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The test

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 8:40 am, October 8th, 2008 - 84 comments

After building a political career that has consisted of little more than calling for tax cuts and attacking those that were delivered, John Key will finally present his party’s tax cut package today. Already, they have had to reduce its size but they will still make it the central part of their mystical economic platform […]

Will Labour back $15 minimum wage?

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 7th, 2008 - 45 comments

The unions want the minimum wage lifted to $15 an hour, two thirds of the average hourly rate, restoring the historic ratio. The Greens, New Zealand First, The Progressives (I think), the Maori Party* and, oddly, the Kiwi Party are also calling for $15 an hour. Will Labour join them? Labour has an excellent record on the […]

Spin-busting: Govt could have used surpluses for tax cuts

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:37 pm, October 6th, 2008 - 28 comments

With the economic situation deteriorating the surpluses the Government has run for the first eight years have turned to a deficit. National’s line now is that the Government ‘suquendered’ these surpluses when it could have been cutting taxes. As if when the Government runs a surplus it takes the extra money out and burns it. […]

CTU on closing the wage gap

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 4:20 pm, October 3rd, 2008 - 4 comments

The Council of Trade Unions has done a lot of work on why wages are low for many workers in New Zealand and how they can be increased to close the wage gap with Australia. They offer six proposals: Increase the minimum wage to at least $15 per/hour We know from the painful experience of […]

Wage gap decreasing thanks to pro-worker policies

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:05 pm, October 3rd, 2008 - 36 comments

As The Standard first reported on April 1 and Radio New Zealand picked up today, Treasury figures show that the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand increased 50% under National in the 1990s and has decreased moderately under Labour since then. Now, a lot of our readers simply won’t want to believe that […]

The Kingmaker but only one potential King

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:59 am, September 30th, 2008 - 51 comments

Let’s get serious about the idea of the Maori Party working with National. Yes, they want to play up the possibility to enhance their bargaining position, just as the Greens were last month, but it’s not going to happen. National and the Maori Party voted together in only a third of votes in the last […]

Poor

Written By: Tane - Date published: 11:26 am, September 17th, 2008 - 39 comments

I’ve just come across Labour’s tragic new campaign website, Labour08.co.nz, and I’m of the firm opinion that someone needs to get their shit together very quickly. Let’s recap here. Labour, according to the polls, is anywhere from 6 to 18 points behind National. Even accounting for the quirks of MMP it’ll be a bloody hard […]

Sideshow

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 1:07 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 36 comments

With an almost Winston-esqe turn of phrase Owen Glenn has labelled Labour Party president Mike Williams an “unmitigated falsifier of veracity”. Yet Glen himself has claimed that he was offered a cabinet post (cough), that he donated money to Labour because of the Exclusive Brethren’s involvement in National’s campaign (timing doesn’t work), that Labour Party President […]

The polls and petrol prices

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:43 am, September 8th, 2008 - 19 comments

Updating a post from a few months ago, here’s how Labour’s Roy Morgan poll numbers are going compared to the price of petrol since the last election (the price of petrol axis is inverted, lower line = higher price). The trend continues, when petrol prices go up support for Labour goes down and vice versa. Labour hit a […]

Not good enough

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 2:26 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 117 comments

For any of you who thought the sharp end of capitalism was a nice place to be, the front page story in today’s Dom Post should change your mind. It’s about the lending practices of the loan sharks that have flourished in the twenty years since New Zealand had neo-liberalism foisted on it. And it’s […]

Labour’s 2008 list

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:39 pm, August 31st, 2008 - 40 comments

Comment soon but for now here’s their full list (PDF link). Scoop’s got their presser up. [lprent: Handmirror: A Woman’s Place: The Labour Party List. No Right Turn: Labour’s list: looks like New Zealand. Granny Herald: Surprise picks in Labour party list. Salient: The Labour list has been announced. Grant Robertson: Wellington central candidate ]

Right to strike

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:43 pm, August 29th, 2008 - 10 comments

Hundreds of Australian journalists walked off the job yesterday in protest at Fairfax’s 550 planned job cuts. Here in NZ journos employed by Fairfax and facing 160 job losses joined their Aussie counterparts in a wild cat strike. Nah. They didn’t. However, they did issue a press release via their union the EPMU. That must […]

Herald poll shows Nats’ lead collapsing

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:50 am, August 28th, 2008 - 36 comments

Today’s Herald-Digi poll is the first to be released that was taken after the secret agenda tape scandal had fully emerged and had some time to sit in voters’ minds. Which makes it worrying reading for National. They have lost 5.4% support (54.4% to 50%) and Labour has benefited from that loss picking up 5.5% (30.8% […]

Greens win better ETS

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:23 am, August 27th, 2008 - 21 comments

The Greens have won some very good improvements to the ETS in exchange for their support. The most important is $1 billion over 15 years to insulate low-income homes and subsidise upgrades to insulation of higher income homes. That’s a really positive development; all New Zealand homes will finally have decent insulation (Labour has done well […]

Adapting to the end of cheap oil

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:01 pm, August 24th, 2008 - 30 comments

On August 1, Transit NZ and Land Transport NZ were merged into the NZ Transport Authority. The new organisation’s first major publication shows a welcome shift in thinking and an acknowledgment that the age of cheap oil is over. Managing Transport Challenges When Oil Prices Rise contains a model built on the consensus of a number of international […]

PM loses a mate

Written By: Tillerman - Date published: 4:53 pm, August 15th, 2008 - 55 comments

The death at just 59 of alpine legend Gottlieb Braun-Elwert will be greatly mourned around the Tekapo community, and much further afield too. Braun-Elwert was one of those Europeans who came here and found our great outdoors intoxicating. He arrived in his 20s on a hitch-hiking tour, fell in love with the country’s natural splendour, […]

Quote of the week

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 9:29 am, August 8th, 2008 - 14 comments

Maybe we should take submissions in the comments but my vote’s with Michael Cullen’s assertion from the House yesterday that the leaked tapes represent: an unorchestrated litany of truth. Classic.

Break-in

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:03 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 18 comments

This just in from Radio NZ: Police are investigating a break-in at the electorate office of a senior Labour MP, David Cunliffe, in Auckland. Nothing was taken in the burglary but Mr Cunliffe’s computer was apparently tampered with. Mr Cunliffe’s office has confirmed a complaint has been made to the police about the incident. Meanwhile, […]

Lucky Aussies, they kept their work rights

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 31st, 2008 - 62 comments

Some of our friends on the Right have been putting themselves through strange mental contortions over the recent series of posts we’ve had on the impact of National and the Left on wages. To recap: we’ve shown that National let the minimum wage stagnate while inflation ate its buying power, the Labour-led Governments have increased it, […]

Larger slice of the cake for workers under Labour

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 6:46 am, July 30th, 2008 - 46 comments

The essential debate in New Zealand politics (and all capitalist economies) is between Right and Left over how big a share of the economy’s production should go to the workers who produce it (ie wages, salaries) and how much should go to the capitalists who invested in the means of production (ie dividends, interest). The […]

Why Labour thinks it can win again

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 1:30 pm, July 29th, 2008 - 54 comments

Here’s a well-reasoned article by Therese Arseneau in which she canvasses the reasons behind Labour thinking it can still win. She puts it down to: MMP, their ‘core vote’, voter mobilisation, National’s policies, Helen Clark herself and a bit of a mix of good management and good luck. Definitely worth a read.

Fact: The Left has risen wages during its time in power

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:51 am, July 29th, 2008 - 27 comments

Inevitably, reaction from some to the post showing incomes fell 6.1% under National between 1990 and 1997 has not been horror at the fact the incomes of Kiwis went down but ‘so, I bet the Labour-led Governments haven’t done better’. Bet again. The median income in 2007 was 32% higher than the median income was […]

Lightening the load

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:35 pm, July 18th, 2008 - 12 comments

A universal student allowance of $350 isn’t going to happen. It’s too expensive and would bar major new spending in any other area. But more relief from debt would be welcome. There’s an increasing recognition that student loans are locking young people out of the housing market, making them perpetual cash-cows for the property speculators […]

Spinbusting: NZF’s donations are Labour’s business

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 8:59 am, July 17th, 2008 - 52 comments

National is calling on Helen Clark to investigate alleged donations by Owen Glenn to New Zealand First (which, if they happened, were perfectly legal). Consider what that means: National is advocating for the leader of a political party to be able to delve into the internal finances of another political party. That would be a […]

The same dream

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:17 am, July 16th, 2008 - 5 comments

Some people don’t seem to understand that being of the Left does not mean being soley allied to Labour or the Greens or the Progressives. It means fundamentally holding beliefs that are fundamentally also held by Labour, the Greens, and the Progressives, a common thread of principles that binds the Left. 08wire.org explains with the […]

So much for ambition

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 6:30 am, July 14th, 2008 - 40 comments

Yesterday on Agenda, SOE Minister Trevor Mallard said that the Government was undertaking an exploratory study to see whether the factory that currently repairs trains could also be used to assemble trains. If its economical, specialised parts would still be imported but a major manufacturing job would take place in New Zealand, building up New […]

Contrary to Key, Govt does target waste

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:21 am, July 13th, 2008 - 54 comments

The idea that a government would purposely spend money in a wasteful manner is patently absurd. Voters want more government services and lower tax, any dollar of wasteful spending not only takes away from a government’s ability to meet those desires but also gives voters an active reason to vote against the Government. That’s a […]

Positive moves on housing

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:58 am, July 9th, 2008 - 88 comments

Housing has always been an important issue for Labour. The First Labour Government instituted a massive State house building project, freeing working class New Zealanders from slum landlords, creating healthier living conditions, and stimulating the economy during the Great Depression. Now, New Zealand faces some of the same conditions as existed at the start of […]

On Freedom

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 6:51 am, July 5th, 2008 - 122 comments

It is time for the Left to take back the language of freedom. At its heart freedom, power for the ordinary person, is what the Left is about. – Freedom from unemployment, – Freedom from crappy wages that mean you have to work 60 hours a week to make ends meet, – Freedom from having to […]

Report shows incomes up, inequality down

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:50 pm, July 4th, 2008 - 32 comments

The MSD’s Incomes Report provides a wealth of information. For instance, here’s how the mean and median household incomes have moved since 1982. Households suffered a massive erosion of income during the rightwing revolution from 1984 to the late 1990s. The leftwing governments since 1999 put that to a stop that. Now, incomes have regained […]

Poverty falls, more to be done

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:59 am, July 4th, 2008 - 35 comments

13% of people are living in poverty in New Zealand (defined as less than 60% of the median income, less than $40K a year for a household, $16K for an individual) compared with 17% in 2004 and 23% in 1994. Child poverty dropped 7% between 2004 and 2007. Since the Government came to power it […]