Seven Sharp – broadcast from inside TVNZ’s womb
The Daily Blog Open Mic – Sunday 4th March 2018
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 latest abomination from WINZ
Carol from WINZ will see you now.
The horror of WINZ is once again laid bare with policy so draconian and counter productive, you just have to label it evil…
Minister orders probe after Work and Income reports mum to Ministry for Children after eviction notice
A mother of six says she was told she would be notified to child protection services if she moved into a motel due to an eviction notice.Athena, whom the Herald agreed to identify only by her first name, said the threat as punitive, insulting and unfair.
“I pretty much want to sleep in my car instead of going to them for accommodation.
“It’s degrading to us as parents. It’s like our choice that we wanted to go into a motel. That’s the last place we want to live …”
The Manuwera woman was sent a 90-day eviction notice on February 13 for her private rental that was paid for through Work and Income. The landlord wanted the house back.
She went to Work and Income the next day to discuss her options. She had bad credit, so finding her own rental was difficult. Athena has been on the Housing NZ waiting list since mid-last year.
A manager explained that if she couldn’t find accommodation by May 20 she could get a motel room for herself and her children but Work and Income would have to notify the Ministry for Children – Oranga Tamariki.
…when WINZ aren’t chasing beneficiaries for outrageously cruel debt, when they aren’t threatening beneficiaries into committing suicide, when they aren’t degrading them and making the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable unbearable to the point they turn up and shoot staff, they are following policy whereby they dob the poor into the Ministry for Stealing Children because they are put into a Motel which is where WINZ send people who become homeless.
The counter productive madness of all of this would be funny if it weren’t so sick.
This is why the poor and the desperate run mile rather than interact with the horror of our neoliberal welfare agencies.
It’s not just a policy thing, it is that these overworked, underfunded workers are so burnt out they have replaced compassion with sadism. At some stage, the new Government must stop being bullied by the PSA and purge the Public Service of these burnt out workers because they are causing more damage than they are treating.
Justice depends upon truth
On Wednesday, 21 February this year, Israeli Army bulldozers arrived to destroy the the home of Atta Jaber and lay waste to what was left of the land that had been in his family for 800 years. The arrival of the Zionist Occupation in 1967 presaged doom for this family’s heritage and in 1968, Atta Jaber and his kinsfolk lost 90% of their land, taken by Israel in order to impose the Occupation settlement of Kiryat Arba. Not only was the theft of this land illegal under international law, the malevolence that accompanied it became a harrowing background in the life of the family. With repeated attacks by Zionist fanatics upon persons and property, the settlers would, as they ruined the family’s crops, tell them that their land was now Israeli State land. ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions has posted a video in which the settlers can be heard, as they stand upon Palestinian land, telling members of the family that they are not even human. The Israeli soldiers overseeing the house demolition threatened the family with death and injury if they did not leave. Atta showed the ICAHD video producers the scars he received in the brutal Israeli Army violence. Since 1948, the Zionist state has demolished more than 120,000 Palestinian homes.
In March 2013, Atta Jaber appeared before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to tell his story. The world knows what Israel is doing but the mainstream news media and Western-aligned governments remain silent about the extent of the inhumanity and the ideological motivation that drives it. As far back as 1937, David Ben-Gurion, who was to become Israel’s first prime minister, revealed in a letter to his son, Amos, the true Zionist view of the Peel Commission’s partition plan for Palestine. There can be no doubt that, for Zionists, Partition was merely a way to establish a foothold in Palestine to facilitate the start of an incremental takeover of the entire land. Ben Gurion wrote:
“My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning. When we acquire one thousand or 10,000 dunams, we feel elated. It does not hurt our feelings that by this acquisition we are not in possession of the whole land. This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavours to liberate the entire country.”
While ordinary Palestinians suffer under brutal foreign military dictatorship, Israel’s annexation strategy unfolds incrementally. It quietly gnaws at Palestinian territory at a pace that makes it so easy for the news media to ignore. The silence enables our politicians to hide behind their oft-declared support for a two-state solution and avoid facing the ugly truth. An end to the Occupation would depend both on bringing Israel seriously to account and its repudiation of the Zionist dream. On 12 February, in yet another step beyond its borders, the Israeli Parliament passed a law that places Israeli universities in the Occupied Palestinian territories under the authority of the Israeli Council for Higher Education. Even more aggressive was the Knesset’s passing, on 5 February, of the Regularisation Law which formally ‘legalises’ the theft of Palestinian land – so obviously an integral part of Israel’s vision of the future.
Our news media
Plain, informed reporting and comment concerning Israel, Zionism and the theft of Palestinian land is rare, especially among politicians and in the mainstream news media. Radio New Zealand broadcast recently that violence had declined in Gaza and, on 18 February, the NZ Herald, in a report on the injuring of four Israeli soldiers on the border with Gaza, printed the following observation:
“In the post 2014 war reality established along the volatile frontier, Israel generally carries out limited retaliations to any militant provocations in Gaza. The border area has generally been quiet since the war, but has seen an increase in violence since President Donald Trump’s announcement in December recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
The report makes three assertions:
1. that Israel generally carries out limited retaliations to any militant provocations in Gaza.
2. The border area has generally been quiet since 2014 and
3. there has been an increase in violence since President Donald Trump’s announcement in December recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Let’s look at the record and see how these assertions stack up in the light of facts on the ground – and in the air!
“Israel generally carries out limited retaliations to any militant provocations in Gaza.”
So far this year, up until 26 February, there have been 12 Palestinian Gaza ceasefire violations. Nine of these were missile-launchings towards Israel. The remaining three were acts of armed Resistance against Israeli Military targets.
Over the same period, Palestinians suffered 162 Israeli ceasefire violations, resulting in the deaths of three minors (the youngest was aged 15) plus an 18-year-old. There were 91 people wounded or injured and two children, aged 10 and 11, were abducted by Israeli forces. The Israeli Navy hijacked five Palestinian fishing vessels, causing more loss of livelihood and economic decline. There were 11 Israeli air strikes over the period and Palestinian fishing boats came under fire on 46 occasions.
“The border area has generally been quiet since the war”
Regarding the question as to who the Gaza ceasefire violations provocateur might be, the following should be noted: Palestinian violations occurred on six of the days from 1 January to 20 February 2018, while there were Israeli violations on at least 45 days over that same period. These figures make nonsense of the claim made in the same Herald report: that:
“Israel, however, has begun to soften its line of late, appealing for international aid, and may be less inclined to strike hard militarily, even if targeted by rocket fire and border attacks.”
“There has been an increase in violence since President Donald Trump’s announcement in December recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
To judge the veracity of this assertion, and to understand from whence originates the violence, it is worth looking at the Gaza Ceasefire violations that occurred in 2017 prior to Trump’s 6 December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. From the Palestinian side, there were 17, eight of which were missile-firings towards Israel and nine attacks on Israeli military targets. There were, by contrast, 722 Israeli Gaza Ceasefire violations leading up to the Trump announcement. That is a score of 42 to one! The source of the provocation is crystal clear.
Syria – bombarded and misrepresented
Israel’s territorial conquests are not confined to Palestine of course, in Syria the Zionist regime has militarily occupied the Golan Heights, established settlements, illegally annexed the territory in 1981 and, according to the Wall Street Journal 18 June 2017, acted in support of various armed groups fighting in Syria. Author Gregory Shupak writes that Israel admits to having bombed the Syrian Government and that if “Brigadier General Amnon Ein Dar, the head of the Israeli Air Force’s Air Division, is to be believed (Ynet, 11 February 2018), the Israeli military has ‘carried out thousands of missions in Syria in the last year alone’.” As with Gaza, our mainstream news media reports downplay and ignore Israeli aggression in Syria. As Shupak points out, the Israeli Brigadier’s admission makes nonsense of an Associated Press claim on 10 February that “Israel has mostly stayed out of the prolonged fighting in Syria.” The article goes on to reveal the extent of misleading mainstream news media regarding Israeli aggression in Syria, including Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
Below is an In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter report on Gaza ceasefire violations for just one day – 8 August 2017:
Ceasefire violation – Palestinian attack: Northern Gaza – 20:45, a number of missiles fired towards the Green Line.
Israeli air strike: Gaza – midnight, Israeli military aircraft launched two air strikes on Gaza City, one of them on the al-Nasser neighbourhood, wounding three residents, one of them critically.
Israeli air strike: Northern Gaza – 01:35, Israeli military aircraft launched missiles into north Beit Lahiya.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 10:25, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Gaza – 08:00, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Gaza City.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Central Gaza – 23:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Deir al-Balah.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Central Gaza – 08:00, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Deir al-Balah.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Khan Yunis – 23:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Khan Yunis City.
Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage: Khan Yunis – 08:15, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Khan Yunis City.
2 Israeli air strikes on Gaza – so far, this year, the score is well over 500 Israeli ceasefire violations to 12 Palestinian.
The newsletter continued:
“Besides at least 14 Israeli ceasefire violations this month [August 2017], including attacks on Palestinian fishing boats, agriculture and a refugee camp, the Israeli Air Force launched two night-time air strikes early on 8 August, following a retaliatory Palestinian Resistance missile-launching that landed harmlessly in the Hof Ashkelon Region.
“A spokesman at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital reported that three Palestinians were wounded in the air strikes, including a 26-year-old man who suffered a serious head wound. Most of the very occasional Palestinian missile strikes from Gaza are claimed by Salafist groups. The Israeli Ynet news claims that a “ceasefire has largely held” since a ceasefire agreement was signed, which flies in the face of reality. So far, this year alone, there have been well over 500 Israeli ceasefire violations. The reported Palestinian ceasefire violations this year, including this latest, number 12.”
Responsibility
Israel’s ideological motivation, intentions and territorial ambitions are a matter of record and the Palestinian people have been cruelly betrayed. New Zealand’s sponsoring of Security Council Resolution 2334 was, to a limited extent, an acknowledgement of this country’s duty to defend human rights and international law. Yet still our politicians remain silent regarding Israel’s daily, relentless barbarism and criminal intent. Our news media should be taken to task for their misleading reporting on Israel and Palestine. Is it that our news media allow themselves to be unduly influenced by the Israel Lobby? Or are they simply too disinterested or under-resourced to do their own independent research? It is difficult to discern the cause but, for whatever reason, the repetition of Zionist propaganda is unworthy and unjust. We must all demand greater accountability and honesty from the news media and from our representatives. Let New Zealand build upon the reputation it gained with its sponsorship of Resolution 2334. We have a duty to finish the task we undertook – and we can do it. But first we must call for an end to the inexcusable misrepresentation that so often stands in place of truth.
Ummmmm – James Shaw seems confused at the Summer Policy Conference as to why the Greens got smashed so let’s spell it out for him
At their Summer Policy Conference this weekend, The Green Party announced that they would ban any and all kickbacks for their MPs, meaning Yoga Corporations, Big Tofu and The Bicycle Industrial Complex will be outraged!
At first blush this looks more symbolic than transparent because who the hell would bribe the humourless about their veganism Greens? It’s like a crossfitter boasting about searching their fridge for a carbohydrate.
I do children’s parties and Bar Mitzvah’s as well.
Putting aside how Green MPs will now be able to afford their Lululemon action wear, the truly amazing part of this conference is the total lack of fury amongst members.
If this was any other political party, the membership would be screaming for blood at the total incompetence exhibited by the Green tacticians and strategists for rolling out Metiria’s brave admission with no foresight whatsoever.
Incredulously, James Shaw seems to be unaware why the Greens went from 15% to barely crossing the 5% threshold…
Shaw said there would be sessions about what the party has been up to in the past 127 days and what dilemmas it faces.
He said they would look at a series of hypothetical situations, role-play them and ask members what they would do in those situations.
…they are going to role-play scenarios?
Suddenly this is 50 Shades of Green?
This conference should be focused on why and how the fuck Metiria’s brave admission went so horrifically wrong instead of role-playing scenarios.
Here’s a scenario James, what if you hadn’t been held hostage by the no talent Wellington clique strategists and tacticians you have and had actually allowed any one of us left wing political consultants to sit down for just 1 hour to point out the enormous problems not paying the debt back first would create and suggest that the only way this could work is if Met had privately contacted WINZ, sorted out the debt, paid it and THEN make her announcement so that she wasn’t left like a bleeding lamb in a pool of hungry sharks named Paddy Gower?
What if that had happened James?
What if you had brought in someone from outside your group think pool of talentless Wellington shmucks to avoid the self-mutilation you led the Greens into?
Would you now be having to role-play out scenarios at a Summer Conference if you’d done that James?
James?
Earth to James?
Houston, we have a problem.
As a Green voter I just close my eyes and hope for the best now. These people are checkers players trying to play Chess and the result is as devastating as going from 15% to 6.3%
Why would you fill in the Census online in a post-Snowden world?
This citizen will be filling out his Census form online
I think this years Census will be an abomination (and a screaming failure).
Not a mean, nasty or malicious abomination mind you.
Just the kind of garden variety fuckwit Wellington Bureaucrat abomination that makes you wish for death.
You can immediately see the fuckwit Wellington Bureaucrat logic here right?
“Why spend all that money sending people out to get census data when we can just get everyone to do it on line’.
Wellington Bureaucrat Fuckwittery at it’s most absurd.
People don’t fill in the census out of civic duty. We filled it in because some annoyingly nice Census person turns up on our doorstep and effectively demands that we do it.
That’s why we have had in the past such strong Census return numbers. There was someone you had to be held accountable to who prodded, pushed, begged and if necessary, threatened to get that data.
It was unique and only happened every 5 years and it had built into a respect for that uniqueness because it’s the only time the Government sends everyone a person door to door to connect and get that information.
This year the fuckwit Wellington Bureaucrats have dumped the unique feature of the information collection to just demand people do it online.
There are a huge amount of problems with this fuckwittery.
In a post Snowden world, why on earth would you trust any online information collection of personal data? We know that all Social Services are connected to each other now, it’s the reason a beneficiary who has had a run in with WINZ won’t go to Housing NZ because while Housing NZ will say, ‘we can’t help you, but by the way, you owe WINZ this’.
This new interconnectivity is the main reason why the poor and needy do everything in their power to hide from social service agencies. Census assures us their information isn’t shared, but with the need to identify yourself with name and number, I believe their assurances are hollow, especially when the GCSB. SIS and Police intelligence can still access this information, not to mention the NSA and the other 5 eye mass surveillance powers.
Let’s also not ignore the digital divide that means the poor have no ability to participate online.
So the drive to make this cheaper means there is no personal contact point to pressure compliance, it opens the data up to being used by more powerful state agents, allows the information to be hacked and leaves the poor out.
Combine this Wellington Bureaucrat Fuckwittery together and you have what I believe will be the worst return data for a Census on record. As the fuckwit Wellington Bureaucrats start to realise few have bothered to fill in the Census, expect a flurry of new advertising warning people they will be fined for not complying.
You tell bureaucrats what to do, you never let them dream up shortcuts.
Simon Bridges likely to treat Māori the way John Key treated state house tenants
There are certain things women notice more than men- such as how, Simon Bridges, during his first press interview as the leader of the National Party, didn’t pour his own water and instead gestured to his deputy, Paula Bennett, to do it for him.
Now, I’m definitely not a Jacinda-worshipper but I have a feeling she could listen to a reporter’s question and pour her own water at the same time- maybe it’s true what they say: women are better at multitasking.
The other thing I noticed was how Bridges never looked at his deputy or his wife as he thanked them for their support, even though they were standing right beside him. Maybe he was too nervous and just focusing on getting through his speech.
Talking about his deputy and his wife- was it really necessary to have them standing next to him for such a long time, silent and still like two decorative potted plants?
I know Bridges was just following protocols- but, as a viewer, I felt sorry especially for Mrs Bridges who must have been wishing to be at home with his three young children.
So, what else did I notice during that speech?
Well, I noticed what he said about Māori.
He said he believed “Maoridom was changing”.
We didn’t have to wait long to find out how he thought Maoridom was changing because he went on to say:
“I think clearly we are seeing Māori succeed in business, both small and large, and they are as aspirational as every other New Zealander”.
So basically what Bridges believes is that Māori are changing by being more aspirational.
Isn’t that a clear dog whistle to the racists who believe the failures of the Māori are due to their lack of ambitions and general laziness and nothing to do with historical wrongdoings and structural and institutional racism?
Listening to Bridges I was reminded of how John Key, when questioned about the cold and damp conditions of some state houses, used to repeat the story of his solo mother keeping their state house dry by regularly airing it and generally managing well by working hard.
National supporters loved John Key’s stories because it perpetuated the myth that, poor housing, like the one that killed two-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne in South Auckland, was generally due to neglect and laziness of the tenants, and nothing to do with the systematic failure of the Government to provide adequate housing for their citizens.
John Key never failed to capitalize on being a state house kid- but what did he ever do for state house tenants?
Well, he planned to sell their homes – including the one he was brought up in.
You see, The National Party’s ideology is based on a neoliberal model that encourages individuals to own their success by ignoring their privileges and good fortunes and by feeling that they- and they alone- were responsible for their achievements in life.
The flip side of this type of thinking assumes individuals must own their failure.
In other words, if you fail, it is because you are a loser- nothing to do with, for instance, the sate failing to protect you when in their care as a child; or any of the other numerous misfortunes that many people suffer in the course of their lives.
I think having a Maori political leader is a very positive and hopeful step only if that leader uses his position and influence to dispel destructive stereotypes about Māori – not perpetuate them.
The disappearance of the Māori Party from the Parliament should be a stark warning to Simon Bridges that Māori would not hesitate to let their votes do the talking.
Housing for need not speculation
The new government has stopped the planned privatisation of large parts of the state housing stock of around 70,000 homes. At least another 30,000 had been built but these were sold off in previous years. But the current stockpile hasn’t increased in decades. The state housing stock has been starved of support for decades and become simply the place of last resort for the destitute.
Despite stopping further sales, housing remains one area where the government remains committed to almost a completely market-based solution. For various reasons in this country, housing has become a speculative nightmare with prices beyond what working people can afford.
The new government has promised tens of thousands of more private homes will be built for sale and that more of these houses will be “affordable” housing. But this seems like an empty dream unless there is a massive economic crisis and collapse in prices which would wipe out hundreds of billions of equity of NZ households and throw the country into an economic depression.
The problem the government faces is that any form of subsidy to allow working people to buy a home is simply capitalised in the increased price of the home the day after it is bought. Builders of housing projects are actually property speculators looking to make a killing not social service providers. Supervision of these projects is usually so slack that the ‘affordable houses” are simply sold on the side to friends and family to take advantage of the immediate speculative gain.
The only realistic answer is to begin the government’s fundamental duty to provide housing to those most in need first and then extend that duty up the chain of need as fast as possible. That demands the immediate launching of a massive state house building programme with life-time guarantees of tenancy at affordable rates. An initial goal of 10,000 a year is easily achievable with a determined effort.
Labour has promised only 1000 more state houses a year and the Minister of Housing Phil Twyford has said he hopes to double that. That is almost a joke. The sad fact of things is that the government could actually borrow and build state houses without breaching the “fiscal responsibility” rules because the state house becomes an asset in the government’s books.
We could also do a massive programme of community and Marae house building that could create co-operative housing forms that guarantee tenancy for life. The home must be sold back to the community with only compensation for improvements made being given rather than profit from inflated land values because the land would remain in state, local council, Marae or cooperative hands. Whole communities could be built so we no longer lived isolated individuals but as part of a broader community with accessible community centres, sports facilities, schools, child care centres, local shops not malls, parks and gardens, and areas for growing food.
In this way, the state could lead the building programme needed with quality housing being built but with modular patterns and economies of scale. Every unemployed Kiwi, including all school leavers, could be offered on-the-job trades training if they wanted it and surplus labour recruited from overseas with the promise of permanent residence from day one to prevent exploitation.
The obsession with “owning your own home” does not exist in countries as wealthy as Germany because they have lifetime tenancies and any home build must be able to last three generations!
The government has a responsibility to provide everyone who needs one a sturdy, clean, sustainable home with tenure protected. The state does not have a duty to make sure everyone has an asset for speculative gain – or loss as the case may be under capitalism.
GUEST BLOG: Arthur Taylor – abuse of women in prison and illegal strip searches
I had an interesting Audio Visual meeting with Inspector Ekins last week for an hour.
Resulting from that I gained 4 agreements for prisoner welfare…
(1) a special investigation under the direct oversight of the Principle Inspector is to go ahead into the inhumane transport conditions of women prisoners between Auckland/Wellington and vice versa. Anyone who has been on these horror trips or has information relating to them should email Andy Fitzharris (Principle Inspector) at theinspector@corrections.govt.nz
(2) the practice of strip-searching prisoners at Waikeria before and after visits without reasonable grounds has been accepted as being unlawful. I had it stopped as of 28 January 2018. I have agreed to accept the apology for the 6 unlawful strip-searches of me before the 28 January and I have been assured that the practice has been stopped for the whole of the Waikeria site.
(3) I’ve got this unit TV remotes and toasted sandwich machines. The Prison Director refused fridges and microwaves but has agreed to reconsider that on receipt of a letter from me explaining why we need them!
(4) The unlock hours are now to be reviewed by the Inspector with a view to increasing them.
SO far as strip-searches are concerned Corrections goes on trial in the Auckland High Court on 19,20, and 21 March 2018 for the mass strip search of 300+ prisoners at Paremoremo in October 2016.
I will have the then Prison Director (since demoted to Deputy-Director) Tom Sherlock, Regional Commissioner Janette Burns, and Senior Unit Manager Solomon Nui in the box to answer for their actions and deter Corrections from doing this in the future.
There is already considerable media interest in the case and the public can of course attend the case throughout.
Corrections tried to get me to do the case via AVL or pay nearly $6000 in staff wages! But Justice Fitzgerald just finished Riverhead Quarry rapist trial directed that I attend in person and without paying the exorbitant costs Corrections claimed.
She realized that it was an obvious attempt to undermine my ability to prosecute the case effectively and wasn’t having any of Corrections nonsense.
If Corrections NZ spent as much time and energy looking after prisoners welfare as they do trying to gag me and punish me for holding them to account, we wouldn’t need to do this in the first place.
Arthur Taylor is TDBs prisoners rights blogger currently inside prison.
Political Caption Competition
Final proof that global warming is real
The Daily Blog Open Mic – Saturday 3rd March 2018
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 will crash first? The economy or the environment?
What will crash first? The economy or the environment?
Last week we had troubling economic opinions being expressed by some that the economic crash has started.
Spending $15 Trillion on printing money, $10 Trillion on buying bonds and the lowest interest rates for 5000 years all in 10 years is as much a solution to the Global Financial Crisis as taking up meth to kick cigarettes.
Sure, you don’t want to smoke ciggies anymore, but you are now a drug fried psychopath.
All we did was kick the problem down the road, and it looks increasingly like we are running out of road…
Goldman Says Stocks May Dive 25% If 10-Year Yield Hits 4.5%
Bill Gates says another financial crisis ‘a certainty’
Man who predicted the GFC tips Aussie house prices to tumble by up to half
…I think the first story is the most significant. Once the AI robots who trade in the nano second see yield’s hit over 3.5% they will ignore human greed and fear and just start pulling money out of stocks and plough them into bonds.
We are reading a point where the super structure of the system can’t digest the vast sums of printed money flooding it.
While the economic crash percolates, and extraordinary and unprecedented heat wave in the Arctic re-wrote all the rules…
…how this wasn’t leading every news story on the planet is the question here.
Both the economy and the environment need each other to survive in a complex society, but if both are now failing and pulling the other down, new paradigms have to be imagined and imagined soon.
The Right starts targeting the Unions
As I pointed out earlier this year, National Party strategists are giving up attacking Jacinda directly because you never win when attacking a pregnant woman, and are turning instead to pick fights with organisations voters identify with Labour, and those organisations are Unions.
Here was my run down in January...
Equity NZ: The hammer will fall hardest here. For Key’s Government, the manufactured crisis at the Hobbit was a political and cultural gold mine. By manipulating NZers love of LOTR, the Government whipped up sentiment that the Union was threatening the making of the Hobbit film here. The anti-Union backlash was apocalyptic and not even Helen Kelly rushing to the defence of Jennifer Ward-Lealand could help in the end. By painting himself into a corner to gain a political victory over the Union movement and the wider Left, Key had to agree to giving Warner Bros more corporate welfare plus re-wrote employment law for the benefit of Corporate Hollywood. This time around National already has agents in the field whipping up the usual Weta workshop technical elites and will look to once again manufacture the collapse of a current film project and lay the blame at the feet of Labour for attempting to unpick the ridiculous labour law National put into effect. With Amazon announcing the new TV series of Lord of the Rings with New Line Cinema involved (they are a division of Warner Bros who made the film with Peter Jackson), the most likely attack line will be to suggest the TV series will be filmed here and use the attempted passing of the Hobbit Law to manufacture the supposed uncertainty. Expect to hear a lot of ‘Australian Union’ rhetoric and ‘greedy actor’ statements. If National can force Labour to walk away from the law or blame the new Government for the TV series going somewhere else (even if it was never going to be filmed here in the first place) it will be an enormous political victory that will perpetrate all the negative stereotypes about Labour in the thrall of the Unions. Expect to hear about the LOTR TV series possibly being filmed here a couple of weeks before the new Government starts to look at officially changing the law.
PPTA/NZEI: The public hate teachers and any time the Right can hold up a teacher who has assaulted or sexually harassed a student to make the point that being a ‘registered teacher’ meant nothing for the safety of the student, they will. This matters because only registered teachers can teach and what the Right wanted to do with Charter Schools was side step employing registered teachers so they could lower staffing costs. The money to back this reform is still there from the private education industry so expect any case of a teacher abusing a student to be magnified and amplified with brutal skill.
All public transport and Port Unions: National in opposition will push ahead with any campaign that has money backing it and that’s the explanation behind their inane roads every where campaign. National will want and will actively promote strikes in public transport or Ports because they want industrial action that creates wide spread disruption, especially if it grinds traffic to a halt. Expect to see a lot of public transport companies become incredibly unreasonable all of a sudden.
Public Service leaks: After 9 years in power, most public service is dominated by right wing goons who fully approve of the draconian welfare state created by National. As Labour attempt to change this culture of abuse, expect to see huge leaks highlighting the worst cases of welfare fraud and people who are difficult to find any sympathy for.
…the sudden leadership battle within National put most of these machinations on hold, although there were agents for the Right in the field as early as December starting to sow the seeds of industrial discontent.
The Right will wait for the Hobbit Law to start its journey through Parliament before lighting that fuse, and PPTA/NZEI are facing a sustained attack from private education trying to save their Charter School experiment, but it’s public transport that National sees having real voter appeal.
Already we are starting to see Public Transport Companies suddenly becoming very aggressive with the Unions in the hope of triggering Industrial disruption, here…
…and here…
Talks to resolve Auckland’s rail strike were due to start at 9am on Wednesday — but the mediator’s train was late.
Industrial action by the Rail and Maritime Trade Union (RMTU), announced on Saturday, is affecting some peak train services on Auckland’s southern, western and eastern lines.
Commuters have experienced hour-long delays amid the start of universities’ semester one this week.
…with Hooton in charge of the dark arts over at the House of Slytherin that is National, the focus on starting fights with the Unions will begin with speed.
National can’t hit Jacinda, but they can sell a narrative that Labour’s Union mates are holding the country to ransom. Hooton is well versed in these tactics and as motorists get stuck in longer and longer traffic jams during industrial action, he quietly siphons off more voters for National.
I pointed out in January that the Unions had to work together to form a better communications strategy to counter these moves because without that, Hooton is going to have a field day painting them as the problem.
Clare Curran’s Public Media Panel feels like an enormous missed opportunity
The Communications and Broadcasting Minister, Clare Curran, has released her Public Media Panel to look at how we will fund journalism as part of the new Government’s ‘Public Media Funding Commission’.
This matters in an age of fake news and social media ignorance however the 4 selections so far are so underwhelming I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry…
The other four confirmed members of the advisory were named on Sunday as Tower chairman Michael Stiassny, former deputy State Services commissioner Sandi Beatie, former RNZ deputy chairman Josh Easby, and freelance television consultant Irene Gardiner.
…one of the major problems we have in NZ is that NZ on Air makes gaining funding for Journalism very difficult if you aren’t on a free to air channel and the other glaring issue is that those who get the funding always tend to be a certain class of media.
Very, very, very middle class and this panel look so middle class it buys volcano salt and Metro’s Best Schools and Top 50 Restaurants editions religiously. The atrociously middle class Spinoff and Villainesse blogs already get money from NZ on Air and a panel as lacking in curiosity as this one will come out with a solution to give them even more money.
We need a fourth estate that is going to hold the powerful to account and challenge abuses of power. We also need it to critically examine the neoliberal economic, cultural and political hegemony in a way that is accessible for all Kiwi’s and not just politics geeks.
We need a panel who will re-invent the public square, not tick boxes in a pretence of looking like something is changing. We need to use TV far better than it’s currently being used in association with social media as solutions and I don’t see this panel managing that.
I would have put Dr Gavin Ellis, Dr Merja Myllylahti, Professor Wayne Hope, Paula Penfold, Leonie Hayden and Russell Brown onto the panel.
This is too important to screw up and too important to just hand more money over to middle class blogs rather than expand beyond social media bubbles.
I await their report with interest.
“A Giant Beast Called The Government”
SOMETIMES the mask of politics-as-it-is-officially-presented slips and the true face of the political class is revealed. A particularly serious slippage occurred quite recently in a Spinoff feature about “partisan lobbyists”. Neale Jones, a senior backroom operative in the dreary days of Andrew Little’s leadership of the Labour Party, but now the go-to lobbyist for people and businesses in need of some face-time with Labour cabinet ministers (or the public servants advising them) did something no member of the political class should ever do – he told us exactly what it thinks of our democracy.
It is a fundamental mistake, he told the feature’s author, Asher Emanuel, to assume that the Labour Party has anything to do with the day-to-day decision-making of cabinet ministers and public servants. Never mind that Labour spin-doctors rattle-on about New Zealand having a “Labour-led Government”, the actual, this-is-really-going-to-affect-you, business of government takes place in an almost entirely non-partisan environment.
“The Labour Party is not the government” says Jones. “The government is the government. I don’t go and try to lobby the Labour Party. The party does have its democratic structures and its policy platforms and manifesto and that is something that the government — the Labour government, the Labour Party-in-government — the government tries to advance. But ultimately there is a giant beast called the government and it’s the public service, it’s MPs, ministers, ministers from various parties.”
It’s the same with policy. Jones is scornful of the whole notion of public policy being, at its core, a democratic process.
“A Labour Party member sitting in a dusty hall in Temuka is not writing the government’s policy”, Jones says. “Eventually there’s an impact. But you’re not dealing with that person in the democratic process. You’re dealing with the government.”
At least Jones was decent enough to throw that “eventually there’s an impact” life-line to all those benighted souls raised on the notion that ordinary citizens, sitting in dusty halls, might be able to change the way their society is run. Although, he makes it pretty darn clear that those party members will find it very hard to recognise their ideas in what finally emerges from the “giant beast called the government”.
As Emanuel observes, there is no way of escaping the need for expertise when it comes to influencing the formation of public policy. An organisation wanting to change things, says Jones, is unlikely to succeed without “a decent communications and government relations capacity.”
And, as Emanuel quips: “it helps to be of the political world.”
“If you’re not in that world,” says Jones, “you don’t know, necessarily, how to engage with legislation and regulation. You don’t know who the people are, you don’t know them personally. You don’t know what makes them tick.”
In other words: “Ordinary citizens wishing to change the world should not attempt to do so without a $200-per-hour guide. Citizens requiring guides should proceed to the nearest lobby.”
Emanuel is gloomily philosophical about the world Jones inhabits.
“A certain kind of realism insists that this is simply the shape modern democracy must take. From this vantage, these trends are an inevitability, principle must yield to practicability, and moral conviction is mere aesthetics.”
Jones, of course, agrees: “I got into politics for economic justice issues and I believe in social justice. But also, I’m a pragmatist and a realist and I focus on how to get things done. The measure of what we do is what we get done, or what we achieve.”
These, then, are the opinions of what passes for a “progressive” member of the political class.
But is Jones right? Do pragmatism and realism require the quest for economic and social justice to remain seated in the waiting-room of history until the political class – those professional servants of the “great beast called government” – are ready to receive them?
The history of social and economic change in New Zealand strongly suggests that Jones is very far from being right.
New Zealand’s social welfare system which, in its essentials, came into existence on 1 April 1939, wasn’t written in a dusty hall in Temuka. It was, however, written 80 miles down the road, in the tiny rural settlement of Kurow.
Its authors were Gervan Macmillan, the local GP; Arnold Nordmeyer, the local Presbyterian minister; and Andrew Davidson, the local schoolteacher. On the doctor’s dining-room table, these three – whose jobs had brought them face-to-face with the worst privations of the Great Depression – mapped out the contours of a system which would, eventually, take care of their fellow citizens “from the cradle to the grave”.
Nordmeyer and Macmillan took the plan to the 1934 Labour Party Conference, where it was enthusiastically endorsed and included in the party’s 1935 manifesto. By 1938 it was the law of the land.
Not bad for three ordinary citizens, gathered around a dining-room table in Kurow, North Otago.
And not a lobbyist in sight.
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ABOUT HADLEY GRACE ROBINSON-LEWIS: I studied at the Auckland University of Technology where I completed a Bachelor of Health Science in Nursing. I’m Passionate about, Neurology, Psychiatry, Medicine, societal issues and Maori Health. I’m highly passionate about advocating for the mentally ill. My passion for assisting the underprivileged and those experiencing hardships in relation to mental illness has led me to charity work. In 2017 I initiated a $25,000 renovation through Habitat for Humanity for a women’s refuge in Auckland. I would like to share my passion and experiences with everyone.