Labour Party yawn-fest of a conference
Labour’s message is ‘Labour – Let’s keep doing this’.
Really, and what is ‘this’ that we are doing? Incremental glacial change?
Labour’s ‘transformative’ Government has been everything but. Sure there have been some policy wins, but scratch below the surface and those wins look very shallow.
We have more NZers killing themselves than ever before, more people waiting for social housing, entrenched child poverty, historically low home ownership, beneficiaries queuing at 2am, and many still struggling to make ends meet.
More NZers are just surviving than thriving.
The misses have been large. No Kiwibuild, no CGT and no real structural change to the inequality that has blighted NZ under neoliberalism combined with an alarming sense within Māoridom over mental health censorship, public health failures and Oranga Tamariki uplifts that their trust has been terribly misplaced.
Even the wins have looked like misses. Promising to maybe do something about climate change in 31 years is not a response to the crisis of climate change, it’s a joke looking for a punchline and the watered down and toothless worker rights provisions will have little impact in giving Unions muscle to force up wages.
The excruciating navel-gazing over the Summer School ‘sex’ scandal (the young man was discharged without conviction, so maybe not the greatest crime of the early 21st century) and the endless drawn out claims of a sexual assault cover up are the results of frightened MPs and staffers responding to twitter outrages than evidence that Labour are a rape culture exacerbater.
Less time worrying about what the latest woke outrage is and far more time on actually running the Government might be a tad wiser.
But we can’t allow the perfect to defeat the good, while the pickings have been slim and the wins few, there have been some enormous symbolic moments like banning future oil permits, demanding a halt to development at Ihumatao and Jacinda’s extraordinary response to the Christchurch atrocity.
Without a doubt, New Zealand is a better place for having this Government.
Jacinda exploded onto the political stage with an energy and excitement that propelled her into a position to form a Government, but we also need to acknowledge that Labour’s energy was spent on winning and with little executive oversight, with no plans to reform the neoliberal public service who stymied any direct application of services and an inexperienced front bench, Jacinda has not been able to be transformative in the way her rhetoric was.
If Jacinda wants to win a second term, she needs to articulate her vision of the first 100 days of a next Government. She now knows what is possible and what isn’t, she now sees the hopelessness of public services that are management heavy and service lite. She has the room to sideline underperforming Ministers.
With those ingredients she must now be able to construct her vision of what needs to be done and what she can promise.
The Budget Responsibility straight jacket Grant Robertson signed her Government into must be dumped for a wholesale mass investment into transformative infrastructure, a mass state housing build and real work to get peoples wages higher while giving business huge tax rebates into R&D.
Grants announcement today that he was thinking of unbuttoning that Budget Responsibility straight jacket was his political version of the dance of the seven veils, but vastly less erotic.
Jacinda has to sell us a vision and give us the time scale of the first 100 days to create the perception of momentum.
She has to be bold, confident and authentically credible in providing hope to NZers that there can be a better way forward. She must do something that makes life directly better each week for her electorate. From a sizeable increase in welfare payments; to the first $20 000 being tax free; to GST being removed from fresh fruit and vegetables – she has to implement an idea that people can feel in their pocket each week.
If she cannot sell us her vision in the first 100 days, voters she warmed with the power of hope in 2017 will turn away cold in 2020 like the bitter frost of winter.
Labour do not deserve a win in 2020.
@Marc. Labour don’t deserve a win, but the Natz deserve it even less!
Sad that democracy, is now voting for the least disappointing party, to keep the even worse and more corrupt party out.
Ha !,.. I think Mr Dobbyn coined it right…
Better the devil you know
The best of the worst you can handle
And will you follow?
Will you follow?
Will you follow?
Labour know this, so they rely on the desperate votes and keep betraying them, as there is little alternative.
Letter to – Labour party MPs at Labour party conference.
1st December 2019.
TO Labour party MPs and others.
IMPORTANT
Today 1st December 2019, at the Labour Party conference, the press has reported that infrastructure funding boost will be made here today and we await the funding boost to Gisborne/HB rail freight/passenger services be made as these regions have been without rail services for 7 long years since 2012.
No more road subsidies without similar subsidies for rail services please.
This press release below was sent out 11th September 2019 criticising lack of ‘rail focus.’ during ‘Infrastructure NZ ’plea to Government for more funding.
CEAC supports $6 Billion for infrastructure
Wednesday, 11 September 2019, 7:44 am
Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
CEAC supports ‘Infrastructure NZ’ (INZ) CEO Paul Blair to seek an increase in more ‘transformation rather than incremental’ change to promote ‘national’ community wellbeing so that is a positive step forward if increased use of rail is signalled here.
The result of the 2019 ‘Building Nations’ Symposium from 21-23 August forum polling was to seek ‘transformation rather than incremental’ change with a $6 billion dollar boost to regional infrastructure funding by industry leaders. QUOTE; “Our proposal, which almost three-quarters of respondents supported, would double the current $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund into a $6 billion Regional Growth Fund and use it as a tool to align central and local government investment.
That sounds good but sadly there was no mention of rail once again so we fear they are lobbying only for roading.
*Government must fund publicly owned rail properly as Kiwi Rail lacks adequate funding for staff, locomotives and rolling stock to service all regions to upgrade our export regions by rail freight services such as our Gisborne/HB regions.
QUOTE; Paul Blair; “Respondents overwhelmingly supported more tools for local and regional governments in order to unlock the full potential of our regions; – Three-quarters of the infrastructure sector have called for transformation, rather than incremental change, of the culture and incentives between central and local government to work together to promote national well-being,” says Infrastructure NZ CEO Paul Blair.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1909/S00130/infrastructure-sector-calls-for-transformational-reform.htm
CEAC would be delighted to hear from (INZ) that rail was also part of that $6 Billion Dollar also, so we shall see.
IMPORANT
Today 1st December 2019, at the Labour Party conference, the press has reported that infrastructure funding boost will be made here today and we await the funding boost to Gisborne/HB rail freight/passenger services be made as these regions have been without rail services for 7 long years since 2012.
*Government must fund publicly owned rail properly as Kiwirail lacks adequate funding for staff, locomotives and rolling stock to service all regions to upgrade our export regions by rail freight services such as our Gisborne/HB regions.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Labour party must take this into consideration here, as the health of all citizens are at stake if even more truck se instead of rail is used.
Subject; – CEAC public health notice – Study; – Quote; “Living near a busy road can stunt children’s lung growth, a UK report has shown.
Children’s health was found to be affected by staying within 50 metres of the road.”
Read the press release today below.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/11/living-near-a-busy-road-may-stunt-children-s-lung-growth-study.html
26 November 2019
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HEALTH
Living near a busy road may stunt children’s lung growth – study
• 6 hours ago
Sae Strang
The study also revealed one-third of Londoners are thought to live near a busy road.
Living near a busy road can stunt children’s lung growth, a UK report has shown.
Children’s health was found to be affected by staying within 50 metres of the road.
The study recorded the effect of roadside pollution across 13 cities in the UK and Poland.
It found 14 percent of kids in Oxford had stunted lung growth, while in London 13 per cent were affected and 8 percent in Birmingham.
Related News
The study also revealed one-third of Londoners, an estimated 3 million people, are thought to live near a busy road.
According to the research, written by King’s College London and released by a coalition of 15 health and environment non-governmental organizations (NGO) said, living near a road with heavy traffic may increase your risk of developing lung cancer by up to ten percent.
The new study also showed an increased risk of cardiac arrest, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, bronchitis as well as reduced lung function in children who live near a traffic-ridden road.
Amongst the report, the coalition of NGOs has been calling on politicians to commit to taking steps to in order to reduce the drastic state of illegal air pollution across the UK to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
“Air pollution makes us, and especially our children, sick from cradle to grave, but is often invisible. This impressive research makes this public health crisis – which affects people all across the UK – visible, and shows the urgency with which all political parties must prioritise cleaning up our air,” said Dr Rob Hughes, Senior Fellow at the Clean Air Fund in the King’s College London press release.
This is the first time a wide range of health conditions and cities have been analysed in one report.
End
Please keep this evidence as a record of residential health concerns to be mitigated.
CEAC encourage to see a Government who is caring, considerate inclusive and responsive to citizens’ concerns.
I think this govt is more ” Meh ”,… than the constant blatant outrage and corruption like we had under National,… mind you,… theres been a few serious about turns that have left people feeling betrayed,- the TTPA for one. And there have been others…
And that doesn’t look good.
And in all of what Mr Bradbury has mentioned above,… this govt has indeed fallen short. Still, given a choice, I’d still prefer the COL than the last disgusting, contemptuous and corrupt crowd who seemed to have some strange notion that they were actually a government…
But you know and I know , dear reader,… that nothing in this country will ever change for the better until that fine and happy day when our politicians finally grow a spine and ADMIT,.. like the IMF does,… that neo liberalism is a failure.
And an apology to the people of New Zealand by whoever finds themselves in the next govt , … for the govts of the last 35 years of lies, rorts, and corruption wouldn’t go amiss either…
In fact, an apology would be a sterling start to being that ‘ bold, confident and authentically credible in providing hope to NZers that there can be a better way forward ‘ …
Indeed it would…
” Promising to maybe do something about climate change in 31 years is not a response to the crisis of climate change, ”
New Zealand can’t unilaterally do anything about Climate Change given our 0.1% contribution to the so-called “greenhouse gasses”. You know this. That is why New Zealand has (correctly) done nothing, because no one else is doing anything. Shooting your own economy in the foot (especially when we can use these funds/resources for internal current social issues), while everyone else in the world is going about business as usual (some of which would effectively be our expense) is beyond stupid.
Last time I checked, not a single country disarmed due to our “Nuclear Free New Zealand” policy. We all collectively rubbed our nipples in righteous glory, but we achieved exactly nothing of global consequence.