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Annette King’s powerful speech on health

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Speech to 2015 NZLP Conference

Annette King, Deputy Leader

Palmerston North, Saturday 7 November 2015


One of my all-time favourite movies is that 1997 Australian great – The Castle –  where an “ordinary family” stands up to big money and bureaucracy, and wins.

There are many memorable quotes from the movie which 18 years on can still be used today.

  • When John Key says under National there’s a “brighter future”, I’d say “tell him he’s dreaming”.
  • When Paula Bennett evicts another state house tenant, I’d say “a home is not built of bricks and mortar, but love and memories”.
  • Then there is the best one of them all “it’s the vibe, it’s the vibe of the thing”.

I was reminded of that saying when I arrived at the conference yesterday.

It’s the vibe of this conference that caught my attention, the vibrancy, the vitality and the vision we are setting out for New Zealanders. Where we see our future and how we can achieve it with them.

It’s about how a Labour-led Government standing alongside the ordinary family will help them realise their dreams and aspirations.

I have been asked “why is your conference being held in Palmerston North?”

John Cleese may have had a “thoroughly miserable time in the city”, but anyone who knows Palmy knows this is a great place to live and work – I speak from experience!

It’s one of our provincial cities that has returned a Labour MP election after election.

I’d like to acknowledge Iain Lees-Galloway who defied all the National Party naysayers who said Labour couldn’t hold onto this seat.

Not only did he hold onto it, he increased his majority.

It’s a city with hard working, hospitable, entrepreneurial people with a great sense of humour.

After John Cleese’s attack in 2006, which made international headlines, a sign was erected at the Palmerston North rubbish dump, which read the “John Cleese Memorial Tip”.

In Parliament this week the National Party scoffed at Labour coming here for our conference.

This is typical of their attitude towards the regions of New Zealand. They take them for granted, milk them for votes, and then turn their backs on them when it comes to support to grow and keep businesses and jobs in the local community. That’s not our approach. You’ll hear more about why we believe the regions are our job generators, and Labour is here to back them.

I am privileged to be the deputy leader of our Party. And no, I am not the new face of Labour, in fact, I am a very familiar old face, well worn, but not worn out.

I am the same age as Hillary Clinton who wants to be the next President of the United States.

I’m happy to be the deputy leader of the oldest and greatest political party in New Zealand.

I’m also happy to be a member of Caucus that has got its act together under the leadership of Andrew Little.

Over this last year, both the Caucus, and the Party, have worked hard to build a united team, to focus on the issues that affect the daily lives of Kiwis.  We’ve gone out and met and listened to those who in working hard, those employing people, the carers, and the volunteers, organisations and clubs, in the cities and small towns around New Zealand.

We have been rebuilding Team Labour because we understand while no one person is perfect, a team can be.  We are focused on leading the next Government in 2017.

As we look forward to a better future for New Zealanders, we can take a little time to look back at the legacy of our Party as we enter our centennial year.

Next year, 2016 will be 100 years since the birth of the New Zealand Labour Party, proudly born out of the trade union movement.

A party that survived two world wars, the Great Depression, the ebbs and flows of economic and political fortune, and five National Governments.

In November, this year, we celebrate 80 years since the first Labour Government was elected in 1935.  Led by Michael Joseph Savage, Labour defeated George Forbes’ United Party.  The population was 1.5 million, and there were 103 men for every 100 women, and the first woman MP had been elected in 1933 – Elizabeth McCombs, the Labour member for Lyttleton.

That first Labour Government was a reforming Government, and so was the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and the 5th, and so too will be the 6th come 2017.

In 1938 Labour introduced the Social Security Act, much of which is still retained today.

It set up a National Health Service for New Zealand. I recently re-read the principle on which our health services were established back then. There were several essential elements to the policy;

  • Prevention of disease, prevention in the full sense includes good housing, a healthy environment, and an adequate and balanced diet.
  • Provision for income to replace that which is lost due to unemployment, sickness, old age, and death. The motto must be to sustain the family, cure the patient.
  • Provision of all the facilities for the diagnosis, and treatment of disease.
  • An adequate provision for research in all matters relative to health.
  • Care for patients in the home and community, particularly those who are chronically ill.

As Dr McMillan, the architect of policy said, chronic disease brings poverty, and poverty brings chronic disease.

How relevant those elements are today.

Over the intervening 80 years, five Labour governments sought to build a public health system based on affordability, and accessibility for all New Zealanders.  Five National governments have sought to corporatise, privatise, and dismantle it.

So what is the state of the New Zealand Health system today as we enter the 8th year of a National Government?

If you listen to Jonathan Coleman, Tony Ryall’s mini-me without the gaudy shirts and flash ties, all is going well, there is nothing to see here, in fact, John Key said the success of a health minister is to keep health off the front pages of the paper.

If you listen to those who are waiting for health services, or those who provide the services, it’s a different story.  Health services – cost, delivery, staffing, timely access – are under huge pressure.

It’s time the Minister listened to the hard working staff at the coal face.

Many recent staff surveys from DHBs report that patient care and treatment is being compromised, that there is not enough staff.  Meal breaks and leave are being forgone. There is almost $500 million owing in untaken leave. That is dangerous for staff and patients.

And they are being told achieving volumes, targets, and budgets are more important than staff well-being, the quality of work, and patient safety.

This government is all about balance sheets, short-term political vote catching, and blatherskite.

Four out of the six budgets National has presented have failed to meet the cost pressures in health. There is $1.7 billion missing from the health budgets. These are not our figures, but those of Infometrics and are based on Treasury calculations.

What does that meant to the person needing health care?

It means a father with an autistic daughter suffering a psychotic breakdown is told by the overworked mental health team to call the police.

It means that mental health patients are arriving in emergency departments because community mental health services can’t cope. Mental health services are near breaking point as many NGOs try to provide more with less.

Every DHB is reporting large increases in the number of call outs to community mental health teams, while at the same time Police are being expected to pick up the overflow.

It means the older person living in their own home, near family and friends, managing with one or two hours home help a week having their hours slashed to one or two hours a fortnight.  The result can be devastating for the person leading to the need (for) residential care at greater cost to the older person and the tax-payer.

It means the person waiting for a hip or knee replacement waits longer in pain, and disability as DHBs adjust the criteria to fit the balance sheet.

13 DHBs have increased the score at which people can get an orthopaedic operation since 2012, and 160,000 people haven’t even managed to get a specialist appointment.

It means dumb ideas have been promoted to “save money” like the wasteful and now defunct Health Benefits Limited (HBL), an experiment that has cost tens of millions in DHB funding which could have gone to health services.

The idea of cooking hospital food in Auckland, and then trucking to the deep south of New Zealand is a seriously flawed Government idea.

Rather than cook fresh meals using experienced staff and hospital kitchens, some DHBs have been forced to sign up to a deal where food is now “regenerated”.  Local jobs have been lost, and local providers of meat, fruit, and vegetables, and other services, have had their contracts cancelled.

The problems are only going to get worse under the policy direction of this Government.

Labour has always believed in taking a long-term strategic approach to social services in New Zealand whether it’s housing, education, social security, or health.

Right back to 1938 the emphasis was on investment into prevention and improving the health of all New Zealanders from before birth right through to old age.

When we look at the statistics today, too many Maori and Pacifica are being left behind.

Too many young people have health issues that are not being addressed.

Too many children are living in poverty in a country where some get plenty.

There is no long-term health plan for New Zealand. This Government lacks vision, and the Minister lacks interest. There are short-term political targets used more for political crowing than improving the health of New Zealanders.

The next Labour-led Government will have an enormous job to turn our health system around, to face forward, and to address the real issues of the future.

I don’t underestimate the challenges.  Bringing together the many individual components to provide a quality integrated, affordable service will be difficult, but we have done it before.

We will start by working with those who understand what makes up a good health system.

We will base our decisions on research and evidence of what works – like the world leading approach to integrated care that has been developed out of Canterbury, or the leading edge approach by our Public Health experts to reduce the causes of disease.

We will trust and value the health workforce to enable them to lead and deliver quality services whether in our hospitals, communities, or in people’s own homes.

We will commit to addressing cost pressures in health, as we did when last in Government.

And we will face the real issues that have the potential to cripple our health system and render it unaffordable in the future if we don’t wake up and take action now.

In October I attended a briefing by WHO in Geneva where they warned that urgent government action is needed to reduce the burden of the four non-communicable major diseases;

  • diabetes
  • cancer
  • heart disease, and
  • lung disease

Collectively, they are responsible for almost 70 percent of all deaths worldwide.

The report said it is an epidemic of disease which poses devastating health consequences for individuals, families, and communities, and threatens to overwhelm health systems.

For a country like New Zealand the major drivers are an unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity leading to growing levels of obesity.  We are now the third most obese nation in the OECD.  It’s costing us in excess of $700 million a year in health care expenditure, and lost productivity.  Next year obesity will overtake tobacco as the leading cause of declining health according to the Ministry of Health.

Ten years ago the last Labour Government recognised the threat, and put in place measure to tackle it.  Health Eating, Healthy Action programmes, Fruit in Schools, Health Promoting Schools, community action, healthy food in tuck shops, and so on.  Most of it was dumped and labelled “Nanny State” by an ignorant and politically motivated National Government in 2009.

Last week Jonathan Coleman made a feeble attempt to put in place an “action plan” for obesity.

Those who know a bit about the subject have labelled it inadequate.

We have been working to update our approach to the four Non-Communicable Diseases which featured as a priority in our 2014 Health policy.

An obesity framework is being put together which is multi-faceted based on evidence, and will support what we know can work.

It includes a national roll out of the successful Project Energize programme which started 10 years ago in Waikato, and has been kept alive by a committed DHB, every school in the district, community and sports organisations.  It has now been taken up by the Northland DHB.  This programme is home-grown, and has reduced the BMI of children involved while increasing their fitness.

It’s cost effective, and it’s been evaluated. Ministry of Health figures put the cost at $19.5 million per annum.

We will put in place a childhood obesity reduction target based on Ministry of Health advice, something Jonathan Coleman ignored in favour or singling out obese children and sending them to the doctor.

In Government, we will provide a clear time-frame for industry to reduce sugar content in all processed food.

There will be front of package labelling that is easy for everyone to understand.

I agree with Jamie Oliver that members of the public would be more conscious about what they were eating if they knew the number of teaspoons of sugar, or salt that is in their food.

We continue to develop, as part of the framework, policy around advertising unhealthy food to children, school food requirements, and so on.

The key to success will be wide community buy-in, which is why working with established Maori and Pacifica providers who have the contacts and credibility will be important.

But most of all it will require strong Government leadership, and that is something I can guarantee will be provided by a Labour-led Government.

We have proved that we can work with communities, with health providers and professionals, with the industry, and we have shown that our motivation is to improve the health of all New Zealanders so no one group is left behind.

As Lord Beaconsfield, quoted in the New Zealand National Health Service policy of 1938, said: “Public health is the foundation on which rests the happiness of people and the power of a community”.

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Grant Robertson’s amazing speech at Conference

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Grant-Robertson

Speech to 2015 NZLP Conference

Grant Robertson, Finance Spokesperson

Palmerston North, Saturday 7 November 2015

It is a pleasure to be back in Palmerston North, the city of my birth.   It is true to say that my family left Palmy reasonably soon thereafter, but there is no truth to the rumour that as a 16 month old I went to my mother to request a transfer!

Coming to Palmerston North these days is to see a city and region that is bursting with potential.  A strong university, science organisations to build on on the primary industry base, the potential for new and innovative businesses. Now, if we could just get a government that backs the regions!

Delegates, it is school prize giving season. For anyone cynical about future generations, attendance at these is a life-affirming experience.  They are heart-warming celebrations of success, albeit a bit of a marathon for parents and unsuspecting MPs.

Success comes in many forms at these prizegivings. From the students winning subject prizes, to the awards for leadership, sporting and cultural achievements, to the students who have proudly made it through five years of school. All of them are celebrated, because as one principal put it to me, we don’t judge our success on the marks our dux gets, we judge our success on producing a cohort of confident, resilient young people.

But how do we judge the success of the economy? There are many people devoting many column inches every day to opining on this. Every morning we hear or read of the rises and falls of stocks and the trade weighted index.

We hear about businesses that do well, and not so well, we hear about who is and isn’t on this year’s Rich List and what they are worth.

They are all measures that tell us something about our economy, but are they adequate to measure its success?

From this government – we hear about the surplus. The yardstick they set to decide if they are good managers of the economy. Success has been declared, and job done so far as Bill English is concerned.

Well, if you ever wanted evidence that some measures of success in our economy might not be all that they appear, then this is it.  Having set the political target of a surplus in 2014/15, a political solution was found to make it happen.

The Earthquake Commission returned nearly half a billion dollars to the Crown accounts this year because they decided they did not need it for Canterbury. Just ask the people of Christchurch if all the claims are settled and that money is not needed. It was a cynical ploy to meet a political target.

And worst of all, there is no consideration of making these surpluses sustainable. In the Labour Party we know about sustainable surpluses. We had one. Every single year when we were last in government. But not even Bill English is predicting that there will be a surplus in coming years. It was plain and simple – manufactured for one year to meet the propaganda needs of the National Party.

But, beyond the manufactured surplus, can we judge the economy a success when

–       151,000 New Zealanders are out of work, and the rate of unemployment is six per cent, with projections that it will head towards seven per cent next year. 151,000 people.  Think about that.  It is nearly twice the population of this city out of work.  It is nearly 50,000 more than when National took office.  In Gisborne one in every ten people is out of work. It is clear that John Key and Bill English see levels of unemployment like this as collateral damage in their blinkered economic vision.

–       Where exports as a percentage of GDP are now the lowest they have been since 1997, coincidentally the last time Bill English was given the keys to the car.

–       When wage growth is the weakest it has been since the depths of the GFC five years ago, and in the coming year working people are expecting the smallest wage increases in over a decade.

–       Where there is such a disparity of wealth in our country that we see some corporate CEOs paid salaries of four or five million dollars a year, while 115,000 Kiwis survive on a wage of $14.75 per hour.

–       Where 305,000 children grow up in homes where fridges are often empty or where their parents cannot earn enough money to buy the shoes and clothes they need.

–       Where the house price to income ratio for housing in our biggest city is 9:1,there is the lowest home ownership rate in 60 years,  and where thousands of New Zealand families live in cold, damp, overcrowded rental accommodation, or worse  in garages and sheds.

That is not success.

If Dan Carter got World Rugby Player of the Year, but the All Blacks lost the Rugby World Cup, would we be hailing the year a success?

As American businessman and philanthropist John Paul DeJoria has said, ‘success unshared is failure’.

And this is not just because of our inherent sense of fairness. It makes economic sense as well. The OECD has recently joined the chorus of those who are acknowledging that a fair go for everyone means a more wealthy society.  They said that the increase in income inequality in New Zealand over two decades from the 1980s had reduced our growth rate by more than 10%.

And income inequality is only part of the picture. Those statistics do not take into account wealth inequality- the assets, like houses some of us are lucky to own, and the security and choices they provide.  These assets, this wealth, are now concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer New Zealanders.

Addressing wealth and income inequality is fundamental to our future well-being as a society.  As a recent report from the Centre for American Progress said “for democracies to thrive rising prosperity must be within the reach of all citizens.”

That is the challenge we must meet.

So what is a successful economy?  Of course it needs careful management.  Remember, while I started life here, I grew up in Dunedin and I’m from a long line of parsimonious Scottish Presbyterians.   I have also taken the extra pre-caution of having the Rev Dr David Clark as my Associate Spokesperson in case I get too profligate.

In government we must be disciplined and treat each tax payer dollar with the respect for the hard work that went into earning it.

But that cannot be the end of the line.  The economy does not exist for its own purposes.

The economy is not a person with feelings that we need to protect. It’s there to serve the interests of people, to be the means to a better life for all our people. It’s not an end in itself.

Many New Zealanders have expressed their concerns about the TPPA.  When I listen to those concerns I hear the overwhelming feeling that  the corporation matters more now than the citizen. Companies got the inside word on the negotiations and the special briefings, while ordinary people were kept in the dark with our interest treated as an irritant.

We need an approach to the economy that turns this view on its head. One where we don’t just measure the health of the government’s books but also the health of the people.

We need to embrace a new economic order- people first.  A focus on prosperity- not just for some, but a chance for all to share in it.

I come to the job of Finance Spokesperson with a clear mission.

It is time to reject the idea that our country will prosper by waiting for wealth to trickle down, and instead to embrace building wealth from the ground up- through our small businesses, iwi, our regions and our innovation.

It is time to reject the idea that the success for the 1% is the best we can hope for, and embrace the value to our economy and society of a fairer share for all.

It is time to reject the idea that the government should stand aside and let the market determine the opportunity of future generations, and embrace the transformational role of government to help New Zealanders build their dreams.

It is time to reject the ethos of success based on privilege, selfishness and greed, and replace them with a fair go, opportunity and a relentless pursuit of shared prosperity.

That is our mission. The economic goal of the next Labour government will be shared prosperity- an opportunity for everyone to meet their potential.

We are a fortunate country, blessed with tremendous natural resources, and talented and driven people. New Zealand businesses and workers work harder than most of their equivalents around the world.  We are in many senses already a wealthy nation.

There is an opportunity to work with businesses and regions to be prosperous, to create decent work.  Our record demonstrates that when we do this, the country grows.

There is an opportunity to build an economy and in turn a society that offers the quality of life to all its citizens that is the envy of the world.

I want New Zealanders to be proud of what we make possible in our country.

The economy that I will manage on your behalf in government will have specific goals to support New Zealanders to all have the chance to build the future they dream about.

I want our success in building the path to shared prosperity to be judged in five core areas:

–       The opportunity for decent work wherever you live in New Zealand.  Our goal will be to reduce unemployment to below 4% by the end of our first term in government. There are many changes ahead in the world of work. In the next few years we must continue to put the income, security and dignity that work provides at the forefront of our economic thinking.  We must invest in our regions to create opportunities and to relieve that pressure on Auckland.  We must support small business to thrive, to innovate and to provide decent work.
The dramatic drop in dairy prices and the slowdown in China point to the need for urgent and aggressive support for diversification- of products and markets.  The government’s plan to wait for one industry to fail in order to see diversification happen is simply not good enough.

–       Lifting incomes.  We must lift wages. There is no single silver bullet to do this, but the government can play its part through investing in the infrastructure, innovation, research and development that will help create high wage work.   We can do it by lifting the minimum wage and showing leadership by ensuring that anyone who works for the government is paid a living wage. We can do it by restoring rights of workers to bargain collectively. And we can do it by preparing for the new world of work, which I will return to shortly.

–       Zero tolerance for child poverty.  We will measure the success of our economy against how fast we can eliminate child poverty.  Andrew will speak more about this tomorrow, but suffice to say that we will put that goal at the centre of our economic plan.

–       Access to affordable and quality housing.    This is vital to reducing wealth inequality and to building safe and stable communities. We need to harness the power of the government to invest to build affordable housing.  We will crack down on the speculators who are shutting people out of buying their first homes. And we must improve the quality of our rental stock and the security of tenancy.

–       Our ability to create a sustainable future.   There is no point crowing about economic success if it comes at the cost of the environment or the well-being of future generations.  Our economic approach will be dictated by what is good for the well-being of future generations, not the next news cycle.  We must restart our contributions to the Super Fund as soon as possible, and build on the success of Kiwisaver.  We must take urgent action to build an economy that transitions us to a low carbon economy and gets real on climate change.

This will mean moving beyond the simple measures of success that fuel the news cycle and the vanity of politicians. Measuring GDP has a place – it is a decent proxy for activity in the economy. But what does it say about the quality of that activity?  The earthquakes in Canterbury were horrific events for the people who lived there- but by god they have been a boon for GDP. Earthquake recovery has contributed up to a third of the country’s growth in recent years. But waiting for natural disasters is not a plan.

We need to measure ourselves on the quality of life our economy can create, how it improves the environment, how many kids it lifts out of poverty and how we are building our prosperity for the future.  They will be the benchmarks of the next Labour government.

Delegates, no issue highlights the importance of a government that is focused on shared prosperity than the Future of Work.

Massive change is underway.  A report prepared by NZIER last month estimates that 45% of jobs currently in the New Zealand economy are at high risk from automation.   The New Zealand Herald headline of 26 July this year was ‘Robots Cleaning Auckland Airport’.  The change is happening and it is happening now.

There is no doubt that the future of work is full of opportunity. New technology is set to drive a wave of productivity and innovation that will generate significant wealth for those who seize the opportunities.

On the other hand it is also set to grow inequality and leave many behind, with work and income less secure and success more reliant than ever on having skills and expertise that you can apply widely.

In the face of this there are two paths to take.  We could sit back and let the market dictate what happens to New Zealanders, we could be the passive recipients and let the wave of change sweep us along or drag us under at its will.  Or we could lead the change, seize the opportunities and protect the values we hold dear while building a new path to decent work.

We have chosen the latter path The Future of Work Commission has now released all of the discussion papers that we outlined to you at regional conferences earlier this year.

We have had thousands of responses to our on-line work survey, and hundreds of submissions on the discussion papers.  Along with the Lead MPs for each of our workstreams, I have spoken to dozens of businesses, unions, LECs and community groups about the Commission, and the importance of a plan for the future of work.

I even managed to be on the panel at an event organised by the Chartered Accountants Association of Australia and New Zealand that was hosted by a hologram and had a drone and a driverless car taking the attention of attendees.

Why would the accountants care about the future of work- because accountancy is one of the most at risk professions that there is. This is not just about manual labour,  it is a revolution in the nature and experience of work.  The changes coming from the future of work have the potential to be scary, but the opportunities are vast as well.

The Commission will produce a final report at this conference next year which will include a range of policy proposals. It’s tempting to say that we know all the answers now, but it is important to us that we spend this year listening to what New Zealanders want, fear and hope for in the future of work.

I can say this – the work of the Commission has shown us already that there is a huge desire to continue to put work at the front and centre of our future.  The Labour Party was born 100 years ago next year by people who wanted their contribution at work to be fairly valued and respected. Nothing has changed in terms of our values, but much has changed in the experience of workers. We know that the future of work will look very different from the 9-5 job of the past. We need to consider a future where many workers will hold down six to eight careers, and have multiple different employers at any one time.  Where being your own boss is not only more possible it will become the default position.

Paul Mason, the economics editor of the Guardian newspaper, has written a book called the End of Capitalism, which foreshadows a future of work that redefines the economic order that has governed our lives.  With technology breaking down barriers to old forms of employment, and the power enabled by access to information and data, there is the opportunity for working people to take more control of their lives- to develop a new system that is defined by a shared prosperity.

Imagine for a moment if we could find a solution to the poverty wages experienced by the cleaners at Parliament, by giving them the chance to be their own bosses based on a cooperative business model. Or to support more profit sharing or so that workers can have a real stake in the organisations they work for. Or supporting social enterprises that are productive, profitable and improves the well being of people and the planet.

This is an opportunity for us in the Labour movement to once again lead and innovate. We need to be at the forefront of ensuring the new economy develops with our values at heart. New models of business are sprouting up everywhere that use technology to break down barriers.   This represents the so-called peer-to-peer capitalism or the sharing economy.  We have to make that technology available and support the creation of those businesses.

There are legitimate concerns about the rights of workers in less formal working environments.  What appears as flexibility can actually be a front for exploitation and a loss rights and conditions.  Labour would never allow that.   The flexibility we strive for is to allow you to build your work around your life- not the other way around.

To take the opportunities of the future of work we need to equip our people with the knowledge and skills to adapt and thrive, ensure income security and begin to value unpaid or non-traditional forms of work.

Some clear messages are already emerging from the Commission’s consultation.  We urgently need to ensure that young people are equipped with the skills and knowledge to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Information is now so readily available to us, the real focus of education, and indeed what employers are telling us they want are the soft skills- collaboration, problem solving and critical thinking.

But employers also want school leavers to have the basics  well covered – a driver’s license, digital and financial literacy, entrepreneurial skills and a sense of citizenship and civics. We also urgently need to professionalise careers advice and develop it as a partnership between students, schools, businesses and training providers.

We also need to turly create life-long learning. Alvin Toffler’s words from several decades ago, have come true, “ the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Every worker is going to need training and re-training in the future.   We need to work with businesses and workers to ensure this is possible for all, including those in small and medium businesses who traditionally struggle to fit training into their lives.  We are investigating a range of options for this, but it is certain that this will be a significant outcome from the Commission.

Delegates, former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam once said his country was faced with a choice between the habits and fears of the past and the demands and opportunities of the future.

As a country we face that choice today.

The challenges are real, but the opportunities enormous.  Decent work, income security, lifelong learning, safe and warm homes for all and thriving and resilient regions are not only possible, but essential to a successful country.

The path to shared prosperity that we will take will be founded on opportunity and optimism. If we give every New Zealander a fair go, they will repay us many fold.

Over the coming two years together, we will develop our economic vision on that basis, and we will build for New Zealand  a path to shared prosperity.

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EXCLUSIVE: OPEN LETTER FROM JANE KELSEY TO LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE

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NZ-CORPORATE-FLAG

Dear Labour Party Conference

Labour caucus’ five non-negotiable bottom lines for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement were pathetic enough, especially when compared to the comprehensive remit from the Party conference in 2012.

Andrew Little, 23 July 2015: “we will not support a TPP agreement that undermines New Zealand’s sovereignty”.  Well it does. Even its supporters admit there is a trade-off of sovereignty for what they have been desperately trying to spin as net gains. Labour has therefore already committed to oppose the signing of the TPPA.

Now even the 5 non-negotiable bottom lines have turned to blancmange. I’ve spent the past 36 hours pouring over the massive technical text to understand some of the complexities and what they mean for current and future policy space in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Yet, within a day the Labour leadership seems to have decided the text is fine aside from the narrow issue of the right to restrict sales of residential property to foreign owners. No problems for Pharmac and Treaty of Waitangi is ‘upheld’. Unbelievably, corporations cannot sue the government for regulating in the public interest! And of course there are meaningful market access gains for farmers.

Andrew, you’ve got to be joking! Is this simply what National’s Trade Minister Tim Groser and chief negotiator David Walker, and TPPA-cheerleader Helen Clark told you, and what you desperately want to believe?

Reality check for the Labour Party conference floor. The following is why the TPPA fails to satisfy the other four non-negotiable bottom lines, in addition to the one the caucus concedes..

 

Bottom line 1: “Pharmac must be protected”. This was always a weasel-worded principle: No one has ever claimed the existence of Pharmac was under threat, just the effectiveness of its purchasing regime.

We have to assume that the caucus was acting in good faith in devising these principles and it really meant that the effectiveness of Pharmac, with its capped budget, was not undermined by higher medicine prices. The threats were two-fold: process and industry monopolies over medicines and medical devices.

Thanks to a massive campaign here and internationally the government had to stand firm on some of the more extreme proposals. But the threats remain.

On process, there is now a review mechanism that will give the Big Pharma companies added leverage to lobby and object to Pharmac’s decisions.

Access to cheaper generics will also take longer under various changes to the patent regime. Most significantly the new generation biologic medicines remain at high risk of being subject to longer monopolies, dragging out access to generics as these become the most effective – and most expensive – medicines.

Australian health academic Deb Gleeson has written a compelling technical explanation about how that is likely to happen there, which is basically the same as NZ. She concludes: “The provisions relating to biologics are problematic and ambiguous. They appear to commit countries to providing either eight years of clinical trial data protection, or five years of clinical trial data protection along with other measures to deliver comparable outcomes. While the Australian Government has said that the regime for biologics in Australia will not change, the language leaves room for continued pressure by the United States to ensure that TPP countries prevent biosimilars from entering the market for eight years. The definition of biologics is very broad and likely to limit countries’ flexibility in determining the scope of the obligation. A review by the TPP Commission of both the length and scope of protection after ten years provides a further mechanism for US pressure to expand and extend monopolies on expensive biologics.”

Bottom line 2: “The Treaty of Waitangi is ‘upheld’.” Presumably Labour thinks all is well because National has included the Treaty of Waitangi exception Labour developed for the Singapore NZ FTA in the face of massive Maori criticism. I have always said it is inadequate. The exception requires

(a) the government to think there is a Treaty issue or another issue that impacts particularly on Maori (plenty of examples where that hasn’t happened even when the Waitangi Tribunal says there is);

(b) the government to be prepared to act on the issue (ditto);

(c) the action to be to provide preferential treatment, rather than changing a generic law (such as mining);

(d) the government’s interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi cannot be challenged, but the action can still be contested in a state-state or before an investor-state tribunal as being a means of ‘arbitrary or unjustified discrimination’ against persons of another TPPA country (an Italian mining company challenged the post-apartheid black empowerment rules as unjustified discrimination and the South African government settled). Maori have no right to participate in any dispute, just as they have been excluded from the process of negotiating the TPPA itself; they would have to seek permission to provide an amicus curiae brief.

The Crown has implicitly conceded the exception provides less than full protection by adding a last minute special exception in the TPPA intellectual property chapter to a requirement that it adopt a plant varieties treaty that Maori have heavily criticised and was a major issue in the WAI 262 claim on traditional knowledge.

At the very least Labour’s leaders might have waited for the Waitangi Tribunal’s inquiry into the TPPA, which is now likely to be expedited following the release of the text. An independent expert is expected to analyse the scope and effectiveness of the Treaty exception.

 

Bottom line 3: Corporations cannot sue the government for regulating in the public interest. This is THE most unbelievable and ignores the compelling international evidence and analysis of a crisis in the investor-state dispute settlement system.

Of course investor-state dispute settlement will be used to sue the government for such measures. That’s what indirect expropriation, minimum standard of treatment, and non-discrimination rules are about.

The general exception rule (which itself has only succeeded as a defence in 1 of 44 disputes in the WTO) does not apply to the investment chapter. In some cases, the special ‘protections’ for public policy in the chapter are weaker than existing NZ agreements and will become available to other countries with which we have FTAs (such as China, Korea and Taiwan). Even the special tobacco exception from ISDS is an opt-out, making it a prime target for industry lobbying (and doesn’t apply to disputes brought by TPPA states to enforce this and other chapters of the TPPA).

The real doozy is Article 9.15 on ‘Environmental, Health and other Regulatory Objectives’ – it says nothing in the chapter stops a government from doing what the chapter allows it to do anyway!

The TPPA text tries to limit the scope of such claims, but the words are vague and investment tribunals have a proved track record of giving them whatever meaning they like, even if they are supposedly bound by the parties’ own interpretation. And that doesn’t stop an investor from threatening to, or bringing, a dispute with the goal of getting government to back off.

In addition, the investment chapter gives investors from TPPA countries a raft of new rights and protections not available to local firms and not in existing NZ agreements. For example, even if a PPP toll road, a privatised water contract, an agreement that allows oil exploration or a damn project requires a dispute to be settled in New Zealand’s courts, the investor can take it through ISDS instead.

There are a few procedural changes that try to give the investment tribunals some more credibility. But the ‘judges’ are still largely practising investment lawyers with no conflict of interest rules (just a promise to develop a code of conduct before the agreement comes into force). The hearings are still ad hoc hearings with no predictable rules or precedents and no right of appeal. Amicus briefs require permission. Hearings will be public, but documents can still be withheld as confidential. Punitive damages can’t be awarded, but there is no limit on compound interest (which at times comprises half the amount awarded). And more …

 

Bottom line 4: commercially meaningful market access gains for agriculture. Come on – not even Groser is claiming that – just that it will get better as the TPPA bus rolls on. A mere $259 million a year in tariff cuts ‘once it is fully implemented’ – they almost never say that means by 2047!  Of course tariff cuts do not simplistically convert into economic gains even if that was the economic model for an advanced, high-innovation economy New Zealand needs for the 21st century.

The government refused to release the economic modelling it relied on when projecting $2.7 billion gains to the economy in twenty years until posting it the night before last. Economists are now decoding the methodology and assumptions, which are always unreal.

David Walker conceded to me the other night that the study does not include quantitative or qualitative costs, such as the expected $55 million p.a. for extended copyright terms, the potential stifling of innovation through new IP and e-commerce rules, exposure to investor-state disputes (Australia has reportedly spent $50 million so far on costs defending plain packaging tobacco and it is not yet at the substantive hearing), damage caused by inability to rein in too big to fail banks and the shadow banking system, and a range of other substantive and regulatory constraints we don’t yet know about.

 

IN SUM – The Labour causes can’t hide any longer behind the claim it has to wait until it can see the text.  The text shows that the TPPA fails all five of the ‘bottom lines’.  If these principles are truly ‘non-negotiable’ then the parliamentary Labour party has no option but to oppose If TPPA.  

To do otherwise it not only to sell out the Labour party and its principles, but the people of New Zealand who expect it to keep its word and to show it understands the increasingly invasive nature of this form of corporate-led treaty whose function is to block progressive governments making real change

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

This weeks Waatea news column – Labour Party Conference 2015 – with friends like Greens & NZ First

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This weeks Waatea news column –  with friends like Greens & NZ First

 

 

ANDREW CAMPBELL RIGHT OF REPLY: 10th November, 2015

Hi Bomber

Over the weekend you posted a blog that stated the following:

“At this Conference, Labour were going to tell New Zealand who their preferred political partners would be so that there is no confusion about what form of coalition government could be formed post the election, but those plans of transparency were put on hold when the Greens and NZ First refused to agree to that announcement.”

This statement is factually incorrect. The Green Party was never approached about such an announcement, and Andrew Little has confirmed this morning, in response to a reporter, that such a request was never made.

I am not sure who your source for the piece was, but regardless it is totally inaccurate and maligns the Green Party in the process by accusing us of rejecting a proposal that was never made to us.

As such I think it is only fair that the blog makes this correction, as at the moment it contains factually incorrect statements that unnecessarily creates a negative impression of the Green Party for something we never did.

Andrew Campbell is the Green Party Chief of Staff

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

One For The Road: David Cunliffe reminds Labour’s rank-and-file why they voted for him

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WAS IT PURE COINCIDENCE? Just 48 hours before the opening of Labour’s annual conference in Palmerston North, David Cunliffe contributes a blinder of a speech to Parliament’s General Debate. Watching and listening to the speech it’s hard to avoid the impression that the man lumbered with all the responsibility for Labour’s catastrophic 2014 election defeat was using his speaking slot to send a message to the gathering rank-and-file.

“If you’ve been wondering why you voted for me back in 2013,” Cunliffe seemed to be saying, “it’s because, when I want to, I can unleash a speech like this.” He had no need to add: “Can anyone on Labour’s front bench say the same?” Because Labour’s members were already asking themselves that question.

It’s increasingly difficult to form a clear impression of Cunliffe the politician. Blackening Cunliffe’s name, and trashing his performance as party leader, have played a crucial role in enhancing the shaky legitimacy of the man who replaced him. It has also allowed the party to avoid examining too closely the contribution of other Labour MPs to the 2014 debacle. The stories of Cunliffe’s indecision; his inability to formulate a strategy and stick to it; his obsessive and exhausting micromanagement; these are all that’s needed, now, to explain away Labour’s worst electoral performance since 1922.

And Andrew Little (the man whose winning margin was less than 1 percent) has been able to emerge from this carefully constructed narrative as Labour’s unlikely saviour. After a long run of incredibly bad luck, Little is portrayed as Labour’s lucky break. A strong and stable contrast to the unaccountably hopeless Cunliffe.

Because that is the contradiction that so many of Cunliffe’s supporters still cannot reconcile: the before Cunliffe and the after-Cunliffe. The coolly ruthless assassin of David Shearer’s hopes; the man who repeatedly reassured his supporters that he would be leader of the NZLP, and then proved as good as his word. Could he also be the hapless, accident-prone, foot-in-mouth Cunliffe who, as Leader of the Opposition, took Labour from 37 percent in the polls to 25 percent at the ballot-box?

Listen to Cunliffe’s speech carefully, and an answer, of sorts, emerges. National’s strategy, which turns out to be exactly the same strategy as that of the Crosby-Textor-advised Conservative parties in the UK and Canada, is to use the Right’s allies in the news media (and the blogs) to destroy the reputation of new Opposition leaders before the public has time to form a firm opinion of their own. Foot-tripped from the very beginning, and unable to establish any kind of secure footing, the targeted individual struggles constantly to tear off the labels being fastened to him from every quarter (including, tragically, from within his own caucus).

Cunliffe does not dispute the facts of his less-than-stellar performance as Labour Leader. There are things he knows he should not have done – or, at least, done differently. What he was trying to say in his Wednesday-afternoon speech was, in essence, two things. The first: “You weren’t wrong to make me your leader, because, when I’m good – I’m bloody good!” And the second: “I know I stuffed a lot of things up, but, never forget, I had a lot of help!”

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

A Tale of Two Head Coverings – a personal-essay

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A recent incident in Auckland highlighted that racism is still very much alive in our country. The case of Fatima Mohammadi being denied employment because she wore a piece of fabric on her head is indicative how far New Zealand has yet to go on being the tolerant society we would like to think we are.

According to some in our society, this is acceptable;

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The garb of two internationally-recognised women below is very acceptable, and the wearers held in high regard by many throughout the West;

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This is not acceptable, and elicits fear, prejudice, and intolerance;

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One of the four women above was denied employment at a job interview, because she wore a head-scarf.

Can you guess which?

Clue: she’s not caucasian.

By any measure, this is a form of racism. Those who mask their racism by insisting that employers have a “right” to base their employment decisions on race, religion, ethnicity, etc, are trying to hide their prejudice behind the mask of “free choice”.

“Free choice” ends where racism begins.

Otherwise, we end up with “free choice” being expressed like this in cafes, buses, and other public places;

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“Freedom of  choice” to be racist has a corollary – it denies another human being the right to participate on an equal footing, based solely on religion, race, etc.

Do we really want to see signs like this springing up around New Zealand;

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Perhaps the most bizarre way  racism is couched  is the proposition that forcing muslim women to abandon their headscarves is a “feminist” stance. Like the “freedom of choice” excuse, the “feminist” excuse is pseudo-progressiveness which masks the real ugliness that is racism.

Forcing a woman not to wear a certain style of clothing is no more feminist than telling her what she must wear. It is another  Orwellian concept which most of us are already familiar with;

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Anyone who thinks that it is ok for Ms Mohammadi to be discriminated against has obviously never been discriminated against. Otherwise they would know the intense feeling of humiliation such discrimination creates.

The feeling of humiliation was one of my first lessons in the nastier side of human behaviour. As a child, I witnessed first-hand racist abuse meted out to my mother by local half-witted young men at an A&P Show. Two or three louts (I can’t recall the actual number) overheard her telling me and my siblings to stay close and not get lost in the crowd.

They obviously over-heard her talking to us in her native language. Being from Eastern Europe, her different language and accent was obvious.

They surrounded my mother and told her to speak English. They told her to go back home. They shouted menacingly at us. Powerless, we clung to her, until they got tired of their racist ranting and walked off.

Not the best experience for a six year old.

I’ve never forgotten the experience. That kind of thing sticks with you for the rest of your life.

There are those – usually privileged white, English-speakers – who will maintain that was simply “freedom of speech” when they publically harangued, intimidated, and frightened us.

It didn’t feel like “free speech”.

Quite simply, this is not the Kiwi Way. In 1981, this country fought apartheid in a far-away country and there were mass protests in the streets as many New Zealanders resisted  state racism in South Africa.

Aotearoa’s stand on South Africa’s apartheid system was instrumental in that country’s democratic reformation.

If business-owners can discriminate on grounds on a headscarf, what is the next grounds for discrimination? As history shows, the human capacity for bigotry can start small and seemingly insignificant, and end up with a holocaust that forever impacts on the collective human psyche.

It seems that we have much work left here in Aotearoa to address our own attitudes.

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References

NZ Herald: Editorial – Clashes of culture call for tolerance

Other Bloggers

The Daily Blog: Cottonsocks – Response to NZH editorial

Previous related blogposts

A taste of racism

Random Thoughts on Random Things #1

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Employment falls, unemployment rises, but jobless benefit numbers down!

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The September year report from Statistics New Zealand confirms the economy has stalled and unemployment is rising. But WINZ reports that the number of people considered work ready and receiving Jobseeker Support dropped by 1,022 between September 2014 and September 2015 – from 66,754 to 65,732. The number on Jobseeker Support with a health condition or disability also fell. The total number receiving a Jobseeker Support benefit fell by 2,232 from 123,133 to 120,901.

How is that possible when the number of New Zealanders employed in the year to September 2015, fell by 11,000, and the number of unemployed increased by 14,300, to 148,800. The number of jobless was also up by 40,100 to 269,600! The number of people registered with WINZ as “jobseekers” also increased from 268,610 to 283,077 – an increase of 14,457!

This simply confirms that WINZ is continuing its brutal denial of income support to those genuinely unemployed without regard to their legal obligations.

There was a broad correlation between the number of people receiving unemployment benefits from WINZ and the number of people recorded as “Jobless” by the Household Labour Force Survey. When I used annualised data for the June years I found that beneficiary numbers were roughly 75% of the jobless number from 1990 to 2001. Then the percentage reduced every year until the series was discontinued in 2013 when the percentage of jobless receiving a benefit hit a record low of 19%.

If the 75% ratio was applied to the current jobless number it would imply that there should be 200,000 people receiving the unemployment benefit when there are actually only 65,632 work ready Jobseeker beneficiaries.

Successive Labour and National governments have taken over a billion dollars a year out of working class communities and families. In my view this is grand larceny committed by the richest on the poorest in our communities and head should roll.

Beneficiaries as a percentage of the jobless

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Unemployment, Christchurch, dairy prices – Bill English confirms blogger’s analysis

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Leg #1: Treasury reported in 2012, on the Christchurch re-build;

The Canterbury rebuild is expected to be a significant driver of economic growth over the next five to ten years. The timing and speed of the rebuild is uncertain, in part due to ongoing aftershocks, but the New Zealand Treasury expects it to commence around mid-to-late 2012.

Leg #2: The Reserve Bank, in 2014, on our Dairy sector;

The New Zealand dairy industry is experiencing prosperous times, continuing the strong growth in export earnings of the past eight years. Animal numbers and prices have increased and on and off farm productivity growth has been impressive.  And the future looks bright. There seem to be important structural reasons behind the rise in dairy prices that should continue into the medium term.

Leg #3: Steven Joyce, Associate Minister of Finance, this year, on the Auckland housing boom;

“Closer to home, the Reserve Bank … highlights several factors continuing to support growth domestically, including robust tourism, immigration, the large pipeline of construction activity in Auckland, and, importantly, the lower interest rates and the depreciation of the New Zealand dollar.”

There we have it – the three basic “legs” comprising National’s economic development policy. One is predicated on fluctuating international market-prices; another is an unsustainable property boom funded by billions borrowed from off-shore; and the other is the epitomy of ‘disaster’ capitalism.

In debating the fragility and unsustainability of these three sectors of our economy, I (and other bloggers from the Left) have pointed out time and again the transitory nature of the dairy sector boom; the Christchurch re-build boom; and the Auckland property market boom. Acolytes of the so-called free-market – ever dedicated to their quasi-religious right-wing notions – have dismissed our warnings.

On 4 November, the National government’s Finance Minister and sheep farmer, Bill English, made a statement in Parliament that has backed up our dire warnings – albeit somewhat late in the day;

“Of course, if unemployment was a direct choice of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, there would be none of it. You would just decide to have none. But, of course, it is not. It is a product of the world economy and its low growth rates, and of particular circumstances in New Zealand where the rebuild in Christchurch has flattened out and there has been a drop in national income of billions of dollars from the decrease in dairy prices, which was always going to affect the number of jobs in New Zealand, and now it is happening.”

Indeed; “and now it is happening”.

Two of National’s economic stimulators are either belly-up, or in the process of falling flat.

Only the Auckland housing boom remains. When that collapses, it will be much, much worse than the depressed Dairying sector. At that precise moment, international lenders will have noticed that we have been borrowing-up-large for one helluva massive property splurge-party – and they will be wanting their money back.

All $200 billion of it.

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According to Squirrel mortgage broker, John Bolton;

“People are completely oblivious of what’s going on. If you overlay what’s going on around the rest of the world, all bets are off.”

New Zealanders are about to wake up with the biggest “hang-over” since they first got trolleyed at teenagers.

Is this where I say, “I told you so”?

Will it matter by then?

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References

NZ Treasury: Recent Economic Performance and Outlook (2012)

Reserve Bank: The significance of dairy to the New Zealand economy

Parliament Today: Questions and Answers – Sept 10 2015

Parliament: Hansards – Questions for oral answer – 2. Unemployment—Rate

Fairfax media: Mortgage debt tops $200 billion

Additional

Metro: 10 ideas that could solve the Auckland property crisis

Previous related blogposts

Labour’s collapse in the polls – why?

“The Nation” reveals gobsmacking incompetence by Ministers English and Lotu-Iiga

The Mendacities of Mr Key # 12: No More Asset Sales (Kind of)

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Crash Investigation

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One television programme I find quite compelling is National Geographic’s Air Crash Investigation, or ‘Mayday’ when it’s screened on Prime. Indeed the crash of the Air New Zealand test flight near Perpignan in France on 29 November 2008 has featured on this programme, though I recall no major news reportage at the time the case was finally resolved. (See Final moments of Air NZ test flightStuff 3 March 2014.)

There’s the painstaking use of the scientific method that accompanies a truly professional inquiry. Different hypothetical causes of a crash are systematically tested and then ruled out (disproved). Then there’s the fact that catastrophic outcomes generally have multiple causes, including human error arising usually from confusion or deference. If something – even something major – goes wrong in the mechanics of a modern airliner, that aircraft can usually still be guided towards a non‑catastrophic outcome, if the people concerned make the optimal decisions.

New Zealand is not covered in glory when it comes to major crash investigations. The 29 November 1978 crash on My Erebus was subject to two major investigations which yielded two apparently conflicting culprits. The reality of course is that both findings were correct, but that neither told the whole story. The airline did mis‑programme the DC10 aircraft, and tried to cover up their mistake. Yet the pilots should never have been flying at low altitude anywhere vaguely near a mountain that they couldn’t see.

The recent investigation into the 4 September 2010 Fox Glacier crash was a fiasco. Destroying evidence at any time, let alone so soon after the event, was at very least highly unprofessional and it suggests that someone with something to hide was aided if not abetted by the authorities. (See ‘Arrogant’ crash agency criticised for Fox Glacier investigation handlingStuff, 29 October 2015; Craig Foss should demonstrate accountability, Labour Party Press Release, Scoop, 2 November 2015.)

The worst crash investigation debacle in New Zealand that I recall was the appalling investigation to the Mikhail Lermontov sinking in 1986. The New Zealand pilot crashed the passenger liner in Marlborough Sounds and could have caused the loss of over 700 lives. The Russian senior crew who trusted him faced substantial consequences when tried back home in the Soviet Union. The person who admitted crashing the ship (but not why) escaped with a barely wet bus ticket. (25 years on, ship pilot still silentMarlborough Express, 16 February 2011; Lermontov sinking still lures conspiracy buffsNZ Herald, 16 February 2006.) He had been investigated by one of his best mates.

We now have a new mystery on our hands. The truth of Kogalymavia (Metrojet) Flight 9268 (of Russia), lost last weekend over Sinai (Egypt), may remain opaque for a long time, possibly forever. (Refer Bomb Is ‘Possibility’ in Loss of Russian Jet Over Egypt, Obama SaysNew York Times, 5 November.) Initial media coverage in New Zealand was minimal, thanks to the saturation coverage of the Rugby World Cup final. However, once I got the general picture, and then heard the ISIL claim that they (or affiliates) brought it down, my thoughts turned to the Al Jazeera documentary that I watched last year about the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. (See Lockerbie Bombing: New Investigation Points To IranBusiness Insider, 11 March 2014.)

The conclusion of the Al Jazeera programme was compelling. Lockerbie was utu for the confused shooting down of Iran Air 655 over the Persian Gulf by the United States warship USS Vincennes. Yet the ‘official’ verdict is that Pan Am 103 was downed by Libyan agents. (This case is the Teina Pora of global politics; essentially an egregious cover-up.)

So my mind wandered to Ukraine, and MH17. (See this Harvard Review story Sorry, but Iran Air 655 is Not Equivalent to Malaysia Flight 17, 7 August 2014.) Could Flight 9268 have been utu for MH17? And could ISIL be being set-up in the same way that Libya was after Pan Am 103? Or could ISIL have been infiltrated? In fact, one could argue that the CIA and MI6 would be quite deficient organisations if they do not have people acting under cover within ISIL. Presumably such agents could be nudging ISIL towards Russian rather than western targets. (Indeed, my favourite Sam Neill character is Sidney Reilly in Ace of Spies.)

Wearing my suspicious hat on Sunday evening, I watched a recording of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911. Moore depicts the GW Bush administration as being economically bound to Saudi Arabia, indeed to (among others) the Bin Laden construction conglomerate. Moore described various cover-ups, including a rapid evacuation from the US of members of the Bin Laden clan immediately after the 11 September 2001 (‘911’) attacks on New York and Washington. Moore intimated that the subsequent invasion of Iraq (18 months later) was in part cover for the more embarrassing story that 911 was really an attack emanating from within one of America’s staunchest allies.

During the week I decided to watch Al Jazeera’s very recent two-part documentary Enemy of Enemies: The Rise of ISIL, 26 October 2015. It was a very interesting reveal of the Byzantine relationships and alliances this century in those former Assyrian and Ottoman lands we now call Iraq and Syria. The title ‘Enemy of Enemies’ initially related to an alliance formed between Sunni Jihadists and the post-Saddam Hussein remnants of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party. But, as the story developed that title gained multiple meanings. One relates to the sheer convenience to Bashar Assad’s brutal Alawite regime (Shia aligned) in Syria, in his ‘civil’ war, of the emergence of ISIL.

My sense is that a new geopolitical “axis” (the term used in ‘Enemy of Enemies’) is forming, with the nearly 1400 year sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims defining that axis, and the strong economic and geopolitical links between Russia and Shia regimes in the ‘Middle East’ (Iran being the biggest of these) giving it global reach.

If this is the emerging axis – and one that may one day include China (given its interests and Security Council vetoes of western action against Assad) – then (to persevere with World War 2 vocabulary) who are the allies? Maybe we can think of an extension of the US-Saudi alliance. And we can think back to the 1980s and the Iran-Iraq War. That was when Saddam committed his atrocities; and he was then the west’s man.

So, I’m kind of imagining a Sunni-NATO alliance, and a Shia-Russia axis. Whose side does that place ISIL on? What’s the betting that soon we may see ISIL’s wickedness being downplayed a tad? (And indeed, I gather from another Al Jazeera doco this week that ISIL is having far more effect on weakening the Taliban than the USA ever did.)

Of course it’s all speculation. But speculation is a synonym for imagination. It helps us to join the dots, to create some structure to events that are clearly important but otherwise senseless.

I would like to see a world where the speculations that are central to the technique of competent air crash investigators are combined with their scientific ‘ruling out’ processes. If it’s not ruled out it’s still in. And once we’ve applied this method to geopolitics, we can start using it to assess other sacred cows, such as monetary policy and the other arcane conundra of finance and macroeconomics. Our understandings of the global ‘Great Crash’ of 1929 and the associated ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s remain as blurred as our understanding of who brought down Pan Am 103, and why it happened.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

CPAG – Call to action over dire state of New Zealand housing

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Figures released this week show that the average New Zealand house price, for the first time ever, has exceeded half a million dollars. This is an increase of 14 percent over the past 12 months and yet another example of housing becoming less accessible to everyday New Zealanders.

Hikoi for Homes – a coalition of groups consisting of the Child Poverty Action Group, Auckland Action Against Poverty, Unite and First Union – is challenging the government to do better and to prioritise decent quality, affordable and safe housing as a basic human right. It is organising a series of hikoi in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on 21 November to highlight this very concern.

Inadequate housing has lifelong consequences on health, education, and social and economic participation in our communities. In New Zealand today, people are suffering in unfit homes, homelessness in is exploding, state tenants are being evicted, emergency housing providers are full to capacity, private rents are skyrocketing. We have a government that insists that the market can provide us affordable housing, but the facts on the ground tell us different.

Hikoi for Homes is taking a stand and demanding that our country’s decision-makers consider housing a moral and ethical issue – no matter one’s life circumstances, everyone deserves a home.

The hikoi and its wider campaign argues that current policies do not meet this fundamental demand and that all public policies should be driven by this expectation. Housing needs to be considered more than a commodity whose allocation is entirely decided by markets and a profit motive.

The campaign has seven clear policy asks:

1. An immediate stop to the sell-off of state and council housing

2. A $1 billion annual budget for the provision of more public and other not-for-profit housing

3. Setting minimum standards for all rented housing

4. Greater tenure protection for tenants

5. Rent freeze for five years

6. A statutory right to be housed

7. State subsidies for modest income homeownership programmes

Hikoi for Homes spokesperson Sue Bradford says, “This hikoi is a chance for everyone who believes the government’s response to the housing crisis is completely hopeless to come together and speak out for the right of everyone in this country to have a decent home, not just some of us.”

The three hikoi will be held on Saturday 21 November as follows:

Auckland

Start: Glen Innes Railway Station, 12pm

Finish: Orakei Domain, approx. 3pm

Wellington

Start: Cuba Mall, near Left Bank, 1pm

Finish: Civic Square, approx. 2:30pm

Christchurch

9 Buckleys Road, Linwood (opposite Eastgate Shopping Centre), 12pm

These are family-friendly events – children welcome.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – Syria: Thousands of disappeared people used as “cash cow”

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New Zealand in its role on the UN Security Council must urge an immediate end to disturbing crimes against humanity

‘Disappearances are driving a black market economy of bribery which trades in the suffering of families who have lost a loved one’ – Philip Luther

The Syrian government is using a policy of subjecting thousands of people to enforced disappearance as both a means to crush opposition and to make large amounts of money for itself, said Amnesty International in a new report.

Amnesty’s 70-page report – Between prison and the grave: Enforced disappearances in Syria – reveals that the Syrian authorities are profiting from widespread and systematic enforced disappearances amounting to crimes against humanity, through an insidious black market in which family members desperate to find out the fate of their disappeared relatives are ruthlessly exploited for cash.

As part of this black market, “middlemen” or “brokers” are paid bribes ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds by family members. Such bribes have become “a big part of the economy” according to one Syrian human rights activist. A lawyer from Damascus also told Amnesty that the bribes are “a cash cow for the regime … a source of funding they have come to rely on”.

The report gives a tragic insight into the psychological trauma, anguish, despair and physical suffering experienced by family members and friends after an enforced disappearance. Saeed, whose brother Yusef was forcibly disappeared in 2012, said his mother never stops crying now. “Sometimes in the night I wake up and she is awake, looking at his picture and crying,” he said.

In one particularly shocking case, Rania al-Abbasi, a dentist, was arrested in 2013 along with her six children aged between two and 14-years-old, two days after her husband was seized during a raid on their home. The entire family has not been heard of since. It is believed they may have been targeted for providing humanitarian assistance to local families. A friend of Syrian human rights lawyer Khalil Ma’touq, who was forcibly disappeared two years ago, said enforced disappearances are part of “a grand strategy by the government to terrorise the people of Syria”. His daughter Raneem Ma’touq was also disappeared for two months.

Some families have sold their property or used their entire life savings to pay bribes to discover the fate of their relatives – sometimes in exchange for false information. One man whose three brothers were disappeared in 2012 told Amnesty he’d borrowed around £100,000 in failed attempts to find out where they are. He is now in Turkey working to pay back his debts.

The scale of the disappearances is harrowing. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 65,000 disappearances since 2011 – 58,000 of them civilians. Those taken are usually held in overcrowded detention cells in appalling conditions and cut off from the outside world. Many have died as a result of rampant disease, torture and extrajudicial execution.

Among the victims of forcible disappearance are peaceful opponents of the government such as demonstrators, human rights activists, journalists, doctors and humanitarian workers. Others have been targeted because they are believed to be disloyal to the government or because their relatives are wanted by the authorities. In some cases, especially in the last two years, enforced disappearances have also been used opportunistically as a means to settle scores or for financial gain, further fuelling the cycle of disappearances.

Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said:

“This report describes in heart-breaking detail the devastation and trauma of the families of the tens of thousands of people who have vanished without trace in Syria, and their cruel exploitation for financial gain.

“As well as shattering lives, disappearances are driving a black market economy of bribery which trades in the suffering of families who have lost a loved one. They are left with mounting debts and a gaping hole where a loved one used to be.

“These are crimes against humanity, part of a carefully-orchestrated campaign designed to spread terror and quash the slightest sign of dissent across the country.”

Searching for the missing is dangerous

Family members who try to inquire about disappeared relatives are often at risk of arrest or being forcibly disappeared themselves, which gives them little choice but to resort to using such “middlemen”. One man who asked the authorities about his brother’s whereabouts was detained for three months and spent several weeks in solitary confinement. Another man who went to Damascus to look for his disappeared son was arrested at a military checkpoint on the way and has not been heard from since.

Lack of international action – New Zealand must urgently mobilise

While some states and the UN have condemned enforced disappearances, much more is needed than words of censure. More than a year and a half ago, in February 2014, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2139, which calls for an end to enforced disappearances in Syria, but it has yet to take further steps to ensure it is implemented.

As an elected member of the UN Security Council, New Zealand has a key role to play in highlighting these crimes against humanity and mobilising the Council to act.

The Council must make strong demands for the prompt and unfettered access to Syria by the International Commission of Inquiry, humanitarian and human rights organisations and international journalists.

Philip Luther added:

“Words which are not followed up by concrete action will not help the victims of enforced disappearances. The UN Security Council must urgently refer the situation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and impose targeted sanctions, including asset freezes, to pressure the authorities to end enforced disappearances.

“States supporting the government of Syria, including Iran and Russia, which has recently begun military operations in Syria, cannot wash their hands of the mass crimes against humanity and war crimes being committed with their backing. Russia, whose patronage is essential for President Bashar al-Assad’s government, is in a unique position to convince the government to end this cruel and cowardly campaign of disappearances.”

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HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – All Kiwis have a right to an opinion including Korean ones

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Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy says all New Zealanders have the right to an opinion no matter where they were born.

“Kiwis born overseas have a right to a say over the country they call home, where they work, vote, pay taxes and contribute: overseas born Kiwis are not second class citizens who have fewer rights than other New Zealanders,” said Dame Susan.

Earlier this week a row erupted in parliament after an MP disagreed with another MP and told her to go back to her birth country if she didn’t like it here. New Zealand’s changing demographics means our country is one of the most ethnically diverse nations on earth. Dame Susan says the comments were unhelpful and offensive but congratulated those people who have come out in support of the Korean Kiwi politician.

“We’re at a crossroads when it comes to race relations, we either get on with each other, and lead the world in race relations: or we take pleasure in prejudice and leave our children with a race relations crisis to deal with, it’s up to us,” said Dame Susan.

“We need our politicians from every party to behave with mana and to show leadership when it comes to race relations, it’s a crucial time for us all to think of the future we are creating.”

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TPPA NO WAY – Government’s snow job on TPPA now exposed

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‘As expected, access to the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement reveals major holes in the government’s “fact sheets”’, says Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey.

An initial review of the most controversial chapters confirms that New Zealand will have to comply with onerous new obligations and lose the future capacity to regulate in ways that an elected government thinks appropriate.

The investment chapter goes beyond New Zealand’s existing agreements in numerous ways. For example, a foreign investor from a TPP country that is party to a contract for oil exploration, a PPP contract for water, sewage or toll roads, or a mining or forestry concession with central government or an SOE exercising a delegated power, can use the controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process if it wants to claim its rights are breached, even if the contract requires them to use NZ courts or some other dispute mechanism.

Foreign investors, notably from the US and Japan, gain special rights not available to New Zealand investors, which are commonly used to challenge new regulations that adversely affect their business. In New Zealand, where risk-tolerant light handed regulation is the norm, that poses major problems for a future government wanting to regulate in the public interest.

As the government conceded, the categories of investment where the rules can be tightened have been constrained, and existing regulation of various services and investments are locked in so they can’t be made more restrictive in the future.

Some of the so-called protections for environment, health and regulatory objectives in the investment chapter are a nonsense – they allow the government to do what the chapter allows the government to do. The wording of the annex on expropriation, which supposedly restricts the scope of indirect or regulatory expropriation – where regulations are challenged for eroding the value of an investment – is weaker than other New Zealand agreements.

The general exception provision, which provides only weak protection for public health or environment measures at best, does not apply to the investment chapter. Instead, there are highly contestable rights to adopt rules for ‘legitimate public policy’ reasons, but those apply only to some rules and will be interpreted by ad hoc investment arbitrators.

There are some attempts to rein in the ISDS process, but they do not address the major concerns. The arbitrators are still likely to be drawn from a small club (often referred to as the mafia) who are also investment lawyers; there are no conflict of interest rules, merely that they must be developed before the agreement comes into force; there is no appeal; compound interest can still be awarded; and the kinds of damages that be claimed are still extensive.

A further, fundamental problem is that investment tribunals have proved adept at reading down or circumventing attempts to constrain the adventurism of the tribunals, including provisions on which parties to the TPPA claim the right to make binding interpretations that the tribunals must follow.

The tobacco-specific exception applies only to disputes brought by investors under the investment chapter, where a country opts to exclude it. Unlike the proposed Malaysian carveout for tobacco control measures from the entire agreement, it does not apply to other chapters, such as labelling rules, intellectual property, or the investment chapter itself. (Australia’s plain packaging law is currently facing a dispute over labelling and intellectual property in the WTO).

There is at least some provision for countries to impose capital controls, which does not exist in standard US FTAs. But it is circumscribed by almost impossible conditions.

There are serious new constraints on financial regulation, including of cross-border financial transactions and data flows, which require further careful study.

The unprecedented State-owned Enterprises chapter has three complex principal rules, which will create major problems for SOEs that provide integrated services both within and outside the country or produce a mixture of goods and services. The procedural requirements are commercially intrusive and provide scope for harassment by other TPPA parties on behalf of their corporations.

The chapter will create particular problems for the creation of new SOEs that require a capital injection and subsidisation or other special treatment or the provision of guarantees – for example, the proposal to establish a new state-owned insurance company.

The intellectual property chapter has already been leaked and analysed. Copyright is extended by 20 years in two tranches; New Zealand is the only country that has to make changes immediately.

The highly sensitive area of biologics is far from secure. New Zealand’s negotiators say they consider our current process satisfies the obligation. But there is a very high risk that the US will demand that we adopt its interpretation of what is required and refuse to ‘certify’ our compliance (a pre-requisite for the agreement to come into force with the US) until we provider a longer effective monopoly on those new generation pharmaceuticals. In addition, the rule comes up for renegotiation in 10 years, by which time biologics will be a much more dominant part of the medicines budget.

The transparency annex that affects Pharmac’s processes will increase its administrative burden and a new review procedure provides Big Pharma with a new opportunity to challenge Pharmac’s decisions.

These comments confirm the predicted problems in the text. Full analysis of the different chapters will follow, with expert peer reviewed papers being released over the next few weeks.

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NZDWU – Zero hours show zero vision

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“Michael Woodhouse’s zero hour contract legislation is another blow against Kiwi workers from a Government with zero vision.” says Chris Flatt, National Secretary, Dairy Workers Union.

“Working people, their unions, and even the Human Rights Commission have voiced serious concerns about this legislation and the way it locks uncertainty of work into law. Businesses have said they have no need for these unfair employment agreements”

“The New Zealand dairy processing industry we deal with, one of the most successful and productive industries in the country, is not a heavy user of zero hour contracts. This is a clear sign that these unfair contracts have no place in an innovative and high performance business.”

“If the government’s Bill passes as it stands we’ll see even more people stuck on these contracts that stop them from being able to plan for the hours they work or the pay they take home.”

“Having no right to this simple information take away basic freedoms from Kiwi workers’ lives, but sadly follows many steps by this Government to make Kiwis’ work lives less secure including seriously eroding negotiating rights, cutting rights to a meal break, forcing film workers to become contractors, and removing the right to a health and safety rep from tens of thousands of people.”

“This Bill takes us further down the path of a low skill, low wage, low value economy. It’s no good for New Zealand’s workers and their families and it’s no good for New Zealand.” Flatt said.

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LIFEWISE – Housing Choice Essential to Addressing Homelessness

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Following Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett’s conformation of plans to crack down on social housing applicants, social development agency Lifewise are calling on the government to reconsider plans to remove people from the social housing register if they turn down a property.

“We see the effects of the housing shortage in Auckland every day. Already, many of our homeless clients struggle to get onto the housing register and then to remain on the list,” says Moira Lawler, Lifewise’s General Manager. “Further tightening of the rules will place more vulnerable people at risk.”

Homelessness is increasing around New Zealand. In the last year alone, the number of people rough sleeping within just 3km of Auckland’s Sky Tower has doubled to nearly 150 people. In 2006, more than 15, 000 people in Auckland had safe or stable housing, and service providers report that the demand for their services has been increasing every year.

“The people most affected by Auckland’s housing crisis are our most vulnerable. They are the ones who end up sleeping in over-crowded garages, on people’s couches and under bridges when they can’t afford a rental,” says Moira.

International research shows that getting people into permanent homes is much more cost effective than keeping them on the streets – but having a choice is essential to ensure people remain housed. For the most vulnerable people, who are homeless with mental health and substance use problems, research shows housing choice is a crucial factor in ensuring they remain housed.

“Rather than further rationing state housing, we need both a significant investment in new housing suppliers and funding to enable people to access private rentals,” says Moira.

“New Zealand desperately needs to wake up and address the cold, hard facts. Access to safe and secure housing is not a luxury – it’s a human right. If we don’t act now, more and more people will be pushed to the margins. And at the end of the day, that’s a cost we will all have to bear.”

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