Author Archive

Why does the Right think port workers’ pay should be cut?

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, January 12th, 2012 - 74 comments

National high flyer Jami-Lee Ross, Ports of Auckland’s chief shill, and Fran O’Sullivan all joined the fray over the port dispute yesterday. How does their line that the workers are overpaid marry with the Port’s claim that they’re offering pay rises? Does the Port project its wage bill would rise or fall if its offer were to be accepted? And what to make of this ‘national interest’ line?

Port’s paid propagandist says cut workers’ pay

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, January 11th, 2012 - 400 comments

They say that the nice thing about Cameron Slater is he’ll believe whatever he’s paid to believe. Yesterday, I asked whether Slater is being paid to run dirt stories for Ports of Auckland. He didn’t deny it. So what is the Port’s propagandist up to? Yesterday, he was calling for the workers’ pay to be slashed while defending the directors’ massive fees.
Update: Ports of Auckland denies paying Slater anything.

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland 2

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, January 10th, 2012 - 256 comments

Since my post yesterday, Ports of Auckland has upped the ante  threatening to sack all its workers and contract out (to quick and loud cheers from the National-aligned blogs they are working with – Cameron Slater’s rate is $10,000 for an operation like this). What they’re proposing is a breach of the law and wouldn’t work, but its just setting the scene for the next stage.

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 pm, January 9th, 2012 - 125 comments

The Right is up to its old tricks over the Ports of Auckland. It’s the usual pattern: make up some bullshit about how the workers are spoiled and unreasonable, cry that the sky will fall if the company doesn’t get its way, and (this is the long-game) suggest privatisation as the solution. What you haven’t heard is the cause of the ‘crisis’: the Port’s attempt to cut the workers’ conditions and pay.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, January 4th, 2012 - 35 comments

I read Colin James’s piece on the need for a resilient economy/society in yesterday’s ODT. A competent explanation of a risks facing New Zealand and an acknowledgement that New Zealand needs to design itself to withstand and exploit them. Nothing new to readers of The Standard. But are we building that resilience? James offers no opinion. The answer is ‘no’.

Farewell NZ Institute

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, December 21st, 2011 - 14 comments

I’m really disappointed the New Zealand Institute is merging with the Business Roundtable. It smells like the NZI was out of cash. It’s a pity because, since getting rid of David Skilling, the NZI has been producing some good, broad-minded,practical work on the economy’s fundamental challenges. Merger just leave a shill for the neoliberal elite.

Priorities

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, December 19th, 2011 - 25 comments

Trillions have been plowed into bailing out banks, investors, and whole countries during the economic crisis. The cost easily exceeds total investment in tackling climate change. Is it, as George Monbiot argues, that elites just look out for themselves, or are humans just incapable of perceiving the danger of large, slowly-building problems?

This can’t go on

Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, December 13th, 2011 - 18 comments

140 more jobs have been lost in Christchurch. Employment in the region had already fallen by 26,800 in the year to September. DoL research says that 18% of surviving businesses cut staff due the earthquakes, 40% lost revenue, 50% survived with government support, and 28% a finding they are losing more staff. The economy is […]

In praise of David Cunliffe

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, December 5th, 2011 - 131 comments

I enjoyed Jenny’s piece the other day on David Shearer’s leadership abilities. His skill at taking the ball and running with it, and doing what he thinks is right. I want to similarly praise David Cunliffe for his leadership in economic thinking. God knows we need someone who gets the problems and the solutions. Cunliffe brings that understanding in droves.

Paradigm shift

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, November 30th, 2011 - 79 comments

In the Budget, we were told to expect 4.2% growth in 2012, which would make getting back into surplus and creating jobs possible. The Pre-election Update reduced it to 3%. Now, the OECD says ‘2.5%, providing Europe doesn’t go to crap .. oh, and Europe’s going to crap’. We’ve got to accept that economic growth won’t fall on us like manna from heaven anymore and work out how to build an actual brighter future.

Nats fail own asset sales tests

Written By: - Date published: 6:29 am, November 14th, 2011 - 67 comments

Labour’s David Cunliffe put out a press release judging National’s proposed asset sales programme by the 5 tests that Key laid down in an effort to reassure us that sales would only go ahead if they made sense and were good for the country. Cunliffe’s analysis shows asset sales clearly fail the Nats’ own tests. The only reason to go ahead is blind ideology.

A sharp contrast

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, November 11th, 2011 - 21 comments

When people say ‘there’s no difference between the two big parties’ or ‘where are the policies’, it’s shorthand for ‘I haven’t been paying attention’. We had a great example of the contrast yesterday. National would subsidise expansion of dairy by selling our assets; Labour would get modern equipment to poor schoolkids by cutting sports subsidies to rich schools.

The new hole in National’s budget

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, November 10th, 2011 - 99 comments

National would get the books back into the black with a $1.5b surplus 2014/15. It’s on their ads, it’s in the PREFU. So, it’s gotta be true, eh? Well, we already know they’ve cooked the books by claiming both that they would have the revenue from asset sales and the dividends from those sold assets. Now, their ETS changes have opened a second great big hole in their budget.

End of night classes makes for a poorer society

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, November 7th, 2011 - 30 comments

The number of people attending adult community education has fallen by 80% since National’s cuts in 2009. National’s cuts have saved only $24m (vs the $1.1b cost of the ‘fiscally neutral’ tax cuts) but have denied over a quarter of a million people the opportunity to broaden their horizons and acquire new skills. National is leaving a poorer society behind it.

Time for Nats to front up over lost dividends

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, November 5th, 2011 - 69 comments

Labour’s fiscal strategy takes National’s projections and adds or subtracts money for its policies. The clever thing is they alter the Nats’ projections to remove all the dividend revenue from assets they want to sell. How much is taken off National doesn’t affect if Labour gets back to surplus in 2014 – but it makes National’s projections more accurate. The Nats are complaining.

Key lied on health cuts

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 12 comments

In the TVNZ debate on Monday, John Key claimed that he had cut ‘back office’ jobs and increased health services.That wasn’t true. The fact is, funding cuts have reduced the capacity of many health services. ‘Front-line’ staff are doing ‘back office’ work as well and everything else is getting squeezed to put more money into ‘sexy’ elective surgery numbers.

Nats’ ad claims credit for Lab’s infrastructure

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, November 1st, 2011 - 51 comments

Oh dear. This is not what National needed on the back of Goff besting Key in the first debate. National’s new TV ad is on the world-class infrastructure they claim to have built. But it was all planned, funded, and mostly built by Labour. Have National accidentally revealed their real achievement: taking credit for others work?

Key: tired & bereft of ideas

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, October 31st, 2011 - 32 comments

So, that was National’s ‘big announcement’tm? Allocating money they’ve already banked into a fund which is just an accounting fiction for capital spending that was already budgeted for. A billion of it over five years to ‘transform’ schools? $80,000 a year per school … of already budgeted spending. Talk about tired and bereft of ideas.

Labour overshadows Key with Auckland transport policy

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, October 30th, 2011 - 130 comments

Labour has just over-shadowed Key’s big smile and wave show today – where he is expected to reannounce spending – with another big policy. Labour will cancel National’s Holiday Highway. With the money saved, they will make the existing road safe, and go 50-50 with the Auckland council to fund the CBD rail-loop and get Auckland moving sustainably.

Some questions in passing

Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, October 21st, 2011 - 22 comments

+ Wouldn’t a Key endorsement of Banks be an admission that a Labour-led government is possible if ACT doesn’t make it?
+ Is the delay in Key’s endorsement because the Nats are worried that revelations will make Banks unelectable regardless and an endorsement will tarnish Brand Key by association?
+Is it true that ACT is seeking legal advice on removing Banks from the ballot?

NZ takes one more step toward complete biodiversity loss

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, February 1st, 2011 - 13 comments

In a poor attempt to make it look like NACT are actually doing something about New Zealand’s incredibly high rate of bio-diversity loss , and warnings that our forests will soon be silent Nick Smith has introduced a National Policy Statement on Biodiversity whilst NACT also announces further cuts in conservation funding .

What NZ could look like with more Cancun failures

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, December 15th, 2010 - 65 comments

How does large hunks of most of our coastal cities and thousands of acres of farmland being swallowed the sea sound? This neat graphic shows effects of sea level rises from climate change: 1m – roughly in line with official predictions; through 6m – collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; to 14m – doomsday scenario. Even a small rise is catastrophic.

100% PURE…going…going…gone…

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 12th, 2010 - 25 comments

When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.

Loophole in new ETS regulations will increase emissions

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, July 19th, 2010 - 13 comments

The ETS-waste regulations currently being consulted on by the Government include a loophole that will actually increase greenhouse gas production in order to save polluters money. Who wrote the regs for the Government? A company that will be able to help landfills exploit this loophole by paying less whilst polluting more.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 24 comments

Recently, and for good reason, New Zealanders and the media have objected to companies using palm oil due the deforestation caused by the palm oil industry. For New Zealand to take such a stance, when our diary industry has a similarly devastating impact on the environment, is hypocritical. We need to clean up our own act if we’re going to criticise others.

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