here’s a sample:

  • Make sure you throw a shoe!
  • Just remember they are innocent victims of being born rich, and dumb, a dangerous mix.
  • Into the Jaws of Death rode the xxx… good luck brave fellow
  • There must be some sort of modal weapon that you can subtly employ?
  • If you hit just the right low frequency, and hold it, they should all spew.
  • Subtly change all of the rhythm into charge of the light brigade – and shoot them all with your laser “peace and money for all” guitar… let me know how that goes for us.
  • ABBA: “Money Money Money”
  • The Beatles “Little Piggies”
  • Sadly the fabled “brown note” (between 9 and 20Hz) doesn’t work, although you may be able to induce some anxiety.
  • Sell out Saturday
  • “Depression Blues”:
  • Crank out some old school metal for them man… for whom the bell tolls!
  • Hope you didn’t try too hard (to bite your tongue, that is).

And there’s heaps more. I’m giving no clues about the origins of the Facebook comments, because these are musos who need the money.  Even though they are part of NZ’s wonderful musical talent pool, beggars can’t be choosers and if they kick up a fuss, they might be next on the hit list for John Key’s removal of rights for performers.

But it seems like National Party shindigs are not popular gigs in the NZ Music scene.

Musicians need to eat and while they might play the tunes, they are definitely not in tune with John Key and his mob.

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Filed under: events, music, politics
51 Comments

The born-to-rule brigade

Posted by Chris Hipkins on November 17th, 2010

The Pansy Wong saga has highlighted an on-going trend in the way this National government operates. They certainly do practice what they preach in terms of “self-help/help yourself”. It seems they’re out to get everything they can off the taxpayer until they get caught.

Bill English tried to pretend that he lived in Dipton so that he could claim a housing allowance, even though his wife and kids all lived in Wellington. He even went so far as to ask for more money to have his house cleaned.

John Key decided the best way to deal with the housing allowance scandal was to put in place a new, more generous system for them to rort, with a lot less transparency. Many of them effectively got a big fat pay rise as a result.

Phil Heatley thought it was OK to charge up drinks at the National Party conference to his ministerial credit card. He then took his family on holiday to the South Island and thought it was OK to ask the taxpayer to stump up for the bill for that too.

Richard Worth thought it was acceptable to mix his ministerial and private business interests, travelling to India and using his ministerial title to promote private interests. He was up to some other stuff too, but goodness knows what (it was enough for John Key to lose confidence in him, but he never did say why…)

Anne Tolley decided to take a literal interpretation of the term ‘helicopter view’ and took a taxpayer funded helicopter sight-seeing trip over Auckland.

Pansy Wong thought it was alright for her husband’s business interests to be subsidised by the taxpayer, through abuse of her international travel privileges and also possibly by using her taxpayer funded office as the premises for private business interests.

After nine years in opposition, the National Party seem to be making up for lost time. They’re out for everything they can get. What appals me is that John Key seems to think it’s OK to pass the buck and try to help them cover things up. Classic case of do as I say, but not as I do.

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Filed under: democracy, parliament, perks
20 Comments

Strike action compounds Chinese concerns

Posted by Raymond Huo on September 16th, 2010

Anyone who is engaging with the Chinese constituency nationwide will appreciate their disappointment at the performance of the NACT Government which culminated in yesterday’s PPTA strike.

280,000 students from more than 450 schools were affected by the strike action.

This is a double-blow to Chinese families. Firstly for those affected by the strike and secondly, for the fact that this proves the NACT Government has no plan to run the country or invest in our future.

Chinese families who value education so highly now realise that the NACT government are not interested in investing in their children’s future.

The PPTA asked the Government for a four percent pay rise to stem the flow of teachers moving overseas and for a cap of 30 students per class.

Negotiations between the PPTA and the Government stalled, sparking the strike action.

The Government said no contingency had been set aside for the increase of funding requested by the PPTA. But, interestingly, the Government had no trouble finding $1.775 Billion to bail South Canterbury Finance out of trouble.

Some members of the Chinese community told me they had voted for John Key because of his banking background. Now two years through the term, all they got was empty rhetoric, talk-fests and no real plan.

Some of them gave a vivid example to show that this government is so entrenched with their business mindset that instead of running the country, they choose to treat the voters as a “tradable commodity”.

For instance, they may give you $30 extra per-week through tax cuts but at the same time they take away much more through inflation, GST rise, water charges and cuts in ACC and health. Like the teacher’s case, the 1.5 per cent wage increase offered by the Government can easily be eroded.

Even worse, the billions to be spent on bailing out the Finance companies are taxpayer’s dollars. What does that mean to taxpayers proportionally?

For National, teachers and our future are not worthwhile in their dollar terms.

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Filed under: asian
16 Comments

National’s empty rhetoric is good for one thing

Posted by Raymond Huo on August 31st, 2010

On our regular radio show (on Radio Chinese Voice AM936) the Minister for Ethnic Affairs Pansy Wong and I engage in a Q & A session with listeners.

I made the point recently that under her watch the ethnic unemployment rate has grown to 13.5 percent while the Asian unemployment rate has doubled to 10.5 percent.

However, it is not fair for me to make her to face the music on these statistics. After all, she is just following her Party lines. No wonder every time I ask her about topical matters (either through my columns in the Chinese media or Written Questions) such as how to grow economy or create jobs her standard response appears to be organising yet another “ethnic forum”.

The ‘ethnic forum’ she so positively speaks about sounds eerily similar to her Government’s catastrophic Job Summit. It will be just another talk-fest. A token gesture which does nothing to address the unemployment issue.

Media have summarised well that the top three measures implemented by the National-Act Government so far are the national cycle way; the job summit and the 90-day fire-at-will employment law.

The top three measures, despite being futile, have prompted blogs on the Chinese-language social media site istars.me to encourage fellow internet surfers to play a game similar to but different from crosswords.

A loose translation of the blog (copied below) is as follows:

After listening to what Raymond Huo said this morning regarding the National Government’s top three measures in job creation, I had the following words sprung to my mind:

a 2-word phrase: ‘be disgraced’;

a 3-word phrase: ‘can’t help it’;

a 4-word phrase: ‘donkey exhausted its tricks’ [derived from a Chinese idiom];

a 5-word phrase: ‘come off sentry duty now’ [derived from a popular Chinese phrase "xia-gang" which means "if one failed to deliver he or she will be removed from the office.]

Being made redundant is probably its English equivalent. Some further commenting by bloggers said that they would ‘never vote’ for National again for failing to deliver and for breaking promises such as raising GST, among other things.

????????????????????????

2010-07-22 16:20

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1??????????????

2?????????

3???90?????????????

???????????????????

?????????

??????????

???????????

????????????

The bright side of this is that the National Government’s empty rhetoric is not always useless. It offered, like this blogger has demonstrated, some good initiatives for migrants to hone their linguistic skills.

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Filed under: asian, ethnic
17 Comments

PPP – Put Party Politics aside

Posted by Raymond Huo on July 22nd, 2010

Public Private Partnerships seem to be an obsession of the National Party but I think they would have more success if they concentrated on PPPs of another kind – ‘Put Party Politics’ aside.

Speaking in the House last night I congratulated National’s Jackie Blue for putting forward the Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill.

Labour supports this Bill for being a sensible and fitting response to concern in the community over consumer protection. It is about protecting the consumer in the evolving, modern market-place we currently live in. Politicising aside, this is a common sense Bill which addresses real issues and concerns in the community.

My colleague Carol Beaumont also put forward a sensible and much-needed Bill.

Carol’s Credit Reforms (Responsible Lending) Bill, more commonly known as the ‘Loan Shark Bill’, aims to protect the most vulnerable people in our community by cracking down on loan sharks.

However, National was unable to put party politics aside and voted down Carol’s Bill in the House last night.

It’s a shame when pieces of legislation that will help the most susceptible people in society are voted down due to party politics. This is a bill that would have prevented many families from getting into mounting debt.

It’s interesting to note the contrast between Carol’s much needed Bill and National’s Paul Quin’s farcical Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill.

I want to congratulate the Attorney General on the opinion he expressed towards Paul Quin’s nonsensical and jumbled attempt at tackling the crime issue in New Zealand.

Mr Quin’s Bill sets out to prevent prisoners who have committed a minor crime the right to vote, if they are detained in prison on Election Day.

Currently, prisoners have to be detained for over three years before they are denied the right to vote. I didn’t realise that for Mr Quin it was such a burning issue in the community that this needed to be altered.

It is unsurprising that the Attorney General stated that Mr Quin’s Bill was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act.

I want to tell Mr Quin that all New Zealanders are worried about the spiralling crime rate in New Zealand and this Bill is a slap in their face.

These are loud gestures that don’t tackle the real issue. The crime statistics make grim reading since National have taken office.

- There were 451,405 recorded offences in 2009, an increase of 20,002 from 2008

- Violent crime increased by 9.2 percent in 2009

- Domestic Violence increased by 18.6 percent in 2009

- 65 murders were recorded in 2009, 13 more than 2008

For all of the National and ACT’s tough talking, all we got is an increase in crime.

We need real policies, not empty rhetoric. Or we should tell National’s dear leader that PPP matters.

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Filed under: Labour Party, Loan Sharks, asian, law and order
14 Comments

The countdown is on…

Posted by Raymond Huo on July 2nd, 2010

Phil Goff launches Indianewslink June2010

The General Election maybe over a year away, but last Friday Phil Goff launched Indian Newslink’s official election page.

As pictured above, a number of Labour MPs were on hand for the launch, including Ross Robertson, Su’a William Sio, Carmel Sepuloni, Ashraf Choudhary, Carol Beaumont and Rajen Prasad.

I think this election page will add to Kiwis anticipation for the election.

Kiwi families are struggling under National’s recent policy and budget announcements.

GST increases and ETS mean that Kiwi families are put under further strain at a time when the world is coming out of the recession.

Kiwi families deserve better. Labour will ensure that tax-cuts are spread evenly over all wage earners and don’t just favour the rich.

After Labour worked hard to make student loans less of a burden on students with interest-free student loans, National has added an additional student loan fee of $40 per year.

This doesn’t give me any hope that National will keep the interest free student loan policy which was a legacy of the previous Labour government.

We’ll see how voters react next year.

http://www.indiannewslink.co.nz/index.php/electionlink/index.1.html

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Filed under: asian, ethnic, ets
25 Comments

First, Twice, Again, Sort of…

Posted by Pete Hodgson on December 14th, 2009

This post is inspired by Charles Chauvel’s post earlier today especially his point 3.

When our PM arrives in Copenhagen he will declare two world firsts for NZ. The first first will be our ‘all gases all sectors’ ETS. He will not dwell on the fact that it was passed 15 months ago in David Parker’s name and that his Government has since gutted it. It still has form but struggles for substance.

The second first will be NZ science leadership on agricultural gases especially methane. He will announce, again, an international NZ-led effort. Splendid. Except it began about 5 year’s ago. Remember the Fart Tax? Well the farmers paid up anyway and so did the taxpayer and the research got started. (I was both Climate and Science minister at the time)

Not that we shouldn’t do more. Not that another conference of research workers mightn’t be a good idea. But it ain’t new.

So what would be new?

*research and business development of ligno-cellulose(ie forestry products or by-products) to ethanol in pilot refineries beginning in BoP where the science and the wood is most concentrated. Actually the science is done but the scaling out of the lab isn’t.
*research into deep geothermal energy. That research got underway two year’s ago but modestly. We need baseload thermal electricity to wind out Huntly and to give charging capacity to electric vehicles….
*an undertaking to purchase a few hundred electric vehicles, possibly limited for official use in Wellington in the first instance, not to save lots of petrol (there would be too few), but to test recharging options, planning law, and other infrastructure so that when they are available affordably we will be ready.

The Conference would erupt at your speech because they would see substance Mr Key. Substance Mr Key. Mr Key? Hello? Hello…….?

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Filed under: Labour Party, climate change, national
6 Comments

Nat MPs hit the blogwaves (maybe)

Posted by Clare Curran on November 19th, 2009

National Party MPs have entered the blogosphere via an official looking blog attached to the National Party’s website. It’s called Meet your MP.

Kiwiblog posted on it earlier today. I guess David Farrar had the job of announcing it to the world. Nice video clip of Hekia Parata leading it off. Nice quality. Innocuous posts so far, some with a promotion angle for a government policy.

I posted a comment on the first few posts asking each author; Simon Bridges, Chris Finlayson, Hekia Parata, Eric Roy, Craig Foss whether they had written the posts themselves, and whether they had posted them.

In the blog world, it’s pretty much expected that to have credibility you need to not only write your own posts, but also post them yourself. Otherwise it becomes a PR exercise and lacks authenticity. I asked the questions in my comment posted about 11am this morning. None of my comments have appeared yet.

Not a good start.

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Filed under: blogs, comms & IT
54 Comments

John backs John for super mayor

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 7th, 2009

When John Key endorsed John Banks for super-mayor in his speech to the National Party conference yesterday there were gasps according to the Radio NZ report. Were people shocked by the lack of political judgement in backing such a divisive candidate so early?  Or were they dismayed that National’s super city crusade was about to take another body blow, its integrity undermined by association with such a blatant bid to install a National crony at the helm of the new super city?

Really. The Government is in the process of setting the rules of the game for our largest city’s democracy. It has used its majority in Parliament to ram through legislation under urgency and legislate away Aucklanders’ right to a referendum on this forced amalgamation. It has broken its manifesto promise to consult Aucklanders on the Royal Commission findings. And then in a highly unusual move installs the associate minister as chair of the select committee tasked with hearing public submissions on its second piece of super city law.

Just when all this unseemly haste and control-freakery made you start to wonder whether National-ACT have an agenda here, the Prime Minister virtually launches John Banks’ campaign for the super-mayoralty.

So is all this about getting the democratic institutions of our largest city right so Auckland can be a great city? Or is this about installing a National-ACT oligarchy to run Auckland and dispose of our assets?

It starts to explain why the Government wants councillors elected at large – it’s back to the pre-ward says of domination by the eastern suburbs. And it starts to explain why they dont want an empowered and resourced second tier that might actually reflect local voices and act as something of a check on the top tier.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
14 Comments