5AA Australia – Labour’s New Leader + China’s President In New Zealand

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PRC President Xi Jinping and NZ PM John Key. Image courtesy of the Chinese Embassy.

Recorded on 20/11/14 – Captured Live on Ustream.tv.

5AA's Peter Godfrey and Selwyn Manning.
5AA’s Peter Godfrey and Selwyn Manning.
ISSUE ONE: The New Zealand Labour Party has elected its new leader, the vote going to a third round after no clear outright winner was found in the initial preferential vote.

Trade unionist and former head of the powerful Engineers Printers and Manufacturers Union, Andrew Little is the new leader… and despite his union background, is expected to position Labour as a pragmatic and more economically centrist party.

Andrew Little’s main opponent for the leadership was Grant Robertson who is a brilliant politician and is more than the equal of any minister the Nationals are able to muster. But Robertson was rightfully labelled Beltway Grant, an indication of how he has crafted his parliamentary political brand almost exclusively around the political elite of Wellington, the capital city.

The contest was close, and Little only won due to the solidarity shown by the union affiliates which command 20 percent of the total vote. Without a strong showing from his worker fraternity, Little wouldn’t have stood a show.

Robertson achieved more support than was expected from the party members, which as a block commands 40 percent of the total vote.

This leadership primary lays open how the NZ Labour Party is made up of two distinct movements:
* those who represent a philosophical base and position identity politics and social liberalism ahead of pragmatism and jobs
* and those who observe class at the foundation of all policy, advocate a centrally driven pragmatism to policy, and who believe jobs, opportunity and meritocracy should be the backbone of Labour.

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Now Andrew Little is at the helm, Kiwis will get to see a no frills politician recasting Labour as fit to govern.

Little’s challenge however is to compel its MPs to get back to basics, to accept that they are of a constituency party, that there is a real purpose to being in opposition, that they have been voted in as representatives of the people, as advocates for those who have fallen through the cracks and who need professional assistance from their MPs.

If someone is not getting the hip or knee operation that they deserve, Labour should be there to make sure they get it. If a student at school is being disadvantaged in some way, Labour needs to find a way to right the wrong. And if the National led Government is failing the country through fiscal imprudence, then Labour must expose it and provide a solution as to how it should be done.

Can Labour once again be a party ready to govern? Time will tell.

PRC President Xi Jinping and NZ PM John Key. Image courtesy of the Chinese Embassy.
PRC President Xi Jinping and NZ PM John Key. Image courtesy of the Chinese Embassy.
ISSUE TWO: President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China and his wife Madam Peng Liyuan have arrived in New Zealand for an official visit, the third time the Chinese leader has been to New Zealand but the first time as president.

Yesterday, President Xi wrote an open letter to New Zealanders where he noted:
“In both China and New Zealand, strong winds of reform and development are sweeping across the country. The Chinese people are striving to fulfil the Chinese dream of great national renewal, comprehensively deepening the reform and opening-up programme, and advancing the rule of law across the board. New Zealand is making efforts to enhance its international competitiveness, step up infrastructure development, increase scientific and technological innovation input, and improve the economic structure.”

He talked about how NZ was the first developed country to cement a free trade agreement with China, and how the friendship and respect between the two countries has grown.

He noted, too, how New Zealand’s non permanent membership of the UN Security Council, it’s roles at APEC and the Pacific Islands Forum provide it and China a unique opportunity to:

“…to advance our common interests and work with the international community to uphold regional and global peace and stability…”

It is a significant statement of intent of which will not have escaped the attention of our foreign affairs diplos. China is letting us know, that it is a friend and friends must stick together not just on matters of trade but also on issues of defence, intelligence and security.

The United States will be watching our reaction with a keen interest.

Across The Ditch is broadcast live weekly on 5AA Australia and webcast on LiveNews.co.nz.

1 COMMENT

  1. NO questions allowed by NZ media, was the “news” on the first day, lots of photo ops with Don Key and his buddies in government, courting the Chinese leader in the dark of night, then at a business meeting, and today at a farmers fair or so.

    We got told of new deals for film companies, of China keen to buy as much as we can produce, of all so glorious kinds of things, the populace were too busy working overtime, and drinking their drinks on a Friday night, to really grasp what their future may be.

    The average Kiwi is busy re assessing house value, potential to borrow more, to buy a bit extra on debt, and to keep a job, that is mighty insecure for many. Some working at service stations have to foot the “loss’ by thieving customers, and employers saw NO wrong with this, until Campbell Live made it a story. Even Campbell Live are total hypocrites, as I suspect they have many under casual and part time contracts, barely paying a living wage.

    But the “story” was good, and LOADS of advertising could conveniently be fitted in, to serve the consumer watchers.

    So it is with most of NZ Inc, most are none else but desperate mercenaries, doing whatever, I see it everyday at my supermarket, where at least half of staff are “imported’ cheap labour from the Philippines. The same applies to rest homes, farms and so forth, and the rest of “New Zealanders”, whatever that means, compete at basic levels for whatever jobs, just to get by.

    A country sold out, sold out for more peculiar “deals” and “opportunities” offered by Mainland China, and NOBODY raises much of a voice, but one sole disgruntled service station worker, who had enough. Strangely, only after that, do “dozens” of others complain also. Where were they, and where was their solidarity with others, for so many weeks, months and years?

    This is a mighty screwed up country now, I say, I wish, as a migrant from a certainly better off place, I had NEVER come back to this “lost” place.

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