As I pointed out earlier this year, National Party strategists are giving up attacking Jacinda directly because you never win when attacking a pregnant woman, and are turning instead to pick fights with organisations voters identify with Labour, and those organisations are Unions.
Here was my run down in January...
Equity NZ: The hammer will fall hardest here. For Key’s Government, the manufactured crisis at the Hobbit was a political and cultural gold mine. By manipulating NZers love of LOTR, the Government whipped up sentiment that the Union was threatening the making of the Hobbit film here. The anti-Union backlash was apocalyptic and not even Helen Kelly rushing to the defence of Jennifer Ward-Lealand could help in the end. By painting himself into a corner to gain a political victory over the Union movement and the wider Left, Key had to agree to giving Warner Bros more corporate welfare plus re-wrote employment law for the benefit of Corporate Hollywood. This time around National already has agents in the field whipping up the usual Weta workshop technical elites and will look to once again manufacture the collapse of a current film project and lay the blame at the feet of Labour for attempting to unpick the ridiculous labour law National put into effect. With Amazon announcing the new TV series of Lord of the Rings with New Line Cinema involved (they are a division of Warner Bros who made the film with Peter Jackson), the most likely attack line will be to suggest the TV series will be filmed here and use the attempted passing of the Hobbit Law to manufacture the supposed uncertainty. Expect to hear a lot of ‘Australian Union’ rhetoric and ‘greedy actor’ statements. If National can force Labour to walk away from the law or blame the new Government for the TV series going somewhere else (even if it was never going to be filmed here in the first place) it will be an enormous political victory that will perpetrate all the negative stereotypes about Labour in the thrall of the Unions. Expect to hear about the LOTR TV series possibly being filmed here a couple of weeks before the new Government starts to look at officially changing the law.
PPTA/NZEI: The public hate teachers and any time the Right can hold up a teacher who has assaulted or sexually harassed a student to make the point that being a ‘registered teacher’ meant nothing for the safety of the student, they will. This matters because only registered teachers can teach and what the Right wanted to do with Charter Schools was side step employing registered teachers so they could lower staffing costs. The money to back this reform is still there from the private education industry so expect any case of a teacher abusing a student to be magnified and amplified with brutal skill.
All public transport and Port Unions: National in opposition will push ahead with any campaign that has money backing it and that’s the explanation behind their inane roads every where campaign. National will want and will actively promote strikes in public transport or Ports because they want industrial action that creates wide spread disruption, especially if it grinds traffic to a halt. Expect to see a lot of public transport companies become incredibly unreasonable all of a sudden.
Public Service leaks: After 9 years in power, most public service is dominated by right wing goons who fully approve of the draconian welfare state created by National. As Labour attempt to change this culture of abuse, expect to see huge leaks highlighting the worst cases of welfare fraud and people who are difficult to find any sympathy for.
…the sudden leadership battle within National put most of these machinations on hold, although there were agents for the Right in the field as early as December starting to sow the seeds of industrial discontent.
The Right will wait for the Hobbit Law to start its journey through Parliament before lighting that fuse, and PPTA/NZEI are facing a sustained attack from private education trying to save their Charter School experiment, but it’s public transport that National sees having real voter appeal.
Already we are starting to see Public Transport Companies suddenly becoming very aggressive with the Unions in the hope of triggering Industrial disruption, here…
…and here…
Talks to resolve Auckland’s rail strike were due to start at 9am on Wednesday — but the mediator’s train was late.
Industrial action by the Rail and Maritime Trade Union (RMTU), announced on Saturday, is affecting some peak train services on Auckland’s southern, western and eastern lines.
Commuters have experienced hour-long delays amid the start of universities’ semester one this week.
…with Hooton in charge of the dark arts over at the House of Slytherin that is National, the focus on starting fights with the Unions will begin with speed.
National can’t hit Jacinda, but they can sell a narrative that Labour’s Union mates are holding the country to ransom. Hooton is well versed in these tactics and as motorists get stuck in longer and longer traffic jams during industrial action, he quietly siphons off more voters for National.
I pointed out in January that the Unions had to work together to form a better communications strategy to counter these moves because without that, Hooton is going to have a field day painting them as the problem.
hooton is a little paid toady for the right who has never worked a day in his life. It must be noted also that the IMF has come out and said that the attack on unions has been the greatest cause of income inequality in the last three decades.
I could never understand why people get so upset about Labour having a relationship with the union movement, they were a child (now gone wayward) of the union movement. All those things like decent pay, secure jobs, secure and decent housing were and should still be what the union movement and labour are all about. Not being bargaining agents for members or economic managers for those who are doing quite nicely thanx but a movement working towards democratic socialism. Oh wait, that’s what the Labour Party constitution says
And then there is the “death from a thousand cuts” strategy. National will keep cutting under the guise of “holding the govt to account” and have all the usual spin merchants, sycophantic media, celebrity editors and aunty Herald dish up the dirt.
Only because voters are stupid!
…. ‘ I pointed out in January that the Unions had to work together to form a better communications strategy to counter these moves because without that, Hooton is going to have a field day painting them as the problem ‘….
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Interesting.
Ruth Richardson rammed through ( on behest of the Business Roundtable ) the 1991 Employment Contracts Act which has been used repeatedly to drive down workers wages and undermine working conditions.
We even had John Key do the corporate welfare job for Warner Broth.Inc over here in NZ , and push through many other changes to lop off tea breaks , weaken Unions , open the floodgates of immigration to provide cheap labour and put downwards pressure on wages ,- and we STILL cant even build a hotel without having to import 200 Chinese laborers…
Let alone bridges for Northland.
It is amazing that Hooton is saying that it , – ( the Employment Contracts Act 1991 ) , – was a failed piece of legislation that was inadequate therefore he feels he has to step in and ‘help it along a bit’ in all his wisdom … even after it was ‘sanitized’ by being morphed into the ‘Employment Relations Act ‘ ,…
And contrasted with the above , the question could be asked : why is he so obsessive about the Trade Unions ,… is he not ‘self employed’ ?,… and that therefore he gets to set his own rates and conditions of income?
Is he a sticky beak or a busybody ?
Or is it that business is bad because his main employer, – the National party – took a dive and lost the election ? Has he been sidelined as ‘ineffectual ‘ by certain of National party inner core as a result ?… therefore affecting his income in a negative way ?
Perhaps he stands to further enrich himself ( like Grima Wormtongue , – ironically , … when LOTR is being mentioned in this article … ) by fomenting all manner of strife and dissension by using sympathetic contacts within those movements , – contacts that are in turn in the pay of various organisations leading ( ultimately ) to what is now called the NZ Initiative and other such oligarch ‘Trade Union’ / Political lobby groups….
And ,… is that not being obliquely treasonous ?
Or ,… just simply being a ‘subversive’ in effect ?,… an agent of deliberate industrial sabotage , perhaps ? Plying his trade by proxy as he uses other fall-guys to shield his subversion’s ?….
And will he be careful to target those industry’s that only affect the domestic population and leave those related to international trade intact? Is that his game? To frustrate and infuriate fellow New Zealanders and be careful not to upset his overseas friends and colleagues ?
Those same foreign friends and colleagues who demanded a mechanism for destroying Trade Unions power and driving down wages and conditions , – and found both the mechanism and the willing accomplice in Ruth Richardson when she rammed through the Employment Contracts Act 1991 ( despite massive public protests ) in such an unseemly , dictatorial and undemocratic manner?
Grima Wormtongue.
There seems to be a direct and incredible irony between the role of that loathsome character of LOTR ‘s fame and the subject matter at hand contained within this article ,… and the leading protagonist mentioned. Therefore , perhaps we had best again,… read this timeless article by Hugh Price about just what these subversive far right ‘ moles’ really seek to achieve above and beyond the handsome reimbursements for their ‘ services’ …
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
The media is totally on Labour’s side, from end to end. National get lambasted all the time, Ardern treated like a princess, yet was handed everything on a plate, from being MP to being PM. Go figure.
It was either that or carry on with the Double Dippers Dishonesty and his war on the poor or endure the puller of young girls ponytails , John Key.
The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED) « The Standard
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-great-big-list-of-john-keys-big-fat-lies-updated/
And frankly , the way Key always carried on beginning with this sort of stunt :
Aroha of McGehan Close flees NZ | Stuff.co.nz
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10468960/Aroha-of-McGehan-Close-flees-NZ
Through to Pike River and Operation Burnham ( take your pick of all the scandals and lies )
It was probably timely that we all sent National to the sin bin for a very , very long stretch of time. As for Jacinda? …. I would suspect most people are finding her and her coalition govt to be a breath of fresh air after 9 years of the other corrupt lot.
So maybe the medias kind of wised up , – who knows? , – maybe they will admit their error in gross incompetence in NOT taking John Keys lies about the XKEYSCORE programs existence more seriously next time….
And all I can say to you , matey , is that this country came so dangerously close to having a passive dictatorship under direction from the White House under John Key that we can thank our lucky stars for Andrew Little , Jacinda Adern , the Greens – and that perennial old silver fox that nobody ever outdoes ,… The Right Honourable Winston Peters.
Its great to feel a little more like a New Zealander again.
Mate.
What on earth are you talking about Miles?
Miles, what the hell are you talking about? Wrong on all counts. I know your clearly disappointed in Nationals loss and Bill’s failures but seriously your claim of the media being on Labours side is just plain dopey.
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