Key smacked down on jobs failure

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, November 28th, 2012 - 68 comments
Categories: jobs, john key, russel norman - Tags:

Dr Russel Norman: Does it not all boil down to the fact that whichever way you cut it, whichever statistics you care to choose, the Government has failed on jobs, unemployment has grown in New Zealand, and the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has not grown; and is it not time he just admitted it and figured out what to do about it?

Naturally, Key responded with a long-winded version of ‘la, la, la, there’s no problem and, if there is, it’s all someone else’s fault’.

Key never wants to look the facts in the eye, but Norman forced them down his throat:

Dr Russel Norman: Which of these figures does he dispute: that the household labour force survey shows a 31,600 decline in the number of people employed in manufacturing in the past 4 years; that the quarterly employment survey shows a 31,300 decline in the number of jobs in manufacturing in the past 4 years; or that the linked employer-employee data set shows a decline in the number of filled jobs in manufacturing of 20,000 in the 3 years to September 2011?

Key, of course, tries everything to look the other way and refuse to address the issue (he even accused Labour of starting the global financial crisis) but, you know what, that’s fine. It’s great news for the Left when Key refuses to acknowledge the problem that’s in front of everyone’s face.

When Kiwis see job loses on the TV night after night in places like Tokoroa, Rotorua, and Mosgiel – to name just the publicised job losses in the last two days – and then see Key claim there’s no problem, we don’t walk away thinking that there is no problem. We walk away thinking that Key has his head in the sand and a seriously credibility issue on jobs.

Remember to get your submission in to the Manufacturing Inquiry.

68 comments on “Key smacked down on jobs failure ”

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  1. CnrJoe 1
    28 November 2012 at 9:01 am

    no flaff – Worst. Govt. Ever

  2. karol 2
    28 November 2012 at 9:12 am

    I do find it frustrating, the endless game playing a rule-defining process that takes so much of question time.

    It all seems to work against enabling the government/PM to honestly be held to account.

    FFS!  Norman asked  for 4 years of stats, Mr Speaker.  Key gave 3 years.  Any school child can see what a dodge that is.

  3. fisiani 3
    28 November 2012 at 9:28 am

    Key could easily have claimed quite factually that the Green and Labour Hobbit Haters would have cost 3,000 jobs.

    • karol 3.1
      28 November 2012 at 9:40 am

      Key could have claimed it, but like many things he’s claimed, he would be wrong.

    • felix 3.2
      28 November 2012 at 9:47 am

      Key hates the hobbit. He doesn’t want to read it and he hasn’t watched the LOTR films either.

      • kea 3.2.1
        28 November 2012 at 10:20 am

        Torture.

        You may need to restrain him, as Kubrick did with Alex in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, using Ludovico technique apparatus forcing him to watch through the use of specula to hold the eyes open, all three episodes of the Rings ..

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovico_technique

        I couldn’t handle it.

        • felix 3.2.1.1
          28 November 2012 at 12:23 pm

          That’s fine, you don’t have to like it. I haven’t read the Hobbit either. Not my cup of tea.

          But I don’t go around calling my opponents “Hobbit Haters” and I haven’t tied my political career to the franchise.

          Presumably you haven’t either.

    • Roy 3.3
      28 November 2012 at 2:05 pm

      3000 < 20,000, even if the 'Hobbit haters' assertion was true, which it is not.

  4. Steve Wrathall 4
    28 November 2012 at 9:36 am

    What utter hypocrisy, when the watermelons oppose every suggestion for actually creating jobs: mining, fracking, lowering minimum wage, youth rates, free trade…

    • One Tāne Huna 4.1
      28 November 2012 at 9:41 am

      It’s so nice to hear from the tiny minority once in a while.

      Wrathall, not even the Treasury department believes your delusional fantasies. Perhaps you should blow harder.

    • framu 4.2
      28 November 2012 at 10:14 am

      still living the fantasy there steve?

      watermelons – oooh, such a stinging put down. First time anyones heard that, quite a new one in fact, invent that all by yourself?

      Shame that when you describe green policies and the party as such it just proves you dont have a fricken clue about what your talking about – as usual

      • Steve Wrathall 4.2.1
        28 November 2012 at 1:32 pm

        Not to mention wanting to shut down the fossil-fuel based economy and replace it with unreliable energy sources that cost 100s of thousands of $ for each phony job created.

        • One Tāne Huna 4.2.1.1
          28 November 2012 at 1:35 pm

          Earth to idiot: fossil fuels are running out; the change you are whining about is inevitable. Perhaps if you blow harder you will strike oil, though.

        • Tracey 4.2.1.2
          28 November 2012 at 1:40 pm

          How’s the job creation gone over at Pike River???

        • Warren 4.2.1.3
          28 November 2012 at 5:21 pm

          How’s the job creation at Solid Energy?

        • mike e 4.2.1.4
          28 November 2012 at 9:49 pm

          silly wanker your the fossil fuelled by ignorance and greed

          [lprent: That comment appears to be pointless abuse. Read the policy and don’t make the same mistake again. This is your warning. ]

        • framu 4.2.1.5
          29 November 2012 at 9:39 am

          “every suggestion for actually creating jobs”

          from you list – are these the only ideas ever for creating jobs? are there better ones?

          I know your scope is very narrow and i dont expect you to really know – but its worth asking

      • Fortran 4.2.2
        28 November 2012 at 2:01 pm

        framu

        Surely you mean a Fracking clue ?

    • Tracey 4.3
      28 November 2012 at 1:39 pm

      not quite right, the alleged job creation “ideas” which have been shown to not deliver what is promised and are a step back in time. Were you for or against the carriages being put together in Dunedin or China?

      Can you point to the successes from our FTA with the USA?

    • Saarbo 4.4
      28 November 2012 at 5:05 pm

      “every suggestion for actually creating jobs: mining, fracking, lowering minimum wage, youth rates, free trade…”

       Steve, Its debatable that any of these things make a MATERIAL difference to creating jobs but what does create Jobs is a growing economy. Key, English and Joyce are tanking our economy with their ‘Do Nothing” strategy. Growth under Labour Government’s 3.7%, Growth under National Government’s 2.9%. FACT.

      National are Hopeless.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.4.1
        28 November 2012 at 6:32 pm

        We’ve hit Peak Conventional Oil. That, essentially, means that it’s now impossible to grow the economy so we need to look for better ways to distribute the limited resources we have.

        • Saarbo 4.4.1.1
          28 November 2012 at 7:53 pm

          True DTB, the point that needs to be made to National supporters is historically their policies seem to consistently suppress and constrain the economy while Labours policies expand and grow the economy. Many business people naturally gravitate towards National when the differential in average growth would suggest that they are mistaken.

          I had a discussion with the owner of a business (employs 65 people/sales 60m), he is 3rd generation to run the business, he mentioned that his family were very aware that their manufacturing business does better under Labour than National.

          I planned to get around to calculating the historical growth rates between the two governments…so was glad Shearer come up with the figures in his speech. 

           

        • Steve Wrathall 4.4.1.2
          29 November 2012 at 10:55 am

          Bollocks. Peak per capita global oil consumtion was in 1979. Since then global per capita wealth has risen hugely. It’s all about using resources most efficiently, not wasting them as the commies did.

          • thatguynz 4.4.1.2.1
            29 November 2012 at 11:29 am

            How very disingenuous of you Steve.  Perhaps you might like to also look at the corresponding increase in global per capita debt.  Everything is not as it seems – moreso when you look at it through rose tinted glasses.

          • framu 4.4.1.2.2
            29 November 2012 at 3:38 pm

            “It’s all about using resources most efficiently, not wasting them as the commies did.”

            yet when the greens suggest it you call them……… commies? – what a frackin hypocrite!

          • Draco T Bastard 4.4.1.2.3
            30 November 2012 at 3:21 pm

            Since then global per capita wealth has risen hugely.

            Yep, it’s risen in line with oil production. It’s decreased population growth. It’s the latter that is the cause of the bigger decrease.

            As for efficiency, well, that comes with a paradox. More efficiency uses more of the resource as it becomes cheaper due to declining demand. It’s one of the bigger failures of the profit driven market system.

      • OneTrack 4.4.2
        28 November 2012 at 7:17 pm

        GFC

        • Draco T Bastard 4.4.2.1
          28 November 2012 at 7:46 pm

          Apparently the GFC has been over for the last 3+ years so it’s about time that National stopped using that excuse. On top of that it’s usual for economies to come out of recessions quite strongly.

  5. karol 5
    28 November 2012 at 9:38 am

    John Key has the gall to say at the end of the clip:

    I should point out that I deal in the facts. All I am interested in is the facts.

    When he has spent the previous 9-10 minutes dodging and distorting the facts.  There’s this gross distortion:

    Rt John Key: What is true is that there was a global l financial crisis that we inherited from Labour, and that had a big impact on the economy.

    Dr Russel Norman: Is the Prime Minister saying he inherited the global financial crisis from the Labour Government?

    Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In part of it, yes, because after 5 years of increasing Government expenditure by 50 percent, interest rates were 8.25 percent in this country. But this is the good bit of the news—this is the good bit of the story—if Labour are now accepting that there is a global financial crisis, then they will stop all that talk about Greece not having any impact on New Zealand.

    The only people who have been constantly saying that Labour don’t accept there’s been a GFC has been National MPs – part of their on-going distortion of what Labour MPs have been saying:  i.e.  that  NZ’s economic problems are only partly the result of the GFC.

    When are we going to get an honest  government?!

    And when are we going to get a PM that doesn’t speak gibberish. In the above video @6.40 minutes, Key’s response is indecipherable.  It’s Key’s respose to the question quoted in the post above. There’s a silence in the House as everyone tries to make sense of what he said.  The transcript says this:

    Dr Russel Norman: Which of these figures does he dispute: that the household labour force survey shows a 31,600 decline in the number of people employed in manufacturing in the past 4 years; that the quarterly employment survey shows a 31,300 decline in the number of jobs in manufacturing in the past 4 years; or that the linked employer-employee data set shows a decline in the number of filled jobs in manufacturing of 20,000 in the 3 years to September 2011?

    Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, no, in the past 4 years.

    It sounds to me like Key says something like “Noh, none in the past 4 years.”  But I could be wrong.

    • Tracey 5.1
      28 November 2012 at 12:53 pm

      “I should point out that I deal in the facts. All I am interested in is the facts.”

      He says it, it’s reprinted, broadcast and hey presto it is believed. That’s how it works. Sadly it’s working so well we even have commentors here who point out that he has misled and the previous government misled and that commentator abhors both but voted for National twice. THAT’s the problem, we’re all stuck in this “government is a game you win or you lose” meme. If only it were just a game!

      • Akldnut 5.1.1
        28 November 2012 at 11:15 pm

        Point of order Mr Speaker

        The Prime Minister said that he only deals in facts yet less than five minutes ago he twice implied that the previous Labour Govt created the GFC.

        Which of the statements is the truth?

    • Tracey 5.2
      28 November 2012 at 12:55 pm

      But but but but English says everything is just fine… so what is Key blaming things on for, his MOF says the economy is doing well.

  6. kea 6
    28 November 2012 at 10:03 am

    I think that Russel Norman ought to be given credit for his performance, irrespective of politics.

    Look at the backgrounds of the leaders of the 3 major parties. Key and Shearer were more or less eased into their positions, Shearer having once worked as a staff member for Phil Goff.

    Norman worked in a market garden, wrote a Ph.D. on the NZ Green party, worked as a Green Party researcher, and won a strongly contested leadership ballot.

    A Norman-lead coalition could be a viable outcome, it being unlikely the Greens would have numbers to govern alone. Could Peters and Shearer, or his successor, work with Norman ?

    A week can be a long time in politics.

    • weka 6.1
      28 November 2012 at 10:32 am

      A Norman-lead coalition presents significant challenges for the Green Party, given that the leaders of the GP are Norman and Turei. How do you propose that is resolved?

      • Outofbed 6.1.1
        28 November 2012 at 11:17 am

        How can that be resolved ? I think you will find fairly easily The Green Party is not a party of inflated egos. I have full confidence in the Green Party Exec will make the appropriate decision based on feedback from the membership

        • muzza 6.1.1.1
          28 November 2012 at 11:44 am

          Look at the backgrounds of the leaders of the 3 major parties. Key and Shearer were more or less eased into their positions, Shearer having once worked as a staff member for Phil Goff.

          Read, they were groomed, then the road map planned out for them…agreed

          Norman worked in a market garden, wrote a Ph.D. on the NZ Green party, worked as a Green Party researcher, and won a strongly contested leadership ballot.

          Read, Norman has been groomed (where is he really from anyway, seriously map it out if you can), because the green agenda/progression is a carefuly manufactured one, which will lead NZ and other countries towards desired outcomes. People will laud the accent of the greens, right until they can no longer afford to live, just like under “the rights agenda”, how could this be…

          Its called playing both sides, like any good trader would hedge a bet on!

          I have full confidence in the Green Party Exec will make the appropriate decision based on feedback from the membership

          @ Outofbed – All the best with that full confidence!

        • weka 6.1.1.2
          28 November 2012 at 1:31 pm

          “I have full confidence in the Green Party Exec will make the appropriate decision based on feedback from the membership”
           
          That doesn’t really answer the question though. And as a GP member who thinks the co-leadership is important, I need to see discussion of this now, while Norman’s status is being talked up. It’s not enough to think that the GP will handle this well when we don’t know what they will do.

        • OneTrack 6.1.1.3
          28 November 2012 at 7:25 pm

          Yep, Turei. Shearer is male, so the Green ethos demands equality. Furthermore, she is Maori and we need to preserve the Mana of our Maori hosts. Its a win -win. I have full confidence that Norman does not hav an inflated ego and will agree this the the most logical arrangement for ll concerned.

    • David H 6.2
      28 November 2012 at 3:20 pm

      Yes the next poll will be interesting to say the least, who’s is due first Morgan?

    • OneTrack 6.3
      28 November 2012 at 7:20 pm

      “Norman worked in a market garden, wrote a Ph.D. on the NZ Green party, worked as a Green Party researcher, and won a strongly contested leadership ballot.” -Thats what we need, someone eperienced in business and economics, and a true man of the working classes. Oh wait…..

  7. kea 7
    28 November 2012 at 10:44 am

    It’s true, the Greens have *two* leaders, but still ..

  8. kea 8
    28 November 2012 at 10:53 am

    Weka: I don’t have any particular insight into Green party dynamics or the distribution of seats after the next election. I just think that credit should be given where credit is due.

    • weka 8.1
      28 November 2012 at 1:27 pm

      There is ongoing debate about to what extent the Maori female co-leader is being sidelined for the Pakeha male co-leader. It’s a core part of the GP having female and male co-leaders. Any suggestion of using Norman as the premier frontperson needs to also address how that can happen in accordance with GP values.

      • Tracey 8.1.1
        28 November 2012 at 1:30 pm

        Although Rod Donald had a profile initially Jeanette was the media go-to person wasn’t she?

      • OneTrack 8.1.2
        28 November 2012 at 7:30 pm

        We need to challenge the white patriarchal mindset that says that only white pakeha can be leaders.

        • kea 8.1.2.1
          29 November 2012 at 8:40 am

          I have a lot of respect for Metiria Turei, but Russel seems to be making a lot of the running in public and can expose John Key’s slipshod management of the facts. He seems better able to handle Key’s rough and tumble style of politics than any number of pleasant suburban politicos.

          It was embarrassing to watch Key mangle his facts as he finished his speech at the launch of the Hobbit last night. He kept repeating the line “If the people support the government” .. as if scripted by his PR crew.

          Could there be a Hobbit election in the air ? It would secure Peter Jackson’s next project and doom Aotearoans to continuing deterioration of work conditions for which many of our forebears fought.

          The Barons of the Roundtable are watching with interest.

  9. aerobubble 9
    28 November 2012 at 11:48 am

    …the Canterbury real build being the only source of growth in the country?

    Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am sorry but the member, again, is on another planet, because actually the world has been going through a global financial crisis. Actually, he speaks of the Canterbury earthquake as if it has been some lucky thing, but, in actual fact, for the New Zealand economy and for the people of Christchurch it has been a very unlucky thing. Yes, we are going to get some benefit out of the post-earthquake construction, but, actually, it has cost New Zealand and the people of Christchurch substantially, and so it is only proper that they actually benefit in terms of the rebuild. If the member is saying that that somehow should be discounted away, then, truly, that is ludicrous.

    Joyce chch reply in parlliament, the window into
    stupidity of distortion capitalism, castrating
    facts is core to inititiaing distortion capitalism.
    So Joyce immediately ignores all the insurance
    payments, all the stored wealth in EQC for such
    a Earthquake event, all the risk private risk analysis
    of investors and home owners do, and says that
    Canterbury rebuild growth is not ‘discountable’,
    does Jouce not understand societies, businesses,
    and yeah governments, build in risk abatement
    depress growth in good times, discount growth
    in order to deal to Earthquakes disasters wiping
    value off the economy.

    ChCh growth is discounted because for the most part
    it was growth under Labour government administrations
    that squirreled the money away, for disasters, to
    get the books to zero.

    And so you have wonder what other nonsense Joyce
    believes, and Key also.

    Cheap oil did away with so many of the old problems,
    population growth, pollution abatement, resource limits just
    by having a cheap energy means to solve these problems.
    Now these problems are back and have to be
    solved with energy costs in mind, and the solution to
    cheap old, to keep markets moving without the old
    adaptive incentives of adversity was the manufacture of
    consent for distortion capitalism, where crisises where
    solely market created.

    So what we have is those schooled in the politics
    and economics of distortion capitalism, the
    artifical creation of new problems to be solved
    by the market, for the market and of the market,
    due to easy solutions abounding for old problems.
    Are those people now writing the trading relationships for
    decades to come. And its worse, they have no integrity
    because no green economics, no sustainibility
    analysis, no social diminsionality, breaks
    the darkness of these talks.

    Because men like Joyce, schooled as they were in turdonics.
    Joyce chch reply in parlliament, the window into
    stupidity of distortion capitalism, castrating
    facts is core to inititiaing distortion capitalism.
    So Joyce immediately ignores all the insurance
    payments, all the stored wealth in EQC for such
    a Earthquake event, and says relying on past growth
    sotred up for a rain day, is a sign of his present
    administrations countable legacy.

    This is the government that plans to sell renewable
    energy into the private market, when the world
    economy is printing money, when the world looks
    set to hit an energy crisis, Key is handing over wealth
    a bottom of the market in order to boost fiscal
    growth books of markets, AT A TIME when its
    now obvious that the old paradigm of market
    distortion by capitalists has run its course, that
    the new paradigm isn’t profit its wealth. Wealth
    not for the few, but the majority.

    Key is not only clueless, his administration is corrupted
    by a time past when growth was easy, when spin was
    rewarded and incompetence could be over looked because
    there was so much activity the ocean would quickly
    cover up the rocky hazard temporarily exposed.

    the tide has gone out on neo-conservative stupid.

    • aerobubble 9.1
      28 November 2012 at 11:54 am

      Economies thirty years ago needed to create
      new problems when cheap oil did away
      with so many of the old problems, to population
      growth, pollution abatement, resource limits.

      Enter distortion capitalism, cannibalize societies to create
      need and so demand for goods and services. Attack
      the family, ignore the value of extended families,
      stuff people into suburban sprawl and make a
      wasteland of communities. Even today Key is
      continuing the attacks on Education, centralizing
      power away from communities.

      So what we have is those schooled in the politics
      and economics of distortion capitalism, the
      artifical creation of new problems to be solved
      by the market, for the market and of the market,
      are now writing the trading relationships for
      decades to come. And its worse, they have no integrity
      because no green economics, no sustainability
      analysis, no social dimensionality, breaks
      the darkness of these talks.

    • Kevin Welsh 9.2
      28 November 2012 at 3:16 pm

      In all honesty aerobubble, do you even understand what you have written?

      • mike e 9.2.1
        28 November 2012 at 9:53 pm

        aero has stated pretty clearly what vampire capitalism all about!

      • aerobubble 9.2.2
        30 November 2012 at 11:34 am

        I don’t care for your laziness, considering the wonderful cascade of nonsense that the media passes off as cogent. I’m no journo, no english grad, I doubt most people are, does that mean we have to bow down to the grammar and, yes even be understandable. We live in the age of nonsense, of lies, of dishonesty, how darn you use the three ideas in the same question, honesty-understand-written, how you lack integrity for you case, since in our information existence these three never meet in any public discourse I’ve ever seen, there are two many differing perspectives, too many contrary facts, too many sullen writers, for anyone to make complete sense to anybody else, let alone themselves. Argghhh, have you never written anything you later did not understand? I would contend you are either limited in your expression, craven in your outlook or just naturally boring.

  10. Tracey 10
    28 November 2012 at 12:50 pm

    Is it still the case that our Pm’s don’t do interviews unless they have the questions first?

  11. Skinny 11
    28 November 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Both Key & Joyce skirted around the issue coming up with less than satisfactory reasons why unemployment is so high. It’s just disingenuous when we can recall Key trumpeting to captains of industry that pay rates in manufacturing are too high in New Zealand. That might be so if your comparing us to some Asian Countries that pay around $2-$2.50 per hour. The smarts would be to harangue the hell out of National over removing the R&D tax credits, something that still grates a lot of small to mid size manufacturers. And keep the pressure on over the high NZD, there are enough manufacturers finding it tough to compete only too willing to be outspoken about this. Finally, start a day of protest by Kiwi workers made redundant in the last 3-6 months, this will bring the issue right out in the open for all to see!

  12. History Repeats 12
    28 November 2012 at 10:07 pm

    Really decline in developed world economies manufacturing is a worldwide trend. The jobs have moved to China and Asia. Check out the stuff last purchased from The Warehouse, Look at the USA manufacturing Jobs.

    One could argue we have done well to be in the posisiton we are in now.

  13. James 13
    7 December 2012 at 11:18 am

    The article AND the comments below make for some extremely interesting reading and points of view! Seeing the various perspectives etc