Labour’s plan a real alternative to Nats’ failure

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, August 17th, 2012 - 33 comments
Categories: jobs, labour, national - Tags:

Labour’s hands on approach to economic management focused on boosting manufacturing stands in stark contrast to National’s failed record of big promises and no delivery. Manufacturing is our largest employer. It has lost 25,500 jobs under National. National has been pushing mining for four years. It employs 6,000 people, up just 600 under National.

All that big talk from Steven Joyce and mining employs just 600 more people than when he started four years ago. Meanwhile National has stood by and done nothing while over 40 times as many jobs have been lost.

33 comments on “Labour’s plan a real alternative to Nats’ failure ”

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  1. higherstandard 1
    17 August 2012 at 10:25 am

    Blah blah blah blah.

    Waffle waffle.

    Trough.

  2. ad 2
    17 August 2012 at 10:38 am

    What’s the source for the data?

    Would it be OK if this were poached as a slide into future speeches?

    <>[source is HLFS, stats infoshare. Free to use.<> JH]

  3. KJT 3
    17 August 2012 at 11:05 am

    It would be nice to have a Government which does something about NZ jobs. Every Government since Muldoon, killed the boat and caravan building industries overnight, seems to have been a competition to see how many jobs they can remove.

    However, unless something is done about exchange rates, globalisation, having to go to offshore banks for capital and “free trade’ agreements, destroying local production, chasing mythical benefits for the farming sector, anything else is pissing against the wind.

  4. Tracey 4
    17 August 2012 at 11:42 am

    Sadly, listening to Mr Joyce yesterday he sees only one way forward and that is through mining. Why dont we also look at nations who don’t have resources like this. Do they rely on things like innovation and the like? He’s selling kiwis short with the idea that ONLY mining and oil can raise the standard of living in NZ.

    I’m also sick of the idea that we should divert rivers to dairy farms started/running on land with arable issues, like North freaking Canterbury. It’s like starting a dairy farm in a desert and complaining about lack of water.

    RJY

    Dont forget apparel and car industries… all the wonders of free trade and no tariffs, and yet here we are, with, apparently, raping the countryside as our only way forward. Maybe it’s true and all the brains have gone overseas…there’s few in Parliament

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      17 August 2012 at 6:51 pm

      He’s selling kiwis short with the idea that ONLY mining and oil can raise the standard of living in NZ.

      That seems to be the idea. Can’t have us actually competing with the great USofA or the UK or Europe or…

      I’m also sick of the idea that we should divert rivers to dairy farms started/running on land with arable issues, like North freaking Canterbury. It’s like starting a dairy farm in a desert and complaining about lack of water.

      Google Earth is great for seeing how that works out in the end. Get close up to some places like Saudi Arabia and you can see where such unsustainable farms used to be. The disappearing green as ancient aquifers run dry.

  5. captain hook 5
    17 August 2012 at 11:50 am

    hey everything is ok if you can let ipredict make a book on who is going to win the next election.
    thats really innovative.

  6. The Baron 6
    17 August 2012 at 11:53 am

    These graphs are quite good. I see them alot here and on red alert – I assume this is from the Research Unit?

    If so, these would be even more effective if someone spent two minutes in formatting them away from the Excel 2010 standard. Why are you using that insipid blue and nothing calibri font? This is easy stuff that takes two seconds to change, and turns a powerful message into a powerful INFOGRAPHIC.

    Basic stuff.

    [I don’t need anyone’s help to graph some data off stats infoshare, let alone labour’s research unit. JH]

    • Bored 6.1
      17 August 2012 at 1:54 pm

      Barren, powerful infographics generally get spread as misinformation from”think tanks”. As you are aware these are generally “right” wing interest groups, well funded and self interested. Are you suggesting the “Left” need to get better (as good as the “Right”) at “misinforming” (lying)?

      • The Baron 6.1.1
        17 August 2012 at 2:14 pm

        Get your hand off it, Bored. Anyone can drive Excel better than this drap – you don’t need a lobby group to do it. And anyway, the right wing ones in this country are so damn successful that they have to merge to remain solvent – see Business Round Table plus NZ Institute.

        All while Labour pretends that the never ending steam of Union lobbyists aren’t basically writing entire swathes of their manifesto. Your hypocrisy is astounding.

  7. Maggie May 7
    17 August 2012 at 1:22 pm

    obviously Higherstandard has a good job and an attitude which says “I’m okay” I just expect others to make this the kind of place I want to live in. Thats all I care about.

  8. AmaKiwi 8
    17 August 2012 at 1:25 pm

    I wish Shearer and Parker would shut their mouths about their promise to get lots of people to vote against Labour and no one to be motivated to vote for them.

    I am talking about the capital gains tax. I could do a poll in my working class town and out of 1,000 people, NOT ONE would say the capital gains tax would motivate them to vote Labour. Protecting jobs and creating more jobs: YES. Lower taxes for middle and lower income: YES. Ending welfare for the rich: YES. These are vote winners.

    I could do that same poll in some of the wealthier neighborhoods nearby and plenty of people would tell me they voted AGAINST Labour in 2011because they own second properties and believe they are entitled to not have their gains taxed.

    Once in power a Labour government can make some “adjustments to IRD accounting procedures” and presto, it’s a capital gains tax. SHUT UP about a scheme which guarantees a significant number of people will vote against you. No one ever won an election promising to put a new tax on a significant portion of the population.

  9. Bored 9
    17 August 2012 at 1:49 pm

    Having given Parker (and by association Robertson / Shearer / Pagani) crap this week, I suppose a little credit is in order.

    There is a small shift in the announced direction, and it does head in the right (“left”) direction. So far so good, on the downside is the “lets not scare the horses by dumping neo liberalism…” stance. Small steps however so good, some small praise.

    On the bigger downside is the longer term vision: we live in the time of the twin crisis of financial collapse (underpinned by peak energy) and ecological / climate catastrophe. Both have huge implications, and neither can be dodged.

    So to Labour with regard to the above: are you going to pose a minor alternative to the broken status quo OR are you going to be a leader?

  10. UpandComer 10
    17 August 2012 at 1:52 pm

    I see.

    Well I’m glad that Russell will be able to ‘pick winners’.

    I’m also glad that one of the Davids knows the secret formula to manufacturing he’s kept hidden for so long.

    • Draco T Bastard 10.1
      17 August 2012 at 6:57 pm

      Well I’m glad that Russell will be able to ‘pick winners’.

      Somebody’s got to and the private sector seems to be failing at it.

    • Daveosaurus 10.2
      17 August 2012 at 7:06 pm

      I’ve said it before, but picking winners is a hell of a lot of a better philosophy than backing losers, which is all the current Government can do (e.g. all their Roads to Nowhere).

      • Colonial Viper 10.2.1
        17 August 2012 at 7:11 pm

        “picking winners” is actually falling for the wrong framing. An economy is an interconnected ecosystem, like a national park. Not a horse race with 1st, 2nd 3rd placings.

        • rosy 10.2.1.1
          17 August 2012 at 7:13 pm

          +1 Exactly.

        • Poission 10.2.1.2
          18 August 2012 at 2:16 pm

          An economy is an interconnected ecosystem, like a national park.

          Indeed,whoever with one substantive difference,succinctly stated by Haldane and May 2010

          There are, of course, major differences between ecosystems and financial systems. For one thing, today’s ecosystems are the winnowed survivors of long-lasting evolutionary processes, whereas the evolution of financial systems is a relatively recent phenomenon. Nor have
          selective pressures been entirely dispassionate, with the hand of government a constant presence shaping financial structures, especially among institutions deemed ‘‘too big to fail’’ In financial ecosystems, evolutionary forces have often been survival of the fattest rather than the
          fittest

          • Colonial Viper 10.2.1.2.1
            18 August 2012 at 2:23 pm

            Indeed. Also its important that we begin to clearly distinguish Wall St “financial systems” from the Main St real economy.

            In many ways, the financialised economy has been doing a lot to hurt the real, productive economy.

            • Poission 10.2.1.2.1.1
              18 August 2012 at 2:40 pm

              I think we need to separate the systems,ie the real from the pretend economy,

              This is a perception value problem,where a lot of the so called metrics such as GDP are irrelevant.

              If the real costs of say the leveraged property market to both ordinary taxpayers , producers,and mortgagor holders was clearly identified such as the arbitrary high exchange rate,one suspects the bellows from the rural heartland would bring the NP to heel.

              • Colonial Viper …
                18 August 2012 at 2:51 pm

                Yep. And I strongly believe that NZ cannot do the future without having the rural heartland onboard.

                • Poission …
                  19 August 2012 at 9:09 am

                  If the focus was changed from say Ak to the provinces,where there is both lower production costs,due to cheaper and underutilized infrastructure already in place.The uneconomic growth pattern of AK will lessen and population drift return to the provinces.

                  To use say forestry on the East coast for example,the opportunity for processed timber (as apart from logs) for the Japan earthquake rebuild is around a factor of 3 larger then the availability.

  11. Michael 11
    17 August 2012 at 5:49 pm

    IMHO, Labour’s greatest achievement between 1999-2008 (and it had many of them) was low unemployment, as a result of it deliberately adopting macroeconomic policies that aimed at it. Yes, I know Labour was in office during the time in which the NZ economy performed at its best for 40 years, due largely to a boom in commodity prices. Yes, I know workforce participation rates, as a proportion of the working age population, remained low, as many people migrated to sickness and invalid benefits, or studies to improve their skills. Yes, I know workplace productivity rates hardly improved at all (more a result of inept management and misdirected capital investment than lazy, hamfisted workers, IMHO). However, the period saw a significant increase in employment, albeit most of it without security and ill-paid. NACT, of course, has all of these factors, plus high unemployment levels, but gets away with it because it diverts popular attention away from its macroeconomic policy failures (and its cronies’ micreconomic policy failures) with its endless “bread and circuses” routines (today it’s drug-addled beneficiaries, tomorrow it’s Mr Ancell’s Ku klux Klan advertising campaign, yesterday it was the Olympics).

    • Draco T Bastard 11.1
      17 August 2012 at 7:01 pm

      Yes, I know workforce participation rates, as a proportion of the working age population, remained low, as many people migrated to sickness and invalid benefits,

      No you don’t else you wouldn’t be spreading that particular lie.

    • Colonial Viper 11.2
      17 August 2012 at 7:16 pm

      IMHO, Labour’s greatest achievement between 1999-2008 (and it had many of them) was low unemployment, as a result of it deliberately adopting macroeconomic policies that aimed at it.

      Yeah, ramping up tens of billions of private debt tends to lower unemployment as money floods into the economy.

  12. AmaKiwi 12
    19 August 2012 at 4:30 pm

    Here is what the Leader of the Opposition should have asked during question time. Or maybe it was asked by the de facto Leader of the Opposition.

    http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/norman-reveals-threats-to-privacy-and.html