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Dear Mike Hosking – 5 reasons we owe the Pacific

Martyn Bradbury
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21

Our favourite right wing opinion factory, Mike Hosking, has penned a pretty ignorant piece on why NZ gives the Pacific any money and what if anything we get in return. He’s referencing the new Government’s tour of the Pacific and is selling it as some sort of lolly scramble for brown people. Mike wants to know why we should help Samoa, Tonga, Cooks, Niue and the Tokelau islands.

Here are my top 5 counter reckons to the magnificence that is Mike, but I must warn you that while I start pretty nicely, I end being extremely offensively because it’s difficult to list these reasons and not become incandescent with rage at what Hosking is saying.

1: I think Mike that the Pacific is whanau to us, and with Auckland the largest Pacific Island city on the planet we have a unique kinship that must be celebrated and cherished, that’s why we should provide aid and support to them, because they are whanau to us.

2: Because the Pacific are whanau to us, it’s important not to be dicks to them Mike, like the way you are being right now. 

3: NZ has done sweet fuck all to mitigate climate change in anyway meaningful (beyond our bullshit carbon free by 2030 crap), so when the worst edges of that pollution we have been pumping into the atmosphere damages cultures that have little hand in creating it, we have an obligation to do right by them because that’s a basic compassion and empathy most humans have. We contribute to climate change, climate change damages Islands in the Pacific, we help those island mitigate some of that damage with tiny payouts which don’t go anywhere near matching the enormity of what the developed world are plunging the developing world into. Why is that concept so difficult for you to understand Mike?

4: The fourth reason we want to keep them onside you stupid muppet Mike, is because the bloody Chinese have moved into our neck of the woods and are bribing every Pacific Island they can, and that we need to counter that influence with some clever tactics like Rugby Diplomacy and promotion of Journalism. That you seem to have made these comments about Pacific Aid with no comprehension whatsoever of the geopolitics that are being played out in the US-China Pacific Cold War is truly astounding for someone who is on the largest radio Breakfast show in the country. It’s like reviewing a movie by complaining how much the pop corn costs.What kind of moron are you? 

5: And the 5th reason as to why we need to keep shelling money out to the Pacific Mike, the most important of the reasons? Because we, as New Zealanders are fucking arseholes Mike. We. Are. Fucking. Arseholes. 

Let’s start with NZ incompetence in Samoa that saw the influenza pandemic come ashore and almost wipe out the entire Island or Black Sunday that saw NZ forces kill 11 Samoans. What about the way we brought Tongans into the country in the 1970s as cheap labour but when it was politically expedient start dawn raids to force them out? How about the fact that the Cooks, Niue and the Tokelau islands are actually still under control of NZ, which means we are responsible for them Mike? Are you even aware that they are free association states officially placed under NZ sovereignty? 

I think Mike has no fucking clue about what he’s talking about and as such all we get are some cheap and glib options that are nothing more than garden variety bigotry.

NZ owes the Pacific and we never acknowledge that.

Still Looking For A Compatible Rabbit

Chris Trotter
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19

BILL SUTTON, a Labour politician of the 1980s, was the butt of one of David Lange’s most vicious jokes. Like so many of Labour’s “Class of ‘84”, Sutton was a Rogernome. Swept-up in the tornado of change unleashed by Labour’s Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, he and his colleagues found themselves, by the beginning of the Fourth Labour Government’s second term, dangerously off-side with both their prime minister and their party. By 1988 the divisions within Labour had grown to the point where Lange felt besieged by upwards of half his own caucus. Bill Sutton was one of the more outspoken of the prime minister’s critics.

This was the context in which Lange quipped to reporters that Bill Sutton’s much-needed brain transplant had been delayed because his doctors had been unable to find a compatible rabbit.

Not many politicians come back from a crack like that. Certainly, few were surprised when Sutton’s “marginal seat” of Hawkes Bay – along with a great many others – returned to its more natural shade of deep Tory blue in 1990. In a few years, Bill Sutton had become just another former MP whose name, outside of Hawkes Bay, had been forgotten by everyone except political train-spotters.

As a member of that querulous fraternity, however, I simply had to discover whether the Bill Sutton whose Hawkes Bay Today/NZ Herald opinion piece  I’d spotted in Dr Bryce Edward’s inestimable “New Zealand Politics Daily”, was THE Bill Sutton – David Lange’s incompatible rabbit.

It was. And the title of his commentary, “Politics Has Changed For The Worse”, was more than interesting enough for me to click on the link. After all, if politics isn’t what it used to be, then its Rogernomes like Bill Sutton who must shoulder a fairly large share of the blame.

Not that there’s a single contrite word in the entire piece about the ongoing social and economic effects of the “reforms” of the Fourth Labour Government. Although a scientist by profession, Sutton was never able to grasp that, for all its pretentions to the contrary, economics owes almost nothing to the scientific method. The whole so-called “discipline” has always been, and remains, a sub-set of politics – hence its original designation as “Political Economy”.

I always got the impression that Sutton saw Rogernomics as an expression of natural law, like gravity. Certainly, he was one of the most tireless repeaters of TINA – the “There Is No Alternative” mantra which Douglas’s defenders dutifully deployed against the growing number of critics of the Fourth Labour Government’s economic “revolution”.

Thirty years on, however, Sutton (a published poet) is acutely aware that something has gone wrong with New Zealand politics – and society. As he observes, plaintively: “in the 1980s it was still possible for people with good jobs and supportive families to set these aside, and seek election to Parliament, in the hope of changing New Zealand for the better. And even within a conservative electorate like Hawke’s Bay, it was possible to persuade a narrow majority of voters to agree.”

Not anymore.

“That would be inconceivable today, because New Zealand politics has changed, and not for the better. Steadily fewer people are bothering to vote, significant numbers don’t even get their names on to the electoral roll, and those who still do these things have fewer expectations about changing anything. The best that most voters today are hoping for is a government that won’t make things any worse. What a discouraging prospect for potential candidates!”

It is nothing short of astonishing that the man who aggressively countered his government’s critics with the assertion, “There is no alternative!”, is unable to connect the dots between an economic and political system which insists that it represents the terminus of history, and these rising levels of political disillusionment and despair. If this, the neoliberal world order, is as good as it gets; and if all the truly meaningful decision-making powers have been taken out of the hands of politicians; then what, in God’s name, is the point of casting a vote?

What, then, is Sutton’s explanation for the demise of democratic politics? Oh, that’s easy. According to Sutton, the steady decline in political engagement is just “one tiny part of a global phenomenon, the move away from representative democracy towards its only proven alternative: rule by power-hungry despots, who brook no disagreement, even from their supporters, and are ready to resort to whatever means seem necessary to shore up their power.”

Ummm, no, Bill. I don’t think so. The malaise you describe is traceable to the hollowing-out of our political institutions which began with the very same reforms you were so proud to champion as a freshman MP in the Lange-led Labour Government. The reforms which caused Labour to shrink from a party numbering close to 100,000 members to one numbering fewer than 10,000. The reforms which gave birth to a professionally-trained political class, whose members glide effortlessly between the public service, the news media, public-relations firms and Parliament, and who have nothing but contempt for the opinions of ordinary people.

New Zealanders haven’t “moved away from representative democracy”, Mr Sutton, representative democracy has been moved away from them. A necessary precaution, lest ordinary people get it into their heads to take on the greatest “power-hungry despot” of them all: the totalitarian ideology we call Neoliberalism.

The despot you helped to enthrone, Mr Sutton. The reason why New Zealand politics has changed so profoundly for the worse.

 

Action is needed no to solve the problems associated with migrant labour exploitation

Mike Treen
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27

The new government is allowing itself to slip into the practice of the last government which was to blame the migrant or potential migrant for all the problems the system has.

Horror stories continue of widespread abuse and exploitation of migrant labour.

First some facts.

The government accepts around 40,000 permanent residents each year. This number hasn’t changed much in decades.

Usually, New Zealand had a net loss of residents to Australia of around 20,000 a year so on average there has been a net gain of around 20,000 a year in those living in New Zealand as citizens or permanent residents.

Previous governments increased the number of people able to work in New Zealand on a temporary basis. Numbers trebled from around 40,000 to 120,000 under the previous Labour-led government then increased to 170,000 under the last National-led government.

In part, this increase was a product of liberalising the numbers coming on working holiday visas but was also an essential ingredient in the desire to boost numbers of students studying and working here. Some industries began to use the “skilled” migrant category to import labour from overseas in order to avoid costs associated with the skills training that may be needed or avoid increasing wages by the amount needed to attract labour.

The aged care industry has 21% of its staff on a temporary work visa. The Dairy farm industry has specialised in importing skilled labour from the Philippines.

There are around 130,000 student visa holders studying here currently. Most can also work part time. And students were also promised a full-time work visa for a year or more if they completed their courses successfully. Recent migrant exploitation cases have revealed an interconnected network of employers, dodgy schools and immigration agents preying on the weak and vulnerable. And government policy has facilitated this exploitation.

The export education “industry” employs 33,000 people, injects $4.5 billion a year into the economy and subsidises the public tertiary institutions by a billion dollars a year. About one third of these students are doing courses below degree level.

There is another number which is useful to look at but has little scientific value. That is the number that records the flow of people into and out of the country on a permanent or long-term (PLT) basis. In 2017 this number recorded a net gain of 70,000 people. This number is taken from people filling in a form when they arrive which states their intention of staying for a year or more, and then getting people to fill out another form when they leave with their intention to leave for a year or more. A net number is then produced by subtracting one number from the other to produce a net gain or net loss.

This is the only number that gets reported in the media. The PLT flow number of people’s intentions is treated as scientific fact. I am not aware that anyone has actually done a study on whether people’s intentions actually match reality with any scientific rigour. But that is the number that is usually debated in the media.

The main problem with this number is not the lack of scientific rigour since I assume it roughly corresponds to people’s actual movement. The main problem is that people talk about this number as if it is the same number of that for people being allowed to stay as permanent residents.

Around 2012 the net loss to Australia dropped to zero. At the same time, the government was boosting the temporary visa arrivals for both work and study. So the net PLT gain went from almost zero to 70,000 in the five years to 2017. This unplanned growth became a political target in the elections and Labour promised to reduce that number by 20 to 30,000. Most of the media simply conflated this planned reduction with a desire by Labour to stop all migration. Often, including in the left-wing press, Labour was accused of wanting to eliminate the 40,000 people being allowed into the country as permanent residents each year. That, of course, is simply nonsense. No one in the election actually proposed any change to that number and it was the National party that actually trimmed it back from 45000 to 40000 a year after letting it creep up a bit earlier in their term of government.

What Labour was actually saying was that they would reduce the net PLT flow number by 20-30,000. Since around 250,000 visas are issued each year for students and temporary workers the target could actually be achieved by a modest reduction in the overall number of temporary visas being issued.

Their only concrete proposal was to say they would eliminate the right of students doing sub-degree courses from working while studying or afterwards. This would have led to radical fall in numbers applying for visas for such courses and the probable collapse of many schools offering these courses.

What the National Party didn’t tell people, is that they had actually already introduced policies that would achieve a similar reduction to what Labour was promising.

If anyone had bothered to read the National government’s own Treasury reports before the election they could have seen predictions that the net PLT gain number would be dropping from 70,000 to 20,000 under existing government policies over the next five years.

For example, in 2013 National opened the tap on student numbers from India by reducing the English language requirements to study. Student visa numbers went from 8000 to 26000 in the next two years. The requirements were tightened again in 2015 and the numbers have dropped to 9400 in 2017. In addition, the Australian economy appears to be improving which will start pulling labour across the Tasman again.

When Labour was elected it seems to have realised that its policy was going to be achieved without further restrictions being necessary so it seems to have delayed the plan to stop students in sub-degree courses from working. If such a policy is introduced it should only apply to new students.

One of the criticism’s that Labour has directed at the current policy settings is that the right to work in had encouraged students from sub-degree courses to seek permanent residency. He called it a “back-door” to residency – echoing Treasury language in their audit of the system. But this is a lie designed to deflect blame.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) publicly declared that the study and work visa policy was a “Pathway to Residency”. To blame students for trying to use this pathway is simply unjust.

As it is, only about one in five students are able to transition from study to residency. But because the export education industry depended on this being at least a possibility, it was true that a growing proportion of the “skilled” worker category in the permanent resident approvals was being given to former students. This was not their fault. No one gets residency as of right. All residencies are decided by INZ – without right of appeal against unfair decision making.

Students were brought here under various promises and policy settings and had the rug pulled out from under their feet after they arrived. Many discovered they would never have the right to obtain permanent residence no matter how long they worked here.

INZ also changed the rules on people after they started working or studying here. For many years a manager of a fast-food restaurant could get residency based on their job being skilled. And it is a skilled job. Many students worked part time at the big fast food companies while studying and hoped to use promotions to management as a route to residency. Suddenly, a few years ago we discovered that INZ had unilaterally determined that this job no longer met the requirement for residency. When this happened, I had workers in my office in tears as they explained how they had wasted years of their lives doing jobs they hated only to denied their chance at the last hurdle. At the same time, INZ has maintained the path to residency for managers of retail shops, liquor stores and corner dairies! There is simply no logic.

This group of workers who have already invested years of their life and often tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees need to have their status changed to allow them to continue working. But they also must be able to escape the servitude and bondage to which they have been forced into by their desperate and vulnerable situation.

I had to represent another of these workers this week. He was an assistant manager at a fast food company. He has worked for the company for eight years and has to renew his visa each year to prove he is needed. He ran the restaurant on his own but they wouldn’t pay him a full manager’s salary. He had complained to his manager that because his salary was too low and because he was working so many hours each week he was actually getting less than the minimum wage. He had also been forced to work at a restaurant for which his visa was not valid. But he put up with it all because he had no choice. His visa was tied to the company. He wife and new-born child also live here with his wife working for the same company.

In the six years to 2017, there were 11,000 cases of migrant exploitation reported to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). Of these only 5700 were investigated and 15o prosecuted. The chances of getting caught and prosecuted for migrant exploitation are infinitesimally small. Exploitative and abusive employers just laugh all the way to the bank.

Every audit done by the of the working condition of migrant workers by MBIE has found widespread, often near universal, non-compliance with the law. This was true of the construction companies doing the Christchurch earthquake rebuild. As a consequence, MBIE decided the only way to combat the exploitation was to give workers the right to change employers. That principle needs to be extended to all migrant employees on temporary visas.

We also need to establish a database of “approved” employers. Anyone who wants to employ someone on a temporary visa should have to register with MBIE, show an approved written employment agreement, and go through an approved course in employee rights. These rights should include the obligation to pay all minimum legal entitlements, and that all wages must be put into a bank account with a detailed payment record provided.

We now have a situation where there are several tens of thousands of people who have spent five or ten years of their lives working in New Zealand, often renewing their temporary visas year by year, often in jobs in which their visa is tied to their employer, desperate to stay and willing to do anything to do so. Many spent their entire adulthood living and working in New Zealand and it would be impossible to return to their home countries without inflicting enormous harm Many have started families and have young children for whom New Zealand is their only home.

These workers are actually needed in New Zealand today. They are doing jobs vital to New Zealand society. They could all be given permanent residence tomorrow and the PLT number of 70,000 or whatever it is next year would not increase by a single digit.

The outgoing National government changed the immigration rules just before they left office that would have eliminated any chance of anyone earning less than $23 an hour from being categorised as skilled and would not have been able to work in New Zealand any longer than three years before they had to leave. Nearly every one of the thousands of workers in aged care will have to leave unless there is a sudden radical increase in their wages. INZ has now tweaked that wage number and said a wage of $20.60 is the bar. That is just above the living wage of $20.20.

I want everyone in New Zealand to be paid a living wage. But until the government legislates for that to happen no company can voluntarily pay more than their competitor. That is the nature of capitalism.

Forcing everyone earning less than an arbitrary number to leave the country is just asking for more abusive exploitation to be normalised as these workers look for employment where they have to subsidise their own wage through back-door means.

It makes no sense to send workers on temporary visas home –  many of whom, I repeat, have been here many years and made homes and lives for themselves and their families – and then bring in another group of vulnerable workers on temporary visas to be put into a bonded employment relationship open to exploitation all over again to replace them.

That is simply idiotic.

We need these workers doing these jobs today. It doesn’t matter if they are a cleaner or an aged care assistant. These are all important “skilled” jobs worthy of recognition.

When the National government brought in this policy to remove anyone not above the salary bar automatically when their current visas expired, their dairy farmer mates screamed bloody murder because they were going to lose “their hands”. So an exemption was made that anyone who had been working on a dairy farm for five years could transition to permanent residence.

The same principle actually applies on simple humanitarian grounds to everyone who has now made New Zealand their home.

We could start a register of all workers in regular employment who want to stay permanently. They should be given an emergency work visa with the right to change employers guaranteed.

After a certain period – say five years – if they still want to stay, they should be given permanent residency rights. This group of residents would be on top of whatever regular permanent resident number we have each year which covers family reunification, refugees, and the skilled worker categories.

That would eliminate the worst exploitation almost overnight.

Free all workers from bonded servitude!

 

Political Caption Competition

The Daily Blog
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Simon Bridges completes his front bench

The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday 9th March 2018

The Daily Blog
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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.  

What the hell went wrong at Fletcher’s?

Martyn Bradbury
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11

John Tamihere has asked crucial questions in his new Herald column demanding to know where the public good values have evaporated within NZs largest construction company…

My family used to be employed by the Fletcher Construction Company. We were all steel workers and I recall as a kid the company putting on Christmas functions for its workers at Coyle Park in Pt Chevalier. My father had great regard for Sir James Fletcher because he said Sir James truly cared about his workforce, how they were housed and that they were paid a fair 40-hour wage that was enough to feed and provide for their families.

Fletcher ran trade training programmes and ensured apprentices were looked after and well-skilled. I recall on these sites that there was a Code of Ethics and Duty of Care to other tradies. We would not condone second-rate work by other trades — and equally, they would not accept ours.

Then along came market deregulation and sub-contracting on a vast scale. Add the leaky building fiasco to this Fletcher performance, and to me it appears there’s a breakdown in the construction industry around standards, values and ethics over the years.

I do not accept some quantity surveyor, well down the food chain, is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of debt. It’s like the story of the bishop blaming the altar boy for a bad sermon. It is simply not true and the spin around the story means, as usual, those at the top end of town can walk away without adverse impact.

But ask the poor chippie, sparky, plumber or drainlayer whether they would be so lucky if in contracting to Fletcher they made the same decisions in running their businesses. They know, and you know, their houses would go, their vehicles would go and more than likely their marriages would also go as a consequence, because they were too small and they failed.

Forget corporate responsibility to Fletcher’s shareholders. Where is their social conscience and responsibility when bidding and receiving funding on massive government contracts?

…where are those social good values now?

Where is basic decency within our public service?

We have a State insurer contracting corporate spies to spy on earthquake victims, we have WINZ counter productively reporting on the homeless using motels and we have a prison population exploding beyond our ability to contain because counter-productive spite has replaced social policy.

We desperately need reform and culture change in our public service and we need to inject our Public Private Partnerships with a social conscience.

There is a looming economic crunch and NZs favourite wealth creator, property speculation continues to splutter…

House prices expectations hit six-and-half year low
Expectations that house prices will rise are at a six-and-a-half year low, and the number of people who think it is a bad time to buy has fallen, particularly in Auckland, according to the latest ASB Housing Confidence Survey.

Ten signs we’re heading for ‘economic armageddon’

John Adams, a former Coalition policy adviser who last year identified seven signs that the global economy was heading for a crash — later warning the window for action had closed — believes the US$4 trillion wipe-out was just the opening act of his apocalyptic prophecy playing out.

“When the economic earthquake hits, don’t be surprised to see soaring interest rates, massive falls in asset prices [like] shares, real estate and bonds, higher unemployment and widespread bankruptcies,” he said.

…at some point the new Government are going to have to review their whole commitment to appeasing our corporate overlords with the Budget Responsibility Rules and start demanding a social conscience for their taxpayer spend rather than the cheapest cost.

Political Caption Competition

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The Coroner would later write the fang marks seemed to have hit Amy Adams from her left.

The Daily Blog Open Mic – Thursday 8th March 2018

The Daily Blog
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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.  

The Opportunities Party – Gareth Morgan’s Superannuation

The Daily Blog
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Gareth has just reached that golden age that allows him to jump on the gravy train that is NZ Super. The fact that he will receive around $20k a year of Government welfare raises an important question that seems to get swept under the rug as soon as the election circus leaves town. The reality is that New Zealand’s Super bill is not affordable, and with an aging population and modern medicine keeping us alive longer, it’s only going to get worse. We know it’s unaffordable, yet we are giving money to people like Gareth and Winston Peters who will just spend it on overseas holidays, all the while, we have kids going to school with no shoes and empty stomachs.

We have explained in detail why this situation is crazy, and offered a solution that gets it to those who really need it, while also making it affordable for those who will be paying the Super bill ( your kids). You can read about this here.

The powers that be have continued to ignore the warning signs, so it seems we will have to keep waiting for real change. While we wait, we thought we would let the public decide what Gareth does with his super. Follow the link here to have your say. Make sure you watch the video first to understand our meaning.

Zero Carbon Act needs to consider adaptation alongside mitigation – Local Government NZ

The Daily Blog
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The report from new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton calling for a structured and long-term approach to climate change includes a number of important recommendations, Local Government New Zealand says.

A Zero Carbon Act for New Zealand: Revisiting Stepping stones to Paris and beyond says New Zealand needs to move on from a stop/start approach to such a significant problem, a position long held by LGNZ.

LGNZ President Dave Cull says introducing a Zero Carbon Act and a UK-style Climate Commission will require care to ensure they are suitable for New Zealand, and that the Commissioner’s recommendations provide sensible and pragmatic options around introducing emissions reduction targets in a staged manner.

Mr Cull says while the report focuses predominantly on mitigation we cannot ignore climate change adaptation, which presents the biggest challenges for local government and New Zealand’s communities.

“We agree with the Commissioner when he says the proposal to enact a Zero Carbon Act and create a Climate Commission provides an opportunity to reset the way New Zealand has been approaching our responsibilities around climate change adaptation,” Mr Cull says.

“We need to make some major changes and there is an urgent need for local and central government to be in alignment on adaptation.

“Local government is ready to do more but needs direction from the national level on a clearer decision-making environment and agreement on the financial responsibilities and funding for adaptation. We also think the Government needs to lead a national education and engagement programme to ensure communities are aware of the full extent of climate change impacts.”

Mr Cull says it is critical that the local government sector is involved in any conversations and decisions about the place of adaptation in the Zero Carbon Act and has a role in determining what agency or mechanism is adopted to carry out that work.

LGNZ also acknowledges the report’s strong focus on risk mitigation and its recommendation that the Zero Carbon Act includes regular national-level risk assessments and national adaptation strategy planning. It is LGNZ’s view this is now a critical and urgent need.

“A Local Government Risk Agency, developed between local government and the Crown in 2016 as a national agency to pool and coordinate local government resources to lower the risk and cost of disaster, would be the right platform for that work and we need to progress this with some urgency,” Mr Cull says.

End of Life Choice Bill poses significant risks to disabled – Human Rights Commission

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Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero says the End of Life Choice Bill undermines years of work to change perceptions of disabled people in New Zealand and poses significant risks to them.

Ms Tesoriero has outlined her concerns regarding the End of Life Choice Bill in a submission to the Justice Select Committee.

“Much of the discussion so far has centred around the Bill allowing people with a terminal illness to end their life on their own terms.

“However, this Bill has wider implications for the disability community – it is not just limited to terminal illness,” Ms Tesoriero says.

“We must first work towards ensuring, to the greatest extent possible, that all people have the same freedom of choice in life before we consider legislating choice in death.

“It’s my role to reflect the concerns of the disability community and what I am hearing is that there are significant concerns about this Bill, particularly the inclusion of grievous and irremediable (but non-terminal) medical conditions. These concerns are important and relevant and need to be part of the conversation around this legislation.

“The bill does not reflect the reality for many disabled New Zealanders and undermines many years of hard work by disability advocates to change the way that society thinks about disability.

“Before we start talking about how disabled people can end their lives, we should be talking about how they can be supported to live their lives to their fullest potential,” says Ms Tesoriero.

Key recommendations made by the Disability Rights Commissioner in her submission are that:
• The Bill should not be passed into law in its current form.
• The process and proposed safeguards outlined in the Bill are inadequate. In particular:
o the Bill does not protect the interests of disabled and vulnerable members of the community
o It contains insufficient provisions and protections around matters such as: the provision of appropriate information; informed consent; assessing capacity; determining if undue influence or coercion exist. There is also no “cooling off” period and the oversight/approval mechanisms are inadequate.
• Legislative change in relation to end of life choice cannot be considered in isolation from the standard and current services and resources available to those who experience serious but non-terminal conditions or palliative care services.

“In its current form, the Bill undermines the position of disabled and vulnerable members of our community. It devalues their lives and poses significant risks to them, as individuals and as a group,” Ms Tesoriero says.

“This bill falls far short of the mark. If a bill is to be passed in some form, it is vital that the concerns I have outlined are addressed in full consultation with the disability community.”
To read the Disability Rights Commissioner’s submission, visit: https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/9115/2037/7477/DRC_End_of_Life_Choice_Submission_for_Select_Committee.pdf

Climate Commission needs teeth like Reserve Bank – Greenpeace

The Daily Blog
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Greenpeace New Zealand Executive Director, Russel Norman, says the new Government’s Climate Commission needs to be given teeth if it’s to have any significant impact on reducing emissions.

He says the Commission should be able to influence the price on carbon in the same way the Reserve Bank can influence the price of money.

Norman’s comments follow the release of the first report by new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton.

In the report, A Zero Carbon Act for New Zealand, Upton adds his support for a UK-style independent Climate Commission and a Zero Carbon Act.

The new Labour-led Government has committed to net zero emissions in New Zealand by 2050, and is in the process of setting up an independent Climate Commission to oversee that.

Upton has given nine recommendations on the formation of the legislation, including setting effective carbon budgets, establishing a credible Commission, and ensuring that words are turned into action. He also emphasises the importance of addressing climate adaptation.

Greenpeace’s Norman says that while these are all worthy things, for the Commission to be truly effective it must also have the power to influence the price of carbon by changing the settings of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

“Currently the suggestion is that the Commission will advise the Government if it is not meeting the milestones needed to reach net zero carbon by 2050, and the Government will then have a window of opportunity to provide a response,” he says.

“But for this Commission to actually reduce New Zealand’s emissions, we need it to be more than just talk and have some teeth. The time for a new climate talk shop has passed – the Commission needs the power to act.

“The Reserve Bank has the power to alter the official cash rate and require minimum deposits on housing loans to counter inflation and threats to fiscal stability. The Climate Commission should be able to act on the greatest threat to humanity – climate change – by adjusting the price of carbon.

“In practice what this could look like is if we’re not meeting certain milestones then the Commission could adjust the ETS’ settings, for example to accelerate the entry of agriculture, change the ratio of ETS credits needed per tonne of emissions, or change the exposure to the international carbon market. ”

Norman says as a Pacific Island country on the frontlines of climate change, New Zealand needs to be acting faster.

“Just today we’ve seen there is yet another cyclone forming that could hit our Pacific Island neighbours, before heading our way. The Pacific community has only just recovered from Cyclone Gita, and before that, Cyclone Fehi.”

As well as giving the new Climate Commission teeth, Norman says a serious response to climate change would require the Government to shut down any new oil, gas, and coal exploration or extraction.

“The world can’t afford to burn the majority of the fossil fuel reserves already discovered if we want to avoid extremely dangerous climate change – searching for more makes no sense,” he says.

“Likewise we need to bring agriculture into the ETS urgently. We need to deal with our biggest emitters and start developing a just transition for those communities and workers affected.

“We have the ability and the resources to create a world-leading clean energy economy in New Zealand. Now we just need to get on with it and do it.”

A Zero Carbon Act for New Zealand – Environmental Defence Society

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The Environmental Defence Society says that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s latest report is “a compelling read from someone who knows what he’s talking about.”

The report, A Zero Carbon Act for New Zealand, is the first from the new Commissioner Simon Upton. It builds on an earlier review by his predecessor and sets out a way forward for both the content of the proposed Zero Carbon Act and also the process for getting it enacted.

“Simon Upton has stressed the need to achieve a multi-party agreement on this important legislation given the long-term nature of the climate challenge and the need for a consistent approach across many years,” said EDS CEO Gary Taylor.

“We strongly agree with that. It is what happened in the UK and why that model has durability.

“Like Mr Upton, we consider that the proposed Climate Commission is the keystone entity for planning New Zealand’s transition to a zero carbon future. The idea of an independent Commission should attract broad support. The potentially more difficult question concerns how it should operate and where the respective responsibilities of government and Commission should lie.

“Mr Upton has given careful thought to those issues and we’ll give that proper consideration as we work through our own reform ideas. The approach of preparing carbon budgets, setting targets and monitoring progress makes good sense.

“One issue that we find a little underwhelming is his open-ended attitude to adaptation. He agrees there’s a need for a national strategy but not sure who should do it.

“Given New Zealand’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change – increased floods, droughts, storm surges and other extreme weather events – we think that a national strategy is enormously important and should rest firmly with the proposed Commission.

“The alternative of leaving it to an existing government agency is not attractive. We need an expert entity to prepare a strategy and if the Commission is properly configured, that’s where responsibility should lie.

“The report is a useful contribution and properly directed to Parliament as a whole. Let’s hope its members are listening,” Mr Taylor concluded.

New footage shows destroyed penguin habitat… – Forest And Bird

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As storms hit native species hard

As tropical Cyclone Hola looks set to hit New Zealand, Forest & Bird is revealing the enormous toll climate change has had on our native species this summer.

Earlier this summer, an entire breeding season of little blue penguin chicks nesting around the foreshore on Otata Island, part of the Noises group located in the Hauraki Gulf, were either buried or drowned by the huge swells, massive waves, and king tides of a New Year storm.

Footage of the destroyed penguin habitat is here.

“In my lifetime those burrows had never been close to being threatened before. My family has had an association with the Noises Islands going back more than 80 years and we’ve never seen anything like it,” says local Sue Neureter.

“It’s not just the penguins, all of the variable oyster catcher chicks were swept away, and many of the black back gull chicks – not only from Otata but from the other islands of the Noises group too.”

“Shingle from the main beach always changes with weather, but it was washed across the spit, something we’ve never known before. Now shingle is covering intertidal blue and green mussel beds, and there is almost always a sediment plume billowing out from erosion of the beach, which must be affecting marine life there,” says Sue.

“What Sue and others around the country are seeing is the reality of the changing climate,” says Forest & Bird Climate Advocate Adelia Hallett.

“The evidence that climate change is affecting our native wildlife is mounting up around New Zealand. We see dotterels on the West Coast and at Ohiwa Harbour trying to move inland as the rising sea claims more of their traditional nesting grounds, and kokako chicks killed by storms like ex-cyclone Gita.”

“Eels and other freshwater species are dying this summer as warmer water and increased nutrients make toxic algal blooms more frequent.”

“In Dunedin, just 16 of 29 fertile royal albatross eggs have hatched, probably because of the effects of hot weather.”

“Climate change is killing our native species, and it’s really upsetting, but we know helping nature stay healthy will help us too. Our native forests are brilliant at taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it. Forests, sand dunes, mangroves, and shellfish beds all help absorb the impacts of storms and droughts on the coast.”

“Of course, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions urgently. Everybody can play a part, whether it’s through daily actions, like using public transport instead of fossil-fuel-driven cars, or political actions like supporting the Zero Carbon Act, which would see New Zealand carbon-neutral by 2050.”

Inquiry into possible breach of conduct code – State Services Commission

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The State Services Commission today announced it will investigate whether a government agency and one of its contractors may have breached the State Services Standards of Integrity and Conduct.

State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes said the inquiry would focus on Southern Response, a government-owned company responsible for settling claims by AMI policyholders for Canterbury earthquake damage, and a contractor it hired.

The Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration Megan Woods received information relating to Southern Response Limited and its use of a security contractor. On 16 February the Minister referred the matter to the Commissioner for consideration.

“I have decided the appropriate course of action is an inquiry,” said Mr Hughes.

“The material I have seen raises questions around compliance with standards of integrity and conduct for State servants. Those questions need to be answered.”

The inquiry will be conducted using the Commissioner’s powers under the State Sector Act 1988.

The Commissioner intends to announce who will lead the inquiry and the terms of reference by the end of next week.

Rally at Parliament against signing of TPPA – It’s Our Future

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“Protestors will gather outside Parliament at midday on Thursday 8 March to hear from a range of speakers in opposition to the TPPA signing ceremony in Chile,” says Oliver Hailes, spokesperson for It’s Our Future, New Zealand’s network of opponents to the TPPA and other anti-democratic economic treaties.

The line-up of speakers includes:

• Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman;
• Māori activist and international indigenous rights advocate Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn;
• Generation Zero spokesperson Lisa McLaren;
• Unions Wellington organiser Ben Peterson;
• President of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Grant Brookes;
• ActionStation campaigner Rick Zwaan;
• documentary maker Bryan Bruce; and
• TPP Free Wellington spokesperson and business owner Antony Maddock.

Sandra Grey, president of the Tertiary Education Union, will serve as MC, and Mike Pike will provide music.

These speakers represent many perspectives on why New Zealand must continue to resist the TPPA.

Ms Ghahraman was the only voice in last week’s parliamentary debate who challenged the sudden shift in policy by the Labour Party and New Zealand First: “We need to make trade fair and fit to serve our needs in the 21st century, instead of ceding sovereignty to foreign investors.”

Ms Murupaenga-Ikenn speaks for “the imperilled voice of indigenous peoples and populations all around the world” as well as the “prominent economic, civil rights, environmental justice and other experts, academics and NGOs who have consistently called for state compliance with moral, legal and international standards regarding good governance and environmental and human rights”.

Mr Zwaan will report on ActionStation’s recent independent poll, which confirmed last week that 75% of New Zealanders still want independent analysis before signing up.

Likewise, Ms McLaren says that Generation Zero wants “an independent analysis into whether the TPPA is compatible with the 2050 net-zero emissions target, as outlined by the Vivid Economics report and the envisioned Zero Carbon Act, before New Zealand ratifies the agreement”.

“Despite the rebrand and spin, people throughout Aotearoa are beginning to realise that nothing’s really changed,” Mr Hailes said. “Never again will we be kept in the dark while technocrats trade away control over our future. That’s why we’re still collecting signatures to let the Government know that we do not consent to the TPPA and that Parliament must reform its Standing Orders to increase democratic oversight of future treaty negotiations.”

Mr Hailes will hand over a parliamentary petition to Ms Ghahraman on behalf of the thousands of signatories who have endorsed the position of It’s Our Future.

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