For sometime my feeling has been that the current political spectrum simply isn’t radical enough to adapt the economy, society and culture fast enough to the realities of the climate crisis.
This pandemic has highlighted that when existential extremes occur to us as a civilisation, we immediately look to the state for protection, so let’s just dump the whole free market neoliberal bullshit shall we?
It’s not ‘Socialism for Stealth’ if the entire country is screaming for it.
This pandemic is a universal experience, the shock waves of which are fracturing the free market certainties the hegemonic economic framework has been built upon.
An enormous cultural, economic and political backlash is building and the naked reality is that the climate crisis will be far worse than this pandemic we currently tremble from.
Spending billions on trying to rebuild ‘normal’ is fucking absurd when the market ‘normal’ was what made this pandemic erupt in the first place.
Destruction of natural biospheres alongside jowl to cheek over population and global trade exacerbated this pandemic but the climate crisis will make these 1 in a 100 year events become 1 every 10 years.
JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human race
The world’s largest financier of fossil fuels has warned clients that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity and that the planet is on an unsustainable trajectory, according to a leaked document.
The JP Morgan report on the economic risks of human-caused global heating said climate policy had to change or else the world faced irreversible consequences.
The study implicitly condemns the US bank’s own investment strategy and highlights growing concerns among major Wall Street institutions about the financial and reputational risks of continued funding of carbon-intensive industries, such as oil and gas.
JP Morgan has provided $75bn (£61bn) in financial services to the companies most aggressively expanding in sectors such as fracking and Arctic oil and gas exploration since the Paris agreement, according to analysis compiled for the Guardian last year.
The current political spectrum in New Zealand can not radically adapt fast enough to adopt the changes we must make if we are to survive the climate crisis. It will require a radical Political Movement that elects a Party to implement Fortress Aotearoa…
- Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self sustainable in terms of food.
- Immediately ban all water exports
- 5 year Parliamentary term.
- Upper and Lower House (Upper House 50-50 split between Māori & Pakeha that can hold up legislation if unhappy about Treaty issues)
- Massive investment into R&D from Government with the understanding research is to benefit NZ first before sold offshore.
- Large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce.
- Mass limiting of tourism numbers with increased tourist taxes.
- Only citizens can vote.
- Sustainable immigration and an end to exploitative migrant workers.
- Resettlement Programms for all pacific island neighbours.
- Increase refugee in take to 10 000 per year
- Fully funded public services.
- Mass Green housing rebuild.
- 100% renewable energy for entire country.
- Massive tree planting across previous farming land.
- Wholesale re-write of state services act to end commercial values.
- Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
- Financial transaction tax
- Wealth tax
- Multinational tax
- Inheritance tax
On a rapidly warming planet, NZ will increasingly be the life boat for Earth and the tyranny of our distance will become our blessing.
As the climate crisis unfolds more and more people in fury will turn against the current political system too wedded to the economic profits margins of the polluters. It is just a matter of time before the NZ electorate rejects the limitations of the current political spectrum.
The only thing that makes the Carbon Zero Act ‘historic’ is the future generations who will look back in spite & anger that we thought this sophistry was a legitimate response to the climate crisis – if you think maybe acting in 31 years is a solution, you are the problem.
In 2023, for the first time in NZ history, Gen x + Gen Y + Millennials will be a larger voting block than the boomers.
2023 is our date for revolution comrades.
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The whole question of citizenship, residency and all that ‘skill shortage’ immigrant policy needs a re-think.
We’ve lost many of the skills we’ll actually need – and not the ones that have allowed us to prop up an export education sector, or allow workers in what we used to think of as ‘low skilled’ sectors to be exploited.
And similarly, should citizens who’ve not lived here for years and years be able to vote (those with say ‘dual/multiple passports living offshore for most of the time) on the one hand – whilst those on the other hand who are here with skills we supposedly need – who are contributing to our collective interests and tax base are unable to vote.
Even the concept of citizenship has been bought and sold like any other commodity – and I don’t just mean the crass example of a Peter Thiel or others whose only qualification has been that they’ve been able to invent a good story, and/or that they’re flush with cash.
We lost the skills we need because our wages and conditions are getting worse and worse in NZ. Look at the nurse who saved Boris, working in the UK for nearly a decade. What drove her and many other competent professional people out of NZ?
My guess is, high student loans followed by low wages in NZ….
A 10% rise in immigration leads to a 2% reduction in wages.
https://fullfact.org/immigration/does-immigration-reduce-wages/?utm_source=content_page&utm_medium=related_content
So for tourism, hospitality, retail, supermarkets, support workers, bus drivers which have become over 30% full of migrant labour it means that they have probably lost 6% pay rises… some industries are actually getting below minimum wages like Chorus workers, hospitality and others….
If you were good at your job, would you put up with it? Nope!!!
If you were youth looking at training for a career be attracted to it by a future of minimum wages, job insecurity or less? Nope!!
Look how quickly in NZ big business dumped their workforces (ok not the executives, silly) like Air NZ! Must be the kind face of our country at work again!
Good for a rebound on the sharemarket tho!
Air NZ in the 2019 financial year had cash reserves of $1.1b and its labour bill was $1.4b. In 2019 it generated $5.8b in revenue.
Ok, looks like, Air NZ still has 1.1 billion in cash then while dumping staff and asking government for loans and work placements for it’s staff.
Sock it to em, savenz !!!
@ Wild Katipo, Noticing Rymans are now sponsoring media Stuff’s “colour your bubble” after multiple clusters of Covid around rest homes, and Vodafone is getting fluff articles in Newsroom.
++warm fuzzy profits everyone++plus media not reporting any real investigations or advocating business as usual + corporate welfare after Covid++
/agreed once again with what you say.
My problem with what a lot of what you post is often that you appear to want to apply a bit of a double standard at times. I recall a while back you were suggesting that when we (i.e. you) did our big OE – say to the motherland, we didn’t have expectations that you seem to think a lot of immigrants have come to expect here. You’d have been quite unique. (Some probably do – certainly those from some of the more totalitarian expansionist parts of the world)
You’d only have to listen to Jim Mora’s RNZ “Sunday” a few times to realise that isn’t actually the case anymore. OR you could look at all the comments on Stuffed from time to time.
Whenever there’s something to do with international travel – everyone’s a fucking expert, an authority, and so sophisticated – knowledgeable about all the little intricacies of how to survive in various airports. (It’s almost like seeing/listening to how every Kiwi is a bad driver EXCEPT the commenter)
We swan around the world stopping off in exotic places, hooking up, and then falling in lerv with a local – and moaning like hell when we feel homesick or when things aren’t quite as good as they are at ‘home’ – where-ever ‘home is/was/ or is hoped to be. Nobody else on the planet is allowed to behave or feel the same apparently (and we probably inhereted it all from our former colonial masters).
It’s a kind of exceptionalism that says it’s OK for us, but fuck anybody else from any other ‘nation’ (whether or not it punches above its weight) if and when they have similar expectations.
And YES!!!!!. Why did the nurse feel the need to leave in the first place – well not so much that, but why did she decide to stay for a decade.
Why have we lost various tradesmen and others – from railway workers, to engineers and geologists and doctors and nurses and arse wipers and petrol pump attendants and “entrepreneurs” alike.
But we HAVE and we DID, and we’re left with the population we have here and now, however it’s jumbled together because of the decisions we let our politicians and various bullshit artists to make and implement on our behalf.
And since we’ve allowed those decisions to be made, it doesn’t give us the right (IMHO) to treat like shit those we’ve allowed here, or to now tell them they’re redundant and surplus to our needs, ESPECIALLY now we’ve suddenly realised that many of those we considered as ‘low-skilled’ (and YES – even as I’ve heard people say …. ‘low v a l u e’) are actually now “essential”.
And suddenly ‘our own’ have realised that yep, maybe I could run a bloody petrol station, or pick a few kwiwfruit (although probably not run an orchard without a fair bit of experience), or wipe a few geriatric arses, or drive a bus or train, etc. etc. etc.
I’m still not sure though why a nurse – as nice as she may be, AND if she’s spent fuck all time in NZ over that 10 years should be helping to determine the outcome of a NZ election, just as I don’t see why a sibling’s partner from the US, who has spent the majority of his life here (now retired) would want to vote in a US election (he doesn’t, though he could), OR why another rellie (a Brit) who married his ‘Koiwoi’ partner expects to help determine the outcome of UK politics where he has fuck all intention of returning to, of contributing to its economy and society – and only ever wants to visit once in a while and kiss mumsy and dadsy’s cheek when they’re due to pop their clogs. OR why, considering my family should have any expectation of helping to determine the outcome of another nation’s election just because I spend a lot of time there.
I actually wouldn’t mind seeing compulsory voting for citizens and residents (the latter who’ve been here for more than say 2 election cycles), and disallowing citizens (those with multiple citizenship) from voting after they’ve been absent for the same period (they’ve not actually contributed to our economy or society in quite a while) – though I wouldn’t go so far as to deprive them of benefits if and when they come home with their tails between their legs when the shit hits the fan.
But there are bigger issues in the short term – strangely enough they’re much to do with the neo-liberal shite and language that’s been pumped into “US” over the past 3 decades – such as to do with corporate c i t i z e n s h i p.
The globalists who control the system won’t have a bar of it -local sustainability, universal local banking, people not buying stuff they don’t need with money better utilised otherwise, breaking free from overconsumption of petroleum, and most of all socialism. Even as their dysfunctional system fails spectacularly they attempt to resurrect it.
Interesting times.
Meanwhile atmospheric CO2 approaches 418 ppm and the ice continues to melt.
Well, I cant say I have a problem with most of that as I’ve said many times before… but how about a dismantling of the Reserve Bank Act to bring finance under direct govt control again?
Also, Inheritance tax,… some people inherit almost zilch. I would say it could be based more on the amount inherited , the current recipients wealth status and the like. Then again , we must be careful to not go back to the socially regressive means testing of Jenny Shipley and Ruth Richardson.
I never considered myself a peasant and them as any ‘Sirs and Dames’. I simply consider them more as convicts that the law hasn’t caught up with yet.
They shit and fart like all the rest of us.
Or perhaps in their minds their shits and farts smell perfumed and almost edible.
So perhaps that’s why they fed us their shit and kept us in the dark like mushrooms as they gleefully ripped us all off.
“They shit and fart like all the rest of us”
That’s probably the best summation of it all so far.
(Except that Soimon’s and Paula’s are particularly smelly for some reason – not sure what it is, perhaps an excess of collagen and various other chemicals they use to prop themselves up with)
:p
Martyn you missed the big climate change emitter on your list.
*TRANSPORT IS THE BIGGEST EMTTER OF CREENHOUSE EMISSIONS.
*SO USE RAIL AND LESS ROAD FREIGHT.
*THIS IS THE WAY FORWARD NOW; – AS WAS IN THE PAST.
Actually war is the largest emmitter of greenhouse gases. With out WW2 then we wouldn’t have air travel as we know it. That’s the type of exponential growth Fortress Aotearoa seeks to prevent. With continuouse military operations in long ranged counter counter terrorism, boarder security, counter piracy, peace keeping and nation building Fortress Aotearoa seeks to prevent all out war. Everything was considered in the formation of Fortress Aotearoa.
Indeed, CB , as it still is in many parts of Europe and Asia… whereby the last leg of the lap to the consumer is by trucks etc, minimizing the whole long distance reliance on them. It may be more practicable in say parts of Australia, but this is not Australia and we do not have the same vast distances.
All this is , – is the ongoing neo liberal excuse to privatize everything including rail in times past , lack of decisive value put on developing them and back handers and taxation from the trucking industry in the form of revenue.
For what ever reason F.D.R when he was negotiating America’s new deal growth was assumed from then on. All our retirement funds assume growth, GDP assumes growth. As long as people save money then growth will be with us no mater what system we think is best.
So we have to contain growth with in a narrow margins of about 1%-10% and ideally it should be 3% except for when an earthquake hits or something then we need to rebuild then growth will rise. So if there’s not enough money in the system then the government can create money of its own, but to much then we take money out of the system via taxes to keep with in 1%-10% growth rates.
Looks like ScoMo is using the Covid cover to rush to deforest and kill more native species habitats in OZ for 10 years free of regulations, by logging the bush that did not get destroyed during the bush fires….
“Legal exemption for the logging industry from federal environment law was signed off on Monday for another ten years in spite of the horrific impacts of the bushfires on forests and wildlife. ”
10-year legal exemptions rolled over, VIC and Federal govs fail to protect threatened species
https://www.foe.org.au/vic_rfa_10years?fbclid=IwAR3DhJMPzgUREPCubXsqp29jvdMkud9hylLuN2jyJ5HEIwJFanggXxe6q-g
Lots of good forward thinking common sense actions , goals and necessities presented by Martyn in this post ,,,,, it will get him on a five eyes watch list for sure ,,,
… And I know Martyn can not think of everything ,,, but he left out Hemp ,,, It grows more bio mass and removes more Co2 than pine ,, Its the only industrial scale sequester/ remover of greenhouse gas, that humans can implement more or less immediately ,,, and we get good textiles for clothing, high quality papers, MDF building products, hemp crete etc etc ,,,,
It would also be a good crop to grow as part of sustainable farming ,,growing it and other crops to break the parasite cycle on paddocks ,,, instead of dosing stock with increasingly strong toxic Drenches.
***********************************************************
Anyway Martyn has a rough basic and hopeful vision for the future ,,,,, So I’m going to warn of a nightmare,,
Imagine Peter Thiel and a National Government getting to play disaster capitalism on us ,,, Imagine the authoritarianism the right wingers would turn to as the rich get richer ,,,, gated community s and Favelas.
Minimum red tape for a slum ,,,,,,,
Peter Thiel bribed his way into NZ ,,, over-riding normal rules for normal people.
As far as dodgy immigrants go ,,,, the only way the czeczh E importer Karel Sroubek could be as bad as Peter Theil ,,,,, is if he funneled all the profits from his E deals into right wing anti-Government extremists ,,, While being a accused racist ,, a sexist ,,, and Trump enabler.
Tech billionaire and Gawker destroyer Peter Thiel has some wacky beliefs https://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12241474/peter-thiel-billionaire-gawker-rnc-beliefs
Peter Thiels life-boat here in NZ needs to be deflated ,,,, and he can get back to his other sinister plans and ideas …
“The Far-Right Helped Create The World’s Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-alt-right_n_5e7d028bc5b6cb08a92a5c48
.
http://werewolf.co.nz/2017/01/gordon-campbell-on-nz-as-an-escape-hatch-for-us-survivalists/
http://publici.ucimc.org/2018/06/the-alt-right-extends-its-reach/
http://werewolf.co.nz/2017/07/gordon-campbell-on-peter-thiels-bad-attitude-problem/
A little bit of appropriate legislation could puncture Peter Thiels life boat …
Some Civil defense type Stock takes of resources in the districts of NZ ,,,, With resources to be used for all the citizens in a emergency ,,,,.
That and making sure these bolt hole owners are not in possession of excessive or illegal firearms ,,, for militias or private armies they may plan to form ,,,,
Doing those two things will sour NZ as a place for them to start their Sovereign citizen feudalism crap ….
We owe it to the world,,Not to let the rich think they have a safe haven in NZ …. legislation would be preferable to pitch forks ,,, to achieve this state of mind for them
And did I mentioned Peter Thiels blood bags ….. how will he import them?. https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/mad-max-4-blood-bag-tom-hardy.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=960&h=500
“They shit and fart like all the rest of us”
That’s probably the best summation of it all so far.
(Except that Soimon’s and Paula’s are particularly smelly for some reason – not sure what it is, perhaps an excess of collagen and various other chemicals they use to prop themselves up with)
:p
Great list Martyn, here’s my plan, it’s fairly similar…
Govt to bid on mortgagee sales for state housing along with building new
End all subsidies to Tiwai Point with a view to closure
Buy BNZ and merge with Kiwibank
Buy out Fletchers & re-create the Ministry of Works (formerly known as MBIE)
Nationalise all construction projects that are in distress
Rebuild/restore the rail network
Sack Port of Auckland board and begin shifting operations to Whangarei
Create a “needed skills” education category that is free or waged (i.e. trades)
Cut immigration & study visas (no more backdoors)
Housing NZ empowered to access “ghost” houses as emergency accommodation
Kiwibank allowed to act as real estate agent & offer cheap mortgages for first home buyers
Create a Public Quartermaster branch of the military that keeps warehouses full of emergency supplies for times such as this.
Build oil storage facilities to keep NZ going in case of external shocks
Leverage Australian expertise in Solar
CER and closer political/economic ties with Australia and like minded (democratic) allies.. Canada, Japan
Repeal all FTA’s; reinstate trade agreements that respect national sovereignty and borders
Huge investment in the military, Border control/Customs, and Coast Guard
Huge investment in DOC and environment agencies to clean up the shit left by intensive farming/mining/industry
https://twitter.com/roblogic_/status/1248795714030690305
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