I read Steven Joyce’s “open letter to the TPPA protesters” with a great sense of incredulity.
Mr. Joyce wrote: “There are others who say that they support free trade, but not this deal. They try to say that this one is worse and yet can’t point to why.”
There has been a flood of detailed analysis on the exceptional nature of the TPPA and its threats to our economy and sovereignty. These analyses are offered by some of our country’s most eminent professors, lawyers, analysts, scientists and medics and can be accessed online through a quick Google search.
So, how could Mr. Joyce write to the TPPA protesters and claim that there were no reasons given for the objections to the TPPA?
The answer is that Mr. Joyce was not writing to the TPPA opponents, he was writing to the National Party supporters, majority of whom, have a blind faith in what the Government says.
But National supporters, like all New Zealanders, deserve to know the truth and to be given all the facts so they can make an informed decision for themselves.
Mr. Joyce’s disingenuous letter was written to give the National Party supporters the impression that the opposition to the TPPA is without basis and limited to fringe elements. That is not true.
By covering up the arguments against the TPPA, the Government is betraying its own supporters by treating them like obedient children who don’t need to know much other than Mummy and Daddy know best. That is not how democracy works.
The legitimacy of government and the exercise of state power cannot be justified without a function democracy. We cannot have a functioning democracy if our Government expects their citizens to stay out of politics and only engage with the democratic and legislative process at election times.
Citizens of this country have a right to voice their legitimate concerns. That is what anti-TPPA movement is all about.
The National Party clearly wants its supporters to carry on watching the cricket and rugby without worrying about what the Government is up to.
We hear John Key repeatedly normalizing and, to some extent, even encouraging New Zealanders’ apathy to engage with important issues by using words such as “most New Zealanders don’t care” or “are not interested in”.
Yes, it is true that an important issue, such as the GSCB Amendment Bill, received only 123 public submissions while there were 30,000 submissions on snapper fishing cuts.
The lack of submission on the GSCB Bill was partly because of the rushed process and partly because of lack of debate around the importance of online privacy.
How many times do we hear people saying: “nothing to hide, nothing to fear”? A fallacious argument which Edward Snowden described as similar to saying: you don’t believe in free speech because you have nothing to say.
The fact is that we can generate more interest in political issues that affect our present and future lives by having more open, and honest debate about them.
My son was not born with a passion for sports. The ubiquity of rugby and cricket in this country drew him in and made him into an ardent supporter of his favourite teams. He is now fully engaged with what is happening in cricket and rugby all over the world.
Why can’t we do the same with politics?
Some will say that politics is divisive and that is why people don’t want to participate in political discussions.
But we cannot exist in homogenous bubbles. The future of mankind depends on our ability to learn to tolerate our differences, not to run away from them.
The disappearance of current affairs programs and dilution of news do nothing to buck the trend away from political disengagement.
The ant-TPPA movement has awakened an interest in many New Zealanders to engage with the democratic process; this interest should be encourage and nurtured.
Instead of trying to win the debate on the TPPA, the Government is pretending that the opposition to the TPPA is not real; that the protesters are rent-a-mob and their arguments are non-existent.
But the opposition to the TPPA is real and the many arguments against it are put forward by academics and public intellectuals whose job it is to act in public interests.
Given New Zealand’s downgraded ranking amongst corruption-free countries, now is the time for the Government’s supporters to ask themselves whether their blind faith in John Key is good for the health of our democracy.
Steven Joyce’s open letter was obviously written by his puppet masters as most other statements are also.
I met the man and discussed our issues with him and never saw any high intelligence traits in his mental presentation that day.
His letter afterwards had a totally different character that did show some intelligent thought leading us to believe he has his scripts written by others.
Joyce should know the difference between “free trade” and corporate penned agreements that result in TPPA as an agreement with corporations into a controlled trade event not what was envisaged when the term “free trade” was invented.
I see images of clueless protesters demonstrating against things they don’t care to understand. I love their signs which are almost always bold injunctions or commandments that demand something ‘stop’, or ‘we’ ‘keep’ an unspecified thing that is ‘ours’, to ‘oppose’ ‘them’, and that ‘they’ rule for the other people. The self-righteousness of the small & often deformed looking minority who wish to impose their views on the rest of us by yelling & making demands intrigues me.
If such people commanded any positions of power & authority then we’d all be fucked. In their continual display of self-conceit and narcissism, they already claim to represent ‘the people’ even without any electoral (or popular) mandate. They’d be the last to make concessions on their deeply ignorant and ill-considered views & the first to act in their own personal interests or in the interests of their ilk.
You are quite stupid, aren’t you…
You’ve just described the National party leadership in perfect , glowing terms….
[ ”If such people commanded any positions of power & authority then we’d all be fucked. In their continual display of self-conceit and narcissism, they already claim to represent ‘the people’ even without any electoral (or popular) mandate. They’d be the last to make concessions on their deeply ignorant and ill-considered views & the first to act in their own personal interests or in the interests of their ilk.” ]
Thanks for the reminder but in all truth we already knew National don’t care about the democratic principle…
you can be sure they’re not doing it for the money!
Apart from Key, along with his typical media and political protagonists, haven’t seen or read much material in support of the details within the TPPA. Tell us what NZ organisations fully support this contract?
Also, where are the vocal supporters. Yet to see any on the streets waving TPPA IS GREAT FOR NZ, or, WE LOVE THE TPPA?
A good article, damaged by a lack of spellchecking.
Nit picking eye on the ball,i noticed it but it was completely clear in what
the article said,focus on important things rabbit,its not a school essay that you have to mark for errors.
Are you all that bothered by 4 small typos, one of which is correctly spelt in the very next sentence? There are a couple of dodgy sentences too (which spellcheck will probably not correct) but I don’t care – the article is very well-expressed overall. Serious errors are those that obscure meaning.
Wow! I just re-read it myself. I typed this late at night and I think it must have been past my spell-checkers’ bedtime. I have asked Martyn to correct the mistakes. Hopefully it’ll be done soon.
Yes, but the IDEAS that you have expressed in this article are brilliant, Donna, just brilliant. And totally clear.
(Sigh) . . . . just wish I could present insightful, well-though-out arguments like that . . . .
Murray, thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement.
I see images of clueless protesters demonstrating against things they don’t care to understand. I love their signs which are almost always bold injunctions or commandments that demand something ‘stop’, or ‘we’ ‘keep’ an unspecified thing that is ‘ours’, to ‘oppose’ ‘them’, and that ‘they’ rule for the other people. The self-righteousness of the small & often deformed looking minority who wish to impose their views on the rest of us by yelling & making demands intrigues me.
If such people commanded any positions of power & authority then we’d all be buggered. In their continual display of self-conceit and narcissism, they already claim to represent ‘the people’ even without any electoral (or popular) mandate. They’d be the last to make concessions on their deeply ignorant and ill-considered views & the first to act in their own personal interests or in the interests of their ilk.
We got the (lack of a) point the first time.
Well 20,000 people protesting Steve, sure beats your purile mouthings.Maybe you can see your hero John being taken down a peg so you have a hizzyfit,
Thet dun madder… I cud red it jus fyne.
Honestly… Don’t worry – have you seen the disgraceful sentence construction and spelling mistakes in the Herald recently?
If anyone wants to point a finger they should point there – and while it is nice to read a flawless printed article, we always need to know the essence of intent rather than focus on being grammar nazi’s.
🙂
grammar nazis 🙂
nazi’s indicates that a nazi is possessing something.
In any case, I prefer militant grammar Marxist.
As for Key always saying “orniry Kiwis wun care”: is he not an ordinary Kiwi? Why does he care enough to do things that Kiwis don’t care about and therefore probably don’t want? Is he superior to the rest of us? A legend in his own lunchtime?
As for Joyce – he’s just a snake oil salesman for the NAct faithful. The same sort of morans that thought he demolished Robinson in the televised debate would think Slugboy Slater won his boxing match. Not much we can do about that sort.
This neoliberal investor state driven Govt has with the control of media, shifted the public mind to tacitly accept finance sector memes over common sense and public good.
That is what the TPPA is about.
Housing is seen by NACT as an private investor bonanza with global funds awash with money and this treacherous Govt doing all they can to avoid any semblance of protection from exploitation of NZ consumers.
Even conservative element in the past at least gave some protection and showed an interest in public good.
“Prime Minister Richard Seddon introduced the Workers’ Dwellings Act in 1905 to provide well-built suburban houses for workers who earned less than £156 per annum. He argued that these houses would prevent the decline of living standards in New Zealand and increase the money available to workers without increasing the costs to employers. By breaking private landlords’ control over rental housing, housing costs for everyone would decline. The bill passed by 64 votes to 2, despite criticism over the cost of the scheme, the distance the houses would be from workplaces, particularly ports, and the lack of provision for Māori. Seddon estimated that 5,000 houses would be built under the scheme.”
Labour continued meeting the need spurred by the brains of John A Lee
“Following a campaign against slums by the newspaper New Zealand Truth, and the realisation that lending for mortgages was not effective to provide housing to replace them, the Finance Minister Walter Nash announced in the 1936 Budget that 5000 state houses would be built. The houses would be provided by private enterprise, with a Department of Housing Construction set up to oversee the building and the State Advances Corporation to manage the houses. The government intended not only to provide housing, but to stimulate jobs and manufacturing with the construction of the houses, which were to be built from New Zealand materials as far as possible.[21] MP John A. Lee was responsible for the programme, but as he was an undersecretary rather than a minister he had limited authority.”
But against public good and for the investor sector –
“In 1950, the waiting list for state houses was 45,000, and a total of 30,000 houses had been built. The National Government increased rents for new tenants to make state housing less desirable compared with private renting, and an income limit of £520 per annum was set to ensure that only those on fairly modest incomes could rent a state house.”
“The Labour Government elected in 1957 stopped promotion of state house sales, but the subsequent National Government of 1960 restored it”
Then neoliberalism crept into Labour and the plot shifted.
A peak of 70,000 state rental houses was reached in the early 1990s
31, 000 of these have since been sold off.
“In 1991 the fourth National government raised state house rentals to “market levels” amid much controversy.”
“The Fifth Labour Government, elected in 1999, placed a moratorium on state house sales and re-established the income-related rents. In 2001”
“In January 2015, in his state of the nation speech, John Key announced plans to reduce the government’s involvement in providing social housing, with some of the responsibility for providing housing to be passed to community housing providers. As part of the plan, 2,000 state houses will be sold by January 2016, and up to 8,000 properties will be sold by 2017.”
The concept of a State Advances Corporation is not anywhere in present day discussions. Killed off for investor state / banker competition is not tolerated.
So NACT plan to incrementally move state housing assets for public good into investor hands. They know that housing will end up there as community groups cannot have the facility to run a state housing type system.
Joyce’s lies are typical of the public statements used to shift the public mind from fact to fictional memes.
Thank you for your great contribution John.
Great article Donna,
john your blog was awesome 1000%.
Thank you CleanGreen.
It is unbelievable that anyone could describe the TPPA as a free trade agreement.
Some of the biggest barriers to free trade for NZ come from our so called friends and allies, the USA, the EU and Japan.
The real motivation behind this deal was outlined by Obama in his State of Union address
“With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region, we do”
The bottum lyne is thet oui mast fynde fuck-hede joyce aynde throue moore stuph ayt thee prik.
Anywon ghot an eksplouding concrete dildo thayer gnot ewesing ?
Steven Joyce and many others on the right are using the old communist scare tactic defence when people criticise the ISDS component of the TPPA. The following is Steven’s words.
“Investor state dispute resolution is hugely more likely to help New Zealand than hinder it.
We already have an independent justice system that protects the legitimate activities of all sorts of companies including large multi-national ones so nothing much really changes for us unless we start doing something like nationalising companies at a fraction of their value.
However, having an independent process might be helpful for our companies in countries where the court system is perhaps not quite as independent.”
So Steven is trying to sell ISDS as protecting companies from communist or corrupt governments which want to steal corporate assets.
This is of course BS spin and he knows it. We have all been asking about how does ISDS work with governments that want to make progressive changes to protect workers, the environment, consumers and human rights? Do progressive governments have to pay off corporates first? That has been Canada’s experience under NAFTA
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html where most of the lawsuits were about environmental matters not Joyce’s false claim that lawsuits are only about nationalising assets at below market value.
So the question we should all be asking Joyce, Key etc is stop this BS excuse that ISDS is only about corrupt and communist governments and explain how progressive governments will be able enact legislation to protect kiwis without fear of being sued under the TPPA. In other words Joyce and Key need explain how our political representatives negotiated to protect our right to make changes to protect ourselves in the future.
Or is it in the brave new world of Planet Key only corporates have rights and only corporates need to be protected.
Brendon, you are absolutely right. TPPA and its ISDS clause is about protecting investors’ rights.
MEH……. Dildo should just go back to what he’s good at…
Getting smacked in the moosh with a big ,fat pink sex toy. After all these years we finally found a use for the useless great dork.
You know…if you put some white lace round his neck ,…then stuck his head through a hole… he’d look just like one of those clown heads we used to throw things at at the Easter shows…
Matter of fact… we could do that to all of em in a row… they’d surely look just the part.
Maybe we could suggest it to them as a fund raiser to compensate for lack of Women’s Refuge funding….the coffers would be full to the brim and overflowing with zillion’s of bucks from all the people wanting a turn…
The European Commission has stated the tppa is a document designed for big business and the investor state dispute courts should be replaced by an independant body to be impartial on disputes. Wake up New Zealand says the EU Commission states tppa is obsolete already,and wonders why Key has been so keen to push through ratification when he has two years to do so.
Very interesting article and gives hope of preventing the corporations from changing countries laws to suit them selves.
Looks like Key is not going to get away with his ill considered pushy behaviour.
Elle, would you mind please providing a Web link to follow for this? After all Dildo Baggins is denigrating people for being uninformed about TPPA, I’d like to read the source material for myself.
Just google Wake up New Zealand Winnie, every day more info of what is going on,lots of articles to view.
TY
Thanks Donna, great article. I sitting here knitting a tea-cosy for a friend of mine and your article inspired me. I tried knitting and typing with my nose, but I kept making too many spelling errors, so I have put my knitting down for a while.
A word that describes Stephen Joyce and John Key and their supporters of the TPPA is:quisling defined by Merriam-Webster as: a person who helps an enemy that has taken control of his or her country, from the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who betrayed his country to the Nazis.
Our schools are under attack by Charter Schools and the GERM. Prisons are being run for profit by SERCO. Our houses are out of reach for the next generations of kiwis and State Housing is being asset-stripped and offered to the highest bidders. Zero hours contracts in a low-wage economy are the norm and when John Campbell was summarily dismissed by Joyce and the Key cabal, the media became a compliant mouthpiece for NACT. TPPA was signed at corporate HQ (Skycity) instead of at Parliament. The PM attends the Auckland Nines instead of Waitangi and the PM shows his treason at every chance he gets by wearing his preferred flag on his lapel like a big ‘up-yours’ to New Zealanders.
You know, I’m glad he is booed and reviled at every event he attends. It takes a lot for New Zealanders to get riled up. Commentators here call NZers ‘sleepy hobbits’, but recently I’ve seen more Orc than Hobbit as New Zealanders finally wake up to the TPPA, the Corporate Takeover of New Zealand and the quislings who support the dismantling of everything good about New Zealand (including our flag).
Key’s bodyguards are there to stop some nutter from attacking the PM. But bodyguards can’t stop the Slime Minister being booed at the Auckland Nines. Bodyguards can’t stop the Slime Minister being booed at the Big Gay Out.
Dictators like Mussolinini, Hussein and Gaddafi had a lot more done to them than being booed. But if booing can turn ‘sleepy hobbits’ into rumbling Orcs, I say bring it on. Revolutions have used Orange Flags and Green Flags and flying shoes as symbols of their anger at their dictators.
But if dildos, booing, glitter and burning Key’s preferred flag are the symbols for New Zealanders disgust for Key, Joyce and the TPPA, then so be it.
Boo the Slime Minister. Reject the Slime Minister’s flag.
For a better New Zealand.
In Northland where Joyce was ” dicked ” for the third time. It ” is the end of the beginning “. Q.Churchill.
And MSM bias helps cement this blind faith. Eg On Sunday news, 21st February 2016, TV One showed political bias.
The topic was political polls – and preferred prime minister poles. John Keys, Winstone Peters and James Shaw were each visually shown – also with each making a comment. The latter two were shown making comments of little political consequence – but the clip of John Key included this comment ‘That all criticism by opponents of the TPPA have all been proved wrong” or words to that effect .
The TPPA is a current and very controversial issue to NZ, and one which could have a critical influence on one’s political opinion . The news was of poll results, and any visuals were to illustrate the image of the party leaders – it was not a political debate. To allow the PM to voice his opinion on the TPPA, in a situation where there is no opportunity for the opposing view point, is showing a bias to the John Key and the National Party. And this keeps the unthinking trusting public justification of their blind faith.
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