Courage of Australia vs Cowardice of Kiwis

New Zealand once had courage.

We no longer have courage.

Labour Day became a national holiday in New Zealand in 1899. It was to commemorate and celebrate the rise of worker powers and how the earliest Pakeha settlers coming to New Zealand fought to create a fair balance of power between the boss and the worker.

Samuel Duncan Parnell came to New Zealand on the ship Duke of Roxburgh in 1839. He was a carpenter who was deeply impacted by the arguments of the day that people should be allowed 8 hours sleep, 8 hours to live their lives and 8 hours to the boss to work. He refused to join his Union in England because they refused to make an 8 hour working day a priority.

Once in New Zealand, Parnell refused to work for anyone who wouldn’t accept his 8 hour working rule and actively went and met new workers coming off the ships arriving in NZ to tell them of the 8 hour working culture he was trying to create.

The bosses tried to resist and tried to force workers to work later, but it became standard working hours in NZ after workers began simply walking off the job if a boss tried to force longer hours.

Fast forward to the NZ working environment of today and we see that Parnell would weep at how workers have been beaten into neo-feudalism. Kiwi workers work an average of 43.5hours a week with no penal rates. Many workers are over worked and many others are under worked. Many have a precarious working arrangement and have zero job security while health and safety in this country remains one of the worst in the developed would.

There have already been 54 deaths last year and the shadow of the Pike River Mine disaster hangs over industrial relations.

The Right wings war on Unions in NZ have successfully crushed most into irrelevance and this has happened while worker rights and safety has gone backwards.

Look at the courage of the Australians…

Australia is the latest country to give workers the ‘right to disconnect’ after hours

Millions of Australians just got official permission to ignore their bosses outside of working hours, thanks to a new law enshrining their “right to disconnect.”

The law doesn’t strictly prohibit employers from calling or messaging their workers after hours. But it does protect employees who “refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable,” according to the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s workplace relations tribunal.

That includes outreach from their employer, as well as other people “if the contact or attempted contact is work-related.”

…Australian s have courage to stand up for their rights, Kiwis do not.

Take another example, exploitative international Students…

Australia introduces cap on international students

Australia will introduce a cap on the number of new international students it accepts, as it tries to reduce overall migration to pre-pandemic levels.

The nation has one of the biggest international student markets in the world, but the number of new enrolments will be limited to 270,000 for 2025.

Each higher education institution will be given an individual restriction, the government announced on Tuesday, with the biggest cuts to be borne by vocational education and training providers.

The government has previously accused some providers of “unethical” behaviour – including accepting students who don’t have the language skills to succeed, offering a poor standard of education or training, and enrolling people who intend to work instead of study.

“These reforms are designed to make it better and fairer, and set it up on a more sustainable footing going forward,” Mr Clare said.

The restrictions will also help address Australia’s record migration levels, he said, which have added pressure to existing housing and infrastructure woes.

…Australia has the courage to protect their own housing and infrastructure issues by limiting International Students and what is NZ doing?

Why we are selling Student accomodation off to make money!

NZ eyes more students as Vic sells houses and Kāinga Ora stops building

Here, universities and polytechs are being encouraged to increase international student numbers to raise revenues and help reduce costs to the Government, which in turn helps it return to surplus. This both helps increase rents and reduce mortgage rates a smidgen, which supports land values here.

The Australian news came as Victoria University disclosed it was selling some of its housing for students to make up for funding not provided by the Government and as Kāinga Ora confirmed it had suspended work indefinitely on its Arlington project for 900 apartments in central Wellington, even though the capital has 2,800 people on its housing waiting list.

…Australia has courage to stand up for their rights.

Kiwis do not have that courage, we believe selling each other houses and polluting the environment to produce basic bitch milk powder to China is the way to succeed.

You must really hate Jacinda had the temerity to save 20 000 lives during a once in a century pandemic to elect this neoliberal hate glee club of a Government.