Labour says it has negotiated a softening of some of the most odious of the TPPA’s provisions, but this doesn’t pass the sniff test. The ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) process remains intact. All that has been negotiated is a small reduction in the circumstances where it can be used.
An odd bit of state propaganda popped up on Radio NZ last week. They interviewed a ‘guard’ from Manus Island who warned us that if we took in refugees we would be asking for trouble…
YOU HAVE TO GO BACK A LONG WAY to find anything remotely resembling Australia’s current treatment of New Zealand. For a supposedly friendly government to deliberately inject inflammatory disinformation into the political bloodstream of its supposedly closest neighbour is an extraordinarily provocative act. Not quite an act of war, but the sort of intervention that can all-too-easily provoke a catastrophic loss of trust.
The right of workers to an alternative holiday when working on a public holiday has been strongly affirmed in an Employment Relations Authority decision against Wendco (NZ) Limited, the company that operates the Wendy’s stores in New Zealand.
The leak today of an internal strategy paper is so woeful and concerning, it’s like catching your Surgeon checking on how to do your operation on wikipedia.
In every example, National’s response is bitter, angry, resentful and spiteful. On every issue they have spent 9 years making worse all they have as a response to the solution is more of the poisonous thinking that helped exacerbate the problem in the first place.
The vast majority of New Zealanders resent the way Australia treat us and finally having a Government who will stand up to them is actually going to resonate with many voters.
We can stamp our feet like the Green Party and the Unions have and throw a tantrum and just refuse to actually engage with the process OR we can see this as an opportunity to directly influence our political and economic independence.
It is very easy for the traditional Left to call for grand gestures of defiance against the prevailing geopolitical realities: living with the consequences of such calls when you are in government is much harder.
Since the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, all the developed world has done is kick the day of market reckoning down the road with more and more money printing. At some point this band-aid won’t be able to stem the pressure building and it will rupture with a backlash that will make the depression look like a week without pocket money.