No. Way.
The bloody Farmers win AGAIN?
Not only did they get our state owned energy assets privatised (including taxpayer sweetners for those wealthy enough to buy shares) so that they could get a $400 million dollar irrigation slush fund.
Not only are they ruining the water quality of our rivers with their pollution.
Not only are they attacking scientists and activists for pointing out their pollution.
Not only are they complaining about even handed media attention with boycotts.
Not only are they pumping the media full of TV Dairy propaganda adverts that are in total denial of the facts.
Not only are they having our water stolen for their benefit.
Not only are they contributing to the very climate change that is now creating more and more catastrophic weather events.
Not only are they refusing to look at more sustainable forming practices in favour of intensification.
Not only all that – but they’ve bloody forced the Government to back track on immigration tightening because Farming is addicted to cheap imported labour to cope with the debt demands dairyification of their farms requires?!?
Before she died a criminal because of Peter Dunne spitefully making her one, Helen Kelly would constantly point out the horrific work conditions farmers were demanding from workers. Farmers claim NZers don’t want the jobs and that’s why we need to hire foreign migrants, which is as large a falsehood as Richie fucking McCaw bulging with all that faux pride that we can mass produce milk powder for fucking china as if it’s the greatest technological and cultural development of the last 10 000 fucking years.
Kiwi’s don’t want the jobs, because as Helen Kelly pointed out, they are awful hideous jobs which are paid a pittance. Complaining as the farming industry does about NZers not wanting to be serfs in a rural feudal state doesn’t justify importing desperate and impoverished workers from other countries.
It means Farmers are exploiting the situation and that their business model is deeply damaged to rely so much on taxpayer irrigation subsides, cheap imported labour and massive debt requirements for the dairyification process.
National has always been the political expression of bankers, farmers and wealthy businessmen, watching them warp our economic, environmental and social landscape as grotesquely as they are to help their farmer mates out should remind us all how badly National need to be replaced in September.
… should remind us all how badly National need to be replaced in September.
Christ yes! The number of us disaffected, disenfranchised, disempowered and disabused by this shower of shit government should guarantee their removal from office for a long time.
We’ll see won’t we…
The money the Phillipino’s earn, they may as well be volunteers. There is absolutely no way a farmer will “go under” if having to pay a little more and therefore get kiwi labour. The drugs myth is just that.
Hi Bert
Is it true that if a person in New Zealand gets one hour of work a week, that person is deemed employed ?
Given the depth of corruption and the manipulation of numbers for dishonest reasons within our Parliament, I would not be surprised if anyone breathed a breath they would be deemed employed.
Our Parliament is sick. Very sick.
Hi Roy and OT.
My thoughts exactly. The business model is flawed and cheap labour is only ever about increased profit margins.
Employment was only ever called employment, not that many years ago when you had a forty hour a week job but as you say, 1 hour is recognised as employed.
So the Farmers have won again and now they’re challenging the Governments irrigation policy on run-off and sustainability, so wait and see another reversal from this abhorrent Government.
“Complaining as the farming industry does about NZers not wanting to be serfs in a rural feudal state doesn’t justify importing desperate and impoverished workers from other countries.”
i LIVE IN A HILLY DISTANT RURAL AREA NOW FOR 11YRS, AND WE HAVE NEVER SEEN ANY FOREIGN WORKERS AT OUR SURROUNDING FAMILY FARMS.
So this using of imported labour must be the preserve of factory farms and foreign combines who have bought large farms Martyn.
Our community is very tight and if any farms around here were using imported labour we would know by now for sure.
tO THIS MUST
If the farms, as economic units, can’t afford kiwi workers – can they really afford to have kiwi owners?
Perhaps we should also let the Filipinos run the farms and return any profits to the government coffers?
Just a thought…
Sounds good, but I can’t see the born to rule class will see the advantage of taking themselves out of the equation to produce better profits.
I doubt that it is simply a pay issue, for so few New Zealanders choosing to work in agriculture or horticulture. It must be the long working hours, lack of contact to social peers in cities and towns, lack of entertainment and thus the isolation, that scares so many off from the work on farms or orchards. Some work is also seasonal, offering no security.
Work on farms these days cannot be compared to the days of slogging it out in yesteryear, there is machinery, modern technology, and at least the minimum pay – or rather a bit above that available.
Filipinos must find this place a great one, full of opportunity to earn more than they do back home, where ten dollars a day is more the normal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country
But of course, there are enough farmers who try and get the most out of them, and in the end they get less than the minimum wage per hour, when looking at the long hours they work for a 40 or 45 k salary per year. The global market, with tough competition, that also keeps the cost and pay down.
Young Kiwis prefer even making burgers or working at the Warehouse, than go country, they do not like the hours, the distance from home and the dirty work, that is the main problem.
Speaking to some filipino workers at my jobsite – they are having meetings and discussing who to vote for as a community and they said they would vote immigration friendly party ie National, which is terrifing to think that they are going to vote these corrupt bastards.
Im telling everyone within earshot all about their corrupt tactics and policies – if they still want to vote for a corrupt government they will know the full story and vote against their childrens future….
Well, if they are here as permanent residents, and saving up to send money back home, they would be the very kind of people that the Nats and ACT love.
They come from poorer backgrounds, and from poorer countries, and the government loves them, so did Labour once, to come here and work their ways up, having a bit to spare to send overseas.
They do the jobs that few Kiwis bother doing, because they are low paid, unpleasant or difficult, also unstable.
Labour was happy allowing immigrants in also, remember, and this is part of the plan to keep certain jobs done, which many New Zealanders may not like to do.
So they will of course vote for the Nats, as they invited them in, and helped them become residents and do what they are doing.
It is also all part of the divide and rule agenda, and there are many willing collaborators, but when any person criticise them, he or she gets shouted at for being ‘racist’.
Changing policy to allow the use of foreign workers on low wages amounts to subsidies in my book, and surely breaches the spirit of the WTO.
Making taxpayers liable for the cleanup of dirty dairying also amounts to a subsidy.
Prior to 15 years ago we managed to harvest the fruit and veg, run the farms, fish the fish and employ our own people in that industry.
What has gone wrong? Genetic mutation so that now Kiwi’s can’t do manual work any more?… seriously it’s all a crock. NZ used to be able to cope with using local labour and we can do so again!
Most of our problems now are that everyone is so lazy, from government to employers to workers. Government too lazy to run housing portfolios and need private enterprise and charities to do it for them, employers too lazy to train people to do the work – even manual work which clearly most people should be able to be trained to do pretty quickly, and employees are now too lazy to do manual work as they all have $50,000 degrees and told they are too intelligent/over skilled to do manual work.
Yep, degrees are great for all, but not really if as a country you are not committed to diversify to a knowledge based economy. NZ has done everything wrong. Our governments are desperate to keep a manual economy with close to slave and temp labour (especially under National government) and use education as a profit driven, bums on seats, Ponzi scheme, with few local jobs coming out the other end and those getting less and less well paid with worse stability.
WTF is wrong to have so much laziness, stupidity and short term thinking as a national condition???
“Most of our problems now are that everyone is so lazy, from government to employers to workers. Government too lazy to run housing portfolios and need private enterprise and charities to do it for them, employers too lazy to train people to do the work – even manual work which clearly most people should be able to be trained to do pretty quickly, and employees are now too lazy to do manual work as they all have $50,000 degrees and told they are too intelligent/over skilled to do manual work.”
This is an interesting comment.
Yeah, once upon a time, I know, there were dairies, corner shops and so run by WHITE Kiwis, now we see almost only Indians, a few Chinese and the odd Cambodian do such work, running such shops.
Fact is, if you are born WHITE in New Zealand, your parents will do all to get you into uni, to study, and get a degree, to at least get alternative tech training, or do a well paid trade job.
For those that are brown, they are now happy to do the jobs that WHITE Kiwis once did, and they like to climb the social ladder a bit, if they can, despite of all prejudice and bias. They do also like to do decent jobs, at least at supermarkets or warehouses, in logistics, construction and so forth, and do them well.
The immigrant Kiwis of diverse ethnic background look after themselves, but some face a stiff challenge, and they end up, even if they may have studied, running the corner shops now, the convenience stores, the petrol stations, the cleaning and service jobs, making fast food and anything else there is.
I met waiters working in hotels in Auckland City, few are Kiwis, most are immigrants, and overseas students working part time, and they put up with heaps.
It is the same as in the US, in Europe and many other places, the social structure is changing, the immigrants do the low paid and unpleasant, less attractive jobs, including farming now, and the few that have good qualifications, good English and good connections, they may end up in well paid professional jobs, as some Kiwis are not up to the challenge, or simply not enough in numbers, to work in hospitals, in management and so forth.
New Zealand has changed massively over the last few decades, it is no longer the happy go lucky and easy place, where you could get by with number eight wire mentality.
Others born here, have given up and moved to other places, as Australia, where being white may still mean more and gets you a good paid job, no matter what it is.
In short, the system is now very dishonest, very unfair, it is a new, modern day class system, and it is increasingly ruthless, immigrants are forced to put up with heaps to get a foot in the door, and they are prepared to do just that, never mind the Kiwis.
Not sure where Maori come into your conclusions HC, they don’t seem to have the blue collar jobs or the white collar jobs and they are not white, nor are they doing well, apart from the top 10% Maori Tories. Nor are Pacific Islanders.
It’s nothing to do with race its more to do with neoliberalism and making more profit by importing in more workers to lower wages and conditions. It does not work to bring in highly skilled people under neoliberalism, which is why our highly skilled category is laughable with low level IT support people and chefs as big ‘skills’ needed here.
And increasingly there are fewer working or middle class jobs. I would not consider owning a Dairy or Petrol Station a low paid job, many are highly profitable. Apparently dairies have about 50% of their profits from Tobacco. So I don’t exactly think the proliferation of Dairies, liquor outlets and petrol stations are helping NZ become a better place, because locals are so lazy, they don’t want to run them. More a capitalist business opportunity being seized which in many ways preys on poor addicts addicted to Tobacco and helping climate change deniers.
So my point is the opposite of your conclusions. Kiwi’s used to be able to run our country and only get in very unusual skills that could not be met here with highly skilled migrants.
However under neoliberalism and the profitisation of education, led by government policy, they are creating a Ponzi economy, massive debt, reduction of social welfare, hollowisation of real skills, and a growing local underclass unable to afford the necessities of life.
One of the other issues is unlike Australia which had a much better superannuation scheme which has a big pool of capital to invest and grow local businesses to create jobs, NZ got rid of there’s under Muldoon and wrecked our future prospects.
Kiwi 25 year old’s with $50,000 degrees are often worse off than their parents who may not even have a degree. In fact part time university lecturers for example are often on very low wages, poor working conditions despite being highly qualified, with their massive debts are often worse off financially than a person that runs a Dairy that mostly sells Tobacco or Liquor.
There is a hollowing out of real skills in NZ. We are becoming yokels and our businesses are being taken over by more determined capitalists who can import in cheap labour. Our government is championing this.
We all know that NZ has been built on migration from he first settlers. But when many people’s jobs are paying similar rates to 20 years ago, but they now owe $50,000 at age 23, and many Maori seem to be worse off after the treaty settlements and all the Charter school “money drop” experiments, something is wrong.
Most people in this country are now urban.
We have replaced the better-than-nothing apprenticeship system with a class-based system and the standards are slipping badly (as in ‘go to school’ not ‘social’ class). Few people are being taught by example – how to work effectively, honestly, and well.
Many farmers, probably including non-white, encourage their kids to get a degree, get a job that’s only 60 hours a week – not like farming.
Rural communities can be quite insular and make it hard for newcomers to break in. Not all. Some. Like most of NZ, really.
I’m not sure this piece really is about traditional Kiwi farmers. It could be about the Queen Street and Lambton Quay brigade: the ‘investors’ and the business people who want a return on investment Now and every year. Farmers of managers and quasi-owners. Harvesters of unearned income.
Unless that distinction is made it is too easy to complain about farmers who are forced into playing the old ‘kick the cat’ system.
Right at the bottom, voiceless, are the beasts, the land, the waters, the forests and indigenous habitats and ranges with their flora and fauna. Voiceless – unless they’re ‘cute’.
Then there are the people doing the work. It is said that the old perks of free meat, milk, housing – not there any more. Pay with one hjand and take back with the other.
And the farmers with their souls in hock to the banks, and their so-called marketing agencies, suffering from ridiculous overheads and land prices. Standing on the shoulders of those below just to keep their noses above the mud, debt, fear. Or they die. Suicide. Silly accidents.
There aren’t too many in Parliament who actually speak for the farming sectors. Plural. Sectors – meats, milks, horticulture. It’s all cliche and generalisation. Nasty stuff.
Most Kiwis aren’t lazy, though they have the habit of doing enough to get by. And why not? That capitalist Kool-aid leaves nothing but misery as an after-taste.
As Deming pointed out long ago – the problems lie in the systems. And the spanners are sure making a mess of the works after thirty odd years.
Whatever you do – don’t vote for people who want to keep the present wreck afloat. Too many people are drowning down there in steerage and the bilges.
Farm jobs are awful hideous jobs paid a pittance and will soon be replaced by Robots.
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