Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, March 7th, 2008 - 59 comments
Categories: Media, national, workers' rights -
Tags: Media, national, workers' rights
There is more to the John Key “we would love to see wages drop” story than you have been able to read in the blogs or the mainstream media.
We’ve been in contact with a large number of people who have been connected at various levels of this story as it has developed. Unfortunately, none have been allowed to go on record and because we take their trust in us seriously, we can’t identify them or pass on the particulars of what we know. But what we have been told is enough to make us damn sure we are right on this story.
We continue to stand by what we have always said:
Key did say that he would love to see wages drop, he was talking in all seriousness, and he was talking about New Zealand wages. The journalist, the editor and the publisher have all backed this version of events.
National demanded APN get rid of the story and senior APN management pressured and coerced its editorial staff into making a ‘clarification’. This was not a decision of the journalists and editors. The journalists and editors have been gagged by APN from speaking to the media.
The ‘clarification’ stinks of pressure from APN management at the behest of National. In a free and open democracy this kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable, and we expect both National and APN to be held to account.
Facebook
Twitter
Scoopit!
who is Tony O’Reilly?
I’m hopeful the Standard will actually post something interesting soon – there has been good debate on other posts in the past – this continuing saga however is fatuous.
Steve
When did I say that wages weren’t a policy issue ? If I did I must have been drunk at the time !
I think my comment was that all political parties would like to see wages going up
Steve point me in the direction please can’t find the bit you’re referring to.
regarding “if you don’t think National pushes down wages you need to check out the graphs in our workers’ rights catagory, and my explanation of the mechanisms a government can use to affect wages also therein.”
Thanks
higherstandard.
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?cat=5 this has Cullen referring to the figures, gross average real wage grew $1 in 1990 dollars between 1990 and 1999, they went down in the first of that period.
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=527 this has graphs but they don’t show the intervening years under National when real wages dropped – the figure goes straight from 1991 to 1996. There is a little growth in take home pay from the tax cuts in the late 1990s, but you can see that is dwarfed by the increase in wages under Labour.
Steve Pierson
I couldn’t agree with you more. Look at this link Gagging order extended for health report
Perhaps I’m missing something, but this has never been posted about at the Standard, not the gagging, the issue, the facts or the perception.
You then went on.
Once again I agree with you, who’s trying to hide what?
“who’s trying to hide what”
true burt, it does seem strange that National have gone to so much effort to squash Key’s “love to see wages drop” comment when they claim it’s a non-event.
Dave. The Labour material was printed and paid for last year and so not subject to the EFA, just as National’s donation transfers from anonymous trusts last year are not covered by the EFA
WRONG. ANd you kow it – or at leasdt you should. I was talking about distribution, not printing and publishing. It is illegal to distribute this stuff with out a name and street address.
the sprout
I agree. The moment the gagging orders come into play when politicians are involved you just know something is completely out of order.
If there is a gagging order on the ‘wages drop’ fiasco I support it being removed as much as I support the HB-DHB one being lifted, how about you? Do you support removing both?
burt
i’ll show you mine if you show me yours
the sprout
No, not at all. Transparency. It’s not just something you believe in when it suits, it’s a principal. This point seems to be lost here on the standard, how about with you?
Burt – I agree about the HBDHB stuff but it has been legally injuncted by all parties concerned whereas the APN gagging is simply a company trying to hiding something. Unlike the DHB gagging there is no legal process for appeal and no timeline for the order to be lifted – just APN bullying its staff. We’ll find out what is in the DHB report in a week or two but I doubt we’ll ever find out what strings were pulled at APN. Welcome to private sector accountability…
very true rosinsod
Some seem to say a ‘gagging’ order is normal, maybe at a factory , or hospital or a school where their primary mission is unrelated to the original issue.
But a newspaper is only about news, a ggaing order is anathema to what a news organisation is about. In fact the Herald will routinely go to court to overturn other gagging orders or just break them anyway.
The news at APN has stopped being of real value and is now just a commodity like the advertisments, just there at the whim of the Corporate business.
The editor may as well be replaced by Googles algorithims, which the CEO tuns off and on till the spaces between the ads are filled….
“Welcome to private sector accountability ”
Is that as opposed to the speeding fiasco in South Canterbury?
See if you can spell “sychphant”, Sod.
Private sector accountability – the subject of multiple posts on this blog – public sector accountability (The DHB corruption fiasco) is the subject of zero posts on this blog.
The sycophant’s on this blog know all about accountability – as long as it’s not accountability involving the govt who promised a new standard of openness and accountability.
You guys are a laugh a minute – watching you guys contort yourselves and show how little principle you have is hilarious.
CAPTCHA: Extortion Jordan – well he is wanting to be a Labour party MP – so it’s only a matter of time I guess – but it’s OK he will say “move on” and the standard won’t mention it.
Um, I’m pretty sure it’s got an “A”, a “P” and an “N” in it…
rOb
I’m still waiting for Steve P. and the sprout to confirm if they support lifting gagging orders as a principal issue or just when it suits their agenda.
In the interim I’m having some fun laughing at you guys making dicks of yourselves. How about you? Do you support muzzling the press or don’t you?
Steve was quite clear about it:
But he’s gone all silent about it now – I wonder why? Some people really should think thru the stuff they post eh, it would save them showing themselves up as being myopic.
Oh, can you clarify how I’m being partisan about this – I said I don’t support either gagging – which is something nobody else seems prepared to say.
I see you fail to read properly again Burt or is “I agree about the HBDHB stuff” not clear enough for you? Every time you comment you show a willful blindness to the clear facts, bro.
Robinsod
You said you agree with the DHB stuff but you told lies about the injunction. The board (excluding Hausmann) wanted the final report blocked as they considered it didn’t represent the situation. Helathcare NZ (Hausmann) and the health ministry wanted the draft report blocked.
This is the story – two sides that under your reasoning get wound into “all parties agree”.
Perhaps you could answer this simple question to clarify;
Should the press be muzzled from reporting how public money has been spend?
One more question;
Do you think the DHB should pay for Hausmann’s legal bill defending the conflict of interest debacle, which was apparently easy to manage according to King.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4430023a6045.html
OMG, I’ve just had a very reliable report from someone who knows a lot about things and he was speaking to someone else who is very high up (in a tree) and also very very reliable (two verys, wow), but I can’t tell you who they are because quite possibly they could be put against a wall and shot (or maybe it was nipple twisted, I forget). Anywho, they (the ubiquitous ‘they’, not the other ‘they’) say that Labour has a secret plan after they win the election that all opposition parties will be banned, and the entire population will be forced to wear cardigans (the price of green support). Bollocks you say? Just trust me, I’m damn sure we are right.
Burt isn’t the HBHB report a draft? If so I think it is important that it be completed before it is released. When it is in it’s final form I most definatly agree that it should be released.
On topic though Key clearly said that hw wants wages to drop. The clarification doesn’t clarify anything.
From his comments it is clear that he does not think wage earners should be getting nominal increases to account for inflation. Given that we are entering into a period of global inflation this matters.
He says that the ONLY reason for wage increases is productivity growth. Fair enough if that what he thinks, but it does mean that he expects wage earners to pay the cost of inflation. Inflation that for the most part is being driven by the responses to the financial crises caused by Key’s former colleagues in the international banking bazaar. This amounts to drops in real wages, which as far as I can tell is why he said as much.
It’s not a popular course, so he’s had the paper make this murky ‘clarification’ about ‘impressions’.
Ho Burt, you are as partisan as ever today I see. National good, Labour bad.
Did you have anything substantive to contribute to the topic of the thread, or was this just a drive-by ranting?
Burt, I don’t know much about this DHB thing, but as far as I can see ‘Sod has answered your comments in his post of Mar 7th, 2008 at 8:15 pm above. You seem to be willfully blind to the points that he made. There is a difference between the legal system requiring facts to remain confidential, and a political party silencing a journalist. Do you see a difference Burt?
After all the fuss last year about free speech, why are you not taking up arms over this attack on democracy?
About legal confidentiality, seems to me that’s complicated. In general I would, like you and ‘Sod, prefer all processes to be open. But it’s apparent that in many cases that would make it hard for justice to be done, sometimes confidentiality really is required. So it’s messy.
But in politics, let’s have it open. I take it we are agreed that National / APN silencing a journalist is intolerable. I take it we are agreed that all parties should publicly publish their accounts (as the Labour party does). I take it we are agreed that National should be as open about it’s relationship with its donors as Labour is about Owen Glenn. I take it that we are agreed that state funding of political parties is the most open system of all, so that no one gets to buy any kind of influence, and every last cent is publicly accounted for. Yes, Burt, let’s have it open! Are we agreed?