The Labour Party’s online petition opposing John Key’s apparent plans to resume commercial whaling has been signed by more than 2,000 people in less than 48 hours.
If you don’t think NZ should be a pro-whaling nation please send John Key a strong message and sign the petition. You can do it here on Red Alert by clicking this link.
Alternatively, sign the petition on my website at carter.org.nz/savethewhales.
Thanks for your support.
Thank to your help with Labour’s online petition for people who oppose the resumption of commercial whaling. The petition has been signed by more than one thousand people in less than 24 hours.
The vast majority of signatories are Kiwis. But a few people overseas have signed up – even people from countries which allow whaling.
It’s becoming clear that John Key’s moves to restart commercial whaling are seriously damaging New Zealand’s international image. I received this posting on my website from Kane Slater, a Canadian:
Mr Key is supposedly the Tourism Minister as well as our Prime Minister. What will he say to our whale watching and conservation tourism operators in Kaikoura and around New Zealand?
If you don’t think NZ should be a pro-whaling nation please send John Key a strong message and sign the petition today. You can do it here on Red Alert by clicking this link.
Alternatively, sign the petition on my website at carter.org.nz/savethewhales.
The One Size Does Not Fit All petition is organised by a concerned parent who has given a great set of reasons.
There have been a number of posts from Jacinda on the stupidity of the Government closing down the Te Hurihanga youth justice facility in Hamilton.
Essentially, the facility has been working with some of our young men who are the worst offenders and are on the pathway to a life of serious crime. It has had extrodinary success rates in the three years of the programme’s pilot, with none of the graduates offending in the first 10 months since they completed the programme.
If you agree with us that this is a shortsighted decision, then you can fill out the petition launched by a local Hamilton woman, aimed at reversing the funding cut.
The petitioner came to my office in Hamilton to seek advice on how to go about doing a petition. When I asked her what her motivation was she said “I just think everyone deserves a second chance.”
She has had no involvement with the programme, but is a fair-minded Hamiltonian who thinks the decision stinks. I’m with her on that!
Today my petition was tabled in Parliament calling on the Government to reinstate two pay equity investigations it axed in March for school support staff and social workers; to implement the findings of 65 previously completed pay equity investigations and to develop a strategy to eliminate the 12% gender pay gap.
15,808 other decent New Zealanders joined me by signing the petition. Thousands of others would have signed it if they had the opportunity to.
On Friday, I hosted an event at Parliament to celebrate the official launch of the “Pay Equity Challenge” – a coalition of 26 NZ organisations dedicated to campaigning around this issue.
I hope the Government is listening. If they were, then Tony Ryall would be made to reinstate the pay equity investigations he axed and Kate Wilkinson would re-establish the Pay and Employment Equity Unit she closed down in May. Minister of Women’s Affairs Pansy Wong should have stopped her colleagues from carrying out both of these acts against hard-working New Zealand women and their families.
On Saturday, New Zealand celebrated 116 years since women got the right to vote. Unfortunately, this National Government is taking us backward on the gender pay gap issue and family incomes are being affected as a result.
(The photo above is of your’s truly speaking at the Pay Equi-Tea event. As well as being in period costume, the Pay Equity Challengers had baked a cake – but 12% was missing!)
Today I was presented with 10,000 more signatures to my pay equity petition by NZEI, the union representing school support staff and school support workers who have been unfairly treated by the Government.
I was blown away – almost literally in Wellington today – by the efforts the union members had made to get support for the petition. One of the support staff, Putiputi Temara, had gathered 500 signatures calling for the Government to reinstate their pay equity investigation, which it axed in March. I figured she must have gone through a few ballpoint pens on her crusade, so I presented her with a Parliamentary pen to recognise her achievement.
The petition now has around 14,000 signatures of New Zealanders calling on Government to stop attacking fairness at work for women and make progress on closing the gender pay gap of 12%. The issue is gaining wide-ranging support and even Herald columnist Fran O’Sullivan took the Government to task for its bad record on the issue.
Today I was again reminded of how much under-valuing the work done by female-dominated occupations affects families who rely on the incomes earned by women. Some of the school support staff who attended today’s event told me their personal stories of the family members they are trying to support while earning just above the minimum wage after several years’ experience in jobs that they love.
Yes, Pay Equity is an issue for women and we are 51% of the population after all. But it is also an issue for every father who values his daughter, every man who shares his life with a woman and every child who’s welfare is dependent on the income being earnt by their mother.
[Pictured: Green MP Catherine Delahunty, Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson, Petition "Champ" Putiputi Temara and petition sponsor, Sue Moroney MP accepting the 10,000 signatures today.]
Over 200,000 kiwis are involved in continuing education. Over 200 secondary schools are involved. It costs the taxpayer about $16m a year.
In the early eighties I set up the King Country Rural Education Programme (REAP). Adult and community education is a big part of its work. I saw what it did for hundreds of people, old and young, rich and poor, brown and white, people who had suceeded in their first go at post primary education and people who were getting their first real chance.
What was soon obvious to me is that most people get their education in irregular shapes. There is no standard pattern. For a few people it is relatively easy but for others taking that first bite, or the break from their regular life that keeps them sane, it is incredibly difficult.
I saw dozens of kids recruited from spacie parlours do shearing courses that led to them getting jobs – generally as pressers – with shearing gangs. I saw women who hadn’t been inside a secondary school for years learning to decorate cakes with an Army chef as a tutor. People doing assertiveness and self defence courses that changed their lives. People weaving baskets as their culture was renewed.
Many people kicked on and did more formal university education after their eyes were opened and their potential affirmed. Others just acquired a useful skill.
And Anne Tolley wants to chop the 80% of the funding not used for literacy.
Labour thinks that is very short sighted and Maryan Street has started a petition. Download it here.
What do you think?
The National Government has again “reverted to type” when it abolished the Pay and Employment Equity Unit yesterday, putting an end to in-depth investigation and specific recommendations to eliminate the gender pay gap for thousands of NZ women in a range of work settings.
The Minister says the Government has “reprioritised.” I guess this means that women are a low priority for National.
Just what has National got against women earning what they deserve? They haven’t moved on from their idealogy of the 1990’s when they abolished the Pay Equity Act within in weeks of gaining power. They said “the market” would fix the problem then and this is still their answer to the gender pay gap today. Meanwhile, families struggle to make ends meet because of the systematic undervaluing of the work that women do.
Labour remains committed to eliminating the 12% gender pay gap and I have launched a petition calling on the Government to re-establish the two pay equity investigations it scrapped earlier this year for school support staff and social workers; to honour the investigations that have been completed and to develop a strategy to close the gender pay gap.
Please download this petition [PDF - 150K] and circulate it to put pressure on the Government to give women a fair go at work. If you are already circulating the petition, please note that petition forms need to be returned to me at Parliament by Tuesday, September 1st.
