What has gone wrong in public broadcasting and are TVNZ and Radio NZ doing enough to live up to their 4th estate and treaty obligations.
With
Programme Leader of Pasifika Journalism at AUT – Richard Pamatatau
Waatea English News editor – Adam Gifford
AUT Communications Lecturer and media commentator – Dr Wayne Hope
And the Labour Party Spokesperson on Broadcasting, Clare Curran
DAVID SEYMOUR’S BOLD THRUST into green territory at last weekend’s Act conference has clearly rattled the Greens themselves. Even before Seymour’s keynote speech (the content of which had been leaked to key journalists well before delivery) the Greens had let it be known that they would not be offering any comment on its content.
This refusal to respond to the Act Leader’s environmental policies was, of course, a news story in itself. Why were the Greens signalling their anxiety so obviously? To the news media, it suggested that Act might just be on to something. Paradoxically, the Greens’ media strategists’ refusal to dignify Seymour’s remarks with a response did not, as intended, kill the story. All it did was make the Act leader’s speech more interesting.
Why was Act so keen to present itself as green? That was the first question to be answered. Why was a party with an appalling environmental record; a party that had proudly proclaimed its climate change scepticism; suddenly attempting to paint itself as the environmentalists’ best friend? Why was David Seymour so willing, unlike his predecessor, Rodney Hide, to declare publicly his belief in anthropogenic global warming?
The answer, of course, is because Seymour knows that the environment is about to become a crucial political battleground, and that silence on the key question of Climate Change (or, worse still, denial) is no longer a viable option for right-wing political parties. This puts the MP for Epsom well ahead of his National Party sponsors, whose lackadaisical approach to environmental issues (especially Climate Change) renders them acutely vulnerable to left-wing attack. Seymour hopes to spike the Left’s guns by transforming Act into a green party with neoliberal characteristics.
As a young man (much younger than his immediate predecessors Don Brash and John Banks) David Seymour does not need any reminding concerning the extraordinary pull of green politics on voters in the 18-25-year-old age-bracket. He, likewise, knows a crucial demographic when he sees one. A party that cannot attract a sizeable portion of the youth vote (something which Act has never quite managed to do) can have no long-term future in electoral politics. Becoming a green party with neoliberal characteristics is, therefore, Act’s last, best hope.
All the more reason, one might have thought, for the Green Party to be primed and ready to expose the absurdity of a green party with neoliberal characteristics at the very first opportunity. It’s not something that requires an overabundance of brain-power.
Take Act’s plan to privatise Landcorp, for example. This is being presented as the necessary prelude to establishing private, predator-proof sanctuaries in which endangered species can recover and thrive.
That the privatisation of Landcorp will be good for the environment is a claim based upon the state farmer’s supposed contribution to environmental pollution. But, as anyone who knows anything about Landcorp will attest, the SOE has an excellent environmental track-record. Indeed, its farming practices (especially in dairying) are recognised as the benchmarks for private farmers to follow. Its innovative land-use strategies and reforesting efforts have pointed the way in terms of “greening” the countryside.
Getting rid of Landcorp would, therefore, be a seriously retrograde step in terms of protecting the New Zealand environment – and Seymour knows it. He also knows that his proposed private sanctuaries could not possibly bear the burden imposed upon them by the dissolution of the Department of Conservation – his and Act’s true target.
The parties of the Right turned against DoC in the late-1990s and have been plotting ever since to first weaken and then destroy the prime defender and conservator of New Zealand’s clean, green image. Since coming to power in 2008, National has shamelessly starved the Department of funds, forcing repeated restructurings, job losses and an ever-greater dependence upon the commercialisation of the sort of outdoor pursuits most Kiwis once took for granted – and enjoyed for free.
The elimination of Doc would also allow the Right to revive its plans to mine for minerals in New Zealand’s conservation estate; and would clear the way for foreign buyers to take possession of the nation’s iconic landscapes.
Act’s so-called “environmental policies” are, therefore, anything but. Imposing peak-time charges for users of the roading network as a substitute for petrol tax may sound “green” – but only until you realise that it is nothing more than a device to lower the costs of the trucking companies by piling them on to ordinary commuters. Replacing a targeted Emissions Trading Scheme (which will, eventually, include the agricultural sector) with an across-the-board Carbon Tax would be equally regressive. Especially when such a tax is used to offset reductions in personal and company tax!
Seymour’s apparent embrace of “green policies” is, therefore, the exact opposite of what it appears to be. By “green-washing” its neoliberal approach to politics, Act hopes to do two things. First, to build up the party’s electoral base by luring young right-wing voters away from National. Second, it intends to absolve capitalism from having to accept significant restrictions of its actions – even as it pretends to support their imposition.
Why, then, have the Greens not seized this opportunity to expose the hollowness of Seymour’s conversion to green politics? Why not strangle Act’s green changeling in its cradle?
The answer, surely, lies in the Greens ongoing repositioning as a potential National Party coalition partner. While not identical, there are enough similarities between the Greens’ “green capitalist” policy offerings, and Act’s, to raise serious doubts in the minds of left-wing voters. Any attempt to debate the content of Seymour’s keynote speech could all-too-easily have ended-up drawing journalists’ attention to the Greens’ plans to substitute consumption and carbon taxes for the existing taxes on work and income: plans Seymour has openly endorsed by (equally openly) stealing them.
That James Shaw declined to use the occasion of Seymour’s conference speech to not only demolish his bogus green credentials, but also to reassure the Greens’ left-wing supporters that there are absolutely no circumstances which would allow the Green Party to be part of a governing coalition involving National and Act, is politically intriguing – to say the least. Big Business may be feeling reassured by Act’s belated conversion to Green Capitalism; but nowhere near as reassured as it’s being made to feel by the Green Party’s failure to instantly and publicly denounce it.
DAVID SEYMOUR’S BOLD THRUST into green territory at last weekend’s Act conference has clearly rattled the Greens themselves. Even before Seymour’s keynote speech (the content of which had been leaked to key journalists well before delivery) the Greens had let it be known that they would not be offering any comment on its content.
This refusal to respond to the Act Leader’s environmental policies was, of course, a news story in itself. Why were the Greens signalling their anxiety so obviously? To the news media, it suggested that Act might just be on to something. Paradoxically, the Greens’ media strategists’ refusal to dignify Seymour’s remarks with a response did not, as intended, kill the story. All it did was make the Act leader’s speech more interesting.
Why was Act so keen to present itself as green? That was the first question to be answered. Why was a party with an appalling environmental record; a party that had proudly proclaimed its climate change scepticism; suddenly attempting to paint itself as the environmentalists’ best friend? Why was David Seymour so willing, unlike his predecessor, Rodney Hide, to declare publicly his belief in anthropogenic global warming?
The answer, of course, is because Seymour knows that the environment is about to become a crucial political battleground, and that silence on the key question of Climate Change (or, worse still, denial) is no longer a viable option for right-wing political parties. This puts the MP for Epsom well ahead of his National Party sponsors, whose lackadaisical approach to environmental issues (especially Climate Change) renders them acutely vulnerable to left-wing attack. Seymour hopes to spike the Left’s guns by transforming Act into a green party with neoliberal characteristics.
As a young man (much younger than his immediate predecessors Don Brash and John Banks) David Seymour does not need any reminding concerning the extraordinary pull of green politics on voters in the 18-25-year-old age-bracket. He, likewise, knows a crucial demographic when he sees one. A party that cannot attract a sizeable portion of the youth vote (something which Act has never quite managed to do) can have no long-term future in electoral politics. Becoming a green party with neoliberal characteristics is, therefore, Act’s last, best hope.
All the more reason, one might have thought, for the Green Party to be primed and ready to expose the absurdity of a green party with neoliberal characteristics at the very first opportunity. It’s not something that requires an overabundance of brain-power.
Take Act’s plan to privatise Landcorp, for example. This is being presented as the necessary prelude to establishing private, predator-proof sanctuaries in which endangered species can recover and thrive.
That the privatisation of Landcorp will be good for the environment is a claim based upon the state farmer’s supposed contribution to environmental pollution. But, as anyone who knows anything about Landcorp will attest, the SOE has an excellent environmental track-record. Indeed, its farming practices (especially in dairying) are recognised as the benchmarks for private farmers to follow. Its innovative land-use strategies and reforesting efforts have pointed the way in terms of “greening” the countryside.
Getting rid of Landcorp would, therefore, be a seriously retrograde step in terms of protecting the New Zealand environment – and Seymour knows it. He also knows that his proposed private sanctuaries could not possibly bear the burden imposed upon them by the dissolution of the Department of Conservation – his and Act’s true target.
The parties of the Right turned against DoC in the late-1990s and have been plotting ever since to first weaken and then destroy the prime defender and conservator of New Zealand’s clean, green image. Since coming to power in 2008, National has shamelessly starved the Department of funds, forcing repeated restructurings, job losses and an ever-greater dependence upon the commercialisation of the sort of outdoor pursuits most Kiwis once took for granted – and enjoyed for free.
The elimination of Doc would also allow the Right to revive its plans to mine for minerals in New Zealand’s conservation estate; and would clear the way for foreign buyers to take possession of the nation’s iconic landscapes.
Act’s so-called “environmental policies” are, therefore, anything but. Imposing peak-time charges for users of the roading network as a substitute for petrol tax may sound “green” – but only until you realise that it is nothing more than a device to lower the costs of the trucking companies by piling them on to ordinary commuters. Replacing a targeted Emissions Trading Scheme (which will, eventually, include the agricultural sector) with an across-the-board Carbon Tax would be equally regressive. Especially when such a tax is used to offset reductions in personal and company tax!
Seymour’s apparent embrace of “green policies” is, therefore, the exact opposite of what it appears to be. By “green-washing” its neoliberal approach to politics, Act hopes to do two things. First, to build up the party’s electoral base by luring young right-wing voters away from National. Second, it intends to absolve capitalism from having to accept significant restrictions of its actions – even as it pretends to support their imposition.
Why, then, have the Greens not seized this opportunity to expose the hollowness of Seymour’s conversion to green politics? Why not strangle Act’s green changeling in its cradle?
The answer, surely, lies in the Greens ongoing repositioning as a potential National Party coalition partner. While not identical, there are enough similarities between the Greens’ “green capitalist” policy offerings, and Act’s, to raise serious doubts in the minds of left-wing voters. Any attempt to debate the content of Seymour’s keynote speech could all-too-easily have ended-up drawing journalists’ attention to the Greens’ plans to substitute consumption and carbon taxes for the existing taxes on work and income: plans Seymour has openly endorsed by (equally openly) stealing them.
That James Shaw declined to use the occasion of Seymour’s conference speech to not only demolish his bogus green credentials, but also to reassure the Greens’ left-wing supporters that there are absolutely no circumstances which would allow the Green Party to be part of a governing coalition involving National and Act, is politically intriguing – to say the least. Big Business may be feeling reassured by Act’s belated conversion to Green Capitalism; but nowhere near as reassured as it’s being made to feel by the Green Party’s failure to instantly and publicly denounce it.
Can there be two more monstrous dirty politics operatives than Lusk and Palino?
News they are teaming up in Auckland for a run at the mayoralty should genuinely concern every New Zealander.
Let us remind everyone of the recent past of these two political sadists.
Lusk’s weird love of destroying people that he shared with Slater is well documented in Hager’s Dirty Politics. He has detailed that his political strategy is to inject venom into politics so that ordinary voters who can’t stand the sleaze don’t vote leaving the minority to win.
One of Slater’s primary collaborators is the political strategist Simon Lusk. Allegations:
Garner alleges that Lusk took money to bribe Maori voters to vote against Hone Harawira.
Later in Story last Monday, TV3 reporters quizzed several MPs in Parliament about their relationships with Simon Lusk. The discomfort of some was clear. Evidently the exposure of Dirty Politics hasn’t scared off all his political clients. Duncan Garner also revealed supporters of Labour’s Napier MP Stewart Nash paid Simon Lusk to canvas the option of a new political party, and that Simon Lusk had told him Labour MP Phil Twyford would be his next target.
Simon Lusk also claimed on Story he had been instrumental in unseating Mana Party co-leader Hone Harawira in the last election. Unnamed “businessmen” had paid thousands for that, he said. And in conversation with his co-host last Monday, Duncan Garner said money had been paid to get Maori electors to vote in Te Tai Tokerau.
Lusk is a political strategist who is so dangerous the National Party tried to formally push him and Slater away in 2013…
National turns on hard right advisor
Simon Lusk pushed to get rid of the “wet wing” and make sure MPs obeyed donors. Now a leaker has revealed his agenda in an attempt to discredit him
Leaked documents written by a political strategist who has trained National MPs set out a vision for taking the party to the right of the political spectrum, tripling donations to $6 million a year and using donations and government jobs as inducements to control MPs.
Which brings us to the candidate…
The Brown-Chuang-Palino rom-com became a cross between the Sopranos & the Clintons with more slimy details of this affair sinking it into another level of the sewer. Turns out after denying any knowledge of anything, Palino actually met with Chuang late night in a carpark two days before Slater announced the odious details on his toxic blog.
We all meet people we barely know late at night in carparks for chit chat n stuff eh?
Palino went from “I know nothing”, to “I know something” in the space of days.
We need to also believe that Slater mentioned nothing of this to his father, John Slater who was Palino’s campaign manager and that Luigi, a staff member for Palino, who went to Slater’s Candidate Camp, didn’t mention any of this to anyone. None of this nest of gossiping vipers spoke to anyone else about a goal they all seemed to be moving towards is something that requires large amounts of medical morphine to make convincing.
And what about Luigi Wewege?
What kind of person sleeps with a woman to use that relationship as leverage to pressure them into sleeping with the Mayor and record it? Why National Party wannabes, that’s who…
17/08/2013 09.21
Luigi Wewege: Morning babe … Probable going to have to go back to bed shortly. Wanna come over for a morning f***?17/08/2013 09.23
Bev Lolibee: Baby I’m out to put up more hoardings, sorry. xox28/08/2013 02.13
Luigi Wewege: Baby you get an incriminating text from Lenny.B and John said he would give me off every weekend until the election! [happy face]28/08/2013
Bev Lolibee: I can’t get anything from Len. Text, phone call, nothing. So please stop asking and giving me pressure.28/08/2013 07.36
Bev Lolibee: And really very disappointed with you. All you cared about is how I can help you get incriminting evidence so John can win. You’ve never ever considered my feelings or my situations. Actions speak louder than words. My love for you is unconditional. And if you can’t do that, stop telling me you love me if you don’t.29/08/2013 14.02
Luigi Wewege: Don’t worry you don’t have to see me on Saturday.
Luigi Wewege comes across like one of those cretinous social climbing slime balls that pollute the Young Nat landscape like metastasizing cancer tumors in a smoker’s lungs. His ingratiatingly greasy photo ops with anyone he thought could help him up the National Party hierarchy are as contemptuous as they are revolting. How this kind of carcnogenic arsehole can gain political traction is something the Surgeon General should be called upon to investigate. Luigi Wewege should come with some kind of health warning, ‘May cause you to read Whaleoil’.
So we have a political operative with all the business ethics of a drug cartel teaming up with a candidate so emerged in the Dirty Politics around using Len’s affair for political gain it is extraordinary that he has the gall to offer himself up for Auckland’s mayoralty again.
Expect to see a dirty campaign against Phil Goff the likes of which we have never seen.
Government botches chance to jumpstart the economy
While the government confirms the minimum wage will rise 50 cents to $15.25 an hour, a trade union representing low paid workers is criticising the “meagre” increase as a missed opportunity to assist the lowest paid workers and boost the economy at the same time.
“There’s still an enormous gap between the Living Wage, what working people and their families need to survive and thrive, and the minimum wage. The new living wage figure is due to be released later today.”
“In our submission to the Minimum Wage Review in October 2015 we called for a minimum wage that’s at least two-thirds of the average wage, or $19.46. That brings us much closer to what working people need.”
“With a low CPI and the threat of deflation, New Zealand is in a unique situation. It could have substantially increased the minimum wage to boost spending in the economy (as the Reserve Bank has called for); reduced inequality; and given working people the peace of mind that they cannot be paid less than they need to live.”
“A significant increase to the minimum wage would have ticked all the boxes,” says Reid.
“But the government has ticked none.”
So now we are finally seeing the lengths the NZ Army went to to destroy Jon Stephenson.
Your tax dollars hard at work…
Afghan witness still in NZ
A failed challenge to the credibility of a journalist by the Defence Force has blown up in its face, cost taxpayers more than $1 million and resulted in an Afghan police unit commander whose evidence did not survive scrutiny seeking to stay in New Zealand as a refugee.The commander was flown out to be the Defence Force’s key witness in a defamation case but the Herald can reveal he did not return home after the retrial was abandoned and is seeking to stay permanently.
In response to one of a series of Official Information Act requests by the Herald, the Defence Force confirmed only one of two people it flew from Afghanistan for the retrial boarded their return flight on December 15, 2014.
“No further information is able to be provided on the second person,” it said.
The Herald understands the person who returned to Kabul was an interpreter and that the commander remains in New Zealand and is pursuing an application to be accepted as a refugee.
It is unlawful under the Immigration Act to deport a person until their refugee application has been determined.
The Defence Force abruptly changed tack in its defamation case against journalist Jon Stephenson after the commander testified at a secret High Court sitting in Wellington on December 2014.
According to the court list, the hearing was “to take evidence”.
After the hearing, the Defence Force settled with Stephenson, paid him a six-figure sum and expressed “regret”.
During the three-year battle, the Defence Force used 15 lawyers at a cost of $643,000.
Stephenson sued the Defence Force chief at the time, Lieutenant General Rhys Jones, and the force, claiming he was defamed in a press release General Jones issued in 2011 in response to a Metro magazine article by Stephenson about the handling of detainees in Afghanistan. The article raised whether SAS troops had passed prisoners to authorities known to torture.
The journalist argued the press release accused him of making up a visit to an Afghan police Crisis Response Unit base in Kabul and interview with the commander.
The commander did not give evidence at a trial in July 2013 during the course of which, and in response to testimony by the journalist, General Jones accepted Stephenson had gone to the base and probably spoken to the commander.
Despite the judge directing the jury that there was now no challenge to Stephenson’s account, the jury did not reach a verdict.
The Defence Force proceeded towards a retrial but in a statement last November said it and General Jones now accepted Stephenson did in fact gain entry to the base and interview the CRU commander.
The Defence Force paid for the commander to fly to New Zealand on November 10, 2014.
The secret hearing was in early December and he was booked to fly back to Kabul on December 15 but did not board the flight, a Defence Force spokeswoman confirmed.
The spokeswoman said the Defence Force had not offered support for the commander’s immigration application.
No explanation was given for abandoning the planned retrial.
The ease with which the NZ Army was able to smear a journalist for highlighting possible war crimes was due to Key publicly joining in on the smearing…
Prime Minister John Key attacked Stephenson’s credibility at the time.
“I’ve got no reason for the NZDF to be lying, and I’ve found [Stephenson] myself personally not to be credible,” Mr Key said in May 2011.
Mr Key’s office last night said the Prime Minister had nothing further to add.
The attack on Stephenson’s credibility by the Lieutenant General’s comments in the wake of Stephenson’s Metro expose that highlighted NZ SAS involvement in handing over Afghan civilians to known torture units is an active tactic to attack a journalist rather than some simple mistake.
The NZDF didn’t make a mistake, they were attempting to discredit Stephenson rather than engage with his accusations that the NZDF was culpable in breaching the Geneva contention.
This matters because Stephenson has been one of the few voices in the NZ Media who has challenged the NZDFs sanitized version of what we have been doing in Afghanistan. Sadly much of the mainstream media in NZ have been willingly manipulated and played by the NZDFs spin doctoring as has been disclosed by Nicky Hager in his book ‘Other Peoples Wars‘.
Here is what John Armstrong had to say about the revelations of media manipulation exposed by Hager…
Those who think Nicky Hager is just another left-wing stirrer and dismiss his latest book accordingly should think again.
Likewise, the country’s politicians should read Other People’s Wars before condemning it.
Whatever Hager’s motive for investigating New Zealand’s contribution over the past decade to the United States-led “war on terror”, it is pretty irrelevant when placed alongside the mountain of previously confidential and very disturbing information his assiduous research and inquiries have uncovered.
With the help of well-placed informants and thousands of leaked documents, Hager exposes the cynical manner in which the Defence Force has purposely misled the public by omission of pertinent facts and public relations flannel.
…so the NZDFs history of playing the mainstream media is well documented, and that needs to be understood as the context to their attempt at discrediting Stephenson. It was dirty propaganda at its most cynical. The NZDF knew Stephenson was right, what they needed to do after such a devastating critique of torture allegations was denounce Stephenson rather than admit any of his claims.
When the military are actively discrediting Journalists with lies to hide what they are really doing in a war none of us have sanctioned they should be up on Treason charges rather than Defamation.
We know the NZDF have manipulated the spin within a pretty compliant media regarding our true role in Afghanistan, this disinformation campaign aimed at Stephenson was simply an extension of that media management.
Claiming Stephenson never visited the base or spoke to who he had claimed to have spoken to allowed the Military to side-step having to engage in allegations that were effectively a breach of the Geneva Convention.
Committing war crimes tends to be a dampener on domestic support.
This case was an attempt to put those tactics up on trial and show them for what there were, defamation with malice. After showing evidence of Stephenson visiting the base and talking to the Commander, Lieutenant General Rhys Jones admitted that Stephenson visited the base and spoke to the commander.
Let’s stress that point, Lieutenant General Rhys Jones admitted during the trial that what he had said was not true. The NZDF still had up on their website the claims Stephenson had never visited the base or spoken to the commander when the trial began.
That original trial against the NZDF bewilderingly ended in a hung jury and it created a message that the context of which this defamation occurred would see the public side with the version of authority – even after that authority admits they were wrong.
The societal peers of journalism set a self-mutalatingly high threshold for the interests of oligarchic justice by not finding against the NZDF.
There is a deep problem here.
If we look at Nicky Hager’s previous book, Other People’s Wars, the insidious ability of the NZ Defence Force to manipulate and co-opt mainstream media into being their propaganda tools is well researched, and unsettling.
Take for example ‘Kiwi Camp’ in Afghanistan. It was sold via the embedded mainstream media as some type of Engineering peace corps rebuilding schools, bridges and wells. Independent reports citing the work we did for the locals called our efforts “poorly planned” and “wildly exaggerated”. Embedded journalists Guyon Espiner and Vernan Small both visited Kiwi Camp and later noted (after being outed by the book) the CIA were using our base as a cover, yet both failed to mention that as anything worth informing NZers about. The CIA were using our base as a front because Provincial Reconstruction Teams don’t get attacked the way Forward Operating bases do, but neither journalist thought that manipulation was news worthy at the time.
From Other People’s Wars…
having CIA operatives inside the Kiwi base fitted poorly with the deployment’s stated goals. Why would the New Zealand authorities risk the New Zealanders working at Kiwi Base, and the credibility of the New Zealand peacekeeping mission, by mixing them up with a CIA operation? After the suicide attack on the FOB [forward operating base] Chapman, the issue of CIA operations inside a provincial reconstruction team was widely discussed. The Times wrote that “PRTs have been criticised widely for endangering civilian aid workers by blurring the line between development staff and the military.
The media’s self censoring compliance with the NZDF and their willingness to don flak jackets and helmets to play the intrepid journalist shtick is actually part of the problem.
This self censorship and ability to be so easily manipulated by the NZDF alongside their aggressive attempts to smear any journalist who challenges them should be the lead story. It won’t be because Max Key’s new song is number one on spotify.
I am becoming more worried as time goes by that we are heading for a demographic pensions disaster.
The more government refuses to talk about NZ Super, the more the opposition also fall into line with endorsing the status quo, the sharper, less well-judged, more distributionally unfair, any inevitable correction will be.
In the 1990s, the age of eligibility was raised by 5 years over just a decade, an incredibly fast rate of change with little warning. My concern is that we are heading the same way as it becomes ever more apparent that NZ Super spending is on a runaway track at the same time as social services spending of all kinds are impossibly squeezed and the government is obsessed by tax cuts.
So how best to save costs in superannuation? It is almost impossible in this country to discuss any form of clawback of NZ Super from the top earners who clearly don’t need this generous universal payment. But as no-one wants the level to be cut which would recreate elder poverty, or the link to wages removed, raising the age is about all that is left.
What is different in the 2010s compared to the 1990s? Can’t we just shove the age up to 70 so as stop payments to those reaching 65 and still working?
What is different, sadly, is that the employment prospects for those over 50, especially older women have become bleak. As the UK lifts its age for women to 66 there is groundswell of alarm in that country:
“Clearly, something has to give in a state pension system never designed for 21st-century life expectancy. Living longer inevitably means working longer too. But that’s no help to older women who can’t just grit their teeth and work longer as a result of Osborne’s measure, because they’re not even working now: women made redundant late in their fifties, who can’t persuade employers that they’re not past it; women who are sick, or caring for sick partners, or who retired early thinking they could live off their savings for a bit and now realise the money won’t stretch until the pension comes in.”
Insecure periods of work can make it a pipe dream to pay off the mortgage or even to own a home. Women are often affected by care duties to their children and to their parents and many of those currently in their 50s and 60s will not reach retirement in a healthy financial state. Recovery after divorce redundancy, and ill health can often decimate the retirement pot. Some women have not even taken out KiwiSaver or are not contributing. In any case, KiwiSaver wont be the answer for women without traditional male career paths as social provision tied to paid work does not work well for them.
The Salvation Army report Homeless Baby boomers painted a grim picture and concluded:
“It is already the case that rates of home ownership have declined in a structural way – that younger people have substantially less chance of owning their own home than people their age did a generation earlier. This decline applies as much to younger baby boomers as it does to members of Generation X which is following them. This decline will mean that more and more people will reach retirement without the security and imputed incomes which come about through home ownership and lower housing costs. The adequacy of current retirement income entitlements to meet the housing and living costs of this growing group of older tenants is already being tested. Evidence of this pressure is available in the rising proportion of those people receiving the Accommodation Supplement who are also receiving New Zealand Superannuation. The forecasts offered here suggest that this current demand for supplementary income is a tip of an iceberg – this demand will grow as younger baby boomer cohorts reach retirement age.”
Treasury warns that demographic change associated with ageing produces marked fiscal pressures from NZS and Healthcare. The day of reckoning is close and some rational discussion would be nice. May be an apolitical taskforce could examine all the issues.
Over the years I have changed my mind about raising the age. I believe it would be much better to pay NZS as a basic income with a tax scale for additional income. By doing so we could save at least 10% of the costs, see suggested reform without hurting anyone. Most would see no or little difference in their weekly disposable income while those who earn a great deal are unlikely to notice the effective loss.
We know that technology is rapidly destroying jobs as society’s material needs become more efficiently met and the demand for labour falls. Yes, this time it does seem to be different and it looks like technology will not magic up enough jobs as it has in the past. This is a huge opportunity to give those that desire it, more free time. Thus the age for NZ Super might actually be usefully lowered over time as the idea of a basic income takes hold, releasing more women (and increasingly men) from the drudgery of paid work to do the creative and caring work that they would like to do and that is valuable to society on many levels. Such an approach of course would not discourage an older person from supplementing their unconditional basic income when appropriate with casual, intermittent or part-time paid work.
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Recently obtained OIA figures from the Ministry of Social Development reveal that 836 schools currently participate in the Kickstart food-in-schools programme. The programme began in 2009, between Fonterra and Sanitarium, to address a growing child poverty crisis.
According to MSD’s data, over 100,000 breakfasts are served to 27,061 children on a weekly basis.
This is in stark contrast to John Key’s claims on 5 November 2014, that hungry children in schools was only a minor problem;
“I do not believe that the number of children who go to decile 1 to 4 schools who do not have lunch is 15 percent. I have asked extensively at the decile 1, 2, 3, and 4 schools I have been to. Quite a number of principals actually even reject the notion that they need breakfast in schools. Those who do take breakfasts in schools tell me that for the odd child who does not have lunch, they either give them some more breakfast or provide them with lunch. But what they have said to me is that the number of children in those schools who actually require lunch is the odd one or two.”
“The odd one or two” is contradicted by the ministry’s own figures which states that from 13 December 2013, “more than 5.9 million breakfasts have been served since expansion“.
This would tally from Key’s own admission, on 18 October 2011, that poverty in New Zealand was continuing to worsen under his administration;
Mr Key made the concession yesterday when asked about progress with the underclass, saying it depended what measures were used but recessions tended to disproportionately affect low income earners and young people.
He said he had visited a number of budgeting services and food banks “and I think it’s fair to say they’ve seen an increase in people accessing their services. So that situation is there.”
National expanded the Kickstart programme in May 2013, in response to growing public disquiet and clamour to address the spectacle of children turning up hungry in our schools. It was also in response to Hone Harawira’s Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill (aka, “Feed the Kids” Bill), which had been included six months earlier in the private member’s ballot system.
As Harawira explained in May 2014,
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National’s subsequent, watered down programme to feed hungry children was derided by then-Labour leader, David Shearer;
“National’s been dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line on this. It’s only through public pressure and the pressure of Opposition parties like the Labour Party that’s got them there. But overall, it’s good for those kids who go to school hungry.”
In June 2013, then Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett, assured Radio NZ that only another hundred schools would take up the expanded Kickstart programme.
By the beginning of 2014, the programme was expanded to include all decile 1 to 10 primary, intermediate, and secondary schools.
However, MSD’s Deputy Chief Executive, Murray Edridge, revealed that there had been a “47 per cent increase since the expansion of the programme” in 2013;
“82 per cent of all participating schools are now providing KickStart breakfasts for more than two days per week and 58 per cent of schools are serving breakfasts for all five days of the week.”
This is at variance with Key’s assertions – made as late as 19 March last year – that hungry children going to school was not a problem. In minimising the problem, Key said;
“These are the facts,” Mr Key said. “At Te Waiu o Ngati Porou School, Ruatoria, Decile one, how many children came to school without lunch – answer – zero.”
At Sylvia Park School, decile two – there one or two kids, and at Manurewa Intermediate, a decile one school with a roll of 711, perhaps 12 had gone to school with no lunch.
Yes there is an issue where some children come to school without lunch. That number of children is relatively low.”
The rise in demand for KickStart breakfasts occurred at the same time as those on welfare benefits was cut dramatically;
Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said today the 309,145 people on benefit at the end of the December 2014 quarter was 12,700 fewer than last year.
“This is the lowest December quarter since 2008 and the third consecutive quarter with such record lows,” Tolley says.
Numbers on the Jobseeker Support benefit had fallen by more than 5500 since last year and had declined consistently since 2010, even as the overall working age population increased.
Even children with disabilities did not escaped this government’s culling of welfare recipients;
More than 11,000 disabled children have lost access to a welfare benefit that is supposed to support them, as officials try to rein in previously-ballooning costs.
A Child Poverty Action Group report on disabled children, launched in Auckland today, said children supported by the child disability allowance almost trebled from 17,600 in 1998 to 45,800 in 2009, but were then cut back to just 34,500 last June.
The cut has been achieved both by tightening criteria and by simply not publicising the allowance.
The problem of hungry school children drew John Key’s attention as far back as 2007, when he was still Leader of the Opposition;
National launches its Food in Schools programme
Sunday, 4 February 2007, 1:21 pm
Press Release: New Zealand GovernmentJohn Key MP
National Party Leader3 February 2007
National launches its Food in Schools programme
National Party Leader John Key has announced the first initiative in what will be a National Food in Schools programme.
“National is committed to providing practical solutions to the problems which Helen Clark says don’t exist,” says Mr Key.
During his State of the Nation speech on Tuesday, Mr Key indicated National would seek to introduce a food in schools programme at our poorest schools in partnership with the business community.
Mr Key has since received an approach from Auckland-based company Tasti foods.
“I approached Wesley Primary School yesterday, a decile 1 school near McGehan Close, a street that has had more than its fair share of problems in recent times. I am told Wesley Primary, like so many schools in New Zealand, has too many kids turning up hungry.
“We’re putting Tasti and Wesley Primary together. This is a fantastic first step. In addition to this, Tasti has indicated they may wish to expand their generous donation of food to other schools in need, and we’ll be looking to facilitate that.
“We all instinctively know that hungry kids aren’t happy and healthy kids.”
Mr Key is also inviting other businesses to contact National so it can work on expanding the programme.
“I want this to be the first of many schools and businesses that we put together. I’m interested in what works and I am humbled by the support this idea has received already. We are going to put together the package while in Opposition. We are not waiting to be in Government, because all our kids deserve better.”
According to National, this was a critical problem in 2007.
Yet, on 19 March, National and it’s coalition supporters voted down Mana’s “Feed the Kids” Bill (which had been taken over by the Green Party after Hone Harawira lost his Te Tai Tokerau seat in 2014). The Bill was defeated 61 to 59, courtesy of National, ACT, and Peter Dunne.
MSD also disclosed that 26 applications for participation in the KickStart programme had been declined. This included Early Childhood Education (ECE) providers. No reason was given despite the OIA request specifically asking the basis for which applications were declined.
This indicates that pre-schoolers are presently attending ECE facilities and going hungry.
The MSD also admitted that Charter Schools – which are funded at a higher rate than State and Integrated Schools – also participate in the KickStart programme. Their information did not reveal how many or which Charter Schools were participating. The MSD statement confirmed that “the provision of the [KickStart] programme does not affect a school’s funding“.
Kidscan currently lists fourteen schools that are still awaiting “urgent support, that’s 1,661 children waiting for food, clothing and basic healthcare“.
In contrast, several European nations provide free meals to school children;
The school lunch provides an important opportunity for learning healthy habits, and well-balanced school meals have been linked to improved concentration in class, better educational outcomes and fewer sick days. Given the importance of these meals, what is being done across Europe to ensure all children have a balanced and enjoyable lunch?
Many countries in Europe have policies to help schools provide nutritionally balanced meals which also reflect the general eating culture of each nation. Often, lunch is eaten in a cafeteria-like setting where children receive food from a central service point (e.g. Finland, Sweden and Italy).
In Finland and Sweden, where all school meals are fully funded by the government, lunches follow national dietary guidelines including the ‘plate model’. An example meal is presented to guide children’s self-service…
Finland – which consistently scores highly in OECD PISA educational rankings – introduced free school meals in 1948;
Finland was the first country in the world to serve free school meals. 1948 is seen as being the year when free school catering really started, though catering activities on a smaller scale had been around since the beginning of the 20th century.
[…]
Section 31 of the Basic Education Act states that pupils attending school must be provided with a properly organised and supervised, balanced meal free of charge every school day.
[…]
The role of school meals is to be a pedagogical tool to teach good nutrition and eating habits as well as to increase consumption of vegetables, fruits and berries, full corn bread and skimmed or low fat milk.
Interestingly, the Finns describe free school meals as an Investment in Learning;
In Finland, we are proud of our long history of providing free school meals…
… A good school meal is an investment in the future.
With rising housing and rental costs, and wage increases at or below inflation, not every family can successfully balance budgets to ensure a nutritious meal for their children. When it comes to a decision whether to pay the power bill, or cut back on groceries for the week – it is often the latter that is sacrificed.
The Salvation Army recently outlined the problem of the phenomenon known as the “working poor“;
Every week 314 new people contact the Salvation Army for assistance, and those who are currently working are often at risk too.
[…]The Salvation Army says it is meeting more and more responsible people who have experienced misfortune that has derailed their lives.
It believes the cost of rent is a dangerous factor, even for those working.
“It doesn’t leave a lot of room for something to go wrong,” says Jason Dilger, a representative for the Salvation Army. “I do believe there are a significant number of people out there who are vulnerable.”
It says an increasing number of Kiwis are living pay-by-pay, but ideally everyone would have a financial safety net set aside to help with any unexpected hiccups.
“So many people aren’t even in a position to think that way because they’re just trying to meet expenses week to week.”
In a 2014 report, the Salvation Army stated;
Given the recent growth in the number of jobs available and the gradual decline in levels of unemployment, we should have seen a tapering off in demand for food parcels from food banks. We have not seen this. Such demand has remained virtually unchanged since 2010, which suggests that many households are still struggling to pay bills and feed their family despite the economy recovery. Overall living costs of low income households appear to be moving in line with general inflation.
Which illustrates that the problems faced by poor, lowly-paid, and beneficiary families is not choices in expenditure – but low incomes which fail to meet the many day-to-day, week-to-week, demands placed on them.
From the 1950s through to the 1970s, a single income was often sufficient to raise a family and pay the bills.
In contemporary New Zealand, this is no longer the case. Falling rates of home-ownership is just one indicator that incomes are not keeping pace with rising costs of living.
Growing child poverty is another symptom of the increase in inequality since the mid-1980s. Prior to the 1980s, food banks were practically an unknown rarity;
“Nationally, the number of foodbanks exploded following the 1991 benefit cuts, and the passage of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). For those in already low-paid and casual jobs, the ECA resulted in even lower wages (McLaughlin, 1998), a situation exacerbated by the high unemployment of the early 1990s (11% in 1991). The benefit cuts left many with debts, and little money to buy food (Downtown Community Ministry, 1999). In 1992 the introduction of market rents for state houses dealt another blow to state tenants on low incomes. By 1994 it was estimated that there were about 365 foodbanks nationally, one-fifth of which had been set up in the previous year (Downtown Community Ministry, 1999).” – “Hard to swallow – Foodbank Usage in NZ”, Child Poverty Action Group, 2005
Shifting responsibility for this ever-growing problem onto victims of inequality and poverty is a form of denial. It is little more an attempt to evade the problem, especially when no practical solutions (other than class-based eugenics) are offered.
Addressing the real causes of poverty and working-poor will be a tough call. Ensuring that all children are provided nutritious meals at school is the first step down this road.
As John Key said nine years ago;
“We all instinctively know that hungry kids aren’t happy and healthy kids.
… all our kids deserve better.”
Indeed, John. I couldn’t have said it better.
Postscript
The MSD response to my OIA request also confirmed that the increased up-take of the KickStart programme was not restricted solely to low-decile schools;
Since the expansion [in 2013] 170 schools rated decile five or higher have joined the programme.
Which indicates that schools in middle-class areas are now requiring State assistance to feed hungry children.
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References
Email: OIA Response from Ministry of Social Development
Kickstart Programme: Home
NZ Herald: Key admits underclass still growing
NZ Herald: 300,000+ Kiwi kids now in relative poverty
Parliament Today: Questions and Answers – November 5
Scoop media: Hone Harawira – Feed the Kids Bill
NZ Herald: Harawira’s ‘feed the kids’ bill begins first reading
Radio NZ: Govt gives $9.5m to expand food in schools programme
Radio NZ: Government to expand food in schools programme (audio)
Kickstart Programme: FAQ
NZ Herald: Government votes down ‘feed the kids’ bill
Radio NZ: Parliament rejects free school lunch bills
Fairfax media: Beneficiary numbers fall again: Government
NZ Herald: 11,000 disabled children lose welfare benefit
Scoop media: National launches its Food in Schools programme
Radio NZ: Ministry says charter schools “over-funding” is $888,000
Kidscan: Supporting Schools
European Food Information Council: School lunch standards in Europe
Wikipedia: Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) – 2012
Finnish National Board of Education: School Meals in Finland – Investment in Learning
TV3 News: Salvation Army reaches out to working poor
Salvation Army: Striking a Better Balance
NZ Federation of Family Budgetting: Why are so many of us struggling financially?
Child Poverty Action Group: Hard to swallow: Foodbank use in New Zealand
Additional
Fightback: Feed the Kids, end the hunger system
NZ Herald: Number of Kiwi kids in poverty jumps by 60,000
Previous related blogposts
Can we afford to have “a chat on food in schools”?
National dragged kicking and screaming to the breakfast table
Are we being milked? asks Minister
High milk prices? Well, now we know why
Poor people – let them eat cake; grow veges; not breed; and other parroted right wing cliches
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Is Inter-generational War too harsh? How about an Inter-generational Police action then?
My favourite mentor and political commentator, Comrade Chris Trotter, has made some worthy points in his blog criticising my identification of inter-gednerational frictions in the intensification debate raging in Auckland.
But he also attempts to draw some incredibly long bows.
‘Boomer bashing’ as you put it needs some definition. You are of course right that boomers didn’t pick their parents anymore than I did, or anymore than a person picks their race, or sexual orientation, or gender BUT what you do with your priviledge you can be judged on.
Boomers were the first youth generation, you did so much comrade to force liberal and progressive change in NZ and around the world. We generations who have followed you can be nothing but grateful for the liberal society we have inherited from you. Nuclear free NZ, the Springbok tour activism and an environmental movement alongside feminism, personal freedoms and genuine reflection on racism against Maori and Pacific Islanders are momentoues achivements in the face of power.
But – and here’s where we get to the but Comrade – somehwere along the line, in the 1980s, Boomers stopped pushing for universal cradel to the grave social services and started wanting those just for themselves.
The golden environment of full employment, strong unions, free education and a job at the drop of a hat was replaced with user pays selfishness. There is no way of course that all boomers fell into this, many – yourself included comrade- never lost the beliefs your hearts cherished, but many boomers did and it was those boomers who jeered and laughed at Generation Zero last week as they attempted to voice the aspirations of Gen Xers and Gen Y and millenials who have been left to rot in an ocean of debt.
Calling ones elders out on their priviledge is no easy task, but to claim boomer priviledge is somehow sacred and criticising it unfair can not match up with the reality that 30 000 of your peers Comrade stopped the apsirations of 206 000 of my peers last week.
The irony of a rich boomer group like Auckland 2040 is that by then, the planets climate change problems will probably be out of control and they won’t be here to deal with it. Wealthy boomers have voted for and continue to vote for political parties who feather their nests, not think about everyones nests.
Gen X, Gen Y, millennials and the poor have been betrayed by a user pays culture while many of those boomers who benefitted from cradle to grave support jeer and mock. To turn criticism of a generations privilege into a comparison with the way Jews have historically been treated as you did in your blog seems a tad absurd comrade.
Where I do agree with you Chris is the need to reach out to boomers and try to get them on board with change. To rekindle that idealiosm that they channelled so effectively in their youth to make the here and now better, to have their place in the progressive struggle filled by their voices and experiences and their wisdom.
So let’s welcome those boomers with the same passion as their youth, but expect no easy ride for your fellow brothers and sisters who have merely lifted the ladder up after themselves.
Cam has claimed in a blog posted yesterday that my new 7pm current affairs show won’t last very long. It’s funny because only last month Cam was predicting that I would be arrested by the Police for my role in the shut down of Auckland during the TPPA protest.
Well, here I am Cam, still walking around a free man, so I’ll take your new prediction that our new TV show will be short lived with the usual spade full of salt.
YOU however Cammy look like you are going to have a very bad March in the Courts. I’ll make a prediction about you champ, you’ll have that begging bowl of yours out begging your deluded readers to donate more money to help pay more legal costs. I can’t imagine the legal costs of a media company are cheap.
You aren’t the champ you once were champ. You have become so radioactive no one keeps you in the loop any longer and the hypocrisy Cam, it’s just so overwhelming. The dirty filthy things you were prepared to do in Dirty Politics means you have no moral high ground to bitch about people posting unsavory comments on the RNZ Campbell facebook page, and as for your constant wailing about name suppression (cough, cough) you and I both know how jaw dropping your audacity in that is.
The despicable manner in which you went after Matthew Blomfield, the crass comments you made about Colin Craig and the (cough, cough) other issues are all coming home to roost Cammy, and no one deserves the karma payout you’ll be on the recieving end in March quite as much as you.
There has been much debate over whether we can or should criticise the children of politicians. It’s an interesting situation. Helen Clark didn’t have children and John Key’s Prime Ministership comes at a time of massive social media growth explosion that puts his daughters private school Parisian ‘artistic’ qualities on display as well as his son’s musical and modelling talents.
John Key uses social media and corporate radio to maximum effect. He loves commercial yuff radio because they have become depoliticised wastelands where instead of holding Key to account for appalling student debt or high levels of youth unemployment, the PM gets to bloke it up and joke about workplace bullying, gay marriage, domestic abuse and prison rape. The fractured social media landscape and free market corporate radio espouse the very anti-intellectual-beer-around- the-BBQ relaxed casual fascism that makes middle NuZilind love Key more than their own pets.
Into this media world Key’s own children have carved out niche markets. Stephie Key as created a soft porn alter-ego ‘Cherry Lazar’ to examine culture with and Max Key is a DJ and a model.
We can not hate on Stephie or Max for who their father is, that would be beneath the level of debate we on the Left try to keep when debating politics, but what we can loath is their privilege and the vacuous ‘celebrity’ NZ news that keeps Max in the headlines.
While it is not their fault or responsibility who their father is, what they have done with that enormous amount of privilege IS their responsibility and we can criticise that.
Max Key is not volunteering his time to those less fortunate, he isn’t using his position to help give voice to those without voice and he hasn’t used his privilege for anyone else other than Max Key. That self-centred and shallow pursuit is made even less worthy when you consider many with far less are continuing to suffer and do far more in the country he lives in.
I have no time for Max Key, or his endeavours, not because of who his father is, but because he has used his privilege for himself. There’s nothing worthy or unique or special about being self-absorbed.
At his Party Convention yesterday – newly rehoused from the phone-box customarily used in previous years – David Seymour took aim at the Greens.
There’s nothing especially new about this … except for the angle of the attack.
For you see, in Seymour’s world, being part of a Yellow party that’s frequently overlain by Blue, makes one apparently a rather deep shade of green. That was certainly how I felt reading some of his speech.
The substance of Seymour’s claim to be “more Green than the Green Party” appears to be based around the fact he spent $550 less in air-fares than the average Green MP in the last quarter of 2015.
That’s um … not a lot of air-travel, to be frank. Particularly if the fares in question are business-class.
There’s also a reasonably obvious reason why a Green MP might rack up more in air-fares than the Member for Epsom.
Epsom, with its twenty square kilometer geographic footprint, is New Zealand’s smallest electorate. You can quite literally walk from one side of it to the other in under two hours. To get back in at the next Election, all David Seymour has to do is continue to keep a majority of the fifty thousand or so voters in his own back yard happy. There may be some air-travel involved in his portfolio responsibilities, or as part of flagging efforts at attempting to get ACT electorate branches in other centers off the ground … but fundamentally, his constituency is strongly geographically concentrated. And that means that his connection and outreach efforts – as well as his speeches and thinking – are pedestrian.
The Greens, by contrast, are quite different. They don’t really “do” electorate-outreach in the traditional sense. In fact, I’m given to understand that the way they ran things during their last Party term, was by pouring their Parliamentary Services resourcing into ‘campaign offices’ rather than the shadow-electorate outreach more common for Opposition parties. Even to the point of reportedly suggesting that people with local issues approach local MPs from other parties instead for help.
Instead, they have a nation-wide constituency covering an area more than ten thousand times larger.
It ought not take more than a moment’s consideration to realize why Green MPs might use at least slightly more air travel than ACT’s lone gunman.
They have to. It’s just simply part and parcel of how they run as a party with a country-spanning support-base that they must connect with. (Interestingly, my own New Zealand First MPs averaged just a hair under $6,000 apiece over the same period. I’d be tempted to put that down to the fact they all seem to drive everywhere – covering occasionally quite incredible distances in so doing)
So by that rubric alone, it’s fairly difficult to countenance – let alone take seriously – ACT’s claim to being more green than the Green Party.
But it gets worse. (A common refrain with ACT, to be sure)
Other elements in Seymour’s quixotic drive to be seen as “environmentally friendly” include the complete privatization of LandCorp, and using the funds thus raised to dole out grants to private operators to run wildlife charities.
The alleged logic here was that it made sense for the Crown to get rid of an “asset that is environmentally damaging“. But this doesn’t make sense. Privatizing LandCorp’s farm holdings doesn’t suddenly and magically make them no longer farms. Instead, it puts these farms in private (and most likely foreign) hands. Who’s to say that intensification – leading to a consequent increase in pollution – is less likely to take place under private rather than state ownership.
All in all, I fail utterly to see how selling off and parceling off NZ’s state-owned farm assets is supposed to represent the more environmentally friendly option. Indeed, the likely outcome will be exactly the opposite.
Further, when it comes to the proposed usages for the funds raised … what ACT’s proposing is quite literally corporate welfare on an epically massive scale.
Their idea is to take a revenue-generating asset, sell it, then hand the proceeds on to private operators in order to fund what will assumedly be ring-fenced privately owned and jealously guarded if not outright for-profit wildlife sanctuaries.
Because when have commercial conservation efforts ever gone awry…
It’s also rather telling that ACT is branding this explicitly as the ‘charter school’ model coming to the conservation estate.
Of course, what it tells us, exactly, is that ACT has very little ability to learn from previous mistakes, and that the whole thing is likely to be an utter shambles – with the taxpayer forced to pick up the ultimate bill.
About the only nice thing I can say about this is that it quite clearly and eloquently illustrates the core component of neoliberal economic thought: that it’s not about creating new wealth so much as it is taking public wealth and handing it directly over to their mates in the private sector.
If ACT were genuinely interested in embracing the principles of conservation and environmental stewardship, this would be something to be welcomed with open arms.
Unfortunately, that is not what they’re doing here. For them, a veneer of environmentalism is merely a cover for vigorously renewed petty point-scoring and internecine party partisan politics. Meanwhile, the closest they get to an interest in conservation is their desperate quest to protect that most endangered of species – the unreconstructed hard-neoliberal voter.
This weekend’s political barbs and policy announcements have resolutely revealed that the only thing “Green” about the ACT Party is the state of envy Seymour evidently has for the real Greens’ ability to convert their own – authentic – environmental principles into a genuine future existence as a party with a thriving nation-wide constituency.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was worth billions of dollars to corporate America, if a Dow Chemical settlement made public Friday is any indication.
Dow was in the midst of appealing a $1.06 billion class-action antitrust ruling, after a jury found that it had conspired with other chemical companies to fix prices for urethane, a material used in furniture and appliances.
But because of Scalia’s death and the sudden unlikelihood of finding five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn the case, Dow decided to settle for $835 million, the bulk of the original award.
“Growing political uncertainties due to recent events with the Supreme Court and increased likelihood for unfavorable outcomes for business involved in class-action suits have changed Dow’s risk assessment of the situation,” the company told Bloomberg News.
The case reveals how corporations have used the conservative majority on the court as a safety valve to nullify unfavorable rulings. As the Alliance for Justice has documented, time and again, the Roberts Court has issued 5-4 rulings that protect big corporations from liability, limit access to justice for workers and consumers, and allow companies to evade regulations on the environment, racial and gender discrimination, and monopolistic practices.
The most famous of these Court rulings, the Citizens United decision, enabled unlimited corporate spending in elections to attack regulatory structures at the legislative and executive branch. But the corporate stranglehold on the judicial branch provided a backstop, another venue to relieve big business from accountability.
Scalia’s death on February 13 changed that, at least temporarily. The 4-4 split between liberals and conservatives on the Court means that, in most controversial cases, a deadlock allows the lower court ruling to stand. And in nine of the 13 federal district courts of Appeals, Democrats have appointed the majority of judges, making it harder for corporations to get a favorable judgment.
This is not just a theoretical matter; it comes down to dollars and cents, as the Dow Chemical case shows.
The Intercept
United States Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has won the South Carolina primary over rival Bernie Sanders, several major networks projected, propelling her into next week’s crucial “Super Tuesday” voting in 11 states on a wave of momentum.
“To South Carolina, to the volunteers at the heart of our campaign, to the supporters who power it: thank you,” Clinton tweeted as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all called the vote in her favour at the close of polls on Saturday.
Huge cheers broke out at the venue in Columbia, South Carolina, where Clinton was due to deliver a victory speech to supporters.
“It’s time, it’s time, it’s time for a woman in the White House,” the crowd chanted.
Aljazeera
Russia has halted air strikes in Syria in accordance with a ceasefire brokered by the country and the US.
Russia entered the Syrian conflict on behalf of ally President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015, and its air power has played a significant role in the recent major gains by government forces.
“Russia’s air force fully halted bombing in the green zone – that is in those areas and those armed groups which had sent us ceasefire requests,” Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior representative of the General Staff, said.
A lull in fighting was reported throughout most of Syria on Saturday, hours after the US-Russia brokered “cessation of hostilities” agreement took effect.
Aljazeera
The UK would face a decade of massive economic uncertainty with potentially disastrous consequences for business and the pound if it were to vote to leave the EU, the Europe minister says.
The dramatic warning from David Lidington, a key figure in David Cameron’s renegotiation of EU membership, is part of a frontal assault launched by Downing Street and the Foreign Office aimed at discrediting the campaign for Brexit, now headed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
The Guardian
Thousands of protesters have assembled in central London for Britain’s biggest anti-nuclear weapons rally in a generation.
Campaigners gathered from across the world: some said they had travelled from Australia to protest against the renewal of Trident. Others had come from the west coast of Scotland, where Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines are based.
As the huge column of people began moving from Marble Arch after 1pm, the mood was buoyant and spirited despite the cold.
The Guardian
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