Last week’s visit by Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Ja’afari was another step in the softening up process to prepare New Zealanders to accept our troops joining the war against ISIS in Iraq.
The typical headlines which reported the visit said things like “Iraq asks NZ for help to fight jihadists”. A more accurate headline would have been “New Zealand government works harder to manufacture consent for war in Iraq”.
Most New Zealanders don’t support us joining another foreign war on behalf of the US and their illegitimate Iraqi political elite.
ISIS is a particularly ugly terrorist grouping which makes little distinction between combatants and civilians but the US has no claim to any higher moral ground.
Innocent people have been tortured and murdered in places like Abu Ghraib, Guantanemo Bay, US bases in Afghanistan and Iraq and numerous other countries where the US has “rendered” prisoners of war. The only difference is the lack of video footage.
No wonder a grouping like ISIS has now emerged in reaction to US imperialist policy in the Middle East – spawned from groups of hardened fighters who battled earlier foreign invasions of their region.
In attempting to defend US global objectives the American government has spent an estimated $25 billion arming and training Iraqi troops since 2003. But still this army is unable and/or unwilling to put their lives on the line to back their own corrupt, illegitimate government and who could blame them.
John Key is now intent on sending New Zealand troops to step in where US billions have failed. He wants us to somehow replace what Iraqi troops lack in loyalty. It’s never going to work and puts New Zealand at extra risk of terrorism at home.
So with the New Zealand public sceptical at best the government orchestrated the visit of Ibrahim al-Ja’afari to give more political cover for a war decision.
And while al-Ja’afari was standing alongside New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully urging New Zealand to join the fight against ISIS the Prime Minister was expressing outrage at the videoed murder of the Jordanian pilot and lambasting the opposition in parliament as unconcerned at human rights abuses.
Hypocrisy has never been a problem for Key who has turned a blind eye to massive human rights abuses much closer to home in places like Sri Lanka, West Papua and Tibet alongside any of another dozen countries.
Some decades back when New Zealanders were reluctant to support our troops fighting in Vietnam we had similar visits from South Vietnamese officials to help massage public opinion.
We should see al-Ja’afari’s visit in the same light.
Pretty much everyone in New Zealand agrees that ISIS is a barbaric organisation. Videos of public beheadings and burning people alive turn our stomachs.
Before we rush off to war, we should try to understand how such a barbaric organisation came to administer such a large territory and achieve some degree of support from the local populace.
The answer lies in the way the largely Sunni people in the territory were mistreated by the mainly Shia regimes in Syria and Iraq and the corruption of those regimes.
Even Iraq’s vice-president for reconciliation, Iyad Allawi, recognises this problem. He says there is currently “widespread ethnic cleansing” of Sunnis in the territory surrounding Bagdad and “scores and scores of people… have been expelled from their areas and they can’t go back because of the dominance of militias.” He is backed up by another senior Iraqi official, Dr Hisham al-Hashimi who says the tribes in the area “have started to reflect on the idea of joining ISIS. The tribes believe that there are moves to deport them from their lands.”
In this context US air strikes only make things worse, increasing Sunni support for ISIS. The Sunni populace is not well-disposed to the Americans to start with. They remember the death and destruction visited on their communities following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US-led “coalition of the willing”.
Air strikes don’t make us as sick the stomach as the ISIS beheadings. Following an air strike we never see the blood-splattered bodies on the ground or hear the anguished groans of the injured. Most of the casualties of these air strikes are inevitably civilians, for two reasons. Firstly, most of the targeted ISIS fighters would be living among the people, rather than in separated barracks (where they would be more vulnerable to air raids), Secondly, the US-led forces target economic infrastructure in the ISIS-controlled territory, particularly oil installations, and this often results in “collateral” civilian casualties.
New Zealand joining the US military crusade in Iraq will probably be counter-productive, helping ISIS garner more Sunni support as it takes on yet another pro-Shia “foreign invader”.
If New Zealand really wants to help the Iraqi people it would be better to provide more aid for the social and economic development in the territory controlled by the Iraqi and Kurdish governments.
On the UN Security Council, New Zealand could be advocating moves to restrain those outside parties who still supply ISIS with arms and other essential supplies.
“I attended a dinner with the Sky City board 4 November 2009 where we discussed a possible national convention centre and they raised issues relating to the Gambling Act 2003”.
1. “We found a range of deficiencies in the advice provided and steps taken leading up to [the] decision.”
2. “Although decisions were made on the merits of the different proposals, we do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent or even handed.”
3. “By the time it was expected that SkyCity would put a firm proposal to the Government for support, officials should have been working to understand and advise on the procedural obligations and principles that would need to govern the next steps. We found no evidence that officials were doing so at this stage.”
4. “The meetings and discussion between the Government representatives and SkyCity were materially different in quantity and kind from those between the Government and the other parties that responded.”
5. “SkyCity was treated very differently from the other parties that responded and the evaluation process effectively moved into a different phase with one party. In our view, the steps that were taken were not consistent with good practice principles of transparency and fairness.”
6. “Overall, we regard the EOI [expressions of interest] process in stage two as having been poorly planned and executed. Insufficient attention was given to planning and management of the process as a whole, so that risks were not adequately addressed and managed.”
7. “We did not see any evidence of formal discussions or decisions on the evaluation process and criteria, or mapping out of the basic options for what might happen next, or advice to Ministers on how the process would be managed and their involvement in it. We do not regard this as adequate for a project of this potential scale, complexity, and risk.”
8. “We have concluded that the preparation for the EOI process and the EOI document, fell short of good practice in a number of respects.”
9. “In our view, the result was that one potential submitter had a clearer understanding of the actual position on a critical issue – that the Government did not want to fund any capital costs – than any other potential submitters … We accept that it is unlikely that this flaw made a material difference to the outcome. However, we have spent some time discussing it because we regard it as symptomatic of the lack of attention to procedural risks, and therefore to the fairness and credibility of the process.”
10. “We are unable to comment on the value of any contribution the Government might make as part of any eventual agreement with SkyCity, because negotiations have not yet been concluded.”
Key’s response, in Parliament was an outright denial;
“Absolutely, and the reason for that, as the member will be aware, is that the Auditor-General’s report was divided into three parts. The first part of it was focused on my involvement, and I was totally and utterly cleared and vindicated in that. That was my only involvement.”
The Auditor General, Phillipa Smith, was less than impressed by Key’s attempts at mis-representing her Office’s report as a ‘vindication’;
”That fact that [the report] took 50 or 60 pages suggests that nothing was entirely clear cut. We have said that we found problems with the process that was adopted and so I think the report speaks for itself.”
Right-wing NZ Herald columnist and National sympathiser, John Armstrong, was trenchant in his condemnation of Key’s comments. On 20 February, 2013, he wrote;
Verging on banana republic kind of stuff without the bananas – that is the only conclusion to draw from the deeply disturbing report into the shonkiness surrounding the Government’s selection of SkyCity as the preferred builder and operator of a national convention centre.
The Prime Minister’s attempt to downplay Deputy Auditor-General Phillippa Smith’s findings in advance of their release yesterday by saying he had not lost any sleep from reading draft copies may turn out to be a costly political miscalculation.
John Key may have escaped personal blame for the serious flaws in the old Ministry of Economic Development’s handling of the convention centre project but the report is far worse than he had been leading people to believe.
He is taking refuge in the report’s assurances that no evidence could be found to suggest “inappropriate considerations”, such as connections between political and business leaders, were behind the final decision for the Government to negotiate with SkyCity as the preferred bidder.
In other words, no corruption. Or at least none that could be found.
The procurement process for the Auckland centre was a farce and as close to corruption as we ever see in New Zealand.
As reported by the Deputy Auditor-General, Mr Eagleson – whose best friend and Las Vegas gambling buddy is Mark Unsworth, SkyCity’s Wellington lobbyist – had been conducting private talks with SkyCity through 2009 and early 2010, including about what regulatory relief SkyCity wanted.
Mr Eagleson argued a procurement process was unnecessary and that the government should just go with SkyCity on the grounds no one else could realistically compete.
“I might add, when we were out announcing that we were doing a deal with Len Brown in Auckland, he was quite a little lamb chops before the election, because Len Brown knew as well that it will create 1,000 jobs in its construction, 900 jobs ongoing, hundreds of thousands of visitor nights for a convention centre, and tourists who will be spending twice as much in New Zealand.”
By June, Key’s claims for “1,000 jobs in its construction, 900 jobs ongoing” were questioned by hospitality and travel specialist analyst, Horwath Ltd. Horwath director, Stephen Hamilton, was blunt;
Horwath director Stephen Hamilton said he was concerned over reports the convention centre would employ 800 staff – a fulltime-equivalent total of 500.
He said the feasibility study put the number of people who would be hired at between 318 and 479.
“That’s not the number of employees at the convention centre. That’s the number in the whole economy. Some will be at the convention centre, some will be in the hotels and some will be additional taxi drivers.”
[…]
He also questioned the construction job figures, saying: “I’m not quite sure what the source of that 1000 was.”
The original Horwath report said 150 jobs could be created over a five-year construction period for a total of 750.
“The construction of the new convention centre will not cost taxpayers or ratepayers a cent, with SkyCity meeting the full project costs in return for some concessions from the Government.”
Nearly two years later, inflation appears to have turned “not a cent” into an estimated “$70m to $130m shortfall”, with SkyCity hustling National for a tax-payer bail-out.
“I’m keen to see the best convention centre I can for Auckland, because this is a very long-term asset, so I would hate to see some sort of eyesore constructed down town.
There are issues around the construction of it. Obviously you can spend more and get something that looks a lot better, or spend a bit less and get something that looks worse.
In a nutshell, the Government has an agreement with them [SkyCity]. It could make them meet that agreement but the escalation in prices to build the convention centre, which is bigger than was proposed and flasher than was proposed, means there is a hole.
So there are a couple of options. Option one would be to say to Sky City, ‘Build the convention centre exactly at the price that we all agreed, on the conditions of the deal that we agreed’, but it would be smaller I think than we had hoped and less attractive.
Or the second option is to see if there’s any way of filling that hole and to identify how big that hole is, and that’s the process we’re going through.”
“We agreed a deal at $402 million…our strong preference is that the SkyCity convention centre is built and paid for by SkyCity.”
It seems that the public and media have become weary of Key’s continual back-tracking; broken promises; and often outright lies.
This was not the first time that Key had promised the public one thing – and then delivered something else. In October 2010, as an industrial dispute erupted between SPADA and Actor’s Equity, there were threats that Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” movie project would be moved off-shore (an empty threat as Jackson later revealed).
On 26 October, Key was telling the public that his government would not be paying extra incentives to Warner Bros and that there would be no “bidding war” with other countries to provide greater incentives to the U.S. movie industry;
“If we could make the deal sweeter for them that would help; that’s something we would consider… but we can’t bridge the gap that is potentially on offer from other locations around the world. We’re not prepared to do that and… I don’t think the New Zealand taxpayer would want us to do that.”
When asked about any possible taxpayer subsidies, to match other countries incentives, he added;
“It’s not in the tens of millions, put it that way. There’s a lot of noughts.”
Key was adamant; Warner Bros would not screw another cent out of the New Zealand tax-payer. There were already generous tax breaks in place. So said Dear Leader at 11.45am, on the morning of 27 October;
“They’ve got movies to make and in the end, money talks in Hollywood. That’s just the way it works. We can’t stop other countries around the world putting up much better and more financially-lucrative deals. If it’s just simply a matter of dollars and cents, I’m just not going to write out cheques that New Zealand can’t afford.”
“Tax rebates will also be changed for Warner Bros, which will mean up to an extra $NZ20.4 million per movie for Warner Bros, subject to the success of the movies…
… The Government will offset $NZ13.6 million of Warner Bros’ marketing costs as part of the strategic partnership.”
The subsidy that was supposedly “ not in the tens of millions” became a $34 million tax-payer funded gift to Warner Bros – on top of a 15% tax-break given to the movie industry – a tax-break not available to any other industry in this country.
Key had caved to the movie moguls from Hollywood, and the tax-payer would foot the bill.
Three years later, the next corporation to hold a “gun” to Key’s head and extort millions in tax-dollars was Rio Tinto.
As State Owned powerco’s were being partially privatised, the multi-national corporation demanded their electricity-supply contract be “re-negotiated” and tax-payer “assistance” to keep the smelter at Tiwai Point afloat during low aluminium prices – or else the facility would be closed. The threat was the loss of 800 jobs (some claimed indirect jobs up to 3,000) and economic activity that was claimed to be 10% of Southland’s GDP.
With the possible closure of the smelter – which uses 15% of the country’s electricity – the price of power would collapse, making shares in Meridian, Genesis, and Mighty River Power worth only a fraction of their float price.
Key bravely asserted on 3 April 2013 that government and the New Zealand tax-payer would not be “held hostage” to Rio Tinto’s threats of closure;
“It’s quite possible that that power could be used either by new ventures that come to New Zealand or, alternatively, it would allow some less productive assets to be closed down or it would allow New Zealand not to build as much generation as might be required.”
Five months later, on 8 August 2013, Key had surrendered to Rio Tinto’s demands and as well as a deal for increased electricity subsidies, National handed over a cheque for $30 million to the corporation.
“If Tiwai Point had closed straight away then hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs would have disappeared and the Greens would have said the Government doesn’t care about those workers and is turning their back on them so they really can’t have it both ways.”
However, the loss of thousands of jobs from the economy seems not to have taxed Key’s concerns when it came to thousands of State sector workers being made redundant;
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By February the following year, Rio Tinto posted a US$3.7 billion profit, and issued a 15% increase in dividends to it’s shareholders. Part of the dividends pocketed by shareholders was no doubt made up of $30 million gifted from the pockets of hard working New Zealand tax-payers.
Soon after the tax-payer funded bail-out of Rio Tinto, Green Party MP, Gareth Hughes made this remarkably prescient comment;
“Treasury told National right from the start ‘don’t give them any money’ – it just means every corporation will have its hand out for public money whenever they have any leverage over the Government.
[…]
Is that how you want your government to govern? Do you want your government playing fast and loose with public money; using your cash as a bargaining chip to cut deals over the phone with multi-nationals every time it finds itself backed into a corner?”
I can answer Gareth’s question: the next corporation with it’s hand out is SkyCity.
John Key plays fast and loose with tax-payers’ money – not to save jobs – but to present an appearance to the public that National is “saving” jobs. It is a matter of the public’s perception he is focused on.
If that involves handing out cheques to Warner Bros, Rio Tinto, and now possibly SkyCity – he will do it.
That, to, was initiated by the supposedly pro-free market National Party.
Which leads on to an interesting situation regarding this government; it’s lip-service to the “free market” and supposed hands-off by the State. Committed right wing National/ACT supporters should be asking themselves three very pertinent questions:
Is it ok if future Labour governments intervene and gives subsidies to various businesses as National has done?
Does on-going State intervention by this National government signal the end of the neo-liberal experiment?
Has National’s intervention in the “marketplace” illustrated the failure of neo-liberalism?
One thing, though, should now be clear to all; Key will say one thing, and then renege and do completely the opposite if it suits him politically.
One would think that any self-respecting journo from the media (no, not you, Mike Hosking) these days would be asking Key a very simple question;
“Mr Prime Minister, you have issued statements in the past and then flip-flopped months down the track. Why should we take anything you say at face value value, when you have back-tracked so many times previously?”
Put another way;
“Mr Prime Minister, you’ve said what you intend to do. How long before you change your mind when it becomes convenient to do so? You do have ‘form’, you realise?”
Or, even more bluntly;
“Mr Prime Minister, how long will this decision last? Days? Weeks? Six months?
I’ll leave it to esteemed members of the Fourth Estate to frame their questions in a suitable manner.
Just don’t be expecting an honest answer.
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Opening of Masu at SkyCity Grand Hotel, L to R, SkyCity CEO Nigel Morrison, Julia Smith Bronagh Key and PM John Key, October 12th 2013
In terms of past events; past scandals; and past instances where the PM has been caught out – it is by no means the worst.
This time, however, matters have reached a critical flash-point. The media has awoken to a smell of a government on the defensive and where Dear Leader has pushed the envelope once too often. Journalists and media commentators are no longer as tolerant; no longer awed; and no longer willing to be mollified by a popular prime minister.
The Shipley Factor has kicked in.
At this point, nothing that National does will counter the same style of growing clamour of criticism it’s predecessor faced in the late ’90s.
Nothing that has happened since then has caused me to resile from my earlier expressed belief that Key’s current administration is terminal.
Another tragedy has occurred this week. Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were shot dead outside their homes, apparently over a parking space.
I know I’m not alone when I say my heart can’t handle any more blood shed. I sincerely hope that all the families of innocent victims of hate around the world find peace within their own hearts.
I find it weird how many people have to take to social media to remind the world that ‘all lives matter’. You don’t have to be a genius to see that the amount of media coverage any tragedy gets is dependent on certain factors – who committed the crime, what was the demographic of the victim/s, and what were the motives. A life taken is a life taken and these factors are important in every single case.
When the Charlie Hebdo shooting happened, the world was quick to react and start the conversation about freedom of speech. What about everyone’s freedom to dress as they please and go home without the fear of being harmed? What about the conversation about the rise of Islamophobia and hate crimes towards Muslims since 9/11? World leaders gathered in Paris almost instantly after the shooting. President Obama only spoke out about this shooting three long days later. The obvious double standard here is beyond scary.
Oh and by the way guys, just to clarify, I, a Muslim, condemn ISIS, you know, in case anyone was wondering. Their violations of these freedoms make me sick.
We all know this confrontation was not about a parking space. I’ve written time and time again about the frustration of having my disability parking spots stolen by the able-bodied. Am I about to kill the next person who does that? Hell no.
We only hear about particular stories if it fits the government’s or media’s agenda. Imam Zaid Shakir, a leading Islamic scholar based in the USA, puts it perfectly. “The sad fact is that the mainstream media that recently brought us “I am Charlie” has no interest in humanizing Muslims. The deceased were too full of life and positive energy to meet the stereotype of the evil, sneaky, not to be trusted Muslim.”
This hits the nail on the head. Seeing three beautiful, smiling Muslims who were so full of love that they dedicated their lives to helping people would just be too confusing for people to comprehend.
I’m not Charlie. I believe in free speech but not at the expense of 1.7 billion already marginalized people. I’d prefer to be Deah, Yusor and Razan, or at least aspire to be.
LifewiseLifewise is an innovative social agency in Auckland that is committed to finding ways to solve social issues. Rather than focussing on meeting people’s immediate needs, Lifewise gives people the support they need to turn their lives around – for good.
We are most well-known for the Lifewise Big Sleepout – when business, community and political leaders spend a night on the streets.
This annual fundraiser helps Lifewise on its mission to end homelessness in Auckland. Our housing-first approach has been hugely successful at helping vulnerable people get off the streets.
Lifewise works with Kiwis from all across the lifespan – from young children in the care system, to elderly people living in the community. Lifewise is a passionate advocate for cultivating caring communities and challenging injustices in New Zealand.
By Brad Fagan, Media Intern at Amnesty International.
It may be easy to think at the moment that with so many human rights abuses happening out there, often perpetrated by governments themselves, there is little hope for change.
However, under resounding public pressure, it just may be possible that the hard-line commitment that the Indonesian government has made to the death penalty has shifted just enough for strides to be made.
On Tuesday 11 February when Indonesia’s Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly, was asked about the Government’s response to efforts to save those awaiting the death penalty, there was hope the Indonesian administration might re-examine the decision to proceed with the executions due to three small words, “we will see”.
Of course this is not an earth shattering moment in human rights history, but just as the gleefully cheesy quote in the film The Power of One reminds us: “a waterfall begins from only a single drop of water”, these sorts of reminders are perhaps what are sometimes needed when faced with the extraordinary challenge of preventing the lives of ordinary people from being needlessly lost.
Already this year six people have been executed by firing squad in Indonesia, just after midnight on 18 January. Another nine face an immediate and imminent threat of execution after their clemency applications were rejected by the new President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo.
They are Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, Syofial alias Iyen bin Azwar (Indonesian), Harun bin Ajis (Indonesian), Sargawi alias Ali bin Sanusi (Indonesian), Martin Anderson alias Belo (Ghanaian), Zainal Abidin (Indonesian), Raheem Agbaje Salami (Nigerian) and Rodrigo Gularte (Brazilian).
These executions are a chilling reminder of the barbaric ease with which governments all around the world control and can so easily destroy human rights.
While President Widodo promised to make human rights a priority when he took up office, he has failed to do so by scheduling 20 people for execution in 2015. This Government will not face pressure to change its practice on the death penalty unless ordinary people put action into place and pressure the Indonesian government into finally scrapping the death penalty. Indeed we cannot afford to take a “we will see” approach.
The death penalty is a denial of our basic human right to live and has no place in our world. It destroys families, has seen the wrongfully convicted put to death and is not an effective deterrent on crime. The fact that there are currently 64 people on death row in Indonesia for drugs charges is strong evidence of that. It is not a solution. It is an irreversible, violent punishment and it brings no justice.
Margaret Taylor, Amnesty International’s Activism Manager reminds us of New Zealand’s proud history of helping out the little guy, the concept of the fair go and our record for speaking out against the death penalty. She states that “now is the time for (New Zealanders) to be making representations directly to the Indonesian government and calling on them to immediately halt plans to put more people to death.”
Yes these people have committed crimes for which they deserve to see justice for but do they deserve to die? What benefit does this serve? In a 2012 report by independent researchers at America’s National Research Council of the Academies, they found that US States with the death penalty have a similar murder rate to states that don’t use it. The simple fact is the threat of capital punishment does not deter crime.
It is clear that individual pressure is working. The families of these people facing the death penalty as well as the prisoners themselves need the active voices of activists from every corner of the world to lend weight to their pleas for mercy. And after those voices have been raised, we will see.
At Waitangi celebrating New Zealand’s ‘National day’, Prime Minister John Key made an impromptu case for sending ‘training’ forces to Iraq, citing the defence of human rights. In some ways he was right, none of us should ‘turn away’ from human rights abuses; whether they be in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, West Papua, Manus Island or Palestine. But the foreign policy of western nations, including New Zealand, seems more informed by ‘American Sniper’ than by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sending troops to Iraq, for whatever purpose, unsanctioned by the United Nations, can only lead to trouble.
While Chris Kyle, (the ‘American Sniper’) may have been more the product of his culture than the driver of it, we should be wary of foreign policy based on simplistic, one-sided, arbitrary/political imperatives. When the ‘enemy’ is poorly defined as ‘Islam’, despite the differences within the religion, or ‘terrorism’, a term used to fit any number of settings in any number of countries including groups aspiring to statehood; when extrajudicial measures are used by world powers to enforce their will in far flung countries, peace can never be found. Let’s not ignore the call for human rights and dignity, but we shouldn’t at the same time justify or ignore other genocidal acts in the Middle East or elsewhere.
The American Sniper was motivated by ‘God, Country, and family’ a ‘higher moral cause’ that was vague enough to (self) justify the reported killing of more than 150 ‘suspects’ in their own land. But even the sniper had a closer view of his targets than those sitting behind consoles and computer screens directing drone strikes upon wedding parties, nomadic herders, and possibly, occasionally militants.
Recourse to simplistic symbols and straw men to justify invasion, long distance killing, in foreign lands by western forces is what caused the latest instability in the Middle East after all. -Civilisation and culture destroyed, a kind of peace – ruined, huge financial cost, women and children unnecessary victims. The case against the ‘axis of evil’ and non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction and the resulting destabilisation of countries across the region should make us wary of more rhetorical justification for killing swarthy, bearded bogeymen.
Will more western-state sanctioned violence solve the problem of Middle Eastern anarchy when we disposed of the leaders who held those states together in the past? Will destroying ISIS make the region a safer place anyway – and if so, for whom or what? Does ‘doing our bit’ in the ‘war against terror’ necessarily mean we should re-enter the fray? If sending troops for whatever function (training?), is the cost of being in the ‘club’, and makes New Zealand complicit in an already ill-advised intervention, with the result that we’re more likely to be on the ‘terrorist’ radar both at home and abroad, shouldn’t we question that cost?
The modern ‘theatre of war’ is made for TV and social media. That somewhat explains the recourse to symbolism, rhetoric and hyperbole, where the images are increasingly sensationalised and over the top. Snuff movies as agitprop, aid workers and journalists as pawns (but no-one’s paying to set them free), staged beheadings captured on cellphones and broadcast via You Tube. Propaganda is a game that many can play. No wonder American Sniper is doing so well in the movie theatres. When this sort of art and artifice imitates life, truth is also a victim. We should question war as entertainment and as distraction from real agendas. It’s no substitute for robust long-game foreign policy or recognition of the universality of human rights. Otherwise it’s all just rhetoric.
Disclaimer Christine Rose is employed as ‘Kauri dieback community co-ordinator’ in a contract role to the Auckland Council. All opinions expressed herein are Christine’s own. No opinion or views expressed in this blog or any other media, shall be construed as the opinion of the Council or any other organisation.
Politics can be quite vacuous these days. Any remotely new idea can be represented – overtly or stealthily – as slightly nuts. And politicians have become super-sensitised to this. So identity politics and gotcha politics rule the roost.
Good ideas do not come fully formed. And all ideas have nuance and context which scoffing media egos have neither the time nor the inclination to explore.
Andrew Little has spoken widely about the future of work, and narrowly about universal basic income (UBI) as a way of distributing any productivity gains that might arise from new ways of working. It all makes perfect logical sense. Yet even serious commentators, or headline writers, cannot resist using expressions like “utopian”, or “paying people to be alive”, or “doling out a stipend”.
So I wasn’t surprised to read in one left-wing blog that Andrew Little has a minder who apparently is there to keep him on-message, not allowing him to engage on the topic of UBI.
Part of the problem is that UBI supporters range quite widely in what they advocate, and the cynics can always caricature an idea by citing an extreme representation of it.
This all means that some very sound economic concepts can become marginalised; ‘clever’ journalists knock down straw men. They see it as part of their job description to defend the polis from subversive threats to their own fish-bowl world-views.
This “rhetoric of reaction” (Albert Hirschman) means that proponents of progressive change – ie change that might challenge establishment belief-systems – have always to be careful about the politics of their suggestions. The contest of ideas is not played on a level playing field, and is too easily shut down.
Once he becomes Prime Minister, Andrew Little can instigate change in the way income taxes and benefits are accounted for. He can introduce new names that help people to see, in new ways, what we already have; language that helps us to see that income taxes and benefits are two sides of the one coin. New opportunities come from new ways of looking at things. Progressive governments have always used carefully chosen language to placate unthinking opponents of progressive change. You don’t need a policy to improve and demystify your accounting methods.
But can Little use this good idea to help get his party into power? This is the approach I think he should take.
Labour’s policy could be to make the first $175 per week (or $200 or whatever) of a benefit package unconditional. Only the additional (top-up) part of that present entitlement would need to be applied for. The total benefit package would be subject to moderate abatement (equivalent to marginal tax) as a person gains income through part-time or casual work.
The important policy gain would be that, when a person’s part-time or casual work contract comes to an end (and for whatever reason), the most a person would have to reapply for would be a top-up. That $175 per week (or whatever) would not have to be reapplied for. It would be his or hers, as of right, and sensibly integrated into the tax system. Some would call it a negative income tax. Others might call it a guaranteed adult income or a basic income-guarantee.
Such a payment would soon come to be understood as a public equity benefit; a name that works because company dividends are also benefits; benefits that arise unconditionally from a person’s equity, not from their labour. Eventually such a payment may become high enough to fulfil the hopes of UBI activists. By then there would be no taint of controversy or dottiness about this idea of sharing, via the no fault principle that we apply to accident compensation, some of our societal wealth.
If they can do it on Tokelau (‘the inati’; Google: ‘Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin #14 – September 2004’) they can do it on the mainland, and the North Island too.
Today probably the only people who could live on just $175 per week would be young people living with their parents; indeed exactly the people who are at the sharp end of the new era of precarious labour. These people should be getting work experience without having to traipse back and forth to the Department of Work and Income. If employed on a casual basis, the unconditional $175 might enable these young adults to go flatting and pay rent; a key phase of the transition to full adulthood.
This basic income-guarantee is hardly a ‘full UBI’. It is not a universal basic income at the utopian end of that concept; it removes poverty traps rather than removing poverty. $175 per week is not an income sufficient to enable a person to choose a life of idleness and parasitism. That is the lazy ‘free-rider’ concern which the cynics purport to worry about.
A basic income-guarantee is an entitlement of membership of New Zealand Inc. It is not a passport to debauchery.
By playing it cautiously, by advocating an unconditional equity benefit in our present era of labour precarity, and by integrating benefit abatements with income taxes, a basic income benefit is almost impossible for anyone to criticise. The biggest political danger to Mr Little is that of Mr Key saying “me too”.
Let the political minders become redundant. A basic income will soften the blow.
IT WAS JUNE, 2008, at the University of Otago’s Foreign Policy School, that I discovered exactly how much the New Zealand political class despises democracy. The man who spelled it out was Lance Beath, one of that peculiar breed of military academics who flit between university departments, policy institutes, and those shadowy consultancies whose definitive client lists remain conveniently undisclosed.
Having delivered what I hoped was a robust defence of the people’s right to determine the foreign policy of their own country, I was keen to hear Beath’s rebuttal. It came in the form of a cautionary tale drawn from Ancient Greek history.
The story he told was of that of the Athenian politician-general, Themistocles, who was determined to protect his city from the Persian Empire. Since Athens was too small to defeat the might of the Persians on land, Themistocles knew that his city’s only hope of remaining free was to defeat them at sea. Athens needed to build a mighty navy.
Except that Athens, being a democracy, was most unlikely to voluntarily assume the financial burden which the construction of an effective battle-fleet would necessarily entail.
It was here that Beath really began to warm to his task.
How did Themistocles persuade his fellow citizens to vote the Athenian Republic the taxes necessary to build a navy big enough to defeat the Persians? The answer, Beath told his audience of MFAT bureaucrats, foreign diplomats, assorted academics and ambitious students, was simple – he tricked them!
Athens had for some time been embroiled in a struggle with Aegina (a rival Greek sea-power) and Themistocles argued that only by constructing a powerful battle-fleet of 200 triremes could Athens finally put the Aeginetans in their place.
Without Themistocle’s trickery, argued Beath, the Athenians would not have been able to defeat the naval armada of the Persian Emperor, Darius, at the Battle of Salamis. Athens (and the rest of Greece) was saved, Beath snidely concluded, not by its much vaunted democracy, but by the shrewd manipulations of its political leader.
The message could not have been clearer. The people are too selfish and too stupid to recognise the true interests of the nation. It is, therefore, the duty of those wise and experienced servants of the state (among whom it is important to include the commanders of the armed forces) who find themselves labouring under the manifold disadvantages of the democratic form of government, to master the art of leading the masses, by trickery and deception, to those crucial decisions which they lack the wit to arrive at unaided.
Beath thus established, at the very beginning of the Foreign Policy School’s inquiry into what role the people should play in the setting of foreign policy, that only one answer would do: they must play the role of dupes.
Wiser heads must tell the people who to hate and who they should befriend. And if this requires the telling of lies – then so be it. They would be necessary falsehoods. What the Greek philosopher, Plato, called “Noble Lies”. The sort of political trickery resorted to by wise and benevolent rulers, not in their own interests (heaven forbid!) but in the interests of a population too ignorant to be entrusted with a more accurate account of events.
Beath’s message was indistinguishable from the one elucidated so dramatically in the movie A Few Good Men.
Defence counsel, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) demands that the witness, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicolson) answer his questions. “You want answers?” sneers Jessup. “I think I’m entitled to”, Kaffee responds. “You want answers?”, Jessup sneers a second time, his voice rising in rage. “I want the truth!”, bellows Kaffee. And in a voice laden with scorn and derision, Jessup barks back: “You can’t handle the truth!”
Back in 2008, it was clear that Beath and his ilk still regarded New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy as a disaster: a cautionary tale of what happens when the democratic masses over-rule the wiser counsels of their betters, and begin to meddle directly in the formation of foreign policy. The latest “Noble Lie” is that, for the people’s own safety, the Government must participate in the war against Islamic State. No doubt today’s ‘wise heads’ see Prime Minister Key as New Zealand’s very own Themistocles. A political leader manipulating and tricking us – for our own good.
Many are openly questioning how on earth Key wasn’t told that an MP considered for Cabinet was facing serious allegations.
Let’s be honest, we all know Key knew, the question is why he hide this under the rug. The answer I think is because Key couldn’t risk this very real example of Dirty Politics at it’s dirtiest to pop up before the election right when Hager’s book on Dirty Politics was generating so much heat.
The Right were as surprised as the Left that the sleepy hobbits rallied to Key rather than recoiling in disgust. National couldn’t have risked a real life scandal involving one of their rising stars right when the Party’s Dirty Politics were being scrutinised. Key has kicked for touch while firing a shot over the bows of the Police by appointing Sabin to a Parliamentary board that had critical oversight.
That last action was a goose step too far even for the sleepy hobbits.
This ignites once people understand what the allegations are, then the real heat will go on Key as to when he knew what. If it looks like Key was trying to actively dupe the electorate, the ramping up of right wing shrill rhetoric to distract media attention will intensify.
The argument that The Standard blogger puts is that ‘something must be done’ and that it is a morally just thing to re-invade Iraq this time to fight Islamic fascism.
What a load of cobblers.
Of course something should be done about ISIS, the thing that should be done is a major crackdown on Saudi Arabia and Turkish funding of ISIS. ISIS are there because of the power vacuum created when America invaded Iraq last time for weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist.
When The Standard are promoting war as a Left wing response to ISIS, the trundle to the middle within Labour might be occurring at an even more alarming speed than previously thought.
This Saturday, February 14, over 100 fast food workers from across New Zealand will be gathering in Auckland to discuss their upcoming battle to end zero hour contracts in the fast food industry. The conference is also open to anyone who wants to actively support the workers campaign.
This issue has emerged as the number one problem for workers in the industry over recent years. Almost no hourly paid staff have guaranteed hours. Attempts through previous collective agreements to regulate the allocation of hours in a fair and transparent manner have been unsuccessful. Unite has collective agreements with McDonald’s, Restaurant Brands (KFC, Car’s Jr, Pizza Hut and Starbucks); Burger King and Wendy’s. Whilst real improvements have been made it has proved difficult to get the companies to abandon their attachment to “flexibility” around rostered hours. The best we have achieved is to have clauses that specify the need to advertise hours to existing staff before new staff are hired but that has proved difficult to enforce.
The companies have a turnover of staff of about 66% a year and we have tried to argue that this could be reduced with regular guaranteed hours but the companies seem unmoved by that argument. They seem to prefer the control that zero hour contracts give over their staff. These type of contracts also exist in the security industry, hotels and many call centres where Unite represents workers as well.
SkyCity casino has a variation of this contract but with all part time staff having only an 8 hour minimum. This gives the bosses there a similar ability to maintain control over their staff and have them competing for favours for more hours. They have resisted very strongly against guaranteeing workers and particular shifts even if they are on the busiest nights of the week. Over the last few years they have restructured huge department like Gaming Machines to turn them from being 75% full-time to being a 75% part time department. They have refused to hire a full-time table game dealer for years in order to achieve the same result. Again we have pointed out that there is a higher turnover of part time staff and they lose many to Australia where they can get full-time work – often with the same employer! You might think that the training costs would be high as a consequence but they force workers to do a training course run by the company without pay before they are employed. WINZ assists them in this scam as well. That is another hidden government subsidy.
SkyCity delegates Unite Union delegates support the campaign to end zero hours
Joining the Auckland conference will be two McDonald’s workers from the USA who are part of the campaign in Los Angeles for “$15 and hour and a Union“. Anggie Godoy, 19, and Genoby Jaimes, 27, are in New Zealand to support Unite Union’s campaign against zero hour contracts in the fast food industry. They also had the opportunity to meet with the Council of Trade Unions and members of parliament in Wellington. They are also interested in learning how we were able to win union recognition and force the companies to bargain with a union – something all the companies refuse to do in the US.
Public support for our campaign against zero hours has been widespread. Even many right wing commentators in the media seem shocked that these contracts exist. Three opposition party leaders – Andrew Little from Labour, Metiria Turei from the Greens and Winston Peters from NZ First – spoke to the December Unite national delegates conference to support our ant-zero hours campaign. This week the Labour Party announced they would be sponsoring a bill in parliament to outlaw zero hour contracts by requiring employers to include the hours to be worked in employment agreements. The Green Party MP Denise Roche has also told Unite she plans to sponsor a similar bill.
A few months ago over 1000 Unite Union fast food members completed an online survey on how management control over their hours affects them. This was 25% of the union’s membership in the industry and was a sign of the deep feeling that exists. Workers in every company responded in proportionate numbers to their membership of Unite and all had an overwhelming desire for more hours and for those hours to be able to be built up over time and guaranteed from week to week.
The survey gave the opportunity for workers to tell their stories and may of them were pretty horrific in terms of how often inexperienced managers used and abused the rosters to reward and punish staff. Simply asserting their legal right to breaks or sick leave could result in punishment the following week in terms of the hours they are rostered. Everyone knows what has happened but it is often difficult to prove intent. Many workers reported that their hours were cut as soon as they joined the union.
Putting an end to this state of affairs has become the number one priority in negotiations to renew the fast food collective agreements which all expire on March 31 this year.
Workers at Wendy’s have already started taking action because their collective agreement hasn’t been renewed this year because the company had no improvements to offer. This is the only company that hasn’t agreed to 15 minute paid breaks rather than 10, and has been routinely denying workers alternative holidays when they work on a public holiday. Workers at five store in Auckland and Papakura walked off on Tuesday, February 10. Other stores will be joining the battle in the coming weeks.
Wendy’s workers strike joined by US McD’s workers
The worker’s say the company sometimes changes their roster just before a public holiday so they can pretend it is not what is legally defined as “an otherwise working day” which entitles the workers to a lieu day for working the public holiday.Some employers think this type of theft is acceptable because “zero hour contracts” don’t guarantee any particular number of hours or shifts on any particular days. Unite Union maintains that manipulating a roster in this was is not lawful and are demanding that the company give workers an alternative holidays for every public holiday worked at Wendy’s as part of the claims in this year’s collective agreement negotiations.
The February 14 conference will be finalising claims from workers for the collective agreement negotiations and electing representatives to the bargaining team. Around lunchtime there will be a rally outside McDonald’s Grey Lynn store to publicly launch the campaign to ”End Zero Hours in 2015” and to support our guests from the US McDonald’s workers campaign for union recognition and a living wage.
The fast food workers conference is being held at the Auckland Traders Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Auckland. Registration is from 8.30am
America’s best investigative journalist is stepping down. His Shakespearean Jester routine allowed him via satire to question and critique the mainstream media narrative and did more speaking of truth to power than most of the combined fourth estate.
The greatness of The Daily Show is that they always understood satire punches up, never down. Their targets were the powerful, that requires courage.
One of my personal favourites is his skewering of CNBC Mad Money host after the spectacular collapse of global financial markets
His confidence and perfect comedic timing had deadly effect that is as close to hearing the truth as TV gets.
Why can’t NZ do political satire like The Daily Show on TV? Because we don’t have media with the courage to have satire that actually challenges sacred cows.
