Jacinda replaces Winston as a handbrake with all the landed gentry of NZ

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What’s fascinating about the National Party Autopsy is that NO ONE has pointed out that this result marks the death spiral of the Party and that the Boomer dominance over political influence is now finally ended!

Equally, no one seems to have noticed that Jacinda’s last handbrake was Winston, now her handbrake is all the landed gentry of NZ!

How does she keep getting bigger handbrakes?

By 2023 the entire country will be one giant handbrake!

By artificially inflating the needs of the new National voters interests over Jacinda’s own tribe, she is telling the landlords of NZ she won’t do anything to harm them yet the mentally ill, the homeless, the working poor, the beneficiaries, the renters the prisoners, the poor and the disabled – their interests come AFTER the National Party landlords???

Ultimately, none of this really matters. In the words of the greatest living NZ Unionist, Robert Reid…

…THIS is the real issues in NZ.

We think the masquerade of representative democracy puts us the people in control – it doesn’t! The Wellington Neoliberal Bureaucratic Elite stops transformative change.

A Democracy changes the Government.
A Revolution changes the State.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

We need a revolution from an election.

The foundations of the 35 year neoliberal experiment in NZ have been exposed and found to be cracked to their core, with the climate crisis demanding a radical change, this pandemic is the perfect time to challenge the religious orthodoxy of free market dogma.

This is a unique challenge for the NZ Left ever since Identity Politics over took class politics as the dominant theory on our side of the political divide. It means currently that the Left in NZ are intellectually better prepared to organise a WoC Mommy Blogger Trans Ally free the nipple petition on Action Station than they are to debate the hegemonic structure of neoliberalism.

This has left the Left intellectually ill prepared to debate the failures of the free market economy and the solutions we must adopt to get out of this.

Labour are notoriously timid when it comes to challenging the neoliberal hegemonic structure because they were the Party that unleashed this far right experiment upon us and the scars of that debate are still raw in Labour’s psyche, luckily for us the economic depression alongside the meltdown of the climate crisis will be so deep and damaging that even Cautious Jacinda and Extra Cautious Grant have no choice but to reform and rebuild.

History is watching and no handbrake will stop that.

 

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70 COMMENTS

  1. Lol jetskis and outdoor pizza ovens for all the landed gentry. Note this was the Blairite’s choice (in conjunction with Helen). Don’t blame the middle aged housewives and retirees! I disagree with the death spiral of the National Party. Not beyond the realm of return and if anything 2005 proves the middle are notoriously fickle. One also has to look at the UK post Blair. Uncle Fester hasn’t looked too bad so far – Key obviously has some good turd polishers in the background.

    The one thing National did well (and Labour fucked up) was box Jacinda into a corner re increased taxes. The only thing that they can do now to stop the charge up on the credit card is cut costs. Imagine the blowback if Labour started reducing funding to Health and Education to balance the books. Unfortunately Grant’s pride is large so watch out.

    Fear not those on the left – the South Asian pump and dump immigration ponzi scheme (developed by Helen but mastered by John) is just around the corner when we get this tricky little virus under control out in the wide world. These 3 years are going to be interesting. No excuses now and was the win at all costs justified when the win would have still occurred putting it in 2nd and dribbling down the road?
    Jacinda could have had her cake and eaten it too however decided to gobble it down in one serving. Only time will tell if it was worth it.

    • If “boxing in” Jacinda Ardern on tax policy is a win for you Frank, you must be part of the bewildered Natzo brigade that have no idea why they lost. Points scoring of this type is a Natzo specialty but is detrimental to progress. Crap politics from a crap party.

      • Nobody put a gun to the Blairite’s head. Remember that.

        The irony of course is that she could have gone down the courageous route, still won and been transformational.

        • Yes, your right there Frank, nobody did as far as we know? Jacinda is accumulating some big black marks for caving in to your lot.

          • It’s not our lot at all (The right’s 35% rump) it’s the middle. Remember that when they focus on bank fees and supermarket prices rather than ‘poverdy’ and climate change.

            The only difference between Helen Key and this mob is all the spare cash has been pissed against the wall giving businesses welfare they don’t need to survive.

            What is refreshing is your side is realising far more quickly than our mob did of the con job going on. Wait till covid goes away and the pump and dump South Asian ponzi immigration scheme fires up again. Care to think what will happen to house prices, infrastructure and social inequity when the band starts up again?

            I’ll give you a hint – it works out (ironically) well for me

  2. Well you got this one right Martyn Bradbury. It’s true – during the next three years Matariki will become a public holiday, Ihumatao will be returned the iwi, trans people will be allowed to fiddle their birth certificates, Jacinda and Julie-Anne Gender will go after the so-called “gender pay-gap”, and Andrew Little will go after anyone who says nasty things about the sexual proclivities of The Prophet.

    But there will be no overthrow of the neoliberal order on Jacinda and Robbo’s watch.

    • ‘But there will be no overthrow of the neoliberal order on Jacinda and Robbo’s watch’.

      Pope Punctilious II, are you not confusing moral issues and social rights with economic issues?

      But I do agree: Labour is not out to overthrow neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is well entrenched as the default economic ideology, globally and here in AO/NZ, and the best centralist govts can do is tinker around the edges and wait for the catastrophic moment: the end of globalisation.

  3. I have to agree with Martyn. But we will have to see a total breakdown of society as we know it for that change to happen in my opinion. My reason for that is that even the most poor and impoverished amongst us will just want enough money to keep doing what they’re doing. I’m speaking generally here and of course there are many in poverty that want real change but not enough. Many (not just the poor) don’t notice or care about climate change or even know about neoliberal agendas and how that philosophy affects us. What’s important is surviving in the life they have, so more of the same and we want more money to do it. I agree we need to change everything, but while Governments have access to finance to prop up the existing structures nothing will change. JA won’t achieve the massive changes needed because she’s a populist. She avoids confrontation and like all politicians in democracies, won’t bite the hand that feeds it. Governments need money and the poor don’t have it. She has had the courage to stand by some unpopular lockdown choices with Covid-19 but that’s all in my opinion. The other big policy changes have required consensus which ends with watered down policy. She doesn’t have that excuse now but she will have to bite the hand that feeds the Government at some point. That won’t happen. The revolution Martyn knows is needed has to come from a completely broken society and although we have that now it’s not broken enough yet.

    • Spoken like a true blue Natzi. Money, money, money. Is that all you care about?
      “Many (not just the poor) don’t notice or care about climate change or even know about neoliberal agendas and how that philosophy affects us.” I think NZ has turned red partly due to climate concern which is denied and repealed at every opportunity by the Natz, but agree with you most people know zilch about neo lib.

      • Green Bus I’ll think you’ll find it’s not just the Natz, as you describe us but most other people who care about money. The poor need it most and they’ll be-mostly red and green I’m sure. Don’t be so quick to accuse the blues of money mania. The Red Government will spend yours and mine and it won’t affect them because we pay them big bucks and they can afford the cost of their own policies. If you read my comment properly you’ll see I believe change is necessary but don’t believe it’ll happen any time soon. Doesn’t make me a money at all cost Natzo. But if it makes you feel better I don’t mind.

        • Have you ever considered that the “money” you speak of is all created by labour.

          The present system allows an employer to bring the means of production to the workplace but the worker adds value to that significantly but gets rewarded with relative peanuts, is often prevented from collective bargaining and union membership. Since the 1970s wages have declined relative to inflation and work condition have deteriorated measurably.
          On top of that “investor” activity has taken housing out of the picture for many.
          Now it would be rare or impossible for a trades person to save and buy a house as well as raise a family on one wage.
          Not many decades ago that was a normal expectation and achieved by most.

          The added value by labour needs to end up in the pocket of that labour. If you think that is unrealistic then you are brainwashed by neoliberal incremental of wealth away from the creators of wealth and into the hands of investors and employing cartels.

          A much better and simpler model can and should be promoted and supported by a democratic govt.
          Democracy in the workplace has enormous benefits for workers, production output and quality and innovation.

          https://beneficialstate.org/perspectives/exploring-the-mondragon-cooperative-system/

          A game changer for Labour and NZ over time.
          We can start now with helping workers form cooperative businesses as many govts do and have done for many years. An advice and guidance agency would cost the government little.

    • I disagree as we have a broken society. One that provides riches and extreme wealth for a few at the expense of the majority.
      Billions of dollars leave our shores annually to fill the pockets of those who have positioned themselves to skim off the “profits” of labour in a system that desperately needs changing to reward Kiwis for their participation.

      Rather than think “obstacles” think “solutions”. They are there.

  4. I doubt it’s the end of the boomer bloc, they are still voting only for themselves, it just happens that this time it’s to be bubble wrapped in lockdown while their kids/grand kids pick up the bill, sound familiar?

    When safety returns, they will go back to voting for increasing Auckland house prices whatever it takes.
    Generational inequality is going to be an increasing issue.

    I agree re the wheels of the state being an entrenched public service technocracy which largely does it’s own thing with its own interest put first
    Which is why I question calls for using a “big state” to fix our problems.
    The big state will have its czars of everything: conservation, housing, roading , welfare and police that will be even more hopeless powerful, and self serving, using mass surveillance to entrench power and control, they are already on the way.

    Rather than a revolution to give us a more Orwellian state, we need real accountability from those in the public service already, start with a proper functioning OIA and removal of the no surprises clause. Proper complaint procedures.
    Turn the cameras on the politicians and bureaucrats not the citizens.

    • Not everybody lives with the peace and birdsong of rural dwellers. Lockdown was not a bubble wrap experience for urban dwellers. It was hard.

      It was hard for families cooped up in overcrowded houses, and hard for vulnerable old people on their own. It was hard for the unwell in care, and denied visitors. They have few at the best of times. There is a war on the elderly. Try not to be part of it. Last Sunday, in a care home in Wellington’s western suburbs, fragile hospital wingers were told to “be quiet” by a caregiver attending the evening meal. They were quiet. They ate in silence. Worse than that is happening. But as long as the money keeps rolling in into a very lucrative business, then it is a success by today’s values.

      Government’s response to the corona virus was what had to be done. It was globally acclaimed. For you to try to use it to demonise one specific generation, who may have found the whole experience harsher than more robust others robust did, is unfair and mean. Few things are that simple, especially unintended consequences.

      You might like to explain in what way the public service puts its own interests first. They are not capitalist entrepreneurs with much to gain by doing so, and are possibly more self-protective than anything else. Only effective government stewardship can address this. Government stewardship provided an electricity network which ordinary people used to be able to afford, but it was sold off for quick big bucks, and we pay for it day by day, often painfully, and make men in other countries that much richer. I can’t afford to heat my home.

      Every single one of us who has lived and worked in other countries, know that our police force is actually better than most, including some of our closest neighbours’ . Some of you see some of the systemic abuses of power in other police hierarchies, over-identify, and convince the kids that the cops want to shoot them down like rabbits. Not so. It may have seemed under the Nats that the police were being used as a political tool, but they are probably now more transparent than ever, and it is possible to make complaint about them, and follow a reasonable, if daunting, process. I know. I’ve done it. It just needs guts, fortitude, and a couple of brains.
      It is not the police who exposers of malfeance like Nicky Hager need to fear.

      Putting too much into private hands and away from government control, and this country’s already limited sovereignty could further wither away.

      • Privatisation in simple easy steps is how its done.
        Water is on the agenda with CCOs and Councils being unable to control them.
        Debt created then partial sell off followed by more of the same.

    • So who are the millennials voting for. Not self interest surely. And don’t tell me they’re all environmental angels and all of them separate the plastics when recycling. Don’t blame farmers that since the 1950s were encouraged to over fertilise because nobody new better and a complete industry philosophy change will have to take place. Don’t blame our generation for driving gas guzzlers when we worshiped oil and had no idea the damage it causes. And please shine a torch on your generation who with the knowledge continue to use disposable nappies, wipes, and devices, and appliances with a limited shelf life. We’re all arseholes, and I’m picking you are too.

      • As new trinkets arrive people use then without foresight into how the system we live in may incrementally or radically change. This willingness to change habits and become dependent is reinforced by advertising and MSM.
        The precautionary principle is ignored.
        Disposable nappies are a classic example and wet wipes that clog sewers.

        Cars that use fossil fuel have become an addiction that dominates our present economy and hence the pain to change that will be felt widely.

        Electric cars similarly will not help us handle our dependency on personal transport. How did civilisation handle the limited transport options before cars.

        Societal thinking just can’t handle reorganising as we seek solutions selfishly and not cooperatively as a group.
        The wasteful practice of producing a stream of new cars of any type is not sustainable.
        Similarly with buildings using concrete, steel and an increasing range of resources, then dumping them in landfill after a generation or so of use. Ships, planes, washing machines, fridges, computers, phones and many fashion items the capitalist world insists upon having are all adding to the growing problem of waste, addiction and growing scarcity that will be soon be affecting our very food supply.

        What part of finite is so hard to understand as we live in a world of finite resources which are diminishing rapidly. Pollution is a direct result of using those resources and harvesting energy.
        The more energy used the bigger the problem across the board.
        Think about it because we need to and most don’t.

    • I agree the spotlight should go on decisions being made. In order to have that you have to have a proper functioning 4th estate. The irony of course is that now blogs (such as this) are the purest example of a questioning 4th estate. MSM is only focused on the celebrity and tabloid now.

      Of course there are shit blogs as well – take the standard – a self flagellating echo chamber.

  5. For the last three years the narrative has been the Government has made SFA transformational change.

    There was a list of major changes that Winston Peters and NZF vetoed. He didn’t just halt them, he threatened to bring the Government down if the changes were pursued. Ardern had zero choice and was forced to pull the plug each time or have carnage on an epic scale. Many have tried to sell this as a “failure”. It would only have been a failure had she continued on and then had to deal with the inevitable but avoidable carnage.

    The time-consuming priority that’s been put on Covid this year is immense and so it should be. Are people allowing for this to the level they should?

    The election was less than a week ago. There are still questions final results after special votes are counted. The final make up of the Government needs time to be resolved with there being so many new MP’s and the potential of having the Green Party involved.

    There is also another potential Covid outbreak upon us. My son attends Rangitoto College and yesterday we received an email about a student being a contact of a man who now has Covid. Lets hope nothing comes of this but it should be remembered there are over 3000 students attending Rangitoto which is easily NZ’s biggest school.

    The Gym a family member attends in Browns Bay has been temporarily closed due to a Covid issue.

    A pub we go to regularly in Greenhithe now has a Covid issue.

    Don’t you think it’s a bit early to be putting up alarm bells about the intentions and potential failings of Ardern and Robertson?

    Just saying.

      • It’s like they’re trying to rip out a premature baby rather than allow a full term natural birth. There are a fair few of them doing it, including right and left wing writers, radio jocks and commentators, and my guess is that few if any of those who are trying to force this, whether they’re male or female, have ever given birth.

    • That’s the first evidence of self doubt JFan. Interesting that you are a shoregirl (LOL) – I would never have picked that in a thousand years.

      We must be v.close to another L3 in Auckland. St Ash will be rattling the cage while Robbo’s scrambling to get a higher limit on the amex.

    • Thank you. All the doom and gloom leftie predictions are not helping with the current situation at hand. Let Ardern and Robertson form the new govt the week after next and allow the Greens to discuss with them. Stop the scaremongering. We have enough of this crap from the right-wing MSM. I can’t help but to think that these writings are reminiscent of Tosking, Tova and Garner of the left. Enough!

  6. ‘Landed Gentry’ is a myth….and the politics of envy ( Judith got this right)

    ….so called landed gentry are hard working peasant farmers keeping the economy turning

    ….something Winston understood well ( and what a pleasure it was to turn off RNZ this morning because slimey Guyon Espiner is back)

    …the reason why we have NZers without housing is because of massive immigration into New Zealand ( something the wokie virtue signalling Greens wont recognise or the so-called Left….because it is not globalist or racially politically correct)…they prefer to attack middle New Zealanders because they in their latte drinking urban environments are are envious

    Yes something must be done about NZ’s poor and homeless….this can be done without any more immigration and tearing NZs social and economic infrastructure apart ( does the crazed delusions of grandeur Leftists really want a Pol Pot or Mao rural genocidal revolution?)

    ….thank God NZers voted for Labour for stability for New Zealand …but now Labour must think back to its roots and focus on providing housing ( prefab affordable and state owned)and jobs….Labour must start taxing the wealthy foreign corporates and overseas owners of NZ housing

    What is needed now is SMART THINKING…Winston had some good ideas ( eg a significant investment into aqua culture )which RNZ never allowed to be heard, so preoccupied were their little hound dog journos (with delusions of great self importance) smearing him as a corrupt politician)

    GO Labour and Jacinda

    • The landed gentry are the ones who own the land, the peasants farmers are the ones who work on that land paying the Lord for the privilege. The current Lords are the banks.

    • Winston may have understood the problems with immegration and Maori separatism but apart from talk every 3 years did little to change the situation. We are seeing the outcome of having no foreign workers to call on as crops remain on the trees .
      The same situation has occurred in UK . For too long it has been drilled into us that manual work is a sign of being a failure.

      • You’ll miss Winston.

        He was able to capture that populist vote and the crazy vote but never govern for those crazies because he was a centerist.

        God knows what will replace him in that vacume but something will.

        • Shit pay/contract rates system & externalisations of cost where worker is expected to find his own accom for season or charged an arm and a leg for shitty accom & pay own car costs or over-charged for provided van transport. By fact that you have to go off benefit then go through hoops to get back on again or having to report income each week (though barely time to do it) and not knowing income each week coz of variation due to varied contract rates & varied hours due to rainoffs. Also currently requires a lot of effort to track down jobs. I always see employers complaining about lack of workers but hardly see jobs advertised. Jobs are scattered all over the place through varied employment agencies, papers, only in locality, at backpackers etc. so you have to take a gamble and spend money to get to a place before you get job. Some farms only advertise at driveway so you’ve got to go around all the farms you can find …”please sir can I have a job?” Plus the amount of dodgy farmers & opportunist foreign cowboy ‘contractors’ …Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese etc who barely speak English and rip you off as soon as look a you. It’s a mess …over the last 25 years it’s not got better but worse. RSE workers are loved coz they damp down wages coz it’s good earnings still for them compared to home countries & employer can capture back some of the expenditure on wages via charging through the roof for accom & transport & in some cases for food too.

          • +100 CrimzonGhost…very, very good points….you obviously know what you are talking about

            …it is a choice between a New Zealand labour force and a foreign labour force…New Zealander workers first or globalisation

            …I know what Norm Kirk would have done

          • Thank you for the background details of why the problems exist you appear to know your stuff. If all you say is true why is there not an effort by government and unions working together to iron out problems that seem to be apparent for years.
            I would imaging there is a worry of increase in price of a basic item which always look bad.

          • Yes – All that Benefit hoopla – It is a disgusting mess!!
            MSD needs a clear out. A complete throw-it-out the door and start over. No more of this manicuring of multiple diseased and deformed extremities. Turf it out and start over, with a simple, streamlined fit-for-use vehicle that works quickly and efficiently for everyone.

            We’re now in the third decade of the 21st century, and were still struggling with a broken down bullock and cart set up. They need to accept that it’s crap and start over.

    • NZers without housing is because of massive immigration

      Yes, immigration was around 50,000 Net (those who stayed), up until the pandemic stopped it. That’s a lot of extra housing needed each year. And that number is down 20% on the three years before that, according to this article .

      More info at Wiki: Immigration to NZ

    • Labour must start taxing the wealthy foreign corporates

      Yes. And, that’s where it tracks back to a small handful of people ‘owning’ or commanding all the world’s wealth. That cycle must be broken.

      and overseas owners of NZ housing

    • The landed Gentry is the big money and corporate octopuses that control NZ business.
      Why are building materials about 30% dearer in NZ than Aussie.
      Who owns out supply chain.
      If you want another landed gentry try the banks. Grant just gave them billions.

  7. “We” don’t exist… what is required is an armed revolution or a military coup… hope the gentry have got their orders in for razor wire and window bars…

  8. Labour don’t need the Greens now but they sure as hell are going to need them in three years time. The long game would see the Ardern government keeping the Greens relevant and giving them some wins. That is if Labour actually want to be transformative. So far we see no evidence that they either want to or are able to deliver change and help those New Zealanders who need help the most.

  9. “The foundations of the 35 year neoliberal experiment in NZ have been exposed and found to be cracked to their core, with the climate crisis demanding a radical change, this pandemic is the perfect time to challenge the religious orthodoxy of free market dogma.”
    The pandemic has obscured the economic failure of the neoliberal experiment. But it may also facilitate it’s remedy.
    It is not being recognised or acknowledged what a departure from orthodoxy is the money misleadingly called “borrowing” from the reserve bank to hold employment figures together. This departure could lead , and I suspect will lead to a real transformation in the structure of the system.
    It will to have to continue here and all over the world as it has since 2008 irrespective of covid19 and irrespective of it’s passing. And it is a natural step, as little of this QE is helping the masses and in escalating house prices is seriously harming the masses, to divert more and more of it into the hands of the population in general. A de facto UBI might be an automatic development , and if it could be formalised as the destination of all newly issued money, so that this is where finance starts it’s life we will have the transformation of the millennium .
    D J S

    • I agree David. Printing money is all that the capitalists can do because they have failed to produce enough to make profits as the conditions for economic growth are dying along with nature.

      That is the nub of the problem. Labour can print money to avoid austerity but can it organise increases in productivity without driving down wages and ending in stagflation, or depression?

      They can’t rely on the failed market to drive the investment in increasing productivity, but they can do what the First Labour Govt did which was to nationalise science and technology to boost the productive economy.

      But this won’t happen UNLESS THERE IS A MASSIVE SHIFT IN CONSCIOUSNESS that puts the state in charge of production, and the management of the economy IN THE HANDS OF THOSE WHO WORK TO PRODUCE THE WEALTH. This would mean public ownership of the economy from the top, but workers’ management from below.

      Such a plan is utopian under normal conditions. The bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie would rise up. It has never been done without a counter-revolutionary coup. But we are not living in normal times. We are living in end times. If the workers and peasants in BOLIVIA can re-elect a MAS government because they fought the fascist coup regime to a halt, and under the eyes of the fascists and US imperialism, this is not impossible.

      True the MAS is not a revolutionary party, and the right will be working overtime to eliminate its majority. But it stands for a popular capitalism that puts the interests of the working people ahead of the fascist landlords and foreign corporates. Normally such governments fail to base themselves on workers control, and so become bureaucratic, authoritarian and fail as we can see in Ecuador, Venezuela etc.

      So while the MAS government may not be able to resist another coup, the mobilized, armed people who put it in power, can. In that event they can take power directly, cancel the foreign debt, set up a workers and peasants government, plan a socialist economy and spread the revolution more widely to survive the inevitable invasion from the US, China or any other foreign power whose assets have been expropriated.

      The MAS is a left centre party much like the NZ Labour Party claims to be but in a much poorer country. Its main constituency is working peasants, workers, and elements of the petty bourgeoisie. Both Government are facing the contradiction of running the economy in a global pandemic and economic crash without putting the whole burden on the working people. Both will try to solve the crisis but cannot avoid making the working people pay. They will fall to the right unless they become open to pressure from below to show the way out of that impasse.

      Such a strategy would make the reality of the next decade of pandemic and climate change the steep learning curve needed to convince the working masses that if governments such as the MAS and NZ Labour cannot lead the way out of this impasse, then they must give up on their illusions in parliamentary democracy and organise to take power to survive.

      So rise up, demand nationalisation and workers control of the economy that shifts the goal from production for profits to sustainable production compatible with economic and social survival.

      • A few thoughts Dave…working through your’s.
        “That is the nub of the problem. Labour can print money to avoid austerity but can it organise increases in productivity without driving down wages and ending in stagflation, or depression?”
        If the source of all money were a UBI sufficient for living on, then productivity would be driven by purchasing power being in the hands of everyone. Demand would drive growth, effective demand. We are in a depression because most of the money being printed is not going into the hands of people who have any incentive to circulate it so it is just inflating asset prices and stimulating no demand at all. Wages would assume a level that reflects the fact that people could choose to work or not. Without stigmatism or humiliation. So no one would be forced to work at any particular job and wages would have to attract people who had a choice. On the other hand as living would be covered many might choose to work for quite modest wages as a supplement.
        But growth can’t go on forever and though I don’t accept the CO2 climate change cataclysm theory I do believe that fossil fuels will run out within a generation or two, and the planet is being trashed.
        ” but they can do what the First Labour Govt did which was to nationalise science and technology to boost the productive economy.”
        The Ag dept, Massey university,and the DSIR were indeed a wonderful idea which were responsible for placing our agricultural industry at the top of world standards.
        This did not and does not require state ownership of everything though.
        Management , like government is a full time job justifying specialist training in some cases. People with hands on full time work, and only a tiny participation shared with hundreds of other workers in the same organisation cannot be expected to make the day to day decisions of an industry . Even if they as a collective do hold meetings and decide the general purpose of the company (or co-operative’s ) existence. Someone would still need to be appointed as manager.
        I don’t see how you can seperate being in charge of production from being in charge of the economy. Especially if the govt is in charge of the latter and the workers in charge of the former.
        “Such a plan is utopian under normal conditions. The bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie would rise up. It has never been done without a counter-revolutionary coup.”
        A UBI being the initial source of all money would render violence unnecessary. In the present situation of QE in massive quantities being required to prevent the collapse of the financial system, because more debt has been issued world wide then can be serviced let alone repaid, most of the financial pyramid of debt could be allowed to collapse by itself. Without much damage to most of society, or to the genuine productive sector. All the necessary industries would survive because they would be supported by demand backed up by everyone having money to buy what they need.
        Great to see what has happened in Bolivia . Good luck to them.
        I don’t see Venezuela as being particularly authoritarian. They would be doing fine without US sanctions preventing them from trading with the rest of the world. I think that Chavez made an unnecessary mistake though in taking farms off skilled farmers as was done in Zimbabwe . The production of those farms could have been directed toward the national food needs without creating a powerful enemy within of disenfranchised intelligent educated and able people with a justified grievance . They would have co operated with modifications to what was best for them to produce. and they knew what they were doing. The people who were put on the land in their place did not. They needed the NZ Ag dpt and Massey university.
        D J S

        • Have to disagree with the UBI bit David. Spending to consume doesn’t necessarily generate productive investment. That is the Marxist critique of Keynes who made the assumption that the ‘animal spirits’ of the bourgeoisie to invest would be triggered by increased demand. But the evidence shows that investment is based on the expectation of profits, not consumption. And when the market can no longer guarantee profits because they cannot drive down wages and conditions enough, then the Keynesian miracle doesn’t happen.
          That being the case, increasing the money supply has to be matched by increased production otherwise inflation results.
          So if capitalism cannot prevent inflation by increasing production, then its up to workers to take over the job by controlling production (and the means of exchange) for need and not profit.
          That way you both avoid inflation, and replace the market in investing in production that serves needs, by workers administering the economy.
          You get degrowth without inflation or depression, geared to meet need and ecological sustainability.

          • Inflation is “too much money chasing too few goods”. So long as the supply of money is distributed through the hands of the population it creates demand , at least for necessities . ..
            “That is the Marxist critique of Keynes who made the assumption that the ‘animal spirits’ of the bourgeoisie to invest would be triggered by increased demand. But the evidence shows that investment is based on the expectation of profits, not consumption.”
            This is a matter of distribution of finance isn’t it! In the hands of the mass of people who would be most effected by a UBI then consumption is the destination of all the finance they handle of necessity. Once someone has accumulated enough to invest in profit making enterprises (or in this climate speculation) then of course a larger and larger proportion of it is spent chasing profit rather than consumption. It just depends where most of the money is held, and starting life in the hands of the masses as a UBI puts most of it where consumption will be the choice. But at the stage of utilisation of the world’s resources we are at consumption for it’s own sake is not desirable anyway.
            The money supply is what needs to be controlled to avoid inflation, so once spent , and naturally accumulating as savings after changing hands a few times taxation of profits would be higher and the traditional role of the reserve bank in expanding or contracting the supply through an operative fractional reserve system would need to be restored.
            D J S
            D J S

  10. “…The foundations of the 35 year neoliberal experiment …”
    AO/NZ’s lethal dalliance with ‘neoliberalism’ wasn’t an experiment.
    It was a well crafted plan cunningly carried out by the national party and its minions who infested the Labour Party, the working people’s Party, by stealth.
    And that was done to steal, and I mean to quite literally steal AO/NZ’s assets and resources.
    And another thing…? How come I appear to be the only one who mentions the crooks who did it by name? Do they have some kind of special immunity? fay/ richwhite and the bnz scandal then there was gibb, chandler, hart, brierly, fletcher etc etc. How the fuck did a small agrarian economy manage to manufacture so many millionaires and billionaires?
    Are there other’s here who are prepared to come out and demand answers from those pricks as to where our money went, and still goes?
    And where the fuck is ron brierly? He’s been arrested with a lap top full of child porn at Sydney AP while heading off to Fiji? How come he’s been able to simply vanish?
    And who was the bastard who led peter theil through our customs and handed him NZ citizenship after only being here for 12 days? Does seeing elon musk’s mate peter theil being warmly fondled by trump make anyone else’s hair stand up on the back of their necks?
    AO/NZ’s own particular iteration of neoliberalism wasn’t an experiment. It wasn’t foisted upon us by those thinking and hoping it’d be a good thing. It.Was.A.Scam.
    If we start thinking of AO/NZ’s own version of neoliberalism as simply a scam then it opens new doors to what will surely be new revelations which in turn might make more sense of our floundering politics.

    • Very well said CB, so many good questions. You could also ad to the questions why Key really resigned and why so many at the top pay little or no tax

      • Yes, Heather. The uber rich tax evaders issue was raised by me on the RNZ Thomas C live interview following the govt’s recent timid wee tax rise. I used the word, buggers.
        It was a bit edited, but not that word, nor the crux of the matter.

  11. You must be joking with talk of a rebellion. I was in Paris when there was a riot about changing the retirement age in about another 10 years . In NZ it went from 60 to 65 within 10 years without a wimper . There was little given to the poor over the last 3 years I will be surprised if this changes over the next 3 seeing as the Labour does not have to please any partners. There will be crumbs to keep unions happy but that will be all I think

  12. New Zealand is disabled socially and economically by the neofeudal landed property speculator class. They along with the antisocial lending practices of private banks which fund their capital gain quest have rocketed house prices into the stratosphere along with unrestrained immigration demand. Blaicinda refuses to apply the hand brake of a CGT and wealth tax and allows these rentier carpet baggers to flourish: Like Ollie Newlands burning $100 notes to light his cigars! This is the opposite of the “free market” which meant the elimination of unearned income by any class. the economy is disabled by asset price inflation making houses impossible to buy for our young couples and debt deflation as when they get their 35 year mortgage for $350,000.00 they pay out so much on it they can’t spend into the economy. Meanwhile the Australian bankers rake in huge amounts of interest while keeping the bubble inflated with low interest offers which are still compound interest.
    E.G.
    Loan Amount: $350,000 Floating interest rate; 4.44% Loan length: 30 years
    Minimum Monthly payments : $1761 Total interest: $283,939 Total cost: $633,939
    $182 a week of currency is being paid in interest alone to a bank that created the credit with a digital entry!

    • $182.00 a week every week for 30 years and that’s just the interest. God help you if you become redundant, sick or die! The bank may sell you up to get the remainder you owe! 🙁 The bank is the landlord you are the labouring peasant!

  13. Yes, this is the National Party as we have been unlucky enough to know it, quietly imploding, so goodbye to all that. Act and the amoral Libertarians have been worse – the Nats did have some good people at times.

    The left have always been the intellectuals – that’s why they’re the first to be tossed into bullets or prison come the revolution, so good luck to all that too.

    But being able to acknowledge past mistakes is part of growing up, and if the LP doesn’t know this, it’s time that they did. I suspect they do though – it’s hard to survive in any modern workforce being totally dumb.
    If they’re going to do a Key and sell their souls to the greedies, there is nothing new under the sun. Why bother electioneering at all ? What was that all about ?

  14. As the National Party continues to implode and fragment, some of those forces which lived within it now find new homes. And so ACT exploded into life, – just look at their pic in the Election Interactive (on Stuff). It is quite phenomenal.

    But there were other forces lurking in the depths of that party. Where are they landing, I wonder.

    “This government can’t be trusted with anything”.
    “Labour can’t and won’t deliver anything”.

    Those concepts that now seem to have found a home here on the ‘Left’ were once made by Michael Woodhouse and Todd Muller, respectively. So where are we going with this? Following down the Nats pathway, their line of thought, their approach to life here in AO/ NZ/?

    (I say “we”, but I for one would not choose to follow down that worn out Nat route.)

    • With respect Kheala surely you can see a centrist government such as this Labour one is going to cop it from both sides. Obviously you are a left supporter and I am too as I voted for the Greens more progressive policies. However I am not aligned with the right just because I am critical of Labour. Both sides have different arguments against the incumbent centrist party.

      • Insofar as the ‘argument’ or the end goal is radical change, then that is not the concern. There is a desperate need for change, with top priorities being to address poverty/ inequality, housing, and Climate Change and all that encompasses.

        The problem is in the tactics being used, which I see as too often being unfair, demeaning and bullying, (and at times worse), as well as quite possibly being ultimately counterproductive.

        • Lol you’re telling me how desperate change is needed, well the argument from the right is BAU so there is no solidarity there.

          • What “the right” do is their business. They need to sort themselves out first off, anyways.

            But the Jacinda-led govt… Well I have just found this: TDB 22nd Oct Grant Commits to WEAG Report

            From that link, Grant has said that he is taking the WEAG Report as the “blueprint” for their welfare policy. That is an excellent first step, to get something going that works for people who’re presently ‘at the bottom of the heap’.

            We all just need to see that he sticks by this commitment, and that they bring it through in a timely manner – ASAP!! (NOW!)

            (Then, later, they need to clean out the entire Ministry of Social Development as it is called, and re-build for the 21st Century, imo.)

          • Yesterday I replied saying that I felt reassured by Grant’s statement that he was taking the WEAG (Welfare Action Group) Report as a blueprint. I thought that suggested real change was ahead.

            Today, that reassurance has evaporated. I had confused the WEAG Report with the CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) recommendations. They are very different.

            Susan St John of CPAG wrote this about the WEAG Report: “There is no shred of an indication that core benefits will increase; not now, not in the medium term, and not in the longer term either.”

            Susan’s article is here: TDB 24th Dec 2019, Interment of the WEAG Report

  15. “Labour are notoriously timid when it comes to challenging the neoliberal hegemonic structure because they were the Party that unleashed this far right experiment upon us and the scars of that debate are still raw in Labour’s psyche” – on this I have to disagree.

    Scar no , Tumor yes.
    Unfortunately said tumor has been neatly spun into a scar -like object , but be assured it lurks extensively still within the Corpus of the party and only a few remain uninfected.

  16. Shit pay/contract rates system & externalisations of cost where worker is expected to find his own accom for season or charged an arm and a leg for shitty accom & pay own car costs or over-charged for provided van transport. By fact that you have to go off benefit then go through hoops to get back on again or having to report income each week (though barely time to do it) and not knowing income each week coz of variation due to varied contract rates & varied hours due to rainoffs. Also currently requires a lot of effort to track down jobs. I always see employers complaining about lack of workers but hardly see jobs advertised. Jobs are scattered all over the place through varied employment agencies, papers, only in locality, at backpackers etc. so you have to take a gamble and spend money to get to a place before you get job. Some farms only advertise at driveway so you’ve got to go around all the farms you can find …”please sir can I have a job?” Plus the amount of dodgy farmers & opportunist foreign cowboy ‘contractors’ …Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese etc who barely speak English and rip you off as soon as look at you. It’s a mess …over the last 25 years it’s not got better but worse. RSE workers are loved coz they damp down wages coz it’s good earnings still for them compared to home countries & employer can capture back some of the expenditure on wages via charging through the roof for accom & transport & in some cases for food too.

    • Interesting. I know a local old-ish bloke who came out here as a boy in the 50’s, with his apple-picker UK parents.We talked briefly once about the decent accomodation they arrived to back then, and I shall speak to him again this weekend. He still heads off to the orchards come autumn.

    • CrimzonGhost. Wow. I talked with my local apple picker this evening. Someone like Jane Tolerton who can touch type at talking speed could have had a story about another layer of Kiwi life which I knew nothing of.

      I was wrong about autumn, it’s February. What you say about crappy recruiting is spot on. He gets jobs by emailing or phoning both the orchards – Nelson and Hawkes Bay – and WINZ, spending money, but often not replied to, including phone calls ignored by WINZ. WINZ provide minimal information, but will say if there if accommodation is not provided, which seems to usually the case now. He has gotten jobs by just turning up at an orchard and asking for one.

      All orchards have been owned by Pakeha New Zealanders. At one, the woman refused him a job because she told him that she didn’t like the look of him. He’s not a good looking man. At another, the woman berated him for working shirtless, saying that she wasn’t putting up with that sort of thing on her property.He said they are treated like school kids. He is 70-ish.

      At one property he was living in his car – what looks to me like a big SUV or 4WD – I know zilch about cars. He was forbidden to do that, but another picker working at the same property was in allowed to live in a caravan.

      He got hotel accommodation in Hawkes Bay, in what he called a dormitory, but sounds to me more like a hotel annexe, with his own single room. The rate sounded a bit high, but he said that when he came to leave, he was told that the accommodation charge was based on a six month minimum stay, and as he was leaving in less than six months, he had to cough up more. He had not been told that when he booked in. That could have been the same hotel where the charge is an initial x amount which reduces over time, after a minimum stay. The last orchard he worked at in Hawkes Bay employed mainly Thai pickers. I didn’t think to ask where they stayed, but I shall.

      No meals ever provided, but free apples, water taps, and loo blocks – I’m not sure about showers. So it’s a not like the great high country sheep stations of the South Island, where shearers received three meals a day – dinner with meat beyond the reach of many of us now, cooked by the hard-working rancher’s wife, who often also provided scones, gingerbread and the like. It’s bleak.

      His most telling comment was about wastage. He said that about 30% of New Zealand’s apple crop goes to waste, and not because of lack of pickers, but because of the laissez-fare attitude of Kiwis – they can afford that waste, and that it wouldn’t happen in China, where nothing is ever wasted. So perhaps that is something we can look forward to if/when the Chinese take over New Zealand : better husbanding of precious nutritious food stuffs, and greater efficiency.

      He touched on the problems of being on NZ Super and having his tax rate go up if he earns too much when apple picking, and he currently owes the IRD money because of this. I imagine this is similar to beneficiaries earning “too much” and getting whacked.

      I gather that the employers are quite variable, but that their recruitment of needed workers is generally as bad as you say. I wonder why.

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