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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Saturday 30th January 2016
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.
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Oh, Lucky Man! Phil Goff’s “dispensation” is as ill-considered as it is ill-deserved
PHIL GOFF IS A LUCKY MAN. Had Andrew Little extended to him the same measure of tolerance that he extended to Jim Anderton, 28 years ago, he’d no longer be a member of Labour’s caucus.
Goff was among those Rogernomes who, on 4 August 1988, passed the following resolution:
“This Caucus declares that the following understanding governs the relationship of Caucus members with each other: Members shall vote in Parliament in accordance with decisions of the Caucus. Where a member deliberately abstains from voting, or votes against a Government measure in the House which has been passed by Caucus, such action automatically removes the member from membership of the Caucus unless express permission to take that action has been given by Caucus.”
Referred to at the time as the “loaded gun” resolution, it was intended to block any member (but most particularly, Anderton) from either voting against, or abstaining from voting for, legislation setting in motion the privatisation of state assets. Anderton’s colleagues were well aware that the Labour Party’s official stance was one of opposition to privatisation, and that, strictly speaking they were all bound – as Labour MPs – to uphold Labour Party policy. They simply didn’t care.
By December of 1988, the circumstances anticipated in the Loaded Gun Resolution had come to pass. A bill enabling the government to partially privatise the BNZ was on the floor of the House. In spite of the Labour Party’s New Zealand Council informing the Caucus that privatisation would directly contravene the party’s 1987 manifesto, and contradict the expressed will of the Labour Party Conference, the David Lange-led Labour Government pressed ahead with the legislation.
On Saturday, 10 December 1988, Jim Anderton told a hushed House of Representatives:
“I cannot give my support to this enabling legislation. If we are not going to sell the Bank of New Zealand, we do not need this legislation. If we are going to sell it, then I am opposed to it and must show my opposition here, at this time, because there will be no other parliamentary opportunity to protest at or prevent the Government having the power to sell the Bank. As I said at the Committee Stages, I will not vote with the Opposition National Party. Their anxiety to sell the Bank of New Zealand and other state assets is well known. I will, therefore, record my opposition by formally abstaining when the vote is taken on this Third Reading.”
On Tuesday, 13 December 1988, the Senior Government Whip, Margaret Austin, wrote to Anderton informing him that he would receive no further Caucus communications and was stripped of his membership of Caucus committees. The Whip had been withdrawn; Jim Anderton was out of the Labour Caucus.
Not for Anderton the dispensation granted to Goff by his Caucus colleagues. Regardless of the fact that he was attempting, in good conscience, to uphold Labour Party policy (as required of him, and all of his colleagues, by the Labour Party constitution) permission for Anderton to abstain on the enabling legislation was denied.
Twenty-eight years later, the same Phil Goff who had voted to expel anyone who defied the will of Caucus has not only been extended the privilege of abstaining from voting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s enabling legislation, but also of actually crossing the floor of the House of Representatives and voting in favour of it.
The relevant Labour Party media release of 28 January 2016 sates: “Opposition Leader Andrew Little has given dispensation to MP Phil Goff to take his own position on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement due to his historic involvement in negotiating its predecessor, the P4.” According to Little: “Phil has had a longstanding involvement and public commitment to this agreement which differs with the Labour Caucus’ decision that it cannot support the deal in its current form due to its compromise of New Zealand’s sovereignty.”
But the 2005 P4 free-trade initiative, which the Helen Clark-led Labour Government had set in motion, and which Goff played a key role in negotiating, is in no way comparable to the TPPA. The P4 was a modest and mutually beneficial free trade agreement involving New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile. The TPPA, in sharp contrast, is a freedom charter for US transnational corporations. Granting Goff a dispensation on the grounds that he had a hand in negotiating P4 is, therefore, a political non-sequitur.
Moreover, in dissenting from his Caucus colleagues’ view that support for the TPPA compromises New Zealand’s sovereignty, Goff is actually asserting that what Labour is presenting to the electorate as the truth is, in fact, a lie. Which means that Little has given Goff a dispensation to declare that up is down, black is white, and the TPPA is a good thing. And why would a party leader anxious to enhance his own, and his party’s, credibility do that!
What’s more, the irrelevance of the P4 argument makes Little’s treatment of David Shearer’s dissidence utterly inconsistent and unfair. If Goff is entitled to deny the truth of Labour’s position, then why isn’t Shearer also being granted a pass from the reality-based community? Or, for that matter, any other Caucus member not yet convinced that the TPPA represents a dangerous corporate assault on what’s left of New Zealand’s democracy and independence.
What Little and his colleagues all need to find – and quickly – is a measure of the clarity and courage demonstrated by Jim Anderton on 10 December 1988. If the TPPA is a bad thing, then allowing a Labour MP to vote in favour of it cannot be ethically, or politically, justified. It follows, therefore, that those Labour parliamentarians who do not believe the TPPA is a bad thing; and who are unwilling to abide by the contrary judgement of their colleagues; have only one morally consistent course of action to take. They must resign, forthwith, from both the Labour Caucus and the Labour Party.
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Possible job or wage cuts in store for poorly paid bus drivers – First Union
Possible job or wage cuts in store for poorly paid bus drivers
One of the unions representing Auckland bus drivers is “very concerned” to learn that NZ Bus and Howick and Eastern Buses have lost their contracts for units and runs in South Auckland.
Auckland Transport has selected Ritchies and Go Bus as the preferred tenders but both companies pay poorer wages to their drivers than NZ Bus and Howick and Eastern Buses.
“It’s ironic that this announcement has been made after several recent media stories on the plight of poorly paid drivers,” says FIRST Union General Secretary Robert Reid.
“Despite their skills and responsibility, Auckland bus drivers aren’t paid well enough. Now approximately 250 South Auckland drivers are facing redundancy or, if they’re taken on by one of the successful companies, significant cuts to wages and conditions.”
“FIRST Union made approaches to Auckland Transport at the beginning of the tender process and we were assured that tendering companies would be judged on quality and innovation, not cost alone.”
“The decision revealed today flies in the face of these assurances,” says Reid.
“We will be contacting the successful bus companies in an effort to negotiate wages and conditions for transferring drivers that similar to what they have now.”
“We will also contact Auckland Transport and Auckland Council to get their support to ensure that a wage cut for already low paid South Auckland bus drivers does not happen.”
“Together with the Tramways Union, the union representing the majority of the drivers affected, we will work with NZ Bus to ensure that these drivers are supported at this very difficult time,” says Reid.
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With Goff & Shearer Showing Their True Colours, The Number Of Parties You Can Trust To Protect NZ Sovereignty Shrinks
There’s something sadly inevitable about Labour self-sabotaging on issues of genuine and serious national importance. We saw it several times over the last two electoral cycles with a succession of frankly bizarre policy decisions on the campaign-trail that helped to keep Labour (and, for that matter, a presumably Labour-led left-wing coalition government) out of office.
It should therefore come as little surprise that the two men who presided over these defeats, former Labour leaders Phil Goff and David Shearer – men who, if we’d listened to Labour may very well have been Prime Minister – have come out and done exactly the same thing on the TPPA.
And yet somehow, it still rankles.
Labour activists can take to social media to claim (with some legitimacy) that these two men’s personal stances do not represent the Labour Party as a whole; and Bomber can mount a valiant rearguard action for Phil Goff’s Mayoralty campaign by pointing out Goff remains the presumptive left-wing option for Auckland’s top job.
But any way you choose to slice it, the fairly public spiking of the Party Line by these two former leaders represents fairly incontrovertible evidence that there remains a prominent and powerfully represented Neoliberal wing to the Labour Party.
Matters grow somewhat worse when we consider Andrew Little’s defence/contextualization for his renegade MP’s remarks.
The justification for Phil Goff being able to take an overtly pro-TPPA and anti-sovereignty stance, according to Andrew Little, is that it’s allowable on the basis of Goff’s previous involvement in kicking off the TPPA in the first place. As you may recall, he was the Labour Party Trade Minister under whose watch this whole abomination got off the ground in the first place.
Goff himself goes further. He’s explicitly fine with a loss of sovereignty for New Zealand as part of this trade deal, and points out that Labour’s record includes other instances of sacrificing our sovereignty for somewhat nominal trade-deal gain.
So why’s Little allowing this? It’s not just because Goff is not long for Parliament due to his local body career ambitions. It’s because Goff is free-and-frankly stating and defending Labour’s record when it comes to endorsing pernicious trade deals.
I also have little doubt that there are other not-so-closet neoliberals in Labour’s upper echelons who are having their views on this matter represented by Goff and Shearer. By allowing one MP the freedom to speak his mind on the issue, Little is therefore creating a ‘safety-valve’ for any more-than-residual neoliberal opinion still hankering around his Caucus.
In any case, even though I’ve been quite hard on Labour both in the past and in this post, I should like to warmly congratulate a large chunk of the Labour Party – including its *present* leader, if not two of his immediate predecessors – for taking a stand against the loss of sovereignty represented by the TPPA.
It may have taken them quite some time to decide what on earth they were actually going to do, and which side of the fence they’d line up on … but they have, eventually and for the most part, made the right decision.
But with highly public outbursts from prominent and high-powered MPs undermining and undercutting Labour’s announced stance on this issue, it’s not hard to see why many voters are asking questions about whether they can actually trust Labour to genuinely represent their views and play a vital role in stopping the loss of our sovereignty – as well as other neoliberal shenanigans – dead in their tracks.
There’s only two parties in Parliament which have been dead set against this kind of thing right fro the beginning: New Zealand First and The Greens.
#BlackGreen2017.
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Inclusive leadership needed for TPPA protests
It’s been deeply disappointing to read in the past week a mixture of unhelpful commentary and half-baked drivel about protest against the TPPA signing ceremony at Auckland’s Skycity next week.
The coalition group It’s Our Future has been hugely successful in mobilising public opinion to oppose the TPPA. It has done this with a determined, well-organised information campaign which has the majority of the country realising the TPPA is a charter of rights for US-based multinational companies to plunder what’s left of our economy while hamstringing the ability of future governments to act in the democratic interests of New Zealanders.
Part of this campaign has been the organising of large, highly effective public demonstrations against the TPPA which in turn have helped the public understand the nature of the agreement.
The coalition has been a stunning success but it will be making a serious mistake if it simply organises a protest march up Queen Street on February 4th while washing its hands of any protest outside the venue of the signing of the TPPA at Skycity.
The unsaid implication of such a position will be that “responsible protestors” will be on the march in Queen Street while an “irresponsible minority”, with whom they do not want to be associated, will be left to their own devices outside Skycity.
It may well be that Prime Minister John Key feels he would gain from trying to turn TPPA into a “law and order” issue. However there is now such wide and broad public understanding of the TPPA that such a strategy would fail – particularly since there are many months (possibly years) ahead before this issue plays out.
In any case if the movement to oppose the TPPA wants to avoid any possibility of a “law and order” issue around TPPA then it has a responsibility to ensure all groups are represented in decisions as to what form protest at the signing will take.
Under a policy of non-violent protest, which may include civil disobedience, the anti-TPPA movement as a whole should organise a colourful, loud, disciplined, creative, unified, political protest which ends outside Skycity.
Leaving a mainly younger crowd (who will be at Skycity anyway) un-included is irresponsible and unsustainable. It will divide the movement and risk the very worst political outcome the organisers seem to want to avoid.
It will take goodwill, good faith and common sense to come to a consensus about the February 4th protest but it can and must be done.
The first step is to meet face to face in the next few days.
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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday 29th January 2016
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.
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Who inside Labour leaked to Matthew Hooton?
Goff has earned his right to make a stand, after all, Roger Douglas casts a long shadow, but with him needing Labour and Union activists to win the Auckland mayoralty, that stand will be less toxic than it could be.
Shearer however is breaking the rules that were agreed to at the last private gathering of Labour MPs. The other elements of the Right have all fallen in behind Little as he stamps his authority on the Party with his decision to oppose the TPPA.
So who is leaking private internal emails to Matthew Hooton then?
Whoever it was is now going to find out how the new Labour Party discipline traitors. Expect heads to roll. Little is not following the old neoliberals, he is setting his own direction and those who have refused to get on board are going to face a bleak future.
The decision to oppose the TPPA is a power play by Little, those who have decided to oppose that are about to find out you don’t cross Andrew Little lightly.
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GUEST BLOG: Real Choice responds
The Daily Blog today published an article by Chris Trotter calling on activists and supporters to boycott Real Choice’s peaceful blockade of Sky City on the 4th of February, in the process making unfounded and dangerous accusations about the committed activist base of a respected anti-TPPA group.
The implication, so outrageous as to be laughable, given the hundreds of hours our members have spent on this campaign and many others, that Real Choice might be a ‘false flag’ operation, is a disgrace. Had Trotter done any real research into Real Choice (or its predecessor, Show Us Ya Text, both of which have been organized extremely transparently) he would know the extent to which such an accusation is untrue. Given his time within the left, he should also know the extremely damaging impacts of implying legitimate activists are police officers. The fact that he went ahead and made such an inference anyway is shameful, and speaks to how little involvement he has had in the anti-TPPA movement.
Aside from this, Trotter’s claims essentially boil down to 1) There’s no chance of the blockade being a success, 2) Real Choice is working against It’s Our Future, and 3) The act of calling for a blockade is itself damaging to the movement. We refute all of these.
In Trotter’s article, the blockade will not be successful because the police themselves will have blocked off all the surrounding roads and will react sharply and swiftly to any whiff of non-violent direct action. Such an operation from the police would be extremely costly, and to be done right would have to cause more public disorder than our blockade could ever wish for. We can’t be sure of the behavior of the police on the day, but are insisting our event be a non-violent peaceful protest – similar to the kind Trotter himself called for only a few days ago when advocating a ‘menu of protests’.
Real Choice have been in discussion with It’s Our Future, and have repeatedly stated as a group our deep respect and support for their mahi around the TPPA. Without them, the anti-TPPA movement in New Zealand, which we consider ourselves a part of, would likely not exist. In accordance with this respect, we’ve timed our blockade for 9am on the 4th of Feb., to give people who wish to do something before 12pm, when the march starts, a full day of action against the TPPA. This is only fitting considering the scale of the government event on the day.
To respond to the final claim that the blockade is damaging to the movement – this is a complicated one certainly – by calling for a blockade, we have added another opportunity for action into the day. Previously, people could march on the day (or attend any of the events nationwide in the lead up) or petition MPs and the government. Alternatively, they could riot, which as Trotter wrote about in an earlier article, may have been very much what Key wants – and why we are bringing an overtly peaceful protest to SkyCity instead. The work of It’s Our Future (and groups like Action Station) to build mass opposition these past 4 years is indeed well done with much effort – and yet ,we remain labeled ignorant “breathless children” by the National government going ahead with the signing in the face of this mass opposition. Real Choice doesn’t see how this can equate to democracy. Our referendum, as Trotter reported, got a 97% no vote to the TPPA. And while this may have been biased, a statistician could confirm that with our population, a poll of 12,000 people is a significant no vote.
So, where does this leave us but to seek other ways of being heard? Our call has been for non-violent direct action, to create a TPPA free zone, held by people in the spirit of resistance and peaceful protest – but centring on where they will try to sign the document. February the 4th will pass, and the TPPA will get signed. Or perhaps it won’t. But what Real Choice’s blockade will do, is cement this country’s rejection of the deal. New Zealand loves to hark back to the Spring Bok Tour and Nuclear Free movement. These define us. A march is a starting point, but if we want positive change and to inspire a movement of resistance then we need to be clear where our boundaries are. We’re offering the ‘menu of protests’ that was called for, and ask that if even if you don’t pick our option you respect our presence. A TPPA free zone on the 4th in Auckland City will be etched into the hearts and minds of those participating and supporting from afar alike – our sovereignty, democracy and community will not be traded away without a fight.
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American Narc put in charge of NZ Police for TPPA protests
As the police and the Government move to manufacture violence on February 4th with their riot training, armed cops with machine guns and now door knocking activists, take a moment to realise the cop in charge is an American trained narc…
What’s changed? Well, in Dunedin this may provide some link:
Superintendent Mike Pannett, who took over from acting district commander Jason Guthrie this week… Supt Pannett has just returned from four years in Washington DC, where he was chairperson of the Washington DC Liaison Office Association, which covered North, Central and South America.
Supt Pannett is a member of the International Chiefs of Police Committee on Terrorism
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/371217/south-could-be-safest-place-world
Detective Superintendent Mike Pannett, the New Zealand Police Liaison Officer in the United States, monitored “termination activities” against Dotcom’s Megaupload operations in nine countries from the FBI’s Multi-Agency Command Centre. Created by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Online (LEO) network in 2002, the Virtual Command Centre (VCC) enables enforcement agencies to post, track and spread information in a quick, secure environment.
Fed from multiple inputs in the field, the VCC exists on a secure system for any designated audience members online… “Feedback on the New Zealand operation has been extremely positive from our international law enforcement partners including the FBI and the US Department of Justice,” Mr Pannett reported in the February Police online magazine, TenOne.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1210/S00006/key-dotcom-and-hollywood.htm
Detective Superintendent Mike Pannett, New Zealand police liaison officer in Washington, has been ordered to swear an affidavit, setting out full details of the monitoring he was a party to from the FBI’s Multi Agency Command Centre.
Mr Pannett was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009 before he was appointed manager of intelligence operations at the National Intelligence Centre based at Police National Headquarters in Wellington
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11084360
It does seem strange that when the ODT asked the Dunedin police for comment on their allegedly having harassed an activist, they; “could not immediately be reached with a request for comment”. Yet the very next story to this in the online ODT Dunedin section was a puff piece about how an establishment minion was all set to bring to peace to the region in some unspecified manner.
…hat tip Pasupial.
So an American trained narc is in charge of the protests and all of a sudden he is using the tactics he’s learned from the yanks?
Oh the irony, NZ cops trained by Americans to quell protests in NZ against American corporations dominating us.
We must not be intimidated by these thug tactics, but I think we must also aknowledge Chris Trotter’s point that Key is desperate to paint these protests out as violent radicals. Let’s protest, let’s demand change, let’s force them to arrest us for civil disobedience, but never give the bastards the chance to rob us of legitimacy.
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Police noose tightens around activists before TPPA
The cops are using the TPPA protests as a chance to try out new powers. The ratcheting up of tension is clear.
The Government told media Police were in riot training.
This week armed Police protected Key at his state of the nation
and now we have activists being visited by the cops asking questions.
This is all a show of force by the Police, intimidation and threats, in the hope of being able to manufacture violence or a riot on the 4th.
All activists need to take cell phones and record everything the Police try at the protests and upload asap and let other activist groups know so they can amplify before the mainstream media start spinning the story for the cops.
There will be hashtags going out for all protests.
We will not allow ourselves to be intimidated by cop thugs.
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Goff & Shearer – not sure an Action Station hate pile on is the best solution
There have been a couple of times where Action Station have jumped on an issue in a way that I don’t think is particularly conducive to a positive outcome.
One of those times is now with their desire to create a social media pile on Goff and Shearer for supporting TPPA.
Now I love a political blood letting as much as the next blogger, but Goff has already signed his right to stomp around the sandpit on this issue off with the Labour Caucus earlier this week. Phil is a well respected member of Caucus, he just happens to be wrong on the TPPA. He needs Labour and Union activists mid year to win the Auckland Mayoralty so his huff may be short lived.
Shearer on the other hand is left holding the leadership of the right wing faction and is trying to mount a last stand with no one else standing around him.
The decision by Little to rule the TPPA out is a power move by him. It shows he has the dominance of Caucus and it is Andrew Little’s Labour Party not the old neoliberals never die Labour Party. None of the other right wing members of Labour have supported Shearer or Goff, so this revolt is more huff and puff than genuine challenge to Little.
Rather than playing into the right narrative of Labour being split, we should celebrate Little’s strength and allow these two old war horses the dignity to strut around the paddock for a last hurrah while Labour realign. Sending a social media pile on by Action Station is the surest way to make those two politicians feel maligned and resentful and far more likely to do more damage.
Sometimes all the Left are capable of doing is alienating other members of the Left.
UPDATE: To help prove the counter productive skills of the Wellington Union Coms Twitterati…
…just remarkable. Like I said, the Left are amazingly skilled at alienating other members of the Left, a social media hate pile on attacking Goff and Shearer is probably very counter productive.
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EXCLUSIVE: TPPA Auckland Town Hall meeting video
Here is the full version of the TPPA Auckland Town Hall held on Tuesday. Please share and retweet this as much as possible as there are things said in this meeting the mainstream media have still not highlighted.
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Armed Police protecting Key at State of the Nation?
There is an image on social media claiming to have been taken outside the Langham when Key was giving his State of the Nation speech.
Armed cops walking NZ streets?
If this is true, this is a large escalation for Key’s security people and paint ominous signs of how over the top the security will be for the TPPA.
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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Thursday 28th January 2016
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.
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