rape awareness condoms
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David Cunliffe’s keynote speech at the 2014 Labour Party Congress
On Sunday, July 6, 1:00pm – 2:30pm at the Michael Fowler Centre, 111 Wakefield Street, Wellington, David Cunliffe will deliver his keynote speech at the 2014 Labour Party Congress. If you are in Wellington, you need to be at this as it will be Cunliffe’s big moment to reset the political agenda in time for the election. Expect big policy announcements and big vision statements.
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Should it be a moral obligation to harass and denigrate Google Glass wearers in public?
Should it be a moral obligation to harass and denigrate Google Glass wearers in public? I say maybe.
Allowing individuals to walk around and normalise the filming of each other is something that should be fought against by anyone with the slightest concerns about privacy and mass surveillance.
I accept some CTV coverage of public spaces because that’s space we all share that needs authorities to access from time to time and that footage has obligations by those authorities . Individuals on the other hand just filming everything around them at all times has the added challenge of becoming simply an extension of NSA mass spying as well.
If we allow Google Glass wearers to walk around and normalise this kind of 24-7 all seeing digital eye, we are losing another front against mass surveillance.
Defenders of Google Glasses will of course claim anyone can walk around with their cell phone and just film people, and that’s true, but the glasses make that filming unending. A persons arm is going to get tired after a while and that prevents the ongoing part of that intrusion – Google Glasses however by the fact they sit on the face means that recording can be endless and that is simply a step too far into our shared experience of personal space.
If we allow this to become normal, it will become normal. If citizens vigorously challenge people in public while wearing Google Glasses and make wearing them as socially unacceptable as drink driving, then we retain the privacy of our shared experience of personal space.
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The moment the housing crisis in Christchurch could have been averted
It’s rare that you get to see video evidence of the very moment a crisis could have been averted. The video below documents the moment the Christchurch housing crisis could have been averted if only Gerry Brownlee had listened.
This interview on Close Up back in June 2011 was filmed nine months following the September earthquake, four months following the February earthquake.
It was filmed the night that the Government announced that 5100 households would be “red zoned” and would be forced to leave their land (it ended up being 7800 homes). Around 19,000 people were given a set date to vacate their homes with no homes to go to. It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to work out that this would create massive demand with no supply to match it, and that this would create serious problems.
Rev Mike Colman almost pleads with Gerry Brownlee to understand what the result would be and the massive pressure that would be put on the housing market.
Rev Coleman points out that those being bought out will be worse off because they won’t be able to afford a house and section in areas where property values are higher. He says that there is no way people can enter a market with any kind of collateral and be able to buy anything. He points out that the market will push section and house prices up.
Brownlee dismisses all of these concerns and says they are assertions. He says “they can borrow an awful lot more and be considerably better off.” He says the government can “push the button” on 16,000 more sections in the next 2-3 years “if that’s what we choose”. He states: “If we can push the button and get 16,000 sections available very very quickly that isn’t going to see escalation in price”. And Brownlee says the Government has the capacity to make land available but that he will “watch and see what happens”.
And therein lies the problem.
The housing crisis was entirely predictable. Mike Coleman (and others) warned Gerry Brownlee and the Government. The Government has watched and waited and watched and waited and done nothing.
Deloitte estimate fewer than 1,000 homes have actually been built so far when Canterbury needs 12-15,000 to return to pre-quake levels.
Rents and house prices have skyrocketed pushing people into poverty and hardship.
We’re still waiting for the Government to “push the button” on these 16,000 sections Gerry said would be available in 2-3 years.
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You ain’t seen nothing yet…
Extreme weather is where the climate change rubber hits the road, and I’ve had enough of it. Unfortunately, it looks like there’s lot more to come.
Last week it rained in Waipara and North Canterbury. Rather a lot. The weather system that brought record winds and rain to Auckland delivered 130 mm of rain to my little farm over Tuesday and Wednesday. The Waipara River, which normally pootles past us at around a cubic metre per second hit a peak of 257 cumecs on Wednesday. On Tuesday night State Highway One was closed by flooding between Amberley and Woodend, with no diversion possible. Christchurch was cut off from the delights of Waipara wine. Overnight, two large slips blocked the road between us and civilisation (civilisation’s loss, obviously), washouts undercut the road edge in three or four places, and a large section of tarmac slid 20 cm towards the river below. For the last week, we’ve had to drive past road closed signs to get in and out of our property.
Driving under the face of Mt Brown, the hill that looms majestically over our place, has felt a bit like dicing with death. If you could see the size of the rocks that came bouncing down over the road last week, you’d feel the same way. Some of them were the size of a family fridge, and they’re now on the riverbank – which is where our car would be if one of them had hit it.
When I walked the bounds of our property on Wednesday I discovered that the rain had washed out a track down to the river, eroded a gully headwall back into one of my truffieres, cut a fence line, and caused a major slump of the limestone cliff on top of which we live. A pile of raw rock and rubble now fills half the river bed below us.
But 130 mm of rain in 36 hours is not unheard of in North Canterbury. My records, which stretch back 17 years, show we’ve had several rainstorms of the same sort of size in that time. None of them has been remotely as damaging as this one. But none of them has come on top of a record wet autumn. We had 113 mm of rain in March, 161 mm in April and 43 mm in May — our wettest autumn by a fair margin. It was Christchurch’s wettest autumn since records began. When the rain started last week, it had nowhere to go but to run off the hills and into the rivers. Floods and erosion were the inevitable result.
Floods are not the only extreme weather we’ve had to put up with in the last 12 months. Back in September, we were on the receiving end of damaging gales — the worst since the 1970s. The hills behind us registered gusts of 230 kph. We were without power for six days, and I still haven’t finished chainsawing all the bits of tree strategically piled around the place. More norwest gales in December ruined the fruit set in our olive grove. Now the sodden soil is placing my truffle harvest at risk, and I’m getting a bit fed up.
Just another small farmer moaning about the weather? Perhaps. But my experience is not unique. My neighbours are starting to notice just how weird the weather is getting. I do not need to bring up climate change, everyone is noticing just how different things have been — how volatile and unreliable and damaging to daily life.
The sad fact is that it’s only going to get worse. Not just in North Canterbury, but in New Zealand and the rest of the world. Because the oceans act as giant heat sinks, the climate we’re getting now is being driven by the greenhouse gas levels of 30 years ago. CO2 was at 344 ppm in 1984. It’s now at 400 ppm, and we ain’t seen nothing yet. The heat that has been accumulating in the system will drive weather ever wilder. Not everywhere, and not all the time, but when bad weather arrives it’s going to get worse and worse.
There’s nothing we can do but batten down the hatches and try to endure the coming decades, but if we cut emissions steeply and soon, we can stop the very worst from happening. Given the weather that has battered us in the least year, I shudder to think what the angry climate beast has in store, but I know it’s worth doing a great deal to avoid what will happen if CO2 is allowed to increase unabated.
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Hone & Laila smack down the democracy haters
Brilliant column written by Hone and Laila in the Herald today countering the claims that they are rorting MMP coat tail provision while calling for it to be changed…
At the heart of electoral democracy is the core value of ‘one person, one vote’. Let’s get a few things clear.
One: We did not design and do not support the existing thresholds for party votes to count under the current MMP rules — the 5 per cent threshold or the single electorate seat. We are advocating the removal of the single seat threshold along with the lowering of the 5 per cent.
Two: Our job is to represent our voters in Parliament, and that means making sure that their party votes are not wasted under current rules. Voters are sensible and will often vote for their second choice if their first choice could mean a wasted vote. This results in a vicious feedback cycle and is a protection racket for incumbents.
Three: Our agreement to run a joint party list under the internet-Mana name means that internet Party votes, which will be essential to a change of government in September, will be counted. Our alliance is a strategic one, and will strengthen the influence of both parties’ supporters on the election outcome and the next Parliament.
2014 will be the first real MMP election with voters using tactics and strategy and alliances to represent their views and change the Government. Damning Internet MANA for using tactics every Party has employed since MMP was established is simply the venting of bias towards Hone, Laila and Kim – it’s not considered punditry.
At the heart of electoral democracy is the core value of “one person, one vote”. That is the value that underpinned our move to MMP in 1996. Some commentators on the internet-Mana agreement, notably Brian Rudman, need to switch their mindset from a fixation with parties – instruments of democracy – to a respect for the individual voters who are democracy’s owners.
Right now, an electorate MP can be elected with fewer than 7000 local votes, while more than 100,000 voters will have their party votes disregarded if their preferred party does not win an electorate seat.
How did the 5 per cent and one-seat thresholds come to be? Because the details of MMP were designed by first past the post (FPP) incumbents, and the fine print protects them from the emergence of new parties reflecting new political constituencies. That has meant not a single new party has won political representation without the help of sitting MPs from existing parliamentary parties. Meanwhile, parties with thousands more voters than some of these, and certainly thousands more than many individual electorate MPs, have been erased by election counts.
The usual grounds given for a high threshold are unsupported claims that lower thresholds create unstable parliaments. Professor of political science Rob Salmond roundly debunked this myth in his research-based submission to the MMP review. In short, unstable parliaments result from more fundamental divisions, not from the number of parties in Parliament. Professor Salmond recommended a threshold of no more than 2 per cent.
Given a mandate from the 2011 MMP referendum to fix this unfairness, the most dominant incumbent of all, National, opted to ignore the referendum result and refused to present the public or Parliament with the opportunity to debate changes to the rules.
Naturally enough, incumbents don’t like competition, but without a competition of ideas and innovative approaches to politics our political space shrinks, and with it voter turnout. In 2011 nearly a third of those eligible didn’t vote. In various ways they have cited pointlessness as a primary reason.
Our alliance is intended as a democracy jolt.
We can assure people that their votes will count, because we have our foot in the door through the one-seat threshold. And we can and will push to make all votes count with a lower threshold and the end of the coat-tails rule.
If MMP is about representation, then why are the smaller parties locked out from that representation by such a high threshold that only benefits the larger parties?
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Ticking all the right boxes
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Ticking all the right boxes
Tick for Kids, a campaign to encourage political parties to put children at the centre of their decision-making, has the full backing of the Labour Party which has pledged to do exactly that, its Children’s spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says.
“As clichéd as it might sound, our kids really are our future – it’s a no brainer that their health and wellbeing should be at the heart of any government policy and that government takes a lead role in improving outcomes for every Kiwi kid.
“We know that the early years of a child’s life are the most important, yet we still have 285,000 children living in poverty, high rates of rheumatic fever and far too many kids living in unhealthy cold and damp homes.
“Labour’s policies are about providing children with the opportunities they need to thrive, by boosting support for parents and addressing issues such as inequality.
“We want our kids to be living in warm dry homes and we’ll introduce a WOF for private rentals to make sure that happens.
“We’ll provide support for new parents through our Best Start payment, and by extending paid parental leave, and we’ll bump up the number of hours of free early childhood and put food into our low decile schools.
“Labour will also create a Ministry and Minister for Children, putting our kids front and centre of everything we do.
“Tick for Kids is something all Kiwis can be involved in and it has Labour’s full support.”
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All Kiwis to have a nest egg under Labour
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: All Kiwis to have a nest egg under Labour
A Labour government will ensure all New Zealanders have a long-term nest egg and help them grow their KiwiSaver pool by an average of $150,000, Labour Leader David Cunliffe says.
“Today I am outlining how Labour’s universal KiwiSaver policy will address New Zealand’s chronically low saving rates.
“Under a Labour government all employees aged between 18 and 65 – with the exception of students, beneficiaries and the self-employed – will be automatically enrolled in KiwiSaver. The opt-out provision will be removed.
“Labour will retain the $1000 kick-start and government contribution of up to $521 a year. We will also increase the employer and employee minimum contribution rates gradually by 0.25 per cent a year over six years; rising from the current 3 per cent each to 4.5 per cent in 2021.
“Labour will use variable KiwiSaver contributions as a way to control inflation rather than just relying on interest rates so people will pay more into their savings rather than in higher mortgage interest rates.
“These changes mean a 30-year-old on an average income of $50,000 who joined KiwiSaver before universality will have over $150,000 or around 40 per cent more in KiwiSaver when they retire. Three-quarters of this increase will come from higher employer contributions and larger returns on investments.
“This process will bring around half a million more New Zealanders into KiwiSaver. Most of those are low income earners who are missing out on getting their fair share of government contributions. These workers will have higher incomes after Labour raises the minimum wage and the ramp up of their employee contribution will be slower.
“Universal KiwiSaver is a no-brainer. It will not only make the lives of all retired Kiwis better, it will increase our savings pool so our companies can access capital to grow their businesses. This means New Zealand will borrow less from offshore and keep our profits in Kiwi hands,” David Cunliffe says.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS OF OUR KIWISAVER POLICY
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Labour Party rebuild NZs economic sovereignty with Universal Super policy
Now we will start seeing the policy ideas get rolled out. The brains trust of David Parker, Stuart Nash and Grant Robertson have built a raft of smart economic policies that put together generates the hands on momentum NZ requires from new monetary tools to rebuilding Christchurch to regional job creation to affordable homes to extended maternity leave and now to economic sovereignty.
One of the legacy policies Labour could offer NZ First to get them on board and to help Winston swallow his discomfort of working with the Greens could be a fund built by universal super that invests in buying back state assets while upgrading them to be sustainable. Winston gets economic sovereignty as a legacy, the Greens to upgrade assets to being sustainable and Labour get to have the numbers for a Government.
Universal Super is another plank in the superstructure of economic policies Labour have clever devised to provide an economic upgrade.
It makes KiwiSaver universal while keeping the $1,000 Kick-start and government contribution of up to $521 each year. It will only increase employer and employee minimum contribution rates gradually by 0.25% a year for six years and it uses variable Kiwisaver contributions as a tool to control inflation rather than just relying on interest rates, meaning people pay more into their savings instead of more in interest.
After 6 years of hearing John Key telling voters what government can’t do, Labour are trying to show voters what government can do.
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Urgent court date needed to consider meat industry redundancies
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Urgent court date needed to consider meat industry redundancies
Lengthy delays in the industrial court could see up to 180 Mosgiel meat workers remain in limbo, with no secure jobs and no confirmation of redundancy, Dunedin South Labour MP Clare Curran says.
“I understand that mediation talks between Silver Farms and the union representing 160-180 meat workers from Mosgiel’s Silverstream meat processing plant have not been successful and that a court date has been sought by the union to hear the case for providing them with redundancies.
However, I understand there is a considerable time lapse before the industrial court can set a date for a hearing and today I am calling for the case to be prioritised.
“It’s outrageous that these workers and their families should have to wait any longer to learn their fate.
“Meanwhile they are being forced onto the dole or into precarious or part time low paid work while the Government continues to turn a blind eye to the rapidly deteriorating state of the meat industry.
“Reliance this season on carcass trade has taken the industry back 10 years or more, with the Silverstream workers less likely to have an oversupply of meat from other plants to start this season.
“Some of the workers from Silverstream’s Silver Fern plant secured work at Balclutha’s Finegand works after the Mosgiel plant was mothballed last November for the season. But lower wages, the distance and cost of travelling means many have found it too expensive to continue at Finegand. Other jobs have ceased to exist.
“The Government has been a bystander in all of this. We’ve already seen meat stuck on Chinese wharves because of paperwork errors. Now we’re seeing a decrease in demand for cut meat.
“We need a long-term perspective to allow the industry to move beyond survival mode and focus on maximising its potential, rather than looking jealously over the fence at dairy.”
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Changes urgently needed to protect women and children
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Changes urgently needed to protect women and children
There must be a radical culture change across government and the community if we are to address the disturbing and ongoing level of violence against women and children in New Zealand, Labour Leader David Cunliffe says.
“The Glenn Inquiry report released today paints an unacceptable and harrowing picture of life for our women and children.
“If we are to protect women and children from violence there must be a radical culture change across government, along with a profound attitude shift in society.
“It is appalling this much-needed inquiry had to be conducted by a private entity because the Government lacks leadership on this issue. Ending child abuse and domestic violence requires a strong commitment and comprehensive action.
“Only 17 per cent of child abuse and domestic violence incidents are reported, yet the figures are still heart-breaking. According to the Women’s Refuge 14 women and 10 children are killed by a member of their family every year. Almost 75,000 children a year are present at domestic violence incidents attended by police.
“The Government’s responses have been tardy and piecemeal. At the same time, the domestic violence sector has been chronically underfunded. Women’s refuges are struggling in the face of increasing demand for their help.
“The Government needs to look at the effectiveness of existing court orders, the way the issue of consent is dealt with in court and the manner in which the justice system handles domestic violence and sexual violence cases. The level of and quality of support for victims must also be reassessed, along with resourcing of preventative education.
“Labour will put politics aside and work with the Government in any way we can, including working on a cross-party accord. This issue is far too important to be side-lined by political bickering,” David Cunliffe says.
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Believe it – inequality gap not make believe
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Believe it – inequality gap not make believe
The Government needs to pull its head out of the sand and recognise that inequality in New Zealand is getting worse, says Labour Leader David Cunliffe.
“New information from Oxfam NZ that shows the richest 10 per cent of Kiwis are wealthier than the rest of the population isn’t a fiction.
“It coincides with a recent OECD report which revealed the highest-paid 10 per cent of workers in New Zealand earn 32 times more than the poorest 10 per cent.
“New Zealand used to pride itself on its egalitarianism. Now ours is an economy where the wealthy few are doing extremely well while those in the middle are struggling and those on the lowest incomes are going backwards.
“You can bet there weren’t too many CEOs among the 46 per cent of New Zealanders who didn’t get a rise in their wage rates in the past year.
“The consequences of income and wealth inequality are obvious – plummeting rates of home ownership, increasing child poverty, and the emergence of a new class of working poor.
“The first step to resolving it is to recognise it.
“Labour wants an economy that works for everyone, where wealth and high incomes aren’t just concentrated in the hands of the few. Our Economic Upgrade policies will create better jobs and higher wages, and ensure that those who already own substantial assets pay their share of the tax burden, through a capital gains tax.
“That’s what New Zealand needs to become a more equal society.”
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Labour will protect homes from rockfall
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Labour will protect homes from rockfall
A Labour government will protect Port Hills homes at risk of rockfall to avoid them being unnecessarily knocked down, Labour’s Canterbury Recovery spokesperson Ruth Dyson says.
“Labour will partner will the Christchurch City Council so families can stay in their homes. We will pay a 50 per cent contribution towards rockfall protection work to save houses wherever it is economical.
“A Labour government will allow Crown-owned land to be used for protection work which will help reduce costs. We will also ensure the value of protecting CERA-owned property is counted when the benefits of proposed protection work are assessed.
“We won’t be able to save every house. There will be homes where the cost of protection work is too high to justify the expense. But Labour’s plan will mean many families get to keep their homes.
“Our policy is cost-neutral and may even result in net savings for the Government and Council. What is spent on rockfall protection will be saved by not having to pay to buy-out at-risk homes.
“Labour puts people first. Our policy will give families certainty so they can get on with their lives,” Ruth Dyson says.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS ABOUT THIS POLICY
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Licensing committee wrong on new outlet by school
MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –
Headline: Licensing committee wrong on new outlet by school
The Auckland District Licensing Committee got it wrong when it ignored the voices of the local community objecting to a new liquor outlet opposite a Māngere school, Labour’s MP for Māngere Su’a William Sio says.
“The local community’s concerns about the new liquor license being granted were expressed by the Mangere-Otahuhu Local Board, the affected school and the Mangere East Family Centre. Unfortunately they seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
“As a former Manukau City Councillor, I advocated strongly for liquor bans in targeted public places and not to have alcohol be sold within 100 metres of schools, early childhood education centres, and church and community centres. I fail to see why the Auckland District Licensing Committee did not take this into consideration.
“The Committee even appeared to challenge whether the Local Board had the right to appear before them opposing the new liquor license. Of course they do, the Local Board are elected by the local community to be their mouthpiece.
“The Auckland District Licensing Committee, in particular its members from Mangere and South Auckland, should have taken into account the proliferation and easy access to alcohol and the constant drive to normalise alcohol.
“We don’t want this in Mangere.
“While our community has respectful relationships with businesses, it doesn’t support the peddling of a product that causes severe and significant harm to its people and imposes significant social and economic costs,” Su’a William Sio says.
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Greens call for cross party strategy on abuse
MIL OSI – Source: Green Party –
Headline: Greens call for cross party strategy on abuse
The Green Party is calling on the Government to join with all political parties in Parliament to develop a national strategy and accord on domestic violence and child abuse, in the wake of a review that shows the current system is not working.
The People’s Report of the Glenn Inquiry into Child Abuse and Domestic Violence out today describes the current system as a ‘hazard to those who use it’.
“Victims of abuse need the Government, and all MPs, to put aside partisan politics and agree to work together on a plan that will make domestic violence victims and children safe,” Green Party women’s spokesperson Jan Logie said.
“The inquiry’s finding that ‘the current system is a hazard to those who use it’ is an indictment on decades of systemic failure.
“The Glenn Inquiry has opened the lid on the toxic connection between child abuse and domestic violence, which the National Government has so far failed to acknowledge.
“Nothing in the Government’s reform of the Family Court, or its Vulnerable Children’s Strategy, is going to make the system safer. In fact in most cases the changes will make the system even more dangerous for victims of abuse.
Judith Collins’ family court reforms are about cost cutting and undermine the protections that were already there.
“Ms Collins removed the Bristol clause which used to ensure the court went through a rigorous assessment process to decide if it was appropriate for a person to have access or custody of their child in cases where there was an accusation of domestic violence.
“Judith Collins has also shelved the work of the Law Commission on alternative trials processes for sexual abuse cases. The Glenn Inquiry has called for a review of the adversarial court system in cases of abuse, to prevent people from being re-victimised.
“The vulnerable children’s’ action plan failed to even draw the connection between vulnerable children and domestic violence.
“The Green Party calls on National, Labour and all other parties in Parliament to form a cross party group to review the entire system to ensure that the culture of violence against women and children is addressed, and the systems that are supposed to protect them are up to the job.
“The Green Party thanks everyone who participated in the inquiry, especially those who told their stories, in the hope that something good would come out of it.
“We join with those people and ask how many deaths, and how many reports do we need before Parliament will do what’s needed to make the system safe?” Ms Logie said.
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